1945 - Blonde's Requiem Read online

“Do you believe this stuff about a mass-killer being at large?”

  He sat down abruptly and hid his face in his hands. “I don’t know.”

  He wasn’t helping much.

  “You know these disappearances are being used to gain votes for the coming election,” I said as patiently as I could. “It’s not possible, is it, that these girls are being paid to duck out of sight? I mean your girl wouldn’t do a thing like that?”

  “Whatever’s happened to Luce has happened against her will,” he whispered.

  “You don’t think she’s dead, do you, mister?”

  I thought it was likely, but I didn’t say so. Before I could go on, the door jerked open and a big, grey-haired woman came in. Her eyes were swollen and red and stony.

  “Who is it, Tom?” she said, going to him.

  McArthur looked vague and uneasy. “Someone about Luce.”

  “It’s all right, Mrs. McArthur,” I said hastily, “I’m helping with the investigation.”

  She looked me over and her mouth tightened. “You’re working for Wolf.”

  She got excited about that. Turning on McArthur, she said: “You fool! Why did you let him in? He’s Wolf’s spy.”

  McArthur looked pleadingly at her. “He’s going to help,” he explained anxiously. “We want all the help we can, Mary.”

  She walked to the door and threw it open. “Get out!” she said to me.

  I shook my head. “You don’t understand, Mrs. McArthur,” I said soothingly.

  “The more people in on this, the quicker we’ll get results. You want your daughter back and I can help you. It won’t cost you-anything.”

  “He’s right, Mary,” McArthur said eagerly. “He only wants to help.”

  “I’m taking no help from a louse like Wolf,” the woman said, and she went out, closing the door violently.

  McArthur wrung his hands. “You’d better go,” he said. “She’s gone for her brother.”

  I didn’t care if she’d gone for the Marines. “Take it easy,” I said, not moving.

  “Why does she hate Wolf? What’s he done to get het that way?”

  “Most folks hate him. Leastways, those who’ve worked for him,” McArthur said, looking anxiously at the door. “You’ll find them all the same.”

  The woman came back. With her was a thickset man of about forty. He was full of toughness and self-confidence.

  “Is this the fella?” he said to Mrs. McArthur.

  “Yes.” There was a triumphant note in her voice which annoyed me.

  He came over to me. “Get out and stay out,” he said, poking his finger at my chest. “We don’t want a spying louse like you around here.”

  I took his finger and gave it a little jerk. It was a trick I’d picked up from a guy who’d spent some time in China.

  The man fell on his knees with a howl of pain and I grinned at him. “Don’t be a sissy,” I said, helping him up. “Can’t you take a joke?”

  He toppled into a chair and held his hand, moaning.

  I went to the door. “You’re all crazy,” I said to them. “Can’t you see you’re wasting time? I can find the girl if you’ll let me. It’s your business, of course, but she’s been missing for four weeks. No one’s turned up anything yet. If that gives you confidence, then I’m sorry for you. If I don’t find her, I’ll find the other two. By that time she won’t be worth finding. Think it over. I’m at the Eastern Hotel. If you want my help, come and see me. And don’t think I care one way or the other.”

  I didn’t stop to see how they took it, but walked out of the room and closed the door quietly behind me.

  * * *

  The Cranville Gazette was on the fourth floor of a dilapidated building sandwiched between a large cut-rate emporium and a drugstore. The small, dark lobby was dirty and harboured the stale smell of bodies and tobacco smoke. The lift wasn’t working so I climbed the four flights of stairs.

  I wandered around the fourth floor until I came to a door lettered in flaked black paint on pebbled glass: Cranville Gazette.

  I turned the knob and went into a small, narrow room with two windows, a battered typewriter desk, a number of filing cases and a threadbare carpet.

  A woman turned from the window and looked at me without much interest.

  She was forty, thin, frowzy and full of vinegar.

  “The editor in?” I said, tipping my hat and trying to look more pleased to see her than she did to see me.

  “Who is it?” she asked in a way that told me the editor didn’t have many visitors.

  “The name’s Spewack,” I said. “And I’m not here to sell him anything or to waste his time.”

  She opened a door which I hadn’t noticed before at the far end of the room.

  She shut the door behind her.

  I leaned against the wall and lit a cigarette. I decided for an editorial office this was pretty punk. The newspaper, I thought, was a worthy representative of the town.

  The woman came back. “Mr. Dixon will spare you a few minutes.” I walked down the narrow room, smiled at her and entered the inner room.

  If anything, it was more dreary than the outer office. In a swivel chair at the desk sat an elderly number in a blue serge suit which looked like it had been nickel-plated. A pale-grey bald patch loomed high up in the middle of stringy white hair.

  He had sharp blue-green eyes and his beaky nose looked as if it had hung over a lot of quick ones in his time.

  “Mr. Spewack?” he said in a fruity baritone.

  I nodded.

  “Take a chair, Mr. Spewack.” He waved a fat hairy hand at the chair across the desk. “I’m always glad to meet a visitor to our little town.” He paused and stared at me with a calculating expression in his eyes. “You are a visitor, I suppose?”

  I sat down. “More or less,” I said, hitching the chair a little nearer to his desk. “Before I tell you my business, I’d like to ask you a question.”

  He dug his little finger in his ear and worked it around for a while. Then he pulled it out, examined his nail and wiped it on his trouser-leg. “Anything you like,” he said, smiling. His bridgework was ill fitting and yellow and the smile didn’t reach his eyes.

  “Do you care who becomes mayor of this town?” I asked, shooting it out fast.

  He hadn’t expected that. He closed his eyes quickly and huddled into his clothes like a startled tortoise. “Now I wonder why you should ask that,” he said, after a pause.

  “Couldn’t you say yes or no in a nice straightforward manner?” I said, tapping ash on the threadbare carpet.

  He looked at me sharply and considered this. “I suppose so,” he said cautiously. “But I don’t see why I should. I don’t discuss politics with strangers, Mr. Spewack.”

  We eyed each other. “You don’t have to make me a stranger,” I said. “If you put your cards on the table, we might see a lot of each other.”

  He considered this too, then he suddenly laughed. It was a harsh sound like the bark of a hyena. “You’re a character, sir,” he said, washing his hands over the blotter. “Why shouldn’t you know a little thing like that? Very well, then, let me, as you suggest, put my cards on the table. There is very little to choose between Mr. Wolf and Mr. Starkey as mayors. Mr. Esslinger, however, would be better. Taken by and large, it wouldn’t greatly matter to me who got in. I am able to regard the election as an unprejudiced spectator.”

  “That’s fair enough,” I said, taking out my identity card. I handed it to him.

  He examined it with genuine interest. After he had been over it long enough to learn the contents by heart, he handed it back. “A very interesting little document,” he said, and again dug his finger in his ear. “I guessed you were the detective from New York the moment I saw you.”

  I was watching him closely to see if he was going to turn hostile, but his expression didn’t change.

  “You might be able to help me,” I said, putting the
identity card back in my pocket.

  “I might,” Dixon returned, tapping on the dirty ink-stained blotter. “But I don’t see why I should. I’m not helping anyone else, Mr. Spewack.”

  I smiled at him. “Maybe they don’t need your help,” I returned. “All want is a little inside information about Cranville. I’m authorized to pay for all information.”

  He closed his eyes, but not before I saw interest and greed jump into them.

  “Very interesting,” he muttered under his breath. “Now I wonder what kind of information you’d want.”

  “I understand Chief of Police Macey wants Rube Starkey to become mayor. Can you tell me why?”

  He pulled at his beaky nose and turned this over very thoughtfully. “I wouldn’t like to give you my personal opinion, but I don’t mind giving you the opinion of the town . . . if that’s any use to you.”

  “Go ahead,” I said, knowing that it’d be his opinion anyway.

  “The trouble with Cranville,” he began, folding his hands on the blotter and looking at me with shrewd, sly eyes, “is this. For the past twenty years all the mayors have been elected on a reform ticket. Cranville has been so reformed that there’re no real opportunities to circulate money. The working man, Mr. Spencer has to be encouraged to spend his spare money if a town is to flourish. It is a lamentable fact that unless the methods of encouragement are of a questionable nature, big profits are limited.

  “Twenty years ago, Cranville had four gambling-houses, a racetrack, two excellent nightclubs and even a little organised vice. People spent their money, enjoyed themselves, and the town flourished. All these places have been closed down. It makes a big difference”

  He picked up a pencil and began to draw a cube on the blotting paper.

  “Macey wants Starkey to become Mayor because he’ll promote the kinds of entertainment that will be lucrative to Macey. Macey wishes to reopen the gambling-houses , nightclubs and even the racetrack. Starkey has had a lot of experience and could easily do it”

  He finished drawing his cube and began rolling the pencil under his hand across the blotter. “Macey isn’t a very good policeman, but he is an excellent business man.”

  “If Starkey gains control, Cranville may be in for a life of crime, is that it?” I made a sound like I didn’t care one way or the other.

  “Very likely, Mr. Spewack. I should say it was very likely.” He smiles at me.

  “Only don’t quote me. I would not like everyone to know my views ...not just now anyway.”

  “Suppose Esslinger got in?”

  “Well, Esslinger’s a different proposition. I think things might improve. I don’t know, of course. He is a little too anti-capitalist to be really comfortable in Cranville, but he is a very sincere man.”

  “Tell me about him,” I invited.

  Dixon leaned back in his chair and placed his fingertips together. “Now let me see,” he said, frowning at the dirty ceiling, “He came to Cranville thirty years ago. He was assistant at Morley’s Funeral Parlor for some time, and when Mr. Morley died he took over the business. He was and still is a hard, painstaking worker and has done a lot of good for the town. He is liked and trusted. You will like him Mr. Spewack, although you may not like his wife.” He glanced out of the window and shook his head. “A very strong-minded woman. It has always puzzled me why Esslinger ever married her.” He lowered his voice.

  “She drinks.”

  I grunted.

  “Then there’s his son,” Dixon went on. “An excellent fellow. Takes after his father in every way. Clever, full of brains. Studying medicine and, I imagine, has a brilliant career in front of him.” He dug his finger in his ear again. “His mother dotes on him. She has no other interest, except, of course, the bottle.” He shook his head at the tiny bit of wax he had levered out of his ear.

  “Has he any money?” I asked.

  Dixon pursed his lips. “Esslinger? Depends on what you call money. He has a very nice little business. People die. In fact a lot of people die in Cranville. It isn’t what you would call a healthy town.” He looked at me with a sly smirk. “At least not for everyone.”

  “I’ve gathered that,” I said dryly. “But I don’t scare easily.”

  We eyed each other and then I fished out a packet of Camels and tossed him one. “What do you think’s to those girls who’ve disappeared?” I asked lighting up.

  “What I think and what I print in y paper are two different things,” he said cautiously. “I have a young man who works for me, covering the local news. He is a sensationalist. It was he who convinced me that the mass-killer theory would increase our circulation.” He showed his yellow teeth in a foxy smile. “He was right, Mr. Spewack; it has.”

  “But you don’t believe it?”

  He shook his head. “I don’t.”

  “What’s your theory?”

  Again he shook his head. “Never mind about my theories, Mr. Spewack. You don’t want to clutter up your mind with the theories of an old man.”

  “Come on, loosen up,” I urged. “I want all the help I can get.”

  But I could see he was going to be obstinate. “There is one thing worth considering,” he said. “If those girls have been murdered, where are the bodies?”

  “I’ve thought of that,” I said. “Maybe you have an idea?”

  “No ideas,” he returned promptly. “You must expect to do a little work on this case yourself. No doubt Mr. Wolf is paying you well.”

  “So-so,” I said and decided to let his theories drift. “Esslinger’s engaged a woman investigator, hasn’t he?”

  I went on after a pause.

  “A most charming young woman,” Dixon said, and gave the nearest thing he could to a leer. “You’ll like her. Of course, she’s had no experience as an investigator.”

  “She’s getting nowhere?”

  Dixon shook his head and smiled. “I don’t think anyone expected her to,” he said, underlining the “anyone.”

  “That go for Esslinger, too?” I said, watching him closely.

  “He nodded, but didn’t say anything.

  “And yet Esslinger has hired her.”

  “And he doesn’t think she’ll break the case? That does not make sense.”

  Dixon picked up his pencil and began another cube.

  “I can only suggest an idea here and there,” he said apologetically. “You mustn’t expect me to do your work for you, Mr. Spewack.”

  I leaned back in my chair and looked at him thoughtfully. We sat for a few minutes in silence. I knew he wasn’t going to elaborate, so I tried another angle.

  “What do you know about the missing girls?”

  He pulled open a drawer and took out three photographs, the kind that are taken by street cameramen. He gave them to me. “I assure you, Mr. Spewack, they are ordinary working-class girls with no secrets and with nothing extraordinary about them.”

  Looking at the photographs, I believed him. They were the type you could see in any street, any day, in any town.

  “Have they anything in common besides being all blondes?” I asked, handing the photographs back.

  He opened his mouth to say something, when the telephone rang. He stared at the telephone with a blank, surprised look in his eyes. “Excuse me,” he said, picking up the receiver. He held it gingerly against his ear.

  I sat back, watching him absently.

  He said, “Are you there?” and listened.

  Faintly I could hear a voice talking over the line. It was a sharp, high-pitched staccato voice, but I couldn’t understand what it was saying.

  Dixon suddenly huddled into his clothes. “I understand,” he mumbled into the mouthpiece of the telephone. “Yes, of course. Yes. . . . naturally.” He listened some more, then I heard a click as the caller hung up on him. He very slowly put the receiver hack on its cradle and stared down at his blotter. I saw a little cluster of sweat beads on his forehead which hadn’t been
there before.

  “Have they anything in common besides being all blondes?” I repeated after a long pause.

  He started, then stared at me as if he’d forgotten was still there. “I’m afraid I can’t spare any more of my time, Mr. Spewack,” he said, looking hurriedly away.

  “It’s been very interesting to meet you.” He got up and offered me a damp, limp hand. His face was the colour of white mutton fat and high up near his right eye a nerve twitched. “I don’t think you’d better come here again, Mr. Spewack. Your time’s valuable and I wouldn’t like to waste it.”

  “Don’t worry about my time,” I said. “I’ll take care of that.” I took out my pocket book and let him see the twenty-five dollar bills I had in it. “And I’ll buy your time, so you don’t have to worry about that either.”

  “Very thoughtful of you,” he said. There was no interest in his voice or his eyes. “But I have nothing to sell. Do you understand, Mr. Spewack? Nothing to sell.”

  I put the pocket book away and stared at him thoughtfully. “Who was that on the telephone?” I said.

  “No one you’d know,” he returned, sitting limply in his chair. “Good day, Mr. Spewack, I’m sure you can find your own way out.”

  I put my hands on the desk and leaned over him. “I bet it was Macey or maybe Starkey,” I said, watching him. “I bet you were told to keep your trap shut or else. Wasn’t that it?”

  He huddled deeper into his clothes and shut his eyes. “Good day, Mr. Spewack,” he said softly.

  “So long,” I said, and went out.

  The vinegar-faced woman looked up as I passed.

  “The old guy’s got cold feet,” I said. “You’d better light him a fire.”

  I felt her eyes on my back, but I didn’t look round. I shut the outer office door behind me and walked slowly down the four flights of stairs. I found myself whistling in an absent-minded way Chopin’s “Funeral March.”

  * * *

  The Eastern Hotel was a rambling three-storey brick building with metal fire escapes on the front. There were a dozen or so rocking chairs on the porch.