by Jerry eBooks
His head was clearing but it was still difficult to remember.
“Why would Flaherty kill me because I refused to give up investigating you?”
“You know a lot about the rackets, Hayssen. When Flaherty found out who I was, he obviously thought that it would be dangerous for you to find me. He probably figured that you and I would get together.”
Hayssen was puzzled. It was so hard to think, so difficult to get things straight.
“I see I had better explain things further.” Lehman dug some cards out of his wallet and passed them over to Hayssen.
“I’m on a citizen’s committee, Hayssen, working in conjunction with the Congressional Crime Investigating Committee. As you know, Flahertys’ administration is one of the most corrupt in the city’s history. We’ve been trying to get the goods on Flaherty and his mob and we think we’ve found a way to do it.”
“What about the vial?” Hayssen asked. He had almost forgotten about the vial and Lehman’s connection with it. Almost forgotten—“I was coming to that. You see, that’s where I think you can be of service to us, Hayssen. Naturally you want to be of service?”
There was a thin edge of threat to that request but only a corner of Hayssen’s mind caught it.
He nodded dumbly.
“The vial contains a serum that the citizen’s committee has developed. Call it a compulsion serum, for lack of a better name. We’ve been trying to get Flaherty to take some of it. Naturally, we can’t legally force him to take it against his will so we have been trying to get him to take the serum under a guise. It may not be strictly legal but then you have to fight fire with fire!”
It was strictly for the movies, a corner of Hayssen’s mind thought. Strictly cloak and dagger.
But he wouldn’t think of opposing Lehman’s will. Lehman had saved his life.
Lehman continued. “Flaherty has discovered my connection with the citizens’ committee and so my usefulness has been largely ended. But Flaherty doesn’t know that you have found me—or vice versa. And that’s where you can be of help.” Everything seemed so plausible when Lehman told it to him. Lehman was right, absolutely right.
Whatever Lehman asked him to do he would.
“How can I be of help?”
Lehman was all business now.
“It’s still necessary for Flaherty to take the serum. You see, it’s a much improved version of neoscopolamine. Once he takes it, he’ll truthfully answer all questions put to him. Now he’s wise to me. But he wouldn’t suspect you. You could get it to him.”
Lehman smiled. “So he did. Maybe you could get to see him about it, agree that you have other things to do, that you are actually too busy to continue the case anyway. Anything you happen to think of. Somehow you can get him to take a drink and slip the contents of the vial into it. It’s tasteless and he won’t suspect.
“You still have the vial you picked up at his office, don’t you?” Hayssen felt around in his pocket and dually came up with the vial of sparkling liquid.
“Good. Just put that in his drink and we’ll clean up the city in nothing flat. And, of course, there’ll be a tidy sum in it for you.”
Hayssen was thinking hard. There was somebody connected with his, somebody who had tried to save his life some time ago. A long, long time ago.
“What about Catherine Cooper, Flaherty’s secretary? She knows something about this. And yet—it’s hard to believe that she’d be mixed up in something like this.”
Lehman looked at him sadly, like the best friend who wouldn’t tell him that he had BO.
“Flaherty wouldn’t hire a secretary he couldn’t trust, Hayssen. Or one who would be afraid to work in the type of business he’s actually in. I’m afraid that Catherine Cooper is in as deeply as Flaherty himself.”
He watched the expression flit over Hayssen’s face.
“Of course, if you could find her and bring her in to me, perhaps we could get her to turn state’s evidence. The sentence would be light, then.”
Hayssen nodded. He felt confused and sick. Dimly, he felt that something was incredibly wrong.
But he had to trust Lehman. And Lehman had saved his life.
He picked up his hat. “I guess I better be going then. And thanks a lot.” His voice trailed off. “Thanks a lot for everything.”
He wandered out into the hallway.
Behind him, Lehman closed the door and went to his desk. He opened a drawer that revealed a long panel of buttons. He pressed one and the interior of the room shimmered and disappeared. There was nothing left but a bare floor with dust on it and electric outlets with their protective caps still on.
Hayssen stood in the shadows and watched the apartment building. Cathy’s room was black. But she’d be coming back sometime that night. She’d come back and then he would get her and take her to Lehman.
It was too bad she had to be mixed up with Flaherty. Too bad. But somehow he didn’t feel that she knew what she was doing.
Lehman had said that she was in it as deeply as Flaherty, though.
And he had also said that she could turn state’s evidence and get off with a light sentence.
He felt the sweat standing on his forehead, even though the night was cold. Something inside was fighting his reasoning, something was trying to warn him against it.
A girl was coming up the walk now. He spotted her blond hair peeking out from under a black velvet hat.
It was Cathy.
She swung into the apartment building and disappeared. A moment later the lights went on in her room.
Hayssen started across the street.
A car that had been parked at the curb swung forward and blocked his way.
“O.K., Hayssen, in here,” a voice said.
He started to reach for his gun.
“I wouldn’t, Hayssen.” The door to the car was open. He got in.
A couple of men were in the back seat and Hayssen recognized them as the newsboy and the elevator operator. He remembered a little more. How they had tried to kill him at the apartment site.
They blindfolded him and tied his arms. One of them fished Hayssen’s gun out of his shoulder holster and let it drop to the floor of the car.
“You won’t be needing that.”
They drove for a long time and Hayssen couldn’t keep track of the number of turns they made.
They finally stopped the car and helped him out. It was late at night and he guessed that there was nobody around to see them.
He stumbled up some stairs and felt himself being led down a hallway. Then he was in a wooden chair and they were taking the blindfold off his eyes.
He was in a kitchen, a modern kitchen, with all metal cabinets and a shiny modern stove. A gas stove.
The men were busy, tying what looked like strings to the windows and the kitchen door. The various threads and strings ended up in an apparatus that looked like an alarm clock. The “newsboy” set the clock for a certain time, then turned the hands until they reached it.
The clock wound up, the strings drew taut, and the windows opened and the door swung wide. The clock continued winding and the various strings disappeared inside it. The newsboy hastily pressed another button and the clock stopped. Hayssen had a hunch that if the button hadn’t been pushed, the clock would have disappeared in a flash of flame like—Like what? He tried to think and couldn’t.
The peddler came over and pressed a few nerves in Hayssen’s neck. After that, Hayssen couldn’t move a muscle, but just sat there, hunched over the kitchen table.
The newsboy set up the system of strings again and attached them to the clocklike apparatus. They would turn on the stove, Hayssen thought, and after a certain amount of time had elapsed—when he was dead—the clocklike apparatus would come to life and automatically open the windows and the doors, airing the room out. The police would have a difficult time figuring out how he had died.
The peddler came over to inspect Hayssen before turning on the gas. He seemed puzzled for a mome
nt and then rolled one of Hayssen’s eyelids back.
“He’s been drugged!”
The others crowded around. One of them said: “Let’s test it for sure.”
The newsboy got a glass of water and poured it down Hayssen’s throat.
His stomach reacted automatically and he threw up, the frothy fluid bubbling from his mouth like a baby drooling the breakfast gruel.
“He’s been drugged all right.”
One of them got a rag and wiped the table and Hayssen’s front. It wasn’t too good a job but then it wouldn’t make any difference in another minute.
“We could bring him out of it,” one of them suggested.
Another shrugged. “Why bother?”
They turned on the gas and left.
He could smell it. A sharp and yet sweet odor that drifted silently across the room.
He was almost under, the room had become a faint blur, when the door opened and Cathy Cooper came in.
She opened the windows and turned off the gas and then held Hayssen in her arms. The partial paralysis had worn off and his arms tightened around her. Then he was on his feet.
Cathy stared at him, puzzled, and then looked into his eyes.
Her face blanched.
“You’ve been drugged!” she breathed.
He was looking at her rather coldly.
“I’m afraid you’ll have to come with me, Cathy. Lehman wants to see you.”
She stared at him. “What makes you think I should see Lehman?” She had a frightened, trapped look on her face.
“Look,” he pleaded. “You can turn state’s evidence. That way you’ll get off with a light sentence!”
“Light sentence! State’s evidence!” She started to laugh bitterly. “What a fool you turned out to he. You think it’s something as insignificant as a crime probe. Why you fool, you don’t even know what it’s all about. You’re as gullible as all the ancients. And you’re supposed to be a detective!”
She was defiant.
“Besides, what makes you think I’ll go to Lehman with you?”
Hayssen held a light, slim pistol in his hand.
“I got this out of your handbag a moment ago. I’m sorry but you’ll have to come in.” He had tried to keep his voice businesslike but he couldn’t hide a thin quiver in it.
She looked at him with pity welling up in her eyes. “You’ve been drugged,” she said quietly. “I don’t think you would do this otherwise.”
She picked up her fur coat and walked before him.
Hayssen had a momentary urge to throw the gun away, to comfort her and tell her it had all been a mistake.
It wasn’t right, it wasn’t right, it wasn’t right.
And yet he couldn’t think straight enough to know why it should be wrong.
The house was a handsome house in a beautiful neighborhood. Hayssen went up the walk and worked the fancy brass knocker.
The door opened and Flaherty stood framed in the opening. He looked dourly down at Hayssen.
“Aren’t you even going to invite me in?” Hayssen asked.
The mayor grunted and stepped aside. Hayssen walked in and followed Flaherty into the library.
It wasn’t going to be easy, Hayssen thought. He hadn’t the faintest notion of what to ask Flaherty or How to trick him in to setting up some drinks.
Flaherty made himself comfortable in a huge easy-chair. He didn’t invite-Hayssen to sit down.
“O.K., now, what’s the deal? Why couldn’t you see me at my office tomorrow?”
“I wanted to tell you that I’m dropping the Lehman case as of, right now.”
“So? I’ve already ordered you to drop the Lehman case. This doesn’t add anything new.”
Hayssen thought frantically.
“I think I have a right to know why I was fired.”
Flaherty looked annoyed. “If you want it that way, it’s all right with me. I have it on good authority that for a private detective you’re not a very good one. You’re incompetent.”
That was a logical reason for Flaherty to give, Hayssen thought. Flaherty would hardly say that it was because Lehman was after, him and it was too dangerous for Hayssen and Lehman to get together.
He looked at Flaherty with contempt. An old man with cancer who ran the worst city machine in history. There was a time when he had been more tolerant but Lehman had soon set him right on that.
He thought of Lehman with a vague sort of uneasiness. Lehman was telling him a lot of things, quite a lot.
For the twentieth time that day he tried to pin down an elusive thought that somehow just escaped him. It was always there, just trembling on the edge of his mind, wanting to be heard. But he could never quite grasp it, never get a hold on it.
Flaherty was. looking at him rather thoughtfully.
“I’m sorry I trusted you, Hayssen. You can still ruin me, you know. But I don’t think you will. It would be too unhealthy.”
Flaherty was fencing with him.
It might serve his purpose to fence, too.
He took a chair without being asked and made himself at home.
“I suppose I could ruin you, Flaherty—if I wanted to.”
Flaherty look the bait. “What do you mean, if you wanted to?”
Hayssen yawned. “I’m thirsty. We might do better if we talked about it over some drinks. I’ve heard you have a good liquor cabinet.”
Flaherty grunted and rang a bell. A moment later a servant appeared and Flaherty ordered up the drinks.
It was a nice cool drink. Hayssen sipped at it while he thought desperately of what to say next.
“I didn’t know you collected antiques, Flaherty.”
He was looking past Flaherty at an old cherry table that served as a coffee stand.
Flaherty glanced around and Hayssen had the vial out and over Flaherty’s glass, ready to empty its contents into the liquid.
A hand came out of nowhere, holding a cube of ice between a delicate pair of tongs.
“Do you wish more ice, Mr. Hayssen?”
He palmed the vial and glanced up in dismay. A sudden shock ran through him when he recognized the butler.
It was the clerk in the grocery store who had waited on him.
Flaherty turned back to Hayssen. “As a matter of fact, I don’t. My wife does. Now what did you mean when you said you could ruin me if you wanted to?”
Hayssen jerked his thumb towards the butler.
Flaherty looked grim.
“That’s all right, Hayssen. Whatever you have to say, it’s all right if Jonas hears it. You see, the doctors can’t help him either.”
Hayssen let out his breath in a slow sigh of disappointment. He couldn’t do it. It was impossible now. With only Flaherty to contend with, he might have distracted him long enough to slip the contents of the vial into his drink. With the butler there too, he wouldn’t be able to do it.
“I was only kidding,” he said. “I didn’t mean it. I didn’t mean it at all.”
He left a few minutes later. He could feel Flaherty and the butler watching him through the front window.
When he got to the end of the block he turned and disappeared from their view. A moment later he cut up the alley and ended standing in the shadow of a tree several doors down arid across the street from Flaherty’s house.
He had a hunch that Flaherty’s butler didn’t live there and he was right. A half hour passed and then the front door opened and a figure left and walked rapidly down the street. Hayssen waited until the figure had a little head start and then he started after it.
He would have to catch the butler before he got to a main street.
It was dark out and a storm was blowing in from the west. The thunder drowned out Hayssen’s footsteps.
He was behind the butler now. He shoved his pistol into the small of Jonas’ back.
“We’ll go home my way,” he said softly.
The figure jerked, startled.
“You waited outside, I see. Very clever
of you.”
“I think so. It’s about time I wised up, isn’t it?”
The butler sneered. “I suppose you’ll show how smart you are by taking me to Lehman?”
Hayssen wondered a little. He supposed that’s what he should be doing. But he wasn’t. And the fact that he wanted to find out something on his own didn’t quite explain why.
“As a matter of fact, I’m not. We’re going to my apartment and you’re going to answer some questions directly to me.”
The butler laughed. “You’re rather simple, Hayssen. I don’t think you’re going to walk over to your apartment. And you don’t have a car. That means we’ll have to catch a bus or a streetcar. And once we do, what’s to prevent me from simply walking away? I rather doubt that you would use your pistol in the open like that.”
“What a shame,” Hayssen said calmly. “You’ve pointed out the flaw in my plan. I suppose I’ll have to kill you right here and now.”
He grinned to himself at the butler’s sudden rush of fear.
“But I’m not. And for that matter, we could take a cab home. But we’re not going to do that either. We’re going by streetcar and you’re going with me. Because you’ll want to.”
“I don’t see how—”
Hayssen took a common pin out of his pocket and held it behind the butler’s ear, then jabbed sharply down with it. It drew a drop of blood and a startled cry from his captive.
“That’s rather simple, too. You’ve probably read all about it. The slow acting poison that only the hero has the antidote for. In this case, it’s at my apartment.”
“You have a good imagination, Hayssen. I don’t believe you.”
Hayssen laughed. “O.K. then, don’t.” Go ahead. Walk away. I’m merely shooting off my mouth to make conversation.”
The butler hesitated and then reluctantly gave in.
“And by the way, Jonas. We’ll go up the back way. I wouldn’t want any of your friends to run into us.”
They made themselves comfortable in Hayssen’s living room. The butler was sweating, small beads of sweat that crept into the corners of his eyes and made them water.