Dan Marlowe - The Fatal Frails

“A man died an' left it to me,” Johnny said. He waved them to chairs as he walked to the refrigerator. “Room an' all. You can have anything you like to drink, boys, if you don't mind it tastin' like bourbon.”

“I was forty years old before I knew they made anything but bourbon,” Harry Palmer grunted. The aggressive-looking little man seemed to be swallowed up in the depths of Johnny's armchair.

“Make mine a short one,” Ernest Faulkner said hastily. “Did you say a man left this to you in his will? I never heard of such a thing.”

“Neither had the hotel lawyers, but it stuck.” Johnny handed them each a drink and poured himself a shot. “If I'd known you were comin', I'd have iced the champagne.”

“Champagne!” Palmer snorted. “Just as soon drink vinegar.” He leaned back in the chair to look up at Johnny. “What kind of a man dies and leaves you with a place like this, Killain?”

“He owned the place. I was able to do him a couple favors one time,” Johnny said evenly. “In Italy.”

“Italy,” Palmer repeated with no change of expression, but Johnny saw that Ernest Faulkner's hand had whitened around his glass. The lawyer opened his mouth as though to speak, and then closed it again as Palmer continued. “That's where you met Dechant?”

“Not head-on. That came later.”

“Later,” Palmer repeated again. He drained half his drink, held the balance up to the light to study it critically, nodded, finished it off and set down his glass. He folded his hands together with his elbows resting on the arms of his chair. “You know what the password is in this game, Killain?”

“I know a password.” Johnny emphasized the indefinite article. “August Hegel.”

“That's the one,” the little man admitted, and looked at Ernest Faulkner.

“There's no way he could have known,” the lawyer said huskily. “Claude told his business to no one. You know that.”

“I know nothing,” Harry Palmer declared flatly. “Especially in the light of what you tell me of the state of his affairs.” He turned to Johnny, briskly assertive. “I don't know where you stand on this thing, Killain, but I know where I stand. Dechant died owing me a lot of money. I thought I was protected, but, if matters continue to shape up as they have to date, I'll wind up with the feathers from the chicken. I wouldn't like that, Killain. It could leave me looking to do business with a smart young fellow.”

“Faulkner's your lawyer, too?” Johnny asked.

Harry Palmer smiled. “Let's say I pay him a retainer.”

The lawyer's too-white face pinked up. He settled his heavy horn-rimmed glasses more firmly on the bridge of his delicate-looking nose. “There's an interrelationship of interests which permits-” he began, and was cut off by the brash little man.

“Stow it, Ernest. Save it for your tear-wet pillow.” He addressed himself to Johnny again. “You don't look like the type to me to split legal hairs, and you can damn well bet your second-best store teeth that I'm not, either. I'm in the process of finding out that Dechant's been playing me for a fool right along. I don't like it. All the importing he did-with my money, the bastard-was just a blind for whatever else he was doing. He never made a quarter on his legitimate operations. He bought and sold over and over again at cost, even at a small loss. Since he lived like a maharajah ever since I've known him, it leaves me wondering where the money came from.”

Palmer grinned at the obviously unhappy Faulkner. “I'm indebted to Ernest for the information as to the lack of financial righteousness in Claude's affairs. Ernest is sweating it out, because as Dechant's lawyer he signed a lot of little pieces of paper he now knows had no basis in fact. Ernest is afraid he's going to wind up as the bagman. I'm afraid I'm not going to get my money.” He shook free a cigarette from the pack he removed from his breast pocket. He offered it to Johnny, who refused. “So what are you afraid of, Killain?”

“That no one'll pay me enough for my trouble.” Johnny lifted his own empty glass. “Refill?”

“No, thanks.” Harry Palmer leaned forward in his chair. “A couple of people approached me recently-at different times, that is-about giving them a hand with the recovery of an object that had been the subject of some mismanagement.” He grinned faintly. “I wasn't interested, until I found out what kind of a jackpot I was in trying to get my money out of Dechant's screwed-up estate. Right now I could be interested as hell, if you're for real. Tremaine told me you were over at his place this afternoon making noises that you knew something. Arends told me that you were over at his place raising general hell. Before he died.” He paused. “That's something I'd like to know a little more about. Jack Arends was a good friend of mine.” He turned to accept the lawyer's proffered light for the cigarette, which had remained unlighted in his mouth during his speech. He puffed hard twice, and with a wave of his hand dismissed Jack Arends as well as the cloud of smoke around his head. “You gave me the password, Killain.” He stared at Johnny keenly. “I want my hands on something that'll give me a lever toward recovering my money. Do you come in that door?”

“If the door's marked Money.”

Harry Palmer removed a folded-over checkbook from an inside jacket pocket, spread it on his knee and wrote swiftly with a fountain pen. He ripped the check from the book and waved it in the air to dry, leaned forward and handed it to Johnny. “It's not signed, Killain. You turn the stuff over to Tremaine. When he tells me it's the right stuff, I'll sign the check.”

Johnny looked down at the unsigned check in his hand for forty thousand dollars. He flicked it between thumb and forefinger so that it sailed back onto Palmer's lap. “You talk like a man without good sense, Palmer. I don't do business with checks, signed or unsigned. I don't do business with Tremaine, if you're the buyer. I do business with you. For cash.”

“Now don't go off half cocked, boy,” the little man warned him. “I never appear in these things personally. And, as for the check, ask around a little. I think you'll find out that when Harry Palmer says he'll do a thing, Harry Palmer delivers the goods.”

“No cash, no deal, Palmer.” Johnny walked back to the refrigerator and refilled his glass. “It's not enough, anyway.” He leveled a finger at the man in the chair. “I've already had a better offer than yours, but I haven't seen the color of any money there yet, either. I'll tell you right now, the first with the gelt gets the stuff.”

“You've been offered more?” The little man's eyes had narrowed. “I don't believe it. There aren't enough people-” He looked around impatiently as Ernest Faulkner leaned over the arm of his chair to tug at his sleeve. The lawyer murmured in an undertone.

Harry Palmer first looked thoughtful, then shrugged and bounced abruptly to his feet. “You think it over, Killain. And don't try to outsmart a man that makes his living at it. Come on, Ernest.” From the door he looked back at Johnny. “Killain. If it stays like this, I go for myself, understood? No hard feelings if your corns get trampled?” He grinned, waved and disappeared.

He'd overplayed that hand a little, Johnny decided as the door closed behind them. Still, he couldn't afford to let himself be cornered. He'd hear from Palmer again.

He finished his drink and rinsed out the glasses in the bathroom. With all these people milling around, where could the thing be? Or, if one of them had it, could it be that he'd be afraid to come to the surface with it for fear the sharks would tear his throat out?

He left the glasses to drain, and returned to the elevator and the lobby.