Death of a Flack Read online

  TROUBLE

  Comes ín Threes

  A belly dancer … who wanted money,

  A rich poetess … who wanted love,

  And a Greek adventuress … who wanted Pete.

  They were all beautiful … and they all spelled trouble for Pete Chambers, suave man-about-town and tough private dick. And when an ancient priceless jewel and an old case of vengeance come into the picture … curtains go up on a brand-new murder, and more trouble for Pete Chambers, who soon learns you can’t mix babes and business.

  DEATH

  OF A

  FLACK

  HENRY KANE

  a division of F+W Media, Inc.

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-One

  Twenty-Two

  Twenty-Three

  Twenty-Four

  Twenty-Five

  Dead on the Level

  Also Available

  Copyright

  ONE

  Oh ho, the private eyeball! Poor, prosaic, wretched eyeball. Alas, alack, woe and whoa! Harder and faster they chain him to the stone of stereotype—more and more he cannot earn his daily bread without conforming to the curious standards so stringently set out for him. Once upon a time he had to talk from out of the side of stiff-lipped mouth in accents clipped and surly, and there was the bleak but sheer necessity of constant sexual acrobatics with each and every lady who entered within earshot of the case, no matter how casually. And if by chance the case were not a “caper,” it was no damned case at all. There was the day he had to punch all people in the belly with the natural follow-through of one perfect, accurate, and final punch to the chin (for some reason called the button, as you may recall), but that was before the advent of judo. After judo (after World War II, that is), our hero merely had to straighten his palm and smite the nape of his vis-à-vis, who would immediately fall prone or supine but obligingly comatose. Once upon the long ago he had to imbibe gallons of whisky hour after hour, all through the day (and night), and nevertheless remain staunch, stalwart, sober, and charmingly disrespectful. And there was the time it was the fashion to shoot the lady villain in the navel, and as blood belched becomingly and she slid to a graceful but awfully sexy posture of death, he was wont to murmur some such threnody as: “This was fairly easy and somewhat essential, but you are the culprit and I am the epitome of irresistible male brawn in whom exists the saucy combination of judge, jury, avenging angel, and executioner, and my quick gun has a bullet and your snowy belly has a navel and the twain must meet or else… .”

  That was in the long ago and far away before the eyeball commenced his ubiquitous swim across all the channels of television. Today the eyeball is neat, clean, beautifully tailored, and eloquently baritoned. He never wears a coat no matter how inclement the weather. Some wear a dark and fetching pork-pie lid irrevocably riveted to the pate because it makes them look more handsome and dashing. All flash about the terrain in splendid convertibles. Most of them have no office other than a saloon, but all have an answering service—a voice that is either full of feminine foreign intrigue or sexy, feminine, southern molasses. Frequently there is the surprisingly lesbian overtone of a seductive female voice going by the name of Sam, Jack, Philip, or Morris. Those of the eyeballs who do command an office, command a layout as palatial as a potentate’s front parlor, with rugs, mirrors, couches, a view, and a terrace yet. But imperative to our modern-day stereotype is that he carry an orchestra with him. Jazz! Jazz, man! His invisible orchestra must plunk out a constant accompaniment of jazz. Jazz, man! Far out, far in, progressive, conservative—without his background of jazz, today’s private orb is as anachronistic as yesterday’s private Richard without his background of quick fist, quick gun, and quick reference to caper.

  Me? I dig it. Sure I dig it. I go for the jazz, but I can go without it. Remember me? Peter Chambers. I predate this plethora of eyeballs with their invisible orchestras. I was around before all these come-latelies started cluttering up the expensive twenty-one inches of the idiot-boxes. I have a workaday office without a terrace and with a secretary—old and crotchety Miranda Foxworth. My office is not my home. My couches (and my terrace) are in my apartment on Central Park South overlooking the park in New York City. I do my work in my office and I do my homework—some of it very pleasant—at home. I’ve been around … and around, and around, and around. I am thirty-five years of age, which is a lie, but forgive me—a private Richard is as sensitive about age as a public prima donna. I shall be thirty-five as long as I can get away with it. Let us say I look thirty-five, feel thirty-five, and act thirty-five (sometimes twenty-five). I have never been a stereotype—remember? There are many installments of my compulsion to autobiography still in print to prove that. I tried to deliver myself of the King’s English when the boys thought it fashionable to shoot the jargon from a corner of the mouth. In the yesterday when it was popular, I never took the law into my own hands, and I never shot a naked chick in the navel, so help me. Today, I dig the jazz, sure, but I also dig long-hair, and I also dig ballet, and it was at the ballet, as a matter of fact, at the Metropolitan, that this saga, after due prologue, commences.

  We were rather a motely group, but all in formal evening attire. A stockbroker, a poetess, a flack, a kept woman, a jeweler, a belly dancer, and a private Richard constitute, in mildest usage, a motley group. Of course, as in any group, there were areas of homogeneity. The stockbroker, Mr. Jefferson Clayton, and the jeweler, Mr. Cobb Gilmore, though of disparate ages, were both vastly and indecently wealthy. The flack, Mr. Henry Martell, and the Richard, Mr. Peter Chambers, although joyously appreciative of the ballet, were present, essentially, as a matter of business. The flack was in the company of two clients—the belly dancer and the stockbroker. The Richard was in the company of the belly dancer who had promised him a client for that very evening. And the three ladies—the poetess, Miss Lori Gilmore (the jeweler’s daughter), the inamorata, Miss Sophia Patri (the jeweler’s latest sweetheart), the belly dancer, Miss Sherry Greco (my date)—were homogeneous in aspects of beauty: they were all ravishingly attractive women, although each was of an entirely different mien. Lori Gilmore, about twenty-three, was blonde, slender, sinuous, smoky-eyed, intense, reserved, and sullen. Sherry Greco, about twenty-six, was tall, red-haired, green-eyed, glistening-mouthed, and shaped with extravagant, bewitching, and always-exposed curves. Sophia Patri, about twenty-nine, was a European with shiny black hair parted in the middle and worn severely pulled back to a bun, a full ripe figure, tawny skin, and black smoldering eyes. The company, for most of the evening had been jolly, except for the obvious restraint between Henry Martell and Jefferson Clayton for an obvious reason—Lori Gilmore.

  At the first intermission break, Martell and Clayton escorted Lori, Gilmore escorted Sophia, and I escorted Sherry Greco to the bar, and for the first time that evening, I had Sherry alone. “Okay,” I said, “so what’s with that prospective client?”

  She sucked on her Martini and gave me the up-glance, long-lashed. Then she set the Martini away and smiled, revealing small, white, savage teeth. “Is that the only interest?” she asked. She had a deep, easy, slow voice, consciously sultry.

  “I have professed my interest, if you recollect,” I said, “and I kind of got smacked
down.”

  “You make your passes too fast and too frequent, Mr. Chambers.”

  “Maybe I’m impatient. Or maybe it’s you.”

  “Me?”

  “You present an irresistible incentive.”

  The smile was wider. “Well, thank you.” And a sip of the Martini. “You’re a smooth apple, Mr. Chambers; a glib talker.”

  “That bad, good, or indifferent?”

  “Good, as a matter of fact. I’m no little gal in a gingham gown.”

  “You bet!”

  “I like my men smooth, sophisticated. I can’t stand them boorish. But—let’s say—not too smooth.”

  “I seem to have a vague recollection of not being too smooth.”

  “You mean three propositions in three weeks, Mr. Chambers?”

  It was my turn to smile. “But that’s the extent of our acquaintanceship—three weeks.”

  “A proposition a week. Not that I don’t love it—but would you sort of call that par for the course?”

  “Remember the incentive, dear Sherry.”

  “My dear Mr. Chambers—”

  “Three weeks. It’s time I was Pete to you. Or, if you want to be formal, Peter.”

  “Peter,” she said, “you’re an attractive man and a persistent man and I admire attractive and persistent men, but please try to get it clear in your mind that I’m no pushover. No Puritan, but no pushover. Also, if and when I go to bed with a man, I go because I want to, rather than because he wants to. So don’t flood your motor, dear fellow. If you wish to persist—so be it. It flatters me and I like it, but don’t dream up any fantasies for yourself because that’s just what they may turn out to be—fantasies. I’m in a peculiar business, and men get ideas. I do admit I enjoy a bit of a flirtation, but I make no promises. That’s it. Period. Now let’s talk about your prospective client.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” I said. “I am chastened.”

  “I’m a Greek,” she said. “Of Greek extraction.”

  “Is it true what they say about how the Greeks make love?”

  “This is chastened?” She smiled. “Anyway, that’s a misconception. It’s the Turks.”

  “I heard Greeks,” I said.

  “Maybe the Greeks learned. They’re neighboring countries.”

  “Did you learn?”

  “We were talking—or trying to talk—about your prospective client.”

  “Yes. What’s that got to do with your being Greek?”

  “He’s a Greek.”

  “Who?”

  “The prospective client.”

  “Greek?” I said.

  “Aristotle Skahnos,” she said. “He happened in at the club a couple of nights ago.” The club was Club Athena, one of the most successful night operations in New York, and owned by Sherry Greco. “We became acquainted and chatted—in Greek, as a matter of fact. Turns out the man is in need of a private detective. I recommended you. Jeff Clayton has told me that you’re the best.”

  “Nice of Jeff.”

  “Mr. Skahnos said he would check you. If the check worked out, he’ll drop in at the club tonight. He asked that I have you there. I told him we had a date tonight to go to the ballet. He said he’d come in late, about one o’clock. So, at one o’clock, I hope you’ll meet him.”

  “That’s all?”

  “Should there be more?”

  “Like what it’s all about,” I said.

  “I haven’t the faintest idea,” she said.

  “Thanks, anyway,” I said.

  “Don’t mention it,” she said. “I approve of people making money.”

  “You do all right.”

  “I try.” She finished the Martini and as she laid the glass away she said softly: “I believe I have a rival.” I turned as casually as I could pretend in the direction of her now narrow-eyed glance.

  Through the haze of cigarette smoke, quite nearby, I saw Sophia Patri. Her graceful hand held a long-stemmed sherry glass. Her deep, dark, smoldering eyes were directly upon me, and as my eyes met hers there happened that magic instant of secret understanding, as though a signal from a prior incarnation had passed between us. For that one instant her eyes were bold upon me and her glass moved up and forward almost imperceptibly. Then her eyes lowered and her mouth was upon the rim of the glass and she returned her attentions to the pink-faced Cobb Gilmore.

  “Why, that big-assed bitch,” quoth Sherry Greco, in a weird, female, strangely merry whisper.

  And the peal of the gong sounded the end of intermission.

  TWO

  For me, the ballet was finished. I sat and watched and saw nothing. Sherry was on my left, Sophia on my right, and my right calf and knee and thigh were pressed upon Sophia as though in rape, but the pressure was returned with subtle muscle-twitchings which seemed to have a direct, electric, message line to my reacting loins. We sat, faces forward, untalking, ostensibly oblivious of one another, but tense and rapt in message-sending, hotly and fervidly contiguous.

  It had been a crazy night, growing crazier.

  It had started way back, three weeks ago.

  Three weeks ago I had been out on the town with Jefferson Clayton. Jeff was a bachelor, and so was I, and our interests, on a night out, were similar—such as drinking up a storm and winding up with girls. Jeff was the junior partner of Clayton & Clayton, Stocks and Bonds, 5 Wall Street. The senior partner was his father, Richard Clayton, of immense wealth inherited from the now-saintly, now-respected robber barons. Scion of riches, Jeff looked the part: tall, handsome, broad-shouldered, with ail-American smile, patrician nose, square face, square grin, he was Princeton-graduated, and wore his blond hair cut short and crew in approved Princeton style. Jeff was a client and a good one: an honest rich man has as much need of a private detective as does a poor but dishonest man. Jefferson Clayton was the man in charge of an intricate, important, and serious business. He was adviser and investor for a multitude of rock-rich, conservative families. The elder Clayton was now senile and on the point of retirement; the younger Clayton, though high-spirited and dangerously quick-tempered, had, at all costs, always to avoid even the faintest ripple of scandal. In such circumstances, of course, the private Richard fits as snugly as a foot in sock. The important rich man gets himself into a scrape: the unimportant world-weary private operator extracts him from such scrape, carefully and dexterously, and after removing him from such cincture, demands, and is paid, an inordinate fee. Jefferson Clayton was not a friend: Jefferson Clayton was a client. But since there was a similarity in the pursuits of relaxation, Jefferson Clayton and Peter Chambers frequently strode the town of nights, seeking amusement. For me, it was good business. Sometimes it was fun. That night, three weeks before the ballet, it was a bore, because Jefferson Clayton was in love. Love is delightful for the participant: for the listener who cannot, in all courtesy, run off, it is a crashing, crushing, oppressive bore. But a bore, man!

  The gal was Lori Gilmore. Jeff had met her about six weeks prior and was hot on the make.

  “But serious,” had said Jefferson Clayton.

  “Who is she?” I had said, gulping back a yawn.

  “A poetess,” he had said.

  “Oh, poetess,” I had said, letting the yawn come.

  “Not an ordinary poetess,” he had said.

  “They never are,” I had said.

  “Pete, have you ever been to the Club Athena?”

  “I’m not a Village man. I leave that to the beatniks.”

  “Club Athena is not especially for the beatniks.”

  “So I’ve heard.”

  “Then you have heard.”

  “Who hasn’t? Club Athena has gathered itself a big rep in this town.”

  Club Athena. I had heard, but one cannot frequent all the clubs in the city. Club Athena was on West 4th Street in the heart of Greenwich Village. It was owned by a lady named Sherry Greco and the lady had become quite an item of gossip in the town. Miss Greco had appeared out of nowhere—nowhere being the University
of Miami where she had majored in dramatics. She had hit the Big Town with a bang like the explosion of a water pistol—making the rounds and rounds but landing no job. Miss Greco was an actress of unproven ability, but she was also a dancer, and she was given a chance to prove that because she had a lush body with more tantalizing curves than a major-league pitcher. The curves had produced an audition in a night spot called the Port Said. They had thrown her two breastplates, a G string, a veil, and a couple of finger bells—and she had knocked them dead. In no time, the wriggling Sherry Greco was the star of the show, but this drama major out of Miami U. had bigger plans, and she accomplished them. From somewhere she obtained financial backing and opened her own club with herself as star, and Club Athena exploded into success.

  That was three years ago, and the chick demonstrated that she had brains to go with her beauty. At about that time, belly dancers had come into vogue in off-beat spots. At about that time, progressive jazz groups attracted a public to other off-beat spots. At about that time, beatnik-type poets recited their strange poems to the strains of strange jazz in still other and stranger off-beat spots. Sherry Greco combined these ingredients to a popping soufflé. She imported belly dancers from Europe. She retained the services of important jazz combos. She had the fabulous Percival Kasha decorate the room in an Oriental motif of red, white, and blue. She grabbed off a couple of the town’s best bartenders and she stole a chef from the Chambord. And for lagniappe, poets read their poems to the soft thump of jazz for the edification or howling amusement of well-paying clients. The joint fused. Club Athena was a roaring success, and soon Sherry Greco purchased the two-story building in which it was housed. Once again Percival Kasha went to work and the entire upper floor was transformed into her apartment where, it was rumored, some of the town’s most esoteric parties (very private or wildly public) took place.

  Prior to that evening with Jeff Clayton, I had been to the Club Athena twice in its three-year existence: once, fleetingly, with a peripatetic crew of downtown pub-crawlers, and once, not quite as fleetingly, in the company of Henry Martell, its press agent, but that had been at a time when Miss Sherry Greco had been in Europe looking over the talent, and I had not met her.