Death Wore a Smart Little Outfit

by Orland Outland

  “A veritable Sherlock Holmes,” Luke agreed, shutting his notebook. “So is that the whole story on Alholm?”

  “Everything I know. And if there’s anything else, it’s got to be hidden pretty deep to have stayed off the grapevine this long.”

  “Okay, thanks. We’ll keep you filled in. Come on, Doan.”

  “Umm ...”

  “Uh-oh.” Luke had already learned the meaning of this sound when it came from Doan.

  Doan pulled him to a comer of the room. “Did your boss say anything, by any chance, about what it takes to get a...” he fell to a whisper, “...conjugal visit?”

  “Forget it.”

  Doan sighed and shrugged. “Worth a shot.”

  Later that day, Doan got a call at home from Binky. “I got a message on my machine from your friend.”

  “One has so many.”

  “Eleanor Ambermere. Why don’t you get an answering machine?”

  “I’m not sure. Probably for the same reason I don’t have a goatee, or a car, or wear men’s clothes. Just out of spite, because everyone else in the world does. Besides, why should I get a machine when people I really want to talk to have your number and can leave me a message on yours?”

  “What! I should be charging you for services rendered!”

  “Calm down. The circulation’s limited. Eleanor has your number, Stan will have it as soon as we get his luscious self out of jail, and Luke has it, of course. Doesn’t he?” he asked slyly.

  “Yes,” she answered primly. “He does. Do you want your message?” she asked, changing the subject.

  Doan sighed, temporarily defeated. “Yes.”

  “Just that she hadn’t heard from you since you got back, aside from your message that all was well. What were those papers, anyway?”

  “Oh, that!” Doan cried. If any reader has forgotten about the papers of Eleanor Ambermere, they cannot be blamed, for in all the excitement of love and danger the last few days, Doan himself had also completely forgotten. “Aside from being the dirt on Charles Ambermere, I don’t exactly know. Eleanor said it was best that I didn’t. Well, I’ll give her a buzz.”

  “A buzz? How professional you sound.”

  “I am a professional. I work for the Police Department, you know.”

  “No, you don’t, you just...wait a minute. Doan, you don’t just get to see Stan with this bit, am I right?”

  “What?” Doan asked innocently.

  “You’re getting another paycheck!” she accused. “How many is that now? Four?”

  “Not exactly. Even I can’t get around civil service tests and academy training and all that silliness involved in actually working for the Police Department. But, you know, there are ways of getting reimbursed for one’s expenses related to criminal investigations ...”

  “Not another word, ever, about my trust fund.”

  “Of course not, dear,” he said in surprised and gentle tones. “I understand completely how hard it is to be well off and unemployed. Ta!”

  But before she could splutter her rage and denial, the line was dead in her hands. She slammed it down and it rang again immediately. “How dare you?” she accused.

  “My father warned me that women would always be angry with me for no reason a man could see,” Luke said.

  “Oh, I’m sorry. I thought it was Doan.”

  “Well, that explains that. Listen, what are you doing tonight?”

  “Nothing,” she said. “Why?”

  “Oh, just thought I’d drop by. See how you were.”

  For reasons unknown to her, she panicked. “Well, okay, if you’re sure you aren’t too busy.”

  “Too busy to see you? In the long run, what could be more important that seeing you? Doan’s on the SoMa Killer case now, so the killer’s as good as caught.”

  She laughed nervously. “Sure.” She tried one last evasive tactic. “I don’t have anything to eat.”

  “I’ll pick up Chinese.”

  “Or drink.”

  There was a pause. “If you don’t want to, just let me know.”

  “Oh, no, it’s not that I don’t want to, really . . ”

  She groped for words.

  “No, you’re right,” he said calmly. “It was just a passing thing, the pressure and all. I’m much too busy to come over. Well, see you around.”

  “Wait!”

  He waited.

  “I’m sorry. I’m just really nervous right now. I don’t usually ...” She groped for a way to say that she didn’t usually see the men she slept with twice without sounding like someone awful. Doan’s voice in her head, drawling that God forbid any old fling know where she lived and be able to find her, taunted her. It’s true, it’s true, she wailed, I’m an emotional virgin. “Would you believe I don’t know anything about dating?”

  She could hear him relax. “Yeah. I would.” He lowered his voice to a silky growl that drove her straight out of her skin. “But I also know you’re a very fast learner.”

  “Well ...”

  “Why don’t you come over to my place?” She realized he was offering her, if not neutral territory, at least a place she could leave if she so wished. He was giving her so much room, more than she had the nerve to ask for! Dammit, he was making it impossible not to love him. “I’ll get us that Chinese.”

  “Okay,” she heard herself say with a mixture of relief and trepidation. “I’ll see you in an hour.”

  She hung up and looked out the window. “It’s just a date,” she said. “I spent three nights in bed with him, and thought nothing of it. So why does sitting across a table from him terrify me?”

  Frannie answered the phone. “Van Owens.”

  “At last,” Doan sighed. “When did you stop saying Ambermere?”

  “Yesterday. Here she is.”

  Eleanor came on the phone. “And a fine thank you I get, for all that money I gave you. How much is left?”

  “Not a cent.”

  “I knew it. Have a good time in Bermuda?”

  “Well ... yes and no.” He filled her in.

  “Cheer up. The one that got away always looks better than the one you get.”

  “Speaking of getting away, I take the change in phone announcement means that the Bulbous One is officially gone?”

  “He cleaned out his closet yesterday. Actually, Frannie cleaned it out for him. Onto the sidewalk. He got to it just before the Salvation Army did.”

  “Hoorah!”

  “Yeah. Except ...”

  “What?”

  “Can you come over?”

  “Can you send that big black car?”

  “Yes.”

  “Yes.”

  An hour later, Doan was ensconced in a leather wingback chair in Charles’s...what used to be Charles’s study. A fire crackled, warming the brandy snifters in front of it. Eleanor was chugging on a cigar.

  “Havana,” she shouted, waving it about. “Best in the world, available only to those with access to diplomatic pouches out of Cuba. Bought with my money, kept in humidors with my money, smoked by people who were practically given my money. Considering how much of my money ended up having something to do with these goddamn cigars, I think I’d smoke ’em even if I didn’t like ’em.”

  “Last time I was here,” he said, irritably waving the smoke away, “it was just cigarettes. What’s next?”

  “Pot,” she said firmly, as if she’d just decided.

  “Eleanor!”

  “Just kidding.”

  “So what did you want to see me about?”

  “Just to celebrate the end of Charles.”

  “Come on.”

  “I’m just thinking ... he really didn’t care when I told him about the papers. I know him inside out. As long as I didn’t turn them over to anyone, he was happy. Oh, he made a fuss, all right, but he’s not an actor. If he was, at least one of his disastrous deals might have come through for him. This means he’s got money coming in from somewhere else.”

  “Anothe
r woman.” Doan thought of the hateful little creature at the police station Binky had told him about. “I think it’s disgusting, but there really are women out there who think you’ve wronged him. With your ‘antics,’ is how they put it.”

  “Antics?” Her voice slurred. “I saved my country. Those damn collaborators!” She blinked, coming back to herself, then smiled. “You know, that’s the first time I’ve lost it since the last time you were here.”

  Doan impulsively got up and went around the desk to hug her. “Oh, honey, you’re so brave I could scream. You’ve triumphed over illness, depression, and Charles Ambermere. I believe I shall speak of you to perfect strangers all day today, that I may kill the first little mouse who bad-mouths you.”

  “You really think it’s another woman?”

  “That depends.”

  “On what.”

  “On what you want to hear. If you want to believe that there’s a woman out there who would have that lump of sludge, be my guest. Or, do you want to believe that one of his shady little enterprises may not only have nothing to do with your money, but may be successful?”

  She sighed. “It’s gotta be that. No woman would want a man that ugly, that mean, and that dumb.”

  “Now, come on. Tell me. What’s he been up to?”

  “I’d really rather you didn’t know.”

  “Eleanor. The real purpose of not turning this documentation of yours over to the police was to make him really worry and suffer, the way he wouldn’t if you only left him penniless. Now, obviously, he isn’t worrying and he isn’t suffering. This is against the laws of nature. And I am going to help you make him suffer. Now tell me, what’s he involved in?”

  She relit the cigar, took a swig of her brandy, and looked out the window.

  “Art. That tasteless bastard’s screwing around in art. Can you believe that?”

  Binky could hear the phone ringing from the top of the stairs. Cursing her own spite, which had made her leave the answering machine off, she ran down the hall, fumbled with her keys, threw the door open, and lunged at the phone. It must be Luke, she’d been telling herself during this great athletic effort, calling to make sure I got home all right. Then, as she was about to pick it up, she remembered that she’d stolen out of the house at dawn, before he’d woken up. He was calling, she was now sure, to ask her why she’d done that. With trepidation, she picked it up.

  “Hello?”

  There was no voice on the other end.

  “Oh, I’m sorry. But I’ve never ...” she flushed. “I rarely spend the whole night with a man. I know that must make you think I’m awful, but ...” she stopped. In the background she could hear a cheerful humming, and the sound of rattling pans, clanking dishes, and running water.

  “Hello?” No answer. “Hey!” she shouted.

  The clanking stopped. “Hey!” she screamed.

  The water stopped. There was a rustle as the phone was picked up.

  “At last,” Doan said, “you’re home.”

  “What?” she asked disbelievingly. “What were you doing in the kitchen?”

  “Well, I tried to buzz you again last night. No answer, not even the machine. And I had the most desperately important news. So I thought, when you eventually did get home, I’d know the minute you walked in the door.”

  “Doan. Are you trying to tell me...that you let my phone ring...for twelve hours?”

  “Uh-huh!” he said cheerfully. “Are you ready for this?”

  “No.”

  “Give me Luke’s number, so I can call him and have him issue a warrant for the arrest of the SoMa Killer.”

  “Who?”

  “Charles Ambermere.”

  Doan got into Luke’s car and shut the door. “Did you bring the warrant?”

  “No, Doan, I didn’t. I need to see the proof to get the warrant.”

  “Well, then, we’ll have to stop at Eleanor’s before we go arrest Charles.”

  “If we can arrest Charles.”

  “Oh, yes, we can, indeed.” Doan filled him in on the tactics Eleanor had used for a quick, clean, and cheap divorce.

  “Any documentation of crime she had, she should have turned over to the police in the first place.”

  “That’s neither here nor there, now. The point is, I just found out a few interesting things. First, Charles is half owner in Steve Alholm’s business. Second, they’ve been juggling the books in a manner that would befuddle the entire staff of Price Waterhouse. And last, their gallery has been selling works under the table by certain artists that aren’t listed in any catalog of their works. All of these artists, by the way, are dead.”

  Luke stopped the car. “Which ones?”

  “Guess.”

  “All four?”

  “All four. Eleanor, alas, never reads the paper, since irritating news is prone to put her back into her other world. If she’d known even one of them was dead, she would’ve turned those papers over a long time ago. So, in addition to all that fraud, they kill these guys, take their finished works away, and sell them secretly. Oh my God, if ...”

  “What?”

  “She told Charles about her proof, but he didn’t care, because she said she wasn’t going to use it. But what if he told Alholm about it?”

  “You don’t know?” He started the car, put the siren on the dash, and tore out.

  “No. She didn’t say.” They were both thinking the same thing. Charles might be just a crook, but that meant that Alholm ...

  They pulled up at Eleanor’s house with a screech. “The front door’s open,” Doan whispered in horror.

  Luke pulled out his gun. “Stay behind me.”

  They crept up toward the house, keeping low. Luke turned the corner, pointing the gun at whoever might he in the hall. “Come on.”

  Inside, the house was quiet. They went from room to room on the first floor. No one. Nothing. At the top of the stairs, they heard a muffled groan.

  “Frannie,” Doan said. They found a groggy Frannie bound and gagged, one eye turning black. Doan tore off the gag while Luke cased the rest of the floor.

  “Eleanor?” Doan asked.

  “Charles,” she answered, and passed out again.

  When someone accused Charles Ambermere of being a mean bastard, a manipulator, and a user, he was truly hurt, despite the fact that he’d never worked an honest day in his life, that everything he had he’d taken from Eleanor Van Owens, and that he had casually bungled everything he’d ever attempted – that is, with the exception of his latest endeavor, which was doing quite well. At long last, he thought, he had found the proper outlet for his moneymaking genius. Vindicated at last! The fact that he’d had to resort to murder, robbery, and fraud to finally become a success did not cross his mind.

  He had expensively cut and styled white hair, a bulbous nose, an even more bulbous stomach, and an expression on his red face of perpetual surprise. When he married Eleanor, he had actually been dashing, in that too slender and dangerous way, and it was his looks that had made the Van Owens clan suspicious from the start. Men as handsome as that did not court frail girls like Eleanor for any reason other than money. But Eleanor had been captivated by the charm and good spirits of the man who looked to her so much like Errol Flynn, and since she was over twenty-one when they’d met, and in possession of her full inheritance, there was little the family could do to stop the marriage.

  The rest, you already know. That Eleanor had not only lived this long, but even had some money left after Charles had control over it for years, was nothing short of miraculous in itself. In his kindest moments, Charles had taken Eleanor for granted, the goose who laid the golden eggs he kept dropping and breaking. When she had begun careening down the hills of San Francisco, however, he stopped taking her for granted and started taking her to psychiatrists. Not to help her, mind you, but to get her declared senile, at which he had been successful. Deprived of love, money, freedom, everything but the company of Frannie and Doan, it was inevitable that sickly
Eleanor become a total invalid.

  But when she’d walked into that kitchen, made herself a sandwich, and started yelling...the way a rat knows the instant the ship springs a leak, he’d known the end was near. That same day, he’d read in the paper that some stupid painting of some stupid flowers had been sold to some stupid person for fifty-something million dollars. There was even a picture of it reproduced full-color in USA Today, his favorite newspaper. He’d stared at that picture while the household outside his study erupted in chaos. Even the arrival of the stupid faggot in the stupid dress had failed to jar him from his reverie. He took a few markers out of his desk, a piece of fresh paper, and idly copied the picture in a few minutes. Then he brooded some more. What he saw in that picture was not a work of art. What he saw in his own surprisingly good copy was not a glimmer of talent in his otherwise uncultured soul. What Charles Ambermere saw was a lot of money and an easy way to make it.

  At the same time, Steve Alholm had begun making even more money by beginning a newsletter for the art set that listed in blatant Dow Jones-like tables the current prices that works had gone for in the last week, and prices on works being offered currently. When Charles got a load of the first issue, he immediately made an appointment with Alholm.

  “You’ve got it all wrong,” he said. “You could be rich.”

  Steve Alholm had blazing red hair, glitteringly cold blue eyes, and thin, cruel lips, which he allowed to turn up in bitter amusement at Charles’s gall. “Really? I seem to be doing pretty well.”

  Charles had taken one look at Alholm and known he was a kindred spirit. There would be no need to beat around the bush. “First, stop representing artists. Open your own gallery. Second, hire the most aggressive salesmen you can find.”