Lively Game of Death (22 page)

She tapped her finger against the Q tile. “What do you see, counselor?”

“Beneath the letter? A small number—ten.”

“And here?” she proceeded, tapping the H.

“That’s a four. So what?”

Pushing the blank between the letters, Hilary told Frost to read off the result, ignoring the letters.

His brow knitted. “Ten. Blank. Four.”

“And what room,” she asked, “are we in now?”

The lawyer looked up, realization dawning in his eyes.

Goetz Sales: Room 1006 of the 1111 Broadway building. Bell’s, across the hall, was 1005. So ...

“Yes,” Hilary stated, “Goetz was trying to tell us to look for his killer in the showroom next door, ten-zero-four, PeeJayCo.”

“And the blank?” Frost asked.

“Fortuitous. There are only two. But he didn’t have to find one to get his meaning across. Finding a blank just made it easier.”

“And now,” said Jensen, “what happens to me?”

For answer, Hilary asked Frost what he thought the police would do when they found that Dean Wallis was perfectly alibied for the time of the Goetz killing.

He shrugged. “They may still try to pin it on him, break down his alibi. But if they can’t, they’ll just start prying again, questioning Pete here, me, Ruth Goetz ...”

“Will it be prejudicial to Wallis’s trial?”

“For pushing Lasker down the steps? It
could
be,” Frost answered, “depending on how carefully Betterman digs beforehand. Why?”

“Because,” said Hilary, “I may not like Wallis, but I’m not going to stick him with something he doesn’t deserve.”

“Don’t worry,” Jensen told her. “I’ve made up my mind, anyway—”

“To tell the police?” Hilary asked. When he nodded, she told him he was a fool. “If
you
don’t know whether you intended to kill Sid or not, what are
they
going to think? Nothing’s going to happen to anyone else, there aren’t enough clues—”

“Especially,” I remarked, “since the main one has been criminally concealed.”

Frost nodded. “Which is why, I suppose, Hilary asked Betterman to keep her name out of the case.”

She rose. “I’m not aware that I have to outline my motivation to the pair of you, but I’ll tell you three things. First, if Betterman gets full credit, he’ll be tempted to overlook what he’ll consider a natural mistake on my part in assuming that Wallis killed Goetz as well as Lasker. Second of all, if my name does not appear in the papers, it will not come to the attention of—expert eyes. ...”

She left it at that, but I saw her drift. She was afraid her old man might read about the case and her part in it, then get mad and do enough digging to teach her a lesson.

“My last point,” she said, “is this. The only real villain in this whole affair has been Sid Goetz. He stole from Trim-Tram, twisted Tom Lasker even more than Lasker’s natural inclination led him to be warped, used his wife as a tool, ruined Mr. Jensen once and tried to crush him a second time. He’s been preying upon the entire industry for two decades, and, as far as I’m concerned, his death is a desirable thing, a public benefit!” She glowered at Frost, daring him to contradict her.

“Well,” the lawyer grinned, “he who is guiltless among us, I suppose ... still, I have to sympathize with your viewpoint, Hilary.”

She turned to me, which I thought unnecessary. But I paraphrased Betterman: “I don’t give a damn about the law, so long as justice is done.”

“Mr. Jensen,” said Hilary, “both my assistant and I spoke to you earlier. Based on our impressions, we have obscured the one most damning clue. We don’t know whether that will be sufficient to free you from being connected with Goetz’s death, but so far as we are concerned, there’s no need to punish you for what happened, intentional or otherwise.”

The toyman rose, looked first at Hilary, then at me. I tried to manage the ghost of a reassuring smile. “I don’t know,” he said at last, “whether I should allow myself the
luxury
of remaining unpunished. But ...” Unable to express a hope he almost deemed obscene, he turned to the lawyer, but Frost had his eyes closed.

“Don’t wake me up,” he mumbled, “I’ve been asleep for hours.”

“Well,” Jensen said to Hilary, “I still don’t know how I’ll resolve this in my own mind, but—thanks.”

“For what?”

“For the time to decide.” He turned toward the door then, and would have walked out, but I stopped him.

“Wait,” I said. “Before you go, Mr. Jensen ... don’t you want to recover your missing dowel?”

I
T PRODUCED QUITE AN
effect.

For one thing, Frost woke up. Jensen just stood there with his mouth open.

As for Hilary ...

“Very showy,” she smiled sweetly. “Waiting till I’m all done, then leaping in with facts you forgot to tell me.”

“No, goddamnit!” I snapped back, “no such thing. I just didn’t see the significance of a few things.”

“I’m sure you didn’t,” she said, fixing me with a chilly stare.

I decided to ignore her. Turning to Jensen, I told him that there could only be one possible place Goetz hid the dowel. “Assuming that it was neither on his person nor in the main showroom, it can only follow that it’s somewhere in the small office.”

“Brilliant!” Hilary complimented me. But she came with Jensen and Frost as they followed me into Goetz’s office.

Her behavior was really nettling me. After playing Sherlock all night, there was no reason for her not to give ground graciously. I wasn’t trying to upstage her, although I knew I could probably never make her see it.

In the office, I swept an arm in a broad gesture, indicating the desk and remaining furniture. “Both Jensen and the police searched this room,” I said, “and so did Hilary. Now if the dowel is not on or in the desk where it was looked for three times ... and if we eliminate Goetz’s pockets, which the police examined and which I also searched for the key to the front door ... and if it is also
not
in the main showroom, where there’s no place to conceal it anyway ...
where does it have to be?”

Hilary had tumbled to it by then, of course. It was the first time she’d come in second on a trail of thought I’d traveled first; I admit I relished the experience.

“Of course,” she said, “you hit on it by a lucky guess. While
I
was busy with thirty thousand other problems—”

“Damn it, Hilary, I’m not trying to do you in the eye! Not only is it a matter of elimination ... after all, the police were looking for a gun, which never would have fit ... but I also had three clues. Or, rather, one clue twice. The other was supplied by Frost—”

“By
me?”
the attorney asked, amazed.

“Yes, when you were telling me about your nutty hobby!”

“And after that,” Hilary added, “you called the Paradol—”

“And I also talked to Scott at Trim-Tram. Both times, the other party had a lot of trouble hearing me.”

Reaching down, I hefted the receiver of Goetz’s telephone. I unscrewed the mouthpiece, removed it, and shook the instrument. Two objects dropped out.

I picked up a tubular length of metal a little over an inch long. Noting the miniature program-notches etched into its sides, I passed the dowel to Jensen. “This was rattling around free inside the receiver,” I explained, “and that’s why some calls I made were perfectly clear, while others proved staticky. The dowel rolled back and forth, most likely, shorting the connection variably.”

A round, perforated disc had also fallen from the phone’s mouthpiece.

“Here,” I told Frost, tossing it to him, “add this to your transmitter collection.”

L
AST OF ALL, LET
me tie up a few tangled skeins.

I’m not much for aftermaths, but I guess I ought to mention that Wallis got five-to-ten with Frost, of all people, defending. The counselor did some dickering with the D.A. and got the charge reduced from second-degree to manslaughter.

There was no need for Jensen to confess, as it turned out. Betterman groused around for a while, and—despite Hilary’s assumptions—cut up a little nasty with her before he was done. But he was too lazy to follow up the obscurer directions, so he never narrowed down the suspects the way Hilary did.

Despite the lack of threat, I was surprised to open the paper about a month-and-a-half later and see headlines proclaiming the Goetz case to be solved. I showed the story to Hilary; she wasn’t any too thrilled about the news. But when we checked, we found we were in no danger. Jensen had mailed a carefully edited confession to the police, who, though skeptical, decided to pick him up, anyway.

But he couldn’t be found. His conscience may have forced him to tell all, but his sense of self-preservation hadn’t atrophied, either; all the while Wallis was standing trial, Jensen had been quietly selling off his company—machinery, fixtures, inventory—and then, just before disappearing, he sublet his showroom to none other than Goetz Sales.

“Ruth needed room for expansion,” Willie Frost told us. “Now the question is whether we can crack Sid’s will and/or get Wallis, in prison, to sell us the remainder of his shares.”

So
they
were keeping busy.

The other principals in the drama are about status quo, except that Abel Harrison turned out to have a hidden flair for advertising work. So he inherited Wallis’ job, much to the delight of his sister, his brother-in-law, and even Hilary, who much prefers working with him—though she hasn’t modified her views very much on other admen.

As for her views on me, they haven’t been all that great since I scooped her on finding the dowel.

She became even less cordial when she learned I took Penny Saxon to see
Hamlet
at the Scuttle-and Grate. (We saw only three acts. When Whelan tilted naked at the queen’s arras and skewered Polonius, they threw us out of the theater for laughing too loud.)

I was pretty damned surprised that Hilary might be the least bit jealous. But the feeling changed to anger when she passed a snide remark about cradle-snatching. So I made a crack about compulsive career women with ungovernable emasculatory urges.

And she slapped me.

My first impulse was to sock her. But, on reflection, I was rather pleased. I never knew it was possible for me to rattle her supercilious cool.

But later that night, I regretted the incident. I was just turning off the lights and double-checking to see that the doors were locked when I heard an odd sound from the back of the hall. I approached Hilary’s room, leaned my ear against her door and listened.

Oh, Christ, I thought! She’s crying.

What the hell am I supposed to do with a girl like that?

Fortunately, I’ve thought of a way to make up for that night. Hilary’s birthday is next week, and I’ve got a surprise for her ... one New York state-authorized private investigator’s license, gift-wrapped. Of course, it’ll be in my name, but I’ll have precious little use for it without Hilary’s brains backing it up.

It could work out into an interesting relationship—except for one potentially negative aspect. She’s bound to ask how the hell I can qualify for a detective’s license, because I never told her that I once worked for an investigation bureau. It was a sleazy divorce snapshot-procurement operation, and it soured me on snooping. I’m not particularly proud of that portion of my past, so I left it off my resume when I applied for the job with Hilary.

Knowing the way she works, I can foresee two possible outcomes, once I give Hilary her present. Either she’ll become so enamored of me that I’ll rate a warm handshake. Or else she’ll fire me.

But one thing’s for sure. I’m not going to
wake her up
to give it to her.

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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

copyright © 1972 by Marvin Kaye

cover design by Connie Gabbert

978-1-4532-9011-8

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