Strip For Violence

by Ed Lacy

  I closed her mouth with a kiss. “Sorry, honey, but I've been busy, busy. I'm dead tired.” I snapped off the lights, locked the door carefully, undressed in the dark. I still had jerko's Luger in my pocket. I slipped it under the pillow as her arms pulled me onto her naked waiting body.

  It seemed a second later when she was shaking me, saying, “Darling, it's six, I have to get up.”

  “Can't you take the day off?” I asked, my voice lazy with sleep. The hard early light made her room look drab, mean... the harsh meanness of living on the edge of poverty.

  “Let's not start that argument again. I'd make you a whopping big breakfast, except I'm out of coffee.”

  “Get you some,” I said, hating to leave that soft bed. I threw back the sheet and the thin blanket into a messy bundle at the foot of the bed, got up. With two hours' sleep I felt much better. “We'll eat, then I'll drive you downtown.”

  She smiled at me oddly. “Too late now. Tried to wake you at five-thirty, but couldn't get you up.”

  I kissed her, not quite understanding what she was saying. She stroked my face, asked, “Hal, you're not sorry you came back?”

  “What you talking about?”

  “I don't know, that first time was so great... I don't want it spoiled.”

  “Stop it Nobody bats a 1.000 all the time, so...”

  “Then it wasn't so good this time!” she said with a hurt cry.

  “Honey, I came in here in the middle of the night dead tired. Sure, I'd like to sleep the rest of the day, waking now and then to find you beside me but.... What the hell are we talking about?” I kissed her again and shuffled off to the bathroom.

  Her underthings were hanging on the towel racks and the bathroom stunk of stale washing smells. I stuck my head and shoulders under the cold shower, got wide awake. I knew what she meant—in time this crummy joint could take the romantic veneer off anything. There wasn't any towel in sight, so I dried myself with one of her slips.

  When I opened the door, Louise rushed by me, giggling: she was in a good mood again. Dressing, I stuck the Luger in my belt, called out, “Be back in a few minutes.”

  “There's a delicatessen down on Amsterdam that should be open. I'll be dressed by the time you return....” Her voice was lost in the sound of the shower.

  I found the delicatessen, bought a couple pounds of coffee, cream, bread, and coffee cake. As an added thought, I asked for half a dozen cans of frozen orange juice and the sleepy-looking counter man said, “You're my first customer of the day. The others should buy an order like this.”

  “Yeah, I'm the early bird, or the worm, or something,” I said, picking up the big bag of groceries. It was going to be a clear, sunny day. I felt rested, ready to step.

  I sprinted up the stairs to Louise's apartment, pushed the door open and put the bag on the table. She was still in the shower. I got a drink of water, said, “Come on, thought you were in such a big hurry, baby?”

  She didn't hear me over the sound of the water. I took the stuff out of the bag, put the cream and juice in her little icebox. “You'll be late—might as well take the day off,” I said, pushing the bathroom door open.

  The shower was running but the bathroom was empty. I stepped back into the room, snapped on the fight There were wet tracks on the floor, leading to the door.... But Louise would hardly leave the shower and go visiting a neighbor... even to borrow a towel. Of course she....

  I glanced at the bed and there in the bundle of sheets and blanket I saw it—the two red splotches: one was the awful red of her dyed hair and a little farther down the sheet was the very bright red of blood.

  I ran over to the bed and pulled the sheet away from her. Her body was still wet and there was a terrible look of fear on her face... and her throat was sliced from ear to ear—one long slit.

  For a long moment I stood there, dazed. Still in a trance, I walked over to the bathroom, shut off the shower. It didn't matter, my fingerprints were all over the place. The delicatessen man would remember me and my big order. And Louise's boyfriend would be overanxious to tell the cops about me. All I could think of was one thing—I didn't want the cops to pick me up now—not till I settled two scores with some murdering bastard!

  I followed the wet footsteps to the door—vaguely thinking it had all happened so recently the water hadn't even dried. Hell, I hadn't been out of the apartment more than ten minutes. Somebody had knocked, rung the bell, and Louise—thinking it was me—had left the tub and opened the door to her murderer....

  The ringing of the phone cut the chilling silence of the room. I knew who it would be before lifting the receiver. The goddamn mocking voice, speaking through crumpled paper or something, asked, “Well, wiseguy, ready to play it smart?”

  I was too choked with fury to say a word. There was a hollow minute of silence at the other end of the line, then the sharp click as he, she, or they, hung up. I gently put the receiver back in its cradle, went over to the bed. The bloody stain was growing larger and larger. It seemed a horrible thing to do, a final insult to Louise, but I had to leave her—leave her in that bloody bed.

  Fixing the door so it would lock behind me, I softly shut it.

  2

  I stood on the sidewalk, looking up and down the street, the windows of the houses across the way. Some big kids were walking toward the subway—that was all. Except I knew there was a murderer watching me. A killer who had tailed me here, waited most of the night for me to leave so he could kill a girl unknown to him—to spite me. The ruthless extremes to which this murderer went made me shudder. Whoever was watching me didn't know one thing —they were looking at another killer.

  I may have had some doubts deep in my mind about being responsible for Anita's death... but Louise, the unhappy lush I'd come to sleep with... I'd brought her a fine lover's gift—death.

  Oh yes, as I gave my car the gas I had only one clear thought in my stunned mind: one thing was for sure—there was another killer loose in the city—and sure as hell that was me!

  BOOK FOUR

  I

  I gassed up the car and drove for two hours, just driving around, going no place in particular. I kept watching to see if I was being tailed, but couldn't make anybody following me. And if I was driving in circles, my mind was off the merry-go-round, starting to think in a straight line.

  It was a bad shock to realize that up to now, despite Anita's death, I'd been horsing around, waiting for the breaks instead of going out and making them. Now I had to get off my rusty-dusty damn fast, find the murderer. It wasn't only a matter of avenging the two girls... once Saltz started on Louise's death, all roads would lead to me and my story was so silly I wouldn't believe it myself. “I went down to get coffee and when I came back she was dead....” It sounded phony even as I repeated it.

  The trouble was, all the time I'd been acting like the small-time operator I was... I was fighting their kind of battle, doing what they wanted me to. Either I had to admit I was in over my head and let the cops handle everything, or find the killer goddamn quick, before circumstantial evidence had me warming my behind in the electric chair.

  After a solid breakfast, I drove to the office. It was an even bet Louise's body wouldn't be found for a day at least—take several days before it began to decay and smell —and after they found it, be another day before the fingerprints boys and her boyfriend put me on the hook.

  Shirley and Bobo were straightening up the place. Shirley said, “This is where I came in. Go through this routine every night?”

  Bobo said, “See you stopped a few with your face. What's the...?”

  “Forget the files and junk. Shirley, here's five bucks, get me copies of all the morning and evening papers for...” I looked at the wall calendar, gave her several dates—all about four weeks previous—about the time Will said the rock came busting into his room. I was going to start from the beginning, the very beginning.

  I told Bobo to go with her. I didn't want to see her killed and this maniac I
was dealing with... you could never tell.

  Bobo pointed to the mess of papers on the floor. “But, Hal, we lose any of these, the agency will fold like an...”

  “Hell with the agency. I'm starting to think that as a private detective I'd make a good dressmaker's dummy. Come on, I want those newspapers soon as possible.”

  2

  I cleared my desk by the simple process of sweeping everything on the floor. Then I took out Marion Lodge's picture, the paper on which I'd written the list of people that kept cropping up since yesterday, added the fact that the stone was an industrial diamond, that Louise was dead, that I'd received another mysterious phone call.

  I stared at the paper, knowing that somewhere in this list was a clue, the key I'd been overlooking all the time. I had a hunch that Anita, with her cock-eyed correspondence course, was probably a better dick than I—she'd somehow found the answer in her first few hours on the case, and that was why she was killed.

  Shirley and Bobo returned loaded with papers, and we all started reading. I told them, “Want you to read every story... and when you run across anything about diamonds, mailmen, or anything that happened up near Staymore Avenue... or in the Marble Hill section... sing out.”

  It was an odd feeling reading last month's papers, to see all the scare headlines, the predictions that came off wrong. I finished one day's batch of papers when Shirley said, “There was a double killing up around that neighborhood. Here, see.”

  She placed the paper on my desk and there it was— the headlines jumped up and hit me in the face. It was a case I'd read about and forgotten but Anita, with her morbid kid's curiosity, had probably filed it away in her mind.

  Two middle-aged men, Ralph Brody and George Shelton, who worked in the safe deposit vault of a bank a block from Will's house, were killed in an attempted hold-up. As they were leaving the bank on this rainy afternoon, they had been shot and killed. Their assailant, who was described as a “tall, swarthy man wearing a brown trench coat,” had been frightened away by a citizen who witnessed the whole thing and emptied his gun—in vain—at the fleeing thug. No reason for the attempted hold-up was known, since the bank men only had a few dollars of personal cash on them, and there were hints in the news story about a “crazed killer on the loose.”

  The joker in the deck was... the sterling citizen who did his duty by shooting at the gunman was Big Ed Franklin!

  3

  Brother, the pieces to one part of this puzzle began to fit so tight it made my head hurt! Bobo asked, “So what does all this add up to? Remember thinking at the time, why hold up a couple of guys only making fifty a week.”

  “See who the great hero was?”

  Bobo pointed to a later edition, “Sure, they even got the 'Cat's' picture here. Still, so what?”

  “I'm a guy who doesn't believe in too many coincidences, like Franklin merely happening to be driving by at the time the...”

  Shirley, who was reading the same story in another paper, said, “But it says here Mr. Franklin had a safe deposit vault in the bank, got there after the bank closed. That's how he happened to be in his car, witnessed the killings.”

  “Sure, Franklin is such a simple joker, doesn't even know banks close at 3 p.m., that's why he gets there at 4 p.m.!”

  “Still can't buy it,” Bobo said. “Why would a big apple like the 'Cat' get himself mixed up in a couple of killings?”

  He had me stumped there—Franklin was way past the stage where he did his own strong-arm stuff. But things fitted so tightly I knew I had to be right. I said, “Haven't got the whole picture yet, but it's coming into focus. Shirley cut out all stories dealing with the murders.”

  I read through the next few days' papers but the case faded quickly. No trace was ever found of the “killer in a brown trench coat.” But a wild idea was flying around inside my head.... I dialed Saltz, had an uneasy moment while waiting for him to answer. If he'd found Louise's body... Saltz might be checking fingerprints by now and...

  Saltz grunted, “Lieut. Saltz, speaking.”

  “This is Hal Darling.”

  “The little eye. What's up, Sherlock?”

  For once I was glad to hear his corny humor. “Nothing. Called to learn if you had anything new.”

  “We're still digging, expect the break any day.”

  I wanted to laugh into the phone: Saltz must have thought he was talking to the press. “Look, Lieutenant, has there been a diamond cutter, or anybody in the diamond business, reported missing in the last three or four months?”

  “What the hell has that got to...?”

  “Case I'm on. Missing husband, think he worked in the diamond trade under a false name. Thought you might be able to give me a hand.”

  “I got enough cases to work on without helping you. For a little guy you got more nerve than...”

  “Okay, don't go up in the air,” I said, thinking it didn't make much difference if I located the diamond cutter or not—he would certainly be dead by now—if my brainstorm was correct.

  “I'll boot your little can up in the air! Up to my neck in work and you pester me with looking for call-girls, for diamond cutters—what the hell you think this is, a quiz program?”

  “Sorry,” I said. “By the by, happened to pick up an old paper on the subway—those two bank men who were shot about a month ago—wasn't it rather odd that 'Cat' Franklin was mixed up in it, the only witness?”

  “What are you, mother's little helper today?” Saltz growled.

  “I'm merely trying to learn how to be a detective,” I said sweetly, not laying the sarcasm on too heavy.

  “You're nuts and I'm even crazier to bother talking to you! I was in on that bank case. Franklin had a permit for the gun. We made a thorough ballistics check of his cannon, wasn't the same one that killed the bank men.”

  “Was it the same caliber?”

  “Yes, but the ballistic markings were entirely different What you driving at?”

  “Just wondering.”

  “Stick to guarding dance halls and stop wasting my time!” Saltz said, hanging up.

  4

  I read the news stories again. Both men had been shot with one bullet apiece, clean through the heart. No matter what anybody says, a pistol isn't a very accurate weapon, especially for a punk firing during the heat of a stick-up on a rainy day. I read through a couple more editions till I came upon another item I was looking for—Franklin had emptied his gun at the “killer.” The fantastic idea was still pounding at the door of my brain, and crazy or not, it fitted in with everything else. I glanced at Shirley. “Take the day off. I got talk for Bobo.”

  A hurt look swiftly crossed her brown face, then turned to anger.

  “Look, Shirley,” I added, “it isn't that I don't trust you. Only there's a reward for what I know—a bullet or a slit throat. Don't want you collecting that kind of payoff, so less you know...”

  “But I got off early yesterday. And only worked an hour or so today and...”

  “Tell you what, come back about three. Meantime, go to the Paramount and...”

  “I don't like movies, too stupid these days.”

  I grinned. “Shirley, will you please blow.”

  She hesitated, finally got her hat and left. I locked the door, told Bobo, “Don't you go blabbing what I'm going to tell you. Wouldn't tell you except I have to try this on somebody for size.”

  “Did I ever have a big mouth, Hal?”

  “Here's something you didn't know, that rock we had, it was a sliver off an industrial diamond about a half inch long, worth ten grand. It...”

  “A diamond?”

  “Yeah. Diamonds that have flaws, poor color, are used in industry for drills, polishing, stuff like that. This was made special.... I think it was a diamond bullet!”

  5

  Bobo looked at the cold stub of a cigar he was chewing, said, “Hal, I know what I'm smoking, so it must be you. You puffing tea? A diamond bullet!”

  “Listen to this—all
of it—before you sound off. Our client, the postman, is sitting in his living-room, five stories up and no roofs around him, when this slug comes tear-assing through the window and metal blinds, breaks apart on a copper vase. What else but a gun would send a diamond slug, or any slug, that high and with that amount of force?

  “Now, Willie don't know what it is, takes it to a jeweler on his mail route, learns it's an industrial diamond, worth ten grand. He wants that dough but isn't sure the stone is his, wants to play it safe. He hires us with a bunko story, to find out who owns the rock, whether he can sell it. Assuming it is a diamond bullet, why should anybody spend at least ten thousand bucks having such a bullet made?”

  “That's why it don't make sense,” Bobo said. “In cowboy stories I read about silver slugs, but never a diamond bullet. If a guy wants to wear it on a chain, wouldn't spend...”

  “Wear it? This guy used it for shooting! I think I have the answer, though it may sound wild as hell. You know what ballistics is—same as fingerprinting for bullets. The nose of a bullet is made of lead and the gun barrel has grooves to keep the slug spinning straight. As the bullet comes out of the barrel, these grooves cut into the lead, leave markings that...”

  “I know that, but...?”

  “Willya listen? Being harder than lead, the steel grooves of the pistol barrel cut the bullet slug. Now, suppose a guy makes a diamond nose for a bullet, the diamond being harder than steel will work in reverse—instead of the grooves cutting the bullet, the bullet will cut the grooves!”

  Bobo shook his head. “I still don't get it. Why should Franklin spend all that dough when he could hire a couple guns for peanuts and...”

  “I don't know the motive—yet—but for some reason the 'Cat' can't trust anybody to knock these jokers off, he has to do it himself. He had this diamond bullet made by a guy who probably is wearing cement slippers at the bottom of the ocean this minute. Let's say the diamond slug is the fourth bullet in the gun. The 'Cat' can take careful aim, kill the two men with a shot apiece, then empties his gun at the supposed killer—being very careful to shoot at a high angle—which is how the diamond went into Will's apartment. That was the one thing the 'Cat' couldn't figure on, the luck factor that always screws up these perfect crime deals.”