Figure It Out for Yourself vm-3 Page 8

  Paula, Kerman and I sat in a half-circle before the massive desk. Francon allowed us the doubtful privilege of studying his profile while he stared out of his office window at the golden beach stretched out twenty storeys below him. The silence mounted in the big air office while he turned the facts over in his mind.

  Finally, he shrugged, swung his legs off the arm of the chair and faced us.

  ‘Nothing you’ve told me would convince a jury that Pereli didn’t murder Souki or kidnap Dedrick,’ he said. ‘You’ll have to get me some ammunition. Right now we haven’t a damn thing. There’s enough evidence on Perelli to convict him without the jury leaving the box. You’ve got to face it. Feeling is running high. He won’t get a fair trial. His record’s against him. Unless you hand me something pretty substantial to hit the D.A. with, there’s nothing I can do for him except talk a lot of hot air that won’t get him anywhere. They intend to indict him on Souki’s murder, but if, in the meantime, they find Dedrick’s body, they’ll hook the two killings together, and it’ll be all over bar the gas chamber.’

  He stared at his dead cigar, frowning, then dropped it into the trash basket.

  ‘Now let’s see what they’ve got on him. They’ve found the gun in his apartment. If I worked hard enough, I could convince a jury the gun was a plant. The fishing-rod could be disposed of too. Anyone can have a fishing-rod. But the money is something no one will believe was planted. That’s where the fellow who planted it showed he has brains. A hundred thousand is a whale of a lot of money. We’re agreed on that, aren’t we?’

  I nodded.

  ‘All right. Well, so far the one thing we can’t get around is the money. The oilskin wrappers could have been planted, but once the jury makes up its mind the money wasn’t planted, then there’s no reason why the gun, the oilskin wrappers or the rod should have been also planted, and that makes the DA’s case watertight. You see that, don’t you?’

  Yeah, but all the same, we know the money was planted. Couldn’t you persuade the jury that the kidnapper, to save his own dirty hide, would be willing to part with a fifth of his spoils?’

  Francon shook his head.

  ‘I don’t think so. It’d be too much of a risk. If Perelli had a good alibi, we might get away with it, but he hasn’t. And another thing, his fingerprints are on the gun.’

  ‘I heard that, but I don’t believe it.’

  Francon nodded his head.

  ‘If s a fact. I’ve seen them.’

  But Perelli didn’t handle the gun.’

  ‘He says Brandon gave him the gun and asked him if he could identify it. He handled it all right, but he handled it after it was found.’

  ‘For Pete’s sake! You’re not going to let Brandon get away with that, are you?’

  ‘It’s Perelli’s word against the Captain of Police. Who do you think would be believed?’

  There was a long pause, then he went on, ‘So you see how it stacks up. I’ve got to have something hot and meaty to go into court with, and if I don’t get it, I’m passing up the case. That’s the position. I’ve got to have something to work with. Its up to you to give it to me.’

  ‘I’ll dig up something if it kills me,’ I said. ‘The only way for us to crack this case is to start right from the beginning and dig until something turns up. I have an idea at the back of my mind that this isn’t just a gang of kidnappers at work. I may be right off the beam, but it’s a hunch that’s growing stronger every day.’

  ‘I don’t follow you,’ Francon said, frowning at me.

  ‘I don’t exactly follow myself,’ I said and grinned. ‘I do know that Franklin Marshland’s damn’ pleased that Dedrick is among the missing. I’m going to find out why. He looks a harmless little guy, but every now and then you catch a look in his eyes and you suddenly realize he could be dangerous. The wedding was secret. Why? Suppose Marshland’s at the back of the kidnapping? Suppose he realized that Serena had married a crook who was only after her money? Suppose he decided to get rid of Dedrick and staged a faked kidnapping? I’m not saying this happened, but it’s an idea. Suppose this Mary Jerome is hooked up in some way to Dedrick’s past. You see what I mean? If this is an ordinary kidnapping job, and the kidnappers are just a gang from anywhere, then we’re sunk. But if this is an inside job, if Marshland’s at the back of it, then maybe we can crack it.’

  Francon was looking interested now.

  ‘You might have something there, Vic. It’s worth trying.’

  ‘It’s the only thing we’ve got. I’m going after Mary Jerome. She was first seen at the Acme Garage, and that’s where I’d going to start to look for her. If I can trace her from the garage to Ocean End on the night Dedrick was kidnapped then I may come across something on the way. I’m going to dig into Souki’s past. No one’s bothered with him yet. Then there’s Dedrick himself. I’m sending Jack to Paris right away to get hold of every scrap of information about Dedrick he can find. All this may be a waste of time, but it’s our only chance. We’re digging a big plot of ground in which something valuable may or may not be buried. If we don’t dig, we won’t find it, and if it’s not there to find then, it’s just too bad.’

  ‘I think Mary Jerome’s a good line of investigation,’ Franco said, pulling at his long, bony nose, ‘but I can’t see any point in bothering about Souki.’

  ‘That’s just why I’m going to do it. No one’s bothered to look at Souki. He’s just the corpse. I’m leaving nothing to chance. I can’t afford to.’

  ‘Well, all right, but don’t waste too much time on it. You wouldn’t know if Perelli had an enemy, would you? Someone must have hated him pretty badly to have hung that frame on him.’

  ‘Yeah. I’ve been thinking about that. There’s one man who’s tailor-made for the job. A nasty little rat named Jeff Barratt. He’s a reefer-addict and a thorough bad egg. He has an apartment opposite Perelli’s. I went on to tell Francon how I had called on Barratt and how Perelli had saved my life.

  ‘Does Brandon know this?’ Francon said, interested.

  ‘No; but if he did, it wouldn’t make him change his mind. I’m going to dig into Barratt’s background. That fishing-rod is something you couldn’t easily conceal. Someone had to carry it into Perelli’s apartment. I’m hoping whoever it was was seen.’ I stood up. ‘Well, we’d better get moving. As soon as I have something for you, you’ll have it.’

  The sooner the better,’ Francon said.

  Outside in the corridor Kerman said, ‘What was that again about me going to Paris?’

  ‘Yeah. I want you to get off right away. Paula will fix the details. You can have what spending money you want within reason. You won’t object to a trip to Paris, will you?’

  Kerman rolled his eyes and tried to conceal his excitement.

  ‘I’ll put up with it,’ he said. ‘It’s in a .good cause. Besides, from what I hear these French wrens are pretty accommodating.’

  ‘They’ll need to be if you’re going to hum around them,’ Paula said tartly.

  IV

  Mrs. Martha Bendix, Executive Director of the Bendix Domestic Agency and an office neighbour of mine, was a big, hearty woman with a male haircut and a laugh like the bang of a twelve-bore shotgun. She was coming out of her office as I was coming out of mine, and, as soon as I saw her, I knew I wanted to talk to her.

  ‘Hello there, Vic,’ she boomed. ‘Where have you been hiding yourself? Haven’t seen you in days.’

  ‘I want to see you, Martha. Can you spare a moment?’

  She looked at her wrist-watch, about the size of a cartwheel, decided after all she wasn’t in any hurry and opened the office door.

  ‘Come on in. Suppose you want to pick my brains again, huh? I gotta date, but it’s nothing important.’

  She led the way through the outer office where a pale blonde with a face like a happy rabbit pecked at a typewriter and gave a coy little smile as she passed.

  ‘If Mr. Manners calls, Mary, tell him I’m on my way down,’ Martha sai
d, and breezed into her cream-and-green office.

  I followed her in and closed the door.

  ‘Turn the key, ‘Martha said, lowering her voice. It probably could still be heard at the far end of the corridor, but she im-agined she was speaking in a conspirator’s whisper. ‘I’ve a bottle of Vat 69 that wants breaking open, but I wouldn’t like Mary to think I drink in office hours.’ She hoisted a bottle into sight as I sank into an armchair. ‘I wouldn’t like her to think I drink at all, for that matter.’

  ‘What makes you so positive she doesn’t know?’

  ‘What makes you so damn positive she does?’ Martha said and grinned. She slapped a threeinch snifter down on the desk in front of me. ‘Rinse your phlegm out with that.’

  ‘There are times, Martha, when I don’t believe you’re even civilized, to hear you talk,’I said, collecting the glass. ‘Well, bung-ho.’

  ‘Fungus on your adenoids,’ she boomed, and downed her drink at a gulp. ‘Not bad, huh? Want another?’

  I shook my head, and accepted the three coffee-beans she dropped on the blotter before me.

  ‘Well now, what’s your trouble?’ she asked, sitting down and getting to work on the beans herself. ‘What do you want to know this time?’

  ‘I’m trying to find out something about a Filipino named Toa Souki; Serena Dedrick’s chauffeur. She engaged him in New York, and I’m wondering if your New York office handled the job.’

  Martha looked insulted.

  ‘My good man! I’ll have you know we don’t handle coloured people. You’re not sticking your nose into that case, are you’

  I said I was sticking my nose into that case.

  ‘How can I get a line on Souki?’

  Martha scratched her head with the paper-knife while she thought.

  ‘I suppose I could find out for you,’ she said, a little grudge-ingly. ‘Syd Silver runs the biggest colour agency in New York. He’s a friend of mine, the dirty little rat! I’ll ask him. If his boils aren’t bothering him, he might find out for you. Anything in it for him?’

  ‘A hundred bucks.’

  Martha’s eyes popped.

  ‘Why, for a hundred bucks that guy would drown his mother in a quart of beer.’

  I said I didn’t want him to drown his mother in a quart of beer. All I wanted was the lowdown on Souki.

  ‘Consider it done. I’ll have some dope for you in a couple of days. Will that do?’

  ‘I’ll make it a hundred and fifty if I can get it by tomorrow morning and if the dope’s worth having.’

  ‘You’ll get it,’ Martha said, climbing to her feet. That guy’s a genius at stirring up dirt. That all?’

  ‘Yeah. Well, thanks, Martha, you’re always helpful. I don’t know what I’d do without you.’

  Martha grinned.

  ‘Tell me something, Vic. When are you marrying that dark-eyed lovely you keep in frustration in your office?’

  ‘If you mean Paula, I’m not marrying her. I wish you wouldn’t keep harping on that subject whenever we meet. Haven’t I told you she isn’t the marrying type?’

  She gave me a nudge that nearly dislocated my spine, and let off a laugh that rattled the windows.

  ‘You ask her and see,’ she said. ‘There’s no such animal as a non-marrying woman. Those who aren’t married haven’t been asked.’

  V

  I parked the Buick in the forecourt of the apartment house on Jefferson Avenue and walked into the quiet of the lobby.

  A girl, not the foxy-faced Gracie, was sitting behind the counter, the telephone harness hitched to her chest. She was chewing gum and reading the funnies, and from the bored expression on her face I concluded they were no funnier than those Gracie had been reading the first time I had come in here.

  Maxie, the bowler-hatted bouncer, popped out from behind his pillar and scowled at me.

  ‘Hello,’ I said, and gave him the teeth. ‘Where do we talk?’ His small eyes, set deep in the fat-veined face, showed suspicion and surprise.

  ‘What do we want to talk for?’ he growled, his moustache bristling. ‘I haven’t anything to say to you. Besides, I’m busy.’

  That seemed to be the cue for the mercenary theme, so I took out my bill-fold and hoisted a ten-dollar bill into sight.

  ‘Let’s go somewhere quiet and talk,’ I said.

  He studied the ten-dollar note thoughtfully, groped with a thick, dirty finger amongst his back molars, fished out a slab of something and deposited it on the seat of his trousers. Then he looked at the girl behind the counter.

  ‘Hey! I’ll be downstairs if you want me. Don’t let anyone up.’

  She didn’t bother to drag her eyes away from the funnies, but she did manage to incline her head a couple of inches to show she heard and understood.

  Maxie plodded off towards the elevator.

  We stood side by side, breathing over each other as the elevator took us down to the basement.

  He led the way along a white-tiled passage, lit by lamps in wire baskets to a small office that consisted of a desk, two chairs and a signed photograph of Jack Dempsey over a soot-filled fireplace.

  He sat down behind the desk, pushed his bowler hat to the back of his head and relaxed, breathing gently through his thick, fat nose. His eyes never left the ten-dollar bill for a second.

  I gave it to him. I knew he wouldn’t concentrate on anything else until he had it. Fat, nicotined fingers closed on it and stowed it away in a pocket somewhere in his rear.

  ‘Perelli,’ I said.

  He wiped the end of his nose on his coat-sleeve, puffed out a small quantity of garlic and beer fumes and sighed.

  ‘Aw, hell! Not him again?’

  ‘Certainly. Why not?’

  ‘Every cop in the City has been talking to me about Perelli. I’ve got nothing to tell you I haven’t told them.’

  ‘That doesn’t mean a thing, since I don’t know what you told them. Suppose you answer a few questions: questions I bet the police didn’t ask you.’

  ‘Well all right,’ he said with no enthusiasm. ‘So long as you pay for my time I don’t care.’

  I rolled a cigarette across the desk to show him this wasn’t going to be a hurried session, and he wasn’t to get any false ideas about the value of his time, and lit one for myself.

  ‘Do you think Perelli kidnapped Dedrick?’

  The small eyes blinked. He hadn’t been expecting that one.

  ‘What’s it matter what I think?’

  ‘Plenty. And, look, don’t let’s waste time. If you don’t want to answer questions, just hand back my dough and I’ll find someone who will.’

  We stared at each other across the desk, and he decided I meant business.

  ‘Beer?’ he asked. ‘Might as well make ourselves comfortable.’

  He produced two cans of beer, levered off the caps with a jack-knife and handed me one.

  ‘Happy days.’

  ‘Happier nights.’

  We drank, sighed as men will, and set the cans on the desk.

  ‘I don’t reckon he did it. It wasn’t in his line.’

  ‘That’s what he told me.’ I leaned forward and began to make patterns on the desk with the wet bottom of the can. ‘I want to help him if I can. Anything you might tell me could turn the trick.’

  Maxie started to explore his back molars again, changed his mind and poked about inside his ear instead.

  ‘Not a bad guy. A free-spender. No trouble. Nice girl friend. You seen her?’

  I said I had seen her.

  He closed one small eye, then opened it again.

  ‘The best figure I’ve ever seen on a woman. Think it’s real?’

  ‘Could be. Did you see him bring that fishing-rod in here?’

  He shook his head.

  ‘No; and I know he never had a fishing-rod. I asked the girl who cleans his room. She’s never seen one.’

  ‘Did she look under the bed?’

  ‘She cleans under it.’

  ‘The co
ps found it last night. Did she clean under the bed yesterday morning?’

  He nodded.

  ‘What time?’

  She was late. Perelli didn’t leave the apartment until twelve thirty. She didn’t start cleaning until one.’

  ‘What time did the police find it?’

  ‘Seven-thirty.’

  ‘So between one-thirty in the afternoon and seven-thirty in the evening someone planted it. That’s right, isn’t it?’

  ‘If anyone planted it.’

  ‘Well, we won’t argue about that. Sometime between one-thirty and seven-thirty either Perelli or someone brought a fishing-rod into this building. That’s right, isn’t it?’

  He couldn’t find any fault with that reasoning.

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘Are there any other entrances except the main one?’

  ‘There’s a rear entrance to the basement.’

  ‘Can anyone get up to the apartments that way?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Sure?’

  ‘Certainly, I’m sure. The way this place is built, you either come in the main entrance or up the stairs from the rear entrance. Either way you have to cross the lobby and you’d be seen.’

  ‘Where were you between one-thirty and seven-thirty last night?’

  ‘At the movies.’

  ‘You mean you weren’t here yesterday afternoon and evening?’

  ‘I was at the movies.’

  ‘Your day off?’

  ‘My day off.’

  ‘Who was in charge of the lobby?’

  ‘Gracie Lehmann.’ Maxie took another pull at his can of beer, added, ‘It’s her day off today.’

  ‘Have the police questioned her?’

  ‘Why should they?’

  ‘Didn’t they want to know about the rod? I mean how it got into Perelli’s room?’

  ‘Why should they?’