Small Felonies - Fifty Mystery Short Stories Read online

  They passed several cabins, most of them dark. Harry turned onto another road, and after a few hundred yards they rounded a bend. Vince could see another cabin then. It was small and dark, perched on the edge of a cliff that fell away to the ocean. But the water was hidden by the thick fog.

  Harry parked the car near the front door of the cabin. He shut off the engine and the headlights.

  Vince said, "I don't see any lights."

  "That doesn't mean anything."

  "It doesn't look like he's here."

  "He'll be here."

  Vince didn't say anything. He didn't see how Harry could know with that much certainty that Dominic DiLucci was going to be here. You just didn't know anybody that well.

  They left the warmth of the car. The wind was sharp and stinging, blowing across the top of the bluff from the sea. Vince shivered.

  Harry knocked on the cabin door. After a few moments the door opened and a thin man with haunted eyes looked out. He was dressed in rumpled slacks and a white shirt that was soiled around the collar. He hadn't shaved in several days.

  The man stood looking at Harry and didn't seem surprised to see him. At length he said, "Hello, Harry."

  "Hello, Dom," Harry said.

  They continued to look at each other. Dominic DiLucci said, "Well, it's cold out there." His voice was calm but empty, as if there was no emotion left inside him. "Why don't you come in?"

  They entered the cabin. A fire glowed on a brick hearth against one wall. Dom switched on a small lamp in the front room, and Vince saw that the furniture there was old and overstuffed, a man's furniture. He stood apart from the other two men, thinking that Harry had been right all along. For some reason that didn't make him feel any less nervous.

  Harry said, "You don't seem surprised to see me, Dom."

  "Surprised?" Dom said.

  "No, I'm not surprised. Nothing can surprise me anymore."

  "It's been a long time. You haven't changed much."

  "Haven't I?" Dom said, and smiled a cold humorless smile.

  "No," Harry said. "You came here. I knew you would. You always came here when you were troubled, when you wanted to get away from something."

  Dominic DiLucci was silent.

  Harry said, "Why did you do it, Dom?"

  "Why? Because of Trudy, that's why."

  "I don't follow that. I thought she'd left you, run off with somebody from Los Angeles."

  "She did. But I love her, Harry, and I wanted her back. I thought I could buy her back with the money. I thought if I got in touch with her and told her I had a hundred thousand dollars, she'd come back and we could go off to Brazil or someplace."

  "But she didn't come back, did she?"

  "No. She called me a fool and a loser on the phone and hung up on me. I didn't know what to do. The money didn't mean much without Trudy; nothing means much without her. Maybe I wanted to be caught after that, maybe that's why I stayed around here. And maybe you figured that out along with everything else."

  "That's right," Harry said. "Trudy was right, too. You are a fool and a loser, Dom."

  "Is that all you have to say?"

  "What do you want me to say?"

  "Nothing, I guess. It's about what I expected from you. You have no feelings, Harry. There's nothing inside of you and there never was or will be."

  Dom rubbed a hand across his face; the hand was trembling. Harry just watched him. Vince watched him too, and he thought that Dominic DiLucci was about ready to crack; he was trying to bring it off as if he were in perfect control of himself, but he was ready to crack.

  Vince said, "We'd better get going."

  Dom glanced at him, the first time he had looked at Vince since they'd come inside. It didn't seem to matter to him who Vince was. "Yes," he said. "I suppose we'd better."

  "Where's the money?" Harry asked him.

  "In the bedroom. In a suitcase in the closet."

  Vince went into the bedroom, found the suitcase, and looked inside. Then he closed it and came out into the front room again. Harry and Dom were no longer looking at each other.

  They went outside and got into the rental car. Harry took the wheel again. Vince sat in the back with Dominic DiLucci.

  They drove back down to the coast highway and turned north toward San Francisco. They rode in silence. Vince was still cold, but he could feel perspiration under his arms.

  When they came into San Francisco, Harry drove them up a winding avenue that led to the top of Twin Peaks. The fog had lifted somewhat, and from up there you could see the lights of the city strung out like misty beads along the bay.

  As soon as the lights came into view Harry leaned forward. "Look at those lights. Magnificent. Isn't that the most magnificent sight you ever saw, Vince?"

  And Vince understood then. All at once, he understood the truth.

  After Dominic DiLucci had stolen the $100,000 from the investment firm where he worked, Harry had told the San Francisco police that he didn't know where Dom could be. But then he had gone to the head of the big insurance company where he and Vince were claims investigators—the same insurance company that handled the policy on Dom's investment firm—and had told the Chief that maybe he did have an idea where Dom was but hadn't said anything to the police because he wanted to come out here himself, wanted to bring Dom in himself. Dom wasn't dangerous, he said; there wouldn't be any trouble.

  The Chief hadn't liked the idea much, but he wanted the $100,000 recovered. So he had paid Harry's way to San Francisco, and Vince's way with him as a backup man. Both Vince and the Chief had figured they knew why Harry wanted to come himself. But they had been wrong. Dead wrong.

  Harry DiLucci was still staring out at the lights of San Francisco. And he was smiling.

  What kind of man are you? Vince thought. What kind of man sits there with his own brother in the back seat, on the way to jail and ready to crack—his own brother—and looks out at the lights of a city and smiles?

  Vince shivered. This time it had nothing to do with the cold.

  A DIP IN THE POOLE

  I was sitting in one of the heavy baroque chairs in the Hotel Poole's lobby, leafing through today's issue of The Wall Street Journal, when the young woman in the tweed suit picked Andrew J. Stuyvesant's pockets.

  She worked it very neatly. Stuyvesant—a silver-haired old gentleman who had fifteen or twenty million dollars in real-estate holdings—had just stepped out of one of the chrome-and-walnut elevators directly opposite where I was sitting. The woman must have been expecting him; either that, or her timing happened to be perfect. I hadn't noticed her hanging around the elevators, but she'd been somewhere close by; Stuyvesant hadn't taken more than three steps when she walked right into him and almost knocked him down. She caught hold of his arm, brushed at his coat, and offered profuse apologies. Stuyvesant bowed in a gallant way and allowed as how it was quite all right, my dear. She got his wallet and the diamond stickpin from his tie, and he neither felt nor suspected a thing.

  The woman apologized again and then hurried off across the lobby toward the hotel's main entrance, slipping wallet and stickpin into her purse as she went. I was out of my chair by then and I moved quickly after her. Even so, she got to within fifty feet of the entrance before I caught up with her.

  I let my hand fall on her shoulder, just hard enough to bring her up short. "Just a minute, miss," I said.

  She stiffened. And then turned slowly and looked at me as if I had crawled out from under one of the potted plants. "I beg your pardon?" she said in a wintry voice.

  "You and I need to have a little chat."

  "I am not in the habit of chatting with strange men."

  "I think you'll make an exception in my case."

  Her eyes flashed angrily. "If you don't let go of me this instant," she said, "I'll call for hotel security."

  "Will you? I don't think so."

  "I most certainly will."

  "All right," I said, "but you'll be wasting your breath. I'm hot
el security. Head of it, as a matter of fact. What used to be known as the house detective."

  She went pale. But she didn't lose her composure. "Well? What do you want with me?"

  "That little chat I mentioned."

  I steered her toward the hotel lounge, not far away. She didn't resist. It was early enough so that the lounge was mostly deserted. I sat her down in a booth away from the bar and then crowded in alongside her. One of the waiters started our way but I waved him off.

  The woman sat glaring at me with enough chill to freeze a side of beef. She was in her mid-twenties, I judged, and very attractive: slim, regal-looking, with brown eyes and seal-brown hair worn short and on the frizzy side. I said appreciatively, "Without a doubt you're the most beautiful dip I've ever encountered."

  "I don't know what you're talking about."

  "No?"

  "Certainly not."

  "Dip is underworld slang for pickpocket."

  She tried to affect indignation. "Are you insinuating that I . . ."

  "Oh, come on," I said. "I saw you lift Andrew Stuyvesant's wallet and diamond stickpin. I was about fifteen feet away at the time."

  Her gaze slid away from mine. Long, slender fingers toyed with the catch on her purse. Then her shoulders slumped and she sighed—a deep, tragic sigh.

  "There's no point in denying it," she said. "Yes, I stole those things."

  I took the bag from her and snapped it open. Stuyvesant's wallet, with the needle point of the stickpin now embedded in the leather, lay on top of the various feminine articles inside. I removed both items, looked at her identification to get her name and address, and then reclosed the bag and gave it back to her.

  She said, "Please understand. I'm not really a thief—not the kind you think, anyway. I have a . . . compulsion to take things. From people, from stores, wherever I happen to be when the urge comes over me. And I'm powerless to stop myself."

  "Kleptomania?"

  "Yes. I've been to three different psychiatrists during the past two years, but they've been unable to cure me."

  I shook my head sympathetically. "It must be terrible for you."

  "Terrible," she agreed. "When . . . when my father learns of this latest episode, he'll have me put into a sanatorium." Her voice quavered on the last word, and kept on quavering as she said, "He threatened to do just that if I ever stole anything again, and he doesn't make idle threats."

  I studied her for a time. Then I said, "Your father doesn't have to know what happened here today."

  "He . . . he doesn't?"

  "No," I said. "No real harm has been done. Mr. Stuyvesant will get his wallet and stickpin back. And I see no reason to cause the hotel, or you, any public embarrassment."

  A hopeful look brightened her eyes. "Then . . . you'll let me go?"

  "I guess I'm too soft-hearted for the kind of job I have," I said. "Yes, I'll let you go. If you promise me you'll never set foot inside the Hotel Poole again."

  "Oh, I promise!"

  "You'd better keep it. If I catch you here again I'll turn you over to the police."

  "You'll never see me again," she assured me. "I . . . have an appointment with another psychiatrist tomorrow morning, one who specializes in my sort of problem. I feel sure he'll be able to help me."

  "Let's hope so."

  I slid out of the booth and put my back to her long enough to light a cigarette. When I turned around, the street door to the lounge was just closing and the young woman was gone.

  On my way back into the lobby, I thought wryly: If she's a kleptomaniac, I'm Mary, Queen of Scots. What she was, of course, was an accomplished professional pickpocket; her technique was much too polished, her hands much too skilled, for her to be anything else. She was also a fairly adept spontaneous liar.

  But then, so am I.

  As I walked out through the hotel's front entrance, my right hand resting on the fat leather wallet and diamond stickpin in my coat pocket, I found myself feeling a little sorry for her. But only a little.

  After all, I had been working the Hotel Poole for years and that made Andrew J. Stuyvesant my mark by right of territorial prerogative. After two days of waiting for an opportunity, I had been within fifteen seconds of dipping him myself when she appeared out of nowhere.

  Wouldn't you say I was entitled to the swag?

  SOMETHING WRONG

  A "Nameless Detective" Story

  The instant I unlocked the door and walked into my flat, I knew something was wrong.

  I stopped a couple of paces through the door, with the hairs pulling at the nape of my neck. Kerry had entered ahead of me and she was halfway across the room before she realized I wasn't following. She turned, saw me standing rigid, and said immediately, "What's the matter?"

  I didn't answer. I kept searching the room with my eyes: the old mismatched furniture, the shelves containing my collection of pulp magazines, the bay window beyond which a thick San Francisco fog crawled sinuously across the night. There were no signs of disturbance. Nor was there anything unusual to hear. And yet the feeling of wrongness remained sharp and urgent. When you've been a detective as long as I have, you develop a kind of protective sixth sense and you learn to trust it.

  Somebody had gotten in here while Kerry and I were out to dinner and a movie in North Beach.

  Somebody who was still here now?

  Kerry came back toward me, saying again, "What's the matter?"

  "Go out into the hall."

  "What for?"

  "Just do it."

  We'd been together long enough and she knew me well enough not to argue. Frowning now, worry-eyed, she moved past me and out into the hall.

  I shut the door after her and turned back to face the room. Nothing out of place in here . . . or was there? Something didn't seem quite right, but I couldn't identify it—couldn't focus on anything right now except the possibility of the intruder still being on the premises.

  This was one of the few times I regretted my fundamental distaste for guns; I owned one, a.38 S&W Bodyguard, but I kept it clipped under the dash in the car. Strictly for emergencies. Yeah—like now. I picked up a heavy alabaster bookend, not much of a weapon but the only one handy, and went across to the half-closed bedroom door.

  Nobody in there; I opened the closet and looked under the bed to make sure. No evidence of invasion or forced entry, either—not that anyone could get in through the bedroom window, or any of the other windows, without using a tall ladder. The bathroom was also empty and undisturbed. So were the kitchen and the rear porch. The back door, accessible by a set of outside stairs from an alley off Laguna Street, was still secured by its spring lock and chain lock.

  Back in the bedroom, I opened the middle dresser drawer. The leather case in which I keep my few items of jewelry and a small amount of spare cash was still in place under my clean shirts. The valuables inside were likewise untouched.

  But that reassured me only a little. The feeling of wrongness, of a violation of my private space, would not go away. As unlikely as it seemed, somebody had gotten in during our absence. I was as sure of it as you can be of something unproven.

  I recrossed the front room, opened the door. Kerry was standing in front of it, fidgeting. "Just in time," she said. "I was about to start making some noise. What is it? Burglars?"

  "Something like that."

  I got down on one knee to examine the two locks on the front door. One deadbolt, one push-button on the knob. When I was done I asked Kerry, "When we left earlier, did I use my key to lock the deadbolt? You remember?"

  "I think you did. You always do, don't you?"

  "Almost always, unless I'm distracted. I wasn't distracted tonight. But the deadbolt wasn't on when we got back just now." That was the first thing that had made me feel the wrongness—the key turning but the lock not being in place.

  "What about the push-button?"

  "I'm sure that was locked."

  "You think somebody picked it and the deadbolt?"

  "
I wish it was that simple. The answer is no."

  A professional burglar can get past the best deadbolt made, but not even a locksmith with a set of precision picks can do it without leaving marks. There were none on the deadbolt, none on the push-button. Nobody could possibly have come in this way, unless he had a key.

  I asked Kerry if she'd lost or misplaced her key recently; she hadn't. Mine hadn't been out of my possession, either. And ours were the only two keys to the flat. Not even the landlord had one. I had lived here for more than twenty years and had had the locks changed more than once at my own expense.

  Kerry asked, "Is anything missing?"

  "Doesn't seem to be. Nothing disturbed, no sign of forced entry. But I can't shake the feeling someone was in here."

  "For what reason, if not to steal something?"

  "I can't even guess."

  "How could somebody get in, with everything locked up tight?"

  "No guess there either."

  We prowled the flat together, room to room and back again. There was absolutely nothing missing or disarranged. I checked the locks on the windows and on the back door; all were secure and had not been tampered with as far as I could tell. I did find a half-inch sliver of metal on the floor of the utility porch, the same sort of brass as the chain lock. But it hadn't come from the lock because I checked to make sure. It could have been splintered off just about anything made of brass; could have lain there for days.

  We were in the front room again when Kerry said, with an edge of exasperation in her voice, "You must be mistaken. A false alarm."

  "I'm not mistaken."

  "Even great detectives have paranoid flashes now and then."

  "This isn't funny, Kerry."

  "Did I say it was?" She sighed elaborately, the way she does when her patience is being tried. "I'm going to make some coffee," she said. "You want a cup?"