Shadow of a Tiger (9 page)

The bulky Captain tapped his window. The driver started the car, eased away heading downtown. Olsen had other work, but now I knew this case was bothering him. They were still at work, arrest or no arrest. It was hopeful. If I found anything at all, the police would at least listen.

Two hours later I sat down at Eugene Marais's silent desk and lit a cigarette. The desk was exactly as it had been the morning we found the pawn shop owner dead. So was the whole shop. Viviane Marais had not been in, it was too soon.

It hadn't helped me. In the two hours I had found nothing at all to back Jimmy Sung's story, or to show that anyone else had been in the shop. A pawn shop is a hard place to find clues. Too much junk. Anything could be meaningful or meaningless.

The back door locked with a bolt. It had been locked that morning, it was still locked. The alley cobbles showed nothing. The locked safe and overlooked cash drawer still stared at me. Eugene Marais's papers and account books didn't show he had given a Buddha to Jimmy Sung, but they didn't show he hadn't, either. Nothing had been written down about Paul Manet, or Claude Marais and his wife, or Charlie Burgos, or anyone.

I smoked, and looked around the back room, and looked out into the shop, and read the list of loot again. Not at once, not sudden, the odd fact seeped into my mind. There all along, it wasn't exactly a bolt of lightning. In police work, not much is. Just something that began to chew at my slow mind as I saw a high shelf of suitcases in the back room. A vacant space in the row of suitcases sort of winked at me.

I rechecked the list of loot. Yes, one suitcase was on the list. Last entry. Naturally, all the missing junk had to be carried away in something. Obvious, very normal, of course.

For a burglar who came to rob the pawn shop?

A burglar planning to loot a pawn shop, stopped by an unintended murder, but with robbery in mind before he arrived?

If I planned a robbery, I'd bring my own bag for the loot. Wouldn't anyone? Panic? But no bag or sack had been found in the shop. Only a missing suitcase from stock. So? So maybe it had not been a planned robbery at all.

I stubbed out my cigarette, lit another. Okay, I'd be scientific—make an assumption and see what it gave me. Assume—the killer did
not
come to rob the pawn shop. Why did he rob it, then? To make it look like a robbery-murder. A cover to hide the real motive. Illusion to make us look the wrong way.

Okay, did it help me? Who, why, when? No. Then what?

Well, if it was robbery only for cover, then the killer had no interest in the loot, didn't care a damn about it. In fact, the loot was a danger to the killer. He would dump it fast.

Get rid of the loot before anyone caught him with it—but not so that it could be found easily. That could spoil the robbery illusion. So, get rid of it, make sure it wasn't traceable to him, but make sure no one found it soon or ever.

Over a week now, and no loot found. So it had been well hidden—if I was right. Not in an alley nearby, not just tossed into a street—too easy for a chance pick-up and turn-in. Some garbage can? Garbage men look into suitcases, scavengers work all over the city hoping for a find like a suitcase, and the loot was a suspiciously odd bag. The sewers would be the first place the police would look, a suitcase doesn't fit down a grating, and a man feeding handfuls into a sewer would be a stand-out sight.

A killer in a hurry to fade away. A suitcase of loot. Get rid of it nearby, make sure it couldn't be traced back, and not have it found, hopefully, ever. Where?

A railroad baggage room? Police might check. Terminal or subway coin locker? Removed too soon, opened, reported. Hotel room, unclaimed baggage? They'd open the suitcase to look for identification and some address, and the contents would be very suspicious. Salvation Army? Maybe—but midnight or later?

Where?

12

I dropped the suitcase on Lieutenant Marx's desk at nine-thirty the next morning. I'd had a good night's sleep, and I was feeling good. As good as I could with Marty still gone and silent.

“It's all there,” I said, “except two watches that were sold. I checked the list.”

Marx opened the bag. “Sold? Two watches?”

“Salvation Army,” I said. “It was turned over to a porter at the men's flophouse near Cooper Square around one
A.M.
the night of the murder. Neat and smart, Marx. The man who handed it to the porter said he'd cleaned out his store, was leaving town early the next day, didn't have time to go to the big main store, but wanted the Salvation Army to have the stuff. The mission people sent it to the big store the next day.”

I lit a cigarette. “I was on the doorstep this morning when they opened. They had a record of the donation, it took an hour to round up the stuff on the list. The two watches were sold, but that accounts for all of it except the Buddha. If Jimmy Sung had pulled a smart trick like taking it all to that mission, would he have kept out the Buddha you'd be sure to find and trace to the list of loot? No.”

“You can't be sure, Dan. A drunk like Jimmy,” Marx said, but I could hear that his heart wasn't really in it now.

“I can be sure,” I said. “That porter who took the bag at the mission is a black wino. He was half in the bag, never really saw the man's face to remember, but he's sure of one thing if you want to get him down here.”

“What's he sure of?”

“That the generous donator was a ‘whitey,' yessir. ‘Ofay all the way, sure not one of our yellow brothers!' Couldn't say what the cat looked like, but he was sure a whitey.”

“A wino won't stand up as a witness.”

“He will with the rest, with Kandinsky breathing hard. Go ask the D.A. Jimmy didn't take that loot, Marx.”

Marx looked at the suitcase. “You've got luck, Dan.”

“Sometimes it takes a little luck,” I said. “Your jails are full of poor slobs, guilty and innocent, who had no luck.”

“No system's perfect,” Marx said.

“Besides, it wasn't all luck. Science, deduction, right?” I said. “Here's some more deductions. Jimmy Sung isn't the kind of man who'd steal, and now you've got the loot and a man who says Jimmy didn't have it. Jimmy's not a stupid man, he wouldn't have kept that Buddha from the loot, so Eugene Marais had to have given it to him as he says. If Jimmy had robbed that store, he'd have taken the cash, opened the safe. No jury will believe Jimmy Sung robbed the shop now, and what other motive could he have? Eugene Marais was his friend, a benefactor. We've got to believe, now, that Eugene was alive when Jimmy left. You can't hold him, Lieutenant. You had some doubts anyway.”

“I guess so,” Marx said after a moment. “So the robbery was a cover for murder. We did wonder.”

“A panic job, sloppy. If you wondered, maybe you were working on something else? What?”

Marx shook his head. “Nothing sure, not yet. Just a few doubts. Keep working.”

I was waiting downtown when Jimmy Sung came out. He blinked in the sun, like one of his own Buddhas in work clothes, but didn't stop walking. I fell in step along the hot, noontime street of the crowded, hurrying city.

“I want to talk to you, Jimmy.”

“I need a drink,” he said, not even looking at me.

He went straight to the first bar like a homing pigeon. The bartender served him his double vodka. Now his hands shook as he carried the glass to an empty booth in the long room of businessmen. I ordered a beer. In the booth, Jimmy took a long drink. And a second. Then he set the glass down, breathed.

“They let me go, hey?”

“They had to. You never robbed that shop.”

“You?”

“I helped, found the loot. They had doubts anyway.”

“No, you. Thanks.” He drank again.

“Thank the Marais women. They believed you.”

“Sure.” He finished his vodka.

“Jimmy, I want you to think about that night again. You were the only one to see Eugene Marais after ten o'clock.”

“That Charlie Burgos and Danielle was there.”

“But left before you. After that, you were the last to see Eugene Marais alive. You're sure you don't remember anything more than you've told me already?”

“Lemme think.”

Jimmy stood, walked to the bar. His hands were no longer shaking. He paid for another double vodka, came back to the booth. He drank, shook his head.

“No more than I told you. I left at eleven sharp, ran the bars, got drunk, went home.” He drank. “Maybe I saw Danielle and that Burgos out on the avenue around then, I ain't sure.”

“Doing what?”

He drank. “Nothing. Just hanging around.”

I drank. “Okay, Jimmy. Who killed him? Any ideas? You knew him. Any enemies? Threats? Worried about anything.”

“Last week or so, he was kind of moody.”

“About what?”

“I don't know, just something on his mind. Thinking about something. I need a drink.”

He went to the bar again. This time he had to count out change for his double vodka. He'd need me for a drink soon. When he came back, he was already swaying a little—the quick drunk of the alcoholic. He might pass out in ten minutes, or he might remain half drunk all day.

I said, “Was Eugene worried about Claude? Could Claude be mixed up in something? Maybe Eugene got in the way?”

“He worried about that Claude, all right. Didn't like him around the girl, Danielle; didn't like how he lived, doing nothing. I don't know about anything maybe happening.”

“You know anything about a Gerd Exner?”

Jimmy shook his head, drank. He was staring into his glass, his eyes dulling, filming over with the alcohol. I didn't have a lot of time to get something from him. Then, you never knew about an alcoholic. Sometimes they functioned long after they seemed out on their feet.

“How about Paul Manet?” I said.

“Manet?” Jimmy blinked into his glass, the Oriental eyes closing. “Maybe I heard some name like that. I don' know.” He shook his head, drank. “I don' know.”

I described the tall, aristocratic ex-hero. “He was in the shop around five the murder night.”

“Yeh, I remember. He closed the door when he was talking to Mr. Marais in the back room. That Claude come in, left the door open. They was talking about France, the old days, all like that. I didn't pay much notice. Some funny name, too.”

“Vel d'Hiv?”

“Maybe. Something like that.”

“Were they angry, arguing?”

“I don' know. I left pretty soon. After that Claude come in.” Jimmy drank, his head down now, hanging forward, the glass almost missing his mouth. “That Claude! No good, that one. Big hero. Medals for killin' peasants, coolies! Big Frenchie hero kills kids, marries girl-babies got no home. Bad man, no good. Steal women, steal everything!”

“Steal what, Jimmy? What did Claude Marais steal?”

“Everything,” Jimmy said, nodded violently, his vodka spilling over. “No good, Mr. Marais says so. No good.”

“What did Eugene say? Jimmy?”

He looked up at me, one eye closed, the open eye bright with drunken cunning. “Buy me a drink.”

I bought a double vodka, came back. “What did Eugene say?”

“Something,” Jimmy said, drank. “That Claude give him something. To hold. Who knows?”

His shoulders were down, his arms limp, a drunk smile on his broad face. I left him there. He was too far gone now. I didn't try to get him home, he wouldn't have gone. He could get home himself. He'd been doing it a long time.

13

At the Hotel Stratford desk, my clerk-friend, George Jenkins, told me that Li and Claude Marais had gone out together. I sat down in a corner of the small lobby to wait. I hadn't eaten any breakfast, in a hurry to get to the Salvation Army warehouse store, and the beer I'd had with Jimmy Sung was sloshing in emptiness. George Jenkins sent a bellman out to get me a sandwich.

I'd finished it, was thinking of maybe another, when Li Marais came into the lobby. She was half running, her face chalk white, looking only straight ahead. I didn't think she was seeing much. Her black hair was down on one side, and she wore her Chinese dress again. A long dress, narrow despite its slits. As I reached her near the elevator, she almost tripped on the confining skirt. I held her arm.

“Li?”

She looked up. “He … Claude …”

That was all she got out. People were watching. I got her into the elevator, and we rode up to the fourth floor. At her door, she fumbled in her bag. I took the bag, found her key, opened the door. Inside, she sat down on the edge of the couch. I closed the door. Her pale face was turned away, hidden by the loose black hair down on one side.

“He went toward the river,” she said, talking to the far wall away from me. “Claude. He walked away from me.”

“Trouble? The river?”

“I don't know. No, of course not.”

“I should call the police.”

She was silent. “No, let him be with himself. All these years of defeat he has never tried to die. He will not now.”

“Unless something's changed,” I said.

If she heard me, she gave no sign. “He was to be talked to for a job. A French company here. We walked together. A beautiful day, hot but beautiful. We had lunch outdoors, a small restaurant. We went to the French company. He would not go in. We stood there, and he would not go in. The people on the sidewalk pushed at us, walked around us. Claude turned from the building, walked toward the river. On a side street I begged him to return, talk to the French company. I cried. He said I should leave him, go home to Saigon, I was still young. I said that Saigon was not my home now, could never be. He said then I better find a home, go somewhere, find a man who was alive. He said he wanted to walk alone. He pushed me away when I tried to touch him, slapped me. He walked away from me. Toward the river.”