Nemesis
Larry Kent stalked out of the house, determined to punish his wife by sowing a few wild oats. Then came the dawn — and with it a chance to reap the harvest...
Chapter I
The argument was pretty silly. It started over a dinner. Not an ordinary dinner, but a very special one.
Larry Kent was tired when he sat down to eat and he didn’t notice how special it was. He propped his paper against a catsup bottle and ate his shrimp salad without glancing from the story he’d started on the train.
When his wife cleared the salad dish and brought the roast in from the kitchen he didn’t notice the triumphant expression on her face. The triumphant expression of a bride who has worked all day on a dish and is slightly amazed and very proud that it turned out the way the cook-book said it would.
She stood in the arched doorway that led from the kitchen waiting for his admiring approval. And when he didn’t look up she said, “Look, Larry, isn’t it wonderful?”
He had been working hard all day on a tough set of figures for one of the company’s new clients. He was hungry and he felt a little quirk of irritation. There wasn’t any reason for it. It was just the way he felt.
“Well, let’s eat,” he said. “Don’t stand there with it. I’m hungry.”
He didn’t notice that her lips were trembling as she served the rest of the dinner. He ate in silence and finished the paper. Then he felt a little better.
He lit a cigarette and it tasted good. He pushed his chair back a little from the table and smiled at his wife.
“That hit the spot, hon,” he said. “Funny, how a little thing like a meal picks a guy up.”
She was very young and very lovely and her feelings were hurt.
“I’m glad you liked it,” she said. Her voice was stiff with the effort she made to keep it steady. “I worked all day in the kitchen getting it ready.”
“Well, I said it was good, didn’t I?” he said.
“You didn’t even know what you were eating,” she said. “You read the paper all through the meal.”
He felt a quirk of irritation again. “Of course I read the paper,” he said. “It’s the only chance I get to read it in peace. Let’s don’t argue about it. The meal was fine. Is that what you want me to say?”
She stood up then, and her voice shook a little.
“I don’t want you to say anything. I’d just like a little appreciation when I work all day trying to fix something you’ll like. I don’t want to be treated like a piece of furniture.”
He stood up then, and he felt a pang of guilt, for he realized how badly this little thing had hurt her. But a stubborn streak in him wouldn’t let him say the things that would have made it all right. If he had taken her in his arms then and told her how pretty she was and how well she ran the house and what a louse he was everything would have been smoothed over. But he didn’t.
He said, “Stop making a mountain of it. I’m tired as hell and I don’t feel like arguing. I feel like a quiet drink and a little peace.”
She started to cry then. She looked so helpless and vulnerable that his stubbornness melted. He started for her with the right words ready on his lips, but she ran past him into the bedroom. He heard the door slam behind her and then the house was quiet except for the sound of her muffled crying.
She was lying on the bed, he knew, face buried in the pillow, waiting for him to come in and apologize.
This had never happened before and it made him feel nervous and irritable. What the hell was she crying about?
He loved her. She must know that. They had been married only two months and it had been perfect. And now this damn thing.
He lit another cigarette and walked into the living room. He stopped mid-way between the closed door of the bedroom and the front door of the apartment and tried to decide what to do.
The idea of a drink came back to him and it was just what he wanted. He went to the kitchen cabinet where he kept the whisky, but the bourbon bottle had only about a quarter of an inch left.
That was a big thing in his life but he didn’t realize it. If there’d been a drink in the bottle a number of things might never have happened. But he had no way of knowing that.
He went back to the front room and the two doors were like magnets trying to pull him in opposite directions. From behind the bedroom door the crying had stopped. That made him feel a little better.
He decided then that she was just acting silly and that she needed a good lesson. If he didn’t take a firm hand right now she might make a habit of this sort of foolishness.
He put on his hat and coat, put his cigarettes in his outside pocket and walked to the door. There, he almost weakened. He didn’t want to go out for a drink. He wasn’t that kind of a guy. He loved his wife, but he thought she needed a lesson.
So he opened the door and was very careful to close it with a loud, defiant bang! He wanted her to know he was going.
He went down the two flights of stairs quickly, because he knew if he paused once, he’d go back. Outside the cool autumn air was bracing.
He turned his collar up and walked down the street. A gusty fall wind was stirring the leaves and making a harsh whisper through the dead limbs of the trees. It was almost dark.
They lived on Chicago’s North Side in a neighborhood that had once been very good, but it had slipped down in the Thirties and now it was about half-and-half. Cafes, apartment houses, great, sleepy mansions and the red neon signs of cheap bars winking everywhere.
He headed for one of these bars, but at the first intersection a cruising cab driver saw him and stopped. The cabby opened the back door and stuck his head out.
“Cab?”
“No, I’m just—,” he stopped. The door was open and he changed his mind. “Yes,” he said, and stepped in, slamming the door shut behind him.
The driver put the cab in gear and then looked around.
“Where to?” He was a cynical looking young man, with sharp, hard features and a cigarette hanging loosely from his mouth.
Larry didn’t want the cab in the first place and he didn’t have any idea of where he wanted to go. He would have liked to climb out again, but he didn’t want to look foolish.
“I don’t know,” he said, and then irritated by the driver’s expression, he said, “make it the Loop.”
“Anywhere in particular?”
“No just drop me down town.”
Most of the traffic at this hour was headed the other direction. The Outer Drive was closed during the rush hour so the cabby used Clark street.
Larry lit another cigarette and wondered why he had decided to go down to the Loop. No reason at all. He spent five days a week there and that was plenty.
He was worrying about Fran now. He wondered if she had discovered he had gone and what she was thinking about. Probably she’d run into his arms when he came back, and that would be the time for him to say all the right things. He wasn’t feeling so masterful now. He was feeling a little like a heel. He had wanted to teach her a lesson, but now that seemed pretty small.
Any guy could worry his wife by barging out of the house without any explanation. A woman couldn’t do that herself, and she couldn’t follow him. All she could do was sit there and stew. Probably torture herself imagining that he’d been hit by a truck or something.
The cab stopped at Madison and Clark and the meter registered fifty cents.
The driver said, “This all right?”
“Fine,” Larry said.
If the driver hadn’t been such a wise looking guy Larry would have told him to take him back home, but he didn’t want to act like a fool.
“This is okay,” he said coolly.
He paid the fare and got out. The lights were on in the Loop and there was loud blaring music coming from loudspeakers in front of the bars and cafes. Although it was a little past the rush hour, and not quite the time for the evening jam the streets were crowded.
Larry walked West on Madison street, with no particular destination in mind. He was ready to go home, but he was not feeling the same remorse he had in the cab. The crowds and the music cheered him up a little, and he decided to have at least one drink.
He turned into a bar and ordered a straight bourbon. He found a foot of space between two sailors and a tired looking old man and lit a cigarette. He drank the drink and listened to the noise coming from a three-piece orchestra. The sailors were talking about a girl they had met that afternoon, and the old man just stared at himself in the mirror above the bar.
He stayed long enough to learn that the sailors thought the girl was a two-timing wench and then he picked up his change and left.
Outside again in the crowd he walked West. The drink settled comfortably on the dinner that had started all the trouble and he felt fairly complacent. One more drink, maybe two, and he’d look for a cab.
He crossed the bridge and continued past the gloomy bulk of Northwestern station. The opposite side of Canal street was honkey-tonk neighborhood. There were garishly lighted dance halls, burlesque shows and the men were too-well dressed and the women wore too much make-up.
He passed a bar called the
There was music coming from inside. It was loud blatant music, but Larry went in anyway. The door opened on a narrow, carpeted corridor. There were restrooms on one side, a hat-check booth on the other. The hat-check girl was a redhead and the mascara made her eyes look purple. She was wearing a jockey’s cap, a white silk blouse that was two sizes too small, and red silk shorts.
She took Larry’s hat and topcoat and gave him back a brass check and a bright, mechanical smile.
He followed the corridor to double glass doors, pushed them open and walked into the main room of the
The place was large and dimly lighted. A bar stretched half the length of the room on his right and beyond that there were booths and tables. At his left there was an orchestra and a tiny dance floor. Flanking the band were several dice tables operated by girls dressed in the same outfit the check girl wore — jockey caps, silk blouses, red shorts.
The place was only half-full. But the air was thick with smoke and the band played as if the SRO signs were out.
Larry found a place at the bar and ordered a bourbon. The bartender filled the shot glass with the careless dexterity of the professional. He said, “Do you want me to leave the bottle?”
Larry said, “No. I’ll call you when I want another.”
The bartender nodded, picked up the dollar bill that Larry had put on the bar, took it back to a cash register and brought back forty cents. He spread the coins on the bar so they could be counted at a glance.
“Some people like the bottle left,” he said. “Like to pour their own.” The bartender was a small dark man with lively brown eyes. His hair was combed straight back from his forehead and at the hairline there was a long thin scar that might have been made by a knife. “You all alone,” he said conversationally.
Larry nodded. “Just stopped in for a quick one.”
“You looking for something? A little company, maybe?”
Larry smiled and shook his head. “I don’t think so. I’ve got to be getting along pretty soon.”
“That’s okay,” the bartender said. “Just thought I’d ask. You look all right to me and if you was lonely I’d fix you up with something.”
Larry felt the need to talk to somebody and the bartender was still standing there with his hands on the bar so he said, “I’ve got to go home pretty soon. I had a fight with my wife tonight and I walked out. But I’m going back now. She’s an awfully nice kid.”
“Sure,” the bartender said. “But it won’t hurt her to worry about you a little while. She’ll be all love and kisses when you walk in. Take my word for it.”
“I guess you’re right,” Larry said. The bourbon was warm and smooth inside him and he felt fine. He was anxious to get home. He knew what would happen when he got home and the anticipation gave him a pleasant feeling.
He ordered another drink and then walked over to one of the dice tables. The girl behind the green felt table was a small brunette with a carefully made-up face and a bright, empty smile.
He put a quarter on the table and picked up the dice box. The game was twenty-six, and the odds were about seventy to thirty in favor of the house but no one seemed to care. He played three games and didn’t win. The girl kept score and glanced at him occasionally.
Finally she said, “My name’s Corinne. What’s yours?”
“Why?” Larry smiled.
“I just wondered. You don’t seem like the rest of the guys that come in here. Most of ’em ask my name before they start playing. Then they ask for a date before the first game is over. You seem different.”
“Maybe I should say thanks,” Larry said.
“I meant it for a compliment,” the girl said very seriously. She glanced at his shoulders and at the lock of black hair that hung over his forehead and gave a little sigh. “Just my luck. A guy comes along that I like and he don’t even ask my name. Fifty guys will be trying to go home with me tonight and they’ll all be lady-killers with padded shoulders and eyes like shoe buttons.”
Larry felt a little uncomfortable, but it was a vaguely pleasant sensation. He had always done all right with women but since he’d been married that was something he considered a part of his past. He grinned at the little brunette and said, “Thanks for all the kind words. If I ever need a shoulder to cry on I’ll look you up.”
“I got more than a soft shoulder,” the girl said, and she was stating a fact, not being coy. She took a match folder and scribbled a number on the back, then pushed it toward Larry. “You can reach me there if you ever get lonesome.”
Larry picked up the match folder and dropped it into his pocket. He smiled at the girl and made a mental note to get rid of the folder before he got home.
“Thanks,” he said.
The brunette sighed and shook her head. “You won’t get lonesome. I can tell. But thanks for acting so polite about it.”
After another game Larry went back to the bar. He ordered a final drink and drank it quickly.
He was ready to leave when the bartender came over and put another drink in front of him.
“On the house,” he said with a smile.
Larry hesitated. He didn’t want the drink, but he didn’t want to appear unfriendly, so he said, “Thanks,” and sat down again.
There was a blonde sitting two stools from him and the bartender gave her a drink too, and then he looked from her to Larry and said, “You two people ought to know each other. You’re both alone and I just bought you both a drink and that’s as good an introduction as you’ll ever get.”
Larry glanced at the blonde and nodded amiably. She looked at him and said, “Hello,” without any particular expression and went back to her drink.
Larry felt a little piqued. He looked at the girl again and he realized that once she had been quite lovely. She was about thirty-five now, he guessed, and she was still all right. Her features were finely chiseled and she wore enough make-up to make her look interesting but not cheap.
Her clothes looked like money. The steel gray suit she wore was a hundred dollar model and it fitted her slim body as if it enjoyed the job. She wore nylons and ankle strap sandals and her legs were the kind that would have looked good in anything. Even hip boots.
He felt unreasonably annoyed that she didn’t consider him worth more than a brief, uninterested glance, so he moved the next stool beside her and tapped her on the arm.
She looked at him and said, “Yes?”
“Look,” he said, “I don’t chase young children or have coughing fits. My hair lip is practically unnoticeable and I have a pound of butter in my back pocket. So I’m really a nice guy and you should be nice to me. Or don’t you think so?”
She looked at him for a moment with a puzzled expression and then she smiled. “You win,” she said. “You’re a nice guy. For a pound of butter I’d write mash notes to Rasputin.”
“That’s better. Can I buy you a drink?”
She shrugged. “We still have one, but you can buy another if you like.”
Larry waved to the bartender. “Two more of the same.”
“Fine,” he grinned. “I knew you two people would get along.”
They finished the drink and then had the next one. And that was when Larry realized he was getting a little tight.
His face felt hot and when he lit a cigarette it took him a long time to find the end of the cigarette with the lighted end of the match. He laughed about that and he wondered who was making all the noise.
When the girl told him to be quiet he realized that he had been listening to himself.
A little while later the girl suggested that he come home with her. He didn’t even know her name and that struck him as funny. Here he was being propositioned by an absolute stranger. Ridiculous.
He couldn’t go home with her, of course. He tried to explain very logically that it was simply impossible. Fran was getting dinner for him and he had to be there to tell her how much he enjoyed it. She didn’t understand. She told him to stop mumbling and finish his drink.
There was another drink in front of him and he didn’t know where it came from. He put it to his lips, but he couldn’t force it down. He wasn’t feeling so well now. He had to go home. Dinner was ready and Fran wouldn’t like it if he stayed out all night.
He felt cold wind on his face and he knew he was outside. His top coat was over his arm and someone had put his hat on his head at a crazy angle. The blonde was standing beside him, holding his free arm.
He didn’t remember getting into the cab, but its lurching motion almost made him sick. He leaned forward and tried to tell the driver to take him home, but the blonde pulled him back beside her.
“Just put your head on my shoulder,” she murmured. “We’ll be home in a little while.”
He tried to tell her he couldn’t go home with her, but he had trouble with the words. They choked up in his throat and stuck there like tennis balls.
He put his head on her shoulder and he knew he was going to pass out. His head was spinning and his body felt numb.
He made a last attempt to tell the blonde that Fran was waiting for him and then he gave up. He sank back against her and that was all he remembered.
Chapter II
He woke up by degrees. For a long interval he hung in a limbo that wasn’t sleeping or waking. Just a hazy in-between state.
Then his mind started to work. He had no physical sensation at all. All he had was disconnected thoughts that came out of white space.
He remembered things in strange sequence. There was Fran and a blonde. Drinks that made him sick and a wonderful dinner. A wise looking cab driver and a little brunette dice girl that liked his looks.
His first physical sensation was of lying down. On his left side with a pillow under his head. That meant he was in bed.
He tried to open his eyes and he couldn’t. He was becoming aware of pain in his head. A splitting pain that stretched across his forehead.
Finally he managed to get his eyes open but it didn’t help much. The room was almost dark. It smelled of liquor and stale smoke.
There was someone lying beside him. There was enough light for him to identify a head of silvery blonde hair and a finely chiseled profile. His right arm was flung across her chest.
More sensations were coming back. He raised himself on one elbow and the physical effort brought a black siege of nausea. When it passed he looked down at the girl.
She did not look pretty. Her lean features were twisted in a smile. But the smile had no humor in it. It was set and stiff and it wasn’t a smile at all.
Her face looked like cold wax. Her eyes were open, staring blandly at the ceiling.
Larry saw this and it didn’t register. He didn’t know she was dead until he saw the knife. The knife was buried hilt-deep between the cup of her naked breasts. And the fingers of his outflung arm held the handle of the knife in a tight grip.
He lay there and stared at his hand. As if it were something he never had seen before. Something that didn’t belong to him. He saw the blood then, dark and crusted, on his hand, on his shirt sleeve, on the girl’s naked chest.
Something was crawling in his throat. He felt sick and shriveled inside.
He got off the bed and groped for a light-switch. The light showed him a cheap, small bedroom, with a curtained window, a chest of drawers, two chairs and an open door leading to a bathroom.
And the bed. That was all. The girl on the bed was naked, but the sheet was pulled across her hips. Her clothes were in a pile on the floor.
The thing was crawling in his throat again and he stumbled into the bathroom. He was sick for a long time. Then he tried to wash the blood from his hand. It stuck like glue. He got it off, but he couldn’t do anything about his sleeve.
He came back into the bedroom and sat down in one of the chairs. He stared at the dead body of the girl. He didn’t think. There was nothing but white horror in his head.
He was sitting there when the loud knock sounded on the door.
He turned to the door and his breath made a scratching noise in his ears. His heart was pounding as if he’d been running up-hill.
The knock was repeated, and a shrill, feminine voice said, “I got to have this room at ten o’clock. Keep that in mind. You don’t lay around all day in my house.” The knock sounded again. “Do you hear me in there?”
Larry prayed for the woman to go away. He wanted her voice to stop. He wanted the knocking to stop. If she knocked on the door again he knew he’d start screaming.
He said, “I heard you,” and his voice was a whisper. He tried again and it came out louder. She said, “See that you’re out of there by ten, that’s all.”
He heard her feet shuffle away and he got up and put on his suit coat, top coat and hat. He wasn’t thinking yet. But he had the blind instinct of flight.
One flicker of reason made him take out his handkerchief and wipe the hilt of the knife clean, and then he went to the door. He heard nothing on the opposite side and when he twisted the knob and pushed it open he was looking out on a gloomy, empty corridor.
He stepped out, pulled the door behind him and started down the single flight of steps. As he reached the front door of the house he heard someone coming down from the upper floors. He pulled open the door and ran down a flight of stone steps to the street.
He started walking. The street was in a cheap neighborhood. There were ashcans on the sidewalk and the houses were ancient structures, with brown-stone fronts, bay windows and gold lettered street numbers.
At the first intersection he saw a street sign. Nelson Boulevard. That was on the South Side. About four miles south of the Loop. About a mile West.
He kept walking. A clock in a pawn shop said seven-thirty. There weren’t many people on the street. He passed a colored couple, a gray-haired man with a metal lunch box, an old woman who looked like she was coming off a gin hangover.
He kept walking. He had no idea of direction. But there was a hopeless horror building inside him and he knew that soon he would have to think. He was afraid of thinking. As long as he could walk on blindly he felt invisible and anonymous, but he couldn’t go on forever. Sometime his thoughts would catch up with him.
At eight-thirty he turned into a restaurant. It was a cheap Greek eating place and there was no one at the counter. He sat down and ordered coffee from the proprietor, a fat man, with skin like leather and mustache that looked like a dirty scrub brush.
The coffee was in a thick white mug and he couldn’t drink it. He sat and looked at the cup. He tried to light a cigarette but his hands were trembling too much.
He started thinking. He tried not to, but it was no use.
He remembered the blonde girl he’d met, he remembered that she wanted him to go home with her. And he remembered how she looked lying on the bed with a knife stuck into her, and her blood crusted and dark on her white breast.
He thought of Fran. And he made a noise in his throat like an animal.
How long he sat there he had no way of knowing, but when he felt the hand on his shoulder he learned something. He learned about fear.
He looked up and there was a big man, with a hard, gray face, a gray overcoat and a gray hat standing beside him. The hand on his shoulder was big and business-like.
Larry tried to say something, but the words stuck. He couldn’t meet the big man’s level gaze.
“Let’s see your wallet,” the big man said.
Larry heard the words. He knew what they meant, but he didn’t have any muscular coordination. He started fumbling with his tie. The big man said again, “The wallet. And fast. I’m from the Bureau of Detectives.”
He got out the wallet and handed it over. The big man looked at it, thumbed through the papers, then handed it back.
“Get up. We’re taking a trip.”
Larry got up and went outside with the big man. There was a police car parked at the curb. The big man opened the front door, climbed in after Larry. He started the car, put it in gear and drove toward the Loop.
He didn’t talk much.
He said, “What did you do it for?”
“I don’t know.”
“They all say that. Do you think that helps her any?”
“I don’t know.”
“Guys like you should get the book.”
Larry shook his head slowly and then he pressed his hands against his face. He couldn’t think anymore.
The copper said, “We were lucky to get you without any trouble. Usually you guys keep us working for a week.”
He shut up then and concentrated on driving. They were on a through-street now leading into the Loop. When they reached State Street the copper pulled up beside a Subway entrance.
He reached over and opened Larry’s door.
“Now get this,” he said. “Go home and stay there. You got no cause to be worrying your wife like you did. She’s been on our necks all last night. Lucky I got a flash this morning before I started back to work.”
Larry felt his throat crawling again. He was afraid he was going to be sick. “You’re letting me go?” he said.
“Sure. We got nothing to book you on. Your wife called the cops, the fire department, the Missing Persons Bureau, and just about everybody else when you didn’t come home last night. She thought you’d been hit by a truck. We don’t care how many times a guy walks out on his wife, but when she starts squawking to us, that’s just another headache. Now take my advice, when you go on a bat the next time, cover up in advance. Tell her you got to work, or got a business trip to make. Then she don’t worry, and we don’t get no headaches. Get on home now. And you’d better think up a good story to tell her.”
Larry didn’t trust himself to talk. He felt like laughing. But he was close to hysteria. This copper was practically shoving him out of the car. Giving him advice about being a good husband, keeping out of trouble. Saving the police headaches.
In another hour this copper and every other one in the city would be looking for him. And not to give him advice.
He got out of the car and the copper leaned over and looked at his hand.
“Hurt yourself last night, didn’t you?” he asked.
“I fell, I guess,” Larry said.
His heart was pumping again, heavily, painfully. He wanted to turn and run, but something told him nothing would be more fatal. And then he felt a leaden despair. What did it matter?
The copper said, “Want me take you down to the station and have it fixed up?”
Larry shook his head and stepped back into the car. He pulled the door shut and said, “You may as well take me down to the station anyway.”
“What’s the idea?”
“I don’t know how to say it,” Larry said. His voice sounded a million miles away, flat and expressionless. “When I woke up this morning there was a dead girl lying beside me. She had a knife stuck into her. My hand was holding the knife. I guess you’d better take me in.”
Chapter III
The copper looked at him for a moment and then shook his head. He pushed his hat back on his head and fumbled for a cigarette.
“If this is a gag, it ain’t a funny one,” he said.
“It’s no gag,” Larry said.
The copper lit a cigarette and stared straight ahead with a gloomy expression on his face.
“So you picked up a tomato last night and stuck a knife in her. Is that it?”
“I didn’t kill her,” Larry said. He stopped and wet his lips. He didn’t know whether he had killed her or not. “I got a drink that had been doctored some way. It knocked me out. I don’t remember going to bed with her. When I woke up she was lying there dead. She had a knife driven into her chest.”
The copper frowned. “Now let’s go through this once again. I’d take you in, but I don’t want to get laughed out of the station. I got an idea you got the shakes. I think your imagination is running as wild as a woman’s poker game. You tell me a story that may be true. And it may not. There’s no percentage in it for you to lie to me. That’s why I’m listening.”
Larry shrugged wearily. “I wish to God I was lying. But I’m telling you the truth, as far as I know it. I had a fight with my wife last night. A little thing, but it seemed big, so I barged out of the house to get a drink. I went down town and stopped in a bar on Madison street. I—”
“What bar?”
Larry thought a minute. It was hard to sift through the tumbled thoughts in his head. “The
“I know the place. Go on.”
“I met a girl in there. A blonde. We had a couple of drinks. I didn’t have more than four or five all night, but I started to get tight. But it wasn’t a drunken feeling. It was a sick, knocked-out feeling.”
He stopped and licked his lips. The copper looked at him steadily.
“I took her home. Or she took me home. That’s about all I remember. When I woke up she was lying beside me. She was dead. I wasn’t thinking very well. I walked out of the place and just kept walking. I stopped for some coffee and that’s where you found me.”
“Where did she live?”
“I don’t know.”
“Well, where did she take you?”
“It was somewhere on Nelson Boulevard. I didn’t notice any street numbers.”
The copper turned the ignition key and stepped on the starter. He was still frowning.
“We can check that story easy enough,” he said.
“Can I call my wife?” Larry asked.
“Maybe from the station,” the copper said.
He put the car in gear and moved away from the curb. He was still frowning.
Chapter IV
The cell was small and airless. There was a cot, a chair, a basin of water. There was a uniformed policeman standing in the corridor with his back to Larry.
Larry sat on the edge of the cot, hands twisted together.
For six hours he had been telling and re-telling his story. And answering questions. Polite questions, tough questions, insulting questions. Questions that were simple, involved, ridiculous and shrewd.
He had dictated a statement and signed it.
His tongue was parched and his brain was numb. He didn’t care what happened. He wanted Fran. He wanted to talk to her. He had begged them for that much and they had looked at him as if he were speaking Hindustani. And had gone on asking questions.
He looked up as a key sounded in the door. The uniformed policeman was admitting the big copper, the big guy in the gray clothes, whose name was Meyers. Larry had learned to hate him in the last six hours.
He stood looking at Larry a moment, his hard face impassive. Then he sat down and brought out a crumpled pack of cigarettes, lit one, blew smoke at the ceiling.
“Still playing the same tune?” he asked.
“Go to hell,” Larry said weakly. “I’m not answering any more of your questions. I’ve told the truth. I haven’t lied about a damn thing. Now I’m through.”
He put his hands to his face and tried to keep from making a weeping fool of himself. “Have you called my wife?” he asked. He tried to keep his voice steady and it sounded like a croak.
“We called her,” Meyers said. “She’s on her way down.”
Larry looked up at him, waiting for a laugh, but it didn’t come. Meyers was dead-pan.
“Is that right?”
Meyers nodded. “I talked to her myself. As a matter of fact we called her this morning.”
“You bastard,” Larry said.
“Shut up,” Meyers said mildly. “That kind of talk ain’t going to help. This isn’t a kindergarten we run here. This is a police station. We aren’t interested in being nice to people. Your wife to us is just another witness. I called her trying to find out if you’d lied to me. She backed you up. She said you had a fight and you walked out. That much of your story we know is true. But the rest of it stinks.”
“Oh, for God’s sake,” Larry said wearily. “Why should I lie? I’ve told you the truth.”
“No, you ain’t. But we been asking ourselves one question all day. Why should you lie? We know you’re lying. We know damn well you’re lying. But we want to know why. Either you’re buggy as hell, or you’re covering up something else.”
He blew more smoke at the ceiling and frowned. His face was gray and hard and his eyes were puzzled. He was a big man, a solid, careful, cautious man, with gray clothes, graying hair and a gray soul. He liked to know the answers. He liked the feeling of all the details of a case dove-tailing together and giving one result. That was his passion. He didn’t like to be puzzled. And he was puzzled now.
“Why should a guy lie like you have?” he said. He wasn’t talking to any one in particular. He was thinking out loud.
“You keep saying I’m lying,” Larry said. “How the hell do you know? Do you look in a crystal ball? Do you have a private ouija board up in the Captain’s office?”
Meyers looked amused. It made him look grimmer.
“We don’t have anything like that,” he said. “All a copper has is a pair of legs. And the benefit of a little experience. That’s one copper. Now do you know how many cops we got in Chicago? About fifteen thousand. That’s thirty thousand legs, walking here and there, looking for things. All of those coppers have some experience and when you lump it all together that makes a big lump of experience. When you got thirty thousand legs you don’t need a crystal ball.
“Now the funny thing about this case of yours is this; we haven’t found the body of this girl you keep talking about. No corpse with a knife in it. No girl lying on a bed with blood on her chest. That’s the funny thing.”
“You didn’t tell me that before,” Larry said. He tried to say it calmly, but hammers were beating inside his skull.
“You didn’t ask,” Meyers said ironically. “Now let me explain just how funny that is. Supposing you’re telling the truth. We started out this morning believing you. We started looking for a body. That’s where those thirty thousand legs go to work. All of them, looking for this dead girl. We know where you said she was. Nelson Boulevard. Good. We send a few hundred legs out there to start looking. They found out that you was out there. We got people who saw you. But nobody saw a body. We found out the block you stayed in last night. Not the house, but the block. That’s close enough, because we got plenty of legs. The legs went through every house in that block. Every room. And they didn’t find a body.”
He looked through the smoke at Larry. “See what I mean? We know you’re lying. Now we’d like to find out why you lied. If you just had the shakes and a bad dream we want to know that. If you’re covering up something else we want to know that and we intend to find out.”
“There was a dead girl lying beside me when I woke up,” Larry said. “I didn’t dream it. I was sick and half-drunk but I didn’t imagine it. I tell you I saw her. You saw the blood on my shirt, didn’t you? And there’s not a cut on me, is there? How do you explain that away?”
“We don’t do Sherlock Holmes stuff here,” Meyers said. But he frowned. “The blood we can’t figure. We took a test of your blood and it ain’t the same type as on your shirt sleeve. And anyway you weren’t cut anywhere. So the blood came from somebody else. We’d like to know about that.”
Larry felt a shiver of terror. He might have been dreaming. Maybe there wasn’t a girl. Maybe there wasn’t a knife stuck into the cup of her breasts. Maybe the blood had come from someone else. What
If it was just a horrible dream he was in the clear. But until he knew what had happened he’d never sleep. Not with something dark and horrible and unknown hanging over his head.
Meyers was still looking at him thoughtfully.
“I believe you,” he said finally. “That makes me a fool. But I can’t help it. Maybe I do use a crystal ball. Maybe thirty thousand legs ain’t enough. But there’s got to be a body.” Larry said, “Give me a cigarette.” He took one from the pack Meyers extended and inhaled gratefully. He wasn’t feeling better. But he was intelligent enough to know that there was a reasonable explanation for this mystery. And whether it incriminated him or not, he had to know.
“Look, Meyers, nobody has found the body yet. Let’s suppose I’m not lying. And that I wasn’t dreaming. What could have happened to it?”
Meyers looked gloomy. “Bodies are hard to get rid of. When people find an ordinary body they generally call a doctor. Or maybe the fire department. Some people call a priest first. But they call somebody. Just so they can talk about it. And when they find a body with a knife stuck in it, they call everybody. They call the police first though. We know that from experience. Nobody wants to get mixed up with a murder case. This is normal, innocent people I’m talking about. Now a murderer has a different problem. He’s either got to make it look like somebody else did it, which is the way most of them figure, or else he’s got to get rid of the body. No body, no murder, that’s the law. He can burn the body in a furnace, he can throw it in the river, he can stuff it down a sewer, he can bury it, he can hide it in a trunk, or he can toss it into a barrel of acid.
“All them things have been done. But none of them was done in this case. Because we had our legs out there fast. And they been all over the place. They looked in furnaces, they looked in trunks, the neighborhood is miles from the river, and nobody saw any vats of acid around. So they did something else. That’s not what’s bothering me though. I want to know why they did it. If you’re not lying or crazy you fell into a nice frame. Why you were framed I don’t know. You ain’t important enough to frame. You got no enemies. You don’t know anybody. So you beat the frame. You wake up and walk out. Maybe that’s what they wanted you to do. I don’t know. If I had a nickel for everything I don’t know about this case, I’d retire.”
He stood up and sauntered to the door.
“I’ll send your wife in when she gets here. If we ain’t got a body by six o’clock tonight the captain says to let you go. He says you’re a nut or blind drunk. Maybe both.”
“What do you think?” Larry asked.
Meyers grinned sourly. “I don’t use my brain. I use my legs. So I think I’m going to use ’em a little bit on this case.” He shook his head disgustedly. “My food don’t taste right when I’m all mixed up. The old lady has ham hocks and cabbage tonight and it’ll taste like sawdust to me. Hell of a note.”
He went out and the uniformed copper closed and locked the door behind him.
Chapter V
They let Fran in at four thirty. Larry stood up when she came in and for a moment they stared at each other. Her eyes were red, but she tried to smile.
“Larry,” she whispered.
Then he was holding her close and she was crying, her face buried into his chest.
“Don’t, honey,” he said.
“It was all my fault. If I hadn’t acted like I did you wouldn’t be here now. Oh, darling, what are they keeping you for? They wouldn’t tell me a thing.”
“Sit down here,” he said. He sat beside her on the cot and held both her hands. “I’m in trouble, honey. How bad I don’t know. Until about fifteen minutes I wasn’t sure of my name. I was lost. I was dead. I thought I was insane.” He squeezed her hands and met her eyes steadily. “I’m not much better now. A little, but not much. I’m thinking now. It’s not getting me anywhere, but it’s a start. The most important thing, darling, is that you believe me. No matter what you’re told or how screwy my story sounds. You’ve got to believe me.”
“Oh, I do, darling.”
“You haven’t heard the story yet. Last night I had a few drinks. I’m not going to tell you what a fool I was for storming out last night. Some day I will.”
“Don’t, darling,” she whispered.
“After a few drinks I met a girl. I had one drink with her and it was doped. I passed out. I woke up this morning in bed with her and she was dead. That is the God’s honest truth. That’s all there is. But you’ve got to believe me.”
Her eyes were widened with horror.
“Oh, my darling,” she murmured.
“And here’s the twist. They can’t find her body. Not a trace of her. Not one thing to prove I’m not just lying.”
“But, darling, are you sure?”
“Dead sure. They almost talked me out of it. Had me convinced I was dreaming or crazy. But I know I’m not. Somewhere in this town there is a dead girl. And somebody is covering up her murder for some reason.”
“Darling, it just doesn’t make sense.”
“I know it doesn’t.” He looked at her and then down at her hands. “The only alternative,” he said slowly, “is that I’m insane. That’s why I won’t admit it.”
Fran put her head against his shoulder and murmured, “I believe you, darling. That makes me crazy, too, doesn’t it?”
He smiled at her. Not much of a smile but it was the first time he’d felt like smiling since last night.
“Crazy as a coot,” he said.
They sat close together without talking much for the next hour. The copper in the corridor had turned an elaborately indifferent back to them, and was engrossed in a paper.
They sat there until six o’clock.
And then Meyers came back. He opened the door and frowned at Larry.
“The verdict is in,” he said.
“What is it?”
“Get the hell out of here. You’re nuts!”
He walked away, a puzzled, angry man, with gray clothes, graying hair and a gray soul.
“Somebody tried to frame me, Fran. Why, I don’t know. I wouldn’t know him if I passed him on the street, but he can hold this thing over my head like a rock. He can crush me anytime he feels like it. That’s why I can’t just sit around and do nothing.”
They were sitting in their kitchen over empty coffee cups. He lit another cigarette and went on:
“I’ve got to know all about what happened last night or I’ll go insane. I can’t live with this thing on my mind.”
“Darling,” Fran said, “there’s nothing you can do.” She tried to make her voice soothing, but she couldn’t eliminate the note of strain and tenseness. She put her hand over his and held it tightly. “You’re out of it now, darling, you’re in the clear. It could have been horrible, but by some miracle it’s turned out all right. Please don’t try and stir up anything.”
“I’ve got to,” Larry said. “This morning I woke up with a murdered girl beside me. Can I forget that? Can I go back to the office as if nothing had happened? I’ve got to find out who murdered her and why it was done.”
“What are you going to do?” Fran asked. She drew her hand away from his and her voice was despairing.
“I’ll start at the beginning,” Larry said. “At the
Fran sat with her hands in her lap as he straightened his tie.
“When will you be back?” she said.
He leaned over and kissed her on the forehead.
“As soon as I can, honey. You get to bed and try and sleep.”
She buried her face in his sleeve and said, “darling, be careful.”
“I will,” he promised.
It was nine o’clock. Madison street was crowded and noisy. The lights were on and music blared from loudspeakers. The blinking neon signs advertised bars, cafes, dance halls and burlesque shows.
Larry stopped in front of the
He felt cold and afraid. He wasn’t the heroic type. He was just an ordinary guy. His throat was dry and the fear he felt was something he could taste.
The trouble he was in had started here, and now he was walking back in, without any authority, without any backing, without even a clear idea of what he wanted, and it was like sticking his head into a noose. But it was something he had to do. He was old enough to know that you had to do the tough things by yourself.
He pushed open the door and walked into the vestibule. The hat check girl was the same red head of the night before. She smiled at him without recognition as she took his hat. She handed him a check and he went into the bar room.
The place was half-full. The orchestra was playing, a few couples were dancing and there was a little play at the dice tables that flanked the band.
There was smoke in the air and the pervading tavern smell of perfume and stale beer. He sat down at the bar and waited for the bartender.
He was the same one. The dark haired guy with the lively brown eyes and the scar running across his forehead. Larry couldn’t be mistaken. Not with that scar. That was as good as a finger print.
The bartender was talking to a couple a few stools down. When he saw Larry he came over and put his hands on the bar. His face was expressionless.
“What’ll it be?”
“A beer,” Larry said. “But there’s no hurry. I want to talk to you.”
“You can have the beer,” the bartender said.
He moved away, came back in a moment with a glass of beer with a neat collar.
“Anything else?”
“I want to talk to you,” Larry said.
The bartender leaned a little closer. “I speak English,” he said. “I understand it, too. But I guess you don’t. I’m busy. I haven’t got time to talk Do you get it now?”
“This won’t take long,” Larry said “I was in here last night. I talked to you. Remember?”
The bartender’s brown face was expressionless. But his lively brown eyes looked wary.
“I get paid for tending bar,” he said. “I serve hundreds of drinks every night. I don’t look at the people who buy the drinks. I just look at their money. And you owe me a quarter for that beer, bud.”
“You must remember me,” Larry said. “You asked me if I wanted to meet someone. I told you I had a fight with my wife and was anxious to get home. Don’t you remember that?”
“No. I got trouble enough without listening to other people’s. I never seen you before.”
“Any trouble, Sam?” a quiet voice said.
Larry looked around and saw a solidly built man standing behind him, looking at the bartender. He had black curly hair, swarthy cheeks and white even teeth. His expression was one of amiable curiosity, but he had the kind of face that could become hard and savage in an instant. He was dressed carefully in a midnight blue suit, a figured white shirt and blue tie. Except for the too-wide shoulders and too-pinched effect at the waist, and the extra couple of inches of white handkerchief showing from his breast pocket, his clothes were in excellent taste.
The bartender said, “no trouble, Mr. Tonelli. The guy’s just gabby and I’m busy.”
Tonelli’s face lost its amiable expression. “Sam,” he said, “that’s no way to talk to our customers.” He sat down on a stool beside Larry and smiled. “What’s the trouble, pally? Just feel like talking, eh? Well, I’m a good listener.” He put a hand on Larry’s shoulder and gave it a little pat. “What’s on your mind?”
“I don’t feel like talking,” Larry said. “I just want to clear up something. I was in here last night. I talked to the bartender. Now he says he don’t remember me.”
“So, that’s it,” Tonelli said. He looked thoughtful while he undressed a thin cigar and wetted one end slowly. When it was drawing well he glanced through the smoke at Larry. “Now this isn’t anything to worry about. Sam here serves dozens of people every hour. You can’t expect him to remember everybody. But what of it? You didn’t come back just to see if he remembered you.”
“That’s right,” Larry said. “I came back here to find out about a girl.”
“Ah!” Tonelli smiled genially. He removed the cigar from his mouth with manicured fingers and made a little O with his lips. His expression was amused. “So that’s it. Now what about this girl? Did you meet her in here?”
“Yes. The bartender introduced us.”
“Not on your life,” Sam said.
Tonelli raised his eyebrows. “A little difference of opinion.” He patted Larry’s shoulder. “How about it?”
Larry looked at the bartender. “He introduced us. She was sitting one stool away and he bought us both a drink, told us we ought to get along well together.”
“And did you?” Tonelli smiled.
“The guy is crazy,” the bartender said.
“Now, now,” Tonelli said soothingly. “Let’s not argue about it. The customer is always right. Now about this girl. Supposing you did meet her here. Supposing Sam just doesn’t happen to remember. What about it?”
Larry wet his lips. He didn’t know what to say. But he knew the bartender, Sam, was lying. And that gave him a little assurance.
“Now,” Tonelli said, “look at it this way. You met a girl in here last night. Tonight you’re back asking about her. That means a couple of things. She stood you up for a date tonight and you want to find her. Or she rolled you last night, or gave you a run around, and you’re out to square it up. That’s the reason guys look for dolls, take it from me Pally. They either love ’em, or hate ’em. Now which is it, with you?”
“I don’t know,” Larry said.
“Well, what did she look like?”
“A tall blonde. Good clothes, good shape. That’s all I noticed.”
“Only a perfectionist would look for more,” Tonelli grinned. “But I don’t remember any dames like that in here. What about you Sam?”
“Never,” Sam grunted.
Tonelli spread his hands palms-up and shrugged. “I guess you’re wrong, Pally. You must have been in some other joint. Better try somewhere else.”
Larry felt he was fighting shadows. Shadows that could hit back when they were ready. Then he remembered something.
“Wait a minute,” he said. “I can prove I was in here. I talked to one of the twenty six girls. She’ll remember me.”
Tonelli shrugged. “What will that prove? Maybe you were in here. I never said you weren’t. But if it will make you feel any better that’s fine.”
Larry turned on the stool and looked at the girl’s behind the green felt twenty six tables. There were three of them. They were all pretty. They were all blondes.
Corinne had been a brunette.
“Well?” Tonelli said.
“She’s not here now,” Larry said. He turned back and looked helplessly at Tonelli. “Her name was Corinne.” Tonelli frowned for a moment and then drummed his finger tips on the bar. “Corinne?” He shook his head and looked doubtfully at Larry. “That’s a blank,” he said. “Maybe some dame by the name of Corinne worked here. Maybe two or three years ago. But not since then.” He shook his head and then smiled. “That should make you feel better. Now you know you’re in the wrong joint. It happens all the time. Guys come in here looking for dames they met in Detroit or St. Louis. They get mixed up, have a few drinks, and they lose track of places and time. I’ve seen it a dozen times.”
Larry felt a cold nausea in his stomach. The shadows were dancing around him, grinning and smirking. Waiting for their chance. And then he wondered if he was crazy.
“You never had a girl in here by that name?” he persisted.
Tonelli looked at the end of his cigar and shook his head.
“And you never saw a tall, well dressed blonde in here?”
“That’s a pretty general description,” Tonelli said. “I wouldn’t give you a definite answer on that. But it seems pretty sure you didn’t meet anybody in here like that last night.”
He patted Larry on the shoulder. “Go home and get some sleep, Pally. And forget about this thing. I think you had a few extra drinks last night and got a little mixed-up.”
Larry stood up. His hands were shaking.
“Thanks,” he said. He walked out.
Chapter VI
Outside a big man in gray clothes moved away from the wall and fell in step beside him. It was Meyers.
“Can’t let well enough alone?” he asked.
“How did you know where to look for me,” Larry asked dully. But it didn’t seem important.
“Your wife called me. Told me what you had in mind. So I thought I’d drop around and see that you didn’t get liquored up again and cause us more trouble.”
“I wasn’t drunk,” Larry said.
“Meet any dead blondes?” Meyers asked.
“Go to hell,” Larry said.
“Talk that way and I’m liable to slap you one,” Meyers said, without rancor.
“I’m supposed to be crazy,” Larry said. “Nutty as a fruit cake. Why bother about me? Why tail me around?”
“Just trying to keep you out of trouble,” Meyers said. He took Larry’s arm. “My car is over here.”
The car was parked at the corner of Canal and Madison under a NO PARKING sign. The traffic cop grinned at Meyers.
“How’s the wife?” he asked.
“How’s any wife,” Meyers muttered.
He got in beside Larry and lit a cigarette. He made no move to start the car, just sat there, staring out the wind shield. The cigarette in his mouth accumulated ash. Is cascaded down his vest.
“Find out anything?” he asked finally.
Larry shook his head. “The bartender didn’t remember me. The twenty six girl I talked to in there is gone. Some guy, Tonelli, his name was, spent twenty minutes trying to cinvince me I was drunk.”
“Tonelli,” Meyers said. “Go on.”
“That’s all. They claim I wasn’t even at the
Meyers pinched his nose with stubby fingers.
“How did Tonelli seem?”
“Friendly enough,” Larry answered. “But he didn’t know of any blonde who hung around the bar there. He didn’t know the twenty six girl. And the bartender was pretty sure he’d never seen me before! But he was lying.”
“How do you figure?”
“He went out of his way to talk to me last night. He fixed me up with this girl. He bought us a drink. A guy would remember something like that.”
“I guess he would,” Meyers said. He turned and looked at Larry. “If it happened, that is.”
“Oh, shut up,” Larry said wearily. “What percentage is there trying to prove I’m crazy? Or just a drunk who has funny dreams? If you don’t believe me let me alone. I know what happened to me. I know where I was last night. I know that bartender was lying. And I intend to find out why.”
Meyers shrugged. “Okay. But don’t cry if you get hurt. Can I drop you somewhere.”
“No,” Larry said. “I can get home.”
Meyers frowned and then threw his cigarette away.
“If you come across anything give me a ring?”
“Now who’s crazy?” Larry asked.
“I don’t know. My food doesn’t taste right though. Hell of a note.” He sighed heavily. “Be seeing ya.”
Larry got out of the car and watched him drive away.
Chapter VII
He was looking for a match when he found it. He was still standing at the corner of Canal and Madison, an unlighted cigarette in his lips when he found the match folder on which the dice girl had scribbled her phone number.
He stared at it for a moment, trying to assimilate all the things it meant. First, he wasn’t crazy. Second, he had been in the
And both Tonelli and the bartender had lied about it. They were trying to convince him he had been drunk. And they had both known he wasn’t. Why? That was a big why.
He turned into a drugstore. He knew a number, maintained by the telephone company for the use of its maintenance crews which would give the street address of any listed telephone number.
He dialed it, gave the operator the dice girl’s telephone number and in a few seconds she gave him the address of the phone. It was on the North side, near Wilson avenue. He thanked her and hung up.
He went outside and looked for a cab. He felt a queer feeling of excitement. He felt he had finally succeeded in clutching one of the ravelled ends of this mystery.
Where it led he had no idea. But it was something. The shadows were taking form. Soon there might be something tangible in his hands.
A cab stopped and he climbed in and gave the driver the address on the North side. His hands were shaking as he lit a cigarette...
The house was a six-flat, brownstone front, with bay windows and an incongruously ornate canopy leading from the curb to the doorway. A flight of worn steps led to the double glass doors.
He paid the driver and went up the steps. It was ten thirty by his wrist watch.
The lobby had a vaguely dirty smell. There were a few overstuffed chairs, a phony marble fireplace and a worn wooden floor needed a good a good scrubbing.
The desk clerk was a tired old man with white hair, and over worked adam’s apple and rheumy blue eyes.
“I want to see Corinne,” Larry said.
The old man looked at him. “Corinne who?”
“How the hell do I know,” Larry said. “She gave me her phone number and address. I don’t need her last name. I’m not going to introduce her to anybody.”
The old man grinned crookedly. “Corinne ain’t as bad as some of them. But you guys are all the same. A dame is just something to kick around, treat like dirt. You wouldn’t do it to your wives ’cause you’re scared. That’s why you chase these tramps around. But Corinne ain’t no tramp. Her room is three ten. If she gave you her number it’s because she likes you.”
“Thanks,” Larry said.
He crossed the lobby to the self-service elevator and went up to the third floor. Three ten was three doors from the elevator.
He knocked and waited. A moment later he heard light footsteps and then the door opened.
She didn’t recognize him at first. When she did she tried to slam the door. But he got his foot in the way.
“I want to talk to you, Corinne,” he said.
“I got nothing to say,” she said. She was panting and her face looked pinched and scared. “You’re poison. Get out of here and let me alone.”
He pushed the door open, stepped in and swung it shut behind him. She backed away from him, her eyes wide with terror.
“Get out of here!” she whispered.
“Not until we talk a little,” he said.
The room was shabbily furnished. There were a few chairs with worn upholstery, a day bed with a red quilt thrown over it, and a dusty gray rug. A lamp was on above the day bed and there was an open magazine on the floor.
He sat on one of the chairs and pulled out his cigarettes. He offered her the pack and she refused with a jerk of her head. She was wearing a faded blue silk house coat and blue slippers. Her dark hair was drawn into a bun at the nape of her neck and her skin, without make-up, was white and drawn.
“I’m sorry I barged in,” he said. “But I’ve got to talk to you. I want to know who that girl was I met in the
“You saw Tonelli?” her voice was still a whisper.
“Just left him,” Larry said. “He claims you never worked there.”
“You fool! You simple fool! What are you sticking your neck out for? You’re out of it now. Stay out of it. Get out of here and forget you ever saw me.”
She spoke in a tense, frightened voice that was close to the breaking point of hysteria.
“I can’t,” Larry said. “That girl I met in the
The girl sat down on the day bed as if her legs had lost their strength. She stared dully at him. “Murdered? Velma dead?”
“Her name was Velma?”
“Yes.” She answered like a person in a daze. “Velma Dare.”
“Who was she?”
Corinne stood up suddenly. “Get out of here!” she screamed suddenly. “You’re dragging me into this too. I didn’t know what it was. You’re poison.”
He stood up then and gripped her shoulders.
“Corinne,” he said urgently, “listen to me, for God’s sake. I’m behind the biggest eight ball in the world unless I get some help. I’m not trying to get you in trouble. That’s the last thing I want. But I’ve got to get some answers.”
For a moment she stared at him, trying to twist her shoulders away from his grip, and then she began to cry, soundlessly, and her shoulders went limp under his hands. He pulled her to him, until her face was buried against his coat.
“I didn’t know it was murder,” she whispered. “I knew it was bad, but nothing like that.”
“Tell me about it.”
“I don’t know much. Tonelli gave me a thousand dollars last night and told me to leave town. He told me you were in some kind of trouble and we had to pretend you’d never been to the
“Who was Velma Dare?”
“I can’t tell you. Oh, please get out now. Tonelli isn’t an easy guy. If he ever learns I talked to you I wouldn’t have a chance.”
“Where did Velma live?”
“She lived with a friend of hers. In the Wilshire apartments. Occasionally, that is.”
“What do you mean, ‘occasionally’? What else did she do?”
“When did you leave kindergarten?” she said. She was starting to laugh and cry. She broke away from him and sank down on the day bed. “God, that’s funny. A baby like you chasing around after these people. They’ll slice you in thin strips and serve you in Martinis. Get out! Do you hear me? Get out!”
The Wilshire apartments...
Larry had what he came for. He patted her on the shoulder and left. Downstairs the room clerk looked at him in surprise.
“You was quick,” he said.
“Yeah,” Larry said.
Chapter VIII
From Corrine’s apartment to the Wilshire was a twenty minute cab ride. On the way Larry did some thinking, but it didn’t help much.
He now had several facts to go on: one, he had been at the
Fine. Three nice facts. But they didn’t tell him anything. He had been framed but the frame had unaccountably backfired. Now no one wanted any part of him. They wanted him to forget about it. Charge it off to a crazy dream or too many drinks.
But he still didn’t know why.
The Wilshire apartments was in a better neighborhood than Corinne’s. About a block from the Lake Shore, about fourteen hundred North, and about spitting distance from the Gold Coast.
The Wilshire was an impressive place, with shrubbery in brass pots, an expensive looking canopy and a doorman who looked like a White Russian.
The doorman opened the two glazed portals for Larry as if they led to the audience chamber of the Czar, and he walked into a discreetly hushed lobby that could have been used for a football game. The thick gray carpet hushed his steps as he walked to the desk.
A young man in a beautifully-cut flannel suit smiled at him, cleared his throat and said, “Yes?” His tone implied that if you wanted the East wing at Buckingham Palace he would be happy to get it for you.
“I want to see Velma Dare,” Larry said.
“Ah!” the young man continued to smile. “Miss Dare isn’t in. Do you care to leave a message?”
“No. I’ll see her friend then.”
“Who shall I say is calling?”
“Don’t say. I’ll talk to her on the phone. I think she’ll see me.”
“Very well.” He made a connection on the switchboard and then pointed to a phone on the desk. Larry picked up the phone and when a sleepy voice said, “yes,” he said, “I’m a friend of Velma’s. I’ve got something important to tell you. May I come up?”
There was a moment’s pause. The voice said, “I’m in suite Four-A. Come up, please.”
The voice didn’t sound so sleepy...
He knocked and the door was opened immediately. The woman who opened the door was thin, with graying hair and a tired looking face. Her eyes were pale blue, blood-shot at the corners. She looked nervous.
The black house coat and high-heeled pumps she wore accentuated her thin, flat-chested figure. She was wearing a lot of jewelry. A heavy silver necklace, thick silver bracelets, and two rings. A ruby and an emerald. It didn’t help her much.
“Who are you?” she said. Her voice sounded like a nail being drawn across sandpaper.
“The name isn’t important,” Larry said. “Can I come in?”
She stepped aside and he entered a room that spelled money, from the black wood fireplace to the rugs, lamps, furniture, cocktail bar and Eastern view.
She poured herself a half-tumbler of brandy while he was sitting down, and drained it neat. He realized then her voice wasn’t sleepy. She was just half tight. She sat down opposite him and regarded him steadily with her bloodshot eyes.
“What about Velma?” she asked.
He didn’t know what to say. “Velma’s in trouble,” he said finally.
“That’s nothing new. What am I supposed to do about it?”
“I thought you might be interested.”
“And who the hell are you?”
“I told you. A friend of Velma’s.”
She hiccuped gently. “She didn’t tell me about any trouble.”
“When did you talk to her?”
She thought a minute. Her brow wrinkled and she gazed blankly at the floor. “I get so confused,” she murmured. “Time is always getting mixed-up.” She frowned, then said, “I talked to Velma this morning. She phoned me from the station.”
Larry’s stomach got cold. “You’re crazy,” he said. “Velma couldn’t possibly phoned you this morning.”
“Watch your manners young man,” she said. She got her eyes under control and stared blearily at him. “I’m drunk, but not crazy. Velma phoned to tell me she was going south for a few weeks. She’s always running off like that.”
Larry tried to keep his face from showing what he was feeling. If Velma had been alive this morning, who was the murdered girl?
“Were you sure it was Velma?” he demanded.
“Course. Just like Velma to run off like that. No clothes, no luggage.”
“Did you recognize her voice?”
The bleary eyes went to the floor again. She sat for a moment frowning, then she teetered over to the bar and poured herself another drink. When that was drained she came back and sat down again. “Velma had a cold. Her voice was husky. I told her to look after herself.” She stared indignantly at Larry. “Of course it was Velma.”
“If she spoke in a whisper you couldn’t tell,” Larry said. He knew that was true. A whisper disguised any voice. You couldn’t even tell if it was a man or a woman talking.
His mind was working swiftly. If someone had killed Velma and wanted to keep it quiet, this is just what they’d do. They’d call her roomate, using a whisper to disguise the voice, and tell just this kind of story. A story that would forestall her running to the police or Missing Persons Bureau to report Velma’s disappearance. That much was logical but it still didn’t help much.
“I think Velma is in trouble,” he said. “I’m trying to help her.”
“What kind of trouble?”
“Something pretty serious. Do you know any of her friends?”
She shook her head. “She didn’t let me meet anybody.” She sighed and a tear trickled down her cheek. “Good old Mabel. Everybody’s friend. But not good enough to meet anybody.”
“Who’s Mabel?”
She blinked. “Me. I’m Mabel. The good old horse. Thash all.”
She was getting too drunk to make sense. He knew he had to work fast if he was going to get anything from her.
“Did she have any enemies?”
The gray head shook slowly from side to side.
“Then who were her friends?”
“No friends.” She hiccuped and put her hand guiltily over her mouth. “Touch of gas,” she muttered.
Larry felt desperate, helpless. “You’ve got to tell me something,” he said.
“Whatch you want?”
“Anything. Addresses. Telephone numbers. Names. Something I can go on.”
She got up slowly, keeping her balance with difficulty and swayed across the room to a writing table. She fumbled through a stack of papers and came back with a neat card. There was a telephone number typed on the card.
“Telephone number,” she mumbled. “But you can’t use it. Velma says never use it. Just for emergency.” She giggled. “Like running out of brandy.”
Larry took the card from her shaking fingers and put it in his watch pocket. She made noises in her throat and tried to get it back, but he grabbed her bony wrists and forced her back into the chair.
“It’s all right,” he said.
“Can’t use the phone number,” she cried. She started to sob. It made her jewelry shake and tinkle.
He left her there, crying, shoulders shaking, and the tears making little muddy rivulets through her make-up. And the sound of her silver jewelry was a discordant tinkle in the large, dimly-lighted room.
Chapter IX
Downstairs he walked West, trying to decide what was going to happen next.
That was decided for him.
Out of the shadows of the dark street two men emerged. His arms were caught and pinioned before he could make a move. The men were large, powerful and business-like. They seemed to know just what they were doing.
Larry struggled, but it was useless. He was half-carried, half-dragged toward an alley.
“Too bad,” the man on his right said. “A guy gets a few drinks and his friends got to suffer with him.”
“Yeah!” the voice came from his left. “Terrible thing this drinking.”
In the darkness of the alley his coat was whipped off his shoulders and secured from behind, pinioning his arms. One of the men stood in front of him, a bulky shadow, with just a pale blur of a face.
“Now listen, chum,” he said, “this is good advice I’m goin’ to give. Go home. Stop asking questions. Stop nosing around. Lay off.”
Larry didn’t see him raise his arm, but a fist like a mallet suddenly crashed into his jaw. His head rolled and a lot of lights started snapping on and off inside his head.
“Get it!” the voice said.
The fist landed again. More lights started flickering. There was a taste of rusty iron and salt in his mouth.
The fist again. And more lights. He felt he could spit out teeth if he tried.
This time the fist didn’t turn on any more lights. It started to put them out. And that made it get darker.
The fist was an old friend by now. It put out all the lights and made everything soft and dark. He felt it land a few more times and he had a vague annoyance at all that wasted effort. Didn’t the guy know the lights were out?
Everything was black...
A light rain was falling when he came to. He was lying in the alley. His head ached and it was minutes before he could sit up and make his thoughts focus. He took out a handkerchief and let the rain wet it. Then he swabbed his face. He lit a match and looked at his watch. Two o’clock. He had been lying here a couple of hours anyway.
He got to his feet slowly, and stood there several minutes, waiting for the hammers in his head to stop pounding. He felt sick and weak.
He felt in his watch pocket and that made him feel a little better. The card with the telephone number was still there.
He walked through the rain toward the Lake Shore Drive. That was his best chance of getting a cab. And all he could think of now was getting home.
It was a two block walk and it took him fifteen minutes. His legs were weak and he had to stop every few feet to rest. When he reached the Drive he had to wait fifteen minutes before a cab stopped.
He climbed into the back seat and gave the driver his address.
Fran met him at the door. Her face was drawn with anxiety. When she saw him her lips began to tremble. She came to him, put her hand against his swollen lips.
“Oh, darling,” she murmured. She began to cry.
He tried to grin, for her sake, but it wasn’t very successful.
“I’m all right.” His voice sounded thick and muffled.
She put her arm around him, helped him into the living room.
There were two cups of coffee on the low table before the fire place. Larry saw a pair of gray-clad legs, heavy black shoes extending from one of the chairs. He stopped and shook his head.
Meyers stood up slowly. The faint grin faded from his solid gray face when he saw Larry’s condition. He tossed his cigarette into the fireplace and pursed his lips.
“Somebody did a good job,” he commented.
“Yeah,” Larry said. With Fran helping him he made his way to a chair and sat down.
“You’re bleeding,” Fran said. Her voice was hushed but she had stopped crying.
“Get me a cup of coffee, please,” he said. He managed another grin. “I look a lot worse than I am.”
She hurried out of the room and he sank back in the chair and let his eyes close.
“Who did it?” Meyers asked.
“I don’t know. Couple of guys. They seemed to know their job.”
Meyers chuckled sympathetically. “That’s for sure. Get a look at ’em?”
Larry opened one eye and squinted at him. “Ever try and look at a guy when he’s beating you over the head with a fire plug?”
Meyers shook his head. “But I’m no tough guy,” he said sarcastically. “I’m just a dumb cop. We leave these heroic jobs to guys like you.”
“Okay. I’m a sucker.” He opened his other eye and looked at Meyers steadily. “But I’ve found out more than the police force has on this case.”
Meyers digested this without expression. He settled back in the chair and lit a cigarette. His gray face was blank.
“So? What have you found out?”
Fran came back then with his coffee. He took the cup and patted her hand gratefully. “Honey, better get some sleep. I’ve got to talk to Meyers.”
He didn’t want her around. He didn’t want her to know anything. It wasn’t safe to know anything. And he wanted her safe.
She looked doubtful, but she said, “All right, darling.”
She left the room with light quick steps. Meyers looked after her. “Nice kid. We had quite a talk.”
“What are you here for?” Larry asked.
“Let’s pretend I’m still a cop,” Meyers said dryly. “I’ll ask the questions. What did you find out?”
Larry told him everything that had happened. But he didn’t mention the telephone number Mabel had given him. He wanted to chase that down himself. He had reached the point where he didn’t trust anyone.
Meyers frowned at the floor and lit another cigarette with a gesture of irritation. “So they bought this gal Corinne off. That doesn’t mean much. But it could. And then this Velma Dare. The gal you woke up in bed with. I can’t figure that angle.”
“Do you know anything about her. About Velma, I mean.”
Meyers shrugged. “A little. I know the name. I’ve heard things here and there.”
“What kind of things?”
“Nothing that helps any.” He got up and picked up his hat and walked to the door. “You’d better lay off now,” he said. “They know who you are. They know you’re nosing around. Next time they’ll do a permanent job on you.”
“Who is ‘they’?” Larry asked.
Meyers grinned sourly. “Who knows?”
Larry said slowly. “I think you do, Meyers.”
Meyers laughed and walked out the door...
He had showered and put some adhesive tape on his cut lips when the phone rang. He came out of the bathroom and looked at the ringing phone. His mouth felt dry. There was something insistent and ominous in the sound.
Fran raised herself on one elbow and stared at him with wide frightened eyes.
“Who can that be?” she whispered.
Larry walked across the living room and picked up the phone.
“Yes?”
It was Meyers. His voice was flat and cold.
“I got a little news. A friend of yours got herself killed a while ago. A girl by the name of Corinne. Used to work at the
Larry licked his lips. His hand on the phone was clammy.
“No. Who did it?”
Meyers laughed bitterly. “Good question. But they didn’t leave any calling cards. They just blew a couple of holes in her and walked out.”
Larry looked at the phone and worked his lips. But no sound came out. He was thinking of what Corinne had said:
Meyers said: “Nothing to say, eh. Well take a tip then. Keep in the clear from now on. Get it? Layoff!”
The phone clicked.
Fran came into the living room. She had put on a robe. Her hair was tousled and the fear in her face made her look young and helpless.
“Larry, who was it?”
“Meyers. It wasn’t anything.” He put an arm around her and patted her shoulder. “Nothing to worry about, hon.”
She snuggled closer to him. “Darling, please stay out of this thing. I’m so afraid.”
“I am too,” he said. “I’m no hero. Everyone is telling me to lay off. God knows, I want to. But I can’t.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Make a telephone call,” he said.
Chapter X
He didn’t sleep much that night.
About six in the morning he dropped into an uneasy doze; when he woke the sun was streaming in the window and Fran was standing beside the bed with a cup of coffee.
It was ten in the morning.
He didn’t feel rested. He felt lousy. He drank the coffee and it didn’t help much. He put on a robe and slippers and got the telephone number from his watch pocket. It was Summerville 8649. He didn’t know where it was going to lead, but he intended to keep following every lead he got until he learned something.
He sat down beside the telephone stand and lit a cigarette. Then he dialed the department maintained by the telephone company. He gave the operator the number and she said, “One moment, please.” A little later she said, “I’m sorry, sir, that is an unlisted number. We can’t give you the address.”
He hung up slowly. He smoked the cigarette down and put it out. Then he dialed Summerville 8649. The phone buzzed twice before a suave voice said, “Yes?”
Larry talked quickly. “This is the proof department of the City Directory. We’re checking addresses for our next issue. Could you give me your address so we can check against our directory listing?”
There was a long pause. Then the suave voice said, “I’m sorry. This is an unlisted phone.” Larry heard a click as the receiver was replaced.
He swore softly. There must be some way to get the address of an unlisted phone. He remembered then a friend of his, Charlie Barret, an employee of the telephone company, had told him once that it could be done.
He called Charlie Barret. When he told him what he wanted Barret was dubious. “I can do it for you, Larry, but it’s against all our regulations. Are you sure this is important?”
“Of course,” Larry said.
“All right. It might take a little while. But I’ll get it. And keep this quiet, will you?”
Larry spent the afternoon waiting for the phone call. When it came he grabbed the phone nervously. He said, “Yes?”
“This is Charlie. I got it. But I waited until I got home to call you. I couldn’t talk from an office phone.”
“Okay, what is it?”
“Summerville 8649 is registered for Judge Avery Mills. The address is 1000 Lake Shore Drive, suite eleven-B.”
“Judge Avery Mills,” Larry repeated slowly. He was writing on the telephone pad.
“That’s it. 1000 Lake Shore Drive. Suite eleven-B.”
“I got it. Thanks a million, Charlie.”
He hung up and looked at the name. Judge Avery Mills. It didn’t mean much to him. He had heard it now and then. Mills was a Circuit Judge, a fairly young man, and well thought of, politically.
Well he would know more about it damn soon...
Chapter XI
It was eight o’clock when he got out of the cab at 1000 Lake Shore Drive. The building was new, glittering and impressive.
He went inside, crossed the lobby to the elevator. It was the self-service type. He pressed the button numbered eleven and the doors closed and he started upward.
He didn’t think of where he was going or what he was getting into. He had no more caution left. He had to know what was behind the things that had happened to him. There had been two murders. There had been an attempt to frame him. And until he knew why he couldn’t stop going.
He rang the door of eleven-B and waited. The corridor was wide, well lighted and carpeted in thick gray. Everything about the building looked secure, protected and prosperous.
The door opened and a butler looked at him with raised eyebrows. He was an elderly, with a lined face, blue-veined hands and the impleccable air of the life-long retainer.
“I want to see Judge Mills,” Larry said.
“I’m afraid that is impossible,” the butler said. “His Honor sees no one without an appointment.”
“Give him a message then,” Larry said. “Maybe he’ll make an exception this time. Tell him I want to see him about the murder of a girl named Velma Dare.”
The eyebrows went a little higher but that was the only indication the butler gave that the news was anything more startling than a comment about the weather.
“Very well. Will you wait, please?”
The door closed.
Larry lit a cigarette and waited. In a few moments the butler was back.
“Will you come with me, please?” he said.
Judge Avery Mills was standing before a marble fireplace, with a leather-bound book in his hands. He was a tall man with graying hair, alert, lean features, and brown eyes that looked humorous and friendly.
He wore a velvet smoking-jacket over a white silk shirt. He fitted the room perfectly. It was quiet, gracious, tasteful. And the Judge gave the same impression of cultivation and breeding.
The butler said, “This is the young man, sir.”
The judge smiled. “All right, Henry. You may leave us now.”
“I’ll be right outside, sir,” the butler said with a dubious look at Larry.
“Well, young man,” Judge Mills said, when the butler had closed the door, “You almost scared Henry to death. Now what’s this all about?”
He seated himself and waved Larry to another chair. He drew a pipe from his pocket and began to fill it carefully. “There are cigars beside you,” he said.
“No thanks,” Larry said. “I’m here about a girl known as Velma Dare. She has been murdered. And I got your phone number from a friend of hers.”
“I see,” Judge Mills said. He puffed at the pipe thoughtfully. “And what conclusion do you draw from that?”
“You knew her,” Larry said.
“Quite so. May I ask what your interest in this matter is?”
“Not until I find out what you know about Velma Dare.”
“Oh, come now,” the judge smiled. “Surely you must realize your position isn’t that strong. You are here without authority, and you want to put me on the witness stand. I know Velma Dare. I’ve known her for quite some time. I don’t know what to make of your story. I think you owe me something more in the way of explanation.”
Larry said, “Someone tried to frame me for her murder. I woke up beside her yesterday morning. She had a knife stuck in her. I got out before the police arrived.”
“Tell me this: how do you know the dead girl was Velma Dare.”
“I got that from a girl who worked at the
“My dear young man,” Judge Mills said, “You have an amazing way of introducing testimony. Suppose you tell me the whole story.”
Larry knew he was in so deep already that it didn’t matter. He told his story. When he finished the judge was frowning at his pipe.
“Against all my cautious instincts, I believe you,” he said slowly. “Now I’ll tell you a few things you don’t know. Velma Dare was a relation of mine, a distant cousin. From time to time I’ve helped her out financially. She was a very independent sort of person, however, and she would never take more than a few dollars. Just enough to pay a week’s board, or something like that. She always made a point of paying me back as soon as her luck turned. I haven’t seen her now for several months. I find it hard to believe she is dead.”
“Take my word for that,” Larry said. “She’s as dead as you can get.”
“I see,” the judge said. He ran a hand slowly through his graying hair and leaned back against the chair. For a moment he said nothing. Then: “And what do you propose to do now?”
“I don’t know,” Larry told him. “But I’m not quitting.”
“In that case perhaps I can help you,” the judge said. “What did you say that man’s name was? The proprietor at the
“Tonelli.”
“Then supposing we pay a call on Mr. Tonelli? Perhaps he’d be a little more cooperative with me. I don’t know the man. But I seem to remember hearing a few things about him. Things that aren’t too savory.”
“I don’t think it will help,” Larry said. “He’ll tell you I’m either crazy or drunk.”
“Maybe we can make him a little more talkative than that,” the judge said. “I think we can take an ace in our sleeve with us.”
“What do you mean?”
“I certainly wouldn’t walk in on Tonelli alone. If he’s guilty or if he knows something, there’s only one way to make him talk. And that is to convince him our suspicions are backed by the police.”
“The police won’t listen to me,” Larry said.
“They’ve put no stock at all in your story?”
“They think I’m nuts,” Larry said.
Judge Mills smiled. “They will probably think I am too, but they can’t afford to say so. I’m going to call the commissioner and ask him to send one of his men to meet us at the
“I get what you mean,” Larry said.
The judge walked to a cradle phone on a table beside the fireplace. He dialed a number and winked at Larry. “The commissioner will not be pleased. He would like to tell me to go to hell, but I’m sure he’s too good a politician to do anything—” He broke off, spoke into the phone. “Let me talk to the Commissioner, please. This is Judge Mills. Yes, thank you.” He tapped his foot impatiently for a moment. Then: “Hello, Jimmy. Did I disrupt the bridge game? Sorry... As usual I want a favor. But just a little one this time. I want a little protection, a little authority, a little official backing, as it were, for a little extra-curricular activity I’m planning tonight.” He chuckled. “I’m not going to get into trouble. I just need one of your men for a little while. You must have a few captains or lieutenants that aren’t busy... Very well, a sergeant will be fine. Have him meet us at the
He hung up and nodded at Larry. “The power of the Bench,” he said dryly. “Now. Do you want to leave a message here in case someone calls? Or did you tell anyone you were coming to see me?”
“No.”
“Very well. I’ll change and be with you in just a moment.”
A man in a dark suit and a gray hat met the judge’s car at the
He opened the door and stuck a blank, wide face into the tonneau of the car.
“Judge Mills?” he asked. “The commissioner sent me down here to meet you.”
“Yes. And you are?”
“Sergeant Erlangen, Homicide. What do you want me to do, Judge?”
The judge was out of the car, Larry behind him.
“I want you to look like a suspicious detective,” the judge smiled. “I am going into this place to talk to the owner. I want you to stand near me and lend a little moral support. That’s all.”
Sergeant Erlangen said, “Very well, sir. No arrests, or anything.”
“Possibly. I’ll tell you if I find your role demands any other activity.”
He took Larry by the arm. “Let’s go inside. I think I’m going to enjoy this. She was one of my favorite people. We can do this much for her, anyway.”
They walked through the
A slim, dark haired young man in a tuxedo was standing there, eyeing the room, puffing nervously on a cigarette. He put out a hand and tapped the judge on the arm.
“Sorry. Off limits.”
Sergeant Erlangen said, “Shut up, punk. We want to see Tonelli.”
“The law, eh? Well, Tonelli’s not here.”
“Where is he?”
“Down at the harbor. He said he was taking a cruise tonight.”
“A cruise?” The Judge turned to Sergeant Erlangen. “What for?”
The sergeant shrugged. He said to Tuxedo, “What time was he leaving?”
“About eleven, I guess.”
“We have time,” Judge Mills said. “We’ll take a little trip down to the harbor.”
Chapter XII
“Tonelli keeps his boat just North of Belmont harbor,” Sergeant Erlangen said.
The judge gave the instructions to his chauffeur and settled back beside Larry.
“I don’t know just what we’re going to learn tonight,” he said. He smiled and adjusted his gray Homburg slightly. “But it should be interesting.”
There wasn’t anything to say. So Larry kept quiet.
They drew up at the gravelled road that led to the harbor fifteen minutes later. The docks were dark. There were few boats putting out at this time of the year. They walked past a half-dozen sloops, still covered with their winter tarps, until they came to Tonelli’s boat, a forty-foot cabined cruiser. There was a light showing from the cabin. The soft throb of its powerful engines was the only sound in the dark stillness. A gang plank led from the harbor to the deck. Larry saw the name of the ship,
And he saw a man standing at the foot of the gangplank. A big, slouching man in gray clothes and a gray hat that shaded his face.
The man pushed the hat back on his forehead and Larry recognized Meyers, the city detective. A cigarette hung from his lips making a pin-point of light in the half-darkness.
The judge drew up short. “We’re here to see Tonelli.”
Meyers chuckled. “I am too. I just thought I’d wait until the whole party got here.” His eyes moved over to Larry. “Couldn’t take my advice, eh?”
“I don’t understand,” the judge said “Who are you?”
“No mystery. I’m Meyers, Bureau of Detectives. You’re Judge Mills, aren’t you?”
“Why do you want to see Tonelli?” the judge asked.
“Just got a few questions to ask him,” Meyers said. He glanced from the judge to Sergeant Erlangen inquiringly. The judge said, “This is Sergeant Erlangen of Homicide. Meyers, we won’t need you on this matter. I’ve already talked to the Commissioner and—”
“That’s all right,” Meyers said. He waved a hand negligently. “I’m not going to be in the way. The boss sent me down here though, so you see my position, judge. I’ve got to earn my salary.”
The judge stood still for a moment, then made a tiny gesture of impatience. “Very well. Come along.”
Larry followed the judge up the gangplank. Behind him were the two detectives. The judge paused briefly on the deck, then walked along a narrow companionway and pulled open the door of the cabin. An oblong of light fell across the corridor.
They went inside.
Tonelli was seated at a desk, his back to one wall of the cabin. There were bunks against the opposite wall. A passage way led to a small galley. The furniture was polished mahogany, the fittings were neat and luxurious.
Tonelli came half way to his feet. He looked from the judge to Larry and the two detectives. Then he sank back slowly in his chair. He wore a white shirt and blue jacket and his features gradually assumed an expression of amiable surprise.
He began to strip the cellophane from a thin cigar with slow, deliberate motions.
“An honor,” he murmured. “I wasn’t expecting company, but—,” he waved a hand carelessly, “Make yourself at home.”
“Thanks you,” the judge said. “I’m Judge Mills. Two of these men with me are police officers, the other—,”
Tonelli smiled at Larry and said, “I know the other guy, judge. He sees things. He lives in a private little world of his own, don’t he?”
“We’re here to ask the questions,” the judge said.
Tonelli leaned back in his chair and busied himself lighting his cigar. His smooth cheeks and deliberate, unhurried attitude gave an impression of complete assurance. But his eyes were watchful.
“So? Ask your questions.” He blew smoke at the ceiling and smiled carelessly. “I’ve got nothing to hide.”
Meyers drifted over to a stool and sat down. He put his hands around one knee and leaned back. His square gray face was impassive. He let ash from his cigarette dribble down his vest and he kept his eyes on the floor. He looked bored.
Sergeant Erlangen stepped back into the shadows. The judge faced Tonelli over the desk. Larry stood at his right.
“We’re here about a murder,” the judge said. “The murder of a girl named Velma Dare. She was stabbed to death yesterday morning. She left your place with this gentleman here the night before. What do you know about it?”
Tonelli yawned. “Sorry I can’t act impressed, judge. I heard all this crap before. This guy,” he jerked a thumb at Larry, “was playing the same record to me yesterday. Not about the murder part, but he claims he met the girl in my joint. The bartender never saw him, nobody saw him, but—,”
Meyers coughed apologetically. “Were you going to say nobody saw him, but a dice girl named Corinne?”
“I was like hell. Nobody by that name ever worked for me. That was another part of his story.”
“A girl called Corinne got herself killed last night,” Meyers said conversationally. “Did you know that?”
“No.” He looked sharply at Meyers. “That’s news to me.” There was a band of sweat starting on his forehead. “So she got killed,” he snapped. “Lots of girls get killed. Read the papers. It happens all the time.”
The judge said, “I didn’t know about this.” There was ice in the look he gave Tonelli. “You’re lying, Tonelli. We can prove, I think, that you knew Velma Dare.”
There was a change in Tonelli’s expression. He actually looked puzzled. “Yeah,” he said slowly. “I guess you can at that. But it won’t do you any good.”
Meyers said, “Can I say a word, judge?” Without waiting for an answer he went on, talking in a musing, thoughtful voice. “I got to earn that salary of mine, that’s all. Now I thought a lot about this case. A guy tells me he woke up with a dead girl in bed with him. We believe him. But there ain’t no body. We look everywhere and we can’t find a body. So we figure the guy is batty. And then the guy goes back to where he met the girl. The
He looked at Tonelli and then at the judge. The judge shrugged impatiently. “My line of inquiry was getting better results,” he said drily.
“I’ll be through in a minute. Now what does a set-up like that mean. Just one thing: a frame, usually. But not this time. The fall guy wasn’t somebody they wanted out of the way. He was just an ordinary guy. So then it begins to look like they want the girl out of the way and also provide the cops with a murderer. Now I wondered for a while why they should go to all that trouble. After all they could shoot the girl and dump her body in a vacant lot. That’s done all the time. Why go to the trouble of delivering the cops a murderer, right on a silver platter? Then when we couldn’t find the girl’s body I began to understand. The girl was dangerous. They had to get her out of the way. But she was a gal that was pretty well known. And if she was found murdered her death would point right to whoever did it. Do you get me? They had to provide a fall guy, so the cops would be satisfied. So they wouldn’t start looking for the real murderer.”
He lit another cigarette. Larry looked at the judge. He was listening attentively now. And Tonelli was staring at the top of his desk. His cigar had gone out. He didn’t bother relighting it. The other copper was just a shadow in the background.
Meyers went on. “When the body didn’t show up, I knew I was right. The frame fell through. The fall guy beat it before the coppers got here. So the murderer was in a spot. He had a dead body and no murderer. When the Cops found that body it was going to point right at him. So he had to get rid of the body. He did that. And then he sat back hoping the fall guy wouldn’t start talking. But the fall guy was nosey. He was worried. And he kept walking around, asking a lot of questions, and seeing the wrong people, and things started getting hotter and hotter.” He smiled at the tip of his cigarette and then looked sharply at Tonelli. “Didn’t they Tonelli?”
Tonelli said, “You’re a wise bastard. Try and prove any of that and see what it gets you.”
“Oh, I’ll prove it,” Meyers said. “I’ve got a search warrant in my pocket for this boat. I’ll bet we find something pretty interesting down in the hold. I’m betting we find a dead blonde with her feet stuck in a tub of concrete.”
Tonelli stood up suddenly. His eyes looked a little crazy.
“You’re not going to get me for this,” he said.
“Shut up,” the judge snapped. “You’ve played out your luck, Tonelli. I know Velma was your mistress. You wanted to get rid of her but if she was found murdered too many people would be looking at you. So you figured out this very clever, frame-up. You intended to get rid of Velma, tie it on this poor fool here, and be perfectly in the clear yourself. Didn’t you?”
Tonelli cursed. “You’re pretty smart,” he snarled. “But not smart enough to pull this.” He bent suddenly and jerked open the drawer of his desk.
Before he could make another move two shots blasted the silence.
Tonelli jerked as the bullets hit him. He leaned against the desk, bracing himself with his hands. His eyes were on the judge. He opened his mouth twice, but no sound came out. His face twisted and he tried to hold himself erect, but his hands suddenly gave way and he sprawled across the desk.
There was no sound in the cabin. Meyers hadn’t moved. His hands were still laced around his knee. There was the smell of cordite in the air.
The judge looked thoughtfully at the gun in his hand. He blew the smoke from the barrel and watched it curl up against the light.
“You’d better take the gun, Meyers,” he said, matter-of-factly. “This wasn’t very orthodox, but I didn’t have a chance to think about the niceties of the situation. It was fortunate I had a weapon.” He extended it, butt foremost, to Meyers. “For the record it might be better to explain that you did the actual shooting.” He smiled sardonically. “My political opponents might make a fuss if they learned the complete story.”
Meyers got to his feet with a grunt. He took the gun and held it idly in his big hand.
“They’ll probably make a fuss anyway, judge,” he said.
“What do you mean?”
The gun in Meyers’ hand rose slowly until the barrel pointed at a spot just above the judge’s breast pocket handkerchief. He was smiling contentedly.
“You’re under arrest, judge. For killing Velma Dare. And Tonelli. Tonelli doesn’t make much difference. He deserved it. But you’re the little boy I’ve been looking for.”
“You’re insane!” Judge Mills said flatly. He turned to the other detective. “Sergeant Erlangen, I demand that you—”
“Oh, for Christ’s sake, shut up,” Meyers said wearily. “Erlangen isn’t any more a cop than you are. He’s just another of your paid punks.”
“Meyers,” the judge said, “you’re making a mistake. I warn you to go slowly.”
He walked toward Meyers until there was only six inches between his chest and the gun in Meyers’ hand. He was directly under the light bulb.
Larry saw him swing for the bulb at the same instant that Erlangen dug his hand into his pocket.
Darkness closed in on the cabin and two shots sounded. Larry dove across the cabin at Erlangen. He caught the man around the waist and went to the floor with him. Something hard and cold struck him twice across the forehead. Lights flashed inside his head, but he hung on.
He shifted his grip higher and caught the man about the throat. With one hand he dug for a windpipe and was rewarded by a sound of tortured gurgling. His free hand he used as a club.
He pounded that face with a fury that was like something hot and fiery inside his chest. There was the memory of his own horror and fear, the memory of a girl named Corinne, and a lot of other things behind his blows.
The figure beneath him stopped squirming eventually.
A match flared and Meyers’ voice said, “Nice going. That guy don’t look pretty.”
“How about the judge?”
“I got him,” Meyers said.
He raised the match and let its flickering light spread around the cabin.
Tonelli still lay sprawled across the desk. The judge was on the floor, staring sightlessly at the ceiling. His shirt front looked like someone had emptied a can of tomatoes on it.
“Well,” Meyers said, “that’s that. The old lady’s food will start tasting good again.”
Chapter XIII
Meyers sat across the table from Larry, noisily finishing the last of his turtle soup. Fran was in the kitchen, putting the last touches on the roast.
“Nice of you to have me up for dinner,” Meyers said. He had a napkin tucked under his collar, and his impassive gray face wore an expression of complete contentment. He finished the last of the soup with a noisy obbligato, and straightened up, smiling. “Your wife’s some cook,” he said.
“How about filling in a few details for me,” Larry said.
“About the case? Let’s wait ’till after dinner.” He sniffed appreciatively. “Smells like a roast, don’t it?”
“We’ve got time now,” Larry said. “You can enjoy your food because you’ve got all the answers. But what about me? I can’t eat until I know the whole story.”
“Never thought of that,” Meyers said. “Well, I’ll make it fast. Let’s take it from the judge’s angle. That’s the easiest way to figure it. He wanted to get rid of Velma. She’d been his mistress before he got elected to the Bench, and he wanted to shake her. He had big ideas. Politics, probably, and he didn’t want a character like Velma to come popping up and make him look bad. But she wouldn’t take the brush. She liked him, or she liked his dough. Doesn’t matter which. She wouldn’t brush. And she threatened to do a lot of talking about some of the judge’s deals unless he stops talking about shaking her. So he’s got to put her out of the way. Now. That took some doing. You don’t know Velma is the judge’s mistress. Your wife don’t, either. Millions of nice respectable people don’t know about it. But a lot of other people do. People like cops, newspapermen, bondsmen, lawyers, racketeers and hoodlums. They know about it. And if Velma gets knocked off mysteriously they’d know where to look. They look at the judge. And he’s got a past that can’t stand too much inspection.”
Meyers paused and looked anxiously toward the kitchen.
“Maybe she burned the roast,” he said.
“She didn’t burn the roast. Get on with the story.”
“Okay. So he’s got to get rid of her. And he’s got to do it so the cops have a ready made victim. You. He tells Velma he’s got a job for her. Wants her to pick up a guy and take him to a certain room. That’s all. Then he has Tonelli look for a sucker. You come in, spill your guts to the bartender about having a fight with your wife, so they decide to use you. They got Velina there, ready. Maybe she’s been waiting a week for this job. You get a Mickey, and Velma takes you home, dumps you in bed. Then Tonelli walks in, sticks a knife in her, undresses her, dumps her in beside you and walks out.
“It’s perfect. You’re it. You had a fight with your wife, you pick up this gal, take her home. You’re drunk and you kill her. Try and beat that! You wouldn’t in a million years. But it didn’t work. They wanted the cops to find you, so it would look natural. And they figured the doped drink would keep you there for hours. But it didn’t. You come to, get the hell out. And that leaves them in a sweet mess. Here’s Velma, dead as vaudeville, and no fall guy. The judge is the fall guy now. When the cops find Velma they’ll go after him. So he’s got to get rid of the body. This is how they done it. They go down there in a hearse, pay off the landlady to keep her yap shut, and bring the body down to the harbor. Last night they was going to dump Velma overboard, tied to a nice anchor, and nobody but the fish would ever know what happened.”
He buttered a piece of bread, took half of it in one mouthful and went on. “I knew something was phony. And I used you to smoke it out for me. You might have gotten killed, but I had to do it. You were the judge’s Nemesis. I let you roam around. You go to the
“How about the phony call to Mabel? The one that Velma was supposed to have made, telling Mabel she was going down South?”
“That was the judge, or somebody on his payroll. They had to cover up for Velma’s disappearance. That would do it. Then nobody would be asking questions. When they did it might be years from now and who the hell would care where Velma was.”
He looked hopefully toward the kitchen again.
“The roast isn’t burned,” Larry said patiently. “Now what was the deal between Tonelli and the judge?”
“Tonelli was the judge’s man. Right on the payroll. And the judge tried to double-cross him. The judge saw I knew what was going on, so he slanted my build-up to fit Tonelli, and then he shot him right in front of us. That took nerve and some pretty fast thinking. Tonelli was playing along with him because he knew the judge was in as deep as he was. But the judge figured if he could make a case against Tonelli and then shoot him to keep his mouth shut — well he figured that would put him in the clear.”
“And Tonelli’s men killed Corinne for talking to me?”
“Yeah. That’s about all except—”
Fran appeared in the doorway, holding the roast on a huge platter. She paused, waiting for their approval. She had the triumphant expression of a bride who has followed the cook book faithfully and is a little amazed that it worked.
“Gosh, that’s pretty,” Meyers said.
Larry was frowning. “You said that was all, ‘except’ — except what?”
“Larry!”
Larry looked up and saw Fran standing in the doorway. One of her small feet was tapping the floor ominously. He remembered what had happened the last time he had failed to be properly enthusiastic over a special dinner. He shuddered.
“Darling, that’s magnificent,” he said fervently.