“We’re after the man who bankrolls the international heroin traffic,” Shayne said. “I have doubts about a few stories I’ve heard lately, but I’m ninety-nine percent sure of that one thing. I think the chances are about even that I can get his identity. They’re about one in four I can do anything about it even if I do find out. If you talk to me, it might drop the odds to something like seven-to-two.”
“I can tell you this. Herman Kraus never had any connection with anybody in the international heroin traffic. He was way down at the bottom of the ladder.”
“Yes, I think that’s true, Terry,” Shayne said seriously. “But whatever he did set something bigger in motion.”
She rubbed her eyes, took a deep breath and exhaled a lungful of smoke. “When he left me last night we made a date for tomorrow, a specific date for a certain French movie at an art theatre. We agreed on where we were going afterward. Maybe it sounds conceited, but after that he didn’t go straight home and shoot himself. That’s what I’ve been trying to tell the police.”
“Go back and tell it in order, Terry,” Shayne suggested.
She drew on her cigarette. “I’ll try to be honest. The reason I went out with him in the first place was because he put so much thought into where he would take me. He was a jerk, I’m afraid, but a perfectly harmless jerk. He’d call up and say he’d like to get tickets to some show I was dying to see, and I couldn’t bring myself to say no. Then he’d take me to the Plaza or the Waldorf-Astoria or the Rainbow Room. This started about two years ago, when I was a lot younger than I am now. I wanted to see what those places were like! The other men I knew might take me to a party if they weren’t expected to bring a bottle. If I had a date for a movie, we met inside. I felt a little-well, like a hypocrite, but I guess he had a good time because he always called me again. Once in a while I’d tell myself this has to stop. I knew I was getting in too deep. But by then I was worrying about hurting his feelings. He asked me to go to Saratoga Springs with him for the weekend. I went.”
“Because you wanted to see Saratoga?”
“Yes! But it was a kind of obligation too, Mike. It’s funny how things work out. Sometimes people I liked asked me to sleep with them or go away for the weekend and I wouldn’t. But it seemed to me that I had to with Herman.” She fumbled for a piece of Kleenex and blew her nose hard and angrily. “You wouldn’t understand.”
“I don’t have to understand,” Shayne told her. “People do things for the damnedest reasons.”
“I might even have ended up married to him, just taking one step at a time. It makes me feel awful.”
“Did you ever wonder where he was getting the money he spent on you, Terry?”
“He was spending it on himself too,” she said with a flash of spirit. “He wanted to see those shows. He wanted to go to the Plaza. No, I didn’t wonder. I didn’t know about police salaries. He didn’t talk about his work much, and I never once saw him in uniform. You didn’t think of him as being a cop, somehow. And then quite a scary thing happened.”
“When, Terry?”
“About two months ago. We were in a little bar-really a tiny bar. The tables were so big.” She shaped a small square with her hands. “I don’t remember where we’d been before-somewhere expensive! It was terribly noisy. I was chattering away, I do chatter, and Herman was trying to look interested. He probably couldn’t hear what I was saying. And a man came up. He was honestly one of the creepiest people! Herman jumped up and told me he’d be right back. The bar was in a hotel, you could go in either from the street or the lobby. He went into the lobby. He didn’t come back. There was some kind of commotion. A waiter said somebody’d been arrested. I went on sitting there, and he didn’t come back at all. I barely had money enough to pay for the drinks. He called the next day and apologized for about fifteen minutes. He was always a great apologizer. He said the man he was talking to had a heart attack and he had to call an ambulance. I doubt that-I didn’t hear an ambulance. And that’s when I remembered all of a sudden that he’d said he was in charge of the evidence in dope cases. That man in the bar-he was on drugs, I realized. Well! Then I didn’t see Herman for a few weeks. He said he had to work overtime. I wish I could be more helpful, Mike. I don’t mean he was especially mysterious. He just didn’t say what he was doing.”
“You don’t know how helpful you’re being, Terry,” Shayne said. “Go on.”
“Helpful!” Rourke put in. “If you can make head or tail out of this you’re a better man than I am. Well,” he conceded, “you are a better man than I am.”
Terry continued, “You might think I wouldn’t go out with him again. I did, though. We were going to a film festival. We never got there. He drank too much before dinner and went to sleep in the taxi. If you think that had happened before! I took him home. In the morning he said he had something to tell me, but he felt too headachy and miserable, and I guess he didn’t have much experience talking to people. He couldn’t get started. The next time he was already high when he came to get me. I had the feeling he was drinking to get past that block, whatever it was, that kept him from talking. It made me uncomfortable. But last night was much better. My roommate was away. I didn’t want to eat out because I knew he’d keep on ordering drinks in that stupid, compulsive way. I cooked spaghetti and everything was fine. He had a phone call during supper. He didn’t say much except no, but he said it very firmly-it was as definite as he’d been in the two years I’d known him. Mike, could I have a drink, please?”
Shayne uncapped the bottle and gave it to her. The undiluted cognac made her cough.
“I’m glad I’m talking to you and not the police. They wouldn’t give me cognac to help it along. Mike, I have something else that’s important, at least I think it is. But you’ll have to take it on faith, pretty much. We spent some time in my bedroom after dinner. This wasn’t the accepted thing, it was always a big concession on my part. I never exactly looked forward to it. But last night he was different. It was”-there was a catch in her voice-“Mike, it was the best I’ve ever had with anyone. He’d stopped apologizing. Will you take my word for it and not ask any questions?”
“Sure.”
“Maybe he was mixed up in something. You never can tell. I’d just like to see that so-called suicide note, that’s all. The one thing I’m absolutely sure of is that, if he did shoot himself, it wasn’t because I’d turned him down. The funny thing is, after last night I could have turned him down and I knew he wouldn’t go to pieces. He’d changed into an actual grown-up person, finally.”
Shayne finished the bottle and looked at his watch. He had to get back.
“Terry, one other question and don’t feel bad if the answer is no. I want to know if he ever had contact with a French girl, a blonde, very elegant. I wish I could tell you the name of her perfume. You could probably identify her by it.”
“Yes!” she said. “I don’t know about the perfume, because that doesn’t come over the phone. A girl called him at his apartment a week ago. I couldn’t hear what she was saying, but there was something different about her voice, the few words I caught. All Herman did was mumble. He was very embarrassed.”
Shayne thought for a moment. “I’m grateful for all this, Terry. The cops will probably be willing to listen to you tomorrow, but if you let it go another day you may not have to talk to them at all. Tim or I will be in touch.”
Rourke cleared his throat gruffly. “I’ll take that over. You’ll have other things to do, Mike.”
A grin formed on Shayne’s lips, but he kept his voice level. “We can fight it out later.”
Terry put her hand on his arm as he turned. “I’m still as much in the dark as I was, but I think I feel better. I’ve been so mad about everything all day I haven’t had a chance to feel sorry about Herman. I don’t know how much you charge, but if you can find out what happened to him-”
“I intend to,” Shayne said, getting out. “But somebody else is paying my fee. Now go home and get some s
leep.”
“Yes, I think I can now.”
CHAPTER 12
Somebody had left a light on in the kitchen, but the rest of the big house was dark and quiet. The people in it were apparently asleep. Shayne approached cautiously, hoping that the day was finally over and he, too, could get some sleep.
He stepped up on the porch rail. Reaching up with both hands, he got a grip on the overhang. A piece of rotten wood broke off. He shifted his hold, tested the new place for firmness, and committed himself to the upward spring.
His full weight was on the two-by-six for only an instant. Then he was over. He lay quietly, listening. The tree toads were still clamoring. He propelled himself forward on his elbows.
Irene’s voice spoke clearly above him. “The tomcat returns.”
He rolled over and sat up. The little moon threw just enough light to show that this was another member of the legion of girls who see no point in wearing anything to bed. Her jet-black shock of hair made a clear frame for the pale blur of her face.
“Why aren’t you asleep?” Shayne said irritably. “You’ll have bags under your eyes tomorrow.”
“I had bags under my eyes when I was born,” she said pleasantly. “I thought I heard you walking around, so I tried your door. And what do you know? There was a bureau against it.”
“That was to keep Billy out, not you.”
“Ha-ha. I never thought of climbing in the window. Why don’t I do that now? Then if anybody wants to interrupt, the bureau’s in the way.”
She put one bare leg out. Shayne grasped her ankle, but he wasn’t able to stop her. She wasn’t prepared for the pitch of the porch roof, and she came down on top of him.
“Ugh,” she said. “It’s all cindery.”
“Irene, get back in your room and I’ll come in with you. There’s something I want to talk to you about.”
“Who wants to talk? What I want to do-”
She put her mouth next to his ear and told him what she wanted to do, using the good old Anglo-Saxon expressions to make him realize she meant it.
“Yes, dear,” he said, resigned. “You wouldn’t consider waiting till tomorrow night, when we’d have more privacy?”
“No. I know you. You wouldn’t show up. A bird in the hand is my motto.” She drew back. “Where’ve you been, anyway? Out making a phone call?”
“Keep your voice down,” he told her. “Climb back in and I’ll tell you.”
“Because I don’t care,” she said, and bit his ear. “But I’ve got you this time, haven’t I, Tiger? Cooperate, or I’ll tell Michele. It’s OK with me if you call the cops, so long as I know about it in advance. I’m not that sold on this thing tomorrow. I’ll just disappear ahead of schedule.”
“Believe it or not,” Shayne said patiently, “I was burying some money.”
“And I don’t believe it. You weren’t listening to me-I don’t care. Let’s do it right here,” she suggested. “Me on you.”
One of her hands fumbled at him. Shayne tried to keep her under control, but it was like trying to control a marlin with boxing gloves, in the fish’s own medium. He felt a board give way. He let go of the girl, twisting.
“You wouldn’t want me to yell, would you?” she said dangerously. “I said cooperate. When you’re going to be raped, you might as well relax and enjoy it. That’s another old saying. And Buster, you are definitely going to be raped.”
She was bearing down with her full weight. She was nothing but skin and bones, but at the moment much of the skin and all of the bones were in motion. Another board went. Then an entire section of the roof broke out beneath them.
Realizing what was happening, Irene kicked out for the window sill. The kick took out another rotting board. They went separate ways for a moment. Shayne’s fingers closed briefly on the outer stringer, long enough to correct the angle of his fall. A post caved outward, the stringer broke, and Shayne and the naked girl went through to the porch beneath in a cascade of broken shingles and splinters of rotting wood. Shayne thought for an instant that he was going to keep on going. Irene landed in a hideous jangle of springs on a metal and chintz glider.
“Jesus,” she said.
Shayne laughed. He tried to free her, but she was jammed in.
“Goddamn you,” she said, “cut out that laughing and get a pair of pliers or something.”
There were noises inside the house. A light came on in the living room, and then the porch light. Michele ran out, wearing only a slip. Brownie was right behind her, his muscular torso bare and gleaming. He had a shotgun.
“Somebody get me out of this thing!” Irene demanded. “Brownie! Use that shotgun-pry up the back.”
“Here, baby,” Shayne said. “I’ll stand on it. See if it helps.”
He stepped up on the swaying glider, one foot on each side of the stuck girl. The springs contracted. Moving carefully, Irene began to work herself free.
Michele came down on them like a sailboat in a stiff breeze, everything flying. She looked up at the gaping hole in the roof, then down at the naked girl jackknifed between the seat and the back of the glider. Shayne, bouncing gently, grinned at her.
“What does this mean?” she cried. “Tonight of all nights!”
Her English couldn’t do justice to the situation, and she broke into a flood of angry French. Irene came free with a little pop. She, too, had begun to think there was something funny about what had happened, but seeing Michele’s face, she decided it was serious after all. Billy came out of the house, zipping his pants.
“Anybody hurt?” he asked, looking at Shayne. “Which of you is to be the spokesman?” Michele said coldly. “Irene, dear? Were you trying to climb in his window?”
“Hell, no! The son of a bitch was trying to sneak out to phone. And phone who, I wonder?”
Shayne stepped off the glider. “If everybody will just keep quiet for a minute-”
Szigetti came charging out of the house. “What’s going on?”
“That’s what we all want to know,” Shayne said. He started to take off his jacket. “Irene, baby, put this on. You’ll catch cold.”
She sniffed and marched into the house. It was a fair exit, Shayne thought, but she was too skinny; everybody continued to look at Shayne.
“You were about to explain,” Michele said with icy sweetness. “Is what she says true? You were climbing out of the window to make a telephone call?”
“We better do this without an audience,” Shayne said.
“Pardon me while I laugh,” Szigetti sneered. “We’re in this together, Jack. What’s the story?”
The flesh around his eyes had puffed out so the eyes could scarcely be seen. They glinted suspiciously at Shayne within their pockets of gray flesh, but apparently he had forgotten identifying Shayne just before the tide of wine and whiskey had risen to engulf him.
“You’re in bad shape, pal,” Shayne observed as the smaller man swayed and reached for the doorway.
“I’ll make it,” Szigetti declared thickly, “Don’t anybody go anyplace. Just get a drink.”
“All the bottles are empty,” Michele put in quickly. “You go back to bed, Ziggy. We handle this.”
Szigetti glared at everyone in turn, ending with Brownie. “And as for you, my shiny black friend-”
Compared to some of his earlier remarks this was nothing, but the Negro’s composure finally snapped. He brought the shotgun barrels around and cracked Szigetti hard above the ear. Szigetti rocked. The glint in his eyes went out. Shayne caught him.
“Put him to bed, Billy. Anywhere.”
Billy backed into the house with the unconscious gunman. Shayne jerked his head toward the lawn.
“Want me to cut out, Michele?” Brownie said.
She hesitated, then shook her head. “Stay here and keep the gun ready.”
She followed Shayne down the steps.
“Now take it easy,” he told her when they were out of hearing distance of the porch. “I tried to tell Irene, but
she had other things she wanted to do besides listen. I had a last-minute errand. Remember those rocks I’ve been carrying around? I thought I better get rid of them.”
“Get rid of them how?”
“What do you want me to do, draw a treasure map? I like you, baby. In fact I’m beginning to swing for you in a big way. But this is going to be my secret.”
“Are you trying to tell me you buried them? You did nothing of the kind.”
He said patiently, “Those stones are hot. If I get picked up tomorrow and the cops find anything like that on me I’ll get the full treatment, and no last-minute reprieve.”
She continued to look puzzled. “You left them in Grand Central with the money.”
“I didn’t leave anything in Grand Central,” he said, still patient, “except an empty dispatch case. I know you think everybody ought to trust you, but look at it my way for a minute. A Grand Central locker, fine. Tomorrow, on the way to the plane, if there is any plane, all I have to do is detour a few blocks and pick it up.”
“Of course there is a plane!”
“All right, there’s a plane and we’ll both be on it. So why did you get out of the car in front of Grand Central and follow me?”
“I was afraid,” she said simply. “I did not think you saw me.”
“You stick out in a crowd, baby. The back of my neck began to itch, and when that happens I always stop and think. These are nice friendly people you’ve got here, but there’s one thing about them-they’re all thieves. I’ll be outnumbered tomorrow. I don’t want to be jumped for that key. I couldn’t carry it anyway, the cops would just match numbers and open the box. I’d have to stash it, so why not stash the dough and the stones instead? I brought it all back in the sack with the liquor.”
“I think I do not believe you,” she said with a sign of uncertainty. “Why climb out on the roof instead of just walking out by the back door?”
“I had the bureau in front of the door. Billy wanted to have a cigarette with me. I didn’t want to have a cigarette with Billy.” He took out the locker key and dangled it in front of her eyes. “The only way I can get in that locker without a key is to go to the office and describe my property. One cowhide dispatch case filled with cash, so much in hundreds, so much in fifties. Four unset diamonds in tissue paper. They used to belong to a character who got slapped on the head last night with a. 45. Just before an ex-cop took two slugs in the body.”
Armed… Dangerous… ms-54 Page 10
