by Anthony Rome
“He doesn’t very well,” I told him. “They’re living in the servants’ cottage.”
Kosterman’s vindictive smile told me something of how he’d gotten from an unskilled laborer to where he was. I’d’ve hated to be his personal or business enemy.
“They might as well,” he said. “The servants are all gone. The only one left to do any of the chores around that place is that twin brother of Boyd’s that never grew up in his head.”
I nodded. “Sam.”
“You were there tonight?”
“Following your daughter.”
“Did she give them money?”
“I think so.”
“I know so,” Kosterman stated. “Diana’s been sneaking money to her mother for years. She thinks I don’t know about it, but I do. That’s why I make sure she doesn’t have much to give Lorna. Just her allowance.” He smiled that savagely vindictive smile of his again. “I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s all Boyd and Lorna have had to live on for the past five years. Part of Diana’s allowance. Though it’s hardly enough to pay the taxes on that place of Boyd’s.”
“How long has your daughter been married?”
“Two years. Why?”
“You still give her an allowance?”
“Of course. I don’t pay Darrell that much. He’s still learning the business.”
“Nice way to learn a business,” I commented. “As the company’s vice-president.”
“Darrell’s a good boy. A few more years and he’ll be worth his position. He’s had a rough time of it, that boy. He was a navy flier during the Korea thing. Got shot down and wounded. Escaped from a prisoner-of-war camp and won the Silver Star. But he’s very modest about it. About everything. Sometimes I think he feels he hasn’t earned his position in the company. But that’s nonsense of course. Just because I had to work my way up from the bottom doesn’t mean he should. What’s the good of getting where I’ve gotten if I can’t help the few people I care for?”
“About your ex-wife,” I said, bringing him back to the point that interested me. “You think your daughter’s been passing on some of her allowance to the Boyds regularly?”
“I’m sure of it. Diana and I are very close. She knows the divorce was Loma’s fault. She knows what Lorna did to cause it. But Diana can’t help still having some feeling for her mother. Naturally she doesn’t like the fact that Loma’s living in poverty now. For a cultured, beautiful woman like Lorna it’s especially hard.”
I remembered Lorna. “How long has it been since you last saw your ex-wife?”
“Ten years. Since the divorce. I don’t want anything to do with that high-class bitch . . . At first, after Boyd lost his doctor’s license, Diana tried to persuade me to help them out. Can you imagine that? I wouldn’t give those two the sweat off the back of my neck . . . So Diana’s been slipping them some of her allowance on the sly for years.”
“It doesn’t bother you?”
Kosterman shrugged his heavy shoulders. “It makes Diana feel better.”
I gazed into my glass for a moment, then looked up at Kosterman. “You’ve been wondering what’s troubling your daughter. Seems to me this situation with her mother would trouble any sensitive girl.”
Kosterman stared at me with a hard, calculating expression. “That’s your verdict? Lorna’s what’s bothering Diana?”
“Whatever it is could stem from that, yes.”
“You’re way off the beam,” Kosterman growled at me. “Way off. This thing with Loma’s been going on for years. That wouldn’t make Diana suddenly run out on her party the way she did the other night and go off on a bat in the city. She’s never done anything like that before. So it’s something new that’s biting at her. And you’ve been wasting your time on the wrong things. Your time and my money.” I stood up. “You’ve already sent me the check to cover three days. I’ve only worked one day for you. Today. I’ll mail your refund.”
“Don’t be so goddamn touchy,” Kosterman snapped. “I know you haven’t had enough time to work on it yet. I don’t expect miracles. I’m just very concerned and too edgy because of it. Let it go at that.”
“You want me to keep on it?”
“When I fire you you won’t be in doubt about-it. I’m not subtle.”
I finished off the brandy and told him I’d be seeing him.
“Where’re you going now?” he demanded.
“Home. It’s late.” I left him there sunk in his womb-chair, sipping at his bourbon and brooding.
As I opened the louvered door of the stateroom, I caught the sounds of high heels clicking swiftly up the steps at the other end of the companionway that led between the two big guest cabins. I went through the companionway and up into the saloon. Rita Kosterman was there, over near the dining alcove. She had her back to me, facing a dartboard, three feathered darts in her hands.
As I came up into the saloon, she threw one of the darts. It missed the board completely and thudded into the teak wall beside it.
“You won’t win any contests that way,” I said.
She turned quickly, expressing surprise at the sight of me. She looked even cuter than I’d remembered—tiny and curvy in pale rose slacks and cardigan that set off the vivid blue of her eyes and the honey color of her hair.
“Oh!” she said as I came past the table toward her. “You startled me.”
“I figured that,” I told her. “How much did you hear?” Rita Kosterman dropped her pretense and met my eyes thoughtfully. “Most of it,” she said finally. “I followed Rudy from the house and eavesdropped deliberately.”
“Why?”
“I was curious. And concerned. Tell me, is it ethical for you to be working for two clients at cross purposes?”
“I’m not sure of the cross-purposes part,” I told her. “And I haven’t taken any money from your stepdaughter yet.”
She gave me a worried frown. “Does that mean you’re not going to? That you won’t find the pin for Diana?”
“I expect to have it back to her in a couple of days.”
“Oh,” she said, relieved. “That’s wonderful. I should tell you I’m the. one who suggested that Diana go to you—and not worry her father about it.”
“I know. Why were you listening at the other side of the door?”
“I’m as concerned about Diana as Rudy is. He’s right about something troubling her. I want to know what it is.”
“You seem to be pretty good friends with your stepdaughter. Tried asking her?”
Rita Kosterman nodded. “We are. And I have. She usually has a lot of respect for my judgment. I’ve been around and I guess it shows. But she won’t tell me anything this time. Which makes me that much more worried.”
I said “uh-huh” meaninglessly, and took one of the darts from her hand. “I haven’t tried this since I was a kid.” I took careful aim at the dartboard and hurled it. The dart went wide of the center, but at least it hit the board.
Rita Kosterman grinned. “Amateur.”
“You didn’t do so well yourself.”
“I knew you were coming after me. It made me nervous. Here . . .” She turned a little away from me, sighted at the board, and tossed the last dart. Its metal point sank solidly into the bull’s-eye.
“You’ve been practicing,” I said.
“Uh-huh.” She faced me again, and the bantering was gone. She’d made up her mind about something.
“Mr. Rome,” she said seriously, “I don’t know what kind of man you are or anything. But I’m asking you a favor. If you find out what’s bothering Diana, please use some judgment about what you tell my husband. I could make it worth your while if that’s the way you want it. It might be something Rudy shouldn’t be told about.”
“Like what?”
She sighed and shook her head helplessly. “I don’t know. It might be some personal problem that Diana just has to work out for herself. Rudy has a lot of faith in his ability to solve any problem that comes up. But in some cases he might just upset Di
ana more if he interferes.”
“I’ll use my judgment,” I promised her. “I usually do. It’s lost me some clients.”
“I said I’d make it up to you,” Rita Kosterman pointed out.
I shook my head. “That’d give me three clients at cross purposes.” I studied her for a moment. “You know the trouble could still be what I told your husband—this business with her mother, Lorna Boyd.”
“No. I agree with Rudy on that. That situation’s been going on a long time with no change.”
“It could have been building up in your stepdaughter,” I said. “Over the years. She was only a kid when they got divorced. She’s older now and a lot more aware of what’s going on. It must be getting pretty deep under her skin . . . her mother having to live like that.”
Rita Kosterman nodded, her eyes troubled. “I know. But there’s nothing that can be done about it.”
“Your husband doesn’t strike me as the kind of man that takes kindly to advice. But my advice would be for him to settle an allowance on Lorna Boyd and her husband. Just enough so they can live normally. If he cares as much for his daughter as he claims to, it’d make her feel a lot better.”
“Yes, it would. I’ve tried to tell Rudy that. But he won’t. He never will. He hates those two.”
“Ten years is a long time to hold that much of a hate.”
“Don’t get Rudy wrong, Mr. Rome. He’s a damn nice man. But when he figures somebody’s betrayed him, he doesn’t forget it. And Lorna betrayed him worse than anybody ever did. He looked up to her too much, you see? Had too much respect for her background.”
“How about you?” I asked her. “Does he respect your background, too?”
Her face darkened. “You’re pretty smart, mister. Got me pegged and neatly pigeonholed already, haven’t you? Well, you’re right. I don’t have any background worth mentioning. Or that I’d want to mention. And Rudy never cared enough to ask me. I guess Lorna soured him for good on the background bit.”
“How’d you happen to meet him?”
She frowned at me. “You get real personal right off, don’t you?”
“Nothing says you have to tell me . . . if you’ve got any reason not to.”
Rita Kosterman considered that and shrugged. “We met four years ago in New York. Rudy was there on business and lonely. He picked me up. It was a pretty elegant bar, and Rudy was very polite about it. But that’s what it was—a pickup.”
“Worked out pretty well for you.”
“Yes, it did. But don’t make any mistake about that either. I’ve been a damn good wife to Rudy.”
“He been a good husband for you?”
I was expecting her to get sore, but she didn’t. She met my eyes unflinchingly. “The best,” she said firmly. “Rudy’s a lot like my father was . . . rough, honest, decent. Money hasn’t changed him any. I’d bet he’s no different than he was when he was a construction worker.”
“Then you’ve got yourself a pretty unique husband, Mrs. Kosterman. There aren’t many self-made men you could say that about.”
“You’re damn right. Any more personal questions?”
I started to turn away from her, then switched back and threw it at her: “What makes that daisy pin so important?”
“Huh?” She was thinking about something else, and it took her a moment to react. “The pin? Nothing, except that it’s Diana’s, and she wants it back of course.”
“People don’t go to a private detective to get their missing property back. They call the cops or their insurance company.”
“I thought Diana explained it to you. Rudy’s upset enough. We don’t want to upset him any more.”
“For a man with his dough, the loss of a three-thousand- dollar pin shouldn’t be very upsetting. Especially if its insured.”
“It’s not the money. It’s the idea of her losing it and how she lost it. It was a present to her. Rudy likes to give jewelry as presents. Both Diana and I have a lot of jewelry he’s given us. For him it’s the most romantic, sentimental . . . Oh, hell! If you don’t understand I can’t explain it to you.”
“I understand,” I told her quietly. “What I don’t understand is why two men busted into my boat and office and tore up both places searching for that pin.”
“What?” She stared at me. “What two men?”
“I wish I knew.”
She shook her head slowly, puzzled. “I don’t understand. You say two men you don’t know searched your boat and your office . . . for Diana’s pin?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Are you sure it was the pin they were looking for.
“No,” I admitted. “I can’t be certain of that.”
“Well, there you are! The kind of business you’re in, couldn’t it have been something else they were hunting for? “Could’ve.”
“That must be it. Because Diana and I are the only ones who know she lost the pin.”
“And whoever stole it,” I pointed out.
She shook her head again. “I’m afraid this is getting a little too deep for me.”
“That makes us even,” I told her.
She sighed and looked across the saloon toward the steps. “Rudy’s probably in a black mood by now. I’d better go and get him out of it.”
I watched her cross the deck. When she was gone, I left the yacht. My Olds was parked in the driveway in front of the six-car garage. There was a white Jaguar convertible parked beside it that hadn’t been there when I’d arrived. I was opening the door of my car when a voice sounded behind me.
“I thought that was your car. I waited to see.”
As I turned around, Darrell Pines came out of the darkness toward me.
He stopped a couple of feet in front of me, standing stiffly erect, his hands shoved deep in his pockets, staring at me coldly. “So Rudy decided to hire you after all.”
Knowing about the Silver Star and how he’d earned it made me feel more kindly toward him. “Rudy and I were talking over old times,” I told him. “Turns out he knew my father.”
“I don’t like to be kidded,” he warned me softly.
“You’re a serious guy. I can see that. Just getting home from the office?”
He started to say yes, then stopped himself and frowned at me. “Rudy’s paying you to find out why Diana walked out on the party and went on a tear. Right?”
“Ask him.”
“Don’t get wise with me, Rome. The kind of mood I’m in, I’m just itching to tangle with somebody.”
“No thanks,” I told him. “I’ve had mine for today.”
It didn’t mean anything to him. “Listen, what’s Rudy paying you? I’ll pay you the same. A little more if I can.”
“To do what?”
“Nothing. To just forget it.”
“Why?”
He grimaced, fighting a small war with himself. “What’s biting Diana is nobody’s business but hers and mine.”
“If you know what’s bothering your wife, you’re the only one who does. What is it?”
“I told you, it’s none of your business. Or anybody else’s. And if you go finding out and tell Rudy, it’ll only make things worse.”
“Why don’t you tell me and let me decide on that for myself.”
Darrell Pines shook his head. “No. I don’t know you enough to trust you that much.
“Well, that’s that then.” I slid in behind the wheel of the Olds and shut the door.
“Wait a minute!” Pines growled at me through the open side window. “Where re you going?
“Home. Mind?”
“I made you an offer, dammit!” he said through his teeth.
“I’m up to my hips in offers today.”
“What’s that mean?” he demanded.
“Offer declined. Kosterman’s my client.”
He banged his fist softly against the side of my car door, trying to work off steam without hitting me. Listen, Rome . . .”
There was suddenly a faint edge of pleading in his
voice. It didn’t come easy to him, and I didn’t like having pushed him to it. He said, “Problems come up between husbands and wives. It happens all the time. And they usually work it out themselves if they’re left alone to do it. Can’t you leave it at that?”
Ordinarily, I’d have been inclined to do just that, but there was the strange matter of those two characters who’d chloroformed me. “We’ll see, I told Pines.
“What’s that mean?”
“What I said. We’ll see.”
Frowning uncertainly, he watched me shift into gear and drive away.
I came into Miami along Biscayne Boulevard, intending to keep going through to Dinner Key. But as I passed the dark city dock area, it reminded me of the two men who d been waiting for me on the pier the night before. Cutting rig t on Northeast First, I drove toward the Miller Building to get my revolver from my office.
The building was pretty much deserted after noon on Saturdays. After six, it was locked up till Monday. I used my building key to get in the front door and took the self- service elevator up to the fifth floor. The door to my reception room was unlocked, the way I usually left it. I turned the knob and went in and flicked on the wall switch.
Ralph Turpin lay waiting for me on the floor of my office. A bullet had smashed against his forehead with the force required to break through the bone and destroy the brain inside.
I took one slow, shaky step deeper into the room and stared down at him . . .
CHAPTER
8
FOR PERHAPS two minutes I just stood there gazing down at him, seeking answers in the events of the thirty hours that had elapsed since he’d phoned me on the Straight Pass.
There were answers there, but they wouldn’t come to the surface. I needed bait to bring them up. It was like when you go out in the Gulf Stream to fish and see a lot of sea hawks circling low over the water: those hovering birds tell you there have to be fish around there. So you cruise along slowly, trailing a hooked bait behind your boat. A big fish hears the sound of your engines and sees your wake and comes up out of curiosity to see what you’re all about. And when he’s up in your wake, he spots the bait and grabs.
I was like that boat, and those two characters with the sponge told me I’d already been leaving a wake. What I still needed was the right bait. I thought I knew what it was: a gold-and-diamond pin in the shape of a daisy. But I didn’t have it. Not yet . . .
