Triple Slay Page 7

  “Dave Cushing is a man of his word.”

  “And the other man? The other detective?”

  “He takes his orders from Cushing,” Max said in a fatherly way. “Listen, my girl, what I think you need is plenty of sleep right now. I’ve got one at home almost your age so I know what I’m saying, understand? If you did nothing, what have you got to worry about? And if Steve thinks you did nothing, you did nothing.”

  “Can I make, you some coffee?” she asked.

  “Your bed you should make. And right away. It’s already almost two o’clock.”

  “The shank of the evening,” I said.

  “The shank?” Max asked wearily. “To me it feels like the dead bottom.”

  “You want to sleep, Max? I’ll drop you off at my flat.”

  “My bones say rest, Steve. But my head won’t let me. How much more do you need in such a hurry? Somebody’s chasing you, maybe? It couldn’t wait until tomorrow morning, early?”

  “It can’t wait.”

  “What can’t wait?”

  “I left some unfinished business down at Gretchen’s. We’ve got to get back to the Nowist den. When do they close the place, Linda?”

  “Gretchen has no curfew, Steve. Some of them will be sitting in odd corners and strumming instruments until breakfast time. From the way it looked when we left it, I’d say the party’s still going strong. You may find all the regulars down there.”

  “Is Jeff Masterson a regular?”

  “Jeff is the top man,” she laughed. “He can’t leave. He’ll continue to read his priceless prose so long as he’s got an audience.”

  “This I’ve got to see,” said Max, brightening.

  “This you will see,” I told him.

  Outside, the street blossomed with the strange stillness of the sleeping city. To the left, the skyline was dotted with low lights, the sick windows of Welfare Island. The black river slid by the dead piers down there. From some distant reach a tug hooted mournfully. Nobody answered the hoot. Max hesitated before we made the turn that would block Linda’s house from view. He stalled on the curb opposite, staring back at the building. On the first floor, her living room lights went out and after that complete darkness. Max braced himself on his stocky legs, his hands clasped behind his back as he hummed a quiet tune. It was an enjoyment for me to watch him. It brought back good memories of other jobs with him.

  “You were thinking?” I asked.

  “And you, Steve? Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

  “An easy house to enter?”

  “On the nose,” he chuckled, proud of me. “You know something that hits me all of a sudden like an egg in my face? I’m standing here and letting it sink in—the idea of how somebody tried to frame that poor girl. It would be so simple to get in over there—just walk behind the house, through the alley, and right into the kitchen. Who would see it? This neighborhood is so dead maybe only the pigeons would notice it. Correct?”

  “You’re sold on Linda?”

  “Sold? What can I tell you? Only a family man’s reactions simply on the strength of bringing up one of my own, my daughter Sandra, just about the same age, remember? So all right. Sandra is a secretary and not in crazy show business, but the emotional problems, aren’t they the same with all of them? So then, if Sandra has a bad time with a boy, is she going to stab him? To kill him? And besides, how about the knife? Smart this Linda certainly is. I ask myself would she leave a bloody knife in a kitchen drawer? Because that was where Cushing found it. She wouldn’t first wash it off, for God’s sake?”

  “She’s a drinker, Max. Maybe she could be a forgetter.”

  “That I won’t buy.”

  “You’re getting soft.”

  “And you? What’s the big deal in it for you, Steve? I’m talking about this pretty girl. You like her?”

  “The love of my life, Max. Just like on television. We’ll be married before you know it.”

  “Funny jokes,” said Max quietly. “You’re sticking your neck out for her, right?”

  “She’s a nice bundle,” I said. “But only as a coincidental bundle, if you get what I mean. She’s an old chum of Mari Barstow. College pals. Murder? Hell, I don’t think she did it, nor do you, nor does Dave Cushing. But she’s a hot lead to our locate, Max. I like her on that level.”

  “She’s very pretty. A very, very pretty girl.”

  “You’re breaking my heart, Max,” I said.

  Tony Granada was playing an engagement at a midtown club, an excessively Spanish place called “Pepito’s” where the upper-class rhumba, mambo and cha-cha addicts gathered to bump and bounce. He had a large band that served up Latin music in the Cugat tradition, loud and with a firm beat. The place was only sparsely inhabited when we arrived, a few tables of late diners munching arroz con pollo while listening to the music.

  We had one of the rice dishes while waiting for Tony Granada. We listened to a young thrush under a strong spot sing a few South American numbers. Her hips and belly held the rhythm along with her deep, unladylike voice.

  “This is a Spanish girl?” Max asked. “From what I heard about Spain, girls like this one don’t live there anymore.”

  “Tony converts them,” I explained. “He can take one from Flatbush and make her queen of the fiesta.”

  “A beautiful girl, Steve. As pretty as the Barstow girl, I’ll bet.”

  “Not quite. Have a look at Mari.”

  “I see what you mean.” He examined the small press shots of Mari Barstow studiously. They were taken in a variety of poses, many of them deliberately shot to show her mammary features and her excellent legs. But Max paid little mind to the cheese pictures. He was interested in her face. He returned the photos to me and laid the head shots out on the table before him, squinting and scowling at them. He finished, finally, and closed his eyes, letting the composite build in his mind.

  “The world in her hands,” he sighed, “and she walks out on it? Foolishness. A really beautiful face, she has. You don’t forget a face like hers.”

  Tony Granada agreed with Max. He arrived at our table a bit breathless, shook hands, spoke briefly about his respect and admiration for our mutual friend Oliver Silverton, and then launched into a Latin lamentation about Mari Barstow.

  “Hated to see that girl go. Terrific. The tops.” A little man with a great sorrow, he spoke with an undisguised New York tongue. He stood about my size, but much beefier in the face and frame. He had a sort of oily appeal, a softness that might endear him to young girl singers willing to do almost anything for a break. “Silverton tells me you need my help. What kind of help would that be?”

  I gave him the details quickly, and he listened without interrupting, nodding and staring down at the table. There were beads of perspiration in the soft hollows of his hands. He caught me looking at his fingers and sought to divert me by flourishing a diamond and silver cigarette case which he offered to both of us.

  “Typical,” he said when I was finished. “Just like Mari. Kind of a crazy kid in many ways.”

  “How?”

  “Well, now. She’s done it before. Walked away, I mean.”

  “When was that?”

  “Last year. In Syracuse. She left us for two days. Just like that.”

  “Only once?”

  “Once more, before that. In New Orleans. Three days.”

  “And when she returned?” I asked, “She explained her absence?”

  “Ha. Don’t make me laugh. You don’t ask Mari questions. She hates questions. Blows her stack. I asked her once—in New Orleans—and she almost exploded. She said that what she did was her business. That was all.”

  “A man?” Max asked quietly. “Maybe she went away to see a boyfriend?”

  “Not while she was with me,” Tony said with a little hard laugh. “Not until she hit New York, t
hat is.”

  “I don’t understand you,” Max said.

  “He means he was sleeping with her until they arrived in New York,” I suggested. “Isn’t that what you mean, Tony?”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “We’re not going to book you for rape,” I said. “But it would help if we knew the facts. You shacked with her?”

  “At one time. Out of town, that is. Hell, you’d probably find out about it, nosing around. It wasn’t rape. Mari’s been around all the way out and back again.”

  “So she picked up a new man in New York?”

  “A man?” Granada broke into unrestrained laughter. “Mari never settled for one. A regular female wolf.”

  “Know any of their names?”

  “Is this all off the record?” He watched me slyly as he put the question, a worried little man. “Just between us boys?”

  “Off the record.”

  “You talked to Silverton?”

  “Who else?”

  “Another little guy from the same office.”

  “Arthur Haddon?”

  “On the nose,” agreed Tony. “Listen, she had plenty of them hanging around. How could I know them all? There was always a fresh one waiting for Mari Barstow.”

  “Think,” I said. “Drop a few names.”

  He thought briefly. “A crumb with a beard, lots of times. A newspaper columnist who followed her from New Orleans, name of Nick Genardi. A character in Silverton’s outfit, skinny guy with a moustache. A singer, I forget his name. A couple of sharp operators one night—Abe Kenny and Luigi Calabrese.”

  I stopped him there. “Luigi came often?”

  “Hell, I don’t keep score, not with a chick like Mari. She knows how to level them. Never saw any girl operate better. Hello, baby, you sang real good. I’ll be right with you.”

  The Latin thrush had minced to our table and leaned over him and ran her delicate hand along the side of his neck. He sat there, taking it, and looking like a fat, comical dog. It was an odd tableau; the girl seemed suddenly infantile alongside him.

  Max must have been working his imagination my way because he became suddenly interested in his cold pollo, not enjoying the sight of Granada’s concubine. How long ago had Mari Barstow played him this way? And with which variations? It would take a certain type of adventuresome female to lavish this dumpy little musician with affection. It would take strange drives and a taste for lewdness.

  “Weren’t we going to get doing downtown?” Max asked, showing me his subdued distaste. “That appointment we had, Steve?”

  “We’re a little late, at that,” I said. “Thanks for your help, Tony.”

  “Any time, Conacher. Any time.”

  But he was lost to us even before we left him. He was pulling her down to the seat alongside him and whistling to a waiter and beginning to talk it up for her. The sound of her husky laughter reached us as we made the exit, a quick surge of artificial joy followed by Granada’s soft chuckle.

  “Unclean,” said Max as we hit the street. “You got a Bisodol on you, Steve? Me, I’m going to have a bad heart burn in a minute.”

  CHAPTER 7

  There were still quite a few very pretty girls lolling around in Gretchen’s den when we arrived. The party had degenerated into a blissful orgy, the noise a bit softer, the people less active, the big room much dimmer, lit only by the dull glow of small red bulbs in the room beyond Couples sat around in casual sex play, some sprawled on the bad furniture, others squatting here and there in corners, enmeshed in each other and not giving a damn. The hi-fi still bumped—odd music with a thwacking beat, drums, bongos and a particularly emotional clarinet. It was all rigged to promote the new mood at Gretchen’s, the Intimate time, the last big pitch for animal satisfaction. A handful of intellectuals still yakked at each other, paying no mind to the erotic byplay at their heels. At the bar in the other room, Gretchen still tended her bottles, pouring drinks for a few dressed-up kids from uptown, obviously down in the Village for a slumming dip into the Nowist sink.

  Gretchen stroked a pair of large cats and poured cream into a saucer for them and spoke words of affection to them. She turned to me, at last, with a simpering scowl of recognition.

  “You back again, man?”

  “I like it here, Gretchen. Got any black coffee?”

  “You’re square, cat. You want coffee, ease out to Seventh Avenue.”

  “What I really want I can’t get on Seventh Avenue.”

  “Something special, man?”

  “Masterson.”

  “Not here. And no fights in my place, understand? For a little one, you’re too loose with your fists. You don’t want to wind up on your skinny ass out on the street, cat, do you?”

  “Not this lad,” said a voice at my side. “Solid and reliable, Gretchen. Vouch for him. Okay. Gone, cat, Connick.”

  “Conacher,” I said and shook his hand.

  It was Arthur Haddon, leaning in close to me and slapping my shoulder as he talked. Tanked again, he still retained much of his friendly charm, beaming at Gretchen, pinching her flabby cheek, laughing it up for her. She responded to him gaily—reaching at once for the drink that would please him, and pouring Scotch into a large glass.

  “Arthur, Arthur, Arthur,” sang Gretchen. “You’re a real syringe for a girl like me at an hour like this, hear?”

  “Gretchen, I love you madly,” he burbled, swallowing a generous gulp of the liquor and watching her move down the bar to pour for the others. He nudged me in the ribs and winked at Max and pulled us toward him in a conspiratorial knot.

  “Women,” he informed us. “They’ll die for a kind word, men. Have you seen Masterson, Carnick?”

  “Not yet,” I said. “Now I’ll ask you one, Arthur. Have you seen the police?”

  “This afternoon, the lice. Grabbed me and wrung me dry. Things like that can drive a man to drink. But Masterson is here, isn’t he?”

  “Why the big yen to see Masterson?”

  “You want the truth?”

  “What else?”

  “You read what happened to Nixon?”

  “I’m with you, man.”

  “Spit,” he said with bubbling malevolence. “I want to spit just once in Masterson’s eye. Die a happy man after that.”

  “Why?”

  “Hate. Sheer, unadulterated hate. I’m a realist, Carnock. Certain people were put on earth for other people to detest. The facts of life. Ever met a man you’d like to spit at? That’s what Masterson does to me, the cruddy phony, the cheap and preening pimp. Maybe I envy him. Maybe it’s sheer pique. The way he attracts women. The lure of the Nowist. What is it? What do they see in him? Dirt in the beard? The unwashed texture of his flesh? The cream-puff brawn? They capitulate in droves, all types, all kinds. Can you picture Helen Calabrese going for him? Can you imagine Mari Barstow—?”

  He paused in his monologue, applying an obvious brake and busying himself with his glass again. I caught Max’s broad wink. Gretchen returned and Haddon pulled away from us, renewing his blandishments.

  I tapped him on the shoulder.

  “You were saying something about Mari Barstow?” I asked.

  “Forget it, Carnock.”

  “Masterson has her on the string?’

  “Why not ask Masterson?”

  “It’s a thought. Where does he live?”

  “In a rat hole,” mumbled Haddon. “Where else?”

  “You don’t know?”

  “To hell with him. Another drink, Gretchen?”

  “You’re out there, man,” said Gretchen. “You’re way out, cat. Maybe I shouldn’t dose you anymore.”

  “A drink,” roared Haddon, thumping his fist on the bar and glaring at her. “Get these monkeys off my back, Gretchen. Tell them where Masterson can be found: They’re rodent hunters,
out for a night of Nowist quarry.”

  “Nobody knows,” said Gretchen. “Masterson moves around, man.”

  Somebody had gunned the hi-fi back in the big room. The place exploded into noise—the din of progressive jazz, an occasional voice raised in song or hilarity, the buzz of conversation, and the beat of hands. They were crowded around a small section of open floor. There was a girl out in the closed ring, a girl alone dancing a hip-shaking, Polynesian movement. Up close, she danced without shoes, her body alive and obvious to the applauding herd. She wore only a slip and bra and her eyes were closed and her body was lost to the provocative beat of the music.

  “Helen Calabrese,” I whispered to Max. She held my eye for only a flick of time. Beyond her, against the wall, a man moved off toward the door, sliding away in an obvious effort to leave the group. “Get a load of that creep on his way out,” I told Max. “Recognize him?”

  “How can I miss? Grippo?”

  “The same.”

  “Does he matter to us, Steve?”

  “Only Haddon matters right now. Stay with him and he’ll probably lead you to Masterson. Masterson is our apple for tonight.”

  We were moving to cut Grippo off as we talked. He was almost at the door when I blocked him and signaled Max to stand by.

  “An old face,” I said. “You like the Nowist pitch, Grippo?”

  “Out of my way, punk,” he said.

  “Still the tough boy, Grippo?”

  “Drop dead,” he said.

  “And Luigi? How is my old friend Luigi?”

  “Nuts.”

  The dance was over and Helen stood where it had ended, surrounded by a group of admiring Nowist huskies. The disk was flipped and there were two more girls on the floor, both naked from the waist to the ears, both swaying and bumping in a well-organized ritual slide. Helen looked my way. She slipped into her dress and joined us just as Grippo moved away.

  “There goes Grippo,” I said. “Your perpetual fan club.”

  “Grippo can go to hell, Steve.”

  “Does Luigi know you dance here?”

  “What I do is none of Luigi’s business.”