Don't Call Me Madame Page 7

  “No will,” Chambers said.

  “And Richard V. Starr knows that his son has no will.”

  “How does he know?”

  “There’s never been any secret about it.”

  “So?” Chambers said.

  “But Edith Goddard Starr did have a will. No secret there either. Richard V. Starr is very well aware of the terms of his divorced wife’s will, and that I am the executor of that will. Her entire estate is a bequest to young Tony Starr.”

  “So what the hell?” Chambers said.

  “Please remember I was Edith’s attorney prior to my short tenure as Criminal Court Justice, and I was privy to certain of her confidences which, in limited fashion, and properly I believe in view of the alleged circumstances you have recited, I shall now divulge to you.” He sucked the pipe. There was no smoke. The fire was out. “Richard V. Starr detested his wife and hated his son. The wife finally fled from him, taking the son. She procured a divorce and she and the son lived far away from him, expatriates in a foreign country.”

  “And you believed her story?”

  “Do you believe Richard V. Starr’s present story?”

  “Look, I can understand a man detesting his wife. But why, by Jesus, would a man hate his own son?”

  “Human nature, my dear young man. Human nature is infinitely complex, and Mr. Richard V. Starr, whether or not you may know it, is an infinitely complex man. Thirty million dollars, Mr. Chambers. Perhaps he could have borne the wife, if not for the progeny. The son represented an insurmountable barrier to the acquisition of a vast fortune. Within the complexities of certain complex natures — would you not say that the seeds of hate were implanted at the very birth of the progeny?”

  “Would you not say, Judge, that you’re reaching? But way-out, far-out?”

  “I go only by what the woman told me.”

  “And you believe what she told you?”

  “Do you believe what Richard V. Starr has presently told you about the insane depravities of his son?”

  Chambers lit a cigarette. “Why would he lie?”

  Epstein reamed out the bowl of the pipe, filled it again, lit it, smoked. “The woman died. The son came home for the settlement of the estate. I admit to certain peculiarities on his part, certain eccentricities, but now, thanks to you, a comprehension is beginning to dawn on me.”

  “Peculiarities? You’re getting closer to me, Judge. Eccentricities?”

  “He came home to the United States, but refused to give me an address where I could reach him. I put the will into probate, but he insisted that all her properties be turned into cash, which, as you may well imagine, will take a heck of a long time. But when that time came and the money was transferred to his name, he would once again quit the country.”

  “Judge, Jesus Christ — is that rational?”

  “I’m beginning to understand it.”

  “How do you reach him?”

  “He calls me regularly.”

  “Suppose you need him urgently — like for a signature or something?”

  “I’m to put a personal in the Times in a code he suggested.”

  “May I have that code?”

  “No.”

  “When of necessity he comes to your office, will you let me know?”

  “No.”

  “Judge, I accuse you — ”

  “Of what?” The little man bridled, contained himself, smoked his pipe. “Mr. Chambers, there is a constitutional privilege between attorney and client. An attorney has the right and duty not to reveal — ”

  “But, Jesus God, this guy is a killer, a bloody ripper, a kook, a sickie, a cannibal!”

  “How do you know?”

  “How do I know? Why the hell am I here? Man, I told you!”

  Epstein, in his own realm, was very calm now. “Facts. Do you have facts, evidentiary facts What you told me, Mr. Chambers, is what was told to you. That’s hearsay, my dear young man, not evidence, and I know that you’re wise enough and experienced enough to realize how perfidious that kind of mouth-to-mouth chatter can be. Hearsay is insufficient in a court of law, and insufficient in a conversation such as this, to convict an individual.”

  “But would a father lie about his own son?”

  “This father might.”

  “But why? Jesus, why?”

  “Think, Peter.”

  “I’m thinking. Jesus, am I sitting here thinking-” And he was sorry he had refused the earlier proffer of a drink.

  Epstein said gravely, “According to the word of Edith — Richard V. Starr is a heinous individual capable of mortal sin.”

  “Judge, she sure piled you up with a load of shit, didn’t she?”

  “Did she, Mr. Chambers?”

  Hell, he couldn’t tell him that Edith Goddard Starr had committed adultery against her husband by taking her own son to bed with her. He couldn’t tell him that Edith Goddard Starr, the villain of the piece, had raised a wall of villainy around the husband in sheer protection of herself. (The best defense is a good offense.) But he had told him all the rest of it — all! He had told him that the boy had committed a loathesome crime seven years ago, that the boy had admitted it, but that the mother had taken him away, had fled with him. That the boy had repeated this crime, always within the cocoon of the protective mother, at intermittent periods in different cities throughout the world. But now the mother was dead! And the boy was loose right here in this city! But the basic facts had been imparted to him by Richard V. Starr and these facts without corroboration were, according to the learned Mr. Justice Harry Epstein, hearsay, and hearsay could not legally stand up in a court of law and therefore could not stand up in the legalistic mind of the prim and proper (and well-intentioned) little lawyer.

  “Please note,” Epstein said, “that the boy has not been in touch with the father. He must have been forewarned, perhaps many times before her death, by Edith. She suffered with a bad heart. She must have warned the son — else why would he shun the father?”

  Guilt, Chambers thought. When you are the lover of your mother, you cannot bear to face her husband: certainly the son would shun the father. If I thought it would help, he thought, I would tell him of the incestuous relationship, of the woman’s addiction to cocaine, of the son’s indoctrination through the mother to the drug, but that rewashing of Starr’s dirty linen would still be hearsay and without effect on the legal mind inside that bald head.

  “I believe I can understand now,” Epstein said, “why the boy wouldn’t even give me his address. He’s frightened. I thought it to be a rich scion’s eccentricity. Not eccentricity. Fear.”

  “Fear the hell of what?”

  “The father.”

  “Why in hell would he fear his father?”

  “For the very reason that you’re here.”

  “For the …”

  “A fool’s errand, Peter. And you’re the fool. Not Richard V. Starr. You!”

  Chambers held on to himself. Mildly he said, “And why would I be sailing along on this fool’s errand?”

  “For thirty million dollars.”

  “Man, what are you smoking there in that pipe?”

  “Sir,” Epstein said, “an individual adjudged insane is an individual legally dead. Legally dead, your next of kin inherits. Tony Starr’s next of kin is Richard V. Starr. He’s a powerful man, he can command powerful psychiatrists. If he can commit the son, he commits himself to thirty million dollars.”

  Jesus, have I been had?

  Is that why a fee of sixteen thousand dollars?

  Is that why I’m to bring him in before the cops get to him?

  But fool or no fool; errand or none, I’m finished here. The lawyer, by proper privilege of law, is protecting his client, and the proper privilege of law is goddamn proper here in the circumstances. He sighed. “Thanks for the legal lecture, Judge.”

  “Peter, you’re an intelligent young man.”

  “I am?”

  “May I ask you?”

&
nbsp; “What?”

  “If you were in my place and I in yours — would your conscience permit you to skirt the sancrosanct privilege of communication between attorney and client”

  “No, sir, it would not.”

  “I thank you, Peter.”

  “I thank you, Judge.” Chambers stood up. “This conversation of course is absolutely confidential.”

  “Could it be otherwise?” The little man came to him, linked his arm through his, and led him to the door. “Please understand,” he said. “If by virtue of your investigation you acquire evidence — not easily concocted hearsay, but evidence, even a scintilla of evidence linking this young man to the dastardly occurrence at the Hotel Shirley — then I ask you to come back to me and perhaps, then, there may be a diffusion of my presently obdurate, or seemingly obdurate, uncompromising attitude. Do you understand?”

  “I understand, Judge.”

  “I thank you for understanding, Peter.”

  Chambers went out, down, into a cab, and home, and there he studied the photograph of Tony Starr until it became imprisoned in his mind like a felon in solitary. Then he called the office of Felix Budd. He did not expect an answer, he expected an answering service, but Budd came on the line.

  “What are you doing in the office this late?”

  “It’s not late,” Budd said. “It’s early.”

  “What’s doing in the office this early?”

  “I’m filing. Sooner or later you gotta file.”

  “You free for a job?”

  “If not, would I be filing?”

  “Get your ass over here.”

  “Where’s here?”

  “My pad.”

  “You want me quick?”

  “Quick as all get out.”

  “Fifteen minutes?”

  Chambers laughed. “Can’t ask it any quicker.”

  “You’re a good payer. For you maybe I’ll make it quicker.”

  He made it in twelve minutes. The bell rang and Chambers opened the door for a little lightweight jockey of a man with gray hair, gray eyes, a gray face, dressed in a gray suit. He probably wore gray underwear. He was Felix Budd, a man whose forte was a propensity for being invisible. He could merge. He was a chameleon who blended with background. Put him up against a wall for execution and the firing squad would be looking for which wall to shoot at. He was the best all-around tail-man east of the Mississippi — but he had never worked west of the Mississippi.

  “To drink?” Chambers inquired.

  “You know me, professor. Gin. A nice big slug of gin, straight, and that’s it.”

  Chambers made two gins, one for Budd and one for himself.

  He gave Budd one of the gins, and the picture of Tony Starr.

  “Who he?” Budd said.

  “Your quarry.”

  “Always fancy, this fancy son of a bitch. Quarry. Peter Chambers, the fancy Dan, he don’t say this little prick is for you to get attached to, Felix. He says quarry. Okay, so is Felix fancy with the words. I know what’s quarry. Quarry is stone. What’s the name of this stone I’m looking at?”

  “No name.”

  “Okay, no name. So how much for me to track down your stone, quarry-baby?”

  Budd was expensive.

  Chambers did not try for stint.

  “Fifty dollars a day, and the day is nine to five, period.”

  (His day, on a similar job, would commence at five, but his job did not start until Monday.)

  “Okay, you bought me, quarry-baby. So what’s the message on no-name?” Budd put the picture in his pocket and drank his gin.

  “My one lead is his lawyer. Harry Epstein. Epstein’s office is Two-eighty-five Madison Avenue. Sooner or later this guy has got to come to his lawyer. The lawyer’s office hours are nine to five. So you’ll be out there on Madison, nine to five, Monday to Friday, starting tomorrow, which is Thursday.”

  “Saturday and Sunday off.” Budd grinned. “Very human of you.”

  “Once you spot the guy, then you stay along with him until you can provide me with his name, address — everything I might need to pick him up myself.” Chambers drank gin, went to his desk, wrote a check and gave it to Budd. “That’s a week’s pay in advance. If you get to him before the week is out, the balance remains with you as bonus. If not, that’s the way we’ll work — you’ll get two-fifty every Thursday, a week’s pay in advance. Any questions?”

  “Only one.”

  “What?”

  “How about another gin?”

  “That’s the question?”

  “What else, man? This is Felix Budd here. You gave me my instructions.”

  They each had another gin.

  Budd said, “I’ll be in touch.”

  They shook hands and he went away.

  Chambers was unaccustomed to gin. It was a good aperitif. He was hungry. He thought about a fine meal in a fine restaurant in the company of Sandi Barton. He called her and got no answer. He called Goldie Dorn and Goldie answered.

  “Hi, sweetie. Anything new?”

  “New?” For a moment he was baffled.

  “Burnett.”

  “Honey, we don’t even start on that till Monday.”

  A husky little laugh. “So what else is new?”

  “Can you put me in touch with Sandi?”

  “She took the night off.”

  “Any idea where she went?”

  “She’s en route right now.”

  “To where?”

  “Mark Montague.”

  “Oh.” A pause. “Well, thanks.”

  “Don’t mention.”

  He hung up.

  He went to the kitchen, opened a few cans, and ate alone.

  TEN

  MARK Montague, lavish in his lavish apartment on the ninth floor of 440 East 77th Street, waited with waning patience. Where the hell was she? He smoked his thin cigarette and paced in tempo with the music from the stacked records on the stereo. And wandered into the bedroom and saw himself many times in the many mirrors, and growled.

  Many mirrors. All four walls of the bedroom were sheets of mirror and the ceiling was a sheet of mirror and that was the way Mark Montague had dreamed of a bedroom as a kid and that was the way he had it now that he was a man and could afford it. A bedroom was for screwing, sleeping was incidental, and Mark Montague liked to watch himself when he screwed and taught his girls to like to watch when they were being screwed. It was a kick, it was a blast, it was wild. He was young, virile, highly sexed, and had many girls, but the best of all he had ever had was Sandi Barton. Where the hell is she?

  He stood in front of a mirror and smiled at himself, white teeth whitely shining in contrast to the black beard, an artistic beard befitting a creative individual, a rising young playwright. Black Van Dyke, black mustache, thick black sideburns, curly black hair worn long in the latest of mod fashion, Mr. Mark Montague who had it made. Man, have I got it mode! He admired his clothing in the mirror. Man, this Rudy is the best damn tailor in the city, and Freddie’s the best damn shirtmaker, and Bernie is the best damn bootmaker. His clothing was a pair of pants, a shirt, and not boots, but sandals. But the pants, black, were of imported silk, and were tightly shaped to his slender contours and clung to his hips without benefit of belt. And the shirt, scarlet, was shantung, made of the silk from wild silkworms, a crazy sport shirt cut down deep in front, four pearl buttons on each high cuff, the wide sleeves rippling. And the leather of the sandals had once been the skin of an alligator.

  He looked at himself and scowled.

  He inhaled the smoke from the thin cigarette.

  He went out of the bedroom and into the living room and added ice to the shaker of martinis. It would dilute it, but it would keep it cold. Where the hell is she? Peter Chambers? Is she with that private eye bastard, knocking off a fast shack before her date here with him? He was tempted to call, resisted, paced the apartment.

  There were four big rooms: living room, bedroom, kitchen, and the study where he
worked. He had put in a good day’s work today, and it had gone well. He had done a couple of real knockout scenes and was satisfied and ready to relax. He had no deliveries to make, no transactions with conservative customers at their homes or with surreptitious customers at out-of-the-way meeting places: he had all night to enjoy Sandi Barton and was already horny and high on the first thin cigarette. Hell, he had even, finally, gotten a title for the new play — Black Mass at High Noon — and he liked it, it fit. It was a corruption of the title he really wanted for the play — Black Ass at High Noon — but MacDonald Bernstein had talked him out of that. Hell, it was no off-Broadway thing this time; this was the goods, this one was for the Real Wheel, the big time. MacDonald Bernstein didn’t lay out money for the off-Broadway pleasures of playwrights, and Bernstein had bought the play after reading the first draft, Bernstein had plunked down option money and was now working with him on it and advising. MacDonald Bernstein was only numero uno on Broadway, with four hits presently running for him. Bernstein could do no wrong. Bernstein was Broadway’s white-haired boy and Bernstein had picked Mark Montague as his white-haired boy. Mother, how sweet it would be! A successful Broadway play could mean a million to the playwright. Mother, what a pleasure to be able to bask in the increment that comes out of talent. Mother-fucker, what a pleasure it would be to give up pushing the hard junk in order to live high up on the hog — with Rudy, and Freddie, and Bernie, and a mirrored bedroom, and the best ass in the world at your beck and call.

  Where the hell is she?

  And the bell rang and he opened up for her.

  Blonde. Beautiful. Exquisite. And gorgeously attired.

  Where in hell did she get the money to dress like that?

  “Hi,” he said. “About time. I was getting worried.”

  “Taxis,” she said. “You hit a bad streak, you’re really up the creek. I’ve been out on the street for a half hour, and going from street to street, and every time the damn loose taxi is on the other street.”

  “Somebody ought to do something about taxis in New York.”

  “Yes, sirree. Somebody ought to. Somebody also ought to do something about like air pollution. And other things. It’s always somebody ought to. When does somebody ever do?”