Abigail Browining - Murder Most Merry

Dan looked at his watch. “Dressing for dinner, and I should be, too,” he said. “How are the steaks out at the Cat and Fiddle?”

Connie half closed his eyes. After a time he sighed. “Okay. That might be a good way to go at the guy. Phone me and give me the reaction if he does talk. If not, don’t bother.”

Jane was in holiday mood until Dan told her where they were headed. She said tartly, “I admit freely that I am a working girl. But do I get overtime for this?”

Dan said slowly, carefully, “Darling, you better understand, if you don’t already, that there’s one part of me I can’t change. I can’t shut the office door and forget the cases piled up in there. I have a nasty habit of carrying them around with me. So we go someplace else and I try like blazes to be gay, or we go to the Cat and Fiddle and get something off my mind.”

She moved closer to him. “Dull old work horse,” she said.

“Guilty.”

“All right, now I’ll confess,” Jane said. “I was going to suggest we go out there later. I just got sore when you beat me to the draw.”

He laughed, and at the next stop light he kissed her hurriedly.

The Cat and Fiddle was eight miles beyond the city line. At last Dan saw the green-and-blue neon sign, and he turned into the asphalt parking area. There were about forty other cars there.

They went from the check room into the low-ceilinged bar and lounge. The only sign of Christmas was a small silver tree on the bar; a tiny blue spot was focused on it.

They sat at the bar and ordered drinks. Several other couples were at the tables, talking in low voices. A pianist played softly in the dining room.

Dan took out a business card and wrote on it: Only if you happen to have an opinion.

He called the nearest bartender over. “Would you please see that Vince gets this?”

The man glanced at the name. “I’ll see if Mr. Servius is in.” He said something to the other bartender and left through a paneled door at the rear of the bar. He was back in less than a minute, smiling politely.

“Please go up the stair. Mr. Servius is in his office—the second door on the right.”

“I’ll wait here, Dan,” Jane said.

“If you are Miss Raymer, Mr. Servius would like to have you join him, too,” the bartender said.

Jane looked at Dan. He nodded and she slid off the stool.

As they went up the stairs, Jane said, “I seem to be known here.”

‘Notorious female. I suspect he wants a witness.”

Vincent Servius was standing at a small corner bar mixing himself a drink when they entered. He turned and smiled. “Fowler, Miss Raymer. Nice of you to stop by. Can I mix you something?”

Dan refused politely, and they sat down.

Vince was a compact man with cropped, prematurely white hair, a sunlamp tan, and beautifully cut clothes. He had not been directly concerned with violence in many years. In that time he had eliminated most of the traces of the hoodlum.

The overall impression he gave was that of the up-and-coming clubman. Golf lessons, voice lessons, plastic surgery, and a good tailor—these had all helped; but nothing had been able to destroy a certain aura of alertness, ruthlessness. He was a man you would never joke with. He had made his own laws, and he carried the awareness of his own ultimate authority around with him, as unmistakable as a loaded gun.

Vince went over to the fieldstone fireplace, drink in hand, and turned, resting his elbow on the mantel.

“Very clever, Fowler. ‘Only if you happen to have an opinion. ‘ I have an opinion. The kid is no good. That’s my opinion. He’s a cheap punk. I didn’t admit that to myself until he tried to put the hook on that loan company. He was working for me at the time. I was trying to break him in here—buying foods.

“But now I’m through. Fowler. You can tell Jim Heglon that for me. Terrafierro will back it up. Ask him what I told him. I said, ‘Defend the kid. Get him off if you can, and no hard feelings if you can’t. If you get him off, I’m having him run out of town, out of the state. I don’t want him around.‘ I told George that.”

“Now there’s this Garrity thing. It looks like I went out on a limb for the kid. Going out on limbs was yesterday, Fowler. Not today and not tomorrow. I was a sucker long enough.”

He took out a crisp handkerchief and mopped his forehead. “I go right up in the air,” he said. “I talk too loud.”

‘You can see how Heglon is thinking,” Dan said quietly. “And the police.

too.”

“That’s the hell of it. I swear I had nothing to do with it.” He half smiled. “It would have helped if I’d had a tape recorder up here last month when the Garrity girl came to see what she could sell me.”

Dan leaned forward. “She came here?”

“With bells on. Nothing coy about that kid. Pay off, Mr. Servius, and I’ll change my identification of your brother.”

“What part of last month?”

“Let me think. The tenth it was. Monday the tenth.”

Jane said softly, “That’s why I got the impression she wouldn’t sell out, Dan. I had lunch with her later that same week. She had tried to and couldn’t.”

Vince took a sip of his drink. “She started with big money and worked her way down. I let her go ahead. Finally, after I’d had my laughs, I told her even one dollar was too much. I told her I wanted the kid sent up.”

“She blew her top. For a couple of minutes I thought I might have to clip her to shut her up. But after a couple of drinks she quieted down. That gave me a chance to find out something that had been bothering me. It seemed too pat, kind of.”

“What do you mean, Servius?” Dan asked.

“The setup was too neat, the way the door happened to be open a crack, and the way she happened to be working late, and the way she happened to see the kids come out.

“I couldn’t get her to admit anything at first, because she was making a little play for me, but when I convinced her I wasn’t having any, she let me in on what really happened. She was hanging around waiting for the manager of that loan outfit to quit work.

“They had a system. She’d wait in the accountant’s office with the light out, watching his door. Then, when the manager left, she’d wait about five minutes and leave herself. That would give him time to get his car out of the parking lot. He’d pick her up at the corner. She said he was the super-cautious, married type. They just dated once in a while. I wasn’t having any of that. Too rough for me, Fowler.”

There was a long silence. Dan asked, “How about friends of your brother, Servius, or friends of Kelly and Castrella?”

Vince walked over and sat down, facing them. “One—Johnny didn’t have a friend who’d bring a bucket of water if he was on fire. And two—I sent the word out.”

“What does that mean?”

“I like things quiet in this end of the state. I didn’t want anyone helping those three punks. Everybody got the word. So who would do anything? Now both of you please tell Heglon exactly what I said. Tell him to check with Terrafierro. Tell him to have the cops check their pigeons. Ask the kid himself. I paid him a little visit. Now. if you don’t mind. I’ve got another appointment.”

They had finished their steaks before Dan was able to get any line on Connie Wyant. On the third telephone call he was given a message. Lieutenant Wyant was waiting for Mr. Fowler at 311 Leeds Street, Apartment 6A, and would Mr. Fowler please bring Miss Raymer with him.

They drove back to the city. A department car was parked in front of the building. Sergeant Levandowski was half asleep behind the wheel. “Go right in. Ground floor in the back. 6A.”