He said, “Now wait. Slow down. Let’s get this straight. You and Ted—why?”
“He was a nice guy. Like you said. Like Damon said. A very nice guy.” She made an effort and her voice became clear again. “He wanted me. At first it didn’t matter, so long as a decent guy wanted me. Then I saw how he was. I wouldn’t marry him.”
“I guess that’s the way it was,” admitted Jack. He was all mixed up. He decided another drink might help. “He wanted to marry you… What about his money? Ted was worth a quarter of a million last year.”
She said, “He ran out.”
“I knew he ran out of luck. But that much?”
“When it starts, it’s all downhill. Cancelli got to him. Pete will take anyone, but it’s an extra kick if he gets a friend of mine.”
“Friend of yours,” said Jack. “I still choke on that.”
“I’ll make you gag for real,” she said. She seemed to be offering herself on the sacrificial block. He followed her into her bedroom.
It was a large room, with a chest, a dressing table, a slipper chair, wall closets behind sliding doors and a king- size bed with a white satin coverlet. Everything was spotlessly neat. Lila went to the dresser and took out a black metal box. She fumbled for a key and unlocked the box and up-ended it on the bed.
There was a picture or two, a stiff piece of folded paper and some jewelry, but not very good or very expensive jewelry, Jack saw. There were some other papers, but the one she handed to him was new, crisp.
She turned on a bed lamp. He leaned back and opened the paper. Last Will and Testament, he read, of George D. “Ted” Colyer.
She said, “He left it to me, all he had. I don’t know, right now, what to do with it.”
The will seemed to be in order, so far as he could determine. It stated that Ted did indeed bequeath to Lila Lee Sharp all his estate. It was dated a month previous.
“Anybody else know about this?” he asked. There was a small hurt in him; Ted could have left him one of the World Series mementos with which the place upstate abounded.
“Max Somerwell,” she said.
“Max knows a hell of a lot that I don’t,” he said. Then he added quickly, “What the hell, why not? None of my business.”
She said, “There’s nothing but the camp. Maybe not that. Maybe Alvin fixed that. I wish you’d see about it, Jack. You and Max. I don’t want it, not any of it.”
“Ted wanted you to have it. So you’ll take it,” he said harshly.
“The camp… I hate it. Because of Alvin.”
“It was Ted’s camp, he owned it.”
They glared at one another for a moment, then silence fell thick on them. He looked around, then at the empty glass in his hand. He was in the woman’s bedroom, where Ted had wooed her. He was feeling the effects of the drink. He was shouting at her about something which was none of his business. He stood up.
She put down her glass, in which there was half of her last, strong highball. She stood, running her hands down her hips, straightening the skirt.
They moved at the same time. Her remarkable body touched him at the foot of the bed. They sprang apart. He said uncomfortably, “I’m sorry.”
“I’m not.”
He followed her into the sitting room, still clutching the empty glass and the crisp paper which was Ted’s will.
She turned and repeated, “I’m not sorry. You came here disliking me. Now you don’t, any more. I need a friend.”
He thought that over. He put the will carefully in his inner coat pocket. He put the empty glass on the coffee table. “You’re right, on both counts.”
“I’m what I am,” she said. There were white lines at the corners of her lovely mouth. “I make no pretenses.”
“That’s all right with me.”
“If Pete Cancelli had Ted killed, I may be able to learn something. Pete can’t help gloating a little. Remember, I want to find the killer as much as you do.”
“I believe you.” He was, he found, unable to disbelieve her today. He caught a glimpse of what Ted had seen in her, what Ted had sought, had clung to despite her refusal to marry him.
She stepped back toward the bedroom and said, “I’m going to work tonight.”
He looked at his watch. It was nearly eleven. He was shocked—he had thought it closer to dawn. Between sundown and now the Colyer brothers had been wiped out. The time had flown, yet it was not midnight.
“All right. I’ll go along and eat a steak.” The alcohol was wearing off. He said, “You’re working the Greystone Club. I’d forgotten.”
“Yes,” she said. “The Greystone. The food is good, the liquor is bad. Do you know about the Greystone Club?”
He said slowly, “I know something about it. I know Cancelli and Porter Hull and I know it did no business until you went to work there.”
“Cancelli,” she said. “His alibi. Pete Cancelli. Stay away from him, Jack.”
He thought of Ted, dead on the kitchen floor. He said, “Maybe Cancelli should stay away from me.”
five
The Greystone Club was in the East Fifties. It was the hour of the after-theater crowd and there was an extra buzz of excitement. The news of the death of the Colyer brothers had hit the stands and everyone knew the Colyers and they knew about Ted and Lila.
Pete Cancelli was ensconced at a large table obviously reserved for him. Jack ate a steak and sipped at draught beer. From time to time he raked Cancelli’s table with curiosity, his mind turning over.
Cancelli was in the usual company, Bobo Simon, Katz Manning and women. Simon was a slim man with a heavy beard, very quiet, thoroughly dangerous. Manning was sleek and husky and addicted to silk suits and bright ties.
Cancelli was medium sized, heavy set, thick necked, with an incongruous narrow, hatchet face. Protuberant brown eyes were too big for him. His hair swept back in an old-fashioned pompadour, contrasting with the quiet, subdued, continental style dark suit, the white shirt and conservative narrow tie. He seemed Oriental, and perhaps he was, for his antecedents were unknown.
Cancelli certainly owned at least part of the Greystone. To see Porter Hall fawn upon him was to realize this. Hull, a prancing young man, was believed by many to be homosexual, but Jack knew his perversities to lie in another direction.
The customers filled the place, carefully refraining from looking at Cancelli, but fully knowledgeable of his presence, thrilled by it. The midtown crowd had an instinct for cabal, moved always on the edge of drama. Jack wondered how many of them knew that Lila and Cancelli were married. It had been a well-kept secret, but these people were privy to almost everything. It was amazing that so much went unsaid, at least aloud, among these denizens of the semi-fashionable sports and theatrical circle.
Well, Cancelli had his alibi well set, in case he was guilty. If the Colyer brothers had been killed by his orders, his two known gunmen had not been guilty. It was true that Cancelli was not known to consort with the Mafia people, the big Syndicate. It was a mystery just how he remained so rich and so powerful.
Jack finished his steak, ordered a brandy and sat back, waiting for the show. In a moment or two the band gave with a fanfare and Con Connor, the new, sick-type comedian who was now so popular, came on. His material was not new, it was deliberately old, but switched, turned backward in unhealthy fashion which Jack thought was not funny.
Finally Connor said, quite simply, “Ladies and gentlemen, I now give you the toast of the town—Miss Lila Sharp.”
The seven-piece orchestra was a mixed group of colored and white sidemen who had been gathered together by Will Parsons, a minor genius of jazz. They had restraint. Jack Ware, whose ear for the beat was finical, listened approvingly as they whispered the last sixteen bars of “A Pretty Girl” in two-four time, then segued into “Sunny Side of the Street” in an arrangement which went perfectly with the sinuous entrance of Lila Sharp.
She wore a chiffon gown, white and billowy, in the highest of smart style. Over it was a min
k cape and in her piled hair was a jeweled tiara. Her long white gloves did not have the obvious implication of the common garden variety of stripper-gloves, but seemed right for a young lady of fashion. Working so close to the audience, she used a minimum of make-up and her skin shone in the soft mixture of the glow of the spotlight. She sang in her low, breathless voice, “Get your hat and get your coat…”
There was a sibilance of movement on Jack’s left. He swiveled to get a look and saw Cyrus Easton Camp’s plump profile. The millionaire owner of Gold Bug was alone. He motioned to the waiter, lifted an eyebrow for Jack’s permission, sat down across the table and turned his full attention to Lila’s performance. It was a perfectly natural thing to do, the place being crowded and Camp an acquaintance and sometime customer, but Jack wondered. It had never happened before. Camp, the new kind of rich man, was not frivolous, his stables made money, he worked at philanthropy and dabbled in politics.
On the small stage, Lila had discarded the mink, tossing it to Will Parsons with a careless gesture. She moved slowly across the stage, without the writhing, the bumps and grinds of her contemporaries, just walking in that natural, undulating manner which Jack recognized. It was stunning enough to hold the room silent and rapt.
The white gown was made so that it slipped easily as oil from her shoulders. There was no awkward fumbling for a zipper. As she moved, the dress simply melted down her exciting figure. She stepped out of it in a motion entirely graceful.
She was wearing a slip and a brassiere which could have been bought in any first class lingerie shop. The light dimmed still further at this point and someone exhaled too loudly in disappointment. She flashed a bright smile in the direction of the sound and lost the slip.
Her legs were enchanting. Jack found himself holding his breath with the other suckers and snorted in self-disdain. Of all the exhibitions in the world that he detested in theory it was strip-teasing.
Yet the girl was an undeniable artist. She hummed the song, moving about with no coyness, no hint of lewdness. She wore a panty girdle over her g-string. She began to move more swiftly, dancing, swirling and swaying as though she were a happy young thing in the privacy of her bedroom, snug at home. The effect was tremendous and when she reached for the snap-on brassiere Jack could hear the anticipatory sigh that went up from the males in the audience.
The brassiere came off—but the lights went down at the precise instant of its leave-taking. The music soared, the girl moved in almost total darkness. It was impossible to determine whether she had lost the rest of the costume before it was totally black, the saxophones whining. When the light sprang suddenly back, the items of clothing lay on the floor, including the panties—but the girl was gone.
No amount of applause could get her back. Cyrus Easton Camp leaned over and said to Jack, “She’s the cleverest ever, don’t you think?”
“I didn’t know you were an admirer.”
Camp winked. “Come off it, old boy. Who isn’t?”
“Know her very well?”
“Look, old boy, I’m too rich and too smart. So knock it off. I want to know about the death of Alvin and Ted as much as the police or you or anyone else. Including Lila.”
“Have you checked with Mr. Cancelli?” Jack could see the protuberant dark eyes of the mobster searching them out, resting on them. “Because I think he might know all about it.”
“I had a go at him—as you probably know. He has an alibi. It is ironclad,” said Cyrus Camp.
“On account of the bit with Gold Bug,” said Jack. “That figures. You have to protect yourself.”
“Alvin rode for our stables years ago. We fired him.”
“It’s a wonder you ever hired him.”
“My father was alive then. You should have known him. He was a kindly man, my old gent.”
Jack said, “I’m sure he was. Did Alvin do something real bad, or was he just chiseling?”
“I’ll never know. Father didn’t say. I do imagine that he was willing to tamper with Gold Bug. I mean, Alvin was no good, right?”
“None at all,” Jack agreed.
“Ted was a bit of okay, though?”
“All the way, he was okay.”
Camp looked sad, shaking his head slowly. “Not all the way. He should have come to me when he knew about Alvin and Gold Bug.”
“If he knew, he probably prevented Alvin from getting to your horse.”
“Even so. He should have come to me. He was involved with Cancelli, you know that.”
“How come you know so much, Cy?”
“I have an agency working,” said Camp simply. “As you said, I must protect the stable, my family, the name.”
“I hear you gave Cancelli a hard time earlier this evening.”
“I’m sorry it happened. I can’t afford to get involved with his kind, you know.”
“You had the agency men on Ted?”
“On Alvin.” He adjusted the black tie he was wearing with a soft shirt and his tuxedo. “They reported his association with Cancelli.”
“There was no proof that Alvin intended to slip Gold Bug a dose of go-juice?”
Camp flinched at the terminology. “Enough evidence to convince me. He bought the—er—drug. He was seen lurking around the stables.”
“How do you know he had the drug in his possession at the time? How do you know he wasn’t merely seeking inside information on the horse?”
“I don’t know. But I do know about Alvin Colyer.”
“I see what you mean.” Jack pondered a moment. “You know whether Cancelli was down on Gold Bug?”
“I believe he was. I believe he bet heavily. I believe that was why Alvin Colyer was murdered.”
“But you and a dozen others can alibi Cancelli for the entire evening. He was here. You were here.”
“Yes,” said Camp reluctantly. “That’s true. Neither of Cancelli’s—er—cohorts left the place, we all agreed.”
“You mean you and the other witnesses?”
“Yes.”
“Porter Hull?”
Camp frowned. He had a round, full, pink face, strong-jawed. His mouth was curving, good-humored in repose; now it hardened. “I know that Porter Hull is Cancelli’s man. But there are others.”
He indicated a party at a discreet table near the wall. Jack recognized two bankers and their wives and the former Eloise Mannering, who was Camp’s second wife.
Camp went on, “Because of my little go-around with Cancelli, they were all aware, you see.”
“You mean none of the Cancelli party could have left without some of you noticing?”
“They are in our line of vision, you can see that.”
It was true. Still, Jack thought, it was not impossible that one of the Cancelli party might have left the place long enough to make a quick kill and return. Not that it made sense, he didn’t believe it had happened that way. Cancelli was too smart to set up an alibi which would not stand inspection.
No, there was more to it than a mere bet on a horse. Gang rub-outs were not in style. There had to be complications.
Camp said, “Just wanted to check with you, Jack. I know how close you were to Ted.”
“Not close enough to prevent what happened.”
The millionaire looked curiously at him. “Prevent it? I beg your pardon, but just how would you have done that?”
Jack returned the stare. “I couldn’t imagine. I only know I would have put a big try on it.”
Camp rose slowly. “I see. You consider yourself involved. Deeply involved. It may be dangerous, you understand.”
“It was fatal to the Colyer brothers, wasn’t it?”
Camp nodded. “Yes. Well, I’ll check with you at the restaurant. If I can do anything, let me know.”
Jack said, “You can keep your agency men working.”
“I intend to do that.” Camp waved and rejoined his party. His wife, a handsome brunette, smiled vaguely and Jack nodded to her. She had been a swinger around the cafés in he
r salad days, he remembered, a heavy drinker and caper-cutter. She had quieted down after marrying Camp, who was far tougher than he looked.
Lila came from the shadows as though she had been waiting her turn and sat down at the table. She wore a cloak over her costume for the next number. She said in a low voice, “Don’t trust Cy Camp.”
“I’m not trusting anyone this week,” he told her.
“He’s too clean on the surface,” she said. “I used to know Eloise. He’s taken something out of her. He was working on Ted. Nibbling at him.”
“In what way?” Jack was astounded.
“Pushing him down,” said Lila. She shook her head. “I don’t know just what I mean. He made Ted feel inferior, because Ted was out of luck and Cy Camp has everything. It was insidious. I think Ted began plunging because he wanted to show Cy Camp he was a big man.”
“There’s no sense to that.”
“That’s another quarrel I had with Ted.”
“Camp and Cancelli.” The coupling of the two names gave him pause. The multi-millionaire and the mobster-millionaire. “And poor Ted in the middle.”
“Ted tried. He was always trying, maybe in the wrong direction, but that wasn’t all his fault.”
Jack was watching Cancelli’s table. They were all looking his way at that moment, Cancelli, Katz Manning and Simon. There were women at the table but their forms were indistinct, they were just any women of midtown, they had no meaning. Slowly, Cancelli got up and started toward Lila and Jack.
“Go to your dressing room. I’ll see you in a few minutes.”
She said, “I’m not afraid of Pete.”
“You’re afraid, all right. Go on!”
She left a moment before Cancelli arrived, seated himself without ceremony in the chair Camp had occupied.
“Sit down, Pete, have a drink,” said Jack with sarcasm.
“Funny, funny.” The round eyes did not blink. “You are killing me with your funnies.”
“Want to name them?”
“I’m not in the mood. I just want to tell you how sorry I am about Ted. On account of fifty grand.”
Death Comes Early Page 4
