“You come in here, Paulie. Leave the man alone.”
I watched the kid follow her into the house, turning around every other step to look at me. Then they were both inside. It was very hot. I undid the top button of my shirt and walked over to number fourteen Edgefield.
The driveway was empty except for a couple of beer bottles, gravel, and stray bits of tape and cardboard. I walked up three peeling white wooden steps and tried the door. Breaking in was going to be very easy because the door was ajar already. It required a push. I pushed and walked into a living room that had been cleared out in a big hurry. The linoleum floor was a garden of boxes, rope, wire, and tape, and the walls were bare except for a few pin-ups torn out of some sunbathing magazines and pasted up with their edges still ragged. Every hideout looks the same and, with one difference, this set-up fit the pattern. The same pulp magazines stashed in the corners, the same little metallic tables with stamped floral designs, the same beer bottles on those tables and, as always, cigarette butts floating in the beer. There was a couch covered in red corduroy and liberally sprinkled with ashes, playing cards—two jacks, a queen, and the six of hearts—some dirty argyle socks and a topping of crushed peanut shells.
Like I said there was a difference: the newspapers. Dozens of them covered the floor and the two chairs, swamped a glass-topped coffee table and ringed a torn-up black hassock. And these weren’t just the New York dailies. “Friend of the Arts” had them from Philly, Newark, and Boston, even a couple of Washington Stars were scattered beneath the couch. And these papers had obviously been read; their edges were bent back and dulled, their folds flattened out.
But going through the papers didn’t tell me a thing. The guy hadn’t paid much attention to the sports sections, so the bookie angle was out, not that I gave it any weight anyhow. It was the hard-news pages that were most smudged and pored over. I picked through them, looking for marginal notations or whatever, but I could have been reading tea leaves for all I learned.
Being a dutiful if not inspired dick, I searched the house, knowing full well that I wouldn’t find the films. Those cartons Mrs. Rogers had seen her neighbor carry out weren’t filled with linen and silver service, that was for goddamn sure. But I looked anyway. I swept the peanut shells from the couch cover and its corduroy folds yielded the empty foils of a condom. At least the guy had some company. There were Clark bar wrappers in the fireplace and also a ball of paper which turned out to be an envelope addressed to someone named Al Rubine. The name didn’t mean a thing to me.
My search of the “master” bedroom, a twelve-by-eighteen box which had once been painted coral, uncovered nothing. There was a rocking chair with a torn undershirt draped across one of its arms. When I touched the arm, it fell right off. An empty condom box—my respect for this guy was steadily increasing—lay under the bed. I opened the closet and found a half-dozen empty wire hangers. Then I went into the kitchen.
On the kitchen floor I found Governor Thomas E. Dewey.
He was neatly clipped and trimmed, and I found him shaking hands with a banker named Eli W. Savage. The newspaper photo was resting under a chair leg and it struck me as the second interesting discovery of the afternoon, the first being “Friend of the Arts’” no show. I couldn’t tell what newspaper it was from, although Philly seemed a good enough bet. There was a fat caption which read: “New York Governor Thomas E. Dewey was greeted at the Philadelphia Bankers Association dinner last night by Quaker National Bank prexy Eli W. Savage, chairman of the association. Savage is being mentioned as a contender for a spot in Dewey’s Cabinet, should the Republican hopeful go to the White House. The governor stressed the invaluable contribution the banking community has made to the war effort.” Amen. If they stopped bothering me about my bum checks, they could all be canonized as saints. Bastards.
I sat down on a kitchen chair and looked the clipping over carefully, checking both sides to see if there were any markings or notes. There weren’t. On the back of the clipping was half an advertisement for a sporting goods store—“Tennis Racket Bazaar”—but I somehow didn’t think that tennis was the clue. It was this picture of Dewey and a banker and it didn’t make a hell of a lot of sense any way you figured it. Except maybe one way, and that meant somebody was playing a very high-stakes blackmail game, maybe with a banker, big enough to pull him away from a ten-grand date with Warren Butler. It didn’t seem like a very satisfactory way for this case to stand right now, but as long as the somebody had his Kerry Lane film stashed away in those cartons of shakedown bait, he could always call us again, on a rainy day.
There was a phone in the kitchen. I picked it up and was delighted to find it was still connected, so I dialed the operator and got her to connect me with Warren Butler’s office.
“Warren Butler Productions,” came eight syllables of careful modulation. Sitting in this Smithtown dump, I felt like I was calling Hollywood.
“Eileen, fire of my loins, tell Mr. Butler that Jack LeVine is on the line.”
“Oh yes, Mr. LeVine. Mr. Butler told me that if you called, I should ask you to come directly to his office. He doesn’t wish to discuss any aspect of this matter over the telephone.”
“Tell him if he doesn’t come to the phone, he’ll never see me in that office again. This isn’t the goddamn movies.”
“You don’t have to berate me, Mr. LeVine. I merely told you what Mr. Butler’s request was.” Eileen sounded a little hurt. Just a little.
“I’m not blaming you, dear. Just put him on.”
There was a pause, while I hung suspended in the limbo of “hold,” on the borderline between communication and extinction. I listened to a dull kind of hum. As long as it was on “Friend of the Arts’” tab, I could wait for a while.
Butler sounded agitated when he broke into the hum. “Jack, for Christ’s sake, I don’t want to handle any of this over the phone.”
“The cameras aren’t rolling yet, Mr. Butler, so calm down. Stop acting like it’s high espionage.”
“This case may be a joke to you, Mr. LeVine, but I don’t like being hounded by blackmailers. I think it’s damned serious.”
“Al Rubine doesn’t think it’s all that serious.”
“Who the hell is Al Rubine?”
“He just might be the ‘Friend of the Arts’ we all know and love. Also, he’s taken a powder.”
I was back on hold and after Butler’s hysterics, I kind of preferred it. The phone hummed to me a little more and when Butler came back about a half-minute later, he was a little more subdued.
“Sorry, Jack. Eileen came in with a telegram and I had to put you off for a bit. Now, exactly what is the story? I’ve had a madhouse of a day, so you’ll have to excuse my snappishness.”
“Don’t worry, you’re always aces in my book, Mr. Butler. The story is this: I showed up in Smithtown, which is a hell of place to be even if it isn’t ninety-five degrees, a little after twelve o’clock. Number fourteen Edgefield looked deserted so I had a little chat with a lady who lives at number twelve.”
“What’s her name?”
“It’s not important. She told me she used to see two pretty unpleasant-looking mugs hanging around number fourteen on an irregular basis. The house doesn’t look too lived in, so it seems to check out. On Monday and Tuesday of this week, there was just one of them around. He came back last night, loaded up his car with cartons, took one suitcase and blew. The lady says he was driving very fast. The house is empty, except for a lot of boxes and newspapers lying around.”
“Did you recover the films?”
“I said the house was empty.”
“Jack, I’ve got to run,” Butler said abruptly. “If you can be here by around six, I’ll pay you the rest of your fee. See you then.” The man was a whiz at getting off the phone. Having nothing better to do, I hung up on my end.
THE DRIVE BACK to New York wasn’t all that interesting: weeds, gas tanks, and sun-baked concrete. I suffer in the heat and it was well over ninety. I al
so suffer from ignorance and what I didn’t know about this case was enough to fill up a library wall. If “Friend of the Arts” was leaving this line alone because he had a bigger sucker caught on the other, there wasn’t much to do but wait. Maybe not even that. Kerry and Butler might just say the hell with it and go to the police, but that was a long shot. I could be a sweet guy and tell Kerry that the producer knew someone in his show was being shaken down, yet I had a feeling that that wouldn’t change anything.
Maybe the case was just beginning.
I reached home by a little after four, giving me time enough to stand in a cold shower, knock off some Blatz and a salami sandwich, and lie down to stare at the ceiling and ponder nothing more profound than getting in a good Friday night of poker. It didn’t take a long time to figure out my needs. I was a basic model 1944 prole. Given plenty of beer and cigarettes, a sympathetic woman, the Yankees on a winning streak and poker at the end of my week, LeVine could be made happy. A simple man. I was very content working straights and full houses in my brain; when I realized that I had to go see Butler again at six, it was like awaking to discover that I had wet the bed.
Halfway into dressing, I heard the phone ring and hopped into the living room with my pants around my knees, like a guy in a potato race. I was pretty sure that Kerry Lane would be at the other end and wasn’t disappointed.
“Mr. LeVine, am I disturbing you?”
“No, I was just hopping around the house.”
“I see.” She didn’t know how to take it, so she didn’t take it all. “You sound jovial. I hope that’s a good sign.”
“It’s not a good sign or a bad sign, Miss Lane. When I got to Smithtown, there was nobody home. Fenton’s pal had taken off the night before.”
“With the films, of course?”
“With all kinds of things. This guy plays in the big leagues and I have a strong feeling that you and me are pretty small potatoes to him.”
“Perhaps. Did you get his name?”
“Maybe. You ever hear the name Al Rubine?”
“No.” There was a longish pause, so I held the phone with my neck and took the opportunity to pull my pants on.
“Do you think we should just tell the police?”
“Tell them what?”
“Well … that Fenton had a partner who probably killed him, and that the man is on the loose and dangerous.”
“Miss Lane, a blackmailer knows fifty people with perfectly good and honorable reasons for killing him. Fenton probably shared that house in Smithtown with a partner. Once Fenton was killed, it made sense for his partner to get out with the firm’s assets intact. It’s not inconceivable that the partner killed him, but I’m sure as hell not going to the police about it with zero evidence. They’re going to want to know why I’m interested. And my interest—and here’s the ironic part—is that I was hired by you to keep the matter from going to the police. You want their help, be my guest. But that’s where I get off.”
“So you’re writing me off?”
“I’m not doing anything of the kind. All I’m saying is Rubine, or whoever, seems to have bigger fish to fry. We’ll give him a few weeks. In the meantime, there’s nothing much to do but sit and hope he gets hit by a truck.”
“But what if he goes to Butler?”
What the hell. If I didn’t trust her now, I might as well drop the case. She was holding out on me, that was for sure, but I didn’t think she was doing so to harm me. If I explained things right, maybe she wouldn’t get hysterical.
“Miss Lane, he has gone to Butler.”
I heard a kind of “fffft” on the other end, a constricted kind of gasp.
“Good God.”
“Now look, Miss Lane, you’re still in good shape. All Butler knows is that somebody in his show made some films, but he doesn’t know who.”
“But he will know.”
“Maybe yes, maybe no. By funny coincidence, Butler called me to get the films back for him.”
“You’re working for him?”
“I’m working for me, Miss Lane. He paid me real money to get those movies, but all he wants is to get this guy off his back. And that’s all you want, or do you want something else?”
“No.” Her voice was very, very small.
“Okay. Now you and Butler want the films back. If I pick up the films, there’s a very good chance nobody will ever see them. If you want I can destroy the prints and screw up the negatives so badly that Butler couldn’t tell you from Minnie Mouse, if he wanted to make prints from them. If he does want prints, then I don’t know what the hell kind of a deal he’s pulling. As far as I know, he wants to pay somebody off and keep his good name as a gentleman of Broadway.”
“God, you’re so rational, Mr. LeVine.”
“Private dicks aren’t known for being great abstract thinkers, Miss Lane, but we can get around town without a map. Now I’ll try and speak to you on Monday. Spend the weekend with your boyfriend; go boating in the park or something. Just don’t drive yourself nuts over this. We’ll find a way out.”
“Thanks for everything, Mr. LeVine.”
“I haven’t done anything but walk into some empty rooms.”
“No,” and she still sounded very scared, “you’ve been a real comfort.”
“That’s very kind. Good night, and take it easy.”
BUTLER’S RECEPTIONIST waved me right into the main office. “He’s expecting you.”
I knocked once and walked in. Butler was at his little wall safe.
“Here for your winnings, Jack?” I got the marquee smile.
“Something like that.” I settled myself into one of those burgundy chairs and lit up a cigarette. “Mr. Butler, do you know a Philadelphia banker named Eli W. Savage?”
Butler had his back to me, reaching deep into the safe.
“Excuse me, Jack. One second.” He pulled out some bills and closed the safe and pushed the Gershwin picture back to the wall. When he walked back to the desk, I realized that he had a slight twitch in his eyelid. I hadn’t noticed that the first time.
“Now, you said something about a banker.” He sat down.
“Yes. Eli W. Savage, from Philadelphia. When I was going through the Smithtown house, I found this clipping.” I got up and handed the newspaper photo to Butler. “It’s a long shot. I thought you might have heard of the guy.”
Butler stared at the picture for a few seconds. “Yes, I met him once about five years ago, at a party. It was after the Philadelphia opening of a show of mine called The Rainbow Hunters. But that’s the only time, I believe. He’s a big man in Philadelphia. You thought this picture might be important?”
“Beats me what I thought, Mr. Butler. It was the only thing left in the house and it was obviously cut out for a reason.”
Butler smiled. “Maybe this man is blackmailing Mr. Savage.”
“Could be. Or Mr. Dewey.”
“Yes,” and Butler started laughing, “yes indeed, Mr. Dewey. For making improper advances to a gangster.”
It was a pretty funny thought.
“Actually,” Butler said, leaning back in his chair and fiddling with a pencil, “Mr. Savage is a substantial contributor to the Republican Party. Blackmailing him would be pretty juicy, I’d imagine.”
I took a look at all those pictures of Butler with Farley, Lehman, and FDR.
“You must help out the Democrats quite a bit from the looks of those pictures. That’s pretty classy company.”
“Oh, Farley’s not so classy.” Butler tugged at his ear. “But FDR is a great man, Jack, and I’m proud to help the Democratic party any way I can. They saved this country and the whole free enterprise system back in 1933. That’s what nobody understands anymore; without FDR, there would have been a real revolution in the United States and we’d all be up the creek without a paddle.” Butler was getting a little agitated. He had leaned forward and was softly beating the desk with his left hand, emphasizing his points. “My old man died because those mines weren’t
supervised properly, because he had to work twelve hours a day, because nobody gave a good goddamn about people like him. But now everybody forgets about that, forgets that there could have been a Red takeover. All they can do is bitch about the reforms he did make. People forget very fast in this country.”
I thought I’d push him a bit.
“Roosevelt got us into this goddamn war.”
“That’s infamous!” Butler screamed, half rising from his seat. The veins in his neck stood out so much you could count them. “I’ll throw you out on your ear, you goddamn tinhorn shamus.”
“You didn’t let me finish, Mr. Butler. I was saying that I’d heard people on the street say that, hackies, barbers, newsies, average Joes. They think FDR knew all along that we were going to get involved.”
“Well, they’re wrong.” He ran his hands through his silver hair. “I’m sorry I blew up like that, Jack. You found my weak spot. I guess that’s the mark of a good detective.”
“That’s what they taught us in detective school.”
He nodded distantly. “Well, let’s give you your money.” His composure had returned as suddenly as it had departed. I watched him count five twenties and held out my hand to receive them.
“Maybe this case is over or maybe it’s just suspended,” Butler said, “while our ‘Friend of the Arts’ is chasing after bankers or whatever. God only knows. That clipping you brought is intriguing, but I’m not sure if it ties in anywhere.”
“Either am I,” I told him. “It hardly even qualifies as a long shot.”
“Yes,” he said, a little vaguely, as if he wasn’t quite sure what I was saying. “In any case I’ll keep you informed of anything that might arise, and I’m confident you’ll do the same for me.”
“For two-hundred fish, you can count on it.”
Butler stood up, which meant he had had enough of me. “That’s all I ask, Jack. Just keep me informed. All my life I’ve kept on top of things and it has brought me this.” He waved his arm around the office. “And I’m not letting anybody,” and his voice dropped to a whisper, “anybody, take it from me.” I was getting a ham hero with everything on it, but managed to keep a straight face.
The Big Kiss-Off of 1944: A Jack LeVine Mystery Page 5
