The Paw of the Cat

Chapter Four Dance Macabre

The wire was on Stenn’s desk when he returned. He read it carefully.

Then followed the print classification, repeated twice for accuracy’s sake.

He took the candid shot of Palma out of his desk drawer. He had been caught in bright sunlight as he emerged from the alley. Mexico City’s reply had been prompt.

He sat and thought for a long time. He went to the communications room and explained, very carefully, what he wanted done.

Then he went out and picked up Palma. The man was casual, smiling. He sat at his ease in the back seat of the car, as placid as someone humoring a whim.

Stenn said nothing. The immigration man was waiting at headquarters. Stenn took over one of the small rooms off the rear corridor. He sat behind the desk.

“Your name,” said Stenn, “and I probably can’t pronounce it, is Fernando Barredo y Fourzan. And I think you’re up for deportation.”

Palma smiled, unruffled. “You did quite well on the name. Quite well. It used to be my name, as a matter of fact. If you’ve checked that far you probably know that once upon a time I was in a Mexican prison. Purely a misunderstanding, I assure you.”

“You left Mexico without permission.”

“Did I, now! Unfortunate, wasn’t it?”

Stenn sighed. “All right. All right. What have you got up your sleeve?”

“This,” Palma said. He reached into his inside jacket pocket, took out a small grey folder and flipped it over to the immigration official.

The man leafed through it carefully. He handed it back to Palma. “I can check, of course, but it looks all right to me. Born in Mexico. Acquired Argentine citizenship in 1943. The visa is in order and he’s got another seven months here, provided he doesn’t get a renewal at the end of that time. We could probably block a renewal on the basis of undesirability if we can prove the Mexican prison term, but it would be a little delicate to cancel the present permit.”

“All you had to do,” Palma said to Stenn, “was ask me. I could have told you all this. Now, if you’re quite through...” He stood up.

“Sit down,” Stenn rumbled.

Palma shrugged and sank back into the chair.

The immigration man said that he didn’t see what more he could add. Stenn agreed and the immigration man left, leaving Stenn and Palma alone in the room.

Stenn looked into the man’s dark, alert eyes, smarting at the half-veiled amusement he saw there.

“You’re slick, like butter,” Stenn said.

“Thank you. Muchissimas gracias, my official friend.”

“Sit right where you are for a few minutes,” Stenn said. He left the small room, went up to the second floor and found Lieutenant Sharahan at his desk.

In a flat tone Stenn reported what had happened, what he wished to do. Sharahan stared at him. “Since when are we running this place with crystal balls and tea leaves, Paul?”

“I got to make it fit.”

“Like trying to put the kid’s bike in the Christmas stocking. You got a line on this by digging on the other case. It isn’t connected, you know.”

“The girl insisted on being a witness, Wally. Girls like that are maybe part psycho. They want to live fast. They want to see, taste, feel everything. That Palma, now. She’s got the bait, hook, line, sinker, pole, reel and his arm up to the elbow.”

“No,” Sharahan said very gently. “No, Paul. You got to do better. Let him go. If he’s as slick as you say, he’s slick enough to make trouble. We can’t hold him three minutes if he wants to complain to his legation. He’s a foreign national.”

“You know what happens if she’s as tough as I think?”

“I can guess.”

“She gets that dough and she converts it into cash, all of it. They get married and they go to Argentina. I’ve got a hunch that down there everything belongs to the husband. She can have an accident down there. It’s a big con, plain and simple.”

“That’s too bad. You were working on a Jane Doe. You’re not campaigning against matrimony. Not on department time.”

“Were working? Is the Jane Doe case closed?”

“Closed.”

“I’m sick, Wally. I think I got to have a couple days off. Maybe it’s flu.”

Sharahan waved a limp hand. “Okay. Get out of here. Be a damn fool. It’ll get you nowhere.”

Stenn told Palma he could leave and Palma left with a smirk.

Morganson hitched his belly closer to the bar of the Rip Tide. “Don’t get sore, Paul,” he said. “Don’t get sore. Just tell me. How much of it goes with the Jane Doe having blonde hair?”

“You’re making me sore.”

“Take it easy. Call me a student of human nature. Ten years we know each other. Every time there’s a blonde body, a dead blonde body, you knock yourself out. Maybe you lose what the smart boys call a sense of perspective. Objectivity. Sure, I looked over the Theater of the Dance. Palma had to play up to me because the Clove girl was there and he had to make it look good. He knew who sent me. The Clove girl was all dithery about it. She gushed. Palma gushed. I took notes. The hell with it. They’ll never put anything on. The whole layout is phony. But how can you paste it to the Jane Doe? Don’t answer that question. I just want you thinking straight.”

“I’ll ask you a question,” Stenn said. “How many people that get better than a half-million worth of pie out of the sky go around thinking they’re God? Add a busted home on top of that. Add a lot of play-acting. Add gullibility. I’ll play out the hand and what can I lose but a couple days’ pay?”

Morganson sighed. “Okay. What do I do?”

“You got to get that Palma out of my hair. I want the girl alone in that warehouse this afternoon. I got to get there first and get in and get his stuff out of sight. This has got to look real good.”

“How do I do that?”

“You’re a big boy now. How the hell do I know how you do it?”

Morganson snapped his fingers. “I’m the eager reporter. I went and got hold of that will. I found a clause in it where she can’t marry until she’s twenty-five. I’ve got a friend who’ll play along. A kid lawyer. Maybe I can take Palma to his office. How long do you need?”

“She comes in to rehearse at two. It’s eleven now. You get Palma when he goes after food. Say about one. I’ll hang around until you get him away from there. I can get in all right. I’ll be there when the girl arrives.”

Stenn sat with one haunch on the corner of the table, the big shoe swinging slowly, his hat shoved off his forehead, the pale eyes hooded. The cigarette in the corner of his mouth sent a tendril of smoke upward along the heavy cheek, curling around the hat brim. He had tossed Palma’s personal things in a suitcase and shoved it under the cot. The grey sheet hung down far enough to conceal it.

Through the dusty glass and wire grill he saw Della Clove come down the alley with cat-tread, sunglint on the heavy black hair, the red slash of lips.

She pushed the door open and the smile faded. “What do you want? Where’s Raoul?”

“You won’t see him any more, honey. He outsmarted us. He jumped just before we grabbed him.”

She put her hands on her hips, spread-legged in fishwife pose, the pointed chin thrust toward him. “Just what the hell is this all about?”

He kicked the cane-bottomed chair toward her. “Sit down. That will keep you from falling down.”

Fear flickered for a moment in her eyes. She sat down. He regarded her somberly. He said, “Kid, you can get tied up with some real rough people when you don’t watch yourself.”

“I don’t need a guardian.”

“I could give you an argument on that. Look. See this? A picture of Palma. We got it as he was coming out of the alley. See this? A picture of the dead blonde, retouched a little. We sent those two pictures by airmail to Mexico City. We got an answer.”

“I don’t have to read it. Raoul told me about the trouble he had in Mexico.”

“Maybe you ought to read it. Maybe there’s something in it you don’t know.”

They had fixed up the wire in accord with Stenn’s detailed request. It was a nice job. Official looking.

The yellow sheet slipped out of the girl’s fingers, swooped toward Stenn’s heavy shoe, fluttered to the floor. He grunted as he bent over and picked it up.

Though the girl’s voice was barely audible, it had the quality of a scream. “No,” she said. “No! It’s all a lie!”

“Sure,” Stenn said. “Talk yourself into believing that, the same way you talked yourself into the cock-and-bull story Palma gave you.”

She looked through Stenn and beyond him. “But I... she came here and said horrible things. She was on her way out to talk to my mother. He told me how for years she had made his life...”

She turned suddenly as Palma came through the doorway. He looked sharply at Della and then at Stenn. He was breathing hard. “I thought so!” he said. “Your friends were a little clumsy. They contradicted each other. They were too anxious to have me stay with them.” He put his hand on Della’s shoulder. “Are you all right, my darling?”

Stenn saw her shudder and then smile up into his face. “Of course.”

“This police person is a fool, you know.” Palma spoke intently, looking into her eyes. “A complete fool.”

“Of course,” she whispered, still smiling.

Stenn put the pictures and the wire in his pocket. He looked at the girl with sadness. She continued to look into Palma’s eyes.

Stenn saw that Palma sensed that the girl had slipped, that some information had been given. There was deep tension in Palma. He looked quickly at Stenn, apparently reassured by placidity. The cord of his throat relaxed.

He patted Della’s shoulder lightly. “Come on, darling. Time for rehearsal. You’d better change.”

Della meekly left the room.

Palma said, “Possibly I underestimated you, my friend. It won’t happen again.”

“It could have worked.”

“What could have worked? I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I’m talking about using a half-wild impressionable kid like that to do your own dirty work, Palma. You didn’t have the guts to handle the blonde yourself It was easier to play on the girl, wasn’t it?”

Palma peered at him. “My dear man, have you been attending the cinema too often? Or is it those comic books you read?”

“Sooner or later,” Stenn said. “Your time will come.”

“I’m afraid not,” Palma said. “Now you may watch us rehearse, if you care to. Where did you put my things? Oh, under the bed. Of course.”

Stenn sat on the table. Palma took off his jacket shirt and undershirt. His shoulders and chest were well muscled. He pulled on a sweat shirt, smiled mockingly at Stenn and said, as he walked toward the inner doorway, “Art cannot wait, you know. The show must go on.”

Stenn said a short incisive word. Palma grinned over his shoulder.

Stenn went to the doorway. The girl, in rehearsal clothes, stood on the stage. She had changed, apparently, behind the makeshift curtain that served as a backdrop.

Seventeen years of police work had sensitized small alarm circuits in the back of Stenn’s mind. He did not understand how they operated, but he knew that usually it was the result of something seen with the eye but not recorded by the brain. His eyes flicked across the room, across the litter and the dust. A half bottle of milk, caked and curdled, stood by the door. He stood up and felt the tension in his shoulders. Morganson pushed the outer door open and came in. He was flushed.

“I didn’t do so good, Paul.”

“Neither did I. Anyway, it was a try.”

Morganson looked around with distaste. “The happy little pigpen.”

Stenn followed his glance, saw the chipped plate half under the cot. The alarm circuits quickened. He stared at the plate. A tarnished knife lay across it.

Alarm can come from something that is visible, or something that was once visible and suddenly, for no reason, has disappeared.

He grunted, low in his throat. He turned and strode toward the inner doorway, Morganson at his heels. They went through into the big room where the folding chairs sat in orderly ranks staring mindlessly at the stage.

Palma said, “Now, you remember this one, darling. I am upstage, here. Half turned. I am looked across at Berta. She represents hidden desire. She will be over there, facing me. You are jealous. Now circle me slowly and keep the count in your mind. Crouch low and keep looking up at my face. Your hands must express tension and anger.”

Morganson said, “Do you really want to watch this glop?”

“Shut up!”

“Now look, Paul, just because—”

“Damn you, watch them!” he grated.

Something in his voice froze Morganson. They stood side by side. The years of conditioning kept Stenn on the verge of running forward, crying out. But something far stronger kept him there. Sun dappled the dusty floor. The distant traffic was more vibration than sound. Somewhere a radio played loudly.

Palma stood looking across the stage. Della circled him, crouched as he had directed. She circled him twice as he stood motionless. Then she straightened up in front of him. There was one flickering glint of metal as she drove the tines of the corroded fork with all her strength into the base of his throat. Morganson made a thin, whimpering sound. As Palma tottered she ripped the fork free and, with a hard mad cry, drove it home again, releasing the handle this time to fall to her knees.

Palma’s lips worked with an amazing rapidity, flapping together soundlessly like a ventriloquist’s puppet. Stenn ran to him, leaping with an extraordinary agility for so heavy a man, up onto the stage. Palma’s expression was intent. He grasped the handle of the fork and, just as Stenn reached him, he pulled it free. After that there was nothing that could be done for him. He died quickly but nastily, drowning while he fought for air that he could not suck into his lungs.

It was dusk and Stenn was sitting on a bench in the unlighted squad room in his undershirt when Morganson came in.

“What was Wally’s reaction?” Al asked.

“He’s still upset because we still got a Jane Doe. But now we’ll unravel her by backtracking on Palma.”

“How about the girl?”

“The two state psychiatrists have been working over her. Already some crackpots who read the papers have phoned in wanting to marry her. She gives the story that the blonde showed up and she had been tracking this Palma for a long time. Palma told the girl, the Clove girl, that the blonde was insanely possessive and now she’d never let him go. The blonde had the name of the Clove girl’s mother. I guess she was going to get the Clove girl off Palma’s neck by telling the mother how this Palma was already married, or a crook, or something like that. The Clove girl waited until the little fat guy stopped gawping at the blonde and she timed it right and shoved the blonde in the small of the back as the train came in. A crazy thing to do, all right, and she said she did it because Palma explained how a great artist must experience everything in order to be fulfilled. Something like that. My guess is that Palma and the blonde were in on some deal and they separated and he ran out with the stake. Maybe we’ll find out. Even if we could prove it all, we’d never been able to touch him. He could always claim it was just a discussion he had with the Clove girl and she took it wrong. The trouble was he talked too good. The Clove girl wasn’t satisfied with doing the pushing. She had to ring herself in as a witness too. She’s nuts, I think, and I think the state guys will come to the same answer.”

The room darkened some more. Stenn clicked on the light, squinting against it, yawning. “I’m beat,” he said.

“A bone-headed cop with a soft spot for blondes,” Morganson said.

“I’m not too proud to eat with a vulture of the press,” Stenn said.

“Get your clothes on.”

Stenn frowned and spoke absently, “For sure he would have knocked off that Clove girl sooner Or later.”

“Probably,” Morganson said gently, sensing the concealed bitterness of self-accusation, feeling glad that their jobs were not reversed, knowing that now Paul was seeing the girl as an animal rigged around with traps he had set. “Probably,” he repeated.