Michael Collins - Shadow of a Tiger

While Marx’s men went on working over the shop, the Lieutenant began to question them all about the time element. After a few moments I stopped listening-none of them could really prove where they had been for most of the night. That was normal, so I let their voices fade to a drone in my mind, and began to check all the windows and the two doors. I studied the odd way the shop had been searched-almost at random.

I was still thinking about the search, when Marx told us all to come to the precinct station with him.

In the Lieutenant’s cubicle command office off the squad room, I told him my story again. In murder, I don’t often hold back from the police. It doesn’t pay in the long run. Then Marx took them one at a time. Jimmy Sung was first.

The gray-haired Chinese shrugged. “I don’t know nothing about Mr. Marais. I work in the shop six months-noon to five. We get along fine, ask anyone. Some punk robber, I figure.”

He had no accent. Only an odd order of words showed that English had not been his first language. The words were pure American, a colloquial slum vocabulary; the manner flip, direct.

“You left about five last night?”

“Sure. Fortune saw me.”

“You didn’t go back to the shop?”

“Noon to five, that’s all I work.”

“Did Mr. Marais stay late often?”

“Not on your life. He ran home fast to Brooklyn.”

“Why did he stay last night?”

“Who knows, Lieutenant?”

“You can’t tell us anything, Jimmy?”

Jimmy Sung shrugged. “I think he got something on his mind, he don’t tell me what. Five o’clock, I go home.”

I said, “You play chess, Jimmy?”

His watery eyes looked at me, solemn. “Sometimes. Not last night, no sir.”

Claude Marais still looked cold in his heavy jacket. His wife, Li, still looked like a small, silent cat in her chair that faced Marx behind his littered desk.

“What was bothering your brother, Mr. Marais?” Marx said.

“Nothing that I know,” Claude Marais said.

I said, “What about that Gerd Exner? You seemed to think that Eugene might have hired me to stop Exner reaching you.”

“Who else would be interested in my affairs? A mistake.”

“You came back to the shop about eight-thirty last night?” Marx said.

“Eugene called me. Plans for a family weekend.”

“He called you?” Marx said. “Why was he at the store?”

“I don’t know.”

“Why did your wife hire Fortune? Who is Gerd Exner?”

“An old business associate.”

“What business?”

“Buying and selling.” Claude Marais shrugged. “Trading, you see? Mostly in the Orient and Africa. It is past for me.”

“You usually carry guns? You and your associates?”

“I have not lived in a peaceful world, Lieutenant. Mostly remote areas, unsettled countries. I have a valid permit.”

“Why did your wife hire Fortune to stop this Exner?”

“A misunderstanding. She thought I was afraid of Exner. A simple error, that is all.”

Li Marais said nothing, but she gave a slow nod as if to agree. I wasn’t sure I believed the nod.

I said, “You play chess, Claude?”

“I never learned peaceful games.”

“Was the chess game set up when you were there at nine?”

Claude thought. “I think it was. It often was.”

“It wasn’t when I was there about five,” I said.

Lieutenant Marx said, “You left your brother alive about nine o’clock, Marais. You went back to your hotel with Danielle. About six A.M. you were in Fortune’s apartment. Where were you in between those times?”

“In my room with my wife,” Claude Marais said.

“Anyone who can prove that?”

“Only my wife.”

Marx didn’t even bother to ask Li Marais.

Danielle Marais didn’t sit down. The heavy girl stood defiant in front of Lieutenant Marx’s desk, glared at me, her oversize breasts like jelly under the tight blouse.

“I went to my father’s store to borrow some money, that’s all. I don’t know why my father was working late. I left with Uncle Claude. My boy friend picked me up at Uncle Claude’s hotel. We were together all night. I never saw my dad again. I don’t know anything. Nothing!”

The words poured out, a torrent. Ready, as if she had a tape recording in her mind she only had to turn on. Memorized, defensive, defying before Marx had attacked.

“Did you get the money?” Marx said dryly.

“What?” she said, deflated. “No. He didn’t have it.”

“Your boy friend is Charlie Burgos?”

She nodded. “We went to his pad. We were there all night. You know that, your men picked me up there.”

“But not Charlie. He wasn’t there, was he? You’re sure he was with you all night, and you never went home?”

“I’m not a kid,” the girl said scornfully. “And Charlie was with me all night-in bed! You can’t say he wasn’t!”

“I didn’t try-yet,” Marx said.

She bit her full lips, glared at the Lieutenant like a child caught in some crime and rebuked.

Marx said, “Did Charlie have a key to the pawn shop? Your key, maybe?”

“You’re crazy! I don’t have a key!”

I said, “Charlie’s a punk, Danielle, a schemer. Not his fault, maybe, but he’ll drag you down. He’s too smart to sink into the slums, but not smart enough to get out a straight way.”

“Charlie’s smarter than any of you!” Danielle said hotly. “He’s going places, big places, and I’m going with him!”

“Why, Danielle?” I said. “You’re no street kid. You have a good home, plenty of chances. You don’t belong in the slums.”

“You and my parents! I love Charlie, you hear? He’s a real man. He’s not a fat nothing who can’t even make money out of a pawn shop!”

“What can Charlie make money out of?” Marx snapped.

“Anything!” she sneered. “Charlie’s a leader.”

“A leader in a cheap sewer, Danielle,” I said. “You weren’t surprised to find your father dead, were you? I think you knew he was dead before the police came. Was it an accident, Danielle? Charlie Burgos was robbing the store, and-”

“Charlie was in bed with me! All night! You can’t make me say anything else! Some dumb robber, that’s all! Or maybe ask Uncle Claude! He was supposed to go back to the shop. I heard my father tell him to come back!”

Claude Marais said, “I didn’t go back. Eugene called it off.”

“I don’t suppose you can prove it?” Marx said.

“The hotel switchboard took a call for me from Eugene around eleven. Maybe they listened.”

“It wouldn’t prove anything anyway, would it?” Marx said. “You could have gone back anyway.”

“I could have,” Claude Marais agreed. “But I didn’t.”

I sat with Marx in his office. “What do you think?”

“Robbery,” Marx said, “what else? Pawn shop. A prime target for small-timers, junkies, street kids.”

“Three hundred in cash left? The safe not touched?”

“Panic. Points even more to junkies or kids.”

“Maybe,” I said. “What was actually taken?”

“We’re still checking. Marais kept lousy records. Jimmy Sung and the wife, Viviane, are helping us check.”

“Does the wife have an alibi?”

Marx sighed. “She was home all night-alone.”

“So no one has an alibi. Jimmy Sung was curled up alone with his bottle. When I tailed the brother to the shop, he had to knock. The door was locked. I checked all doors and windows. No marks of entry, and most windows barred. Either the killer had a key, or Eugene Marais let him in. Which makes it an inside job. But then more should have been taken. With Eugene Marais dead, the killer had plenty of time.”

“Except that he panicked when he saw Marais was dead.”