Murder Is My Dish (3 page)

“His wife,” Eulalia said. “They don't always get along. Sometimes he doesn't go home. Sometimes he goes away for a while.”

“But you were worried.”

“He never took the manuscript before. Besides, Mrs. Caballero called a few minutes before you got here.”

“Is that why you were so mad at the boy in the toggle-topper?”

“We should have called the cops. But we can't call them now.” Her eyes filled, glistening with tears. “Help us, Mr. Drum. Please help us. Rafael was kidnaped. Mrs. Caballero received a note in this morning's mail. A ransom note.”

I wanted to tell her that was crazy. Who would want to kidnap a teacher of Catalonian Literature who earned maybe seven thousand bucks a year? They wouldn't, even get pocket money for their trouble.

I didn't tell her anything of the sort. I watched her shrug into a girl-sized trench coat and heard her say, “This is the kind of business you understand. Isn't it? I'm going over there now, to Mrs. Caballero. Come with me, please. Say you'll help us. Please. Oh, please!”

She took my hand in both of hers and looked up into my face. She began to tug me toward the door. I went with her without reluctance. But I was thinking of Andy Dineen.

Chapter Three

T
HE RANSOM NOTE
was the sort you would expect, possibly because it maintains the anonymity of the sender and possibly because it had been immortalized on the screen, in the mystery magazines, and in the tabloids. The words were pasted on a sheet of brown wrapping paper. The letters had been cut individually, some from the slick paper of a magazine and some from the pulp of a newspaper, and had been pasted on the wrapping paper to form words and sentences.

“Well, there it is,” Mrs. Caballero said. “But I still don't know why you insisted on bringing this man—”

“Oh, what's the matter with you, Frances?” Eulalia said. “Mr. Drum came here to help us.”

“Read the note,” Mrs. Caballero persisted. “Go on, read it. It says to tell nobody. It says if we want to see Rafael alive. But that doesn't matter to you, does it? Oh no, you wouldn't care about that. All you're interested in is that precious book. All you care about is the book. Why should you care about Rafael? All he did was save your life.”

“I don't think that's quite fair, Frances.”

“You don't think it's fair. Who's asking you if it's fair? You took advantage of me. You're always taking advantage of me—all of you, all his friends. I was numb with despair. You saw me, you knew it, so you brought this man in here even though I told you on the telephone—”

“I did what I thought best.”

“What you thought was best. Best for whom? You didn't think of me at all, did you? I'm only his wife.”

“If you stopped thinking of yourself and thought of Rafael for a minute, maybe you'd talk some sense.”

“Don't you dare speak to me like that. In my house. You don't care about me. You don't care about Rafael even. Only the book.”

“Why don't you make up your mind? Last week you accused me of making a play for him.”

“That's a dirty lie.”

“You didn't only accuse me. You accused your husband.”

“It's so easy for you to say, isn't it? When he isn't here to deny it. You waited to throw that in my face until he wasn't here, didn't you?”

“All right, Frances. I'm sorry. I don't want to argue with you. Somehow I'm always arguing with you. But we shouldn't argue now. We've got to think of Rafael.”

“You dirty little phony, you never thought of anybody in your life except yourself.”

“Frances, under the circumstances I wish—”

“Don't you ‘under the circumstances' me. This is your chance, isn't it? To hit me when I'm down. You've been waiting a long time for this, haven't you?”

“You called me. You told me to come here.”

“I was upset. I was so upset, I didn't know what to do. You know when I get these migraines I can't think straight.”

“Your migraines. Can't you forget your migraines? Can't you forget yourself long enough to realize your husband's life is in danger?”

“Don't you tell me what to do, you ungrateful little Spic.”

The ungrateful little Spic slapped Mrs. Caballero's face. Mrs. Caballero folded like a life-sized rag doll in a floppy heap on an overstuffed chair which I was sure she had used for the purpose before, many times before, and bawled like a baby.

Mrs. Caballero had been a surprise all the way. She was a plump but pretty blonde half a dozen years older than Eulalia Mistral. She had admitted us with a great show of hand-wringing and wailing. She had done everything but tear her hair. She had a soft, round-cheeked, petulant-looking face with small full lips set in a pout of self-pity. Her body, in a quilted white housecoat, was not at all undernourished. She hadn't been happy to see me, but when Eulalia had introduced me as Mr. Dineen's associate, she had reluctantly stood aside and let us come in.

The small apartment was furnished with the frills and lace antimacassars and cheap, overstuffed French Provincial furniture that a candy-eating blonde would go for. It was decorated with photographs of Mrs. Caballero in her younger days. Mrs. Caballero had been a looker, and the photographs were the typical chorus girl publicity snaps, showing more outthrust bosom, more artificially induced cleavage and more inside of thigh curves than is considered proper for a family TV audience. It was the sort of apartment, and had the sort of decorations, that Rafael Caballero or anyone would want to get away from. The candy-eating, self-pitying blonde who had been the luscious number on the publicity snaps made the picture quite complete.

“I'm sorry, Frances,” Eulalia said. “I didn't mean to hit you.”

Frances snuffled and glared at her tormentor.

“I'm sorry you had to see us air the wash like this, Mr. Drum,” Eulalia told me.

“The note,” I told her. “I was looking at the note.” But Eulalia blushed anyway.

The note said:

MR. CABALLERO IS ALL RITE. HE NOT BEEN HURT. HE GOING TO BE ALL RITE IF YOU KEEP QUITE MRS. C. LIKE SMART WIFE. TELL NO BODY YOUR HUSBAND HE IS MISSING. WE WANT TWENTY FIVE THOUSAND DOLLARS CASH TWENTY FIFTY HUNDRED UNMARKED. WE CONTACK YOU AGAIN. BE SMART TO SEE HUSBAND ALIVE TELL NO BODY.

YOUR BEST FRIEND

“He's just about literate,” I said, showing the note to Eulalia. “And it looks as if he has trouble with English.”

“Spanish?”

“Pretty likely. Parana Republic, I guess.”

“All they want is money,” Frances Caballero said with devout conviction. She was full of surprises. I thought the money would bother her most of all.

“If you don't mind my asking,” I said, “where are you going to get that kind of money?”

She smiled. “Oh, it won't be our money,” she said.

“Now wait a minute,” Eulalia said. “If you're thinking what I think you're thinking—”

“You want them to kill Rafael? But what do you care. He isn't your husband.”

Eulalia said coldly, “I've known Rafael Caballero longer than you have, Frances, even if you are his wife. I think I understand him better than you do. He's spent a lot of blood, sweat and tears collecting that Republic underground money and he wouldn't want you to throw it away because somebody sends you a note on wrapping paper that says you should.”

Frances glared at her. It was the kind of look that was supposed to make Eulalia shrivel up and crawl out under the door. “As secretary of the Fund for Parana Independence,” Frances pointed out, “I can withdraw that money from the bank. How dare you say I can't, when my husband's life is at stake.”

Eulalia gave me a questioning look. “You're a detective, Mr. Drum. You know about things like kidnaping. Would giving them the money do any good?”

“I'm a detective, but I'm not psychic. Maybe they really mean it. Maybe they don't. Maybe they'll return your man without mussing a hair on his head. Maybe he's already wearing cement boots. How should I know?”

“But if he was somebody you loved,” Eulalia asked, “wouldn't you be afraid to give them the money? Wouldn't you be afraid because they might keep him alive until they got the money?”

“If they were going to kill him, why would they wait? All right, you asked me. I'd give them the money.”

Frances Caballero puffed out her chest. “Mr. Drum,” she said, “will you handle the transaction for us?”

“You haven't been told where to deliver the money. Or when.”

“If we're told—will you?”

“That money—” Eulalia began.

“That's enough. All you're interested in is the Fund and your sneaky underground movement. You don't care about Rafael at all. You're despicable.”

Eulalia opened her mouth. No words came out. She clicked her teeth shut and swung around and headed for the kitchen. She was as mad as a girl could be without going off like a Roman candle, but she looked lovely. Despite what you may read in the slick magazines, there are very few women who can look lovely when they are that mad, but Eulalia Mistral was one of them.

Then Eulalia jolted me. She came back with a bottle of bourbon and a tumbler. She poured the tumbler half full of bourbon and looked at it without interest and drank it off like tea. When she noticed, still without interest, that the glass had been emptied, she poured again and emptied again. She had a strong, tan throat and the muscles worked as she drank. She downed enough bourbon to float me out of drydock and she wasn't even enjoying it. All it did was make her eyes go watery.

“You see what I'm up against?” Frances asked me. “A drunkard.”

Eulalia leered at her. Maybe the bourbon had done something after all. I hadn't seen her leer like that before. “I just don't want to see the money Rafael worked so hard for go up in smoke.”

If she lit a match, I thought, she might go up in smoke. But I didn't say that. If Rafael Caballero ever needed help, he needed it now. So his wife got migraine headaches and his girl Friday postponed the need for making decisions by downing more bourbon than Carry Nation had ever put an ax to.

“All I want to do is save his life,” Frances whined.

I said, “There's the police.”

“What?” Eulalia gasped.

The plump blonde looked at me as if I'd grown a second head.

“The police. You know, the buttons? You can call them.”

“Will you help us, or won't you help us?” Frances demanded.

“You're getting the money?”

“I'm going to the bank for it right now. Yes.”

“They'll kill him,” Eulalia said.

“Chances are they'll get in touch with you by phone, telling you where to deliver the money. Then what? Where do I come in?”

“You deliver it,” said Frances.

I said, “They wouldn't go for that.”

Eulalia lurched toward me. If motor responses meant anything, she was very drunk now. “Frances will draw out the money,” she said, leering. “They'll tell her where to deliver it. She'll get a migraine. She'll ask me, if Rafael means anything to me, would I please? Then she'll ask you to go with me or follow me to see I don't keep the money or put it back in the bank where it belongs. Then I'll ask you to come along and follow them after I give them the money. Then—”

“You're drunk,” Frances said.

If I stayed there much longer, I would get down on my hands and knees and gnaw a table leg. I headed for the door. “Call me,” I said. “When they call you. I'm at the Commodore.”

“But what are you going to do?” Eulalia cried.

I closed the door softly behind me. I didn't want to jar anything. There was a lot in there that could be jarred. I didn't answer Eulalia's question. Out loud I didn't, not right away. I went down the hall and rang for the elevator.

In a few seconds Eulalia opened the apartment door and peered out into the hall. “Well?” she said.

She was drunk. What she'd said sounded cockeyed, unless you saw her, and Frances Caballero, and a ransom note pasted on brown wrapping paper by people who knew all about the Fund for Parana Independence.

“Well?” she said again as the elevator arrived.

“You and Nostradamus,” I groaned.

Chapter Four

I
TOOK
the subway downtown and walked a couple of blocks over to Bellevue and found my way to the morgue. The attendant on duty was a plump little fellow whose bald head was almost hidden behind the cover of an exposé magazine. The cover showed a close-up of a nationally prominent TV and movie personality and promised to tell you things about him you couldn't discuss with mother or the kids or man's best friend, the dog.

“Yes sir?” the plump man said without looking up.

“A man named Dineen died here last night,” I said. “I'm sorry I couldn't get here to make arrangements sooner, but I don't want him given a pauper's burial. What steps do I take?”

His nose sank back toward the pages of the exposé magazine after coming up maybe half an inch for air. He droned, “Prove you got a claim to the body, then authorize a mortuary to … did you say Dineen?”

“Yeah. Dineen.”

The nationally prominent TV and movie personality went face down on the desk. The bald pate swung up and I was staring at beady little eyes and a small nose and fat pale cheeks and a puckered prune of a mouth. “Just a minute,” he said, and dialed a phone, and grunted, “He's here.”

I was waved to a chair and sat down and stared at a pair of swinging doors with portholes in them. Pretty soon they swung in and a guy came through reluctantly, as if he'd been shoved. He wore a gray ready-made suit that did not quite hide a potbelly and shoulders a bit narrower than the double swinging doors. He was tall too and had a sad and unsurprisable face with a long nose, a stubborn jaw and meanly alert wide-spaced eyes. I didn't like him on sight and knew he would confirm that snap judgment for me.