Nothing's Certain but Death

by M. K. Wren

  *

  His next stop in geographical sequence might have been the bookshop, but Conan drove past it without the usual proprietary survey, winging like a homing pigeon to the Surf House Restaurant, where he found Tilda presiding over only a few occupied tables.

  “How is Brian?” she asked, and Conan saw the same numb detachment in her eyes as he’d seen in Brian’s.

  “I don’t know, Tilda. Not good, but maybe better than he should be. Is Claude here?”

  “Yes, he’s in the kitchen.”

  “What about Beryl?”

  “She’s here, too; downstairs in her office.”

  “Then she recovered from the subtle first symptoms.”

  Tilda gave a mirthless laugh. “Oh, yes. The Widow Bea always recovers. But that was catty. I’m sorry.”

  “Was it? Is she prone to hypochondria?”

  “Well, yes, but it was catty because she never lets it interfere with her work. Oh—excuse me, I have a customer.”

  He nodded. “And I have Claude.”

  He found Jastrow in the cooking area. Five plates, empty except for a garnish of romaine and spiced apple, were lined on the counter under the pass-through, but the chef had his back to them, presiding like a white-uniformed Vulcan over the array of grills, ovens, and broilers, which poured out waves of heat even the exhaust fans couldn’t contain. The backup cook, a harried young man with a sweating and corrugated brow, hovered about like a surgical nurse to provide tools and ingredients at Jastrow’s command.

  “Sliced!” Jastrow snapped as he flung a handful of mushrooms into the garbage can. “For Stroganoff, the sliced mushrooms, Benjy.” He pushed a skillet of tenderloin strips to the back of the stove grill and uncovered a huge stockpot, squinting into the fountain of steam it belched out.

  Conan was standing by the refrigerator at the end of the narrow space, and when Benjy lunged for it to remedy his error with the mushrooms, Conan had to move fast to avoid a literal encounter with a swinging door.

  “Benjy, I have another order of steamer clams coming up,” Jastrow informed him as he accepted the bowl he proffered, “and a brochette. And Benjy—sherry! There’s not half an ounce in this bottle.” He said that as if it were Benjy’s fault, but he was out of range, whisking past Conan as if he didn’t exist.

  Jastrow recognized his existence with a dubious glance as he shifted to the main grill.

  “Hamburgers!” he said contemptuously, shouting against the roar of the fans. “The All-American gastronomical abomination! Are you here to study culinary art, Mr. Flagg?”

  “No. To ask some questions.”

  He frowned, but it seemed to be at the waitress at the pass-through who shouted, “Razors, D-3!” Without taking his eyes from the grill, he reached behind him for a garnished plate, scooped two grilled clams onto it, then a few steps to the right to the microwave oven where he procured a baked potato, and by this time Benjy was back, a neat exchange of plate and wine bottle was made, and Benjy cut and plumped out the potato, then sailed the plate up to the dish-up counter where the waitress fielded it.

  “I’m busy, Mr. Flagg,” Jastrow said, as if he were explaining something to a three-year-old.

  “So am I,” Conan replied and waited stolidly while the hamburgers, Stroganoff, and steamer clams went out through the pass-through.

  Meanwhile, another colander of clams went into the stockpot, and Jastrow couldn’t resist leering at Conan through the steam and pronouncing, “Double, double toil and trouble…” Then catching the spirit of the role, he took the plate of tenderloin chunks Benjy provided and with a haggish cackle, tossed them into a skillet.

  “‘Eye of newt, and toe of frog…’” And with a handful of chopped onions, “‘Wool of bat, and tongue of dog. Finger of birth-strangled babe…’” That as he poured in the last of the old bottle of sherry. “‘…Ditch delivery by a drab!’”

  When he climaxed the performance with a suitably fiendish laugh and aimed the empty bottle at the garbage can, Conan said, “They found Johnny Hancock’s body, Claude.”

  For the span of a heartbeat, he seemed paralyzed, then he turned with a quick shrug and began impaling hunks of meat, green pepper, onion, and whole mushrooms on a skewer.

  “They found his body? That, I assume, means he’s dead.”

  “Yes. Shot between the eyes.”

  Jastrow consigned the brochette to the broiler and checked the order wheel; two new slips were up.

  “Benjy, a T-bone. From the cooler.” He opened the refrigerator—but Conan, anticipating him, was out of the way—took out four hamburger patties and flung them on the grill. “If you expect to see me prostrate with grief, Mr. Flagg, I’m afraid I’ll have to disappoint you. I can only say, as the Bard did so aptly, ‘Nothing in his life Became him like the leaving it.’ On the broiler, Benjy. Mark it well done, heaven help it.”

  Conan countered, “The Bard also said, ‘Foul deeds will rise, Though all the earth o’erwhelm them, to men’s eyes.’”

  “Ah, very good, but do you call Johnny’s murder a foul deed? Of course, you didn’t know him.”

  “I call murder most foul whoever the victim. You had a phone call Wednesday evening. Who was it from, Claude?”

  He stiffened, then busied himself painting liquid pseudo-butter on hamburger buns.

  “And what gives you the right to question the identity of the people who choose to call me?”

  “Johnny Hancock’s becoming death. And Eliot Nye’s.”

  Jastrow dropped half a bun into the oil, swore in terms the Bard would have understood, threw both halves at the garbage can, then glared at Benjy.

  “Go…check the salad. The soup stock. Something!” Then when Benjy prudently retreated, “Mr. Flagg, if I’m under suspicion of a crime, it’s my right to be so informed.”

  “I’m not a policeman, but can you give me one good reason why I shouldn’t tell Steve Travers that you received a call the same evening Johnny phoned an unidentified benefactor to blackmail him into putting up his bail, or that you weren’t home yesterday from ten in the morning until four-thirty, when you arrived an hour and a half late for your shift?”

  That morning hour was a shot in the dark, but Jastrow didn’t argue it. His lip curled in lofty indignation.

  “What I did with my time yesterday is no concern of yours or the police!”

  “Isn’t it? You own a small-caliber gun, don’t you?”

  Another shot in the dark, and apparently it hit home.

  “Who doesn’t own a gun in these out-of-joint times? But if you’re saying—oh, damn!” The odor of charred meat reached him; he leaped to the grill and flipped the hamburger patties to the back, then jerked the broiler door open, pulled the T-bone and brochette out from under the flames, left them smoking, and rescued the tenderloin in the skillet, all the while emitting an amazing stream of foul malediction.

  A waitress appeared at the pass-through and shouted, “Steamers, A-2!”

  Jastrow’s face went slack.

  “Oh, my God, the steamers!” He lunged for the stockpot, grimacing as the steam erupted. “Ruined! Ruined!”

  The lid clattered into a corner where he flung it.

  “You! Damn you!”

  Conan ducked behind the refrigerator as the colander and two dozen steamer clams rocketed toward him, the former crashing into a shelf and triggering an avalanche of jars and condiments, the latter raining on tables, the floor, and a passing busboy like a fall of shrapnel.

  Benjy came out of the cooler, eyes going round.

  “Holy Moses, what happened?”

  Conan didn’t stay to explain.

  Chapter 22

  Conan retreated into the silent depths of the banquet rooms. The west wall on this level was also made up of windows. Another squall was mustering to the southwest, the sea was pale against lowering clouds, and on the horizon a line of orange-pink glowed.

  The office was tucked in behind the staircase, and Beryl Randall was tucked in behind her
desk and a barricade of ledgers. Her jeweled glasses flashed in the light of the desk lamp as she looked up at him.

  “Oh, Mr. Flagg, I’m so glad you came. I’ve been so worried about Brian, and I was just thinking about calling you.” She moved a stack of guest checks from the chair by the desk. “Here—do sit down, and forgive the disorder. It only takes one day away to get behind here, and the dairy and produce deliveries come on Fridays, plus the liquor order for the weekend. I suppose he’s terribly discouraged.”

  Conan sat down in the chair she had prepared for him.

  “Brian? Well, he hasn’t much to be encouraged about.”

  She shuffled the guest checks absently.

  “Oh, it just seems…I mean, Brian, of all people. Mr. Flagg, you don’t think it will ever really come to—to a trial, do you?”

  “I hope not.”

  “But surely you don’t think…I mean, you know he’s innocent.”

  Conan bit back an annoyed rejoinder at that blithe non sequitur, but his tone was still sharper than he intended.

  “Yes, I know he’s innocent.”

  “Then how…well, I guess I’ll never really understand how anyone could think him guilty.”

  “The initials, Mrs. Randall. Nothing short of a confession from the killer will negate the evidential weight of those initials.”

  “The initials?” she asked dazedly.

  “The initials Nye left in the freezer written in his own blood. I told you about them.”

  “Oh.” She looked down at the guest checks in her hand. “Yes, of course. Oh, I really don’t understand that. It’s so…mysterious. The writing on the wall. Like—like a divine judgment.”

  He stared at her, wavering between instant rage and laughter. In the end, he only said, “I’d call it a misjudgment, and something other than divine.”

  “Yes, well, that was only a figure of speech, of course. At any rate, I’m sure something will come up—you’ll find something to clear him. Oh, I’ve already been through these.” She stacked the guest checks and threw them into a wastebasket.

  Conan frowned, and more to change the subject than out of real interest, asked, “Don’t you keep those for your records?”

  “Oh, no. We’d soon run out of storage space. Actually, the real records are on these cash-register tapes.” She produced an example, rolled and rubber-banded. “We run two tapes; one on the register in the dining room and one on the kitchen register. All orders are rung up on the latter, you see, so we can check it against the one in the dining room where the cash comes in. That way if a waitress decides to pocket the ticket and the customer’s cash, the discrepancy will show up when I cross-check the two tapes.”

  “Couldn’t a waitress just neglect to ring up the order on the kitchen register?”

  “Not if the order is to be filled. Only a properly rung ticket will be accepted, unless the cook is in on the fraud, too, but Brian watches—at least, he always…well, there isn’t much chance of that occurring.”

  “But if someone could get at both registers and run new tapes that would match, then destroy the old ones, the discrepancies wouldn’t show up.”

  She said coolly, “No one has access to the register tapes but Brian and me. I assure you, that isn’t possible.” She opened a drawer to put the tape away; a drawer stacked with bundled bills.

  He lifted an eyebrow. “Do you usually keep that much cash on hand?”

  “No, and this is more than usual since I missed a day, but a great deal of cash does go through here every day. There was nearly ten thousand dollars this morning.” She took a cloth bank bag from another drawer and began counting the bundles into it. “I hope you noted that I said the money passes through. I don’t think Mr. Nye ever really understood that. Tomorrow, for instance, is payday, and all this will be reduced to pennies, literally.”

  “It’s still a large temptation. Do you keep a gun here?”

  She stopped and stared at him.

  “A gun! Heavens, no. I wouldn’t have one around, and thank goodness, Brian feels the same way about them. Don’t worry, Mr. Flagg, this is going to the bank right now.” She checked her watch and frowned. “Oh, dear, I didn’t realize it was so late. Well, I can always put it in the night depository.”

  Conan waited while she filled out a deposit slip, then brought out his stock opening gambit.

  “Mrs. Randall, they found Johnny Hancock’s body today.”

  The lines around her mouth deepened, but she didn’t look up until she put the deposit slip in the bag and jerked the drawstrings tight.

  “Well. And I’ve already written his paycheck. Now I’ll have to adjust the balance. How did he die?”

  Conan rose and went to the door, not sure he could trust himself to answer that civilly.

  “Of a bullet between the eyes.”

  “A…bullet…” Her chin came up. “Is that why you asked me about a—a gun?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, I don’t know why you’d—” She stopped, and her indignation ebbed. “Oh. I suppose if we did keep a gun here, any number of people might have access to it.”

  “That occurred to me.”

  She smiled tolerantly. “As I said, we don’t keep a gun and never have.”

  “Do you own a gun, Mrs. Randall?” He put that in not because he expected a meaningful answer, but simply out of pique; to remind her that she was not above suspicion. Her face reddened satisfactorily.

  “Of course not, Mr. Flagg! I told you, I don’t like guns, and I won’t have one around.”

  He looked at his watch. “If you leave in the next few minutes you’ll have time to make the bank before it closes.”

  “Oh.” She scrambled for the deposit bag. “Yes, I’ll just make it. I know those night depositories are perfectly safe, but I always feel better if…”

  He didn’t hear the rest; he was already halfway up the stairs.

  *

  If Conan expected to find a haven in the bookshop, he was doomed to disappointment. At the door he met Jasper Hanks, who related in clinical detail his recent gall bladder surgery, and inside the shop, the Morrises related in equally clinical detail their recent tour of Europe. They didn’t like it. Next year they were going to the Far East. Conan refrained from suggesting another destination while he escaped into his office and closed the door. He left a small opening to let Miss Dobie know she wasn’t excluded.

  It was nearly closing time. He poured the last cup of coffee from the pot and sat down behind his desk while Meg gave him the Treatment, which was usually reserved for him on his return from a long absence. It consisted of pointedly ignoring him, but always from a distance of about five feet so he couldn’t ignore her.

  Her choice today was a corner of his desk where she curled herself as if for a nap, putting her back to him. But it didn’t work; he was too preoccupied to realize he was being ignored. At length, she capitulated and presented herself in his lap so he could make his peace without stretching. He responded with a laugh and offered the expected petting, while she offered a murmuring purr.

  Finally, Miss Dobie came in, offering a languishing sigh.

  “Those Morrises! They don’t like it here, either; too much rain. I suggested Southern California.” She hefted the coffee pot, then pulled the plug. “How goes the case?”

  He said curtly, “My client is still in jail.”

  She sank into a chair and intoned, “…‘the law’s delay, The insolence of office and the spurns That patient merit—’”

  “Miss Dobie, please—I’ve already had enough Shakespeare thrown at me today, along with an order of steamer clams hot off the stove.”

  Her eyes widened. “Oh, dear. That must’ve come from Claude Jastrow.”

  “It did.”

  “I guess he has quite a temper.”

  “Yes.”

  “Was it his temper that did in that Hancock person?”

  Conan choked on his coffee, and when he recovered asked irritably, “Is that hot off th
e grapevine—about Hancock?”

  “Well…in a way. The news about Hancock’s body being found was on the radio this afternoon. Mrs. Rickey told me about it. They said he worked at the Surf House Restaurant. Was it Chef Claude’s temper?”

  “Maybe.”

  Her auburn curls seemed to come to attention.

  “Does Hancock’s murder have anything to do with Eliot Nye’s?”

  “I think so, but Kleber doesn’t.”

  “Oh, what does he know? Did Jastrow kill Nye, too?”

  “I don’t know that he killed anyone. He isn’t the only suspect on my list.”

  She might have simply asked who was on his list, and he might have told her, but Miss Dobie always preferred the oblique approach.

  “What about Howie Bliss? I never did trust that man since he rented that first edition Stewart Holbrook and never brought it back. I should’ve known better; he doesn’t read that sort of thing. Probably sold it somewhere.”

  “Possibly.”

  “Or Tilda Capek.” Then she frowned. “No. Women like that always use poison, don’t they?”

  Conan couldn’t restrain a laugh. “Women like what?”

  “Oh…beautiful and exotically foreign, I guess.”

  “She grew up in Chicago. But according to Steve Travers, Nye’s wife would use poison.” He rubbed Meg under her chin, watching her tilt her head blissfully.

  “Nye’s wife? I didn’t know he had a wife. Well. Now, that offers possibilities. I’ll bet she has a lover.”

  “Yes. A sporty type who looks like Lorenzo de Medici and drives a Ferrari.”

  “Ah! Well, Lorenzo wouldn’t limit himself to poison.”

  “No, but unfortunately both wife and Lorenzo have been eliminated for reasons beyond my control.”

  “Oh. Too bad. Well, that leaves…” Her eyes narrowed on a speculative glint. “Beryl Randall.”

  “What makes you think she should be on my list?”

  “Well…it’s just that I never trust anyone who works so hard at seeming to be more than she is.”

  The game was getting interesting; Conan willingly played to that lead.

  “What do you mean, more than she is? Is she so little?”