“Listen, Jed, give me a break! I’ll kill this Negro farm hand and nobody...”
“You idiot, you think his wife will stand still for that? Bob, I’m going to give you a break,” I said softly. “You kidded me before about not being tough, a muscleman like you. I’ll show you how tough I can be. We’re going to forget the numbers bit — spin a different story. You and Julia Buck were lovers.”
“What?” His bloodshot eyes became alert. “Who told you that silly bunk?”
“You did, Bob. You confessed to me you killed her because she was turning you out. That’s what she told you over the phone.”
Now his big face looked so confused it was comical. “What good does that do me?”
“You told me that after I said I might have found your prints on Mrs. Buck’s neck. Then...”
“Jed, I was careful about prints.”
I giggled at him. “Lord, you’re a dumbox! I didn’t finish our new story: you told me that and went for your gun. I had to kill you, Moore.”
He stared at me for a long second. A single drop of sweat zig-zagged down one fat cheek. Then he whispered, “That’s odd talk for the County Inspector.”
“I know it is. But now I’m talking for the syndicate.”
“You? You’re... the big boy?”
“Not the big boy, but near the top. Your stupid murder of Mrs. Buck could have spoiled our whole set-up,” I said, and shot him twice around the heart.
He merely swayed, then his big body slumped back in his chair, slack mouth open. While the office thundered with the sound of my shots, I jumped across the room, yanked his 38 Police Special from his holster-holding it with my coat — stuck it into his right hand as if he had gone for his gun.
I turned and ran for the door, to call for help...
Finger-Man
by John Connolly
“Find my husband!” the woman said. And she dropped five fifties on Bill Sweeney’s desk.
One
I had been testifying in court all morning and hoisting a few highballs after lunch to forget about it. As a private cop you fight a hot and cold war with the police department on most cases, then you give testimony in their favor at the trial and a defense attorney hashes you up. Afterwards, you get to feeling like the inside of a sandwich. You wonder why you don’t work a straight forty-hour week on a sensible job and make a regular buck like the rest of the citizenry. The answer evades you, the drinks are medicinal.
This was October, a good month in San Francisco, when the days are bright and warm after the fog lifts in the mornings. The Giants had finished in the first division, the Forty-Niners looked good to win their first National League flag, and work was starting on the second bay bridge. Barring war and taxes, things looked bright for the eight to five o’clock shift. I was between cases again.
Hilda Hansen smiled up from her typing as I came into the partitioned cubby hole which housed Eureka Investigations. “There’s a Mrs. Anne Donaldson inside,” she informed me. “She’s been waiting twenty minutes. I called you at Hanrahan’s but they said the bum just left.”
“Must have been some other Bill Sweeney,” I said and went into my office.
Mrs. Donaldson sat placidly in front of my uncluttered desk, facing the view of the garage outside the window. She was a well tanned, well turned platinum blonde in a plaid skirt and tweed jacket. She smiled at me with blue green eyes and lightly rouged lips. We introduced ourselves and I took the swivel chair behind the desk. She was hatless and lively looking, like she belonged behind the wheel of a convertible with the top down speeding up the highway toward Lake Tahoe or Yosemite.
I offered her a cigarette and lit one for myself when she refused. She came straight to the point. “My ex-husband, Robert Donaldson, has been missing for almost two weeks, Mr. Sweeney. What’s more important,” she said angrily, her eyes more green than blue, “he has missed an alimony payment.” She opened one of those Mexican carved leather handbags that will hold enough provisions for a week end in the country and fished out a small snapshot. She handed it across the desk. “I want you to find him for me.”
The photo was of a young man in his twenties. He was wearing a corporal’s uniform, sitting behind a table full of drinks in a patent leather booth and obviously enjoying himself. The snapshot was apparently new and I asked Mrs. Donaldson if he was AWOL from the Army.
“No. That was taken just after we were married in 1944.”
“You must have been a very young bride.”
She colored slightly under the tan and said, “Thank you.”
“What does your husband do, Mrs. Donaldson?”
“He’s a salesman with the Mayflower Shirt Company.”
“Have you notified any of the authorities?”
“Yes. I checked on him when the alimony didn’t turn up and learned he hadn’t been to work or anything. Then I notified the police. They haven’t found anything except that he was last seen in Crescent City two weeks ago. He made a business call there and that’s the last anyone’s heard of him.”
Mrs. Donaldson reached into her bag again and withdrew five fifty dollar bills, placed them on my desk and looked at me expectantly. It was a wonderful way to do business and I hadn’t been exposed to it much. When I caught my breath I said, “You really do want to find him.”
“Ours wasn’t one of those civilized divorces,” she explained. “We don’t get on and I wouldn’t put it past Bob to leave the state, or even the country, to avoid his support payments.”
“Have you been divorced long?”
“A year.” She spoke in a clear, warm voice that matched the depth of her eyes. She showed a kind of armed neutrality when she talked about her husband, but she was extremely interested in finding him.
I asked the usual questions: who his friends were, how did he shape up on liquor, gambling, sex. Bob was from Utah originally and they had met and married here, while he was in the service. After his discharge, they lived together for only a few months. They had no mutual friends with whom he associated after she left him.
“Bob drank, but only moderately,” Mrs. Donaldson said. “I don’t think he gambled much. As for women... Well, let’s say he liked them and you have his picture in front of you.”
According to the snapshot Donaldson was a handsome character. He had wavy dark hair, good features and a square jaw with a reckless smile sitting in it. I decided that if he liked women they’d like him back.
“Was there anyone in particular he might have gone off with?”
“I don’t know,” she said evenly. “That’s what the money is for. Is it enough for a retainer?”
It was more than enough and I said it would do for a start. I asked where her husband had been living, jotted down the Van Ness Avenue address she gave me.
“I’m at the Westshire, apartment nine,” Mrs. Donaldson said, getting up. “Is there any more I can tell you?” Standing, she was taller than I thought, her legs were longer. I should have asked her to take off the jacket when I came in. You’ve got to make a client comfortable.
“Are you in business in San Francisco, Mrs. Donaldson?” I asked.
“No.” She smiled and her eyes became sea blue. I could see her ornamenting the terrace lounge at the fashionable Westshire, a little soft music in the background. “Don’t let the Nob Hill lodgings throw you, Mr. Sweeney. My home is in Oakland. I’m staying at the Westshire until we get this matter straightened out.”
I stood up and opened the door for her. “What shall I do about your husband, when and if I find him?”