Top Assignment

by George Harmon Coxe

  Perched on a corner of the desk, he glanced at the box scores and then thumbed through the pages until he found the story and picture of the cafeteria with the wreckage of the ceiling strewn over the counter and stools. Further on he saw the picture of Ethel Kovalik receiving ten ten-dollar bills from Lengel, the photographer who had originally taken her picture on the street. When he read his piece he thought again of the woman and her strange story, and it stayed with him while he went into the washroom to clean up and run a comb through his hair.

  Back at his desk, he took out the glossy print and studied again the figure of Ethel Kovalik, who had been caught nearly full-face but not looking at the camera. He examined the man she had pointed out who followed two or three paces behind. Once more he noted the hostile glare as the fellow looked right at the camera, and now, as some odd disturbance grew amid his thoughts, he slid into his chair and reached for the telephone.

  He did not expect to locate Tom Hansen at the F.B.I. office, but he knew someone would be around, and when he had his connection he identified himself.

  ‘He’s not in,’ the voice told him, ‘but he’ll be in touch. Anything special?’

  Palmer said he did not know. He said he had sent a woman down to see Hansen that afternoon and wondered if she had appeared. His informant said he couldn’t say, so Palmer said:

  ‘Well, if you’re in touch with him during the next half-hour ask him to call me at the Bulletin. I’ll either be in the city room or in the studio.’

  The studio on the third floor was adjacent to the art department and consisted of a bare-looking room with a tall steel equipment cabinet, a cubby in the corner for Welsh, the picture chief, a rack for coat-hangers, two or three desks, and a double row of pigeon-holes, one for each photographer, where messages and personal things could be left. A narrow corridor opened up at an angle into the printing-room and beyond this it doubled back to give on the half-dozen developing cubicles, each with trays, timer, and two-way intercom. Welsh was in his cubby checking a layout for the Sunday edition when Palmer stepped in and asked if Lengel was around.

  ‘Yes’, Welsh said, and talked into the intercom microphone. ‘Lengel.’

  ‘Yo’, a voice replied.

  ‘How long’ll you be?’

  ‘Maybe three minutes.’

  Lengel was not much older than Palmer, but he had had more experience, having started as an office boy; he was also getting bald in the front and usually wore a hat. He had it pushed back now, a wiry, alert-eyed fellow, jaws busy working on his gum. Palmer showed him the print he had brought with him. He said he’d talked with the woman who had been picked for the prize.

  ‘She said you had a little trouble with this guy’, he said and pointed to the man with the glasses.

  ‘A little’, Lengel said, and grinned. ‘It was down on Summer, just beyond the subway entrance. This guy was looking right at me when the bulb popped, and by the time I got the slide in he was on top of me. A crazy guy. Had an accent. Couldn’t hardly understand him, but I knew what he meant. Said I couldn’t take his picture and started reaching for the camera. I brushed him off and backed away, but he was bigger than me and I knew I was in trouble, so I looked around for help and spotted the cop on the corner, a guy I know.’

  He grinned again, as though at the memory of the incident. ‘I yelled and Nick saw me battling and started my way, and this guy saw him coming and took off. Just stopped like he’d been slugged and wheeled away and took off … Why?’ he asked. ‘You know him?’

  Palmer said no, a bit more worried now than he had been but not wanting to go into detail about Ethel Kovalik’s story. The sudden shrill of the telephone forestalled further comment, and when Welsh answered it he glanced up and said: ‘For you.’

  ‘Larry?’ the voice said. ‘Tom Hansen. Heard you were looking for me.’

  ‘Yes’, Palmer said. ‘You know that contest we’re running where we take a daily picture and—’

  ‘Somebody gets circled and wins a hundred bucks?’ Hansen finished. ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Well, this woman comes in today with some crazy story about being followed. Didn’t want us to use the address; said she was scared. I sent her down to you and I wondered what you thought about her.’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘She didn’t come in.’

  ‘I gave her your name. I told her to ask for you and mention my name.’

  ‘She didn’t show’, Hansen said. ‘I was in most of the afternoon. What did you say she was scared of?’

  Palmer hesitated, feeling no particular surprise when he remembered the bet he had made with Brooks. Brooks had thought the story a phony and said so. Apparently he was right, and Palmer knew that it would be even harder now to make that story sound plausible over the telephone.

  ‘It’s sort of involved’, he said, stalling now. ‘I just wanted to find out if she’d been in.’

  ‘Is it important?’

  ‘I doubt it’, Palmer said. ‘I want to do a little more checking. If there’s anything in it for you, I’ll get in touch with you in the morning.’

  Down on the street with the rumble of the basement presses behind him, Larry Palmer stood a moment on the kerb watching the trucks back up to the loading platforms on his right. Overhead the sky was clear and black, the stars obscured by the lights of the city, the evening pleasantly warm as he turned the corner and crossed to the small tavern that seemed always to be filled with men from the mechanical departments who had ducked out for a quick shot or a beer.

  Normally at this time his immediate project consisted of nothing more than the selection of a place to eat, a choice influenced by appetite, desire, and the state of his budget. For some days now he had had an idea in mind that he thought might make a good magazine article, and it had been his intention to try to outline it tonight and see if he could get some editor to give him an okay. Now, drinking his beer, he was unable to put his mind on anything but Ethel Kovalik and her story. It bothered him strangely as he remembered the quiet woman with her Old World manners and odd accent. Even though he had lost a bet to Brooks, he could not shake the impression that some parts of the story he had heard must be true. And so it was that he walked out of the tavern and back past the loading platforms to the adjacent parking lot and his car.

  Martin Street was an archaic bit of city planning that had not yet been rectified, a block-long canyon of old redbrick houses that curved at the far end into another depressing street that backed up to the railway. The number Larry Palmer sought was in the middle of the block, a narrow three-storey-and-basement house, identical with its neighbours and outwardly unchanged in the last fifty years except for the television antenna sprouting from its roof. The inside had been remodelled into furnished rooms and small apartments, and the sign in the window next to the entrance said: No Vacancy.

  He found a place to park farther down the block and walked back. Three steps led to an open vestibule, beyond which was a door with a frosted-glass panel, and as he reached for the knob there was a blur of movement beyond the glass and just then the door opened.

  For a second or so it was pretty crowded in the vestibule because there wasn’t much room and the two men who came out were in a hurry. They brushed him back in passing and he tried to catch the door before it swung shut, and the light was bad, and all he could tell about the men was that one was stocky and the other was three or four inches taller and considerably thinner. Both were bareheaded, but he had a quick glimpse of reflected light dancing from the spectacles the tall one wore before they hurried down the outer steps.

  Palmer watched them, still holding on to the door. He eased it shut to be sure he could get in again and then went to the entrance and looked down the street toward the lights at the intersection, seeing the pair cross it presently, still walking fast and not looking back.

  Thoughtfully he stepped back and entered the inner hall, traces of worry infiltrating his thoughts as he remembered the things Et
hel Kovalik had told him. Two men, she’d said. Waiters at the Bond Hotel; at least one was, the one who wore glasses.

  So what? he told himself. The house probably had a dozen tenants.

  Room six was what she had told him when she had first given him her address, and now he saw that stairs mounted along the left wall, that a narrow hall led past them to the rear. The first door had a card tacked on it which said: Manager. When he saw that the second door bore the figure one, he turned and started up the stairs, counted three doors in this poorly lit corridor, and climbed once more, hurrying now without knowing why.

  The room he sought was at the front, and as he stopped before it he saw the crack of light underneath it and was reassured. He knocked, knocked again. He reached for the knob and it turned easily in his grasp.

  Then, propelled by some strange and shapeless fear which would not be denied, he was moving inside, knocking again as he did so. He still had hold of the knob when his glance found the huddled figure over near the baseboard at the far side of the room, unable yet to see her face, knowing only that a woman lay there, a motionless, inert form in a cheap grey dress.

  In the time it took him to cross to the still figure he became vaguely aware of other things: the squarish room with its threadbare rug, the cheap furniture, the white-painted metal bed, the built-in alcove, its curtains parted to disclose the sink and shelves and the two-burner gas plate.

  Then he was dropping to one knee, as the shock hit him and his stomach contracted, certain now that this was Ethel Kovalik, understanding how she must have died when he saw how the towel had been cruelly twisted about her neck, apparently from behind.

  But even then he did not accept the finality of death which had been stamped upon the suffused and distorted features. He caught up a limp hand, found it nearly as warm as his own. He slid his fingers along her wrist and pressed them down in his search for a pulse beat. Breathless now, still not sure, he knelt closer and put his ear close to her breath to listen for a heartbeat that never came.

  When at last he straightened to glance about, his neck was stiff and his hands and face were moist with perspiration. He found a handkerchief and used it, all empty inside now and his mind sick.

  She had been afraid. She had told the truth when she said so. Then why, he asked himself in his helpless exasperation, hadn’t she gone to the F.B.I. as he told her?

  For some reason he glanced at his watch and saw that it was just nine-fifteen. Forty-five minutes since the early edition had hit the city streets with his story of a prizewinner who lived on Martin Street.

  Keeping his gaze from the distorted face, he started to loosen the towel until he realised it would do no good. Then he forced himself to concentrate, talking silently to himself in his endeavour to think and act like a newspaperman. Such concentration helped, and now his gaze moved from the body in ever widening circles until he spotted the handbag under the painted table.

  It had been opened and part of the contents spilled at some distance, as though it had been flung there in anger. A cheap compact lay open, its powder-cake scattered in pieces. There were two keys, a half-roll of candy mints, a change purse, a small billfold. He did not count the money, but he looked at the identification card which came with the billfold and had been filled out with name, address, and the name and address of the person to be notified in case of emergency. In the bag itself were a handkerchief, some tissues, a Bulletin envelope containing the ten ten-dollar bills she had collected that afternoon, the much folded clipping. There was also a slip of paper on which two names were printed, both with local addresses. Not until he had copied them did it occur to him that he was acting in a manner which would merit no approval by the city desk, and now he hurried from the room in search of a telephone.

  There was none on that floor nor on the one below, but there was a pay-telephone at the rear of the first-floor hall. Here he found a dime and dialled his number. When he got the city desk he told his story briefly but succinctly and his orders came at once.

  ‘Room six, third floor?’ the desk man said after he repeated the address. ‘Okay. Stay there. We’ve got Reece and Labine in a radio car and they should be there in a couple of minutes. Don’t break your neck calling the police.’

  Palmer hung up and wiped his face again. He got out his cigarettes and his hand was still unsteady when he struck a light. After a puff or two he examined his change and found neither dime nor nickel. He took his time going to the door which held the manager’s card.

  The tall, black-haired woman who answered his knock wore a skirt and blouse and a sullen look.

  ‘No vacancies, mister’, she said. ‘Can’t you read the sign?’

  ‘You will have’, Palmer said, nettled by her manner.

  ‘What?’

  ‘A vacancy. Number six. Somebody strangled your tenant … Mrs. Kovalik’, he said when he saw she did not believe him. ‘In number six. She’s dead. You’d better call the police.’

  ‘Dead?’ the woman said. ‘Who’re you kidding? Why don’t you call the police?’

  ‘Because I don’t have a dime’, Palmer said. ‘I’ll be around. I’m from the Bulletin.’

  He turned away then and walked through the vestibule to the top step. By the time he had finished his cigarette and flipped it into the street he saw one of the Bulletin’s radio cars whip round the corner heading his way.

  CHAPTER THREE

  REECE AND LABINE had worked the late shift in a radio car for quite a while, and they moved with practised efficiency once Palmer led the way back to room six. Reece took four quick shots of the room and victim from various angles and said he’d take the car and get going before the police popped in on them and stopped him. Labine looked things over with little comment and sat down on the arm of a chair to light a cigarette.

  ‘This,’ he said finally, ‘could be a stink.’

  ‘How?’ Palmer said.

  ‘The Standard.’ He picked up the clipping with Ethel Kovalik’s picture, flicked it with the end of his finger, and replaced it. ‘The Standard will love this.’

  Palmer waited, sensing the direction of Labine’s thoughts but wanting to hear more.

  ‘Ever since that new publisher moved in down there,’ the older man said, ‘he’s been needling the competition, especially the Bulletin. Too many papers in town, he says. Somebody’s got to go—but not him. He’s been hustling for circulation, staging contests, offering premiums, beating the bushes with solicitors. A week or so ago he made some crack about this picture contest of ours. Questionable taste, he said. Invasion of privacy.’

  Labine gestured emptily. ‘So we run a picture of this dame and right after that somebody knocks her off … Wait and see’, he added as the door opened and two uniformed policemen pushed into the room.

  They listened to Palmer, looked around, and decided aloud to wait for reinforcements, which came presently in the person of Lieutenant Neilson of Homicide, two technicians, and two precinct detectives. By the time Neilson had made a quick inspection of the victim and her effects, an assistant medical examiner had arrived and the room got crowded. Then, as the doctor got busy and the photographs were taken, Neilson confronted Palmer and Labine. He glanced from one to the other; he examined the photograph which had been reproduced in the Bulletin.

  ‘Where’s your pal, Reece?’ he said to Labine.

  ‘Back at the office, I hope.’

  ‘Took his pictures and blew, hunh? Okay, who found her?’

  ‘I did’, Palmer said.

  ‘How come you’re here in the first place?’

  ‘She came in today to collect the hundred dollars. I interviewed her.’ He hesitated and then, not wanting to speak of Ethel Kovalik’s fears until he’d talked to the managing editor and perhaps the F.B.I., he made up the story as he went along. ‘We like to check back on the winners’, he said. ‘I just stopped by to see—’

  ‘Oh’, said Neilson, interrupting. ‘Just stopped by.’ He glanced over his shoulder. ‘How lo
ng has she been dead, Doc? As a guess.’

  ‘Maybe an hour—as a guess.’

  Neilson turned to the two detectives. ‘Get the landlady’, he said. ‘Check the roomers.’

  He pushed his hat back and continued his study of Palmer and Labine, a compact, hard-jawed veteran with opaque dark eyes that were busy and suspicious. In the department he had a reputation for competence, honesty, and a lack of humour; he also carried a small grudge against the Bulletin and its men. Like most officers, he had no objection to having his picture in the paper, and if he had an antipathy for reporters and news photographers it was of long standing and came from the fact that the Bulletin had twice made a mistake in the spelling of his name, using the ie instead of the ei. Now, his tone suggesting that the grudge still bothered him, he spoke again to Palmer.

  ‘You found her, and you phoned the paper, and the radio car beat us here. That means that you,’—he glanced at Labine—‘don’t know a thing.’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Then suppose you shove off. The street is full of newspaper cars, so why don’t you go down and tell them what you know?’

  Labine winked at Palmer. ‘Yes, sir, Lieutenant’, he said.

  ‘What do you know about the dame?’

  Palmer still had his copy of the early edition, and now he showed Neilson the story he had written. Neilson grunted when he finished reading.

  ‘The identification says she was from Jersey. How long had she been in town?’

  ‘Three days, she said.’

  ‘What was she doin’ here?’

  ‘Looking for her husband’, Palmer said and related a condensed version of the things the woman had told him.

  ‘Well, maybe she found the husband’, Neilson said; then turned as the door opened and the landlady was ushered into the room. She took a quick look about, assessing the activities without changing her expression. She was still grim as she faced Neilson.