by Kane, Henry
She was through reading. She thrust it at me and said, “See for yourself.”
I was haughty. I said, “I’m not in the habit of reading other people’s mail.”
“I gave you permission, didn’t I? You sure are a wild kind of sociologist, Mr. Finster.”
Haughtily I accepted the letter, and haughtily I read as though I were reading through a pince-nez, and it was heartbreaking. It was a letter from a young man in love to a young woman no longer in love, which always, damn, is heartbreaking. He could not understand, he begged for compassion, he implored for a date, he beseeched that she do not hang up again when he called on the phone.
I returned the letter. I said, “But does your brother know?”
“Why in hell do you keep bringing my brother into this?”
“Because Benny said he threatened.”
She frowned, angrily. “Did Benny forget he got him a job?”
“No. Benny said he threatened, and fired him out of one job — before getting him the new job.”
“Perhaps he did threaten. I don’t know.”
“And perhaps he thinks the affair is still going on.”
“Please, Mr. Finster, I’m in the middle of work and you’re bothering me. As for my brother — I can’t read his mind, can I?”
That left it as moot as it had been before. I felt like a summiteer at a summit conference that had not been priorly prepared by diplomatic agenda — you must go home with egg on your face. I drew my hankerchief and wiped off egg. To save it from being a total loss, I said, “May I use your phone?”
“Be my guest,” she said.
I called Homicide and inquired as to whether Lieutenant Parker were in. Lieutenant Parker was in. I hung up and said, “Thank you very much and goodbye, Miss Finster.”
“I’m Rio,” she said. “You’re Finster.”
“That’s right, isn’t it. Well, goodbye, Miss Rio.”
“Goodbye, Mr. Finster. Goodbye and good luck.”
Chapter Six
DETECTIVE LIEUTENANT Louis Parker, alone in his office except for me, was as gruesomely amiable as a spinster lady at a Friendship Club (over twenty-eight).
“Well, well, Peter, my boy, I must say you’re prompt.”
“I am?” I said.
Louis Parker was alert. He grimaced as a spinster lady unexpectedly pinched in extraordinary site at a Friendship Club (over twenty-eight). “I called you. Or don’t you check back with your office for phone calls?”
“Of course I do, as witness I’m here.”
He lowered black-bristling expressive brows. “Yeah, but are you all here?”
“All, Lieutenant.” I squeezed my face together and shook it. “I’ve had a rather disconcerting morning.”
“Pull yourself together, pal. I do realize it’s pretty early for you.”
“I’m pulled,” I said. “What’s it about, Lieutenant?”
He smiled upon me, a Papa-smile for Junior, and I admit I appreciated it. Detective Lieutenant Louis Parker was a good cop, a fine man, and a valued friend. He was keg-chested, crew-cut, black-haired, sturdy, thick and short, and the stub of a cigar always filled his mouth as capped teeth always fill the mouths of movie stars. He smiled and I sat back, tired but relaxed.
“It’s about Jason Touraine,” he said.
I sat up, tired but no longer relaxed.
“I talked with Mr. Harvey McCormick early today,” he said. “He tells me he spent a long weekend in Chicago and that you were with him. True?”
“Yessir,” I said.
“Routine check, of course. Verification. This Touraine guy worked for him.”
“Scratch him as a suspect,” I said.
“Who said he was a suspect?”
“Any vague notion along that line — scratch. We got back here at nine this morning. What time was Touraine killed?”
“Best we can figure, about four-thirty. He was found at about five.”
“I had breakfast with McCormick at six o’clock this morning in Chicago. A guy can’t fly out of Chicago, find a Touraine here, blast him at four-thirty, leave him at 116th Street and East River Drive, return to the terminal, pick up a flight, and have breakfast with me in Chicago at six.”
“Who, dear boy, in all hell said that he did?”
“Well, you’re asking.”
“All I’m asking is for verification.”
“Well, it’s verified.”
“What are you all steamed up about, kid?”
“Who’s steamed?”
“It’s coming out of your nostrils. You got a special interest in this Touraine thing?”
“As a matter of fact, I have.”
He grunted. “You mean you’ve been retained-like, private?”
“Correct.”
“McCormick?”
“You know I can’t answer that, Louie.”
“Well, he told me he had retained you.”
“That was for the Chicago bit.”
“And what was the Chicago bit?”
“I accompanied him.”
“For what?”
“That’s for him to tell you, Louie.”
“He told me.”
“Then why are you asking me?”
“Verification.”
“Louie, if you question him in front of me, and he talks in front of me, I’ll verify. If he’s lying, I’ll tell you he’s lying. But I won’t go into the facts, that’s for him. And I certainly won’t answer without his being present. If he’s here, and he gives me permission, that’s different.”
He rolled the stump of his cigar from one corner of his mouth to the other. “You’re certainly a stickler, Petie-boy.”
“Aren’t you, in matters of your profession?”
“I am. Okay. Skip. Unimportant. There’s something else that, to me, is much more important. You knew the guy, McCormick tells me.”
“Touraine?”
“Yes.”
“I met him. Once.”
“Pete, you’re a professional. You’re a skilled looker and a little bit you might have listened — about him. I’d like the sum total of your impressions. It’s a break for me that you knew him. I could go days trying to get a line on the guy, collecting impressions that I can get from you at once and in one beautiful hunk.”
“Is that why you talked to the wife? Twice? Once early this morning at her apartment, and then later you picked her up again?”
“That’s precisely why.” He grinned benignly. “Whoever is your client has got you hopping for him, hasn’t he?”
“Um,” I said. “Did you release the wife?”
“Of course. We didn’t intend to hold her. We wanted facts, background, in order to make up our book on this Jason.”
“Was it a gang killing, Louie?”
“In a pig’s eye — gang killing.”
“But the newspapers — ”
“If they make it a feature, they sell their papers.”
“How’s the wife for a suspect?”
“No motive. Just the opposite. No friction. No jealousy. We aren’t lying down on this. We inquired a lot. They were married but each one let the other run around free. She went out with guys, he went out with gals — each with the permission of the other. If you’re going to figure a spouse for a suspect, you’ve got to look for friction. No friction — no motive. Here there was no friction.”
I watched him light his cigar and watched the blue coils of smoke curl upward. The lieutenant and I were going to have to cooperate and it was time for the proffer of my first ploy.
“Louie,” I said, “you want stuff from me, like impressions and such, and I’m going to want stuff from you, because, no matter our methods, we’re both working toward the same end. Agreed that we cooperate?”
“As far as we properly can — yes.”
“Thank you. So … I’ll cooperate first. You may have gone a little bit too easy on the wife. True, when they run free with mutual permission, there doesn’t figure to be frictio
n. But in this case, the woman was in love with a guy, had asked her husband for a divorce, and the husband refused unless he was paid off.”
Parker beamed. He wrinkled his nose, tenderly. But if I had delivered enlightenment it was astoundingly lacking an effect of astonishment. The lieutenant remained placid, smiling endearingly around his cigar. “You know,” he said, “when you go honorable on me, you really go out of character. You sit there like a sweet little boy waiting for a pat on his head from teacher.”
I started to get up.
“Sit down.”
I sat. I covered embarrassment by lighting a cigarette. My well-meant bombshell had spluttered like a sodden firecracker.
“Peter,” he said, “I honestly think you meant to be helpful and I apologize for snide remarks. I love you.”
“Shall we dance?” I said.
“We shall talk,” he said. “First off, I’m sure you have not yet interviewed the lady.”
“You’re the detective.”
“Certain facts would have become evident, had you. She would have imparted those facts and because you are a detective — and a damned good one — you would have known that those facts added up to truth. But I thank you for trying. And we shall cooperate, my friend.”
“Would you begin, dear friend, by imparting those facts to me as proxy for the lady?”
He chomped upon his cigar with relish. “I take it that the guy to whom you referred as being the individual with whom the lady is allegedly in love is one — Johnny Rio?”
“You take it correctly, my lawyer-like lieutenant.”
“Now listen.” He sat forward, spoke kindly but briskly. “The lady, this Karen Touraine, is a young, beautiful, intelligent, cultured college graduate. I don’t know whether you’re acquainted with Johnny Rio, but Johnny Rio is a good-looking, illiterate, hood-type man-about-town with a thin veneer of rub-shouldered polish, but thin. A dame like Karen Touraine figures to go for a guy like Johnny Rio like Lady Godiva would figure to go for a gorilla in knee-pants.”
“I thought I was giving you the inside — ”
“And it was the inside, as we learned from our investigation, but listen me out. Do you know anything about Chez Rio?”
“I certainly do,” I said cockily assertive with silly pride. The guy had pushed me into a stupid corner and I was stupidly trying to fight my way out.
“Then you must know their entertainment policy. They change up their show every two-three weeks.”
“I know, I know,” I said, punching my windbag.
“Well, Karen Touraine has been working there for almost four months. The show changed around her, but she remained. How do you think she managed that?”
“You’re beginning to come to me,” I said, meekly expunging my cigarette.
“The gal is married to a guy who, somehow, does all right for himself, but he’s no staff of support for a wife. She’s a singer and, primarily, she’s on her own when it comes to earning loot. She comes into town about four months ago and auditions at Chez Rio. She’s hired for two-and-a-half a week, and the boss kind of goes overboard for his new singer, a very classy chick. She plays along with him, and, although the show around her keeps changing, she remains at her two-and-a-half a week. The guy’s nuts about her and begins talking about marriage. She plays along, for her steady salary of of two-and-a-half a week. She also plays along at being good, prim, no-go-to-bed unless she’s legally hooked. Johnny eats it up because he feels he’s got himself what the boys call a ‘real decent’ gal. Karen asks for a divorce in order to marry Johnny — knowing her husband as well as she does know him. The husband wants fifty big ones from the prospective husband — which is the kind of deal Johnny Rio can readily understand — only he’s not in a position to cough up fifty big ones, which, of course, he won’t admit to his ladylove. So, he stalls, and the lady keeps on working at the club although she’s looking around for other work, and there’s no friction at all between husband and wife. Are you with me, Peter?”
“I’m ahead of you, Louie.”
“Thanks for trying to help.”
“I was trying,” I said.
“So now let’s have some real help. Fill me in on this Jason Touraine.”
“Fill me in first, Louie. I really don’t know one damned thing about this murder.”
He sat back and re-ignited his reluctantly burning cigar. “For the basic facts, the newspapers, actually, had most of it.”
“Found,” I intoned, “at five in the morning dead in his car at One-hundred-sixteenth Street and East River Drive. Was it his car?”
“Yep.”
“What make?”
“Caddy convertible, this year. Which brings the beanbag back to you. Any idea how come a guy who earns a fast hundred clams a week can afford a six-thousand-dollar car?”
“Okay. My turn. You wanted impression — here’s impression, and then I’ll throw you a fact.”
“First throw me impression.”
“A very handsome son of a bitch. Tall, young, vibrant, green-eyed, slick, assured, smooth-talking, daring — and exciting as all hell to the opposite sex. And I know that last from an expert.”
“Namely?”
“Sorry, but I have to plead the Amendment to that question.”
“Your client?”
“Same Amendment.”
“Funny,” he said, “but I figured your client for a man.”
“Fishing expedition, but no soap. Neither admit nor deny. Same frigging Amendment.”
“I’m ready.”
“Okay. I’m ready for the fact you wanted to throw.”
“It might explain the fancy Caddy on the hundred-dollar-a-week salary.”
“The guy was milking blackmail.”
He shot forward. The cigar took a tilt like a cannon long-range on a bastion. “Who?” he demanded.
“I don’t know.”
“Don’t spar with me on this, Pete. If you know, say you know, and say you don’t want to tell me. It’s important.”
“Why important?”
“Because I’m in the cherchez department on this deal.”
“You figure a dame?”
“So I figure. I might be wrong, of course.”
“Why a dame?”
“Let’s clear the other first, please. Do you know who he was putting the squeeze on?”
“No, I don’t, I swear.”
He looked at me keenly, looked away. “Okay. I’ll accept that.”
“I’ve never lied to you on an important bit, have I, Louie? I may have declined to answer, but I’ve never lied.”
“I said I accepted, didn’t I?” Now the cigar drooped like a flag without wind. “How do you know this blackmail bit was legit?”
“His admission.”
“To you?”
“To another.”
“To whom?”
“Now I must decline to answer.”
“Your client?”
“I decline to answer. Let’s put it this way, Louie. He made this admission to a person to whom he would have no reason to lie, and a person bright enough to know if he was lying, and the person does not think he was lying. I buy the blackmail deal. I advise you to buy it. I don’t know who he was blackmailing, but he was, right now, at the present, here in the East. If it fits with your figures, I’m glad I’m helping.”
“It may fit. It may not.”
“You want to backtrack, suit yourself. Here are some more impressions. They guy was a ladies’ man. The guy was a grifter type who lived off women. Gigolo type, paid off for services rendered. Also a class-type amateur pimp for money-guys on the West Coast where he came from. Now come along, Louie. I’m giving you what you asked for — professional impression. A lady-killer, an easy-money type, the kind of a guy who keeps a legitimate job so that he can have a legitimate job to talk about, but earns his loot on the fringes, way outside of his job. So far, I’ve given you; you haven’t given me. I don’t know how he was killed, I don’t know why you
consider it non-gang, and I don’t know why you’re in the cherchez department. Are we cooperating or have you gone flatfoot and are trying to use me?”
“We are cooperating, Pete.”
“You’ve known me for a long time, beloved. I may hold out a hell of a lot — private, personal stuff involving people I may work for — but I’m the kind of a square who’s dead against mortal sin, and if I had a murderer, I’d hand him to you, I wouldn’t protect him, and you damned well know that.”
He threw away the stump of his cigar, brought out a long new beauty, bit upon it like a sadist-lover, coughed, shrugged, and bounced about in his seat, making room to accomodate infringements upon conscience — something a cop must do any time he heaves up confidential information to a non-badged coworker.
“First of all I’m looking for a friend,” he finally said. “I figure it for a woman — maybe a man — but a friend, someone he trusted.”
“Why?” I said.
“Let me give it to you from the top.”
“I thank you sincerely,” I said.
“He was found in the car with one bullet through his temple. One bullet. Through the temple. Right away that’s not gang stuff. Plus, the bullet, the one bullet, was from a twenty-two. Professional killers don’t use a ridiculous twenty-two. Professional killers don’t depend upon one bullet. Professional killers don’t kill a guy at his own steering wheel with a bullet through the temple. It would be a lot of bullets, of much bigger caliber, and in the back of the head. So we can throw out ‘gangland-style murder,’ can’t we?”
“Yes, I think we can.”
“Now listen hard on this — because it’s important. Our experts tell us, from the powder burns and the rest of their educated voodoo, that the muzzle of the gun was pressed close to the temple before it was discharged. Only someone you trust can get that close, don’t you think?”
“I do.”
“So we’re looking for a friend, someone he trusted. Also a twenty-two — primarily, that’s a ladies’ weapon.”
“So you’re looking for a lady friend.”
“Of course, we may be way out on a cockeyed limb but right now that’s the way we’re thinking. Okay. So much for deduction, such as it may be. For the rest — straight investigation.”
“Gimme,” I said.
