1953 - I'll Bury My Dead (4 page)

He swung the big car into the circular drive that led to an imposing apartment block overlooking the river, and brought the car to a standstill before the entrance. He got out and held the door open.

‘I want to find out if my brother had a secretary or someone to help him in the office,’ English said as he got out of the car. ‘Go down to his office first thing in the morning and see if the janitor knows. I want her address. Be here not later than nine-thirty. We’ll go and see her before we go to the office.’

‘Yes, boss,’ Chuck said dutifully. ‘I’ll fix it. Anything else I can do?’

English gave him a quick smile.

‘No. Go to bed, and don’t be late tomorrow.’

He walked across to the entrance to the building, pushed against the revolving doors, nodded to the night porter, who snapped to attention when he caught sight of him, and walked to the elevator. He thumbed the button below the label that read: Penthouse, and leaned against the wall while the automatic elevator bore him swiftly and smoothly up fifteen floors to the roof apartment he had rented for Julie. He walked down the corridor panelled with polished walnut and paused outside a front door also of polished walnut and equipped with gleaming chromium fitments. As he groped for his keys, his eyes shifted to the card in a chromium frame that was screwed on the door. It bore the single line of neat print: Miss Julia Clair.

He pushed the latchkey into the lock, opened the door and stepped into a small, lighted lobby. As he threw his hat and coat on a chair, the door opposite him opened and a girl stood framed in the doorway.

She was tall and broad shouldered, with narrow hips and long legs. Her copper-coloured hair was silky and dressed high on top of her small head. Her big almond-shaped eyes were sea green and glitteringly alive. She had on olive-green lounging pyjamas with red piping, and her small feet were encased in high-heeled red slippers.

Looking at her, English thought how very different she was from Corrine. How much more beautiful, and how much more character she showed in her face, which he considered to be more pleasing to his eyes than any other woman’s he had met. Her makeup, even at this late hour, he thought, was a masterpiece of understatement. He knew she wore makeup, but he couldn’t see where it began or left off.

‘You’re late, Nick,’ she said, smiling at him. ‘I was beginning to wonder if you were coming.’

‘Sorry, Julie,’ he returned, ‘but I’ve been held up.’

He went over to her, put his hands on her hips and kissed her cheek.

‘So Joey won his fight,’ she said, looking up at him. ‘You must be very pleased.’

‘Don’t say you listened to the radio?’ he said, leading her into the well-appointed sitting room. A big coal fire burned brightly, and the shaded lamps made the atmosphere at once intimate and cozy.

‘No, but I heard it on the news.’

‘You and Harry are a pair,’ he said, sinking into a big overstuffed armchair and pulling her down on his knees. She curled up on his lap, slipping her arm around his neck, and resting her face against his. ‘Believe it or not, although he handled most of the arrangements and worked like a dog for weeks, he stayed away from the fight. He’s as squeamish as you are.’

‘I think fighting is a beastly business,’ she returned with a grimace. ‘I don’t blame Harry for not being there.’

He stared at the bright flames that licked over the coals, and his hand stroked her silk-clad thigh.

‘Maybe it is, but there’s a lot of money in it. Was the show all right?’

She lifted her shoulders in an indifferent shrug.

‘I suppose so. They seemed to like it. I wasn’t singing particularly well, but no one seemed to notice.’

‘Maybe you want a vacation. Next month I may be able to get away. We might go to Florida.’

‘Let’s wait and see.’

He looked at her sharply.

‘I thought you would like that, Julie.’

‘Oh, I don’t know. I don’t want to leave the club just yet. Tell me about the fight, Nick.’

‘There’s something else I have to tell you. Do you remember Roy?’

He felt her stiffen.

‘Yes, of course. Why do you ask?’

‘The fool shot himself tonight.’

She half sat up, but he pulled her down against him again.

‘Don’t move, Julie.’

‘Is he dead?’ she asked, her fingers gripping his arm.

‘Yes, he’s dead. That was one job he did manage to do efficiently.’

She shivered.

‘Don’t talk like that, Nick. How dreadful! When did it happen?’

‘About half-past nine. Morilli phoned me in the middle of the party. What a break for him! Of all that damned Homicide mob, he had to be the one to find Roy. And he made sure I knew he was doing me a favour.’

‘I don’t like that man,’ Julie said. ‘There’s something about him.’

‘He’s just a cop on the lookout for some easy money. That’s all that’s the matter with him.’

‘But why did Roy?’

‘Yeah, that puzzles me. Do you mind if I walk up and down? You’re taking my mind off business.’ He lifted her, and got up, set her gently in the chair, then moved over to the fireplace. ‘Why, Julie, you look pale.’

‘I suppose it’s the shock. I wasn’t expecting to hear anything like this. I don’t know if you’re upset, Nick, but if you are, I’m sorry.’

‘I’m not upset,’ English said, taking out his cigar case. ‘Maybe it was a shock, but I can’t say I’m particularly sorry. Roy’s been a damned nuisance ever since he was born. I guess he was born lazy. He was always getting into jams. My old man and he were a pair. Did I ever tell you about my old man, Julie?’

She shook her head. She was leaning back, staring into the fire, her fingers

laced around her knee.

‘He was no good, like Roy was no good. If my mother hadn’t gone out and worked when we were kids we would have starved. I wish you could have seen my home, Julie. It was a three-room hovel in the basement of a tenement. In the winter the walls ran with water, and in the summer it stank to high heaven.’

Julie leaned forward to drop a log on the fire, and English touched the back of her neck gently.

‘Oh, well, I guess that’s past history,’ he went on. ‘But I can’t understand Roy shooting himself. Morilli says he was short of money and was trying to raise the wind by threatening two or three of his old clients. He was going to lose his licence at the end of the week. I would have been willing to bet Roy wouldn’t have killed himself because of that. I shouldn’t have believed he would have had the nerve to kill himself no matter how bad a jam he was in. Its damned odd. Morilli says he’s satisfied, but I still don’t believe it.’

Julie looked up quickly.

‘But surely, Nick, if the police say so.’

‘Yeah, I know, but it foxes me. Why didn’t he come to me if he was so hard up? Maybe I did throw him out last time, but that has never stopped him before. I’ve thrown him out a score of times and he’s always come back.’

‘Perhaps he was too proud,’ Julie said quietly.

‘Proud? Roy? My dear sweet, you don’t know Roy. He had a hide like a tank. He’d take any insult so long as he got money out of me.’ English lit his cigar and began to move slowly about the room. ‘Why did the business collapse like that? When he got me to buy it for him, I took the trouble to investigate it pretty thoroughly. It was paying well then. It was a well—established business. He couldn’t have wrecked it so soon, unless he did it deliberately.’ He made an impatient gesture. I was a fool to have had anything to do with it. I might have known he wouldn’t have worked at it. Imagine Roy a private detective. Why, it’s laughable. I was a mug to have given him the money.’

Julie watched him pace the room. There was a wary, alert expression in her eyes that English didn’t notice.

‘I’ve sent Lois to check up at his office,’ English went on. ‘She has a nose for that kind of thing. She’ll be able to tell me what went wrong.’

‘You sent Lois there tonight?’ Julie said sharply.

‘I wanted her to have a look at the place before Corrine takes it into her head to go up there.’

‘You mean Lois is actually there now?’

English paused in his pacing and looked at her, surprised at the sharpness of her tone.

‘Yes. Harry’s with her. She doesn’t mind how late she works. You sound surprised.’

‘Well, after all it is nearly half-past one. Couldn’t it have waited until tomorrow?’

‘Corrine might go up there,’ English said, frowning. He didn’t like his orders questioned. ‘I want to know what Roy’s been up to.’

‘I think she must be in love with you,’ Julie said, moving so that her back was turned to him.

‘In love with me?’ English said, startled. ‘Who? Corrine?’

‘Lois. She acts as if she were your slave. No other girl would tolerate working for you, Nick.’

English laughed.

‘Nonsense. I pay her well. Besides, she isn’t the kind of girl to fall in love with anyone.’

‘There’s never been a girl who wouldn’t fall in love if she’s given the chance,’ Julie said quietly. ‘I should have thought you would have more insight, Nick, than to say a thing like that.’

‘Never mind Lois,’ English said a little impatiently. ‘We were talking about Roy. I went to see Corrine tonight.’

‘That was nice of you. I’ve never seen her. What’s she like, Nick?’

‘Blond, plump and dumb-looking,’ English said, coming to sit on the arm of her armchair. ‘She told me I was responsible for Roy’s death and threw me out of the house.’

‘Nick!’ Julie looked quickly at him, but was reassured by his smile.

‘I guess she was hysterical, but to be on the safe side I got Sam out of bed and sent him down to talk to her. I’ve got to be careful there isn’t a stink about this business, Julie. I have a big pot on the boil at the moment.’ His brown hand slid over her shoulder and his fingers gently stroked her throat. ‘In a few weeks the senator is going to break the news that I’m the man behind the new hospital. The committee knows, of course, but the press haven’t got it yet. The idea is to name the hospital after me.’

‘Name it after you?’ Julie repeated blankly. ‘But why, for goodness’ sake?’

English grinned a little sheepishly.

‘Sounds crazy, doesn’t it? But I want it Julie. I want it more than anything I’ve ever wanted.’ He got up and began to pace up and down. ‘I’ve made a fair success of my life, Julie. I started from scratch, and now I’m as good as the next man as regards to money, but money isn’t everything. If I drop dead this moment Julie, no one would remember me in a week’s time. It’s the name people leave after them that counts. If the hospital was named after me - well, I guess I wouldn’t be forgotten quite so easily. And then there’s another thing, more important. I promised my mother I’d make a name for myself, and she believed me. She didn’t live long enough to know I had started on the way up. When she died I was still fooling around with that compass and getting nowhere, but I told her it was going to be a success, and I told her I was going way ahead, and she believed me. She would have got a big bang out of knowing the hospital is going to be named after me, and I’m soft in the head enough to think she’ll still get a big bang out of it.’

Julie listened in a hypnotized silence. She had never had any idea that English could think and talk like this. She wanted to laugh, but instinctively she knew he would be furious with her if she did. To want a hospital to be named after him! All this sentiment about his mother! It was unbelievable and completely out of character. She thought, not without alarm, that she didn’t know him as she had thought she did. She had always regarded him as a completely ruthless businessman whose god was money. This new side of him startled her.

‘Go ahead and laugh if you want to,’ English said, smiling at her. ‘I know it’s funny. I laugh myself sometimes, but that’s what I want, and that’s what I’m going to have. The English Memorial Hospital! Sounds pretty good, doesn’t it?’

Julie put her hand on his arm.

‘If that’s what you want, Nick, I want it, too.’

‘I guess that’s right,’ he said, suddenly thoughtful. ‘But this business of Roy’s may slap a lid on it.’

‘But why?’

‘Believe it or not, Julie, it took me a hell of a time to persuade the commission to let me finance the hospital. You wouldn’t believe that, would you?’

‘What commission?’

‘The City Planning Commission,’ he said patiently. ‘It’s unbelievable what a bunch of stuffed shirts they are. All from the best families, of course, but not one of them has ever earned a dime. They’ve inherited what money they have, and they’re damned miserly with it, too. Although I bet their private lives wouldn’t stand investigation, on the surface they are about the finest collection of plaster saints you’ve ever set eyes on. They didn’t approve of me. Two of them even said I was a gangster. The senator had to talk pretty sharply to them to get them to accept my money. At the time, nothing was mentioned that the hospital was to be named after me. If it turns out that Roy was in bad trouble, that he did blackmail his clients, the chances of my name being used is as remote as the snows of Everest. Morilli knows that. The police commissioner knows it, too. They’ll expect to be taken care of if this is to be hushed up. But Corrine’s the difficulty. She may try to cut off her nose to spite my face. If she lets on that I wouldn’t finance Roy, and Roy was forced to raise money by blackmail, I shall be ruled out. A scandal like that will make the commission give birth to pups.’ He tossed the cigar into the fire and went on in a suddenly harsh voice, ‘Why couldn’t the louse have shot himself next month when this was in the bag?’

Julie stood up.

‘Let’s go to bed, Nick,’ she said, and slipped her arm through his. ‘Don’t let’s think any more about it tonight.’

He gave her bottom an affectionate little pat.

‘You’re full of good ideas, Julie,’ he said. ‘We’ll go to bed.’

VI

A
t the back of a modest walkup apartment house on 45th East Place, a small, shrub-infested garden ran down to an alley hedged in on either side by a six-foot brick wall. During the summer months this alley was popular among courting couples as it had no lights and was shunned by pedestrians during the hours of darkness.