‘You didn’t know Leo until you came here to work, did you?’
‘Not until I was working for Waldo. Leo used to hang around the hotel, and that’s how I met him.’
‘He must have known about everyone who ever worked there.’
‘Sure, he did. Leo knew everybody. He ate there nearly every night.’
Palmer hesitated, hopeful at what she had said, but mentally crossing his fingers.
‘The other night when I was talking to you and Leo’, he said, ‘Leo admitted he knew a waiter named Henkel, but he said he didn’t know anything about Muller. That wasn’t true, was it?’
‘No.’
‘Why should he lie?’
‘Because he was cagey. Some people just naturally tell the truth; Leo didn’t unless he was sure the truth wouldn’t hurt him. Sure, he knew Henkel and Muller’, she said. ‘He got them their jobs. They were here to see him later that same night.’
Palmer stared at her and let his breath out while halfformed premises began to unfold in his mind. Because he wanted to be sure of his ground before he jumped to a conclusion, he took one thing at a time.
‘Leo got them their jobs’, he said. ‘When was that?’
‘Oh, a couple of years ago. Just after I came here, I guess.’
All right, Palmer thought. Leo got them the jobs, but it was Banton who insisted that they were not fired. Therefore there was indeed some definite connection between Banton, Flynn, and the two waiters.
‘What about the other night?’ he asked.
‘I went to bed as soon as we got in—that was the same night you’re talking about—and sometime later I woke up and Leo wasn’t in bed. I looked at the clock and it was ten minutes to three, so I peeked into the living-room. He was talking with the two of them. I don’t think they even saw me.’
‘You didn’t hear what they were saying?’
‘I didn’t wait long enough.’
‘Did it sound as if they were arguing?’
‘No.’
‘Or threatening Leo?’
‘Nothing like that.’
Palmer leaned back to consider the information and then he thought of something else that might, in the light of the story Janet Evans had told him the day before, be the lead he was seeking.
‘Leo had a list, didn’t he?’ he asked, deciding to take a chance.
‘A list?’ She looked at him then and for the first time the green eyes seemed evasive.
‘I’m not guessing’, he said. ‘I know there was a list of names … You know about the birth-certificate racket Leo was mixed up in, don’t you?’
He watched her nod and said: ‘I think Leo had a list of names that he was tapping in a small way. Do you know about it? Or where it is?’
Again he saw the indecision in her glance and he pressed on quickly. ‘If you do, if you’re interested in trying to find out who killed him, I think you ought to say so. It’s important, and if you don’t want to tell me, then tell the police.’
‘Police?’ she said with quick revulsion. ‘I wouldn’t give them the time of day after the pushing around they gave me. I never did like cops, and—’
She broke off abruptly and came to her feet to hurry from the room. When she came back she had in her hands some folded sheets that had been stapled together. She sat down again and tossed them into Palmer’s lap.
He was aware at once that there were four sheets of thin all-rag paper on which had been typed a list of names, addresses, and dates. He was also aware of the perfumed odour that came from them, as though they had been hidden among a woman’s things. After that he saw that of the two hundred or so names, about two-thirds had been carefully blocked out in black ink so that they were completely unreadable. With no more than a glance at the first sheet, he flipped it over until he found the name he sought: Kurt Henkel. Farther on he saw the name of Albert Muller.
‘Okay’, he said, feeling little surprise at his discovery. ‘What did Leo tell you about this?’
‘Not much’, she said. ‘He said it was a sort of meal ticket and that I was to keep it for him.’
‘Did it occur to you that he might be doing some collecting from these names?’
‘It may have.’
‘But you didn’t ask?’
‘No.’
‘Or care.’
‘Of course I cared. I was afraid he might get in trouble. But what you don’t seem to understand is that I loved him.’
She hesitated then, and when Palmer glanced up from the list, he saw that she had leaned back on the cushions, her hands limp in her lap and her eyes closed.
‘I didn’t want to reform him’, she said in a choked and barely audible voice. ‘If I reformed him and he changed, he might change towards me too … He might have got tired of me’, she said, and as he watched her, he saw two tears squeeze out from beneath the closed lids.
He put his hand on her arm, an impulsive gesture that came from a sudden understanding of this woman and the philosophy of living she had accepted. It left him strangely moved and he realized that there was nothing more to be gained here, that the decent thing was to leave her alone with her grief.
He thanked her for her help and she said she hoped he could use it. He said he would certainly try. When he turned at the door before letting himself out, she was still on the divan, her eyes closed against the room.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
WHEN LARRY PALMER reached his apartment shortly before noon, he took off his jacket and brought the list Gladys Flynn had given him over to the desk and sat down, pushing his typewriter back so he would have room to work.
The excitement he had first felt at this discovery was controlled now and properly focused, so that he put aside further speculation for the moment to consider the practical aspects of the situation. His training as a reporter had taught him to seek out the facts, and it seemed now that, instead of taking the list for granted, he should investigate three or four of the names to make sure just what Leo Flynn had been doing and how he had operated.
With this in mind he grabbed a piece of paper and copied down the first four names from the list. Two of these had surnames beginning with the letter A. Under B were three other names, but all had been inked out. There were three others under C, and he had written the second one before he really saw what he had put down.
For that name was Chapman. Alvord Chapman was what he read, and in this case there was a date but no address.
‘Chapman’, he said aloud, and now his thoughts raced on as he recalled that Leo Flynn had worked for Chapman, and apparently only when he felt like it. ‘Okay,’ he said, ‘so let’s not jump to conclusions yet.’
But having stopped in his search for an explanation, he now revised his original plan as a precautionary measure, thrusting the sheet with the four pencilled names into a drawer and rolling fresh paper into the typewriter. What he wanted now was a complete copy of that list, and he had nearly finished a page when the knock came at the door and interrupted him.
He crossed the room as it was repeated, muttering to himself with some impatience, but hesitating not at all as he turned the knob. Then he was face to face with the two men he had heard so much about. By then it was much too late to regret his carelessness, because the man who stood in front held a gun which was pointed right at Palmer’s stomach.
‘Back up, please’, the man said in accented tones. ‘We wish to come in.’
Palmer backed up, recognizing the man from his picture as Kurt Henkel even as an overwhelming sense of dismay flooded over him and branded him as a fool for having opened the door so readily. He watched them close the door and survey the room, aware now that Henkel was a little taller than he was, but about the same build, the blondish hair cut short, the bespectacled eyes a light blue, the bony face impassive and cruel-looking around the small, tight mouth.
Albert Muller was dark and heavy-faced, a couple of inches shorter than his companion but not short, with a thick and powerful-looking torso. If he ca
rried a gun, it was not in evidence, and by the looks of him it was unlikely that he would need one often.
Palmer saw all this at a glance, noting it as a matter of record and too full of recrimination to have any feeling of fear. He respected the gun and knew the odds were long. but he worried most about the list on his desk and wondered how it was possible that his luck could be so bad. How, he asked himself with a silent curse, could coincidence—if that was what it was—strike with such aggravating timeliness?
‘What the hell do you want?’ he said, still hoping that there could be another reason for the visit.
‘We have come for the list’, Henkel said.
‘What list?’
‘Leo Flynn’s list.’
Palmer stalled because there was nothing else he could do. He said he didn’t know what Henkel was talking about, and at this the man’s lip twisted and the eyes flared impatiently.
‘We know you have the list’, he said. ‘The desk, Albert.’
Muller walked round it and looked down at the papers that were there. Palmer moved closer along with Henkel, hearing the satisfied grunt as Muller picked up the list.
‘Yes’, he said. ‘We thought so … And this’, he added, pulling the nearly completed first sheet from the typewriter.
He looked over at Palmer and grinned so that the hard bulk of his face bunched around the little eyes and nearly obscured them.
‘Already you are making a copy’, he said. ‘Now we save you the work.’
He folded the sheets and thrust them into his pocket; then, his glance moving on, he noticed the top pages of Palmer’s notes. A good part of these had been put aside in one of the drawers and these three or four sheets constituted only the more recent additions to the outline, but when Muller picked them up something happened to Palmer.
He thought he understood what sort of men these were. Everything he had heard subsequently bore out Ethel Kovalik’s statement that they had been schooled in brutality and for a very definite purpose. She had been afraid of them, apparently with reason, and had he stopped to think of the consequences he might also have been afraid. As it was, the reaction that came to him when he saw Muller start to fold those sheets was of an entirely different sort, and now his face was grim, his stare smouldering.
‘Leave them alone!’ he said.
Muller grinned again. ‘I do not understand this, but you have written our names down, so we will take them also.’
Palmer could not remember what had been written on those particular sheets and there would be no way of knowing until he read what had been written previously. Common sense should have told him to forget them—it would be possible, he knew, to re-create those pages—but right then he had little capacity for common sense and it was anger which suddenly became the dominant emotion inside him.
It came with quick resentment at the men and their methods and may have been founded on guilt induced by the impending loss of the list Gladys Flynn had entrusted to him. It may have been nothing more than outraged feelings that these two thugs should blunder in here and dare to take this work that he had done. Whatever the reason, he moved with swiftness and precision in a reaction that might have been considered out of character by anyone who had not known him long.
For to those at the office Larry Palmer was an eventempered fellow who seemed to like people instinctively just as they liked him. Those who knew him better understood that though the temper was normally controlled, it had a high potential backed by courage, tenacity, and a certain revulsion against injustice. In this instance Kurt Henkel may have taken too much for granted, because he had moved closer in his arrogance and grown careless with the gun.
As it was, he was caught flat-footed when Palmer spun about and struck at the gun with force and accuracy, the thin edge of his hand hammering the other’s wrist.
Palmer wanted the gun. It was the keynote of his hastily formed plan. The trouble was, he hit with such force that, instead of falling to the floor, the gun was knocked fifteen feet to one side, and now, with Henkel still in his way, he hooked beautifully with his left and Henkel staggered sideways and sat down.
After that it was Muller who made the difference. Moving with surprising swiftness for a man of his bulk, he leaped not at the gun but at Palmer. Palmer saw this from the corner of his eye and, knowing that he had to meet the rush or be struck down from behind, half pivoted and banged away with his right.
The blow was solid but high. His fist struck the side of Muller’s head with a force that seemed to smash the bones in his hand, and then Muller, never hesitating, clubbed him on the side of the jaw.
It was not that Palmer did not know how to handle himself; he was simply overmatched. He had never been hit like that, and while he fought to hold his feet Muller clubbed him again. This time he went down, momentarily dazed, on his back now and then trying to roll over. As he did so, pain exploded in his right side and cleared his mind and he knew that Henkel must have kicked him. Already the foot had been drawn back for a second kick, and this time Palmer rolled free and caught the shoe and yanked. Henkel fell heavily, but before Palmer could do more than scramble to a sitting position, Muller again took over.
Straightening with Henkel’s gun in his hand, he pointed it at Palmer. When Henkel started forward again, his bony face twisted with sadistic fury and intent only on Palmer, Muller stopped him.
‘Enough’, he said.
Henkel spat out something in German, but as Muller stepped towards him threateningly, he stopped.
‘No more’, Muller said. ‘We have what we come for. We go now … You,’ he said to Palmer, ‘will sit here till we leave.’
Palmer heard the telephone ring as the pair moved toward the door, but he stayed put. In spite of himself he felt a grudging admiration for Muller’s efficiency. For with Muller brutality was obviously a business and nothing more; it was in Henkel that the brutality had become both vicious and vindictive.
The telephone rang again, but Muller did not even glance in that direction. By the time it rang a third time they were gone, so Palmer got up and answered it.
When the voice first came to him he could not identify it and knew only that it was a woman.
‘Hello’, he said again. ‘Yes, this is Palmer.’
Then he knew that it was Gladys Flynn, that she was half crying. What she said made little sense by itself, but the words were sufficient to tell him that it was not coincidence that had brought Henkel and Muller here in search of the list.
‘I couldn’t help it’, she said. ‘I thought they’d kill me. I had to tell them you had the list.’
‘It’s all right’, he said.
‘I called the paper first, but they said you weren’t in.… Did they come? Have they been there?’
‘They just left.’
‘Did they—are you all right?’
‘I’m okay’, he said. ‘And I’m coming over. Stay right there.’
He hung up before she could reply, and then went over to the desk and took out the sheet with the four names he had pencilled there. Trying not to think too much about the other list, he stared morosely at those names and then folded the paper and put it in the pocket of his jacket before he put it on.
Gladys Flynn had a small cut on her lower lip, which she kept dabbing with her handkerchief as she paced back and forth across her living-room. There was a discoloured bruise on one cheekbone and vague bluish finger-marks on one wrist. From time to time she would stop to flex one shoulder, wincing as she did so, but her eyes were hot and bright and furious.
For the first minute or so after she let Palmer in she did little else but curse the two who had manhandled her, and she did it expertly and with conviction, her colour high. When Palmer couldn’t get her to stop long enough to relay the details in some semblance of order, he left her there and went in search of a drink.
He found whisky, ice, and glasses in the kitchen and poured two drinks. As he went back along the little hall he heard her again. ‘Oh,
damn them!’ she was saying. ‘The dirty so-and-so’s.’
‘Here’, he said, and thrust the glass at her. ‘Drink up. We both can use it … Now sit down, will you? How come you let them in, in the first place?’
‘The buzzer rang—’ She paused and dabbed her lip where the drink had touched it. ‘This stuff stings—and I went over and said. “Who is it?” and they said: “It’s the police.” So I opened the door, and boom! they’re all over me.’
She gulped some more of her drink and this time the voice was tinged with awe. ‘At first I don’t believe it. I know these guys. They’re waiters. They know me. They say they want the list and I try to stall them. I know they can be tough, but my God, I don’t know they’re that tough. I tell them I don’t know about any list, and the tall one with the glasses belts me.’
She touched the bruise on her cheek and said: ‘When I tried to hit him back, the other one grabs my wrist’—she indicated the discoloured mark there—‘and spins me around and twists my arm. I think he’s going to break it, and I scream, and the first one smacks me on the mouth and says to shut up. Then the other one says they know I’ve got the list and I’d better tell them, and all the time he’s killing my arm.’ She sighed and put her glass down. ‘I had to tell them.’
‘Sure’, Palmer said, still conscious of the pain in his side and aware that she could not have done otherwise. ‘It’s not your fault. Only I’m sort of surprised that they believed you when you told them I had it.’
‘I was so scared—I wasn’t fooling either—I guess they were convinced … They got it from you, hunh?’
Palmer said yes and told her what had happened.
‘Well,’ she said, resigned at last, ‘I guess that’s that.’ She glanced round as though to examine him more closely. ‘Was it important—the list, I mean?’
‘I don’t know. Their names were on it, and from what they said, they must have known Leo had it.’
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