Send Along a Wreath
It was Jeff’s job to make sure the girl caught a train out of town. This time he earned his fee... the hard way!
Chapter I
Geoffery O’Neill’s office was a small two-room affair on the tenth floor of a business building in Chicago’s Loop. The uncarpeted reception room contained a leather sofa, a desk and telephone and several chairs. O’Neill’s inner sanctum contained a desk, a comfortable reclining chair and two filing cabinets. The window faced the brick wall of the adjoining building — one of the reasons O’Neill had chosen the office. He liked the feeling of a brick wall at his back when he working at his desk.
The green-shaded desk lamp was on now, throwing a huge shadow against the Venetian blinds and high-lighting the planes of his square, rugged face. A cigarette burned in an ashtray on the desk, its smoke curling in a blue spiral to the ceiling.
He was working through a pile of dusty papers and yellowed correspondence — the accrued residue of six years as an unofficial investigator for the State’s Attorney. The papers and letters, which he had removed from the steel filing cabinets, were in reference to cases he had handled, and some of them still contained enough dynamite to blow sections of the city wide open.
Letters of that type he burned in the metal waste basket at the side of his chair.
He was smiling as he re-read a letter of fervent appreciation from a United States senator. The man had gotten into a mess over a few careless letters he had written. O’Neill had recovered the letters for him and that had been that. But in his letter of almost pathetic gratitude the senator had created another instrument which, in the wrong hands, could be just as damaging as the original letters which O’Neill had recovered.
O’Neill touched a match to the corner of the yellowed letter and dropped it into the waste basket.
He was picking up another batch of correspondence when there was a discreet tap on the door of the outer office. O’Neill glanced up from his work and saw the figure of a woman outlined against the frosted glass door of the outer office.
The knock was repeated.
With an irritated shake of his head he walked through the front office and opened the door. The woman who stood in the doorway was tall and blonde. Her face under a black lace veil looked anxious.
“My name is Estelle Moran,” she said. “Can I talk to you a minute, Mr. O’Neill?”
O’Neill saw that she was a woman of about thirty, extremely well dressed. She was slenderly built, finely proportioned and her silken legs were stunning.
“What did you want to see me about?” he asked.
“May I come in?” the woman asked. “I’m in desperate trouble and I need your help.”
She spoke quietly but there was a desperate urgency underlying her words. He frowned and glanced at his watch.
“Can’t you drop in tomorrow?” he asked. “I’m pretty busy...”
“Tomorrow will be too late,” the women said, and O’Neill saw that her black-gloved hands were twisted together tightly. “Please let me talk to you for a moment now.”
O’Neill sighed, switched on the light in the outer office and stepped away from the door.
“Come on in,” he said.
She walked past him into the office and he caught the fragrance of perfume in her wake. He closed the door and pointed to a chair.
“Take a seat,” he said.
He lit a cigarette and sat down on the arm of the leather sofa.
“Now what’s on your mind?” he asked.
“My life is in danger,” the woman said quietly. She lifted the veil from her face as she spoke and O’Neill knew from the expression about her eyes that she wasn’t indulging in melodramatics. The muscles in her neck were taut and beneath her make-up her skin was deathly pale. She was close to hysteria from pure terror.
“You mean someone intends to kill you?” O’Neill asked.
“Yes,” the woman said.
“What makes you so sure? Has someone tried?”
“Not yet,” the woman said. “But as surely as I sit here I won’t be alive tomorrow unless you help me. I have money, lots of it. And I have a reservation on tomorrow’s Chief for California. Here’s my proposition; if you put me on that train tomorrow and stay with me until it pulls out of the station, I’ll pay you one thousand dollars.”
O’Neill looked at the woman closely. She wasn’t kidding. He ran one of his big hands slowly through his unruly, reddish-brown hair and then stared deliberately at the tip of his cigarette.
“That’s a pretty stiff price for a bodyguard,” he said. “I could name you a dozen good ones who’d do the job for fifty bucks. Why do you want me?”
“You were a friend of Bernie Arhoff’s, weren’t you?” the woman asked.
O’Neill nodded slowly, wondering just what was behind the woman’s question. Bernie Arhoff was a smart young man who had made a fortune outside the law. He was in Leavenworth now serving a twenty-year term, but the full details of his racket had never been learned. Arhoff hadn’t talked. He had taken his rap without incriminating his partners. The G-men had caught him on a income tax charge, but the bulk of his money, reputed to be in the hundreds of thousands, had never been found. Strictly speaking, he wasn’t a friend of O’Neill’s, but they had gone to school together on Chicago’s West Side and O’Neill had always admired him for taking his rap without ratting.
“I haven’t seen Bernie in quite a while,” he said. “Why did you mention him?”
“I’m a friend of Bernie’s,” the woman said. “Considerably more than a friend, if you want to put it that way. He told me you could be trusted. I need someone I can trust, Mr. O’Neill.”
“You’re Ahoff’s girl then,” O’Neill said. “I think I remember you. Didn’t you handle his dice girls when he was in the night club business?”
The woman nodded, and O’Neill saw a film of bitterness cloud her eyes.
“We were legitimate then,” she said. She smiled and shrugged wearily. “But Bernie was ambitious. He said anyone could run a gin joint but it took brains to make real money.”
“Well, it’s water under the dam,” O’Neill said. “He probably knows otherwise now. Some people have to learn everything the hard way though.” He put his cigarette out in an ashtray on the arm of the sofa. “Let’s get back to the point. You want to be on the Chief tomorrow morning when it pulls out for the coast. Why don’t you ask the police for an escort?”
“I can’t,” the woman said miserably. “If you don’t help me I’ll be in the morgue when that train leaves Chicago. Please help me, Mr. O’Neill.”
O’Neill sighed wearily and glanced in at the pile of work on his desk. A few hours wouldn’t make too much difference...
“All right,” he said. “I’ll do what I can.”
The woman came to his side with quick steps and dropped to her knees. There were tears in her eyes.
“Thank you,” she said, in a low tense voice.
O’Neill fidgeted in embarrassment.
“Come on,” he said, “this isn’t Camille.”
He stood up and helped her to her feet. She dug into her purse and handed him a flat packet of bills. They were fifties, he saw. He counted the money carefully and then handed it back.
“Keep it,” he said wryly. “I’m not in the hold up business. That’s a thousand dollars you’re tossing around.”
“But I want you to have it,” the woman said quickly.
O’Neill shook his head. “I won’t need it where I’m going.”
“But—”
“Wait a minute.” He grinned and took one fifty dollar bill from the packet. “I changed my mind. This’ll do for expenses.” He put the stiff new bill in his pocket and then looked around for his hat.
“Are you all packed?” he asked. And when the woman nodded he said, “Where are your grips?”
“At my hotel.”
“Okay, let’s go.”
The woman smiled for the first time since she had entered the office. A nervous, worried smile.
“Maybe I’ll make it after all,” she said.
“You’ll be on the Chief when it leaves tomorrow morning,” O’Neill said. “That’s a promise.”
Chapter II
The girl’s hotel was the Metropolitan, about a half dozen blocks from O’Neill’s office. They drove there in a cab.
The girl got her key from the desk and they rode up to her room, which was on the eleventh floor. They were alone in the car.
The elevator operator, a fresh faced young kid, in a neat blue and gold uniform with a discharge button on the lapel glanced down at the girl’s black, ankle-strap sandals and let his gaze wander slowly up to her blonde hair. His eyes stopped there briefly, then went on innocently to the ceiling. He began to whistle soundlessly.
The car came to a soft stop at eleven, the doors opened silently.
The elevator boy grinned at O’Neill, a we’re-a-couple-of-men-of-the-world grin.
O’Neill said, “Control your imagination. I’m going to help her put down a rug.”
He followed the girl down a quiet carpeted hallway to room 1124. The girl opened the door with her key, went in and snapped on the light. 1124 was a suite, with a small living room, a bedroom and bath.
“Mind if I look around?” O’Neill asked.
“Please go ahead. I’ll fix a drink. Do you like it with or without?”
“Without,” O’Neill said. “And a little of the with on the side.”
He took off his hat and walked into the bedroom. There were two windows, opening on a fire escape. There were tan curtains, wooly looking drapes. Both windows were locked. The vanity was three-mirrored and on its top were several bottles of perfume, a nail kit in a leather case with the initials E. M. stamped on it in gold, a jar of cold cream and a long silver compact.
He looked at himself in the mirror, caught a glimpse of his profile and decided he didn’t like it. He smoothed his hair down and went into the bathroom.
There was a shower there, inclosed in a glass closet, a small radiator that wasn’t turned on, and no window. A pair of nylon stockings hung on a rack behind the door.
He went back to the living room. It was carpeted in gray and the furniture had the smooth, unused look of most hotel furniture. There were two windows from which he got a good look at the Loop. They were also locked.
He took off his coat, tossed it on a chair.
“Sit over here,” Estelle Moran said.
She was sitting on a small sofa before the fireplace. The sofa was covered with something that looked stiff and there was no fire. She had poured two drinks and set them on a shiny coffee table in front of the sofa.
O’Neill sat down beside her and twisted sideways enough to look at her. It was worth the effort. She had taken off the hat and veil. Her face was oval but the way her hair swept back from her temples gave it a pointed, interesting look. The hair was dramatic and while the blonde luster was phony, it was the kind of phoniness that took about eight hours of somebody’s time to create. It swept back in a kind of winged effect from her temples and then curled into a thick long pageboy. Her eyes were light blue with startlingly clear irises. The purple shadows under them, O’Neill decided, was half make-up and half worry. Or something else.
She had crossed her beautiful legs in a way that displayed them to the best advantage. And the slight twist of her body did a lot of interesting things to her hips and waist and breasts. O’Neill wondered if the room was getting a little warmer. He looked at her again and decided it wasn’t the room.
She was looking at him, her crimson mouth parted a little.
“Bernie told me about you,” she said, “but he didn’t mention those shoulders.”
“Yous are nice too,” O’Neill said. “But let’s leave sex out of this. Who do you think is trying to kill you?”
“It doesn’t seem important now that you’re here,” she said. “I don’t mean just that. I mean I feel safe. I know you’ll take care of me.”
She picked up one of the drinks, a stiff one, and handed it to O’Neill. Their finger touched briefly. It might have been accidentally.
O’Neill drank his drink. It tasted almost as good as the liquor ads claimed. Strong, smooth and smoky. The girl took the glass, refilled it and handed it back.
“You’re not drinking,” he said.
She picked up her drink, smiled slowly. “Now I am.”
“Then let’s talk,” O’Neill said. “You like my shoulders, I like your liquor. We’re doing fine. Let’s try again. Who’s trying to kill you?”
The girl sipped her drink, then made a despairing little gesture with her hand. There was a frightened, tense look in back of her clear eyes.
“I’m not sure,” she said. “They tried twice. Once in New York, and then when I started here they tried again. A car tailed my cab in New York one night for almost a mile. I told the driver to lose him but he couldn’t. This was about two in the morning. We were on Riverside Drive, at about a hundred and seventeenth street when they pulled alongside. There were three men in the car, it was a black Packard. They swerved into us and the driver had to pull aside to avoid a collision. We crashed into a fire plug and tipped over. The Packard kept going.”
“Were you hurt?” O’Neill asked.
“No, I was lucky, I guess.”
“What happened the next time?”
The girl reached for O’Neill’s glass. He was mildly surprised to find it empty. She filled it, handed it back, then took a sip from her own.
“The next time was in Pittsburgh. I left New York for the Coast, but I thought a man was following me on the train. At Pittsburgh I got off. It was about two in the morning. I don’t think anyone saw me. But that morning about six someone tried to get into my hotel room. I heard someone at the door, trying the knob. I got up and turned the lights on. I hadn’t double-locked the door, but I did then. I snapped the second lock on and then stood at the door listening. A few minutes later I heard someone walk away from the door. I waited about five minutes, then I opened the door. The corridor was empty.”
“Did you talk to the elevator men?” O’Neill asked.
“Yes. One of them remembered bringing a man up to my floor around five thirty or a quarter to six. He described him to me, but it didn’t sound like anyone I ever knew.”
“Who has any reason to want you dead?” O’Neill asked.
“I don’t know,” the girl said. “Unless—” She stopped and looked at the glass in her hand. “How much do you know about Bernie, Mr. O’Neill?”
“Bernie Arhoff? Just the usual talk. That he’s got a stack of cash salted away somewhere. That he took the rap and didn’t drag anybody else into trouble. Why?”
“That’s about all there is to know. Naturally there are a lot of people interested in the money. One of them is Eddie Shapiro, Bernie’s partner. Do you know him?”
O’Neill said, “Just barely. I’ve met him, talked to him a few times, but I wouldn’t say I know him. Why? Do you think he’s trying to kill you?”
“Yes, I do,” the girl said. She said it quietly, without any particular emphasis.
“Why?” O’Neill asked.
“I don’t know. But I’m sure of it.” O’Neill tried to recall what he knew of Eddie Shapiro. Shapiro was a small dark man with a passion for gaudy clothes and a scarred face. He was reputed to be smart, hard and dangerous. He had been Arhoff’s partner for several years and it was generally understood that if Arhoff had talked Shapiro would have taken a trip also. But Arhoff hadn’t talked and Shapiro was still in business. And still smart, hard and dangerous. That was all O’Neill knew about him.
“Shapiro,” he said, “isn’t going to kill you without a pretty good reason. He’s not dumb enough to commit murder unless there’s money in it for him.”
“That’s just it,” the girl said. “I know where Bernie’s money is. I’m the only one who does.”
O’Neill found himself getting annoyed.
“Look,” he said, “I agreed to put you on the Chief tomorrow morning and I’ll do it. But I’m not getting mixed up in the rest of this deal. Arhoff’s money has probably all been claimed by the Treasury Department. It’s illegal, hot merchandise and it probably won’t ever do anybody any good. But I don’t give a damn about that. I’m not working for the Treasury Department so it’s none of my business. I’ll put you on the Chief but that’s all I’ll do.” He stood up, set his glass on the coffee table. “Anyway Shapiro won’t kill you if you’re the only one who knows where the money is. If he kills you he’ll never find it.”
She stood up then and she was very close to him. Her eyes looked enormous and frightened. “Please don’t talk about him killing me,” she whispered. She put her hands on his shoulders and came a little closer to him. “I just can’t stand the thought of that.”
“You’ll be all right,” O’Neil said. He wished he hadn’t had the third drink. He wished he hadn’t had any drink. The room was close and warm and he had trouble getting his thoughts on anything but the girl’s nearness.
“Where are you going?” she asked.
“You’ll be all right,” O’Neill said again. “Don’t worry. I’ve got some work to do.”
“Please don’t leave me alone,” she said.
“You won’t be,” he said. “I know the house detective here pretty well. He’ll stay in the hall until I get back.”
The girl’s hands moved around to the back of his neck and her slender body pressed close to him. “Why can’t you stay here with me?” she said.
O’Neill pulled her hands away from his shoulders.
“You paid me fifty bucks,” he said. “It’s all I want. I don’t need a bonus.”
She turned away from him, picked up a pack of cigarettes and matches from the coffee table. “Are you angry?” Her voice didn’t tell him anything, but when she struck a match he saw two bright patches of color burning in her cheeks.
He grinned and walked to the phone. “No, I’m not,” he said. “But you are.”
“No woman likes that kind of brush-off,” she said. “What is it? Scruples or discrimination?”
O’Neill called the room clerk and asked him to send up the house detective. The room clerk said, “yes, sir,” in a discreetly alarmed voice and O’Neill hung up. The girl was standing before the fireplace, taking nervous drags on her cigarette.
He said, “the house detective is on his way up. You haven’t anything to worry about. He’ll stay until I get back.”
“Fine,” the girl said. “We can read the book section together. Or is chess your game?”
O’Neill grinned at her. “It wasn’t a question of discrimination. That’s what you want me to say. Does it make you happy?”
The girl smiled then, carelessly.
“I guess it really doesn’t matter. I’m sorry if I sounded bitchy. But women like to think that every man they meet it simply dying to go to bed with them. And when they meet one who doesn’t it hurts pretty hard.”
“I’m probably the one in a million who wouldn’t,” O’Neill said. “Don’t let it worry you.”
“Thanks for that much,” the girl said. “Bernie told me you were tough but maybe you’re nice too.”
There was a knock on the door then, a loud firm knock. It wasn’t the way a bell hop would knock.
“That’s Sam Spencer, the house detective,” O’Neill said. “You can tell by the knock he’s expecting to find Arsene Lupin in here going through your jewel case.”
He walked over and opened the door. A heavy-set, mild faced man stood in the doorway. He blinked in surprise when he saw O’Neill.
“What’s up?” he asked.
“Nothing serious,” O’Neill said. “There’s no trouble. But I’d like you to do me a favor. Come in.”
Sam Spencer came in, nodded at the girl, then said to O’Neill, “anything I can do I’ll be glad to.”
“Good,” O’Neill said. He knew he could trust Spencer. The house detective was a retired city patrolman, a solid, dependable man who always tried to take care of his friends. And O’Neill was one of his friends. Spencer was married, had two teen-aged kids and a home in the suburbs, where O’Neill had spent a number of pleasant evenings, drinking beer and admiring Spencer’s collection of foreign pistols. He was as normal as his job would let him be.
“It’s this,” O’Neill said. “Miss Moran here is in a little trouble; somebody’s been bothering her. I’d like you to keep an eye on her until I get back. I’ll just be gone a few hours.”
“Sure thing,” Sam said. “I’ll park right out in the corridor.” He nodded again at the girl and smiled. “You won’t be bothered, Miss, I’ll see to it.”
“I’m very much obliged,” she said.
“Now that’s settled,” O’Neill said. He picked up his hat and coat. “Don’t let anyone into the apartment, Sam, unless he gives you his name and Miss Moran says he’s okay.”
“Sure,” Sam said.
O’Neill turned to the girl. “You’ve got nothing to worry about. I’ll be back shortly.”
“I hope you’re right,” she said.
She bent to put out her cigarette and O’Neill saw the tense lines of worry in her face.
“Don’t worry,” he said, “I’m right.”
Two hours later he was sitting in his office tying up the last of a few loose ends when the phone rang.
It rang shrilly, insistently.
He picked it up, said, “Yes?”
A voice said, “O’Neill? This is Logan.”
“What’s up, Inspector?”
“I want to talk to you. Can you get down to the Metropolitan in a hurry.”
The Metropolitan... the girl’s hotel. O’Neill’s fist tightened on the phone.
“What’s up?” he asked.
“Sam Spencer got shot here about a half hour ago.” The Inspector’s voice was urgent. “I heard you talked to him just before it happened. Thought you might know something.”
“I’ll be right down,” O’Neill said. “Do you know who did it?”
“No. We got a girl here, Estelle Moran her name is, saw the whole thing. But the guy made a clean break.”
“I’ll be right down,” O’Neill said, and hung up.
Chapter III
There was a crowd in the hallway outside Estelle Moran’s apartment. O’Neill saw men from the coroner’s office, the city papers and Central station.
Inspector Logan was standing in the open doorway of the apartment talking to two reporters. He left them and walked to meet O’Neill.
“Glad you got here,” he said. “Let’s go inside where we can talk.”
He elbowed his way through the crowd, O’Neill following. They closed the door of Estelle Moran’s apartment and went into the living room. There was no one there but a self conscious looking detective, wearing a limp gray hat and staring thoughtfully at the floor.
“Where’s the girl?” O’Neill said.
“In the bed room,” Logan answered. “There’s a matron in there with her. She’s okay. Just pretty shocked.” He nodded to the detective and said, “wait outside, Jensen.”
The detective said, “Okay,” and went out.
“Now what do you know O’Neill?” Logan said. “I know you do a lot of work for the D.A. that nobody’s supposed to ask any questions about. But I got to know you know about this deal.”
He looked at O’Neill squarely and there was an uncompromising, stubborn set to his jaw.
“Relax,” O’Neill said. “I just asked him to come up here and keep an eye on Miss Moran while I was gone. That’s all there is to it.”
“Why did she need a house detective to look after her?” Logan asked.
“Because,” O’Neill said, “I wasn’t here.”
Logan took a deep, exasperated breath and said, “All right then. Why does she need you to look after her?”
“Let me talk to her first,” O’Neill said. “I’m giving you a square deal on this, Logan.”
“All right,” Logan said. “Go in and talk to her. She won’t tell us anything. Said she wouldn’t talk until you got here. So you can have a nice clubby reunion with her, but I’m going to sit in on it.”
“Come on, then,” O’Neill said. He glanced around the room, thinking of his last words with Spencer. “Where’s the body?” he asked.
“They took it downtown,” Logan said.
O’Neill nodded. He was thinking of nights he had spent in Spencer’s home, talking with his wife and his two teen-aged kids. And then drinking beer and looking at Spencer’s guns. Spencer had been just a normal guy. And now he was dead. The whole thing made him mad. And a little bit sick.
With Logan tagging at his heels he walked into the bedroom. Estelle Moran was lying on the bed, the pink coverlet pulled up to her chin. Her eyes were closed and the shadows under them were deep and purple. She looked small and tired.
There was a police matron standing beside the bed, a heavy solid woman in black flat-heeled shoes with a tired face.
“You can wait outside Miss Meyers,” Logan said.
The girl opened her eyes at the sound of his voice. She looked at O’Neill and began to cry.
He sat down on the edge of the bed, took her hand.
“You’ve got to talk now,” he said. “Take your time, but tell us everything.”
“I can’t talk about it,” she whispered.
“You’ve got to,” O’Neill said quietly. “Did you see who did it?”
She nodded wordlessly and looked away from him. He put a hand under her chin, pulled her head around until her eyes met his again.
“You’ve got to tell us everything you heard and saw,” he said. “It’s the only way we can help you. And find the guy who killed Spencer.”
She started to cry again, but she started talking, the words coming through the sobs, with a choked sound.
“It was about a half hour after you left. I heard someone talking outside the door. I recognized Spencer’s voice, but the other man was speaking so low I couldn’t be sure if the voice was familiar. I was too scared to open the door. Then Spencer’s voice got louder and he seemed angry. Then they seemed to be struggling and Spencer started to shout. I started for the phone but before I got there I heard a shot. I ran back to the door and I heard someone running. I opened the door and there was a man just turning the corner of the stairs. He looked back and saw me, but he didn’t stop, just disappeared around the corner.” Her eyes moved away from O’Neill’s. She had stopped crying but her breathing was uneven. “Mr. Spencer was lying just in front of the doorway. There was blood everywhere.”
“All right,” O’Neill said, “never mind that. What about this man? Did you recognize him?”
She turned her head away and said, “yes,” in a voice so low he had to lean forward to catch it.
“Who was it?”
“Eddie Shapiro,” she said.
O’Neill felt Logan shift his weight from one foot to the other.
“Are you sure?” he asked.
“I saw him,” she said. “I couldn’t be mistaken.”
Logan shifted his weight again. “That’s all I want to know, O’Neill. Sorry I acted edgy, but I don’t like things like this happening in my back yard.”
He went out and O’Neill heard him open the front door. He could hear his voice issuing fast orders. In five minutes O’Neill knew every cop in town would be looking for Eddie Shapiro.
“There’s something queer about this deal,” O’Neill said. He looked down at the girl and tried to think. But looking at her didn’t help his thinking. It just made him feel protective. “Shapiro isn’t dumb,” he went on, “this doesn’t sound like his work. He’s putting himself in a hell of a spot and getting nothing out of it. That isn’t the way he works.”
The girl turned her face away from him and closed her eyes.
“I can’t think,” she said. “All I can see is the house detective lying on the floor. He looked so pathetic there. Like he was just tired instead of being dead.”
“Forget that,” O’Neill said, looking at her sharply.
Logan came back into the room then, looking pleased.
“This thing is air-tight,” he said. “Shapiro was seen in the lobby tonight. A couple of the boys have been downstairs talking to the hotel people and they found two or three guys who remember seeing Shapiro come in. The identification is perfect. With those scars on his face you can’t miss him. We should have this case cleared by morning. Then maybe those reporters will lay off my neck. That’s as good a reason as any.”
He went out again, and O’Neill looked down at the girl. She was watching him with eyes that looked tense and frightened.
“Are you going?” she said.
“What made you think that?”
“You left before.”
O’Neill took out his cigarettes. “This time I’m staying. I may not be able to put you on the Chief tomorrow morning. But I’ll stick with you until they round up Shapiro. You’ll probably be held for the inquest, maybe the trial.”
“It doesn’t matter,” the girl said. Her voice sounded thin and lifeless. “When they get Shapiro I’ll feel all right.” She paused and looked at him, then looked away. “Do you want to stay here?”
O’Neill looked at her and decided he hadn’t better.
“I’ll be outside,” he said. “You’ve got nothing to worry about. Try and get some sleep.”
He walked across the room and tried the windows. They were both locked. He pulled the shades down and walked out. Leaving, he checked the windows in the front room just to be sure. There was no way anyone could get in those windows, but he tried them anyway. He went into the corridor, closed the door of her apartment and made sure it was locked.
There were a couple of cleaning women working on the floor. They had already gotten most of the brown stain out of the pale gray rug. The bucket of water in which they had rinsed their rags was a muddy shade of brown. About the shade of vinegar.
O’Neill looked at it without any expression on his face. But he was thinking that Spencer would have been a little apologetic about causing so much trouble for a couple of old women. That thought made him mad and sick all over again.
He took a dollar from his pocket and held it out to one of the women.
“It’s good enough,” he said. “When it dries you’ll never notice it.”
“The manager is awful particular,” the women said dubiously. She looked critically at the foot-square stain and then at the dollar bill. Her conscience struggled briefly with cupidity. Or just plain indifference. “I guess you’re right. It’ll be all right,” she said finally. She nudged the other woman and said, “Come on, let’s go. It’s all right.”
O’Neill watched them waddle down the corridor, looking like gray shapeless creatures from another world.
He lit a cigarette and leaned against the wall. His eyes were on the dark stain at his feet. He put out one foot absent-mindedly and pressed the damp spot, feeling it squish slightly under his shoe.
His thoughts were troubled. Sam wasn’t the hottest or toughest guy in the city, but he had been an experienced copper, and the way he was killed was the way it would happen to some green punk. O’Neill felt vaguely that he should apologize for Sam’s letting it happen to him, but he couldn’t imagine who he’d apologize to. He hadn’t been taken by surprise, he’d seen Shapiro coming, had even argued with him, and it didn’t seem right that he’d be stupid enough to let Shapiro get a gun out and shoot him. But that’s what had happened. And it wasn’t right.
He lit another cigarette and shoved his hat off his forehead. He wasn’t happy about putting in a night guarding the girl’s room but after what had happened he couldn’t take any more chances. He wished he’d never seen the girl. And he knew he was lying to himself when he thought that. He wanted to see more of her and he didn’t know why. Unless it was just because she set him on fire every time he looked at her.
Time passed slowly. He finished his pack of cigarettes, crumpled it and tossed in a sand-filled vase beside the door. His mouth felt stale and parched and he knew he was smoking too much, but his hands went mechanically through the pockets of his clothes, looking for a stray cigarette. He didn’t find any.
He looked at his watch. It was a quarter of twelve. The hotel was quiet, and the corridor looked so deserted that it was hard for him to imagine that it could look otherwise.
He looked at his watch steadily for a minute or so to make sure the hands were moving. They were. He yawned and pulled his hat down over his eyes.
His hand was still on the brim when the scream sounded.
It wasn’t a loud scream. It was a scream that sounded like a hand had cut it off before it could get loud.
And it came from the girl’s room.
O’Neill wheeled, grabbed the doorknob. The door was locked. He didn’t waste time knocking. He slammed his shoulder into the door twice. The second time the jam splintered.
O'Neill went into the room, half-crouched. There was no light in the apartment, no sound of any kind. He headed for the bedroom, moving quickly.
He felt a draft of cold air on his face at the door. And he saw vaguely the billowing shape of the curtains as the night wind whipped them.
The bedroom window had been opened. And there was just enough light in the room to let him see that the bed was empty.
He cursed and reached for the light switch, but before his hand found it, he heard, or rather sensed, a soft movement behind him.
That was his last conscious thought. There wasn’t time to do anything about it. He heard the movement behind him, and the next instant, so soon that the two seemed simultaneous, something hard and heavy crashed into the back of his skull.
He went down heavily, fighting hard to hang onto the shreds of dimming consciousness. But they slipped from his grasp and left nothing but an immense searing pain that finally dissolved into blackness.
Chapter IV
He came around slowly. There were voices coming through the fog and he could feel light against his eyes. A voice said, “He’s coming to,” and another voice said, “Lucky he didn’t get his head busted wide open.”
He opened his eyes then and saw Logan and two uniformed policemen looking down at him. He was lying on his back. The back of his head felt like an abcessed tooth. He tried to sit up but Logan put a hand on his chest and pushed him back gently.
“Stay where you are,” he said. “That wasn’t catsup that leaked out of your head. You got to rest.”
“So I’ll rest,” O’Neill said.
He looked around, saw that he was in the girl’s bedroom, and then he remembered everything.
“The girl’s gone,” he said. “She started to yell. I barged in and somebody batted me silly. What time is it?”
“A quarter of two,” Logan said. “We got here about twelve, found you lying on the floor. Do you remember anything else that will help?”
O’Neill tried. “The room was dark when I came in. The bed was empty though, I know that.” He frowned and wished his head would stop aching. He put his hand where it was worst and was surprised to feel a bandage like a turban around his head. “The window was open,” he went on. “I saw the curtains blowing.”
“Yeah,” Logan said. “Somebody’s put a foot through it. It opens on the fire escape. A guy could have come from another room down to here and broken in. But it don’t sound right. Too complicated.”
“Have you got Shapiro yet?” O’Neill asked.
Logan shook his head. “But we will. We’re going over the whole town. We’ll find him. But without the girl we haven’t even got enough to arrest him on.” He lit a cigarette bitterly. “Ain’t this hot? I get an air-tight case and they steal my only witness right out of hotel room.”
“While O’Neill, the peerless investigator of the D.A.’s office gives an imitation of not-too-bright moron? That’s the rest of it, isn’t it?”
“I’m not blaming you,” Logan said. “Anybody can get knocked over the head.”
“Sure,” O’Neill said. “But not everyone does it as prettily as I do.”
“The Doc said you should go home,” Logan said, looking embarrassed. “He said you need rest. You sound like you could use a lot.”
O’Neill swung his legs off the bed and set up. He didn’t care whether his head rolled off his shoulders or not. What did he need a head for anyway?
He looked around, found his coat, put it on, then perched his hat tenderly on top of his bandaged head. “The perfect sleuth,” he said. “Witty and fearless to the end.” He waved at Logan and the two coppers and went out.
He went downstairs and got a double Alka-Seltzer from the drug store fountain, then dug a nickel out of his pocket and went into the phone booth.
He dialed a number that rang about a dozen times before the receiver was lifted.
“Benny,” O’Neill said.
There was a short silence, then a husky voice said, “wrong number, Buddy.”
“Cut the clown act. This is O’Neill, Benny.”
After another silence, the voice said, “I can’t help you. I don’t know anything about it.”
“Listen, Benny and listen damn carefully,” O’Neill said. His voice was hard and low. “I want a line on Shapiro. And I want it quick.”
“Are you crazy?” Benny said. “Or don’t you read the papers? So does every cop in town. He’s too hot to even talk about.”
“You’re going to talk,” O’Neill said. “I’m in a bad mood. Somebody played me for a sucker and damn near split my head open. I don’t feel good. I don’t want any more double talk.”
“You ain’t got a heart, O’Neill. Coppers been buzzing around here all day and I didn’t make a peep. Maybe they got the phone tapped now. What’ll happen to me if I talk to you? And I ain’t got no information anyway. Just because I’m in the same business with a guy don’t mean I sleep with him. I haven’t seen him in a week.”
“This phone is okay,” O’Neill said. “There’s nobody else on it. And you know you can talk to me. I’ll take care of you if there’s any trouble. Now give me a line on Shapiro.”
“Okay,” Benny said. His voice was doleful. “He’s been chasing a broad for the last few months. She lives at the Fairmont hotel on Wilson avenue. He’s kept her quiet, so his wife won’t start asking for more alimony. She might know something.”
“What’s her name,” O’Neill said.
“Billie LaRue.”
“Thanks,” O’Neill said.
“O’Neill,” Benny said. “Do me a favor? Forget my telephone number. Pretend we don’t know each other. I don’t want to get mixed up in this thing. Let them hang Shapiro and get it over with. Why should they bother his friends about it?”
O’Neill grinned at the receiver without much humor and dropped it back in place. He went outside the hotel and nailed a cab. He gave the driver the address of the Fairmont hotel and told him to hurry.
The Fairmont was a six story, brownstone building, with the name on a shiny black plate beside the entrance. A green canopy supported by shiny metal rods extended from the curb to the doorway. O’Neill paid the cab driver and went inside.
There was too much furniture in the small lobby, too many shiny metal ashtrays, too much perfume in the air. The place looked cheap and dirty, and the gilt tables and tricky lamps made it look worse. Like a prostitute with too much make-up on.
The pale young man behind the desk looked bored. He had on a gray pinstripe suit and he managed to create the impression that working in a hotel wasn’t his regular line. He pointedly ignored O’Neill’s bandaged head.
“I want to talk to Billie La Rue,” O’Neill said.
The young man looked at his fingernails.
“Is she expecting you?”
“No. What’s her room number?”
“I’m sorry, but—”
“You’ll be a lot sorrier in a minute,” O’Neill said. He knew he was acting like some screen-writer’s idea of a detective. But he didn’t care. He was getting madder all the time. At himself and at everybody.
“Well,” the room clerk said, looking uncertain, “I—”
“It’s all right,” O’Neill said. He was too tired to keep up the tough act. “I’m from the D.A.’s office.” He took out his wallet and showed his card.
“Of course then it’s all right,” the young man said. He nodded mysteriously and said, “it’s room three thirty. Anything I can do to help, Mr. O’Neill?”
O’Neill was about to tell him what he could do, but he decided against it. “No thanks. Sorry I sounded off. I’ve been seeing too many movies, I guess.”
He took the elevator to the third floor, walked about twenty yards along a carpeted corridor and knocked at the door marked three-thirty.
He heard light footsteps in the room, then a voice asked, “Who is it?”
“State’s Attorney’s office,” he said. “I have to talk to you Miss La Rue.”
“Oh—” There was a pause, then the voice said, “just a minute.”
The footsteps went away from the door, came back quickly. The door opened.
O’Neill knew about what to expect. The name Billy La Rue, the Fairmont hotel and Eddie Shapiro all added up to a certain kind of girl. A girl with too much lipstick and phoney hair, white, shaved legs, and a mental outlook like a cash register. That was what he expected.
But the girl in the doorway was nothing like that. She was small, neatly built, with clear eyes and soft, natural looking hair. She didn’t have any make-up on and she looked worried and scared. She was the kind of fresh, wholesome girl you’d see on a college campus in the Middle West.
O’Neill took off his hat. She was that kind of a girl.
“May I come in?” he said.
“Of course,” she said, and led him to a small living room that managed to look neat and clean, despite the furniture. There were fresh flowers on a table and several nice pictures on the wall that he knew didn’t come with the room.
“Sit down, please,” she said.
O’Neill took a seat and lit a cigarette. The girl sat down facing him in a straight backed chair. She was wearing a blue wool house coat and blue slippers. She looked so clean and young that O’Neill felt embarrassed.
Finally he said, “You know about Shapiro?” He made it more of a statement than a question.
The girl nodded. “I heard it on the radio. But I don’t think it’s true. I don’t think he killed that detective in the hotel. How did you find out I knew him?”
Her directness and poise slightly confused O’Neill.
“Let’s go a little slower,” he said. “When did you see him last?”
“Tonight,” the girl said. “He was here about nine o’clock. He stayed about fifteen minutes, then left.”
“You haven’t heard from him since?”
“No. I just heard the late news saying he was wanted by the police for killing a house detective at the Metropolitan Hotel.”
“What’s the set-up between you and Shapiro?” O’Neill asked. “How did you get mixed up with him?”
The girl looked down at her hands and O’Neill thought she was going to cry. But she didn’t.
“He’s been kind to me,” she said. “I know you think he’s a murderer but I know better. Eddie isn’t really bad. He’s never had a break in his life that he didn’t make for himself. His family threw him into the streets, he never had a chance to go to school, but he still has a better idea of right and wrong than most people. That’s why I know you’re wrong if you think he shot that man tonight.”
“Well,” O’Neill said, “let that ride for a while. How did you happen to meet him?”
“My name isn’t Billie La Rue, it’s Betty Nelson,” the girl said. “I came from a small town in Michigan. I’ve only been in Chicago about three months. I want to dance and the agent who’s helping me suggested I try another name. I met Eddie one night in a restaurant. He’s been wonderful to me always. And he’s never tried to touch me, which is a lot more than I can say for some pious young men I’ve met.”
O’Neill smiled. “Watch the pious ones,” he said. He liked this girl, he wanted to help her, but he had a hunch she’d stick by Shapiro despite anything he might say. But he had to try. “Now look,” he said. “Shapiro is in a bad spot now. He might get out all right, but don’t do anything foolish. If he comes here don’t let him in, don’t even see him.”
The girl smiled faintly. “Do you really think I’d turn him down now that he needs someone?”
“I guess you wouldn’t,” O’Neill said. He got up, put out his cigarette. “Can I use your phone?”
The girl showed him where it was and he called Police Headquarters and asked for Logan. He got him after a short wait.
“This is O’Neill,” he said. “What’s new?”
“I thought you were supposed to be in bed,” Logan said. “The only thing new is we got Shapiro.”
“Where is he now?” O’Neill said. He looked up and saw the girl watching him with anxious eyes. One of her hands moved to her throat, stayed there a moment then fell slowly back to her side.
“He’s right where we found him,” Logan’s voice was saying. “He ain’t going anywhere. He’s dead.” His voice sounded tinny and harsh in O’Neill’s ears.
“Who did it?” he asked.
“Looks like suicide, but we aren’t sure yet. Have to wait for the lab tests.”
“Any line on the girl?”
“No. She’s probably in the river by this time. I figure—”
“Oh, to hell with your deductions,” O’Neill said wearily. “Just give me the facts.”
He listened while Logan told him the story. When he finished O’Neill said, “I’m going back to the girl’s room at the Metropolitan and look around. If anything more breaks give me a ring, will you?”
He hung up and began fumbling for another cigarette. The girl took a step toward him, then stopped. “They got Eddie,” she said, making a flat statement of it.
“Yeah,” O’Neill said. He found the cigarette and lit it. “They found him in a hotel on the South Side. Looks like he shot himself.” He put a hand on her shoulder and squeezed lightly. “Don’t let this throw you.”
The girl was hanging on to her control with a visible effort.
“Would you leave me alone now, please?” she asked.
“Sure,” O’Neill said. He started for the door, but the girl called him back. “One thing,” she said. “Eddie left a package with me tonight. You’ll probably want it so you might as well take it now.”
She went into the bedroom and returned carrying a brown leather briefcase.
“Take it,” she said.
O’Neill put the briefcase under his arm, nodded good bye to her, and left. Down on the street he got a cab and started back for the Metropolitan. On the way he opened the briefcase.
It was crammed tightly with neat stacks of money. He knew before he counted it that there was two hundred thousand dollars there; and he knew it was the money that had belonged to Bernie Arhoff and Eddie Shapiro.
He did a lot of thinking for the rest of the ride and none of it added up to anything that made sense.
Chapter V
There was a uniformed copper standing at the door of Estelle Moran’s room. He was leaning against the wall half-asleep. Except for him the corridor was deserted. The night lights were on and the place looked dismal.
“Go get yourself a cup of coffee if you want,” O’Neill said to the copper. “I’ll be up here until you get back.”
The copper opened the door for O’Neill and said, “Thanks, a lot, Mr. O’Neill. I always get these graveyard details. It’s enough to drive a man batty.”
“Get two cups of coffee,” O’Neill said. “Hell, make a night of it.”
“I’ll do that,” the copper grinned.
O’Neill snapped on the lights and shut the door. He walked into the living room, looked around. The glasses he and the girl had used were still on the coffee table before the fireplace. He went into the bathroom and had a long drink of cold water. It tasted wonderful. His image in the mirror was pretty awful. He looked pale and the turban-effect of the bandage made him look like a hungry fortune teller.
The bathroom was clean and warm. The nylons were gone from behind the door, but everything else was just the same. He wandered into the bedroom trying to decide what he was looking for.
The drapes still billowing gently and he could feel a breeze on his cheek from the broken window. He pushed them aside and looked out on the fire escape. He could see fragments of broken glass glinting on the metal floor of the fire escape like blinking cats’ eyes.
He glanced down at the carpeting of the room and noticed that it was clean. No glass there. He got down on his knees and made a closer inspection, even ran his hand gently over the soft nap of the carpet. But there wasn’t any glass. All of it had fallen on the fire escape.
He took off his hat and started to scratch his head, until he remembered the bandage. He tossed his hat on the bed, threw the brief case beside it and sat down.
The frown on his face put deep lines alongside his nose.
He knew the whole story now. There were just a few little touches he wasn’t sure of. But they weren’t important. He knew who had killed Sam Spencer, who had sapped him in this same room a few hours before, and who had killed Eddie Shapiro.
He didn’t know why yet, but he wasn’t worried about that. He’d find that out, too.
The knowledge didn’t make him feel any better. He still felt sick and tired.
He got up and started for the phone in the living room, but before he had taken two steps, a sound stopped him. A sound that raised the hairs at the back of his neck.
The sound was that of a key sliding into the lock of the door to the suite!
There didn’t seem to be another sound in the world. O’Neill couldn’t hear his own heart or his own breathing. Nothing existed except the grating metallic click that sounded when the lock turned and the door began to open.
There was a soft footstep, a long pause, and then the lock clicked again as the door was closed softly.
O’Neill knew who was in the next room. He knew that the person who was moving slowly toward him was the murderer of Sam Spencer and Eddie Shapiro. And he knew that person had returned here to finish the job.
But he didn’t move. He didn’t have a gun. He didn’t have a chance. So he stood, a few feet from the bed, in the center of the room, waiting. His head was lowered, a little like a fighter who’d taken too much of a beating to know when to quit. His legs were spread, like a man expecting another blow.
She appeared in the doorway. There was a gun in her right hand. She said, “Smart copper,” in a voice that was just above a whisper.
“Not so smart,” he said.
She wasn’t wearing a hat. Her phoney blonde hair was disordered. But it still looked good. It still looked like the kind of phoniness that took eight hours of somebody’s time to create. The shadows under her eyes were deep and purple, but her eyes didn’t look clear now. They looked muddy and glazed at the same time. Her body and legs were the same, but they didn’t look seductive any more. They looked tense and tight, like the muscles were straining against an invisible pressure. The hand that held the gun looked the same way.
“Where is it?” she said. “Where is it, smart copper?” Her voice sounded the way her body looked.
“You’re the smart one,” O’Neill said. “The story you gave me was good enough to sell to Hollywood. All the business about having to get on the Chief. All that scared-to-death of Eddie Shapiro. All the big love act. That was really smart. Have you got the rest of it figured out, too? How you’ll get out of here if you plug me?”
“Where is it?” she said again. And O’Neill knew she wasn’t going to ask again.
“On the bed,” he said. “In the briefcase. But is it going to do you any good? Are you going to get away with it?”
“I’ll get away with it,” she said. “Back up.”
O’Neill backed up and she crossed quickly to the bed, picked up the briefcase and put it under her arm. “You big virile men,” she said, “you’re so damn dumb it’s pathetic. You think because you can paw women like they were just so many pounds of flesh that they don’t have anything to think with.”
“How did you kill Spencer?” O’Neill asked.
“How do you think? I opened the door and shot him. The big slob didn’t even have time to look surprised.”
“Then you made up the story about seeing Shapiro?”
She nodded and started to back to the door. “Smart copper,” she said. “A lot of good all this will do you. I pinned it on Shapiro so the cops would start after him. Shapiro had Bernie’s money. But he was honest. He was keeping it for Bernie. I knew if he got hot the first thing he’d do would be to go for the money. He did just that. I knew where his hide-out was. It was an old place of Bernie’s. So I went there and waited. He showed about thirty minutes later, but he didn’t have the money. He told me what he’d done with it so I shot him.”
“He gave it to the girl out at the Fairmont, so you went out there,” O’Neill said. “And you found out from her that I’d been there so you came back here.”
She nodded again and backed up a few more steps.
“I had the pleasure of breaking your head open tonight,” she said. “Too bad I didn’t kill you then and save myself this trouble.”
“I just figured everything out before you got here,” O’Neill said. “I felt pretty dumb. When I saw the nylons were gone from the bathroom and all the glass had fallen out on the fire escape, I knew what had happened. You shot Spencer to put the heat on Shapiro and make him run for the money. Then when I took over the guard duty outside you got up, dressed very carefully, and broke the window from the inside. That’s why the glass fell out. Then you let out a little ladylike scream just loud enough for me to hear, but not loud enough to wake up anyone in the adjoining rooms. And when I barged in here you conked me one. Is that about right?”
“Smart copper,” she said.
O’Neill didn’t know whether it was worth the extra effort to make a try for the gun. He knew he wouldn’t make it, but he didn’t like the idea of just standing and being plugged.
He didn’t have a chance to make up his mind.
The lock of the front door clicked, the hinges creaked.
Estelle Moran wheeled toward the living room. Two shots sounded, sharp and loud, O’Neill leaped forward, grabbed her by the shoulders and reached for the gun. But it slipped from her fingers.
She sagged back against him and began to moan softly. The small sound came through a light froth of blood that was deepening the carmine stain of her lipstick.
He put his hands under her elbows and lowered her to the floor. She sighed once and opened her eyes. They were clouding fast. She said, “Smart copper,” and turned her face away from him. She coughed once or twice and then her body stiffened in his arms. She said, “No, no,” and tried to sit up, but she didn’t make it. When she slumped back again it was all over.
O’Neill looked up and Betty Nelson was standing in the doorway. Her hands hung at her sides. In one of them was a smoking gun. Her face was empty.
“She killed Eddie,” she said. “She didn’t give him a chance. She told me he killed himself, but I knew she was lying.”
“She was lying,” O’Neill said. He was still crouched beside the dead body Estelle Moran. He felt too tired to ever get up.
“I came here after her. I told the desk clerk you’d sent for me and he gave me a key.”
O’Neill heard footsteps in the corridor, excited voices.
He got up quickly, took the gun from the girl’s hand.
“Don’t talk,” he said fiercely. He took her by the shoulders, shook her hard. “I
The copper came into the room then.
“Gosh! Mr. O’Neill—”
He stopped and looked at the body on the floor. “What happened?”
“This is the girl Logan was looking for,” O’Neill said. “She’s wanted for two murder raps. Keep the corridors clear. Send the tenants back into their rooms.”
Logan got there ten minutes later. When O’Neill finished his story he was nodding contentedly. “This is the best way all around. No trouble about a trial now.” He looked down at the dead girl and shook his head gloomily. “With those legs she’d beat any rap.”
Estelle Moran didn’t make the eight o’clock Chief that morning. But she was on it the following day. There was an aunt in California who claimed the body, and was willing to pay the expenses of burial, so she was shipped out West, not in a drawing room, but in the refrigerator car up close to the engine.
O’Neill went down to the station with Logan to see that she made connections for her final trip.
They waited until the train pulled out, then started back down the ramp.
“Well,” O’Neill said, “that’s what she hired me for. To put her on the Chief. So everybody should be happy.”
He reached into his vest pocket and pulled out the crisp fifty dollar bill she’d given him. He looked at it for a minute and then began tearing it into pieces.
“Are you nuts?” Logan asked.
O’Neill didn’t answer. Tearing up the bill made him feel better. But not much.
