Half an hour later, I wished that I'd not only offered but had insisted. Ollie Bookman was a poor driver. Not a fast driver or a dangerous one, just sloppy. The way he grated gears made my teeth grate with them and his starts and stops were much too jerky. Besides, he was a lane–straddler and had no sense of timing on making stop lights.
But he was a good talker. He talked almost incessantly, and to good purpose, briefing me, mostly by apparently talking to Eve. “Don't remember if I told you, Eve, how come Ed and I have different last names, but the same father – not the same mother. See, I was Dad's son by his first marriage and Ed by his second – Ed was born Ed Bookman. But Dad died right after Ed was born and Ed's mother, my stepmother, married Wilkes Cartwright a couple years later. Ed was young enough that they changed his name to match his stepfather's, but I was already grown up, through high school anyway, so I didn't change mine. I was on my own by then. Well, both Ed's mother and his stepfather are dead now; he and I are the only survivors. Well ...” And I listened and filed away facts. Sometimes he'd cut me in by asking me questions, but the questions always cued in their own answers or were ones that wouldn't be giveaways whichever way I answered them, like, “Ed, the house you were born in, out north of town – is it still standing, or haven't you been out that way recently?”
I was fairly well keyed in on family history by the time we got home.
Home wasn't as I'd pictured it, a house. It was an apartment, but a big one – ten rooms, I learned later – on
Coleman Boulevard
just north of Howard. It was the fourth floor, but there were elevators. Now that I thought of it, I realized that Ollie, because of his angina, wouldn't be able to live in a house where he had to climb stairs. But later I learned they'd been living there ever since they'd married, so he hadn't had to move there on account of that angle. It was a fine apartment, nicely furnished and with a living room big enough to contain a swimming pool.
“Come on, Ed,” Ollie said cheerfully. “I'll show you your room and let you get rid of your suitcase, freshen up if you want to – although I imagine we'll all be turning in soon. You must be tired after that long trip. Eve, could we talk you into making a round of Martinis meanwhile?”
“Yes, Oliver.” The perfect wife, she walked toward the small but well–stocked bar in a corner of the room.
I followed Ollie to the guest room that was to be mine. “Might as well unpack your suitcase while we talk,” he said, after he closed the door behind us. “Hang your stuff up or put it in the dresser there. Well, so far, so good. Not a suspicion, and you're doing fine.”
“Lots of questions I've still got to ask you, Ollie. We shouldn't take time to talk much now, but when will we have a chance to?”
“Tomorrow. I'll say I have to go downtown, make up some reasons. And you've got your excuse already – the business you came to do. Maybe you can get it over with sooner than you thought – but then decide, since you've come this far anyway, to stay out the week. That way you can stick around here as much as you want, or go out only when I go out.”
“Fine. We'll talk that out tomorrow. But about tonight, we'll be talking, the three of us, and what can I safely talk about? Does she know anything about the size of my business, or can I improvise freely and talk about it?”
“Improvise your head off. I've never talked about your business. Don't know much about it myself.”
“Good. Another question. How come, at only twenty–five, I've got a business of my own? Most people are still working for somebody else at that age.”
“You inherited it from your stepfather, Cartwright. He died three years ago. You were working in the shop and moved to the office and took over. And as far as I know, or Eve, you're doing okay with it.”
“Good. And I'm not married?”
“No, but if you want to invent a girl you're thinking about marrying, that's another safe thing you can improvise about.”
I put the last of the contents of my suitcase in the dresser drawer and we went back to the living room. Eve had the cocktails made and was waiting for us. We sat around sipping at them, and this time I was able to do most of the talking instead of having to let Ollie filibuster so I wouldn't put my foot into my mouth by saying something wrong.
Ollie suggested a second round but Eve stood up and said that she was tired and that if we'd excuse her, she'd retire. And she gave Ollie a wifely caution about not having more than one more drink. He promised he wouldn't and made a second round for himself and me.
He yawned when he put his down after the first sip. “Guess this will be the last one, Ed. I'm tired, too. And we'll have plenty of time to talk tomorrow.”
I wasn't tired, but if he was, that was all right by me. We finished our nightcaps fairly quickly.
“My room's the one next to yours,” he told me as he took our glasses back to the bar.
“No connecting door, but if you want anything, rap on the wall and I'll hear you. I'm a light sleeper.”
“So am I,” I told him, “So make it vice versa on the rapping. I'm the one that's supposed to be protecting you, not the other way around.”
“And Eve's room is the one on the other side of mine. No connecting door there, either. Not that I'd use it, at this stage, even if it stood wide open with a red carpet running through it.”
“She's still a beautiful woman,” I said, just to see how he'd answer it.
“Yes. But I guess I'm by nature monogamous. And this may sound corny and be corny, but I consider Dorothy and me married in the sight of God. She's all I'll ever want, she and the boy. Well, come on, and we'll turn in.”
I turned in, but I didn't go right to sleep. I lay awake thinking, sorting out my preliminary impressions. Eve Bookman – yes, I believed Ollie's story about their marriage and didn't even think it was exaggerated. Most people would think her sexy as hell to look at her, but I've got a sort of radar when it comes to sexiness. It hadn't registered with a single blip on the screen. And Koslovsky is a much better than average judge of people and what had he said about her? Oh, yes, he'd called her a cold potato.
Some women just naturally hate sex and men – and some of those very women become things like strip teasers because it gives them pleasure to arouse and frusrate men. If one of them breaks down and has an affair with a man, it's because the man has money, as Ollie had, and she thinks she can hook him for a husband, as Eve did Ollie. And once she's got him safely hog–tied, he's on his own and she can be her sweet, frigid self again. True, she's given up the privilege of frustrating men in audience–size groups, but she can torture the hell out of one man, as long as he keeps wanting her, and achieve respectability and even social position while she's doing it. Oh, she'd been very pleasant to me, very hospitable, and no doubt was pleasant to all of Ollie's friends. And most of them, the ones without radar, probably thought she was a ball of fire in bed and that Ollie was a very lucky guy.
But murder – I was going to take some more convincing on that. It could be Ollie's imagination entirely. The only physical fact he'd come up with to indicate even the possibility of it was the business of the missing will. And she could have taken and destroyed that but still have no intention of killing him before he could make another like it; she could simply be hoping he'd never discover that it was missing.
But I could be wrong, very wrong. I'd met Eve less than three hours ago and Ollie had lived with her eight years. Maybe there was more than met the eye. Well, I'd keep my eyes open and give Ollie a run for his five hundred bucks by not assuming that he was making a murder out of a molehill. I went to sleep and Ollie didn't tap on my wall.
I woke at seven but decided that would be too early and that I didn't want to make a nuisance of myself by being up and around before anybody else, so I went back to sleep and it was half past nine when I woke the second time. I got up, showered and shaved – my bedroom had a private bath so all of them must have – dressed and went exploring. I went back to the living room and through it, and f
ound a dining room. The table was set for breakfast for three but no one was there yet. A matronly–looking woman who'd be a cook or housekeeper – I later learned that she was both and her name was Mrs. Ledbetter – appeared in the doorway that led through a pantry to the kitchen and smiled at me. “You must be Mr. Bookman's brother,” she said. “What would you like for breakfast?”
“What time do the Bookmans come down for breakfast?” I asked.
“Usually earlier than this. But I guess you talked late last night. They should be up soon, though.”
“Then I won't eat alone, thanks. I'll wait till at least one of them shows up. And as for what I want – anything; whatever they will be having. I'm not fussy about breakfasts.”
She smiled and disappeared into the kitchen and I disappeared into the living room. I took a chair with a magazine rack beside it and was leafing through the latest Reader's Digest, just reading the short items in it, when Ollie came in looking rested and cheerful. “Morning, Ed. Had breakfast?”
I told him I'd been up only a few minutes and had decided to wait for company. “Come on, then,” he said. “We won't wait for Eve. She might be dressing now, but then again she might sleep till noon.”
But she didn't sleep till noon; she came in when we were starting our coffee, and told Mrs. Ledbetter that she'd just have coffee, as she had a lunch engagement in only two hours. So the three of us sat drinking coffee and it was very cozy and you wouldn't have guessed there was a thing wrong. You wouldn't have guessed it, but you might have felt it. Anyway, I felt it.
Ollie asked me if I wanted a lift downtown to do the business I'd come to do, and of course I said that I did. We discussed plans. Mrs. Ledbetter, I learned, had the afternoon and evening off, starting at noon, so no dinner would be served that evening. Eve would be gone all afternoon, playing bridge after her lunch date, and she suggested we all meet in the Loop and have dinner there. I wasn't supposed to know Chicago, of course, so I let them pick the place and it came up the Pump Room at seven. Ollie and I left and on the way to the garage back of the building, I asked him if he minded if I drove the Buick. I said I liked driving and didn't get much chance to. “Sure, Ed. But you mean you and Am don't have a car?”
I told him we wanted one but hadn't got around to affording it as yet. The few times we needed one for work, we rented one and simply got by without one for pleasure. The Buick handled wonderfully. With me behind the wheel, it shifted smoothly, didn't jerk in starting or stopping; it timed stop lights and didn't straddle lanes. I asked how much it cost and said I hoped we'd be able to afford one like it someday. Except that we'd want a sedan because a convertible is too noticeable to use for a tail job. When we rented cars, we usually got a sedan in some neutral color like gray. Detectives used to use black cars, but nowadays a black car is almost as conspicuous as a red one. I asked Ollie where he wanted me to drive him and he said he'd like to go to see Dorothy Stark and his son, Jerry. They lived in an apartment on LaSalle near Chicago Avenue. And did I have any plans or would I like to come up to meet them? He said he would like that.
I told him I'd drop up briefly if he wanted me to, but that I had plans. I wanted him to lend me the key to his apartment and I was going back there, after I could be sure both Mrs. Ledbetter and Mrs. Bookman had left. Since it was the former's afternoon off, it would be the best chance I'd have to look around the place in privacy. He said sure, the key was on the ring with the car keys and I might as well keep the keys, car and all, until our dinner date at the Pump Room. It would be only a short cab ride for him to get there from Mrs. Stark's. I asked him if there was any danger that
Eve would go back to the apartment after her lunch date and before her bridge game. He was almost sure that she wouldn't, but her bridge club broke up about five thirty and she'd probably go back then to dress for dinner. That was all right; I could be gone by then.
When I parked the car on LaSalle, I remembered to ask him who I was supposed to be when I met Mrs. Stark – Ed Hunter or Ed Cartwright. He suggested we stick to the Cartwright story; if he told Dorothy the truth, she'd worry about him being in danger. Anyway, it would be simpler and take less explanation.
I liked Dorothy Stark on sight. She was small and brunette, with a heart–shaped face. Only passably pretty – nowhere near as stunning as Eve – but she was warm and genuine, the real thing. And really in love with Ollie; I didn't need radar to tell me that. And Jerry, age two, was a cute toddler. I can take kids or let them alone, but Ollie was nuts about him.
I stayed only half an hour, breaking away with the excuse of having a business–lunch date in the Loop, but it was a very pleasant half hour, and Ollie was a completely different person here. He was at home in this small apartment, much more so than in the large apartment on Coleman Boulevard. And you had the feeling that Dorothy was his wife, not Eve. I was only half a dozen blocks from the office and I didn't want to get out to Coleman Boulevard before one o'clock, so I drove over to State Street and went up to see if Uncle Am was there. He was, and I told him what little I'd learned to date and what my plans were.
“Kid,” he said, “I'd like a ride in that chariot you're pushing. How about us having an early lunch and then I'll go out with you and help search the joint. Two of us can do twice as good a job.”
It was tempting but I thumbed it down. If a wheel did come off and Eve Bookman came back unexpectedly, I could give her a song and dance as to what I was doing there, but Uncle Am would be harder to explain. I said I'd give him a ride, though. We could leave now and he could come with me out as far as Howard Avenue and we'd eat somewhere out there; then he could take the el back south from the Howard station. It would amount only to his taking a two–hour lunch break and we did that any time we felt like it.
He liked the idea. I let him drive the second half of the way and he fell in love with the car, too. After we had lunch, I phoned the apartment from the restaurant and let the phone ring a dozen times to make sure both Mrs. Bookman and Mrs. Ledbetter were gone. Then I drove Uncle Am to the el station and myself to the apartment.
I let myself in and put the chain on the door. If Eve came back too soon, that was going to be embarrassing to explain; I'd have to say I'd done it absent–mindedly and it would make me look like a fool. But it would be less embarrassing than to have her walk in and find me rooting in the drawers of her dresser.
First, I decided, I'd take a look at the place as a whole. The living room, dining room, and the guest bedroom were the only rooms I'd been in thus far. I decided to start at the back. I went through the dining room and the pantry into the kitchen. It was a big kitchen and had the works in the way of equipment, even an automatic dishwasher and garbage disposal. A room on one side of it was a service and storage room and on the other side was a bedroom; Mrs. Ledbetter's, of course. I looked around in all three rooms but didn't touch anything. I went back to the dining room and found that the door from it led to a room probably intended as a den or study; there was a desk – an old–fashioned roll–top desk that was really an antique – two file cabinets, a bookcase filled mostly with books on construction and business practice with a few novels on one shelf, mostly mysteries, a typewriter on a stand, and a dictating machine.
This was Ollie's office, from which he conducted whatever business he still did. And the dictating machine meant he must have a part–time secretary, however many days or hours a week. He'd hardly dictate letters and then transcribe them himself.
The roll–top desk was closed but not locked. I opened it and saw a lot of papers and envelopes in pigeonholes, but I didn't study any of them. Ollie's business was no business of mine. But I wondered if he'd used the “Purloined Letter” method of hiding his missing will by having it in plain sight in one of those pigeonholes. And if so, what had Eve been looking for when she found it? I made a mental note to ask him about that. There was a telephone on top of the desk and I looked at the number on it; it wasn't the same number as that on the phone in the living room, which meant i
t wasn't an extension but a private line.
I closed the desk and went back to the living room and through its side doorway to the hall from which the bedrooms opened. Another door from it turned out to be a linen closet.
Ollie's bedroom was the same size as mine and furnished in the same way. I walked over to the dresser. A little bottle on it contained nitro–glycerin pills. It held a hundred and was about half full. Beside it were three glass ampoules of amyl nitrite like the one in my pocket, the one I'd got from Doc Kruger last night at dinner. I looked at the ampoules and decided that they hadn't been tampered with. Couldn't be tampered with, in fact. But I took a couple of the nitro pills out of the bottle and put them in my pocket. If I had a chance to get them to Uncle Am, I'd ask him to take them to a laboratory and have them checked to make sure they were really what the label claimed them to be.
I didn't search the room thoroughly, but I looked through the dresser drawers and the closet. I wasn't sure what I was looking for, unless maybe a gun. If Ollie kept a gun, I wanted to know it. But I didn't find a gun or anything else more dangerous than a nail file. Eve Bookman's room was, of course, the main object of my search, but I wasn't in any hurry and decided I'd do a little thinking before I tackled it. I went back to the living room and since it occurred to me that if Eve was coming back between lunch and bridge, this would be about the time, I took the chain off the door. It wouldn't matter if I was found here, as long as I was innocently occupied. I could just say that I was unable to see the man I'd come to see until tomorrow. And that Ollie – Oliver to her – had had things to do in the Loop and had lent me his car and his house key.
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