Death of a Flack Page 5

  “What did she say?”

  “Sort of laughed it off. Said it would turn up. Said it must be somebody’s idea of having fun. But that Sherry’s a deep one, deeper than you think. Maybe she hooked it herself, for some goddam girlish reason of her own. Who the hell knows?”

  “What do you want from me, Jeff?”

  “I want my gun. If you can’t get my gun back for me, I want to know who copped it, and why.”

  “All right,” I said, “now make a call.”

  “What call?”

  “Police Department. Report a stolen pistol, just to keep yourself in the clear. Do you have the number of it?”

  A smile cut across his square face. “Already you’ve earned your fee.”

  “What fee?” I said, encouragingly.

  “Fee coming,” he said, “but already you’ve earned it. Sure. I didn’t even think of it. Always report a stolen gun, especially when it’s registered in your name. Let’s see now. I ought to have the papers somewhere here.” He rummaged through his desk and came up with the papers. He made his phone call in his best phone manner. There are people who, when they take up a phone, take on authority. Jeff was such people. Clipped, brief, sharp and authoritative, he made his report, answered questions, hung up, and said, “Thank you. Now we come to Number Two. Mr. Barry Miller was here at nine-fifteen this morning.”

  “Barry Miller!” I said.

  “Barry Miller,” he said.

  “I had no idea you even knew Barry Miller.”

  “There’s a good deal you don’t know about me, Pete, as there’s a good deal, I’m sure, I don’t know about you. People have secrets, even from private eyes. I’m going to let you in on some of my secrets, right now. I think it’s time.”

  “Time?” I said. “Or necessary?”

  “Don’t bug me, Peter. Not today. I’m hungover, more than somewhat.”

  “Real hip, huh? Like this they teach you in Princeton?”

  “Put the knife away, pal.”

  “Barry Miller,” I said. “A college chum? An old-time fraternity brother?”

  “Cut it out!” He came up from his chair and around his desk. He passed a hand across his crew-cut, stood at a window, and looked out on the mist. Then he turned to me and stared. He had blue-grey eyes, bloodshot right now, beneath long graceful blond eyebrows. “It starts with Sherry Greco,” he said, “when she was shaking her tummy at the Port Said. I dropped in and flipped. Sherry was a dish.”

  “Still is,” I said.

  “Yeah,” he said without enthusiasm. “How do you think she graduated from ass-shaker at Port Said to proprietor of Club Athena?”

  “I give up,” I said.

  “Me,” he said.

  “You?” I said.

  “I own half of that joint,” he said.

  “Oh, no,” I said.

  “Oh, yes,” he said.

  “Give,” I said. “You’re turning out to be an interesting guy.”

  “This is your day for flattery, isn’t it?”

  “Give,” I said.

  “Where was I?”

  “Port Said.”

  “I spotted the lassie with the gorgeous assie and I flipped.”

  “You said that.”

  He put his hands behind his back and he paced. “As I got to know her better I found she was a gal with a lot of brains. And lots of ambition. Let’s say I had confidence in her. Anyway, I put up the dough to open Club Athena. I was the financial backing. It was a good investment, a hell of a good investment. I’m a full partner, but a silent partner.”

  “Why silent?”

  “A stockbroker with a piece of a belly-dance joint? My conservative clients wouldn’t like that. Dig?”

  “Digeroo,” I said. “How does she feel about you these days?”

  “Meaning?”

  “An active partner generally begins to resent a passive partner, after a while. One hates to keep giving up half the profits just because a guy once put up the dough. You know?”

  “I know,” he said. “She resents me, but the hell with her. That deal is tied up tight, and my accountants go in once every month. Also, she gets a salary for managing and a salary as performer, so I’m not taking advantage.”

  “So how’s Barry Miller?” I said.

  He went back to a slump in the swivel chair. “He was preceded by Henry Martell.”

  “So how’s Henry Martell?” I said.

  “He was preceded by Sherry Greco.”

  “You’ve already given me Sherry Greco.”

  “Not all.”

  “There’s more?”

  An expression of lechery, a sort of faraway look of remembrance, came into the blue-grey eyes. “Wouldn’t you figure?” he said.

  Now I lit a cigarette.

  “Stop scowling,” he said.

  “Who’s scowling?” I said.

  “Look,” he said, “I know you’re on the make for her. So what? You don’t have to look at me like you’re looking.”

  “Who’s looking?”

  “Does it bother you that we’ll sort of be de facto brothers-in-law?”

  “Okay,” I said. “You’ve had your boast. You had an affair with Sherry Greco. What’s that got to do with Martell or Miller?”

  “Everything.”

  “Shoot,” I said.

  “It’s all over now, but we were making it pretty hot and heavy at the beginning.”

  “Was she in love with you?”

  “I don’t think for a minute she was. She’s a practical chick, and I was the guy with the loot, and I had a yen, so she played. I believe, at that time, although I can’t prove it, she was having an affair with Henry Martell. That was before she got wise to him. Sooner or later, everybody gets wise to old Henry, except, it seems, Lori Gilmore.”

  “Give her a chance. She’s in the sooner department, rather than the later. What makes you think that Sherry and Henry were an affair?”

  He shrugged. “A guy can tell, I suppose. He was always hanging around. He had also met her at the Port Said. A guy can tell. The way he looked at her. The way she looked at him. The very casual kind of intimacy, you know? Also she insisted that he have the job as press agent for the club.”

  “For how much?”

  “Fifty bucks a week.”

  “That’s reasonable enough. So?”

  “Now we come to it. I should have brought you in on this earlier, Pete, but, honestly, I was afraid. A wrong touch, and you might have tipped the apple cart. Even now, I don’t want you to do anything, actually, about it. Not actively, I mean.”

  “Brother, you’re running over with conundrums.”

  A long sigh hissed out of him like steam from a kettle. He shuddered. He stood up and paced again, hands clasped behind his back. “This is some time back, just after we’d opened Club Athena. Martell invited Sherry and myself to his apartment, said it was important. When we got there, this Barry Miller was there, and we were introduced. You know Henry Martell’s fancy apartment?”

  “Ten East 79th,” I said. “Third floor rear. Very fancy.”

  “The living room walls are white. Do you know why?”

  “He likes the color.”

  “There’s a more practical reason.”

  “Such as?”

  “He uses one wall as a screen.”

  “Screen for what?”

  “Motion pictures.”

  “Like dirty motion pictures?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Figures for Martell,” I said.

  “This day he put one on for us.”

  “Did you enjoy?”

  “No.”

  “A bad picture?”

  “A good picture.”

  “Then what was wrong?”

  “The cast,” he said.

  “This is a new one on me,” I said. “A guy objects to the actors in a pornographic motion picture.”

  “The guy had a right to object. The actors were Sherry Greco and Jefferson Clayton.”

/>   “No!”

  “Yes! The son of a bitch had rigged a camera in Sherry’s apartment.”

  “Blackmail?”

  “Pure and simple. At first, I thought that it had been rigged by Sherry herself. I was wrong. It was blackmail on the double. He put the bite on both of us. Of course, I blew my top, but that’s why Barry Miller was there. When the lights flashed on, there was Miller, grinning, with a big forty-five in his hand. Henry warned that the guy would shoot and the grinning bastard looked perfectly capable of it. Henry also warned that if anything happened to the film, it didn’t matter because he had a duplicate spool.”

  “Was Miller in on it?”

  “You think Henry’s crazy? When Henry’s on the take, he doesn’t split up the spoils. Miller was present as a preventive measure. Miller was there on a job as bodyguard, period. Miller was there in case I flared up and until I died down. Henry explained this to us, gently, suavely, and competently. I died down, all right. He had me by the nuts and I knew it. He took the film out of the projector, gave it to Miller, told him he’d pick it up later on, and dismissed him.”

  “And you took it?”

  “What was I going to do? Belt him? Kill him? There were two very dangerous films around. Can you imagine if further prints were made and they were sent around, anonymously, where they could hurt the most. I was scared shitless.”

  “So?” I said.

  “He served drinks and we settled down to negotiations, if that is the word. Dictation would be a better word. He dictated terms. They were, as a matter of fact, rather reasonable. He wanted to go on the payroll for Club Athena at three hundred dollars a week, and he wanted to go on the payroll of Clayton & Clayton at three hundred dollars a week—as public relations man for each. As he explained, there was nothing out of pocket for either of us. The money would come legitimately as business expenses from actual going businesses.”

  “And the films?”

  “They would be returned—turned over to us—after seven years.”

  “And suppose he made new duplicates and kept those?”

  “He himself brought that up. He said it would make no sense. He said he was not a blackmailer, that he got no joy out of it, that this was just a means of getting himself into business, getting started. He said he would have an assured income of thirty thousand dollars a year for seven years, and that with such divergent firms as Clayton & Clayton and Club Athena as basic clients, he would be able to further develop his business, and start going places.”

  “And you didn’t call me in?” I said.

  “Man, I told you. I was frightened to death. Martell is a shrewd, evil, clever bastard. If you shook it up, and shook it up wrong, I was dead. Mostly, because of my father. My father is an old-fashioned man, a stickler for the proprieties, and still very much in charge of the family fortune. A scandal like this, and he could very well have cut me off.”

  “So you played along.”

  “There was some method to my madness, Pete. My father is a sick man, very sick, much more ill than he knows … it’s only a matter of time. Once he passes, millions, literally, will pass to me. Seven years, Martell said. I would play along for seven years—my father could not possibly live out those seven years. After that, if scandal broke, the hell with it, let it break, I could ride it out. Can you understand that, Pete?”

  “Yes, So what happened?”

  “I had a tough time convincing my dad that the firm could use the services of a discreet public relations counsel, that times were changing and even stockbrokers needed certain forms of advertising—but I convinced him. I introduced him to Martell and Martell made an excellent impression. Legal contracts were signed for a term of seven years. Legal contracts were also signed with Club Athena. Period.”

  I stood up and stretched. “I don’t get it,” I said. “If you didn’t tell it to me at the beginning, why are you telling it to me now?”

  “Maybe to get it off my chest. Maybe to make you a very tentative proposition.” He looked at his watch. “How about lunch?” he said. “A drink? Something? I can use a little hair of the dog.”

  “Sure,” I said.

  He opened a closet and put on a blue raincoat and a dashing blue rainhat. I gathered up my umbrella and followed him out.

  “I’m gone for the day,” he said to the receptionist.

  “Yes, sir, Mr. Clayton,” she said.

  “Short day,” I said as we went to the elevator. “Oh, you plutocrats.”

  “I’m useless,” he said. “The head’s banging like a gong. Maybe a couple of drinks will straighten me out. Maybe I’ll hit a movie or something. I could use a long walk but this damned weather… .”

  In a yellow-lighted wood-paneled restaurant, he had a double bourbon and I had baked ham with broccoli. He had another double bourbon and brightened considerably. “Barry Miller,” he said.

  “Nine-fifteen this morning,” I said.

  “The seedy little bastard presented a strange proposition.”

  “Such as?” I said, wolfing ham.

  “He wanted two thousand dollars.”

  “For what?” I said.

  “For information that would give me the inside track on Lori Gilmore.”

  “How the hell would he know that you needed an inside track with Lori Gilmore?”

  “Man, it’s common gossip. This Miller drops into the club often enough. Bartenders are a font of information.”

  I digested broccoli. “Just what did he say?”

  “Said that for two thousand dollars cash on the barrel head he would give me information that would definitely cut Martell right out of Lori’s life.”

  “And just what did you say?”

  “Said I’d think it over.”

  “And just what did he say?”

  “Said that he’d be at his office waiting for me. Said that I had till one o’clock this afternoon.”

  “Why the time limitation?”

  “Search me.”

  “Is it worth two thou to you?”

  He smiled over the bourbon, set down the glass. He stretched a leg and reached a hand into a pocket of his pants. The hand came out with three oblongs of paper. Two of the oblongs were one thousand dollar bills, the third was a check to the order of Peter Chambers for five hundred dollars. The three oblongs made the transfer to a pocket of my pants. I said, “What’s the pitch?”

  “Five hundred bucks,” he said, “like this. First, see Miller before one o’clock. I can’t handle these skunky bastards, they’re up your alley, not mine. If he really has information that can definitely cut Martell from Lori, give him the two thousand, it’s worth it to me. Next, the business with my Smith and Wesson. Either get my gun back for me, or tell me what happened to it. You have your fee. Five hundred dollars.”

  I pushed my plate away and lit a cigarette. “There’s nothing tentative about any of that. You mentioned something about a tentative proposition.”

  “Yes,” he said. “By the way, if Miller’s thing turns out phony, I expect to be home all evening. You can return my two thousand.”

  “Let’s get to the tentative proposition, pal. You’re fairly good company of an evening when we’re out scouting for chicks. But in early afternoon, you pall.”

  Maybe the guy was a masochist. He broke out in a wide grin. “You’re an awfully nervy bastard, aren’t you?”

  “Irrelevant,” I said. “How’re we doing with tentative propositions?”

  “Henry Martell. I hate being played for a sucker. Like it rankles.” He lapped bourbon. “Now that you know about it, I hand it to you, but gingerly and tentatively. The guy is in possession of explosive material. I would very much like it if he were not in possession of that explosive material. Oh, I’d live up to my contracts with him. That’s not the point. If he can be relieved of that explosive material—oh, carefully, carefully—if you can get hold of those two spools of film, without shaking him up, without jeopardizing my position, that would be worth five thousand bucks to
me, presented to you with a roll of drums and a kiss on each cheek and, if you need further incentive, a guarantee of a roll in the hay with the muscle-twitching Sherry Greco because I know how anxious she is and how grateful she would be. What say, oh incipient brother-in-law?”

  “How was it?” I said.

  “The best I ever had in my life.”

  “Why did you end it?”

  “You flatter me, pal.”

  “I flatter you? How?”

  “I didn’t end it. I’d like to meet the man who ends it with the fabulous Sherry. You’ve got me at a moment when my pride is at half mast, the moment of truth as the bullfighters bullshit, so I admit. I didn’t end it. The lady ended it. The lady got bored. She gave me the air.” He closed his eyes and raised his chin and shook his head and smiled wistfully. “Man, muscles you never dreamed existed twitch like mad. Man, if ever there was a sex machine. Oh, man.” He opened his eyes and drained his drink. “What say? Do you accept my tentative proposition?”

  “Am I a man to refuse an offer of five thousand bucks?”

  “And the gratitude of the fabulous Sherry?” He wagged a finger. “But you must tread carefully, oh resolute prospective brother-in-law. If you flip the apple cart, there are no five thousand bucks, plus you lose me forever, plus the pragmatic Sherry will shun you like plague. Heed me well, oh eye.”

  “Enjoy the tail end of your last night’s drunk. Good-bye, Jeff.”

  “Where you going?”

  “To work—for you.”

  When I left he was ordering a third dose of double bourbon.

  EIGHT

  There is always an agenda, as the summit people say. For me number one was Smith & Wesson, small bore, twenty-five caliber, last seen in the bedroom of the twitchingly touted Greco. I arrived at her flat at eleven-thirty to be greeted by a maid cleaning up the debris of last night’s party. “Where’s Madame?” I inquired.

  “Not here.”

  “Obviously.”

  “She got woke up early and got shook out of sleep, so she figured she’d take advantage of it. Miss Sherry’s gone shopping.”

  I used her phone and saved a dime. I called Barry Miller but Barry Miller was sitting tight waiting for two thousand bucks: he was not answering his phone. Saving the same dime again I called my office. “Nothing,” said Miranda. “Hold it. The other phone’s ringing.” I held it. She came back to me. “That was Mr. Cobb Gilmore. Wants you. Right away. That’s life. Everybody wants everybody but always right away. Go make money, boss.”