by Kane, Henry
Well …
I have word from Mr. Lyons.
Okay, hang on.
There was a long pause. Then:
Yes …?
Sorry to wake you.
Oh, hi!
I want you to come over to my place.
When?
Right away.
What’s the matter?
I have news.
News?
Tommy. He might go all the way.
How do you know?
One of his lawyers told me.
When?
I just left him.
Left him where?
We were drinking. At the Copa.
It’s late.
I rang you up the minute I got home.
What time is it?
About two. Come over.
I’ve got to shower and dress.
All right. I’ll wait.
Half an hour all right?
Excellent.
See you in about a half hour.
Fine.
Bye now, and thank you.
Bye.
The tape stank. There was no clarity. One could hardly distinguish the female voices from the male voice, but the caller had been a male.
I said to Sadie’s assistant, “Stinks. Can you amplify?”
“It’ll stink worse.”
“Amplify.”
He amplified. It stank worse. It sounded like a record, loud, but with its grooves widened by a bad needle. It was thin and scratchy and grainy and tenuous and almost undecipherable.
“Turn it down,” I said.
He turned it down.
We listened again and again, and again.
Sadie said, “Hell, you didn’t ask for tone, you asked for information. You’ve got your information, haven’t you?”
“Okay,” I said. “You’re off the case. You’ve been paid.”
“A steal,” she said.
“There’s easy money and hard money.”
“This was too easy. Where’s the catch?”
“No catch. Leave the tapes. Go back to bed. Case closed.”
She left the tapes and took her assistant and went away.
Ingrid said, “Nothing?”
“A little.”
“How much?”
“Well, the caller was no stranger. Oh hi! she said. She was direct on the phone, not on screwy-bugged tapes. She recognized the voice. She was coming out to meet somebody she knew, and that somebody was somebody who knew about her dealings with Tommy Lyons.”
“David?”
“More probably one of Tommy’s people.”
“Even Earl, even Barney, even—”
“Even, even, even. Hell, I’m going home now. It’s been a large evening. You’ll hang on to these tapes for me, won’t you?”
“Of course.”
“Good night.”
“You’re a dear man, Peter.”
“Me?”
“You could have milked David. You could have drawn it out. You could have made a lot of money.”
“I changed clients, or don’t you remember?”
“I remember.”
“I’m working for you now and I’ll get you that lump settlement or else the lumps will all be mine.”
“And still you could have milked him.”
“That bad I’m not.”
“You’re good.”
“Good night, my love.”
I drove home in the hot night. I found a parking place near my building, closed the car, and began to walk, when the four of them jumped me. They came out of nowhere and were upon me at once. I lashed back and my fists hit flesh but they were far too many and as I went down to the pavement I caught a glimpse of Sammy Bleek but then the kicks began and I had to cover my head with my arms and elbows and then one of them said “Copper” and they ran and then I was helped to my feet by a young policeman. “You all right?” he said.
“Thanks to you,” I said and brushed at my clothes.
“I heard the scuffle. I come running. They get anything?”
“They didn’t have time.”
“This is a mugging town, you bet.”
“Yeah,” I said.
That Tommy Lyons, the bastard …
“You live around here?” said the policeman.
“Right here nearby.”
“I’ll walk you home.”
“Thank you.” We walked and at the apartment house I said, “Thank you, this is it.”
“You all right, sir?”
“Fine.”
“Then good night and good luck,” he said.
I went in, and up, and opened my door, and Arlene Anthony, nude, slid her arms around me. “I’ve been waiting so long,” she whispered.
I had keys to her apartment.
She had keys to mine.
She kissed me. I kissed her. She was trembling. I began to tremble. But right in the middle I had an idea because I was still working. “You ever go to bed with Earl Stanhope?” I said.
“Yes, but that was before you came along, lover.”
Ah, my nymph of nymphs. Nobody got left out of her.
“I didn’t know,” I said.
“I never told you,” she said.
But David Holly knew.
David Holly had had a man on Stanhope since Stanhope had come to the United States.
“I’m going to stay over,” she said.
It turned out to be a short night.
Twenty-Three
THE PHONE blasted in the middle, at eight o’clock in the morning.
“Don’t answer,” she whispered entwined.
“I must,” I said and disengaged and lifted the receiver.
It was David Holly.
“I’ll be at your office at nine o’clock sharp,” he said.
“What?” I said.
“Nine o’clock sharp,” he said and hung up.
I called Miranda at home.
“There’ll be a fancy client at nine o’clock,” I said. “Put him in the fancy room.”
“What about you?” she said.
“I hope to be there somewhat on time.”
I showered and Arlene showered with me. That took time. We dressed and I put her into a cab and I took another cab and I arrived at the office at nine-thirty and Miranda pointed and nodded and I went in and Holly said, “What about Monique?”
“She’s very dead,” I said.
“You know the score on that?”
I gave him part of the score.
“The Croydens are interested,” he said.
“Frig the Croydens,” I said.
“We’ve got an appointment with them for ten-thirty.”
“We have?” I said.
“What about my matter?”
“Look,” I said. “You can call me off. You can call everybody off. You can have out, and you can have out at a bargain. But you’re going to have to act fast.”
He crossed his legs in the customer’s chair. The black eyes grew a lambent light and a stiff finger stroked beneath the mustache.
“What bargain, what, what?” he said.
“She’s in trouble.”
“Ingrid?”
“Money trouble. Bad investments.”
“How do you know?”
“Tapped wire.”
“So?”
“Right now you can get out from under with one hunk of lump settlement. Once and for all and all finished.”
“How much?” he said.
“A million bucks, tax free.”
“You spend my money easy,” he said, but the black eyes stayed bright and eager.
“You’ve got one chance for out,” I said. “And this is it.”
“She’s in trouble, is she?”
“Bad trouble, but you know how it is with investments. In a few months, if she holds out, things turn to good, and your one big chance for out … is gone. Hell, it’s a bargain.” I got up and went to the bookcase. I pulled out a thick book and came back with it to my desk
.
“What’s that?” he said.
I opened the book. “The convincer,” I said.
“What the hell is it?”
“Statistics. Average future lifetime in the United States. Compiled by the Public Health Service, United States Department of Health, Education, and Welfare. Let me see now.” I turned the pages. “You’re forty-seven. Ah, here.” I ran my finger along the line. “Your life expectancy at this time is twenty-seven years. Take a look.”
He stood up. He looked. He sat down. I closed the book.
I took up a pencil and a sheet of paper. I talked out loud as I computed the figures on the paper. “Fifteen thousand a month is one hundred and eighty thousand a year. In twenty-seven years that equals four million eight hundred and sixty thousand dollars.”
“Unless she gets married in between.”
“Now don’t be a dummy, Mr. Holly. She’s got it too good to get married. You pride yourself on being a business man. You can get out from under; you can trade in approximately five million for one million, if you take advantage of the situation.”
The mustache bristled with avarice and the nostrils of the hawk-nose widened. Mr. Holly was making money and the making of money was his lifework. “Do you think she’ll take less?” he said.
“You might chew her down to seven-fifty.”
“Five hundred,” he expostulated. “Five hundred thousand bucks. I’ll do that deal. You think you can persuade her?”
I looked glum. I had just earned twenty-five thousand dollars and a month’s honeymoon in Acapulco but I had to look glum because my vis-a-vis was an experienced terrier with a nose for rodents and I could not even let him begin to get a smell.
“I don’t know,” I said. “We have become personally acquainted, and I do know—although she doesn’t know I know—that she’s in trouble. But you’re going to have to act fast.”
“How fast?”
“Like at once.”
He closed his eyes and I could feel the computer going in his brain and when he opened his eyes it was evident that he liked the figures the computer had adduced. He took hold of my telephone and dialled a number and asked for Mr. Humphrey and then he said, “Norman? David Holly here. Norman, I want you to draw up an agreement for a lump settlement in lieu of all alimony and everything else in favor of my ex-wife in the sum of five hundred thousand dollars.” He listened. “Yes, tax free.” He listened. “Yes, I agree, all in all a good deal.” He listened. “Yes, I’ll be down to sign the check, certified.” He listened. “No, you do nothing till you hear from her lawyers. We’ll have everything ready and waiting but we won’t make a move till we hear from them. Then I want you to close the deal within that day.” He listened. “Yes. Fine. Okay. Goodbye.” He hung up. He said, “Fast enough?”
“My God,” I said.
“I’m a business man, Mr. Chambers.”
“You certainly demonstrated that.”
The black eyes slitted. “How much?”
“How much?” I said as ingenuously as I could manage.
“How much for you?”
Ethics is ethics. I had backslid but that was fighting for professional life. This was not fighting for professional life. “But you have already paid me,” I said.
“Paid you?”
“Twenty-eight hundred dollars.”
The black eyes said, “You’re a numbskull.”
The mouth said, “Yes I did pay you, in advance.”
He loved it. He was even saving money along the fringes.
“Can you see her this morning?” he said.
“Don’t we have to see the Croydens?”
“That’s for ten-thirty. I’ll meet you there.”
“Where is it?”
“They own a house at 7 East 79th.” He stood up. “You try to attend to this first. I’ll see you at ten-thirty. If you’re late, I’ll cover for you. Good morning, Mr. Chambers. Terrible about Monique, isn’t it?”
I went to Ingrid and I woke the maid and the maid woke Ingrid and I gave her the pitch. I said, “Go down to your lawyers and tell them. And tell them not to stall. No lawyer-tricks, no trying to make it look hard in order to earn a big fee. This thing is in the bag, just the way you wanted it. Holly is even signing a certified check in advance of the signing of the papers.”
“How did you do this?”
“I’m a magician.”
“But so quickly.”
“I’m a genius.”
“We will go to Acapulco before I had expected.”
“Any regrets?”
“Oh no.”
“Then hooray for Acapulco. And now I’d like those tapes, please.”
She brought me Sadie’s tapes.
I said, “It’s a warm, beautiful day.”
“What, what? Day?”
“Let’s make an outing of it.”
“Outing?”
“Suppose I pick you up here at … noon. You ought to be all through with the lawyers by then. We’ll go out and take a little sunshine, air, maybe a swim, maybe fish.”
“Where?”
“You’ve got a place in Acapulco. Me? I got a little shack by the sea near Atlantic Beach. See you at noon. Okay?”
“Yes. I will love it.”
I brought the tapes home and then went right back out. The car was still parked where I had left it last night. First I drove to my bank where I deposited Croyden’s check, and then I cashed a check of my own for two thousand dollars. Hell, I could afford: I had a rendezvous with a fee of twenty-five thousand.
Next I drove downtown to a friend who owned a travel agency and I combined friendship with bribery—an irresistible combination—for an immediate flight to London. My passport was in order and all my immunizations were recent and I had all the papers to prove it: all I needed was a round-trip ticket, but fast. Friendship and bribery produced a cancellation and I was booked on a jet leaving Idlewild at eight o’clock in the evening.
Then I drove up to 7 East 79th Street.
I arrived at ten minutes after eleven.
Twenty-Four
A LANTERN-JAWED BUTLER led me to a dim room seeming even dimmer after the bright sunshine outside. Soon I was able to make out my host and hostess and David Holly. “How do you do, all?” I said. “What’s with the spooky atmosphere? We going to hold a séance or something?” I was tired. I was grumpy.
“My wife suffers from a chronic allergy,” Barney Croyden said.
“Oh?”
“It acts up more often than not. Affects her eyes. She cannot stand brightness.”
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“Please don’t be, Mr. Chambers,” she said. “I’m sorry. But you’ll get used to it shortly.”
“I’m used to it already.”
I was. Hell, night clubs are dimmer and I am able to make my way in night clubs without the use of a seeing-eye dog. It was an impressive room with teakwood walls and teakwood furniture and a teakwood ceiling. The lady wore a dark skirt, a wide belt, and a white blouse, and huge gold-framed glasses with dark lenses. The husband wore grey silk slacks and a grey silk shirt open at the throat. David Holly wore a satisfied expression.
“We wish to know about Monique,” Barney Croyden said.
“Dead,” I said.
“We know that,” he said.
“So?” I said.
“We wish to know who killed her.”
“That’s for cops.”
“It’s for you.”
“Why?”
Barney Croyden strode a lush carpet, lithely. “She was a friend.”
“It was murder—”
“We know.”
“So the cops are working.”
“Police have methods. Private detectives have other methods. Police methods must be within the law. Private detective methods can be outside of the law. Police will not tell what they know to the public. A private detective, for hire, will tell to those who hire him. Police must have proof positive. A private detective can addu
ce proof not so positive. Police must use methods acceptable by a court of law. A private detective can use any methods. We wish to retain you, Mr. Chambers.”
“Why?”
Nora Croyden lit a cigarette. “Monique Lyons was a dear friend of mine.”
“Um,” I said.
Barney Croyden opened a drawer of a table and took out a slip of green paper and handed it to me. It was a note for fifty thousand dollars payable in three years from date signed by Monique Lyons and Earl Stanhope. I read it and returned it to him. He put it back into the drawer. He sighed.
“Mr. Chambers,” he said. “Her signature on that note was the one that counted. Stanhope can never pay fifty thousand dollars. I don’t know if you’re familiar with what was Monique’s marital situation—”
“Familiar enough.”
“Her murder, then, has cost me fifty thousand dollars.”
“So?”
“So I want to know who has deprived me of fifty thousand dollars.”
“Why?”
“Because, damn, I’m angry!”
Fair enough. It made sense.
“But it’ll cost you,” I said.
“Of course,” he said.
“Good money after bad?” I said.
“Just good money,” he said.
He went again to the drawer. This time he took out a check book and a pen. He wrote a check and gave it to me. Once again it was for five hundred dollars. “Down payment,” he said. “Retaining fee. You may bill me periodically as you go along in the matter. I will pay whatever is reasonable. May I consider that you have accepted this assignment, sir?”
“You may consider.” I folded the check and put it away.
“Is there anything else?” he said. “If not …”
I had not asked for anything in the first place.
“I will bill you periodically,” I said and this snobby bastard was going to get some large bills and very periodically.
“Then if you will excuse us …”
I was being kicked out, hardly even politely. The bills would be inordinately large and the periods would be in close order. They would pay through the nose or they would fire me. I would have to postpone the honeymoon in Acapulco and I was not going to do that for any small fee. The fees would be large and frequent or to hell with the Croydens and hooray for Acapulco.
David Holly took me to the door.
“How’re you doing on my thing?” he said.