You Find Him, I'll Fix Him

by James Hadley Chase

  I had to wait until half-past eleven o’clock before the call came through. By then I was fit to strangle her.

  There was a waspish note in her voice when she told me that the subscriber was a woman.

  “Okay, so it’s a woman,” I said. “You don’t have to get worked up. It had to be either a man or a woman, hadn’t it? You wouldn’t expect it to be a dog, would you?”

  “You don’t have to shout at me,” she said. “I have no business to give you this information.”

  I counted up to five mentally before I could trust myself to speak, then I said, “Look, let’s have it. This is strictly business. How many times do I have to tell you?”

  She said the subscriber lived at villa Palestra, viale Paolo Veronese, and her name was Myra Setti.

  I wrote down the name and address.

  “Thanks a lot,” I said, staring at the scribble on the pad. “Setti? S-e-t-t-i? Is that right?”

  She said it was.

  Then the nickle dropped.

  Setti!

  I remembered the New York police had believed that Frank Setti, Menotti’s gangster rival, had been responsible for Menotti’s death. Was Myra Setti connected in some way with him — his wife, his sister or even his daughter? Was there some hook up between this woman, Menotti’s murder, Frank Setti and Helen?

  I became aware that my late girl-friend was talking. Her high-pitched voice slammed against my ear-drum, but I couldn’t be bothered to listen to what she was saying.

  I dropped the receiver back on to its cradle, my heart bumping with excitement.

  Setti!

  This might be the clue I had been looking for. I remembered Maxwell had said that Helen was thought to be mixed up in the Menotti killing, and that was the reason why she had come to Rome.

  If Setti had really engineered the killing…

  I decided it might pay off to take a look at the villa Palestra.

  The telephone bell rang. My late girl-friend was possibly wanting to know why I had hung up on her.

  I settled further down in my chair and let the telephone bell ring.

  PART EIGHT

  I

  I was pretty busy for the next two hours.

  I knew by now Chalmers would be back in his New York office and would be waiting impatiently to hear from me. I would have to get some sort of report to him during the day.

  I called the International Investigating Agency and told them to send their best operator around. I said the job was confidential and urgent. They said they would send their Signor Sarti. Then I put a call through to Jim Matthews of the Associated Press. Matthews had been in Rome for fifteen years. He knew everyone who was likely to make news and a few who wouldn’t.

  I said I’d like to have a word with him when he was free.

  “For you, Ed, I’m always free,” he said. “Suppose you buy me a large and expensive lunch and let us talk?”

  I looked at my watch. The time was just after twelve.

  “I’ll meet you at Harry’s bar at one-thirty,” I said.

  “Fine. I’ll be seeing you.”

  I then made a few notes on a pad and did a little thinking, trying to make up my mind how much to tell Chalmers. His wife’s warning bothered me. I could see if I gave him the whole story he wasn’t likely to react favourably to me, and yet, it wasn’t going to be easy to keep much back. I was still brooding on I what I was going to tell him when the front-door bell rang.

  I opened the door to find a short, fat elderly Italian, dressed in a shabby grey suit, standing on my doormat. He introduced himself as Bruno Sarti from the agency.

  At first glance Bruno Sarti wasn’t particularly impressive. He hadn’t shaved this morning; his linen was grubby and he had the beginning of a boil under his right eye. He also carried with him a devastating smell of garlic that poisoned the atmosphere in my room.

  I asked him in. He removed his shabby velour hat to show a balding head and a scurfy scalp and came in.

  He sat on the edge of a straight-backed chair while I went over to the open window and sat on the sill. I felt in need of a circulation of fresh air.

  “I want some information and I want it fast,” I told him. “The cost doesn’t matter. I’d be glad if your agency would put on as many men as they think necessary.”

  His black, blood-shot eyes opened a trifle and he showed me several gold-capped teeth in what he imagined was a smile. It looked to me like the kind of spasm you see on someone’s face when they have a sudden stomach cramp.

  “The information I want and the fact I am your client must be regarded as strictly confidential,” I went on. “You may as well know the police are also investigating the affair, and you’ll have to watch out that you don’t tread on their toes.”

  His so-called smile faded and his eyelids narrowed.

  “We are good friends of the police,” he said. “We wouldn’t want to do anything to annoy them.”

  “You won’t do that,” I assured him. “This is what I want you to do: I want you to find out who were the men friends of an American girl who stayed in Rome for the past fourteen weeks. Her name is Helen Chalmers. I can give you some photographs of her. She stayed at the Excelsior hotel for bout days and then moved to an apartment.” I handed him a number of photographs I had got Gina to send over from our files, as well as the address of Helen’s apartment. “She had a number of men friends. I want all their names and where I can find them. I also want to know what she did with herself during the time she was in Rome.”

  “La signorina died accidentally at Sorrento, I believe?” Sarti asked, looking at me. “She is the daughter of il Signor Sherwin Chalmers, the American newspaper owner?”

  In spite of his unimpressive looks, at least he appeared to keep abreast with the news.

  “Yes,” I said.

  The gold teeth flashed. Obviously he now realized he was in with the big money and that pleased him. He produced a note book and a stub of pencil and made a few notes.

  “I will begin immediately, signor,” he said.

  “That’s the first job. I also want to find out who owns a dark green Renault with this registration number.”

  I handed him a slip of paper on which I had jotted down the Renault’s number.

  “The police tell me there is no such number registered. Your only hope is to watch out for the car and if you spot it either follow it or get a look at the driver.”

  He made more notes, and then he closed his notebook. He looked up and asked, “The death of la signorina was not perhaps accidental, signor?”

  “We don’t know. You needn’t bother your brains about that. Get me this information fast and leave the other angle to the police to handle.” I stood up. “Call me here as soon as you have anything. Don’t wait to give me a written report. I want this job cleared up in a hurry.”

  He said he would do his best, suggested I might like to pay the usual retaining fee of seventeen thousand lire, took my cheque, assured me that he would have something for me before long, and bowed himself out of the apartment.

  I opened another window, and then left the apartment myself to keep my date with Matthews.

  I found him drinking Scotch and crushed ice at Harry’s bar: a tall, thin, hard-faced man with grey, steady eyes, a hooked nose and a jutting jaw.

  We had a couple of drinks, and then went into the restaurant. We began our meal with bottarga, which is a kind of caviar made of mullet roes, followed by polo in padella or chicken cut up and cooked with ham, garlic, marjoram, tomatoes and wine. We talked of this and that and enjoyed the meal. It wasn’t until we were eating the famous Roman cheese, ricoita, sprinkled with cinnamon, that I got down to business.

  “I want some information from you, Jim,” I said.

  He grinned at me.

  “I’m not such a mug as to think you bought this meal for me because you love me,” he returned. “Go ahead - what is it?”

  “Does the name of Myra Setti mean anything to you?”

&n
bsp; His reaction was immediate. The pleased, relaxed expression on his face slipped away. His eyes became intent.

  “Hello, hello,” he said. “Now this could be interesting. What makes you ask that?”

  “Sorry, Jim, I’m not giving reasons. Who is she?”

  “Frank Setti’s daughter, of course. You should know that.”

  “The gangster?”

  “Oh, come on, you’re not all that wet behind the ears.”

  “Don’t be superior. I know something about Setti, but not much. Where is he right now?”

  “That’s something I’d like to know myself. He’s somewhere in Italy, but just where he’s holed up I don’t know and the police don’t know either. He left New York about three months ago. He arrived by boat at Naples, and registered with the police, giving the hotel Vesuvius as an address. Then he vanished, and the police haven’t been able to trace him since. All we know is that he hasn’t left Italy, but just where he’s got to, no one knows.”

  “Not even his daughter?”

  “She probably does, but she isn’t talking. I’ve had a word with her. She’s lived in Rome for the past five years, and she says her father hasn’t made contact with her; not even written to her.”

  “Tell me something about Setti, Jim.”

  Matthews leaned back in his chair.

  “You wouldn’t like to buy me a brandy, would you? Seems a pity not to finish such a good meal correctly.”

  I signalled to the waiter, ordered two large Stocks, and when they arrived, I offered Matthews a cigar I had been keeping on ice for such an occasion.

  He examined it dubiously, bit off the end and set light to it. We both watched it burn a little anxiously. When he had satisfied himself that I hadn’t sold him a pup, he said, “There’s not much I know that you don’t know about Setti. He was boss of the Bakers’ and Waiters’ Union. He’s a tough and dangerous thug who stops at nothing to get his own way. He and Menotti were sworn enemies, both of them wanting to be the head man. You probably know that Menotti had a load of heroin planted in Setti’s apartment. He then tipped off the Narcotic Squad, who moved in, grabbed the load and arrested Setti. But it was a clumsy job, and Setti’s attorney didn’t have much trouble in shooting holes in the D.A.’s case. Setti was found not guilty, but there was such a yell from the press, who were gunning for him, that he was later charged as an undesirable alien and deported. He had always kept his Italian nationality, so the Italian authorities couldn’t stop him from landing here. They were busy trying to find some excuse to get rid of him when he vanished.”

  “I hear the police think he engineered Menotti’s killing.”

  “That’s more or less certain. Before he left, he warned Menotti he would fix him. Two months later, Menotti was killed. You can bet your last buck that Setti arranged it.”

  “How did it happen? Didn’t Menotti take the threat seriously?”

  “He certainly did. He never moved a yard without a bunch of gunmen surrounding-him, but Setti’s killer got him in the end. Menotti made a fatal mistake. He used to go to an apartment once a week regularly to spend the night with his girlfriend. He thought he was safe in there. His boys took him there; they searched the apartment. They waited until the girl arrived, then, after Menotti had bolted himself in, they went home. In the morning, they arrived outside the door, identified themselves and escorted Menotti back to his home. On this particular night, they went through the usual routine, but when they came to collect Menotti the following morning, they found the door open and Menotti dead.”

  “What about the girl? Who was she?”

  Matthews shrugged.

  “No one seems to know. There was no sign of her when they found Menotti and no one has seen her since. She didn’t live at the apartment. She was there waiting for Menotti when he and his boys arrived. None of them ever got a look at her. She would stand looking out of the window while they searched the apartment. All they can say is that she was a blonde with a good shape. The police couldn’t trace her. They thought she must have let the killer in, because the door wasn’t forced. I think it’s pretty certain she sold Menotti out.”

  I brooded over this for a moment, then asked, “Do you know a big, broad-shouldered Italian, with a white zigzag scar on his face whose first name is Carlo?”

  Matthews shook his head.

  “He’s a new one on me. Where does he fit in?”

  “I don’t know, but I want to find out. If you ever get a line on him, Jim, will you let me know?”

  “Oh, sure.” He tapped the ash off his cigar. “Look, tell me, what is all this sudden interest in Setti about?”

  “I can’t go into that right now, but if I turn up anything that you can use, I’ll let you know. Sorry, but that’s as far as I can go at this stage.”

  He pulled a face.

  “I hate a guy going secretive on me,” he said, then shrugged. “Well, okay, after all, the lunch wasn’t so bad.” He pushed back his chair. “If you haven’t any work to do this afternoon, I have. Anything else you want to know before I get back to the treadmill?”

  “I don’t think so, but if I do think of anything, I’ll call you.”

  “That’s the idea. Don’t be scared to pick my brains.” He got to his feet. “You don’t happen to know where Setti’s hiding, do you?”

  “If I did, I’d tell you.”

  He shook his head sadly.

  “Yeah, I know: like I’d tell my wife my secretary has a chest like Jane Russell. Well, so long, handsome. If I don’t see you before then, I’ll be at your funeral.”

  I watched him go, then for the next ten minutes, I turned over in my mind what he had told me. I hadn’t learned a great deal, but what there was of it had been worth the money I had paid out on the lunch.

  II

  By the time I had got back to my apartment, I had mapped out in my mind what I was going to tell Chalmers. My best plan I told myself, anyway for the moment, was to be as noncommittal as I could: there were angles to this business that had to be investigated before I could even think of giving Chalmers a glimmer of the truth.

  I left the Lincoln outside the building and hastily climbed the private staircase to my apartment. As I was walking down the passage, I saw the figure of a man loitering outside my front door.

  My heart skipped a beat when I recognized the short, broad-shouldered form of Lieutenant Carlotti.

  He turned at the sound of my footfalls and gave me a long, steady stare that was meant to be disconcerting and succeeded in being disconcerting.

  “Hello, Lieutenant, you haven’t been waiting long, have you?’’ I said, trying to sound breezy.

  “I have only just arrived, he said. “There was something I wanted to ask you.”

  I fetched out my latchkey, opened the front door and stood aside.

  “Come on in.”

  He walked into the lounge the way an undertaker walks into the room where the body is laid out. He placed himself with his back to the window so that, if I faced him, the full light from the window would fall on my face.

  I wasn’t willing to give him this advantage, so I went over to my desk that stood in a corner out of the light and sat on it, making him turn to face me.

  “What’s bothering you, Lieutenant?” I asked, lighting a cigarette and trying to keep calm.

  He looked around, found a chair that would put him in fine with me and sat down.

  “I regret it is now no longer possible to advise the Naples coroner that la Signorina Chalmers’s death was accidental,” he said. “There are several points that are suspicious. We intend to make a full investigation.”

  I kept my face expressionless.

  “And so… ?” I said, meeting his cold, searching stare.

  “La Signorina had a number of men friends,” he said. “We find she has been free and easy with her favours.”

  “That’s very tactfully put, Lieutenant. You’re telling me she led an immoral life?”

  He nodded.


  “I am afraid so.”

  “That is something Chalmers won’t welcome. You’re sure of your facts?”

  He made an impatient movement.

  “Of course. We think it is more than possible that one of her men friends killed her. This is now a murder investigation. I have already collected the names of a number of men she knew. Your name is among them.”

  “Are you suggesting I had immoral relations with her?” I said, forcing myself to meet his eyes. “Because if you are, I’ll take a lot of pleasure in suing you.”

  “I am making no suggestions, signor. You knew her. I am trying to clarify the position. We feel satisfied that a man she knew killed her. Perhaps you would be kind enough to help me. Can you please tell me where you were on the day of her death?”

  This was a question I had been waiting to be asked for what seemed a long, long time.

  “Do you think I killed her?” I asked in a voice I scarcely recognized as my own.

  “No, I don’t think so. I am making a list of all the names of the men who knew her. Against each name, I am putting the whereabouts of this man at the time of her death. In this way, I shall save a considerable amount of time. I need only investigate those men who can’t account for their movements at that time.”

  “I see.” I drew in a long, slow breath. “You want to know where I was four days ago?”

  “If you please.”

  “That won’t be difficult. It was the day I began my vacation. I had intended to go to Venice. I forgot to book a room and, finding I had left it too late, I stayed here, working on my novel. The following morning…”

  “I’m not interested in what happened on the following morning,” Carlotti said. “I just want to know what happened on the 29th.”

  “Okay. I was right here working on my novel. I worked all the afternoon and evening up to three o’clock the following morning. I didn’t move out of here.”

  He looked down at his highly polished shoes.

  “Perhaps someone called on you?” he asked hopefully.

  “No one came near me, because I was thought to be in Venice.”