The Paul Cain Omnibus (36 page)

Amante had turned to me again with an expression like a cat practically bloated with canaries.

“But before she shot him she told him a few unprintable details about his ancestry and so forth, and …”—he paused to give it the proper melodramatic touch, finished slowly—“Mrs Bergliot, the housekeeper, overheard her… . This afternoon Mrs Bergliot positively identified her voice!”

He let that sink in, then built up to his clincher in a hurry:

“After she shot Raymond she tossed the gun under the table—she was wearing gloves so there weren’t any prints—and beat it quick. She drove around for a few minutes and finally parked on the highway near the entrance to the private road to figure out what to do. She knew it was too late to frame an alibi and she knew Raymond would be traced to her and the maid would spill her guts… . And then Mister Finn showed up, like an angel from heaven. She recognized his car—a blind man could spot that sixteen cylinder calliope of his—and she thought to herself: ‘If I drive back up there and make Finn believe I just got here, that Raymond socked me at my house and I just came to, then I’ll have Finn on my side and as Kiernan’s partner he’ll carry a lot of weight.’ She’s a bright girl… .”

He was leaning forward with his arms spread out on the desk, giving me the cat-full-of-canaries business for all it was worth.

“It appealed to her instincts as an actress,” he went on, “and it worked out even better than she’d planned. Mister Finn not only went for her story hook, line, and sinker; he got so absolutely lousy with chivalry that he told her to go on home and go to bed and forget about the nasty old murders and he’d take care of everything!”

He leaned back and folded his arms. “If I didn’t believe Mister Finn acted in good faith—that he actually believed in Miss Reid’s innocence—there’d be a charge of withholding evidence, possibly even a charge of being accessory after the fact against him. However it has all worked out satisfactorily and I shall let these matters rest.”

One of the reporters snickered. The big copper was sitting on the corner of the desk grinning merrily and Amante’s sneer was the kind people probably wear just before they get their throat cut by the sneeree.

I sat and calculated my chances of suddenly diverting everyone’s attention by staring out the window or yelling “Fire!” or something and then hurdling the desk and pushing that sneer back where it came from, but they were too long; I couldn’t even have got past the big baboon. I sat still and wondered if it could get any worse.

Amante snapped: “That’s all, boys.”

The reporters dived for the door as a man. Amante wiggled his head at the baboon and he, after a last long withering look at me, followed them out and closed the door.

I said: “That was capital fun.”

He looked at me very seriously. “I’ve got to look out for my job,” he bellowed. “If you hadn’t sent Reid away last night I’d’ve had the whole case on ice this morning. I don’t intend to be head of a homicide squad all my life—I’m going places, and quick indictments and quick convictions are going to take me there—”

I interrupted: “Do you mean you actually believe last night happened the way you told it?”

“Absolutely.” He nodded slowly, was silent a moment, went on: “The newspapers are for me and that’s the way I want them. You acted out of turn and you’ve got to take the rap for it—with the newspapers.”

I uh-huhd and got up and walked over to the window, stood there a minute; then I went over to the desk and said: “I thought you were an intelligent guy and you’ve turned out to be just as nutty as a bedbug.”

He grinned with one side of his face.

“And I’m going to show you
how
nutty,” I went on, warming up. “I’m going to make you acknowledge publicly—in your beloved newspapers—that you’re all wet on the Kiernan case. Christ knows I’ve got plenty of reasons to. Number one: I happen to want to know who really killed Kiernan—and Raymond—and tried to give me the business this afternoon—a fact which you seem to have left entirely out of your calculations. Number two: I promised my dying great-aunt that I’d never stand by and see somebody rail-roaded… .”

I stopped for breath and to think up a few more reasons. Amante sat grinning through a cloud of smoke, chewing his cigar happily.

“Number three,” I went on—“you’ve made me look like a prize sucker for the edification of a lot of yokels. And last but not least—you called my new car a calliope… .”

We both laughed; he because he thought it was funny, and I because I thought it wasn’t.

Then, having delivered myself of all that horrah about what I was going to do, and why, I walked out of the office wondering where the hell I was going to begin.

I found Harry in the pool hall across the street and told him what had happened while we drove out Third Street. We got home a little before seven and I called Gene Curley and said I had a job for him and his brother and for them to come over to the apartment.

The Curley boys used to have a two-by-four detective agency in Philadelphia; they’d been on the Coast several years working at whatever turned up. Gene had been a bouncer in a downtown crap joint until it was conclusively knocked over and Frank had alternated between an occasional job of divorce sleuthing and extra work in pictures.

When they arrived I gave them a couple slugs of Scotch and began with Gene. I told him who Mrs Bergliot was and said I wanted him to tail her and keep a detailed report of everywhere she went, everything she did and everyone she saw.

Then I told Frank he was on the payroll too, but I didn’t have anything better for him to do for a while than ride around and see how many dark blue Buick roadsters with cream-colored canvas tops and spare tire covers he could find, to check licenses and stolen car lists and things like that. I knew it was a million to one shot that he’d turn anything up but I figured I’d have more important work for him pretty soon.

I gave them a century advance, sent them on their way rejoicing and called the desk for late editions of the evening papers. The Kiernan case stories were simply fine. They played me up as the smart young man from Broadway who turned out to be the great granddaddy chump—the one all the other chumps try to imitate. They made Amante’s struggle and triumph against the overwhelming odds of my stupidity look like St George giving the finger to the Dragon. When I tell you the subtlest crack they made was to call me “Sir Galahad Finn” it’ll give you a rough idea of what it was like when they really let themselves go.

I took a shower and shaved—I cut myself an even half-dozen times thinking about what a swell time Amante must be having reading the papers—and Harry and I went over to the Trocadero for dinner. I was pretty low and confined myself to a hearty meal of Scotch and soda. The place was packed and our table was smack in the center of the room on the edge of the dance floor. It didn’t particularly help my state of mind to have friends of mine stop at the table and give me the double talk “Hello,” and know what they were thinking.

Charley Hollberg was giving a big dinner directly across the dance floor from us and I knew practically everyone in the party. Hollberg was the local slot machine magnate; his monthly rake-off was supposed to be around ninety grand. Between dances I got enough raised eyebrows to make a nice fright wig from that table alone.

There was a tall good-looking Spick sitting next to Charley who looked over and nodded brightly a couple times. I couldn’t peg him until Harry reminded me that he’d been down to our Number One place a few times and I remembered he was the guy who’d made several big bets and had got chummy and asked Fritz and me a lot of questions about our take and running-nut and things like that. Fritz had told me something about him coming down one afternoon when I wasn’t there and saying he’d decided to locate in California and open a book and asking Fritz if we’d consider selling out. Fritz laughed it off.

Monte Keith and his ex-wife were in Charley’s party, too; they sat down at our table after a dance and Monte was about to fall under the table and insisted on buying wine. Then I bought some wine and then Monte bought wine and it went on like that for some time. I got home around three-thirty and got to sleep as soon as the bed stopped going round like a merry-go-round and started rocking like a cradle.

I got up about eleven. Harry was a pretty good cook and whipped up a swell breakfast. The late editions of the Sunday morning papers treated me a little better; there were only a couple dozen references to the “chivalrous Mr. Finn.”

Then I called up Barbara to give her the inside on Amante and the piece of business with Myra Reid and got a delightful surprise. Maude answered the phone and put on the chill for me. When I said I wanted to talk to Barbara she said she didn’t think Barbara wanted to talk to anyone who would try to cover up for Fritz’s murderers, and she didn’t think she wanted to talk to me either and hung up.

Harry said: “What’s the matter?—you in the doghouse there, too?”

I nodded and sat and thought about it a while and got sorer and sorer; when I got to the stage where I was about to pop Harry in the eye, just for luck, I dressed and we went out to the Kiernan house.

No one answered the bell. We took turns pounding on the door and Barbara finally opened it and stood there glaring at us. She was a very beautiful woman—a natural blonde with big blue eyes and a lot of curves—but the last twenty-four hours had played hell with her; her eyes were dull and sunken and she looked like she’d been crying for a couple months.

I was all set to read the riot act but when I saw her I calmed down and said: “Listen, Barbara—you and I have never been what you might call buddies, but you shouldn’t believe everything you read in the papers. The Reid girl didn’t have anything to do with it. Amante is making a grandstand play and I’m going to wrap it around his neck; I’m going to find out who really killed Fritz if it takes—”

She interrupted: “I don’t care what you’re going to do.” Her voice was like little chunks of lead falling into a rain-barrel. “Please go away.”

I said: “Barbara. I—”

“Please go away.” She was standing very straight and tall and looking at a place about two feet back of my neck. “And I wish you wouldn’t come here anymore; I’ve asked Mister Gottler to get in touch with you about purchasing your share of the business. You’ll hear from him.”

She stepped back and closed the door.

One time when I was about six my mother spanked me in front of company and as I remember the way I felt it was about the same as I felt standing there on the Kiernan porch looking at the door. I looked at Harry and I think if he’d made the wrong crack or smiled it would have been the end; I would have strangled him, or tried to, and then committed hari-kiri with the foot scraper.

But Harry looked properly indignant and asked who the hell Gottler was; I told him he was Fritz’s attorney and we went down and got in the car. Gene Curley was sitting in his heap a couple hundred feet from the entrance to the private road with his eye peeled for Bergliot. He waved. Instead of going back through Beverly I drove on out to the beach and up the beach road towards Malibu.

Harry snorted: “What does she want the business for?—and who does she think she’s going to get to run it who won’t steal everything including the light bulbs and linoleum in a week?”

I said I didn’t know.

“If she don’t want to go on with the partnership,” he insisted, “why doesn’t she sell out to you?”

I said I still didn’t know. Barbara cracking about buying me out was the last thing I’d expected. It didn’t make sense any way I looked at it. She could have the business but what would she do with it? She didn’t know a filly from a furlong; and the cash I’d give her for her end would buy an awful lot of something—anything—she
could
understand.

The more I thought about it the trickier it looked, but thinking about it gave me an idea. I asked Harry the name of the Spick in Charley Hollberg’s party at the Trocadero. He’d wanted to buy the business, too, and thinking about him made me suddenly realize that he’d been in the back of my mind all day; I remembered him from somewhere besides Hollywood.

Harry didn’t know his name. We turned around and went back to the apartment and Harry got on the phone and called a few people. He got a little here and a little there; finally he hung up and turned away from the phone, said:

“Name’s Axiotes—he’s a Greek. Used to be an acrobat. Then he was a ten-twenty-thirty chiseler around Brooklyn—got mixed up in the Kroll-Schmalz beer war—served three years and has been living on the fat of the land ever since he got out in ’32. You probably saw his picture in the tabloids when he was indicted with Kroll. Been out here about two months—lives at the Alton Apartments on Kenmore.”

I got on the phone and got Frank Curley, first try, at the Holly­wood Plaza and told him to forget about blue Buicks for a while and start keeping tabs on Axiotes. I don’t know exactly why I was so interested in him but his face kept playing pussy-in-the-corner in the back of my mind and I wanted to know more about him.

We went out to Number Two about four-thirty and I worked with the bookkeeper a couple hours. Then Harry and I had dinner at Musso-Franks and went to a picture show. We got home at eleven.

Gene Curley had left a twenty-four hour report on Mrs Bergliot at the desk. It didn’t amount to much. She hadn’t been out of the house Saturday night. Late Sunday afternoon a woman who looked like she might be her sister had picked her up in an old Chevrolet at the backdoor and they’d gone to a house on Larchmont a little ways off Melrose. There was a sign in front of the house:
cora haviland: spiritual science.
They’d been there about an hour and then the woman had dropped Bergliot back at the Kiernan house. That was all.

Harry and I played a couple games of cooncan and went to bed. Monday was just

Monday except for one development that I could’ve got along just as well without. Amante called up around noon and after a lot of ap-cray about the weather and “How’s everything” and all that, he said he thought I might like to know that Myra Reid was the sole beneficiary in Raymond’s will and it amounted to about a hundred and seventy-five grand. They’d found the will and a lot of bonds and stuff in a safety deposit box he had under an assumed name.