Negative of a Nude Page 8

The office hadn’t changed much, but a lot had happened there since last I’d visited it. I sat down in the chair in front of the desk, and he went around and sat in Jake’s chair.

  “You the assistant manager, Mr. McClosky?”

  “That’s right,” he said. “Jake and me were buddies from way back, knew each other in the war. Great guy, Jake. When he went into the night club rack—business, he offered me a job and I took it. I told that—”

  “I know,” I said. “Suppose you tell me about what happened here last night?”

  “I told—”

  “I am quite aware you’ve told your story before, but not to me, and I’d like to hear it first hand. It’s one of the annoying things about witnessing a crime, or investigating one.”

  “I didn’t witness it,” he said defensively. “But I did discover the—Jake’s body, that is. I’d just come back from taking one of the strippers home—”

  “Do you do this often?”

  “Do I do what often?”

  “Take strippers home?”

  “No. Sometimes. Gladys was having her car fixed, so—”

  “Gladys?”

  “Gladys Pearson,” he said, and seeing my blank look, “April Holliday.”

  The bored blonde, I recalled. For one mad moment I thought he might have taken Cherry home, in which case Mr. Michael McClosky might qualify as Mr. Closet. I’d check that, anyway.

  “Okay, so you took her home. What time was that?”

  “Gladys was through at one o’clock, so I left early with her, and I got back here by four. We—uh—had a drink at her place. I have to go past here to get to where I live in Gardena, and I saw the light was still on. I figured I’d better stop and see why Jake was up so late.”

  “And you found out?”

  He nodded. “Jake was sitting right here where I am now, but his head was down on the desk. I thought he’d fallen asleep at first, but when I went to wake him up, I saw the blood. Then I noticed the safe was hanging open, and it was cleaned out. That’s when I called the police.”

  “What was in the safe, Mr. McClosky?”

  “Money, mostly,” he said. “Probably some jewelry. Jake was always buying bracelets and things for the girls. I’ll have to check the books.”

  “Who knows the combination of the safe?”

  “Only Jake and me, as far as I know.” He gave me a sharp look. “You don’t think—?”

  “Just asking,” I said. “Do you have any idea who might have done it?”

  “Me?” He laughed. “How should I know. When you’re in business, you make a lot of enemies. Or maybe it was a burglar. Gladys thinks it was that detective whatsisname, you know, Thunder.”

  “Wonder,” I supplied.

  “Yeah. I didn’t hear it myself, but Gladys said she was listening to them argue, and Wonder threatened to kill Jake.”

  “Gladys sounds like an observant girl.”

  “Gladys knows what goes on around here, all right. Nothing slips by old Gladys.”

  “I believe it.” I got up. “I’d like to see Gladys next, Mr. McClosky. What’s her address?”

  “Don’t you have it on the records?”

  “I don’t carry the records with me,” I said. “Look here, McClosky,” I continued sternly, “you haven’t been very cooperative with me. Are you trying to obstruct justice?”

  “No, no, of course not,” he said hastily, and gave me her address from a little black book, an apartment house on Inglewood Avenue in Hawthorne.

  I walked from the office into the darkness of the restaurant toward the front door. He followed me.

  “By the way,” I said. “Did Jake leave a will?”

  “Sure. I told that—I mean, he had one written out, a new one, just a few days ago. Jake had no living relatives, you know, so he wanted everything to go where he wanted it to g°”

  “Which was where?”

  “He left the Club to me, and the rest to one of the strippers.”

  I stopped short of the door. “Which one of the strippers?”

  “Cherry Collins,” McClosky said.

  Chapter Ten

  APRIL HOLLIDAY LIVED in the world of the Club Nocturne, but Gladys Pearson lived in an apartment unit on Inglewood Avenue in Hawthorne, California. I wanted to see her, not merely because she’d pointed a manicured finger at me, but because she might know some other people she could point at.

  The apartment was a recent development. It had the smell and the look of newness, and the exotic tropical plants looked fresh from a nursery. I parked the Chevvy out front, and glanced down the street. A familiar late-model Ford was parked a hundred feet away, its driver studying a newspaper. MacPherson hadn’t lost interest.

  I walked up the sidewalk to apartment four and knocked.

  Nobody answered, so I knocked again. After a few more knocks, somebody yelled, “Okay, okay, hold your horses, I’m coming.” And the door opened.

  It was April Holliday ladies and gentlemen—or more specifically, Gladys Pearson. She was wearing a terrycloth bathrobe which was slightly damp. Dribbles of water were still on her face, and she dabbed at them with a towel in her hand. I was glad to see I wasn’t the only one who had to stop showering to answer a telephone or a doorbell.

  “Yeah?” she said.

  It was obvious I didn’t impress her. Sometimes it takes time.

  I yanked out my card and flashed it at her. “Detective,” I said. “I’d like to ask you a few questions.”

  “Let’s see that again,” she said, suspiciously.

  Meekly, I pulled out my wallet again and handed it to her. “Mark Wonder, eh?” she said. “You’re the guy that was with Jake the night he was murdered.”

  “So I hear,” I said. “It was only a coincidence, though, and very bad timing on my part. The fact is, Miss Pearson, I didn’t kill Jake, and if you don’t mind I’d just as soon not get the gas chamber for it.”

  “So what do you want with me?”

  “Like I said, I want to ask you a few questions.”

  “I told the police all I know,” she said. “Look, Mr. Wonder, I’ve got my beauty sleep to catch up on—”

  “You look great to me,” I said, leering. She wasn’t bad, really, except she looked a little tired. Show biz was sometimes like that, a rough haul. Her hair was pinned back and she wasn’t wearing any makeup. That helped. “Besides, the police and I aren’t on friendly terms anymore. I just want to talk to you for a few minutes. Maybe I can get a lead on who really killed Jake. Please?”

  “Well, okay,” she said, opening the door, “come on in. But just for a few minutes. I got my reputation to think of.” I went in. She closed the door behind us and said, “Grab a chair.” I grabbed one, and she said, “I’ll be back,” and went into the bathroom and closed the door. I heard water running.

  She came out a couple of minutes later, her hair combed out and hanging down to her shoulders and lipstick and eyebrows where Max Factor intended them to be. She was still wearing the bathrobe. It was tied around her middle with a piece of terrycloth material, and when she walked her bare legs showed. She didn’t have bad legs, I noticed as she flopped down on the couch opposite me.

  “Now,” she said, “what was it you wanted to ask me?”

  “Do you have any idea who might have killed Jake Richey?” I said.

  She thought about that for a minute. “No,” she decided. “You’re the only one I ever heard threaten to kill him.”

  “Jake must’ve had enemies,” I said.

  She shrugged. “Everybody’s got enemies. Besides, somebody was always sore at Jake, even Mike once in a while—Mike was Jake’s assistant—but I don’t know of anybody sore enough to kill him. If it wasn’t you, maybe it was a burglar.”

  “Maybe,” I said, doubting it. “Has anybody been sore at Jake lately?”

  “Practically everybody. Jake’s been out of sorts these past few weeks. You can blame Cherry Collins for that.”

  “How do you mean?”

&nb
sp; “Jake was nuts about the girl. All she’d have to say was ‘Jump!’ and up he’d go. I don’t see why, myself, her with that fake red hair and all, but he was, and she was giving the poor guy a bad time. You know, flirting with other guys and stuff like that. She even brought one of her boy friends to the club, I guess to show him off and get Jake jealous. And she’d hold out on Jake, you know, get him interested and all hot and then pretend she wasn’t that kind of a girl.” Apparently Gladys was pretty good at looking under windowshades, too.

  “Did anyone get into an argument with Jake last night? Besides me, I mean?”

  “Nobody I know of. I left about one or so with Mike—that’s Jake’s assistant—and he stopped in for a nightcap. Somebody might have gotten into an argument with Jake then.”

  And won it, I thought grimly.

  “You did mention that Cherry brought in one of her boy friends. Do you know who he is?”

  “No. He’d been in, off and on, before Cherry came to work at the Nocturne. I guess she picked him up there. He never went back to see Jake, though.”

  Jake did a lot of social butterflying at the club, table hopping and bar drifting, so I knew the two men could still have had words together. It was worth a try.

  “Would you remember the man if you saw him again?”

  “I guess so. He was tall, good-looking, with wavy black hair. Nothing unusual about him, except he was big, taller than you. I overheard him talking to Cherry a few times, but it was just talk, you know, conversation.”

  “Anything about the way he was dressed? Did he have an accent of any kind, or maybe a drawl?”

  I wasn’t sure what I was aiming for there, but whatever it was it fizzled. Gladys shook her head.

  “Do you think he might have done it?” she asked.

  “Anybody might have done it,” I said. “That’s one of the problems.” I got up to go. “Well, thanks very much, Miss Pearson, you’ve been very cooperative.”

  She accompanied me to the door. “Glad to help.” She stared at me. “Are you sure you didn’t do it?”

  “Almost positive,” I said.

  I returned to the Chevvy, and my companion in the Ford followed me over to Westchester. I was wondering if Gladys Pearson had helped me in some way I couldn’t recognize right then and there. It certainly didn’t seem so. One thing was certain: Cherry was in this mess up to her eyebrows.

  I parked the car and thought briefly of inviting my follower up for a drink. But I had other business to attend to, so I went up to my apartment and attended to it.

  I called Cherry.

  “Mark!” Cherry enthused, hearing my voice. “Are you all right? I was worried about you being in jail.”

  “I bribed Lieutenant MacPherson,” I said, hoping the conversation was being taped as well as monitored. No one would believe it, of course, but it would embarrass my old police buddy, and was worth something. “Cherry, I’ve got to talk to you. How about having dinner together tonight?”

  “Sure, Mark. What time?”

  “About eight,” I said. It would be dark then. “I’ve got some stuff to do, though. Could you meet me at Lococo’s on Pacific Coast Highway. I’ll explain there.”

  “Okay, Mark, anything you say. It’s wonderful hearing your voice again. You are okay, aren’t you?”

  “Never felt better. See you at eight.”

  I hung up, certain that Cherry wouldn’t be the only one waiting for me at eight. I was looking down at the phone when it rang.

  “Mr. Wonder?” a female voice said. “This is Jenny Abernathy.”

  “Yes, Mrs. Abernathy,” I said. This was another thing I wasn’t prepared to discuss over the telephone. “I’m in the middle of a shower. Could I call you back later?” From a pay phone, I added silently.

  “I want you to come out to the house tonight,” she said. “I have something for you.”

  “I can’t tonight,” I said. “I already have an engagement.”

  “Tonight, Mr. Wonder,” she insisted gently. “It’s about the money you want.”

  There was the magic word again. I wondered specifically what money she was talking about, but I didn’t want MacPherson and Company to know, too, so I didn’t ask. I said, “I’ll see what I can do,” and hung up.

  If all goes well tonight, Mrs. Abernathy, I told the cradled phone, you’ll get your pictures of hubby, and they’ll curl your hair right down to the roots.

  I took a shower, changed my sweat-damp underwear, put on a new tie and went out into the world again, this time for the evening meal. I parked so no one in the restaurant could see my car, then I went in and climbed aboard a stool. Mr. Police Detective came in and sat at one end of the counter, ordered a coffee, and looked interested in his newspaper. Maybe he was interested in it. Tailing can be a monotonous job.

  I never did much tailing in the old days when I was a cop. A cop in uniform stands out like a blue thumb. There was this time, though, when Paul Williams and I were on a beat together, cruising the streets in East Los Angeles, when a young kid snatched a purse from a lady waiting for the bus. He ducked down an alley and we couldn’t follow him by car, so we went after him on foot. He was so anxious to get away he didn’t even know we were after him. If he did, he might have gotten away. We followed him to a shabby rooming house, up a flight of stairs, and caught a glimpse of him going into one of the rooms.

  We broke down the door and found the lad busy heating some white powder with a liquid in a spoon and a weasel standing nearby counting out money. An empty purse was on the only table in the room.

  The weasel went for a gun and Paul shot him. The kid just kept heating the stuff in the spoon, licking his lips, hoping he could get a fix without us stopping him. He hoped wrong. We stopped him, and he cried and then he swore and tried to tear my groin apart with his foot. I remember wondering what kick this stuff had that would make a guy louse up his life for it.

  The kid was fifteen.

  We searched the place and unearthed hidden quantities of heroin and several hypodermic needles. Taped under mirrors, hidden in scooped-out doortops, sunk in toilet tanks. We confiscated the stuff and took it back to headquarters.

  Most of it, anyway. Paul turned all his in. He never was as morbidly curious as I was. I had to satisfy my curiosity, and I did. Dozens of times.

  I finished the meal and sat drinking my coffee, thinking about how nice it would have been if I hadn’t done such a crazy-fool thing and if Edie were around. Maybe I could do right next time around.

  After awhile, I put some money on the counter and got up. Friend detective at the end of the counter rattled his newspaper closed, then relaxed as he saw me heading toward the door marked MEN.

  Once inside the washroom, I hooked the door latch and turned toward the window, half open at the top. I opened it from the bottom and looked out into an alleyway bordering an empty field. I went through the window as quietly as I could, ducked down the alley and around the building to my car. I got in and rode past the restaurant. The detective was getting up from his stool, apparently having decided he’d better check me. Then I roared away into the sunset toward Santa Monica.

  I’d told Cherry I’d meet her at a place down on Pacific Coast Highway near Manhattan Beach. This wasn’t even partially true, but I felt no pangs of conscience. I hadn’t seen Mr. Abernathy or Mr. Orangutan in some time, and I wanted to get that film before those two got to me. If I could get the film tonight, Mrs. Abernathy would have the merchandise shortly thereafter, and I would have another unhappy, satisfied customer.

  I parked on a side street in Santa Monica, just around the corner from the Park Vista Apartments, then got out and strolled up the street, where I did some loitering at a spot from which I could see Cherry’s apartment. There was a light on there. It was seven o’clock, and the sky was rapidly darkening as the sun drowned itself in the ocean behind the hill. Cherry would have to leave sometime during the next half hour if she wanted to meet me at Lococo’s.

  The sky turned
black and stars came out. I tried to find the North Star by tracing the end stars of the big dipper, but all I got in my sights was a television antenna on a nearby roof. I guess I’m not very scientific.

  In about fifteen minutes, the door to Cherry’s apartment opened, spilling light. I cursed myself for not seeing who it was during that instant the door was open, because it wasn’t Cherry. Somebody was going down the stairs. Then he—or she—was lost behind some foliage. I dashed across the street to get a closer look, and hid behind a palm tree just as a small black sports car came barreling out the driveway, lights blazing, turned into the street and roared from sight.

  The technique reminded me of Dody. I felt a sinking feeling in my stomach considering the possibility she might be the driver. I hoped not. I liked her. I didn’t want her mixed up in this at all.

  A few minutes later, the light in Cherry’s apartment winked out, and Cherry appeared in the darkened doorway. She was dressed in shining white, and in the dim starlight she looked very nice. Cherry Collins, a spiked drink. She closed the door, tried it, then clicked her way along the lighted balcony and down the stairs. She drove out a bit more slowly, as though she didn’t have a date with a great guy like me.

  Then I got out of the bushes and walked up the stairs, along the balcony. There was a screened window on each side of the door and both of them were letting in the night air. I took out my car key, poked a hole in the screen at the bottom where it joined the wood frame; then I reached in and unlatched the hook from the eye. The screen swung open and I ducked under it and through the window, knocking over an end table. I rehooked the screen; you never can tell when a burglar might happen along.

  I pulled the shades, turned on the lights, and returned the end table to its rightful place. Things looked pretty much the way they had the other night, except without any booze or women to distract me, things looked a lot clearer.

  I searched the bedroom first. I found the usual feminine things, but no camera, no film. In the drawer of the bed headboard I found a tiny Browning automatic .25 made in Belgium, loaded and ready to go at the flip of the safety. I put it in my pocket; when I saw Cherry again, I wanted to know where that was.