Very Cold for May

Chapter Nine

It was eleven thirty. Jake sat at his desk, staring at the leather-bound clock for several minutes without moving. He knew he should be working. The agency would need something spectacular in the way of a campaign if Riordan were guilty. And Prior quite obviously knew Riordan was guilty and had the proof in names and dates to back up his charge.

But he didn’t feel like working. He thought about May again and finally decided to take a trip out to Mike Francesca’s farm.

Barrington was a horsy suburb of Chicago that had become popular for people who wanted something slightly more rugged in appearance than country club or station wagon living. In Barrington there were farms of twenty or twenty-five acres, usually run by tenant farmers who did all the work; and comfortable homes representing all varieties of architectural importation, from Maine salt boxes to Mexican haciendas. Tennis courts and swimming pools clustered around these houses with a cheerful, unmortgaged look.

Jake told his cab driver to wait and walked down the gravel path that led to Francesca’s place, a sprawling ranch house of impressive dimensions.

A stockily built man wearing a leather windbreaker stepped around the side of the house and sauntered down to meet him.

“Who’d you want, pal?” he said amiably.

“I’d like to see Mike. I’m a friend, Jake Harrison.” He recognized the man and smiled. “You’re Yeabo Jones, aren’t you?”

“Yeah, how’d you know?” the man said.

“I covered your trial in thirty-eight. You got six years for armed robbery and aggravated assault and battery.”

“Oh, yeah,” Yeabo Jones said. “You was a reporter, eh?”

“That’s right.”

“Well, come on up to the house and I’ll see what the boss says.”

Yeabo told him to wait at the door while he went inside. Jake lit a cigarette and looked up at the bare elms and cold steel sky.

Yeabo opened the door behind him and said, “Come on in.”

Mike Francesca was seated in a large chair before a log fire, wearing soft gray flannel slacks and a gabardine sport shirt with hand-stitched lapels and cuffs. He got to his feet when Jake entered, and came to meet him, a wide smile wreathing his face into a network of wrinkles. There was another person, a show-girl style of blonde, lying before the fireplace with a Martini at her elbow. She sat up tailor-fashion and regarded Jake solemnly.

“Jake, you old son-of-a-gun,” Mike said, wringing his hand. “Nice of you to blow in like this. You know Cheryl, huh?”

“Why, no. But it’s a pleasure.”

“It’s Cheryl Dane,” the girl said. “He thinks I’m a horse or something with just a first name.”

“Well,” Mike said, smiling at her, “what do you need with two names? One’s good enough for anybody.” He took Jake’s elbow and pushed him toward a chair. “Now sit down and we’ll have a drink. Yeabo!” He sang out the last word loudly and the blonde winced.

Yeabo brought wine for Mike and Jake had a Martini. When he disappeared Mike settled back in his chair with a comfortable sigh. “This is good, eh?” he said.

“Fine,” Jake said, and sipped his drink.

“Anything in particular on your mind?” Mike asked.

“Yes, there is,” Jake said slowly. “I’m wondering if you know anything about who killed May Laval. I know you were worried about her book, and—”

“And you think I had her killed, eh?” Mike said. “That’s right, eh?”

The blonde rolled over on her back and crossed her long and well-shaped legs. “You know, Mike,” she said. “I’d—”

“Shut up,” he said, without glancing at her, and she shrugged and became silent.

“You think maybe I had May killed, eh?” Mike said.

“No, I don’t think that at all,” Jake said. “If you’d killed her you’d have gotten the diary, I think.”

Mike tapped his forehead significantly. “See, you got a good head.”

“I suppose you’re looking for the diary now?”

“Oh, yes, my boys are looking for it. I think they’ll get it, too.”

“Do you have any guess as to who killed May?”

“You know that is very funny,” Mike said, frowning and touching his lower lip with a forefinger. “Who should kill her, eh? I’ve thought about that a lot, all the time in fact since she was killed. And I don’t know. You know May and I used to play poker in the old days. Me, May, Ed Hogan, the alderman, and a bartender at the old Troy Club. May, she was a real son-of-a-gun.” Mike shook his head gently. “Mother of Heaven, what games! May could shove a thousand dollars into the pot and grin at you, when she had nothing, not even a pair. Ah, what days we had then, eh?”

“Yah, yah,” the blonde said. “I never met one of you guys from Prohibition days who didn’t act like fat men at a college reunion.”

“She’s real cute, eh?” Mike said.

“Well, what’s this poker game got to do with May’s death?” Jake said.

“Oh, nothing,” Mike said, with a tired wave of his hand. “But nobody minded losing to May. Oh, the money it was too bad to lose, but nobody got real mad. She was liked, eh? And that’s why I wonder about who could kill her.”

Jake shrugged. “Wouldn’t you have killed her, Mike?”

Mike took his arm and they walked to the door together. “I’ll tell you a secret,” he said.

“What’s that?”

“I would have very quick,” Mike said.

“That’s what I thought.”

“Ha!” Mike said, and tapped his forehead again. “You got the head, Jake.”

“Thanks. Goodbye, Mike.”

“Goodbye.”

Jake walked down the drive, drawing his overcoat tight around him against the cold hard wind that was blowing. The cab driver turned into the driveway and Jake climbed in and lit a cigarette while the driver backed up to turn around.

They were ready to pull out when a shout from the house made the driver stop. Jake looked out and saw Yeabo running toward them with a gallon jug of pale brown liquid in each hand.

Jake opened his door and said, “What the hell is that?” as Yeabo came up beside the car.

“Cider,” Yeabo panted. “We make it right here. The boss wants you to have it.”

“Tell him it’s just what I wanted,” Jake said.

Driving back to the city, the driver glanced over his shoulder and said, “That’s a real friendly gesture, I’d say. I mean it’s kind of old-fashioned to give guests something like that to take with them.”

“My friend is of the old school,” Jake said. “But I’m not. Would you like it — the cider, I mean?”

The cab driver said that would be fine, and Jake said okay, and told him to drive to the Palmer House.

He sat back wondering what was on Denise Riordan’s mind.

Jake went up the steps leading to the lobby of the Palmer House and after a quick glance around saw her sitting in a chair beside a tall palm and idly turning the pages of a fashion magazine. She was wearing a black faille dress with broad amber earrings and choker, and her eyes were very bright against her tanned skin.

“Why, hello,” she said, standing. “You’re punctual.”

“Men my age have to cultivate minor virtues to compensate for our lack of major vices,” Jake said, and realized that he sounded roguish.

He suggested a drink and they went upstairs to a private room on the mezzanine where some thirty or forty young men and women were standing about and drinking liquor provided by radio station WXL.

Jake got two drinks from the bar and led Denise to a green satin sofa. She sat down rather cautiously and he realized that she had been drinking. Her movements were somewhat too deliberate.

WXL’s press agent, an energetic and beaming young man named Miller stopped by and wrung Jake’s hand and asked if everything were all right. He nodded to Denise and then with a quick smile and a glance at her long slender legs, excused himself and joined another group.

“Is he the host?” Denise asked.

“I suppose you could call him that.” He held a match to her cigarette and said, “Now what burning motive prompted you to call me?”

Denise smiled. “You’ll think I’m foolish. But I liked you. And my life gets very dull at times. So I thought I’d get to know you better. It’s as simple as that.”

“That’s very flattering. But I can’t believe your life is dull.”

Denise sipped her drink and patted his arm. The gesture was oddly intimate, and Jake had the ridiculous feeling that he was going to start edging away from her any minute.

“Danny is busy most of the time, you know,” she said, smiling. “He’s an old-fashioned husband. He thinks a woman is part of the equipment in a well-run home.”

“Let me fix your drink,” Jake interrupted, just to be saying something uncompromising, and left her long enough to get two fresh drinks.

She was glancing at the other people at the party with interest when he returned, and had apparently forgotten her husband and Jake as conversational gambits.

She said, “Where in the name of God do all these brilliant young bastards come from and what are they doing here?”

“Well, this is a business cocktail party and these young people work for advertising agencies. The station hopes to obligate them to the extent of a few highballs, so that when their agencies buy time they will remember WXL fondly.”

“Does it work out that way?”

“Sometimes, I suppose. But mostly not.” He glanced up at the crowd. “I don’t see anyone here who could make a decision on anything more important than taking an extra comma from a piece of copy.”

“They sound very smart,” Denise said with a dubious nod of her head.

They did indeed, Jake reflected. The air was thick with the inside of “inside” stories, and the scraps of conversation that fell around him sparkled with epigrammatic criticisms of all art forms, of all entertainment, of damn near everything. Two young men directly in front of them were arguing heatedly about an article from the Partisan Review, a piece, Jake gathered, which advanced the theory that all homes flourished for the purpose of gratifying the father’s and mother’s need for an incestuous relationship within a socially approved framework; behind them a scoop of Drew Pearson’s was belittled as having told only half the story, and the unpublished half was being recounted scornfully by a man who wrote jingles for Curvex Foundation Garments; a group of three young girls and two middle-aged men were giggling over the things one of the men was saying about prominent writers; he had said that Truman Capote was a nasty little boy scribbling four-syllable words on the sidewalk, and that Hemingway’s self-conscious virility stemmed from his having been drummed from the Boy Scouts as a youth, and that William Saroyan was really Norman Corwin with a coating of glucose; and in the corner a young man with lank dark hair was telling a captivated girl that the war had shot his integration right to hell. “I crystallized between satyrism and impotence,” he added angrily.

“Can I have a drink?” Denise said. “These people are terrific. I feel like the real bourgeois.”

“It’s just talk,” Jake said. “Really, it’s a trick.”

He brought her a drink which she finished quickly. They talked casually for a few moments, and then she said, “Aren’t you bored with me?”

“Why, no. Not at all.”

“Spoken like a gentleman.” She was quite tight, Jake saw. Her bright blue eyes focused on his intently. “You’re thinking I’m just the drunk and aging wife of a client, aren’t you? Somebody you’d damn well better be nice to.”

“No, I wasn’t thinking anything of the sort,” Jake said.

“Well, what are you thinking? You’re not thinking of me by any remote chance, are you?”

“Yes, I was thinking of you,” Jake said, and smiled. He wanted now to get her home. “I was thinking a drive might be pleasant.”

“God, that’s a feverish thought,” Denise laughed. “You’ve got to be more controlled, Mr. Harrison. Keep that wild Latin temperament of yours in check.”

“I’m not called the North American continent for nothing,” Jake said, hoping the gag, old and undistinguished though it was, might get her in a better humor.

“Oh, yah, yah, yah,” Denise said. “You think I’m a bore. Just a dumb babe on the make. Well, I know something that might surprise you. Danny thinks you’re doing a lousy job for him.”

“Well, he’s right,” Jake said. “But it’s a tough account.”

“Also I know something about your great and glorious May Laval.” She bowed her head in mock solemnity. “Everyone has to do that when they mention her name, you know. She was so damn witty and clever and wonderful and now she’s so damn dead. Isn’t that a laugh?”

“I suppose it has an element of humor in it,” Jake said.

“Oh, don’t bother making me feel ashamed. You’re wasting your time.”

“But what do you know about her?” Jake said.

“I know that Danny Boy sent Avery Meed to her apartment to get her diary. Now, isn’t that delightful news?”

Jake felt let down. That much Riordan had already admitted. But he was curious as to how Denise knew as much as she did, and hopeful that she might know more. So he said, “You’re doing fine, but you’ll have to do better than that to shock me.”

Denise said, “I don’t know anything else.” She sipped the last of her drink. “You see, Danny Boy does a lot of business from home by phone, so I listen in on the extension by my bed. That’s the only way I can find out anything, and it’s better than listening to a radio.”

“I see. And you heard Danny Boy tell Meed to go to May’s apartment and get the diary?”

“That’s right. And he was really mad. He told Meed to get that diary or else.”

“Or else what?”

Denise said, “Well, I don’t know. Everybody says do something-or-other ‘or else.’ Nobody ever asks ‘or else what?’ It’s a good question.”

“Well, go on. Then Danny Boy left for Gary?”

“No, he didn’t leave until the next call. You see,” she went on, talking very deliberately now, as if she were explaining long division to a six-year-old. “You see, Avery Meed called Danny Boy back, and said he had the diary. And he said he had something else to talk to Danny Boy about. I was kind of sleepy then, and didn’t hear much else. But that’s the way it was,” she concluded firmly.

Jake lit another cigarette and tried to keep his voice casual. “Where was Danny Boy between those two calls?”

“He was in the living-room. You see, I was in bed.”

“You didn’t see him between those two calls? I mean he didn’t come into your bedroom?”

“Sure, just as he was leaving for Gary.” She frowned. “That was after the second call, though. He said he was going out to Gary, and he told me—”

She stopped suddenly and a look of dismay flickered across her face. For a moment she stared at Jake, and then she laughed nervously.

“Did he tell you to remember that he’d left for Gary earlier — much earlier — in the evening?” Jake said gently.

Denise looked at him and then shook her head. “I didn’t realize how much I’d drunk. I’m having pipe dreams. Would you take me home?”

“Wouldn’t you rather talk, or perhaps go some place where it’s quiet? I find you very fascinating all of a sudden.”

“No, I’d rather go home. You’re not being very bright, you know.”

“You’re the one who talked out of school,” Jake said.

“I might talk a little more to Danny,” she said.

“I doubt if that would help. Come on, let’s go.”

They went down to the lobby where Denise became a very unsteady package to handle; and Jake wondered if she were really that drunk, or just pretending to avoid talking with him.

If she had told him the truth then Riordan’s alibi was shot; he had been in town at the time of May’s death. Jake realized then that they had only Riordan’s word for Avery Meed’s part in the story. Riordan might have killed May, and then invented a story that made Meed look guilty. After that he could kill Meed and the police would have their culprit and be satisfied. The heat would be off and Riordan would be free and clear.

It was all so possible that Jake felt slightly cold thinking about it.

When they finally reached the Riordan suite at the Blackstone, he felt as if he had been through a stiff, cross-country race. He fished the key from Denise’s purse and let them in. There seemed to be no one at home, for which Jake silently thanked God.

Denise sagged against him as he helped her inside and got the door shut. But she revived when she realized that she was home.

“Drink, Jake?” she said cheerfully.

Disengaging herself from him with a conspiratorial smile, she made for the liquor cabinet, with a slight list to port; but she changed her mind on the way and pirouetted with surprising grace toward the long couch that ran under the windows. Sinking onto it with one foot trailing on the floor, she said, “There is no place like home, after all,” in a wondering voice, and closed her eyes.

Jake was lighting a cigarette when he heard a key in the door. He shrugged philosophically and turned as Dan Riordan let himself in, looking preoccupied.

“Well, what’s this?” he said. “What’s wrong with her?” he said, glancing at Jake.

“We had a drink this afternoon, and I think Denise had one too many. She’s okay. Just sleepy.”

“I see,” Riordan said.

He walked to her side and shook her shoulder. She opened her eyes and said plaintively, “Okay, Muscles, knock it off.”

“You’d better go to your room,” he said.

She struggled to a sitting position, looking contrite. “Don’t be that way, Danny Boy. I–I just picked up a little load, that’s all.”

Riordan said, in a softer tone, “All right, but you’ll be more comfortable in your room.”

Denise stood up and clung to him until she became accustomed to the perpendicular position. “I was just having a little fun, Danny.” Placing her arm around his neck she kissed him on the mouth.

Riordan put his hand on her waist and they stood together for a moment. When he released her, there was a smile on his face.

“You’re so nice to me, Danny,” she said sleepily. “Let’s go off somewhere for a while and be together. Let’s go to the lodge again and swim in the moonlight and make love before the big fire. Please, Danny.”

“You want to go to the lodge again, eh?”

“Oh, yes, Danny Boy,” she said and put her head on his shoulder.

Riordan put an arm about her waist and led her through the arched doorway of the living room. He returned in a few moments.

“Do you want a drink?” he said to Jake.

“No, thanks. But I’d like to talk to you.”

“Okay, go ahead,” Riordan said.

“I’ve just had a talk with Prior, the Government investigator.”

“Oh,” Riordan said. “I thought you might be going to explain how you and my wife happened to be spending the afternoon together, and how she got drunk.”

Jake said, “We spent the afternoon together at a cocktail party, because she phoned and asked me if I’d like to have a drink. She got drunk by the not too difficult expedient of lifting a fresh drink to her mouth fifteen or twenty times. You know damn well, Riordan, that people get themselves drunk. Let’s get back to Prior.”

Riordan looked at Jake appraisingly for a moment. “You’re smart. If you’d had any mealy-mouthed apologies about this afternoon I’d have tossed you out on your ear. But I know Denise, and I know this afternoon wasn’t your fault.”

“That’s two of us convinced of my purity,” Jake said drily. “Now to get back to Prior; he seems to think he’s got you cold.”

Riordan shrugged impatiently.

“I know. He’s found an ink blot somewhere in my books and he’s going to send me to jail. There’s no one more officious than a four-thousand-dollar-a-year Government clerk, when he thinks he can annoy a man with money.”

“This seems to be more than an ink spot,” Jake said. “Here’s Prior’s story: Your contract for 155 mm. gun barrels specified a certain grade of steel. He thinks you used a cheaper grade, which you bought from your own mill, but charged the government for the price of the specified steel. Also, he told me that you bribed a plant inspector, by the name of Nickerson, to okay the defective barrels.”

“When did he tell you this?”

“About eleven thirty this morning.”

Riordan laughed humorlessly. “They’re working like beavers, aren’t they? Are they looking for this fellow Nickerson?”

“Yes.”

“Fine,” Riordan said. “Nickerson died a couple of years ago. They’ll get a lot from him, won’t they?”

“They seem to have all they need without him.”

Riordan looked at him shrewdly. “Let’s understand each other, Harrison. You’re on my side because you’re getting paid. I may be a crook for all you know, but that doesn’t make my money less valuable. But you may have scruples. Do you stay on the team or get off?”

“That’s a pointless question,” Jake said, wearily. “I’m your press counsel, remember? I can’t talk effectively to editors unless you give me straight information. You haven’t done that so far. First you sent Avery Meed to May’s to get the diary after telling me you’d let me handle the matter. Now Prior tells me a story about your operations that differs from yours on several important points. I can’t do you any good unless you keep me briefed on what’s happening, and tell me a straight story about your dealings with the Government.”

“That makes sense,” Riordan said. “You want to know how much of Prior’s story is true, I suppose. Actually, it makes no difference to you one way or the other, does it? Your loyalty is for sale and I’m buying it. I intend that you work just as hard for me if I’m a crook as you would if I were honest. That satisfactory to you?”

“Yes, that’s quite satisfactory,” Jake said after a pause.

“Fine. I like realistic people, Harrison. The world is glutted with fools who refuse to accept the simple, blunt facts of life. The world makes heroes of successful people. But it doesn’t put the credit where it belongs. Successful people get praised for going to school under polar conditions, or endowing a transept in a church, or for uttering some bromidic nonsense about their mothers. The truth is they should be praised for their rapacity, their single-minded absorption with making money, for those are the things that send you up the ladder, and they always have, in every country, in every age.” Riordan put a cigar in his mouth, lighted it, and laughed. “Don’t bother reading history. Just look around at the names in America that you see on libraries, churches and boulevards. And remember how their money was made. You should have spent some time in Washington during the war. By God, you could write a book about it. If I wrote it I’d call it ‘The Pig Trough.’ That’s what it was. Just a big pig trough with everyone grunting around and digging his snout into the garbage as far as he could.

“But to get back to Prior; he’s bluffing. He’s got no case against me and he’s getting desperate.”

Jake thought of asking Riordan bluntly about his whereabouts the night of May’s murder. But as he had lied to the police there was small likelihood he’d change his story now for Jake. He walked to the door and Riordan came with him and shook hands with him strongly.

“Don’t be a worrier, Jake,” Riordan said. “I don’t like worried people around me. They exude defeat. Nobody can touch me, remember that.”

“Okay,” Jake said. “I’ll remember that.”

He walked down to the elevators thinking over what Riordan had said, and wondering why he hadn’t advanced any argument against Riordan’s point of view. Once in his life he would have. But now he wasn’t in any position to, he perceived. Riordan was a crook and a thief; but he was running his errands. You couldn’t impose a moral judgment on anyone whose money was jingling in your pocket.