Killer's Payoff

by Ed McBain

  “How’d he meet her?”

  “How’d she say?”

  “She said she’s a dancer, met him in a drugstore.”

  “For the birds,” Danny said. “She did a crumby strip in a joint on The Stem. Half her salary came from conning guys into buying her colored water.”

  “Prostitution?”

  “Not from what I could gather, but I wouldn’t put it past her. She’s quite a looker, Steve. They billed her as Red Garters.”

  “That’s a name for a stripper, all right.”

  “Well, she’s got this flaming-red hair. Anyway, her act stunk. All she had was a body. The less dancing she did, the quicker she got her clothes off, the better it was for everybody concerned.”

  “So she met Kramer and latched onto him,” Carella said.

  “Right. I think she read the writing on the wall. She was getting pawed by a hundred strangers a night for peanuts. She figured she might as well get pawed by only one guy, and live in luxury.”

  “You’re a cynic, Danny,” Carella said.

  “I read the cards,” Danny said, shrugging. “Anyway, Kramer hit it big in September.”

  “How?”

  “That’s the one thing I don’t know.”

  “Mmm,” Carella said.

  “I take it you know all this already? I ain’t giving you nothing new.”

  “Most of it,” Carella said. “I didn’t know about the girl. What else have you got?”

  “A hunting trip.”

  “Kramer?”

  “Yes.”

  “When?”

  “Beginning of September. It was after he come back that he started throwing the green around. Think there’s a tie-in?”

  “I don’t know. Has he got a rep as a hunter?”

  “Rabbits, birds, stuff like that. He’s never shot a tiger, if that’s what you mean.”

  “Where’d he go on this trip?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Did he go alone?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you sure it was a hunting trip?”

  “Nope. It could have been anything. For all I know, he could have gone to Chicago and rubbed somebody. Maybe that’s where he got the lump of dough.”

  “Did he come back with the money?”

  “No. Unless he was real cool with it and didn’t start flashing it around. The trip was in the beginning of the month. He didn’t start spending until the end of the month.”

  “Was the money hot, do you suppose?”

  “Not the way he spent it, Steve. If it was hot, he’d have used a money changer and taken a loss.”

  “How do you know he didn’t?”

  “I checked the guys buying hot bills. Kramer didn’t go to see any of them. Besides, we’re forgetting something.”

  “What?”

  “His racket. He’s an extortionist. True, he may have decided to do a quick rub job for somebody, but you don’t hire a shakedown artist for a torpedo job. Besides, like I told you, this torpedo crap went out in the—”

  “Mmm, maybe you’re right,” Carella said. “But he could have carried hot ice or furs—”

  “He ain’t a fence, Steve. He’s a shakedown artist.”

  “Still.”

  “I don’t buy it. Maybe this hunting trip was a cover. Maybe he went to see a mark.” Danny shrugged. “Wherever he went, it netted him a big pile of bills.”

  “Maybe he really did go on a hunting trip,” Carella said. “Maybe the trip and the dough have no connection.”

  “Maybe,” Danny said.

  “But you don’t know where he went, is that right?”

  “Not a glimmer.”

  “And he went alone?”

  “Right.”

  “Was this before he met the O’Hara girl?”

  “Yes.”

  “Think she might know something about it?”

  “Maybe.” Danny smiled. “Guys have been known to talk in their sleep.”

  “We’ll check her again. You’ve helped, Danny. How much?”

  “I don’t like to hit you too hard, Steve. Especially when I didn’t give you so much. But I’m slightly from Brokesville. Can you spare a quarter of a century?”

  Carella reached for his wallet and gave Danny two tens and a five.

  “Thanks,” Danny said. “I’ll make it up to you. The next one’s on the house.”

  They lay on the sand for a little while longer. Carella went into the water for a quick dip, and then they went back to the locker rooms. They shook hands, and left each other at three in the afternoon.

  LOVE, FLEETING CHIMERA that it is, was hardly present at all the second time Cotton Hawes called upon Nancy O’Hara. In fact, aside from their use of first names in addressing each other, one hardly could have guessed they’d shared the most intimate of intimacies. Ah, love. Easy come, easy go.

  “Hello, Nancy,” he said when she opened the door. “I hope I didn’t catch you at a bad time.”

  “No,” she said. “Come in, Cotton.”

  He followed her into the living room.

  “Drink?”

  “No. Thanks.”

  “What is it, Cotton? Have you found the murderer?”

  “Not yet A few more questions, if you don’t mind.”

  “Not at all.”

  “Were you a stripper?”

  Nancy hesitated. “Yes.”

  “Anything else?”

  “No.”

  “Okay.”

  “Thanks. I’m glad I have your seal of approval.”

  “Why’d you lie?”

  “A dancer sounds better than a stripper. I’m a lousy dancer, and a worse stripper. Sy wanted me to live with him. So I lived with him. Is there something so terrible about that?”

  “I guess not.”

  “Don’t get moral, Cotton,” she told him. “You weren’t very goddamn moral in bed.”

  “True.” He grinned. “End of sermon. End of shocked Daughter of American Revolution routine. Beginning of important questions.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like Kramer. Did he ever mention a hunting trip to you?”

  “Yes.” She paused. “I told you. Hunting was one of his hobbies.”

  “A hunting trip in September?”

  “Yes.” Again, she paused. “Before we met. Yes, he mentioned it.”

  “Did he really go hunting?”

  “I think so. He talked about the stuff he’d shot. A deer, I think. Yes, he really went hunting.”

  “Where?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Did he go hunting again while you were living with him?”

  “Yes. I already told you this. He went several times.”

  “But you don’t know where he went that time in September?”

  “No.”

  Hawes thought for a moment. Then he said, “Would you happen to know if Kramer had a gasoline credit card?”

  “A what?”

  “A credit card. To show at service stations. So that he could charge his gas.”

  “Oh. I don’t know. Would he carry that with him?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, the police still have his wallet. Why not look through it?”

  “We will,” Hawes said. “Did Kramer save bills?”

  “You mean grocery bills and things like that?”

  “No. I mean telephone bills, electric-light bills, gasoline bills. Things like that.”

  “Yes. Why, yes, he did.”

  “Where did he keep them?”

  “In the desk in the foyer.”

  “Would they still be there?”

  “I haven’t touched anything,” Nancy said.

  “Good. Mind if I look through the desk?”

  “Not at all. What are you looking for, Cotton?”

  “Something that might be just as good as a road map,” he answered, and he went out to the foyer and the desk.

  9.

  SY KRAMER had a card with the Meridian Mobilube Company that
enabled him to charge his automobile expenses at any of their gasoline stations. Most of the bills in his desk for gasoline charges had been signed at a place called George’s Service Center in Isola. George’s, the police discovered after a check of the phone book, was a station three blocks from Kramer’s apartment. He had undoubtedly been a regular customer there and most of his gas purchases had originated there. The bills he had signed looked like this:

  On September first, Kramer had started a trip. The first bill for that date came from George’s, in Isola. Kramer had put thirteen gallons of gasoline and a quart of oil into the car. A check with the manufacturer of Kramer’s 1952-model automobile revealed that the tank capacity of the car was seventeen gallons, and that the car could be expected to travel between fifteen and sixteen miles on a gallon of gasoline. The bills Sy Kramer signed that day seemed to back up the manufacturer’s word. Kramer had apparently kept a careful eye on his tank gauge. Approximately every hundred miles, when the gauge registered half-empty, he had stopped and brought it up to full again, signing a credit slip for the gas. Each bill was stamped with the name of the gas station and the town.

  Sy Kramer had unmistakably gone to the Adirondack Mountains in New York State.

  Using a road map, Hawes traced Kramer’s progression across that state, marking each town for which he had a bill. The last place in which Kramer had stopped for gas on September first was called Gloversville. From that town, the mountain territory spread north. From that town, he could have gone anywhere in the Adirondacks; he had not signed another bill for gasoline that day. Hawes marked Gloversville with a big circle, and then he consulted the bills once more.

  On September eighth, a week later, Kramer had put five gallons of gasoline and a quart of oil into the car. He had made the purchase in a town called Griffins. The rest of the bills for September eighth recorded a southbound trip that eventually led back to the city. The stop in Griffins had apparently been the first stop for gas on the leg home. The town north of Griffins was Bakers Mills. It seemed possible to Hawes that Kramer had gone into the mountains somewhere between Griffins and Bakers Mills. He circled both towns. It seemed likely, too, that Griffins had been the first town he’d hit after coming out of the mountains, gassing up there for the first lap of the trip home.

  His calculations could, he admitted, be wrong. But the distance from Gloversville to Griffins was an approximate thirty-five miles. Kramer had filled his tank in Gloversville. Figuring fifteen miles to the gallon, Kramer would have used a little more than two gallons to make the trip from Gloversville to Griffins. Could Hawes safely assume Kramer had then traveled another approximate fifteen miles into the mountains, and an additional fifteen miles for the return trip to Griffins, where he had added five gallons of gas to the tank?

  It was possible that Griffins had been his springboard into the mountains. It was a long shot, but it was possible.

  One thing was certain. Kramer was either a liar or a habitual lawbreaker. He had told Nancy O’Hara he’d shot a deer.

  A check with one of the state’s game protectors revealed that the Adirondack deer season did not start until October twenty-fifth.

  “HELLO, JEAN?”

  “Yes?”

  “This is Lucy Mencken.”

  “Oh, hello, Lucy, how are you? I was just thinking about you.”

  “Really?”

  “I was going to call you for that stuffed-pepper recipe. The one you used for the last buffet.”

  “Oh, that. Did you really like them that much?”

  “Lucy, they were magnificent!”

  “I’m glad. I’ll bring you the recipe…or perhaps…well, the reason I’m calling, Jean, I thought you and the children might like to come over for a swim this afternoon. The water’s just grand, and it looks as if it’s going to be a terribly hot day.”

  “Yes, it does. I don’t know, Lucy. Frank said he might be home early…”

  “Well, bring him along. Charles is here.”

  “He is?”

  “Yes. Jean, you know you have a standing invitation to swim here whenever you like. I feel awfully silly having to call to invite you each time.”

  “Well…”

  “Say you’ll come.”

  “What time, Lucy?”

  “Whenever you like. Come for lunch, if you can.”

  “All right, I’ll be there.”

  “Good. I’ll be waiting for you.”

  The recorder in the mock telephone-company shack across the highway wound its tapes relentlessly. Arthur Brown, monitoring the calls, was bored to tears. He had brought along a dozen back issues of National Geographic, and he read those now while Lucy and her various contacts talked and talked and talked. Thus far, there had been no threatening calls.

  But the telephone of Lucy Mencken was damned busy.

  THE TELEPHONE OF Teddy Carella was not busy at all. To Teddy Carella, the telephone was a worthless instrument designed for people who, in one respect alone, were more fortunate than she.

  Teddy Carella was a deaf-mute.

  Her handicap had been an unfortunate accident of birth, but she was more fortunate than other women in many other respects, and so she never gave much thought to it. Her greatest fortune was her husband, Steve Carella. She would never tire of looking at him, never tire of “listening” to him, never tire of loving him.

  On the evening of July eighth, after dinner, she and Carella were sitting in the living room of their River-head apartment watching television. Reading the lips of the performers, Teddy glanced at Carella and realized that she was watching television alone. Her husband was up somewhere on cloud thirteen. She smiled. Her entire face seemed to open when she smiled. Dark-haired, dark-eyed, she embodied the physical attributes of a Venus, which were somehow combined with the impishness of a Puck. Wearing a skirt and halter, she came up out of her chair, went to sit at Carella’s feet, and then gestured with her head toward the television screen, her black eyebrows raised questioningly.

  “Huh?” Carella said. “Oh, it’s a good show. Wonderful, wonderful.”

  Teddy nodded, burlesquing the expression on his face.

  “Really,” Carella said sincerely. “I love summer-replacement shows. They’ve got a lot of spark, a lot of imagination. Wonderful, wonderful.”

  She gazed at him steadily.

  “Okay,” he admitted, “I was thinking about the case.”

  Teddy moved her mouth slightly and then pointed to herself.

  “I’ll tell you about it, if you really want to hear it,” he said.

  She nodded.

  “Well, Hawes is working on it with me.”

  Teddy pulled a sour face.

  “No, no,” Carella said, “he’s going to be all right. He’s going to be a good man.” He grinned. “Remember. You heard it here first.”

  Teddy grinned back.

  “I told you about the kill, and the bank accounts, and about Kramer’s victims. We still haven’t located the eleven-hundred-dollar mark, and Lucy Mencken still seems like our best bet for the grand award. But a couple of things keep bothering me.”

  Teddy nodded, listening intently.

  “Well, for one thing, where did Kramer keep these extortion documents? The photostated copies of the letter, the pictures of Lucy, and whatever he had on this eleven-hundred-dollar mark. Not to mention the big babies in the bank book. We went over his apartment with a fine comb, but there wasn’t anything there. Hey, honey, you should see this redhead he was shacking with. Now, that’s my idea of a woman.”

  Teddy frowned menacingly.

  “Very pretty,” Carella said. “Very pretty. I think I’ll go back there and make another search for important documents. I think he might have kept them in the bedroom, don’t you?”

  Teddy nodded her head in an exaggerated, “Sure he did!”

  “Seriously, honey, it bothers me. You’d figure a safety deposit box, wouldn’t you?”

  Again, Teddy nodded.

  “Well, I put a che
ck on all the banks in the city. No safety deposit boxes for Sy or Seymour Kramer. I got a list of eighty-five S. K. box holders—people with the initials S. K., you understand. Just in case Kramer used a phony name for the box. When a guy picks a phony, he’ll sometimes use his own initials. We called each and every one of those names. They’re all legitimate. So where the hell did Kramer hide the documents?”

  Teddy licked an imaginary letter with her tongue.

  “A post office box?” Carella asked. “Possibly. We checked his local post office, and he didn’t have one there. But it could be anyplace in the city. I’ll have a check started in the morning. But I don’t think we’ll turn up anything. We didn’t find any unexplained keys in his effects.”

  Teddy turned an imaginary knob.

  “That’s right,” he said, “some post offices have those little combination knobs on their boxes. It’s a possibility, all right.” He kissed her rapidly. “You’re a helpmeet indeed.”

  She was in the process of getting set to kiss him more soundly, when he began shaking his head morosely.

  What is it? her eyes asked.

  “The other thing that bothers me is that bankbook,” he said. “Now, what the hell kind of extortion money is that? The only sensible entry is the fifteen thousand dollars. But if you were extorting money from me, would you come and ask for six thousand three hundred and twenty dollars and fourteen cents?”

  Teddy looked puzzled.

  “No, honey, that wasn’t an actual entry,” he explained. “I’m just trying to make a point. Why should Kramer have asked for twenty-one thousand dollars? Isn’t that a crazy figure? Wouldn’t twenty thousand be a more likely figure, assuming you were just picking figures out of the hat? And why nine thousand? Wouldn’t ten be more likely? I don’t get it. I always thought people preferred nice fat round figures.”

  Teddy began writing on the air. It took Carella a moment to realize she was doing imaginary addition.

  “Sure, sure,” he said. “Twenty-one thousand and nine thousand equal thirty thousand—and that’s a nice round figure. You think maybe he asked his victim for it in two lumps?”

  Teddy nodded.

  “Then what about the third lump? And why weren’t the first and second lumps in even figures? There’s something funny about it, Teddy. And I keep thinking if we can find Kramer’s bunk, find his goddamn hiding place, we’ll learn a lot about those figures. Those are the biggest deposits he made, honey. We’re chasing around after the small potatoes, and we haven’t even an inkling to the identity of the big one—the one who could have committed murder. Oh, what the hell, I guess Lucy Mencken could have done it, too. She’s been chasing around like a wild woman looking for those pictures of hers. I’d like to get a look at them. I’d like to see her without her space suit.”