The Case of the Black-Eyed Blonde

15

Paul Drake looked up from notes on which he was working as Mason and Della Street entered the office.

“Hello, Perry. How’s the case coming?”

“It isn’t coming. It’s going.”

“Well, I’ve got some miscellaneous information for you.”

“Shoot.”

“Mrs. Jerry Krason, a neighbor of Ella Brockton, lives out on Olive Crest Drive at twenty-three-o-nine. That’s right across the street from Ella Brockton’s house. She’s a nosey old gal with a tongue that’s hinged in the middle of her mouth and clacks like one of the old-fashioned police rattles, but she’s smart and observing, and hard to rattle.”

“What,” Mason asked, “does she know?”

“Apparently quite a bit, Perry. She’s been taking an interest in what’s been going on across the street ever since the child left. She says that on the night of the twenty-sixth, the house was dark, and she knows there wasn’t anyone home up until about nine o’clock. At about nine o’clock when it was raining cats and dogs, Ella Brockton came home in a taxicab; that she was there alone until about eleven-fifty. Helen Bartsler drove up and parked the car and went inside, and that almost immediately another car parked down the street a ways and a man came up and raised the hood of Mrs. Bartsler’s car.”

“Your operative?” Mason asked.

“Uh huh, taking out the distributor head so he could go and telephone for instructions.”

Mason grinned, “Well, that’s a break.”

“It’s going to be next to impossible to use it in court though.”

“Why?”

“There’s a regular feud between Mrs. Krason and Ella Brockton. Mrs. Brockton had the Krasons arrested for trespass, and went to the authorities to make a complaint that she was a cat poisoner. There’s some circumstantial evidence pointing to Mrs. Krason, I guess. It’s a regular neighborhood feud. Another thing, Perry, I’d hate like the devil to have it come out in court that one of my men had tampered with an automobile in order to get a chance to telephone in a report. Of course under the circumstances that was the only thing he could have done — the only way he could have let us know. He intended to take the distributor head, go telephone us, and then in case the woman was still in there when he got back, he could replace the part and that would be all there’d be to it. If she was trying to get the car started, he could come along as a good neighbor who happened to be parked near by, start tinkering with the automobile and slip the commutator into place while he was pretending to inspect the wiring.”

Mason said, “Anyway, it gives me a break. So far the breaks have been going all the other way. That gun has Diana’s fingerprints all over it. What gets me, is that I can’t figure the thing out. I can’t tell what happened. Why should the fact that Carl Fretch was in Diana Regis’ room and hit her in the eye, cause such terrific commotion?”

“You must be barking up the wrong tree on that,” Drake said.

“I can’t be, Paul. When Diana first told Mildred about her adventures, it was just a nice little gossip party. Then Mildred had a chance to think things over for four or five minutes — and evidently became all excited, made this ten o’clock appointment and called Diana back. Carl Fretch and the black eye he gave Diana must have some hidden significance. What else is new, Paul? Did you get the name of the garbage collector?”

“The one who has the garbage contract is a woman,” Drake said “and a darn smart woman at that. She...”

“I don’t want her,” Mason interrupted. “Not if she’s smart. Who’s the garbage collector?”

“The one who actually does the collecting in that district is a chap by the name of Nick Modena. He has greedy eyes.”

“He’s my man,” Mason said. “Where do I locate him?”

“Go on down to your office and I’ll have him located for you within half an hour. He’s out on the job somewhere.”

“Okay. What else is new?”

“I’ve got a little blonde number who has made a contact with Carl Fretch.”

“Any date?”

“Not yet. Give the boy time.”

“He doesn’t need time.”

“This operative is good,” Drake said.

“Can she take care of herself?”

Drake grinned. “Any place, any time, anywhere.”

“Strong?”

“She weighs about a hundred and twenty,” Drake said, “and she can look so demure that you’d think she’s right fresh off the pantry shelf, but she knows all of the answers and most of the angles.”

“Suppose the party gets rough?”

Drake said, “For a while she was a boxing female champion — so called. Used to put on an exhibition bout with a male sparring partner. And she’s good. She wants to know how much she has to take in case there’s a date.”

“Well,” Mason said judicially, “she isn’t hired just to go out and act coy. On the other hand, I don’t want to put her in a position where she has to take too much. She’s going out to get information. Tell her to get what information she can, but — oh, tell her to use her own judgment.”

“She’s pretty good,” Drake said. “I’ve had her on some other cases. She’ll put up with a lot if she’s getting information, and she can usually get it.”

“Okay. I want to know something about Carl Fretch. I want to know what the police said to him, and what he said to the police, and what was said to Jason afterward. It’s all fresh in the boy’s mind, and he should talk.”

“He should,” Drake said, “He’s a funny one.”

“Anything else?” Mason asked.

“Helen Bartsler seems to have fixed things up with Grandpa. She and Jason got together right after court adjourned. They’re still talking.”

“Oh, oh,” Mason observed. “That might mean something. Who made the break, do you know?”

“Jason broke the ice. She was distant at first, then he said something and she warmed up a bit.”

“Well,” Mason said, “all this is going to help, Paul. Of course, it doesn’t explain away the fingerprints on that gun or some of the other stuff, but perhaps we’ll begin to find out what it’s all about. You call me about that garbage man.”

“I’m having him tailed. My man telephones in reports whenever the garbage truck stops long enough to let him get to a telephone.”

“Okay, as soon as he telephones in again, find out where he is. I’m going on out and talk to this Modena.”

“I’ll call you. He should...”

The telephone rang.

Drake said, “Wait a minute. It may be the call now.”

Drake picked up the telephone, said, “Hello,” nodded to Perry Mason, then said into the telephone, “Where are you, Jim?”

Drake listened, made a note on a piece of paper, said, “Okay. Mason wants to contact him. You think on Washington? Uh huh... Headed toward the apartment where... I see. Okay. All right, Perry will be out there pretty quick.” Drake put the palm of his hand over the telephone. “It’s Jim Melrose on the job. You want him to do any shadowing after you contact Modena?”

“No. He can go home then,” Mason said.

Drake said into the telephone, “Okay, Jim, as soon as Mason picks him up, you can knock off. Mason will be out on Washington. You’ll be right behind the truck, eh?... Okay. Good-by.”

Drake hung up the phone, said to Mason, “You’ll find him on Washington somewhere between Cornise and Millford. Jim will be cruising along behind the truck.”

Mason inclined his head, made a stiff fingered gesture with his hand, said, “Nice work, Paul. We’re on our way. Want to come, Della?”

“Do I!”

“Look lively then.”

They ran down the corridor to the elevator, went down in the elevator, sprinted over to the parking lot and scrambled into Mason’s automobile.

“Isn’t this terribly risky?” Della Street asked.

“Isn’t what risky?”

“What you’re going to do.”

“Uh huh,” Mason said piloting the car adroitly through traffic. “There’s always a risk when you start doing things.”

“Suppose Sergeant Holcomb gets the diary?”

“That,” Mason admitted, “would be just too bad.”

“Suppose you get it and Sergeant Holcomb finds out you’ve got it?”

Mason grinned. “That would be just too good.”

“I don’t get it.”

“Neither will the Sergeant.”

Della Street sighed and gave up. “Okay,” she admitted smiling, “you win. You always do. Go to it.”

Speeding out Washington, they were less than three blocks from Cornise when they saw the garbage truck just pulling into an alley. Drake’s operative tagging along behind spotted Mason and Della Street, elevated two spread fingers, received a nod from Mason, and drove on.

Mason swung into the alley, parked his car just behind the garbage truck and was on the ground when a short, swarthy individual with warm brown eyes, bushy black eyebrows and dark stubble on his chin, climbed down from the garbage truck.

The man was wearing a uniform which had once been white and which was now laundered to a nondescript shade of gray, interspersed with spots.

“You’re Nick Modena?” Mason said.

The warm brown eyes glinted upward, became suddenly suspicious. “What you want with Nick Modena?”

“A little business proposition.”

“What sort of business — monkey business?”

“A chance to make a little money.”

“Say, who are you, anyway?” Mason grinned. “My name,” he said, “is Sarg.”

“Okay, Sarg. Whatcha want?”

Mason said, “I want to make fifty dollars for you.”

“Make fifty dollars for me?” Modena’s voice rose to almost a shout.

“For you.”

“Whatsa matter? What’s crooked?”

“Nothing crooked.”

“Whatcha want me to do?”

“Collect garbage.”

“For how long?”

“One time.”

“Where abouts?”

“Down the street.”

“How soon?”

“Right away.”

Modena glanced from Mason to Della Street. “Fifty dollars, Sarg?”

“That’s right.”

“What do I do?”

Mason said, “You know the Palm Vista Apartments?”

“Sure, I know. I take garbage, don’t I?”

“How do you collect the garbage from there?”

“Take it in a pail, tilt it up, dump it out, put back the pail...”

“No, I mean do you go to each individual apartment?”

“Whatsa matter, you think I’m crazy? Go to each apartment? Sure not.”

“How do the apartments dispose of their garbage?”

“How should I know? Put it out in front, maybe janitor takes, puts in big barrel. Me, I get big barrel.”

Mason said, “This time, it’s going to be different. You go to this apartment on the second floor. You knock at the door. When the man comes to the door, tell him that you’re there to collect the garbage. He’ll give it to you. You take it down to the wagon, dump it, and that’s the whole job.”

“That’s all?”

“That’s all.”

“I get fifty bucks?”

“If you get the garbage, you get fifty bucks.”

“Suppose I don’t get garbage?”

“Then you don’t get any money.”

“Whosa man in the place now?”

“He’s a man in my employ,” Mason said casually. “That is, I pay a part of his wages. He’s supposed to be working for me as well as a few others.”

“Why you no tell him yourself?”

“No, I want you to make fifty dollars.”

Modena shook his head, blinked his eyes from Mason to Della Street, then back to Mason. “Something’s crazy.”

“Fifty bucks,” Mason said, opening his wallet and taking out five ten dollar bills. “As soon as you come down with the garbage.”

Modena shrugged his shoulders, spread hands in a typical gesture of surrender. “What’s holding us back?”

“Nothing,” Mason said, getting back into his car.

Modena climbed up in the driver’s seat of the garbage truck. Both cars backed out of the alley. Mason followed along behind the rumbling garbage truck until it stopped in front of the Palm Vista Apartments.

“How much chance,” Della asked, “do you think you have?”

“Considerably better than an even gamble,” Mason told her. “After all, the foodstuff around there should be getting pretty smelly by this time, and there’s certainly nothing phony about Modena. And in case the officer wants to look out of the window, he can see the garbage truck parked here. Unless he’s familiar with the routine of the apartment, or the garbage business, it won’t occur to him that there’s anything particularly unusual about it.”

“If it doesn’t work,” Della Street said, “they’ll know where the diary is.”

“Perhaps — perhaps not.”

“Well,” Della Street said laughing, “there’s one thing about Nick Modena. He certainly isn’t nervous.”

The short chunky man swung down from the garbage truck, walked down the alley to the service door, pushed it open and vanished into the apartment house. His walk was neither too fast nor too slow, just the regular rhythmic stride of a man who has work to do and is anxious, but not too anxious, to get it over with.

Della Street kept looking at her wrist watch, counting the seconds. Mason never took his eyes from the garbage wagon.

“Gosh, Chief! It’s been three minutes and ten seconds,” Della said. “Something must have gone wrong.”

Mason, without moving his eyes from the garbage wagon, merely shook his head.

“Four minutes!” Della announced.

Mason said nothing.

“Five minutes!” There was almost a trace of panic in Della’s voice.

“It’ll take him a while to get up there and back,” Mason said.

“Five minutes and thirty seconds... Oh...”

Nick Modena came marching unconcernedly out of the apartment house, swinging a garbage bucket by the handle.

Mason started the motor, pulled the car alongside.

“You want?” Modena asked skeptically.

Mason produced fifty dollars. “I want... I want that loaf of bread.”

“Jiz!” Modena said as he accepted the fifty dollars and. watched Mason pull the stale loaf of bread from the garbage pail.

“Have any trouble?” Mason asked.

“Trouble? No. Man come to door. I tell him I’ve collect the garbage. He says who sent me. I tell him Sarg. He says, ‘Okay.’... What the hell!”

Della Street gasped in dismay. “Look up at the window, Chief.”

“Has he spotted us?” Mason asked.

“Yes.”

A window on the second floor was suddenly raised. An officer thrust out his head. “Hey,” he shouted, “what’s coming off down there?”

Mason answered with a cheery wave of his hand.

“Hey, you! What the hell are you doing?” the officer demanded.

“Collecting garbage,” Mason said cheerfully, tossing the loaf of stale bread into the back of his automobile and opening the door on the left-hand side.

“Hop in, Della.”

Della Street, with a flash of legs and a flounce of skirts, slid across the seat. The officer in Diana Regis’ apartment leaned far out of the window. His face was dark with anger.

“Hey, you!” he shouted. “Come back here with that or...”

Mason slid the car into gear, stepped on the throttle. With a smooth rush of powerful acceleration the car shot down the street.

Mason turned to Della Street and grinned. “That,” he announced, “makes it a lot better.”

“You mean it makes it a lot worse.”

“Why?”

“That officer recognized you. He also got your license number. He’ll make Modena go back upstairs and Modena will tell all about you paying him to...”

“Collect the garbage,” Mason interposed.

“But you posed as an officer. The guard in the apartment thought a Sergeant...”

“No. The name was Sarg.”

“That’s an assumed name.”

“Right. A man can use a fictitious name whenever he wants, just so he doesn’t impersonate someone.”

“But you got the evidence.”

“I received a loaf of bread they had thrown away.”

Della Street sighed resignedly. “Well, I guess I can leave it to you to get out of this one. You’ve always wriggled your way out of all the others, but this one seems particularly brazen.”

“That’s what makes it so nice — all open and aboveboard. Get that bread, Della, and see if the diary’s still there.”

Della twisted around over the back of the front seat, retrieved the loaf of bread, pulled out the plug she had inserted, took out a flexible leather-covered diary which had been rolled into a tight cylinder.

Mason grinned at her. “Luck’s turning, Della.”

“So far,” she said.

“It’s far enough. A man can’t ask Fortune to give him any more than a break. The rest is up to him.”

“Won’t Sergeant Holcomb try something like he did before, some strong arm stuff?”

“Perhaps. It won’t do him any good.”

“Why?”

Mason said, “Because we’re not going anywhere near the office. We’re going to run for cover. We’re going to go over that diary page by page. Then we’re going to put it in an envelope and mail it to you at your apartment. And by the time Holcomb finds out where the diary is, the show will be over.”

Della Street said, “That’s going to be an awful slap in the face to Sergeant Holcomb.”

Mason grinned. “Please don’t make me bust out crying, Della.”