Richard Deming: No Pockets in a Shroud

A rapidly diminishing crowd filed out singly as a cop at the door recorded names and addresses. No one at all sat at the bar. I slid onto a bar stool, Mrs. Wade took the one to my left and Fausta moved naturally in between us, smiling up at me vindictively.

I grinned down at her, crooked my finger at the man behind the bar and ordered five drinks. None of us said anything while the bartender put together our order. When it was served, Mrs. Wade raised her glass to me.

“To new acquaintances.”

We all raised our glasses and Fausta said: “To old acquaintance.”

We drank to both.

Mrs. Wade asked: “Could I talk to you privately sometime, Mr. Moon?”

“On purely business?” Fausta wanted to know, and she smiled her sweetest sulphuric smile.

“On purely business,” Mrs. Wade assured her. Her eyes lingered innocently on Fausta, then returned to me. “You’re a private detective, aren’t you, Mr. Moon?”

“My license says so.”

“When could I see you — on purely business?”

“Tomorrow.” I passed her a card. “My fiat is my office and I’m usually awake by noon.”

“I’ll be there at one.” She slipped the card into her purse and smiled sidewise at Fausta.

Fausta moved around to my right, dug her elbow into Mouldy Greene’s side and climbed onto the stool he suddenly vacated.

“Me, you never invite to your flat,” she hissed in my ear.

“You’re too young,” I hissed back.

Her dark eyes snapped, but a demure smile curved her lips as she quietly gouged a spike heel into my instep. I grinned down at her, undisturbed. She had chosen my aluminum foot.

I finished breakfast at 12:45 the following afternoon, just as my doorbell rang. It was Mrs. Wade.

She chose one side of the divan, crossed her legs and deliberately examined rounded knees to assure herself they were sufficiently exposed. I poured rye in two glasses and raised an eyebrow at her.

“Soda.”

I let fizz into her glass, added water to my own and relaxed in a chair facing her. She carried the same enormous bag she had the previous evening. Zipping it open, she produced a silver case.

“Cigarette?”

I shook my head and scratched a match for her. Her cigarette aglow, she leaned her head against the divan back and inhaled slowly. She showed no hurry to open conversation. By the time her cigarette was half gone and neither of us had spoken, I began to grow impatient.

I said: “What’s on your mind, Mrs. Wade?”

She smiled, making the corners of her eyes crinkle slyly. “Maybe I just want to get better acquainted.”

“Sure. Love at first sight. Every woman I meet feels it. Now, what’s on your mind?”

Her eyes remained bright, but she smoothed away the smile and let her face grow serious. “I want you to solve this murder.”

I fished a cigar from the end-table humidor and set fire to it before answering. Then I asked: “Why?”

The question seemed to surprise her. “What difference does it make why? I want it solved.”

“Don’t you think the police can solve it?”

“No.” She stated it definitely, as though there were no question in her mind.

“But you think I can?”

She punched out her cigarette and immediately took another from her case. I held a match for her.

“I don’t know whether you can solve it or not,” she said. “If what I think is true, you probably won’t be able to prove anything. That is, you won’t be able to find evidence enough to convict anyone. But I don’t care about that, if you can just find out what happened.”

“What do you think happened?”

She blew smoke from her nose, watching me from half lidded eyes. “Will you take the case?”

I grinned at her. “Meaning you tell me nothing until I commit myself?”

She nodded.

“O.K. I’ll take it. But before we go any farther, you’ll have to listen to a short speech I sometimes inflict on my clients. Ready?”

“You mean like anything I say may be used against me?”

“Something like that.”

“How dramatic. I’m ready.”

“Once I take a case,” I said, “I follow it until I get the answer. And I don’t care whose toes I step on in the process. If the investigation turns in a direction you don’t like, you may stop my pay, but you can’t take me off the ease.”

She thought about this for a minute. “I think I know what you mean.”

“A few minutes ago you remarked that all you wanted was the answer and you didn’t care about the murderer being convicted. I play for keeps. If I crack the case, the police get all the evidence I dig up.”

“You misunderstood me,” she protested. “I meant you probably wouldn’t be able to find evidence. He’s more clever than he looks.”

“Who?”

She leaned forward to kill her second cigarette and kept her eyes on the tray as she spoke. “Let’s stop fencing. We both think my husband hired Louis killed. I heard most of what you told the inspector.” Then she straightened and looked squarely in my face. “If Byron had him killed, I hope he hangs.”

I said: “They use gas in this state.”

She dug out a third cigarette while I filled her empty glass. When she was settled with both a light and a drink, she started to talk.

“I’m not familiar with murder,” she said, “so I don’t know how much you’ll have to know. Suppose I go back two years?”

“Sounds like a nice distance,” I agreed.

“Two years ago I was the wife of a man named Arthur O’Conner. He was a bookie in Chicago. One of Byron’s bookies. We weren’t any bargain as a married couple, but we got along. Then I met Byron.”

She paused and took a long drag on her cigarette. I imitated her with my cigar and waited for her to get started again.

“I’m not going to paint myself whiter than I am. I started playing around with Byron. But I was only playing. He gave me things Arthur couldn’t. Nice clothes and a little jewelry. I know it was wrong, but I never intended to leave Arthur. Not that I loved him particularly, but I was fonder of him than I was of Byron,

“Byron wanted me to divorce Arthur and marry him. I said no, but he kept insisting. Finally the situation became impossible and I told Byron I wasn’t going to see him any more. The next night Arthur was killed.”

She stopped and stared into her glass. I couldn’t think of anything else to say, so I said: “Yes?”

“He was run over by an elevated. They called it an accident, but no one decided just how he got up on the elevated track.”

She raised her head and looked squarely at me again. “Maybe I’m rotten for marrying the man I half suspect had my husband killed, but that’s what I did. I’m not making any bones about it. I married Byron because he had money. And of course I didn’t really know he was responsible for Arthur’s death. It was merely a possibility. But a second man dying is too coincidental. Is any of this important?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “But it’s certainly entertaining. Keep it up.”

“What I think,” she confided, “is that Byron found out I was seeing Louis and had him killed, just as he had Arthur killed.”

I asked: “Did your husband know you were at El Patio last night?”

“Oh yes. He knew I went there every Monday and Wednesday, but he thought it was for roulette... At least that’s what I thought he thought, until Louis was killed.”

“Were you in love with Bagnell?”

She looked surprised. “Of course not. I found him interesting, but it wasn’t love.” She stared at me petulantly for a moment. “I know I’m making myself sound like a tramp, but I’m not one really. You have to know how I feel about Byron to understand. I never loved him, and I haven’t kissed him in over a year. Legally we’re married and Ave live in the same apartment, but I don’t feel married, so I don’t act it.”