Эд Макбейн - The April Robin Murders

They showed her to the door and watched while she got into a convertible several inches longer and several shades brighter than theirs.

“Handsome,” Bingo said when she was gone, “how much did this guy leave?”

“There wasn’t any exact figure,” Handsome said. “It was about half a million bucks, though.”

Bingo sat down on the slightly lumpy davenport and did a little fast mental arithmetic. Adelle Lattimer would get a quarter of that, according to the will. And ten percent of that—

“But Julien Lattimer’s not dead,” he said suddenly. “He can’t be dead. Handsome, how could he sell us his house, if he was dead?”

“We’ll find out from Mr. Courtney Budlong,” Handsome said soothingly. He brought over Bingo’s mauve and lime-green striped pajamas, slippers and a blanket.

Bingo settled himself as comfortably as he could on the davenport and, for a moment, considered telling Handsome to leave on one of the lights. Then he decided to keep quiet and see if Handsome might not have the same idea. After all, a strange house in the dark — even if there wasn’t much furniture to trip over—

Handsome put a flashlight on the table by the davenport. Bingo sighed inwardly and let it go at that.

A little light came in from the windows off the balcony, just enough to make the room seem even more enormous, and more empty. Bingo pulled the blanket tight around his chin and tried to shut his eyes. There was still the odor from the caretaker’s room.

Suddenly he felt an almost overwhelming desire to wake Handsome, to pack everything and pile it into the convertible, and head for New York. He told himself firmly that they’d at last arrived in Hollywood, that they were going to get rich, that already they owned a house that belonged to April Robin, with a famous motion picture producer and a society widow for neighbors, and that they would make all kinds of valuable contacts through their friend Mr. Courtney Budlong. He thought of Ciro’s, of the Sunset Strip, of Hollywood and Vine. He tried to visualize a little office building in Beverly Hills, with their name in chromium letters like those on BUDLONG AND DOLLINGER. He still wanted to go back to New York.

He found himself even thinking wistfully of Eighth Avenue on a cold rainy day in March, or of West 34th Street in a July heat wave.

The future suddenly seemed filled with entirely too many problems. Not the least of them being that the April Robin mansion had probably seen at least one murder.

New York seemed so far away, so very far away.

Finally, with the feeling that daylight was about two ticks of the clock away, he slept.

A series of resounding buzzes at the door woke him. He sat up, rubbing his eyes, and realized that while daylight had gotten here all right, it hadn’t been here long. He looked at his watch. Seven in the morning. Who would be calling at seven in the morning?

Handsome had thrown on a bathrobe and gone to open the door. He came back with two men, an anxious look on his face. “It’s the police, Bingo,” he said.

Bingo grabbed his own bathrobe, thankful that it was the forest-green flannel one.

One of the men was tall and very thin, with the most deeply lined face Bingo had ever seen. It was also the saddest face he had ever seen, with a thin, mournful mouth and weary eyes. “I’m Perroni,” he said. “My partner’s Hendenfelder.”

Hendenfelder was also tall, but heavy-set. His face was round, pinkish and expressionless.

Handsome whisked the blankets away. The two plain-clothesmen sat down. Bingo just sat still and worried.

“Might’s well come straight to the point,” the one named Perroni said. “The Lattimer case is my baby. Been on it since he was reported missing. Found no proof he was murdered yet, but I will. Now you had a little trouble here last night.”

“The housekeeper tipped over a can of cleaning fluid,” Bingo said quickly. “Breathed in a lot of it. I hope she’s better.”

“She didn’t tip it over,” Perroni said, in his melancholy voice. “Somebody poured it out and put her nose down in it, after feeding her a drink loaded with knockout drops. And she isn’t better, she’s dead.”

Bingo sat holding his breath. In his heart, he’d known all along it was that way, but he’d refused to admit it.

“And also,” Perroni said. “What’s all this nonsense about you buying a house from a man that was murdered four years ago?”

“It isn’t nonsense, and we have bought a house,” Bingo said. “And nobody seems to know if the guy was murdered or not.” It wasn’t exactly the tone of voice to use to a cop and he knew it, but this was entirely too early in the morning to be polite to anybody.

“Oh now, let’s be friendly about this,” Detective Hendenfelder said. His attitude seemed to imply that if Bingo and Handsome had really bought the house, they were important people and should be treated courteously as such, and if it turned out that they hadn’t, no real harm would have been done. “Too bad we had to wake you up so early, but that’s the way things are because — well, because that’s the way things are. Let’s have a cup of coffee and talk this over, h’m?”

Perroni simply said, “Where was this woman’s room?”

Bingo rose and showed him. The first cigarette of the day was making him feel a little better, and if the big fat-faced cop was willing to be friendly, why, Bingo was willing to go along with him. Besides, he and Handsome had nothing to worry about, and nothing to lose except a little time.

The small room still smelled heavily of cleaning fluid. Perroni sniffed and said, “Whew!” He looked it over with sad, mournful eyes, and finally said, “Have to go through her things, but we can do that later.” He led the way back into the living room, to Bingo’s relief.

“All right,” he said with a sigh, taking out a notebook. “What do you know about the woman?”

“Nothing,” Bingo said. “Absolutely nothing. She was around yesterday afternoon and we saw her — not to speak to — when Mr. Budlong was showing us the house.”

“Budlong?” Detective Perroni asked.

“Mr. Courtney Budlong,” Bingo said.

“Budlong and Dollinger?”

“They sold us the house,” Bingo said. “Or, Mr. Courtney Budlong did. Say, did you know that this house used to belong to—”

“Stick to the woman,” Perroni said.

Bingo said stiffly, “That’s the only time we ever saw her. Alive. Mr. Budlong said she’d been the caretaker. And that her name was Pearl Durzy.”

“That’s the only time you ever saw her?”

“Just like I told you,” Bingo said. He wished Handsome and the fat-faced cop would hurry up with that coffee.

“You’re not being very informative,” Perroni complained.

“I don’t know what you want to know,” Bingo said.

The coffee arrived just in time. Handsome had even located some cinnamon rolls and warmed them. Life began to get brighter.

“You looked the house over yesterday afternoon,” Perroni said, as though his patience were being strained toward its outer limit, and declined coffee. “Then what did you do?”

“Then,” Bingo said, “we went into Beverly Hills with Mr. Budlong and bought it.”

“Just like that,” Perroni said.

Bingo nodded and said, “Yes, just like that.” How else would anyone buy a house?

“We’ll get back to that later,” the detective said. “What did you do after you bought the house?”

“We went back to where we’d been staying, and packed,” Bingo said. “A very nice place. The Skylight Motel.” He was beginning to wish again that they’d stayed there. “We took some pictures of it, and then we came back here.”