Never Give a Millionaire an Even Break Read online

“In there. In the kitchen.”

  “What?”

  “A man.”

  “Man!”

  “Please. Quick.”

  The kitchen was large, with yellow paper on the walls, plaid-yellow tiles on the floor, and a yellow ceiling. There was a large rectangular walnut-wood table with a formica top and four comfortable walnut-wood chairs.

  Comfortably, in one of the comfortable walnut-wood chairs, sat a man. He was leaning forward, resting on his elbows, elbows on the table. He was a slim little man in a brown suit, round brown eyes staring at us, inquiringly.

  “What the hell?” I said.

  He did not answer.

  I went across quickly and touched his shoulder.

  The elbows collapsed and so did he.

  I touched him again, touched an eyelid, touched for a pulse in his neck. There was no pulse in his neck.

  We had a dead man in a brown suit in the kitchen.

  Two

  “WHO IS he?” I said.

  “I don’t know.”

  “What’s he doing here?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “But he is here.”

  “I know.”

  “Now come on! Who is he?”

  “I said I don’t know.”

  I looked at her. The slanted black eyes were tight with fright, but that was all. Nothing else showed. The heart-shaped face was under control, composed, blank as an unwritten check. The scream was off her face: no emotion came through. But hell, that figured. She was a trained actress.

  “The door was locked,” I said. “From the outside.”

  “Locked.” She closed her eyes, nodding; opened her eyes.

  “Who has a key, aside from yourself?”

  “You.”

  “No, no, I mean …”

  “No one.”

  “Tommy Lyons?”

  “Definitely not!”

  Tears slid from the black eyes. Maybe she was even that good an actress—but how cynical can you get? I said, “All right. Move. Out.”

  “But …”

  “Whoever he is, he’s dead, and I want to look him over. That won’t be pleasant to watch. So, out. Go to the den and give yourself a drink, a big one. I’ll be with you in a minute.”

  She hesitated for a moment, then she said, “Thank you.”

  When she was gone, I laid him out on the floor. He was a little guy, thin, easy to handle. He was about fifty and he was still warm. His lips were blue and there was a greenish tinge about his nostrils. I went over him as meticulously as a mortician. No bullet, no stab-wound, no bruises on the neck, no mark of violence anywhere on his body. I put his clothes back on and went through the pockets. His name was Carl Rockland. He resided at 1011 Linden Boulevard, Brooklyn, New York. His office was situated at 1011 Linden Boulevard, Brooklyn, New York. His occupation—private detective.

  I went to the den and drank whiskey. I had a large shot of Scotch, then a small shot of Scotch, then I made a long highball.

  She was seated in a hard chair, perched on its edge.

  She held her drink as though she were leaning on it.

  Her eyebrows were up. Her eyes were question marks.

  “Carl Rockland,” I said and waited. “Any bells?”

  “Nothing,” she said.

  “That’s the guy’s name. He wasn’t murdered, nobody boffed him, he just died. Like natural causes. You know? I’m no doctor but I’ve seen a lot of stiffs in my time. I figure a heart attack. Any reason you can think of that a private detective should be in your apartment?”

  “You mean you?”

  “I mean him.”

  “Private detective!” She grimaced, still inquiringly. She drank.

  “That was his line of business,” I said.

  “But how did he get in?”

  “You tell me.”

  “Pick-lock. I mean detectives can …”

  “They can, only this guy had no such instruments on him. The hell with how he got in—why should a private detective be interested in you? Any idea?”

  “No private detective—I mean, aside from you—should be interested in me.”

  “Tommy Lyons?”

  “You back on that?”

  “Now look, Arlene, Tommy Lyons is in love with you, or do you want to deny that too?”

  “‘Deny that too?’ Boy, you can be awfully nasty.”

  “Honey, stop picking on me. Let’s talk it up a little faster. He’s damn in love with you. You ought to know. Me, I’m only guessing. He is, isn’t he?”

  “Yes.”

  “All right. The guy’s a millionaire and he can afford all sorts of peccadilloes. Could be he put a peeper on you so that he could learn the facts of life—the facts of your life. Possible?”

  “Yes. But why would the man be here?”

  “Either of two reasons. One. He came to look over your joint, like for odds and ends of information. Everybody knows you go to Monticello on Saturday night, so he’d have free wheeling.”

  “But how would he get in?”

  “A key can be made to fit a lock. Hold it!”

  The guy had a bulky packet of keys in his pocket. I went back to the kitchen, took his keys and tried them on the door. None worked. I put his keys back.

  In the den I said, “No key fit. None of his keys. Okay, how he got in—we’re going to have to pass that for the time being. Now, reason Number Two. He could have come here to wait for you.”

  “On a Saturday night?”

  “Maybe this guy didn’t know about Monticello.”

  “But wait for me—why?”

  “A little chat, like for some extra cabbage. It’s not unknown that a guy can work both sides of the street.”

  “On what side of the street would I be? I don’t understand you, Peter.”

  “So listen. Tommy hires him to pick up information, and we must keep in mind that Tommy is a notorious millionaire, meaning everybody knows he’s a millionaire, including the sleuth Mr. Rockland. So the sleuth picks up some information, like hot information. He figures if he passes this information to Tommy, you’d be in a bad spot with our Tommy. So he comes to you—like dramatic, he waits for you at your apartment—to tell you he has this information. Then it’s polite blackmail. You’re a big actress, you earn dough. So if you pay a small but adequate stipend, he doesn’t tell Tommy. He gets paid from the principal and he gets paid from the subject under observation. Like that you can double your take and keep it running for a long time. That’s known as working both sides of the street.”

  “But what information?”

  “That is now my question. Anything that the peeper would think is deleterious to you—with reference to Tommy Lyons?”

  “Only you. But Tommy knows about you.”

  “Is he certain about me?”

  “I’m certain he’s certain about you.”

  “But the peeper wouldn’t have been, would he? Then perhaps that’s the information the peeper thought he had—me.”

  She sighed. She drank. She stood up.

  “Finished?” she said.

  “I’m in the think-business,” I said, stubbornly.

  “So now you’ve thought,” she said. Her strength was returning. Either the deep-amber highball, with which she was now quits because it was drained, had begun its work; or her innate strength had finally climbed over the wall that surprise and horror had constructed; or a combination of both had brought her back to character. She was now, once again, Arlene Anthony, a leading lady in every nuance of the term, and you do not get to be a leading lady in every nuance of the term unless you have a great reserve of strength and long claws and an interesting background of many weaknesses all of which add up to strength. “Do we call the police?” she said.

  Mostly it was for her. A little bit, it was for me.

  “No,” I said.

  Mostly it was for her. She was Arlene Anthony and a dead man in the kitchen could not do her any good and could do her a hell of a lot of harm: she was
a public figure and the newspapers would latch on and hold on—to the profit of the fourth estate and to the detriment of her estate.

  A little bit, it was for me. Questioning—serious police interrogation—would, in short order, elicit from her that I owned the only other key to the apartment and that would put me square in the middle which is the worst kind of square; without acceptable explanation you were stuck, a square with all your points engaged, and like that you can forfeit your license to practice and that is all I have going for me. Without a license I could, perhaps, take on a job as apprentice to a sewer-cleaner; my profession is my one source of livelihood and that’s all I know; my profession supplies me with cakes and ale—run that up to shell-steaks and champagne or run it down to stale pumpernickel and beer: my profession is all that I have going for me.

  “You’re Arlene Anthony,” I said.

  “So I’ve heard,” she said.

  “A dead guy in your kitchen can be a large fly in your ointment.”

  “I cannot agree more strenuously. So what do we do about him?”

  “We get him out of your kitchen.”

  “Where do we get him to?”

  “Out. Anywhere. Look, Arlene, this guy is not a victim of violence, nothing like that. He’s dead of natural causes which does not figure for scandal. We’ll get him out of here, just as he is, and we’ll deposit him somewhere, anywhere—a guy can die like that on the street—and from there we’ll pick it up and play it by ear. I’m thinking of you.”

  “Yeah,” she said. “So how do we manage that?”

  “First we close up shop and get out of here.”

  “Peter, you’re crazy.”

  “I’m not. This is Saturday night, a very busy night in any town. We can’t go traipsing around with a dead man—”

  “You mean we’ll leave him here?”

  “—on Saturday night we can’t go traipsing around with a dead man without running into all sorts of interested onlookers: in the hall, in the elevator, in the vestibule, in the street. It’s Saturday night.”

  “Saturday night,” she said.

  “This is New York.”

  “New York City,” she said.

  “On Saturday night in New York City, curfew is three o’clock.”

  “Saloon closing-time is three o’clock.”

  “Till three o’clock the town is wild—movement, commotion, people, the town is lousy with people. At three it begins to simmer down, the watering-holes put up the shutters. Yes?”

  “Yes.”

  “For the next hour, they’re drinking coffee and eating ham and eggs with ketchup. By four, it begins to be dead. By five, this time of year, it begins to be light. Four-thirty, I’d say, is the nadir-hour. Yes?”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay. Four-thirty we’ll do it—I’ll do it. We’ll stay away till four; then, four, I’ll pick up my car; and, four-thirty, real careful, I’ll be taking a drunken chappie out of here. I’ll get him into the car, take him downtown a way, and drop him out. Fella had a heart attack on the street, happens all the time.”

  “Peter, you’re something.”

  “I’m nothing. I’m scared to death.”

  “You’re something. It’s the first time I’ve seen you in an emergency. You’re something.”

  “Maybe it’s because it’s your emergency.”

  “Oh, is that it?” she said. She was a bright lass. The way she said it, it sounded as though she knew it was my emergency also.

  “That’s it,” I said.

  “And then what happens?” she said.

  “And then we’ll see,” I said. “Let’s get out of here.”

  We had another drink each and then I went, alone, to the kitchen. Carl Rockland was still on the floor and I did not consider it seemly to leave him on the floor. We all have our own ideas on interior decoration (which cause the ulcers in the silky-haired professionals we retain to advise us) and I did not consider it seemly to leave the little man in the brown suit flat on his back on the plaid-yellow tiles of Arlene’s kitchen. I picked him up and sat him back on his chair and propped his elbows on the top of the walnut-wood table. So I had found him and so I left him.

  I sighed and put out the lights in the kitchen.

  Arlene put out the lights in the rest of the apartment.

  We walked a few blocks, breathing deep of the air.

  Then we took a cab and went back to The Harwyn.

  Three

  SHE WAS marvelous, and I had an object-lesson in histrionics. She was a true talent, a consummate actress, right down deep to the core. She took on a new role and it took hold and she lived it: she was even hungry. She drank a bit and ate a lot, with appetite. I am not an actor and I am not a talent: I drank a lot and picked a bit, without appetite. She was gracious with the many customers who rose up from their tables, some individually, some in concert, and came to pay her homage (and she was entitled to even more homage than that spilling out in throat clearings, grunted compliments, personal questions, fidgety scrapings, and nasal fawnings). She sparkled, she glittered, she grinned, she flapped her eyelids appropriately; she was humble where it fit and arrogant where it fit; and she continued, between pauses to acknowledge a compliment or to sign an autograph, to eat with appetite. I picked of the solids and drank of the liquids and marveled at talent. Finally the innocents amongst the customers began to think of the long drive back to Westchester; the sophisticates, of course, had problems of their own and did not bother us; in time, we were alone and unmolested on our plush banquettes.

  Over Drambuie and coffee, I steered the trend of chatter to Tommy Lyons.

  “See him often?” I said.

  “Yes, of course. I’ve known Tommy for a long time. Far longer than I’ve known you.”

  “Yes, of course,” I said. “So what’s that got to do with seeing him often?”

  “Tommy’s a fine man, a really fine man.”

  “Yes, of course,” I said, “but a really fine married man.”

  “He can’t get out of that.”

  “With all his money …?”

  “They’re separated, you know.”

  “Yeah, I know, but not divorced. Does he keep a wife, under separate maintenance, like for protection?”

  “Now what does that mean?”

  “It means that he doesn’t have to worry about any young lady with intentions. It also means that any of his intentions, love and all like that, can’t result in marriage.”

  “That’s a pretty rotten thing to say.”

  “I’m a pretty rotten fella tonight, aren’t I?”

  She sipped sweet Drambuie, chased it down with unsweetened black coffee. “It so happens she’s got Tommy over a barrel.”

  “Sure. Never fails. Millionaires and barrels are like hotcakes and maple syrup: they sort of go together. I’ve never heard of a millionaire that wasn’t over some kind of barrel or other.”

  “Did you ever meet her?”

  “Monique? I’ve heard of her.”

  “Monique Lyons. Have you ever met her?”

  “Never had the pleasure.”

  “She’s beautiful, really beautiful.”

  “So says the scuttlebutt.”

  “Unique Monique, her friends call her.”

  “What do her enemies call her?”

  “An apt question, Peter. Because her enemies do have a name for her.”

  “Bleak Monique, meek with pique, and up the creek?”

  “Wrong all the way, but right in line with the rhyme. Her enemies call her Unique Monique the Freak.”

  “Why?”

  “I’d rather not discuss that.”

  “Oh, now we’re treading on dangerous ground, are we? A clamp sets in on the mouth when it’s with a millionaire’s wife.”

  “Rotten. Rotten Peter Chambers.”

  “This is my night. So why doesn’t our doll-boy cut away the strings from his freaky-type wife?”

  “Because she’s been impossible.”

 
; “Nothing is impossible when you’ve got millions—especially all the millions that Tommy Lyons has millions.”

  “She married him just for that.”

  “For what?”

  “The millions.”

  “So what? So would I if I could.”

  “And then when he found out about her—when he—what’s the term?—offered to untie the nuptial knot—she came up with a lovely round figure.”

  “So would I if I could. How round the figure?”

  “One—hundred—million—dollars.”

  “Oh! My! Yes! That’s round! That’s about as round as I’ve ever heard round to be.”

  “But Tommy’s no dope.”

  “That’s subject to debate, but I won’t press it. Would you say that Tommy was brilliant to get hooked in with a leech that wanted blood, but blood?”

  “Tommy’s no dope.”

  “Like how—no dope? How long were they married?”

  “One year, but he had begun to know that the beautiful Monique had her feet in clay.”

  “Who told him?”

  “People like you.”

  “And who, or what, pray, love, are people like me?”

  “Private detectives.”

  “Within one year of marriage—already with the detectives?”

  “Perhaps she had given him cause.”

  “Perhaps. I wouldn’t know. So?”

  “So Tommy was, well, fortified, with pictures and things and stuff like that, when he made her an offer, a reasonable offer to untie the knot, the nuptial knot.”

  “But she didn’t know about Tommy’s fortifications.”

  “She didn’t.”

  “And that’s when she came up with that sound round figure.”

  “She did.”

  “And Tommy balked, stopped dead in his tracks.”

  “Correction. He reversed the field.”

  “Meaning?”

  “He started suit against her for a separation.”

  “On what grounds?”

  “Cruel and inhuman treatment.”

  “Based on the pictures and things and stuff like that?”

  “Yes.”

  “Not grounds for divorce?”

  “No.”

  “Well, whom was she making love with, a gorilla or something, or a Doberman Pinscher?”

  “I’m not free to discuss that, Peter.”