Softly in the Night, page 5
“I like those, too, but I don’t like to get in a rut. You were saying something about the finest writer in the English language . . .”
“Christopher Marlowe,” he said firmly. “I grant that he did not reach the peak achieved by Shakespeare, but then Marlowe was murdered when he was only twenty-nine years of age. Nearly everything he wrote was written when he was considerably younger than that. If you compare his first works with those of Shakespeare, and also compare the improvement in each writer over a similar period of time, I think you might agree with me. I might mention that I think Shakespeare knew this; Marlowe was the only contemporary that Shakespeare mentioned in his plays.”
“ ‘A great reckoning in a little room/ ” I murmured. “You astound me, sir,” he said. “What manner of man are you, who wears, if I may venture a guess, a Brooks Brothers suit, drinks in a Skid Row bar, and quotes Shakespeare on Marlowe?”
“With the possible exception of the suit,” I said, “I could ask you the same question.” Our glasses were empty and I motioned to the bartender to fill them up again. “But it’s not so mysterious, Hank. I am a man who enjoys reading, wenching, and drinking—not necessarily in that order. I can get the same vintage of V.O. in this bar as I could in a fancy one, and this one happened to be the nearest. As for the clothes, I like good clothes and I can usually afford them, thanks to an active interest in the more violent aspects of our civilization.”
“Violence? Do you mean murder?”
“Sometimes murder.”
“How interesting. Are you some species of well-dressed fuzz?”
“I don’t think the cops would like it if you called me a cop,” I said. “Just say that I’m interested in such things, and that sometimes I make money from my interest.”
“Most people are interested in murder,” he said. “That is, when death also comes softly in the night on little cat feet.”
“Sometimes it walks heavier than that,’* I said. “Do you come in here regularly, Hank?”
“You might say that I am a loyal patron of this and every other tavern on the street, subject only to the state of my finances. It is my contribution to the better things in life. ‘I often wonder what the vintners buy one half so precious as the goods they sell.’ ”
“I’ll go along with that,” I said. “I gather from what you said that it isn’t too often that you see a well-dressed man in these bars.”
“Affluence is not one of the more prominent aspects of the section,” he said. “We are mostly bound together by the sameness of our existence. And you, sir?”
“About two months ago there was a man who visited the bars along here for several days. He was a very prosperous businessman with offices not far from here. He was a big spender and was, I’m sure, dressed in a very expensive suit. He must have been conspicuous.” “I remember there was such a man around. Why are you interested?”
“I want to know why he was visiting these bars.” “Perhaps he was merely rehearsing for a future existence. Perhaps he had decided to give up a life of responsibility and join us in the ultimate freedom.” “Perhaps—but I doubt it. Did you see him often?” “Five or six times, maybe more. I tried to be present at all times. There was a generous flow of refreshments when he was here.”
“Why?” I asked. “You’re a man of some curiosity. You've just shown it with me, so you must have been curious about him. Why did he come to one of these bars every day for about a week and then suddenly stop coming?”
“I confess to a curiosity about the activities of my fellow humans,” he said. “I was, in fact, interested in the man’s behavior. But I’m afraid I was never able to determine his purpose—except that he was looking for someone.”
“Who?”
He was thoughtful for a minute, staring at the empty glass in his hand. I took the hint and ordered another round from the bartender.
“You are a gentleman and a scholar,” Hank said. “I don’t believe that who is proper terminology. Perhaps, in the beginning at least, he was looking for a what, rather than a who.”
“What does that mean?”
“I believe that he was looking for a type of man, a certain appearance and build. One who was not too far gone, but was well on his way.”
“Why here?”
“I gave that some thought at the time, sir. My first idea was that the man was some variety of sexual deviate, but I soon discarded that. Later I thought he was merely rich and eccentric, a man without kith or kin, looking for someone to salvage from our particular version of the city dump, someone he could rebuild in his own image, you might say.”
“Why do you put it that way?” I asked.
“Most of die men in whom he seemed interested were about his own size and build and age, with perhaps other superficial resemblances. And there are rich men who like to play god.”
“Not only rich men,” I said. “Did he finally find someone?”
“I believe so.”
“You don’t know?”
“Only in a deductive sense. The last two days he spent all his time with one man, but even Jimmy didn’t know what he wanted. He said that the man just kept buying him drinks and asking a lot of questions about himself.”
“Who was it he picked?”
“Jimmy.”
“Last name?”
He shrugged. “We’re not much for last names around here. I don’t know what it was and I don’t think anyone else does.” He raised his voice. “William.”
“Yeah?” the bartender said.
"What was Jimmy’s last name?”
“How the hell do I know?” the bartender said. “Half the time around this joint I don’t even know my own last name.” He went back to his racing form.
“You see,” Hank said. “We do not consider labels so important. He was Jimmy, and that was all anyone needed to know.”
“All right,” I said. “Any idea where I can find Jimmy?” “I fear not. He has not been around here since then. Oh, he was here for one extra day after the last time the other man was seen. He visited every bar, seemed to be in an unusually solvent state, and bought drinks for everyone. The following day he was gone. It is also part of my deduction that he was, shall we say, adopted by the man who found him. . . . On the other hand, perhaps Jimmy was his long-lost brother.”
“What about Jimmy’s friends? They might be able to tell me where to find him.”
“Alas, here one has no friends, except when one has a bottle to share. It is actually a most convenient arrangement. When Jimmy came into good fortune he did in a way share a bottle with everyone. But if my theory is correct, he was then coming into possession of a bottle much too large to share, and so he would vanish without even saying goodbye. I would do the same myself.”
“Are you sure no one will know where he went? Perhaps at the place where he lived.”
He smiled. “Like many of us, he did not have what you could call a permanent address. It depended on whether he had fifty cents for a bed, or twenty-five cents, or nothing. No mail is ever received at any of these addresses, so there is no reason for leaving a forwarding address. What is to be forwarded—an old muscatel bottle?”
“I suppose you’re right,” I said. Actually I wasn’t too surprised by the information; it fit the picture I already had in mind. All that was required was to find all the pieces and put them together. “Do you think you could find out anything about what Jimmy did or where he went after meeting this other man?”
“I do not know,” he said. “As I have told you, there is little available information about anyone on Skid Row.”
“Will you try?”
“I shall endeavor to make inquiries.”
“That’s all I can ask,” I said. “I’ll come back down here and look for you. Or if you think there is something urgent, I can be reached at the Pacific-Melton Hotel in Santa Monica.” I took a ten dollar bill from my pocket and beckoned the bartender over. I put the bill on the bar. “I want you to take this,” I told him, “and give Hank ten dollar’s worth of credit. Be sure that he gets all of it.”
The bartender scowled, but he put the money in the cash register and made a note on a slip of paper.
“ ‘O friend,’ ” Hank said, “ ‘I feel thy words to comfort my distressed soul.’ ”
“You left out part of the quotation,” I said, “ ‘so I will leave you a while to ponder on your sins/ ”
He smiled as I got up and walked out. I went around the comer and got into the Cadillac. I looked at my watch. Most of the day was gone, but I could still do a couple of things. I checked the notes I’d made. The Japanese-American Cultural Corporation had offices out in Hollywood. I drove across town and headed up Sunset Boulevard. On the way, I stopped at a drug store and made a phone call to Pamela Cantwell. She answered it herself.
“This is Milo March,” I said.
“Hello,” she said. “Have you decided to have me arrested?”
“Not immediately,” I said. “In fact, I had something quite different in mind.”
“Oh?”
“Since you’re not in heavy mourning,” I said, “I thought you might have dinner with me tonight.”
“Do you always socialize with the people you suspect of crimes?” she asked.
“Only sometimes,” I said cheerfully. “I promise not to be too suspicious. How about it?”
She hesitated only a moment. “I’d love to.”
“Fine. I’ll pick you up about seven?”
“I’ll be ready. Goodbye, Mr. March.” There was a click as she hung up.
I went back to the car and drove to Hollywood. The foundation had its offices in a new modernistic building. I parked and went up. There was a pretty Japanese girl at the reception desk.
“My name is Milo March,” I said. “I’d like to see Miss Asakusa. Tell her it’s in reference to the foundation and its original sponsor.”
She smiled and picked up her phone. She talked for a minute, then replaced the receiver. She gave me another one of those smiles. “You may go in,” she said, indicating a door on my left.
I walked over and opened the door. I took one step inside and then stopped. The girl was standing up back of her desk. She was no more than five feet tall, and looked like a Japanese doll—only she had a lot more curves than most of the Japanese women I’d seen. I realized that I’d been staring a long time. I stepped farther into the room and closed the door behind me. “Miss Asakusa?” I asked.
“Yes,” she said. She smiled as though she knew what I’d been thinking while I was standing in the doorway. “What can I do for you, Mr. March?”
“That’s a large question,” I said. “It has to do directly with Richard Cantwell and indirectly with your foundation. I’d like to ask you a few questions.” “Certainly,” she said. ‘Won’t you sit down, please? I was very sorry to learn about the accident to Mr. Cantwell.”
We both sat down. I discovered that she looked even better at close range than she had at a distance. “We’re not sure it was an accident, Miss Asakusa,” I said. “I’ll be perfectly frank with you. I represent the insurance company which carried all of Cantwell’s insurance. As you may know, the life insurance on himself and on his wife, as well as the fire insurance on the house that burned down, carried a clause that in the event that he and his wife died simultaneously, all of the money was to go to your foundation.”
She laughed softly. “I see. You think that perhaps someone here at the foundation might have had a hand in the fire and the death of Mr. Cantwell. But the papers today have reported that Mrs. Cantwell is still very much alive, so you see we do not get any money from the insurance policies of Mr. Cantwell. Far from having gained by this, we have actually lost, since Mr. Cantwell was a steady donor to our cause.”
“That wasn’t actually my theory,” I said mildly, “and I’d still like to ask you a few questions.”
“All right. I’ll answer if I can.”
“How long did you know Mr. Cantwell?”
“Oh, several years. Strangely enough, I first met him in Japan. I was visiting my uncle who owns Asakusa Corporation there. Mr. Cantwell did considerable business with my uncle’s company.”
“You became friends?”
“We became friendly, yes.”
‘How friendly?” I asked bluntly.
She laughed again. “You are frank, aren’t you, Mr. March? I'll try to answer you just as frankly. I’m aware that Mr. Cantwell was very interested in women, many women. I will not deny that there were times when he tried to turn our relationship into something else, but it was never more than friendly.”
“I cant blame him for trying,” I said. “Whose idea was this foundation? His or yours?”
“Mine,” she said promptly. “I’d had the idea for a long time. I mentioned it that time at my uncle’s house in Japan. Mr. Cantwell was interested, and told me to come and see him when we both got back here. I did and that was the beginning of the foundation.”
“He put up all the original money?”
“Yes.”
“And most of it since then?”
“Has any of the money come from other sources?” “Yes, but not nearly as much as Mr. Cantwell gave.” “How much would you say he has given the foundation from the beginning?”
“About two hundred thousand dollars.”
“That’s a lot of money,” I said. “Why did he do it? Was he interested in Oriental culture or cementing friendship between Japan and this country?”
“Did you know Mr. Cantwell?” she countered.
“No, but I’ve been learning a lot about him.”
“Then you should know that the answer to both questions is no. He was interested in making money and I’m sure that he made a very good return on the money he put into the foundation. That was all right with me, because the foundation has still been accomplishing what I wanted it to do.”
“What is that?”
“I am both American and Japanese,” she said. “There is no way I can stop being Japanese, but I am also most thoroughly American. I want my fellow Americans to know more about the Japanese, and I want the Japanese to know more about me and my fellow Americans. If that can be accomplished, we might never have repetition of the things that happened here on the West Coast during World War II.”
“I can’t argue with that,” I said. “But what now? As you pointed out, Mrs. Cantwell is still alive and you don’t get any money. Cantwell isn’t around to contribute more. Will you be able to continue?”
“I think so. We may have to trim expenses some, but I think we can continue. We do have a few other small donors now and I’m sure they will continue. There are others I think we can get. And I thought I would go talk to Mrs. Cantwell after a suitable time.”
“I doubt if that will do you much good,” I said. “Who runs the foundation?”
“Well, I’m active head of it, if that’s what you mean.” “Who signs the checks?”
' “I do.”
“Who makes the decisions?”
“We have a board of directors. They make all the decisions, based on recommendations from me, then I carry them out.”
“Was Cantwell on the board?”
“No.”
“What was his position in the corporation?”
“He didn’t have any position in it.”
“None. What about voting rights?”
“He had none.”
“Then tell me something, Miss Asakusa. If the foundation had come into a large amount of money, how could Cantwell have gotten his hands on it?”
“He couldn’t have.”
“Except through you?”
“Except through me.” She smiled again. “Ah, I see were back to the mistress theory.”
“The thought did occur to me,” I admitted, “but Til take your word for it. Well, I guess that’s all for now. I may think of some other question to ask you later.” “Come back any time, Mr. March,” she said. “Maybe you’ll become interested enough to give us a donation yourself.”
“I’ll come around some time and let you give me a sales talk,” I said.
I left and went downstairs. I found the nearest phone booth and called the local office of Intercontinental. I asked them to have their lawyers check up on the Japa-nese-American Cultural Corporation. I wanted to know how it was set up and about everybody connected with it. They promised they’d have the information sometime the next day. I got back into my car and drove to Santa Monica. I’d have time for a couple of leisurely drinks and to change clothes before I went to pick up Pamela Cantwell.
I parked the car on the hotel grounds and went into the main building. There was a pleasant, dimly lit bar. It was almost empty. I sat at the bar and ordered a dry martini.
I sipped the drink and thought about the case. It was a tough one. I felt I had gotten off on the right track, although I’d have to dig up a lot to make a case out of it. But I had the beginning.
Richard Cantwell had taken something close to a halfmillion dollars out of his company by dipping into the till. The only possible reason for doing it that way was that he didn’t want anyone to know that he had the money in his pocket. He had also spent a week or so on Skid Row, searching for a bum who resembled him in general appearance and age. He'd found someone and that particular bum had also vanished. I’d still have to find an explanation for the dental identification, but that could have been fixed, so that the body in the fire might have been that of the man I knew only as Jimmy. A problem that still bothered me was that of the woman’s body found in the fire. Who was she? And why was she there? I had one idea, but that might be the hardest of all to prove.
Maybe Pamela and Richard Cantwell had planned it together. Maybe the two bodies were supposed to have been identified as Mr. and Mrs. Cantwell. Maybe she’d gone along that far, and then decided not to go the rest of the route. That would leave her sitting pretty, collecting all the insurance money, while her husband was left whistling out in limbo. That would be a pretty way of giving him the business if she hated him. But if that were true, Richard Cantwell was certainly not the type of man to take it sitting down, and sooner or later he’d show up with ideas of his own.
