Death of a Dastard (Prologue Books)

by Kane, Henry

  I waited for almost an hour and then the good lieutenant came, strutting sturdily, triumphant, perspiration on his ruddy face, an oblong leather box in his hand. He laid the box on the desk, pulled a handkerchief, and wiped his face.

  “Okay,” he said. “That’s done.”

  “What’s done?”

  “Finished. She’s booked.”

  “For what?”

  “For what in hell do you think?” He put the handkerchief away. He settled into his desk chair. He said, “Thanks for the cooperation. Your side of the street clinched it.”

  “My side — ”

  “The tapes we found in her bag. At first, I admit, I was sore. I thought that you had dug them up and made her a present, but when she confessed that she had swiped them — you were back in business with me. What do you want to know? You’ve got a right.”

  I sat down. I said, slowly, “All I want to know, Lieutenant, is what the dickens this is all about.”

  “Open the box.” He pointed and I looked at it more closely. It was of expensive cocoa-brown grained leather, about eight inches long, four inches wide, and two inches high. I reached, hesitated. “It’s okay,” he said. “It’s all been processed. Open the box.”

  I opened the leather case. It had a red velvet lining. It contained a custom-made, silver-plated .22 caliber revolver with a pearl handle. It was a lovely little job. I took it out and examined it. It was fully loaded except for one chamber from which a cartridge had been discharged. I returned the revolver to its velvet cradle. I said, “Is that the baby?”

  “That’s the baby. Confirmed by Ballistics.”

  “Where’d you find it?”

  “We didn’t find it.” He brought out a cigar and lit up. “We were looking in the wrong part of town. A counter-girl found it, a gal working in a place called the Heavenly Kingburger — ”

  “Oh no!” I groaned.

  He beamed. “Oh yes! She saw it stuck behind a steam pipe in the ladies’ room there. She opened it and when she saw what was in it she called in the cop on the beat. He brought it in. It turned out to be our murder weapon. A check showed it belonged to Mr. Harvey Everest McCormick, duly licensed.”

  “When was this, Louie?”

  “Late this afternoon.”

  “Any prints?”

  “None on the case. Smudges. That kind of grained leather doesn’t take prints too good. But we got two gorgeous impressions off that pearl handle. Pearl handles take and hold.”

  “So?”

  “We picked up McCormick at his office and brought him in. This was at about six o’clock. The fingerprints weren’t his, and we knew from you he had been out of town at the time of the murder. But we questioned him anyway and we held him for a while. We wanted him out of the way.”

  “Why?”

  “We had become curious about his wife.”

  “Why?”

  “We had a tip from a waiter in a joint downtown called Pierga’s. He told us that Mrs. McCormick had been there on Monday night with a guy who looked like the picture of the dead guy in the papers, and that she’d been there before with the guy. If that was true — then she had lied to us. We were looking for a woman, remember? Of course, she needn’t have been that woman. She may have gone out with the guy and held it out on us because of fear and stuff — you know, woman psychology. But we started a check, quiet-like — mostly into her background, what kind of a woman she was. Now when this gun thing popped — with her available to the murder weapon — our investigation was still quiet but it sure got active.”

  “So you hung on to Harvey McCormick.”

  “Mostly to keep him from cluttering the works. We questioned him about the gun — when he had seen it last. We got his story on that — and she’s corroborated that story fully. On Friday morning, in their bedroom, he had cleaned it and left it on the dresser.”

  “They have separate bedrooms.”

  “This was in her bedroom. They must sleep together sometimes.”

  “Okay, okay, Lieutenant.”

  “He had cleaned it, he had left it on the dresser to make a phone call. She had put it back into the case and had put it into the top drawer of the dresser. In her bedroom.”

  “What’s so unusual about that, Lieutenant?”

  “Nothing unusual. As a matter of fact, he owned two guns, both in his name. One was kept in his bedroom — one in hers. But remember that this gun — the murder gun — was right there in her bedroom in the top drawer of the dresser.”

  “Yes. So?”

  “We kept him here while I went up there with three of my people, one a fingerprint expert, and, of course, photos of the prints off the gun. She wasn’t at home. Her secretary told us she was up at your place. In her bedroom we took prints off some of her personal things — toothpaste tube, deodorant, perfume flask. It was a cinch. Those were her prints on the gun. I left one of my people at the house — so that the secretary wouldn’t call to warn her — and we went to get her at your place. We nabbed her coming out” — his grin grew wide — ”with a knapsack full of motive. That’s it.”

  I put flame to a cigarette and blew smoke at the match. I said, “Do you have a confession?”

  “Not yet. She’s battling. She’s told us what she said she told you at your apartment. Well, that story fits fine. And when she fits a little more truth into it — which, with persuasion, I’m sure she shall — it’ll be a confession.”

  “Is Harvey McCormick with her?”

  “He was for a while, but then we cut him out. He knows you’re here and he’s outside waiting for you. He’s through here. She also has her lawyer now. Nothing’ll help her, I’m afraid. It’s ironclad.”

  “Is it?” I smoked. I thought about it. Good it wasn’t.

  “Oh now, come on,” he said deprecatingly. “A rather important woman, a hell of a rich woman, a married woman, is having an affair with a well-hung little pip-squeak who starts blackmailing — ”

  “Who said he’d started blackmailing?”

  “You did, pal. You yourself told me he was milking blackmail — ”

  “No, no,” I said. “Not from her. Somebody else.”

  “Who?”

  “Not her. Let’s leave it at that. As a matter of fact, I’m pretty sure he wasn’t blackmailing Madeline McCormick at all — not yet. I’m pretty sure she never paid him a cent.”

  Unruffled he said, “Doesn’t make a damn of a difference. Le’s play it your way and let’s do a kind of re-enactment of Monday night — her very own version — with a couple of bits of truth stuck in — our version.”

  “Go,” I said.

  “They come home at about one o’clock from Pierga’s. They drink it up a little more and they hit the hay. They make love, as the autopsy showed. Okay. Now, let’s say, he starts putting the boots to her. He starts talking about needing money, wanting money — you know, the pitch. He may even talk about the tapes he’s collected. They get into an argument, discussion — call it what you will — and then, in the excitement, he keels, just like she said. Okay, she dresses him — does all like she said — but she takes that leather case out of her dresser drawer.”

  “You don’t have an admission on that, do you?”

  “No, sir. No admission. But as I said we’re filling in the little concealments in her own story, kind of rounding it out into the full truth. Okay. She puts him into his car, shoots him through the temple, and she’s rid of him. She walks up to that Heavenly Kingburger — just like she said she did — goes to the ladies’ room, stuffs her package behind the steam pipe, and makes her call just like she said she did. Then suddenly it hits her that the man she’s reported as dead is right there in his car outside her house and that can be a link to her. So she goes back, gets into the car, drives it up to One hundred and Sixteenth Street, takes a cab back to, let’s say, Seventieth Street or so, walks the rest of the way home, and there you have it. It’s all her own story with just a few little touches added. I’m sure she’ll add those
little touches herself, given time. Any rebuttal, my friend?”

  “I think there are some weaknesses.”

  “Sorry, but I don’t think there’s one.”

  I puffed, inhaled, got rid of my cigarette. “What about prints on the car?”

  “None of hers and it didn’t figure there would be. They might happen on the door handles and on the steering wheel. We didn’t get them. We got lots of smudges. That figures too. Others touched those door handles and others touched that steering wheel — the people who found him — that tight little knot of nosy-bodies who report the finding of a dead man mob-jobbed in a motor vehicle. Those kind of ghouls climb all over the place before the cops come. They sometimes strip the car, they sometimes clip the valuables right off the body of the deceased.”

  “Yes, yes,” I said. “I’m only punching for holes.”

  “I want you to.”

  “Let’s get down to fundamentals. Why should she kill the guy before he starts the blackmail and while the material for the blackmail still exists?”

  “Easy.” He bit into the cigar, tilted it, puffed, took it out of his mouth. “There are certain people, certain temperaments — and she is one of that temperament — who kill first and worry later, and in this case there wasn’t much to worry about. She’s in a bad bad jam. Once he’s dead, she’s out of her bad bad jam — and what’s left? Some tapes are left. Without him, of what use are those tapes? They are records of love-making between a guy and a gal. Of what use are they to anyone else? The gal’s name is Madeline — so what? Who knows? Who cares? Somebody finds those tapes, so they listen to some cozy dialogue, so what? After they get their laugh, they wipe them clean, and they’ve got themselves a fine little tape recorder and a nice set of blank tapes for their own use. Think about it, Pete.”

  “I’m thinking.”

  “Blackmail has to be pointed and pointed by the blackmailer. Without him, his material is junk, casual meaningless stuff, a laugh to anyone else.” He puffed again, smiled for me. “Of course, if I were in her spot, I’d do whatever reasonable to pick up the leftovers. For instance, I’d hire a smart private eye, a guy I trusted, to snoop around for me, without actually telling him anything. Did she hire you, Pete?”

  So now I smiled for him. “Going along with your hypothesis, a smart private eye wouldn’t tell a smart public cop if the smart private eye were a smart private eye?”

  “Are you a smart private eye, pal?”

  “I’m stupid,” I said. “Let’s get along to another weakness.”

  “Alleged weakness. I knocked your first one for a loop.”

  “This one is about the murder weapon. Would she stow it, fingerprints and all, in a place where, sooner or later, somebody’s bound to find it? In its leather case, yet?”

  “She’s afraid to go back for it. She’s afraid to be seen in that Heavenly Kingburger again. She’s got guilt on her. She’s scared. She’s hoping somebody finds it and keeps it. It’s a pretty little gun.”

  “Why would she put it there in the first place?”

  “Pete, you’re really flipping around at the windmills now. This isn’t a professional killer. This is a woman in a state of extremis — frantic, frenzied, without time to think it out. She’s just shot the guy. The gun is hot. She wants to drop it, anywhere, the sooner, the quicker, the better. It’s a woman who has been drinking, it’s a woman who has had a night of love-making, it’s a woman who’s been hit with a blackmail blast, it’s a woman who has killed. It’s a woman who is now a desperate animal — not a calm, cool, thinking creature. Sure, later, the normal intelligent thinking apparatus gets back into action and the flaws of operation become evident. Once more I say — at that time it’s smart to hire a smart private richard. Same question, kid. Repeat. Did she hire you?”

  I stood up.

  “Cut,” I said.

  “There’ll be no cut when you’re served with a subpoena, Peter. At a trial, under oath, you’ll tell the truth, and you’re the one, you won’t lie. And it’ll fit right square with the opening statement of the District Attorney — that a woman in that spot — a murderer — would figure to hire a smart private operator to mop up after her. Did she hire you, Pete?”

  “I’ll answer that, at a trial, under oath, under subpoena.”

  “Are you wise to hold out now, Peter? Or stupid?”

  “I told you before — I’m stupid.”

  He grinned, rose, laid his cigar away, entwined the fingers of both hands and snapped them back until the knuckles cracked. “So? What do you think of our case, pal?”

  “Honestly,” I said. “I don’t know.”

  Outside, in the anteroom, Harvey McCormick was seated on a hard bench, his long legs crossed, one foot oscillating like a metronome gone haywire. He jumped up, took my arm, and we went into the street together. The air was fresh, invigorating.

  “What do you think?” he said.

  “Not good,” I said.

  “She wants you to help, to do whatever you can.”

  “What the hell can I do, Harvey?”

  “Think. Think! You know all of it. She told me you know all of it. Do whatever you think best. The lawyer — Phil Kramer — he’ll be coming to the house when he’s finished here. You two can work together. I’ll be home. Call me, come over, whenever you wish, any time, all night. Please try, won’t you?”

  “Of course I’ll try.”

  “Thank you, Peter.”

  I helped him into a cab.

  “May I drop you somewhere?” he said.

  “No, thanks,” I said.

  The cab went away.

  Another cab came.

  It was one of the tiny ones. I folded into it.

  “Hotel Quilton,” I said, my spine curled, my chin between my knees.

  He shot forward and I was tossed back as we rushed into the night.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  SHE WAS wearing sky-blue satin toreadors, sky-blue open-toed spike heels, and a sky-blue satin sleeveless blouse. It was the kind of lounging costume that made you want to lie right down with her and lounge. It would have been effective on any normally-shaped female. On Barbara Hines it was somewhat more than effective: it was slightly catastrophic. Her blue eyes were shining like the blue satin in which she was sheathed, her golden hair gleamed in a new and intricate hair-do, and as she came toward me, it was too much. I backed off but I did not back far. She entwined her soft arms about my neck, moved her pliant body against my body (and kept it subtly moving), and whispered at my ear, “Thank you. Thank you so much. You’re the sweetest damned guy in the world.” Then the moist mouth was upon my mouth and the warm body pressed further upon my rigid body but I remained as inviolate as a monk. The arms remained around me but now the head cocked back and the blue eyes bore into mine.

  “What’s with you?” she said. “What’s wrong?”

  “I’m sick,” I said.

  “You mean sick — like you go for boys?”

  “No,” I said.

  “You mean sick, physically sick? There’s something the matter with you?”

  “No,” I said.

  “Then what the hell?” The arms slid from my neck and dropped to her sides. I missed them.

  “It’s a sickness of scruples,” I said. “I can’t make it with another guy’s girl.”

  “Fine,” she said. “I dig that sickness. I’m sick like that too. I can’t make it with another girl’s guy. So what’s that got to do with you and me?”

  “Ah, come on,” I said.

  “Where we going, baby?”

  “Harvey McCormick,” I said.

  “Who he?” she said.

  “He’s the sponsor. He’s the guy that imported you into this town. He’s the guy that’s laying out the loot. He’s the guy …”

  She just stood there and stared at me, her mouth open, one eyebrow raised. Then she said, as in wonder: “And I honestly thought this was something serious.”

  “To me it’s serious. I told you, I�
��m sick.”

  “Harvey McCormick,” she said. “Why, I wouldn’t have him if he came with a million — ”

  “He does.”

  “Man, you’re so far off your rocker you’re sitting square on the slats of the porch. Harvey McCormick! That guy leaves me colder than an igloo up in Lapland. Harvey McCormick! You sure picked a winner for me, didn’t you? That guy’s a creep, a young fogey, a bore, a frozen fish. Why, that guy’s so square, he’s a double square; he’s a cube; he’s octagonal. Come with me, little man.”

  She took my hand and led me into the bedroom, which, in itself, was different. Generally, into bedrooms, I do the leading.

  “Furthermore,” she said, “Harvey McCormick is a married man. I’ve never gone out with a married man in my life.”

  She released my hand, opened the drawer of a vanity table, and brought out a Savings Bank passbook.

  “Look,” she said.

  I looked. There was a fresh deposit of ten thousand dollars. It could not have been much fresher. The deposit had been made yesterday, Tuesday.

  “The guy used to come into Club Intimo and talk to me,” she said. “He was a nice man, he didn’t try to take any liberties, he talked a lot about himself, but he also talked about me. He told me I didn’t belong there, I belonged in New York. I went along with it — other nice men enjoyed playing big-shot impresario. I told him I was afraid to take the chance — in the small-time I knew I could get along. Once I told him I’d go to New York if I had ten thousand bucks behind me — enough to keep me eating for a couple of years. All right. I won’t bore you with all that nonsense table-talk in night clubs.”

  “You’re no baby,” I said. “Didn’t you figure he was operating with an angle?”

  “At first, yes. After a while, no.”

  “But the guy was a business man and I don’t mean showbiz man.”

  “I agree. Once I ruled out the angle deal, I just figured him for a big-mouth guy who liked to talk when he was drinking. But when he came out Saturday, I realized I was wrong. Hip characters, like me, like you — we’re always looking for the angle. Well, this guy is just a nice man without an angle — a rich man — who could do a good turn for a girl in whom he had confidence. Maybe he likes it for his ego. Maybe, one day, when I’m a big star — and I will be — he’ll like to be able to say he gave me my start, and I’ll sure back him up on that. Anyway, he laid out the ten gees. No strings, no nothing, not even a note. He gave me a check for ten thousand dollars — and I’m here.”