Give ’Em the Ax

5

Philip E. Cullingdon turned out to be a middle-aged man with tired gray eyes from which spread a network of fine wrinkles. There were calipers around the edge of his mouth, and a certain firmness about the jaw. He gave the impression of being a kindly, somewhat quizzical man who would be slow to anger, but who could really go to town if he was once aroused.

I didn’t beat around the bush any with him at all. I said, “You’re Philip E. Cullingdon, the general contractor who was the defendant in the case of Begley versus Cullingdon?”

The tired gray eyes sized me up. “What’s that to you?”

“I’m checking up on the case.”

“What about it? It was all settled.”

“Sure it was. You carried insurance, didn’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Do you know the amount of the settlement?”

“I know the amount of the settlement, but I still don’t know to whom I’m talking, or why you want to know.”

I handed him a card. “Donald Lam,” I said, “of the firm of Cool & Lam, private investigators, and we’re checking up on the case.”

“For whom?”

“A client.”

“Why?”

“I’m trying to find out something about Irma Begley, the plaintiff in the action.”

“What about her?”

“I want to find out about the nature and extent of her injury.”

He said, “I guess she was injured all right. The doctors say she was — doctors on both sides. Somehow, I never felt right about that case.”

“What about it?”

He scratched his head.

I did a little prompting. I said, “I notice from the complaint that it was filed just about eleven months after the date of the accident. Were any previous demands made on you?”

Cullingdon said, “No. That’s because the woman didn’t think she was injured at first, didn’t think it was anything serious. She had a little trouble, I guess, which gradually got worse. She went to a doctor who gave her some routine treatments and didn’t think much of it; then finally she went to a specialist who told her she’d developed a complication from an injury she’d sustained — an injury to the spine.”

“And that went back to the automobile accident?”

He nodded.

“So then she got some attorneys and sued you?”

Again he nodded.

“And your insurance company made a settlement?”

“That’s right.”

“At your suggestion?”

“As a matter of fact,” Cullingdon said, “I was quite a bit put out about that. I didn’t want the insurance company to settle it — not for any big sum.”

“Why not?”

“Well, I didn’t think it was my fault.”

“Why?”

“Well, it was just one of those things. I thought she was a lot more to blame than I was. I’ll admit I was trying to beat a signal, and I may have squeezed through a little bit, but just the same she was as much to blame as I was. Of course, the way it looked at first, no great damage was done. We busted a couple of headlights, crumpled a fender or two and punched a hole in my radiator. She jumped out of the car as spry as you please, and I thought I was in for a tongue lashing, but she just laughed and said, ‘Naughty, naughty, you shouldn’t try to beat a signal.’ ”

“What did you say?”

“I told her, ‘Naughty, naughty, you shouldn’t go through an intersection at forty miles an hour.’ ”

“Then what?”

“Oh, we took each other’s license numbers and exchanged cards, and a few people came up and gave advice, and then someone kept yelling to get the intersection cleaned up, and that was about all there was to it.”

“Make any settlement with her?”

“She never submitted a bill.”

“You didn’t submit a bill to her?”

“No, I kept waiting, thinking something might come of it. Then when nothing did... well, to tell you the truth, I had just about forgotten about it when the action was filed.”

“How much did the insurance company pay?”

“I don’t know as they’d like to have me tell.”

“Why not?”

“Well, it’s... well, it was a good round figure. Apparently she really had a spinal injury.”

“I’d like to know how much.”

He said, “I’ll tell you what I’ll do. I’ll ring up my insurance people tomorrow and ask them if there’s any objection. If there isn’t, I’ll telephone your office and let you know how much it was.”

“Will you tell me who carried your insurance?”

He smiled and shook his head. “I think I’ve told you about all I want to — going at it blind this way.”

I said, “It’s an interesting case.”

“What interests me,” Cullingdon said, “is what you’re investigating. Do you think there was something fishy about it?”

I said, “Don’t get that idea through your head. I might be just checking up on her general financial responsibility.”

“Oh, I see,” he said. “Well, I’ll tell you, Mr. Lam, unless she spent that money foolishly, she should be a pretty good credit risk for anything within reason. She got a mighty nice settlement out of the insurance company.”

“Thanks,” I told him. “You get in touch with them tomorrow, and give our office a ring and tell us how much it was — in case there’s no objection. Will you?”

“Okay, sure.”

We shook hands. I went down to the agency car and was just switching on the ignition when I saw another car pull up to the curb behind me and stop.

The young woman who got out of that car was a slender-waisted, smooth-hipped, easy moving package of class. I looked at her twice. Then I recognized her.

She was the girl who sold cigars and cigarettes at the Rimley Rendezvous.

I switched off the ignition on my car, lit a cigarette and waited.

It was about a five minute wait.

The girl came out, walking rapidly, pulled open the door of her car and jumped in.

I got out of my car and raised my hat with something of a flourish.

She waited while I walked over to stand beside the door of her car. “You have to have a license for that, you know,” I said.

“For what?”

“For acting as private detective.”

She flushed and said, “You certainly do get around, don’t you?”

“So so. Not half as much as I should have.”

“What do you mean by that?”

I said, “I’m a dumbbell when it comes to being a private dick.”

“Looking at it from my angle, you don’t seem to be dumb.”

“I am.”

“Just why?”

I said, “The county clerk’s office is closed now.”

“Well?”

I said, “I thought I was smart. I checked back on the Register of Actions, found where Irma Begley had been the plaintiff in a suit to recover damages from an automobile accident and thought I’d done something smart.”

“Hadn’t you?”

“No.”

“Why?”

“Because I quit.”

“I don’t get you.”

I said, “As soon as I found where she had been a plaintiff in one suit, I made a note of the name of the defendant, the attorneys for the plaintiff, and walked out.”

“What should you have done?”

“Kept on looking.”

“You mean...”

“Of course I do.” I grinned at her. “I’m hoping you weren’t as dumb.”

“Why?”

I said, “We can pool information and it will save me going to the county clerk’s office tomorrow.”

She said, “You’re smart, aren’t you?”

“I’m just telling you I’m dumb.”

She said, “There are four actions that I know of.”

“All under her own name?”

“Of course. She’s not crazy that way.”

“How did she really get the spinal injury?”

“I don’t know.”

“How long have you been checking on it?”

“I... Some little time.”

“Why?”

She said, “You ask a lot of questions, don’t you?”

I said, “Are you going to ride with me in my car? Am I going to ride with you in your car? Or have I got to follow you to see where you’re going and what you do next?”

She thought that over for a moment, then said, “If you’re going any place with me, you’re going in my car.”

I was careful to walk around the front of the car so she couldn’t start out without running over me, opened the door on the right-hand side, slid into the seat behind her, pulled the door shut, and said, “Okay, rive carefully because I’m always nervous with a strange driver.”

She hesitated for a matter of seconds, then accepted the situation. “Do you,” she asked bitterly, “always get what you start after?”

I smiled and said, “You’ll feel better if I say yes, won’t you?”

“I don’t give a damn what you say,” she said angrily.

“That simplifies it,” I told her, and kept quiet.

After a while she said, “Well, what do you want, and where are we going?”

“You’re driving the car,” I told her. “And I want to know all the answers.”

“Such as what?”

“What are your hours at the Rendezvous?”

She jerked her face around in surprise. The car wobbled on the road. She snapped her attention back to the car, said, “Well, of all the questions.”

I didn’t say anything.

She said, “I go on at twelve-fifteen. I’m supposed to be dressed, or undressed, whichever you want to call it, and on the floor by twelve-thirty. I work until four o’clock, then I come back at eight-thirty and work until midnight.”

“You know Mrs. Ellery Crail?”

“Of course.”

“Why the ‘of course?’ ”

“She’s there a great deal.”

“Do you know the man who was with her this afternoon?”

“Yes.”

“Now then,” I said, “we begin to get into the big money questions. Why were you interested in checking up on Mrs. Crail’s past?”

“Just as a matter of curiosity.”

“Your own curiosity, or the curiosity of someone else?”

“Mine.”

“Are you that curious about all people?”

“No.”

“Why this particular curiosity about Mrs. Crail?”

“I wondered about her — how she got her start.”

“We wouldn’t, by any chance, be going around in circles, would we?”

“What do you mean?”

“I asked you why you’re checking up on her. It’s curiosity. I asked you why the curiosity. You say it’s because you wondered how she got her start. All of those words mean just about the same thing. Let’s try some new meanings for a while.”

“I’m telling you the truth.”

“Sure you are. What I’m interested in is the reason back of the curiosity.”

She drove along for awhile apparently debating how much to tell me, then abruptly said, “What did you find out from Cullingdon?”

I said, “He wasn’t suspicious when I called on him. He was interested, and he was going to ring his insurance people and find out if it was all right to tell me the amount of the settlement. I suppose after you talked with him he thought things were coming pretty fast.”

“He did.”

“What did he tell you?”

“He asked me questions about where I lived, and what my name was, and why I wanted to know.”

“And you lied to him?”

“Oh, certainly. I told him I was a newspaper woman getting material for a feature story on certain types of automobile accidents.”

“And he asked you what paper?”

Her face colored. “Yes.”

“And then rang up the city desk?”

“How bright you are!”

“Did he?”

“Yes.”

“And that was when you walked out?”

She nodded.

I said, “Well, the fat’s in the fire now. If you hadn’t called there, it’s a ten to one shot he’d have called me, and told me the amount of...”

“What were you after?” she asked.

“The amount of the settlement.”

She made a little deprecatory gesture. “The amount of the settlement,” she said, “was seventeen thousand, eight hundred and seventy-five dollars.”

It was my turn to look surprised. “What were you after?”

“Copies of the X-rays of the injuries, of course.”

I thought for a minute, then said, “I beg your pardon.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have been so dumb. I had just learned about those other cases, and the full implications didn’t dawn on me at once. I guess my mind’s a little sluggish — a little out of practice.”

“What’ll the insurance company do?” she asked.

“They may start an independent check-up of their own.”

There was savage triumph on her face. “That wouldn’t make it so bad,” she said, and then added, “if they did it soon enough.”

I said, “You still haven’t accounted for your curiosity.”

“All right,” she said angrily, “in case you’re so damn dumb, which I don’t think you are, Mrs. Crail was about to purchase the Stanberry Building, buying out old Rufus Stanberry.”

I nodded.

“Well,” she said, “use your head.”

“You mean there’s something in Rimley’s lease about a purchase?”

“I believe so.”

“In case of a bona fide sale the lease is terminated?”

“Within ninety days.”

“And you’re working for Rimley — getting a line on her so her hands will be tied?”

“In a way, yes.”

“Just what’s your connection with Rimley?”

“Is that a crack?”

“If you want to take it that way, yes.”

She said, “Pittman Rimley is nothing to me, except in a business way, in case it’s any of your business, which it isn’t. But I own the hat-checking concession outright as well as the cigar, cigarette, and candy concessions.”

“Do you have to work at them yourself?” I asked.

“I don’t have to for financial reasons, if that’s what you mean, but when you’ve got a business it’s a lot better if you keep on the job yourself.”

“You don’t mind — the working conditions?”

“You mean the costume? Don’t be silly. I have nice legs. If other people like to look at them, it’s all right by me. I’m still the mistress of my own affections.”

“You mean that after she bought the building, Rimley would have to negotiate another lease and that would enable him to either terminate your concessions or raise the ante?”

“Something of that sort.”

“So Rimley knew about Irma Crail’s past and gave you the information and told you to look it up, is that right?”

She hesitated a moment, then said, “Let’s not talk about Rimley.”

I let it go at that. “You say that Irma Crail had pulled this stuff before?”

“Several times.”

“Where?”

“Once here, once in San Francisco, once in Nevada and once in Nebraska.”

“Using her own name each time? You’re sure of that?”

“Yes.”

“And how did you get this information?”

She shook her head.

I said, “All right, it’s a reasonable inference that Rimley gave it to you. Now, let’s go on from there. What was the name of this man you just called on?”

She frowned, “Covington.”

I shook my head. “Cullingdon.”

“Yes, that’s right.”

“You didn’t remember it very well, did you?”

“I’m not so good at remembering names.”

“In other words, you hadn’t been familiar with the name for a very long time.”

“What makes you say that?”

“Otherwise you’d have remembered it.”

“I’m just not much good at names.”

“Speaking of names?” I said and waited.

“You want my professional name or my real name?”

“Your real name,” I said.

“I thought you would.”

“Do I get it?”

“No.”

“What’s your professional name?”

“Billy Prue.” She switched on the headlights.

“Nice name,” I said. “It doesn’t mean anything.”

“Do names have to?”

“They should sound convincing.”

“What does that sound like?”

“It sounds like a professional name — a stage name.”

“Well, that’s what it is. Therefore, it should be convincing.”

“I suppose we could keep on arguing about that until you’d had sufficient opportunity to think up what you wanted to say about something else.”

“Will you be quiet? I want to think.”

“I thought that’s what you wanted to do.”

“All right, I do. I want to think something over.”

“Cigarette?” I asked.

“No. Not while I’m driving,” she added after a moment.

I settled down comfortably in the seat, cocked one elbow on the armrest and lit a cigarette.

We drove along for eight or ten blocks at almost a snail’s pace, then suddenly she stepped on it.

“Well, that’s something,” I said.

“What?”

“That you’ve decided where we’re going.”

“I knew that all along — where I am going.”

“Where’s that?”

“To my apartment and change my clothes.”

“And I take it the emphasis on the first person pronoun means that my ride terminates when we get to the apartment?”

“What did you want me to do,” she asked, “adopt you?”

I grinned.

“I don’t have any etchings if that’s what you mean.” I didn’t say anything.

She turned toward me, started to say something, checked herself and remained silent.

After four or five minutes, she eased the car into the curb. “It’s been nice knowing you.”

I said, “Don’t bother, I’ll wait.”

“You’ll have to wait a long time.”

“That’s all right.”

“What are you waiting for?”

“Waiting to hear why you were so curious about Mrs. Crail.”

“Well,” she blazed angrily. “Sit there and wait then!”

She flounced out of the car, walked around behind the machine, took keys from her purse, latchkeyed the door of an apartment house and went inside.

I was very careful not to turn my head, but by watching from the corner of my eye, I could see that she stopped after a few steps and remained standing there in the dimly lit lobby. She stood there for one minute — two minutes. Then she melted into the shadows and was gone.

Three minutes later and the door opened. A figure that clutched a knee-length fur coat tightly about her came running down the stairs toward the car.

I got out and started around politely to open the door.

Cold fingers grabbed my wrists. “Come,” she said in a hoarse whisper. “Please come — quick! Oh, my God!”

I started to ask her a question, then took another look at her face, changed my mind and plodded along behind without a word.

The door had clicked shut, but she had the latchkey in her right hand. Her left hand was clutching the coat about her.

She unlocked the door and walked through a lobby which was but little more than a wide place in a hallway, climbed three steps, walked down a carpeted corridor, entered an automatic elevator that wheezed and rattled up to the fourth floor.

She led the way down the corridor, paused before a door on the left. Once more her latchkey clicked back a lock and she pushed the door open. The lights were all on.

It was a three room apartment, if you classified a little kitchenette as a room. It was on the street side and cost money.

Her purse, gloves and the jacket she had been wearing, lay on the table in the entrance room. There was an ash tray on that table with a single cigarette about half smoked. Through an open doorway I glimpsed a bedroom, and on the bed saw the skirt and blouse she had been wearing.

She followed the direction of my eyes, said in a hoarse whisper, “I was just changing my clothes — getting ready to take a bath. I flung on the first thing I could find to cover me up.”

I looked again at the fur coat.

The left hand that was clutching it had puckered up a bit of the coat. Through it I could see the pink of satiny flesh.

“What’s the rest of it?” I asked.

Wordlessly she crossed over to the door of the bathroom, then hung back.

“Please,” she said, “you do it.”

I opened the door and looked inside.

The bathroom light was on.

The body of the man who had escorted Mrs. Ellery Crail to the Rimley Rendezvous that afternoon was in the bathtub, the knees high up against the chest, the head back against the sloping end of the bathtub, the eyes about two-thirds closed, the lower jaw hanging limp leaving the mouth partially open.

Telling the girl to keep back out of the way and reaching for the lifeless wrist was only a mere formality.

Rufus Stanberry’s heart was as still as a churchyard on a frosty morning.

Even in death, however, he had that shrewdly calculating leer on his face. The man might have been making an audit of eternity.

“He’s... dead?” she asked from the doorway.

“He’s dead,” I said.