“Yes,” Shapiro said. “A guide. And—a cover, Mr. Farmington?”
He could call it that.
“A pretty young girl. Preferably a blonde. He usually wanted a blonde—guide?”
“Yes. After all, he married a blonde. Ten years ago. Hope must have been a looker. All right now, come to that. Only—”
He stopped again. After some seconds, Shapiro repeated the word “only?”
“Look,” Farmington said, “I don’t know anything about it. Not to say know. Only thing is—well, I’d figure her a cold fish, sort of. Way you get feelings about people. Maybe they’re no good—the feelings, I mean. Maybe Hope’s a hot number for all I know.”
“Sure,” Shapiro said. “Sometimes it’s hard to tell. You gave Mr. Prentis a—call it a selection. Pictures of a few girls. With their addresses?”
“I guess so.”
“And Miss Rushton was one of them?”
“Yes. Way I remember it.”
“She lived down in the Village, Mr. Farmington. Quite near the hotel where Mr. Prentis was staying.”
“Did she? I wouldn’t know.”
“Quite near,” Shapiro said. “The—the mission has been in New York before. Several times over a period of years, I gather. During these periods of preparation, did Mr. Prentis usually stay downtown? In Greenwich Village?”
“I wouldn’t know. Anyway, I don’t remember. Hell, I wasn’t his keeper, Lieutenant.”
Shapiro said, “No, of course not,” and did not add what, he suspected, Ralph Farmington might have been to the Reverend Jonathan Prentis. Shapiro stood up from behind the desk and looked across the room at Tony Cook and then, because of what was in Tony’s face, said, “Yes, Detective Cook?”
“Nothing important,” Cook said. “I just wondered what these singers got paid. For their choir singing.”
He looked at Farmington, still sitting on the sofa.
“No secret about it,” Farmington said. “It’s down on the books. Fifty dollars for each appearance. They’ve got to make their living.”
“Sure,” Tony said. “They were paid through their agents, I suppose? And their agents took their cuts?”
“Sure,” Farmington said. “Nobody’s in business for the fun of it.”
“No,” Tony said. “Ten per cent, I suppose?”
Farmington supposed so. That was standard.
“Happen to have a list of these singers?” Tony asked him. “Names and addresses?”
“Mrs. Mathews,” Farmington said. “She sends out the checks. She and her girls. What the hell for, Detective Cook?”
It was Shapiro who answered. He said, “Probably for nothing, Mr. Farmington. We get a lot of odds and ends together, and mostly nothing comes of it. But—Mrs. Mathews will have the list? With home addresses?”
“Yeah,” Farmington said. “Checks go to the agents, of course. But we have the addresses.”
Shapiro raised his eyebrows at Tony Cook and Cook shook his head. “All right, Mr. Farmington,” Shapiro said. “You’ve been helpful. Go and get your coffee.”
It wasn’t an order, but Farmington acted as if it were. He went out of the room abruptly, with a kind of eagerness.
“What it comes to,” Tony said, “he was pimping for the Reverend. To put an ugly word to it.”
“We don’t know,” Shapiro said. “Perhaps just running a guide service.”
Tony used one word to answer that.
“Yes,” Nathan Shapiro said. “You’re probably right. And, you think kickbacks from the boys and girls, don’t you?”
“A chance of it,” Cook said. “He’s—well, he could be the type, Nate.”
“Yes,” Nathan said. “He could be. Not as religious as he sounded at first. We’ll have to ask around, Tony.”
9
Nathan Shapiro stood on a windy subway platform and waited for an express to Brooklyn and shivered. Rose had been right, of course. All winter she had been right in urging him to get a new and heavier overcoat. But by the time he had been ready to say, “All right, Rose,” it had been March, and in March spring may be supposed to be just around the corner. This year it had, obviously, missed the turn.
Trains run less frequently as evening turns to night; by ten-thirty it is a long time between trains—a long, cold time and a dreary one. It was dreary especially for a man who had been up since five and had spent a day getting nowhere. He and Tony Cook had got nowhere—nowhere to speak of, anyway—from the time Ralph Farmington had gone to get coffee—or whatever he had gone to get—and the time Shapiro had said, “Let’s call it a day, Tony. There’ll always be a tomorrow.” Not that there was any special reason to look forward to tomorrow.
They had found Theodore Acton, who arranged transportation for the mission. They had found him a wiry and indignant man who did not use Biblical terms and wanted to know when he could get his people out of here, because a floor of a hotel costs money and it takes time to charter an airplane. And, if Shapiro did not realize it, money was going to stop coming in with the Voice no longer to be heard. Shapiro had hoped it wouldn’t be too long. Had Acton arranged air transportation for Mrs. Jonathan Prentis from Little Rock, Arkansas, to Saint Louis, Missouri, on Sunday, February twenty-second?
Acton had not. Anyway, Mrs. Prentis would not travel on a Sunday. She thought it sinful to travel on a Sunday.
Sinful or not, she had traveled on that Sunday, unless the airline’s passenger list was wrong.
Acton knew nothing about it. If she had, she had made her own reservation.
Had she flown to New York on the chartered plane from Saint Louis which reached Kennedy on March second, and had she been met by Acton and taken, with the others, to the Hotel Wexley?
“I told you that,” Acton said. “You people don’t remember things very well, do you? Sure she did.”
The speed of air traffic, when the weather isn’t bad, when planes aren’t stacked over airports, can complicate matters for a detective. Mrs. Prentis might have flown to St. Louis on February 22 and then on to New York. To check on her husband and his “guide.” And then, in hours—or, of course, days—back to St. Louis to board a chartered plane with the others and fly back to New York. Which probably would come to mean a long checking of passenger lists, which would be tedious for the Police Department, City of New York. And people do not need to be truthful about their names.
Shapiro’s train clattered to the platform, and Shapiro got on it. One thing about ten-thirty at night was that you could sit down while you went under the East River to Brooklyn. The train was warmer than the platform had been.
Had Mrs. Prentis known about her husband’s guided tours in search of the more sinful areas of New York? If she had known, would she have felt strongly enough to do something about them? Like sticking an ice pick in her husband’s back?
Shapiro would be able to try to guess about that when he got to see Mrs. Prentis, he thought as the train roared into the tunnel under the river. He had not got to see her that evening, which was one reason he had decided to call it an evening. (Another reason that he was tired, which left his mind even more fuzzy than usual. If, he thought, that’s possible.)
They had gone to Mrs. Mathews’s room on their way, they had hoped, to Mrs. Prentis’s. They had stubbed out cigarettes and knocked on the door and heard, through it, “Go away, whoever you are. I’m busy.”
She had been told who they were and she had said, “Not again,” but had let them in.
Why did they want a list of the singers Mr. Farmington had engaged?
“Because one of them is dead,” Shapiro said, and told her what of that he thought she needed to know. This included the name of Janet Rushton.
“We sent out her check yesterday. No, day before. To her agent. It should have got to her—oh!”
“Yes,” Shapiro said. “She won’t cash it.”
“All right,” Mrs. Mathews said, “the Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away. Blessed be the name of the Lord. I can’t give y
ou the list unless Mr. Pruitt approves. And he’s in Saint Louis.”
“No,” Shapiro said. “He’s on his way here. Mr. Higgs has gone to meet him at the airport. Is there something secret about this list of names, Mrs. Mathews? Because I’m sure you want to help us find out about Mr. Prentis’s death.”
She said, “I don’t see—oh, I guess it’ll be all right.”
She had gone back to the desk she had got up from to let them in. She opened a drawer of the desk and took out of it sheets clipped together. “Carbons,” she said. She handed the clipped sheets to Shapiro. “Grouped by agents,” she said.
Shapiro could see they were, and nodded his head. There were several pages of names. Some were followed by street addresses and some were not. The names under the heading “Talent, Inc.” had street addresses after them. Shapiro folded the sheets and gave them to Tony Cook, who put them in his pocket.
“Now,” Nathan Shapiro said, “we’d like to see Mrs. Prentis. Few questions we want to ask her. About last night.”
“No,” Mrs. Mathews said. “And this time I mean no. The poor thing’s had enough already. Enough to bear, without being badgered.”
“We’ll try not to—”
“And anyway you can’t, because she’s under sedation. When she woke up this evening she got hysterical, and no wonder. So the Reverend Higgs said we ought to get a doctor to give her something and we did. And he gave her something so she could rest. And said she wasn’t to be disturbed.”
“The hotel doctor?”
“Yes. A Dr. Abernathy. And you can ask him if you don’t believe me.”
“Oh,” Nathan said, “we believe you. We’ll drop by tomorrow to see Mrs. Prentis.”
There hadn’t been any reason to check with Dr. Abernathy. There was no reason Mrs. Mathews should lie about it. There is no reason for anybody to tell a lie which can be instantly disproved. Which Mrs. Mathews, who was alert and business-like under piety, would know perfectly well.
Shapiro did check, by telephone, on the TWA flight out of St. Louis that Henry Pruitt had taken. It had been due at ten. The ETA was now midnight. Weather conditions had been adverse and departure from St. Louis had been delayed.
The metronome which ticks in the minds of commuters and subway riders told Shapiro that the station the train was slowing for was his station. The wind buffeted him the few blocks to his apartment. He stopped at a newsstand and bought a copy of the bulldog edition of the Daily News, and the blind man who sold it to him said, “Evening, Lieutenant. It’s getting colder.”
In the apartment, Rose was sitting on the sofa in front of the fireplace and had turned on the electric fire. She got up when he came in and looked at him carefully and then said, “You look done in, Nathan. Can I get you something?”
“No,” he said, “I’m all right,” and, looking down at her, putting hands on her shoulders, he all at once felt all right. He took off his jacket, and she took his gun when it was unstrapped, as she did when she thought he was very tired, and put it on its shelf.
The Daily News had “Girl Singer Slain” on the second page, and the name was right, or near enough. (The name was “Reshton,” but that was near enough.) The story was only three paragraphs long and the News did not connect it with the murder of the Reverend Jonathan Prentis. “Police Seek Ice Pick Slayer.” (Story on Page 3.) The News, for this edition, described Janet Reshton as a nightclub singer.
But the News would make the connection. Probably it was made in the edition already slapping out of the presses. It wouldn’t be a three-paragraph story by now. And for the News, and for the New York Times as well, the murder of the Reverend Jonathan Prentis would no longer be a second-day story.
“Police See Link—” Something like that, anyway.
He wished one policeman saw anything clearly, and went to bed.
Rose Shapiro lay very quietly in the bed next her husband’s until she heard his breathing grow slow and deep—the breathing of sleep. Then she slept.
A bell clattered, yanking Tony Cook from sleep. He groped for the telephone, which was hiding in this still unfamiliar room. He found it and lifted the receiver, and the bell kept on clattering and he got the dial tone. He put the telephone back in its cradle and groped over it and turned off the alarm clock. It was still dark. Probably it was raining again. Or, from the temperature in the room, snowing. He shivered out of bed and to the window and pulled the Venetian blind up and closed the window. There was sun on the building across the street. It was dark in the apartment because it was a dark apartment. He would have sunshine to walk streets in.
He was on the eight-to-four and he was going to be late checking in. No. That had been set up the night before. He was going from address to address to ring doorbells and ask about kickbacks. It had been his idea, his stab in the dark. So, he was stuck with it. He put coffee on and showered and shaved and put a warm robe on while the turned-up thermostat set the temperature right in the apartment. He made breakfast and ate it and thought about Rachel Farmer, about whom lately he was thinking too damn much.
He had been tempted to call her up when he had got home the night before. Not with any idea that they might pick up the broken pieces of the evening. Just to see that she was all right. There was no reason she shouldn’t be all right. She’d been all right for years before he met her. Probably she would be asleep. With nothing else to do, she slept easily, as a cat sleeps. Or perhaps she had gone to the movie they had planned to go to. Or perhaps she had gone somewhere else, with someone else.
That would be up to her. She didn’t have to tell him what she did when they weren’t together. It wasn’t that way with them. Sure it wasn’t. If he called her now and she didn’t answer, it would be because she had decided to go on to the movie. Or, of course, somewhere else. Which wasn’t any of his business.
He took his hand off the telephone he had been, absently, stroking. He went to bed. After some little time he went to sleep.
He ran hot water over his breakfast dishes and set them in the rack to drain. He finished dressing. He got the lists of names from his jacket pocket and spread them out on a table. There were certainly a hell of a lot of names; it had been a hell of a big choir. It had, on the whole, been a hell of a big operation. And what would happen to it now? Would this Higgs guy, who apparently had backed the Voice up, go in now to pinch-hit? Farmington was sure he wouldn’t, because he didn’t have the voice for it. Or, Tony thought, what they called the presence for it. But Farmington could be wrong. Farmington didn’t seem to be running things. Except the choir, of course. It had sure as hell been a big choir.
Thirty or so names to the page, in double-spaced typing. Six pages. Split them up and get some more men on them? Precinct squad? After all, it was their kill. Both of the kills were theirs.
But it’s my notion, Tony thought. My stab in the dark. Take a sampling and if anything comes of that, pass it along. If it’s an issue at all, it’s probably a side issue. Suppose Farmington had been taking kickbacks from his boys and girls and suppose the Reverend Prentis had found out about it. Reason for murder? Well, you can never tell what may be a reason for murder. Nate thinks there is never a reason for murder. Not a real reason; not a reason that would stand up in a sane mind. All the same, people do kill other people.
Some of the names with home addresses listed; most with only the names of agents for addresses. Take his sampling from the easiest. Start with those he could group and, preferably, with those who lived within walking distance; lived downtown, as now he lived downtown.
He began to make a list. West Twelfth Street. Charles Street. Waverly Place. East Eighteenth. Over in the Stuyvesant Square area that would be. Hell, Gay Street. Just around the jog from Rachel’s place. Leave that until last. Say about lunchtime. Not that she would be there. A hundred to one against that. She would be at some photographer’s studio, posing with clothes on. Or in a painter’s studio, probably without clothes on. Drafty places, she said those were. And they’d be drafty
today, from the way the wind was rattling his own windows. You’d think a girl would catch cold that way, but she never seemed to. She—
I’m letting this thing get out of hand, Tony told himself. We have fun together. We play games together. That’s the way we both want it, and that’s all we want of it. Sure it is. Thompson Street. That’ll be a ways down below the Square. A dozen within walking distance. Plenty for a sample. Plenty to start with.
He put his jacket on, with his gun under it in accordance with regulations, and made sure his badge was in his pocket. He put a topcoat on and went out and got about it. It was only a little after nine, which probably would be the crack of dawn for most of them.
Stacey Holmes, contralto; West Twelfth Street between Sixth and Seventh. The closest, and Miss Holmes’s hard luck if she was still asleep.
A four-story building, a good deal like that on Washington Place in which Janet Rushton had lived and died. Another converted one-family house. Two apartments to the floor, here. And—yes—Stacey Holmes. On the fourth floor, from the location of the bell push. It would be.
He pressed the button and, after some seconds, a voice came out of a grating. It rasped out of the grating. It did not sound like a singer’s voice, but through these house-phone gadgets voices never sounded much like voices, contralto or other. They sounded, at best, as if they came from badly scratched phonograph records. This voice said, “Yes? Who is it?”
Tony said, “Miss Holmes?” into the grating and got another “Yes,” and, again, “Who is it?”
“My name’s Cook,” Tony said into the grating. “A police detective. Like a couple of words with you.”
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