Richard Deming: Tweak the Devil’s Nose

Fascinated partly by her Latin explosiveness and comic-opera accent, and partly by what I took to be her defenselessness in an alien land, I went overboard for her like a moonstruck teen-ager in spite of having attained the sophisticated age of twenty-four. All during the war I carried her picture in my pocket and a vague plan for a vine-covered cottage in my heart.

But when I finally returned from overseas plus a long period in a V.A. hospital, nearly five years had passed and Fausta had outgrown my mental image. Only traces of her accent lingered, and in place of a naïve and dependent teen-ager I found an assured young career woman well on her way to parlaying her culinary genius into a fortune. When I recovered from the shock, I found I was just as much attracted to her as ever, but I no longer felt like much of a catch.

Fausta insisted it made no difference who had the money, the husband or wife, but it did to me. I will not try to defend my position. I admit I am pigheaded, arrogantly proud, unrealistic and all the other things well-meaning friends, including Fausta, have told me I am for refusing to marry the girl. But that is what I did.

We seldom see each other any more, but I have never been able to get very excited over any other woman, and Fausta has never indicated matrimonial interest in any of the numerous men who chase her. Though long ago we tacitly dropped the subject of marriage, it pleases her to pretend she pursues me hotly, and to go along with the game I make a pretense of trying to struggle off the hook.

We waited in Fausta’s office for the police to arrive. Before phoning, I had Fausta announce to the crowd what had happened and request that no one leave until released by the police. To insure compliance she posted waiters at the front door and each of the two side entrances with instructions to be firm.

She also asked if there was a doctor in the house, and when it developed there were three, I sent them all out to hold a consultation over the corpse, first requesting them not to disturb the body beyond what was necessary to verify that Lancaster was actually dead.

They decided he was.

Instead of phoning headquarters I phoned Inspector Warren Day at his bachelor apartment, getting the reaction I anticipated.

“Listen, Moon,” he growled. “Headquarters is full of cops. Why bother me when I’m off duty?”

“This one is too hot for anybody less than the chief of Homicide,” I told him. “I’ve got the lieutenant governor of Illinois laid out for you.”

“Yeah, sure,” he said impatiently. “Last time it was the Aga Khan. Cut the clowning and say what you want.”

“I already said it. No clowning, Inspector.”

He was silent a minute. Then he asked querulously, “You’re kidding, aren’t you?”

“No.”

He took a deep breath and blistered my ear with profanity. “A political assassination! Plain murder’s not fancy enough. You got to give me a political assassination!”

“I didn’t shoot him,” I said reasonably.

“Wouldn’t put it past you,” he snarled. “Don’t let anybody go. Be there in fifteen minutes.”

When I hung up Fausta said in a small voice, “Tom says you shot that man, Manny.”

“Tom?”

“The doorman. He said he saw it.”

“He saw an optical illusion,” I told her. “I never commit my murders in front of witnesses.”

Her brow puckered in concentration. “I could tell him not to say anything in front of the police, but he told it in front of all those customers on the steps.” Then she brightened. “I was outside when the shooting happened. I had just left the side door from the ballroom and was walking around to the front entrance for a breath of air. I will say I stepped out to meet you and we were making love in the bushes when the shot sounded. Then the police will think it must have been another person he saw.”

“I didn’t shoot the guy,” I said irritably. “Someone fired from behind a bush right next to me. Incidentally, I came out here for dinner, but once the cops get here it may be hours before I get a chance to eat. How about rustling up a fast sandwich?”

“Food!” Fausta said. “You shoot a man and it makes you hungry! I should think instead you would want to kiss me good-bye before they take you off to jail.”

She looked at me expectantly and I said, “Roast beef if you’ve got it. And a cup of coffee.”

“You are a corpse yourself,” she said without heat, and lifted her desk phone to order.

I was munching on the sandwich when the police arrived. Minutes before they got there we heard the sirens in the distance, and they grew to a scream as they reached the drive entrance, then faded away to a final snarl. When I figured they were entering the front door, I took my sandwich in one hand and my coffee in the other and followed Fausta out to the dining room.

We arrived just as Inspector Warren Day, trailed by his silent satellite, Lieutenant Hannegan, and two uniformed cops, entered the dining room through the arch from the cocktail lounge. Day’s spare figure, attired in a shapeless seersucker suit, halted just inside the archway. Ducking his skinny head to peer over thick-lensed glasses, he slowly swept his eyes over the assembled hundred or so diners until all conversation stopped. Then he suddenly jerked off his flat straw sailor to disclose a totally bald scalp.

In a booming voice he announced, “I’m Inspector Warren Day of Homicide!”

He should have made his announcement in the ballroom first, where they had an orchestra, for it would have been much more effective followed by a flurry of trumpets.

A half-dozen male customers immediately left their tables to cluster around the inspector and yammer about appointments they had to keep. Day listened for about thirty seconds, then suddenly roared, “Shut up!”

They all stood looking at him with their mouths open. Ignoring them, the inspector glowered out over the others in the room.

“Anybody here know anything at all about this?” he inquired.

When a half minute had passed without any volunteers stepping forward, he said, “You’ll find a cop at the door with a half-dozen note pads so several of you can write at once. Sign your names, addresses and telephone numbers and go on home.”

Then, belatedly realizing there were probably innumerable influential people in the crowd, he turned on a fierce smile which apparently he meant to be ingratiating. “Sorry if anyone was inconvenienced,” he said grudgingly. “We got here as fast as we could.”

As the crowd began to leave tables and file past the inspector and his party, Day turned to snap something at Hannegan. The inscrutable lieutenant merely nodded, never being one to waste words where a gesture would serve, and left the room. I guessed Day had instructed him to repeat the performance in the other two rooms.

Then the inspector began to work his way through the crowd toward us. But halfway he stopped and grasped a dinner-jacketed man by the sleeve. The accosted man, a handsome fellow of about thirty, shrugged off the inspector’s hand impatiently.

“Not so fast!” Day roared, then said something to one of the uniformed cops with him.

Scowling at the man belligerently, the cop dropped a meaty hand on his shoulder and pushed him over toward the far wall, where he fixed him with a watchful eye and simply waited. Apparently Day had instructed that the man be held until he could question him at leisure.

“Who’s that?” I asked Fausta as the inspector again began his approach. “Barney Seldon.”

“The gangster from across the river?”

“I believe Mr. Seldon is a businessman,” she said with odd primness.

Before I could pursue the subject any further Warren Day stopped before us and eyed me moodily.