Ed Lacy - Strip For Violence

Mrs. Brody gave me a tight smile again. “Imagine being brash is part of your work. The policy was for $1,500. But you're not nearly as crude as that other detective. Mr. Brody was furious...”

I straightened up like I was goosed. “Mr. Brody...? You mean a detective was here before the shootings?”

“Oh yes, and a rather nasty man. Let me see that was... oh, about three weeks before the... Ralph's accident. I mean the hold-up. This man rang the bell one morning, waved a badge and practically forced his way into the house. Said he was from the banking department, I believe. He searched the apartment very thoroughly. I was afraid of that man, why, he hardly put things back in the drawers. Left before Ralph came home for lunch and when I told Ralph, well, never did see him so mad.”

“What happened when Mr. Brody reported this to the bank, the police?”

“I don't think he did. Mr. Brody wasn't one to look for trouble. I thought he should have told the police. Way that man threw things around—even on the floor.”

“Why didn't you call the police when he left?”

“He had a badge and...”

“Mrs. Brody, a couple of cereal tops will get you a badge! Didn't you think it odd Mr. Brody didn't do a thing about this, not even report it to the bank?”

“It did worry me for a few days, but I left such matters up to him. He thought it best to ignore the whole thing.”

“Did you tell the police about this—when they talked to you after Mr. Brody was killed?”

“Why—no. I didn't attach any importance to it And they never asked me.”

There wasn't anything more to say or ask. I thanked her again and she showed me to the door, said, “If you... you find the killer, well, I'd like to see that... beast.” Her voice shook slightly. I wondered if she'd ever got steamed about anything in her life. And what would she do to the killer, hit him over the head with an umbrella, scold him? I had a pretty clear picture of Brody: one of these guys that when his friends were told he was dead, they asked, “How can you tell?”

8

When I climbed into the car, Bobo asked what I'd learned and I said, “That marriage is a funny thing. Bobo, you find marriage dull?”

“What? Lack of dough makes it rugged at times, but not dull. I... What we talking about marriage for?”

“Just a thought. Ralph Brody liked to make statues out of soap... Interesting?”

“As a vault man he handled keys, could have used soap to make an impression, a duplicate key!” Bobo said like a school-boy reciting his lesson.

“You and me—two minds with a single criminal thought,” I said, starting the car. “Before we drop in on the Shelton family, want to look the bank over.”

Bobo held up his wrist watch. “It's noon, my belly would like to look over some chow.”

“You get a bite while I'm in the bank.” It was only a three-minute drive from the Brody house to the bank. Bobo stepped into a coffee shop across the street for lunch.

It was a small bank, half a dozen tellers' windows, and a bank guard who looked a gay seventy or eighty years old. His gun was so securely buttoned in its holster it would have taken him a week-end to draw it. You walked down a short flight to the vault, and a young fellow unlocked a steel gate for me when I said I was interested in renting a box. I cut his sales talk short by renting the cheapest one, seven-fifty a year, including the tax. As I was filling out signature cards, he opened a drawer, looked through a batch of numbered small envelopes till he found my box number, and handed me two keys. I took the box into a closet-like room, put in a few of my cards and an old letter, closed the box and gave it back to him.

I followed him into the cool vault where he first inserted my key, then a bank key he had on a long chain, shoved the box in, and locked the compartment, gave me back my key. On the way out I said, “Must get kind of lonely down here, doesn't it?”

“Not too. And it's the coolest spot in the bank. My partner is out to lunch now, but there's enough to keep us busy.”

Upstairs, I got into the car. Bobo was still feeding his face. Looking through the dashboard compartment I found a pipe I smoke now and then, a tobacco pouch, lit up. The picture was becoming as clear as the smoke puffing out of the pipe... Brody and Shelton down there alone, day after day, year after year, a couple of hard-working, respectable and low-paid slobs. And after they'd been working together for ten or fifteen years, one of them getting the smart idea. Brody would make a soap impression of all the keys to boxes that were for rent. He would make duplicate keys, or maybe Shelton did that. Then, after the boxes were rented, in their leisure time, the two of them opening the boxes— they had the bank key and a duplicate of the owner's key. Lot of black-market dough from the last war is hidden in vaults—it can't show up on a bank statement without getting the tax boys aroused.

Brody and Shelton would pick a box whose owner rarely came in, open it and examine the cash. They found a box stuffed with cash, “borrowed" a wad, played the horses, the market, returned the “loan” if they won. If they lost—it was an even-money bet that anybody stashing away a big chunk of dough isn't in position to call copper.

It was a nice, bright theory... and as full of holes as Swiss cheese.

I somehow believed Mrs. Brody—she was either telling the truth or the world's greatest actress. Ralph Brody wasn't a playboy, and if he had any loose cash around it was a few pennies. Supposing the “Cat” did have black-market green in various vault boxes, would he do a stupid thing like a killing if fifty or a hundred grand was missing? Offhand I couldn't picture Brody being anything but a petty crook, lifting a grand or two, and Franklin was hardly a wild punk, losing his head, getting boiled enough to murder, even over a hundred grand. And this was a carefully planned brace of murders, nothing done in the heat of a mad moment Yes, the theory had a lot of holes... but not too many to be plugged, maybe all at once.

Bobo walked across the street, a toothpick in his mouth, still plenty of cat-spring to his walk. He had on a thin summer shirt and when the hot wind pressed it against him, you could see all the big muscles. He got in beside me, said, “Better grab a bite. Food ain't too bad over there.”

I shook my head. The mention of food reminded me of the coffee and cream standing on a kitchen table.... Louise's bloody body.

“Learn anything in the bank?”

“Brody and Shelton would have had plenty of time to make duplicate keys, look the vault boxes over,” I said, turning the ignition key.

9

Shelton must have been poorer than Brody, for he lived in a small apartment house a few blocks west of Brody's place. It was almost a tenement, a walk-up with wooden stairs, the halls badly in need of paint and repairs. I rang the bell of his top floor flat—the cheapest rent—but didn't get any answer.

I went back down to the main floor, pressed the janitor's bell. She turned out to be a thin, elderly woman with a pleasant face, and like most janitors—full of gossip. I tipped my hat—and it touched the bump on the back of my head where I'd been sapped, and I damn near opened the conversation with a scream. I gulped, managed to say, “Good afternoon. Can you tell me when George Shelton will be home? Two months ago he ordered a...”

“Two months—oh my! The poor man was shot to death in a dirty hold-up last month!” she said, happy to find someone who didn't know the news.

I tried to look shocked. I didn't have to say a word for she went right on with, “Oh my, yes, it was a blow to all of us. I'm not one to speak harmful of the dead, and Mr. Shelton was a good man, I suppose, even though he did cause his poor wife's death and...”

“He did what?”

“That was many years ago, when I first took this job. A most tight man with money, George Shelton was. Had that good job with the bank, could have moved into a better house. His dear wife used to complain something awful about the stairs, but he was so thrifty... and in the end justice was done, like it always is. I always say things catch up with you in this world. That Mrs. Shelton was a meek, genteel soul and she took sick with a lingering illness. When she finally passed away, he was in debt for years paying off the doctors. That's what a person gets for being penny-wise and pound foolish. Would of driven him mad if it wasn't for his daughter Laurie. You've heard of her?”

“Don't think I have.”

“Name's in the papers all the time. She's the tennis champion of the state, or the East, some big thing. Girls these days.... Spends all her day practicing on the tennis courts here. Poor child, she and her father were close and his death upset her something awful. An only child is always...”

“Thank you very much, have to cancel the order. By the way, did Shelton have a new car recently?”

She let out a shrill cackle, revealing a cheap set of false teeth. “Him with a car? Why he wore a suit till it was threadbare, scrimped on everything he...”

I tipped my hat again—carefully—said I had to run... and walked out, her chatter following me. My theory sounded so damn good, yet something was wrong—there had to be a pile of jack some place.

10

Bobo and I started driving around, looking for the tennis courts I'd seen from Will's window. When I finally found them, they were empty except for a girl in white shorts hitting a ball against the side of a one-story building. I watched her legs moving around, realized this was the same gal I'd seen through Will's binoculars... and that she must be Laurie Shelton. Merely looking at her was a pleasure... she was short, but unlike most short girls wasn't bony or overfat, rather she was a lot of hard, healthy curves, and so well proportioned, she looked tall. Her face was almost pretty, dark hair cut close around the clean features. But it was a tired face, a little strained and hard—with the deadpan look of an athlete going through the monotony of the daily training grind.

Watching the smooth ripple of muscles as she moved about, the small pointed breasts shaking under her tight blouse... left me confused. There wasn't anything sexy about her. I almost suspected she had a lot of man in her —yet I found myself completely forgetting Louise, had that tight-hot feeling inside me I get when I want a girl real bad. I was as warm as a...

Bobo nudged me in the ribs. “That little hunk of fine stuff on our suspect list?”

“I'm sure going to find out,” I called over my shoulder as I stepped out of the car. Walking through the wire-fence doorway, I stopped about ten feet from her, watching the sure way her legs moved, the determined expression on her face as she whacked the ball—and she could really punish the pill.

The ball hit a warped plank of the wooden wall, went off at an angle. She reached too far to her right for it, lost her balance. As she fell, she neatly tossed the racket aside, broke the fall by slapping the hard court with her outstretched right hand, and with her left hand down by her strong hips. I ran over as she sat up, asked, “Hurt, Miss Shelton?”

She shook her head, jumped up. I got the racket. “Where did you learn how to fall? Judo?”

“You know judo?” she asked, looking me over coolly.

“Black Belt, First Degree,” I said and her eyes said she thought I was a liar.

“How did you know my name? Tennis fan?”

“Going to be. I'm Hal Darling. The janitor at your house said I'd find you here.”

She went over to a bench in the shade of the shack she'd been bouncing the ball against, brushed herself off, tossed a sweater on her shoulders as she sat down. She was sweating a little, but not as much as she should, a sign she was overtrained. But even her sweat smelt like perfume to me.