by Kane, Henry
He went back to the tufted chair. He drank champagne. He lit a new cigar. He waited for control and it came. He ran fingers along his mustache and smiled with the pretty dentist-teeth. The rich baritone was purged of venom. “On Saturday night I had a party here, many people. On Saturday night, maybe midnight, Rockland called, said he’d been trying to reach me most of the day, said he wanted to talk with me important, said he was in the neighborhood. Hell, I couldn’t invite him here, and then I had a brainstorm. I still had the key to Arlene’s apartment.”
He was quick. He noted my expression.
I was back in my tufted chair, legs crossed, smoking cigarettes.
“Look,” he said, “that’s over, long over, years ago.”
“Of course,” I said.
“She was a kid then, a baby, in her first show.”
“What a show,” I said.
“I’m confiding in you. It’s nothing to be repeated.”
“Natch,” I said. “You told me you were no dope. Please take it for granted that neither am I.”
“I haven’t taken it for granted. I’ve checked on you. You’re no dope.”
“Thank you. So? Saturday night. You still had the key.”
“I knew that she was up at Monticello or on her way. I gave Rockland the address and told him to wait for me outside. I begged off from my guests, said I’d be back shortly. I took a cab to 62nd Street.”
“How long had Rockland been on this?”
“How do you know about Rockland, Peter?”
“One at a time, Pappy. How long?”
“Three months; since I brought Stanhope over.”
“So? 62nd Street.”
“I took him up to Arlene’s apartment. We sat in the kitchen and right off he gave me some remarkable information, stuff he had gleaned from the tapped wires.”
“Like what?”
“Damn, listen.”
“Man, I’m doing nothing else but.”
“I’ve been out of town for the past three weeks, you know?”
“I know.”
“Been in England, and places …”
“I know.”
“Mostly it’s for a replacement for Arlene. The show’s been a hit for eighteen months now, and she’s getting bored. She wants out, a new piece of work, and we can’t blame her, she’s a star. I brought over Elizabeth Harrison from England and we’re breaking her in now, as a matter of fact.”
“So?”
“So I haven’t been here while Rockland picked up some startling facts. I only got back on Friday.”
“Man, go, will you?” I got up and poured champagne and brought it back with me to the tufted chair. I sipped.
“We sat in the kitchen and first off he told me that Earl was sticking it up my ass.”
“How?” I said and sipped.
“He blew the duke to the lovely Ingrid. He told her who he was and why he was and who was paying him for what.”
“For how much?”
“She gave him a gift of twenty thousand dollars.”
“For what?”
“For sticking it up my ass, what else?”
“So much for first. Any seconds?”
“He’s in love with Monique.”
“AC, DC, all the cross-currents?”
“He’s in love with Monique.”
“Does he know?”
“They plan to get married.”
“Despite the cross-currents?”
“He knows all about that.”
“A splendid man.”
“A low, dirty, double-crossing bastard.”
“I’m talking about his … his comprehension.”
“The British are more worldly than we are. The guy’s in love. One current must be exclusively his. The other current—he understands; maybe he even gets kicks watching, who knows? Also right now they’re in the chips, and he’s advising her to hold out big against Tommy.”
“All this Rockland told you?”
“In Arlene’s kitchen.”
“What chips?”
“I’m supporting him, am I not?”
“Yes.”
“Plus he picked up twenty thousand from Ingrid because he is a gentleman of the Establishment and would not do her dirt. And there’s more.”
“More, even?”
“America is a mine of vast riches and our Englishman is pecking away at the lode.”
“A load of what, and from whom?”
“Between him and Monique they’ve cooked up a blackmail deal that, so far, has paid them another fifty thousand bucks, in cash.”
“Blackmail did you say, Mr. Holly?”
“Blackmail I said, Mr. Chambers.”
“Ingrid?”
“No.”
“You?”
“No.”
“Who?”
“Ever hear of Mrs. Barney Croyden?”
Croyden. A bell rang in my head but without reverberation. Croyden. Arlene had mentioned the Croydens—Mr. and Mrs. Barney Croyden—Mr. Barney Croyden; Mrs. Nora Croyden; rich; rich; always rich …
“Croyden,” I said. “Invested in a couple of shows of yours. British Peerage, something? Living now here in the States, citizenship and all? A Duke, a duchess, something?”
“Nothing. Aristocracy in the money department; peerage nothing. Very snooty. Very high-toned. Very refined. Very exclusive. But as usual, mostly bullshit. The wife is ten years older than the husband and the husband is an American who, once, long ago, when Nora was married before, used to be her chauffeur in England. They’ve been living here now for the past nine years.”
“Blackmail because the widow married the chauffeur?”
“Blackmail because the widow was the gal in the bed with Monique.”
Izzy came into the room with more champagne.
Eleven
EXCITEMENT INCITES appetite: David Holly was excited.
“Izzy,” he said, “do we have smoked pork tenderloin in the house?”
“We have,” said Izzy.
“Make me one of your crazy eastern westerns.” Holly looked toward me. “Diced pork tenderloin, smoked; eggs beaten with heavy cream; onions diced; green pepers diced; some of Izzy’s special herbs; all lovingly sauted in chicken fat with a dash of peanut oil and a rub of garlic. Simply ambrosia.” He looked again to Izzy. “Hot biscuits, country butter, and an immense pot of fresh ground coffee.”
This was the guy who had only recently eaten two steaks.
Excitement incites appetite. “Will you join me, Peter?”
“I just ate,” I said.
“Izzy’s eastern western is ambrosia. Try, just for the nosh.”
“I can’t make it,” I said.
“Go do the ambrosia,” Holly said to Izzy.
Izzy smiled and went away.
It was hard to get the guy back on the subject.
I nudged, but he kept talking about Izzy’s eastern western.
Then he talked about Arlene, her beauty and her talent.
Then he talked about Tommy, but now a little hatred crept through. I was no longer certain whether he wanted me to give up Arlene because Tommy wanted to marry her, or whether he wanted me to give up Arlene because he still had a large yen in that direction. Then he talked about Ingrid with hatred, and then he talked about Earl Stanhope with intense hatred. Then he simmered down to theatre gossip, and kept chattering all through my nudges. Then the ambrosia was rolled in on a table, and Izzy poured coffee for both of us, and bowed and departed, and David Holly began to eat, slobberingly, and he got hot eating, and he took off his bathrobe, and he sat naked eating slobberingly, and I drank coffee.
Then, finally, he sat back and said, “What?”
“Does Monique have the pictures that Tommy’s people took?”
“What pictures?”
“Of her in bed with the gal?”
“No.”
“Then how can they do the blackmail? And why would the lady pay?”
“You’re bright,” he
said. “That’s exactly what I asked Carl Rockland.”
“And what, exactly, did Carl Rockland say?”
“Carl Rockland said exactly nothing.”
“Now look, David—”
“Carl Rockland, just at that point, sat up straight with a very surprised look on his face, and died.”
“He—”
“Died. Died, damn. I did all the tricks, rubbing, slapping, chafing, mouth to mouth breathing—the guy just died on me in Arlene’s kitchen. Simply, there were no two ways about it. Simply, right in the middle of his report, the guy was dead.”
“What did you do?”
“I cleaned up and got out of there.”
“And locked the door?”
“You bet.”
“And then?”
“I came back here to my party. I stayed here until two-thirty and then Izzy drove me back there.”
“Why?”
“Arlene Anthony is the star of Holly’s Follies. A dead man in my star’s kitchen can blow up to bad business. Izzy and I took him out of there and drove him home to Brooklyn and laid him out in his own bed. Now, if you please, your turn. You knew he was dead, you knew I was a client of his, you even knew his name.”
I told him. He listened, sipping coffee.
“So you see,” I said, “what baffles you doesn’t baffle me and what baffled me doesn’t baffle you. There are no mysteries when there are explanations. You left him, and we found him. Then we went away and you came back and took him away. Then we came back to take him away but he was gone. And always the door was locked. So much for Carl Rockland. What about Peter Chambers?”
“I want to know the whole story. I want to know what the hell this is all about. I want you to find out what Rockland already found out. I want you to tell me what he was going to tell me.”
“It’ll cost you.”
“I paid him three-fifty a week.”
“Double that—for me.”
“Who the hell are you?”
“I’m double of Carl Rockland, or get yourself another boy.”
I had him and I knew it, and he knew it. To whom else would he spill this story? I had the umbrella shoved in and I opened it. “That’s seven hundred a week and I want four weeks in advance. Now.”
“Why?”
“Because I have to make all sorts of arrangements and entail all sorts of expenses. You might call me off in a day, a week, and already I’d be up the creek for a lot of loot. I’ll take twenty-eight hundred now, and I’m your boy.” Actually, it wasn’t for me. I’m not in that line of work. It was for Sadie Flanagan who is in that line of work but I would need her exclusive services and I would have to make it worth her while. “Are we in business?” I said.
He stood up from the tufted chair, creases on his bare behind, and went to a table and opened a drawer and brought out money and counted out twenty-eight hundred dollars. “We’re in business,” he said.
“Is there some way I can meet the cast of characters?”
“There certainly is.”
“Tell me, Pappy.”
“Mr. and Mrs. Barney Croyden are weirdos, very exclusive. They don’t mingle with the hoi polloi.”
“Hoi polloi, oy, oy, boy, boy, shit.”
“Exclusive in the restaurants, private rooms; exclusive in hotels, private service; even for parties, they have to have the guest-list in advance.”
“What does he do, this Croyden?”
“They just live it up, quietly, discreetly, while their money earns more money in sound investments.”
“Do I get to meet them?”
“You’ll meet every person we mentioned tonight.”
“Where?”
“Right here.”
“When?”
“Tomorrow night, after the show. I’m having a party, and they’ve already had the guest-list and they’ve approved. You’ll just happen to be an unexpected dropper-in.”
Me and Sadie Flanagan.
“Fine,” I said. “Excellent,” I said. “Now give me the key.”
“What key?”
“To Arlene’s apartment. That key is now meaningless because there are now nice new locks. But I want to be a big man with her. You know how it is. Tommy’s not in yet and I’m still the lover-boy. I want to impress her. Okay, Pappy?”
He said nothing.
He turned his back on me, creases and all.
He returned with a key and gave it to me.
Twelve
TUESDAY AFTERNOON I went to Arlene and found Tommy. They were drinking up a little storm, very cozy. Arlene led me to the den where Tommy was behind the bar, smiling, natty in narrow charcoal-grey.
“What can I mix you, friend?” he said.
“You can mix me nothing, friend.”
“Always surly.”
“Only to my friends.”
“You need a lesson, sweetheart.”
“A lesson in what?”
“A lesson in manners.”
“Who’s going to inflict that on me—Sammy Bleek?”
“You’ve got an excellent idea there, sweetheart.”
“Break it up, boys! Break it up, gentlemen!” Arlene tapped to the bar on spike-hells and little else. She wore pink short short-shorts and a strip of bulging pink bandanna and pink spike-heeled pumps, and that was it. Long-distance, from the other side of the bar, Tommy did rape with his eyes.
Arlene took up a stemmed goblet from the bar and drank. It was pale beige and there was no smell of gin; it figured for a vodka martini but a large one. “Come on, Peter, have a drink,” she said.
“I’m working,” I said.
“Transom-peeping, that’s called work,” said Tommy Lyons.
“Baby, you keep asking for it, don’t you?” I moved but Arlene got in the way.
“Working?” she said.
“I’m on my way to an appointment. I just wanted to straighten you out on that other thing.”
“What other thing?”
“Rockland.”
“Oh.” She put the goblet on the bar.
“Let’s go talk in the kitchen,” I said.
“Why the kitchen?” said Tommy Lyons.
“Because the kitchen is furthest away from the den and that puts me furthest away from you.”
“Brother,” he said slowly, “I’d like to kick you in the head.”
“Brother, you’re not big enough; not you and Sammy Bleek together.”
“We’ll put that to the test, Peter Rabbit; I promise you.”
“Boys, boys,” said Arlene and touched my elbow and went with me to the kitchen.
“All simple, all solved,” I said. “David Holly brought him up here for a talk.”
“But—”
“The guy was a private detective on a job of work for Holly.”
“But why here?”
“The guy was in town and wanted a conference with Holly. Holly had a party at his home—”
“David has an office.”
“It was late; David decided for here. He still has the key—or had.”
I looked at her.
She looked right back at me, blandly.
“Anyway,” I said, “the guy had a heart attack right here in the kitchen while they were talking. David left him here, went back to his party, killed some time, and then came back here with his Izzy and took Rockland away. All the time he thought you were on the way to Monticello. Get it?”
“I think so.”
“When we came here, the body was here, but David was back at his party. When we left to kill time, David came back with Izzy and took him away. When we came back the guy, of course, was gone. That’s it. That’s the story. I got your key from David.”
Again I looked at her and again I got a bland slanted stare from the black slanted eyes.
I gave her the key and she said, “You’re sweet, just stay where you are.”
She tapped away on the spike-heels, pink hips oscillating.
I stayed in the kitchen and was
jealous of Tommy Lyons.
She came back and laid two keys into the palm of my hand. “Duplicates,” she said. “Fair exchange. Two new ones for one old one. Don’t come tonight.”
“What’s tonight?”
“I have a party.” I didn’t press it and she didn’t expatiate. She was very close to me, her bosom hinged at my arm, her lips soft at my ear. “You excite me terribly, Peter. Go away.”
I grabbed her but her elbows became points at my chest.
“Not now. Please, Peter.”
I let go, grumbled something. My breathing was irregular.
She waltzed me to the door. “You’re on your way to an appointment, remember?”
She sure wasn’t anxious for me to stay.
Ah, that Tommy Lyons.
Sadie Flanagan had an office at 11 East 42nd Street. Sadie’s office was one big room with a concrete floor. There was nothing fancy about Sadie except her soul. She was a church-going gal who believed in God and did her work to the best of her ability which was considerable. She was a spinster of sixty, small, keen, witty, quite pretty, and a college graduate. She was a duly licensed private eye, a bug on electronics. She had a small expert staff and large expert connections. She had been in the business most of her life, was cynical but not skeptical, was as honest as good bread, and could hold her liquor.
The office had four desks, many telephones, many filing cabinets, and wooden chairs. When I came in the office contained no one but Sadie behind one of the desks.
“Hi, hero,” she called. “Come in and sit. Right here by me.”
I sat in the customer’s chair at her desk.
“Hi, baby,” I said.
“Hi, sweetie,” she said. “What goes?”
“You’re free?”
“So I told you over the telephone, didn’t I? Free as a bird as long as the feed is right.”
I laid twenty-eight hundred dollars on the desk. “Seven hundred bucks a week; four weeks guaranteed.”
“Whom do I kill for all this beautiful loot?”
“You tap a few wires, you tail a few people, you lay on the ear and listen like mad.”
“How many is few?”
“Three.”
“Sounds fair. What’s your fee?”
I pointed at the money. “That’s my fee.”
“So what’s in it for you?”
“The client is a millionaire. If I satisfy him, I’ve got him for life.” I pointed again at the money. “I’m investing his money—in you.”
