The Bind

by Stanley Ellin

  “Sure it is, but the only thing we can prove false in court is that statement about army service. And according to those legal geniuses I was locked up with all afternoon, if we wanted to make an issue of that, we had to do it before the incontestability clause became operative seven weeks ago. So what I’d like to know, Jake, is how much this affects the job you’re doing down there. I’m not putting it as a challenge. I just want to know how much our chances are hurt because Thoren’s a blank before 1942.”

  Jake said: “You’re putting it as a challenge. Did those lawyers really shake you up that bad?”

  “Not them, Jake. After all, nothing they had to say was that much of a surprise. But a whole team from Claims was there too, shaking their heads at me like I was the one who passed on that goddam policy application in the first place. A bunch of gutless wonders. They won’t come right out and tell me to authorize payment, because they smell something fishy here as much as you and I do. What they’d like me to do is give up and authorize payment all on my own. Then they can jump on me for getting them into a useless lawsuit to start with.”

  “After thirty years’ service? Come on, Manny, you’re being paranoid about it.”

  “Not me, mister. I hate to tell you how many nice clean-cut college hot shots in Claims would give their right arm for my job, and all of them using that thirty years’ service against me. It means I’m too old and pooped-out to handle the job any more. Why not put me out into pasture on half-retirement money right now, before I ruin Guaranty? I’m telling you, Jake, the pressure at that meeting was enough to make your ears pop. And the one way I can really ream it up these college bastards is to bust this case wide open. So be honest with me. Is there still a chance of busting it open?”

  “Hell, there’d better be, considering my investment in it.”

  “But could you put enough of the picture together right now, so an outsider could see we had a chance? Claims called another meeting for tomorrow morning with some of the brass sitting in. If I can convince them we have a fighting chance to get a release from the beneficiary before the month is up, at least some of the pressure’ll be off until then.”

  “All right, I’ll do what I can. But I have to go over the policy and all my reports first. It might take a couple of hours.”

  Maniscalco said fervently: “I’ll be waiting right here by the phone with the tape recorder all wound up. Listen, Jake, when you look at the date Thoren suddenly turned up out of nowhere—1942, right in the middle of the war—do you think he might have been a draft dodger on the lam? It makes sense that way, doesn’t it?”

  “Not enough. For one thing, he wasn’t the draft-dodger type. For another thing, he was smart enough to know that being tagged a draft dodger today doesn’t mean what it used to. Some of the best people are making it their hobby. It sure as hell wouldn’t be worth ten thousand a month to him in blackmail to cover it up, and with suicide for the big finish. Anyhow, don’t worry your head about it, Manny. You just light a candle to the saint of insurance investigators, whoever it is, and I’ll try to call back before it goes out.”

  21

  The cardboard folders, Jake observed as he laid them out on the desk, were now beginning to look pretty worn and battered. He arranged them before him, then became aware of the voices from the monitor in the bedroom. He closed his door to cut off the sound, and returned to the folders. He started with an examination of the policy, making notes as he went through the questionnaire.

  The door opened, and Elinor stood there. “Am I bothering you?”

  “It depends.”

  “Oh. Well, I just wanted to tell you it’s all over. I’ve got the tape marked where you walked out. I can play the rest of it for you whenever you’re ready.”

  “That won’t be for a while. How’d it come out?”

  “It’ll come out the way Mrs. Thoren wants it to. There’s some kind of Daystar Island committee meeting next month where they vote on whether you can buy the house or not, and she’s lining up votes to make sure you can’t. And I want to say you were right about Patty Tucker, and I was wrong. I guess Mrs. Thoren’s the only one of them who doesn’t know what a first-class bitch she is.”

  “She knows,” Jake said. “Well, you don’t have to look that depressed about it. It’s not your headache.”

  Elinor said: “No, but I kind of liked Mrs. Thoren, and right now I can’t stand her. How the hell can you ever stand anybody if you’re always listening in to what they say in private?” She shook her head as if to clear it of this bleak thought. “What did Maniscalco have to tell you? Anything interesting?”

  “You might call it that,” Jake said. He gave her the gist of Maniscalco’s message, and when she looked stunned he said: “I know. But whatever you’re thinking, I already thought. What I have to do now is try and add this whole thing up and give Maniscalco the score. I’ll let you know when I’m ready to call him so you can listen in. Meanwhile, phone Magnes and ask him to find out first thing tomorrow if Thoren was a registered voter. Then tune in on Nera Ortega. When I was over there last night I bugged her downstairs line.”

  “Well, all right,” Elinor said. “That, at least, comes as no surprise.”

  That was at eight-thirty. It was almost midnight before he stiffly pulled himself out of the swivel chair and went into the bedroom. Elinor, phone receiver and monitor arranged beside her on the bed, was watching Johnny Carson preparing to sell something on the television set drawn up close to her. Jake switched off the set, but the sound of Carson’s voice remained loud and clear in the room.

  Elinor said: “That’s Mrs. Thoren’s TV. There was nothing doing at the Ortegas’, so I figured you’d want me to stay with Mrs. Thoren same as usual.”

  “Not watching the set here at the same time,” Jake said. “That’s not how it’s done.”

  “So now I know. It’s just that you can go crazy listening in and not seeing what they’re laughing at. And then it wasn’t worth seeing after all. Man, that’s a square world out there.”

  “Well,” Jake said, “if you want to hear all about a different kind of world, just come inside and listen to what I tell Maniscalco.”

  22

  He said to Maniscalco: “Do you have that policy questionnaire handy?”

  “Jake, for chrissake, I’ve been waiting with it in front of me here for the last three hours.”

  “Good. Now take a close look at it. First where Thoren put down the date of his birth, and then on the next page where he wrote down the date of his father’s death.”

  “I’m looking,” Maniscalco said. “What about them?”

  “Look again. I think you’ll find the same thing there I did. It’s been bothering me every time I went through these papers, but I couldn’t figure out why until now. I’ll give you one clue. He was emotionally all wound up when he filled those questions in, so he made one little slip which happens to be a very big giveaway.”

  Half a minute later Maniscalco said: “I got it. The first date is written October fifth, 1915; the other one has the day and then the month—second of January, 1940. The European way.”

  “Right. And those little hooks on the number ones that make them all look like number sevens is also the European way.”

  “What do you know?” Maniscalco said with awe. “The guy was a foreigner.”

  “Well, not strictly a foreigner after living here half his life. But he was a refugee probably. I estimate he landed here from Denmark some time between 1935 and 1940, and those were Hitler years. Refugee time everywhere.”

  Maniscalco said: “It was. And the 1940 I can see. He turned up in Miami in 1942, full-fledged American style, so we allow a couple of years for him to pick up the language. But why the 1935?”

  “Because everything on the record indicates he was well-educated. Possibly a university graduate. Which means he was at least twenty when he left Europe. You know, Manny, this was one hell of a man.”

  “I’m glad you feel so tender about him, Ja
ke. It’s like the whole thing is in the family that way.”

  “I wouldn’t exactly call it tenderness. But you can’t take away from the guy that he created a different person out of himself so perfectly that nobody even dreamed of challenging it. Here’s a man who built up an image of himself where he seemed to have a whole social life and be an actively good citizen, while all the time he was really a loner. Look at the way he handled it, Manny. He always kept his mouth tight shut no matter how much he was tempted to talk up sometimes. He locked himself in on Daystar Island here, which is like a high-class isolation ward anyhow. He hand-picked a couple of friends from the people around him and that was all. He made his main activity sailboating, which he could do alone. And he went a long way to keep himself and his family out of the papers. Even that Civic Planning Association he joined to round out the picture of the good citizen must be a stiff. I signed on Abe Magnes and he’s checking it out now. I’ll bet its membership is that same hand-picked set Thoren was close to on the island.”

  “But what’s behind the whole cover-up, Jake? Good as your idea looks, you know it makes no sense unless he had some damn good reason for going to all that trouble.”

  “He had. Now hold on to your hat, Manny. Thoren came to the States between 1935 and 1940. And somewhere between 1940 and 1942, which is when he showed up in Miami, he committed a murder.”

  “A murder? Are you sure? You mean you have evidence of it?”

  “If I had evidence of it, I’d be babying Mrs. Thoren through a case of hysterics right now so she could sign that release. Just take my word for it. The real Walter Thoren, whoever he was, committed a murder. That’s as far as it goes for the time being. What the motive was, or the method, I have no idea.”

  Maniscalco said: “Well, if it comes to that, how about plain, old-fashioned profit for a motive? That ties right in with the sixty thousand bucks he had to pay for his partnership in Sprague’s company down there right after he showed up in town.”

  Jake said: “You mean he bought in to that company? For cash?”

  “He did. It was in the clipping from the business page of the Miami Herald I told you about.”

  Jake said softly: “But you never told me he bought in to the company, you stupid son of a bitch. I’ve been thinking he made out by marrying the boss’s daughter. You should have realized what it could mean if he showed up here with that much money on him, a young guy not even out of his twenties.”

  “Jake, be reasonable. It was a small detail as far as I could see, and it happened twenty-six years ago. How the hell was I to know it was even worth thinking about? And it came out now when it mattered, so there’s no harm done, is there?”

  “No, but there was a lot of time wasted while I was trying to figure out some motive. Any motive. Maybe you are getting too old for that job, Manny.”

  “Well, you’re not making me feel any younger. What do you say we just stick to the case?”

  “I’m the one who’s been sticking to it. Anyhow, Thoren committed murder and, as I now learn, wound up with a lot of money. Then he went to work on that new identity. A lot of work, including finding out there was a backwoods place in Minnesota where the town hall had been destroyed by fire along with all the records stored in it. That’s how we know the murder was committed after 1940. Because that fire in St. Olivet happened in 1940. However he found out about it, he knew that claiming to come from St. Olivet took care of most of his background. And he’d want a place in Minnesota because speech patterns in some areas there still have a Scandinavian flavor. So between that and whatever cooked-up identification he needed to prove he was a wounded veteran, he came down to Miami ready to be Walter Thoren, model citizen.

  “There was only one hitch to this beautiful setup: someone knew about that murder. And a little over two years ago—I’m calculating it was about January, two years ago—Thoren ran right into that somebody. This we know because of the blackmail. We also know that the blackmailer is now working on Mrs. Thoren. Since he’d never be able to do that without telling her the inside story of the real Thoren, it means that right this minute I’m close to two people who know all about Thoren’s crime and his true identity. And given a little time, I’ll be the third one to have that inside story. I’ll hand you the release from Mrs. Thoren right after that.”

  Maniscalco took his time thinking it over. Then he said: “You know what I’ll do, Jake? Edit this tape a little bit, then run it through for the brass at that meeting tomorrow. I’ve got a feeling it’s the best way to do a selling job on them.”

  “A selling job. In other words, Manny, you’ve got me in a deep hole with the water rising fast. That meeting is to decide whether they give you the go-ahead for another couple of weeks, or whether they send a check for two hundred thousand to Mrs. Thoren tomorrow afternoon, isn’t it?”

  “Now, Jake—”

  “Save the tears for the brass, Manny. What you can do for me is find out from the Danish authorities whether they have any record of a Walter Thoren emigrating between 1935 and 1940. Also whether any Jewish refugee organization has that name on any list from that period.”

  “I’ll get to work on it first thing.”

  “And on something else, too. Take a look at the questionnaire, the second page where the medical examiner put down Thoren’s identifying marks. Where he described that L-shaped scar on his back. You find it?”

  “I found it.”

  “Well, since we now know Thoren wasn’t wounded in action, there’s a chance he was during his commission of the crime. Show the description of the scar to that forensic medicine expert you keep on tap and ask him if he has any idea what kind of weapon might have made it.”

  “You can count on me, Jake. Anything else?”

  “No. When’s that meeting tomorrow?”

  “Ten-thirty.”

  “Then I’ll expect to hear from you by noon. I’d like to know as soon as I can if the water’s over my head or not.” Jake planted the phone on its stand and swung around to face Elinor. She was sitting hunched forward on the couch, hands clasped in her lap, looking at him intently. He said: “You wouldn’t mind that too much, would you? Heading back to mama and the kid tomorrow with a check for three thousand in your pocket.”

  “Well”—she hesitated, the tip of her tongue moving in a small circle around her lips, moistening them—“I think there’s something you ought to know, Jake, because you’ll find out anyhow when you get the phone bill. I’ve been talking to my mother and the kid every night for a few minutes. They’re making out fine.”

  “I envy them with all my heart.”

  “Look, I’m not kidding. It’s just that if things are all right at home, I don’t mind being down here on the job for the whole time we settled on. It’s too early for summer theater casting anyhow.”

  Jake said: “All we can do is hope Guaranty feels the same way about it. What do you do between stage jobs, such as they are? Modeling?”

  “No, I’m not the right size or shape for that. You have to be about six foot tall and weigh ninety pounds. Mostly I’m behind the counter in department stores.”

  “Men’s departments, I trust? I’m only saying that from the viewpoint of the average male customer. My personal preference happens to be for tall, stately brunettes on the skinny side.”

  “That’s all right with me. Because mine happens to be for men who cut loose and yell when they get sore at somebody, not start whispering at them like you did with that poor Maniscalco. That’s real computer stuff, that terribly self-controlled bit. If you ask me—”

  “But I didn’t,” said Jake.

  Maniscalco called a few minutes before noon the next day. “You’re still in business with me, pal,” he said, all joviality. “That’s the important thing.”

  “Fine, now I can stop holding my breath. What’s the unimportant thing?”

  “That medical expert’s report on Thoren’s scar. I had a man drop into his office and ask about it first thing this morning.
He said odds were it was postoperative. If not, it might have been made by a flanged shovel driven into the back at an angle. Or maybe a bottle, square or rectangular, with the bottom of it knocked off. But he admitted it was all pretty much speculation on his part.”

  Jake said: “And it never entered his speculation that the wound might have been made by a weapon, not an implement? A knife possibly?”

  “No, he didn’t say anything about that.”

  “Did you also ask the Danish authorities and Jewish refugee organizations to look up Thoren?”

  “Oh, hell. Jake, I’ll get on it right now. Jesus, you should see my desk here. I’ve got about a dozen active cases piled on it.”

  “That’s tough. But I’ll be very understanding about it, as long as you keep one thing in mind.”

  “Yeah?”

  “It’s this,” Jake said. “No matter how many cases are piled on your desk, Manny, make sure mine is always the one on top.”

  “There, you see,” Elinor pointed out accusingly as he put down the phone. “You were whispering like that again.”

  23

  Magnes called late in the afternoon. “Dekker, we made the breakthrough. The big one. You remember how you figured? If Thoren stopped going to Bayside Spa just before he had that fuss with the Ortega woman, there was a solid chance the blackmailer first bumped into him then and there at the spa?”

  “Yes?”

  “Well, that run-in with the woman happened around February ninth. And the last time Thoren ever showed up at the spa was two weeks before. January twenty-fifth.”

  “Then that was when and where the action started.”

  “Wait, there’s even more. It also happens that Thoren’s pet masseur—the rubber who always worked on him there—went and quit his job the exact same January twenty-fifth. And he had a reputation, this rubber, for being like a mascot to the Mob.” Magnes lowered his voice. “Look at that. A couple of yentas got nothing better to do, they’ll take a sunbath right by my window. I think it’s better if we get together about this business.”