Ed McBain - Puss in Boots

“Then who is, would you know? When Mr. Gordon called, he said he was getting things in order for the attorneys handling the estate. Do you know where I can reach them? Or Mr. Gordon, either one? I’d really like to get this check off my mind.”

“I’m sorry I can’t help you,” Matthew said.

“Harold Gordon?” she said. “An accountant?”

“No, the name isn’t familiar to me.”

“Could you ask Mr. Markham when you see him? Which bank her account is with?”

“I certainly will,” Matthew said, and picked up a pencil. “You say this was for a trip the Markhams planned to take on January first?”

“No, December first,” Ginny said.

“Tell me about this trip you’d planned,” Matthew said.

They were in Markham’s cell. On the wall just inside the barred door, there was a white porcelain sink with two push-button faucets. Just beyond that was the toilet bowl, no seat on it, just the white porcelain bowl and a roll of toilet paper sitting on the neck of the bowl where it was fastened to the wall. A former prisoner had inked a calendar onto the wall, and had crossed out the days he’d spent in this cell, a big X through each day. Markham had been here for almost a month now. He sat on a dirty foam rubber mattress on the wall-fastened cot opposite the sink and the toilet, his hands folded and dangling between his knees.

He sighed, looked up at Matthew, and said, “Who told you we were planning to skip?”

Matthew blinked.

Skip?

Nobody had told him that Markham and his wife had been planning to skip. This was news to him. He decided to run with it.

“Tell me about it,” he said. “You were leaving for Mexico City on the first of December, is that it?”

“If you already know... ”

“Do you want to go to the electric chair?” Matthew said.

Silence.

“Then tell me.”

The silence lengthened.

“Okay, the hell with it,” Matthew said, and went to the cell door. “Can you let me out of here?” he called to the corridor.

“Take it easy,” Markham said.

“No, I won’t take it easy,” Matthew said. “Either you tell me what this is all about, or I walk.”

“All right, all right, calm down,” Markham said.

“I’m listening,” Matthew said.

“It was her idea,” Markham said.

“Prue’s?”

“Yes. To take the film and run. Finish it in Mexico, if she could find facilities down there and get a—”

“Why Mexico?”

“She figured Gardella wouldn’t bother chasing us all the way down there.”

“Gardella? Who’s Gardella?”

“Henry Gardella. The man financing the movie.”

“I thought you told me—”

“Yeah, well.”

“No, never mind ‘Yeah well.’ You told me you didn’t know who was financing the movie. You told me you didn’t know anything about the movie. Now you—”

“Yeah, well—”

“You say that one more time... ”

“I’m sorry,” Markham said.

“If I’m hearing you correctly, she planned to run to Mexico with the film this Gardella person had financed.”

“That’s right.”

“Why?”

“So she’d have a hundred percent of it, instead of ten percent.”

“Was that supposed to be her end? Ten percent?”

“Of the gross,” Markham said. “She figured the picture might do eight, nine million theatrically. Plus God knew what on the cassette. Prue’d done all the work, she didn’t see why Gardella should get the biggest piece of the pie.”

“Except that he’d put up the money to... ”

“A measly hundred and seventy-five thousand,” Markham said.

On Matthew’s block, a hundred and seventy-five thousand wasn’t very measly.

“And he hadn’t paid all of that yet. He’d only paid out a hundred and five by the time she was killed.”

Only a hundred and five, Matthew thought.

“She figured she’d use the film as collateral,” Markham said. “When we got down to Mexico. Show what she had to get the loan she needed to finish it. Find a distributor later on, cut him in for a piece of it, but nowhere near as much as Gardella would be getting if she—”

“Where do I find this Gardella? Is he here in Calusa?”

“Miami. Why do you want him?”

“Because I’m still trying to keep you out of the electric chair. If Gardella found out your wife was planning to disappear with that film—”

“There’s no way he could have known that. Nobody knew about Mexico but the three of us.”

“ What three of us? What the hell else haven’t you told me?”

“Me, and Prue, and Jake.”

“Who’s Jake?”

“Delaney. He was in the movie. But he’s got connections. He went down to Mexico to see about getting the loan.”

“Why didn’t she go herself? Why didn’t you go?”

“I told you. Jake has connections.”

“What kind of connections does a person need to—”

“Well, you know.”

“No, I don’t know.”

“He knows people who... you know... people who don’t always operate within the law.”

“Crooks, are you saying?”

“Well, yes, I suppose you could put it that way.”

“Why did the loan have to come from people outside the law?”

“Well, it might’ve been difficult otherwise.”

“Why?”

“Because of the nature of the film.”

Matthew looked at him.

And suddenly came the dawn.

“Was your wife making a pornographic movie?” he asked.

Markham nodded.

“Who’s this Gardella?” Matthew said at once. “Mafia?”

“No, no.”

“But someone outside the law?”

“No, he runs a dinner theater in Miami. He’s a legitimate businessman.”

“Who was financing a pornographic movie,” Matthew said.

“Well, there’s lots of money to be made in porn,” Markham said.

“Why didn’t you tell me all this from the beginning?”

“I thought... ”

“Your wife was breaking the law. It’s entirely possible that her murder—”

“I don’t think so.”

“Where’s this Jake Delaney person? Is he back in Calusa?”

“I haven’t heard from him. I think he’s still down there.”

“Does he know your wife’s dead?”

“I don’t know.”

“Could he have killed her? And then gone to Mexico?”

“No. He went down there on the fifteenth.”

Matthew looked him square in the eye.

“Did you kill her?” he asked.

The same question he’d asked at their first meeting.

“No,” Markham said.

The same answer.

“How do I know that? You’re telling me this film can earn eight, nine million dollars, more when you throw in the cassette. How do I—”

“I loved her. Why would I have killed her? This was our way out. That damn clock shop... ” He shook his head. “Prue doing movies that brought in peanuts. Even the one that got the prize, what do you think she realized from that one, after all was said and done? Ten thousand? Fifteen? We figured... if we could pull this off... this would be only a beginning, do you see? She could go on doing the same kind of movies, we’d make a fortune. So why would I have killed her?”

“Maybe because you wanted it all.”

“No,” Markham said. “No. I loved her.”

“Then why didn’t you tell me all this? If you loved her so damn much, and you didn’t kill her—”

“I didn’t think you needed to know about the movie.”

“You didn’t see how that could have any possible bearing on the case, huh?”

“I didn’t want it to come out.”

“Why not?”

“Well, the film... well, it’s valuable, you see.”