One True Sentence: A Hector Lassiter novel (Hector Lassiter series Book 1)

by Craig McDonald

  “Or a queer,” Hem said.

  Gertrude nodded slowly. Her dark-eyed gaze settled on Hector. In her deep, smoky voice she said, “And you, my star? I can guess whose side you’ll take in this, but what are your thoughts?”

  Hector expelled a thin stream of smoke, looking at Estelle. “I think there are too many change-ups.”

  Joan Pyle leaned forward, feet apart and elbows on knees. “What does that mean?”

  “Sorry, it’s a baseball term,” Hector said. He sipped more wine and leaned forward, unconsciously echoing Joan’s posture. He said, “Some kill only once…a robbery at gun- or knife-point that escalates. Some domestic mess. But professionals —assassins — they specialize. Even sex maniacs nearly always kill the same way.”

  Estelle Quartermain said, “And your point, Mr. Lassiter?”

  “The only consistent thing about these crimes,” Hector said, “is the vocation of the victims. The murders themselves, and their means, are all over the damn place. There’s simply too much variation.”

  Gertrude said, “Elaborate.”

  Nodding, Hector said, “All the murders — except for the one that Estelle has fixated on — required close-in work. They display a willingness to get messy and to see the effects up close. Daggers driven into hearts. And, most telling of all, Blake’s murder. Brinke is right: his killer likely crawled into bed with Lloyd. The murderer got Blake to lower his guard. That one would have been the bloodiest death of all. In the other cases, there would have been the single thrust of the blade, then the swift retreat from a sheltered doorway, or a hand pressed to a chin to tip a body over a bridge rail and into the river before the real bleeding began.

  “But that killing in bed? Even prone, even sleeping, there would have been a terrible mess,” Hector said. He took another hit from his cigarette. Through a curtain of smoke he said, “The arterial spray would have been profound. The blood would have come like a geyser until the heart stopped.”

  “So uncivilized,” Estelle said, looking queasy. “Thuggish.”

  “Welcome to real-world murder, sweetie,” Brinke said, watching the other mystery writer. “Poisoning, from afar, is the work of an aloof coward. Or a terrible kind of woman.”

  Gertrude said, “And now a man has been thrown under a car. Yes, all these variations, as Hector calls them, have been vexing us.” She looked again to Hector. “And so, my star, what is your conclusion?”

  “I conclude that we’re not looking for a killer,” Hector said, “not for some devious mastermind of the kind I get the inkling Estelle envisions. I think we’re facing killers. Some kind of…well, team, or cooperative.”

  Gertrude sipped some wine and nodded again, slowly. In her deep voice she said, “We think that we concur.”

  11

  Brinke walked briskly alongside Hector, long legs keeping pace, her arm hooked securely through his. In her man’s overcoat and hat — and with her short hair — they garnered occasional curious looks until other passersby drew closer and saw that Brinke was a woman.

  She said, “We’re skipping dinner with Hem?”

  “God, I want to. Especially as Ford will be along now. Probably with one of his mistresses. You know — so Hem can ‘watch his back.’ I’m not sure who I feel sorrier for in the days ahead — Ford or Hem.”

  Hector was also hoping to avoid any awkwardness with Molly, who knew all of Hem’s and Hector’s haunts. After Molly had dismissed Brinke as a “whore,” Hector couldn’t see bringing the two of them together. Particularly since the “whore” was now sharing Hector’s bed.

  “Alone together is better,” Brinke said. “But I am starving.”

  That made him smile. “You always seem to be starving.”

  They crossed the Rue Madame, headed toward the gardens. “It’ll be Connor Templeton’s treat,” she said. “But where should we eat?”

  “There’s a good place on the Rue Auguste Comte, close by where we stopped for wine last night.”

  “Sounds perfect. And we can pick up more wine, for later.” She squeezed his arm tighter, shivering.

  “We could get a cab,” he said.

  “No, the winter’s walk will do us good. Clears the head.” She squeezed his arm tighter and said, “What do you think of Gertrude’s plan?”

  Miss Stein had laid out a loose strategy for investigation:

  Estelle and her husband were to pursue the poisoning angle (Estelle had insisted).

  Brinke and Hector would nose around the murder of Lloyd Blake.

  “We’ll do our little piece, I suppose,” Hector said. “Of course, I also mean to go outside the lines if we really do this. Charles Turner had a wife. We should talk to her. Estelle and her husband will never do that — too intrusive…too…un-English.”

  “We’ll do that if the widow will see us. But not tonight,” Brinke said, smiling.

  “No, not tonight,” he agreed. “Tonight is for good things.”

  ***

  They dined on sole grillées and salad. Still hungry, Brinke had just ordered crabe rémoulade.

  Brinke said, “Estelle really gets under your skin.”

  Hector poked around at his salad. At Gertrude’s, as Estelle had disparaged the criminals in Hector’s stories as “thugs,” he’d been seized by another vision of himself with the British mystery writer — naked together on some Oriental rug…bathed in sweat…writhing…Estelle’s nails at his back. He said to Brinke, “She doesn’t rub you the wrong way?”

  “Utterly.” Brinke smiled. “But probably for different reasons.”

  “Such as?”

  Brinke shook her head. “Doesn’t matter now. You really think these killings are the result of some team effort?”

  “I do.”

  “Me too, since you said it. But it’s crazy. And who is doing it? And why?”

  “All fine questions for tomorrow,” Hector said.

  ***

  They turned the corner onto the Rue Vavin. There were light snow flurries underway and enough wind to create small squalls in the rare spaces between the buildings.

  “This is odd,” Hector said.

  A woman was sitting on the steps outside Hector’s building. The woman’s head was in her hands and her shoulders were shaking. Flakes of snow lay heavy in her thick auburn hair. She was wearing a threadbare wool coat.

  When he recognized her, Hector ran the last thirty yards to her. He called, “Hash! What in God’s name is wrong?”

  Hadley rose and ran to Hector’s arms. Between sobs, she said, “It’s Ernest! He’s been arrested.”

  Brinke said, “Good Christ,” and waved for a taxi.

  “Arrested?” Hector squeezed Hadley tightly to him. “What on earth for?”

  “Suspicion of murder.”

  12

  Hector directed the driver to transport them to the station house in the 14 ème arrondissement where he presumed Hem would be taken.

  As they bumped along, Hector said to Hadley, “And Ford, what did he do? He was to eat with you two, wasn’t he? He didn’t lift a finger to help?”

  Hadley dabbed at her eyes with Hector’s handkerchief. “We never made it to the restaurant. The police came to our apartment, before we left. I can’t believe this is happening.”

  Brinke said, “And whom do they think Hem killed?”

  “Some man who was crushed by a car,” Hadley said. “And that’s just crazy. They asked about the poisoning at Gertrude’s, too. And about this man Murray Panzer…seems Hem was making threats because of all of the writers Murray swindled. But you know that’s all bluster on Hem’s part, right, Hector?”

  Hector patted her hand. “Absolutely.”

  ***

  A uniformed underling pointed toward a broad-shouldered older man wearing a too large heavy black overcoat with a velvet collar and a black bowler hat. The man shook his head and said to the room, “Can’t we get some goddamn heat in here?”

  The man in the bowler and black overcoat turned to face Hector and to
ok a pipe from his mouth.

  Hector stuck out a hand and said, “Commissaire Simon?”

  Aristide Simon nodded. “You’re not that fool from Gazette de Liège, are you?”

  “What? A reporter? No.” Hector kept his hand out and said, “Your men brought a friend of mine in for questioning earlier this evening.”

  The commissaire took Hector’s hand then and shook it — a firm dry grip. “Ah,” the policeman said, “A friend of this Hemingway person, are you?”

  “Yes, he’s my good and quite innocent friend. I’m Hector Lassiter.”

  “Oh, yes. You’re another to whom I wish to speak.”

  That surprised Hector. “I am?”

  “Yes. You were present at the party last night at Gertrude Stein’s salon. I’m told you tried to render assistance to the victim.”

  “For all the good that did. My friend whom you’re holding also tried to ‘render assistance.’ Hem did a good bit more than me.”

  “I’m told that, as well,” Simon said. “But Monsieur Hemingway was also standing alongside a man killed earlier today. Perhaps murdered…par une voiture. Monsieur Hemingway fled the scene before he could be questioned.”

  “Mr. Hemingway had no answers to provide you,” Hector said. “He saw nothing.”

  “And so he claims.” Simon took a draw on his pipe and said, “You were close by that murder scene, as well, Monsieur Lassiter.”

  “Across the street, in a restaurant, with a friend. I saw the aftermath.”

  “And so you can’t say definitively that your friend Hemingway didn’t kill François Laurencin, as I pointed out to Monsieur Hemingway when he tried to use you and a Mademoiselle Brinke Devlin as alibis…or at least as friendly witnesses.”

  Hector opted for a “change-up.” He said, “How did Hem and I first come to your attention?”

  “Monsieur Laurencin, poor fellow, had a parcel still clutched in his hand — in his undamaged hand. The left hand was quite mauled. Anyway, the parcel was a book. A rare book, printed in English and just purchased. Where else would he have purchased such a book but at Shakespeare and Company?”

  “Where else,” Hector said, frowning.

  Commissaire Simon smiled. “And there was a store bill of sale in the book, with an address of the store…date and time purchased.”

  “And Sylvia Beach, somewhat grudgingly, I hope, told you that François left her store with Hem.”

  “That’s right, Monsieur Lassiter. And Mademoiselle Beach indeed did so quite grudgingly.” The cop waved a hand. “Come over here to the table by the stove. It’s the only warm place in this goddamn drafty building.”

  They walked to a scarred wooden table by the stove and Simon shrugged off his big overcoat. Underneath, he wore a black serge suit. “Sit, please, Monsieur Lassiter.”

  Hector did that and accepted a cup of coffee. He said, “Hem knows less than me, and I know next to nothing.” He tasted the coffee…too sweet.

  “Pas si vite! Tell me what you do know, Monsieur Lassiter.”

  “Several around the Left Bank believe someone is murdering the publishers of small literary magazines,” Hector said. “From where I sit, they’re right.”

  “Yes, five now, with Monsieur Laurencin’s passing,” Simon said. He pointed at Hector with his pipe’s stem. “Why would anyone do such things?”

  “I have no idea,” Hector said. “Probably I have just the same unsatisfactory notions you have, if you believe there is a link between these deaths. Maybe it’s just some frustrated writer who got one too many rejections and snapped. As I said, I have no good idea.”

  “But you have other, worthier ideas it seems,” Simon said. “You think there is more than one killer at work.”

  “Hem told you that?”

  “Non, he’s belligerent and tight-lipped. Monsieur Hemingway is a stubborn one. I had a visitor…this preposterous English mystery writer. She said that she, and you, and some others, including this friend of yours, Mademoiselle Devlin, are all working for Gertrude Stein. She said that you’re all trying, like some silly mystery book characters, to solve the mystery of these murders, just like the amateur sleuths in her own silly books…like that amateur detective, that goddamn foreign accountant of Mrs. Quartermain’s.”

  “Agreed,” Hector said. “It’s daft as hell. Like so many, I just smile and nod at Miss Stein when she talks and it’s often confused as approval or agreement. This notion of Gertrude’s, it is quite daft.”

  “And so is Mrs. Quartermain,” Simon said. “She has the most extraordinary and fanciful lines of inquiry for me to pursue. She tried to assign me tasks. The insouciant temerity of it all would be quite amusing…if people weren’t really dying and in such numbers. Silly English.”

  “I’d love to hear some of her tasks for you,” Hector said, smiling. He was truly curious.

  “Another time perhaps,” the policeman said with a crooked smile. “Some evening over drinks perhaps, when we could talk about your works, too. Miss Beach shared with me a few copies of Black Mask magazine. I asked her to read a couple of your stories to me. I like your stories very much. Despite Miss Beach’s rather spotty abilities at translation, your stories are quite authentic, from my perspective. And you give the authorities a fair shake in your stories…not like Conan Doyle or this flighty Estelle Quartermain.”

  “We should have those drinks sometime.”

  “And we will, Monsieur Lassiter. But for now, I want you and your writer friends to stand clear of all this. We’re working the case, enthusiastically. We’ve made the connections between the crimes. This is to be left to the authorities now.”

  “Reasonable request,” Hector said. “And you’ll be releasing my friend to me now?”

  “Will you honor my reasonable request?”

  “I will.”

  “Merci.”

  “De rien.”

  “See that your friends do, as well, Monsieur Lassiter, oui? We don’t need to be tripping over sleuthing young fiction writers, do we?”

  “You certainly don’t,” Hector said. “I couldn’t agree more.”

  The commissaire smiled. “Good. Good. That said, if you, as an individual, have any further thoughts — insights or observations — I might entertain your input.”

  Hector scowled. “Pardon…Je ne comprends pas. You said, quite clearly, I was to butt the hell out.”

  Simon shook his head. “Non. Not in so many words, Monsieur Lassiter. I just asked that you stop this silliness with Miss Stein. That’s what I ask of you, in particular. But you might be of real assistance to me. You enjoy entrée to the literary community that I do not. It’s a strange world to me…almost a foreign world with all you Americans packed into your little Quarter. Bohemians. Expatriates. It’s all very recherché, n’est-ce pas? Also, from your stories, I can see you have an astute eye for human weakness and motivation…of the low strong drives that can unbalance people. And some of your conclusions are also my own. You see, I strongly concur with your theory that more than one person is killing these people. So, if you hear anything, or think of anything that might help me, I will always accept your calls regarding this matter.”

  Simon extended his hand first. “We have a compact?”

  Hector smiled. “D’accord.”

  ***

  Their housekeeper, Marie, who had been watching baby John, had left the Hemingways’ new apartment a short while ago.

  Hadley was nursing Bumby. Brinke sat in the dining area with Hadley, watching, but in line of sight of Hector and Hem. It was the first time that Hector had been in the Hemingway apartment after dark and he was surprised how quiet it was with the sawmill shut down for the night.

  “You shouldn’t have agreed to back off,” Hem said to Hector.

  “Wasn’t much room for objection,” Hector said. “And it doesn’t mean I’ll honor that pledge. And you’ve got your own full plate, Hem. You’ve got your subeditor’s post at the Review, now. And you’ve got to watch over Ford.”


  “If it was Ezra I was protecting, it might mean something to me.”

  “If you have anyone else you feel affectionate toward — I mean, who also happen to run literary magazines — you ought to urge them to go to Italy, too,” Brinke said to Hem.

  Hem nodded and rose and picked up Bumby, tossing him a few times in the air until he belched and giggled.

  Brinke watched Hadley wipe at her large, milk-heavy breast and then button her dress closed. Shivering a little, Brinke said to Hector, “We should be going now.” She picked up Hector’s hat and tossed it to him. “It’s getting late,” she said. “Time for all good children to be in bed.”

  Hector hugged Hadley and slapped Hem’s back. He said, “Lie low for a time, Hem. We’ll regroup demain.”

  As they climbed down the stairs, Hector said to Brinke, “You sure were in a hurry to leave.”

  Her own felt hat in hand, Brinke said, “Dear God, all that domesticity…it was cloying. Wasn’t it?”

  “Not your ambition?”

  Watching her feet on the narrow stairs, Brinke said, “Why do I think I should know your answer to that question before I supply my own?”

  “Take it easy,” Hector said. “I didn’t ask it with intent.”

  They hit the ground floor landing and Brinke turned Hector around, pulling him close. Her dark eyes searched his face. She said, “Really?”

  “Really.” Hector put his hat on and said, “I’m from coastal Texas. Where are you from? I don’t know. I’m twenty-four. I don’t know how old you are. My folks are dead. I know nothing about your family or origins. Knowing so little about you, how could I presumably be thinking about so much with you?”

  Brinke put on her own fedora and slipped her arm through Hector’s. “And so, am I to infer we have to know one another’s biographies, womb-to-tomb, or thereabouts, before we settle this issue?”