I'll Sing at Your Funeral

by Hugh Pentecost

  “Maybe Gorsica was paying Royce some kind of a kickback and thought he could wriggle out of it,” Cain said.

  “Kickback?”

  “A handout that wasn’t included in the contract. I don’t know how it works in this racket, but in labor unions you pay up or you don’t work. Could Royce blacklist this Gorsica or something?”

  “It’s possible,” Margo said. “Robert has the best connections in the country.”

  “Tell me,” Cain said, “is Rosokov under Royce’s management?”

  “Oh, yes.”

  “Is he satisfied?”

  “I know they just signed a new contract recently.”

  “Was that shown to Summers first?” Cain asked.

  Margo’s eyes widened. “Why, no it wasn’t. But Dmitri always knows better than anyone else in the world what’s right for him.”

  “All the same,” said Cain, “if this Gorsica was paying a kickback to Royce maybe Rosokovs in the same boat.”

  “Wheels simply within wheels!” said Beany.

  “What are you driving at?” Carol asked.

  “If Royce was putting the screws on someone and that someone happened to be the murderer, Royce would be in a panic that his turn would come next.”

  “You think maybe Rosokov was Lydia’s lover?” Carol asked. “That Robert was blackmailing him?”

  “Chum,” said Cain, “you catch, on fast.” He finished his drink and stood up. “You’ll pardon me if I have a little private conversation with Carol? Then I think I’ll have a chat with friend Rosokov.”

  He took Carol’s arm and led her into the next room.

  “How was the snooping upstairs?” he asked.

  “I didn’t find the letters, if that’s what you mean.”

  “Look,” said Cain, “will you please for God’s sake, lay off!”

  She was startled by his intensity.

  “Do I have to draw pictures for you?” he asked. “You saw what happened to Joe! I’m beginning to get a hunch about this thing and I want to talk to Rosokov about it. Will you please stay here with Beany and Margo till I get back? Play three-handed bridge or rummy or something. And you’re not at home to anyone but the police. Not anyone! Just don’t answer the doorbell till you hear me hollering for ‘in.’ I won’t be too long.”

  “You might be a little careful yourself,” Carol said.

  Cain grinned. “Why, baby, nothing’s going to happen to me. Had you forgotten that the stars have ordained my future?”

  3

  Cain took a taxi to the brownstone house where the Rosokovs lived. When his ring at the pushbutton was answered and he went in, Rosokov’s voice bellowed down through the stairwell.

  “Who is coming?”

  “Cain.”

  “I am being a monkey’s uncle!” said Rosokov. “Come on! Come on!”

  In the background someone was playing Rosokov’s piano. It sounded to Cain like a Russian folk song, plaintive, gentle.

  Rosokov clapped him on the shoulder as he reached the top landing. “I am thinking you are not opening your eyes till tomorrow,” he boomed.

  “You did that kind of job on me,” said Cain. “But there are too many fireworks popping for me to enjoy a good drunk.”

  “We are hearing of this,” said Rosokov. “A policeman has coming to ask us if we are seeing Royce.”

  “And are you?” Cain asked.

  “He is never coming here,” Rosokov said. His eyes were bloodshot, but there were no other signs of the ravages of vodka.

  It was Julie at the piano, playing by candlelight. She stopped as Cain and her husband came in, and sat there, her small white hands, resting on the keyboard. Cain thought he detected a look of dread in her shadowed eyes.

  “There is plenty more vodka,” Rosokov chuckled.

  “You can give it back to the Indians,” said Cain.

  “Well, sit down. Smoking a cigarette if you like. You are finding some in that box.”

  “Thanks.”

  Julie Rosokov got up slowly from the piano bench and crossed to her husband. She slipped her hand through his arm. “Dmitri, Mr. Cain has come here to ask us questions. Wouldn’t it be better if we did not pretend otherwise?”

  Rosokov’s barrel chest expanded. “Is this why you are coming?” he asked Cain.

  “Yes.”

  “There is no reason why I should answer anything you are asking me. You are not the police.”

  “Dmitri, I think it is best,” Julie said. “I do not believe Mr. Cain is mean or vicious. He is a fine American. Maybe he can help us to know what to do.”

  Rosokov said, thoughtfully: “I could breaking you in half, Mr. Cain, if you are hurting Julie or me.”

  “Dmitri! Let Mr. Cain ask what he wants … and then perhaps we will ask him something, too.”

  Rosokov nodded. “So what are you wanting to know, Mr. Cain?”

  Cain grinned at him. “Did you get me drunk on purpose this afternoon?”

  Rosokov and Julie exchanged glances. “I am not forcing you to drink,” he said.

  “Okay, skip it,” Cain said. “How much has Royce gouged you for since you’ve been under his management?”

  “What is this ‘gouge’?” Rosokov asked.

  “You are paying him a much bigger commission than the normal, aren’t you?”

  “Nobody is making a fool of Rosokov,” said Rosokov.

  “Dmitri, please!” Julie looked frail and tired. “We have paid him a great deal in the last year, Mr. Cain. Drnitri has earned for us fifteen thousand dollars. We have paid to Mr. Royce sixty per cent of this.”

  “Why?” Cain asked.

  “He is doing a great deal for us,” Rosokov began. “We are grateful. We … ” Then his eye caught Julie’s. “He is making us pay,” he said simply. “It is what you are calling ‘or else’.”

  Julie sat down on the day bed beside Cain. She spoke in an urgent pleading voice. “Mr. Cain, when we have left Russia we have left because Dmitri is in trouble with the government. We had to come any way we could. The papers we are traveling on are not exactly what they should be.”

  “I get it,” said Cain. “Phony passports.”

  Julie nodded. “It is not because we wish to break the law, Mr. Cain. It is to save our lives. So we have arrived here and soon Dmitri has earned a contract at the opera. Then, of course, there are opportunities for concerts, for radio, for making records. Dmitri needed a manager and Summers recommended Royce to him. Royce is wonderful and Dmitri earns a great deal of money. We are paying a small commission and we are very happy. Singing is Dmitri’s life.

  “Then, one day, Royce tells Dmitri he has found out about the passports. Dimitri must pay many times more in commissions or we will be deported.”

  “So I am telling him I am breaking his neck,” said Rosokov.

  “But you didn’t.”

  “Mr. Cain,” Julie said, “we love America. We are trying to become citizens … good American citizens. Maybe someday, we think, the government will understand and forgive us that we have broken the rules. It is not fair what Royce asks us to pay, but it is cheap when we think what we are getting in this country. We are free; Dmitri can sing; we are not hounded by secret agents and spies.”

  “Only by Royce.”

  “He does not bother us,” said Julie. “As Dmitri’s manager all the money is paid to him and he gives us what is our share.”

  “How did he get away with drawing a contract calling for a sixty per cent commission?” Cain asked.

  “Oh, he is not doing it like this,” Rosokov said. “The commission is only being ten per cent. But there is what you are calling a looping hole. It is agreed that I am paying all expenses for publicity and advertising. So this can being anything he says it is.”

  “Smart guy.”

  “We are not being criminals,” said Rosokov. “We are working hard. We are paying our taxes. We are trying to being good people that they are glad to making citizens.”

  “Is this so
mething you must tell the police, Mr. Cain?” Julie asked.

  “I don’t know,” said Cain reluctantly. He looked at her. “Tell me, Madame Rosokov, did you go to Summers’ studio yesterday afternoon?”

  Julie sighed. “I went,” she said.

  “You talked to Summers?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you left him alive and well?”

  “Oh, yes!”

  “Did you go for a lesson?”

  “I knew there would be no lesson,” Julie said. “But I was afraid that now the police have an interest in us our troubles would become known. So I went to Arthur to ask of him his advice. He was our very good friend. I told him everything.”

  “About Royce?”

  “Yes.”

  “How did he take it?”

  “He was furious. He kept saying, ‘If he’s done this to you, Julie, he’s done it to others!’ Then he said what could he do without maybe hurting all of us. He said he would think of a way and for me not to worry. And so I left. But, Mr. Cain, I could not tell the police this.”

  “And now they are finding that he is killing Bill and Arthur!” said Rosokov. His huge voice swelled angrily. “Once I followed him to his apartment. I was going to killing him. I wish by all the gods I am doing this then.”

  “Hold it!” Cain said. “You say you followed him to his apartment. What apartment?”

  Once more Rosokov and Julie exchanged frightened glances. “Please, Mr. Cain,” said the Russian, “don’t telling anyone that I am telling you this, I am following him to a little place, no bigger than this, over a print shop on Lexington Avenue. So I am knocking on his door and I am telling him I have come to stopping what he is doing to me. He is making me see that I will only making it hard for Julie. Then he is saying, ‘If you are ever telling anyone about this apartment, Rosokov, I am going to the emigration authorities so fast you are not seeing my dust.’ ”

  “What’s the address?” Cain asked.

  “One fifty and a half Lexington,” said Rosokov. “Maybe the police will finding him there.”

  “Maybe,” said Cain. “You two have been swell. Don’t worry, I won’t do any talking that isn’t absolutely necessary.”

  Chapter Twenty

  1

  Cain went taxiing again. He paid off his driver a block from the print shop. He paused to look in the window of the shop. It seemed to specialize in Carrier & Ives. He was puzzled by the building. In the entryway beside the shop were a half dozen nameplates with bells for each apartment. The place looked neat and clean, but was definitely not on the expensive side.

  A white slip in one of the plates said ‘Royce.’ Avoiding this, Cain pressed a couple of buttons haphazardly. Presently a clicking began and he pushed open the front door and went in. A woman’s voice called down from above.

  “Who is it?”

  “Royce?” Cain asked, trying to sound like a delivery boy.

  “You pressed the wrong button, for God’s sake,” said the woman, annoyed. He heard her door slam. Then he walked to the third floor front and stood outside the door of the apartment, frowning. Now that he was here, how was he going to get in? If Royce was hiding here, he certainly wouldn’t answer the bell. The door looked flimsy but he couldn’t force it without having the whole house around his ears.

  In the last hour Cain had become convinced that Royce had been doing a fine blackmail job. With what he earned legitimately added to what he was culling from his victims, Royce must be rolling in dough. The only explanation for this shabby little apartment was that it was from here he carried on his blackmail operations. That also explained his threat to Rosokov if the Russian mentioned its existence.

  Cain had just about decided to risk giving the door the business when he heard movement inside the apartment. Someone seemed to be running across the room toward the door.

  Cain backed away, flattening himself against the corridor wall. The door burst open and a woman ran out. Cain made a grab for her and she screamed.

  “Why, God damn you!” said Cain.

  It was Carol, her eyes wide with terror, who was struggling to get away from him.

  “Oh, Pat!” Her resistance ended. She was suddenly clinging to him. “There’s someone on the fire escape!”

  Cain didn’t stop to ask questions nor did he let go of her wrist. He pulled her after him into the apartment, closing the door.

  “Stay there, and if you move I’ll break your neck,” he said. He ran through into the bedroom. The window onto the fire escape was open, a pane of glass broken over the catch. The glass had been knocked through onto the apartment floor. But there was no one in sight, above or below on the escape. He opened the closet. There were a couple of suits, some neckties on a hanger, a pair of slippers, a dressing gown. But no visitor. The bathroom was empty.

  Cain went back into the living room. Carol stood by the door, still pale with fright.

  “Now would you mind telling me what you’re doing here?” Cain asked.

  “I was looking for them,” she said meekly. “The letters, I mean.”

  “I ought to turn you up and lambast your behind,” he said. “How did you get in?”

  “Up … up the fire escape,” said Carol. “I … I broke a windowpane and … ”

  “Who followed you?”

  “I d-don’t know, Pat. I didn’t see anyone. But while I was in the bedroom I heard someone coming up the iron ladder—”

  “You promised to stay at Summers! God damn it, what am I going to do with you! Don’t you realize you’re just sticking your neck out? How did you know about this place?”

  “Bill told me,” Carol said. All the fight had gone out of her.

  “Brackett?”

  “Yes.”

  “How did he know about it? What did he say about it?”

  “He said it was a … a love nest,” Carol said. “He thought it was funny Robert would have a place like this.”

  “Why didn’t you mention it when I was asking Margo where Royce lived?”

  Carol was verging on tears. “Because you don’t take the letters seriously, Pat. You don’t care who finds them or what happens to me and my family.”

  “Why’d you think your letters might be here?”

  “Because I asked you if you thought Robert had been blackmailing Dmitri and you said yes … so it is obvious a blackmailer would simply love to have those letters. I remembered about this place. So I thought … ”

  “Did you find them?”

  “No. There doesn’t seem to be anything here except a few odds and ends of clothes. No food in the icebox or anything.”

  Cain went over the place himself. There was nothing. There wasn’t even a grocery slip with writing on it. No letters or bills.

  “Let’s get out of here,” Cain said.

  “Where are we going?”

  “I’m going to find a nice padded cell for you and lock you in it,” Cain said.

  “Do they build them for two?” asked Carol sweetly.

  2

  Maynard was on duty in the foyer at Carnegie when Cain and Carol arrived there.

  “Is Bradley here?” Cain asked.

  “He’s in Royce’s office,” Maynard said.

  “Anything stirring?”

  “They found the Indian suit in the men’s room at the Wellington, just like you figured,” Maynard said.

  “But they haven’t caught up with Royce?”

  “No report on it yet,” said Maynard.

  Cain spoke earnestly to Carol while they waited for the elevator. “Can I trust you to do what I tell you?”

  “Yes, Pat.”

  “Word of honor?”

  “Word of honor.”

  “I’m going to talk to Bradley. I’ll drop you off at Summers’ floor. You go into the studio and stay with Margo and don’t move out of there till I tell you to. This time I mean it!”

  “I promise,” Carol said.

  “How can I impress on you that hunting for those letters is dan
gerous sport? Nobody’s going to use them now. They can’t without tipping their hand. And if you don’t know who has them, then there’s no reason to molest you.”

  “I’ll be good, Pat. Really I will.” She seemed convinced at last that he was making sense.

  The elevator took them to the tenth floor. Carol got out and walked to the door of the studio which was visible from the elevator. Cain made the boy wait until the door was opened by Beany and Carol turned and waved to him.

  Bradley was sitting at the secretary’s desk in Royce’s outer office. Rube Snyder, the inspector’s belligerent assistant, admitted Cain with an air of reluctance.

  “That man is here again, Red,” he said.

  Bradley raised his head. There was a tight, strained look at the corners of his gray eyes. “Hello,” he said.

  “Any dope on Royce?” Cain asked.

  “Nothing fresh,” said Bradley. “We’ll catch up with him though.”

  Cain lit a cigarette. “Did you know he was a first-class blackmailer?” he asked casually.

  Bradley’s glance sharpened. “Are you guessing or have you got facts?”

  “Facts.”

  “Mercy, don’t tell me you’ve finally decided to cooperate with us, Cain.”

  “You have such an honest face,” Cain said.

  “I am touched,” Bradley said, “I should take you out and buy you a drink. But about these facts?”

  Cain sat down on the edge of the desk. “I was curious about Cassnova Royce,” he said. “Got asking questions. Found he’d had one rather bad contract row. That led me to Rosokov who was one of his clients. It seems Royce was forcing Rosokov to kick back about sixty per cent of his salary. All perfectly legal, you understand. There’s a loophole in the contract that permits Royce to take up unlimited sums for publicity and advertising. At the rate he charged the Rosokovs they should have outhollered the New Deal!”

  “What did he have on Rosokov?” Bradley asked.

  “I’m not going to tell you that unless I’m forced to,” Cain said. “But it’s got nothing to do with your case, chum. That I’ll guarantee.”

  Bradley chewed on the stem of his pipe.