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  KISS AND KILL

  A PI Steve Conacher Mystery

  Lawrence Lariar

  DISCLAIMER

  The author hereby warrants that the department store in this story was erected out of the stone and mortar in the author’s imaginative foundry. All the characters, too, who move in and out of Cumber’s great emporium were born, bred and buttered in the same fiction factory, and should not be confused with any real people who wander the aisles of any contemporary establishment.

  CHAPTER 1

  I looked down at death.

  The photo was snapped in the traditional police style, the scene-of-the-crime school of camera work. The picture was sharp and clean. The thing sparkled with the floodlighted perfection that brings horrifying details into bold relief. Like the way my dead partner Chuck hung on the steel spiked fence.

  I looked down at death.

  Chuck had fallen from a great height. He had come down to kiss death on the sharp prongs of that fence. His body was twisted and deformed, his head askew and dripping blood. Three of the arrow-headed spikes had passed through his body. The ends showed gore. And the fourth spike stabbed through his neck.

  I looked away from death.

  I ran out of the photo file in Police Headquarters. I ran into the john, feeling a great red poker of anger stabbing my guts. Bitter hate clawed at my throat and made me gag. I stood alone in the john and cried like a kid. I kicked at the wall. I beat at the metal door with my fists until the skin was raw. Would I ever be able to forget that photo? Would I ever forget this searing pain that stabbed me into uncontrollable rage?

  When I came back into the file room I looked at death again.

  But this time, I looked deep and I looked hard. The clerk gave me the complete report. They had the usual answer for this kind of thing: Jumped or fell. They had the usual trivia on a routine case, the hocus-pocus for setting up an accidental death.

  I threw the file at the clerk.

  “Easy,” he said. “Take it easy, Conacher.”

  “Garbage,” I said. “Let me talk to Lunt.”

  “Lunt’s out of town.”

  “Who was with him on the detail?”

  “I can get you Matson.”

  “Get him.”

  “Take it easy, Conacher,” he said. “Before you blow a gasket.”

  Matson came down right away. He was a typical squad horse, amiable, but not too smart. I gave him his head and he told me the whole story.

  “Lunt figured it a simple fall or jump,” Matson explained. “But Lunt don’t make up his mind fast. Lunt takes his time. He questioned the whole bunch of them up at Cumber’s, all the people at the damn party on the terrace. They were all clean up there.”

  “Lunt says they’re clean,” I said. “What do you say?”

  Matson shrugged and blew his nose. “I’m ready to buy it if the Chief thinks so.”

  “The Chief has wheels in his head,” I yelled. “Chuck Rosen never drank enough to fall off any roof. And he wasn’t the type to commit suicide.”

  “You never know.”

  “I know. I also know that something stinks up there at Cumber’s.”

  “You think your man was murdered, Conacher?”

  “I think he was pushed off that terrace.”

  “Why would he be pushed?”

  “Because he was smart,” I said, spitting the words at him.

  The big dick shook his head at me sadly. But this only made me see things a deeper shade of red. The stupid city cops could whitewash a deal like Chuck’s death. They would be stubborn and stiff about listening to any argument against their pat file on the case. I leaned over the desk and let Matson see my high blood pressure.

  “Chuck Rosen was one of the smartest private operators in the country,” I said. “He was put on at Cumber’s to dig up the background for their recent store heists. The way I see it, Chuck was about ready to come up with the answer to the last big robbery at Cumber’s.”

  “So somebody pushed him off the roof?” Matson stared at me with his bovine eyes, restraining the amusement I generated for him. “There’s about a thousand people working in that store. You think Rosen was smart enough to grab one of them? He must have been quite a boy. How come he didn’t tell you the guilty party?”

  “He never had the chance.”

  “The guilty party pushed him off?”

  “You’re getting smarter by the minute, Matson.”

  Matson laughed out loud. “So what are you waiting for, Conacher? All you got to do is waltz into Cumber’s and finger the guilty party.”

  “That’s what I’m going to do.”

  And that was why I went to work at Cumber’s Department Store.

  CHAPTER 2

  A week later I knew a bit about the important members of the Cumber Department Store staff. I had all kinds of names on all kinds of lists. I had notes and ideas. I had plans and theories.

  One of my lists had the name Lila Martin on it.

  That was why she worked her way into my expense account. She was set up as the first outside project for research. I put her down this way:

  Subject: Lila Martin

  Store job: Copywriting queen in Cumber Advertising Dept.

  Date: November 20, 1952

  Item Number One: Cocktails: Manana Room—$12.50

  “Take me to the Manana Room,” Lila Martin said. “It’s perfectly charming, Steve—delightfully intime.”

  Intime was something out of her la-de-dah vocabulary, the French way of saying that the Manana Room was small, fancy, and loaded with Park Avenue atmosphere, a hangout for snobs.

  Intime also meant that every male eye bugged when Lila trotted in on my arm. I couldn’t blame the boys. Her red hair was hot enough to madden bulls. She wore a dress to match her locks, a snaky creation that clung to her bumps and made them shine under the lights.

  Intime meant that the Manana Room charged extra for their drinks, mostly because of the high overhead, the fancy furniture and the well-dressed waiters.

  But most of the customers in the room were quickly drinking themselves into oblivion. The place hummed and buzzed with pre-dinner small talk. Lila Martin sipped a half dozen shots of Aquavit, a type of Scandinavian dynamite favored by the sophisticates. She chased the stuff with small gulps of dark brown ale. The combination wasn’t bad. I followed her lead, feeling the liquid fire heat up my gut and put me in an intime mood. Lila took the drinks like a veteran. Her eyes shone and her husky voice dropped a half tone. She was feeling cozy and warm on my arm by the time we arrived at:

  Item Number Two: Chambord’s: Dinner for two—$53.75

  Chambord meant La Tarte au fromage à la Valentinoise, a tasty cheesy custard, small hunks of fried ham and a hot filling of browned cheese and eggs, a mixture to make a gourmet drool with delight. Lila knew her way around in French. We savored the gigot d’Agneau rôti Dauphinoise, which in plain English meant lamb and potatoes, but cooked with enough skill to make it taste like attar of roses. Lila ordered a Pinot wine to top it off, and ended the deal with an item called La Mousse au Chocolat, a dessert that made her coo with pleasure. We topped off the meal with Drambuie, and she was glowing with a fresh warmth when we arrived at:

  Item Number Three: The Village Green—$53.00

  We caught the show and sat through the chi-chi routines of a lady singer who warbled lusty lyrics in a barroom baritone, dressed in a lumpy dress that showed her big breasts when she gyrated to her frenetic tunes. We drank lazily while listening to a nance comic and a fat stooge who fractured the audience with jokes out of the backhouse school of humor. We sat over a small
table in a darkened corner and drank Scotch. Lila was enjoying herself. A pair of Caribbean dancers bumped and ground against each other in an orgy of native rhythms.

  The air sang with sex and sin. Under the table, her knees slid close to mine.

  “Another Scotch, Lila?”

  “Don’t you think I’ve had enough?”

  “On you it looks good.”

  “I do believe you’re trying to get me drunk,” Lila said with a laugh. She had a provocative laugh. When she chuckled, her eyes brightened. Hidden lights glowed in them. Soft bedroom lights. “Are you trying to get me drunk, Stevie?”

  “I cannot tell a lie.”

  “You’re doing a good job of it.”

  “Another Scotch?”

  “You’re twisting my arm,” she laughed.

  There were other Scotches, swelling the expense account. But in a little while she stood to dance with me, showing the first signs of weakness from the liquor. She let me lead her in a rumba, her body so close that I could feel the ripe warm flesh under her gown. She pressed closer. Her hips moved with a classic, grinding beat. There was the smell of her personal perfume around me. She used something aristocratic, of course, a delicate fragrance that teased and tempted. But beyond the edge of the imported aroma, something else came through. Underneath it all, Lila was a lady animal. She was heating up in the way I wanted it. She was melting into me.

  My mind was busy with the purpose of the evening. I added the account as we glided to the music. The date with Lila Martin was costing plenty.

  $119.25!

  Her hand was warm and inviting in mine. I wondered how her metabolism would stand up in the near future, where her agile mind would carry her now. It was already after one, a good time for leaving this place and moving on to the most important port of call. There were strong reasons for my investment in Lila Martin. I was paying a fancy price for getting in.

  Into her apartment, that is.

  “Had enough?” she asked pleasantly, back at our table.

  “I could use some coffee.”

  “Not here, Stevie. For God’s sake, not here. Their coffee is a mixture of cinders and manure.” Lila squeezed my hand.

  “You’re holding hands with the best little coffee manufacturer in New York. Did you ever have Caffé Espresso?”

  “If it’s black, I’ll drink it.”

  “It’s the blackest.”

  She glided away to the ladies’ room. I sat in the small lobby and measured my success. Around and about me, the place hummed with the dull beat of the rumba band. A few sleepy boys waited for their girls to come out of the powder den. They were well-dressed slugs, all of them out of the same social strata, the moneyed lushes who patronize the offbeat joints like this one. I wondered vaguely whether Chuck Rosen had ever brought Lila here.

  Chuck Rosen! The memory of my dead partner made me tighten around the gullet. A few weeks ago, had Chuck escorted the sophisticated Lila Martin on a tour of the town? Had Chuck made good with her? Of all the employees in the Cumber Department Store Advertising Department, Lila Martin stood out as the most desirable for a man like Chuck. Too many nights like this would have dug a large dent in his bankroll. Detectives can’t play too fancy. If Chuck had pursued her, he might have been working a hot lead into the assignment he was on—the mysterious robberies at Cumber’s. Always, at moments like this, I began to kick myself in my mental pants for leaving Chuck alone on the job. But a skip-tracer’s life is never routine. An important customer sent me off on a locate for his meandering frau—a search that took me from New York to Philadelphia and then to Chicago, where I grabbed the doll in bed with a ham actor who loved mattress sports and wandering wives. I returned to New York on the morning after Chuck Rosen’s unfortunate accident.

  Accident? All of a sudden I was sweating again. All of a sudden I was remembering Chuck’s body impaled on the spikes down on the fourth floor. My mind jerked and jumped and carried me back to my recent explorations in the store. They had built the steel fence as a shield to protect Cumber’s from any invasion by way of the buildings close by. They had constructed a death trap for any brazen heist man who might think of leaping to the fourth floor parapet by way of the adjoining office buildings. They had planned the fence carefully.

  But instead of catching thieves, that fence had killed my partner. He might have lived if he had fallen clear of the menacing spikes. He might have lived long enough to mumble the name of the bastard who hurled him off the Cumber penthouse.

  The penthouse itself was a curiosity in the world of department stores. Oscar Cumber had designed it himself, to promote a feeling of camaraderie among the big brass in his executive staff. The penthouse and terrace were used for all types of parties, from simple conferences for certain officers, to the more social and intimate soirées of the type that Chuck had attended that night. I had wandered that terrace for many hours, brooding over the layout, trying to see the crime against the background of liquor and gay abandon. But always, always, I drew a blank when it became necessary to supply the characters around Chuck when it happened.

  And that was why I was with Lila Martin now. And that was why I forced a smile as I saw her weave her way toward me from the ladies’ room. But it was an effort to readjust my face so that it registered half-drunken glee.

  Lila was high enough to stay close and cozy on the way to her apartment. I drove the distance slowly, giving her occasional encouragement on the dark side streets. She had a jittery and troublesome knee. She had the superstructure of a modem Venus, without benefit of any mammary deceptions manufactured by the brassiere companies. She kissed me deep and she kissed me sweet, whenever I uptilted her head to mine. She was bubbling and glowing with uninhibited yearnings. I stepped on the gas when her hands began their sly explorations.

  I got to her apartment fast, a modem façade in the West Side money belt, erected during the first building boom after the war. The lobby was something out of a designer’s paradise, a sparkling, breathtaking room in the best avant-garde style. A clever mobile swung from a cool, blue ceiling. The place looked like somebody’s living room, complete with an abstract mural and the latest in comfortable furniture of the bare bones school of construction. A formal fireplace made any casual guest welcome. The hearth burned with real logs.

  And in front of the fireplace, as if to complete the picture, sat a visitor.

  A visitor who stepped our way as we crossed the lobby.

  “For God’s sake,” breathed Lila. “Greg Wilkinson.”

  “It’s a small world,” I said.

  “Full of small people.” Wilkinson smiled, giving me the edge of his crusty lip. He turned from me with the arrogance of a storm trooper. His beefy face was deadpan, but his eyes couldn’t hide the undertones of annoyance. He was dressed in his usual tweedy way, complete with British topcoat and the jaunty Alpine type felt that made him look like something out of a back number of Esquire. He was a symbol of all the advertising men on Madison Avenue, a two-hundred pound bundle of gases and gestures. He stepped up close to Lila, butchering her with his eyes. “Can I see you, my dear?”

  “You’re seeing me,” Lila laughed.

  “I mean alone.”

  “Don’t be so damnably dramatic, lover,” said Lila, swaying against me dizzily. In the close-up her lips were a brazen smear, the lipstick rubbed and dulled away from the ripe lines of her mouth because of our gymnastics in the car. She looked like something out of an expensive brothel. But her voice still held its quality of sophisticated sharpness. “Can’t you see that I’m on a date with a man?”

  “I hadn’t noticed.”

  “Don’t try to be funny, Greg. You’re not the type.”

  “I must see you on business, Lila.”

  “At this hour?” She threw her head back and laughed and laughed. The sound of her husky laughter bounded off the stark walls, setting up str
ange echoes in the lobby. “Don’t tell me you’ve been waiting around to talk business? Store business? Advertising business?”

  “Important business.” He grabbed at her arm and held tight. His face hardened under her obvious disregard of him. Greg Wilkinson was not a man to be brushed off and dropped. He was hell-bent for breaking her arm. “The Christmas copy, Lila.”

  “My arm,” she said, stiffening under the pain of his big hand. “You’re hurting me.”

  “Maybe you need sobering up.”

  “And maybe you need a kick in the gut,” I said.

  I kicked him high on the leg, just below the knee. I kicked him hard, enjoying the contact. My toe caught him on the bone and he yowled with, pain, doubling up under the reflex of the hurt. His arrogance had set off a chain reaction in me. A little man hates to be pushed around by anything as crumby as Greg Wilkinson A little man is always moved to action by the larded lunkheads. I hated him for interfering with my game with Lila Martin. I had a big investment in her. She was loaded with $119.25 worth of my liquor, my food and my personality. It was important to go upstairs with her. Before she sobered up.

  So I planted my fist in his larded gut and called him a dirty name. He went down on one knee, clutching his navel and making weak and blubbering noises. I would have kicked his sunburned face in.

  But Lila stepped between us.

  She was still chuckling when she said, “Let me talk to him, Stevie. Wait for me over at the elevator.”

  “I don’t like to see ladies pushed around,” I said. “Maybe he needs more massage.”

  “Please.” Her eyes begged me to cooperate. “Let’s not turn this into a bloody massacre.”

  I walked away and watched the pantomime between them from the elevator. Wilkinson got up slowly, brushing the dust from his fancy pants. His face was the color of split pea soup. His perky lid had rolled off into a corner of the lobby. He walked after it slowly, brushed it off slowly, and set it on his head with a surly glowering stare in my direction. But Lila had followed him to the hat. She put her delectable body against his and leaned into him and began to talk, quietly, but with a flow of words that seemed to silence him. She was whispering to him, working her restless hands on the lapels of his topcoat. Her quiet words calmed him. In no time at all, the big ape seemed to wilt and melt under the pressure of her personality. In no time at all he was on his way across the lobby to the front door, and out into the night.