Michael Collins - The brass rainbow

There was no answer to my ringing. I looked up and down the empty corridor. The door had an ordinary spring lock, with enough gap between door and frame. I took out the stiff plastic rectangle I carry, slipped it between door and frame and against the lock, and pressed hard. I worked the rectangle. The lock gave with a click and I skinned a knuckle.

Inside I switched on the light. The risk was worth not being taken for a burglar. It was a gaudy apartment of chrome, plastic and bad modern-designed without art and selected without taste. The main room was a mess, as if it was lived in by someone who was rebelling against his mother who had made him pick up his toys and dirty clothes when he was a boy. A poker table was strewn with cards, and a toy roulette wheel on the couch was surrounded by loose chips.

I went to work looking through the chests, bookcases, table drawers, and the one desk. For what? Something to connect Walter Radford to Paul Baron or anyone else except Weiss. I didn’t find much: books about gambling; decks of cards; Playbills; dirty paper napkins with figures scrawled on them; letters that proved that the Radford-Ames family was large and that Walter had a lot of friends. From the way the letters read, the friends were from prep school and college and hadn’t changed much.

There was a small, 7-mm. Belgian automatic in a drawer. It was loaded. There was a large address book filled, mostly, with the names of men and gilt-edged business outfits. Paul Baron’s name did not appear in the address book or anywhere else. I became hypnotized by the slow reading. The sound of the elevator jerked me out of it.

I jumped to the light switch. Maybe it was someone for another apartment. It wasn’t. The footsteps stopped outside the door. I slid into the bedroom, behind the door.

The outside door opened. The lights went on. A long pause.

“Walter? Are you here, Walter?”

A woman’s voice, low. I waited. She moved and a drawer opened. I heard her pick up the telephone. I pressed against the door to try to hear. I didn’t have to try. She spoke loud and clear:

“I have a pistol. I am calling the police. You left marks on the rug. If you have no reason to be here, come out with both hands in front of you. If I don’t see your hands, I shoot.”

Her voice was quiet, cultured and steady-a finishing-school voice. She didn’t sound scared. I was. There are a lot of dangers for a one-armed man. This was one of them.

I said, loud, “I have only one hand. I’ll come out of the bedroom with my right hand out, my left shoulder forward.”

I stepped out-nervous. I showed my left side.

“Sit down,” she said, looking at my stump. “On the couch.”

I sat.

“Who are you? Who let you in? Walter?”

She had the Belgian automatic in her right hand, the telephone in her left. A young woman with a fine, classic oval face and no make-up. Chestnut hair hung long on her shoulders. Tallish, she had good legs. She probably had good hips and breasts, but the severe blue suit she wore did not display her hips, and in the suit she had nothing as obvious as breasts; she had a bosom.

The way she used Walter Radford’s first name, the fact that she had a key, and the way she looked at my empty sleeve told me who she had to be. George Ames must have described my arm.

“No, Miss Fallon,” I said. “I’m afraid I came snooping.”

“You’re the private detective Uncle George reported?”

“Dan Fortune,” I acknowledged.

“Show me,” she said, “and open your coat.”

“I don’t carry a gun,” I said, but I carefully opened both sides of my coat. Then I fished out my wallet and tossed my license to her.

She picked it up and looked at it. She did not put down the automatic, but she had put down the telephone. I felt a little better. I hadn’t wanted to face Gazzo again.

“Uncle George said the police were going to stop you.”

“I guess I talk faster than Ames,” I said. “The police can make mistakes, Miss Fallon, and they really want the truth.”

“They aren’t convinced that this Weiss creature killed Uncle Jonathan?”

“They’re convinced, but they’re willing to let me waste my time-grudgingly.”

She nodded slowly, thinking. She put the gun down on the telephone table, sat down, and lighted a cigarette.

“So you came here to investigate Walter?”

The word for Deirdre Fallon was “poised.” That was something of a surprise, since she didn’t look a day over twenty. The second word was “class.” Neat, graceful class. The third word I had in mind was “virginal,” but there was something about the way she handled her body that held me back on that word.

“I came to talk to Walter,” I said. “He wasn’t here. I decided to nose around. I’d still like to talk to Walter.”

“Walter is in North Chester at his mother’s. At least I supposed he was. When I saw those marks on the rug…”

“It was possible he was here,” I said. “He could have let me in. That was lucky for me. Now maybe I could talk to you?”

“To me?”

“You had lunch with Jonathan Radford. Where?”

“The Charles XII on Lexington Avenue.”

“How was he? His mood?”

“Normal, I’d say. Perhaps a little testy.”

“As if he had something on his mind?”

“I suppose so. I didn’t notice at the time. We talked about Walter and myself.”

“Did anything happen? Anything unusual?”

“No. We talked, ate, and went home. Walter wasn’t at the apartment, so I left. As I was leaving, this fat man in an awful old overcoat rang the bell and asked for Jonathan. I sent him into the study and left.”

“Did you know Walter owed $25,000?”

“Yes. Walter gambles and usually loses. It’s happened before.” There was a kind of weariness in her voice.

“You don’t gamble with him?”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because you apparently didn’t know Weiss. Or did you?”

“No, I didn’t know him. I don’t know him.”

“So if Walter owed the $25,000 to Weiss, he must have lost the money without you around.”

She stabbed her cigarette out in an ashtray, stood, and walked to the picture window of the room. The window gave a fine view of shadowy tenements. I had a better view-her lean, but curved figure against the night sky. She stood there, lighted another cigarette, then turned and went back to her chair.

“Weiss was only a messenger. Sent to try to collect,” she said. “Walter owed the money to a man named Paul Baron. It happened over a period of time.”

“You know Paul Baron?”

“I know Mr. Baron. A smooth animal. Walter told him that Jonathan wouldn’t pay this time. He told Baron that he would pay the debt off in installments. It seems that Baron had other ideas.”

“Do the police know that the money was owed to Baron?”

“No. Walter is afraid of Baron. He sees no reason to involve Baron. Weiss came to Jonathan, not Baron.”

“It was Baron’s $25,000,” I said.

“You think we should tell the police?”

“I know you should.”

“Yes, all right, but I’d rather Walter told them.”

“As long as someone does,” I said. “Where did you go after you left Jonathan with Weiss?”

“To my hairdresser. I had a one-thirty appointment. I was there until three-thirty. Is that what you want to know?”

“Yes,” I said. “Where was Walter all this time? He and Ames say they left the apartment before noon, right?”

“He took the twelve-ten train from Grand Central for North Chester. He was there all afternoon. He was there when Jonathan was… found.” Her voice rose in pitch, the words coming out faster. “Uncle George was at his club. Mrs. Radford was there, but could not get in. I don’t know where three hundred cousins were! The butler was in North Chester!”