by John Lutz
We both knew the answer to the current question was no, so I said good-night and left.
13
The jangling telephone by my bed yanked me out of sleep at nine the next morning.
It was Carlon, as promised. He told me that arranging for me to get what information I needed from First Security Trust had been difficult, but that he'd managed it. The bank was one of an affiliation of Midwestern banks with which three of the Carlon plants did business. He told me to ask for a man named Tom McGregor, the loan officer who'd processed Talbert's application.
I thanked Carlon and asked him if he'd heard of Gratuity Insurance. He hadn't. And he said the name Robert Manners meant nothing to him.
When Carlon hung up I placed a call to Lieutenant Frank Dockard in Layton. When he answered the phone, he seemed not at all surprised to hear from me. By now he'd know I left Layton. I assumed he knew I was calling from Chicago.
"I'd like you to check on a Robert Manners for me," I told him.
"Who's he?"
"I don't know. That's why I phoned you. Anything new in Layton?"
"The bullets taken from the Star Lane house were thirty-eight caliber, from the same gun, if that helps you any."
"You never can tell."
"Anything I should know, Nudger?"
"I don't think so."
"What number are you calling from? So I can phone and let you know if there's anything on Manners."
"I'll call you, Lieutenant. Sometime this afternoon. And thanks." Before he could reply I hung up.
I dressed, had a quick buckwheat pancake breakfast and headed for First Security Trust. The extent of Car-Ion's influence amazed me. His nationwide corporation seemed to touch everywhere in the business community. What he could accomplish with his index finger on the telephone was to me the most startling revelation of the case. He'd mentioned political prospects that might surprise me. Maybe that was part of it; maybe it was known that Carlon might soon be in a position to do some important people important favors. I wondered, how many Carlons were there, how many men with that kind of encompassing influence on other lives?
First Security Trust was one of Chicago's older banks. There was more polished wood and marble in the lobby than formica. Half a dozen female tellers were at their windows, and the bank was active with customers either waiting in short lines or standing and writing at long, elbow-high tables.
I identified myself and asked a young girl at the information desk for Mr. McGregor. She spoke for a moment on the phone, and soon after she hung up, McGregor came into the lobby to greet me.
He was a middle-aged man, short and overweight, with a seamed, smiling face and a broken-veined drinker's nose. Not at all the banker type. After a firm handshake he led me behind the tellers' cages to one of a series of small, frosted-glass cubicles, each containing a desk and chair. He moved behind the desk and motioned toward the chair with a smile, waiting for me to be seated before he sat down. I sensed his deference to someone authorized to receive normally confidential information.
"I understand you're the bank officer who processed a loan application by Victor Talbert," I began. When he nodded, I asked him how much Talbert had wanted to borrow, and why.
McGregor unlocked a top desk drawer and pulled out some forms stapled together. He laid them on the desk and bowed his head to stare at them, the fingertips of his left hand touching his temple near his eye. He spoke without looking up, as if the forms intrigued him.
"Victor Talbert requested a loan of sixty thousand dollars for capital to form a hardware distribution firm."
"Collateral?" I asked.
"The loan was to be granted in phases, secured by inventory."
"What made you decide against granting the loan?"
McGregor raised graying eyebrows in surprise. "But we didn't decide against. Talbert had an impeccable record, and his previous employer vouched for his integrity and ability. And my own personal assessment of Talbert was favorable. He was an impressive young man."
"Speaking as a nonbanker," I said, "it sounds risky."
"The phasing of the loan minimized the risk. In actuality we'd have been loaning the second half after the first had been paid. It was to be amortized over a ten-year period."
"Did he actually receive any money?"
"No, that's the strange thing about it. Talbert was contacted and told the directors had approved the loan. I talked to him myself. But on the date he was to come here to finalize the loan, he didn't show up."
"What day was that?"
McGregor traced a steady finger over the form before him. "The fifteenth of last month."
"What address did Talbert give you?"
The finger shot diagonally to the lower left corner of the form. "Five seventy Oakner, apartment seven."
I drew a folded slip of paper from my breast pocket and scribbled the information down. McGregor rotated the forms on the desk for my perusal in an exaggerated gesture of cooperation. I thumbed through them but saw nothing else useful. Talbert had listed himself as twenty-eight and single at the Oakner address. He'd had several employers before High Grade, but his experience was almost entirely in the hardware wholesaling business.
When I was finished, McGregor solicitously showed me out.
From First Security Trust I drove to the Oakner address Talbert had listed on his application, a tall brownstone apartment building set back on a narrow lot. Ivy was taking over the building's southeast corner, as if trying to bring the tall structure to earth.
I discovered what I'd expected. The apartment manager told me that Talbert had lived there for three months with a woman and young child, and when I showed him a photo of Joan Clark he identified her as the woman. They had moved out just over a month ago, without notice, but they had left behind an envelope containing the remainder of their rent money.
When I got back to the TraveLodge, I phoned Dockard and also got what information I expected from him. There were four men with major criminal records who used the name Robert Manners, either as their genuine name or an AKA-two in prison, one out of the country and the other eighty years old in a home in Iowa.
I replaced the receiver and stretched out on the bed, my shoes off, thinking about the day's main development. Keen, likable, admirable and ambitious Victor Talbert had run out on a sixty-thousand-dollar loan that would have enabled him to start his own business.
I found that remarkable.
14
I'd left word at the desk for a wake-up call at eight in the morning. When the phone rang it wasn't eight o'clock; it was three A.M. But it definitely woke me.
"Somebody's hurt me!…"
At first I didn't recognize the hysterical female voice.
"They beat me!…"
It was Belle Dee. "Belle, where are you?"
"Home… just got here… They told me not to call the police. Said they'd kill me if I did. They kept asking about Vic… I couldn't tell them any more than I told you!"
"I'll call a doctor."
"No! Please! A doctor might tell the police." The voice was still high, agonized, but she was gaining control.
I was responsible. I'd led somebody to her. "How badly hurt are you?"
"Don't know."
"I'll be there."
"Please, Alto!…"
"It's Alo," I said and hung up.
I was sitting on the edge of the bed, trembling, telling myself it was because the room was too cool. But I was scared. I reached for my pants.
The drive to Belle Dee's apartment was a skip in time, one of those chores performed automatically and precisely with the best part of the subconscious mind while the conscious boiled.
They'd done a job on her. She took a long time to answer my knock and reassurances, and when she inched open the door, she flinched in fright at the crack of light from the hall.
In the dimness of Belle Dee's apartment I could see that her upper lip was grotesquely swollen, and there was a slender track of blood down her neck, behi
nd her right ear. She clung to me for a moment when I entered; then she slumped to the floor and sat against the wall, pressing the back of her head against the plaster, her eyes closed.
I switched on the softest light I could find, but she didn't like it. I didn't either. When I looked closely at the blood on her neck and the delicate splatter marks on her face, my stomach threatened and the room suddenly became an elevator going down.
"You all right?" she asked.
"I think so. Got any bandages?"
"Bathroom."
I found my way into the tile bathroom and opened the mirrored medicine chest. There was a bandage box, empty. But I found a roll of adhesive tape, some cotton, and on the vanity shelf beneath the washbasin an aerosol can of spray antiseptic.
Belle Dee was watching me, frantic-eyed, when I returned. "That stuff burns!"
"We'll use soap and water as much as possible," I said, helping her to her feet, then into a chair. Fighting off my dizziness, I went back to the bathroom and got some damp washrags and soap. Then I came back and did the best I could for her.
By the time I was finished, Belle Dee was leaning back in the chair, peering out at me from beneath a strip of tape over her right eyebrow. The eye was beginning to blacken. I got her some brandy, but it stung the cuts in her mouth, so she settled for ice water. I drank the brandy.
"How many were there?" I asked.
"Two. They were waiting for me when I came home. I shut the door, turned around and there they were."
"Do you know who they were?"
Belle Dee shook her head no. Her left hand was unconsciously clutching her stomach. She said they had kicked her. I was ashamed for being more frightened than angry.
"What did they say? What kind of questions did they ask you about Talbert?"
"They asked me how well I'd known him, if I had any idea who'd killed him, why Vic had left town. I told them I didn't know the answers. That got them mad, made them mean. They warned me not to answer any questions about Vic, from anyone, or they'd be back."
I poured another glass of brandy. "Could you identify them?"
"No, they wore something over their faces, like gauze."
"Nylon stockings?"
"Maybe. All I can tell you is, one of them had terrible breath." For an instant some inner pain etched twenty more years on her face. "Jesus!…"
"Sure you don't want a doctor?"
"I'd rather be hurt than dead."
There was my kind of logic. "Can you think of anybody who knew both you and Vic?" I asked,
"Nobody who'd do this. Just some of the people at the club, the other waitresses. They know him from when he'd come in to see me."
"Do you think Congram might be involved?"
"I only heard the name a few times, never met him. What's that?"
"Antacid tablet, for my stomach. Is there anybody who knew both Talbert and Congram?"
Her pain-filled eyes brightened. "Yeah, Vic once mentioned that Smit was involved with this Congram. That's been a while ago."
My heart picked up a beat. "Smit?"
"He's just a guy who comes into the club now and then-not so often anymore. Maybe once a week. A run-down looking guy who pops some kind of pills with his beer."
"How about a first name?"
Belle Dee licked her swollen lip and shook her head. "Smit's all I ever heard him called. One of the other waitresses used to go out with him, though. She might know his full name."
"And his address?"
"She might know. Unless he moved."
I finished the brandy, washing down the taste of the antacid tablet and gritting my teeth at the combination. "Can you find out for me tomorrow?"
She looked at me with her hurt doll's eyes and nodded. "I'll try."
I ran my fingertips over my stubbled chin and sighed. I was tired, and there was a knot of dread in my stomach. Joan Clark and Talbert had been mixed up with Congram, who knew Smit, who might lead me to trouble. Apparently Joan and Talbert had lived in the Oakner apartment before leaving unexpectedly for Florida. That must have been the apartment Melissa had described. I smiled as I remembered something else Melissa had said.
"Ever hear of Robert Manners?" I asked Belle Dee.
"No, why?"
"It probably isn't important. What about Gratuity Insurance?"
"Not that I can remember."
" I walked into the kitchen and returned with one of the wooden chairs that had been at the table. "Wedge this under your doorknob when I leave," I told Belle Dee. "Then sometime tomorrow buy a chain lock."
She raised her head as if at a sudden sound. "You don't think they'll be back, do you?"
"No, I don't. They did their job. But you should have a chain lock anyway."
And Belle Dee's assailants had done their job smoothly, probably slipping the apartment door lock with a credit card, then working swiftly and ruthlessly. There was no sign of a struggle.
I glanced at my watch and stood wearily before Belle Dee, waiting for her to invite me to spend the night. She didn't. So I cautioned her again to seal her self in, and left.
Back at my motel I wedged a chair under my own doorknob and had little success at sleeping. I had that uncomfortable feeling of being drawn into something I couldn't handle, and even thinking about the fifty-thousand dollars didn't help.
I picked up the receiver on the first ring when Belle Dee called, a little after ten the same morning.
She told me where Smit lived and described him as a skinny, pinch-faced man in his thirties. She also warned me that Smit was involved in some kind of drug operation and had been arrested several times but never convicted.
That last part took away the possibility of breakfast. People involved in drug operations see life as being cheap.
15
The stench was the first thing that hit me. Stale sweat and the fetidness of something rotting.
Behind the half-open door a young girl stood staring blank-faced at me, unaware of the stench. She had narrow, bare and bony shoulders above a red halter that covered child's breasts. Her patched jeans appeared to be stained with grease. Behind her I could see a few pale faces in the dimness, some litter banked against one wall as if it had been swept there. The building was one of the few still occupied in a block of aged brick buildings that mercifully were due to be torn down.
"I'm looking for Smit," I told her. "There's money in it for him."
She laughed, spoke almost without moving her narrow lips. "What's he gotta do?"
"I'll talk to Smit about that."
"He ain't here anyway." The door closed.
I turned to walk down the graffiti-scrawled hall to the exit. A round peace symbol in fresh red paint had been brushed awkwardly over the door by somebody who hadn't heard we'd pulled out.
"You, Mister!"
My head jerked around to look behind me. A skinny, pinch-faced man in dark pants and a too-small sweater stood just outside the door the girl had closed. I waited and he walked toward me with that skinny man's ginger lightness in his step. He had protuberant dark eyes, curious despite fear.
"I'm Smit," he said.
"Nudger." I held out my hand and he shook it.
"So what do you want to talk to me about?"
As he spoke he was walking ahead of me, his head half turned, like a dog leading its master. He stopped when we were in the vestibule, where there was sunlight, cracked plaster and complete privacy.
"Congram," I said. "I'm not police and I'll pay."
I watched him think about it. The flesh of his slender face was mottled as he moved in a nervous little dance in the dust-swirled sunlight. From certain angles he was thirty-five, from others, fifty.
"Why do you want the information?" he asked and gnawed his lower lip as if he had something against it.
"Private matter."
Smit grinned and shook his head. I was aware of his gaunt hands, unafraid of him because of his slight-ness-as long as he didn't reach for a weapon.
"W
e're talking about a hundred dollars," I said.
The grin stretched, giving his face a cadaverous look. "Haven't you heard of the code of the underworld?"
"Two hundred dollars," I said, knowing Carlon would consider that cheap.
Smit's yellow grin contracted to a thin line, and he fondled a dimple on the point of his chin with a dirty forefinger.
"I can always say you talked anyway," I told him.
His face contorted as if he'd been stabbed. "Hey, Nudger, you wouldn't do that!" He began his nervous shuffle again.
"No," I said, "I wouldn't."
His nervous body was still. He'd come to a decision. "All right. It don't matter by now."
I placed a pair of hundred dollar bills in his skeletal, stained hands.
"How do I know this'll spend?" he asked, holding up the bills to the sunlight.
"How do I know you're going to tell me the truth?"
"Because I'm not going to tell you anything you can hang on Jerry. I don't know of anything."
Smit had already supplied me with a first name. I stood and waited for what else he had to say.
He nervously twisted the two bills into a cigarette-size roll and slipped them into his pocket. "I met Jerry at the Poptop Club, right after I got off on a possession charge. I guess that's how he found out about me and wanted to use me for an in on his business deal."
"Business deal?"
"This was over a year ago, understand. It can't do no harm to tell now, or I wouldn't be telling it. Jerry wanted to buy into the middle of a connection; I don't exactly understand how. I think he was going to supply the capital to buy from the big dealer for a percentage of everything right down the line."
"How about some names?"
His eyes seem to contract in their sockets. "That I don't tell you, for any price. What I will say is that the' operation no longer exists. It hasn't for almost a year. The law made some key busts and somebody knew when to quit. At least that's what I was told."
"Did you set it up for Congram to talk to the people involved?"
"Sure," Smit said with a hint of pride, "that I could do. But they turned Jerry down."