by Dale Bogard
“Waiter,” he called, “an extra chair, I think.”
A chair appeared apparently from nowhere and Mr. Banningham became the uninvited guest.
He held Miss Casson’s hand fractionally longer than was strictly necessary and said, “Suppose you introduce me?”
“I like to introduce myself,” I said. “Dale Bogard is the name. I’m trying to make a living writing books and getting mixed up in murder instead. I also drink too much, smoke too much and do not believe this is necessarily the century of the common man.”
Banningham let his eyelids flicker. He took the English cigarette out of his long lips with studied slow motion.
“Thanks for telling me,” he said. He had the kind of hybrid accent you acquire through long years of living away from your native country. It was both American and English at the same time. It would be worth plenty to him in the Social Register.
He seemed to be thinking for a moment. Then he said, “I drink too much, smoke too much and don’t give a damn whose century it is just so long as Cornel Banningham has a plush seat in the stalls. I should add that I also take some pride in possessing most of the other orthodox vices.”
“That’s fine,” I said. “Don’t let us keep you from them.”
He looked at me hard. I seemed to be catching long hard looks all the way up in this case. But I knew he wasn’t bothered.
“I like your sort,” he said. “What’s your interest in these killings?”
“Killings is right. Which ones are you thinking of in particular?”
He didn’t answer at once because the seven-piece had cut loose on those Farewell Blues, with a thirty-six-bar finish which reminded me of the fabulous Eddie Lang and Joe Venuti jazz disc the collectors still rave about. When it was over you felt as if you had sailed into a lagoon of silence, though pretty nearly everybody in the joint was talking simultaneously.
Finally, he said, “Grierson’s, of course—but, more particularly, my father’s.”
“You don’t believe he committed suicide?”
“My father was a tough old warhorse. There wasn’t a single reason why he should do that. But you haven’t answered my question.”
“What was that?”
He leaned forward a little. “Just that you seem to be mixed up in this some way and I’d like to know why.”
“I got mixed up in it by accident. Now my curiosity is aroused.”
“Some people seem to take a poor view about that.”
“Meaning?”
He shrugged. “I read the papers. Somebody left a dead man in your apartment. They must have a powerful reason.”
“Maybe they’re playing the wrong hunch,” I said. “The way things are I don’t have a clue.”
“But you think you will have?”
“If I stick around long enough.”
“Mr. Bogard,” said Julia, “is a very persistent man. In some ways.” She didn’t have any expression on her face as she said it, but I thought she was having a tough time trying not to giggle.
Suddenly, Cornel Banningham seemed to have made up his mind about something. He said, “A preliminary check on the firm’s affairs shows some pretty serious deficiencies in Grierson’s end of the business. Seventy-five thousand dollars, in fact. If my father had found out about that he would want to know plenty.”
It was my turn to hand out one of those looks. “You mean your old man was bumped by Grierson, which would explain how Grierson came to be out in Connecticut the other night?”
“It could be that way, couldn’t it?”
“Yeah,” I said slowly, “except for one thing.”
He looked like he knew the question but he didn’t bother to put it into words.
“Just the one thing—who put that dagger into Grierson and why.”
He sighed. “I guess you’re right. There’s too damn much in this.”
I let him brood on it for a minute. Something was coming and I wasn’t going to hurry it.
“I’d like some quiet inquiries made. There may be things in this the police won’t find out or bother with if they do. If you’re staying on this case I’d like to have your report.”
“You want me to turn private eye?”
“Just for this case. In a very private and unofficial way.” He hesitated a moment. “I’ll pay five thousand dollars for the right kind of information.”
That five thousand dollars again.
“What kind of information is the right kind?”
He lit another cigarette. “I want to dig deep into this. I didn’t get along with my old man, but I inherited one of his qualities—I don’t let go. I’m not letting go of this.”
“Let’s have a drink,” I said. I called the waiter. I ordered Scotch for Julia and beer for the rest of the party. “I like money and I like five grand better than most of the money I see—but I’m in this case in a very personal sense and I don’t want to be tied to you or anybody else.”
“You’re still free to play it your own way, Bogard. All I want is the information you get.”
“I won’t make a promise,” I said, “but I’ll think about it. If I dig up anything I think you ought to know maybe I will let you know. You’ll have to let it go at that.”
He didn’t say anything and the band came back and started in again. This could be Cornel Banningham’s chance to beat it, but he didn’t see it that way. He was a man with a roving eye for women but it had stopped roving at Julia. I had to applaud his choice—but, hell, it was my night out, I reflected sourly. I got up, excused myself and threaded through the little bar to the men’s room.
There was nobody else in the place. I washed my hands and studied my features for a moment in a long wall mirror. That was how I knew the door to the room had opened immediately behind me. The guy who came through it was about thirty and wore a gray pinhead jacket with very sloping shoulders. He had a cast in his right eye. He stepped swiftly into the room and the next thing I knew something hard was wedged into my back.
I had raised my hands to smooth my hair so I kept them that way.
A soft voice that was somehow as hard as steel spoke right up against my ear. “Too bad you had to go to the can, pal. It gave me my chance.”
I thought of a crack but I couldn’t get it out because the roof of my mouth had suddenly gone as hot as a sidewalk in August and a lot drier.
A hand reached out and frisked me, but I’m a peaceful citizen and don’t carry a gun. Maybe I would take the old Luger with me after this. If I ever got out of this.
The voice spoke again. “Just turn around and walk. Don’t try anything. I’ll use this rod if I have to. Don’t ever think anything different.”
“I won’t,” I croaked.
“Okay, pal—get going now.”
We moved out of the little room. One end of the small passage led back to the bar. The other end led to a rear exit. That was the way we went. A waiter passed us with a bucket of ice cubes. He didn’t see anything amiss. There was a door at the end of the passage. I pushed my foot against it and we stepped out into an alleyway.
“Turn left,” said the voice.
We walked to the bottom of the alley and on to the sidewalk. A black sedan was parked on the corner. Cast-Eye prodded me in. He drove with the gun in his right hand. I could see it was a .22 target pistol. Any guy who carried a .22 is either pretty damn good or thinks he is. I decided not to take any chances.
Cast-Eye drove steadily but not fast. He drove a considerable way. He drove on to Lafayette, passing police headquarters without batting an eye. At Canal Street he turned east into the Bowery and finally parked in a pool of dark under the Elevated.
He let the motor kill itself and lit a cigarette. The .22 was still in his hand.
“Take it nice and easy, pal. Nothing’s going to happen to you.”
“Why the ride?” I just managed to say it.
“Just so we can talk, pal.”
“Why the rod?” I was getting bolder. The way you do
when you find you’re not going to be squibbed-off after all.
He ejected a thin blue spiral of smoke through his tight lips. “I had to use that just to persuade you along, pal.” He thought for a moment. “Look, I’m nice people. I don’t want to bump you. I don’t want to hit you with a bludgeon. All I want is a nice talk.”
“Yeah,” I said, “that’s fine. Now we’re all nice people together.”
“That’s right, pal—why not let it stay that way?”
“I’m not doing a thing to stop it,” I cracked.
He put both of his manicured hands on the big chrome steering wheel. The gun was in his right hand and the cigarette was in his left. Somehow they looked funny. When he spoke his voice was still as hard as steel, but now the steel had a cutting edge to it.
“You’ve been doing plenty, pal. I won’t like it if you keep on doing that.”
I decided against saying anything.
He went on in that cold-blue voice, “A guy fell outa your clothes closet last night. He was so dead he couldn’t talk. But he told you plenty. Such as to be a good boy and not to tangle. Now maybe you didn’t quite get his message, pal, and we don’t want you to be in doubt. So that’s why I’ve picked you up and taken you for a little ride so I can explain it to you.”
I said, “Quit horsing around and start explaining. Who doesn’t want me to tangle?”
“You shouldn’t ask that, pal. Just say that it ain’t popular.”
“With whom?”
Cast-Eye let his right hand slide off the wheel so that he could hold the target gun against my Adam’s apple. He was quite gentle about it.
“Listen, pal—this is just a friendly tip. Why not lay off? There’s nothing in this for you. Why put your chin out? Somebody is liable to sock it.”
“Yeah,” I said, “I can see that. Just like I can see that I might sock yours unless you toss that heater out the window this very minute.”
“I ain’t saying you wouldn’t, pal, and maybe you might get away with it and maybe you might not.”
“Don’t call me pal,” I snarled. I was fed-up with the whole damn business.
“Okay, pal, I won’t. But look at it this way—a dead punk pitches outa your clothes closet. That shows we mean business. But just in case you have any doubt, I’ll give it to you straight. If you take my advice everything’s going to be jake.”
“And if I don’t?”
Cast-Eye reached over with his left hand and swung the car door open.
“If you don’t,” he said softly, “another dead sucker is going to fall outa that closet of yours pretty damn soon. Only this time it won’t be you who catches the body. Now—get going, pal.”
If there was an answer I didn’t know what it was. I didn’t have time to make one anyway because as I was stepping out he slammed the flat of his foot into my back. He was lean and muscular and he put plenty behind it. I sprawled on my hands and knees in the gutter. The gutter was flowing with black, oily slush. When I got back on my feet I figured it was too damn true what they say about Dixie.
CHAPTER NINE
I RODE THE SUBWAY AS FAR AS Broadway. Then I got a taxi to my apartment. I managed to get into it without being seen because Bella had left her little switchboard on some errand. I stripped off, took a bath, dressed again and dialled Marty Alton’s club.
Marty said my girlfriend had left with the other gentleman. That would be Banningham. They must have thought I had given them the air. I gave myself a slug of bourbon, called up a taxi service and rode down to the Village to collect my car.
I was driving back when I looked at my wristwatch. I saw that it was only 8:30 p.m. Then I thought of something. Why hadn’t I thought of it before? I left the car out front of my apartment and went up to the telephone. There was a slight delay in getting through to Long Island but I finally made it.
A woman’s voice answered. “Mrs. Louella Grierson’s home. Mrs. Grierson speaking.”
I said, “My name is Dale Bogard. I would like to come out and see you.”
“Do I know you?” The voice was a full-rounded contralto. It sounded all right. I thought the owner would be tall, a little matronly, perhaps graying slightly. Aged forty-five to fifty. Probably distinguished looking.
“No. That is my loss.”
“I think I have given interviews already to…” she began.
“Mrs. Grierson,” I said, “you may put your mind at rest. I am not a newspaper reporter, a life insurance official, a dick from the homicide bureau or a private eye. I am a very private citizen who happens to have been caught up in something which is nothing to do with him.”
“Should I be interested, Mr. Bogard?”
I drew a deep breath and let her have it.
“I sat not twenty feet from your husband the night he was killed. The man who killed your husband has since been murdered. A man who may have known too much has also been murdered. At least two gentlemen have threatened my own life. I have an idea you might be able to help solve all this.”
There was silence. Then her voice came on again. “It is all very dreadful, Mr. Bogard—but I do not see what you can expect to learn from me.”
I told her, “Maybe I’m playing it wrong—but maybe you know something about your husband’s background that would give a clue to a lot of things.”
“I see,” she said—though I didn’t think she did. Not very well.
“Do I come out?”
“Very well—if you think it will help. Where are you?”
“In New York. I’ll drive myself out.” Something struck me. “If you think this might be a new way of working a hoist you can have your servants on hand with sawn-off shotguns or call up police headquarters and have them check on me.”
A low musical laugh slid into my left ear. Pleasantly. “I’ll take a chance,” was what she said.
I went back to the car. I had left the top up, which was just as well because now the rains came. Everything in New York is big, so the rainwater had to be heavy, cold and continuous. The streets looked like canyons of black glass under the night lights and I jumped the first traffic signals I came to because I couldn’t see them, but the traffic cop didn’t see me, either. I don’t think I hit anything.
There was no rain at all on Long Island. It was a calm fall evening with the blue-black canopy of the sky picked out in a million winking lights. The roads were quiet, the air was full of the fragrance of evening, and without a special reason in the world I suddenly felt good. Maybe this was the life after all. There was a wonderful story in all this somewhere and I was going to get it. And write it. If they let me stay alive to write it. Suddenly, I didn’t feel quite so good again.
Although there was no rain, a heavy damp hung in the still air. The Buick liked it and I ran out into the Sands Point district as quietly as a mouse moving back home from a three-day jag.
The Grierson home was the biggest kind of thing. After I swung in through the wide double gates I drove for a minute and a half before I saw it. A huge rambling stone structure which would be aloof and standing when a lot of gleaming white bungalows with their stucco fronts and red and chromium fittings had crumbled. I left my heap outside the main entrance and walked up the stone steps between a couple of granite lions which looked as though they had been lifted straight from the New York public library. A wide glass door faced me. Not too wide. Not more than five yards I should think.
I thumbed the bell push and heard the muffled clamor of mellow chimes. I could see a man step through some massive oak doors and cross the square hall to slide the glass doors open. He was gray, heavy-faced, clean-shaven and stoutish. He was English. I knew that his cultured accent started out as a whine in the Old Kent Road, picking up gloss on its way through the stately homes of England.
“Good evening, sir.”
I told him succinctly, “My name is Dale Bogard. Mrs. Grierson is expecting me.”
“Very good, sir. I will convey your message. If you will step inside…”
> I did that. He took me through the little hall, past the old oak doors and into a big hall. It had an inlaid block floor strewn with white Persian lamb rugs. The walls were cream-colored and high. Pictures hung in massive gilt frames. There was a black oak settle. There was a prayer-mat. There was a bronze chest. There was a full suit of armor wearing a flame cross on a white background. Unlike the butler, it had never been to England. I figured the butler was the only thing about the place that wasn’t a phoney.
That was until I met Mrs. Grierson. She rose from a chaise longue in a lounge not quite so big as Carnegie Hall but better furnished. Too well furnished. Chippendale, Queen Anne, and early American Colonial period pieces fought with each other and all three were at war with 1950s functionalism—black glass and a combined radio and television cabinet in polished whitewood picked out with crimson candy stripes. The result of the battle was inconclusive.
But there was nothing phoney about Mrs. Louella Grierson. She wore almost blue-black hair down to her naked shoulders which rose from a white satin gown. Her feet were in silver slippers with high heels. Her mouth was wide and vivid and her eyes were deep blue. She was probably thirty-five years old. I decided to stop inventing mental pictures of people on the strength of a telephone voice.
“Hullo,” she said. The voice was still deep and musical but it wasn’t the voice she had used on the telephone. Not quite. I should have known a lot of people have a telephone voice. Just a little more studied, just a little more Café Society than the one they used about the house. I figured Mrs. Grierson’s started out in the old homestead somewhere in Indiana, but like the butler’s it had taken on some veneer on the way up.
She nodded to the butler just then. “Thank you, Morton—bring some drinks in, will you?”
“Very good, madam.”
I said, “I thought you’d look quite different.”
“How did you think I would look, Mr. Bogard?”
