Death of a Dastard (Prologue Books) Read online

  “Yes, I do, and here goes.” He pulled up a chair and sat opposite me. “There’s a young lady in this town in whom I’m interested.”

  “Naturally.”

  “Pete, if you please, I’d prefer that you keep your comments, such as they may be, to yourself.”

  “You’re the boss.”

  There had been a form of proximity since we had left New York but I had learned very little about the guy. He was quite clearly a gentleman, with all the polish and reserve that term implies, and he kept himself to himself behind a disarmingly open expression on a pleasant, freckled (he was red-haired), square-jawed face. The effect was icy, and for a moment I wondered whether there was a drive of passion within that frigid façade. The question immediately answered itself — he was Madeline McCormick’s husband. If the guy were the cold fish he externally presented, she would have pulled the hook from the lips and thrown him back long ago. She hadn’t. She had clung like hell.

  “The young lady I have reference to,” said Harvey McCormick, “is a young lady of great talent.”

  I did not say “Naturally.”

  “I propose,” he continued, “to bring her back to New York with us on Tuesday.”

  “Why?” I said. He could not complain. It was not a comment. It was normal inquiry in line with my employment.

  “Because she belongs where the opporutnity is greatest. New York is it. New York is the Big Apple.”

  “May I ask as to how you know her?”

  He grinned his disarming boyish grin. “You needn’t be quite that diffident. I do hope I haven’t hurt your feelings.”

  I fluffed it off. “Not at all. So … may I inquire?”

  He rose up out of his chair and paced ruminatively. I was certain that he was arranging his words and phrases before shooting them at me. If Harvey McCormick was two-timing on his Madeline, he was not going to declare it to the private richard. Finally he said slowly, “I sort of gad about at night. Especially when I’m here, in Chicago. One night, some months ago, I dropped into Club Intimo. Have you ever heard of Club Intimo?”

  “Who hasn’t? A plush joint with plush prices owned by a plush old-timer named Patsy Kirgo.”

  “Do you happen to be acquainted with this Kirgo?”

  “More than acquainted. A rough guy in the old days.”

  “Still a rough guy.”

  “I knew him in the old days when he was a bouncer at another classy clip-joint. I was instrumental in getting him out of a couple of bad jams.”

  There was, at long last, a flicker of respect in my client’s eyes. I was beginning to earn the seven-and-a-half plus expenses. Somewhat nervously he touched a hand to his red hair, but he regarded me steadily. “Is it possible that you still wield a bit of influence with Kirgo?”

  “More than a bit, I’d say.”

  “Good. Good. Very good. Perhaps the job won’t be that of bodyguard at all. Perhaps the job will be that of lobbyist, wielder of influence, ambassador of good will.” The cute grin came back into place. “Any additional fee for such service?”

  “None.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Harvey,” I said, “don’t you think we ought to get down to cases?”

  “We are at cases.”

  “Look, I’m not trying to pry into anything personal, but so far all I know is that you’re interested in a chick with talent and that you want a favor from Kirgo. Also I’m suddenly being transformed from bodyguard to ambassador of good will.”

  “Quite simple, really. I’m interested in the girl and I’ve been promising, for weeks, to transfer her to New York. I’ve made up my mind to do it this trip. I am — or I was — worried about Patsy Kirgo, how he would take it. That was the reason I asked you to accompany me; I mean, in the event of trouble; I mean, if Kirgo didn’t take kindly to my raiding him of talent. Now it turns out that you know him. So …” He turned his palms up and shrugged.

  I dredged up a cigarette, put fire to the point, and blew smoke at him. “And what happens,” I said, “when you take her to New York?”

  “She’ll make out. I’ve talked to Johnny Rio about her.”

  “Johnny Rio?” I said and I tried to keep it mild. My client kept getting more interesting by the moment. Johnny Rio was a tall, brawny lover-boy type, shrewd, capable, smooth as an oil slick and lethal as a time-bomb. Johnny Rio was chief factotum and ostensible owner of Chez Rio, a chic, expensive, lush-upholstered, mob-owned night club on East 54th Street in New York City. I had not been to the joint in more than six months, because I was not required to go. There was friction between Johnny and the mob because, word had it, Johnny was pocketing more than his prescribed percentage of the take. Such friction could proliferate into a flock of bullets and I preferred not to be in the situation of innocent bystander who stops a stray pellet. “Brother,” I said, “you certainly know the most fascinating people. Just for the record, how come a business executive, president of Harvest House, is on sufficiently intimate terms with Johnny Rio to recommend a talented chick — that is, if I’m not getting too personal, Mr. McCormick?”

  “As a matter of fact, I met him through Harvest House.”

  “You mean he’s writing his autobiography too?” Now I smiled. “And why not? Everybody else is.”

  “No, he isn’t, although I imagine it could be quite interesting. Jason Touraine. I believe you met Jason Touraine at my home last night. One of our assistant editors?”

  “Yes, I met him.”

  “Well, in a way, Jason got his job with us — through Johnny Rio.”

  “You’re losing me, Harv. You mean Johnny Rio doubles as employment agent for literary people?”

  “No, not at all.” He turn to smile, broadly. And his turn to light up a cigarette. “You’re acquainted with Chez Rio?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then you know the bartender outside in the cocktail lounge.”

  “Sure, Bernie Pearl.”

  “Well, Bernie’s one of my favorite bartenders in all the world. I know Bernie since he had his own little place, the Green Emerald on Thirty-fourth. When the place failed and he went to work at Chez Rio, he dropped announcements in the mail to all his old customers.”

  “Including me.”

  “And me. Anyway, I went into Chez Rio — oh, an evening almost four months ago — not to the club proper, to the cocktail lounge, mostly, of course, to give my patronage to Bernie. There he introduced me to a young lady who worked in the club, a very charming young lady, Karen Touraine. She was at the party too. I don’t know whether you met her. She came rather late.”

  “I did. A lovely gal.”

  “Karen is Jason Touraine’s wife. The couple had only been in New York a short time, and Jason was casting about for a job. When Karen learned from Bernie who I was, she asked me to interview her husband with a view toward employing him. He had done writing, he was in the field. Anyway, I talked with him, he qualified, and I hired him.”

  “So Jason got his job by way of Bernie through Karen.”

  “I went back to Chez Rio a number of times with Jason to watch Karen perform, and she introduced me to Johnny Rio. I found him to be — your word is as good as any — fascinating.” He glanced down at his wrist watch. “Look, let’s have dinner and then let’s get over to Club Intimo. The first show goes on at nine, and I’d like you to catch that gal’s act.”

  “By the way, does Kirgo know you?”

  “Purely as a customer.”

  “Does he know what you do, who you are?”

  “No.”

  “And the gal’s name? You haven’t mentioned it.”

  “Barbara Hines.”

  Club Intimo was anything but intimate. It was a big, dim, roomy place with a small stage, a large band, many tables, good liquor, and excellent service. It opened at five in the afternoon as a restaurant, and at nine it became a night club with a cover charge and six socko acts that went on continuously, each lasting about twenty minutes. Patsy himself personally auditioned
his acts, and there was always a waiting list of artists who wanted to perform there.

  The first act was a comedy-type magician, very good.

  The second act was Barbara Hines. The second act was great. The second act started as a striptease, in reverse. Barbara Hines was clever. Barbara Hines was beautiful. Barbara Hines had an exquisite body. And Barbara Hines had talent. Cleverly, beautiful Barbara Hines revealed her exquisite body before she disclosed her talent, thus taking good showman’s advantage of every trick in the trunk. The act started as the applause of the previous act died away. The house lights faded and the stage went dark. In pitch blackness the orchestra pressed schmaltz to the strains of an old-fashioned waltz, leaning heavily on the strings. The house remained dark as the stage lights came up slowly upon the charming spectacle of a curvaceous blonde, nude except for bra and briefs, seated before a wide full-length mirror, applying the last dabs of make-up to her face. Make-up accomplished, the blonde turns, profile to audience, reaches for a silk stocking, dons it, a long and shapely leg aloft, repeats with other stocking on other leg. She slides her feet into high-heeled pumps, rises, stretches, and in time with the music, moves toward a dress hanging on a clothes tree, as the house lights gradually begin to glow. She slips into the dress and as she is about to zip it up — she discovers the watching audience. In a beautiful moment of perfect pantomime, she crouches, primly shocked, tying to cover up. Then hastily, all in a fluster, she zips up the dress, steps forward as a spotlight catches her and the stage behind her darkens, peers out intently upon the audience, and her first line is a genuine boff:

  “My goodness … so many Peeping Toms!”

  The laughter and applause were long and appreciative, and, as the music switched to a modern tune, the girl had to hold up her hands to silence the audience. Then she swept into the song in a rich, belting soprano, phrasing stylishly — and she rocked them. They forgot about the beauty, they forgot about the body, they forgot about marvelous preliminary pantomime, and they went all out for the talent. As she slid from song to song, she interposed wry satirical patter that brought the chuckles in bunches, and upon completion of the final song, the applause was deafening. Harvey McCormick had certainly picked himself a winner, no matter in what category you wished to judge her.

  “What do you think?” he said.

  “Only great.”

  “You’ll meet her shortly.”

  “I’m dying to.” Perhaps I sounded too enthusiastic because he grew glum as he sipped his scotch. “Brighten up,” I said.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Everybody has some kind of ethics and mine should suit you.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “I don’t pick flowers out of another guy’s garden.”

  “I still don’t understand, but I prefer that you don’t elaborate.”

  “You’re the boss,” I said and I drank, but ruefully.

  She came to our table, in a glistening black off-the-shoulder sheath, blonde hair pony-tailed, and I grunted boorishly, perhaps despairingly, certainly enviously, when he introduced us.

  “Peter Chambers?” she said.

  “Eh,” I said intelligibly, trying not to look at her.

  “The eye?” she said.

  “Eye, ear, nose, and throat,” I droned, devastatingly witty.

  “No, seriously. Peter Chambers, the private detective?”

  “I humbly admit.”

  “Oh, I’ve heard about you. I’m quite a fan.”

  McCormick stirred uneasily.

  I said, “There must be another one. I’m not from Chicago.”

  “Neither am I. Originally I’m from New York.”

  “You don’t talk New Yorkish.”

  She laughed. “One loses one’s accent. I left New York five years ago, when I was nineteen. I won some sort of silly beauty contest, and I landed in Hollywood.”

  “How’d you ever get loose from there?”

  “Nobody wanted me.”

  “Shows you what they know.”

  “I began to develop my act. Played small spots in Los Angeles and San Francisco. Then Reno, then Vegas, now here.”

  “She writes all her own material,” said McCormick.

  “Do you have a contract with Kirgo?” I said.

  “No. Kirgo replaces an act whenever he feels like it. Kirgo doesn’t give a contract to anybody — except a great big star.”

  “You’re a great big star.”

  “Not to Kirgo.”

  “That’s why you’re going to New York,” said McCormick.

  I stood up. “Harvey,” I said, “should anybody ask — you’re an agent. You work for MCA.”

  He got it, and nodded.

  “Excuse me,” I said to Barbara Hines.

  “You’re not leaving us?” The disappointment in her voice delighted me.

  “Not for long. I’ve got to go talk to a guy about a gal.”

  I corralled the maitre d’ who for five bucks led me to the den of Kirgo which was a fine-furnished office on a balcony and had a wall of dark one-way mirror which gave off an entire view of the club downstairs. Patsy Kirgo was a thick short-bodied man with a flat nose, white hair, and the shrewd eyes of a jewel-appraiser. He greeted me beamishly, slapped my back lung-looseningly, poured Scotch, declared, “Great to see you, pal old pal. What brings you?”

  “Business, but nothing important.”

  “Something I can do?”

  “There’s no hurry.” We drank a bit, reminisced a bit — immodestly, but subtlely I hoped, I steered the reminiscences toward the times I had done some rather extraordinary favors for him — and then I said, “Patsy, you’re not the kind of guy who would interfere with somebody on his way up, would you?”

  “Not Patsy.”

  “Come here.” He stood beside me as I pointed out Barbara Hines and Harvey McCormick through the one-way glass. “That’s the person I’m talking about.”

  “Barbara?”

  “That’s the one.”

  “Beautiful gal. Nice kid. A real nice kid.”

  “The guy with her is a big shot from New York, kind of an agent, a big man.”

  “Yeah, I’ve seen him around.”

  “He’s kind of been scouting Barbara Hines. He’d like to take her back with him to New York — where she belongs.”

  “When?”

  “As soon as possible.”

  He squinted the shrewd eyes at me. “You got an interest there?”

  “Yes.”

  Now he closed the eyes, thinking. “Her work-week finishes Saturday night, which is tonight.” He opened his eyes. “Okay. After her last show tonight, she’s done. I got my eye on a classy girl-singer that’s just been begging to come in. Okay. After the last show tonight, Barbara Hines has got the can. Okay?”

  “Thanks, Patsy.”

  “Think nothing of it. The way you was priming me I figured you was going to hit me for a big loan. And you want to know something? You would have got it.”

  Sometimes your money comes easy, sometimes hard. This time it came easy but it is not politic to let your client know when it is easy. When he inquired, I made vague noises, mumbled mysteriously, and changed the subject, but I knew he was satisfied. On Sunday he arranged reservations at Hotel Quilton in New York, and on Sunday Barbara shipped most of her things. As befits a bodyguarding richard with no body to guard, I stayed out of their way as much as I could on Sunday and Monday — discretion winning over desire — and on Tuesday, practically at dawn, because McCormick wanted a full business day in New York, we were at the airport.

  We landed at LaGuardia at nine in the morning, and as we went through the terminal toward a cab, I picked up a morning tabloid, and stumbled and lost pace when I saw the front page. Beneath the headline RIDE VICTIM was a full-page photo of Jason Touraine. The caption stated: The body of Jason Touraine, shown above, was discovered at 5 A.M. in a car parked on the East River Drive at 116th Street, victime of typical gang-style murder. (Story, Page 3
.)

  McCormick looked back for me and I folded the paper and hurried after them. Barbara entered the cab first, then McCormick, and then I. As we took off, McCormick said, “What kept you, Pete?”

  I showed him the paper. I felt him stiffen.

  Barbara, looking over his shoulder, said, “Somebody you know?”

  “A kid who works for me,” he said in a parched voice.

  “Oh, my,” she said.

  He opened the paper and as we jolted along he read the story aloud. There was not much to read. Touraine had been found at five in the morning, in his own car, slumped over the wheel, shot through the temple. He had been dressed in evening clothes. No weapon had been discovered. The police were investigating.

  “My God!” said McCormick when he finished reading.

  “You’ll have cops talking to you today,” I said.

  “Me? Why me?”

  “You’re his employer. They always talk to the employer when they’re checking background.”

  “Oh.”

  Silence. Then I said, “They may inquire where you were over this long weekend.”

  Silence again for a moment, somewhat embarrassed.

  I said, “The entire truth is best in matters like these. Police inquiry is most confidential.”

  “Very well,” he said.

  “If they check with me, I have your permission to furnish corroboration?”

  “Yes.”

  “By the way, if you’re interested, this is my line of work.”

  “Beg pardon?”

  “I’m trying to drum up business. If you’re interested in a private investigation of this Touraine thing …”

  “I believe the public investigation is perfectly appropriate. I believe the police are capable. Don’t you?”

  “Sure,” I said.

  So, Harvey McCormick did not retain me.

  But Madeline McCormick did.

  Chapter Three

  I ARRIVED at my office at ten minutes to ten to be greeted by my beloved secretary, Miss Miranda Foxworth, broad, squat, puckish, fiftyish, wryly maternal, and dryly concerned.