The Corpse in the Cabana Read online

I was brought into Chuck’s life at that point. His brother Jim called me in. Jim and I had been buddies during the Korean War. He remembered my activities in the world of crime and detection. He came to my office and pleaded with me to visit Chuck, to help Chuck.

  I pulled all the strings and got Chuck a release in my custody. Then I went to work on him, jerking him away from his crummy friends, pushing him into other activities, plumbing his inner needs until I found the way out for him.

  The kid was a natural comic. That first summer I got him a job at Pelluski’s, a Catskill borscht belt hotel that fed fresh air and celebrities to its city customers. Chuck worked as a bellhop. But he had his chance when the employees put on a show at the end of the season. He wowed the summer audience with his home-made comedy routines. And two years later, he was up on the stage as a professional comic, pushed into the theatrical world by my good friend Abe Marcus who booked him from one borscht bistro to the next, and after that, into the night club wheel.

  He had climbed fast.

  And now?

  It would break my heart to see him fall on his face. Tonight was his biggest night, the first great step into the sophisticated audience that could move him into the upper world of comedy. He was ready for them, ready to make them yak and roar, to make them accept him as a star performer in the comedy ranks.

  “What can we do?” he was asking.

  “Fake it,” I said. “Grab her legs, Chuck.”

  “Oh my God. Must I?”

  “I can’t carry her alone,” I told him. “Get moving. We’re taking her out of here.”

  CHAPTER 2

  8:45 P.M.

  “Catastrophe! Lunatic catastrophe!”

  The voice belonged to Roger Pazow, the squat owner of The Glades. He held a lamp over the figure on the sand, the beam unsteady, shaking under the impact of his horror. The thin moon played hide and seek behind the cumulus. The sea wind whipped at the grasses, flapping and sighing over the dunes. The white face of the cabana boy who had discovered the corpse stared from a respectable distance. Beside me, Chuck Bond put on a fine show of shock and sadness.

  “The poor kid,” he breathed. “God, I was talking to her only a few hours ago.”

  “The show,” mumbled Pazow, as though in a dream. “This will wreck us, Chuck. We’ll have to kill it. At least for tonight.”

  “It’s been killed,” I suggested. “You mean you’ll have to bury it, Pazow?”

  Pazow’s bright little eyes were deep in thought. The first surge of sorrow for Gloria was fading, replaced by reality. From the distant restaurant, the faint strains of Ziggi’s cha-cha session rose on the breeze. Pazow’s browned face stared at the body on the sand, but his commercial brain was back with Ziggi, counting the house, estimating the take, adding up the way out of his dilemma.

  He reached back, suddenly, grabbing the cabana boy by the midriff and jerking him forward.

  “Arthur,” he said, “are you a good liar? Can you keep your trap shut? Make like you never found this body?”

  “I don’t understand,” Arthur said, his eyes shocked eyes. He licked at his boyish lips, gulping air like a hooked porgy.

  “Your mouth—can you button it?”

  “Whatever you say, Mr. Pazow.”

  “I say this, then.” Pazow jerked again. The boy’s face moved in under his sweaty boss’. Pazow hissed: “I say you keep your lip zippered, Arthur. Or you look for another job. Tomorrow—is that clear?”

  “Of course, Mr. Pazow.”

  “Now, beat it. To my office. I want you to sit there until I get back.”

  “But—the cabanas. I’ve got to clean …”

  “Out!” roared Pazow, his finger pointing back toward the lights. “And no detours, Arthur, or I’ll tie a can to your skinny tail!”

  Pazow began to pace the sand, deep in thought. He was a short man, broad in the shoulders and thick in the beam. He took pride in his knotty frame, still slapped the hand balls around; still swam an hour a day. In the half light, his classic pan held me. He had earned his loot in the fabric business, owned several hotels, taxi companies and other enterprises. He only played with ventures like The Glades. He could be found at the pool-side every afternoon, or practicing Latin dance steps on the shaded patio. There was talk among the smart lads on Broadway that Pazow could be conned by any well-stacked chickadee.

  “A nasty business,” I reminded him. “You expect to play footie with the East Beach cops, Pazow?”

  “I know my way around East Beach, Gant. I backed the Mayor in the last election. He owes me a favor. A big favor.”

  “This big?”

  “I own him, the fat little crumb.”

  “And the police? What happens when they start to sniff? You’ve got two cabana boys parading a beat past this spot every hour. What do you tell the cops? That your cabana boys are led by seeing-eye dogs?”

  “Those hick cops? Ha! I can tell them anything. Any nonsense.”

  “Including me?” I asked. “I don’t play games with the East Beach boys, Pazow. For a couple of reasons. The biggest reason is George Newberry, the top dog in the office, the Chief of Detectives. I happened to run into George on the way in to this dump, this afternoon. George knows I’m here. And George Newberry will take my head off if he finds me playing games with him. He’s tough and he’s for real. He’ll louse me up in New York. One word to the dick brotherhood from George and I’ll be whistling Dixie for business.”

  “All of which means what?” Pazow rolled back on his heels, appraising me like a wholesale butcher over a side of beef. He turned slyly to Chuck. “Your little friend is a Yankee trader, Chuck. Why didn’t you tell me Gant was a business man? He talks my language. What do you want, Gant?”

  “Just this, Pazow. Call the East Beach police.”

  “You’re out of your mind.”

  “Maybe so. But you’d better call them.”

  “Now? Before the show?”

  “Either you call them or I do.”

  “On the level?” He sucked in a chestful of the sea breeze. He was aghast, incredulous, staring at me with the look he gave to waiters who upset their trays. “You wouldn’t call the cops, little man?” he said cockily. “That would be a big, bad mistake.”

  “I’ve made them before, Pazow.”

  “On your own. But not with me.”

  “What’s gnawing at you?” I asked quietly. “Hiding something, maybe?”

  “You little crumb!”

  He fell in toward me then. He muttered some dirty words and roared my way, his fists flying; his head down in the attitude of a bull rushing a matador. Chuck tried to stop him, but was swept aside with a negligent push. He was hell-bent for fracturing me. He must have been proud of his right cross. He might have been good with it as a youth. Time, however, had slowed down the important muscles, converting his Sunday punch into a Thursday afternoon telegram. He flailed and heaved, missing me by a country mile. Then his feet slipped in the sand and I threw him off balance. It was a classic miss, a wide-open door I had entered many times before.

  At that point I clipped him. Not hard, but on the point of the chin. He went down grabbing at his square jaw. He sat there, looking up at me, shaking his head.

  I helped him up and he gawked at me, rubbing the sensitive bump on his jaw. “Always a telegraph,” he said, real misery in him. “I used to do it. God, someday I’ll learn.”

  “About the local dicks,” I said. “It isn’t smart to work against them.”

  “Even if I have the Mayor in my pocket?”

  “You’ve been reading too many two-bit murder stories. Cops are cops. And George Newberry thinks for himself. He’d tell your Mayor to go to Hell.”

  “I suppose you’re right,” Pazow said, apologetically. “Do me a favor, Gant? Talk to your friend George Newberry for me?”

  “Give me
the lines, Pazow.”

  “Tell it to him simple. Tell him we want to hold this one away from the newsmen for a little while. I’ll pay.”

  “Give me the numbers.”

  “Whatever he wants. I’ll grease him real pretty for the delay. A news break about this would cost me the summer. People who rent cabanas come here for laughs, the pool a little, but most of all the dark places for playing games. I’ve got a couple of hundred wives on the loose here. I’d lose them all if the stink broke that Gloria was butchered only a few yards from their beds. They’d cancel and quit, Gant. And when they move out, they take the night trade with them. I’d lose a fortune on the entertainment angle. From a million dollar success this place would drop into the cesspool. My performers are already booked for the season, big names who expect big audiences. They’d be playing to the chairs, Gant. With me, this is life and death.”

  “You didn’t answer my question,” I said. “How much do I hand Newberry?”

  “A grand?”

  “You’re generous. And for me?”

  “You, too?” He threw back his head and opened his mouth and let fly with a mad laugh. It rose on the wind hoarse and gut-buckling. His whole body shook under its impact, a laugh the comics dream about. “By God, I said he was a Yankee trader, didn’t I? I love you, Gant. I love you for your honesty. Tell me, now. Tell me what I’ll be paying you for?”

  “Work,” I said. “You want to know who knifed her?”

  “Oh sure, sure. Although for my money, she’s better off than she ever was. She’s been tied in knots with so many stallions, no detective on earth could pick the right goon out of that mob in the restaurant. You think you can do it, Gant?”

  “I’m charging regular rates, Pazow. Twenty-five bucks a day and expenses.”

  “Oh Lord, Lord.” He was Rockefeller handing out dimes. “You’ve got yourself a deal.”

  We shook hands on it, Pazow still quivering with laughter. Chuck Bond was a quiet shadow behind us, taking small significant bites out of his lower lip. He would be worrying about his room. He would be wondering whether the bloody bedspread was successfully hidden in the loose sand behind his cabana, speculating whether anybody had seen us when we pilfered the fresh linens from the supply room. The next few hours meant a lot to him. It would take plenty of heart for him to forget all this when he faced his audience. Right now he was as calm as a pennant in a hurricane. He seemed ready to explode.

  I said: “Better go down to the bar and get some nerve medicine, Chuck.”

  “What’s going to happen, Steve?”

  “Nothing, for a while.” All of a sudden he was the juvenile again, the kid with the bad breaks. All of a sudden he had me worrying about him, wondering about him. He seemed lost and alone, beyond my reach, beyond my comfort. He could kill himself tonight with that attitude, butcher his routines if he quivered this way. I led him down the concrete walk, steered him in the direction of the restaurant.

  “Relax,” I told him. “Get into that bar and warm up your gut, Chuck. Everything’s under control.”

  “You mean it?”

  “I’ve seen worse,” I lied, and whacked him on the shoulder and pushed him off toward the bar.

  He went away slowly, but just in time.

  A moment after he entered the restaurant, a figure came down the walk, followed by two human mastiffs.

  “George Newberry,” I said.

  I heard Pazow suck in a curse.

  “Luck,” he said. “This is my lucky night.”

  “Hello, Gant,” George Newberry said. He laughed his sandpaper chuckle. “I could have told you there’d be trouble out here. It always happens when Gant is around.”

  CHAPTER 3

  9:16 P.M.

  George Newberry was an open man, open-faced and open-jawed and always open for business. He had the sly, shifty eyes of a tout on the prowl for a quick buck. I knew him back in his fat days on the New York force, a dick who always worked the angles. He had made the grade in Safe and Loft, earning some passing fame as a heist expert, a detective who moved with instinct. The inside talk, however, labeled him as a creeping con, a cop who would gag himself for a fast bundle of loot. On the famous Lefty Quirt jewel robbery, George hit the headlines when some of the stolen gems were found in his precinct locker. He wormed his way out of that one, but the Chief only kept him for a few months after the big stink, long enough for the story to die on the front pages. After that, George Newberry found himself at liberty. He managed to tie in with the political wheels at East Beach, where he had a small summer shack. He must have dug up plenty of background filth on the electioneering mayor, because he was immediately put on the municipal ticket for a job under the new regime. He was billed as a celebrity, a New York dick who would bring law and order to the little community. And George brought the law—but to his own order. He made himself invaluable to the freshly entrenched politicos, bought himself a fifty-thousand dollar ranch house, joined the largest beach club and settled down to a life of ease.

  He stood over the figure on the sand, making a production of his official attitude. He massaged his chin and shook his thick dome sadly. He kneeled at her head and seemed to be examining it for dandruff. He perused the sand, as eager as a beachcomber on the loose for stray dimes. Pazow had ordered a barricade set up near the pavement, a row of decorative screens taken from the main patio. The area was shut off from any interlopers by two cops up near the swimming pool. From the restaurant, the sound of Ziggi’s music testified that things were normal back there.

  When the mechanics of police ritual were over and the cameraman had gone, George Newberry stepped in to join me.

  “Like I said, George,” I began. “Mr. Pazow wants this one locked up until tomorrow morning.”

  “Mr. Pazow has got rocks in his head.”

  “Let me tell you why Pazow is worried. He …”

  “Pigeon turd,” said George Newberry. “I know the angles, Gant. What do you take me for, a dummy? Pazow is all tied in knots because of his stupid show. Hell, I read the papers. A thing like this breaks, Pazow can close the dump for the summer. Well, I got Hungarian news for Mr. Pazow. A job like mine, it calls for playing regular ball. What do I tell the bunch in East Beach if I hold this one up?”

  “Why tell them at all?” He didn’t seem to be listening to me. It was a gesture born of long experience as a two-bit con expert. He would stare into the sky like a professor of astronomy until I brought him down to earth. He rocked slowly back on his heels, the fox waiting for the grapes to drop off the vine. “Pazow thinks we can talk business, George.”

  The wind whipped the sand around us. Nothing else stirred but the earth on its axis. George Newberry puffed his cigar stub, sucking and blowing like an expectant father too dazed for anything but contemplation and reverie.

  “A grand,” I said.

  A fillip of noise slipped toward us from the ocean, the muted hiss of the waves sliding up and down the beach. From somewhere in the blackness a lone seabird screamed.

  The remote toll of a buoy floated in, sounded, and died in the next breath of breeze.

  “A grand and a half,” I said. “And not a penny more.”

  “Until what time?”

  “Noon tomorrow.”

  “That’s a long time, Gant.”

  “The hell it is. He’s paying practically a C note per hour.”

  “Chicken drips,” said George Newberry. “But I’ll take it.”

  “I figured you would.”

  “Smart.” He turned his beefy face my way, the thin and knowing smile plastered across it, conspiratorial and slimy. He cased me openly, reaching out a hand to shake on it. I gave him mine, as cordial as a fresh mackerel. To George it made no difference because his normal handshake was only a bucket of jellyfish.

  “I’ll bet my mother-in-law you’re getting a nice slice of moola o
ut of this, you little goniff.”

  “I earn my keep,” I said, dropping his hand before the fish smell wore off on mine. “Tell me, George, what brought you out here in the first place?”

  “The phone.”

  “A nuisance call?”

  “A lady,” he said. “She didn’t leave her name.”

  “You traced it?”

  “Dialed. No way to trace it.”

  “Interesting.”

  “Better than that.” He paused on the concrete pavement, looking forward toward the restaurant, dead ahead. Then he turned his beefy neck in the direction of the pool. The medical examiner had arrived, a short and breathless little man I recognized at once. He was Jake Simon. He shook my hand with the pump-handle vigor that was part of his energetic personality.

  “Gant, Gant,” he said. “You get around. I haven’t seen you since that shindig in Brooklyn. Five years? Four years?”

  “Three,” I said. “How do you like the suburbs, Jake?”

  “Busy. Just as busy. I thought when I left New York I’d rest my ulcers. A crazy idea, Steve.”

  He went about his duties, still talking to me. He was a demon of efficiency, this Jake Simon. He had worked for years under the great Ornandez, in Manhattan. Ordinarily, a man of his talent would have stayed on in the big town, retired on the fruits of his pension. But Jake preferred the seaside after a mild heart attack levelled him one night when at work.

  “Not much blood,” he muttered to himself. “Not much at all.”

  “How long has she been dead?” I asked.

  “Hard to say, Steve.”

  “When will you know?”

  “Time,” Jake said, rising from the sand and squinting at me through the gloom. “What’s your hurry? Can you call me later?”

  “He’ll call you later,” Newberry said, stepping into the conversation. “What difference does it make when she was knifed, Gant?”

  “I’ll let you know.”

  “Take her out the side way, Jake,” Newberry said. “And give your report to one of my desk men. I’ll probably be out of the office tonight. All night.”