Hang by Your Neck

by Kane, Henry

  “I see. Who?”

  “I don’t know. A guy. A rich guy.”

  “How long is it?”

  “It’s a long time. Way back. Remember when he opened that after-hours joint with Johnny the Mick…. Jesus, how do you like that deal with Johnny? You hear about that?”

  “Yes.”

  “Terrible. Well, back there, when Sweetheart wants to open that fancy after-hours club, he needs money. So, somebody arranges a meet between him and this guy, and Sweetheart sells out a half interest. I know, because I hear it around. I didn’t get it from Sweetheart. You know Sweetheart. He wouldn’t tell his mother what he ate last night for supper, so I don’t get it from Sweetheart, he don’t take me into his—what’s that?—confidence, you know, his confidence. He pays me to run this joint, period. But that’s square, Transom. I know there’s a partner in this joint, an outside guy, not one of the boys. If it’s important, I can find out for you. For the same hundred bucks. Morty, the man of honor. Nobody’s gonna say Morty Brodie—”

  “Thanks, man of honor.”

  “You get what you’re looking for?”

  “Yes.”

  “So why the sarcasm?”

  “That wasn’t sarcasm, Morty.”

  “Okay. I feel better.” He put my hundred dollars in his pocket. “I don’t like to feel like no small-time, chiseling—”

  We went out of the office together. Morty said, “Well, what do you know?”

  Sweetheart Vaydelle was walking down an aisle with a towering young man in tow, a towering young man with a bashful grin and red trunks and headgear. “Ring two,” Sweetheart called. “Throw those bums out of ring two. Send up Natie Lox. Tell Natie I want him to spar three rounds with this boy.”

  I came up and I said, “Hi, Sweetheart.”

  “What the hell are you doing here?”

  “Came by to talk to you.”

  “Me? Not me. Not now, please. Oh. Jimmy Mason, Pete Chambers. How do you like the looks of this kid, Pete? Champ in the raw, that’s him, champ in the raw. This kid’s going places …”

  “Sweetheart,” I said.

  “Please. Some other time. I’ll see you around.”

  Morty smiled and winked and trailed along with Sweetheart and the champ in the raw. I looked at my watch and I went for the elevator.

  I had a date in my office with Arnold Petersen.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  I once drank rye. I now drink Scotch.

  I once had a partner. I am now alone.

  I once had a staff. I now have Miranda.

  Vicissitudes of the private richard.

  Like this:

  They had me out on the West Coast for a time, the land of the blond hair and the burned face and the high hope behind a soda fountain. They had me there as a technical expert in the filming of an extra-special murder story with a new twist: the private richard is murdered in the first reel and the case is solved by the lovely heroine with dew in her eye and brains in her head and about as much experience with murderers as with broken-down pickets working overtime on a line in Peoria. There was script trouble before the picture began. That took six months. On salary. I had nothing to do but collect the salary and take the sun and go to parties and listen to high hopes from over the soda fountains. And drink. But at the parties, they had Scotch or bourbon. And at the bars, they had Scotch or bourbon. And when a visitor dropped in to my little place in Santa Monica (ten rooms) with a package (and do you know anybody that has a little place—ten rooms—on the West Coast, and the little place isn’t in Santa Monica?), the package opened into Scotch or bourbon. When, once or twice, I timidly inquired about rye, I got a pleated forehead and arched eyebrows and upturned hands and: “Climate.”

  So I acquired an expensive taste for Scotch, which I brought back East, only to learn that my erstwhile partner, Philip Scoffol, was gratifying a venerable desire to put the lid on his many years as tracker-downer and devote himself to the flowering of petunias in Mamaroneck. When Scoffol retired, fifteen luscious insurance-company accounts retired with him, that is, retired to the Pinkertons. (Advice to all free-lance peripatetic private richards—be dignified, have white hair, smoke cigars, and confine the pragmatic ebullition to the junior partner.) This left me with a staff, Miranda, and sporadic business. A staff and sporadic business is quite as expensive as Scotch with no clients. Regretfully, I gave up the staff.

  Today, in slightly smaller quarters, we have Peter Chambers in gilt block letters on the glazed glass door, and Miranda Foxworth, short and square and acrimonious, behind the typewriter in the outer office.

  “Any calls?” I asked her.

  “No.”

  “A man show up yet?”

  “No man showed up.”

  2

  I hung up my hat and coat. I took out five one-thousand-dollar bills. “Put these in the safe, please. Deposit them tomorrow, lunch time.”

  “Wow,” she said.

  “And I’m expecting a man.”

  “Refreshing,” she said. “A man, for a change.”

  I threw her what I hoped was a withering glance and I went into my room. I put my feet up on the desk, concentrating. I took my feet off the desk, concentrating. I stood up and walked around the room, concentrating.

  Nothing.

  I went back to my desk and put my feet up and stopped concentrating. I thought about Miami Moonbeam. Then I thought about Nancy Reeves. I wondered which one was her benefactor, Petersen or Merrill. Then I thought about Prairie O’Neil and his paintings, and I smiled, and then I thought about Petersen and his half interest in the Pantheon. What had Merrill called him?—”a man of varied milieu.”

  Miranda buzzed and the box spoke.

  “A gentleman for Mr. Chambers. A Mr. Petersen. Can you see him now?” A two-room office, but with a customer outside, Miranda never failed to sound like an overburdened receptionist in the most important segment of the White House.

  “I can see him now,” I said.

  Petersen came in, smiling. The all-American boy, grown up. The wide smile. The straightforward stride. The honest steel specs. The rough blond unsophisticated crew cut; you scratch your head in the morning and your hair is combed. Even the handshake, firm and dry, with the thumb pressing hard against my knuckles.

  “Throw your things on the couch,” I said. “Sit down.”

  He didn’t throw. He folded his topcoat on the couch and he put his hat on that. He sat, square and tall, in my wooden armchair. He sighed and he smiled. “I don’t want to waste our time, Mr. Chambers, yours or mine.”

  “That’s all right by me.”

  “I’ll get right to the point.”

  “Swell.”

  “That wasn’t all idle chatter.”

  “What wasn’t?”

  “Back there at Merrill’s place, when I was probing about your theories.”

  “Oh.”

  “Tell you the truth, I’d been half expecting Mr. Merrill to give you a quick, perhaps bantering, résumé of certain events that transpired about two weeks ago, two weeks ago Thursday, to be exact. But Mr. Merrill didn’t. Mr. Merrill had no interest in your theories. Mr. Merrill accepted the police theory, in toto.”

  I sat up. “Well, now—”

  “Just a minute. I have no idea why you’re working on this matter, or for whom. But—you struck me as being a very bright young man, and within the last hour I made a quick check; you’re not a young man with a bent for chasing the wild goose.” He smiled broader. “I cannot say whether you’re right or wrong in disagreeing with the police on this affair, but I can say that I believe you’re serious, and I therefore feel—with even more conviction than I felt back there at the apartment—that certain facts should be put at your disposal, which may or may not have any true bearing on the case. Three people—no, four—can give you these facts. Merrill, Nancy, Prairie, and myself. Merrill should have. Prairie won’t. And Nancy hasn’t. Then I will.”

  “Why?”

  “I heard the po
lice version from the Inspector. I knew Johnny Mikvah. I cannot conceive of Johnny Mikvah murdering Pamela Reeves. I know, definitely, that their relationship had deteriorated to such a point where she simply wasn’t important enough. The fact that he killed himself means nothing. Suicide is not necessarily an admission of guilt. Do you agree with me?”

  “It’s somewhat along the lines I’ve been thinking.”

  “I said nothing to the Inspector. I have reasons for that, personal reasons, which I shall explain. I didn’t want to become involved in this. As long as the police seemed so thoroughly convinced, well, that was balm for my conscience. I don’t believe that I could have brought myself to talk to the police, in any event, as I am about to talk to you. Then, when you arrived, a private detective who was also of the belief that a miscarriage was taking place, I tried to bring it out—some of it, at least—but none of it came out. That’s wrong, and I know it’s wrong; there seemed to be a tacit understanding that there be no mention of the events I refer to. I’m bringing it to you. In confidence. As I said, it may have no true bearing, but Conrad Merrill threatened to kill Pamela Reeves, only two weeks ago, in my presence and in the presence of her sister, Nancy.”

  “What?”

  “There’s been a deep-seated, long-smoldering hatred between those two for a long time. Ever since she married Nottiby.”

  I came out from behind the desk and walked around him. I moved his coat over and crossed my legs on the couch. “Don’t you like him?”

  “Whom?”

  “Merrill.”

  “Of course. That has nothing to do with it. I’m not saying he killed her. But, in view of all of the circumstances, the possibility does exist. In that case, I’m certainly not going to be party to a conspiracy to hush it up. If this affair is being further investigated, if you’re working on it—then you should have been told. He should have told you. Nancy should have told you.”

  “But—”

  “Oh, I can readily understand that it is natural for people not to desire to expose old sores. I can understand, perfectly, that neither Merrill, nor Nancy, nor Prairie, would want to open up a distasteful matter, when there is no reason to. As long as the matter rested there, as long as everybody was satisfied with the police handling of the affair—I can understand letting, to use a banality, sleeping dogs lie. But once you interceded, a professional investigator, at odds with the police theories, then, despite the very normal feeling of reticence, I feel that you should have been taken into these confidences, particularly if they are innocent confidences. The fact is—you weren’t. Then it is either an extension of that normal feeling of reticence, the wish to suppress an unhealthy and unpleasant state of affairs, or, well, it might be more than that. I don’t know. I’m sure you don’t know. But you have a right to these facts. And I have a duty to inform you. Now do you understand?”

  “I think so.”

  “I don’t know what anybody else thinks, but I think it would be downright criminal of me to join in this—this miasma of silence. Merrill is a business acquaintance of long standing. I’ll go further than that. Merrill is a friend of mine, but on the mad off-chance that Merrill is involved in a murder, I—well, I couldn’t live with myself. I did my utmost to open it up and bring about a discussion at his studio. I heard you ask to talk with him and I heard him refuse you. Look, Mr. Chambers, this isn’t pleasant—”

  “Slow down, Mr. Petersen.”

  “I can’t help myself.”

  “I know how you feel. It’s a lousy spot.”

  “All my life—well, I’ve been brought up in a certain way, I suppose. I’m no paragon—oh, no, I’m not—”

  “One second. Let’s just go back to that other point.”

  “Which?”

  “Why wouldn’t you have gone to the police with it, Mr. Petersen?”

  He brought out a large handkerchief and he rubbed it across his head. He took off his glasses and he patted his face. He cleaned the lenses and put the glasses back. He rubbed the handkerchief between his palms. “The obstacle there—is myself. In a sense, any disclosure I could make in the circumstances would be scandalous. There’s my position in the business world. There’s my wife and my two children.”

  “Yes, I think I understand.”

  “No, you don’t. Let me tell it my way, please. Nottiby, for instance—”

  “Who?”

  “Nottiby.”

  I slapped my hands against my thighs and then I held one up, high, like a cop unsnarling traffic. “Nottiby. Now, what the hell have you got to do with—”

  “The police didn’t mention Nottiby. They talked about Pamela and Mikvah’s suicide, but nothing about Nottiby. There’s no reason why they should, I suppose, to either Merrill or myself.”

  “Or anyone else.”

  “But aren’t they—”

  “Listen, Nottiby pulled one on the cops that the cops aren’t proud of. There’s nothing about it in the papers, and there probably will never be. They’re looking for him. Do you know that?”

  “Yes.”

  “They’re not talking about it, except to people who might help them find him. Then how—”

  “Nancy. They talked to Nancy and Nancy talked to Merrill and Merrill talked to me. We’re all supposed to be protecting Nottiby.”

  “You wouldn’t know where he is, would you?”

  “We all know. That is, we’re reasonably sure we know. But we don’t talk about it. Why? Why?”

  “Are you asking me?”

  “Nancy and Merrill are friends of his. But I—I simply don’t want to be involved. I’m afraid to be involved, to put it truthfully. I think they’re depending on that.”

  “All right,” I said. “Where?”

  “Where what?”

  “Where is he?”

  “I’m telling you, Mr. Chambers. I’m telling you where they think he is. None of us is supposed to talk about it. But why shouldn’t I? What have I to do with it?”

  “Where?”

  “In Nyack. In a little house up in Nyack. I’m telling you. I’m not telling the police. Please remember that.”

  “Nyack. And how would you know?”

  “I live in Nyack.”

  “What’s that got to do with it?”

  “I helped select the place when Merrill bought it for her.”

  “For whom?”

  “Pamela.”

  I swept a hand across my face. “Say that again, will you? Say it all together.”

  He said it. All together.

  “Now, look,” I said. “Just a minute. Let’s get a little organization into this. Who bought what for whom? And what’s Nottiby got to do with all of it?”

  “There’s no reason for me to have been put in this position of withholding information from the authorities. But I am in that position.”

  “I’m not—authorities.”

  “That’s just why I’m talking to you.”

  “Then talk,” I said. “But, please—talk plainer.”

  He rubbed a knuckle against his teeth. “A long time ago, when they were still married, Merrill bought this little house for her. The deed is registered in his name. Conrad Merrill. He gave it to her. Then, later, when she and Nottiby broke up, they made a deal. He donated all of the furniture in their apartment to her, and she turned over the little place in Nyack to him. To Nottiby. If he’s hiding, that’s where he’s hiding. The police wouldn’t look there. The place is still registered under the name of Conrad Merrill. Why should the police look for Toby O. Nottiby in a shack in Nyack ostensibly owned by Conrad Merrill?”

  “Do you have the address, the phone?”

  “I think so, yes.” He took out a little black book, riffled. “It’s—”

  “Just a minute.” I went to the desk and wrote down the address and the phone number. “Thanks.” I went back to the couch. “Where were we? Yes … what’s a wife and two children and business position, what’s all of that got to do with it?”

  “Please let
me tell it my way, and I’m sure you’ll understand. First, there’s the fact of this hatred Merrill had for Pamela. Something was wrong there, terribly wrong. From the time she married Nottiby, who, by the way, is a very dear friend of his, there was this implacable, unmitigated hatred. I don’t know why. I’ve never been told.”

  “Sold,” I said. “Now what about two weeks ago?”

  “We went to the Courvocco at about four-thirty in the morning, Merrill and myself squiring Nancy. None of us, of course, was very sober. Nancy noticed Pamela at the other end of the room, at a table, alone. Merrill said something like, ‘That bitch, I want to talk to her. She’s been ducking me.’ He left our table and he joined her. I was facing their way. I couldn’t hear what they were talking about, but Merrill was doing most of the talking, his face red. She just sat there looking at him. Suddenly, she picked up her highball and threw it in his face. He jumped up and yanked her out of her chair. There was an awful squabble. Nancy and I rushed over, but we couldn’t pull him off her. ‘I’ll kill you,’ he kept saying, ‘I promise you, I’ll kill you.’ Then Mikvah and a couple of his bouncers got into it, and a real fight started, strangers butting in, you know how people get when there’s a lot of drinking. Mikvah reached up and struck Merrill, knocking him down. Somehow, I got through to Merrill; Nancy and I took him home. Prairie was all for going back there and squaring things when he heard about it, but Merrill dissuaded him. ‘I’ll attend to this in my own way,’ he said, and when he said it he sounded very sober. We left him then, and I took Nancy home. I stayed over in New York that night.”

  He stopped talking. He wasn’t smiling. He sat and stared through his specs, his ruddy young face immobile. You couldn’t get behind that face. The intent pleasantness was like a tight-stretched tarpaulin.

  I said, “A crack like that, in the heat of an argument—can you call that a threat?”

  “I’m not calling it anything. A situation existed and I believe that you should have been made cognizant of it, that’s all. I’m not going to live with Conrad Merrill’s burdens inside of me. I have burdens of my own.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Petersen.” I stood up and I strolled. I lit a cigarette and I smoked. I walked around him, behind him and in front of him. “What about the wife and kids and business position, and you can skip that, if you want to.”