Homicide at Yuletide Page 4

“ ‘By,” she said and went.

  Stella brought my drink. She walked like a cat, a soft tread with only the bottom moving, elbows far back and shoulders tight in a carriage that put high-styled prominence to the crowded sweater. The pout of her lip was lower, sullen almost, and wet. Her hair was cut black and thick, parted in the middle, a Crusader cut, without the bangs. Her face was round, olive, with wide flares in a small pointed nose. She patted my face. “Thanks.”

  “For what?”

  “For believing in me.”

  “Tell anybody?”

  “No.”

  “Cops?”

  “No. You?”

  “No.” I smelled the drink. “Scotch. How’d you know?”

  “Guessed.”

  “What’s for you?”

  “Nothing. I’ve had enough. I’m looped. Slightly.”

  I sat in a corner of a dark blue couch and she came and sat close by me.

  I said, “Let’s get it over with.”

  “Get what?” She spread her hand on my thigh. She moved her face to mine. The smell from her mouth was a pleasant mixture of whisky and the perfume off her shining lipstick.

  “Well—” I said.

  “I like you. Very much.”

  “I like you too.”

  “No. I mean it. I really like you. That’s the way I am. Right there, in that terrible room—the moment you came in, the way you moved—well—I had thoughts about you, I wanted you.” Her fingers squeezed down, hurting my thigh. “It happens. It doesn’t happen often, thank God.”

  I touched her ear. One finger. One finger at her ear. “According to Mamma, we’re expecting company. Remember?”

  “Yes. Damn it.” She took her hand away from my thigh, rubbed it across her bare arm, stood up and went to the bar, a small silver bar. She poured into a shot glass and drank it neat. “Merry Christmas,” she said.

  “What were you doing there, Stella?”

  “Where?”

  “Downtown.”

  “What about you?”

  “I had a message for him.”

  “Where’s the gun?”

  I put the dregs of the highball on the bar and went to the closet and took it out of my coat pocket, holding it at the point of the barrel. “It’s got your prints on it, and maybe someone else’s, but I doubt that. People who shoot don’t leave prints. They’ve been educated.”

  “What are you going to do with it?”

  “Temporarily, I’ll leave it here. Where?”

  “In there.”

  I followed her to the bedroom.

  “Do you have something that I can wrap it in?”

  She gave me a flowered bandana. I wrapped it and looked where to park it. She opened a drawer of a night table and I bent to put it in and when I straightened she was tight close to me, swaying.

  I said, “Company’s coming.”

  “The hell with them. Please.”

  I held her and now both of us were swaying. She was full in front but her shoulders were thin and as my hand went down I could feel her ribs.

  “You’re tall,” she said.

  “Six two.”

  “Nice and tall. And skinny. I love that.”

  “Sheldon Talbot, wasn’t it?”

  “What?”

  “Thirteenth Street. The guy with the beard.”

  “That’s what I think.”

  “You think. Was it Fred Thompson?”

  “Oh, no.”

  “Sheldon Talbot?”

  “It was supposed to be.”

  “Well, was it?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Who’s Fred Thompson?”

  “Nobody. Just a name.”

  “And Sheldon Talbot?”

  “He was my father.”

  It didn’t take for a second. Then my hands dropped. “Let’s get this straightened away, huh, once and for all, before the company comes.”

  “Whatever you say. But you’re not going to duck, believe me.”

  “You’re tight.”

  “Damn right I am. Sober, I’ll be more coy. But it won’t make any difference. You’re not going to duck.”

  “Duck what?”

  “Guess.”

  “I don’t want to duck. But right now—Talbot—your father—I don’t get it.”

  “I hardly knew him. Let’s go back in the living-room. I talk better in a living-room. Talk, I said.”

  “I heard you.”

  In the living-room, we sat across from each other, she in a silver fan-back chair, and I in my corner of the dark blue couch. She waved at the bar. I disregarded it.

  “Would you like me to help?” I said.

  “Help? Help what?”

  “You.”

  “Me? Why?”

  “I’m a shamus. A private richard. A caper-kid. A wise-guy private eye. Talks hard with the tough guys, purrs with the ladies. All the girls fall for him. You know, like what you read about.”

  “Look, caper-kid. I don’t need any help. I don’t know what it’s all about. I’m not mixed up with it. It makes no difference to me who did it. And to me, it’s strictly a police matter.”

  “Then why didn’t you give them a chance?”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Why haven’t you called them?”

  “Called whom?”

  “The police.”

  “I would have, after the shock wore off, after I’d have gotten out of there. I was petrified. Then you came. And you took the gun, and I didn’t know who you were, and what you were doing there, and I was involved in something that was over my head. So I waited. For you. Should we do it now?”

  “You’d be in it. Right up to your neck.”

  “Oh, I can explain my end. How about you?”

  “I can explain mine too.”

  “So … let’s call the cops.” There was a tinkle of derision in her voice.

  “Really want to?”

  “I don’t know. You’re the shamus. Plus I like you. Whatever you say—I do.”

  “Then, for the nonce, I’d say, leave it alone.”

  “Nonce, very fancy. We’ve got a nonce downstairs, real cute, handles the switchboard. Why, for the nonce, would you leave it alone? Just curious, understand.”

  “Because there are others involved.”

  “Who?”

  “That’s confidential. Look, would you please let me ask the questions?”

  She smiled, then. “Any questions you ask, I’ve got an answer. And, brother, if you ask the right questions, boy, will you get answered, company or no company.”

  “One subject at a time. Ever hear of Barney Bernandino?”

  “No.”

  “Gene Tiny?”

  “Yes, I know Gene Tiny. Beautiful, isn’t she? Tall, with lovely black hair.”

  “Black eyes, too.”

  “Like mine?”

  “Nobody has eyes like yours.”

  “You’re improving.”

  “One subject at a time. What about this Gene Tiny?”

  “I don’t know her well. She’s a friend of one of my stepmothers.”

  “One of your what?”

  “Stepmothers.”

  “One of your stepmothers? What’s Theresa?”

  “She’s my mother.”

  “So what’s with the stepmothers?”

  “There are two.”

  “Hold it. There’s Theresa, who is your mother, and there are two stepmothers. Is that right?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Would you sort of chop it up for me?”

  She crossed her legs in the rustling slacks. “Theresa was my father’s first wife. They were divorced. Then he married Gay Clive, you know, the wild black sheep of the Newport-New York-Cannes Clives, lots of society, no money.”

  “Yes. Yes.”

  “Then they were divorced, and he married Evelyn Dru. And then they were divorced. You want me to continue this?”

  “Yes, please.”

  “Mother remains
unmarried. Gay has since married Noah Cochrane.”

  “The Cremation King? That the guy? Has that crematorium out on Long Island?”

  “It pays to advertise, doesn’t it? A Niche Is Better Than a Hole in the Ground. From Creation to Cremation. Earn for an Urn. Cremation Plus Without a Fuss. That’s my Noah Cochrane, and a very nice man he is. Thus, Gay became Mrs. Noah Cochrane.”

  “And Evelyn Dru?”

  “She’s still Evelyn Dru. Back to the maiden name.”

  “Very edifying. Now what’s all this got to do with Gene Tiny?”

  “Gene is a friend of Evelyn’s. They both worked in the same model agency. Mamma and Gene and Evelyn and Noah and Gay, they’re all great friends. That’s who is coming to pick me up, Mr. and Mrs. Cochrane, and Evelyn. And you—you keep away from Evelyn.”

  “Evelyn Dru?”

  “Evelyn Dru. A blue-eyed blonde with a voice. The sultry, slow-talking kind.”

  “Is there any other kind?”

  “You wouldn’t know. What’s Gene Tiny got to do with this?”

  “Nothing. She’s a friend of Barney Bernandino, and I was asked, on behalf of Mr. Bernandino, to deliver a message to Sheldon Talbot, and when I arrive, you’re there, and there’s a gun in your hands, and Talbot is dead, and now he turns out to be your father, and if you’re a bereaved daughter, I’m nuts. Talk some more, huh?”

  She stood up, sighing in the sweater. Immediately I reached for a cigarette. She went to the bar. “Two little ones,” she said. “It’s going to be a long evening.”

  She brought me the drink and I gave her a cigarette and we smoked and sipped our highballs and looked at each other.

  “Let’s talk,” I said.

  “Much rather, I wouldn’t.”

  “Let’s, for now. Let’s get it cleaned up and out of the way.”

  “Why you so interested?”

  “Habit. I’m inquisitive about murdered people, and that guy was murdered, no matter how lightly you insist on taking it. Furthermore, there might be a fee lurking somewhere—if I collect enough facts. You wouldn’t want to do me out of a fee, would you?”

  “I wouldn’t want to do you out of anything.”

  “Sweet of you.”

  “Would you me?”

  “Would I you what? God, that sounds like pigeon English.”

  “Want to do me out of anything?”

  Irritably I said, “Will you please get back to what we were talking about.”

  She sighed, swelling the sweater. “I hardly knew him. He was my father, but I hardly knew him. I went to school in Switzerland. I hardly knew her either, Theresa, my mother. And when I got back for good, they were divorced. Oh, I used to come home summers, but Mamma would be in Europe then, or somewhere, and Papa would be somewhere else. I really became acquainted with Mamma—and Gay and Evelyn—after I grew up.”

  “Do it easy.”

  “What?”

  “This getting acquainted—with Mamma and Gay and Evelyn.”

  “They’re all good friends. Here, like this. Mamma was married to Papa for a long time. They were divorced, but it was friendly. He always had a great regard for her—her brains, intellect. They broke it up, but they stayed friendly. The others were two quick marriages and two quick divorces, but the three women knew each other, and liked each other, and they all liked me—and they all liked Papa too, for that matter—and so everybody was friendly. I attended both weddings—when he married Gay, and then when he married Evelyn. So did Mamma. So did Gay, too. Once as a bride, and once as an ex-wife at Evelyn’s wedding.”

  “A character, Papa.”

  “Papa managed. It sounds strange, telling it, but I’m used to it, and it isn’t strange at all. Papa was liberal with money. There was a trust fund settled on me when I was born, not big, but enough to get along on. And the girls, too, some sort of trust fund for each. The point is—I hardly knew him. He was my father, a man I heard a lot about when the girls discussed him, but a man for whom I had no real feeling. Can you understand that?”

  “Sure.”

  “He’s dead, and I don’t like it, but I have no real feeling about it. I can’t help that.”

  “Cold-blooded, isn’t it?”

  “No. No, it isn’t. Do you have any feeling about it?”

  “He wasn’t my father.”

  “He wasn’t mine either, in the true sense. He—”

  “All right. I get it. I’m the sensitive sort. You’ve got to hit me in the head with a rock before I get a glimmer. Now let’s bring it up to date.”

  She gave me her glass and I took it to the bar and I settled back in a red leather chair and I watched her as she talked. Three sets of black eyes, now, including the dashing Theresa of the white hair, and thus far I had rubbed two fur coats, swigged whisky, and worried about company coming. “Yes?” I said.

  “He called me last night.”

  “When?”

  “Late.”

  “How late?”

  “I don’t know. It was after one in the morning. I was in bed. He woke me.”

  “There was no phone in that furnished room.”

  “He called me from a night club.”

  “How do you know?”

  “He told me.”

  “What night club?”

  “He didn’t say.”

  “They never do, do they?”

  “I was frightened stiff.”

  I put a hand up, fingers open. “Hold it. Frightened stiff? Why? Haven’t you ever been awakened by a phone before?”

  “Phone, yes. Ghost, no.”

  “The guy called from a night club. Where’s the ghost-type fit in?”

  “He was dead. My father was dead. No. You wouldn’t know that. He was dead—supposed to have been dead. Please. Wait a minute.”

  I waited.

  “My father was supposed to have been killed in an accident in Chicago. As far as I knew, he was dead. Now, at one o’clock in the morning, six months later, he calls me. That’s why I was frightened stiff.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “It was his voice. It was Papa. I almost dropped the phone. He wanted to see me. He told me that he had had a good deal of trouble, that he was back now trying to straighten out a lot of things. He told me that he had been in town for three days, that he had seen Terry, and Gay, and Evelyn, and that now he wanted to see me. He told me not to mention that he had called, not to say anything to anyone.”

  “Right.” I got up and prowled while she talked.

  “He told me that there might possibly be some trouble, and that there were many things he wanted to talk to me about. He said he was seeing Terry again in the morning, and he told me to come this afternoon at about half past two. He told me his name was Fred Thompson for the time being, and he gave me the address. Then he hung up.”

  “Okay. So you went.”

  “Yes.”

  “And you found him like that?”

  “Yes. And what he looked like—it—it—”

  “That slug cut a big piece out of him. I know—”

  “No. No. His appearance—”

  “You mean when you’re dead, you look different?”

  “No. That red beard. That awful red hair. Papa never had a beard, and his hair was silver white as long as I remember. I’ll tell you the truth—I don’t know who that man was. It may have been my father, but—”

  “Take it easy. You talk of this to Theresa?”

  “No. Nobody.” She was biting at the fingernail of her thumb.

  I got off the subject. I walked, watching my shoes make marks on the red carpet. “Theresa of the white hair, she looks strangely young.”

  “She is young. Mamma’s thirty-seven.”

  “Thirty-seven? How old are you?”

  “Eighteen.”

  Heelprints ceased on the carpet. I snatched a drink and folded into the silver fan chair.

  “What’s the matter, Peter?”

  “You ought to start dressing. It’s dark out.”<
br />
  “What’s the matter with you?”

  “Nothing.”

  Somewhere along the stumble to maturity, I had picked up a prohibition against eighteen-year-olds. I am not saying how. Even a private richard with literary leanings seals up certain sections of the book. Eighteen is delectable, unpredictable, devastating, prim, carnal, wistful, ribald, modest, bawdy, constant, fickle, shy, bold—wrapped together and flung at you all at once: trouble. Eighteen is wonderful. I rear up at eighteen like a racehorse against a flying sheet of newspaper. I shy off.

  “What’s the matter?” she said, bending over me, touching my hair. “Most people love it.”

  “Sure.”

  “Cleopatra was Queen of Egypt at seventeen.”

  “Sure.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing.” I tapped my wrist watch. “People are coming.”

  “I look older, and I act older, and you know it. I’ve lived all over the world. I’ve always been on my own. Be flexible, sonny. There are all kinds of eighteens.”

  “Sure.”

  “I’ll go get dressed.”

  She went. I sat.

  Eighteen with a gun in her hands. Eighteen with a casual story about being frightened. Eighteen with wise words and a white sweater. Eighteen with ageless eyes. Eighteen, all woman, with a glistening mouth. Eighteen, living alone and loving it. Eighteen, and enticing.

  I scrabbled out of the fan chair and headed for the bar.

  The rasp of the bell interfered with my journey.

  “You get it,” she sang from the bedroom.

  I got it.

  4

  THERE WAS a tall mink coat.

  And a top hat over a round red face.

  And an ermine wrap under a blond head.

  “New butler?” said the ermine wrap.

  “Yes, madam.”

  “Got a friend?” said the mink coat.

  “I’m your friend,” said the top hat.

  “Husbands,” said the mink coat, “and friends—dear ex-love—they come in separate bins.”

  “Bin?” said the ermine wrap. “I’ve only bin once, and that was of such short duration, I wouldn’t know. Cute idea, the butler. Isn’t he?”

  “You like that?” said the top hat.

  “What?” I said.

  “Being called cute.”

  “It happens.”

  “Happens to me too. I’m six feet four, weight, two hundred and thirty-eight. What’s cute about it?”

  “Six two,” I said. “A hundred ninety-three. Is it cute?”