by Keene, Day
Lou looked sideways at me. “Why so quiet?”
I said, “Just getting it lined up in my mind. So if we can break the Landers dame, I’ll have it straight. I mean, what to tell Cade Kiefer.”
“Oh,” Lou said. “I see.” She looked in the rear vision mirror. “I also see we’re being followed.”
I leaned out the window and looked back. It was too dark to be certain, but it looked like the same car that had tailed me from the beach. I thought of what Shep King had said and added Lieutenant Bill David to my list of free-wheeling sons-of-bitches.
Shep had said, ‘You never can tell which way that pineywoods cracker will jump. He looks at everything slanch-wise. A great hand, Bill David, for getting someone else to cut his bait for him.’
It was so in my case.
I began to breathe hard again. Instead of believing me, trying to find May and Kendall, David, with his dirty, suspicious mind, thinking bad things about May, believing I’d killed her and Mr. Kendall, was hoping I’d lead him to their bodies. While he sat on his lean bottom, even when Shep King had tried to knife me. So I got killed. So what?
“Who is it?” Lou asked.
“I can’t tell,” I told her. “But I think it’s Hap Arnold and Lieutenant David. Whoever it is, he has tailed me from the beach to Mabel’s, from Mabel’s to your hotel. And, it seems, they’re still with me.”
“Oh,” Lou said. “I see.” She used one hand to lift her hair away from her neck. Even in the dim light from the dash, I could see that her curls were just as wet as they had been when she had stepped from her shower. There was a fine film of perspiration on her face.
“Maybe you’d better go back to your room,” I said. “This may get plenty rough before it’s over. And there’s no use in you getting mixed up in it.”
Lou shook her head. “No. Now I’m in it this far, I’ll stay.”
“Okay. Turn left at the next corner,” I told her.
When they’d remodeled the Rolyat Hotel, the new owners had changed its name to the Casa Mañana Apartments and leaned heavily on the Spanish motif. It hadn’t been difficult to do, what with the big Moorish arches in front and at least a dozen rooms on every floor having wrought iron balconies.
The massive walls were white. The roof was red clay tile. It was a beautiful building in an exotic setting of rare palms and tropical shrubs. There was a skyline cocktail lounge called the Buccaneer Room, two expensive dining halls, a salt water swimming pool, and a nine-hole golf course. At night both the grounds and the pool were illuminated by cleverly concealed spotlights.
It looked a lot more like Miami Beach than it did Sun City. The new management charged accordingly. Even in the summer, a one-room efficiency apartment rented for two hundred dollars a month. And during the regular winter season some of the larger apartments brought as high as fifty dollars a day. At least, so I’d been told.
There was a big circular drive in front. Lou parked the Ford under a giant Phoenix palm. I walked around and opened the door for her, with the feeling that everyone was watching me. I’d never felt so out of place. Everywhere I looked I saw women in evening dresses and men in white dinner jackets. Strolling the grounds. Watching the swimmers in the pool. Sitting in chairs on the terrace, listening to the dreamy music from the Buccaneer Room.
“Nice, huh?” Lou asked.
I looked at my rumpled summer-weight suit. It hadn’t cost much to begin with, and taking two beatings in it had not made it look any better. “Yeah,” I said, sourly. “I’ll be lucky if they let me in the front door.”
I walked Lou across the lawn to the tile terrace. To hell with the goddamn snowbirds. I wasn’t competing in a fashion show. I had to talk to Mrs. Landers. Somehow I had to persuade her to tell the truth, so I’d have something to take to Cade Kiefer, something that would make him want to find Matt Kendall. Every time my heart beat, Kendall was taking May that much farther away from me, possibly abusing her. What with the mental strain I was under and the two beatings I’d taken, I had a hard time to keep from being sick.
Lou tightened her fingers on my arm. “Steady as it goes.”
I took a deep breath. “I’m all right.”
There was a uniformed doorman standing in the main arch. He bowed graciously to Lou as we walked into the lobby. “It’s nice to see you back, Miss Tarrent.”
“Thank you, Charles,” Lou said.
When we were a few feet past him I asked Lou, “How come the doorman knows you? What does he mean, it’s nice to see you back?”
Lou’s smile was wry. “I splurged once for a few months. Just to see how the other half lives.”
“When was this?” I asked her.
Lou said, “Last summer.”
She angled across the lobby and up the broad stairs to the mezzanine. As we started up the stairs, Lou added:
“I paid two hundred dollars a month for a room. My whole salary went for rent. And every time I turned around — poof — there went five dollars of my savings. It was nice, though.”
I said, “With your looks, you ought to marry some rich man, Lou.”
Lou’s smile was even more wry. Almost cynical. “There are a lot of things in this world we ought to do. But sometimes we get all mixed up, both mentally and physically.” She smoothed her skirt over her hips as she led the way down the hall toward the Landers apartment. “Besides, unless he’s born with money, or has a racket of some kind, by the time the average man has enough money to live in a place like this, all he can do for a young wife is boast about what a man he used to be.”
As I recalled the number, Joe Summers and Pearl had lived in Apartment A7, the number probably appealing to him as lucky. As we passed it, I noticed a ‘Fresh Paint’ sign on the knob. The door was cracked for ventilation. I pushed it open and looked in. The carpets were rolled up.
There was a decorator’s scaffold in one corner of the living room.
Lou started down the hall. I stopped her. “Just a minute. I want to be sure I’m right before I talk to Mrs. Landers.”
She stood in the doorway, chewing her lower lip “How do you mean, sure?”
I walked on into the living room. “I want to make a test.” I looked back. Lou was still standing in the doorway. “Come in. And close the door,” I said. “Joe Summers’ ghost won’t hurt you.”
Lou took a deep breath. “No. Of course not.” She stepped into the reception hall and closed the door with the ‘Fresh Paint’ sign on the knob. “What are you going to do, Jim?”
I examined the wall between the living room and the bedroom. It was as thick as I remembered it. The door was solid oak. The bedroom window was open. I walked to it and looked out. It was one of the windows with balconies, the balcony almost overgrown with flowering purple bougainvillea. I walked back to the bedroom door. Lou was still standing in the center of the big sunken living room.
“What are you going to do?” she repeated.
I picked a flat wooden paint mixer from the extension scaffold and handed it to her. “I’m going back in the bedroom and close the door,” I told her. “As soon as the door is closed, I want you to say, ‘No, please don’t shoot me.’ Loud. Then I want you to whack the scaffold with the stick. Six times. With the flat side.”
I showed her how I wanted her to do it. The flat smack of the mixing stick on the wood of the scaffold sounded enough like a shot to be one.
Lou held the stick gingerly, looking around the living room with frightened eyes. I walked back to the bedroom. In the doorway I turned and said, “When I close the door, count up to five. Then say what I told you to and whack six times with the stick.”
Lou swallowed hard, then nodded.
The door snicked shut, solidly. I counted up to five, then counted five more for good measure There was no sound from the other room. I opened the door again. “Well, go ahead.”
Lou dropped the stick on the paint-spotted canvas under the scaffold. “I did,” she protested. “I said what you told me to, loud. And I hit t
he stick as hard as I could.” Her eyes continued to move around the living room. “Please. I don’t like it in here, Jim. Let’s go talk to Mrs. Landers.”
I touched her arm. She was trembling. I told her what she’d told me. “Steady as it goes.”
Lou took a deep breath. “I’m all right. But let’s get out of here.”
I walked her to the hall door and out into the hall, leaving the door as we had found it.
“You couldn’t hear me, Jim?” Lou asked.
I shook my head at her “No. I couldn’t hear a thing. And if I couldn’t hear you in the next room with only a door between us, how could Mrs. Landers hear Pearl with a foot-thick wall between the two apartments?”
Lou was sill breathing hard. “I see now what you were doing. No. Of course she couldn’t.”
There was a card in a little silver frame on the door next to the former Summers apartment. It read, ‘Mrs. John R. Landers.’ I pushed the button on the jamb. I leaned on it hard. And I’d been right about the building. It was sound-proof. I couldn’t hear the buzz or tinkle or chime or whatever happened when you pushed the button.
Lou leaned against the wall. “Maybe she isn’t in.”
I held up crossed fingers. “Let’s hope so.”
I reached for the button again. As I did, the heavy door opened and Mrs. Landers said, “Yes?”
She’d either been in bed or about to go to bed. She was wearing an expensive white silk robe that covered her completely. Her hair was combed into a simple bun at the back of her neck. She’d removed her make-up for the night. Without it, she didn’t look as hard as I remembered her. She didn’t look like a bag. All she looked like was a tired old lady.
I took off my hat. “My name is Jim Charters, Mrs. Landers.”
“Yes?” she repeated, without expression.
I lied a little. “I’m in the employ of Attorney Matthew Kendall. You may have heard of him.”
She thawed a little. “Oh, yes. I know Attorney Kendall. At least, I’m familiar with the name.” A lock of bleached hair fell into her eyes. She lifted it away with a ringed hand, none of the diamonds on it less than two carats. “What can I do for you, Mr. Charters?”
I wanted to get into the apartment. Once I got inside, I’d figure some way to make her talk. I said, “I realize it’s late, Mrs. Landers. But I’ve got to talk to you. On a matter of life and death.”
She smiled, amused. “That’s a much-abused phrase, young man.” She looked at Lou. “The young lady is with you?”
“Yes,” Lou said. “I am.”
Mrs. Landers continued to smile. “Don’t I know you?”
Lou said, “I lived here for a few months last summer. You may have seen me in the lobby or the dining room.”
Mrs. Landers nodded. “That’s probably it.” She opened the door wider. “Well, come in. You both look like reasonably decent young people.” She turned her back and led the way to the living room.
I followed Lou and Mrs. Landers into the living room. It was a duplicate of the one next door, but furnished as only real money can furnish a room. With her own rugs and furniture and pictures. The nap of the rug was ankle deep. I wasn’t a judge of pictures, but the ones hanging on the wall compared favourably with those I’d seen in a place called the Louvre one time when I’d had a week’s pass in Paris. The furniture was custom-built for Florida weather and expensive and comfortable-looking.
She waved her diamonds toward a decanter of whiskey and some glasses on a round bamboo coffee table. “Help yourselves if you care for a drink. Meanwhile, I’m dying of curiosity. What’s this all about, Mr. Charters?” She looked at a jeweled watch. “It is, after all, fifteen minutes to eleven. Now what is this you have to talk to me about?”
I sat on a low sofa, facing her. “Primarily,” I said, “it concerns Pearl Mantinover.”
The expression on her face didn’t change. “Oh, yes. That pretty little girl next door. The one who killed her common-law husband. What about her?”
13
I LEANED forward on the sofa. “I lied to you. I’m not working for Mr. Kendall. I used to, but he fired me yesterday. You listened to the ten o’clock newcast?”
Mrs. Landers shook her head. “No. I seldom listen to the local news. Why?”
I felt like I had the time I’d been selling vacuum cleaners from door to door. I had to get my story out in a rush, before I lost my nerve. I said, “If you had, you’d know that the police suspect me of killing Mr. Kendall. For being too familiar with my wife. In fact, they suspect me of having killed both Mr. Kendall and my wife and burying their bodies somewhere along the shore of the bay.”
She was a game old girl. She didn’t bat an eye. “I see.” Mrs. Landers blew smoke at the ceiling. “But what has this to do with me?”
I said, “Like I said at first. It all goes back to Pearl Mantinover. I think Mr. Kendall threw her to the wolves as a favor to Cass Hardy.”
Mrs. Landers repeated, “Cass Hardy?”
“You don’t know him?”
“I never heard the name.”
I let it pass for the time being. “Then I don’t suppose you ever heard of Cade Kiefer?”
“I’ve seen the name in the newspapers.”
I lighted a cigarette. “Well, here’s the situation, Mrs. Landers. Last night Tony Mantin, Cade Kiefer’s number one gunman, came to town. And what do you think?”
She flicked the ash from her cigarette “I haven’t the least idea.”
I said, “He turned out to be Pearl Mantinover’s brother.”
It was one of three things. The name meant nothing to Mrs. Landers. She was a clever actress. Or she had more nerve than most women. “So?” she puzzled.
“I don’t think Pearl killed Joe Summers. I never have,” I said “And last night, in a mood of drunken optimism, I told Tony Mantin that I thought I could keep his sister from going to the chair, by paying one of the chief witnesses against Pearl to retract her false testimony. Tony gave me ten thousand dollars to do it with. When I sobered up and realized what I’d done, I wanted to give him back his money. But he wouldn’t listen to me. He thought I’d talked it over with Mr. Kendall and that Kendall had advised me to play along with the local boys. This last conversation took place on the phone. When I realized Mantin thought I was double-crossing him, I was frightened. I talked it over with my wife and we decided to drive out to the beach and ask Mr. Kendall’s advice. When we got there I found Mantin dead on the floor of Mr. Kendall’s living room. A few minutes later, I was slugged unconscious. When I came to, my wife, Mr. Kendall and the ten thousand dollars were gone. And Mantin’s body had disappeared.
“Now the police won’t listen to the truth. It seems that Mr. Kendall has been making a play for my wife, unknown to me. They won’t even help me to look for May. They’re too certain that by giving me rope I’ll spook and lead them to her body. Meanwhile God knows what indignities Mr. Kendall is forcing on her. And that’s why I’ve come to you.”
Mrs. Landers snuffed her cigarette and looked at Lou. “Pour me a drink, will you, darling? You’re closest to the decanter.”
Lou poured some Scotch in a glass and handed it to her.
Mrs. Landers looked at me over the rim of her glass. “That’s a very interesting story, Mr. Charters. And if you love your wife as much as you seem to, I realize what you must be suffering.” She sipped at the drink. “There’s just one small point that isn’t quite clear.”
“What’s that?” I asked her.
“Why you’ve come to me.”
“I want the truth to take to Cade Kiefer. If I can prove to him that I meant to keep my bargain with Tony, if I can prove to him that I wasn’t just shooting off my mouth about Pearl, and then killed Tony because I couldn’t deliver what I’d promised maybe he’ll realize what a rat Kendall really is and help me find him and May.”
“Please,” Lou said. “As one woman to another. His wife isn’t mixed up in this. She doesn’t deserve the dirty deal she’s getti
ng.”
Mrs. Landers looked at Lou a long time, then back at me. Her face was as I remembered it now. Cold, calculating. She’d been around a long time. She knew all the angles.
“Now, let’s get this straight,” she said. “I was one of the State’s witnesses against the Mantinover girl. Reluctantly, let me say. Most men are heels. I know. I’ve been married to four of them and the rich ones are as bad as the poor ones. Summers got what was coming to him. Time after time, during Pearl’s absence, he entertained other women in her bedroom. I know. I’ve heard them in there. And that smug, self-satisfied jury ought to be proud of themselves for finding her guilty of murder in the first degree. Believe me, if I’d thought there was the remotest possibility of that happening, I never would have testified as I did.”
I started to speak. She stopped me.
“No. Let me talk. You say you told this Tony Mantin you thought you could get one of the witnesses against his sister to retract her false testimony for ten thousand dollars?”
“That’s right.”
“Am I that witness?”
“You are.”
“I see,” Mrs. Landers said. “Then, adding up the other names you’ve mentioned and the fact that both men were gamblers, it undoubtedly is your contention that this Cass Hardy person killed or had Joe Summers killed, then paid me a substantial sum of money to help convict an innocent girl of murder. Is that correct?”
I said, “It is.”
Mrs. Landers lighted another cigarette from the butt of the one she was smoking. “I will be goddamned,” she said, quietly. It wasn’t profane the way she said it. It wasn’t even cursing. It was just a way of speaking. She dropped the spent cigarette in an ash tray. “I thought I’d heard it all. Now I know I have. How old do you think I am, young man?”
I said I hadn’t the least idea.
“I’m sixty-five,” Mrs. Landers said. “When I was fifteen, I was a B girl in Butte. Only they didn’t call them B girls in those days. Later, I danced in innumerable New York nightclub choruses. I’ve been married to a stage director. To one of the biggest bootleggers in Philadelphia. To a trap drummer in a Greenwich Village bistro. To a multi-millionaire. With way stops in between. I’ve taken my clothes off for money. I’ve taken them off because it pleased me to. I’ve done thirty days for being a common drunk. I’ve been thrown out of hotels and checked into others. I’ve been sued for divorce and alienation of affection. During the course of my lifetime, various men and women have called me a good many things.” She brushed her empty shot glass to the floor with an angry gesture. “But, so help me God, this is the first time I’ve ever been accused of lying for money.”
