The Devil's Odds

by Milton T. Burton

  “We need to talk to you,” Little Tommy said, his face impish beneath his graying red hair.

  “Sure,” I said and grinned at the tiny Englishman.

  Amber signaled the waitress and ordered coffee for himself and his partner. “Refill?” he asked me.

  I shook my head. “What’s on your mind?” I asked.

  “Mr. Simms wants to see you, Virgil,” Amber said.

  I blinked twice. “Who the hell is Mr. Simms?” I asked.

  “You never heard of Deader Simms?” Trehan asked.

  I shook my head. “Nope. And I never heard a name like Deader, either.”

  “Deader is a British slang term for ‘corpse,’” Amber explained. “Tommy gave Simms the name by accident years ago.”

  “Aye, mate. He looks just like a deader, he does,” Trehan chimed in, his Cockney accent thick. “And that’s just what I said the first time I saw the man.”

  “That was very diplomatic, Tommy,” I said. “I bet he really appreciated it. I know I’d sure warm up to a fellow who gave me a fine compliment like that. So why does this remarkable gentleman who impersonates stiffs want to see me?”

  “We really don’t know,” Amber said. “Just that it’s got something to do with this Salisbury business.”

  “So who is he? What does he do?”

  “Mostly he finances things,” Amber said.

  “The rackets?”

  “Not in any big way. Back during Prohibition he’d lend us a hundred thousand or so for a shipment from Cuba. Thirty days, ten percent interest. And he did the same thing for the Maceos a few times. But hell, so did the banks over in Galveston, for that matter.”

  I held up my hand. “I wasn’t moralizing. Just curious.”

  “Sure,” Amber said with a nod. “Anyway, stuff like that is really no more than a sideline for him. He’s in the stock market and real estate speculation. He owns a bunch of land along the ship channel and a few tracts out at Kemah. He put me and Tommy onto some good stocks back in 1938, right after the Munich settlement. Firms like Westinghouse, Kelvinator, and Douglas Aircraft that became defense contractors once the war came on. Even way back then he said that a European war was coming and that we’d eventually have to get into it.”

  “What’s he like personally?”

  “A nice guy,” Amber said. “But kinda formal and old-world in his manners, and pretty well educated. And he’s a recluse. Lives in a big suite at the Warwick Hotel up in Houston. Nobody goes in his place but him and his maid, and she’s a deaf mute who’s been with him forever. He has a kind of anteroom where he meets people if he has to see somebody on short notice, or in an emergency. But when he can he prefers to do all his business away from home.”

  “Aye,” Trehan said. “And he doesn’t come out of seclusion except for things he considers real important, does he, mate.”

  “How about it?” Amber asked.

  “Sure. I’ll be happy to see the man. When and where?”

  “You mind driving back down to Galveston?”

  I shook my head. “Not a bit.”

  “Then how about meeting us on Seawall in front of the Balinese Room about nine tonight? Sam Maceo is going to let Mr. Simms use the manager’s office for your conference.”

  * * *

  I arrived a few minutes early and parked across the street from the club. The sky had cleared, but a winter cold front had moved in, and the night air felt harsh and brittle against my face. The full moon hung low over the Gulf, and the palms along Seawall Boulevard were listless and still. As I walked across the cold asphalt, the sound of my boot heels seemed discordant in the island’s frigid darkness. While I stood smoking on the curb, a few heavy, chauffeur-driven cars—Cadillacs and Packards and Lincolns—pulled up in front of the club and disgorged their passengers. The men, mostly older, thickset, and prosperous-looking, wore tuxes or well-tailored business suits while their glittering women were dressed in slinky evening dresses and swathed in furs.

  I had a short wait. Soon a sleek black automobile glided softly up to the curb with Jack Amber at the wheel and Trehan beside him. I couldn’t help but notice the car’s unusual hood ornament, which was unlike anything I’d ever seen. It was a thick, squat falcon’s head that might have been faceted glass, but which I suspected was pure crystal from the way it glittered in the dim light.

  Trehan sprang from his seat as soon as the car stopped and opened the rear door for the passenger. A huge man gradually unfolded his great height from the car’s dark interior and stood beside me on the sidewalk.

  “Virgil, mate, this is Mr. Simms,” Trehan said respectfully.

  Deader Simms stood at least six and a half feet tall. He was slim, with narrow shoulders and long arms. On his head sat a black homburg, and he wore a heavy greatcoat of dark wool broadcloth that came to midcalf. In the dim light I could see that his head was enormously elongated, with indistinct features, and a face that was a smear of pale, moonlit gray beneath the brim of his hat. He extended his hand toward me. “Please excuse the glove,” he said in a soft, whisper-like voice.

  “I’m Virgil Tucker,” I said, shaking his hand. I pointed at the car. “Beautiful vehicle you’ve got there. At first I thought it was a Rolls.”

  “Packard,” Simms said.

  “I see that now. But the body’s a custom, isn’t it?”

  The man nodded. “Barker and Company of London made it. It’s the same firm that builds cars on a Rolls Royce chassis for the royal family. But the exclusive clientele’s not what’s important to me. It’s the styling. I love that conservative British styling.”

  “Did you have it made for you while you were in England?” I asked casually.

  Simms’s almost lipless mouth was far too small for his great head. Now it curled into a brief inverted crescent, the ghost hint of a smile. “You’re clever, my young friend. If I said yes, you could get some of your associates in the various federal agencies to run my name through the State Department’s passport rolls and maybe find out something about me. I’ll save you the trouble. Yes, I had the car made while I was in England. And to save you further trouble, I’ll also tell you that State has no information on me beyond the fact that I hold a current passport. No useful information, at any rate.”

  I regarded the man thoughtfully. In the moonlight his eyes were pearlescent ovals that seemed almost opaque. “I’ve never been considered very tactful,” I said, “and I suppose it’s a failing of mine. But I can’t help but wonder why you’re so obsessed with secrecy when you don’t have any criminal record that I can find. I’ve already checked that out.”

  Simms shrugged. He put his hand on my shoulder and turned me gently toward the catwalk. “Maybe I’m the heir apparent to the throne of Bulgaria,” he said. “Or maybe I’m just another country boy like you and Jack here, but one who likes to play games and has the money to indulge himself. Who knows? I’m not even sure I know myself anymore. Now let’s get down to business.”

  Despite Simm’s great height and thick shoes, his movements were fluid and graceful and his footsteps were nearly silent. He glided effortlessly beside me as the four of us moved across the sidewalk and on down the plank walkway toward the Balinese Room.

  The club’s assistant manager met us in the mezzanine and escorted us down a short hallway to the office. “Would you like anything?” he asked. “A drink maybe?”

  “A cup of coffee, if it’s not too much trouble,” Simms said.

  “The same, please,” I said.

  “Coming right up.”

  The room was well lighted, and I could see why Little Tommy had called Simms a deader when he first saw him. His skin had the waxen, parchment-like texture of freshly embalmed corpse, and it made for an immediate impression that was mildly repulsive. I couldn’t help but shiver a little. He noticed and smiled faintly. “Don’t feel badly, Mr. Tucker,” he said. “It’s a very common reaction people have when first meeting me.”

  “It’s not fair, though,” I said. “And
I apologize. A man’s appearance doesn’t determine his character.”

  “Oh? You think not?”

  “No,” I said with a grin. “Take me, for example. There are actually people out there in the world who think I’m a nice guy.”

  He returned the smile. “Oh, I think that you’re a decent enough fellow or I wouldn’t have come down here to see you. However, I do sense that you have a cruel streak that you have to work hard to keep in check.”

  I said nothing. What could I say? The man had pegged me accurately, and there was no sense denying it. A waiter came in with the coffee, and Simms eased his great, long body in the chair behind the desk. He didn’t remove his hat, but he unbuttoned his overcoat and flipped it open to reveal an elegant English-cut suit of chalk-striped gray wool, probably by one of the best Bond Street tailors.

  We sipped our coffee until our cups were empty. I waited patiently and said nothing. Then Simms put his cup down and leaned back in his chair, his hands folded across his belly, his fingers interlaced. “I suppose you’re eager to learn why I wanted to see you,” he said.

  “Sure I am,” I replied with a grin. “But feel free to take your time since you’re obviously going to anyway.”

  He grinned back at me, his tiny mouth opening to reveal teeth that were small, white, and pointed. “Tell, me something, Mr. Tucker. Do you have many friends?”

  I shook my head. “No. Oh, I have plenty of acquaintances, but not many people I would call real friends.”

  He nodded. “It’s the same with me. Jack and Little Tommy are my friends, and then there’s Sam Maceo. And a couple of people up in Houston, but aside from them, nobody. But Henry DeMour was a true friend to me, my closest friend for better than thirty years. And I understand that you are investigating his death.”

  I took my time lighting a Chesterfield and putting the spent match into the ashtray on the desk, all the while trying to compose my thoughts. “Investigation may be too strong a word, Mr. Simms,” I said. “I don’t want to mislead you. I have no official standing of any kind, no resources, and no encouragement from any governmental entity. In fact, I have nothing but a special Ranger’s commission and a head full of curiosity.”

  He nodded thoughtfully. “I know all that, and I can’t help but wonder why…”

  “Why I’m going to the trouble?” I shook my head in bemusement at myself. “Now that you pin me down, I don’t really know. Maybe it’s because I’ve had doubts from the beginning that Salisbury was operating alone when he had DeMour killed. And then there’s the girl, Madeline Kimbell. As I’m sure you know, she was found dead two nights ago. I’d left her with some people up in East Texas, where she would’ve been safe, but she bolted and came home to the coast. Why? The only way her actions make any sense is to assume that she never told me the whole story, and that she was more deeply involved than she’d led me to believe. And then there’s Henry DeMour himself.”

  “What about Henry?”

  “It’s just that…” I groped around for words, trying to articulate what was little more than a vague sense of disquiet. Finally I said, “From everything I’ve heard about the man, he deserved better than he got. The local cops and the sheriff’s department in Jefferson County have just written the whole thing off as an unsolved robbery, and nothing is ever going to change their minds. And even the state brass down in Austin don’t seem interested in pushing it any further. Since Grist has been pulled off the case, I’m—”

  “You’re all that’s left,” he said.

  “That’s right. I’m all that’s left. And I’d like to think that if I was murdered, then somebody would take it a little more seriously than this.”

  “I see,” he said, looking like a man who’d heard something he hadn’t expected to hear. “It impresses me that you would feel that way. It’s an attitude that’s certainly not in line with the temper of the times.”

  “That may be true, sir. But I have to go by what my own conscience tells me.”

  “Indeed you should,” he murmured and suddenly leaned forward and gazed at me intently with his strange, obsidian eyes. “So how’s it going? Have you discovered anything?”

  “Not really,” I admitted. “I plan to go Madeline Kimbell’s funeral tomorrow so I can talk to some of the people who knew her. Her best friend was a girl named Alma something-or-other. I want to find her and see what she might be able to tell me. But otherwise, I’m at a dead end.”

  “I see,” he said, and paused in thought for a few seconds. When he finally spoke it was to ask what seemed at the time like the most unlikely question in the world. “Tell me, Mr. Tucker … have you ever heard of T. S. Eliot?”

  “Who?” I was utterly baffled.

  “T. S. Eliot,” he repeated. “Have you heard of him?”

  “Yes, but I don’t know anything about him,” I said, a little annoyed at this new twist he’d thrown into the conversation. “What does he have to do with Henry DeMour?”

  He smiled at my obvious impatience. “Henry and I both loved literature,” he said. “And we enjoyed pretending that we were like those princes of commerce you found back during the Renaissance. Men like the Medicis and their sort who were captains of industry and finance by day and who dabbled in the arts in their spare time. Who wrote poetry and painted and patronized such greats as Petrarch and Botticelli.”

  Apparently he read some skepticism in my expression. “Does this perplex you, that grown men would indulge in such a fantasy?” he asked.

  “I suppose not,” I said, not knowing how else to respond. “It’s a free country. Or so they tell us.”

  “Someone once said that all but the most literal-minded among us have to fantasize occasionally or else we’d go mad. And this was our harmless little pretense. But I asked about T. S. Eliot for a specific reason. You see, Mr. Eliot is an American-born English poet and literary scholar, a sort of old maid in pants who’s written a lot of overwrought poetry about how civilization is all falling apart. A few years ago he published an essay in which he claimed that Shakespeare’s Hamlet was an artistic failure. Can you imagine that? A work that’s universally acknowledged as one of the world’s greatest tragedies, and this man calls it a failure?”

  “Interesting, Mr. Simms, but I don’t see what’s it got to do with—”

  He raised a hand to cut me off and said, “Bear with me a moment, please. Now, this Eliot fellow is highly respected for his pronouncements, so just about everybody who read this essay immediately went to the bookcase and began rooting around in Hamlet trying to find out if the world’s previous assessment could have been wrong and if Shakespeare had indeed failed. But I think they were looking in the wrong place, because I don’t believe the source of Mr. Eliot’s discontent with the play lay in the work at all.”

  “No?” I asked. I had no idea where this was all leading.

  “Absolutely not,” he said with a definitive shake of his great head. “I think the root of Mr. Eliot’s problem in respect to Hamlet is inside Mr. Eliot himself.”

  “So you’re saying—”

  “That you’re looking at Salisbury and Scorpino for the answer to Henry DeMour’s death when you ought to be looking at Henry DeMour. And at his personal habits.”

  “Such as?”

  He smiled. “Do you remember Samuel Pepys, Mr. Tucker?”

  I was about to roll my eyes in annoyance at another oblique literary reference, when I realized it wasn’t oblique at all. “The great English diarist,” I said. “You’re telling me that Henry DeMour kept a diary?”

  “Precisely,” he replied with a satisfied smile. “And he’d been doing it for many years. Beautiful things, they were. Bound in red Moroccan leather with their pages edged in gold. He got them special from a stationer in New York and went through a volume about every six months or so. I used to rag him about a twentieth-century man carrying on such an old-fashioned practice. He always pointed out that all the famous diarists in history were just obscure eccentrics until somebody discov
ered their journals and saw the literary value in them, usually long years after they were dead.”

  “Where in the name of God are they?” I asked.

  “In his library, at his home, locked away in a fireproof safe. Or at least that’s where he always kept them, and I don’t see any reason they should have been moved.”

  “Is there any way I can get at them?”

  “I believe so. Go see DeMour’s wife. In the meantime I’ll call her and tell her that I think she should help you.”

  “Are you on good terms with this woman?” I asked skeptically.

  “Of course.”

  “Then why don’t you go to her yourself and ask for the diaries?”

  He shook his head. “That won’t do. I know that Henry wrote some humorous things concerning me, and I wouldn’t want to invade his privacy by reading them. Besides, actively involving myself in a murder investigation is just not the sort of thing I do.”

  “All right,” I said. “I’ll go see her. But it will have to be tomorrow afternoon at the earliest. I’ve got to go to Madeline Kimbell’s funeral in the morning at ten.”

  “Good enough,” he said and rose to his feet. We shook hands across the desk, and he said, “And you are right. Henry did deserve better.”

  “Just please don’t expect miracles,” I said.

  “I don’t,” he replied and reached into his inner coat pocket to pull out a small gold card case. He slipped out a business card and handed it to me. It was a piece of stiff linen paper that said, SIMMS, HOTEL WARWICK, HOUSTON, and gave a phone number.

  “If there’s anything I can do, either now or in the future, you just call,” he said. “I’m almost always home. This business could get dangerous, and I’m not without resources.”

  I slipped the card into my wallet, and I’d just risen from my chair when the door swung open to reveal Sam Maceo framed in the doorway, his face pale and his eyes hard and full of fire. “My brother Rosario has been shot,” he said.