Give ’Em the Ax

7

The two officers from the radio prowl car who got there first to hold things in line until Homicide could arrive asked only a few sketchy questions. Then Homicide showed up and we told our stories. Nothing else happened for about an hour, then Sergeant Frank Sellers came strolling in, his hat on the back of his head, a soggy cigar half chewed to ribbons in the side of his mouth.

“Hello, Donald,” he said. “Damn glad to see you’re back.”

We shook hands. I introduced him to the girl.

They’d taken our stories down in shorthand. Sellers had evidently had a transcript and familiarized himself with it before he arrived on the scene.

He said, “Too bad that you had to come back and stick your nose into a murder case first rattle out of the box, Lam. As I gather it, you’re working on a case?”

He jerked his head toward Billy Prue. “Business or social?”

“Confidentially it’s a little of both. That’s not for the press — and it’s not for Bertha.”

He looked Billy Prue over, said, “Now, as I understand it, she parked her car down in front and went up to change her clothes.”

“That’s right,” she said in a low voice.

“You two were going out to dinner?”

I nodded.

“She didn’t know you well enough to invite you in,” Sellers said, “and she didn’t want to keep you waiting very long, so she was in a hurry?”

Billy Prue said, with a nervous little laugh, “I was undressing almost before I’d got through the door. I started for the bathroom and... and found that.”

“What did you do with your keys when you came in?” Sellers asked casually.

“Put them in my purse,” she said, “and dropped the purse on the table.”

“And when you ran out, what did you do — take the keys out of the purse?”

She met his eyes steadily. “Certainly not. I grabbed up the whole purse, tucked it under my arm and dashed out of the place. Then after I got Donald to come back with me, I opened my purse, took out my keys and unlocked the door.”

Sergeant Sellers heaved a weary sigh. “Well, folks, I guess that’s all. We may want to ask you some more questions later on. Guess you can go on out to dinner now.”

“Thanks,” I told him.

“How’s Bertha these days?”

“Seems to be the same as ever,” I said.

“Haven’t seen her for a while. Well, now that you’re back, I may see her more frequently.”

His grin was maliciously significant.

Billy Prue asked, “Are the... are the police through here?”

“Not yet,” Sellers said. “Don’t worry, everything will be all right. You’ve got your keys, haven’t you?”

“Yes.”

“All right, run along to dinner and have a good time.”

Sergeant Sellers stayed in the apartment, watched us from the doorway as we walked down the corridor to the automatic elevator.

“Well,” Billy Prue said with a sigh as we entered the elevator, “that’s that.”

I pushed the button for the ground floor. “No talking,” I warned.

The elevator rattled to a stop. A plain-clothes man on guard in the lower corridor passed us through with a nod. There was a uniformed officer on duty at the doorway. Billy Prue’s car was parked where we had left it. There was white dust on the steering wheel and the door catches where the police had gone over it for fingerprints. Aside from that, it was exactly as we had left it.

Without a word, I opened the door of the car. She got in with a swift all-of-a-sudden grace and with, a twist of her supple body, adjusted herself behind the steering wheel. I slid in the seat beside her and slammed the door shut.

We moved away from the curb.

“All right, sucker,” she said.

I didn’t say anything.

“You stuck your neck out,” she said. “You’re in it as deep as I am now, and you’ve got nothing further on me. You can’t say a word without getting yourself in bad.”

“So what?”

“So,” she said, “I do you the extreme courtesy of taking you back to where you left your automobile — that is, if you’re nice. Otherwise, I’d dump you out on the street.”

“Rather a hard-boiled attitude when I’ve stuck my neck out to help you, isn’t it?”

“That,” she said, “is what you get for being a sucker.”

I leaned back against the cushions, took a cigarette package from my pocket, shook out one. “Cigarette?” I asked.

“Not while I’m driving.”

I lit one and smoked, watching her profile.

Her eyes blinked rapidly two or three times. Then I saw a tear come out and trickle down her cheek.

“What’s the matter?” I asked.

She drove the car with a certain savage carelessness at an increasing speed.

“Nothing.”

I kept on smoking.

She turned a corner. I saw we were headed for the Stanberry Building and apparently the Rimley Rendezvous.

“Change your mind about taking me back to where my car is?”

“Yes.”

“Why are you crying?”

She pulled into the curb, slammed the car to a stop, groped in her purse, pulled out some cleansing tissue and wiped her eyes. “You make me so damn mad,” she said.

“Why?”

“I wanted to see what you’d do. I pulled that gag on you that you’d been a sucker just to see what happened.”

“Well?”

“Nothing happened, damn you. You took it for granted that I was right. You thought I was the kind that would do a trick like that, didn’t you?”

“That’s what you said.”

“You should have known I was trying to get a rise out of you.”

I watched her clean up the traces of her tears. “I’d kill myself before I’d do anything like that for a man who befriended me. Darn few of them have ever taken the trouble, unless they wanted something very obviously and very immediately.”

I still didn’t say anything.

She flashed me one look still hot with hurt and anger. Then she snapped her purse shut, adjusted herself in the driver’s seat with a quick angry flounce and started driving again.

We stopped in front of the Stanberry Building.

I said, “Pittman Rimley doesn’t like me.”

“You don’t need to go in. I’ve got to report. You can wait here.”

“And then?”

“Then I’ll drive you out to where you left your car.”

I thought that over. “Going to tell Rimley I was with you when you notified the police?”

“Yes. I’ll have to do that.”

I said, “Go on up. I’ll wait if it isn’t too long. If it is, I’ll grab a cab. Better lock your car just in case.”

She looked at me sharply, then locked the ignition. “Some day,” she warned, “I’m going to jar you out of that detached, don’t-give-a-damn pose.”

I waited until she was inside, then got out and looked for a taxi. If I’d been parking in a taxi zone one would have whizzed up inside of ten seconds. As it was, I waited ten minutes, then started walking down the avenue. I’d gone five blocks before I found one.

I got in, gave the address of Cullingdon’s place where I’d left the agency car. I paid off the cab, started the agency heap, and drove to the office — fast.

The office was dark when I arrived.

I called Bertha’s apartment. She didn’t answer. I sat down in the dark to do a little thinking.

After about ten minutes, I heard the pound of heavy steps in the corridor. A latchkey jabbed the door. The lock clicked back, and Bertha Cool flung the door open.

“Where the hell have you been?” she asked.

“Places.”

She glowered at me.

“Had dinner?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“I haven’t.”

Bertha heaved herself into a chair. “When it comes time to eat, I eat. I’ve got a big dynamo running and it takes fuel to keep it going.”

I shook the last cigarette out of the package, crumpled it, and dropped it in the ash tray.

“Well, we’ve run slap bang into a murder case.”

“A murder!”

I nodded.

Bertha said, “Who was bumped off?”

“Rufus Stanberry.”

“Where? How? Why?”

I said, “The place was the apartment of the cigarette girl who works at the Rimley Rendezvous. Her stage name is Billy Prue. As to the how, the process was very primitive and very simple. It consisted of hitting the man a very hard blow on the temple. It’s the why that complicates things.”

“Well, what’s your best guess?”

“Either the man knew too much, or...”

“Or what?” Bertha snapped as I paused. “Go ahead.”

“Or,” I said, “he knew too little.”

Bertha glowered at me. “Just like one of those news commentators,” she snorted. “You state the perfectly obvious, so it sounds profound as hell.”

I devoted my attention to smoking.

After a minute Bertha said, “You do get the agency in the damnedest things.”

“I didn’t get the agency into it,” I said.

“You may think you didn’t, but you did, just the same. I’d have handled this case, and it would have turned out to be nothing beyond the little routine job of checking back on a woman’s record, finding nothing that would have been of any benefit to our client, and...”

“The minute you started to check,” I said, “you’d have found something that would have been of the greatest interest to our client — something about Mrs. Crail.”

“What?”

I said, “She’s a professional malingerer.”

“What have you got on her?”

“Some of it’s hearsay. There’s a case of Begley versus Cullingdon. Going back a while before that, I understand there are other cases in San Francisco and in Nevada.”

“Fakes or injuries?” Bertha asked.

“No, that fake stuff is too risky. She suffered an injury all right, probably in the first accident, found out how easy it was to collect and decided it was easier than working for a living. She’d wait for an opportunity to have just the right sort of accident, one where she didn’t stand too much chance of getting busted up. She could tell the insurance company representative very bravely that she had just been shaken up a little; that she didn’t want a cent — goodness no! It wasn’t her fault, of course, but her injuries weren’t enough to bother about. Then after the lapse of a few months, she’d go to a doctor and complain of symptoms, then recall she’d been in an automobile accident, although she’d almost forgotten about it. The doctor would send her to a lawyer, then there’d be a great hubbub. It would seem that she’d suffered a spinal injury and thought at the time she’d just jarred a rib loose and it would heal right up.”

“Couldn’t they catch her at it?”

“Not very well. She’d wait until just before the expiration of the statute of limitations before she’d file suit. X-rays would show she had an injury. She’s an attractive girl. She could do things in front of a jury. Insurance companies would settle. Cosgate & Glimson handled her last case.”

“Why did she quit it?”

“Because it got too risky. She’d done it several times, and insurance companies have a way of comparing notes on those things. In all probability, she didn’t intend to use the same racket to get herself a husband because, obviously, she couldn’t tell by the way a man was driving a car whether he’d make a good matrimonial catch. But when she had this accident with Crail’s car... well, it developed Crail was a good matrimonial catch, so she did her stuff.”

Bertha said, “Well, we’ve done two hundred dollars worth of work for our client. Stall around for a couple of days picking up the record on these other cases, then we’ll put the information in the hands of Miss Georgia Rushe and let her handle Mrs. Crail any way she damn pleases. We’ll just check out of it and keep from getting mixed up in that murder. You aren’t mixed up in it, are you, lover?”

“No.”

“I’m beginning to think you are.”

“What makes you think so?”

“The way you say you aren’t. Is there a girl in it?”

“Not in it. He was found in this girl’s apartment.”

“You say it was the cigarette girl?”

“Yes.”

“The one who sold you three packages of cigarettes?”

“That’s right.”

“Humph,” Bertha said, then suddenly swung her head around to let her eyes glitter into mine. “Legs?”

“Naturally.”

“I mean pretty?”

“Very.”

“Humph,” Bertha said, then after a moment added, “Now you listen to me, Donald Lam, you keep out of this, and...”

Knuckles sounded on the door of the office.

I said to Bertha, “Call out through the door that you’re closed up.”

Bertha said, “Don’t be silly. Perhaps it’s a client with money.”

I said, “I can see her outline through the frosted glass. It’s a woman.”

“All right, then, perhaps it’s a woman with money.”

Bertha marched across to the door, shot back the bolt and pulled the door open.

A young woman on the threshold smiled up at Bertha.

She looked like a million dollars net with a fur coat and a big collar that came up to frame her face. She carried her own Dun & Bradstreet rating on her back, the sort of client who can really finance an investigation.

Bertha Cool’s manner melted like a chocolate bar in a kid’s fist. “Come in,” she said, “come in! We’re closed, but since you’ve taken the trouble to come up here, we’ll see you.”

“May I ask your name, please?” our visitor asked Bertha.

I could see Bertha looking at the girl with a slight frown as though she might have seen her before, or was trying to place her.

“I’m Bertha Cool,” Bertha said, “one of the partners in this agency, and this is Donald Lam, the other partner. Now you’re Miss... Miss... Miss...”

“Witson,” the young woman beamed. “Miss Esther Witson.”

“Oh yes,” Bertha said.

“I wanted to talk with you, Mrs. Cool, about...”

“Go ahead,” Bertha said, “talk right here. Mr. Lam and myself are at your service. Anything we can do for you...”

Miss Witson turned large blue eyes at me. Her lips slid back along prominent teeth to show how pleased she was.

Bertha recognized her then. “Fry me for an oyster!” Bertha exclaimed. “You’re the woman who was driving the automobile.”

“Why, yes, Mrs. Cool, I thought you knew. I had quite a time finding you. You remember you gave the name of Boskovitche.” And Miss Witson threw back her head and let the light gleam on a whole mouthful of horse teeth.

Bertha looked at me with an expression of trapped, exasperated helplessness on her face.

“There’s some dispute about responsibility for the accident is there, Miss Witson?” I asked.

She said, “That’s a mild way of expressing it.”

“No serious damages, are there?” Bertha chimed in.

“That’s a mild way of describing it.”

“Just what do you mean?” Bertha demanded.

She said, “The other car was driven by a Mr. Rolland B. Lidfield. His wife was riding in the car with him.”

“But the cars weren’t badly damaged, were they?”

“It isn’t the cars,” Miss Witson explained. “It’s Mrs. Lidfield. She claims she suffered a severe nervous shock and she’s placed herself in the hands of her physician, leaving her husband to do the talking for her — her husband and her lawyers.”

“Lawyers!” Bertha exclaimed. “So soon!”

“A firm of attorneys who specialize in that sort of thing, I understand — Cosgate & Glimson. The doctor got them.”

I glanced at Bertha to see if the name registered.

It didn’t.

“Cosgate and — what was that other name?” I asked.

“Cosgate & Glimson.”

I glanced at Bertha, slowly closed my left eye.

“Humph!” Bertha said.

“I wanted you to help me out, Mrs. Cool.”

“In what way?”

“Telling what happened.”

“It was just another automobile smashup,” Bertha said, glancing uneasily at me.

“But you know that I was driving very slowly; that I was behind your car for two or three blocks; that you slowed down almost to a snail’s pace and I went around you...”

“I don’t know any such thing,” Bertha said.

“And,” Miss Witson went on triumphantly, “you tried to get out of it by giving an assumed name when we wanted you as a witness. That won’t do you any good, Mrs. Cool, because I took down the number of your car. And I guess the only reason I did that is because I saw Mr. Lidfield writing down the numbers of all the cars that were near by. So they’ll call you for a witness anyway, which, after all, Mrs. Cool, means that you’ll have to take one side or the other. You’ll have to make up your mind which car was in the wrong.”

Bertha said, “There’s nothing for me to make up my mind about. I don’t have to take sides with anyone.”

“There were some other witnesses?” I asked Miss Witson.

“Oh, yes.”

“Who were they?”

“Lots of them. A Mr. Stanberry, a Mrs. Crail, two or three others.”

I said to Bertha, “That would make it very, very interesting — hearing what Mrs. Crail would have to say on the witness stand about that.”

Bertha’s jaw pushed forward. She said, “Well, I can tell you one thing. The car that whipped around to the left was going like a bat out of hell. He saw that Stanberry’s car was going to turn to the left, so he thought there was a chance for him to cut his own car sharp to the left and go through all the other traffic.”

Miss Witson nodded and said, “I had the right of way on him. I was the first one in the intersection. I was on his right, and he was coming from my left, so I had every right to keep right on going — the right of way, you know.”

Bertha nodded.

“And,” Miss Witson went on triumphantly, “I didn’t hit him at all. He’s the one who hit me. You can see from the marks on the car that he ran right smack into me.”

Bertha was suddenly friendly. “All right, Dearie. I wouldn’t worry about it if I were you. The man was speeding across an intersection, and Mrs. Lidfield sounds to me like a gold digger.”

Esther Witson impulsively gave Mrs. Cool her hand. “I’m so glad you feel that way about it, Mrs. Cool, and you don’t need to worry about the time you put in being a witness. Of course, I can’t make any promise, because that would look as though I were trying to buy your testimony. But I realize that you’re a professional woman and that if this is going to take some of your time well...” She smiled sweetly. “You know, I always try to be very fair in my business deals.”

“Don’t you,” I asked abruptly, “carry insurance?”

Miss Witson laughed. “I thought I did, but it seems I didn’t. I guess I was a little careless about that. Well, thank you ever so much, Mrs. Cool, and you can rest assured that... Well, you know, I can’t say anything, but...”

She smiled significantly and wished us a good night.

Bertha sniffed the air. “That perfume,” she said, “costs about fifty bucks an ounce. And did you notice that mink coat? That’s what you have to do in a detective business, Donald darling. You have to establish contacts, particularly among the wealthy.”

I said, “I thought you told me she was a buck-toothed pop-eyed little bitch who...”

“She looks a lot different now,” Bertha said with dignity.