Pass the gravy, p.1
Pass the Gravy, page 1
part #19 of Cool and Lam Series
CHAPTER ONE
THE kid was somewhere around fifteen years old. She was trying her best to be brave and sophisticated.
Bertha Cool was giving her the brush-off.
I stood in the doorway with my hand on the knob and said: "I'm sorry. I didn't know you were busy, Bertha."
"It's all right," Bertha said. "She's leaving."
The kid was blinking to hold back the tears. She didn't want to go, but she wasn't going to beg. She got to her feet with dignity and said, "Thank you very much for giving me your time, Mrs. Cool."
She started towards the door.
I kept standing in the doorway.
Bertha Cool said by way of explanation, "This is my partner, Donald Lam ; Sandra Eden, Donald. We have some important business to talk over."
The big blue eyes that were fighting tears tried to smile.
"How do you do, Mr. Lam," she said, with the studied formality of one who was trying her best to be on good behaviour.
She moved towards the door but had to stop because I didn't move away from the door.
"Something bothering you, Sandra?" I asked.
She nodded her head, then suddenly tried to push past me. "It's nothing for us," Bertha said. "There's no money in it—not a dime."
I put my arm around the kid's shoulders. "Hold it, Sandra," I said. "What's the trouble?"
Bertha glared at me. "She's talked to me. I tell you we can't do anything for her."
"What is it you want, Sandra?" I asked.
The warmth of my arm around her shoulders and the human sympathy was too much for the kid. She buried her head against my coat and started crying, great convulsive sobs.
"Damn it!" Bertha said, "I hate scenes. Get her out of here"
"We're leaving," I said.
"I want to see you!" Bertha yelled.
"See me now, then—while I'm talking with Sandra. Sit down, Sandra."
I piloted her back to the chair.
The kid looked dubiously at Bertha, then sat down on the very edge of the chair.
"What's the trouble?" I asked.
Bertha said, angrily: "There isn't any trouble. Nothing that we can bother about. She wants to locate an Uncle Amos. If Amos is alive, he has some money coming, and if he feels like it he can give Sandra's mother some. Then the mother can pay for some medical expenses and keep the family together. It seems the mother is sick and can't work any more. Even if you locate the uncle, there's no guarantee that he's going to give the mother any money, and if he gives the mother any money, there isn't any fee in it for any detective agency, so for the love of Mike, leave the business end to me and get the kid out of here."
I took Sandra's hand and led her out of Bertha Cool's private office, across the hallway and into my own office.
Elsie Brand, my secretary, looked up and instantly her eyes became sympathetic.
"Come on in and take notes, Elsie," I said.
She seated herself beside Sandra on the davenport, put her arm around the kid's shoulder and said: "What is it?"
Sandra dried her eyes, then smiled, very ladylike, at Elsie and at me and straightened herself. Elsie Brand, with the sort of intuition that good secretaries have, withdrew her arm from around the kid's shoulders. -
"How did you happen to come in here?" I asked.
"I watch television shows," she said. "I know what a good private detective can do. A librarian friend of mine told me about Cool & Lam, and I always said that if anything ever happened to me I'd go to you folks the very first thing. I asked for you because I'd been told you were the smartest, but you weren't in so Mrs. Cool said she'd see me."
"And what's it all about?" I asked.
"Uncle Amos," she said.
"What's his other name?"
"Gage. Uncle Amos Gage."
"And what about him?"
"Uncle Amos is ... well, he's peculiar."
I nodded.
"And he goes out on toots ... neither Mother nor I hold it against him because we don't know enough about alcohol to know about those things. Mother says he's sick. He can't help it when the craving for alcohol hits him, any more than I can help it when I get the measles."
"He's gone now?" I asked.
"He went out on one of his benders and he just never cameback. He wrote Mother that he was going to come back, that he'd sobered up and he was hitch-hiking home, but he never got there."
"Where's home?" I asked.
"He has his own place but it's not too far from ours—Uncle Amos likes me and he likes Mother."
"Now, he's your mother's brother?" I asked.
"No. Mother was married to his brother and then his brother, my father, died, and Mother married James Eden and then they separated."
"And you still see Uncle Amos?"
"Oh yes. He's very nice. He likes us a lot."
"And what's happened?" I asked.
"Uncle Amos gets money from a trust fund. He gives Mother thirty dollars a month. This month I guess he just didn't get anything—anyhow, we haven't seen him."
"And you haven't heard from him?"
She shook her head. "Just a postcard is all. It said he was on his way back and would see us as soon as he arrived. He never arrived."
"Where does his money come from?" I asked.
"A trust that had been left to him by his uncle."
"Do you know his uncle's name?"
"It was Elbert."
"Do you know how much money?"
She shook her head. "I know it's lots of money, but Uncle Amos only gets part of it now. Later on he gets a lot." "Does your mother know?"
"Of course. He gives Mother thirty dollars a month. He told her that when he got the whole amount of money from the trust fund, he'd give her more. When he's thirty-five he gets it. He told Mother he has made a will leaving her everything in case he should die. I guess Mother and me are the only two people who are really close to him. We like him a lot."
I looked at my watch and said: "I have to see Bertha Cool on a matter of considerable importance. She's waiting for me. You talk to Elsie Brand here and give her your mother's name and your address, and if you have a telephone, tell Miss Brand the number. Then you go on home and You know how to get around the city all right on the buses?"
She gave me an almost withering look. "Of course," she said. "I'm nearly fifteen."
"All right," I told her. "You go on hone and then we'll let you know if we find out anything."
"But Mrs. Cool said you couldn't take cases like that, that you would go broke handling kid stuff and ... and ..." Her eyes blinked rapidly.
I said: "Bertha Cool has the exterior of a glittering diamond, but don't let that fool you. Underneath she has a
heart of steel and concrete."
I nodded to Elsie and said: "Get all the dope statistically
you can. I'm going into the lion's den."
CHAPTER TWO
SHAPE, weight and hate, Bertha Cool always reminded me of a big spool of barbed wire.
Now she glared at me with bitter animosity in her little glittering eyes. "Prince Charming," she said. "Santa Claus! So you've made me the mean old witch so you could play Prince Charming to the brat."
"I thought I'd find out what it was she wanted," I said.
"I know what she wants," Bertha Cool said. "She wants sympathy, affection and charity. That's the worst of you. You have all the obnoxious qualities of the fatuous male sex. Let a woman of any age bat her eyes at you and squeeze out a tear and you're patting her on the shoulder and trying to find out what you can do for her.
"If you weren't such a damn fool you'd realise the facts of life. That brat has a mother. The mother is old enough to have sense. When she sends that kid around to a detective agency, it's because she's trying to pull a sympathy racket, not because the mother doesn't feel well enough to come."
I just stood there and smiled. "What was it you wanted to see me about?" I asked.
"I don't know as 1 ever want to see you again," Bertha said. "You and your grand manners! You and your bighearted sympathy! You and your soft-touch personality! Honest to God, Donald, if I didn't sit on the lid here you'd give this whole goddam detective agency away in the first thirty days."
"Will it keep?" I asked.
"Will what keep?"
"What you wanted to see me about."
"Hell, no, it won't keep."
"In that case you'd better tell me," I said.
"Oh no," Bertha said sarcastically, "it isn't important. Just a retainer of five hundred bucks, fifty dollars a day for an operative, three hundred for expenses, and a five-hundred dollar bonus if we get the thing definitely solved either one way or the other within a week."
The diamonds on Bertha's fingers made a glittering semicircle as she moved her hands in a quick gesture of throwing something into the waste-basket. "But we don't want it. Oh no, not us! We're too proud and independent to worry about
money. Let the office expenses take care of themselves. Throw the cash away while we go chasing mirages. The firm of Cool & Lam is working for a bunch of kids ! "
Bertha warmed up to her subject. She pretended to pick up the telephone. "What's that ... ? Two thousand dollars ... ? I'm sorry, we're not interested. The full facilities of the firm are engaged in locating a missing choo-choo car for a fiveyear-old who can't remember where she put it."
Bertha pretended to slam up the telephone.
I opened the door.
"Where the hell are you going?" Bertha screamed at me. "Out," I said. "I've got work
to do."
"Work for a flat-chested, spindle-shanked brat with blue eyes! Damn it! Come back here and listen to sense." "I haven't heard any so far."
Bertha clenched her bulldog jaw. Her jowls quivered with indignation. She flashed diamonds once more as her hands moved in picking up some notes. "Get this," she said. "Malcolm Greenlease Beckley disappeared over a week ago. His wife, Daphne Beckley, is frantic. She wants to find the guy."
"Why?" I asked.
"Why?" Bertha Cool was screaming again. "How the hell do I know? I suppose it's because she loves the son-of -a-bitch ! "
"Any insurance angle?"
"What made you ask that?"
"Because of the five-hundred-dollar bonus," I said. "Women don't usually get bonus-minded after only a week of separation."
Bertha's eyes tried to show animosity, but showed interest instead. "You're a brainy little bastard, Donald," she said. with grudging admiration. "Sometimes I wonder how you do it—and other times I wonder how you lived this long without having designing women pick the gold fillings out of your teeth, steal the shirt off your back and toss you to the fishes."
"Then there is insurance?"
"Seventy-five G's," Bertha said, "and double indemnity in case of accidental death."
"So where do we begin?" I asked.
"You begin," she said, "by talking with Mrs. Beckley. Her first name is Daphne. She sounds like a dish."
"And you're letting me talk with her?" I asked.
"Don't worry," she said. "All the financial details have been arranged. You can go on out there and let her cross her legs and pull all the cheesecake she wants. It won't do a damned bit of good. The fee's fixed—and just to tell you something about her type of woman, Donald, she won't even bat an eyelash atyou now. She knows she can't get even a five-cent discount out of me, and knowing that, you'll find that your anxious little client is sitting there very demurely—but if big Bertha hadn't fixed the fee, you'd have found her making goo-goo eyes at you and crossing her legs until you'd have had to wear dark glasses to keep your eyes from being put out by the nylon."
"Where do I find her?" I asked.
"The Ringold Apartments. She's in 721 and she's expecting you. You get over there and she'll tell you the whole story ; that is, unless she's changed her mind on account of all the delay while you were playing Uncle Dudley to that gangling brat."
"What about the expenses?" I asked Bertha.
"We got three hundred bucks for expenses," Bertha said, "and if the expenses run any more than that, we pay for them out of our fee."
"That's not enough," I told her.
"It will have to be enough."
"All right," I said, "I'll make a cheque for three hundred dollars on the expense account."
Bertha glowered at me and said: "You could start out with fifty dollars and then come and get more if you had to."
"That's not my way of working," I said. "I start out with three hundred, and then if there's any left I put it back."
Bertha's face started to colour. She sucked in her breath as a prelude to some outburst of indignation, but I didn't wait for it to mature. I stepped out, pulled the door closed, and walked back to my office.
Sandra Eden was still talking with Elsie Brand.
"Any pictures?" I asked Elsie, glancing at the information she'd jotted down.
"She thinks her mother has one."
"How did you come?" I asked Sandra.
"By bus."
"Want to go home by car?"
"With you?"
I nodded.
Her eyes lit up. "I'd love it," she said.
"Come on," I told her.
Elsie Brand watched us with speculative eyes as we left the office.
I had the cashier give me three hundred bucks on an expense voucher, seated Sandra Eden in the agency heap and we drove out to see her mother.
It was a rather shoddy apartment house, and Mrs. Eden obviously hadn't expected visitors.
"I'm a fright," she said. "I can't talk with you now." "What do you want to do?" I asked.
"Well ... put on something respectable."
"It's your voice I'm interested in," I told her. "You can't dress up your voice. Anyway, I'm crowded for time."
She tried to be exasperated, but there was too much affection in her eyes and voice as she looked at Sandra. "Sandra told me she was going to see you people. 1 told her she couldn't possibly interest a detective agency. It takes money to run an investigation."
"It does for a fact," I said.
"Well," she said, with a forced laugh, "that's one of the things that we're fresh out of."
"You've been working?" I asked.
"Have been," she said.
"Gave it up on account of ill health?"
"They gave me up—they let me go because they thought I was too slow. I ... I would work there when I was almost ready to double up with pain, but I'd keep fighting it and "
"What's the matter?" I asked.
She said: "I think I have ... a tumour. The doctors wanted to operate six months ago."
"And you haven't been back for six months?"
"I've had to work. I can't afford an operation just at present."
I got up, walked out to the kitchenette and opened the icebox. There was a carton of milk and not very much else. No butter, no eggs, no meat.
She was angry. "What are you doing walking out into my kitchen and making yourself at home?"
"Just checking," I said.
"Well, Mr. Lam, I'll thank you to ..." Her voice broke. "All right, I can't afford to be proud," she said.
"What about Uncle Amos?"
"His name is Amos Gage. There's money coming to him from a trust fund left him by an uncle."
"What was the uncle's name?"
"Elbert."
"And what about the money?"
"It's in trust. If Amos Gage is alive at the age of thirty-five and has not been convicted of any crime, the money goes to him outright. If he dies before reaching the age of thirty-five or if he has been convicted of crime, the money goes to various charitable institutions."
"How old is he now?"
"He'll be thirty-five in a couple of weeks. In the meantime
the trustee gives him a email income_"
"That's a tricky situation," I said. "Driving while intoxicated would bring him right under the gun."
"Why do you say that?"
"Say what?"
"Driving while intoxicated."
"Because it's a crime. Lots of people commit that crime to a greater or lesser degree."
"Well, that's ... that's .. I think, what bothered his uncle. You see, Uncle Amos is a periodic drinker."
I nodded.
"Did Sandra tell you?"
"I'm just checking on the facts," I said. "We can save a lot of time if you'll do the talking."
"You—I mean, is your agency going to work on it?" "I don't know yet. I hope we can work something out." "I don't have any money."
"I know."
"And if you find him, it may be the worst thing that could happen."
"How come?"
"I'm afraid he's been driving while intoxicated and is locked up somewhere. He'd have been smart enough to give an assumed name."
"How about his driving licence?"
"He wouldn't have made the mistake of producing that. He'd have ditched it somewhere."
"He's smart?" I asked.
"He's pretty smart," she said. "About some things."
"All right," I said, "we find him, and if he's in jail for drunk driving, then what?"
"He loses the money."
"How much money?"
"I understand it's become seven hundred and fifty thousand now. It was around half a million, but it's been invested in securities, and the securities have been going up."
I said: "Suppose we find him and he isn't in jail. Then what?"
"Then he'd help me. I need his help particularly this month, but I'm afraid he-- That's all I can think of, Mr. Lam. I'm terribly afraid that's why no one has heard from him. I'm afraid he's in jail somewhere."
"All right," I said, "suppose he's in jail and is trying to cover up so that the trustee doesn't find out about it. Then we find him. That's jerking the rug right out from under you and Uncle Amos."
She nodded.
"It would give a detective agency a swell opportunity for backmail."
"I didn't know they did that in real life."
"Neither did I. I was just refreshing your memory from the books, the movies and television."
She smiled, a rather faint, wan smile.
I looked her over. She had a waxy complexion. She hadn't bothered to put on any war paint or lipstick. She was wearing a house-coat, and the blue eyes had a sunken, tired look. "You said you'd been to a doctor."
