Where?
12
I dropped the suitcase on Lieutenant Marx’s desk at nine-thirty the next morning. I’d had a good night’s sleep, and I was feeling good. As good as I could with Marty still gone and silent.
“It’s all there,” I said, “except two watches that were sold. I checked the list.”
Marx opened the bag. “Sold? Two watches?”
“Salvation Army,” I said. “It was turned over to a porter at the men’s flophouse near Cooper Square around one A.M. the night of the murder. Neat and smart, Marx. The man who handed it to the porter said he’d cleaned out his store, was leaving town early the next day, didn’t have time to go to the big main store, but wanted the Salvation Army to have the stuff. The mission people sent it to the big store the next day.”
I lit a cigarette. “I was on the doorstep this morning when they opened. They had a record of the donation, it took an hour to round up the stuff on the list. The two watches were sold, but that accounts for all of it except the Buddha. If Jimmy Sung had pulled a smart trick like taking it all to that mission, would he have kept out the Buddha you’d be sure to find and trace to the list of loot? No.”
“You can’t be sure, Dan. A drunk like Jimmy,” Marx said, but I could hear that his heart wasn’t really in it now.
“I can be sure,” I said. “That porter who took the bag at the mission is a black wino. He was half in the bag, never really saw the man’s face to remember, but he’s sure of one thing if you want to get him down here.”
“What’s he sure of?”
“That the generous donator was a ‘whitey,’ yessir. ‘Ofay all the way, sure not one of our yellow brothers!’ Couldn’t say what the cat looked like, but he was sure a whitey.”
“A wino won’t stand up as a witness.”
“He will with the rest, with Kandinsky breathing hard. Go ask the D.A. Jimmy didn’t take that loot, Marx.”
Marx looked at the suitcase. “You’ve got luck, Dan.”
“Sometimes it takes a little luck,” I said. “Your jails are full of poor slobs, guilty and innocent, who had no luck.”
“No system’s perfect,” Marx said.
“Besides, it wasn’t all luck. Science, deduction, right?” I said. “Here’s some more deductions. Jimmy Sung isn’t the kind of man who’d steal, and now you’ve got the loot and a man who says Jimmy didn’t have it. Jimmy’s not a stupid man, he wouldn’t have kept that Buddha from the loot, so Eugene Marais had to have given it to him as he says. If Jimmy had robbed that store, he’d have taken the cash, opened the safe. No jury will believe Jimmy Sung robbed the shop now, and what other motive could he have? Eugene Marais was his friend, a benefactor. We’ve got to believe, now, that Eugene was alive when Jimmy left. You can’t hold him, Lieutenant. You had some doubts anyway.”
“I guess so,” Marx said after a moment. “So the robbery was a cover for murder. We did wonder.”
“A panic job, sloppy. If you wondered, maybe you were working on something else? What?”
Marx shook his head. “Nothing sure, not yet. Just a few doubts. Keep working.”
I was waiting downtown when Jimmy Sung came out. He blinked in the sun, like one of his own Buddhas in work clothes, but didn’t stop walking. I fell in step along the hot, noontime street of the crowded, hurrying city.
“I want to talk to you, Jimmy.”
“I need a drink,” he said, not even looking at me.
He went straight to the first bar like a homing pigeon. The bartender served him his double vodka. Now his hands shook as he carried the glass to an empty booth in the long room of businessmen. I ordered a beer. In the booth, Jimmy took a long drink. And a second. Then he set the glass down, breathed.
“They let me go, hey?”
“They had to. You never robbed that shop.”
“You?”
“I helped, found the loot. They had doubts anyway.”
“No, you. Thanks.” He drank again.
“Thank the Marais women. They believed you.”
“Sure.” He finished his vodka.
“Jimmy, I want you to think about that night again. You were the only one to see Eugene Marais after ten o’clock.”
“That Charlie Burgos and Danielle was there.”
“But left before you. After that, you were the last to see Eugene Marais alive. You’re sure you don’t remember anything more than you’ve told me already?”
“Lemme think.”
Jimmy stood, walked to the bar. His hands were no longer shaking. He paid for another double vodka, came back to the booth. He drank, shook his head.
“No more than I told you. I left at eleven sharp, ran the bars, got drunk, went home.” He drank. “Maybe I saw Danielle and that Burgos out on the avenue around then, I ain’t sure.”
“Doing what?”
He drank. “Nothing. Just hanging around.”
I drank. “Okay, Jimmy. Who killed him? Any ideas? You knew him. Any enemies? Threats? Worried about anything.”
“Last week or so, he was kind of moody.”
“About what?”
“I don’t know, just something on his mind. Thinking about something. I need a drink.”
He went to the bar again. This time he had to count out change for his double vodka. He’d need me for a drink soon. When he came back, he was already swaying a little-the quick drunk of the alcoholic. He might pass out in ten minutes, or he might remain half drunk all day.
I said, “Was Eugene worried about Claude? Could Claude be mixed up in something? Maybe Eugene got in the way?”
“He worried about that Claude, all right. Didn’t like him around the girl, Danielle; didn’t like how he lived, doing nothing. I don’t know about anything maybe happening.”
“You know anything about a Gerd Exner?”
Jimmy shook his head, drank. He was staring into his glass, his eyes dulling, filming over with the alcohol. I didn’t have a lot of time to get something from him. Then, you never knew about an alcoholic. Sometimes they functioned long after they seemed out on their feet.
“How about Paul Manet?” I said.
“Manet?” Jimmy blinked into his glass, the Oriental eyes closing. “Maybe I heard some name like that. I don’ know.” He shook his head, drank. “I don’ know.”
I described the tall, aristocratic ex-hero. “He was in the shop around five the murder night.”
“Yeh, I remember. He closed the door when he was talking to Mr. Marais in the back room. That Claude come in, left the door open. They was talking about France, the old days, all like that. I didn’t pay much notice. Some funny name, too.”
“Vel d’Hiv?”
“Maybe. Something like that.”
“Were they angry, arguing?”
“I don’ know. I left pretty soon. After that Claude come in.” Jimmy drank, his head down now, hanging forward, the glass almost missing his mouth. “That Claude! No good, that one. Big hero. Medals for killin’ peasants, coolies! Big Frenchie hero kills kids, marries girl-babies got no home. Bad man, no good. Steal women, steal everything!”
“Steal what, Jimmy? What did Claude Marais steal?”
“Everything,” Jimmy said, nodded violently, his vodka spilling over. “No good, Mr. Marais says so. No good.”
“What did Eugene say? Jimmy?”
He looked up at me, one eye closed, the open eye bright with drunken cunning. “Buy me a drink.”
I bought a double vodka, came back. “What did Eugene say?”
“Something,” Jimmy said, drank. “That Claude give him something. To hold. Who knows?”
His shoulders were down, his arms limp, a drunk smile on his broad face. I left him there. He was too far gone now. I didn’t try to get him home, he wouldn’t have gone. He could get home himself. He’d been doing it a long time.
13
At the Hotel Stratford desk, my clerk-friend, George Jenkins, told me that Li and Claude Marais had gone out together. I sat down in a corner of the small lobby to wait. I hadn’t eaten any breakfast, in a hurry to get to the Salvation Army warehouse store, and the beer I’d had with Jimmy Sung was sloshing in emptiness. George Jenkins sent a bellman out to get me a sandwich.