Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, Vol. 63, No. 2. Whole No. 363, February 1974

The Perfectionist by Gerald Tomlinson[9]

This is the 399th “first story” to be published by Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine... a smooth tale of a perfect caper, smoothly planed and well crafted...

The author, Gerald Tomlinson, was 40 when he submitted “The Perfectionist.” After graduation from Marietta College he taught in a junior high school in upstate New York, served two years in Army military intelligence, attended law school for a year and a half, then switched to the publishing business, first as a mail-order book editor and for the last ten years as a high-school English textbook editor.

Mr. Tomlinson’s main hobby is cabinetmaking. He wrote us that he “will soon have the house filled with shelves, serving carts, consoles, end tables, and bookcases.” We suggest: write more mysteries while you still have room...

“Let’s go, Deutsch. Forty minutes to Grand Central. Get a move on.”

Ray Deutsch bent respectfully from the waist and closed the rear door of the black Cadillac limousine. Inside, Frank Prescott, the New Jersey construction magnate, syndicate boss, and multimillionaire, leaned back to read his Daily News. On the seat beside Prescott rested the small brown suitcase that Deutsch had been waiting for. Today was the day.

Deutsch, pale and rigid, watched the double row of poplars streak by for the last time. No more Jersey roads, he thought. No more “Pretty Boy” Prescott. No more playing the cowed chauffeur to a loudmouthed mobster. He smiled tightly.

Prescott’s Cadillac, hearse-quiet at 60 miles an hour, flashed south on the Palisades Parkway. Deutsch took pride in his driving. He was quick, alert, canny, a perfectionist behind the wheel. In seven years of driving for Frank Prescott he had never so much as scratched a fender.

The day was sunny, crisp, and bright with promise. Two miles south of the Alpine exit, with the road clear in both directions, Deutsch made the decisive move of his life, the culminating act of his 53 years. Bracing himself under the shoulder safety belt, he slammed his foot down hard on the brake pedal. The tires screamed.

Prescott, unbelted as always, rose from his seat like an Apollo at liftoff. His head ricocheted off the ceiling, smashed into the plastic partition that separated him from Deutsch, and the boss of northern New Jersey, unconscious, sagged to the floor like a strand of boiled spaghetti.

Deutsch, nervously humming an old tune, resumed his normal driving. At the Englewood Cliffs exit he left the Parkway and headed south on Hudson Terrace. He passed a dozen large apartment buildings before turning in at the entrance to the Quebec. He drove to the back of the building, where an 800-car parking lot, whose spaces were unnumbered and unreserved, stood half empty at this hour on a Tuesday morning.

Pulling in beside a new dusty dark-green Plymouth, Deutsch opened the rear door of the Cadillac, removed Prescott’s suitcase, smiled again at the motionless form, nodded quietly and triumphantly, and closed the door on his past life.

Unlocking a new door, he slid behind the wheel of the Plymouth.

Ray Deutsch’s drive to a tiny A-frame house at the northern edge of the Catskills took less than two hours. He owned the A-frame. He had bought it, along with the ten wooded acres surrounding it, six months before in the name of Alfred A. Stocker. The green Plymouth also belonged to Alfred A. Stocker. So did Deutsch’s new driver’s license, a small checking account balance at the Hancock National Bank, and an oil-company credit card.

The A-frame offered ideal seclusion. The nearest town, Roscoe, was eight miles away and had about 900 people. The nearest house, half a mile away, was occupied by a retired couple in their seventies.

Deutsch carried the suitcase into the living room and set it down before the brick fireplace. He ran his hand through his thinning gray hair, reached tentatively toward the lock on the suitcase, then turned away. Too much of his future rested on the contents of that bag for him to be hasty. He could take a whole year, if he wanted to, before looking into the suitcase, a whole year to sit by the fire and read the hundreds of paperbacks that lined the walls of the living room.

Why hurry? Besides, there were things to get rid of. The chauffeur’s uniform had to go. All those identifying cards and papers, all the bureaucratic biography of Ray Deutsch had to go. All 53 years of Ray Deutsch had to disappear up the chimney, dissolve into the blue September sky.

He moved the suitcase to the one chair in the room, a lush leather easy chair that a chrome Kovaks reading lamp pointed down on. A year of one’s life deserved such a luxurious throne, Deutsch had decided when he was furnishing the house. The chair and lamp were the only extravagant items he had bought in years.

Except for the driver’s license in Deutsch’s name, he had packed his identifying possessions two weeks earlier in the trunk compartment of the Plymouth. In the days prior to that a number of unmistakable signs had told him that a Prescott payoff was in the offing.

After starting a fire in the fireplace, Deutsch removed the cards and papers of his lifetime from the Plymouth and piled them in a neat stack on the floor. He then crossed to the kitchen, stepped outside, and removed a bottle of Moet from under the wooden step. Its temperature seemed correct.

Back in the living room, as he was about to pop the cork, a thought crossed his mind. He paused, his foot on the stone hearth. Had the hour arrived? Should he really destroy Ray Deutsch, destroy him totally, before he learned how much Alfred A. Stocker was worth? (The genuine Alfred A. Stocker had died at the age of two and was buried in Newburgh, New York — an element that he had picked up from Frederick Forsyth’s The Day of the Jackal.)

Deutsch considered the matter. He decided that his timing made little difference. Ray Deutsch was dead anyway — the sooner he was completely eliminated the better.

Memories of a radio commercial passed through his head. The commercial advertised a movie designed to leech on the success of “The Godfather.” It said something about not stealing the syndicate’s money — “stealing the mob’s money isn’t robbery, it’s suicide.” Deutsch shuddered. He knew it could be suicide. He had taken that into account. He had taken everything into account.

He released the cork. The bubbling champagne flowed from the bottle in a golden fountain. He stood facing, the fireplace, the remnants of his old life at his feet. The only thing he regretted losing was the last photograph of his wife, taken a year before she had died. But the image of Flora Alvarez Deutsch had to go too. Stocker intended to be a bachelor.

Picking up the pile of computer-pulp and paper nostalgia, he flung it into the blazing fire, blowing a final kiss to his wife’s picture. Then he clinked his glass gently against the blue-stone mantelpiece. “Ray Deutsch is dead. Long live Al Stocker.” He said the words aloud, in a low hollow voice. They sounded more like a benediction than an invocation, but the somber tone was wrong. Deutsch was giddy with anticipation.

Alfred A. Stocker knew he was rich. He had no idea of the exact amount of money, but he did know that Frank Prescott’s personal payoffs were big. Lieutenants and sergeants handled the small change. When Prescott took a trip with his small brown suitcase the balance of payments in the underworld was notably affected.

The Moet was brut and glorious. Deutsch — no, Stocker — poured himself another. This time he toasted the unopened suitcase. “To Pretty Boy Prescott. May he take his loss like a man.”

Alfred A. Stocker giggled. He seldom giggled, but at this moment he had reason to be cheerful. Prescott could hardly report the incident to the police. The money that he handled he handled in secrecy. Income-tax evasion was a concept well known to him. More than that, more them the origin of the money, the intended purpose of the money should stop any publicity. It was payoff money, bribe money. It was almost certainly headed for a big-time official. “Why were you carrying X-thousands of dollars in your car, Mr. Prescott?... Well, er, you see...” No, it was not going to be reported to the police.

But it was going to be reported to somebody. There would be clever men, resourceful and dangerous men, looking for Ray Deutsch. And they would look hard, if the suitcase contained what it must contain. There would probably be Lou “Sonny” Visconti, an ex-longshoreman who was now a small-arms expert and Prescott’s bodyguard. There might be Arnold “Hatchet Man” Fein, a recent favorite, whose methods were messy but effective. Others came to mind. Lars “The Lip” Swenson. Mike “Teddy O” O’Brien. Others.

Alfred A. Stocker. Yes, it was Alfred A. Stocker, no one else, who poured a third glass from the bottle. He toasted Visconti. “Good luck, you stupid — no, make it bad luck.” And he sat down at the side of the hearth to preview his future.

One year in the A-frame house. He was safe — he was sure of it. They could never find him here. He was untraceable. He had laid his plans with utter precision, had confided in no one. He was a perfectionist, and he had overlooked nothing.

The suitcase was an unimpressive piece of luggage, the kind a college student might take on an overnight trip to his parent’s home. But Ray Deutsch — no, not Ray Deutsch, Alfred A. Stocker — had wagered his life on it. And he had done it with style, not like Deutsch at all who for 53 years had never gambled. One big gamble now — the only one he would ever make.

He had to see the contents of the suitcase. Would there be $100,000? Please, yes. Make it at least $100,000. That was enough. Not a fortune. No big dent in the Prescott bankroll. Not enough to make Lou Visconti, that longshoreman who looked like a croupier, give up his important assignments and devote full attention to the missing chauffeur and the stolen suitcase.

It was time for the opening. Swaying slightly, on his feet now, relaxed and tense at once, he knew he was not going to wait a year, not an hour, to find out what he had. Even if he had gained nothing — even if all he found was a change of underwear — he was committed to the scheme. He was going to spend a year in the Catskills whether he had a fortune or a dirty T-shirt. He had to. He could not circulate until he had become a different person — not just a different person on a driver’s license, but a different person in fact, a man who could safely venture out among the Viscontis, the Feins, the Swensons, the O’Briens, and still be unrecognized. And that would take time.

The suitcase was unlocked. He lifted one side. Bright light from the Kovaks lamp shone on the exposed contents. He was right, of course. He knew he would be right. Perfection in all things. It had been his stepmother’s watchword.

He kept his excitement suppressed. Deutsch’s emotions were always suppressed. But he did feel a slight tremor, a flutter in his chest, as he looked down on the greenbacks. His hand went to his heart. A slight shortness of breath. But no wonder.

Rows and rows of twenty-dollar bills filled the suitcase. They were banded with the amounts marked, but Alfred A. Stocker, wealthy bachelor recluse with time on his hands, counted them all, counted them down to the last bill. $180,000.

What had they been intended to do? What would they have bought at Grand Central, at City Hall, in Albany, in Trenton? Stocker poured another glass of Moet and settled back on the hearth. The books on the shelves looked down on him hazily now, invitingly. Six hundred books, purchased five or ten at a time in Brentano’s on Fifth Avenue at 47th Street, while Deutsch — Stocker — had waited for Prescott to complete his business in the city.

Deutsch finished the champagne, laid the closed suitcase carefully on the floor, chose a book at random — it was a mystery novel — adjusted his elegant lamp, and began to read.

Six months later he was still reading. No unexpected event had broken the routine of his days. Each morning he went to the small shopping center in Roscoe, picked up the Daily News at the drug store, then a bag of groceries at the supermarket. He spoke to no one and never ventured farther away than Hancock.

Every day he read a mystery book from ten until one and in the afternoons he read nonfiction, mainly true crime or American history, with emphasis on the Second World War. In the evenings he watched cable television.

Deutsch altered his physical appearance with grotesque efficiency. At the outset of his stay he went on a 6000-calorie-a-day diet. Always before that a light eater and an active man, he began to expand, to soften, to balloon. Fat surrounded him like a shield of blubber.

The diet made him ill at first, but he kept at it. Eventually he came to like eating mountains upon mountains of food at each sitting. From ascetic sparrow to gluttonous hippo in a year. An effective disguise. Effective, too, was the full gray beard that soon wreathed his face.

It was during the seventh month of exile that he received his only scare. He had just returned from the shopping center, a few minutes before nine on a chilly March morning. As he eased out of the car he saw a metallic-gray Cadillac with New Jersey plates round a bend in the road and slow down in front of his A-frame house. It came to a stop. A squat man with enormous shoulders emerged from the driver’s seat and approached.

Watch out! Visconti? But was it? The man came closer. Deutsch, ex-chauffeur and open target, stood transfixed, his eyes glazed. No, it wasn’t Visconti. Still — but no, definitely no. The burly man gave him a gap-toothed smile and growled, “Hi, pop. Which way to Roscoe?”

Stocker’s breath escaped slowly from between his whitened lips and gray beard. “Straight down the road eight miles. You can’t miss it. There’s a sign that says, ‘Welcome to Roscoe.’ ”

And that was it. The rest of the time ticked away. There were a couple of references to Frank Prescott in the Daily News. The first of these relieved Stocker. It let him know that the boss of northern New Jersey had not been killed by a blow on the head; and while Stocker was pretty sure of that anyway, he could not be absolutely sure. The first three weeks after coming to the A-frame house he had not gone out to buy a newspaper. However, he had watched TV, and he assumed that Pretty Boy was important enough to rate an evening news obituary.

So Prescott was alive, testifying before a Congressional committee, winning construction contracts in Teaneck and Fort Lee, and, best of all, failing to find, maybe even forgetting about, his former chauffeur.

Stocker’s plan called for him to leave the A-frame on Monday, August 30, three days short of one year from the date of his “inheritance.” Prescott knew Deutsch’s mania for exactness, and Alfred A. Stocker accordingly wanted to avoid the anniversary.

On the morning of August 30, a clear day similar to the one on which he had become rich, Stocker packed two suitcases into the Plymouth and set out for Kennedy Airport. He took a roundabout route to avoid any travel on too-familiar roads. By now, however, his disguise was total. He weighed 253 pounds and his full beard was almost white.

To his meager collection of identifying cards and papers he had added a New York State voter-registration card. He was heading for three days in Nassau, the Bahamas. Actually, it would be forever in Nassau if he liked it as well as he expected to. But three days were all he intended to declare. For that short a stay he would need only superficial identification.

He left the Plymouth on upper Broadway, near Yonkers, a parking lot for abandoned and quickly stripped cars, as he knew from past observation. He hailed a cab for JFK. The driver, mercifully, was one of the silent ones. Stocker had no wish to talk about his past, present, or future. All he wanted was to be safely chauffeured toward paradise.

But as he approached the airport he began to get nervous. It was the first time in months he had felt any fear. There was no reason to, of course. He knew it. The plan was perfect. Every track had been covered. There was no way on earth that Prescott and his men could have traced Alfred A. Stocker. The old name — what was it? — was gone; the old appearance was gone; Stocker was a short plane hop away from retirement in the sun.

He tipped the cab driver handsomely, the way a prosperous man should tip his driver. Still, he wished the inner trembling would stop. This should be the happiest time of his life, not one of the most fearful. He fought down the chill.

Entering the International Building, he went straight to the BOAC counter to check his bags. His ticket, purchased by mail a month earlier, was in order, and Stocker received nonsmokers’ seat 9A. It was two hours until takeoff, and he intended to spend it reading Ladislas Farago’s The Game of the Foxes.

He approached a molded plastic chair in the center of the waiting room. As he was about to sit down, a tall blond man strode toward him, a quizzical expression on his face. Stocker hesitated for a moment and stared at the stranger. Visconti? Dyed hair? Fear began to rise. Silly. Stupid. It wasn’t Visconti. Take it easy. Stay calm, he told himself. Stay calm.

The blond man nodded toward him and said in a low pleasant voice, “Deutsch?”

Stocker’s hand shot to his chest. He staggered backward, a look of horror shattering his broad face. He tried to scream “No!” but nothing came out but a whimper. Pain crisscrossed his upper torso as he fell to the floor, writhing, face up. His breath exploded into the void, once, twice, three times.

He saw someone in uniform. The blond man appeared shocked. Sunlight streamed through the plate glass, striking Deutsch’s distorted face. Within seconds the solar light went out: all the lights in the world went out.

A policeman kneeling beside him said, “Please move away, folks. The gentleman is dead.” Then the officer, a young sergeant who seemed unconcerned by the hubbub, got up and turned to the blond man. “Could you tell me what happened, sir? You were talking to him, I think.”

The blond man stared at the policeman, stunned. He spoke in a low voice: “Es ist schrecklich. Ich wollte Ihn nur fragen ob er Deutsch spricht.”

The policeman asked, “Can’t you speak English?”

The blond man shuddered. “Sorry. In my shock... What I just said was, ‘It’s terrible. I only wanted to ask him if he speaks German.’ ”