James Chase - This Way for a Shroud

He swung the car down a narrow lane that ran alongside the east wall and drove for a quarter of a mile, his headlights stabbing the thick darkness that now lay around him. From time to time he glanced in his driving mirror, but he could see no lights of any following car behind him. Ahead of him iron gates suddenly appeared in the glare of his headlights, and he slowed down, reached forward and flicked the lights on and off four times; twice fast, twice slow.

The gates opened and he drove through, pulling up by the guard-house.

A thick-set man wearing a peak cap peered through the window at him, raised his hand in a casual salute and waved him to drive on.

McCann engaged gear and followed the circular road to the club. He pulled up at a side door and got out. Another man in a peak cap slid into the driving scat and drove the car to a nearby garage.

McCann walked up the stone steps to a massive door, rapped four times, twice fast, twice slow, on the bronze knocker, and the door opened.

“Good evening, sir,” a voice said out of the darkness.

McCann grunted and moved forward. He heard the door shut behind him, then lights sprang on. He continued down a long passage without looking back, paused outside another massive door and knocked again, using the same signal.

Louis Seigel, Maurer’s personal bodyguard and manager of the Paradise Club, opened the door.

Seigel was tall and’ dark, and notorious for his good looks. Ten years ago he had been known to the police and to his fellow mobster as ‘Louis the Looker’, but since hooking up with Maurer he had acquired more dignity, and the tag had been dropped. He was around twenty-nine to thirty years of age, squarejawed, blue-eyed and sun-tanned. An old razor scar that ran from his left eye to his nose gave him a swashbuckling appearance, and his carefully cultivated smile that showed big, gleaming teeth, was a devastating weapon against women, and women were Seigel’s principal interest in life.

“Come in, Captain,” he said, showing McCann his teeth. “The boss will be out in a minute. What’ll you drink?”

McCann looked at Seigel out of the corners of his hard little eyes.

“A Scotch, I guess.” He found it difficult to be civil to this smooth, goodlooking hood. He glanced around the luxurious room, lavishly furnished in excellent taste, and moved ponderously over to the mantelpiece and set his great shoulders against it.

Seigel walked to the bar, fixed a Scotch and soda and brought it over.

“The boss was a little surprised at your message. He had to cancel a theatre date. No trouble, I hope, Captain?” he said, handing the glass to McCann.

McCann gave a short barking laugh.

“Trouble? That’s not the half of it! If you guys don’t handle this right, the whole goddamn lid’s coming off — that’s how bad it is!”

Seigel raised his eyebrows. He disliked McCann as much as McCann disliked him.

“Then I guess we’ll have to handle it right,” he said, and moved back to the bar. As he was pouring himself a whisky, he added with a sneering little smile, “We usually do handle things right, Captain.”

“There’s always a first time not to handle it right,” McCann growled, annoyed he hadn’t scared Seigel.

A door by the bar opened and Jack Maurer came in, followed by Abe Gollowitz, his attorney.

Maurer was a short, squat man around fifty. He had put on some weight during the past three or four years. His swarthy fleshy face showed a heavy beard shadow. His thick, oily black hair was turning grey at the temples, but the greyness didn’t soften his face, which reminded McCann of a photograph he had once seen of the death mask of Beethoven. At first glance Maurer would strike anyone as no different from the thousand rich, powerful business men who vacationed in Pacific City, but a closer examination would show there was a difference. He had the flat snake’s eyes of the gangster; eyes that glittered and were as cold and as hard as frozen pebbles.

Gollowitz, one of the most brilliant attorneys on the Coast, was built on the same lines as Maurer, only he was fatter, older and going bald. He had thrown up his lucrative practice to handle Maurer’s business and legal affairs, and had succeeded so brilliantly that he was now Maurer’s second-in-command.

“Glad to see you, Captain,” Maurer said, crossing to shake hands. “You’ve got all you want — a cigar, perhaps?”

“Sure,” McCann said, who believed in never refusing anything.

Seigel offered a cigar box and McCann took a fat, torpedo-shaped cigar, sniffed at it and nodded his head. He bit off the end, accepted the light which Seigel held out to him, puffed smoke to the ceiling and nodded his head again.

“A damn fine cigar, Mr. Maurer.”

“Yes. I have them made for me.” Maurer looked over at Seigel. “Have a thousand sent to the Captain’s home, Louis.”

“Why, no; I can’t accept a present like that,” McCann said, his thin mouth widening into a pleased smile. “Good of you, all the same.”

“Nonsense,” Maurer said, and walked over to an armchair. He sat down. “I insist. If you don’t want them, give them away.”

Gollowitz was watching this by-play with increasing impatience. He took the Scotch and soda Seigel offered him, then sat down near Maurer.

“Well, what’s the trouble?” he asked abruptly.

McCann looked at him. He didn’t like Gollowitz. He wasn’t exactly scared of him, but he knew he was dangerous, not in the same way as Maurer was dangerous, but he was too full of legal tricks and too close to the politicians.

McCann leaned forward and stabbed with his cigar in Gollo-witz’s direction.

“I’ll give you the facts, then you can judge the trouble for yourself,” he said in his hard barking voice. “Three nights ago, June Arnot, together with six of her staff, was murdered. June Arnot had her head hacked off and she was ripped. A gun was found in the garden with Ralph Jordan’s initials on it. Bard in and Conrad went around to Jordan’s apartment and found him in the bath with his throat cut and a razor in his hand. The murder weapon was found in his dressing-room.”

“You don’t have to tell us all this,” Gollowitz said impatiently. “We’ve seen the reports in the press. What’s it to do with us? Jordan killed her and then killed himself. It’s plain enough, isn’t it?”

McCann showed his teeth in a snarling smile.

“Yeah, it looked plain enough. Bardin was satisfied; so was I; so was the press, but Conrad wasn’t.” His little red eyes looked at Maurer, who sat smoking his cigar, his swarthy face expressionless, his flat gangster eyes staring at the carpet with patient indifference.

“Does it matter to us what he thinks?” Gollowitz demanded, moving irritably. “Does it matter to us?”

“I guess so,” McCann said. “Conrad’s a trouble-maker, and he’s smart, make no mistake about that. He’s got one set idea on his mind: to make trouble for you, Mr. Maurer.”

Maurer glanced up; his thick, almost negroid lips twisted into an amused smile.

“Sure he’s a smart guy,” he said, “but there’s enough room in this town for both of us.”

“There may not be,” McCann said ominously. “He thinks Jordan was murdered.”

Maurer’s smile widened.

“And of course he thinks I’m behind the murder. A cat can’t get run over without him thinking I’m responsible. So what? It happens every day.”

McCann pulled on his cigar. His eyes went from Maurer to Gollowitz, who was watching him with an alert expression in his black eyes.

“This is different. He’s got hold of a rumour that you and Miss Arnot were special friends,” he said, shifting his eyes back to Maurer. “This is the way he figures it: you found out Miss Arnot and Jordan were lovers. You went up there with Paretti. You killed her while Paretti took care of the staff. Then Paretti went around to Jordan’s apartment, cut his throat, left a razor in his hand, planted the murder weapon, took Jordan’s car out of the garage and crashed it against the garage door as evidence Jordan was full of dope. Then Paretti reported back to you and you knocked him off to shut his mouth.”