The Case of the One-Penny Orange: A Masao Masuto Mystery (Book Two) (11 page)

“Horseshit. What danger?”

Masuto shrugged. “As you please. I only suggested it to her. But I am not only investigating a burglary. I am chief of homicide in what you characterize as our two-bit police force. I am investigating a murder.”

“What murder?” It came out poorly. His surly aggressiveness had slipped away, and Masuto felt his simulated ignorance.

“Don't you read the papers?”

“I have been up to my ears all day.”

“A stamp dealer in Beverly Hills was murdered yesterday — somewhere between twelve-thirty and one o'clock. I spoke to your wife about it. Didn't she tell you?”

“No.”

“That's strange, Mr. Briggs.”

“Why?”

“I told her that I felt there was a connection between the murder of Ivan Gaycheck and the break-in at your house. I'm amazed that she wouldn't mention it to you.”

“She may have mentioned it. It slipped my mind.”

“Ah so. Of course. She telephone you today — or you telephoned her?”

“What difference does that make?”

“Just curiosity.”

“I phoned her. Goddamn it, you come in here with these stupid accusations …”

“I make no accusations. Pardon me if that is the impression I give.”

“Why don't you come out with what you're here for and let me get back to work.”

“Did you know Ivan Gaycheck?”

“Who?”

“Ivan Gaycheck. The man who was murdered.”

“No. I didn't know him. I never heard his name before.”

“But your wife mentioned him.”

“Look, mister — don't try to pull anything on me. If my wife mentioned his name, it slipped my mind.”

Watching him keenly, Masuto said, “There is a Mauritius stamp called the One-Penny Orange. Does that mean anything to you?”

He was a few seconds slow. “What?”

“One-Penny Orange.”

“What in hell are you talking about?”

“Then your wife did not mention that either?”

“Mention what?”

“The One-Penny Orange.”

“Look, when I spoke to my wife, I was thinking of other things.”

“The One-Penny Orange,” Masuto said, rather didactically, “is a Mauritius postage stamp of great value. I have reason to believe that this stamp was in the possession of your mother-in-law, Mrs. Hilda Kramer. I also have reason to believe that it was stolen from her.”

“You're out of your mind. My mother-in-law never had a pot to pee in.”

“Nevertheless, I believe that she had this stamp in her possession for years — without knowing that she owned it.”

“Play it any way you like.” He looked at his watch. “My time is up, Masuto. I don't have to answer any questions. Furthermore, I don't intend to see you again. You got anything to say, you can say it to my lawyer.”

“Why?”

“What in hell do you mean, why? Don't you understand English?”

“I mean that I haven't accused you of anything and I did not come here to arrest you for anything.”

“I'm finished. That's all.” He got up, walked around the desk, and opened the door. Masuto rose, walked to the door, then paused.

“Mr. Briggs?”

Briggs shook his head grimly.

“Mr. Briggs, wouldn't you, as a matter of plain curiosity, be interested to know what that particular One-Penny Orange is worth?”

Briggs stared at him without replying.

“Ah so — then I will tell you. It is worth over three hundred thousand dollars, and if you doubt my credibility you might call the Holmbey Stamp Center downtown and ask for Mr. Holmbey. I am sure he would be delighted to give you a price.”

Blandly, innocently, Masuto's dark eyes met Briggs' pale blue eyes. He could almost feel Briggs' tension, the enormous effect he was making to control himself.

“Ah, so sorry,” Masuto said sympathetically. “So much for so little. So very sorry.” He smiled and walked out, feeling somewhat ashamed of playing a silly role, yet taking a non-Buddhist and bitter satisfaction in what he had just done.

He drove back to the station then, and on his way to his desk he poked his head into the room where Cora ran the various machines without which no modern police force can function.

“Greetings, Masao,” Cora said. “Come in and let me try to tempt you.”

“You always tempt me.”

“And all I get is the inscrutable. What can I do for you?”

“Jack Briggs, B-r-i-g-g-s. Maybe the Jack stands for John on his birth certificate. From his accent, I'd guess he stems from Texas or maybe Oklahoma. He's in the porny trade, so maybe there's something there. Get a make on him if there is any from the F.B.I., and if there's nothing there, try the Texas State Police.”

“The Texas Rangers.”

“What?”

“That's what they call themselves — the Texas Rangers.”

“Go on.”

“Truth.”

“Okay, Texas Rangers. But sit on it. Tell them it's critical, an emergency. I'll be at my desk — for a little while anyway.”

Wainwright noticed Masuto coming into the squad room, and he stalked over to Masuto's desk and flung two slips of yellow paper down on the desktop. “Read them and weep,” Wainwright snapped.

They were the charge slips for the telephone calls, one hundred seventy-five dollars to London, two hundred twelve to Germany.

“That's beautiful,” said Wainwright. “That's just beautiful.”

“What did Beckman get in Germany?”

“A big, fat nothing.”

“Where is he now?”

“At the public library, where you instructed him to spend the afternoon sitting on his ass. It don't matter that the world goes on. Beckman spends the day in the library.”

“We hit the jackpot on the London call.”

“What jackpot? You know that forty years ago a German named Kramer maybe bought a very valuable stamp or maybe he didn't. That's one hell of a jackpot. Suppose you explain it to me, and suppose you tell me how I explain the call to Germany. We already knew who Gaycheck was. We got that on the Telex.”

“You're upset,” Masuto said gently.

“Sure I'm upset. We got two murders and we got nothing.”

“Actually, one — because Haber belongs to the sheriff.”

“Screw the lousy sheriff and his idiot deputies. We got two, because they're connected.”

“I think we have three,” Masuto said, even more gently.

“What!”

“If that's the way you look at it.”

“What in hell do you mean? We got three murders? What am I, a joke? We got a murder and nobody tells me?”

“I'm telling you.”

“All right, all right,” he said, controlling himself and pulling a chair up next to Masuto's desk. “Suppose you tell me about it, Masao. And make it good.”

“The name of the victim is Hilda Kramer. She was the mother of Ellen Briggs. It was the Briggses' house on Camden that was burglarized yesterday.”

“I know that. Hilda Kramer died of a heart attack.”

“Apparently she had a bad heart and suffered a thrombosis. I think it was brought on in a struggle with someone who stole the One-Penny Orange from her.”

“You're hipped on that One-Penny Orange. The break-in took place yesterday, two days after her death.”

“I know.”

“You got any evidence?”

“None.”

“But you know who the killer is?”

“Yes.”

“The same one who killed Gaycheck?” Wainwright asked sarcastically.

“No.”

“Oh? Three murders and three killers.”

“I'm afraid so.”

“You know, Masao,” Wainwright said slowly, “you leave me speechless. It's the first time, but you leave me speechless.”

“So sorry.”

“Okay. Look, Masao, I know you long enough and respect you enough to accept what you say — but it goes no further, not until you can bring me evidence and swear out a warrant and make an arrest. Not one word of this to the press or to anyone. Two murders in one day in Beverly Hills are enough. Three are impossible. Now who is the killer?”

Masuto shook his head. “Not now. Give me until nine tonight and I'll pin it down.”

Whatever Wainwright might have said was interrupted by Masuto's telephone. He picked it up. It was Beckman, from the library.

“Masao, I've gone through the two years of
Der Spiegel
they keep on file. Nothing. No picture of Schwartzman or anyone who resembles him.”

“Is two years all they have?”

“They have the eight years prior to that packed away in the basement. When I asked about it, they began to groan and whine.”

“Let them groan and whine. I want you to get it out and go through it, every page.”

“For God's sake, Masao, I'll be there until they close.”

“I expect you will.” He put down the phone and looked at Wainwright, who said:

“All right, Masao. Nine o'clock tonight. I'm going home and get a few hours of sleep. You might do the same.”

“Thank you, but I'm not tired.”

“Be patient and wait until I retire. You'll be the boss then.”

Cora came over as Wainwright stalked away. “What was he whipping you about?”

“He didn't sleep last night. That makes him nervous. He wants me to be patient and wait until he retires.”

“That'll be the day.”

“What have you got for me?”

“From the F.B.I. — big zero. You get nothing from them unless you give them prints to put into their IBM machine. But the good old Texas Rangers came through.”

“Did they!”

“Providing,” Cora said, “that your Jack Briggs is the same as John Wesley Briggs. You didn't even tell me how old he is.”

“The truth is, I didn't ask him. About fifty.”

“Well, that fits. John Wesley Briggs, born in Dallas on the twelfth of March, nineteen twenty-six …”

“Twelfth of March. What is that called in that silly astrology thing?”

“It is not silly. Pisces. Don't knock what you don't know.”

“Pisces Productions. Good. Go on.”

“Three arrests before the age of twenty. One conviction — car stealing, suspended sentence on a juvenile plea.”

“The others?”

“Both assaults. Charges dropped.”

“Anything else?”

“One nice one that fits in with what you told me. In 1958, he was arrested for what the Rangers call publication of impermissible nudity. Isn't that cute? In other words, girlie magazines. That was before the lid was taken off pornography.”

“No conviction?”

“No conviction. The magazine closed down and the D.A. dropped the charges. After that, Briggs seems to have left Texas. At least, the Rangers have nothing else on him. Rangers. Isn't that darling? Did I do all right?”

“You did beautifully,” Masuto said.

“This darling Ranger I spoke to, he says that if you get him a set of prints, he'll work on it. Why don't you send me down there with the prints, Masao?”

“Because I want you where I can see your sweet face each morning.”

“I'll just bet.”

9

CLEO

Accused of having a complex mind, Masuto would protest that his own manner of thinking and being was simple and direct. He was aware that he lived in perhaps the most complex society that the world had ever evolved; his problem was always to find some simple and direct path through the complexity. He sat at his desk staring at the picture he had taken from Ivan Gaycheck's wallet the day before, the picture of a very pretty girl with straight blond hair. Putting together a jigsaw puzzle, there were only three pieces missing, and the picture of the girl was the only lead he had to one of the pieces, perhaps the key piece. Whereby he told himself that most very pretty girls came to Hollywood to become great stars and ended up waiting tables, selling clothes, turning to welfare, and in not a few cases practicing the world's oldest profession; but a fair number of them worked in film or television at least once, and in order to work in film or television, one had to join S.A.G., the Screen Actors Guild.

It was three thirty-five when he parked his car in front of the Screen Actors Guild building on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood. He went inside and showed his badge to a stout, unsmiling lady at the reception desk.

“What I would like,” he said, “is to talk to someone who would know most of the membership by sight.”

“Wouldn't we all!”

“What I mean is that I am looking for someone. I have her picture.” He showed her the picture.

“Is she a member of the guild?”

“I don't know. That's what I'm trying to find out.”

“Is she wanted for a crime?”

“She's not wanted for anything. I only want to talk to her, as part of an investigation.”

The fat woman sighed. “I'll see what I can do. What's her name?”

“I don't know.”

The fat woman stared at him in amazement. “Out of sight, Officer! You are a beauty. We only have thirty-three thousand members in this organization, and you want me to tell you who this lady is. Do you know that some of them never come in here at all? Some of them come in once? Do you know how many look enough like this kid to be her twin sister?” She was indignant and affronted, and her voice rose, decibel by decibel. The telephone operator at the opposite end of the long reception desk called out:

“Give him the Academy Book and let him look through it.”

A third woman, who had been sitting in one of the chairs in the reception room, picked up a book as large as two telephone directories and carried it over to Masuto.

“Eighty-five percent of our members are unemployed,” the fat woman told him. “They could be anywhere.”

A fourth woman came out of the inside room, a big room where a dozen men and women sat at desks and typewriters. “He's cute,” she observed. “Tall, dark, handsome — but there's no work for Orientals, no work for women, no work for anyone but cops.”