“What was it you wanted to talk to me about, Mr. Carter?”
I jerked my eyes away from her dimpled knees and sat down on a corner of her desk. My voice was cold. Dames are dames. But murder is a dirty rotten business, and the guy who beat George Flynn was a dirty rotten killer in my book.
“I want to know who hated George Flynn enough to bash his head in.”
I could hear the sharp catch of her breath. “Why do you ask me that?”
“Why not? You’re his secretary, aren’t you? You know what goes on here in his office, don’t you?”
“Look, Mr. Carter, I don’t know. I don’t want to know. I’ve been cold all morning. Cold inside. Don’t you understand? Whoever killed George was violent. I’m afraid I might know, without meaning to. I’m afraid that whoever killed George might just think I know why. Have you stopped to think what that could mean? To me? They’d kill me — just to get me out of the way.”
“Then you do know! You do know something!”
She jumped up. “I don’t!”
I caught her wrist. Hard. Pulled her around. “But even if you did know, you’d be afraid to tell me?”
Her eyes were stark. They begged me to release her. I went on holding her wrist. At last, she nodded. “I’d be afraid to tell you.”
• • •
The first bar was three doors down the street from the foyer of the Professional Building. She walked along beside me. There was space between us, we didn’t touch. But I swear I could feel her trembling.
“What’s your name?” I said. “What do I call you?”
“Gale. Gale Waring.”
“Nice name, Gale. Now do like I tell you. Forget the whole thing. A hysterical dame is no good to anybody. We’ll have a drink and forget the whole thing.”
The bar was not much. There was a vacant booth. We sat down across from each other and I fed a few nickels into the juke. She stopped trembling long enough to punch a few numbers. Right off, I found one thing I liked about Gale. She liked her music sweet and soft.
The bartender came over carrying his bar rag. I ordered Old Overholt for us and motioned the bartender to double the shots. He nodded and three drinks later, Gale Waring was calling me Marty-Honey.
She got up and went into the ladies’ room. When she came back her nose was powdered and her lipstick had been repaired. But it was lightly smeared. She slid into the booth beside me.
“You’re nice,” she said.
“Now you’re fooling yourself.”
“No. You’re nice. I was scared and you made me not scared any more. I didn’t want to talk and you didn’t make me talk. Whoever said cops were mean?”
“It’s rumored around. How do you know I’m just not getting you tight so you’ll talk? Your tongue is pretty loose.”
She stuck it out at me. Wagged it. Licked her lips. It was nice and pink.
She shook her head. “No. I don’t believe that. You did it because you’re nice.”
“Am I nice enough to go home with?”
She looked me over trying to clear her vision. She couldn’t make it.
“Talk to me a little bit, Marty-Honey. Make me think you want me to go home with you. I can’t help it. I get an awful feeling. I get feeling you don’t really care whether I go home with you or not.”
I looked at her. But what was I thinking? About a body, warm and lush, thrust against me, with the early sunlight streaming through black hair. And beyond it a bloody mask with that same sun on it. And bloody eyes watching me. Somewhere there was a murderer that needed killing.
“I want you,” I said. “You know I do. Work? The hell with it. We’ll work tomorrow. I want to play in that blonde hair. I want to smear up those lips — I want to — ”
“Well, what are we sitting here for? Let’s go.”
• • •
Gale said she liked my apartment. But she’d had two more drinks from the bottle of Old Overholt I bought and by the time we got to my place it didn’t matter that it was nothing but a bedroom, kitchenette and bath.
She started sedately across the room toward the club chair I read in but she didn’t lift her foot high enough to clear the carpet. She stumbled and sprawled out on the bed. She lay there laughing up at me.
“You’re nice,” she said again.
“You’re making a groove out of the thing,” I told her.
She sat up and peered at the corridor door. “Is it locked?” she said. I nodded “Bolted?” I frowned and nodded again. “Good. Because you know what? I feel safe here. With you I feel safe.”
“Who do you live with, Gale?”
“A girl friend. We got a place. Seminole Heights.”
“If you stayed here, you’d feel safe, wouldn’t you?”
She giggled. “If I thought so I’d get out of here, right now.”
“But from the people you’re afraid of, you — you’d feel safe from them?”
She nodded and stretched out her hands and curled up her fingers. Back and forth. I went and sat down on the bed beside her and took her in my arms.
“I feel so safe — ” Her voice wavered and she would have toppled backwards if I hadn’t held her. Drinking was not one of her accomplishments. “You see, Marty-Honey, Mr. Flynn was mixed up in so — so many things — ”
I felt my heart slug. I kept my voice casual. “He was? The hell with him.”
“No, Marty-Honey, I want to tell you. I got to tell somebody or go nuts. You I can tell. You are so safe. Safe, Marty-Honey. You see, that’s why George started his own law firm. The people he was with — they disagreed with George — on all sorts of things. They wanted to defend some people and George wouldn’t have anything to do with them. So he quit. He started his own law offices. But once when he was county solicitor, he gathered a lot of evidence against a man named Greek Alonzo. When the investigating committee wanted that information on Greek Alonzo, George agreed to get it in shape and turn it over to them — ”
“The Greek? The bookie?”
“Bookie! The stuff George had on the Greek was dope-”
“Narcotics!”
“Yes. Is that a motive?”
“Is it?” My arms tightened on her. “It’s such a motive that it’s no wonder you are scared.”
She smiled loosely. “But I’m not scared. Not any more. I’m here. I’m with you. And you’re going to love me — and play in that blonde hair and smear those lips and — ”
And she passed out. Cold.
• • •
I took a hot shower, as hot as I could stand it, then a cold one that brought out the goosepimples. When I came out of the bathroom and dressed, Gale was still sleeping. She was stretched across the bed breathing through her mouth. I spread a light blanket over her. Her breasts made pleasant hillocks in the flat plain of the cover. Hillocks that rose and fell as she breathed heavily.
The Cafe Toro Manero is on Eighth Avenue almost to Twenty-third. I parked near it and went inside. Toro Manero means Wise Bull, and wise bulls who are frisking around Ybor City avoid the Cafe Toro Manero. It is native and does not seek tourist rubber-necking the way the big places do over on Broadway and along Nebraska.
I found a table near the wall. Nobody seemed to be paying any attention to me at all, but I knew better. There wasn’t a man in that room who hadn’t seen me. They knew I had arrived. Marty Carter. Bad medicine, that boy. Hell, they had the word in the kitchen before I even sat down.
I wasn’t fooled. There was no way around that. When the waiter came I told him I wanted to see Tony Ricales. He said he would see.
In a moment, he came back. His face was white. He told me to follow him. I got up and we went between the tables. Conversation stopped. The dark eyes followed us to the corridor door. When it closed behind us the conversation started again.
Then I saw the two punks. I should have been expecting them and I would have seen them sooner, but the corridor was dark and I had just come in from the light. Hell, that’s alibi that wouldn’t heal
a knife wound worth a damn.
The boy in front made the first play. He was a sharp character with a greased head and checked zoot suit.
He should have had his knife ready. But he had overlooked a bet. He had forgotten that for a moment I’d be light-blinded. But he knew me and was just afraid enough of me that he hadn’t wanted to tip his hand.
He tipped it now, letting his narrow dark paw streak for the snap-blade under his coat. I let him make his play. Before he got his knife out, I had a wad of shirt front in my fist. I jerked him off balance. When he spread his legs to steady himself, I drove my knee into his groin. Hard.
I released him without even looking at him again. I heard something clatter on the floor. It must have been his long-bladed snap-knife. He wasn’t going to be needing it for a while. Not while he writhed.
The other boy was frothing with anger and fear. He leaped over his prostrate buddy, brandishing his knife. He was a lefty.
That knife flashed in the darkened corridor, coming at me from the port side. I twisted just enough so that he missed me the first time. Not by much. As his left hand went past, I slammed my right fist into his belly. There was murder in that swing, all right. Those two punks made me mad when they jumped me and I wasn’t giving this lefty another swipe with that sticker.
My fist struck his leather-taut belly and I’ll swear there was rebound. Swell condition, I thought. He twisted around to come at me again with that knife.
I did the only thing I could do. I caught his right arm. I let him swing with his left, but when I jerked his right wrist I think he was pretty sure lightning had struck him at the base of his neck. He yelled something. I couldn’t understand him. What the hell. We didn’t talk the same language.
There was only one kind of talk that he understood and I parlayed with him in that international language. I broke his right arm for him, waiting to hear the bones snap. He made a half-hearted swipe at me with his knife and I slapped it out of his hand. He bent over, puking, and I brought the butt of my positive down behind his right ear. He fell.
I looked around. I was alone in the dark corridor. The waiter was gone. Tony Ricales’ name was on a door. I lifted my heel and broke the lock. I would have been polite and knocked but that little business in the corridor had worn all the edges off my temper.
Ricales looked up from behind his ornate old desk. He looked as if he might cry. His hair was salt-and-pepper colored and he had been a very handsome Cuban when he was young. He had been very successful in all manner of illegal productions, and his handsome face still bore one of the knife scars he’d picked up along the way.
He managed to keep his face straight but his voice was crying. Choked with tears. “You didn’t have to do that, Capitan. The door was unlocked.”
“You didn’t have to bar it with a couple of knife boys, Ricales.”
“I swear to you — ” Now his eyes filled with tears. “It was not my idea. Gregor, he is the one with the left hand, he hates you. I pleaded. It was no use. He and Manuel used my place for a thing like this!”
His tears were real enough and before he was through, he could hardly talk. His mouth was shaking so hard his teeth chattered.
“All right, Ricales, to hell with it. There was no harm done. A broken arm — ”
He jumped up. “They harmed you!”
“Not my arm.”
His mouth worked into a bitter smile through his tears. “I warned them. Like a father I warned them — ”
“That’s right, Ricales, you know me, don’t you?”
“From a long time, Capitan. I know you well. Inclemente. Yes.” His voice hastened to cover that. “But just. Si. Always con justicia.”
I slapped my hand down on top of his desk. “You just think I’ve been merciless before, Toro Manero, but if anything like that business ever happens again in your place, it’ll be your hide I get.”
“I begged them. I had not time to get them out of here.” He tried to form a placating smile. “And I was not too worried for you, Capitan. They were with the weed.”
“I’m glad you mentioned that, Ricales. Because that’s why I came to see you.”
“I — about marijuana? You joke.”
“When I slam my fist down your throat you’ll see if I joke. Sure, you’re clean. As far as we can prove. But all I know is that a man named Greek Alonzo makes book in your place.”
“Book, yes. But that is not marijuana!”
“All right. But I happen to know that the Greek deals in the stuff. The book is his cover. Maybe this rat nest is yours!”
“I swear! Once, like you, Capitan, I sought excitement. And I found it! But not now. I’m old and I’m slow. My — how you say — reflexes. You’ve got to be fast to live a fast life. I swear on my mother’s grave, I’m in business. A businessman.”
“One thing at a time, Ricales. We’ll see about that. We’ll see about it when you deliver Greek Alonzo to me.”
He had stopped crying. Now he was sweating. “I cannot promise.”
“You better promise. You seem to misunderstand, amigo I’m not asking you; I’m telling you. I want to see Greek Alonzo.”
“Yes, Capitan. You mind if I ask why?”
“Why try to play dumb with me, Ricales? We know each other. I’ve told you all you need to know. I know now that Greek Alonzo deals in narcotics, something I didn’t know before. Who else knew that about the Greek, Ricales?”
“I swear to you — ”
I started around the desk. He turned pale and took two backward steps. “Stop lying to me!”
“All right. The Senator Flynn is dead. You wish to question the Greek about his death.”
“That’s better. I want the Greek delivered to me. Personally. You understand?”
“I’ll try.”
“You’ll do it, or I’ll close this place. Two men tried to kill me in here. The police department won’t like that, Ricales. That’s all the excuse they’ll need.”
“Please, Capitan. I was faultless.”
“You lie through your rotten teeth, but I don’t care right now. You get me Alonzo! You deliver him to me and to hell with this stuff! Now, when can I see him?”
“Can you give me until tonight?”
“Ten o’clock. Where?”
“I — I’ll call you to arrange the place.”
“See you do.”
Chapter 6
BACK at police headquarters, the first word I got was that the Chief wanted to see me. When I got in Hilligan’s office, Carl Dill was there with him. They had their heads together like they were plotting to overthrow the government.
When I looked at them, I made up my mind about one thing. I wasn’t going to tell them about Greek Alonzo. Getting that boy and breaking him was going to be my party. Besides I had seen Hilligan snafu better leads than that without even trying.
Hilligan looked up, frowning. “Where you been? Do I have to send out a call on you every time I want to see you?”
“When I’m working I didn’t know I have to explain every step I make.”
“Since when is drinking with a blonde in a Cass Street bar been considered working?”
I glanced at Dill. He was flushing up around his ears.
“Having me followed now, Hilligan?”
Hilligan shrugged. “It’s not unheard of, Marty. When it’s for the good of the department.”
I opened my mouth, then shut it tight. “Is that what you wanted to see me about?”
“No. When it’s time, you’ll hear more about the matter of the blonde.”
“Oh, stop threatening me, for God’s sake. It don’t make you look a bit more important in my eyes.”
Hilligan went pale. “For the moment, Marty, we’ll let that go. I’ve some work for you to do.”
“All right.”
“Dill and two other sergeants have been questioning the guests at the Lyons’ party. One thing shows up until it begins to form a pattern — ”
“Oh, brother!”
<
br /> He even ignored that after swallowing a couple of times. “Not one of the guests is willing to state under oath that he saw either George Flynn or his wife after midnight.”
I stared at him. “Are you trying to accuse Liza Flynn of killing her husband?”
“I’m not trying to do anything. I’m just telling you what we’ve found out in the course of one day’s questioning-while you were drinking alcoholic beverages during working hours.”
“What have you found out? That a bunch of society drunks can’t remember what time it was. Is that news? I’ll bet you couldn’t get any of them to swear where they were at midnight.”
“I may as well tell you I’m not ready yet to take my case to the County Solicitor — ”
“You can bet your life on that.”
“Just the same we have several people who are sure they saw Liza Flynn leave the Lyons’ party. And they are also sure it was soon after she quarrelled with her husband on the terrace.”
“A spat doesn’t mean murder. Why shouldn’t she leave after her husband walked out on her?”
“I’m willing to admit she might leave. And if she can prove when she got home and that she stayed there the rest of the night, she’ll never hear from me again. And that’s your job.”
“My job?”
“Sure. You got to know her this morning, didn’t you? Parked with her, watched her cry. Fell for the whole routine. There’s one dame that I can be sure you’ll handle with gloves, Carter. So there you are. Find out everything about her. What time she left the Lyons’ party, where she went, who she saw, what time she got to bed.”
“I suppose you’ll want at least two witnesses all the way to the bedroom.”
“They’ll help!” Hilligan stood up. “Maybe I can’t tell you forcibly enough. This is murder. A fine man has been murdered. There’s going to be a lot of pressure — ”
“And hounding that fine man’s wife isn’t a lovely way to escape that pressure. You’re sticking your neck way out to here when you start anything with her.”
“Look, if I wanted to get her upset I’d let the other boys investigate her. But I’m doing this to protect her as much as anything else. If she has an alibi, I’m sure you’ll find it. As I’m sure you’ve already been back out there today.”
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