“He’s still there?”
“He was there when I checked at eleven-thirty. At least, lights were on in the apartment.”
“Good.” Yet he could not help hesitating. Might there not be a better way?—this was a long gamble. Either they shocked a confession out of Mackie, or else he himself could be in the worst jam a cop could get in. But time was running out, with the special assistance of Sandalwood. And Ryan was tired of tiredness and anxiety. He wanted something to end. “Let’s hit it.”
Rosemary was watching him. “I don’t think you’d better.”
“Why?”
“I don’t feel good about it.”
“Nuts,” said Ryan. He had hesitated too long already. “But I’ll do this one alone.”
“No, you won’t,” growled Ken. “We’re in it together now.”
At the door as they went out Rosemary rose on tiptoes to kiss her brother. He went on into the hall.
And then, quite unexpectedly, she kissed Ryan. Her lips were cool and fragrant. It was nice.
* * * *
The lights were still on, and the red sign over the door brightly announced, Mackie’s Baths. “We’ll go in as customers.” Ryan had decided that earlier. “It’ll be simpler.”
“The old man will remember us later.”
“What he remembers later,” said Ryan, “either won’t matter at all, or it’ll be just a drop in the bucket to everything else.”
The old man looked up from a racing form, made his appraisal of them, then lowered his feet from the counter and stood up. “You gentlemen will want beds?” He smiled. His lips were purple from the indelible pencil he had been wetting.
“That’s right.”
He put down paper and pencil and led them upstairs into a side room containing two blanketed cots. “There’s plenty of steam up.” He gave them bath sheets and brown envelopes for their valuables. “That’ll be seven dollars for the night.”
“We’ll give it to you when we check our valuables,” said Ryan. He made a pretense of taking off his suit coat. The old man went out and downstairs.
“We’re the only ones in the joint,” said Derby.
“Then let’s move before someone else comes in, or that kid that Mackie thought he was talking to.” Ryan put his coat on again and examined his gun. “You haven’t a gun on you?”
“No.”
They crept across the gym and up the stairs to the door of Mackie’s apartment. Ryan turned the knob stealthily and the door swung open; it had not been locked. They went in and locked it behind them. Ryan waited a moment, then switched on a lamp. “The bedroom,” he said.
They entered it quietly. Light from the living room dimly showed the bed and the desk. From the bed came the regular sighs of deep sleep. Ryan moved to it and took out his flashlight. “Now,” he said. He shone the light in the sleeper’s face.
It showed a narrow-eyed face, harshly lined and topped by white hair. Blinded by light, the eyes opened to panic. “Who’s that?”
Ryan’s hand swept under the pillow for a weapon. There was none.
“Police,” he said. “You’re under arrest for murder, Mackie.”
Mackie tried to see beyond the glare of light that Ryan kept in his eyes.
“Did Beef send you?” he demanded. “Is that you, Beef? This is a hell of a way to collect.”
“This is the law, Mackie. I’m pinching you for killing the old lady last November. Want to tell me about it and make it easy for everyone?”
“What are you talking about? Lemme see you!” He started to throw the covers aside. Ken Derby reached across Ryan to push Mackie back and when he did Ryan felt a gun bulging Derby’s hip pocket. “Start talkin’, you,” growled Derby.
But Mackie had nerve. He found the chain to his bedlight, pulled it and saw them better.
“What the hell is this?”
“Why’d you leave town last November?” said Ryan.
“What’s it to you?”
“Why’d you do it?”
“Are you really law?”
Ryan showed his badge.
Mackie said, “I drop a little dough on some races about that time.” He sat up. The white hair made him look old, but Ryan could tell it was prematurely white. “Some bookmakers were getting tough. I thought it’d be simpler to get out of town until I could get the dough together to pay them off.”
“Did you?”
“They’re taken care of now, except Beef Wurtz. I sent word to him tonight I’d be square in a week. That’s why I thought—”
Derby pushed Mackie’s shoulder contemptuously. “Don’t try to hand us that. You killed the old lady to help pay your debts.”
“Stop that,” Ryan told him. “Get out of bed, you.”
Mackie complied slowly. Ryan switched on the room’s center light and studied Mackie, a tall, thin figure in pale blue pajamas. But a muscular sinuousness belied the white hair; Mackie probably could punch. His appearance bothered Ryan.
“Why’d you dye your hair?”
Mackie looked indignant. He said, “That’s a fathead cop question if I ever heard one. My hair changed two years ago. It just happened. Ask anybody who knows me.”
“Walk over to the bureau.”
“Why?”
“Walk.”
“Get going!” Derby shoved him.
“I told you to lay off,” said Ryan. “I’m running this.”
Mackie stood at the bureau. “Take out the middle drawer,” Ryan said.
Mackie looked puzzled, but he yanked at the drawer. It made an odd scraping noise.
“Put it down on the floor. Now reach around behind it and give me what’s stuck there.”
Kneeling, Mackie felt around the drawer and encountered the taped link. He pulled it off and looked at it curiously. Then he extended it to Ryan. His eyes were blank.
“This what you meant?”
“That’s it.”
“What is it?” asked Mackie.
“You know damn well what it is,” said Ken Derby. “You dropped it the day you killed the old lady on Sixty-first Street.”
“Just a minute, sonny,” said Mackie. His eyes became gimlets; for the first time Ryan saw the resemblance between him and Harry Derby. “Maybe this guy’s a cop”—he gestured toward Ryan—“I don’t know. But I know damned well you’re not. You’re young Derby.”
“So what?” Derby moved ominously forward. Ryan moved with him. He had it now. He had it all.
Mackie crouched, his hands moving to a boxer’s defense. Derby’s left hand went for his gun.
“Put that away, Derby!” Ryan started for his own gun.
“You’re not going to frame me to save your brother,” said Mackie.
Derby’s gun came up and Ryan hit his arm; the gun exploded and its slug tore the ceiling. Derby swung the gun around. To Ryan the barrel’s opening looked like a tunnel entrance.
“Put it away.”
Derby’s jaw was set. “I’m going to get a confession out of this guy, whether you like it or not.”
“No, you’re not. Because he’s innocent. All you had to do was to see his face when he found the cuff link. And there’s his hair. In the police records, that are four or five years old at least, his description might sound like Harry’s. But not since his hair has turned white. No witness would mistake one for the other. And anyway, it sounds like he can prove an alibi for having left town.”
Just out of Derby’s range of vision Mackie was edging toward the door. Ryan kept talking loudly.
“Last night when I was searching the bathroom. I heard a scraping noise. By the time I looked out, you were over by the door. You said you heard the noise too. But as a matter of fact, maybe you made that noise. Eh, Derby? The same noise that Mackie made when he yanked the drawer out just now? He’s right. Y
ou were framing him.”
Mackie was out the door and forgotten by Derby. Ryan said. “Just one question. Where’d you get the cuff link?”
Derby took a breath. “I found it in the truck,” he said.
“A pair of them?” asked Ryan. And answered his own question. “Of course, a pair of them. You dropped the other one in the Connors’ apartment.”
Realization of what Ryan had said swept Derby. He turned and discovered Mackie gone. He moved to the door, turned again and Ryan saw in his face that he knew. So now he would start shooting.
As Ryan simultaneously jumped and crouched to one side, he thought incongruously that he had been right. The luck had run out. He hurled himself forward in a flying tackle and felt a hot sear along his neck even as fire flashed in his face. Then darkness.
Had he been blinded?
On the floor he pulled out his gun, then there was light—a little—from the doorway, and he saw Derby plunge through it.
Ryan jumped up, ran to the door and leveled his gun. But not in time. Derby was making a clatter down the stairs.
Ryan went more quietly after him, his mind working as fast as his body. He had fallen, so Derby might think he was dead or at least unconscious. Now Derby was going for Mackie. If Derby got them both, it would be perfect—for Derby. He could tell the entire story as they had reconstructed it. Mackie, the supposed murderer, would be dead; so would Ryan. Harry could be freed and Ken unsuspected.
That was the one thing he must not let happen.
He leaped down the last few steps. The second floor was empty. From below he heard Derby bellow, “Get away from that phone,” and then a shot. He hoped he had won Mackie enough time to get the call through. But he hadn’t.
There came the unnatural, animal scream of a man in agony.
Ryan went on. The first floor was hot with vapor. He heard the hiss of steam.
The old man who had admitted them sat on the floor near the telephone, looking puzzled. Blood spilled over the fingers he held to his throat. The telephone instrument dangled from its pay box, and the door beyond, leading into the steam baths, showed no light. But white vapor floated out through it. The hissing became a high keening.
Getting through the door was the critical thing. The light would be behind him. Ryan gathered himself and burst into steaming darkness. He heard the hiss come toward him like a snake and ducked; a searing stream passed above his head. One of them was playing the live steam hose around the room. A second later there came another scream, close. Its horror penetrated his nerve fibers. A gun fired repeatedly and the blasts made a steady, echoing roar in that confined, heavy-aired space. Ryan moved toward the leaping flashes but did not dare shoot. Mackie was nearby, too.
Someone fell to the wet floor heavily, and the hissing became erratic. Whoever had been holding the hose had been hit and now it was free to writhe.
Blinding pain sprayed his ankles; he jumped in agony and cried out.
He bumped a body. A pistol barrel dug his side—and fired. The sound came to him muffled by his own clothing.
Something he had never felt before attacked Ryan’s belly; it was nauseated and prickly hot, and cold, all at once.
Deliberately he reached out and felt the jacket Derby was wearing, brought his own gun up, pushed it into Derby’s side and pulled the trigger. This was all that he had to do now and he wanted to do it well. He felt himself falling, and as he fired again he aimed upward, to allow for that. He heard Derby’s knees hit the floor. He did not hear himself go down. He aimed lower and fired again.
He knew he was dying. He heard a sound and he aimed his pistol in darkness toward the sound and fired its last shots.
Having done all he could, he sank into unconsciousness.
CHAPTER 27
A Word With The Chief Inspector
For an endless time there were white shapes and indistinct voices, and blurs of sound and feeling, and medicated smells. When he became conscious it was so slow and weak a process that he was not conscious of consciousness, or that there had been a change. During the period of a long morning he became gradually aware of a bed and sheets and of a ceiling, of nurses who came frequently and a male voice that called him “old kid” with accented heartiness. Then time separated itself into periods and brought awareness, and Ryan knew he was in a hospital, and that his chest hurt, and sometimes his mother was there, and Eleanor. There seemed to be a great deal of concern about his temperature.
Once he caught the flick of a brown coat out in the hall, and he hoped with sudden illogicality that it was Gee Gee; she must have missed the number on the door and would come back. But she did not, and even while he waited for her to, he realized how ridiculous it was. That was over.
Then one day the doorway darkened and a man in a blue overcoat said, “Neill? Can I come in?” and it was Lieutenant Bauer.
Bauer shook hands and took off his coat, and said in his soft way, “The doctor said we could talk a little. But if you’re not up to it, just say so.”
“I’m fine.”
Bauer sat down. “It’s about Derby. Both Derbys.”
“Both?”
“Well, mainly Ken. The district attorney’s office is anxious that nothing goes wrong with the case. Harry’s out on bail.”
“On bail?”
“Well, Farragut put in quite a plea, and I guess after he spent time in the death house, the court figured maybe he was entitled to a little freedom. You know judges. But he’s going up eventually, no doubt about it.”
“Paul, tell me something. How’d I get here?”
Bauer looked stunned. “Hasn’t anyone told you?”
“This is the first chance I’ve had to think about it. Yesterday I was kind of groggy.”
“Yesterday? You’ve been here nine days, Neill. This is just the first day you’ve been thinking straight.”
Ryan said, “I have?” Then, “I guess Mackie got the call through to the department, eh?”
“No. Mackie never called us. It was an RMP that hauled you out. The boys were cruising the street when they heard the shooting. When they got inside—well, I guess you know better than anyone what they found.”
Ryan felt the hot steam on his ankles.
“It’s funny you don’t remember,” said Bauer. “Because after they got you out, you were lucid as anything. You explained the whole case against Ken Derby to one of the uniformed men. Then you conked out.”
He shot a quick look at Ryan. “They found the three of you in the steam room with the hose jumping around. Apparently that daffy Mackie had got it out. The old man on the desk was dying of a bullet through the Adam’s apple. Mackie was wounded, but not seriously—there were two slugs in him, both from Derby’s gun. Your gun was empty. You’d hit Derby twice. Once right through the mouth, and once near the heart. It’s a wonder he’s alive. Could you see in there, Neill?”
“No.”
“You shoot real good by ear.”
“An RMP crew?”
“Sure. Derby fired at them, then gave up. They shut off the steam and carried you out.”
Ryan felt a wave of gratitude. It had been a department operation after all. He had tried to carry it by himself, but in the end it had taken the department, the alert, ever-present department, that was always ready for trouble and knew how to meet it. Ryan’s eyes stung, and he knew from that how weak he was. He hoped Bauer did not notice.
If Bauer noticed he was tactful.
“Under Derby’s bed—Ken Derby, that is—we found his bag packed and a ticket to Montreal, and a letter that he was going to mail if the frame against Mackie didn’t work.”
“He wasn’t going to let Harry burn then.”
“No. The letter admitted everything. He really liked Harry.”
“Sure he did,” said Ryan. “You know he came to my house after we pinched Harry and
tried to tell me Harry was making deliveries with him on the day of the murder? What a bluff!”
Bauer smiled crookedly. “I don’t know. By alibiing Harry he alibied himself, and if the lie was detected, it would always be explained on the grounds of brother loyalty.”
A nurse came in and made Ryan drink something cloudy and bitter through a tube. “Only a few minutes more,” she warned.
“I better get down to business,” said Bauer. “What have you got on it—what first tipped you off?”
Weak as he was, Ryan grinned faintly at how ridiculous it was. “The scraping sound that a drawer made,” he said. “That’s what did it. All the other indications had been there all the time; I suppose I’d noticed them subconsciously. But it was when I heard the scraping sound again that I realized Ken might have made it scrape the first night we were in Mackie’s. And if he had, then he had framed Mackie. Why? To help his brother, of course. And then—it was like a spark jumping a spark gap—why couldn’t he have done it to help himself? Why couldn’t he be the killer?
“He’d been in the neighborhood that day, as D’Tela had made clear. He looked a lot like Harry and could be mistaken for him. He wanted money—for Harry perhaps, but also perhaps for an expensive girl friend his sister mentioned. He was left-handed, a characteristic of the killer, if you’ll remember how all Mrs. Connors’ injuries were on the right side of her head. Harry was right-handed of course as I know. I saw them both fight. And he certainly might have Harry’s jacket and his gun available to him.”
Bauer nodded. “His sister threw some light on that.”
“You questioned Rosemary?”
“She came to us. She said she had misled you, unknowingly.”
“Yes, although it was an honest mistake. The two brothers had argued about the jacket that morning and Harry had refused to loan it to Ken. So she assumed Ken had not taken it. But, as she said, she left the apartment before Harry did, and so before he might discover it was missing. Later, when he robbed the drugstore, Harry was described by the druggist as wearing dark clothes. If he’d seen it, the druggist couldn’t have missed noticing that jacket. If Harry didn’t have it, where was it? And once you conceive of the possibility of Ken having the jacket, like any brother who dresses first in the morning, and presumably finding the gun in it, you don’t have to go much further. D’Tela had supplied the motive: Ken needed dough and D’Tela had talked of a tip he had on a horse that was running that day and would pay long odds. If Ken could pick up a little quick money, bet it and win, he’d wind up with big quick money.”
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