Cut Me In (Hard Case Crime)

by Ed McBain

  I walked to the side of the house, using the slates imbedded in the grass, and climbed the steps leading to the kitchen door. The blinds were drawn, but I pushed the buzzer there anyway, and still got no answer. I saw the milk boxes on the porch then, lifted the cover of one, and saw the moist bottom of the box. Well, at least the milkman had been here, and Gail had taken in the milk. She hadn’t stayed out all night, and considering her condition, that was a good thing.

  I walked down to the Buick, looking back at the house once more. There was no sign of movement or life. I opened the door of the car, slid in behind the wheel, slammed the door shot, and then sat there for a few minutes. I lighted a cigarette and puffed on it idly. The mailman was just coming around. He glanced at me behind the wheel, then looked down at the letters in his hand, and walked right past Gail’s house. I started the car, put down the top, and then drove off. I found a candy store, got change from the proprietor, and stepped into the closest phone booth.

  I dialed the office, and the phone rang twice before Jeanette answered.

  “Gilbert and Blake, good morning.”

  “Honey, this is Mr. Blake. How’s it going?”

  “Fine. Are you coming in, Mr. Blake?”

  “Maybe later today. Is Tim in yet?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Put him on, will you?”

  “Just a moment, sir.”

  I waited a second or two, listening to the clicks of Jeanette’s switchboard. Tim came on then.

  “Hello, Josh.”

  “Morning, Tim. How’s it going?”

  “A little quiet, but all right. Are you coming in?”

  “Later, maybe. Think you can hold the fort?”

  “Sure.”

  “Fine. Listen, will you dig up Cam Stewart’s address for me?”

  “You going up there?”

  “I thought it might be a good idea.”

  I waited, and then Tim came back with the address, and I jotted it down on one of the agency cards. “If anything important comes up, I’ll be there, Tim. Anything you can’t handle yourself.”

  “Okay. Fine.”

  “I’ll see you.”

  “Right.”

  I waited until Tim hung up, and then I got out of the booth and had an egg cream at the counter. I went out to the Buick then and asked a passerby how to hit the Saw Mill River Parkway. He gave me complicated directions, and I thanked him and followed them, or tried to. I had to stop two more pedestrians before I finally found the parkway, but once on it I had clear sailing. I kept on it until I hit the Merritt Parkway, and that took me into Connecticut and Cam Stewart’s town. It was a quiet town, lush with big shade trees and carefully landscaped lawns. I drove past the big white courthouse, the stone-faced churches with their high white steeples, the circle in the center of the town, with the bronze statue of a Revolutionary War hero in it. I kept driving past the town, out on a macadam road that wound through the countryside like a black snake. It was a pleasant drive, and I really enjoyed being away from the city. Big trees flanked the road, their branches arching overhead, the leaves rustling on the mild breeze. I thought of the thousand-window bakery that was New York City, and I was thankful to be away from the oven for even just a little while.

  I was almost sorry I finally had to stop the car. The place was just around a wide curve in the road. I rounded the curve, spotted the pillars, and jammed on my brakes.

  They stood on either side of a wide gravel driveway. They were both made of solid brick, painted white, and a rustic lamp was set into the top of each. The pillar on the left bore the wrought-iron legend, GUNSMOKE. The pillar on the right, lettered in the same wrought-iron script, simply said ACRES. Gunsmoke Acres.

  Gunsmoke had been the title of Cam Stewart’s first Western novel. It had been an instant smash, selling 20,000 copies in the hardcover edition, and going well over the two million mark in the paperbacks. That was a lot of mazoo, especially for a Western, which generally sold between 2,000 and 2,500 copies in the hardcover edition and something more than 150,000 in the paperbacks. Nor had that been the end of the road. There had been five novels since Gunsmoke and, if anything, the author’s popularity had increased. Stewart’s Westerns were packed with power, and loaded with authenticity. There were rumors that Stewart was raised on an Arizona ranch, had learned about the West and Westerners through direct contact. The counterrumors stated that the author was the offspring of a Chinese missionary, and knew nothing at all about America, let alone the West.

  The press hadn’t got around to showing Stewart’s picture on its front pages yet, but the press is notoriously slow when it comes to literary matters, unless a Nobel Prize is concerned. But Stewart was hot, and I was willing to bet my agency against a collar button that the next year—especially with a movie deal involved—would find the author’s face plastered in every periodical. It takes a while for the wagon to get rolling, but once it does, everyone hops aboard for the free ride.

  Gunsmoke Acres—the name was appropriate because the royalties on the first book alone had probably been enough to pay for the joint.

  I slipped the car into reverse, backed out onto the road, and then pointed the nose up the gravel driveway. The wheels skidded when they hit the gravel, then took hold, and I started up the drive slowly.

  The place had been most appropriately named, I discovered.

  Gunsmoke. Everything about it was the color of gunsmoke, grey and white. The gravel itself was a sharp grey and the drive was lined with white birches. Silver maples and silver poplars spread out behind the birches, interspersed with Japanese black pine. Blue-green Andorra junipers crowded the pines, and heavy black boulders dotted the foliage lining the drive. The impression was one of smoke: greys and whites and blue-greens and blacks. The impression was also one of wealth because it must have taken three Japanese gardeners to keep the approach to the house looking that way.

  The road continued for about half a mile, cutting in a leisurely way through the carefully landscaped approach. I rounded a bend then, and the house sprang into view.

  It was one of those long, low jobs, the kind that need a half acre for the bedroom alone. It sprawled on the rise of a hill, and the sun glistened on its windowed walls. The house seemed to be all glass and stone. It had a long, flat roof, and windows covered most of the walls from roof to foundation line. The rest was fieldstone, and, for variety, redwood was used on the gable and as facing on either side of the entrance door. I don’t know what I expected—possibly a corral and a bunk house. But this was strictly modern, the kind they call functional, the kind you find a lot of in California and warmer climates. It was certainly impressive. It was quietly regal, like a millionaire slipping a waiter a ten-cent tip. It was slender and beautiful, poised, like an ash blonde stepping out of a taxi. It was clean and trim, like a new yacht with a good crew.

  It was a house, by God, and it made my mouth water and it made me want to close that goddamned deal as soon as possible. The gravel drive ran in a circle in front of the entrance door, and then branched off to a two-car fieldstone garage set a little way off in the woods. I followed the branch and parked the Buick behind a black Caddy near the closed garage doors. I got out and sniffed the air a little, and then started toward the house.

  The gravel scrunched underfoot, making a sound as clean and as sharp as the house itself. The sound echoed in the silent woods, and I took another deep breath and thought of related items like luxury and undisturbed living, and money, and money, and money.

  The black wrought-iron knocker on the front door was a twisted combination of Cam Stewart’s initials and, curiously enough, it looked amazingly like a dollar sign, I heard footsteps inside, and then the door opened wide, and a hawk-faced gent dressed in black peered out at me. His collar was high and stiff, and he wore a black tie, and he looked like an undertaker on a holiday, or a vulture at a cocktail party. He smiled, or leered, as if he were measuring me for a coffin, and then politely asked, “Yes, sir?”


  “Cam Stewart,” I said.

  “Yes, sir, and whom shall I say is calling?”

  “Mr. Blake. Joshua Blake.”

  “One moment, sir.”

  He closed the door, and I kept looking at the dollar sign Cam Stewart’s initials made. It was most attractive. I waited for a good deal more than one moment, and then the door opened again, and the undertaker tried his fiendish grin once more. I almost shivered.

  “If you’ll follow the flagstone path around to the back, sir,” he said. “To the swimming pool.”

  “Thanks,” I told him. He nodded, still grinning evilly, his eyes studying me with professional interest. I followed the gravel until it joined a flagstone path that ran around the side of the house opposite the garage. A troop of shrubs, bushes, and trees were lined up alongside the path, guaranteeing privacy. Considering the fact that the property probably stretched for a hundred acres or so, I wondered about the necessity for the green sentinels. Perhaps Stewart went in for sunbathing, or orgies, or some damn thing—and maybe the gardeners were curious. Well, I couldn’t blame them. I was curious myself. I wanted to meet this best-selling writer. Probably resembled the horses in some of the Draw Hudson novels.

  I rounded the corner of the house and my mouth fell open when I saw the swimming pool. It glistened a pale blue under the strong rays of the sun. It was amoeba-shaped, long and loose, sprawled out over the lawn. The water looked clean and cold, and I felt like sprinting across the lawn and taking a flying leap. I didn’t.

  I didn’t because a guy and a girl were sitting in beach chairs by the pool. The girl had her back to me, and all I could see was her black hair curling down over her shoulders. The man was facing me, and whereas he didn’t resemble a horse, the fine line of distinction almost eluded me. He wore thick eyeglasses, and they caught the sun as he lifted his head now, giving him a fiery-eyed appearance. The fierceness did not go with the rest of his face. It was a perfect circle, as round as a cue ball, and just as white. He had no hair on the smooth, white skin of his head. A fringe of black hugged each ear, but that was all. To make up for this serious lack, he had grown a big black mustache under his flat nose. The mustache looked like a rubber mat upon which the nose carelessly lounged. The thick lips beneath the mustache reached out for the highball glass he held in his hand. His black eyebrows shot up onto the stretch of skin that was his forehead and his scalp at the same time.

  Cam Stewart, I thought. Portrait of a Westerner.

  I was not disappointed. I’d long since stopped being surprised by the appearance of writers.

  I smiled my best smile, extended my palm, and politely said, “Mr. Stewart?”

  The bald guy eyed me curiously, and his brows shot up again. He blinked at me, and a small smile curled the edges of his heavy mustache.

  “Mr. Stewart?” I asked again.

  “I’m Cam Stewart.”

  The voice came from behind me. It was soft and throaty, and I whirled suddenly, surprised.

  The brunette in the beach chair was wearing a bathing suit, if I may be allowed a little license. It was really a narrow white strip across her full breasts, and a shrunken white handkerchief slung over her waist. The suit was wet. It was very wet. It was so wet that it made me begin to perspire. It clung to everything it covered, and it did not cover very much.

  I blinked and said, “I beg your pardon?”

  “I’m Cam Stewart,” the brunette said again.

  “You…”

  “Camelia Stewart,” she said in that hushed voice of hers. “Cam Stewart, Mr. Blake.”

  I looked at Cam Stewart, and I recalled the vivid sex scenes that had tumbled head over keister from her typewriter. She was long, this girl, long and tawny, with skin the color of old bronze. She lounged in the beach chair barefoot, with her legs crossed, with the bathing suit soaking wet, with the curve of her hip ripe and full, with her breasts straining against the taut top of the suit. She smiled, and her lips were a cushiony red, and her eyes were a dark blue, almost black against the tan of her skin. She arched a black brow and tilted her head and the smile was a teasing one, as if she enjoyed shocking the trousers off of agents by telling them Cam Stewart was a woman.

  I swallowed my Adam’s apple and said, “I…I didn’t know. I mean…”

  “You expected a horse.”

  “Well, yes. I mean, no, hell no. I expected a man.”

  She smiled that lazy smile, and she began jiggling one foot. “And I’m not that,” she said softly.

  “No,” I said, “you are not that.”

  She waved one hand languidly, the bright red fingernails glinting in the sun. “Mr. Blake,” she said, “meet Dave Becker.”

  I took my eyes from her and turned my gaze to the moon-faced gent with the ivy under his nose.

  “How do you do, Mr. Becker?” I said.

  Becker grunted. “Fine.”

  His brows had pulled together into a deep scowl, and I gathered he didn’t like me very much. Considering the fact that he was the producer who was moving heaven and earth to get his paws on the Stewart properties, and considering the fact that I was his chief opposition, his antagonism was not exactly unexpected.

  We stood—or rather I stood while he sat—looking at each other for the space of about thirty seconds. Then Becker put down his drink, gripped the arms of his chair, and said, “So you’re the chiseler.”

  “Oh, Dave,” Cam said, covering her lips and allowing a shocked laugh to sneak through her fingers.

  “He is, Cam,” Becker said. “A stick-up artist, by Christ. A second-story man.”

  “That’s enough,” I said.

  “Sure, that’s enough. Sure. Sure.” He nodded his head, sore as hell. Then he raised those black brows again, and his eyes studied my face for a few seconds. “What the hell do you want here, Blake?”

  “My partner was killed,” I said.

  “Good,” Becker said.

  “We heard about it,” Cam said. “A terrible thing.”

  “Yes.”

  “What was so terrible about it?” Becker wanted to know. “He was even a bigger crook than Blake.”

  “Listen, Becker,” I said tightly, “how would you like to take a little swim?”

  “Never mind,” Becker said, waving his forefinger at me. “Don’t start playing strong-arm. I’ll tell you something, Blake. I just told it to Cam, and now I’ll tell it to you. You listening?”

  “I’m listening.”

  Becker nodded his head curtly. “All right. You say you got an agreement Cam Stewart signed. Okay, Cam says she never signed anything like it. She says…”

  “What?” I turned to face Cam, and she shrugged rounded, browned shoulders.

  “I really don’t remember, Mr. Blake.”

  “Well, you damn well signed,” I informed her. “You wrote a letter giving us sole and exclusive permission to handle radio and TV rights to every one of your books, provided we paid a five-hundred-dollar option. You signed that letter, and that makes it as good as gold, and our accountants have the cancelled check for the five bills. What kind of a snow job is this, anyway?”

  Cam shrugged again. “I just don’t remember.”

  “That’s a shame, Miss Stewart. Something as important as that should be remembered.”

  “All right, smart guy,” Becker said. “You say you got an option letter. How long does the option run?”

  “You asked for it, smart guy. No time limit is stated in the letter of agreement. That means it runs indefinitely, smart guy.”

  “I’m from Missouri,” Becker said sourly. “You got such a letter, then you produce it. Until that time, I’m dealing directly with Miss Stewart. The deal will go through without you, and you can damn well whistle. You got that, Blake? I’m not going to sit on something as big as this while some crook…”

  I didn’t wait for more. I yanked him out of the beach chair, and then I swung him around and grabbed the collar of his shirt and the seat of his pants. I propelled him toward the
pool let him go just at the edge, with him yelling, “You bastard!” all the way. He spread his arms wide, and when he hit the water, it looked like Old Faithful on a clear day. Cam Stewart burst out with a delighted laugh. I stood on the edge of the pool, and she continued laughing until Becker surfaced and swam to a ladder. He climbed the ladder, stood there dripping wet, and shook his fist at me.

  “Go ahead,” he said, “make jokes. See how funny it is, later. Go ahead.”

  Cam covered her mouth, trying to stop the new flow of laughter, but she couldn’t. I was glad she couldn’t, because she really laughed heartily, and when she laughed she put everything she owned into it. She owned a lot, and although the bathing suit was almost dry now, it still didn’t do much of a job. So she laughed, and she kept laughing, and I was tickled pink and ready to join her. Becker stormed off toward the house, and after a little while she stopped laughing.

  “I’m sorry about your friend,” I said.

  “That’s all right.”

  “I just don’t like being called a crook.”

  “Especially when you are one.”

  “Now, listen…”

  “I’m only teasing, Mr. Blake.” She was.

  “Then what’s all this business about not remembering the letter of agreement?”

  “I sign so many agreements,” she said.

  “And the five-hundred-dollar check?”

  “I cash so many checks.”

  I grinned. “I’ll bet you do.”

  “I do. Isn’t it disgusting?”

  “No,” I said frankly.

  She looked at me secretly. “It’s not disgusting at all. It’s the best damned thing that ever happened to me. You know what I was doing before I thought up Draw Hudson?”