by Larry Kent
“But he must have—” She stopped. “Those men. Greg and the other man I saw in the club. They—”
“No, Anne. Your late husband didn’t contact Greg until tonight ...” I looked at the gathering dawn and corrected myself, “Last night. But that’s part of another story.”
She frowned. “I don’t understand, Larry.”
“That’s why I’m here; to explain. Salem tried to kill me because I knew he was wanted for murder in Virginia. But he didn’t kill Eve.”
“If he didn’t ...”
“Who did? Ever hear of a man named Peller?”
“Peller?” She turned the name over in her mind.
“Stanley Peller.”
“It sounds familiar.”
“He’s the house detective at the Sunshine Garden Hotel. A little man with a paunch.”
“Oh. Yes. That filthy little man.”
“A perfect description.”
“It must have been—oh, five months ago when I met him. It was one of the times I drove down to Atlantic City with Earl. We stopped in to see Eve on the way back. Peller stepped in front of us and talked with Earl. There was a slimy look about him.”
“What did he say?”
“He said how nice it was that we were stopping by to see Eve Delmar. He said she was such a lonely woman that he felt sorry for her. But his words didn’t ring true. I ... I didn’t know what to make of him.”
“I’ll tell you what he was doing.” I said. “He was setting Salem up for blackmail. That’s how crumbs like Peller make their living.”
“He picked the wrong man when he selected Earl.”
“He found that out later. I had a talk with him just a while ago. In the beginning, he thought he might be able to shake your husband down. His material was the same stuff he was using to bleed Eve. But then he checked in New York and discovered that Earl Salem wasn’t the kind of a guy you could put the pressure on. Information of that sort is obtainable in the underworld. So Peller left Salem alone ... until he had something really big to offer. Peller figured on one big financial killing—then he was going to run.”
“Peller was blackmailing Earl?”
“He didn’t see it as blackmail. Though, in a sense, it was. Your late husband paid Peller to keep his mouth shut about two things Peller saw the night Eve was murdered. One. he saw Jack Delmar leave the hotel area before the murder shot was fired. Two, he saw someone else leave Eve’s suite after the shot was fired.”
“Peller saw the killer?”
“Yes. Actually, I didn’t need Peller’s testimony; I already had a pretty good idea of what had happened in Eve’s suite. Oddly enough, it was Salem who told me. Oh, he didn’t give me a name. He didn’t say so-and-so killed Eve Delmar. All he did was let me see his left hand.”
“His left hand?”
“The third finger. I think you know what I mean, honey.”
She nodded, slowly. “The ring.”
“That’s right. The wedding band, studded with diamonds. A woman who gives her husband a wedding band worth a few thousand ... well, there’s a woman in love. It added up when I remembered something Eve told me about you. She said you were beautiful. Looking back, I can see she was jealous of you.”
“She knew Earl loved me,” Anne said, her voice flat.
“And she was aware of why he kept the affair going—only because she knew about the murder in Virginia. Salem had to keep seeing her, had to make sure she wouldn’t tell the police.”
“She was no good,” Anne said. “If there was ever a woman who deserved to die, that woman was Eve Delmar.” She smiled at me. “Yes, I killed her. I should have killed Peller, too. But I wasn’t sure he recognized me. It was dark there.”
“Peller lives in the dark.” I looked at her, admiringly. “You put up a fine show. You came to me and pointed the finger at your husband, knowing all the while that the time element would get him off the hook. He knew you killed Eve, of course; he knew because you weren’t in the apartment when he got there. What you did in effect was, you gave yourself an alibi by pretending that you thought Salem killed Eve. At the same time you were keeping your eye on me—with your late husband’s permission, of course.”
“You have it all,” she said. “What are you going to do about it?”
“The police will be here soon.”
“I don’t suppose there’s any point in offering you money ...”
“No point at all,” I said.
“I thought not.” She got to her feet. “Well, I gave it a try, didn’t I, Larry?”
“A very good try.”
“I might have got away with it if you weren’t involved.” She walked to the line of fish tanks, looked at the piranha. “Will you see to it that the fish and birds are fed?” she asked. “Louise won’t be back for another week.”
“I’ll take care of it personally,” I said.
“There’s one more thing. Will you see to it that I’m buried next to Earl?”
“That won’t be for a long time yet, Anne. With a good lawyer—”
She moved fast. I ran after her, but she slammed the bedroom door in my face, twisted the lock. It was a big, heavy door. I heard the window open in her room. I went to the big windows, looked out. I caught a glimpse of her robe, nothing more. The angle of the building didn’t let me see the sidewalk below. But a cab stopped and a man got out, and two other men ran across the street. The three men stopped and looked down at what I couldn’t see.
I sat down and lit a cigarette.
“That’s love for you,” I said.
The piranha stared back.
About Larry Kent
Larry Kent started his life as the hero of a half-hour radio show on Australia’s Macquarie Network, and was inspired chiefly by the success of the hardboiled mysteries of Carter Brown. As the popularity of the radio show grew, the Cleveland Publishing Pty. Ltd decided to publish a series of Larry Kent novels. Two authors, Don Haring (an American who lived in Australia) and Des R Dunn (a Queenslander) are primarily associated with the series. Between 1954 and 1983, Larry appeared in well over 400 adventures.
Kent is a typical hardboiled private eye. He smokes Luckies, drinks whisky and within the first dozen pages or so, has usually met a dame and is fighting for his life. His mean streets are pure New York (although the radio series was set in Australia) and include Harlem nightclubs and Jersey roadhouses.
Generally the body counts are high: about six deaths per novel.
But there’s another side to Larry Kent. He’s a Vietnam war veteran, he used to work for the CIA and still does, usually reluctantly, on occasion. And once, when an attempt was made on his life, the Agency paid for him to have plastic surgery that altered his appearance ... something he never quite managed to get used to.
Larry Kent is fast and fun, and Piccadilly Publishing is proud to be bringing his cases to a whole new generation of fans, complete with their original ‘good girl’ artwork.
More on Larry Kent
The Larry Kent Series
Curves Can Kill
Witch Rhymes With …
Hello Dolly, Goodbye
One More for the Road
… and more to come!
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