One Minute Past Eight (11 page)

“Dressed that way you look better. How does it feel?”

“Feels O. K.,” Jeff said and began to transfer his things from his slacks and jacket to the new suit.

“Since I will do the talking,” Cordovez said, “no one will suspect you are not a countryman of mine. Now, if you are ready,” he said, “we will eat.”

Once in the car, Cordovez went round the block and turned downhill. Still without knowing where he was, Jeff was again reminded of Southern California when the valley opened up and he saw the patternless brilliance of the lights and neon signs. He had the feeling that he had seen this part of the city in daylight but he did not recognize the triangular plaza where Cordovez parked the car,

“I hope you will like this,” he said as he locked the doors. “There are three choices: Grilled meat, of many kinds and in small pieces; steak, which is usually good; and chicken, which is always dependable.”

“How’s the chicken fixed?”

“Grilled, like the others. You will see for yourself.”

He led the way into a low-ceilinged room that was crowded, smoke-filled, and noisy. A trio consisting of accordion, violin, and bass played loudly and with gusto, and at first glance every table seemed taken. Then, at the steps which led to the adjacent room, Cordovez exchanged
Holas
with one of the proprietors. Words were spoken and a waiter dispatched to clean up a recently vacated place along the wall

“Now,” said Cordovez, settling himself, “you would like the chicken? And a salad?”

“And a drink.”

“Yes.”

“Whisky,” Jeff said. “With a little soda. Tell the man a double whisky.”

Cordovez conferred with the waiter, who was putting out knives, forks, and spoons of the kitchen variety. By the time Jeff had his cigarette going the whisky came and so did a beer for the detective.

“Salud,”
he said, and raised his glass. He drank thirstily and wiped his mouth. He took out his notebook and ripped out a clean sheet, wrote down an address with his mechanical pencil, and passed the slip to Jeff.

“This is the address where I live,” he said, “in case you need it to show to some taxi driver. Also”—he took a key from his pocket—“this is an extra key. My house is yours and you can come and go as you like.”

“Until Pedro Vidal’s boys pick me up,” Jeff said dryly,

“Let us hope this does not happen—Ah-h,” The dark eyes opened and the white teeth flashed in a smile of anticipation as he unfolded his paper napkin and eyed the food.

Jeff smiled in eager anticipation, too, not so much because he was hungry but because he had never seen anything quite like this. For when Cordovez said the food was grilled he meant just that, and on an individual basis. Each table had its own small grill and the charcoal was still smoldering when the waiter whisked it in front of them. On top of the grill a chicken had been split and rested with the skin up, a golden brown now and glistening with some clear sauce faintly flavored with onion.

To complete the presentation, individual cutting-boards were placed in front of them, instead of plates, to make the dismantling of the chicken easier. After that came the French fried potatoes in a basket, the hot bread, and a salad that was aromatic and crisply cool.

“You like this place?” Cordovez asked when he had licked his fingers and dried them on the napkin.

“Very much,” Jeff said. “The food was delicious.”

Cordovez accepted a cigarette and gave forth with a contented sigh. He glanced about the room and then, as though once more conscious of the problem which still had to be faced, his expression grew serious.

“What would you like to do now?”

Reluctantly Jeff brought his thoughts into focus. He wanted most to have a talk with Dan Spencer, but he was afraid to go to the newspaper office, and he knew that since the
Bulletin
was a morning paper, it would be some time before Spencer was off duty. Meanwhile—

“I’d like to talk to Mrs. Grayson again if you think we can manage it.”

“We can try. The house is not far from here,” Cordovez said, but later, as the car rolled slowly up the winding street in second gear, he offered some words of caution.

“I will not stop now,” he said as they approached the low and rambling house and saw the light in the windows. “I wish to make sure no one is watching.”

He pressed the clutch pedal and their momentum carried them past the driveway and now Cordovez had his head out the window and his nose in the air, as though he was trying to find some scent of danger. He drove on another block and turned round. He passed the house again with his lights out and pulled a hundred feet beyond the crest of the hill.

“You will not need me inside?”

“No.”

“I think it is safe, but it is also better that I wait here. If you hear the horn three times you will know there is some difficulty. In that event it might be best for you to leave by the back entrance—if you can.”

Jeff got out and closed the door quietly. He said there wasn’t going to be any trouble and that all Julio had to do was sit and take a little snooze.

DUDLEY FISKE opened the door in response to Jeff’s ring. When he recognized his caller his eyes blinked uncertainly behind the glasses and he stood in the opening, one hand still on the knob.

“Oh, hello, Lane,” he said without enthusiasm. “Aren’t you taking a bit of a chance coming here?”

“Why?” Jeff said. “Are you thinking of turning me in?”

“It’s not that. It’s just that I understood the police were looking for you. They’ve been here before and I wouldn’t be surprised if they came back.”

“I’d like to talk to Mrs. Grayson,” Jeff said. “It shouldn’t take too long.”

Again Fiske seemed undecided, but now a woman’s voice called to him from some inner room and this apparently decided him. He moved aside. Jeff waited until he had closed the door and then waited for Fiske to lead the way.

“After you,” he said, “if you don’t mind.”

If Diana Grayson was suffering emotionally over the loss of her husband, she gave no outward sign of the tragedy. Her gray hair shone softly in the lamplight and her blue dress with its tight bodice and flaring skirt seemed more suitable for an afternoon party at the Tamanaco. She had a cigarette in one hand, a brandy snifter in the other, and when she saw Jeff she waved at the tray on the coffee table with its bottle and glasses. A similar glass, still partly full, stood to one side.

“Come in, Mr. Lane,” she said. “Will you have a brandy?”

“Thanks, no,” Jeff said, uncertain now just how to proceed and finally settling for the conventional way. He started to say he was sorry to break in like this at such a time, but she cut him off before he could finish.

“It’s quite all right,” she said. “I stopped being hypocritical about most things some time ago. You must know from what was said this morning how I felt about your stepbrother. What happened this afternoon shocked me. I’m sure it would shock anyone. No one wanted to live more than Arnold, and I do feel sorry for him, but I can’t pretend that I feel something that he killed a long time ago. I simply no longer have that capacity. There was something about him that was evil and in the end it destroyed him.”

Remembering Luis Miranda’s phrase about the evil man, Jeff glanced at Dudley Fiske, who had been standing to one side and now shifted his weight.

“I think he wants to talk to you, Di,” he said and reached down to pick up his glass. “I’ll ran along to my rooms until you’ve finished.”

“I’d rather you stayed,” Jeff said, moving slightly to block the man’s progress.

Fiske stopped and it occurred to Jeff that this was not the same man he had seen that morning. This man had no easy smile, his gaze was steady and unfriendly as it measured Jeff. His voice was challenging rather than apologetic.

“Why?” he demanded,

“Because I wouldn’t want you to duck out and call the police.”

Fiske put his glass down and squared his shoulders. For a second or two they stood that way, glances locked, Jeff the taller and more vital-looking of the two, Fiske the heavier but more poorly conditioned. Then, as though to prove that the change Jeff had noticed was to be a permanent thing, he said, his voice quietly ominous:

“Do you think you can stop me?”

“I can try.”

“Without a club?”

“Club?” Jeff peered at him.

“That’s what was used on Arnold, so the police say. A club or a cane.”

“Oh, stop it!”

Diana Grayson put her glass down with a bang and her voice was clipped and impatient.

“Sit down, Dudley,” she said. “Please.” She waited until Fiske obeyed her and then she looked at Jeff, one dark brow arched, “I don’t blame you for being concerned,” she said, “but I think you misjudge Dudley. He’s not after vengeance, you know, and neither am I. What happened, happened. It’s over and done with and so far as I am concerned the only genuine feeling I have at the moment is one of relief.”

Jeff believed her. The odds had finally caught up with Arnold Grayson and there was no one to mourn his passing; it was as simple as that. What this woman had said did not shock him because he knew his stepbrother too well. But her frankness, though not entirely unexpected, made him reconsider his tactics, and when his glance again touched the brandy bottle, he changed his mind about the drink. He poured an ounce or so into the glass, swished it around as he took a chair near the end of the divan. He did not give it the connoisseur’s routine but finished it in two small swallows.

“Miranda had a different way of putting it,” he said.

“Miranda?” Both brows arched this time and her surprise seemed genuine. “Luis? You have seen him?”

“Late this afternoon,” Jeff said. “I can’t remember his exact words, but what he meant was that things were a lot simpler for him with Arnold out of the way. Tell me,” he said, “did you know he planned to fly to New York tomorrow night and take Muriel Miranda with him?”

“Who planned?”

“Your husband.”

For a long moment then she sat immobile, her face still. She was sitting with her knees crossed and arms folded lightly across her bosom and while Jeff waited she let her hands come down. Her head turned slightly so she could see Fiske. What happened to her eyes in that instant Jeff could not guess but when she again gave him her attention her voice was composed.

“I don t believe it.”

Jeff produced the tickets and tossed them on the divan. He watched her inspect first one and then the other before she pushed them away from her.

“You didn’t know about this?” he persisted.

“Naturally not.”

“And if you had?”

“I’m sure I don’t know,” she said sullenly. “I could hardly hold him here bodily.”

Fiske stirred in his chair. “What difference does it make, Lane?” he said with some belligerence. “You heard her say she didn’t know. Isn’t that good enough?”

Jeff ignored him, and continued to the woman: “Miranda says there was no will. He says you will inherit whatever Arnold had. Do you know how much that will be?”

“For one thing, this house,” she said. “It’s the only thing left in both our names.” She paused, head tipping slightly as she considered her answer. “I suppose there’s some money in his bank account. Two cars, the furniture. I don’t know anything about his business affairs.”

“Fiske does,” Jeff said, “He was the assistant.” He regarded the man a silent moment. “When were you in the office last?”

“This morning, not that it’s any of your business.”

“Then you knew he was cleaning out the place.”

“How do you know?” Fiske asked suspiciously. “Where did you get those tickets?”

Touché,
Jeff thought, and reminded himself to be more careful with his questions.

He was not ready to admit he had seen Grayson that afternoon, but the fact remained that the office had been cleaned out and Fiske could not help knowing it. He might even have known about the two airplane tickets. That someone was lying seemed obvious, but because it also seemed pointless to pursue that line of reasoning, he ignored the question and said:

“That hundred and twenty thousand in cash would be part of the estate, wouldn’t it? Assuming that it is recovered? I mean, there’s no reason now why you’d have to turn it over to Carl Webb.”

Diana made an impatient throaty sound. “I should say not,” she said. “That was Arnold’s little project, not mine.”

“You knew he had raised this cash. You knew he intended to pay off so he could go back to the States.”

“Well, yes,” she admitted, grudgingly, it seemed.

“But
you
had made no plans for returning.”

“I’m making plans now,” she said, not bothering to deny the statement. “I’m going to put this house on the market. I’ll sell the cars and the furniture. I’m going back just as soon as I can and Dudley”—she glanced at Fiske and a suggestion of a smile softened the lines of her mouth—“is going with me.”

The same idea had already occurred to Jeff, and having seen these two together before, he could accept the announcement. Twice Diana Grayson had been married and both times happiness had escaped her. Through Grayson’s neglect and indifference she had come to know Fiske and to find in him a certain loyalty and devotion she had never experienced before.

There was no way of telling how long this relationship had existed, but the understanding was there, and the change that had come over Fiske, now that this understanding was out in the open, seemed not only obvious but beneficial. With the way cleared for him he had miraculously acquired a confidence and purpose entirely lacking in his performance earlier that afternoon when Arnold Grayson was still alive. Through this woman’s acceptance of him he had attained his majority as a man. Now he was ready to do what he had to do to protect his newfound gains.

How long Fiske’s desire had lain dormant Jeff did not bother to guess, but he understood now that here was a motive for murder quite beside the hundred and twenty thousand in cash. The money could have been the factor that triggered their actions and brought them both to the Hotel Tucan the night before. It was an amount which represented more than half of Grayson’s estate and it occurred to Jeff that Diana seemed oddly complacent about its loss—if indeed there had been a loss.