Homicide at Yuletide (8 page)

I broke out cigarettes, but she shook her head. I lit up and I said, “What was the general content?”

“Everything went to Stella. He itemized, right there in the will, each piece of jewelry, fully described, just in case something went wrong on that Bernandino business. When I got back to Stella’s place, I gave it to her, and
she
read it. Later, she went there.”

“I’m beginning to see what you mean.”

“I don’t mean anything. I don’t know what I mean. I know she’s peculiar, impulsive…. I honestly don’t think she had anything to do with it. I don’t know, I don’t know.”

I blew a smoke ring and I shoved my finger through it.

“I don’t know, either.”

“What?”

“Whether you’re a real good mamma who wants to put her daughter right square in the middle of a murder rap, or whether you’re really trying to show me that she really needs protection.”

She was very calm. “I want to take you into my confidence completely. If you’re going to help, you must know every facet of it.”

“All right. Let’s try it this way. She wasn’t going to wait for revocations of trust estates and inheriting principal. If he dies now, she inherits more than a half a million dollars’ worth of jewelry. So she kills him for it. All right. So would she then steal them?”

“Yes.”

“What?”

“Please understand me. I’m trying to follow along with your reasoning. She doesn’t inherit anything—
unless the Bernandino deal falls through
. If the deal is successful, there are no jewels to inherit. There is fifty thousand dollars, but that is a small percentage of a half million.”

“Maybe you’re right.”

“Listen, Mr. Chambers. We’re not accusing her. We are talking all around it. We’re trying to bring out every possible idea. I want you completely acquainted with the facts. I don’t care who did it, as long as it wasn’t Stella. But if it was—”

Noise broke it up. Party people staggered in. Someone pulled Terry to her feet. “Nice,” someone said. “A fine hostess. Sits around with a man and a bottle, while the living-room becomes a desert. Where do you hide the whisky?”

We all went back. Stella immediately came to me. Much of the crowd had dispersed. The punch bowl was a dry crater; transparent whisky bottles were a multitude of empty sentinels. The band played droopily. The butler was busy handing out hats and coats. There is nothing to divest a party more quickly of its gay constituents than a dearth of the potables. This party was divesting as though a rumor of smallpox had set in. Soon there was nobody left except the principal characters, with addenda. The addenda totaled up to a French diplomat bending over the hand of Gene Tiny, a tall slender blond-haired man simpering prettily at Stella (while she squeezed my fingers), a redhead with green eyes and large breasts arguing with the scowling Noah, a Greek who spoke no English trailing the revived Gay, and a brawny, wild-haired, beetle-browed young man in slacks and a purple shirt who had Evelyn Dru firmly trapped in a corner, expostulating upon matters politic.

I unhooked from Stella’s fingers.

“Anybody,” I inquired, “interested in a drink?”

A hush fell upon the assemblage.

“Then what say we adjourn to my place? Early Christmas presents that arrived bore a marked similarity. Marked, that is, ‘Bonded.’ “

Beetle-brow fell upon me. “Savior,” he cried.

Stella’s blond young man looked at him with interest.

Coats appeared, hats, mufflers, and furs, and we went out into the frosty night. The snow had stopped. The sky was black. Noah took a group in his car, and I took a group in a cab.

We rode up in the elevator, and I opened the door, and threw the keys on the table, and collected hats and coats, and broke open two cases, and the party resumed.

Once I found myself kissing Terry, and once I found Noah kissing the redhead, and once I found the blond young man kissing beetle-brow while Stella observed disdainfully. The blond young man was a lollipop and beetle-brow showed a lively interest in his new conquest, which left Evelyn free to accept the declarations of until-death-I-will-love-you from Gene’s thwarted Frenchman. Noah finally agreed with the redhead on something and smacked her solidly on the shoulder and she promptly passed out, which caused an argument between Noah and Gay on the curiously unrelated subject of infidelity. Soon Noah sat alone, scowling, and Gay and Terry and Stella were fused in a coffee-klatsch in a corner, and the lollipop and beetle-brow were entwined on a couch, and the diplomat was madly kissing Evelyn’s hand, and the Greek was being effusive in mother-tongue over Gene Tiny. But nobody had stopped drinking; except the redhead, now pallidly beautiful, supine on the carpet. Finally, Gene ducked around the Greek. The Greeks have been ducked around since the days they created mythology. Superbly non-nonplussed, he dropped to one knee, blithely, but pointedly, rousing the redhead.

Gene came to me. “I’d like to go home now.”

“Already?”

“Will you take me?”

“Sure.”

I was going for my coat when the phone rang.

It was Alger Shaw.

“Got your party located,” he said.

“Good. Where?”

“Down at Eddie Nuki’s. You know Grace White?”

“The picture girl?”

“The same.”

“Yes?”

“Wine-red was there with a lady last night.”

“She remembers it?”

“Better than that.”

“What can be better?”

“Grace took a picture of a kid from Harvard and his girl friend, but the kid from Harvard turned the picture down.”

Alger stopped talking. I knew Alger Shaw.

“All right, thespian. Now you want me to throw you a straight-line. What am I supposed to say?”

“You’re supposed to say—why?”

“Okay. Why did the kid from Harvard turn the picture down?”

“Because wine-red was in it, alongside his lady of the evening.”

“Wonderful. Did you get the picture?”

“No.”

“You’re slipping.”

“No, I’m not. Grace is a business lady. She destroyed that picture, and took another of the loving collegiate couple. That’s how she remembers wine-red.”

“What about the negative?”

“You’re smart. She’s still got that. And she tells me to come up tomorrow afternoon, she’ll develop it for me. For a pittance, of course.”

“How much pittance?”

“Ten bucks.”

“Cheap. Take care of it.”

“Can do. Because I’m not working tomorrow. One question?”

“Yes?”

“How much extra for me?”

“Twenty-five bucks. Oke?”

“Oke.”

“But why tomorrow afternoon?”

“Now
you’re
slipping. Grace works nights, remember? She’s entitled to sleep in the morning. That’s why tomorrow afternoon. Sold?”

“Sold, and I’m awaiting delivery.”

“You betcha.”

Grace White was a cute blonde with a business head. She conducted her own picture-snapping thing in a couple of night clubs, a concession she had acquired by virtue of being a selective and excellent photographer, and by virtue, too, of being selective and excellent on a saltatory mattress, selective, that is, among night club owners. She was Grace White Enterprises, Inc., operating out of a little old horse stable in Greenwich Village which she had converted to home, saltatory mattress, and studio.

I hung up. I said excuse me to Gene, be right up. I went downstairs and called the Kitten House from a booth in the lobby. I told Barney Bernandino what Alger Shaw had told me. “I thought you’d like to know,” I said.

“Thanks. What’s the other reason?”

“Dough.”

“Means what?”

“Means I don’t want to go into expenses on this thing. I haven’t earned enough. Yet.”

“Yes?”

“So it’s costing me a hundred and twenty-five for Alger and ten more for the picture. As long as I’m keeping you up to date, I think you ought to cover those expenses.”

“They’re covered.”

“Thanks.”

“You going to attend to it?”

“When?”

“Now.”

“You nuts? I’m in the middle of a party.”

“Now, look, peeper. Get me right. I don’t give a hoot in hell who he was with, or where he was. All I want is a bunch of ice. If any of this leads to the ice—I’m interested.”

“You look, Barney. I’m not working for you, and I don’t care what you’re interested in. I’ve traded with you. I’ve brought you up to date on a little information, and you’re taking care of the expenses. Period.”

“Well, I think it ought to be followed up.”

“It will be.”

“Damn right it will be.”

I hung up and went back. Nobody had missed me. I tapped a glass against a bottle and everybody looked up, including the redhead. “Ladies and gentlemen, one drink. Merry Christmas.”

Everybody drank. Then they held up their empty glasses and, Noah leading them, sang, “For he’s a jolly good fellow….” It put a glow on me. I liked playing host. So I shot my big mouth off.

“I am about to take Miss Tiny home. The rest of you, please continue in your various pursuits, including getting stiff. When’s there a better night for it? But first, an invitation.”

“Here. Hear.” It was the Greek, speaking English for the first time.

“I’d like to invite all of you to a full, sober, wonderful, I hope, Christmas night supper, right here in my apartment, tomorrow night, say—about ten o’clock. How’s that?”

Cheers.

“Swell.” I shrugged, shivered maybe, but I didn’t give myself time to recant. I grabbed my hat and coat and Gene’s fur, looked for my keys and couldn’t find them, helped Gene on with her coat, cut short her good-bys, and led her out.

In the cab, she said, “You’ve been wonderful.”

“Thanks.”

That’s all we said.

I went up with her to a cozy one-room jackknife apartment, bed in the wall, kitchen in a closet, bathroom behind a mirror—an economy apartment, three rooms folded into one. She took my things, said, “One drink, to us, Christmas Eve, but let me change first.” She moved a tapestry, which developed into a closet, reached in, brought out something pale rose silk and shimmering, said, “Be with you in a jiffy,” and went behind the mirror to the bathroom.

I found whisky and glasses in a hassock with a removable top, and after a short search I discovered soda in a refrigerator with a false wooden front. I was pouring when she came out. I stopped pouring.

It was a long silk robe with a braided belt. That was all. Her feet were bare and her make-up was off and she wasn’t smiling. I looked at her, looked away, looked back. I put down the bottle and the glass. I said, “Look, sister—”

“Yes?”

“All the way from back there, from behind the wire mesh of that detention pen—”

“Yes?”

“Look. I’m high. I’m loaded right up to here.”

“So am I.”

“I’m going to kiss you, sister.”

“You’re going to kiss
me?”

She took my face in her hands and opened her mouth on mine, bending backward as I held her….

C
OLD GRAY
was Christmas dawn as I marched for a cab. Wind knifed through my overcoat. My homburg blew away and I let it. A horn honked and it was a taxi. I got in and the driver shut the door. He didn’t speak to me and I didn’t speak to him. He brought me home and I tipped him extra special for the silence.

The doorman said, “Merry Christmas.”

“Yeah, man,” I said.

I looked for my keys in front of the door of my apartment. No keys. I rang. No one answered. I rang again. No one answered again. I stood vis-à-vis to a blank door. Vis-à-vis to a blank door. Very fancy. I didn’t feel very fancy. I felt numb. I cursed, softly. It didn’t help. I slammed my fist against the wood, hurt coming through, but I remained vis-à-vis to a blank door. I turned on my heel. I went to the elevator and down to the apartment of the superintendent and I leaned against his bell until he awoke.

“I’m locked out,” I said at his slumberous face.

“G’morning,” he said.

“I’m locked out.”

“Locked out?”

“My apartment. Upstairs.”

“Oh? Apartment.”

“Locked out.”

“Oh? Locked out.”

I found a ten dollar bill and waved it. “Locked out.”

“Oh,” he said, coming awake. “Locked out? Why didn’t you say so, Mr. Chambers?”

Glumly I followed him to the elevator. Upstairs he opened the door for me, stepped aside, said, “Christmas. I know how it is.”

“Yeah, you know how it is.”

“So why didn’t the company open the door?”

“What company?”

He pointed. I looked.

“Thanks,” I said, and went in and closed the door.

The diplomat was asleep on the floor. Terry was asleep on the couch. The sound of snoring came from the bedroom. I threw my coat on a chair and tiptoed in to investigate. I was met by Gay, slightly nude, tiptoeing out. The snoring continued.

“Sh!” she said.

“Who’s in there?”

“Stella.”

“Everybody nice and sober, huh?”

“Dead drunk.”

“How about you?”

“Everybody, except me. I’ve been waiting for you.”

“Waiting for me? Didn’t you hear me ring?”

“Sure I heard you ring.”

“Well, it was real sweet of you to open the door so promptly.”

“Sarcasm this early in the morning—it ain’t fittin’. Reminds me of my husband.”

“Why didn’t you open the door?”

“Because someone was ringing.”

“Now, just … one … second—”

“If someone was ringing, it wouldn’t be you. You live here, remember? You wouldn’t be ringing. Anyone else, I wouldn’t be interested.”

“Okay. I understand.”

“A little obtuse, aren’t you?”

“Well, it’s difficult concentrating—”

“Any special reason?”

“You don’t have any clothes on.”

“I told you I was waiting for you.”

I pushed past her and went to the bedroom and got a bathrobe and tossed it to her.

“Listen,” she said, “you’re insulting. You have cute ways of being insulting. Not like my husband.”

“Get dressed, huh?”

“Why?”

“I’m in love.”

“Oh? With whom?”

“Stella.”

“Ah, nonsense.”

“No. I’m going to marry her.”

She drew herself up in dignity. “Well,” she said. “Why doesn’t somebody tell me these things?”

She put on the bathrobe and tied the sash tightly. Haughtily she marched to the door, bowed, turned, and went out. I was thinking of other things, but suddenly I thought of her. I rushed out and caught her at the elevator. “Perfectly sober,” I said, “or not. It’s cold out. Barefoot and bathrobe, and nothing else, you’ll catch your death.”

“You know something, you’re right.”

“Well, stop standing here. Come on.”

“Promise me a drink?”

“Come on.”

I led her back. I slammed the door and went for the drink, stumbling over the diplomat, who didn’t seem to mind. I brought it to her and she said, “Oh, no, not without you.” I stumbled over the diplomat again and again he didn’t mind. I poured myself a short one and joined her.

“Well,” she said. “Voilà.”

“Voilà,” I said.

“Voilà,” murmured the diplomat.

She took off the bathrobe and dropped it to the floor.

“Now stop it,” I said. “Will you, please?”

“You hate me, don’t you?”

“Of course not. Put the bathrobe on.”

“I’ve got to get dressed, mustn’t I?”

“Sure.”

“Well, I can’t get dressed on top of the bathrobe, can I? Men. God. You’re worse than Noah.”

“Noah. What happened to him?”

“Left in a huff. Noah’s always leaving in a huff. The hell with Noah and his huffs. I’m divorcing him.”

“Where’s everybody else?”

“The two young men left together with the redhead, and the Greek gentleman took Evelyn home. The remainder passed out in the following order, the French diplomat, Terry, and your betrothed.”

“My who?”

“Stella.”

“Oh, yes.”

She raised her hands over her head and turned slowly. “See what you’re missing?”

I picked up the bathrobe and put it over her shoulders. “Get dressed, huh? Will you, please?”

“Boor,” she said, but she went.

She came out of the bedroom without the bathrobe, but she was carrying her clothes. She began to dress.

I said, “It was nice of you agreeing to Sheldon’s revocation.”

“Thanks. How do you know?”

“I was told.
Did
you agree?”

“Damn right I agreed.”

“When?”

“When I saw him, a couple of days ago.”

“Why?”

“I don’t understand.”

“I’ve heard Noah’s running out of money.”

She had on her bra and her panties. She sat down and lifted a long leg and began to work a stocking on. “I don’t know where you’re getting your gossip, mister, but you’re certainly getting it factual. He’s not running out, he’s practically run out. Stock market. Ever hear of the stock market?”

“Never.”

“Everybody in the world is picking up loot in the stock market, so Noah goes broke throwing good money after bad. That’s my Noah.”

“Then why did you agree to that revocation?”

“Listen, the man says he needs the money. If the man says he needs the money, he needs the money. I don’t want charity. From anybody.”

I shifted my eyes to her face and kept them there. I said, “There’s nobody around to disprove that.”

“Whatever that means,” she said. Nothing happened in her face.

I helped her zip the dress and she had another drink. I brought her coat and I said, “Don’t forget our supper tomorrow night, or is it tonight?”

“I’m not forgetting. I accepted your invitation, though you declined mine. I bet you’d have had a better time than I’m going to have.”

We shook hands gravely and she left, leaving me to stumble once more over the diplomat, and fight my way out of my clothes. In the bedroom, I sneaked a pillow from under Stella’s head and a blanket from a closet. I couldn’t locate pajamas but I found a tuxedo shirt and a pair of shorts with purple stripes. I washed my teeth in the bathroom and gargled noisily, and then I laid out in the bathtub bent but formal in the stiff shirt and regal shorts with the blanket under me to keep off the chill from the porcelain. I hoped, once, that the shower wouldn’t leak, and I fell asleep mulling over Barney’s pungent quiddity about somebody ought to pay for it.

• • •

I woke up to white-reflected sunshine in the bathroom. My bones had acquired the stiffness that the white shirt had lost. I groaned as I got out, stretched, and straightened.

The apartment was empty. My snoring guests had probably banded together and carried themselves out. The place was a shambles, but a shambles that would respond to light cleaning. Resplendent in a crinkled formal tuxedo shirt and purple-striped creased shorts, I light-cleaned. Then I showered, looked at crisscrossed bags beneath my eyes, and had breakfast. I called the caterers, numbly surprised that they functioned on Christmas. I learned that they functioned at their best on holidays, only at slightly higher rates. I ordered a sumptuous supper, twelve people, for ten o’clock, with champagne.

Champagne, yet.

I hung up.

Barney’s euphemism whistled through me, and I whistled back at it, and suddenly an idea crawled up from nowhere. I clung to it. After the day and night I had spent, any idea was something to cling to. But first I called Gene Tiny.

“Good morning, Miss Tiny.”

“Morning.”

“How are you?”

“Up and around, but good and tired. What time is it?”

I looked. “Eleven. You going to be in?”

“All day, if I can manage it. You going to come visit?”

“You bet. See you later.”

I hung up and pursued my idea. I dressed carefully and went out into a brilliant day. Snow was white and sun was glaring and cabs were lined up at the hack stand like the queue at the Copa come closing time. I waved, and we went to the Tamara Towers.

Stella was wan in lounging pajamas, eager, but tired. A tired Stella was something to see, at least you had an opportunity to observe. Lounging pajamas or no, her figure was more exciting than parade music on a bright afternoon. It caught at you and made you tingle. And the glint in her half-closed eyes did nothing to assuage the tingle. I kept a serving-table between us, let the tingle die down, and spoke my lines.

“And how are you, Miss Talbot?”

She sniffed. Sweetly. “Now,” she said, “you come.”

“And what is wrong with—now?”

“Now is tomorrow, and right now, I’m so beastly tired.”

“I’d like to talk with you.”

“Still using a phony approach, eh? You know you’d rather kiss me.”

“Not right now.”

“Well, right now, I don’t care. How do you like that? Right now, I’m probably not up to it. But you will, fella, I promise you. Sooner or later.”

“Later. This morning it’s business.”

“Business? You and me?” The glint grew narrower.

“Well—”

“No. Real business. Money.”

“Money. Dear old money. All right, sit down, make yourself comfortable.”

I sat and she sat beside me.

“About that bunch of jewelry,” I said. “The stuff that’s itemized in the will—”

“How do you know about the will?”

“Your mother told me.”

“So?”

“It’s gone. Disappeared. Vanished.”

“What’s gone, disappeared, vanished?”

“The jools.”

“Oh, the jools. I know that.”

“How?”

“Same answer as yours. Terry told me. After you told her.”

“Look, I can do a job here. I mean, I can try. I can try to turn that stuff up for you. Incidentally, I can try to clean up the killing, too. I won’t believe that you had anything to do with it.”

“You won’t? Well, isn’t that nice of you? Is there anybody that does have an idea that I had anything to do with it?”

“Yes.”

“Who?”

“People. But I saw you there. I know what you looked like.”

“What people?”

“Let’s say—cops. Cops might believe anything.”

“Now look here—”

“Wait a minute.”

“No, you wait a minute. I want to know why anybody should think that I had anything to do with it?”

“You were there. The gun was in your hand. In a cockeyed way, motive could be worked out. But I don’t want to discuss that. I want to get you to retain me. Now.”

“I can’t afford it. Unless, well, you’d like to take it out in—”

“Whoa.”

“Always whoa, always when it gets interesting.”

“You don’t have to be able to afford to hire me. We’ll do it on a contingent basis. If I can turn the stuff up—it’s yours, under the will. Right?”

“Yes, but—”

“Okay. Let’s say five per cent. Does that sound all right, five per cent?”

“That all? I’d think you’d be entitled to—”

“I want to be fair, Stella. Seriously. I think five per cent ought to do it. Deal?”

“Certainly.”

“Do you have paper, and a pen?”

“You’re dull, you know? I don’t know why I like you.” But she stood up and brought me letter paper and a scratchy ball pen that needed more ball, or balls. I scribbled a contract and she signed it.

“ ‘By, now,” I said.

“That fancy supper invitation still stand for tonight?”

“But, of course.”

“I’m going to rest all day. So look out for me tonight, brother. Tonight I’m really going to pitch.”

“ ‘By, now.”

Out of doors, the sun was higher and it was turning warm. Snow had become slush and you jumped from the splatter of the trucks but you did not curse because you had a contract folded in your pocket and Christmas was beginning to be merry and Barney’s taunt was no longer a torment.

But where do you start?

You didn’t start. You went to the Somerset to tighten your contract. You rang at the door and Terry opened it. She wore a fuzzy bathrobe and looked just as tired as her daughter.

“You?” she said. “I thought it was the man with the bromo.”

“I’ll only take a minute.”

“Come in.”

I sat on the arm of a couch and I said, “Stella retained me this morning to see if I can’t turn up the loot.”

“Loot?”

“The gems. Sheldon’s stuff.”

“A very good idea. So? You don’t expect to find them here, do you?”

“I don’t know. But that’s not why I came.” I took out the contract. “Your daughter is below twenty-one. Contracts with people like that are voidable. I want to avoid the voidable, if you know what I mean. I want an additional contract with you, repeating what’s in the one with Stella. Like that, I’m protected. Okay?”

“Slow down, fella. Don’t overwhelm me.”

I handed the paper to her. “Read it, please. Read it carefully. Read every word. Then turn it over, and write it out again, and on that side, you sign it.”

She read it quickly, smiled, said, “I’ll say this for you, you’re shrewd, but I don’t think the fee is unconscionable. I’ll be happy to do exactly as you ask.” She sat down and she did. Then she gave the paper back to me. “One thing I didn’t have time to tell you yesterday, before my party got out of control.”

“Yes?”

“Noah Cochrane was on Thirteenth Street too.”

“What?”