The Brass Monkey

by Harry Whittington

  Mosani just looked at her with those cold black eyes, and there I was feeling sorry for her. No matter what the fat little woman had done, I was on her side. Let her buy a dozen deep freezes with padlocks if that’s what she wanted.

  We were almost at the car before I noticed Mosani was no longer carrying that cigar box.

  We drove in silence until we were almost at the edge of town. Mosani said almost casually, “I work eighteen hours a day, Mr. Patterson. I will not rest until the murderer of your friend is brought to justice. Surely this is enough to satisfy you.”

  “I wish you every luck,” I said coldly.

  “Then you will stop all efforts?”

  “No.”

  His voice cracked. “After that inept gesture you made back there at the home of Hattie Contona! Will you insist upon getting in my way? I cannot warn you strongly enough. You will make a slip. You will interfere. I’ll jail you.”

  “Jail doesn’t frighten me.”

  “My jail will, Patterson. If you will let this thing alone, I will think kindly. I will forget the evil you have done my career — ”

  “And Ona?” I said. “You’ll forget about Ona, too?”

  His face flushed. He stopped at the corner on Fort Street near my office. “You can drive a man too far, Patterson,” he said hoarsely. “If you interfere again, I’ll show no mercy.”

  I got out. Stood on the curb looking at him. “Like with Hattie Contona?” I inquired.

  He shifted gears and roared away. Exhaust fumes sifted back over me. I stood still looking after him while dark little men, and somber eyed, flat chested women stepped around me.

  I looked around for a bar. I told myself to have a drink and forget it. But I couldn’t get her out of my mind. The fat defiant little woman with her padlocked deep freeze. I could feel my heart thudding raggedly against my chest. I knew no drink would help.

  I got in my car. There was a parking violation ticket. I threw it in the glove compartment. I drove out Beretania, stopped near the Governor’s mansion, parked, got out and took a bus back down town. I got on another bus, rode a block until I saw a waiting taxi, stepped out of the bus and jumped into the taxi.

  As he drove out Kam highway, I watched the cars in the rear view mirror. If they were still tailing me they were doing it more intelligently than I could credit them.

  At the cut off, I paid the driver and sent him on to Ewa at full speed. There was a clump of hibiscus bushes. I ran behind them and waited. The taxi was a minute down the highway before my detective friend roared by, hot in pursuit.

  I started up the highway, walking swiftly. It was exercise I hadn’t had in a long time and I was sweating. Two kids came past in a car and I rode with them to the first house past Hattie’s. When they were gone over the next rise, I ran back downslope into Hattie’s yard.

  I swore. The jeep was gone. The three cows were now munching hay near a shack in the back yard.

  I was almost at the back door when I saw the jeep parked behind the shed. Then I felt the cold mouth of the gun in my back.

  “So you are a cop,” Hattie’s voice was hard with contempt.

  “I’m not a cop,” I said. “So take that damn thing out of my back. There’s not much time.”

  I felt the gun go away. I turned around. There was scorn in her face. “What cheap trick is this?”

  “Hattie, where is the cigar box?” I said. I looked at her. All right, she didn’t know Herb. She could never help me. I was about to get myself deeper than ever in trouble with Albert Mosani. But my jaw tightened. To hell with that. She was a fat little woman, and she was alone.

  “Cigar box?” She frowned. “You are not a cop maybe. But anyway, you are crazy.”

  “I’m not crazy. Albert Mosani was carrying a cigar box when he walked into your house. But he didn’t have it with him when we left.” I said urgently.

  “You sure?” She was already moving up the steps into the house. I followed her. We began to search. There wasn’t a sign of it in the kitchen or the parlor. Hattie was beginning to doubt me more strongly than ever when I saw the edge of the box peeking from under Hattie’s vanity mirror.

  I pulled it out. With Hattie pressing close, I tore the tightly tacked box open.

  Then the breath went out of me. At first it was nothing. A toy. A brass monkey maybe as long as your hand. But delicately made. Looking at it casually, you’d think it was another curio tourists buy in Honolulu gift shops.

  That was my deflating thought, Mosani had suckered me in. Sent me chasing back out here. Making much of that box without seeming to. And I’d thought it was just that he wanted me to get used to seeing it, so I’d forget it.

  Then Hattie Contona began to laugh.

  “Look at the monkey’s face,” she said.

  It was the damndest thing you ever saw. Somebody had created it from a monstrous sense of humor, and an old joke. The poor little emasculated gibbon was staring down at himself. With such a look of shocked wonder, and horrified awe at what had happened to him.

  “Poor little monkey. It is hell what has happened to him.” She took the little figure from me. Her finger must have pressed his shining belly. The bottom slipped back from the monkey and dozens of wadded, yellowed cigarettes fell out to the carpet.

  I stared at it. “Marijuana,” I whispered.

  Hattie Contona began to sob and hug herself with grief and rage. “So that is it!” she wept. “They cannot find any evidence! So they plant their own! Oh. Oh. Oh. That I should hate anyone so terrible! So this is what they think of Hattie Contona! Oh. The day must come when I can have his throat in my hands!”

  “Looks like you’re about due for another set of cops,” I said. “They’ll accidentally look around your house until they find this monkey — the agent of transfer — ”

  “What will I do?” she sobbed. “What will I do?”

  “Give it all to me,” I said. “Box. Monkey. Cigarettes. Everything.”

  “How will you get rid of it?” She stared up at me through her tear swollen eyes.

  There was no time to answer her. There was the wail of a siren coming down the hill. I clutched up the box, the monkey and both of us fell to our knees and began digging the stringy cigarettes out of the carpet. Hattie was so nervous she dropped her handful. I thrust all I could in my pocket, and scooped up what she had dropped.

  There was a knock at the door.

  9

  I GATHERED UP every scrap of Albert Mosani’s planted evidence against the little fat woman and I ran, out the back door, pausing only long enough to close it easily so it did not slam. I could already hear the thud of flat feet around the side of the house. They weren’t expecting me to play accomplice to Hattie Contona, or they’d have moved faster.

  I ducked into the little outshed where Hattie’s jeep was parked. I waited there until the two cops met at the backdoor, scanned the yard negligently and then went in the house together.

  I wanted to wait to see what happened. But I knew better than that. Behind Hattie Contona’s there was a vine tangled thicket and I ducked into this, fought through it to open field beyond. Here I began to run, moving in what I fondly hoped was the general direction of the Nuuanu Pali road. When I reached the links of the Honolulu Golf Club, I knew where I was. But I kept on running although I was sweated down by now, and panting through my open mouth.

  When I’d crossed the golf course I began to get rid of Mosani’s evidence. The cigarettes I crushed in my fist, working my fingers hard against my palm, and I let them spill on the ground, seeing the wind catch them as I jogged along. There was a culvert as I climbed upslope to the Nuuanu road and I shoved the cigar box into it after smashing it. I walked along the open road for a few minutes, limping a little from sheer weariness, sweat pouring out of my hair so fast it burned my eyes. I carried the little brass monkey for a long time. I was undecided. I hated to throw it away. The look on that monkey’s face expressed my own feelings when Julie was through with me. I felt a kinsh
ip to the amazed little fellow. He’d make a swell drinking companion, I thought. I could sit him up and tell him about Julie over cold Scotch and soda.

  I knew better, too. I knew what Mosani would do if he ever found that castrated figurine in my possession. The thought of Mosani made me laugh. But I stopped there on the side of the road. For the moment there were no cars in sight either way. I could hear a creek off in the dense undergrowth and I drew back my arm and hurled the little monkey as far as I could, watching him sail in the air, hearing him splash in the creek …

  I was dragging when I climbed the hill at Pacific Heights. I went in the house, and Cari took one horrified look at me and returned hurriedly to the kitchen. I slouched into the bedroom and when I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror, I didn’t blame Cari. I was muddy, with the red mud that you can only get in Hawaii, the kind you can’t get out of your clothes once it’s in. I was so sweated I looked like I had been out in the rain. I looked around wanting a drink, but there wasn’t anything handy. I undressed and staggered into the shower.

  When I came out, I put on my shorts. I lay down across the bed. Then I began to think. But for the first time it wasn’t about Julie. It was about Hattie Contona. I felt good, even tired as I was. She must have laughed at Mosani’s stooge cops.

  There was a brief knock at the door.

  “What is it, Cari?”

  The maid opened the door cautiously, peeking in first. But even when she saw me lying across the bed, she came in. In her hand was Scotch and ice on a tray.

  I twisted around on the bed and smiled at her.

  “Take it away, Cari,” I said, “tired as I am, if I take one, I’ll take two. I’ll take two and you’ll be picking me up with a vacuum cleaner over at Haleiwa.”

  For a moment, she stared disbelieving, and then she went out, closing the door behind her. The phone rang.

  There was an extension beside my bed, but I let the thing go on ringing insistently until Cari answered it. In a moment she returned to the door. “It is for you,” she said.

  I put the receiver to my ear and lay down again. I was lying like that listening when Troy came in. She was wearing a pale green suit that made her seem paler and lovelier. She’d just got home from town, and she leaned against the doorjamb listening.

  “Hello, Jimmy, darling.” It was Ona.

  “Oh, hello Tom,” I said. I grinned at Troy. She remained there, unimpressed.

  “This isn’t Tom, and you know it,” Ona said impatiently.

  I shrugged. “I can see you never carried on many hideaway love affairs,” I said.

  “What’s to hide about love?” she said, and I felt my sweat glands working again, mildly. I looked at Troy’s set face.

  “That’s a lovely question,” I said. “I’ll have to discuss it with you sometime.”

  “Yes,” she said sweetly, “won’t you? Don’t you believe me when I tell you unless you see me, you will be very sorry.”

  “Stop threatening me,” I said sharply. “If you mean Albert, I’ve already met him.”

  “I don’t mean Albert,” she said in a soft, quiet way that was hard as diamonds.

  “Well, I don’t know when I can see you,” I said. “Honest I don’t.”

  I started to toss the phone at its cradle, but something in her voice stopped me. “Then maybe I can tell you when,” she said. “Tonight at ten o’clock. At your office. I do hope you won’t be late, darling — it’s been so long and you’re so good to me.”

  “Why don’t you be good to me,” I said, “and get — married.” But she’d already hung up. I put the telephone down and sat on the edge of the bed watching Troy come around it.

  She peeled off her hat and gloves, tossing them with her green purse to the foot of the bed.

  “Is Carole gone?” I said. “Did you see her off?”

  Troy looked at me. “Yes,” she said. “She went back home. Without him. Not yet realizing how fortunate she is.”

  “My lowlife friends,” I said. “How you hate them. Tell me, how do you love me so, and hate my friends — ”

  “You have no nice friends,” she said. Her voice was throaty. “You’re not nice, either, but — who was that calling?”

  “On the telephone?”

  “Yes.”

  “Oh, that was Ona. You know Ona. Ona Kalani. She was lost and I found her. It begins to look like I never should have. She finds me irresistible.”

  “I know,” Troy said resignedly. “So many of them do.” Her mouth set. “Now I suppose she wants to see you again.”

  I tried to laugh. “Threatens me if I don’t,” I said. I tried to change the subject. “You look lovely today, Troy.”

  “Do I?” she said dully. “And if I do what does it matter?”

  • • •

  Sybil Tinsley lived in a swank hotel near Waikiki Beach. She was out on some tourist errand when I called, and I waited in the lobby. I’d ask the clerk to point her out to me when she came in. I had no idea what I was looking for. I waited so long that I noticed I was being watched. He was another one with big feet, and a newspaper before his face, directly across the lobby.

  I had a feeling of anxiety. I knew this was one of Mosani’s men. But when had he taken up the chase again? I sat there trying to think, and decided he must have put a man to watching my house so that I couldn’t lose him for very long.

  Just when I’d made up my mind to go out and get rid of the shadow, Sybil Tinsley entered the lobby. The clerk snapped his fingers. I looked up and he nodded toward a tall, thin woman of about fifty. Her hair was faded brown, heavily smeared with gray. About her face was a strained, bitter look, even her lips were dry and pinched. I frowned. What about this woman could have attracted Herb in the first place? I shook my head. Not even money would have made it worth it to me.

  She walked with just a slight arthritic stiffness and I let her get in the elevator before I followed. When I was in the elevator with her, I saw the cop drop his newspaper, and leap to his feet, too late.

  When Sybil left the elevator, I bowed to her and followed. She stepped along the hall without looking at me again. I spoke to her. “I beg your pardon, Miss. I’m looking for a Mrs. Sybil Tinsley in room 518 — so many rooms — do you happen to know her?”

  She stopped in the hall and turned, facing me.

  “All right,” she said with tired resignation, “what kind of game is this?”

  I was sorry for her. She was hurt. The way you’d be hurt if somebody socked you straight in the face.

  I tried to smile. “This is no game this time, Mrs. Tinsley. I guess I’m kind of a game warden.”

  She was at her door. Her slender fingers forced her key into the lock. She swung the door open and said, “Come in then. But I warn you. I’ve been plucked. I’m not interested in anything you have to say. I’m entirely indifferent, and that’s why I’m asking you in. There’s only one time you can’t be hurt — and that’s when you no longer allow yourself to care.”

  “I’ve been practicing that philosophy for four years,” I told her. “You ought to see my scars.”

  She pushed off her hat and sank in a wing chair, crossed her ankles and looked at me flatly. “I’m not interested,” she said.

  I stood, looking down at her.

  “I’m a private detective,” I began.

  Her mouth twisted, “Oh, my God, they come out of the woodwork. What is it now?”

  “I can see it won’t do any good to try to defend my position, Mrs. Tinsley,” I said. “I’m a private detective. But I’ve nothing to gain by talking to you — ”

  Her bitter eyes flashed. “Nothing to sell?” she inquired sardonically, “At ruinous prices?”

  I jumped into the thing, head first. “Herb Baldwin has been murdered — ”

  “Do I cheer now, or is there more?”

  “There may be more,” I said. “You are, evidently, a lonely and wealthy widow. Somehow, Herb made your acquaintance, took some money from you, and then smoo
thed it over. Later, he was killed. I’m not trying to link those two matters. I’m trying to find out the truth. I want to know what kind of thing Herb was mixed up in.”

  “What’s in it for you?”

  I spread my hands. “Nothing. Trouble. But I’ve got to know. Why did you allow yourself to get mixed up with him?”

  “Why?” She looked at her hands, slender and white in her lap, and trembling a little. Her mouth twisted. “Because I’m one of the starved ones, detective — ”

  “Patterson,” I said. “Jim.”

  “All right, Jim. I married when I was sixteen. I went to live on a farm with a man twelve years older than I was. He was jealous and stingy, and he fulfilled none of the things I needed. After a few years I was subscribing to all the true confession magazines, and I was crying over all the woes I read there. By much hard work, we became rich. I don’t think Alms earned it any more than I did. Until I got ill a few years ago, I worked much harder than he did, with less reward. He loved it. I hated it.”

  She looked at me. “When I became ill, he finally hired a woman to do the housework. Then the doctor told him I had to have a warm climate. We went to Florida. We sat. I was forty-five, and he was a labor-aged fifty-seven. Years don’t count. It’s what the years have done to you. They’d made Alms old. I don’t know. It seemed we sat forever. But it couldn’t have been, because without his work to keep him active, Alms grew stiff and awkward, and finally died painfully when his arteries hardened and blood couldn’t be pumped through his heart. Then I left the land of the living dead where I’d been with Alms, I came out here. I think Herb Baldwin was one of the first young people I met. For a long time, or what seemed long to me, he was attentive but distant, kindly but reserved. You know? How better to charm an old fool like me whose whole experience from life has come from the confession magazines?”

  She inhaled heavily, and sat looking out of the window. “It began with drinking. I think I never saw anyone who could drink as much as he. And he never got enough. One night when he’d been drinking, he brought me home here. Half-heartedly, I tried to get him to leave. But his words went that he found me exciting — oh, it didn’t take much. And after that, he just moved in. They’re broadminded here, and they accepted it calmly. Much more calmly than I did.”