“Oh, some weeks. Quite a few weeks,” said the barber in the cryptic locution of one who is being overheard.
“I want to know when he left town,” said Ryan. “The exact date. And where he is now. Check it hard.”
“Okay. Sure, Mr. Johnson. I’ll call you in a few days.”
“Call by tonight. I said I needed it fast. Call my home and leave a message—here’s the number. Make damned sure I hear from you. This is a big one.”
“Well…okay. You gonna drop around for that scalp treatment?”
“Let me hear from you and you’ll hear from me.”
He gulped coffee and dialed a Brooklyn precinct where a sergeant who had helped break him in as a rookie was still stationed. He was working on a little hunch of his own, he lied glibly, involving a Manhattan job some time back that might have been done by either of two Brooklyn muggers with records. What could Oley tell him of either?
“Ferris you can forget about,” Oley said promptly. “He ran into someone a little tougher than he is last summer in a bar and got badly mauled. He lost one eye and the other’s just about gone I understand. Anyway, he was in the hospital all fall, and now he has to be led around. Who’s your other guy—the Drummer Boy?”
“Vince Van Loan. Thirty-one. Five feet—”
“Sure. Drummer Boy Van Loan. He’s always been nuts about playing snare drums. I think you can write him off too, Neill, though I’ll check further if you like.”
“How do you mean?”
“My missus was telling me—she went to school with the Van Loan girls—that last summer Vince met some broad who sang with a little band out Nassau County way. Well, this singer gets Vince a job drumming with the band and damned if he’s not going straight. He’s nuts about drums and he likes the dame, and I guess it’s working out. I’ll ask Mary about it again tonight, but I think you can forget him. Got any others over our way?”
“That’s all, Oley. Thanks a lot.”
He hung up the phone thoughtfully. The Bronx guy would have to wait until he could sound out Lambert on their contacts up there. Meanwhile, pending word from Connie what else could he do?
He looked at his watch—twelve-thirty. He was hungry, and he’d be getting to work before long. But something Sandalwood said came back and he dialed another number, and as he did his tight mouth relaxed in a smile for the first time that day.
A sleep-husky voice said, “Hullo?” and Ryan, instantly contrite, said, “If I woke you up, I’ll kill myself.”
“You didn’t wake me up,” Gee Gee said. “Hello, Neill. Good morning,” and he could tell from the way she sounded that she was smiling at the recognition of his voice. Ryan took a deep breath and forgot Derby.
“I haven’t seen you for a long time—six days, to be exact. I was wondering if you’d like to have brunch or something.”
“I think that would be lovely. Just give me time for a shower.”
“I did wake you up.”
“Oh, now stop! But wait—is it raining?”
“Cats and dogs. So what?”
“Then why don’t you come here for lunch? I blew myself to a coat—a real fur coat. Neill, wait’ll you see it! I can’t wear that lovely thing out in the rain.”
“You could wear your old one.”
“With a new one? Never! You come here. I’ll make you plintzen.”
“What is plintzen?”
“They’re a German pancake like crêpes suzette. But simpler.”
Waiting on the subway platform Ryan inspected himself in a gum machine’s speckled mirror. Under his eyes were blue shadows. He didn’t like that. Weariness shamed him. He hoped she wouldn’t notice.
* * * *
“I don’t know why I’m so good to you,” she said as he reached the top of the stairs. “Cooking lunch and everything.” She was wearing a small apron over a simple blue skirt and sweater. He had never seen her dressed so plainly.
Ryan took both sweatered arms and kissed her warm, unresisting lips. He had been kissing her since the third date. “Now what have I done?”
“Where have you been?” But he knew he was welcome. “I feel neglected—and I have a right to feel neglected.” She took his wet hat and raincoat.
“I’m sorry. But you knew I was on the day tour last week. And when I work days and you work nights what can you expect? Besides, something came up.”
“What came up?”
“I can’t go into it, Gee.”
She was tempted to say, “I know what came up—something with baby blue eyes and blond hair,” but she gave him a look of quick inspection and was glad she had not. Something was wrong, obviously. Still—he had neglected her!
“Oh! You wait a minute.”
She ran out of the room. “Close your eyes,” she called. He closed them. Something sweet-smelling was cooking in the kitchen. “Now you can open them,” she said from close at hand.
She stood before him swathed in a coat of dark, long, glossy fur. The big collar stood luxuriously up around her smiling, sparkling face, and its close-held skirt hugged her thighs. Ryan thought of mink and sable and some of the other furs that wealthy dames were always being robbed of. He was quite sure it was not one of those, but it was pretty close.
“Like it?”
“Sure. It’s—it’s terrific.”
She turned, modeling it. It was hard to tell whether the coat made her look better, or whether she made the coat look as opulent and chic as it did, but whichever it was the effect was overwhelming. She had always looked too pretty or too…too big-time for him, he thought in sudden dispirit. A guy with a lot of flash, like Sandalwood, was more her style. Ryan would have been stunned to learn that Gee Gee felt hurt because he had not called her, and because he now was not being as enthusiastic as she had hoped.
She slipped out of the coat. “That’s all of the fashion show,” she said lightly; “I just thought you might want to see it. It’s—it’s the first good coat I’ve ever owned.”
“It’s great.”
At the door she turned, holding the coat, and said. “You don’t know what it’s like, growing up in neighborhoods like this, wanting a fur coat—and finally getting it.”
She went out.
You’ll never get a coat like that on a cop’s salary, cookie. But why assume she would ever be dependent on a cop’s salary? Still, the idea, and the day’s rain, and his anxiety and weariness all helped make him bitter and defeated. When Gee Gee reappeared and said, “Oh, it’s silly, but you know in show business you have to put up a front, and a coat like that helps,” it did not help at all because Ryan innately disliked people who put up fronts.
When she said, “Will you excuse me a minute?” he said, “Sure,” and left alone, had a feeling of guilt, of having been mean without knowing precisely how, and certainly not understanding why.
The plintzen were warm, tender egg pancakes with sugar and cinnamon rolled inside them. The coffee was fresh and fragrant. As they ate, she said, “That reminds me. Will you be through at midnight?”
“Far as I know. Why?”
“Because you’re invited to a party.”
“A party?”
“At the club. This is Max’s birthday, and after the last show tonight he’s giving a party for the whole staff and their husbands and boyfriends and so on. I thought if you didn’t have anything better to do—”
“Sounds wonderful.” Then he remembered he’d have to be up early tomorrow morning. There was the guy in the Bronx to work on. And Betty Leonard to see. And the cuff link distributor to locate and question. “Gee whiz. I don’t know.”
“Don’t know what?” Very casually.
“Whether I can make the party. I don’t think I can.”
“Another girl, Neill?” Quietly.
“Don’t be silly. It’s—it’s business:”
> “Police business?”
“Well. In a way. I’m sorry, Gee.”
“It’s perfectly all right. Don’t give it another thought.”
“Now don’t be like that. I honestly can’t help it.”
“Of course. I think I can find someone else to invite.”
Ryan looked at the table, at its cotton cloth and old-fashioned cruet set, at his plate that was bare except for a few sugar crumbs, and his freshly filled coffee cup. He felt helpless and tortured. He didn’t like this; she was getting away from him somehow. Not that she had ever really been his. Yet he was losing her.
“Gee Gee?”
Now it was she who was looking at the cruet set.
“Maybe I better tell you something.” But dared he? No. She was a friend of Sandalwood. He said, “I’m in a little jam at the moment. Not too serious. But I’ve got to work it out. It’s—it’s about Harry Derby.”
“Derby? Why, he’s all put away and done with.”
Ryan frowned over the cigarette he was lighting. “Well…yes. But still…I can’t tell you about it, Gee.”
But somehow that relieved her. If it was Derby then it wasn’t another girl. Things added up, in a way.
“Neill, I remember that night we met and Ed Jablonski got sort of high and began talking about how you and he had fixed Derby. Is it that?”
“I said, I can’t tell you about it.”
“I remember Ed saying that you two had made a case or something against Derby that no one could break. Is that what’s gone wrong?”
“Oh, for God’s sake!” The torture suddenly strained his voice. “Listen, forget anything that—that drunken idiot said that night. You hear me? Forget it! And don’t repeat it!”
It was the violence more than what he said that hurt her. And his refusal to confide in her. It made her think of overheard parental quarrels. Why did things always have to go like this with someone you really liked?
“So anyway, I can’t go to your party,” he went on. “You can get somebody else, all right. How about your friend, Sandalwood?”
She was silent.
“Seen him lately?” He spoke mildly, trying to bring the conversation and himself back to normal.
“No.” She shook out and lit her own cigarette. “He’s been busy, too. He’s writing a new series of articles.”
“Oh?”
“Something about famous miscarriages of justice.”
There it was, once more. He would never escape it.
“Oh, fine.” He added, “Maybe I’ll get in the papers again,” before he thought.
“What?”
He shouldn’t have said that. “Do you like him. Gee?”
“Not especially. But he’s not too bad. And he’s press, you know. That’s important in show business.”
“Another part of the front to keep up?”
She flushed. “So what? I want to get somewhere in my business, just as you do in yours. Soon as that coat’s paid for, I’m starting dramatic lessons with one of the best coaches on Broadway.”
But the coat came first, he thought bitterly. He got up, knowing that somehow he had been cutting his own throat, and feeling helpless about how it might have been avoided. “The pancakes were wonderful.”
“Glad you liked them.” From a cool distance.
“I really would like to be there tonight.”
“Well, come if you can make it.” The distance did not diminish.
He knew he wouldn’t get there, and he knew that a breach of unfriendliness was deepening between them. Walking toward Eighth Avenue he felt the rain’s thousand prods on his damp shoulders. They did not make him feel worse.
In the apartment that he had left the telephone rang and Gee Gee, busy clearing the table, stopped to answer it.
“Baby?” said a sleepy voice. “This is Jack. Look. I’ve been working my head off all week on that lousy series. I feel like coming up for air. How about a long lunch at the Harwyn?”
Well, why not? What did she owe Neill Ryan? And when would she see him again? And when did she want to?
“Sounds lovely,” she said into the phone.
Even so, she felt a little guilty about putting the film-like plastic rain cape over her new coat. And going out in it.
* * * *
“On a day like this?” said Sandalwood. “Of course you must have another. I’m going to.” He signaled to the waiter standing at alert attention just out of earshot. “Two more Martinis on the rocks. We’ll look at a menu after that.”
Why not? Gee Gee thought. What was there to do until dinner? And maybe she could learn something for Neill. Instantly she asked herself: why should she bother?
“But you have work to do. My day doesn’t begin until evening.”
“I beat that typewriter for four hours this morning,” said Sandalwood. “That’s enough for one day. From here in I coast.” He grinned lazily at her.
“How’s the series coming?”
“Oh, all right. I could write it in my sleep. They are old cases that everyone should remember but doesn’t—I hope. People who were executed and later proven innocent, guys who served twenty years and then someone else confessed to the crime. You know.”
The waiter put down two enormous glasses.
“They are all old cases? No—no recent ones?” She tried to speak inconsequentially.
Sandalwood, sprawled in his chair, liked this expensive place and the gin’s warm comfort, and the looks of the girl across from him. He felt luxurious and relaxed. But for years he had made his living by catching nuances in what people said to him, by daring to guess at what they meant and by probing imaginatively for more. It was a kind of intellectual short-circuiting and was one of the reasons Sandalwood was a great reporter. Now he had caught something.
“Oh, there’ll be a few modern ones,” he said, although it wasn’t true. The Derby case was something apart, a private interest of his own.
He was too old a hand to look up and watch how Gee Gee took that. Instead he studied his new drink and added significantly, “There’ll be one or two quite recent ones, in fact,” and saw her fingers tighten on her glass.
Suddenly she was afraid of him—for Ryan’s sake. He was too wise, too able, too knowing.
And Sandalwood had caught her alarm. But what was she scared of, he asked himself. What was on her mind? He rehearsed the calendar of recent crime; there hadn’t been anything of importance involving nightclubs or entertainers. But she was a friend of Neill Ryan.
Sandalwood raised his glass to her, said “Here’s to us,” and looked at her over the rim. “One of the recent cases in the series will be the Harry Derby case,” he said, watching.
Gee Gee raised her glass hurriedly. “The Derby case?”
“Sure.”
That was it. It was cat-and-mouse now.
“But—Derby was guilty. He’s been convicted.”
“Oh sure.” He smiled superiorly.
“You mean—what do you mean? There’s more to it?”
“I’ll say there is.” And he was sure he was right, although he did not know where this was leading him. But he was on the right track.
“And you know all about it?”
Sandalwood gave no sign that he appreciated the emphasis on that “you.”
“I’m a reporter, cutie.”
“Well, then,” she said helplessly, “you know.”
What would this do to Neill? For even in her moment of alarm she felt a surge of warmth for him. He had had something on his mind, after all. He way in trouble. It hadn’t been another girl.
What was he supposed to know, Sandalwood wondered. And, equally important at the moment, where did her sympathies lie? He said, “This could cause a lot of trouble for your friend Ryan.”
“Well, whatever it is,” she
said instantly, “you can be darned sure it wasn’t Neill’s fault.”
“‘Whatever it is,’” he repeated. “Don’t you know what it is?”
“No, I don’t, but I know this. It was all that damned Ed Jablonski. I remember the night they arrested Derby, he was boasting afterward about how they’d fixed Derby good. I know that Neill is not the kind to…”
Sandalwood wasn’t listening. Fix him good. That didn’t sound like taking a little money from a prisoner. But he had never put much stock in that idea, anyway. What was it, then? Some kind of frame?
He remembered Ryan’s guilty start when he came on him up in the old brownstone’s bedroom.
“…and if anything happens it will be poor Neill who’ll suffer,” Gee Gee was spying. “It’s not fair.” She looked meltingly at Sandalwood. “Unless you give him a break in your story. That could help, couldn’t it?”
“Sure, it could,” he said. He had enough for now. He had a lead. Don’t press, Jackie boy. And there was no doubt about where she stood. But maybe there was a way to make her open up a little more next time, in case she should learn more from Ryan.
“You seem to think a lot of Ryan,” he smiled at her. “It sort of surprises me—the way he’s been seeing Harry Derby’s sister lately.”
“What?” said Gee Gee. “Derby’s sister?”
“Care to order now, sir?” the waiter asked.
“Why not?” said Sandalwood.
He felt good, and very wide-awake. And voraciously hungry.
CHAPTER 22
The Girl in the White Jaguar
Someone who knew what a chisel was made for had been prying open automobile windows in the east fifties, mostly near hotels where out-of-town visitors parked on arrival and left their bags. It sounded like a team of three, two to get into the car quickly and a third in another car to pick up the loot. Bauer mentioned it when the afternoon tour gathered in the squad room.
“They haven’t hit for five days and they’re about due. They may figure the rain’ll help them. Lee, you and Neill cruise as far up as Fifty-seventh. Take your meal period after nine, because they haven’t been doing anything after nine o’clock. Harry, you and Al do the same about Fifty-seventh until you get a call.”
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