The Fatal Frails

CHAPTER VIII

JOHNNY ROSE TO HIS FEET as Jules Tremaine entered the Alden lobby, a fat man in a flamboyant green suit on his heels. “Eddie!” Johnny called as Tremaine headed for the elevators.

“Ho, there, Big Bear,” the fat man returned in a high, piping voice. “Here's your boy. Good thing I went over there.” He glanced sardonically at the big man, who had stopped and was listening with every indication of impatience. The handsome face looked angry, Johnny thought. “No one was happy to see me, strangely enough. Not Dameron. Not your boy here, either.”

“When I need help, I'll ask for it.” Jules Tremaine bit off the words viciously.

“You needed it when I got there, son,” Eddie Lake told him unruffledly. “Dameron's boys were leanin' all over the apartment help to get a positive identification,” he explained to Johnny. “The first go-round the help had said well, now, we're not sure. After some pullin' an' haulin' the police had one of 'em teeterin' on the verge of sayin' positively. When I got my lawyer in there he broke it up.”

“When I need help-” the big man began again in his clipped, British accent, and looked at Johnny as though a new thought had just occurred to him. “How the devil did you know where to find me? They let me speak to no one.”

Johnny nodded at the cigar counter. “Your friend there.”

“Friend?” Tremaine looked in the direction Johnny indicated. “What friend?”

“The clerk,” Johnny said impatiently. “I don't know his name.”

Jules Tremaine's smile was mirthless. “I'm quite sure I don't, either.”

“What's the gag?” Johnny inquired. “Very hush-hush he told me you'd been picked up. He's not a friend of yours?”

“He'd like to be a friend of mine.”

Eddie Lake chuckled appreciatively and jabbed Johnny in the ribs. “Big Bear, your unsophisticated nature's showing. Don't you know that when a man looks like Tremaine here it's not only the women he has to fight off?”

Johnny looked at the cigar counter again. “I'll be damned. I never had one go to bat for me.”

“With your face?” the fat man snorted. He thrust out a hand. “Drop around sometime when you run out of friends. We'll warm up the pinochle deck.”

“Thanks, Eddie,” Johnny told him, shaking the hand.

“Odd type, that, for a professional bondsman,” Jules Tremaine observed when Eddie Lake had departed. “Cocky beggar. Fairly took over when he walked in down there.”

“You've met so many bondsmen you know the type,” Johnny suggested.

“They're quite of a piece, actually. Come along upstairs.” In the elevator the Frenchman was silent, but he continued in the corridor. “This sending a lawyer and bondsman. I wouldn't have you consider me ungrateful, but I feel quite capable of managing my own affairs. And I frankly don't get the point.”

“Easy,” Johnny said. “I wanted you obligated to me.”

“Indeed?” Jules Tremaine led the way into his apartment. “Why?”

“They asked you over there if you had an alibi for the time the shot came through Madeleine Winters' door?” Johnny countered.

The Frenchman smiled. “It was because they established that I did that your friend had so little difficulty in effecting my release. It quite took the starch out of them. They weren't nearly so assertive then about my alleged presence with Arends.”

“But you actually were there?”

It was Tremaine's turn to ignore a question. From a wall closet he took down a bottle and two brandy ponies. He filled each a third full and handed one to Johnny. “Did you luck into this thing of Hegel's, Killain? Or did you have something regular going with Claude?”

“Nothin' regular,” Johnny said promptly. “Why?” He sniffed at his glass, looked at the Frenchman above the rim and sniffed again. He sipped, and waited. “Man!” he said reverently. He set down his glass, picked up the bottle and revolved it between his palms. “Annagnac. Only the best. Goes down like velvet, an' the glow comes from the inside out.” He picked up his glass and sipped again.

“I've a hundred fifty cases,” Jules Tremaine said casually. Their eyes met above Johnny's glass. Johnny picked up the bottle and looked at it again. “Exactly,” the Frenchman said smoothly. “A deficiency of excise tax stamps.”

“You an' Dechant were bringin' this in duty-free a hundred fifty cases at a crack?” Johnny asked incredulously. “That's a nice piece of pocket change.”

“I supplied the source and the transport,” Tremaine said modestly. “Claude supplied the buyers. With Claude gone, I've a hundred fifty cases and no buyer.”

“Very simple solution, Tremaine.”

“Really? You'll forgive my ignorance?”

“Simple,” Johnny repeated. “Drink it. I'll help.” He held out his glass again.

Jules Tremaine's smile was meager as he poured. “Esthetically I'd agree, but unfortunately it's left me cut off at the pockets. I need the money.”

Johnny sipped thoughtfully at his replenished glass. “You must've had a reason for tellin' me this.”

“You seem an ingenious sort. Since I'm rather at a dead end myself, I'll admit I'm not above taking suggestions where I find them. Or perhaps we might take it a step further.” The liquid dark eye, so feminine in appearance even in so masculine a man, considered Johnny. “You mentioned a desire to have me obligated to you. Why?”

“Maybe I was thinkin' of double-harness.”

“A full partnership?” The Frenchman nodded slowly.

“It had occurred to me.”

“'Course, it'd have to be on shares,” Johnny said. “My contribution is worth a hell of a lot more than yours.”

“But yours is a one-time thing,” Tremaine pointed out.

“Mine is a steady, assured income. And there is the question of relative risk.” He smiled. “However, if we're in general agreement, there's no pressing need for fine print in the clauses right this moment, is there? Let's say that we'll- all-consult on the matter of the Armagnac. I've a couple cases in the closet here. I'll be glad to drop one off at your hotel to aid in your mental processes.”

“You just acquired a consultant,” Johnny said. “Long term.” He pointed at the bottle of Armagnac. “Nobody knows about this, Tremaine?”

“Nobody.” The big man was emphatic. “It was one of Claude's more prominent virtues that his little deals were private. I'm sure he had others-certainly with Stitt-but, as well as I knew Claude, he never dropped a syllable.”

“I was out to see Stitt,” Johnny said. “He's a half owner in the business now. Signed a contract with Arends' widow. He says he's retired from the old game.”

“Has he, now?” Jules Tremaine asked softly. “It would be a shame in a way to permit that source of manipulation to dry up, wouldn't it?”

“He sounded like he meant it.” Johnny rose to his feet. “How quick can you deliver this stuff if I find a buyer?”

“Two hours.” Tremaine looked at him curiously. “Is it that easy? Kindly have the grace to make it look a bit difficult, or you'll have me doubting my own intelligence.”

“It's just an idea.” Johnny moved to the door. “It may not work. Don't forget that consultin' fee.”

Whether it worked or not, he thought on the way down to the street, he had an idea that it could be fun.

Late afternoon sunlight was filtering through the slatted Venetian blinds as Johnny, hearing the sound of a key in the lock, roused himself in the armchair in which he had been dozing. Madeleine Winters entered her apartment with Ernest Faulkner in tow. Her blonde head turned and she addressed him over her shoulder as she closed the door. ”-appreciate it if you would take just a quick look around, Ernest. Ever since the other-” The appealing smile with which she was favoring the lawyer froze grotesquely as she turned and saw Johnny in the chair. “How did you get in here, Killain?” she demanded in a tone that would cut glass.

“You make it sound like it was hard to do,” Johnny said. “That's not much of a lock you've got on that door.”

“There'll be a different one tomorrow,” the blonde promised grimly.

“It may be different, but will it be any better? You'd be lockin' the barn door then after the mare'd eloped, anyway. I already took a pretty good look around.”

The furious green eyes left his face to dart rapidly about the room. Ernest Faulkner spoke for the first time. “Really, Killain,” he said with distaste. “Breaking and entering?”

“You see anything broken an' entered?” Johnny asked him. “I think the lady just forgot to lock her door.” He grinned at them both. “What the hell, Ernest, you're lucky I'm a gentleman by instinct. I could've hidden under the bed.”

“When I want a comedian I'll turn on the television set,” Madeleine Winters said frigidly as Faulkner flushed. “Exactly what do you think you're doing here?”

“Tell you the truth, I come over to see how you stack up in the daylight, Madeleine.” Johnny rose deliberately from his chair, took the blonde by the arm and with two fingers tipped up her chin into a ray of sunlight. “You're givin' it a hell of a battle, kid,” he told her. Eyes flashing, she raised a hand to slap him. Johnny slightly increased the two-finger pressure under the firm chin, and Madeleine Winters tilted backward on her high heels. Her hand dropped to her side as Johnny eased up just before she went completely over. “I also come over to talk a little business, sugar.”

The green eyes raked him angrily. “I want nothing to do with you. Nothing!”

“This is money I'm talkin' about,” Johnny said reasonably. “Dinero. Mucho moolah bux. You allergic to it?”

Her eyes went from him to Faulkner, calculatingly. Her manner underwent a transformation nothing short of miraculous. “Ernest,” she cooed. “I'm sure that I can handle him now. Why don't you run along? You can call me later if you like.”

“Do you think it's wise?” he asked doubtfully. “The man's obviously a ruffian.” He scowled at Johnny, if the weak face could ever be said to scowl, Johnny thought.

“I can handle him, Ernest,” she repeated rapidly. She put a placating hand on his arm. “I appreciate your concern, believe me.” The hand on his arm had the lawyer on his way to the door before he even realized it. “Be sure and call me this evening, Ernest. And thank you very much.” With a brilliant smile she patted his arm and ushered him through the door.

Johnny congratulated her. “Very efficient removal job. What's that boy got that I haven't that he gets invited in?”

“An L.L.D. after his name. Now what were you looking for in here?” she demanded in a no-nonsense tone.

“That was just propaganda for Ernest,” Johnny said comfortably. “You know the only reason I'm here is to road-test those black silk sheets.”

She stared at him, her lower lip lightly pinched between even white teeth. “Sometimes I think you're mad. You said you had business to discuss!”

“Oh, if you got to talk business-” Johnny waved a negligent hand. “Can you find a buyer for a hundred fifty cases of Armagnac under the market? Ten dollars a case finder's fee if you produce one. Fifteen hundred gefilte fish to line your girdle with.”

“You're serious?” She sat down on the couch opposite and smoothed her dress down over her knees. “Under the market? What's the price? It's smuggled, isn't it?” she asked shrewdly.

“Now don't you worry your little blonde head about that, sugar, or about the price, either. That's between me an' the buyer, if an' when you find one. Just you concentrate on findin' me a live one for little Johnny. A live one's worth ten clams per case.”

“I might know someone,” she said meditatively. “Yes, I think I might. I'm almost sure of it.”

“Okay.” Johnny stood up quickly. “That takes care of the business.” He extended a hand to Madeleine Winters on the couch. “Let's adjourn the meetin' to the playground.” He pushed the hand at her insistently when she tried to ignore it. When it was in her face she took it in self-defense, and he drew her slowly to her feet.

“You are crazy,” she said calmly. “You don't feel there's something a little cold-blooded about your approach?”

“We're adults, sugar. Who needs the moonlight an' roses?” He led her into the bedroom. She watched with amusement tinged with wariness as he turned down the bed and ran a hand lightly over the exposed ebony glossiness. “Nice,” he approved, and sat down in a boudoir chair and removed his shoes and socks.

Madeleine Winters stood at the foot of the bed and eyed him, the corners of her mouth twitching, as he shed clothing in a rainbowed shower. He climbed naked onto the bed, bounced on it twice, experimentally, and rolled onto his back, grunting pleasurably. He sat up immediately to look at her. “Well, come on. Let's roll the wagons.”

“If you aren't the damnedest-” the blonde said between her teeth. She stepped back to the wall and flicked a switch. A motor purred, the Venetian blinds slatted together and darkness rushed in upon the bedroom. There was another click, and rows of tiny lights came on at baseboard height all around the room. Two brighter ones appeared at either side of the large boudoir mirror, and Johnny looked up to find himself portrayed as Nude on Bearskin. “And I supply technique, not calisthenics,” Madeleine Winters continued. A third click produced a whirring noise, and a flash of light directed Johnny's attention upward, where he saw himself in a ceiling mirror.

“Damn if you don't supply technique, sugar.” He reached for her as she slid easily onto the bed. “Remind me to give you your grade afterward.” He rolled her up onto his chest and admired the ceiling view. “That LX.D. of Faulkner's. He earn it in here?”

“That, you big buffalo, is none of your damned business,” she told him sweetly.

“What the hell, I've got a degree of my own. Had it longer'n Faulkner's had his. Meet Johnny Killain, C.P.B.” She lifted her head to try to see his face. “You never heard of it? Nothin' honorary about my degree, kid. I was valedictorian of my class at Roll-Up-Your-Sleeves-an'-Spit-on-Your-Hands University, too.”

Her voice was muffled as her body moved beneath his hands. “And what is-this degree-of C.P.B.?”

“Certified Prize Bull.”

He bit her, lightly, and smothered her giggle and her gasped protest against his big chest.

The Heritage Building was so brand new that some windows on the upper floors still had supporting white adhesive x's on them, Johnny noticed as he crossed the street. The ground floor interior seemed composed of tastefully polished sandstone and people in a hurry. There were no wall directories that Johnny could see. Aimed by a harried brunette behind a makeshift desk he descended a flight of stairs to a basement smelling of damp cement and powdered plaster and found Harry Palmer drinking coffee from a paper cup in a room that, in its jumbled litter, resembled a carpenter's workbench.

“Thought I'd anyway find you in the penthouse,” Johnny told the little man, who bounded energetically to his feet from the depths of a battered office chair.

“I can buy and sell six times over the boob paying the rent on that penthouse,” Harry Palmer announced snappily, “but does that mean I have to be a boob, too, and give that rent away?” He turned behind him to a door half hidden by leaning plywood panels. “Tiny!” he yelled. “More coffee!” He turned back to Johnny, rubbing his hands together. “We'll have a hundred per cent occupancy by the first of the month. I'm my own rental agent, too. Why give it away?”

“Who's your building superintendent?” Johnny inquired, already knowing the answer. He held up a hand. “I know. Why give it away?” He looked at the little man curiously. “You actually tryin' to run a building this size out of your hat?”

“Why not?” Harry Palmer bristled. “It's my building.”

“You're gonna get damn sick of the noise you get,” Johnny predicted.

“I'm sick of it now,” Palmer admitted gloomily, suddenly deflated. “Headaches. Squawks. Oi. You want a job?” he asked, briefly hopeful.

“How can I go to work for a man guns me in the dark just for easin' him out of a blonde's apartment?”

“You know goddam well that wasn't me,” Harry Palmer growled. “Or anyone connected with me.”

“Yeah? Remind me, champ. How do I know it?”

“I've got a witness,” Harry Palmer said slyly. “Here he is now.” Johnny looked up to see the big man from the apartment that night come out of the back room with a container of coffee lost in a massive paw. A chauffeur's cap that looked about the size of a beret perched squarely on top of the bullet head. “Tiny, here's a friend of yours,” Harry Palmer said gleefully, and moved back out of the way.

“H'ya, Tiny,” Johnny said easily. “Thanks for not makin' me look bad in front of the blonde the other night.”

Tiny's smile displayed snaggleteeth. “Y'got y'self t' t'ank, buster. I'da done th' giant swing wit'cha if I'da reached ya.” The man-mountain's words were hoarse, breathy and run together. “Whachuweigh, Killain?”

“Right at two forty.”

“You go pretty good for a guy don't weigh no more'n that.” The big man looked at Johnny thoughtfully. “You work out around town a-tall?”

“I go up to the Russian's once in a while.”

“How d'ya rate with Dmitri?”

“He plays handball with me off the walls.”

“Dmitri don't get onto the mat with no one he can play handball wit' off the walls,” Tiny said impassively. He rubbed his chin, looked at the coffee in his hand and set it down on the desk. “Like to try you on again sometime,” he concluded almost absently.

Harry Palmer snorted indignantly. “Aren't you two going to fight?” he demanded.

“That what you want?” Johnny asked him. “Throw a couple hundred dollars up there on the table.”

“Four hundred,” Tiny stipulated. He smiled his broken-toothed smile. “We'll split,” he told Johnny.

“You two go to hell.” The jaunty little man moved away from the wall to which he had retreated. “For four hundred I can buy a massacre.”

“For four hundred that's what we'll give ya,” Tiny informed him hoarsely. “Right, Killain?” He placed a huge palm, fingers wide-spread, in the center of Johnny's chest and slowly brought the weight of his shoulder to bear behind it. “Mebbe my foot didn' slip,” he said reluctantly after a moment. He looked at Palmer. “For four C's we could fin' out?”

Harry Palmer shook his head. “Right now I want him healthy,” he said briskly. His face darkened. “So long as I don't go on hearing about my bushwhacking him in doorways. You just come over here to needle me, Killain?”

“Guy I'm thinkin' of goin' into business with gave me your name as a character reference,” Johnny said. “I thought I'd check. Jules Tremaine.”

“That gonif!” the little man exploded. “He never gave you my name as a character reference. He knows better. He killed Jack Arends. The damn fool police might not-”

“The damn fool police picked him up an' questioned him on that. He's still walkin' around.”

“That's why they're damn fools. He did it,” Palmer insisted stubbornly. “I sent Tiny over there with a picture of him, and the doorman identified him as the man who went upstairs with Jack before you and Madeleine and Gloria arrived. No one saw him leave.”

“Speakin' of damn fools,” Johnny said drily, “you didn't stop to think that if the doorman mentioned that to Tremaine it would warn him to spread a little grease around to smear identification? The police had to let him go because they couldn't get a positive.”

“Is that right?” The little man looked momentarily abashed. “I don't care,” he said, rallying. “Tremaine killed Jack, and he tried to kill Madeleine. Only thing prevented him was that you opened the door instead. He hates her. It's-”

“He's ironclad on an alibi for the time I got nipped,” Johnny interrupted.

“Alibi!” Palmer sneered. “Gloria Philips is his alibi, and when Tremaine snaps his fingers that roundheels falls over backward. Alibi!”

“The police-”

“I don't give a damn about the police!” Harry Palmer's graying hair stood up all over his head as he ran an excited palm through it. “They couldn't find their way out of a paper bag with the sides out. I tell you this Tremaine is no damn good. He's a cutie, right in Dechant's class. I had to fire him myself when I had him working for me in Europe. I had to read every report of his three times looking for twists and angles. Even after I'd warned her, Madeleine caught him flimflamming her on a job she'd hired him for in Basel, and she hung him out to dry. He swore he'd get even.”

“Then why would he go to her apartment with Arends?”

“He didn't know why he was there.” Harry Palmer paused, as though considering. “Jack's gone now; I guess it won't make any difference if I tell you. This is a little involved. Jack had this long-time girl friend he'd set up in a lingerie shop down below Herald Square. The place even made a little money.”

He smiled as though at some secret joke. “I don't know why the hell it is even the smartest guys think they're putting something over on their wives. The day after the funeral Mrs. Arends didn't even wait to sell the lingerie shop; she just went down there and turned the key in the door. It's in a broker's hands now.” He gestured dismissingly. “Anyway, a couple of years ago Claude Dechant came to Jack and offered to supply him with duty-free perfume, the expensive stuff, for the lingerie shop. The place was a natural outlet for it, Jack went for the idea, and the arrangement continued until Dechant's death.”

Palmer shook his head wonderingly. “Then a lot of things happened. It turned out Claude had only been the middleman; he picked up the stuff at this end of the line and turned it over to Jack. When Dechant died the purser on the steamer who'd actually been bringing it in had perfume and no place to put it. Somehow he knew that Claude knew Tremaine, and he went to Tremaine. That smart bastard put two and two together and went to see Jack. Among the three of them they got the perfume wheels turning again, but then Jack got hungry.”

Harry Palmer drew a deep breath. “I told you this was involved. Jack went to Madeleine. He wanted her to open up a couple of shops as additional outlets, and he told her why. He never mentioned Tremaine, knowing Madeleine would have run five miles at the sound of his name. Where Jack made his mistake was he didn't realize Jules felt just as strong the other way. Having a good-sized streak of larceny in her, Madeleine liked the sound of the thing, all except the part about the investment required to open the new shops. Madeleine's idea is bully for the profit motif, but risk her own capital to obtain it? Don't be silly, dear man. Madeleine came to a bloke named Harry Palmer.”

The little man leveled a finger at himself. “Right about there was where that shmuck Harry Palmer began to get an idea for the first time of what Dechant had been doing with Palmer's money that supposedly was being used for legitimate importing. Now you should understand, Killain, that when Madeleine asks me for something, mostly she gets it.” He shrugged. “So I'm a sucker. I'll probably die of a heart attack in that wide-screen bed of hers one of these days, and it will be damn well worth it. Anyway, this time I turned her down. I'm afraid of the Treasury Department, and before I'd finished talking to her she was afraid, too. She went back and told Jack no dice, but Jack wasn't the type to give up that easily. I figure he brought Tremaine over there to try a little head-knocking. When he gave Tremaine the pitch to warm him up, Tremaine blew his stack, particularly that Madeleine of all people should have been told of the original operation. I think he threatened to pull out altogether, right there, that Jack got a little ugly and Tremaine a damn sight uglier. Tremaine blasted Jack, and took off.”

Armagnac, and now perfume, Johnny thought. Jules Tremaine was fast getting to be a boy tycoon. Johnny grinned at Harry Palmer. “So you didn't like the perfume business? I wonder how you'll like the liquor business?” He started backing to the door.

“Liquor business?” Palmer asked puzzledly. His eyes widened as he noted Johnny's flank exiting. “Hey! I want to talk to-”

“I'm late,” Johnny said from the doorway. He wanted none of the little man's shrewd questions right now. “Damn it, Killain! There's a couple of things-”

“Drop over and see me, Harry.” Johnny went up the passage at a fast walk, with Palmer's irritated bark ringing in his ears.