After Midnight

by Nielsen, Helen

  “No. But I have a nose. I can recognize the scent of marijuana, and I know where it leads. Did Wanda Call know what kind of place she danced in?”

  “The kid? She was a baby! For her the world began yesterday every morning.”

  “And she never had a blast?”

  “Never! Me neither. I lost a husband that way. Once you’ve been dragged down that route, you never go back again.”

  “And what about Roger Warren?”

  “Why ask me about Roger Warren? I never slept with him. He was just a good looking young guy out for kicks. That’s all I know. Now clear out of here. I’ve got a number in five minutes.”

  Simon didn’t move.

  “Roger was a rebel,” he said. “Rebels sometimes go to extremes.”

  The noise Simon had locked outside when he came into Clarissa’s dressing room suddenly grew louder. He turned about just as the door opened and the man he had seen with Clarissa in Duane Thompson’s office before the hearing stepped inside. He closed the door behind him and the noise receded. Then he stood glaring at Simon.

  “Eddie,” Clarissa whined, “this is Simon Drake. He’s been pumping me about Wanda and Roger.”

  “Why?” Eddie demanded.

  Simon remembered Hannah’s idée fixe and grabbed it to lean on.

  “Personal reasons,” he said. “I’ve got a thing going for Wanda. I wanted some background material before I make my move.”

  “He’s lying!” Clarissa said. “He’s been pumping me about marijuana and heroin—”

  Eddie was a small man, neat and conservative in a black suit and a white shirt with a narrow gray silk tie. He might have been a bank clerk or a shoe salesman. But now, because Clarissa had spoken two words, his eyes hardened and the muscles about his mouth pulled back until his lips disappeared.

  “Drake,” he said quietly, “I think it’s time for you to leave now.”

  “That’s what I told him,” Clarissa said.

  “Shut up! You told him too much! All women talk too much! Now, Mr. Drake, take your love life problems somewhere else. We’ve got a show to put on.”

  “Is it your operation?” Simon asked.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about!”

  Simon had touched a raw nerve somewhere, but he wasn’t sure where it was. He had to try bluffing.

  “You’re too scared not to know what I’m talking about,” he said.

  The bluff didn’t work. “I’m scared?” Eddie echoed.

  “You’re crazy. You’re the one who should be scared. Let me tell you something, Mr. Society Lawyer. This isn’t your turf. Things here aren’t the way they are in Marina Beach. You step on somebody’s toes and you get stepped on right back. Like, I know a guy who made trouble for himself on the dance floor one night. Now that music is wild, man. It does things to people inside like that Frenchman, Ravel, did with his Bolero. I got a kid sister in high school. She tells me this Frenchy wrote something that drove people so nuts they tore up the hall the first time it was played. Well, it’s that way here.”

  “I don’t watusi,” Simon said.

  “But you got an eye for dames, right? So you’re innocently walking across the dance floor and somebody thinks you’re getting fresh with his girl. You keep on walking and you go outside to get your car. But this guy I’m telling you about never made it. One of those Caddys the boys were parking got out of hand and ran right over him. He was in the hospital three months, Mr. Drake, and he’s never going to walk again without crutches.”

  “You’ve made your point,” Simon said.

  Eddie’s lips came back and parted in a brief, humorless smile.

  “That’s the legal mind for you,” he said. “It digs. Take your chick, Mr. Drake. She’s been hurt and needs protection. Take her and close the door on the past. Okay?”

  Eddie wasn’t the talkative type. He hadn’t said one word more than was absolutely necessary to convey an important message. Abruptly, he dismissed Simon. He turned to Clarissa.

  “Get dressed for your number,” he ordered, “and tonight give it some feeling. Give it some soul.”

  Clarissa picked up a purple velvet and sequin-studded G-string and looked questioningly at Simon.

  “She wants to dress,” Eddie said. “She’s modest.”

  That wasn’t at all what the look meant. Clarissa was merely obeying her predatory instinct.

  “You might stick around out front, Mr. Drake,” she suggested, “and catch my act.”

  “No, thanks,” Simon said. “When you’ve had it all with the hors d’oeuvres, why wait around for the entrée?”

  Simon left the dressing room feeling as secure as a South Vietnam government. He walked back across the floor the way he had come—threading through the hysterically writhing bodies and keeping alert for the one who might have been ordered to give him some memories to take home. A man who wasn’t apprehensive in such an atmosphere shouldn’t be out without a nursemaid. He made it to the street without incident and stood close to the side of the building while the boy brought the Rolls from the back lot. He was a huge, blunt featured oaf with hair hanging to his neckband and totally expressionless eyes. Simon didn’t leave the shelter of the building until the boy was out of the car and standing with his hand outstretched for the tip.

  Simon gave him a dollar.

  “Big shot!” the boy said. “Wanna sign my autograph book?”

  “Don’t brag so much,” Simon answered. “I know you can’t read.”

  He was safely behind the steering wheel by that time with the motor ticking smoothly and everything under control for an instant departure. He released the brake and shot forward into a street that was completely empty one moment and then, suddenly, wasn’t. Simon hit the brakes and stopped inches away from the sedan that blocked his exit. At the same instant, a blinding light beamed on the windshield of the Rolls directly into his eyes. He ducked away from the light and brought one hand up to protect his face from an expected blow. Instead, there was only a soft male drawl at the window.

  “There can only be one Rolls this red even in Southern California.—Simon Drake?”

  It was the accumulation of shocks that caused Simon’s arm to drop limply on the steering wheel. The repetition of “Infidelity” at the supper club; the brake failure with the Jaguar and the pursuing car; and, recently, Eddie’s lecture on the pitfalls of his own particular jungle. All of these added up to a reaction that made the man who now stood at the window of the Rolls look beautiful. He wore the uniform of the state police.

  “Mr. Drake,” the officer said, “I’ve got orders to take you back to Marina Beach. The authorities up there are looking for you.”

  Simon vaguely remembered Hannah’s message from Duane Thompson.

  “Why?” he asked.

  “There’s been another violent death.”

  And then Simon could hear nothing but the way the door of the house on Seacliff Drive banged in the wind—until he remembered that the lock had caught on the door before he left Wanda alone, and Duane Thompson had been calling for him even before he returned to The Mansion.

  “Who—?” he asked.

  “Somebody you’re supposed to have seen earlier today, Mr. Drake,” the officer said. “A man named Charles Becker.”

  The blow that had laced across the back of Charley Becker’s skull when he leaned forward to look for the gin wasn’t lethal. What killed him was the water in his lungs, and no autopsy could determine if the blow was sustained before he went into the ocean or by contact with the pier understructure after the drop. An oil slick on the pier was too marred by footprints of would-be rescuers to leave evidence of faulty footing, and Becker’s death would have been listed as unquestionably accidental if Simon Drake hadn’t visited the pier an hour before the body was found. Sam Robbins, the cook, discovered the body. He emerged from the kitchen shortly before noon to find a dozen customers and nobody to serve them. He went out to the boat deck, saw Becker’s yachting cap beside the oil s
lick, and called the police. A deputy sheriff hauled the body from the water with an assist from McKay, Commander Warren’s mate, who watched the shore activity from the yacht until curiosity impelled him to row ashore and investigate.

  At half-past twelve, that night in Lieutenant Franzen’s office in the Marina Beach City Hall, both Robbins and McKay affirmed Simon’s presence at The Cove fourteen hours earlier. Duane Thompson, still smarting from the defeat Simon had dealt him at the hearing, was present to hang on every word. Simon Drake had won his case; Thompson still had an unsolved murder on his hands.

  “Mr. Drake,” he said sharply, “you’ve had a busy day. According to Mr. Robbins, you rented a boat from Charles Becker early this morning and went out to visit Commander Warren on his yacht? Were you invited?”

  “Challenged,” Simon said. “I woke up this morning with the television set turned to the commander’s ‘press conference.’ He made some unflattering remarks about Mrs. Warren’s defense attorney.”

  “You quarreled, then?”

  “I wouldn’t say that. Why don’t you ask the commander?”

  Thompson was transparent. The commander’s political backing was important to him. He knew about that $25,000 offer, and it must be torture to realize how narrowly it had missed going into his campaign fund.

  “I shall, Mr. Drake. I shall,” Thompson said. “But the reason you were brought here was because, so far as we can ascertain, you were the last person to see Charles Becker alive. Where was he when you left him?”

  “Listening to the juke box,” Simon said.

  “I’m serious!”

  “So am I. If you want details, it was a piece titled: ‘Baby, Baby, Cry for Me,’ and it was my dime.”

  “Who else was in the place when you left?”

  “So far as I know—nobody. I mean, no customers. I assume Mr. Robbins was in the kitchen. I never saw him.”

  “I did hear the juke box play once,” Robbins recalled. “I remembered wondering who was at it so early in the day.”

  Thompson ignored the comment.

  “Did Becker say anything about going out to the boats before you left?” he asked Simon.

  “No,” Simon answered. “We talked about other things.”

  “What things?”

  “Various things. Something about why Roger Warren never went deep sea fishing in a deep sea fishing boat.”

  Duane Thompson took a white linen handkerchief from his hip pocket and patted the perspiration from his forehead. It was a rather chilly evening, but Thompson was the kind of man who excited easily and perspired freely even in those profoundly democratic shirtsleeves.

  “Franzen,” he said, “I see no reason to detain Mr. Robbins and Mr. McKay any longer. They’ve completed the identification.”

  It was a dirty trick. Both men were as eager as Thompson to know why and how Becker had dropped off the pier and now they were forced to leave. When they were gone, Thompson took Simon back to his own office and closed the door.

  “Mr. Drake,” he said, “just what the hell are you up to? No, don’t answer until I bring you up to date on what we know. You went to The Cove, rented a boat and went out to see Commander Warren. We’ve touched on that part of your day. But later you visited The Profile, where Roger Warren worked before his death, and tonight you took Mrs. Warren to dinner at the Sans Souci.”

  “You’ve had me tailed,” Simon said. “Why?”

  “Let me finish. I left word at your house for you to call when you came in. Why didn’t you?”

  “I had to go out again.”

  “Yes, you had to go out again. You had to go to the club in Santa Monica where Wanda Warren danced before her marriage. And you weren’t tailed there. I played a hunch. Why have you made this circuit of Roger Warren’s haunts today? What are you looking for?”

  “Money,” Simon said. “Mrs. Warren owes me a fee.”

  It was a blunt answer, and it stopped Thompson in his tracks. Everybody knew Simon Drake was expensive. The district attorney shuffled a few papers on his desk and switched tactics.

  “What happened to your Jaguar?” he asked. “Why did you take Miss Lee’s car to Santa Monica?”

  Simon laughed.

  “So that’s why I wasn’t tailed that far. Your man lost me. I had to switch cars. My brake fluid gave out.”

  “Where’s your car now?”

  “At Turner’s Twenty-Four-Hour Garage—I hope. I telephoned them where to pick it up…. Is that why you had me brought back here—to get an hourly report on my day?”

  “I brought you back because Charles Becker’s dead,” Thompson snapped. “Now that we don’t have an audience you can give me the answer to your riddle. Why didn’t Roger Warren go deep sea fishing in a deep sea fishing boat?”

  “I don’t know,” Simon said. “If I did, I might know who killed him.”

  “And Charles Becker?”

  “Probably.”

  Thompson took out a cigarette case and offered it to Simon. Simon declined and Thompson helped himself. Over the desk lighter, he studied Simon’s face. They were two skilled pros on opposite sides of the same case and one of them was going to lose. Thompson had too much at stake to be that loser.

  “I think you’re bluffine,” he said. “Commander Warren called me this morning after you left the yacht. He thinks you bribed Nancy Armitage to change her testimony. If he’s right, I’m going to nail you for it, Drake, and it will take more than your big brown eyes, your courtroom manner and your money to get un-nailed.”

  That was the fun thing about living in a jungle. You no more than got the brush whacked away than it grew back again.

  “Nail away,” Simon answered, “but first make certain the commander’s suspicion is logical and not just a normal emotional shock reaction. And don’t do what the commander did and tip your hand to the press. I might sue for libel.”

  Simon left City Hall a few minutes later and drove directly to Turner’s garage. They had the Jaguar in the back of the shop with a work order on it, and it called for replacing the brake fluid tubes that had been neatly cut with a sharp instrument. For an additional twenty dollars not tallied on the bill, Simon got the work order changed to something routine that would satisfy Thompson’s investigator. Until he knew more about who was killing whom, he preferred to go it alone.

  FOURTEEN

  The man called Eddie, who operated Club Mobile and promoted the talents of Clarissa Valle, held his license under the name of Edward C. Berman. He was forty-seven, married, divorced and had two teen-age daughters in a fashionable finishing school in Westwood. In addition to the discothèque, he was a partner in a real estate development in Malibu and owned the twenty unit apartment building in which he lived. He had been arrested once, twelve years past, on a narcotics charge and subsequently acquitted. Other than that—and a few traffic violations—he was as clean as a Congressional aspirant endorsed by the Y.W.C.A. August Mayerling was thirty-nine, registered as an alien born in Germany, and carried a Mexican passport. All of this information was supplied to Simon by the detective agency which had provided him with background material on Nancy Armitage. As for Charley Becker, his life story began to unfold immediately after his death when two wives, neither of whom he had divorced, came forward to claim his estate while a third woman, unidentified, was the only one to visit the mortuary or sent flowers to the funeral.

  Hannah’s arthritis kicked up in damp weather. When the call came through she was in bed—a huge, velvet canopied affair that would have appalled Queen Victoria in her prime.

  “The S.S. Dobson—how horrible!” she reported. “Imagine anybody honeymooning on a ship with such an unphonetic name!”

  “I wasn’t thinking of honeymooning,” Simon said.

  “You should. Marriage is something that should be tried at least once. It’s educational. But I think the Dobson’s the ship you’re looking for. Homebound from the Orient—including Hong Kong. Passed within two miles of Commander Warren’s anchorage at
approximately four-thirty p.m. of the same day Roger Warren went fishing for the last time. Cargo—”

  “I’m not interested in the cargo she carried to port,” Simon interrupted. “I’m interested in the cargo that didn’t ride all the way.”

  Hannah had a fast mind for felony.

  “Roger Warren and the white boat!” she exclaimed. “Of course! The white boat because it could so easily be seen. What did he catch—heroin?”

  “Probably,” Simon said. “He was familiar with the Club Mobile and if Eddie Berman’s had only one arrest with the kind of place he runs, he must be getting protection.”

  “I told you it was a Mafia job!” Hannah crowed.

  “Maybe. Maybe not. I think Roger’s operation was strictly private enterprise.”

  “What do we do now? Call Thompson?”

  Simon shook his head. “Prove it,” he said.

  “But if there’s anything in this at all, Becker must have been murdered.”

  “I think he was—and so does Thompson. But I’m not going to do his work for him.”

  “And an attempt was made on your life—”

  “—and Wanda’s,” Simon reminded her.

  “Because she knows something. Can’t you see that, Simon? Whatever Roger was doing, she knew about it. That’s why she was supposed to die, too.”

  There were some things nice people didn’t think about: thermonuclear war, genocide and Wanda being anything more than an innocent bystander in this sordid mess. Simon shook his head.

  “There’s an alternative,” he said.

  The third time Simon visited the house on Pacific View he never got beyond the patio. Mrs. Rainey met him at the gateway and explained that Nancy Armitage was out and so fine a roomer wasn’t to be subjected to any more snooping. And where, Simon inquired, had she gone? Walking on the beach, Mrs. Rainey answered. Simon then drove to the parking area just above the beach and scanned the curving shoreline. North—toward the new development on Seacliff Drive—the beach narrowed and threaded its way through a huge rock formation extending out into the surf. Walking toward the formation was Nancy Armitage. She wore a lavender sweater above pale blue Capris and a white kerchief on her head, but her free and easy stride was unmistakable. Simon hurried after her.