Death of a Dastard (Prologue Books)

by Kane, Henry

  Edwina Strange spread a hand on my thigh, high on my thigh, and I was set aquiver, not by the high-thigh spread, but by the low-sigh whisper that accompanied it. “Sorry,” she whispered, “but that’s not Johnny Rio.”

  “You’re cockeyed.”

  “Baby-doll, on two bourbons?”

  “Four bourbons. Are you loaded?”

  “I’m not drunk, I’m not sober, and that’s not Johnny Rio.”

  “Oh yes it is.”

  “Oh no it isn’t.”

  “Baby-doll,” I said, “it’s better we argue somewhere else.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  IN THE cab on our way to her apartment on East Seventy-ninth, I wrapped up a wrangle of remonstrations with: “I know and you don’t know and it’s simple enough. The guy you saw on Staten Island wasn’t Johnny Rio.”

  “Okay, okay, so what’s the Federal case?”

  “Who was the guy on Staten Island?”

  “Mr. Chambers, I think I’ve already hinted, slightly, that Karen Touraine will never make it as a saint. She’s married but by now you ought to know that doesn’t mean a thing. She’s dated plenty of guys and I happened to fall in on her when she was copping a sneak by a motel on Staten Island. She played it cool and protected the guy and popped up with the first name that came to her, Johnny Rio. So what’s the Federal case? She’s gone out on plenty of sneak dates in her life. She’s even gone out with my boss.”

  “Gil Wade?”

  “He’s my boss.”

  “They were … er … friendly?”

  “Do you know Gil Wade?”

  “I know Gil Wade.”

  “Then you ought to know that they were … er … friendly.”

  “Were you ever … er … friendly with Gil Wade?”

  “It’s none of your business, but yes, I was. When I first came to work for him. As a matter of fact, he helped me furnish my apartment.”

  “You mean he picked the furniture?”

  “I mean he picked up the tab for the furniture.”

  I pulled my brows together. “You must have something on the ball.”

  “Make that plural, Mr. Chambers, and if you’ll be a nice boy, you might find out for yourself, but we weren’t talking about what I’ve got, we were talking about what Karen has got, and one of the things she’s got is a goddamned acquisitive nature. She likes to hang on. Nobody hangs on to Gil Wade. You ought to know that if you know the guy.”

  “Maybe I don’t know him that well.”

  “Then I’m telling you. With Gil Wade, it’s a few trips, a few dips, and he’s out. The guy happens to be in love with his wife. Even sometimes when it’s a long affair — I admit it was a rather long affair with me, long for Gil Wade — it isn’t really a long affair. The guy happens to be in love with his wife. He plays — all you damned men play — but he doesn’t play for keeps because he happens to be in love — madly, jealously in love — with his own wife.”

  “Do you know her?”

  “I met her once at a party the firm gave, at the Waldorf, last June. A very lovely lady, I may add.”

  “Do you know her first name?”

  A grimace narrowed her narrow green eyes. “Now how in hell would I know her first name? This is the boss’s wife, not some chum-bum girl friend of mine.”

  “Well, he might have mentioned it.”

  “Gil Wade doesn’t talk about his wife — to his girl friends. Anything his girl friends learn about his wife — they sort of pull out of him without his knowing he’s being pulled.”

  “How did Karen get to Wade?”

  “I introduced them.”

  “I thought you hated her?”

  “Now look, once and for all, let’s get this straight. She’s a hoity-toity little hypocrite. I wanted you to know that — real full and flush — so I told you. Hate is a powerful word. I don’t hate her, but I sure don’t love her. She always kind of looked with the long nose at me, you know? She was always kind of lording it over, you know? But hate’s too strong — it’s a matter of personality. She even thinks of me as a friend of hers — in that patronizing, she’s-doing-you-a-favor way of hers.”

  “So why did you introduce her to Gil Wade?”

  “She had just got to town. She wanted to meet an attractive man. The guy’s my boss. Our affair was long over. She’s an attractive gal, very attractive. What did I have to lose?”

  “And how did it go?”

  “It went the normal route — for Gil. A few shacks and the bounce.”

  “And how well did she bounce?”

  “Very badly. It burned her ladyship’s hoity-toity hide.”

  The apartment was on the second floor and Gil Wade must have been in the royal flush of first frenzy when he decided to contribute the decorations because the joint was accoutered but regally. I whistled my admiration and Edwina said, “You like?”

  “Like? I love. This is fabulous. Beautiful.”

  “Thank you, kind sir.” She pointed at a bar. “You mix the balls, I’ll change into something comfortable.”

  She left me to live alone in the living room. I made the balls — bourbon for her, Scotch for me — sipped, and moved about, inspecting. There were many interesting items in that room but the most interesting item was attached to the entrance door — a heavy slide-bolt that would have done justice to a steel cell in a state prison.

  I was jiggling the bolt when she came back. One look, and the bolt stopped jiggling, and I started. She was wearing a pink fish-net negligee through the holes of which sharks could have floundered.

  “Mr. Chambers,” she said, “let’s get to my problem.”

  I gaped at the gaping negligee.

  “Honey,” I said, “you’re getting to be my problem.”

  She raised her hands, smiled pirouetted. “Nice?”

  “Just knocks me off my perch.”

  “As long as it doesn’t give you migraine haddock.”

  Piscatorially defeated, I returned to appliances on the real estate.

  “What’s with the heavy-duty bolt?” I said and pointed.

  “That was for protection.”

  “Was?”

  “Was.”

  “Do I smell more of Jason Touraine?”

  “You do. Although he had keys to this place.”

  I worked on that. I also worked on my highball. “I don’t get it,” I said. “If you gave him keys — why the bolt to keep him out?”

  “Please sit down,” she said.

  I sat down. She took her drink and sat opposite. She chose a wide soft love seat. She leaned on one elbow, crossed her legs, and rested slantwise. Part of the fish net fell away and there was a flash of tan-gold all the way up to the ilium. I clung to my glass and sought succor in Scotch.

  “He had us both around his little finger,” she said. “Both Karen and me. She couldn’t divorce him and I couldn’t lose him. If we stood up to him, he could tear us apart. You’re not a girl, Mr. Chambers. You can’t understand what it means.”

  “What what means?”

  “To have a record as a convicted prostitute. The whole works: fingerprints, photographs on file, a convicted prostitute with a prison record. We were kids back there in San Francisco — wild, crazy, flighty — but we weren’t bad, actually; none of us were really bad kids. All right. You grow up. That deal is behind you. And as you grow up, it becomes more and more frightful; it is something dirty, rotten; something you want to forget. In our own silly little ways we carved out some kind of new fresh life — even Karen. Edwina Somerset became Edwina Strange, a successful model in New York, earning one hundred and fifty bucks a week plus bonuses. Karen Tully became Karen Touraine, a chantoosie, picking up a legitimate two and a half a week — snooty, remote, hoity-toity, high-class. Can’t you understand what would happen to us if he talked? — the snickering of girl friends, the disgust of boy friends, the nauseating shame in ourselves, the wanting to hide, to die? I’m sure Karen never dreamed I’d talk to you about this — but damn,
if I don’t talk to somebody I’ll bust.”

  I put aside my drink. I lit a cigarette. I forgot about exposure of tan-gold flesh. I said quietly, “Did he actually threaten?”

  “No, but the threat was always implicit. When all of a sudden he was here in New York, I didn’t know which way to turn, where to run.”

  “And what did you do?”

  “Nothing. He came visiting, smooth as silk. He liked this place. He wanted to use it for dates. He wanted keys. What could I do? Say no?”

  I smoked. I said nothing.

  “Actually, he had that bolt installed,” she said. “When he had a date — oh, he didn’t take advantage, he wasn’t here too often — he’d call me in advance and I’d stay over at a girl friend’s place or at a hotel. The bolt was there so that I couldn’t disturb him even if I wanted to. And vice-versa. When I had company here, I’d slide that bolt for the same reason. Nice, huh? Sweet? Lovely?”

  She shuddered. Then, almost physically, she shook it off. The mischievous smile came back to her face and the shine of tears went out of those strange green eyes. She drank bourbon, stood up, wrapped the fish net about her, laid the glass away. “Come into the bedroom,” she said.

  “Oh no.”

  “But that’s where my problem is.”

  “That’s your problem, not mine.”

  “No, I’m serious.”

  “So am I.”

  “But it’s in there, I tell you.”

  “So bring it out.”

  “I can’t. I wish I could.”

  What in hell did she have in there? A corpse in a trunk? An idiot aunt? A two-headed child? A mummy in a coffin? A prickle of apprehension was cold on my spine. I drank my booze, killed my cigarette, and got to my feet. I brought my glass to the bar, squared my shoulders, and said, “Okay, lead me to it.”

  She led. I followed. A wriggling fish net, going away, is even more entangling than a wriggling fish net coming at you, I decided.

  There was no monstrosity in the bedroom unless you choose to call a huge circular rose-and-orange-covered bed a monstrosity. The carpet was nut-brown, the wood in the room nut-brown, the walls orange, the drapes rose, the bed rose-and-orange; wild as it sounds, a beautiful blend: somebody had exquisite taste, either Edwina Strange or Gilbert Wade.

  “Over here,” she said. “The closet.”

  She opened the door. The closet was large, a room in itself. She snapped on a light and walked into it. I walked in after her, expecting anything. I got nothing more than many clothes, hanging and heaped. She went to a corner, pulled some heaped clothes to the floor, and pointed.

  “This is my problem,” she said.

  It was a safe!

  It was a big, steel, dull-gray, new, half-ton safe; fireproof, weather-proof, and, beyond a scintilla of doubt, Peter Chambers-proof.

  “My legacy,” she said, “from Jason Touraine. He had it delivered one day early in July. Let’s get out of here. No sense hanging around a closet unless you’re a coat or something.”

  She brushed by me. I pulled my stomach in, let her pass, and followed her out. She sat on the bed, opened a drawer of a night table, produced cigarettes and matches, lit up and drew deeply.

  I slid into a nut-brown chair, put my chin in my hand, and sank into a nut-brown study.

  “Are you dead?” she said.

  “I’m in a nut-brown study,” I said.

  “Well, study your brown nuts some other time,” she said. “Now please help me with my problem.”

  Mildly I said, “What’s your problem, ma’am?”

  “Can you open it?”

  “No.”

  “Then I want it out of here.”

  “Why?”

  “Because sooner or later there are going to be cops here. First off, he has keys to this place, so right away I’m in the middle.”

  “How’ll they know the keys are to this place?”

  “They’ll start checking back on him, won’t they? They’ll find out who were his friends and they’ll start checking back on them, won’t they? I was one of his friends and the keys fit here.”

  “So they’ll find the safe. So what?”

  “There are things in there?”

  “So what business is that of yours?”

  “One of those things concerns me.”

  “Just a minute,” I said.

  “Yes?”

  “How come that safe is here? How come it isn’t in his own apartment?”

  “Because of that thing in there that concerns me — I was the lesser risk.”

  “Honey, if you keep talking in riddles, I’ll go right back into my nut-brown study.”

  Impatiently she tamped out her cigarette. “On Karen he had the prison conviction. On me he had the prison conviction plus a roll of wild film. Golden Boy was just the guy to balance the budget. Since he had more on me, I was the lesser risk.”

  “And the film is in there?”

  “So he said.”

  “And you made no attempt to have some expert open that safe?”

  “Oh, man, don’t be crazy. That’s all I’d need. He’d have blown the whistle on me, he’d have sirens going off, on that prostitution thing. And there’s more in that safe. He had a couple of poor bitches right here in New York roped off and hogtied.”

  I put my hands in the air, palms out. “Hold it.”

  “What?”

  “How in hell do you know about these people?”

  She reached for the package of cigarettes, changed her mind, flung it furiously away. “About a week ago I come home from work and I find Karen and Jason here. He’s rip-roaring drunk and boasting like hell. He’d get that way sometimes, boasting, proving himself, impressing others. They were here in the bedroom. The safe was open, and there was a tape recorder going. He had played all his tapes for Karen. I got here on the last one.”

  “Did you hear?”

  “Yes.”

  “What did you hear?”

  “A tape of Jason and a jane making love. Loud and clear.”

  “Did you get a name?”

  “Yes.”

  “What name?”

  “Harriet.”

  “Do you know a Harriet?”

  “No.”

  “So?”

  “He put the stuff back and that was that. This morning when I heard that he was dead, murdered — ”

  “Just a minute.”

  “Yes?”

  “You said there were two women. How do you know?”

  “Because he boasted about — two women. One already paying. The other all set up and ripe.”

  “Did he mention the name of the other woman?”

  “No. Now listen me out, please. If one of them murdered him, fine — do what you’re supposed to do — but cover up for the poor other bastard.” The sheen of tears was in her her eyes again. “I know what it means to carry fear inside of you like some kind of goddamned time bomb. I pity those poor women, I bleed for those two bastards. If neither of them killed him, then you must cover for both — ”

  “And if you killed him?”

  Sharply: “Now cut that out!” More softly: “Mostly, I’m selfish. I want that spool of film. That you must promise me.” She stood up, moved, pacing.

  I went to the phone, looked at the number, memorized it, lifted the receiver, then dropped it.

  “Where were you last night?” I said.

  “Here. Home.”

  “All night?”

  “Yes.”

  “Can you prove that?’

  “Yes.”

  “How?”

  “I wasn’t alone.”

  “Who were you with?”

  She hesitated, caught her lips in a tight pout.

  “Who?” I said.

  The lips softened. The green eyes hardened. “With Gil Wade.”

  “Gil Wade!”

  “You heard me.”

  “I thought that affair was over?”

  “It is.”

  “He slept here?�
��

  “Yes. He came by at about seven o’clock in the evening. He said he was going to stay in town again — ”

  “Again?”

  “He stayed over here Sunday night too. Anyway, at seven last night, since I was going to stay in, he picked up my keys, went out for supper and drinks — ”

  “Alone?”

  “Yes.”

  “What time did he get back?”

  “I don’t know. I was asleep.”

  I wanted to laugh but I didn’t. Of course, if they were squeezed, they would both say they were here, together, at the time of the murder. What with their relationship, whatever it actually was, past or present, it was an alibi that stank to high heaven. I shrugged. It wasn’t my problem. If and when it became a problem it would be a problem for the authorities, not for me. I picked up the receiver. She took hold of my arm.

  “Promise me about that film,” she said.

  “Okay, okay.” I shook her off.

  I called the Mosely Safe and Vault Company on Third Avenue near 60th Street. Saul Frankel, aged seventy, venerable employee of Mosely Safe and Vault, was an acknowledged genius with locks. Aaron Mosely, his employer, was both a friend and client. I got through and asked for Saul Frankel.

  “Sorry,” said the girl at the switchboard. “Mr. Frankel is in Detroit. He’s not expected back until tomorrow morning.”

  “Is Mr. Mosely there?”

  “Yes, sir. Who’s calling?”

  “Peter Chambers.”

  “Just one moment, please.”

  There was the usual ear-splitting grinding of plugs, the usual long silence, then Aaron Mosely said, “Hello, Peter.”

  “Mr. Mosely, may I ask a favor?”

  “Ask away, Peter.”

  “Can I have a safe picked up and delivered to my apartment?”

  There was a pause. Then: “The trucks are all out of course but I expect one of the men to call in. Where’s this safe to be picked up at?”

  I gave him the address. “Second floor. The name is Strange.”

  “All right, then — spell it.”

  “No. That’s the name. Strange. Miss Edwina Strange.”

  “Oh.” A chuckle. “All right, then, Peter. But don’t expect an early delivery. You’ll be last on the list.”