and curare, to cite two examples.”
“Now wait a goddamned minute—”
“Mr. Flatt, you’re much better off if you keep your mouth shut. Take my word for it. You have access to such compounds and it would be puerile of you to deny it. That crossed my mind when first I learned of your occupation. Various poisons are readily obtainable. Strychnine is not. Neither is curare. You and I have not met before, Mr. Flatt, and we did not speak to one another until last evening, but you have been an important suspect since I first learned how the fish had died.” He said all this in a calm conversational tone. Then abruptly he raised his voice to as close as he could come to a bellow.
“You can’t prove I was there.”
“Phooey. You’ve already admitted you were there. Have the courage of your errors, Mr. Flatt. Why were you there?”
Flatt bought himself a couple of seconds by glancing to either side of himself. If he was looking for support he picked the wrong place to look for it. Everybody seemed to want to hear the answer to the question
“I wasn’t there when Cherry was killed,” he said. “I left before her act started, I was miles away when she was killed. And I can prove it.”
“That won’t be necessary,” Haig said. “You did not kill Miss Abramowicz.”
“But—”
“Nor have you answered the question. Why did you go to that night club that evening?”
He shrugged. “No particular reason. I’m sorry if I was out of line but I thought you were accusing me of murder.” He managed a boyish grin. “It certainly sounded that way for a while. For a little guy, you certainly know how to boss people around.”
“You still haven’t answered my question, Mr. Flatt.”
“Oh, hell. Look, I wanted a couple of drinks. Why did I pick a topless club? Jesus, you know the answer to that one. Or maybe you don’t, who knows with you? I like to look at girls. That’s all there is to it I used to be married to Tulip and we’re still friends so I picked that club rather than one of the others. My luck I had to be there on that particular night. But, you know, I go there a lot. Maybe not a lot but I’ll drop in now and then.”
“Interesting,” Haig said. “Mr. Lippa? Can you confirm that?”
Buddy Lippa nodded. “I seen him before,” he said. “I dint make him at first but I seen him. Comes in once, twice a week, sits at the bar. Never stays any length of time. And he’s right about leaving before Cherry got the needle. I can’t swear to the time but I’d guess he came in like nine-thirty and left by ten o’clock. That’s not on the dot but it’s close.”
“Absolutely right,” Flatt said. “I was out of there by ten. And I was in a bar on Long Island by midnight, and I can prove that with no trouble whatsoever.”
“You needn’t,” Haig said. “So you’ve been in the habit of patronizing Treasure Chest once or twice a week. That’s interesting.”
Flatt didn’t say anything.
“There are topless clubs on Long Island, are there not? And are they not more conveniently located, since you both live and work there?”
“Sometimes I’m in New York on business.”
“Precisely my point. I submit that your visits to Treasure Chest are a business matter.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Nonsense,” Haig said. “You know precisely what I am talking about. Five months ago Miss Wolinski went to work at Treasure Chest. You have kept in contact with her and visited the dub, perhaps out of curiosity. You needed money, you have always needed money, your gambling habit is such that you shall always need money. And you met someone at Treasure Chest who showed you a way to make all the money that you needed.”
“You’re out of your mind.”
“That’s not inconceivable. It is, however, irrelevant to the present discussion. You met someone at Treasure Chest, someone who was regularly present there during the ensuing months. You got into conversation. You mentioned your occupation, and your new acquaintance saw possibilities for profit. You had access, I have mentioned earlier, to poisonous compounds. There is, thanks be to God, no enormous profit at present in such compounds. But you also had access to quantities of a subtler, slower form of poison. As a pharmaceutical chemist, Mr. Flatt, you had access to drugs.”
I looked at Flatt. He was keeping a stiff upper lip but the effort was showing. I glanced at Gregorio and saw him nodding thoughtfully. Leonard Danzig had a wary look in his eyes. Gus Leemy was frowning.
“You stole drugs from your employers,” Haig was saying. “Perhaps you produced others. I understand lysergic acid can be readily synthesized by anyone with a middling knowledge of chemistry. With your background and your laboratory facilities it would be child’s play. You brought consignments of drugs to New York, once or twice a week, and you delivered them to your associate at Treasure Chest—”
“That’s horseshit.” Gus Leemy was leaning forward, the light glinting off the top of his head. “I run that place clean. It’s not a front for nothing at all. It’s a decent operation.”
Gregorio said, “There’s drugs coming out of there, Gus. Been going on for months, the rumbles we get.”
“You’re crazy.” He glanced at Danzig, then averted his eyes quickly as if remembering that he and Danzig were supposed to be pretending they didn’t know each other. Since the two of them gave each other an alibi for Cherry’s murder I didn’t quite grasp the logic of this, but they could play it whatever way they wanted. “I run that place clean,” Leemy said. “I don’t fuck with drugs, I never did and I never will.”
“I never accused you, sir.” Haig tapped his pipe on the desk again, then frowned suddenly at the bowl with the two dead goldfish in it. He rang the bell. I thought that would probably throw Wong, who wouldn’t know what to come in with, but instead Wong came in empty-handed. Haig nodded at the bowl and Wong removed it. “I never accused you, Mr. Leemy,” Haig went on. “If you stand accused of anything it is incompetence. Your nightclub served as a focal point for the dissemination of drugs, but this occurred without your knowledge. While that does not make you a particularly efficient manager, neither does it make you a criminal. It certainly does not make you a murderer.” Haig stroked his beard. “Or you, Mr. Danzig. You or Mr. Leemy might well have killed the person selling drugs out of the Treasure Chest, or issued an order that the person be killed, but neither of you would have had any reason to do away with Miss Abramowicz.”
Danzig didn’t exactly glower but his face hardened a little. “Your reasoning is interesting,” he said. “But I’m not sure how my name got in that last sentence. I was going out with Cherry, that’s all. That’s the only reason I’m here.”
“Oh, come off it, Danzig,” Gregorio said. He leaned forward and put a hand on Danzig’s shoulder. “Everybody knows Leemy just fronts for you. And nobody much gives a shit. The boys from the State Liquor Authority might be unhappy but they can’t prove anything, and as far as we’re concerned we don’t care.”
Danzig smiled. “I have no connection with Treasure Chest. Mr. Leemy is a friend.”
“Sure, if that’s the way you want it.”
“That’s what the record should show,” Danzig said.
All of this was fascinating, but none of it had much to do with who killed Cherry and I was getting impatient. The suspense was fairly thick in the room. I looked at all of them, and the most agitated one was Glenn Flatt, although he wasn’t approaching hysteria yet. He should have been the coolest; I mean, he presumably knew who his contact was, and thus he knew who committed the murder.
“I could sue you,” Flatt said.
“Oh, come now,” Haig said. “You’re going to go to jail at the very least for selling illegal drugs and as accessory to the fact of murder in the first degree. Do you really think you could find a lawyer to represent you in a libel action? I somehow doubt it.”
“You can’t prove any of this.”
Haig grunted. “I will tell you something,” he said. “There is nothing much simpler than proving something one already knows to be true. The proof generally makes itself available in relatively short order. No, Mr. Flatt, your position is hopeless. You have been selling drugs through a confederate. And what do we know about this accomplice of yours?” He ticked off the points on his fingers. “Your accomplice is regularly to be found at Treasure Chest, either as an employee or an habitual hanger-on. There are several here in this room who fit that description. Miss Wolinski, for one. Mr. Danzig. Mr. Leemy. Mr. Barckover. Miss Remo. Miss Cubbage. Mr. Henderson frequents
