A Fine and Private Place (5 page)

“I'm in no hurry to eat,” the Inspector said hurriedly.

“Done! I'll run down to Sammy's later for some hot kosher pastrami and Jewish rye and lots of half-sour pickles and stuff, and we can feed Fabby's stew to the Delehantys' setter, he's Irish—”

“Fine, fine.”

“Therefore how about another round?” Ellery struggled to the vertical, revived a few moribund muscles and tendons, shook himself, and then came round the desk with his glass. He took his father's empty from the slack fingers. “You still traveling that long way?”

“Long way?”

“To Tipperary. Proportions?”

“Three-quarters of an ounce each of Irish, sweet vermouth, and—”

“I know, green chartreuse.” He shuddered (the Inspector snapped, “Very funny!”) and dodged into the living room. When he returned, instead of reoccupying his desk chair Ellery dropped into the overstuffed chair facing the sofa.

“If it's ambulatory help you need, dad, I can't lift my duff. That damn deadline's so close the back of my neck is recommending Listerine. But if you can use an armchair opinion … What's this one about?”

“About a third of a half billion dollars,” Inspector Queen grunted. “And you don't have to be so darn merry about it.”

“It's frustrated-writer's hysteria, dad. Did I hear you correctly?
Billion
?”

“Right. With a buh.”

“For pity land's sake. Who's involved?”

“Importuna Industries. Know anything about the outfit?”

“Only that it's a conglomerate of a whole slew of industries and companies, great and small, foreign and domestic, the entire
shtik
owned by three brothers named Importuna.”

“Wrong.”

“Wrong?”

“Owned by
one
brother named Importuna. The other two carry the handle Importunato.”

“Full brothers? Or half, or step?”

“Full, far as I know.”

“How come the difference in surnames?”

“Nino, the oldest, is superstitious, has a thing about lucky numbers or something—I had more important things to break my head about. Anyway, he shortened the family name. His brothers didn't.”

“Noted. Well?”

“Oh, hell,” his father said, and swigged like a desperate man. “Ellery, I warn you … this is wild. I don't want to be responsible for dragging you into a complicated mess when you've your own work to do.…”

“You're absolved, dad, shriven. I'll put it in writing if you like. Satisfied? Go on!”

“Well, all right,” the Inspector said, with an on-your-head-be-it sigh. “The three brothers live in an apartment house they own on the upper East Side, overlooking the river. It's an old-timer, 9 stories and penthouse, designed by somebody important in the late '90s, and when Nino Importuna bought it, he had it restored to its original condition, modernized the plumbing and heating, installed the latest in air conditioning, and so on—turned it into one of the snootiest buildings in the neighborhood. I understand that prospective tenants have to go through a tougher check than the security men assigned to the President.”

“I gather not quite,” Ellery suggested.

“I'm coming to that. The place is one of I don't know how many homes the brothers maintain around the world—especially Nino—but 99 East, as Importuna calls it, seems to be the one they run the conglomerate from, at least the American components.”

“Don't they have offices?”

“Offices? Whole chains of office buildings! But the real dirty work, the high command decisions, that all originates at 99 East.—Okay, Ellery! But before I can get to the murder—”

At the lethal word Ellery's nose twitched like a Saint Bernard's. “Can't you at least tell me who was schlogged? How? Where?”

“If you'll wait just a minute, son! The setup's as follows: Nino occupies the penthouse. His brothers Marco and Julio live in the apartments that make up the top floor of the building, the floor directly underneath the penthouse—there are two apartments to a floor except on the roof, and they're enormous, I don't know how many rooms to an apartment. You know those swanky old buildings.

“Now the brothers share the services of a confidential secretary, a fellow named Ennis, Peter Ennis, good-looking guy who's got to be mighty sharp or he wouldn't be holding down a job like that—”

“Confidential secretary could cover a lot of territory. Just what does Ennis handle for the brothers?”

“Their personal affairs mostly, he says, although of course, with the brothers operating so much from their homes I don't see how Ennis could fail to get in on some of the business shenanigans, too. Anyway, this morning, early—”

“Are all the brothers married?”

“Nino. The other two are single. Do you want me to get to the murder or don't you?”

“I'm nothing but ears.”

“When Ennis showed up for work this morning, he made his rounds of the three apartments, he says, the way he always does, to get squared away for the day. He found Julio, who's the youngest brother, dead. Bloody dead—a real mess.”

“
Where
did he find him?”

“In Julio's apartment, the library there. Importunato had his head beaten in. I mean he was zonked. Just one sock, but it was a beaut—clobbered his brains into mush. On that side, anyway. It's a nasty homicide, Ellery, and considering the murderee is one of the ruling dynasty of the Importuna empire, it's a sizzler. The shock waves …” Inspector Queen gulped generously.

“What shock waves?”

“Didn't you listen to the six o'clock news?”

“I haven't turned the radio on all week. What happened?”

“Julio Importunato's murder rocked the stock market. Not only Wall Street—the money markets of Europe, too. That was the first aftereffect. The second came down from the commissioner. He's putting the squeeze on, son—so is the mayor—and I'm one of those caught between the nutcrackers.”

“Damn.” Ellery shafted a malevolent glance at his stubborn typewriter. “And? Well?”

“On second thought, what's the point? It's no use, Ellery. You go on back to your work.” The Inspector made a rather theatrical move to rise. “I'll manage. Somehow.”

“You know, you can be an exasperating old man?” Ellery exclaimed. “What do you mean, it's no use? There's always a ‘use'! But I can't be of use if you keep me in ignorance. What are the facts? Are there any clues?”

“Oh. Well, yes. At least two.” He stopped.

“And?” Ellery snapped after a while. “Specify!”

“In fact,” the Inspector replied joylessly, “they both point straight at the killer.”

“They do? At whom?”

“Marco.”

“His
brother
?”

“Right.”

“Then what's the problem? I don't understand, dad. You're acting as if you're stumped, and in the same breath you say you have a couple of clues that link the victim's brother directly to the crime!”

“That's correct.”

“But … For heaven's sake, what kind of clues are they?”

“The open-and-shut kind. The real old-fashioned variety, you'd have to call 'em. The kind,” Inspector Queen said, shaking his mustache, “you mystery writers wouldn't be caught dead putting in one of your stories in this day and age.”

“All right, you've whipped my interest to a bloody froth,” Ellery said in a grim voice. “Now let's get down to cases. What—precisely—are these open-and-shut, old-fashioned, downright corny clues?”

“From the condition in which we found Julio's library, there'd been a fight, a violent struggle. Real donnybrook. Well, we found on the scene a button—”

“What kind of button?”

“Solid gold. Monogram
MI
on it.”

“Identified as Marco Importunato's?”

“Identified as Marco Importunato's. Threads still hanging from it. That's clue the first.”

“Button,” Ellery repeated. “Buttons-found-on-scene-of-crime went out with spats and Hoover collars. And the other clue?”

“Went out with zoot suits.”

“But what is it?”

Inspector Queen said, “A footprint.”

“Footprint! You mean of a naked foot?”

“Of a shoe. A man's shoe.”

“Where was it found?”

“Dead man's library. Scene of the homicide.”

“But … And you tied the print into Marco?”

“We sure did.”

“A button and a footprint,” Ellery said, marveling. “In the year 1967! Well, I suppose anything's possible. A time warp, or something. But if it's that pat, dad, what's bothering you?”

“It isn't that pat.”

“But I thought you said—”

“I told you. It's very complicated.”

“Complicated how? By what?”

The old man set his empty glass on the floor, where presumably it could be more conveniently kicked. Ellery watched him with sharpening suspicion.

“I'm sincerely sorry I told you anything about it,” his father said sincerely, and rose. “Let's forget it, son. I mean, you forget it.”

“Thanks a heap! How do I do that? It's apparently one of those lovely deceptive ones that only appears to be a simple case. Therefore …”

The “Yes?” came out of the Inspector's birdy face like an impatient twitter.

“I've suddenly come down with a recurrence of my old enteric fever. You know, dad, the aftermath of the jezail bullet that grazed my subclavian artery and shattered my shoulder at the battle of Maiwand?”

“Shattered your shoulder?” his father cried. “What bullet grazed your artery? At which battle?”

“I'll consequently have to notify my publisher that there will be a slight delay in the delivery of my next book. After all, what difference can it make to anyone there? It's probably wandering around somewhere on their schedule, hopelessly lost. Nobody in the publishing profession pays any attention whatever to a mystery writer except when banking the profits from his mean endeavors. We're the ditchdiggers of literature.”

“Ellery, I don't want to be the cause of—”

“You've already said that. Of course you do, or you'd have swallowed a few mouthfuls of Fabby's well-meant swill and crept into bed without my being aware you'd even come home. And why not? There are heavyweight VIPs involved, the crunch is on downtown, you're not getting any younger, and did I ever leave you in the lurch? Now let's get to it.”

“You really want to, son?”

“I thought I'd just said so.”

A beautiful change came over Inspector Queen. The relief map of his face turned into a map of relief.

“In that case,” he cried, “you get your jacket!”

Ellery rose to oblige. “Where to?”

“Lab.”

A sergeant, Joe Voytershack, one of the Technical Services Bureau's most reliable men, was on overtime duty tonight, by which Ellery gauged the importance of the case in the eyes of the budget-conscious brass. Sergeant Voytershack was studying a button under his loupe. The button was of gold, and a clump of navy blue threads protruded from it.

“What's the problem, Joe?” Inspector Queen asked. “I thought you'd finished with the button.”

“I had.”

“Then why are you examining it again?”

“Because,” Sergeant Voytershack said sourly, “I'm goddam unhappy about it. Because I don't like this button. Because I don't like it from
bupkes
. And I don't see
you
leaping for joy, either, Inspector.”

“Ellery wants a look.”

“Hello, Joe,” Ellery said.

“Be my guest.” The sergeant handed him the loupe and the button.

Ellery peered.

“I thought, dad, you said this button was torn off during a struggle.”

“Did I say that?”

“Not exactly. But I naturally assumed—”

“I think you're going to find out, my son,” Inspector Queen said, “that in this case assumptions are kind of risky. What I said was that there were indications of a violent struggle, which there are, and that we found a gold button on the scene, which we did. I didn't say one necessarily had to do with the other. Just for ducks, Ellery: What do you see?”

“I see a clump of threads of identical length, with very sharp, clean ends. If the button had been yanked off during a struggle—that is, by hand—the lengths of the threads would vary and the ends, instead of being sharp and clean, would be ragged. This button was snipped off whatever it was attached to by a sharp-edged instrument, a scissors or knife, more likely a scissors.”

“Right,” said Sergeant Voytershack.

“Right,” said Inspector Queen.

“Was it found in the dead man's hand?”

“It was found on the dead man's floor.”

Ellery shrugged. “Not that it would change the picture if you'd found it in his hand. The fact is, someone cut this button off something belonging to Marco Importunato. Since it was found on the scene of the murder, the indicated conclusion is that it was planted there for the benefit of you gents of the fuzz. Somebody doesn't care for Brother Marco, either.”

“Yes, sir, you just hit a couple of nails,” his father said. “Turning what looked at first like a nice clean clue against Marco into a dirty frame-up of Marco. See? Simple into not so simple.”

Ellery scowled. He picked the button up by its rim and turned it over. The relief design on its face formed a conventional frame of crossed anchors and hawsers, with the initials
MI
in an elaborate intertwine engraved within the frame.

He set the button down and turned to the technical man. “Was a cast made from the shoeprint, sergeant? I'd like to see it.”

Voytershack shook his grizzled head. “Didn't the Inspector describe it to you?”

“Didn't tell him a bloody thing about it,” the old man said. “I don't want to influence his impressions.”