Traps Need Fresh Bait

Chapter 9

Number 1328 Severang Avenue was one of the little cracker-box, high-utility type of houses which are being put in subdivisions by contractors who have a set of four different plans and put these four houses up in a sequence, then start all over again until the unit may consist of forty houses in ten identical groups.

The one Dennison Farley was living in was one of the more moderately priced ones — two bedrooms, one bath, a combined living room and dining room, and a kitchen.

Farley was home. I could smell cooking coming from the kitchen. The guy looked hungry. He evidently hadn’t eaten yet.

I could smell a cocktail on his breath.

He was a tall, broad-shouldered, God’s-gift-to-women type; but his mouth was too big.

He looked down at me and said, “And what can I do for you, Mr. Lam?”

“I’d like a few words with you in private.”

“How private?” he asked.

“Could you step outside?” I asked.

“I could,” he said.

“And if you could sit in my car, there wouldn’t be so much possibility of our being overheard.”

“And what do you want to talk about?” he asked.

I gave him a card. I said, “I’m a private detective.”

“Well, well, well,” he said, “I’ve always wondered what you guys really looked like.”

He looked me over and then suddenly started to laugh.

“What’s funny?” I asked.

“You are,” he said.

“Oh?”

“That’s right. I see these private eyes on television and I read about them in the books, and they’re great big bruisers who smash people in the puss and knock their teeth out, use a little karate and break an arm or two, dust off their hands, and then jump into bed with the Babe.”

“Well?” I asked.

“You aren’t the type,” he said.

“I get by,” I said.

“I wonder how you do it,” he told me.

I turned around and put my hand in my pocket so the bulge on the coat was more noticeable.

Farley looked down at me, then sobered somewhat.

“I get you,” he said. “Now, what do you want with me?”

“I want to talk with you.”

“You said that before.”

“About a private matter.”

“That also is a repetition.”

“It has to do with community property.”

“What about community property?”

“Daphne’s property,” I said.

The guy straightened with a jerk as though I’d slapped him in the face with a wet towel. His eyes got cold and hard. His mouth clamped into a firm, straight line.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said.

“You want to come out in the car and listen for a while, or do you want me to take it from there?”

“Take it from there,” he said, “and quit pestering me or I’ll take that rod away from you and pound you to a pulp.”

“O.K.,” I told him, “you’re the doctor. I’m giving you a chance for the easy way out.”

I turned and started walking slowly down the cement walk toward the place where I had parked my car.

After a moment I heard heavy steps behind me; then a big hand was on my shoulder. “Now, look here, Lam,” he said, “I don’t want you going around with the idea you’re going to stir up trouble.”

I didn’t even look around. “The trouble,” I told him, “has already been stirred up.”

I kept right on walking, opened the door on the driver’s side of the car, slid in behind the wheel.

“Now, wait a minute,” Farley said.

He ran around the car and got in on the other side. “Perhaps you’d better tell me what this is all about,” he said.

“It’s about community property,” I told him. “You won a hundred and twenty-odd thousand dollars in the lottery. How much of that do you intend to give Daphne to make up for getting away with her bank account, leaving her holding the sack with...”

“Now, look here, Lam; that marriage wasn’t any good. She knew it at the time. She consented to go through just a form of marriage with me so as to give her an aura of respectability with her friends.”

“Did you put that on the marriage license?” I asked.

“Don’t be silly,” he said.

I said nothing.

“How much does she want?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” I told him. “I’d advise her to settle for five thousand dollars if I had the cash in hand to back up the offer.”

“Five thousand dollars!” he exclaimed. “Are you crazy? Do you know how much of that winning was left after the government got done dipping its big hand into my pocket?”

“That’s why I said five thousand,” I said. “Otherwise I’d have said fifty.”

“Now, look, Lam, I’m married. I’ve got a daughter seven years old. She’s a cute kid. Think what it would mean to her if...”

“If I spilled the beans?” I asked.

“Exactly,” he said.

“You should have thought of her when you were putting the beans on the stove,” I told him.

“Now, look, Lam, I’m a salesman. I’m away from home a good deal, and when I’m away from home I’m just like any human male animal. But I love my wife and I love my kid, and I wouldn’t do anything to hurt them.”

“Well, that’s fine,” I told him. “If you haven’t done anything to hurt them, you have nothing to be afraid of.”

“I didn’t mean it that way. I meant that sometimes a fellow gets crummy impulses. He does things he’s ashamed of afterwards, but he doesn’t do them deliberately. It’s all on the spur of the moment.”

“I see,” I told him.

“You may see; but do you understand?”

“Sure, I understand,” I said, “and, furthermore, I understand that if you’re going to do anything like the square thing, you’ll get five thousand dollars for Daphne.”

“The way I look at it, she’s not entitled to a cent. She went into this with her eyes open.”

“The way I look at it, she’s entitled to a lot more,” I said. “You bamboozled her into a bigamous marriage. She was too compassionate and forgiving to prosecute you. But when you had the good fortune to win a big stake at the lottery, she became forcibly reminded of the joint account that you took when you skipped out.”

“It was only a little over eleven hundred dollars,” he said. “I’ll give that back to her. I’ve intended to do that all along. I was hard up for cash at the time, and I... well, I just cleaned out the account, partially because I needed the money and partially because I didn’t want her to have money to... to...”

“To what?” I asked.

“To hire some goddamned private detective,” he blurted.

“Exactly,” I said. “Now she’s hired a goddamned private detective and it’s going to cost you five thousand bucks at the very least. And I’m not sure I can get her to settle for that.”

“I can’t do it.”

“Suit yourself,” I told him. “You can...”

A police car drove up and parked alongside.

Sergeant Frank Sellers, a comparatively fresh cigar in his mouth, got out of the car and came walking around.

“Well, Pint Size,” he said, “you have taken us on a little chase. Let’s find out what this is all about.”

Sellers showed his identification card to Farley. “What’s your name?” he asked.

“What’s all this about?” Farley asked.

“What’s your name?” Sellers said. “And don’t take all day trying to think up an alias.”

“Dennison Farley.”

“How long have you known this guy Donald Lam?”

“I just met him.”

“What does he want?”

“It’s a private matter.”

“I said what does he want?”

Farley hesitated.

A good-looking woman came to the door of Farley’s house, looked out and saw him sitting in my car, with the police car parked alongside. She started to say something, turned back in the house, then turned back toward the porch again and stood there watching.

“Well?” Sellers said.

Farley said, “This guy is a private detective. He’s trying to make a collection for a broad I got tangled up with some months ago in a Middle Western state.”

“What’s her name?” Sellers asked.

“That doesn’t need to enter into it. It...”

“What’s her name?” Sellers snapped.

“Daphne Creston,” Farley said.

“Well, I’ll be damned!” Sellers muttered.

“This thing is first cousin to blackmail,” Farley went on.

“What threats have I made?” I asked.

“That’s neither here nor there.”

“Have I made any threats?”

“You’ve talked about trouble.”

“Did I spell out the kind of trouble?”

“Well, no.”

“Did I threaten to prosecute you if you didn’t do what I wanted?”

“I thought there was an innuendo.”

“Forget it,” I told him. “I’m making no threats. I’m representing a woman who has an equitable claim on you, and if you have a spark of decency, you’ll pay off. If you haven’t, I can’t help you; and, furthermore, I want it understood that I’m not holding out the promise that no action will taken if you accede to her demands.”

“Say, what is all this about?” Sellers asked.

“It’s a little family trouble, Sergeant.”

Farley pulled a checkbook from his pocket. “All right,” he said. “I make this check to Daphne Creston for five thousand bucks. I put on it ‘in full of all claims of any sort, legal, equitable, or otherwise.’”

“O.K.,” I said, “I’ll give her the check. After she cashes it, if it’s good, you’ll have a receipt. If she sends it back to you, you’ll know she isn’t making a settlement at that figure.”

“Well, she damned well better make a settlement at that figure. She couldn’t get a penny more no matter what she did.”

Sellers stood there while Farley made out the check and handed it to me.

I said, “O.K., you’ll be hearing from me. You got a telephone?”

“Yes, it’s unlisted.”

“Put the telephone number on the check.”

He wrote the number on the check.

I said, “O.K.” Then I turned to Sellers. “What are you doing out here, Frank?”

“I just thought I’d better keep you from getting into any more trouble,” Sellers said.

“I didn’t see you following me.”

“You’re damned right you didn’t,” Sellers said. “It was an expert job, and I didn’t do it. It was done from a helicopter.”

Farley had been listening with big ears. He said to Sellers, “Just who is this guy?”

“He told you,” Sellers said. “His name is Donald Lam. He’s a private detective, and the son of a bitch is smart.”

With that he turned away.