Mike Shayne's Torrid Twelve

THE PATSY by FRANK KANE

Johnny Liddell pushed open the frosted glass door that bore the gilded legend Seaway Indemnity Company and walked without haste into the lushly carpeted anteroom. A blonde in a tight-fitting green sweater sat tapping away at the keys of a typewriter, taking excessive care not to fracture the polish on her nails. She looked up as Liddell walked in.

“Mike Davis in?” he asked.

The blonde nodded. “Who shall I say?”

“Johnny Liddell. He expects me.”

The blonde consulted an appointment pad on her desk, frowning slightly. “So you’re a detective?” She studied the heavy shoulders, the square jaw and the thick hair flecked with white. “I thought all private detectives were skinny guys like William Powell.”

She got up from her desk, and moved toward the small gate in the waist-high partition. The sweater failed to disguise the fact that she had assets like the Chase Manhattan Bank, and when she walked the sway indicated they were just as liquid.

“Davis’s office is the third door down the corridor,” she said. She stood so he had to brush past her to get through the gate. She held it open for him, grinning up at him saucily.

“Remind me to come peek through your keyhole sometime,” he told her in passing. “Right now I’m twenty minutes late.”

The blonde wrinkled up her nose, shrugged. “I’ll be around.”

Liddell walked down the corridor, stopped in front of a door that was labeled SEAWAY INDEMNITY — Investigation Bureau. He pushed open the door and walked in.

Mike Davis stood at the window against the far wall, staring down into 51st Street, twenty stories below. He turned at the sound of the opened door, his battered face twisting into a grin. “Better late than never,” he said. He crossed the room, his hand extended in front of him.

“You want people to be on time, you’d better get rid of that traffic stopper in the outer office,” Liddell said, grinning. He pumped the man’s hand, and tossed his hat at a coat tree. “It sounded important.”

Mike Davis had been an amateur boxer, and had made the early mistake of trying to trade his silver watches and medals for a regular Saturday night purse at the Ridgewood Grove. A scrappy little port-sider from Coney Island who showed a curious disaffection for ending the fight before the tenth round had changed his mind. The left hander’s hook had also changed the contour of Davis’s nose and eyebrows. He peered at Liddell from under lowering brows.

“How busy are you, Johnny?” he asked.

Liddell shrugged. He walked over to the leather armchair near the desk, and dropped into it. “The usual. We’ve been running down a Portchester kid who tried to parlay the fact that she was Ed Sullivan’s neighbor into a movie career. We just located her working in a drive-in in L.A. Soon’s we turn her over to her old man I’m finished.”

He dug a cigarette from his pocket, and stuck it in the corner of his mouth where it waggled when he talked. “What’s the job you’re peddling?” he asked.

“A weirdie, Johnny.” Davis walked over to the desk, jabbed at a button on the base of the phone, held it to his ear. “Pull the package on Robert Horton and bring it in, will you, Lee?”

He dropped the receiver back on its hook, and returned to his chair. “We had this one marked closed as a hit-and-run job. But now we’re not so sure. Before we pay off we’d like to be.”

A short, fat man walked in, and dropped an envelope on Davis’s desk. He favored Liddell with an incurious glance, and walked right out again.

“What changed your mind?” Johnny asked.

The insurance man emptied the contents of the envelope on his desk, scowling a little. “The guy’s sister-in-law — a Mrs. Sally Horton.” He picked a flimsy from the pile on his desk, ran his eyes over it. “She says it was murder.”

“She know who did it?”

Davis rolled his eyes from the paper up to Liddell’s face. “Yeah. She says it was her husband.”

“Any reason why Horton should kill his brother?”

“Two. First, he was the beneficiary of the insurance policy. Second, his wife says he knew she was trading him in for the brother-in-law as soon as she could get a divorce.”

Johnny Liddell followed the dusty looking hall carpet to the second apartment from the rear. A tarnished 2B was stenciled on it. He knocked, his eyes wandering idly up and down the dismal hallway as he waited for some sign of life behind the door. When it was finally opened, he was surprised by the woman who stood in the doorway.

She was strictly not the run-down apartment house type. Her burnished copper hair was piled on the top of her head, and her face was devoid of any make-up except for the sensuous red smear that was her mouth. She wore a sheer dressing gown that made only an indifferent attempt to hide her full-blown charms.

“You want something, or are you just taking in the sights?” she asked, staring at Liddell with bland eyes.

“I’m looking for a Mrs. Horton. A Mrs. Sally Horton.”

She permitted herself a brief inventory of the man’s thick shoulders, rugged face. “That’s me,” she conceded. “Who’re you?”

“Name’s Liddell. I’m an investigator for the insurance company.”

“How nice for you.” She stepped aside. “Come in.” As she flattened against the wall for him to pass, her bosom jutted against the robe. “I wasn’t expecting company, but it’s no more gruesome than usual.”

The living room furniture made a pathetic effort to brighten the dullness of the small room, but didn’t quite make it. The carpet that covered most of the floor was beginning to show signs of wear. A pile of papers lay beside the couch, a half-finished highball on the coffee table.

Liddell tossed his hat on a small table in the foyer, and ambled into the living room. “Nice place you’ve got here.”

“It’s a dump and you know it.” the blonde complained. She walked over to the table, and picked up her drink. “I was just having a short one. Join me?”

“Bourbon if you have it.”

Sally Horton headed for the small kitchenette, her full hips swaying smoothly against the fabric of her gown. When she returned with a bottle and glass, the effect was equally satisfying from the front. She set the glass down on the coffee table, and tilted the bottle over it. “You work fast.” She glanced up at him through her eyelashes. “Your company, that is.”

“I don’t get many complaints. The company, that is.”

The blonde grinned at him, handed him the glass. “Maybe you haven’t been dealing with very particular people.”

“Are you particular?”

Sally Horton shrugged and pursed her full lips wryly. “Very particular.”

Liddell held his glass up in a toast. “Then I’ll try to be extra good in your case.” He sipped the bourbon slowly, savoring its taste. “Now about this brother-in-law of yours. You don’t think it was an accident?”

“I know it wasn’t. My husband killed his brother.”

“You haven’t told the police?”

The blonde dropped into a chair. As she crossed her legs the gown fell away exposing a wide expanse of leg and thigh. “Not yet. I wanted to know where I stand. On the insurance, that is.” She sipped at her glass, giving him the full effect of her eyes over the rim. “Bob was insured for twenty-five thousand dollars at double indemnity. If my husband did kill him, do I get the insurance?”

Liddell considered that for a moment. Finally he said, “I guess so. Certainly your husband wouldn’t have any use for it where he’d be going.”

He dropped onto the couch, pulled a folded sheet of paper from his inside pocket, found a pencil. “Suppose you tell me what you think happened and I’ll take it from there.”

“It’s like I told the man over the phone. George was violently jealous of Bob. When he found out I was going to get a divorce so that Bob and I could get married, he acted like a crazy man.”

She drained her glass, leaned forward with startling effect to place it on the coffee table. “He threatened to kill us both.”

“You intended to divorce him?”

The blonde shrugged. “Why not? You think I’m going to spend my whole life in a trap like this?” She stared around the room with a shudder of distaste. “He promised me the world and this is what he delivers.”

“Let’s get to last night — the night your brother-in-law was killed.”

Her eyes had returned from the survey of the room, and she was looking directly at Liddell again. “George and Bob went out drinking together. I thought they’d made it up. But the next thing I knew there were a couple of cops here asking George to go down to the morgue to identify Bob’s body. They said he had been killed by a hit-and-runner.”

She rubbed the palms of her hands up the sides of her arms. “As soon as they left, I went down to the garage. The whole right fender of the car is dented in. It wasn’t that way yesterday.”

Liddell scowled thoughtfully, scribbled a few notes. “You have a private garage?”

The blonde nodded. “Around the corner. It comes with the apartment. It’s got Two B on the door.”

Liddell transferred the information to the paper, replaced it in his jacket pocket. “I’d like to take a look at the car.”

“Why not? You’ll need the key.” The blonde got up, and headed for one of the doors off the living room. She disappeared inside. A moment later she called to him. “I can show you the garage from here. Come on in.”

Liddell drained the glass, set it back on the table. He walked to the door. It was a bedroom. The blonde stood by the window, the light outside silhouetting her full body.

She glanced at him over her shoulder, her eyes challenging. “What are you waiting for?” She watched him cross the room to where she stood. “How long does it take for a formal identification?”

Her lips looked warm and wet, he could smell her nearness. “Long enough.”

She moved closer to him, until he could feel her against his chest, her breath on his face. “I told you I was particular,” she told him huskily. She tilted her face up, her lips worked against his mouth. He slid his arm around her waist. She melted against him…

Lieutenant Vince Sullivan of Homicide sat behind his unpolished desk, his heels hooked on a half open drawer.

“Looks like that was a good tip you handed up, Johnny,” he conceded. “We just got a flash from the F car on the Horton case. The Hortons’ jalopy got its fender banged in some place. If the boys in the lab can tie it to the dead guy, we’ve got it all wrapped up.”

Liddell dug a cigarette from his pocket, tapped it on the desk. “How long will it take to get a make on the car?”

Sullivan shrugged. “By tonight for sure. They picked some paint particles out of the dead guy’s clothes. If that matches up with the paint on the car and they can match up the dirt that got shaken loose from under the fender, they’ll tie it up.”

The phone on the desk buzzed. Sullivan grunted, and dropped his feet to the floor. “Yeah?” He listened to the voice on the other end for a moment in silence, his lips tightening. Then he said, “Okay, bring him in.” He dropped the receiver on its hook, and looked at Johnny. “They’re bringing in George Horton. Want to stay?”

Liddell nodded. “Yeah. I’d like to hear his story.”

George Horton had the look of a defeated man. Graying bristles glistened on the point of his chin, and his eyes were watery, buttressed by discolored sacs. He had a petulant mouth that was drooping at the moment, a receding chin. He tried to work up an air of resentment but didn’t quite make it.

“What’s all this about?” The watery eyes hop-scotched from the man behind the desk to Liddell and back. “I’ve a right to know.”

“Just got a couple of questions to ask you, Horton,” Sullivan told him calmly. “About your brother.”

“You mean I ought to have a couple of questions to ask you about my brother. Like for instance what are you doing to get the guy who did this?”

“We think we’ve got the guy who did it,” Sullivan grunted. “You.”

The air wheezed out of Horton’s lungs, his knees sagged. “Me? You’re crazy. Why would I kill my own brother? How could I?”

Sullivan nodded to a chair. “Sit down.” He waited until Horton had slumped into it. “Your brother was heavily insured, and you’re the beneficiary. Right?”

“That was his idea. Not mine. He’s had that insurance for years. I’m down on my luck, sure — but not enough to kill my own brother for his insurance. That’s crazy.”

“You were jealous of him.”

“Why would I be jealous of Bob?” The perspiration was gleaming damply on Horton’s forehead and upper lip now. He swabbed at it with his sleeve. “Bob and me have always been good friends.”

“Maybe. But not since your wife started shining up to him.”

“Sally? She don’t mean anything by it. She’s just the friendly type—”

“Didn’t you threaten to kill them both when she told you she was going to divorce you to marry Bob?”

A nerve started ticking under the other man’s left eye. “Whoever gave you that ridiculous idea?”

Sullivan reached into his drawer, pulled out a stick of gum, and denuded it of its wrapper. “Your wife,” he said.

“No. She couldn’t have. All right, I’ll admit we’ve had some fights about Bob. But we made them all up. We were all good friends again.”

He looked from Sullivan to Liddell as though pleading for belief. “Why, that’s what we were celebrating last night. Would we be out on the town together if we were mad at each other?”

“Where was this celebration taking place?” Liddell put in.

“A half a dozen places, I guess. We ended up the night at Louis’s place down in the Village.”

The lieutenant leaned forward, consulted some notes on his desk pad. “The body was found on the side street off Louis’s place at about four-thirty this morning.” He looked up at the unshaven man. “When did you drive your car last?”

Horton licked at his lips. He tried for a moment to match the officer’s stare, but failed at it. He dropped his eyes. “I don’t know. Over the weekend, I guess.”

“Not last night?”

The unshaven man shook his head. “We didn’t need a car for pub crawling. We just went from place to place.”

Sullivan leaned back. “And you ended up the night at Louis’s place. You leave together?”

“You know we didn’t. Bob got a call. He said he had to go out for a few minutes, that he’d be right back with a big surprise.” Horton shrugged. “I waited a few minutes, then I got curious and I followed him out. He was no place around. At least, I didn’t see him.”

“You go back into Louis’s?”

Horton shook his head. “I began to feel not so good — so I headed for home. I figured maybe Bob had done the same thing.”

Sullivan looked past the man in the chair to the uniformed officer who stood by the door. “Take Horton downstairs and get his statement. Then book him.”

“For what?” Horton wanted to know.

“Suspicion of vehicular homicide.”

The officer tapped Horton on the arm. He got up, followed him out of the room. “What do you think?” Sullivan wanted to know after the door had closed behind them.

Liddell grunted, crushed out his cigarette. “Pretty thin story. He makes no attempt to explain the crushed fender although he must know we’ve already had a look at it.”

The homicide man pulled himself out of his chair, walked over to where a water cooler stood, humming to itself, and helped himself to a drink. He crushed the paper cup in his beefy fist, tossed it at the waste basket. “He’s hooked and he knows it. What’s the sense of wiggling when you’re really hooked?”

“Yeah. What’s the sense?” Liddell stared at the homicide man for a moment. “How do you figure it happened?”

Sullivan shrugged, walked heavily back to the desk, sank into his chair. “Probably he followed Bob out, caught up with him and started arguing. Maybe he clouted him and knocked him down. Then he ran over him.”

“The fender?”

“Okay, so it didn’t happen that way. He went looking for Bob with the car. Maybe he got this crazy idea when he picked Bob up with the headlights.” The homicide man snapped his finger. “Could have happened just like that.”

Liddell considered it, nodding. “Could have, at that.” He got up, stretched, yawned. “I’ll check back with you if there’s anything new on our end.”

“Where you going?”

“I think I’ll drop by Louis’s place and have a talk with that bartender.”

“How so?”

“I think I’ve got an idea who that call came from.”

Sullivan grinned. “Horton’s wife?”

Liddell nodded. “Yes, it figures.”

“Right. That even gives us the motive. George Horton must have recognized his wife’s voice, figured Bob was going to meet her and saw a way to get rid of his competition once and for all. And pick up a wad of insurance dough at the same time. Buy it?”

Liddell grinned. “It’s hard to resist.”

Johnny got to Louis’s place in about twenty minutes. It was an overcrowded, smoke-filled boîte three steps down from the sidewalk on Bellevois Street in the Village. Johnny Liddell descended the three steps, and stood in the doorway until his eyes became accustomed to the gloom. A long bar ran the length of the room. It was almost filled with low talking leftovers from the cocktail hour, and overhead a thick pall of smoke stirred sluggishly in the draft of the open door.

Liddell found himself a place at the end of the bar, waved down the bartender and ordered a bourbon on the rocks. He watched while the man behind the bar made a production of tilting the bottle over the glass.

“You on until closing last night?” Liddell asked. He permitted the barman to see the denomination on the folded five he held between his fingers.

The bartender seemed to have difficulty pulling his eyes away from the bill. “Yeah, I closed up last night.”

“George Horton and his brother were in here until almost closing?”

“They were my last two customers.”

Liddell nodded. “George leave much after his brother?”

The barman scratched at his scalp with his index finger. “Seemed pretty much as if they left almost together. Don’t rightly recall. I was busy polishing glasses. One minute George was sitting here alone, the next minute he was gone.”

The bill changed hands, the bartender tucking it into his vest pocket.

“One more question. That telephone call Bob got. Did you recognize the voice?”

The bartender looked around, dropped his voice. “Look, I don’t want to start any trouble — especially since Bob’s dead. But I recognized that voice, all right.” He looked around again to make sure no one was eavesdropping. “It was Sally Horton.”

“You’re sure?”

“Of course I’m sure. I should know her voice well enough. She’s in here almost every day.”

He held up a hand to a patron at the other end of the bar who was demanding service. “Be right back.” He shuffled to the far end of the bar, drew a fresh glass of beer for the impatient customer, then returned to Johnny. “Whatever she told Bob sent him scuttling out of here. Poor guy! If he only knew what was waiting for him.”

Liddell looked up from his drink. “What do you mean by that?”

The bartender shrugged. “He was goin’ to his death, the way it worked out, wasn’t he?”

Liddell frowned, considering it. “I guess you could say that.”

The bartender suddenly reached over, lifted Liddell’s glass, and swabbed the bar dry with a damp cloth. “Talk of the devil, here she is now. Sally Horton.” The blonde stood in the entrance to the bar, conscious that she was the cynosure of all eyes. She wore a nile-green knitted suit that left little to the imagination, and her hair had been pulled back from her face to a bun that lay in the nape of her neck. Her face was still devoid of make-up except for the brilliant lipstick.

From where he sat, Liddell could almost see the start of surprise on the girl’s face when she recognized him. But she managed a forced smile and headed for him. Not too rapidly, though. Twice she stopped to exchange words with men at the bar.

Finally she snuggled in alongside him. “This is a surprise. Do you come here often?”

Liddell shook his head. “My first time.” He took two cigarettes from a pack, lit them, passed one to the girl. “How about you?”

She sucked a lungful of smoke from the butt, and let it dribble from half-parted lips. “I like the place. I’ve been dropping by on and off since before I was married.”

She looked around the boîte. “This is where I met George, matter of fact. I got the impression he was a big businessman from the way he’d spread money around. I soon found out differently. It was rent money.”

Without being asked, the bartender slid a perfectly white martini across the bar. “Thanks, Louis.” She winked. She tasted it, and smiled. “Louis is the only bartender I’d permit to make a martini for me.” She eyed Liddell over the rim of the glass. “You didn’t tell me what you’re doing here.”

Liddell pinched at his nostrils with thumb and forefinger. “You didn’t tell me you called Bob here last night?”

She sipped at her drink, avoiding his eyes. “Was that important?”

“That depends. It sent him running out of here. Like the bartender says, not knowing what was waiting for him.”

The girl swirled the liquid around in her glass. “I asked him if he had told George about the divorce.” She pouted. “He was almost as scared of George as I was. But he promised that last night he was going to tell him.”

“Why did he leave George right after the call?”

The blonde shrugged. “We’ll never know now, will we?”

Liddell took a long, deep drag on the cigarette, dropped it to the floor and crushed it out. “I wonder.” He drained his glass, set it back on the bar. “I’ll be seeing you again?”

“You know where I live.”

He nodded, brushed past her. He had scarcely reached the bar before she had moved over and was in animated conversation with another man at the bar.

For the next few hours, Johnny Liddell wandered throughout the neighborhood surrounding Louis’s place. He charted the one-way streets, canvassed the type of businesses, talked to the cops on the beat, to bellhops at the rundown hotel a few blocks down Bellevois Street from the entrance to the bar.

The following morning, he called Lieutenant Vince Sullivan at headquarters to ask for a meeting with George Horton present, at which time he would prove that Horton had been responsible for his brother’s death. The meeting was set for four o’clock.

George Horton was already in the lieutenant’s office when Johnny Liddell walked in. On his arm, he brought Sally Horton.

Horton still hadn’t shaved. His clothes were crumpled and he looked up with bloodshot eyes as his wife walked in, then glared from her to Liddell. “You haven’t wasted much time. Either of you.”

The blonde ignored him, but had the quick good sense to favor the lieutenant with a smile.

“Bring a chair for Mrs. Horton,” the lieutenant snapped at the uniformed officer on the door. While she was being seated, he turned to Liddell. “You didn’t tell me you were bringing anybody. What are you doing, selling tickets?”

“There are some points that Mrs. Horton can clear up. I thought it would be best to have her along.”

Sullivan nodded grumpily, and dropped back in his chair. “Okay, let’s get this underway. You said you could prove Horton killed his brother.”

“He’s a liar. I didn’t kill Bob, I tell you.” Horton had started out of his seat, but he was quickly and roughly shoved back into it by the officer.

Liddell reached for the pack of cigarettes on the lieutenant’s desk, helped himself to one. “I didn’t say Horton killed his brother, Vince.” He stuck the cigarette between his lips, and touched a match to it. “I said he was responsible for his brother’s death.”

“Stop making a production out of it,” Sullivan growled. “Do you have something to tie him to it or don’t you?”

Liddell exhaled twin streams of smoke from his nostrils. “Sure. The fact that he had his brother insured for twenty-five grand double indemnity.”

“What’s new about that? That’s the motive. Right?”

“Right.”

Sullivan stared at him. “You mean you put us to all this trouble just to tell us something we knew? You said—”

“I said he was responsible for the death. But he didn’t kill him.” He turned to the blonde. “You did, baby.”

The blonde’s lower jaw sagged, and her face went deathly white. “You must be completely nuts.”

Sullivan studied Liddell’s face for signs of a rib. “That’s a pretty broad statement, mister,” he said. “I hope you have something more than snow dreams to back it up.”

“You’re not going to listen to him, are you?” Sally swung on the man behind the desk. “I was at home miles away when it happened. Ask Louis, the bartender. He’ll tell you I called Bob there just a few minutes before Bob got hit.”

“How do you know when he got hit? He could have just gotten it before he was found. He might even have been lying there ever since he walked out of the tavern.”

“Contents of the stomach and degree of digestion put the time at right about when he left Louis’s place,” Sullivan pointed out. He was eying the blonde steadily. “She couldn’t have gotten from her place down to where he was hit in that length of time.”

“She didn’t call from home,” Johnny said. “I did a little checking of the neighborhood around the bar. The only place she could have called from was a little rundown hotel just up a block or so from the bar. I had a talk with the night clerk and I don’t think we’ll have any trouble on a make. He doesn’t see many pretty blondes walk in from the street to make a phone call at that hour.”

The blonde licked at her lips. “None of this is proof. It’s all a frameup.”

“Why should Liddell try to frame you, Mrs. Horton?”

“He — he tried to make a play for me. I wouldn’t go for it.”

Liddell grunted. “That’ll be the ever lovin’ day.” He turned to Horton who was staring with disbelief at his wife. “She has been making a play for your brother, pretending that if she could get rid of you, she’d marry him. He went for it.”

“She never would have married Bob. I knew that.”

“Of course not. Sally likes pretty things too much to tie herself to another guy who couldn’t buy them for her. But the insurance money would. She planned to get her hands on that money and get rid of you at the same time by framing you for Bob’s murder.”

“You can’t prove it was murder.” Sally almost screamed the words. “All right, I was there. But it was an accident. I–I got blinded by the lights. I didn’t see him until it was too late. I got scared and—”

“I don’t know if they’ll be able to pin a first-degree one on you, baby,” Liddell said. “But even if it’s murder two, or manslaughter — just sit up there and think of George, the patsy, spending the fifty gees you were so anxious to run your fingers through. So very, very anxious.”

He walked to the door, turned with his hand on the knob. “And if you’re beginning to feel sorry for her, George, just think of the fun she’d be having spending that loot while you were waiting to get fitted for the hot seat.”