I grinned at her. ‘You could be right, but I don’t think so. Anyway, keep your eyes open, will you? If anything looks funny, let me know.’ I took one of my cards out of my wallet and gave it to her. ‘Just in case you’ve forgotten the phone number.’
‘I’ll keep my eyes open, of course, Rex,’ she said, ‘but I think you’re wasting your time. Who’s your client, anyway?’
‘Client?’ I said. ‘Who said anything about a client?’
‘You wouldn’t be working for free,’ she dimpled, ‘that’s for sure. I imagine, for a private eye, you come expensive, Rex.’
After we’d finished the coffee I offered to drive her home, but she said she had to call on a girl friend, so I drove myself home – which wasn’t half so interesting.
I got myself a drink when I got home and sat down at the table and thought how far I’d got with the case. I came up with a snap decision of… nowhere. I’d seen the district attorney that morning. My face was still red remembering how it had gone.
His office was neat and very plush. The district attorney is around forty, the right type in looks but not in brains. He’s strictly a political appointment – they could have chosen a more suitable man with their eyes shut.
He gave me a sour look as soon as I got into his office. ‘I can give you ten minutes, Kaufman,’ he said. Then he put his watch on the desk.
‘It’s about the carnival lot,’ I started to say.
‘What about it?’ he snapped.
I took a deep breath and tried to keep my voice polite. ‘There is something going on there, sir. Something illegal.’
‘Such as?’
‘I don’t know,’ I said.
He bristled. ‘Is this your idea of a joke, Kaufman? Wasting my time like this?’
‘No sir,’ I said.
He wagged his index finger at me. ‘Now look here, Kaufman. You’re a private detective – your licence is issued from this office, don’t forget. I appreciate you are working for a client and obviously your client in this case is Dusberg. Dusberg owns that carnival lot!’
‘That is quite correct, sir,’ I said. ‘But the thing is that the people who have shows there are losing money. I’ve checked it, sir. They don’t make enough to keep them in food alone – yet they stay on!’
‘Rubbish!’ he snorted.
I kept my temper with an effort. ‘If you could carry out an investigation – even a small one – you’d find out that I’m telling the truth, sir. Why do they persist in staying there when they don’t earn sufficient money legitimately from the sideshows? I would say they’re making it illegitimately somehow!’
He gave me his conceited look. ‘Look, Kaufman, don’t take me for a fool! I know that the carnival lot if converted to real estate could make Dusberg a small fortune. It’s highly valuable land. I also know the only way Dusberg can get rid of the carnival people is by having the law close the place down. I don’t particularly blame you for trying to think up something but please don’t waste my time!’
I looked him in the eyes. ‘You won’t carry out an investigation?’
‘Certainly not!’ he snapped. ‘It would be a criminal waste of public funds! The carnival people are law-abiding – there’s never any trouble down there. You had better think up something better than this, Kaufman!’ He looked down at his watch. ‘And your ten minutes are very nearly up!’
I got up from my chair. ‘I won’t waste my time any longer,’ I told him. ‘It’s quite obvious that I’m wasting my breath!’
Looking back on it, the interview had hit an all-time low. The district attorney was quite right about my client, of course – he was Dusberg and Dusberg wanted to get rid of the carnival people so that he could sell the land and clean up. On the other hand, I hadn’t been lying to the district attorney, either. As I’d told Ivy, everyone seemed to be losing money – but they all still stuck there. I didn’t get it.
Thinking of Ivy, I got another drink and thought some more. I had been working on a dope case six months back and Ivy had been one of the peddlers. She’d only been a pawn in the game and I’d managed to see that she didn’t get arrested with the others. She’d sworn undying gratitude, kissed me hard and told me that from then on she was a reformed character. I hadn’t seen her since, until tonight, it was a lucky break that someone else who knew her had mentioned casually they had seen her helping Mollo to perform his magic.
CHAPTER TWO
I was in the office pretty early the next morning. I had a report to type for an insurance job I’d just finished and I didn’t get paid until the report was in. I finished it around eleven, put the typewriter away and was debating where I’d have a drink, when she walked in.
She gave me a slow smile. ‘Mr Kaufman?’ she asked.
‘That’s right,’ I agreed and goggled at her. ‘Won’t you sit down?’
‘Thank you.’ She sat down gracefully in the visitor’s chair and then crossed her legs. She was blonde with an urchin-cut which left her hair in tight curls close to her head. It suited her beautifully. She was wearing a grey suit, perfectly cut, with a grey sweater underneath. Long pearl earrings hung from her ears.
‘I’m Lucinda Brent,’ she said. ‘I was hoping you could help me.’
‘That’s my business,’ I told her. ‘Why do you need help?’
‘It’s my husband,’ she said simply.
I shook my head. ‘I’m sorry, Mrs Brent. I don’t handle divorce cases at all. I could tell you a couple of guys who could probably help you.’
‘It’s nothing to do with divorce,’ she said, ‘my husband is missing. I want him found.’
That was different. She smiled at me. ‘I know you are going to ask me have I been to the police or the missing persons bureau – and the answer is, I haven’t and I don’t want to.’
‘Why?’ I asked her bluntly.
‘I may as well be frank, Mr Kaufman,’ she said. ‘I think my husband makes his money in a dubious manner, to say the least. That is why I won’t go to the police or the bureau. I am wholly dependent on my husband for income and I’ve never queried where that income is earned – or how it is earned.’
I nodded. ‘I appreciate your point. If you’re hiring me to find your husband, I’ll do my best to find him. So far as I’m concerned, how he earns his money is beside the point. I take it you only want him found?’
She looked happier. ‘That’s it, exactly, Mr Kaufman! John and I do not get along very well together. I may as well tell you this now – we haven’t lived together for the last year or so. He provides me with a generous income and has never even mentioned divorce. I’ve no reason to want a divorce, either.’
‘I see,’ I said. I didn’t.
‘Regularly every week he calls on me and gives me my allowance,’ she continued, ‘but for the last three weeks I haven’t set eyes on him. It has never happened before and I’m worried. I feel something must have happened to him.’
The more she talked, the less I liked it. ‘What makes you think he doesn’t earn his money honestly?’ I asked her.
‘He hasn’t got an office, he never goes to work at regular hours. He never mentioned who he works with, where he worked or what he did. From the day we were married, I never knew. He wouldn’t answer my questions and just shouted at me if I kept on with them.’ She shrugged her shoulders. ‘So the only conclusion I could come to was that it was something dishonest.’
I stubbed the cigarette in the ashtray. ‘It doesn’t sound as if it’s going to be easy,’ I said. ‘I wouldn’t know where to start looking. For all we know, he could be anywhere in the country. You need a large organisation to find a missing person, Mrs Brent. The bureau is the logical place to go to.’
‘But I can’t go to the bureau,’ she said anxiously. ‘I’ve just told you why!’