The phone cord in the room had been yanked out of the wall. I went down the hall to a house phone on a side table by the elevators and called the desk. I got Kosloski on the horn and told him to come up to 1224, alone. Then I went back to the room and splashed cold water on my face. The room still seemed blurry. I rubbed my eyes and realized it was smoke hanging in the room from all those gaspers we’d been puffing. I opened the window to let in some fresh air. I turned around, straightened up, and took a deep breath. Then quick as I could do it, I turned back to the window and slammed it shut.
I breathed in deep through my nose. The smoke had the wretched and distinctive odor of black tobacco. Gauloises. Joe Damas had been in the room. I headed out and bumped into Kosloski in the hall.
“Frank,” he said, “what the hell is it now?”
“Trouble, Stan. Better look in. The ice is gone; Mrs. Jamison is dead.” He put his head in the room.
“Oh, Jesus, Frank. Jesus.”
“I know who did it, Stosh,” I said. “You know Joe Damas?”
“Damas? The little nance from France?”
“Yeah, the forger.”
“I wouldn’t figure him for something like this,” said Kosloski.
“Funny thing, Stan, neither would I. But I’ve got to check it out.”
“Wait a minute, you can’t run out. I got a body here in my hotel.”
“So, you call it in. It’s the Jamisons’ room. Maybe I wasn’t even here,” I said.
“Where’s Mr. Jamison? Shit, I’ll have to tell him.”
“Try his room. He was there twenty—thirty minutes ago. Look, I know where to find Damas. I can wrap this up and get back to you before the cops even finish dusting the flop. But you got to cut me loose.”
“I hope you know what you’re doing, Frank, because if it comes down to my job, I’m giving you over.”
“Fair enough,” I said, and headed out before he could think about it twice.
5.
I picked up my heap in the underground garage and headed for the Marina district. I remembered questioning Joe at his apartment on Magnolia during the Thursby investigation. I couldn’t have told you the house number, but Magnolia’s a short street. I figured I’d recognize the building.
I headed west on California Street. Either the city had put up a second set of traffic signals, or I was seeing double. I spotted a late-night drugstore near the corner of Polk and stopped in for a quick cup of coffee. A couple of twin soda jerks brought me two cups. I drank the first one and things started to focus. Soon I was on my way again. I turned north on Van Ness. There wasn’t much traffic on Van Ness, and I felt safe enough driving. I took a left on Lombard, and in three minutes, I was pulling into a parking spot on Magnolia.
I found a square-built yellow apartment building that was a little larger than most of the other structures on the street. In the vestibule was an intercom panel. Each buzzer had a name next to it. I located “Damas, J. 3-C,” and leaned on the button. Brain injury? What brain injury? I could remember where I’d been six months ago. No one came on the intercom, but I didn’t have to wait long before the door buzzed, and I pushed my way inside. Maybe Joe had been expecting company. I took the self-service elevator up to three.
As I walked down the short hall, a door on the left opened. Joe Damas poked his head out. As soon as he saw me, his eyes bugged out and he pulled his head in. He tried to slam the door but I got there quick and put my shoulder to it.
He stepped back and said, “Okay, Swiver, come on inside.” He waved a small Beretta automatic at me from waist level. “Shut the door and tell me what you’re doing here.”
“I came about the ice, Joe. You know, the White Tiger.”
He gave me that shrug. “The White Tiger don’t concern me, Swiver.”
“I think it does. It disappeared.”
“Still don’t concern me. You know I’m no jewel thief.” He pulled the flat blue box out of his side pocket and slid another Gauloises between his lips using his left hand while he kept the Beretta aimed at my middle with his right. He took out his lighter, thumbed a spark, and lit up.
“Maybe you’ve slit a few throats, though,” I said.
He gave me the Gallic shrug again. “What of it? They were Nazis. It was them or me. I would do it again.”
“Maybe you’re branching out. After you sapped me, you slit Jane Jamison’s throat for her.”
Joe looked confused by that. “You got me wrong, shamus. I didn’t slit anybody’s throat.”
“But you were there, Joe, and you sapped me down. Your smoke. The room’s full of it.”
“I wouldn’t kill no dame.”
“Maybe you’ll step off for it just the same,” I said. “You carry a Corsican knife, don’t you?”
He shrugged that off. “Sure. Everybody from Marseilles carries a knife.”
“Let’s see it.” Joe reached in his side pocket and came up empty. He switched the Beretta to his left hand and checked his right pocket, then his trouser pockets.
“Merde,” he said. “Jamison must have lifted it in the ballroom when he gave me the key to the room.”
“You’d better come clean, Joe.”
He struggled with the idea, then said, “Listen, Swiver, I’ll tell you what I know, but you’ve got to help me. I didn’t kill nobody.”
“But you were there. You took the necklace and sapped me.”
“Yeah,” he said. “I made a deal with Jamison. You know I need to get some prestige clients to get going again. Well, he was going to give me his business—distribute Jamison wines in northern California—if I lifted the White Tiger for him. He said he needed money. If I helped him, he’d help me. It was just an insurance grift. Nobody was supposed to get hurt. Hey, Swiver, if I’d known you were going to be on the case, I wouldn’t have even taken the job.”
I’ll be damned, I thought. It sounded like the little Frenchman respected me.
“Jamison slipped the key to his wife’s room into my jacket pocket when we were down in the ballroom,” he said. “I was in the twelfth-floor stairwell, watching until I saw you leave. About half-past midnight, I went in. The lights were out, and she was lying there in bed. I ripped off the stones, and was going to scram when I heard you coming. I slipped behind the door. Then, after I sapped you, I ducked out. I swear, she was alive and sitting up on the bed when I last saw her.”
“Keep talking.”
“That’s about it.” Joe shrugged. “Jamison had told me his room number. I went down to eleven, and slid the key to twelve twenty-four under his door. That was my signal the job was done and I had the goods, see.”
“Why didn’t Mrs. Jamison call the cops?”
“Oh, I pulled the phone out of the wall before I took the ice. Listen, Swiver, he’s coming here.”
“Who?” I said.
“Jamison. I thought that was him when you buzzed. He’s coming here to pick up the necklace and pay me.”
“Are you crazy, Joe? You let him come to your own house? You’re getting careless.”
“Ahh. It seemed safe enough,” he said. “He’s just a businessman.”
“I think he’s a killer,” I said.
I heard steps in Joe’s kitchen, and Jed Jamison, dressed in his tux again, stepped into the dining room. “He’s right, Joe. You’re getting careless. Your kitchen door was unlocked.” He was carrying a Colt automatic. He had a one-inch cut in his forehead from the hairline down, but otherwise looked fresh and well groomed for an evening out. With his other hand, he yanked on a slender wrist and Velma stumbled in on her red pumps.
“Frank!” she said. “What are you doing here?”
“Later, sweetheart,” I said. It wasn’t a good position to be in with a killer. Joe and his little Beretta were facing me. Jamison was behind Joe’s right shoulder, and there was a thin modern-style couch between them. I was about five or six feet from Joe, ten or twelve feet from Jamison, but I was unarmed. From Jamison’s point of view, Joe and I were at a ti
ght angle. He wouldn’t have to move his hand more than an inch or two after shooting Joe to drill me too, and Velma shielded him.
“We need to talk,” I said.
Jamison guided Velma around the couch and they sat down. “Okay, peeper. Let’s start by talking about the White Tiger. I came for my ice, Joe.”
“Sure, Jed, sure,” said Joe. “Listen, can I have a drink?”
“Yeah. Put the gun down, Joe, and get us all some drinks. You have scotch? We’ll have scotch. We’ll all drink some scotch and we’ll talk.” Joe put the Beretta down on the cocktail table in front of Jamison’s legs. He walked over to a liquor cart parked by the window.
“Scotch sounds good, Jamison. I’ll make it four, okay, Swiver? Miss Peregrino?”
I didn’t care, but figured I’d play along. “Sure, Joe. Scotch’d be good right now.”
Velma nodded. “What’s going on, Jed?” she said.
“Just business, doll,” he said. Joe opened his ice bucket and started to put some rocks in thick crystal glasses.
“No ice for me,” said Jamison.
“Sure, Jed. Swiver, I know you like it on the rocks.” It wasn’t a question. He used his tongs to put ice in three glasses. He had a bottle on the cart with three concave sides, and he poured four drinks from that. He put two down on the cocktail table, one for Velma, and the neat one for Jamison. He walked over and handed me one, then ambled back to his drink at the liquor cart.
“To crime,” said Jamison, raising his glass. Velma looked at me, and I quietly took a sip. She drank too. My scotch was warm. I looked down into the glass. There was the White Tiger necklace, resting in a whiskey bath. With my hand around the glass, Jamison couldn’t see it.
“So, Mr. Swiver, is it? I think we’ve met.” He fingered the cut on his forehead. “I really ought to go get stitches on this. I’m going to have a scar. Anyhow, here you are again. You’re quite a nuisance.”
“Maybe you should have just killed me when I was lying on the floor in the Biarritz,” I said. “Or would that have made it too complicated? Joe was the fall guy, the way you planned it. But only for the robbery-murder. One murder.”
“Don’t know what you’re talking about, Swiver,” said Jamison. “I was with Velma here all night. You should know. You busted in on us.”
“You knew Jane was planning to divorce you,” I said, “and you couldn’t let her do that, could you, Jamison? Because the vineyards are in her name. You planned the robbery so you could kill her.”
“Kill his wife? What are you talking about, Frank?” asked Velma. “He was with me.”
“Think, sweetheart. He must have left you, maybe just for a few minutes . . . sometime after I came in,” I said.
“When you came in, it ruined the mood,” said Jamison. “I said to Miss
Peregrino, ‘Let’s go out. I know a gambling house on North Point.’ But our luck wasn’t very good, so we didn’t stay long.”
“And I said sure,” said Velma. “It sounded like fun, Frank. And you sure did kill the moment. I just hopped in the shower for a quick rinse—” and then she stopped, as she must have realized that’s when Jamison had been out of her sight.
“When Joe came to you about your business,” I said to Jamison, “you realized he was desperate, so you agreed to let him distribute your wine if he’d take the necklace. What Joe didn’t know was that you planned to kill Jane and pin the murder on him. You weren’t really after the necklace. Sure, it would be good to have the insurance money. But that was just the setup.”
“How could he have planned it?” said Velma. “He couldn’t have known I’d get in the shower. He didn’t even know he was going to pick me up.” She took another drink of her scotch.
“There’s all kinds of planners, Velma,” I said. “Some make a plan and follow it to the letter. Some are flexible. Jamison didn’t know you and didn’t know he was going to take you upstairs. But he knew himself. He has a track record of chasing skirts. He had to be ready for the possibility he’d have company.”
“But how can you know that, Frank?” she said. “Maybe it was Joe. You said he took the necklace . . .” Her eyelids were drooping.
“How do I know it was planned? Simple, sweetheart. When Jamison gave Joe the key to his wife’s room, he lifted Joe’s knife. Why would he do that, unless he’d planned to use it?”
Jamison took a folding knife with a horn handle out of his pocket and grinned like the Cheshire cat. Joe’s eyes widened. Jamison unclasped the knife and laid it on the table. It was a wicked-looking sharp blade about four inches long. There was a thin crust of dried blood on the edge that hadn’t been wiped off.
I said, “So Joe went to Jane’s room and took the White Tiger. I came in; he sapped me and left. Jamison got there while I was still out and killed Jane. Velma, you were Jamison’s alibi for the whole time. And Joe was the patsy. He’d been in the room to steal the necklace, and his knife was the murder weapon.”
“You mean if I hadn’t taken a shower, Jane Jamison would still be alive?” said Velma. She started to list over toward Jamison’s shoulder.
“No, Jamison knew his own weakness for women. He had a backup plan. If you hadn’t taken that shower, he would have found another way to get you out of the picture.”
“Chloral hydrate, Swiver,” said Jamison. “I gave her a dose in the room, but she hadn’t had much of her drink when you came busting in. I just slipped another in her scotch.” He pushed her away, and she tipped over the arm of the davenport. “I just came over here to pay Joe, get the necklace, and leave the murder weapon. If you weren’t so smart, he might have never known I’d borrowed it. Good scotch, Joe. But I need to get back to the hotel. I have to play the part of the shocked and grieving husband. Or widower. Let me have the necklace.”
“I don’t have it here.” The little Frenchman had couilles, staring down a Colt in the hands of a man who’d killed once already that night. I sipped my drink and slipped my tongue into it, to see what diamonds tasted like.
“Where is it?” asked Jamison. His voice was very cold and even now.
Velma sat up, weaving like a cobra. “You killed your wife?” she said.
“You hear a lot of stuff about me, doll, but they can’t prove any of it,” said Jamison. “You’re my alibi.”
“Not anymore, you rat,” she said, and tipped back over. Jamison turned the gun and stuck it in her ribs. “If you’re not my alibi, I don’t need you anymore.”
Sometimes you’ve just got to make your play. “All right, you bastard,” I said, “I have the necklace. I came over here to get it back for the Golden Gate Insurance Company.”
“Loyal to the end, eh, Mr. Swiver? I hope you were well paid for your services . . . in advance. Where is it?”
I said, “It’s in my glass,” and flung it at his face. He swung his gun around and fired a shot at me, but now he had to move the gun in a wide arc to bring it to bear. That gave me time to dive for the floor and Jamison’s shot missed. The scotch got him in the face; the necklace flew out, and he put up his left hand for it. The crystal tumbler tumbled harmlessly off his shoulder. Joe Damas sprang across the cocktail table, scooped up his knife, and plunged it into Jamison’s chest. The Colt went off one more time and Joe slipped down in a heap.
Jamison’s head lolled back, eyes open, with the Corsican vendetta knife sticking out of his chest. Joe had pushed his shiv right into the bad man’s pump. There was a festive spread of red on Jamison’s white dress shirt. If that was a rental tux, he was going to lose his deposit.
I scrambled to Joe’s side and turned him faceup. “C’mon, Damas, tell me you’re okay.”
“Damn it, Swiver,” he gasped. “I had a bad feeling about tonight as soon as I saw you.” I pulled his shirt open. It looked like Jamison had drilled him through a lung. There was a chance.
“Velma, call an ambulance,” I said. She fought off the drug and got on the blower fast. “Hang on, Joe. They’re on their way.”
“Fran
k,” he said.
“Yes, Joe?”
“Can you light a bleu for me?” I dug his last Gauloises out of the pack in his pocket, lit it up, and put it between his lips. He took a drag and smiled at me with moist brown eyes. “Des ennuis des chagrins s’effacent; heureux, heureux à en mourir,” he said, and exhaled his last. Troubles, sorrows disappear, happy, happy to die. It was a line from “La Vie en rose.”
I put an arm around Velma’s waist and walked her around the apartment while we waited for the police. I felt tired, cold with grief for Jane, hollow from the loss of Joe Damas. “I want those pictures, Frank,” she said.
“There are no pictures, sweetheart. Three dead and there’s nothing to show for any of it.” She leaned in close and wrapped her arms around my waist.
She was holding me up by the time the cops got there. Velma had always been tougher than me.
Copyright © 2012 by Harley Mazuk.
Black Mask Magazine title, logo, and mask device
Copyright © 2012 by Keith Alan Deutsch.
Licensed by written permission.
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