“I see. You have items he wants as badly as that?”
“Not only the items, though there is that complete file of Nordicas. … No … Lieutenant,” he said abruptly, “I’m afraid. This burglar tried to kill Wilson, and with damned little reason. I’m afraid that was only a build-up. My partner and I have made wills leaving our estates to each other—our residual estates, that is. Milton, who is fortunate enough to be a bachelor, can afford many philanthropic legacies, while I must make proper provision for these … these serpent’s teeth of mine. But my residue, I may say without boasting, is quite enough to assure at least a keen interest on Milton’s part if anything were to … happen to me in a burglary.”
MacDonald leaned forward seriously. “Mr. Matteson—” he began; but at that moment Nick Noble, who had been poking at the files, came up with a record. “Like to hear this,” he said.
It was Chaliapin’s Down the Petersky, Victor 1050.
Mr. Matteson played it—a rowdy roistering street song, delivered with all the legendary Chaliapin vigor—and was launched on his hobby. He seemed almost to forget the question of burglary (and murder?) as he explained and demonstrated his collection and his custom-built record-player—his one concession to the attainments of modern science.
MacDonald learned a great deal. He learned that the single records (which constituted the bulk of the collection, since it went back to the days before album sets) were filed in shelves, alphabetically under the record companies and numerically under order number, and were fully cross-indexed, by composer, title and performer, in an elaborate card catalog (although Mr. Matteson seemed to know the numbers of most of his favorites without reference to the index)—all of which meant that a thief would have to count on considerable undisturbed time if he were to locate the more valuable records. He would also need specialized knowledge, since an admirable record may also be a very common one.
MacDonald learned other facts not so professionally relevant. He learned to admire the chaste bel canto of Boninsegna or Battistini, the rich authority of José Mardones, the impeccable artistry of Edmond Clément—none of whom, he confessed, he had ever heard of before. And he learned, when he inquired about Patti, that no contemporary ear can judge her by the wretched recordings of the last shreds of her voice.
Mr. Matteson had just finished playing Geyer’s record of the great scena from Fidelio, and MacDonald’s eyes were popping. “It’s true,” he said. “There were giants on the earth in those days. After that, even Flagstad …” He broke off and watched his host curiously. The little man had refiled the Geyer, and stood there twitching nervously. Then he reached behind the stack of opera libretti in the adjacent cabinet and took out something which he laid gingerly on the table.
It was a .45 automatic.
“I’m afraid,” he said frankly. “And all the time we’ve been playing records—yes, I have a permit of course—I’ve been getting more afraid. For my records and—well, for me. Tell me, Lieutenant: do you believe in hunches?”
“Sometimes,” MacDonald said cautiously.
“He’s coming tonight.” It was a flat statement of fact. “I feel it in my marrow. He’s coming and … You’re armed, Lieutenant?”
MacDonald patted his shoulder.
“I realize what an imposition it must seem. But this man is a killer, Lieutenant. Wilson will tell you that. And if you could see your way clear to—to a vigil with me …?”
MacDonald looked at Nick Noble. Noble held up his personal bottle of kitchen sherry; it was almost half full. MacDonald nodded.
A change seemed to come over Mr. Matteson, as though the sharing of his burden had all but removed it. He moved about the room briskly, lightly, arranging bottles and glasses convenient to chairs, closing the record-player, opening the curtains. Then he switched off the lights.
MacDonald drew his own automatic and placed it on the table ready to his hand. Then they sat, in the quiet darkness. MacDonald spoke rarely and Nick Noble never; but Mr. Matteson occasionally broke the stillness to tell some amusing collectors’ anecdote or to wonder audibly for whom they were waiting.
MacDonald wondered too. He wondered what manner of man could speculate so calmly about his son, his daughter and his partner. He wondered what sort of lawyer Mr. Matteson was, and if he ever came alive in the courtroom to nearly the extent that he did in his music room. …
MacDonald’s eyes were shutting after an hour in the dark. They blinked open as he thought he heard a sound in the next room. He was struggling to keep them open when the door swung inward.
The faint light from the hall outlined a figure of medium height, heavy or heavily wrapped. It crossed the room silently and paused before the files of records. It stretched out a hand in the dimness, and MacDonald said levelly, “You’re covered, my bucko.”
The figure recklessly whirled and fired. MacDonald’s gun answered, and a second flash came from beside him. Somewhere in the noise of the two shots was the astonished cry of a human voice, probably Nick Noble’s. The figure toppled over.
MacDonald switched on the table lamp. Noble was clutching Mr. Matteson’s right arm, but the little man shook loose and started forward at the same time as MacDonald. They collided and sprawled, their automatics crashing on the floor. MacDonald stumbled to his feet, reached the fallen figure, and recoiled in astonishment.
It was not the figure’s identity that so astonished him. The ponderous partner Harbrecht had been his favorite candidate from the start. It was the fact that the man was dying.
MacDonald had aimed for his legs. The right side of his face was torn away. The dying man’s lips twitched and something like comprehension glittered for a second in his eyes. He said, “Like Palmieri …”
By the time MacDonald had traveled to the table for whisky and brought it back, the dying man was still.
Matteson stood there beside the dead intruder, his feet firmly planted, his body all ajerk with petty movements. “Milton Harbrecht …” he kept saying. “My partner … He wanted to … My partner …” At last he desisted from the litany and said, “Thank God, at least I didn’t kill him.”
“So?”
“I shot him in the thigh. Lieutenant, you didn’t have to—Oh, I know he was a … killer, but if you’d only winged him. …”
MacDonald looked at the body. There was a bullet hole in the fleshy thigh.
Nick Noble said softly, “What did he say?”
“Like a palmetto,” Mr. Matteson muttered absently. “Whatever that means.”
“Not quite,” MacDonald corrected. “He said, ‘Like Palmieri.’”
Nick Noble murmured, “Tosca…?” His blue eyes glazed over as he strolled away.
MacDonald said, “I’ll call the boys. I’m sorry, Mr. Matteson. It’s hell it had to end this way. But at least it’s a clear case of self-defense.”
“I didn’t shoot him,” Matteson insisted. “I mean, I didn’t kill him. They can tell in the autopsy, can’t they? Ballistics?”
“They can tell,” said MacDonald.
Nick Noble wandered back with a small paper-bound book in his hand. “What’s holding you, Mac?” he asked.
MacDonald moved toward the phone. “Of course.”
Nick Noble shook his head. “Uh uh. What’s holding up arrest?” He jerked his thumb at Matteson. “Murder.”
It was the music room. There should have been an orchestral chord, tutti, fff, with a roll on the kettledrums. Instead there was silence while Mr. Matteson blinked. “Murder?” he said at last, and he was pretty old for his voice to be changing.
Nick Noble said, “You killed him. How know which bullet unless you fired it on purpose?”
Mr. Matteson laughed. “My dear drunken reasoner, the autopsy will establish beyond a doubt that the lethal bullet came from the Lieutenant’s gun.”
“Sure. You fired it. Switched ’em in the dark, back again when you stumbled. Wiped prints, I guess. Good at sleight-of-hand; remember how you switched records under my nose at
Chula Negra?”
MacDonald had turned away from the phone. “Nick, are you sure what you’re doing? Why should Matteson shoot to kill?”
“Inherits partner’s estate.”
“But he’s a wealthy enough—”
“Not wealth. Partner was thinking of leaving record collection to University; collector like Matteson couldn’t see treasures go out of hands.”
Mr. Matteson coughed. “How true. I mean, I realize how fortunate it is that Milton died before making that ridiculous testamentary alteration. But granting my motive, my dear alcoholic intellect, how did I know that my secret burglar was my partner?”
“Easy. Put him up to it. He hated cops. O.K. You planned a hoax to make fools of us. We heard you on phone. ‘Wait till you see their …’ faces, obviously. Even gave time: 10:50. Now 11:05. Unusual time because prompt 10:30 or 11:00 would look too prearranged. Thought quick for record—we saw tonight you know numbers without catalog.”
MacDonald was moving casually toward Matteson. Almost imperceptibly the little man edged away. “And the attempted killing of Wilson?”
“Build-up. No intent to harm. You, of course. Tonight Harbrecht as burglar. Pistol with blanks to start us firing. You told him you’d hocus Mac’s gun with blanks too. I saw pattern, tried to stop you—just too late.”
Mr. Matteson considered the situation gravely. “Speaking as a lawyer,” he announced, “I will admit that you have a fine presumptive case. Motive, means, and opportunity are complete. I might be willing—only as a lawyer, you understand—to grant your hypothesis. I should then ask: How in heaven’s name can you prove a shred of it?” His mouth twisted with a faint grin of sly triumph.
MacDonald stepped toward him. The automatic was still in Mr. Matteson’s hand, and it happened to be pointing at the Lieutenant.
“Dying words,” said Nick Noble.
MacDonald stared at him. “That Palmieri gibberish? It meant something?”
Nick Noble held up the booklet in his hand. Its cover said Tosca.“Harbrecht was opera fan like you. Thought Palmieri stirred a memory and I checked it. It’s in here: Heavy frames fake execution for hero, then frame within a frame—real instead of fake. Heavy gives henchman cue in front of heroine with one sentence—repeated, a fan’d know it—‘Fix it like Count Palmieri. Get me?Like Palmieri.’ So what does ‘Like Palmieri’ mean when a dying opera fan says it? Means real bullets where you expected blanks.”
It was the longest speech MacDonald had ever heard Nick Noble make. It also produced the promptest results. There was no longer any question whether Mr. Matteson’s automatic was covering them.
“All right,” the little man said tensely. “I still think I could talk a jury out of it; but the trial would finish me professionally. I can’t afford it. So … get over there. With your hands up.”
“Be my Valentine?” MacDonald suggested.
“Exactly, Lieutenant. A massacre. Remember, he was killed by your gun. Very well. You die by this one, which will be found with his fingerprints on it. We all shot it out. I survived with—a shoulder wound, probably. All highly regrettable.” The little man’s eyes gleamed as though he had suddenly found another hobby quite as fascinating as records.
MacDonald said nothing. His gaze followed every movement of Mr. Matteson’s right hand.
“Go on,” the little man snapped. “Over there. Get along.”
Nick Noble moved obediently. As he moved, he hand caught a corner of the record file and jerked. The file leaned forward, hesitated, rocked back, then forward again. Already in his imagination MacDonald could hear the crash of the records.
Mr. Matteson hurled himself forward. He thrust his slight body in front of the file and propped it up with both hands like Samson at the gates of Gaza. There was the vigor of desperation in his weak muscles. Slowly the record file returned to normal.
With a sigh of relief, Mr. Matteson turned to face MacDonald’s gun. Panic-stricken, he grabbed for his own, then saw Nick Noble picking it up from where he had dropped it to save his treasures.
It was some months later that Nick Noble spoke privately to Mamá Gonzales. “That Geyer record,” he said. “Cenicienta. Remember little man that wanted it?”
“Pos, ¿cómo no?”
“Wonder if maybe he could borrow it. They’re letting him have a phonograph up at San—where he is. Wrote to Mac he’d like to hear it. You’ll get it back O.K.,” he added. “He won’t have time to wear it out.”
(1946)
Crime Must Have a Stop
The third set of flashbulbs exploded and the actress relaxed and pulled down her skirt. Lieutenant MacDonald continued to stare somewhat foolishly at the silver trophy in his hands.
“Well?” the actress grinned. “How does it feel to be the recipient of the Real Detective Award for the Real Detective of the Year?”
“Thirstifying,” said MacDonald honestly.
The actress nodded. “Well spoken, my fine ferreting friend. I always feel a spot of alcohol is indicated after cheesecake myself. Where are we going?”
MacDonald still contemplated the trophy. It had been exciting, very exciting, to be chosen by the top fact-crime radio program for its annual award; but he’d been feeling uneasy ever since the announcement. Despite the extraordinary record of solved cases that had made him the bright young star of the Los Angeles Police Department, he felt like an impostor.
“Mind a ride downtown?” he asked. “We’re going to deliver this trophy to the man it really belongs to.”
The actress raised her unplucked brows as they turned east on Sunset. “I’ve worked in Hollywood for three years,” she said, “and I’ve never known whether Sunset Boulevard ran beyond Gower. They tell me there’s a city called Los Angeles down this way. That where we’re going?”
“Uh huh. And you’re going to meet the damnedest man in that city of the damned …” And MacDonald began the story.
He began with his own first case—the case that started with his finding a dead priest and ended with his shooting one of his fellow lieutenants. He explained where he had found the solution of that case, and where he had found the solution for which he had just been awarded the trophy.
“You weren’t giving awards back in the early thirties,” he said. “But there was a man in the department then who topped anybody you’ve honored. He had a mind … it’s hard to describe: a mind of mathematical precision, with a screwball offbeat quality—a mind that could see the shape of things, grasp the inherent pattern—”
“Like a good director,” the actress put in.
“Something,” MacDonald admitted. “Then there came that political scandal—maybe you’ve heard echoes—and the big shake-up. There was a captain who knew what wires to pull, and there was a lieutenant who took the rap. The lieutenant was our boy. He had a wife then and she needed an operation. The pay checks stopped coming and she didn’t get it …”
The actress’s lively face grew grave as she followed the relentless story of the disintegration of greatness: the brilliant young detective, stripped at once of career and wife, slipping, skidding, until there was nothing left but the comfort of cheap sherry and the occasional quickening of the mind when it was confronted with a problem …
MacDonald pulled up in front of the Chula Negra. He peered in, caught sight of Mamá Gonzales’ third daughter Rosario, and beckoned her to the door. “You got any marches on your juke box?” he asked, handing her a nickel.
So it was to the strains of the Mexican national hymn that the Real Detective Award trophy entered the little Mexican restaurant. Lieutenant MacDonald bore it proudly aloft and the actress followed him, confused and vaguely delighted.
Mexicanos al grito de guerra …
MacDonald halted in front of the fourth booth on the left, with the certainty of finding its sharp-nosed white-skinned inhabitant. He placed the trophy on the table, flourished his hand and proclaimed, “To the Real Detective of The Year!”
The actress placed one foot
on the bench and lifted her skirt over her knee. “That makes it an official award,” she grinned.
… al sonoro rugir del cañón boompty boomp!
Nick Noble’s pale blue eyes surveyed the symbolic silver figure of Justice Triumphant Over Wrongdoing. “If it was only a cup …” he sighed, and downed his water glass of sherry.
That was the start of an evening memorable in many ways. It was MacDonald’s first non-professional visit to the Chula Negra; and he was amazed to realize that Nick Noble could drop cryptic comments on the theater of twenty years ago which fascinated the actress as much as his comments on crime had stimulated the lieutenant. He was further amazed to realize the warmth and vitality of the girl beside him, whom he had at first regarded solely as the inevitable wench demanded by cameramen.
They fitted together somehow, her bubbling eagerness and Noble’s weary terseness. They belonged together because they were the same thing underneath, the same piercing through of conventional acceptance, straight to reality. MacDonald was growing more and more aware of the girl, more and more aware of the peculiarity of a man’s being single in his thirties, when the episode began which was to make the evening completely memorable.
It started unspectacularly enough, with a voice calling, “Hi, Don!”
The voice was high-pitched, but firmly male—a tenor with baritone quality. The man was slight but firmly built, dressed in the standard mismatched uniform of middle-bracket Hollywood, and MacDonald was certain he’d never seen him before. But even as the man seized his hand, as the actress looked up curiously and Nick Noble finished his latest sherry, MacDonald began thinking back. Far back, obviously. Anyone who called him Don dated from college days at USC. Now he was Mac or Lieutenant or Loot. A faint but ghastly picture flitted across his mind, of something called an Apolliad, an evening of students’ creative contributions to the higher literature. There must be some reason why he was thinking of that—there must, in fact, have been some reason why he had attended it …
Exeunt Murderers Page 12
