Strip for Murder

by Richard S. Prather

  Ed Norman's account showed several deposits of about five or ten thousand dollars, and similar withdrawals every few days. On the fifteenth of each month a check in the amount of $100,000 had been made out by Edward Norman to something called General Enterprises, Inc.

  Norman seemed to be skating pretty close to the edge of his account. The latest $100,000 check had been made out when his balance was $33,000, but two days later, on June 17, he'd deposited $150,000 in cash. He had a savings account, too, but there was little in it.

  The last thing I did was check bank balances. Ed Norman's totaled $64,000; Poupelle's—which until just recently had never been higher than $4,200—had jumped to a current $12,000, which wasn't tremendously interesting information. And I know it was sneaky of me, but I learned that Vera Poupelle had her account here, and I peeked at it, then wished I hadn't. It was probably just her mad money, but it totaled $468,533 and some pennies. That finished me. I left.

  I started back over the same route I'd taken yesterday, the bars and the back rooms, lower Hill, Main Street. I talked to an usher in the Follies Theatre, and wasted a whole minute admiring the life-sized photos of Merry Cherry Blame, the Madwoman of Burlesque. I talked to a couple of barbers, some winos, several hoodlums, a bookie. I got nothing but sore feet and a burning curiosity about Merry Cherry Blaine.

  I did pick up one interesting little item, though. I learned that a few months back Ed Norman hired a press agent to boom Castle Norman, so I looked the guy up and talked to him for ten minutes. It seemed that the castle had been pretty much of a bust and was losing money until the “publicity consultant,” as he called himself, took over and made a few changes. He'd had Norman put the wall around the castle, add the fake moat and the drawbridge and dress the help in twentieth-century armor, and so on.

  The upshot was that business had picked up. The press agent's final advice to Norman had been that he double the prices of everything so the customers would feel they were getting something good. Maybe a moral was in there somewhere.

  At two in the afternoon I was in my office. The guppies were fed, I'd made eleven phone calls, and I was staring at the phone when it came to life and rang. I grabbed it and a wheezy voice said, “Scott?”

  “Yeah. Who's this?”

  “Papa. You talked to me yesterday at Coco's. I picked up something there last night. Been tryin’ to catch you.”

  Coco's was a fairly pleasant bar down Broadway, where a lot of hoods drank when they had a few bucks; when the bucks melted, they slipped down to beer and port at one of the joints like Jerry's, where I'd talked to Iggy the Wig yesterday. The wheezy-voiced guy on the phone now would be a rummy named Papa Garden; I'd offered him a little cash for any help he could throw my way. We'd traded money for information before. Some of it had been good.

  “What's up?”

  “About Poupelle. You stirred up a lot of the boys yesterday and today, didn't you? There's a lot of talk, but nobody's saying anything. Except this noise I heard. It don't sound like much, but the word was Poupelle got a loan. From Offie.”

  I whistled. This Offie was an old man named Offenbach, or Offenheimer or something like that. Guesses about what he was worth started at twenty or thirty million and went up astronomically. He was older than the Grand Canyon, according to what I'd heard, and his one interest was making money to pile on top of his money.

  Offie was so rich that his purpose in making more dough wasn't merely the idea of getting richer, but the kick he got from the deals themselves. Offie didn't care whether the deal was legal or illegal, just so it was possible and there'd be a fat profit in it for Offie. Adding another million now and then was just sort of a pleasant hobby with him.

  I said, “A loan, huh? Then it would have been big.”

  “With Offie it wouldn't of been nickels.”

  “When did it happen?”

  “Dunno. Like I said, it's nothin', Scott. But I thought maybe. Well, you know. I thought maybe...”

  “Don't burst into tears. You didn't make this up, did you?”

  “Christ, no. I swear it. I heard it.”

  “Where? And when?”

  “I don't remember so good. I'd had ... a glass of beer. Two beers, in fact.” He paused. “Is it good for a fin?”

  His voice was anxious. I figured he was broke and had a hangover, a horrible combination. “It's worth that,” I said. “Twice that if you remember where and when and who. I need that info.”

  “Well, it was in Coco's last night. Sometime. I think it was Three Eyes sounding off. He wasn't talking to me, but I was at the bar near him. I ain't sure, Scott.”

  “Three Eyes? I thought he blew town.”

  “Nah. He was around last night anyways.”

  “I'll have to chat again with the guy. Who else was there?”

  “I dunno. I told you I had a beer. Two beers.”

  “You get the ten. Where are you?”

  “Jerry's.”

  “See you there in about five minutes.” I hung up. It was almost five minutes, though, before I left the office, because I sat at my desk thinking about what Papa had said for nearly that long. And a couple of items melted together in my mind. June 17 was one of the dates I'd noted in the California Bank's records. This was July 2. I counted back two days, to the time I'd been hired, then back another two weeks, which brought me to June 16. That was one day off, and just right, I thought. The date had seemed a little familiar. I picked up the phone again and dialed the number of the Redstone house. In a minute Laurel answered. “This is Shell,” I said. “Everything all right, honey?”

  “Hello, Shell. I'm glad you called. Everything's all right. Anyway, it's the same.”

  “How do you feel?”

  “Well enough. I'm over the bad part. Now that I believe it happened.” She was quiet for a moment. “Mother and I hadn't been really close for years. But ... I guess we were closer than I thought. Funny, isn't it? I think I'll go back to Fairview, Shell. I can't stand it here at the house now alone.”

  “Don't go back to Fairview unless I'm with you, Laurel. OK?”

  “I guess. Why, Shell?”

  “Might be safer. Look, honey, I want to ask you something. When were Vera and Andon married?”

  “June 16.”

  “Morning or afternoon?”

  “Afternoon, four o'clock.”

  She said something else, but I wasn't listening. I'd thought they'd been hitched on the sixteenth. It was just right; the banks would have been closed at four P.M. Laurel went on, “If you don't want me to go back to Fairview, let me join you, be with you.”

  “I'd enjoy that, but I'll be busy for a while.”

  “What are you doing?”

  “I've got to talk with a guy that gave me some info. Then I'm going to rummage around a detective's office.”

  “What detective's office?”

  “Yates, Paul Yates. I asked you about him a time or two.”

  “I'd like to be with you, Shell. Can't I—”

  “You wouldn't enjoy it. I'll be busy. I'll pick you up later this afternoon.”

  “But I can't stay here. It's depressing. I could meet—”

  “Look, I'm not sure what I'll run into. Just as soon as I can, I'll drive out. And don't go back to Fairview.”

  I told her good-bye and hung up, then drove to Jerry's. Papa grabbed my ten-dollar bill as if it were already twenty shots of bourbon, but he couldn't add anything to what he'd told me on the phone, except the address of the place where Three Eyes was staying. I left him and headed for Three Eyes’ room in the Manor Hotel, which sounded like a grand place to live, at a dollar a day, with bath down the hall.

  I parked around the corner and walked in, past an aged bewhiskered desk clerk, and up rickety wooden stairs, wondering if Three Eyes had purposely left the item about Poupelle's fat loan out of the info he'd given me, or if he'd just forgotten it. Maybe he'd picked it up after I'd given him that hundred, which he'd immediately started spending in Coco's. Spending for
tongue-loosening liquor. I hoped he was home, and I hoped he was sober.

  Three Eyes shacked in Room 27, up one flight and halfway down a dark, gloomy hall that smelled of mildew and worse. I knocked a couple of times but there wasn't any answer. After the sound of my knuckles on the wooden door, the silence seemed to increase. The entire hotel was quiet, only noise from the streets outside filtering in here.

  I started to go back down to the desk, then tried the door. The knob turned and the door opened. Apparently Three Eyes hadn't even locked himself in. Maybe he hadn't been as nervous and jumpy as he'd pretended. I started to push the door wider, and it hit something with a light click. After that click there was another odd sound I couldn't place at first.

  It was like something rolling, like a marble rolling over the uncarpeted floor. Then the hair moved on the back of my neck. Coldness shivered along my spine. The thing inside hit something, a table or a chair leg or the wall, then rolled a little farther and stopped. Even before I went inside I knew what it was.

  It was an eye.

  Chapter Fifteen

  I swung the door open and stepped inside, shutting it behind me. I saw the glass eye immediately, across the room from me. Its whiteness stood out even in the gloom, the artificial iris nearly hidden against the floor.

  Three Eyes was crumpled against the left wall, in the corner of the room. He lay on his back, twisted, his face battered, the empty socket like the hole in a skull. His face was bloody—and cold. He had been dead for quite a while.

  Three Eyes had been a small man, but he had fought for his life. The room was a shambles. His clothing was torn and the fingertips of his left hand were stained with somebody's blood. I turned away. There are few sights uglier than the face of a man who has been choked to death.

  The bed was mussed and torn. It looked as if Three Eyes had been in bed when it happened, when it had started to happen. I thought of him lying there in darkness as the door opened and somebody came in, walked toward him, and I shivered slightly. I glanced around at the room once more, then went downstairs to the desk.

  The old clerk looked at me with empty eyes.

  I said, “Three Eyes in?”

  He scratched the gray stubble on his cheek and shrugged.

  “You know who I'm talking about, don't you? Room Twenty-seven.”

  “Yep. Dunno if'n he's in or not” Slowly he craned his head around and looked at the slots where the keys were kept. His eyes fell on the slot for Room 27 and he turned back to me. It seemed to take forever.

  “Yep. He's in.”

  “He have any visitors last night or this morning?”

  “Dunno.”

  “Anybody else at the desk last night besides you?”

  “Nope. Just me. Sometimes I sleep and you got to ring the bell.” He started to point at the bell, but long before his quivering finger completed the journey I gave up on him.

  “Can I use your phone?” I said.

  “Yep.” His finger started waggling toward the phone, but I beat him again and put in a call to Samson.

  I gave him the picture. “That's it. Soon as your boys get here and look the place over, I'm taking off, unless they need me. I only found the guy. And I've got plenty of things to do.”

  “Go ahead, Shell. You think it ties in?”

  “Yeah. Looks like somebody's getting scared.”

  “Watch that big toe of yours.”

  “Sure. See you.” I hung up and got outside as a gray Ford coupé with a banged-up front fender started to pull in to the curb; it pulled out again as the police buggy stopped. After ten minutes I was through with the police and ready to leave again.

  Before leaving the hotel I used a phone book to look up General Enterprises, Incorporated. It wasn't listed, which seemed odd to me.

  It didn't take long to find out where Offie did business when he was available. He had a suite of offices on Sunset Boulevard near Van Ness, in a modern, pink-stucco building set back behind green lawn bisected by a white sidewalk. I went up to the door and into expensively refrigerated air. Nothing but the best for Offie—and that included a peach of a receptionist

  She was wearing a dark skirt, above which was a pink sweater she might have knitted herself, getting halfway through with the job before saying the hell with it. Offie was so old I figured she was on display for the customers. I got younger every minute. She was strategically seated, so that she smacked you in the eyes when you entered, and she was strategically built so that she smacked you in both eyes. Hell, she smacked you all over.

  She smiled at me, and I looked around the reception room, figuring I'd better look at it now if I was ever going to. Closed doors, with plain frosted-glass windows, studded the left and right walls. That told me nothing, so I looked back at the gal and walked up to her desk.

  She wasn't a little girl, she wasn't little anywhere, and she wore grown-up clothes, but they hadn't grown up quite as much as she had. She looked like one of Cole's sensual women in Playboy magazine—blonde, with big brown eyes and those other big things you hear about but don't often see. At least don't often see so well. Not often enough, anyway.

  “Good afternoo-oon,” she crooned. “What can I do-oo for you?”

  I came within half an inch of giving it to her straight. But I said, resolutely, “I'd like a few minutes with Offie.”

  She kept smiling. “Oh, you're a friend of Mr. Offenbrand's?”

  “No, but I'm sure—”

  “Your name?”

  “Shell Scott.”

  She blinked. “Oh, you're Shell Scott. I've heard about you. But of course you're Shell Scott. Who else would you be?”

  “You've got me there,” I said brilliantly. “Who else, indeed?”

  No telling to what conversational heights we might have risen, but then she said, “You don't have an appointment.”

  “No. It's all right, though. I'm sure he'll see me.”

  “I'm sure he won't. He never sees anybody without an appointment.”

  “I'll bet he sees you.”

  She rolled her big brown eyes around like Ferris wheels and giggled. “I'll bet. He's eighty-six, though.” She giggled again, as if she knew something I didn't know. Undoubtedly she knew plenty I didn't know.

  I said, “Well, then, honey, you just slide into his office and tell him you're out here and would like to see him. How's that?”

  Her face got blank. “I don't believe I understand where you're driving at.”

  “Do this for me, will you, honey? Tell Offie that Shell Scott is here to see him. Tell him, further, it's about a man named Andon Poupelle. That might just do it.”

  She considered it, then stood up and pulled down the base of her pink sweater, the base being about all there was to pull on, and walked out from behind the desk. “All rightie,” she said, and swayed toward the closed door on my right.

  I had half a cigarette smoked by the time she came out again, fifteen seconds later. She sat down behind her desk, looked at me soberly, and said, “You were wrong. He won't, either, see you.”

  “We'll try one more time,” I said. “Tell him that what I really want to see him about is General Enterprises, Incorporated. And about a bum check. Be sure to mention that the check is for one hundred thousand dollars.”

  She went into her act again, swaying gently to and fro as if she were listening to music that I couldn't hear. It must have been a slow rumba combined with a fast waltz. This time when she came out she stood by the open door and said, “You may come in, Mr. Scott.”

  That told me almost everything I'd wanted to know; but I went in anyway. Offenbrand was seated behind a coal-black desk about twelve feet wide. He was a small man, but somehow the desk didn't dwarf him, and if he was eighty-six he sure as hell didn't look it. Maybe that blonde wasn't for the customers, after all.

  He stood up behind the desk, to about five feet, five or six inches, a dark-skinned guy with a full head of wavy white hair. “Mr. Scott,” he said in a firm voice, and shook my
hand with a grip just as firm. “Explain.”

  His eyes were black, fixed directly on mine, and they looked colder than frozen meatballs.

  “How do you do, Mr. Offenbrand,” I said. “I'll explain. That's why I came here.” I looked around, found a leather chair, and sat down in it.

  He got behind his desk again and looked at me, waiting. I said, “In return for my explanation, I'll expect a couple of answers myself. About Andon Poupelle, for one thing.”

  “Perhaps.”

  “OK. To start with, who operates General Enterprises?”

  He didn't say anything.

  I went on, “A man named Ed Norman pays General Enterprises a hundred grand a month. I don't know why for sure—maybe you can tell me—but I imagine it's principal and interest on a big loan. Say a million or so. The last check Norman made out to General Enterprises was written when he had thirty-three thousand in his checking account, four thousand in his savings account. Two days later, on June 17, he deposited a hundred and fifty thousand dollars. So the check didn't bounce. But for two days it was rubber. Interesting?”

  “Extremely. If true, Mr. Scott.”

  “It's true. You head General Enterprises,” I said. “I'm a detective, as I suppose you're aware. And part of the little I know about you is that you'd be damned disturbed if anybody played you for a sucker. In any way at all. And it begins to look, doesn't it, as if somebody played you for a sucker?”

  He didn't say anything. His face just looked a little harder.

  I said, “You'll make just as much—more this way, as a matter of fact—but it's still a sucker play. To you, I assume, the rub would be the way it was handled. Right? And maybe the next hundred thousand bounces. Am I making sense?”

  He was quiet for another minute or so, then he nodded briskly as if he'd made up his mind about something. “Yes. Is that all?”

  “That's all I've got. And you must realize I'm guessing at a lot of it, but it fits. All I want from you is to know if I've guessed right. I know Ed Norman pays General Enterprises a hundred grand a month. I've assumed that you control the company.”