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SIXTEEN

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What I’d learned from Lapinski sat like a lump in my stomach.  If what he had told me was true — and I had no cause to think otherwise — I didn’t like its implications for Gil Tremain.  Had Tremain gotten mixed up with Walter Benning, who had somehow run afoul of racketeers and was now missing too?  It might explain the ransacking of Tremain’s apartment.  But the snake?  The phone calls Collingswood had received?  Those had to be connected.

Being short on answers and long on time before Lucille returned from her concert, I decided to pop in on Lieutenant Freeze.  He didn’t seem thrilled.  Then again, my sunny presence never cheered him.

His desk was in the corner of the detective division allotted to homicide.  They were the only specialized unit amid otherwise all-purpose detectives.  Eyes narrowed against the cloud of smoke from his endless Old Golds, Freeze watched me approach as if wary I might haul my .38 out and start firing.  Admittedly I had occasionally entertained thoughts of doing him in, but those involved kicking him to a pulp.

“What?” he said.

“Why, yes, my head came through the knock it took fine and dandy.  Thanks for asking.”

“If you’d stick to reading pulp novels instead of trying to do things women weren’t meant to, you wouldn’t get slugged.”

I sat down in the chair in front of his desk without being asked.  I knew it rubbed him the wrong way.  Whoever wrote that ditty about girls being sugar and spice probably thought bland was a spice.  I’d used up my supply of sugar and spice talking to the insurance guys and music store owner.

“What did you learn about Gil Tremain’s bank account?  Had he cleaned it out?”

Freeze caught at his cigarette as it slipped.

“Why the — why would I tell you that?”

“Because I pay my taxes?  Because I’m bright as a button?  Because every now and again — more often than that, actually — I bring you something useful?  As a matter of fact, I have something for you right now.”

“What?”

“You have a pretty limited range of questions for a homicide dick.”

“I don’t have time for your lip, Sullivan.”

The next desk over, Boike bent his blunt, blonde head over paperwork, hoping not to get drawn in.  Not many other detectives were currently in the room, but one of them snickered.

“A woman who knows Tremain from work says she saw him over on Fifth Monday morning.  As nearly as I can determine, that’s the last anybody set eyes on him.  Last night when she finished up, two goons were waiting to grab her.  When I drove up they shot out my headlight.”

I’d shown my hand.  He might not reciprocate.  But Freeze, in his own way, was fair.  He sat back.  He ground out the stub of his cigarette and shook out a new one.

“Get a look at them?”

“They were by the side door where there’s no light, so no.  They’d left their car with the motor running.  Took off fast.  I started to follow, but Daisy came running out to see what was happening.  I didn’t want to leave her alone.”

He nodded.  “Daisy.  That’s the woman?”

“Yes.”

“What was she doing there at night?  How come she didn’t mention seeing this genius Tremain when we were there asking questions?”

“To answer both, she’s their cleaning lady.  Works eight ‘til midnight.  She didn’t even know the police had been there until I told her.”

Had ace receptionist Myrtle Hawes been too rattled to mention Daisy?  Or was she so protective of the company where she worked that she didn’t like to share information about it with outsiders, even the police?

Freeze took his sweet time getting a match and scratching his finger across it to light his cigarette.  He took a long drag.

“As near as we can tell, there’s no connection between the guy you’re looking for and the woman who got killed downstairs where he lived.”

In other words, he wasn’t that interested in what I’d just told him.

“Anything else?” he said.

“One thing.  Probably not related.  You know Clem Stark?”

“The gumshoe?  Yeah.  He’s a bigger pain in the backside than you are.”

I’d come up in the world.

“What’s he got to do with anything?”

“Probably nothing, only the timing smells fishy.  He turned up outside my building yesterday offering me a job.”

One desk over, Boike made a strangled sound.

“You say something, Boike?”

“No, sir.  Just made a mistake I’ve got to erase.”

“You happen to know what kind of car he drives?” I asked.

“Stark?  No.  Why?”

“A brown sedan followed me twice yesterday.  Beaten up, no hood ornament but it might have been a Ford.  The license plate ended in twenty-six.”

Freeze scraped ash off against the side of his ashtray.

“No ransom demand yet for your boy Tremain?”

“No.  After going on five days there’s not likely to be.”

Just when I was kicking myself for not netting even one inadvertent crumb of information, he turned decent.

“Tremain’s bank account’s got plenty in it.  He made an unusually large withdrawal Saturday morning.  Nothing since.”

“Do I get to know how large?”

“Large.”

Tremain might have known Walter Benning.  Benning might have owed money.  Men who might have been collectors might have paid Benning a visit.

Or the whole tale might have been the product of a slightly bored accountant’s imagination.

***

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The sooner I talked to Lucille, the more productive the rest of my day was likely to be.  I went across the street to the Arcade and got thin slices of tongue on rye from one of the stalls.  As soon as I finished it, I drove to the Collingswood place.  The housekeeper led me to the room where Lucille had been immersed in her playing on my previous visit.

Today the scene couldn’t have been more different.  Her violin wasn’t in sight.  Instead, she held a cigarette.  She was pacing, arms crossed at the elbows.  She scarcely seemed aware of me as I entered.

“How was your concert?” I asked.

“Concert.  Oh.  Fine, I guess.”  The fingers with the cigarette gestured me to a chair.  “Have you news?”

“Yes and No.  Are you all right?  You seem upset.”

“My father,” she said shortly.  “This is taking a toll on him.  We’re not close — nothing matters to him but his business.  Still, one has a certain filial affection.  I’m feeling rather... stretched with that in addition to Gil.

”Sorry, I haven’t offered you anything.”

She sat down, all traces of tension gone as if she’d thrown a switch. “Coffee?  Whiskey?  One of these?”  She indicated the cigarette she was rubbing out in a pink china ashtray.

“I’m fine.”

“I take it you have more questions.  What did you mean, Yes and No?  What did Daisy tell you?”

I told her the gist of my talk with Daisy, though not quite all of it, and about the thugs who’d been lying in wait for the cleaning woman.  She listened with a calm which I found faintly disturbing.

“The place Daisy saw him is close to a lamp shop,” I said.  “Did Gil mention needing a lamp, or maybe a shade or some sort of part?”

“A lamp?  No.”

“I’m trying to find someone who might have seen him.  Is there anything about him they might remember?”

“He’s rather ordinary, I’m afraid.  Nice looking, at least I think so, but nothing exceptional.”  A small smile made its way through her composure.  “He does have a funny little walk.  Like he’s leaning into the wind.  He leans off to the side on one elbow when he’s scribbling away at his desk — which of course is most of the time.  I suspect that’s the cause.  But apart from that...”

“Miss Collingswood, if something happened to your father who would benefit?”

She looked at me sharply.

“Died, you mean?”

“Or had a heart attack that left him unable to play his part at the company.”

“I need a brandy.”  Rising abruptly she went to a small table to one side of the fire.  She filled a glass from a cut glass decanter, glancing an invitation which I declined.  When she returned to her seat, her eyes were as dispassionate as flint.  They narrowed as she ticked off possibilities.

“Very well.  If my father died, I would inherit.  I would either sell or have someone I trusted a great deal manage my share of the business.”

Tremain and Frank Scott both might qualify.

“If he were incapacitated but could speak and think coherently...”  She swirled the brandy and took a healthy swallow.  “I suppose I’d become his glorified secretary.  Or perhaps he’d have the one he has at work come here.  At any rate, he’d try and keep his hand in.  Frank would come here to confer with him.”

“And you’d be sole heir to your father’s share of the business?”

The question startled her.

“Of course.  Who else?”

“Maybe some to his partner?  Or an employee he considered especially loyal?”

“No.  When he learned the problems with his heart were serious, he talked to me.  Made sure I knew how everything stood.”

The rigid set of her shoulders softened and she leaned on her elbows.  Resting her chin on her clasped hands, she looked into the fire.  Several minutes passed before she spoke.  Her voice had softened.

“I keep thinking of Eve.  Both of us facing ugly possibilities we can’t control.  But she’s so young.  She simply couldn’t bear it if she lost her father.”

An inflection of Lucille’s voice, however, suggested she might.