1949 - You're Lonely When You Dead (4 page)

B
enny and I went over to Finnegan’s bar for breakfast. Although it was only a few minutes after seven-thirty, Kerman was already there, impatiently awaiting us.

As we sat down at the table, Finnegan, a great lump of a man, his face battered and scarred from innumerable fights in his logging-camp days, came out from behind the bar and joined us.

‘Bad business, Mr. Malloy,’ he said, leaning over to wipe the tabletop. ‘I’ve only just seen the paper. We’ll miss her. You got any idea who did it?’

‘No, Pat, but we’re going to find out,’ I said. ‘Let’s have some ham and eggs and a lot of coffee. We have work to do.’

‘Sure,’ he said. His shoulder muscles bulged under his grey flannel shirt, straining the seams. ‘If there’s anything I can do…’

‘Thanks. If there is I’ll let you know.’

When he had gone into the kitchen, Kerman said impatiently, ‘What are you going to do?’

‘The three of us are going to work on this, Jack. It’s got to be played smooth and fast, and Cerf’s to be left out of it.’

‘If Brandon catches up with us it’ll be nice,’ Kerman said, shaking his head. ‘I knew this guarantee of secrecy would land us in trouble one of these days. What do we do?’

‘We have enough leads to keep us busy for a day or so. I don’t think Mifflin has a thing to work on, but he’s a lucky cop and may turn up something. We’ll have to move fast. There are a lot of odd angles to this business. The oddest is why Anita’s necklace was under Dana’s mattress.’

‘Under her mattress?’ Kerman repeated, looking over at Benny.

‘Yeah,’ Benny said. ‘I was poking around. The bed looked disturbed and I lifted up the mattress and there was the necklace. Vic says it belongs to the Cerf frail.’

‘Anita called on me last night and she was wearing it,’ I said, and went on to tell them of Anita’s visit. ‘I reckon the necklace is worth twenty grand, if not more. Ed’s going to work on that angle. We’ve got to find out how it got into Dana’s room.’ I broke off as Finnegan came over with plates of ham and eggs.

‘I’d like to send flowers, Mr. Malloy,’ he said as he set the places before us. ‘You’ll tip me the time of the funeral, won’t you?’

Thinking of Dana in terms of a funeral got me, but I knew he meant well. I said I’d tell him and wished he would go away. He began to say something else but Benny gave him a friendly shove and told him to get the hell out of it.

‘I know how you gentlemen feel,’ Finnegan said dolefully.

‘I feel that way myself. She was a fine girl.’ And he went back to the bar where he stood watching us, shaking his head from time to time and getting on our nerves.

‘I want you to check on Dana’s movements,’ I said to Benny, turning my back on Finnegan so I couldn’t see him.

‘Right up to the time she was shot. Have a word with the commissionaire at L’Etoile. He may have seen her, but don’t let on anything about Mrs. Cerf. Any idea how Dana was dressed?’

‘I checked her wardrobe while I was there,’ Benny said with his mouth full. ‘That blue coat and skirt thing she was always wearing wasn’t in the cupboard. I guess she must have had that on.’

Kerman poured himself out a cup of coffee, pushed the pot over to me.

‘What have you done with the diamonds?’ he asked.

‘I’ve locked them in the office safe for the moment. I’m going to use them as a lever to make Cerf talk. I’m seeing him this morning.’

‘What do you want me to do, Vic?’

‘Get after Leadbetter. According to Mifflin the guy’s a nut: a Peeping Tom. He may have seen more than he’s told the police. Have a go at him. If you think a little folding money will loosen him up, go ahead. I don’t care what this costs. I want results.’

‘Right,’ Kerman said. ‘I’ll see the guy, but I can’t help feeling there’s something wrong with this setup.’ He pushed his empty plate aside and lit a cigarette. ‘Up to now this Cerf frail has been blackmailed for thirty thousand bucks. That’s a lot of money, and all because she’s light-fingered. But if we accept that, and maybe if a dame can’t control her fingers she would be willing to pay that amount of dough to keep it quiet, why did the blackmailer kill Dana?’

‘Maybe he was preparing for a big take. He started off asking for five thousand, then raised the ante to ten and then fifteen. Maybe he was going to shake Anita down for some real money when Dana happened along.’

‘But why kill her?’ Kerman repeated, frowning. ‘Dana couldn’t interfere with him unless she gave Anita away. There’s no point in killing her. That’s what foxes me.’

‘Yeah,’ I said, suddenly thoughtful. ‘That’s right. I think you’ve got something there, Jack.’ I pushed back my chair, took one of Kerman’s cigarettes and lit it.’ Maybe there’s another angle to it. Look, if Barclay and Anita were lovers and Dana found out about them while checking up on the blackmail setup, Barclay might have silenced her so she shouldn’t give them away. That might make sense.’

‘But it doesn’t,’ Kerman said. ‘Why kill her? This guy Barclay has money, hasn’t he? If they meant business all Anita had to do was to get Cerf to divorce her and marry Barclay. Barclay doesn’t have to shoot Dana for that.’

‘Yeah,’ I said and stared at him, frowning.

‘We’re jumping to conclusions,’ Kerman went on. ‘Because Dana was ·watching Anita and is suddenly found murdered we assume she was shot because of something she found out in connection with Anita. The killing may have had nothing to do with the Cerfs at all.’

‘For God’s sake!’ I exclaimed. ‘I can’t believe that. Why else should she be murdered? She hadn’t an enemy in the world. Why was she out on those dunes unless she was watching Anita?’

‘What makes you so sure Anita was out there?’ Benny asked.

‘I told you. She came to see me around ten-thirty. Dana was found a mile from my place. My idea is Anita went to that spot after seeing me to meet the blackmailer. I think Dana was watching her although Anita was confident she had given her the slip. You know how Dana worked. She wasn’t easily shaken off. I think she followed Anita to her rendezvous and ran into the blackmailer who lost his head and shot her.’

‘Has it occurred to you that Anita might have shot her?’

Kerman asked.

I nodded.

‘Yeah, but I don’t favour the idea. A woman doesn’t like a gun as big as a .45. I don’t think Anita could have handled it, and besides, she’s not the killer type.’

Kerman blew out his cheeks, shook his head and shrugged.

‘Well, I haven’t seen her,’ he said. ‘All right, what else have we got? What was Dana doing with the necklace? We haven’t got around to that yet. Any ideas?’

‘Yes, but it’s only an idea. Suppose that necklace was planted in Dana’s room? Suppose someone wanted the police to know Anita had something to do with Dana’s death? Wouldn’t that be a way of doing it? The necklace could be easily traced. If Ed hadn’t found it the police would have, and they’d’ve been on to Anita fast enough as soon as they had traced it to her.’

‘That’s an idea. Natalie Cerf, huh?’

‘Maybe. It’s only an idea, but as soon as Benny told me he had found the necklace I thought of her. It smells of a plant, doesn’t it? Natalie hates Anita, and I can imagine it’d give her a bang to tie Anita to a murder rap.’

‘But she’s a cripple, isn’t she?’ Benny protested. ‘How could she get to Dana’s apartment? It’s on the fourth floor and there’s no elevator.’

‘I’m not saying she did it herself. Maybe she got someone to do it for her. It’s no more than an idea, but it’s worth thinking about. Find out, Ed, if anyone was seen entering Dana’s apartment between eleven and three last night. It can’t be before then because Anita was wearing the necklace when she called on me.’

‘If we can find that dame and persuade her to talk,’ Kerman said, ‘half our work’s done.’

I stood up.

‘I’ll have a crack at Cerf. In the meantime you see Leadbetter. He may have spotted Anita out there or even the killer. Ed, you know what to do. Get out to Dana’s apartment, but don’t start nosing around if the police are there. We’ll meet here for lunch and see how far we’ve got.’

We said so long to Finnegan, and then went across to the parking lot for our cars.

‘It’s early yet, Vic,’ Kerman said, consulting his wristwatch. ‘You’re not going to see Cerf now, are you?’

‘Sure,’ I said. ‘Paula had him out of bed at five this morning. He’ll be up and about. Besides, the less time I give him to get his second wind the easier he’ll be to handle. I’m going to sock into him this time. Paula hadn’t anything to hit him with. I have the necklace.’

‘Rather you than me,’ Benny said, getting into his vintage Ford. ‘Millionaires have a habit of hitting back. Give me a dame if I have to get tough with someone.’

‘Me too,’ Kerman said with feeling.

A
guard lounged outside the main entrance of the Santa Rosa Estate. The big wrought-iron gates were closed, and it didn’t look as if visitors would be welcomed this day.

The guard was a middle-sized youth, very dapper in his bottle green uniform and peak cap with a glossy black chinstrap which he held between his teeth and chewed at in a bored, meditative sort of way, like a cow ruminating on the cud.

He was very blond, and his eyes were almost colourless, either a grey or a blue, you could take your choice. There was a look of studied insolence and confidence on his pale, handsome face that I didn’t like. He was around twenty-two, but experience that couldn’t have been good for him had doubled his age. There was something about him that said he had kicked around a lot in his young life, touched bottom where the dirt was, and a lot of it still clung to him. He wasn’t the kind of lad you’d expect to see playing ping-pong at the Y.M.C.A., or the type you’d introduce to your girlfriend unless you were there all the time with a shotgun within reach.

I stopped the car a couple of yards from him and let him look me over. His pale eyes missed nothing. By the way his top lip curled off his small teeth he didn’t think much of what he saw.

I cut the engine and got out of the car.

‘Can I drive in or do I have to walk?’ I asked in a let’s-get-together-and-be-friends tone of voice.

The sun glittered on his double row of chromium buttons.

His patent-leather gauntlets reflected patches of white cloud. His knee boots sparkled, and I could see part of my face in the neat, square toecaps: a very bright boy this; bright and as genuine as a five-dollar diamond.

‘What’s that again, Mac?’ he said languidly. His voice sounded like a file biting on steel.

‘I said do I drive in or do I walk,’ I repeated.

He chewed his chinstrap thoughtfully, while his eyes ran over me.

‘You don’t do either,’ he said, leaning up against the wall as if the night had been a long one and had kept him busy.

‘You take it away, Mac: you and the heep.’

‘Not this morning,’ I said, shaking my head. ‘I have a little business to discuss with your boss. The name’s Malloy. Snap into it, sonny, and break the news to him. He’ll see me.’

He took off one of his gauntlets, undid the flap of his top right-hand pocket and pulled out a solid gold combined cigarette case and lighter. He selected a cigarette, lit it, stowed the case away and took a drag at the cigarette, letting the smoke roll down his thin, pinched nostrils. There was a faraway look in his pale eyes, and a dreamy kind of smile on his thin mouth.

‘There’s no one home,’ he said, eyeing the distant ocean as if he was surprised to find it still there. ‘Get in your heep, Mac, and fade.’

‘Important business,’ I said as if I hadn’t heard him. ‘Tell your boss it’s either me or the police: as important as that.’

That seemed to hold him for a moment. He flicked at his cigarette with a well-manicured thumbnail. Then as he didn’t seem to get any satisfaction from that, he tapped the ground thoughtfully with the toe of his elegant boot. But that didn’t get him anywhere either.

‘The old man left about an hour ago,’ he said at last.

‘Don’t ask me where he’s gone. I don’t know. Maybe he’s going on a trip. Now be a nice guy and fade. I like a little quiet in the morning.’

I had no reason not to believe him. Anyway I could tell that nothing short of a tank and machine-gun unit would persuade him to open the gate. I would be only wasting time to argue with him.

I got back into the car and trod on the starter. He watched me make a U-turn, then as I drove away he opened one of the gates, locked it behind ‘him and disappeared into the guardhouse.

I followed the long wall of the estate until I came to a corner, then I swung the wheel, drove a few yards down the lane that led along the side of the wall so the car would be out of sight from the main entrance, cut the engine and got out.

The wall was about eight feet high. You didn’t have to be an acrobat to scale it. I swung myself up and over all in one movement and landed on soft yielding soil of a flowerbed.

It was nearing nine o’clock by now, and I didn’t have a lot of hope of running into Natalie Cerf. She hadn’t struck me as the type who dabbled her toes in the dew, but I thought while I was here I might as well have a look around. There was always a chance that Anita might be still here; it was as good a hiding place as any.

It seemed a long walk to the house. I took my time, and every so often I looked back over my shoulder. I had no great yearnings to run into the bright boy at the gate. I had a feeling he might be a difficult proposition to stop once he got started.

I passed a swimming pool big enough to hold a regatta on.

It looked very wet and lonely, but that was something I couldn’t do anything about and I went on towards the house.

The way was along a rubber-covered path, laid down, I suspected, for swimmers to reach the pool without bothering to put on shoes, up some steps to the esplanade that encircled the house.

Keeping out of sight behind a big rhododendron shrub I surveyed the front of the house for any signs of activity.

Row upon row of shiny glass windows stared back at me.

No one looked out. The house was as quiet and as lifeless as a chorus girl at getting-up time.

I moved out of the shrubbery and on to the esplanade. On its broad, naked vastness I felt as conspicuous as a man shouting ‘Fire!’ at a firemen’s convention. There were no cars on the tarmac, no Filipino chauffeurs to sneer at me, no regal butlers to take my hat. I plucked up enough courage to walk on tiptoe the length of the esplanade to the loggia and look in.

She was sitting in her wheel chair, decked out in a blue kimono and quilted mules trimmed with ostrich feathers on her feet, a tray across her knees. She was munching buttered toast and staring blankly before her, and had that lonely, unhappy look people who are left on their own for long stretches of time get when they don’t think anyone is around.

My shadow fell across her feet. She didn’t look up immediately. A wary expression chased away her depression, her neatly made-up mouth tightened, and she put down the piece of toast. Then without moving her head, she lifted her eyelids and her eyes swivelled in my direction.

‘Hello,’ I said, taking off my hat. ‘The name’s Malloy. Remember me?’

‘What are you doing here?’ she demanded and sat up, taut as a violin string, her eyes angry.

‘I looked in to see your father,’ I said, leaning against the doorway where I had a view of the esplanade in case reinforcements should come galloping up. ‘Would he be around?’

‘Did Mills let you in?’ she asked. It was extraordinary how hard her eyes were for a girl of her age.

‘Is Mills the bright boy lounging at the main entrance? The one with the pretty buttons?’

Her mouth tightened and two little spots of red showed on her thin, pale cheeks.

‘How did you get in here?’ she demanded angrily.

‘I climbed a wall,’ I told her. ‘And look, don’t let’s waste a nice morning getting cross with each other. I want to see your father.’

‘He’s not here. Will you please go away?’

‘Then perhaps I could have a word with Mrs. Cerf?’

‘She’s not here either.’

‘That’s too bad. I have a diamond necklace of hers.’

The spoon she was toying with clattered into the saucer. I saw her clench her fists.

‘Will you please go!’ she said, raising her voice and leaning forward in her chair.

‘But I want to return the necklace. It’s valuable. Can’t you tell me where I can find her?’

‘I don’t know nor do I care,’ she cried and pointed with a shaking finger towards the main entrance. ‘Now get out or I’ll have you thrown out!’

‘I don’t want to annoy you,’ I said, ‘but this is a lot more serious than you realize. Your father hired a woman operator of mine to watch Mrs. Cerf. While she was watching Mrs. Cerf she was murdered. Mrs. Cerf s necklace was found in the girl’s room.’

She turned suddenly so I couldn’t see her face and reached for a holdall, dipped into it and produced a cigarette case and lighter. She lit a cigarette with a hand that was not too steady, keeping her face turned from me while she did so.

‘I’m not interested in Mrs. Cerf’s affairs,’ she said in a much quieter and subdued voice. ‘I told you to get out.’

‘I thought you might possibly be interested to know that the police didn’t find the necklace,’ I said casually. ‘If you’ll tell me where I can find Mrs. Cerf I’d like to put her mind at rest too.’

She looked up sharply, her face as expressionless and as white as a freshly laundered sheet. She started to say something then stopped and her eyes narrowed, and she looked like a cat that’s seen a movement and knows there’s a mouse around. I swung round on my heels.

The bright boy, Mills, was standing a few yards to the right and behind me, his black gauntlets, doubled into fists, rested lightly on his slim hips. He looked faintly amused, the way Joe Louis might have looked if a midget had socked him on the nose: full of confidence, too much confidence: the kind of confidence that made you wonder what was coming and wish you had a gun or a club instead of just your bare fists.

‘There you are, Mac,’ he said. ‘I thought I told you to fade.’

‘See him off the premises!’ Natalie snapped as imperious as a heroine in a Victorian novel. ‘And he’s never to come here again!’

Mills looked at me out of the corners of his eyes. There was a half-smirk on his thin mouth.

‘He won’t,’ he said languidly. ‘That’s one thing you can bet on. Come on, Mac. Let’s take a little walk to the gate.’

I glanced at Natalie, but she was buttering toast, no longer interested, the blank, lonely look back on her face. If they ever handed out an Oscar for a brush-off they’d give it to her without even a show of hands.

‘I don’t want to be a bore about this,’ I said to her, ‘but it would save time and trouble if you could tell me where Mrs. Cerf is to be found.’

I might just as well have addressed the Great Wall of China for all the attention she paid me.

The bright boy began to close in on me.

‘On your way, Mac,’ he said coaxingly. ‘You and me together.’

‘Now look . . . ‘ I began, but stopped short as his fist hit me in the mouth. It wasn’t what you call a heavy punch, but it was fast. I didn’t see it coming, and that should have warned me. It hurt as it was meant to hurt, but it didn’t even rock me.

‘Okay,’ I said, touching my bruised lips. ‘Let’s go down to the gate. If that’s how you feel maybe I can sublimate your repressions.’

I was so mad I didn’t even look at Natalie Cerf - I went down the steps fast. He followed me. I was sure I could take him. I was four inches taller and about twenty pounds heavier and was thirsting for his blood.

He kept his distance, and we arrived at the main entrance still two or three yards apart. At the gate I turned and waited for him. He still looked languid, and that irritated me, because guys don’t look languid when I’m going to sock them.

He moved in lightly, and I feinted with my left to bring his hands down and let go a right to his jaw that should have taken his head off his shoulders. It was a nice punch; one of my very best, and one that had never been known to fail before. It was well timed and it didn’t travel more than a foot. It wasn’t telegraphed and was a shade faster than a flash of lightning, but it missed him by a good three inches and the impetus brought me forward so all he had to do was to step in close and hit me. He slammed in five quick ones a little south of my belt with the force and speed of a rivet-gun.

I was out on my feet. My breath exploded at the back of my throat, my knees went and I stood there, trying to stand up. The right he tossed over was a languid affair. I could see it coming all the way, but I couldn’t do anything about it. It exploded on my jaw with the impact of a sledgehammer. I came out of a black wave of nausea to find myself lying flat on my back, staring up at the cottonwool clouds that floated serenely in the morning sky.

‘Don’t call again, Mac,’ a voice said a long way off. ‘We don’t like your kind around here, so spare us the visit.’

I vaguely made out the dapper figure standing over me, then something that could have been his boot smashed into my neck and I went out like a flame in the wind.