The Good Old Stuff Page 5

  Darrigan showed him the picture. “This man?”

  The little man squinted through the viewer. “Sure.”

  “You got a good look at him?”

  “Just the first time.”

  “You mean when he went in?”

  “No, I mean the first time he was there. The second time it was getting pretty late in the day, and the sun was gone.”

  “Did he stay long the second time?”

  “I don’t know. I closed up when he was still there.”

  “Thanks a lot.”

  The little man twitched and beamed. “A pleasure, certainly.”

  They went back out to Darrigan’s car. When they got in Kathy said, “I feel a bit stupid, Gil.”

  “Don’t think I suspected that. It came out by accident. One of those things. It happens sometimes. And I should have done some better guessing. I found out this morning that when Temple Davisson wanted a piece of property he didn’t give up easily. He went back and tried again.”

  “And Mr. Drynfells didn’t mention it.”

  “A matter which I find very interesting. I’m dropping you back at the Aqua Azul and then I’m going to tackle Drynfells.”

  “Who found the little man who sells shells? You are not leaving me out.”

  “It may turn out to be unpleasant, Kathy.”

  “So be it. I want to see how much of that tough look of yours is a pose, Mr. Darrigan.”

  “Let me handle it.”

  “I shall be a mouse, entirely.”

  He waited for two cars to go by and made a wide U-turn, then turned right into Drynfells’s drive. The couple was out in back. Mrs. Drynfells was basking on her rubberized mattress, her eyes closed. She did not appear to have moved since the previous day. Myron Drynfells was over near the hedge having a bitter argument with a man who obviously belonged with the battered pickup parked in front.

  Drynfells was saying, “I just got damn good and tired of waiting for you to come around and finish the job.”

  The man, a husky youngster in work clothes, flushed with anger, said, “Okay, okay. Just pay me off, then, if that’s the way you feel. Fourteen hours’ labor plus the bags and the pipe.”

  Drynfells turned and saw Darrigan and Kathy. “Hello,” he said absently. “Be right back.” He walked into the back door of the end unit with the husky young man.

  Mrs. Drynfells opened her eyes. She looked speculatively at Kathy. “Allo,” she said. Darrigan introduced the two women. He had done enough work on jewelry theft to know that the emerald in Mrs. Drynfells’s ring was genuine. About three carats, he judged. A beauty.

  Drynfells came out across the lawn, scowling. He wore chartreuse slacks and a dark blue seersucker sport shirt with a chartreuse flower pattern.

  “Want anything done right,” he said, “you got to do it yourself. What’s on your mind, Mr. Darrigan?”

  “Just checking, Mr. Drynfells. I got the impression from the police that Mr. Davisson merely dropped you off here after you’d looked at the land. I didn’t know he’d come in with you.”

  “He’s a persistent guy. I couldn’t shake him off, could I, honey?”

  “Talking, talking,” Mrs. Drynfells said, with sunstruck sleepiness. “Too moch.”

  “He came in and yakked at me, and then when he left he told me he could find better lots south of here. I told him to go right ahead.”

  “How long did he stay?”

  Drynfells shrugged. “Fifteen minutes, maybe.”

  “Did he wave big bills at you?”

  “Sure. Kid stuff. I had my price and he wouldn’t meet it. Waving money in my face wasn’t going to change my mind. No, sir.”

  “And that’s the last you saw of him?” Darrigan asked casually.

  “That’s right.”

  “Then why was his car parked out in front of here at dusk on Friday?”

  “In front of here?” Drynfells said, his eyes opening wide.

  “In front of here.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about, mister. I wasn’t even here, then. I was in Clearwater on a business matter.”

  Mrs. Drynfells sat up and put her hand over her mouth. “Ai, I forget! He did come back. Still talking, talking. I send him away, that talking wan.”

  Drynfells stomped over to her and glared down at her. “Why did you forget that? Damn it, that might make us look bad.”

  “I do not theenk.”

  Drynfells turned to Darrigan with a shrug. “Rattle-headed, that’s what she is. Forget her head if it wasn’t fastened on.”

  “I am sorree!”

  “I think you better phone the police and tell them, Mr. Drynfells, just in case.”

  “Think I should?”

  “The man is still missing.”

  Drynfells sighed. “Okay, I better do that.”

  The Aqua Azul bar was open. Kathy and Darrigan took a corner table, ordered pre-lunch cocktails. “You’ve gone off somewhere, Gil.”

  He smiled at her. “I am sorree!”

  “What’s bothering you?”

  “I don’t exactly know. Not yet. Excuse me. I want to make a call.”

  He left her and phoned Hartford from the lobby. He got his assistant on the line. “Robby, I don’t know what source to use for this, but find me the names of any men who have sold chains of movie houses in Kansas during the past year.”

  Robby whistled softly. “Let me see. There ought to be a trade publication that would have that dope. Phone you?”

  “I’ll call back at five.”

  “How does it look?”

  “It begins to have the smell of murder.”

  “By the beneficiary, we hope?”

  “Nope. No such luck.”

  “So we’ll get a statistic for the actuarial boys. Luck, Gil. I’ll rush that dope.”

  “Thanks, Robby. ’Bye.”

  He had sandwiches in the bar with Kathy and then gave her her instructions for the afternoon. “Any kind of gossip, rumor, anything at all you can pick up on the Drynfellses. Financial condition. Emotional condition. Do they throw pots? Where did he find the cutie?”

  “Cute, like a derringer.”

  “I think I know what you mean.”

  “Of course you do, Gil. No woman is going to fool you long, or twice.”

  “That’s what I keep telling myself.”

  “I hope, wherever your lady fair might be, that she realizes by now what she missed.”

  “You get too close for comfort sometimes, Kathy.”

  “Just love to see people wince. All right. This afternoon I shall be the Jack Anderson of Madeira Beach and vicinity. When do I report?”

  “When I meet you for cocktails. Sixish?”

  On the way back to Clearwater Beach he looked in on Dinah Davisson. There were dark shadows under her eyes. Temple Davisson’s daughter had been reached. She was flying south. Mrs. Hoke had brought over a cake. Darrigan told her he had a hunch he’d have some real information by midnight. After he left he wondered why he had put himself out on a limb.

  At four thirty he grew impatient and phoned Robby. A James C. Brock had sold a nine-unit chain in central Kansas in July.

  Darrigan thanked him. It seemed like a hopeless task to try to locate Brock in the limited time before he would have to leave for Redington Beach. He phoned Dinah Davisson and told her to see what she could do about finding James Brock. He told her to try all the places he might stop, starting at the most expensive and working her way down the list.

  He told her that once she had located Mr. Brock she should sit tight and wait for a phone call from him.

  Kathy was waiting at her cabaña. “Do I report right now, sir?”

  “Right now, Operative Seventy-three.”

  “Classification one: financial. Pooie. That Coral Tour thing ran way over estimates. It staggers under a mortgage. And he got a loan on his beach property to help out. The dollie is no help in the financial department. She’s of the gimme breed. A Cuban. Miami. Possibl
y nightclub training. Drynfells’s first wife died several centuries ago. The local pitch is that he put that plot of land on the market to get the dough to cover some postdated checks that are floating around waiting to fall on him.”

  “Nice work, Kathy.”

  “I’m not through yet. Classification two: Emotional. Pooie again. His little item has him twisted around her pinkie. She throws pots. She raises merry hell. She has tantrums. He does the housekeeping chores. She has a glittering eye for a pair of shoulders, broad shoulders. Myron is very jealous of his lady.”

  “Any more?”

  “Local opinion is that if he sells his land and lasts until the winter season is upon him, he may come out all right, provided he doesn’t have to buy his little lady a brace of Mercedeses and minks to keep in good favor. He’s not liked too well around here. Not a sociable sort, I’d judge. And naturally the wife doesn’t mix too well with the standard-issue wives hereabouts.”

  “You did very well, Kathy.”

  “Now what do we do?”

  “I buy you drinks. I buy you dinner. Reward for services rendered.”

  “Then what?”

  “Then we ponder.”

  “We can ponder while we’re working over the taste buds, can’t we?”

  “If you’d like to ponder.”

  They went up to the bar. Martinis came. Kathy said, “I ponder out loud. Davisson’s offer was too low. But he waved his money about. They brooded over that money all day. He came back and waved it about some more. Mrs. Drynfells’s acquisitive instincts were aroused. She followed him, met him outside of here, clunked him on the head, pitched him in the Gulf, and went home and hid the money under the bed.”

  “Nice, but I don’t like it.”

  “Okay. You ponder.”

  “Like this. Drynfells lied from the beginning. He sold the land to Temple Davisson. They went back. Drynfells took the bundle of cash, possibly a check for the balance. Those twenty minutes inside was when some sort of document was being executed. Davisson mentions where he’s going. In the afternoon Drynfells gets a better offer for the land. He stalls the buyer. He gets hold of Davisson and asks him to come back. Davisson does so. Drynfells wants to cancel the sale. Maybe he offers Davisson a bonus to tear up the document and take his money and check back. Davisson laughs at him. Drynfells asks for just a little bit of time. Davisson says he’ll give him a little time. He’ll be at the Aqua Azul for twenty minutes. From here he phones his wife. Can’t get her. Makes eyes at you. Leaves. Drynfells, steered by his wife’s instincts, has dropped her off and gone up the road a bit. She waits by Temple Davisson’s car. He comes out. He is susceptible, as Mrs. Drynfells has guessed, to a little night walk with a very pretty young lady. She walks him up the road to where Drynfells is waiting. They bash him, tumble him into the Drynfells car, remove document of sale, dispose of body. That leaves them with the wad of cash, plus the money from the sale to the new customer Drynfells stalled. The weak point was the possibility of Davisson’s car being seen at their place. That little scene we witnessed this morning had the flavor of being very well rehearsed.”

  Kathy snapped her fingers, eyes glowing. “It fits! Every little bit of it fits. They couldn’t do it there, when he came back, because that would have left them with the car. He had to be seen someplace else. Here.”

  “There’s one fat flaw, Kathy.”

  “How could there be?”

  “Just how do we go about proving it?”

  She thought that over. Her face fell. “I see what you mean.”

  “I don’t think that the dark-haired girl he was seen with could be identified as Mrs. Drynfells. Without evidence that the sale was consummated, we lack motive—except, of course, for the possible motive of murder for the money he carried.”

  Kathy sat with her chin propped on the backs of her fingers, studying him. “I wouldn’t care to have you on my trail, Mr. Darrigan.”

  “How so?”

  “You’re very impressive, in your quiet little way, hiding behind that mask.”

  “A mask, yet.”

  “Of course. And behind it you sit, equipped with extra senses, catching the scent of murder, putting yourself neatly in the murderer’s shoes, with all your reasoning based on emotions, not logic.”

  “I’m very logical. I plod. And I now plod out to the phone and see if logic has borne any fruit.”

  He went to the lobby and phoned Dinah Davisson.

  “I found him, Mr. Darrigan. He’s staying at the Kingfisher with his wife.”

  “Did you talk to him?”

  “No. Just to the desk clerk.”

  “Thanks. You’ll hear from me later, Mrs. Davisson.”

  He phoned the Kingfisher and had Mr. Brock called from the dining room to the phone. “Mr. Brock, my name is Darrigan. Mr. Temple Davisson told me you were interested in a plot of Gulf-front land.”

  “Has he been found?”

  “No, he hasn’t. I’m wondering if you’re still in the market.”

  “Sorry, I’m not. I think I’m going to get the piece I want.”

  “At Redington Beach?”

  Brock had a deep voice. “How did you know that?”

  “Just a guess, Mr. Brock. Would you mind telling me who you’re buying it from?”

  “A Mr. Drynfells. He isn’t an agent. It’s his land.”

  “He contacted you last Friday, I suppose. In the afternoon?”

  “You must have a crystal ball, Mr. Darrigan. Yes, he did. And he came in to see me late Friday night. We inspected the land Sunday. I suppose you even know what I’ll be paying for it.”

  “Probably around one seventy-five.”

  “That’s too close for comfort, Mr. Darrigan.”

  “Sorry to take you away from your dinner for no good reason. Thanks for being so frank with me.”

  “Quite all right.”

  Gilbert Darrigan walked slowly back into the bar. Kathy studied him. “Now you’re even more impressive, Gil. Your eyes have gone cold.”

  “I feel cold. Right down into my bones. I feel this way when I’ve guessed a bit too accurately.” She listened, eyes narrowed, as he told her the conversation.

  “Mr. Drynfells had a busy Friday,” she said.

  “Now we have the matter of proof.”

  “How do you go about that? Psychological warfare, perhaps?”

  “Not with that pair. They’re careful. They’re too selfish to have very much imagination. I believe we should consider the problem of the body.”

  She sipped her drink, stared over his head at the far wall. “The dramatic place, of course, would be under the concrete of that new pool, with the dark greedy wife sunbathing beside it, sleepy-eyed and callous.”

  He reached across the table and put his fingers hard around her wrist. “You are almost beyond price, Kathy. That is exactly where it is.”

  She looked faintly ill. “No,” she said weakly. “I was only—”

  “You thought you were inventing. But your subconscious mind knew, as mine did.”

  It was not too difficult to arrange. The call had to come from Clearwater. They drove there in Kathy’s car, and Darrigan, lowering his voice, said to Drynfells over the phone, “I’ve got my lawyer here and I’d like you to come in right now, Mr. Drynfells. Bring your wife with you. We’ll make it business and pleasure both.”

  “I don’t know as I—”

  “I have to make some definite arrangement, Mr. Drynfells. If I can’t complete the deal with you, I’ll have to pick up a different plot.”

  “But you took an option, Mr. Brock!”

  “I can forfeit that, Mr. Drynfells. How soon can I expect you?”

  After a long pause Drynfells said, “We’ll leave here in twenty minutes.”

  On the way back out to Madeira Beach, Darrigan drove as fast as he dared. Kathy refused to be dropped off at the Aqua Azul. The Coral Tour Haven was dark, the “No Vacancy” sign lighted.

  They walked out to the dark back yard, K
athy carrying the flash, Darrigan carrying the borrowed pickaxe. He found the valve to empty the shallow pool, turned it. He stood by Kathy. She giggled nervously as the water level dropped.

  “We’d better not be wrong,” she said.

  “We’re not wrong,” Darrigan murmured. The water took an infuriating time to drain out of the pool. He rolled up his pants legs, pulled off shoes and socks, stepped down in when there was a matter of inches left. The cement had set firmly. It took several minutes to break through to the soil underneath. Then, using the pick point as a lever, he broke a piece free. He got his hands on it and turned it over. The flashlight wavered. Only the soil underneath was visible. Again he inserted a curved side of the pick, leaned his weight against it, lifted it up slowly. The flashlight beam focused on the side of a muddy white shoe, a gray sock encasing a heavy ankle. The light went out and Kathy Marrick made a moaning sound, deep in her throat.

  Darrigan lowered the broken slab back into position, quite gently. He climbed out of the pool.

  “Are you all right?” he asked.

  “I … think so.”

  He rolled down his pants legs, pulled socks on over wet feet, shoved his feet into the shoes, laced them neatly and tightly.

  “How perfectly dreadful,” Kathy said in a low tone.

  “It always is. Natural death is enough to give us a sort of superstitious fear. But violent death always seems obscene. An assault against the dignity of every one of us. Now we do some phoning.”

  They waited, afterwards, in the dark car parked across the road. When the Drynfellses returned home, two heavy men advanced on their car from either side, guns drawn, flashlights steady. There was no fuss. No struggle. Just the sound of heavy voices in the night, and a woman’s spiritless weeping.

  At the Aqua Azul, Kathy put her hand in his. “I won’t see you again,” she said. It was statement, not question.

  “I don’t believe so, Kathy.”

  “Take care of yourself.” The words had a special intonation. She made her real meaning clear: Gil, don’t let too many of these things happen to you. Don’t go too far away from life and from warmth. Don’t go to that far place where you are conscious only of evil and the effects of evil.

  “I’ll try to,” he said.

  As he drove away from her, drove down the dark road that paralleled the beaches, he thought of her as another chance lost, as another milepost on a lonely road that ended at some unguessable destination. There was a shifting sourness in his mind, an unease that was familiar. He drove with his eyes steady, his face fashioned into its mask of tough unconcern. Each time, you bled a little. And each time the hard flutter of excitement ended in this sourness. Murder for money. It was seldom anything else. It was seldom particularly clever. It was invariably brutal.