Fall Girl Page 3

  With a show of reluctance, Horton allowed himself to be shown the hard-top convertibles on the lot. He expressed mild interest in a 1958 Mercury with only nine thousand miles on it.

  Encouraged by this nibble, the salesman moved into high gear. Ten minutes later, after coming down three hundred dollars from the first asking price of twenty-four-hundred, he got Horton to agree to buy the car.

  The young man let out a satisfied sigh. “Just step into the office and we’ll make out the papers,” he said. “How do you want to finance it?”

  “I don’t,” Horton told him. “I’ll pay cash. You’ll accept a personal check, won’t you?”

  The salesman looked a little dubious. “I don’t know about that, sir. The banks aren’t open on Saturday, and usually we don’t accept checks unless they are. So we can phone and verify the account, you see.”

  Horton shrugged. “In that case I’ll try another lot.”

  “No, no,” the young man said hurriedly. “I’m sure we’ll be able to work it out. Only thing is, you’ll have to talk to the boss.”

  He escorted Horton into the office and introduced him to Trusting Joe Gannon. The proprietor was a thin, balding man of middle age with an affable manner.

  When Gannon learned that Horton was not a local resident, he, too, seemed dubious about accepting a check. Nevertheless he decided to do it.

  He really didn’t have much choice. In the first place Horton possessed more than his share of the bunco artist’s stock in trade: an ability to charm strangers into trusting him on sight. In the second place Horton had highly convincing credentials.

  He explained to Gannon his reason for being in town, and displayed a letter from the Acme Realty Company confirming an appointment to show him some beach homes that afternoon. He showed his bank book and mentioned bank president Hanford Maytum by name.

  In the third place Trusting Joe Gannon was confronted with the choice of either accepting the check or losing the sale, for Horton made it clear that if the check wasn’t acceptable, he would find some other dealer who was willing to take the risk.

  In the end Trusting Joe lived up to his name. He accepted the check, stipulating only that Horton write his hotel and room number on the back.

  At five minutes after noon Horton drove the Mercury off the lot.

  CHAPTER V

  HORTON DROVE the Mercury only six blocks. He took it straight to Honest John Quincy’s Used-Car Lot. He parked alongside the small office building in the center of the lot, got out of the car, and waited. He was pleased to note that the Jaguar still stood on the lot.

  When no salesman appeared after several moments, he stepped to the door of the building and peered through the glass pane of the door. The door led into a small office containing a desk and a couple of tables, a few chairs and a filing cabinet. The office took up only half the building, and two doors on its inside wall led to rooms in the other half.

  A man and a woman were in the office, apparently in heated argument. The man was in his fifties, heavy-set, with black hair beginning to gray and thick black brows. Horton recognized him from his newspaper picture as Honest John Quincy. The woman was a stunning blonde of about thirty.

  The boss exercising the ancient prerogative of bawling out the hired help, Horton decided. He bounced his knuckles on the glass to alert them to his presence, opened the door and entered.

  Both the man and woman looked at him. Quincy’s face was dark with anger. With an effort he smoothed his features and managed a strained smile. The blonde at first stared at him sulkily. Then Horton smiled at her, and her sulkiness evaporated. She studied him with open interest.

  Quincy said, “Yes, sir?”

  “Looking for a salesman,” Horton said.

  “They’re both out to lunch at the moment,” Quincy told him. “I’m the owner. Can I help you?”

  “Maybe. I’m interested in that Jaguar you have outside.”

  Growing conscious of the woman’s gaze still on him, Horton glanced at her. She was looking him up and down with no attempt to disguise her deliberate examination. Accepting the challenge, he stared back at her with equal deliberation.

  She was a lovely thing, as cool and crisp as a fresh salad, with perfect features and a slim, rounded body. She wore a white linen dress with a design of red flowers, open-toed white pumps and no stockings, so that flaming red toenails were exposed. From the way the dress clung Horton suspected she wore nothing under it.

  Horton returned his attention to Quincy when the man said in a suddenly sharp voice, “I’ll be glad to show it to you.”

  An instant later Horton understood what had caused the man’s tone to sharpen. The woman said in a soft drawl, “Why don’t you ask the gentleman his name, dear? And introduce us.”

  Horton glanced at her again, this time noting the wedding ring she wore. She wasn’t an employee after all, he realized, but Quincy’s wife. And they had been looking each other over right in front of her husband.

  Quincy scowled at the woman. When he made no attempt to take her suggestion, she gave Horton an intimate smile and said, “I’m Velda Quincy.”

  “James Horton,” he said with a formal nod. “How do you do?”

  Then he turned abruptly and opened the door, glancing over his shoulder at Quincy. He had no intention of getting caught in the middle of a family argument. Quincy sullenly followed him outside.

  They had barely reached the Jaguar when Velda Quincy came from the building, too. Walking over to them, she said to her husband, “You forgot to give me the money, dear.”

  All the time she was approaching, and even while she spoke, her eyes were on Horton.

  Quincy started to say with suppressed fury, “I told you—” Then he broke it off, reached for his wallet and slapped a number of bills into her outstretched palm. Horton noted that the back of his thick neck was fire-red.

  The woman thrust the bills into her purse without glancing at them, and gave Horton a smile of good-by. “Nice to have met you, Mr. Horton,” she said in her soft drawl. “Perhaps we’ll meet again.”

  “My pleasure, Mrs. Quincy,” Horton said politely, ignoring her second sentence.

  From the corner of his eye, he watched the sway of her hips as she walked to a red Chrysler convertible parked near the office building. She had to drive past the Jaguar to get off the lot, and she threw him a final intimate smile as she passed.

  Horton, aware that her husband’s gaze was on him, merely gave her a distant nod.

  Once the woman was out of sight, both he and Quincy were able to return their minds to business. Horton listened attentively as Quincy extolled the virtues of the Jaguar.

  He wanted three thousand dollars for it.

  Horton had a fair knowledge of sport cars. A 1955 Jaguar in good condition retailed for around two thousand. This one had thirty thousand miles on its speedometer, and there were several rust spots on its body. It was worth perhaps fifteen hundred.

  “Is that the best you can do?” he asked.

  “That’s a rock-bottom price,” Quincy assured him. “You won’t find another Jaguar in town at that price.”

  Apparently the chairman of the Civic Crime Committee’s aversion to rackets didn’t include rackets legally classed as business operations.

  Horton asked, “What’ll you give me on my Mercury?”

  Quincy walked over to the Mercury, glanced at the speedometer, then circled the car.

  “Twelve hundred,” he offered.

  “That doesn’t seem like very much,” Horton said dubiously.

  “Well, I might go to thirteen.”

  Horton said tentatively, “I thought maybe it would bring up to fifteen.”

  Quincy shook his head. “Out of the question. I’m cutting my profit to the bone now.”

  “Would you go fourteen?”

  “Make it thirteen-fifty,” Quincy said. “But that’s absolutely the last word.”

  Horton said, “You’ve got a deal.”

  Quincy total
ly recovered from his spat with his wife. “You drive a hard bargain,” he said with a rueful shake of his head. “The Jaguar’s yours for a balance of sixteen-fifty.”

  Horton pulled out his check book and said in a diffident tone, “A check is all right, isn’t it?”

  Quincy frowned. “Personal?”

  “Yes, sir.” He added with a trace of overeagerness, “It’s on a local bank. The Ritz City National. I mean the Rice City National.”

  “Um,” Quincy said doubtfully. “Let’s go inside and talk it over.”

  Back in the office Horton went full swing into his prepared act, deliberately calculated to make Quincy distrust him.

  It was a sensitive performance. He did nothing as obvious as putting a furtive look on his face. It was essential that if at some future time Quincy had to testify from a witness stand, he would be unable truthfully to point out any specific remark or action on Horton’s part which could logically be construed as guilty behavior. Horton merely acted a little too eager to close the deal and be on his way, and just frank enough to sound phony.

  The climax came when Quincy examined his car registration and discovered that Horton had purchased the Mercury only that day. His eyes strayed to the phone on his desk.

  Horton wanted to give him every opportunity to check with Trusting Joe Gannon. Glancing at his hands, he said, “Got a little dirty checking over the Jaguar. Have a washroom here?”

  Quincy silently pointed to one of the two doors on the inside wall. His gaze followed Horton as he crossed the office and disappeared.

  Inside the washroom Horton ran water hard for a moment, then softly stepped to the door and pressed his ear against it. He could hear the phone on Quincy’s desk being dialed.

  After a moment he heard Quincy’s low-toned voice say, “Gannon? This is John Quincy.”

  There was a pause, then, “Think I’ve got a hot-check artist here, Joe. You sell a James Horton a Mercury today?”

  After another pause, Quincy’s startled voice said, “Less than a half-hour ago! For how much?”

  A moment later he emitted a cynical little chuckle. “Well, well. He’s trying to unload it on me for thirteen-fifty.”

  There was another, longer pause. Then Quincy said, “Of course he can’t hear me. He’s in the washroom. I’ll stall him until you can get the police here. What? No, I’m all alone, so hurry. I don’t much like his looks.” His voice dropped even lower. “Hold it a sec, Joe. The door’s opening.”

  The last remark puzzled Horton. He took his ear from the door and glanced at its edge to make certain he hadn’t inadvertently caused it to crack open by leaning against it.

  It was still tightly closed.

  From the office there came a startled exclamation, followed by the thunderous explosion of a large-caliber gun. There was a stifled groan and the thud of a heavy body slumping to the floor.

  CHAPTER VI

  FOR A SECOND or two, Horton was too startled to react. He heard the outer door of the office slam. Then he jerked open the washroom door.

  At first glance the office seemed empty. He had to cross the room before he could see Quincy. The man had fallen from his chair behind his desk. He lay on his back making bubbling noises, and pink-flecked foam was dribbling from a corner of his mouth. A growing spot of blood was in the center of his chest.

  Even as Horton bent over him, a rattling sound came from his throat and his eyes rolled sightlessly upward.

  Horton grew conscious of the phone dangling from its cord just above the floor. He could hear Trusting Joe Gannon’s excited voice squawking, “John! Was that a shot? John, what happened?”

  Quietly he replaced the phone in its cradle.

  Moving to the door, he opened it and glanced outside. No one was in sight who might have been the killer. Traffic was moving normally along the street. A middle-aged couple was walking along the sidewalk next to the lot. Another couple, younger, was looking into the window of a furniture store across the street. Half a block away a man sat on a bus-stop bench reading a newspaper. If any of them had heard the shot, apparently they had assumed it was a backfire.

  Closing the door again, Horton did some furious thinking. It looked as though his fool-proof con game had suddenly developed into a fool-proof trap. With himself as the victim.

  He considered his chances of convincing the police that he had nothing to do with the murder if he simply stood his ground and waited for them to arrive.

  One item in his favor was that he had no gun. But perhaps the killer had tossed it somewhere in the lot for the police to find. If so, it might be difficult to convince them he wasn’t the one who tossed it there.

  Another item in his favor was that when the banks opened Monday, he could prove he hadn’t been trying to cash hot checks. Then he realized this wouldn’t be much of a defense. If his plan had worked out without being interrupted by murder, the investigation of him would have gone no farther than the Rice City National Bank. When it was discovered that he had substantial accounts there, everyone concerned would have been too embarrassed and apologetic to inquire further.

  But as a murder suspect, the police would probe deeply into his background. It was almost certain that they would send a routine inquiry about him to the St. Louis police, inasmuch as the certified check he had deposited was on a St. Louis bank. And when the reply came labeling him as a notorious bunco artist, they’d have all the motive they needed.

  Perhaps they wouldn’t be able to figure out exactly what his game had been. But his peculiar actions would leave no doubt in their minds that he’d been in the process of working some kind of con game. And then assumption would be that he had killed Quincy because the man found him out.

  To cinch the case against him there were Quincy’s last words over the phone: “Hold it a sec, Joe. The door’s opening.” Even Horton had thought he meant the washroom door. Gannon certainly must have gotten the same impression.

  The final thing which decided Horton that he had no chance at all was his realization that the police would probably welcome him as a patsy. With the murder following so closely upon publication of the anonymous threat Quincy had received, the Tony Manzetti mob would be automatically suspect in the public’s mind, even if the racketeer had nothing to do with the killing. There was little doubt in Horton’s mind that Manzetti had considerable control over the police department. If the police could take him off the hook by pinning the murder on Horton, they probably wouldn’t hesitate to do it, even if they thought he might be innocent.

  Rapidly he crossed to the phone and wiped it clear of prints with his handkerchief. Then he wiped off every other surface he thought he might have touched, both in the office and the washroom.

  He was halfway out the door when he remembered his car registration. Turning, he scooped it from the desk and shoved it into his wallet.

  As he drove off the lot, a siren sounded only a block away.

  He made straight for the Hotel Lawford. He realized he had to check out at once, for his hotel and room number were on the back of the check he had given Trusting Joe Gannon. It would probably take the police a little time to discover this, for it was unlikely they would interview Gannon until they completed their preliminary investigation at the scene of the crime. But it was a certainty that they would get to the hotel eventually.

  Even though he judged he had plenty of time to clear out of his room, he wouldn’t have run the risk if it hadn’t been essential. He had only twelve dollars in his wallet. One of his bags contained two hundred dollars in bills and five hundred in traveler’s checks.

  He was going to need all the cash he could get his hands on to take into hiding with him.

  Parking across from the hotel, he crossed the street just as the red-haired desk clerk crossed from the diagonal corner. They met at the curb.

  “Oh, hello, Mr. Horton,” she said with a smile.

  He smiled back mechanically. With an effort he slowed his stride to hers as they walked toward the hotel entra
nce together.

  “Been on your lunch hour?” he asked.

  She nodded, then grinned. “I never lunch at the hotel. Too expensive for the hired help.”

  He let her precede him through the revolving door and pushed through after her. He gave a quick glance about the lobby, and was reassured to see no police in evidence. Though he hadn’t expected any this soon, he relaxed a little.

  The girl had halted to wait for him. Stopping before her, he said, ‘Would you do me a favor?”

  “Why, of course,” she said.

  “I’m checking out. Will you tote up my bill so I can catch it on the fly? I’m in rather a hurry.”

  “You’re leaving?” she asked in obvious disappointment.

  “Not out of town,” he said. She smiled, relieved. “You know, I tried to phone you last evening to invite you to dinner. But you’d just gone off duty.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” she said in a tone indicating she meant it.

  “Could I try again sometime? After I get settled.”

  “I’d love it,” she said.

  “I’ll give you a ring. But you know, I don’t know your name.”

  “Helen,” she told him. “Helen Quincy.”

  He barely managed to suppress the startled expression he felt forming on his face. He asked casually, “Not related to that Quincy whose picture was in this morning’s paper, are you?”

  “Why, yes. I’m his step-daughter.”

  This time he was unable to keep his surprise from showing. “Step-daughter? You mean that blonde—Mr. Quincy’s wife is your mother?”

  Her eyes suddenly turned cool. “You know Velda?”

  “Just barely. But certainly she’s not old enough—”

  “My mother is dead,” she interrupted. “My father died when I was an infant, and mother married Quincy when I was five. He legally adopted me. Velda is his second wife.” The cold manner in which she pronounced the name suggested that Quincy’s second wife wasn’t one of her favorite subjects.

  Suddenly Horton realized that he was standing there chatting with the girl as though he had all the time in the world. The curse of overactive glands, he thought. With the police on his trail for murder, he had to take time out to line up a future conquest.