Dames Don’t Care (26 page)

"Rudy starts in. He tells 'em about it. He tells Granworth what a cheap four-flushin' devil he is an' then he turns around to Paulette an' tells her what he thinks about her. He tells her just what he thinks about a lousy daughter of hell who would help to swindle her dyin' husband an' who could sit down an' laugh about it.

"He stands there pointin' his finger at 'em. An' then he tells 'em something else.

"He says that the fact that Granworth is prepared to return the money don't matter a durn to him. He says that he is goin' to the police. He says that he is goin' to bust the whole works an' hold 'em both up for all the world to see what lousy scum they are. He says that if it's the last thing he ever does he's goin' to put 'em behind the bars.

"An' then what! Well, I'll tell you. Paulette here is pretty burned up. She is furious at bein' caught out like this. Right by where she is sittin' on the edge of Granworth Aymes' desk is a big paper weight-the figure of a boxer, the same one that's there now. She gets up an' she grabs it. She smashes it down on Rudy's skull an' she kills him. He lies there dyin', a poor sick guy that never had a chance, an' there, sittin' in that chair lookin' at us, is the lousy dame who did it!"

Paulette cracks. She jumps up. She rushes across to the desk an' she leans across it. Her eyes are blazin' an' she is so worked up she can hardly talk.

"I never did it," she yells. "I tell you I never did it. It's all true but the killing. I didn't do that. Granworth did it. He killed Rudy. I tell you he killed him with the paper weight."

She falls on the floor in front of the desk. She lies there writhin'. I go around an' take a look at her.

"Thanks a lot, Paulette," I tell her. "Thank you for the tip. That's just what I wanted to know."

CHAPTER 15

FADE OUT FOR CROOKS

I
WALK around the desk an' I stand there lookin' at her as she is lyin' on the floor. I reckon she is goin' to give herself a double dose of hysteria in a minute.

I bend down an' pick her up. I carry her over to the chair an' while I am doin' it she tries - even fixed the way she is - to pull something. While she is in my arms she sorta turns her bead an' looks at me an' she puts everything inta that look that she's got. I reckon that if that dame coulda cut off ten years of her life if she was able to kill me with a look she woulda done it. It was poison I'm tellin' you.

I throw her down in the chair.

"Take it nice an' calm, Cleopatra," I tell her, "because gettin' excited or raisin' hell around here is goin' to be as much use to you as a red pepper on a gumboil. Sweet dame, you are all shot to hell, you are washed up like a dead fish in a waterspout. From now on you are the sample that got lost in the mail, you are the copy the news-editor spiked, you are the lady who got stood-up by a gumshoein' Federal dick that you thought was a pushover. You make me sick. Even if you was good I wouldn't like you."

She goes as red as hell. I reckon talkin' to her this way has stopped her hysterics anyhow. She takes a pull at herself.

"You cheap heel," she says. "I wish I'd shot you when I had the chance. I wish I'd hurt you so that it took you a year to die. But get this. Somebody will get you. Somebody will get you for this!"

"Nope, little buttercup'," I tell her. "Somebody won't, an' if you keep them shell-like ears of yours flappin' an' stop thinkin' of new things to call me you'll hear just why 'somebody' won't. Another thing I ain't frightened of friends of yours, little dewdrop, an' though they may be all the world to you to me they are just bad smells. An' another thing, if every crook who has tried to iron me out had done what he wanted I would be so full of holes that they could use me for a nutmeg grater.

"Stay quiet an' take what's comin' to you like a lady."

I turn around to Henrietta. She is sittin' up starin'. She is tryin' to understand just where she is breakin'. You ain't never seen a dame as surprised as Henrietta.

"But, Lemmy," she says. "You say that Granworth killed Rudy Benito. Then what happened? I don't understand. Did Granworth commit suicide afterwards?"

"Take it easy, honeybunch," I tell her. "You ain't heard the half of it yet. By the time I'm through you'll begin to understand just what a lousy heel that husband of yours was, an' just how much trouble a cheap dame like this Paulette here can start if she feels like it.

"OK. Well let's go on from there. There is poor Rudy Benito lyin' on the floor as dead as last month's prime cuts. Langdon Burdell, Granworth, an' Paulette standin' lookin' at each other an' wonderin' what the hell they are goin' to do next, an' then Paulette gets another swell idea - an' is it a good one? I'm tellin' you that it was such a good one that they nearly got away with it.

"She remembers that Granworth has tried to commit suicide two years before - the time when he drove his car over the wharf. OK. Well, nobody much knows about Rudy. He ain't known in New York an' anyhow he was just plannin' to scram down to Mexico. So nobody is goin' to miss him. So she suggests to Granworth an' Burdell that they take the clothes off Rudy, put Granworth's clothes on him, stick him in the car an' drive him over the edge of the wharf. Everybody will think that Granworth has committed suicide, an' Granworth can scram off with Paulette an' clear down to Mexico an' pretend that he's her husband Rudy.

"The only thing they have gotta be careful about is the police identification. But they know that Henrietta has gone back to Hartford. If they can keep her outa New York till Rudy's body is buried an' if Langdon Burdell fixes so that he is the guy who identifies Rudy's corpse as bein' that of Granworth then everything is hunky dory. Do you get it?

"Granworth thinks the idea is a jewel. It lets him out. All he has gotta do is to scram with Paulette an' get outa New York to some place where nobody won't know him an' he is safe as the bank. Also he gets rid of Henrietta which is another idea he likes, an' anyhow he is a lousy dog who will do anything that Paulette tells him to. So he takes his clothes off an' they put them on Benito who is about the same size. Then they smash Benito's face in some more; then Granworth writes a suicide note an' they put it, with Granworth's lettercase, in Benito's pocket.

"Then they have a meetin' as to how they are goin' to get the body down to the wharf an' Paulette has another big idea. She says that she will get in the car an' drive Benito's body down, because as Granworth was meetin' his wife Henrietta that night, if anybody sees her they will think it is Henrietta.

"So Granworth an' Burdell pick up the body an' they take it down by the service lift at the back of the block. Paulette' is waitin' there in the car. They stick Benito in the passenger seat an' Paulette, drivin' round the back streets, gets down to Cotton's Wharf. Once there she gets out, leans in the car, puts her hand down on the clutch an' pushes the gear lever in, an' steps back an' slams the door. The car starts off an' after hittin' a wood-pile goes over the edge.

"But just as Paulette is scrammin' off she sees the night watchman Fargal. She goes back an' tells Granworth an' Burdell, an' Burdell say that don't matter a cuss because he can square the night watchman if he has seen anything.

"OK. Paulette an' Granworth scram off. They have got the two hundred grand in dollar bonds an' before they go they pay off Burdell an' leave a cut for Fernandez, the maid an' the butler.

"When they get down to Mexico they begin to feel better, but Paulette still thinks that there is a chance of Granworth bein' recognised sometime. So she gets another swell idea. They get hold of the doctor - Madrales - an' they pay him plenty to take Granworth into his house at Zoni an' do a face operation on him that is goin' to change his face so that nobody will ever know he was Granworth.

"OK. Well now let's go back to Burdell. Granworth an' Paulette have scrammed outa it. Early next mornin' he gets down to Cotton's Wharf an' sees the watchman. He gives this guy a thousand bucks to keep his trap shut about havin' seen a woman gettin' outa the car the night before. The watchman says OK. "Then the police get the car up an' the suicide is reported. Burdell scrams along to the morgue an' identifies Benito's body as bein' that of Granworth Aymes. In the pocket is the suicide note in Granworth's handwritin'. The police accept the identification an' when the coroner has an inquest he brings in suicide. Ain't it natural? Granworth tried to commit suicide two years before, didn't he?"

I move over an' stand with my back to Metts' desk an' look around. Paulette is huddled up. Her face has gone grey. Maloney is lookin' at me with his eyes poppin' an' Henrietta is claspin' an' unclaspin' her hands. Metts is gettin' so worked up that he is tryin' to light his pipe with a match that's gone out. I go on talkin':

"Swell. Everythin' is goin' accordin' to plan. Burdell is wise. He waits two days before he phones through to Henrietta in Connecticut to tell her that Granworth has committed suicide. He does this so as to give time for the body to be buried before she can see it.

"Then he tells the maid, the butler an' Fernandez not to say anythin' about Henrietta bein' in New York that night, not because he wants to keep Henrietta outa trouble but just because he don't want anybody knowin' anything about any woman bein' around. He is thinkin' of Paulette.

"Well, the whole scheme works out swell, an' if they had been prepared to have left it alone there everything woulda been all right, an' we none of us woulda known anything about it now.

"But Burdell ain't satisfied. He ain't satisfied even although he is runnin' Granworth's old business an' makin' money. One day he is kickin' around in his office an' be finds two things. He finds first the insurance policy that Granworth took out that says that two hundred thousand dollars will be paid on his death providin' he ain't committed suicide, an' he finds the three letters from Henrietta that Granworth has left in his desk, the letters accusin' him of gettin' around with some other woman, the third one sayin' that she is comm' to New York to have a showdown with him.

"Then this Burdell gets an idea. He gets the rottenest, lousiest idea that a guy ever got. He gets the idea that if it can be proved that Granworth Aymes was murdered by his wife Henrietta then the Insurance Company are goin' to pay.

The money will go to the Aymes estate an' the Aymes estate is mortgaged to Periera - so the Insurance money will go to Periera because the Insurance Company have contracted to pay on anythin' except suicide!

"Have you got it? Was it a swell idea or was it?

"So Burdell gets busy. He sends Fernandez out to the Hacienda Altmira to wise up Periera about the new scheme. An' after this he waits around an' persuades Henrietta to go out to the Hacienda to have a nice quiet time. She is glad to do this because she is upset about Granworth's supposed suicide. She even thinks that maybe she was responsible for it an' that if she hadn't been so tough with him he mighta not done it.

"OK. Then Burdell sticks around an' waits. I'll tell you why he waits. He knows that Henrietta ain't got very much money. He knows that when that is spent she is goin' to start usin' the two hundred thousand in fake dollar bonds that she has got - the ones they switched on her, an' he knows that directly she tries to change this phoney stuff the Federal Government will step in an' start investigatin'. He knows that they will send an agent to him to ask questions about Granworth an' that they will investigate the circumstances surroundin' the Aymes suicide.

"So he grabs the three letters from Henrietta outa the desk an' he sends 'em down to Fernandez an' he tells him to be ready to plant 'em where this Federal agent will find 'em.

"Sure as a gun it comes off. I get assigned to the job an' I go to New York an' see Burdell.

"While I am stayin' there he sends me an unsigned letter sayin' that if I will go down here to Palm Springs I will find some letters that may tell me a lot.

"I fall for it an' I come down here an' find the letters an' I begin to think that Henrietta here bumped Aymes, that he didn't commit suicide at all.

"Burdell knows that I will probably think that he has written this letter, an' that I will talk to him about it so he has a story all ready - a story that makes things look even worse for Henrietta. He 'tells me that he told the others to say that she wasn't in New York on that night just so's her name would be kept outa the business.

"But like all the other crooks these guys haveta make mistakes. An' that is a thing I am always waitin' for. I checked up on Fernandez an' found that he had been the Aymes chauffeur an' that got me thinkin'. The worst thing they did was to kill Sagers because that got me annoyed, but the durndest silliest thing they did was to be so keen on hangin' this thing on Henrietta. They was all so hot to prove that she had done it after they had tried to keep her outa it in the first place that I reckoned that there was something screwy goin' on.

"The second mistake was when Fernandez told me about Paulette. He told me about this because by this time Granworth had got his face changed OK an' nobody woulda recognised him as bein' Granworth Aymes. Fernandez thought that he was safe in tellin' me because he didn't think that I would take the trouble to go down inta Mexico an' take a look around for myself.

"Fernandez has been a mug too. He has been pullin' an act on Henrietta that if he don't marry her he can make things plenty hot for her. When I come on the scene he alters this tale first because I smacked him down for gettin' fresh with her an' secondly because it plays their story along for him to say that he don't want to marry Henrietta now, because he suspects her over the counterfeitin'.

"I get wise to this guy. I get wise to the fact that Fernandez an' Periera an' Burdell are all playin' along together. So I decide to go to Mexico an' see this Paulette, but before I go I have Henrietta down at the Police Station an' I grill her so that Fernandez an' Periera will think that I am fallin' for their stuff an' that I am goin' to New York to seal up the evidence against her.