I stared down at my coat automatically. Almost like a robot. Hadley wasn’t making anything up. My top button was gone and the one in his hand certainly looked like the matching article.
I looked at Hadley. His eyes, as small as they were, looked kind.
“That’s it, Ed. Circumstantial, sure. But pat enough to be convincing. Come on, now. Why did you kill her?”
I wasn’t listening to him anymore. Wasn’t listening for a very good reason. The good reason was the corpse beneath my very feet. Betty Heck, the fat girl who had rushed into my office yesterday morning with wild tales about somebody killing her.
But even in death the fat girl was trying to tell me something. I stared down at her hard, made myself forget the twisted, bloated, shocked face, the un-natural, un-nice position of her body. Hadley’s voice of doom was still right at my ear but I tried to get the message from the other side of the grave that Betty Heck was trying to send me.
It came. Just like that. The confusion, the noise and the horror evaporated just long enough for the message to come in clear.
It hit me suddenly with the force of a jet take-off.
One hand, one fleshy, fat hand was mashed to one side of her bruised face but the sausage-like index finger had tried to do something even with death coming on. It was thrust-out, trying to tug or at least point to one of the sightless, dead eyes in her face. It hadn’t quite made it but the gesture was there and I think I recognized it for what it was. Like Beau Geste–a gallant gesture. But that wasn’t all it was.
It made me feel a little better, getting that message from her. As if she hadn’t died in vain. As if something could be done about the terrible way she had died.
Hadley wasn’t interested in messages.
“Come on,” he snapped gruffly. “Get up and stop mooning. We’ll give you every break in the book. But don’t try anything. I want a full, signed statement. And I’m going to get it. One way or the other.”
I straightened up and looked at Hadley. I tried to keep the excitement and the new glands I’d taken on out of my face and voice. I’d made up what mind I had left. I wanted out and fast. Cooling my fanny off down at Headquarters and maybe getting a third degree was no answer to the question of The Life And Times Of Edward Noon. As before and as always, I had to do things for myself. Mainly because nobody else is as interested in me as I am.
Hadley’s face and the dicks with us in the narrow hallway was no answer. They had their pigeon and nothing else mattered. Instead of going forward in the investigation, they’d only want to go backwards over my murderous route, so called, and that wasn’t any solution. Not for me anyway. But I was going to have to make my getaway the hard way. I wasn’t surrounded by the Police Department. I was engulfed. No gun, on friends, no nothing.
“Hadley,” I said it as mildly as I could. “I didn’t kill her. Give me twenty-four hours and I’ll find out who did.”
It didn’t get a laugh. It got an uproar. Hadley shook his head sadly. “Ed,” he said almost tiredly. “Stop horsing around. You’ll get all the breaks I can give. But level with me. You must have had a good reason for shoving her down those stairs. Come on. We’re listening.”
They were all listening. Including Mason. The smart dick I had shamed at Bim Caesar’s place. I took a deep breath. I decided to let all the stops out.
“Okay. No more stalls. Get your pencils and papers out. I’ll shoot my mouth off–”
I’m not a bad amateur psychologist. Maybe it’s being in tough scrapes most of my life and having my safety and well-being depend upon my correct gauging of the other guy’s reaction. I don’t know. But I knew for a fact that to the small army guarding me in that narrow hallway, the mere idea of my trying a break was ridiculous. They didn’t even have a gun on me. That’s the trouble with mob thinking. Every one of them was thinking the same thing. I didn’t have a chance. But I was thinking something different. I was thinking I had a chance. And that was the big difference. There were about eight of them and only one of me. But there is safety in numbers–sometimes.
Some of them started to dig out the pads and pencils I had lightly called for and I went into action. I didn’t have much room. But that was in my favor.
I spread my hands as if I’d decided to make a clean breast of everything and they started to make room for me. Right at the bottom of the steps with Betty Heck’s corpse keeping us company.
Mason was closest to me. My spread out hands kept going, flicked my fedora off my head with dazzling speed, shot it back into his foolish, startled face with bullet force. He saw it coming but he couldn’t do a thing about it. The hat caromed off his face like a shot and I followed right after it, my right shoulder taking out Hadley who was just in front of me.
Hadley swore violently and the melee was on. His bulky Irish body slammed up against the lower bannister and he fell along it, the two dicks below him scrambling out of the way, clawing for their guns. But I had the break I wanted.
The coppers on the door rushed forward, guns out, looking for an opening but there wasn’t any left. Mason’s eyes were trying to bat open wildly but I had closed in on him, jerked his coat down past his arms to lock his elbows and spun him around. He was between me and everybody else in the hallway. The whole play would have been botched up if I hadn’t been able to get his service revolver out of its holster so fast. But when you gamble with your life you’re capable of speeds and abilities you’ve never had before. And I was gambling plenty. Stuck in a hallway with eight cops who thought I was a nasty murderer. But it all depended on what they thought of Mason and the point of the gun rammed up against his head and the appropriately mad look in my eyes.
“Hold it,” I barked. “All of you. Nobody move. I’m not kidding.”
They froze almost instinctively with their guns out and their faces drooping like wilted lilies. The tableau held for a crazy second like when the projector goes nuts at the local movie house and all you get is one big still up there on the silver screen. Me pinning Mason in front of me, pointing a gun to the back of his head. The small army stretched out below me waiting to squash me like an ugly bug. I felt like an ugly bug too. They all looked so right and I looked so wrong.
Hadley had caught his balance and was staring at me contemptuously, his bulk heaving with his contempt and anger.
“All right,” he hissed. “Take the bastard. He don’t wanta come quietly.”
“You haven’t got a prayer, sonny,” one of the dicks spat it out in the tight silence.
Mason moaned in front of me. His body felt warm and moist against me. I took my cue.
“Sure, sure. You got the odds. But say goodbye to Mason. He’ll go first. Believe me, you’re pinning me with one murder. One more won’t change the way it feels in the hot seat.”
They started to circle warily. But the mob thinking had them again. Not one of them wanted to be the one to open up since I had made it pretty plan what my intentions were. And nobody wanted to be the one to tell poor Mrs. Mason that he was the one who had caused the sudden death of Mr. Mason. It was all up to Hadley. I was counting on that.
“I’ll give you all just two seconds to drop those guns down or Mason goes. Come on. You all know me for a desperate murderer. Want proof?”
The struggle on Hadley’s face defied description.
“You’re bluffing, Ed,” he stalled. “We’d still have you and you’d be worse off.”
“Mason would still be dead,” I reminded him coldly. “Come on. Drop them. It’s now or never.”
A gun thudded to the carpet. Somebody’s conscience had gotten the better of him. Another gun followed right on its heels. Then a third, a fourth. That’s also the way it is with mobs.
Hadley hadn’t drawn his gun at all.
“Hell, Hadley,” one of the dicks rasped. “He’ll never make it. Let him go. We’ll catch up with him. It’s not worth Mason. Anyway you look at it. Let the crum have his fling.”
I smiled, a death’s-head smile if there ev
er was one. I couldn’t see it of course but I felt it.
“Thanks,” I said. “Thanks a lot.” Mason writhed in my grasp. I drilled the gun harder into his skull. “Easy, boy. Don’t be a hero. The pension isn’t worth it and I’m sure your wife loves you very much.” I eyed the rest of them closely, hoping somebody wouldn’t make a false move at this stage. I’ve done lots of things but shooting cops isn’t in my line. I had to carry the bluff through.
“Get those hands up. All of you. We’re coming through.”
They made room for us, me pushing Mason ahead of me. I made them turn around, facing the wall until I reached the front door. Mason was making noises like the most frightened, embarrassed man in the world would. I knew just how he felt but sympathy is also out of my line where cops are concerned. If a guy’s going to take a job where carrying a gun is normal, he ought to be more careful than Mason had been.
I held him in close to me while I drew the window curtain beside the door and peered out. Not too good. A crowd was still around and five yards from the door to the left, two cops were standing around near their patrol car. There weren’t any other cars of any description that were near enough. I bit my lip. I’d gone this far. Well, I just had to go all the way, that’s all.
I put my hand on the doorknob and turned it slowly. I had one last ultimatum for my former captors.
“One head stuck out of this door after I close it and Mason still goes bye-bye. So play it through the way I want and he’ll come back the way I found him.”
Mason was so miserable he got brave. “You dirty bastard–” he half-sobbed. “I’m sorry, Lieutenant–”
“Shut up!” Hadley flared. “He won’t get far.”
I let that ride and slipped out almost noiselessly, Mason still ahead of me. I had the gun buried in my pocket. But I jabbed the small of his back with my finger until we made it over to the patrol car. The next four or five seconds were going to be the most important in the world. The front door of the house behind my back was as comforting as a time bomb with a five second fuse.
The cops stiffened to attention as they recognized Mason and that’s just about all I gave them time for.
One of them started to say something but I broke in by hurling Mason full-tilt at him. I was close enough to spit in the other one’s face at this point. I showed him the service revolver instead. But he was either new on the force, naturally brave or naturally stupid. I didn’t take the time to find out. He started to go for his hip pocket.
Cursing, I dropped my gun because I couldn’t fire.
I drove a fist full into his face, slammed him down to the sidewalk and made the steering wheel with a bound. Mason and the other cop were just beginning to unscramble when I pushed the car in gear and shot away from the curb. Then things really started to pop. Fast, loud and crazy.
Cops came spilling out of the front door of the Heck haunt like so many oranges rolling out of a smashed crate. And they opened up on me like the South firing on Fort Sumter.
I buzzed away from trouble on whining tires and goosed spark plugs. I broke every traffic regulation in the books quitting the immediate vicinity. Bullets hummed, sang and full orchestra-ed behind me. The patrol car shuddered like a tin can being pelted with rocks by a bunch of playful kids.
Only these weren’t kids with rocks. They were cops with guns. And I was a fugitive from Justice.
I careened out to Third Avenue, braked to a quick halt, climbed out and raced down the block past what seemed like a deserted section of Manhattan. Driving around in a patrol car was no disguise at all.
I caught a taxi many, many blocks away from where I had ditched the patrol car. The driver wanted to know where I wanted to go. I hadn’t the faintest notion right then.
I had wanted out. And I had gotten it. The hard way. The cops would never forgive me for this stunt. It looked like my days as a private investigator were over. Me. Ed Noon. Talk about Philip Nolan. I was something much worse now. He was only The Man Without A Country.
I was the Man Without A License.
And just what in hell was the vanishing Lois Hunt?
It seemed awfully possible she was a murderess. The worst kind. The pretended friend. The knife-in-the-back type of killer. Betty Heck had trusted her. Betty Heck was dead.
I had trusted her. I was wanted for murder.
I reached a fast decision. I had the driver pull up to a drugstore, raced in, found her name and address in a phone book and raced out again.
“1213 Columbus Avenue,” I told the driver. “And step on it.”
I had to beat the cops there before they thought of it. After all, Lois Hunt had worked for Sleep-Tite–
If they hadn’t thought of it already.
CHAPTER TEN
The ride took twenty minutes. I collected what little thoughts I could but nothing made any sense except my predicament and what I was going to do about it. One thing bothered me considerably. I had no gun thanks to Headquarters.
It’s true I was only on my way to see Lois Hunt and ask her some questions but since there was a damn good chance our little Lois was a murderess, I didn’t feel too good about no gun. But that’s life. Correction. That’s my life.
The cab slurred to a stop on Columbus Avenue and the driver cranked his meter. I paid him and got out.
Columbus Avenue is not one of New York’s garden spots. At nearly twelve in the day, it’s even less so. There’s something dirty about the thoroughfare with its mad slap-together of all kinds of stores and bars. The crazy, mixed-up architecture doesn’t help either. You get Gothic side-by-side with Greek arches and it’s customary to find a Roaring Twenties type bar smack dab alongside a nice, shiny all-chrome cafeteria. But that’s New York I guess. And Columbus Avenue.
Lois Hunt having an apartment on Columbus Avenue was no surprise either. Furnished rooms, apartments or walk-ups you seem to expect on the West Side side streets. But here it was. On the Avenue. Jammed between a drugstor and a One-Day Service tailor shop was a crummy, ugly grey stone building that was Columbus Avenue’s ideas of an apartment house. Well, it wasn’t my idea of one but if Lois Hunt was in, that’s all I gave a rap about.
I jogged into the two by two hallway and scanned a row of battered mail boxes with corresponding buttons. The third box from the left was so new it shone out among its brothers like diamonds alongside emeralds. L. HUNT. This must be the place all right.
I took a second debating whether to ring or sneak in. I tried the front door first. It was locked. It’s easy to make your mind up when you have no other choice. I rang.
Long and hard. I held the buzzer down only until there was an answering electrical whirring that released the lock on the door. I pushed in. I got a surprise.
She was a ground floor apartment. I say that because as soon as I cleared the threshold, a door opened down the hall and the big body of a thick-necked man with a mop of wavy black hair blocked the light from the room behind him.
“Yah?” His voice was thick like his hair. “What do you want, please?” He made no move to come forward so I did. I bridged the four yards between us easily before answering.
I showed him my sincere grin, the one with thirty-two teeth in it.
“Oh, hello. I’d like to see Miss Hunt. Is she in?”
The thick-haired head wagged but the body didn’t move away from the door.
“There is no Miss Hunt. You have the wrong apartment.” He started to close the door. He didn’t make it. My foot caught it quickly, held it.
“I don’t mean to be persistent, my friend. I just have to be. The bell plate says L. Hunt. That’s Lois Hunt, isn’t it?”
I got a dirty look etched in the oils of sarcasm.
“Leo Hunt. That’s me. I’m not married. I haven’t got any sisters. You’ve got the wrong address, mister. Now if you’ll just let me go back to my lunch–”
Normally, I would have believed him. Gobbled his story up hook, line and wrong address and just plain co-incidence. But I had got
ten the address out of a Manhattan phone book. And it hadn’t said L. Hunt. It had said Lois Hunt. And one thing I have an unshakeable faith in is the Manhattan telephone book.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” I stalled. I fumbled in my inside pocket like a guy will when he’s looking for that scrap of paper that he’s hastily jotted an address on. I couldn’t find it. I made sure I didn’t. “I could have sworn I copied it down just like she told me–” I raised my voice an octave higher and spoke un-necessarily louder. “Now isn’t that just like a woman? Gee, I’m awfully sorry, fellow. I never figured–”
The man in the doorway growled, his impatience worn thin. His big hand lifted toward me out-thrust to send me on my way. I didn’t like his face at all. The nose was blunted like the flat of a hammer and his eyes small and buried under mounds of cheekbones. Also, he didn’t look at all like the sort of a guy you’d ever want for a school chum.
I still hadn’t quite made up my mind about just how to play this one when something made it up for me.
Something muted and low like a moan. Or a half-strangled gasp. And the sound came from only one place. The room that the man’s big body was blocking off from my view.
He heard it too and his eyes shifted just enough to certify the bum check for me. And his hand was still lifted toward me.
I took the hand and twisted until a bone started to sound like it was splitting. He winced with a mighty blast of rumbling sound and closed in on me. But I was way ahead of him.
My knee came up like a catapult and found a home in his stomach. It was over before it began. Just as he started to fold up around it like a wet newspaper, I thudded a fist into his chin. He flew back the way he had come and I flung into the room with him, taking a diving lunge to the floor, ready for just about anything.
But it wasn’t necessary. One quick look at the field told me that.
I got up, shut the door and quickly frisked the friendly doorman and tugged a long-barreled .32 from his hip pocket. Stepping over him, I ignored everything else and went over to Lois Hunt.
The Case of the Bouncing Betty Page 11