Dead on the Level (16 page)

“It’s a good hundred-mile drive—”

“Let’s see, that makes it about a thousand dollars a mile, doesn’t it?”

Mrs. Brunner sat very still in the tall wing chair, her hands folded in her lap and those gray eyes studying Casey’s face. She seemed to be running his words over in her mind, rehearsing them like a mentally taped recording. “Mr. Morrow,” she said at last, “you come here to me without introduction and without credentials. You tell me a remarkable tale of adventure and intrigue, and apparently expect me to believe your every word. At the same time, you expect me to abandon all faith in another man I’ve known for two years. A man I’ve trusted even to the point of welcoming him as a husband for my daughter.” She hesitated. Her mouth was very taut and for the first time she seemed to be losing control, but not quite. “I would be less than human,” she added quietly, “if I didn’t protest your accusations against Lance.”

“And more than human if you didn’t give them some serious thought.”

She didn’t deny that. The doubt had been creeping into her eyes too long; some things even Alicia Brunner couldn’t hide. “I’m not asking you to denounce Gorden on my say so,” Casey added. “Among other things, I’m asking you not to say anything to him at all—not yet. I want a fighting chance.”

“You don’t believe in fighting in the open, I take it.”

Casey grinned. “Not when it makes me a living target. Now, to get down to fundamentals, where is this property you bought, sight unseen?”

Mrs. Brunner didn’t answer. Her hands moved restlessly in her lap.

“You know, don’t you?”

“Yes, of course. Approximately, that is. It’s west, I think. West and south, or was it north? I can call Lance—”

She broke off. Of course she couldn’t call Lance; that was the one thing she couldn’t do. “I’m afraid I’ve never had a very good memory for details,” she added weakly.

What was it Phyllis had said that first evening back at Maggie’s? Brunner had left his money to her because he didn’t have much faith in his wife’s business ability. Casey was beginning to see the man’s point.

“But you made a check out to the former owner of the property,” he suggested. “Who was that?”

The small frown tracing her high forehead deepened. “It was a strange name. Foreign, I think.”

“You must have a canceled check.”

“Mr. Brunner kept those. I can look in his room—”

She started to rise, but Casey was on his feet first.
Where you go, I go
, his eyes were telling her.
At this stage of the game I don’t take chances
.

“But then, they’re probably among his things in the city.”

“Shall we go?” Casey said.

“Now?”

“My time is your time.”

But Mrs. Brunner shook her head. “I can’t, not today. Lance is coming for dinner. Tomorrow, perhaps.”

“Tomorrow, for certain,” Casey said. “I’ll meet you—” He stopped.
Not so fast, Casey
, he reminded himself. “I’ll phone you at the apartment in the morning.”

“I’ll need time to drive in.”

“At eleven.”

Casey started toward the door. He hadn’t learned much, but he was getting warm. There was that feeling in the air of getting very warm indeed. “I hope,” he added, his hand resting on the door handle, “to get this cleared up one way or the other soon. When I do, you’ll see your daughter again. I’m sure you’ll remember that if you’re tempted to cry on Gorden’s shoulder.”

Phyllis didn’t ask questions, not many, anyway. He had no way of knowing when she had awakened and missed him, because she didn’t say. She said hardly anything at all all day. In the evening they went out to dinner and took in a movie. Driving home, she asked him.

“I went out for a drive,” Casey said. “I wanted to think.”

“I’ve been thinking, too.”

She sounded very grave. Casey stopped for a signal and took a moment to scan her face, sober and serious in the light of the corner lamp.

“Casey, let’s not go back!”

“What?”

“Back to Big John’s. Back to anywhere. Let’s just keep driving.”

“Driving? Driving where?”

“I don’t care—anywhere. Let’s get clear away from this city and never come back. And never think about it again.”

It didn’t make any sense. This whole thing was her idea in the first place; besides, there was no forgetting a thing like murder. The police wouldn’t forget. Casey knew that much.

“You’re talking crazy!” he shouted. “We can’t go away. You know that. I’ve got to stick with this thing. I’ve got my teeth in it now. When I find Carter Groot—”

He’d never told her much about Groot, just a brief reference that last night at the walk-up, but she seemed to understand.

“When you find him!”

The light was green again, and the drivers behind him were leaning on their horns, but even though she finished very quietly Casey heard exactly what she said.

“Can’t you see, Casey? Carter Groot is dead. And when you know what he knew—”

Some sentences didn’t have to be finished.

ELEVEN O’CLOCK. Casey made the call from a telephone booth at the corner drugstore, just in case Phyllis might be curious, which she obviously was. Mrs. Brunner must have been sitting beside the phone.

“I’ve been thinking things over,” she said, her voice sounding a little strained and tired over the wires. “I want to talk to you, Mr. Morrow.”

“Alone?”

“Yes, alone.”

There were different ways of being alone and, under the circumstances, Casey knew which way he preferred. A little Bohemian restaurant tucked under the El on South Wabash would be just about right. It had been a long time since he’d been there but nothing would be changed. Little restaurants tucked under Els never changed, and it was from a booth far in the rear of the room that he watched Mrs. Brunner come in, look about carefully, questioningly, and then, seeing him at last, come back to his booth. It was noon by this time, and the place was crowded, noisy, filled with delicious smells and, for their purposes, quite alone. Except, of course, for Maggie Doone sitting at a table in the center of the floor where she could watch everything while tackling a plate of goulash.

Maggie had been sweet about it, too. “I’m so happy that I haven’t another single thing to do in life but look after you,” she’d stormed over the phone. “I suppose I’ll even have to pick up my own check!” Which she would, of course, since Casey had never laid eyes on her before while Mrs. Brunner was around. But he felt a lot easier knowing there was someone present to give him the high sign in case Mrs. Brunner’s idea of intimacy included Lance Gorden or a couple of boys from homicide.

She wore black. She was the kind of woman who wore black well and knew it, in fact, wore anything well and knew it without seeming to make an issue of it. But not all the poise and breeding and studied calm in seven generations of Back Bay could have concealed the battle going on behind her deep-set eyes. Deep-set and a bit hollowed, as if she hadn’t slept well. All she wanted was coffee.

“I’ve been thinking over what you told me yesterday,” she said at last. “It strikes me that you’re quite a persistent young man.”

“Is that a compliment?”

Only a shadow of a smile relieved her tension. “That’s really not important, Mr. Morrow. What is important is that I’ve no intention of underestimating you. You seem to be quite capable of unearthing any information I could give you, so we may as well have it out right now. About Lance, I mean. You’ll keep after him, won’t you?”

“That I will,” Casey said grimly.

“Then I’ll try to save you a little trouble. You’re right about one thing. A hundred thousand dollars was too much to pay for that property. About sixty-five thousand too much.”

She didn’t seem upset about it. It was as if Gorden had been caught going through a red light or making a U turn, and then Casey realized that this was no sudden discovery; Mrs. Brunner had known about it for some time.

“I wasn’t quite honest with you yesterday,” she added. “I have seen the property and, little as I know about business, it aroused my suspicions. I made a few inquiries and learned that it had been sold for thirty-five thousand not six months before Lance made the deal.”

“And you’ve known this all along?”

“For several months.”

“And you still think Gorden would make an ideal son-in-law?”

Casey’s amazement was equaled by Mrs. Brunner’s serenity. She was wearing a vague, forgive-us-our-trespasses smile that made him want to pound on the table. This woman would buy anything; she’d turn both cheeks and bend over to take the boot Gorden, or any other smooth operator, was going to give her and then go to the trouble of rationalizing the act.

“I suppose that is difficult for you to understand,” she said quietly. “As a matter of fact, Lance and I discussed the situation immediately after I learned the truth. He’s a very young man, Mr. Morrow, and very much in love with my daughter. It’s difficult for a proud young man, virtually penniless, to marry a girl of great wealth. Or don’t you think so?”

“I wouldn’t know,” Casey muttered, uncomfortably suspicious that his ears were getting red. “But I suppose swindling her family out of a nice little nest egg makes everything cozy.”

“You make it sound very ruthless, Mr. Morrow.”

“How do you make it sound?”

“Rather tragic. I’m certain Lance is honest at heart, but I was very careless in placing so much temptation before him when he was already so disturbed over Phyllis. It’s as much my fault as his.”

“The law wouldn’t think so.”

“But the law isn’t concerned with this. Lance wanted to return the money but I told him to keep it more or less as a loan—and a lesson. That’s why I don’t intend that this shall go any further.”

“I gather that Mr. Brunner didn’t know.”

She didn’t answer. It was obvious enough what Casey was thinking—what anyone would think with so much to go on. Mrs. Brunner bit her lower lip white, as if aware that she’d said too much, but it was too late now for that. She fingered the clasp of her handbag and made a move to leave the table, but Casey held out his hand.

“The canceled check,” he said. “Remember?”

“What are you going to do?”

“That depends on what you do, Mrs. Brunner. I don’t intend to yell copper unless you do, if that’s what you mean. I just want to see a man about a hundred thousand dollars.”

This was all crazy, downright insane. He was bluffing all the way. One word from Mrs. Brunner, one move toward the phone booth, and he’d have gone crashing through the kitchen and out the back alleyway. Some of that had to be showing. She hesitated, her gray eyes leveling at him again.

“What is it?” Casey asked.

“I want to see my daughter, Mr. Morrow. I want you to bring her home.”

Now it was Casey’s turn to think things over, but the time was short for a man with so many things to do. Besides, any day, any hour now Phyllis would say the wrong thing or do the wrong thing, or maybe be recognized on the street, and bring the whole damn police force down on his head. But he didn’t want to think of Phyllis. If he thought of Phyllis he’d say no; if he concentrated on that check he’d ask—

“When?”

“Tonight,” Mrs. Brunner said. “I’ll stay in at my husband’s apartment if that’s more convenient.”

But Casey was thinking of that long open highway leading west, with no stop lights or streetcars or city police to get in a man’s way if he needed to move in a hurry. “I don’t like the traffic,” he said. “She won’t want to go, anyway, but maybe I can talk her into a ride in the country.” And Mrs. Brunner, handing over the canceled check, didn’t exactly hide the fact that this was one engagement he’d better keep.

The name on the check was Victor Vanno. That didn’t tell him much, but the stamp on the reverse side indicated that the check had been cashed at a bank on La Salle Street and that did help. Vanno was in the city, then, or had been at the time the check was cashed, and if the answers beginning to stack up under Casey’s hat were anywhere near the truth Mr. Victor Vanno would still be around. There had to be somebody else; Gorden couldn’t do it alone. Somebody had to play shortstop on that double play from Mrs. Brunner to Vanno to Gorden, and somebody had to know something about Carter Groot. Had Vanno cashed that check and then walked out of the bank with the money in his jeans? That would be too risky. More than likely he’d held it just long enough to sign his name.

Outside the restaurant Casey waited at the El stairway until Maggie showed up. “Guess what?” he said. “I’ve got a job for you. Can you make like a crisp, efficient credit manager?”

Maggie glared at him.

“Try calling this bank,” he went on, holding out the check, “and see if Victor Vanno is one of their steady customers. See if he has an account, but most of all an address. You figure it out. You’re a smart girl.”

“One dollar and sixty-five cents,” Maggie said firmly.

“What?”

“Including tip. I could have stayed at home and opened a can of soup. Come on—give.”

One dollar and sixty-five cents it was.

It was a peculiar address that Maggie finally brought back from her afternoon’s occupation, peculiar for a man on the receiving end of a hundred thousand dollars. Casey could feel himself getting excited. Things were working out now, working out just the way he’d figured them. He sent Maggie home, grumbling as usual, and started walking west on Madison.

A couple of blocks beyond the river Casey stopped. It checked. The faded-paint number on the glass-paneled door was the same as the one Maggie had scrawled on the check, and it sure wasn’t the Ambassador East. There was a bar and grill on one side and a pool hall with green-painted windows on the other, and wedged in between was this cheap little hotel with a shoe-box lobby and stack of stairs fingering up toward a yellowish light. Casey cut across the lobby to a little hole-in-the-wall desk where he was already being eyed by an old man wearing a greasy brown sweater. Asking questions didn’t make the old man regard him any friendlier, either.

“Vanno?” he repeated. (He’d been hitting the bottle a long time to get a croak like that.)

“Victor Vanno,” Casey said.