Lawrence Block: The Topless Tulip Caper

“That’s not inconceivable. It is, however, irrelevant to the present discussion. You met someone at Treasure Chest, someone who was regularly present there during the ensuing months. You got into conversation. You mentioned your occupation, and your new acquaintance saw possibilities for profit. You had access, I have mentioned earlier, to poisonous compounds. There is, thanks be to God, no enormous profit at present in such compounds. But you also had access to quantities of a subtler, slower form of poison. As a pharmaceutical chemist, Mr. Flatt, you had access to drugs.”

I looked at Flatt. He was keeping a stiff upper lip but the effort was showing. I glanced at Gregorio and saw him nodding thoughtfully. Leonard Danzig had a wary look in his eyes. Gus Leemy was frowning.

“You stole drugs from your employers,” Haig was saying. “Perhaps you produced others. I understand lysergic acid can be readily synthesized by anyone with a middling knowledge of chemistry. With your background and your laboratory facilities it would be child’s play. You brought consignments of drugs to New York, once or twice a week, and you delivered them to your associate at Treasure Chest—”

“That’s horseshit.” Gus Leemy was leaning forward, the light glinting off the top of his head. “I run that place clean. It’s not a front for nothing at all. It’s a decent operation.”

Gregorio said, “There’s drugs coming out of there, Gus. Been going on for months, the rumbles we get.”

“You’re crazy.” He glanced at Danzig, then averted his eyes quickly as if remembering that he and Danzig were supposed to be pretending they didn’t know each other. Since the two of them gave each other an alibi for Cherry’s murder I didn’t quite grasp the logic of this, but they could play it whatever way they wanted. “I run that place clean,” Leemy said. “I don’t fuck with drugs, I never did and I never will.”

“I never accused you, sir.” Haig tapped his pipe on the desk again, then frowned suddenly at the bowl with the two dead goldfish in it. He rang the bell. I thought that would probably throw Wong, who wouldn’t know what to come in with, but instead Wong came in empty-handed. Haig nodded at the bowl and Wong removed it. “I never accused you, Mr. Leemy,” Haig went on. “If you stand accused of anything it is incompetence. Your nightclub served as a focal point for the dissemination of drugs, but this occurred without your knowledge. While that does not make you a particularly efficient manager, neither does it make you a criminal. It certainly does not make you a murderer.” Haig stroked his beard. “Or you, Mr. Danzig. You or Mr. Leemy might well have killed the person selling drugs out of the Treasure Chest, or issued an order that the person be killed, but neither of you would have had any reason to do away with Miss Abramowicz.”

Danzig didn’t exactly glower but his face hardened a little. “Your reasoning is interesting,” he said. “But I’m not sure how my name got in that last sentence. I was going out with Cherry, that’s all. That’s the only reason I’m here.”

“Oh, come off it, Danzig,” Gregorio said. He leaned forward and put a hand on Danzig’s shoulder. “Everybody knows Leemy just fronts for you. And nobody much gives a shit. The boys from the State Liquor Authority might be unhappy but they can’t prove anything, and as far as we’re concerned we don’t care.”

Danzig smiled. “I have no connection with Treasure Chest. Mr. Leemy is a friend.”

“Sure, if that’s the way you want it.”

“That’s what the record should show,” Danzig said.

All of this was fascinating, but none of it had much to do with who killed Cherry and I was getting impatient. The suspense was fairly thick in the room. I looked at all of them, and the most agitated one was Glenn Flatt, although he wasn’t approaching hysteria yet. He should have been the coolest; I mean, he presumably knew who his contact was, and thus he knew who committed the murder.

“I could sue you,” Flatt said.

“Oh, come now,” Haig said. “You’re going to go to jail at the very least for selling illegal drugs and as accessory to the fact of murder in the first degree. Do you really think you could find a lawyer to represent you in a libel action? I somehow doubt it.”

“You can’t prove any of this.”

Haig grunted. “I will tell you something,” he said. “There is nothing much simpler than proving something one already knows to be true. The proof generally makes itself available in relatively short order. No, Mr. Flatt, your position is hopeless. You have been selling drugs through a confederate. And what do we know about this accomplice of yours?” He ticked off the points on his fingers. “Your accomplice is regularly to be found at Treasure Chest, either as an employee or an habitual hanger-on. There are several here in this room who fit that description. Miss Wolinski, for one. Mr. Danzig. Mr. Leemy. Mr. Barckover. Miss Remo. Miss Cubbage. Mr. Henderson frequents Treasure Chest often, but if he were selling drugs he would no doubt do so through the medium of one or another of his stores, and—”

“Drugs!” Haskell was outraged. “Me sell drugs? You have to be out of your mind. Drugs are a death trip.”

“Indeed. We have already excluded you, Mr. Henderson, so you’ve no need to offer comments. To continue. Miss O’Connor has not been regularly employed at Treasure Chest, so she too may be ruled out. Mr. Leemy and Mr. Danzig may also be excused; they quite clearly did not know what was going on in the establishment. I would further exclude Mr. Lippa because I find the whole nature of this operation incompatible with my impressions of the man.”

“Does that mean I’m in or out?” Buddy wanted to know, and Haig nodded and said that was exactly his point, and that Buddy was in the clear.

“Now let us reconstruct the day of the crime. Mr. Flatt’s accomplice in the drug operation—let us call him X, as a sop to tradition—has learned directly or indirectly from Miss Abramowicz that I have been hired to investigate the death of the fish. X realizes that my participation will quickly establish that an attempt has been made on Miss Abramowicz’s life and that the fish were unintentional victims. When this became known, Miss Abramowicz would realize that she possesses some information which makes her dangerous to X, and this information would at once be brought to my attention. That, to be sure, was the original motive for disposing of Miss Abramowicz. She somehow learned enough about the drug operation to make her dangerous, especially in view of the fact that she seems to have been rather scatterbrained and loose-tongued. One hesitates to speak thus of the dead, but the fact appears to be beyond dispute.

“Thus X must act, and act quickly. So X contacts Mr. Flatt—yes, sir, it happened just that way, and you needn’t attempt to deny it by shaking your head. X contacted you, Mr. Flatt, and demanded a contact poison. Whether curare was specified or not I have no idea. It hardly matters. You had already supplied strychnine to X, although I cannot state with certainty that you knew how it was to be employed. It is often used as an adulterant in drugs to boost their potency and you might well have furnished it without knowing you were to be the instrument in a homicide. But if there is any other use for curare I am unaware of it. You knew Miss Abramowicz was to be killed, sir. You brought the curare that night with that specific purpose in mind. That was why you took pains to leave the club early, why you established an alibi in Long Island. You are a knowing accessory to murder, sir.”

Flatt stared at him, and Haig stared back, and Flatt couldn’t take it. He looked down at his hands.