You Can't Live Forever Read online

  YOU CAN’T LIVE FOREVER

  •

  Hal Masur

  CHAPTER ONE

  It started with a summons, a brunette, and a Turk.

  The summons was in my pocket, the brunette was in trouble, and the Turk was dead.

  The situation, of course, was abnormal. Sometimes ordinary methods fail and a lawyer has to serve his own summons. That’s why I was standing in front of Nicholas Creel’s apartment, ringing his bell, with a roll of wire over my left shoulder and a canvas tool kit in my right hand.

  There was nothing in that to scare anyone witless.

  But the woman who opened the door gasped in panic and tried to slam it shut. My foot, however, was over the threshold and it wouldn’t close. She shrank back, deathly pale, her eyes round and wild, staring at me as if she’d just awakened from a nightmare. The alarm in her eyes fed itself, visibly mounting, so I gave her a disarming smile.

  “Telephone man,” I said.

  At first she didn’t seem to understand. Then, very slowly, my words sank in, and she became aware of the workman’s gear.

  She swallowed and said breathlessly, “There—there’s nothing wrong with the telephone.”

  “That’s right, ma’am. But the main trunk for this exchange is overloaded and we’re checking everybody’s line.”

  She had no idea what I was talking about, but then neither did I, and that made us even.

  She kept staring at me, a small woman, delicately boned, but overdeveloped on top where she emerged burstingly from the square neckline of a peasant dress no peasant would ever be able to afford. Twin braids were drawn from a gleaming part down the center and knotted at the back of her head. Her eyes were dull, dark bruises against the dead-white face.

  “Couldn’t you come back some other time?” she asked tremulously.

  I shook my head. “Sorry, ma’am. Orders.”

  I didn’t want to go in. I’d been hoping that Creel himself would open the door, then I could have given it to him right there and left. But I’d gone this far and with a shade more luck I might be able to carry it off.

  Her eyelids went down as if in prayer and she let out a long sigh. Hopelessly resigned, she flattened herself against the wall to let me pass.

  “The telephone is over in the far corner,” she whispered.

  I went in. A pale Sarouk rambled across the living room floor. In the center, two enormous candy-striped sofas faced each other over a wrought-iron coffee table. Only one painting hung on the roughly stippled walls, a vivid splash of impressionism in a worm-eaten frame.

  Nicholas Creel was not in sight. But I knew he was here, somewhere in the apartment. His secretary had said so when I called his office.

  The telephone sat on a table near a bank of windows overlooking the Hudson. It had been easy getting into the building. Nobody tried to stop me. But a couple of years ago you needed a credit card from Dun & Bradstreet just to get past the doorman. Now the landlord, miffed at rent controls, had installed self-service elevators and cut his employees to a minimum.

  There was nothing to do but stall and hope that Creel would drift into the room. So I picked up the receiver, unscrewed the cap, and let the tiny magnets snap at the diaphragm.

  The woman came close and watched me, her face tense and nervous, her forehead glistening. Creel must have warned her about opening the door for anyone and now she was impatient to get me out. She seemed terrified at the prospect of facing his wrath. And from what I’d heard of the man I could understand her emotions. There was nothing wrong with Creel that a good murder wouldn’t cure—his own, of course.

  I waved the telephone at her. “Been having much trouble with this thing, Mrs. Creel?”

  She shook her head.

  “Get many wrong numbers?”

  “No.” Her voice trailed the end of a ragged breath. Harsh white lines were deeply etched around her mouth. She was hanging onto her control with both sets of teeth.

  I kept fiddling with the instrument. I removed the base and blinked at the unfathomable complexity of wires. I replaced it and polished it with my handkerchief.

  “Please,” the woman said. “Will you be long? I’m expecting someone.”

  That cut it. If Creel wouldn’t come to me I’d have to hunt him down.

  “Another minute,” I said. “As soon as I check the extension in the bedroom.”

  Her eyes swelled with apprehension, flickering at an arched passageway. She looked as if she were drawing her last breath.

  I collected my gear quickly and went. But I stopped short at the bedroom door. Either Mrs. Creel was a negligent housekeeper or they had a sloppy maid. The bureau drawers were open and undergarments dangled off the edges. Hangers and clothes lay on the floor near disheveled closets.

  Creel, however, was not visible.

  Okay. I’d catch him when he walked out of the bathroom.

  The telephone was on a night table beside the bed. I took it apart and reassembled it. Then I smiled to myself and dialed the operator. “Just checking,” I said when I heard her voice. “Would you ring this number, please?”

  The thing went off, sounding like a fire alarm.

  I let it ring four times. The woman failed to pick it up in the living room, knowing of course that I was testing. I put one hand on the summons in my pocket and went over to the bathroom door and knocked.

  “Telephone, Mr. Creel,” I called.

  No answer.

  I raised my voice. “Telephone.”

  He must have had his head under water. I turned the knob and opened the door, grinning.

  The grin froze on my face and I stood goggled-eyed with shock. A man lay in the tub. He was fully clothed and one arm hung grotesquely over the side. Luckily for his blue serge suit there was no water in the tub. Not that it made any difference to the man. He was beyond caring about clothes, or anything else, for that matter.

  Two numbed steps carried me closer.

  Somebody had rowed him across the River Styx, using a cartridge shell for a paddle.

  The bullet had caught him high in the stomach and he had died hard, his lips drawn back over his teeth in a grimace of pain. He was a stranger to me. I had never seen Creel, but this chap did not fit the description.

  Drops of blood traced his path along the white tiles. The torn shower curtain told how he’d clutched at it for support.

  Then I remembered the woman.

  I whirled and raced through the bedroom, grabbing a statue of Cupid for self-defense on the way. The living room was deserted and I went on through to the kitchen. It gaped emptily, the service door ajar, revealing a rear stairway. She was gone.

  Back in the living room the phone was still ringing. I lifted the receiver off the hook and shut it off. Then I stood there, still dazed, thinking of the woman.

  How far would she get? And where would she hide? It was panic that made her flee. Panic and shock that made her open the door for me in the first place. Unless she was expecting someone else. In which case I’d better start moving myself.

  I hesitated. She had left me holding the bag. I could drop it and run, or I could call the cops and try to explain.

  Quite abruptly the decision was taken out of my hands.

  A key scratched in the hall door lock and the door opened. My head wrenched around and I stood there, staring stupidly as two men advanced into the room, unaware of the marble Cupid gripped in my hand.

  “That’s too bad,” the younger one was saying. “You’ll have to work out your own tax problems, Julian. Even if—”

  He stopped cold. His face went lugubriously perpendicular. Astonishment widened his eyes. This one fitted the description. I was standing face to face with Nicholas Creel.

  He was a big
, slope-shouldered bird with an aggressive jaw and hard cynical eyes and a full head of rippling brown hair. His tweed suit was beautifully tailored and he looked like a man who would be equally at home either in a boudoir or a locker room.

  He recovered instantly and his face settled like plaster. “I’ll be damned!” he said softly. “Look what we found, Julian.”

  The older man stood agape. Somewhere in his sixties, but tall and saber-straight, he had a slender face and a lean nose over a neatly trimmed dark Vandyke. Despite his surprise, he managed to carry himself with an air of casual elegance.

  Creel moved sideways to a desk. Without shifting the focus of his eyes he reached down to pull open the top drawer. When his hand came up again I was looking into the naked eye of a .32 caliber revolver. My little stratagem was going haywire.

  I tried to smile. “Take it easy, Mr. Creel. You don’t understand.”

  “I understand that you have no business in this apartment. Call the police, Julian.”

  “Now just a minute,” I said. “Your wife let me in.”

  He laughed once, harshly. “I’m afraid that won’t wash, friend. Put that statue down. Careful, please. It’s a valuable piece. See what’s going on in the bedroom, will you, Julian?”

  The older man stepped beyond the arched passage and returned immediately, his voice thin with excitement. “The place is a mess, Nick. And there’s a bag of burglar tools on the bed.”

  “A prowler,” Creel said. “Caught in the act. Yes, I think we had better rustle up some law.”

  My Adam’s apple got stuck. “Hold on,” I said urgently. “You boys are jumping to conclusions. I’m no housebreaker. That’s an electrician’s kit. I came to fix the telephone. Your wife let me in.”

  “My wife?” He seemed amused. “Okay, let’s check. Trot her out.”

  “I can’t. She’s gone.”

  “But she was here?”

  “Yes.”

  “What did she look like?”

  “Small and attractive, a brunette.”

  “Try again, friend. My wife happens to be tall and blonde.”

  I suddenly felt completely crushed.

  The older man was already talking into the phone. “This is Julian St. George,” he said. “I’m at the Riverside Arms, in the apartment of Nicholas Creel. You’d better send some men over. We just caught a burglar.” He hung up.

  I shook my head sadly. “We’re in for it now,” I said. “That was a big mistake. There’s a dead man in the bathtub.”

  They both gaped at me foolishly.

  CHAPTER TWO

  It took the two cops who arrived in a prowl car less than ten seconds to conclude that this case was out of their jurisdiction. And it took Homicide less than ten minutes to get there.

  Detective-Lieutenant John Nola came through the door with Assistant District Attorney Ed Magowan at his heels. I knew John Nola well. We had worked together on the Cambreau and Ainsley cases.

  He was a neat precise package of police efficiency, dark-complexioned and somber-eyed, intelligent and incorruptible, that rare product, a cop with a sense of human values. A man who had hoisted himself up from the ranks and had won the respect of the big wheels on the force.

  He was surprised when he saw me and stuck out a well-kept hand. “Jordan,” he said, pleased. “Thought about you the other day. You mixed up in this one?”

  Creel laughed briefly. “And how he’s mixed up in it! Do you know this man, Lieutenant?”

  “Know him? Know Scott Jordan, the lawyer?”

  “Lawyer!” Creel looked incredulous. “He told us he was a telephone man.”

  “That was only a gag,” I said.

  Creel sneered. “Some gag! We caught him here, unauthorized, in this apartment, with a bag of burglar tools and a dead man in the bathtub.”

  Anticipation illuminated Magowan’s face. He was a brisk young specimen, a compendium of legal maxims, a gladiator in a Brooks Brothers suit with crew-cut hair and a Harvard accent, jousting against crime. I had locked horns with the District Attorney’s office before, especially with his boss, and the whole staff would welcome an opportunity to haul me over the coals. Here was a beautiful opportunity to put the skids under me.

  Magowan looked at Creel. “Who let Jordan into the apartment?”

  “Nobody.” Derision curled his lip. “Though he claims my wife opened the door for him.”

  “Did she?”

  “Of course not. We’ve been separated for over a week and she doesn’t live here. The woman he described is unknown to me.”

  “If in fact she exists.” Magowan smiled thinly. “Breaking and entering. Possibly murder. We’ll throw the book at you this time, Jordan.”

  Nola was watching me, puzzled. “Who’s the corpse, Scott?”

  I shrugged helplessly. “Beats me. I never saw the guy before in my life.”

  He lifted a questioning eyebrow at Creel. “I know him,” Creel admitted. “The man’s name is Earl Varney.”

  “What about him?”

  “He used to work for me. Box-office treasurer of a theatre I once operated. He was tried and convicted on an embezzlement charge. I understand he was released from jail recently.”

  “Who accused him?” I asked pointedly.

  Creel’s eyes chilled. “I did. But the bonding company prosecuted.”

  “We’ll ask the questions,” Magowan snapped at me. “Then ask him why he carries a gun. And find out if he has a permit for it.”

  “I have,” Creel said. “I need a gun for self-protection because I handle large sums of money.”

  “You needed it for protection against Varney,” I said. “He claimed you framed him and he swore revenge when they shipped him over.”

  Nola looked at me hard. “I thought you never saw the man, Scott.”

  “That’s right, lieutenant. But I was told about him. I heard he was out gunning for Creel.” Maybe if I followed this line I could turn some of the heat off myself. “Creel could have killed Varney. Maybe he just came back to get rid of the body.”

  Creel swung from the floor, but I was ready for him and ducked. He lost his balance and almost fell. Anger darkened the blood in his face.

  “Watch it!” Nola said sharply. “No more of that.” Creel brought himself under control and straightened his coat. A reluctant smile was mostly on one side of his face. “Sorry,” he said. “I was in my office until thirty minutes ago. You can check it with my secretary.”

  “So was I,” I said. “You can check it with mine.”

  “We will,” Magowan assured me. “But that still doesn’t explain what you were doing in this apartment.”

  “He’s right,” Nola said. “Let’s have it, Scott.”

  At last. Now I could fulfill my mission. I hauled out the paper.

  “I came to deliver this,” I said, and shoved it into Creel’s unresisting hand. “A summons and complaint in the matter of Joshua Wilde versus Nicholas Creel.”

  Julian St. George, who had been an aloof spectator, frowned. “What’s Wilde suing you for, Nick?”

  “It’s all there in the complaint,” I said. “He can read it some other time.”

  The door opened. An odd little man with sharp eyes in a wrinkled face stepped briskly into the room. I recognized Dr. Pike, a Deputy Medical Examiner. Because of an absorbing interest in crime, he had relinquished his private practice for a career in public service, solving pathological clues.

  “Where is it, lieutenant?” he asked without preamble.

  “In the bathroom.”

  A bouncy stride took him away and brought him right back after a cursory examination. He was filling out a DOA form.

  “Dead about two hours at a rough guess,” he said. “Body not yet cold, rigor just setting in. Shot with a .32 from the looks of the wound.”

  “Creel’s gun is a .32,” I said.

  Nola pushed a hand at him, palm up. “I’ll take it,” he said quietly.

  Creel gave him the gun, a Colt Banker’s Sp
ecial, with one of those short barrels that won’t tear the lining of a custom-tailored suit. Nola broke open the cylinder, held the gun against the light, and squinted into the breech. Then he stared levelly at Creel.

  “One chamber empty,” he said. “And recently fired.”

  “Not by me.” Creel was beginning to show signs of nervousness. “Hell, that gun was in my desk. Mr. St. George saw me take it out. Jordan did too.”

  “That’s right,” St. George confirmed him.

  “How about it, Scott?” Nola asked.

  I nodded reluctantly. “Sure, I saw him go for it, but he could have left it there after the shooting. And picking it up later would be a good way to explain his fingerprints if he’d forgotten about them.”

  Red spots flared on his cheekbones. He held himself in and said through his teeth, “Say, what is this? I’m a taxpayer and a responsible citizen. I find a tricky shyster in my apartment with some cock-and-bull story about some nonexistent woman letting him in, and you stand by and let him accuse me of murder.”

  “We’re not letting him do anything,” Nola said. “We’ll check his alibi for the time of the killing. And we’ll check yours too.”

  Magowan gestured flatly. “Regardless of the killing, I refuse to be gulled by a lot of eyewash about someone admitting him into this apartment. Jordan has been flirting with the law for years. This time the ice cracked under him. My office intends to prosecute him for breaking and entering. We’re going to nail him once and for all.”

  “Are you serious?” Nola asked him.

  “Absolutely. Possession of that statue is evidence of a larcenous intent. How about it, Mr. Creel? Will you sign a complaint?”

  “With pleasure.” Creel’s voice held malice.

  Magowan nodded. “Good enough.”

  I didn’t like it. But I could understand Creel’s angle. By discrediting the attorney for a man who was suing him, he hoped to strengthen his own position. They could make it stick too.

  Unless I found that brunette I was up a creek.

  Nola turned to Sergeant Wienick. “Shoot over to Creel’s office and get his secretary. Pick up Jordan’s on your way down. Hop on it.” Wienick, a stolid-faced plain-clothes man, left.