Payoff for the Banker (10 page)

Mullins had not advanced. But he twitched slightly.

“—get thrown out,” the guy from
PM
repeated, even more-hurriedly. “All right. Wait until you read—” Mullins twitched again.
“PM!”
the guy from
PM
said, loudly and defiantly, and leaped through the door.

O'Malley remained standing. He looked at the others.

“All of you,” he said. “The hell out!”

They went, without hurrying. At the door the last of them, the man from the
Times
, turned back and shook his head sadly. He didn't say anything. After they had gone, O'Malley glared for a moment at the closed door. Then he moved his glare to Mullins.

Laurel Burke, known sometimes as Mrs. Oscar Murdock, would be all right to visit, Bill Weigand thought, looking at her. A good place to visit, but, like New York. Very much like New York, he decided—difficult to imagine in another environment. She was blond, perhaps by intention; she had a broad low forehead and widely set dark blue eyes; her chin was firm and rounded. Possibly, if you thought much about it, you might decide that her face was heavier than faces needed to be. But no man was apt to spend that much time in analysis, at any rate of her face.

Bill thought, almost hurriedly, of Dorian, who was known always as Mrs. Weigand and had eyes with greenish lights and fully as good a figure. Dorian did not have hostess pajamas of quite this cut—quite this daring—and would hardly have worn them if she had. It was a matter of taste, but there was a little of the carnivorous in all men. Probably there had been, for example, in George Merle. Which might account for—

Her voice was carefully low; intentionally low. She might, Bill thought, practice from time to time on it, keeping the pitch down. There was hardly a suggestion, and that not in tone but in inflection, that once it might have been a voice for use in subway trains.

“Well, Lieutenant,” she said. “You'll know me next time?”

He was not disconcerted. He agreed gravely that he would. He returned attack with attack.

“Mr. Merle knew a good thing,” he said. “You.”

She widened her eyes in vast surprise and bewilderment. She narrowed them in realization.

“What the hell do you mean by that?” she said.

She still stood in the door she had opened when Bill Weigand rang the bell. Weigand waited but she showed no inclination to move.

“Do you want to talk about it here?” he said.

She looked at him, considering. Her eyes were suspicious.

“Let's see your badge,” she said. “If you've got a badge.”

Weigand showed her his shield. She looked at it and seemed convinced.

“All right,” she said. “Come on in.”

She swayed slightly and becomingly as she walked. It took all kinds of women to make a sex and she was one kind. Dorian would never allow herself to sway in just that fashion. It was a matter of taste, and a variety of tastes are possible to man. Laurel Burke's pajamas fitted tightly over the hips and flared below them. She wore black house shoes on bare feet and the shoes were cut to disclose enameled toenails. The pajamas fitted affectionately above the waist. She went to a sofa and sat without looking at Weigand. She stretched back in it, and the pajamas, cut low in front, tightened over her breasts. She looked up at Weigand.

“Very pretty,” Weigand said, conversationally. “Very pretty indeed. As I said, Mr. Merle knew a good thing.” He paused, looking down at her. “And don't ask me what Mr. Merle,” he suggested.

She seemed unperturbed.

“I know a Mr. Merle,” she said. “Slightly. Otherwise, I don't know what you're talking about. Except that you're talking like a cop.”

Weigand pulled a chair up and sat on it. He waited while she finished.

“In case you don't know,” he said, “George Merle was killed this afternoon. In your apartment.”

Her eyes widened, she gave a small gasp, she leaned forward toward Weigand. She said, “No.”

“Yes,” Weigand said. “Somebody shot him.”

He waited. She looked as if the news were a surprise, as if it were shocking. She looked as if she could, for the moment, think only of the central fact of George Merle's death.

“Oscar—it will be a terrible blow to Oscar,” she said, as if to herself. She seemed to remember Weigand. “My husband,” she said. “He was devoted to Mr. Merle. He'll—he'll be terribly upset.”

Weigand made a sound which might mean anything and waited. She seemed to be recovering from her first surprise.

“Wait a minute,” she said. “You said something else. Something about—” She paused, apparently trying to remember.

“I said he was shot in your apartment,” Bill told her, patiently.

“Yes,” she said. “That's what you said. I don't know what you mean. I've been here all afternoon—it's—”

“The apartment on Madison,” Weigand said. “The one over the antique shop. Your former apartment, if you like that better. The one you had with Mr. Murdock. Your—husband.”

She looked at him; her eyes measured him.

“Well,” she said. “Well? I thought you were a homicide dick.”

“I am,” Weigand told her.

“You sound like the morals squad,” she said. “Or something. Who says Ozzie isn't my husband?”

“Ozzie,” Weigand told her.

She twisted her lips down; then she twisted them up, making it a smile—a derisive smile.

“Trust a man,” she said. “Trust them not to be worth trusting. Ozzie's a heel.”

Weigand had no comment.

“All right,” she said. “The apartment I used to live in. As Mrs. Murdock—without being Mrs. Murdock. And Merle was killed there. So I suppose I killed him.”

People jumped to conclusions, Weigand thought. His voice was tired.

“I haven't supposed you killed him, Mrs. Murdock,” he said. “Did you?”

“Make it Burke,” she said. “Miss Burke. No. Why should I?”

“Laurel Burke,” Weigand said, not as an answer. “Laurel—beginning with L.”

“The man can spell,” Laurel remarked to the room, in a tone of wonderment.

“And,” Weigand said, “somebody with the initials O.M. wrote Merle a note telling him that somebody with the initial L would be at the apartment at about five. To get a check. And Merle went and was killed.”

She looked at him for rather a long time before she answered. She drew in a deep breath and her breasts rose pointedly against the silk of her pajamas.

She moistened her lips before she spoke, and when she spoke her voice was less low pitched.

“No, damn it,” she said. “It wasn't me. I wasn't anywhere near there. He didn't bring me the check. He—” She broke off. She started over.

“I don't know anything about it,” she said. “What do you want me to say?”

What she had said was all right, Weigand told her. If true.

“I'll swear it's true,” she said. “Anywhere I'll swear it's true.”

“All right,” Weigand said. “You weren't at the apartment. You didn't meet Merle—or shoot him. You didn't take the check.”

“No,” she said. She said it dully. “No.”

“Somebody did,” Bill Weigand told her. “Somebody met Mr. Merle there and shot him. Somebody took the check. If he brought a check. How well did you know Mr. Merle, Miss Burke?”

She shook her head; for a moment she seemed a long way off. Weigand repeated. “How well did you know Mr. Merle, Miss Burke?”

“Just through Ozzie,” she said. She moved slightly. “He came to the apartment a few times to see Ozzie. He knew about Ozzie and me.”

She was not speaking dully now. She was speaking carefully—slowly, as if she were thinking it out.

Bill Weigand waited a moment after she had finished. Then he shook his head.

“That's not good enough,” he said. “You don't seem to get the situation, Miss Burke. I can take you in as it is—as it is right now. On the basis of the letter. And let you try to work your way out of it. Unless you sell me a better story.”

“That's the way it was,” the girl said. “Really.”

“No,” Bill said. “Not unless Ozzie is lying. He says Merle was never at the apartment.”

“He—” the girl said. “I don't believe he said that.”

“Right,” Bill said. “You don't believe he said it. I do. We can take you both down. You can ask him. If you get a chance. We can say you and he were in it together.”

Her eyes widened. She stood up suddenly and her voice, too, went up.

“We weren't in anything together,” she said. She almost screamed it. “Not in
anything
. You can't make that stick.”

Weigand did not meet her mood. His voice was level, casual. He said they could try.

“If Ozzie said that,” she said, “it was—it was because he didn't know. He—”

“Didn't know what?” Weigand said. “That Merle was visiting you? While he was paying your apartment rent—while Ozzie was? Is that what Murdock didn't know?”

The girl looked at him and now her eyes were narrow—speculative. She raised her hands and pushed back her hair, which fell in curves around her face. The movement rounded the silk against her body. She let her hands drop and suddenly she shrugged just perceptibly. She sat down again. Her voice regained its studied depth as she spoke.

“Suppose it was,” she said. “Suppose—what you want to suppose. Why would I kill him? Suppose I was crossing Ozzie up.”

“You were?” Bill said.

“Suppose I was,” she said. “Suppose the old boy thought I was—well, thought I was something he wanted. Suppose he made a good bid and I decided a girl's got to live. Would I tell Ozzie everything?”

“Not if Mr. Merle was satisfied with things that way,” Bill said. “Was he?”

“He was—suppose he was scared as hell,” she said. “Scared people would find out if he—if he got me an honest-to-God place to live. Suppose he wanted me to go on with Ozzie as—as a way to cover up. Suppose he came through with enough—”

“To make it worth your while not to hold out for an honest-to-God place to live. And the rest of it,” Bill finished. “Are you saying that was the way it was? A dirty trick on Ozzie?”

“What the hell,” the girl said. “You only live once. Is it any of your business?”

“Not that part of it,” Bill Weigand told her. “Unless you killed Merle.”

“Why would I?” she said. “With things that way I wouldn't have any reason. I'd want to keep him alive. But Ozzie—”

“But Ozzie wouldn't,” Weigand said. He looked at her. She was something to look at; but he was no longer even speculatively carnivorous. “So you want to throw us Murdock,” he said.

“I'm not throwing you anybody,” she told him. “I'm just telling you the way things could have been. Nobody's going to hang it on me. I've got to look after myself.”

“You seem to,” Weigand told her.

“What the hell,” the girl said, “who doesn't?”

Bill Weigand could think of a lot of people who didn't; he could think of casualty lists. But there was no point to it.

“Right,” Weigand said. “So this is your story.”

He sketched it for her, and as he did so he admitted to himself that it fitted well enough—fitted with the few pieces of the puzzle he had so far found—with Merle's interest in antiques, for example, counting that interest as another cautious blind; it fitted, perhaps, with Merle's character, assuming—as more or less Weigand did assume—that Merle's public austerity was privately superficial. If he had been aroused by Laurel Burke, however frostily, he would go to lengths to keep it quiet. He would, perhaps, accept a situation which might have depressed a more forthright man. And it was, at least in theory, possible that Oscar Murdock, if he found out about it, might not be so complacent. That was so far only a theory, unsupported by facts.

“I don't say Ozzie shot him,” the girl said, when Weigand finished. “I just say he might have had a reason—if he found out about us. He never said he found out.”

“But if he found out, you think he might have done it?” Weigand said. He looked at her after he had spoken.

“You don't think I'm worth it?” she said, unexpectedly. Consciously, she raised her arms, clasping her hands behind her head. She looked back at Weigand. Her look was a challenge.

Bill Weigand smiled, without amusement.

“I wouldn't know,” he said. “I really wouldn't know.” He looked into her challenging eyes. “And, baby, I'm not going to try to find out,” he added. “So you can quit stretching.”

Without violence, Laurel Burke told Weigand what he was. When she had finished, he laughed at her. She started up and then, as quickly, dropped back on the sofa.

“What the hell,” she said. “You wouldn't be worth the trouble.”

Weigand sat for a moment, looking at her. Then he stood up.

“I don't know,” he said, “whether I'm going to buy your story or not. It's a very pretty little story. I can still think of other little stories—not so pretty. Or just about as pretty. So I wouldn't try to go anywhere, if I were you.”

“You'll be back, Lieutenant?” she said.

Somebody would be back, he promised her. He would be—or someone else would be.

“So just wait around,” he suggested. “Just wait around.”

7

T
UESDAY
, 10:15
P.M.
TO
10:45
P.M.

Pam and Jerry North had had a story to tell Bill Weigand and no Weigand to tell it to. Weigand was not at his office; Mullins had been dispirited on the telephone. He had even been plaintive.

“Yeah,” Mullins said. “Yeah. I know. Sure, Mr. North. All I can say is, you oughta of heard the inspector.” Mullins sighed, remembering. “I tell you how it is, Mr. North,” Mullins went on, his sigh completed. “The inspector knows who did it, like he always does. The loot don't know so easy, like he usually don't. The inspector thinks that's because of you and Mrs. North. And all I can say is, you oughta of heard him.”