Cut Thin to Win

Chapter 7

I picked an isolated booth at the Denver airport and called Phyllis Eldon in her apartment. Somewhat to my surprise I heard her voice answering the phone.

“This,” I said, “is Donald Lam talking.”

“Yes, Mr. Lam.” Her voice was warm and friendly.

“I’m in a jam.”

“I guess everyone gets in a jam sooner or later.”

“I’m in a jam on account of you and your father.”

“Indeed?”

“I’m in Denver now. I tried to see you father. I can’t locate him. I’ve got to get in touch with him. Do you know where I can find him?”

“No, what’s the trouble?”

I said, “I don’t want to discuss details over the telephone, but there has been a leak somewhere and certain persons are trying to trace the source of a certain payment. I think if you could meet me at the airport tonight, it might be well for us to have a conference. Your father was considerably less than frank with me, and if I’m going to take a rap for you people, I want to have the cards on the table.”

“What plane are you coming in on?” she asked.

I gave her the flight number, the airline and the time of arrival.

She said, “I’m not answering for my father, but I’ll tell you one thing, I try to be a squareshooter. If a man sticks his neck out for me, I remember it and appreciate it. I’ll be there.”

“That,” I told her, “makes me feel a whole lot better.”

“Can you tell me who’s causing the trouble?” she asked.

“I’m afraid it’s getting to be a uniform procedure,” I said.

“I don’t get you,” she said. “A uniform procedure, a— Oh, yes, I get it! All right, Donald, I’ll be there. ‘Bye now.”

Her voice was warm, friendly and seductive.

I killed time until my flight was called, then settled back in cushioned comfort on the plane and relaxed.

What I had found out about Clayton Dawson made me think I had been taken for a ride, but his daughter who was supposed to be wayward, obstinate and independent, impudent, ungrateful, undisciplined and perhaps immoral was turning out to be a regular trouper.

That, I reflected, was the way with the world. Then the stewardess brought me an old-fashioned and ten minutes later I didn’t have a care in the world. Everything was going to work out all right.

We arrived in Los Angeles right on schedule and I managed to be in the vanguard of passengers leaving the plane. I was carrying a brief-case and nothing else, travelling light.

I spotted Phyllis standing at the gates. She waved at me with warm spontaneity.

I was just about to wave back when my eyes caught a glimpse of the face of Sergeant Frank Sellers, standing slightly back from the crowd. He was wearing civilian clothes and trying to keep in the background as much as possible.

I gave Phyllis a stony stare, hoping she’d get the idea.

She lowered her arm, her eyes puzzled.

I marched forward, my eyes straight ahead.

Phyllis pushed her way toward me.

I shook my head imperceptibly.

She didn’t get it.

“Donald!” she said, grabbing my arm. “Donald, don’t you remember me?”

I turned then.

There was no chance as passing it off as a mistake or patching it up in any way. She’d called my name and the fact that ‘I had quite evidently been trying to avoid her didn’t help any. It gave Sellers all the leeway he wanted.

He came swooping down on us like a hawk on a covey of quail.

“Hello, Pint Size!” he said. “Who’s your friend?”

Phyllis turned to look at him and said, “Go peddle your papers, big boy, we have a date.”

Sellers pulled the leather folder out of his hip pocket, opened it and flashed his star at her.

“You’re damned right, we have a date!” he said. “Only it may not be the sort of date you are anticipating with Donald.”

“Oh, for God’s sake,” I said, “are you going to ride herd on my love life, too, Sellers?”

I dropped the brief case, opened my arms and had time to give Phyllis a quick wink.

She melted into my arms and said, “Lover boy!” then raised her lips.

We had a long clinging kiss, and regardless of what her father may have said about her, or thought about her, that girl had a technique that was simply out of this world.

Sellers stood watching us.

I said, “I’ll talk with you tomorrow, Frank, but tonight I’m busy. Very busy.”

Sellers twisted the unlighted cigar in his mouth.

On the outskirts of the crowd, a tall, rather distinguished-looking individual started walking rapidly away.

“Hey, you,” Sellers said.

The man kept walking.

“You in the gray suit,” Sellers said, “come back here!”

The man paused, looked back over his shoulder, his face showing surprise.

“Come here,” Sellers said.

The man came back, his face angry, “What do you mean ordering me around like that?”

Again, Sellers showed him the buzzer. “I wasn’t born yesterday,” he said.

“I don’t give a damn when you were born,” the man said, “don’t try to interfere with me. What do you think you’re pulling?”

Sellers said, “I think somebody’s trying to pull a fast one on me. A red-hot babe like this doesn’t go to meet her boy friend at the airport and take a chaperone along. You were with this girl while she was waiting. Now, what’s the pitch?”

“Why, we were simply talking. I know Miss Eldon. She’s a friend of mine.”

“Yeah? And you just met her at the gate here, casually?”

“That’s right.”

“All right,” Sellers said, “what were you doing out here at the gate?”

“I came to meet a friend.”

“And what happened to the friend?”

“He didn’t come.”

Sellers grinned and said, “Don’t be silly, they’re still getting off the plane. You were trying to make a getaway. Let’s take a look at your driving license. Who are you, anyway?”

The man said, “My name is Colton C. Essex, and for your information, I’m an attorney at law.”

“Well, well, well,” Sellers said, “I guess maybe we’re beginning to hit pay dirt. And how did you come out to the airport, Mr. Essex?”

“I don’t know as that’s any of your business.”

“I’m making it my business,” Sellers said.

He turned to Phyllis. “And how did you come out to the airport?”

“I drove out in my car.”

“That’s fine,” Sellers said, “we’ll go take a look at your car.”

“A look at my car!” she said. “What do you mean? It’s my car. Are you by any chance, intimating that I’ve stolen a car?”

People were beginning to form a ring around us now, and I knew there was no use trying to carry it any farther.

“Okay, Sergeant,” I said, “if that’s the way you feel about it, we’ll go take a look at her car.”

“And we’ll be damned sure it’s her car,” Sellers said.

“You want my claim check?” she asked, handing it to him.

“You’re damned right, I want it,” Sellers said. “Come on, let’s go!... You, too, Essex. Come along!”

We walked out to the airport to the parking lot, and a crowd of curiosity seekers followed us part way; then began to melt away as we left the building and walked across to the parking lot. A couple of them, however who were more persistent, tagged along behind, talking in low voices and looking — doubtless wondering what super criminals had been flushed by the police.

Sellers was feeling very, very well pleased with himself.

“The next time you start out on a secret mission, Pint Size,” he said, “don’t use the air travel card of Cool and Lam to buy your ticket.”

Phyllis said, “I wish you’d either light that cigar or throw it away.”

“If he lights it,” I told her, “it stinks.”

“Then throw it away,” she said.

Sellers was feeling so good he took the soggy cigar stump out of his mouth and tossed it away. “Anything to oblige a lady,” he smirked.

It didn’t take Sellers long to locate Phyllis’ car, nor to check the registration and look at the dent on the right front fender.

“How d’you do this?” he asked.

“Heavens, I don’t know,” she said. “It was done somewhere in a parking lot.”

Sellers took a magnifying glass from his pocket and looked the fender over.

“What in the world are you trying to do?” she said.

Sellers said, “Where were you two headed for your smooching?”

“Does it make any difference?”

“It may make quite a bit of difference,” Sellers said. “So far, I’m giving you a break. If you were going to your apartment, I’ll go there with you and we’ll do the questioning there. But if you want to get technical about it, we can do the questioning someplace else.”

“We’ll go to my apartment,” she said.

“All right, Essex,” Sellers said with a grin, “you wanted to meet a friend and we don’t need to detain you any longer.”

“It’s too late now,” Essex said, “my friend has left. I’ll ride along uptown with you.”

“I didn’t invite you,” Sellers said.

“Well, I did,” Phyllis said, “and if you’re going to question me in any way, I’m going to have my attorney along.”

“This your attorney?” Sellers asked.

“He is now,” she said.

Seller grinned. “All right,” he said, “let’s go.”

The ride up to the Parkridge Apartments was made in silence. Phyllis drove the car competently and was very, very careful to keep within all the speed limits and traffic regulations.

Frank Sellers was doing a lot of thinking.

Phyllis parked the car and we took the elevator up to her apartment.

Sellers said, “You have a driving license as Phyllis Dawson. Your name here is Phyllis Eldon. What’s the idea?”

“Dawson,” she said, “is my official name, but Eldon is my professional name.”

“What profession?”

“I’m studying art.”

“Any pictures around?”

She opened the closet door and took out a couple of canvases that looked very much as though she had painted them at random with a squirt gun.

“What are those supposed to represent?” Sellers asked.

“Interpretive paintings,” she said. “I paint the emotions.”

“What emotion does this one portray?”

“Frustration.”

“By God, you said it,” Sellers said, “That’s the only one of those smears I’ve ever seen that had an appropriate title.”

“Don’t you call my painting a smear!” she blazed at him. “In fact, I’m taking altogether too much from you as it is.

“Tell me, Colton, do I have to put up with this?”

“You certainly do not,” the attorney said. “An officer is supposed to be a gentleman. He’s supposed to investigate cases in his official capacity with some due regard to the rights of the witnesses with whom he is talking.”

“All right, all right,” Sellers said, “my mistake. I let my tongue slip a little bit. It’s a very nice painting, Miss Eldon. Now, if everybody will sit down and be comfortable, I’m going to tell you a few things about my own particular brand of frustration.”

“That’s all right,” Phyllis said, “make yourself right at home, Sergeant.”

We sat down.

Sellers said, “Up in the northern part of the city, about a week ago, a Mrs. Harvey W. Chester, a middle-aged woman, was knocked down by a car that sped away and left her lying in the crosswalk.

“She was pretty badly bruised and battered but apparently no bones were broken. A report was made to the traffic department and there was more or less of a routine investigation.

“We went to the scene of the accident. Some cloth had been torn from her dress.

“We felt bad about it, because we don’t like to have hit-and-run drivers get away. It isn’t the most serious hit-and-run case we’ve ever had, by a long ways, but it’s the principle of the thing.”

Sellers stopped, looked around, fished a cigar from his pocket, put it to his mouth, and Phyllis Dawson said sharply, “Not in here!”

“What do you mean, not in here?”

“No cigar smoking in this apartment,” she said.

Sellers hesitated awhile, took a deep breath, removed the cigar from his mouth, put it back in his pocket.

“Sometimes on these hit-and-run things,” he went on, “the party responsible tries to square things behind the back of the police and then if we find out who’s responsible we don’t have a complaining witness.

“We don’t like to have that happen.

“Donald Lam here is a private detective, and he’s a smart operator, I’ll say that for him.

“We just happened to find by accident that Donald appeared on the scene, and about the time he appeared on the scene, Mrs. Harvey W. Chester disappeared from the scene and she disappeared with a whole sheaf of hundred-dollar bills. She was happy as a lark.

“The evidence certainly indicates that she not only got a settlement for any physical damages she might have received, and a settlement of her lawsuit, which would have been a civil matter; but that there was also an attempt made to square any criminal charge which might have been found — and that’s compounding a felony.

“I have pretty good evidence that Donald Lam paid over the money. I think he has a receipt somewhere. I’ve given him a deadline within which to tell the name of his client or have charges made against him which will result in a revocation of his license.

“Now then, what have you folks got to say?”

Phyllis started to say something, but Colton Essex beat her to it.

“Nothing,” he snapped.

“What do you mean?” Sellers said.

“I mean nothing,” Essex said.

“All right, then I’ll go at it the hard way,” Sellers said.

He walked over to the telephone, picked up the instrument, dialed headquarters, said, “I’m at the Parkridge Apartments, in six o nine. There’s a car down here, a this year’s model Cadillac with a dent in the fender. It’s in the building parking lot. The license number is ODT 067. I think it’s the car that was involved in that hit-and-run case with Mrs. Harvey W. Chester a while ago.

“Get a tow car out here; pick up that car; take it down to the police laboratory, go over it with a magnifying glass, and in particular see if you can’t find some threads which match the dress the Chester woman was wearing at the time she was hit.

“I want that done right away.”

Sellers listened for a moment, said, “That’s right.”

He hung up the telephone, turned to Phyllis and said, “We’re impounding your car as evidence. You may have it back when we’ve had an opportunity to examine it thoroughly. Right now, there are suspicious circumstances and we’re holding it.”

“Can he do that?” Phyllis asked Colton Essex.

“He’s done it,” the lawyer said.

“Now then,” Sellers went on, “since the party is evidently going to get rough, I’m going to tell all of you a few things. There are several crimes involved here. One is a hit-and-run, in addition to reckless driving and perhaps driving while intoxicated. Another one is compounding a felony, and that’s a serious crime in itself.”

Seller turned to me. “And in your case,” he said, “there’s a refusal to co-operate with the police by withholding evidence in a criminal matter.”

“What do you mean, withholding evidence?” Colton Essex asked.

“You heard me,” Sellers said.

“I heard you state that you had given Donald Lam a time limit within which to divulge the name of his client.”

Sellers looked at him, “You heard right,” he said.

“Has the time limit expired?” Essex asked.

“Not yet,” Sellers admitted, after a moment of awkward silence. “However, when it runs out, I’m going to throw the book at this pint-sized smart aleck.”

“But if he tells you within the time limit you’re going to let him off the hook?”

Sellers debated with himself. “Well, I guess that’s implied...”

Essex looked at me. “Self preservation is the first law of nature,” he said. “Go ahead and tell him, Lam.”

I glanced at Phyllis.

She nodded.

“My client,” I said, “was a man who told me his name was Clayton Dawson and he gave me an address in Denver. It turns out that the address in Denver was just a mail drop and apparently a blind. I’ve been unable to find Clayton Dawson. All I know about him is that he told me he was assistant to the president of the Dawson Re-Debenture Discount Security Company of Denver, Colorado. There is no such company.

“He told me that his daughter was Phyllis Dawson; that she was going under the name of Phyllis Eldon.

“Now then, you know as much as I do.”

“What did you do with Mrs. Chester?” Sellers asked.

“That,” I said, “is an entirely different matter. I kept my nose clean on that.”

“Did you pay her any money?”

“Yes.”

“With the understanding that she wouldn’t press any charges?”

“Good heavens, no,” I said. “I paid her money because my client wanted to buy up her claim for damages so that he could underwrite any recovery she might make.”

“And your client was Phyllis Dawson here?”

“My client,” I said, “was Clayton Dawson.”

Sellers creased his forehead in a frown.

Essex said. “Now, Lam has told you the name of his client. That is with the consent of Phyllis Dawson, the client’s daughter. That purges Lam of any wrongdoing. You haven’t a thing in the world against him.”

“The hell I haven’t,” Sellers said. “Don’t think that this pint-sized little bastard—”

“Watch your language,” Essex snapped.

Sellers glowered at him, said, after a moment, “I’m also putting you on my list.”

“You be mighty careful I don’t put you on mine,” Essex said.

Sellers took a deep breath, fished a cigar from his pocket.

“Uh, uh,” Phyllis said.

Sellers put the cigar back, said, “I could question you folks at headquarters in a more friendly atmosphere. That is, friendly to me.”

“It would be a mistake,” Essex told him.

“Don’t kid yourself. I can still prove that somebody pulled a big hush-hush on a hit-and-run charge and got the victim out of the state.”

“What hit-and-run charge?” Essex asked.

“What hit-and-run charge, why, uh, Mrs. Chester, of course.”

“Now, there again,” Essex said, “you interest me. As an officer you know that hearsay evidence isn’t admissible. You have witnesses who saw her being struck and can identify the car?”

“We can’t identify the car,” Sellers slowly said, “but we think we’re going to be able to make identification after the lab gets done with Phyllis Dawson’s car.”

“Witnesses who saw her being struck down by the car?” Essex asked.

“Witnesses who saw the poor woman lying there moaning in the middle of the crosswalk, trying to get up just after the car had passed.”

“And how did they know she was the victim of a hit-and-run driver?”

“Mrs. Chester told them what had happened.”

Essex grinned.

“All right, all right,” Sellers said, “so it’s hearsay, but it isn’t going to be hearsay when we get hold of Mrs. Chester.

“Now then, I’m going to tell you smart alecks something, all of you! The department likes to get hold of these hit-and-run drivers and button the case up. That’s a matter of policy.

“This case is going to be a lot more than a matter of policy. I’m going to turn this city upside down. I’m going to find Mrs. Chester if I find any evidence on that car we’ve impounded.”

“When does my client get her car back?” Essex asked.

“There are two ways of getting it back,” Sellers said. “The first one is that you can get a court order; the second one is that you can wait until we get done with it.”

Sellers lurched to his feet, turned to me and said, “And as far as you’re concerned, Lam, when I get this case solved, if you’ve cut one single corner, you’re going to be selling insurance or engaging in some other activity that will keep you out of my hair.”

“Perhaps you’d buy a policy from me?” I suggested.

Sellers jerked a cigar from his pocket, shoved it in his mouth defiantly, strode to the door and walked out.

It was several seconds after the door slammed before anybody said anything. Then I said to Phyllis, “Just where is your father?”

She shook her head. “I couldn’t tell you.”

“Because you don’t know?”

“Because I couldn’t tell you.”

“Couldn’t or wouldn’t?”

“Couldn’t.”

Essex said, “You’re in the clear, Lam. That was a clever stunt, getting an assignment— Of course, as a lawyer, I can tell you there’s some question about the validity of the assignment under the circumstances.”

“I was carrying out orders,” I said, “I’m not a lawyer.”

Essex grinned. “Dawson wanted a really good detective. He was a little disappointed in you when he first saw you, but I think you’re filling the bill admirably. I’m glad it’s happened that way. I feel completely justified.”

“Wait a minute!” I said. “You feel completely justified! Are you the one who recommended our firm to Dawson?”

He smiled knowingly. “A lawyer can’t tell anything about his conversations with his clients without being guilty of unethical conduct. If you have any more trouble, let me know, Lam.”

I took it that was a dismissal and said, “Okay, thanks... I still think there’s something in the background in this case.”

Essex said unctuously, “Virtually all cases have backgrounds. Human emotions, you know. The interplay of character, conflicting interests and sometimes complex motivations.”

“Yes,” I said, “complex motivations... And a good night to both of you.”

No one saw me to the door.