by John Roeburt
The rock that had been only scarred and mutilated on its surface now lay broken. Devereaux saw this and understood it, and he knew with a sure grasp that the secret that was Toller’s would pass to him.
He saw Toller’s sign; a finger that made the least movement. Devereaux crouched low to hear the bare whisper.
“You win,” the taxi-driver said. “Carry me to your car.” The eyes that were deep and lost leaped from their void. “Do as I tell you, mister, or go to hell. You’ll carry me around. You’re my legs now.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Part 1.
The alleyway was refuse-laden and it ran in slender line to the yard in the back. On both sides of it were warehouses no longer in use. Mammoth structures they were, with sheet-tin for windows and fire-escapes pulled perilously from their mooring in the ancient brick. There were gaping holes in the brick; irregular patterns like a child’s building blocks. These showed high up where the roofs were, as if Wreckers had begun on it and then for reasons remote and mysterious, had gone away.
Devereaux picked his way slowly through the narrow foot-pass. The burden he carried in his arms was almost more than his strength, and although alone and safe from watchers, he felt embarrassed and even a little ridiculous.
Toller cautioned, “Stop before you go into the yard. I’ve got a German Police in there. She’ll jump you, unless I call her off.” There was a worried note. “She might anyhow, when she sees you carrying me. She won’t understand it.”
* * * *
The dog stood, graceless and malevolent, quartered by a heavy-linked chain fixed to a drainpipe. The length of chain limited the beast’s mobility to the mouth of the alleyway. The yard was littered with metal and glass. Outstandingly, there was a broken gasoline pump, a bedspring with thick coils of rust, and a large, square box with the word COLA still readable on it.
The small yard-house they entered was a gray clapboard frame of one story, with an exterior bulge to it as if it was water-logged and swollen. In the hallway, there was a whine and movement to the planks underfoot, and the effect on Devereaux was dis-equilibrium; he was in a remembered Coney Island Exhibit, where the floors fell away to the tread and the walls gave the chilling illusion of compression and jeopardy.
Toller said, “Reach into my coat for the key. The left hand pocket.” He added, in the faintest irony, “I’ll open the door. You’ve got your hands full.”
Inside the room, the unlighted gloom had the effect of a blindfold. The air was heavy, and there were overpowering odors. Damp smells, like the accumulation of decades of rain; the reek of fabrics and bedding and oilcloth, the rancid smell of unrefrigerated food.
Toller’s fingers tapped the detective’s shoulder in what had oddly become their code, and Devereaux carefully laid the taxi-driver across a great chair. A side position, with Toller casually disposed; his thighs and legs on the arm-rest, and placed slightly higher than his head.
Devereaux stood, feeling taller than his height for the low ceiling. When his eyes lost the first blur and his focus was truer, he sought out the details of the room. It had the formless and meager arrangement of furnishings and effects that suggested a clubhouse more than a dwelling. A Youths’ clubhouse; the hide-away and rendezvous of nesters in flight from the closeness of their tenement homes and the overseership of their elders. There was a Victrola cabinet, and a checkers table with the red and black squares impressed in the wood. The walls showed sports pictures: boxers, and ball players, and race horses. These were of the newspaper rotogravure sort mainly, and they were fastened to the walls with thumb-tacks.
An iron bed stood in a corner of the room, set by a window that was darkened by a blue-green window shade. On the bed was a man. He was partly clad. He wore an undershirt that left his armpits free, trousers that were unbelted and loose on his hips, and his feet were bare. A thin man of smaller frame than the scant clothes that covered him. His knees were raised to points, and the bones could be read through the trousers he wore. A sick man plainly, and the signs of this were more than his general emaciation. His face was shadowed, and small as if the planes from nose to the sides had no embellishment of flesh. His stare was upward, to the ceiling; a fixed, unfaltering stare, as if he had died.
Devereaux looked to Toller, drawn by the strangled sounds the taxi-driver was making in his throat. Toller was crying, and trying to do it silently.
The detective looked again to the motionless figure on the iron, bed, and then took an involuntary step away from it. He had a small boy’s fright for an instinctive moment; this was a reality beyond him, older than his years; and not of his taste or liking; nor did he want to see and understand it, and so become part of a sophistication and sordidness from which he could never again wrest his youth.
The man on the iron bed was Rocky Star. Devereaux knew it, and then said the name to himself, silently inside himself. The shrunken figure that looked more than sixty years old was The Tiger Man. The detective calculated swiftly in his head. Thirty-one; Rocky’s calendar age was thirty-one.
He heard Max Toller say, “He fell away, bit by bit, to what you see. This last year, it’s gone faster. One month, Rocky shrivels up like ten years.”
The taxi-driver kept talking, as if anticipating Devereaux’s questions. “A bone disease. Malignant and incurable. The same that got Lou Gehrig. All you can do is clock off the time you’ve got left. Rocky was in Europe when he got the diagnosis. He used a made-up name, and the Medic over there never knew he’d examined The Tiger Man. That’s why there was no leak on his condition here in the States. Only three of us know it. Me, Rocky, and Hobie Grimes.”
Toller made a gesture and Devereaux looked with the taxi-driver’s pointing fingers. “In that cabinet there near the bed. There’s a hypodermic and morphine in a bottle. I jab Rocky once a day, so he can make out. That coma he’s in; the jab snaps him out of it. He can move around for an hour, eat, and play a little checkers.” The taxi-driver moved slightly and painfully. “The way I am now, I can’t do the trick for Rocky. You’ll have to do it for me, mister.” The fingers pointed again. “That burner there, the electric stove; you’ll have to heat up some water and sterilize the hypodermic. Jab Rocky, and then jab me.”
Devereaux stood still as he was, as if he had not heard the taxi-driver’s request. A time later, the detective spoke in shocked tones, “Penned in here, with you playing doctor with bootleg pharmaceuticals… With you shopping groceries and keeping house…”
Toller said, “Rocky wanted it like this. We both wanted it like this, mister!” The underlip was going uncontrollably again, but now there were sounds. “The only big thing he ever had was his pride. The Tiger Man, Undefeated Champion Of The World. He wanted to be remembered only like that. Undefeated, mister!”
Devereaux shook his head slowly. He had a stifled feeling, as if entrapped; the denouement found him cheerless, even regretful for it. Rocky Star on a death-bed just around the corner from Tenement 222 that had cradled Rocco Starziani. Tenement 222, where an old man fooled with matchsticks, building cathedrals, and a son fancied his own image. The old block, and the cycle completed; Rocco had come back an anonymous wraith, to die on the old block. A secret kept, almost kept, and the cost of it was murder. Now Toller spoke as if again anticipating the detective’s question. “Hobie too wanted it like Rocky and I wanted it. The Champ had gone away, and never mind where. It was nobody’s business but Rocky’s!”
A phrase repeated in Devereaux’s head. Hobie’s own phrase; obscure once, but he understood it now. “Who has stolen the statue from the public park—”
Toller continued, “Hobie was up here every chance he had, reading books to Rocky and kidding him that he was going to win this bout and get better. Kidding him that the uptown place was still set up and waiting for Rocky to come back to it. Hobie was wonderful, and the bad things I said about him weren’t true, mister. I was conning you around.”
Devereaux said incredulously, “The way you remember Hobie…the f
ine feeling. Yet you killed him. You were the one!”
There was no denial of it. And no yield of expression. No wincing look, or care, or remorse that Devereaux could see. Toller was a zealot, and all of him dedicated, and murder and atrocious assault were the mere signs of his dedication. Like the grocery bag standing fat with food, the morphine and the hypodermic needle, the checkerboard and the checkers. All in kind, all in proof, murder and home medicine and checkers, and no one sign or deed more exacting than another to the taxi-driver. And all of it in the name of the Cause, in homage to it. All of it in the name of Rocky Star—the sanctity of the myth of The Tiger Man.
Toller said, “Hobie was going to tell you where to go find Rocky. He put me on notice; he’d reached that answer to his situation. I went to Brooklyn to talk it over with him. Hobie let me in. Later, I let myself out. A funny thing, I think Hobie knew I was coming to kill him, but didn’t give a damn.”
Devereaux looked long and futilely at the taxi-driver. He was again vainly assessing Toller, his camera again aimed at a subject who dodged out of focus before the click. Toller, the perversity of this one man and the insanity, was too complex for Devereaux’s grasp. A casebook of psychopaths over a quarter-century of police work, provided not index, type, or prototype to Max Toller. Toller was uniquely Toller, utterly new in Devereaux’s experience. A study for clinicians, never a detective.
Devereaux heard Toller say, “Hobie was dead anyhow. The heart was out of him. Rocky was Hobie’s whole life.”
Devereaux asked, “The corpse in the marsh. Who was it, and what grave did you rob?”
“He was Mamie Regan’s late husband, Kid Coogan. He died close to the time Rocky had to drop out of sight. I was at his funeral; we laid a wreath on his grave that set Rocky back five hundred dollars.” Now there was the merest smile on Toller’s face. As if proud of his device, the genius of it. “There’s an empty coffin now where Coogan was buried. Coogan was a middleweight. His last bout with Rocky, their, measurements tallied.”
“When did you put Coogan in the marsh?”
“Months ago. About the time that columnist Carter went to bat for Nina Troy. Carter brought Rocky’s disappearance back to public attention.” Toller’s tone took on stress, as if some decent explanation was a particular need with him. “I had to stop the girl. Mind you, I knew her situation, and I was sorry for her. But if she found Rocky, then so would the world.”
He continued, “Coogan’s remains was my ace in the hole all along. The investigation got rough, I had a corpse to hand up. A corpse with Rocky’s measurements, wearing Rocky’s ring—Let the cops beat their brains over it. It was the perfect cover for Rocky. And to make it sweeter, it was the perfect frame for Marco. Marco would get what he deserved.”
A long moment later, Toller said hopelessly, “Rocky still wants it like this, mister.” He read Devereaux’s face, and then the glaring cat-yellow pupils the detective had missed seeing through the night and day came alive again. They held a flame, and now there was a grotesque set to Toller’s face.
The taxi-driver said, “You’re a cop and you’re a crumb. The Tiger Man built something with his guts, and now you’re going to tear it down. You’re going to show him up to be nothing…just some more garbage on the East Side.”
Devereaux shook his head violently. He wanted to cry out that the flesh had no consequence, and that it was the spirit only that mattered. That a game fighter could never lose face, or the love of his fellows, or high seat in the universe. That the applause of The Tiger Man would be as great as before, even greater than before. That they were wrong, these two, the fighter and his trainer; that they had the wrong value of pride, a lunatic concept of it…
But Devereaux said nothing. It was a speech he could think, but never make. Lofty words and tender words…he was awkward in it, he did it badly…
Toller said miserably, “I should have killed you that night I fired over your head. I made my mistake there, mister. I should have killed you.”
And then he said, “Go on, sweep us into the gutter, mister. We’re garbage. Swing your broom.”
Devereaux stared at the taxi-driver. The underlip was going uncontrollably in the incantation without sound. Not long after, it stopped. Toller was quiet; he had passed out.
Part 2.
She made flurried and uncoordinated movements with her clothing accessories and the sheaf of papers she carried, as if in these diversions she would perhaps find that poise she somehow had lost.
Her eyes turned away as she spoke. “You’ve done this wonderful thing…you don’t know how grateful…”
Devereaux nodded to her across a distance, and she fumbled through another bit of speech. “My marriage will be substantiated. He—Rocky—is anxious for it too.” Her eyes filled with horror. “Poor Rocky…how terrible!”
Devereaux made silent nod again, and then looked down at her hand reaching to him. “I’ve got to run,” she said somewhere deep in her throat. “I’m Laura Brooks this morning, and you know how fanatical the Director is about promptness…”
They touched fingers barely.
When she was gone, Devereaux found it hard to re-conjure her. Ghosts without flesh, they had met briefly and touched without incident or envelopment. A dalliance in the shadows, and now it was day, cold and clear. He was in his lonely corner, depressed, but oddly glad for the depression. This was his milieu, the familiar self; he was at home in loneliness.
He watched Sam Solowey emerge from the box that was the elevator, and come striding toward him. He watched Solowey, with a great wish to erase him. He was jealous of his lonely corner.
MODEL FOR MURDER, by Stephen Marlowe
Copyright © 1955 by Graphic Publishing Co.
Chapter One
First I opened the door. Then I shut it. Then I opened it again. The bellhop scratched half-heartedly at a pimple the stiff collar of his uniform had irritated, and stared at me. I stared back and shut the door in his face and opened it.
“Honest, the lock works,” he said.
“The snap lock.” I pointed out. I twisted the key on my side of the door, watching the latch click easily into place and then out. The bellhop snickered and walked past me into the room with a quart of gin, a fifth of vermouth, a bucket of ice and two cocktail glasses on a circular red tray. He dropped his burden on the scarred top of the dresser, adding to the damage. He held out his hand and waited while I was trying to decide which looked better, the tray of gin, vermouth, ice and cocktail glasses or the mirrored reflection of the tray of gin, vermouth, ice and cocktail glasses.
“Thank you, sport,” he said, as I gave him a quarter. It had been so long since I’d handed out gratuities I didn’t know if he was kidding or not. After he left, I decided to wait for Jo-Anne before I unfastened the cap on the bottle of gin, so I stretched out on the bed, laced my fingers behind my head, stared up at the cracked ceiling and tried to savor the feeling of freedom. Which was easy.
Take the lock. I could open it and shut it, as often as I liked or not at all. I could play the radio at three a.m. or dance a jig up Park Avenue and watch the dog-walkers or wait for Jo-Anne to drink martinis with me or write my congressman.
Or, I could do nothing. Just plain nothing. I could lie here on a cheap hotel bed which had begun to get the gunwale sag, like so, and take off my shoe to poke indelicately at the blister on my left heel. They were new shoes and maybe I’d complain and maybe I wouldn’t, but it was up to me.
This sure beats prison, I thought, wondering if there were any awards for the understatement of the year.
Maybe I’d visit my brother Ken tomorrow and maybe I wouldn’t. Whatever I felt like. But I took Ken’s check out of my pocket and looked at it again. The little slip of pink paper was undeniably fascinating.
Pay to the order of JASON CHASE—One hundred thousand and 00/100 dollars. Ken had signed his bold, blocky signature with a broad pen. KENNETH LAMAR CHASE.
The check was good. Ken could probably write four o
r five more like it. It was too damned good and I wanted to tear it up. Instead, I jammed it back in my pocket and told myself I was doing that because I wanted to tear it into little pieces in front of Ken’s face and watch his expression, but I knew it was because I still hadn’t made up my mind about that hundred thousand dollars.
Then there came a knock on the door and I padded barefoot across someone’s faded idea of a floral pattern, to let in Jo-Anne.
Everything Jo-Anne does is enthusiastic, even the way she breathes. I was willing to bet she would go so far as to die enthusiastically, say in sixty years or so. She could cry as enthusiastically as she could laugh, and probably get just as much of a charge out of it. All this being the case, I wasn’t exactly gloomy about spending my first evening of freedom with her.
Jo-Anne walked into the room. Expressively. Her first step said it was a pretty shoddy room but she’d been in far worse and anyway, it had a certain charm. Her second step said she was glad to see me. Her third step brought us in contact and her fourth step served as a fuse.
She was kissing me. I was kissing her. I’d been wondering what it would be like to hold a woman after two years. Now I knew.
“Jason,” she babbled against my ear. “Let me look at you.” That way, it was impossible. “Let me touch you.” She already was. “I think it’s just wonderful. I think it’s the most wonderful thing in the world.”
The first thing I did was take those harlequin glasses from her nose and deposit them on the bed. Her eyes were gray as fog at dusk, but flecked with green. Her hair was short-bobbed, fluffy chestnut. She wore a blue plastic raincoat which made crinkling noises between us. She was twenty-six but looked and sometimes acted ten years younger. She had an IQ around 160. Drop Einstein’s brain in a dancer’s pixie body and you’d come close.