by Frank Kane
Back in town, Johnny Liddell sought out an all-night drugstore on Vine, stuck a nickel in the pay telephone, dialed the number of Toni Belden’s apartment. The phone rang seven times before it answered.
“Hello,” Toni’s sleepy voice greeted him.
“This is Johnny, Toni. Wake you up?”
The girl groaned. “Look at the time he picks to play guessing games. Here I stay awake all night waiting for a call, then as soon as I get to sleep, it comes in.”
“Stop grouching,” Liddell told her. “I just called to tip you that the case is in the stretch. We’re closing in on Randolph some time during the next twenty-four hours.”
All the sleepiness left the girl’s voice. “Have any of the other papers got wind of it?”
“Nobody has,” Liddell reassured her. “Doc Morrissey and I worked it out earlier tonight. I expect to pick up the killer sometime tomorrow.” He consulted his watch, groaned. “That is, today.”
“When will I have something?” she asked.
“Sit tight until tonight. If nothing cracks by then, I’ll give you the story anyway. But I’ve got a hunch we’ll have a confession and the damnedest best scoop you ever pulled.”
Toni sounded excited. “Gee, Johnny. Thanks. There’s no chance of a slip-up? You’re really hot this time?”
Johnny grinned wryly. “I must be. I’ve been shot at and somebody tried to poison me all within the last twelve hours.”
He could hear the girl’s gasp. “Be careful, will you?”
“Don’t worry, baby,” Liddell assured her. “I won’t let anybody kill me until I deliver that scoop in person. And don’t print anything at all until I give you the go-ahead.”
The girl reporter promised, and rang off.
Johnny Liddell put through a collect call to New York, then ambled out to the soda fountain. He drank three cups of black coffee before the connection was made. As soon as the bell in the booth rang, Liddell jumped for it.
“Hello, Steve,” he greeted the agency chief. “Got anything for me?”
“Yeah, Johnny.” Steve Baron sounded unhappy. “But nothing too good. We checked Detroit where the guy comes from, and he’s bona fide all right. Lots of the boys know him. He came from there five, six years ago, went to Hollywood and did some extra work in pictures. That stack up?”
Johnny Liddell scratched his head. “No. Matter of fact, it kind of kicks a hole in the whole damned case all over again. The way I had it figured the guy never existed before a week or so ago. You’re sure?”
“I put two of the best men in Detroit on it, Johnny. That’s their report. The cops out there remembered the guy, said he never gave them any trouble, just used to run with some tough boys. Got no record, no prints on file. They did say, though, that the Hollywood police had already checked.”
Johnny sighed. “I might have known that Devlin wouldn’t slip up on something like that. Now I’m right back where I was.”
Baron sympathized. “Sorry, Johnny. Facts is facts.”
“Yeah. Well, okay, Steve. I’ll take it on from there. I’ll keep you informed.”
He slammed the receiver back on its hook and swore loudly. He wished more than ever that he had been willing to accept Randolph’s death as an accident and that he had high-tailed it back East before the damned case developed. Then, shrugging, he left the booth, headed for police headquarters.
Inspector Devlin was in his office when Johnny Liddell arrived. He was trying to look affable, but there was electricity in the air.
Johnny, sensing a coming storm, slid into his favorite armchair, and draped a leg over the arm.
“I hear you had a little excitement tonight.” He indicated the white patch on Liddell’s head.
Johnny nodded. “Some jealous husband, no doubt. Tried to gun me in my hotel room.”
Devlin roared. “You know you’re supposed to report all shootings to the department.” He ran his stubby fingers through his hair. “Who was it?”
“I don’t know. I told you what happened. Some guy sat on my fire escape, pot-shot me when I came in. That’s all.”
The inspector snorted. “Some guy! You know damn well it wasn’t just some guy. It was the killer. You turned the slug over to Ballistics for comparison. Do you know that Fogarty spent the whole night waiting for you at your hotel?”
“So that’s how you knew, eh? I forgot all about Fogarty.”
Devlin tried desperately to restrain himself. “You forgot Fogarty! Where the hell were you? You told him to come over there. When he got there, you were gone.”
“I wasn’t there when I was talking to him. I was at Doc Morrissey’s. Fogarty didn’t even give me a chance to tell him.”
“Oh, he didn’t! He gets to that flophouse you call a hotel, tells the clerk who he is and the clerk spills the whole story. Fine business,” he growled. “We got to go and find out about things for ourselves.” He chewed furiously on his gum. “I hear your agency’s been checking up on some of our local citizens in their home towns.”
“Any objections?”
“Nope. Just could save yourself the trouble if you’d give us credit for knowing something about our business.”
“Okay. So I was just checking up for myself.”
Devlin leaned back in his chair.
“I hear you and Doc Morrissey are cooking up something, Liddell.”
Johnny sighed. “I thought so. Now, I’m not so sure. Every damn time it looks like this case is on ice, something crops up to kick over the whole apple cart.”
“That’s what I wanted to talk to you about, Johnny. I’m willing to play along with you to the hilt, even when you get me up to my ears in hot water … But,” he stormed, “I’m not going to stand for you failing to live up to the regulations in this town. I don’t know what this new stunt you have framed up with Morrissey is, but if it even smells of being irregular, I’ll personally break you right out of that license of yours.”
“Even if it means getting your murderer for you?”
Devlin scowled. “Why can’t you do things like a dick should? Why do you always have to do it the hard way? Just tell us who the killer is, give us whatever you’re holding out, and if it’s enough, we’ll arrest him and take it over from there.”
“I wish it was that easy, Devlin,” Liddell retorted. “We’re working with a smart operator. A guy who knows all the angles and who’s played them all. So far he’s outplayed us. We’ve got to take all the points from here in or he wins.”
“Who is he?”
“I’ll show him to you as soon as I lay my hands on him. I’ve got some boys out looking for him right now.”
“That’s what I mean. You’ve got some boys out looking for him. What boys? Not policemen?”
“With policemen you need search warrants and you can’t just pick a guy up for some friendly questioning. I got nothing I could give you to make a pinch. My only hope is to make the rat talk.”
“It’s Randolph you’re after?”
Liddell nodded. “That’s right. Harvey Randolph. We’ve got a pretty good idea of how he looks even with the plastic. I’ve got some friends who are sort of looking around for him. We’ll have a little coming-out party for him at Goodman’s office as soon as they locate him.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
IT WAS FIVE-THIRTY that afternoon when Doc Morrissey emerged from surgery. He was wiping his hands on a small towel.
“Switchboard has been paging you, Doctor,” the floor nurse told him. “Shall I ring them for you?”
Morrissey nodded, wiped the beads of perspiration from his forehead with the towel and perched himself on the edge of the desk. The girl called switchboard, spoke with the operator for a moment, then held the receiver out to the coroner.
“Dr. Morrissey speaking. What is it?”
“Mr. Liddell called, Doctor. Said it was important. Said to tell you they were going to have an unveiling of Lacy Pants at Goodman’s office.” Her voice was puzzled. “I know it sounds crazy, b
ut I’m sure that’s what he said. I asked him to repeat it, and …”
“When did he say?” Doc’s voice mounted with excitement.
“As soon as you were free. He gave me the address. It’s across town. Shall I have a cab waiting, Doctor?”
“Yeah. I’ll be ready in about ten minutes. No, wait a minute. Make it five.” He tossed the receiver on the hook, started down the hall on a run, peeling off his operating gown as he ran.
Doc Morrissey burst through the door marked Julian Goodman Productions and found Johnny Liddell sitting at the desk usually occupied by the blonde. His feet were on the desk, a bottle in his lap.
“I’m not as pretty as the doll who usually sits here,” he cracked. “But I’ll bet I’ve got better news than she ever had.”
“Got him?”
Johnny Liddell nodded. “You’re a miracle man, Doc! I just compared him with the picture. It couldn’t look more like him if he’d posed for it himself.” He swung his feet off the desk and kicked the little gate to the enclosure open for the doc.
“Where is he?” Morrissey demanded.
Liddell started to say something when the door to the office slammed open and Inspector Devlin stalked in. “I got your call, Johnny. You say you got Randolph here? Where?”
“He’s all nice and snug under glass,” Liddell assured him. He held the bottle out. “Better take a drink of this, both of you. It ain’t exactly peaches and cream.”
The inspector put the bottle down untouched. “Bring him out, Johnny,” he ordered.
Liddell shrugged, got up and led the way into the office behind the door marked Julian Goodman—Private. As they entered, Mushky jumped to his feet, stood to one side.
A familiar figure sat on the side of the couch, his hands cuffed together. Devlin stopped dead in the doorway.
“Marty Mann,” he exclaimed. “Goodman’s bodyguard!” He looked from Liddell to Morrissey and back. “What is this?”
“It’s kidnaping, that’s what,” the bodyguard growled. He held up his manacled hands. “If it’s a pinch, I’ve got the damnedest fake arrest suit against you you ever saw.”
Devlin shook his head. “I don’t know of any arrest,” he growled. “What’s the idea, Liddell?”
Johnny Liddell pointed to Marty Mann. “That’s Harvey Randolph.” He nodded to Morrissey. “Doc reconstructed the operation Maurer performed and here’s what came out.” He showed Devlin a picture of the bust after the changes had been made.
“Looks like him,” Devlin admitted. “But that’s not evidence. You got to prove it’s him.” He waved the picture. “This ain’t enough.”
Liddell nodded unhappily. “I know it. And we have no fingerprints of Randolph. But it’s him.”
The bodyguard sneered. “Thanks for the compliment. Me, Harvey Randolph? That’s a good one.” He looked to Devlin. “Go on, take me in and book me. See what the newspapers do to you for that.”
Devlin shrugged. “I don’t know whether you know what you’re doing or not,” he told Liddell, “but I can’t be a party to this. If I ever tried to set foot in the station house with that guy and palm him off as Harvey Randolph, I’d be detailed out to the whack factory.”
“Well, we’re not going to let him get away with it,” Doc Morrissey growled. “He killed old Maurer in cold blood. Not to mention the other three who probably had it coming to them, anyway.”
The slate-gray eyes studied the coroner calmly. “The guy’s nuts. I never killed anybody.”
Morrissey started for him, but Liddell caught the coroner by the arm. “Take it easy, Doc,” he counseled. “The guy’s got us and he knows it. There he is, but there’s nothing we can do about him.”
The coroner wheeled. “What do you mean there’s nothing we can do about him? He killed Maurer and he’s going to burn for it if I have to do it myself.”
“Be yourself, Doc,” Liddell urged. “Like Devlin says, if we try to book this zombie as Randolph, from now on our suits will lace up the back. As Marty Mann, we can’t prove he killed any of the three of them.”
Devlin nodded. “What are you going to do with him?”
Liddell shook his head sadly. “Looks like the only thing we can do is let him go. He’s in no position to yell copper. He’s Randolph all right.”
Morrissey jumped at the manacled man before Johnny Liddell could stop him. “Before you go, you rat, here’s a souvenir from Maurer.”
There was a sharp crack as his fist caught the bodyguard just under one of the slate-gray eyes. It knocked him over the chair, left him lying half on the couch, half off.
Mushky looked at the coroner with new-found respect. “Geez, what a wallop for a little guy.”
It was plain what the man meant. The blow had shattered the artificially built up cheekbone of the man on the floor. It lay flatly against his face, an odd complement to the fullness of the other side.
Devlin knelt beside the fallen man. “Say, I’m beginning to think you’ve got something. This guy’s face has been built up.” He thought for a moment, shook his head. “I couldn’t risk it, Doc. A smart lawyer would still laugh us out of court.”
The coroner joined Devlin by the unconscious man’s side. He took one look, probed around with his fingers, then nodded. “I’ll take care of that. Get me a mirror, somebody.”
Mushky looked to Johnny for instructions.
“There’s a mirror in the medicine cabinet,” Liddell indicated with his head. “Behind the door over there.”
Mushky wrenched the mirror off the door of the medicine cabinet, handed it to Morrissey. Some of the color had returned to the doctor’s face.
“Funny time to play games, Doc,” Liddell grunted.
“Never mind the comedy, Johnny. Get a little of that bum brandy of yours between this guy’s teeth,” he ordered.
Mushky went into the outer office, returned with the bottle Devlin had put down on the desk. He knelt by the side of the man on the floor and forced the neck of the bottle into his mouth. The man coughed and gagged. Then the slate eyes fluttered open.
The coroner riveted his attention on the man on the floor.
“Well, Randolph, I suppose you thought all that plastic work in your face was like pencil marks on a sketch that could be erased at any time simply by scraping out the wax. I suppose after that you thought your face would resume its normal appearance?”
Suddenly he pushed the mirror under the ex-bodyguard’s nose. The man looked, then turned his face away.
“Not very pretty, eh?” Morrissey persisted. “Well, that’s the way it’s going to be from now on.” There was fear in the man’s deep-set eyes when they studied Morrissey’s face. “It’s true that you can pump paraffin into a man’s face, then later remove it without any great amount of damage,” the coroner continued, “but that’s only if there’s no complication. However, when that wax slips and distorts unaffected tissue as in this case, it can never be brought back.”
There was still fear in the man’s face, but he bit his lip stubbornly and refused to comment.
“Got anything to say?” Morrissey asked.
The smashed cheekbone made speaking difficult. “I’m not saying anything except that when I get out of here, I’ll …”
Morrissey nodded to Mushky. “Lift him up and tie him to the couch.”
The room was thick with the blueness of smoke. Inspector Devlin chewed angrily on the end of a cigar that had long since gone out. Liddell’s cigarette dangled from the corner of his mouth as he poured rye into four lily cups. Mushky sat sprawled behind the receptionist’s desk, his feet in a drawer, his cigar forgotten in an ash tray.
Morrissey was pacing the floor. “It’s the only way, I tell you,” he insisted. “We’ve got to take a gamble. A rat like Randolph is ninety per cent conceit, five per cent cunning and five per cent intelligence. We’ve got to play on that conceit.”
Liddell looked up. “And if it don’t work, where the hell are we?”
“Can’t be much wors
e off than we are now,” Devlin growled. “We either got to prove this guy is Randolph and that he murdered your doctor friend and the others, or else we’re flirting with a nice long federal rap for kidnaping.” He grabbed a lily cup off the desk and gulped it down. “Count me in,” he grunted.
Morrissey pounded him on the shoulder. “Good boy, Inspector. Now we’re going to need a couple of spotlights, the hotter the better.”
The inspector turned to Mushky. “Get over to Mammoth and tell Jonesey in the prop room that I gotta have two of the hottest baby spots he’s got. And get ‘em back here right away.”
Mushky grunted and hoisted himself to his feet. On his way past the corner of the desk, he nailed a slug of rye and downed it. “Sounds screwy to me,” he snapped.
“Who the hell asked you?” Liddell said. “All you gotta do is get those spots back here.”
The man on the couch tried to disguise his interest in the preparations being made in the center of the room. His half-closed eyes followed Morrissey while the coroner tried to adjust two heavy looking baby spots so that their beams would focus on a chair set between them.
“What’s that supposed to be for? Casting a d.a. flic?”
“You’ll find out,” Morrissey grunted. He turned the lights on, and their brightness made the man on the couch squint even more. After a moment of puttering, Doc announced his satisfaction with the result.
“Okay, boys,” he said. “This is it. Let’s get going.”
The man on the couch struggled futilely against the combined tugging of Liddell and Mushky, but was handicapped by the lack of use of his arms. They soon had him in the chair. Mushky tied his legs to the chair, then they untied his hands from behind his back and tied them to the arms of the chair.
“Wh-what’s coming off here?” the ex-bodyguard panted. “You can’t get away with this.”
“You’re not Harvey Randolph,” Doc explained patiently. “At least you say you’re not. So you got nothing to worry about. Now, if you were Harvey Randolph …”
The perspiration stood out on the squinting face. “What then?”