Vanity Row

by W. R. Burnett

  "We go in now?" called the doll.

  "Maybe. I don't know," said Boley, keeping his back turned.

  At least he had enough self-possession to notice that Roy had banged up the receiver.

  "We got to go in. Right now," said Roy, "and fast as we can get there."

  "Bad night for stepping on it, but…" said Boley.

  "I'm insured," said Roy with a curt laugh; then he called: "Kit-you insured?"

  The tousled blond head was thrust round the door-jamb again.

  "You must be kidding, slim. You think I want somebody waiting for me to die?"

  "Smart girl," said Roy, then he pushed her back into the bedroom. "Throw 'em on fast, honey. I'll give you two minutes-then we go, ready or not."

  The drive back slowly turned into a nightmare as the impending thunderstorm finally broke over them. Kit was in the back seat alone holding onto the strap in fear, as Roy kept urging Boley to step on it. Heavy rain crashed into the windshield as if somebody was throwing buckets of water at them. Thunder rumbled across overhead with a sound of doom; blue-white lightning, low in the sky, danced, dazzled, and threw two-pronged forks at the earth.

  "What's the matter with me?" cried Kit in anguish. "I got leprosy?" Her face looked chalk-white as the lightning flashed again and again.

  "Chrissake, can't she sit up here?" cried Boley in distress.

  "Keep driving," said Roy curtly.

  "But, good God," Kit wailed, "I'm rolling around back here. And I'm scared to hell of lightning. I had a brother got hit once. He was pitching baseball."

  "If the car gets hit, we'll all get it," said Roy.

  "Please, please," cried Kit.

  Boley's hands seemed to waver on the wheel. Roy glanced at him, then turned. "Okay, honey. Climb up. Come over the seat. We're not stopping."

  With a cry of relief, Kit came scrambling over the seat. Her tight black dress went up to her hips. The car skidded, tires whining and slithering, and for a moment they moved down the road sideways, splashing water. Then, just as a terrific clap of thunder broke loose and Kit buried her face in Roy's shoulder, Boley got the car straight and back on the right side of the road.

  "Pull down your dress, will you, for God's sake?" cried Roy. "You want to get us killed?"

  "I jogged him when I came over, I think," said Kit.

  "You sure did. Some jog, eh, Boley?"

  But Boley said nothing. He kept his eyes on what he could see of the road. The white line rushed at him interminably through the rain and soupy mist. They all fell silent. Then thunder rolled far off, harmlessly.

  "Say," said Kit, "what is thunder anyway?"

  "What now? A quiz program?" asked Roy.

  "No, I mean it. I always wondered because I'm scared of lightning-and they go together: thunder and lightning, I mean."

  "Seems to me you're scared of thunder, too."

  "Please. Satisfy me. You look like a smart a guy. What is thunder?"

  "You're easy satisfied, baby. Okay. Lightning makes a vacuum, and the atmosphere or the wind or something rushes back into it and makes a hell of a racket. That's thunder. And thunder never killed anybody yet."

  "No kidding? Sure? Boy, I'll win me some bets with that. Nobody seems to know. I been asking for ten years, ever since I was nine years old and my brother got hit."

  "Killed?"

  "No. Just knocked him flat. He was kind of silly for a while. But he's all right now."

  "How can you tell?"

  "Oh, a wise guy! Say, why are we going so fast? Somebody after us?"

  There was no reply, and the girl looked from one to the other, then fell silent. From time to time lightning streaked along the horizon, thunder crashed, and Kit would make a wild grab for Roy and bury her head in his shoulder. But he seemed almost completely unaware of her presence.

  Little by little, the rain slackened. Ahead of them loomed the city. They passed through sleeping suburbs, and shuttered shopping-centers. The lightning still flashed and the thunder rumbled, but Kit made no more grabs for Roy. She was back in the big town now. Out in the open country things were different, terrifying!

  "Make the Savoy," said Roy.

  Boley turned. "Why?"

  "So Kit can pick up a cab. We got no time to trundle her home."

  "Well, that's a hell of a note," said Kit. "I live to bejesus and gone from the Savoy and it'll be just my luck to get a smart-aleck driver."

  "I guess you can look after yourself," said Roy.

  In a short while, the Savoy, a huge expensive riverfront hotel on the edge of town, loomed before them at the end of a street.

  "Anyway," said Kit, as the car pulled up at the all-night taxi stand, "I found out about thunder."

  The rain had stopped, and the fine mist was falling again.

  Roy handed her some money as she crawled out over his knees. "Two bucks," he said. "That ought to get it."

  "Yeah," said Kit. "It's just about two bucks from here to my place. Goodby, you spender."

  Roy said nothing. Boley looked past Roy out the car window at the beautiful young blond standing there in the mist getting her pretty hair wet. He felt like hanging himself again.

  "Good night, baby," he said in a husky voice.

  Roy glanced at him, but made no comment.

  3

  They saw the Chief's car parked near the front of the vast apartment-house garage as Boley eased the sedan carefully down the long, wet cement ramp. Nick Gray, the Chief's driver, was leaning against a pillar, smoking a cigarette, and talking with a garage hand in a white jumper.

  Gray waved at them as they got out, a half salute, then he turned to the house-phone on the pillar and made a call.

  "Everybody's got the jumps tonight-real impatient," Gray explained. "I told 'em you were coming up."

  "You stay here, Boley," said Roy, making no reply to Gray's statement, but merely raising his eyebrows.

  Roy disappeared around the corner of a long cement corridor, on his way to the elevators.

  Nick Gray offered Boley a cigarette, lit it for him. "Where you guys been… catting? The Chief's been rousting Lackey all over the place. This is a real big one."

  "Yeah," said Boley.

  Gray considered him thoughtfully for a moment. "What's it like working for a son of a bitch like that?" A pause. Gray shifted slightly. "I'm just asking for information. I work for one, too. But a different kind."

  "The Chief?"

  "Yeah. He's the kind who don't know straight up. So he's the Chief. So a guy's got to have friends-pull."

  "Yeah," said Boley.

  "You're a talkative bastard, Polack."

  Boley's small, slanted blue eyes flashed slightly, then he lowered them and mildly contemplated his cigarette. Gray studied him, then said: "The 'Polack' don't mean nothing. What you sore about? Like you calling me 'Mick'."

  "Yeah," said Boley.

  In a moment, Gray turned away impatiently, got into the front seat of the Chief's car, slammed the door, turned on the overhead light, and began to read a magazine.

  Boley leaned against the pillar, puffing on his cigarette. Always the pump. Always these police regulars trying to get him to talk about Roy. They hated Roy's guts. He'd gone from nothing to captain-had never really been on the force at all. Gray's boss, the Chief, Tom Smith, had been on the force for thirty-five years, and had risen slowly through all the regular grades. But the Chief was an Administration man, too, and seemed to hold no animosity to Roy, though he hadn't the slightest say-so over him.

  Boley had heard all the talk about Roy. Oh, So Low, the Hatchet Man! The Administration's private gunman! Chad Bayliss' pratt-boy! The political pet who got all the backing and all the plums! Etc., etc. The talk was partly the result of envy and resentment, but Boley had to admit that there was more than a little truth in it.

  Roy did as he pleased without supervision or discipline. His nominal boss was Police Commissioner Prell, but the Commissioner was too busy juggling his big real estate holdings to pay
much attention to Roy, who had a private office in the City Building, one of the best detectives in the area, Emmet Lackey, for an assistant, a couple of young cop secretaries, and himself, an old Downtown homicide dick, now hardly more than a chauffeur, to run errands and stand by-endlessly to stand by.

  Roy had been an Army Cop in World War II-an officer, with a great record. After the war, somebody had introduced him to the big political boss, Chad Bayliss-and that was it. The Administration had a tight grip on the city-had been in power nearly twenty years; but occasionally unfortunate crises arose which caused grave misgivings, civic outcries, and even open rebellions. Bayliss was no one for leaving things to chance. He needed an expert troubleshooter, untainted by police politics, police methods, and perverse loyalties. Roy was the man he'd been looking for.

  "Yeah," said Boley to himself, "Roy's the man, all right."

  He tossed his cigarette away, then stepped on it. Big Nick Gray had decided he didn't want to read a magazine after all. He got out of the Chief's car.

  "Want a drink, Boley? Liquor, coffee, something? Colored boy here we can send out. We may be stuck some time."

  "Yeah, Nick," said Boley. "Coffee."

  ***

  Chad Bayliss's apartment at the Stoneham was large and sumptuous. It was on the fifteenth floor and there were huge view-windows in the living-room.

  But tonight no one was paying any attention to the mammoth, rain-bound city sprawling endlessly below them.

  Tom Smith, the Chief, a big, calm-faced, gray-haired man, who looked enormously strong and fit in spite of his years-he admitted to sixty-was sitting on the edge of a brocaded chair, obviously ill-at-ease in these surroundings, saying little, and that in a low, gruff, embarrassed voice, and from time to time nervously scratching his chin and smoothing his hair.

  Commissioner Prell, a short, slender, wiry-looking man in his middle fifties could not sit still and moved from chair to chair, and occasionally looked at the pictures on the walls, fingered the expensive knick-knacks, and kept taking off his horn-rimmed glasses and putting them back on.

  But Prell and Smith were almost imperturbable in comparison with Chad Bayliss, who swung from violent and profane denunciations to tears, actual tears, causing Roy to lower his eyes and stare in grim embarrassment at the oriental carpet.

  From time to time Bayliss's tired-looking blonde wife-a faded beauty-brought her husband a cup of coffee, and said in a worried voice: "Drink that now, daddy. Drink it up."

  Bayliss would glance at her in violent irritation, but would drink the coffee without comment. He was a big, robust man, about fifty, with curly dark hair, a red, rather congested-looking face, and liquid, emotional dark eyes which flashed wildly with an almost insane intensity when he was angry. He was, Roy knew, a tough driver, ruthless, unscrupulous, hard-boiled, but over-emotional, sentimental at times, and always in danger of running off the rails, although so far he'd been sure-fisted, and also maybe a little lucky, in his management of the Administration, which he had inherited ten years ago from his better-known brother, Al Bayliss.

  Roy hadn't known Chad then. But he'd heard that after his brother died of a stroke at the dinner table, Chad had refused to eat for days, and had suffered so badly from insomnia and general nervousness that he'd been taken to a sanatorium and treated for two months, the newspapers giving out the story that he was vacationing at Coronado, in Southern California.

  Now he'd had another bad shock. His best friend, Frank Hobart, nationally-known lawyer, Administration favorite, and millionaire, had been ruthlessly shot down on a city street like a friendless dog.

  "Here, daddy, drink this," said Bayliss's worried wife.

  He took the cup with shaking hand, then he looked up at her. "Merle, go to bed, for God's sake. I'm all right. I'm just so goddamned mad…!"

  He was in evening clothes, with his coat off, and his tie untied. His evening shirt was wilted and blistered. He demolished it now by spilling half the cup of coffee down the front as he tried to drink it. He jumped up, cursing, and flung the cup and saucer across the room.

  "Oh, God, daddy!" cried Merle. "My rug!" She put her hands to her face and burst into tears.

  There was an appalled silence in the big, well-lit richly-furnished living-room and they could all hear the rain tapping at the glass of the view-windows, see it running down like tears.

  Bayliss, getting hold of himself, was trying to soothe his wife. "There, there, baby. I'm sorry. There, there."

  Roy glanced at Merle Bayliss then lowered his eyes. He had heard her referred to as Miss America of 1902-a dirty dig. Actually she was about forty, tall and stately, with a pretty, snub-nosed, rather vacuous face, which was beginning to sag. He'd also heard it said that during the first years of their marriage she'd given "daddy" considerable trouble, making eyes at the boys. Now this was a thing of the past, or so he'd heard. Chad had broken her spirit. Might be, Roy considered. Chad could be very rough going, even for a man.

  "Oh, God," sobbed Merle. "My beautiful rug!"

  "There, there, baby," soothed Chad, but with a note of irritation in his voice now. It was obvious that he was sick and tired of the rug business.

  "I'm going to bed," wailed Merle. "I don't care what happens to you, daddy, after what you did-ruining my beautiful new oriental rug! I'm going to bed."

  She ran out, sobbing. Chad looked after her, violently irritated; made a move to follow her, then changed his mind and sat down. "As if I couldn't buy another rug, or fifty of 'em," he grumbled.

  But he was calmer now, and big Tom Smith heaved a sigh of relief. Prell polished his glasses for the tenth time and pretended to look at the big oil painting of Merle Bayliss which hung over the fire-place.

  "Better off in bed, anyway," Chad grumbled. Then he looked up. "Did you ever notice-you fellows-that women can never tell what's important from what isn't? Frank Hobart's dead, and she's worrying about a goddamned oriental rug that we probably got overcharged two hundred per cent for!"

  "Yes," said Prell, judiciously, putting on his glasses and peering thoughtfully at Bayliss. "You're right, Chad. Quite right. And very well put."

  Tom Smith's contribution to the conversation was a loud sigh. Roy shifted about uncomfortably. Get to the point, he wanted to say, for the love of God, get to the point!

  Now Bayliss looked at him speculatively. "How much do you know about Frank Hobart?"

  Roy stared at the oriental carpet in silence for a moment, then he asked: "What kind of an answer do you expect to that question?"

  Bayliss wagged his head impatiently. "Never mind the caginess, Roy. It's all in the family. We've got a problem, a serious problem. Speak up."

  "Well, I know he made a fortune selling the land for the new high school building."

  Big Tom Smith stared, open-mouthed. This was news to him. Prell coughed uncomfortably behind his hand and nervously adjusted his glasses. Bayliss flushed angrily. "Now how in hell, may I ask, Roy, did you get that little bit of information? And why did you bring it up?"

  Roy dodged. "You asked me what I knew."

  "Yes," said Bayliss, "I did. But that wasn't what I meant, exactly." Now he spoke with heavy sarcasm. "Are you suggesting a member of the School Board was not cut in and knocked him off? Or maybe a slighted real estate firm? Say, Abstein and Preston?"

  Prell laughed uncomfortably. Abstein and Preston, Inc. was the oldest, richest, and most conservative real estate company in the state.

  "No," said Roy. "I don't know why he was knocked off. If you know, tell me, and I'll get busy right away."

  "The point is," said Bayliss, looking about him at Prell and Tom Smith, "we want you to get very busy. Very busy. But, Roy, we don't want you to show any actual results. That's why we took this away from Shellenbarger."

  "All right," said Roy. "But I've got to know what I'm doing. If I got it straight, you know who killed him, and you don't want it to get in the papers, or be known at all. Am I right?"

  "Practically," snapped Baylis
s.

  "All right. This is a big one. Every bird-dog on every newspaper will have a nose to the trail. You understand? So I've got to show some phony results. But I might put my foot in it, and bark up the right tree just out of general efficiency-so… who killed him?"

  There was a long silence. Merle Bayliss appeared in the hall doorway wearing a beautiful red velvet dressing-gown and with a white ribbon in her hair. Prell eyed her appreciatively, then coughed and adjusted his glasses.

  "Daddy," she called, "I'm going to bed. Sorry I was bad, but…"

  "That's all right, honey," said Bayliss, wearily, then he got up, walked over to her, and they both disappeared down the hall.

  "A very beautiful young woman," said Prell.

  Roy, who was thirty-five, glanced at Prell in surprise. Young? Was he kidding?

  Tom Smith nodded emphatically in agreement. "Yes," he said, "a very beautiful young woman."

  "Oh, well," thought Roy, "maybe by the time I'm fifty-five or sixty one like that will look young to me."

  Bayliss came back smoking a cigar and flung himself into his chair. "She says I'm to apologize for the way she acted," he grumbled. "So I apologize-and to hell with it. Look, Roy. Since you've brought up something extraneous like the high school deal-which isn't as dark as it looks… Prell will back me up on that…"

  "Oh, certainly, Chad; certainly," said the Commissioner.

  "… all right," Bayliss went on. "Since you brought that up, it seems plain you know quite a bit more than you are saying. Stuff more in your own sphere of interest, you might say. So… Roy?"

  "I guess you mean the wire-service deal."

  Bayliss winced; Prell coughed and adjusted his glasses; Chief of Police Smith sighed and looked down at his big feet. "Yes," said Bayliss, "that! Frank dealt with some very bad boys on that one. Big out-of-town boys. And he called the tune. He made them knuckle under. He told them just how it was to be handled and what our… well, our emolument was to be."

  "Our what?"

  "Take! Take, for Christ's sake!" cried Bayliss, angrily. "Don't you understand English?"