Too Many Clients (3 page)

“I said no rooms.” His voice was deep and rough.

“You can shift someone around. Two hundred dollars.”

“No.”

“Three hundred.” “No.”

“Five hundred.” “You’re crazy. No.”

“I’m not crazy. You are. Snooting five hundred bucks. What’s your name?” “It’s my name.”

“Oh for God’s sake. I can get it next door or from the cop out front. What’s wrong with it?”

He half closed one eye. “Nothing is wrong with it. My name is Cesar Perez. I am a citizen of the United States of America.”

“So am I. Will you rent me a room for one week for five hundred dollars in advance in cash?”

“But what I said.” He gestured with both hands and both shoulders. “No room. That man out there dead, this is a bad thing. To take pictures of the people from this house, no. Even if there was a room.”

I decided to be impetuous. Delay could actually be dangerous, since Homicide or the DA might uncover a connection between Yeager and this house any moment. Getting my case from my pocket and taking an item from it, I handed it to him. “Can you see in this light?” I asked.

He didn’t try. “What is it?”

“My license. I’m not a newspaperman, I’m a private detective, and I’m investigating the murder of Thomas G. Yeager.”

He half closed an eye again. He poked the license at me, and I took it. His chest swelled with an intake of air. “You’re not a policeman?”

“No.”

“Then get out of here. Get out of this house. I have told three different policemen I don’t know anything about that man in the hole, and one of them insulted me. You get out.”

“All right,” I said, “it’s your house.” I returned the license to the case and the case to my pocket. “But I’ll tell you what will happen if you bounce me. Within half an hour a dozen policemen will take the house over, with a search warrant. They’ll go over every inch of it. They’ll round up everybody here, beginning with you and your daughter, and they’ll nab everyone who enters. The reason they’ll do that is that I’ll tell them I can prove that Thomas G. Yeager came to this house Sunday evening and he was killed here.”

“That’s a lie. Like that policeman. That’s insult.”

“Okay. First I call to the cop out front to come in and stand by so you can’t warn anyone.” I turned. I had hit it. With the cops of course he had been set, but I had been unexpected and had caught him off balance. And he wasn’t a moron. He knew that even if I couldn’t prove it I must have enough to sick the law on him and the house.

As I turned he reached and got my sleeve. I turned back, and he stood there, his jaw working. I asked, not hostile, just wanting to know, “Did you kill him?”

“You’re a policeman,” he said.

“I am not. My name is Archie Goodwin and I work for a private detective named Nero Wolfe. We expect to get paid for investigating this case, that’s how we make a living. So I’ll be honest; we would rather find out for ourselves why Yeager came here instead of having the police do it, but if you won’t cooperate I’ll have to call that cop in. Did you kill him?”

He wheeled and started down the hall. I moved, got his shoulder, and yanked him around. “Did you kill him?”

“I’ve got a knife,” he said. “In this house I’ve got a right to have it.”

“Sure. I’ve got this.” I pulled the Marley from the holster. “And a permit for it. Did you kill him?”

“No. I want to see my wife. She thinks better than I do. My wife and daughter. I want�”

A door ten feet down the hall swung open, and a woman’s voice said, “We’re here, Cesar,” and there they were. The one coming was a tall grim-faced woman with an air of command. Maria stayed at the door. Perez started reeling off Spanish at his wife, but she broke in.

“Stop it! He’ll think it’s secrets. With an American talk American.” She focused sharp black eyes on me. “We heard you. I knew this would come, only I thought it would be the police. My husband is an honest man. He did not kill Mr. Yeager. We call him Mr. House because it’s his house. How do you know?”

I returned the Marley to the holster. “Since I do know, Mrs. Perez, does it matter how?”

“No, I am a fool to ask. All right, ask questions.”

“I’d rather have your husband answer them. It may take a while. If there’s a room with chairs?”

“I’ll answer them. We sit down with friends. You after my husband with a gun.”

“I was only showing off. Okay, if your legs can stand it mine can. What time did Mr. Yeager come here Sunday?”

“I thought you knew.”

“I do. I’m finding out how you answer questions. If you answer too many of them wrong I’ll try your husband, or the police will.”

She considered it a moment. “He came around seven o’clock.”

“Did he come to see you or your husband or your daughter?”

She glared. “No.”

“Whom did he come to see?”

“I don’t know. We don’t know.”

“Try again. That’s silly. I’m not going to spend all day prying it out of you bit by bit.”

She eyed me. “Have you ever been up there?”

“I’m asking the questions, Mrs. Perez. Whom did he come to see?”

“We don’t know.” She turned. “Go, Maria.” “But Mother, it’s not-“

“Go!”

Maria went, back inside, and shut the door. It was just as well, since it’s a strain to keep your eyes where they ought to be when they want to be somewhere else. Mother returned to me.

“He came around seven o’clock and knocked on the door. That one.” She pointed to the door Maria had shut behind her. “He spoke to my husband and paid him some money. Then he went down the hall to the elevator. We don’t know if someone was up there or if someone came later. We were looking at the television, so we wouldn’t hear if someone came in and went to the elevator. Anyhow we weren’t supposed to know. The door in front has a good lock. So it’s not silly that we don’t know who he came to see.”

“Where’s the elevator?” “In the back. It has a lock too.” “You asked if I have ever been up there. Have you?” “Of course. Every day. We keep it clean.” “Then you have a key. We’ll go up now.” I moved. She glanced at her husband, hesitated, glanced at me, went and opened the door Maria had closed and said something in Spanish, and started down the hall. Perez followed, and I brought up the rear. At the far end of the hall, clear back, she took a key from a pocket of her skirt and inserted it in the lock of a metal door, another Rabson lock. The door, either aluminum or stainless steel, slid open. That door certainly didn’t fit that hall, and neither did the inside of the elevator-more stainless steel, with red enameled panels on three sides. It was small, not even as large as Wolfe’s at home. It ascended, silent and smooth, I judged, right to the top floor, the door slid open, and we stepped out.

For the second time in an hour I must have either gaped or gasped when Perez turned on the lights. I have seen quite a few rooms where people had gone all out, but that topped them all. It may have been partly the contrast with the neighborhood, the outside of the house, and the down below, but it would have been remarkable no matter where. The first impression was of silk and skin. The silk, mostly red but some pale yellow, was on the walls and ceiling and couches. The skin was on the girls and women in the pictures, paintings, that took a good third of the wall space. In all directions was naked skin. The pale yellow carpet, wall to wall, was silk too, or looked it. The room was enormous, twenty-five feet wide and the full length of the house, with no windows at either end. Headed to the right wall, near the center, was a bed eight feet square with a pale yellow silk coverlet. Since yellow was Wolfe’s pet color it was too bad he hadn’t come along. I sniffed the air. It was fresh enough, but it smelled. Air-conditioned, with built-in perfume.

There weren’t many surfaces that would hold fingerprints-the tops of two tables, a TV console, a stand with a telephone. I turned to Mrs. Perez. “Have you cleaned here since Sunday night?”

“Yes, yesterday morning.”

That settled that. “Where’s the door to the stairs?”

“No stairs.”

“They’re boarded up below,” Perez said. “The elevator’s the only way to come up?” “Yes.”

“How long has it been like this?”

“Four years. Since he bought the house. We had been here two years.”

“How often did he come here?” “We don’t know.”

“Certainly you do, if you came up every day to clean. How often?”

“Maybe once a week, maybe more.” I turned on Perez. “Why did you kill him?” “No.” He half closed an eye. “Me'No.” “Who did?”

“We don’t know,” his wife said.

I ignored her. “Look,” I told him, “I don’t want to turn you over unless I have to. Mr. Wolfe and I would prefer to keep you to ourselves. But if you don’t open up we’ll have no choice, and there may not be much time. They’ve got a lot of fingerprints from the tarpaulin that covered his body. I know he was killed in this house. If just one of those prints matches yours, good-by.

You’re in. Since he was killed in this house, you know something. What?”

He said to his wife, “Felita?”

She was looking at me, her sharp black eyes into me. “You’re a private detective,” she said. “You told my husband that’s how you make a living. So we pay you. We have some money, not much. One hundred dollars.”

“What do you pay me for?”

“To be our detective.”

“And detect what?”

“We’ll tell you. We have the money downstairs.”

“I’ll earn it first. All right, I’m your detective, but I can quit any time, for instance if I decide that you or your husband killed Yeager. What do you want me to detect?”

“We want you to help us. What you said about the fingerprints. I told him he must put on gloves, but he didn’t. We don’t know how you know so much, but we know how it will be if you tell the police about this house. We did not kill Mr. House. Mr. Yeager. We don’t know who killed him. My husband took his dead body and put it in that hole because we had to. When he came Sunday evening he told my husband to go to Mondor’s at midnight and bring some things he had ordered, some caviar and roast pheasant and other things, and when my husband came up with them his dead body was here.” She pointed. “There on the floor. What could we do'It was secret that he came to this house. What would happen if we called a policeman'We knew what would happen. So now we pay you to help us. Perhaps more than one hundred dollars. You will know�”

She whirled around. There had been a noise from the elevator, a click, and then a faint sound of friction, barely audible. Perez said, “It’s going down. Someone down there.”

“Yeah,” I agreed. “Who?”

“We don’t know,” Mrs. Perez said.

“Then we’ll see. Stay where you are, both of you.” I got the Marley out.

“It’s a policeman,” Perez said.

“No,” she said. “No key. He couldn’t have Mr. House’s keys because we took them.”

“Shut up,” I told them. “If I’m your detective, do what I say. No talking and no moving.”

We stood facing the elevator. I moved to the wall and put my back to it, arm’s length from the elevator door. Since it had been up when the visitor came and he had had to push the button to bring it down, he must know someone was up here and might come out with his finger on a trigger, which was where I had mine. The faint sound came again, then a click, the door opened, and out came a woman. Her back was to me as she faced Mrs. Perez.

“Thank God,” she said, “it’s you. I thought it would be.”

“We don’t know you,” Mrs. Perez said.

I did. I had taken a step and got her profile. It was Meg Duncan, whom I had seen last week from a fifth-row seat on the aisle, in her star part in The Back Door to Heaven.

If you ever have your pick of being jumped by a man your size or a woman who only comes to your chin, I advise you to make it the man. If he’s unarmed the chances are that the very worst he’ll do is floor you, but God knows what the woman will do. And you may floor him first, but you can’t plug a woman. Meg Duncan came at me exactly the way a cavewoman went at her man, or some other man, ten thousand years ago, her claws reaching for me and her mouth open ready to bite. There were only two alternatives, to get too far or too close, and too close is better. I rammed into her past the claws, against her, and wrapped her, and in one second the breath was all out of her. Her mouth stayed open, but for air, not to bite. I slid around and had her arms from behind. In that position the worst you can get is a kick on a shin. She was gasping. My grip may have been really hurting her right arm because I had the gun in that hand and the butt was pressing into her. When I removed that hand to drop the Marley in my pocket she didn’t move, and I turned loose and backed up a step.

“I know who you are,” I said. “I caught your show last week and you were wonderful. I’m not a cop, I’m a private detective. I work for Nero Wolfe. When you get your breath you’ll tell me why you’re here.”

She turned, slowly. It took her five seconds to make the half-turn to face me. “You hurt me,” she said.

“No apology. A squeeze and a little bruise on an arm are nothing to what you had in mind.”

She rubbed the arm, her head tilted back to look up at me, still breathing through her mouth. I was being surprised that I had recognized her. On the stage she was extremely easy on the eyes. Now she was just a thirty-year-old female with a good enough face, in a plain gray suit and a plain little hat, but of course she was under strain.

She spoke. “Are you Nero Wolfe’s Archie Goodwin?”

“No. I’m my Archie Goodwin. I’m Nero Wolfe’s confidential assistant.”

“I know about you.” She was getting enough air through her nose. “I know you’re a gentleman.” She extended a hand to touch my sleeve. “I came here to get something that belongs to me. I’ll get it and go. All right?”

“What is it?”

“A�a something with my initials on it. A cigarette case.” “How did it get here?”

She tried to smile, as a lady to a gentleman, but it was a feeble effort. A famous actress should have done better, even under strain. “Does that matter, Mr. Goodwin'It’s mine. I can describe it. It’s dull gold, with an emerald in a corner on one side and my initials on the other.”

I smiled as a gentleman to a lady. “When did you leave it here?”

“I didn’t say I left it here.”

“Was it Sunday evening?”

“No. I wasn’t here Sunday evening.”

“Did you kill Yeager?”

She slapped me. That is, she slapped at me. She was certainly impetuous. Also she was quick, but so was I. I caught her wrist and gave it a little twist, not enough to hurt much, and let go. There was a gleam in her eyes, and she looked more like Meg Duncan. “You’re a man, aren’t you?” she said.

“I can be. Right now I’m just a working detective. Did you kill Yeager?”

“No. Of course not.” Her hand came up again, but only to touch my sleeve. “Let me get my cigarette case and go.”

I shook my head. “You’ll have to manage without it for a while. Do you know who killed Yeager?”

“Of course not.” Her fingers curved around my arm, not a grip, just a touch. “I know I can’t bribe you, Mr. Goodwin, I know enough about you to know that, but detectives do things for people, don’t they'I can pay you to do something for me, can’t I'

If you won’t let me get my cigarette case you can get it for me, and keep it for me. You can give it to me later, you can decide when, I don’t care as long as you keep it.” Her fingers pressed a little. “I would pay whatever you say. A thousand dollars?”

Things were looking up, but it was getting a little complicated. At 4:30 yesterday afternoon we had had no client and no prospect of any. Then one had come but had turned out to be a phony. Then Mrs. Perez had dangled a hundred bucks and perhaps more. Now this customer was offering a grand. I was digging up clients all right, but too many clients can be worse than too few.

I regarded her. “It might work,” I said. “It’s like this. Actually I can’t take a job; I’m employed by Nero Wolfe. He takes the jobs. I’m going to look this place over, and if I find your cigarette case, as I will if it’s here, I’ll take it. Give me your keys, to the door down below and the elevator.”

Her fingers left my arm. “Give them to you?”

“Right. You won’t need them any more.” I glanced at my wrist. “It’s ten-thirty-five. You have no matinee today. Come to Nero Wolfe’s office at half past two. Six-eighteen West Thirty-fifth Street. Your cigarette case will be there, and you can settle it with Mr. Wolfe.”

“But why can’t you-“

“No. That’s how it is, and I have things to do.” I put a hand out. “The keys.” “Why can’t I-“

“I said no. There’s no argument and no time. Damn it, I’m giving you a break. The keys.”

She opened her bag, fingered in it, took out a leather key fold, and handed it over. I unsnapped it, saw two Rabson keys, which are not like any others, displayed them to Perez, and asked if they were the keys to the door and the elevator. He took a look and said yes. Dropping them in a pocket, I pushed the button to open the elevator door and told Meg Duncan, “I’ll see you later. Half past two.”

“Why can’t I stay until you find�”

“Nothing doing. I’ll be too busy for company.”

She stepped in, the door closed, the click came, and the faint sound. I turned to Perez.

“You’ve seen her before.” “No. Never.”

“Phooey. When you brought things up at midnight?” “I only saw him. She could have been in the bathroom.” “Where’s the bathroom?” He pointed. “At that end.”

I went to his wife. “When she saw you she said, ‘Thank God it’s you.’”

She nodded. “I heard her. She must see me some time when she came in, in the hall or a door was open. We don’t know her. We never saw her.”

“The things you don’t know. All right now, you two. It will take hours and will have to wait because I have things to do, but one question now.” To him: “When you put the body in the hole why did you climb in and put the tarp over it?”

He was surprised. “But he was dead! A man dead, you cover him! I knew that thing was in there, I had seen it.”

That was the moment that I decided that Cesar Perez had not killed Thomas G. Yeager. Possibly his wife had, but not him. If you had been there looking at him as he said that, you would have decided the same. When I had been trying to account for the tarp the simplest explanation had never occurred to me, that long ago people covered dead men to hide them from vultures, and it got to be a habit.

“That was decent,” I said. “Too bad you didn’t wear gloves. Okay, that’s all for now. I have work to do. You heard me give that woman Nero Wolfe’s address, Six-eighteen West Thirty-fifth Street. Be there at six o’clock this afternoon, both of you. I’m your detective temporarily, but he’s the boss. You certainly need help, and after you tell him about it we’ll see. Where are Yeager’s keys'Don’t say ‘We don’t know.’ You said you took them. Where are they?”

“I have them safe,” Mrs. Perez said.

“Where?”

“In a cake. I made a cake and put them in. There are twelve keys in a thing.”

“Including the keys to the door and the elevator?”

“Yes.”

I considered. I was already on thin ice, and if I took possession of something that had been taken from Yeager’s body there would be no ice at all between me and suppression of evidence. No. “Don’t cut the cake,” I said, “and be darned sure nobody else does. Are you going anywhere today'Either of you?”

“We don’t have to,” she said.

“Then don’t. Nero Wolfe’s office at six o’clock, but I’ll see you when I come down, probably in an hour or so.” “You take things?”

“I don’t know. If I do I’ll show them to you, including the cigarette case. If I take anything you think I shouldn’t, you can call in that cop from out front.”

“We couldn’t,” Perez said.

“He makes a joke,” she told him. She pushed the button to bring the elevator up. “This is a bad day, Cesar. There will be many bad days, and he makes a joke.” The elevator clicked at the top, she pushed another button, the door opened, and they entered and were gone.

I moved my eyes around. At the edge of a panel of red silk at the left was a rectangular brass plate, if it wasn’t gold. I went and pushed on it, and it gave. The panel was a door. I pushed it open and stepped through, and was in the kitchen. The walls were red tile, the cupboards and shelves were yellow plastic, and the sink and appliances, including the refrigerator and electric range, were stainless steel. I opened the refrigerator door, saw a collection of various items, and closed it. I slid a cupboard door back and saw nine bottles of Dom Perignon champagne on their sides in a plastic rack. That would do for the kitchen for now. I emerged and walked the length of the yellow carpet, surrounded by silk and skin, to the other end, where there was another brass plate, or gold, at the edge of a panel. I pushed it open and was in the bathroom. I don’t know what your taste is, but I liked it. It was all mirrors and marble, red marble with yellow streaks and splotches. The tub, big enough for two, was the same marble. Two of the mirrors were doors to cabinets, and they contained enough different cosmetic items to supply a harem.

I returned to the silk and skin. There were no drawers anywhere, no piece of furniture that might contain pieces of paper on which someone had written something. There was nothing at the telephone stand but the phone, which was yellow, and the directory, which was in a red leather holder. But along one wall, the one across from the bed, there was no furniture for about thirty feet of its length, and the silk along the bottom, for three feet up from the floor, was in little folds like a curtain, not flat as it was everywhere else. I went and gave the silk a tug and it parted and slid along the top, and behind it were drawer fronts, of wood something like mahogany, but redder. I pulled one open. Female slippers, a dozen pairs in two neat rows, various colors and shapes and sizes. The sizes ranged from quite small to fairly large.

I looked into only five more drawers before I went to the phone. That was enough to make it plain that Meg Duncan wasn’t the only one who had keys to the door and elevator. There was another drawer of slippers, again assorted colors and sizes, and two drawers of nighties, a mighty fine collection. It was after I unfolded eight of them and spread them on the bed for comparison, and found that they also covered a wide range in sizes, that I went to the phone and dialed a number. There was a possibility that it was tapped or there was an extension, but it was very slim, and I preferred the slight risk to going out to a booth.

Saul Panzer, whose number I dialed, was the free-lance operative we called on when only the best would do. But what I got was the answering-service girl, who said that Mr. Panzer was out and couldn’t be reached and would I leave a message. I said no and dialed another number, Fred Durkin’s, the next best, and got him. He said he had nothing on for the day.

“You have now,” I told him. “Pack a bag for a week. It will probably be less but could be more. Come as you are, no costumes required, but have a gun. You probably won’t use it, but have it. Come to One-fifty-six West Eighty-second Street, the basement entrance, superintendent, and push the button at the door. It will be a man or woman, either Cuban or Puerto Rican, I’m not sure which. They speak American. Tell him or her your name and ask for me, and you’ll have the pleasure and honor of being brought to my presence. Don’t hurry. Take three minutes to pack if you want to.”

“Eighty-second Street,” he said. “Murder. What was his name'Yeager.”

“You read too much and you’re morbid and you jump to conclusions. Pack your bag and button your lip.” I hung up.

Folding flimsy nighties properly is no job for a man and it takes time, but I gritted my teeth and stuck to it, because a detective is supposed to leave a place the way he found it. Them back in the drawer, I brought the elevator up, took it down, and went to an open door, the first one on the left in the hall. The Perez family was having a conference in the kitchen. Father and mother were sitting, and Maria was standing. There was more light than there had been in the front of the hall, and with that rare specimen, the more light the better. Looking at her, any man alive would have the thought, What the hell, I could wash the dishes and darn the socks myself. The beige nightie with lace around the top, medium-sized, would have fitted her fine. I made my eyes go to her parents and spoke.

“A man will come pretty soon, tall and thick in all directions. He’ll give his name, Fred Durkin, and ask for me. Send him up.”

I got the expected reaction from Mrs. Perez. I had no right to tell anybody about that place, they were going to pay me, and so forth. Wishing to keep on speaking terms with our clients, I took four minutes to explain why I had to leave Fred there when I went, got her calmed down, permitted my eyes to dart another glance at Maria, took the elevator back up, and resumed on the drawers where I had left off. I won’t take time and space to list an inventory, but will merely say that everything that could be needed for such an establishment was there. I’ll only mention two details: one, that there was only one drawer of male items, and the six suits of pajamas were all the same size; and two, the drawer in which I found Meg Duncan’s cigarette case was obviously a catchall. There were three women’s handkerchiefs, used, an anonymous compact, a lady’s umbrella, a matchbook from Terry’s Pub, and other such miscellany. I had just put it all back in and was closing the drawer when I heard the click from the elevator.

Presumably it was Fred, but possibly not, so I got the Marley out and went to the wall by the elevator door. I could hear no voices from below; the place was so thoroughly soundproofed that you could hear nothing but a faint suggestion of noise from the street traffic, and that was more felt than heard. Soon the click came again, the door opened, and Fred stepped out. He stood and swiveled his head, right and left, brought it around until he caught a glimpse of me, turned it back again, and spoke.