Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 137, No. 1. Whole No. 833, January 2011
- Автор: Коуди Лиза, Faherty Terence
- Год: 2011
- Язык: английский
- Год: Dell Magazines/Crosstown Publications
- ISBN: ISSN 0013-6328
- Жанр: Другие детективы
Электронная книга - «Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 137, No. 1. Whole No. 833, January 2011». Краткое содержание книги:
Harley Mazuk was born and raised in Cleveland, Ohio and has worked at a variety of jobs, including, for the past ten years, corporate communications. This is his first work of fiction and it would normally go in our Department of First Stories. We’re publishing it in Black Mask because he was so clearly inspired by the style of Chandler and Hammett. The tale is set in San Franciso 60-some years ago. Its P.I. already stars in a just-completed novel!
1
A tall blonde came to see me about her hot boiler, but when I stepped off the elevator on the seventh floor of the Rose Building that late May morning, I didn’t notice her at first. I looked to my left and saw this fellow holding up the wall. His hat brim was so big, it cast a shadow on his face, and only the glow of his cigarette showed underneath. His sport jacket came down to his knees, and his pants had enough extra material in them to wrap the trunk of a redwood tree.
But my office was to the right and I turned away from the zoot-suit kid and walked down the hall. That’s when I first saw the tall blond dish pacing outside my door. Her pillbox hat was cocked at an unusual angle; her sunglasses didn’t cover what looked like a fresh shiner. Her peach blouse was soiled and gapped a bit where it was missing a button at bra level. The seams of her stockings ran as straight along the backs of her calves as Lombard Street down Russian Hill. The overall impression she made was of a piece of bruised fruit, or of a hooker who handled a lot of rough trade.
“Morning,” I said, as I slipped my key into the lock on the door. “Tough night?”
“Are you the detective?”
She had a vaguely European accent. The d and each t in “detective” were clipped and hard; the h in “the” was barely there. “That’s right. Frank Swiver’s my name. Come on in.”
I opened up shop and gave us some lights. An inner door with smoked glass had my name in black letters across the top, then underneath:
I held that door open for the tall blonde. Following her in, I flipped my fedora onto the hat rack and slid the guest chair out. “And you are?”
“I am Mrs. Karin Maldau,” she said. “Thank you.”
Car-with-a-rolled-r-eeen. Karin. “And how can I help you today, Mrs. Maldau?” I moved around my desk and sat in my swivel rocker.
She opened her bag and took out a deck of Old Gold Kings. “Do you mind if I smoke, Mr. Swiver?”
“Be my guest.” I opened the middle desk drawer, found an ashtray, and slid it to her. Then I struck a wooden match and reached it across. Yes, she steadied my hand with hers when she lit up.
“Thank you.” It sounded almost like “tank you,” or “dank you,” but there was a slight aspiration in there. I smiled and waited.
“Mr. Swiver, I have trouble. My car has been stolen.”
I felt a bit deflated. I had rather hoped she was being blackmailed over some nude photos she’d posed for. “Your car was stolen?”
“Yes, that’s right. I want you to get it back.”
“Mrs. Maldau, I would like to help you, but I have to be honest.” I rubbed my hand through my hair. “I really don’t do a lot of auto-theft work. In fact, I can’t recall the last bent car case I handled. I think you’d be better off letting the police work on this. Have you reported it yet?”
“No.”
“Well, first thing, let’s call it in,” I said, and reached for the blower.
“No.” She jumped to her feet. “You mustn’t... I mean, I mustn’t have the police.”
I leaned back. “They can help you.”
Karin Maldau sat back down. “No. I don’t want the police.”
I waited.
“My husband, Mr. Maldau. He would be very angry with me. It’s a brand-new car, you see. He just bought it for me.”
“Make and model?”
“Nineteen forty-nine Mercury. It’s a coupé. Two-door coupé. Purple.”
“When did this happen, Mrs. Maldau?”
“Last night, sometime before six A.M. I have been waiting for you in the corridor for two hours.”
“Maybe the cops coulda done something in those two hours. They coulda put out an APB — that’s an all-points bulletin, Mrs. Maldau.” I grinned. “If the thief was joyriding, they might have spotted the car. It’s a new model. There aren’t many of them on the streets.”
“No cops, Mr. Swiver.” She raised her voice to say that and winced. I noticed red marks on her throat. “I want you to find my car.” She reached in her purse and brought out a wallet. “Here are two hundred dollars. I don’t know your fees, but that is all I have with me.”
“My fee is twenty-five dollars a day, plus any expenses.”
“Here are two hundred now. I will bring you another two hundred when you recover my car. But you must make haste. Put aside your other cases.”
“Well, I could do that. I could focus on your case. But the police have more resources. They have a better chance of success in a matter like this. I’m just one guy.”
“I think I am not getting so much for my money, maybe. But still... I must have back my car. My offer remains.”
I didn’t have any other clients at the time. I could probably have parallel parked a ’49 Mercury in the hole in her story, but the four pictures of General Grant that she’d fanned out on my desk were authentic enough.
“Let’s say I could find your boiler for you, Mrs. Maldau. If I could do it, the police could too, and for no charge. Four hundred dollars is a lot of dough.”
“I told you, I don’t want my husband to know. He has a temper. You find my car. Return it to me. He will not know it was gone. I will take a cab home now. I will tell him I left the car at the home of a lady friend.”
“Where did you leave the car? Where was it when it was stolen?”
“On Webster Street.”
That was on the edge of the Marina district. “Parked on the street?”
“In the parking lot. Sorrento Inn. That is a motor court there.”
“A motel?” I raised an eyebrow.
“Yes, Sorrento Motor Inn.”
“Did you park it there, Mrs. Maldau?”
“Yes, of course. When I awoke, the car was gone.”
A married dame spends the night at a casual motel; her heap turns up missing. And she didn’t want her husband to know.
“Were you alone at the Sorrento?”
“I was not. But you need not concern yourself about who I was with. It could not possibly help you find the car.”
“All right, Mrs. Maldau. I’ll see what I can do. Do you have the registration?”
“No, it was in the car. But I know the plate number. California yellow plates with blue numbers, 78N395.”
“Car in your name, or your husband’s?”
“His, Agustin Maldau.”
“Do you have the keys?” I asked. She did and she gave them to me. I scooped up the fifties, folded them, and put them in my trouser pocket. “How do I get in touch with you?”
“We’re in the book, Mr. Swiver. But please don’t call. My husband might answer. I will call you in six hours. If you’re not in, I will call again each hour.”
We left it at that. She said goodbye, and I poured a short glass of Chenin Blanc and tried to think of how I’d find a stolen car. I walked over to the window with my glass of wine and looked down on Post Street. I saw Karin Maldau walk out and head toward Union Square. I saw the zoot-suit kid step out of a doorway and head up the street the same way.
2
A black man named George was the porter in the garage. I talked to him when I went down for my heap.