Give the Boys a Great Big Hand
- Автор: Хантер Эван
- Серия: 87th Precinct #11
- Год: 1960
- Язык: английский
- Год: Simon & Schuster
- Жанр: Полицейские детективы
Электронная книга - «Give the Boys a Great Big Hand». Краткое содержание книги:
“Hey!” he yelled after the bus. “You forgot your bag!”
Genera picked up the bag — a small, blue overnight bag issued by an airline. He unzipped the bag and reached into it. Then he gripped the bus-stop sign for support.
The bag held... a severed human hand.
The police lab gave both bag and hand a thorough examination and discovered next to nothing. Steve Carella, Cotton Hawes, Meyer Meyer and the other 87th Precinct detectives had a murderer to find, and they had to begin without even knowing who the victim was.
The Missing Persons Bureau files supplied two leads, both of which led nowhere.
Everything that looked even faintly like a clue was checked and double-checked and they all led to the same place — a dead end.
Then, when the break finally came and several clues turned up at once, they neatly contradicted each other. It was the toughest case the 87th Precinct detectives had ever faced.
“I guess so,” Hawes said, grinning.
“Is Mr. Tudor in some trouble?” Marla asked.
“No.” Hawes shook his head. “No trouble.”
“Then why do you want to see him?”
“Why do you want to see him?” Hawes asked.
“To get a booking.”
“Good luck,” Hawes said.
“Thank you. He’s a good agent. He handles a lot of exotic dancers. I’m sure he’ll get me something.”
“Good,” Hawes said. “I hope so.”
The girl nodded and was silent for a while. She picked up the copy of Variety, thumbed through it, and then put it down again. “You still haven’t told me why you want to see Mr. Tudor,” she said, and at that moment the door to the inner office opened and a statuesque brunette wearing heels that made her four inches taller stepped into the waiting room, bust first.
“Thanks a lot, Charlie,” she yelled, almost colliding with Carella to whom she hastily said, “Oh, pardon me, dearie,” and then clattered out of the room.
The phone on the receptionist’s desk buzzed. She lifted the receiver. “Yes, Mr. Tudor,” she said, and then hung up. “Mr. Tudor will see you now,” she said to Carella.
“Good luck,” Marla said to Hawes as he moved past the bench.
“Thank you,” Hawes said. “The same to you.”
“If I ever need a cop or something,” she called after him, “I’ll give you a ring.”
“Do that,” Hawes said, and he followed Carella into Tudor’s office. The office was decorated with more photographs of exotic dancers, so many photographs that both Tudor and his desk were almost lost in the display. Tudor was a huge man in his late forties wearing a dark-brown suit and a pale-gold tie. He possessed a headful of short black hair that was turning white at the temples, and a black Ernie Kovacs mustache. He was smoking a cigarette in a gold-and-black cigarette holder. He gestured the detectives to chairs, and a diamond pinky ring glistened on his right hand.
“I understand you’re policemen,” he said. “Does this have anything to do with Barbara?”
“Yes, sir,” Carella said. “We understand that you were the gentleman who reported Miss Caesar missing.”
“Yes,” Tudor said. “You must forgive my rudeness when my receptionist announced you. I sometimes get calls from policemen that have nothing whatever to do with... well, something as serious as Barbara.”
“What kind of calls, Mr. Tudor?” Hawes asked.
“Oh, you know. A show is closed down someplace, and some of my girls are in it, and immediately the police make an association. I only find employment for these girls. I don’t tell them how to observe the rules of propriety.” Tudor shrugged. His speech was curious in that it was absolutely phony. He spoke with the clipped precision of an Englishman, and one received the impression that he chose his words carefully before allowing them to leave his mouth. But the elegant tones and rounded vowels were delivered in the harshest, most blatant city accent Carella had ever heard. And the odd part was that Tudor didn’t seem at all aware of the accent that stamped him as a native of either Isola or Calm’s Point. Blithely, he clipped his words immaculately and seemed under the impression that he was a member of the House of Lords delivering a speech to his fellow peers.
“I really am not responsible for whatever acts my clients wish to concoct,” Tudor said. “I wish the police would realize that. I am a booking agent, not a choreographer.” He smiled briefly. “About Barbara,” he said. “What have you heard?”
“Nothing at all, Mr. Tudor. We were hoping you could tell us a little more about her.”
“Oh.”
Tudor uttered only that single word, but disappointment was evident in it, and disappointment showed immediately afterward on his face.
“I’m sorry if we raised your hopes, Mr. Tudor,” Carella said.
“That’s all right,” Tudor said. “It’s just... ”
“She meant a lot to you, this girl?”
“Yes,” Tudor answered. He nodded his head. “Yes.”
“In a business way?” Hawes asked.
“Business?” Tudor shook his head again. “No, not business. I’ve handled better strippers. Am handling better ones now. That little girl who just left my office. Her name is Pavan, got here from Frisco last July, and has just about set this metropolis on fire. Excellent. Absolutely excellent, and she’s only twenty years old, would you believe it? She has a long future ahead of her, that girl. Barbara was no child, you know.”
“How old is she?”
“Thirty-four. Of course, there are strippers who keep performing until they’re well into their fifties. I don’t know of any performers, or of any women for that matter, who take as much pride in their bodies as exotic dancers do. I suppose there’s an element of narcissism involved. Or perhaps we’re looking too deep. They know their bodies are their fortunes. And so they take care of themselves. Barbara, though she was thirty-four, possessed... ” Tudor stopped short. “Forgive me. I must get out of the habit of using the past tense in speaking about her. It’s simply that, when a person leaves, disappears, that person is thought of as being gone, and the tongue plays its trick. Forgive me.”
“Are we to understand, Mr. Tudor, that there was something more than a strict business relationship between you and Miss Caesar?”
“More?” Tudor said.
“Yes, was there—”
“I love her,” Tudor said flatly.
The room was silent.
“I see,” Carella said.
“Yes.” Tudor paused for a long time. “I love her. I still love her. I must keep remembering that. I must keep remembering that I still love her, and that she is still here.”
“Here?”
“Yes. Here. Somewhere. In this city. She is still here.” Tudor nodded. “Nothing has happened to her. She is the same Barbara, laughing, lovely... ” He stopped himself. “Have you seen her picture, gentlemen?”
“No,” Carella said.
“I have some, I believe. Would they help you?”
“Yes, they would.”
“I have already given some to the Missing Persons Bureau. Are you from the Missing Persons Bureau?”
“No.”
“No, I didn’t think you were. Then what is your interest in Barbara?”
“We’re acting in an advisory capacity,” Carella lied.
“I see.” Tudor stood up. He seemed taller on his feet, a man bigger than six feet who walked with economy and grace to the filing cabinet in one corner of the room. “I think there are some in here,” he said. “I usually have pictures taken as soon as I put a girl under contract. I had quite a few taken of Barbara when she first came to me.”
“When was this, Mr. Tudor?”
Tudor did not look up from the files. His hands worked busily as he spoke. “January. She came here from Kansas City. A friend of hers in a show there recommended me to her. I was the first person she met in this city.”
“She came to you first, is that correct, Mr. Tudor?”
“Straight from the airport. I helped her get settled. I fell in love with her the moment I saw her.”
“Straight from the airport?” Carella asked.
“What? Yes. Ah, here are the pictures.” He turned from the files and carried several glossy prints to his desk. “This is Barbara, gentlemen. Bubbles Caesar. Beautiful, isn’t she?”
Carella did not look at the pictures. “She came straight from the airport, you say?”
“Yes. Most of these pictures—”
“Was she carrying any luggage?”
“Luggage? Yes, I believe so. Why?”
“What kind of luggage?”