Эрл Гарднер - The Case of the Long-Legged Models

“And what else?”

“And Stephanie Falkner is being charged with murder, first-degree murder.”

“And you?”

Mason grinned. “Garvin and I are being put on ice. The D.A. will get his murder firmly established and then he’ll claim we’re accessories.”

“And how are you going to combat a situation of that sort?”

Mason said, “We’re going to have to trust to a faith in human nature, a lot of mental agility and considerable ingenuity. Unless I’m greatly mistaken, the District Attorney will have the Grand Jury indict Stephanie Falkner for the murder of George Casselman by noon tomorrow. He’ll then hold Homer Garvin, Sr. as an accessory, and probably won’t make any very serious objection to letting him out on bail. He’ll hold that charge over him as a club hoping that sooner or later the pressure will build up to such an extent that Garvin will cave in and help him.”

“And in the meantime?” Della Street asked.

Mason grinned. “In the meantime, Della, we’d better get that dinner we were talking about. It may be the last good meal we’ll thoroughly enjoy together.”

“You mean they’ll arrest you?” she asked.

“I doubt it,” Mason said, “but somehow I have a feeling this may be the last meal we’ll really enjoy for quite some time. Let’s go!”

Paul Drake slid into his favorite position, sitting crosswise in the big, overstuffed, leather chair, the small of his back propped against one big, rounded arm, his knees propped over the other, the legs dangling.

“Well, you’ve got a bear by the tail in one hand, and a tiger by the tail in the other. Perry,” he said.

“Homer Garvin, Sr. was indicted for being an accessory in the murder of George Casselman. His bail was set at a hundred thousand dollars. He made bail almost immediately and will be out within an hour or two.

“Stephanie Falkner is held for first-degree murder, without bail. The Grand Jury indicted her about an hour ago. There’s an open trial date on the calendar and the District Attorney is yelling for an immediate trial, pointing out that defense attorneys are always trying for delay, delay, delay, and he’s making a great grandstand in the press.”

“What have you found out about Dawn Joyce?” Mason asked.

“It’s a little difficult to get a line on a girl like that,” Drake said, “particularly after she’s just married someone of family and means.

“You know how it is with any show girl or model. As a matter of fact, most models are steady-going, hard-working girls. A good many of them are married, have kids, make good mothers, and wonderful wives. But there’s a provincial attitude on the part of the public. The fact that a girl is photographed in bathing suits or does kicks in front of an audience causes lots of people to get funny ideas.

“Over in Las Vegas, you can pick up gossip on Dawn Joyce. She lived in an apartment by herself. She worked part of the time as a show girl in a chorus. She worked part of the time as scenery, one of the girls who puts on a tight-fitting bathing suit and drapes herself around the pools in the various hotels. Then she’d act as a shill on the side, dolling herself out in low-cut, strapless dresses, circulating around the gambling tables, being easy to get acquainted with, and helping the suckers who wanted to gamble to make a little bigger bets and stay with the wheel a little longer than would otherwise be the case.”

“Commission?” Mason asked.

“Apparently not,” Drake said. “She was on a salary and all this was part of the job. There was nothing crude, no attempt to strong-arm a guy into playing; but you know how it is; a man will stay with the game and buy two or three more stacks of chips if there’s an amiable, attractive, young woman standing alongside of him pouring chips across the board. He hates to have it appear that he’s a piker when some young woman is giving him an appreciative eye, and at the same time is apparently plunging with her own money.”

“And winning?” Mason said.

“Exactly,” Drake observed. “You don’t know just how they do it, but you watch them and they sure seem to win a lot more than the casual tourists. Of course, you can account for that in part, because they know the game. They know when to bet heavy and when to bet light. In the second place, it makes a lot of difference if you have an unlimited bank-roll. Of course, they never cash in on their chips, and they know there’s lots more where the last stack came from. Gamblers tell me that lots of people lose out at gambling because they don’t have the guts to pile it on heavy enough when they’re winning, or the prudence to tap it light when they’re losing. Gamblers say luck comes in waves. You’re hot and then you’re cold. When you’re hot you want to pour it on for all it’s worth, and when you’re cold you want to pull in your horns until you get hot again.

“I don’t know whether there’s anything to it or not. Personally I’m a poor gambler. Anyhow I’m just telling you about Dawn Joyce. She’s easy on the eyes, and she showed as much scenery as the law allowed.

“Now she knew this fellow Casselman. There’s no doubt about that. She went out with him on several occasions as a private date. She seemed to like him, or else they had some kind of a business deal hooked up. No one knows.

“Casselman was a blackmailer, but I can’t prove that on him. No one knows just how he lived. He was a sharpshooter. He hung around the Strip in Las Vegas, and he managed to make a pretty good living doing nothing. He made it in cash. He didn’t use bank accounts, and he didn’t make income tax returns. He just drifted along on a hand-to-mouth basis.

“Lots of people come to Las Vegas. Some of them are tourists who are just passing through. Some of them are a cafe society set from Los Angeles and San Francisco.

“A man who had a good memory for faces and figures could make money by remembering things other people would like to forget. That would particularly be true if he had a few show girls giving him tips about who did what and when and where.”

“Yes,” Mason said, “I can see. And that might be hard to trace.”

“It is hard to trace,” Drake agreed. “Casselman had about fifteen hundred dollars in his wallet when he was shot. As far as anybody-can tell, that’s every cent he had in the world and yet you know damn well it wasn’t. He’s got money stashed away somewhere, either in a safety deposit box under another name or buried or hidden somewhere. In any event, he could have gone and put his hand on cash when he needed it. There were times when he paid out as much as ten or fifteen thousand dollars for options on property for a quick deal, and he’s produced the cash every time, a nice assortment of hundred-dollar bills.”

“And the income tax people have never looked him up?” Mason asked.

“Never made a pass at him as far as I can find out. The guy was a smooth operator. He kept in the background, and he had never made the mistake of making that first income tax return. As far as the records were concerned, no one knew he was alive.

“There’s plenty of tie-in between Dawn Joyce who is now Homer Garvin, Jr.’s wife, and George Casselman who is now a corpse. For some reason, Mrs. Garvin, Jr. would like very, very much indeed to have the entire matter hushed up. Whatever her connections with Casselman and her Nevada activities were, she doesn’t care about having them aired in the daily press, particularly in view of the fact that she’d like to be received into the upper crust as the wife of Junior Garvin.”

“How does he rate?” Mason asked.

“That depends on the class of person you ask. He’s a plunger and wild. But he may steady down, and his old man is well thought of, although the old man never goes in for any of the social stuff.