And 47 Miles of Rope (Trace 2)

by Warren Murphy

  “Heard? Heard what? Dammit, Trace, talk to me.”

  “Roberts is dead.”

  “How’d that happen?” Marks asked.

  “Murdered. Somebody filleted his gullet from earlobe to earlobe.”

  “That’s a particularly disgusting way of putting it. Who did it?”

  “We’re not sure yet,” Trace said.

  “Is it involved with the jewel case?”

  “Indubitably.”

  “When’d this happen?” Marks asked.

  “During the night.”

  “Wow,” Marks said. “This is really turning into a big case. Thanks for telling me about it.”

  “You’re very welcome,” Trace said. He walked a few steps away, then came back.

  “Oh. By the way. If you’re planning on calling your friend, the baron, don’t bother. He’s not home.”

  “No? Where is he?”

  “He’s at police headquarters. They’re questioning him in the Roberts murder,” Trace said. He walked away again and this time did not come back.

  In the hallway to the suite, ’he and Chico met Bob Swenson. With the insurance-company president was National Anthem, wearing a red satin gown cut almost to the navel.

  The two couples greeted each other and Nash said to Trace, “Did I see you at the house?”

  “Yes. And I, you. Chico, I don’t believe you’ve met Miss Anthem. National, this is Chico.”

  “Eeeeyou,” Chico said. “What a beautiful name. Pleased to meetcha.” She snapped her cheeks as if she were chewing gum.

  “Thank you, dolling,” National said in a grisly rendition of Tallulah Bankhead.

  “Nash and I are going to discuss her career tonight,” Swenson said with a leering wink at Trace. “I’ve got this idea for a film. She’d be a natural for it.”

  “Mule Train?” Chico said sweetly.

  “No. Great Sex Goddesses of the Silver Screen,” Swenson said.

  “Eeeeyou,” Chico squeaked. “You’ll be a natural for the part, for shurr, for shurr.”

  Trace pinched her behind. “Sounds wonderful,” he said.

  “Yes,” Swenson agreed. “We’ve discussed various kinds of films Nash might do. We talked about religious dramas the other night, but I don’t think she can afford to be limited that way. She’s got to show her versatility.”

  “Eeeeyou,” Chico agreed. “I think Miss Anthem will be wonderful at showing; her versatility.”

  “Yes, dolling,” Nash said. “One has to be versatile, don’t one?”

  “Well, we don’t want to hold you up,” Swenson said.

  “You’re not holding us up,” Chico said. “We’d love to stay and chat with you. Maybe all night.” Trace pinched her butt again and she squeaked, “Eeeeyou.”

  “We were just leaving,” Trace said. “Have a nice night.”

  The two couples passed in the hall, and as they walked away, Trace heard Nash say to Swenson, “Doesn’t that little woman talk funny, dolling?”

  Chico giggled and Trace told her, “You are hateful, woman.”

  “Trace, I take it all back. I told you once if you wanted to hit her, you could. You can’t. I refuse to let you have anything to do with a woman that dumb.”

  “What would I need with her when I have you?” he said.

  “You’ll pay for that,” she said. “Dolling.”

  From his apartment, Trace called Dan Rosado at home.

  “What’s happening with the baron?” Trace asked.

  “Nothing,” Rosado said.”I booked him on a technical charge of impeding a police investigation. Just to hold him for a while. Same thing I should have booked you on.”

  “What do you think?”

  “I think he’s telling the truth,” Rosado said.

  “So do I. No inkling of why Roberts wanted to talk to him?”

  “None at all,” Rosado said. “That’s the part of his story I don’t believe: that somehow he’d go at four in the morning to meet a guy he never met, without knowing what for. He must have known. But we couldn’t crack him.”

  “Maybe you ought to let Sarge work him over,” Trace said. “He squeezed that eyewitness out of the bushes for you. Did Hubbaker say he’s an insurance detective?”

  “No,” Rosado said. “Is he?”

  “I don’t think so now,” Trace said.

  After he hung up, Trace called the pit boss at the Araby Casino.

  “Armando, this is Trace.”

  “What’s up, champ?” the pit boss said.

  “Is your slot-machine mechanic around?”

  “Yup.”

  “I need a favor.”

  “Name it,” the pit boss said.

  “I’ve got my mother in town and all she’s doing is bitch that she’s supporting your casino. I think she dropped twenty dollars in the slots.”

  “I’ll give her the twenty back. Tell her to see me,” the pit boss said.

  “That won’t do. And she’s making my life miserable.”

  “I know what you want,” Armando said.

  “I figured you would.”

  “A nickel slot, no doubt?”

  “Yeah,” Trace said.

  “Okay. I’ll have Jerry jigger up the second nickel machine on the right bank inside the door. Good advertising for the house. How about a hundred and ten percent?”

  “That sounds good,” Trace said. “It’ll keep her busy all day and it won’t cost me a fortune.”

  “All right. He’ll set it up to pay a hundred and ten. We’ll turn the machine off and put out-of-order on it. When you come in, see the day boss. He’ll know about it and he’ll turn it on. Just make sure that when she’s done, we know about it so we can set the machine back.”

  “Armando, if I were there, I’d kiss you.”

  “Kiss Chico instead. She likes you.”

  Chico stuck her head into the living room.

  “Trace, I’m going to bed.”

  “Okay. I just want to go over a tape or two and I’ll be in.”

  “Don’t stay up too late.”

  “I won’t,” he promised.

  She closed the bedroom door behind her and he sat on the sofa with his tape machine and tapes around him, and the telephone rang.

  “Mr. Tracy, this is Spiro. From the countess’s?”

  “Sure. How are you doing, Spiro?”

  “Not too good. I just got home from work and my apartment was torn apart.”

  “Oh. Was anything taken?”

  “There wasn’t anything to take,” Spiro said.

  “Any idea who did it?” Trace asked.

  “I talked to my landlady. She said a big guy, made believe he was from the gas company, he came and she let him in.”

  “She get his name?”

  “She thought it was something like Kilowatt but that was stupid. He must have been talking about kilowatts or something. My landlady ain’t too bright. What should I do, Mr. Tracy?”

  “Clean your apartment,” Trace said. “I don’t think he’ll be back.”

  “Who could that guy be?” Spiro asked.

  “We just may never know,” Trace said.

  21

  Trace’s log:

  Tape Recording Number Three, Devlin Tracy in the matter of Early Jarvis. Eleven P.M. Wednesday and our one murder has now become two, and I still don’t have clue number one. Am I getting stupid now that I’m getting old?

  I didn’t care much for R. J. Roberts, but I don’t like people practicing their carving on detectives’ throats. Today Germany, tomorrow the world. Screw the world, maybe tomorrow me. I don’t need that. Sarge won’t always be here to protect me.

  Well, the good news first. I got Roberts’ check in the bank and I didn’t get arrested over it and I didn’t have to hand up Swenson. End of the good-news report.

  I’m talking softly because Chico’s sleeping and I don’t want to wake her up. I mean, she went into the cave to wrestle with the Great Earth Mother today and that would tire anybody out. You have to ha
ve affection for a woman who tells your mother that she’s put land mines inside your front door to keep your mother out.

  Sarge was going to get the manifest from Jarvis’ flight into Las Vegas. I don’t think it’s going to tell us a damned thing, except maybe Jarvis was flying under a different name. What else Sarge has in mind, I don’t know. And I’ve got Jarvis’ car-rental agreement. So he rented a car at 11:46 P.M. and drove to the house and got killed. Why, dammit? By whom?

  All I did today was get Dan Rosado mad at me for not calling the cops right away about Roberts’ death. But I wanted to look around the office. Nothing except his pimp receipts, which don’t concern me, and that little note in the Jarvis file. “Records.” What records? Maybe he was joining the Columbia Record Club and wanted to remember Joan Jett and the Blackhearts.

  It was good we redeemed ourself by Sarge finding that witness and giving Rosado the baron. I don’t think he killed anybody, but don’t count on it. I’m the same genius who was sure Hubbaker was Groucho’s big insurance detective.

  Aaaah, life’s not all that bad. How bad can a day be when Sarge throws Ferrara into a swimming pool? Along with his Afghan hashish.

  The thief probably got the combination from Jarvis. Sarge figured it out. That’s why he stopped drilling the holes in the safe. Were they working together? Some kind of scheme to rip off Felicia? Okay, let’s try that. The thief’s supposed to meet Jarvis at the house.

  But Jarvis is late, so the thief starts drilling the safe. Then Jarvis arrives and gives him the combination. They open the safe and swipe the jewels. Then the thief gets greedy and hits Jarvis over the head. They struggled some. They knock over a tree. The thief gets away. Jarvis dies from bleeding.

  What’s wrong with that? I don’t know. Everything. Nothing. Why’d Jarvis call from the airport and not wait? Okay. He wants to get Spiro out of the house. Fine. Except when the place was found robbed, the first thing Spiro would tell the cops was that Jarvis called him from the airport. Jarvis couldn’t get away with that.

  Jarvis had keys to the house. It doesn’t make any sense. Wait till Spiro’s asleep. Let yourself in with keys. Bop Spiro on the head, blindfold him, and tie him up. Take your own sweet time about opening the safe and then leave. No complications.

  I give up.

  Hubbaker says he found Roberts dead. Did Roberts find out something between the time I left him and when Hubbaker arrived? Something that got his throat cut?

  Couldn’t be. He called Hubbaker in the evening, before I saw him.

  Hubbaker says everybody at the house knew he was going to see Roberts. Maybe I can find out who left the house besides Hubbaker. And probably the same guy who looted Spiro’s apartment.

  Oh, well. At least I calmed my mother down and got her off Sarge’s case for a while. And tomorrow that rigged machine will keep her busy. That’s good. And the look on Marks’ face when I told him the baron was in jail, that was good too.

  Enough, I’m tired. This day has been long and complicated, and who needs it. Usual expenses, one hundred and fifty dollars. Sarge is keeping his own, I hope, in that big notebook he keeps carrying around with him. He looks like a guest host on Sesame Street.

  Good night, all. I wish somebody would solve this thing for me. Brace up, Trace. Remember. When the going gets tough….

  Yeah, the scared get scareder and the dumb get dumber. A of Wiedersehen, world of my youth.

  22

  As he got up from the couch, Trace heard the alarm go off in the bedroom. It rang just a moment, then stopped.

  Chico called, “Trace, come in here.”

  He walked into the darkened bedroom. “What, little girl?” he said.

  “Come over here.”

  He walked to the side of the bed and sat down next to her. “What happened with the alarm?” he asked.

  “I set it,” she said. She put her arms around his neck and kissed him. “Happy birthday. You’re now officially too old for me.”

  “What are you giving me for my birthday?”

  “You have to ask?” she said.

  23

  “Sorry, son, but this was important enough to wake you up for.”

  “Wake me up? Surely you jest. I’ve been awake for hours. Tin always up at dawn.”

  “It’s not dawn and I’m sorry to hear it. You know what they say?”

  “What do they say?”

  “They say, ’Early to rise and early to bed makes a man healthy, wealthy, and dead,’ “Sarge said.

  “So why’d you call?” Trace asked.

  “Just to let you know I’m on my way over.”

  Trace hung up the telephone, rolled over, lifted the sheet, and kissed Chico’s naked belly.

  “Mmmmm.” She smiled a perfect little smile. “Make bigger circles,” she mumbled.

  “You’re a disgusting little thing,” he said.

  “At your age, what else are you good for?”

  “Oh, my God,” he said. “My age. I’m forty. Quick. Look. Do I have wattles yet?”

  “What’s a wattle?” Chico asked.

  “I don’t know. What’s a wattle with you?” Trace said. “Fast, check my butt. Do I have cellulite?”

  “The only way you’ll have orange skin is with vodka. Why did you wake me up in the middle of the night if not to ravish me?”

  “It’s not the middle of the night. It’s the middle of the morning on the first day of the rest of your life. And mine too, the few days I have left to me.”

  She squeezed open one eye. “No, you look the same as you always look. But I think I’m going to get a delivery boy just in case.”

  “See if he’s got a sister. A young one. I want to take her bicycle seat to bed with me. Remember my days of triumph.”

  Trace put his arms around her and held her close. She fit. Some women just didn’t fit. They always seemed to have an elbow or a knee or some other part out of place, and holding them was like trying to put ten pounds of potatoes into a five-pound bag; something always spilled out. But Chico fit as if she had been machined; she molded herself to his body and all her right places touched all his right places and her body was always warm and smooth to his touch.

  Trace closed his eyes. “Call me when I’m forty-one,” he said.

  “Who was on the phone?”

  “Sarge. Oh, hell, he’s on his way over.”

  “Do you think he’ll mind if we stay in here and shout to him out in the living room?” Chico asked.

  “Do you think he knows we sleep together?” Trace asked.

  “Better not take the chance,” she said. “He might tell your mother. You ought to get up and make coffee.”

  “Wait. Wait. Hold, woman. I should get up and make coffee? Whatever happened to equality? Long live the ERA. Hanoi Hannah too.”

  “I made coffee yesterday,” Chico said. “And breakfast, too, as I recall.”

  “Yes,” he said. “And the day before that?”

  “I made coffee and breakfast then too,” she said.

  “Exactly what I mean. From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs. I need coffee, that’s my need. You make good coffee; that’s your ability. You make the coffee.”

  “I never knew anybody before who could use Marxism as an excuse for staying in bed,” Chico said.

  “There’s enough in Marx for all of us. He’s a giant ocean in which all may swim.”

  “Very pretty,” Chico said. “But what’s your ability?”

  “I don’t know. What’s your need?”

  “I told you before. Make bigger circles,” she said.

  “Monumentally disgusting,” he said.

  The three sat around the kitchen table with coffee mugs. Sarge carefully opened his notebook in front of him, extracted a piece of paper, and handed it to Trace.

  “That’s the manifest from the American flight into town. No Jarvis on it, but if you look, there’s Edward Stark. He was flying under his fake name.”

  “You expected that,�
�� Chico told Trace.

  Trace glanced at the sheet and nodded. “It doesn’t tell us anything, but it’s nice to know we guess right once in a while. You didn’t wake me up for this, Sarge.”

  “No. For this.” He cleared his throat and looked down at some scrawled notes in his book. “Your friend? Hubbaker?”

  “Yeah?”

  “He’s a jewel thief,” Sarge said.

  “Holy moley,” Trace said.

  “He was bagged once in Amsterdam In 1977. They had to let him go for lack of evidence.”

  “How’d you find that out?”

  “You know, your mother’s always complaining that I wouldn’t take the lieutenant’s test. But all my friends did. And now they’re inspectors and chiefs and all over the N.Y.P.D. They ran him through Interpol for me. Some private contacts.”

  “Dammit, though,” Trace said. “All it does is confuse things. He couldn’t steal Felicia’s jewels ’cause he was in Europe. And even if he was involved in it somehow, why the hell would he come back here and take the chance of getting into trouble?” He paused a moment. “Anyway, now we know what Roberts meant with that note in his files. ’Records.’ He must have found out about Hubbaker’s record.”

  “I’m not done yet,” Sarge said.

  “Listen to your father, Trace. There’s a twinkle in his eye. I love it when there’s a twinkle in his eye.”

  “All right, Twinkie, shoot,” Trace said.

  “Jarvis was a thief too. Edward Stark was his real name. He was from Elmira, New York. I had New York run him through and he had a long record: burglary, auto theft, fencing, what have you. And then, for the last fifteen years, nothing.”

  “That’s all the time he was working for Felicia,” Trace said.

  “Ah, yes, the countess,” Sarge said. “You want to know what Interpol has to say about her?”

  “Oh, no,” Trace said.

  “Oh, yes.” Sarge began to read. “Felicia Fallaci, who calls herself a countess on the basis of some unrecorded marriage to a destitute Italian count, is considered by Interpol to be one of the major international jewel thieves working today. She and her constant companion, Early Jarvis, have over the past dozen years been on the scene of many events where large jewel thefts have occurred. Although no direct evidence has been uncovered linking Fallaci and Jarvis to these thefts, the circumstantial links seem quite strong and compelling to Interpol. Interpol would appreciate any updated information regarding the activities of these two suspected thieves.”