Nemesis

Chapter XIII

Meyers sat across the table from Larry, noisily finishing the last of his turtle soup. Fran was in the kitchen, putting the last touches on the roast.

“Nice of you to have me up for dinner,” Meyers said. He had a napkin tucked under his collar, and his impassive gray face wore an expression of complete contentment. He finished the last of the soup with a noisy obbligato, and straightened up, smiling. “Your wife’s some cook,” he said.

“How about filling in a few details for me,” Larry said.

“About the case? Let’s wait ’till after dinner.” He sniffed appreciatively. “Smells like a roast, don’t it?”

“We’ve got time now,” Larry said. “You can enjoy your food because you’ve got all the answers. But what about me? I can’t eat until I know the whole story.”

“Never thought of that,” Meyers said. “Well, I’ll make it fast. Let’s take it from the judge’s angle. That’s the easiest way to figure it. He wanted to get rid of Velma. She’d been his mistress before he got elected to the Bench, and he wanted to shake her. He had big ideas. Politics, probably, and he didn’t want a character like Velma to come popping up and make him look bad. But she wouldn’t take the brush. She liked him, or she liked his dough. Doesn’t matter which. She wouldn’t brush. And she threatened to do a lot of talking about some of the judge’s deals unless he stops talking about shaking her. So he’s got to put her out of the way. Now. That took some doing. You don’t know Velma is the judge’s mistress. Your wife don’t, either. Millions of nice respectable people don’t know about it. But a lot of other people do. People like cops, newspapermen, bondsmen, lawyers, racketeers and hoodlums. They know about it. And if Velma gets knocked off mysteriously they’d know where to look. They look at the judge. And he’s got a past that can’t stand too much inspection.”

Meyers paused and looked anxiously toward the kitchen.

“Maybe she burned the roast,” he said.

“She didn’t burn the roast. Get on with the story.”

“Okay. So he’s got to get rid of her. And he’s got to do it so the cops have a ready made victim. You. He tells Velma he’s got a job for her. Wants her to pick up a guy and take him to a certain room. That’s all. Then he has Tonelli look for a sucker. You come in, spill your guts to the bartender about having a fight with your wife, so they decide to use you. They got Velina there, ready. Maybe she’s been waiting a week for this job. You get a Mickey, and Velma takes you home, dumps you in bed. Then Tonelli walks in, sticks a knife in her, undresses her, dumps her in beside you and walks out.

“It’s perfect. You’re it. You had a fight with your wife, you pick up this gal, take her home. You’re drunk and you kill her. Try and beat that! You wouldn’t in a million years. But it didn’t work. They wanted the cops to find you, so it would look natural. And they figured the doped drink would keep you there for hours. But it didn’t. You come to, get the hell out. And that leaves them in a sweet mess. Here’s Velma, dead as vaudeville, and no fall guy. The judge is the fall guy now. When the cops find Velma they’ll go after him. So he’s got to get rid of the body. This is how they done it. They go down there in a hearse, pay off the landlady to keep her yap shut, and bring the body down to the harbor. Last night they was going to dump Velma overboard, tied to a nice anchor, and nobody but the fish would ever know what happened.”

He buttered a piece of bread, took half of it in one mouthful and went on. “I knew something was phony. And I used you to smoke it out for me. You might have gotten killed, but I had to do it. You were the judge’s Nemesis. I let you roam around. You go to the Kicking Horse, to Corinne’s, to Mabel’s, and ask a lot of questions. That keeps ’em worried. They don’t want to kill you. That would have started me going more than ever. They beat you up, hoping you’ll play dead. But you don’t. When you told me the name Velma Dare, I started looking into the judge’s background. And I got just about everything I wanted. I had a tail on him, and one on you from then on. When I found out you went to see him I really got worried. I figured you were through. But he tried to play it too smart. He faked that call to the commissioner to fool you. He was talking to somebody at the Kicking Horse. Then he was going to dump you and Velma together. Not a bad idea. I mean, from his point of view.”

“How about the phony call to Mabel? The one that Velma was supposed to have made, telling Mabel she was going down South?”

“That was the judge, or somebody on his payroll. They had to cover up for Velma’s disappearance. That would do it. Then nobody would be asking questions. When they did it might be years from now and who the hell would care where Velma was.”

He looked hopefully toward the kitchen again.

“The roast isn’t burned,” Larry said patiently. “Now what was the deal between Tonelli and the judge?”

“Tonelli was the judge’s man. Right on the payroll. And the judge tried to double-cross him. The judge saw I knew what was going on, so he slanted my build-up to fit Tonelli, and then he shot him right in front of us. That took nerve and some pretty fast thinking. Tonelli was playing along with him because he knew the judge was in as deep as he was. But the judge figured if he could make a case against Tonelli and then shoot him to keep his mouth shut — well he figured that would put him in the clear.”

“And Tonelli’s men killed Corinne for talking to me?”

“Yeah. That’s about all except—”

Fran appeared in the doorway, holding the roast on a huge platter. She paused, waiting for their approval. She had the triumphant expression of a bride who has followed the cook book faithfully and is a little amazed that it worked.

“Gosh, that’s pretty,” Meyers said.

Larry was frowning. “You said that was all, ‘except’ — except what?”

“Larry!”

Larry looked up and saw Fran standing in the doorway. One of her small feet was tapping the floor ominously. He remembered what had happened the last time he had failed to be properly enthusiastic over a special dinner. He shuddered.

“Darling, that’s magnificent,” he said fervently.