Neilson’s grin remained. ‘You’ll get no story from me. You can talk to the captain or the D.A. if you want, but all I’ve got to say is that we’ve released Flynn. Destler we’re still working on. It may be another hour, it may be ten.’
Palmer was dismissed and he knew it. Only his rising irritation at the man behind the desk prevented him from accepting it.
‘Did Destler tell you about the two men who roughed him up?’
Neilson’s gaze narrowed and the grin was gone.
‘What two men?’
‘A fellow named Kurt Henkel and one named Muller—I don’t know his first name. They worked as waiters at the Bond. They were at Destler’s just before your men came.’
‘What’s the connection between them and Destler?’
‘I don’t know unless he or Flynn once sold them phony birth certificates.’
Lieutenant Neilson’s attitude towards reporters may have been open to question, but there was nothing wrong with his ability to recognize relevant details. He had been a cop for a long time, and a competent one, and his personal feelings in no way conflicted with his professional efficiency.
‘You were at Martin Street when we questioned the landlady’, he said. ‘She described two men who’d come to see the Kovalik woman.’ He hesitated, eyes suddenly probing. ‘How the hell do you happen to know their names?’ he demanded.
‘Ethel Kovalik told me.’
‘When?’
‘When I interviewed her this afternoon. She said she’d seen them at the Bond. She recognized them as coming from the Eastern Zone of Germany. She didn’t know how they got here or what they were doing in this country, but she was afraid of them.’
Neilson was by that time confused. His expression said so.
‘Who told you they came to see Destler?’ he asked as he tried to digest this new information.
‘The girl who’s living there.’
‘What’s her name?’
‘She didn’t say’, Palmer said; then, finding some perverse satisfaction in the knowledge that the truth could only aggravate Neilson’s confusion, he related what the girl had told him.
For just a moment as he finished he thought about the photograph in his pocket, but some cautionary impulse prevented him from producing it at this time. He understood that Kurt Henkel’s face could be blown up and reproduced so that every policeman in the city could start looking for him by morning, and it was no animosity toward Neilson that influenced his decision. The truth was—and he recognized it—that he lacked the confidence and the experience to take such a step until he had at least checked with the F.B.I. and Mr. Austin, the publisher. If Henkel and Muller were Communist muscle-men, as Ethel Kovalik had suggested, the revelation was too important for him to make on his own.
‘Why don’t you check with Destler?’ he said, and stood up.
‘Yeah.’ Neilson gave the word a connotation of concern. He still looked a little worried when Palmer left the office.
CHAPTER SIX
ON THE RIDE back to the Bond Hotel, Palmer questioned Wilson about Waldo Banton, the current owner.
‘I’ve heard a lot of things’, the photographer said. ‘I don’t know how much of it is true … A gambler, mostly, I guess. A pretty tough character.’
‘Tough in what way?’
‘I mean, nobody pushes him around. You see him at the tracks, he’s generally got a couple of hard-eyed guys with him and I don’t think they’re his pals; I think they’re on his payroll.’
‘Has he got a record?’
‘No. At least not around here.’ Wilson got a cigarette going and crossed his legs. ‘He came from the West Coast and he was in the army awhile—’
‘Was he in Germany?’
‘I couldn’t say.’
‘You said he used to be married to Gladys Flynn.’
‘A long time ago, yes. Anyway he had quite a roll when he got out of the army—the way I hear it, he cleaned up as a gambler—and he hooked up with some guy—I can’t remember his name—and made a lot more dealing in war surpluses. He had a piece of one of the dog tracks while there was still gravy in them, and put some dough in that auto track up north; you know, where they race stock cars and midgets? Then he bought into the Bond and fixed it up and put in the Orchid Room, and now he’s going to marry a divorcée with more dough than he’s got.’
Palmer said he hadn’t heard about that.
‘She’s out in Reno now’, Wilson said. ‘Mrs. Hardy. A Boston woman, but living in New York and Palm Beach since she’s been married. Her name was Canfield and her old man was a contractor. Started out as an immigrant bricklayer and made his pile when taxes were nothing. Died about five years ago and left his daughter a box full of bonds and a couple of business blocks downtown. She’s a good-looking doll and they say Banton is really carrying the torch.’
‘Does he still gamble?’
‘Not as a racket. I understand some of them have a private game once a week or so in his suite at the Bond, but I hear there’ll be no more of that once he gets married.’
The customers were leaving the Orchid Room and the band was packing its instruments when Palmer walked in shortly after one. Some of the lights had been turned off, but down in one corner near the bandstand a table light was on and when he recognized the man and woman sitting there he walked quickly towards it.
Gladys Flynn still wore her greasepaint and make-up, and the final number of the late show must have been a dressy one because her costume was an extravagant blue number with a low-cut, tight-fitting bodice and a lot of skirt. The remains of a sandwich littered the plate in front of her and she was sipping coffee when she saw Palmer. Her husband was scowling into the last inch of his highball.
‘Oh, hello, Mr. Palmer’, the woman said. ‘I was just telling Leo about you … Do you know Mr. Palmer, Leo?’
Flynn nodded. ‘I’ve seen him around. Hi’, he said without enthusiasm and made no attempt to rise.
Aware now that he was not going to be invited to join them, Palmer pulled a chair up and sat down.
‘I’ve just come from Lieutenant Neilson’, he said. ‘He told me they’d released you.’
Flynn finished his drink and said nothing at all, so Palmer took a moment to study him, recalling the things O’Neil had told him. In the light of this information Leo Flynn seemed well cast, for he was a sharp-featured, bony-faced man about Palmer’s height but thinner, with sleek black hair, a straight thin nose, and a small mouth that seemed to have been set slantwise, as though some ingrown twist of character had permanently warped it. Apparently in his middle thirties, he wore a light-weight gabardine suit with shoulder padding the size of epaulettes, brown-and-white sports shoes, and a rainbow-coloured tie of floral design.
When there was still no reply, Palmer produced the photograph and spread it in front of Flynn. He pointed to Ethel Kovalik’s face and repeated the things Gladys Flynn had told him earlier. He said Flynn’s and Destler’s names were in the woman’s purse and he was checking to find out why she had come to see Flynn and where she’d obtained the names and addresses.
‘What’s your angle?’ Flynn said.
‘The Bulletin printed her picture. We’d like to do what we can to find out who killed her.’
‘I don’t doubt it’, Flynn said and reached for a newspaper that had been on the floor. It was a copy of the Standard and it had been folded so that a front-page, fourcolumn head was instantly visible.
There was no picture. Just the four black words standing out on the page and striking into Palmer’s consciousness with almost physical force as he understood their implication.
BULLETIN CONTEST WINNER SLAIN
There it is, he thought. The very thing they had been afraid of. It gave him a funny feeling at the pit of his stomach and brought back vividly the mental picture of the dead woman and the talk he had had with her. She had not wanted them to print a story about her and they had discounted her fears and printed the account anyway. Now it almost
seemed that he was in part responsible for what had happened.
‘What?’ he said, aware that Flynn had spoken.
‘I said okay. I told the lieutenant; I might as well tell you.’
Gladys pushed her chair back. ‘I’ll go change my clothes’, she said.
‘You don’t have to go’, Flynn said.
‘I have to change, don’t I? Anyway I’ve heard the story.’
Flynn scowled at her retreating back as it disappeared beyond the curtains.
‘This Kovalik woman came to the apartment yesterday morning, like Gladys told you. She phoned later and I went to see her … You know about me and Destler and that birth certificate business?’
‘I know Destler got two years for it.’
Flynn grunted and took time to add some details that tended to minimize his own part in the partnership. According to him, it had all been Destler’s idea. Destler, who had access to the blank certificates and the seal, had come to him because he, Flynn, knew a lot of people and had plenty of contacts.
‘I let him talk me into it,’ he said, ‘and it was a bad idea. The only time I ever stubbed my toe. I lined up some guys who wanted to work and couldn’t because they weren’t in the country on quotas. Hell, they weren’t Communists’, he said. ‘Most of them guys with families who wanted to stay here and earn a living.’
He inhaled and said: ‘Well, somebody in Jersey—probably an old customer—gave the Kovalik dame my name, and when I went to see her she wanted to know if a friend could buy a certificate. I told her no. Not unless Destler had some spares. I said I hadn’t seen him for months and didn’t want to see him, but she could try him if she wanted to.’
Palmer heard all this while part of his mind went back to the things the landlady had told the police. A man had come to see Ethel Kovalik that afternoon; not yesterday, but today. He had known which room was hers. A thin man, medium height, dark-haired, well dressed. Such a description would fit thousands, but it also fitted Flynn, so he took a chance.
‘You went to see her this afternoon, too, didn’t you?’
Flynn looked at him, the corner of his mouth dipping in what might have been a grin. ‘The lieutenant tell you?’
‘The landlady described you.’
‘That’s what Neilson said when I told him how I knew Ethel Kovalik … Yeah’, he said. ‘I stopped by because I was curious to know what Destler had said. According to her, he said no dice.’
The small thrust of anticipation that had come to Palmer when he guessed that Flynn had been the man the landlady described died quickly with the knowledge that Neilson was still far ahead of him. Measured by tangible results, he had made no progress whatsoever, but he swallowed his disappointment and pushed the photograph back in front of Flynn and put his finger on Kurt Henkel’s picture.
‘Do you know him?’
Flynn cocked his head. ‘Could be. Seems sort of familiar.’
‘He ought to be’, Palmer said dryly. ‘He worked right here as a waiter—in this room and the dining-room.’
‘Yeah. That’s right, he did. What about him?’
‘Did you sell him a certificate?’
The denial was positive in its inflection, but it came after a noticeable hesitation.
‘No’.
‘How about a man named Muller? I understand he was a pal of Henkel’s.’
‘Who’s he?’
‘He also worked here.’
‘I might have sold to a guy named Muller—we probably peddled a couple hundred before we got caught—but that was years ago. Right now I couldn’t tell you a single name for sure.’ Then, his glance sweeping past Palmer and focusing, he said: ‘Hello, Waldo … Sit down.’
The owner of the Bond Hotel said hello to Flynn and pulled out the chair Gladys Flynn had used. When he had pushed aside the dirty dishes he folded thick-fingered hands and looked at Palmer.
‘You know Larry Palmer from the Bulletin, Waldo?’ Flynn said. ‘You seen this?’
He pushed a copy of the Standard toward Banton, who glanced at it and nodded. ‘Yes’, he said. ‘Hello, Palmer.’ Larry said hello and watched him pick up the photograph. ‘What’s this?’ he asked.
‘A picture of the dame that got killed.’ Flynn was suddenly talkative, as though Banton’s presence embarrassed him. His long fingers fluttered to the newspaper. ‘She won one of the Bulletin’s contests. It tells about it here in the Standard.’
‘I read it.’ Banton continued to study the photograph. ‘This looks like a waiter we had’, he said and pointed to Henkel.
‘It is—or was’, Palmer said.
‘What’s he doing in the picture? Coincidence?’
‘I doubt it. When I talked to the woman this afternoon she thought she was being followed.’
‘Why?’
‘Maybe to find out where she lived’, Palmer said, but did not add that in this Henkel was unsuccessful, since he had stopped to argue with the photographer who snapped his picture.
Banton looked up. ‘What I meant was,’ he said, ‘why should Henkel be following her at all?’
Palmer, not wanting to go into detail and seeing no reason why he should confide in Banton, said he did not know.
‘All I know,’ he said, ‘is that she came up from New Jersey to look for her husband.’
‘Oh?’
‘An American soldier who deserted her in Germany in 1946. Somebody told her he thought he recognized him here, so she came up to have a look.’
‘The Standard doesn’t say so.’
Palmer found it unnecessary to make any comment because just then Gladys Flynn came sweeping through the curtains in a black dress and a mink stole.
‘Hello, darling’, she said to Banton. ‘Did you see the show tonight? How did it go?’
Her appearance brought the men to their feet and that gave Palmer a chance to glance at Banton, who was about his height but forty pounds heavier, a broad, thick-bodied man with a short, powerful neck and a rugged jaw. His squarish face was rather handsome in a dark, rough-hewn way in spite of the five-o’clock shadow, and remembering the things Wilson had said, Palmer not only got the idea that Banton was a very durable fellow, but he was also ready to agree that no one pushed him around, at least not much.
Yet it was the background and odd association of all three that now caught and held Palmer’s interest. Banton had been married to Gladys, who was now married to Leo Flynn. Banton owned the Bond Hotel; Henkel and Muller worked here, as did Gladys; it was here that Ethel Kovalik had come to eat. He was ready to accept the coincidence which decreed that the Bulletin should circle the picture of Ethel Kovalik—whose murder had somehow touched them all—and publish it, for without coincidence the pattern of life itself would have to be drastically altered. But certainly there was a limit to coincidence. Somehow, somewhere, there must be an answer based on logic and motivation to account for the presence here of so many who had some connection with Ethel Kovalik and each other …
He got that far and then had to give up. He picked up the photograph as Banton made some reply to the woman, aware that it was time for him to push off. He said goodnight and left abruptly, the feeling growing in him that, for all his work, he had accomplished exactly nothing.
Larry Palmer had no idea how long he had been asleep or, in those first seconds, just what it was that had made him awaken in darkness. He lay flat on his back, eyes wide open and staring at the ceiling, his mind instantly alert and knowing at once that his was not the awakening of a restless sleeper.
Though he heard no sound and was conscious of none, an odd tension accompanied his alertness, as though some silent warning had been given so that instinct might function. Heeding this warning even though he did not understand it, he held his head still and let his glance slide down along the blanket with its faint pattern of light and shadow as reflected from some glow outside the window. Slowly, he rolled his eyes to the right to check the window, seeing the faint stirring of curtains in the night air.
&
nbsp; The opening in the window was as he remembered, but even as he stared at it he unconsciously held his breath; that was how he happened to hear the faint but rhythmic sound which came from the darkness on his left and told him someone else was in the room.
In the past there had been times when, in dropping off to sleep, he had wondered what he might do if he ever woke to find a prowler in the apartment. On such occasions he had made imaginative plans, all different and depending on his mood. Now, however, he could remember none of these plans, and what he did was motivated by reality and the intuitive pressure of some danger not yet recognized.
He began to breathe again lest the unnatural stillness serve as a warning, and now, with his ears tuned to each nuance of sound, he could hear the soft brushing of movement across the rug, the faint click of something on the chest of drawers. It was excitement rather than fear that kept the tension building inside him, and his muscles began to ache with strain as he held them immobile.
Turning his head as quietly as he could, but not lifting it, he could make out the bulky shadow in front of the chest. His eyes, already accustomed to darkness, gave a certain form to that shadow and he thought he saw a hand exploring one of the drawers. For another few seconds he watched and waited, and as his thoughts expanded he wondered if this could be the man, Henkel, who had followed Ethel Kovalik. If this was so, then a second man might already be searching the living-room. From what he had heard, such a pair would be too much to handle, but with only one the odds might be even enough.
He made up his mind then, and in this he was reassured by the knowledge that it was not the prowler’s intent to kill or to maim since this could easily have been done while he was still asleep.
Still on his back, he reached up and got a good hold on the top of the sheet and the light blanket. When he was ready he whipped them violently to the right, swung his legs to the left, and lunged erect, seeing the intruder wheel as the pale blur of his face came round.
For that first instant surprise was his, but, though he got to his feet, he never did get his balance. The weight of his body as he pushed forward came down precariously on one of his shoes, upsetting him. He felt himself waver and swung hard at what he thought was a face. He was never quite sure then whether he misjudged the distance or whether the man ducked. All he knew was that a fist exploded deep in his solar plexus to drive the breath from his body, that he was suddenly on the floor, his muscles paralysed as he struck on his knees and tipped over in an agonized struggle to breathe.
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