Martinis and Murder (Prologue Books)

by Henry, Kane,

  I watched him. He went several shades paler, with a slight infiltration of a very unbecoming strain of chartreuse. Several times he murmured, “I see, I see, I see,” and then he said, “Forgive me.”

  He smiled, peculiarly. “Chambers, I have every intention of discussing some aspects of the unfortunate occurrences of last night. And let me explain that it is in complete accord with my wife’s wishes that there be no period of grieving, no interruption in the usual course of the lives of those who were close to her. That is why I am here calm as huckleberries, or whatever it was you said.”

  I said, “One thing at a time. I knew this Joe Pineapple. Let’s see if we can’t straighten that out. Was this mug a slim little guy with close-set black eyes and a prominent nose and an old cut across the right side of his chin?”

  “That was the man, sir.”

  “Joe Pineapple,” I said. “Case closed. No fee.”

  Evenly he said, “Case open. Fee.”

  He pulled a drawer and took out a check book. He rattled a check out of the book and I came over and he handed it to me across the desk. It was made out to Scoffol and Chambers for ten thousand dollars. I went back to the bar and poured a little one and celebrated.

  I said, “It’s a substantial fee.”

  Indelicately he pointed a finger, which is all right when you’ve just been handed a check for ten thousand dollars. “I want you to earn it. Aside from the matter which involves this Joseph Pineapple, I should like you to undertake to assist the police in their investigation of my wife’s death, or, if that is not practical, to undertake an independent investigation and report to me.”

  “Conservatively,” I said, “and decidedly, a private dick assisting the police is not practical.”

  He folded his hands on the desk and leaned forward. “All right, independent investigation. Will you do this? Will you meet me at the Pennsylvania Railroad Station at six thirty, let’s say at the Savarin bar on the upper level? We’ll go out to my home on Long Island. The town apartment was my wife’s, I went there only occasionally. My place on Long Island is home. Is that all right with you?”

  “Fine,” I said. “What about Pineapple?”

  “Yes. I’m not even sure that it was blackmail. At least, not in its ordinary sense.”

  “How much?”

  “He wanted two hundred thousand dollars.”

  “That is blackmail. Upper case. What did he have on you?”

  He fussed with a curved pipe and a shining humidor and lit up and sat back. “That is the point. In his apartment at the Pennsylvania, after a perfunctory drink, he stated that he was a businessman, that he didn’t beat around the bush and that he wished to come directly to the point. He said he was tired of dribs and drabs, wanted two hundred thousand in one lump, and if he didn’t get it he’d blow the whole thing wide open.”

  “Just a minute, Mr. Curtis. Blow what thing wide open? Let’s be chronological.”

  He said, “Mr. Chambers, I didn’t know what the man was talking about. I told him just that. He became very excited. He said he knew we did a gross business of ten million dollars a year (which is true) and that two hundred thousand dollars was paltry compared with that. He said that any sort of scandal would set us back on our heels (which is also true), and that I knew he could provide a terrific scandal. He said for me to think it over, not to talk to anyone about it, that he had lots of time, that he would be in touch with me again in a month, and that at that time I’d better be ready to pay. Then he actually lifted me out of my seat, gave me my hat and coat and put me out of there. And that is that.”

  “Now wait a minute. This thing doesn’t sound kosher. It doesn’t go according to rules. First, blackmailers don’t use direct contact methods. Know what I mean? There’s a note or an intermediary, something like that. Second, they don’t parade before the blackmailee right out under their own true name. Something doesn’t quite add up. Something stinks.”

  He said, “Exactly so, Chambers, which is why the death of Mr. Pineapple does not close the matter. I am anxious to know what it means.”

  I said, “You’ve given me the facts, such as they are. We agree they add up to a cipher. Now let’s try impressions. Dig in, if you please, and come up with impressions. What did you make of it?”

  He puffed, looked at the smoke, puffed, looked at more smoke. “At first, naturally, I thought it was a matter of mistaken identity. He assumed that I knew what he was talking about, and since I hadn’t the vaguest idea of what that was, I concluded it was, as they say, two other fellows; but after a while, after deliberation, I was convinced that was not the case. He knew me by name, he knew what my business was, he had called me at my place of business. He even knew the amount of business we transacted in a year.”

  “That last one is easy.”

  “Just a minute. You wanted impressions. I am trying to marshal them. I would say, in sum — that this man, somehow, believed that I had been paying him periodically to keep something quiet that could, if disclosed, hurt my business materially; that he had decided that small periodic payments were no longer satisfactory, and that he wished to be paid once and for all and finally. There need be neither intermediary nor sounding-out period, and personal contact under true identity need not be avoided. It would be the consummation or climax of a pending transaction.”

  “It fits,” I admitted.

  “Thus investigation is indicated, no matter that he is dead. I want to know what it means, if it means anything. And if it means nothing, I want to be assured of that. Is it conceivable that the man was mad?”

  “Not Joe Pineapple. Crooked as a worm in an apple, but not crazy.”

  “That’s your job.”

  “First,” I said, “the usual question. Why me? Why not the cops?”

  “The usual answer, I suppose. The man Pineapple was not wrong. We cater to the best people. Dealing in jewelry is a precarious profession. The reputation of the firm is the one irreplaceable, invaluable commodity. Suppose the man had something. With the police involved, that could break into open scandal. Or if it were something that could be buried in police files — then a hireling, a subordinate, a typist — who knows? — comes upon a set of facts that impress him. He in turn wishes to impress a colleague or a mistress or a bosom drinking companion; or he just talks too much. It spreads. All the elements of a whispered scandal with semi-official background. Not good business. It had to be private investigation, very private; reliable, efficient, thoroughly confidential. I discussed it with my partner, and she agreed.”

  “She?”

  “Miss Edith Wilde.”

  “Then why did you wait so long to hire yourself a boy?”

  He leaned back and put his hands behind his head. “Another fact. I called Mr. Pineapple back the next day. He had checked out. Which answers your question. He had promised to communicate with me in a month. I had all of that time to find someone resourceful and absolutely trustworthy. I did not want any of the national detective agencies for the same reason that I did not want the police. I made many inquiries and then Larry White, in whom I have the utmost confidence, turned up with your name. If you’re as good as Larry thinks you are, you’re my man.”

  “All right, Mr. Curtis, how long have you been in the jewelry business?”

  “All my adult life. And my father before me.”

  “Anything shady, ever? Anything phony?”

  “I beg your pardon.”

  “Anything shady or phony, ever?”

  “Certainly not.”

  “And what’s this Curtis Wilde, Inc.?”

  “Miss Wilde is part owner of this concern. Has been for the past four years.”

  “Did you know her before? Her background?”

  Curtis chuckled and flicked a finger across his nose. “Just a minute, Chambers. You may never have heard the name Edith Wilde. But all of the jewelry world, here and abroad, knows her and adores her. She is known as the foremost and the most famous creative artist in the realm of
jewelry adornment in America. Miss Wilde had a flourishing business of her own. It was only by dint of great and persistent effort that we succeeded in convincing her to join hands with us, and none of us has ever regretted it.”

  “When can I talk with her?”

  “Now. By all means.” He touched the key on the inter-office phone. “Ask Miss Wilde to come in, please.”

  This Edith Wilde hit me like a sneak-punch with brass knuckles. When they give you genius, somehow, you expect it peculiar, shriveled, with glasses and piercing eyes and heavy eyebrows and a hypnotic look.

  The hair was red. Wonderfully blond red. The eyes were green and uptilted at the outer corners, and they had a hypnotic look, all right. Red and green is always catchy, but in Miss Wilde, red and green caught on with something really special. And the figure….

  I know ladies who might call Edith Wilde heavy, and I know ladies who might call her top-heavy, and I know ladies who might call her flamboyant, daring, sexy, brassy. But a man just wouldn’t say one damn word….

  She was tall and lusciously curved; lithe and smart and graceful, and as she came toward me, head up and sea-green dress clinging somewhat to her full thighs, a pulse I never even knew I had in my throat began to tick, vehemently. Curtis said, “Peter Chambers. Miss Edith Wilde.”

  I stood up.

  Her palm was cool and soft, but not impersonal. I looked up quickly. Her face was polite and poised and nothing else.

  Curtis said, “Please sit down, Miss Wilde.”

  I shoved a chair forward and she sat down and I lingered a moment over the lovely low neckline of the elegant green dress and then I grabbed my glass and went to the bar and shoved the neck of the bottle in and poured and added a touch of ginger ale and drank some in a hurry.

  She said, “So you are the Peter Chambers I’ve been hearing so much about?”

  “Mm,” I said, intelligently.

  “Drink?” Curtis inquired.

  She turned to him, said, “Not during business hours, you know,” laughingly, then turned back to me and gave me the eyes, but good.

  Curtis said sharply, suddenly, “I promised to go down to Headquarters,” and he got up and came over and shook hands with me. “You know now just about all I know. We’ll talk about that other matter later this evening. Please don’t forget our appointment at six thirty. Good-by now.”

  And then Miss Edith Wilde and Mr. Peter Chambers were all alone.

  4

  I SHUFFLED around outside the big glass-door entrance and smoked a cigarette. Five o’clock was closing time and it was ten minutes after five. Then, brisk and businesslike, Edward Holstein pushed through the doors. I linked my arm through his. Firmly.

  “Can we,” I suggested, “go somewhere and talk?”

  His arm tugged at mine but I held him, affectionately, and his elbow poked at my ribs uncertainly.

  “Talk? What about?”

  “Just talk.”

  He tugged, much harder. “What’s the matter with you?”

  “Nuts,” I said. Then I said, “Look, Holstein, make up your mind. We’re going to talk. It’s a special favor for Mr. Curtis. Where were you headed for?”

  “I was going home,” he said slowly, putting a pucker between his round brown eyes.

  “Bully,” I said sweetly. “Just bully.”

  The well-arranged pucker went away and the round brown eyes flattened and a jaw muscle lumped out and disappeared. Mr. Holstein and I were beginning to make sense.

  We walked east to Madison and north to Sixty-first. We went into a modern sprawling brick apartment house, red brick. He punched button number four in one of those self-service elevators that do nothing when you press the button, then start with an apologetic convulsive jerk. He put the key into a peek-hole door marked “4A” and motioned me in.

  There was a small foyer and then there was a large high-ceilinged living room with French windows. There were green drapes and a green couch and green stuffed chairs and an oriental rug with lots of green. There was an enormous carved mahogany desk in front of the French windows and behind it a high straight-backed carved mahogany chair with wide flat arms. Everything was expensive.

  He sat down in the big chair behind the desk. He opened a drawer and lifted his hand and looked along the barrel and front sight of a powerful .45 police model Colt and he said, almost gaily, “Okay, we talk. A favor for Mr. Curtis. The gun is in case you’re a cutie who thinks he’s pulling something.”

  I sat on the edge of the couch and put my hat neatly beside me and paid attention to it and patted it. “There’s a fellow, Joe Pineapple, who got himself killed.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Joe Pineapple.”

  “Never heard of him.”

  “You’re a goddamn liar.”

  His face hardly changed but it changed enough and his hand hardly moved but that moved enough too. He got up and leaned loosely against the chair and his hat dropped soundlessly behind it. He held the revolver very competently.

  I got up too.

  I got up slowly and respectfully.

  I got up and walked toward him, slowly and respectfully. I stopped looking at the gun and I watched his face. I watched his lips get tight until the design of his teeth stood out on them, until dark hollows were squeezed in his cheeks.

  I stopped about a foot away from him.

  “Sucker,” he said.

  I moved another step and the thing poked hard into my chest.

  “Guns,” I said, “are nasty, Grandma.”

  He jerked. And I let go.

  I chopped with my left and I ducked to the right and I swung my right fist hard. The chop worked. The gun bounced off the side of the desk to the floor. The right caught him on the forehead over the left eye. The back of his thighs hit the arm of the chair and his legs folded at the knees and his seat hit the seat of the chair and he sat and his spine cracked hard against the other arm.

  I sat on the floor right under him and grabbed at the gun and held it and looked up at him.

  “How did you know?” he asked.

  “What?”

  “The Grandma part.”

  I started to get up. He kicked viciously at my face. I got up and I hit him across the mouth with the side of the gun. It swung him around. He sat straight up in the straight-backed chair, dignified, blood and foam on his lips. I stood on the other side of the desk.

  “Now, maybe, Mr. Grandma Ed Holly, we talk. As a favor for Mr. Curtis.”

  He said, “You son of a bitch, you dirty son of a bitch,” and he put a clean white handkerchief against his mouth.

  “Look, Grandma, you wipe your face and I’ll talk and then maybe we’ll have our conference.”

  “How’d you know? How’d you know about Grandma?”

  “I’ve been around.”

  “But how much …?”

  “Plenty. Your name is not Edward Holstein. Your name is Grandma Ed Holly. Back in the lush days you were a bootlegger, top notch, catering to society punks, and a very bad boy on the side. The boys called you Grandma because you were a little bit on the fairy side and because you worried a lot. A cautious queerie in a tough racket, with brains, a fancy tongue, manners, and the conscience of a pus pimple. You had a mustache, then, and long blond hair. Now you have no mustache and you got short black hair and you think you’re Edward Holstein. So what the hell are you doing in a legit job with a legit firm, and what’s with this Pineapple?”

  His lower lip was puffed out like the pout of a cocktail girl who says no and means yes, but the bleeding had stopped. He said, “Peace, brother, you’ve bought yourself a conference.”

  “Smart enough,” I said.

  “But first, what’s the angle? What the hell is this all about?”

  “You know my name. It’s Chambers. I’m a private investigator and this is part of working on the job.”

  “Oh,” he said sarcastically.

  “So talk.”

  “If you’ve been a private investigat
or long enough, it explains how you might know me for Grandma. But I still don’t get the angle.”

  I banged the butt of the gun on the back of the chair. “This is the angle. Joe Pineapple, before he got his, tried to put the bite on Mr. Curtis for some black dough. Curtis doesn’t know what it’s all about and he hired me to find out. And the first wrinkle I run into is you. What are you doing working in that joint and what was the tie-up with Pineapple?”

  Grandma put an elbow on the desk. He sucked at the tooth holes I had put in his mouth and drew a little blood and spat and wiped his lips with his handkerchief. He smiled sorrowfully, with one side of his mouth.

  “You’re all wet, Chambers. You’re dripping.”

  “It’s happened before,” I said. “Show me.”

  He spoke slowly and carefully. “When the liquor racket folded, I was washed up. I tried to get into pinballs but that was tied up tight. I marked time and ate my dough and looked around. There was a guy, a sort of friend, Edward Holstein, worked as a jewelry clerk. He died of a heart attack. I heard of a job as a clerk in a costume jewelry shop. So I took his tag and went and got this job using his monicker and background. I had a few ideas I wanted to try out. Anyway, I stayed with the name, used it all over all the time, even got bonded under that name.”

  I tipped the chair forward and waved the gun. “It explains the name. It doesn’t explain a no-good nothing as a manager in Curtis Wilde.”

  “Wrong again, Mister. The costume jewelry shop happened to be owned by Miss Wilde. I lost a lot of my smart ideas. This Miss Wilde is a wonderful person. I even liked the work. Originally, I had it figured for a stopover with maybe an angle or two. But I got cured. The business kept growing. I was making dough on commission. Even a dick, even a private dick, knows it’s not impossible that a guy gets religion.”

  “So?”

  He took out a thin cigar and lit it. “She went places. Up. She went from the costume stuff to the McCoy. When she merged with Curtis, I got this job.”

  “For how much?”

  “For ten grand a year and bonus.”

  “It’s a lot, but it’s still peanuts for a guy that lived like you.”