The Cedars was a dingy frame roadhouse trimmed in blue neon, with a graveled parking space on one side and a string of cabins on the other. The roadhouse was dark, except for the blue neon. Lavy drove on past for two blocks and parked.
“Nothing doing at the roadhouse,” Garnett said. “It has to be the motel.”
“Or a trial run,” Lavy said, “just to see if Coyle follows instructions.”
The lieutenant grunted. “It's your play, Coyle. If you want it.”
“I want it. I also want the Luger that Sergeant Lavy took from me earlier.”
The officers looked at each other, then at me. “You know I can't do that,” Garnett said. “You don't even have a permit. If you was to shoot somebody, it would be my neck.”
“And what if somebody shoots me or Jeanie? Whose neck will it be then?”
The lieutenant sighed. “All right, Lavy, I guess we'd better go back ourselves and shake up that flea-bag.”
Panic streaked up my back. “Forget the pistol!” I wasn't going to have them blundering through those cabins and maybe getting Jeanie killed.
Garnett smiled grimly but said nothing. He and Lavy got out of the car, and I got out of the back seat and slid under the wheel. I didn't like the idea of them being in the car at all, but Garnett insisted. They got down on the floorboards behind the front seat, and I prayed that the killer wouldn't see them.
“All right,” the lieutenant said. “See what you can stir up, Coyle.”
If I had that pistol, I'd be in a position to protect myself, and maybe Jeanie as well. But Garnett had to play it by the book. A detective lieutenant bucking for captain—he wasn't sticking his neck out for anybody...
That was when I found the Luger. On the floorboard beside the accelerator, where my foot couldn't miss it. I reached down for the pistol and shoved it in my waistband, and suddenly I felt much better about having the cops along. A man like Garnett didn't mislay firearms by accident.
From behind the driver's seat I heard Lavy growl uncomfortably. I started the sedan and drove back to The Cedars. The office and registration desk for the motel was in the first cabin, which was also edged in blue neon.
“You'd better take this,” Garnett said. I reached cautiously behind the seat and a piece of paper was put in my hand. It was the picture of the killer. I folded it and put it in my jacket pocket, then I got out of the car and walked across a graveled driveway to the office.
The door was locked. I peered through a window and saw somebody sleeping on a couch by the desk, and I rapped on the glass with a coin.
The sleeping figure didn't move. I went back to the door and started kicking it, and I kept kicking it until it opened. An angry night clerk glared at me. “What the hell, mister? Can't you read!” He pointed to a swinging sign above the door that said no vacancy. “Just be quiet,” I told him, shoving into the office and closing the door. “I want some questions answered. You do that and there won't be any trouble.”
The clerk was a pale, pimply faced kid in his late teens. His Adam's apple went up and down as he swallowed, and then he started backing up, and kept on backing until the desk stopped him.
“What...” He had to swallow. “... What kind of questions?”
I spread the sketch of the killer on the registration desk. “We'll start with this. You ever see this man before?”
The kid stared at the picture, licking his pale tongue around his thin lips. “No. I've never seen him.”
“This is just a sketch,” I said. “It may not be accurate. Look at it again and tell me if he reminds you of anybody you've seen recently.”
He looked again, but I could see that it wasn't registering. “When did you come on duty?” I asked.
“Seven o'clock, like every night. Except Mondays. I come on at seven and Mr. Manley, the manager, comes on at seven in the morning and is in charge the rest of the day. I... I could get Mr. Manley for you; his cabin is just next door.” He started edging for the door.
“No need to walk,” I said. “Call the manager.” I glanced at a compact PBX behind the desk. “Tell him something important has come up and he'd better come over.”
“Something... important?”
“I have reason to think one of your guests is a homicidal maniac.”
The pale youth went a shade whiter. He began sidling along the desk toward the switchboard. Licking his thin lips, watching me over the handset as he made his connection, he said, “Mr. Manley won't like this. Mr. Manley doesn't like to be disturbed after he goes to bed.”
After several long rings, the manager answered, and the kid clerk seemed to shrivel under the blast in the earpiece. “... Mr. Manley, something important has come up. I think...”
I heard the angry whack as the manager hung up. The clerk swallowed, eyed me nervously and broke the connection on the switchboard. In less than two minutes the office door burst open and Mr. Manley stood glaring at us. “What the hell's going on here! Yeats, I've told you a hundred times I don't want to be disturbed...”
I stepped forward and held the sketch in front of his face. A taut, acid little man on the shady side of fifty, he shot a glance at the picture, then at me.
“Who are you?”
“My name is Coyle and this is a police matter. Take another look at the picture. Have you ever seen this man before?”
“You a cop?”
“I'm with the police, yes.” Strictly speaking, that was true. “The picture, Mr. Manley.”
Pulling a dressing robe about his thin shoulders, he had another look and shook his head. “Never saw him.”
“You're sure?”
“Of course I'm sure. Would anybody forget a face like that?”
“This is just a sketch drawn from memory; it may not be an exact likeness.”
“Sorry,” he snapped. “What do you want with him?”
“We think he's a murderer. A homicidal maniac.”
He paled, then went to the desk and looked at the register. “I know all the guests except the ones in twelve and fourteen. Yeats?”
The kid shook his head. “Twelve's a young couple from Kansas. Fourteen's a salesman. He's a regular.”
“He has to be here somewhere,” I snarled. “What about the roadhouse?”
“Closed,” the manager said.
“I know it's closed,” I told him. “I want to talk to the manager or whoever runs the place.”
Manley nodded for the kid to get on the phone and wake him.
The roadhouse manager had living quarters over his place of business, and he wasn't any happier over the roust than Manley had been. The picture meant nothing to him.
I had to believe him, no matter how much I hated it. I went back to the car and sat behind the wheel feeling sick to the bone. Because of my blundering, I had let the cops in on this thing, and now the chances were very short that Jeanie was dead. I had killed her... I had killed Jeanie just as surely as though I had pulled the trigger myself.
From behind the seat, Garnett said impatiently, “Well?”
“He's not here,” I said flatly. “Nobody at the motel or roadhouse has ever seen him.”
Lavy sighed. “So it was a dry run after all.”
Garnett said, “Maybe he's staked out somewhere watching us, making sure that Coyle's by himself. Drive around to the parking lot, Coyle, and see what happens.”
Now we were whistling in the dark. Nothing was going to happen and Garnett knew it as well as I did. But I did as he said and we waited, hardly moving, hardly breathing, for almost half an hour, and finally the lieutenant said, “If he was going to show, he would have done it by now. We might as well go home. The next move is up to the killer.”
“Sure,” I said bitterly. “All we have to do now is wait until somebody turns up Jeanie's body.”
“Take it easy, Coyle.” Garnett sounded as tired as I felt. “The snakes are after you. You're about to come loose at the seams, which is just what the killer wants. The minute you start going to pieces, th
at's when he will kill Miss Kelly. That's the whole point of the kidnapping. He wants to watch you squirm. Until that happens, he isn't going to harm her.”
CHAPTER NINE
They let me out in front of my apartment building.
“Try to relax,” Lavy said. “Believe me, everything possible is being done to help Miss Kelly.”
I looked at Lavy and Garnett through a red haze, and I worked my mouth, but the words wouldn't pass my swollen throat. I turned and started up the walk toward my apartment.
“One more thing,” Garnett said. “No stupid tricks on your own—understand? Leave it to the police.”
I kept walking.
“You hear me, Coyle?”
I went into the building and closed the door and climbed the stairs to my apartment, and when I looked down from the street window the police sedan wasn't there.
I turned on the lights and sat down and tried to think. Tried to hope. Tried to make myself believe that possibly there was something in what Garnett had said—maybe there was a chance that Jeanie was still alive. It was useless. All the hope had been kicked out of me. I sat for a long while, my brain filled with blackness.
There was a knock at the door. The sound jarred me out of my stupor. What time was it—three, four in the morning? Who would be at my door at that hour?
“Mr. Coyle?” It was Mrs. Willard, the apartment manager.
“What is it?”
“I don't like to disturb you, Mr. Coyle, but the boy said it was important and wanted me to give it to you as soon as you came...”
I got up and opened the door, and Mrs. Willard held it out to me.
“I know it's simply an awful hour, but the boy did say...”
“What boy?”
“The Western Union boy; the one that brought it. He did say it was important, and I thought... Well, I signed for it. I hope you don't mind.”
The boy had said no such thing. Mrs. Willard was one of those women to whom all telegrams were life-or-death matters, and she simply couldn't wait until morning to find out what was in this one. I thanked her and told her that she had done the right thing, and then I took the yellow envelope and closed the door as her eyes registered dismay.
I stared at the yellow envelope. It was shaking.
My hand was shaking. Something had been changed —this time it wasn't a scrawled note on cheap paper; it was a telegram.
I tore open the envelope. The words jumped out at me in bold focus.
MISS KELLY HAS BUT A SHORT WHILE TO LIVE. PLEASE COME ALONE. ALL SAINTS HOSPITAL FOURTH AND WASHINGTON.
That was all. No name, for no name was needed. The message was all too clear, as the sender had known it would be. To anyone else it would appear perfectly harmless. The killer must have been amused at his own cleverness. Threatening murder through a public-communication system. Arranging the rendezvous near All Saints Hospital; that was the touch that made my flesh crawl. Hospitals and death; they went together. Even the warning to come by myself appeared perfectly commonplace. A person in a hospital, on the brink of death—naturally the doctors wouldn't allow a lot of visitors, only a very special few.
But at least Jeanie was still alive. Garnett had guessed right about that. The madman, whoever he might be, was reluctant to kill Jeanie without having the two of us together. Yet, there was a kind of bleak finality in that telegram. The killer had delayed this murder about as long as he dared. He must know that time was running against him, that soon the police dragnet was certain to close around him.
I couldn't see them from my window but I knew that Garnett's men were down there somewhere. This was the kind of thing the lieutenant would be looking for, and he knew me well enough to know that this time I'd try to duck him.
I tried to think, but my mind was numb. Time wasted away, dribbled away like grains of sand between my fingers.
I went to the window. The first signs of dawn were beginning to show. There were no police cars in the street, but that didn't mean anything.
A milk truck rattled into the street. The delivery-man entered the building and I could hear him setting out the full bottles and taking in the empties. The milkman left the building, got in his truck and drove down the street and out of sight. That was when I saw the other truck—the truck that picked up the apartment's dry cleaning and laundry.
All I saw, actually, was the tail end of it as it turned off the street onto the driveway that circled around to the rear of the apartment building. I began to see how I might get out of here without advertising it to Garnett.
Somewhere down the hall, a door opened, then closed. That would be my neighbor, two doors down, Sam Arlund. Arlund was a bus driver; he left for work this time every morning. Now there was another sound, the laundryman bumping down the corridor with his heavy bundles.
“'Mornin', Mr. Arlund.”
“Uh...?” The bus driver was still half-asleep. “Oh, hello, Frank. I put my laundry outside my door.”
“Already got it, Mr. Arlund.”
I went to the door and listened, and as I listened, I counted all the money I had with me, in my wallet and in my pockets. It came to twenty-four dollars and thirty cents. How much did a laundryman make? I wondered. Would twenty dollars impress him?
The bus driver plodded to the end of the hall and down the stairs. The other tenants wouldn't begin to stir for another hour or more. Now or never, I thought, and jerked open the door.
The laundryman made a surprised sound as I almost stepped into his arms. “Oh... hello, Mr. Coyle. 'Mornin'.”
“Good morning, Frank.” Both of us spoke in whispers. He was looking at me in a curious way. No doubt Frank had seen the papers and read about the killings. “Frank...” Then I motioned him down to the end of the hall and said again, “Frank... I need your help. Did you see anybody downstairs as you came into the building?”
He nodded—a big young guy with not too much forehead. “Sure, Mr. Coyle, the cops. I figured they was here because of you, kind of protectin' you from that nut I been readin' about.”
“They are, Frank, but right now I don't want protecting. This is very important, Frank. I've got to get out of here without being seen. Will you help me?”
He squinted and looked uncertain. I unfolded two tens and held them out to him. “You could do it easy, Frank. Just bundle me up in a sheet and throw me in the back of your truck with the dirty laundry. Nobody'd ever notice.”
He wasn't so rich that twenty dollars didn't interest him; but getting cute with the cops was out of his line. “Gee, Mr. Coyle, I don't know.”
“Listen to me, Frank.” I was sweating with the effort of keeping my voice calm and low. “I can't tell you how important this is to me. It could easily mean the difference between life and death for someone.” I put the bills in his hands and he couldn't make himself give them back. I started coaxing him downstairs before he could get his thoughts organized.
On the ground floor, by the rear exit, there was a small mountain of laundry waiting to be loaded. I showed him what to do. He went out the first time carrying a big armload of real laundry, and when he came back, he said, “The two cops are still out there. One by the carports, the other one down the driveway a piece.”
I took a deep breath. “All right, Frank, let's go.” I spread a sheet on the floor, then got on it. Frank folded the sheet over me, tied it, then lifted me effortlessly in his huge arms. He took me out and dumped me gently into the rear of his panel truck. “They didn't notice,” he hissed. “Good. Frank, I don't have any more money on me, but it's worth another twenty tomorrow if you'll take me to All Saints Hospital.”
“I can't do that, Mr. Coyle. That's clear the other side of town, and I've got a schedule to stick to.”
“Can you take me to some place where I can get a cab?”
“Well... sure, I guess so. After I get loaded here.”
I waited, balled up in my white cocoon, while Frank made three more trips for apartment laundry. Frank started the truck and I threw o
ff the sheets as we rattled up the alley to the street.
I paid the cabby at Fourth and Washington, in front of the hospital. That solid building of red brick rose up like some medieval fortress in the morning mist, and a crisp, slender nurse came out of somewhere and hurried silently up the long flight of white cement steps. I moved down a few paces to where Washington dead-ended on Fourth. No one was waiting. The street was empty and silent. I stood on the corner specified in the telegram, in a pool of blue-white light from a street lamp. The morning had reached that uncertain hour where grayness prevailed and all the city looked as thoroughly dead as a steel-point etching.
With every second that passed the knot in my stomach became heavier and colder. I couldn't remember the time when I had last eaten or slept or drawn a breath that was not laced with anxiety. Time dragged. The street remained empty. A blank, unsurmountable wall of hopelessness rose up in my mind. I had blundered again, somehow. I didn't know how; I'd followed the instructions as faithfully as I possibly could, but somehow, somewhere, I must have blundered.
“Mr. Coyle?”
I jumped as though a gun had been jammed in my back. She must have come out of the hospital, out of one of the many service entrances, coming up behind me, silently.
“I'm sorry,” she said quickly. “I didn't mean to startle you. I'm Mildred.” Then she saw that the name meant nothing to me. “Mildred Flagg,” she added, sighing. “But I don't suppose Fred told you about me, did he? Fred's like that, you know. He forgets.”
Too much was happening too fast. I didn't understand any of it. “Fred?”
A frail little woman with a pinched, childlike face and pale-blue eyes, Mildred Flagg said timidly, “I didn't make a mistake, did I? Youare Mr. Coyle, aren't you?”
“Yes, my name is Coyle. Buck Coyle.”
There was a puzzled dullness in those blue eyes. “I don't understand. Fred called just a few minutes ago, as I was coming off duty.” She still wore the stiff, dead-white uniform and cap of a registered nurse. “Fred said you'd be waiting here, on this corner, and he asked me to meet you and take you to my place and he'd meet us there...” Her small voice trailed off in confusion. “I'm sorry, Mr. Coyle, but I don't understand at all... Fred said you were an old friend of his...”
The Long Vendetta Page 10