The Bind

by Stanley Ellin

  “It’s been known to happen.”

  “Didn’t Sherry tell you that when it comes to the hired help my policy is strictly hands off?”

  “Yes. Well—” Warily, Elinor seated herself on the bed an arm’s-length away from him. “Look, all this is new to me. You can’t blame me for being a little jumpy about it, can you?”

  Jake said: “What’s making you jumpy is wondering when I try crawling into bed with you. I won’t. That settles it.”

  “All right, but how do we arrange things? You move into that next room?”

  “After only a few months of marriage to such an adorable sexpot? No, I don’t move anywhere. My clothes stay right in here, and none of these doors is ever locked. But I’ll sleep on that couch in the study. Just remember there’s never to be any bedding showing on it. I’ll make it up when I go to sleep.”

  Elinor frowned. “You sound like there’s somebody around here who’s suspicious of us already.”

  “I’ll put it this way. The Thorens have reason to be damn suspicious of any stranger who suddenly walks into their lives. We have to get close to that family. We have to move right into it, but quick. If they suspect for one second we’re not kosher, we’re done for. And you never know when somebody’ll drop in to bring a cake and take a good look around.”

  Elinor said: “So wouldn’t it have been easier if you didn’t have me with you? If you were just sort of a bachelor coming down here to write your book in peace and quiet?”

  “No. A healthy thirty-five-year-old bachelor of my type isn’t likely to move into a solidly middle-aged, married community like this by choice. The Thorens might have smelled something fishy right off if I walked in there and tried that telephone trick without you along. They’re smart enough to have put one investigator out of the game already. My gamble is that they’re not so smart that they’ll figure his replacement would be a newlywed husband with a cute little wife tagging along.”

  “That’s us all right,” Elinor said wryly. “Well, you’re in charge. Just tell me which dresser you want, and I’ll take it from there.”

  After the unpacking she put together a sketchy supper from the basic provisions Jake had instructed the agent to lay in for them. They ate at the kitchen table. When Elinor sat down to it she said: “Now what about Thoren? How was he trying to swindle your company?”

  “By committing suicide.”

  Elinor’s fork, laden with cheese omelet, remained poised in midair. “You’re putting me on.”

  “Not me, not the Guaranty Life Insurance Company of New York. Last year, February nineteenth, Thoren called on their agent here—that’s important to start with: he called on the agent, the agent didn’t call on him—and took out a hundred-thousand-dollar life insurance policy with a double indemnity rider attached. You know what that means?”

  “Yes. It’s double if you’re killed in an accident.”

  “Right. And Guaranty added its own rider which said the policy didn’t go into effect until one year after its issuance. That was February nineteenth of this year. Two weeks after it went into effect, Thoren wound up dead in a car crash.”

  Elinor said: “I get it. If it’s suicide the company doesn’t have to pay. So it’ll try to show this is suicide, no matter what.”

  “You’re putting it wrong. People who die by violence as soon as their large, double indemnity policies go into effect are, so to speak, suspicious characters right off the bat. And in Thoren’s case there was more than the timing of it to bother Guaranty. According to the record, he was driving close to ninety miles an hour on a Saturday midnight when he went off the road and piled into a tree on the MacArthur Causeway here. But according to some people who knew Thoren, he never drove that fast within their recollection and was a hell of a good driver in the bargain.”

  “So the company sent you down to see what really happened.”

  “Wrong,” Jake said. “The company doesn’t send me anywhere, because I’m not on their payroll or anybody else’s. I’m strictly free-lance. I invest my own time and money in a case. I get paid off only if I break it.”

  Elinor looked startled. “You mean, all this money you’re laying out—my three thousand, the car, renting the house—it’s all out of your own pocket?”

  “Every cent.”

  “But I thought you were on an expense account, like everybody else. This way—well, I guess you know for sure it was suicide, don’t you?”

  “Knowing it means nothing. Proving it is what pays off. But it was suicide all right. A guy at Guaranty figured that out. Johnny Maniscalco, my contact there. Head of investigations for them, and a very smart operator. Even though the police report said it was an accident, the timing of it and Thoren’s driving record put his back up. So he told Guaranty to hold up payment and came down here to look around. One good look, and he knew he was on to something.”

  “How?”

  “By following up three items in the police report. There were no tire tracks on the road to show the brakes had been applied, Thoren’s body showed no signs of drugs or alcohol at the autopsy, and what was left of the car showed no mechanical failure. To the cops this meant Thoren lost control of the car because he either blacked out or fell asleep at the wheel, which is a logical assumption when you don’t have to pay out two hundred thousand dollars for it.

  “So first thing, Maniscalco went to Thoren’s doctor—a guy named Freeman whose son is that family friend you saw over there—and got his word that Thoren had no record of ever blacking out.”

  “But what about falling asleep?” Elinor said. “How could anyone ever prove he didn’t?”

  “And that’s where Maniscalco really did a job. When he looked over the scene of the crash he noticed that a hundred yards before it, there was a slight curve in the road. Very slight. Maybe five degrees. But when he tested it in his own car he saw he had to manipulate the wheel to keep from going off the road right past that bend. So he knew Thoren was awake one hundred yards before he crashed, which at ninety miles an hour meant two and a half seconds before he crashed. You don’t manipulate even five-degree curves when you’re asleep at the wheel.

  “Since the idea was to get the police to write down suicide in their report, Maniscalco went to them with all this. And after they looked it over, they admitted that yes, there was a small possibility it was suicide. But there was also a big probability it wasn’t, and unless he could come up with a convincing answer to the jackpot question he was out of luck.”

  “What jackpot question?”

  “A reason why Thoren might want to commit suicide. An airtight, credible reason.”

  Elinor said: “But with so much evidence showing, it could be—”

  “So much isn’t enough. A smart cop is very cagey about labeling an accident suicide without solid proof, especially where a big insurance payoff is involved. Otherwise, sure as hell he’ll find himself on the witness stand in court, with the lawyer for the beneficiary slicing him into little pieces. And where the accident involves a healthy, prosperous, well-balanced citizen with powerful political connections, that goes double. Right now, Mrs. Thoren’s lawyer has everything going for him.”

  Elinor said: “You mean she’s suing for payment?”

  “She is. And Guaranty has only about a month left to enter a demurrer. And Maniscalco is right in the middle. It was bad enough when he had Guaranty stall on the payment, because that was due as soon as the death certificate and accident report were sent to them. But when the family found out why he was snooping around down here it was even worse, because they blocked him at every turn. Nobody he contacted would say a word to him about Thoren. It was like a hurricane warning had been sent up in south Florida about mentioning the name. You can’t blame people for that. Weird as it sounds, even if a man is dead, you can still be charged with slandering him. So with Guaranty blocked off so completely, Maniscalco called me into the case. I’m kind of a panic button for a lot of insurance companies.”

  “That�
�s where you lose me,” Elinor said. “If it means so much to Guaranty, shouldn’t they at least pay your expenses? Otherwise, you could just tell them to go jump.”

  Jake said: “I tell them nothing. Matter of fact, they don’t even know who I am and don’t want to know. That way, whatever I get involved in, their big brass is in the clear. Which is how I like it too.”

  “If you come out ahead. But take like this case. How do you know there was even some kind of motive for suicide you could prove?”

  “Because I’m convinced Thoren wasn’t psychotic. And because I already found out something about him which gives me a lead to a motive.”

  Elinor’s eyes brightened with interest. “Woman trouble?”

  “Money trouble. Before I told Maniscalco I’d take the case I figured I’d look into the money angle, because there wasn’t anything else I could look into from that far away. All he could tell me was that Thoren seemed to have been well-to-do, respectable, happily married, and a good father. A little on the intellectual side, but strong on sailboating, too. And he went in for civic betterment in a big way. Sort of an all-around model citizen, you might say.

  “Now, none of this means he couldn’t have been living some kind of secret life, but it did mean that if he had any dangerous secrets he knew how to keep them buried. The one thing I could dig up fast without the family knowing was his financial setup. So I told Maniscalco that if I turned up anything interesting about it I’d take the case. Otherwise, no. And I did.”

  “But how, without the family knowing?”

  “It wasn’t as hard as it sounds. My good luck, Florida doesn’t have any regular income tax, only what they call an intangible tax. Once a year you make out an affidavit listing all your holdings and bank accounts and so on, and you pay one tenth of a percent tax on the total. So I had a contact in Tallahassee get me copies of Thoren’s last few affidavits—”

  “Just like that?” Elinor said. “They’re not secret?”

  “How secret they are depends on how much you’re willing to pay for a look at them. I was told Florida’s pretty free and easy in the ethics department, and it turned out I was told right. Anyhow. Thoren’s figures showed that up to two years ago he was worth well over three hundred thousand dollars. That January it suddenly went down to two-fifty. This January it was down to one-fifty. Yet he was still getting a fair income from a company he used to own.

  “So there was the lead I needed. And between that and the accident stuff Maniscalco dug up, I felt it was a good gamble to take the case. Good gamble meaning you start with a joker in your hand. Now does it all make sense to you?”

  “Yes,” Elinor said. “Except why you call what Thoren had financial troubles. Man, you don’t know what financial troubles really are.”

  4

  After dinner he left her studying the intricacies of the dishwashing machine and went into the study. There was no more conversation from the Thoren dining room coming over the phone, so he replaced it on its stand. He was listening to the tape when Elinor appeared in the doorway.

  “Anything interesting?” she said.

  “An argument, and we lost. Kermit wanted to throw a little welcoming party for us, and Joanna backed him up, but mama said no.”

  “Is that bad? Will it hold you up any?”

  “No, I didn’t expect that much of a break anyhow. How’d you make out with the dishwasher? Figure out all the buttons?”

  “Yes, sure,” Elinor said. “Only that thing is too much of a project for just two people’s dishes. Look, is it all right to make a long-distance call? It’s cut-rate time now, and you can take it out of my pay.”

  “Long-distance to where?”

  “New York,” Elinor said. “My mother. And my kid. I told him I’d talk to him on the phone tonight.”

  Jake had been sitting back comfortably in the big swivel chair behind the desk. Now he slowly came forward in the chair. “You’ve got a kid?”

  “Yes. Honestly, it won’t make any difference in the way I handle the job here. And he’s quite a kid. He’s—”

  “You and the kid live with your mother?”

  “Yes.”

  “What did you tell her about coming down here?”

  “What Sherry told me to. I’m signed up with a theater group here for a month.”

  “All right, stick to that. But don’t give your mother this phone number and address. If you want to get in touch with her, do it from our end. You can use the phone in the bedroom. When you’re done come back here. I want to show you how to handle all this equipment.”

  Elinor still stood there.

  “Well?” Jake said.

  “Nothing.” Her voice was toneless. “It won’t take long. I’ll be right back.”

  She was back a few minutes later and listened intently, but with impassive face and cool, remote manner, as Jake explained each piece of equipment in detail. He was gratified to see that she was quick and clever with her hands when asked to demonstrate what she had learned. When he commented on that she shrugged indifferently. “Can I get some sleep now? It’s been a long day.”

  He handed her a folder of papers. “Go through these first. Everything is there that you ought to know about me for conversation purposes. Get it down pat. Otherwise, we could get our wires crossed when we’re in company.”

  Alone, he went to work on the stage setting. Portable typewriter open on the desk, dictionary and thesaurus next to it, a box of manuscript paper and a dozen sheets of typed manuscript on display around the typewriter. One sheet of typed manuscript he rolled into the typewriter and left as evidence of the author at work.

  The stage now set for the duration, the rest of the equipment locked in the closet, he sat down at the desk and dialed Maniscalco’s home number in New York. The phone was answered on its first ring.

  “Manny?” Jake said.

  “Who did you think?” Maniscalco said. “Did you make contact?”

  “Yes.”

  “Was the report on Thoren’s house accurate?”

  “So far.”

  Maniscalco said acidly: “Marvelous. That means they didn’t rebuild the house since I put that report together. Was his son there?”

  “He was there.”

  “You know what I mean,” Maniscalco said. “Did Sherry hit him right? From what I got about that stud, she’s made to order for him.”

  “Maybe, but Sherry’s not here. She called up just before I left for the airport and told me she was getting married today. She sent a friend to handle this job.”

  “Oh, for chrissake!” Maniscalco exploded. “What the hell got into her? What kind of friend? Some miserable old bagger?”

  “No, nobody who ever did this kind of work before. Some kid she worked with in a couple of those off-Broadway shows. A real pin-up, but green. She’ll have to learn as she earns. But she’ll work out.”

  “If she doesn’t learn too much,” Maniscalco warned. “You could always trust Sherry. How much can you trust this one when she finds out what it might be worth to double-cross you?”

  Jake laughed. “You’re giving pessimism a bad name, Manny. Anyhow, let me worry about the personnel down here. All I want from you is what you dug up on Thoren’s stock transactions. You said you’d have it by today.”

  “I’ve got it. He was selling off chunks of stock about once a month. It started a year and a half ago with sales of around two thousand dollars a month, then after six months it went up to eight thousand a month. Last sale was this January. It was for ten thousand.”

  “What about the money? Was it credited to his account or sent to him each time?”

  “What you figured. It was sent to him each time. The checks were cashed for him by the Biscayne National Bank down there. All the same, Jake, that’s not proof of blackmail. It could be gambling losses, couldn’t it? There’s a lot of big-money action around those parts.”

  “The percentage says it was blackmail, Manny, so unless you turn up something that says otherwise, th
at’s how I’ll play it. If you do turn up anything, don’t forget to call me about it.” He gave Maniscalco the number. “But not too early or often. And no mail at all.”

  “I’ll leave it to you, Jake. Just remember the bind I’m in, having Guaranty stall on that payment. And it’s getting tighter every day. And, Jake, that girl you’ve got on the job. Once she knows what she can sell to the Thorens—”

  “Keep the faith, baby,” Jake said, and replaced the phone on its stand.

  He took out a folder from an attaché case. The folder contained a copy of Thoren’s insurance policy issued by Guaranty. He opened the policy to its questionnaire and slowly went through the printed questions and Thoren’s handwritten answers as he had a dozen times before. Thoren’s writing was a minute, tightly disciplined script. It was not, according to the high-priced graphologist Jake had submitted it to, the handwriting of a compulsive gambler, but the graphologist himself, an old pro used by some of the best criminal lawyers in New York, had shrugged away the idea of guaranteeing this. There wasn’t enough to go by, there could be concealed factors—

  A thought struck Jake. He put the folder down and went into the bedroom. Elinor, decorously clad in pajamas, was sprawled across the bed, studying the material about him he had given her. She looked up at him.

  “I see there’s no house rule around here about knocking on doors,” she said coldly.

  “None,” Jake said. “And none about squealing and carrying on like a damn fool if one of us happens to run into the other bare-assed. Now that we’ve got that settled, I’d like to ask you something about that kid of yours. How old is he?”

  “You really want to know?” Elinor said warily.

  “Yes.”

  She brightened. “Well, he’s only three, but he’s one of those kids who—”

  “Sure he is. What I want to know is whether having him left any marks on your belly. Any birth striata.”

  “Birth striata? What’s it your business?”

  Jake said: “Those swimming outfits you took out of your bag were all bikinis. They’ll put any marks on your belly right in the spotlight for the Thorens to see. Especially Mrs. Thoren, who’s likely to know about that kind of thing. So if there are marks, either we’ll have to rewrite some of that biography of mine you’ve got there or switch to one-piece suits. Let’s take a look.”