Black Mask Magazine (Vol. 30, No. 2 — July 1947)
- Автор: Голт Уильям Кэмпбелл, Rischer Bruno
- Год: 1947
- Язык: английский
- Год: Fictioneers / Popular Publications
- Жанр: Другие детективы
Электронная книга - «Black Mask Magazine (Vol. 30, No. 2 — July 1947)». Краткое содержание книги:
“I hate to break up all this high finance,” I said.
The big moonfaced man swiveled his head and fixed me with the old hypnotic eye. “How’s that again?” he asked.
“I’m here to see Miss Tremaine.”
“Is that so? And your name is...?”
“Tremaine, same as hers. Cousin.”
“Well, well, step right into my office.”
He swung open a gate at the end of the desk. The clerk rested both elbows on the desk top and stared at one of the potted palms — stared past it out a window at two tall pale men wearing berets and talking together across the street. I edged through the gate and followed the big man into his office. He closed the door, softly, waved me into a chair.
“Keever’s the name,” he said. “I’m houseman here. I take kind of a special interest in Miss Tremaine. Any friend of hers is a friend of mine.”
“Nice of you. How about telling her that I’m here.”
“Yeah, sure. Right away. Cigar while waiting?”
“No thanks.” I got out a pack of cigarettes, tucked one between my lips. He made a magician’s pass in the air and held a match flame three inches from my nose. I drew a light from it, settled back, exhaled. He shook out the match and parked his broad fanny against the edge of his desk. His eyes stared calmly down into my eyes. He made no move toward the house phone behind him. After a long moment I grinned stiffly at him.
“O.K.,” I said. “How much to let me speak a few words with Gail Tremaine?”
He grinned back at me, not pleasantly. “Your name ain’t Tremaine,” he said. “I know a gumshoe when I see one. Been one myself for twenty-five years. Private?”
I dug out a card, one of my own this time, and passed it over to him.
“Yeah,” he grunted. He gave the card the careful eye and tucked it away in a fold of a soft dark breast pocket wallet. “John A. Dillon, huh? What’s the grift?”
“A client of mine thinks the Tremaine girl has her hooks into friend husband. I don’t think so myself, but I’d like to have a talk with her. Then I can go back and tell this old harpy of a client that she is nuts. Diplomatically, of course. She’s got plenty of dough and she’s not tight with it.”
“Just what kind of expenses are you getting?”
“You probably wouldn’t believe it if I told you.”
“Sounds like a set-up. C-note break you?”
“Take it easy. I haven’t put in a bill, yet.”
“You sound like a pushover. No retainer?”
“Oh, sure,” I said, airily. “A small one. But with this dame it’s better to wait and sock her all at once. Don’t worry, I know what I’m doing.”
He stared at me for a moment longer. A thought flickered in his eyes, but I couldn’t read it. Finally, he uncrossed his ankles and went around the desk and sat down behind it. He took the time to trim a cigar and light it. A smell of heavy-scented flowers drifted in through an open window behind him. The window looked out upon the center court.
I said: “How about a ten spot now and the rest on the cuff?”
He smiled an oily smile behind a thick cloud of cigar smoke. I took out my billfold and slid a ten dollar bill across the desk. He palmed it.
“Read the morning papers?” he asked, in a too casual voice. My pulse dropped so low that I felt numb all over. I didn’t answer him. I dragged deeply on the cigarette, exhaled, gave him the puzzled eye. “A dilly of a murder last night,” he said.
“Do tell.” I didn’t quite bleat. “Who got it?”
“A big shot. Harvey Costain, the racketeers’ mouthpiece. The heat’s on, this time. He’s been connected with a lot of fast dough, these last years. Somebody slipped him a lead button at last.”
“That’s terrible.” I managed the proper grimace without having my face crack wide open and fall off. “As one of the boys, I’d like to hear the details. Talk shop and all that. Right now, though, I’m in a bit of a hurry. Let’s announce me to Miss Tremaine, huh?”
“Relax. It’s only eleven-thirty. She don’t never get up until noon. Give her a chance to get coffee. She’s more apt to talk civil to you.”
“You seem to know a lot about her habits.”
“She’s been a tenant here ten months now.”
That didn’t sound like anything that I could use. I let it ride. He leaned back in his padded desk chair and blew a soft blue doughnut of smoke at the ceiling. A tired blow-fly buzzed in at the window and buzzed slowly around the room, as if searching for a dirty corner in which to drop its eggs. The dirty corner was there, but the fly didn’t see it and got discouraged and buzzed out again.
“She was his girl friend, kind of,” Keever said suddenly. He lowered his eyes and gave me a bright, almost pleased, look of expectancy. I did what I could to look jarred. The stub of my cigarette dangled between my lips. Smoke curled upward past my eyes. I squinted through it and said: “Aw, hell, you’re kidding.”
He shook his head from side to side, slowly, smiled his oily smile again, looked openly pleased. “Why would I kid about a thing like that?” he growled. “The rumor’s around he footed her bills — paid the rent. Naturally he would give her the money and let her pay it herself. He wouldn’t do nothing so foolish as to write us out one of his own checks. So it’s only a rumor — and I don’t believe it myself. Not about a lovely girl like Miss Tremaine.”
The hell you don’t, I thought, batting his gaze back at him for no score. “He ever visit her here?” I asked. “Or wouldn’t you know that?”
“Nothing ever happens around here that I don’t know,” he assured me, in a firm comfortable tone of voice. “Yeah, he come here. He was here last night. Around seven-thirty, that was. Like the papers say, he looked a little pie-eyed, even then. They went out, him and the girl, around fifteen minutes later. She comes in around six-thirty this morning — alone. Leaves a lot to the imagination, don’t it?”
“Yeah,” I grunted. “Like the lady and the tiger.”
“Huh?” He eyed me quizzically. “How’s that again?”
“Skip it,” I said. “So you are sitting on all of his and not telling any of it to the coppers, huh?”
“Aw, hell, what have I got they don’t already know? I mean, what have I really got? I ain’t the kind of a guy to get nobody in no trouble — especially a lovely girl like Miss Tremaine.”
We sat there, sparring with our eyes, half smiling, like a couple of gamblers with five aces apiece. I called him.
“You haven’t talked to the cops yet,” I said. “It’s kind of late to talk now, without getting your nose pinched some. That probably means you aren’t ever going to — because you see a little profit for your silence somewhere.”
“It’s already coming in,” he chuckled, and tucked my ten spot away in the soft dark wallet. He slipped the wallet back inside his coat, said. “Now tell me what you really came to see her about. Remember, I been around for a long time.”
“So have I,” I snapped. “I told you what I wanted to see her about — as much of the story as I decently could. I thought you were a man to be trusted.”
“Oh, I am, son, I am. Relax.” He reached out lazily and lifted the house phone, rumbled into it, then covered the mouthpiece with his hand. “Hope I don’t wake her up. A—”
“Lovely girl like that,” I finished for him.
He nodded, but he wasn’t looking at me. His eyes dreamed at a spot on the wall above my head. They focused suddenly. He took the cigar out of his face and smirked into the phone.
“Keever, the houseman, Miss Tremaine... Yeah, Keever. You have a visitor in the lobby, a gentleman... Yeah, he looks O.K. to me. Won’t say what he wants. He ain’t a sheriff or bill collector or nothing like that... Huh? I was just kidding, Miss Tremaine... Sure, I think you ought to see him. He’s maybe just an autograph hound or something. I’ll stick close to this phone, if you need me... O.K., thanks a lot, Miss Tremaine. Send him right up.”