1968 - An Ear to the Ground (16 page)

She had finished one egg and was starting on the second when the time signal for nine o’clock popped.

Three minutes later, her meal forgotten, she was out of bed, her fat face like cold pork fat, sweat beads on her forehead.

She struggled into her wrap as she lumbered down the corridor and out on to the terrace.

Henry and Gilda were drinking coffee in the sunshine. The sight of Martha looking wild and terrified, brought both of them to their feet.

It took Martha several seconds to become coherent. Then she told them what the radio announcer had been broadcasting. Lisa Lewis, the richest woman in Paradise City and possibly the fourth richest woman in the world, had been battered to death and the famous Esmaldi necklace had been stolen.

‘It’s that bastard! . . . That sonofabitch, Johnny!’ Martha wailed. ‘He knew she had the necklace! He wanted to steal it! I told him no! But he’s done it and the bitch-bastard has killed her! I caught him coming in last night . . . covered in blood! God! We’re fixed, Henry. That goddamn necklace is insured by Maddox. Do you hear? We’re fixed!’ She dropped into a chair, moaning.

Henry suddenly felt very old and feeble. His heart began to beat sluggishly. He couldn’t think.

‘I. . . I don’t believe it,’ he muttered. ‘Johnny wouldn’t do a thing like that.’

‘I tell you I saw him come sneaking in last night! It was four o’clock. He was smothered in blood!’ Martha screamed, thumping her enormous bosom, trying to catch her breath. ‘Who else could have opened a Raysons’ safe? He knew the blueprint! The bastard intended to gyp us! He went there, she caught him, so he killed her. Then he took the necklace! Henry! We’re fixed!’

‘Shut up!’ Gilda exclaimed, her voice hard and shrill. ‘How do you know he did it?’

She rushed across the terrace and down the corridor to Johnny’s room. She threw open the door, then she paused, her hand flying to her mouth.

Johnny was sleeping. A deep cut of dried blood showed on his nose. A bloodstained shirt lay on the floor. There were scratches on his naked arms. . . nail scratches.

Gilda felt a cold shudder run through her. She went over to him, grabbed his shoulder and shook him awake.

Six

A
l Barney wig-wagged with his eyebrows and Sam, the barman, came over with a pint of beer: this made Al’s seventeenth pint since we had sat down together.

‘Well now, mister,’ he said after he had refreshed himself. He wiped the froth off his mouth with the back of his hand. ‘For you to understand how this all worked out, I want to bring Felix Warren, the District Attorney of this city, on to the scene. As I’ve already told you, I have my ear to the ground, and from what I’ve picked up about Felix Warren, I’ve come to the conclusion that you couldn’t find a more ambitious, ruthless sonofabitch in this fair city. And, let me tell you, when I look around at all these rich creeps who live here, showing off, throwing their money around and behaving as if they were the Almighty Himself, it beats me how Warren could lead them all, but that’s just what he has done . . . a real bitch-bastard, if you’ll excuse the expression.’ Al eased himself down in his chair and went on, ‘It was stinking bad luck for Johnny that Warren was one of Lisa Lewis’s few personal friends . . . not that Warren liked her, mind you, but he had this thing about keeping in with everyone who was in the real money. As soon as her murder made the headlines, he held a press conference and told the reporters, who had always hated his guts, that he would leave no stone unturned to catch her killer . . . that’s the crummy way he talked . . . no stone unturned. This bit of gas made as much impression on the newsmen as a lump of dough flung against a brick wall. Warren hadn’t any sort of reputation. His term of office was coming to an end. He had done nothing to make the electors want him back, but now he saw in Lisa Lewis’s killing his big chance to put on a court room show that might gain him much needed votes…’

***

He, Captain Terrell and the Assistant District Attorney sat down together around Warren’s big desk. This meeting took place three days after the arrest of the gang. During this time, Terrell’s men and his Lab boys had been working around the clock. Now Terrell had a neatly summarised report which he laid before Warren. Warren, heavily built, balding with moist stone hard eyes, read the report, grunted, then dropped it on his desk and sat back.

‘We’ve got him!’ he declared.

Terrell regarded him.

‘We have got them on the Lowenstein and the Jackson jobs,’ he said quietly, ‘but not on the Lewis killing. Mr. District Attorney, I have always felt this is a separate job and should be dealt with as such.’

Warren reacted as if he had been stung by a bee. He glared at Terrell.

‘What are you talking about? Robins killed her! There’s no question about it!’

‘On the face of it,’ Terrell said, ‘it does look that way, but it won’t stand up in court. Let’s look at what we know: Robins was a Raysons’ safe expert. He is vicious. He has a record. But he has put forward an alibi. He claims he was with this woman all night. . . the night Mrs. Lewis was killed. We’ve talked to this woman. She admits she joined Robins at this restaurant. . . she says she wanted a light for a cigarette. She says they got talking. They left together and then she claims they parted outside the restaurant, but I am satisfied that she is lying. She had to go along with Robins’ story up to this point because she’s smart enough to know we could dig up twenty witnesses in the restaurant who saw her contact Robins. But no one saw her leave in her car, so no one can tell whether Robins was with her or not. This woman has an unsavoury reputation. As soon as her aged husband leaves for New York — which he does at least once a month — she is in bed with the first man she can grab.’

Warren’s well-fed face turned mauve.

‘Are you talking about Mrs. Helene Booth?’ he rasped, leaning forward and glaring at Terrell. ‘I’ll have you know Mrs. Booth is a personal friend of mine, and what you have just said amounts to a damaging libel which could cost you your job! Let me tell you, Mrs. Booth is a very fine woman, and I am astonished and ashamed that you have sent one of your men to put such questions to her. This is quite disgraceful, and I am astonished that a man of your experience could even think of accepting such a filthy alibi. . . and that’s what it is . . . a filthy, unsupported alibi.’

Terrell hesitated. He knew about Helene Booth and her nymphomania, but if she was the friend of the District Attorney, then he realised he had to play his cards carefully.

‘I’m telling you what has been reported to me,’ he said woodenly.

‘Then it’s a damn lie!’ Warren shouted, slamming his fist down on the desk. ‘Look at this man! Vicious! Served a sentence for attacking a police officer! A womaniser! Expert in locks! I’ll hang this killing on him if it’s the last thing I do!’

‘But how?’ Terrell asked. ‘If we had caught him with the Esmaldi necklace, we would have had a case, but the necklace has vanished. We’ve checked every safe deposit box in the city: we’ve checked everywhere . . . no necklace.’

‘I don’t give a goddamn about the necklace,’ Warren said. ‘He could have put it in the mail. . . it could be anywhere. He was in a struggle with Mrs. Lewis . . . those scratches on his arms. He tried to burn his bloodstained shirt, but your men turned up enough evidence of the shirt to show the blood group matches Mrs. Lewis’s blood group.’

‘They also match his,’ Terrell pointed out.

Warren sat back. He squinted at Terrell, his eyes probing and hostile.

‘Are you rooting for this thug, Terrell?’ he demanded. ‘Sounds to me as if you are.’

Terrell was too experienced to be fazed by this remark, but he warned himself he had to tread carefully.

‘I’m not, but I’m warning you, Mr. District Attorney, that with the kind of evidence we have so far against Robins, we won’t be able to make a murder charge stick in court.’

Warren rubbed his fleshy hand across his chin. He smiled: it was an evil smile.

‘That’s your opinion. I will now remind you that I am in charge of this case. I’ll make it stick. I want to talk to this woman . . . Gummrich . . . here now in my office. Have her sent to me!’

A little over an hour later, a tall hatchet-faced policewoman brought Martha into Warren’s impressive office. Warren flicked his fingers at the policewoman and told her to wait outside. When she had gone, he turned his attention to Martha who stood before him, quivering like a jelly, her eyes red rimmed with weeping and feeling unbearably hungry.

The three days she had spent in a cell, eating the disgusting food served up by the prison authorities, had lowered her morale’ as nothing else could.

Warren looked her over. He disliked fat women. He thought Martha was disgusting to the eye, but he fixed on his face his famous, oily courtroom smile and waved her to a chair.

‘Mrs. Gummrich? Sit down.’ He selected a Havana cigar from a cedar wood box and nipped its end with a gold cigar— cutter.

Martha flopped into a chair. Her small frightened eyes moved around the room like a trapped rodent surveying its cage.

As he lit the cigar, Warren said, ‘I have your record here.’ He tapped with a beautifully manicured nail on a pile of papers before him. ‘Five years for jewel robbery. . . now this.’ He leaned forward and stared searchingly at Martha. ‘Mrs. Gummrich, I must tell you the Judge will be influenced by your record. I could ask him to sentence you to ten years.’

Martha cowered. Her fat flesh quivered. Ten years on that awful food! She now longed for the imaginary death pill about which she had boasted to Henry.

Warren blew a rich smelling wreath of cigar smoke around him.

‘But I could persuade the Judge to deal leniently with you.’ He poked his cigar in Martha’s direction. ‘When you were arrested, you said Robins killed Mrs. Lewis. Frankly, this is all I am interested in. I want to convict this man for murder. If you are prepared to give evidence against him, I can promise you that you will get a three-year sentence instead of a certain ten-year sentence. Of course you must decide for yourself. Are you prepared to become a witness for the prosecution?’

Martha didn’t hesitate.

‘Yes,’ she said.

***

Steve Harmas sauntered into Patty Shaw’s office and smiled at her.

‘How do you like my beautiful suntan?’ he asked. ‘If I wasn’t such a respectably married man, I would kiss you.’

‘That’s nice to know,’ Patty said. ‘I’m sorry about that, but if you really feel in need of kissing anyone, go in there and kiss the bear.’ She rolled her pretty’ eyes. ‘The guy who coined that phrase about a bear and a boil was dead right.’

Harmas shrugged.

‘Don’t let it worry you, Patty, dear. Do me a favour, will you? I had a bet with Max the other week about how tall you are. Stand up a second. I just want to check.’

Patty giggled.

‘That one’s got whiskers on it. I stand up and get my bottom pinched. Go talk to Maddox.’

‘Miss Shaw. . . I think you are getting a little worldly’ Harmas said, looking shocked. ‘The idea never crossed my mind.’

‘Get in there and do some work.’

Harmas looked sad, shook his head and entered Maddox’s office.

Maddox glared at him.

‘Have you found that necklace?’

Harmas lowered himself into the visitor’s chair.

‘No.’

‘What the hell’s going on?’ Maddox demanded. ‘I’ve got the claim in. I told you . . .’

Harmas raised his hand. He took from his pocket an envelope and handed it across the desk.

‘Look at that, then we can talk.’

Snorting, one hand rumpling his hair, Maddox read Harmas’ report. Then he lit a cigarette from the butt of the one he was smoking and sat back.

‘I don’t give a damn who killed Lisa Lewis,’ he said. ‘All I’m interested in is the Esmaldi necklace. It’s got to be found! So okay, Lewis is fooling around with a Vietnamese. Terrell and you think Lewis engineered his wife’s murder. That doesn’t interest me! You think Lewis has the necklace . . . that does interest me. Get back to Paradise City and take with you as many of your men as you think you will need. From now on, you don’t take your eyes off Lewis or his Vietnamese tart. This could be the only chance of recovering the necklace. If I have to pay out, everyone in this office, including you, will have pains in their asses. Do I make myself plain?’

‘Beautifully,’ Harmas said. ‘Okay, leave it to me.’

As he left Maddox’s office, Harmas caught Patty bending over a filing cabinet. Her sharp squeal made Maddox lift his head and frown.

Before Patty could find something heavy enough to throw at him, Harmas was halfway to the elevator.

***

Three days after Harry’s visit to the Saigon Restaurant, he telephoned Tania, asking if they could meet.

‘Yes,’ Tania said. ‘I will be at the apartment at three.’ There was a wooden sound to her voice that bothered Harry.

‘Is there something wrong?’ he asked uneasily, but found that she had hung up.

He had scarcely slept for the past three nights, thinking of her and longing for the comfort of her slim, beautiful body.

Nurse Helgar had gone with a promise, once the will had been proved, that she would receive ten thousand dollars for services rendered. She had accepted this promise with a slight nod of her head and had stared at Harry, conveying her dislike for him. He was glad to be rid of her. He had made arrangements to sell the house, warning ToTo and the rest of the staff that he would be making changes. It irritated him that none of them showed concern. ToTo said in his prim guttural English that he would be leaving at the end of the week as he had already had an offer which suited him. He too gave Harry a cold stare of dislike.

Unaware that Steve Harmas was following him, Harry arrived at Tania’s apartment just after three o’clock. Usually when he arrived, the door would be thrown open and Tania would rush into his arms, but there was no answer to his ring on the bell, and frowning, wondering if she was there, he opened the door with his key.