Джеймс Чейз - You’re Lonely When You’re Dead

‘And who do you suggest would do such a thing?’ he asked in a voice like the splintering of ice.

‘You would know that better than I. It’s my job to point out the angles. You and Mrs. Cerf and your daughter didn’t get on. It’s an angle.’

His face took on a deeper hue and an ugly glitter came into his eyes.

‘You’ll leave my daughter out of this!’ he said angrily.

‘I’ll do that, certainly,’ I said. ‘If that’s the way you feel about it.’

I gave him a moment or so to cool down, then asked, ‘What made you go to Mrs. Cerf’s cupboard in the first place? Were you expecting to find that suitcase or did you happen on it by accident?’

‘I believe my wife is being blackmailed,’ he said, steadying his voice with an effort. ‘I went through her things in the hope of finding some sort of proof and I came across the suitcase.’

‘What makes you think she’s being blackmailed?’

‘I give her a monthly allowance,’ he said as if each word stuck in his throat. ‘Far more than she needs. She isn’t used to money, and I took the precaution to arrange with her bank to send me a duplicate of her passbook. I felt I should keep a check on her expenditure, anyway for the first year or so of our married life. She has drawn out three very large sums of money during the past month.’

‘How large?’ I asked, thinking it couldn’t be much fun to be married to a man like this.

‘Five, ten and fifteen thousand dollars.’

‘Made out to anyone in particular?’

He shook his head.

‘Bearer cheques.’

‘And you think someone may have found out that Mrs. Cerf has stolen these articles and is blackmailing her?’

‘I think it’s possible.’ He scowled out of the window. ‘I want you to keep track of Mrs. Cerf when she goes shopping. I don’t want a scandal. If she has a tendency to pilfer I want you to see she isn’t arrested. I want her watched night and day, and her movements reported to me. I want to know who she meets: particularly who she meets.’

‘I can do that all right. I have a girl who’s been trained for just this kind of work. Her name is Dana Lewis. She can be on the job this afternoon. Is that what you want?’

He said it was.

‘You’ll get an estimate for the work we intend to do by tomorrow morning. In the meantime I’ll tell Miss Lewis to report to you at three o’clock this afternoon if that’ll suit you. She had better not come here, had she? Where should she meet you?’

‘At the Athletic Club. Tell her I’ll be in the ladies’ lounge.’

I got up.

‘I’ll do that. There’s just one more thing,’ I said as he pressed the bell-push. ‘I take it you’re anxious that no one, including Mrs. Cerf and your daughter, should know you are hiring me for this work.’

He stared at me.

‘Of course. What do you mean?’

‘When you telephoned my office this morning did you use the phone in this room?’

He nodded, frowning.

‘And there are extensions in other parts of the house?’

‘There are.’

‘I’d be careful what you say on the phone, Mr. Cerf. I ran into your daughter on my way up here. She knew I was from Universal Services.’

A wary look came into his eyes.

‘All right, Malloy. You get on with your job. I’ll look after this end of it,’ he said evenly.

‘Just so long as you know,’ I said and turned to the door as the butler came in.

I made the long trek down to the front door in silence, and when the butler gave me my hat and a bow I said, ‘Is Mrs. Cerf around?’

He looked sharply at me, a frosty expression in his eyes.

‘I believe she is in the swimming pool, sir,’ he said distantly. ‘Did you wish to see her?’

‘No. I was just wondering. Big place for three people to get lost in, isn’t it?’

He didn’t seem to think that called for an answer. He opened the door.

‘Good day, sir,’ he said.

‘So long,’ I said and set off along the esplanade wondering if Natalie Cerf was still sunning herself in the loggia. But she wasn’t. There was no sign of her.

As I was descending the broad flight of stone steps to the parking lot a girl in a bathing wrap came briskly along a path that led away to the back of the house. She was tall and ash-blonde, and there was a sultry, don’t-give-a-damn expression on her face that had too much character to be labelled pretty. At a guess she was twenty-seven or thirty, not more, and she had beautiful, wide-set grey eyes.

I looked at her and she looked at me. A half-smile came to her full red lips, but I wasn’t sure if she were smiling at me or at something she was thinking about: a difficult kind of smile to classify.

As she ran up the steps towards me she let her wrap swing open. She had a shape under that wrap to set a man crazy, and the two emerald-green handkerchiefs that served as a sun-suit were just a shade too small for the job.

She went past me, and I pivoted around on my heels. Half-way along the esplanade she looked back over her shoulder, raised pencilled eyebrows and smiled. There was no mistake about the smile this time.

I was still standing there, pointing like a gun dog, when she turned the corner of the terrace and I lost sight of her.

The offices of Universal Services occupied two rooms on the tenth floor of Orchid Buildings, the biggest of all the palatial business blocks in the city. At the back of Orchid Buildings runs a narrow alley that is used primarily as a parking lot for the cars belonging to the executives and their various staffs working in the building, and at the far end of the alley is Finnegan’s Bar.

After I had talked over the Cerf assignment with Paula, I went across to the bar, and as I expected, found Dana Lewis with Ed Benny and Jack Kerman grouped around a table in one of the alcoves.

Dana, Benny, Kerman and I worked as a team. I handled the administrative side of a job while they did the legwork.

‘Hello, Vic,’ Dana said, patting a chair beside her. ‘Come and sit down. Where have you been all the morning?’

She was a nice-looking kid, well put together, and smart.

‘I have a job for you,’ I said, sitting down. ‘Hi, boys!’ I went on to the other two. ‘You’ll be in on this if it works out the way I think it will, so take your brains out of pickle and show some intelligence.’

‘Listen, kiss of death,’ Benny said, helping himself to a slug of Irish, ‘We were working last night so lay off us will you?’

‘One of those jobs Sourpuss Bensinger keeps up her girdle specially for us,’ Kerman said with a grimace. ‘We had to escort a couple of old mares to the Casino. And when I say old, they made Rip Van Winkle’s mother look like Margaret O’Brien. Can you imagine?’

Kerman was tall and dapper; dark, lazy looking and distinctly handsome. He had a broad streak of white in his thick black hair and a Clark Gable moustache. Benny was just the opposite. He was short and thickset, and his red face looked as if it were fashioned out of rubber. He seemed to pride himself on dressing like a scarecrow, and was the most untidy-looking guy I have ever seen.

But they were both good operators, and we got along fine together in spite of a lot of kidding.

‘Never mind these two,’ Dana broke in impatiently. ‘They’re a couple of no-good rats. They wanted to shoot craps for my frillies and the dice was loaded. How’s that for meanness?’

‘Aw, forget it,’ Benny said, giving her a shove that nearly sent her off her chair. ‘I don’t believe you wear frillies anyway.’

‘That’s no way to treat a lady,’ I said severely.

‘I treat her the way I treat my sister,’ Benny said, putting a large hand on top of Dana’s cute little hat and pushing it over her nose. ‘Don’t I, pally?’