This Girl for Hire (20 page)

Mark pulled his hat firmly on his head. “Honey, you're just sniping in the dark. The thumbprints check. Aces pointed out the man he thought was the murderer. So there it is. Sure, a few loose ends here and there, but we'll leave those to the prosecution to nail down. See you tomorrow.”

The Coast Guard launch slid away
from the float, gained momentum and disintegrated in the shadow of the island. I walked back up the steps. Music still drifted from the swimming-pool bar where a few diehards were still drinking Sam Aces' whiskey. On deck, at the head of the stairs, was Carruthers. He smiled in a drunken, half-lidded manner, and moved toward the bow. I called to him.

“Yes, ma'am?” He tipped his hat and grinned broadly.

“Who has charge of all the small boats attached to
Hell's Light
?”

“I do, ma'am.”

“Have you noticed any of them missing during the past few days?”

“No, ma'am.”

“You're sure?”

Carruthers nodded. His grin seemed like an idiot's grin, fixed and cemented on his old face. “Is that all, ma'am?”

“No,” I said. “How long have you worked on this yacht?”

“Long time. Years, ma'am. Why, I was just thinking, there ain't been so much excitement aboard
Hell's Light
since old man Aces fell off the bridge and broke his neck.” He laughed raucously. It seemed like a poor thing to laugh about. His eyes rolled weirdly, seeming to whirl like pinwheels on the Fourth-of-July.

Suddenly, I stepped back, for the first time really listening to his voice, really hearing his laughter. They didn't seem to belong to the body.

He took a .38 revolver out of his pocket
and leveled it at my heart. His hand trembled, but he still laughed. He seemed like some awful mirth machine at the Pike in Long Beach that got stuck and wouldn't stop until somebody smashed the mechanism.

“You're too smart, Honey,” the laughing voice said over and over. “I always knew you were.”

I shook my head, trying to shut out the sight, the sound, the laughter. “It—it couldn't be possible,” I said.

“Ever hear of the wrong man,” the voice laughed inside of Carruthers. “Well, I'm the wrong man and you're the wrong woman and this is the wrong world! Funny, Honey? You kill me! Really fracture me! Your expression.”

“Then you're the one Aces really was pointing at.”

“Yes, yes, yes,” the laughing voice continued. “I thought he was dead. I was down taking a fix and when I came up they were having a little trouble with Caine so I volunteered my services. Then, when we got inside and I saw Sad Sam—” The laughter choked him, choked him double, choked him until he couldn't stand, choked him until he was lying face-down on the deck.

I kicked the revolver out of his hand, grasped him by the shoulders and rolled him over. He wasn't breathing. The idiot's smile was still cemented on his face. I reached inside my skirt pocket and produced a handkerchief. The cloth lifted a coat of makeup from the man's face. Underneath was a deep scratch on his right cheek. Underneath another layer was Herb Nelson.

I
T WAS DAYLIGHT BEFORE THE CORONER
, M
ARK
S
TORM
and Chief Clements came out of the stateroom where the man who had died laughing lay, the idiot's smile still frozen on his lips.

Mark seemed brutally dazed as
if he couldn't believe what his eyes had found under Carruthers' makeup. He stared at me for a long time and then shook his head.

“It's Herb Nelson, all right,” Mark said. “Narcotics killed him. Stopped his heart like a clock.” He tried to steady himself against the yacht's railing. “Honey, I just don't get it. Call me stupid. Call me anything. But—we were so certain that the corpse we found at Herb Nelson's place was—”

“Were we, Mark?” I felt sick at the pit of my stomach. “We weren't so much certain as we were stunned. We found a man Herb's size, weight and age, with his head and face bashed in, carrying Herb's wallet and wearing Herb's rings, and we were shocked to think it was a guy we'd idolized when we were kids. A guy
who'd been a prince, a champion—” I covered my face with my hands. My God, I can still hear him laughing!”

Mark put his arm around my shoulders. “I'm sorry, Honey.”

I wiped my eyes and glanced up at the big lieutenant. “You said a skid-row bum named Ed Walker was seen entering Herb's place about an hour before the murder. You said he'd vanished. How do we know he's not our mangled body in the morgue?”

“Yeah,” Mark said. “I thought of that, too. From what I can remember, his build and characteristics were similar to Nelson's.”

“You said he was a user. He could have been on the prowl for H, found Herb gone and torn the place apart looking for junk. Instead, he came across Herb's identification, his wallet and two of his rings. He even discovered an old coat of Herb's with initials embroidered on the pocket and he put it on. As he was leaving with the loot, Nelson appeared. Herb had probably been down the hall in the bathroom getting ready for bed and in a narcotic frenzy he grabbed his Oscar and started swinging. End of story.”

“Oh, no,” the lieutenant groaned. “Beginning of story.”

“That's not the beginning, Mark. The beginning was—” I shrugged my shoulders. “Who knows—probably when Herb Nelson took his first pop. A big star trying out a new thrill and it sank him right to the bottom. And when he got to the very last rung, one guy tried to give him a hand—Sam Aces.

“Are you kidding?” Mark said, arching his thick brows. “Aces was the good samaritan who supplied Nelson
with junk.”

“Sure,” I defended. “Sam even supplied his own wife, but he didn't want to. He admitted he was trapped—caught—probably even worse than one of his hypes.”

“How did he help Nelson?”

‘The only way he knew how. He tried to get him bit parts in TV shows. Then came that disastrous day when Swanson threw Herb off the set at Television Riviera. Herb's pride was deeply hurt. His drug-twisted mind craved revenge.”

“So, what'd he do?”

“Rod told me the last he'd heard about Nelson was that he was working as a bartender's assistant at the Golden Slipper. I have a hunch Sam got him that job. I have another hunch that one night Swanson and Decker were sitting at that bar drinking heavily when Golden Boy ordered a screwdriver. The bartender mixed the drink and while it was waiting to be served, Herb slipped in some arsenic. I'm sure he didn't know that drink had been ordered for his friend, Sam Aces.”

“Nelson poisoned Aces' drink intending it for Swanson?”

“That's how I figure it,” I said. “He never admitted the truth to Sam because the mistake provided a brand new idea. Since Aces thought Swanson was out to get him, Herb decided to make it appear as if Golden Boy were threatening his life, too. Then he picked me out of the phone book, planted a few seeds of suspicion
about Swan son and—you know the rest.”

“But I don't know the rest,” Mark said. “All I knew is Nelson must have killed Walker like you said. Sure it was a mistake on our part. The body was so badly battered we couldn't go on facial features. He had no living relatives, no birth certificate. He'd never driven a car, never registered his fingerprints with the Department of Motor Vehicles. He'd never been in the service or belonged to any special clubs or secret orders. I don't think he'd ever been fingerprinted in his life.”

“Sure,” I agreed, “we thought the corpse was Herb Nelson. But he didn't know we thought this until the next morning when he saw the headlines. So, after the murder, he went to his friend, Sam Aces, and pleaded for help and Sam hid Herb aboard
Hell's Light
.

“And then Seaman Carruthers was created when they realized a mistake had been made.”

“Right. Being an old-time actor, Herb knew plenty about make-up and he developed a most convincing character. When the Catalina voyage began, he probably told Sam he'd keep a watchful eye on Swanson. From there he embarked on a warped, neurotic plan—to murder Sam Aces and have Swanson swing for the crime.”

“But, Honey, that doesn't make sense. Sam was his friend.”

“Mark, we're talking about a man who'd hit the very bottom—narcotics, murder. The needle was his only friend.”

“All right, where'd he go from there?”

“He stole my gun out of Sam's stateroom and was planning to shoot Aces through the bathroom
window, but somebody caught him off-guard.”

“Who?”

“My guess is Ann Claypool. Herb was probably in the corridor checking the angle of the shot when she came along. He left the gun in the window and ran thinking she'd seen everything. But it's my hunch Ann wasn't in the least suspicious.”

“You think he killed her because he was afraid she'd seen him with the gun?”

“Yes.”

“But, Honey, how do you explain Caine's thumbprints on her neck?”

“Sam Aces verified the fact that Ann Claypool told Rod to meet Swanson at his island cabin. I believe Rod's story. But it was probably Nelson we heard running outside on deck that night. Rod went to Ann's cabin. Meanwhile, Herb came back to my window. I caught him, so he pre tended to be bringing me the breakaway knife he'd used earlier on Meeler.”

“But, why the devil did he murder Joe Meeler?”

“Because Meeler must have been on deck when Danny Marble arrived with the
Clementine
. Nelson saw what Meeler saw—Danny tying up the cruiser and swimming away. He knew, also, that if the police tracked down Marble they'd find Aces. And he couldn't trust that the trail wouldn't lead to him. Somehow he got Meeler into the bar. He'd probably planned to show Joe that break away and then, when nobody was looking, give him the real thing he'd taken from the kitchen. But we
made it easy for him.”

“What do you mean?” Mark demanded.

“Remember, we arrived back here with Chief Clements and everyone came out on deck? That's when Herb plunged the real knife into Meeler. Then he wiped off his own prints, put Joe's hands on the weapon and escaped through a trapdoor behind the bar.”

Mark wiped his big hands across his eyes. “Okay, I'll buy it. What about Claypool?”

“After he left my cabin he went back to Ann's door. He probably heard the windup of the fight between her and Rod and sensed the opportunity. He waited until she'd undressed and climbed into her bath. Then, he slipped in, struggled with her and finally pushed her under the water.”

“That explains the coroner's verdict,” Mark said. “Where do we go from there?”

“It's pretty obvious Nelson planted the arsenic in Decker's suitcase. Why he did it we'll probably never know. Evidently he was the one who picked up Decker's luggage that morning and carried it down to the float. When you discovered the poison he must have been afraid Max, under severe questioning, might recall who had the best opportunity to make the plant. So, after Max's disappearance, Herb found out where he was and sent that phony note about Swanson wanting to see him at the chimes tower at four.”

“So, he maneuvered Swanson to the tower using the same excuse and left Aces alone at the house.”

“Right. He also sent a note to Rod Caine
claiming my life was in danger, hoping to lure him into Avalon.

“Smart,” Mark said, rapping his knuckles on the rail. “But, look, this is four o'clock in the afternoon. How could he hope to pull this thing off in broad daylight?”

“The storm, Lieutenant, remember? It was raining so hard you could hardly see your hand in front of your face.”

“Okay,” Mark said. “He hung Decker, then took Swan son to the edge of the cliff and shot him. Then what?”

“He returned to the house where he'd left Aces and put a bullet in Sam's back.”

“Then it's true,” Mark murmured. “Aces never really knew who shot him.”

I said, “He didn't know what had happened until we told him Decker and Swanson were dead and he saw Herb come into the room. Then he realized the truth, but it was too late.”

“What do you figure he did after he left Aces in the house in Avalon?”

“He must have been badly in need of a fix. He went to the Villa looking for Danny Marble, saw Danny and his girlfriend coming out of my cabin and figured he'd find some caps inside.

“And while he was rummaging around,” Mark continued, “you came back and he clipped you with the butt of his gun.”

“That's the way I see it. From there he headed for
Hell's Light
where he guessed Sam had a big supply of heroin stashed away. He finally tried the
storeroom, tore into several cases and found some caps.”

“I'm with you now,” Mark said. “Then Lori, also needing a pop, came wandering on the scene.”

“Right. I don't know how he managed it, but he got her into a boat and over to Caine's island cabin where they apparently had a small blasting party which wound up with Lori dead.”

Mark took out a pack of cigarettes and offered me one. “It all adds up, Honey,” he said, staring blankly at the distant island.

“Does it, Mark? Does it add up?” I leaned over the railing and watched the sea push up against the polished white hull of the yacht. “Eight people are dead and for what?”

“Don't ask me,” Mark said faintly. “I told you this was a rotten business. It squeezes your guts right down to nothing.”

“Yeah,” I said, taking a deep breath.

I walked toward the bow. The wind was cool. It whistled strangely in my ears. It sounded like laughter. Wild, unreasoning laughter that wouldn't stop.

I began to run.

Suddenly I remembered that laughter. It was the laughter of a little girl with blonde curls sitting in a dark motion-picture theater. The laughter of a little girl for a great comedian, for a man who'd always made people happy, a man everyone had loved. A man who'd been such a genuine humorist that at the peak of his career he'd predicted that, come what may, he'd have the last laugh.