Gold Comes in Bricks (4 page)

“Spill it.”

I said, “This message concerns your personal health.”

“My health is good. It’s going to stay good. What the hell’s the message?”

I said, “Don’t cash that check.”

“What check?”

“The one you just got.”

He took his feet down from the chair. “You’ve got a hell of a crust,” he said.

I said, “Brother, you’ve cashed twenty thousand bucks in checks through the Atlee Amusement Corporation. That’s just twenty grand too much. You’ve got another check in I hat right-hand coat pocket. As soon as you give it to me, I’ll get out of here.”

He looked at me as though I’d been a funny tropical fish swimming around in an aquarium.

“Now,” he said, “you interest me. Who the hell
are
you?”

I said, “I’ve told you who I was and what I wanted. Now, what are you going to do about it?”

“In about ten seconds,” he said, “I’m going to throw you out of this room so hard you’ll bounce.”

He got to his feet, walked across to the door, unbolted it, opened it, jerked with his thumb, and said, “Out.”

I got up and picked my place, a place where I could make a nice pivot, throw his right arm over my shoulder, hear down as I twisted, and send him hurtling over my head.

He walked over to me, very casually.

I waited for him to move that right arm.

It didn’t come up the way I’d been practicing with Hashita. It came around from the side. It caught me by the coat collar. His other hand caught me around the hip pockets. I tried to brace myself, and might as well have tried to push a freight train off the track. I went out of that room so fast I could hear the doorjamb whiz as it went by. I threw up my hands to break the force of the impact against the wall on the opposite side of the corridor. I grabbed the edge of the glass mail chute beside the elevator. He tore my grip loose, pivoted, and sent me down the hall at the same time he brought up his left foot.

I know now just how a football feels when a player kicks a field goal.

What with the momentum of the bum’s rush and the force of the kick, I went sailing down the hall for twenty feet before I came down flat on the floor.

I heard him go back, close and lock the door. I limped on down the corridor and around a bend, looking for the lairs, made up my mind I’d picked the wrong end of the hallway, and started back.

I was still twenty feet from the L when I heard three shots. A second or two later I heard running steps in the corridor going in the other direction.

I ran around the right-angled turn. The door of four-nineteen was open. An oblong of light was streaming out into the hallway. I looked at my watch—eleven-sixteen. The elevator boy would have gone off duty, leaving the elevator on automatic.

I pressed the call button, and, as soon as I heard the cage start upward, went into four-nineteen on tiptoe.

Ringold’s body was huddled in front of the step that led up to the bathroom. His head was doubled back under his shoulders. His arms were twisted out at a goofy angle. One knee was just inside the door to the bathroom. The left arm was pressing up against the connecting door to four-twenty-one.

I dipped my fingers into the right-hand coat pocket and felt the perforated edges of a folded oblong of paper. I didn’t take time to look at it. I jerked it out, stuck it in my pocket, turned, and ran for the corridor. The light switch was near the door. I switched the lights out and stood for a moment in the doorway, looking up and down the corridor. The only person in sight was a woman about fifty-five or sixty with her hair done up in curlers who was hugging a red robe around her, and standing in the open doorway of a room down at the end of the corridor.

“Did you hear someone shoot?” I called to her.

“Yes,” she said.

I jerked my thumb toward four-twenty-one. “I think it came from four-twenty-one. I’ll go see.”

She continued to stand in the doorway. I walked over abreast of the elevator, called out, “He’s got a ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign over the door. I guess I’d better go down to the office.”

The elevator was waiting. I opened it, rode down to the second floor, got out, and waited.

It seemed as much as a minute before I heard the elevator taken back down to the first floor, and then saw it go rattling back up. The indicator showed that it had stopped at the fourth. I walked down the stairs and out into the lobby. The clerk wasn’t behind the desk. The blond girl at the cigar counter was reading a movie magazine. Her jaws were moving slowly with the rhythmic chewing of gum. She glanced up, then back to her magazine.

After I got out on the street I took the folded oblong of paper out of my pocket and looked at it. It was a check payable to cash in the amount of ten thousand dollars. It was signed
Alta Ashbury.

I put it in my pocket and walked down to the place where Bertha Cool had left the car. It was gone. I stood there for a minute and didn’t see any sign of Bertha. I walked three blocks, picked up a taxi, gave the address of the Union Depot. When I got there I dropped the hotel key into a mailbox, picked up another cab, and gave the address of a swanky apartment hotel three blocks from where Ashbury had his residence. I paid off the cab, and, after he drove away, walked down to the Ashbury place.

The butler was still up. He let me in although Ashbury had given me a key.

“Miss Ashbury in yet?” I asked.

“Yes, sir. She came in about ten minutes ago.”

“Tell her I’m waiting on the sunporch,” I said, “and that it’s important.”

He looked at me for a moment, blinked his eyes, and said, “Very well, sir.”

I went out on the sunporch and sat down. Alta came down in about five minutes. She swept into the room with her chin up in the air. “There’s nothing you can say,” she said, “no explanation you can make.”

“Sit down,” I said.

She hesitated a moment, then sat down.

I said, “I’m going to tell you something. I want you to remember it. Think it over tonight and remember it tomorrow. You were tired and nervous. You canceled a date. You went to a movie, but couldn’t stick it out. You came back home. You haven’t been anywhere else. You understand?”

She said, “I came down here because I want to make a good job of having this over with once and for all. I hate snoops and spies. I suppose my stepmother employed you to find out just how I felt. Well, she’s found out. I could just as well have told her to her face, but as far as
you’re
concerned, I think you’re beneath contempt. I—”

I said, “Come down to earth. I’m a detective. I was hired to protect you.”

“To protect
me
?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t need any protection.”

“That’s what you think. Remember what I told you. You were tired and nervous. You canceled a date. You went to a movie but couldn’t stick it out. You came back home.
You haven’t been anywhere else.”

She stared at me.

I took the check from my pocket. “I don’t suppose,” I said, “that you bother to keep stubs of such minor cash outlays as ten-thousand-dollar checks, do you?”

Her face went white as she sat staring at that check, her eyes riveted on it.

I took a match from my pocket, struck it, and set fire to one corner. I held it until the flame got close enough to burn my fingers, then I dropped it into an ash tray. I ground the ashes to powder with the tips of my fingers.

“Good night,” I said, and started for the stairs.

She didn’t say anything until I was going through the door.

“Donald!” she cried—just one sharp cry.

I didn’t turn around but closed the door behind me, went up stairs, and to bed. I didn’t want her to know he’d been murdered until she read it in the papers or until the cops told her. If anyone around the hotel knew who she was and the cops came out to question her, she could put on a lot better act of surprise, or grief, or relief, or whatever it was going to be, if she wasn’t acting a part.

I had a hell of a time getting to sleep.

CHAPTER FIVE

T
HE SIRENS CAME
about three o’clock in the morning. I could hear them coming a long way off. I started to get up and dress, because I wanted to be on hand when things began to happen; then I remembered my own position in the matter and went back to bed.

But it wasn’t Alta the cops were after. They banged around on the front door until Ashbury got up. Then it seemed they wanted to talk with Robert Tindle.

I slipped on a pair of pants over my pajamas, put on my coat, and tiptoed to the head of the stairs immediately after Tindle had gone down to the library. The cops didn’t lower their voices or try to pull any punches. They wanted to know if he was acquainted with a man named Jed Ringold.

“Why, yes,” Tindle said. “We have a salesman by that name.”

“Where’d he live? Do you know?”

“No, I don’t. It’s on the records up at our office. Why? What’s he done?”

“He hasn’t done anything,” the cop said. “When did you see him last?”

“I haven’t seen him for three or four days.”

“What does he do?”

“He’s a stock salesman. That is, he’s a scout. He gets prospects located and phones in a tip. Then the other boys close.”

“What kind of stock?”

“Mining.”

“What’s the company?”

“Foreclosed Farms Underwriters Company.”

“What kind of a company is it?”

“For any detailed information,” Tindle said, and it sounded to me as though it was something he’d memorized, “I must ask you to get in touch with our legal department, C. Layton Crumweather, with offices in the Fidelity Building.”

“Well, why can’t you answer the question?”

“Because there are certain legal matters involved, and in my status as an officer of the corporation I might bind the corporation in some pending litigation.” His voice got more friendly and he said, “If you can tell me what you want, I can give you more information, but the lawyer has cautioned me not to speak out of turn because anything I say would be binding on the company, and there are a lot of legal technicalities that—”

“Forget it,” the cop told him. “Ringold was murdered. Do you know anything about that?”

“Murdered!”

“That’s right.”

“Good Heavens, who killed him?”

“We don’t know.”

“When was he killed?”

“Right around eleven o’clock tonight.”

Bob said, “This is a terrible shock to me. I didn’t know the man intimately, but he was a business associate. Parker Stold and I were talking about him—it must have been right around the time he was killed.”

“Who’s Parker Stold?”

“One of my associates.”

“Where were you when you were doing this talking?”

“At our office. Stold and I were there chatting and making some sales plans.”

“All right, what enemies did this man have?”

“I’m sure I know but very little about him,” Tindle said. “My work deals mostly with matters of policy. The personnel is handled by Mr. Bernard Carter.”

They fooled around and asked a few more questions, then left. I saw that Alta was tiptoeing out of her room. I pushed her back in. “It’s okay,” I said. “Go to sleep. They wanted to see Bob.”

“What about?”

“Seems Ringold was working for Bob.”

“But why did they want to see Bob about that?”

I figured it was time to hand it to her. I said, “Somebody killed Ringold.”

She stood staring at me without speech, without expression, almost without breath. She had removed her makeup, and I saw her lips grow pale.

“You!” she said. “Good God, Donald, not you! You didn’t-”

I shook my head.

“You
must
have. Otherwise, you couldn’t have got that—”

“Shut up,” I said.

She came walking toward me as though she had been walking in her sleep. Her fingers touched the back of my hand. They were cold. “What did you think he was to me?” she asked.

“I didn’t think.”

“But why did you—why did you—”

I said, “Listen, dopey, I kept your name out of it. Do you get me? Where would you have been if that had been found?”

I could see she was thinking that over.

“Go back to bed,” I said. “No, wait a minute. Go on downstairs. Ask what’s happened, and what all the noise is about. They’ll tell you. They’re pretty much up in the air now. They won’t notice your expressions, what you say, or what you do. Tomorrow, they’ll be more alert. Does anyone know that you knew him?”

“No.”

“Anyone know that you were seeing him?”

“No.”

“If they ask you,” I said, “avoid the question. Understand? Don’t lie—not yet.”

“But how can I avoid it—if they ask me?”

I said, “Keep asking questions. That’s the best way to avoid answering them. Ask your stepbrother why they were calling on
him
at this hour of the night. Ask anybody anything, but don’t put your neck in a noose. Do you understand?”

She nodded.

I pushed her toward the stairs. “Go on down and don’t let anyone know you’ve seen me. I’m going back to bed.” I went back to bed, but I couldn’t sleep. I heard people talking downstairs, heard steps on the stairs, low voices in the corridor. Someone walked down the corridor to the door of my room, paused there, tense and listening. I didn’t know who it was. I hadn’t locked the door. There was just enough vague light in the room so I could make out the door. I waited for it to open.

It didn’t.

After a while it got daylight. Then, for the first time, I felt sleepy. I wanted to relax. My feet had been cold ever since I’d walked out into the corridor. Now they got warm, and a heavy drowsiness came over me.

The butler knocked on my door. It was time for me to go and give Henry C. Ashbury his physical culture lesson.

Down in the gymnasium Ashbury didn’t even take off his heavy woolen bathrobe. “Hear the commotion last night?” he asked.

“What commotion?”

“One of the men who’s been working for Robert’s company was killed.”

“Killed?”

“Yes.”

“Auto accident or what?”

“Or what,” he said, and then after a moment added, “Three shots with a thirty-eight-caliber revolver.”

I looked at him steadily. “Where was Robert?” I asked. His eyes held mine. He didn’t answer the question. He said instead, “Where were you?”

“Working.”

“On what?”

“On my job.”

He pulled a cigar out of the pocket of his robe, bit off the end, lit it, and started smoking. “Getting anywhere?”

“I don’t know.”

“What do you think?”

“I think I’m making progress.”

“Find out who’s been blackmailing her?”

“I’m not certain she’s being blackmailed.”

“She isn’t throwing checks around like confetti for nothing.”

“No.”

“I want you to stop it.”

“I think I can.”

“Think there’s any chance she’ll make any further payments?”

“I don’t know.”

“It takes you a long time to make progress,” he said. “Remember I’m paying for results.”

I waited until the silence had made its own punctuation mark, and then said, “Bertha Cool handles all the business affairs.”

He laughed then. “I’ll say one thing for you, Donald. You’re a little guy, but I never saw a big one who had more guts. Let’s go up and dress.”

He didn’t say anything about the reason for his inquiries about where I’d been or what progress I was making with his daughter. I didn’t ask for any explanations. I went up and took my bath and came down to breakfast.

Mrs. Ashbury was all upset. Maids were running in and out of her room. Her doctor had been called. Ashbury explained she’d had a bad night. Robert Tindle looked as though someone had put him through a wringing machine. Ashbury didn’t say much. I studied him covertly and came to the conclusion that the guys in this world who have money and keep it are the men who can dish it out and take it.

After breakfast Ashbury went to his office as though nothing had happened. Tindle rode up with him in his car. I waited until they’d cleared out. Then I called a taxi and said I wanted to go to the Fidelity Building.

C. Layton Crumweather had a law office on the twenty-ninth floor. A secretary tried to find out something about me and about my business. I told her I had some money I wanted to pay Mr. Crumweather. That got me in.

Crumweather was a gaunt, bony-faced individual with a narrow, sloping nose down which his spectacles kept sliding. He was big-boned and under-fleshed. His cheeks looked as though they’d sunken in, and that emphasized the big gash that was his mouth.

“What’s your name?”

“Lam.”

“You said you had some money to pay me?”

“Yes.”

“Where is it?”

“I haven’t got it yet.”

Two deep furrows creased the center of his forehead, and emphasized the length of his nose. “Who’s paying it?” he asked.

“Suckers,” I said.

The secretary had left the door open a crack. Crumweather looked me over with little black eyes which seemed unusually small for the size of his face. Then he got up, walked across the office, carefully closed the door, came back, and sat down.

“Tell me about it.”

I said, “I am a promoter.”

“You don’t look like one.”

“That’s what makes me a good one.”

He chuckled, and I saw his teeth were long and yellow. He seemed to like that crack. “Go on,” he said.

“An oil proposition,” I told him.

“What’s the nature of it?”

“There’s a lot of nice oil land.”

He nodded.

“I don’t have title to it—yet.”

“How do you intend to get title?”

“With the money that’s paid in for stock.”

He looked me over, and said, “Don’t you know you can’t sell stock in this state unless you get permission from the Commissioner of Corporations?”

I said, “Why did you think I took the trouble to come here?”

He chuckled again, and teetered back and forth in the squeaky swivel chair back of his desk. “You’re a card, Lam,” he said. “You really are.”

“Let’s call me the joker,” I suggested.

“Are you fond of jokes?”

“No. I’m usually wild.”

He leaned forward and put his elbows on the desk. He interlaced his long, bony fingers, and cracked his knuckles. He did it mechanically as though it was a gesture he used a lot. “Exactly what do you want?”

I said, “I want to beat the Blue Sky Act and sell securities without getting an okay from the Commissioner of Corporations.”

“It’s impossible. There are no legal loopholes.”

I said, “You’re attorney for the Foreclosed Farms Underwriters Company.”

He looked at me then as though he was studying something under a microscope. “Go ahead.”

“That’s all.”

He unlaced his fingers and drummed with them on the edge of the desk. “What’s your plan of operation?”

“I’m going to put some good salesmen in the field. I’m going to arouse interest in the oil possibilities of this land.”

“You don’t own it?”

“No.”

“Even if I could beat the Blue Sky Act and get you the chance to sell the securities, I couldn’t keep you out of jail on a charge of getting money under false representations.”

“I’ll take care of that end.”

“How?”

“That’s my secret. I want you to beat the Blue Sky Law so I can have something to deliver when I call for the dough. That’s all you need to do.”

“You’d have to own the land.”

“I’ll have an oil lease on it.”

He chuckled again. “Well,” he said, “I don’t make a practice of handling such things.”

“I know.”

“When would you want to start operations?”

“Within thirty days.”

He dropped the mask. His eyes were hard and avaricious. He said, “My fee is ten per cent of the take.”

I thought that over a while. “Seven and a half,” I suggested.

“Don’t make me laugh. It’s ten.”

“All right.”

“What’s your first name?”

“Donald.”

He pressed a buzzer on the side of his desk. After a moment the secretary came in. She had a notebook with her. He said, “Take a letter, Miss Sykes, to Mr. Donald Lam. Dear Sir: With reference to your suggestion that you wish to reorganize a corporation which has forfeited its charter to the State of California, it will be necessary for you to give me more specific data as to the name of the corporation, and the purpose for which you wish it revived. My fee in such a matter will be fifty dollars in addition to whatever expenses are necessary. That’s all, Miss Sykes.” She got up without a word and left the office.

When the door had closed, Crumweather said, “I suppose you know how it’s done.”

“The same way you did it for the Foreclosed Farms Underwriters Company?”

He said, “Let’s not talk about my other clients.”

“All right. What
do
you want to talk about?”

Crumweather said, “You have to take all the risks. I’ll write letters confirming every conversation I have with you. I’ll give you letters which you are to sign. I have a list of certain old corporations which forfeited their charters to the State of California for failure to pay franchise taxes. I’ve carefully checked those old corporations. Naturally, you want one which didn’t do any business, against which there aren’t any outstanding legal obligations, and where the entire treasury stock—or a large part of the treasury stock—was issued.”

“What’s that got to do with it?” I asked.

“Don’t you see?” he said. “The Blue Sky Act prevents a corporation from issuing its capital stock until it has permission from the Commissioner of Corporations. After stock has once been issued, it becomes private property the same as anything else a man owns.”

“Well?” I asked.

He said, “And the state taxes corporations. Whenever they don’t pay their taxes, their franchise is forfeited to the state, and they can’t do business any more, but those corporations can be revived if they pay their back taxes and penalties.”

“Pretty slick,” I said.

He grinned—an oily, foxy grin. “You see,” he said, “those corporations are just the dead shells of former businesses. We pay the license, taxes, and revive the corporation. We buy up the outstanding stock which has been issued. Never have to pay more than half a cent or a cent a share. Of course, there are only a few corporations which answer our purpose. I’ve made all the preliminary investigation. I know the corporations. No one else does.”