1974 - Goldfish Have No Hiding Place (7 page)

I lifted my hands and let them drop on my desk.

“I'll see Gordy tonight. Maybe I'll get an angle.” I looked at my watch. The time was 19.15. “Have dinner with me, Jean.”

“Thank you, but I have things to do at home.”

I so badly wanted her company.

“Oh, come on. Let's go to Luigi again.”

She looked steadily at me, her dark eyes remote.

“Don't you think you should see your wife?” There was a tiny emphasis oil the word “wife” that wasn't lost on me.

“I'll be home. Call me after you have seen Gordy,” and she was gone.

She was right, of course. I had no claim on her, married as I was to Linda.

I waited until I heard her leave the office, then after a moment's hesitation, I put on the shoulder holster, again checked the gun, turned off the lights, locked up and went down to the Eat's bar across the street for a lonely, depressing dinner.

***

It was 20.10 as I walked over to my car. I planned to drive home, see if there was any mail, get out the plan of the estate and locate Gordy's house, then go and see him.

“Hi, Steve!”

I turned.

Harry Mitchell was leaning out of the window of his Jaguar. He was two or three years older than myself: a big, rangy man with a pleasantly ugly face. He was a top class golfer and popular at the Country club.

I crossed over to his car.

“Sorry about Linda's mother. Is she bad?”

For a moment I didn't know what he was talking about, then I remembered I had told Ernie Mayhew the reason why I wanted money fast was because Linda's mother needed an emergency operation. Ernie must have told his wife and she had passed on the news.

“Not so good.”

“Pam has been trying to get Linda. We guessed she's upped and left you to look after her mother.”

“That's it. She shouldn't be too long.”

“Can't have you being lonely, Steve. Come and join us tonight.”

“Thanks, Harry, but this gives me the chance to catch up with my backlog.”

He grinned.

“That's something I never get the chance of doing. If Pam's mother got ill and Pam had to go off, I guess I'd finally clear my desk.” He laughed. “The old trout hasn't been ill for fifty years. Why not look in anyway?”

“I won't, Harry.”

“Got over the flu?”

“Sure: short and sharp.”

“When you call Linda, give her our love. How's about tomorrow night?”

“Let's see how it goes, huh?”

“Sure. You're doing a fine job on that mag. Even I read it.” He waved and drove away.

I drove home. Cissy had been in. She had cleared up the kitchen and flicked dust around. I found the afternoon mail on the table. Most of the mail was for Linda who loved writing letters.

I decided it was an excuse to go over to Lucilla's place. I still had time before I saw Gordy. I dug out the plan of the estate. Gordy's house was tucked away at the end of East Avenue. I decided I would walk there. There was no point in anyone seeing my car outside his place.

I found wearing the gun uncomfortable so I took it off and dropped the gun and the harness on the settee. Then I drove over to Lucilla's place. She opened the door.

“Surprise . . . surprise: here's the wife beater,” she said with a cynical smile.

“I want a word with Linda.”

“She's in the living room. I'm cooking dinner: sorry I can't invite you: there's only enough for two. Go ahead, Steve,” and she went away.

I walked into the living room. Linda, in a nightdress and wrap she had borrowed from Lucilla, reclined on the settee.

Her eye was bandaged. She regarded me stonily with her other eye.

“Here are some letters for you.” I dropped the letters by her side. “To try to raise the blackmail money I told Mayhew I needed money fast because your mother had to have an emergency operation. The news has spread as it always does on this goddam estate. Right now, you're supposed to be with your mother in Dallas.”

“Must you have dragged mother into this?” Her voice was shrill.

“I'm seeing Gordy tonight. I have only been able to raise three thousand dollars. He'll want more, of course, but he might just wait. If he won't wait, I am going to sell your car and the jewellery I've given you and anything else we have that could fetch money.”

Her one eye flashed and her mouth turned into a thin line.

“You don't touch my car nor my jewellery! They belong to me!”

I looked down at her. I couldn't understand how I had ever been in love with her.

“I'll see you after I have talked to him. We can then decide. You may, of course, prefer to go to prison.”

As I started towards the door, she said viciously, “I hope that Kesey bitch is taking care of you.”

“Don't make yourself more hateful than you already are,” I said and went back to my car.

As I reached my house, I saw a car parked outside.

“Hi, Steve! I was wondering where you had got to.”

Frank Latimer came out of the shadows as I pulled up.

Latimer was a successful insurance broker. He was around forty years of age, balding, potbellied but good fun.

“I heard the news about Linda's mum and I thought, as I was passing, I'll see if you felt like joining us for dinner. Sally has been on a shopping spree so we're eating late.”

“Thanks, Frank. I've already eaten. I've got a whale of a lot of work to do.”

“Yeah . . . I can imagine. That mag of yours is just dandy. Well, I thought I'd stop by. If there's anything we can do . . .”

“It's all under control. Linda will be back soon and Cissy is looking after me.”

“You know where we are if you want us.”

When he had driven away, I put my car in the garage.

According to Wally's report which Jean had told me about, Sally, Frank's wife, had been stealing. I wondered if Gordy had put the bite on him and if he was going to pay or had paid.

I looked at my watch. The time was 20.50: time I went to see Gordy. I locked up the garage, then walked down the avenue, passing the lighted windows of my neighbours, hearing the sound of television sets and wondering how Gordy would react when I offered him only three thousand dollars.

Turning to my right brought me to East Avenue.

According to the plan of the estate, Gordy's house was some two hundred yards at the far end.

I quickened my pace. The avenue housed the cheaper villas on the estate and was not all that well lit. I came suddenly on a figure who emerged from the shadows, a spaniel dog at his heels. I recognised Mark Creeden: a tall, heavily built man in his early sixties.

Creeden was regarded by those living in Eastlake as the Czar of the estate. He was nearly as wealthy as Chandler and his house, I knew, cost four times the amount I had paid for mine. He ran a Rolls Corniche and his wife, Mabel, a Bentley T. Although both of them were a little regal, they entertained so lavishly, they were popular, but not really liked.

He stopped and peered at me. His over-red face creased into his wide, rather patronising grin.

“Hello, Steve! What are you doing out here?”

“Taking a walk to solve a problem,” I said, wishing I hadn't run into him.

“Nothing like a walk to solve a problem. I'm exercising the dog. Mabel buys him and I have to do all the work.” He laughed his jolly laugh: the sort of laugh ambassadors use to get a party going. “When are you two nice people coming to see us?”

“I guess when we are invited. Right now, Linda is in Dallas. Her mother is sick.”

“Is that right? I'm sorry. There's a lot of illness around. So you are on your own?”

“Gives me a chance to catch up with my work.”

“That's a fine magazine you're producing, Steve. I read every word. I won't keep you. I'll get Mabel to give you a call. We should see more of you both.” More ambassador's talk. He bent to pat the spaniel. I thought it was a pity there were no press photographers to register the scene. “Bye now, Steve.” He waved his hand as if leaving on a train and walked on.

I stared after him.

A coincidence?

First, Frank Latimer: now Mark Creeden. According to Wally, both these men's wives had been stealing from the Welcome store.

I wondered if Creeden had just left Gordy. Had he paid blackmail money to buy a strip of damaging film?

I moved on. I had some trouble finding Gordy's small two-storey house. It was well off the road. About two hundred yards from the rear of the house was the goods entrance to the Welcome store. The big store was in darkness, but there was a light showing through the yellow curtains of the lower room of Gordy's house. The rest of the house was in darkness.

I walked up the path, lined by straggly rose bushes. I pressed the bell. Chimes sounded, then died away.

I was sweating slightly and my hands felt cold and clammy. My heart was beating with an uneven thump-thump-thump. I knew I was doing a crazy thing to come here and pay money to a blackmailer, but the alternative of going to the police, even though the article on Schultz had been shelved, was too dangerous for Linda: too dangerous for me too. This stupid, greedy thieving could leak back to Chandler, and then there would be a full stop to my career.

There was no answer to my ring, so I rang again. I looked down the short, dark path, uneasy that someone could be watching me.

When again there was no answer, I hesitated, then put my hand on the door handle, turned and gently pushed. The door swung open. I stood there, looking into a small lobby.

The light coming from the living room - the door was ajar - showed me a coat rack on which hung a shabby dustcoat and a shabbier hat.

Anxious not to be seen by any passerby, I moved into the lobby and closed the front door.

I wondered if Gordy lived alone. I wondered if he had a wife and if she knew he was a blackmailer.

“Gordy?”

I slightly raised my voice and waited.

I heard the sound of a refrigerator start up, but otherwise there was silence.

“Gordy?”

I moved to the door, tapped, then pushed it wide open.

How often have I read of this scene in books and seen it on television?

The shabby room with its fading, sun-bleached wallpaper, the ugly furniture, well used and much travelled, the cheap, well-worn rugs. There were two poor reproductions of Van Gogh's landscapes on the wall and a few tattered paperbacks huddled together on a shelf. A TV set, a half-empty bottle of scotch and on the overmantel, a French doll with black fuzz glued to her crotch. The trappings of a home, but not much of a home.

But the centrepiece of this sad, sordid room, held me.

Jesse Gordy sat facing me. His hands lay on the arms of the shabby chair. The front of his blue shirt and his shabby grey jacket were red with blood. At his feet was more blood: a small puddle in which one of his shoes rested.

His lips were drawn back, showing his yellow rat-like teeth in a snarl of hate and fear. His eyes glared at me: dead eyes, but still hating.

Paralysed with horror, I stared at him. Then the sound of the telephone bell made me stiffen. I looked around, my breathing quick and light. The telephone stood on a table by the dead man.

I stood there, listening to the bell until it finally stopped ringing.

Then in a panic, I started to leave. My immediate thought was to get away, but as I reached the front door, my shock began to recede and my mind began to function.

I paused.

Gordy had been murdered. Someone had either shot or stabbed him. Was that someone a man or a woman Gordy had been blackmailing? Was the film still in the house or had this someone taken it? If the police found the film, both Linda and I would have no future as we knew it now.

Shouldn't I search the house and try to find the film? If the film was found, every wife, photographed stealing, would be investigated by the police. She and her husband would be checked to see if she or he could have murdered Gordy.

Standing there, my mind racing, I suddenly realised that I could be suspect Number one. If questioned, Creeden would say he had met me going towards Gordy's house. I had the motive.

Creeden?

I thought of him as he had come down East Avenue, his spaniel at his heels. He could have killed Gordy. Yes, he fitted. He was big business and ruthless in spite of his ambassador's smile. Rather than let his wife be prosecuted for theft he would have thought nothing of killing a creep like Gordy.

Dare I stay and search the house? Suppose someone came and caught me? The film could be anywhere: cunningly hidden. It could take me hours to search the house.

As I started for the front door, I again paused.

Gordy had been expecting me. Wouldn't he have the snippet of film ready? Why should I care about the rest of the film? It was worth the risk to see if I could find the bit of film that involved Linda, but as I forced myself to turn back to the living room, I heard a car pull up outside the house.

I whirled around and dashed up the stairs, reaching the upper landing as the front door bell rang. I leaned against the banister rail, looking down into the half lit lobby, my heart hammering.

The bells chimed, then I hear the door push open.

“Jesse?” A woman's voice.

I peered over the rail and caught a glimpse of a woman who moved so swiftly into the living room I only got an impression of her: small, dark, wearing something dark. I heard her catch her breath, then her scream set my teeth on edge.

“Jesse!”

Slowly, silently, I began to descend the stairs.

“God!”

I heard her dialling. She could only be calling the police.

I was now in the lobby.

“It's murder!” Her voice was shrill and hysterical. “Send someone!”

I reached the door, moved silently into the warm darkness. I heard her screaming, “189, East Avenue! It's murder!”

I was ready to run, but instinct warned me. I paused long enough to whip out my handkerchief and wipe the front door handle, the only thing I had touched in the house, then I moved down the path and once on the road, I began to run.

I reached my house, breathless. I had met no one. It was television peak time and everyone, unless throwing a party, was indoors.