Win, Place, and Die!

by Lawrence Lariar

  Leech nodded. He had the dead-pan facelessness of a middle-aged statistician, complete with heavy, horn-rimmed bifocals. There was cause for laughter in the way he stood there, an incongruous watchdog, a terrier guarding the master’s vault. Yet, around and about him hung the tension he had manufactured, the inevitable aura of his notoriety; the result of his headline appearances in the press. Leech was deadly. Leech was dangerous. He would have a gun in his jacket, somewhere. And he would know how to use it.

  “Not now,” Leech said quietly. “Come back later.”

  “I can’t wait.”

  “You’ll have to wait, my friend.” He used his simpering smile as a weapon, an irritant, a permanent part of his personal armament. He was as cool and unharried as he wanted to be. “Can I take a message in for you?”

  There was a flurry of conversation at the terrace door. People would be entering the hall in a moment, bound for the casino. When the sound of the newcomers burst through into the lobby, I made my move. I bumped Leech and grabbed the doorknob.

  For an instant he was off balance. Then he came at me. He grabbed at my wrist and clawed it. He fell back against the wall under the pressure of my assault. He would have to stop me now or the doorway was mine. Leech lunged desperately, bringing his hand up again to reach for my wrist. The struggle was quite polite and decorous. Leech seemed aware of his audience, the curious group who stood near the casino door and watched our struggle. He would make it a gentle, almost amorous fight until they left the lobby. He swore at me quietly. I kicked out at him and caught him on the shin and staggered him briefly. In the moment of his reflex gulp of pain, I was through the door. Leech grabbed for me, but it was too late.

  “Call off this jerk, Seff,” I said, “before I get angry with him.”

  We were in a tiny outer hall, a miniature reception room to Buffo’s tremendous office. Through the doorway I saw Seff and Buffo at the long antique desk near the window. They made a quiet tableau. Seff’s face looked my way, a mixture of confusion and anger. Buffo got up from behind the desk. Leech grabbed my arm. I yanked it loose and pushed him away.

  “Who is this joker?” Leech asked.

  Buffo glared at him. Buffo adjusted himself to apologize. He stepped between us. He was having trouble with his upper lip, cat-licking it and adjusting it for speech. Seff saved him. Seff got out of the red leather chair and came into the group.

  “Wait out in the hall, Chester,” he said.

  Leech backed off without a word. The entire incident had left him without any emotional wounds.

  Buffo said: “No hard feelings, Mr. West? He was told to keep company out.” He motioned me to a chair. The room was the most impressive part of the mansion I had yet seen. The entire place was lined with books, the bindings mellow and gracious in the dull light. A variety of old clipper ship paintings lined the paneled walls. Each was lit from below, in the manner of a gallery exhibit. Behind the desk, a great window faced the lawn on the north side of the entrance driveway. The floodlights picked out the foliage and made it sparkle with the intensity of a giant Kodachrome. Ornate but tasteful tapestries hung alongside the window. “Mr. Seff and I,” said Buffo, “wanted to be alone. That was all.”

  Seff did not sit. He eyed me distastefully. “I’ll see you later, Buffo.”

  I got out of my chair. I didn’t want him to leave. My leap from the chair made Seff pause. He would be laughing at me soon. I said: “Don’t rush away on my account, Seff. I’d like to talk to you.”

  “Talk.”

  “Mr. West,” said Buffo, “is the nephew of Jake West.”

  “All right,” Seff said, as though this might be his final comment. He couldn’t seem to make up his mind about me. He stood his ground, his hands in his pants, his face unsmiling. But he was watching Buffo. Buffo must have signaled him to relax. Because he stepped back and away from me, strolling to the bar where he engaged himself in filling a glass with liquor. Then he sat down in one of the red leather chairs. He threw his leg over the chair arm and assumed a bored but patient pose. “All right,” he said again, as though these words would be important to Buffo. “So he’s Jake West’s nephew.”

  “He came with Nancy Blackburn,” Buffo added.

  Seff shrugged and said nothing. He lit a cigar. He had an oily but agreeable face, a contradiction to the bit players who would be hired to portray his type in Hollywood. Reality continued to shock me. I would have written this character in broad and symbolic strokes, so that the reader might label him easily as the archetype of all things evil and degenerate. Instead, Larry Seff seemed as normal as a next-door neighbor. He took a long, deep and soulful drag on his cigar. He studied the tip of it.

  “What do you want to talk to me about?” he asked.

  “You don’t mind if I get personal?”

  “I don’t mind if you take a flying leap for the moon. But make it fast. I’ve got a date.”

  “Fine and dandy,” I said. “I won’t hold you long. I’m looking for information about Jake West’s death. It’s as simple as that.”

  “What’s simple about it?” Seff gave me the thin edge of his smile. There was malice in it. “Why question me?”

  “I heard you were interested in harness racing.”

  “Me, I’m interested in lots of things.”

  “I mean financially,” I said. “You own a few horses, don’t you?”

  “I own a piece of the Arroway Farms.”

  “That means you own a piece of Cashinhand.”

  “A good mare,” Seff said. “She ran a terrific race the other night. Beat Bully Boy easily.”

  “That’s what I want to talk to you about,” I said.

  “I’m listening.”

  “Jake West drove Bully Boy that night. And after the race, Jake West was murdered.” I let the words hang for a while. Seff relit his cigar. Buffo watched me with frank curiosity. Through the open window, the headlights of a car probed the darkness. Tires hissed on the graveled driveway. A door slammed out there, followed by gay voices. Seff finished his business with the cigar. He gave me his complete attention now. But there was nothing in his eyes. Nothing at all but patient listening. “I’ve been curious about that race, Seff. I’ve been wondering whether it was a boat ride.”

  “That would be dirty business,” Seff said quietly.

  “You’ve been in dirty businesses before.”

  “You talk real nasty.”

  “I get nastier after a while.”

  “Maybe you’d better stop now, West.”

  “And if I don’t?”

  “Tough,” said Seff, as an aside to Buffo. “This boy’s real tough, isn’t he, Buffo? That’s what we get for being so polite. I should have let Leech louse him up a little. Leech would have liked it fine.”

  I started for him, but Buffo was out of his chair suddenly and stepping between us.

  “No sense battling, you two. Let’s keep it nice and quiet, eh? I’ve got a house full of customers out there.”

  “I was talking about dirty trotting races,” I said. “I hear fancy talk about my Uncle Jake. Dirty talk.”

  “Crazy,” said Buffo. “Jake West was an honest driver.”

  Seff began to laugh. “Honest as the day is long.”

  “Your horse, Cashinhand, breezed in,” I said. “A fat long shot.”

  “So what? Jake had the best horse in the race, the class horse. But Jake was caught in a pocket. Ask anybody about it. My horse was a surprise to me. I only had half a C note on her. A light bet for a fix. Right, Buffo?”

  “Chicken feed,” Buffo said. He eyed his watch nervously.

  “That all you wanted to know, West?”

  “Sit down, Buffo. I just started.”

  “See how tough he is,” Seff said. “You better sit, Buffo, or he’ll slap you around.”

  Buffo sat, grinning at me mi
ldly. “You want to ask me some questions now, for God’s sake?”

  “Only a couple.”

  “About what?”

  “Let’s begin with Nancy Blackburn.”

  “Begin? How?”

  “She’s a steady customer here?”

  “Why don’t you ask her?” Buffo eyed Seff and they chuckled quietly together. “Sure, sure she comes here often.”

  “And bets heavily?”

  Considerable.”

  “She pays off?”

  “But, of course,” Buffo laughed again. “What the hell kind of a question is that? Everybody pays off.”

  “I was talking, thinking of IOU’s.”

  “Sometimes I get an IOU.”

  “She owes you money now?”

  “Not right now.” Buffo yawned deliberately. Seff got up and looked out of the big window. He put a small piece of fruit in his mouth and sucked at it noisily. Buffo said: “Where’s this getting you?” He reached for a cigar, making a big fuss over it. When he was finished, he sat on the edge of his big desk. He wasn’t quite happy about the length of my visit. “Get to the point,” he said.

  “Don’t push me, Buffo. Let’s talk about her escorts.”

  “For God’s sake,” Seff groaned at the window. “Why don’t you write this boy a small book, Buffo? He’ll keep us here until breakfast time if you let him.”

  “All right, all right,” said Buffo quietly.

  “We were talking about Nancy Blackburn’s escorts,” I said. “Did she ever come here with a man named Nickles Shuba?”

  “I never saw them together here.”

  “You know Shuba?”

  “Sure I know Shuba,” Buffo said with another tired sigh. “He’s Blackburn’s man, over at the track. Sort of a lightweight type.”

  “An important lightweight at the moment.” Buffo went back behind his desk and sucked at his cigar. He seemed less interested in the conversation now. He picked up the phone and muttered something to somebody on his staff. His voice was low. But he gave it enough urgency to sound tough and hard. I waited for him to hang up. He knew that I was waiting for him. He continued to mutter and mumble into the mouthpiece. All this time, Seff was staring out of the window. The room was quiet enough so that I could hear the ticking from the French clock on the mantel over in the corner. The combination of silence and stalling began to madden me. I strolled over to Seff and tapped his shoulder.

  “Shuba’s supposed to be a good friend of yours,” I said.

  Seff backed off and away from me angrily. “Who told you that?”

  “It’s true, isn’t it?”

  “Nuts. I know Shuba, that’s all. Like the way I know a hundred other people at the track.”

  “Know where he lives?”

  “You’re out of your mind, West.” He returned to the leather chair and sat there giving me his disregard. “You’re wasting our time with this half-wit routine. Why don’t you go play yourself a few games outside?”

  “Larry’s right.” Buffo dropped the phone. He folded his big hands and grinned at me with a patronizing air. “You came to the wrong place for information about Shuba. All right, he plays the wheel every once in a while. He loses, just like the rest of the suckers. He always pays cash, because he isn’t big enough to rate IOU’S. How much does he lose? What the hell—we don’t keep records of individual customers. We can’t, unless we give them credit, like I said. You happy now, West?”

  “Not quite,” I said. “Shuba always comes alone?”

  “He brings a broad once in a while.”

  “The same broad?”

  Buffo searched his memory, closing his eyes to get an accurate picture. “I’ve seen a couple of his women here.” He held up a larded palm. “Now don’t ask me their names, because I don’t know them, see? They were just routine dolls, pretty ones, that’s all.”

  “He never came with Nancy Blackburn?”

  “Not here, he didn’t.”

  Seff said: “For God’s sake, I’m sick of this chatter, Buffo. I got business to talk over with you.” He bounced out of the chair and came my way. “Maybe you have enough now?”

  “For the time being,” I said.

  CHAPTER 8

  I sat in the small bar on the outside terrace. I nursed my bile with Scotch, feeling empty and foolish after the interview with Buffo. Something had been missing in the scene. A good detective could have squeezed both Seff and Buffo for more information. A good detective would have walked into this chapter burning with fresh resolve, alive with keen and subtle stratagems. Instead, I felt like something out of a Boy Scout manual. I had gained only a stale crumb of the time with them. I now knew that Shuba was a client of the casino.

  “Hit me again,” I told the bartender.

  “Hit me again,” I told him, after fifteen minutes.

  “And again.”

  “And—”

  He was pouring the fifth hooker when she came in. She took the stool alongside me and just sat there, saying nothing at all. The bartender must have known her because he had a glass for her, all of a sudden, without a word from her. My eyes were on the chrome ash tray under my hand. There was a reflection of her in the broad side of the thing, all out of proportion, but interesting. The high polish showed me the edge of her blonde head, above me and to the left, like a floating image in a deep pool.

  “Going to hell?”

  The reflection was talking now. And the voice was familiar, a low and husky timbre that pulled my eyes up to squint at its owner. There was a small fog hanging around and about my head. But the mists cleared when she smiled at me. Her teeth were starch-white against the tan. She was Lisa Varick.

  “Having yourself a ball, Dave?”

  “A small picnic.”

  “What happened to your partner?”

  “Out chasing ants,” I said. “Little white ant on a spinning wheel.”

  “How poetic. You talk nice when you’re oiled.”

  “Hit me again,” I told the bartender. “I want to talk nicer.”

  “I’m with him.” Lisa tapped her glass on the bar.

  “Where’s your picnic mate?” I asked.

  “Eustace had business that kept him at the track.”

  “He won’t be here?”

  “Does it matter?” Her hand dropped and slid across the bar, an accidental detour on the way to her bag. She managed to touch my fingers. She held her face close to me when I lit up for her. “I like it here all by my lonesome once in a while, Dave.”

  “Tell me more.”

  “But you have a date.”

  “She won’t budge,” I said. “She’s going to stay with the wheel until she drops what she made. And she’s made plenty in the last half hour. Stacks of blues.”

  “Hit us again, Mike,” Lisa said to the bartender.

  “You say the nicest things, Lisa.”

  “Wait’ll you hear me after the fifth, Dave.”

  The dialogue was corny and rigged for video. The prose was soft and intimate. She had taken me away from the bar so that the bartender couldn’t hear us. He was lost somewhere, up in the mahogany ridge beyond her delicious shoulder, a smear of background that meant nothing to me now. The liquor clawed at my stomach, a glow I needed to dispel the gloom of half an hour ago. We sat at a small round table out in the open, on the porch that led to the terrace. The noises of the casino came through many thick walls, canned music of an indefinite tempo. She was close enough so that we touched again, under the table, in the way that she had touched me at the track. All knee and slow motion. She was close enough to tempt and tease me. She was research of the highest type.

  “Hit us again, Mike,” she said over her shoulder. And the drinks appeared and she leaned in closer to me. Her hand never left mine. Not since the last drink.

  “Tell me about B
uffo’s,” I said.

  “It’s a big place, Dave.”

  “You know it well?”

  “Every room in it.”

  “You make it sound like a hotel.”

  “It can be a hotel.”

  “Nice place for a convention?”

  “Eustace has held meetings here,” she said. “Big parties that used the whole building. It’s a fantastic place upstairs.”

  “What kind of fantasy?”

  “Like to see it?”

  “I’m with you, Lisa.”

  “Hit us again, Mike,” she said when we passed the bar.

  We had another quick one and she led me out through the tiny porch again, around to the right and through a door and up a narrow flight of stairs, probably the servants’ entrance to the bedroom floor in the old days when this place housed a family. The steps were not geared for quick ascent. The narrow passageway barely held the width of both of us. Her body hugged mine on the way up. Her arm was around me and her face close enough so that her hot breath reached my cheek in the blackness. We walked up an up and close to the top she faltered and grabbed at me and held me in an attempt to prevent a fall. It was carefully staged for the pressure of my arms, carefully devised so that I found myself leaning over her and kissing her. In the dark, her mouth was sweet and burning against mine.

  There was a broad hall beyond the landing, a richly carpeted corridor, a deep crimson path to a certain door. And then we were inside a certain room.

  Miraculously, there was a bottle and ice and the makings on a delicate table near the bay window.

  “Hit me again, Dave.”

  “Buffo is a thoughtful host.”

  “The bartender is a friend of mine,” Lisa said. “I had him send us some room service.”

  The room seemed rigged for assignations of this sort. It was arranged for sitting only, a comfortable couch and inviting leather chairs and low-keyed lights out of two little lamps that could successfully light a medium-sized closet. An open door led to another chamber where the lighting was even more subdued. There was a bed in there. Buffo’s accommodations would please the most selective clientele. Everything sang with dignity and refinement. No noises from the floor below seeped in to ruin the pleasant quiet. Lisa moved to a blond cabinet and adjusted a machine and there was music, soft and out of some soothing symphony. She joined me on the couch.