No Pockets in a Shroud

by Richard Deming

  They followed me into the living room, accepted a cigar each when I offered them, and retrieved their previous chairs.

  When he was settled Wade repeated: “What’s up?”

  “Don’t you know?”

  He shook his head puzzledly. “How would I know?”

  “That’s what I’m wondering about.” I checked my wrist watch. “It’s nine-fifteen now. You got here about seven-thirty, didn’t you?”

  “About then.”

  “Makes a nice alibi, doesn’t it?”

  “Alibi? For what?”

  Instead of answering, I puffed on my cigar, leaned back and looked at the ceiling. Two minutes of silence ensued.

  “We really ought to be going,” Wade said tentatively.

  “Stick around.”

  He let another minute or two pass. “When you say, ‘Stick around’, are you asking us or telling us?” His tone was curious rather than belligerent, as though he really wanted to know.

  “Telling you.”

  Danny set his cigar on an ash tray and looked from his boss to me and back again.

  Wade said, “I just wanted to know,” and went on smoking.

  Lieutenant Hannegan of Homicide brought the squad car. When I opened the door he said: “Your feud with the old man catches me right in the middle.”

  “He loves it,” I told him. “He’d be hurt if I gave him a respectful answer.”

  Stepping aside to let him in, I performed introductions. “Lieutenant Hannegan … Byron Wade … Danny. He hasn’t got a last name”

  Hannegan’s brow creased at Wade’s name. “How long you been here?” he asked bluntly.

  “Since seven-thirty.”

  Hannegan turned to me. “That right?”

  “Yeah. Didn’t seem to want to leave. When was Bagnell killed?”

  “Eight o’clock. How do you know he was killed?”

  “He’s dead, isn’t he?”

  “Sure. But the inspector didn’t say how he died.”

  “I know,” I said. “They’re calling in Homicide for heart attacks now.”

  Hannegan continued to regard me suspiciously. “What was that crack about Wade not wanting to leave?”

  “I started to throw him out at eight, but he talked himself into staying. Makes a nice alibi in case he knew something was scheduled to happen to Bagnell.”

  “Hey!” objected Wade. “What you trying to do?”

  I turned my head at him. “Teach you not to use me as a sucker.”

  Wade said: “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “I could be all wrong,” I told Hannegan. “But Bagnell’s pushing off is awfully convenient for Wade. And I don’t like the idea of being the alibi for a gang boss while one of his stooges was making a corpse.”

  “You got the wrong idea.” Wade licked his lips and looked from one of us to the other.

  Hannegan scratched his head thoughtfully as he turned things over in his mind. “You figure he sicked one of his guns on Bagnell, then leeched on to you in order to keep himself in the clear?”

  “Something like that.”

  “Why pick you? A nightclub would do as well.”

  I said: “I’ve got an idea about that too. I’ll hold it till we see the inspector.”

  Hannegan pointed his thumb first at Wade and then at Danny. “You guys are coming too. The inspector will want to see you.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  Three-Parts Murder

  OUR, CITY, LIKE LOS ANGELES, claims half the countryside in all directions. So although El Patio lies ten miles beyond the edge of the populated area, it still is within the city limits.

  Twenty minutes after leaving my apartment we swung between squat stone pillars marking the driveway entrance to El Patio’s grounds. To our left the car lights splashed against a ten-foot wrought-iron fence which followed the curve of the driveway clear from the highway to the near edge of the fortress-like building called El Patio.

  “Lot of iron in that fence,” Hannegan remarked.

  At „the far end of the building the fence started again, ran about fifteen yards and made a ninety degree turn to the left. The drive also continued past the building and turned with the fence toward a parking lot at the rear. Our policeman chauffeur dropped us in front of broad steps descending from the massive bronze-doored entrance and then continued on to the lot.

  A uniformed cop had replaced the dinner-jacketed ex-pug who usually guarded the portals of El Patio. He saluted Hannegan and stepped aside to let us in.

  Like Gaul, El Patio is divided into three parts. The entrance leads directly into the gaming room and bar. Wide doors either side of the casino open respectively into a table-crowded ballroom and an even more table-crowded dining-room. Most of the patrons from these two rooms had collected in the center one and were wearing their coats and hats, ready to leave. Though the room was packed, no one was playing. The crowd had divided into individual groups, most of which quietly waited for something to happen. In place of the conversational drone you would expect from a crowd of two hundred jammed into one room, you could hear only occasional low toned sentences.

  In the hallway outside Louis Bagnell’s private office three chairs from the dining room lined the wall. Vance Caramand occupied the first, and Fausta Moreni, the house’s best blackjack dealer, sat next to Vance.

  Probably Fausta’s ability rested less on her skill with cards than on the demoralizing effect of her golden brown beauty on the players, but nevertheless she was one of the highest paid dealers in the country. Before the war, when Fausta was a naive Italian immigrant freshly escaped from Fascist Italy, her delightful accent fascinated me into thinking of her in connection with a future fireplace, slippers and a pipe. Long since we tacitly agreed to forget our plans, but I still felt sudden lightness when we met. Tilted against the wall in the third chair sat Mouldy Greene, who derived his nickname from a persistent case of acne. Mouldy had been in my outfit overseas, but since discharge assisted Caramand in guarding Louis Bagnell’s body. Apparently neither of them had done a very good job.

  As we approached, Mouldy said, “Hi, Sarge,” in the pleased voice of an ex-soldier greeting an old comrade.

  Fausta rose. I stopped and she touched my hands lightly with her fingertips.

  “Manny,” she said. “Is it only murder can bring you to see me?”

  I said, “Hello, Fausta,” and could think of nothing else because my eyes were full of the sleekness of her blonde hair and the way it emphasized the Latin darkness of her skin and eyes.

  Hannegan said to Wade: “You and your punk wait here. The inspector will want Moon first.”

  As Hannegan reached for the knob of Bagnell’s door, I noticed the lock had been shattered by a bullet. Before he could turn the handle, the door opened inward. Hannegan stepped back as two men carried out a sheet-covered figure on a stretcher. A police doctor followed behind them. The procession over, we went through the door in time to catch a flash bulb square in the eyes. For a few moments I saw nothing but floating red and green lights, then as they began to dim I made out three people in the room. Apparently we arrived just in time for the photographer’s last picture, for he was packing equipment.

  Inspector Warren Day’s gaunt figure drooped in front of a woman seated on a sofa near the window. The woman was dressed for the street, complete to a startlingly small black hat and matching leather gloves. Her fingers played nervously along the zipper of an oversized bag in her lap as Day talked to her. She had the type of face painters set on canvas: precisely regular, and its whiteness framed by ebony hair, shoulder length and waveless. Her skin was translucent and glowed as though a hidden light burned somewhere within her. Except for the bright red of her sensual lips, she wore no coloring or makeup. She had been crying.

  Warren Day turned, bent his skinny bald head until he could see over his glasses and rolled a dead cigar from one corner of his mouth to the other.

  “You!” he said.

  Settling myself in a chair, I
started fire to a cigar. Day approached until his spare body arched over mine and his face was nearly horizontal with the floor from his attempt to keep me in focus over his spectacles.

  I said: “Why don’t you sit down before you fall in my lap?”

  “Start talking, Moon!”

  I blew cigar smoke up at him. “Look, Inspector. I’m tired of this routine. You snarl at me a while and I tell you to go to the devil, and finally you stop being nasty and tell me what old pals we are, and won’t I please tell you what I know, and then I tell you what I know. Why don’t you save time by cutting out the preliminaries and acting human from the start?”

  HIS LONG nose began to whiten at the tip, an anger register which never fails to fascinate me, but before the whole nose whitened, which was the indicator of his boiling point, he underwent one of the astonishing changes in temper he was abruptly capable of. His right hand suddenly patted my shoulder.

  “You’re a good boy, Manny. You’re right. No point in us arguing. Life’s too short.”

  He draped himself across a chair facing mine and smiled as though he had just gargled alum.

  “What about this visit of Bagnell’s to you?” he asked, in what for him was a pleasant tone.

  I shrugged. “Nothing much to it. He dropped in for a few minutes, then left. It was around three.”

  “What’d he want?”

  “To hire me as a bodyguard.”

  Day looked startled. “Bodyguard!” Behind their thick lenses his eyes crinkled derisively. “You did a devil of a job.”

  “I didn’t take it.”

  His expression turned interested. “Why not?”

  “Didn’t want it.”

  The inspector studied my face a long time. “Bagnell say why he wanted you?”

  “I didn’t ask.”

  “Why’d you say no?”

  “Didn’t want the job.”

  “Any particular reason?”

  “No.”

  “You’ve hired out as a bodyguard before.”

  “That’s what Bagnell said. I still said no.”

  Hannegan broke in. “Byron Wade and one of his punks were at Moon’s when I got there.”

  Day looked at me curiously, a cynical smile quirking his lips. “I see. That’s why you turned down Bagnell.”

  “Wrong again. I never saw Wade or his juvenile delinquent “before. They came uninvited.”

  “What’d they want?”

  “Wade offered the same proposition Bagnell had, and got the same turndown.”

  The inspector made no attempt to cover the suspicion in his eyes. “Kind of coincidental, both calling the same day.”

  “That’s what I thought, until I heard Bagnell was dead. A little figuring considerably reduces the coincidence.”

  “How?”

  “Suppose Wade knew about Bagnell’s visit? It’s common knowledge that a clash was brewing, and probably both Wade and Bagnell were keeping track of each other. The probability is Wade did know Bagnell came to see me. Suppose he also knew something was due to happen to Bagnell tonight? Visiting me just when he did was the smartest move he could make.”

  Day thought this over and said: “I don’t follow.”

  “I can’t explain it and be modest.”

  Day grunted. “You never were.”

  I said: “I’ve got a reputation of being a bad guy to have on the opposing team. For a supposedly tough character, Wade acts kind of timid. Maybe he wanted to know where I stood in time to call off the killing in case I was lined up with Bagnell.”

  The inspector let out a derisive snort. “You sure think you’re tough anyway.”

  I shrugged. “I said I couldn’t explain it and be modest.”

  Frank amusement glinted through his glasses. “You really think you’re so tough Wade would just walk off and leave Bagnell with a clear field if he found you on the other side?”

  “Not exactly. But I think he’d postpone Bagnell’s funeral until he could arrange one for me.”

  The inspector’s amused expression was replaced by a thoughtful one. “He might do that,” he conceded. “I’ll admit you’re a little tough. About soft-boiled.” His eyes turned dreamy and he went on as though thinking aloud. “Suppose Wade was keeping track of Bagnell? The contact would only report in periodically. Bagnell left your place at three, but Wade might not hear about his visit till several hours later. You figure when he did hear, he rushed right over to find out where you stood?”

  “Something like that. And he found out I was neutral.”

  Day removed the cigar from his mouth, examined it carefully and replaced it in the opposite corner. “When he found out, why didn’t he get to a night spot for an alibi?”

  “Because he had one right where he was. He got to my place at seven-thirty and wasn’t out of my sight till Hannegan arrived.”

  Day considered this. “It will be interesting to talk to Mr. Wade.” He jerked his head in the direction of the brunette across the room, whose strained expression betrayed hex concern over our conversation. “Incidentally, that’s Mrs. Wade.”

  THE woman rose and moved toward us. She was taller than I had thought, about five feet six, and her movements were smooth as a ballet dancer’s. Seated, her figure had been indeterminate. Now I noted her breasts and hips were overfull, but slim legs and a flat stomach indicated natural fullness rather than fat. She wore a light green, immaculately clean dress that fitted as though it were wax that had been melted, poured over her body and allowed to form.

  “Did you call me?” she asked. Her voice had the deep tone of a cello.

  Hannegan was already standing. I rose, but Day remained seated, making no effort at either answer or introduction.

  “The inspector just mentioned your name,” I said. “Excuse his manners. He goes to movies and has Hollywood ideas of how policemen should act. I’m Manville Moon. This is Lieutenant Hannegan.”

  After acknowledging the introductions with a poker-faced nod, she stood silent, her large zippered bag pressed nervously against her flat stomach. Day ran his sardonic eyes over the three of us, and the awkward pause lasted until the door opened and a placid looking policewoman entered.

  Day growled: “About time you got here.” He bobbed his nose at Mrs. Wade. “Search her.”

  Mrs. Wade’s shoulders stiffened. The policewoman said: “Don’t get excited, dearie.” Curving her thumb at an open door in the far corner, she asked Day, “That a bathroom?” “Yeah.”

  “Come on, dearie,” she said, and took Mrs. Wade’s arm.

  Mrs. Wade allowed herself to be led toward the open door. As it closed behind them, I turned to the inspector.

  “O.K. I told you everything. What goes on? Or do I have to read it in the papers?”

  Day rose from his slouched position, tossed his cigar on the floor and began to pace up and down with his hands behind him, a human imitation of Felix the cat, if you could call Day human. He started to talk in a rasping, singsong voice, more as though he were reviewing facts to organize his own thoughts, rather than impart information to me. “Bagnell was shot through the head a little after eight. He was at his desk at the time and the bullet ended up over there.” He gestured at a ragged hole in the wall directly opposite the bathroom door. “When they heard the shot, Vance Caramand and Mouldy Greene came running and found the office door locked. They pounded, got no answer, so Greene shot through the lock. Bagnell sat in his chair with the top of his head missing and Mrs. Wade lay in a faint this side of the desk. Nothing could be done for Bagnell, so Greene tried to revive Mrs. Wade while Caramand went out after Fausta Moreni. Seems both dopes realized they hadn’t sense enough to handle things themselves. Fausta took one look, ordered the boys to touch nothing and let no one in the room. She also told them not to let Mrs. Wade out. Then she phoned us.”

  I said: “Fausta’s a smart girl.” “Yeah. By the time we got here, Mrs. Wade was conscious again. Her story is that she came back here to cash a small check. Lost all her cas
h at roulette and wanted taxi fare home. I guess she did cash a check for twenty. At least Bagnell had one in his pocket and it’s dated today. But it looks like the main reason for her visit was social. The bar waiter says he delivered a pint of Scotch back here at seven, and Mrs. Wade was here then. You can see what’s left of the bottle.” He pointed to the desk, where a bottle with merely an inch of liquor left in it stood next to a siphon and two glasses. “Also Bagnell had lipstick all over what was left of his face. The bar waiter says she’s always back here Monday and Wednesday nights.”

  “That’s nice, considering her husband’s relations with Bagnell.”

  “Yeah. Anyway, she says she was just getting ready to leave when a gun went off, the top of Bagnell’s head disappeared and blood started spattering around. She fainted.”

  “Where’d the shot come from?” I asked.

  Day felt through his pockets and produced another tattered cigar before answering. He stuck it in his mouth, flicked a match alight with a thumbnail, then he shook it out again before lighting the cigar.

  “We figure it came from the bathroom window. With the bathroom door open, you can look right through from outside and get a full side view of Bagnell’s desk. Mrs. Wade didn’t see a thing before the shot, but she got the impression it came from the bathroom—that is, was fired by someone actually in the bathroom. But that’s impossible. All the windows here, including the bathroom’s, have three-quarter inch steel bars imbedded in concrete. The only way in or out is by the door and that was in sight of either

  Greene or Caramand all evening. But both the bathroom window and door were open and the killer could easily have stuck a gun through the bars, blasted Bagnell and run. That way the shot would sound like it came from the bathroom, rather than from outside.”

  “What did you get from the bathroom window?”

  “Nothing. A few prints on the sill, but they’re all old and made from inside. The lawn beneath the window is close cut grass and wouldn’t show footprints. The parking lot is only about twenty yards from the window, but the attendant didn’t see anything or hear the shot.”