Top Assignment

by George Harmon Coxe

  ‘That’s great, kid’, O’Neil said. ‘A man doesn’t get a crack at things like that very often these days, now that they’re running newspapers like banks—all efficiency and routine and regular hours’. He snorted loudly. ‘Thirty-seven-and-a-half-hour weeks, budgets, no overtime unless City Hall gets on fire and all the regulars are out on assignment … Another thing,’ he said, ‘this one comes from the publisher himself. Right, now it’s the top assignment in the shop … Where you going to start?’

  ‘At the Bond.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I have to start with what I know,’ Palmer said, ‘and that’s where those two waiters worked. Maybe I can get a line on where they lived and what they did … After that, Martin Street’, he said. ‘I’m going to check every house in the block.’

  ‘The cops have probably already done that.’

  ‘So what?’ Palmer said. ‘People will talk to a reporter when they won’t talk to a cop. Maybe they missed something, and anyway—’ He broke off to peer at O’Neil, not sure whether he was being needled or not. ‘Where would you start?’ he demanded with some belligerence.

  ‘The same as you’, O’Neil said and grinned his approval. ‘You have to start that way or hang up your hat. There’s just one more thing.’

  He leaned back, head cocked and his gaze speculative. ‘You may be on this for quite a while. You’re going to forget things. You’re going to have plenty of waiting time too unless I miss my guess. If I were you, I’d write things down.’

  ‘You mean, take notes?’

  ‘Take notes, and when you get time expand them. That way when you go over them—and you may want to—you’ll know for sure who said what, and under what circumstances. You’ll know where A was at such and such a time and what B was doing. That way you’ll recognize discrepancies when you see them. You never can tell when something seemingly unimportant and even irrelevant will turn out to be important as hell. And anyway, it’s good practice. You’re a writer, aren’t you?’

  The desk clerk at the Bond Hotel listened to Palmer’s request and nodded. ‘Mr. Heenan, the assistant manager, has to do with the personnel’, he said. ‘You can come around this way. The first office beyond the switchboard.’

  Heenan was a sandy-haired, middle-aged man with glasses. He looked up from a paper-littered desk, listened while Palmer identified himself, and allowed himself a smile when Palmer said he’d like to find out some things about Henkel and Muller.

  ‘Yes’, Heenan said. ‘They worked here as waiters. What was it you wanted to know?’

  ‘Well, where they lived, for one thing. You must have a record of their home addresses.’

  ‘We had a record.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The police were here earlier. They wanted to know the same thing. As a matter of fact, they insisted on taking the original applications with them. Right now I haven’t any idea where they lived. You could talk to the other waiters, though I’m not sure it would do much good. A surly pair, as I recall them; doubt if they had any friends.’

  Jarred by running into a dead end so quickly, Palmer stood where he was, his mind groping for some alternative. That he found one was due to his talk with the headwaiter in the Orchid Room the night before, and now he pursued this new line of inquiry, hoping the police did not yet know about it.

  ‘I talked with Louis last night’, he said. ‘He said he’d fired both Henkel and Muller more than once, but each time they’d turn up working in the dining-room. Later he’d be asked to put them to work again.’

  ‘That’s possible. Good waiters are scarce.’

  Palmer waited, his gaze steady as he watched Heenan busy himself with the papers on his desk. Because he did not believe this was all the truth, he said:

  ‘You’re the personnel man?’

  ‘That is correct.’

  ‘Then you’re the one who insisted that Henkel and Muller keep working here.’

  ‘The orders,’ Heenan said, jerking a thumb ceilingward, ‘came from upstairs.’

  ‘From Mr. Banton?’

  Heenan nodded, his expression suggesting that he did not approve of such interference, and Palmer, deciding to quit while he was ahead, did not pursue the matter. It was enough now to know that when the two waiters were fired it was Waldo Banton who interceded for them. The reasons why could come later.

  Martin Street was no more prepossessing by daylight than it was by night. If anything, it was less so because the defects and dirt were more apparent and the atmosphere of slow decay more evident.

  There was a cigar stand on the corner, and when the proprietor found out who Palmer was he was willing to talk. He knew about the murder and had read the accounts in both newspapers. He remembered seeing a woman whose description coincided with that of the victim, and was sure she had been in his shop for candy and newspapers. Unfortunately he could add no facts that were helpful. He had noticed nothing unusual the night before, had been aware of no strangers; neither could he remember seeing Kurt Henkel when Palmer pointed him out on a new copy of the photograph which had been taken from his room the night before.

  It was much the same as he made his way down the street. Perhaps because he liked people and was genuinely friendly by nature, the housewives talked to him openly, once they were satisfied that he was a bona fide reporter. Some had talked to the police and others had not, but there was nothing in what they said to encourage Palmer until he came to the tailor who had a basement shop with a window overlooking the street at sidewalk level.

  A bald gnome of a man, he worked in solitude in this narrow shop cluttered with a long rack of repaired and cleaned garments, a steam presser, and a sewing-machine. A curtain two-thirds of the way towards the rear masked effectively the back of the shop, and a bell tinkled with the opening of the door to summon him should he be occupied in that hinterland. When Palmer entered, Mr. Leibmann—his name was in small letters under the sign outside which said Tailor—was sitting cross-legged on a low table near the window, working busily with needle and thread on the lining of a man’s jacket.

  Without missing a stroke he listened to what Palmer had to say, and like the others he admitted to knowledge of the tragedy, expressing the opinion that it was a terrible thing that such crimes could happen. He knew nothing of any strangers who might have been in the block, and he explained why.

  ‘From this window,’ he said, ‘you see only to the knee, except with little children. You can look for yourself. Go ahead. Then tell me what you see.’

  To humour him Palmer obeyed as a woman went by on the sidewalk wheeling a baby carriage. He told what he saw and Leibmann nodded.

  ‘Shoes I can see’, he said. ‘Whether it is a woman or man and whether the pants need pressing or new cuffs. From being here a long time I know some of the shoes, but not all because the rooms are cheap here and the changes are many.’

  ‘How about cars?’ Palmer asked in desperation.

  ‘Cars?’

  ‘You probably know the ones that park along here regularly. Maybe you noticed a strange one or overheard some incident or an argument—’

  ‘Ahh—’ He elevated the spectacles on his wrinkled forehead and looked up. ‘Now that you speak of cars, I remember one.’

  ‘What kind?’ Palmer asked quickly.

  ‘That I could not say. About cars I know little. This I noticed because it is newer than some in this block, and smaller.’

  ‘Smaller?’

  ‘Like those they have in Europe.’

  ‘What time was that?’

  ‘Some time after eight. Fifteen minutes perhaps, or a bit more.’

  ‘It was pretty dark then, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Yes. But there is a street light not far away.’ Leibmann looked out the window and pointed. ‘It is parked just ahead, and there is no union for one who works alone, so often I am working late. Last night it is after eight, like I say, and when I am on the sidewalk I notice the car because it looks different. A tan colour, what you migh
t call a beige—’

  ‘Did you notice the number?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Oh’. Palmer let his breath out. ‘Well—’

  ‘But there is one thing.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘On the back where the compartment for the luggage is, there is a metal sign.’

  ‘A sign?’

  ‘With bright metal letters that all run together, small but making two words. Down in one corner, at an angle. I noticed that this sign says: Chapman Motors.’

  Chapman Motors occupied a one-storey brick building on a Commonwealth Avenue corner out beyond the highrent district. The service entrance was on the side street, and there was a fenced-in parking lot behind it where used cars were displayed. Two shining roadsters and a sedan occupied the showroom floor when Larry Palmer walked in at a quarter to one, and as he stood inspecting them a young and dapper salesman approached.

  ‘Good afternoon, sir.’

  ‘Good afternoon’, Palmer said. ‘Is Leo Flynn around?’

  ‘No, he’s not. The salesman tipped his head and his voice took on a tentative inflection. ‘Are you a customer of his?’

  Palmer said no. He said he wasn’t in the market for a car; he just wanted to see Flynn.

  ‘Do you know when he’ll be in?’

  ‘Maybe this week, maybe next’, the salesman said with mild irony. ‘Next week Friday for sure. We get paid here every other Friday.’

  ‘But he does work here?’

  The salesman grinned, making no effort to hide his opinion of Flynn. ‘He sells a car once in a while,’ he said, ‘if that’s what you mean.’

  Palmer grinned back at him. He said he understood that Flynn was in no danger of dying from overwork, and was the boss in?

  ‘Mr. Chapman? Yes, he is. That office over there.’

  He started back towards a small desk at the rear of the room, and Palmer crossed to a door adjacent to a glassed-in office where two women were working. He knocked at the door and opened it part way, sticking his head inside.

  ‘Busy?’ he said.

  Alvord Chapman had his custom-made shoes on the desk and was leaning well back in his chair, a wide-spread newspaper in front of him. When he recognized his caller he grinned.

  ‘Does it look it?’ he said. ‘Come in. Don’t tell me you’re going to break down and try one of our cars?’

  Palmer smiled to show he appreciated the crack. He said no. He said he was looking for Leo Flynn; that the salesman outside intimated that Flynn was seldom around.

  ‘No, he’s not, damn it!’ Chapman said. ‘He doesn’t like floor duty. Says he can sell more cars away from the place. He does sell one now and then, just enough to keep from getting the bounce.’

  ‘He’s on a drawing account, isn’t he?’

  ‘A hundred bucks a week. Try and get a salesman for less these days … Anything I can do for you?’

  Palmer sat down and said he didn’t know. And this, he knew, was the truth. There was an idea in the back of his head, but he was not sure how practical it was. He wanted to know who had parked a Chapman Motors car on Martin Street last night, and because some of his early enthusiasm was still with him he considered getting a list of all the Chapman customers and running them down, one by one if necessary, in the hope of getting a lead he could use. He considered the man in front of him with his expensive clothes and yachtsman’s tan, the small, clipped moustache, the long blond hair which seemed to suit him and was in no way effeminate or extreme.

  ‘Does Flynn have the use of a demonstrator?’ he asked.

  ‘When he says he needs one, and that’s pretty often.’

  ‘Do you have a list of customers you’ve sold to?’

  ‘Sure. We circularize them regularly.’

  ‘How about those who’ve bought second-hand jobs?’

  ‘Those too.’

  ‘How many in all?’

  ‘Oh, God! I don’t know. Two or three hundred maybe.’ A frown grooved the good-looking face. ‘What’s this all about, anyway?’

  Palmer decided to tell him, but he edited his story as he went along, saying nothing about Ethel Kovalik’s purpose or her fears and omitting all reference to Henkel, Muller, and Destler. He said he was working on the case because the picture was printed in the Bulletin and some of the editors felt the paper had an obligation to help out on the investigation.

  ‘The reason I came here,’ he said, ‘is because one of your cars—one with that metal nameplate, at least—was parked on Martin Street last night.’

  ‘How does that fit Flynn?’

  ‘Because his name was written on a piece of paper in the dead woman’s handbag.’

  Chapman’s frown dug deeper as he folded the newspaper and put it aside. He swung his feet down from the desk and fingered his moustache. He asked if Palmer knew why Flynn’s name should be there, and Palmer, not wanting to get involved in further explanations, said no.

  ‘This sort of thing is a little out of my line,’ Chapman said, ‘but I don’t see how that car can help you much. That sign goes on every car we sell. Because most of those cars are eventually traded back to us, most of the secondhand cars we sell still have the sign on them. That means if we have three hundred buyers on our list, probably ninety per cent of them are driving around with our sign.’

  Palmer had wondered about that, and he knew now that his original idea would prove nothing. In his imagination he had seen himself getting a list of all owners and checking them one by one, perhaps with the story that he was making a survey of driving habits and finally getting to the point of asking which owners had been in the city that night. He saw now that this was silly because even if he talked with the guilty one, that person would be sufficiently on guard to deny he had parked on Martin Street. The practical aspects of the original plan were discouraging and he was a little ashamed to think he had even considered that angle.

  ‘Yes’, he said. ‘But I still want to ask Flynn about it Could they tell me in the service department if he had a car yesterday?’

  ‘Sure, but—’

  Chapman broke off as the office door flew open and Isabel Chapman swept into the room wearing a couple hundred dollars’ worth of tailored suit and a ridiculous little hat that was smart, distinctive, and small enough to leave exposed much of her striking grey hair. She stopped short when she saw Palmer and in that first instant when her gaze flashed from him to her husband her thin patrician face mirrored an expression of pique.

  ‘Oh’, she said, her voice at once astringent. ‘Sorry. I thought we were lunching at one.’

  ‘We are, baby.’

  ‘But it’s one now.’

  ‘And I’m ready’, Chapman said easily and stood up.

  Understanding now that she would not be delayed, she was instantly more gracious. She smiled at Palmer and waved the gloves she carried in one hand.

  ‘A few minutes isn’t going to make any difference’, she said to her husband. ‘If you and Mr. Palmer have business to—’

  ‘We haven’t, Mrs. Chapman’, Palmer said. ‘I was just leaving.’

  He smiled back at the woman, stepped around her. At the door he thanked Chapman and then went to the rear of the showroom and on into the service department. When he located the foreman he asked his questions.

  ‘Yeah’, the man said. ‘Took a car out a couple of days ago. Still has it, A tan Zephyr sedan.’

  CHAPTER TEN

  LEO FLYNN OPENED the door of his apartment in response to Palmer’s ring. He wore blue slacks and a buff-coloured sport shirt open at the throat. His sharp-featured terrier’s face was smooth and shiny with shaving lotion, a cigarette drooped from the corner of the crooked mouth, and he had a cocktail glass in one hand, half filled with what looked like a martini. His welcome was something less than enthusiastic when Palmer said hello, and when he made no move to step back Palmer said:

  ‘Got a minute, Leo?’

  ‘Just about’, Flynn said. ‘We’re going out for lunch.’ He stepped ba
ck. ‘Come in.’

  He left Palmer to close the door and led the way into a modern-looking, squarish room done in ivory and green. There were a lot of lamps of various shapes, a plain-coloured rug that showed a few spots where things had been spilled, an apartment-sized piano, a square-ended divan with oversized cushions. Apparently Flynn had been sitting there behind a glass-topped coffee table because he went there now and refilled his glass from the martini pitcher.

  ‘You want a snort?’ he said. ‘There’s enough.’

  Palmer said he guessed not and sat down just as a flurry of movement loomed up on his left. There was a doorway here, and a small hall leading to the other rooms, and Gladys appeared there now to smile at him. She wore stockings and mules and a billowy négligée which was open enough to disclose the bountiful slip-clad figure underneath. Her red-blonde hair looked freshly done, but she had not yet applied her make-up so that to Palmer, accustomed to seeing her at other times, she seemed a little naked when she smiled.

  ‘Oh, hello, Mr. Palmer’, she said gaily.

  Flynn looked down his nose at her. ‘Get dressed, will you?’

  ‘I will,’ she said, ‘if you’ll give me another little touch.’

  She advanced, holding out her glass, and Flynn poured out what was left in the pitcher.

  ‘Thanks, darling’, she said as she swirled away. ‘Five more minutes.’

  Flynn frowned at her retreating back and sighed. Then he was ready for Palmer.

  ‘What’s on your mind? The Kovalik woman?’

  Palmer said yes.

  ‘You doin’ any good?’

  ‘I don’t know yet. I’ve been doing some checking.’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘On those two waiters at the Bond, and down on Martin Street, and out at Chapman Motors.’

  Flynn took some more of his drink and lit a fresh cigarette from the butt of the old one.

  ‘So now it’s my turn, hunh?’ he said. ‘Well, what do you want to know?’

  ‘You have a demonstrator out, haven’t you?’

  ‘That’s right.’