The Tenth Commandment

by Lawrence Sanders

  “Yes, sir. Sounds to me like the police have done a thorough job.”

  “Precisely. However, I was not able to convince Mrs. Stone-house completely of that, so I assured her that the disappearance of her husband would be examined fully by our own investigation department.”

  Four years ago I was a mailroom boy and now I was a department. Success!

  Mr. Teitelbaum continued: “Mrs. Stonehouse’s second problem is financial in nature. All her husband’s assets, including his checking and savings accounts, are in his name alone. So Mrs. Stonehouse, with no assets of her own, is, ah, feeling the pinch.”

  “I should think so, sir—if he’s been gone a month.”

  “Yes. I am having the whole matter of the status of the assets of a missing person researched at the present moment. I believe I will be able to petition the court to grant the family an allowance for living expenses prior to the time her missing husband is declared legally dead—if indeed he is ever so declared.”

  “If he is, sir,” I said, “I mean, declared legally dead at some future time, who gets the money? How is the estate divided?”

  “The third problem,” Mr. Teitelbaum said somberly. “Mrs. Stonehouse cannot find her husband’s will. It seems to be missing.”

  4

  THE MOMENT I RETURNED to my office, I called Marty again. Still no answer. It was then 4:25 P.M. I finished my report on the time trials, read it over, put the original in my Out basket, and the carbon in my file cabinet. I then started two new folders, labeling them KIPPER and STONEHOUSE. At the moment, I had nothing to put in the latter, and only Marty’s phone number to file in the former.

  I relaxed for a few moments, put my feet up on the desk, and reviewed my recent interview with Teitelbaum.

  All Teitelbaum wanted me to do was to meet and interview the Stonehouse family and servants, to ask them any questions I thought might be germane to the disappearance of the Professor, and generally to nose about and try to make some educated guesses as to what had actually happened.

  “You are a clever young man,” Mr. Teitelbaum had said. “Perhaps you will think of an approach or an angle that the police have neglected.”

  When he or the assigned TORT attorney went into court to beg that an allowance be granted to the Stonehouse family from the missing man’s assets, Teitelbaum wanted to be able to assure the bench that every possible effort had been made to locate the Professor.

  “We can already present the unsuccessful efforts of the New York Police Department,” he’d suggested. “In addition, I want to show that Mrs. Stonehouse made a personal effort, working through us, her legal representative, to find her husband. I want you to keep a careful record of the number of hours you spend on this inquiry. The more, the better—without neglecting your other responsibilities, of course. In addition to that, I plan to place advertisements in the local papers offering a reward for information on the fate and present whereabouts of Professor Stonehouse. We may even have fliers printed up and distributed in their neighborhood, making the same offer of reward. Personally, I do not feel anything will come of these efforts, but the purpose is to prove to the court that we have made a bona fide effort to locate the missing man prior to petitioning for the right to draw on his assets without his permission.”

  That made sense to me. It was no great blow to my self-esteem to know that my investigation was to be merely part of a legal ploy and that no great results were expected.

  Back in my office at four minutes to five, I dialed Marty’s number once again. This time it was picked up after the third ring. A man’s voice answered:

  “Yeah?”

  “Marty?”

  “Yeah. Who’s this?”

  “I’m calling for Mr. Leopold Tabatchnick.”

  “About time. You got in just under the wire.”

  “I’ve been calling all day.”

  “Yeah?” he said. “Well, I been in and out.”

  It was a thick, clotty voice with an uneducated New York accent. He was silent, waiting for me to speak.

  “Mr. Tabatchnick wants me to meet with you,” I said politely. “At your convenience. To discuss matters relevant to the estate of Solomon Kipper.”

  “That’s what I’m here for,” he said cheerily. “I’m selling, and you’re buying—right?”

  “Uhh, that’s to be determined,” I said hastily. “When and where can we meet?”

  He paused a moment, then:

  “There’s a gin mill on West 46th Street between Eighth and Ninth. Closer to Ninth. Called the Purple Cow. Meet me there at 11:30 tomorrow morning. Got that?”

  I had been scribbling quick notes.

  “I have it,” I said. “How will I know you?”

  “I’ll be sitting in the last booth on the left,” he said. Then his voice turned guttural. “You coming alone?”

  “Of course,” I said.

  “Good,” he said. “No foolishness.”

  He clicked off.

  I hung up slowly, staring down at my notes. I tried to analyze how he had sounded. Not menacing, I finally concluded, but very sure of himself.

  I sighed, added that note to the Kipper file, and stored it away in my steel cabinet. Then I put on my coat and started home, exchanging “Good nights” with other departing employees. Yetta Apatoff’s desk was bare; apparently she had already left.

  It had been a gray day, raw, the light coarse and the air smelling damply of snow. But the temperature had moderated somewhat; the wind still nibbled, but it had freshened, and the evening sky showed patches of pale blue. Rather than try to jam my way aboard crowded buses, I decided to walk home to the West 20s.

  I lived on a street in Chelsea that had once been lined with private homes. Most of the houses had cast-iron railings in front, sandstone steps leading up to ornate front doors. Those that hadn’t been gutted still had marble fireplaces and high ceilings with plaster embellishments.

  My building had adequate heat and hot water because the owner lived there. On the first floor was a firm of architects, Armentrout & Pook; and Hooshang Aboudi, Inc., importers of general merchandise.

  The owner and her daughter, Hermione and Cleo Hufnagel, lived on the second floor in separate apartments. I shared the third floor with Bramwell Shank, an elderly ex-ferryboat captain who was confined to a wheelchair. On the top floor, the fourth, were the apartments of Madama Zora Kadinsky, who said she had once sung at the Met and still practiced scales during the day. The other fourth-floor apartment was occupied by Adolph Finkel, a retail shoe salesman.

  The apartments were dark but the ceilings were high and the fireplaces worked. I paid $350 a month plus utilities.

  On this particular evening Bramwell Shank was waiting for me in the third-floor hallway. His bottle of muscatel was in his lap, with a clean glass ready for me and a half-empty one he was sipping. He wheeled himself into my apartment as soon as I unlocked the door and launched into a recital of the day’s TV activities before I could get my coat off.

  In his prime he must have been a stalwart bruiser, with solid shoulders, corded arms, and fists that looked like geological specimens. Now, imprisoned in a wheelchair, puddled by drink, he still had a thrusting, assertive brawler’s presence. His voice rattled the windows and all his gestures were outsize and violent.

  Because he was bald, he wore a captain’s cap all day; below the peak of the cap was a pulpy face that ranged from pink to deep purple. He wore black turtleneck sweaters and a brass-buttoned blue officer’s jacket.

  I let him thunder on about the shows he had seen and when he paused to fill our glasses again, I asked him if he’d care to eat with me.

  “I was planning to scramble some eggs with salami,” I said. “Maybe a salad. And a piece of pie. You’re welcome to share, Captain.”

  “Nan,” he said. “I already made my own slop and et it. Where’d you get the pie—Powerful Katrinka give it to you?”

  That was what he called our landlady, Mrs. Hufnagel. It was an apt nickname; sh
e stood five eleven and was at least a welterweight.

  “Yes, she did,” I said. “It’s Dutch apple, and very good. Homemade.”

  “Uh-huh,” he said, looking at me and grinning. “She’s real friendly to you, ain’t she?”

  “Isn’t she friendly to you?”

  “She don’t bake me no pies. You going to the party?”

  “What party?”

  “Saturday night. Katrinka invited all the tenants.”

  “I haven’t been invited.”

  “You will be.”

  “What’s the occasion?”

  “Valentine’s Day—she says. But I got my own ideas about that.”

  “You’re talking in riddles tonight, Captain.”

  He watched me assemble paper and kindling in the fireplace.

  “You ain’t doing that right!” he roared. “Pile up your kindling crisscross.”

  “I do it like this. It always works.”

  The fire caught this time, too. We were watching it, wineglasses in hand, when there came a rapid knocking on the door.

  “ ’allo, ’allo!” caroled Mme Kadinsky. “Joshy? You are een there?”

  “Don’t let her in,” growled the Captain.

  “Madame Kadinsky,” I said, smiling at her. “Nice to see you. Do come in.”

  She tapped my cheek. “You promised to call me Zora, you naughty boy.” Then she was inside the room, moving with quick little steps. “But you already have company. The Captain Shink.”

  “Shank,” he growled.

  “I am interrupting somesing?” She laughed gaily.

  “Not at all,” I told her. “We’re just having a glass of wine. Let me get you a glass.”

  “Joshy,” she said, “you are going to the party Saturday night?”

  “I haven’t been invited.”

  Like Bramwell Shank, she said, “You will be.” They both smiled.

  “What’s going on with you two?”

  Zora put a hand to her cheek, rolled her eyes.

  “He don’t know,” Shank said.

  “Tell me!” I burst out.

  “Powerful Katrinka has her eye on you for Cleo,” the Captain said.

  They departed soon after, and I went into the kitchen to make my omelette. I suppose I felt a kind of smirky pride; I am as vain as the next man. The whole thing was ridiculous, of course. Cleo Hufnagel seemed a pleasant, soft-spoken young woman. We smiled and exchanged greetings. But more was impossible. Cleo was at least five ten, and taller in heels.

  But my thoughts kept returning to the Great Hufnagel Plot.

  When the knock came I knew at once who it was. It was Mrs. Hufnagel bearing a plate covered with a paper napkin.

  “Mrs. Hufnagel! What a surprise! Won’t you come in?”

  “Well…just for a minute. I don’t want to disturb you.”

  “Not at all,” I said. “Would you like a cup of coffee?”

  “No, nothing, thanks,” she said. “We just finished dinner. My, that was a fine meal Cleo cooked. Swiss steak with mashed potatoes, fresh stringbeans, and the best gravy ever. Have you had your coffee yet?”

  I said truthfully that I hadn’t.

  “Well, Cleo baked these chocolate chip cookies and we thought you might enjoy some with your coffee.”

  “Mrs. Hufnagel, you’re too generous.”

  “Try one,” she commanded.

  Obediently I bit into a cookie.

  “Delicious,” I said.

  “Yes,” she said, sighing. “That Cleo—so talented in the kitchen. She’ll make some man a wonderful wife.”

  “I’m sure she will,” I murmured. “Would you like the plate back now? I can put the cookies in a tin.”

  “No rush,” she said. “You can return it whenever you like. Actually, Mr. Bigg, the cookies were just one of the reasons I came up. I also wanted to invite you to a party Cleo and I are having Saturday night.”

  5

  THE PURPLE COW SMELLED of spilled beer and cheap cigars, even at 11:30 A.M. The men at the bar hunched glowering over their drinks, awaiting the end of the world. I found Marty in the last booth on the left. He sat facing the door, fingers laced around a stein of beer. In the dim light he appeared to be about forty-five, skinny, with a pitted complexion and a pale, small mustache.

  He watched me approach without interest. I stopped alongside his booth.

  “Marty?” I said.

  “Yeah?”

  “I’m from Mr. Leopold Tabatchnick.”

  He showed his teeth. “Who are you, the office boy?”

  I slid into the booth opposite him.

  “I am Mr. Tabatchnick’s executive assistant, acting on his behalf.”

  “That’s sweet,” he said.

  “Could you tell me what this is all about?” I asked. “You claim you—”

  “Want a drink?” he interrupted.

  “No,” I said. “Thank you.”

  “For what?” he said. “I wasn’t going to pay for it.”

  “You claim you have information affecting the estate of the late Solomon Kipper. Is that correct?”

  “I don’t claim it. I got it.”

  “Could you tell me the nature of this information?”

  “You kidding? That’s what I’m selling.”

  I sighed and sat back.

  “Then I’m afraid we’ve reached an impasse,” I said. “Surely you don’t expect us to make an offer for something we know nothing about.”

  He leaned toward me across the table. He had very sour breath. His eyes seemed almost colorless, and I noticed the lobe of his left ear was missing. He was dressed in a tweed cap, green anorak, maroon shirt, and flowered pink tie. The parka was stained, there was a stubble of whitish beard, and his nails were rimmed with black. His voice was even more gluey than it had sounded on the phone.

  “Listen, sonny,” he said, “I ain’t asking you to make an offer; I’m going to tell you how much I want. Second of all, I ain’t telling you what I got because then I got nothing to sell. That makes sense, don’t it? I’ll tell you this much: what I got is going to upset the applecart. With what I got, the Kipper will ain’t worth the paper it’s printed on.”

  “And how much are you asking for this information?”

  “Fifty thousand,” he said promptly. “Take it or leave it.”

  I think I succeeded in hiding my shock.

  “That’s a great deal of money,” I said slowly.

  “Nah,” he said, “it’s peanuts. How much is that estate—four mil? Five mil? It’s worth fifty grand to make sure it goes to the right people, ain’t it?”

  “Well…” I said, “I’ll certainly bring this to Mr. Tabatchnick’s attention the moment I get back to the office.”

  “Don’t jerk me around, sonny,” he said. “I got another hot customer for this property. I’m meeting with them later today! First come, first served.”

  “I’ll contact you as soon as Mr. Tabatchnick comes to a decision,” I said. “Would you mind giving me your full name? You can’t expect us to make a payment of that size to someone we know only as Marty.”

  He thought that over, squinching his eyes and wrinkling his nose.

  “I guess it won’t do no harm,” he said. “It’s Reape. R-e-a-p-e. Marty Reape. As in ‘Rook before you Reape’—right? You can reach me at that number I gave you. I’ll be in late this afternoon.”

  I nodded and slid out of the booth. “Nice meeting you, Mr. Reape.”

  “Yeah.” He showed no intention of leaving with me. That this was a ploy to avoid being followed was obvious, but he underrated my professionalism.

  Outside I turned west, crossed Ninth, and immediately chose a doorway for the stakeout. Then I settled down to wait, hands in my pockets. I stamped my feet occasionally to keep them from becoming lumps. Now and then I took my hands from my pockets to hold my ears. He came out finally and stood at the curb, zipping up his parka and looking around. Then he turned and started walking east toward Times Square.

&n
bsp; He was on the south side of West 46th Street. I stayed on the north side, well back of him. The sidewalk was filling up with people rushing to get a lunch table at one of the restaurants that lined the street, so Marty Reape moved slowly. Even in the crowd the cap and anorak were easy to spot. If he suspected he might be followed, he certainly gave no indication of it; never once looked over his shoulder or glanced in a store window to catch a reflection. I tailed him to a few doors east of Eighth on 49th, where he turned into a building next to a porn movie house that was showing “Teenage Honey Pot.” When he’d had time to clear the lobby I trotted across the street and ducked in. There was a directory on the greasy marble wall.

  MARTIN REAPE: PRIVATE INVESTIGATIONS.

  I practically ran back to the office to give Mr. Tabatchnick my report, but Thelma Potts said he was at lunch and that she would buzz me when he returned.

  I had a cheeseburger and a container of milk sent in and ate at my desk while I typed a report of my meeting with Martin Reape. I put it away in the Kipper file and then I called Mr. Teitelbaum’s office. He never went out to lunch; he had a cup of tea and two graham crackers at his desk. I told him I’d like to meet and question the Stonehouse family and I thought it would go a lot easier if he called first and set up the appointment for a time when all the family and the servants would be present.

  “Yes, yes,” he said testily. “I’ll call you back.” He hung up abruptly.

  Maybe his graham crackers had been stale.

  I had no sooner hung up than Thelma Potts called. I took the elevator to the fourth floor with two clerks carrying stacks of law books up to their eyebrows.

  “Twice in two days,” Thelma Potts said. “My, what would this company do without you?”

  “Stick with me, kid,” I said, “and you’ll be wearing diamonds.”

  I knocked once and went in. He was feeding his fish, crumbling some white stuff into the tanks and making little sounds with his tongue and teeth. It sounded like, “nk, nk, nk.”