Never Give a Millionaire an Even Break

by Kane, Henry

  “In the bag,” I said.

  “Has she gone to her lawyers?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good afternoon,” he said and opened the door.

  Now he was kicking me out too.

  Wealth, it appears, makes for a lack of courtesy.

  I do not despise wealth.

  I despise a lack of courtesy.

  I drove directly to 870 Park and picked up Ingrid. It was a quarter after twelve and the sun was pouring heat and she was cool in tan linen, and she carried a little red valise.

  “What’s that?” I said.

  “Bathing suit and such,” she said.

  I tossed it into the back of the car and we drove for a long time without talking. I was disturbed and she was clever. I did not want to talk—I was cooling off—and she was clever enough to know that I did not want to talk. Somewhere out on Long Island I said, “I haven’t eaten. You hungry?”

  “Famished.”

  We stopped at a Howard Johnson and we ordered a meal but we ordered cocktails before the meal. She had one and I had two and my wrath began to diffuse and my mood began to expand. “How’d you make out?” I said.

  “About time,” she said.

  “I’ve been gloomy.”

  “Obviously.”

  “Given time, gloom dispels.”

  “I have been giving it time.”

  “You are a lovely lady.”

  “I made out. The lawyers called the other lawyers and the lawyers talked and tomorrow papers will be signed and I will receive the check in settlement and it will be ended. How did you do this, Peter?”

  “You did it.”

  “I?”

  “You told me it must come from him, and I laid it out so that he thought it came from him, and that was it. I told him, bad investments, you were in need, and if he would strike while the iron was hot he would get an anvil chorus that would be music to his ears. I showed him Life Expectancy Tables and showed him that in the end it would cost him at least five million dollars. I told him that right now—if he moved with discretion and tact—he could get out for a million.”

  “A million?” she said.

  “I was playing it cozy, and I believe I could have got you better than you wanted if I were willing to play the long game. He didn’t hate the million, but he was fighting it, and I didn’t want to take chances. Quick-like I came down to three-quarters, and quick-like he countered with a half-million, and if I wanted to shyster around I’m sure I could have upped it by many thousands, but I had my instructions.”

  “Yes, you did.”

  “Satisfied?”

  “Perfectly.”

  “Let’s go swimming.”

  I drove in the hot sun and we came to my place by the sea. It is a good house, strong-constructed, old, isolated, and miles from any other house. I parked on the slanted concrete outside the garage and she brought her little satchel into the house and she admired the house and I admired her.

  There were cans of beer in the refrigerator and we sat at a wooden table and slaked thirst and gossiped. I told her about Stanhope and Arlene and she continued to slake thirst without even one furrow in the forehead.

  “Aren’t you surprised?” I said.

  “Not in the least,” she said.

  Then she opened her little red bag and it contained, among other items, two bathing suits, because she was a wise woman and she had no idea where I was taking her. One was a conservative bathing suit for use, what with her extravagant figure, on a populated beach. Mine was not a populated beach. Mine was my own beach alone: and for that she had brought a Bikini.

  When I saw her in the Bikini I swallowed, but hard.

  I was now in swim trunks and after swallowing, hard, I took her hand and led her out for a swim in the sea but she pointed with her free hand. She was pointing at the car. The rear left tire was flatter than the bosom of a Dior model.

  The sun burned in the heavens and the air was hot.

  Better to fix it now, with sweat, and then take the dip in the sea. I got the key and opened the rear trunk wherein was contained the jack and the spare tire. I saw the jack and I saw the spare and I saw more and she saw more and she sucked in her breath, a spasm.

  We saw a folded body and we saw a gun.

  Twenty-Five

  THE BODY was the body of Earl Stanhope and the gun was mine.

  We knew the first before we knew the second. We recognized Earl Stanhope, folded in the trunk compartment, but we did not recognize the gun until I took it out and looked at the serial number.

  “Mine,” I said and dropped it.

  Earl was neatly jackknifed but rather unpleasant because of the two small holes, one through his nose and one through his forehead. He was in casual attire but thoroughly dead and he resisted stiffly as I dragged him out and laid him on the slanted concrete. Then I took up the gun again and examined it. Two bullets had been discharged. Then I examined Earl. The two discharged bullets had penetrated Earl.

  “Somebody is trying to fuck me up but for real,” I said.

  “Pardon?” she said.

  “Pardon me,” I said.

  “What is with Earl?” she said.

  “Earl is with his ancestors,” I said.

  “But isn’t this Earl?”

  “This is the husk of Earl. The soul is flown.”

  “But Earl? Earl? Why Earl?”

  “Honey,” I said. “Are you the one?”

  “Me? What?”

  “Are you the one pushing me into the middle?”

  “Me? Why?”

  “That’s what the hell I’d like to know. Why?”

  “Peter, not me, are you crazy?”

  “Let’s go get clean in the ocean.”

  “What?”

  “Let’s go now swim in the ocean. Now.”

  “What you say, whatever you say.”

  We left Earl on the concrete and the gun on the concrete and the car sagging down on the flat wheel and humped up with the trunk-door open and we swam in the cool ocean and then we came back and I got a snow-shovel out of the garage and I dug in the back of the house and I made a shallow grave and I put in Earl and I put in the gun and I heaped back earth and then I changed the tire and then we dressed, and then I went back to the car. I used the hose on the trunk compartment, washed it clean, and let it dry out, door up, in the sun.

  In the house, she was faint.

  The only stimulant was gin, so we drank gin.

  Then we closed up and started the drive to the city.

  “You did not kill him, did you?” she said.

  “What for? What purpose would I have in killing Earl Stanhope?”

  “But your gun …?”

  “Somebody wanted to make it look like I killed Earl Stanhope.”

  “But your gun …?”

  “Ingrid, I own eight pistols, different calibres, different makes.”

  “Eight? Why …?”

  “Pistols are a hobby and pistols are also a part of my business. They are duly registered and properly owned.”

  “And where do you keep them?”

  I understood her question. “Some at the apartment, some at the office. Not locked.”

  “That was what I was going to ask …”

  “Not locked. In desk-drawers, in table-drawers. I’m in a rough business, a business where you might have to grab quick for a gun, or get killed if you don’t grab quick enough.”

  “Then somebody stole one for the purpose—”

  “You bet.”

  “David,” she said.

  “I still vote for Tommy Lyons. He’s got hoods who can picklock my door, and also his friend Arlene happens to have a key …” I stopped but not quick enough.

  She looked at me hard.

  I pretended I did not see. I kept my eyes on the road.

  “Still David,” she said. “Why do you think Tommy?”

  “Even if Tommy didn’t do the Monique bit—then he did this to me after what I did to him in front
of cops: accused him of murder and then belted him again. Hate is hate. I don’t know what he had against Stanhope, but he combined it with a thrust at me. Last night when I got home four of his hoods jumped me …”

  “How do you know his?”

  “I recognized one of them, Sammy Bleek. Could be that Stanhope was already stuffed into the trunk compartment. Could be they planned to get me into the front seat, unconscious, and then call cops. The car was parked right there.”

  “Still David.”

  “Why? Christ, why?”

  “I have told you again and again you are dealing with a mad one. You do not know what Tommy might have had against Earl—but we do know what David had against him. He fooled David, turned the tables on David—while taking his money. Instead of attempting to marry me, Earl told me—and as you know, David knew. That would be enough to render him insane with rage. Then, also, we now know that Earl had had an affair with Arlene, and that David also knew. So, of course David. He kills Earl and he involves you because you are now the lover of Arlene. Did David have opportunity …?”

  “You mean to pinch a pistol? Yes.”

  We drove. We stopped talking.

  I dropped her out at 870 Park. I did not take her up.

  “Will I see you this evening?” she said.

  “No, I’ve got to be out of town.”

  “Tomorrow?”

  “I don’t think so. I’ll probably be back day after tomorrow. But don’t you forget tomorrow.”

  “Tomorrow?” She blinked, frowning.

  “The lawyers. Maybe a half million is nothing to you, but twenty-five thou is large cabbage to me.”

  “Cabbage?”

  “Just don’t forget the lawyers.”

  “Of course I won’t forget. Please call me as soon as you get back into town.”

  “I will. Bye, now.”

  “Goodbye, Peter.”

  I pulled off and left her standing at the curb. I drove directly home. I parked the car and in my lobby once again I was greeted by a covey of coppers this time in the charge of Detective-lieutenant Louis Parker.

  “Hi, Peter,” he said.

  “Hi, Louis,” I said.

  The cops looked bewildered at this exchange of pleasantries.

  “We’ve been waiting for you,” Parker said.

  Now the cops looked less bewildered.

  “Nice of you,” I said. “What’s up?”

  “Where’ve you been?”

  “A client.”

  “Where?”

  “What business is that of yours, Louis?”

  “Well, just whereabouts?”

  “Seventy-ninth Street.”

  “Did you drive over there, or take a cab?”

  “Drove.”

  “And drove back?”

  “Yes.”

  “Where are you parked?”

  “Right outside.”

  “Let’s go see, huh?”

  We went, in a group.

  At the car Parker said, “Would you kindly open up the trunk compartment?”

  I stood rooted like a bush, relief pouring sweat through my pores. How close to the vest can you get? Somebody was calling the tunes real quick.

  “I’ll be happy to open the trunk compartment,” I said, “although why in hell I should I don’t know.”

  “Just to oblige me.”

  “You sure get quirky whims. If I oblige, you’ll explain?”

  “Naturally,” he said.

  I opened the trunk compartment. They jumped like a bevy of ferrets. They looked, they peered, they poked. Parker sighed. “Thank you.”

  Cops don’t like crowds even if they are the crowd.

  They drifted off, leaving me alone with Parker.

  “Why the goofy request?” I said.

  “Hoax,” he said. “But in my racket you’ve got to follow up every lead no matter how nutty.”

  “Who hoaxed whom?”

  He sighed again, shrugged, drew a folded sheet of paper from a pocket and gave it to me. “A message from the switchboard man at Headquarters.”

  I unfolded the paper and read:

  12:30 P.M. Anonymous caller, male. Said to inform Lieutenant Parker of Homicide that rear compartment of car owned by one Peter Chambers contains evidence having to do with the murder of one Monique Lyons. Tried to trace call. Could not. Caller hung up too quick. Passing along message in accordance with Department Regulation No. 1133.

  I folded the paper and returned it.

  “Somebody doesn’t like you,” Parker said.

  “You’re not telling me anything new.”

  “I’m sorry for the trouble.”

  “Forget it. I’m sorry you were troubled.”

  “Wild goose chasing is part of police business.”

  “I know, Louis.”

  “Why don’t you put the car in the garage and leave it there?”

  “That’s just what I’m going to do. With instructions that it stay put for the next few days.”

  “Why? You going somewhere?”

  “London.”

  “Business?”

  “Correct. I’m free to go, I hope.”

  “Free as a bird.”

  Twenty-Six

  LONDON WAS lovely in springtime, clean and clear and sunny, with a cool salty breeze. There was no fog, smog, fume, or gloom: the city was bright and active but as choked with traffic as my own city. It was noon when I checked into my favorite little hotel in Mayfair and I was pleased when the elderly man behind the desk recognized me. “Ah, so good to see you again, sir,” he said. “I have a fine room for you. May we expect this to be a long visit?”

  “I’m not certain,” I said. “We’ll just make it day to day.”

  “Yes of course, sir, and just ring for anything you wish.”

  The boy took me to my room and he was not weighed down with luggage. All I had brought was a briefcase which contained Sadie’s tapes, Sadie’s preliminary data with photos and prints, a pair of socks, a pair of shorts, and an undershirt.

  First off, I called my friend Alfred Barnes and he consented to see me at three o’clock.

  “At three,” he said, “I can promise you the rest of the afternoon.”

  “Thank you,” I said.

  I bathed and then I went out into my second favorite city in the world. I had lunch in a restaurant on Regent Street and of course I had roast beef and Yorkshire pudding and for desert I had a second order of same because I was hungry and I am an American and they cut the roast beef awfully thin in England. Then I went out and took a cab and got out and walked and took a cab again and walked again, and repeated that, and renewed my acquaintance with London town. I saw the Thames and I saw the bridges and I saw Westminster Abbey and I saw Lincoln’s Inn and I saw St. Paul’s Cathedral and I saw the riders in Rotten Row in Hyde Park and I strolled in Kensington Gardens, and then I walked on Bond Street and Jermyn Street and Sackville and Burlington Arcade and Victoria and Knightsbridge and Sloane Square and Brompton Road. Of course I made purchases: who in hell can resist?

  I returned with my bundles to the hotel, and went to work on business. I emptied the briefcase and of the tapes I replaced only that of Monique Lyons; and of the three cardboard items of Sadie’s preliminary data I used only that of Earl Stanhope. I called downstairs for a scissors and I used that to cut Earl Stanhope’s cardboard into three sections: his photograph, the printed particulars, and the photo of his fingerprints. I added the three separate sections to the tape in the briefcase, and I was ready.

  Outside I took a cab to the Headquarters of the London Metropolitan Police Force, otherwise known as Scotland Yard. Within, I talked with a constable and told him of my appointment with Alfred Barnes. The constable talked with a telephone and then he turned me over to another constable who took me to the office of Afred Barnes.

  “Hallo, Peter,” said Alfred Barnes and we clasped hands.

  Alfred Barnes was a senior superintendent of the Criminal Investigation Department at Ne
w Scotland Yard and an old, dear, and valued friend. Alfred Barnes came frequently to New York City and I came frequently to London and he was my closest friend in London as I was his closest friend in New York City. Alfred Barnes was taller than I and thinner than I and older than I and far wiser than I. Alfred Barnes was in his early sixties, trim and youthful and vigorous, with small alert blue eyes and a crooked nose and tweedy clothes and reddish hair grizzling. He was soft-spoken, easy-mannered, unexcitable, cynical, learned, sophisticated, compassionate, a hunter but not a killer, a deep complex man, a cop but not a murderous cop, a cop without sadism, a cop with sympathy and hopelessness, a cop who knew of all the depravities of which man was capable but a cop who was not vicious in that knowledge. He had a leathery face and boy’s smile and a deep slow baritone voice and the delicate long-fingered hands of an artist.

  “So good to see you, Peter,” he said.

  “Good to see you, Alfred.”

  He waved a hand. “Take a pew.”

  I sat in a leather-seated chair and put my briefcase on the floor. He sat in a swivel behind his desk.

  “Business, pleasure, or what?” he said.

  “It’s always a pleasure,” I said.

  “You have a graceful way with words,” he said. “But if you’ve brought the briefcase, I expect some of the pleasure must be business.”

  “You’re a charmer, Alfred.”

  “An elderly charmer is sort of an anomaly.”

  “That may apply to the elderly. It doesn’t apply to you.”

  “What brings you, Peter?”

  I told him, some of it.

  I told him a little about Holly, a little about Lyons, a little about Monique, a little about Stanhope, a little about Arlene, a little about Ingrid, a little about the Croydens, a little about Sadie Flanagan, and a little about me. And I told him a little about some of the events that had brought me to London.

  “I should like you to listen to this tape,” I said.

  “Certainly,” he said.

  He called for a recorder and we put on the tape.

  I let it run once, and then again, and then again.

  He was puffing on his pipe after the third playing.

  “Yes?” he said.

  I let it run again, used the stop switch, and used the repeat for one sequence. I played that again, and then again, and then again, this one sequence: