No Good From A Corpse

Chapter 2

Chapter 2

There were five people in Edmond dive's office. Three men, one of whom, a big black-haired fellow, was slumped in a dark corner with his head in his hands; two women, and a silence that Clive's entrance did not break but only deepened.

The office was not too large. It was paneled in Philippine mahogany and contained an expensive leather couch, matching armchairs, filing cabinets, and a desk. Wide windows looked out on the intersection of Vine Street and Hollywood Boulevard a block away.

Jonathan Ladd Jones got up from behind the desk. He was a little man with a large head and a face like a healthy, sunburned frog. His eyes might have belonged to a spaniel, only for a certain wicked brightness.

Clive said, "Hello, Johnny." He included the whole room in his smile. He took off his hat and coat. Johnny said, "Hello, Ed." Aside from that, no one spoke. Four pairs of eyes followed the course of Clive's five feet and eight niches of well-tailored symmetry across to the desk and into the chair that was still warm from Johnny Jones's small bottom.

"Now," said Clive, "what can I do for you?"

The man in the corner took his head out of his hands and said uncertainly, "Eddie..."

Clive's face became perfectly blank. Cords tightened in his cheeks and around his mouth, standing out sharply. He started to get up.

One of the women rose. She said, "Mick didn't want to come. I made him. I'm Jane Hammond, Mr. Clive - Mick's wife. Everything I have, everything I might have, depends on your help."

Clive sat down again. After that first glance he avoided seeing Mick Hammond.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I imagine you understand..."

"Listen to me, Mr. Clive!" Her gloved hands crushed the big suede bag she held. She wore blue, expensively plain, and she had perfect legs. Clive was beginning to notice that she was beautiful, in a clear, golden, highbred way. She was also tired, inexpressibly so, in a way that had nothing to do with her body.

"I've waited a very long time to see you," she said. "I can't tell you how important it is."

Clive lighted a cigarette. He was politely impersonal now, but his hands jerked. "I never handle divorce cases."

The young man sitting nearest the desk laughed loudly. "Divorce! That's good, that is! Divorce!" He resembled Jane Hammond. He was probably younger, but he was already getting saggy and bleared, and there was no iron in his face. He began to grow red with the force of his amusement. The girl over on the couch said, "Richard. Shut up." She said it with an old, accustomed venom. She was curled up like a child on the seat, so that nothing much of her showed except that she wore a crimson coat and had light brown hair. Her head hung forward so that her face was hidden.

She said, "We've argued about coming here until I'm sick of it. Now we are here, let's get it over with. For good."

Jane Hammond said, "My sister, Vivien Alcott. And my brother, Richard."

Richard Alcott stopped laughing, breathing as though he had been exerting himself. Clive nodded briefly at both of them. Alcott acknowledged it. Vivien ignored him.

Jane Hammond came to the desk. "You don't understand, Mr. Clive. I'm trying to prevent a divorce - or something... something more permanent. I know how things are between you and Mick. But all that was years ago. It's different now. And from what Mick has told me of you I believe you're a big enough person to realize..."

"Forgive and forget," said Alcott. "Kiss the bastard and make up. Don't let her fool you, Clive. Jane's a persuasive talker. Any woman is, when she's in love." The way he said "love" had a peculiarly nasty implication.

"I am in love with Mick," Jane said quietly. "And he has changed."

"Oh, yes," said Alcott. "He's changed, all right. I can tell you how much he's changed. He's got himself a fancy bitch..."

"Richard!" Hammond rose abruptly. He steadied himself with a heavy blackthorn stick. Clive realized for the first time that he was lame. He had not until then remembered the year-old newspaper stories of an automobile accident in which Hammond had been badly injured.

Clive kept his attention centered carefully on his blotter.

"I don't like this, Eddie," said Hammond. "I didn't want it this way. Eddie..." He stopped, and then went on hoarsely, "If you'd just let me talk to you... God, I don't blame you! But if you'd only give me a chance... It isn't me that's important now. It's Jane."

"Jane, Jane, Jane." Vivien Alcott drawled the name mockingly. "Be honest, Mick. You're scared. You're so scared you'd crawl to anybody for help." She laughed. "Jane! Yes - you love Jane so much, and that's why you have to spend your nights..."

This time it was Jane who said, "Vivien, stop it." She turned to Clive. She was pale but stonily composed. "I knew it would be like this. I didn't want them to come."

"No," said Alcott. "You didn't, did you? Clive, she thinks one of us is sending her those letters. That's how she treats her family, since she married that bastard. She wanted to come down here alone with him and talk us into trouble."

"I would say," Clive told him, "that you were doing a better job of that than anyone else could." He reached for a card and began to write. "Does that mean you're going to take the case? You're going to help that dirty rat after all he's done?" Alcott got up. His face was suffused. Clive saw that he was slightly drunk. "All right," said Alcott. "Go ahead. Pull him out of this mess. Mick gets away with everything. But someday it'll catch up with him. Someday they'll find that bastard stuffed down a drain, where he belongs. And I'll tell you this much, to make the job easier for you. Everybody Mick Hammond has ever known has a reason to hate his guts. Even you!"

He went out, slamming the door hard after him. Vivien laughed.

Clive stood up and held out the card to Jane Hammond. "This man is a good operative and completely reliable. I can recommend him for whatever you may have in mind."

She made no move to take it. "You can't refuse even to listen."

"I'm sorry."

"I forced Mick to come here with me because I knew that if you could see and talk to him you'd understand."

"This man will do as much for you as I could."

"I don't believe that"

Clive said impatiently, "Mrs. Hammond! I'm not the only private investigator in the country."

"You're the only one I know, and trust."

Clive frowned. He studied her with sudden intentness, and then said again, sincerely, "I'm sorry."

She sighed and bent her head. Clive put the card in her hand and turned away. He stood looking out at the rain, smoking nervously.

"Eddie," said Mick Hammond, "there's something I ought to tell you."

Clive said, "Johnny, will you show these people out, please."

Jonathan Ladd Jones went to the door. He had been perched in a corner listening. His expression now was peculiar - partly malicious excitement, partly apprehension.

Hammond said again, "Eddie..."

"Yes, Mick," said Vivien Alcott. "Go ahead. Tell him. He's in the mood for dirty stories. He'll enjoy it."

Hammond made a sound in his throat. His wife caught his arm.

"Come on, Mick," she said gently. "Mr. Clive seems to be quite sure he knows everything as it is."

Johnny bowed them out. Clive thought they were gone, and then Vivien Alcott's voice said: "Mr. Clive."

She was standing in the doorway. The dreary light touched her broad cheekbones and the sulky line of her lips. It caught in her eyes, so that Clive couldn't see what color they were, only that they were not large and had a fault tilt to them like the eyes of a cat. They were disconcertingly intent.

"I knew you'd turn them down," she said. "The b***h. The sweet b***h! My brother was right. She tried to sneak away, because she's afraid one of us is sending the letters. I'm glad you turned her down!"

She studied him for a moment and then laughed. "You should have listened to what Mick had to say. I hope you kill him when you find out!"

She went away. Johnny shut the door.

"Oi!" he said. "Such a family! For Chrissake, Ed, what was all that, anyhow? I never knew you knew any Michael Hammond."

Clive poured himself a stiff shot from the office bottle, rattling it against the glass.

"Long time ago, Johnny."

"Uh-huh. Okay. Well - uh - going home now?"

"Yeah. I haven't slept in three weeks, and I'm beginning to get punchy." He pulled his coat on.

"That was a swell job, Ed."

"Thanks. Oh, Johnny, about Laurel. I know about Farrar, but is there anything else?"

Johnny looked uncomfortable but stimulated. "Well..."

"I know there's a man. Take it from there."

"That was it, that just went out Mick Hammond, He's been home with her four times."

Clive stared at him. A sullen flush crawled up over his cheekbones.

"I'm beginning to get it. Two strings to his bow, huh? If the wife doesn't work, he's still got Laurel. Well I'll be..."

He went on from there. Johnny sat down behind the desk. "Wow!" he said, when Clive had quieted again. "Don't ever turn that loose on me, Ed. Uh - look, pal. It's none of my business, but if you put that guy on ice I'll be out of a job..."

Clive laughed. "I'll cling to that thought when I need something to steady me. I started to ask you if there was anything Laurel ought to be scared about."

"Not a thing, unless she's scared of Farrar."

"Sure of that?"

"Sure I'm sure. Listen, I'm the second greatest private d**k in the country - "

"So sorry." He opened the door. "So long, genius!" The office was on the second floor. As Clive reached the lower hall, which was dark even in sunny weather and showed nothing but closed doors, somebody stepped out of the shadows.

"Wait!" It was Richard Alcott. He gripped Clive's sleeve, breathing whisky fumes in his face.

"Listen," he said. "I'll pay you not to take that case." Clive jerked his arm free. He started away, and Alcott grabbed him again.

"Listen, Clive, I'm talking to you. I'll pay you plenty. They've got it coming to them. You don't want to help that bastard after what he did to your Marian."

Clive turned quickly and hit him in the stomach. Alcott doubled up on the tiles.

Clive said furiously, "Why couldn't that son of a b***h keep his mouth shut!"

He went on out of the building.

It had stopped raining when he reached his apartment hotel. A thin kid in a blue uniform came out for his bags.

"Gee, Mr. Clive," he said, "you sure showed up those cops all right! I'll bet there isn't anybody in the country any smarter than you."

Clive laughed. "Go easy, Chuck! You'll have me so I can't wear a hat any more." He gave the car a slap. "You can put the baby to bed for me."

Chuck was overjoyed. He loved cars, but drove so poorly that he seldom had the chance.

The clerk, the switchboard girl, and the elevator boy all had a greeting for Clive. He kidded them, secretly enjoying the fuss, and went on upstairs. Chuck put the bags in the bedroom. Clive flipped him a folded bill.

"Gee, thanks! Gee, you're a swell guy!" Chuck's eyes shone. Young eyes, clean like a new sheet. Clive laughed, without humor.

"Don't trust it, kid," he said. "Don't trust anything, and you won't get hurt." He wondered if his own eyes had ever looked like that.

It was pouring rain again and Clive was in the shower when the phone rang. He cursed and went dripping across the carpet, wiping his hands on a towel. His body was lean and tanned, put together with tough, wiry neatness. There was dark hair on his chest and forearms.

"Edmond Clive speaking."

It took him a minute to realize what the person on the other end was doing. He, or she, was whispering. Slowly, distinctly, but without a trace of honest voice.

"You're over draft age, Clive, but you're still young. You wouldn't want to die so young."

Clive's eyelids narrowed. "What is this?"

"Just a suggestion. Nosy guys get hurt, is all."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah." There was a terrible, callous indifference about the whispering. "I'm talking about Laurel Dane, She's on a spot, pal, and nobody can get her off it. I don't want to have to bother with you. That's why I'm telling you. But if you're stubborn... it's a free country, pal, and you can die any time you want." The receiver clicked.

Clive put the phone down carefully, and then raised his hand and inspected it. It was shaking. In spite of the sizzling radiator, the room had grown very cold.