Howard Fast - The Case of the Poisoned Eclairs

“You got the three dames boxed up with Beckman. If you want me to go over there and lecture them, I will. I’ll talk them into staying put another night.”

“That won’t do it. He’s too aggressive, too bold. He’s running for his life now.”

“Well, damn it, Masao, what do you want me to do?”

“I want to pick him up.”

“Are you crazy?” Wainwright exploded. “Maybe you got another career lined up, but I got twenty years in this police force. What are you going to charge him with? Picking his nose in public? You got nothing on him, nothing but that crazy intuition of yours. I believe you because I know you and I seen this happen before, but you got nothing. Bring me something. Bring me the gun, and we’ll pick him up in a minute.”

“It wouldn’t help. He’s using Billy Fuller’s gun.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

“It means that Fuller’s gun was stolen.”

“Did he report it?”

“He only discovered the theft today.”

“And what makes you so sure our man stole it?”

“I’m not. Just another guess. You can be sure the gun will turn up, and then when the bullets are matched, it leads straight to Fuller.”

“And it’s also a beautiful alibi for Fuller.”

“Yes, it works both ways. You won’t pick him up then?”

“Masao, we can’t. All we’ll have is one beautiful lawsuit, and if he hits the city for a million bucks, we can pack up and go.”

“All right.”

“Where are you off to now?”

“Maybe to find the missing piece.”

Masuto started his car and pulled out of the driveway. It was only about a mile to Tony Cooper’s hairdressing establishment on Camden Drive. It was past six o’clock, and the streets of the business section were empty. Masuto wondered whether he had delayed too long.

He parked his car in front of the beauty shop, and through the glass window, it appeared to be a repeat of the night before. Cooper stood over a single customer, combing and shaping a head of black hair. He glanced at Masuto as the detective entered, raising an eyebrow. Masuto nodded, took a seat at the side of the room, and then sat silently and thoughtfully, watching Cooper. Cooper, he decided, was quick, skilled, and meticulous. He recognized the quality. Whatever Cooper did, he decided, he would do well. Why then had he come to hairdressing? Why does any man come to what he gives his life to? Why had Masao Masuto become a policeman?

Questions were easier than answers. The woman whose hair was being cut had fingernails as long as a Mandarin’s; they were painted bright red. They were claws on the ends of her long fingers, and above the hands, the wrists were encased in jeweled bracelets.

Cooper finsished. The woman signed the pad he held out to her. Masuto wondered what the monthly bill of a woman who used Tony Cooper’s hair-dressing shop amounted to.

Cooper took her to the door, and then closed and locked the door behind her. “Do you wait until you see me with my last customer?” he asked Masuto.

“Just a coincidence.”

He dropped into the chair next to Masuto and stretched out his legs. “Have you caught your killer yet?”

“I’m close.”

“But not close enough.”

“That’s right. Not close enough. It’s like putting a jigsaw puzzle together. You solve the puzzle, and then when you’ve finished, you discover that two or three pieces are missing.”

“I noticed you were looking at that woman’s fingernails,” Cooper said.

“You notice things. That’s a rare gift.”

“To a great many men, those long, painted red fingernails are pretty disgusting. I’ve had men tell me it’s a complete turnoff. Yet the women do it. I guess they feel it’s a sex symbol.”

“Or a class symbol. You don’t mop floors or play a piano with those fingernails,” Masuto said. “You know, the missing pieces can be the most important.”

“Missing pieces?”

“There’s no time left,” Masuto said. “There’s no time to play games. Anyway, I don’t like to play games. Not when someone’s life is at stake.”

“Don’t you tend to dramatize, Sergeant?”

“Now look,” Masuto said, “don’t be deceived by the fact that I don’t act the role of a TV cop. I’m not joking and I’m not playing games. I told you yesterday that I didn’t give a damn whether you were a homosexual or not. I don’t. But if you keep on lying to me, I’ll make you wish you were never born. I’ll slap more violations on you than you can carry. I’ll hound you right out of this town, and don’t think I’m making empty threats. So if you want me to walk out of here and forget that we ever met, just answer my questions and answer them truthfully.”

“You got one hell of a nerve! You can’t come in here-”

“I can and I am! Now why didn’t you tell me that Mitzie Fuller worked here?”

“You didn’t ask me.” He took a deep breath. “Anyway, she was only here a week and she only worked mornings.”

“Did the other women know her then?”

“No. That was before they became my customers.”

“Why did she leave?”

Cooper hesitated, and Masuto said, “I want it all. All-and quickly.”

“Because I wanted to marry her.”

“You’re gay.”

“And what you don’t know about gay, Mr. Detective, would fill a book. Sure I’m gay. That doesn’t mean I can’t fall in love with a woman. That doesn’t mean I can’t stop being gay.”

“But she didn’t marry you?”

“She would have. She just said that she saw too much of that kind of marriage end up as tragedy. She didn’t want to do it to me or to herself.”

“So she married Billy Fuller.”

“Yes.”

“They were married six months. What broke up that marriage after six months?”

“Why don’t you ask Mitzie? Why don’t you ask Fuller?”

“You know damn well that I asked them and that I got nowhere.”

“Maybe that’s the way it should be. Maybe there are some things that even cops don’t have the right to know.”

“Granted. I’m not curious, Cooper, and I’m not peddling gossip. I could guess the answer to the question I asked you, but it’s no damn use for me to guess. I have to know.”

Cooper sat with his legs stretched out, staring at his clasped hands. The moments ticked by. Finally he said, “You really think this creep intends to kill those dames?”

“Yes, I do.”

“Mitzie?”

“Yes, Mitzie.”

“Okay. Here it is. Mitzie was a hooker, a hundred-dollar-a-night hooker. Billy Fuller married her without knowing that. Can you imagine what it did to a man with Fuller’s phony macho when he found out? I’m amazed he didn’t try to kill her right then and there. Oh, he slapped her around all right. She showed me bruises the size of purple plums. But mostly he cried. Mitzie said if the little bastard weren’t so impossibly nasty, she would have felt sorry for him. That after he used her for a punching bag.”

“How did he find out?”

“You always got a good friend who’ll tell you what you don’t have to know.”

“But when she was married to him, she had stopped?”

“Hooking? Yes, of course.”

“I’m not up on all the folkways. Now exactly when did she begin to work as a prostitute?”

“Is that important?”

“Yes, very.”

“Mitzie is twenty-nine. She came to Los Angeles about eight years ago, dreaming the old impossible dream. And it is impossible, believe me. She worked around as a waitress, and that’s when I got to know her, maybe six years ago when she was waiting a joint around the corner. I talked her into a job here, because I wanted her around and because I thought she was the prettiest kid I ever saw. Well, she was already turning a trick every now and then, and after she left here, she didn’t go back to slinging hash.”