So Barney Stroud merely dreamed of how nice it would be to become top dog. He didn’t really plan to do anything about it.
* * * *
It was about nine p.m. Barney parked in front of Mark Drennan’s house. Ordinarily he delivered tally sheets to Johnny Nash, as Nash handled the routine business end of the partnership, while the more suave Drennan was the contact man who lined up and paid off the necessary officials. But tonight Johnny Nash was out of town and Barney had instructions to deliver tallies to Drennan whenever Nash wasn’t available.
Although Mark Drennan was a bachelor, he maintained a seven room ranch style house on Shannon Drive in one of St. Vincent’s most exclusive sections. Barney supposed it was because he liked to entertain, though most of his parties were rumored to consist of only himself and some lone woman. Drennan had the reputation of being something of a Casanova.
The front of the house was dark when Barney came up the front walk, but he noted light streaming through some French doors at the side. As he knew the French doors gave onto a small play room where there was a bar, he guessed that Drennan was there and walked around to the side.
As he approached the French doors, he saw a man and woman standing in front of the bar clasped in each other’s arms. The man, tall, lean and darkly handsome, half faced the doors so that Barney could see he was Mark Drennan. As the woman’s back was to him, he could see only that she was a slim and shapely brunette.
Barney paused, not wishing to interrupt such an intimate scene. Then the woman disengaged herself from the embrace and picked up one of two drinks setting on the bar. The movement placed her profile to Barney.
With a sense of shock Barney recognized her as Nina Nash.
He stood still, momentarily appalled at Mark Drennan’s perfidy. Even though Drennan was a notorious woman chaser, it would never have occurred to Barney that he would poach on the domain of his own partner, who was also supposed to be his best friend.
Quietly he faded back toward the front of the house. After standing indecisively for a few moments, he mounted the porch and rang the front doorbell.
A couple of minutes passed before a light went on in the front room and the door opened. There was a frown on Mark Drennan’s handsome face when he peered out, but his expression cleared when he saw who his visitor was.
“Hi, Barney,” he said. “What’s up?”
Beyond Drennan, Barney could see that the doorway to the playroom had been left open, but the room was now dark. He said, “Just the week’s tally sheets. Johnny’s out of town, you know.” He held out the manila envelope containing the tally sheets.
“Oh, yeah,” Brennan said, accepting the envelope. “I’d forgotten that.”
Forgotten it, hell, Barney thought. He’d taken full advantage of it.
“Come in for a drink?” Brennan asked without moving aside. His tone was more polite than enthusiastic.
Barney was tempted, just to see what evasive action Nina Nash would take, but he decided against it.
“No thanks,” he said. “Phyllis is waiting for me at home.”
During the drive back home Barney brooded over what he had seen. And as the shock abated, it gradually dawned on him that he had stumbled onto something which might move him right into the top slot.
No one would suspect Barney if one of the partners was gunned and the other was convicted of the crime. The idea had tentatively occurred to him once before, but he had rejected it because he couldn’t think of any motive the police would swallow. The partners got along too amicably for the police to accept that either would gun the other merely to take over control of the combine alone.
But a love triangle offered a perfect motive for murder.
When he entered the house, Phyllis was in the bar off the front room working on the invitation list for her next party. Offering a cool cheek for his kiss of hello, she asked preoccupiedly. “How’s Mark?”
“Fine,” he said.
She added a name to the list, then glanced lip. “Do you think we can skip Johnny and Nina again this time?”
Walking over behind the bar to mix himself a drink, Barney said, “They’re going to start suspecting how you feel about them, hon. And, after all, I have to get along with Johnny.”
“Yes, I suppose an errand boy can’t afford to offend the boss,” she said, making a face. “I wish you didn’t have to take orders from that man. I would have more respect for you if you quit the whole setup and went into some honest business.”
He poured soda on top of whisky. “You knew what I was when you married me.”
“Not exactly, darling. I knew you were some kind of gangster, which held a certain fascination for me, because I’d never known an underworld character before. But I didn’t realize you took orders from such a crude boor as Johnny Nash. It’s not your profession I object to. It’s probably the only one in which you could make enough money to suit me. It’s just your status in the profession that turns my stomach.”
Barney stirred his drink and sampled it. Resting his elbows on the bar, he gazed at his wife’s profile.
“You wouldn’t fuss so much if I was top dog, huh?”
She was busy with her list again. Preoccupiedly she said, “I wouldn’t fuss at all.” Barney came to a decision. He was going to take advantage of what he had learned tonight.
He lay awake and thought about it long after Phyllis had gone to sleep. The first step, he decided, was to make sure the motive would come to light immediately after the murder, before the police had time to look in any other direction. And the surest way to accomplish that was to let the affair between Mark Drennan and Johnny Nash’s wife become known to the police in advance.
He could hardly just inform them. But there was a way to let information seep to the police naturally without leaving any trace of its source. A rumor planted in the underworld grapevine would eventually reach some informer, who in turn would relay it on to the police.
Of course if the rumor also reached either Drennan or Nina Nash, caution might cause them to break off the affair. But he was reasonably certain that none of the principals would hear the gossip, because those talked about are always last to hear.
The next morning Barney entered a pool hall on lower State Street. Singling out a tall, lanky man of about forty who was idly watching a snooker game, Barney called him aside.
“I’ve got a little private job for you, Bulletin,” he said. “Can you keep your mouth shut?”
Bulletin Willie Gloff nodded eagerly. “Sure, Barney. You know me.”
Barney did know him, which was the reason he had picked him. Bulletin Willie got his nickname from his chronic eagerness to be the first to pass on gossip. As he worked as a leg man for a half dozen of the combine’s bookies, he had daily contacts with a lot of people. No one could spread a rumor faster than Bulletin Willie Gloff.
“This is strictly confidential,” Barney said. “I don’t want you to mention it to a soul.”
Bulletin Willie raised his right hand. “I’m a clam, Barney.”
“Okay. This has to do with the good of the organization. I’m a little worried about Johnny.”
“Johnny Nash?”
“Nuh-huh. You know how nuts he is about his wife.”
“Sure. Something happen to Nina?”
“Not yet. And I want to make sure it doesn’t. I got wind that she’s doing a little drifting.”
The lanky man emitted a soundless whistle. “Johnny’ll knock her ears off. Who with?”
“That I didn’t hear. I want to make sure the scoop is right before I got off half-cocked by giving her the Dutch uncle bit. Johnny would blow his lid if I stuck my nose in and it turned out there was nothing to it.”
Bulletin Willie nodded sagely. “Yeah, I can see how it’d be a kind of delicate spot for yo
u. You’d like to nip it, but you can’t just walk up to Nina and start accusing her. If she’s innocent, she’d run crying to Johnny and he’d come down on you with both feet.”
“You get the picture. I have to know for sure before I make a move. If it’s a bum steer, I’ll keep my trap shut, but if she is drifting, I want to know it. You follow me?”
“Sure. You want me to do some tailing.”
“I want you on her every night. Days don’t matter, because she won’t be playing footsie while the sun’s out, but you have her staked out by dusk every night. I want to know everywhere she goes and everybody she sees.”
“You can count on me, Barney. I’ll stick to her like a can tied to a cat’s tail.”
Barney took out his wallet and removed a fifty-dollar bill. “Here’s something for your trouble. Do a good job and I’ll match it.”
That took care of that, he thought as he left the pool hall. Even if the rumor was traced back to its source, which was unlikely, no one could say that Barney Stroud had ever mentioned Mark Drennan and Nina Nash in the same breath. All he had to do now was relax and let nature take its course.
Four nights later, on a Sunday, Bulletin Willie phoned him at home.
“Anybody listening?” he asked.
“Yes,” Barney said. Phyllis was seated not ten feet away.
“Then I’ll hold it until morning. About nine o’clock at the pool hall?”
“Okay,” Barney said, and hung up.
“Who was that?” Phyllis asked.
“Business,” he said, which killed her interest.
At nine Monday morning he found Bulletin Willie waiting for him at the pool hall. The lanky man was so bursting with news, he could hardly contain himself.
“You’re not going to believe this,” he said. “But it’s gospel truth. Saturday she spent the whole blame night at a guy’s place.”
“What guy?”
Bulletin Willie grinned, drawing it out in order to increase the suspense. “You’re never going to believe it.”
“Try me,” Barney said impatiently.
The lanky man let a pause build before saying with relish, “Mark Drennan.”
Barney let his eyes register shock, then narrow. After a moment of silence, he took out his wallet and gave the man another fifty-dollar bill.
Bulletin Willie pocketed the bill. “Johnny will kill him,” he commented.
“Not if he never finds out,” Barney said. “I’ll take it from here. Just keep your mouth shut.”
“Sure, Barney. I wouldn’t say anything.”
Except to your friends, in strict confidence, Barney thought. He gave the gossip three days to spread all over the grapevine.
His estimate was conservative. Within two days he had heard the news from three different sources that Mark Drennan was carrying-on an affair with Nina Nash.
The following Saturday was Phyllis’ party, and both the Nashes and Mark Drennan were there. In public Nina and Drennan were being very cautious, Barney noted. Except for one duty dance, Drennan didn’t go near the woman all evening.
Johnny Nash, big and wide-shouldered and somehow rumpled-looking despite his perfectly pressed two-hundred-dollar suit, as usual spent most of the evening at the bar. About midnight Barney drifted over next to him.
“Having fun?” he asked.
The big man shrugged. “You know me, Barney. These friends of yours ain’t exactly in my class. I come because Nina likes to rub shoulders with the aristocracy.”
“Oh, they’re not so bad when you get to know them,” Barney told him. “Buy you a drink?”
“Sure,” Nash said, draining his glass and setting it on the bar.
The white-coated bartender Phyllis had hired for the evening was snowed under. Barney walked behind the bar and personally mixed Nash a new drink, using a fresh glass.
As he handed it to Nash, he said, “Nina seems to be having a good time.”
Nash turned to look toward his wife, who was dancing with a portly stockbroker named Myron Wood. With a paper napkin protecting his fingers, Barney quickly lifted the used glass and set it in the waste receptacle beneath the bar. He dropped the napkin over it.
He hadn’t definitely devised a murder plan yet, but a glass with Johnny Nash’s fingerprints on it might come in handy.
Hours later, after everyone had gone home, he retrieved the glass and hid it behind some bottles in the liquor storage cabinet.
Before he was able to devise a workable plan, Barney had to postpone the whole thing. The syndicate which furnished the combine its turf news and form sheets announced a hike in price. The syndicate was headquartered in Kansas City and the local branch printery claimed it had no control over the decision. Mark Drennan sent Barney to Kansas City to register an objection and try to dicker the price back down. It took him three weeks to work out a compromise deal.
The evening he got back, he found Phyllis all dressed to leave the house.
“Where we going?” he asked. “I planned to spend tonight at home.”
“You are,” she told him. “Mother’s not feeling well. She asked me to spend the night with her.”
Phyllis’ father had died about six months before, and her mother wasn’t in very good health. With increasing frequency the old lady asked her only daughter to spend nights with her. Barney could hardly object, but he often wished Phyllis would be as conscientious about his welfare as she was about her mother’s.
His first night back he had to sleep alone.
The front for the combine’s business ventures was the Drennan-Nash Realty Company in downtown St. Vincent. Mark Drennan didn’t show up the next morning, and as operation costs was something in Drennan’s province instead of Nash’s, Barney phoned his home at noon. Drennan sounded as though he had been awakened from a sound sleep.
“I was in an all-night poker game,” he informed Barney. “Tell Johnny I won’t be in today. Want to drop by here tonight to make your report?”
“All right,” Barney said. “See you about nine.”
Phyllis didn’t make her usual objection to his going out at night when she learned his business was with Drennan instead of Nash. Barney arrived promptly at nine and found Mark Drennan at home alone.
“Come in,” Drennan said cordially, and led Barney back to the play room. “Drink?”
“A little bourbon and soda,” Barney said.
Drennan went behind the bar to mix two drinks, then rested his forearms on the bar.
“Any success?” he inquired.
“Some. They’re willing to split the difference. They claim rising printing costs.”
Mark Drennan pursed his lips. “Everything’s going up,” he conceded. “But how do we know they won’t hike the price again a month from now?”
“I got a two-year contract.”
Drennan’s expression cleared. “That’s pretty good work, Barney. I guess you were worth developing. I told Johnny when you first came to work for us that you were a sharp kid.”
Barney merely smiled modestly.
By the time he had explained the new contract in detail, their glasses were empty and Drennan mixed another drink. “Long as you’re here, Barney, want to do me a favor?”
“Sure, Mark. What?” Coming from behind the bar, Drennan disappeared into the other room. He returned carrying a German Borchardt-Luger. Drawing back the slide to lock it open, he checked to make sure it was empty and handed it to Barney.
“Just picked this up,” he said. “Isn’t it a beauty?”
After examining it, Barney clicked the slide shut. “Sure is.”
“Mind dropping by police headquarters and registering it for me tomorrow?” Drennan asked. “Have my permit switched over from my thirty-eight to this too.”
The combine was careful not to lay its members open to possible concealed weapons charges. With its political influence, it didn’t have to risk such minor infractions of the law. Every member of the combine who was authorized by Drennan and Nash to carry a gun had it registered and had a gun permit.
“Sure,” Barney said, dropping the gun in his pocket.
The phone rang and Drennan went into the front room to answer it.
At that moment the plan Barney had been seeking for took shape in all its details.
His tentative idea had been to gun Drennan and let Johnny Nash take the blame. But now he realized that the jealousy motive would fit just as well if Drennan was framed for Nash’s murder. And he had just been handed the means to frame the kill that way.
In the front room he could hear Drennan talking on the phone. Quickly rounding to behind the bar, he placed a fresh glass on it, took out his handkerchief to avoid leaving fingerprints and poured Drennan’s drink from the old glass into the new. Three steps took him to the French doors. Easing one side open, he slipped outside and set the glass containing Drennan’s fingerprints on the grass to one side of the doorway.
He was back inside again, leaning against the bar, when Drennan returned.
“Johnny Nash, giving me mild hell for goofing off today,” Drennan said with a grin.
When Barney finished his second drink, he said, “I’d better run along, Mark. I’ve hardly seen Phyllis yet since I got back. Thanks for the drinks.”
Outside he slipped around the side of the house, carefully staying close to the building so that he couldn’t be seen through the French doors, and retrieved the highball glass, again using his hand kerchief.
At home he concealed the glass in the same place as the one containing Nash’s fingerprints. He was pleased to note that the glasses were identical in size and shape.
The Second Richard Deming Mystery MEGAPACK® Page 31