The Grifters (13 page)

He said it aloud, glaring at his visitor. The latter pursed his lips thoughtfully.

"You didn't know she was in Arizona, Mr. Dillon? She didn't tell you she was going?"

"Of course, she didn't! Because she didn't go! I- I-" He hesitated, some of his caution asserting itself. "I mean, my mother and I weren't very close. We went our own ways. I hadn't seen her for almost eight years until she came here a few weeks ago, but-"

"I understand," the man nodded. "That jibes with our information, such as it is."

"Well, you're wrong, anyway," Roy said doggedly. "It's someone else. My mother wouldn't…"

"I'm afraid not, Mr. Dillon. It was her own gun, registered to her. The proprietor of the tourist court remembers that she was very distraught. Of course, it does seem a little odd that she'd use a gun with a silencer on it for -. – for something like that. But-"

"And she didn't! It doesn't make sense!"

"It never does, Mr. Dillon. It never makes sense when a person commits suicide…"

"You understand why I came rather than the local police, Mr. Dillon. It really isn't their affair, at least at this point. I'm afraid there may be some unpleasant publicity later on, when the circumstances of your mother's death are revealed. An attractive widow with so much money in her possession. But-"

"I see," said Roy. "The money."

"More than a hundred and thirty thousand dollars, Mr. Dillon. Hidden in the trunk of her car. I'm very much afraid-" delicately. "I'm afraid she hadn't paid taxes on it. She'd been falsifying her returns for years."

Roy gave him a wry look. "The body was discovered this morning; about eight o'clock, right? You seem to have been a very busy little man."

Chadwick agreed simply that he had been. "Our office here hasn't had time to make a thorough investigation, but the evidence is indisputable. Your mother couldn't have saved that much out of hen reported income. She was a tax evader."

"How terrible! Too bad you can't put her in jail."

"Please!" Chadwick winced. "I know how you feel, but-"

"I'm sorry," Roy said quietly. "That wasn't very fair. Just what do you want me to do, Mr. Chadwick?"

"Well… I'm required to ask if you intend to lay claim to the money. If you care to say, that is. Possibly you'd rather consult a lawyer before you decide."

"No," Roy said. "I won't lay any claim to the money. I don't need it, and I don't want it."

"Thank you. Thank you, very much. Now, I wonder if you can give me any information as to the source of your mother's income. It seems obvious, you know, that there must have been tax evasions on the part of others, and-"

Roy shook his head. "I imagine you know as much about my mother's associates as I do, Mr. Chadwick. Probably," he added, with a tiredly crooked grin, "you know a hell of a lot more."

Chadwick nodded gravely, and stood up. Hesitating, hat in hand, he glanced around the room. And there was approval in his eyes, and a quiet concern.

Lilly's money had had to be impounded, he murmured; her car, everything she owned. But Roy mustn't think that the government was heartless in these matters. Any sum necessary for her burial would be released.

"You'll want to see to the arrangements personally, I imagine. But if there's anything I can do to help…" He took a business card from his wallet and laid it on the table. "If you can tell me when you might care to leave for Tucson, if you are going, that is, I'll notify the local authorities and-"

"I'd like togo now.Just as soon as I can get a plane."

"Let me help you," Chadwick said.

He picked up the phone, and called the airport. He spoke briskly, reciting a government code number. He glanced at Roy. "Get you out in an hour, Mr. Dillon. Or if that's too soon-"

"I'll make it. I'll be there," Roy said, and he began flinging on his clothes.

Chadwick accompanied him to his car, shook hands with him warmly as Roy opened the door.

"Good luck to you, Mr. Dillon. Iwish we could have met under happier circumstances."

"You've been fine," Roy told him. "And I'm glad we met, regardless."

He had never seen the traffic worse than it was that day. It took all his concentration to get through it, and he was glad for the respite from thinking about Lilly. He got to the airport with ten minutes to spare. Picking up his ticket, he hurried toward the gate to his plane. And then, moved by a sudden hunch, he swerved into a telephone booth.

A minute or two later he emerged from it. Grimfaced, a cold rage in his heart, he went onto his plane.

It was a propeller job since his trip was a relatively short one, a mere five hundred and eighty miles. As it circled the field and winged south, a stewardess began serving the pre-luncheon drinks. Roy took a double bourbon. Sipping it, he settled back in his seat and gazed out the window. But the drink was tasteless and he gazed at nothing.

Lilly. Poor Lilly…

She hadn't killed herself. She'd been murdered.

For Moira Langtry was also gone from her apartment. Moira also had checked out yesterday morning, leaving no forwarding address.

There was one thing about playing the angles. If you played them long enough, you knew the other guy's as well as you knew your own. Most of the time it was like you were looking out the same window. Given a certain set of circumstances, you knew just about what he would do or what he had done.

So, without actually knowing what had happened, just how and why Lilly had been brought to her death, Roy knew enough. He could make a guess which came astonishingly close to the truth.

Moira had a contact in Baltimore. Moira knew that Lilly would be carrying heavy-that, like any successful operator, she would have accumulated a great deal of money which would never be very far from her. As to just how far, just where it might be hidden, Moira didn't know. She might look forever without finding it. Thus Lilly had had to be put on the run; for, running, she would take the loot with her, necessarily narrowing its possible whereabouts to her immediate vicinity.

How to make her run? No problem there. For a fearful shadow lies constantly over the residents of Uneasy Street. It casts itself through the ostensibly friendly handshake, or the gorgeously wrapped package. It beams out from the baby's carriage, the barber's chair, the beauty parlor. Every neighbor is suspect, every outsider, everyone period; even one's own husband or wife or sweetheart. There is no ease on Uneasy Street. The longer one's tenancy, the more untenable it becomes.

You didn't need to frighten Lilly. Only to frighten her a little more. And if you had a contact at her home base, someone to give her a "friendly warning" by telephone…

Roy finished his drink.

He ate the lunch which the stewardess served him.

She took the tray away and he smoked a cigarette, and the plane dropped lower over the desert and came into the Tucson glide pattern.

A police car was waiting for him at the airport. It carried him swiftly into the city, and a police captain took him into a private office and gave him such facts as he could.

"… checked into the motor court around ten last night, Mr. Dillon. It's that big place with the two swimming pools; you passed it on the way into town. The night clerk says she seemed pretty jumpy, but I don't know that you can put much stock in that. People always remember that other people acted or looked or talked funny after something's happened to 'em. Anyway, your mother left a seven-thirty call, and when she didn't answer her phone one of the maids finally got around to looking in on her…"

Lilly was dead. She was lying in bed in her nightclothes. The gun was on the floor at the side of the bed. Judging by her appearance-
Roy winced
- she'd put the muzzle in her mouth and pulled the trigger.

There was no disarray in the room, no sign of a struggle, no suicide note. "That's about all we know, Mr. Dillon," the captain concluded, and he added with casual pointedness, "Unless you can tell us something."

Roy said that he couldn't and that was true. He could only say what he suspected, and such guilty suspicions would only damage him while proving nothing at all against Moira. It might make a little trouble for her, cause her to be picked up and questioned, but it would accomplish no more than that.

"I don't know what I could tell you," he said. "I've got an idea that she traveled with a pretty fast crowd, but I'm sure you're already aware of that."

"Yes."

"Do you think it might not have been suicide? That someone killed her?"

"No," the captain frowned, hesitantly. "I can't say that I think that. Not exactly. There's nothing to indicate murder. It does seem strange that she'd come all the way from Los Angeles to kill herself and that she'd get into her nightclothes before doing it, but, well, suicides do strange things. I'd say that she was badly frightened, so afraid of being killed that she went out of her mind."

"That sounds reasonable," Roy nodded. "Do you think someone followed her to the motel? The person who'd frightened her, I mean."

"Possibly. But the place is on the highway, you know. People are coming in and out at all hours. If the guilty person was one of them, it would be practically impossible to tab him, and short of getting his confession to making a death threat, I don't know how we could stick him if he was tabbed."

Roy murmured agreement. There was only one thing more that he could say, one more little nudge toward Moira that he could safely give the captain.

"I'm sure you've already looked into it, captain, but what about fingerprints? Wouldn't they, uh-"

"Fingerprints," the officer smiled sadly. "Fingerprints are for detective stories, Mr. Dillon. If you dusted this office, you'd probably have a hard time finding a clear set of mine. You'd probably find hundreds of smudged prints, and unless you knew when they were made and just who you were looking for, I don't know what the devil you'd do with them. Aside from that, criminals at work have an unfortunate habit of wearing gloves, and many of the worst ones have no police record. Your mother, for example, had never been mugged or printed. I'm sorry-" he added quickly. "I didn't mean to refer to her as a criminal. But…"

"I understand," Roy said. "It's all right."

"Now, there are a few items of your mother's personal property which you'll want. Her wedding ring and so on. If you'll just sign this receipt…"

Roy signed, and was given a thin brown envelope. He pocketed it, the pitiful residue of Lilly's hard and harried years, and the captain escorted him back to the waiting police car.

The undertaking establishment was on a side street, a sedately imposing building of white stucco which blazed blindly in the afternoon sun. But inside it was almost sickeningly cool. Roy shivered slightly as he stepped into the too-fragrant interior; the manager of the place, apparently alerted to his coming, sprang forward sympathetically.

"So sorry, Mr. Dillon. So terribly sorry. No matter how we try to prepare for these tragic moments-"

"I'm all right." Roy removed his arm from the man's grasp. "I'd like to see my mother's-my mother, please."

"Shouldn't you sit down a moment first? Or perhaps you'd like a drink."

"No," Roy said firmly. "I wouldn't."

"It might be best, Mr. Dillon. It would give us a little time to, uh… Well, you understand, sir. Due to the unusual financial involvements, we have been unable to, uh, perform the cosmetic duties which we normally would. The loved one's remains-the poor dear face-"

Curtly, Roy cut him off. He understood, he said. Also, he said, enjoying the manager's wince of distaste, he knew what a bullet fired into a woman's mouth could do to her face.

"Now, I want to see her. Now!"

"As you wish, sir!" The man drew himself up. "Please to follow me!"

He led the way to a white-tiled room behind the chapel.

The cold here was icy. A series of drawers was set into one of the frostily gleaming walls. He gripped a drawer by its metal handle and gave it a tug, and it glided outward on its bearings. With an offended gesture, he stepped back and Roy advanced to the crypt and looked into it.

He looked and looked quickly away.

He started to turn away. And then, slowly, concealing his surprise, he forced his eyes back on the woman in the coffin.

They were about the same size, the same coloring; they had the same full but delicately-boned bodies. But the hands!
The hand!
Where was the evil burn that had been inflicted on it, where was the scar that such a burn must leave?

Well, doubtless it was on the hand of the woman who had killed this woman. The woman whom Moira Langtry had intended to kill, and who had killed Moira Langtry instead.

Her eyes were strained, bloodshot, but that didn't matter, They would probably be a hell of a lot worse, she suspected, before she was safely out of this mess. The glasses covered them, also helping to disguise her face. With the glasses on, and with the scarf drawn tightly around her head and under her chin, she could pass as Moira Langtry. She'd done it back at the Tucson motel, and she could do it again.

She made some minor adjustments on the scarf, pulling it a little lower on her forehead. Then, throwing off her weariness, subjecting it to her will, she got out of the car and entered the hotel.

The clerk greeted her with the anxious smile of the aged. He heard her request, a command, rather, and a touch of uncertainty tinged his smile.

"Well, uh, Mr. Dillon's out of town, Mrs. Langtry. Went to Tucson this morning, and-"

"I know that, but he's due back in just a few minutes. I'm supposed to meet him here. Now, if you'll kindly give me his key..

"But-but-you wouldn't like to wait down there?"

"No, I would not!" Imperiously she held out her hand. "The key, please!"

Fumbling, he took the key from the rack and gave it to her. Looking after her, as she swung toward the elevator, he thought with non-bitterness that fear was the worst part of being old. The anxiety born of fear. A fella knew that he wasn't much good any more-oh, yes, he knew it. And he knew he didn't always talk too bright, and he couldn't really look nice no matter how hard he tried. So, knowing in his heart that it was impossible to please anyone, he struggled valiantly to please everyone. And thus he made mistakes, one after the other. Until, finally, he could no more bear himself than other people could bear him. And he died.

But maybe, he thought hopefully, this would be all right. After all, Mrs. Langtry and Mr. Dillon weregood friends. And visitors did sometimes wait in a guest's room when the guest was out.

Meanwhile…

Entering Roy's room, the woman locked the door and sagged against it, briefly resting. Then, dropping the sunglasses and her modishly large handbag on the bed, she went resolutely to the four box-framed clown pictures. They had caught her attention the first time she had seen them-something that struck a jarring note; entirely incompatible with the known tastes of their owner. They couldn't have been there as decoration, so they must serve another purpose. And without seeing the symbolism in the four wisely grinning faces; Clotho, Lachesis, Atropos, and a fourth self-nominated Fate, Roy Dillon-she had guessed what that purpose was.

Now, prying loose the backs of the pictures, she saw that her guess was right.

The money tumbled out, sheaf after sheaf of currency. Stuffing it into her bag, she was struck with unwilling admiration for Roy; he must be good to have piled up this much. Then, stifling this emotion, telling herself that the theft would be good for him by pointing up the fruitlessness of crime, she finished her task.

Large as it was, the bag bulged with its burden of loot. She could barely close the clasp, and she wasn't at all sure that it would stay closed.

She hefted it, frowning. She put it under her arm, draping an end of the stole over it, checked her appearance in the mirror. It didn't look bad, she thought. Not
too
bad. If only the damned thing didn't fly open as she was passing through the lobby! She considered the advisability of leaving some of the money behind, and abruptly vetoed the idea.

Huh-uh! She needed that dough. Every damned penny of it and a lot more besides.

She gave the mirror a final swift glance. Then, the purse clutched tightly under her arm, she crossed to the door and unlocked it, pulled it open. And fell back with a startled gasp.

"Hello, Lilly," said Roy Dillon.