Westlake, Donald E - SSC 02 Page 3

  Even Edgarson lost his bucolic cool at that. Staring at the money, he said, "Well, I'll be damned. No, I don't mind cash, not at all."

  The waiter arrived then, gave the money an astonished look, and said, "Did you intend to order anything, sir?"

  "Jack Daniels," I said. "On the rocks."

  "Just one glass?"

  "Ha ha," I said. Gesturing at the money, I explained, "I robbed a bank."

  "Ha ha," the waiter said, and went away.

  I looked at Edgarson. "I did rob a bank, you know. You've put me through a lot today."

  He'd had time to recover. Smiling in bemusement, shaking his head, he said, "You sure are an interesting fella to watch, I'll say that for you."

  "Don't bore me with your shoptalk." I tossed over a small envelope from my publisher's bank, where I'd cashed his advance check. "There's fifteen hundred. You can count it, if you want."

  "I might as well," he said, and proceeded to do so.

  I kept dragging out my other money, most of it in twenties and tens with a few fifties sprinkled here and there. The eight-sixty from various pawnshops, the six hundred from the bad checks, the four-fifty from the nostalgia shops, the two seventy-five from the checking account. And another envelope; tossing it to him, I said, "My former savings account. Two thousand seven hundred sixty-three dollars and eighty cents."

  "It's an amazing thing," he said, placidly counting, "but most everybody's worth more than they realize."

  "Fascinating," I said, and pushed across the pyramid of loose bills. "Here's another twenty-one eighty-five."

  The waiter, returning, placed my drink where my money had been and said, "How does a person get to be your friend?"

  I picked up the drink. "Put this on his bill," I said.

  "I should think so," the waiter said, and left.

  I sipped and Edgarson counted. Then I sipped some more and Edgarson counted some more. Then I sipped some more and Edgarson said, "I make that six thousand four hundred and forty-eight dollars so far." The bills, upon being counted, had disappeared into his clothing, and now he shoved my eighty cents back across the table to me, saying, "We don't want to mess with change. But we would like to see some more greenbacks."

  "Out of my green sack," I said, delving down inside my shirt and bringing out the swag. Propping the sack like a dildo in my lap, I loosened the drawstrings and started pulling out more cash.

  This time I also did some counting, since I hadn't had a chance yet to find out how much I'd made from my first excursion into major crime. Sorry, second excursion; I was forgetting Laura. "Two hundred," I said, and flipped a stack of twenties across the table. "One eighty," and a stack of tens. And so on and so on and so on.

  And yet the bottom of the sack was reached too soon. Fd needed thirty-six hundred dollars, but my total profit from the bank job was only two thousand, seven hundred eighty.

  Edgarson noticed it, too. "Nine thousand, two hundred and twenty-eight dollars," he said at last. "I make you seven hundred and seventy-two dollars short."

  "I can't rob another bank," I said. "You're just going to have to bend your principles in this case, or by God I'll kill us both." I clutched at the toy gun beneath my coat, letting Edgarson see as much of it as the bank teller had seen. "I've gone through enough today. I can't go through any more." My voice was rising, and it was by no means entirely fake.

  Edgarson made calming patting motions in the air. "Take it easy," he told me. "Take it easy, Mr. Thorpe, there's no reason to get upset. Why, if I can't make allowances here and there, what sort of fella would I be?"

  I could tell him what sort of fella he was, but I didn't. I merely sat there and glared at him and clutched the inscribed handle of my pistol.

  "Now," he said, and it seemed to me that through his professional calm I detected just the slightest hint of uneasiness. "Now, I think you're being honest with me," he said, "and you really can't raise any more money than this, and I think it just wouldn't be fair of me not to accept this nine thousand dollars and call it square."

  I relaxed somewhat, but my hand remained on my gun. "All right/' I said.

  He took out that envelope again and extended it to me. "Here you are, my friend."

  I finally released the gun, and used that hand to take the envelope. Having peered at the negative and seen vaguely that it was the right one, I said, "And this is the only copy, right? I shudder to think what would happen if you suddenly came back with another one."

  "Mr. Thorpe," he said, "you wrong me. There aren't any more negatives, and there aren't any more prints. And once I put in a false report, I couldn't very well go back and call myself a liar, now, could I?"

  That made sense. "All right," I said.

  "Speaking of which," he said, withdrawing two larger envelopes from an inner pocket, "here's the report I won't be turning in. You might want to keep it yourself. This other one's the report I will turn in, if you'd like to take a look at it."

  I would, but I glanced through the truthful one first. "Agitated manner . . . hurrying in a guilty fashion . . . seeming nervous and upset . . ." This Edgarson wasn't a subtle writer, but he got his message across.

  The false report made for pleasanter reading. Making sure which was which, I gave him back the false one and put the truthful copy in one of my moneyless pockets.

  Edgarson signalled for the check, then said to me, "There's something else I wanted to talk to you about."

  My hand strayed toward my pistol. "What was that?"

  He did his air-patting gesture again. "Nothing to get upset about," he assured me. "You just happened to mention you were in some sort of marital difficulty with your wife, so I'd like to suggest you have a talk with one of the staff people at my agency. It's surprising sometimes just how—"

  "What?" I couldn't believe it. "You're sitting there and hawking your goddam detective agency at me?"

  Very earnestly he said, "You can't do better than Tobin-Global, Mr. Thorpe. Seventy-four years of reli—"

  "Stop talking," I told him. "Do us both a favor, Edgarson, and stop talking."

  The waiter provided a welcome interruption by showing up with the check. While Edgarson gathered pieces of my money with which to pay it, the waiter gave me a look and said, "I get off at three."

  "Tell him," I said.

  Edgarson paid, and the waiter went away, and I said, "I want to come along with you when you turn in the report."

  He frowned. "That might not be wise, having the two of us seen together."

  "I'll wait outside. But I want to know for sure you've gone straight to your agency and turned in that report."

  Shrugging, he said, "If it will ease your mind, Mr. Thorpe, come right ahead."

  * * *

  Tobin-Global Investigations was in the Graybar Building, back of Grand Central. I rode up in the elevator with Edgarson and paced the corridor while he went inside. He was gone about three minutes, and then he came back, smiling, flashing his jacket pocket where the envelope no longer protruded, saying, "All done, Mr. Thorpe. It's turned in and your worries are over."

  "I have to be sure," I said. "I want to be able to sleep nights."

  "Mr. Thorpe," he said, "I'm not any kind of trouble for you at all. Now, a man in my job has to turn in his reports, and I just turned in mine, and I wouldn't dare tell a different story later. Not where there's a murder mixed in.

  "So I'm safe from you."

  "Absolutely."

  "Good," I said. "Now I wonder if I could ask you a favor."

  He seemed doubtful. "Yes, sir?"

  "Sooner or later the police will come ask me about last night, and I'd like to try on you what I plan to tell them and see what you think of it. From a professional point of view, I mean."

  Relieved, expansive, he said, "Well, I'd be happy to, Mr. Thorpe. That's a very good idea."

  So, standing there in the corridor with him, I told him the story: "I took Laura to a press preview late yesterday afternoon, and then to dinner, and then
home. At dinner, she told me she was worried because she believed her husband had hired somebody to murder her."

  He frowned at that. "Oh, now, Mr. Thorpe," he said, "I don't think you ought to start making things up, you'll just create suspicion. It's better to tell a simple straightforward story."

  "Well, wait a minute," I said. "Listen to the way this one works out, and see what you think."

  Shrugging, he said, "If you insist, Mr. Thorpe, I'll listen."

  "Fine. Anyway, at dinner Laura told me there'd been somebody hanging around and she was afraid it was the hired killer. Well, of course I didn't believe her, I told her she was imagining things. Then, when I took her home, she pointed out a man loitering on the other side of the street and said that was the one she'd meant." I gave Edgarson a long slow look up and down. "I think I could give a pretty clear description of that man," I said.

  His brows were coming down in an angry straight line over his eyes. "Just what the hell is all this?"

  "To get on with the story," I said, "I volunteered to go upstairs with Laura to her apartment and stay with her a while, but she said no, she'd rather be alone because she was going to try phoning her husband and maybe settling their differences once and for all. So I said good night and went home."

  "I don't know what you think you can gain with a story like that," Edgarson told me, "but if you tell it to anybody you'll just make trouble for yourself, not for anybody else."

  "You told me you entered that apartment last night," I reminded him. "I know you moved the body, because you found that envelope under it. Are you absolutely sure you didn't leave any fingerprints, any traces of yourself at all? If you're certain, then you're probably safe, it'll just be your word against mine."

  "Mr. Thorpe," he said, "you're a grade A son of a bitch, do you know that?"

  "Of course," I said, "I could tell a simpler story."

  If it weren't for the pistol he knew to be in my pocket, I think he would have tried taking a poke at me. "You'd goddam better," he said.

  I smiled at him. "And you’d goddam better give me back my nine thousand dollars."

  * * *

  It was good to be home again, my possessions once more about me. And it was very good to have been able to do Edgarson in the eye. If I hadn't been able to even the score with him somehow it would surely have rankled in my mind a good long time, but as it was the expression on his face as he'd handed back fistful after fistful of green paper was a memory I would treasure always.

  After a leisurely shower and shave, and a nice lunch of chicken breasts in grape sauce (left over from Kit's last visit), I sat at my desk to tot up the results of the day's activities and to learn that Edgarson had stiffed me for two hundred thirty dollars. I chuckled indulgently; let him save face if he wanted. Even with that petty larceny, and the incredible interest the pawnbrokers had charged me for the two-hour use of their money, my bank robbery had left me nearly twenty-four hundred dollars richer than when I'd gotten up this morning. My checking account was healthy, Edgarson was no longer a threat, and surely it wouldn't be impossible to replace that R left behind at the bank. Life, all in all, was not unpleasant.

  And what did the evening hold in store? A screening, a dinner for two? Checking my calendar, I saw that today's notation read, "Dinner, Laura, 7:30."

  Well. Well, it looked as though I had an unexpected free evening. Wonder what Kit's doing tonight?

  I had nearly finished dialing Kit's number when it suddenly struck me that I had better keep that original date with Laura. It was noted on my calendar, why wouldn't it also appear on hers? At seven-thirty tonight I'd better be in the lobby of Laura's apartment building, ready for our date, ringing her doorbell.

  TWO

  The Affair of the Hidden Lover

  Somebody buzzed to let me in.

  Laura? Laura, I thought, and I wasn't sure myself whether I was thinking of Laura Penney or of the 1944 Otto Preminger movie. Either way it was the dead girl come back to life, and a nasty shock. Gene Tierney moved in the shadowy recesses of my mind, and I felt uncomfortably like Dana Andrews as I pushed open the door and crossed the pocket lobby to the pocket elevator.

  When I emerged on the fourth floor a man wearing an open black overcoat and a dark gray suit was standing in Laura's open doorway. A cop, obviously. He looked like Dana Andrews, so what did that make me? Clifton Webb?

  I know nothing, I reminded myself. I am here to pick up my dinner date, and I have no idea who this man is.

  I stopped, just into the vestibule, frowning and looking around as though thinking I might have gotten off at the wrong floor. In fact, I held the elevator, in case I should want to reboard.

  The policeman, a black-haired fortyish Dana Andrews with cold eyes and blue chin and dandruffy shoulders, said, "Can I help you?"

  My outer self remained bewildered. "I'm looking for Laura Penney."

  "Would you be Mr. Thorpe?"

  So she had made a note. "Yes, I am," I said, and released the elevator door, which grumbled shut behind me. "Is something wrong?" My hands hid themselves in my topcoat pockets.

  "Come in."

  I crossed the threshold as he stood to one side, watching me. I tried not to look at the spot where I'd last seen her, but my eyes insisted, and it was with great relief that I saw nobody there. To cover my eyes' indiscretion, I turned my head left and right, looking at everything in the room, continuing to fail to understand the situation. "Where is Laura?" I turned to the policeman, who was closing the door. "And who are you?"

  "Detective Sergeant Bray," he said. "I'm a police officer. There's been an accident."

  "An accident? Laura?"

  "Did you know Mrs. Penney well?"

  "Did I know her? For God's sake, man, what's happened?"

  "I'm sorry to break it to you this way, Mr. Thorpe," he said, "but I'm afraid she's dead."

  "Dead!"

  "Come along," he said, taking my elbow. "Come sit down."

  I permitted myself to be moved, as though too stunned to act from my own volition, and when he'd seated us, me on the sofa and himself to my right in the chrome-and-leather chair, I said, "An accident? What kind of accident?"

  "Frankly, Mr. Thorpe," he said, "there's some question about that. When was the last time you saw Mrs. Penney?"

  "Yesterday. We had dinner together."

  "You brought her home?"

  "Yes, of course."

  "At about what time?"

  "Possibly nine, nine-thirty, I don't know exactly."

  "And when did you leave?"

  "Oh, I didn't stay," I said. "In fact, I didn't come up, I simply saw her to the door."

  "You didn't come up?" He sounded mildly surprised. "Wasn't that unusual?"

  "Not at all. I wouldn't want to give the wrong impression about our relationship, we weren't . . . lovers, or anything like that. I have a steady girl friend, named Kit Markowitz."

  "You and Mrs. Penney were just good friends," he suggested.

  Was there irony in that remark? His manner seemed bland, unsuspicious; I took him at face value and said, "That's right. But are you suggesting—" I paused, as though struck by a sudden disquieting thought. "Did somebody do something to her?"

  He frowned. "Such as what, Mr. Thorpe?"

  "I don't know, I was just—I just remembered what she was saying last night."

  "And what was that?"

  "It was all very vague," I said. "She had the idea there was a man hanging around, following her. She pointed him out last night, standing on the sidewalk across the street."

  "You saw this man?"

  "He was just a man," I said. "He didn't seem interested in Laura or me in particular. She had the idea her ex-husband had hired somebody to make trouble for her."

  "Do you know Mr. Penney?"

  "No. I believe he's in Chicago or somewhere."

  He nodded. "Could you describe the man you saw last night?"

  "I only saw him for a minute. Across the street."

&
nbsp; "As best you can."

  "Well, I'd say he was in his mid-forties. Wearing a brown topcoat. He seemed heavyset, and I got the impression of a large nose. Sort of a W. C. Fields nose."

  Bray nodded throughout my description, but wrote nothing down. "And you say Mrs. Penney seemed afraid of this man?"

  "Well, not afraid, exactly. Upset, I suppose. I offered to come upstairs with her if she was worried, but she said she wanted to phone her husband. I had the idea she wanted privacy for that."

  "Mm-hm."

  "Sergeant Bray, uh— Is it Sergeant Bray?"

  "That's right."

  "Well— Could you tell me what happened?"

  "We're not entirely sure as yet," he told me. "Mrs. Penney fell in this room and struck her head. She might have been alone here, she might have slipped. On the other hand, it seems likely there was someone with her."

  "Why?" I asked, and movement to my left made me turn my head.

  It was another one, in black pea jacket and brown slacks, coming into the room from deeper in the apartment and carrying what I recognized immediately as my socks. As I caught sight of him he said, "Al, I found these and— Oh, sorry."

  "Come on in, Fred. This is Carey Thorpe."

  Fred grinned in recognition. "Right. Dinner, seven-thirty."

  "Mr. Thorpe," Bray said, "my partner, Detective Sergeant Staples."

  I got to my feet, unsure whether or not we were supposed to shake hands. "How do you do?"

  "Fair to middling." This one was a bit younger than Bray and looked more easygoing. He said, "Would you be the movie reviewer?"

  "As a matter of fact, yes."

  "I read you all the time," Staples told me. "In The Kips Bay Voice. My wife and I both, we think you're terrific, we swear by you."

  "Well, thank you very much."

  "If you say a movie's good, we go. If you say it stinks, we stay away from it."

  "I hardly know what to say," I admitted, and it was the truth. Such extravagant praise had never come my way before.

  "Pauline Kael, Vincent Canby, we just don't care."