The man who answered the bell was as round and solidly made as a beer barrel, and even more unshaven than Murray. He chewed steadily at the stub of an unlit cigar as he eyed his caller up and down.
“You lookin’ for a room?” he said.
“That’s what I’m looking for. I’m Eddie Schrade’s brother in from Chicago. Want to tell him I’m here?”
The man removed the stub of the cigar from his mouth, thoughtfully squeezed it into cylindrical shape, and replaced it.
“We ain’t got no Eddie Schrade.”
The valise dropped from Murray’s hand. He pulled the postcard from his pocket and read it with bewilderment. “Are you kidding?” he said. “He told me right here this was the address.”
When he held out the card the man took it and read it, front and back, his brow knit with concentration. Then he handed it back to Murray.
“He used to live here. He don’t live here now.”
Murray said: “Jesus, that’s a nice touch. A whole day on the train because he puts up a holler for me, and then he takes off somewhere Well, where can I find him?”
The man hesitated. It was barely perceptible, but it was there, nevertheless, and it was all Murray wanted to see. “I don’t know where he went to. What’s it my business?”
“Maybe it’s not. Maybe he just figures I’ll walk around the streets and look for him. This is a big town for that kind of deal.”
The man surveyed the wasteland beyond his porch. “It’s a big town, all right,” he agreed.
Murray thought this over, rubbing his jaw slowly. “Well, whatever Eddie expected me to do I can’t go around like this. I must look like hell. Is there a barbershop near here?”
“Next block down. Across from the subway.”
It was the Moment of Truth. Murray picked up the valise, half turned away, then turned back. “Say, would it be all right to leave the bag here meanwhile?”
“Stick it in the hall, if you want. Nobody’ll touch it.”
The sign in the window of the barbershop said TWO CHAIRS—NO WAITING, which proved to be accurate up to a point. There were two chairs, but there was only one barber, an elderly and near-sighted man, and he was hard at work on the tresses of a pimpled youth. Murray picked up a magazine and stretched out in the other chair, prepared to kill time, then found himself inexorably drawn to the spectacle in the mirror.
After every few snips of the scissors the boy would pull his head nervously away from them. “Stoopid,” he would say, not unkindly. “Go easy, stoopid.”
Then the snipping would resume until the boy would stop it again. “Oh, stoopid,” he would sigh. “Stoopid, stoopid.”
It went like this until the barber was finished, and the boy snatched the comb from his hand to add the last touches himself. Peering into the mirror, he swept back the long hair on each side of his head, and delicately, with a little finger, flicked the curls down the center until each ringlet stood erect, and one flopped forward over his forehead. When he walked out Murray saw that he was wearing dungarees so tight that they encased his scanty buttocks as the sausage skin encases the sausage.
The barber took notice of it, too. “See?” he said to Murray. “All the boys today, they look like girls. All the girls, they look like boys. What the hell you gonna do?” Then he used a gesture straight from Calabria to indicate what he would like to do, given the chance.
He was a good barber, a deliberate worker who stepped back to study the effect after every few strokes of the razor, and Murray had no objection to that. The landlord would have all the time he needed to open the valise, examine everything in it, and verify the credentials there. Of course, that also gave him time to phone Schrade if he wanted to, but that was in the lap of the gods. Everything that could be done had been done.
When Murray got back to the boarding house the man was still working on the cigar stub, but his mood had considerably softened.
“You know,” he said, “first I figured you didn’t look anything like Eddie, and then I figured maybe I’m wrong. Anyhow, all of a sudden, it came to me where he moved.”
Murray said: “Man, you just saved my life. I was all ready to head back to Chi on the next train.”
“Well, you don’t have to. And maybe I can save you even another trip back here. Did you know Eddie walked out of here owing me twenty bucks?”
Murray had anticipated a figure nearer fifty. He paid the money, got the address, and left, feeling that he had just earned Arnold Lundeen a net profit of thirty dollars.
Apparently Eddie Schrade was a man who liked the smell of salt water. His new address was across the borough in Columbia Heights, not far from Brooklyn Bridge. The house was an old apartment building, but it seemed to be clean and well kept. Offhand, one would have said that Schrade had improved his station in life by moving here.
His name wasn’t over any of the bells in the hall, but the name plate to apartment 3B was missing. Murray walked up two flights of stairs to 3B and knocked on the door.
“Who is it?” a voice said from inside. “What do you want?”
“D.A.’s office, Eddie,” Murray said with his head close to the door. “LoScalzo sent me over. I have to talk to you.”
The door suddenly opened to let him in, and then closed quickly behind him as he stood there blinking. The shade had been drawn down full length over the single window of the room, and the glare from a naked electric bulb hanging at eye level was blinding. It took a few seconds to focus on Schrade. He was small and scrawny, and the fringe of hair around an otherwise gleaming bald head looked like an unkempt tonsure. His features were sharp and very much alive in a twitching, mouselike way.
“What is it now?” he said querulously. “What do you want? Don’t I get any peace at all?”
“Maybe not,” said Murray. “Fact is, I don’t work for LoScalzo, Eddie. I’m handling some business for a fellow name of Lundeen.”
Schrade looked as if he were going to collapse. He shrank back against the wall in a quaking terror. “You get out of here! You got no right to be here!”
“That’s no way to talk, Eddie. I’m not here to hurt you, am I?” Murray calmly sat down with his back to the light, and held out a pack of cigarettes. “Help yourself.”
“What is this? For a lousy cigarette I’ll be your friend all of a sudden? You think I’m crazy? Now get out of here, because I’m not talking to you!”
“Why not?” Murray lit a cigarette, and Schrade’s eyes followed every motion of his hand with fascination. “What have you got to hide, Eddie?”
“Me? I got nothing to hide. But I’m not talking. Especially, not to you, the way you push in here with a phony story.”
“Eddie, Eddie,” Murray gently chided him, “you’re not looking at this the right way. You’re not looking at it the right way at all. I have a big agency behind me. What’s to stop me from having somebody tail you day and night? Would it make you feel better to know that every step you took there was a man tailing you? Of course it wouldn’t. How do I know that? Because I wouldn’t like it myself. That’s why I thought that the way to handle this was to sit down like intelligent people and talk it over. Am I wrong in that? Does that make me a heel?”
Schrade’s face went through a whole series of twitching contortions as he considered this. “You mean,” he said, “that we talk it over, and then you and this Lundeen stay out of my hair? Why should I believe that?”
“You can take my word.”
“Your word, your word! Next thing you’ll kiss your pinkie and tell me honor bright. Even Miller don’t like to talk now, he knows what the cops might do to him. What makes me different from him?”
“Because Lundeen’ll do what I tell him to do. And if you’re wondering about me, ask anyone about Conmy-Kirk. We don’t do business by double-crossing.”
“Yeah? How did you get in here except by double-crossing?”
“Eddie, don’t tell me you’re the kind of guy who thinks every little joke is a double-cross.
Are you really such a country boy?”
“I don’t like jokers,” Schrade mumbled. “When you’re all upset jokers ain’t funny.” He slowly edged away from the wall and held out a hand. “Give me a cigarette. Give me the pack, so I don’t have to go out later.”
Murray tossed him the pack, and Schrade lit a cigarette. He drew in deeply, then exhaled a cloud of smoke and shook his head wonderingly at it. “How did I get into this?” he said. “A peaceful man, and here I am holed up like a gangster in the movies. A composer—an artist, mind you—and I got to worry about a crazy cop shooting me in the back some night!” He waved the cigarette at Murray. “Go on, ask me how I got into it.”
“All right. How?”
“That’s a good question. For doing favors, that’s how I got into it. I’m surprised I didn’t get into trouble a long time ago, the way I do favors for people.”
“Like being a stand-in for Miller?”
“Naturally. He knows who the sucker is, the good-natured one. He runs in looking like he’s going to drop down on the spot. ‘Do me a favor, Eddie,’ he says. ‘They got me down for the count, and I need a stand-in. You got to do it, Eddie,’ he says. Hoo! If I knew what was coming—!”
“When did this happen?”
“When do you think? The day with that cop, that Lundeen. But what difference does that make?
“I said to him, ‘Ira, what is it? What kind of trouble could be so bad?’ But believe me, I didn’t have to ask. What other trouble could it be for a bookie except cops?
“What kills me with Miller is that he’s not like a bookie at all. He’s an educated man. A college man. He’s got a fine, respectable wife. In business he could be anything he wants. So what is he? A lousy bookie from Broadway!
“And you know why?” Schrade demanded. He poked a finger into his meager chest. “Because there’s something in here—a bug, a worm—something that’s always figuring angles, always looking for the easy dollar. Ah, so what’s the use.”
“What happened then?”
“You mean, what didn’t happen! He says to me, ‘It’s the cops, Eddie. Somebody from plainclothes grabbed me near the Garden and shook me down for everything I had on me. A thousand dollars bet money he grafted from me. But it’s more than that. He wants a stand-in so he can make an arrest, and I don’t have time to fix it up with anybody else. You’ll have to take the arrest for me, Eddie.’
“How do you like that? I’m sitting there writing a song—my head is all full of beautiful music—and the next thing, I’m invited to do him a favor by getting arrested!
“ ‘Ira,’ I said, ‘there’s a lot of favors I’d do you, but this is too much. I don’t know a thing about horse betting. I wouldn’t even know what to say.’
“ ‘A baby could do it,’ he said. ‘Look, Eddie, you’ll just stand downstairs with the slips and stuff in your pocket until he comes along, and I’ll be near the corner to tip him off it’s you. That’s all you do, you stand there. Then when he makes the arrest you put up a little fuss so it’ll look legitimate, you go to court and pay the fine, and that’s the whole thing. You’re a first-timer, Eddie, you got nothing to worry about. I’ll cover the fine, and give you fifty for yourself in the bargain.’
“Maybe he thought he was making it sound easy, but let me tell you that he was making everything in me turn to water. I’m a plain citizen, all my life I’m only interested in staying out of trouble, so who am I to go around asking for it?
“ ‘I can’t do it, Ira,’ I said to him. ‘I’m a nervous wreck as it is. Something like this could kill me.’
“ ‘You’re nervous?’ he said. ‘Eddie, this’ll be my sixth rap. It means—’”
“Hold it!” Murray cut in. “Did Miller really say that?”
“Say what?”
“That this would be his sixth rap. That they might throw the book at him now.”
“Sure. And then he said, ‘Eddie, if that happens, my wife will go crazy. You know what she’s like. And there’s something else, Eddie. If anything happens to me I’ll have to close up Songster. Then look at the spot you’ll be in.’
“So there it was. His wife, the business, everything was suddenly on my shoulders. What could I do? What could anybody do? Did I know that later on they’d get the goods on Georgie Wykoff, so that the D.A. would look up first-time arrests to find the stand-ins? I didn’t even know what time it was, that’s how dumb I was.
“I took the arrest, it worked like Miller said it would, and so far, so good. Then they caught up with Wykoff, and the house fell in on me. They got me in front of the grand jury and started to sweat me, and they wouldn’t take no for an answer.
“It turned out that being a stand-in wasn’t so bad; they didn’t even bother about that. But if you tell lies to the grand jury they got you on perjury and a million other things. Does that cop, that Lundeen, think I should cover up for him on account of the fifty bucks Miller gave me? You can tell him for me that he made a lot more money being crooked than I got for doing a favor.”
Schrade drew on his cigarette now with the serenity of a man who has cleared his conscience. “Well,” he said, “that’s how it happened. And now that I told you, I want you to play square with me. I want you to keep that Lundeen away from me like you said.” He held up a warning finger. “I’m taking your word on that.”
Murray said, “Did he ever approach you or threaten you up to now?”
“So what if he didn’t? He could still get ideas before the trial.”
“All right,” Murray said, “you won’t have to worry about him any more. I’ll take care of him.” When he stood up he raised the window shade and turned off the light. “For one thing, it’ll cut down your electric bill.”
At the door Schrade laid a hand on Murray’s arm. “Wait a minute,” he said. “You know, when you first walked in maybe I got the wrong idea about you. But seeing you’re a nice fellow really, I got a little proposition to make.”
Murray waited expectantly.
“It’s like this,” Schrade explained. “With somebody else running Songster and all, I got myself a job now playing piano with a little combination. Just violin, piano, and sax, but very good. It ain’t union, but who cares? What the union don’t know won’t ever hurt it.
“Anyhow, if you got any kind of a wedding or an affair where you want music, just get in touch with me. As a favor, I’ll give you a big break in the price.”
“I thought you decided not to do any more favors for people,” Murray said.
Schrade smiled a golden smile. “Not people,” he said. “Just bookies.”
12
Didi was an inveterate table hopper. The third time she returned from a foray around the dining room Murray pointed to her chair and said, “I’m giving you fair warning. If you get up from there once more, I am going to break your beautiful arm. Now set and stay set.”
She looked unchastened. “Sweetie, how you do go on. I can’t help it if I know people, can I?”
“You can, and don’t waste your time fluttering those eyelashes at me. I could see from here that that character you were just talking to didn’t have the dimmest idea who you were.”
“Oh,” said Didi. “Well, maybe we never exactly met before, but he’s Ted Holloway, who produced a couple of those TV things I was on. He’s putting together that big new panel show now, and I thought it would be kind of cute if I could help out. Anyhow, we hardly even talked about me. We talked mostly about you. That man with him is Wallace Crowley, and he won a Pulitzer Prize. He wants to write a book with you.”
“We’ll do it first thing tomorrow. Now, will you listen to me, please?”
“I am listening. I can perfectly well eat and listen at the same time, can’t I?”
“I hope so. Remember Ruth Vincent, the girl you met at the Harlingens’ that time? The one you raised such a fuss about?”
“Yes.”
“Well, you don’t have to look so suspicious about it. All I want you to do is arrang
e a little get-together at your place, and invite her. But fix it so that there’s no unattached man around for her, because that’ll be my department. Will you do that?”
“I will not!”
“Oh, fine,” said Murray. “I thought you were out of that mood.”
“It is not a mood,” Didi said icily.
“The hell it’s not! If you can give me one real reason—”
“I already did, and you know it. I don’t like that girl, Murray. I don’t think she’d be good for you. And I will not be party to any—”
“Hold it, Mother Carey, and let’s stick to the point. You’re working up to the kindly advice bit, and I didn’t ask for that. All I asked for was one real reason why—”
A hand was laid on Murray’s shoulder, and he looked up to see Crowley, the Pulitzer Prize winner, swaying over him. “Mr. Murray Kirk, the great detective,” said Crowley with alcoholic tenderness. He sat down heavily. “Don’t mind if I sit here, do you?”
“Sure I do,” Murray said, “but don’t let that bother you any.”
“Many, many thanks,” said Crowley. He was glassy-eyed drunk, but still in fair command of his tongue. “Many, many, many thanks. And more to come.”
“Later,” Murray said. “Not now. Some other time, amigo.”
“Right. Lady here—” Crowley winked hugely at Didi, and then, pleased with himself, winked again “—lady here says you know all about detective business.”
“Wrong,” Murray said. “Look, pal, why not try some other table? Maybe you’ll have better luck that way.”
“Ha!” said Crowley contemptuously. “Modest. So modest. Makes me sick to see man hide his light under a shovel.”
Didi reached over and patted his hand consolingly. “Never you mind that, sweetie. Murray’s one of those people likes to be coaxed. Just you go on and tell him about the book.”
Crowley blinked. “The book?”
“Sure enough, sweetie,” Didi said encouragingly.
“Oh, the book. All about ole McClellan. Ole George Brinton McClellan, west mar—” Crowley stopped to untangle that one “—worst maligned bastard in the whole Civil War. That’s who he was.”
The Eighth Circle Page 13