“Find my sister’s killer,” Joan said in her fiat, hard voice.
“What makes you think the police won’t find him?”
“They might, but I want the satisfaction of knowing I helped. I want this man found! Are you handling this or aren’t you?”
“Of course I’ll handle it,” Hare said and pulled a scratch pad towards him. “I have read the facts in the papers of course, but let me see if you can tell me anything further that might help. First of all, tell me about your sister.”
An hour later, Joan Parnell got to her feet: On the desk lay five hundred dollars in twenty-dollar bills.
“You shall have the other five hundred next week,” she said. “For this money, I want some action.”
Hare regarded the money with a loving smile.
“You’ll get it. Miss Parnell. We specialise in quick results. We will have something for you by next week.”
“If I don’t get it, you don’t get any more money,” Joan said curtly.
When she had gone, Hare dug an enormous thumb into a bell push on his desk.
Sam Karsh, followed by Lucille, notebook in hand, came in.
“We have a job,” Hare said and pointed to the bills on the desk. “The Parnell murder.”
Karsh sat down. He pushed his hat to the back of his head, He was a man who would rather go around without his trousers than without his hat. There were times when he was drunk, that he went to bed with his hat on, and would turn vicious if his wife attempted to remove it.
“What’s the matter with you?” he demanded. “A murder case? You gone nuts? We’re in bad enough trouble with the cops as it is. You aiming to lose us our licence?”
“Relax,” Hare said. “We’re handling this. You leave it to me. I’ll talk to Terrell. This woman has money. She’s paid five hundred, and next week, she’s parting with another five hundred. That’s the kind of cabbage we need very, very badly.”
Karsh eyed the money and grimaced.
“I don’t like it. Terrell is only waiting his chance to slit our throats, but okay, so we take the job. Where does that get us? What can we do better than the cops?”
“Nothing.” Hare smiled. “But we will go through the motions and we will give her an elaborate report. It will be convincing enough for us to collect the second five hundred, then we sit back and do nothing further. She’ll get tired of us and go to some other Agency, but we’ll have picked up a nice, easy grand.”
Karsh considered this, then his ferrety face creased into a grimace he called a smile.
“Very nice... so what do I do?”
“You read all the newspapers covering the case. You go down to the Park Motel at Ojus and ask a few questions, then you write a report. I’ll jazz it up a little and we’ll present it to Miss Parnell. We’ll collect the rest of the cabbage and we then can forget about her.”
“I’m not poking my snout into anything until you have talked to Terrell,” Karsh said firmly. “That old bull is dangerous. Once he finds out I’ve been poking around, he’ll break my neck.”
Hare reached for the telephone. A few minutes later he was speaking to Terrell.
“Chief, I’ve had Miss Joan Parnell here,” he said, oil in his voice. “She wants to hire me to find her sister’s killer.”
The snap of Terrell’s voice came clearly to Karsh who winced. Hare listened, breathing wheezily, then he said, “Sure, Chief, I know all that. That’s why I’ve called you. But I won’t get in your way. Sammy will be like a newspaperman. Sure, sure. I give you my word. He’ll just ask a few questions here and there, then write a report. If he does come up with anything, you’ll be the first to hear about it.” He listened again and looked across at Karsh, lowering one fat eyelid. “All I’m trying to do, Chief, is to earn an honest buck. You can’t object if Sammy goes down to the Motel and looks around. That’s all he’ll do.” He listened again. “Okay, Chief. I give you my word. I told her we didn’t take murder cases, but she wants a report... don’t ask me why.” His voice suddenly hardened. “I’m within my rights, Chief. I’ll take full responsibility, and there’ll be no stepping out of turn. Okay, Chief,” and he hung up. He sat for some seconds staring at the telephone, then he reached for a cigar. “He can’t stop us, Sammy, but watch it. He’s ready to drop on us if we play it wrong.”
“That’s terrific,” Karsh said sarcastically. “You know what? I guess I’ll read all the newspapers and make a report from them. I’ll stay right here in the office, then I can’t go wrong.”
Hare considered this, then reluctantly, he shook his head.
“She’s no fool. If we’re going to collect the rest of the cabbage, we’ll have to do better than that. You go to the Park Motel. That’s all I’m asking. See this guy Henekey: talk to one or two people there: get some local colour, then come back and we’ll cook up something that will convince her.”
Karsh got to his feet.
“I wonder why I ever married you,” he said to his wife. “This caper could land me in jug!”
“Wouldn’t I be happy!” Lucille said, her thin face lighting up. “Imagine being without you for a couple of years!”
“Now, children,” Hare said disapprovingly, “that’s no way to talk. You get off, Sam. See you tonight.”
Karsh grunted. He made a face at Lucille who made a face back at him, then he left the office.
“I’ll never know why I married that heel,” Lucille said bitterly. “One of these days I’ll put ground glass in his food.”
Hare chuckled.
“Relax. He’s a smart boy. We wouldn’t be making much money if it wasn’t for him.”
“But you don’t have to sleep with him,” Lucille said, getting to her feet.
Hare repeated, “He’s a very smart boy,” and then drew some papers towards him as he resettled his bulk in his chair.
Lucille returned to her tiny office. Sitting down in front of the typewriter, she stared moodily out of the window.
It took Tom Henekey forty-eight hours to make up his mind what to do about Lee Hardy. The reason for his long hesitation was that he was sharply aware of the danger he could walk into if he handled Hardy badly.
Hardy wasn’t the kind of man anyone took liberties with He had an organisation. He kept clear of any trouble himself, but he had been known to give the nod to Jacko Smith when someone was being a nuisance, and that someone walked into a beating that left him a hospital case.
Jacko Smith was a character who cooled angry tempers faster than any other strong-arm man on the racetracks. He was a mountain of soft white homosexual flesh with mouse-coloured hair that grew low over a narrow forehead, a fat baby face and a lisp. He went around with Moe Lincoln, a handsome, lean, vicious Jamaican who had been known to throw a knife with deadly effect at twenty yards range. Whenever there was trouble on the race tracks, Jacko and Moe were there too, and the trouble lasted only for a few seconds. There was a time when these two had to resort to violence to quell trouble, but now their mere appearances had an immediate cooling effect, and they had only to stand and stare for any combatants to evaporate like ghosts. Jacko’s lead pipe and Moe’s knife had inflicted too many injuries for troublemakers to need further proof of their deadly efficiency.
Henekey knew he was risking a visit from these two if he needled Hardy, but after weighing the pros and the cons, he decided the payoff would be worth the risk.
So a little after eleven o’clock while he was sitting in his hot little office, he reached for the telephone and called Hardy’s office.
Hardy, himself, answered the call.
“This is Tom Henekey,” Henekey said. “I run the Park Motel, Ojus. I’d like you to drop around here tonight: say at ten o’clock.”
There was a long pause which encouraged Henekey, then Hardy said, “What’s it all about?”