A. Fair - The Bigger They Come

‘That’s nothing,’ she said. ‘Anyone knows that.’

‘The trouble is I didn’t stop there,’ I confessed. ‘I told you I liked to scheme. I don’t figure knowledge is any good unless you can apply it. I’d studied out a lot of legal tricks. I knew how to apply them.’

‘Go on from there,’ she said, her eyes showing interest. ‘What happened?’

‘I told this man it would be possible to commit a murder so there was nothing anyone could do about it. He said I was wrong. I got mad and offered to bet him five hundred dollars I was right, and could prove it. He said he was ready to put up the money any time I’d put up my five hundred bucks. I told him to come back the next day. That night he was arrested. He turned out to be a small-time gangster. He babbled everything he knew to the police. Among other things, he told them that I had agreed to tell him how he could commit a murder and get off scot-free. That he was to pay me five hundred dollars for the information, and then if it looked good to him, he had planned to bump off a rival gangster.’

‘What happened?’ she asked.

‘The grievance committee went after me hammer and tongs. They revoked my license for a year. They thought I was some sort of a shyster. I told them it was an argument and a bet. Under the circumstances, they didn’t believe me. And, naturally, they took the other side of the question — that a man couldn’t commit deliberate murder and go unpunished.’

‘Could he, Donald?’ she asked.

‘Yes,’ I said.

‘And you know how?’

‘Yes. I told you that was my weakness. I like to figure things out.’

‘And locked inside that head of yours is a plan by which I could kill someone and the law couldn’t do a damn thing about it?’

‘Yes.’

‘You mean if I was smart enough so I didn’t get caught.’

‘I don’t mean anything of the sort. You’d have to put yourself in my hands and do just as I told you.’

‘You don’t mean that old gag about fixing it so they couldn’t find the body?’

‘That,’ I said, ‘is the bunk. I’m talking about a loophole in the law itself, something a man could take advantage of to commit a murder.’

‘Tell me, Donald.’

I laughed and said, ‘Remember, I’ve been through that once.’

‘When’s your year up?’

‘It’s up. It was up two months ago.’

‘Why aren’t you back practicing law?’

‘It takes money to fit up an office with furniture, law books, and wait for clients,’ I said.

‘Won’t the law-book companies trust you?’

‘Not after you’ve been suspended.’

‘And you couldn’t get a job in a law office?’

‘Not a chance.’

‘What do you intend to do with your legal education, Donald?’

‘Serve papers,’ I said, and turned on my heel. I walked out through the outer office. Elsie Brand had gone to lunch.

Alma Hunter was waiting for me in the car. ‘I had to use sex appeal on a traffic cop,’ she said.

‘Good girl,’ I approved. ‘Let’s go to the Milestone Apartments, and I’ll do my stuff with Sally Durke.’

She turned to look back through the window in the rear of the car, at the traffic. As she twisted her neck free of the high collar of the silk blouse, I saw once more those dark, sinister bruises — the imprints left by thumb and fingers which had clutched her throat.

I said nothing. I had plenty of thinking of my own to do. She deftly swung the car out into traffic and drove to the Milestone Apartments.

‘Well,’ I said. ‘Here goes.’

‘Luck,’ she said with a smile.

‘Thanks.’

I walked across the street, looked over the list of names on the side of the door, and pressed the button opposite the name ‘S. L. Durke, 314.’

I was wondering just what a competent operative would do if Miss Durke wasn’t at home. But before I’d decided on an answer, the door buzzer indicated Miss Durke was home and was willing to see visitors without a palaver through the speaking tube.

I pushed the door as the buzzer released the catch, walked down a smelly corridor to where a patch of pale light marked the location of the automatic elevator. I closed the door, jabbed the button for the third floor, and went up.

As I raised my fingers to knock on the door of 314, a girl in dark blue silk pajamas opened the door, and said, ‘What is it?’

She was a blonde, and I figured her as an artificial blonde. She was somewhere on the sunny side of thirty, with a figure that pushed out at me through the silk of her pajamas. She said again, impatiently, ‘Well, what is it?’

Her voice was the only harsh thing about her.

‘I want to come in.’

‘Why?’

‘I want to talk.’

‘Well, come on in,’ she said.

She’d been polishing her fingernails. The buffer was on a coffee table near a couch. She walked back to the couch, made herself comfortable, picked up the buffer, critically inspected her nails, and said without looking up, ‘Well, what is it?’

‘I’m a detective,’ I told her.

Her eyes flashed up at mine then. For a moment there was a startled look on her face. Then she started to laugh. She quit laughing at the look on my face, and said, ‘ You are?’

I nodded.

‘Well, you don’t look it,’ she observed, trying to soften the blow of her laughter. ‘You look like a darn nice kid with ideals and a mother. I hope I didn’t hurt your feelings by laughing.’

‘No, I’m used to it.’

‘All right. You’re a detective. So what?’

‘I’m employed by Sandra Birks. Does that mean anything to you?’

She kept her eyes on the buffer as she polished her nails, apparently giving rapt attention to getting just the right sheen. ‘What’s Sandra Birks got to do with it?’ she asked at length.

‘She might have quite a good deal to do with it.’

‘I don’t know the lady.’

‘She’s the wife of Morgan Birks.’

‘Who’s Morgan Birks?’

‘Why, don’t you read the newspapers?’ I asked.

‘What if I do? Where do I come into the picture?’

I said, ‘Mrs. Birks could be pretty mean if she wanted to, you know.’

‘Could she?’

‘You know she could.’

‘And how am I supposed to know it?’

‘Let your conscience be your guide.’

She looked up at me and laughed harshly. ‘I haven’t any. I had to get rid of that long ago.’

‘Mrs. Birks,’ I said, ‘could drag you into court if she wanted to.’

‘On what ground?’

‘On the ground of being intimate with her husband.’

‘Don’t you take a lot for granted?’ she asked.

‘I don’t know. Do I?’

‘Go ahead. You’re talking. I’m listening — for a while.’

‘Well, I’m doing what I’ve been hired to do.’

‘And what’s that?’

‘Serve papers on Morgan Birks.’

‘What sort of papers?’

‘Divorce papers.’

‘Why come here?’

‘I think you can tell me where he is.’

‘Well, I can’t.’

‘If you could, there’d be a bit of coin in it for you.’

I saw her eyes light with interest. ‘How much coin?

‘Perhaps quite a bit. It depends.’

‘What does it depend on?’

‘What Mrs. Birks get out of it.’

‘No, thanks. I’m not interested. I don’t think that dodo can get a damn cent.’

‘Her divorce complaint doesn’t read that way.’

‘It takes more than a complaint to make a divorce. It takes a judgment of a court. Mrs. Birks is one of those baby-faced bitches who hide behind a mask of respectability. She’s been cheating on Morgan ever since they were married. If Morgan wanted to tell half of the things he’s got on her— Oh well, you’re talking, I’m listening.’