Invitation to Violence

by Lionel White

  Sue didn’t scream. She did nothing, nothing at all but simply stand there, her mouth agape and her eyes wide and alarmed.

  He moved fast, still saying nothing. The hand which was not holding the gun whipped out and found the light switch and the room was suddenly bathed in brilliance. It took him less than a second to see that there was no one in the room except the two of them and before Sue had a chance to find her voice, he passed on into the bedroom. She heard the slam of the bathroom door and then the sound of the closet opening and closing. A moment later and he was back, standing in the doorway between the living room and the bedroom.

  “All right, where is he?”

  For a long moment she just stood there staring at him. She wasn’t frightened; it had been too sudden for that.

  Wordlessly she moved and half fell into the big upholstered chair near the window. Quickly she shook her head, getting the sleep out of her mind. She started to open her mouth, to say something, and then suddenly stopped. Her eyes had gone quickly around the room and for the first time she saw that the folding bed hadn’t been pulled out. Vince had not returned home from the late movie.

  “Vincent Dunne,” the man said. “He lives here, doesn’t he, sister?”

  Sue realized that her dressing gown had fallen open and that the top of her pajamas was unbuttoned. Instinctively she clutched the cloth of the robe close to her bosom.

  “Say! Say, just who are you?” she said. Her voice was filled with indignation.

  For the first time he looked at her as though she might be human. He didn’t smile, but at least he looked a little less like a maniac.

  “Sorry,” he said. He put the gun in his side pocket and then reached into a second pocket and took out the nickel shield.

  “Detective Wilson. Out of Headquarters,” he said. “Sorry to bust in like this, Miss. But I’m looking for a punk named Vincent Dunne. Understand he lives here. That right?”

  “Vincent Dunne is my brother and he lives here all right,” Sue said. She was fully awake at last and the fear which had escaped her when the man first burst into the apartment was all too apparent at last. But the fear had nothing to do with the man who stood facing her.

  “What is it?” she asked. “What has Vince done. Why are you here? What…”

  “Take it easy, Miss,” the detective said. “I don’t know if he’s done anything. I’m just anxious to see him. You say he lives here? Then where…”

  In spite of herself, her eyes went helplessly around the room.

  “Yes, he lives here,” she said at last, her voice weak. She fought to keep the fear out of it, to keep her chin from quivering. “Please,” she said. “Please? Is Vince in some sort of trouble? Has he…”

  “I’m just trying to find him, that’s all. Just want to talk to him. You say he lives here? Then how come…”

  Sue stood up and unconsciously went toward the couch which made up into a bed.

  “He’s not here,” she said. “He went out last night, to a movie, and he hasn’t come back. Tell me…”

  “Your brother hang around with a guy by the name of Dominic Petri?” Detective Wilson asked. “Kid about twenty-one, twenty-two. Goes by the name Dommie. Does your brother know him?”

  Sue looked at the man for a moment and then slowly shook her head.

  “I don’t know who he knows,” she said.

  “Or a man named Jake Riddle?”

  She couldn’t help but start as he mentioned the name. She didn’t know what to do, didn’t know what to say. All she could do was wonder and worry. Worry where Vince was, what he’d been doing. Why hadn’t he come home? Where…

  “I can see that he knows them,” Wilson said. “You want to help your brother, you best come clean. Tell me…”

  “I’ve heard those names,” Sue said. “That’s all, just heard the names. Vince may have known them, but they weren’t friends of his. I’m sure of that. They weren’t friends of his. Vince is just a kid. He’s a good boy; he doesn’t hang out with riffraff. He…”

  “He’s fresh out of reform school and on parole. He’s a punk. If you don’t know it, you should. Now, come on, tell me…”

  This time, when the bell suddenly rang and interrupted his words, Sue didn’t have to think to know what it was. There was no doubt about it. It was the phone which stood on the end table next to her and the shrill sound of the ring cut his voice short.

  For a second both their eyes went to the instrument and then the detective quickly looked back at her. She could see that he wanted her to answer it and as she leaned over to take the receiver from the hook, he quickly crossed the room, leaning close so that he might overhear the voice at the other end.

  “Yes?” Her voice was a bare whisper.

  The voice which came through the wires was even lower than her own. A deep, soft, masculine voice.

  “Vince there?”

  She hesitated a moment and looked up at the detective who stared at her without expression.

  “Who’s calling?” she asked.

  “I want to speak to Vince Dunne. It’s important.”

  “Who is this?” Sue said. “This is Vincent’s sister. Who’s calling him, please?”

  Quickly the detective leaned over and took the telephone from her and put the receiver to his ear. He listened for a second or two and then spoke in a high, disguised voice.

  “Vince talking,” he said.

  He waited a moment or two and then spoke again. “This is Vince,” he said. “Who’s this?”

  There was a sharp sound of a click at the other end of the wire and in a moment Wilson hung up the receiver in disgust.

  He turned once more to the girl.

  “Better get your clothes on,” he said. “There’s a man down at Headquarters wants to talk to you. Detective Lieutenant Hopper-of Homicide.”

  Sue slowly nodded and stood up. She looked sick.

  “I suppose I can go inside and get dressed?” she said.

  Detective Wilson nodded.

  “Sure, kid,” he said. “Go right ahead. And don’t take it so hard. Maybe nothing happened at all. Maybe your brother wasn’t mixed up in anything and just stayed out over night.”

  He watched her as she crossed the room and entered the bedroom.

  Yeah, maybe. But he didn’t believe it. Didn’t believe it at all.

  And neither did Sue Dunne believe it.

  * * *

  The house, sitting well back on the half-acre plot, was in one of the older sections of town. It was surrounded by large shade trees and a high privet hedge protected it from the street in front and the neighbors on each side and the rear. It was one of the first split-level houses built, having been constructed to fit the natural slope of the land rather than conform to a popular building fashion. As a result, the three levels conformed with the landscaping naturally, allowing the garage level and basement to follow the contours of the driveway, which came in on the right side as one entered the grounds.

  A flagstone walk led from a break in the hedge to the front door, which opened onto the second floor.

  Originally the house had been designed for a doctor who planned to practice out of his home. Entering a central hallway, a visitor was confronted by a wide arch, which had been curtained off, and doors on each side. The door to the left led downstairs into the garage and basement; the door on the right led into the main residential part of the house, which consisted of half the second floor and all of the third. The archway itself led into what had originally been planned as the doctor’s offices.

  When the present owners had purchased the house, they had converted the office section into a separate small apartment. This consisted of a living room, a small bedroom, a bath and a tiny kitchenette. These were the quarters which Gerald Hanna had rented and in which he lived. He paid only a nominal rent as the family which owned the house had been friends of his mother and leased out the apartment more as a personal favor then because of any desire for extra income.

  The
Sandersons, his mother’s friends, were an elderly couple whose children had long ago married and left to establish homes of their own. Carl Sanderson was a retired bank executive and he and his wife spent a good deal of time traveling. At present they were in Bermuda, where they usually spent the spring and part of the summer. They were only too glad to have Gerald as a tenant, liking the idea of someone around the place while they were away.

  Gerald had the run of the house, but by preference stayed pretty much to his own quarters. He did, however, keep an eye on things. He saw to it that the gardener, hired for a few days each month, kept the lawn and the hedges trimmed and he also made a point of seeing that the Sandersons’ car was maintained in running condition. He checked to see that the tires didn’t become deflated from standing idle or the battery run down. There was no telling when the Sandersons might suddenly decide to return and he made it a point to be sure everything would be ready in case they did. In this fashion he partly made up for the low rent which he paid for his own quarters.

  The converted doctor’s offices made a pleasant and convenient bachelor’s apartment; would in fact have been satisfactory for a childless couple. Maryjane Swiftwater, however, on the single occasion when she had visited Gerald, had found it hopelessly inadequate when he had casually suggested that it might make their immediate marriage possible. He hadn’t argued; for some odd reason he himself found the idea of sharing the apartment with a wife-or at least with Maryjane-slightly unattractive.

  When Gerald returned in the early hours of the morning he had, for one of the few times in his life, neglected to set his alarm clock. As a result he awakened late, or at least late for him. It was well after seven-thirty when he slowly woke up and the sun was already streaming through the sheer curtains of his bedroom window, which faced to the east.

  For a moment or two, as he opened his eyes and stretched, the events of the previous night were erased from his mind. He started to leap from the bed, remembering only that he had to hurry if he was to arrive in Connecticut as he had planned. And then, halfway to the bathroom, he stopped dead in his tracks. Connecticut? No, it wasn’t to Connecticut that he was going this Saturday.

  He turned to the dresser where he had placed the jewels and he was unable to resist the temptation to pull open the drawer and check on them. There they were in all of their loveliness.

  His eyes went to the clock as he checked the time. It had been more than five hours since he had left the scene of the robbery and the shooting. He breathed a sigh of sudden relief. He began to feel a little safer. No one could have obtained the number of his car; certainly not one of the policemen who had been lying in the street. They would have checked it and found him by now for sure. His calculated risk was beginning to pay off.

  He took his time showering and shaving, having put a pot of coffee on to boil first. And then he dressed, getting into a pair of slacks and an open-necked shirt and putting on a pair of tennis shoes. He fried two eggs and several slices of bacon and made himself a couple of pieces of toast. He ate a leisurely breakfast and took time to clean up after he had finished. Then he returned to the bedroom, made up the bed and put away the clothes he had been wearing the previous evening.

  The pattern of Gerald Hanna’s thinking may have undergone a radical change, but the habits of a lifetime failed to desert him.

  At eight forty-five he put in his call to Maryjane. He had his story all ready, his alibi for not coming up for the week end.

  It was probably the quality of her voice that caused him to do what he did. Somehow or other, he was unable to help himself. There was something about the way she framed the question, something in the tone of her voice as she said, “And just why aren’t you coming, Gerald?” that made him say what he did. He couldn’t resist it.

  “Because I damned well don’t want to,” Gerald said, and then, quite unconsciously, he laughed. He could hear the gasp at the other end of the wire.

  Gerald carefully put the receiver back on the hook. He felt fine, just perfect. It was something he’d been wanting to say to Maryjane for a long, long time now.

  Gerald left the telephone and at once went downstairs to the basement where his car sat next to that of the Sandersons’ in the double garage. He didn’t open the garage doors, but instead turned on the overhead light. He started the engine in his car and then pressed the button, lowering the convertible top. He minutely inspected the car for bloodstains. He found no trace of his unwelcome passenger of the previous night.

  He realized almost at once what must have happened. The bullet must have struck the man somewhere in either the back of his head or his neck. The bullet had either completely passed through and gone out the windshield, or had struck a bone and stayed buried in the body. What little blood there was had probably dripped down the inside of the leather jacket.

  Finishing his inspection of the inside of the car, Gerald next made an inspection of the windshield. He began removing the last remaining fragments of glass. When he was through, he gathered the broken glass together and wrapped it in newspapers along with the pieces he had already recovered, and then put the parcel in a zipper bag which had been given him as a souvenir by United Airlines. He returned upstairs and retrieved the .38 revolver which Vince Dunne had dropped on the floor of the car, and this too he put in the bag. He placed the bag on the floor of the Sandersons’ car next to the brief case which held the jewels.

  Five minutes later, at the wheel of the Sandersons’ car, he drove out the driveway, after carefully locking the garage doors behind himself.

  Traffic was inordinately light and he made good time getting into New York. He found a parking lot not far from Grand Central Station and after checking the car in, took the zipper bag in one hand and the brief case under his arm and walked the two or three blocks to the station. He realized that the public locker services had a twenty-four hour time limit, so he went to the parcel checkroom on the ground floor level. He checked both the zipper bag and the brief case.

  He stopped in the lobby of the Biltmore long enough to obtain an envelope and a couple of sheets of stationery. Then he walked around the corner and over to the post office. Standing at the desk in the lobby, he addressed the envelope to himself, folded the check in two sheets of paper and inserted them. Then he purchased a stamp, sealed the envelope and dropped it into the slot.

  Returning to the parking lot, he felt considerably relieved.

  It took him only a few minutes to drive directly cross town and find the entrance to the Lincoln Tunnel.

  A lot of changes had been made during the last seven years, since the last time he’d driven this way, but he had no difficulty in finding the place. It wasn’t surprising; he’d made the trip often enough, heaven knows, during the two years he’d worked for the garage while completing his course at college. They’d painted the building, added a wing and the name of the firm had changed, but it was still a glass factory. Parking in front of the place, he sensed a feeling of relief. It was an odd sensation walking inside once again.

  A man he had never seen before greeted him at the long counter and he guessed that the place had probably changed hands. He asked for a windshield for a ’56 Chevrolet convertible. He had the model number, but the man behind the counter didn’t need it. The man had the right size glass in stock. Hanna paid for it in cash.

  By one o’clock he was back in Roslyn.

  He knew a moment’s nervousness as he drove into the driveway and stopped. The place was completely deserted, but he still felt the tension as he opened the garage doors. The Chevvie stood where he had left it the previous evening.

  It took him longer than he thought it would and once he bruised his knuckles badly, but at last he had the windshield installed. When he was finished, he went out to the drive and picked up a handful of sand and gravel. He rubbed it over the windshield, purposely scratching it. Next he covered the glass with a thin layer of mud and then wiped it off, leaving stray bits around the edges.

  At thr
ee-thirty he was finished and he went upstairs and washed up. Not until then did he sit down and relax. He picked up the newspapers he had purchased on his way back to Roslyn.

  CHAPTER THREE

  The lieutenant had been very emphatic and Patrolman Hoffman was not a man to disregard a superior officer; especially as the lieutenant was attached to Homicide and was a detective. No one was going to pass through the door and get into that room. No one. That is, of course, with the exception of the day and night nurses and the doctor.

  Looking down from his six feet four inches of muscle and brawn into the upturned face of the slender man in the immaculate pin-striped suit, Officer Hoffman again repeated himself.

  “You heard me,” he said. “I made myself very clear. No one. No one at all. Those were my orders and I’m going to follow them.”

  “You do just that, Officer,” Steinberg said. “Go right ahead and follow your orders-and the next thing you know you’ll be walking a beat somewhere so far out in the sticks they’ll have to fly your relief in by helicopter.”

  Officer Hoffman very carefully removed the toothpick from the side of his mouth.

  “A wise shyster from the city,” he said. “You know all the answers, yes? Well, let me tell you something, mister. You may be a big shot over in Manhattan, but out here, in Nassau, you ain’t nothing. Less than nothing.”

  “Keep your voice down, Officer,” Steinberg said. “This is a hospital after all, you know. And perhaps you would like to look at this,” he added, taking a folded piece of paper from his pocket. “That is, of course, if they taught you to read. It happens to be a note from the assistant D.A. It’s an order permitting me to see my client, Jake Riddle. I don’t give a damn for you or your lieutenant. I happen to be Mr. Riddle’s attorney and I have every right to see him. This little paper says so. And I’m going into that room and I’m going to talk to him. Alone.”