Nothing More than Murder (12 page)

S
ol Panzer looked more like a jockey than the owner of a ninety-house chain. He was maybe five feet tall, and he might have weighed a hundred and ten with his clothes wet. I guess he had something wrong with his vocal cords, because his voice matched up with the rest of him. It was thin and soft; not much more than a whisper.

If Carol tried to listen, and I figured she would, she wouldn’t hear much.

He stood by the door a moment, looking at me out of the big horn-rimmed glasses he wore. Then he moved over to the bed like greased lightning, grabbed my hand and shook it, and dropped into a chair right in front of me.

“Joe,” he said, speaking in his fast half-whisper. “I’m sorry to see you sick. I was sorry about Mrs. Wilmot. I hope you got our flowers. This is a nice place you have here.”

“Thanks,” I said. “Stick around and maybe you can buy it cheap.”

“I’m sorry, Joe.” He began to slow down. “It’s nothing personal.”

“That’s all right. Have a drink.”

“No, no. I never drink during business hours.”

“If this is business,” I said, “maybe we’d better get down to it.”

“Cold turkey?”

“Without the stuffing.”

“Well—a dollar and other valuable considerations.”

“Remember me?” I said. “I own the place. How many valuable considerations?”

“Say, about five thousand.”

I let out a grunt. “Five thousand wouldn’t pay for my projectors and sound heads.”

“Probably not, Joe.”

“Then there’s my chairs,” I said. “Fifteen hundred of ’em with a factory list of eighteen seventy-five.”

“You bought cheap. They’ll run you twenty-two fifty, now.”

“I’ve got a thousand yards of six-bucks-a-yard carpeting. I’ve got four grand in air conditioning. I’ve got—”

“Joe.”

“Oh, all right,” I said. “You don’t want the stuff.”

“I couldn’t buy it if I did want it, Joe. I got friends in the theatrical supply line. Close friends, y’know. What would they think if I didn’t patronize ’em? They’d be hurt, Joe. You know they would.”

“Yeah,” I said, “I guess they would.”

I’d known how it was going to be. But I couldn’t fight, and when a man can’t fight the best thing he can do is stall.

“Well, Joe?”

“Well,” I said. “Twenty-five grand isn’t a bad price for the location. I’ll take it.”

“I don’t speak very loud, Joe. Maybe you didn’t hear me say five.”

“Twenty.”

“Five. But don’t be afraid to beg, Joe. My way of refusing is very polite.”

I took another drink and lighted a cigarette. I looked down at the floor, pretending to study. Stalling.

“I don’t know, Sol,” I said. “Doesn’t it strike you that this is a pretty hard thing to do to a friend?”

“A friend, Joe?” He looked puzzled. “I hardly know you when I see you.”

“Make it an enemy, then,” I said. “You’re obligated to come into this town. I don’t know how much you’re already in on the deal, but it must be plenty. You’ve got to come in, and I’m sitting on the spot you want.”

“Yes, Joe?”

“Well, maybe you’d better take it from there.”

He nodded and leaned back in his chair. “You got bills outstanding, Joe. You got insurance to pay, you got taxes to pay. You got a little bank loan, maybe two of ’em. Not much. None of it amounts to much—
if
you’re running. But let your house go dark and see how big all them little things are. See how fast people start coming down on you. Then—”

“Oh, hell,” I said. “I’m—”

“I’m not through, Joe. I could wait you out two-three months, but I won’t have to. I’m going to crack down if you even look like you want to be stubborn. I’m going to get you for that marquee you swindled me on.”

“You?” I said.

“Me. I was interested in that company. I still am. I started watching you when you beat me on that deal. I figured you were a man worth watching. I figured I could make a lot more by letting the five grand ride than cracking down on you. Funny, ain’t it? If you’d played square with me I never would have started looking into Stoneville. I wouldn’t have noticed the kind of business you were building up.”

“Hell, Sol,” I said, “you shouldn’t hold a grudge over that. I didn’t know it was your company.”

His eyes closed for a second behind the big horn rims. “Joe,” he said. Then he shook his head and sighed. “I don’t hold any grudge, Joe. I’m just showing you what’s going to happen if you try to hold me up. I’ll sue you for that marquee; the actual price of it plus interest plus general losses due to having my product unjustly condemned. Do I make myself clear? I’m moving in. I’ll either buy your lot or I’ll take it.”

“But five grand, Sol,” I said. “That’s no dough at all. You can do better than that. You know damned well you’ll give the lot a book value of thirty or forty thousand.”

“But it was my idea, Joe.” He shrugged. “You can’t expect to cash in on my ideas, can you?”

“What’ll I do with my equipment? It’s no good without a house to put it in.”

“So I’ve heard. You gave your former competitor a hundred and fifty dollars for his stuff, didn’t you?” He shrugged again, smiling out of the corner of his mouth. “Don’t cry on me, Joe. On you tears don’t look good. And don’t stall me. That marquee deal ain’t the only thing I’ve got on you. I can pile up stuff to the doors of the Barclay if I take a notion. You got the most remarkable record of chiseling I ever laid eyes on.”

“I’m not trying to stall,” I said. “I’m just trying to think. It seems like everything has come down on me at once. Being sick, and losing my wife, and now—”

“I know, Joe.” His face softened a little. “But I’m not moving in tomorrow. You can run until the end of the season.”

“You want an agreement to buy at the end of that time?”

“That’s it.”

“All right,” I said. And I took the biggest, almost the biggest gamble I’ve ever taken in my life. “Give me your check for five thousand and we’ll close the deal.”

If he’d taken me up on it, I’d have been washed up. But I had a pretty good idea he wouldn’t, and he didn’t. You see? Why should he have made a special trip out from the city to bully me into selling something he could take?

“If you want it that way, Joe,” he said slowly. “But for your own good I’d advise you to hold off. You’ve got to run until the end of the season. Selling now would ruin your credit.”

“It wouldn’t help it any,” I agreed. “But I supposed—”

“I just wanted to reach an understanding with you. I’m not afraid of your trying to sell to someone else. No one’s going to buy a big show property without a lot of investigation. I can muff any deal you try to make.”

“I know,” I said. “That’s the deal, then. Five grand at the end of the season for the lot. I keep everything else.”

“Providing you move it.”

“That’s understood.”

He stood up and held out his hand. “We’ll let the option slide, then, as long as we understand each other.”

“You’re the doctor, Sol,” I said.

I walked him to the door, closed it, and poured myself another drink. I swallowed it just as I started to laugh, and for a minute or two I thought I was going to strangle. When Carol came in I was staggering around, sputtering and laughing like a hyena with the whooping cough.

She slapped me on the back and got a drink of water down me. Finally I began to get my breath back.

“You’re drunk, Joe,” she frowned. “You shouldn’t get drunk at a time like this.”

“Baby,” I said. “I was never more sober in my life.”

“Who was that man? What did he want?”

“That was Sol Panzer,” I said. “Sol is the s-smartest—” I had to stop for a second, “showman in the business. He wanted to buy the Barclay.”

“Oh?” She stiffened a little. “How much will he give you for it?”

“Nothing, baby. Nothing. And do you know why? Because he doesn’t want it.”

“But you just said—”

I didn’t say anything for a minute. I just put my arms around her and squeezed until her breasts flattened against me, until the veins in them swelled and began to throb. Then I said, “Leave it to me, kid. Just a little longer. Leave it to me, and we’ll pull out of this town with two hundred grand. Will you do that?”

I felt her nod, slow, unwilling. Eager.

“Yes, Joe. Yes!” she said. And: “Mrs. Whitcomb—she’s taking a nap, Joe—”

Once, right at the last, like you will, you know, I looked into her face. Then, I closed my eyes and kept them closed.

H
ap Chance called during the afternoon. I had Carol tell him I was sleeping. Andy Taylor called, too; and I had her tell him I’d see him that night. She called Appleton for me and made a date for dinner. She was curious, of course, but she didn’t ask questions. I’d taken care of that for a while, at least.

I drove down to the hotel about six. Appleton was waiting for me in the lobby. We shook hands and found a table in the dining-room.

“Well, Joe,” he said, looking me up and down, “your rest seems to have done you a lot of good.”

“I needed one,” I said. “I guess I’ve been going around in a daze ever since the accident. I got to the point where I couldn’t go on any longer.”

“That’s the way it goes,” he nodded, glancing at the menu. “By the way, what’s this talk about you having a competitor in here?”

The glass of water I was holding almost slipped out of my hands.

“Where did you hear anything like that?”

“Oh, it wasn’t anything definite. Just a rumor.”

“There’s a rumor for every inch of film in show business,” I said. “Your statement was that there was talk going around. I want to know where it’s coming from.”

I could see that he didn’t really know anything. There’s always gossip in any good spot where one man has control. Someone will start talking about how much the showman must be making, and how there ought to be another show there. And, before you know it, the story gets twisted to where there
is
another house coming in.

“I’ve got a hundred-thousand-dollar investment here,” I said. “If there’s a rumor going around I want to know what there is to it, and who’s spreading it.”

“It wasn’t anything, Joe. Just some wishful thinking, I guess. Let’s forget it.”

“I can’t afford that kind of talk,” I said.

For once he was on the defensive. “Let’s forget it,” he mumbled. “If I hear anything more, I’ll put the damper on it.”

He didn’t have much to say during the meal. As soon as we had finished we went up to his room.

“Well, here we are, Joe,” he said, grinning again. “The secret lair of Operator 31.”

It was one of the sample rooms that salesmen use. Two of the big sample tables were fixed up for kind of a laboratory. He even had a little weight scale, and a centrifuge like they’ve got down to the creamery, only smaller. One of the tables was covered with stuff from the fire—little envelopes of ashes, pieces of wood, wire, and metal.

I looked away. There was a picture of a woman and a little boy on the dresser. The boy was about four, I imagine.

“Is that your boy?” I asked. “He looks a lot like you.”

“That’s him,” he nodded. “Think he looks like me, huh? Not everyone can see the resemblance.”

“Why, he’s the spit and image,” I said. “How old is he, about six?”

“Four. He wasn’t quite four when that picture was taken.”

“Well, he’s certainly big for his age,” I said. “I’d have taken him to be six, anyway.”

Appleton nodded, his smile a mile wide. “Yes, sir, he’s a real boy. You ought to see him out playing ball with me when I’m at home. He’s the craziest kid about baseball I ever saw, and he can really play, too. I mean, Joe, he’s got baseball sense. He—”

He kind of shook himself, and gave me a wink.

“Damn you, Joe!”

“What’s the matter?”

“Let it go. What do you know that’s new since I saw you last?”

“Nothing much. I don’t know whether I told you last time that I’d talked with the county attorney. He’s still confident that the fire was an accident.”

Appleton wagged his head. “I’m inclined to agree with him, Joe. At any rate I’d probably say the same thing if I were a public servant.”

“Now what do you mean by that?” I said.

“It’s a public servant’s job to serve the public, Joe. The living public.”

“I guess that’s a dirty crack,” I said.

“Not at all. I’m not hinting that Mr. Clay is dishonest. He’s in office. Mrs. Wilmot is dead. You’re one of the city’s most prominent citizens. Why should he go out of his way to prove something which, in all probability, didn’t happen?”

“Well,” I said, “I’m glad to hear you say that.”

“You don’t owe me a nickel, Joe.”

“I got to thinking while I was sick,” I said. “It seems like I must have made a chump of myself the first time I talked to you. Maybe the next time, too, but that time particularly.”

“You’re referring to what I said about the fire being incendiary?”

“That’s it. I don’t know why—”

“I’ll tell you why. I didn’t intend for it to register on you. I thought it was better for it to come over you gradually. Frankly, if you had gone around offering rewards for the murderer and evidence of your own innocence I’d have been exceedingly suspicious of you.”

“Now, what am I supposed to say to that?” I said.

“Anything you like, Joe. The bars are down tonight. That’s why I had you come up here.”

“Okay. What do you think about things?”

“As I’ve said before, that it was an accident in all likelihood. Of course, you and Mrs. Wilmot didn’t get along, but—”

“Who says we didn’t?”

“You do. Everything about you says so. Everything I’ve learned about her says the same thing. But the fact that you were opposites doesn’t mean that you would kill her. In fact, I’m confident that you loved her very much.”

“Well, thanks,” I said.

“It’s none of my business, but would you mind telling me something? How did two people like you ever happen to get married?”

I laughed in spite of myself. It was such a hell of a crude thing to ask that instead of getting sore I felt sorry for him for doing it.

“I’ll tell you why,” I said, looking straight at him. “Every time she opened her mouth she put her foot in it. She was about to go on the rocks. I got sort of used to helping her out, and finally—well—”

“Mmm,” he nodded. “That one, eh?”

“What do you mean?”

“Not a thing, Joe. Just thinking out loud. Mind if I ask another question?”

“Go right ahead.”

“Well, this Farmer girl—Mrs. Wilmot strikes me as having been a well-educated, extremely fastidious person. How did she happen to take anyone like la Farmer into her home?”

It was something I’d always wondered about myself, and I didn’t need to fake looking puzzled.

“There you got me,” I said. “Elizabeth was pretty tight about money, and I thought at first that she might be trying to get a little cheap household help. But she wasn’t tight that way, you know. She wouldn’t have done something that went against her grain to save dough.”

“I see.”

“Anyway, we didn’t need any help. There was just the two of us and I always ate out most of the time. On top of that, Elizabeth had her own way of doing things and nothing else would suit. It was more trouble showing Carol how to do things than it would have been to do ’em herself.”

“Perhaps she just felt sorry for the gal.”

“She didn’t show it much. If I hadn’t—well, if I hadn’t prodded her now and then, Carol would have been pretty hard up for spending money and clothes and everything else.”

“Oh? Weren’t you a little out of practice at that sort of thing—charitable enterprise, I mean?”

“I don’t think I like that,” I said. “I’m in a tough business. I don’t think I’ve been any tougher than I’ve had to be.”

“Want to call it an evening, Joe?”

“Not unless you do. Go ahead. I can take it.”

“Well, I was going to say, if this Farmer girl was a baby doll the thing would be a lot more complicated—or simple. A little thing like murder doesn’t stop a woman from getting a man she really wants—particularly if she thinks she’s going to get to help him spend a sum like twenty-five thousand. But Farmer has nothing minus in my catalogue. I just can’t picture you making a play for her.”

“Thanks,” I said.

“So the girl is out, and you’re out on that angle. Of course, you get your wife’s property in addition to the twenty-five grand. But for all practical purposes you already had the property, and you didn’t need the money. Not bad enough to kill for it. You have a good income, a good business. You loved your wife. You weren’t chasing a dame. If it wasn’t for certain events in your early life—”

“So you’ve found out about that,” I said. “That’s a hell of a thing to do! Drag up something a man did when he was a kid, and smear him—”

He shook his head. “Keep your shirt on. We’re not smearing anyone, and we didn’t drag it up. You did. The company doesn’t issue policies of this size without some investigation.”

“Hell,” I said. “I was fourteen years old; I didn’t know my tail from straight up. I’d never been away from the orphanage before. I didn’t know what a seal on a freight car meant. I just wanted to get out of the snow. Tampering with interstate commerce! Hell, did they think I was going to walk off with a sack of cement? That’s all there was in the car.”

“It was a bum rap, all right.”

“Bum rap?” I laughed. “You’re telling me! Seven years of sappings and kickings and doing work that would break a man’s back. Seven years, from fourteen until I was twenty-one—‘until I learned a proper regard for the property of others’! It’s things like that—that—”

I broke off, remembering.

“Go ahead and say it, Joe,” said Appleton. “It’s things like that that make criminals.”

“Okay,” I said, “you’re doing the talking.”

“Do I look like a criminal?” He leaned back grinning, his hands clasped behind his head.

“What’s that got to do with it?”

“I was in, too. Exactly the same number of years that you were.”

“The hell!” I said.

“That’s right. Borrowed a car for a joy ride, and the cops caught me. My old man wasn’t very fond of me, anyhow, so I went right on over the road. No, things like that don’t need to mean any more than we let ’em.”

“But you said your company—”

“It’s a fact they have to consider, certainly. It’s tough, but that’s the way it is.” He sat brushing at his knee, looking down. “I’m sorry, Joe. I know pretty well how you feel. Can’t you think of some logical explanation—some explanation that would be acceptable to the company—for the fire?”

“No, I can’t.”

“The motor was in good condition? There wasn’t any possibility of a short?”

“Not a chance. If there had been any I’d have had it repaired.”

“Sure. Naturally.”

“It isn’t the money so much,” I said. “I’d just like to get things settled.”

“Sure you would.” He nodded sympathetically, studying me. “I’ll tell you something, Joe, if you’ll keep your mouth shut. I’ve been stringing you along a little. I’ve recommended payment on this case. I’m just waiting to mail my report.”

“Waiting?”

“Orders.” He smiled out of the corner of his mouth. “You’re running in hard luck, Joe. You remember that missing dame I told you about?”

“Yes.”

“Well, there’s the rub. I’ve got to turn her up, and as long as I’m here and it isn’t costing them anything extra the company’s having me keep your case open. At least they think they are. As far as I’m concerned it’s already closed. As soon as I find this woman I’ll put a date on the report and shoot it in.”

“Well,” I said, “that’s something.” I wished I had been outside so that I could have taken a deep breath. Or let out a yell. Just of pure relief.

I didn’t care if I never got the money. I was going to have plenty without it.

We talked until midnight about show business, and the war, and things in general. Finally I figured it was time for me to go.

We shook hands. “Got any leads on the woman yet?” I said.

“Oh, one or two, Joe. I’m expecting a break in the case any minute.”

“Well, luck to you,” I said.

“And to you, Joe. And, Joe—”

“Yeah?” I said. He’d opened the door and I was standing halfway out in the hall.

“Do yourself a favor. Do a little deep thinking about some of the stuff we’ve discussed here tonight. It may make you feel bad for a time, but you’ll profit by it in the long run. It’ll make it a hell of a lot easier for you to get along with yourself.”

“You’re not telling me much,” I said.

“It’s something you’ll have to see, Joe. Good night, and take it easy.”

“I’ll do that,” I said.