“How long has Ms. Rodgers been ill?” I said.
“Oh years and years,” said Martha. “She has a weak constitution.”
“Don’t we all,” said Beth.
Beyond the living room was a dark hallway, an eat-in kitchen to the right, a bathroom to the left, the hallway leading to a closed white door.
“Wait a moment,” said Martha as she opened the door and went through, shutting it behind her.
“Bev’s an invalid?” said Beth, quietly.
“Joey Cheaps, humanitarian,” I said. “Who knew?”
“All right, Mr. Carl,” said Martha, opening again the door. “Bev will see you now.” And then Martha opened the door wide and waved us in as if we were about to have an audience with the queen.
We stepped into a boudoir if ever there was one.
“You told Martha something about a will,” said a brightly lit woman sitting high in the bed, pillows fluffed all about her as if she were held aloft on a cloud, her voice as sharp and as grating as a cat with its tail pinned beneath a tire.
Bev Rodgers was a honey, all right, just as McDeiss had described her. She had short, coiffed blond hair, a pretty round face, and she wore a dressing gown trimmed with white fluff. She could have been anywhere between thirty and fifty, it was hard to tell with all the makeup so brightly and thickly applied. She had a mole, either natural or painted, beside her small shapely mouth, and she had a lit cigarette in an actual cigarette holder that she held between two crimson-tipped fingers. She looked like the lead in a Busby Berkeley musical and her voice was impossible.
“I’m very interested in wills,” she said. “I was hitched to one once, but that’s a short story. It’s Vic, isn’t it?” she said to me, her bright lips quivering as if to hypnotize.
“Yes, it is,” I said.
“Joey mentioned you. You’re the spieler, right? The one who’s been calling.”
“That’s right. Why didn’t you return my calls?”
“I don’t like the phone. Nothing good ever comes over the phone. And besides, I been ill.” She put a hand onto her forehead. “Oh Joey, dear, sweet Joey. What happened is tragic. Getting greased like that. Just tragic. I’m still not over it.” She took a drag from her cigarette holder, exhaled a thin plume of smoke. “Now, about the will. What did my little scrumpkins leave me?”
“Well, he didn’t mention you by name, Ms. Rodgers-”
“Call me Bev, Vic. We’re all chums here.”
“Thank you, Bev. And this is my partner, Beth Derringer.”
“Pleased to meet you, I’m sure,” said Bev, never taking her eyes off me, obviously not finding the female of the species worth a quiver of the lips.
“Joey didn’t mention you in the will by name, Bev, but he stated he wanted all his debts paid by the estate. And prior to his death he did mention you to me.”
“Something flattering, I hope.”
“Oh yes, yes indeed. In fact, he said he owed you much. And so I wondered if, by chance, what he owed you was money.”
“And if he did?”
“Well, then, Bev, you might be in line for certain disbursements.”
“Did you hear that, Martha. Disbursements. I like disbursements. Tell me, Vic. Did my scrumpkins have enough scratch to make these disbursements?”
“I think maybe yes,” I said, “if we can make our claims before his mother grabs everything she can.”
“Ah, the mother. I know all about her.”
“You’ve met her?”
“Not personally, no. But Joey, he spilled enough about her. And I know, Vic, that Joey, my Joey, would want me to get what I am owed before that vulture of a mother gets her mitts on anything. We were very close, Joey and myself. He wanted to marry me, and let me tell you, if I had known what was going to happen I would have said yes, believe me.”
“Oh I do, Bev. Yes I do. So you are owed money?”
“Of course.” She reached down and fluffed a blanket. “We’re talking about Joey.”
“How much?”
“Hundreds. Thousands. More. I don’t have an exact figure offhand.”
“But you can get it for me.”
“Sure.”
“With proof.”
“No problem. Proof. Of course I got proof. That kind of money, who wouldn’t have proof. Proof.” Pause. “What kind of proof?”
“Anything. Something written down would be best. Testimony would work.”
“You mean all I got to do is say he owes me?”
“Maybe. Someone else would make it better. Someone like… Martha.”
“She’ll say whatever you need her to say, won’t you, Martha?”
“I remember everything,” said Martha. “To the penny.”
“I bet you do,” I said. “Good, now we’ve got something. Get me the detailed information as soon as you can and I’ll see what we can do. I, of course, will require a small percentage to facilitate the disbursements.”
Her head tilted up. “How small?”
“Forty percent.”
“That’s robbery. I won’t stand for it. Fifteen.”
“Thirty-five.”
“Seventeen-fifty.”
“Thirty’s as low as I go.”
“You’re bleeding me, Vic. Sick as I am, you’re killing me.”
“I’m just a lawyer, trying to get by.”
“Twenty-five.”
“I can’t.”
“Maybe I’ll find myself another spieler.”
“That wouldn’t be wise.”
“Twenty-seven-fifty.”
“Done,” I said, and from the way she smiled at me, like she had just eaten my lunch, I knew that by letting her win the negotiation I had won her over.
“You know what Joey said about you, Vic?”
“What?”
“He said you was a sharp little number. I suppose that makes two of us.” Her lips did that quiver thing again. It was quite a talent. She could have set up on a street corner, dropped a hat to the ground, quivered for quarters.
“There is one other matter we need to talk about,” I said. “I spoke to Joey on the morning before he was killed and he said he was working on some big money deal. Said it was going to make him flush. If we could figure out what he was talking about it might significantly increase the amount available for disbursements.”
“Joey always had some cook-up working,” said Bev.
“But see, later that night he was at Jimmy T’s, telling the same sort of story. And then, according to the bartender, he got a phone call from you and he left the place straight away.”
“I only called to say I missed my little scrumpkins. To tell him to come home and take care of me.”
“Did he?”
“No,” she said, and then she used the fluff-tipped sleeve of her dressing gown to dab at her dry eyes. “I never seen him again.”
“And you don’t know the details of any deal he was working out.”
“No. I don’t.” Dab, dab, dab. “Why?”
“Because, Bev. Being his attorney, whatever deal he was involved with, I could follow it through, if you understand what I am saying. I could follow it through on behalf of the estate and the people who Joey owed so much.”
“Like myself, for instance,” she said.
“Exactly.”
“Interesting. In-ter-es-ting. But I got to talk to someone first before I can say a thing.”
“Fair enough. You have my number.”
“Yes I does. I’ll be in touch, I’m sure.”
“But time is of the essence if we’re going to keep the money away from his mother.”
“Oh I understand that, Vic, yes I do.”
“Good. And your natural aversion to the telephone might now be most prudent. The police have been here, right?”
“So?”
“I have some sources on the inside and they tell me your phone is tapped.”
“Stinking bluecoats,” she said. “I thought something funny was going on. Someone keeps on calling and leaving no message.”
“I guess that’s it. It was a pleasure meeting you, Bev.”
“Oh, I’m sure,” said Bev as her phone rang. It rang again and then again. Neither Martha nor Bev made a move.
“You ought to answer that.”
“Why?” said Bev.
“It could be something important?”
“Nah,” she said. “It never is.”