Эрл Гарднер - The Case of the Crooked Candle

“That’s right.”

“You mean those sheep make...”

“Not the mature sheep. The hair from the mature sheep makes tweed clothing, blankets, rugs and that sort of stuff. Karakul coats are made from one day old, newborn lambs.”

“Seems a mean trick to play on the lambs,” Della said.

“It is.”

“I never knew that before.”

“On the other hand,” Mason said, “if it weren’t for the fur industry, the strain wouldn’t be cultivated, so the lamb wouldn’t be born at all — so there you are.”

“Something like which came first, the chicken or the egg.”

“Exactly.”

“And just what do you propose to do?”

Mason said, “I’m going to find this man, Frank Palermo, and see just what he knows — if he’ll talk. And then we’re going to have a nice, friendly session with our clients.”

Della said, “You think your clients are holding out on you?”

Mason indicated the winding road. “If what Van Nuys says is true, they are. According to my information, we turn off there to the left and take the road that winds over toward that range of brushy hills.”

Della handed the binoculars back to Mason, who put them in their leather case. They got back into the automobile and Mason drove down the winding grade.

They crossed over a little gully on a short bridge. The road started climbing. Mason gunned the car up the long rolling slopes, then abruptly turned to the left on a dirt road.

“Fresh car tracks on this road,” Della said. “It looks as though it had quite a bit of use.”

“Uh huh.”

“Do you know what Palermo looks like?” Della asked.

“I know his type.”

“What’s it like?”

“Bullheaded, obstinate, cunning, two-fisted, glittering eyes, an overbearing manner, and a breath that is composed of one part garlic, one part sour wine.”

Della laughed. “You make him sound very hard-boiled.”

“Probably not doing him justice even yet. He’s just the type you’d like to have discover corpses in cases the other fellow is handling.”

For several miles now they had been passing little shack houses, unpainted cabins with stovepipes thrust out through terra cotta rings serving as chimneys, desolate, weather-beaten, deserted cabins that bore silent witness to man’s struggle with the poverty of poor land. Now, thanks to the purchasing activities of Fred Milfield and the Skinner Hills Karakul Fur Company, the owners of this land had sold out at attractive prices and had moved away, basking in comparative affluence.

The dirt road topped a ridge, descended into a little canyon. Ahead of them was a cabin typical of all the other cabins save that a faint wisp of smoke was coming from the chimney.

“Probably cooking his Sunday dinner,” Mason explained to Della Street.

“Is this the place?”

“According to my sketch map, this is it.”

Mason drove the car across a dry wash, spurted up the incline on the other side, rounded a wooded knoll and turned into the refuse-littered yard around the cabin.

Immediately back of this cabin were the high hills which marked the end of the rolling sheep country. These hills were thickly covered with chamiso and scrub oak interspersed with clumps of grayish-green sage.

The door of the cabin was flung open. A thick-chested, florid-faced man with a shock of iron-gray hair stood in the doorway. His grayish-green eyes glittered with the effort of concentration.

“I’m looking for Frank Palermo.”

“All right. You come to right place. This, he is Frank Palermo. What you want?”

“I am Perry Mason, the lawyer.”

A sudden surge of enthusiasm flooded the man’s face. He came running forward, hand outstretched. “Mist’ Mason! By Gar — beeg lawyer like you come to see little sheepherder like me. Son-of-a-gun! I bet you that car cost plenty money, huh? Jiz’ get out. Bringa da lady. We make good talk — you and me. We have a good glass of vino, no?”

“No,” Mason said, grinning at Della Street. “We have to talk right here. I’m in a hurry.” He got out of the car, shook hands.

“But you have glass of vino, eh? I bring heem out.”

“Sorry,” Mason said, “but I never drink before noon.”

Palermo’s face fell. “I got some ver’ fine vino — kind you don’t get in no restaurant. Restaurant wine he’s too sweet. Iss not good for you drink sweet wine like that. Drink good sour wine that make you strong, no?”

“It’s all right if you’re accustomed to it,” Mason said. “If you’re not, it’s a pretty strong drink.”

“Not strong at all. Who’s the lady? Thata your wife?”

“That’s my secretary.”

“Your secretay, huh! Whatcha do with secretay?”

Mason’s eyes were smiling. “She writes down things that are said.”

Della Street gave Palermo a smile.

Palermo’s eyes twinkled with the lusty appreciation of one man of the world talking to another in a cryptic language which only they can understand. “By jiz’ that’s something! She writes things down, huh?” And Palermo threw back his head and laughed uproariously.

Della Street surreptitiously reached in the glove compartment of the car, took out a shorthand notebook and a pencil, held the notebook on her lap where Palermo couldn’t see it, her pencil poised over it. She said to Mason, “Your description seems to have been pretty accurate. How’s the halitosis, did you hit the nail on the head on that? I’m out of range.”

Mason said, “You’re fortunate. If I can manipulate you into a position of proximity, your olfactory nerves will acclaim me a prophet.”

Palermo ceased laughing instantly, his bushy eyebrows pulled down in a scowl over his glittering little eyes as they switched back and forth from Mason to Della Street. “Whatsa that you say?” he asked.

“My secretary was reminding me,” Mason said, “that I have an appointment late this afternoon, and I’ll have to be getting back to my office.”

“Jiz’ you work Sundays?”

“Sometimes.”

Palermo’s eyes shifted to the car. “You make lotsa money. Why you work on Sundays?”

“I make so much money,” Mason explained gravely, “that I have to work Sundays to pay my income tax.”

“By Gar! You make so much money — you not make enough for tax! By Gar, that’s tough. Iss plenty tough! I Look, I got the idea, we make lots the money. I want to see you, by Gar, and now you come see me.”

“You wanted to see me about the land?”

“Sure about the land. What you think? You get your people file a lawsuit against me, huh? Then we all get rich.”

“How?” Mason asked.

“You prove I no got title to land, huh?”

“You haven’t any title, Palermo.”

“No, no! I mean you do it the way I tell you. We fix it up. I help prove I no got the title.”

“You mean you’ll deliberately lose the lawsuit?”

Palermo’s head nodded vigorously, his eyes were sharp and glittering. “That’s right.”

“Why?” Mason asked.

Palermo unconsciously reached out for Mason’s arm once more, trying to draw him away from the automobile.

“Just how? ” Mason asked.

“We make money outa sheep — outa fur sheep for ladies’ coats,” Palermo said, and then again roared with laughter, giving Mason a quick dig in the ribs. “You betcha we make money outa da fur sheep.”

Mason waited.

Palermo lowered his voice to little more than a garlic-coated whisper, leaned close to Mason, “You know something? I give Milfield contract to buy my property for — well, for plenty money.”

“But you don’t have the title to that eighty-acre tract.”

“Poof! I get title all right. Don’t you worry none about me. Frank Palermo, he smart man. You a lawyer, but I know law pretty good myself too, maybe — huh? Five years I stay on that property and I pay taxes. After that can’t do nothing, no. I see that in court once. My brother, he do the same thing. I come here, I decide I’m going to be smart like my brother.”