The Wycherly Woman (20 page)

The trees stood thick around Merriman’s yard, and I made it unobserved to the side of his cottage. Keeping close to the wall and ducking my head below window-level, I worked my way around to the back and across an imitation flagstone patio shadowed by a jungle of unclipped laurels.

The sliding glass door which let into the house was closed and partly obscured by matchstick bamboo drapes. I could hear voices through it, a man’s and a woman’s. I lay down full length on the flagstones with my head resting on the doorsill. and pressed my mike to the corner of the glass.

Quillan’s voice was rapid and raw: “I need some bread, but fast.”

“You want it buttered, maybe with jam on it?” Sally Merriman said.

“It’s no joke.”

“It’s a joke when you come to me for money. I haven’t got a red cent. He borrowed on the furniture, even, right up to the hilt. I’ll have to bury him on the installment plan. I was counting on you to help me with the down-payment.”

“That’s a laugh. What did Ben ever do for me?”

“He did plenty, and you know it. He let you in on a big deal, set you up in business. I happen to know he was paying your rent last year, I saw the check-stubs. But you never had any gratitude. What do you want now, with him laying dead at the morgue? The gold out of his teeth?”

“Gratitude!” His angry snicker exploded like static in the mike. “Big-hearted brother-in-law Ben never gave me a damn thing in his life. You think he put me in that apartment because he couldn’t resist my baby-blue eyes? Or let me in on the Mandeville deal? I
made
that deal for Ben.”

“Yes, God. I happen to know you were just a front, a dummy.”

“You’re the dummy,” he yelled, and went on ranting at her in a high and ugly yammer: “I read you like a book, doll. You want what money will buy, but you don’t want to know where it comes from. You let me and Ben sweat out your dirty money for you. But when you get your hooks on it, suddenly it’s clean like fallen snow. And all yours. But you’re not going to cut me out. I need travel money, and I’m getting it from you. You’re sitting here on a bundle of loot, and don’t think I don’t know it.”

“If I had a bundle, you think I’d stay in a dump like this?”

“You’ve stayed in worse. Let’s see your bag, bag.”

“Don’t you call me that, Stanley Quillan.”

“Let’s see your purse, sweet little lovie-doll sister of mine.”

She must have thrown it at him. I heard the slap of leather in his hands, then the click as he opened the catch.

“It’s empty.” His voice was empty. “Where’s the loot?”

“I never had any of it. You got your share and you know
where the rest of it went. Reno and Vegas and the goddam stock market. He went in at the top of the market and came out at the bottom, through the drain.”

“Don’t give me that pitch, that was way last summer. I’m talking about here and now.”

“What do you think I’m talking about? There hasn’t been anything since the Mandeville deal and that went with the wind. We’ve been on our uppers ever since, paying back what he borrowed to swing it in the first place. Big deal Ben.” Her voice was harsh and sardonic, with woodwinds of hysteria shrilling through it. “We were going to be rich, move up to Atherton, join the Circus Club. Some circus. We were always going to be rich. And now he’s dead.”

“It’s a deeply touching story. It’d touch me deeply, only I don’t believe it.”

“Believe what you like, it’s the truth. I haven’t suffered enough, with Ben laying dead, cops hammering questions at me.” She began to sob, gasping out words between her sobs: “My own brother has to turn against me.”

“Buck up, sis, I’m
for
you. Ben was no great loss, and he left you well-fixed.”

“He left me stony broke.”

“Change the disc, kiddo, and kid me not.” Quillan’s footsteps vibrated through the floor.

“Keep away from me,” she said.

“When I get my share. I need it. You’re not the only one they’ve been questioning. I need it worse than you, and I’m going to have it.”

“There isn’t any money in the house. You can look if you want.”

“Where is it then?”

“Where’s what?” she said in bitter mocking idiocy.

“The loot. The wad. When Ben came back from Sac he was loaded for bear.”

“You mean the Wycherly commission? That’s gone. Most of
it went to the agent who sold the place, it was on multiple listing. The rest went to the finance company. They were going to take the car. Anyway, you had no claim on that commission.”

“I’m not talking about the commission. I’m talking about all of it—the whole cash value of the house. Ben went to Sac to get it, and he got it. Naturally he didn’t tell
me
that, but I have a little bird that keeps me informed.”

“It must be a coocoo-bird, then. It doesn’t make sense. Why would Mrs. Wycherly give him all that money?”

“You can’t be as dumb as you let on. Nobody could.”

“Lay
off
me,” she said on a rising note. “And don’t stand over me. You remind me of the old man.”

“You
remind
me
of the old lady. But we won’t argue, sis. I’m in a jam. I swear I have a right to part of that loot. You wouldn’t turn your little brother down.”

“If it’s so important, you can sell the store, or your car.”

“The car’s shot, I couldn’t get my equity. The store hasn’t even been paying the lease. Anyhow, I can’t wait around to sell it. I need out. Today.”

“Did you do something wrong again?” There was family history in the question. “What did you do, Stanley?”

“Ben really kept you in the dark, eh? Maybe he was smart. We’ll leave it like that, so if somebody asks you you won’t know.”

“Are the cops after you?”

“They will be. A private dick jumped me in the store this aft. He won’t be the last of them.”

“Is it about Ben?” she said in a thin voice.

“Partly. What happened to Ben is one reason I need out.” He made a snicking sound between his teeth. “It could happen to me. Song title.”

A chair scraped the floor. Her breath came out as she rose. “Did you kill him, Stanley?”

“That’s kookie talk.” But he sounded almost flattered.

“I mean it, Stanley.
Did
you kill him?”

“If I killed him I wouldn’t be here. I’d be on my way to Australia. Travelling first-class.”

“On what? I thought you were stony.”

“On the wad he was carrying. Somebody got it.”

“You don’t have to look at me like that. I didn’t know about it.”

“Cross your heart and hope to die?”

She repeated the childish phrases: “Cross my heart, and hope to die. The cops said he had four bucks in his wallet.”

“Christ, he was carrying fifty thousand skins.”

“How do you know, Stanley?”

“Jessie told me. I wasn’t planning to pass that on to you. But maybe I’ll be doing you a favor.”

“What happened with him and Jessie?”

“I said last night he made a pass at her. He dropped in the apartment while I was still at the store. Old lady Girston saw him and mentioned it to me. I had to pry the rest of it out of Jessie. Ben wanted her to go away with him. He showed her the loot, he even let her handle it. He said he had fifty grand, in cash, and more coming.”

“The dirty dog! I knew he was double-timing me with that floozie.”

“He made the pitch. But he didn’t make any time—”

“Don’t let her fool you.”

“Jessie doesn’t fool me. She was scared to put in with him, though. I got the whole thing out of her last night. I had to beat it out of her, but I got it She was afraid it was funny money, that they’d be picked up if they tried to spend it.”

“Counterfeit?”

“No, it’s the real McCoy, but hot.”

“But you said Mrs. Wycherly gave it to him.”

“He didn’t get it for the Nobel Peace Prize.”

“Was she stuck on him? Or what?”

“More like what.”

“Did Ben have something on her?”

“You’re getting warm.”

“He had all that money, and he didn’t tell me. He never even told me.” Her real sorrow was striking dully home. She burst out: “Who got it?”

“I sort of thought maybe you did.”

“You thought I killed him for it?”

“You’ve threatened to often enough.”

“Well, I didn’t. I’m
sorry
I didn’t.” She let out a laugh which went through my head like a knife. “We make a nice pair, Stanley, a lovely family groupee. The heavenly twins.”

“Listen, sis—”

Her voice overrode his: “Who do you think got it?”

“Whoever it was killed him.”

“Do you have any idea who did it?”

“Not if it wasn’t you.”

“That’s crazy. I thought at first it was old man Mandeville. He’s been making a nuisance of himself. But I guess that’s crazy, too. The cops say it was a gang of kids.”

“Lucky kids,” he said with throbbing sincerity. “Listen, sis, we can maybe pull it out—some of it, anyway. There’s this tape Ben kept in the safe in the office. If you’ll go down and get that for me—”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You don’t have to know. Just get it. I think I can find a customer for it.”

“What kind of a customer?”

“A paying customer. The tape’s worth money, see.”

“Blackmail money?”

“Call it that.”

“I don’t want any part of it,” she said.

“She doesn’t want any part of it. She’s too clean, too sweet, too pure.” His voice was savage: “Come off it, doll. What do you think you’ve been living on the last six months? Manna from heaven?”

“Lay
off
me. Maybe you can bully Jessie, but you can’t bully me.”

He brought his voice under control: “Listen to me. I’m trying to do what’s best for you—best for both of us. You don’t have to know a thing, I don’t
want
you to. All you have to do is go down to the office and get me the tape in Ben’s safe. It’s in a round paper package—you know what
tapes
feel like. Just make that little trip for me, and I’ll give you half of what I get for it.”

“And half the rap? I get that, too?”

“There won’t be any rap, sis. Leave it to me.”

“I am,” she said. “I’m leaving it to you. All of it.”

“You won’t co-operate?”

“I’m not going in on any crooked deal.”

“Then give me the office keys and the combination.”

“The cops have the keys to the office. I don’t know the combination.”

“Didn’t Ben have it written down someplace?”

“If he did, he didn’t tell me.”

“So what good are you?”

“More good than you are, nothing man.”

“Don’t call me that!”

“Nothing man. You were going to be a big shot, you and Ben both. The real-estate king and the big movie producer. What did it all add up to? I spent my life trying to make sense out of a couple of cheap hustlers.”

“Hustler is a word you shouldn’t use.”

He slammed out. He was very good at slamming out. The Alfa-Romeo roared away, and I had no chance to follow it.

I went back to Camino Real and stopped at the drive-in across from Merriman’s office. The little building had a locked-up, empty look.

It was dinnertime, and I hadn’t eaten all day. The chill of the winter earth had crept up through the flagstones into my marrow. I ordered hamburger and coffee and sat listening to
the younger generation trying to talk like underworld characters and succeeding. Nobody said anything revealing, except that the carhop who brought me my hamburger called me dad.

Stanley didn’t show.

H
E WASN’T IN
his store, either. I went on to the Conquistador Apartments and buzzed Apartment One. A gaunt man in shirtsleeves came to the door. He had a long unhappy face on which a sense of frustration had settled and caked like dust.

“Mr. Girston?”

“Yeah.” His tone was grudging, as if he hated to give anything away, even his identity. “Would you be the gentleman the wife was telling about? Interested in the apartment upstairs?”

“I’m more interested in the occupants of the apartment.”

“There’s nobody in it. It’s been empty for two months.”

“That’s one of the things that interests me.” I told him who I was. “Is there some place we can talk without being disturbed?”

He looked me over suspiciously and said in his grudging whine: “Depends on what you want to talk about.”

“This girl.” I brought out Phoebe’s picture. “She’s missing.”

He peered at the photograph. It was changing under all the eyes I showed it to. Phoebe looked strange and remote and a little worn like a statue that had been standing in the weather.

Girston’s mouth worked softly. “I don’t believe I know her.”

“That’s funny, your wife does. Mrs. Girston said she occupied Apartment Fourteen for some days last November.”

“The old woman runs too free at the mouth.”

“She’s an honest woman. And you’re an honest man, aren’t you?”

“I try to be, when it don’t put my neck in a sling.”

“You recognize the girl, don’t you?”

“I guess so.”

“When did you last see her?”

“Back in November, like you said. She was moving out, and I helped her down with her bags.”

“Where was she going?”

“To Sacramento, to see her mother. I asked, because I happened to notice that they were her mother’s bags. The little girl wasn’t feeling so good, so I helped her down with them.” He looked as if he expected me to thank him.

“What was the matter with her?”

“I dunno, stomach trouble maybe. She was kind of bloated-looking in the face.”

“Can you pinpoint the date?”

“Let’s see, it was the day after the old woman went into the hospital. That was November eleven she went in. She was in for two weeks and three days, came out November twenty-eight. I still haven’t got it all paid for.” His slow mind made a connection: “The girl’s family has money, isn’t that right?”

“Some. How do you know that?”

“The clothes she wore—they were Magnin’s and stuff like that, the old woman said. And look at the way her mother refurnished the flat. You working for the mother, did you say?”

“For the family.”

“Is there reward money?”