Can Ladies Kill?, page 22
“Well, Rudy,” I say, “here’s what Toots says. She says you gave her a job at The Two Moons Club, an’ she says she fell for you like a sack of old coke. It looks like you had too much sex-appeal for that dame.
“O.K. Then you gave her the air because you get a yen on Marella Thorensen, an’ Toots says she reckons she got plenty annoyed about this. So she worked out a way she could make some trouble for you two guys.
“In the meantime,” I go on, “Toots has also discovered that you an’ Aylmar Thorensen an’ probably old man Lee Sam too have been runnin’ silk contraband inta San Francisco, so Toots thinks of a swell idea for gettin’ her own back on you for givin’ her the air. She writes them two letters, one to the Director an’ one to Berenice Lee Sam. She thinks that way she’ll be makin’ plenty trouble.
“O.K.,” I tell him. “Here it is. I am quite prepared to make a deal with you if you’re prepared to listen. I know you didn’t have anything’ to do with the Marella Thorensen killin’, because I know she was killed out in the Villa Rosalito, an’ we checked up on you on the night of the killin’ an’ we know you was never near that place. So here’s the deal:
“I am sick of this case. I wanta close it down. I got my own ideas on who killed Marella Thorensen, an’ if you ask me who it was, I think it was Toots. She was jealous of Marella an’ wanted her outa the way, but I reckon that ain’t my business. I reckon that’s the business of the police here. I wanta make my report on the Federal offences angle of this case an’ scram.
“Here’s the trade I’ll make with you. If you like to make a statement admittin’ the contraband offences, admittin’ that you an’ Thorensen have been runnin’ silk with or without Lee Sam, whatever’s the truth, then I’m goin’ to give orders for you to be sprung. That means to say that when you make that statement you can walk outa this cell, an’ all I reckon you will have will be a civil action from the Customs Authorities. There’ll be a big fine, but I should think Thorensen an’ Lee Sam can take care of that. Well, do we trade?”
He takes three or four puffs at his cigarette.
“Well,” he says, “what’s the good of my arguin’? You got the low-down on me, Caution. I was runnin’ silk with Thorensen, an’ it looks like you know it, so I’d better admit it. I’ll make that statement.”
“O.K.,” I tell him. “Here we go.”
I take a big note-book outa my pocket an’ I sit down on the bed, an’ he makes a full statement about how he an’ Thorensen, with the knowledge of old man Lee Sam, have been runnin’, silk. He tells me all about it. When I have finished writin’ up this statement I hand the note-book over to him.
“Sign that, Rudy,” I say, “an’ put the date on it. You will have to use your own pen because mine has run out.”
He reads through the statement very carefully, an’ he feels in his pocket an’ takes out his fountain pen an’ signs it. He hands the book back to me, an’ I see that his signature has been written in Sea Island ink. I grin.
“Swell work, Rudy,” I tell him. “Stick around. I’m goin’ to see Police Captain Brendy, an’ he’ll check you out inside half an hour.”
“Thanks a lot, Caution,” he says. “Maybe I didn’t like your face one time, but I don’t think you’re so bad. You got some sense anyway, an’ I think you got the low-down on this job all right. I don’t know, but I think it was Toots who bumped Marella.”
“So do I,” I tell him. “So long, Rudy, I’ll be seein’ you.”
I go out of the cell an’ the guard locks the door behind me. I walk along to Brendy’s office.
“Look, bozo,” I tell him, “do what I tell you an’ don’t argue. The time is now nine o’clock. At half-past nine you go in an’ spring Rudy Spigla. You tell him that while he has been in here he has been held as a material witness in the Marella Thorensen case, but that you’re satisfied he ain’t had anything to do with it. You tell him that the Customs people here will be bringing civil charges against him in respect of the smugglin’ that’s been goin’ on, an’ that you’d like him to come down an’ see you in a day or two to amplify the statement he’s made here.”
I show him the note-book.
“O.K., Brendy,” I tell him. “Now when this guy gets outa here, we ain’t goin’ to lose sight of him. Maybe I’ve got an idea where he’s goin’ to. You’ve gotta have a smart guy at The Two Moons Club to tail him if he goes there. You’ve gotta have another smart guy at Burlingame waitin’ to see if he goes out to the Villa Rosalito, but I don’t think he’s goin’ to either of those places. I think he’s goin’ up to his apartment. I think he’s goin’ up there to see if I took that letter from Effie Spigla outa his safe, so I’m goin’ to be hangin’ around there waitin’ for him. I’ll look after that end of the job. You got all that?”
He sighs. I believe I told you that Brendy is not a very quick guy when it comes to thinkin’.
“I got it, Lemmy,” he says. “You’re the boss. I’ll have them boys posted an’ I’ll talk to him like you said. I’ll spring him at nine-thirty.”
“Sweet work, feller,” I tell him. “I’ll be seein’ you.” I scram.
I am standin’ in the shadows on the other side of the street opposite Rudy’s apartment block on the hill. It is five and twenty to ten. At twenty to ten a car drives up an’ Rudy gets out. He goes inside. Directly he goes in I walk to the corner an’ look around. I signal the guy who has got my own car waiting for me to bring it up. He brings it up to the corner.
“O.K.,” I tell this copper, “you can scram.”
He scrams.
I get in the car an’ sit there with the engine runnin’. I wait about ten minutes. Then Rudy comes out. He is smokin’ a cigarette an’ he has changed his overcoat. He gets inta his car an’ he goes off. I go after him. We drive for about fifteen minutes. One time I think he is makin’ for the Villa Rosalito, but I am wrong. He pulls up at a little hotel just outside the city limits on the Burlingame Road. He waits there for a few minutes and then he drives the car around inta the hotel garage which is round the back.
I stick around. Two three minutes afterwards he comes back an’ walks inta the hotel. I leave my car where it is standing by the side of the road, an’ I go along to the hotel. It is a little sorta place an’ there is an old guy dozin’ in the reception office.
I show him my badge. “That guy who just came in,” I tell him, “what’s his name an’ what’s his room number?”
He looks in the book.
“The name’s Carota,” he says, “an’ the number’s 38. Do you want me to call him for you?”
“No thank you,” I say. “I reckon I’m goin’ to make a personal call.”
I get in the lift an’ I go up to the second floor. I get outa the lift an’ wait till the bellhop takes it down. I pull out my Luger an’ walk along to No. 38 with the gun in my hand. I try the door. It ain’t locked. I push it open an’ I go in.
Just inside the room, which is a sittin’-room connectin’ with the bedroom, takin’ his coat off is Rudy. Walkin’ towards him is a dame. Rudy spins around on his heel.
“Well, sucker.” I tell him, “so you fell for it, an’ if I was you I would keep your hands away from your hips otherwise this gun might go off.”
I turn to the woman.
“Well, Marella,” I tell her, “howya makin’ out?”
Chapter Fifteen
CHORD OFF FOR A HEEL
Rudy looks at me. He has gone sorta yellow. His shoulders are sorta droopin’. This guy knows that he has come up against the grand slam.
The woman flops down on the lounge that is against the wall. She is a swell lookin’ piece an’ even if she has done her hair like a mobster’s moll she still looks as if she has class. There are blue rings under her eyes an’ her hands are tremblin’. I reckon that maybe Marella has been hittin’ the hop again.
“Sit down, Rudy,” I tell him. “I wanna talk to you.”
He flops inta a chair. I go over to him an’ frisk him. He has gotta .32 Mauser pistol in his hip. I take it off him an’ put it in my pocket.
“Well, Big-Time,” I tell him. “Are you goin’ to come clean or am I goin’ to spill it for you?”
He pulls himself together an’ grins. “Yeah,” he says, “I’m wise to you, Caution. I’m wise to your bluffs. I reckon I let you play me for a sucker when you had me down in the can. I suppose you sorta guessed I’d come up here, an’ you thought you could tail along afterwards an’ make me talk. Well, I ain’t talkin’.”
“Who cares, punk?” I tell him. “I have got all I want against you in the bag, sweetheart. The only thing you have gotta decide is whether you are goin’ to save me some trouble or not.”
I turn around to the dame. “Marella,” I tell her. “I reckon that you are a mug to have tried to play along with a lousy heel like this. You musta been pretty hard up for a guy to string along with a cheap bozo like this one. Why he ain’t even got brains.”
Rudy breaks in.
“Say, clever,” he says. “Am I in order in askin’ you what, you are chargin’ me with. You can’t arrest me for nothin’, you know?” He grins. “You been bustin’ around this city talkin’ big an’ large about findin’ who killed Marella Thorensen an’ now you find out that nobody killed her, she’s alive. So what?”
“I never said you killed Marella, Rudy,” I tell him. “But you killed Effie all right, an’ I’ve known you killed her for quite a while.”
“Yeah,” he says. “An’ who told you that?”
“You did, punk,” I tell him. “You told me when you left that letter that Effie wrote to you so that I could find it in your wall safe up at your apartment. You was a mug about that. If you’d got that dame to write that letter in ordinary ink you mighta got away with it. But like the big sap you are you forgot that you lent your fountain pen to Effie to write the letter with an’ then afterwards you lent it to Marella here to write that letter to Aylmar Thorensen sayin’ that he was Berenice Lee Sam’s lover. That was not a wise thing to do.”
He starts a big sneerin’ act.
“You know plenty, don’t you, copper?” he says.
“Like hell I do,” I tell him. “An’ I will show you just what I know, sweetheart, an’ then you can have a big think about what you are goin’ to do.”
I light myself a cigarette. I see Marella watchin’ me an’ I go over an’ give her one. I reckon she needs it too.
“You musta thought I was a big mug,” I say. “What you forget to think was this—that directly I knew that Marella wasn’t expectin’ Berenice, an’ directly I knew that Marella didn’t know what the hell that telegram from the Director was about, that I would also know that she would call through to you to ask what she should do.
“O.K. Well you have already stalled Effie inta waitin’ until about seven-thirty for the dough that you say you are goin’ to give her, so you reckon you gotta stall everybody else too, don’tya? You tell Marella on the telephone to leave that phoney note for Nellie down in the kitchen where the ‘G’ man will see it when he comes so that he will not come back till nine o’clock an’ you tell her to stall Berenice Lee Sam any way she likes because you ain’t afraid of Berenice because you think you can hang a smugglin’ rap on her pa.
“An’ that, sweetheart, is why the telephone was back on the hook when I went back to the Villa at nine o’clock, because Marella had called through to you. The fact that she did not answer when Thorensen rang through to her when he was seein’ Berenice just after seven was not because the receiver was off the hook. It was because Marella was already on the way out to see you in San Francisco to ask you what the hell all the mystery was about.
“Effie had a sweet scheme for blackmailin’ you but she hadn’t got enough brains to see it through an’ look after herself. The poor mutt was mug enough to let you know that she had got somebody else to write those letters. She told you this after you had given her the dough an’ she was feelin’ good. She was explainin’ to you how Marella could stall off the ‘G’ man by saying that the letter was not in her handwritin’, that somebody was playin’ a big joke. The same thing went for the Berenice letter.”
He is lookin’ at me hard. This guy is gettin’ more scared every minute.
“I’ll tell you what happened, Big Time,” I tell him. “You made a date with Effie to hand over that dough to her in your apartment, an’ you had the dough waitin’ for her. When she come up you did a big act with her. You pretended that you thought she had pulled a clever one on you. You handed over the dough, an’ you told her that you didn’t mind payin’ it out because you was goin’ to take Marella for the dough that Thorensen had made over to her, in a day or so, so you was feelin’ generous.
“The mug Effie falls for this line of talk, an’ you then ask her how you can put the Berenice Lee Sam business an’ the ‘G’ man business right, an’ she tells you that, too.
“O.K. Then you pulla fast one on her. You say you don’t mind givin’ her the dough, but that this business is goin’ to make things pretty tough for you with Marella; that Marella goin’ to be plenty steamed up with you over this all business, an’ that she will be afraid that there might be some more of it. You ask Effie to write you a letter sayin’ thank you for the dough, an’ that she will not hound you any more. You tell her that this letter is to show Marella. Effie writes the letter an’ the envelope an’ gives it to you.
“All right. You then get hold of her an’ give her the works. You snatch the little .22 gun she has brought with her outa her handbag an’ you shoot her. I reckon that you told her plenty first too.
“I reckon that you had Joe Mitzler around an’ that the pair of you parked Effie in the next room or somewhere.
“Just when you have done this Marella blows in. She is all steamed up to hell. She wants to know what all this palooka about ‘G’ men is about, an’ what the visit from Berenice is about an’ just how much about her an’ you Berenice knows. You pull some story on her an’ while you are tellin’ it to her you get one helluva idea. You tell Marella that Berenice Lee Sam is goin’ to make things plenty hot for the pair of you an’ that she will probably blow the story about your bein’ tops with Marella, an’ you tell Marella to write a letter accusin’ her husband of stringin’ around with Berenice Lee Sam an’ to blow back to the Villa an’ leave it up against the canister in the kitchen where the ‘G’ man will find it.
“An’ you lend her your fountain pen to write the letter with. This poor mug Marella who is plenty fond of you does what you tell her.
“An’ boy while she is writin’ that letter you get the swellest idea of all. Nobody in San Francisco knows Effie an’ so nobody will miss her. You reckon that she is about the same size as Marella, so you get Marella to take her clothes an’ her rings off an’ you take the clothes off Effie an’ you change ’em. So Marella is Effie an’ Effie is Marella. O.K.?
“Marella then goes back off to the Villa pronto to leave the letter she has written where I will find it when I go back. But I don’t find it because Berenice gets there first an’ grabs it.
“Directly Marella has gone off you send Joe Mitzler to throw Effie’s body in the harbour. Nobody ain’t goin’ to see this because there is a helluva fog on.
“You think that you are now sittin’ pretty; that everything is O.K. All right, pretty soon Marella comes back an’, when she comes back an’ starts talkin’ to you she shows you the typewritten letter that Berenice got in Shanghai, the one she, gave Marella an’ forgot to take back afterwards. Probably about this time Joe Mitzler comes back. You show him the letter an’ he recognises the handwritin’ of the signature. He knows that Toots signed that letter, an’ so you are wise to the fact that it is Toots who has been workin’ in with Effie.
“So you gotta find Toots. The thing is can you get your hooks on her an’ shut her mouth before she starts talkin’. I reckon that you had Effie’s handbag, an’ I reckon that inside was some letter or somethin’ that gave away the address where she had been stayin’. You send Joe Mitzler round there to pick up Toots an’ to tell her one helluva story about Effie havin’ taken a run-out powder on her with the dough, an’ also given away where Toots is hidin’ out.
“Then you get another sweet idea. You reckon that if somebody finds Effie’s body there is just a chance that Toots might get a fit of bravery an’ identify it. So you get Joe to run around an’ telephone to the harbour an’ you know that they will take it to the morgue an’ that there will only be one guy on duty at the morgue at that time of night. You reckon you can pull a fast one an’ bust Effie’s face in so that nobody could identify her.
“But you tell Toots that you are doin’ this because Effie has shot Marella with the gun you gave her an’ that you are afraid the cops will identify the bullet if they find it.
“So you make Toots stand look-out outside the morgue while you are workin’ that big act with the ice block, an’ you also make her go out in that car with the thugs who tried to iron me out, not because you really wanted to get me outa the way bad but because you wanted to get Toots so tied up in your lousy killin’s that she would haveta keep her mouth shut. I reckon that Joe Mitzler woulda shot her too, but you reckoned it wouldn’t be wise to have another killin’ on your hands right then.
“Also the attempt made on me is goin’ to make me think that this has been done by the same person who hadda motive for bumpin’ Marella, accordin’ to the letter that I was supposed to find, an’ that would be Berenice Lee Sam, an’ if it is any satisfaction to you that is exactly what I did think until I found one or two other little things that smelt durn funny.
“You made one or two bum mistakes, Rudy. That ring Marella gave you, the one with the crossed keys on it, you oughta have chucked that away, because I found it an’ I knew she’d given it to you. I suppose you hadta have it around so’s she could see it until you’d got the Thorensen dough off of her.
