Ed McBain - Puss in Boots

On Monday afternoon, December 15, Warren and Matthew had lunch in a Japanese restaurant on Main Street. The name of the place was Cherry Blossoms, and the owner’s name was Tadasi Imura. Imura was one of only thirty-four Japanese in all Calusa County. Imura’s son was nine years old, and nobody knew his proper name, but everyone called him Omen II. That was because everyone believed he had drowned his six-year-old sister in the bathtub. Or allowed her to drown. There had been quite a stink about it. Big police investigation. Skye Bannister desperately searching for a way to pin either a homicide or a manslaughter rap on the kid. A case was never made. Omen II. Nine years old. Slunk around the place in a faded kimono and blue jeans, looking desperate.

Warren and Matthew sat in their socks at a low table, knees under their chins, eating vegetable tempura and drinking sake they hoped Omen II had not poisoned. Warren was telling Matthew about Saturday night’s burglary at the Markham house. Omen II lurked around as if trying to pick up tips on future criminal activities.

“According to my pals down at the station house,” Warren said, “there was blood all over the place. They figure the burglar cut himself going in, trailed blood all through the house.”

“How’d he go in?” Matthew asked.

“Through a window in a spare room on the ground floor. Markham used it for repairing clocks.”

“Is that what the burglar was after?”

“The clocks, you mean? Who knows? Markham’s in jail, and nobody’s asking him anything. They’re playing this very cozy, Matthew, ’cause they don’t want this new burglary casting a shadow on the old burglary, which they claim Markham himself did. From what I can gather, they don’t think the clocks were the target. Too many expensive ones still hanging on the walls there. Of course, nobody says a junkie has to know an expensive clock from his own asshole.”

“Do they think it was a junkie?”

“That’s the party line, but the guy I talked to says it doesn’t read like your typical junkie smash-and-grab. Prue’s jewelry was still upstairs in the master bedroom, for example, and there were lots of little doodads around a junkie could hock in a minute.”

“Then what was he after?”

“The blood trail led upstairs to a second bedroom Prue used as an office. Drawers pulled out of all the desks and filing cabinets, papers strewn all over the floor.”

“Any safe up there?”

“Nope. Not according to my source. Why? What are you thinking?”

“Maybe he was after that film she was working on.”

“Only ones who’d know if there was film in that office would be Prue and maybe Markham.”

“I’d better go talk to Markham again, ask him what she kept in there.”

“You might also ask him what the hell she was working on. And who with.”

“I already did. The first time I met him.”

“And?”

“He didn’t know. A film , is all he said.”

“That’s sort of peculiar, isn’t it?”

“Not according to the guy at Anvil. He told me the same thing. Very secretive, very guarded about her work.”

“Maybe she was a spy,” Warren said, and grinned.

“Maybe,” Matthew said. “If you need me, I’ll be at the jailhouse. And later I’ll be stopping by Haggerty’s office. I want to see his face when I deliver a demand for discovery on the police report.”

“Oh yes, oh yes,” Warren said. “ ’Cause even if the guy only stole a roll of toilet paper, we’ve got a second break-in now, and for all we know it was the same guy pulled the first one.”

“I’d love to know what he was after,” Matthew said.

Checkbooks.

And bank statements.

And canceled checks.

Spread all over the desk in Henry’s motel room.

A joint checking account for the Markhams, nothing of any use to him there, checks made out to Florida Power & Light, and General Telephone, and Calusa Sanitation, and Visa and MasterCard, and shops and markets all over town, the usual paper trail of a busy, active couple.

It was the Prudent Company account that interested him.

The statements for that account showed that the checks he’d sent her had been deposited every week like clockwork, but he’d already known that from the canceled checks returned to him by his own bank. He wanted to know what checks she’d written, and he was specifically interested in any check that might provide a clue to where the goddamn film was.

He found a great many checks written to a company called Techno/Industrial Labs in New York City. It seemed reasonable to believe that this was the lab Prue had been using. He did not for a moment believe she’d chosen a lab so far away because she was being cautious. He suspected her choice had been prompted by the expectation of quality work, somewhat lacking down here in the boonies. She knew, of course, just as he knew, that making porn flicks in the state of Florida — or any state in the Union — was against the law. The lab handling her film in New York was breaking the law of that state in the same way that she was breaking Florida’s law.

But—

The specific Florida statute applying to obscenity — and Henry had studied this very carefully before embarking on his maiden movie-making venture — was Chapter 847. It stated that a person was guilty of a misdemeanor of the first degree if he had “in his possession, custody or control with intent to sell, lend, give away, distribute, transmit, show, transmute or advertise in any manner, any obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, indecent, sadistic or masochistic book, magazine, periodical, pamphlet, newspaper, comic book, story paper, written or printed story or article, writing, paper, card, picture, drawing, photograph, motion picture film ” — and so on.

A misdemeanor of the first degree was punishable by a term of imprisonment not exceeding one year, and a possible thousand-dollar fine. Small potatoes when one considered the possible rewards to be reaped. Smaller potatoes when one considered the catch-22 of most obscenity laws: the burden upon the state to prove that the material under consideration was indeed obscene within the meaning of the law. Section 847.07 of the Florida Statutes offered a guideline:

Considered as a whole and applying community standards, material is obscene if:

a) Its predominant appeal is to prurient interest; that is, a shameful or morbid interest in nudity, sex or excretion;

b) It is utterly without redeeming social value; and

c) In addition, it goes substantially beyond customary limits of candor in describing or representing such matters.

Such a definition might apply to two-thirds of the R-rated films showing in any American motion picture theater. That was why Henry had decided to embark on a splinter career in the producing of pornographic but classy motion pictures. First let them catch him — which would have been difficult because he’d covered his tracks so carefully. Then let them charge him, if ever it came to that. And then , fat chance, let them prove that the product was pornographic.

He dialed 1-212-555-1212 and got a number for Techno/Industrial in New York. He rehearsed his pitch for perhaps two minutes, and then dialed the number the operator had given him.

“Techno,” a woman’s voice said.

“Yes, this is Harold Gordon, accountant for the Prudent Company here in Calusa, Florida?”

“Yes, sir?”

“May I speak to one of your officers, please?”

“One moment.”

Henry waited.

“Hello?” a man’s voice said.

“This is Harold Gordon,” Henry said, “accountant for the Prudent Company here in Calusa, Florida? Who am I speaking to, please?”