Epitaph For A Dead Beat

CHAPTER 1

It is a small, not quite square office behind a smaller reception room on the fourth floor of a Paleozoic brick building on Lexington Avenue. Most of the furnishings have been out of style since Lucky Strikes were green, and in professions where they rate you by such things even the dullest girl in the typing pool would pick a more likely doorway to straighten her seams in. But it contains, such as they are, the tools of my trade as a private cop, and I have been spending the better part of five days a week in the place for seven years.

Probably it is a trivial complaint, but I will always have to wonder why nobody ever seems to need my services until I am out of there for the night.

So I was home undressed when the telephone rang, of course. It was after eleven, and I’d been reading on the couch. Lolita, a sad story about a twelve-year-old girl who couldn’t find anyone her own age to play with.

“—This is Mrs. Skelly. Is this Mr. Fannin? The detective?”

A stranger. Not young, not wealthy, not educated. Probably gray and tarnished, and wearing something cut from shapeless cotton she would call a house dress. There would be a cameo pin.

“This is Harry Fannin.”

“Mr. Lubitch said to call you — the lawyer. You’ll have to bring a gun. It’s about my uncle. There’s so much cash, you see, and—”

“You want me to shoot your uncle for some cash?”

“I beg your—”

There was a pause. “You said there was something Ben Lubitch thought I might be able to help you with, ma’am?”

“Well—”

“I do have a gun — and proper permits. If you need one at this hour I suppose it’s got to do with something you want guarded. Until the banks open?”

“Well, yes, as a matter of fact. It’s Mr. Casey, who just passed on. The poor man was eighty-one, with the railroad for forty-four years. Mr. Lubitch says he’s sure it will all come to us.”

“You’ve found money?”

“In coffee cans, in the closet. Almost four thousand dollars. Mr. Lubitch says you charge sixty dollars a day, but it will be worth it to ease my mind. Especially since he said you would come home and sleep with me, and—”

“Madame?”

“What? Well, really, I certainly didn’t mean—”

“Any old soft chair will do fine, Mrs. Skelly. If you’ll tell me where you are—”

She told me. Grudgingly, but it was me or Jesse James. He’d obviously had an eye on those coffee cans for weeks.

I could have been more enthusiastic. I also could have stopped dreaming that the midnight disturbance, just once, would be a cry of distress from Ava, from Lauren, even from Tallulah. The place was about as far west as you can go in Greenwich Village without driving off a pier, and I said it would take me thirty minutes to get there.

I had to park a block away, on Hudson Street. The building wasn’t quite yet a tenement, although they were already getting interesting effects from the lobby. It was part tile, part chewing gum. The apartment I wanted was 6-B and there wasn’t any elevator.

I made six, puffing, then saw the envelope tacked into the door frame from the length of a dismal corridor away. I put the paper currency into my pocket and scowled at the penciled note:

Dear Mr. Fannin:

I forgot about the police station around the corner. Thank youforyourtrouble,butthemansaidIcouldleavethemoneyin the safe. If you guarded it until 9:30 A.M. that would be tenhours, which is $6 per hour. This $3 is for the time you saidit would take to get here.

Yours truly (Mrs.)

Kate Skelly

PS. Really it would only be 9 A.M. since I would go to the bank as soon as they opened.

I had a smoke before I went down. I wondered if she expected me to leave her a receipt.

It was a nice night, warm for September. On other streets the gears of giant trucks were grinding mournfully, suffering their own version of life’s small abuses, and back on Hudson I patted the Chevy on a fender in sympathy. Fifty yards away a sign which was not entirely unfamiliar said Vinnie’s Place, Beer on Tap, in buzzing red neon. I tried, but I couldn’t think of anyone who would be waiting up for me with a candle in the window. I went in.

It was a mistake, although I could not have known that then. All I had in mind were a few inconsequential drinks.

I thought I could afford it. I’d just picked up all that easy money.