Ed Lacy - The Best That Ever Did It

One October evening in 1951, as they were having a late snack of mussels and snails in a cheap restaurant on rue Clichy, Therese asked/'You remember Gabby, the little one who thinks she is an actress because she has a bosom like a cow?”

Martin nodded.

“She is now living with one of your compatriots, a smug, stupid man who claims he was an actor in Hollywood and on Broadway. He is as bald as an egg, and I think you should see him.”

“Why? I can't grow hair!”

“My darling, always you must joke! He has just come from your army in Germany. He has a car and spends his money like a fool. But Gabby swears she has seen three reels of Nazi newsreels he has managed to steal, films never seen before. She says there are pictures of Hitler, Eva Braun, and others, including a parade of nude girls on floats, and horror shots of the beasts looting a Polish village. This... actor has ideas of making a full-length picture around these reels. It can be done, so I have arranged for Gabby to introduce you to this Monsieur Sam Lund.”

CHAPTER 3

AT SEVEN-THIRTY Ruthie got me half awake by the usual method of tickling my toes, then banging me on the head, which always brought me completely around. At first I'd thought this was cute, now I couldn't break her of the habit. I went to the bathroom, wearing only a pair of shorts. There was a short scream—I'd forgotten about the baby sitter. May was a skinny fifteen and wearing an old robe of her mother's that went around her several times. Her pimply face was a furious blushing red. I said, “What you screaming about? Haven't you ever been to the beach, seen men in trunks? Want the bathroom first?”

“I have already completed my toilet,” she announced, so I went in and left her to her blushing.

After breakfast I drove Ruthie to the nursery school. I only had a few hours' sleep and maybe some private eyes can bat along on no shut-eye, but not me. I needed sleep to sharpen my alleged mind, so I went home and crawled back between the sheets, after setting the alarm for noon. Exactly twenty-three minutes later the phone rang, jarring me awake.

Jake Winston said, “Hello, cousin.”

“Hello, Jake,” I said, trying not to sound angry.

“Waited till you were awake to call you,” he said pleasantly. “I saw Ruthie yesterday.”

“She told me.”

“Why didn't you call me last night? You know Grace, always fussing with her cooking. Wants to know if you're coming out Sunday?”

“Well... eh ...”

“Been months since we've seen you. The boys want to see Ruthie and Grace will make some fancy dishes I can't even pronounce.”

Grace was Syrian and could cook Oriental dishes that made you stuff yourself like a pig. “Don't have to sell me, Jake. Thing is I'm on a case and not sure I'll be free Sunday.”

“Let's settle it that you're coming out. If you get stuck, I'll drive in and pick up Ruthie. A deal, chum?”

“I'm buying. How's the mail?”

“Heavy, lot of damn magazines today. See you, Barney.”

I drove over to the office to pick up my mail—a waste of time, stopped at the coffeepot for a second breakfast and a couple of Alma's old dirty jokes, then headed down to the Andersun home. All the time I felt in a daze, my brain still working on Betsy Turner. There was something sad about her. All that stuff about her late husband getting his kicks out of beating men—I didn't believe it, but I guess anything is possible when a joker goes in for thrills.

I only expected to find Mrs. Andersun home, but the father was there too. Their apartment was much like mine, a four-room walk-up in a house that was on the verge of becoming a tenement. The Andersuns were ordinary-looking people, both in their fifties—Mrs. Andersun a very pale and delicate-looking woman. Her husband wore a torn undershirt, old pants, slippers, and a hearing aid. He was stooped and thin, a plump face held up by a scrawny neck, his skin an unhealthy pale-white.

When I told them what I wanted, he told me in a tired voice, “We have been through this so many times, so many questions.”

I gave him the old reliable, “Only doing my job, Mr. Andersun. And you want us to find your son's killer, don't you?”

He shrugged bony shoulders. “Yes, I suppose I do want the killer captured. But that won't bring Franklin back to us. When he came out of the war alive, I was so happy, and now...”

“The war did it,” Mrs. Andersun said as I parked my king-size backside in a worn chair. “Took a quiet boy like my Franklin, had him ride the sky at three hundred miles an hour. He'd be in Topeka one morning, maybe here in New York the next, or in California for breakfast and going to a show in New Orleans that evening. Then they expect him to return to a normal, slow life.”

“Frank wasn't... eh... nervous or anything, was he?”

“No, sir, he was a bright boy, a student,” the mother said. “Took three years of college under the G.I. Bill. Studied business. Always said how with the right methods and a little cash, a person could make a fortune these days. Had so many schemes—all legitimate, of course.”

“What sort of schemes?”

“No sense going into that,” Mr. Andersun said. “Other detectives asked us the same thing. Franklin never got started, you need capital and we're poor people. He managed to save a few hundred dollars and played the market with that. At first he made a small profit, then he tried some wild stocks and lost it all. He went to the big concerns with some of his merchandising ideas, but they wouldn't even see him. Then he got a couple of jobs, thought he could work his way up. They beat him down, broke his spirit.”

“Nonsense, Franklin would have been a rich man some day. He had the spunk,” mama said.

Mr. Andersun shook his head. “No, he lost his drive. That's why he was going to take a trip with this money, instead of investing it.”

“Where was he going?”

“No place special, maybe Paris, he just wanted to travel.”

“Were you in favor of the trip?” I asked.

Mr. Andersun turned so that the hearing device hooked to his belt faced me. “Was I in favor of it? Oh, travel is a form of education. We hardly had any time to discuss it. Juanita, that's our daughter, she thought Franklin should spend it on new furniture. But far as Mom and I were concerned, the final decision would have been up to the boy.”

There wasn't anything at the Andersun home, and the cops had already questioned them for several days. The old man had worked for the gas company most of his life, was taking time off now to pull himself together. They had never heard of any Brown, never heard or saw Turner before, hadn't a single idea why their son was shot. Juanita worked as a telephone operator and would be home late in the afternoon. She had a steady boy friend named Irving Spear, who was a hackie. Mom Andersun said, “A very good boy, going to evening college. Of course there's a difference in religion, but they will work that out. Franklin wasn't engaged, but he saw a lot of Cissy Lewis— lives in the house next door.”

When I left them, I dropped in to see if Cissy was home. She was a silly-looking girl of about twenty-four, with curlers in her blond hair, and quite upset because I found her in a dirty housedress, cleaning up her folk's apartment. She talked in a shrill voice, said her folks ran a local vegetable store and made a point of telling me, “I never work there, of course. Wish I'd have known you was coming; I'd have got dressed. Lots of cops and men have questioned me. Gee, you sure look like a detective —so big and hard-boiled looking.”

When I managed to get a word in, she said, “I was engaged to Frank and my heart is broken. As I told the reporters, I was so shocked at the news of his death, I fainted. I really did.” She had one of these straight-up-and-down figures except for fleshy, quivering hips, and as she talked she walked around the living room, putting quite a movement into her hips.

“Frankie know any Brown?”

“You mean a colored man?”

“No, a red-haired man named Brown?”

“Not that I know of and I knew all his friends. We were going to get married soon as he got a better job. I'm a secretary— out of work, at the moment. I told Frank I was willing to work for a while, so we could get married now, but he wouldn't hear of it.”

“What about the trip he was going to take?”

The-heel-and-toe strut stopped. “That was the dumbest idea I ever heard of!” Cissy shrilled. “When I read about it in the papers, I couldn't wait to give him a piece of my mind. Of course I never did. Poppa belongs to a checker club and I had to close up the store that night. Are you going to ask me where I was at the time of the killing, like the other dicks did?”

“No.” I stood up. “Could have used that thousand dollars to get married,” I said for no reason, except to watch her get steamed.

“Exactly what I was going to tell him. After all, I'm twenty-three, sure time I got married. One thing, I'm glad I never gave in to Frank. You know.” This was followed by a giggle and a modest blush.

I thanked her and made for the door. She looked up at me, said, “My, you're a big big man. Married?”

“Six wives, honey. Good-by.”

I drove over to the taxi-garage Irving Spear hacked out of, waited around—dozing in my car—till three when he drove in. He was leanly built, about twenty-seven, and had a pigeon-toed walk. His face was small and heavy shell glasses made it look smaller, and his noggin was on the bald side. From the way he moved and acted, he was a tough joker who could handle himself. I asked him if he'd have a beer. We got a booth in a crummy ginmill and he looked at my card, said, “Even private operators getting into the act. I can't understand the murder, Frank didn't have an enemy in the world. He was the mousy type.”

“His folks said he was a pusher, business-tycoon type.”

Irv laughed. “Frank wanted that but didn't have the guts. Actually he was a moody kid, like an artist or a poet. And he wasn't too smart. Surprised he had guts enough to even talk about taking off for Europe. Trip like that might have made him.”

“Cissy Lewis, his girl, didn't go for the idea.”

“That dumb tomato—she wasn't his girl. The way it was, Frank started taking her out a few times because she was always around. Bet in time she would have hooked him, too, even though he wasn't serious about her. Just a kid we grew up with.”

“Frank ever know a girl named Betsy?” I asked, starting to describe Mrs. Turner, surprised at all the details I could recall.

“You're off base,” Irv said, cutting in. “Frank wasn't a guy that chased. He didn't even have the nerve to talk Cissy into the sheets. Frank still had to pay for it.”

“Where?”

He shook his head. “Now look, this gal is okay, I don't want to make no trouble for her. I never even told the real cops about her.”

“Why should I make trouble? All I'll do is ask her a few questions. This is a rugged case, never know what will help.”

“Okay, but I don't believe in knifing anybody. I'm strictly a live-and-let-live joker. Her name is Louise, you'll find her in the basement of a private house down the block—515.”

“Did you know this man named Brown?”

“Who's he?”

“Guy with red hair who was in the Grand Cafe several months ago, said he knew Andersun, they were kids together— Brown said he remembered the church burning down.”

Irv grinned. “Yeah, I remember that liar now. Never could figure what his angle was in bulling Frank. Had a guy with him who was giving me the bull treatment too. Handsome guy with wavy hair. Said his name was Smith, or Jones, something like that. He kept asking if I was related to a Spear he knew. Odd part was—and why I remember him—he said this Spear was an accountant; that's what I'm studying.”