Girard seemed to snap his reverie.
“That’s why I was a bootlegger. It never bothered my conscience. I had a lot of public sentiment on my side because the public was a partner in the whole damn works. But even if they’d been against me, it would have made no difference. And I made money; and the more I made, the more I could grow.
“But I ran my business with brains instead of machine-guns, and you know it. I lost some money that way; I lost plenty of truckloads to hijackers. But I worked out a system whereby my own drivers didn’t know where they were going half the time. Sealed-order stuff. It worked. And I found out there were some surprisingly honest men in the same business with me. I could have made more money with a gun; I made enough for me without it. None of my drivers ever carried a gun. When they were stuck up, they just got down off the seat and walked in. There was no shooting.
“And if I had it all to do over again, I’d follow the same groove. Because my mother had the things I wanted to give her before she died. My name is not Girard. As far as I know, she, or her few friends, never knew my business. My reputation was local, sectional anyway. My picture would never make the newspapers she finally had time to read. A sob story, huh?” Girard laughed, but there was no mirth in his tones.
“Don’t get the idea I’m trying to justify my actions to you; in my own mind I don’t need justification. But to tell you what I wanted, I had to tell it all. And here’s the pay-off: For ten or twelve years I broke the law and was tangled up with killers and crooked cops and government men. The gun ruled, generally. Yet in all that time I never used one or put the finger on a man. Then I turn legitimate; I try to live a moral law-abiding life. And what does it get me? A lot of grief.
“I’ve got money; I’ve invested it as wisely as anyone can these days. I like a good time, but I mind my own business. And what’s the result? Twice you’ve had me down here on gang killings. The Cusicks try to take me for twenty thousand and land in jail. One of them is killed and for that you did your damnedest to get me the chair. And now this Redfield thing.”
Girard took out his cigar, looked at it, threw it on the floor, and stood up.
“Well, I’m fed up. Through. I’m sick of having you fellows push me around.”
He hesitated, glanced challengingly about as though waiting for some answer. But no one said anything. There was nothing to say, because Girard was convincing; when he talked like that, you believed him. Bacon had not moved since Girard began; neither had the glowering Keogh. Murdock realized he was holding his breath and let it out softly.
Girard put on his coat, picked up his hat, and glanced around once more, then walked to the door.
“If the reason for this forensic display is cloudy, put it down to lack of practice. If it gives you the idea that I’m sick of the whole God-damned business, you’ve caught my meaning.”
He put on his hat, his other hand on the door-knob.
“If you want me again, subpoena me and I’ll come down with my lawyer. But if you’re figuring on building me up for this Redfield job, you’d better work fast. Because I’m going down and see when I can get a good boat to Europe. I’m going to try the south of France for a while and see if they’ll accept me at face value or try and pin the Stavisky job on me.”
Girard opened the door. “I’ll call you up, Bacon, and let you know what day I’m sailing.”
The slam of the door broke the spell. Keogh stood up, went to the windows, and looked out. He cursed softly for a moment, then turned, said: “Damned if he didn’t sound as if he meant it.”
Murdock stirred in his chair, grinned at Bacon. “He kinda told you off, huh?”
“Yeah,” Bacon sighed, “didn’t he?” He stood up, continued dryly. “The hell of it is, I still can’t think of any answers.”
10
KENT MURDOCK STOPPED at the office on his way home, but there was no assignment for him and there was also no story to be passed along about the confidential questioning of the afternoon, so he continued on, stopping at Abe’s for Joyce Archer’s clothes and arriving at his apartment before six.
Joyce Archer was still curled up in the wing chair as he had left her. She put aside the book she had been reading as he entered, and when he moved closer he saw it was Green Mansions.
“Like it?” he asked.
“I don’t know—I think I do. It’s so different. But it’s a beautiful thing, isn’t it?”
Murdock said it was and took off his coat, laying it across the back of the davenport, placing his hat on top, the package of her clothes beside it. He thrust his hands in his trousers pockets, walked over to the windows and glanced out across the hammered steel surface of the river, frowned at it unconsciously as his doubt-filled mind picked out one thought and turned it over and over, reluctant to drop it.
“I like your place.”
Murdock turned. The frown vanished, but the eyes remained troubled. “Why?”
“I don’t know, unless—” She hesitated and he watched her glance slide about the room, touching the davenport with its coffee-table, the simple curtains, the heavy-looking secretary in the corner. She looked at each of the four prints—three etchings and a lithograph—in turn. He thought she liked them, particularly the Benson and one of Morgan Dennis’s dogs.
“Well,” she continued slowly, “the few bachelor places I’ve seen are either disorderly or too fastidiously neat.”
“And what’s this?”
“Why”—she smiled at him—“neat and disorderly.”
He returned the smile now. “You’ve been snooping.”
“I’ve been looking around.”
He came towards her slowly, stopped in front of her. The dressing-gown had apparently settled to a fixed position with wearing. The V at the neck, curved and rounded by her breasts, was still in soft focus. Her face still looked fresh and alive and healthy.
A wad of waxed paper, the wrapping of the sandwich, lay on the reading-table. He saw that the generous bronze ash-tray was filled to overflowing with cigarette stubs. He gave her a sidewise glance, opened the jade cigarette-box. It still held a half-dozen cigarettes, but he was not satisfied and crossed to the red enamel box on the mantle. This one was empty; the one on the stand by the club chair, a carved rosewood affair, held but a single cigarette.
He grunted, said: “You smoke too much,” and went over to the secretary, where he took a fresh carton from the top drawer. He tore off the wrapping, took out a half-dozen packs, and replaced the carton.
“I’ll help you.” Joyce Archer straightened her legs, and when she stood up, the robe fell away and there was a flash of bronzed thigh.
“You get dressed,” Murdock said, and nodded towards the bundle on the davenport.
When Joyce Archer re-entered the room, she looked as he remembered her the night before; better, because there was no make-up to spoil the natural red of her lips, the freshness of her skin. And, he realized for the first time, she was tall for a girl; the shoes helped make her so, he thought.
He said: “That’s better.”
She grimaced and looked at her feet. “The shoes,” she said, and he saw then that they had a stiff, cracked look about them.
He said: “I want to talk to you.”
Her brows lifted, but when he did not add to the remark, she came forward, this time sitting on the davenport. Murdock dropped down on the opposite arm and she said:
“You act as if you were getting ready to scold me.”
Murdock’s grin came and went quickly. When the girl looked away, he studied the profile, admiring again the long clean line of her jaw. For a moment he thought about the girl herself. He liked her being here and could not explain the reason for it. She did not belong. She was, he told himself, too young and irresponsible and spoiled, yet—and he admitted it grudgingly—unspoiled in some ways that he liked. Genuine, that was it.
And she bothered him and—with no warning, his mind jumped off on a tangent, bringing with it a new bitterness that had la
in dormant since last night. Hestor. Trouble settled over him. He cleared his throat and plunged ahead with the speech he had originally intended, his voice brusque, hard.
“I’ve been down to headquarters. They had your brother down there. He went back to Redfield’s after he left you.”
Joyce Archer’s “Oh!” was a sucking sound. Murdock hurried on, telling what he knew in short, clipped sentences.
There was not much color in the girl’s face when he finished. “Have they—” she managed to say—“is he arrested?”
Murdock shook his head. They don’t dare—yet. But I wanted to tell you how it was. He’s under suspicion—and you can’t blame the police much for it. A murder case—particularly a case like this one—brings the public and the newspapers down on them with a hue and cry that they can’t escape. They have to do the best they can.”
Murdock shrugged and stood up. “He didn’t involve you in any way, but they don’t believe all of his story. I think you’d better go down to headquarters and talk with Bacon.”
Joyce Archer’s chin came up and there was something deep in her eyes that he could not fathom, something determined, like a little boy making up his mind to face a whipping.
“Do you think they will make me stay there—arrest me?”
“No.”
“Then what good can it do?”
“No good probably,” said Murdock sharply. “But they know who you are. They’re going to keep on looking for you, and you’ll worry your brother, and all the time you’ll be taking the chance of having some tough cop picking you up and dragging you down.”
“Of course,” she said, standing.
Murdock nodded. “I’ll go with you if you like.”
“But you said if the police found out what you’d done, they wouldn’t trust you any more.”
“I can probably laugh it off,” Murdock said shortly, “talk them out of it.”
Joyce Archer shook her head. “There’s no sense in that. I can go alone just as well. And I can tell them that I was able to sneak out the back way last night; I don’t have to answer all of their questions.”
“They’ll trip you up,” Murdock said. “You might as well tell the truth. You’ve got to explain the car you left round the corner and—”
Joyce Archer’s hand went to her throat, and her mouth came open before she spoke. “I forgot.”
“Your brother said he brought it. Those fellows down at headquarters are pretty good; it’s their business to be. They’ll make liars out of both of you.”
“Then,” her tone was stiff, annoyed, “I’ll tell them I came in a taxi. You needn’t worry.”
“I don’t,” Murdock said.
“I appreciate what you’ve done.” Her tone was accusing. “I’ve been a bother, haven’t I?”
Murdock shrugged wearily and some of the harshness went out of his voice.
“Don’t mind me,” he said, “I’m just a photographer; a mug with a lot on his mind.”
Joyce Archer stopped with her hand on the door-knob.
“Why are you a photographer?”
Murdock lifted one hand. “I like cameras and taking pictures—or maybe I’m just funny that way.”
She opened the door, her voice again low. “Why don’t you like me?”
“Maybe I do,” Murdock told her, then added: “There’s no detective downstairs now. You’d better go home and change those clothes before you talk to Bacon.”
Murdock picked up the wadded sandwich wrapper, tossed it up, caught it, and then clenched it in his fist. He crossed over to the windows; he looked out for several minutes and saw nothing.
She bothered him.
From the time he had begun to earn his own living until he married Hestor, he had, in retrospective moods, thought about the girl he would some day marry. Always the girl had been like Joyce Archer. Lately his thoughts had focused upon being free; that and nothing more.
Within twenty-four hours it had become the all-important thing. Because if there ever was another girl, he did not want to wait, to make her suffer from past liaisons. Once free—
He was eight or ten years older than Joyce Archer. And his mode of living was not geared to hers. He had but few illusions left, and even those were beginning to fray around the edges. He was a newspaper photographer. He might go to New York anyway, try to find a different sort of opening. But even then there was nothing much he could offer a girl. Certainly not bridge and horses and houses in the country.
“Nuts,” he muttered, and spun away from the window. Why in hell did he have to think about her anyway? What started it? Couldn’t he meet a girl, have her in his rooms, without fighting to build dreams and knock them down all at the same time.
There had been other girls sitting in that wing chair. Not many, and not often, and not for long. But what of it? He didn’t start worrying about them, did he? He didn’t want them there all the time, did he? He reached for a cigarette, saw the tightly wadded sandwich paper in his fist, and threw it viciously towards the fireplace.
He lit the cigarette, inhaled once, and moved over to the chair. He sat there for a minute or so, immobile, one hand and forearm stretched on the curving arm of the chair. The cigarette ash lengthened and fell off, made a scattered heap on the dark rough fabric.
His eyes caught the ashes finally and he grunted, blew them off, and went over to his coat. Taking the folded copy of the Courier from a pocket, he came back to the chair and sat down. The late-edition head was smaller than the previous ones:
LAWYER SLAIN AFTER PARTY
He read the story, which jumped over to page 3. It contained nothing new. There was a smaller one-column head adjoining the account.
GANGSTER SOUGHT IN
REDFIELD SLAYING
Sam Cusick, notorious South End gangster, listed in the District Attorney’s office as Public Enemy number 14 and wanted by police for questioning in the Redfield murder, was still at large late this afternoon.
Through a statement offered by a man whose identity the police are unwilling to divulge, it had been definitely established that Cusick was at the scene of the crime in the early hours of the morning. Detective Fallon of Station 6, who recognized Cusick on the street before the killing was discovered, and attempted to question him …
Murdock snorted impatiently and threw the paper aside.
He stood up, crushed out his cigarette, and started towards the kitchenette. He was about half-way across the room when he heard the door open, and he turned quickly, then stiffened there as his muscles tensed.
A small, scrawny-looking man stood on the threshold, a heavy automatic in his hand. He had a thin sallow face with close-set eyes and a long, drooping nose that looked boneless. His blue coat was tight-fitting, his felt hat was the lightest of grays, and his gloves matched the hat. In the moment that he stood there motionless, the rat-like eyes flicked about the room, seemed to move in all directions at once. And they seemed satisfied with what they saw.
He spoke over his shoulder to the squat, bull-necked man who had pressed in behind him. “Looks like it’s okay, Hymie,” he grunted. He put the automatic in the coat pocket, where it pulled the cloth out of shape and made a threatening forward bulge. He came slowly forward as Hymie closed the door.
Murdock made his voice casual. “Hello, Cusick.”
11
PHIL DOANE PROWLED around police headquarters for some time after Keogh slammed the door in his face, but his prowling, from the standpoint of news values, was fruitless and he finally returned to the press-room on the first floor.
He watched the penny-ante game for a while and was tempted. He went into the washroom and counted his change. Twenty-eight cents. Might as well be broke as this way. Well, maybe not. He had to get some supper and there had been some trouble about credit at the Greasy Spoon.
He went back, sat down on a window-sill, and watched the play.
Larkin of the Globe picked at his nose, screwed his eyes on Mason of the News, who sat at his
left, finally said: “I wonder has he got ’em.”
Mason lifted the cigarette from the charred groove in the long table; he puffed once on it with a bored, uninterested lift of the brows. “For a nickel,” he said airily, “you can find out.”
“Somebody’s got to keep him honest—”
Doane looked away, stared out on the parked cars in the walled courtyard with sultry eyes. Damn Keogh. Why the hell did he have to be on homicide? A guy as unreasonable and thick-headed as that ought to be out walking a beat.
Eight months Doane had been working for the Herald, and he had made out fairly well until he had that trouble. He flattered Keogh, kidded him along, gave him cigarettes, bought him beers, finally got in his good graces. And then Keogh had given him a little break and let him in a cheap room in the South End where a girl had committed suicide—on the promise that Doane would see that he got some publicity.
And so he had written the story. It was a honey. Good for a column, anyway. He turned and spat on the floor. How the hell could he know Van Husan would queer everything?
“Very nice,” the city editor had said when Doane put the neatly typed story on the desk. Van Husan had nodded his head without looking up, so that all Doane could see was the sandy hair and green eyeshade bobbing up and down. “Very nice. You’ve got some swell adjectives; the spelling is good. Real human interest, too. But”—Doane remembered how the voice cracked—“who the hell ever heard of this dame? Nobody living at that address is worth more than a paragraph, and I’m probably double-crossing the public at that!”
But you couldn’t explain that to Keogh. His name wasn’t in that paragraph and that was all that mattered. To hear him tell it, Doane had lain awake nights thinking about this way of playing him for a sucker.
He looked over Mason’s shoulder. Why, the nut was holding a kicker to a pair of jacks and drawing two cards! Well, to hell with it; let him get burned. Doane stood up and went into the adjoining press-room, now deserted.
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