My Business is Murder

by Kane, Henry

  “I’m trying to locate an Alice Maxwell.”

  “Here at the Beach?”

  “No. Miami proper.”

  “Married or single?”

  “That’s where it’s rough, Dave. Alice Maxwell was her maiden name. I don’t know her married name. But my information is that she was married in Miami.”

  “Beach, or City?”

  “City, I’ve been told.”

  “Okay, Pete. Figures for a check of the records and a follow-through. It’s too late now. When do you need your information?”

  “Sooner the better.”

  “Okay, I’ll go to work on it first thing in the morning.”

  “How much, Dave?”

  “Twenty-five bucks, I imagine. No more, unless it breaks up somewhere unusual.” He checkled. “You don’t think I’d cheat you, do you?”

  “Now that you’re a private cop, who knows? Okay. 1502 at the Empress. Soon as possible.”

  “I’ll get through to you in the morning.”

  “Swell. Bye, Dave.”

  I hung up and swung out on the other bed. Change of climate does something to the circulation, slows you down, something, makes you hunger for a nap. I could hear myself snoring before I fell asleep.

  Casey woke me. He was all dressed. He said, “I’m all empty inside. Let’s eat.”

  “Brother, you talked me into it.”

  We had dinner, late, in a swank restaurant and then we did the town. Casey found a girl, and then I did the rest of the town myself. When I rolled in at three A.M., Casey wasn’t back yet, but when the banging started on the door and I woke up to see that it was eleven o’clock in the morning, Casey was spread-eagled on the bed wearing a beatific smile, but wearing nothing else except one shoe and one sock, both tidily in place.

  I went to the door, opened it, said, “Sh. You’ll wake my pal.”

  Dave Powers threw him a look and grinned. “Nobody’ll wake your pal, pal.”

  I flung a sheet over Casey, and removed the shoe and sock. Casey’s smile grew wider and he turned over and hugged the pillow. I fixed the sheet over him. Dave Powers said, “I’d like to have the dreams he’s having. I’m afraid I’m too old. Who is he?”

  “Client. Nice kid. You get my information?”

  “Yeah.” Dave was a short round man with bow legs and laughing eyes. “Her name is Alice Trenton. Husband is a mining engineer.”

  “Well fixed?”

  “The worst. Husband is the wandering type and a heavy drinker. Never home. Job in Peru, job in Paraguay, job in Arabia. You know the kind. Sends money home when he thinks of it.”

  “Any kids?”

  “Two sons. Both married. One’s in Seattle, the other lives in Paris. Same deal. Send money to Mom when the impulse moves them. She’s got a sister living with her now, sister and a sick husband.”

  “Pretty good for a fast check.”

  “Oh, I don’t know. It’s a small town, really. Once you get a line on people, and ask your questions in the right places … it’s not New York, you know.”

  I shelled out twenty-five bucks. I said, “What’s the address?”

  “90 Blossom Street, City of Miami. Not the best neighborhood in the world.”

  “Thanks. Dave.” We shook hands and he left.

  I woke Casey which wasn’t easy. His smile disappeared as sleep went away. “Large head,” Casey announced.

  “Get under the shower, and keep it on cold. We’re going visiting.”

  “Whom?”

  “Auntie.”

  “You found her? How? You’ve been with me practically since we arrived here.”

  “The ways of the private detective are most mysterious. Or so we like the public to think. And you’re the public. Go take your shower.”

  I ordered breakfast sent up with coffee, extra black. I hauled Casey out of the bathroom and we had our breakfast. He ate like a horse. I said, “How’s the head?”

  Casey said, “What head?”

  I said, “The young recover quickly.”

  Casey said, “About Auntie. How’d you find her? I’m dying to know.”

  I told him and he looked disappointed.

  I said, “What’s with the face? Everybody wants glamour from a detective. You tell them about routine and all the shine gets rubbed off. Okay. Next time I’ll work in Mata Hari, international complications, alphabet-bombs, and blood on the poop deck.”

  “Sorry,” Casey said. “When do we go see Auntie?”

  “Now.”

  There should be coins that have but one side. Snow should be on mountain tops and should never be mingled with the garbage of a city. A beautiful woman should not have an ugly voice. The transparent green of the ocean should remain unmarred by the sticky slick of oil. There should be dreams for the poets and the immature, inviolate dreams. A landscape should fix its point of glory and hold still forever. Paradise should remain unsullied, even around the edges.

  And a resort town should not have slums.

  A taxi took us across to the City of Miami, and tooled its way slowly towards heat and dilapidated houses and slovenly children, and hot rising odors, and limp wash exposed to the sun on sagging lines. 90 Blossom Street was a weather-faded, sun-blistered, slatted wooden bungalow with a lopsided shingled roof. It was hot in the cab and it was hotter when we emerged. Barefoot boys in bathing trunks were playing stickball in the street.

  “I’d better go in alone, first.” Casey said. “Remember she thinks I’m dead.”

  “Sure.”

  Casey walked up two warped wooden steps and knocked on the door. It was opened by a frowning woman in a print dress. Her hair hung loose and damp about her face and she had one hand up, pushing it back out of her eyes. This was not Auntie. I couldn’t hear what they were saying but there was no expression of recognition on her face. Casey talked to her and then they went in and the’ door closed behind them. I watched the boys on the street playing stickball.

  Ten minutes later, Casey came out for me.

  We entered directly upon a living room. It was sparsely furnished but it was clean. The frowning woman came up to me at once. She stretched out a hand and we shook. She said, “I’m Alice Trenton.” Her hand was large and hard and bony and scaly-dry.

  Casey said, “My friend, Peter Chambers. Mr. Fred Davis, and Mrs. Davis—Auntie.”

  The man in the wheel chair blinked his eyes.

  The round little woman wearing the heavy dark glasses said, “Won’t you sit down, Mr. Chambers?”

  “Thank you.”

  Mary Davis was small and round and apple-cheeked. Her white hair was worn high on her head and kept in place by many blond bobby pins. When she smiled, her cheeks dimpled. Her teeth were small and white and her skin was unwrinkled. She wore a simple tan dress with a thin brown leather belt around the middle. She had a peculiar, hushed, hesitant manner of speaking, the tone just above a whisper. It was as though she were speaking of sacred things plus the fact that there was a light sleeper in the next room whom she did not wish to awaken. Mary Davis was a sweet-looking middle-aged woman with no special distinction. Place her in a crowded suburban supermarket on a busy afternoon, and she would blend; it would be difficult to discover her. Except for the hugh dark-glass spectacles. They created a shock effect, totally incongruous with the commonplace orderliness of Mary Davis. It made for the destruction of the illusion of the prosaic. It was as though her tongue were protruding or her dress had a scarlet patch at the lower rear or one breast was hanging out.

  Fred Davis. He sat in a corner of the room, utterly motionless in his wheel chair. He wore clean white trousers and clean white sneakers and a clean white sport shirt opened to a deep V on his bare chest. There was sparse grey curly hair on his chest and sparse grey wispy hair on his head. His face was thin and white-pale, a long face with a long nose and deep lines in the thin cheeks. Loose flesh in crêpe-like pouches hung beneath his chin. His hands dangled from the arms of the chair, the fingers shiny from disuse. Only his
eyes were alive: darting-bright, moving, following the talk.

  Mary Davis touched Casey’s arm, and smiled at me again. “It’s like a miracle … a real miracle … I … I can hardly believe it.”

  Alice Trenton said: “Got work to do. Washing. Please excuse me, folks.” She rubbed the palms of her hands along the sides of her dress, bowed awkwardly, waved small, and went through a door toward the rear of the house.

  Casey lit a cigarette. “Mr. Chambers,” he said, “is a detective.”

  Auntie said: “Detective?”

  “It’s about Pop.”

  “Oh.” There was a handkerchief folded in a neat square on a corner of a table. She lifted it, went across to her husband, patted his forehead with it and wiped away a sliver of drool that escaped from a corner of his mouth. Then she came back to us. She said, “Please sit down, Mr. Chambers. You too, Casey.” She tapped the table. “Right here. Please sit down.”

  We pulled up chairs and sat.

  I said, “Is it all right if we talk about it? About Henry Moore?”

  She stood over us. She didn’t answer. She said, “May I get you something cool? Iced tea?”

  Casey said, “Don’t bother, Auntie.”

  “No bother. No bother at all.” She went out the same door Alice Trenton had gone.

  Casey looked at me and I looked at Casey and the speechless man in the corner looked at both of us. Mary Davis came back with a tray of drinks. She set a glass in front of me and one in front of Casey. There was another glass with a teaspoon. She went with that to Fred Davis. Carefully, she ladled iced tea into his mouth. Then she wiped his mouth with the handkerchief, returned to us, put down the glass and spoon on the table. She said, “And you of the police, Mr. Chambers?”

  Casey said, “No. He’s a private detective. He’s helping me to find out—about Pop.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t understand, Auntie.”

  “Why stir it up? He’s dead.”

  “But he’s dead as a thief and a murderer. Pop wasn’t—”

  “He’s dead. We can’t bring him back.”

  “But if … if I can prove that he wasn’t what they say he was … a little bit … somehow … I’d be satisfied.”

  We couldn’t see her eyes behind the dark glasses. She was silent, a fingernail tapping the teaspoon on the table. Then, in her soft hushed voice she said, “You’re a good boy, Casey. You always were good … since you were a little boy. You’re right. Of course you’re right.”

  I said, “Is there anything you know? About any of it?”

  “I think so.”

  I turned toward Fred Davis, turned back. “Is it all right if we discuss this, any aspect of it, in front of Mr. Davis?”

  “Certainly.”

  I wished I could see her eyes. How can you talk with a person whose eyes you cannot see? There is no feel, no intimacy, no tie. It is as though a conversation by megaphone is being bellowed across an empty space.

  It popped before I could restrain it. I said, “Is there a reason why you wear sun glasses indoors?”

  Silence. An odd uncomfortable silence. Then her hand moved up and she snapped off the glasses. The only sound in the room was Casey’s gasp.

  One eye seemed frozen in its socket. It was wide, rigid and glaring, the upper lid wrinkled-stiff and inflamed. Palpably it was sightless, pale blue and like shattered glass, giving back no reflection. The other eye was fixed on Casey’s empty sleeve and it was wet with tears. She said, “I shall be totally blind by next year.”

  Casey said, “No.”

  She smiled as she put the glasses back over her eyes. Her voice was exactly as it was before, quiet and hushed and unemotional. “I don’t know what will become of us, Fred in his chair and me without eyes. It will be too much for Alice, far too much.”

  “Something …” Casey said. “There must be something. You’ve been to doctors, haven’t you?”

  “To the doctors I could afford.”

  “And what did they say?”

  “What I can’t afford. There’s a great man up in Boston, a famous man. Dr. Blake took me to see him. You remember Dr. Blake, Casey?”

  “Remember him since I was knee-high to nothing.”

  “He took me to Boston. About a year ago. Before the one eye became blind. It all happened just as the doctor said it would. There’s still a chance now, even that the one eye is gone.”

  “But … if they knew … why didn’t they do something?”

  “Because it costs fifteen thousand dollars. Fifteen thousand dollars for a series of operations and the necessary care afterward.”

  “And your sight can still be saved?”

  “Yes. Only one eye now but who needs more than one eye? Except … we don’t have fifteen thousand dollars, and these things simply aren’t done by charity. It’s not just the surgeon’s fees, it’s a whole series of treatments after that. You’re in a hospital for two and a half months.”

  Something hit me. “A year ago, you say?”

  “Yes.”

  “This have anything to do … with what happened to Mr. Moore?”

  “I think so.”

  “Will you tell us about it, Mrs. Davis?”

  “Yes, I will. Do you know about Henry and Fred and myself?”

  Casey said, “I told him everything.”

  “Henry was good, gracious and fine.” She smiled, dimpling. “He practically lived with us, with Fred and myself and Fred loved him as I did. He was our brother. But years ago”—the smiles came again—”I was a pretty woman, and a timid one … I still am timid. What with Fred, an invalid husband and Henry, a fine, good-looking man, there was bound to be gossip. We cured that, bit by bit, informing people that Henry was my brother. And brother indeed he was.”

  “Yes, Casey told me about it.”

  Her shoulders humped in a shrug. “I was cowardly perhaps but we can’t all be strong. Public opinion, the opinion of my neighbors … that sort of thing is important to little people, to people like Fred and myself, and to Henry too, for that matter. He wouldn’t have done a thing ever, to place Fred or myself in an improper light.”

  “Of course not, Mrs. Davis.”

  “I want it absolutely understood that there was nothing wrong in our relationship. I want that clear as crystal. I’m not that kind of woman and Henry was not that kind of man.” She went with the handkerchief to Fred and patted his face. She said, “Would you bring me a chair here, Casey, please? I’d like to sit beside Fred as I talk.”

  Casey brought a chair, and Mary Davis sat near Fred.

  I said, “About Henry Moore …?”

  “You can imagine,” she said, “how Fred and I felt when I came back from Boston with Dr. Blake. And you can imagine, I am sure, how Henry felt. In a way, he seemed more distraught then either Fred or myself. I suppose that was because he was always the active one, he shouldered so many of our burdens. We talked for hours and hours … but there simply was no solution.”

  “And then …?” Casey said.

  “Your father had an idea. He knew a man … the man had been a depositor in the bank where your father worked many years ago. Your father had been a customer of his when the man had owned a quiet little club, also many years ago. They had had many conversations over the bar, knew a good deal about each other, their philosophies, their ideas, the inner thoughts that men express in a quiet and convivial atmosphere.”

  “How many years ago?” I said. “Would you know?”

  “A long time. Henry hadn’t seen this man in perhaps twenty years. But we were in a crisis … and it was a case of any port in a storm. The man had grown to great riches and Henry decided to go and see him.”

  “For what?”

  “For a loan. We figured it out carefully. Henry had reapplied for a job at the bank, and they were glad to have him back. The job including occasional overtime, paid ninety dollars a week. Of that, sixty dollars each week would go to paying off the loan. Plus, Fred and I would move into Henry�
��s house in Queens, thus cutting our expenses, and, from Fred’s compensation, we would add another twenty-five dollars a week. Thus, within four years, the loan would be paid off.”

  “I see.”

  “It didn’t leave us much to live on, but we were all getting on in years and we felt, somehow, we could manage. And there was another consideration.”

  “What was that?”

  “Casey. Casey was listed as dead. This was a year ago. I don’t know much about these things but sooner or later, there would be money coming to Henry from the government, a matter of Casey’s policy, something like that. When and if that came, it would be applied to paying off the loan so much more quickly.”

  “I understand.”

  “We planned it all very carefully before Henry went to the man for the loan. It was a form of an appeal in an emergency to a rich man. We prayed that it would work. Henry called the man and, on the morning of May 10th, he went to him.”

  “That’s a year ago?”

  “Yes.”

  “Where was the appointment for?”

  “The man’s office and the appointment was for nine o’clock. At nine-thirty, Henry called us. He told me, over the phone, that he had had his conference and that the man told him to come back at noontime.”

  “And then?”

  “At three o’clock Henry came to my apartment in the Bronx. He appeared thoughtful but not discouraged. He said there was a great possibility that he would be able to get the fifteen thousand dollars, but not as a loan.”

  “Not … as a loan?”

  “He said that he’d been offered a piece of work and that he could earn the money that we so desperately needed … and that, actually the request for a loan had been turned down.”

  “What kind of work?”

  “He didn’t tell us. It was a terribly hot day and I could see that he was extremely nervous. He was perspiring and mopping himself and saying that he had to leave, that he had an appointment. Finally, I told him to take a shower and change, that he looked all wilted. He always kept a change of clothing up there.”