The Gremlin's Grampa

by Robert L. Fish

“So I’d like to talk to you a minute.” Reardon started to settle himself against a second dressing table in the room, and then pulled himself erect at the startled expression facing him from the mirror. “What’s the matter?”

  “You damn near sat in Skeet’s make-up kit, that’s the matter.” Georgie Jackson returned his attention to the removal of his make-up, reaching for more tissues. “All right, now, mister policeman, what did you want to talk about?”

  “How did you know I was a cop?”

  The large brown eyes looked at him sardonically. “The same way I knew today was Friday. I have a Ouija board in the drawer, here. What’s on your mind?”

  “Nothing much.” Reardon’s tone was conversational; he smiled gently. “You heard about Pete Falcone being killed?”

  “Who?”

  “Pete Falcone. A friend of your ex-boss, Jerry Capp.”

  Jackson grunted and screwed his face up to remove some pancake near his ear. “Friends of my ex-boss aren’t necessarily my friends. No, I didn’t know this what’s-his-name and I didn’t know he was dead.” His eyes rose in the mirror, innocent. “Why? Is somebody collecting for a wreath?”

  “Don’t you read the newspapers?”

  “No, and I also don’t watch TV. I’m strictly a hi-fi fan. Was his death ever cut on a record?”

  Reardon held back his first comment, forcing himself to keep calm.

  “I’d stop taking off that make-up if I were you,” he said evenly. “You’ll just have to put it back on again. I want a bartender over at the Cranston Hotel to see you all prettied up in your best bib and tucker, wig, make-up and all.”

  Jackson’s sardonic look changed to a frown. He put his hands on the top of his dressing table, staring at the lieutenant in the mirror. He seemed to come to the decision that for what he had to say, facing the cop would be better; he swung about on his stool.

  “You know, copper, I start to get the feeling you’re trying to tell me something. What’s the bit about the bartender at the Cranston Hotel? Wherever and whatever the Cranston Hotel is?”

  “Mr. Falcone met a girl there the night he fell—or was helped to fall—from the fifteenth floor, where he lived. Just ten minutes after he went upstairs with her.”

  “Oh.” Jackson nodded calmly. “And you think it might have been me in drag.” He looked curious. “Why me?”

  Reardon shrugged. “Why not?”

  “For one good reason, because I didn’t even know the creep,” Jackson said, and smiled in a friendly manner. He turned back to the mirror, starting to remove his long lashes. “I go to bars when I feel like going, and I don’t feel like going to any hotel named the Cranston this evening.” He paused, his eyes bright on Reardon’s face. “Unless, of course, you’ve got a warrant for my arrest?”

  “It wouldn’t be all that hard to get,” Reardon said flatly. The interview wasn’t going the way he wanted, or even the way he had expected. Doesn’t anyone ever look guilty any more? he wondered. Here we go for those nine-to-thirteen odds again! “For being on horse, if for nothing else?”

  “Horse? Me?” Jackson was shocked at the suggestion. “Why, I never bet on a horse in my life.”

  “Very funny!” Reardon felt his temper rising. “Put on your wig and some make-up and let’s get going, because if I have much of an argument from you, so help me, you’ll do your belly dance in a cast for the next few weeks!”

  “My, my! So masculine! So muscular!” Jackson sighed and came to his feet. He stretched; his muscles rippled. His voice dripped with sarcasm. “You great big strong man, you—I’d hate to have you beat me. I might have to resist an officer …”

  “Let’s go!”

  Jackson smiled, but his eyes were narrowed. “Before we go, aren’t you supposed to inform me of my rights?”

  “I’m not arresting you, damn it! I’m simply—” Reardon suddenly smiled. “Actually, I’m inviting you out for a drink, is all. What’s wrong with that?”

  “Nothing. I’m flattered. In fact, when you put it so politely, I may even accept. However, before we go,” Jackson added politely, “may I inqure as to just when I’m supposed to have killed this what’s his-name? You’ve told me where and how, but forgot the when.”

  It was a reasonable question, but there was also something in the tone of voice that told Reardon he should have taken up those nine-to-thirteen odds once again.

  “Wednesday night. About eleven at night.”

  “How odd! I don’t think I’ll accept your kind invitation after all,” Jackson said. “My act goes on her at 10:30 and one o’clock each night, and I wasn’t sick Wednesday. I was right here. I admit we don’t draw the biggest crowd on Broadway here at the Belly-Button, but we do get enough people in so that one or two should remember my being onstage.” He smiled politely. “Do you suppose there might be another Georgie Jackson masquerading as a female impersonator.”

  Reardon took a deep breath. “Look. I don’t care where you say you were, and if a hundred people saw you there. I still want a certain bartender to—”

  “To see me in drag. And if I say no?”

  Reardon looked him square in the eye. “Then, my friend, I have two men from my department with me, and we’ll come in here and take this place apart looking for something the Narcotics Squad can hang you with.”

  “Oh? But, you see, I’m not the only one to use this room.”

  “We’ll let the cops downtown figure that out. Do you come or not?”

  “Well,” Jackson said, “when you put it so nicely, it’s hard to refuse.”

  He turned back to the mirror, seating himself; the wig was put on and adjusted, and then he began applying lipstick. He paused to purse his lips in a kiss and wink outrageously in the glass at Reardon, and then began to apply his pancake make-up. It suddenly occurred to Reardon that for once Porky Frank was wrong; whatever else Georgie Jackson was, he wasn’t gay. Nor was he stupid. Nor—unfortunately—was he afraid to face the bartender, apparently. This is turning out to be some evening, Reardon thought sourly, and then swung at a sharp rapping at the door. It was flung open, Dondero stood in the opening, his face pale; his voice was tight.

  “Jim! There was an emergency call for you from the hall. I took it. Stan called in—”

  “John Sekara! Is Stan all right?”

  “Stan’s all right, but somebody knocked off Sekara in his apartment about five minutes ago …”

  “How?”

  “You know all I know,” Dondero said, and shrugged.

  Reardon swung around, staring at Jackson’s face in the mirror. The smile was gone, the face beneath the make-up pale and watchful. There was no doubt the impersonator knew Sekara, whether he had known Pete Falcone or not. But Georgie Jackson would have to wait. Reardon gave the cautious eyes in the mirror one final glare and hurried Dondero ahead of him from the room and down the narrow passageway.

  “Jan’ll have to take my car and take Gabriella and Tim home. We’ll go with Tom in his car. Did you get the address?”

  “I got it. The north side of the park.”

  “Good.”

  He came through the door leading back into the nightclub. The others were on their feet, waiting; their waiter stood and watched them, not at all surprised that they were leaving before the end of Skeets Canfield’s act, or that they had barely touched their drinks.

  “I paid while Don was getting you,” Bennett said simply.

  “Good. We’ll straighten up later,” Reardon said, and led the way to the street, taking Jan by the arm, talking to her. The waiter watched them leave with the satisfaction of one who knows no good will come of anything, either arrivals or departures.

  Bennett was already at the wheel of his car. Dondero slipped in beside him. Reardon handed Jan the keys to the Charger, climbed into the rear seat of Bennett’s car and slammed the door.

  “Let’s move!” he said grimly. “Pretend we’re in Potrero Six, eh, Tom?”

  “Yes, sir!” Bennett said with satisfaction, and tr
amped on the gas.

  CHAPTER 14

  Friday—11:35 p.m.

  A patrol car was angled into the curb before the apartment building, its siren silent but its flasher turning monotonously. Behind it, the familiar car of the Technical Squad was parked; ahead of it one of the boxlike windowless paddy wagons that served the city as ambulances was being loaded with the covered corpse of John Sekara. Reardon, climbing down from Bennett’s car, could not help but be impressed by the repetitiveness of the scene. How many times have I seen—and will I see again—the same lineup of the ambulance, the patrol car and the Technical Squad, he wondered, plus myself staring down at a dead body, removed from life for any one of so very few reasons, none of them good? Maybe Jan is right, he suddenly thought. A man can’t really spend his life doing this kind of work forever and not be marked by it, and also not have his values changed. On the other hand, what job could a man do over and over again and not be affected by it? Interior decorating? He smiled faintly to himself at the thought, feeling the tension ease somewhat, and walked forward in the darkness.

  Stan Lundahl was standing morosely to one side, his tall body slumped, his wide shoulders bent a bit, as if either in disappointment with his performance that night, or as if to weather a reprimand completely undeserved. Reardon stopped him, looking up into the taller man’s face. Bennett and Dondero diplomatically continued on in the direction of the ambulance.

  “Well?” Reardon’s voice was sharp. “What happened?”

  “He was shot. Three times. Medics think it was a twenty-two; the autopsy will tell. The bullets are still in him. He was plugged from a few feet. He’s dead.”

  “I know he’s dead. You were supposed to be guarding him. What happened?”

  Lundahl straightened up a bit defensively. “He decided to call it a day and sack in early. I walked him from the car to his apartment and went inside with him—”

  “How did he get in? Use his own keys or did someone open the door for him?”

  “No,” Lundahl said. “He used his own key. He lived alone. Anyway, I went through the place the same as I did last night; I checked the windows to see they were locked, looked in the closets—the works, under the beds, behind the furniture—”

  “And?”

  “And there wasn’t anything, so I said good night and left. I heard him put the double lock on, and I waited until I heard him put up the safety chain—” His voice trailed off.

  “And?” Reardon was getting impatient.

  Lundahl looked slightly embarrassed, and then forced the look from his face with the attitude of one whose conscience is clear.

  “Well, I’d done everything I should have done, outside of sleeping with him, so I went back to my car—”

  “Where were you parked?”

  “Around the corner. He didn’t want to drive up to his apartment building directly; figured he’d be an easier target sitting in a car where he couldn’t duck, than walking up—with me a bit in front of him, you can be damn sure.”

  “All right. And?”

  “So I was on my way back to the car when I heard these shots. I knew it was Sekara, don’t ask me how, but damn it, I knew! I ran back and the goddam downstairs door was locked. There’s another door leading from the foyer to the basement and that was open, but that didn’t help any, so I rang a flock of bells, and finally somebody buzzed to open the door, and then when I got to his floor—”

  “Which floor was it?”

  “The second, which is why I always checked the windows. A guy could make it to his window without much trouble, but that wasn’t what happened tonight, because when I got there his front door was open and he was lying across the sill, dead. Well, I knew nobody had come out the front of the apartment, so I—”

  “How did you get up there? Stairs or elevator?”

  “Stairs; they’re a lot faster. Anyway—”

  “Suppose somebody came down the elevator while you were going up?”

  “No,” Lundahl said positively. “How could they know I’d take the steps? Anyway, like I said, I was pretty sure nobody had come out the front, so I hiked through the apartment, and the back door was open, and when I had checked out the place that door had been locked and the safety chain had been on, so whoever shot him just waltzed out the back door and down the back stairs.”

  “That’s great!” Reardon said bitterly.

  “What was I supposed to do?” Lundahl asked, suddenly aggrieved. “How in hell was I to know the stupid bastard would open his front door to the first stranger who came along, the minute I left?” He suddenly frowned. “And just why in hell did he open it, I wonder?”

  A thought came to Reardon. “Would he have opened it for a woman?”

  “Naw. Not Sekara. I don’t think they meant that much to him, and anyway, if he wanted a dame, he didn’t have to hide her from me.” He shook his head, wondering aloud. “Why did he open it?”

  “Don’t wear your brain out wondering,” Reardon said coldly. “All it took was somebody waiting on the basement steps for you to leave. Then all he had to do was to buzz Sekara on the intercom, say he was you and that you had dropped something, or forgotten something in the apartment. With the timing right, Sekara wouldn’t even think twice about it—he’d buzz the door release, and open his own front door when whoever it was came up and rapped. And that was just how simple it was.”

  “And what in hell was I supposed to do to stop it?” Lundahl cried, irritated at the unfairness of it all.

  “How the hell do I know?” Reardon said savagely. He swung around and marched over to the Technical car. Sergeant Wilkins was helping his assistant pack his gear away. Reardon’s voice lowered automatically. “Hello, Frank. Any luck with anything?”

  Wilkins looked up. “Hi, Jim. Luck? None. Whoever shot Sekara wasn’t accommodating enough to leave any fingerprints. The knob and the back door were clean, and I can’t see why he would hang around long enough after the shooting to handle much of anything else.”

  “Did you check the chain, too?”

  Wilkins stared at him. “You’re tired, Jim. Of course we checked the chain—the head of one of those things is perfect for prints. It was clean. And so was the railing going down the back; somebody wiped it down, probably with gloves on their way down.”

  “Sorry. How about the gun? Or the bullets?”

  “No gun. They’ll have to dig for the bullets downtown.”

  Reardon sighed. “Anything else? At all?”

  “Well,” Wilkins said, “we looked around in back as much as we could with our lights—we’ll take another look in the morning—but you can cut through from the back area to the next street, and there’s a regular warren of driveways and winding streets, and God knows what in this neighborhood. We did find some bicycle tracks, but they could have been from anyone in the building, or even a newsboy, but we cast them for luck, and just to be safe we put it out to the cars to look for anyone on a bike around here, because it’s a little late for anyone to be delivering newspapers, or pedaling for exercize …”

  It was a long speech for Sergeant Wilkins, an exceptionally long speech, but it was about all he could offer Reardon in lieu of sympathy. He shrugged and went back to putting away his camera equipment, speaking over his shoulder.

  “Anyway, nothing on the bike so far, and nothing on any suspicious characters loitering.”

  “So what’s your guess?”

  “My guess is that whoever knocked off Mr. Sekara knew pretty much what he was doing. The killer probably parked one or two streets over, and he could have been in his car and on his way two minutes after the shooting. Probably while Stan was still trying to get into the apartment building. Maybe someone will remember seeing somebody in a driveway, once the news gets out tomorrow, for whatever good that will do.” Reardon started to turn away, toward the apartment. “Save your time, Jim. We’ve been over everything and the apartment’s all locked and sealed. You’ll see a copy of the report in the morning.”

&n
bsp; Sergeant Wilkins moved to the front of the car, sliding into the passenger side of the front seat while his assistant put the key in the ignition and released the hand brake. Ahead of them the ambulance pulled from the curb, followed in turn by the patrol car. Dondero and Bennett were waiting back beside Bennett’s car. Whatever small crowd had formed at the excitement was beginning to drift away. Wilkins closed the door and looked up at Reardon through the open window. His nasal voice was meant to be kindly.

  “Take it easy, Jim. Nobody could have stopped this one.”

  “Yeah. Just tell that to Captain Tower, though!”

  “Don’t worry about the captain,” Wilkins advised. “He doesn’t just read the words in those reports; he reads the meaning, too. He won’t give you a hard time.”

  But I will, Reardon thought bitterly, and watched as the car moved off. His eyes swung about, to the yellow-brick front of the new high-rise apartment, climbing the impersonal face of the building to the second-floor windows with their shades drawn. What could Stan have done to prevent the killing, indeed? He sighed, shook his head in disgust, and then walked back to the car and climbed wearily into the back seat. Dondero and Bennett silently slid into the front seat. Bennett turned around.

  “Where to now, Lieutenant?”

  Where to, indeed? Reardon thought. Sufficient unto the day is the lousing-up thereof …

  “Home,” he said at last, and leaned back against the cushions wearily, closing his eyes.

  Saturday—12:05 a.m.

  Jan was waiting up for him when he turned the key to his flat; she was wearing a pair of his pajamas and one of his summer robes, with the sleeves rolled up. They looked like huge doughnuts around her wrists. She was comfortably curled up in a chair, watching him solemnly. He grinned at her, yawned mightily and slipped off his jacket, hanging it on a chair back and straightening it. Whenever Jan was around he tried to at least give the appearance of neatness.

  “Can I get you something, Jim? A drink?”

  “A glass of buttermilk, if we’ve got any.” He started to pull his necktie over his head and then changed his mind, unknotting it instead. It didn’t look any better that way, he thought, and draped it neatly over his jacket.