Wake Up to Murder (13 page)

Lou held the stick gingerly, looking around the living room with frightened eyes. I walked back to the bedroom. In the doorway I turned and said, “When I close the door, count up to five. Then say what I told you to and whack six times with the stick.”

Lou swallowed hard, then nodded.

The door snicked shut, solidly. I counted up to five, then counted five more for good measure There was no sound from the other room. I opened the door again. “Well, go ahead.”

Lou dropped the stick on the paint-spotted canvas under the scaffold. “I did,” she protested. “I said what you told me to, loud. And I hit the stick as hard as I could.” Her eyes continued to move around the living room. “Please. I don’t like it in here, Jim. Let’s go talk to Mrs. Landers.”

I touched her arm. She was trembling. I told her what she’d told me. “Steady as it goes.”

Lou took a deep breath. “I’m all right. But let’s get out of here.”

I walked her to the hall door and out into the hall, leaving the door as we had found it.

“You couldn’t hear me, Jim?” Lou asked.

I shook my head at her “No. I couldn’t hear a thing. And if I couldn’t hear you in the next room with only a door between us, how could Mrs. Landers hear Pearl with a foot-thick wall between the two apartments?”

Lou was sill breathing hard. “I see now what you were doing. No. Of course she couldn’t.”

There was a card in a little silver frame on the door next to the former Summers apartment. It read, ‘Mrs. John R. Landers.’ I pushed the button on the jamb. I leaned on it hard. And I’d been right about the building. It was sound-proof. I couldn’t hear the buzz or tinkle or chime or whatever happened when you pushed the button.

Lou leaned against the wall. “Maybe she isn’t in.”

I held up crossed fingers. “Let’s hope so.”

I reached for the button again. As I did, the heavy door opened and Mrs. Landers said, “Yes?”

She’d either been in bed or about to go to bed. She was wearing an expensive white silk robe that covered her completely. Her hair was combed into a simple bun at the back of her neck. She’d removed her make-up for the night. Without it, she didn’t look as hard as I remembered her. She didn’t look like a bag. All she looked like was a tired old lady.

I took off my hat. “My name is Jim Charters, Mrs. Landers.”

“Yes?” she repeated, without expression.

I lied a little. “I’m in the employ of Attorney Matthew Kendall. You may have heard of him.”

She thawed a little. “Oh, yes. I know Attorney Kendall. At least, I’m familiar with the name.” A lock of bleached hair fell into her eyes. She lifted it away with a ringed hand, none of the diamonds on it less than two carats. “What can I do for you, Mr. Charters?”

I wanted to get into the apartment. Once I got inside, I’d figure some way to make her talk. I said, “I realize it’s late, Mrs. Landers. But I’ve got to talk to you. On a matter of life and death.”

She smiled, amused. “That’s a much-abused phrase, young man.” She looked at Lou. “The young lady is with you?”

“Yes,” Lou said. “I am.”

Mrs. Landers continued to smile. “Don’t I know you?”

Lou said, “I lived here for a few months last summer. You may have seen me in the lobby or the dining room.”

Mrs. Landers nodded. “That’s probably it.” She opened the door wider. “Well, come in. You both look like reasonably decent young people.” She turned her back and led the way to the living room.

I followed Lou and Mrs. Landers into the living room. It was a duplicate of the one next door, but furnished as only real money can furnish a room. With her own rugs and furniture and pictures. The nap of the rug was ankle deep. I wasn’t a judge of pictures, but the ones hanging on the wall compared favourably with those I’d seen in a place called the Louvre one time when I’d had a week’s pass in Paris. The furniture was custom-built for Florida weather and expensive and comfortable-looking.

She waved her diamonds toward a decanter of whiskey and some glasses on a round bamboo coffee table. “Help yourselves if you care for a drink. Meanwhile, I’m dying of curiosity. What’s this all about, Mr. Charters?” She looked at a jeweled watch. “It is, after all, fifteen minutes to eleven. Now what is this you have to talk to me about?”

I sat on a low sofa, facing her. “Primarily,” I said, “it concerns Pearl Mantinover.”

The expression on her face didn’t change. “Oh, yes. That pretty little girl next door. The one who killed her common-law husband. What about her?”

I LEANED forward on the sofa. “I lied to you. I’m not working for Mr. Kendall. I used to, but he fired me yesterday. You listened to the ten o’clock newcast?”

Mrs. Landers shook her head. “No. I seldom listen to the local news. Why?”

I felt like I had the time I’d been selling vacuum cleaners from door to door. I had to get my story out in a rush, before I lost my nerve. I said, “If you had, you’d know that the police suspect me of killing Mr. Kendall. For being too familiar with my wife. In fact, they suspect me of having killed both Mr. Kendall and my wife and burying their bodies somewhere along the shore of the bay.”

She was a game old girl. She didn’t bat an eye. “I see.” Mrs. Landers blew smoke at the ceiling. “But what has this to do with me?”

I said, “Like I said at first. It all goes back to Pearl Mantinover. I think Mr. Kendall threw her to the wolves as a favor to Cass Hardy.”

Mrs. Landers repeated, “Cass Hardy?”

“You don’t know him?”

“I never heard the name.”

I let it pass for the time being. “Then I don’t suppose you ever heard of Cade Kiefer?”

“I’ve seen the name in the newspapers.”

I lighted a cigarette. “Well, here’s the situation, Mrs. Landers. Last night Tony Mantin, Cade Kiefer’s number one gunman, came to town. And what do you think?”

She flicked the ash from her cigarette “I haven’t the least idea.”

I said, “He turned out to be Pearl Mantinover’s brother.”

It was one of three things. The name meant nothing to Mrs. Landers. She was a clever actress. Or she had more nerve than most women. “So?” she puzzled.

“I don’t think Pearl killed Joe Summers. I never have,” I said “And last night, in a mood of drunken optimism, I told Tony Mantin that I thought I could keep his sister from going to the chair, by paying one of the chief witnesses against Pearl to retract her false testimony. Tony gave me ten thousand dollars to do it with. When I sobered up and realized what I’d done, I wanted to give him back his money. But he wouldn’t listen to me. He thought I’d talked it over with Mr. Kendall and that Kendall had advised me to play along with the local boys. This last conversation took place on the phone. When I realized Mantin thought I was double-crossing him, I was frightened. I talked it over with my wife and we decided to drive out to the beach and ask Mr. Kendall’s advice. When we got there I found Mantin dead on the floor of Mr. Kendall’s living room. A few minutes later, I was slugged unconscious. When I came to, my wife, Mr. Kendall and the ten thousand dollars were gone. And Mantin’s body had disappeared.

“Now the police won’t listen to the truth. It seems that Mr. Kendall has been making a play for my wife, unknown to me. They won’t even help me to look for May. They’re too certain that by giving me rope I’ll spook and lead them to her body. Meanwhile God knows what indignities Mr. Kendall is forcing on her. And that’s why I’ve come to you.”

Mrs. Landers snuffed her cigarette and looked at Lou. “Pour me a drink, will you, darling? You’re closest to the decanter.”

Lou poured some Scotch in a glass and handed it to her.

Mrs. Landers looked at me over the rim of her glass. “That’s a very interesting story, Mr. Charters. And if you love your wife as much as you seem to, I realize what you must be suffering.” She sipped at the drink. “There’s just one small point that isn’t quite clear.”

“What’s that?” I asked her.

“Why you’ve come to me.”

“I want the truth to take to Cade Kiefer. If I can prove to him that I meant to keep my bargain with Tony, if I can prove to him that I wasn’t just shooting off my mouth about Pearl, and then killed Tony because I couldn’t deliver what I’d promised maybe he’ll realize what a rat Kendall really is and help me find him and May.”

“Please,” Lou said. “As one woman to another. His wife isn’t mixed up in this. She doesn’t deserve the dirty deal she’s getting.”

Mrs. Landers looked at Lou a long time, then back at me. Her face was as I remembered it now. Cold, calculating. She’d been around a long time. She knew all the angles.

“Now, let’s get this straight,” she said. “I was one of the State’s witnesses against the Mantinover girl. Reluctantly, let me say. Most men are heels. I know. I’ve been married to four of them and the rich ones are as bad as the poor ones. Summers got what was coming to him. Time after time, during Pearl’s absence, he entertained other women in her bedroom. I know. I’ve heard them in there. And that smug, self-satisfied jury ought to be proud of themselves for finding her guilty of murder in the first degree. Believe me, if I’d thought there was the remotest possibility of that happening, I never would have testified as I did.”

I started to speak. She stopped me.

“No. Let me talk. You say you told this Tony Mantin you thought you could get one of the witnesses against his sister to retract her false testimony for ten thousand dollars?”

“That’s right.”

“Am I that witness?”

“You are.”

“I see,” Mrs. Landers said. “Then, adding up the other names you’ve mentioned and the fact that both men were gamblers, it undoubtedly is your contention that this Cass Hardy person killed or had Joe Summers killed, then paid me a substantial sum of money to help convict an innocent girl of murder. Is that correct?”

I said, “It is.”

Mrs. Landers lighted another cigarette from the butt of the one she was smoking. “I will be goddamned,” she said, quietly. It wasn’t profane the way she said it. It wasn’t even cursing. It was just a way of speaking. She dropped the spent cigarette in an ash tray. “I thought I’d heard it all. Now I know I have. How old do you think I am, young man?”

I said I hadn’t the least idea.

“I’m sixty-five,” Mrs. Landers said. “When I was fifteen, I was a B girl in Butte. Only they didn’t call them B girls in those days. Later, I danced in innumerable New York nightclub choruses. I’ve been married to a stage director. To one of the biggest bootleggers in Philadelphia. To a trap drummer in a Greenwich Village bistro. To a multi-millionaire. With way stops in between. I’ve taken my clothes off for money. I’ve taken them off because it pleased me to. I’ve done thirty days for being a common drunk. I’ve been thrown out of hotels and checked into others. I’ve been sued for divorce and alienation of affection. During the course of my lifetime, various men and women have called me a good many things.” She brushed her empty shot glass to the floor with an angry gesture. “But, so help me God, this is the first time I’ve ever been accused of lying for money.”

Lou looked at the floor, embarrassed.

I needed a drink. I poured one from the decanter on the bamboo coffee table.

Mrs. Landers continued: “How much rent do you think I pay for this apartment, Mr. Charters?”

I said, “Plenty.”

She smiled. “Eight hundred dollars a month. And that’s the year round, whether I’m here or in Paris or Bermuda. And this is a dump compared to my apartment in New York and my beach home in Bermuda.” She thrust her ringed hands under my nose. “For what matter, what do you think these rings are worth?”

I shook my head. “I don’t know.”

She looked at the rings. “They’re insured for forty thousand.” She brushed the air with the back of her hand. “But all that is immaterial. What I’m getting at is this. Whatever I am or have been I’ve always been high-priced. So how much do you think this Cass Hardy person would have to lay on the line to get me to risk a perjury rap by giving false testimony against a girl I rather liked and felt sorry for?” Mrs. Landers answered her own question. “There isn’t that much money in Sun City. No. When I put my hand on that Bible in the Palmetto County courtroom and testified as I did, I was doing what I was sworn to do. I was telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.”

I protested, “That can’t be so.”

“Why can’t it?” Mrs. Landers asked.

I told her. “Because I worked on this building when it was remodeled into the Casa Mañana Apartments. And the walls are a foot thick. You couldn’t possibly have heard what went on in the next apartment.”

Lou said, “We stopped in A7 and experimented. Jim told me what to say. Then he went into the bedroom and closed the door, while I stayed in the living room and said, ‘No. Please don’t shoot me.’ I said it loud. Then I whacked a board with a stick. Six times. And Jim couldn’t hear a thing in the bedroom.”

“Oh,” Mrs. Landers said. “I see.”

She got up from the chair in which she was sitting. As she did the edges of her white robe parted, briefly. All she had on under it were lace-trimmed black step-ins and a bra. At sixty-five, she still had a pretty body. When she was a young woman her body must have been beautiful. She still had a certain wanton air about her, the same something that Lou had.

“Come on: Let’s go in the bedroom,” she said. “I want to show you something, young man.” She appraised me thoughtfully with her tired old eyes. “And it isn’t the something I might have shown you forty years ago. So the young lady is welcome to come, too.”

Lou and I followed her into the bedroom. It was almost severely simple, compared to the living room. Its north wall abutted the south wall of the bedroom in A7. The window was open and the still rising wind was fluttering the drapes.

I leaned on the tile window sill and looked out. There was no balcony under the window, but I could see the bougainvillea-overgrown balcony under the bedroom of A7, less than fifteen feet away.

“I see,” I said sourly. “You’re going to claim you heard Pearl’s voice through the open bedroom window.”

Mrs. Landers shook her head. “No. All the time the Summers and I were neighbors, I don’t believe I heard a half-dozen words come out of their window. In the first place, as you ought to know if you worked on the remodeling, the apartments are air-conditioned, and the Summers usually kept their bedroom window closed, especially during the summer months.”