I dialed the manager of the Pigalle, told him, “I'm Paul Worth, uncle of the Worth boy. Remember me, I was the one at the wedding party who had quite a toot on, did all the singing?”
“I remember you, Mr. Worth,” the voice at the other end of the wire said, lying cautiously. “What can I do for you, sir?”
“Have a silly favor to ask. I have some pictures of the affair and I was just pasting them in our family album.”
“Yes?”
“Well, in one picture there's a waiter in the background. In years to come I want to tell the children—and I hope they'll have a flock of little ones—exactly who was at the wedding. I have the names of each person printed under the photo. The waiter is tall, might say handsome, mouth like a girl, and shiny dark hair that...”
“Name is Cliff Parker, Mr. Worth.”
“I'm very exact about these things. Spell that p-a-r-k-e-r?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And you're sure that's the man, that he was waiting on us that night?”
“Yes sir, those lips belong to Cliff. And he's the only waiter we got with a full head of hair.”
I thanked him and hung up. It wasn't airtight, but it was better than coming out and asking the manager—in case Cliff had told him what to say. Of course I was certain Cliff hadn't done it—if he had Louise would never have had Ed's picture around, or talked. If she hadn't told me, there wasn't a thing to connect her with Turner.
Still, the smart and safe thing to do was tell the police. They could put enough men on Cliff to tail every person he saw, know every time he breathed... could be some of Cliff's pals had done it. Maybe Turner was shaking down other pimps? After all, my thinking Cliff wasn't guilty didn't mean a thing.
But telling the cops would mean giving Louise a hard time and... The case was making less and less sense—now I was shielding a pimp!
I got to Mrs. Turner's house at exactly eight o'clock, but I waited around for ten minutes—didn't want her to think I was running around like her office boy—then went up.
She was dressed up again, a blue semi-evening gown that showed off her strong shoulders, the rise of her breast. The vermouth bottle was still on the table, but her breath said she'd been sipping stronger stuff. But she wasn't crocked.
“Good evening, Barney. You're late.”
“That's right, Mrs. Turner.”
I sat down on the hassock and glanced around the room. The coconut tree lamp wasn't much—a long ebony stem that made an uneven curve up to thin gold leaves, and the tiny bulbs arranged to give indirect lighting—if the whole mess gave off any light.
She took her seat on the couch, lit a cigarette, pushed the cigarette box toward me, gave me the half-closed-eyes look, as she asked, “Any luck today?”
“Glad you said luck—that's what we'll need in this case, all the luck we can stumble upon, the...”
“Find out anything?”
I nodded. “But I'm not any closer to the big answers. Talked to the Andersun family—nothing there to go on. But I did come across something... a little something.”
She blew a good smoke ring which we both watched till it faded. As I lit a cigarette, she said, “Is this some sort of a game? What did you find out?”
“That maybe it is a game. Somebody has been holding out on me.”
“Who?”
“You, Mrs. Turner.”
Her cheeks turned a becoming pink, like a spreading drop of water color. “What am I supposed to say to that?”
“Anything you want,” I said. “You came to me and you weren't too much concerned about your husband's being dead, but only if it was suicide. Then you've been giving me a series of small lies. Like you only drink wine now and then, only you stink of whiskey at the moment. That you were so very very happy with your husband, that you two were so happy in the hay. Then last night you casually mentioned that you and Mr. Turner had a little spat, in fact, you two were not doing so well in bed, but you had this pip of an idea that it was all because he got his kicks out of third-degreeing people. These were small lies, didn't detour me much, but I want to know why you've been stringing me. Hell, I work for you.”
“Are you quite finished?” Her voice was pure ice and if her eyes were any sharper I would have been bleeding.
“I don't know. Am I, Mrs. Turner? You're paying me good money to find out the facts related to your husband's death. Yet, you've been giving me a bunko story from the start.”
“If this is some kind of a riddle, I wish you'd come to the point. I said Ed and I were very happy when we married, that being on the force changed him some, but we were still happy.”
I shrugged. “Okay, that's what you told me. I stumbled on something that will hurt, so if you want to skip it, go on playing...”
“What is it?”
“Mr. Turner has for many months been seeing a lady named Louise, a prostitute. The reason Mr. Turner was parked near the Grand Cafe on the night of the killings—he was jealous of one Cliff Parker, a pimp. This too seems to be a feud of several months' standing. Louise claims Mr. Turner was in her bed so often, he was something of a pest. End of report, Mrs. Turner.”
She sat up, as though pulled by her head. Her eyes got very large and bright and she gasped, “I see, I see... Ed with a... a ...” Then the tears came, a flood of them. She bawled hysterically, her whole body shaking.
I waited for a long second—I can't stand seeing people cry. I went over and sat beside her, tried to dry her face with my torn handkerchief. She fell against me, sobbing on my shirt. I held her and liked the solid feel of her, the softness of her hair against my chin. “Easy, Mrs. Turner, easy. It's over and crying won't help. From what Louise says, Ed was a little... nuts about sex. If you didn't make a go of it, it wasn't your fault. Sorry this is a shock, but I had to tell you, know if ...”
She looked up at me, a face full of fat tears. “Barney, you think it wasn't my fault.”
“'Fault' is probably the wrong word to use about something like this, but for whatever it's worth,” I said, “I'm sure it wasn't your fault.” In fact I was having a hard time holding my arms around her—in a casual manner. But I kept telling myself that would be the dumbest move I ever made.
She said through the tears, “Oh God, I was so happy when we were married. An end to the loneliness, the feeling of not being wanted. Marriage was so wonderful—at first—and then so awfully empty; and that hurt worse than being lonely.”
“Perhaps you expected too much from marriage. It's a relationship, not a snake oil,” I said, sounding like Dorothy Dix with whiskers.
“I only wanted a small share of happiness, but as time went on... you don't know what it was like, this always feeling guilty, that it must be my fault and going crazy wondering how and why. You've had a happy marriage, love...”
“Love is another magic word, a movie word.”
“Didn't you love your wife?”
“We never tried to label it, that's why we got along. You've seen Lieutenant Swan, always bucking his way through life. Vi—my wife—had a lot of that too. Big career woman. She and Al, scrambling and pushing to 'get someplace'—more would-be magic words. They looked down their noses at me for being a schnook. Me, I believe in taking it easy; you only live to die, so make it an interesting ride. When Vi and I understood what the other was like, we didn't try changing each other; we got along fine. Maybe that's love—getting along.”