Читать книгу Five-Star Frameup - Emile C. Tepperman - Страница 3

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FOUR miles from Hampton City, Marty Quade slowed down his hired Drive-Yourself sedan and began watching for the Russian Tavern. He rounded a bend in the road, and the lights of Hampton City became suddenly visible, down in the valley below. The city sprawled across the Hampton River and thinned out on the far slope beyond, where the residential section of the manufacturing metropolis would be located.

Marty kept one eye on the road and one on the view. He passed a big billboard which said:

500 feet to the Russian Tavern!

Dine and Sleep in Luxurious Comfort

Superlative Service

Delicious Russian & American Food

Restful Beds—Continental Breakfast

Personal Proprietorship of Count Boris Metchnikov

Marty grinned sourly as he passed the poster. Then he swung in a sharp right turn into the U driveway that led into the grounds of the Russian Tavern. It was a low, wide-fronted structure with a central building and two wings. There was a wooden cupola over the middle part, with a great bronze bell, illuminated by a floodlight on the roof. It looked like the cupola of some old Russian Orthodox cathedral of Czarist days.

Sounds of music came from inside, and Marty recognized the strains of that old standby, the Volga Boat Song. He swung the car into the parking space.

A man in a swallow-tail coat and a stiff shirt-front came out to greet him. The man was big and red-faced, with a bulletlike head and a generous moustache. A red sash ran diagonally across his shirt-front, underneath the coat. Upon his left breast there were pinned half a dozen medals and colored ribbons. He looked like nothing less than a visiting ambassador or a grand duke.

He approached Marty with an air of suave affability, showing two rows of beautiful teeth in what was meant to be a dazzling smile.

"Ah-h! Goot evening, sir. Permeet me zat I introduce myself. I am zee Count Boris Metchnikov—zee manager of zis humble taver-rn. Welcome. Welcome!"

He grabbed hold of Marty's hand and pumped it up and down. Then he looked slyly toward the car. "Zee lady? She ees wat you call—bashful? Tell 'er she may come out. We here are zee soul of discretion. Eet ees safe—"

"There's no lady," Marty told him sourly. Count Boris Metchnikov looked startled and unbelieving.

"W'at? No lady? You 'ave come wizout a lady?"

He left Marty standing there, and went and peered into the car. Then he came back, shrugging his shoulders.

"Zen per'aps eet ees fat you would like to be introduce' to wan of zee—er—'ostesses 'ere?"

"Layoff," Marty told him. "I'm not a sucker. I'm not here for pleasure. I'm here for business. Quade is the name. I want to see Lenore Eastman."

"Oh! Ah! Yes, yes." Count Boris Metchnikov's tone immediately became formal and cold. "Quade. She 'ave give' me zee name. She 'ave phone' you from our telephone, to New York, an' 'ave ask t'at you come at once. T'at is right. Follow me, please."

He turned and led the way inside.

They passed a hat-check girl clad in a very scanty costume. Then they entered the dining room. A four-piece string orchestra was playing another Russian song, slow and voluptuous. Two couples were dancing—that is, they were moving around the dance floor, hanging on to each other as if they were glued.

There were two couples seated at tables, in the next to the last stages of inebriation, and slobbering over each other. Soft-footed waiters moved noiselessly, serving them. The lights were low.

Marty raised his eyebrows. There were at least a dozen cars outside, but only four couples in evidence.

Metchnikov saw Marty's quizzical look, and spread his hands. "Our private dining rooms upstairs—you comprehend, no?"

"Yes," said Marty. "I comprehend. Is Mrs. Eastman in one of the upstairs rooms?"

"But yais. She always take a private room."

"She comes here regularly?"

"Two, t'ree time' a week. Ever since she 'ave meet thees yong interne from zee Hampton Ceety 'ospital."

"Interne?" Marty asked. "Is he up there with her now?"

"But yais. Thees I do not comprehend. Always, zey come separately, an' zey go separately. Nevair do zey bozzer us. But tonight, she 'ave come downstairs, an' ask for ze phone. Zen, w'en she 'ave finish, she say to me, 'I am expect a man by ze name of Quade. E come from New York. Sen' 'im right up!'"

Metchnikov looked perplexed and vexed. "W'y should she ask for anothair man?"

Marty grinned. "How should I know?" They were at the head of the stairs now, and the count led the way down a carpeted corridor, past several doors, and stopped at the last one on the right, numbered 10. He gestured with both hands.

"'Ere. She 'ave said t'at I mus' bring you to ze door an' leave you. Goot luck, Meestaire Quade!"

Marty watched him go back down the hall and start to descend the stairs. Only then did he turn and knock at the door.

There was a slight pause, then a woman's voice asked: "Yes? Who?"

"Quade," Marty said shortly. "Oh!" Then: "Are you alone?"

"No," Marty growled. "I have three G-men with me and two redheads from the Winter Garden chorus!"

Once more there was an "Oh!" It was followed by a sniff. "Wise guy, huh!" the woman's voice said through the door.

The lock clicked, and the door was opened. A white oval of a face peered out, a pair of heavily mascaraed eyes glared at Marty, then looked up and down the corridor. Satisfied, she pulled the door all the way open and said:

"Come in, quick. Heavens, I'm glad you came, Mr. Quade!"

Marty grunted, and went in. She closed the door at once, locked it. Then she turned and faced him. She was tall and slender, with dark hair and great dark eyes that looked as guileless as the Mona Lisa's. She was wearing a dark green evening gown, but there were wrinkles in it here and there where it rested snugly against her body, as if she had pulled it on in a hurry. Her hair had a beautiful permanent wave, but wisps of it were loose behind her ears, and one curl was hanging down over her left temple.

But she was beautiful, nonetheless. At a rough estimate, Marty would have said that she was in her early thirties. Right now she looked older than she really was, because her makeup wasn't on evenly, and some of the mascara was streaked down the corners of her eyes.

"Mr. Quade," she said theatrically, one hand at her breast, "I'm in terrible trouble!"

Marty said nothing. He sized her up, then turned and looked the room over. There was a table in the center, with the remains of dinner. A casserole with some unfinished lobster a la King lay uncovered. A pot of coffee stood at one side of the table with two cups next to it. The cups were clean. There were two places set, and two dishes, both with unfinished lobster on them.

The rest of the room was pleasantly furnished, with two upholstered chairs, a settee, a radio console, and a small desk. There were pictures of Russian nobility on the walls, in hunting dress and in court costume.

In the far wall there was a door, partly open, and Marty could see that it led into a bedroom. All he could glimpse from where he stood was the foot of the four-poster bed and an edge of the dresser.

Lenore Eastman came up close to him and put one hand, almost caressingly, on his sleeve. He got the faint scent of some expensive perfume and he could hear her breath coming fast.

"You've got to help me," she said urgently. "I phoned you in New York because I can't trust anyone in Hampton City, and I need a man like you who isn't afraid of—of doing things."

Marty gave her a queer look. "Doing what kind of things?"

She turned her eyes away. "Things—that may be necessary to—help a client out of trouble."

"You're not my client yet."

"But—but you've come, haven't you? You wouldn't have come if you weren't taking the case—"

"I came because you offered me a fee of a thousand dollars," he told her gruffly. "You haven't hired me till you've paid my fee—in advance."

"Oh! That!" She went across to the desk and picked up a dark green purse, which matched her dress.

She opened the purse and took out a roll of bills which was so thick that she had difficulty holding it in her small hand. She opened up the roll, and Marty saw that it was all fifties and hundreds. She counted out a thousand dollars, handed it over.

"Well?" she asked. "Have I hired you?" Marty examined the bills, made sure they weren't counterfeit or hot, and stuffed them in his pocket. "All right," he said. "What's the score?"

Her eyes opened wide. "You—you're taking the case—not caring what may be involved? Suppose—suppose I've committed—murder?"

Marty grinned. "Lady," he said, "if you've committed murder, you're out a thousand bucks. You don't need me. You need a lawyer. When I take a case, I always assume my client is innocent. If you expect me to break the law to cover up a crime, you've come to the wrong store."

"I know. I—I've heard of you. Everybody in New York swears by you. They say—"

"Never mind what they say," Marty growled. "Let's get down to cases. What goes on here?"

Her eyes darkened for a moment, and she looked at him peculiarly. "You don't like me, do you, Mr. Quade? I can see by the way you act that you don't like me."

"You're damned right!" Marty told her. "But why? We've just met. You don't know anything about me—"

"I know a lot about you," Marty corrected. "I know that you're the wife of Oliver Eastman, the publisher of the Hampton City News-Journal."

She nodded. "I told you that, myself, over the phone. But that's all—"

"Not quite all," Marty said. "I know that you're here in this damned roadside tavern, because you're two-timing your husband. You've been coming here regularly, with a young interne from the City Hospital." Marty paused, scowling. "And if there's anything I dislike, it's a two-timing dame!"

"And yet," she sneered, "you take my money!"

"Sure I take your money. But not for nothing, girlie. When a woman like you sends for me, I know damned well that I'm going to earn my fee." He waved his hand impatiently. "Now that our cards are on the table, let's get down to business." He motioned toward the door to the other room. "You can tell your boy friend to come out now!"

Lenore Eastman stood very silent for the space of a dozen heartbeats. Her eyes were fixed on Marty with a sort of vindictive satisfaction. Then she began to laugh, abruptly, in a high, shrill voice.

Marty frowned, and took a step toward her. But she stopped that near-hysterical laughter as suddenly as she had begun. Then she swept across the room and kicked open the bedroom door. The rest of the bed was revealed.

Across it a man lay sprawled on his face. He was wearing trousers and a shirt open at the throat. He had dark hair, and the back of his head was nicely shaped. But it wasn't going to do him much good from now on, because a long steel knife was buried in his back, squarely between the shoulder blades. The knife had an onyx handle, decorated with an inlaid golden crest. The man's feet trailed on the floor, and both his arms were outflung across the bed.

Marty took the whole thing in with a quick glance, then looked at the woman. She flung out an arm, gesturing toward the bed.

"There's my boy friend," she said. "He can't come out." She dropped her arm and bowed to him, sardonically. "And now, Mr. Quade, you can start earning that thousand-dollar fee. Get me out of this, damn you!"