by Ben Benson
“How?”
“Up the side fire escape. The fire door on the second floor is gonna be open for them. There’s a payola there.”
“A payoff?”
“Yeah. Yekiti got to some dame in the office. She’d take care of the door.”
“Just one girl?”
“Yeah.”
“Nobody else? A man named Reece?”
“No.”
“What was the girl’s name?”
Calvaris shook his head. “I don’t know nothing about the inside setup. Yekiti told us nothing about it.”
“What was your cut in this?” Granger asked.
“Five grand.”
“That all? The take was supposed to be two hundred grand.”
“You’re riding me,” Calvaris said. “The take was gonna be about twenty-five big ones.”
“Not twenty-five grand,” Granger said. “Two hundred thousand.”
“Yekiti wouldn’t cross me,” Calvaris said stubbornly.
“Why not?” Captain Walsh interrupted harshly. “He’d cross the devil himself. And so would you, Calvaris. And so would every one of you.”
“Who was going to drive the getaway car?” Granger asked.
“Yekiti was gonna do all the driving.”
“Where were you going to get a car?”
“We’d grab one somewhere. Horace was gonna do it.”
Angsman moved in. “How about the route, Dick?”
“Al’s got it all taped. We already run the route maybe five, six times in Al’s car. We got it down perfect.”
“When did you plan to switch cars?” Granger asked.
“Two miles down Route 7. There’s a cutoff. Al’s car is there. We get in it and go straight for the shack on Deer Pond. We stay there until the heat cools off. Then we split.”
“You wouldn’t go back to Danford?” Captain Angsman asked.
“Naw. We get paid off in the cottage. Then everybody splits up.”
“What else?” Granger asked. “What were the smoke bombs for?”
“For the office,” Calvaris explained. “We throw ’em. Make a lot of smoke. Nobody’s gonna see a thing, ’specially the guard inside the building.”
“What else?”
“That’s all I know, Lieutenant.”
“You’re a liar, Dick,” Granger said evenly. “Why did you kill Helen Toledo?”
“Me?” Calvaris asked with an injured look on his face. “I got nothing to do with that, Lieutenant.”
“I got a mind to put my fist right through your teeth,” Angsman said. “You were in the car when she was shot.”
“So help me,” Calvaris said earnestly. “I didn’t know Al was gonna kill her.”
“No?” Granger asked. “Then why were you waiting outside the hotel?”
“Al tells me there’s a kid trooper who rides near the mill. He’s supposed to be fixed. The fix fell through. Helen was supposed to set it up again. We were waiting outside to see how she made out. We wasn’t gonna do nothing.”
“You were waiting outside the hotel with a Schmeisser machine pistol. You were going to do nothing?”
“No, no,” Calvaris said frantically. “Not me. Al Yekiti had the burp gun. We were only waiting outside to see what’s gonna happen. Then this kid comes out and he’s holding onto Helen and she’s crying. So we know Helen’s been pinched.”
“So you decided to kill her,” Granger said.
“No, no,” Calvaris pleaded. He looked up at Granger and tugged at his coat sleeve. “You got it wrong, Lieutenant. Al tells us if the kid gets Helen to the barracks, she’ll talk. She’ll spill the whole operation. He says he’s gonna get her. I figure he means a snatch, nothing more. I’m behind the wheel of the car, motor running, ready to go. Then Al starts to shoot the burp gun. I’m screaming at him, ‘What’s the idea?’ Then I gun the car and get the hell out of there. I didn’t know Al was gonna knock her off. So help me. You could ask Horace.”
“Horace is dead,” Granger said.
“You got to believe me, Lieutenant,” Calvaris said, twisting his hands in his lap. “I didn’t know Al was gonna kill anybody. That’s the big rap. I never went for a deal like that.”
“No?” Granger said. “Then what about Manette Venus?”
“I don’t know nothing about her. Sure, I seen in the papers where some dame by that name got knocked off. I never heard of her before. You ain’t gonna pin every killing in town on me, are you?”
“Didn’t Yekiti ever mention Manette Venus to you?”
“No.”
“You didn’t know she was the girl planted inside the Staley office?”
“No. So help me. I didn’t know nothing.”
“Didn’t Helen Toledo talk about Manette Venus?”
“Not to me. I steer clear of Helen all the time. Once I made a play for her and Al got sore and almost busted my back. So Helen and I stay far away.”
“Did you ever hear of a state trooper named Ralph Lindsey?”
“I seen in the papers where he was mixed up with the Venus dame. But I don’t know him.”
“You see those two troopers standing at the door? One of them is Lindsey.”
Calvaris peered at Kerrigan and me. He shook his head. “I don’t know which one.”
“The one on the left is Lindsey. He was with Helen Toledo when she was killed.”
“It was dark and he was wearing regular clothes then. I didn’t get a good look at him.”
“Didn’t you know Lindsey was the trooper who had the patrol near the factory?”
“Yekiti didn’t tell us no names. I once seen a cruiser go by there. But Al says not to worry. He’s gonna get it fixed.”
“Why did you pick the cottage at Deer Pond for the hideout?”
“We got to get off the road fast. The state cops would be watching everywhere.”
“But why that cottage?”
“Yekiti says it’s a laugh. The cottage belongs to a guy who works in the woolen company. After the job is pulled, the guy’s gonna be busy like a one-armed paper hanger. He’s gonna be so tied up with the cops and mill bosses, he’s gonna have no chance of coming out there. Me, I think it’s a good rib. Who’s gonna think of looking for us there?”
“Did you know the name of the man who owned the cottage?”
“I seen his name in the shack. Bootmaker or something.”
“Boothbay,” Granger said. “Cole Boothbay.”
“Yeah, Boothbay. I seen him there talking to the cops.”
“And you never saw him before that?”
“No, sir. That was the first time.”
Granger went over and huddled with Walsh, Angsman and the Danford Chief of Police. He came back to Calvaris and said, “All right, you can go back to your cell. We’ll talk to you later, when the D. A. gets here.”
Calvaris stood up and rubbed his eyes. “Say,” he said. “You sure the take was gonna be two hundred grand?”
“That’s right,” Granger said.
“So Yekiti was gonna cross us up,” Calvaris sneered. “The big, big brain.”
Sergeant Maleski, standing by, saw Granger nod. He took Calvaris by the arm and brought him back to the cell-block. I went with him. When the big steel barred door clanged shut, I saw Granger had left the guardroom. He was standing in the corridor. He motioned to me. I walked with him toward the dining room.
“I’m not sure,” he said, “if we have the whole story.”
“You don’t think Calvaris was telling the truth?”
“I think he was. He has to save his own neck. But we never found that twin Colt.”
“Yekiti could have tossed it away.”
“Maybe. But I’m still wondering where Fulton Reece fits in.”
“He killed himself so he wouldn’t be questioned further,” I said. “I don’t know of a stronger admission of guilt, sir—”
“Reece was sick in the head,” Granger said. “He could have killed himself because he was tired of fighting the wo
rld. In his own mind, he might have had a dozen reasons. Who knows?” He stopped and thrust his hands deep into his pockets. “Then I’m not sure we have a true picture of Manette Venus, either. I’ve got a feeling she was pushed into this against her will.”
“Yes,” I said. “But how?”
“I don’t know yet. But we’ll find out. The girl started in the operation. Then she wanted out. Maybe because she met you.”
“But she was supposed to meet me. That was part of their plan.”
“But she wasn’t supposed to fall in love with you. When that happened, she tried to take you out of it. When she couldn’t get you to leave the job she was going to tell you everything. Remember she promised to?”
“Yes,” I said slowly.
“They knew it. They had to kill her first. Didn’t you know the girl fell in love with you?”
“I had an idea,” I said. “But I wasn’t sure.”
“I don’t think you know too much about girls, kid. She wanted to go away with you, didn’t she?”
“Yes, but I thought she wanted to get out of town, and she needed me for protection of some kind.”
“I think she wanted to get you out of town, Ralph.” He leaned against the wall. “It’s too bad she didn’t tell us sooner. We could have done something for her then. It leaves a bad taste with me.”
“She wasn’t a bad person,” I said thoughtfully. I turned to him. “Was she bad, Lieutenant?”
He came away from the wall. “No,” he said. “I think she got tangled up somewhere and couldn’t get free.”
He left me then. He went into the duty office. I could hear him calling the district attorney.
CHAPTER 21
AFTER lunch I phoned my father in Cambridge. I asked about Ellen and he said she was home. The Levesques had been in to see him and there had been some tears and, at least, he had been forgiven. I told him my day off was starting at five in the afternoon, but I had a short patrol to do first.
I was restless. I had a half-hour before I went on patrol. There was something gnawing inside me. The picture didn’t fit and all the ends weren’t tied and Lieutenant Granger knew it, too. I paced the empty guardroom. Then I went into the communications room and watched the teletype machines. After a moment the steady sound of the machines bothered me. I started to go out.
The dispatcher called me. “Weren’t you working on the Venus case?” he asked.
“Yes,” I said.
“There’s a TT here from the New York police. Maybe you’re interested.”
I took the perforated paper and looked at it. It was information on the Signet Crest Company. It reported that the firm was a mail-drop house.
“Can I have the blue sheet?” I asked.
“Sure,” he said. He gave me the blue copy. I took it and went into the duty office. I put it on Sergeant Maleski’s desk. He read it.
“So what?” he said.
“What’s a mail-drop house?”
“An address,” Maleski said. “A hole in the wall. They charge so much a month. You have your mail sent there. They forward it to you wherever you are. They remail letters for you from their address.”
“What’s the purpose?”
“Some people want a New York address. They try to put up a front. They might be making phony deals and corresponding with people and they don’t want anybody to know where they really are. A lot of phony stuff is pulled that way. Some of these mail drops are used by men on the run. Ex-cons and sharpshooters use them. A few of these outfits are crooked and they’ll furnish you with any kind of job history and references you want. For a price, that is.”
“Thanks,” I said slowly.
I went out. So there it was. Everything. I knew it would be a matter of seconds before the teletype message was relayed to GHQ in Boston. It would be a matter of minutes before Ed Newpole saw it and began to move. And I knew I had to move first. I had gotten into it myself and I had to finish it myself—for my own peace of mind.
Because everything dovetailed now. The Staley Woolen holdup had been scheduled for next Friday and the plan was going through even after Manette Venus had been killed. Because someone else was still planted in the Staley Woolen office to open the fire door for Yekiti and his gang. And it was the person who had planned the entire thing. Not the slow-witted Al Yekiti, or the troubled, inadequate Fulton Reece. But Manette’s ex-husband. A man named Andrew Fleer.
I ran down the corridor buckling on my service belt. At the door leading downstairs to the garage, I bumped into Phil Kerrigan coming in.
“Hi.” He grinned. “What’s the hurry, kid?”
“I’ve got a patrol,” I said.
He looked at his wrist watch. “You’ve got fifteen minutes yet, haven’t you?”
“No, I’ve no time at all,” I said. “I’ll see you, Phil.”
I ran out. I brought the cruiser around, turned onto the turnpike and sped off toward Staleyville.
I drove in through the gate of the Staley Woolen Company, past the aged guard, and parked in front of the office building. I went inside. I was hoping he still felt safe and secure, that he was still there.
He was. Cole Boothbay was sitting behind his desk. I went straight to the counter. He looked up and saw me. He rose up and sauntered over.
“I’ve come to take you in, Fleer,” I said to him.
“What?” he asked.
“I’m taking you in, Fleer.”
His eyebrows came up. “Fleer? Who are you talking to?”
“You. Andrew Fleer. The husband of Margaret Fleer, Manette Venus, Margaret Venable. Take your pick.”
He had a maddening, supercilious smile. “Take my pick? Take yourself out of here, Lindsey. I hardly knew the girl.”
“You were married to her. Your real name is Andrew Fleer.”
“Oh, is it? My name is Cole Boothbay. I’ve worked here a year. Check the record. Before that, I was with Signet Crest five years. Pick up a phone and call them. They’ll verify it.”
“No good,” I said. “Signet Crest is a mail-drop house. We’ll have your prints and pictures from Chicago by telephoto in an hour. You going to quibble about something we’ll know in an hour?”
Fleer looked down at the counter. He spread his hands flat. “You know,” he said softly, “I think you mean it.”
“Your name is Fleer, isn’t it?”
He looked up with bright eyes. “Why get all excited, Lindsey? So what? I served my time in Illinois. You’ve got nothing on me.”
“There was a conspiracy to commit armed robbery at Staley Woolen,” I said. “I don’t know how far back you planned it. Maybe when you first came here. You used to watch them bring in the payroll every Friday. It struck you that, with a little help, the job could be pulled. You needed a couple of dumb gunmen to take orders. And you bought the cottage at Deer Pond for a hideaway. But you needed a girl, too.”
He laughed in my face. “Why would I need a girl?”
“You’d watch the road from the window every Friday morning. After the payroll truck left there’d be a State Police cruiser outside the gate. But each time the cruiser would come from a different direction. Someone had to get that trooper out of the way. Margaret could.”
“That’s fine logic,” he said. “And how would I get hold of her? She divorced me. She left Chicago. How would I know where she was?”
“You found out. You trailed her to Cleveland, where she was living. It was easy. She wasn’t a criminal. She didn’t know how to cover her tracks well. Not like you could.”
“But you’re contradicting yourself,” Fleer said. “If she wasn’t a criminal, she wouldn’t come in on any deal, would she?”
“She had no choice. There was a warrant still out against her for the first job you pulled. She didn’t want to be sent back to Chicago.”
“You think I threatened her with that?”
“Yes. You forced her to come in. Maybe you told her it was just this once, then you’d let her go.”
; “You think you’ve sized me up pretty good, don’t you, Lindsey?”
I shook my head. “I haven’t bothered to size you up at all, Fleer. You’re a sharpshooter, an angle boy. You were even going to clip the gunmen who were doing the actual work.”
“All I’ve heard so far,” Fleer said, “is mention of a hold-up-to-be. No holdup ever took place. So you have no evidence against me. No man can be arrested for thinking.”
“For conspiracy he can,” I said. “And also for murder. You knew Manette was going to expose the whole job. You went over to Glen Road and killed her.”
“I had an idea somebody else killed her,” he said distantly. His hands dropped behind the counter. “But they released Ellen Levesque. Why?”
“Because it was the wrong gun. There was another .32-20 Colt. There was a pair of them. Manette had one. You, her ex-husband, had the other.”
“So you’re here to arrest me for Margaret’s murder,” he said.
“Yes,” I said.
“You came alone. You’re going to make a big grandstand play by bringing me in.”
“Not a grandstand play,” I said heavily. “A man can’t pass the buck. He has to straighten out his own problems. This thing started with me. It has to finish with me. A man’s got to live with himself a long time.”
“How long are you going to live?” he asked gently. His hand came up from behind the counter. In it was the pearl-handled revolver. “Is this the gun you were looking for?” he asked.
“Yes,” I said slowly.
“And what are you going to do about it, Lindsey?”
I did nothing. I said nothing. My hands hung limp. Fleer backed away from the counter, the gun pointed at me. The girls in the office began to squeal in terror. They were leaving their desks and huddling in the back of the room.
“I’d like to give it to you, Lindsey,” he said between his teeth. “Here and now. So don’t tempt me.”
One girl behind him seemed stupefied. She had stood up at her desk, faltered, and was unable to move. Fleer reached out and grabbed her. She was a short, thin brunette with wide, panic-stricken eyes. Fleer held her wrist. He pulled her in front of him.