The Juarez Knife

by Richard Deming

  In contrast to the others Bagnell was a suave figure. Slim, slightly graying, and with clear features, he might have been a banker or business executive except for his gambler’s eyes. Pale and expressionless, they looked up at me without curiosity.

  “Yes?”

  “I’m Moon.”

  “I know.”

  Mouldy Greene broke in. “I’ll be hanged!”

  “Probably,” I said. “How are you, Mouldy?”

  “The old topkick! I thought you lost a leg.”

  “I did.”

  He stared at my feet puzzledly and gave up.

  “This guy,” he announced to the room at large, “had me digging latrines all the way from Bizerte to Anzio.”

  “Interesting,” said Bagnell. “What do you want, Moon?”

  “This morning Lawrence Randall hired me,” I said.

  Bagnell’s lips curled in a humorless smile. His eyes remained opaque.

  “So he’s sending messenger boys? Afraid if he came himself, I’d take twenty-five thousand out of his hide?”

  “Possibly.”

  We sized each other up silently, he trying to figure me out and I, not having the vaguest idea of where to go from here, operating on the principle that silence is often mistaken for knowledge.

  “If you brought twenty-five thousand in cash, I’ll talk business,” Bagnell said finally. “If you didn’t, go back and tell your employer to have it on my desk by midnight, or I’ll come and get it.”

  “Mr. Randall doesn’t think he ought to pay.”

  His fingers beat a quick march on the desk top. “So he doesn’t think he ought to pay? He thinks his share from this place should be handed over regularly, but little side deals go all to him?” He leaned forward and the opaque eyes glowed coldly. “Tell him I said twelve o’clock.”

  I was getting much more than I expected. I allowed it to roll around in my mind until it dropped into the semblance of order. I guessed that Randall, as Bagnell’s partner, or at least business associate in Club El Patio, had pulled off some big money side deal and refused to split. Probably he had wanted to hire me to strong-arm Bagnell out of his insistence on a cut.

  Either Bagnell was ignorant of Randall’s death or he was staging a colorful act for my pleasure. From my inside pocket I took the envelope containing the El Toro butts I had found in the men’s room at the University Building and emptied it on his desk.

  “Know anyone who smokes that brand?”

  Caramand, craning forward for a closer look, blurted, “I do.”

  Bagnell said, “Shut up,” without taking his eyes from mine.

  I scooped the butts back into their envelope and replaced it in my pocket.

  “I found them in a men’s room that looks right into Randall’s back door.”

  Bagnell continued to watch me without speaking.

  “I suppose you know Randall was murdered this afternoon?” I remarked conversationally.

  The room had been quiet, but now it became a vault. Even breathing stopped.

  “Throw him out,” Bagnell commanded tonelessly.

  The two men on the sofa and Vance Caramand rose.

  “I’ll sit this one out,” Mouldy Greene said.

  Caramand shifted his eyes to Mouldy, then back to me.

  “You’re out of your class, Vance,” Mouldy said. “This guy was a topkick in the Rangers.”

  The two from the couch moved in on me synchronously. I let one get hold of either arm and waited. Vance Caramand took a step toward me.

  “Shall I dust him one, Boss?”

  “As you please,” said Bagnell.

  From the corner of my eye I was conscious of Mouldy Greene, his chair aslant against the wall, enjoying proceedings from his ringside seat. Caramand cocked his right fist, grinned, and took another step forward.

  “The sarge calls this a gavot,” I heard Mouldy’s voice say.

  Leaning into the support the other two furnished my arms, I planted the inner side of my aluminum foot under Caramand’s chin with enough force to kick a field goal had his head been a football. Without waiting for him to fall, I used the down sweep to smash my heel against the shin of the man holding my right arm. When he yowled and let go, I pivoted and slammed a knee into the third’s middle. He let go also.

  Caramand had collapsed quietly to the floor. Sore-shin came back for more, arms outstretched for a bear hug. I grabbed his necktie, managed to wind my other fist around the tie of the third hood, who was half-doubled in pain, and jerked my hands together sharply. I stepped out of the way and their heads rang together like a bell and clapper.

  “Army judo,” Mouldy brightly explained to Bagnell. “Plus some stuff he picked up in barrooms. We called it the Moon syst—”

  “Shut up,” Bagnell broke in. He regarded the three unconscious bodies unemotionally. “I heard you were tough.” I toyed with the thought of bouncing him through a wall, and rejected it as waste of energy. Bagnell, watching my eyes, seemed to read the passing thought. He smiled an undaunted, mocking smile.

  “How would you like steady employment?”

  “I like working for myself,” I said, and walked out.

  As I neared Fausta’s table she upended her cards and called, “Nineteen.” As I passed she murmured, “You be there,” without looking up.

  I winked and continued on to the door.

  CHAPTER VI

  Mathilda Zell

  Alvin Christopher and I were the only witnesses called before the coroner’s jury. Joan, at Eddie Duncan’s advice, refusing to testify on constitutional grounds. I felt mild irritation at this, knowing the reporters would embrace it as further evidence of Joan’s guilt. While the jury was out I asked Eddie what he thought he was doing.

  “They think she’s guilty anyway,” he said. “Unless you turn up new evidence, nothing we do or say will keep her from the grand jury. And nothing we say there will keep her from being indicted. I’m not letting her open her mouth until she finally goes on trial.”

  The jury took ten minutes to arrive at the routine opinion that, “The deceased met death by homicide at the hands of person or persons unknown.” The district attorney had Joan scheduled to appear in police court at one o’clock that afternoon. He was definitely rushing things, and I suspected the cantankerous urging of Inspector Warren Day in the background.

  I stopped Joan at the door as she was being escorted out.

  “How are you feeling?”

  “Fine,” she said.

  Except for a faint darkening beneath the eyes, she showed no sign of the strain she must have been under.

  “I hoped they wouldn’t rush things so,” I said. “That’s why Eddie didn’t pull a habeas corpus or try to post bond. We thought if we didn’t prod them any, we’d have more time to work. Looks like we guessed wrong.”

  “That’s all right.”

  “I haven’t found much yet, but if it helps any, I know you’re innocent.” She gave me a depressed but grateful smile and passed on through the door back to her cell.

  I took a taxi to the University Building. In Lawrence Randall’s outer office I found Alvin sitting behind his desk shuffling papers, he, too, having come here direct from the inquest. He glanced up without friendliness. I sat on the edge of his desk and lit a cigar.

  “Have one?” I offered.

  “No, thanks.”

  I watched him thumb through check stubs and enter figures on a ledger sheet.

  “Why are you working today? I supposed a lawyer’s business just stopped when he died. If a grocer dies they put someone else in charge and go on selling apples. But a lawyer sells knowledge. When he’s dead there’s nothing left to sell.”

  “I’m checking Mr. Randall’s accounts for the executor.”

  “Find anything interesting in the safe?”

&nbs
p; “We haven’t opened it,” he said. “Mr. Randall never gave the combination to anyone. We’re awaiting a court order to break it open.”

  “What appointments did Randall have yesterday?”

  Alvin stopped working, leaned back in his chair, and grasped the edge of his desk with both hands. He opened his mouth as though preparing to deliver a dissertation, closed it again, and picked up a fresh stack of check stubs.

  “Ask the police,” he said.

  Leaning over, I picked up a notebook inscribed, “Appointments” from the corner of his desk.

  “Hey!” said Alvin. “Put that down!”

  I looked at him steadily until he dropped his eyes.

  “Stop fooling yourself,” I said. “You are going to answer questions.”

  He tried to meet my eyes again, failed. “What do you want to know?” he asked sulkily.

  Opening the book to the previous day’s list I ran over the names and times and asked about each in turn. There were three appointments for the morning. The first concerned a litigation suit, the second was a woman seeking a divorce, and the third a salesman trying to sell an air conditioning unit for the office.

  I noted their names for future reference.

  Three appointments were listed for afternoon also. I saw Joan Garson’s name, my own, then:

  Mathilda Zell, 4:00 p.m.

  “Who’s Mathilda Zell?” I asked.

  “My fiancée.”

  “Congratulations,” I said dryly. “What was her appointment about?”

  “I don’t know.”

  I reached across, bunched his shirt front together in my fist and jerked him half upright so that our faces were very near.

  “You got me wrong,” he said quickly. “I honestly don’t know. Mattie doesn’t, either. Mr. Randall phoned her himself and asked her to come in. He didn’t tell either of us what he wanted.”

  I eased him back into his chair. He sat there looking flustered, and brushed at his shirt front in an attempt to smooth out the wrinkles.

  “How long did you say you’ve worked here?” I said.

  “Three years.”

  “And before that?”

  “College.”

  “Miss Zell’s appointment was at four o’clock, two hours after the murder. When did she get here?”

  “She didn’t. After the police left, I phoned her and told her not to come.” Mathilda Zell seemed my next logical lead. I pried her address from Alvin and took a taxi there. She stayed at the Park Plaza, an exclusive apartment hotel. I knew something of her from occasional rotogravure pictures and frequent society items in the local papers.

  She was one of the town’s richest women, lived alone, and went in heavily for sports. Newspaper photographs usually showed her in tennis shorts holding a racket, in a yachting costume, or on a horse. But her main activity was mountain climbing, and she was forever being written up for breaking the time record to the top of the highest peak in Rhodesia, or for being on her way to break a record somewhere else in the world. Her parents had been dead for years.

  She proved to be about what I expected, a tall, tanned blonde with breezy good looks and a direct manner. I judged her age to be twenty-one or two.

  “Alvin phoned you were coming,” she said. “Collapse; and have a cold drink.”

  I sat on a semi-soft divan and looked about the tastefully furnished, but small apartment while she went into the kitchenette.

  “I know it’s small for the price,” she called. “The manager keeps telling me I pay for exclusiveness. I asked for a larger, less exclusive apartment, but he only seemed offended.”

  She reappeared with two frosted glasses that looked like Tom Collinses. Handing me one, she arched herself in a chair opposite my sofa, her legs stretched straight in front of her like a man’s.

  “Here’s a go,” I said.

  “Mud in your eye.”

  The drink proved to be ginless lemonade, but after the first shock I relaxed. She had the knack of making you feel comfortable. We passed small talk and were getting miles from the purpose of my call when she brought it up herself.

  “Alvin says you’re a kind of policeman investigating Mr. Randall’s death.”

  “I’m a private operator. Randall wanted to hire me, but got himself killed before he could write my retainer check. Naturally I’m irked at the murderer, so I’m following up.”

  “But isn’t it all solved?”

  “You mean Joan Garson? I don’t think she did it.”

  “I’m glad,” she said. “I can’t imagine Joan committing murder.”

  “You know her?”

  “Oh, yes. We were in school together. Alvin was engaged to her once. I didn’t know either of them well then. I was just a sophomore, while Joan and Alvin were seniors. That’s miles apart in college. But I’m glad you don’t think Joan did it. Are you here to find out if I did?”

  “Hardly. I just want to know about your appointment with Randall.”

  “I’m afraid it won’t help you much,” she said. “About a week ago Mr. Randall phoned and said he had something of interest to tell me. Nine days ago, actually, because I had just come from the anti-gambling league meeting, so it was on a Thursday. He refused to say any more over the phone, but asked me to drop in at his office the following afternoon. The next morning he phoned and changed the appointment to yesterday. He said his information wasn’t quite complete.”

  “Have you any idea what information he was talking about?”

  “Not the slightest. I really wasn’t too interested. Frankly, I didn’t like Mr. Randall. I was glad when Alvin decided to leave him. Alvin has a job with Schimer and Burke starting next week, you know.”

  That was news to me. I shook my head.

  “No, I didn’t know,” I said.

  “They’re a law firm. Much more reputable than Randall. He was mixed in some kind of gambling, you know. Of course Alvin had nothing to do with that part of his business, but I never liked his working for a gambler.”

  “You mentioned belonging to the anti-gambling league. I take it you disapprove of gambling.”

  “I hate it!” Her face darkened with such sudden feeling I was taken aback. “Alvin hates it as much as I, but he has to make a living. Of course his work concerned only the law part of Mr. Randall’s business, but he disliked being associated with a gambler in any way. We were both glad he was leaving.”

  “Now we come to the usual routine question,” I said. “Where were you at two o’clock yesterday?”

  She uttered an alto laugh. “I have no alibi. I played tennis all morning, lunched alone at Del’s Cafe and returned here about one o’clock. No one saw me come in. The elevator is self-operating. I showered and dressed, intending to leave for my appointment about three-thirty. I could easily have got out of here without being seen, gone to the University Building and back, and no one the wiser.”

  “Did you?”

  “No. I didn’t leave the apartment. Alvin phoned about three-fifteen, so I didn’t go out at all until dinner-time.”

  I could think of nothing else to ask. I thanked her for the lemonade and left…

  The police court judge made short work of Joan’s case. After a brief, matter-of-fact presentation by the district attorney, Alvin Christopher and I were called as witnesses. We repeated substantially what we had told the coroner’s jury. Eddie Duncan did not cross-examine, nor did he present any defense.

  “We couldn’t change the judge’s mind,” he said, when I returned to my seat. “Why struggle?”

  The court bound Joan over to the grand jury without bail. I got to speak to her a moment before her policeman escort took her away. “I’m collecting lots of information,” I told her. “But it doesn’t lead anywhere. I’ll try to get down and see you late this afternoon. I have a call to make first.”

 
“I know you’re doing your best,” she said. “I want you to know I appreciate everything, no matter how it comes out.” Her eyes moistened and seemed on the point of overflowing. I changed the subject.

  “I didn’t see your mother here.”

  “I asked her not to come.”

  She looked lonely, but proud, as she went down the courthouse steps between two uniformed policemen, her cheeks faintly pink at the popping of flash bulbs, but her head held high and her eyes straight ahead.

  The call I had mentioned to Joan was at her own home. I had to break a line of reporters to get to the front door. More seemed to have congregated here than at the courthouse. Several knew me and shouted questions from the time I got out of the taxi until I reached the front door.

  “Hey, Moon! How about a statement?”

  “Why do you think she killed him, Mr. Moon?”

  “You’re on the inside, Moon. How’s she going to plead?”

  “Who you working for, Moon?”

  I turned my back too the door and raised one hand to stop the clamor.

  “Hold it, boys. I can’t answer all your questions, but you can print this. I’m representing Miss Garson and I’m going to prove she didn’t commit the murder! That’s all you get.”

  CHAPTER VII

  A Mother’s Story

  Ringing the bell, questions bounced off me again. I just kept shaking my head. I rang three times before a corner of the door curtain lifted and the face of Mrs. Garson peeped through. It immediately disappeared and the door opened a crack, with the chain still on. “What do you want?” she asked indistinctly.

  “Open up. I won’t let any reporters in.”

  The door closed again and I could hear her fumbling with the chain. Then it reluctantly opened. Amid shouts at Mrs. Garson from the reporters, I slipped inside and pushed the door shut behind me. Joan’s mother was dressed as expensively as usual, but her face was tired, and she wore no makeup.

  “Isn’t it terrible?” she said. “I can’t move out of the house.”

  In the large front room where we had talked before, she asked me to sit down, and took a chair facing mine. She kept working her hands together, her poise of yesterday completely gone.