Sed Another Hearse Read online

  “You can’t,” Vickie told her. “The nurse has strict orders.”

  “From whom? Lorraine?”

  She said the name with a kind of acid contempt, with a biting malice that surprised me.

  “And the doctor,” Gil Dodd said.

  “Is Lorraine with him now?”

  “She’s with him all the time. Nobody else can get near him.”

  Barbara’s mouth tightened. “We’ll see about that.” She started resolutely for the door. The rest of the pack shook their heads and went after her.

  I caught hold of Adam’s arm in the street. “Hold it a minute. Do you know a girl named Kate Wallace?”

  He looked at me oddly. “What about her?”

  “There was a letter under Varney’s door with her name and a return address in Brooklyn on the envelope.”

  He nodded solemnly. “It’s no secret. Kate Wallace was one of the reasons Barbara left Dan. She was Varney’s girlfriend.”

  “Close?”

  “Very.”

  “Then I guess I’ll have a chat with her.”

  Gil Dodd had flagged a cab and got the girls installed. He was holding the door open and whistling for Adam.

  “I’ll call you later,” Adam said and hurried to join his relatives.

  I watched the cab pull away. The family had been estranged from their father for some time now, disowned when he’d married a younger woman. But loss of their inheritance had evidently not canceled a deep-rooted filial devotion.

  4

  Brooklyn is a large borough inhabited by many citizens with a variety of dialects. It can be reached by boat, bridge, tunnel or helicopter. It has a fine botanical garden, an excellent library, several colleges, a zoo and some fine residential areas.

  Brooklyn Heights is one of them. Just across the bay from Manhattan, it commands a spectacular view of New York Harbor with its vaulting skyline. And between the buildings a pedestrian can see the Statue of Liberty thrusting her torch skyward.

  I found Kate Wallace’s building, a medium-size structure, once elaborately elegant, now merely respectable. I was eager for a look at the girl, curious to see what attractions would lead a man to stray from the fireside with homework like Barbara around. But this was not my day. I rang for two full minutes and then gave up. Nobody home.

  So I vacated the premises and took a subway back to the office.

  Cassidy was at her desk. She caught my beckoning nod and followed me with a stenographic pad and several newly sharpened pencils. She sat in the red leather client’s chair and watched me reach for the phone. I dialed a number and waited for the laconic voice. It came on the first ring.

  “Hello, Max,” I said. “Can you stop by here?”

  “When?”

  “Soon as possible. I have a job for you.”

  “Twenty minutes.” Max Turner disgorged words with all the prodigal abandon of a slot machine.

  I hung up. Cassidy had a pencil poised over her pad, ready for hieroglyphics. I gave her the title of the action: Fred Duncan v Adam Coleman. And then I started dictating an answer to the summons and complaint that had been served on Adam.

  I entered a general denial, knowing that we really didn’t have a leg to stand on. Adam owed the money and eventually, unless we found Varney, he would have to pay it. It was a frivolous defense, without merit. And if Duncan’s lawyer was on his toes, he would probably make a motion to strike the answer and award his client summary judgment.

  Cassidy got it all on the first take. Her shorthand was precise and accurate. “All right,” I told her. “Type it up. The original goes to court and a copy to opposing counsel.”

  She sighed with the air of a martyr. Cassidy possessed a unique temperament, compounded oddly enough from equal parts of dour cynicism and unflagging romanticism. Right now the cynicism prevailed.

  “Just once,” she said, “I would like to see the cards stacked in our favor. A client with a clear-cut case. How come we always get the impossible ones?”

  “Not always,” I said. “And besides, when did we lose a case?”

  “When? Two weeks ago. My God, you have a short memory.”

  I grimaced painfully and gave her an aggrieved look. It was not a pleasant reminder. But Cassidy could afford to take liberties. She was practically a member of the firm. I had inherited her from my first and only employer, Oliver Wendell Rogers, when the old boy retired after forty years in practice, leaving me in charge, with the privilege of hanging out my own shingle.

  I could easily have found someone more decorative. But never as efficient or loyal. She was that rare commodity, a secretary with experience, wisdom, and initiative. And she knew that reminding me of an occasional setback was probably good for my immortal soul.

  She took the notes out to her own typewriter and reappeared almost instantly. “Max is here.”

  “Send him in.”

  Max Turner was a private detective who had performed sundry chores for me in the past. He was an angular man, unassuming and self-effacing. His face had no distinguishing characteristics outside of a fairly prominent nose. His manner was habitually noncommittal. Below the surface, however, there was a hard, practical core. He had tenacity, intelligence and a filing-card memory. And the ability to get at the crux of a problem without a long, time-consuming explanation.

  He listened to me with his eyes half-closed and opened them when I finished. “So we have to find Dan Varney.”

  “Yes. I suggest you canvass airlines, railroads, bus depots… You know the procedure.”

  He knew it, and he also knew the difficulties involved. Possibly hundreds of thousands of people entering and leaving New York every twenty-four hours, a nameless, faceless horde, vast and hardly identifiable to clerks or ticket sellers.

  “Are we looking for a live body?” Max asked.

  “Let’s proceed on that assumption,” I said. “He probably left the same day he cashed the check, which should narrow it down somewhat.”

  Max nodded. “Any romantic entanglements?”

  “Only one, apparently. A girl named Kate Wallace. I’ll tackle her myself.”

  “Naturally.”

  I ignored it. “And, Max, put a couple of men on it, if necessary.”

  “Good men are expensive.”

  “Do you need any money?”

  “An itemized bill will arrive in due course.”

  “Keep it down as much as possible. Our client is not a rich man.”

  Max tapped his forehead, recallingly. “Adam Coleman. Sounds familiar? Any relation to M. Parker Coleman, the hotel tycoon?”

  “His son.”

  Max raised an eyebrow. “What do you mean, he isn’t rich.”

  “The father is rich,” I said. “Not the son.”

  “So? But I hear the old man isn’t long for this world.”

  “Who told you?”

  “Read it in one of the gossip columns.”

  I nodded. The old man had been a wheel and his name was still newsworthy. It would always be linked with the business he’d founded. The Coleman Hotels. A nice operation, nothing spectacular like the Hilton chain, but solid enough and agreeably profitable.

  M. Parker Coleman had been a client of Oliver Wendell Rogers. So naturally, working in the office, I knew something about his affairs. That, however, did not influence the old man one bit when Rogers had retired. He did not keep me on as counsel for the hotels, except for scraps and minor matters like answering a summons for icy sidewalks. The plums went to a large Wall Street firm with nine partners and two floors in a brand-new skyscraper.

  The plums wouldn’t have lasted anyway. Old M.P. was no longer active. The combination of a new wife and an old cardiac flutter had dissipated his energies and curbed his enterprise. A fresh management team had taken over, leaving the old boy enough leisure to indulge his spouse and count his dividends.

  Max said, “Your client will be rich if Papa Coleman dies.”

  “Afraid not,” I told him. “Adam objected to the second marriage. He did not appreciate the lady’s qualities. He went even further. He insulted the bride outrageously.”

  “Not very tactful.”

  “To say the least. It got him tossed out of the ancestral homestead on his ear.”

  “And the other children?”

  “Two daughters. Both of them jumped to Adam’s defense and got the same medicine.”

  “Disinherited?”

  “Without a button, I’m told.”

  “Tough.” Max stretched and got to his feet and shambled to the door. “I’ll keep in touch, Counselor,” he said and left.

  There was some comfort in knowing that Max was on the case. If persistence and resourcefulness could dig up any information, we’d have a line on Dan Varney in due time.

  Alone, I checked the telephone directory, got the number of St. John’s Hospital and dialed. I told the switchboard girl I wanted to inquire about the condition of Mr. M. Parker Coleman. As expected, she connected me with the floor nurse. I apologized, informed her that it was urgent, and asked her to please page Adam Coleman. “I believe he’s in the waiting room,” I said.

  “Yes, he is. I’m very sorry, sir. But we can’t tie up this line.”

  “I understand. However, this is an emergency. Would you ask him to use a booth and call his lawyer?”

  She agreed and broke the connection. Three minutes later my phone rang and it was Adam. “Scott?” he said hopefully. “Something to report? Have you found Dan?”

  “I’m not a magician,” I said. “I merely called you there to save time. About this girl, Kate Wallace, any idea where she works?”

  “Hold on. I’ll ask Barbara.”

  Silence for a space while static crackled over the wires, and then he was back. “Are you listening,
Scott?”

  “Shoot.”

  “Kate Wallace works for an advertising agency. Mitchell, Bodner and Olds.”

  “I know the outfit. Incidentally, where is Barbara staying?”

  “At the Madison.”

  “I’d like to ask her some questions about Varney. Find out if she’ll be free later.”

  I heard the squeak of hinges on the booth door and then the muffled sound of voices.

  “Scott?” It was Barbara this time.

  “Yes.”

  “How about cocktails at five-thirty?”

  “Fine.”

  “See you then.”

  The prospect added flavor to the day.

  5

  Mitchell, Bodner and Olds had leased a floor in one of those hammered-aluminum buildings along Madison Avenue. This was the communications belt, where copywriters toiled, extolling the products of American enterprise, stimulating consumer desire, whetting the acquisitive instinct, intoxicating the eye with pictures and multiplying installment credit.

  Ad Alley.

  Ulcer Gulch.

  Mitchell, Bodner and Olds. Ascending in the elevator I tried to recall what I knew of the firm. The name itself was a vestigial remainder. Mitchell was dead, Bodner had retired, and Olds, although sticking around as chairman of the board, had relinquished control to younger hands. While not one of the advertising giants, it still billed a substantial fifty million a year. Cigarettes, toothpaste, department stores, deodorants.

  The elevator discharged me on the twenty-second floor into a walnut-paneled reception room that fairly trumpeted prosperity. A very trim item of female confection sat behind the desk wearing a perpetual smile.

  “May I help you, sir?”

  “I’d like to see Miss Wallace.”

  “About which account, sir?”

  “Tell her the Varney account.”

  She looked faintly puzzled. “I don’t seem to recall… I think you’d better talk to Mr. Alex Olds.”

  “No, ma’am,” I said. “Kate Wallace.”

  “But she doesn’t work here any more. She left several days ago. I’m sure Mr. Olds can—”

  “All right,” I interrupted. “Mr. Olds will do fine.”

  She got busy on the intercom and arranged it. Soon a girl emerged from the inner recesses and offered to show me the way. I followed her along a corridor with closely spaced doors on either side, some mute, some chattering with typewriters.

  The drones behind them had an important job. They had to keep the wheels of industry rolling. They had to make the great, gullible American public want stuff it didn’t need. Keep the iron rolling out of Detroit. A good automobile year stimulates the entire economy. Planned obsolescence. One-year-old models superseded by mass-produced, chrome-plated, rocket-inspired, road-choking monstrosities. The tattooed male is a sure sign of masculinity; smoke the same brand. The rhapsodically beautiful girl swills beer; drink the same brew. Every plumber can smell like a rose. Every housewife can prepare a gastronomic delight from a can of peas and a package of frozen lead. Thrift is out of fashion. Buy, buy, buy…

  At the end of the corridor my guide opened a door and ushered me into a sizable room. Behind the desk a man was busy at the telephone. Mr. Alex Olds, son of one of the founders, was par for the advertising course. A perennially youngish party, with the standard longish hair and three-piece suit. But there was nothing standard in his bright, quick-moving eyes and the restless energy that kept him shifting about in his chair while he talked.

  “…Well, of course,” he said. “We wanted the campaign to be an absolute triumph. We spent three days finding the right model and the proper accessories and what happened? The presses gave her a double mouth. Two sets of lips and neither one the right color. I tell you, I was demolished… Oh, yes, I raised hell and the magazine promised us a rerun at no expense.” He listened a moment, hung up and heaved a colossal sigh.

  His fingers plucked fruitlessly at his pockets.

  “Have you got a cigarette?”

  I gave him one and snapped my lighter.

  He inhaled hungrily and kept the smoke in his lungs. “God, if our client caught me smoking this brand he’d cut out my heart and throw it away.” He released some of the smoke. “What’s this about a Varney account?”

  “Just a ruse to get in,” I said. “I’m trying to find out what happened to Kate Wallace.”

  He shook his head sadly. “There was a girl, that Kate Wallace. Great copy chief. One of the best. Imaginative, original, full of ideas. Had a big future here, I don’t mind saying, and I hated like the devil to lose her. When she walked in out of a clear blue sky and told me she was quitting I almost collapsed. I figured the competition was raiding our talent. I offered her more money, a lot more. Couldn’t even tempt her. Said she was tired. Said she wanted to get away. I offered her a vacation—with pay, two weeks, three weeks. No soap. I offered her a leave of absence, told her to write her own ticket…” He threw his hands up in a gesture of total despair.

  “And?” I prompted.

  “Nothing. She promised to think it over. But first she wanted to get out of town.”

  “Where?”

  “I tried to worm it out of her, hoping to keep in touch. But she wouldn’t say. She seemed secretive and she had this crazy compulsion to leave at once. Sure took me by surprise, even though I noticed she’d been nervous lately, always on edge. But that’s more or less standard in this business. We’re always under a strain. Kate especially. She took a real beating as copy chief. Caught the full impact from our clients. They foot the bill, they think they’re advertising geniuses. Always coming up with some half-baked idea they’re sure will move merchandise. You get a deodorant manufacturer to sponsor a television show and right away he’s a producer, a story editor, a director, a set designer and a casting expert.”

  Alexander Olds stroked his closed eyelids.

  “Headaches, ulcers and insomnia. What a racket! You think brilliance is important? Original ideas? You’re off-base, friend. Soft-soaping the client is more important. Keeping some lardy buffoon happy is more important. That’s my job. And it was Kate’s job, too. God, I’m gonna miss that girl. She had the gift, believe me, and genuine talent is a dwindling commodity in this business.”

  He glanced at my card again. “Lawyer, eh? What did you want to see her about, Mr. Jordan?”

  “A confidential matter,” I said. “Could you tell me this—does she have any family?”

  “Yes. Her parents live in Ormont, Upstate New York.” The phone rang and he snatched it like an anteater. “Olds speaking.” His face changed and his eyes went to the ceiling and his voice purred. “Yes, of course, Mr. Frankel. I see your point. You don’t like the layout; we’ll develop another angle. I’ll have the art department stick with it all night if necessary and you can have another presentation tomorrow morning. Absolutely. Not later than ten o’clock. Goodbye, Mr. Frankel.”

  He hung up and appealed to me. “See what I mean? Let me tell you something, Mr. Jordan—”

  But I was already on my feet, palm up and facing him. “You’ve given me too much of your valuable time already, Mr. Olds. Thanks a million. No, don’t bother. I can find the way.”

  He had his problems and I had mine. The man exhausted me. I guess there is no easy way to make money except to inherit it. Which reminded me, for some reason, of Barbara Coleman.

  I glanced at my watch and saw that it was almost five-thirty.

  6

  “There’s been a change in plans,” Barbara told me on the house phone. “Come on up.”

  Her room at the Madison was in a state of disorder. A huge wardrobe trunk gaped open, fully packed. On the bed, two large suitcases bulged with feminine attire. Various other articles were scattered about. She brushed a wisp of auburn hair from her forehead and smiled.

  “This won’t take long. I’m almost finished.”

  “Moving?” I asked.

  “Yes. Back to the apartment. So long as it’s available there’s no point in staying here. I hate hotels. Both Dan and I signed the lease. Besides, it’s a rent-controlled building. I’d never be able to duplicate—why are you staring?”

  “You look different,” I said.

  She did indeed. The highly fashioned suit had been discarded for a simple cotton frock. The artfully shadowed makeup had been washed away. The ultrasmart, glittering facade was gone. There was a wholesome outdoor look about her now—a look of sailing boats and green hills and open country roads.