Эд Макбейн - The April Robin Murders

“Why don’t you take a nice nap while I make the pictures?” Handsome said anxiously. He dumped out the contents of the camera case, and began counting. “Plus what’s in your pocket.”

Bingo added a heavy handful of quarters to the pile.

“Seventeen dollars and twenty-five cents,” Handsome reported. “Plus what might come in the mail, and repeat orders. We almost never did so well as that in New York, Bingo.”

“We almost never bought a haunted house in New York, either,” Bingo said.

“Bingo,” Handsome said, “we got paper and everything to send out these orders, so they’re just profit. And we’ve got the car, and all our clothes and stuff, and some money left over, and it’s not such a very long drive to New York—”

Bingo took a long look at his partner. It wasn’t Handsome who was homesick for New York.

He said, “Let’s just print up the pictures, and talk things over later.” He drew a long breath. “Handsome, we came out here to get rich and famous, and a few little setbacks aren’t going to worry us. Not for long.”

Handsome departed gratefully for the improvised darkroom.

Bingo leaned back on the lumpy sofa and thought things over. If he gave Handsome his share of the convertible, plus all the camera equipment, sold his clothes and his wrist watch, and the luggage that was his, he might just be able to pay back Handsome for what he’d lost in this venture. That would give Handsome a car, and a nice financial stake for the future.

And as far as he was concerned, he’d manage. Hadn’t he always? Hadn’t he figured a way to make a cut from all the newspaper routes around the little grocery where he’d worked after its owner, his Uncle Herman, had taken him out of the orphanage where he’d spent his first twelve years? And hadn’t he done all right at door-to-door selling, crew managing, and running concessions at county fairs? In a place like Hollywood, he’d do all right for himself.

He eased into a more comfortable position on the sofa and began to wonder how Handsome would do for himself. And decided, not too well. That put a different aspect on things.

He half closed his eyes and remembered back to a time when he’d made a brief stab at being a sidewalk photographer for See-Ure-Self, Inc., and resigned some thirty seconds after learning that See-Ure-Self, Inc., kept seventeen and a half cents from every quarter turned in and, furthermore, required a four-dollar deposit on all cameras.

It had been shortly after he’d met Handsome and learned that Handsome owned two cameras and had a back week’s pay due from the newspaper where he’d worked, that the International Foto, Motion Picture and Television Corporation of America had been formed.

But now perhaps he’d pushed their luck too far.

On the other hand, if there was still a chance—

He picked up the telephone reluctantly and dialed Arthur Schlee’s number. The lawyer said that the news was wonderful, that he’d already been informed by Mr. Reddy, with whom he was in constant touch. Now that there was no doubt that the signatures were genuine, the rest of the situation would not be so complex. Difficult, yes, but not impossible. He had sent a messenger over to the trust company’s office to pick up the papers from Mr. Reddy, for his own personal examination. There would, of course, be no charge for the messenger service. The retainer was adequate, as he’d said, although naturally if the case should go to court—

Bingo thanked him, and then called Leo Henkin, who came on the line promptly.

Bingo only wanted to thank him for recommending such a fine lawyer. Mr. Henkin said it had been a pleasure to do a favor for a friend, and how had the pictures turned out? And how soon could they talk business about that Great Property?

“Soon,” Bingo said, wishing with all his heart there was a property. He called little Mr. Reddy.

Mr. Reddy said the whole situation was entirely unprecedented, but he had been glad to send the papers over to Mr. Schlee, and he hoped that everything was going to be all right. He hung up before Bingo had a chance to ask him a few of the questions he had in mind about Pearl Durzy.

At least, Bingo told himself, putting down the phone, he’d done his best for the International Foto, Motion Picture and Television Corporation of America.

He glanced again around the big and almost empty room, at the unlighted chandelier, at the balcony. He thought of Pearl Durzy, alone here for so many years, without so much as a book or a radio or a television set, not even a daily newspaper. Seeing Mr. Reddy once a month when he came in with her hundred dollars in cash, and made his quick and perfunctory inspection. Speaking, perhaps, to the grocery boy. Not even making friends with her next-door neighbor, Mrs. Hibbing, who would undoubtedly have loved to have someone to visit with, especially someone who could satisfy her curiosity about the house next door. Hiding her money somewhere, saving it, perhaps — and for what possible future purpose? Spending her time going from empty room to empty room, endlessly dusting, polishing, cleaning. Keeping a house clean for people who would never return to it— This sort of thinking, he told himself, wasn’t going to get him anywhere.

He put Pearl Durzy resolutely out of his mind, and along with her the ghosts, if they were ghosts, of Julien and Lois Lattimer. He thought of April Robin. But that had been so long ago—

He thought of the rose garden she’d planted. Perhaps a small rosebush, properly packed for sending through the mail, would be the souvenir Detective Hendenfelder would like to send his niece in Milwaukee.

Somehow, he would get tickets to a TV show for the man in the Hawaiian shirt.

Somehow, he would arrange a studio tour for Mrs. Waldo Hibbing.

Somehow, he would find Julien Lattimer’s body, for Adelle Lattimer.

And Mr. Courtney Budlong had to be somewhere.

Everything was going to be all right, it always had.

He was beginning to sink pleasantly into that nap Handsome had recommended, beginning to dream of rosebushes whose buds opened out suddenly into the faces of April Robin, of Lois Lattimer, of Adelle Lattimer, even of Pearl Durzy as she must have looked, long ago. The rose-faces nodded to him warmly and amiably, the leaves on the rosebushes held themselves out to him and turned miraculously into dollar bills. Then his Uncle Herman’s face appeared through the smiling blooms, red-faced and cross, reminding him that he’d never get rich or famous or anything else if he didn’t get up and sweep out the store in the morning, and Uncle Herman’s hand reached out through the dollar-bill leaves and shook him rudely by the shoulder.

Bingo sat upright, rubbing his eyes.

It wasn’t Uncle Herman, it was Handsome. He smelled faintly of photographic chemicals, his good-looking face was pale, and his eyes were very bright.

“Bingo,” he said, “I’m sorry I woke you up. But I’ve been making these pictures, and there’s one you got to see, right away.”

Bingo yawned and said, “We don’t have to mail these out right now, do we?”

“I made an enlargement of this one,” Handsome said. “Because I thought I saw what I was looking at, and then I wasn’t too sure, so I made an enlargement right away.”

Bingo took the picture and gazed at it. It showed the pool of the Skylight Motel, with Mariposa DeLee posed gracefully against the loafer-lounge. It showed, also, most of the apartments in the background, including the one they had briefly inhabited.

“A very nice picture,” Bingo said approvingly. “She ought to order a whole bunch of these. Maybe not such a large size, but—”

“Bingo,” Handsome said, “just please look where I’m pointing. The window of the apartment over near the office. There’s somebody looking out of it. I wasn’t real sure until I enlarged it, but—”