He could still feel it in the pit of his stomach. Ashton Graves a suicide. Tiger in the Night really finished now. A major pawn in the game with Benjy, extinguished. Why couldn’t the drunken fool have waited one more day? What difference would it have made to him? Twenty-four hours against two million dollars.
A ripping sound came from the curtains. He unclenched his hand, discovered the fingers were numb. Taut. Dangerously taut. But it was still all right. The loss of Tiger in the Night didn’t mean the chess game was lost. He’d realized that at once. Benjy had ordered the picture junked. So he’d be the one the stockholders would—
A beam of light lit hibiscus bushes along the street. A car came up, moving fast. It swung into the driveway, halted beside the house. He caught a glimpse of a rabbity face just before the lights went off. He turned from the curtains, hurried out of the library and down the hall to the side door. He opened the door, came face to face with T. J., just reaching for the knob. He saw with hollow shock that T. J.’s hands were empty.
He cried, “You didn’t get them?” and simultaneously T. J. bleated, “Trouble, Karl.”
“But the ledgers!”
“People there!”
“Answer me, damn you!” He caught T. J.’s arm, shook him. “Where in Christ’s name are they?”
“In the car …”
“The car!”
He ran to the car, jerked open the door. The ledgers were on the seat, all three of them, carelessly tossed there like old magazines. He snatched them up, feeling the coarse texture of the heavy cardboard bindings against his palms.
T. J. burbled, “Karl, I must tell you—”
“Shut up.”
Holding the ledgers tight against his chest, he trotted into the hall and along it to the cellar stairway. He pressed the light switch and without looking back went down the stairs. He passed the two furnaces with their twisted asbestos-wrapped pipes, halted by the green metal box that housed the gas incinerator. There, in one quick motion, he jerked open the lid and dropped in the ledgers.
He felt a warming glow begin to dissolve the icy ball in his belly. It was all over. Danger converted to ashes.
“Karl …!”
Part way down the stairs, T. J. was staring in horror, as though he had just witnessed the dismemberment and cremation of a corpse.
“Haven’t you ever seen papers burned before?”
T. J. edged down the stairs, his face alarmed. “But the smell … like hair.”
“Oh, that.” Fabro chuckled, genuinely amused. “Something I put in earlier.”
“Not …?”
“Yes. Irene.”
“Oh. no!” The pink drained from T. J.’s checks. “You couldn’t … wouldn’t …!”
“Stop being a God-damn fool. A wool blanket.”
Still shaken. T. J. cautiously approached the incinerator. “With buttons on it?”
Fabro turned, saw on the cement floor by the incinerator the seven buttons he had unaccountably left there, three as big as half dollars. He picked them up, thrust them in a pocket, wondering how he could have overlooked them.
“All right,” he growled. “So it wasn’t a blanket.”
“Then what …?”
“Who asked you to come down here?”
“I wanted to tell you …” T. J.’s chin trembled. “At the house. Josh Gordon … and Blake.”
“They were there?”
“Trapped me. In the bedroom.” The memory convulsed T. J.’s features. “We fought. I … I pushed Josh down the stairs. And I hit Blake with a claw hammer.”
“You idiot!”
“I had to.” T. J.’s hands fluttered. “Had to hit him.”
“To let them see you.”
“But they didn’t. It was dark. And I ran.”
The steel springs in Fabro’s body slowly uncoiled. Trouble, all right. But apparently not disaster. He made his voice matter-of-fact.
“Where were you when all this began?”
“I told you. In the bedroom.”
“And they came up?”
“Blake did. He turned on a light. He was at the chest when I hit him.”
“You’d already taken the ledgers?”
“Yes.”
“And where was Josh?”
“On the stairs.”
“Ashton Graves.” The name came from nowhere, but he knew it was the answer. “He must have told them before he died.”
“Died!” Eyes bulging like pigeon eggs, T. J. recoiled. “How …?”
“Blew off his head with a shotgun.”
“Suicide?”
Fabro didn’t answer. It was all coming together. At one time or other Caresse must have mentioned the ledgers to Graves. A slip, perhaps, while talking about Pixley, as she often had while drunk. Or a veiled boast about valuables in her possession, a mysterious allusion to priceless objects in her Chinese chest. That would have been like her, to amuse herself with something so dangerous. But she would never have told anyone what was in the ledgers. Not when it meant the end of her career. Yes, that was it. A slip or a boast or an allusion that Graves had remembered.
From T. J. he caught mumbled names. “What about Gordon and Blake?” he demanded.
“If they know …?”
They don’t know what’s in the ledgers. Nobody does,” He narrowed his eyes. “Unless you …?”
“I never opened them. I swear.”
Fabro saw he was telling the truth. He went to the incinerator. “Let them play detective then, if that’s what they’re doing.” He lifted the lid, saw small flames lapping the charred edges of the smouldering rectangles inside. “They’ll never get anywhere.” He let the lid drop, turned back to T. J. “Not without the ledgers. And in ten minutes they will never have existed.”
“I certainly hope you’re right.”
“Haven’t I always been?” He put a hand on the thin shoulder, ignoring the involuntary recoil. “You’ve done a good job.” He made his voice warm. “So stop worrying. You’re safe.”
“I certainly hope—” T. J. began and then broke off, his head turning towards the stairs. Coming down them was Irene. She was wearing a pink quilted robe and pink mules and her hair, pulled back in a pony tail, was tied with a pink ribbon. Without lipstick or make-up, her face had an innocent, freshly scrubbed look. Her eyes were fixed on T. J.
“Safe from what?” she asked.
Fabro waited, wondering what T. J. would answer. No answer came. T. J. seemed to have been stricken dumb.
She came past the two furnaces, halted in front of T. J. “You still won’t tell me?” she asked softly.
T. J. stood frozen.
“Karl …?”
“Go back to bed.”
The luminous eyes, frightened and faintly accusing, searched his face. “You’ve been burning something.”
“Papers.”
“It smells like wool.”
“All right. Wool, then.”
“Why?”
He grinned at her. “You’d better ask T. J.”
“No!” T. J. cried. “I … never tell.”
Fabro said mockingly, “That answer you, Irene?”
“No.” She studied him for a moment, then looked at T. J., her expression softening. “I know you’re protecting Karl.”
T. J. shook his head wildly. “Nothing to do … with Karl.”
“It has. I’m sure it has.” She put a hand on T. J.’s trembling arm. “And I have a right to know.”
T. J.’s eyes, agonized, met Fabro’s for a fleeting second. A chill enveloped Fabro. What if he did tell? What would happen to the chess game then? What would Irene do? But T. J. wasn’t telling. He was backing away from Irene, saying, “Please. I told you before.” He backed into one of the furnaces, backed to the stairs. “Can’t talk about it. Ever.” His eyes, nearly all whites, turned imploringly to Fabro. “May I go now?”
Fabro grunted sardonically. “Best idea you’ve had all night.”
Unsteadily mounting the stai
rs, T. J. vanished without a backward glance. Irene stood motionless, staring after him, her expression at once alarmed and compassionate. Glowering at her, Fabro wondered how such a pipsqueak could inspire such a look. The maternal instinct, he supposed. The instinct that took care of crippled sparrows and Mongoloid idiots. The instinct that made her meddle with things that didn’t concern her. He felt a surge of hatred. No, not of hatred. Of contempt. The eternal mother, glands bursting with milk, searching for a hungry mouth.
“By God, Irene!” he exclaimed.
Dazedly, like someone coming out of a deep sleep, she focused her eyes on him. “Yes?”
“You forgot.”
“Forgot what?”
“To kiss the little bastard good night.”
Richard Blake
Ivory telephone held between cheek and bare shoulder, she leaned forward and lit the du Maurier with the brass lighter from the glass coffee table. She had tangerine-colored hair, sultry blue-shaded eyes and her fingernails were painted burnt-orange. She was wearing a lime silk wrapper and, as far as Blake could tell, nothing else. She drew on the du Maurier, let smoke slide out the corners of her mouth, spoke huskily into the telephone.
“You’re sure, Sadie?”
She listened a moment, then made a raspy laughing noise deep in her throat. “Are you crazy? I call the Vice Squad and they’ll come for me!” She laughed again. “Well, thanks, anyway.” She raised a hand for the telephone, then said, “Who? Sid Barstow? Yeah, he might at that.”
She put down the telephone, looked across the glass coffee table. “That makes nine calls.” Her legs were bare up to where the lime silk fell away from slender brown thighs.
“What about this Sid?” Blake asked.
She blew a derisive puff of smoke at him. “You sure got the hots.”
“I told you it wasn’t that.”
“Yeah. You told me.” Amusement curled her mouth. “Why didn’t you get her name when you were in the hay with her?”
“I wasn’t in the hay.”
“Then answer me this, buddy boy.” The lime silk slipped off one shoulder as she bent towards him, her eyes mocking. “How come you know she’s got a mole on her left bazoom?”
“I explained that. When she took off her mink coat she was …”
The raspy laughter welled up again. “I’ll believe that the day they make Polly Adler a saint.”
“Okay.” He smiled at her wanly. “I’ve got the hots. So will you call Sid?”
“If you fix up these drinks.” She bent for the phone, caught the top of the lime wrapper just in time. “Funny thing, though.”
“What?”
“Seems to me Josh said you were soft on that girl they pegged for the Garnet job.”
“I am.” He stood up, took the two glasses from the coffee table. “Josh’ll explain.”
Her face darkened. “He’s got plenty to explain.” She kept on talking as he went towards the kitchen. “That crack in the papers about Miller Place, for instance.” Her voice followed him across the imitation leather dinette. “By now everybody in town’s playing twenty questions, including his wife and my boy friend. And what I want to know …”
The kitchen door cut off what she wanted to know. He put the glasses on the chrome drainboard by the sink, opened the chrome refrigerator and took out the tray of ice cubes. He felt tired and bewildered. He didn’t know how Josh was going to explain anything and he didn’t much care. Except, possibly, about the blonde. Only chance left, Josh had said. Now the ledgers were gone. He poured vodka and then tonic water into the glasses. He didn’t even know how the ledgers fitted into Caresse’s death, or what they would have proven. Yet they must have had something to do with it. Otherwise they Wouldn’t have been stolen. They were a puzzle.
And so was the naked blonde.
Leaning an elbow on the chrome drainboard, he thought about the theory he had evolved while he listened to Yvonne make her nine telephone calls. It was a pretty wild theory, but it made a sort of cockeyed sense. As much sense as naked blondes generally make in people’s living rooms. He took a long drink from his glass and went over the theory step by step. Actually there were only two major steps. The first was an assumption that the blonde had been sent to his house, rather than having arrived there by chance. Sent to lure him from his study and the screenplay of Tiger in the Night without arousing suspicion. The no-suspicion part would account for her parking in the driveway, instead of pounding at the door. And the lure part for no clothes under the mink coat
The second step was a little more complicated. It was based on a fact and an assumption. The fact was that somebody had murdered Caresse on the set. The assumption was that the somebody, to execute the murder, had to know exactly what was going to happen on the set. And the only way to know that was for the somebody to look at the script.
He drank from the glass again. He couldn’t quite see himself outlining the theory to Captain Walsh or Sergeant Grimsby, but it sounded less wild each time he went over it. The murderer had to see the script. He had to see it in time to make his plans. And the only place to see it was in the study, hot from the typewriter. So he had sent Miss Omaha, little girl body bare under the mink coat, to clear the way.
So Gordon was right. The blonde was the only chance left. Find her, find out who had hired her, and they’d know who the killer was. He picked up the glasses, pushed open the kitchen door with an elbow and went through the dinette into the living room. Yvonne was still seated on the white davenport, the telephone resting between cheek and shoulder.
“I thought you died,” she said.
He put her drink on the table. “What about Sid?”
“They’re getting him.”
“Look,” he said, sitting opposite her. “What if we offered him a couple of hundred to find her?”
She laughed. “Sid spends that on coffee before lunch.”
“He must be in the chips.”
“In the chippies be a better way to say it.”
“You mean he …?”
“Yeah.” The scarlet lips twisted wryly. “He’s the guy they should have named the Mann Act after.”
Pressing the telephone with her cheek, she reached with one hand for the vodka-and-tonic, with the other held the lime silk wrapper closed. She frowned at the glass, took a tentative sip.
“Wish I knew,” she said.
“Knew what?”
“Why I’m doing this.”
“You’re doing it for Josh.”
“Fry him.” She peered over the glass, blue shadowed eyes appraising him. “What happens we don’t find this dull?”
“I don’t know.”
“What do you say we do it together?”
“I don’t think Josh would approve.”
“Who the hell cares?” she said. “He can go fry—” She broke off, turned to the telephone. “Sid …?”
She listened for a moment. What Sid was saying evidently amused her. She chuckled throatily. “No. No tricks. Not even for a C-note. I’m a kept woman now.” She paused for another moment. “Yeah, a blonde. For a friend. He doesn’t know her name, but she comes from Omaha. About twenty. Dresden-doll type, whatever the hell that is. Wears a silver crucifix and …”
She broke off again to listen. “Where? Yeah, I know.” Her eyes narrowed. “A mink coat? That’s the one.” She paused a broken second, then spoke quickly. “No, Sid. Don’t do that. It’s just a fellow … knew her a long time ago. Drop it.”
She replaced the receiver, her face absolutely blank, and rose from the davenport. She went around the glass coffee table, went across the living room towards a hall at the rear. Under the lime silk bare legs and buttocks moved lithely. Puzzled, and at the same time incongruously wondering if she were really naked under the wrapper, Blake stared after her.
“What about the blonde?” he called.
She vanished without answering. He got up and went through the hall and into the bedroom off it. She was standing by a wardrobe with mirro
red doors, the wrapper lying at her feet. She had on nylon panties but no brassiere. She plucked a dress from the wardrobe, raised it over her head and let it slide over her brown body.
“What did he tell you?” Blake asked.
She bent, slipped on high-heeled lizard-skin shoes, and then yanked a polo coat from the wardrobe. She threw this over her shoulders, went to a dresser and began to toss lipsticks, compacts and other articles into a handbag that matched the lizard shoes.
“What in God’s name are you doing?”
“Getting the hell out of here,” she said.
“But why?”
“You know why.”
“I don’t.”
From a cologne bottle labeled My Sin she shook liquid on her fingers, patted her neck under each ear. “You know the La Brea tar pits?”
“Out towards Inglewood?”
“Yeah.”
She smeared burnt-orange lipstick on her mouth, mumbled,
“Cops … out there.”
“What for?”
She closed the lizard handbag, slung it over her arm. “Body.” She brushed by him on her way to the door. “Blonde in a mink coat.” Eerily, her voice floated back from the hall. “Nothing on underneath.”
Irene Fabro
Seven … eight … nine …
In the mirror she saw her lips shape the numbers in time with the silver sweep of brush through brown hair, saw under the sheer nightgown the nipple of her right breast rotate with each stroke.
Ten … eleven … twelve …
If T. J. would tell her, she thought. If only he would tell her. Then she could help. No matter what the danger was. No matter how immediate. Or how terrible. She could find some way of helping.
Thirteen … fourteen … fifteen …
Immediate and terrible. The words made her tremble. And the danger was all T. J.’s, whether Karl was responsible or not. She had felt that in the cellar. She saw Karl’s face as it had looked then, half obscured by weird shadows, sardonic, mocking, assured. He had found a way out of the trouble, whatever it was, leaving T. J. alone.
Sixteen … seventeen … eighteen …
Black Is the Fashion for Dying Page 15
