“That’s impossible,” the maid said. “He wasn’t to leave until this afternoon, and the car’s still in the garage.”
The servants held a whispered conversation. Then the cook phoned the police.
* * * *
Lieutenant Novak was a compact, soft-spoken, balding man whose deceptively placid eyes were shielded by steel-rimmed glasses. He ordered Jon into the kitchen breakfast nook and sat by while Jon drank some milk and unenthusiastically munched some cereal. Novak was in charge of the policemen, but many other people had turned up at the brownstone too—federal men, DA’s men, and even a man from the Securities and Exchange Commission. Meanwhile, reporters and photographers were gathering outside.
Solemnly, Jon dabbed at his mouth with a napkin.
“Now,” Novak said patiently, “you told us you didn’t see your father leave.”
“No, sir. I was asleep.”
“You were awake at dawn, though. The maid found you downstairs. She said you never got up that early before.”
“Well, I was sleeping before that. When my father went away, I didn’t hear it.”
“This trip your father planned. He discuss it with you?”
“No.”
“What’d he do last night? We found funny ashes in the fireplace. Did he burn papers?”
“I don’t know. I was playing with my toys.”
“You played in the same room as the fireplace, didn’t you? That’s where your toys are.”
“I was in there sometimes, but I didn’t notice my father.”
“Your father have enemies? People who don’t like him?”
“Yes.”
“Who are some?”
“People like Mr. Lord. And you…”
A very big man, as tall and wide as any tackle on the Wolves, walked into the kitchen. His size was overpowering, but he moved with surprising ease. His clean-cut features, otherwise unlined, were marred by a faint, jagged scar on his left cheek. He wore a topcoat, and his brown hair was close-cropped.
Briefly, his eyes rested on Jon. Then they moved to the lieutenant. “Novak?” His voice was deep and resonant. “Let’s talk.”
“Hello, Train. I wanna see you too.” Novak gave Jon a rueful glance, got up, and followed the man called Train into the hall.
Jon slipped out of the booth, edged to the kitchen door and flattened against the wall. Through the crack in the door, he could overhear.
“His clothes,” Train said, “are still in the closet, all but the brown suit the servants said he wore. If he went to Brazil, he traveled damned light.”
“Never mind his wardrobe.” Novak’s words were tinged with sarcasm. “If you guys knew he planned to skip, why in hell didn’t you stake this place out last night?”
“It was Adam Lord’s idea. He wanted to keep Chakorian off guard.” Train sounded angry. “Anyhow, it didn’t seem to matter. Between us and the Feds, we thought we knew every move he’d make. We were gonna let him hang himself.”
“How, exactly?”
“His pal Schatzmueller arranged their passage to Havana on a freighter leaving New York tomorrow night. We were primed to put Chakorian under a very intricate surveillance when he left the house today, follow him to New York and make the arrests at the dock. Lord wanted it that way, to make Chakorian smell as bad as possible. To catch him in the act of leaving the country to avoid prosecution.”
“Very cute. A little too cute. But maybe he’ll still turn up in New York.”
“I doubt it. He’d established a good cover story, telling people he’d start this afternoon on a drive to Miami. He hoped to be on the high seas with Schatzmueller before he was even missed. But hell—he changed his plan. Either that, or someone changed it for him.”
“Schatzmueller’s left out on a limb, isn’t he?”
“Damn right. He hoped to disappear tomorrow. But with Chakorian gone prematurely, he was picked up in Manhattan a few minutes ago. I don’t think he’ll tell us anything, though. We probably won’t get much out of the woman, either. The Feds grabbed her in Buffalo.”
“Uh-huh.” Novak paused. “In your investigation, you come across Little Lou Gardino’s name?”
“The hood? We heard Chakorian owed him money, but not how much.”
“According to our undercover guys, it was a quarter-million originally. The usurious way Gardino computes interest, it’s a lot more now. You know Gardino, an up-and-coming young punk with delusions of becoming a big, legitimate businessman. Apparently, Chakorian sold him a bill of goods. If the debt had been smaller, Chakorian would’ve been murdered long ago. But the way we get it, Gardino held off because by killing Chakorian, he’d be admitting to his Syndicate bosses that he’d been conned out of a quarter-million dollars, hardly in keeping with his image as a shrewd businessman. Also, it’s the same story you find in business every day. The bigger the debt, the longer your creditors carry you. They’re afraid if they crack down, they’ll lose every cent.”
“You think Gardino lost patience and had Chakorian abducted and killed anyhow?”
“It’s possible. If he did, we’ll never prove it, but we’ll soon know. Word’ll get around the underworld fast enough.” A match scratched, as Novak lit a cigarette. “Before we go further, Train, let’s get one thing straight. You were a helluva good policeman, but you’re not a policeman any more. You’re just a high-class private eye.”
Train growled. “I know the rules. I’ll level all the way. But if some of what I tell you gets into the papers…”
“You and your client will be protected. But I wanna know all you know about what might have happened here last night, and anything that could conceivably have a bearing on the case—no matter how you got it.”
“Sure. His business phones are tapped. And last month I tapped the house phone and planted a mike in the overhead study light. Everything said on the house phone or in the study for the last six weeks was recorded on wire.”
“Who helped you pull that off?”
“Molloy, the bodyguard. Wires run from the study mike to a radio transmitter in a garage across the alley. The transmitter sends the signal to a receiver in our wiretap plant, a block west and three blocks north of here. I did it that way so if Chakorian found the mike and hired someone to trace the wires to the garage, all he could smash would be an unmanned transmitter. He still couldn’t locate our wire-tap plant to destroy our receiving and recording equipment, and maybe get us in dutch with the phone company.”
“Lord let you play rough, didn’t he? Telephone taps. A bug in a man’s home…”
“Chakorian was a thief.” Train seemed annoyed that Novak would question his tactics. “Actually, Lord’s a moralistic bastard. I had to argue like hell before he approved the bug, but he finally saw the sense of it. The bug paid off, too. We learned a lot from it, including the tip-off on his escape plan.”
“That gives rise to a wild thought. Namely, that Chakorian found the mike and tipped you to a plan he never intended to use, one Schatzmueller didn’t even know about. But what about last night, Train? What’d your mike pick up then?”
“Just enough,” Train replied, “to make us wish it heard more. Chakorian bustled in and out of the study after the servants left, never saying a word. He was burning papers, I guess, the ashes in the fireplace. The kid came in. He took the kid upstairs, returned, and stayed there until the front bell rang.”
“What time was this?”
“About eleven-fifteen. He went to answer, came back in a few minutes, shuffled more papers and left. An agent lives in the plant, so neighbors wont wonder about strangers going in and out of a vacant house. He was monitoring the study mike, and just figured Chakorian went to bed. The first sign anything was wrong came this morning, when the phone tap picked up the cook’s call reporting Chakorian’s disappearance.”
“I want that spool o
f wire, with the recording of what happened in the study last night.”
“It’s in your office. I had a messenger deliver it half an hour ago.”
“And the other conversations? Especially, those picked up on the study mike and the home phone? We still don’t know what we’re dealing with here. It could be murder with a motive totally unrelated to Chakorian’s business affairs. I want the whole package.”
“I can give you transcripts of the other conversations, but not the recordings. They no longer exist. Daily, the spools went direct from the wire-tap plant to Adam Lord’s confidential secretary. She transcribed ’em, so Lord could read them immediately. Then she erased the spools and sent them back, so we could use them over again.”
“I see.” Novak sounded troubled. “At this point, we can’t be sure of a damn thing, can we. Chakorian may have left voluntarily with whoever rang the bell. He may have left involuntarily. Or the doorbell may have been coincidence, a guy delivering a telegram, Christmas carolers, a drunk who got street numbers confused. Chakorian may have hung around for another three or four hours upstairs before he left the house. All that’s missing from his study seems to be an attaché case. The maid said he had it with him all afternoon. She thought he was putting money in it, but she wasn’t sure.”
“The boy,” Train said, “was the only other person in the house when the bell rang. He any help?”
“No, he’s about as cooperative as the Mafia. But you’re a parent, you wanna try?”
Jon was squeezing back into the breakfast nook when Train and Novak returned. Train wasn’t fooled.
“You heard us just now, didn’t you?” Smiling, Train sat across from Jon, while Novak loomed over both of them. Train had large, unblinking brown eyes. The expression on his face had become one of complete sympathy, the face of a friendly uncle in whom any boy could confide.
Jon glared sullenly.
“Oh, that’s okay,” Train went on. “I know how boys are. I have a couple sons of my own. And in your place, I’d be curious about what’s going on too. My name’s Train”.
“You’re a dirty spy.”
“I do some things,” Train conceded, “I’d rather not do, but I’m like a soldier. A soldier doesn’t like dropping bombs that might hurt civilians, but sometimes it’s necessary. It’s war. And your father, see, wasn’t as nice to some other people as he was to you.” Train’s smile faded. “In fact some very bad people were sore at your father. Gangsters. You heard the lieutenant say that, didn’t you? That gangsters might have killed your father? So if you wanna cry, go ahead. We’ll understand.”
“Why should I cry?”
“Well—something bad might have happened to your father. And if you saw or heard anything last night, you could help us a lot. Maybe you could help your father a lot. We know that a little after eleven, someone rang the bell…”
“I didn’t see anything. I didn’t hear anything. I was sleeping. And no matter what, nothing bad will happen to my father.”
“Why?”
Jon almost blurted out the truth about the diamonds, the hard wealth that would always keep his father safe. He caught himself just in time. “Because it won’t, that’s why.” Angrily, he banged the table. “You’re my father’s enemies. You want to hurt him. But he’ll send for me.”
Intrigued, Train leaned forward. “Yes, he’ll send for you. From where?”
The hall door swung open. Aunt Elvira walked in, absorbing the situation at a glance. She took a deep breath and said: “What are you men doing to this poor child? It’s Christmas Day, don’t you have feelings? Hasn’t he been through enough? I’m taking him out of here, I don’t care what you say, an army can’t stop me, and for the first time in his life, God knows, he’ll be in a decent environment…”
* * * *
There was a hassle. Hours passed before arrangements were completed, but finally Elvira led Jon outside. Photographers took Jon’s picture. Elvira screamed and waved her arms, so they took her picture too.
Elvira and Jon climbed into the Studebaker. The trunk and back seat were loaded with clothes, toys, and one carton of comic books. Elvira had balked at taking all of them. When she saw the stacks in the basement she threw up her arms and said Good grief, we can’t have all that trash cluttering my house, and some of them look terribly lurid, ugh, just take these, Jon, the ones with the bunnies on the cover. Sadly, Jon had followed Elvira out of the basement, leaving behind Batman, Planet Comics, Sheenah, and all the others that did the briskest business. The worst moment of all, though, came when Jon had to pack his possessions and leave his room. On his way out, he stopped at his father’s room. Two detectives were in there, and the bedspread was marred with heel marks and bits of clayish dirt that had adhered to a shoe. Already, his father’s enemies were despoiling his house…
Elvira turned the key, pumping the Studebaker’s weary engine into life. Uncle Howard, she explained, wasn’t with her because some snoopers hired by Adam Lord had come to their house that morning, Christmas morning, mind you, and taken Howard away, to see if Howard was involved in what Rudy had been doing. Howard wasn’t involved, of course. He was too stupid to be involved in anything important. Rudy did it all, him and that Schatzmueller, but that’s not your fault, poor dear. And by the way, Elvira asked as soon as the Studebaker chugged from the curb, have they found the diamonds yet, or did Rudy send them out of the country? Jon asked, “What diamonds?”
“You know.” Elvira smiled, but her eyes burned with greed. “The ones you were playing with on Thanksgiving. Our secret, remember?”
“No,” Jon said uneasily. “They haven’t found any.”
“Will they find them?”
“I don’t know.”
“Oh yes, you do. You know where they are, don’t you? I know you do.”
Jon didn’t reply.
Thoughtfully, Elvira pursed her lips. “We’ll see. Maybe they’ll find them, maybe they won’t. If they don’t, it’s still our secret. We won’t even tell Howard, he’d just blab to the wrong people and we’d wind up with nothing. And if they don’t find the diamonds, and Rudy doesn’t turn up in South America or someplace—well, we’ll discuss that later.”
CHAPTER 4
Howard and Elvira lived in a brick bungalow on the Far North Side. They argued a lot, but Jon was reasonably well treated there—at first.
Elvira talked freely in front of Jon, who soon came to understand that Elvira hadn’t been fooled one bit when Rudy phoned asking her to care for Jon while he went to Florida. Rudy’s financial problems were the talk of the Venus plant, it was all Howard ever discussed, and if Rudy had to skip the country that was his business. Meanwhile, Rudy had given Elvira five hundred dollars cash for boarding Jon, and after he turned up in Brazil or wherever he’d pay a pretty penny more until he arranged to get Jon down there with him, if he wanted Jon with him at all.
Increasingly, though, it became uncertain that Rudy would reach Brazil or anywhere else. The papers printed stories about a gangster named Little Lou Gardino, a scowling, black-haired man photographed with lawyers at the Detective Bureau. Gardino, the stories hinted, may have murdered Rudy because Rudy owed him money and didn’t pay.
Later this theory was voiced less often. Gardino had no alibi for Christmas Eve. Informed sources explained that if he’d abducted and killed Rudy, he’d most certainly have provided himself with an alibi. Hence other stories appeared suggesting that Rudy had fooled everyone, that he’d been tipped by friends in Washington, where he was known to have connections, about the Feds on the dock in New York and had left the country by another route. Supporting those stories were reports he’d been seen in such diverse locations as Paris, Rome, Vancouver, Juarez, Sydney and Hong Kong.
Schatz had told the authorities nothing. Slapped with a brace of new indictments for his crimes against Venus, he’d most certainly go to prison for a long time. Bess
, after repeated questioning, went into seclusion with her mother in Buffalo, and Molloy hid in the wilds of Wisconsin. The search of the brownstone had elements of mystery, too. It got out that a mike was found in the study. Sly reporters coupled this with the observation that Chester Train, the ex-cop Lord had hired to get the goods on Rudy, had been remarkably well informed about Rudy’s activities. These stories theorized that no doubt phones had been tapped also, allegations which of course Train cordially denied, since tapping phones would have been illegal.
In the house where Jon now lived, only two things were certain. One was that Rudy had not communicated. At first Elvira thought Rudy’s mail was being intercepted by the Feds, but after a month she began to lose hope.
Howard had been fired, and this might have caused a financial crisis. Elvira had been counting on more support money from Rudy to tide them over. To be sure, there was an insurance policy for $100,000 which Rudy had taken out, naming Jon as beneficiary. If Rudy’s corpse would only turn up somewhere, Elvira could get her hands on all that. Discovery of Rudy’s body would also have been a windfall to Schatz, who’d been named beneficiary in a similar policy, but no body was found.
Howard, though, seemed strangely unworried about money, and finally he made a confession. There was really nothing, he explained, to worry about. Unknown to Elvira, Howard had scored a coup in the stock market. For more than a year, convinced that under Rudy’s direction Venus was going to hell, he’d secretly borrowed every cent he could to sell Venus short.
A short sale is just the reverse of buying a stock in hopes its price will rise. With a short sale, you hope the price will fall. You borrow stock through your broker, sell it, and hope to buy it back later for a lower price, pocketing the difference when you return the stock.
Venus was at 37¼ when Howard made his first short sale. When after Rudy’s disappearance he began covering, the price had dropped to between three and four, meaning Howard had profited by as much as ten times what he’d invested. In the broker’s account Howard now had more than $60,000, most of it capital gains. Hence they could live comfortably for some time while Howard sought a way to reinvest his capital. He’d decided to buy a business of his own.
The James Michael Ullman Crime Novel Page 42
