‘At the Athletic Club. Tell her I’ll be in the ladies’ lounge.’
I got up.
‘I’ll do that. There’s just one more thing,’ I said as he pressed the bellpush. ‘I take it you’re anxious that no one, including Mrs. Cerf and your daughter, should know you are hiring me for this work.’
He stared at me.
‘Of course. What do you mean?’
‘When you telephoned my office this morning did you use the phone in this room?’
He nodded, frowning.
‘And there are extensions in other parts of the house?’
‘There are.’
‘I’d be careful what you say on the phone, Mr. Cerf. I ran into your daughter on my way up here. She knew I was from Universal Services.’
A wary look came into his eyes.
‘All right, Malloy. You get on with your job. I’ll look after this end of it,’ he said evenly.
‘Just so long as you know,’ I said and turned to the door as the butler came in.
I made the long trek down to the front door in silence, and when the butler gave me my hat and a bow I said, ‘Is Mrs. Cerf around?’
He looked sharply at me, a frosty expression in his eyes.
‘I believe she is in the swimming pool, sir,’ he said distantly. ‘Did you wish to see her?’
‘No. I was just wondering. Big place for three people to get lost in, isn’t it?’
He didn’t seem to think that called for an answer. He opened the door.
‘Good day, sir,’ he said.
‘So long,’ I said and set off along the esplanade wondering if Natalie Cerf was still sunning herself in the loggia. But she wasn’t. There was no sign of her.
As I was descending the broad flight of stone steps to the parking lot a girl in a bathing wrap came briskly along a path that led away to the back of the house. She was tall and ash-blonde, and there was a sultry, don’t-give-a-damn expression on her face that had too much character to be labelled pretty. At a guess she was twenty-seven or thirty, not more, and she had beautiful, wide-set grey eyes.
I looked at her and she looked at me. A half-smile came to her full red lips, but I wasn’t sure if she were smiling at me or at something she was thinking about: a difficult kind of smile to classify.
As she ran up the steps towards me she let her wrap swing open. She had a shape under that wrap to set a man crazy, and the two emerald-green handkerchiefs that served as a sun-suit were just a shade too small for the job.
She went past me, and I pivoted around on my heels.
Halfway along the esplanade she looked back over her shoulder, raised pencilled eyebrows and smiled. There was no mistake about the smile this time.
I was still standing there, pointing like a gun dog, when she turned the corner of the terrace and I lost sight of her.
III
The offices of Universal Services occupied two rooms on the tenth floor of Orchid Buildings, the biggest of all the palatial business blocks in the city. At the back of Orchid Buildings runs a narrow alley that is used primarily as a parking lot for the cars belonging to the executives and their various staffs working in the building, and at the far end of the alley is Finnegan’s Bar.
After I had talked over the Cerf assignment with Paula, I went across to the bar, and as I expected, found Dana Lewis with Ed Benny and Jack Kerman grouped around a table in one of the alcoves.
Dana, Benny, Kerman and I worked as a team. I handled the administrative side of a job while they did the legwork.
‘Hello, Vic,’ Dana said, patting a chair beside her.
‘Come and sit down. Where have you been all the morning?’
She was a nice-looking kid, well put together, and smart.
‘I have a job for you,’ I said, sitting down. ‘Hi, boys!’ I went on to the other two. ‘You’ll be in on this if it works out the way I think it will, so take your brains out of pickle and show some intelligence.’
‘Listen, kiss of death,’ Benny said, helping himself to a slug of Irish, ‘We were working last night so lay off us will you?’
‘One of those jobs Sourpuss Bensinger keeps up her girdle specially for us,’ Kerman said with a grimace. ‘We had to escort a couple of old mares to the Casino. And when I say old, they made Rip Van Winkle’s mother look like Margaret O’Brien. Can you imagine?’
Kerman was tall and dapper; dark, lazy looking and distinctly handsome. He had a broad streak of white in his thick black hair and a Clark Gable moustache. Benny was just the opposite. He was short and thickset, and his red face looked as if it were fashioned out of rubber. He seemed to pride himself on dressing like a scarecrow, and was the most untidy-looking guy I have ever seen.
But they were both good operators, and we got along fine together in spite of a lot of kidding.
‘Never mind these two,’ Dana broke in impatiently. ‘They’re a couple of no-good rats. They wanted to shoot craps for my frillies and the dice was loaded. How’s that for meanness?’
‘Aw, forget it,’ Benny said, giving her a shove that nearly sent her off her chair. ‘I don’t believe you wear frillies anyway.’
‘That’s no way to treat a lady,’ I said severely.
‘I treat her the way I treat my sister,’ Benny said, putting a large hand on top of Dana’s cute little hat and pushing it over her nose. ‘Don’t I, pally?’
Dana promptly kicked his shin, and as he jumped up wrathfully, Kerman grabbed him by the throat and threw him on the floor where they began to wrestle furiously, upsetting the table and smashing the glasses. I just managed to save the whisky and get myself out of range as Dana, with a whoop of excitement, threw herself on Herman’s back and began to tug at his hair.
No one else in the bar room took any notice. These three were always horsing around. After a while they got tired of rolling about on the floor, and giggling breathlessly they came back to the table and sat down.
‘I’ve broken my suspender,’ Dana complained, examining the damage. ‘I wish you two hogs would learn to behave like gentlemen. Every time I come out with you I land up on the floor.’
Kerman ran a comb through his hair while Benny peered under the table.
‘She does wear suspenders!’ he reported excitedly. ‘I thought she kept her socks up with glue.’
‘Will you three pipe down?’ I pleaded. ‘I have business to talk about.’
Dana hit Benny over the head with a rolled newspaper.
‘Keep your eyes to yourself or I’ll slit your guzzle!’ she said fiercely.
‘Miss Lewis!’ Benny said, shocked. ‘What a way to talk!’
I rapped on the table.
‘If you don’t listen to me . . . ‘ I began threateningly.
‘All right, darling,’ Dana said. ‘Of course we’ll listen. What’s the job?’
I told her.
‘I want you to go over and meet Cerf at the Athletic Club at three this afternoon. Keep your eyes open. There’s a chance the daughter’s mixed up in this. Anyway, stick close to Mrs. Cerf. If she does lift anything in a shop you’ve got to cover her. I want this job handled nice and smooth.’
‘What’s this Cerf frail like to look at?’ Benny asked, pushing the whisky over to me.
‘Lush,’ I said, and made curves with my hands. ‘All hills and valleys. Very, very lush indeed.’
‘Are we in this?’ Kerman asked with sudden interest.
‘We’d better help Dana, hadn’t we? You know how dumb she can be.’
Dana pushed back her chair and stood up.
‘But not so dumb as you’d like me to be,’ she said pertly.
‘Well, I guess I’ll run along. Don’t let these two degenerates drink too much, Vic,’ and she whisked her tail out of reach as Benny took a slap at it.
‘Degenerates!’ Kerman said indignantly as she left the bar. ‘After all we’ve done for that woman. Hey! Leave some of that whisky for me, you drunken rat!’ he
went on excitedly as Benny poured himself another slug. ‘I have a half-share in that bottle I’ll have you know.’
‘You two guys will follow up the blackmail angle,’ I said, grabbing the whisky and putting the cork in. ‘Stick around until Dana gets something to work on. And listen, you’d better sober up. I have a job for you this afternoon. Some old guy wants to catch marlin. It’s an easy job, and besides the old guy has a nice long beard. If you get bored you can always set fire to it.’
‘Old guy, huh?’ Benny said in disgust. ‘Why not a dame? Why not the lush Mrs. Cerf? Here we have the perfect setup for a breakdown miles out at sea, and it has to be an old guy with a beard.’
‘Maybe you’ll catch a mermaid; then you can throw the old guy overboard and have your breakdown after all,’ I said encouragingly.
There was a long, ominous silence.
‘You know what?’ Benny said to Kerman. ‘I love this guy, the way a fly loves Flit.’
IV
On the evening of the second day after my interview with Jay Franklin Cerf I sat on the verandah of my four-room beach cabin, keeping a highball company and reread Dana’s report I had picked up at the office on my way home.
It was a concise job, and contained several points of interest. So far, Dana reported, Anita Cerf had shown no kleptomaniac tendencies. She had gone shopping in the morning, and there had been nothing suspicious in her behaviour. All purchases she had made had either been paid for or charged account. But that meant nothing as kleptomaniacs very often have their impulses in cycles, and it might take a little time to catch her red-handed.
What did mean something was the discovery that Anita was secretly meeting a guy named George Barclay, and had been seen by Dana with him twice in two days. By their attitude to each other they were obviously on an intimate footing, and both of them had taken care not to be seen together on the streets.
They had met at a lobster-bar a couple of miles outside the city’s limits, and again the next day, for lunch at a Greek restaurant away from the swank district where Cerf or Anita’s friends would be unlikely to run into them.
Dana had got Barclay’s name and address from his car’s registration card. He lived on Wiltshire Avenue in a small chalet-style house set in its own grounds. He was the playboy type, looked and dressed like a film star, ran a Chrysler convertible and seemed to have plenty of money. He was lead number one.
Lead number two was Ralph Bannister, the owner of a swank nightclub, L’Etoile, out at Fairview. Anita had gone out there around six o’clock the previous evening and Dana had overheard her asking the commissionaire who guarded the entrance if she could talk to Bannister on urgent business. She had been admitted, and had remained in the club die best part of an hour, then had driven back to the Santa Rosa Estate in time for dinner.
I knew Bannister by reputation, although I had never met him. He was a smart crook who had made a big success of the nightclub, catering for millionaires and running a couple of roulette wheels that must have cost him a lot of money in police protection.
I was deciding to turn Benny and Kerman loose on these two leads when I saw the headlights of a car coming slowly along the beach road. The time was ten-fifteen, and it was a hot night, and quiet. I wasn’t expecting visitors, and I thought the car would go on past, but it didn’t. It pulled up outside the wooden gate and the headlights went out.
It was too dark out there to see much. The car looked as big as a battleship, but I couldn’t see the driver. I slipped Dana’s report into my pocket and waited. I thought someone had got the wrong house.
The latch of the gate clicked up and I could just make out a shadowy figure that looked like a woman. The sitting room light was on and the verandah doors open, but not much light spilled into the garden.
It wasn’t until she was right on top of me that I saw my visitor was Anita Cerf. She came slowly up the three wooden steps that led to the verandah, her full red lips parted in that half-smile that had fooled me before. She was wearing a flame-coloured evening dress, cut low to show plenty of cleavage, and an impressive collar of diamonds encircled her throat like a ribbon of fire. There was something in the way she looked at me that had that thing: it came across like an invisible ray and was strong enough to lean against.
‘Hello,’ she said in a low, husky voice. ‘Where’s everyone, or are you alone?’
I was on my feet now, just a little rattled, as she was the last person I expected to see. I looked past her, wondering if Dana Lewis was out there, watching, and she was quick to read my thoughts.
‘It’s all right,’ she said. ‘I gave Miss Sherlock the slip,’ and before I could stop her she walked into the sitting room and sat in one of the easy chairs. I followed her in, and to be on the safe side, pulled the curtains across the windows.
Up to now I hadn’t opened my mouth. I was too busy trying to make up my mind how to handle this visit to bother to be polite. There would be trouble if Cerf heard about it. She knew that, of course; that was why she had come out here alone, and when she knew I would be alone.
‘What do you want, Mrs. Cerf?’ I asked, walking around her chair and standing before her.
We looked at each other. There was a jeering expression in her wide grey eyes.
‘I don’t like being spied on,’ she said. ‘I want to know why.’
I was surprised she had spotted Dana, who was as near a thing to the invisible woman when on a job as makes no difference. But there’s always the risk when only one operator is put on the job, and I blamed myself for not teaming Benny up with Dana.
‘That’s something you’ll have to ask Mr. Cerf,’ I said, ‘and incidentally, speaking of Mr. Cerf, he wouldn’t approve of you coming here.’
She laughed. She had good, strong, white teeth and wasn’t ashamed of showing them.
‘Oh, there are lots and lots of things Mr. Cerf doesn’t approve of,’ she said lightly. ‘You have no idea how many. One more won’t make any difference. May I have a cigarette, please?’
I gave her a Lucky Strike and my lighter, and while she was tapping the cigarette on her scarlet thumbnail I said, ‘I wasn’t expecting visitors. I’m busy.’
‘Then let’s be quick,’ she said, lighting her cigarette. ‘Why is this woman spying on me?’
‘You’ll still have to ask Mr. Cerf.’
‘You’re not being very polite, are you? I thought you would be pleased to see me. Most men are. Could I have a drink, do you think?’
I went over to the row of bottles that stood on a table against the wall. While I fixed a couple of highballs the silence became thick enough to slice up with a hacksaw.
As I handed her the drink she smiled up at me. Being on the receiving end of that smile was like stepping on a live cable.
‘Thank you,’ she said. Her long spiked eyelashes flickered. ‘There’s no one here, is there?’
‘That’s right. How did you run me to earth?’
‘Oh, that wasn’t very difficult. I saw your car and found it belonged to Universal Services. The butler told me your name. I turned up the telephone book and here I am.’
‘No wonder private detectives go out of business.’
‘Are you a private detective?’
‘No, nothing like that.’
‘What exactly is Universal Services?’
‘An organization that undertakes any conceivable or inconceivable job that happens along, providing it is legal and ethical.’
‘And spying on a woman is ethical?’
‘That depends on the woman, Mrs. Cerf.’
‘And my husband has asked you to spy on me, is that it?’
‘Is it? I don’t remember saying anything like that.’
She drank some of the highball, put down the glass and stared at me. I don’t know if she found my face fascinating or if she were trying to hypnotize me, but she was certainly doing a lot of staring.
‘Why is this woman following me about?’
‘Mr. Cerf will tell you if he wants you to know.’
She lifted her shoulders a little impatiently and looked around the room. It wasn’t anything a millionaire’s wife would get excited about. Tony, my Filipino boy, kept it cleaner than a pigsty, but not much. The furniture was no great shakes, and that went for the paintwork and carpet too. The only pictures on the walls were Vargas’s pinups I had ripped out of Esquire from time to time, but I had to live in the joint and it was all right with me.
‘It can’t be a very paying job, can it?’ she asked.
‘You mean my job?’ I said, turning my glass around in my hand so I could admire the amber liquor from all angles.
‘Yes. You don’t make much money, do you? I was judging by this room.’
I made believe to give the matter serious attention.
‘Well, I don’t know,’ I said at last. ‘It depends on what you call much money. I can’t afford to wear diamonds, but I reckon I make a bit more than a mannequin would make, and I have a lot of fun.’
That hit her where it hurt. Her mouth tightened and a faint flush rose to her face.
‘Meaning you don’t have to marry money to get along, is that it?’ she asked, her eyes snapping.
‘That would be the general idea.’
‘But a thousand dollars would be useful to you, wouldn’t it?’
She was lovely to look at, and too dangerous to be alone with, and I had had all I wanted from the Cerfs for the time being. I stood up.
‘I’m sorry, Mrs. Cerf, but I’m not in the market. I have my job to think of. It may not be much, but oddly enough I like it. I don’t sell my clients out. It wouldn’t do. One of these days you might want me to help you. You wouldn’t like me to sell you out, would you?’
She drew in a deep breath, but after a struggle she managed to switch on the smile again.
‘You’re quite right,’ she said. ‘Putting it that way I suppose I shouldn’t have come here, but no one likes to be followed about as if one were a criminal.’
1949 - You're Lonely When You Dead Page 2
