Top Assignment

by George Harmon Coxe

  For the next minute or so he was as helpless as a man could be and still remain conscious. It had happened to him once before when he had been kicked while playing football in prep school, and it was the same way now. No pain as such, the mind still active so that he knew everything that was happening. Yet all the time this horrible muscular paralysis that kept him doubled up while he retched and gasped to bring some air to his lungs.

  He could hear the intruder moving about and he tried to roll over, and then the room was quiet except for the sounds that came from inside him. Gradually the paralysis passed. He straightened his legs and rolled over on his back to concentrate on the process of breathing, shallowly at first because of the muscular restrictions, grunting unconsciously now as he came erect and snapped on a light.

  A glance at his jacket draped over the back of the chair told him the pockets had been searched, but they had already been emptied on the chest before he went to bed. Everything was still there: the wallet, keys, change, cigarettes. The few bills were still in the wallet, but the cards and papers in the other compartment had been scattered on the runner. The only thing missing was the contest photograph of Ethel Kovalik, and this made no sense because without the negative it could have little value.

  Tightening the string on his pyjamas, he went barefoot into the living-room and turned on the lights. Outwardly he could see little change, but when he went to the desk by the windows with its typewriter and notes he knew the drawers had been searched. Over on the bookcase the clock said it was five minutes to three.

  For another moment he stood there frowning, his brown hair tousled and his eyes narrowed and intent. Experimentally he took a slow, deep breath, feeling the tenderness below his ribs as his chest arched to accent the natural squareness of his shoulders. Finally he shook his head in slow bewilderment and walked over to the door. Here on the lock was a night latch he seldom used, but now he opened the door and tried the lock. This time he snapped on the latch.

  He went back to the bedroom, turning out lights as he moved. The fact that the bills in his wallet were untouched seemed to rule out robbery, but beyond that he could not go. Apparently someone thought he had something that was important, possibly because it was known that he was the first to discover Ethel Kovalik’s body. This suggested something was missing, but it seemed pointless now to speculate as to just what this something was. All he knew for sure was that he had a sore place in the V between his breastbones, and he told himself now that it could have been worse.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  LARRY PALMER WAS up earlier than usual the next morning. The sun streaming through the bedroom window gave promise of another fine day, and it surprised him a little to find that in spite of the interruption to his sleep he felt rested and alert. There was only a touch of muscular soreness to remind him of what had happened the night before, and although normally he was not due at the office until noon he was suddenly eager to be up and doing.

  When he had put the water on for coffee, he shaved and showered and came naked into the bedroom to find clean clothes. By the time he had his shorts on and his hair combed, the water was boiling, so he prepared the coffee, poured out some tinned juice, and put a piece of bread in the toaster. A half-hour later he was getting his own coupé from the alley garage, but not until he drove out on the street was he sure just where he was going. Presently he would be headed towards the office to report on his activities, but first he wanted to learn what he could from John Destler.

  This is what he told himself. This, he knew, was the logical step. What was less logical but more compelling, even though as yet unadmitted, was the desire to see the girl who had threatened him with a gun the night before.

  She had intrigued him then and she intrigued him now in his speculation, but not until he turned into the tree-lined street with its modest houses would he acknowledge that he was acting as much from personal motives as he was from any desire for news. The silent admission became pleasantly exciting as he parked his car, and when he mounted the steps he pushed the button boldly.

  A half-minute later he saw her, in navy shorts now because of the warmth of the morning, with a man’s white shirt tucked inside and open at the throat. Other details impressed him: smoothly tanned legs and a freshly scrubbed face with only a touch of lipstick, the blonde hair, which was just the right length for his taste, swept back and caught with a ribbon. The blue eyes looked right at him, and though they seemed tired, she seemed prettier and more desirable now than she had the night before. Her welcome, however, was discouraging.

  ‘Oh’, she said. ‘You.’

  He gave her a hearty good morning, pretending they were friends of long standing. He gave her his best smile, but all that this brought was a long moment of indecision which scared him because he was afraid she’d slam the door.

  ‘May I come in a minute?’ he said, and then, impolitely, pushed forward so that she had to step back.

  She looked right at him, her eyes revealing nothing. Then she shrugged.

  ‘I suppose so’, she said and turned away to let him close the door.

  ‘I’m sorry to bother you,’ he said, following her into the living-room, ‘but I wanted to ask Mr. Destler some questions. Is he up yet?’

  ‘He isn’t here.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘He hasn’t come back.’

  ‘You mean he’s still with the police?’

  ‘I imagine so.’

  ‘But haven’t you had any word from—’

  ‘They let him telephone last night after you’d gone. He said he might be there quite a while; that I was to go to bed and not to worry.’

  Her obvious depression distressed him as well when he thought of her being alone here all night. He wanted to say something reassuring, but before he could think of anything appropriate she surprised him.

  ‘I was about to have a second cup of coffee’, she said, politely but with no great warmth. ‘There’s plenty if you’d like a cup.’

  ‘Yes,’ Palmer said, ‘I would. Thank you very much.’

  She turned away and walked past the dining-table in the adjoining room and through a swinging door. Then as he stood there, glancing about, he saw the pocket-book. It was right under his nose, on the stand with all the magazines, and now he found himself reaching for it, the impulse to know who this girl was stronger than the shame that accompanied it.

  He worked clumsily and hurriedly, seeing first the expected things—compact, lipstick, handkerchief, tissues—the wallet, an envelope, and finally the cheque.

  This he examined at once, finding it a business cheque drawn on a New York bank and payable to Janet Evans in the amount of two hundred dollars. A second glance told him the firm of Faulkner and Haas at a Madison Avenue address had issued the cheque, and there was an attached stub which said it covered a period of from the first to the fifteenth of the month.

  A pay-cheque, he thought. And at four hundred a month she had a pretty fair job. So what was she doing here? he asked as he closed the bag and stepped back just as the girl pushed open the door.

  She was carrying a tray with two cups and saucers, a pitcher of cream, and a dish of lump sugar. When she had put it down beside the pocketbook she asked how he liked his coffee.

  ‘Just cream, please’, he said.

  She handed him one cup and he watched her put cream and sugar in her own. He thanked her again and she said he was welcome. Then she went over to the chair in the corner, put the cup down on an end table, curled her bare legs under her, and picked up a folded newspaper and an automatic pencil.

  ‘Is it all right if I wait a little while?’ he said. ‘In case Mr. Destler should come back?’

  ‘If you like’, she said with an air of detachment.

  Palmer sat down and sipped his coffee, and for the next few minutes the room was silent as the girl concentrated on her crossword puzzle. This attitude discouraged conversation and so he watched the movement of her long lashes as her eyes moved from the blanks to
the definitions and back. From time to time the pencil would pounce as she filled in a word, sometimes two; then the frown would come while the end of the pencil tapped lightly against her teeth.

  Occasionally she would take a sip of coffee and finally, after several minutes of silence, she looked right at him, again not as a person but as a source of information.

  ‘What’s part of a storage battery?’ she demanded abruptly.

  He blinked his surprise and then he chuckled, pleased somehow that she should consult him at all.

  ‘How many letters?’

  ‘Five.’

  He thought a moment. ‘How about anode?’

  ‘Can you spell it?’

  ‘A-n-o-d-e’, he said. ‘I think.’

  She pencilled in the letters, tipped her head as she surveyed them. ‘It fits’, she said. ‘Thanks.’

  He continued to watch her in the silence that followed. He found himself waiting for her to ask him about another word until he began to analyse his feelings and ask himself why he should be so attracted to one who could so easily ignore him. And yet he could find no resentment at the attitude; rather it amused him that she could maintain such outward calmness and reserve without being offensive.

  ‘I understand you work for Faulkner and Hass’, he said in an effort to seek another opening.

  ‘Yes’, she said, not looking up. ‘How did you know?’

  ‘A little bird told me’, he said, the words sounding so fatuous when he heard them that he flushed when she looked up.

  For a moment then he thought she was going to smile, but she didn’t. And so, after another few minutes, he said: ‘What do you do there?’

  Again she looked right at him. ‘You could ask the little bird, couldn’t you?’

  Then, without warning, the thing he had been hoping for happened. She laughed, and it was such a forthright and natural sound that everything suddenly became all right. Where before she had been simply a rather pretty girl with a supple and nicely turned figure, she became instantly very lovely indeed.

  ‘I’m sorry’, she said. ‘I know I’ve been an awful boor and I’ve been wondering why. I guess it was because last night I was scared and then this morning—’ She paused and gestured with the pencil. ‘I suppose it’s because I always thought reporters were—well—’ She let the words trail off, and again her young face grew grave. ‘Why did you want to see Uncle John?’

  ‘Uncle John?’ he said.

  ‘Why, yes. What did you think?’

  The question confused him and he knew now that it was because he had been afraid to speculate. It seemed absurd now, and yet he knew that prettier girls than this one lived with older men who had the money to buy the proper things. For all he knew, Destler could have plenty hidden away, but he was still embarrassed because it seemed that this girl was too well bred and intelligent for such a liaison. He ducked the question.

  ‘Did you read this morning’s paper?’

  ‘Yes. Partly.’

  ‘It should tell a little more about Ethel Kovalik. I told you last night—’

  ‘I know, but you don’t think John could have done it.’

  ‘All I know is that she had his name in her purse. That’s why the police picked him up …’

  The sound of a key in the front door stopped him there, and as he glanced round, Janet Evans jumped to her feet and hurried towards the hall.

  ‘Uncle John!’ Palmer heard her say, followed by the sound of movement and the closing of the door.

  ‘It’s all right, Janet.’

  ‘All right?’ she said indignantly. ‘What right had they to keep you there all night? Did you have any sleep?’

  ‘An hour or so.’

  ‘They—they didn’t hurt you?’

  ‘No. Nothing like that. Just questions and more questions.’

  John Destler came into the room then, and what Palmer saw was a smallish man of perhaps sixty, with thin grey hair, faded-blue eyes, and a tired, harried manner. His grey suit was wrinkled and too short, as though it had been tailored many years ago, and his glasses were the rimless kind. His teeth as he stood there smiling uncertainly had the colour and perfection of dentures.

  At his side Janet Evans was still solicitous. ‘This is Mr. Palmer, Uncle John’, she said. ‘He’s from the Bulletin. He was here last night after you’d left, and this morning—’

  She stopped there as if undecided what she should say, and Palmer said:

  ‘I wanted to talk to you a minute, Mr. Destler … About Ethel Kovalik’, he said. ‘If you’ll sit down, I’ll tell you why. It shouldn’t take long.’

  Destler sank wearily into a chair and the girl perched on the arm. Both listened while Palmer told what he knew about Ethel Kovalik and why he and the Bulletin were interested in what had happened to her.

  ‘Your niece,’ he finished, ‘says she came to see you the other afternoon.’

  Destler pressed his fingertips to closed eyelids and held them there a moment. He shook his head slightly and sighed.

  ‘That’s right’, he said tiredly. ‘While Janet was shopping.’

  ‘She also went to see Leo Fynn’, Palmer said. ‘I imagine she asked you the same thing she asked him.’

  ‘Oh?’ Destler said, sounding as though such knowledge had upset him. ‘Then you know about my—trouble? … Yes’, he said finally. ‘She wanted to know if it would be possible to buy a birth certificate.’ He sighed again. ‘Of course I had to tell her no.’

  ‘Janet,’ Palmer said, deciding he might as well use the name to see how it sounded, ‘told me about the two men who came here last night. I think I know who they are and where they worked. I wondered if you did.’

  Destler hesitated, his glance dropping. ‘They came one day last week’, he said. ‘They wanted the same thing the woman did.’

  ‘Had you seen them before?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Could they have bought birth certificates from you before—I mean, while they were available?’

  ‘They could have. I wouldn’t know. Leo was the contact man.’

  ‘And what did they want last night?’ Palmer waited, seeing the girl shake her head as though asking him not to continue. He had to ignore her. ‘Janet said it sounded as if they wanted some list.’

  ‘A list of the people who bought those certificates back between ’48 and when I was arrested. I told them I didn’t have such a list, but I guess they didn’t believe me. If the police hadn’t come just then—’

  He hesitated again and then he rose, his tone suddenly flat. ‘I’m afraid that’s all I can tell you just now. I’m very tired. I’d like to get some sleep.’

  Palmer said he understood. He thanked him for his help and watched the older man turn towards the kitchen. Then as Janet Evans hesitated, he walked up to her and offered his hand and she took it.

  It was all very formal as he said he appreciated her help and she said that was all right. Now that he’d made that much progress, he released her hand and said he hated to be so persistent but in his job a man sometimes had to be that way. When she said she understood, he thanked her for the coffee. He did not add that he would see her again, but that was what he had in mind as she let him out of the house and he started down the steps.

  Stopping to light a cigarette where the sidewalks intersected, he turned towards his car, whistling absently and feeling highly pleased with the results of this early visit. It was when he pulled from the kerb and straightened the wheel that he noticed the police car.

  It was parked diagonally ahead of him and there was nothing on it to distinguish it from any other small black sedan except a somewhat longer antenna. It was the two men who sat in it that stamped it so unmistakably. One was reading a paper, or pretending to; the other inspected Palmer from under a turned-down hat brim and it was the look they gave him that tipped him off. For experience had taught him a truism that any newspaperman or cabdriver would verify: cops looked like cops. An old-time photographer had phrased it for him on
ce: ‘It’s the arrogant manner, the way they look at you, their attitude. Go into a strange town and you can spot them every time.’

  Palmer kept on going.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  IT WAS AFTER ten when Larry Palmer swung into the city room, and the moment the man on the afternoon desk saw him he waved with a beckoning gesture.

  ‘Where the hell have you been?’ he said bluntly but without animosity. ‘Upstairs’, he said before Palmer could reply. ‘Mr. Austin’s office. They’re waiting for you.’

  Frederick Austin had the sort of office that a set-designer would have thought appropriate for the publisher of a metropolitan daily, both in furnishings—the over-all effect was pine panelling and leather—and in size. It was just as well because when Palmer entered he found three other men waiting along with Austin. Two of these he knew: Kelly, the managing editor, and Tom Hansen from the F.B.I. The third man, a somewhat bewildered individual, was presently introduced.

  Austin nodded and made no reference to the hour. ‘Come in, Larry’, he said. ‘This is Mr. Metzger, Mrs. Kovalik’s uncle. The police were in touch with him last night and he came up to—ah, claim the body.’

  Metzger sat on the edge of a chair, his hat on his knees, a round-faced man with a look of acute distress as he glanced at Palmer and then at Austin as the publisher continued.

  ‘Mr. Palmer,’ he said, ‘is the man who interviewed your niece yesterday afternoon … As I understand it,’ Austin said, glancing at Palmer, ‘Mrs. Kovalik did not actually object to our running a story about her. It was just that she did not want her address given.’

  Palmer said that was right, and Austin paused, a trimfigured man with thick iron-grey hair and dark-rimmed glasses, which he now removed and placed on the desk. Born and bred in the city, he had inherited much of his stock in the paper from his grandfather, but he was no dilettante at his job. In his younger days he had done a little of everything except work in the mechanical departments, and his attitude towards the Bulletin went beyond his concern with the figures in the monthly statements of profit and loss. No one had ever questioned his integrity. He was not only jealous of the newspaper’s reputation and goodwill, but also keenly aware of its responsibilities to the public. It was obvious to Palmer that it was this aspect of the matter that bothered him now.