Читать книгу Murder on the Rocks - Talmage Powell - Страница 5

HER CAR was a red Lancia sportster. Right-hand drive with about six gear positions to occupy your left hand, and door armhole cut low enough to drag your elbow on the road. I had a hell of a time with the gearshift and finally she took over that part of it while I handled the brakes, the clutch, and the wheel. On the hard-top parkway heat waves rose like thin blue smoke. Ten degrees hotter and it would burst into flame.

People were sunbathing on the grass beside the parkway, flanked out limply on towels and blankets, or sitting with dark glasses drinking cokes and beer. It was a fine day for sunstroke, the best I could remember since last summer, and the season was barely under way.

I followed the parkway to P Street, turned west to Wisconsin, and stopped for a traffic light. It was time for her to shift, but nothing was happening. “Hey,” I said, and turned to look at her, but her head lay back against the top of the seat and her eyes were closed. Her face was tranquil. I touched her hand. No response. She was breathing regularly, asleep in the sun. Asleep or passed out. The signal changed and I managed to mesh the gears. The Lancia purred up nance alley toward Philips Place.

Georgetown is new town, old town, poor town, rich town, dark town, light town. It lies west of Rock Creek Park and north of the old C & O barge canal. Its western limit is the wall of Georgetown University and on the north, Dumbarton Oaks. In early Colonial times it was a center of periwigged fashion and Federalist snobbery that lasted a hundred years. For another eighty the close-built dwellings settled and tottered apart until only Negroes would live there, eight to a room. Then for the last twenty-five the process reversed. The New Deal’s flood of bureaucrats claimed Georgetown as its own. They tidied and rebuilt and improved and the politicians and financiers were attracted until with the exception of Foxhall Road it boasted the most expensive and exclusive real estate in the nation’s Capital. On the fringes huddle morose colonies of dikes and nances, the shops and restaurants have names that are ever so quaint, and sometimes it seemed a shame that the slaves had ever left.

As for Washington, it has, per capita, more rape, more crimes of violence, more perversion, more politicians, more liquor, more good food, more bad food, more tax collections, more hotels and apartments, and more gold toothpicks than any city in the world. A fine place if you have enterprise, durability, money and powerful friends.

She hadn’t given me the street number but it was listed on her car registration. The apartment was a one-story duplex. Not a reconditioned rat’s nest like most Georgetown dwellings, or one of those precious little clapboard shacks, half-a-house wide and just big enough for a brace of mannish females who own a change of khaki pants apiece, a low-cost hi-fi and a record library heavy on the Delius and Stravinsky. Instead, the duplex had an honest brick face, Colonial brick and limed mortar, with horseshoe arches over the windows, and open wood shutters. The fence enclosing the lawn was wrought-iron painted black. Beneath the duplex was a sunken garage with room for two cars. I drove down the slanting cement apron into the garage and turned off the engine. Iris hadn’t moved.

Getting out of the Lancia, I went around and opened her door. Draping her left arm around my neck I lifted her. She was not tall but she was solidly assembled. About one-twenty, probably less. Carrying her, I walked back up the apron, turned onto the sidewalk, and went up the brick steps. At the top of the steps a walk branched toward two doorways. Hers was solid wood, painted teal blue. In place of a bronze knocker there was an antique cast-iron medallion with a bas-relief fire cart and the date 1821 in flowing script. Typically Georgetown. The door key was in the leather holder with her ignition keys. I opened the door, closed it with my heel, and looked around for a place to put her.

Beyond the fireplace I saw a door. I walked over thick beige carpeting and through the doorway into a bedroom. It had turquoise walls, white woodwork, and lemon-colored curtains. The bed was Hollywood, double width, and the bedspread had foot-wide strips of turquoise and lemon. I lowered her onto it and pulled off her shoes. As I straightened, she stirred and murmured something but too faintly to hear. Her lips stayed parted and she looked as if she was good for at least eight hours. The room smelled faintly of expensive perfume.

I was hot and my back was weary from carrying her. For the last couple of years my exercise has consisted of carrying briefcases and tax books and running up sails. I left her on the bed and went back through the living room to the kitchen. All gleaming new, with copper pots and pans on pegs over the electric range. The refrigerator contained, among other things, six bottles of Danish beer. I opened one, tilted it, and walked back to the living room.

It was a big room, running the length of the house. Beyond the dinette picture window I could see a garden with lawn, flower borders, a couple of statues, and a miniature swimming pool. If it had been filled with beer I could have drained it in half an hour.

The furniture was Japanese style with foam-rubber cushions covered with shaggy beige cloth. The wood looked like black teak. On a chocolate leather hassock lay a Siamese cat. I looked at the cat and it yawned at me, stretched, and closed its turquoise eyes. Glancing around the apartment, I decided that the decor matched the cat.

Between the living-room and the dinette was a brick-and-wood half wall. The living-room side was a built-in bookcase. In one corner stood a hi-fi cabinet in dark teak. It looked like about fifteen-hundred dollars worth of honeyed sound. At full volume it could tear the bricks out of the wall.

I sat on the beige sofa, sipped from the bottle, and put it down on the teakwood chow table. Against the far wall hung a row of Japanese prints. Ukiyoe. Beside the door there was a framed silk kakemono, a brush painting of a red-crested heron. Also Japanese. All very chichi. All very nice. You had an Oriental cat so you decorated your apartment in matching colors, and to avoid spoiling the effect you brought in custom-made Japanese-style furniture and silk paintings and wood prints. What else? If you had money, that is.

Picking up the bottle, I let the cold liquid trickle down my throat. It was excellent beer. I could almost taste ripe wheat.

No sounds from the bedroom.

I got up, turned down the air-conditioner, and sat in a different chair. From there I could see a silver-framed photograph on top of a tansu chest. The picture looked like Iris Calvo Sewall, taken a few years ago. For no particlular reason I got up and walked over to it. The same nose, the same hair line, almost the same face. But written at an angle across the lower right-hand corner were the words: Always, Sara.

That made it her younger sister. I studied the face and saw that the lips were slightly broader than the lips of the woman who slept in the bedroom. And they had a childish, pouty look. The corners of the mouth seemed spoiled, even selfish. The little sister. She looked like a mantrap.

I turned and went back to the chow table, picked up my bottle and finished it. My wristwatch read three forty-two. Still time enough to grab a cab back to the waterfront, up sail, and drift down the Potomac the way I had planned before Iris Sewall braced me at Hogan’s.

Reaching into my coat pocket, I pulled out her two five-hundred-dollar banknotes, smoothed out the wrinkles, and admired the engraving. I could drop them on the table, walk out of the door, and never come back. For a while I considered the idea and then discarded it. I had had a bottle of excellent beer at her expense and I had agreed to listen to what she had wanted so much to tell me. On top of that I told myself that I had been getting stale. Any action you can get out of a pile of tax returns and a shelf of tax books is strictly mental. And tedious.

I persuaded myself to linger over a second bottle of beer and if Iris still slept I would leave her thousand dollars on the table and walk out.

Just then the telephone rang.

I reached for it, then hesitated. If it was her husband he might not like hearing a man’s voice in his wife’s apartment, separated from her or not. And Paul Sewall knew some nasty people, hoods who would sap me for laughs, then break my arches for staggering. Then again it could be her sister, Sara. Or her father, the Ambassador.

Picking up the phone, I said, “Hello,” but there was no answer, only an exclamation of surprise, abrupt and sexless, and the wire went dead. I lowered the receiver, shrugged, and decided I should have ignored it. As I walked away from the telephone I heard a key in the front door lock. The door opened inward and a bulky Negro woman stared at me. From one arm hung the strap of a shopping bag. A shock of celery leaves stuck out of one corner.

“Hello,” I said.

She looked at me, then at the half-closed door, deciding whether to scream or come in the rest of the way. Finally she said, “Where’s Mis’ Iris?”

“In the bedroom,” I said. “Sleeping.”

“Huh!” she exploded. “You the genneman kep’ her out all night?”

I shook my head.

“She drunk?”

“Ask her. And skip the Aunt Jemima dialect; it doesn’t come natural.”

Her eyes narrowed and she looked apprehensively at the bedroom. When she looked back at me she said, “Thank you. No one else ever noticed. How does it happen that you did?”

“I was brought up around here. It’s been twenty years since the last minstrels.”

“They die hard,” she said. “Some employers wouldn’t like knowing I graduated from Howard University with a degree in education, but teaching pay isn’t enough to support my son and myself. Mrs. Sewall isn’t the kind who would care, but all her friends aren’t like her. You won’t say anything, will you?”

“Why should I?”

She brushed past me and went into the bedroom. After a while she came out, carried the shopping bag into the kitchen and came back. “I hung up her clothing,” she told me. “I’ll give her a neck and shoulder massage to bring her around. It shouldn’t take long, Mr.—”

“Bentley.”

“Mr. Bentley. I’ve never seen you with her before.”

“We just met.”

The Siamese cat stood up and stretched.

“Ava!” the woman called.

The Siamese cat arched her back and sneered.

“Siamese cats,” the maid said. “The smartest domesticated felines alive. And don’t think they don’t know it. I don’t feed her now, she’ll sink her teeth in my ankle and laugh like a fiend. Excuse me.”

Ava followed her into the kitchen. I heard the refrigerator door swing open, the splash of milk in a saucer. When the maid came out she crossed into the bedroom.

I walked into the. kitchen, opened another bottle, and watched the domesticated feline lapping milk noisily. From there I turned on the hi-fi unit. Sound swelled through the room and I lowered the volume a little. The music was unfamiliar but I liked it. It soothed me and brought back a sense of reality that had started leaving me when I walked out of Hogan’s with Iris Sewall.

At four-fifteen the Siamese cat drifted out of the kitchen, found a comfortable spot on the rug, and began cleaning her chops. The bedroom door opened and Iris appeared. There was color in her cheeks, her skin looked freshly showered, and she had on brocade lounging pajamas and velvet ballerina slippers.

“Sorry,” she said. “Terribly sorry, and all that, but the drinks were obviously too many. That or the sun. Or possibly both. In any case, thanks for staying around.” She lighted a cigarette and glanced at the hi-fi set. “Like my music?”

“Anyone would.”

She came to the sofa and sat on the far end. Her hands moved nervously. She was drawing herself together, getting ready to say what she had to say.

“Someone called,” I told her, “but when I answered the line went dead. Sorry if I’ve compromised you. Then again, it might have been only Sara.”

“My sister? How did you—?” She turned toward the photograph and her face relaxed. “Of course. No, Sara will still be sleeping. She gave last night’s brawl. Her husband is Wayne Cutler. Perhaps you know him?”

I shook my head. “I’m not part of the mallet-and-horse-show crowd.”

“A worker who scorns the drones.”

“If we have to put it that particular way, that would be a way to put it. Is your sister involved in this problem of yours?” I thought I’d help her get to the point.

“No—no, it isn’t Sara. Not this time. And what made you ask? Do you know about those other times?”

“What kind of times?”

“Oh, when she was at Fentriss after me. Running away from school. The first time she made the papers she’d been gone a whole week. When the police found her she was in a Richmond hotel room with two sailors and a truck driver. Drunk. The next time it was a policeman in Alexandria, and so on.” She blew a feather of smoke at the kakemono. “Sara’s married now, so she’s Wayne’s problem, not mine or Father’s.”

The thread had given out. I gave it another tug. “An hour and a half ago you couldn’t wait to tell me your troubles. You even gave me a bundle of earnest money. If you’ve changed your mind, I can still salvage something from the week-end. If not, why stall?”

She glanced at me, ground out her cigarette, and clasped her hands around her knees. Her ankles were slim and what I could see of her legs was tanned. In the room’s semi-darkness her eyes seemed to glow.

Huskily she said, “It’s a man. A man from Father’s Embassy. One of the diplomatic couriers. His name is Silvio Contreras.” She spelled it for me. “Tuesday night he brought a diplomatic pouch to the Embassy and the next morning he was supposed to leave with a pouch to Ottawa. But he never came back to the Embassy. Father is very upset. He wants Silvio found right away, and without any publicity. Silvio checked out of the Mayflower Wednesday morning and no one knows where he’s gone to.”

I took her money out of my pockets, laid it on the cushion beside her, and stood up. “It’s a case for Missing Persons,” I told her. “That, or the Department’s Special Detail if your father feels it’s something particularly delicate.” I looked down at her. “Me—I think it’s about as delicate as a blacksmith’s appetite. He didn’t run off with the Embassy pouch, did he?”

She shook her head. “Please—”

“—Or there’s this one other thought: there’s more than you’ve told me. A lot more. And I make it a point to pull out of anything that smells of flim-flam. Your story smells worse than a dead rat in a steamer trunk. I’d guess Silvio has something your father wants. Information, perhaps, or a letter or cash money. If you just wanted to find Silvio you wouldn’t have taken the trouble of looking me up and handing me a thousand dollars; a PI could do it for fifty and show forty profit. Still with me?”

She nodded.

“Let’s take it a step further. If Silvio’s got something he should have given the Ambassador or taken something he shouldn’t have, you’d want to get hold of it and you’d want it done quietly and discreetly—those are the words you used. Whatever it happens to be, you want it back. Before Silvio has time to pass it on or cash it in, or whatever else you’re afraid he might do with whatever he has. Is imagination running away with me?” I asked.

Her tongue passed over her lips. Suddenly she stood up, went to the tansu, and opened the cabinet door. She took out a glass and a cognac bottle. She poured cognac into the glass, looked at it, and tossed it off. No cough, no choking spasm. Sauce was an old friend to this lady. As if I didn’t know.

She refilled the glass, lifted it by the stem, and turned to me. “The effect was rather startling,” she said in an off-key voice. “I don’t believe in mind-reading, so you’re as clever as Jean promised you were. And probably better.” She lifted the glass to her lips, wet them delicately, and walked toward the sofa. Picking up the money, she brought it to me and put it in my hand. “I should have told you everything from the first. I shouldn’t have tried to trick you.”

“That sounds like a come-on for more flim-flam.”

“No.” She shook her head and the hair brushed across her throat. “Honestly it isn’t. Sit down and I’ll start at the beginning.”

Bending over, she took a cigarette and lighted it, all with one hand. Then she sat on the edge of the sofa and looked up at me. “Please sit down.”

I sat down beside her.

She blew smoke across the chow table. The room was so quiet the air-conditioner sounded louder than Niagara Falls. Gazing at the end of her cigarette, she said, “You’d have no way of knowing it but my father’s government has told him there’s trouble down there. Agitation. Political trouble. You know how those things start.”

“And how they end.”

She nodded. “The Outs take over the government and then the Ins become the Outs. There’s bloodshed and thievery and all the miserable rest. Well, it’s been building up for a long time, and the government has been quietly sending a lot of money out of the country. Stripping the treasury, really, to transfer funds where they’ll be safe even if there’s a revolution, and where the funds can be used by the Ins if they become Outs. To help them become Ins again. The cash has been sent to places like Berne and Tangier and Hong Kong.”

“The free-money markets.”

“Yes. But none was deposited in the United States because of possible legal complications. I guess you’d know about that.” She tapped ash from her cigarette. Her nails were almond-shaped, the polish blood red. Somehow I hadn’t noticed before.

She said, “My father has been in the diplomatic service nearly thirty years. He’s known and trusted. When his government started sending assets abroad they sent something here for his safe-keeping. Something rather special.” Picking up the glass, she sipped cognac and set it back on the chow table.

“How special?” I asked.

She said, “If you know anything about my father’s country, you know most of its wealth comes from mining. Copper, lead, silver, and gold. And gems. Some of the finest amethysts in the world are mined there.” She looked at me sideways. “Do you know anything about emeralds?”

“I’ve never bought any, if that’s what you mean.”

“Well, they’re the most expensive precious stone in the world.”

“More so than diamonds?”

“Considerably more. Because they’re awfully rare—the perfect ones. The best have a deep velvety green color. The Czar’s Emerald is the largest perfect cut emerald in the world and weighs only about thirty carats.”

“Worth how much?”

“It isn’t for sale, but I’ve heard it’s worth close to a million dollars. There’s a much larger emerald crystal, though, still uncut, that weighs about fourteen hundred carats.”

“Quite a chunk.”

“If the wastage in cutting brought it down to a thousand carats, then at the same value as the Czar’s Emerald it would be worth around thirty million dollars. But it is badly flawed.”

The room was cold but my forehead was damp. I mopped away the perspiration. “Is this the emerald we’re talking about?”

“No, unfortunately, because it wouldn’t be marketable. It’s known as the Devonshire Emerald because it was bought by the Duke of Devonshire. No, the emerald sent to my father is a National Treasure. It has an odd and ancient history. Some historians claim it came from Cleopatra’s Mines on the Red Sea, others that it was found in Madagascar and brought to the New World by a Portuguese sea captain. In South America it is called La Verde de Madagascar: The Madagascar Green.”

A burst of sound blasted through the duplex wall. Iris leaned back and pounded angrily on the wall. The volume lowered suddenly and she turned back to me. “Tracy Farnham,” she said. “Another hi-fi addict. It’s his quaint way of letting me know he’s home.”

“A friend of yours?”

She hesitated. “Well—a neighbor.”

“Any other cute traits?”

“A few. He goes in for Yoga and health foods. And he collects old coins.”

“I always inclined toward flint arrowheads,” I told her. “Old coins usually went for pop and licorice candy. Well, back to the missing emerald.”

“Yes. It weighs slightly under twenty-nine carats. It is flawless and its color is a deep velvety green. It is polished and step cut. It has been appraised at more than a million dollars. For a month it was in a small package in Father’s safe at the Embassy. Wednesday, when Silvio didn’t appear, Father opened his safe to make sure everything was still there. Everything was—except the emerald. Silvio must have taken it Tuesday night while he was at the Embassy. Father knows he’s personally responsible for it and the fact that it’s missing can’t be made public because it would become a burning political issue back home. The Outs would scream that the National Treasury had been ravaged by the government, and they might even be able to use the issue to set off a revolution.”

“If Silvio has the emerald, what could he do with it?”

“Have it cut into smaller stones here or in Europe, sell them, and live happily ever after. Or if his political sympathies happen to lie with the Outs he might even have stolen it to provide them with the issue they need. You guessed correctly that just finding Silvio wasn’t a matter of life or death, but finding the emerald is.”

“Other than the Ambassador, who could get into his safe?”

“Only the courier—Silvio. Father—everyone—trusted him completely. He’s been a courier for years. Father shared the combination with him as a matter of convenience. Planes don’t always arrive during office hours and it was much easier that Silvio could simply come to the Embassy at night, open the safe, leave the pouch, and come back in the morning.”

“Sara?”

She shook her head. “Why do you ask?”

“Children have stolen from parents before. Do you know anyone not belonging to the Embassy who goes there a lot? To visit your father, for instance?”

She considered for a moment, and then she said, “There’s my father’s brother—Uncle Oscar. He’s in business here in Washington, but he couldn’t get into father’s safe even if he wanted to.” Her eyes seemed to cloud. “Am I under suspicion, too?”

I shrugged. “The story you’ve told me points to an obvious conclusion—Silvio was the thief. It’s so obvious I thought I’d examine other possibilities—if you don’t object.”

“Sorry.”

“What does Silvio look like?”

She looked up at the ceiling, then down again. “He’s about two inches shorter than you, with cropped dark hair and a small mustache. How much do you weigh?”

“One eighty-four.”

“Then he’s twenty pounds lighter.”

“Any moles or scars on his face? Got all his fingers?”

“Well, there’s a small scar under his left eye, but it’s a very old one and you’d have to be quite close to notice it.” She lifted the cognac glass. “The suitcase he usually carried was tan leather, scuffed at the corners, with an accordion pocket on one side for shirts. Oh, and he had a blue canvas overnight bag. The kind the airlines insist on giving you. And he’s twenty-six.”

“You’ll do,” I said, admiringly. “I could have traveled a lot farther and learned less. Does Sara know about this?”

She shook her head, then her eyes lighted. “If you think it’s a good idea, I’ll ask her if she’s seen Silvio.”

“Would she be likely to?”

“No—but until she married Wayne she lived at the Embassy with Father, so she and Silvio knew each other and Silvio fell in love with her, even wanted her to marry him. It was all rather silly and impossible.”

“Presumptious,” I said. “But even an alley cat can stare at a queen.”

She resented it with her eyes. Finally she said, “Perhaps Sara has his picture somewhere. If that might help.”

“It might—or your old locket photo of him would do just as well.”

Her lips drew together tightly. “Meaning what?”

“Pull back the claws. The outrage act doesn’t even rate a yawn these days. Meaning that if our Latin Lover was close enough to Sara to play house with her—or get large ideas about it—he was probably close enough to Big Sister to play for real. It could read like this,” I went on. “You know as much about the Madagascar Green as the government caretaker, and enough details about Silvio to be his doctor. If Silvio happened to be nuts about you—which isn’t unbelievable—he might have been amenable to slipping out the emerald at your suggestion. And it isn’t just fiction that associates stolen gems with beautiful women.”

“What a swine you can be.”

I bowed a little stiffly. “So something goes wrong and Silvio doesn’t get in touch with you. Because you’re involved you don’t want the cops digging deep—at least until you’re satisfied you have no hope of recovering the emerald. So you circulate among your friends for a confidential investigator, pick up my name, and sic me after Silvio, not knowing what’s happened to him, but suspecting he might have skipped with the swag.” I paused. “It makes a nice little story, Iris. Like it?”

“I despise it.”

“The cops might like it,” I mused. “I’ve known some who would gobble it like pecan pralines. What would make them like it even more would be the knowledge of your estrangement from your husband.”

Her lips formed an uncertain smile. “And how wrong they’d be.”

“I wish I knew,” I said. “So far I’ve only got my little toe wet but the water looks awfully deep—and dark. Maybe you knew Silvio no better than you said, then again maybe not. He’s not around to say, and your testimony can’t be accepted as entirely disinterested. See what I mean?”

“I see a rather vile estimate of my character.”

“Who says you have any at all?”

I got up, walked over to the telephone stand and looked up a number, and began dialing. From the sofa, she said, “Are you going to take the case?”

“I’ve still got your money.”

“Who are you going to call?”

“A friend,” I said. “One who doesn’t chase foxes or keep a pack of beagles or even hang out in Georgetown. So in your book he’s probably small potatoes—a little man. But he’s smart and reliable and resourceful and he earns his pay. Got many friends like that?”

She got up from the sofa and ground out her cigarette. “I have a splitting headache. So if you’ll allow me, I’ll retire. If you learn anything or if you require more money, I suppose you’ll let me know.”

“That’s the usual arrangement.”

Her velvet slippers moved soundlessly across the thick carpeting. The brocade slacks rustled expensively and the bedroom door closed.

At the other end of the wire the phone was ringing. After a while a voice answered. “Artie,” I said, “are you sober enough to do an hour’s work?”

“If money’s involved.”

I gave him Silvio’s description, including everything Iris had told me. It seemed like a lot to go on. I said so and Artie agreed with me. He would check hotels, motels, and rooming houses. National Airport, Union Station, bus terminals, and U-Drive-Its. For twenty-five dollars it seemed like very little work. Artie disagreed with me. On principal. When he had anything to report he would call my apartment.

I replaced the phone, glanced at Ava drowsing on her matching hassock, and began walking toward the front door.

Just then the hi-fi next door began blasting like a calliope. Tracy Farnham up to his little pranks. Maybe he was signaling to his playmate, the lady Iris.

As I closed the door behind me I heard Iris hammering on the wall. Lovely. A lovely relationship indeed. Waiting on the curb for a taxi, I thought about Silvio Contreras and the missing emerald: A million dollars was a lot of coin to be kicking around town in such a small package, and a thousand dollars didn’t seem like much to pay for getting it back where it belonged. Slave labor.

It looked like Silvio, all right. Open and shut. As definite as Magnetic North. But the very obviousness troubled me. I could imagine Silvio opening the safe, taking out the Madagascar Green. But for whom? Himself? Iris? Sister Sara?

A taxi stopped and took me back to Hogan’s for my car.

At eight o’clock I was in my apartment reading a book on gems. The telephone rang and it was Artie. He had located the taxi driver who took a man generally answering Silvio’s description from the Mayflower to a dump on the east side, Chinatown. The Hotel Flora. There the desk clerk said the man spoke English with an accent and had signed the register as Samuel Cooper. He had not left his room all day.

I dropped the book and ran for the elevator. My Olds was parked in the basement garage, and besides, a cabbie would know the shortcuts to Chinatown. I made it to the Hotel Flora in under ten minutes and Artie was outside, lounging under a street lamp trying to look casual. We walked up to the desk together. The Flora was a three-story fleabag with worn wooden stairs.

For one dollar the snaggle-toothed clerk lent us the master key so that we could surprise an old friend. Artie and I went up the steps to the second floor, turned down a corridor lighted by a single bulb and smelling of wood alcohol, sweat, and decay. I fitted the key quietly into the lock and turned it but the door was already unlocked. The door opened inward on darkness.

Artie’s pencil light flashed around the room, found the switch, and I turned on the overhead light.

The room looked like a shipwreck. Bureau drawers were pulled out, one was overturned on the floor. Stuffing and feathers had been torn out of pillows and chair cushions. The tan leather bag was empty; clothes littered the room.

The bed was an old brass four-poster with a sagging mattress. What made the mattress sag was a man lying on it. His tie knot had been loosened and the shirt collar was open. He lay on his back staring up at the ceiling and his eyes were as cold as stones.

Above his forehead the short wiry hair curled like black caracul. The mustache was missing but the scar was there. It angled down under his left eye, nearly an inch long and almost the same color as the rest of his skin. And that was deathly white.

Behind me Artie said, “Is that the guy you wanted?”

I picked up the limp cold hand and said, “It was.”