At the Point of a. 38 ms-67

by Brett Halliday

  Manson shook his head. “I didn’t keep up with him that close. Do you have anything else on her except that she was under nineteen? Which goes without saying.”

  “Her father’s a cop.”

  “Robustelli!” Manson said promptly. “That was the angle that got it talked about. Did the old man know it or not? Gold used to pick her up every afternoon after school, was the story. Charming.”

  Returning to his car, Shayne called Miami High School and asked for the vice principal. Helen Robustelli, he was told, was a junior there, and she had been absent for five days with a virus infection. Shayne checked the phone book. The listing for Captain Angelo Robustelli, the girl’s father, was in Southwest Miami, less than ten blocks away. Shayne drove past the house, turned around and parked. He gave his operator the Robustelli number. After nearly a dozen rings, a woman’s voice answered. It was Mrs. Robustelli, and she told Shayne emphatically that she didn’t wish to discuss her daughter.

  “Helen may be in trouble,” Shayne said politely. “I may be able to help. The school says they set up two conferences with you but you missed them both.”

  “Those morons, what do they know? Well, O.K. I suppose you better give me the bad news.”

  “If you don’t mind, I’d like to stop in and see you. I’m not far away.”

  She did seem to mind, but Shayne persisted.

  “Let me see now,” she said. “You’re that big ugly private detective. Well, all right. Give me ten minutes to sort of tidy up?”

  A TV repair truck was parked across the street from the Robustelli house. A moment after Shayne hung up, a young man in coveralls came around from the kitchen door. As he crossed, he checked the closure of his front buttons and pushed back the hair over his ears. Shayne let him get off the block before leaving the Buick and ringing the Robustelli bell.

  Mrs. Robustelli was wearing fresh lipstick, with a strong punctuation mark at each corner of her mouth. One of her sweater buttons was missing, showing a portion of the bulge beneath. She was large-hipped and large-breasted, with a sullen look. She glanced at the street where the TV truck had been.

  “That was quick.”

  She let him enter the house, giving his broken arm an appraising look. “Before we sit down, what are you drinking?”

  “Coffee, if it’s made.”

  She took him into a bright kitchen. The unwashed dishes piled up in the sink dated back more than one meal, possibly more than one day.

  “We’ve been having TV troubles. Maddening. Not that I spend that much time watching. A big strong one-fisted man like you-you don’t want coffee. I’ll fix you a drink.”

  The upshot was that she poured Shayne a cognac and made herself a bourbon and water, which was clearly not her first of the day. She enjoyed the taste so much that she took off the top half before setting it down.

  “I suppose you think I’m perfectly terrible, drinking bourbon right after breakfast.”

  Shayne didn’t comment. As a matter of fact, she was pretty terrible. Her diction was already slightly moist; she would be unintelligible by noon.

  Robustelli, her husband, was primarily a drug cop, with a secondary interest in prostitution, and he hadn’t had much luck stopping that, either. His picture, cut out of the News, in which it appeared frequently-he gave his basic get-tough-with-drug-traffickers speech somewhere in town once a week-was pinned to the wall over the kitchen table. He had an abundant growth of iron-gray hair, a jaw like a rock, the steady gaze of a man who, as far as Shayne knew, had never enjoyed a moment’s self-doubt.

  “He doesn’t know his daughter is missing,” Mrs. Robustelli said, with a glance at the picture. “He’s usually late to dinner, when he does us the favor of coming in at all. When you’re trying to stamp out heroin single-handed, you keep crazy hours, junkie’s hours. Even a wife can understand that.”

  “I’m feeling the pressure of time, Mrs. Robustelli. Do you know where Helen is?”

  “Maybe I do and maybe I don’t. What do you want with my daughter, Mr. Shayne?”

  “She may know something about a man I’m trying to track down.”

  “Now you’re talking my language. I hope it’s serious?”

  “You know who it is?”

  “Let’s say I have a pretty good idea. His initials wouldn’t be A.C., by any chance?”

  “If they aren’t M.G. I’m wasting my time.”

  She began paying more attention. “Not Artie Constable?”

  “I don’t have time to play twenty questions, Mrs. Robustelli. Didn’t you know she’s mixed up with Murray Gold?”

  That jarred her. She had the glass to her mouth, but some of the whiskey went down the wrong way.

  “Murray Gold? Murray Gold? The gangster? What a goddamned fantastic lie. What kind of weirdos have you been talking to?”

  “The guy who told me is usually right about these things. Gold’s been picking her up after school.”

  It didn’t take the girl’s mother long to adjust to the idea. “I knew there was something fishy,” she said grimly. “She was supposed to be staying late for extra help. But she went right on getting E’s and D’s. Gold! My God, we all know he likes them young and dumb, but this is going a bit far.” Her eyes jumped to the photograph. “Listen-listen-if Angelo finds out about this, he’ll kill her, I swear. I know you sometimes say that and don’t mean it, but I mean it. He’ll take out his trusty revolver and shots will be fired. Gold’s about eighty years old!”

  “Sixty-four.”

  “But no longer a teenager, right? My Helen. I’m just-absolutely-flabbergasted. What this calls for is another drink.”

  She poured for herself, and brought the cognac bottle for Shayne. “I’ve been taking this disappearing act a little too la-di-da, I see that. But Gold’s over in Israel, isn’t he? Isn’t he? That’s what it said in the paper.”

  “Nobody’s sure. Helen sent him a letter, apparently.”

  “The poor old guy,” she said, surprisingly. “All that money, why would he have to run to seventeen-year-old kids?” She waved her glass. “Seventeen, sixteen, which is she? I can never keep track.”

  “Mrs. Robustelli-”

  “I guess it’s revolting. I don’t know. We haven’t been such wonderful parents. Angelo believes in the strap, and I go too far the other way, to compensate. She’s never learned how to study. She never had dates, like the other girls. Let’s face it, she’s a bit of a slob.”

  “If you have any ideas about where I can reach her-”

  But she was going to make him work for it. She glanced at him almost flirtatiously over her raised glass. “I’m not one of those uptight parents, as you can probably guess by looking at me. I gave her the full lecture the first time she menstruated. Personal example is so very important! I think I can honestly say that I tried to give her a healthy attitude toward the sexual relationship. I have few hangups on that score. I like it upstairs, downstairs, and in my lady’s chamber. I don’t actually get all that much, and that’s no reflection on Angelo because the dear man does what he can. The reason I mentioned Artie Constable.” She considered. “Should I tell you? I think so, because you may not be right about Gold, you and your sources. They never made a mistake? Artie lives over here on the next block. He used to deliver papers on this street. Now don’t get any dirty ideas! Nothing happened. Really a great-looking kid, Mike. He would have gone out for football, but you know these chicken-shit high school coaches. I thought I’d encourage him, find out if he’s college material, kind of help him develop his potential. I invited him in one day last week when I had the house to myself.”

  Her eyes glazed; she was beginning to daydream.

  “Mrs. Robustelli, will you get back to your daughter?”

  “She’s part of the story, and I wish she wasn’t. Call me Angela. I’m Angela, my husband’s Angelo. Cute?”

  “Very.”

  “I know, I know, you’ve got lots to do, places to go, and I have to hang around here doing the vacuumi
ng. Did you ever think about marriage from a woman’s point of view?”

  “All right, tell me about Artie.”

  “Blond, you know? Very good pectorals and triceps. But wild, wild as they come. Ask anybody about Artie Constable at that high school. He threw his Social Studies teacher through a plate-glass door once. And I had him right there in the palm of my hand.” She swallowed part of a giggle. “And was it enormous, too. And wouldn’t you know? Helen walked in. Artie was extremely embarrassed, because he and Helen, I was astonished to learn, had been making it themselves. I felt like a pretty fool. So that put me on my guard. Mothers aren’t exactly helpless, you know. I sneaked into her room that night and did a little private investigating of my own. She was zonked out on reds. She was into that scene at school, never mind, I knew all about it.”

  “But not as far as heroin.”

  “Good Lord, no. Speed, LSD, mesk and the like. Angelo’s completely irrational on the whole thing, but to me it’s like booze with our generation. I went through her purse, I’m ashamed to say. There was too much money in it, for one thing. Ah-ha, I said to myself. Pushing? And a receipt for a hundred dollar deposit on a certain apartment in a certain beach community, and right now I want to get your solemn promise that my daughter’s name is not going to figure in any of the publicity.”

  “I can’t promise that, Mrs. Robustelli. I’ll do what I can. How soon after that did she leave?”

  “Call me Angela. Next day. I knew she was gone because when I went in to make her bed, Raggedy Ann was missing. She didn’t take her toothbrush, but she wouldn’t leave Raggedy. So I got to work and I did a little intriguing, and sure enough, Artie Constable didn’t go to school and he didn’t come home that night either. So there may be some holes in your Murray Gold story! I sat down at this very table and poured myself a strong bourbon and pondered. Tell Angelo? No. He’s about as much of an expert on female psychology as that fly on the lampshade. Send Angelo to bring her back, and she’d end up emotionally scarred for life. If they wanted to play grownup, she and Artie, why not let them alone for a few days? And I have a right to consider myself a teensy bit too, don’t I? They’ve had it with Helen at school. This time it wouldn’t be another ten-day suspension, it would be out on her ass. And then I’d have her around underfoot all day, and goodbye privacy. I’ve been trying to figure out something to tell Angelo when he notices she’s gone. He loves her madly, supposedly.”

  “Is Constable still missing?”

  “I haven’t checked up, I couldn’t be bothered.” She shook the ice cubes thoughtfully. “The night before the night I was telling you about. I didn’t think about it until this minute. The phone rang. When I picked it up nothing happened. A little later it rang again. Helen answered, and she got so excited. She hung up and took the rest of the call upstairs. I had my curiosity up by this time, but she was practically whispering. Could that have been Gold? Maybe so!”

  When she didn’t go on, Shayne finished his cognac and stood up. “If you want to tell me that address now it may help, but I can’t spend any more time here.”

  “Rush, rush. Homestead Beach, 37 Azalea Drive. Try not to make her feel guilty. We all make mistakes. Don’t worry, I won’t let her off scot-free, I’ll think of a good way to punish her.”

  She came to the door with him, snapping her fingers as she walked, not to any music that Shayne could hear. After opening the door for him, she pulled him closer by his sling and whispered against his face, “Why don’t you come back later and fuck me?”

  She pulled back and put her fingers to her lips. “Forget I said that.”

  8

  Murray Gold had always been a compulsive planner, overdoing it at times. He thought everything out in advance, and went back over it again and again, imagining the worst and working out countermoves. Today he called all the funeral directors listed in heavy type in the classified pages, and found three with no funerals scheduled. Gold gave a Gentile name and told them he was from New York. He was here in Miami with his sister. She had been stricken suddenly with chest-pains, and had died in the night. Each telephone voice was sorry to hear it, and hoped he could be of service.

  Gold started in Miami Beach, with Everett and Wilkins, on Alton Road. There was ample parking space for the funeral vehicles. He saw a hearse and two limousines and no drivers. Gold himself was using a stolen Dodge, with New York plates. Helen’s loony friend, Artie Constable, was at the wheel. Gold had him drive past without stopping, and then come back slowly. If he had seen anything to put him off, they would have continued on and tried the next place on his list.

  “Seems O.K.?”

  Constable pulled into the driveway. He was wearing jeans and a smelly T-shirt, and he had been barefoot when they started out from Homestead Beach. Gold took him to a clothing store and bought him a dark lightweight raincoat and a pair of shoes, on the grounds that it would be considered funny to be calling on funeral directors barefooted. Artie was a tall boy, two inches or so over six feet, and his neck was a tremendous column, nearly as wide as his head. He looked as though he could tuck in that chin and bulldoze a hole in a brick wall. Gold had been testing him for intelligence, but if he had any, he didn’t see any point in displaying it. He looked angry most of the time, particularly so this morning because he and Helen had stayed up late drinking muscatel. He had a. 38 in each raincoat pocket, which was a joke in a way because he had never fired a gun of any kind in his life.

  “Remember we don’t want to hurt this man unless we have to,” Gold said. “Just watch me and do what I do.”

  Skinny enough before, Gold had wasted away in that miserable Israeli prison. He could take the flesh on his belly and fold it over like the flap on an envelope. He had been semi-bald for years, and had always shaved clean. Now, with a scraggly beard and a hairpiece, with sun glasses blotting out most of the space between, he was a totally different man, he hoped. Nevertheless, he hated to be out in the open in a town where so many people were dying to get their fingernails in his eyes. He entered the funeral parlor with his head down, clearly bereaved.

  The funeral director, Mr. Everett, had been watching at the front window to see what kind of car he came in, as that would have an effect on the price. A plump man, Mr. Everett had the silkiness and perennial low spirits that went with his profession. He took Gold’s hand in both of his own, and gave it an extra squeeze before letting go, to show how much he sympathized in the loss of the dear one. There was only one girl in the front room; Gold had decided that the maximum number he and Artie could handle comfortably would be three. After introducing Artie as a young cousin who had been kind enough to drive him, he and the funeral director withdrew to discuss options and prices.

  Embalming, he learned, was done on the premises, by Everett himself, with the help of an assistant who came in afternoons. Apologizing for being so picky, Gold asked to be shown the complete range of coffins. His sister had been a particular person, and he wanted everything exactly as she would have wished.

  Alone with Everett and his coffins, Gold produced a pistol and showed it to the undertaker, who had been in business long enough to see almost everything. His jaw dropped into a nest of double chins.

  Gold said mildly, “You’ve been helpful, but I’m sorry to say I don’t have a sister.”

  “A robbery,” Everett breathed.

  “That’s what it looks like. I don’t suppose you carry a gun.”

  “Why, no.”

  “I think I’ll believe you. Being frisked is so unpleasant. I hate it when it happens to me. Back up over there and be good, unless you want to end up being embalmed by the competition.”

  “I never keep much cash.”

  Gold decided he had been friendly enough. He snarled and stabbed the fat little businessman with the pistol barrel.

  “No noise. Back up. Here.” He pulled the lining out of one of the coffins. “Tear this up.”

  The undertaker, very scared and confused, managed to rip off several long strip
s. Gold ordered him to climb into one of the expensive coffins, rust-resistant steel lined with cedar lined with lavender-colored silk, with a pillow for the corpse’s head. He wasn’t coordinating well, and he had to be helped with a succession of light slaps with the gun.

  “It’s airtight,” Everett whispered.

  “You won’t suffocate,” Gold told him. “I’m not completely out of my mind.”

  Everett seemed to doubt that statement, but he clambered in and lay back. Gold tied his ankles and wrists.

  “Promise you won’t close the lid?” Everett said. “I’ll hold you to it. Because they really make it so no air can get in-”

  Gold had never liked complainers. He reversed the pistol and gave Everett a really good rap with the butt-plate. Then he gagged him, and went back to the reception room and told the girl that Mr. Everett wanted her. She walked in briskly, with Artie a step behind. She was only a year or so out of high school, and Gold really dug her freshness and the way she moved, though her face was marred by too many pimples. He snaked an arm around her from behind and kept her from yelling when she saw her employer trussed up in one of the firm’s best coffins.

  Gold’s second hand went naturally to her breast, and the nipple stood up between his fingers. Artie grabbed her ankles and tied them. She twisted in Gold’s grip, trying to buck loose, and her soft backside jolted against his midsection, arousing him to the point where he nearly forgot that the ticklish part of the morning was just beginning. Then she went limp.

  “That’s right, dear,” he said, panting. “Relax and enjoy it.”

  She was completely out. They lifted her into another coffin. Gold kept his word, and when he lowered the coffin lids, he remembered to leave several thicknesses of fabric so the seal was less than complete.

  Artie went out for the Dodge and brought it around.

  Gold chose a child’s coffin, lined with white satin dotted with rosebuds. It was surprisingly heavy. Artie used a two-wheeled dolly to load it into the hearse. Then he opened the Dodge’s trunk. The Thompsons from Homestead Air Base were piled up inside, wrapped in rags. Gold passed them in, one by one, then the loaded clips and the boxes of ammunition. Artie stowed everything in the coffin. He backed out and they closed the double doors.