I looked at the day crawling through the skylight. She had pulled back the blinds so that the glass was a huge square of wet gray overhead, wiggling with wormy raindrops that raced to the bottom to form a pool before dripping off the edge of the sill.
I rolled off the couch and reached for my clothes. I could smell the aroma of coffee as I got dressed and called for her twice without getting an answer. I dressed quickly, found an electric percolator bubbling in the kitchen, poured myself a cup hurriedly and swallowed it down.
Then I saw her note.
It was written in charcoal on a sketching pad, just a few lines, but it said enough.
Mike Darling...the man Sol Renner saw Greta with has his picture in the paper beneath. Thank you for everything, it was lovely. You'll never leave me now.
Good-by,
Cleo.
I yanked the paper out from under the pad. It was the same copy Biff had shoved under my nose the other night. The man in the picture was Belar Ris.
The web was pulling tighter, but I still couldn't see the spider. I put my hat on and went back through the studio. The easel was still in place, but the picture was gone. The place still smelled of her perfume and the nylon thing was lying across the back of the chair. Pathetique was still playing, the record never having been rejected.
She had chosen a good piece. Symphony No. 6 in B minor, Opus 74. Tchaikovsky should have stuck around to write another. This one would be even better.
Chapter 11
I stopped by the hotel, showered and changed into fresh clothes. No calls had come in and when I phoned Velda's number there was no answer and no messages. I left word for her to call me as soon as she arrived and dialed Pat. The desk sergeant told me he had left an hour ago and hadn't reported in yet, but had asked if I had tried to contact him. I thanked him and hung up softly though I felt like slamming the receiver back on the cradle.
I called Hy's office and that didn't answer.
Dulcie's phone didn't answer either, then I remembered it was Saturday. Modern technology had given us two days of rest. I got so damn disgusted I went downstairs to the lobby and picked up a copy of the paper and flipped through it without really seeing anything until I came to the center fold.
Somebody had snapped a shot of Belar Ris, Dulcie and me talking, but my back was to the camera and all you could see was Dulcie and Belar Ris and it looked for all the world as if we were enjoying ourselves.
I threw the paper on a chair and was about to go out when the desk clerk stopped me. I wasn't signed in under my right name, but he knew the room I was in and pointed to a row of phones against the wall. I picked it up and said, "Yeah?"
"Mike?"
"Speaking."
"Pat. What's got hold of you?"
"Listen..."
"You listen. Meet me at the Blue Ribbon about six-thirty. Have you called Hy?"
"He wasn't in. Why?"
"Because they found Gates," he said. "Some tramp tripped over the body under a culvert that goes over the Belt Parkway. Gates shoved a .22 pistol in his mouth and pulled the trigger, or at least that's the way it looked. He's been dead since the day he left according to the M.E.'s estimate on the spot."
"Where does Hy fit in?"
"Tell him to squash the story until we can move on it."
"The last time I tried that Mitch got killed."
"Mike..."
"Okay. I'll leave word. Just one thing...did he have any money on him?"
"Damn right, almost nine hundred bucks in cash."
"He didn't get very far," I said.
"What?"
"Nothing. I'll see you at six-thirty."
Now Gates, I thought. That opens the web again, but just a little bit. The spider was still inside.
Pat was late. I sweated him out for an hour, playing with the coffee George had sent up to the table. Outside, the rain blasted down with the furious derision nature can have for humans, laughing at the futile attempts people put up to avoid her.
Pat finally came in whipping the rain from his hat, one of the young lawyers from the District Attorney's staff behind him. He introduced him quickly as Ed Walker and they sat down opposite me. Walker was looking at me as if I were a specimen in a zoo and I felt like slamming him one.
Pat said, "Reach Hy?"
"I told you I'd leave word. It was the best we can do."
"Good enough."
"Why?"
"The county police accepted Gates' death as suicide. We're not sure. How'd you tap the money angle?"
I told him what Dulcie had mentioned to me.
"That might figure in."
"Pat," I said, "don't get lost in this. A guy with a grand in his pocket doesn't knock himself off without a big run first."
"That's what I mean," he told me. "Any coroner's jury would direct a verdict of suicide the way it was set up. He used his own gun, even the cartridges and the clip had his fingerprints on it and there was a possible motive behind his own death."
I pushed my coffee away and flipped a butt between my lips.
"Get to it."
"Tell him, Ed."
Walker opened his briefcase, took out several sheets of payer and referred to them. He looked at Pat, then me, shrugged once and laid them fiat on the table. "You guys have the screwiest deal I ever saw."
"He's been in this from the beginning."
"But I haven't. Damn, my curiosity is worse than a cat's and someday it's going to get me the same thing."
Pat said annoyed, "Come on, Ed."
Walker nodded and adjusted his notes. "I pushed a few people overseas and got the details of the litigation the Pericon Chemical Company hit the steamship line with concerning the theft of that C-130. During the hassle the Pericon people uncovered the true owners of the shipping line. The majority control belonged to Belar Ris."
I said, "Oh?" and wondered why it came out so casually.
Pat's eyes were all over me, picking me apart. "That isn't the end of it. I have the report from Interpol. Ali Duval has been associated with Belar Ris since the late forties. He started off as an Algerian terrorist fighting the French, was picked up by Ris somewhere along the line and used by him as an enforcer in several of his enterprises. Duval is suspected of having committed nine different murders and an assault on a political personage from Aden. We might be able to get him held on the last charge. Once they get him in their hands they'll make him talk. It's a lousy way of doing things, but a threat to turn him over to them might work wonders."
"You're sure you can nail him then?"
"He'll leave on the Pinella."
"Where is he now?"
"Nobody seems to know," Pat said.
"And Ris?"
"He's had a tap on his phone for the last twelve hours. We know where he is." Pat gave me a laconic grin and said, "He called your erstwhile friend Dulcie McInnes at three-fifteen this afternoon and confirmed his appointment to pick her up for some affair they're having out at the estate in Bradbury this evening. We're going to cover that place like the lid on a pan tonight and if Duval shows we'll nail him."
"What about Ris?"
"Those damn dipples can get away with murder and we can't do a thing about it."
"Those what?"
"Dipples," Pat repeated. "DPL plates. Diplomatic immunity. He'll get away clear until he's declared persona non grata and tries to re-enter the country."
And there it was. The guy Mitch Temple chased who could get away with speeding on the Belt Parkway while he got stopped in the cab. The guy who made the contact with Orslo Bucher. The guy in the black official limousine who dropped Ali Duval off. Damn, it was there all the time. The dipple car. Old Greenie had even called it that!