by Anthony Rome
She nodded, still not adjusted to my presence there. She flicked a worried glance toward the rear bedroom. “But . . . Irma?”
“She went to sleep.” I looked at my watch. It was six thirty in the morning. “We thought you’d be home before this.”
“I . . .” Georgia licked her lips, tore her worried gaze from the rear of the trailer, looked back at me. “What do you want with Joe?”
“Joe? It’s Nimmo Fern I’m looking for.”
“Yeah. But Joe Furman’s his real name. He—” She stopped herself. “He in some kind of trouble?”
I shook my head. “I owe him some money, can’t find him. Nobody seems to know where he is. Maybe you do?”
Georgia shrugged her magnificent bare shoulders. “I haven’t seen him around in about a week.”
“Know where he lives?”
“Not now. I know he was at the Raymond Arms a couple of months ago. But he moved out. I don’t know where he’s staying now.”
“You’re the first person I’ve come across that knows him by any name but Nimmo Fern,” I said. “You must know him pretty well.”
“He’s from my old neighborhood. I hadn’t seen him in years. Then he showed up at Floring’s Place.”
“Where’s the old neighborhood?”
“Brooklyn. In Canarsie.” Georgia flashed another frightened glance toward the rear of the trailer, brought her voice back down to a whisper. “His old lady lived next door to my father’s butcher shop.”
“What was his line up in New York?”
“Search me. He was in some kind of racket, I think. But I wouldn’t know. Whatever he did, it was in Manhattan. I only saw him around when he came out to visit his old lady sometimes. I was just a kid then.”
“What’s your real name?” I asked her.
“Doris Ploucher. Why?”
“Have you got any idea how I could find him? It’s quite a lot of dough I’ve got for him.”
She shook her head, licked her lips nervously. “You’d better go now. I—”
“Know anybody else that might give me a lead to him?” I persisted. “Or any special place he hung out?”
She shook her head again. “I can’t help you. I never see him except in Floring’s Place. Got no reason to.”
“Ever hear him mention a Jules Langley? Or Catleg?”
She thought about it. “Uh-uh. He never talks about anybody he knows or anything he’s doing. Just about the old neighborhood, and how’d his old lady look last time I saw her. Things like that. Now, please, I think you’d better—” She cut off in mid-sentence as the bedroom door opened and Irma came out, wearing her bathrobe and the drugged look of having been awakened from a deep sleep.
She advanced into the living room, her angry eyes sliding past me to fasten on Georgia McKay-Doris Ploucher.
“Where the hell’ve you been till this hour?” Irma rasped. Sick fright distorted Georgia’s lovely face. “I . . . I had to go out with one of Floring’s big-money customers,” she blurted. “I couldn’t shake him till now.”
“Couldn’t shake him,” Irma mimicked nastily. “You bitch! What did you do with him?”
“Nothing! I swear it, Irma. We just went from bar to bar drinking. I never met a man that could drink so much without falling down.”
“So you finally had to go to bed with him!” Irma snarled.
“No, honest. He kept trying. But each bar we left, I steered him into the next one. Till we got to Murray’s. That’s got a back door beside the ladies’ room. That’s how I was finally able to give him the slip. I ran down the alley and caught a cab and—”
“Liar!” Irma sobbed. Tears began to stream down her cheeks. “Lying little tramp!” She drew her arm back and slapped Georgia full-handed across the face. The sound of the slap was very loud in the confines of the trailer. It rocked Georgia’s head back. A little hurt scream came through her clenched teeth. She clasped her cheeks in her hands and began to cry.
“I didn’t do anything,” she whimpered brokenly. “Irma . . . you know I wouldn’t . . . Can’t you ever trust me?”
“How can I?” Irma choked out. “I can’t stand it when you—”
Georgia suddenly threw her arms around Irma. That’s the way they were, still weeping, when I crossed the room and went out, closing the trailer door on their little scene of domestic strife. Like most I get to witness, it was another second-act scene. I could guess at the beginnings of this particular drama. I didn’t want to speculate on its probable end.
It was half past four that Wednesday afternoon when I pulled up the Olds at the curb in front of the Kosterman construction plant in Mayport.
I’d spent most of the day trying to track down the elusive Nimmo Fern, starting with the Raymond Arms apartments on Miami Beach, the place Georgia McKay had mentioned. He’d moved out two months before. I managed to trail him from there to a motel where he’d stayed a week, and from there to one of the best hotels on Collins Avenue, where he’d stayed two weeks. But I couldn’t find out where he’d moved to from there.
That accounted for my morning. After lunch, I began waking up various acquaintances of mine in the gambling profession. Some of them knew Nimmo Fern. None knew him as Joe Furman. Nobody knew where to find him.
So I finally drove up to Mayport to tackle it from the other end.
Jules Langley had been from New York. So was Nimmo Fern.
I knew one other person in this tangle from New York.
Rita Kosterman.
That, by itself, could be just a coincidence. But everything else I knew fitted it too well.
Rudolph Kosterman. Rita. Diana. Darrell Pines. One of them was the link to Jules Langley and Nimmo Fern.
All four had been present when I’d brought Diana home from her binge. Any one of them might have noticed that her daisy pin was missing and phoned Langley about it, setting him on me. But the most likely person was Rita; she’d undressed Diana and put her to bed.
Either Diana or Rita would have been best able to slip the jewels to Langley without their being missed. But Diana had finally told her father about the missing pin so he could notify the insurance company. Rita had been against her doing that, first and last.
It was Rita—after Langley and Oscar had failed to find the pin on me or my property—who had suggested Diana come to me with an offer for its return.
And it was Rita who had reacted so strongly to Nimmo Fern when Anne Archer brought him to the beach party on Kosterman’s estate. That had been about four months ago. Hendrik Ruyter had begun substituting the phony stones in the Kosterman jewels about one month after that.
It could still be one of the other three: Kosterman, Diana, Pines. But first I’d find out what I could come up with, digging into Rita’s past . . .
Kosterman kept me twiddling my thumbs in his waiting room for five minutes before his secretary ushered me into his office. Unlike his home, his office was small and plainly furnished—it suited him better. It might have been the office of one of his draftsmen. Blueprints and architects’ drawings were scattered on his desk, on a long metal table by the windows, and tacked to the walls.
He sat behind his desk anxiously till his secretary went out, shutting the door quietly behind her. “I’m sorry I kept you waiting,” he said. “I was on the phone with a contractor. He wouldn’t stop talking till I knew all his troubles.”
“S’all right,” I told him, and sat in a chair beside his desk. “I understand the police gave you a bad time,” Kosterman said.
“I’ve had worse. How about you?”
“Russ Patrick, our chief of police here in Mayport, handled them for me.”
“So I heard.”
Kosterman’s massive shoulders hunched forward. “You’ve got some news for me?”
“Not yet. What was your wife’s maiden name?”
His jaws tightened. Nerves twitched the flesh under his eyes. “Nielsen,” he said softly. “Rita Nielsen. You think Rita was the one who . . .”
&nb
sp; “I want to find out, that’s all. She told me she met you in a bar in New York. Remember the name of the place?”
“It was the cocktail lounge in my hotel. The Columbia Towers on Central Park South.”
“That’s a help . . . your being able to remember that.”
“Why?” he demanded, holding back anger.
“You hired me to find out who was responsible for stealing the gems, remember?”
“Yes, but . . . I thought it might be Darrell. He wants to start a firm of his own, to feel independent of me. Or Diana—she’s always wanting to give money to her mother and Boyd.”
“You think your daughter or Pines would be more likely to steal?”
“I didn’t think any of us would,” Kosterman said heavily. “But someone apparently did.”
“Uh-huh. Someone.”
“But not Rita.” He tried to say it emphatically, but there was pain and fear in his voice.
“Why not?” I asked him.
“She wouldn’t have to. I give her all the money she needs or wants. Which isn’t much. Her tastes are simple. She has her own personal checking account. Whenever she wants more money put in it, she tells me. I put it in. No questions asked.”
“Those missing gems are worth more than a hundred thousand bucks,” I pointed out. “Suppose she’d asked you for that much?”
“She’d have gotten it.”
“No questions asked?”
His eyes dropped to his hands. He picked up a letter opener and slowly bent it into the shape of a horseshoe. Then he straightened it with a savage jerk.
“You think it was Rita,” he muttered, half to himself.
“I didn’t say that. I said I’m going to find out.”
“Have you talked to her about it?”
“I tried to get her on the phone several times today,” I told him. “She’s not home.”
Kosterman nodded slowly. “That’s right. I remember now. She told me this morning she was going to do some- shopping in Palm Beach.”
“Any idea when she’ll be back home?”
“She’ll be coming here.” He glanced at his watch. “In about fifteen minutes to pick me up in her car. She always does. We’ve got enough cars for all of us, but Rita likes driving me to and from work.” He paused, then added unhappily, “She says it helps make her feel like a very proper suburban wife.”
I stood up. “That gives me fifteen minutes I need. Got a phone I can use for a private long-distance call?”
Kosterman got up slowly from behind his desk. He had aged since I’d entered the office. “Use mine here,” he said wearily. “I’ve got to make my last tour of the plant for the day anyhow.”
“I’m going to need some outside help,” I told him. “It’ll cost you.”
“Of course,” he mumbled. “Whatever you think best. Just remember. Whatever you find out, I want it kept in the family.”
He went out, walking slowly, heavily.
I sat on the edge of his desk, picked up the phone, and put a call through to Nate Feldman, a New York private detective whom I’d dealt with before.
“Tony?” Feldman said when he came on the phone. “Good to hear from you again. How’s the weather down there in Florida?”
“Balmy.”
“You lucky bastard. I’m chilled to the bone up here. It’s been taking turns snowing, raining, and sleeting outside. How’s the fishing?”
“Not doing much of it at the moment.”
“Hearing your voice,” Feldman said sadly, “makes me want to close shop for a couple of weeks, come down there and go out with you on that boat. Get a tan, some fishing, and my good nature back.”
“Any time, Nate,” I told him. “But first I’ve got a job for you. Got time to handle it?”
“For love or money?”
“Money.”
“You got the money, I got the time. I’m listening.”
“There’s some people I want you to check on. First, a woman named Rita Nielsen. Four years ago, my client met her in the cocktail lounge of the Columbia Towers on Central Park South. Maybe she hung out there regularly. Maybe somebody there remembers her.” I described Rita Kosterman to him. “That isn’t much to go on, I know. But that’s all I have right now on her. If I get more, I’ll let you know.”
“Check,” Feldman said. “How about the others?”
“Jules Langley. He had a jewelry store near Times Square till a year and a half ago. He had to skip town because the law was starting to lean on him. So the cops’ll have some info on him.”
“Jules Langley,” Feldman said. “Anybody else?”
“Nimmo Fern. That’s what he calls himself down here. He’s some kind of gambler. His real name’s Joe Furman. He’s from the Canarsie section of Brooklyn. His mother still lives there or did. Next door to a butcher named Ploucher. That’s all I’ve got for you.”
“Okay. What do you want?”
“I want to know if any one of those three was connected in any way with one of the others,” I told him. “That’s one thing. And I’d like whatever background you can get me on Rita Nidsen and Joe Furman, the guy that now calls himself Nimmo Fern. Third, try like hell to find out Fern’s present address down here in the Miami area. He’s had a lot of them. I have to find him now. His mother’d be most likely to know if she’s still alive. Apparently he kept in touch with her.”
“That it?”
“One more thing. See if you can turn up anything about a guy named Catleg. That’s all I know about him.”
“Sounds like a full week’s work. When do you need it?”
“Yesterday. I’ll call you tomorrow and see what you have by then.”
“That means I won’t be doing much sleeping tonight. Again.”
“Figure out a fee that’ll make up for it,” I told him. “My client can afford it.”
After hanging up the phone, I sat for a while smoking and guessing at the best approach to pumping some truth out of Rita Kosterman.
The cigarette tasted lousy. I’d been smoking too many of them. It struck me that when I was out on the water with the boat, I never smoked at all.
Promptly at five P.M., Kosterman and I left the front building of his construction company. His wife, Rita, was waiting for him behind the wheel of a bronze-trimmed cream Fiat convertible, parked at the curb in front of my Olds. It made my sedan look like a shabby sufferer from elephantiasis. There were several large, gaily wrapped packages in the rear seat of the Fiat with Palm Beach store labels on them. Rita Kosterman was wearing peach-colored slacks and an off-white blouse. Her eyes widened when she saw me with her husband. I noted the way her hands clenched tighter on the wheel as we came across the pavement toward her.
“Dear,” Kosterman told her gently, “Rome has some questions he wants to ask you.”
“Does he?” she said tensely. She didn’t look at me.
“Yes,” Kosterman said. “He . . .” He glanced uncomfortably at me. “Ill tell you what, Rome. Suppose you follow us home in your car. We’ll be able to talk better there.”
I said “Sure” and started for my Olds as Kosterman stepped off the curb and walked around the front of the Fiat to get in the other side.
He was out in the street when I noticed the late-model blue Ford sedan parked directly across the street, its motor idling.
What drew my attention to it was the loud snap of its brake being released. There was a man behind the wheel in the Ford, wearing a hat pulled low on his forehead. The shadow from its brim blurred the outlines of his face. I only glanced in his direction. I was about to look away again when the rays of the lowering sun glinted on the barrel of the revolver he was raising above the sill of his open car window.
I screamed, “Kosterman! Drop!” as I spun and snatched under my jacket for my own gun.
Kosterman, startled, whirled to look in my direction as the gun in the hand of the man across the street coughed. The bullet jarred into Kosterman, hurling him against the side of the Fiat windshield. Hi
s big body twisted slowly, his knees buckling and his torso folding over the hood of the Fiat.
By then I had my .38 out. I squeezed the trigger as I brought the gun up. It roared as it bucked against the heel of my hand. The slug missed the man in the Ford and crashed through the glass of the windshield in front of him. I hadn’t taken the time for dead aim, triggering off that first snap-shot as fast as I could to frighten him from trying another shot.
It worked. The gun dropped below the Ford window sill. I saw him grab the steering wheel with both hands as his motor roared, and he rocketed the car away from the curb down the street.
I fired after it twice, aiming more carefully this time. The bullets shattered the rear window, but they didn’t get to the driver. Before I could try again, the Ford careened around the corner and vanished from sight.
I sprinted to where Kosterman lay in the street beside the Fiat’s front tire. Rita knelt beside him, staring down at his unconscious face.
She wasn’t touching him. She wasn’t crying. She wasn’t screaming.
She looked as if there was a balloon blowing up inside her that at any second was going to burst.
CHAPTER
16
WE WAITED in the white corridor outside the operating room of the Mayport Hospital. Diana Pines sat on a wooden bench with her worried husband, clutching his hands and crying softly, her head lowered. Rita Kosterman stood leaning against the wall, staring blank faced at a spot on the opposite wall just above my head. A little bit apart from us, one of the police chief’s deputies paced nervously, looking uncomfortable as the waiting stretched.
That was the way we were when Russ Patrick, the Mayport chief of police, came back out of the operating-room door, his grim face perspiring. Patrick was tall and hard- lean and young for his job, not more than thirty. But he looked tough enough and smart enough for a city the size of Mayport. He wore khaki trousers and jacket and an ordinary business hat. His badge of office was pinned to his lapel.
Diana and Pines looked up quickly, anxiously, as Patrick came through the swinging door. Rita turned her face to look at him; otherwise, neither her position nor her expression changed.
