* * * *
Ahead, the headlights picked up a sign:
HOPPY’S RESORT, TWO MILES.
It was a little before eleven. The rain was coming down harder now. They were about seventy miles from where they had ditched Claude’s cars and another hour’s drive from Wautoma, the town where they’d meet Curley’s group in the morning.
Saralee said, “I’m sorry.”
They were her first words since he’d told her to shut up. She’d cried for a long time. Then she’d leaned back and stared at the roof, thinking her own thoughts. Forbes didn’t push her. There’d be time for that later. First she had to regain self-control.
“I’ve never done that before,” she went on. “Gone to pieces. I was sloppy, wasn’t I? I hate sloppy women. And it wasn’t because of Claude, it was Morris. I should have known what he’d do. His excuses. He couldn’t go to just any policemen, he’d deal only with the top policemen. Gentlemen, like himself. Hell, it was in front of me all along. I just wouldn’t admit it. After all I’ve done, I was sure he’d never sacrifice me, turn me over to a beast like Claude, just to keep the world from learning about the mess he’s made of his life.”
She was undergoing some kind of catharsis, talking as much to herself as to Forbes.
“He’s not a bad man,” she added. “Not by inclination. I’m sure his conscience bothers him over this. He’s just weak. He won’t face up to things. When he has a problem he doesn’t want to think about, you know what he does? Plays with toy road races. His house in Lake Forest—the basement’s full of tracks. He sits until dawn, drinking martinis and making the little cars go around. I always let him win.”
They neared another sign: HOPPY’S RESORT, ONE MILE.
“It’s funny,” she continued. “People think I’m his mistress. And in the beginning I was. He offered protection, security. At the time that seemed important. And I liked him. Even thought I could change him, make him more responsible, even get him to marry me. He has good qualities, you know—a certain nobility, tolerance of failings in others, courage, the physical kind. I’m sure he was a great fighter pilot. But his mistress? He hasn’t made love to me in over a year. He’s not interested any more. All that gin, I guess—and since Claude came into our lives it’s been worse. No, what I was in the end was his drinking buddy, his confidante, his adviser, his mother, sister, and priest, and someone he could always beat in a road race. And I guess he figures he doesn’t even need that any more.”
She looked at Forbes. “Thanks for taking me along. Don’t worry, I’ll tell you what you want to know, but don’t rush me. It isn’t easy, bringing myself to tell it. That’s what I wanted Morris to do. He’d tell it, while I stood beside him.”
They rolled past a motel and then saw Hoppy’s, a barnlike structure huddled under a cluster of tall pines.
“Let’s stop here,” Forbes said.
A dozen people sat around at tables with checkered tablecloths. The bandstand was empty. The big tourist season wouldn’t get into full swing until the end of the month, when schools recessed. A sign over the bar announced that beginning the first week in July, a go-go girl would perform at Hoppy’s every Friday and Saturday night.
Settling in her chair, Saralee gazed at the sign in mild wonderment. “Go-go girls? Out in the sticks too?”
“Sure. What’d you expect?”
“I don’t know. But not a go-go girl. On that I’ll have a shot and a beer. Hunky style. That’s how my father’d drink. Morris never liked seeing me do that. He thought it was uncouth.”
“Your father a steelworker?”
“No. He was a history teacher. I adored him. If he’d been alive when my husband was killed, I don’t think—”
She left whatever she intended to say unsaid. When the drinks came, she downed the shot in a gulp and then sipped at the beer.
“That was good. One more and I might even be able to sleep. I haven’t slept more than a few hours a night in the last nine days.”
Forbes sipped at his own beer. “Where we’re going—it’s a small town, I don’t know what accommodations we’ll find. We won’t meet my party there until nine in the morning. But a moment ago we passed a motel. We could—”
“The motel’s fine. But about St. Clair. It doesn’t make any difference now. I don’t even want to see him. One thing I’ve always wondered though. I don’t know if you’ll tell me, but how’d you get mixed up in this in the first place? What’d St. Clair say when he asked you to find Iris Dean?”
“First, that he just wanted to be sure she was all right. Later, that she’d taken him for nine thousand dollars in a stock swindle.”
“Boy, that’s a laugh. You believe him?”
“The first time. Not the second time.”
“Well, at least the old man and I have something in common. Our life expectancies. They’re practically zero.” She reached for her purse. “I’ve changed my mind about that second drink. I’ll powder my nose. Then let’s check into that motel.”
* * * *
Saralee waited in the car while he signed them in as Mr. and Mrs. R. T. Jaraba, of Chicago, Illinois. At their unit she hurried through the rain to the shelter of the roof overhang while he got his suitcase from the trunk.
“I’m sorry,” he told her. “But we left most of the things on the road.”
“At the moment,” she replied, “I couldn’t care less.” He opened the door and she went inside. It was a large unit with a double bed at one end and some furniture at the other. “Say, this is nice.”
“After what’s happened,” he said, carrying the suitcase in, “I know you’d like to be alone for a while. But under the circumstances—”
“Alone? Are you crazy? With Claude and those goons looking for me, the last thing I want is to be alone.” Just a little, she smiled. “What are you trying to tell me? That we’re registered together? Hell, I knew you’d do that. You said you wouldn’t let me out of your sight until you had my statement.”
“I’m glad you understand. We’re adults, we’ll solve our problems. I’ve got extra pajamas, you can wear those.”
“Thanks. Mind if I take a quick warm bath and sack in soon?”
When the bathroom door closed, he hung up his jacket, unbuckled the .38’s harness and stowed the weapon in a desk drawer. He could reach the gun from the sofa where he’d be sleeping, not that one little revolver would be much protection if Claude’s crew found them.
In shirtsleeves, he draped a sheet and blanket over the sofa. He heard the bath water running, and recalling how Saralee had looked with her clothes off, he felt a surge of desire. Damn, hadn’t he learned his lesson with Helen? Saralee was at the moment a material witness in his custody. Material witness to what he didn’t know, but that was all the more reason to keep his hands off her.
He was looking at a late TV show when she came out. The pajamas were an odd fit, too tight across her breasts and rear and too loose elsewhere.
“Good movie?”
“So-so.”
He snapped the set off; she pulled the bedcovers back.
“Any more blankets around? This one looks damn thin. After that bath I’ll freeze.”
He got two blankets down and turned. Watching him, Saralee sat at the edge of the bed, knees together and hands at her sides. He found her gaze disconcerting.
“Can I ask you something personal?” She spoke slowly. “If you’d rather not answer, I won’t be offended. But your Helen—were you in love with her?”
“Love?” Damn Saralee anyhow. He walked to the bed and dropped the blankets beside her. “No. No, I wasn’t. I respected her, I had affection for her, and there was a physical attraction. I’m terribly sorry she’s dead. I was trying to break it off and I feel responsible somehow. But no, it’s not like losing someone you love.”
“In a way,” she replied, her eyes still on h
im, “it was like Morris and me, wasn’t it? In the beginning, I mean. I had affection for Morris too. And we had a good physical relationship. At least I thought we did. And he…”
Forbes understood then.
Angrily he pulled her up against him, her face a few inches from his, the fresh-scrubbed scent of her in his nostrils.
“You don’t have to talk that way to interest a man. You’re a damned desirable woman. Is this what you want? I want it, you know it. And I wouldn’t admit it if I didn’t see more in you than a body. But after all that’s happened, I don’t think either of us is quite sane tonight. I don’t think it’d be wise. And I couldn’t guarantee how we’d feel about it in the morning.”
“Yes.” Her hands closed on his back. “This is what I want.”
CHAPTER 14
He opened his eyes. The dawn’s light was murky and gray. Rain poured down now, drumming on the roof and splattering against the windows. Again an odd melancholy came over him. This, he had told Rose, would be his last case, and possibly it would end today in a little town called Wautoma. As a boy he’d read a book called Trent’s Last Case. At the end of it, what had ever happened to Trent? He couldn’t remember. But more to the point, at the end of this day what would happen to Forbes?
Saralee leaned against the open front door smoking a cigarette and looking out. Her feet and calves were bare and her raincoat hung from her shoulders cloak style.
He pushed the covers back and swung his feet to the floor. Impersonally assessing his nakedness, she looked down at him. Her lovemaking had been uninhibited, abandoned, but later he’d awakened to find her with her head on his chest, weeping silently, and he understood that too. Brutally rejected by the man for whom she’d sacrificed her self-respect, she’d used sex desperately last night as Maxwell used alcohol. It had given her temporary forgetfulness, but when it was over she found herself back in the world she’d tried to leave, and none of her problems had gone away.
“Hi,” she said. “You’re a nice kind of man.”
“Nice of you to say it. But I’m not what I used to be.”
“That’s not what I meant. But you’re nice that way too.” She flipped her cigarette away, closed the door, and walked to him. All she had on under the coat were briefs, but there was nothing overtly sexual about the situation. She was casual and wife-like, as though he’d seen her this way a thousand times.
He asked, “What time is it?”
“A little before six.”
He pulled her down beside him. “Incidentally, you’re some woman.”
She let him kiss her. When they broke, she said, “Julian Forbes. A good name for a detective. I’ll tell you something, detective. I don’t care if you believe it, but you’re only the third man I’ve ever slept with. Mike was the first. My husband. I loved him very much. Then Morris…”
He pulled her closer again, but she turned cool and impersonal. “No. Get dressed. I will too. I want to tell you now. Don’t take notes, don’t write it down. I couldn’t say it if you did. Just listen.”
A match flared as Saralee, curled in a chair, lit another cigarette. Forbes hunched nearby on the sofa, elbows on his knees and hands clasped in front of him.
“Morris,” Saralee said, “is broke. Over the years he made some very bad investments. He still has lots of money, but he owes much more. He was on the verge of personal bankruptcy when the Syndicate found him. They loaned him enough to keep him afloat, and when he learned what they had in mind it was too late. Or so he said. Even then I told him to go to the authorities, but he refused. And what they had in mind was Giveaway Stores. Morris is their front. They move stolen goods through the stores, hijacked stuff from all over the country, but that’s only part of it. The main plan’s to go bankrupt on purpose. When the roof falls in, the suppliers will be stuck with unpaid bills for millions. There’s a name for that—”
“Scam game,” Forbes said. “Usually it’s done with a small store. The owner sells or is forced out. Hoodlum fronts take over and use the old owner’s credit to order tons of merchandise, but they don’t pay for it. They sell it fast at bargain prices. They hide the cash and claim they’re bankrupt. Their records are a hopeless mess. Nobody can prove anything and the suppliers suffer a huge loss.”
“Yes. That’s Giveaway, on a grand scale. They’re using Morris’s name to buy huge amounts of merchandise on credit, and to get mortgages for new stores. An insurance company they secretly control puts up some of the mortgage money, it’s how they’re looting it. The contractors and subcontractors are Syndicate fronts too. They inflate the building costs fantastically. Already Giveaway is reneging on the mortgage payments and falling further and further behind on payments to suppliers. But Morris’s name is so big that the legitimate lenders and the suppliers are afraid to move against him. Meanwhile the debts pile up, and most of the cash taken over the counter by Giveaway disappears.”
“Where to?”
“Switzerland. A certain ambassador stationed in Washington carries it there in his diplomatic pouch. And each month or so he sent a courier, a military attaché, to Chicago to make another pickup at Powell’s restaurant. Powell’s also a Syndicate front. He fell into the trap the way Morris did. He needed cash, they loaned it to him. Hell, I don’t think his life expectancy is much now either.”
“The pickups at Powell’s—how were they made?”
“I don’t even know the courier’s name. To us he was just ‘the Major.’ Supposedly, he’d be in Chicago on business at his country’s consulate. But his last day in town he’d lunch at Powell’s. I’d be in the cloakroom. He’d check an empty satchel. While he ate, Claude and Powell would enter through a back door, put the Giveaway cash in the satchel, and lock it. The ambassador in Washington had the only other key. After lunch the Major would pick up the satchel, cab to his Loop hotel, send a boy up for his other bags, and check out. He’d ride a limousine to O’Hare and fly back to Washington. After the Major left Powell’s, the bag was his responsibility. He was under orders never to let it out of his hands.”
“That,” Forbes asked, “is what Iris and St. Clair stole?”
“Yes. The last pickup was a week ago Wednesday. It seemed to go all right, but when the ambassador opened the satchel in Washington it was full of newspapers. He turned the Major over to the Syndicate. They flew him back to Chicago in a private plane and gave him to Claude. He’s a handyman for the very top Syndicate people, he set up the whole operation. As soon as he heard the money’d been stolen, he questioned me, Powell, and Morris. Even made us take lie tests, and his men began investigating anyone who’d ever worked at the restaurant. And when he got his hands on the Major…”
Saralee shook her head. “It was awful. Claude was furious. They chained the Major to a post in the basement of a house on the West Side. Morris, Powell and I were forced to watch, to see what would happen to us if we ever talked. Even before they questioned the Major, Claude beat him. It wasn’t necessary. God knows he wanted to co-operate.”
Her hand unsteady, she flipped a long ash from her cigarette. “Well, obviously there’d been a switch. The Major recalled that he’d let the satchel out of his hands just once, in his hotel lobby. He set it on the floor while paying his bill. At that moment an elderly man walked up to him, greeted him by name, and claimed to be a retired U.S. Army colonel who’d met him at a diplomatic function. The Major didn’t recognize the man but pretended to. He’d met lots of people at diplomatic functions. After a short conversation he brushed the man off politely, paid his bill, and turned around. A young woman was now standing behind him. She’d put her suitcase down alongside what seemed to be his satchel. He picked up the satchel and went out to the limousine. For the rest of the trip the satchel was either in his lap or on the floor, his feet on it.”
“So the switch,” Forbes said, “had to have been made in the lobby.”
“Yes. Claude showed th
e Major pictures of every girl who’d ever worked at Powell’s. The Major said Iris could have been the girl behind him. When Claude learned Iris had left the Dijon the day before, the Syndicate began looking for her. As for the colonel—Claude thought it unlikely an amateur had played the role. He asked the Syndicate for photos of old crooks, con men especially, who’d be capable of posing as a retired colonel. Friday afternoon the Major identified St. Clair’s picture. And then Claude had Louie George kill the Major with a pistol.”
“What’d they do with the body?”
“I don’t know.”
“The house where they held him—could you find it?”
“I doubt it. We’d go in a closed car, park in the garage. We hardly saw anything.”
“I see.” Forbes rose and walked to a window. “Now, if Iris stood in line behind the Major in that Loop hotel—”
“They investigated that too. She’d spent Tuesday night in the hotel, registered under a fake name. So had St. Clair. And after you showed up at Iris’s hotel Friday, Claude got me into the Senator’s reception to look at you, to see if I’d ever seen you in Powell’s. He thought you might be involved. I almost told you some of this then, but couldn’t get up the nerve. Claude even followed you to Iowa. He didn’t know it was another case until he got there. But he tapped your motel phone, heard you call your secretary, and learned your client was St. Clair.”
“I imagine,” Forbes said, “Claude then reached the same conclusion I’ve just reached. Namely, that after the switch, Iris double-crossed St. Clair. Ran off with all or nearly all of the money. And that as a last resort St. Clair hired me under a pretext to find her. He wouldn’t dare look for her himself. But the meeting you wanted with St. Clair—what was that about?”
“I told Morris I couldn’t go on with it. He still balked at the police, but I got him to agree to see the old man. We’d offer money, help him leave the country, if he’d tell us how he and Iris learned about Giveaway and the courier, and who else knew. Morris said that if it seemed likely the Giveaway swindle would be exposed soon, he’d go to the authorities and make a deal. I’m sure he meant it. But he must have changed his mind this morning.”
The James Michael Ullman Crime Novel Page 72