It was supposed to be a simple divorce case, but I soon found it was a helluva lot more. My interference was about to put a crimp into the plans of more than one person.
At five o'clock Joan Randall and Cy Roberts parted company, and I packed up my equipment figuring I had all the evidence Judy Roberts wanted. Debbie was still sleeping when I left, getting ready to handle the onslaught of men who crowded into the Elton after midnight.
Leaving the hotel, I put my equipment in the trunk of my car, got in, and just as I started up, noticed Cy Roberts coming out of the luncheonette I had gone to earlier. If he'd stopped there for a quick bite to eat it meant he wasn't going home, yet.
Another rendezvous? I wondered. If so, it would give Judy Roberts even more evidence. Well, what the hell! I had nothing on for the evening. Might as well do what I'm getting paid for.
I watched Roberts get into his white Cadillac Sedan De Ville, and followed him to the Sunrise Highway. Once there, we headed west, me two cars behind Roberts. We headed to Seabrook, an unincorporated village a few miles away. On Island Blvd. Roberts made a left and I remained behind him. We drove for less than a mile before Roberts pulled up in the side parking lot of a building with the legend Knights of Seabrook on the outside.
I bypassed the building and put my car in the nearby lot of a shopping mall open until nine thirty. Then I got out of the car and walked back to the Knights of Seabrook Building. All the windows were dark, which made me wonder why Roberts would come here at this time of night.
Standing against the side of the building, I was all but invisible. I watched another car pull into the building parking lot and join the dozen or so cars already there. When the man got out, I watched him go to the side door. It opened, a light lancing out into the shadows of the late afternoon, and I could see two other men standing inside the entrance, making sure no "unauthorized" individuals got in. Hell, it was kind of early for a meeting of the "Knights." I wondered what the hell was going on.
Directly above my head, a little to the left, was a slightly open window some careless janitor hadn't noticed. Though far from an athletic personality, I was able to climb in the window after opening it a bit more. I closed it but didn't lock it. If I had to make a hasty exit I hoped I'd be able to remember the right window.
I was in a storeroom, with a big mess of cases and things blocking my way. It was dark in the room and I used my pocket flashlight to light the way to the door. Easing the door open, I peered into a well-lit room obviously designed for public meetings. Ten men were standing around, smoking, chatting, yet none were laughing. Plainly this was one serious conclave, though all the men were in their shirtsleeves, including Cy Roberts.
Three more men entered the room, and the door was shut. No one bothered glancing in my direction. Not only was the storeroom door in the shadowed part of the room, but no one seriously considered the possibility of someone hiding there, which was fine by me.
"The doors are all locked," one of the men said, and I recognized him as part of the pair who had been guarding the side door.
The faces of almost all the men looked familiar. Two of them were minor county officials, and five of them were officers in various corporations based on Long Island. The other six were not well-known men, yet I'd seen the faces of two of them recently in the newspaper, though for the moment I couldn't recall why.
"Meeting's called to order," one of the men said, standing on the platform in front of the others as they took seats. "I'll make this meeting as brief as possible. I want progress reports. Mr. Walker and Mr. Carter are excluded since both have succeeded."
Walker! Carter! Yeah, sure. Walker's face had been on page three of Newsday when his wife had been discovered drowned while swimming off a public beach. It had been declared an accident. And Carter's kisser had adorned a page of Newsday only two days before when his mother-in-law had driven the man's new Mercedes off an embankment on the Long Island Expressway, slamming its way through the guard rail. The woman had been an habitual alcoholic, and was chalked up as a victim of her own drunken driving. Boy, talk about mixed emotions, learning your mother-in-law has died taking your brand-new ten thousand dollar car with her. Wow!
"Mr. Randall, have you made any progress with Mrs. Roberts?" the man on the podium asked.
"I haven't made contact with her," Randall admitted. He was a tall, lean man, and looked a helluva lot like his wife. "I'm waiting to see how far Roberts has gotten with my own wife."
"I've made excellent progress, so far," Cy Roberts said, rising. "But she hasn't responded as I've been assured she would respond. For a woman with a weak heart she's been holding up admirably."
My God! The son of a bitch was fucking her to kill her. He was trying to fuck her to death. Apparently Randall had some reason for wanting her dead, and Roberts was doing the job. In return, Randall was supposed to knock off Judy Roberts, which was why Roberts didn't care when Judy had confronted him, telling him she had seen him with another woman. It was obvious why Roberts wanted his own wife dead. She was rich.
This being the case, it was more than reasonable to assume both Walker and Carter had something to gain from the deaths of Walker's wife and Carter's mother-in-law. Both deaths had been made to look accidental.
Most of the other men there were new arrivals, all of whom had been carefully screened. They were joining the organization because they wanted someone killed, and in return they were willing to knock off another member's "headache."
Both Walker and Carter, now assured of eventual inheritances, were at the meeting for the last time. They were each paying off the headman of the organization a set fee for making certain each of them had behaved according to the rules so that nothing could be traced to the inheritors.
"Mr. Randall," the man on the podium was saying. "It has been reliably reported that Mrs. Roberts is seeking professional help in acquiring a divorce from Mr. Roberts. And the evidence being used will obviously have to do with your own wife. Mr. Roberts is doing his best. You will see to it Mrs. Roberts meets with her accident tomorrow. According to Mr. Roberts, she likes to take her bath and listen to the radio at the same time. The radio is plugged into a bathroom outlet. Normally she perches it on the sink away from the bathtub. Tomorrow you will see to it the radio falls into the tub while she's in it."
So this was how I learned Joan Randall's name (though I found out her first name the following day), and discovered the group whose members were willing to kill off someone they didn't know, if a member of their group returned the favor. That member had to be related to the person each was going to kill. As they continued talking, I got the impression the group had been in existence for quite some time, and dozens of what seemed like accidents had been carefully arranged. It was the leader of the group who decided how each member was to eliminate his victim. He supplied any necessary weapons, selected needed locations, and, if necessary, planned escapes, getaways, and set up hideouts. For this, plus an airtight alibi for the one desiring to be rid of the victim, each member paid a fifty thousand dollar fee, after the inheritance money was collected. The true leader of the group wasn't there. He never put in a personal appearance, so no one knew his identity, not even the one conducting the meeting. Everything was always set up by telephone.
Being a private eye for some time now, I'd gotten to learn a few things. For instance, an organization like this didn't simply exist hidden away. Sooner or later, on purpose or by accident, someone would come along, discover them, and report their existence to the local police. Now even if most of the minions of the law were unaware of the group's existence, someone on the force had to know about it in order to warn them in case the police should take it into their heads to raid the Knights of Seabrook. Thus here I was, having discovered a group very possibly discovered at least once or twice before I'd come along. And I knew damn well the cops were the last people to call right now. And any discoverers who came along before me might very well be wearing cement undershorts at the bottom of the ocean by now.
I had to tread carefully. My first and foremost job was to protect Judy Roberts, if for no other reason than to make sure I got the balance of the money owed me (more than fifty of the hundred she'd given me had already gone to expenses, if you included the cost of the reel of videotape). Besides, Judy was a great lay, and it'd be a sheer waste of cunt to see her killed.
Closing the storeroom door, I retreated to the window. There I noticed the latch was bent, so even if someone thought they'd locked the window it was, in reality, unlocked, which assured my being able to use this way to enter the building any time I wanted.
Just before shutting the storeroom door, I had taken down the names of eight others who had come there to request, and participate in, the causing of accidents. The man on the podium had stated these other "accidents" would take place in the near future, the exact date to be decided at a meeting to be held the following Monday. I'd be back to see who else I could save from meeting his or her maker ahead of time.
I wanted to find out a few things about Joan Randall. Sneaking out to the building parking lot, I hastily went through the various cars until I found the glove compartment with Randall's car ownership. Turned out his first name was Ignatz. I had to go through the glove compartments of seven cars before I found his. I jotted down his home address, then returned to my own car in the shopping center lot.
I waited until Ignatz and the others left, then scooted to his home, getting there a good fifteen minutes before he did.
Pushing the doorbell to the Randall home, a small, red, frame dwelling in Pinehurst, I was greeted by Mrs. Randall. Christ! She still looked fagged out. That Cy Roberts had really slammed it to her. I told her I was an agent with the Vance Insurance Company, a new company, and in order to make ourselves known to the public, we were offering a one month free premium to whomever took out a policy with us. I explained she had nothing to lose since she could lapse the policy after the first month, and still have had the free insurance for that month. The idea appealed to her and she invited me in. I filled out a phony insurance application I carried with me, and when Ignatz Randall got home, she convinced him to take a policy on himself as well, for one month.
The second part of the insurance application was what I wanted filled out. And I got it. It named Joan Randall's doctor, and gave his address and phone number, as well.
Thanking the Randalls, I left.
I'd done all I could do for that particular evening, so I headed for home. Home is an apartment in a building called the Elton Roc. It was a studio apartment; a single large room with a big double bed, minus the headboard, in the far corner near the bathroom, but with two large rolled pillows so the bed looked like a fancy sofa. I had wall-to-wall carpeting, all rich green to match my drapes. A large walk-in closet had shelves in it so I didn't need a bureau or an armoire. But across the room from the bed, I had a huge mirror covering the entire wall. It made the apartment look twice as big, and when I was alone with a chick, it made the scenes on my videotape look like nothing.
I lugged my suitcase with my videotape equipment into the building and rode the elevator up to the third floor. And when I got out I saw the two bullyboys in front of my apartment. They must have been waiting nearly half an hour.
As I unlocked my apartment door, one of them told me how he'd seen Judy Roberts pay my office a visit, and he explained it might not be wise for me to accept any work from her. I didn't waste time with words. Once both were inside my apartment with me, I whipped out my automatic and whacked each one over the skull. Then I dumped them both into the trashbin outside, and went to sleep.