Killer's Payoff

by Ed McBain

  “Detective Hawes.”

  “Come in, please,” Kramer said. He was an intense little man with bright brown eyes and a sweeping nose. His hair was black and unruly, and he sported a thick black mustache under his nose. The mustache, Hawes figured, had been grown in an attempt to add years to the face. It succeeded only partially; Kramer looked no older than twenty-five. “Sit down, sit down,” he said.

  Hawes sat in a chair next to his desk. The desk was covered with illustrations for stories, pin-up photos, literary agents’ submissions in the variously colored folders that identified their agencies.

  Kramer caught Hawes’s glance. “A magazine office,” he said. “They’re all the same. Only the product is different.”

  Hawes speculated for a moment on the differences between the various products. He remained silent.

  “At least,” Kramer said, “we try to make our book a little different. It has to be different, or it’ll get nosed right off the stands.”

  “I see,” Hawes said.

  “What can I do for you, Mr. Hawes? You’re not from the postal authorities, are you?”

  “No.”

  “We had a little trouble with one issue we sent through the mails. We thought our permission to mail the book would be lifted. Thank God, it wasn’t. And thank God, you’re not from the Post Office.”

  “I’m from the city police,” Hawes said.

  “What can I do for you, Mr. Hawes?”

  “Did a woman named Lucy Mitchell come to see you today?”

  Kramer looked surprised. “Why, yes. Yes, she did. How did—?”

  “What did she want?”

  “She thought I might have some pictures belonging to her. I assured her I did not. She also thought I was related to someone she knew.”

  “Sy Kramer?”

  “Yes, that was the name.”

  “Are you related?”

  “No.”

  “Have you ever seen these pictures of Lucy Mitchell?”

  “I see cheesecake all day long, Mr. Hawes. I couldn’t know Lucy Mitchell from Margaret Mitchell.” He paused, frowned momentarily, and then said, “‘Scarlett O’Hara was not beautiful, but men seldom realized it when caught by her charm as the Tarleton twins were.’”

  “What?” Hawes asked.

  “The first line of Gone with the Wind. It’s a hobby of mine. I memorize the opening lines of important novels. The opening line of a book is perhaps the most important line in the book. Did you know that?”

  “No, I didn’t know that.”

  “Sure,” Kramer said. “That’s a theory of mine. You’d be surprised how much authors pack into that first line. It’s a very important line.”

  “About those pictures…” Hawes said.

  “ ‘Stately, plump Buck Mulligan came from the stair-head, bearing a bowl of lather on which a mirror and a razor lay crossed,’” Kramer said. “Do you know what that is?”

  “No, what is it?”

  “Ulysses,” Kramer said. “James Joyce. It’s an example of the naming-the-character school of opening lines. Here’s one for you.” He paused and got it straight in his mind. “‘It was Wang Lung’s wedding day.’”

  “The Good Earth,” Hawes said.

  “Yes,” Kramer answered, surprised. “How about this one?” Again he thought for a moment. Then he quoted, “ ‘Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show.’”

  Hawes was silent.

  “It’s an old one,” Kramer said.

  Hawes was still silent.

  “David Copperfield,” Kramer said.

  “Oh, sure,” Hawes answered.

  “I know thousands of them,” Kramer said enthusiastically. “I can reel them—”

  “What about those pictures of Lucy Mitchell?”

  “What about them?”

  “Did she say why she wanted them?”

  “She said only that she was sure someone had them. She thought that person might be me. I told her I was not the least bit interested in her or her pictures. In short, Mr. Hawes, I played Taps for her.” Kramer’s face grew brighter. “Here’s a dozy,” he said. “Listen.”

  “I’d rather—”

  “ ldquo‘When he finished packing, he walked out on to the third-floor porch of the barracks brushing the dust from his hands, a very neat and deceptively slim young man in the summer khakis that were still early morning fresh.’” Kramer beamed. “Know it?”

  “No.”

  “From Here to Eternity. Jones packs a hell of a lot into that first line. He tells you it’s summer, he tells you it’s morning, he tells you you’re on an Army post with a soldier who is obviously leaving for someplace, and he gives you a thumbnail description of his hero. That’s a good opening line.”

  “Can we get back to Lucy Mitchell?” Hawes said impatiently.

  “Certainly,” Kramer said, his enthusiasm unabated.

  “What did she say about Sy Kramer?”

  “She said he had once had the pictures, but she was now certain someone else had them.”

  “Did she say why she was certain?”

  “No.”

  “And you’ve never seen these pictures?”

  “Mr. Hawes, I veritably cut my way through a cheesecake jungle every day of th—” Kramer stopped, and his eyes lighted with inner fire. “Here’s one!” he said. “Here’s one I really enjoy.”

  “Mr. Kramer…” Hawes tried, but Kramer was already gathering steam.

  “The building presented a not unpleasant architectural scheme, the banks of wide windows reflecting golden sunlight, the browned weathered brick façade, the ivy clinging to the brick and framing the windows.”

  “Mr. Kramer…”

  “That’s from The Bl—”

  “Mr. Kramer!”

  “Sir?” Kramer said.

  “Is there anything else you can tell me about Lucy Mitchell?”

  “No,” Kramer said, seemingly a little miffed.

  “Or Sy Kramer?”

  “No.”

  “But she did seem certain that someone else now had those pictures?”

  “Yes, she did.”

  “Had you ever met her before today?”

  “Never.”

  “Okay,” Hawes said. “Thank you very much, Mr. Kramer.”

  “Not at all,” Kramer said. He shook hands with Hawes, and Hawes rose. “Come again,” Kramer said.

  And then, as Hawes went through the opening in the partition, Kramer began quoting, “‘Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again. It seemed to me I stood by the iron gate…’”

  IT SEEMED TO HAWES that several things were obvious at this stage of the investigation.

  To begin with, there was no doubt—and there had never been any—that Sy Kramer had been extorting five hundred dollars a month from Lucy Mencken. It was obvious, too, that Kramer extorted the money on the threat of releasing the cheesecake photos that had somehow come into his possession. Lucy Mencken had stated that her husband was a politician who would be running for the state senate in November. In the hands of the opposing party, or even in the hands of a newspaper campaigning against Charles Mencken, the photos could be used with deadly results. It was understandable why Lucy Mencken wanted to suppress them. She had come a long way from the farm girl who’d taken off her clothes for Jason Poole the photographer. Somewhere along the line, she’d married Charles Mencken, acquired an exurban estate, and become the mother of two children. Those pictures could threaten her husband’s senatorial chances and—if he, too, did not know about them—could even threaten the smooth fabric of her everyday existence.

  There were thirty-six pictures, Patrick Blier had said.

  The $500 payment came every month, as did the $300 payment from Edward Schlesser, and the $1,100 payment from a person or persons unknown. Whenever Schlesser had delivered his check, Kramer had in turn sent back another photostated copy of the letter. Schlesser had hoped the p
hotostated copies would eventually run out. Perhaps he had not realized that it was possible to make a photostat of a photostat and that Kramer could conceivably have milked him for the rest of his life. Or perhaps he did realize it, and simply didn’t give a damn. According to what he’d said, he considered the extortion a bona fide business expense, like advertising.

  But assuming that Kramer had followed a similar modus operandi with Lucy Mencken, could he not have mailed her a photo and negative each time he received her $500 check? Thirty-six negatives and prints at $500 a throw amounted to $18,000. It was conceivable that Kramer had hit upon this easy payment plan simply because $18,000 in one bite was pretty huge for the average person to swallow. Especially if that person is trying to keep something secret. You don’t just draw $18,000 from the bank and say you bought a few new dresses last week.

  Then, too—in keeping with Kramer’s M.O.—could he not have been planning on a lifetime income? In the same way that he could have had a limitless number of copies of the letter to Schlesser, could he not also have had a limitless number of glossy prints—all capable of being reproduced in a newspaper—of the Mencken photos? And could he not, when the last negative was delivered, then say he had prints to sell at such and such a price per print?

  Had Lucy Mencken realized this?

  Had she killed Sy Kramer?

  Perhaps.

  And now there was a new aspect to the case. Lucy Mencken was certain that someone else had come into possession of the photos. She had undoubtedly learned this during the past few days, and the first thing she’d done was to visit Blier and then Kramer, the magazine editor. Did someone now hold those photos, and had this someone contacted Lucy in an attempt to pick up the extortion where it had ended with Sy Kramer’s death? And who was this someone?

  And—if Lucy had caused the death of Sy Kramer—could not this new extortionist provoke a second murder?

  Hawes nodded reflectively.

  It seemed like the time to put a tap on Lucy Mencken’s phone.

  THE MAN FROM THE telephone company was colored. He showed telephone-company credentials to Lucy Mencken when she opened the door for him. He told her they’d been having some trouble with her line and he might have to make minor repairs.

  The man’s name was Arthur Brown, and he was a detective attached to the 87th Squad.

  He put bugs on the three telephones in the house, carrying his lines across the back of the Mencken property, where they crossed the road and fed into a recorder in a supposed telephone-company shack on the other side of the road. The machine would begin recording automatically whenever any of the phones was lifted from its cradle. The machine would record incoming calls and outgoing calls indiscriminately. Calls to the butcher, calls from relatives and friends, angry calls, personal calls—all would be recorded faithfully and later listened to in the squadroom. None of the recorded information would be admissible as court evidence.

  But some of it might lead to the person or persons who were threatening Lucy Mencken anew.

  8.

  WHEN MARIO TORR stopped by at the squadroom, Bert Kling was on the phone talking to his fiancée. Torr waited outside the railing until Kling was finished talking. He looked at Kling expectantly, and Kling motioned him to enter. As before, Torr was dressed in immaculate mediocrity. He went to the chair beside Kling’s desk and sat in it, carefully preserving the crease in his trousers.

  “I just thought I’d stop by to see how things were going along,” he said.

  “Things are going along fine,” Kling said.

  “Any leads?”

  “A few.”

  “Good,” Torr said. “Sy was my friend. I’d like to see justice done. Do you still think this was a gang rumble?”

  “We’re working on a few possibilities,” Kling said.

  “Good,” Torr answered.

  “Why didn’t you tell me you’d taken a fall, Torr?”

  “Huh?”

  “One-to-two at Castleview for extortion. You did a year’s time and were paroled. How about it, Torr?”

  “Oh, yeah,” Torr said. “It must’ve slipped my mind.”

  “Sure.”

  “I’m straight now,” Torr said. “I got a good job, been at it since I got out.”

  “Sand’s Spit, right?”

  “Right. I’m a laborer. I make about ninety bucks a week. That’s pretty good money.”

  “I’m glad,” Kling said.

  “Sure. There’s no percentage in crime.”

  “Or in bad associates,” Kling said.

  “Huh?”

  “A man going straight shouldn’t have had a friend like Sy Kramer.”

  “That was strictly social. Look, I believe a guy’s business is his own business. I don’t like to mess. He never talked about his business, and I never talked about mine.”

  “But you figured he was working something, right?”

  “Well, he always dressed nice and drove a fancy car. Sure, I figured he was working something.”

  “Did you ever meet his floozy?”

  “Nancy O’Hara? Mr. Kling, that ain’t a floozy. If you ever met her, you wouldn’t call her no floozy. Far from it.”

  “Then you did meet her?”

  “Once. Sy was drivin’ by with her in the Caddy. I waved to him, and he stopped to say hello. He introduced her.”

  “She claims she knew nothing about his business. Do you buy that, Torr?”

  “I buy it. Who says a woman needs brains? All the brains she needs is right between—”

  “That makes two of you who didn’t know anything about Sy’s business.”

  “I figured he had something big going for him,” Torr said. “He had to. A guy don’t come into a couple of cars and a new pad and clothes to knock your eyes out unless he’s got something big going for him. I don’t mean penny-ante stuff, either. I mean big.”

  “What do you consider penny-ante?”

  “Pin money. You know.”

  “No, I don’t. What’s pin money?”

  “A couple of bills a month, you know. Hell, you can tell me better than I can tell you. How much was he getting from his marks?”

  “Enough,” Kling said.

  “I don’t mean the big marks, I mean the small ones,” Torr said.

  “How do you know there are big ones and small ones?”

  “I’m just guessing,” Torr said. “I figure the big ones set him up with the cars and the pad. The small ones buy his bread. Ain’t I right?”

  “You could be.”

  “Sure. So what can you expect from a small mark? Two, three bills? Five grand in a lump? It’s the big ones that count.”

  “I guess so,” Kling said.

  “Do you know who the ones are yet?”

  “No.”

  “The small ones?”

  “Maybe.”

  “How many small ones are there?”

  “You should have been a cop, Torr.”

  “I’m only interested in seeing justice done. Sy was my friend.”

  “Justice will triumph,” Kling said. “I’m busy. If you’re finished, I’d like to get back to work.”

  “Sure,” Torr said. “I didn’t mean to disturb you.”

  And he left.

  THE CALL FROM Danny Gimp had told Carella that the informer had something for him, could they meet someplace away from the precinct? It had been Carella’s policy—up to the day of his idiocy—to give his home-phone number to no one but relatives, close friends, and of course the desk sergeant. He did not encourage business calls at home. It was annoying enough to be called there by the squad; he did not want crime detection or law enforcement to intrude on his off-duty hours. He had broken this rule with Danny Gimp.

  The working arrangement between a cop and a stool pigeon is—even with men who bear no particular fondness for each other—a highly personal one. Crime detection is a great big horse race, and you choose your jockeys carefully. And a jockey working for your stable does not report your ho
rse’s morning running-time to the owner of a rival stable. The bulls of the 87th worked with various stoolies, and these stoolies reported to them faithfully. The transaction was a business one, pure and simple—information for money. But a certain amount of trust and faith was involved. The policeman trusted the stoolie’s information and was willing to pay for it. The stoolie trusted the policeman to pay him once the information had been divulged. Cops were averse to working with pigeons they did not know and trust. And likewise, pigeons—whose sole source of income was the information they garnered here and there—were not overly fond of displaying their wares before a strange cop.

  A call from the stoolie to the squad was generally a call directed at one cop and one cop alone. If that cop was off-duty or otherwise out of the office, the stoolie would not speak to anyone else, thanks. He would wait. Waiting could sometimes result in a lost collar. Waiting, in a homicide case, could sometimes result in another homicide. And so Danny Gimp had Carella’s home-phone number, and it was there that he called him when the desk sergeant informed him Carella was off that day.

  The men arranged to meet at Plum Beach in River-head. Carella told Danny to bring along his swimming trunks.

  They lay side by side on the sand like two old cronies who were discussing the bathing beauties. The sun was very strong that day.

  “I hope you don’t mind my not wanting to come to the precinct,” Danny said. “I don’t like to be seen there too often. It hurts my business.”

  “I understand,” Carella said. “What have you got for me?”

  “The background on Sy Kramer.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “He’s been living big for a few years, Steve, but not as big as just before he got it. You know, he had a nice pad and a good car—a Dodge—but nothing like the new joint, and nothing like the Caddy, you dig?”

  “I dig.”

  A boy ran by, kicking sand in Carella’s face.

  “I used to be a ninety-seven-pound weakling,” Carella said, and Danny grinned.

  “Okay,” Danny said. “In September, he goes berserk. Spends like a drunken sailor. Two new cars, clothes, the new pad. This is when he picks up the O’Hara bitch. She’s impressed by loot, what dame isn’t? She moves in with him.”