Martinis and Murder (Prologue Books) Read online

  Scoffol said, “A fair and appropriate question and one which the constituted authorities are batting about quite assiduously.”

  “And,” I said, “there’s a guy named Matty, who can be awfully ugly.”

  “Matty? Matty who?”

  “Matty Pineapple, a friend of mine. Got him out of the barrel once or twice, and I’ve had his unique assistance upon occasion. So have you, for that matter.”

  “Oh, yes,” Scoffol said. “The chap that owns the hot joint in the Village, with the floor show …”

  “A nice lad, if you’re not prejudiced. Joe Pineapple’s older brother. Looked after him when they were kids. That little Joe mouse had this coming to him for a long time, but I feel a little sorry for brother Matty.”

  “Very commendable.”

  “What about yellow-coat?”

  “Nothing.”

  “What about this Wesley Gorin?”

  “Seems well fixed. Retired. Lives in style in the swank sixties.” Scoffol stopped abruptly and looked at his watch. “Look, what about Curtis?”

  I set a cigarette going. “Right now, boss. Just one thing. Excuse it, but what do you know about a lawyer guy. Andrew Grant?”

  Scoffol snorted. “Your personal affairs, laddie, with repetition, tend to become positively boring.”

  “Be a good boy, boss, if you know anything.”

  “I know a little.” Scoffol sighed. “I’ve seen him around. A big guy and a big spender. Tall, like you, and about your age. I’d say a stylish thirty-five. Heavier than you but mean eyes like yours, only no humor wrinkles. Athlete type. I wouldn’t tangle with him. Not over a dame.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “So long.”

  I sat in a telephone booth and I perspired. The line was busy and stayed busy for ten minutes.

  So I called Blair Curtis. “I’m sorry, Mr. Curtis, press of business. May I make it a little later in the day? Say about three?”

  “All right, I think.”

  “Three o’clock, then.”

  “Yes.”

  I dialed the other number again. It rang once, and I was talking to Augie Piazza.

  “Augie, this is Peter Chambers.”

  “Fine.”

  “I’d like the address of a guy, Augie.”

  “What guy?”

  “Armand Feisal.”

  Silence. Then he said, “You don’t want that rat’s address. He’s finally dead.”

  “That’s all right, Augie.”

  “Oh.”

  “How’s about it?”

  “Second Avenue and Eleventh Street. I don’t have no number. Big white house on the corner. The only big white house on the corner. Second floor front.”

  “Thanks, Piazza.”

  “Don’t mention it. I can send you a bill, but I don’t go for chicken feed. So long, beautiful.”

  I went into the only white house on the corner of Second Avenue and Eleventh Street, a tenement five stories high, and I climbed two flights of wooden stairs every step of which creaked. I looked at doors and found “Feisal” in pencil on a rectangle of yellow cardboard in a tiny brass bracket. The bracket on the adjoining door said “Dombrowski” in raised metal letters. There were no bells, I knocked on the Dombrowski door. A very tall, very slender woman opened the door. She smiled pleasantly.

  “What do you want, mister?”

  “Feisal.”

  She pointed with her thumb. “That’s next door.”

  “I know,” I said, “but the accident to Mr. Feisal …”

  “Oh, you can go in. He’s laid out real nice.”

  I said, “I’m from the taxi company. It ain’t exactly fittin’. Is there a Mrs. Feisal?”

  “Sure there’s a Mrs. Feisal. We been neighbors twelve years.”

  I shifted hips and leaned on the other foot. “Is it possible that I can talk to her in here?”

  “Well, come on in out of the draft. Anyway.”

  I crossed over into the apartment. A German Shepherd dog exposed large white fangs. I said, “Nice boy.” The dog growled fiercely.

  “He likes you,” Mrs. Dombrowski said. “Come in the parlor, mister. Sit down.”

  I sat down very gently. She seated herself opposite. The dog thumped down beside her. Thick golden hair piled high on her head, and her face was small. She was about forty and sitting she was much better looking, less long and thin and angular. She took knitting and needles out of a bag. Then she disregarded me.

  After five minutes, I said, “Now about Mrs. Feisal.”

  “What’s your name?” she asked.

  “Name? Uh — Mark.”

  “You’re a nice looking man.”

  “Thank you. Now about Mrs. Feisal?”

  “Mark? That your first or last name?”

  “It’s both names. Mark Mark. About Mrs. Feisal?”

  “Mark Mark?” questioned Mrs. Dombrowski with forehead furrowed.

  “Mark Mark,” I said. “Now about Mrs. Feisal?”

  She put her knitting into a bag and laid it on her lap. “Mrs. Feisal. Maybe you ought to postpone it. He’s laid out next door. Maybe the business you got ought to wait. Poor man.”

  “Oh, no,” I said and half rose. The dog growled. I sat back. “It’s very important.”

  She stood up and put the knitting bag in the chair. “Oh, important. Well, I’ll ask her. Please make yourself to home.”

  The dog flopped across the threshold and fixed insolent eyes upon me, pointedly. I said, “Good boy.” The dog made ugly noises. I sat, rigidly, and waited. I starved for a cigarette. One leg went to sleep.

  Mrs. Armand Feisal was short and stout with a red round face and an excellent complexion and small faint blue eyes.

  Angrily she said, “You from the taxi company or you a cop?”

  “The taxi company,” I said. “By all means.”

  Mrs. Dombrowski called Sam and she and the dog went out of the parlor. I massaged my leg and got up and lit a cigarette fast and paced the parlor, marching stiff-kneed.

  Mrs. Feisal stared at me disapprovingly. “What’s the matter?”

  “My leg fell asleep.”

  “You sure you ain’t a cop? Cops is poison.”

  The sound I made in my throat was meant to be a chuckle. “Funny.”

  “What’s funny?”

  “I hate cops too. My brother Phil, he’s a cabbie. They make life terrible for him.”

  She looked less angry. “How come they send you fellers around so quick?”

  “Investigation. Strictly confidential. We got to turn in a report. It’s my job. It must be quick. If not, we get fired.”

  “Oh. Investigation. Well what?”

  I ditched the cigarette in a spotless glass ash tray. “Mrs. Feisal, I appreciate your position. I don’t want to ask too many questions. I represent the insurance company that takes care of the cab company employees. There are certain questions.” I coughed importantly. “I got most of the vital statistics and stuff direct from the cab company only because it was my desire to save you the bother of prolonged interrogation.”

  I was glad I said interrogation. Her face immediately tightened into a piously serious expression and she bobbed it up and down in approval.

  “Thank you,” she said, and pursed her lips, waiting.

  I looked in my pockets and found a small notebook. I took out my pen.

  “Now then — what time did your husband go to work yesterday?”

  She said, “He didn’t go to work. He was sick. He had a sore throat. He had temperature. He was in bed.”

  “Well, then, how …?”

  “How? How? I don’t know myself how.”

  I said, “Let’s do it systematically. You say he didn’t go to work, that he was sick in bed, and yet he was — he met with his accident in his taxicab.”

  “Accident,” cried Mrs. Feisal. “Murder!”

  “Yes, but in the taxicab. How’s that?”

  I sat down. She stood over me, expostulating:

  �
��We got a phone. We can’t afford it, but we got it. Armie had regular customers. They would call up for long hauls. To the country or to a race track or to a crap game in Jersey. Or at night. He could always get a cab from the company. So, also, we got a phone — it should explode.”

  “Yes,” I murmured.

  She waved both her hands. “I’m telling you. I didn’t tell the cops. Cops is poison. I told them he went to work at seven o’clock and I don’t know nothing.”

  I rustled the notebook. “Of course.”

  “But I’m telling you because it’s for the — investigation. Confidential, you told me.”

  “Strictly,” I affirmed.

  “Well, he was in bed, sick, with a towel around his neck, groaning and complaining, when that damn telephone sounds off. About seven o’clock. The man wants to talk to Armand.”

  “What man?”

  “He wouldn’t say.”

  I put the notebook away and I put the pen away and I brought out cigarettes again. “Anything special about the man? Anything in particular? Any mannerism of speech that you might recognize?

  She sat down heavily. “No. A man. And he wants to talk to Armand. ‘Armie is sick,’ I says. He wants to talk with him anyway. Armie hollers from the bed, ‘Who is it?’ I tell the man, ‘Just a minute,’ and I go and I tell Armie. He gets out of bed, goes to the telephone, listens a minute, hangs up — and he starts getting dressed. I says, ‘I thought you’re sick?’ He says, ‘Mind your business. I’m better.’ I says, ‘No kiddin’, Armie, you crazy?’ He says, ‘Lay offa me. I gotta go. It’s the lawyer. I gotta go see the lawyer. It’s important.’ And that’s all I know about it, mister.”

  I stood up. “It’s something. Who was his lawyer?”

  “Search me. I never even knew he had a lawyer.”

  “Come now, Mrs. Feisal. Remember, I hate cops too. What’s the lawyer’s name?”

  “Really, mister … mister …”

  “Mark.”

  She got up out of her chair. “Honest, Mr. Mark. I don’t know. There’s plenty I didn’t know about Armie.”

  “Have you looked through your husband’s effects?”

  “He didn’t have no effects. Just a few things. I went through all of it. I looked over every single one of the business cards. Careful. No lawyer. Not one.”

  “Perhaps I ought to try.”

  She took her handkerchief out and blew her nose. She folded it and slid it into a pocket in her dress. She came close to me, round and dumpy, not unpretty, her arms short and straight and angry at her sides. “Look, mister,” she said very clearly, “my husband is laid out in there, and we got people. And you’re getting too damn nosy. I give you everything straight. Now go make your report. It’s the way you earn your living, a pretty lousy way, if you should ask me, but I tried to help. But now you’re getting too damn nosy and there’s nothing to get nosy about. So go roll your hoop. Anybody know about who did this to Armie?”

  “That’s for the police.”

  “Yeah, when it’s something, they do nothing. Poison.” “All right, then,” I said, “thank you. I needn’t trouble you any further. At least we know it was a lawyer. It’s something. Mr. Feisal wasn’t joking, was he?”

  “Oh, no, he was serious. The guy was a lawyer, you can be sure of that. But what lawyer? There’s a million lawyers in New York.”

  “A few less,” I said, “very few. Well, if I find anything out, I’ll let you know.”

  I left Mrs. Feisal with Mrs. Dombrowski in Mrs. Dombrowski’s little foyer. I said, “Good-by,” to the ladies, “thank you very much.” I said, “Nice boy,” to the dog. The dog growled murderously. “He sure does like you.” Mrs. Dombrowski said.

  3

  THERE’S TIFFANY. There’s Cartier. There’s Curtis Wilde, Inc.

  I went past about seven feet of sparkling light blue pants and sparkling light blue jacket and into a high-domed cathedral with a marble floor and marble pillars and a balcony with a railing that shone like sun on gold. It was vast. It was like if you screamed, echoes would come cascading back at you everlastingly.

  A slender young man with marcelled hair and a cutaway coat and a sway to his hips glided up to me.

  Dreamily he said, “Something?”

  “Mr. Blair Curtis.”

  “You have an appointment, I take it?”

  “Yes. My name is Chambers.”

  “Won’t you, Mr. Chambers, please come this way and have a seat? I shall phone.”

  We threaded our way through aisles of glass tables with intricately wrought metal legs. We turned into a room with red carpets and easy chairs and mahogany tables.

  “If you please,” he said and motioned to a chair and left through the archway.

  Another cutaway coat replaced him; much broader, and, rising out of it, a thick red neck and bristling hair and the profile of a strong red Irish face.

  “Finnegan,” I ventured.

  He turned and chuckled and stuck out a fat freckled paw. “Well,” he said. “The gum-shoe kid. Business must be good.”

  “Soft,” I said. “Ex-pug in fancy pants.”

  He blushed. “Soft, no kidding. It’s a job. Bodyguard, watchman, bouncer, something. Only nothing happens. Fat, huh? Out of shape.”

  “Same as always, just spread a little more. What time do they close this dump?”

  “Five o’clock.” He grinned. “Soft. Eleven to five. Madison Square Garden was never like this.”

  The slim young man reappeared and Finnegan froze to a happy-eyed impersonal hulk.

  “This way, sir.”

  My guide extended a gracefully cupped inverted palm and we went to the rear and into a small elevator with lavender walls.

  Blair Curtis sat behind a neat blond-wood desk and pointed at a bar at the opposite wall.

  “Help yourself to a drink, if you care.”

  I cared. This Blair Curtis had impressed me as one of those long-winded important dillies that munched their words and threw a lot of them at you once they got started, so I mixed me a highball in a tall frosted glass and sat down in a comfortable armchair prepared to enjoy at least a part of our tête-à-tête.

  There was a large tan leather couch and several roomy tan leather easy chairs. Everything was all cool-soft-tan-blond-soothing-pastel and the one splotch of color was effective. On the wall behind the desk, over Curtis’ head, was an immense oil painting of Joe Rosenthal’s photo of the United States Marines installing Old Glory on Iwo Jima.

  Uncomfortably Curtis said, “Well,” and he cleared his throat. “I’ll give you the substance and then you may ask whatever questions you like.”

  The inter-office phone cut in. “Mr. Holstein,” the metallic voice said, “requires a signature.”

  “All right,” Curtis said and clicked the jigger. “Excuse me. It won’t take a moment.”

  There was a knock and a tall man came in. Tall, with round brown eyes and black close-cropped hair and the high-colored rose-bright face of a man who should be tow-headed rather than brunette. Tall, with a handsome widow’s peak of jet black hair descending upon a too-white high forehead; attractive, urbane, excellent posture, too much behind and a charming baritone voice.

  “Just your signature on this check, if you please.” He bent over Curtis’ desk.

  Curtis signed and presented us. “Mr. Edward Holstein, one of our managers. Mr. Peter Chambers.”

  “How do you do,” he said.

  “Fine, fine,” I said, with pleasure.

  He left, and Curtis settled in his chair.

  “I think, Mr. Chambers, that I am involved in a blackmail attempt. About three weeks ago, I received a telephone call from a person who said he desired to discuss a business transaction with me. He asked that we arrange an appointment. I suggested that he call at my office at a certain day and time, but he said that that was impractical. He said he was from out of town, that he had a suite at the Pennsylvania, that he expected to be in town only a day or two, and that he was staying
close to his telephone as he expected several very important phone calls and that he could not afford to miss them. He urged that I call upon him. He impressed me that the subject of our conversation would be of vital concern to me.”

  “Yes,” I said. “So you went.”

  He held his lower lip crookedly between his teeth for a moment; worried grooves spoiled his mouth. “Mysterious, unusual or whatever — I went. I didn’t really know whether it was business or personal and I didn’t ask. My personal life is not without certain complex problems, which I hope to explain to you later; and it may be that that was the governing impulse for my rather quick compliance.”

  “All right,” I said a little sharply. “You went. What name did this bird give you?”

  “Joseph Pineapple.”

  I dropped the highball glass.

  My pants got wet, but mostly the pebbled carpet. I brushed at my pants and picked up the glass and collected the ice cubes and went back to the bar and made another drink and stood there leaning on the bar.

  Curtis stared at me without approval.

  A look of perplexity firmly settled on his grave pale face. More than that. It was one of those wildly subdued looks of baffled regret one gets when one finds that he has picked himself one of those nutty bastards to do business with.

  I said, “Sorry. You surprised me.”

  “I surprised you,” he said.

  He really looked scared.

  I got sore. “Now look, Mr. Curtis, it was my intention to say nothing about last night, about your wife’s death, that sort of thing, unless you chose to bring it up. It’s screwy to me anyway, a guy’s wife gets killed last night and today he’s at work in his office, calm as huckleberries and sour cream in a pink plate. All right! It happens a Joseph Pineapple was killed last night. And it happens he was killed by a bullet from the same gun that was used on your wife. And he was found in the selfsame taxicab that was involved in that other matter.”

  I drank a little of the new highball. “That’s point one. Point two is that Joe Pineapple is an unusual name. So if this man is the same man that contacted you; why, that’s the end of that right now. He’s dead. There’s no longer any need for you to take people into your confidence, or to hire yourself private detectives. That’s why I spilled my drink and smirched your carpet. End of speech.”