1949 - You're Lonely When You Dead

by James Hadley Chase

  ‘The owner of the shop is a guy named Louis, who makes money on the side as a blackmailer. Thayler is probably mixed up in the racket. The shop isn’t much, and two wouldn’t make much of a living out of it unless there was more to it than the photographer’s business.’

  I paused for a moment to give Paula time to catch up, then went on, Thayler marries Anita on 8th November of last year. Gail Bolus quits show business. A month later Anita leaves Thayler. Maybe they didn’t hit it off. I don’t know. Anyway, she gets a job as a mannequin at Simeon’s swank dress shop on 19th Avenue. It’s here she meets Cerf.

  ‘Cerf, as you know, lost his wife a couple of years back in a car accident. He has a sick daughter on his hands, and life isn’t much fun. Anita spreads her net, and he walks into it. He offers marriage.

  ‘Anita talks it over with Thayler, who’s quick to see the advantage of her being hooked up with a millionaire. He tells Anita to go ahead and marry Cerf. He promises to keep out of the way providing he gets a take on whatever Anita gets out of Cerf, and she intends to get plenty. Anita marries Cerf: a bigamous marriage, of course, and goes to live with him at Santa Rosa Estate.

  ‘I’ve made inquiries about Anita, and can’t find anyone who’ll support Cerf’s suspicions that she was a kleptomaniac I spent a couple of hours before leaving Frisco, talking to people who knew and worked with her, and none of them ever suspected that Anita had this tendency. I am now pretty sure that the suitcase of stolen articles was planted in her cupboard to discredit her with Cerf. The only person who had reason to discredit her is Natalie, Cerf’s daughter, who would have lost half the estate if Anita had lived.

  ‘But we’ll leave that because I haven’t had time to tackle Natalie yet. I’m satisfied that Anita’s association with Barclay has nothing to do with the case. She found Cerf dull, and probably an unsatisfactory lover, and turned to Barclay for a little spare-time fun. She was the type. I’m pretty sure Barclay doesn’t figure in this, although there’s still the problem why Dana’s clothes were hidden in his house. It’s my guess they were planted there by the killer to divert suspicion, but that’s guesswork.’

  Paula paused long enough to ask, ‘What happened to Benny, Vic?’

  ‘Yeah, Benny. Get this down. Benny had no idea Louis was hooked up with Anita. He went to the shop and into trouble. Thayler happened to be there. As soon as he heard Benny ask questions about Anita, he came out with a gun. Anita had already told Thayler she was being watched by Universal Services. Thayler was jittery. He had been to Orchard City hoping to see Anita on the night Dana was murdered, but hadn’t contacted her. On his return to Frisco he was in a state of nerves, and when Benny turned up he lost his head and knocked Benny off. Then he caught the ten o’clock plane to Orchid City. Maybe he decided the safest thing would be to silence Anita. I don’t know. The point is he was on the spot when Anita was killed. Whether he killed her or not is something I have still to find out. I’m sure he was the guy who sapped me when I found Anita. He may have taken her body. I don’t know. These are the first pieces of the jigsaw that mean anything, but they don’t make a complete picture. There’s a lot of work to do before we do get a complete picture:’

  I finished my drink, got up and began to pace the floor.

  ‘If I can find out why Dana was murdered,’ I went on, ‘and why Anita Cerf left the diamond necklace in Dana’s apartment I think we’ll have the answer. I think those two points are the framework of our jigsaw. If we can only find the answers to them the rest of the bits will fall into place. I want to find out too why Anita was scared when I found her at L’Etoile, and why she was hiding there. And why she was murdered and what s become of her body. There are a hell of a lot of things I want to find out.’

  ‘How about Gail Bolus?’ Paula asked, laying down her pencil. ‘Where does she fit in in this?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said, sitting on the edge of her desk. ‘On the face of it I think she’s still hooked up with Thayler. The way she turned up after I had been sapped was too much of a coincidence to be an accident. It’s something I’m going to find out.’ I reached for a cigarette and lit it. ‘Another thing: I have an idea Caesar Mills is mixed up somewhere in this business. It’s a hunch, but it’s a strong one. It’s time I went out to his place at Fairview and looked the joint over. Maybe it’s a waste of time, but it’ll set my mind at rest.’

  ‘We haven’t a lot of time to waste, Paula said. Brandon is raising hell over Leadbetter’s killing. He wants to see you. They’ve matched the bullet that killed Leadbetter with the one that killed Dana. You’ll have to watch out, Vic. Brandon’s in a dangerous mood.’

  ‘Yeah,’ I said, and scowled. ‘Right now I’ll have to see what I can do about Thayler, but I’ll take care of Mills at the same time. The point is I can’t go chasing all over town looking for Thayler. He may be here or he may have gone back to Frisco. It might take me weeks to run him down.’ I sat thinking for a moment, then reached for the telephone.

  ‘Finnegan’s an old friend of Dana’s. He offered to help. I believe he could find Thayler. He has contacts among the mobs in town.’ I dialled Finnegan’s number, waited, and when Finnegan’s growling voice came over the line, I said, ‘Pat, there’s something you can do. I want to contact a guy named Lee Thayler. He may or may not be in town. He’s a trick sharpshooter, blackmailer and possibly a murderer. It’ll be worth a couple of hundred bucks to anyone who let’s me know where he is to be found.’

  ‘Well, all right, Mr. Malloy,’ Finnegan said. ‘I’ll pass the word round. If he’s in town, I’ll find him. How about a description?’

  ‘I’ll do better than that. On my way out I’ll leave a photo of him for you. It’s urgent, Pat. He has something to do with Dana’s killing.’

  ‘Let me have the photo,’ Finnegan said, his voice hard, ‘I’ll find him for you if he’s to be found.’

  I thanked him and hung up.

  ‘That takes care of Thayler,’ I said, and slid off the desk.

  ‘Now, while I’m waiting, I think I’ll take a look at Mills. Get these notes typed, Paula, and put them in the safe. And another thing, take that diamond necklace over to Cerf and get a receipt for it. We should have done that before. If Brandon heard about it and found it here we wouldn’t have a leg to stand on. In Cerf’s hands it doesn’t become evidence anymore.’

  Paula said she would do that right away.

  ‘Well, so long,’ I said, making for the door. ‘If I run into trouble turn the whole works over to Mifflin,’ and before she could fuss, I left the office and went pelting down the stairs.

  II

  Beechwood Avenue, a three-mile long, two-way street, separated by a parkway planted with magnolia trees, climbed snakelike up the hill at the back of Fairview and down into the valley to the San Francisco and Los Angeles Highway. It was a quiet, backwater street, lined on either side by stately houses, white columned with balconies and lofty porticos.

  No. 235, Caesar Mills’s residence, hid behind white stucco walls. The moonlight was bright enough for me to read the chromium numbers on the seven-foot gate as I drove past.

  All I could see of the house was its green-tiled roof.

  About two hundred yards farther on I saw a cul-de-sac, leading to one of the bigger estates, and I drove into it, pulled up close to the kerb, turned out all but the parking lights and got out.

  It was a hot, still night and quiet, and the air was heavy with the scent of flowers growing in the hidden gardens and from the magnolia trees in the parkway: a nice secluded spot for courting couples or burglars.

  I walked casually towards No. 235, without hurrying, like a man taking a little exercise before going to bed. It was twenty minutes past ten. I was feeling flatfooted and tired, and the heat bothered me. I had a feeling, too, that I was wasting time; that I had no business to be out here. I should be concentrating on Lee Thayler, or better still in bed, getting some sleep to be ready for whatever happened in the morning.r />
  I paused outside the seven-foot gate to look up and down the street. There was no one around, and I lifted the latch, pushed open the gate and peered at a small, well-kept garden, flood-lit by the moon. Facing me was a one-and-a-half-storey frame house with the chimney at each end, six wooden columns supporting a verandah roof, broken by three dormers that extended across the front of the building.

  Four casement windows opened on to the verandah, and lights spilled through the windows. It looked as if Caesar Mills was at home.

  I decided, now I was here, to take a peep at him, and I crept along the garden path to the verandah and looked in through the nearest window.

  One glance showed me that Mills lived in style. The room was designed for comfort, and money had been lavished on it. Chinese rugs lay on the parquet floor. Two big chesterfields, four lounging chairs and a divan were arranged about the room. A walnut table, loaded with bottles and glasses stood against one of the walls. Lamps with parchment shades made pools of subdued light on the polished floor and the rugs. It was a nice room: a room furnished with taste. The kind of room anyone could be happy in.

  Caesar Mills sat in one of the armchairs, a cigarette between his lips, a tall, frost-filmed glass of whisky in his hand.

  He was wearing a navy blue, silk dressing-gown, white silk pyjamas and his bare feet were thrust into heelless slippers He was reading a magazine, and by the bored frown on his face, he didn’t seem to think much of it.

  I wondered if it would be worthwhile to wait. I wanted badly to get into the house and look it over, but I didn’t feel like taking risks, nor did I feel like getting into a rough house with Mills. But there was a chance he would go to bed before long so I decided I’d give him half an hour and see what happened.

  I picked a spot in the shadows and sat down on the edge of a big stone tub full of petunias and waited. From where I sat I could see into the room and I could see Mills, sure he couldn’t see me.

  Twenty minutes dragged by. I knew it was twenty minutes because I kept looking at my watch, and thinking how nice it would be to go home and get some sleep. It wasn’t much fun watching Mills taking it easy in an armchair while I sat on the edge of a stone tub with an ache in my head and a pain in my back. But I was playing a hunch, and I was obstinate, so I waited, and after a while he tossed aside the magazine and stood up.

  I was hoping he was going to lock up for the night, but instead he went over to the bottles on the walnut table and freshened his drink. Watching the whisky run out of the bottle made my throat twitch with envy. I was hot and tired, and I could have done with that drink.

  Then as he returned to his chair, I saw him pause and cock his head on one side and listen. I listened too.

  The sound of a car coming fast disturbed the quiet of the night. Mills put down his glass, went over to the big mirror above the fireplace and took a look at himself, then he stood, waiting.

  The car drew up outside the garden gate, a car door slammed and the latch of the gate clicked up.

  By now I was on my feet. I stepped back into the darkness made by the shadow of the house. I heard the gate swing to, and footsteps come along the path: quick, light steps of a woman.

  I waited, squeezed against the wall, looking from the darkness into the brilliantly lit garden. A woman came round the corner of the house: a woman in fawn linen slacks and an apple-green sports shirt, worn outside the slacks. She was bare headed and carried a handbag made of fawn linen to match her slacks.

  She passed close to me, and I caught the fragrance of her perfume. The moonlight was harsh on her white, pinched face. There was an unhappy little sneer on her lips.

  She walked briskly across the verandah and into the room.

  As soon as she was out of sight, I took out my handkerchief and mopped my face and hands. I wasn’t tired anymore. My head no longer ached. I felt pretty pleased with myself. It’s always good to play a hunch and prove yourself right.

  The woman in the fawn linen slacks and the apple-green sports shirt was, of course, Natalie Cerf.

  III

  It was very quiet out there in the shadows and the heat. Somewhere in the far distance I could hear the sound of the ocean breaking on the reef out at East Beach: a whisper of sound that seemed loud in the silence around me.

  And while I stood in the darkness waiting for something to happen, I tried to remember what Paula had said about Natalie Cerf. Two years ago there had been a motor accident. Natalie’s mother had been killed and Natalie crippled.

  She had been treated, X-rayed and examined by every doctor worth a damn in the country. But none of them had done anything for her. Cerf had paid out hundreds of thousands of dollars: none of them could make her walk.

  It looked as if medical science had missed a miracle healer in Caesar Mills. What the brains of the best medical men in the country had failed to do, apparently he had done, for Natalie couldn’t have walked more briskly into the room where he was, not if she’d been a competitor in the Olympic Games.

  I heard Mills say in his lizard, grating voice, ‘You didn’t say you were coming out. I wasn’t expecting you. Why didn’t you phone?’

  Under cover of his voice I moved forward so I could look into the room.

  Mills was standing in the doorway; as if he had just come into the room. There was a sulky frown on his face and his pale eyes were hard.

  ‘Am I disturbing you?’ Natalie asked politely.

  She was sitting bolt upright on the arm of the chesterfield, her thin hands folded on her handbag, an alert look on her face.

  ‘I was going to bed.’

  ‘Were you? It’s not very late. Is that the reason why you look so sulky?’

  He came into the room and closed the door.

  ‘It’s not that. I don’t like you busting in like this. I might have had a guy here or someone.’

  He picked up the drink he had left on the table. She watched him, her face suddenly as expressionless as the face of a shop-window dummy.

  ‘I didn’t think I had to ask permission to come to my own house,’ she said quietly. Although the words were hostile, her tone, if anything, was conciliatory. ‘I’ll know next time.’

  Mills didn’t like this, but he didn’t say anything. He returned to his armchair and sat down. There was a long - overlong - pause.

  She said lightly, ‘Aren’t you going to offer me a drink?’

  He didn’t look at her.

  ‘This is your house. They’re your drinks. Help yourself.’

  She slid off the arm of the chair and walked over to the table. I watched her pour three inches of whisky into a glass, drop a chunk of ice into it. Her narrow, thin back was straight and her hands were steady, but her lips were trembling.

  ‘What’s the matter, Caesar?’ she asked, without turning.

  She still tried to keep the light, bantering tone, but it wasn’t convincing.

  ‘How long do you think this is going on?’ he asked.

  She turned swiftly to face him.

  ‘How long is what going on?’

  ‘You know: this—’ He waved his hand at the room. ‘How long do you think I’m going to fool outside those gates, saluting like a lackey? How long do you think I’m creeping into your bedroom, side-stepping Franklin who knows what’s going on, and pretends he doesn’t?’

  ‘But what else can we do?’ she asked, frowning.

  ‘We can get married, can’t we? How many more times do I have to say it? We can live here, can’t we? You have your own money. Cerf can’t do anything about it.’ He drained his glass and set it down angrily on the edge of the fire-kerb. ‘We can get married,’ he repeated. ‘That’s what we can do.’

  ‘No, we can’t.’

  ‘We can get married,’ he said again. ‘You can tell Cerf the truth. You don’t think he cares, do you? Maybe he cared when it happened, but not now. A guy can’t live with that kind of thing for two years without getting used to the idea. You’re
kidding yourself if you think he cares anymore. He doesn’t.’

  ‘Yes, he does,’ she said, her eyes big in her white, pinched face.

  He got up and stood with his hands thrust into his dressing-gown pockets, his head a little on one side, a faint, sneering smile on his pale lips.

  ‘I tell you he doesn’t,’ he said.

  They both spoke quietly, but there was a tenseness about them that told me they were holding themselves in as if they knew that so long as they kept their tempers the situation was under control. And it was easy to see that because they both had something to lose, they didn’t want the situation to get out of control.

  ‘And I’ll tell you why,’ Mills went on. ‘Look at the way he treats you. How often does he come to see you? Twice a day.’ He broke off as she made an impatient little movement, said, ‘I know what you’re thinking.’

  ‘What am I thinking?’

  “You think because he only sees you twice a day it’s because he can’t bear to come more often. You have a cockeyed idea that his conscience troubles him. You think every time he comes into the room and sees you sitting in your chair or lying in bed with that hurt, lonely look on your bitchy little face he gets a stab in the heart. That’s what you’re thinking, isn’t it?’

  ‘There’s no need to be coarse,’ she said, and behind her back her hands clenched into fists.

  ‘Isn’t it?’ he repeated.

  ‘Yes! I know he does,’ she cried, her voice suddenly loud and harsh. ‘I know he can’t bear to see me, and I’m glad. Do you hear? I’m glad!’

  ‘It’s time you stopped kidding yourself,’ he said, keeping his voice down, watching her, very confident as he swayed backwards and forwards on the balls of his feet. ‘It’s time you faced up to it, baby. Your racket was washed up when he married that blonde.’

  ‘I’m not going to talk about it!’ she cried. ‘I’ve had enough of this, Caesar. And don’t call me baby. It’s vulgar and hateful.’