Win, Place, and Die!

by Lawrence Lariar

  “Did you go all through that desk drawer?” he asked, content to change the subject. The debris behind me continued to fascinate him. He was the quiet, moody type of drunkard, a man who would sooner or later reveal his purpose. He had wandered into me by accident. He had no plans for me. Nor did his fogged mind attempt to cope with the problem I presented. Sooner or later, his guard would come down. Then I could act against him. But right now, his reflexes still performed for him. He scowled down at the papers on the floor. “She wouldn’t keep anything valuable in a place like that. Not Lisa Varick.”

  “You seem to know the lady quite well.”

  “The bitch,” he whispered to himself. “What about the rest of that desk? You been through it?”

  “Not yet. Shall we explore it together?”

  My zany question alerted him again. He stiffened and took a slow step away from me, fresh caution shining in his eyes. He would be getting closer to sanity as time wore on. The sight of his juvenile gestures with the gun, the picture of this ridiculous rustic fouling my plans, the sound of his stupid voice, all these things worked to build my annoyance. In the pause, Luchon recognized my upset. He laughed at me.

  “Better stay where you are,” he said. “This here gun might go off if you move.”

  So I moved. He had taken another half step back, and his eyes still glimmered at the desk drawer as he made the motion. I fell against him heavily. He was shorter than I, a wiry and wily man. He slipped away from me and brought up the gun, trying for a blow at my head with it. He missed badly. His drunken lunge carried him beyond me, slipping and sliding until he met the wall. He cushioned the fall with his shoulder and came at me from a kneeling position. He was hell-bent for fracturing me with the gun butt. He aimed it again, this time at my stomach. But his hand was slow, impeded by his alcoholic brain. I caught his arm and twisted it and the gun fell out of his hand and skipped across the rug into the darkness. I brought up my knee. Hard. He grunted once when I found my target. He rolled over and was still.

  I went into the bathroom and flushed his face with a glass of water. He revived slowly. He sat up and bobbled his head as I slapped him awake. I dragged him into the light and gave him more water.

  “Enough,” he moaned. “That’s enough, Dave.”

  I found his gun and examined it. It was an ancient piece of armament, designed during the twenties, one of the small French guns made popular by theatrical folk during that decade. It would fire a special type of bullet, too small for the usual automatic.

  “Where did you get this?” I asked.

  “It’s empty,” he said. “Never did use it.”

  He was right. The little gun held no bullets. “You’ve got more courage than I thought, Luchon,” I said. “You must have been desperate to come up here with a toy like that.”

  “I needed something, Dave. So I used that thing. Had it for years, but it never did get loaded.”

  I pocketed the little toy. He grinned weakly. He was a humble character again, the alcoholic verve gone out of him since I hit him. He got to his feet and regained his balance slowly. He had been staggered by my attack. He sat on one of the dainty French chairs and closed his eyes and struggled to right himself. I felt no pity for him. Instead, the itch of impatience stirred in me again. I showed him Ruvulo’s gun.

  “This one is loaded, Luchon.”

  “Put it away,” he said quietly. “For God’s sake, Dave, you don’t need a gun. Not for me. Listen, give me a cigarette, will you?”

  I fed him a cigarette. He needed it. He needed something for stab at normalcy again. He would be trembling for a while now. His hands barely held the Chesterfield. He shook with a steady rhythm that bordered on hysteria. He would be a long time regaining his composure.

  “I guess I’m a damned fool,” he said at last.

  “You’re in trouble,” I said.

  “A damn fool, Dave.”

  “I’m going to deliver you to the police.”

  “You wouldn’t do that.” He reacted violently to the thought of arrest. “What for, for God’s sake?”

  “Questioning. Sam MacGruder will have lots of cute questions to ask you.”

  “About what?” He would be moved to blubbering and babbling soon. The nervousness that began with my mention of the law was building to panic. In his simple farmer’s mind, the police represented utter disgrace.

  “Let’s talk about the girls, Luchon.”

  “Which girls?”

  “Begin with Nancy.”

  “What do you mean?” His attempt at duplicity didn’t come off. How could it? He had a face as wide open as a window. You could almost see the gears in his mental mechanism at work. “Lord, man, just what are you getting at?”

  “You’re in love with her, aren’t you?”

  “How do you figure that?”

  “It’s written all over your face, Luchon. You look like a high-school lover whenever she’s around you. Why don’t you admit you’re crazy about her? Let’s start from there, shall we?”

  Luchon didn’t answer. He let his eyes speak for him. He was flushed and fluttery now. I let the silence build. He would come out of it when he felt ready. He rallied after a moment.

  “You’re right—I’m a fool about that girl.”

  “Does she know it?”

  He shook his head hopelessly. “She doesn’t think of me that way.”

  “You’ve been out with her?”

  “A couple of times. But she doesn’t really know how much I care for her. I never told her.”

  “You were following her around tonight?” I asked. “Did you catch her, finally?”

  “I was worried about her. When she took her dad home, I was right behind her. I waited until she came out of her house. It looked to me like she was a little drunk. I stopped her and spoke to her. I didn’t figure her to be able to take care of herself, she looked that mad.”

  “What did she say? What was riling her?”

  “I can’t tell you, Dave.”

  “Then I’ll tell you. Nancy was worried about some IOU’S, wasn’t she?”

  “Well, now,” he said feebly, gawking at me in amazement. “How in God’s name did you know that?”

  “I’m guessing. I’m guessing you volunteered to come up here and search for Nancy’s IOU’s.”

  “Well, I’ll be damned.”

  “Forget about them.”

  “Nancy has them?”

  “You can make book on it,” I said. “Nancy’s got them and they’re ripped to shreds by this time. So you see, your little burglary venture was all wasted effort.”

  Luchon shook his head helplessly, stunned by my words. He was a sympathetic figure. He was the proverbial fall guy, the little lover who never makes the grade. His heroics in this situation might have earned him a warmer spot in Nancy’s fickle heart. But she had managed to arrange her own salvation.

  “Well, I’m glad,” he said at last. “I’m sure glad she got what she wanted.”

  “She’s the type, isn’t she?”

  “Please now, let’s not say anything nasty, Dave.”

  “She played you for a sucker, Luchon,” I said angrily. “She’s gifted that way. She even managed a few passes at a worm like Nickles Shuba.”

  “She didn’t mean anything by it. She’s too fine a girl for a man like Nickles.” A hot spark of manhood filled his eyes. He would protect and promote her in any argument. He would never abandon his doglike devotion. “She’s in trouble because of her old man, don’t you see? Gambling and all. Mixing with men like Larry Seff at Buffo’s. Losing lots and lots of money.”

  “Did she ever borrow from you?”

  “Once in a while. But she always paid me back.”

  “She needed money pretty badly recently?”

  “Yes, I guess she did.”

  “You g
uess?” I bellowed at him. The effect of my sustained anger continued to cow him. He had reached the point of acceptance now. He would remain forever meek and gentle. But his tongue might never add fresh information to my meager stock pile unless he was blasted out of his calm. I reached down for him and jerked him savagely, so that his eyes popped and his mouth opened and he showed me the renewal of his original terror. My hands gripped him tightly as I pulled him up to me. “I think I’ll let MacGruder decide about you,” I shouted. “Maybe he’ll remind you that you’re mixed up in something worse than a hick love affair, Luchon. You’re head over heels in trouble. This is a murder case you’re fiddling with!”

  “I don’t know what you mean,” he said weakly. “You don’t think that I killed Jake West, for God’s sake?”

  “Why not?”

  “Why would I?” he asked himself desperately. “Why would I do a thing like that?”

  “To cover up a fixed race!”

  “Please.” He clawed at my hands feebly. “That’s a lie.”

  I almost pulled his jacket off him. In his rustic, farm-boy way, he would remain forever soupy, if I allowed him to recognize any weakening in me. Now, as he began to squirm against me, the first blubbering signs of deep panic came through. He was frightened. This was the moment for exploding him.

  “You and Harvey Brett arranged it, didn’t you?”

  “No, no,” said Luchon weakly.

  “You knew you could box Jake West in?”

  “No, no.”

  “You figured you and Harvey had the two front runners? So that you could tie Jake up and pull the race?”

  “No, no.”

  I slapped him wickedly, across the mouth. I was too hot for his histrionics. He would be Johnny-one-note for the rest of the morning unless I acted fast. He drooped and wilted under my cannonade of slaps. Once. Twice. Three times He sagged and slipped away from me. It was enough, or he would faint.

  “Admit it, Luchon, or I’ll hammer your brains out.”

  His voice was a weak whisper. “You’re right,” he said.

  “And Jake West wasn’t in on it?”

  “Only Brett and me.”

  “And on the outside?” I asked. “Who knew? Nancy?”

  “Nobody,” Luchon said. “Nobody at all unless—”

  He stirred feebly, stimulated by an idea out of his own deep pit of memory. It was a thought that did not please him. It was a piece of imagery that frightened him. He swallowed it. He would have bypassed it. But I was in no mood for secrets now. I let him feel the pressure again, shaking him, worrying him, bullying him.

  “Unless what?” I shouted the question at him. His body went limp in my hands. Something resembling hopelessness showed in his eyes. “Unless what?” I said again.

  “There was somebody else.”

  “Who?”

  “Nickles Shuba.”

  “How does he figure?”

  “He figures,” Luchon said. “Nickles must have found out. He had money down on Cashinhand. He told me so. It was at the stable, just before we took the horse in. Nickles found out, somehow. He was always anxious to make big money betting. He asked me for fifty dollars to put down on Cashinhand. He threatened to report me. I gave him the money. I was scared.”

  “Who told Nickles?”

  “I wouldn’t know.”

  “You risked your reputation on a shoe-in with a crumb like Harvey Brett,” I said. “You were willing to lay all your good years on the line for one stinking race. Why?”

  “It was something I had to do,” Luchon said softly.

  “Why? Did you need the money?”

  Luchon gazed up at me helplessly. In the simple turn of his head, in the painful emptiness of his eyes, he was trying to screen the reason for his heroics. He would go no further with me, even if I beat him into a coma. He would be that type of hero, unflinching and silent in the climax, speechless and stubborn. Unless I was able to read his mind. My hands sweated on his jacket as I strained against him. He was not fighting me. I pulled him up and prepared to slap him again. But before my arms took up the chore, something in his open peasant face moved me to pause.

  And suddenly, looking down at Luchon, I knew.

  Suddenly, his motivation became as obvious as his simpleton’s soul.

  “You did it for Nancy Blackburn,” I shouted. “Was that it?”

  Luchon sagged as I dropped him again. “That’s right.”

  “She needed money that desperately?”

  “She needed a lot of money.”

  “How much did she bet on Cashinhand?”

  “A lot,” Luchon mumbled. “A thousand.”

  “She must have been in debt up to her pretty ears. Where did she get the thousand?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Think, Luchon.”

  “She never told me.”

  “You’re lying again,” I said. “Think fast, or you’ll be doing your mental homework in MacGruder’s office.”

  Luchon thought. He considered his problem from a variety of personal angles, closing his eyes and sucking at his lip. He was a little man in a big bundle of trouble. The heroics were dead in him now. He would be happier in an oat field in Kansas at this moment. He began to whimper, struggling to set himself up to resist me again. But there was little of his high resolve left now. He had learned to realize that I was not playing little-boy games with him. He could no longer struggle against me.

  “She got the money from Jake West,” he said.

  “She knew Jake that well?”

  “Jake liked Nancy.”

  “And that was all?”

  “What do you mean?” Luchon bobbled his head wearily.

  I shook him up a bit. “You know what I mean, Luchon. You were a hound-dog on her tail, weren’t you? You followed her everywhere, didn’t you? I have a feeling you might have followed her last night, when she went to the Sulky Inn with Nickles Shuba. That would really burn you, Nancy going out again with a crumb like Nickles. You followed her there, didn’t you? Didn’t you?”

  He shook his head weakly. “I guess I did.”

  “You were outside, in the parking lot?”

  “Near the barn. Just sitting there.”

  “With your eyes on the door, watching her?” He began to stir in my hands again. “What did you see, Luchon? Tell me all of it. You saw Jake come out, didn’t you?”

  “I guess it was Jake, all right.”

  “And then what? Where did he go?”

  “He drove off.”

  “Alone?”

  “I couldn’t see the other man.”

  “The other man?” My voice sounded flat and strange in my ears. I was tugging Luchon too close, grasping him too tight, my hands on his throat now. “Did Jake leave in his own car?”

  “A big sedan,” Luchon said.

  “What make?”

  “I couldn’t see. He got in and they drove off.”

  “You couldn’t see who drove it?”

  “Nothing.” Luchon shook his head wearily. “Then Nickles came out of the inn. I was watching the inn, don’t you see? I was mad at Nickles. Jealous, I guess. He came out and started for Jake’s convertible. Then Buffo met him—”

  My hands reached for him again in a reflex gesture of frustration. My muscles strained and ripped as I shook him. It was an effort to hold back my anger any more. “You stupid fool!” I shouted. “Why didn’t you tell this to the police? Don’t you realize that you might have been responsible for Shuba’s death?”

  “I was only thinking of Nancy,” he mumbled. “I was only worried about her, and nobody else. I thought she was tied in with the mess, somehow. I had to protect her.”

  “What did Buffo say to Nickles? Did you hear any part of it?”

  “Only that he would see Nickles later.”<
br />
  “That was all?” I shouted.

  “That was all.” He lifted his dog’s eyes to me, rallying enough strength to grab my arm feebly. “You won’t tell the cops about Nancy?”

  “You’re better than a Boy Scout,” I said. “You’re the original answer to a maiden’s prayer at twilight, Luchon.”

  I dropped him. He sagged and lay still. He was mumbling and moaning, completely broken now, his head in his hands, his spare body racked with torment. The sound of his sobbing filled the empty apartment.

  “Better clear out of here,” I told him.

  But he was not listening. He would sit this way until the shock wore off. He might sit this way until sunup.

  I decided to leave him alone.

  CHAPTER 22

  Down in the lobby, I had a few words with the doorman. He examined Jake West’s picture and nodded over it.

  “You recognize him?” I asked.

  “You bet I do. He’s been in and out of here plenty.” He winked at me and indicated the upper floors with a roll of his eyes, the accepted masculine signal for sex and sin. “For years.”

  “When was he here last?”

  “Week or so ago. The lady moved out the other day.”

  I slipped him a bill and walked back to the far end of the lobby to the phone booth. I dialed Fennisong’s office. He picked up the phone on the first ring.

  “Been waiting for you here.” Fennisong yawned. “For over an hour.”

  “What happened to our man?”

  “Our bird has flown.”

  “Which way?”

  “Out of town. By air. I waited outside the night club and spotted him walking to a big black sedan. Hold it, here’s the license: New York plate VX 76 563. A Cadillac. Our man entered the car and sat at the wheel. He seemed nervous. He left the car several times, walked back to the club canopy and looked inside. He returned to the car. He smoked a lot. Then, a man and a woman left the club. The woman was blonde and quite well built. The man—”

  “How old was the woman?” I interrupted.

  “I wasn’t that close,” said Fennisong. “But she was quite attractive. She and the man started toward the car. Our man got out and began to talk to them. He was excited. The other man ordered him back into the car. Then he spoke to the woman alone for a few minutes. They entered the car. Our man acted as chauffeur. I followed them to LaGuardia Airport. Our man bought a hasty ticket. I checked and found that he boarded a plane for Chicago. That was all. I returned to my office.”