The James Michael Ullman Crime Novel

by James Michael Ullman

  Bess met them at the door.

  “Jon, you look terrible. Those circles under your eyes. You drive all the way from Arizona without stopping to sleep?”

  They went inside, and Jon and Molloy put Pearl’s luggage down.

  “Pearl spelled me now and then.”

  Bess looked at the girl. “Hello, dear. After Jon’s gone, well have lots to talk about.” She looked back at Jon. “And you—well, I won’t say anything, not now. I’m just hoping there’s a better explanation for this than the stuff I’ve been reading. But what about Schatz? What happened to him?”

  “I dunno.” Jon yawned. He flopped into a chair. “The last I heard, it’s just like it says in the papers. Some detectives went to the old man’s motel unit. His bags and clothing were still in the room, but he wasn’t there. There was no sign of violence. He was last seen by a maid, a couple hours before I tried to call him from Arizona. His wheel chair’s gone, too. He’s disappeared,” Jon added, “just as completely as my father did.”

  * * * *

  Captain Novak wore horn-rimmed glasses now, instead of the steel-rimmed kind. As calm and unruffled as ever, he studied Jon from behind his desk and said, “It’s a remarkable story.” He glanced at the third man in his office, a tall, thin, dark-haired young assistant district attorney named Annetti. “But as Al will tell you, there’s not much we could do even if we knew your mystery man’s name and address. Not at this point. There’s no evidence a crime’s been committed in our jurisdiction.”

  Facing Novak, Jon perched on a hard-backed chair. The captain had already given Spook’s .38 to a detective, who’d forward the serial numbers to police agencies in Arizona and Nevada, but Jon had a hunch the chance the gun had been registered anywhere was remote.

  “You called it a story,” Jon said. “Don’t you believe it?”

  “I’m inclined to, and I can understand why you lied as a child. But if we had that guy in the next room now, Al couldn’t even seek an indictment. There’s nothing to indict him for. Not here.”

  “Your testimony about seeing him leave with your father,” Annetti said, “would be worthless. A child’s identification, made after sixteen years. Further, you saw him do what? Get in a car with your father and drive off. Even if he admitted it, we couldn’t charge him with anything. The statutes of limitations protect him from any charge but murder, and we don’t know murder’s been done.”

  “The fact that you lied as a boy,” Novak put in, “would further discredit you as a witness, no matter what the charge. So would the fact that you sought this man to negotiate with him, to find the remains for insurance money.”

  Novak said it politely, but others wouldn’t be so polite. Jon began to realize that his deal with Venus had left him far out on a long, high limb.

  “The man’s attempt to kill us in Arizona? Schatz’s disappearance, an hour or so later, after the man phoned someone? Don’t those things interest the police?”

  “Of course they do, but let’s take ’em one at a time. First, the attempt to kill you happened two thousand miles away. You didn’t even report it to the authorities there. Your only support for that story consists of a few bruises, a bandage on your head, and a gun you say you took from the man. You admit that your one witness, Pearl, is uncooperative, that you’ve hidden her away, and won’t tell us where she is. Incidentally, I wish you’d reconsider that.”

  “Sorry. It was her decision. I’ll respect it.”

  “All right. We could give you a hard time on that point, but we won’t—yet. Not until we know what crime, if any, was committed here. We haven’t found a sign that anything illegal happened in Schatzmueller’s room. No forcible entry. No bloodstains, nothing knocked over. In fact, we’ve just found a witness whose testimony indicates he left voluntarily.”

  “I can’t believe it.”

  “The witness,” Annetti said, “is a salesman. His unit adjoined Schatzmueller’s, and he checked out the morning the old man disappeared. We located him today in Minneapolis. He said that as he was leaving, he saw Schatzmueller sitting in the front seat of a car parked in his own stall, smoking a cigarette. Someone else was putting something in the trunk. The wheel chair, probably. The trunk was up, our witness didn’t get a look at whoever it was. He doesn’t remember anything about the car either, except that it was a dark sedan. But from that, it’s not likely Schatzmueller was under duress.”

  “He must have been lured away somehow. He…”

  “Maybe.” Novak watched Jon closely. “But there are other possibilities. He may have chickened out and decided to skip while he was ahead, with help from a friend you didn’t know about. For that matter, the whole project could have been a confidence game. You put up twenty thousand dollars, didn’t you?”

  “Yes,” Jon admitted. And he thought: Elvira put up ten thousand, making thirty thousand in all. With that, plus his own twenty thousand, an old man like Schatz could live quite a while in one of the backwashes of the world. “Where’d you get the money?”

  “Borrowed it. From my uncle.” Jon saw what Novak was driving at “You think I invented a story of a kidnapping in Arizona, to conceal the fact that I’d been swindled?”

  “Stranger things have happened. Some people will think that, you’d better get used to the idea.” Novak toyed with a pencil, still watching Jon. “Well, you like to change anything? Retract any part of your story?” He paused. “Or add anything?”

  “I’m afraid not.” Jon rose. “I can understand your position. If you won’t help…”

  “Who said we wouldn’t help? Sit back down for a minute. You’d be surprised what the police are willing to do, even though you don’t seem to trust us much.”

  Jon eased back into the chair.

  “You,” Novak went on, “are an odd duck. Your record couldn’t be cleaner. And this insurance policy thing—I haven’t told the reporters, but I happen to know that if you found your fathers remains you couldn’t collect a dime. You’ve already settled your claim. You care to explain that discrepancy?”

  “I could reopen it.”

  “That’s a vague answer, it avoids committing you to a direct lie. I think you’re hiding something. I think every-thing you’ve told us is true, but you haven’t told us everything. We’ve talked to the police in Vegas. They knew Finney very well. The L.A. police confirm that Finney’s sister sold a notebook to an old guy with a cane. All that holds up, and if the rest of your story’s true you’ve got a tiger by the tail. Very likely there’ll be another attempt on your life, so we’re willing to go as far with this as you are.”

  “Such as?”

  “An all-out effort to identify the man you saw leave with your father. We can’t do anything about the man who went away with Schatzmueller, except to continue investigating the disappearance. But if you can identify the first guy, will you lodge a complaint against him in Arizona, tying him up there at least, while we try to learn more? Where he was sixteen years ago, who his friends were?”

  “Captain, I’ll do all I can to identify the man. That’s what I came to tell you today. And you bet I’ll lodge a complaint. To put that guy behind bars, I’ll go anywhere or do anything you say.”

  “It’ll take time and money. You’ll have to go west again. I’ll arrange all the police cooperation you’ll need there, but you won’t be able to freeload at the taxpayers’ expense.”

  “I’ll manage it. Finney’s investors weren’t nobodies. With police help, I think I’ll have a very good chance of finding the right man.”

  “One more thing. Your verbal description of the man could fit thousands of people. I want you here tomorrow morning to work with our police artist. He’ll sketch the guy, the way he looked when you were a child, and the way he looks now. We’ll wire those sketches to police departments all over the country, it might save a lot of time and trouble. I’m also prepared to authorize a police gua
rd while you’re in the city. I’d recommend it.”

  Jon thought this over. “I don’t think anyone would risk killing me in a street or public building. No, I don’t want people dogging me wherever I go. If someone kept an eye on my apartment building at night, though, I’d sleep easier. And I’d like a handgun permit.”

  “Very well.” Novak seemed vaguely disturbed. “The Army classified you as a small-arms expert, I guess you won’t shoot anyone by accident. And until this is over, you have reason to carry a gun. Just don’t let that gun go to your head. You shoot anyone, and it better be for the right reason.”

  “You’re worried?”

  “You’re looking for one or more people you think killed your father. If you get any sudden, bright ideas, there’s no telling what you’d do with a gun in your hands. Remember, all we know so far is that two old cronies—Schatz and your father—dropped out of sight. Each got into a car with someone else and drove away.”

  “I keep hoping my father’s alive—that the guy tried to kill us in Arizona because he was afraid that if we learned his name, Gardino’d learn it too. But murder’s a pretty drastic way to avoid seeing Gardino, unless the guy had a murder of his own to hide.”

  “You,” Novak said, “don’t know Gardino. Personally, I think he’d be so mad at anyone who helped your father get away that he’d kill him on general principles, after torturing the truth from him. Train phoned yesterday. His people found two instances where your father spoke to a guy meeting your man’s description, one of them months before the disappearance. Couple that with the dough you get on your birthday, and it still leaves the question of murder open. Your father wasn’t knocked off by a casual hijacker, the way Schatz thought. It was either a well-planned escape—or a murder planned over a considerable period of time.”

  * * * *

  Reporters waited outside Novak’s office. An impromptu, running press conference followed, all the way down to the street. Sorry, Jon didn’t mean to be uncooperative, he liked getting along with the press, but Captain Novak has already told you everything. Yes, it’s true, he lied to the police as a child, he’d seen a man leave with his father, and three days ago the same man abducted him in Arizona. No, he didn’t have the slightest idea what happened to Schatzmueller. Con game? It could have been, but Jon didn’t think so. Insurance policy? Jon would rather not discuss that just now, thank you…

  His car was being serviced, so Jon had to flag a cab. In a loud voice, he told the driver to take him to Levee Court. When the reporters were beyond hearing, he switched the order, and they went to the Randolph Street office instead.

  The phone rang as he unlocked the door.

  “Jon?” It was Train. “I just missed you at headquarters. Lord wants to see you at the Venus plant, right away.” Jon swung his feet to his desk. “Isn’t that risky? Nobody’s supposed to know we have anything to do with one another.”

  “You seen the papers?”

  “I’m afraid to look.”

  “The story got a big play. Its logical for us to talk to you now about your fathers missing million. If we didn’t, people would wonder why not.”

  “All right. I’d like to see Lord, too.” He glanced at a pile of mail. “But give me a few minutes to catch up on things. Novak tell you about the unknown party who drove off with Schatz?”

  “He did.”

  “Something tells me he’s the guy we really want. He’d have to be in this up to his neck to lure Schatz away. And if Schatz meant what he said about not opening the door to strangers, it’s someone he’d seen before. Maybe someone who’s been giving orders to Spook all along.”

  Jon ripped through the mail, which was junk. Then he checked his telephone answering service. Many people had left urgent messages—newsmen, Howard, Eric, Bonella, Elvira. Elvira had called six times.

  Jon dialed Eric.

  “What’s going on?”

  “Jon? Your image isn’t too good these days.”

  “Never mind my image. Your message said it was urgent. What’s so urgent?”

  “Three things. First, my brother, the insurance salesman. Those stories about how you were nearly killed shook him up. They shook up his boss, too.”

  “Tell ’em to relax. I plan to stay alive a long time. What else?”

  “The hoods. They’ve been in and out ever since Schatzmueller disappeared. Looking for you. Looking for Bess. They were very angry, when I said Bess didn’t work here any more. Where’d she go, by the way? That call you made from Tucson, telling me to put one of the girls behind the register, wasn’t very edifying.”

  “Never mind that either. From now on, the police will be hanging around at night. I don’t think the hoods will come back. What else?”

  “Your aunt. She’s here now, staked out in a booth. Claims she won’t move until she talks to you. Also, she won’t pay for her drinks. She said you’d take care of that. I’d cut her off, only I don’t want my landlord’s relatives going hysterical on the joint in public. She’s been here since morning.”

  “Give her a dime,” Jon said, “and tell her to go to a drugstore and call me from there.”

  She called a few minutes later.

  “Jon?” Her voice was grim. “What’s this all about? I gave that crook Schatzmueller ten thousand dollars. He put it in his money belt, that’s the last I’ve seen of it. Now he’s disappeared. I’ve read the papers and I don’t understand a word, this gibberish about a notebook and a stock certificate. I want my ten thousand back. If you don’t give it to me, I’ll yell my lungs off about the diamonds, the shoes, and the rest of it.”

  Jon let her get her breath. Then he said, “Listen, Aunt. I’ll give it to you straight. You came into this deal as a leech, not as a contributor. All you put up was money. Schatz and I, we put up our lives, right on the line. You blackmailed us, so I’ll tell you how it is. Holler about those diamonds, and you’ll ruin your only chance of getting back a cent of your ten thousand. You’re stuck, Aunt, caught in the switch, just as I’m stuck with the twenty thousand I put in. Locked in, as they say in the stock market. If you want your money back, you’ve got to keep quiet and let me carry the ball.”

  “Of all the nerve…”

  “Think it through, Aunt I haven’t got ten thousand dollars, but there’s still a chance I can salvage money from this mess. If I do, you’ll get your share. That’s a promise. Meanwhile, if you order more drinks from Eric you pay cash. Not the menu price, either. For you, the price is doubled. My advice to you is to go back to your bungalow and wait there, surrounded by your booze bottles, until you hear from me again.”

  He banged the receiver down.

  CHAPTER 13

  The Venus plant sprawled over several blocks a few miles north and west of the Loop. Venus didn’t make television sets any more. When Lord took over, he dropped the television line and transformed Venus into a producer of two-way radio equipment, tape-recording devices and electronic gear for the military.

  Train waited at the door to the administration building. He led Jon down a corridor and asked, “Novak give you a hard time?”

  “A lot less than I expected.”

  “I think he’s already guessed you’re doing something with us. He knew it was fast work, when I called and said I’d found Spook in the old records.”

  “Anything else turn up?”

  “Not yet.” Train looked at Jon and added, “I’ll have to admit, for an amateur you did all right. You conned the old man long enough to bring Spook into the open. You brought someone else into the open, too—the guy who took Schatz away. Now we know there are at least two of ’em.”

  “I’m not too pleased with myself. Schatz is gone. We lost the notebook.”

  “That couldn’t be helped. At least you learned the source of the list—Finney and the stock certificate. When you go west again and look for Spook with the police, I think
you’ll find him. Hell, he might be identified through the sketch the artist is going to draw. And you still haven’t blown your cover, despite what the papers are doing to you.”

  “You’re readmitting me to the human race, Train?”

  “It still burns me, what happened on account of the sacred promise to your old man. But yeah, your foot’s in the door…”

  Walking into Adam Lord’s office gave Jon an odd, melancholy feeling. It had been his father’s office once, where he and Schatz had directed Venus to the brink of ruin. No doubt in Rudy Chakorian’s day the furnishings had been opulent. Now the decor was plain, almost Spartan. Lord apparently didn’t believe in spending company money on executive frills.

  The industrialist was standing at a window as they entered. He turned, nodding to a leather sofa.

  “Sit down, boy. Spook wasn’t very talkative, was he?”

  Jon eased onto the sofa, while Train settled into a chair.

  “I’m afraid not.”

  “And the situation’s changed.” Lord walked to his desk, leaned against it, and folded his arms. “Schatzmueller disappeared. You’re taking a roasting in the press for wandering around the country with that girl, seeking your father’s remains to collect an insurance policy. I suppose you’re wondering when I’ll bail you out, when I’ll tell the world the only reason you got into this mess was to help Venus.”

  “The thought,” Jon admitted, “had occurred to me.”

  “Well, I’m not going to. Not yet.”

  “A deal’s a deal. Ill hold to it, but I don’t see the point of it any more. There’s not a chance Spook will negotiate now, not when I’m working openly with the police.”

  “I know. And I agree, after what happened in Arizona, it was necessary to notify the authorities. But I won’t take you off the hook so long as there’s a possibility the diamonds can be recovered.”