The Corpse in the Cabana

by Lawrence Lariar

  “I don’t know the gent.”

  “Professional tough. One of Saxon’s bodyguards.”

  “Really? How would you know a thing like that, Newberry?”

  “Simple.” He gave me his beefy stare, as impersonal as a kick in the tail. “When I was a city dick I knew all of these punks, Gant. This Buck Fratig used to run with the Gilardo mob. Pulled him in many’s the time.” He sucked at the toothpick and made sympathetic noises in the direction of Buck Fratig. “Never figured old Buck for a heart case.”

  “Terrible disease,” I said. “Gets them at all ages.”

  “Must’ve hit his head when he fell. Bad cut on his right cheek.”

  “The stairs,” I said. “He fell against the steps, wouldn’t you say, Newberry?”

  “An idea. Or maybe he was pushed.”

  “Buck pushed?” I laughed. “Now who’d try a fool stunt like that?”

  “You would, Gant.”

  “Why would I do a thing like that?”

  “To get in,” Newberry said, licking his toothpick. “You wanted in pretty bad, didn’t you?”

  “I’ve been in,” I said. “How about you? You been here before?”

  “Questions, questions. You’ve got a cute mouth, Gant. But sometimes you shoot it off too much.”

  He was beginning to get angry with me. The toothpick moved from side to side. He was looking at the landing on the floor above. Saxon stood there, watching us. Then he came down, slowly. The toothpick stalled. Newberry was grubbing for the right line.

  Saxon fed it to him.

  “You’re Newberry?” he asked.

  “That’s right, Mr. Saxon.”

  “Arrest this little punk.”

  “That would be a cute trick,” I said. “Newberry can’t make any arrests in New York City, Saxon. Didn’t you know? Didn’t he tell you he’s strictly from East Beach?”

  “Is he right, Newberry?”

  “I’m afraid he is, Mr. Saxon.”

  “Even if he assaulted my man?”

  “Even if I’ve killed him,” I said. “Newberry would have to call an officer of the law from a local precinct. Isn’t that so, Newberry? Tell Mr. Saxon the bad news.”

  Newberry was suffering from a sudden case of lockjaw. Saxon eyed him with the admiration of a Republican for Adlai Stevenson. In the silence, the East Beach police mogul could find nothing worth saying. He avoided further awkwardness by devoting himself to the fallen gladiator. He leaned over Buck and made a production of his concern. He clucked a few words indicating that Buck might have a possible concussion. He suggested a doctor, a hospital. Saxon watched sourly. I stood my ground, enjoying their discomfort.

  “I’m not holding you boys up, am I?” I asked. “Newberry must have important business to discuss with you, Saxon. Am I right, Newberry?”

  “Well, yes,” Newberry said.

  “About the strange disappearance of Gloria Clark?”

  “Of course.” Newberry was as comfortable as a fly in hot chowder. He got off the floor and abandoned Buck Fratig. “Mr. Saxon’s a personal friend of hers.”

  “Mr. Saxon should live so long,” I said.

  “Get this punk put of here, Newberry,” Saxon said. “I’m sick and tired of his insults.”

  “I’m leaving, Saxon. Maybe Newberry will leave with me—for a few minutes.”

  “Do as you like,” Saxon said. “I’m going to bed.”

  He started up the stairs. Newberry watched him go sadly. Then he followed me into the street. The air was clean and fresh out there. The city was beginning to wake, a hum of traffic coming from Park Avenue. Across the street, Linda slept in the Hillman. On this side, a black car was parked near the entrance. The words: EAST BEACH POLICE were printed in large white letters on the side of it. There was no cop chauffeur behind the wheel.

  “Pretty stupid,” I said. “Coming into town in an East Beach squad car. People will talk, Newberry. People will wonder.”

  “What for? I’m here on business.”

  “Sure you are. You just came in to question Saxon about Gloria Clark. You had a couple of hours out at the club to question the crumb. But, no. You had to wait until he returned to his New York den.”

  “What are you getting at, Gant?” He pushed his weight at me, a policeman’s trick. We were standing near the wall and I backed as he came, laughing at him. When he was close enough I put a fist in his gut, not punching, not pushing, but just holding it there where he could feel it. He reacted with his usual deadpan charm. “What’s the score, you little punk?”

  “You can add,” I said. “Add it up, Newberry.”

  “It’s all figured, from my end.”

  “I’ll bet it is. You’re ready to pin it down?”

  “It’s pinned. Your boy,” Newberry said, enjoying himself now. “Chuck Bond.”

  “You’re too smart for that, Newberry.”

  “Am I? Or is Chuck Bond too dumb?”

  “Double talk,” I said lightly. But his larded face seemed hot with purpose now. He was having too much fun with me, lip-licking the moment, the toothpick alive in his mouth again. “You’ve got nothing on Chuck,” I laughed.

  “The knife,” he said. “I’ve got the knife.”

  “So what?”

  “So we found it in his cabana.”

  “The hell you did.” He was playing a cat and mouse game with me, feinting and jabbing at me with words. It was easy to read a crumb like Newberry. You could see it in his eyes, in the deadpan fishiness of his stare. He had played his trump and was standing back to grab the pot. Was he telling the truth? Was it possible that somebody had planted the knife after Chuck and I searched the cabana?

  “What makes you so sure?” he asked. “You check the place before I got there?”

  “I checked Chuck. He’s no knife thrower, Newberry. He’s a comic.”

  “Very funny boy. Hides knives under his mattress.”

  “A plant,” I said. “You think he’d be sucker enough to leave a knife where you could pick it up?”

  “Like you said—he’s a comic. But what he did wasn’t so funny.”

  “What you’re about to do is funnier. You’ll make an ass of yourself if you try to pin this on Chuck Bond.”

  “I’ll take the chance, Gant. He’ll do until I find a better pigeon.”

  “It’s your funeral,” I said. “And you’re going to hell in a hack, Newberry. You’re setting yourself up for a big fall, visiting Saxon at this hour.”

  “Bird seed,” he chuckled. But his heart wasn’t in it. He plucked another toothpick from a hidden source. He rammed it into his fat mouth and began to suck nervously. “Saxon figures somewhere in this case.”

  “Does he? Even after you’ve made up your mind to grab Chuck?”

  “Just what does that crack mean?”

  “It means you’re still hungry, Newberry. Still on the prowl for a quick buck.”

  “Watch your mouth, Gant.”

  “What else could it be? You planning to sell Saxon a police exclusive on the murder? You planning to buy yourself another swimming pool out at East Beach? Or do you only want a staff job on his crummy magazine?”

  “Words without music,” Newberry said. “You’re whistling in the dark.”

  “I may whistle after the sun comes up,” I said. “I may walk into the East Beach headquarters and whistle my fool head off out there, Newberry. And when I finish my song, you’ll be out on the sand, searching for pennies. You’ll be dead.”

  “You think they’ll believe you?” he laughed. “Your word against mine?”

  “Want to bet?”

  “Go home, Gant. You’re asleep on your feet.”

  “Hold on to your hat, Newberry.”

  I danced across the street and woke Linda. I tugged her back to Newberry. He surveyed
her, open-mouthed. She batted her pretty eyes at him and smiled sweetly.

  “Take a look at this hood, honey,” I said. “Remember his pretty kisser.”

  “But I know him,” she cooed. “He’s Mr. Newberry of the East Beach police. I’ve seen him at the club, before it opened, talking to Mr. Pazow.”

  “Dandy. Let’s synchronize our watches now, baby. It is exactly 5:03 in the A.M. Mr. Newberry just left the home of Mr. Hersh Saxon, the scandal merchant. Are you with me, sweetheart?”

  “How interesting,” she laughed. “Is Mr. Newberry one of those awful reporters for Mr. Saxon?”

  “You’re a clever girl.”

  “And was he talking business with Mr. Saxon?”

  “You’re getting smarter by the minute.”

  “How very intriguing,” Linda said, yawning. “It’s a story I’ll never forget, Mr. Newberry. I’ve been fairly itching to meet one of Mr. Saxon’s informers.”

  The toothpick fell from Newberry’s mouth. She turned on her cute heels and crossed the street to the Hillman.

  I said: “You can go back inside now, Newberry. Finish your scummy business with Saxon. But remember this, if you kill the deal we made I’ll have your lousy head for it. You made a bargain to zipper that fat mouth of yours until noon today. You accepted Pazow’s cash in exchange for a little patience. And now you’re about to welsh on the deal, for another wad of blood money. So I’ll spell it out for you, Newberry. If you move back into Saxon’s parlor, I’ll have your crummy job for it. You’ll be off the East Beach kick within an hour after I tell my story. After that, you can find yourself a cesspool business and specialize in the trade where you really belong.”

  I left him that way, standing on the pavement outside Saxon’s, his mouth open. I drove off in the Hillman, taking my time down to Madison Avenue, then going South a block and making the circle back to Park.

  But when I arrived at Saxon’s, a few minutes later, the East Beach police car was gone.

  CHAPTER 17

  6:24 A.M.

  “Come up,” Linda said.

  “Sorry—no time, Linda.”

  She leaned in against me gently. We were standing in the hallway of her Greenwich Village apartment, a walk-up affair in the middle-class rent section. The street was graying with the first fine light of dawn. A quiet rain misted the air, slicking the pavements. There was a trace of cold in the wind, the promise of a clear day in the eastern sky. It would have been good to go up with her. It would have been better to share her coffee, nibble her bacon and eggs. But the wheels of time were turning too fast. There were too many things to do before noon. I grabbed her and kissed her quickly.

  “Where are you going now?” she asked.

  “Pazow. Give me his address. And give me Jean Russicoff’s address. Then you can go up and rest, Linda.”

  “If I promise to stay awake, will you take me with you?”

  “Sorry. I’ve got to finish this thing on my own.”

  “And you know where you’re going?”

  “I’ll know the end of the line when I get there.”

  “Good luck, crazy man.”

  I headed uptown again, taking Fifth Avenue this time. At dawn, the streets of New York are empty canyons, the city yawns and stirs. The streets hold only the odd strays, the workers in off-beat jobs, the dawn dragoons, the night people who wander home to sleep away the morning, to breakfast in mid-afternoon. On the East side of town, giant trucks rumbled down Third Avenue, the advance guard of the thick business traffic to follow soon.

  The door to Ziggi’s bistro was bolted, but the private entrance on the side opened for me. A tiny vestibule led to the inner hall, a narrow corridor painted black to match the decor of the club. Here my nose picked up the stale smell of a thousand smoked cigarettes, the sickening after-stench of liquor and damp walls. I stood there flat-footed, letting my instincts battle my brain. In every past venture, Ziggi had always built himself a private nest. His exploits in these fancy closets had made the headlines year after year. I recalled publicity about his Zany Club in Paris, and the ebony bedroom where Ziggi courted his foreign wenches and proved his manhood in a series of mirrors, on walls and ceiling. There was Havana Real, the Cuban hotspot on the sea, where Ziggi’s private chamber lay exposed to the gulls, where a British Lord had found the Cuban making tropical love to his British filly.

  And here? Where did the black door lead?

  I leaned into it, listening. Inside, a wall of silence. Then I was beyond the door, standing in another, broader hall, somewhere behind the bandstand, to the left of the drummer, but much deeper in the old building. There was a thread of light dead ahead, but only the dim outlines of furniture came through to me. A den? A remote window glimmered vaguely in the dawn, an oblong of gray covered by gauze drapes. I minced ahead, feeling my way slowly, my feet quiet on the heavy rug.

  Once inside the den, my half-groping movement stopped. Something held me, flat-footed. Call it instinct, or seventh-sense, or just plain fright. For some reason the silence felt different in here. For some reason my mind was sharpened, my ears sensitized, my nose aware of the change in the air. The dank stench was gone. In its place, I caught the unmistakable aroma of an upper-class perfume. It bit into my memory, challenging me. Standing there in the gloom, I struggled to bring her into focus out of the recent past. I had been within breathing distance of this fragrance. Last night. And, suddenly, the answer came to me. Because I heard her voice, from the next room.

  “Darling, darling, darling …”

  It was a half whisper, soft and sad. It was the sound of sorrow, gentle and delicate.

  “Ziggi, darling, are you, all right?”

  There was no answer from Ziggi. I put my ear to the door and picked up the intimate sounds of her woe. She was sobbing fitfully in the hiccupping, petulant way women sometimes express sadness and frustration. Then came movement, the clink of a glass, the burble of liquor being poured.

  “Drink some of this, darling …”

  I pushed open the door and walked in.

  “Oh, my God!” Mari Beranville said.

  Mari dropped the glass on the silk bedspread. She clutched at her bed jacket, working to cover herself, struggling to control her fright. She was sitting alongside Ziggi. He was sprawled on the pink bedspread, his head back, and his mouth open. He was as limp as a side of beef. Somebody had done damage to his shirt. Somebody had also decorated his handsome face. There was an ugly cut on his forehead. The blood no longer ran, but the wound was fresh.

  “Oh, my God!” she said again. “Now you. What on earth are you doing here? A nightmare, a crazy dream, all of it. Did you see him on the way out?”

  “See who?”

  “The little beast. Pazow.”

  “How long ago?”

  “I don’t know,” she sighed, still straggling to establish herself in the scene convincingly. She collapsed on the bed, leaned over Ziggi again. She tried to adjust Ziggi’s short bedroom jacket to her figure. She failed. In this outfit she looked like something out of Saxon’s magazine.

  “I guess I fainted,” she said. “Just after Pazow began to throw his weight around.”

  “Ziggi couldn’t handle him?”

  “Ziggi was drunk.”

  “And Pazow?”

  “Pazow is a madman,” she said, shivering. “I couldn’t watch it. I couldn’t stand the way he was beating Ziggi. That was why I fainted.”

  “Just like that?” I asked. “Pazow came here to lacerate Ziggi?”

  “Not quite. He was looking for something.”

  “And Ziggi refused to give it to him?”

  “I’ve already told you. Ziggi was horribly drunk.” She pulled the jacket tight around her.

  “And what were you doing with Ziggi? Giving him the cure?”

  “I’d been drinking with him, earlier.”
r />   “So you thought you’d put him to bed?”

  “Don’t be crude,” she said.

  “Better get dressed. I’d hate to take you out of here like that.”

  “I didn’t ask for an escort.”

  “You get me for free,” I said. “I’ll deliver Ziggi to a hospital.”

  “You mustn’t.” All of a sudden she was frightened. On her it looked good. Because she used her hands in theatrical gesture, up at her pretty throat. And when she used her hands, the short jacket fell apart. She came around the bed toward me, as unconcerned as a model in an artist’s studio. There was real worry in her eyes now. “Please, Gant—leave him alone.”

  “He may be hurt badly.”

  “He’s all right. I’ll bring him around.”

  “You and what medicine?”

  “Sleep,” she said knowingly. “All he needs is some rest.”

  “And his head? The cut?”

  “Only a skin wound. I’ve looked at it.”

  “He looks pretty sick.”

  “He always looks that way after drinking too much, Gant. Tonight was especially bad. He was all upset about Gloria’s disappearance.”

  “And you came here to comfort him?”

  “You’re getting nasty again,” she smiled. “Why ask such foolish questions? Why don’t we leave here? Why don’t we have a cup of coffee somewhere?” She had stepped back behind a large decorative screen near the bed. She continued her sparkling dialogue from back there, trying to lighten the scene, trying for the elfin touch. On the bed, Ziggi’s hard snoring didn’t add to her improvisation. She kept up the chatter, however, even when she stepped out. She threw the bedspread over him and tucked him in neatly. “He’ll be fine,” she told me. “He’ll be perfectly all right in an hour or so. Shall we go, Gant? We can leave by this back door.”

  She indicated the door to the right of the bed. I stood my ground.

  “Out the way I came in,” I said.

  “Whatever you say,” she shrugged.

  I flipped on the lights in the den. Bedlam. The little room had been upchucked, every stick of furniture on its tail. In the center of the carpet, a portable typewriter was smashed beyond repair. Three lamps lay cracked on the floor. A desk near the window had spilled its guts. Papers, books, odds and ends decorated the mauve carpet. I picked up a spilled ream of typing paper. I examined the desk and found more office supplies in the drawers; carbon paper, onion-skin second sheets and assorted stationery gimmicks.