Black Money

22

In the neighborhood of Mercy Hospital there were several satellite treatment centers and clinics, and Dr. Sylvester’s clinic was one of them. It was smaller and less prosperous-looking than most of its neighbors. A visibly threadbare path crossed the rug in the lobby from the front door to the reception desk. Several doctors and their specialists, headed by George Sylvester, Internal Medicine, were listed on a board beside the door.

The girl behind the desk told me that Dr. Sylvester was still out to lunch. He had a free half-hour scheduled, if I cared to wait.

I gave her my name and sat down among the waiting patients. After a while I began to feel like one of them. The pink champagne, or the lady I had drunk it with, had left me with a dull headache. Other parts of my anatomy began to nag. By the time Dr. Sylvester appeared, I was just about ready to break down and tell him my symptoms.

He looked as though he had symptoms of his own, probably hangover symptoms. He was clearly not glad to see me. But he gave me his hand and a professional smile, and escorted me past his formidable-looking secretary into his consulting room.

He changed into the white coat. I glanced at the diplomas and certificates on the paneled walls. Sylvester had trained in good schools and hospitals, and passed his Boards. He had at least the background of a responsible doctor. It was the foreground that worried me.

“What can I do for you, Archer? You look tired, by the way.”

“That’s because I am tired.”

“Then take the weight off your feet.” He indicated a chair at the end of his desk, and sat down himself. “I only have a few minutes, so let’s get with it, boy.”

The sudden camaraderie was forced. Behind it he was watching me like a poker player.

“I found out who your patient Ketchel is.”

He raised his eyebrows but said nothing.

“He’s a Vegas casino owner,” I said, “with a very extensive background in the rackets. His actual name is Leo Spillman.”

Sylvester was not surprised. He said smoothly. “It fits in with our records. I checked them this morning. He gave his address as the Scorpion Club in Las Vegas.”

“It’s too bad you couldn’t remember that last night when I could have used it.”

“I can’t remember everything.”

“Try your memory on this one. Did you introduce Leo Spillman to Roy Fablon?”

“I don’t remember.”

“You know whether you did or not, doctor.”

“You can’t talk to me like that.”

“Answer my question,” I said. “If you won’t, I’ll find somebody who will.”

His face slanted forward in thought. It looked both precarious and threatening, like a piece of rock poised on the edge of a cliff.

“Why would Marietta Fablon apply to you for money?” I said.

“I’m an old friend. Who else should she go to?”

“Are you sure she wasn’t trying to blackmail you, old friend?”

He looked around his office as though it was a kind of public cage. The lines bracketing his mouth were deep and cruel, like self-inflicted scars.

“What are you trying to cover up, doctor?”

After a thinking pause, he said: “The fact that I’m a goddam fool.”

He glanced sharply into my eyes. “Can you keep a secret?”

“Not if it involves a crime.”

“What crime?” He spread out his large hands palms up on the desk. “There hasn’t been any crime.”

“Then why are you so worried?”

“This town is a hotbed of rumors, as I told you last night. If the word gets out about Leo Spillman and me, I’m dead.”

His hands curled up very slowly, like two starfish. “I’m moribund now, if you want the truth. There are too damn many doctors in this town. And I’ve had financial losses.”

“Gambling losses?”

He was startled. “Where did you dig that up?”

He pounded the desk with his curled hands, not threateningly, more like someone trying to get out. He wasn’t a subtle man, and his anxiety had blunted him even more. “What are you trying to do to me?”

“You know what I’m trying to do – get at the facts about this man Martel, and incidentally clear up any doubts about what happened to Fablon. The two things are connected by way of Spillman, possibly in other ways. When Spillman left town, two days after Fablon’s death, he took Martel with him. Did you know that?”

He looked at me in a confused way. “Are we talking about seven years ago?”

“That’s right. You’re involved in all this because you brought Spillman here.”

“I didn’t bring him. He invited himself. As a matter of fact it was his woman’s – his wife’s idea. Her idea of heaven was two weeks at the Tennis Club.”

His mouth lifted on one side showing the edges of his teeth.

“Did you owe Spillman money?”

“Did I not.” His eyes were bleak, looking past me at his life. “If I give you straight answers to some of these questions, what use do you intend to make of them?”

“I’ll keep the facts to myself, so far as I can. A client once told me he could drop a secret into me and never hear it hit bottom. You’re not my client, but I’ll do what I can to protect your bella figura.”

“I’ll take you at your word,” he said. “Don’t get the idea that I’m one of those compulsive gamblers. It’s true I’m in the market, it’s the only way to outwit these confiscatory taxes nowadays – but I’m not the Vegas type of gambler. I stay away from Vegas.”

“And that’s why you never met Leo Spillman.”

“I admit I went there in the past. The last time I went to Vegas I was in a bad mood, a destructive mood. I didn’t care what happened. My wife–” He compressed his lips.

“Go on.”

He said haltingly: “I was just going to say my wife wasn’t with me.”

“I thought you were going to say she was having an affair with another man.”

His face twisted in pain. “Good Lord, did she tell you that?”

“No. It doesn’t matter how I found out.”

“Do you know who the other man was?” he said.

“Roy Fablon. It gave you a reason for wanting him dead.”

“Is that an accusation?”

“I just thought I’d mention it, doctor.”

“Thanks very much. You throw some wicked curves.”

“Life does, anyway. What happened your last time in Vegas?”

“Plenty. First I lost a few hundred on the tables. Instead of cutting my losses, I got mad and plunged. Before I was through I’d exhausted my credit – it still hasn’t recovered completely and I owed Leo Spillman nearly twenty thousand.

“He called me into the office to talk about it. I told him I could raise ten at most, he’d have to wait for the rest. He blew a gasket and called me a cheat and a four-flusher, and a good many other names. He would have attacked me physically, I think, if the woman hadn’t restrained him.”

“Was Kitty there?”

“Yes. She was interested in me because she’d found out that I came from here. She reminded Spillman that it was a felony for him to use his fists. Apparently he was an ex-professional boxer. But he was in terrible shape, and I think I could have taken him.”

Sylvester caressed his fist. “I did some boxing in college.”

“It’s just as well you didn’t try. Very few amateurs ever take a pro.”

“But he was a sick man, physically and emotionally sick.”

“What was the matter with him?”

“I could see that one of his optic nerves was jumping. After he calmed down a bit, I persuaded him to let me look into his eyes and take his blood pressure. I had the equipment in my car. That may seem like a strange thing to do, under the circumstances, but I was concerned about him as a doctor. With good reason. He had a bad case of hypertension, and his blood pressure was up in the danger zone. It turned out that he’d never been to a doctor, never had a checkup. He thought all that was for sissies.

“At first he thought I was trying to frighten him. But with the woman’s help I got the fact across to him, that he was in danger of a stroke. So he suggested a deal. I was to rake up ten thousand in cash, treat his hypertension, and get the two of them a cottage at the Tennis Club. I imagine it was the weirdest deal in history.”

“I don’t know. Spillman once won a man’s wife in a crap game.”

“So he told me. He’s full of little anecdotes. You can imagine how I felt injecting a man like that into my club. But I had no choice, and he was willing to pay nearly ten thousand dollars.”

“It didn’t cost him anything.”

“It cost him ten thousand less the value of my services.”

“Not if you paid him the other ten thousand in cash. He’d save more than enough in taxes to make up the difference.”

“You think he was dodging taxes?”

“I’m sure of it. They’re doing it all the time in Vegas. The money they hold back is known as ‘black money,’ and that’s a good name for it. It runs into the millions, and it’s used to finance about half of the illegal enterprises in the country, from Cosa Nostra on down.”

Sylvester said in a chilly voice: “I couldn’t be held responsible, could I?”

“Morally, you could. Legally, I don’t know. If everybody who collaborated with organized crime was held responsible, half the boobs in the country would be in jail. Unfortunately that won’t happen. We treat the crime capital of the United States as if it was a second Disneyland, smelling like roses, a great place to take the family or hold a convention.”

I stopped myself. I was slightly hipped on the subject of Vegas, partly because the criminal cases I handled in California so often led there. As this one was doing, now. I said: “Did you know that Martel left town with Spillman seven years ago?”

“I heard you tell me. I didn’t understand what you meant.”

“He was a student at the local college, working part-time as a flunky at the Tennis Club.”

“Martel was?”

“In those days he called himself Feliz Cervantes. He met Ginny Fablon, or at least saw her, at a gathering of French students, and fell for her. He may have taken the job at the club so he could see her more often. He ran into Spillman there.”

Sylvester was listening closely. He was quiet and subdued, as if the building might collapse in ruins around him if he moved. “How do you know all this?”

“Part of it’s speculation. Most of it isn’t, But I’ve got to talk to Leo Spillman, and I want your help in reaching him. Have you seen him recently?”

“Not in seven years. He never came back here. I didn’t urge him to, either. Apart from my professional contact with him, I did my best to avoid him. I never invited him to my house, for instance.”

Sylvester was trying to rescue his pride. But I suspected it had been permanently lost, within the past half-hour, in this room.