One True Sentence: A Hector Lassiter novel (Hector Lassiter series Book 1)
Page 13
Hem slipped out of the taxi. “The street smells of urine and the river,” he said.
Hector said to the taxi driver, “Please wait; we shouldn’t be too long.”
The driver said, “And you’ll not find another taxi this way. But if there’s any sign of trouble with any of the ones who live around here, I leave. This looks like a fine place to get robbed.”
“You’ll be safe enough,” Hector said. He slid across the seat to Hem’s open door, put down his injured foot, and promptly fell to the ground. Hem bent to help him up. “Jesus, Lasso, you sure you’re up to this?”
Hector steadied himself, putting more weight on his good leg. “Ankle is just weak.”
“You going to be able to make it inside?”
“Let me lean on you, Hem, and let’s just get this done.” Hector rested a hand on Hem’s shoulder and limped alongside his limping friend. They reached the door and Hector said, “I’m wearing gloves so let me get that knob.” The brass knob was tarnished blue-green and covered in something Hector couldn’t identify…not rust, but close in color. Hector swung open the door and blinked a few times; there was hardly any light inside the lobby.
Hector limped to the front desk, still leaning on Hem, and then put both hands on the counter to support himself. He called, “Concierge?” There was a rusted metal bell on the counter and Hector tapped it once, twice. Then, tapping it a third time — striking it harder — he finally got a kind of ring from the thing.
They waited in silence for a few moments, then Hem said, “I don’t think anyone is working the desk.” Hector took off his gloves, pulled out a box of matches, and reached over the counter to the desk below and scooped up a candle in a brass holder. He lifted it to the counter and struck the match. Once the candle was going, Hector reached over the counter again and retrieved the registration book.
Hem pulled on his steel-rimmed reading glasses, squinting in the low light at the registration book. He ran his fingers down the page, then said, “Judging by these dates, either nobody checks out, or this place is all but empty.”
Looking up the narrow, uneven steps disappearing into gloom, Hector said, “Our poet couldn’t have made it easy, I suppose. I mean, by registering as Leek or Rook?”
Hem said, “No, but there’s an A. Crowley.”
“That’d be our bitter boy,” Hector said. “Give me your arm again, buddy.”
“I don’t think so,” Hem said. He bit his lip, then shook his head. “That leg of yours is getting much worse. No way you can get up those steps. Too narrow to go up side by side, and too dark, too.” Hem reached under his coat and pulled out the old Mauser. “I’ll go up and take a look.”
“Not alone. You’ve got a wife and baby.”
“Better for me I go alone than having you hang on one of my arms and pounding up those old steps like bloody fucking Ahab stumping around,” Hem said. “Besides, you can watch the front door, Lasso. Or stop him if he gets by me.”
Hector tried to put weight on his leg without Hem’s assistance and nearly fell down again. Grabbing the counter, Hector said, “Dammit, it’s too much. You’re right about that.”
Hem took the candleholder in his left hand and hefted his gun in his right. “Okay then.”
Hector clutched the tail of Hem’s coat. “One thing — be sure to hold that candle out away from yourself—”
“To draw fire,” Hem said. “I’ve read your stories and so know the tricks, remember?”
“Good luck.” Hector watched Hem disappear up the creaking stairs. He put his back to the counter and held his Colt at the ready. Hector wasn’t sure how much time passed as he waited for Hem, but the interlude worked his nerves.
More creaking on the stairs. Hem tromped down the steps, gray-faced, his gun arm hanging loosely by his side. “I found the missing desk clerk,” Hem said. “I think that poor bastard, in turn, found what’s in that room. And he got himself killed for his trouble.”
Hem was breathing through his mouth, Hector noticed. “It’s bad, Lasso. They’ve probably been dead a couple of days and the cold hasn’t kept them like you might think. We need to call your friend Simon.”
“What’s in that room?”
“A couple of streetwalkers, I think,” Hem said. “Their throats are cut. The hotel manager is in the hallway. I’m guessing he walked in on Leek when he was killing the tarts. He saw what was happening and was shot by Leek. There’s a bullet hole in the concierge’s throat.”
Hector put his hand on Hem’s shoulder. “Our taxi driver better still be out there so he can drive us to a phone.”
“Yeah,” Hem said. “But switch shoulders, would you, Lasso? You’re stressing my bad leg.”
Hector smiled and shook his head. “Jesus. Ain’t we the sturdy pair?”
***
Simon was exuding skepticism. Hector pushed on: “This gets back to that guy I asked you to check up on.”
The commissioner narrowed his eyes. “Oswald Rook?”
“Alias Victor Leek,” Hector said. “That’s right. Rook, or Leek, was a student or adherent of Aleister Crowley’s. As a result of some stupid ritual, Leek ended up unmanned.”
“Leek I’ve actually heard of, but in another context,” Simon said. “And ‘unmanned’? What are you talking about?”
“Leek lost his balls,” Hem said. “Castrated.”
Simon pulled his overcoat closer. “So you think he taunted himself with these prostitutes. Then, in an unsated sense of rage or lethal frustration, he killed them?”
“Something like that,” Hector said. “Then the clerk stumbled in.” He took a deep breath, snarling in pain. “I’ve gotta sit down.” Groaning, Hector limped to a bollard and sat down on that, the rounded metal top cold against his ass.
“You were limping last night,” Simon said, “but not like that. Until you see a doctor — which better be quite soon — I might have something that will help.” He excused himself and trotted across the street to his own car. He reached into the back seat and returned swinging an ebony walking stick. He handed the cane to Hector. “Sánchez’s sword cane. Obviously, the late poet no longer needs it, and it isn’t strictly evidence. I’ll just trust you to use it for support, not fencing.”
“You can trust,” Hector said. “And thank you.”
“Show your gratitude by telling me where I might next look for Leek.”
“Crowley said Leek was previously living above Suzy.”
Simon grunted. “The brothel? Rue Grégoir-de-Tours?”
“That’s the place,” Hector said.
Smirking, Simon said, “A eunuch living above a house of pleasure? It’s almost funny.”
“It certainly had Crowley in stitches,” Hem said.
“Well, I’ll try to find Leek there, but I’m frankly pessimistic,” Simon said. “But, going to the place, just perhaps, I’ll at least learn where the women upstairs came from. Perhaps who they are. Rather, who they were.”
Hector rose from the bollard, putting weight on the cane. He was pleasantly surprised how much it helped. He said to Simon, “We can go?”
“I don’t see why not.” They shook hands. Simon said, “Until the next calamity then.”
“God forbid,” Hector said.
Hem closed the door of the taxi after Hector, then walked around the cab and climbed in on the other side.
Hector checked his watch. He said, “Just time enough to pick up Brinke and reach the graveyard.”
21
They bumped along the cobbled path and through the imposing, stone gates of Père-Lachaise into its sprawling grounds of spires and statuary. Hector thought it was good funeral weather — a slate-gray sky peeking through low, charcoal-colored clouds…another sleeting rain.
His leg was propped up on the opposing seat and Brinke had taken off his boot. She was sitting across from Hector to massage his ankle that had swollen to twice the size of its mate. “You’re through walking until you see a doctor, I think,” Brinke said, clear
ly worried by the appearance of his leg.
“I want to argue, but I know if I tried to get out there I’d just be taken for a drunk as I fell down, over and over,” Hector said.
“Then stay here in the coach, Hector,” Brinke said, handing Hem an umbrella. “We’ll do the snooping around. You audit the crowd.”
The graveside service was underway as they rolled alongside a string of parked coaches and taxis. Brinke and Hem shared the umbrella. Hem wrapped one of his burly arms familiarly around Brinke’s trim waist as they stepped out into the cold drizzle. Hector shook his head, watching them and thinking, Right, Hem…you horny bastard. His friends picked their way amidst the ancient headstones and crypts to the open graveside.
Hector knew very little about Lloyd Blake, so he didn’t know whether or not to be surprised by the relatively small number of mourners. Most were men, shabbily dressed, whom Hector took to be poets. There were two or three equally unkempt and modestly dressed young women…thin, wan, bespectacled — writer-types, Hector decided.
A woman in mourning clothes held the hands of two teenage children. One of them, a girl, was sobbing, and the boy, presumably her brother, was rubbing her back, looking like he was also on the verge of a breakdown.
A few black carrion crows were perched in the naked limbs of a sheltering tree, cawing at the proceedings below.
At some distance — too far away for Hector to make out faces — seven men in gray suits and black armbands passed bottles of ivory-colored liquid back-and-forth, taking deep drinks and then shouting various Dadaesque strings of nonsense poetry Hector thought worthy of the worst of Gertrude Stein’s “automatic writings.” One of the revelers squeezed a concertina, playing a drunken rendition of the funeral march.
A smaller group stood off some ways from the Dada contingent. The second, silent group consisted of two men and two women dressed in dark clothes. One of the women, who wore a black veil, held her head up and seemed to be looking in the direction of Hector’s coach. Hector looked at Brinke again; squinted. She was pointing behind herself with a gloved hand.
On a distant hill, far from the funeral attendees, there was the figure of a woman in white, shoulders hunched and head bowed in grief. Hector first thought she was a statue or grave marker. Then he saw the shoulders of the figure were shaking. A hand reached to a white-veiled face.
Hector tapped the roof to get his driver’s attention, then said, “Take us around the path to the east. I want to see something on that hill over there.”
As the coach pulled away, Hector saw Brinke watching, nodding. Her arm was hooked through Hem’s and they stood close together under the dripping black umbrella.
Hector watched the passing crypts and headstones and statues, making out an occasional name or date. His leg hurt a little as they began to climb the hill and more weight was placed on his ankle as he was tipped forward toward the opposing seat by the incline. Hector twisted around to better see out the window. When they crested the hill he saw the woman dressed in white, and he rapped the ceiling with his bruised hand. “Stop here, please.”
Hector cleared his throat and did his best to feign an authentic French accent. Unlatching the door of the coach, Hector swung it open and said, “Mademoiselle…s’il vous plait?”
The woman in white half-turned. He said, gruffly, “I am Commissaire Simon, Mademoiselle, and I require a word with you. I require a word with you right now.”
The woman turned to face him; she was slender, rather tall. She moved like a young woman; her face was obscured behind her long white veil. Hector beckoned her into his coach. “Right now,” he said again. “I promise that I’ll try to make this brief.”
The woman turned her head a little, looking back at the distant funeral, then her shoulders rose and fell with an audible sigh. She picked her way around some dirty puddles standing in the brown, winter-shocked grass and then planted her foot on the coach’s step and wrapped a hand around the door frame. Hector extended a hand and helped her in as best he could with his bad leg splayed out in front of him. He apologized for his condition and said, “Comment vous appellez-vous?”
Hector narrowed his eyes. Through the fabric of her white veil, he could see she was young, perhaps 24 or 25. She was blond and her eyes were hazel. She was also American. “Kitty,” she said. “Kitty Pike.”
Hector switched to English, leaving a little of a French accent there to further his ruse. “White is an unusual color to wear to a funeral, particularly in winter.”
Kitty Pike shrugged. “I wasn’t entitled to wear black. Or I didn’t think so.”
“You were trying to avoid provoking someone, is that it?”
“Something like that I suppose.”
“Why so far from the proceedings?”
She shrugged again.
“You’re not family of Mr. Blake’s, are you?”
“No.”
“A business associate…affiliated with his magazine as a partner, or investor?”
“Not quite that.”
“You were lovers, then?”
She looked up sharply. Hector said, “I’m police, and you must answer.”
“Yes,” she said, looking away from him.
“And you stood back here, in white, to better blend into the surroundings? To avoid antagonizing Mrs. Blake? To evade some scene, or perhaps spare scandalizing his young son and daughter?”
“That’s right.”
“How long have you known Mr. Blake?”
“It would have been a year in March.”
“You’re a writer? A poet?”
“An illustrator.”
“A painter?”
“No, a commercial artist. A designer. Lloyd hired me to illustrate some advertisements in his magazine. That’s how we met.”
“When was the last time you saw Mr. Blake?”
She stared at her hands…stroking the fabric of her ivory gloves tighter to her fingers. “Please, you must promise not to make a record of this. You must promise to keep my name out of this. When a few days passed, I was certain I’d be spared this kind of thing.”
“I’ll do as you ask, so far as I can, if you’ll just answer my questions.”
“Very well,” Kitty said. “I’ll do my best.”
“When did you last see Mr. Blake?”
“The night before he was murdered. I…I spent the night with him, at his place. His wife and children were out of town for several days.”
“Were you also planning to see him the night of his death?”
“No, he said he had a business dinner…a meeting with someone who wanted to buy the magazine from him. The magazine wasn’t doing particularly well. I could tell that from the number of adverts — or lack of them — that I was asked to design. His magazine was hemorrhaging money and Lloyd was close to shutting his review down when an interested party approached him.”
“Did he mention who this potential buyer might be, Mademoiselle Pike?”
“He did mention a name, but I can’t recall it, right now. I do remember him commenting that it was an American.”
“But you don’t remember this man’s — this American’s — name?”
“No, and it wasn’t a man, it was a woman. I think she might even have been one of his investors.”
Hector nodded, discouraged. He’d been expecting her to name Victor Leek or Oswald Rook. Hector said, “You said that Blake was thinking of closing the magazine. I had heard he had done that already. That he had solicited funds, then announced he was shutting down operations. The story goes that he took the money he’d collected and moved to the Right Bank and into a better apartment with his wife and children.”
Kitty Pike shook her head. Hector could see through her veil that her cheeks had reddened. “No, Lloyd had plenty of money of his own,” Kitty said. “Lloyd was quite well off. That’s a lie about his absconding with his patrons’ money. He’d simply skipped a publication date…you know, as many periodicals do in December-January.”
“I read it.”
Hector was riffing now. “Blake was murdered by someone whom he’d taken to his bed. There is no doubt about that. As you noted, his wife was out of town—”
Real venom — “I told you, I last saw Blake the day before he died. I—”
“I’m not insinuating anything, Mademoiselle,” Hector said. “You’re not being accused of anything. You are not a suspect. But I have to ask. Were you aware of any other…well, lovers whom Mr. Blake might have had?”
“No.” She looked out the window at the distant ceremony. “There was nobody else. He spoke of marrying me. He was going to break the news to—”
Hector lost the thread then. He could already finish the sentence for Kitty, and he figured he could probably go a good bit beyond. There would have been the inevitable promise of a quick, Paris divorce, then a new apartment somewhere a few arrondissements away from his present home, which in Paris could be made to feel the equivalent of moving to another country. And Blake would have promised to marry Kitty, of course.
Hector almost felt sorry for Kitty. Then he saw that Blake’s widow was on her knees in the wet, slushy grass, beating on her husband’s coffin as her children clutched at her. Hector saw Hem step away from Brinke to wrap an arm around the widow and drag her to her feet.
Hector tossed his cigarette butt out the window of the coach and said, “It seems to be ending, Mademoiselle Pike. Do you have a car or a cab waiting for you down there?”
“Yes.”
“We’ll drop you there.” Hector signaled the cocher and they started off down the hill. Hector said, “You can’t remember the name of this potential buyer? This woman?”
“No…‘White’ maybe. No, that’s not right. But something with a ‘W’…I remember that.” Then Kitty said, “That’s my taxi.”
Hector called up to their driver to stop. Kitty said, “Oh, I do remember the first name now. I remember thinking at the time that the woman’s name was the same as my mother’s.”