I went downstairs and outside to where I’d kept the taxi waiting and had the driver take me over to my bank. During the ride over, another unsettling thought occurred to me concerning that morning at Graham’s estate: Graham now had a bullet fired from my gun, not to mention enough money to buy off any coroner in the state. Graham could get a sworn statement that the slug had been dug out of Julius Caesar if it suited him. I was probably being a little paranoid, owing to the dynamite in my car and the threats against Melinda’s life. I didn’t really picture Graham’s mind working along those lines (not unless someone had put the idea into his head), and there was nothing I could do about it now anyway.
I had the cabbie wait for me again while I went into the bank with the last two checks Lundquist had given me, taking out a thousand dollars in cash and depositing the rest. Lord knew where the next few days were headed and I wanted to be flush. Back at my office, I had a smoke and steeled up my nerve a bit. Melinda needed to be set up in her new digs, and I didn’t need to risk another cab driver who might have a half-decent memory (and most men would remember her). I also didn’t want to risk calling the company Taylor worked for and asking for him twice in the same day. The guy working dispatch might take note of that, and I was trying to hide someone, not leave a trail of breadcrumbs, which meant I needed to stop breathing so fast, stop my heart from racing, walk down the stairs, and start my car like I’d done a thousand times since I bought it. Whoever wanted me dead would know I was still alive soon enough; the ploy of leaving the car parked didn’t justify the risk of someone else knowing where I was taking Melinda. I crushed out my smoke, squared my shoulders, grabbed the Smith & Wesson .38 out of my bottom desk drawer (better if she had a gun with her), and went down the back stairwell. The black Cabriolet stood there, the glinting headlights almost challenging me to a game of odds and evens. What’ll it be, Caine? A trip across town or straight up to the hereafter? Only cost you a turn of the key to find out.
I shook off the dread, sharpened up, and checked the car out thoroughly, twice. Okay, maybe four or five times. I climbed in behind the wheel and put the .38 in the glove compartment. With the clutch in, I raised an arm stupidly in front of my face and hit the starter, feeling the molten heat of a volcano tear through me, incinerating cloth, flesh, bone, and the thousand dollars in my pocket in the blink of an eye. The sound of the smoothly running engine penetrated my consciousness, bringing me out of the daymare. I put the car into gear and got going.
Coming into the hotel the back way, I gave the special knock on the door to Melinda’s room and she answered right away.
“Change of plan,” I told her. “Get your things together. We’re not coming back here.”
“Thank God.” She grabbed her case and coat along with the bag of sandwiches she hadn’t eaten. I didn’t bother to check out; if anyone did learn she’d been here, let him think she still was. That gave me another idea, though. We drove over to the Muehlebach Hotel and I let Melinda off in front, then parked on the side street to wait. A quarter of an hour later she came out with the key to a room. She’d checked in under her own name, let the bellhop show her up, waited ten minutes, then gone out the side door to meet me. A beautiful young debutante checking in alone with no luggage – the concierge would notice that even if he didn’t already know who she was.
“It was a nice room,” she said wistfully, closing her door. “Shame to give it up like that.” I thought of the brand new mattress I’d seen in Carlton’s room and pictured the one stained with clotted blood and brains that it must have replaced, but I didn’t say anything. We made a few stops, picking up some extra food, a few toiletries, and a couple changes of inexpensive, nondescript clothes in her size, and I made her wear the scarf and dark glasses anytime she went in with me. By three o’clock I was walking her up the stairs to the apartment we’d rented. She walked around the place, checking out the closet, bathroom, and the view from the window like I had.
“It’s certainly a step up from that dreadful hotel,” she said, being a sport about it. “It’s actually kind of cozy, really.”
I nodded in agreement. “Much higher class of bedbug in this part of town.”
Neither of us had had lunch, so I took out a couple of the sandwiches and sodas and we sat together at the small table. After the way the day had gone up till now, I couldn’t decide if doing something normal like eating felt relaxing or simply strange. She must have been wondering the same thing. We ate in silence, and after the meal she asked: “How long will I be here?”
“A few days at least. Hopefully we’ll have you home by the weekend.”
Her brow knotted in suspicion. “Devlin, do you know what this is all about?”
I took a drink of my soda to stall. I didn’t want to tell her too much, but I needed to tell her something, especially as there was a lot I wanted to ask her.
“Your father’s involved in some pretty hairy business deal,” I said. “I don’t know all the details. Hell, I don’t know most of them, but I think someone’s threatening you to get him to play ball.”
“Thank you, Devlin, I had that much worked out already.” Smart women can be annoying sometimes.
“Then you already know as much as I do.”
“I don’t know what’s supposed to happen by the weekend.”
“Melinda, I need you to bear with me here. I’m trying to sort all this out myself, and I don’t want to fill your head with useless guesses that may amount to nothing.”
“You mean you don’t want me to worry my pretty little head, is that it?”
“Melina,” I said, switching names to get her attention, “the man you overheard on the phone this morning said you’d been lucky once. What do you take that to mean?”
She thought for a moment, then answered in a quiet voice, toneless with fright: “I can only think it means that someone has already tried to kill me.”
“That’s the only thing I can think of, too. This is serious, Melina. That’s why we’re going to all this trouble — the rented apartment, the scarf and glasses, the room at the Muehlebach. I need to find out more before I know what to do here. I need you to trust me a little. Will you answer some questions for me?”
She looked miffed but said: “Sure.”
I asked her several dozen questions, many of them more than once, and was glad to see she didn’t lose patience. She didn’t seem to know anything about the notebook and I was hesitant to come right out and ask her about it directly, just in case even knowing about the damn thing made someone a target. After all, I still wasn’t sure why someone wanted me dead. Hell, I still wasn’t sure who wanted me dead.
According to Melinda, this was the first time she’d heard anyone threaten her. There had been occasions in the past when her father had received general threats to himself and his family, but he never went into specifics about the nature of them. He satisfied himself by giving additional instructions to the staff and making sure she had an escort if she left the mansion. So far as she knew, nothing had ever come of these threats.
I asked her about her father’s recent trip to Denver. She assumed it had been a routine business trip. Her father often traveled on business, she told me, and she hadn’t thought anything of it. It may have been nothing at that; the world moves along even in times of crisis, and Graham was first and foremost a businessman. Some things he just wouldn’t be able to let slide. Hadn’t I taken on a new client myself only last week? Jakowski the Crazed Candy Czar? I asked her about Harold Draymore. Yes, she knew him, had met him a few times anyway.
“I know his voice. It wasn’t him I heard on the telephone,” she said.
I asked her about Steven Brenner, but she really didn’t have much contact with her father’s employees apart from Lundquist and the household staff. She couldn’t remember having seen Brenner in months. She knew nothing of Craig Carlton. I asked her to try and remember anything in the past few weeks that seemed unusual or out of place to her, but she couldn’t come up with anything. I tried to recall the times she and I had been out together, bringing up the faces of the people we’d run into, from the kid at the Nelson who’d tried to get fresh with her to the young couple we spoke with at the nightclub. I came up just as empty. When I had her go over what she’d heard over the telephone this morning for about the sixth time, she patiently repeated the story to me, with no variations from the last five times.
“And after you drove around, you didn’t think to go back to the house?” That house. “You didn’t go back to your father or Lundquist for help?”
“I did think about it, but it made me angry that they hadn’t told me what’s been going on. I became even angrier imagining how Dad would probably just deny the whole thing or make light of it. You know how you have conversations with people in your head sometimes?”
“Sure.”
“Besides, I was already halfway into town and...I wanted to see you.” She was looking down at the floor.
“What about?”
“You ought to know the answer to that already.” She stood up from her chair and walked to the window. I stood and followed, stopping close to her.
“I’m sure I’m being silly,” she said, looking through the glass at nothing. “That other night when we were dancing...well, you probably have lots of girlfriends.” None of them as well set up as you, baby, I considered saying, but didn’t. She might not see the humor in it. I placed my hands gently on her shoulders.
“Right now I’m concentrating more on keeping us both alive.” It had slipped out before I realized it. She spun around, scared all over again, asking if someone had threatened me, too. I played it down a bit, admitting someone had but not telling her there’d been an actual attempt. Still, it took awhile to calm her back down. She ran a hand over the side of my face and I clasped it in my own and kissed it. She seemed genuinely concerned that she might be the cause of an attempt on my life. I was hoping the reverse wasn’t true.
“Do you know how to light the stove?”
“Of course,” she brightened. “Call the cook.”
“And if the cook is busy?”
“Then the maid, the butler, the chauffeur, and the gardener in that order. Yes, Devlin, I know how to light a stove. I haven’t been tended to my entire life, you know. I lived mostly alone the last time I was abroad.”
“And to light the stove over there, you called the concierge, the sommelier, the saucier, and the naked Eye-talian art model in that order?”
“No,” she said, her face quite serious. “Not in that order.”
I shook my finger at her, then told her I had to get something from the car and would be back in a minute. When I returned, I knocked on the door. The sound of movement from inside the room stopped suddenly. I used the special knock and she answered.
“I wish you’d stop testing me like that!”
“I just want to make sure you’re on the ball, honey.”
“I’m ‘on the ball,’” she said, emphasizing the phrase with annoyance.
“Good. Stay on it. Ever used a gun before?” I took the Smith & Wesson .38 out of my belt. It was a little big for her but I’d need my Colt, and at least it was smaller than the .45.
“Not really,” she answered, eyeing the .38 warily. I snapped open the cylinder, shook the cartridges out onto the table, and proceeded to give her a quick lesson. I showed her to hold and aim the empty gun, then had her point it out the window and work the action a few times. Afterward, she practiced loading and unloading it while I watched.
“Hold it tight, both hands like I showed you, because it kicks back when you shoot it. Keep it loaded and within reach anytime you’re alone here. Only point it at something you intend to shoot at, and that would be anyone coming through that door that’s not me.” I grabbed my hat, telling her: “Same rules as before. You don’t go anywhere, you don’t leave this apartment, you don’t open the door unless I give the right knock.”
“What if the landlord wants in?”
“Shoot him through the door.”
“Devlin!”
“I’ve already spoken with the landlord,” I told her. “He won’t be bothering you.”
“When will you be back?” She looked again at the revolver lying on the table.
“Maybe tonight, maybe not for a couple days. There’s a lot I have to do.”
“Try to make it tonight,” she said. “And whatever it is you have to do, be careful.”
I stopped at the door and put my hat on, posing for her.
“Danger is my middle name, sweetheart.” I winked at her and she smiled back.
“I bet it isn’t. I bet it’s something really atrocious like Horace.” She laughed at the scowl I made. It was better than seeing her scared.
¥ ¥ ¥
After giving my car the thrice-over, I headed straight to my office. A custodian was out back with a pail of water, rinsing down the spot on the wall where I’d been sick earlier. He looked up as I passed, turning his head from side to side as he muttered: “Goddamn drunks.”
“Neighborhood’s getting shaky,” I agreed, not stopping.
The telephone was ringing as I walked in and I stopped at Gail’s desk to answer it. It was Lundquist, wanting to know if I’d heard anything of Miss Graham (I told him I hadn’t) and if I could come to Graham’s house that evening.
“Are you folks ready to give me a little solid information? I’m not driving out there for the scenery.”
“We’re prepared to take you into our confidence,” he answered, a bit stiffly.
“Swell. I can be there sometime after eight.”
“Fine. And Mr. Caine, if you should hear anything from Miss Graham—”
“You’ll be the first one I call,” I promised.
The phone rang as soon as I hung up, which was getting a little annoying by now.
“Hello?”
“What’s doing, Dev? I’ve been trying to call you all afternoon.” It was Detective Wilcox.
“Sorry, Brian, my secretary’s out sick and I’ve been out of the office most of the day. What’s up?”
“You wanted the name of Steven Brenner’s fiancée.” I grabbed Gail’s pad and pencil.
“Give it to me.”
“Susan Jenkins. Divorced with one child. Sorry I don’t have an address for you.”
“That’s fine, Brian, I appreciate it. Say, I hope I didn’t get you into hot water asking you for those records awhile back.”
“Nah,” he answered. “The chief came walking into my office a few days ago, asked if I gave copies of Carlton’s police records to some private detective name Caine. I said ‘Yeah, why? We not doing that anymore?’ He asks if I mean handing out official police files to every Tom, Dick, and Harry who mails in two box tops. I tell him, ‘Well, gosh, no sir, I meant beefing up our contacts in the local community, assisting other professional investigators, sharing information and all that.’ He grumbled something and walked off, and that was pretty much the end of it.”
“I’m glad to hear that. I owe you another lunch one of these days.”
“I wouldn’t dare say no,” he chuckled. “I don’t want Ronald Graham’s whole legal staff marching in to set me straight on protocol.” I wasn’t surprised; stories like that one make the rounds fast in a police precinct.
“You’re a funny guy, Brian. Talk to you later.”
“G’bye, Dev.”
I hung up and called Jennings, telling him to get over to my office because I had a job for him that night.
“You want me to bring the car?” he asked eagerly.
“No. You find a place for it?”
“Sure thing, Mr. Caine. A buddy of mine had some room in his garage.”
“You told him to keep the door closed?
“I told him.”
“Good man. You got a car of your own or one you can use? One that’s good for the road?”
“’Course I do.”
“Get over here as soon as you can.” I hung up and got out the Leica, cleaning the lens and loading it with fresh film, then found a flashlight and checked the batteries. When Jennings arrived I told him what I wanted, giving him the camera, flashlight, and a set of lockpicking tools, along with some instructions.
“Don’t get caught, and if you do, don’t say anything. Call me and I’ll get my lawyer. And don’t take anything but photographs. Put everything back just like you found it and have the prints for me in the morning. You got all that?”
“No sweat.” Adventure Boy was all grins, charged up about getting to do some real detective work. I gave him money for gas and for the job and he left.
I took out the telephone directory and found three Susan Jenkinses in the city. The first one I reached had to be at least eighty, and no, she wasn’t interested in the magazine subscription I was offering. On the second try a man answered, wanting to know why I wanted to speak to his wife. If it was about the rent he could explain that, and I should be talking to him about such things and not her, and what kind of man was I that...I hung up on him. I went to the third listing and wrote down the address, then went to make sure nobody was trying to smuggle explosives in my car before heading out again.
Susan Jenkins lived in a small house that was kept a few steps above shabby by a well-cut lawn and a fresh coat of paint. It wasn’t likely she’d be moving anytime soon, either, now that her meal ticket had checked out. I knocked at the door and waited. The woman who answered was in her thirties and kept her figure well, I noticed. She brushed a stray lock of blonde hair out of one eye and said “Yes?” through the screen door when I asked if she was Susan Jenkins.
“Ma’am, my name is Devlin Caine. I’m a private investigator. If you have just a moment, I’d like to talk with you. It concerns your late fiancé.”
“Someone hired a private investigator?”
“The police hire me on occasion when they’re a bit backlogged or need special expertise.” It wasn’t a lie, it just wasn’t a direct answer to her question. She let out a tired sigh and unhooked the screen door. I followed her into a small living room. There were a few toys scattered along the rug and I could hear a child singing softly from another room. I waited for Mrs. Jenkins to sit first and started by offering my condolences.
“We were getting married next month,” she said, her eyes vague and looking at nothing. I’d caught a whiff of gin on her breath when I came through the door. Not that I could really blame her.
“It’s a terrible shame,” I offered uselessly. She nodded and I started in, just general questions about Steven Brenner’s work, any enemies he might have had, that kind of thing. She informed me that she’d already been through all this with the police and I apologized for making her go through it all again. I was somber and soft-spoken, and she was already beaten down by the cruel twist of fate that had snatched a better life right out of her hands. She was still wearing her engagement ring, looking at it admiringly now and then, probably knowing she’d end up having to pawn it. She didn’t seem to know a great deal about Brenner’s work, other than that he worked for a very rich man.
“I understand Mr. Brenner’s employer is doing what they can to help out?”
“Yeah, they gave me a tidy little sum, which they really didn’t have to. I’ll be okay for this year and a good part of the next. After that....” She let the sentence hang.
“Not the same as being Mrs. Brenner, I guess.”
“We had us some times,” she admitted. “Good meals, fine wines, night life.” She mentioned a few of the places he’d taken her, including one of the many gambling halls in the city. High Roller Brenner had dropped five thousand dollars one night on a single turn of the roulette wheel. He’d cursed once, laughed, then taken her someplace else for champagne and scrambled eggs. “We even had dinner at his boss’s mansion to celebrate our engagement last month. You should see the place. The man has an elevator in his home. His own elevator!”
“Who was at the dinner?” And why the hell did I want to know that?
She shrugged. “His boss, Mr. Graham, and Mr. Graham’s daughter. She’s a real looker. She didn’t have a lot to say to me, but I guess I wasn’t her kind of people,” she sniffed. “There was another man, a secretary, I think. A couple of other people I don’t remember.” She gave a mirthless laugh. “Seems now like it all happened to some other girl.”
The telephone rang in the kitchen and I stood as she excused herself. A little girl of four or five with blonde curls came toddling in from the back bedroom, looking for one of her toys. She saw me and smiled and told me her name was Katie and she was five (she held up all the chubby fingers on one hand) and Uncle Stevie was going to be her new Daddy and she and Mommy were going to move into a big house with maybe a pony and she didn’t like beets, they made her go ewwwww!
“Is Uncle Stevie a nice guy?”
She nodded, then broke out a big grin.
“He bought me a ice cream!” she bragged. “He bought me two, but shhhh!,” she added, blowing noisily around her forefinger, “It’s a secret!”
I felt that slight flutter in my stomach. The events of the day must have rattled me plenty. When Susan Jenkins came back into the room, I told her I had no more questions and thanked her for her time. She saw me to the door and I apologized again for disturbing her. She waved it away, her face listless as she contemplated another thirty years right were she was.
¥ ¥ ¥
Inside an hour, I was standing in Graham’s office, joining him and Lundquist for a drink. I took it real easy with mine, barely sipping it as I looked over at the glow of the Tiffany lampshade. I’d had enough booze the past couple days and needed to stay sharp. Lundquist sat on a small sofa between a bookcase and the liquor cabinet, while Graham paced back and forth behind his desk. His bowtie was still done up, but the flesh of his face was slack, matching the withered carnation in his lapel. I assured them both I hadn’t heard from Graham’s daughter.
“Has she run off like this before?” I asked.
“Run off?” Graham repeated indignantly. “I don’t keep my daughter prisoner, Mr. Caine. She can come and go as she pleases under normal circumstances. So long as she’s careful of her reputation, I don’t protest overly.” That was Graham for you: Stay out of the papers, young lady, and you can do as you please.
“Is there a chance she eloped with someone?”
“If she did I’ll have it annulled,” he said with finality. I didn’t doubt that he could or would. Graham had enough pull to have my parents’ marriage annulled, and they’d had two kids and been dead for five years.
“Have you been receiving any more threats recently?”
Graham paused for a moment. “Yes.”
“From whom?”
Graham and Lundquist exchanged a look but neither said anything. I set my glass down on Graham’s desk.
“Thank you for the drink, Mr. Graham. I can see myself out.” I started for the door.
“Joe Trianna, damn it!” snapped Graham. I turned back to him.
“He called you up personally?”
“This morning.”
“And he’s the one who’s been threatening you all along?”
“Yes.”
“What was Trianna’s threat exactly?”
Graham took a swallow of his drink. “He says if I don’t hand the notebook over to him he’ll kill my daughter.”
“You told me you don’t have the notebook.”
“I don’t!”
“Did you tell this to—”
“Yes, I told that wop son of a bitch! He doesn’t believe me!”
I picked up my drink and walked around a little, giving Graham a chance to cool down.
“Mr. Caine,” Lundquist interjected softly, “you assured me that you can get this notebook for Mr. Graham by Friday.”
“I can and I will.”
“But you don’t have it yet?”
“If I did we’d be talking money. Lots of it.” I turned back to Graham. “What will you do with it? Hand it over to Trianna?”
“I can’t. The notebook contains...very damaging information about my businesses. It could ruin me.”
“And your daughter?”
“I can protect her.”
“You have to find her first.” Graham glared at me but remained silent. I took a drink. “Here’s what I don’t get: Trianna gave this notebook to Carlton in the first place, right? Can’t he just make another one? Why is he so hell-bent on getting this one back?”
“We’re not entirely certain,” said Lundquist. “Of course, if someone else has it and uses it against Mr. Graham first, Trianna gains nothing. All his efforts to date will have come to naught.”
“That’s one possibility,” I admitted.
“You can think of another?”
“This was a pretty big play on Trianna’s part, trying to nab himself a cut of the Ready-Mix like this. In his organization, you get permission first, at the very least from whoever runs the mob in your city. Charlie Carollo in this case.”
“And if you don’t?”
I shrugged and cocked my head. “If you don’t and your play goes bad and the big boss finds out about it...”
“Trianna could end up with some serious explaining to do to his superiors,” Lundquist finished.
“Trianna could end up doing his explaining to St. Peter,” I told him.
Graham had been listening to our exchange intently.
“Perhaps I should contact Mr. Carollo,” he said. “Make him aware of this situation.”
“You could, I guess, but you don’t really have the connections, and whatever their internal squabbles, these people don’t take kindly to outsiders butting into their affairs. Apart from that, do you really want to risk bringing more people into this? Drawing more attention to these trade secrets of yours?”
“What would be your suggestion, Mr. Caine?” Lundquist asked.
“I’d have to know more first. For starters, I’d have to know who killed Steven Brenner.”
The two of them exchanged another look and Lundquist spoke: “We honestly don’t know the answer to that.”
“Okay, tell me what you do know.”
Another look and then Lundquist started telling me the story. After Carlton had bullied his way into a meeting with Graham, showing him the notebook and demanding to be taken on as a business partner, Graham and Lundquist had gone nuts trying to figure out where Trianna had come by all this damning information. They’d assigned their security man, Brenner, to find out. Brenner had spent several days doing what I’d done at first: shadowing Carlton, trying to learn more about the man. Brenner got bold enough to arrange a few meetings with Carlton, trying to feel him out, see if possibly, for the right price, Carlton might be willing to switch teams. Brenner was in contact with Lundquist daily, and the first time he failed to check in, Graham and Lundquist feared the worst. Lundquist had come to my office the next day.
“And have you realized your mistake by now?” I asked this of Graham and he nodded bitterly.
“Brenner was the one who gave them all this information in the first place,” Graham said. “It had to be him. He was the only one who knew all of these details apart from Tom and myself. What I don’t understand is why.”
“Oldest reason in the world: money.”
“I paid him well enough! I take care of all of my people.”
“Take care of them in every sense?”
“Excuse me?” Graham blinked at me.
“I mean did you come to the conclusion that Brenner had been selling you out before or after he got himself shot?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, Mr. Graham, did you kill Steven Brenner? Or hire it done? Either for revenge or to keep him from spilling more secrets?”
“I most certainly did not! Whatever you may think of me, Mr. Caine, I am not a killer. Besides, Brenner would have been much more useful to me alive. At least then I’d have had the chance of getting some answers from him, of learning the extent of the damage he’d caused.”
“Is it possible Trianna killed him to cover his tracks?” I asked.
“That is our supposition,” Lundquist said.
“Who killed Craig Carlton?”
“I have no idea,” Graham confessed.
“Any idea as to why he was killed?”
“None.” Graham walked over to his globe and rubbed the back of his neck. “Steven Brenner worked for me for over fifteen years. He was one of my most trusted employees. And he betrayed me for money when I was already paying him plenty.”
“If it makes you feel any better, Mr. Graham,” I said, “Brenner didn’t sell you out for money he was hoping to earn. It was for money he owed.”