Can Ladies Kill?, page 11
“O.K.,” he says. “You’re runnin’ this business.
He stretches some more.
“You know, Lemmy,” he says, “I reckon that this Berenice baby has got all you guys bull-dozed. When she come down to the Precinct the boys tell me that O’Halloran’s eyes was poppin’ outa his head. He just couldn’t take ’em off her ankles, which is a bad thing for a copper, because a copper should never allow himself to think about a dame’s legs.”
“No,” I tell him, “you don’t say. An’ so you are one of these guys that never thinks about dames’ legs. Just thinka that now. Look, Brendy, ain’t anybody ever told you that if you was to add up all the time that all the guys in the world spend thinkin’ about women’s legs, nobody would have any time left. The trouble with you guys is that you don’t think enough about dames’ legs. Maybe the whole of this case is just based on legs.”
“Meanin’ what?” he says.
“Meanin’ this,” I tell him. “Ain’t you ever discovered that most bump-offs is because some guy gets comparin’ some other jane’s legs with the ones that he is legitimately entitled to consider? I reckon that legs is just hell. Don’t crime start in night clubs? Sure it does, an’ it starts because there are more legs in night clubs than anywhere else. Me—I gotta theory that if you was to cut every woman off short an’ issue ’em with a pair of cork legs you could practically do away with all the coppers in the world. Crime would stop dead.”
“Yeah,” he says, “well, I don’t agree because even if every dame had cork legs there would still be some guys would wanta see whether they kept their stockin’s up with drawin’ pins or glue.”
I don’t say nothin’ because I know that Brendy is a bit sore on the subject of legs, his wife bein’ so bow-legged that when she goes swimmin’ she looks like a triumphal arch. I relax an’ then come back to the main issue.
“O.K., Brendy boy,” I tell him. “You just get around an’ do a little leg work yourself, willya? Check up on the handwritin’ in that letter an’ let me know pronto whether Marella really wrote it or whether somebody is tryin’ to pull a fast one on the Berenice baby.
“An’ another thing,” I go on. “You can ask the guy who is goin’ to do the identifyin’ whether he has ever known Marella to use that Sea Island ink before. It’s a funny colour an’ we might get a line through it.”
He says O.K. an’ scrams.
I look at my watch. It is four o’clock an’ a swell afternoon. I telephone down to the desk for some coffee, an’ I put my feet up on the table an’ proceed to do a little quiet thinkin’.
You will realise that this story that Brendy has just issued out is a good one. It sorta goes with all the angles an’ it certainly looks as if Berenice would be the baby that pulled this job.
An’ if Brendy is right then all that stuff she pulled on me last night about the letter bein’ a forgery an’ planted so as to give her a motive for killin’ Marella, was all bunk, but it was the only thing she could say under the circumstances.
But I know that you are goin’ to agree with me that there is somethin’ very odd about that story of hers as to how the letter had got inta the house. If she was makin’ it all up wouldn’t it a been easier for her to say that somebody had sent her the letter through the post or somethin’ like that.
The thing that gets me is that her story is what you might call too durned involved to be all lies, an’ as I am a guy who likes to look at a thing from all angles I am goin’ to take it—just for the sake of talkin’—that Berenice’s story about the letter was true.
All right, well why in the name of heck does the guy who wanted to plant the letter leave it with her handbag an’ gloves in the car? If the guy can get inta the house so’s to put it in the garage why don’t he leave it on Berenice’s dressin’ table or somewhere like that?
Well, there might be a good reason. Hi-Tok the butler told me that the guy who would be the person to go inta the garage last would be Lee Sam. He would go around to lock up, an’ therefore he would be the guy who would find the letter.
So if Berenice is tellin’ the truth it looks as if the guy who planted the letter meant Lee Sam to find it.
Well, why would they want that? Well, we can answer that one, because Brendy told us the answer.
Supposin’ Thorensen had gone to Rocca to get ’em outa the jam like Brendy said. Supposin’ Rocca was the guy responsible for smashin’ Marella’s face in so as to get at that bullet an’ hold up identification, an’ supposin’ by some means or other he had got hold of that letter—never mind whether it was a true one or a forgery—then wouldn’t it be a clever thing for him to plant it where old man Lee Sam would find it, an’ the old boy would then get the idea inta his head that his daughter was mixed up in the Marella killin’; that she had done it herself.
Once he gets this idea then Rocca has got him where he wants him. An’ you gotta remember that Lee Sam has got plenty dough an’ would pay plenty so’s to keep anybody from sayin’ too much about his daughter.
An’ there is another angle. The guy who comes along to the Lee Sam house to plant this letter is takin’ a chance, ain’t he? Supposin’ somebody sees him monkeyin’ about the garage. This guy musta known plenty about the Lee Sam house to take a chance like that.
But supposin’ he didn’t haveta take a chance? Supposin’ that letter had been planted by some guy who was in the Lee Sam house. Why then the whole set-up would sound less like a lotta hooey.
You remember the time when I was givin’ the once over to Berenice’s room, an’ when I come out the three gun boys’ in the car tried to bump me. Didn’t I have the idea that they, got a tip off from somebody who was in the house? Well who was it knew that I was in the house? Who was it saw me readin’ that letter? Wasn’t it Berenice’s Chinese maid?
O.K. Well supposin’ we let our minds wander a bit more an’ allow that it was her; that she was the one who telephoned through to somebody an’ got ’em to send them thugs up to iron me out. Maybe the one she would telephone through to would be Toots, Joe Mitzler’s blonde baby, who was in the car, an’ that means that there is a connection between Toots an’ Berenice’s Chinese maid.
So now you know the reason why I have told Brendy to lay off pinchin’ Toots. I wanta see if that baby is still kickin’ around an’ if so whether she is goin’ to make another contact with the maid. See?
But the big thing right now is whether that letter is a fake or a real one. If it was a real one then we gotta consider this thing from a new set-up. We gotta consider this thing from the angle that Berenice was playin’ along with Thorensen an’ that she would be the guy who wanted Marella outa the way more than anybody.
An’ so far as I am concerned if I find that Marella did write that letter then I reckon that we ain’t got to look any further an’ that even if Berenice can kiss like a passionate angel she is still the killer.
I light a cigarette an’ finish off the coffee. For some reason that I cannot put my finger on I am thinkin’ about that Sea Island ink. I reckon that I will take a look around at the Villa Rosalito an’ see what ink is used around that dump.
This gets me on to somethin’ else. I wonder whether Marella wrote the original letter in this business—the one she sent to the Director—In her own handwritin’ or whether she typed it.
You gotta realise that I ain’t seen this letter, I only got a typed duplicate in the folder that the Director’s office issued out to me when I took the case over.
I get action. I grab off the telephone an’ put a priority call through to Washington. I get it in ten minutes an’ get right through to the Records Office at the Bureau. I tell ’em that I am doin’ very well thank you an’ that I want ’em to send me the original letter from Marella Thorensen so that we can do a little bit of checkin’ up here, an’ the Records guy says O.K. he will send it pronto by air mail an’ that I ought to get it to-morrow.
I smoke another cigarette an’ order up some more coffee. It looks to me like this goddam case is goin’ to be one of the brightest bits of work that has ever come my way, because there don’t seem to be any beginnin’ or endin’ to it an’ all I have succeeded in doin’ up to the moment is to nearly get myself shot up by three guys who I don’t know an’ get myself into a swell hot session with Berenice that may have a coupla unforeseen repercussions before I am through.
Dames are funny things. You’re tellin’ me! There is Berenice who is a swell baby an’ who has certainly got something. This dame is as deep as hell. She is the sorta dame who would stick at nothin’ to get what she wanted.
I remember her from the night before. So what! Women have necked me before sometimes because they have felt that way an’ sometimes because they thought they was goin’ to do themselves some good in the process. Well, that’s as may be but kissin’ is just kissin’ an’ it really don’t affect the situation where I am concerned—well not a lot.
I remember a dame up in Yellow Springs. I went up to pinch this dame for bein’ accessory to kidnappin’ an’ murder an’ carryin’ over a state line. This dame is a peach to look at. She looks so demure that you woulda thought that her ma hadn’t ever told her anything at all about anything that really mattered.
This dame makes a big play for me whilst I am stallin’ her around before makin’ a pinch so’s the Federal boys who are workin’ with me can pick up her boy friend who has just gone out to fill the hooch bottle at the local drug store.
After we pinch these two this dame makes a big howl about the fact that when the boys eventually arrived she was in my arms tight an’ I was kissin’ her, an’ eventually I get a letter from the Director askin’ me what the hell. To which I replied that I would like to know just what he woulda done under the circumstances because I knew that if I hadda let go of that dame an’ let her get at the razor she had got parked inside her shirt front she woulda probably cut me off in the prime of life, an’ I reckoned that as I was holdin’ her so tight I might as well pass the time away by seein’ whether she was wearin’ kiss-proof lipstick or the sort that makes suspicious wives go through their husbands’ used handkerchiefs with a magnifyin’ glass.
These ruminations bring me to all the dames in this case. I sorta wish that I knew a bit more about this Berenice but she is one of these dames that nobody ever gets to know. That’s the big attraction about her. She’s got mystery.
Then there is Marella.
Well, I don’t know much about her either, except that she is nice an’ dead. I reckon that she didn’t have much of a time with Aylmar Thorensen, because that guy is a bum if ever there was one. He is a fat, frightened guy an’ he would get behind a woman or anybody else any time he got windy.
But I reckon that Marella thought she was a deep one. I reckon she thought that she was bein’ durn clever when she wrote that letter to the Director, but she wasn’t bein’ as clever as she thought. If Brendy is right this dame thought she was goin’ to be tops of the situation instead of which all she gets is a bullet just to show her where she got off.
I get to thinkin’ about Nellie the cook. Maybe Nellie knows somethin’. Anyhow I reckon that I am goin’ to have a little talk with that dame. Maybe she knows somethin’ about Berenice an’ anyhow she will know plenty about Marella an’ Thorensen. Right in the middle of these sweet thoughts Brendy comes through.
“Hey, Lemmy,” he says. “I got some hot news for you. That letter was written by Marella all right. I got at Thorensen’s head clerk. He knows Marella’s writin’ as well as he knows his own. He says there ain’t any shadow of doubt that she wrote that letter. He says he ain’t known her to use that ink before, but then she was a dame who used any ink that was around. She was one of them babies who never carried a fountain pen.
“So it looks like little Berenice is the one, hey?”
“An’ here’s somethin’ else. I just been talkin’ to the medical examiner down in the D.A.’s Office. This guy is a nosey sorta guy an’ he’s been givin’ himself a treat by doin’ a hot post-mortem on what was left of Marella, an’ what do you think?
“He’s got the bullet. It wasn’t in Marella’s head at all. That bullet was fired at close range an’ hit against a bone an’ went right down inta the neck. He’s got it all right, an’ it’s a .22 calibre, an’ what do you know about that? A .22 is a woman’s gun, ain’t it, Lemmy?”
“That’s the way it looks, Brendy,” I tell him, “but take it easy an’ stick around. I want to play things my way for a bit.”
“O.K.,” he says, “I’ll be seein’ you, an’ I have told O’Halloran to lay off pinchin’ Mitzler or Toots if he finds ’em. I told him to put a tail on ’em an’ leave it at that.”
I hang up. Here’s sweet news. So they found the bullet. They musta been cuttin’ Marella about plenty. An’ it was a .22 bullet, an’ the gun I found in Berenice’s handbag was a .22 gun.
An’ the letter wasn’t a phoney. It was the real works. Marella wrote it an’ meant it.
It don’t look so good for my little playmate Berenice, does it?
Chapter Eight
NELLIE
By the time I have dropped inta the Hall of Justice an’ looked up Rocca an’ Spigla in the Records Office, got the address of the cottage in Burlingame where Nellie is livin’ an’ run out there it is six o’clock, an’ I am hopin’ that maybe to-night I will be able to get myself some sleep instead of rushin’ around this piece of America at all hours, gettin’ no place at all, an’ gettin’ more sleepy all the time.
You will have realised that this business of bein’ a Federal detective has got its drawbacks. First of all any sorta dick has a lousy time. Detectives ain’t so lucky except in books where they always find clues an’ things lyin’ about the place so’s they know just who the guy is that they gotta pull in.
Well, I have never had a case like that yet. It looks to me like every case you have is sorta changin’ the whole time, an’ directly you come to one conclusion you find you are all wrong an’ you can start again from where it all began from.
Anyhow Ma Caution usta say that the greatest thing a guy can have is patience although it is not so hot when I know durn well that the District Attorney is screamin’ for me to pinch somebody—he don’t mind very much who—probably because he has got the next election in mind an’ he wants to keep the news-sheets quiet.
I would not mind pinchin’ anybody either—an’ my selection would be Berenice—only I have got the idea at the back of my head that pinchin’ this dame right now is not goin’ to tell me whatever it was that Marella wanted to tell the Federal government about, which is the business that concerns me right now.
Another thing is this: You guys will agree with me that it looks like Berenice has been drawin’ some sweet red herrin’s all over the place an’ that business sorta interests me. If you think the same way as I do it will look to you that it looks like this dame is tryin’ hard to prove herself guilty of this Marella killin’, an’ havin’ regard to the fact that this baby is plenty cute I am not goin’ to fall for any play like that.
It is an old racket for somebody to do a murder an’ then plant a lotta bad clues which, strung together, make lousy evidence that the killer’s lawyer can play holy hell with in court, when all the while the real stuff, the real evidence that would get the chair for the murder guy is never produced because the prosecution have missed it through bein’ too quick with the case an’ choosin’ to make a quick pinch on the phoney stuff that was all laid out for ’em to see.
I remember some clever cuss who killed an old range minder in Arizona just so’s he could pinch a saddle off him. Well this guy did the old boy in by hittin’ him over the dome with a hammer. He then carefully leaves his old hat lyin’ in a corner of the shack an’ when the Sheriff gets along there an’ takes a look round an’ sees that hat, he naturally thinks he has got a swell piece of evidence.
So he walked along an’ pinches the owner thereof pronto. In the meantime they find some more swell evidence in the corner of the lean-to of the guy they have pinched. Hidden under a lotta stuff they found a hammer with a lotta grey hairs an’ some blood on it. So they don’t waste any more time, they just send this guy up for trial. They know they have got the murderer.
When the case comes up this guy’s lawyer proves that the hat they found, although it belonged to the defendant originally, was one that he had said he was goin’ to give to the old boy a week before the killin’. This lawyer also proves that the hairs they found on the hammer was goat’s hairs an’ the blood was goat’s blood. So what?
So the guy gets himself acquitted. But if these fellers had not been in such a helluva hurry an’ looked around to get some more evidence they would have found the real hammer he done it with all cleaned up an’ buried under the floor, an’ he was usin’ this hammer, although everybody knows it was the old man’s, six months’ later. But because they’d tried this guy once an’ acquitted him they couldn’t try him again, could they?
So it just shows you what a lotta inconvenience can be caused to all an’ sundry by law officers tryin’ to make a pinch too quick, because in this case for instance a pal of the old range minder’s has to go out an’ gun for this killer, which took him two weeks an’ meant the wastin’ of three good shells an’ the helluva lotta sweat over somethin that oughta been done by the State.
Nellie is a sweetheart. She is as black as dark brown velvet an’ so big that even an Oxford chair is too small for her. She has got a smile like a big slice in a pumpkin an’ teeth that shine like the inside of oyster shells.
Sittin’ opposite her over a swell little fire an’ with a glass of good bootleg liquor in my hand, I open my ears wide an’ pray that Nellie is goin’ to give me somethin’ good.
