by Anthony Rome
“Nimmo? Never carries one. Guns scare him. That’s why I had to send Catleg along with him.”
“All right. So what kind of gun does Catleg—”
“Dammit!” Langley growled. “I want answers from you, not more questions!”
“It might help me answer,” I pointed out softly, “if you tell me what these two characters look like.”
Jules Langley eyed me for a moment. “We’ll let that one go right now. Maybe you don’t know about them. But you do know about that daisy pin. No question about that any more. This is the last time I ask you polite. Where is it?”
I shook my head. “I’d be dumb to tell you. As soon as you have that pin I’m dead.”
Oscar slugged me with his fist this time. I saw it coming and moved my head. But not enough. His hard knuckles caught my right eye, I sagged back against the wall. My head spun, then cleared. The flesh over the bruised bone around my eye began to swell.
“Wise guy!” Oscar rasped. “Go on bein’ a wise guy. I’ll bust your head open for you!”
I straightened and looked at Langley, saying nothing. Both guns were still leveled at my stomach.
“No,” Langley said. “That wouldn’t work, would it, Rome? You’re a tough one. And you know you’re gonna die anyway. But there’s ways and ways of dying. I give you about fifteen minutes of taking some of the things we ban do to you. Fifteen minutes. Then you’ll decide to tell me about that pin and go out the easy way. We’ll start with taking your eyes out with a penknife. It gets worse after that.” Sweat trickled down my spine. He meant it. It would mean no more to them than drowning Ruyter in the bathtub had.
I sucked in a ragged breath and nodded. “Okay. The pin’s in my office.”
Langley shook his head, his sour face mean and knowing. “Nuts. The tough ones like you don’t quit that easy. You’re lying to gain time. You gotta get your dose of pain first. When I see you’re soft enough, I’ll know you’re telling the truth.”
He flicked a glance at Oscar. “Get the adhesive tape from the bathroom. We tie him first.”
Oscar nodded and started for the open bathroom door.
Langley motioned with his head at a heavy ladderback chair beside the sofa. “Sit down there, Rome.”
I came away from the wall slowly, moving toward the chair.
Oscar went through the bathroom door and out of sight.
Langley’s eyes and gun stayed on me as I moved toward the chair. But, for a few scant seconds, there was only the one pair of eyes. And only the one gun.
I snapped my arms down as I jumped sideways toward the sofa. The roar of Langley’s gun filled the room. I felt the bullet tug the back of my jacket as the tiny automatic fell out of my sleeve into my waiting hand. He was bringing his gun around for another shot when I fired. The automatic in my hand made a thin snapping sound.
A short .22 slug doesn’t pack much penetration power. But the range was very close. The bullet broke the bridge of Langley’s nose and drilled in. Blood welled out, drenching the lower half of his face. He fell over with a gurgling scream, choking on the blood. The gun spilled from his limp fingers.
I spun toward the bathroom as Oscar came out of it. He was still gripped by surprise, trying to understand what was happening, when I shot him. The bullet got him in the mid- section. But he was farther away than Langley had been. And with the massive build of his torso, hitting him in the body with a little .22 slug was like trying for an elephant with a deer rifle. It hurt him plenty. But he didn’t go down, and he didn’t drop his gun.
I snapped the next shot at his face. But by then the pain had shocked him out of his surprised stupor, and he was moving fast. I missed, and then I was all out of surprises. My little weapon jammed on the next trigger pull.
Dropping the useless gun, I got one foot on the cushions of the sofa and vaulted over its back, coming down in a low crouch behind it. Oscar’s gun blasted, the slug ripping through the sofa to slash into the floor by my knee.
I scrambled away desperately, reached the bedroom door in a crouch, seized the knob, and opened it. I lunged through, slamming the door shut as Oscar fired again. The bullet tore through the door panel and whined past my ear.
My eyes swept past the closed windows of the bedroom with their drawn blinds and fastened on a tall floor lamp with a brass stand about four feet high. I leaped for it and grabbed it with both hands, ripping its plug out of the wall socket.
Oscar kicked the door open and came charging through, his gun swinging in an, arc as he searched for me. I twisted around and swung the long brass lampstand like a baseball bat.
The heavy metal base of the stand caught him square in the middle of the forehead and knocked him back against the wall. There was the sound of splintering bone as the metal base caved in his skull. He slid down the wall and settled on the floor in an unwieldy heap that had no more life to it than a big bag of gravel.
I bent and snatched up his gun, eased nervously through the doorway into the living room, my finger taut across the trigger.
But it was all over.
Jules Langley was dead, sprawled face down in a spreading pool of his own blood that was being rapidly absorbed by the thick nap of the carpet . . .
I sat on the sofa for what seemed like a long time before I stopped shaking all over. The feeling of nightmarish dizziness took longer to go away. My clothes were drenched with perspiration and plastered to my skin.
When I finally shoved up off the sofa, my legs felt leaden, their muscles feeble, as though I’d just finished a crosscountry sprint.
I started toward the bathroom but changed my mind as I remembered what was in there. Finding the kitchen, I turned on the cold-water spigot and stuck my head under it. When I’d had enough of that, I washed my hands and wrists and gulped down a full tumbler of cold water.
There was a mirror on the wall behind the sink. I looked lousy in it. The flesh around my eye was puffed and was turning purple. The side of my nose was swollen and showed a livid bruise. I took off my jacket and looked at the bullet holes in the back of it.
When I sat down again on the living-room sofa, I was finally beginning to think clearly.
I was in deep. Deeper than deep. I couldn’t just walk away from this and leave it for someone else to find. My fingerprints were all over the place. My visit to Ruyter’s basement workshop, asking the florist for Langley’s address, plus a lot of other things, tied me to the three dead men in that bungalow.
I could level with the cops. Tell them in detail exactly how it had happened from the start. Maybe they would get to believe me after a while. But that meant I’d have to admit holding back information after Turpin’s murder. The cops could manage to make some kind of charge against me stick if they tried. They’d be in a mood to try.
I’d gotten in this deep because I’d tried to protect Rudolph Kosterman and his family. Not out of altruism. I didn’t kid myself about that. Kosterman was the big- client who could lead to more big clients. I’d smelled all those fat fees waiting for me, and I’d stepped into a hole.
Well, the situation had changed. I was willing to let go of Kosterman now if it was the only way to save my own skin. But now I couldn’t let go. Now I needed Kosterman’s help as much as he needed mine. Maybe more.
I used the phone to call Kosterman’s home. It didn’t matter now whether the cops later traced the call or not. The butler answered and got Kosterman for me.
“I was hoping you’d call, Rome,” Kosterman said when he came on. “I tried to reach you at your office today. Several times.”
“I’ve been kept busy,” I said, “with your problems.”
“That’s what I called you about. You can forget all about my problems. I don’t have them any more. Except that the people I love most for some reason seem to be afraid to tell me what’s bothering them. But that’s over with, too. I believe the check I sent you should cover any work you’ve done for me.”
Something cold and hard formed in the pit of my
stomach. “Come again?” I muttered.
“What’s the matter? Can’t you hear me?”
“I hear you, Mr. Kosterman. I just don’t understand you.”
“I hired you,” he said impatiently, “to find out what was troubling Diana. Well, I’ve found out.”
“How?”
“Darrell has told me. He’s been restless and unhappy, and he admits he’s taken it out on Diana.”
“The business about not feeling like his own man because he works for his father-in-law?”
“Yes,” Kosterman said. “If you knew, why didn’t you tell me? Oh, well . . . it’s better this way—Diana and Darrell telling me themselves. They dropped by my office together this evening just before my wife came by to pick me up. They told me, and we’re all feeling better as a result. I think Darrell is making a mistake, but I can certainly understand his feeling the way he does. He’s learned enough about selling development houses to make a try on his own. And of course I’ll help when he’ll let me.”
“So everybody’s happy now? Including your daughter?”
“Sure. Confession is good for the soul, they say. And—”
“Did she tell you about the daisy pin?”
“Yes. She told me she lost it. It was ridiculous of her not to tell me before. There’s nothing so upsetting about that. I’ll call the insurance company in the morning and report it. They’ll either find it or give me the money it’s worth.”
“Are you sure you want to do that?”
Kosterman was silent for a moment. He was smart enough to know I wasn’t asking a question like that just to prolong the conversation.
“What do you mean?” he asked.
“I found the pin your daughter lost,” I told him. “Only it’s a phony.”
There was a slight pause at the other end. Then he said, “What do you mean, a phony? My daughter’s jewelry is real enough. You must be wrong.”
“The diamonds were removed from the pin and phony stones substituted. The same thing’s been done to every piece of jewelry your wife and daughter have.”
“Are you sure?”
“I’m sure.”
“But, who . . .”
“That’s the interesting question,” I said.
There was a longer pause while he thought it over. “Can you come right out here, Rome?”
“Uh-huh. Your wife there?”
“Yes.”
“How about your daughter and son-in-law?”
“They’re getting ready to leave for—”
“Keep them there,” I told him, and hung up.
Outside the bungalow I found my .38 where I’d dropped it and stuck it back in the belt holster. Then I got into the Olds and drove away.
The farther north I drove, the less real the contents of that bungalow seemed to me. But those dead men were real—and there was an invisible wire attaching each one of them to me.
It was only a matter of time before the cops started to follow those strands to me.
We were all in the den in Kosterman’s mansion. Diana and Darrell Pines sat together on one of the couches. Rita Kosterman perched on the edge of a wide chair next to them. Rudolph Kosterman paced. I leaned against the fireplace wall and tried to watch all of them at once.
My short, pointed tale about murders and dead men had shocked them. But no one among them seemed to be taking it noticeably harder than the others. As a matter of fact, they all took much harder my news about the switched gems. And there again, no one of them appeared less surprised about it than the others.
“You could be wrong,” Kosterman said.
“Take the jewelry to a jeweler in the morning,” I said. “But make sure he’s a discreet one. I’m not wrong.”
“But how could it happen?”
“One way. Somebody takes one piece of jewelry at a time to a crooked jeweler. The genuine stones are removed and fake gems put in their place. The piece of jewelry is returned, and it’s time for our somebody to lift another piece. Till it’s been done to all the jewelry in this house.”
“You keep saying somebody,” Kosterman snapped. “Who?” I shrugged a shoulder. “Any one of you here.” I looked steadily at Kosterman. “You, for instance. How’s business?”
For a moment I thought his wife Rita was going to come off her chair clawing. “Are you crazy?” she flared furiously. “Accusing a man like Rudy! He’d never stoop to such—” Kosterman silenced her with a sharp gesture of his hand. “Maybe I would. If I needed the dough—bad and fast. I’d find me a crooked jeweler and split what the gems were worth with him. I might do something like that if I had to. I’ve seen dirtier angles than that worked.”
He turned slightly to look fully at me. “But right now business is fine.”
I looked at the others, at the anger in their faces as they waited for what they knew I’d say next. I said it slowly: “Then it could be your wife. Or your daughter. Or your son-in-law.”
Darrell Pines stood up and took a step toward me. “I almost tangled with you a few nights ago, Rome. This time I will.”
“Darrell!” Kosterman roared.
His son-in-law stopped dead in his tracks.
“It seems to me,” Kosterman said to him, “that for a young man so anxious to control his own business, you don’t have much control over yourself. We’re not playing games here. Something is happening in this family, and we’re trying to find out what it is.”
Darrell Pines actually blushed. He sat down beside his young wife again. Diana took one of his hands in both of hers and squeezed it reassuringly. She looked at me.
“Why does it have to be one of us?” she demanded. “Couldn’t it be one of the servants?”
“Not likely. Before I brought you home Friday night, your father got all the servants out of the way. None of them could have known you lost your pin till the next day. Yet when I got back to my boat that night, Jules Langley and his muscle boy were waiting for me, looking for that pin. The only ones who could have known the pin was missing that soon and phoned Langley about it were you four. And Anne Archer. I rule her out. She doesn’t live here. She wouldn’t have been able to get the jewelry to Langley and back where it belonged here, one item at a time. That means it has to be one of you four.”
Rudolph Kosterman looked slowly from his wife to his daughter to his son-in-law. He drew a deep breath and looked at me.
“All right, Rome. You’re still working for me. At double the original fee. Find out how it happened, and why. When you know, you’ll tell me. No one else. I’m not reporting it to the insurance company nor filing any claims. So it remains a purely family matter. It has to remain that.”
“There’ve been a couple of murders,” I pointed out softly. “Ralph Turpin and Hendrik Ruyter. If anyone here is in any way responsible for either of those deaths, I won’t be able to keep it a private family secret.”
“I understand that,” Kosterman said. “I also understand that you will do what you can to spare me and my family. There’ll be a sizable bonus foe you if you succeed.”
“I’ll have to tell the cops about the jewelry being stolen and the gems switched,” I told him. “But I don’t have to let them have what I just told you—that one of your family is involved. They may guess it. But as long as I don’t give them the facts I have that prove it, they can’t act on it or give it out to the newspapers. They’ll have to treat it like a simple outside job of burglary by Langley. The fact that it’s an inside job stays with the five of us.”
Kosterman nodded slowly, waiting for me to say more. We eyed each other steadily. We both understood the meanings beneath the polite words. He was offering me a bribe to commit any crime necessary to get his family off the hook. And I was suggesting that I’d get it done. I was doing something else, too: I was setting him up for a request of my own—though I wasn’t ready to spring that for a few moments.
My nerves were screaming at me. There were three dead men waiting for me, and if anyone else discovered them before I r
eported it I was finished.
But I had to play it cool with Kosterman. I couldn’t let him suspect the state of my nerves. The rich, no matter how decent any of them may be in other ways, all share a peculiarity. Too many people seek favors from them, so they acquire an allergy to all favor-seekers. I had to keep Kosterman feeling it was all the other way around.
I looked at Rita, Diana, and Pines. “There’s one way we might be able to keep it in the family. Whichever one of you slipped the jewels to Langley could say so right now. And I’ll do what I can for you.”
I waited. They stared back at me. All three looked guilty as hell, in the way anyone accused will.
When none of them answered, I said, “All right, do any of you know a man called Nimmo? Or one named Catleg?” None of them had anything to say to that either.
I looked at Kosterman. I wanted to get the last of it over with, but I knew I had to play it just right. When you’re trying to stick the game out with a half bluff, hoping for luck to improve your hand, you can’t let your anxiety show.
“I’ll do what I can,” I said and started out of the room. Then I stopped and turned back to him as though a stray thought had hit me.
“By the way, Mr. Kosterman, in a couple hours I’m going to have cops crawling in and out of my pockets. They’ll want to toss me in a cell. They’ll want a scapegoat until they can straighten things out and find a guilty party—and I’m a natural for the job. I held things from them to shield you. Now they’ll know it. I won’t be much use to you in a cell. And with enough pressure, I might be forced to talk.”
“I see,” Kosterman said quietly. “Naturally, I wouldn’t want that to happen.”
Once more, the words were just a cover for what we were really saying to each other. And we still understood each other very well. I was practically blackmailing him, to get myself off the hook. If he’d see to it I stayed free, I’d keep from the cops the facts that proved one of his family was involved in the gem switch. And I could see by his expression that I’d succeeded. It was a trade.
I said, “All right, then. If you’ve got any strings you can pull in Dade County and Miami . . .”
