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!’
I thought I had enough troubles without taking on her troubles. ‘I’m sorry,’ I said, ‘but if I took your money, I’d just be robbing you. I wouldn’t know where to start looking for him.’
‘I could help you there,’ she said hopefully.
‘How?’ I asked.
‘I didn’t live with John for two years without knowing anything about where he went,’ she said. ‘I never knew what he did, but men are careless – they leave things in the pockets of suits that are going to the cleaners. Things like that.’
‘Such as?’ I prompted.
‘Hatcheck stubs from a nightclub – there were quite a few of those. All from the same place – the Green Dragon. Then there was a receipt once. It was for two hundred dollars and it was signed by a man named Tyson. It had a rubber-stamped address underneath it – Harem Girl’s Hall.’ She smiled wryly. ‘I thought the worst about that, so I checked on it. Guess where it was?’
‘The carnival ground,’ I said softly.
She nodded. ‘You’ve seen it?’
‘You’ve got nothing to worry about,’ I said, ‘all those girls are old enough to be your mother!’
‘It might have been an odd visit there, of course,’ she said. ‘I’m just telling you everything I can think of.’
‘You’re doing fine,’ I told her. ‘Keep going.’
She pulled a rueful face. ‘I’m afraid there isn’t much else. There was a name scribbled on the back of a blank card once. Cielli was the name. That’s about all I can think of.’
So far as I was concerned, the mention of the carnival ground was enough. ‘It looks a lot better even now,’ I told her. ‘Those could be definite leads. I’ll take the job, Mrs Brent, if you still want me to.’
‘Please!’ She smiled happily. ‘The question of money?’
I shook my head. ‘Not at the moment. I’m already working on a case for someone else and I’d rather charge you as I get results. You could give me twenty dollars for expenses and we’ll see how I get on.’
She fumbled in her purse and produced a roll of notes. She took two tens from the outside and handled them to me. I put them in my wallet and wrote her out a receipt.
‘Have you a photograph of your husband?’ I asked her.
She shook her head. ‘John would never have his photograph taken. I can give you a description of him. He’s just over six feet tall, weighs around one hundred and eighty. Aged thirty-five. Dark hair and a thin black moustache. Blue eyes. Quite good-looking, really, and he always dresses very smartly. He has a scar across the knuckles of his left hand.’
I wrote it all down. ‘That sounds pretty good,’ I said. ‘Where can I get in touch with you?’
She gave me her address and phone number. ‘I’ll do my best, Mrs Brent,’ I told her.
‘I’m sure you will. Thank you again, Mr Kaufman.’ Then she left.
I went out and had some lunch, mailed my insurance report and then went down to the carnival ground again. I was getting sick and tired of the place. I’d seen practically every sideshow there was to see, I’d fired rifles with crooked barrels at moving targets, I’d eaten candy and even tried the rasberry-coloured soft drink they sold.