Murder in Black Letter
Copyright© 2025 by Poul Anderson
Chapter 18
“Clayton,” said Kintyre.
“Huh?” The pipe almost dropped from Yamamura’s hand. “What the hell! Why, for God’s sake?”
“Bruce got too much information about Clayton’s rackets.”
“What rackets? Clayton’s straight! I never heard a hint—”
“Oh, yes. He’s straight enough on this side of the Atlantic.”
Yamamura muttered something profane. “How do you know?” he added.
“It fits the facts. Bruce was corresponding with his uncle Luigi, the secret service man. Some discussion of highly organized postwar crime syndicates in the Mediterranean countries came up. Now Clayton was a go-getter type who’d lost everything he had three times in a row: the Depression, his first wife’s death, divorce from his second wife. It must have embittered him, so that he determined he would never again be poor and defenseless. He came to Italy as a Quartermaster officer in the war. Perfect chance for black marketing, if a man didn’t mind taking a few risks. The miracle is not that a few QM people went bad but that most stayed honest. Clayton probably started in a very small way with cigarettes and K rations. But by the end of the war he was in touch with some pretty big figures in the Italian underworld, and saw the opportunities. He came right back after his discharge and went to work at it full time.
“Obviously, he’s a hell of a good organizer. He got in on the postwar reconstruction of crime, along lines borrowed from gangland and Communism. He probably set out as a currency black marketeer, working through Switzerland. He soon expanded into other things, smuggling, dope, prostitution, gambling, the works. He became rich.”
“Have you any proof of all this?” interrupted Yamamura.
“Chiefly, that it and only it will fit the facts. Let me go on, I’ll fill in evidence as I proceed. The trouble with Clayton’s riches was, they were mostly in lire, French francs, and other soft valuta. Also, governments all get nosy about resident aliens; he couldn’t hope to avoid suspicion forever, without a good cover. He solved both his problems by becoming an importer. He bought European goods with his European money, shipped them over here, and sold them for dollars. On this side he’s lily white, and familiar with prominent Americans of unquestionable integrity. Knowing this, Europeans don’t think he might be something else on their continent. You can imagine the details.”
“Yes,” said Yamamura. “I can.”
“Now for some facts as well as theories. Let’s go back to Uncle Luigi. He’s trying to break these syndicates, one of which is headed by the eminent Signor Clayton. Of course, because of its cell organization, Luigi and his colleagues don’t know that. If they did, they could crack a lot of rackets open. All they have against Clayton is that a few of his business associates have bad associates of their own, notably some of the deported Italian-American gangsters. But what of it? Everybody outside a monastery must know some dubious characters.
“Well, because Clayton came here to work at opening a San Francisco branch, and because he brought the Liber Veneficarum along, he got to know Bruce. In fact, they came to be on very friendly terms. Clayton is genial enough, if you don’t get in his way. Uncle Luigi, being somewhat anti-American, insisted that Signor Clayton had an unfair advantage, having started as a wealthy man with lots of dollars. That didn’t fit with Clayton’s own rags-to-riches story. Bruce got indignant, checked up, and established that Clayton had indeed been almost penniless when he came to Italy. And Luigi, as I mentioned before, had also happened to give Bruce some facts regarding crime, corruption, and the syndicates.
“I don’t know just when Clayton learned about all this discussion. Perhaps a week ago last Sunday, when he saw Bruce over in the City and refused to give Guido a job. Clayton admits Bruce got mad; perhaps he said things then. Clayton smoothed his feathers and agreed to interview Guido next day. Maybe Clayton was already spinning a plan.
“Or it may have been amicable. Bruce had no reason to suspect Clayton of anything. We’d have known it otherwise; Bruce was constitutionally incapable of keeping a secret. Maybe in the love feast following his explosion, he blurted out how he had triumphantly refuted Uncle Luigi’s sneers at the Horatio Alger rise of Gerald Clayton, and planned to send Uncle Luigi all the facts and demand an apology. At the same time, Bruce could have spoken about the syndicates. He was just naïve enough to have warned Clayton, who spent half his time overseas, to look out for the mobs! Well, one way or another, Clayton drew him out, doubtless in that conference they had after Guido was dismissed. Clayton was alerted.”
It was peculiar, thought Kintyre, that he could talk so coolly while the horror was on him. But he had the horror locked away for this short time, he heard it speaking but did not really feel it.
“He could have pumped both brothers on Monday,” nodded Yamamura. “Bruce in particular, but he would have seen how Guido might be made into a decoy—uh-huh. So he called a Chicago mob. But—”
“But why? Isn’t it obvious, Trig? Bruce and Luigi were corresponding on two subjects which would explode if they were ever fitted together: Clayton and the Old World rackets. When Bruce revealed that Clayton had not, after all, started by depositing American dollars in Swiss banks, Luigi would begin to wonder. Bruce had even casually agreed that Clayton might have picked up a little loose change originally on the black bourse, which did not strike him as very heinous. Luigi might see deeper possibilities along those lines. Or things Luigi wrote could even make Bruce wonder, who knows? It wouldn’t necessarily happen either way, but it was too big a risk to take. The American government itself, if it gets interested, has ways to check on its citizens abroad. So Bruce had to be eliminated. And he had to be questioned first, in detail, to learn precisely what he did know and who else knew. For instance, was Luigi already so well informed as to be dangerous? This was a job for professionals.”
“And there’s where your theory creaks,” said Yamamura. “If Clayton is so law-abiding on American soil, where could he dig up his butcher boys on such short notice?”
“That hint was in Bruce’s files,” said Kintyre. “Your information about Clayton’s telephoning adds detail. He must have called one of his not-very-respectable Italian associates. I seem to remember the name Dolce, you can try that on the switchboard girl for recognitionor. Does the phone office keep records of such things? I don’t know. Let’s assume he called Dolce, to give the man a name. He ordered him: ‘Get hold of a recent deportee from America’—you can guess who better than I, Trig—’and ask him how I can get in touch with a professional killer in this country.’ He may have phrased it more euphemistically, but that was the sense of it. Next day Dolce or whoever called back. (Why else should a busy man like Clayton hang around home? Why not take the call in his office? Because his office deals directly with Italy, the switchboard girl there probably speaks the language and might eavesdrop.) Thus Clayton got the number of Silenio, and any passwords or the like that were needed. He went out to a pay booth and called him. O’Hearn has told us the rest.”
Yamamura nodded. “Could be,” he said.
To read the complete story you need to be logged in:
Log In or
Register for a Free account
(Why register?)
* Allows you 3 stories to read in 24 hours.