Very Cold for May

Chapter Eleven

May was buried the next morning after a pallid, undenominational service in a North Side chapel. There were banks of magnificent floral offerings about the closed coffin, their heavy fragrance blending nicely with the lugubriously solemn organ music and the pale sincerity of the young man who preached the sermon. The young man wore a gray suit with a black vest and he spoke of May as if she were a faithful dog that had been killed by a careless hunter.

Jake walked out after the service and lit a cigarette. He was feeling bad from the effects of his drinking the night before, and the grotesque nature of the funeral service made him feel worse. May had deserved better than that, he thought ruefully.

Someone dropped a hand on his shoulder and when he turned he saw Mike Francesca standing behind him with a sad smile on his face.

“It was too bad, eh, Jake?” Mike said, with a shake of his head.

“Yes, it was too bad,” Jake said.

They moved to the curb to avoid the crowd that was coming out of the chapel.

“May was a good friend of mine for many years,” Mike said. “We were very close.” He shook his head sadly. “Such good friends we were. The police are having no luck finding her murderer, eh?”

Jake smiled. Mike had several police captains on his payroll and if he wanted to know how a police investigation was going he had only to pick up a phone. “They are temporarily baffled,” he said, drily.

“Too bad,” Mike said, with a heavy sigh. He peered at Jake with his eyes half-closed and smiled gently. “The diary, I understand, has been found. Did you look through it, Jake?”

“Yes, I looked through it, Mike,” Jake said evenly. “I didn’t see anything about you that was unflattering.”

Mike shook his graying head in a gesture of annoyance. “I knew there wouldn’t be,” he said. “I mean, I wasn’t sure, but my first idea was, ‘Why, May won’t hurt you, Mike. Don’t be a fool.’ But I couldn’t just relax, you know, so I worried about it.”

“I don’t think you have to worry any more,” Jake said, but as he spoke he realized that he had been working on the assumption that the material cut from the diary must have referred to Dan Riordan. Actually, it could have referred to anyone. He wondered if Martin realized that.

Mike touched his arm. “Can I drop you somewhere, Jake?”

Jake said he was going downtown and Mike stepped to the curb and glanced down the street. He didn’t wave or change expression; he merely indicated by the gesture that he was through talking and a long, black Cadillac halfway down the block pulled away from the curb and shot down the street to come to a smooth stop before them.

“Ah, here we are,” he said with a surprised smile. “Get in, Jake. How’re you doing with Dan Riordan?”

“Fair enough,” Jake said.

“You know, Jake, some time I must have a talk with you about public relations. Could you get the papers to stop calling me a hoodlum?”

“Why in hell do you care what they call you?”

“I tell you, I don’t care, myself, Jake, but I got two granddaughters in a convent out West, and I don’t think it is nice for them to have me called a hoodlum. Maybe you would call me this week, and we could have a long lunch and talk this over. Eh?”

The car slid to a stop before the Executives’ Building as Mike finished talking, so Jake nodded, and said, “Sure thing.”

Mike slipped a card into his hand. “My private number,” he said. “You give me a ring, eh?”

“Sure,” Jake said.

Mike chuckled good-humoredly and climbed back into his car. The driver let out the clutch and the Cadillac rolled deliberately and insolently through a red light, and then turned left past a sign that said NO LEFT TURN and disappeared down the side street. Jake shrugged and walked into the Executives’ Building, wondering why he didn’t throw Mike’s card away.

The receptionist told him that Noble wanted to see him. Jake found Gary seated at his desk, wearing a flamboyant sport jacket and puffing energetically on a cigar.

“What’s up?” Jake said.

“Riordan called me yesterday afternoon, said he’d just talked with you and that you’d told him Prior was hot on his trail. That right?”

“That’s what Prior told me,” Jake said.

“That means we’ve got to pull his claws. We’ve got to hit hard and fast, Jake.”

“I’m all for that,” Jake said.

Noble stood and looked down at Jake with a worried frown. “Jake, I don’t like to mention this, because I know you’ve been trying hard, but you’re just not producing for Riordan. Here it is now, four days since we got the account and we haven’t even started planning a campaign.”

Jake stretched his legs and rested his head against the back of the chair. He said, “I’m sick of the account, Gary.”

“What the devil is wrong with you?” Noble said. “An account is nothing to get sick over. It’s business.”

“This one is pretty raw. What the hell can we say for Riordan? There’s no defense to make, no extenuating factors to introduce. He’s a crook.”

“That’s not for us to say, thank God,” Noble said. “Jake, you’re just having a touch of spring fever or something. Here, let me fix you a drink.”

He brought Jake a tall Scotch and soda and slapped his shoulder. “That should fix you up. You’re tired this morning. But we’ve got to see Riordan this afternoon at his hotel. He called and made the date. So try, Jake, try like hell to dream up something to keep him quiet for a while.”

Jake sipped his drink and shrugged. “All right,” he said with very little enthusiasm.

After lunch Jake walked to the Blackstone because the day was clear, and the wind off the lake was refreshingly cold. Riordan opened the door in answer to his knock and Jake saw that Noble and Niccolo were already on hand, and that Brian Riordan was lounging on the sofa with a highball in his hand. Sheila was present and that surprised him. He couldn’t figure out her interest in the Riordan account. She was sipping a drink and talking with Brian.

There was a general murmur of greeting which died away as Denise Riordan strolled in through the dining room, wearing a white satin hostess gown and white satin mules. She smiled at Jake and shook her head ruefully. “Hello,” she said. “You took me three falls to a finish in the drinking department, I guess.”

Riordan glanced at her evenly, and said, “We’re going to be busy here, Denise.”

“Okay, I just wanted something to keep me company.” She made herself a drink from the tray of bottles on the coffee table. Brian Riordan grinned at her and said, “The picture of typical American womanhood. Modestly attired in a white robe with a low bosom and a straight slug of rye in a highball glass.”

“Don’t you like the picture?” Denise said carelessly.

“I love it,” Brian said.

Riordan watched as she walked across the room and out of sight; then he turned to Noble.

“I called you here to find out what the next move is, so let’s get to work,” he said.

Noble went into the picture feature he had planned for the Riordan family, but Riordan interrupted him with an irritable wave of his hand.

“That’s all right, I suppose, but it doesn’t seem like a hell of a lot. Who really cares that I carve whaling ships out of corks as a hobby, and water my own front lawn? I want something startling, damn it, something to slow these Federal snoops down to a crawl.”

“Well, in that case,” Noble said, as confidently as if he knew where the sentence was going to end. “In that case, we’d better do some thinking out loud.” He took a cigar from his pocket and unwrapped the tinfoil with the same care a man would use in disarming a land mine. “I have an idea that might be feasible, but I’d rather hear from Jake first,” he said.

Jake had been thinking while Noble and Riordan talked. An idea that was just about cheap and unsavory enough to work had occurred to him. It was a lulu, he thought. A real beaut.

Riordan looked at him. “Well?”

“Yes, I’ve got something,” Jake said. “First of all, and this will be news to you, the police have May’s diary.”

“How do you know that?” Riordan said.

“I got that much from Lieutenant Martin. Also, and what is more important to us, there’s no mention of you in her diary. Maybe there was at one time, but someone has been at work with a scissors and you’re out of the star-studded cast.”

There was a silence in the room for a moment, and then Riordan said thoughtfully, “That’s very interesting.”

Brian Riordan looked at his father with a grin. “Damn interesting. Someone else has the dirt on you now.” He laughed and slumped down comfortably in the couch. “Perhaps somebody here can help you out. Do any of you happen to have the record of the old man’s boyish pranks during the war? He was a cute one, you know, with his self-exploding barrels and stratospheric profits.”

Riordan turned to his son, and Jake sensed a finality in the set of his broad shoulders.

“That’s all of that, Brian,” he said.

“Now don’t get tremulous and sensitive,” Brian said.

Riordan looked at him calmly for a moment, and there was a curious expression of relief on his face. Then he walked slowly across the floor and stopped before Brian.

“You rotten little fake,” he said, enunciating each word with relish. “I’ve listened to your moral blackmail for the last time.”

With a sudden strong gesture he fastened his hand in the lapels of Brian’s sport jacket; and then he jerked him powerfully to his feet. Brian’s breathing came harder, but he stared into his father’s eyes with an insolent smile.

“You came home four years ago,” Riordan said in a savage voice. “I provided you with an income that you couldn’t earn if you were fifty times as smart as you are, and lived to be a thousand. You squandered it like a brainless fool, and sneered at me for having it to give to you. You made free with everything I owned because you think you’ve earned it. Well, by God, I’ll show you what you’ve earned, and what you deserve. From now on you can join the other war heroes and get a job as a bricklayer or a truck driver.”

Riordan swung his son around with a twist of his arm, and propelled him toward the door with a mighty shove. Brian staggered backwards and barely kept himself from falling. But he managed a smile as he straightened the lapels of his coat. “You’ve done something very stupid, you know.” He turned and opened the door, and walked out without a backward glance.

Riordan walked over and kicked the door shut. He came back to the center of the room, and said to Jake, “All right, what did you have on your mind?”

Jake had watched the scene between father and son with interest, for there was a nagging feeling in his mind that there was an importance in it greater than a conclusive parental explosion. He felt that it was a lead to something else, but he couldn’t get it into place, or evaluate it as part of a design or pattern. What he had seen was an unrelated, self-contained scene; but he thought it would fit significantly into a larger picture if only he could guess where or how.

“All right,” Riordan said again. “Did you have something to say?”

Jake said, “Yes, I have,” and got his thoughts back in order. The clash between the Riordans had charged the atmosphere with excitement; and Jake waited a moment until the tension eased, until he had everyone’s attention. “Here it is,” he said. “The police have May’s diary, and we know there’s nothing in it to incriminate you, Riordan. But there has been plenty of gossip about the diary, and the damaging material it is supposed to contain. Our best bet now is to demand that it be produced and examined.”

“I don’t get it,” Riordan said.

“There’s no mystery, or even originality in what I’m suggesting,” Jake said. “You need a smoke screen, so we’ll blow up a beauty. The smoke screen, if you aren’t familiar with the term in public relations, is a device whereby you prove that everybody else is a bastard too. You give your audience someone else to boo, and make a fast exit before the bricks start flying.”

Riordan rubbed his jaw thoughtfully. “You’ve seen the diary, I suppose?”

“No,” Jake remembered just in time that Martin had told him not to mention receiving it.

“Then how do you know there’s no reference to me in it?”

“Lieutenant Martin told me that much. And I’m guessing May’s account is on the torrid side and will drag in dozens of prominent people. That, of course, is what we want.”

“What good will smearing a lot of other people do for me?” Riordan said, impatiently.

“Let me demonstrate by example what I mean,” Jake said. He lit a cigarette and glanced at Sheila. She met his eyes and smiled. “You surprise even me,” she said. “I didn’t know you had it in you.”

“I’m full of surprises,” Jake said, and turned away from her. “Think back, Riordan, to a certain Congressional investigation last year, in which one of our most glamorous industrialists was on the spot. Remember?”

“Yes,” Riordan said, looking interested. “I remember it.”

“Well, here was the point: The industrialist had built a giant submarine with government money. Some people said the submarine was about as practical as a Rube Goldberg invention. Others said it was all right. The committee wanted to know one way or the other, so they had an investigation. But the damnedest thing happened. The industrialist’s bodyguard got on the stand somehow, and began talking about the gala entertaining that had gone on aboard his boss’ yacht! The result was that a dozen expensive chippies were called to testify, and they gave the public a Roman festival. They told all about champagne breakfasts and midnight bathing parties at which most of the participants wore nothing but drunken smiles.

“This had nothing much to do with the submarine, of course. But who the hell cared about that, when he could listen to a model tell of being pursued up the rigging of a ship by a drunken satyr? The answer is nobody. The submarine was forgotten. The public had a circus; the committee, I think, had its appropriation cut the next session of Congress.

“Do you understand now? We’ll scream for the diary and defy Senator Hampstead and young Prior. We’ll go to Washington and drag with us every name mentioned in May’s diary.”

“A great number of people are going to be hurt,” Sheila said.

“That’s the beauty of it,” Noble said, cheerfully. “You can’t tell who’s good or bad in a deal like this. Everyone is suspected of being a triple-distilled bastard, and that spreads the guilt around. Riordan, your defective barrels won’t have a chance if they’re competing with fornication in the upper classes.”

“It’s okay,” Riordan said, with a grin. “I like it. But how can we get the diary made public?”

“We’ll see to that,” Jake said, and turned to Niccolo. “Dean, get started right away with items to the columns to the effect that the government is going to use May’s diary in its case against Riordan. And follow that with items that Riordan is demanding that the diary be produced so that his accusers can be shown up as the lying bastards they are. Maybe tomorrow we can sell the Trib an editorial on it.”

“You want it pretty strong, eh?” Dean asked. “Outraged citizen fighting the forces of bureaucracy, eh?”

“That’s it.”

Jake turned from Niccolo and saw that Sheila was looking at him evenly. They faced each other without speaking while Niccolo joined Noble and Riordan for a drink.

“Well,” Sheila said, quietly. “You’ve come up with a master stroke. A real gem. They’ll teach this one to kids in public relations classes.”

“It’s been done before.”

“Yes, I’m sure it has. You know, of course, that some innocent people are going to get kicked right in the teeth. And you know who you’re doing it for, and what he is.”

Jake didn’t answer her for a moment. They seemed alone in the room, in a vacuum into which the clatter of glasses and the conversation didn’t penetrate. Somehow he seemed far away from her, and the gulf widened each second he remained silent.

Finally he said, “I know what I’m doing, if that’s what you mean.”

“I wanted to be sure.”

“And you’re sure now?”

“Yes. Goodbye, Jake.”

He watched her walk quickly across the room and out the door; and he knew it was a final exit.

Niccolo came over to him. “One thing, Jake. How do you want me to handle the fact that the diary was sent to you?”

Jake lit a cigarette. “I don’t give much of a damn how you handle that point, Dean,” he said. He drew deeply on his cigarette and was turning away, when the significance of this question hit him squarely. He turned to Dean and said, “How did you know it was sent to me, Dean?”

“What do you mean?” Dean said.

“Which word don’t you understand?” Jake said. “I asked you how you knew the diary was sent to me. No one knew that but Lieutenant Martin. The only other person who knows who received the diary is the person who sent it to me.”

Dean grinned and said, “I’ve got a big mouth, Jake, but don’t let it throw you. I got that information from Toni Ryerson.”

“Where in hell did she get it?”

“Her office adjoins yours, remember? She saw you open the package and I guess she recognized the diary from the descriptions of it in the newspapers. She told me this morning that she thought you’d received the diary. When I heard you say you knew the police had it, I assumed she had made a correct guess.”

“I see,” Jake said. “You startled me for a second. Now what did you want?”

“Well, how shall I handle the fact that the cops have May’s diary, and that you gave it to them? I mean, isn’t that secret information?”

“Just don’t mention it, then,” Jake said. He shrugged and looked directly at Niccolo. “Actually, I don’t care what you do.”

“I don’t get it,” Niccolo said, with a puzzled smile.

“It’s not important,” Jake said. He stared at the door through which Sheila had left and rubbed a hand tiredly across his forehead. What he’d said to Dean surprised him; it hadn’t been deliberate. Yet it expressed perfectly the way he felt about Dean, about Riordan, and about Noble.

The consuming distaste he felt for himself left no room for any interest in anyone else.

He saw himself now as he must have appeared to Sheila; and the view was depressing. The plan he had proposed to Riordan was cheap and ugly; and its execution would require a man of strong stomach and prehensile sensibilities. Himself, in short.

But that was not what nagged him. Business at its best frequently required a dash of knavish skulduggery, and most people played along because they had to, because their livelihood depended on it. But that wasn’t the case with him. He had suggested a shoddy plan of action quickly, instinctively and easily. It just came naturally to him.

Noble came over with a drink in his hand, a wide relieved smile on his face. “We’re in high gear now, Jake. That idea of yours was terrific. I wish I’d thought of it.”

“Yes, I wish you had too,” Jake said.

Noble lowered his voice slightly. “Riordan’s damned pleased.”

“That’s good.” He looked at the door where Sheila had left, and said, almost as an afterthought, “I’m through, Gary. I’m quitting.”

“Quitting?” Noble said. “What do you mean?”

“It’s a simple word. You spell it with a ‘q’ as in ‘queasy.’ ”

“Jake, you’re talking like an ass. You can’t quit now.”

“I’m sorry, Gary. I’m not doing this gracefully, I suppose. But I’m fed up, right to the teeth.”

Riordan had come up beside them as Jake was speaking. He looked at Noble and then took the cigar from his mouth. “What’s the trouble?” he said. “I heard Jake say he’s quitting.”

“I heard him, too,” Noble said, with a touch of panic in his voice. “But he doesn’t mean it.”

Riordan looked at Jake and said, “Well, how about it? You serious?”

“Yes, I’m quite serious,” Jake said.

“You think we’re licked, eh? Is that it?”

“No, that isn’t it,” Jake said. “I suppose I should explain myself succinctly and graphically. But it seems a big bother.”

“Jake, what’s got into you?” Noble exploded.

“He’s squeamish about working for a thief,” Riordan said, with a hard smile.

Jake met Riordan’s eyes evenly. “You’re putting words in my mouth, but they aren’t bad ones. This job stinks to high heaven. So I’m clearing out. Good luck.”

He picked up his hat and coat and went to the door.

Riordan said, “High moral attitudes are a luxury, you’ll find. Only the very rich can afford them.”

Jake paused with his hand on the knob. “I never noticed you displaying any.”

Riordan laughed good naturedly. “Of course not. That’s how I got rich,” he said.

Jake looked at the three men, Niccolo, Noble, and Riordan, all standing with drinks in their hands and regarding him with varying expressions. And it occurred to him then with sudden clearness that he knew a great deal about who had murdered May Laval and Avery Meed.

He smiled and started to answer Riordan; he decided he didn’t have the time. Opening the door he waved a goodbye to them and walked briskly to the elevators.