Big John Masters opened his mouth wide, waved his cigar about, chuckled.
“Pay me, Dave. For once a lady was right.” He turned his hole card with a flourish. A five.
Dave Aage smiled politely, didn’t move. A muted telephone bell rang close to him, behind long silk drapes that bordered the very high lancet windows. He took a cigarette out of his mouth and laid it carefully on the edge of a tray on a tabouret beside the card table, reached behind the curtain for the phone.
He spoke into the cup with a cool, almost whispering voice, then listened for a long time. Nothing changed in his greenish eyes, no flicker of emotion showed on his narrow face. Masters squirmed, bit hard on his cigar.
After a long time Aage said, “Okey, you’ll hear from us.” He pronged the instrument and put it back behind the curtain.
He picked his cigarette up, pulled the lobe of his ear. Masters swore. “What’s eating you, for Pete’s sake? Gimme ten bucks.”
Aage smiled dryly and leaned back. He reached for a drink, sipped it, put it down, spoke around his cigarette. All his movements were slow, thoughtful, almost absent-minded. He said: “Are we a couple of smart guys, John?”
“Yeah. We own the town. But it don’t help my blackjack game any.”
“It’s just two months to election, isn’t it, John?”
Masters scowled at him, fished in his pocket for a fresh cigar, jammed it into his mouth.
“So what?”
“Suppose something happened to our toughest opposition. Right now. Would that be a good idea, or not?”
“Huh?” Masters raised eyebrows so thick that his whole face seemed to have to work to push them up. He thought for a moment, sourly. “It would be lousy—if they didn’t catch the guy pronto. Hell, the voters would figure we hired it done.”
“You’re talking about murder, John,” Aage said patiently. “I didn’t say anything about murder.”
Masters lowered his eyebrows and pulled at a coarse black hair that grew out of his nose.
“Well, spit it out!”
Aage smiled, blew a smoke ring, watched it float off and come apart in frail wisps.
“I just had a phone call,” he said very softly. “Donegan Marr is dead.”
Masters moved slowly. His whole body moved slowly towards the card table, leaned far over it. When his body couldn’t go any farther his chin came out until his jaw muscles stood out like thick wires.
“Huh?” he said thickly. “Huh?”
Aage nodded, calm as ice. “But you were right about murder, John. It was murder. Just half an hour ago, or so. In his office. They don’t know who did it—yet.”
Masters shrugged heavily and leaned back. He looked around him with a stupid expression. Very suddenly he began to laugh. His laughter bellowed and roared around the little turretlike room where the two men sat, overflowed into an enormous living room beyond, echoed back and forth through a maze of heavy dark furnure, enough standing lamps to light a boulevard, a double row of oil paintings in massive gold frames.
Aage sat silent. He rubbed his cigarette out slowly in the tray until there was nothing of the fire left but a thick dark smudge. He dusted his bony fingers together and waited.
Masters stopped laughing as abruptly as he had begun. The room was very still. Masters looked tired. He mopped his big face.
“We got to do something, Dave,” he said quietly. “I almost forgot. We got to break this fast. It’s dynamite.”
Aage reached behind the curtain again and brought the phone out, pushed it across the table over the scattered cards.
“Well—we know how, don’t we?” he said calmly.
A cunning light shone in Big John Masters’ muddy brown eyes. He licked his lips, reached a big hand for the phone.
“Yeah,” he said purringly, “we do, Dave. We do at that, by—!”
He dialed with a thick finger that would hardly go into the holes.
TWO
Donegan Marr’s face looked cool, neat, poised, even then. He was dressed in soft gray flannels and his hair was the same soft gray color as his suit, brushed back from a ruddy, youngish face. The skin was pale on the frontal bones where the hair would fall when he stood up. The rest of the skin was tanned.
He was lying back in a padded blue office chair. A cigar had gone out in a tray with a bronze greyhound on its rim. His left hand dangled beside the chair and his right hand held a gun loosely on the desk top. The polished nails glittered in sunlight from the big closed window behind him.
Blood had soaked the left side of his vest, made the gray flannel almost black. He was quite dead, had been dead for some time.
A tall man, very brown and slender and silent, leaned against a brown mahogany filing cabinet and looked fixedly at the dead man. His hands were in the pockets of a neat blue serge suit. There was a straw hat on the back of his head. But there was nothing casual about his eyes or his tight, straight mouth.
A big sandy-haired man was groping around on the blue rug. He said thickly, stooped over: “No shells, Sam.”
The dark man didn’t move, didn’t answer. The other stood up, yawned, looked at the man in the chair.
“Hell! This one will stink. Two months to election. Boy, is this a smack in the puss for somebody.”
The dark man said slowly: “We went to school together. We used to be buddies. We carried the torch for the same girl. He won, but we stayed good friends, all three of us. He was always a great kid . . . Maybe a shade too smart.”
The sandy-haired man walked around the room without touching anything. He bent over and sniffed at the gun on the desk, shook his head, said: “Not used—this one.” He wrinkled his nose, sniffed at the air. “Air-conditioned. The three top floors. Soundproofed too. High-grade stuff. They tell me this whole building is electric-welded. Not a rivet in it. Ever hear that, Sam?”
The dark man shook his head slowly.
“Wonder where the help was,” the sandy-haired man went on. “A big shot like him would have more than one girl.”
The dark man shook his head again. “That’s all, I guess. She was out to lunch. He was a lone wolf, Pete. Sharp as a weasel. In a few more years he’d have taken the town over.”
The sandy-haired man was behind the desk now, almost leaning over the dead man’s shoulder. He was looking down at a leather-backed appointment pad with buff leaves. He said slowly: “Somebody named Imlay was due here at twelve-fifteen. Only date on the pad.”
He glanced at a cheap watch on his wrist. “One-thirty. Long gone. Who’s Imlay? . . . Say, wait a minute! There’s an assistant D.A. named Imlay. He’s running for judge on the Master-Aage ticket. D’you figure—”
There was a sharp knock on the door. The office was so long that the two men had to think a moment before they placed which of the three doors it was. Then the sandy-haired man went towards the most distant of them, saying over his shoulder: “M.E’s man maybe. Leak this to your favorite newshawk and you’re out a job. Am I right?”
The dark man didn’t answer. He moved slowly to the desk, leaned forward a little, spoke softly to the dead man.
“Goodbye, Donny. Just let it all go. I’ll take care of it. I’ll take care of Belle.”
The door at the end of the office opened and a brisk man with a bag came in, trotted down the blue carpet and put his bag on the desk. The sandy-haired man shut the door against a bulge of faces. He strolled back to the desk.
The brisk man cocked his head on one side, examining the corpse. “Two of them,” he muttered. “Look like about .32’s—hard slugs. Close to the heart but not touching. He must have died pretty soon. Maybe a minute or two.”
The dark man made a disgusted sound and walked to the window, stood with his back to the room, looking out, at the tops of high buildings and a warm blue sky. The sandy-haired man watched the examiner lift a dead eyelid. He said: “Wish the powder guy would get here. I wanta use the phone. This Imlay—”
The dark man turned his head slightly, with a du
ll smile. “Use it. This isn’t going to be any mystery.”
“Oh I don’t know,” the M.E.’s man said, flexing a wrist, then holding the back of his hand against the skin of the dead man’s face. “Might not be so damn political as you think, Delaguerra. He’s a good-looking stiff.”
The sandy-haired man took hold of the phone gingerly, with a handkerchief, laid the receiver down, dialed, picked the receiver up with the handkerchief and put it to his ear.
After a moment he snapped his chin down, said: “Pete Marcus. Wake the Inspector.” He yawned, waited again, then spoke in a different tone: “Marcus and Delaguerra, Inspector, from Donegan Marr’s office. No print or camera men here yet . . . Huh? . . . Holding off till the Commissioner gets here? . . . Okey . . . Yeah, he’s here.”
The dark man turned. The man at the phone gestured at him. “Take it, Spanish.”
Sam Delaguerra took the phone, ignoring the careful handkerchief, listened. His face got hard. He said quietly: “Sure I knew him—but I didn’t sleep with him . . . Nobody’s here but his secretary, a girl. She phoned the alarm in. There’s a name on a pad—Imlay, a twelve-fifteen appointment. No, we haven’t touched anything yet . . . No . . . Okey, right away.”
He hung up so slowly that the click of the instrument was barely audible. His hand stayed on it, then fell suddenly and heavily to his side. His voice was thick.
“I’m called off it, Pete. You’re to hold it down until Commissioner Drew gets here. Nobody gets in. White, black or Cherokee Indian.”
“What you called in for?” the sandy-haired man yelped angrily.
“Don’t know. It’s an order,” Delaguerra said tonelessly.
The M. E. ’s man stopped writing on a form pad to look curiously at Delaguerra, with a sharp, sidelong look.
Delaguerra crossed the office and went through the communicating door. There was a smaller office outside, partly partitioned off for a waiting room, with a group of leather chairs and a table with magazines. Inside a counter was a typewriter desk, a safe, some filing cabinets. A small dark girl sat at the desk with her head down on a wadded handkerchief. Her hat was crooked on her head. Her shoulders jerked and her thick sobs were like panting.
Delaguerra patted her shoulder. She looked up at him with a tear-bloated face, a twisted mouth. He smiled down at her questioning face, said gently: “Did you call Mrs. Marr yet?”
She nodded, speechless, shaken with rough sobs. He patted her shoulder again, stood a moment beside her, then went on out, with his mouth tight and a hard, dark glitter in his black eyes.
THREE
The big English house stood a long way back from the narrow, winding ribbon of concrete that was called De Neve Lane. The lawn had rather long grass with a curving path of stepping stones half hidden in it. There was a gable over the front door and ivy on the wall. Trees grew all around the house, close to it, made it a little dark and remote.
All the houses in De Neve Lane had that same calculated air of neglect. But the tall green hedge that hid the driveway and the garages was trimmed as carefully as a French poodle, and there was nothing dark or mysterious about the mass of yellow and flame-colored gladioli that flared at the opposite end of the lawn.
Delaguerra got out of a tan-colored Cadillac touring car that had no top. It was an old model, heavy and dirty. A taut canvas formed a deck over the back part of the car. He wore a white linen cap and dark glasses and had changed his blue serge for a gray cloth outing suit with a jerkin-style zipper jacket.
He didn’t look very much like a cop. He hadn’t looked very much like a cop in Donegan Marr’s office. He walked slowly up the path of stepping stones, touched a brass knocker on the front door of the house, then didn’t knock with it. He pushed a bell at the side, almost hidden by the ivy.
There was a long wait. It was very warm, very silent. Bees droned over the warm bright grass. There was the distant whirring of a lawnmower.
The door opened slowly and a black face looked out at him, a long, sad black face with tear streaks on its lavender face powder. The black face almost smiled, said haltingly: “Hello there, Mistah Sam. It’s sure good to see you.”
Delaguerra took his cap off, swung the dark glasses at his side. He said: “Hello, Minnie. I’m sorry. I’ve got to see Mrs. Marr.”
“Sure. Come right in, Mistah Sam.”
The maid stood aside and he went into a shadowy hall with a tile floor. “No reporters yet?”
The girl shook her head slowly. Her warm brown eyes were stunned, doped with shock.
“Ain’t been nobody yet . . . She ain’t been in long. She ain’t said a word. She just stand there in that there sun room that ain’t got no sun.”
Delaguerra nodded, said: “Don’t talk to anybody, Minnie. They’re trying to keep this quiet for a while, out of the papers.”
“Ah sure won’t, Mistah Sam. Not nohow.”
Delaguerra smiled at her, walked noiselessly on crêpe soles along the tiled hall to the back of the house, turned into another hall just like it at right angles. He knocked at a door. There was no answer. He turned the knob and went into a long narrow room that was dim in spite of many windows. Trees grew close to the windows, pressing their leaves against the glass. Some of the windows were masked by long cretonne drapes.
The tall girl in the middle of the room didn’t look at him. She stood motionless, rigid. She stared at the windows. Her hands were tightly clenched at her sides.
She had red-brown hair that seemed to gather all the light there was and make a soft halo around her coldly beautiful face. She wore a sportily cut blue velvet ensemble with patch pockets. A white handkerchief with a blue border stuck out of the breast pocket, arranged carefully in points, like a foppish man’s handkerchief.
Delaguerra waited, letting his eyes get used to the dimness. After a while the girl spoke through the silence, in a low, husky voice.
“Well . . . they got him, Sam. They got him at last. Was he so much hated?”
Delaguerra said softly: “He was in a tough racket, Belle. I guess he played it as clean as he could, but he couldn’t help but make enemies.”
She turned her head slowly and looked at him. Lights shifted in her hair. Gold glinted in it. Her eyes were vividly, startlingly blue. Her voice faltered a little, saying: “Who killed him, Sam? Have they any ideas?”
Delaguerra nodded slowly, sat down in a wicker chair, swung his cap and glasses between his knees.
“Yeah. We think we know who did it. A man named Imlay, an assistant in the D.A.’s office.”
“My God!” the girl breathed. “What’s this rotten city coming to?”
Delaguerra went on tonelessly: “It was like this—if you’re sure you want to know . . . yet.”
“I do, Sam. His eyes stare at me from the wall, wherever I look. Asking me to do something. He was pretty swell to me, Sam. We had our trouble, of course, but . . . they didn’t mean anything.”
Delaguerra said: “This Imlay is running for judge with the backing of the Masters-Aage group. He’s in and the gay forties and it seems he’s been playing house with a night-club number called Stella La Motte. Somehow, someway, photos were taken of them together, very drunk and undressed. Donny got the photos, Belle. They were found in his desk. According to his desk pad he had a date with Imlay at twelve-fifteen. We figure they had a row and Imlay beat him to the punch.”
“You found those photos, Sam?” the girl asked, very quietly.
He shook his head, smiled crookedly. “No. If I had, I guess I might have ditched them. Commissioner Drew found them—after I was pulled off the investigation.”
Her head jerked at him. Her vivid blue eyes got wide. “Pulled off the investigation? You—Donny’s friend?”
“Yeah. Don’t take it too big. I’m a cop, Belle. After all I take orders.”
She didn’t speak, didn’t look at him any more. After a little while he said: “I’d like to have the keys to your cabin at Puma Lake. I’m detailed to go up there and look a
round, see if there’s any evidence. Donny had conferences there.”
Something changed in the girl’s face. It got almost contemptuous. Her voice was empty. “I’ll get them. But you won’t find anything there. If you’re helping them to find dirt on Donny—so they can clear this Imlay person . . .”
He smiled a little, shook his head slowly. His eyes were very deep, very sad.
“That’s crazy talk, kid. I’d turn my badge in before I did that.”
“I see.” She walked past him to the door, went out of the room. He sat quite still while she was gone, looked at the wall with an empty stare. There was a hurt look on his face. He swore very softly, under his breath.
The girl came back, walked up to him and held her hand out. Something tinkled into his palm.
“The keys, copper.”
Delaguerra stood up, dropped the keys into a pocket. His face got wooden. Belle Marr went over to a table and her nails scratched harshly on a cloisonné box, getting a cigarette out of it. With her back turned she said: “I don’t think you’ll have any luck, as I said. It’s too bad you’ve only got blackmailing on him so far.”
Delaguerra breathed out slowly, stood a moment, then turned away. “Okey,” he said softly. His voice was quite offhand now, as if it was a nice day, as if nobody had been killed.
At the door he turned again. “I’ll see you when I get back, Belle. Maybe you’ll feel better.”
She didn’t answer, didn’t move. She held the unlighted cigarette rigidly in front of her mouth, close to it. After a moment Delaguerra went on: “You ought to know how I feel about it. Donny and I were like brothers once. I—I heard you were not getting on so well with him . . . I’m glad as all hell that was wrong. But don’t let yourself get too hard, Belle. There’s nothing to be hard about—with me.”
He waited a few seconds, staring at her back. When she still didn’t move or speak he went on out.
FOUR
A narrow rocky road dropped down from the highway and ran along the flank of the hill above the lake. The tops of cabins showed here and there among the pines. An open shed was cut into the side of the hill. Delaguerra put his dusty Cadillac under it and climbed down a narrow path towards the water.