The Anonymous Client

15

Steve Winslow glanced over his shoulder to make sure Sergeant Stams wasn’t following him, and then hurried through the spacious front hallway, looking for a telephone. He spotted one on a desk near the window and was making for it when a corpulent gentleman in his mid-fifties came bustling through the front door. The man saw Steve and stopped dead. “Who are you?” he demanded.

Steve looked at him. Despite the lateness of the hour, the man had on a custom-tailored three-piece suit. Short-cropped curly white hair framed a chubby face that, when smiling, probably looked as benign as that of a vaudeville comedian. At the moment, however, the cheeks were flushed, the jaw was set, and the eyes were narrowed in a suspicious stare.

Steve smiled. “For that matter, who are you?”

“Is your name Winslow?”

“That’s right.”

For a moment the man stared at him as if he could hardly believe the answer. “Then I demand to know what you’re doing here,” he said. “I told Marilyn to ask you to leave. I consider your failure to do so highly unethical and indicative of sharp practice.”

“I take it you are Mr. Fitzpatrick?”

“That’s right. And I demand an explanation.”

“I see,” Steve said. “You want me to leave, and you want me to explain. I’m afraid the two are mutually exclusive. Would you care to pick one?”

Fitzpatrick’s cheeks grew redder. “I don’t need any smart remarks either. You’re tampering with a client. Do I have to file a complaint with the Grievance Committee or would you like to tell me why?”

“Don’t hand me that shit,” Steve said. “I have a perfect right to talk to anyone I want as long as I’m not soliciting employment. Now if Marilyn wants to tell you what we were talking about, she’s free to do so, but as far as I’m concerned, it’s none of your damn business.

“However, it might interest you to know that Sergeant Stams has just arrived, and he happens to be just as curious as you are about my conference with your client. The fact that he didn’t follow me when I walked out of there indicates that he considered his business with Miss Harding far more pressing. I believe it involves a murder. Now, I wouldn’t presume to advise you, but if I were Marilyn’s attorney, I would have no doubt where my primary duty lay. Now, what was your question again?”

Fitzpatrick glared at Steve Winslow, then hurried into the library.

Steve grabbed the phone and called Mark Taylor. After the second ring, the detective’s voice came on the line.

“Taylor here.”

“Mark, Steve. I got a rush job, and I mean rush.”

“Yeah? What?”

“I want you to get both of the Bradshaw letters and the list of bills and bring them to the corner of 59th Street and Third Avenue. The southeast corner. I’ll meet you there.”

“When?”

“Now.”

“Can’t I send someone? I got a lot of shit coming in.”

“No. I need you. Leave an operative on the phone, grab the stuff, and get out there. And I mean now.”

“I’ll have to-”

“Now, Mark.”

“Right.”

“You’ll probably get there ahead of me. Just wait.”

“O.K.”

“And don’t let anyone know where you’re going.”

“The operative will have to know, so he can relay information.”

“No way. It’s important. You can call and get reports, but no one is to know where you are. Got that?”

“Yeah.”

“O.K. Stop gabbing and get going.”

Steve slammed down the phone, raced out the door, and jumped into the cab. The cabbie made good time back to Manhattan, going through the Queens Midtown Tunnel and up Third Avenue. Steve paid off the cab a couple of blocks away and walked on up Third.

Mark Taylor was waiting on the corner. Steve hurried up to him.

“You got the letters?”

“And the list of bills,” Taylor said, tapping his pocket.

“Good. Give them to me.”

Taylor handed them over. “There you are. Now what?”

Steve looked around and spotted a restaurant down the block.

“See that restaurant? Go inside and get us a table. I’ll be with you in a minute.”

Mark Taylor went inside. Steve waited thirty seconds, then followed him into the lobby. Taylor had already been escorted into the dining room. Steve took out his wallet, walked over to the cashier, and smiled.

The cashier, a young blonde, smiled back. “Can I help you?”

“You certainly can,” Steve said. “I need an envelope and a stamp.”

“I’m terribly sorry. We don’t sell stamps or envelopes.”

“I know you don’t,” Steve said, producing a bill from his wallet. “That’s why I’ll pay you five bucks for them.”

The cashier grinned. “You’re kidding.”

“Not at all.”

The blonde reached down under the counter and pulled out her purse. “Just a sec,” she said. She rummaged through her purse and fished out a postage stamp and a pink, perfumed envelope. “I hope the color doesn’t matter,” she said.

Steve handed her the money. “Under the circumstances,” he said, “it couldn’t be better.”

Steve took the envelope and stamp to a table in the corner of the lobby. He put the list of bills in his wallet. He put the Bradshaw letters in the pink envelope, then stamped and sealed it. He addressed the envelope to himself at his office. He hurried outside, found a mailbox, and dropped the letter in.

Steve heaved a sigh of relief. Well, one down and a lot more to go. And the first was the worst. Mark Taylor. Steve hated what he had to do, but he really had no choice.

Steve returned to the restaurant, where he found Mark Taylor sipping a bourbon at a table for two in the far corner of the dining room.

“O.K., Steve,” he said. “What’s the pitch?”

Steve glanced at the drink.

“I had to order it,” Taylor said. “The waiter was getting impatient, and I didn’t know what to tell him.”

“That’s fine, Mark,” Steve said. “I’ll have one too. It’s been quite an evening.”

“Hasn’t it? All right, Steve. We can talk now. What did you drag me down here for?”

“To have dinner.”

Taylor stared at him. “What?”

“Sure,” Steve said. “You haven’t eaten yet, have you?”

“I had some hamburgers sent up. Look, Steve-”

“But that was a while ago, wasn’t it?”

“Around seven, but-”

“And it’s eleven now. You could eat a nice steak couldn’t you?”

“Sure, but-”

“Then let’s have dinner,” Steve said. He summoned the waiter. “I’ll have a scotch, and this man could probably use another bourbon. Then we’d like a couple of steaks, medium rare. The kitchen’s still open, isn’t it?”

“Sure,” the waiter said. “We serve food till midnight.”

The waiter wrote down the order and left.

Mark Taylor turned to Steve Winslow. “Steve, please. Don’t do this to me. I don’t know what you’re up to, but you know how I hate to be out of touch with the office. What the hell’s going on?”

Steve took a sip of scotch. “I’m afraid your office isn’t a very safe place for you right now.”

“Why not?”

“You’re going to have visitors.”

“You man cops?”

“Yeah.”

“Oh shit. How do you know?”

Steve shook his head. “I can’t tell you that right now. But the way things are breaking, sooner or later Sergeant Stams is going to come down on you like a ton of bricks. When he does, you’re going to have to answer questions. The less you know, the less you have to tell him.”

“I know too much already.”

Steve shook his head. “No you don’t, Mark. Actually, you know very little. The rest you just infer. Any conclusions you may have drawn are incompetent, irrelevant, and immaterial, and you can’t be forced to testify about them.”

“Testify!” Taylor was alarmed. “Am I going to have to testify?”

“It’s possible,” Steve said. “Which is why it’s important to differentiate between what you know and what you merely surmise. I’m going to tell you what you know.”

Mark Taylor blinked. “Steve. I got a license.”

“Just do what I tell you, and you won’t lose your license,” Steve said. “Now listen. This is what you know: On Tuesday I gave you a list of serial numbers of ten one thousand dollar bills. You traced the bills and discovered that they had been withdrawn from the bank by one David C. Bradshaw. On my instructions, you placed Bradshaw’s apartment under surveillance Tuesday afternoon. Your operatives reported to you that a young woman called on Bradshaw that afternoon. Immediately after her departure, Bradshaw also left the apartment. Your operatives followed both parties. The young woman was eventually followed to her home and identified as Marilyn Harding. Your men reported that Miss Harding was also being followed by operatives from the Miltner Detective Agency. Bradshaw ditched his shadow. Later, I informed you that Bradshaw was in my office. Your shadows picked up Bradshaw when he left my office and followed him home. You lifted fingerprints from my desk and had them traced. You found them to be the prints of one Donald Blake, a convicted felon with a history of arrests for larceny and extortion. On Tuesday evening at around six-thirty, Bradshaw left his apartment, ditched his shadows, and returned to his apartment at around nine-thirty. The following morning you dusted the combination of my office safe for fingerprints and found one that matched the right thumb of David C. Bradshaw. At that point I instructed you to call off your operatives and drop your investigation.”

Mark Taylor squirmed uncomfortably.

The waiter returned, set the drinks on the table, and departed.

Mark Taylor downed the rest of his first drink, and picked up his second. He swirled the ice around in the glass. He looked at the ice, rather than at Steve.

“Well, what’s the matter?” Steve said.

“I can’t get away with it.”

“Why not?”

“Well, in the first place, you haven’t said anything about the letters.”

“But no one is going to ask you about any letters.”

“They’re going to ask me to tell them everything I know about the case.”

“Exactly. That’s just the point I was trying to make. They’re going to ask you what you know about the case. What I’ve just told you is all you know.”

“I know about the letters.”

“What letters?”

“You know what letters,” Taylor said, irritably. “The Bradshaw letters.”

“See, that’s just what I mean,” Steve said. “You don’t know those letters came from Bradshaw. As a matter of fact, there is fairly good evidence they did not.”

“That’s not the point. The police are going to ask where I got that list of numbers.”

“And you’ll tell them you got it from me.”

“And then they’ll want to know where you got them.”

“And you’ll tell them you don’t know.”

“But I do know,” Taylor said. “Tracy copied them off the ten one thousand dollar bills that came in the first letter.”

“And how do you know that?”

“You told me so yourself.”

“Exactly. That’s hearsay. You don’t know where the list of numbers came from. What I told you is of no evidential value, and they can’t force you to testify to it.”

“Aren’t there some cases where they can?”

“Yes,” Steve said. “If they indict me and proceed against me on a criminal charge, anything I may have told you regarding the case could be received in evidence as an admission against interest.”

“Indict you!” Taylor said. “You’re kidding, of course?”

“Only half. I’m sure Stams would love to get me, if he could just figure out what to charge me with. But the point I’m making is, you don’t know that the letters have anything to do with the list, so you don’t need to say anything about them. It won’t be that hard because nobody knows about the letters, so nobody’s going to ask you.”

“Aren’t you forgetting something?”

“What?”

“I saw that ten thousand dollars with my own eyes.”

“Did you compare the numbers on the bills with the list?”

“No.”

“There you are. Ah, here are our salads.”

“I’m rapidly losing my appetite,” Taylor grumbled.

The waiter served them and withdrew.

“Snap out of it, Mark,” Steve said. “You got nothing to worry about.”

“I don’t like it, Steve.”

“I’m not asking you to like it. I’m asking you to do it.”

Taylor sighed. He took a big pull of bourbon. “O.K. You win. But you’re going to have to protect me on this.”

“Of course,” Steve said. “No problem. Now that we got that settled, what have you got on the murder?”

Taylor shook his head. “Not much. You pulled me out of the office before I could get a line into headquarters. All I know is the desk sergeant got a complaint from a woman in the building that there was a fight going on next door. A patrol car went out to investigate, and the officers were the second ones to discover the body.” Taylor frowned. “I wish to hell you hadn’t found that body.”

“You and me both. So what about your line into police headquarters?”

“I got a friendly reporter feeding me stuff. Most of it is just routine, but this guy is friendly with one of the sergeants, so he gets the inside track on the police report.”

“Think he’d have anything yet?”

“Hell, he’s overdue now.”

“Might be a good time for you to check in with your office.”

“It might for a fact,” Taylor said.

The food arrived while Mark Taylor was still on the phone. He returned to the table, sat down, cut off a huge slice of steak, and popped it in his mouth.

“O.K., Steve I got the dope.”

“From the reporter?”

“Yeah.”

“Any visitors in your office?”

“You mean cops?”

“Yeah.”

“No.”

“That’s strange. Well, what’s the dope?”

“The police place the time of the murder at 5:30 P.M.”

“5:30! How can they do that?”

“The desk sergeant got a call from Margaret Millburn, the woman across the hall, reporting an altercation in Bradshaw’s apartment. That call was logged at 5:28. Now the desk sergeant didn’t want to send a radio patrol car if it was just a family row or something like that. You know how it is with these 911 calls. Over half of them are just cranks. So the sergeant got the guy’s name and address from her. When he hung up, instead of dispatching a cruiser, he called information, got Bradshaw’s number, and called him up.”

“And got a busy signal?”

“Exactly. The desk sergeant called him at 5:31 by the police clock. That clock is accurate. Bradshaw’s phone was found on the floor with the receiver off the hook. The police theory is that the phone was knocked off the table during the struggle in which Bradshaw was killed. That fixes the time of death rather neatly. Bradshaw was alive at 5:28, because one obviously doesn’t have a fight with a dead man. He was dead at 5:31 because the phone was knocked off the hook. There’s no word from the medical examiner’s office, but it’s a good bet the autopsy surgeon will fix the time of death between 5:15 and 5:45.”

“I see,” Steve said, thoughtfully.

“Now then,” Taylor went on. “The police have picked up Marilyn Harding and are holding her for questioning. Her lawyer, a Mr. Fitzpatrick, is down there causing quite a stir, and has apparently advised her not to say anything. At any rate, she’s clammed up and won’t give the police the time of day.”

Taylor sawed off another bite of steak. “Now, here’s the strange thing. The police have uncovered something that’s making them absolutely ecstatic. I have no idea what it is. Even my reporter can’t get a line on it. But whatever it is, Sergeant Stams is prancing around like his wife just had a baby, and Harry Dirkson himself has been called in. That’s got the reporters puzzled. If Marilyn Harding isn’t going to sing, they don’t need the District Attorney to listen to her lawyer’s solo. So they must have something else they’re working on that clinches the case against the Harding girl, or is somehow of more importance.”

Steve’s eyes narrowed as he digested that information.

“So,” Mark Taylor said, “even though you can’t tell me certain things about the case, I can still make certain deductions.”

“Such as?”

“Such as,” Taylor said, watching Steve narrowly, “after you called me to tell me Bradshaw was dead, you raced out to the Harding mansion to talk to Marilyn. I don’t know whether she told you anything or not, but after you were there a little while, Sergeant Stams showed up to question Miss Harding. That was probably just before you called me the second time to send me out here, which would be around ten-thirty. The first report of Bradshaw’s murder was on the nine o’clock news. Someone gave Sergeant Stams the tip-off to pick up Marilyn Harding. Marilyn Harding was being followed by Miltner’s men. Now, if Miltner or one of his men saw the nine o’clock news broadcast, and if he knew that Marilyn had been to Bradshaw’s apartment sometime this afternoon, and if he felt he had to report that information to the police in order to keep from losing his license, it would place Sergeant Stams’s arrival at the Harding mansion somewhere around ten-thirty.”

Steve frowned. “You’re making a lot of deductions, Mark.”

“I’m not through yet. Let’s go a little further. If Stams got a tip from Miltner and went to see Marilyn Harding, and if you were there when he arrived, and if shortly after he arrived a Mr. Fitzpatrick showed up claiming to be Marilyn Harding’s attorney-and if Stams suspected you of having a client who had asked you to remove evidence from Bradshaw’s apartment and whose identity you were attempting to conceal-then Stams would probably assume that Marilyn was the client, that after you left Bradshaw’s apartment you dashed out to talk to her, that you advised her that under the circumstances the fact that you were her attorney would absolutely crucify her, and that therefore on your suggestion she immediately called in Fitzpatrick to act as a cat’s-paw so that you could fade into the woodwork.”

Steve Winslow said nothing.

“Well,” Taylor said, cutting off another piece of steak, “look who’s lost his appetite now.”

Steve picked up his knife and fork and began mechanically slicing off a piece of steak.

“I’ll tell you one thing,” Mark said. “If they can ever prove that you took anything out of that apartment, Dirkson will throw the book at you.”

“Don’t worry, Mark. They can’t prove it.”

“You mean you didn’t do it, or they can’t prove it?”

“I told you there were certain things I couldn’t tell you.”

Mark Taylor’s fork stopped halfway to his mouth, “Jesus Christ, Steve, don’t even suggest you did that. If you did, I don’t want to know it.”

“Then stop asking questions I have to refuse to answer on the grounds that an answer might tend to incriminate me. For a guy who doesn’t want to know the answers, you do ask the damnedest questions.”

“It’s the detective in me. I can’t help it.” Taylor wolfed down the last bite of steak. “All right. It’s been a fun dinner and all that, but being out of touch is getting me a little crazy. When can I get back to the office?”

“You could go back now if it weren’t for that new evidence. That’s got me worried. I’d like to know what it is before the cops talk to you.”

“Let me call in again. Maybe the reporter’s managed to turn up something.”

“Do that. And while you’re at it, call information and see if Tracy Garvin’s number is listed.”

“Her home number?”

“Yeah.”

“No problem. I got it.”

Steve grinned. “Oh? Like that, eh?”

Taylor chuckled, shook his head. “No. Not like that. When I got the news about the Harding autopsy, I called your office trying to catch you. You’d already left, but Tracy was still there. When I told her she got all excited. Said she’d stay there, keep the office open, wait for more reports.” Taylor stopped and looked at Steve. “I don’t know what your problem is with that girl, but in my book she’s quite something, you know?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Steve said impatiently. “So?”

“So, I knew you didn’t want her doing that, so I tried to talk her out of it. It took some doing. Finally, she agreed, but only after she gave me her home number and made me promise if anything broke I’d call her, so she could come back and reopen the office.” Taylor chuckled. “This case may be a big pain in the ass for us, but for her it’s like she won a trip to Disneyland.”

“And you didn’t call?”

“I forgot.”

“She’s gonna be pissed. Well, call her now, tell her to hop in a cab, and come join us.”

“Not the worst idea I’ve ever heard,” Taylor said. “But I’m sure the only reason you’re doing it is so you can tell her what she knows.”

Taylor pushed back his chair and went off to telephone. Steve sat and looked at the half-eaten steak in front of him. He’d missed dinner, but he wasn’t a bit hungry. Christ, what a fucking mess. All right, he had to admit he’d been bored. Tracy was quite right in complaining that nothing ever happened. But he’d liked that, at least at first. After a whole life of scratching out a living, first as an actor, then as a lawyer, it had been nice to sit back, not worry about the rent, and watch the monthly check from Sheila Benton roll in. Yeah, it was a little monotonous. And yeah, after three months of leisure he could have stood a case of some kind.

But not this.

Not two homicides, the cops on his case, and him not knowing who the fuck his client was.

No, not this.

Mark Taylor came back and sat down.

“Well?”

Taylor shrugged his shoulders. “Nothing,” he said. “Everything at the station is very hush-hush. Dirkson is closeted with someone, apparently either a witness or a suspect, but no one on the force seems to know who it is.”

“Well, the officers who made the arrest know,” Steve said impatiently.

“Sure, and Sergeant Stams knows too. But the officers who made the arrest are nowhere to be found. In fact, no one seems to know who the arresting officers are. Of course, Sergeant Stams is taking the credit. Stams is very much in evidence, and about as helpful as you would expect. He’s willing to pose for pictures, and he modestly admits that it was his investigative brilliance that cracked the case, but that’s about it.” Taylor sighed. “So I guess I’m stuck here for a while. You gonna finish that steak?”

“No.”

“Then pass it over. If I gotta sit here, I might as well eat.”

Steve shoved his plate toward the center of the table, and Taylor speared the piece of meat.

“So, what about Tracy?” Steve asked.

Taylor shook his head. “I struck out there too.”

Steve’s head snapped up. “What?”

Taylor shrugged. “No answer. I let it ring ten times, just in case she was asleep.”

“Oh shit!” Steve jumped to his feet. He whipped out his wallet, flung money on the table. “Let’s go!”

“What?” Mark Taylor said, but Steve was already halfway to the door. Taylor lurched his 220 pounds into gear and followed.

By the time Taylor caught up, Steve was out in the street trying to hail a cab.

“Steve! What the hell’s going on?”

“It’s Tracy, damn it! Where the hell’s a fucking cab?”

“What?”

“Stams set a trap. No wonder he’s so happy. He must figure I sent her back to get the evidence I ditched.”

“What evidence? What are you talking about?”

“Tracy said she’d be waiting for your call.”

“So? Maybe she had a date.”

“Not that girl. She wouldn’t have missed your call for the world.

No, she heard it on the radio and went out there. Damn it, where the hell’s a cab?”

“Steve. What the hell are you talking about?”

“There’s one. Taxi!” Steve turned back to Taylor as the cab swerved in to the curb. “Don’t you get it? Shit, Mark. She’s the mystery witness!”