by Paul Henke
‘I know, but I’m desperate. Please! Meet him and give him the money. Explain there isn’t any more and get the photographs.’
Reluctantly, I nodded. ‘I’ll give it a try. Is there a phone number I can get him on?’
‘Not to my knowledge. But he said to meet him at a bar on the corner of Lexington and East 76th Street.’
‘Who is he expecting? You?’
She shook her head. ‘No. I told him I wouldn’t go there. That someone would be there with the money.’
‘How will I recognise him?’
‘He’s tall, blonde haired, athletic looking, tanned, blue eyes. Always wears a blazer.’
‘He shouldn’t be too hard to spot.’
Once more she put her hand into her purse and this time drew out a brown envelope. ‘Here’s the money. Five thousand.’ She placed it on the desk and pushed it my way.
I glanced at it and then I looked at her. ‘That’s very trusting of you. What makes you think I won’t just take the money and keep it for myself? I could claim I paid him. He’d say I didn’t. I’d say I did and round and round we’d go. What would you do then?’
She looked at me with a flash of anger and then went all coy on me. ‘I trust you. You have that look about you.’
‘You can trust me but I’m not so sure about any look. When’s this supposed to happen?’
‘Monday.’
‘That’s four days away. Why not sooner?’
‘No idea. That’s what he told me. Monday.’
‘Okay. Leave it with me. How can I get in touch with you?’
She gave me her address and phone number. ‘If you ring and the maid or my husband answers, tell them my new dress is ready for fitting. I’ll get the message and phone you as soon as I can.’
‘Okay. So where does your husband think you are now?’
‘Shopping. That’s all I do. Shopping. I thought life would be so great. You know, married to a millionaire. But it comes at one heck of a price.’
I think that was about the most honest thing she had said the whole time she’d been in the office.
‘Look, Mrs. Vanowen, I have to tell you, most blackmailers can get pretty nasty if you don’t give them what they want and what’s more, like I already said, they don’t just stop making demands because you’ve paid them.’
‘I know that. I’m not stupid.’
‘No one is suggesting you are.’ Far from it, I thought. You’re a cunning little minx who knows what she wants and how to get it.
‘All I’m asking is that you try. Will you?’
I looked at the two bills on the desk and nodded. It was easy money and I’d do as she said. Deliver the five grand, ask for the photographs and take it from there. I’d warned her of the likely outcome. I couldn’t do any more.
‘Leave it with me. Why don’t you meet me back here on Tuesday? I’ll give you a full report then though I wouldn’t hold my breath expecting good news.’
She stood up and held out her hand. I stood and shook it.
‘Before you go,’ I opened a drawer, took out a business card and gave it to her. ‘The number on the back is my apartment. Just in case you need it.’
‘Okay. Thanks. But I doubt I will.’
I walked around the desk, helped her on with her coat and watched her leave. Superficially she was all class, underneath she was as hard as nails.
After she left I continued working on some of the equipment. The OSS had designed what they called a bugging device. It was a microphone/transmitter about the size of a matchbox. Hidden in a room, it could pick up what was being said and transmit it to a receiver up to a range of about half a mile, depending on how thick and how many walls the signal had to penetrate. I was modifying it by attaching the receiver to a recording device that I hoped would only run when any voices were heard. At around 6pm I stopped what I was doing, loaded the equipment into a carrying case and headed home.
I had an apartment a couple of blocks away. It was in an old sandstone, 5 storey building. The neighbourhood was a little rundown but nothing I couldn’t live with. My place was on the second floor. There was no lift but the stairwell was clean. The janitor for the building was a conscientious Cuban by the name of Luis Garcia, who had arrived in the States twenty years earlier. He’d missed the draft because he had a gammy leg, the result of an accident as a child. Luis had helped me move in and I’d paid him the going hourly rate for his efforts. It was obvious he was not only intelligent but also a hard worker.
He was wasted as a janitor.
The apartment had a small entrance hall with a cupboard on the left, a toilet and shower room on the right. A few paces along there were two doors, one each side. One was a bedroom, the other was a workshop. The workshop was well equipped with a work bench, a range of tools and a photographic processing corner. That was another skill I had courtesy of the OSS. Ahead, a door led to the lounge and a diner/kitchen. The furniture was worn but comfortable. It was sufficient for my needs.
I spent the weekend listening to the radio and working on my gear. The recording device was working a treat. My belt with the built-in garrotte needed one of the handles replaced and the detachable heel with the hidden knife in my right shoe needed some attention. I didn’t think I would ever need the last two pieces of kit but I was used to wearing them. The garrotte I’d used a few times, the knife I’d only needed once but it had saved my life.
On Monday I was in the office by 8am while Zelda arrived at the same time as the furniture. I wouldn’t have recognised her. She’d done something to her hair, was wearing a grey skirt with matching waist length jacket and a red blouse with a discreet ribbon. I couldn’t think of anything to say so I just stared.
‘Do I look okay?’ Zelda asked, frowning.
‘Like a million bucks.’
‘Thanks.’
It didn’t take the delivery men long to put the furniture in the back office and for me to pay them, along with a tip for their help.
‘Okay, boss,’ said Zelda, ‘what do you want me to do?’
‘Take a shopping trip. Get a typewriter, paper, envelopes, pens, pencils and anything else you can think of.’
‘I told you Frank, I can’t type.’
‘I know. But you can learn, even if it’s only with two fingers.’
‘Okay. I sure hope you don’t regret hiring me.’
I smiled. I didn’t say I hoped the same, instead, I replied, ‘I won’t. Now, before you go, how about making some coffee? Oh, and while it’s brewing get on to the phone company. I need an extension from your desk to mine.’
When she brought in the coffee I asked, ‘Do you have a mug?’
‘It’s on my desk.’
‘Bring it in and I’ll tell you about the case I’m working on. I’ll rephrase that. The case we’re working on.’
She smiled and nodded. I took a sip of my coffee. When she returned and was seated opposite me I said, ‘Okay, what’s your secret?’
‘What do you mean?’ She looked startled.
‘This coffee. Is it the same beans as I use?’
She nodded.
‘Then how come it tastes so much better than mine?’
Zelda chuckled and said, ‘That’s for me to know and for you, Mr. Detective,’ she said in a joking voice, ‘to find out.’
I never did learn her secret. I told her about the Vanowen case.
‘It doesn’t surprise me. That woman was always going to be trouble for her husband.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Susan Vanowen. Don’t you read the gossip columns?’
‘No, never.’
‘Well you should. You’d learn a lot that way.’
‘So what can you tell me about Mrs. Vanowen?’
8
‘Susan Vanowen,’ began Zelda, ‘I think, is Perry Vanowen’s third wife. Or she might be his fourth. It’s hard to keep up with people like that.’
There she was right. ‘Let’s start at the beginning. Who is Perry Vano
wen?’
‘He’s a man who inherited a society name and no money. He traded on his name and by the time he was forty-five he’d been through two, or, as I said, it might have been three marriages and was single again, vowing never to remarry. Of course, that was about the most stupid thing any man can say.’
‘And why’s that?’
‘It made him a target for every woman in town. From those in high society to, I don’t know, the lowest hooker maybe.’
‘He used hookers?’
‘Figure of speech. He didn’t move in those type of circles. At least to the best of my knowledge.’
‘On that score, where does this knowledge come from?’
‘Didn’t I say?’
It was a rhetorical question so I didn’t bother answering. Instead, I took another sip of coffee. What in hell had she done to it? I waited.
‘My cousin works in a high class beauty salon near Scarsdale. The sort of place where the rich people go. Where a hair-do costs more than I earn in a week.’
‘I hope you aren’t looking for a pay rise already,’ I said.
She shook her head. ‘Of course not. I was just explaining how expensive this place is. Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays there’s no chance of being done. Hair, nails, face, all in the one place. It’s a goldmine.’
‘Where does all the tittle tattle come in?’
‘You’ve got to understand, these women have nothing to do apart from gossip. It’s usually who’s divorcing who, who’s sleeping with who, who has servant problems, who’s having the biggest and best reception, who’s going to the reception. All bitchy, nasty stuff spoken with false smiles and a display of superior knowledge.’
‘Sounds like fun,’ I said dryly.
‘It is if you’re my cousin. She’s made a nice sum on the side selling the latest gossip to the newspapers. She wants to open her own salon and reckons if things continue like they are she’ll be doing so this time next year.’
‘Good for her. So what about the Vanowens?’
‘It varies, depending on who’s doing the talking. It’s a known fact Mrs. Vanowen came from a pretty lowly background. Trailer trash is one of the kinder things that’s said about her.’
I nodded. I knew the term.
‘She’s had little education and dead end jobs. She was in a bar in Hollywood, waiting tables, when she met Perry Vanowen.’
‘She didn’t give that impression. She has a high class aura about her.’
‘It’s said she wanted to be an actress.’
‘Don’t they all. Okay. Please go on.’
‘When she met him he’d been divorced for about five years. It all gets a bit hazy after that. To be honest, when I meet up with my cousin, I let her ramble on and only take in half of what she’s saying.’
‘Can you see her and get more details?’
‘Sure. No problem. Any particular reason?’
‘Yeah. I have an itch between my shoulder blades. And when I can’t scratch it I get nervous.’ I didn’t explain further. Suffice to say that the itch I was referring to saved my live a couple of times when I was in France. If something didn’t smell right it was usually because it was rotten. ‘When can you talk to her?’
‘It’s Monday so she’ll be at home. It’s her day off.’
‘Where does she live?’
‘About twenty minutes away on the subway.’
‘Okay. Buy what we need for the office and then go and see her. Find out what you can.’ I took out one of the bills given to me by Susan Vanowen and handed it over. ‘This should cover what we need as well as your expenses.’
‘Talking of which, do you want me to keep a record of what we spend? In case the IRS take an interest?’
‘Yeah. Only start next week.’
‘Okay. I’ll see you later.’
I took two calls from prospective clients. One was to find an errant husband, the other was to check out whether a wife was having an affair. It wasn’t the sort of work I wanted but beggars can’t be choosers so I made appointments for each of them to come in and see me on Wednesday.
Zelda came back in the middle of the afternoon. She had a list of items she’d bought, along with receipts. ‘It’ll all be delivered tomorrow.’
‘Good. What did you find out about the Vanowens?’
She opened her purse and took out a notebook. ‘So I wouldn’t get anything wrong, I wrote down what May-Ellen said. That’s my cousin, by the way.’
‘I figured that out.’
‘I had to cross examine her and she amended her story a time or two.’
I nodded, settled down at my desk, put me feet up and said, ‘I think better this way. Let’s hear it.’
‘Perry Vanowen is on his fourth wife, not third. His first wife was his childhood sweetheart. They married at twenty and were divorced by the time they were twenty-two. His second wife he married when he was twenty-eight. It seems he was earning good money but that was all.’
‘How?’
‘Selling second-hand cars. Then, just after his second marriage he bought a Ford dealership.’
‘Where did he get the money from?’
‘He claims from savings, hand work, the bank.’
‘He claims?’
‘It seems his father-in-law loaned him the cash.’
‘Zelda, with all due respect...,’
‘Which means you’re about to insult me.’
‘Yeah, well. How did you find out all this? Surely not from your cousin?’
‘Of course not, though I did get some of it from her. I told you she passed on gossip to the papers, well I asked her to phone one of her contacts. She dangled a few juicy tidbits in front of this woman reporter who writes for one of the weekend papers and asked her about Perry. The woman referred my cousin to a two page article written about Vanowen shortly after his marriage to Susan. I visited the New York Public Library and found it all there. It was the usual fact, fiction and innuendo but interesting reading for all that.’
‘Fair enough.’
‘Shall I go on?’
‘Please.’
‘According to the papers the two had an acrimonious divorce when he was thirty-five. By then he had two dealerships, had bought a house in Scarsdale and was unfaithful at every opportunity. His philandering was the reason given for the divorce.’
‘Was it the real reason?’
‘Not according to my cousin. She says the real reason was Vanowen used to hit her. The story goes that the wife’s father paid Vanowen off.’
‘That doesn’t make any sense. Surely Vanowen should have been the one paying his wife?’
‘You’d think so, wouldn’t you? Nobody knows for sure but it’s also reported that Vanowen was blackmailing his father-in-law. Something to do with taxes and off-shore trusts.’
‘Okay. What a murky world you live in when you have money.’
‘Yeah, right.’ There was no hiding the sarcasm in Zelda’s voice.
‘But a nice problem to have,’ I grinned and she smiled back. I reckoned she and I were going to work well together.
‘So what happened next?’
‘By the time he had his fourth dealership, this time with Studebaker, he was a millionaire a number of times over. He had women flocking to his door and by all accounts he took advantage of his single status and his money. Mr. Eligible Bachelor supreme. Then he met a woman by the name of Marjory. Mid twenties...,’
‘How old was he by then?’
‘Forty-five.’
‘So he likes them young?’
‘It seems so because he married her after only six months.’
‘Another divorce?’
‘Nope. She died. Under suspicious circumstances.’
‘Oh? How?’
‘A car accident.’
‘What’s suspicious about a car accident?’
‘The car careered off the road and over a cliff. But here’s the thing. The car she was driving was a Ford. Black. Yet on the offside there was a dee
p scrape and some red paint.’
‘So she was forced off the road?’
‘That’s what the police reckoned.’
‘Anybody arrested?’
‘Nope. But the police were pretty sure it was Vanowen who was responsible. Anyhow, they couldn’t prove anything, his lawyers are a shyster firm here in the city and he got away with it. Oh, I nearly forgot. The police had been called out to Vanowen’s house on three occasions on a domestic.’
‘He beat up on his wife?’
Zelda shook her head. ‘No. She had attacked him.’
‘There’s a surprise. Why kill her? Why not just divorce her?’
‘I’m not sure but I can take a stab at it.’
‘Stab away.’
‘I think he was too embarrassed.’
‘Not too embarrassed to call the police.’
Zelda raised an eyebrow and said, ‘I think calling the local police was one thing. A nasty divorce with all his secrets coming out was another. She had been with him long enough to know about things like cash deals, defrauding the tax people and so on. I’m sure you can work it out.’
‘I get the picture.’
‘By getting physical with him she showed she was no shrinking violet.’
‘There is that,’ I said.
‘So that leaves him foot loose and fancy free and no alimony to pay. Then along comes number four. He married her four years ago. He’s now fifty-five, she’s thirty-five.’
‘What’s the word on her?’
‘I was right when I said she was uneducated. She’d been a waitress, met Vanowen and played him like a fish. The usual sort of thing. Hard to get, coy, great eye candy, marriage.’
‘Does he have any kids?’
‘Nope. But my cousin says that was one of the holds she has over him. The promise of children persuaded him to marry her.’
‘So how come she’s open to blackmail?’
‘Apparently, she puts it around. Mr. Vanowen has decided to behave himself while Mrs. Vanowen is doing the exact opposite.’
‘Does he know about her?’
‘I asked my cousin who said she didn’t see how he could not know.’
‘Anything else?’
‘That’s all I have except for one thing. There was no prenup with the woman who died and nor is there one with his present wife.’