Gilded Canary

by Brad Latham

  “Ask Mr. Billingsley to step back here when he gets a minute,” Winchell said, and the younger of the two waiters scurried off.

  Lockwood sipped a bit of whiskey, and by the time he was done, Billingsley was there.

  “Sherman,” Winchell said, “our boy Lockwood here has a bit of a problem. Sit down a minute, take a load off.”

  “Stephanie Meilleux, Sherman Billingsley,” Winchell made the introductions. “Tell me, Sherman, doesn’t she belong on the screen at the Roxy?”

  “Radio City,” smiled Billingsley. “You’re an actress, Miss Meilleux?”

  “No, just should be,” Winchell told him, “but I guess she’s got other plans,” and the two of them looked at Lockwood and smiled.

  “Sherman,” Winchell continued, “Hook here is working on the Muffy Dearborn case, such as it is,” he paused, enjoying Billingsley’s grin. Billingsley, of course, had seen Winchell’s item. “And he’s run across a tough guy whom no one in New York seems to be able to make. Sketch him out for Sherman, Hook.”

  The Hook shrugged. “Not much to say. Never got a really close look. Big, brawny—and only one eye. The other is glass. Brown.”

  Sherman considered for a moment. “Only know one like that.”

  Lockwood leaned toward him, his body suddenly taut. “Yes?”

  “Widwer Levinskey.”

  “Widwer?”

  “That’s right,” Billingsley smiled, absently, his eyes darting about, watching the operation of the room.

  “What’s his story?”

  “Small-time punk. Long Island. He could never make it here.”

  “Long Island.”

  “Right. When I knew him, he owned part of a nightclub in the Huntington Beach area. But he had no class, and it folded up, even with gambling up in the loft.”

  “Do you know where he is now?”

  “I’ve heard he’s associated with a roadhouse out near Montauk. Some of the young Long Island social set frequent it. Star’s, I believe it’s called.”

  “Would it be open tonight?”

  “Sure, sure. It’s an after-hours place, so you’ve still got plenty of time to drive out there.”

  “We go now?” Stephanie asked.

  “I. I go now. Not you. Stymie and her were different. This one could be trouble,” Lockwood told her.

  “I come with you.”

  “No, not this time.” His voice was steel, and she saw there was no hope.

  “Well, see you later,” Billingsley said, rising. “Hope I’ve been of some help.”

  Winchell had a hand on Lockwood’s arm. “Don’t go yet, pal. Remember, there’s a little quid pro quo going on here.”

  Winchell raised his hand, ordered new drinks for the two of them, and Lockwood shrugged and recounted what he knew.

  Half an hour later he and Stephanie left the club. It was a beautiful evening, and the city was alive with people, all well dressed and animated, moving quickly, talking and laughing.

  “Hey!” came a voice.

  Lockwood turned, and it was Raff Spencer. He felt himself warming. Raff was likable, all right. Sometimes he hated being in a racket where everyone, no matter what he was like, was under suspicion. It didn’t do good things to you. “Hello, Raff,” he said, “what brings you here?”

  “Oh, well, Muffy was through for the night, and tired, so she went straight to bed. I thought I’d catch the new Carole Lombard at the Criterion. How about yourselves?”

  “Nothing much. I’m putting Stephanie here into a cab, and then driving out to Long Island.”

  “Long Island? At this hour?”

  “It’s business.”

  “Ah.” Raff whistled a cheerful bar or two. “May I ask what it’s all about? Long Island at 1 A.M. Sounds awfully mysterious. Or foolhardy.”

  “Possibly the latter,” Lockwood smiled. “It’s about the Dearborn case.”

  “The Dearborn case. How official-sounding. Muffy’s lost little gewgaws, you mean.” Raff considered a moment. “You think the thief’s in Long Island?”

  “I don’t know. Someone is who seems to have some involvement in the case. I’ve got to check him out.”

  “Ah, well then,” Raff said. “I guess I’ll just toddle off to the funny pictures. Good night, Hook, good night Stephanie.”

  “It will be very dangerous,” Stephanie said, urgently.

  “Dangerous?” Raff had half-moved away. Now he turned to them again. “What do you mean, dangerous?”

  “Woman talk,” Lockwood said, trying to shrug it off. “Come on, let’s find you a cab,” he said to Stephanie.

  “A man who has twice tried to kill—Mr. Lockwood,” she pressed on. “This is the man in Long Island.”

  “Ah! A killer—or potentially so,” Raff mused. “Anyone I know?”

  “He has one eye,” she said.

  “One eye! Well, no trouble then,” he smiled, turning toward Lockwood. “Just approach him from his blind side.”

  “You are laughing! He could be killed!”

  “It’s none of Raff’s business, Stephanie.”

  “You are in danger.”

  “Wait a minute, hold everything,” Raff cried. “What do you mean, none of my business? After all, Hook, remember I owe you two.”

  “You don’t owe me anything.”

  “Ah-ah, that won’t wash. I’m a man who always pays his debts.”

  “Thanks, Raff, but I can’t let you do it. It’s not something you can laugh your way into.”

  “Dammit, man, forget my confounded grins,” Raff said. “I’m not approaching this as some simple boyish prank. I realize there’s danger, and good humor simply happens to be my way of dealing with that broad streak of yellow—the one that shows up along my back whenever anything the slightest bit risky comes up.”

  “No.”

  “You mean, I’ll have to hire a cab and follow you?”

  “You’re a tough man to dissuade.”

  “Not tough. Impossible.”

  The Hook considered, then shrugged acceptance. Raff was obviously no fool, and he’d already shown he could handle himself when he had to. It would be a long ride, and he could use agreeable companionship. In a crowded nightclub it wasn’t too likely that anything too consequential would come up. “Okay,” he said, tersely.

  He hailed a cab and gave the driver instructions. Stephanie looked back at him imploringly through the window as the hack drove off.

  “Now what?” Raff asked.

  “I park my car at the Radio City Garage. We’ll walk there.”

  It was slow progress as they threaded their way through the crowds. New York never shut down, it seemed.

  “I’ve been wanting to talk to you anyway,” Lockwood said.

  “Good. I like to talk,” Raff answered. “I hope it’s about myself.”

  Lockwood smiled. “You’ve no shame, have you?”

  “With my proclivities? I can’t afford it.”

  “Proclivities?”

  “Oh nothing freakish, old man, nothing like that. Just the original Peck’s bad boy, that’s all.”

  “I’ve been wondering about you, how you make your living. This is a professional question, understand. I’m not meaning to be rude.”

  “Quite all right, old Hook. How I make my living. Sounds a little like a grammar school composition. “How I Make My Living”—such as it is,” he grinned ruefully.

  “Inheritance, mainly, a trust fund with a monthly income,” he offered. “Small one, nothing fancy. But it’s enough to keep me in the circles I prefer—if I get invited to enough dinners and weekends.”

  “That’s it?”

  “Oh, a blow at the market now and then. I’m one of the few who’s had some luck these years. Again though, nothing fancy. Just a few hundred here and there.”

  Raff paused, and dropped a coin in the battered hat of a gaunt man wearing a sign marked “Veteran.” “Why are you asking, Hook? Do you suspect I’m the one who made off with Muffy’s trinkets?”
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  “The thought has occurred to me.”

  Raff laughed, his head thrown back in amusement. “You don’t mince words, do you?”

  “Everyone on a case like this is a suspect. I’ve been fooled by people I’ve liked before.”

  “So have I,” Raff said, his smile fading. “Though it had nothing to do with crime and jewels.”

  They walked in silence the rest of the way to the garage, where Lockwood made one last attempt to dissuade Raff. “You owe me nothing, Raff; chivalry and honor disappeared a long time ago, in the mists of the Argonne.”

  “I’m not the cynic you are, Hook.”

  “A live cynic is better off than a dead romanticist.”

  “I’m coming along,” Raff said, and Lockwood shrugged his shoulders and they walked to his car.

  A few minutes later, the Cord pulled out onto 50th Street, and moments after, a sleek black sedan pulled out and followed it.

  CHAPTER

  5

  They had driven through the Queens Midtown Tunnel, and were now on Queens Boulevard. The Hook punched a button on the Motorola, and music jumped out at them. Count Basie was doing a remote from the Famous Door on 52nd Street.

  “Good stuff, that,” Raff commented, “very big in England.”

  “You’re not English though, are you?”

  “No. Just stayed there for a while after the war. Really had no reason to come back.”

  “What finally brought you back?”

  Raff smiled a crooked smile. “I had no reason to stay in England.”

  “Then I take it you met Muffy here.”

  “Ah Muffy. Yes. In the usual way, of course. A party in Southampton, a do in Manhattan, a fete in Newport, and sooner or later we gravitated toward one another. Newton’s theory, you see. Of gravitation, that is.”

  “There’re rumors you plan to marry.”

  “Ah well.” Raff fell silent a moment. Then he smiled engagingly, turning toward Lockwood, “Are you grilling me again?”

  “In a way. I’d like to know more about Muffy.”

  “I see. Everyone a suspect, as you say. Well, what can I tell you that will help me thrust my beloved into the pokey?”

  “You don’t have to say anything.”

  “No, it’s all right.” Raff pulled out a pipe and began filling it. “Hope you don’t mind this.” Lockwood shook his head, and Raff continued.

  “What is Muffy Dearborn like?” He paused a moment, as if thinking it over. “Rich, of course. Spoiled, of course. But the first you’ve read about, and the second I’m sure you’ve seen.”

  When Lockwood said nothing, Raff continued. “Willful. Imperious. Not a deep thinker. When it comes to our Mr. Einstein, her deepest respect is not for his gray matter, but for those soulful eyes of his.”

  Raff lit a match, and drew in on the pipe. The glowing tobacco had an aromatic, fruity quality that Lockwood found pleasant. “Cantankerous at times. Very. Full of herself at times. Most of them. Very kind to animals, to children and the wounded, of one sort or another.”

  “You fall into that category?”

  “Wounded?” Raff gave a short laugh. “Hardly. Oh, a bit of Lost Generation, perhaps, now and then, but just a touch. I think I’m more or less whole now.”

  “So it’s her kindness that appeals to you?”

  “Hm? Oh I suppose. She really can be awfully fun, you know. Rather dippy at times, in a gloriously amusing way. It’s a side that only intimates glimpse, though. And of course, she’s young and very, very lovely.” Lockwood barely heard him. Raff, as he uttered the last sentence, stared off to the side.

  “When Jabber-Jabber was killed, her only reaction was—how do I get publicity now?” Hook said.

  “Yes?” Raff’s tone was flat, as if ready to be protective of Muffy.

  “Just how hot is she for publicity?”

  “Very. But not publicity. Recognition. Muffy thinks of herself as an artist. She wants to be known, yes. But as someone of merit, not just as a name.”

  “You sound sure of that.”

  “My boy,” Raff said, “it’s easy to be. After all, even before singing a note, she was a name. It’s that way for the very rich, you know.”

  Lockwood shrugged. Somehow none of it satisfied him. He glanced in the rearview mirror, and then again. And then a third time. “I think we’re being followed,” he said. They were on the Hempstead Turnpike now, nearing the turnoff for the Montauk Highway.

  Raff swung his head back. “How can you tell?” he asked, after a moment.

  “I’m not sure I’m right, not yet. But the set of those headlights is distinctive. I think I’ve noticed them a couple of times before as we’ve been driving….” Lockwood saw the sign for the turnoff and swung into the right lane. The car behind followed.

  “Have they been following us long?”

  “My guess is they picked us up in the city,” Lockwood answered. “The next intersection we come to, I can make a quick stop, and you can jump out and make a run for it.”

  “Nothing doing,” Raff demurred. “This is what I’m here for. Even if you have been making insinuations about the gal I love,” he drawled, giving it a yokel intonation. He wasn’t serious about much, it seemed.

  “All right. We’ll drive a while and see what happens. If he stays on us, I’ll try something.”

  They continued to drive, and the car behind them faded into the black for a while, then reappeared, then faded, then reappeared. “It’s good driving,” Lockwood said, respect in his voice. “It took me a long time to spot him, and even now he makes you wonder a bit.” They had finally reached the country, houses turning up erratically, with long empty stretches in between. Potato fields, probably.

  “There’s a curve up ahead I know. I’m going to speed up, cut the headlights, and pull over to the side of the road. Put out your pipe.” He floored the accelerator, roared into the curve, tires barely making contact, then slammed off the lights and wheeled abruptly away from the asphalt, driving straight at the shadow of a tree, then veering off to its side and totally obscuring the Cord in the night shadows. Raff had immediately emptied his pipe when instructed.

  The car behind thundered by and suddenly picked up even more speed, as if anxious to catch up to something. “Looks as though you were right,” Raff observed.

  Lockwood said nothing. He pulled out onto the road, lights off, then headed back in the direction they’d come.

  “We’ll try it another night?” Raff asked.

  “No. They might come back looking for us near that curve,” Hook answered. “We’ll drive a while and stop and see what happens.”

  Two miles down the highway Lockwood went into a U-turn and again pulled to the side of the road. Nothing showed, and ten minutes later they were once more driving toward the Star roadhouse.

  Three miles went by, and again there were the lights of a car behind them. They were like those before; close-set and high. “You’ve got to give him credit. He knows his job,” Lockwood grimaced.

  “What now?” Raff asked.

  “We try again,” Lockwood said.

  The Cord abruptly picked up speed as a curve approached, but this turn was too short, and there was no time to leave the road.

  “They seem to be gaining on us,” Raff said coolly.

  “The better for us to see them, my dear,” Hook answered, doing a garble on Red Riding Hood as he pulled the hand brake and swerved rightward. “It pays to know just which wolf it is you’re up against.”

  As he’d expected, the car behind, caught short by the maneuver, the use of the emergency brake keeping the Cord’s brake lights from flashing, involuntarily shot past them. Enough of a moon shone into the vehicle’s interior to satisfy The Hook. “Slops Weinstein,” he said.

  “What?”

  “One of Two-Scar Toomey’s bimbos,” Lockwood answered, his mouth set. “Now we know it’s not fun and games.”

  The car up ahead had slowed down, moving into the wrong lane, waiting for Lo
okwood to catch up. “Get down,” Hook said. “We’re going to pass them, and they’ll be slinging lead.” Again he hit the accelerator and again the Cord leapt forward.

  They were pulling up to the other car, and Lockwood slid deep into the seat, relying on memory, his hands guiding the wheel, as two slugs whistled over his head.

  He was sitting up again, head low, as the bullets now came at them from the rear. He’d passed Toomey’s bunch successfully, but the engine of the pursuing car seemed to be a match for the Cord’s.

  “Okay,” Lockwood said. “First chance I get, we pull off the road, and scramble out of the car.” He reached down toward his belt. “Here,” he said, pulling out the .38, “you hold onto this.”

  “What about you?”

  “You’re company. You get served first.”

  “But that’s not right. It’s your gun.”

  “Dammit, Spencer, button up. I’m not going to leave you defenseless.”

  The Packard was almost on them when Lockwood whipped the Cord to the right, speeding through the gravel at the roadside, down an embankment and into a field, the car bouncing and groaning as it sped over the uneven ground. Lockwood saw a grove of trees and headed toward it, then braked. “Out!” he called, and threw himself after Raff, through the open car door on the passenger’s side. Already the auto behind, which had followed them all the way, had stopped, twenty yards distant, its headlights glaring. “Run for that bunch of trees,” Hook urged. “I don’t want them shooting at the car. We’ll still need it tonight, after this is over.”

  “You don’t ever quit, do you?” Raff marveled, as they ran. “You’re bound and determined to get where you’re going, aren’t you?”

  “Shut up and keep your head down,” Lockwood urged, as a bullet whined by.

  Another few seconds, and they’d gained the trees.

  “Stay here and keep them entertained with an occasional shot,” Lockwood said. “I’m going to try to circle around.”

  “It looked like four of them to me,” Raff told him. “That seems like an awfully tall order for you.”

  “That’s the fun of this business,” Lockwood said, but there was nothing about his expression that suggested fun.