Top Assignment

by George Harmon Coxe

  ‘A tan Zephyr sedan.’

  ‘If you know that, why ask me?’

  ‘Did you have it in town last night?’

  ‘Sure. I had to give a couple of demonstrations. It’s parked in the alley right now. What about it?’

  ‘Last night sometime after eight it was parked on Martin Street.’

  Flynn seemed about to reply and then checked himself. He tossed off the rest of the cocktail and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

  ‘Un-unh’, he said, and shook his head.

  Palmer took his time. He had believed the tailor when he said a tan foreign car had been parked outside his shop, and now he decided to embellish the truth.

  ‘I found a witness who will swear that a tan Zephyr sedan was parked there.’

  Flynn was an experienced witness and now he was ready. He glanced round, his grin crafty.

  ‘What year?’

  ‘The man didn’t say.’

  ‘What licence number?’

  Palmer found nothing he could say to that, and by now he realized he would get no further.

  ‘We’ve been selling Zephyrs for three years’, Flynn said flatly. ‘We’ve maybe sold thirty tan ones. Maybe one was parked on Martin Street last night, but not by me, brother; not by me … Gladys!’ he yelled in sudden irritation.

  ‘Coming’, came the cheerful reply.

  ‘And bring me a tie’, Flynn said.

  Palmer stood up. Because he could not outwardly admit defeat, he said: ‘Okay, Leo. Thanks. I’ll check those other thirty tan ones.’

  ‘Do that’, Flynn said, moving toward the door. ‘Hope you hit something.’

  Larry Palmer rode down in the automatic lift talking to himself, a disgruntled young man who asked himself how else he could have played his cards. Why couldn’t he have been more clever? Why did he have to play his hand so obviously? And yet, what other reaction could he have expected? If the car had been Flynn’s he would hardly admit the fact.

  This knowledge helped some, and presently he was in a side-street restaurant working on a cold roast-beef sandwich and a glass of beer. From time to time he would make a note on the sheaf of copy paper he always carried, and finally, just before two, he went out to his car and started out towards Jamaica Plain and the little house where Janet Evans was staying.

  He had no plan at the moment. He was all out of ideas, and he justified the trip by telling himself he could do his thinking just as well out there as anywhere else. That he wanted another excuse to see the girl he refused to admit, and this time, as he approached the street, he remembered the police car which had been parked there and went on for another block to circle round and approach the house from the other direction. Slowing down to a crawl as he came to the intersection he craned his neck. When he saw that the police car—or one just like it—was still there, he cramped the wheel and parked just beyond the corner. Then, following O’Neil’s instructions, he got out the copy paper again and began to work on his notes.

  For the next few minutes he alternately wrote and glanced at the house. He could not bring himself to march boldly up to the door because he could think of no reasonable excuse for doing so. But there was, he told himself, a chance that Janet might come out to do some shopping—in which case he could follow her. So thoroughly did he absorb the hope that he was not greatly surprised when the front door opened. His surprise came from the fact that it was not Janet but John Destler who hurried down the steps in his wrinkled grey suit and grey felt hat.

  Looking neither to the right nor to the left, he headed for the through street a block away, and now, as Palmer sat up, he heard a motor start. Slowly the police car nosed out from the kerb and began to move toward the corner. When it disappeared, Palmer considered his next move.

  But not for long. He had not yet made up his mind, and it could have been no more than three minutes later, when the door again opened and Janet Evans came out.

  Palmer watched her turn in the direction her uncle had taken, his surprise at seeing her starting a pleasant tingling inside him. He lifted one hand and was about to sound his horn when, unaccountably, he stopped.

  He was not sure why. It may have been the way she was dressed. For in her trim-fitting suit and shoulder bag and pumps she did not look like a young lady about to do some shopping in the neighbourhood market; she looked more like a successful young businesswoman on her way to the office. It may simply have been curiosity, or some unrecognized premonition prompted by her sudden appearance, that checked the impulse. Whatever the reason, he found himself starting the car and doing exactly as the police had done to John Destler.

  He was well behind her when she reached the corner and started across the street. Then, as he watched her, she began to run, and that scared him until he realized why. A city-bound tram—a two-car tandem job—was rolling in from the right and the girl was running for the stop on the next corner. Palmer made his turn as the cars ground to a halt, and he saw that she boarded the second one.

  For the next mile or so he had no worries. Because it seemed simpler to battle the traffic ahead of the cars, he passed them when he could and did his watching from the rear-view mirror. Not until he had gone a little farther did he recognize the problem he must presently face.

  The street was wider here, and level, and another half-mile ahead those cars would dip underground and continue that way. In the end, gambling that she would remain aboard, he speeded up, parked opposite the next stop, and joined four others who were waiting for transportation, making sure that he got on the first car. After that he kept the second car under observation, and when Janet Evans stood up as they approached Arlington, he was ready.

  By purposely waiting until the last minute before getting off he gave her a good start, and she did not even glance round as he followed her up the stairs and out into the mid-afternoon sunshine. She was crossing the street with the lights when he picked her out of the thin wave of pedestrians, and he kept his position until she turned into the bank on the corner.

  There were entrances on both streets, so now he crossed over, eyes busy in their examination, not of the people who moved in an endless stream past those two doors, but of those who stood still. He found one not too far away, a burly man who stood with his back to the bank and across the street from it, watching it in the makeshift mirror of a plate-glass store front.

  ‘That’s number one’, Palmer said half aloud, having no doubt of the man’s occupation.

  He could not be sure that the detective was one of two who had been in the police car, but when he saw the second plain-clothes man leaning idly against the fender of a sedan parked across the street he was ready to accept the premise. As if to verify the theory, John Destler presently emerged from the shadowed bank doorway and started down the street. When the two men, who had heretofore been idle, straightened and turned that way, Palmer accepted the fact that the detectives had done the same thing with the police car as he had done with his.

  Janet Evans came out of the side door about two minutes later. When she stepped out from the kerb as though looking for a taxi, Palmer started walking quickly in the direction from which the traffic was coming on this one-way street. He found a taxi stand on the next corner and told the driver what he wanted.

  ‘Sure’, the man said, and together they watched until the girl stepped into a cruising cab which had stopped for her. Once the light changed and the two cabs started up, Palmer left the job to the driver while he considered the scene he had witnessed.

  The mechanics of the explanation that came to him were simple enough. A plan had been made and neatly executed in spite of police surveillance.

  John Destler had left his house empty-handed and travelled by tram to his bank. His niece had left shortly thereafter, also empty-handed. The difference in time had given Destler a chance to acquire a parcel he had not had earlier, apparently from a safe-deposit box, because although he had gone on his way still empty-handed, the girl now carried a brown-paper package
that could only have been given her in the bank.

  There was not much to the chase. A few minutes later the two taxis came out on Atlantic Avenue and headed towards South Station. Here the girl left the cab; when she entered the station, Palmer was fifty feet or more behind her.

  Once inside, she showed no indecision, but walked at once to a long line of parcel lockers on the right. When she found an empty one, she put her parcel inside, took out the key, and deposited it in her purse. By the time she turned toward the entrance Palmer had already started to circle from the opposite direction. He passed the locker without slowing down, mentally noting the number on the key slot as he continued.

  He caught up with her on the sidewalk, moving alongside and touching her on the arm and feeling it stiffen as she stopped and jerked back.

  ‘Hello’, he said, and grinned.

  He stood quite close, looking right at her, and in that first second her blue eyes did many things almost simultaneously. At first startled and uncertain, there came a quick gleam of recognition that was almost a smile, to be followed instantly by a coldly hostile glint that could not quite disguise the sudden fear beneath it.

  She caught her breath and stammered: ‘What—how did—’

  ‘I didn’t mean to startle you.’

  ‘You followed me’, she said, her voice tight.

  ‘What about a drink?’ Palmer said. ‘Or maybe a soda?’

  ‘No, thanks.’

  She began to walk away from him and he fell into step. He could see now that the tailored suit he had admired was sharkskin and just as smart as Isabel Chapman’s, which had probably cost four times as much. The shoulder bag was maroon leather, the medium-blonde hair gleamed softly under the open sky, the curled ends bouncing a little as she walked. Her face was set, the jaw tight, the gaze stony and fixed straight ahead.

  ‘It was a despicable thing to do.’

  ‘It could be worse.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘It could have been a cop instead of me.’

  She looked at him then, eyes flaring. ‘Is that worse?’ she said furiously.

  He did not answer, and again her mouth tightened. Her whole attitude suggested that she could never possibly speak to him again, but for all of that he kept pace, knowing that he had to make her talk even if he had to bully her.

  ‘There was a police car in front of the house’, he said.

  ‘We knew that.’

  ‘Is that why you figured out your scheme?’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

  Palmer cleared his throat and tried again, admiring her spunk but not discouraged by it.

  ‘The cops followed your uncle and I followed you.’

  Silence.

  ‘I want to talk to you.’

  More silence.

  ‘You’re making it tough for yourself, he said. ‘I don’t want to have to go the the police and tell them about that package in locker K-133.’

  For another three or four steps she maintained her pace; then she faltered and the stiffness went from her shoulders.

  ‘Where do you want to have the soda?’ she said.

  They had been bucking the crowds as they headed toward Washington, and now, spotting a café across the street, he guided her towards it. Not the sort of place Palmer would have liked to take her, it was nevertheless close, and there was an empty booth near the rear.

  ‘Now what’s it all about?’ he asked gently when he had given their order.

  ‘I’m not sure I know.’ She had been looking down at her bag and now she glanced up, her gaze fixed. ‘And what good does it do to tell you if you’re going to the police?’

  ‘I didn’t say I was going to the police’, Palmer said. ‘I’m trying to find out about a murder. It’s my assignment. I happen to like the assignment, but that’s beside the point. I don’t think your uncle is involved in that murder, but he might know something about the background that would help.’

  ‘If you want to know what’s in that package,’ she said, ‘I can’t tell you because I don’t know.’

  ‘He must have told you something.’

  ‘He told me quite a few things. I know he’s badly frightened or he wouldn’t have asked me to come up here. It’s about the only favour he ever asked of me or my mother. This morning he made up his mind about something, because he said he had to get a package out of his safe-deposit box today. He said it would be better if I didn’t know what was in it.’

  She paused while the waitress put down the sodas and then said: ‘He said he’d had the package for a long time and he had to move it. I know he’s had the box quite a while because I paid the rent for it one year when—he was in prison … A man came to see me in New York’, she said, her voice remote. ‘He said he’d been a friend of Uncle John’s and he’d just been released and he had a message for me: would I please pay the rent on such-andsuch a safe-deposit box at such-and-such a bank? I sent them a cheque.’

  ‘He’ll have to keep moving it’, Palmer said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘That dime you put in that locker is only good for twenty-four hours.’

  ‘I imagine he knows that.’

  She concentrated on her soda and so did Palmer while he put his thoughts in order. A little later he said:

  ‘I didn’t know he had any relations.’

  ‘There weren’t any except Mother and me. I never saw him but a half-dozen times in my life, so I was never close to him. I never knew how much he did for us, for me especially, until just before Mother died.’

  She pushed her glass aside and then she was talking, the distance growing in her voice again and in her eyes, as though she was not aware of him or of anything in the room. She spoke of a father who was no more than a hazy memory because he had died when she was young, of this uncle who was hardly more than a name since she seldom saw him, but a reality for all of that because there was always a fine present for birthdays and Christmas with a card signed Uncle John.

  Her mother, she said, was a schoolteacher. Not a trained one, but turning to teaching to support herself and her daughter, always in the lower grades because of the lack of this training and never, in those days, making much money. In Janet’s own high-school years John Destler had sent a monthly cheque to help out, though she had not known about this until later.

  ‘I got a scholarship at college,’ she said, ‘that took care of tuition and books. I was always able to earn something myself and Uncle John took care of the rest, though it came through Mother until, at the beginning of my sophomore year, she had to take a leave of absence. They had found a spot on one lung and she had to go to Saranac for several months. I guess Mother told him I was going to drop out of school and he insisted that I stay. At that time all I knew was that he had always sent money and I thought he could probably afford it. I was grateful and wrote him to say so … I think that’s when he began to make out those false birth certificates.’

  Her glance came back to him and now all that tension had gone from her. The curve of her mouth was soft and her eyes were concerned, as though it was important that she make him understand.

  ‘He won’t admit it’, she said. ‘He says I had nothing to do with it, that he saw a chance to make some easy money and was fool enough to take it. He was looking forward to retirement and he needed more money and didn’t expect to get caught … I’ll never believe that’, she said, and shook her head.

  ‘It was me, and my mother, and expenses he couldn’t meet. Pride maybe, because he’d always helped us and wouldn’t admit he couldn’t continue to do so. For those three years while I was finishing college he was making out those certificates for that other man to sell. If we hadn’t needed all that extra money he never would have done it. Why should he? He would have had a pension in another few years … I had my first job when he was arrested,’ she said, ‘and Mother passed away before he was released.’

  Palmer believed her. He wanted to say so, to reassure her of his sympathy and u
nderstanding. When he could not find the words he reached out to cover one of her hands and press it briefly. He had an idea that she, too, had been grappling with a problem which had grown too big for her, and he knew it was good that she could talk like this, without fear or prejudice. It also made him a little proud to know that she must finally trust him.

  ‘When did he get in touch with you?’ he asked.

  ‘Last Friday. He phoned me at the office. He said he was worried about some things and wondered if I could come to see him. He was very apologetic because I think he hated to ask me for anything. He was afraid I’d be ashamed of him … I came up Saturday’, she said. ‘I hadn’t taken my vacation, and that was lucky because I have three weeks.’

  ‘How long has he been out of jail?’

  ‘About nine months, I think.’

  ‘Do you know why he should call you last week instead of last month or the month before?’

  Her brows puckered as she considered this, and then she nodded.

  ‘About ten days ago,’ she said, ‘three men came to see him. They had all bought birth certificates two or three years ago. All were working here and had families and felt they were safe. Until about a year ago when the man who sold them the certificates—’

  ‘Leo Flynn’, Palmer said, already sensing what she would say.

  ‘—told them they would have to make a small payment if they wanted to stay in the country. Not much, just ten per cent of their wages. They paid because they were frightened. They had to keep on paying.’

  Palmer swore under his breath and she looked up.

  ‘I’m sorry’, he said, aware that there was no point in expressing the contempt and revulsion he felt for Leo Flynn. ‘Go on.’

  ‘Well, they couldn’t complain to the police for fear of being deported. Yet they were desperate because they couldn’t afford that ten per cent. They came to Uncle John, not to threaten him, but to appeal to him.’

  She sighed and said: ‘You can imagine what that did to him—or maybe you can’t, since you don’t know him. He did a dishonest thing, yes. But he also has a sense of fairness and a resentment of injustice. He was so angry when he realized what was happening to these men—and probably others like them—that he went to Flynn and threatened him, and then he knew that was silly because to expose Flynn would mean exposing the others.’