“I’ll wait until I feel I need Malman for information about Chuck. Until then, I’m working around here, among the assorted drips in the advertising goon squad.”
“You think one of them might have killed Rosen?”
“Any one of them’s dizzy enough for it.” I waited for him to put his tail down for a pause. “Matter of fact, one of them might have bumped off Wilkinson, as I’ve suggested before.”
“It could be,” Lunt said quietly. He would preserve this neutral attitude until he had a real spark of inspiration. But I couldn’t hate him for his calm. His ulcers could be bouncing and bleeding, yet Lunt would never show any great inner panic. It was something that had helped him get to the top and stay there. “I appreciate what you told me about the staff, Conacher. But there wasn’t anything strong enough for us to move in on, now was there? The only one who stands out as a prize nut is Chester Carpenter, because of the street brawl with Wilkinson last night. We’ll watch Carpenter for a spell. But that kind of introvert never gets up enough steam for murder. We’ve got the same kind of possibility with Wilkinson’s secretary, Vivian Debevoise. From the way she broke down, Wilkinson must have been her mattress mate in the recent past. But that kind of dame doesn’t get jealous enough to blow her ex-lover’s brains out.”
“She’s a pretty hard doll.”
“We’ll watch her, too. Any other suggestions?”
“I don’t like any of them, Lunt. All the way from Kutner down. You can put them all on my list: Pettigrew, Kutner, Carpenter, Lila Martin and Vivian Debevoise.”
“You’re skipping the art dame, Helen Sutton.”
“She looks clean to me. But not completely, at that.” He was drawing me out, skillfully. He was playing me on all strings, hoping for some crumb of private information I might be keeping from him. It was true that I hated the whole stinking crew of them. But hate never paid off in a search for murder. I would operate out of my personal suspicions because I couldn’t help myself. The death of Wilkinson only set off a chain reaction of confusion in my addled mind. Sure I felt sorry for Wilkinson. Nobody can look at a corpse and hold back the instinctive shock and terror of a close-up of the grim reaper. But beyond the death of Wilkinson, my mind still burned with the steady flame of a greater challenge. It would take a lot of doing to kill the burning pain inside me, the hot anger about Chuck Rosen’s murder.
Lunt went to the door when he heard the loud knocking from the sporting goods corridor. He stepped back to let Coyle come puffing in.
Coyle said: “By the holy saints, Lunt, I’ve just found another body for you.”
“A body?” Lunt sharpened under the pressure of the news. “Where?”
“Down in the liquor storeroom,” said Coyle. The old man had been running hard, but something greater than physical strain clouded his eyes. He was trembling with his news. “I was down there with one of my boys when we started to check the last supply room in the store. That was when we found him. Dead as a doornail, as they say.”
“Who is he?” Lunt asked.
“The other one,” Coyle said. “The other Santee Claws!”
CHAPTER 14
Herb Lunt whistled his amazement as he squinted down at the corpse on the floor. We were in a square and windowless cell, one of the supply rooms in the basement devoted to liquor storage. The place stank from the faint stench of dry rot and airlessness. But above these minor odors, the strong aroma of spilled alcohol stung the nostrils. The place was filled with crates of various brands of rye, Scotch and Bourbon. A crate marked Pernod sat against the wall. On the green tiling his head against the crate in an attitude of sleep, lay another fat man.
“He looks as if he had a couple before he was killed,” Lunt said, stooping over the body and sniffing delicately. “A couple of hundred, maybe.”
“He was potted last night,” I said.
The dead man sprawled in a drunken pose. At first glance, he might have been a tired reveler, resting in between bouts with his personal bottle. But the sight of his gory head canceled out such fanciful imaginings. He had been shot brutally. Between the eyes. Not far from his right hand, a broken bottle sat. Lunt gingerly rolled the remaining section of the bottle under his flashlight.
“Looks like blood on the glass,” he said.
“His own, no doubt?”
“What else?” Lunt made a face at the stiff. “Whoever shot this man wanted to rub away his identity completely.”
“He did a good job.”
“He worked fast, but he worked well,” Lunt said. He showed me the long scratches around the chin, the desperation lunges, born of haste and a murderer’s frenzy. He pointed out the gory grooves and dents around the eyes, the complete mangling of the eyepits. The gun blast had smeared the face pretty thoroughly. It was almost wasted energy to use the broken bottle. “The bastard was really off his trolley,” Lunt said. “Take a look at what was once a nose.”
“One more look and you’ll have my lunch,” I said. “What did the doctor say about him?”
“He was butchered only a little while ago. Around ten this morning.”
“He’s sure of that?”
“He’s approximately sure. Why?”
“A passing thought, Lunt.”
Lunt paused to appraise me with his keen eyes. “What’s on your mind, Conacher?”
“I was thinking how easy it must have been for the butcher.”
“Easy?”
“Easy as blowing your nose. The Saint Nick must have wandered down here for more Bourbon. He was the alcoholic type. So he shuffled down here for another snort. That was the death of him. He must have fallen asleep.”
“What makes you think it’s the same Santa Claus?”
“He’s fat. And he was drunk.”
“Not enough.”
He was right, of course. I walked around the dead man slowly. A fat man is a fat man, but positive identification is an exact science. I found myself uncertain about the body on the floor. How in hell could you identify a Saint Nick? His face had been hidden behind the proverbial beard and mustache. He could be damned near any fat man in New York. I squinted at him and tried for a flashback to last night’s party. Then, suddenly, I knew he was the same Santa.
“I recognize him now,” I said. “Last night’s Santa was wearing the same ring. Same finger. Same hand.”
Lunt stooped to examine the big black stone. He smiled up at me. “That’s enough to place him, Conacher. The next big problem is his identity. You know him?”
“Never saw him before last night.”
“Who hired him?”
“This’ll kill you,” I quipped. “But he was hired by the other corpse—the first dead Santa.”
Lunt became annoyed. “Surely somebody in the store knows where this man came from. How about Personnel?” He picked up the house phone and yelled for Personnel. He spoke briskly to a number of people np there. He yelled and yammered, losing his usual calm in the frustrations he hit up among the clerks and the filing cabinets. He was getting nowhere in a big rush. He slapped the receiver down and mopped his face and said: “A hell of a department store this is. Nobody up in Personnel has a card on our Santa.”
“It’s the way I gave it to you, Lunt. Wilkinson must have hired this character. Maybe his secretary knows something.”
“That’s the Vivian Debevoise dame?” Lunt grabbed the phone again and barked an order into it. He was getting really high and hot now. His reputation as a clever youth hung in the balance. It was all right for him to cancel out Chuck’s murder as simple suicide, or accident, or happenstance. But this deal was different. The Commissioner would erupt at the prospect of two unsolved murders in one store, in one day. The Commissioner might begin to question the talents of the brightest lad in the City Department of Investigation. Lunt began to stroll the floor of the stockroom, a bright boy in a real dark hole o
f trouble.
He was sharp and bitter with Vivian. She came in nervously, agitated by this trip to the catacombs of the store merchandise. She stared and shivered at the sight of the corpse on the floor. Lunt had taken the chance to work her by way of her emotions. She was looking down at a face out of a chamber of horrors. She closed her eyes and made frantic clawing gestures at her throat.
“Unnghh—” she breathed.
I picked her up off the floor. She was out as cold as a plucked chicken. One of the cops brought her a cup of water. It did no good. I opened a free bottle of brandy from inventory. I forced the mouth of the bottle to her lips. The liquor dribbled down over her chin. But she licked at some of it and made a sorry face and blinked her eyes and went rigid with fright.
“Relax, Vivian,” I said, holding her in place on the crate she was decorating. “His face is covered now.”
“Who’s the Santa?” Lunt barked.
“I don’t know,” Vivian whispered.
“You kept books for Wilkinson?”
“I was his secretary.”
“You knew all of his business? His store business?”
“I knew what he told me.”
“And what,” said Lunt, “did he tell you about the Santa Claus for the Toy House?”
“Nothing.”
“Didn’t Wilkinson hire this man?”
“If he did, he didn’t tell me about it.”
“Wasn’t it Wilkinson’s job to hire this man?”
“I guess it was,” Vivian said quietly. She had turned away from the stiff on the floor. She was all fright and confusion. “But Greg never told me a thing about it. Why don’t you try Personnel?”
“Personnel has no record of his employment.” Lunt’s voice betrayed his frustration. He leaned over her. “Isn’t there any suggestion you can give us, Miss Debevoise? Don’t you have any ideas at all about where this fat man came from?”
“Honest I don’t. Please, can I go now? I feel sick to my stomach again.”
Lunt let her go. We sat around and waited for further research on the dead man. The locker room revealed none of his civilian clothes. Two of Lunt’s men came back from a rundown of the entire area around and in the Toy House. They shook their heads in despair. The fat man was quickly sinking into limbo. He would remain nameless unless his fingerprints revealed a criminal record. He would never come to life by way of identification of his face. Only a master artist could reconstruct his features from the bloody pulp under the white sheet.
But Lunt was a stubborn man. He called down each member of the advertising staff. One by one, he led them inside the storeroom to view the corpse. Their reactions were in keeping with their various temperaments. I stood against the crates and watched each of them.
Chester Carpenter? He came in awkwardly. He put on a brave show of unconcern, bracing himself as the cop bent down to remove the sheet from Santa’s face. Then Chester stared, gulped and said: “Ghastly. A horrible thing.” And he took one step backward and closed his eyes and groped for his handkerchief and mopped his brow. “You expect me to identify that—that—” Words were unavailable for Chester. He shook his head dumbly to Lunt’s further questioning.
Horace Kutner was next on the parade. He entered the room blinking and scowling. His back still retained its perpetual stiffness. He was the big general, reviewing the troops. He watched as the sheet came off the corpse’s face. He gulped and swallowed. He said: “How awful!” The old boy was moved to the marrow.
“Take a good look at him,” Lunt said. “We want to know who this man is, Mr. Kutner.”
“Impossible,” said Kutner. “Impossible.”
“Who hired him?”
“Poor Greg found this man.”
“He didn’t find him through Personnel,” Lunt said angrily. “Didn’t Wilkinson share his secrets with you?”
“Secrets?” Kutner looked ready for the cleaners now. Something had happened to the starch in his spine. He was beginning to wilt, to stoop, to sag in the middle. His face went pale and he breathed heavily. “Greg had no secrets from me, Lunt. None at all.”
“He never discussed this man?”
“Never.” Kutner leaned against the wall of liquor boxes. “We must find out about him.”
“Any ideas how we can do that little thing?”
“I’ll certainly do my best,” Kutner said weakly. “This is a disgrace. A disgrace for Cumber’s, believe me. Our Christmas promotion is ruined now. Ruined.”
Lunt let him go and ushered in Larry Pettigrew. He went through the stock motions of shock and surprise. He gulped and gawked. But his reactions were controlled and calculated. He moved close enough to lean down over the corpse.
“Don’t know him,” he said briskly.
“You’re pretty sure of yourself, Pettigrew.” Lunt found no pleasure in Pettigrew’s lightning-quick decision. “How can you make up your mind so fast?”
“It’s simple. I don’t know any fat men at all.”
“You knew Greg Wilkinson, didn’t you?”
“He was the only one.”
“The only important one?” Lunt sat in the corner, in the gloom. Pettigrew couldn’t see his face. Pettigrew was on a small stage, under the one light in the room. His face clouded with half-buried anger.
“What do you mean by that?” Pettigrew asked.
“Figure it out for yourself. You were Wilkinson’s assistant. He dies. You get his job. Right?”
“I wouldn’t make book on it.”
“Relax, Pettigrew.” Lunt came out of the shadows. “You’ll get his job, all right.”
“I wish I had your confidence,” Pettigrew mumbled.
“And you might even get his girl,” Lunt added.
Pettigrew sucked in a long breath. He was working hard now to kill off any inner explosions. He faced Lunt with a phony calm. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I’ll get along, Pettigrew.”
“Any more questions? Or do you want to play more guessing games?”
“You can leave now,” said Lunt angrily. “But don’t leave town, pal. I want you where I can see you.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” Pettigrew said on the way out.
Lunt watched him go. He was disturbed by Pettigrew. I had given him the background on Wilkinson’s assistant, complete with all the details on his outside activities in the direction of Lila Martin. There was little worth getting hot about. Yet, a man like Pettigrew would always prove an irritant for Lunt. They were so much alike, in so many ways. They would make for sparks and fire whenever their paths crossed.
“Call in the Martin broad,” Lunt told his assistant.
Lila came in boldly. She went through the ritual of snaking her eyes down at the mangled face on the floor. She didn’t look at him long.
“Know him?” Lunt asked.
“A silly question, officer. Even if I did know him, that horrible sight would cancel out any recognition.”
“Take another look at him, Miss Martin.”
“I can live without it,” Lila said, deliberately turning her back to the dead man. “If you expect me to identify him, you’ll have to call in a plastic surgeon and show me some features. You just can’t identify a bloody pulp.”
“He’s fat,” said Lunt. “Know any fat men?”
“He’s not my type.”
“Why not? Wasn’t Wilkinson your type?”
“I never said he was.”
“You played around with him.”
“Played around?” Lila beamed her spiteful eyes on Lunt. She gave him the full treatment, enough to wither him. Lunt only continued to smile at her. “If you mean that I saw Greg Wilkinson,” she said, “the answer is yes, of course I did.”
“And often.”
“I kept no records of our dates.”
>
“Maybe somebody else did,” Lunt said quietly. “Maybe Pettigrew did? Or Carpenter?”
“Why don’t you ask them?” She calmly lit a cigarette and continued her battle to make Lunt look foolish. “Now, if you’re finished with me, I have things to do.”
He let her go and called in Helen Sutton. I gave her a smile to comfort her. Of all the workers in the Advertising Department I felt sorry only about this one. She was in deep and over her head with the outstanding worm in the executive group. She would be worrying about her anemic amour in this hour of crisis.
She seemed to be worrying now, as she stared down at the corpse and shook her head at him. Lunt barraged her with the usual questions. She gave the usual answers. But something seemed burning behind those bright eyes of hers. I caught a flick of quick discovery in her glance. Did she know him?
I followed her out into the hall.
“Oh, Steve,” she whispered, “wasn’t it horrible?”
Through the door to the stockroom, Lunt eyed us slyly. I pulled her out of his range.
“Did you recognize him, Helen?”
“That face,” she gasped. “How could anybody identify it?”
“He had a body, too.”
“I don’t see what you mean.”
“You’re an artist,” I said. “Think. An artist has a good eye for detail. An artist can spot the little things.”
“Like what?”
“Like the big ring on his hand.”
She showed me her incredulity, punctuated by an obvious stall, the attempt to wrinkle her pretty brow in concentration.
“I didn’t really get a good look at it, Steve.”
“I’ll tell you about it. Big black stone. Like a cameo. Or a bloodstone?”
“It doesn’t ring a bell.”
“Maybe the bell will ring later,” I said. “I want to talk to you about it.”
“Of course,” she said, glad to be free of me. “Any time you say.”
She got into the elevator. The door closed her pale and troubled face away from me. For the first time since morning, I began to feel the blood bounce in me again. I was still on the merry-go-round and somebody had revved the motor and it spun too fast. But on the way around I had grabbed my first gold ring. It was a little thing, a crumb, a thread, a tiny clue, a direction. It might be the small arrow that pointed through the murk into bright sunlight.
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