by Jerry eBooks
Childers frowned slightly. For an instant he was almost ready to believe Nolan’s statement. There was something feverishly convincing in the ex-con’s voice and manner. But then, as he studied Nolan’s face, he saw that Nolan’s eyes were aimed at Wilma, and he thought, It’s not me he’s talking to, it’s her. He’s trying to sell her a bill of goods. He wants her to think he’s clean, so when he walks out of here she’ll be going along with him.
And then he heard himself saying through clenched teeth, “She won’t buy it, Nolan. She knows you’re a crook and a killer and no matter how many lies you tell, you can’t make her think otherwise.”
Nolan’s eyes remained focused on Wilma. His face was expressionless as he said, “You hear what the man says?”
She didn’t reply. Childers looked at her and saw she was gazing at the wall behind Nolan’s head.
“I’m telling you I’m innocent,” Nolan said to her. “Do you believe me?”
She took a deep breath, and before she could say anything, Childers grabbed her wrist and said, “Please—don’t fall for his line, don’t let him play you for a sucker. You walk out of here with him and you’re ruined.” Her head turned slowly, her eyes were like blades cutting into Childers’ eyes. She said, “Let go of my wrist, you’re hurting me.”
Childers winced as though she’d hit him in the face. He released his burning grip on her wrist. As his hand fell away, he was seized with a terrible fear that had no connection with Dice Nolan’s presence or the gun in Nolan’s hand. It was the fear of seeing her walking out of that room with Nolan and never coming back.
His brain was staggered with the thought, and again he had the feeling of falling, of plunging downward through immeasurable space that took him away from the badge he wore, the desk he occupied at Homicide in City Hall, his job and his home and his family. Oh God, he said without sound, and as the plunge became swifter he made a frantic try to get a hold on himself, to stop the descent, to face this issue and see it for what it was.
He’d fallen victim to a sudden blind infatuation, a maddened craving for this woman whom he’d never seen before today. And that didn’t make sense, it wasn’t normal behavior. It was a kind of lunacy and what he had to do here and now was—
But he couldn’t do anything except stand there and stare at her, his eyes begging her not to leave him.
And just then he heard Dice Nolan saying, “You coming with me, Wilma?”
“Yes,” she said. She walked across the kitchen and stood at Nolan’s side.
Nolan had the gun aiming at Childers’ chest. “Let’s do this nice and careful,” Nolan said. “Keep your hands down, copper. Turn around very slowly and lemme see the back of your head.”
“Don’t hurt him,” Wilma said. “Please don’t hurt him.”
“This won’t hurt much,” Nolan told her. “He’ll just have a headache tomorrow, that’s all.”
“Please, Philip—”
“I gotta do it this way,” Nolan said. “I gotta put him to sleep so we’ll have a chance to clear out of here.”
“You might hit him too hard.” Her voice quivered. “I’m afraid you might kill him—”
“No, that won’t happen,” Nolan assured her. “I’m an expert at this sort of thing. He won’t sleep for more than ten minutes. That’ll give us just enough time.”
Childers had turned slowly so that now he stood with his back to them. He heard Nolan coming toward him and his nerves stiffened as he visualized the butt of the revolver crashing down on his skull. But in that same instant of anticipating the blow he told himself that Nolan would be holding the barrel instead of the butt, Nolan’s finger would be away from the trigger.
In the next instant, as Nolan came up close behind him, he ducked going sideways, then pivoted hard and saw the gun-butt flashing down and hitting empty air. He saw the dismay on Nolan’s face, and then, grinning at Nolan, he delivered a smashing right to the belly, a left hook to the side of the head, another right that came in short and caught Nolan on the jaw. Nolan sagged to the floor and the gun fell out of his hand.
As Childers leaned over to reach for the gun, Nolan grunted and lunged with what remaining strength he had. His shoulder made contact with Childers’ ribs, and as they rolled over, Nolan’s hands made a grab for Childers’ throat. Childers raised his arm, hooked it, and brushed his elbow against Nolan’s mouth. Nolan fell back, going flat and sort of sliding across the kitchen-floor.
Childers came to his knees, and went crawling very fast, headed toward the gun. He picked it up and put his finger through the trigger-guard. As his finger came against the trigger with the weapon aiming at Nolan’s chest, a voice inside him said, Don’t—don’t—But another voice broke through and told him, You want that woman and he’s in the way, you gotta get rid of him.
Yet even as he agreed with the second voice, even as the rage and jealousy blotted out all normal thinking, he was trying not to pull the trigger. So that even when he did finally pull it, when he heard the shot and saw Nolan instantly dead with a bullet through the heart, he thought dazedly, I didn’t really mean to do that.
He lifted himself to his feet. He stood there, looking down at the corpse on the floor.
Then he heard Wilma saying, “Why did you kill him?”
He wanted to look at her. But somehow he couldn’t. He forced the words through his lips, “You saw what happened. He was putting up a fight. I couldn’t take any chances.”
“I don’t believe that,” she said. And then, her voice dull, “It’s too bad you didn’t understand.”
He stared at her. “Understand what?”
“When I agreed to go away with him—I was only pretending. It was the only way I could keep him from shooting you.”
He felt a surge of elation. “You—you really mean that?”
“Yes,” she said. “But it doesn’t matter now.” Her eyes were sad for a moment, and then the bitterness crept in as she pointed toward the parlor and said, “You’d better make a phone call, Lieutenant. Tell them you’ve found your man and you’ve saved the State the expense of a trial.”
He moved mechanically, going past her and into the parlor. He picked up the phone and got the P.D. operator and said, “Get me Homicide—this is Childers.”
The next voice on the wire was the Captain’s, and before Childers could start talking, he heard the Captain saying, “I’m glad you called in, Roy. You can stop looking for Dice Nolan. We got something here that proves he’s clean.”
“Yeah?” Childers said. He wondered if it was his own voice, for it seemed to come from outside of himself.
“We got the man who did it,” the Captain said. “Picked him up about an hour ago. We found him with the payroll money and the gun he used on those night-watchmen. He’s already signed a confession.”
Childers closed his eyes. He didn’t say anything.
The Captain went on, “I phoned you at your home and your wife said you were on your way down here. Say, how come it’s taking you so long?”
“I got sidetracked,” Childers said. He spoke slowly. “I’m at the Lakeside Apartments, Captain. You better send some men up here. It’s Apartment nine-o-seven.”
“A murder?”
“You guessed it,” Childers said. “It’s a case of cold-blooded murder.” He hung up. In the corridor outside there was the sound of footsteps and voices and someone was shouting, “Is everything all right in there?” Another one called, “Was that a shot we heard?”
Wilma was standing near the door leading to the corridor and he said to her, “Go out and tell them it was nothing. Tell them to go away. And keep the door closed. I don’t want anyone barging in here.”
She went out into the corridor, closing the door behind her. Childers walked quickly to the door and turned the lock. Then he crossed to the nearest window and opened it wide. He climbed out and stood on the ledge and looked down at the street nine floors below.
I’m sorry, he said to Louise and the children, I’m
terribly sorry. And then, to the Captain, You’ll find the gun on the kitchen table. His fingerprints and my fingerprints and I’m sure you’ll believe her when she tells you how it happened, how someone who’s tried so hard to be clean can slip and fall and get himself all dirty.
But as he stepped off the ledge and plunged through empty darkness, he began to feel clean again.
THE SWINDLER’S WIFE
Robert Standish
She had to beat her husband at his own lucrative racket.
A rich, parchment-type envelope came under the door of the Gardenia Suite, which is on the third floor of the Hotel Magnifico in Monte Carlo, with a balcony overlooking the Casino Gardens. The only thing wrong with the suite was the price. The envelope contained the bad news.
A generation or more ago, Monte Carlo was tagged “a sunny place for shady people,” so be prepared to meet some.
The envelope, which contained the hotel bill for the week just ended, was addressed to Mr. and Mrs. Peter Larsen. The former, his six feet three inches stretched out on a divan, pretended that he did not see it. The latter twinkled across the room, retrieved the envelope, opened it and gasped. She was the kind of girl who couldn’t help looking lovely, even when gasping. She had gray eyes studded with chips of sapphire, auburn hair not far off red, and she moved like a gazelle. The green satin wrap she wore spoiled nothing. “Not until after breakfast, darling,” said her husband, waving aside the bill she thrust under his nose.
The breakfast trolley arrived a few seconds later. “Guess how much the bill is!” said Mary when it had been removed.
“I’d sooner not guess,” said Pete. “How much is it?”
“A little more than one hundred and forty thousand francs,” replied Mary, with worry in her eyes. “That’s more than three hundred dollars. What are we going to use for money?”
“I shall have to find a sucker,” said Pete calmly. “Don’t let a little thing like a hotel bill worry you.”
“I do so wish,” said Mary wistfully, with a faraway look in her eyes, “that you would find an honest job of some kind. Other men do Why can’t you?”
“I’ve never learned how to be honest, my pet. Besides, what honest job would pay for the Gardenia Suite in this gilded sucker trap? It’s all very well you telling me that you’ve reformed. That just means I have to steal twice as much as before. Once upon a time you were an asset to me, but now you’re merely a beautiful liability—and I can’t afford the luxury of reforming.”
Mary wept prettily. She did everything prettily.
On the extreme, outermost, fuzzy fringe of European society, where these two lived, Pete Larsen had earned for himself the nickname of “Grand Larceny.” It was inevitable, therefore, when he married Mary, that she should be known as “Petty Larceny,” because in the days before her reformation she had stolen only small things. Like diamonds, for instance.
While Mary was running her bath, Pete put in a phone call. “Who were you phoning?” asked Mary, coming into the room as he hung up.
“The Princess Gobolinsky,” replied Pete.
“She owns half Texas, doesn’t she?” asked Mary excitedly.
“No, my pet, she doesn’t. You’re thinking of the Princess Gobolinsky. She owns half Texas. but the Princess Gobolinsky doesn’t own anything at all except a pair of the darkest, most mysterious eyes I ever gazed into. Which reminds me that you’ll have to amuse yourself for an hour or so at cocktail time this evening. I have an appointment with her at six o’clock at Fred’s Bar. That will save you the trouble of sleuthing me all over town.”
Mary, when Pete had gone out. gave herself over to the luxury of a few tears. Loving Pete as she did, she wondered whether her decision to become a reformed character bad been as wise as it had seemed at the lime. Pete needed women as partners in his business, but, she asked herself, was it strictly necessary for them to be so stunningly good looking? Mary, having chosen the narrow and thorny path of virtue, had no right to complain when Nile found it was—narrow and thorny Lonely too.
In London recently Mary had noticed a tendency on the part of old friends to give her the cold shoulder. They had started talking about something else when she came among them. Becoming honest was, in their somewhat jaundiced view, a steppingstone to becoming a stool pigeon or, as the species is known among London’s elect, a copper’s nark.
That evening, sitting alone at a corner table in Fred’s Bar, Mary witnessed the meeting between Pete and the Princess Gobolinsky. who was a stunning brunette and whose eyes, as Pete had remarked, were pools of mystery. Anyway, pools of something. Few women could resist Pete’s charm when he turned it on. La Gobolinsky, Mary mused bitterly, was evidently one more on the long list. Mary trusted Pete, of course, but she had the philosophy of the desert Arab who. trusting God, secs that his camel is lied. If it hadn’t been for the unpaid hotel bill, Mary would have been tempted to break it up.
“How old are you?” Mary heard Pete ask La Gobolinsky.
“Twenty-five, why?” the latter replied.
“Might be a lucky number,” Pete went on. “Let’s take a whirl at the roulette wheel.”
Mary followed them across to the casino, watched while Pete extracted a 5000-franc note from a painfully thin billfold, buying with it one 5000-franc chip. Mary felt better when she saw Pete put it on number thirty-live and better still when the little ivory ball dropped into the slot of number thirty-five and she saw Pete rake in 175,000 francs. La Gobolinsky viewed the phenomenon somewhat sourly, leaving the casino a few minutes later.
“Gimme!” said Mary when she saw Pete heading toward the “big” roulette table. At least the hotel bill could be paid, giving them another week of breathing space.
Over the next few days, Pete and La Gobolinsky had several meetings, during which a plan of campaign was worked out. It will simplify matters and do no harm if the entire plan is disclosed now. La Gobolinsky had a woman friend, in whose apartment she was living, her friend owned several pictures of extremely dubious authenticity. These had been entrusted to Monsieur Morosco, of the Morosco Fine Art Galleries, with a view to sale. A receipt had been obtained for them describing one as “reputed to be a Rembrandt.” Another as a reputed Renoir, and a third as a reputed Toulouse-Lautrec. In each case “reputed” was the operative word. The plan was to enhance the value of these three spurious pictures in the eyes of Monsieur Morosco by creating a set of circumstances which would persuade him to believe that they were genuine. The trick itself was, of course, hoary with age and, like all such swindles, depended for its success on a wide streak of larceny in the prospective victim, for it is an axiomatic truth in the hair-world of con men and tricksters that it is impossible to swindle an honest man. Morosco seemed an ideal subject, for not even chlorophyll could sweeten his reputation.
Since Mary was a reformed character, Pete no longer discussed the details of his operations with her. She said that she wanted to know none of the details, which was not strictly true. Otherwise one must suppose, she would not have spent so much other time listening to Pete’s phone calls on the bathroom extension. Her reply if taxed with this would have been to deny interest in the plan itself, but to admit a wifely curiosity in the relationship between Pete and La Gobolinsky.
Now Mary’s artistic education had been sadly neglected and she was greatly puzzled by the recurrence in these eavesdropped telephone conversations or the names Rembrandt, Renoir and Toulouse-Lautrec. She knew, of course, that Rembrandt was a well-known pianist and that Toulouse-Lautrec was a tightrope act in some circus, but she had never heard of Renoir, She hoped this didn’t mean that Pete was planning to steal a grand piano, or a circus, for she believed—or had believed, before she reformed—that thieves should confine themselves to small, portable articles. Her own father’s downfall had come about through stealing a cow.
One day while the plan was being developed. Mary saw in a bookshop window a set of volumes containing reproductions of pictures by the world’s best-known painters. A
mong these she spotted the three names she had heard bandied on the telephone, from which she concluded that Pete w-as planning to steal pictures. Although she disapproved in principle, she was pleased to know that he planned to steal expensive ones.
Pictures! They were awkward to handle. What was wrong with diamonds? Monte Carlo was full of them.
The opening shot of the campaign was fired when La Gobolinsky walked into the Morosco Fine Arts Galleries and, waving aside Monsieur Morosco’s offers of assistance, proceeded to examine all the pictures on view. “I will be back later,” she said at the end of an hour, dropping on the desk a visiting card which described her as La Princesse Gobolinsky.
If Morosco had examined the finely engraved card with the care it merited, he might have saved himself much heartache and some cash, for he would not have confused Gobolinsky with Gobolinsky. The Princess Gobolinsky, who was known to be shopping for a villa in or near Monte Carlo, was a refugee from Texas, grown tired of a vast landscape on which oil derricks proliferated to the distant horizon—and all hers. Morosco, thumbing the rich engraving on the card, began to dream dreams. His nostrils began to twitch—this shows what imagination will do to warp a man’s judgment—as from far-off Texas there came, wafted across the seas, the delicious fragrance of crude oil. From that moment, Morosco was lost.
Later that day a tall, distinguished stranger entered the Morosco Fine Art Galleries, bowed gravely to the owner and, without a word, began a slow, systematic examination of every picture hanging there. From time to lime, taking a lens from his waistcoat pocket, he scrutinized a picture with more than usual care. It was done unostentatiously, but it did not escape Morosco’s notice. Few things did.
The tall stranger gave off an aura of wealth and respectability. A combination of many things conspired to create the effect—the set of his broad shoulders, his beautifully constructed gray worsted suit, the obviously handmade black shoes and an air of complete assurance, only just falling short or arrogance. He seemed the sort of man who, because or an indisputable integrity, becomes a trustee of an orphan asylum. At the end of an hour spent in the galleries. Morosco knew that whoever this distinguished stranger turned out to be, here was a man who understood pictures. The youth who, under instructions from Morosco, trailed the stranger back to the Hotel Magnifico where he occupied the Gardenia Suite, learned from a well-primed concierge that he was Mr. Peter Larsen, of the Larsen Fine Art Galleries, New York City.
