Strip for Murder (15 page)

“Not if he got the itch, and a good con boy can give angels the itch. The marks see those thousand-dollar bills.”

Sam's men had checked on the
Clarion
article, talked to the reporter who'd written it. The reporter's story was that he'd received an anonymous phone call yesterday, giving details about Laurel Redstone's nudism kick, plus a suggestion that he look in his mailbox, which he did. There he'd found an envelope containing information that satisfied him, plus a couple of pictures, probably taken with a telephoto lens, of Laurel and others in the camp. He'd got his story written barely in time to make the late edition. He wouldn't say what the other information was, pointing out that the important fact was that his article was true, and insisted the phone call had been anonymous. I didn't believe it, of course, but Sam's men had to be content with that much.

That was about all Samson could tell me. He made phone calls to Yates's office and the California Bank, hung up, and told me it was all set. “Ed Norman has an account there, too, if that does you any good.”

“It might.” I went to the door. “Thanks, Sam. When you get Poupelle again, I'd like to talk with him.”

“Sure. Don't get killed.”

“Not a chance. I'll call you before you knock off.”

I phoned him sooner than I'd expected to, though. And I almost got that tag on my toe.

Chapter Fourteen

When I left City Hall, I climbed into the convertible and drove to a gas station, where I used the pay phone to call a friend of mine named Jay Carter, a dealer in government surplus from whom I'd bought a couple of thousand dollars' worth of equipment in the past.

I recognized his secretary's slightly nasal voice when she answered, “Carter's Surplus, anything for a price.”

“What can I get for a martini?”

“Shell! Where've you been? You horrid thing.” Maybe her voice was a little nasal, but the rest of her was virtually without flaw.

“Hi, Sally. Can you put Carter on for me? I'm in a hurry this afternoon.”

“Instead of putting Carter on, wouldn't you rather—”

“Sally, I said I was in a hurry.”

“Well, nuts to you.”

The phone went onto a desktop with a clatter. In a moment Carter bawled into it. We yakked a minute, then I told him what I wanted.

“What in Christ's name are you up to now?” he asked me.

“Never mind. Just get it and don't boost the price more than a thousand percent.”

“You know me. I can get it—and cheap—especially for you, my fran', but what in Christ's—”

“You wouldn't believe me. How soon?”

“Couple days OK?”

“No. I want the stuff this afternoon.”

“Impossible.”

“I hear the price going up. OK, Jay, just get it.”

“Well...” He was quiet for a minute. “Most of it I got. Give me eight hours. That's the best, Shell.”

It was eleven A.M. now. “All right, Jay,” I said “Do the best you can, and throw in a Coleman lantern.”

“Will do. But what in Christ's name are you—”

I hung up on him and headed for the California Bank. The manager wasn't delighted at the prospect of letting me peek at his books and microfilms. They never are. But Sam had talked to him, and in a few minutes I was seated at the viewer of a big Recordak, looking at the projected images of Andon Poupelle's checks. A male clerk, who would help me with other records of deposits and withdrawals, operated the Recordak, flashing the enlarged images of check after check on the white screen. While I was at it I gave Ed Norman's account a going-over, too. When I got through I wasn't sure I'd learned anything new—but I had found the microfilm of a check dated May 28 of this year, signed Andon Poupelle and made out to Edward Norman. It was in the amount of $56,000 and had been sent back to the endorser, Norman, with a notation that it was being returned because of insufficient funds in Poupelle's account.

Norman hadn't been too helpful last night, but at least Three Eyes had given me the straight dope on that item; and he was the man who'd also told me there was a rumble that Poupelle had pushed one Bender. Bender, who hadn't been seen around for a month.

Ed Norman's account showed several deposits of about five or ten thousand dollars, and similar withdrawals every few days. On the fifteenth of each month a check in the amount of $100,000 had been made out by Edward Norman to something called General Enterprises, Inc.

Norman seemed to be skating pretty close to the edge of his account. The latest $100,000 check had been made out when his balance was $33,000, but two days later, on June 17, he'd deposited $150,000 in cash. He had a savings account, too, but there was little in it.

The last thing I did was check bank balances. Ed Norman's totaled $64,000; Poupelle's—which until just recently had never been higher than $4,200—had jumped to a current $12,000, which wasn't tremendously interesting information. And I know it was sneaky of me, but I learned that Vera Poupelle had her account here, and I peeked at it, then wished I hadn't. It was probably just her mad money, but it totaled $468,533 and some pennies. That finished me. I left.

I started back over the same route I'd taken yesterday, the bars and the back rooms, lower Hill, Main Street. I talked to an usher in the Follies Theatre, and wasted a whole minute admiring the life-sized photos of Merry Cherry Blame, the Madwoman of Burlesque. I talked to a couple of barbers, some winos, several hoodlums, a bookie. I got nothing but sore feet and a burning curiosity about Merry Cherry Blaine.

I did pick up one interesting little item, though. I learned that a few months back Ed Norman hired a press agent to boom Castle Norman, so I looked the guy up and talked to him for ten minutes. It seemed that the castle had been pretty much of a bust and was losing money until the “publicity consultant,” as he called himself, took over and made a few changes. He'd had Norman put the wall around the castle, add the fake moat and the drawbridge and dress the help in twentieth-century armor, and so on.

The upshot was that business had picked up. The press agent's final advice to Norman had been that he double the prices of everything so the customers would feel they were getting something good. Maybe a moral was in there somewhere.

At two in the afternoon I was in my office. The guppies were fed, I'd made eleven phone calls, and I was staring at the phone when it came to life and rang. I grabbed it and a wheezy voice said, “Scott?”

“Yeah. Who's this?”

“Papa. You talked to me yesterday at Coco's. I picked up something there last night. Been tryin' to catch you.”

Coco's was a fairly pleasant bar down Broadway, where a lot of hoods drank when they had a few bucks; when the bucks melted, they slipped down to beer and port at one of the joints like Jerry's, where I'd talked to Iggy the Wig yesterday. The wheezy-voiced guy on the phone now would be a rummy named Papa Garden; I'd offered him a little cash for any help he could throw my way. We'd traded money for information before. Some of it had been good.

“What's up?”

“About Poupelle. You stirred up a lot of the boys yesterday and today, didn't you? There's a lot of talk, but nobody's saying anything. Except this noise I heard. It don't sound like much, but the word was Poupelle got a loan. From Offie.”

I whistled. This Offie was an old man named Offenbach, or Offenheimer or something like that. Guesses about what he was worth started at twenty or thirty million and went up astronomically. He was older than the Grand Canyon, according to what I'd heard, and his one interest was making money to pile on top of his money.

Offie was so rich that his purpose in making more dough wasn't merely the idea of getting richer, but the kick he got from the deals themselves. Offie didn't care whether the deal was legal or illegal, just so it was possible and there'd be a fat profit in it for Offie. Adding another million now and then was just sort of a pleasant hobby with him.

I said, “A loan, huh? Then it would have been big.”

“With Offie it wouldn't of been nickels.”

“When did it happen?”

“Dunno. Like I said, it's nothin', Scott. But I thought maybe. Well, you know. I thought maybe...”

“Don't burst into tears. You didn't make this up, did you?”

“Christ, no. I swear it. I heard it.”

“Where? And when?”

“I don't remember so good. I'd had ... a glass of beer. Two beers, in fact.” He paused. “Is it good for a fin?”

His voice was anxious. I figured he was broke and had a hangover, a horrible combination. “It's worth that,” I said. “Twice that if you remember where and when and who. I need that info.”

“Well, it was in Coco's last night. Sometime. I think it was Three Eyes sounding off. He wasn't talking to me, but I was at the bar near him. I ain't sure, Scott.”

“Three Eyes? I thought he blew town.”

“Nah. He was around last night anyways.”

“I'll have to chat again with the guy. Who else was there?”

“I dunno. I told you I had a beer. Two beers.”

“You get the ten. Where are you?”

“Jerry's.”

“See you there in about five minutes.” I hung up. It was almost five minutes, though, before I left the office, because I sat at my desk thinking about what Papa had said for nearly that long. And a couple of items melted together in my mind. June 17 was one of the dates I'd noted in the California Bank's records. This was July 2. I counted back two days, to the time I'd been hired, then back another two weeks, which brought me to June 16. That was one day off, and just right, I thought. The date had seemed a little familiar. I picked up the phone again and dialed the number of the Redstone house. In a minute Laurel answered. “This is Shell,” I said. “Everything all right, honey?”

“Hello, Shell. I'm glad you called. Everything's all right. Anyway, it's the same.”

“How do you feel?”

“Well enough. I'm over the bad part. Now that I believe it happened.” She was quiet for a moment. “Mother and I hadn't been really close for years. But ... I guess we were closer than I thought. Funny, isn't it? I think I'll go back to Fairview, Shell. I can't stand it here at the house now alone.”

“Don't go back to Fairview unless I'm with you, Laurel. OK?”

“I guess. Why, Shell?”

“Might be safer. Look, honey, I want to ask you something. When were Vera and Andon married?”

“June 16.”

“Morning or afternoon?”

“Afternoon, four o'clock.”

She said something else, but I wasn't listening. I'd thought they'd been hitched on the sixteenth. It was just right; the banks would have been closed at four P.M. Laurel went on, “If you don't want me to go back to Fairview, let me join you, be with you.”

“I'd enjoy that, but I'll be busy for a while.”

“What are you doing?”

“I've got to talk with a guy that gave me some info. Then I'm going to rummage around a detective's office.”

“What detective's office?”

“Yates, Paul Yates. I asked you about him a time or two.”

“I'd like to be with you, Shell. Can't I—”

“You wouldn't enjoy it. I'll be busy. I'll pick you up later this afternoon.”

“But I can't stay here. It's depressing. I could meet—”

“Look, I'm not sure what I'll run into. Just as soon as I can, I'll drive out. And don't go back to Fairview.”

I told her good-bye and hung up, then drove to Jerry's. Papa grabbed my ten-dollar bill as if it were already twenty shots of bourbon, but he couldn't add anything to what he'd told me on the phone, except the address of the place where Three Eyes was staying. I left him and headed for Three Eyes' room in the Manor Hotel, which sounded like a grand place to live, at a dollar a day, with bath down the hall.

I parked around the corner and walked in, past an aged bewhiskered desk clerk, and up rickety wooden stairs, wondering if Three Eyes had purposely left the item about Poupelle's fat loan out of the info he'd given me, or if he'd just forgotten it. Maybe he'd picked it up after I'd given him that hundred, which he'd immediately started spending in Coco's. Spending for tongue-loosening liquor. I hoped he was home, and I hoped he was sober.

Three Eyes shacked in Room 27, up one flight and halfway down a dark, gloomy hall that smelled of mildew and worse. I knocked a couple of times but there wasn't any answer. After the sound of my knuckles on the wooden door, the silence seemed to increase. The entire hotel was quiet, only noise from the streets outside filtering in here.

I started to go back down to the desk, then tried the door. The knob turned and the door opened. Apparently Three Eyes hadn't even locked himself in. Maybe he hadn't been as nervous and jumpy as he'd pretended. I started to push the door wider, and it hit something with a light click. After that click there was another odd sound I couldn't place at first.

It was like something rolling, like a marble rolling over the uncarpeted floor. Then the hair moved on the back of my neck. Coldness shivered along my spine. The thing inside hit something, a table or a chair leg or the wall, then rolled a little farther and stopped. Even before I went inside I knew what it was.

It was an eye.

Chapter Fifteen

I swung the door open and stepped inside, shutting it behind me. I saw the glass eye immediately, across the room from me. Its whiteness stood out even in the gloom, the artificial iris nearly hidden against the floor.

Three Eyes was crumpled against the left wall, in the corner of the room. He lay on his back, twisted, his face battered, the empty socket like the hole in a skull. His face was bloody—and cold. He had been dead for quite a while.

Three Eyes had been a small man, but he had fought for his life. The room was a shambles. His clothing was torn and the fingertips of his left hand were stained with somebody's blood. I turned away. There are few sights uglier than the face of a man who has been choked to death.