Her words were ice cold. “Seven–seven fifteen. Around that time.”
I started walking around the room. I could hear Betty Heck bustling around in the kitchenette.
“But that can’t be. Artel was killed in my office this afternoon. Hours before that phone call.” I stopped walking. I looked down at her. “That was a bum call, Lois. You trying to tell me you couldn’t tell it wasn’t his voice?”
She stared up at me. “It could have been a bad connection. He sounded so rushed and scared I didn’t stop to think. But like you say–it had to be someone pretending to be him. Why do you think, Buster? Tell me why?”
Betty Heck came laboring out of her kitchenette with a tray loaded down with coffee and goodies. I hardly noticed them. Facts and figures were pinwheeling around behind my eyeballs begging me to get them in order.
“Ouch,” I said. “I’m getting a headache. None of this makes any sense. Somebody suckers you down to the office, maybe knowing it’s going to be burned, maybe hoping you’ll get picked up and be involved. Why is right. Damned if I know. Maybe Bim Caesar had it right the first time. There could be an outside party involved in all this. But what was your boss Artel and Bim Caesar throwing in together for? What did they have cooked up? I’ll be hanged if I haven’t gotten more sense than this out of a Marx Brothers movie.”
“Maybe you ought to have a cup of Betty’s nice coffee, Buster,” Lois Hunt suggested acidly.
“Come on, Noon,” Betty Heck piped up. “It’s good and hot. Take a load off your feet.”
They were clanking away with the spoons and sugar and cream when I thought of something else.
“Lois, what did you think of that attempt on Betty’s life down at the office? Or did you go along with Artel’s theory that one of the colored boys got amorous?”
There was a strained silence. Betty Heck smiled nervously and Lois Hunt suddenly made the stirring of her coffee the most concentrated single act of her life. Betty guffawed.
“Never mind what Lois thought, Noon. Lois is okay. She’s always been good to me. Not like other dames treated me. Leave her out of this, please. It don’t matter what she thought.”
I creamed my coffee lightly. “Suit yourself, Elizabeth. I’m only trying to help, that’s all.”
Lois Hunt looked up from her coffee. “That’s okay, honey. Mister Noon is just used to asking questions. No matter how nasty they are. Fair enough. I’ll tell him what he wants to know.” Her eyes burned into mine telling me what a genuine, Grade A bastard she thought I was because they were the eyes of a person who has to tell the truth and shame that genuine, Grade A bastard. “I thought Betty made a mistake. She hadn’t been feeling well and I thought she got the whole thing mixed up somehow. I know now she didn’t but that’s what I honestly thought at the time. And she knows that because I told her then.”
Betty smiled her gratitude. I sipped some of my coffee and set the cup down again.
“Fair enough. And congratulations, Lois. You’re a straight-shooter for a dame. And I like straight shooters.”
She shrugged again. “So now I’m honest. So what?”
I smiled. “I need all the help I can get on this one. I’ve got nothing but crazy facts that don’t add up. And I’ve got an appointment down at Headquarters tomorrow that I’m going to have to keep. I don’t know what they’ve made out of that fire yet.”
Betty Heck shivered. “I wonder how it started.”
I stopped smiling. “I wonder who started it.”
“You don’t have to wonder anymore,” Lois Hunt said out loud so there was no mistaking her tone of voice. “I did.”
I picked up my coffee slowly, sipped from it, took it out of my mouth and stared across the top of it at Lois Hunt. Betty Heck just snorted incredulously.
“Prove it,” I said coolly.
Lois Hunt sprang to her feet, tossing her pony tail at me defiantly. She put her strong, long fingers on her arched hips and sneered. The sneer made her thinnish lips thinner than ever.
“You’re the detective, Mister Noon. You prove it. Bart’s dead now so it doesn’t make any difference anyhow. I’m dumb enough to tell you that I put the match to Sleep-Tite. But I’m not dumb enough to tell you how or why. This way I’m just telling you and Betty about it. Otherwise it’s my word against yours. Now, what do you say to that?”
“I’ve got lots to say, Miss Hunt. People who start fires annoy me. I don’t care what the reasons are or who they’re in love with. Another thing that gets me boiling are dames who are under the thumb of their lovers. Or did dear old Bartholomew have something on you? Is that it?”
Her eyes spit at me. “You are a wise bastard, aren’t you?”
“Wise enough to know that you lied about the phone call too. Artel didn’t phone you. Nobody did. You and Artel had planned the fire long before this. Okay, I’m not going to ask you about it at all. All I’m doing is grabbing my coat and hat and giving your girl friend back her hundred bills and getting out of here. I should stick my neck into a screwed up deal like this one.”
That did it. Betty Heck shook like jello and set up her own little wailing wall.
“Ed–you can’t do that! You promised–I hired you didn’t I? Who’s gonna protect me if you don’t? I need you–”
“Look, Betty,” I tried to curb the anger in my voice. “The cops and me have only one little grievance. Artel’s body being found in my office. I can fix that one. But all the rest of this isn’t worth anything but trouble. Tangling with Bim Caesar, now this fire bug here. And some third maniac running around loose with a high-powered rifle. No bet, lady. Here’s your dough back.” I reached back into, my hip for my wallet.
Betty Heck blubbered, coming toward me. For a second, I thought she was going to throw her arms around me.
“Please, Ed.” I was Ed now. “I’m scared. Honest I wish I knew what this was all about so I could help you solve this. But I don’t, honest. All I do is test mattresses–”
“Let him go, honey,” Lois Hunt sneered again. “Can’t you see he’s yellow?”
My hand came out of my pocket. But my wallet was still where it always was.
“Sticks and stones may break my bones, etcetera. But don’t give me any of your lip, sister. You don’t have any to spare. And while you’re being so damned righteous, I’d like to remind you that you haven’t been any help at all. You’re holding back. Way back. And I don’t see why Betty here considers you her friend when you don’t lift a finger to help her. From where I sit, I think you could probably help us a whole handful.”
Sometimes my aggravating conversational techniques do get results. There was a sudden silence broken only by Betty Heck’s heavy breathing as she stared at her co-worker, buddy and compatriot. The point I had made had suddenly penetrated that fat-padded brain. Why should I help when Lois Hunt knew so much and was clamming up so unbecomingly?
Lois Hunt fidgeted and her breasts rose and fell in agitated rhythm. I waited. Betty Heck’s eyes were riveted in one direction. On Lois Hunt’s face.
“What about it, Lois?” Betty said huskily. “Why should Ed risk his neck when you don’t try to help at all?”
“Betty,” Lois Hunt’s voice rose pleadingly. “I’d like to but I can’t–”
“Why can’t you?” I asked.
“Because you wouldn’t understand, you smart aleck. Neither would Betty. It’d be too crazy to believe–”
“Aw, Lois,” Betty Heck said gruffly. “Nothin’ can be that bad.”
“Betty, I can’t! It wouldn’t help anyhow. Not with what you’re thinking. Burning down the joint has nothing to do with anybody trying to kill you or hurt you–”
“Oh, beans,” I said disgustedly. “What do they teach you sweet young things at college anyway? It probably has everything to do with it. Come on. You burned down the place to get rid of a lot of records that the legal boys shouldn’t see, that right?”
“I’m not talking to you anymore, Buster,” she ripped at me. “If
it wasn’t for Betty, you could go straight to hell.”
Betty Heck put an arm around her. “Honest, I know you’re upset about your man getting killed but Ed’s all right. He saved my life tonight. What a man. That’s why I wish you’d do like he says and tell him what you know. Come on, honey. It means a lot to me.”
“Scratch around, Lois, and you’ll see that Betty’s talking a lot of sense.”
Lois Hunt sighed and straightened out her slumping shoulders. “Okay,” she said. “What the hell’s the difference? Bart’s dead and I just don’t care one way or the other anymore what happens. What do you want to know?”
Her change of heart tickled me pink. She struck me as a girl I’d like to have on my side. She could be a big help and I knew it. Betty Heck knew it too. She practically glowed with pleasure.
“Okay, Lois,” I said. “Why the fire? There must be a good reason.”
“There is.” She winced but her tone was matter-of-fact now that she had decided to spill the works. “Bart was separated from a wife and three kids in Chicago and in hock up to his ears–”
“Wait a sec, Lois? What kind of debts? Gambling?”
She shook her head. “No, definitely. Business debts. We’d had some bad contracts and he was in to the bank for five grand. I wanted to get married. Bad. He wanted to too. I was nuts about him and tired of waiting. That’s why he suggested the fire. Sleep-Tite is heavily insured for fire loss. All those mattresses. He was going to collect and not put it back into the business. It sounded like the answer to a maiden’s prayer. Nobody’d get hurt and we’d have all that dough to get a fresh start out of town away from everything.”
“Why did he want you to do the actual job? It doesn’t seem like a woman’s job, somehow.”
She snorted. “Bart was smart. He figured everybody would think that. So he wanted to be far away with a perfect alibi. Hell, the insurance jokers would investigate something like that fire plenty before they paid off. Breaking phony claims is their specialty. We’re covered by Northern All-Risk. Heard of them, haven’t you?”
“I have. Did some extra work for them a few years back. How did you arrange this accidental arson or is that a trade secret?”
Her smile was proud. “They wouldn’t have tagged us with it in a million years. No gasoline-soaked rags, no wood shavings or any tip-offs like that at all. We work late sometimes. So somebody must have left a cigarette burning on the desk. All those letters and papers. The windows are always closed and the blinds drawn. It wouldn’t take too long for a man-sized fire to get going and burn up a lot of mattress stuffing samples that are always in the office. The storehouse in the rear is piled high with stock besides. It was perfect, I tell you.”
I shook my head. “Don’t gloat until the field men make their survey. But we’ll skip that for now. So Artel gave you a monetary reason for the fire-to-be and you believed him. Well, that’s life. The Artels of this world can make anything sound like Gospel, I guess.”
She flared up as quickly as her fire must have. “What do you mean? I’m giving it to you just how it was, mister. Don’t make anything else out of it.”
“Dames,” I sighed. “Dear adorable dopey dames. Love makes the world go round. So anything that’s done for love has to be the plain, perfect, unvarnished truth. Well, Miss Hunt, you’ve been kidded. When Sleep-Tite burned down tonight, it wasn’t just for fire insurance. I’ll stake my life and license on that. Something was burned up that Artel wanted to burn up. He was hiding something. Getting rid of it the best way possible, obviously. By fire. I don’t know what it was this minute. Maybe it was counterfeit money or something like that. But it must have been just as crooked and just as necessary to burn. Believe the love routine if you like but you gotta excuse me, sister. I don’t go for the birds and the bees quite that much.”
Lois Hunt turned around deliberately and stared at Betty Heck and folded her arms.
“I don’t like your friend, Betty. I’m sorry. But I don’t like him at all.”
Betty Heck laughed nervously. “Noon’s all right, Lois. It’s just his way of talkin’. He grows on you. Just you wait and see.”
She sneered all over. “He should live so long.”
“The odds are lousier than that,” somebody said. “I’d say he hasn’t got that long at all. Maybe not even five minutes worth. Stand still, all of you. Nobody’s going anywhere for awhile.”
Somebody was standing near the door of the room. Somebody else was closing it and snapping the lock home. Another somebody was easing around to one side, pointing something at all three of us that looked pretty frighteningly cannon-like for an ordinary, plain, garden variety sawed-off shotgun.
The somebody who had spoken was Lon. Tall, sinister Lon. He had one awful black eye, a honey of a shiner, but it made him look twice as sinister if anything. The somebody closing the door was big, broad Cuba, the bouncer at Bim Caesar’s place. The other somebody, the specialist with the sawed-off shotgun was Bucky. Bucky with one sleeve split down the middle and several assorted plasters dotting his ugly face. He didn’t look friendly at all.
Three somebodies who had lots of reasons for meeting up with me and Betty Heck again.
My .45 was miles away in my shoulder holster and as I raised my hands wearily over my head, I never felt more like a nobody in my life.
CHAPTER SEVEN
It came at me like an express train.
“The cab driver,” I groaned. “The nice simple little cab driver. Of course. He drops his fare off and goes right back to where he picked them up for more of the same. At the night club where drunks are always stumbling out looking for taxis. Gentlemen, I deserve this. I feel pretty stupid right now. A guy like me should have known better.”
Lon chuckled. “When he heard how much we wanted to see you again, he drove us right up to the door. Fat gal’s name is in the bell downstairs. Just like that we all get together again. Small world, ain’t it?”
“Disgustingly so,” I agreed. “Ladies, be ladies and raise your hands and don’t either of you faint, please. All we’re going to do is talk this thing over. That’s right, isn’t it, Lon?”
I didn’t feel at all like bantering but the script called for it. Betty Heck was a solid mass of fright again and Lois Hunt’s face was a stiff mask of nothing. Two thoroughly frightened dames. I wasn’t going to try anything at all. They just wouldn’t be ready if I tried some fancy footwork toward getting us out of this mess.
Cuba laughed out loud and moved easily around the room, enjoying himself completely. But Bucky wasn’t burying any hatchets at all. He was frowning at Betty Heck over the twin muzzles of his sawed-off shotgun as if he wanted to see if the thing worked. I couldn’t exactly blame him. Lon and Bucky both looked like what you’d expect two guys to look like who had tangled with a furious, four hundred and forty pound female.
I kept an eye on Cuba because he was big, mean and untrustworthy. He also had a couple of scores to even up with me and La Heck. Lois Hunt was the only one that was really in the clear on the bad blood issue.
Lon was lining me up in the sights of a long-barreled .38. The one eye that wasn’t blackened held a grudging admiration for me.
“Guys like you I like, Noon,” he said slowly. “You make me wish you’d throw in with us. You would make a swell crook. Fast with the noodle, you know all the angles and you could hold your own in any company. So what happens? You cross Bim Caesar for no good reason that I can see. Bingo. End of one more smart operator who could have had a swell career.”
I laughed. “That sounds like a touching valedictory for a School For Crime. Save it. And let’s go where we gotta go. I’m getting dizzy from all this running around town.”
Bucky’s eyes shifted from Betty Heck and singled me out. “Shut up!” he snarled. “Save the jokes, you sonofabitch. I haven’t forgotten you, mister.” His tiny eyes slitted. “Vala–what? Lon, is he swearing at you?”
Somewhere behind me Cuba laughed. The next thing I knew was a kic
k. Cuba’s big shoe knifed into my shin, point first. I went down on one knee, a thousand needles of pain flashing up my leg. I closed my teeth but water tried to force its way out from behind my eyeballs.
“He’s a tough guy,” Cuba chuckled easily. “Very tough. We gotta break him down bit by bit. One piece at a time. He said so himself. Didn’t you, Noon?”
Betty Heck shrieked low but it cut off immediately as Bucky thrust the shotgun almost in her face. “Shut up, Fatso, before we start on you.”
I steadied myself painfully. I spread a cold, fool grin across my face. One thing I have no particular love for is getting messed up by the goons before they take me to the Big Cheese.
“Finished, boys? I’m ready to leave anytime you are.”
Lon shook his long head, the .38 waggling with his wonder.
“Cut it out, Cuba. Bim’ll want to talk to him. Won’t do us any good if he ain’t in any shape for talking. So knock it off.”
Cuba’s shrug was mammoth. “I can wait.”
Lois Hunt suddenly snapped out of her trance. She crossed her lovely legs and Lon’s attention shifted to her. She tried a dazzling, sunny smile on him.
“Well, I just dropped in for a visit. I’m sure you don’t need me. So I guess I’ll be running along, if you don’t mind–”
Lon showed her his teeth. They were long and pointed like the rest of him.
“You won’t be running anywhere, Miss Hunt. I know you. Artel’s doll. Bim’ll want to talk to you too. So don’t try nothin’ and you won’t get hurt.”
I was getting impatient. “Come on, let’s get to it. I’m sure Bim’ll be getting his dander up if we don’t get there real quick. So let’s go, huh? I’m tired of talking about it.”
Cuba and Bucky both started for me with murder in their eyes but Lon waved them off.
“Knock it off, you dopes. Can’t you figure this guy out yet? Don’t let him rile you. He’s right anyway. Let’s get moving.” He pointed the .38 at all three of us. “Get your duds. Fast, and no funny stuff. We’ll be watching every move you make.”
The Case of the Bouncing Betty Page 7