The Busy Body Read online

  “Who does that part?” Engel asked. “Putting him in the casket, getting him ready for the viewing.”

  “Well, either Mr. Merriweather or me. Sometimes I’d do the whole job on a client myself, sometimes he would, most times one of us would do one thing and one would do another.”

  “What about Brody? As an example, I mean.”

  “Well, I went and got him, had the first discussion with the widow. Then Mr. Merriweather had the second discussion with the widow. I did the embalming, and he arranged the client in the casket and set up the casket in the viewing room.”

  So Merriweather was still the last one to see Brody dead. Unless …

  Engel said, “Is there anybody else around when you’re doing all this? People drop in to watch or anything?”

  “Oh, no.” Brock gave the collegiate smile again. “It isn’t the sort of operation to draw a crowd,” he said. “Besides, it’s illegal to have anyone present at the embalming, against the law. Oh, I think members of the family could be there, but they never are.”

  It was a dead end. Engel got to his feet and said, “Well, thanks. You’ve been a big help.”

  “You want a drink before you go?” Brock patted his own trim belly, said, “Something to fill the inner man, eh?”

  Cavity fluid. Engel said, “No, thanks,” and then, remembering Callaghan, added, “Not on duty.”

  “Oh, right, forgot about that. Well, if there’s anything else, any time at all, I’ll be more than glad to help.”

  “That’s fine. Fine.”

  Brock walked Engel to the door, smiled one last time, and shut the door as Engel walked away down the hall to the stairs.

  Going down the stairs, it seemed to Engel he was wasting his time, going at this whole thing the wrong way. Instead of starting with Merriweather, and going through Brock to … well, to wherever, instead of doing that he should start at the other end, with Charlie Brody himself. He should talk to Brody’s wife, and he should talk to Brody’s immediate boss Fred Harwell, and he should talk to anybody else who might have known about the heroin in Brody’s suit. Even if Merriweather’s murder were connected with Charlie Brody’s disappearance—and though he still believed it was, because otherwise the coincidence was just too pat, he nevertheless realized coincidence does happen sometimes and he could yet be wrong—but even if there were a connection, he was still going at things the wrong way. He hadn’t fully realized it up to now, but now that he’d come to a dead end with Brock, he could see just how he’d been going wrong.

  The trouble was, in the game of cops and robbers he just wasn’t set up to be a cop. His sympathies, his interests, his training and his inclination were all on the other side. No wonder he was going at things backward, no wonder he was coming to dead ends.

  Thinking these things, he came out to the street, looked right and left, and went off to the right, toward Tenth Avenue, which was closer. There he stood, on the corner, waiting for a cab.

  It took a few minutes, Tenth Avenue being a bit off the beaten path. He stood there, gradually getting impatient, and finally decided to walk down to Ninth. He’d taken half a dozen paces from the corner when a white open Mercedes-Benz 190SL rolled by, with Margo Kane, the mystery woman, at the wheel. She had replaced her black gown with white stretch pants and a bulky orange sweater, and she was looking so hard for a parking space along the curb that she didn’t notice Engel at all.

  Of course there were no parking spaces, there never are in New York. Ahead of Engel, on the other side of the street, there was a cleared area along the curb by a fire hydrant, and this is where Margo Kane parked, turning the wheel with casual graceful abandon. She got out of the car—her sandals were lime-green, the same color as Brock’s polo shirt—tripped across the street on dancing feet, and went into Brock’s building.

  Engel stood on the sidewalk, looking toward the doorway into which she had disappeared. “Oh ho,” he said. Not that he knew what this new development meant, if anything, not that he could immediately connect it up with the disappearance of Charlie Brody, but just that it was interesting. So interesting, in fact, that he said it a second time: “Oh ho.”

  13

  There was another note from Dolly, printed with lipstick on another résumé and attached with another false fingernail:

  Honey?

  Where are you?

  Dont you want to see me?

  Don’t you remember?

  DOLLY

  Engel remembered. He looked at the note sadly, shook his head, took it down from the door, and went into the apartment. He made himself a Scotch and water without the water, sat down by the telephone, and started making his calls.

  First to Archie Freihofer, who ran the girl part of the organization. When he got hold of Archie, Engel identified himself and said, “I want to see Charlie Brady’s wife.”

  “What, Bobbi?”

  “That’s it. Bobbi.”

  “Al, I’m sorry. We decided, all things considered, the little lady oughta have a few days to herself before she comes back on active duty. It’ll be the first of the week before she starts to work, and then to be truthful with you there’s a waiting list as long as your arm. A lot of the boys have chosen to decide, it seems to me, to make a really beautiful gesture of affection and respect for Charlie Brody and at the same time see to it a little extra cash against emergencies goes into the little lady’s stocking.”

  There was no interrupting Archie once he got talking. The only thing to do was wait till he decided to stop again, even if only to take a breath. At this point, spying a little bit of silence coming up after the word “stocking,” Engel quickly threw some words of his own into the breach, saying, “No, Archie, that isn’t what I want. I’m talking about business.”

  “So what have I been talking about, a game Scrabble?”

  “I want to talk to Mrs. Brody,” Engel said.

  Archie said, “Al, she’s using her professional name again. Bobbi Bounds.”

  “Whatever name she’s using, I want to talk to her. Official business. You can check with Nick Rovito.”

  “Check? I take your word for it, what do you think? You want to go see her, or you want her to come see you?”

  “I’ll go see her. Is she living at the same place where she lived with Brody?”

  “No, she’s moved in with a couple other girls, you know how they are they like to be with friends that understand the situation, you know?”

  “What about the apartment?”

  “The old one? Charlie’s? I wouldn’t know.”

  “Give me her phone number, Archie. Maybe we can save time, I can meet her at the old apartment.”

  “Hang on, I’ll look it up.”

  Engel hung on. Archie came back a minute later, gave him the number, and Engel thanked him and broke the connection. Then he dialed the number Archie had just given him.

  It was answered on the third ring by a female voice harsh with suspicion: “Yeah?”

  “Is Bobbi there?”

  “Who’s calling?”

  “Al Engel. I’m calling for Nick Rovito, on urgent business connected with her late husband.”

  “Hang on.”

  Again he hung on, and the next voice he heard belonged to Bobbi Bounds, saying, “Mr. Engel?”

  “I rode in the car with you yesterday,” Engel reminded her. “Up front.”

  “Yes, sure, I know who you are.”

  The tone of respect in her voice surprised him, till he remembered just how far down in the pecking order of the organization Charlie Brody had been. The grand send-off had tended to make him forget that.

  He said, “Has everything been cleared out of the old apartment yet?”

  “No, not yet. I’ve taken some of my own things, but Charlie’s stuff is still all there.”

  “I want to meet you there, this afternoon. Are you free?”

  “Sure, I guess so.”

  Engel looked at his watch and it was four-thirty. “At six o’clock,” he said
.

  “Is there something wrong, Mr. Engel?”

  “Not exactly. A little problem we got to get straightened out, that’s all.”

  “I’ll be there.”

  “Fine.”

  Next, Fred Harwell, who was in his office. Engel said, “Fred, has Nick told you the latest development?”

  “Which latest development is that?”

  “About Charlie Brody’s suit.”

  “The last I heard about that was at the meeting, when Nick told you go dig it up. About which, Al, you know you could do me a big favor if you’d talk to Nick about that, how it wasn’t really my fault about not remembering the suit. I mean, nobody—”

  “Fred, I—”

  “Wait a second, Al, this is important. Because nobody remembered that suit, Al, not just me, nobody. Al, if you could—”

  “Fred, will you—?”

  “You’re closer to him than anybody, Al. If you could just put in a good word for me, explain about how—”

  “I will,” Engel said, just to shut him up.

  “It could have happened to anybody,” said Fred, who apparently hadn’t heard him, or couldn’t adapt to Engel’s having agreed so easily.

  “Right,” Engel said. “I’ll talk to him.”

  “You will?”

  “I will. If you’ll shut—”

  “I appreciate that, Al.”

  “Yeah. If you’ll shut up and let me talk to you, I’ll talk to him. If not, the hell with you.”

  “Al, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to monopolize the conversation.”

  “Yeah, well—”

  “It’s just been preying on my mind, that’s all. Nick hasn’t said anything to me since then, but I know—”

  “Shut up, Fred.”

  “What?”

  “I said shut up, Fred.”

  Engel really didn’t believe the silence that followed, and it stretched for maybe ten seconds before he understood that Fred had shut up and it was now possible to talk. When he got that straight he said, “I want to ask you about Charlie, Fred, because we don’t have the suit yet, and we don’t have the suit yet because we buried an empty coffin yesterday.”

  “We bur—Oh, I’m sorry.”

  “Yeah. Now, Nick’s given me the job of finding out where the suit is now, which means find out where the body is now, which means find out who took him, and how they took him, and why they took him. But mostly who. I found out how, because the undertaker was bumped off today and—”

  “Bump—! Oops, sorry. I’ll keep quiet.”

  “Yeah. The way I figure it, the undertaker was in on the snatch, and whoever did it with him killed him to keep him from talking, or something like that. So that’s how it was done, but that still leaves who and why. Now, you knew Charlie Brody, so maybe you can tell me who’d steal his dead body and why.”

  “What? Why would I—? Uhh, are you done?”

  “I’m done.”

  “Okay. So how would I know—I mean, why would anybody want to steal a dead body? Except the heroin, maybe.”

  “You’d have to know the heroin was in the suit, and you’d have to know the suit was on the body. Who’d know both of those things?”

  “I really don’t know, Al. I guess the wife knew he was wearing the suit—isn’t she the one gave it to the undertaker?”

  “It wouldn’t have been her,” said Engel. “She wouldn’t have to—”

  “I’m not suggesting it was.”

  “Yeah. She wouldn’t have to steal the body to get the suit back. All she’d have to do was bury him in some other suit.”

  “Well,” said Fred, “there’s no reason to take the whole body if all you want’s the suit. I mean, what are you going to do with the body later? After you get the snow out of the suit?”

  Engel said, “You know, I been thinking something like that. Maybe whoever swiped Charlie didn’t have anything to do with the heroin in the suit, maybe he didn’t even know it was there.”

  “That makes a lot more sense,” said Fred.

  “Nothing makes sense,” Engel told him. “Maybe I’ll call you back.”

  “You won’t forget to talk to Nick.”

  “I won’t forget,” Engel promised, and hung up, and forgot.

  His drink was gone, so he went over and made another, and stayed leaning against the bar, trying to figure things out.

  Why steal a dead body?

  Not to experiment on, they didn’t do that kind of thing any more. People gave themselves to science in their wills and like that.

  And not to get the heroin in the suit the dead body was wearing either—which was the mistaken assumption Engel’d been making all along—because it would be simpler just to take the suit.

  No, whoever had stolen Charlie Brody had done it because he wanted Charlie Brody. Or at least Charlie Brody’s body.

  Why would anybody want Charlie Brody’s body?

  Engel looked in his glass and saw to his surprise that somehow or other it had become empty again. He corrected that, and while he was doing so the phone rang. He went over, carrying the fresh drink, picked up the receiver and said, “Hello.”

  “Aloysius, I’m sorry to disturb you, and I won’t keep you long, and I wouldn’t have called at all if it wasn’t important, you know I wouldn’t.”

  “What?”

  “I know you can’t come to dinner tonight, Aloysius,” she said, “but what I want to know is, can you come tomorrow night? I have to know before I go to the store. I wouldn’t bother you—”

  “That’s why you called?”

  “I don’t want to take up your—”

  “The answer is no,” said Engel, and hung up. He stood there a minute or two, next to the phone, and contemplated the fact that sooner or later he was going to have to be unkind to his mother. There was no getting around it, no getting around it. Sooner, or later. Sooner, or later.

  The phone rang.

  Sooner.

  He picked up the receiver. Into it he said, “California.”

  A young female voice said, “Impossible. I didn’t dial the area code.”

  “What?”

  “You can’t get California unless you dial the area code. Every place has an area code, and the only way to get that place is dial the area code. Since I didn’t dial the area code you can’t possibly be California. You must be New York.”

  A little dazed, Engel said, “That’s right. I’m New York.”

  “Are you Mr. Engel New York?”

  “I think so.”

  “Well, this is Margo Kane again. I hope I’m not interrupting anything?”

  “No, no. Not a thing.”

  “I’ve been thinking,” she said, “about all the inconvenience I caused you today, and really my conscience is bothering me something awful.”

  “Think nothing of it,” Engel told her.

  “No, really, I mean it. If you aren’t doing anything, I’d like very much to buy you a dinner tonight. May I?”

  “You don’t need to,” Engel said. “We’re square.”

  “No, I insist. It’s the least I can do. What time should I pick you up?”

  Engel was getting glimmers. He said, “Well, I have an appointment at six, I ought to be back by seven, then I’ll have to change.”

  “This isn’t crowding your evening too much, is it? We can make it just as late as you like.”

  “Eight,” Engel said.

  “You’re sure of that? That’s not rushing you too much?”

  “No, that’s fine.”

  “It really does have to be tonight, or not for days and days. Tomorrow night is poor Murray’s wake, and then the next day the funeral and all, and I probably won’t eat a thing all day after that. So, if it isn’t too much, tonight’s by far the best for me.”

  “It’s fine with me, too.”

  “Besides, I am looking forward to seeing you again. And that delicious apartment of yours.”

  “Yeah, that’s right.”

  “At eigh
t, then.”

  “Right.”

  Engel hung up, and tasted his drink, and grinned to himself because for one of the few times all day he knew what was going on. Mrs. Kane had gone to see Brock, who told her about the policeman who’d just been there to see him. Engel had given his right name, which Brock must have mentioned, and Mrs. Kane immediately had known who it was and that it wasn’t a cop. So now she wanted to know what Engel was up to, and hoped to find out over dinner.

  Because of Brock? Sure, because of Brock and the inheritance she expected from her husband. She and Brock probably had a thing going, maybe for a long time now and maybe brand-new, and she wanted to know if Engel was going to cause any trouble.

  Then Engel once more said, “Oh ho,” because another thought had come to him. Maybe Brock had been fired because Merriweather had caught him fooling around with Mrs. Kane, with one of the customers. That made sense, and the timing was right on it. Brock and the widow off in a corner behind some flowers for a little slap and tickle, Merriweather happens by, he’s shocked, he’s outraged, he blames Brock for the whole thing and fires him on the spot.

  All of which was, Engel admitted himself, brilliant deduction on his part and not a damn bit of help in finding Charlie Brody.

  “Oh, Charlie,” Engel said aloud, the words full of weariness, “where the hell are you? Where are you, Charlie, where the hell have you got to?”

  14

  Where Charlie Brody resided in death was anybody’s guess at the moment, but where he had resided in life was both known and normal. He and his missus had shared an apartment on Manhattan’s West Side, on 71st Street near West End Avenue, where Brody had blended with his neighbors the way a black cat blends with a coal mine. It was a neighborhood full of mild-mannered middle-aged men with thinning hair and weak eyes, white-collar workers in the lower echelons of huge corporations, and this description—until his death—had fitted Charlie Brody to a T.