Murder is Not an Odd Job Read online

  About a step away from me he held out the paper. “You Jim Hardman?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You place this ad?”

  I took the paper from him and looked at the couple of lines that had been blocked out by four slashes of a blue felt-tipped pen. “That’s mine.” I flipped the paper back to him. “Why?”

  “Mr. Foster wants to talk to you.”

  “Who?”

  He didn’t bother to answer. He opened the passenger door nearest us. The man who stepped out was Yale and J. Press and everything that went with that. He was about six feet tall, athletic in a handball or squash way, with gray hair and a neat gray mustache. His skin was tanned and it might have been Florida or the club sunlamp. Whatever else he might be, there was the mark of the dollar on him.

  He crossed the lawn toward me as if he weren’t really sure he ought to be doing this. It was a bit beneath him. But he’d started it and he was damned well going to finish it even if he had a heart attack. About two steps away he said, “I’m Arthur Foster of Foster, Mayberry, and Austin.”

  I took his hand and nodded. He already knew my name and I didn’t see any reason to repeat it.

  “I’d like a few words with you if you have the time.”

  I waved an arm at my house. “Come on in.”

  He followed me into the house with the chauffeur about a step behind him. Both of them looked around my living room as if they wished they’d brought gloves and protective clothing.

  “Have a seat.” I left them and got the tube of Alka Seltzer from the bathroom. Passing through the living room again on my way to the kitchen, I saw that Foster was seated on about three inches of the front edge of the sofa. The black chauffeur stood near the front door. In the kitchen I got down a glass and added a couple of inches of water and an ice cube. I carried the glass into the living room and they watched while I dropped in a couple of Alka Seltzer tablets. The ice cube would slow down the action of the tablets but it would be ice cold when I drank it.

  “You told Roger you placed this ad.” Foster said.

  “That’s right.”

  “I’d like to know the circumstances under which you came into possession of Edward Templeton’s wallet.”

  “I’m not quite sure why you think you have a right to know.”

  At the door, Roger shifted his feet. I looked over at him. Foster didn’t and I think that kept Roger nailed to the floor. Foster shook his head slightly. “Perhaps I should have explained. My law firm represents the Templeton business interests.”

  Business interests? That didn’t sound like the wino Hump and I patched up during the early hours Wednesday. I lifted the glass and drank some of the fizz. The two tablets still hadn’t dissolved. “I need to make a call. If you check out, I’ll talk to you.”

  Foster nodded.

  I went into the bedroom. Seated on the bed I could turn and look at him. I dialed the law office of Arnold Francher and got past his receptionist. I kept the small talk down. “You know a firm named Foster, Mayberry … and whatever?”

  “Austin,” Arnold said. “It’s top drawer.”

  “Honest?”

  “It has a good reputation.”

  “What does Foster look like?”

  It matched all the way. It was Foster all right, or a damned good double.

  “If this Foster told you he represented somebody, would you believe him?”

  “One hundred percent.”

  “I owe you a drink,” I said.

  “And the full story.”

  I said goodbye and hung up. I went to the closet and got down the shoebox that holds my salted-away cash. It also holds my .38 Police Positive. I took out the .38 and stuck it down in my waistband and pulled my coat over it. Maybe it was unnecessary. At the same time I’d felt the threat from the black chauffeur and I didn’t like that. Not in my own living room.

  Before I sat down across from Foster, I tossed back the Alka Seltzer. At the same time I let the coat fall open so they could see the butt of the gun. Sure it had registered with them, I sat down in the easy chair and waited.

  “I trust I checked out.”

  “Arnold Francher talks about you as if you’re God.”

  “I didn’t know we had mutual friends.”

  I said, “I didn’t know Arnold ran in high circles.”

  He brushed that aside. “Now, would you please tell me about the wallet?”

  I did. The whole story, from the time we walked into wino haven until I put Edward Temple or Templeton to bed on my sofa. I watched him when I talked about the knife man. He didn’t flinch. I guess that’s something lawyers learn in court.

  At the end he said, “I was afraid of that.”

  “Afraid of what?”

  “That something like this might happen.”

  “That somebody might try to off him?” I said.

  “Off?”

  “Kill.”

  “Perhaps.” He drew back the cuff on his right wrist and looked at his watch. “It is ten-fifteen now. Are you free at one-thirty this afternoon?”

  “I might be. Why?”

  “Some people would like to talk to you.”

  “About what?”

  “I’d rather not tell you what they’re going to say. It might spoil their considerable pleasure.”

  “Why me?”

  “I’ve done some checking on you.”

  “And you’re going to tell me you like what you’ve heard?”

  “Not exactly.” The smile could have had a sneer buried in it but it didn’t. “But let me say that I’ve been in law long enough to develop some understanding.”

  That was fair enough. He knew about my time with the Department and the way I’d left it. And if he’d talked to the right people, he knew about the kinds of jobs Hump and I did to make a living. “Who’d you talk to?”

  “Rex Martin.”

  I nodded. Rex was in Homicide and he probably didn’t like me but I’d helped him out a time or two.

  “And he passed me on to a Mr. Art Maloney.”

  “He could have told you about the wallet,” I said.

  “He did,” Foster said, “but I wanted to hear your version of it.” He stood up. “This is a fairly complicated matter and I’d rather you heard about it in the presence of the family.”

  “What family?”

  “The Templeton family.” He moved around the coffee table and stopped next to the chauffeur, Roger. “If you agree to come, Roger will pick you up at exactly ten after one. It is a twenty-minute drive from here to the Towers.”

  “All right.”

  “And you won’t need the pistol.”

  I grinned at him. “I wasn’t sure I needed it here. But your man looks like he might be a hard ass.”

  Roger grinned at me. “I know your friend, Mr. Evans.”

  “Well, Atlanta’s a small town and Hump’s no midget.”

  “About two hundred and seventy, the last time I guessed his weight,” Roger said.

  “What’s your last name?”

  “Brown,” he said, “but you might know of me as Eddie Jacks.”

  He was right. I did. He’d been a good light heavy back in the late sixties. He’d been getting close to the top ten in his class when some dumb pug ducked and Roger had shattered some bones in his left hand on the pug’s head. That pug must have had a head like a steel door. The bones hadn’t healed well. “I wondered what happened to you.”

  “Now you know.”

  Foster stepped between us. “You’ll be ready at ten after one?”

  I dropped an eyelid at Roger. “I might just come along so Roger can tell me about life in the fight game.”

  “It’s no life,” Roger said.

  I saw them out and then I set my clock for twelve-thirty. I went to bed and I could feel the ugly girl’s fingerprints all over me before I dropped over the edge.

  Our destination was the Melton Towers far out Peachtree Road. Roger drove into the curving drive out front and st
opped. He said the Templetons were on the twelfth floor. I’d have to tell the security men at the door that I was expected.

  “What apartment?”

  Roger grinned at me. “The whole floor.”

  “You leaving?”

  “The interview with you is from one-thirty to two. I’ll be out front waiting when you come out.”

  “What if I don’t last the whole half hour?”

  “You will.”

  There were two security men at the front door. They checked my name in a log and then they ran through my whole card file of identification. Then one of the security men escorted me to the elevator and rode up to the twelfth floor with me. After we stepped out into a foyer with a desk and another security man seated behind it, he remained with me until Foster came from the apartments beyond and nodded at him.

  “What is this,” I asked Foster, “the local branch of Fort Knox?”

  “Not exactly.”

  We passed through the foyer and into a wide, large living room. It was a room that didn’t look lived in. It had about as much personality as an airport toilet bowl. The sofa, the chairs, the tables looked untouched by human hands or rumps.

  “This way,” Foster said.

  He was gesturing toward an entranceway off to the right. I kept him waiting while I sat down in one of the straight-backed chairs. There. Now one rump had touched one of the chairs.

  It was a hospital bed and it could have been a hospital room. But it wasn’t painted white and the two paintings I recognized were a Matisse and a Cezanne. The two others I didn’t recognize were probably equally expensive but I hadn’t had time for Art Appreciation I at Georgia State.

  The man in the bed was about a breath and a half away from death. The half breath would be the one he died on. He’d probably never been a large man. Now the flesh had wasted away from him, as if he’d melted and been left with nothing but bones. With the flesh gone from his face, his teeth looked large and out of proportion.

  He used one breath looking at me and then Foster stepped close to the bed and said, “This is Mr. Hardman, the gentleman I told you about.” At the same time Foster motioned me closer, until my knees were against the iron frame of the bed.

  “He … doesn’t … look … like a gentleman … to me.”

  “I’m not,” I said. “That’s just the way lawyers talk.”

  I could have sworn he laughed then. When it came out it sounded like air hissing out of a punctured tire tube.

  “I … don’t … think Foster … approves … of you.”

  “Not many people do,” I said. “Even my girlfriend has that kind of day now and then.”

  The man in the bed looked at me for about a count of five. A hand with the blue veins showing across the back crabbed its way down the sheet and stopped. There wasn’t anything for it to touch and I guess it gave up. “Hire … him,” he said.

  He closed his eyes. The interview was over. Foster and I went out. Out in the small living room that went with this apartment we passed a nurse who could have played right guard, or even left, on the Falcons.

  “Who was that?”

  “I don’t know her name,” Foster said.

  “I meant the man in the bed.”

  “I thought you knew.”

  I shook my head.

  “That was Rufus Templeton.” The way he said it implied I ought to know the name.

  “I don’t even read the stock market pages,” I said.

  “Steel, oil, even a big block of Coca-Cola at one time.”

  “Worth how much?”

  He shook his head. “The figures would impress you but they wouldn’t mean that much to you. Let me say only that it is a sizable holding.” He looked at me with amazement. “You knew Eddie Jacks but you’ve never heard of Rufus Templeton.”

  “Every man to his own sport.” I looked at my watch. The interview hadn’t taken the whole half hour. “Is that all?”

  “Mrs. Fanzia wants to meet you.”

  “Who’s she?”

  “Mr. Templeton’s daughter.”

  “Which one?”

  “Rufus Templeton. She is also Edward’s sister.”

  “I see.”

  “I hope all this isn’t confusing you,” Foster said.

  “I’ll get the scorecard straight sooner or later.”

  We moved into another part of the floor. It was subtle at first and then it got stronger. The decor was changing and becoming more and more feminine, as if we’d left one home and gone to another one. And then we turned a corner and we were in a small sitting room. It was something out of a play or an old English movie. I had the feeling that Elizabeth Barrett Browning or one of the Brontes would step out any second and start talking about the latest poem or novel they’d written.

  “Real?” I asked, looking at the furniture.

  “Absolutely,” he said.

  Then the woman stood up and walked toward us. I’d seen the type before but never close enough to touch. She had dark hair and skin that would have pleased a girl twenty years old, a thin white dress that missed her knees by about four inches, and slim legs and thighs that could squeeze the life out of a man or put life back into him.

  All of that and the woman was somewhere between forty and fifty.

  “Mr. James Hardman,” Foster said, introducing us.

  The hand that touched mine was soft and appeared to give off a feeling of warm oil. And a smell too. The smell of flesh wanting to give up and grow old while the woman’s will wouldn’t let it.

  “Is it too early for a drink?” she asked.

  “I think not.” As soon as I said it, I realized that I’d fallen into talking like somebody out of that English play or movie.

  “Scotch for me,” she said to Foster.

  I nodded. “And a rock.” I said that just to shake the English out of my head. And I promised myself I’d say “crap” or “shit” the first chance I got.

  “Do you mind, Arthur?” she said to Foster.

  “Of course not.”

  I wanted to watch him mix the drinks. I couldn’t. I kept coming back to her. There must be at least one woman like her in the dream, the fantasy life of most men. I’d been luckier than most. I’d ended up in bed with mine and it made me skeptical about make-up and foundation garments. As I remember, when she took off her girdle the fat ran down her legs like ice cream down the side of a cone.

  “You were a policeman, I believe,” she said.

  “For a time, Mrs. Fanzia.”

  “Please call me Beth.”

  I nodded. Foster finished at the sideboard and brought us our drinks. I noticed he hadn’t made one for himself. I took a sip of mine and found that it was the pure dew. Glenlivet, I guessed.

  Beth sipped her drink. “I must admit it was rather an odd story you told Foster here.”

  “But true.” I reached into my jacket pocket and brought out the blade I’d picked up from the floor that night. I did the flip and the blade jumped out at her.

  “It looks like a knife anyone could buy at a pawn shop.”

  “Except that this one is somebody’s old friend.” I passed the knife to her. “Notice the width of the blade.”

  “It’s awfully thin.”

  “Either it’s been cut down on purpose or over a period of years it’s been used and honed and used and honed until it’s lost about twenty percent of the blade surface.”

  She returned the knife to me and I closed the blade and dropped it in my pocket.

  Foster said, “Why would a knife be cut down on purpose?”

  “It’s the difference between a cutter and a stabber. I think our man was a stabber. He’d walk up to somebody like your brother—helped out by the fight in the back of the bar—and place the blade in him a time or two. No slashing, just in and out, and then he’d lean the dead man up against the bar and walk away.”

  “And nobody would notice?”

  “In that kind of bar it might be half an hour before the bartender noticed him
and shook him and told him to go home and sleep it off.”

  Beth shuddered. “Why would anyone want to hurt Edward?”

  “I don’t know that much about him. My first guess was loan sharking but he said he wasn’t into that. Beyond that, your guess is as good as mine.

  “How much has Foster told you?”

  “Nothing.” I took another sip of the single malt. “I’ve had the tour and your father has looked me over and he said something about hiring me. Now I’m here and I still don’t know what this is all about.”

  Beth got a cigarette from a silver box on the table next to her. Foster had his lighter out and flaming before I could get mine out of my pocket. “My father is going to die soon.”

  “It looks that way,” I said.

  “There’s quite a bit of money involved and my brother Edward is going to inherit it.”

  “If … ,” Foster said.

  “If he lives until after the death of Daddy.”

  “If he doesn’t,” I said, “who’s next in line?”

  “I am.” Beth blew a slow curl of smoke at me.

  “I’m confused.” I stood up and to cover the confusion I went over to the sideboard and tipped a slug of Glenlivet into my glass and added another ice cube from the silver bucket. “What is it exactly that you people want to hire me for?”

  “I want you to keep Edward alive.”

  “Why?” I came back to my chair and stood there, looking down at her.

  “That’s a strange question,” Foster said. There was a snort of the insulted in his tone.

  “It might be.” I didn’t look at him. I wanted to read whatever there was to see on Beth’s face. “It’s also an honest question. As far as I can tell, Beth, you have the most to gain from Edward’s death.”

  “It’s not that simple. You see, I love my brother very much, more than any amount of money. Oh, it would be nice to have all that money. It would be an absolute rip. Still, one of the nicest things about Edward is that he has no interest at all in money.”

  “The will makes more than adequate provision for Mrs. Fanzia,” Foster said.

  “Who then?”

  Foster looked puzzled.

  “Who wants Edward Templeton dead?”