Manhunt. Volume 1, Number 6, June, 1953

The Double Frame by Harold Q. Masur

I spent four hours with Lucille Gilian and never made a pass at her. It took a bit of doing. I had to keep a tight lid on my impulses, which must have been a novel experience for a woman with her assets. Those assets made her as solvent as the Federal Reserve Bank.

She was a tall, sleek, graceful creature, with ebony hair piled high over a pale forehead and coal black eyes rimmed inside a fringe of curled lashes. Her face was oval, her smile provocative, the movements of her body a little wicked. It was a pleasant evening. She knew how to dance and how to talk.

So long as men are motivated by glands and hormones, Lucille Gilian would never have to stand in a bread line. Not for a long time, anyway.

I didn’t touch her because one, she was already married, even though she and her husband were estranged, and two, she was a prospective client.

At midnight I drove her home. It was a tall apartment on Gracic Square. Light from a street lamp reflected in her eyes as she turned toward me. “Nightcap, Scott? One for the road?”

“Some other time,” I said. “How about a rain check?”

“All right.” She sounded disappointed. “But it's settled. You’ll handle my case.”

“We’ll talk about it,” I said.

She pouted. “Aren’t you going to take me to the elevator?”

“Sure.” I got out, went around, and opened the door for her. She linked her arm familiarly inside mine while I convoyed her into the lobby. I pushed the button. As I did so, I noticed a man standing in the shadows, but didn’t give it much thought.

In a low voice, half whisper, Lucille said, “Good night, Scott.”

She had moved around and was standing in front of me, very close. Her chin was tilted, her eyelids at half mast, her lips slightly parted, full and shining. It was an invitation no gentleman of breeding with red blood flowing in his veins is likely to reject. I had a little breeding and plenty of red blood and besides, I didn't want to hurt her feelings. So I reached out and gathered her in and performed on schedule.

My idea was to kiss her once, perfunctorily, and let go. Her idea was something else. She was a good technician and she took hold of me, her body up close, her mouth hungry and searching. My resolutions dissolved and I started to respond.

So the guy came out of the shadows and dropped his paw on my shoulder. His fingers dug in like the jaws of a steam shovel. A Mack truck couldn’t have spun me around with more ease. His left hand stayed on my shoulder while his right hand made an enormous fist.

A meteor swam out of nowhere and exploded in my face.

There was a roaring in my ears. My brain seemed to be sloshing around as if it were loosely anchored inside my skull. Pain knifed all the way down from the side of my chin to the heels of my feet. My knees buckled and only the hand on my shoulder kept me perpendicular. I heard his voice from a distance.

“You dirty, conniving little shyster! I ought to ram the two of you down each other’s throats.”

Lucille was crouching back against the elevator door, her knuckles plugged into her mouth, muffling a cry.

My eyes cleared and I saw him towering over me. Max Gilian, Lucille’s husband, one day out of prison on parole. A big man, Max, heavy-jawed and barrel-chested, his mouth cast in cement, unsmiling and unpleasant, bitter and grim. There was a kind of savagery in his baleful eyes. He was under a full head of steam, as if the pressure inside was too much to contain.

“Let go, Max,” I said. “It’s my fault. I made a pass. Lucille had nothing to do with it.”

The elevator door slid soundlessly open. Lucille cowered back into it, her fingers pawing frantically at the buttons. The door closed and the cab shot upward. Max released my shoulder.

I knew what ailed him, I thought. Their estrangement had left him emotionally crippled. It’s not easy being locked behind bars with memories of a woman like Lucille. A lesser man might have cracked.

But I was wrong.

“The hell with her!” he said. “It’s you I’m after.”

The gun was small, swallowed up in his huge fist. He produced it with a swift economy of motion. It prodded me ungently in the ribs.

“Outside,” he said. “Into your car. Let’s go, Jordan.”

I obeyed. You don’t argue with a loaded gun. He sat beside me in the Buick, teeth clenched, lips flat and white.

“Where to?” I asked.

“My place.” His tone was brief and curt. He didn’t feel like talking.

I said, “If they catch you with that gun, Max, you’ll go back up the river to finish your sentence. Put it away. Or better still, throw it away.”

“Shut up,” he said. “And drive. I may have to use the gun.”

I drove to the Belmore. Max had taken a suite on the fifth floor. The gun was back in his pocket when we crossed the lobby. I was thinking better now and I had a pretty good idea what was eating him. He opened the door and nudged me inside.

The light was burning and he had company. A man was seated on the sofa, smoking a long thin Havana cigar. Apparently he’d been waiting for us to get back.

Paul Hadley, attorney and counselor-at-law. An expert at probing contractual loopholes and interlocking corporations, with a good brain that knew how to get down to essentials. A slender man, dapper and impeccable, with a high scholarly forehead, intelligent eyes, a precise mouth, and the confident air of a man who knew what he wanted out of life and had the ability to get it.

I knew Hadley professionally. He was Max’s lawyer. He had handled all of Max’s problems, except when they nailed Max two years ago as one of the big wheels behind the bookmaking parlors. Then Hadley had called me in. He’d never had much experience in the criminal courts and he figured I’d be able to do more for Max than he could.

I tried. Every man is entitled to his day in court. I fought hard enough. I used every legal stratagem provided by the law and some that weren’t, to no avail. Max was guilty and they had the evidence to prove it and the jury shipped him over.

That was that.

Now he was out on parole.

“I found him,” Max said. “You were right.”

Hadley looked at me and shook his head.

Max reached out suddenly and grabbed hold of my lapels. He twisted them into a knot and lifted me six inches off the floor. I weigh a hundred and eighty pounds, and I’m six feet tall, yet my toes were actually dangling in the air.

Max’s growl became words. The words grated harshly. “Where are they, Jordan? Where did you hide them?”

“Cut it out, Max. What are you talking about?”

He loosened his grip and I landed heavily on the floor. The slip of paper he took out of his pocket was a telephone message from the hotel on a standard form. He read aloud:

“The box was empty. Jordan.”

His eyes burned at me. “I had two hundred grand in that box. Negotiable securities, bonds and stocks. What the hell do you mean, empty.”

I said, “Take it easy, Max. Slow down before you split a seam. And listen to me before you go off half-cocked. I tried to reach you on the phone, but you were out. That’s why I left the message.”

“It’s a lie—”

“No, it isn’t, Max. Let me state it simply. You’re out on parole. You’re not allowed to leave the state. You have a safe deposit box in Newark. You gave me a power of attorney to open the box and bring you the contents. You did that because Hadley here was tied up and couldn’t get away. And also because you trusted me. I’m a lawyer, Max. I wouldn’t violate that trust, not if—”

“So all lawyers are honest,” he said, bitterly.

“I never said that. This lawyer is, though. Your box was empty when I opened it, Max. Cleaned out. But not by me. Hell, if I had pulled a caper like that, I wouldn’t be here telling you about it. I’d be in Mexico somewhere, probably in Acapulco, soaking up the sun. Look at me, Max. Do I look like a pinhead? Do you honestly think I went south with your securities?”

His eyes kept burning at me through horizontal slits. He was considering possibilities. If he ever concluded with certainty that I had actually double-crossed him, payments on my insurance policy were going to fall due at once.

He was silent for a moment. Then he shook his head violently. “Two hundred grand. Down the drain.” He wheeled suddenly and faced Hadley. “What do you make of it, Paul?”

Hadley was frowning. He lifted his shoulders and let them drop. “Beats me. Never heard of such a thing, Max. Can’t imagine how anybody could empty out your box.”

“How about Jordan here?”

“Oh, come now, Max. You’ve got to believe his story. Whatever he might or might not do, this is one stunt he wouldn’t dare to pull.”

Max Gilian swung around. His neck inched out of his collar. A slow surge of blood congested the veins in his face. His voice was deliberate. “What were you doing with Lucille tonight? What cooks between you two?”

“Absolutely nothing, Max. Believe me. I met Lucille for the first time while I was defending you. She came to court every day during your trial and sat in the front row. After you were convicted and sent up, I didn’t see her again until this evening. She called my office today. I found the message when I came back from Newark late this afternoon. She said she wanted to see me. I thought it might be something about your safe deposit box. I went to her apartment. It was late and I took her to dinner.”

“What did she want?”

“A divorce, Max. She said she was no longer satisfied with a separation. She asked me to handle the case.”

His eyes were dark, the pupils contracted. “You work pretty fast, don’t you, counselor?”

“You mean because you saw me kissing her? It doesn’t mean a thing. A man kisses a woman good-night, what the hell, Max, there’s nothing to it.”

The tight line of his mouth loosened. His shoulders sagged. He looked parched and empty.

“Yeah,” he said, his tone suddenly listless. “I know. I was watching.” He started to pace slowly around the room. Then he stood looking out the window for a long moment. Hadley met my eyes and gestured helplessly. After a while Max Gilian turned and came over to me.

“They tell me you know how to find things out, Jordan. Any truth in it?”

“Some.”

“Find out who took that dough. Come to me and tell me about it. I’ll get it back and I’ll cut you in.”

“Twenty-five percent, Max.”

“Agreed.”

“You heard him, Hadley.”

“I did,” he said.

“Good enough. Bankers are a close-mouthed bunch of individuals, Max. I’ll need an authorization giving me the right to investigate.”

He pointed at the desk. “Write it out.”

I sat down and found a piece of hotel stationery. Five minutes later I handed him the pen. His fingers shook a little when he signed. He was trembling from impotence and frustration.

“Take it easy, Max,” I said. “Don't burn yourself out.”

He demonstrated his vocabulary. He knew most of the words and he spoke them with feeling. He was still going strong when I walked through the door.

Banks arc closed at night. There was nothing I could do until morning. I went home and got some sleep.

Max Gilian operated outside the law. At any time he might be the subject of an investigation. I suppose that was one of the reasons he had studded his safe deposit boxes in neighboring cities, easily accessible to Manhattan. I knew that he had several in Connecticut and one in White Plains. The Newark box was in the heart of the business district.

I stood outside the Merchant’s Trust, a squat box of granite, solid and functional, large and impersonal, with bronze doors and an armed guard and tellers behind cages. Inside everything was neat and antiseptic. A great business, banking. You let them hold your money at two and one half percent and they lend it out for six. How can they lose?

The armed guard referred me to a man seated at a desk behind the rail. His name, according to the placard, was Ambrose George. Calm and sober and unhurried, the executive type, with one eyebrow perpetually higher than the other.

He listened to my recital and now both eyebrows were high. First he looked incredulous, then he looked patronizing. “Well, now,” he said, “look here. All this is quite impossible. Nobody can get at a safe deposit vault but the legal box-holder. It simply can’t be done.”

“Sure,” I said. “Theoretically. Let’s check the records.”

He reached for the interphone, touched a buzzer, and held a brief conference with the mouthpiece. Then he sat back to wait. He looked at me for a while and then he shifted his focus to the ceiling and drummed his fingers on the desk. He was hoping he could prove his point and I was hoping I could prove mine.

We didn’t have long to wait. A tall thin junior executive appeared with a slip of paper and a card. Mr. Ambrose George held one above the other, studied them, compared them, and a slow smile of satisfaction moved his lips.

“Here it is, counselor. Max Gilian visited the bank six months ago and spent ten minutes in a private room with his box. He signed in on this slip of paper. You can compare his signature with the original card he signed when he leased the box.”

He laid them in front of me, side by side. I am not an examiner of questioned documents, which is the technical name for a handwriting expert. But those two signatures were close enough to fool anybody without a microscope.

“It looks genuine,” I said.

“Exactly.” He was very smug.

“Except for one thing.”

He looked at me sharply. “What’s that?”

“Max Gilian was in Sing Sing prison six months ago.”

Mr. Ambrose George stopped looking smug. The smile dissolved from his mouth and his jaw went perpendicular. He was not at all happy. His chair had suddenly become very uncomfortable and he squirmed around, shifting his center of gravity. His Adam’s apple made a slow and painful round trip. This was precisely the sort of thing that banks constantly dreaded.

He regarded me warily. “You can prove this?” he asked anxiously.

“Absolutely.”

He threw his hands up. “I can't understand it. I’d swear those two signatures are identical. I... I’m afraid I don’t know what to say.”

“How about the attendant who was in charge of the vault at the time?”

He referred to the slip of paper. “Kevin Graham.”

“Can I speak to him?”

“Mr. Graham is no longer employed by the bank.”

I raised one eyebrow. “Fired?”

Ambrose George had suddenly become very much interested in my necktie. “Graham resigned about four months ago.” He was deliberately avoiding my gaze.

“Can you tell me where he lives?” I asked.

He hesitated. “Well, now...”

“It may help us to avoid unpleasant publicity.”

He reached for the phone again and spoke into the mouthpiece. He cradled the instrument and picked up a pencil and wrote out an address for me. I stood up and straightened my hat.

“I imagine this thing can be worked out somehow,” I said.

His nod was vague and committed the bank to nothing. He was staring thoughtfully into space when I left his bottom lip bulging behind his tongue.

Kevin Graham’s address could have been one block away for all I knew. I’m a stranger in Newark, so I took a cab. It was a disconcerting experience. They had bumped the rates and needled the clocks. I watched the meter tick my nickels away until the cab stopped on the outskirts of town.

It was a small frame house, well tended, recently painted, with a neat garden. I moved up the walk and I saw the black crepe hanging from the door and I had a premonition. The shades were drawn, but I could hear the quiet rumble of voices. I removed my hat and knocked.

The door opened and a blade-thin man with a long somber face looked out at me. He smiled tentatively. “How do you do,” he said. “Come in.”

I followed him through a foyer into the living room. A coffin sat upon a wheeled stand in the center of the room. The lid was drawn back. I saw the dead face of a man in his fifties, with shrunken temples and mortician’s rouge on the flat cheeks. The face meant nothing to me. I had never seen the man before.

About ten people, mostly men, were deployed around the body on folding chairs. There was silence while they stared at me incuriously for a moment, and then they continued to converse in low tones.

I was attending a wake.

The man beside me pulled out a plug of tobacco, bit off a chunk, started to put it away, reconsidered, and offered me some. I shook my head. He regarded me along the side of his nose curiously.

“You from the bank?” he asked.

“Not exactly,” I said.

“Friend of Kevin’s?”

I nodded sadly.

“Tough,” he said. “I hope they catch the hit-and-run driver that nailed him.” He shook his head. “Poor Kevin. He was carrying a bit of a load and he never seen them headlights. Plunk! Clouted him into the right field bleachers.”

He pulled a flat pint of Irish from his pocket, coupled it to his main intake, and irrigated his throat. He shoved the bottle at me. “Shot of whiskey, mister?”

I accepted the offer. Drinking with a man is the best way to gain his confidence. One small swallow was enough. It must have been distilled from old dynamite and I felt like an amateur sword swallower. The mumble of voices continued around us. Smoke hung like a disembodied cloud over the corpse. The room was nicely furnished. A thirty inch television set stood in one corner and the floor was soft with broad-loom.

“Where did the accident happen?” I asked.

My informant wiped his lips, recapped the bottle, and tucked it away. “Right outside. Not ten feet from his own front yard.” He heaved a melancholy sigh. “Hell of a way for a fightin’ Irishman to go. And so soon after he came into a bit of money.”

“Money?”

“From his Aunt Emily, saints preserve her, who passed away in the old country.”

I looked properly respectful. “When was that?”

“ ’Bout five — six months ago.”

“How’s the family taking it?”

No answer. He hesitated. He peered at me sharply, suddenly remote, suspicion incubating in his eyes. “You ask a lot of questions, friend. You a cop?”

“Me?” I put my back up as if I’d been insulted. I pointed to my feet. “Do I look like a cop?” A double wrinkle of doubt appeared over his nose. I said, “It’s just that I didn’t know Kevin very well. I met him in the tavern a couple of times and we knocked off a few together.”

That reminded him and he got out his bottle and took a long pull. I had one too. What my stomach needed was a special lining installed by the Bethlehem Steel Company. My informant produced a handkerchief and blew his nose violently.

“Ah,” he murmured, “poor Kevin. No family at all. Nobody but his friends to mourn for him.”

I nodded sympathetically. After a moment I stood up and paid my last respects. Then I departed.

Fifteen minutes passed before I could flush a cab out there in the suburbs. The cab took me to the railroad station and I ran for a train. Rattling along under the Hudson River I thought: Like hell it was an accident. Somebody pointed an automobile straight at Kevin Graham and gunned the engine.

This was a driver who really had a motive to run.

I concentrated. I took the known facts and weighed them against probabilities. I sifted and speculated and added an inference or two, and the case began to shape up. If only I could fill in one or two little pieces.

The scheme was a beaut, conjured with imagination and daringly executed.

The train took me to Manhattan. I got out of Penn Station at 33rd Street and went straight to Gracie Square. There was a doorman on duty this time. He performed and I went through. The elevator took me up to Lucille Gilian’s apartment and I rang the bell. I rang it long and hard.

She wasn’t home.

I extracted two ten dollar bills from my wallet on the way down. I tapped on the pane of glass and beckoned to the doorman and he joined me in the lobby. I fanned out the bills and hung them under his nose. He maintained a calm front, but his eyes were greedy.

“A bonus,” I said.

“Yes, sir.”

“Easily earned.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Will you answer a few questions?”

He was willing. Money is the best tongue loosener I know. I pumped him about Lucille Gilian and he came up with answers. She was a mighty fine lady. Didn’t skate around with a lot of men at all. Concentrated mostly on one boy friend, a fine-looking gentleman. The doorman had used his eyes and he gave me a good description.

It fitted. Perfectly.

I tucked the double sawbuck into his breast pocket and walked out. There was a drug store on the corner. I went in and patronized the telephone booth. The switchboard operator at Max Gilian’s hotel put me through.

“How do you feel, Max?” I asked.

“Lousy. Did you find my two hundred grand?”

“Not exactly, but we may be able to salvage a big piece of it. Can you meet me?”

“Where?”

“At Hadley’s office.”

“What for?”

“He’s your lawyer, isn’t he, Max? What did you do with that gun?”

“Why?”

“Get rid of it. You’re on parole, remember?”

He made a suggestion, which I ignored, and told me he was leaving at once.

Hadley’s practice required a lot of front. His office was furnished expensively and with taste. The most decorative item, however, had not been manufactured in Grand Rapids. She sat behind a desk in the reception room, a voltage redhead built like the proverbial structure behind the farmhouse, tall, generously equipped, with sultry eyes in a petulant face. Quite a girl.

Yes, Mr. Hadley was in. She announced Max Gilian’s name and got us the green light. He was standing behind his desk when we trooped in, competent, debonaire, smiling.

He got us seated and produced smokes. Then he settled back in his foam-cushioned, leather-upholstered, posture-fitting chair and put his precise eyes straight at me.

“Well, Jordan,” he said, “I assume you have a report to make.”

“I sure have.”

He glanced approvingly at Gilian. “What did I tell you, Max. No grass growing under Jordan’s feet. I knew he’d get results. All right, counselor, let’s have it.”

Max was leaning forward, his heavy jaw tight, his eyes intent.

I said, “Okay,” and took a deep breath and crossed my fingers. “Here’s what happened. Somebody forged Max’s name at the Newark bank and got into his safe deposit box. The forgery was perfect, traced from a genuine copy of Max’s signature directly onto one of the bank’s official requisition slips.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Max growled.

Hadley was frowning. “I don’t understand. Those forms are signed in the presence of the attendant. How could anybody get away with it?”

“Collusion,” I said. “The attendant was reached. Somebody worked on him, showed him how it could be done, promised him a cut of the take, probably paid him in advance. The attendant was tractable. Here was a chance to make more money in one lump sum than he could ever hope to save in a lifetime. He decided to take a chance and he went along with the scheme.”

Gilian’s fists were huge and tight on his knees. He mangled the cigar between clenched teeth. His voice was harsh. “Who is this attendant? What’s his name? Where can I reach him?”

“It’s too late,” I said. “He’s dead.”

Max opened his eyes.

“He got it last night,” I said. “Hit-and-run driver. They think it was an accident. I know better. He was killed. Someone who knew his habits was parked outside his house, waiting for him to come home. And he was nailed when he stumbled half drunk across the street. Murder in the first degree. Premeditated and deliberate.”

Max cleared his throat noisily. “But why?”

“Because he was a threat. He was potentially dangerous, the only witness that could identify the man who cleaned out your box. You were out on parole, Max. You had learned the box was empty. You were about to investigate. You had started the ball rolling. The heat was on. Kevin Graham was weak. That’s why he fell for their scheme in the first place. He was the kind of man who melted under pressure. They knew that. They couldn’t afford to wait. He had to be eliminated without delay. And so it was done last night. He was killed in front of his new house, the house he bought with your money, Max.”

“Then you know who did it,” Hadley said.

“Sure,” I said.

Hadley moistened his lips. “Who?”

I pointed my finger at him. “You.”

Max didn’t say a word. His eyes were frozen, divided between us.

Hadley exhumed a thin, stilted smile. “What are you trying to say, Jordan?”

“I’m not trying to say anything. I’m saying it. It was you, Hadley. You cooked up the whole scheme, engineered it and executed it.”

He shot a quick glance at Max, who sat, muscles tensed, like a leopard coiled up to spring. Hadley laughed once, without humor. “A very fanciful conclusion, Jordan.”

“Is it?” I said. “You gave yourself away last night when Max brought me up to his room. ‘I found him,’ Max said. ‘You were right.’ Right about what, Hadley? That I was out with Lucille? Sure. You told Max where to wait. But how did you know?”

Bull’s-eye! A muscle twitched in his jaw and his eyes narrowed.

“Because you wrote the script and produced the show. You told Lucille to call me. You told her to invite me into the lobby. You wanted Max to think I had double-crossed him, that I’d stolen his securities and was waltzing around with his wife. You knew Max had a gun. You knew he had a temper. Anything might happen. If I’d caught a bullet, it would have been perfect. Max would get the chair and all your problems would be over. If not, what the hell, there were other ways.”

Hadley appealed to Max. “The man is out of his mind.”

Nothing came out of Max. Not a sound. His face was carved in wood. His eyes were a pair of knives aimed at the lawyer.

Hadley’s smile went lopsided. “How about the key?” he said. “Nobody can get into a safe deposit box without a special key.”

“I was waiting for you to ask that,” I said. “How about it, Max? Did you ever give Hadley a power of attorney to open that box?”

Nothing moved in Max’s face. I didn’t like it. I didn’t like all that pressure building up inside of him. But I couldn’t stop now.

“Because if you did,” I said, “then you must have given him a key too, and he could easily have had a duplicate made. And if you didn’t, then he probably got Lucille to sneak the key away and do it for him.”

Max dredged up one word. “Lucille?”

“Sure,” I said. “They’ve been seeing a lot of each other. I can prove it. He visits her all the time. The doorman can identify him. I wouldn’t be surprised if they put the finger on you two years ago, just to get you out of the way.”

White lumps were contracted on each side of Max’s jaw. But still he didn’t move. A runaway muscle kept twitching at his lips.

I said to Hadley, “You specialize in corporations and contracts. What the hell do you know about criminal law? You think they can’t locate a witness who saw your car in Newark? You think a microscope won’t show evidence of a collision on your bumper?”

Circumstantial evidence. Every bit of it. Nothing solid. But it was enough for Max. Suddenly, he was out of his chair in a savage lunge across Hadley’s desk. Hadley had been expecting it and he was almost ready, but not quite. His hand flashed out of his desk, holding a gun. He had time enough to pull the trigger, but not enough to take aim. The report was sharp and flat and then Max was on top of him. One mighty swipe knocked Hadley sideways out of his chair. The gun flew out of his hand and clattered to the floor.

For all his bulk Max had the agility of an animal. He kept on going right over the top of the desk, his hands reaching for Hadley’s throat. I stood up and walked around for a look.

Max’s powerful fingers had cut the flow of oxygen at Hadley’s windpipe. Dark blood congested the lawyer’s face. Gurgling sounds filtered through clenched teeth.

“All right, Max,” I said. “That’s enough. Let the law take care of him.”

Max was deaf. He didn’t even hear me.

I saw Hadley’s face change color, a cyanotic blue taking over.

“Max,” I said sharply. “Cut it out. You want to wind up in the Ossining broiler?”

He went right on squeezing the life out of Hadley.

“Max,” I said desperately.

Nothing could stop him. I reached out and yanked down one of Hadley’s beautiful green drapes and wrapped it around his onyx desk set. I picked out a spot just behind Max’s ear and swung. He didn’t even grunt. He just relaxed his grip and rolled over.

Both men were out.

I used Hadley’s telephone. I made one call to the New York police and one to the Newark police.

There was blood on Max’s left side where Hadley’s bullet had scooped a groove along his ribs. I patted Max’s pockets and found his gun. I took it and hid it behind one of the filing cabinets. It would save him from being slapped with a parole violation.

Max might be sore about my clouting him over the head. But he’d get over it.

And he’d get over Lucille too.