Rook Takes Knight (The Howie Rook Mysteries)

by Stuart Palmer

  “Sir Mordred, yet!” muttered Hal Agnews. On a long chance he tried to call Rook at home, with the very serious intention of firing him, but no answer. So the big man, full of beer and quotations, had gone off somewhere chasing windmills. The attorney came upon the open book of Chesterton stories on the desk—what in the world had Howie thought he was doing, reading old Father Brown stories at a time like this?

  Agnews tried one last time to get Wilt Mays on the phone, then he turned off the lights and locked up the office. Meanwhile Rook’s note, naming names, lay safely and invisibly and uselessly under the bookcase.

  XIV

  HOWIE ROOK WAS NOT a man to go off half cocked, and he liked to document everything. So he stopped off at home to find the clipping which he now remembered was in the shoebox file marked “Screwballs and Oddments,” locating it without difficulty. The only possible answer had been right there under his nose all the time—could it only have been a little over forty-eight hours?—and he hadn’t had the wit or the discernment to see it.

  If the Luger hadn’t been stolen from his bureau drawer he would have taken that along, risking the strict California laws against the carrying of concealed weapons—which were stricter still for private eyes, licensed or not. Finally he settled for taking an old sock and filling it with sand and pebbles from the alley, a weapon also officially verboten. But if his hunch was right he was on the track of a murderer—a double killer if Danny Ruggles didn’t make it, as seemed doubtful now. It was someone as unpredictable as a flea and as dangerous as a coral snake. But he had to have a weak spot in his armor somewhere—perhaps it was his dependence on using an automobile, any automobile, as a weapon. That was his modus operandi. Perhaps he wouldn’t be so self-assured in combat on foot, when he wasn’t controlling half a ton of speeding Juggernaut!

  Now Rook made his move. He drove for a long way—drove carefully, correctly and completely automatically, his mind far away. Somewhere in one of his chess books (wasn’t it George Koltanowski’s The Collé System?) there was an interesting situation in around the thirtieth move of a tight match game between the author and Grand Master Horowitz. It was White to move, with Pawn threatening his Queen. But Koltanowski had made the surprise move of Rook takes Knight, seemingly a wanton sacrifice—and Black, seeing suddenly that it was inevitable Mate in two, had resigned. Just as simple as that. But life itself, particularly the seamy side of life that involves criminal investigation, had little in common with the ancient and honorable game of chess. Nor did it usually work out so neatly, with all the pieces put back into the box to be set up good as new another day. Life was for keeps …

  Rook came to the street, too well lighted and traveled even at this latish hour, and calmly drove around and into the alley. There were no lights in the particular building, which interested him, but there was a fire escape. It was the type where the ladder was drawn up ten or twelve feet, out of reach of anyone on the ground, supposed to drop with the weight of someone upon its rungs.

  “ ‘Go roundabout, Peer,’ said the Boyg,” Rook quoted to himself and a melancholy tomcat prowling amid the garbage cans. He parked the Plymouth as close to the ladder as he could make it. Now was the time, he knew, for some neighbor to look casually out of a window and cry the alarm, now was the time for some police prowl car to poke its lights into the alley.

  Once upon the ladder—which dropped with a sudden and alarming clang—there was no earthly or unearthly way for him to move the Plymouth somewhere else. It would have to stand there, bearing silent witness against him and proclaiming his illegal entry, if anyone even glanced into the alley.

  “But here we go for broke,” said Rook as he swung onto the landing. There was a bedroom window, screened but luckily open. Without a single qualm Howie Rook became, technically at least, a cat burglar. Breaking-and-entering after the hour of sunset carried a penalty of five to ten in the Place, otherwise San Quentin-by-the-Bay. But he listened carefully until he was sure there was no sound of television or radio or of snoring inside, and then cut the screen with his pocketknife and stepped through into a bedroom.

  And an unprofessional burglar he was—for of course he had left his flashlight in the car! By the glow of his pocket lighter he saw a rumpled bed, a litter of masculine clothing, and several hats and a blue beret hanging on hooks. The lighter now began to heat up and burn his fingers, so he snapped it shut and felt his way through a bathroom smelling of soap and after-shave lotion, then through a short hallway and into—what? The living room? No, he had to pass the kitchen first. He used his lighter again, and saw a sink filled with dirty dishes. There were also several bottles, some full, some empty. Rook could indeed have used a drink right now, and in fact—if his conclusions were right—the tenant here owed him one. But he had never been a man for cheap muscatel.

  At last he came into what had to be the living room. The lighter was dry now and only snapped sparks. “I might as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb,” he told himself with some lack of originality, and then he felt his way over to pull down all the shades and then snapped on the light.

  Then the big man stood frozen. The room itself was fairly straight, comfortably furnished, with books and art magazines all about and even a bouquet of asters and zinnias in a vase on the coffee table. But he had eyes for none of this. Deirdre Charteris filled the room!

  Not exactly in the flesh, but in what amounted to the same thing. Her photographs, all almost grotesquely enlarged, all neatly framed, covered the walls. He stared in a sort of paralyzed bewilderment. Here were photos of Deirdre—photos going back to her honeymoon days at the dude ranch in Montana, photos taken on the cabin cruiser and other vacations, photos against the background of the patio and the swimming pool, photos in the Charteris living room and bedroom.

  Some were in black-and-white, most of them were in color. But John Charteris had been cropped out or else washed from the negatives. Guests and friends and family had been eliminated, as if they had never been. Here was only Deirdre, black-haired, blue-eyed Deirdre, Deirdre in bikinis and in negligee and in next to nothing around the pool …

  And the pièce de résistance, blown up fantastically to larger than life, was hanging over the mantelpiece of the fake fireplace. It was—of course, it had to be!—the color photo of Deirdre half nude, bearing the livid marks of the lash across her back and shoulders. It had even been set up as a sort of shrine, with a guttered candle before it and offerings of fresh, tiny flowers!

  “The poor, deluded bastard!” whispered Howie Rook, feeling a sort of sympathy in spite of himself. One person, recognizing by accident a face in the day’s work that had passed through the lab, had started a bizarre collection. And then it must have got away from him. Step by step the man had moved into the murky land of the voyeur, entering into the life of John and Deirdre Charteris first through their intimate family snapshots and then stepping over the invisible line, actually to go forth to spy upon their goings and comings, to watch Deirdre around the pool with the aid of binoculars, to follow her on her shopping tours by day and to trail Charteris at least once or twice on his nightly walks. One person had made the telephone calls just to hear Deirdre’s voice, one person had completely blown his top at seeing the photo which Rook had called “Exhibit A,” one person had executed John Charteris, had very nearly erased Rook himself (was it because Deirdre had kissed him under the porch light the first night?), and one person had smashed down poor Danny Ruggles, no doubt resenting anybody’s coming to Deirdre’s help but himself, her self-appointed knight in shining armor …

  Now there were footsteps upon the stair. Rook had waited too long, and knew it. He leaped to unscrew the light bulb in the middle of the ceiling, plunging the room into darkness, hoping that he was in time. There was no chance to do anything else—a key clicked in the door and then, silhouetted against the glow from the hall, there was the looming figure of a man in wild Hollywood shirt and garish slacks. Enter Will-o’-the-Wisp, alias Mr. Nemo, otherwise color-lab pro
prietor Mr. Anton Keyes.

  And the man must have seen a crack of light through the blinds from outside, for he came into the room with a pistol—no less than Rook’s own missing Luger—in his hand.

  “Hold it right there, Keyes!” Rook ordered in what he hoped was his most booming and authoritative voice. “You’re under arrest!” Well, there was such a thing as a citizen’s arrest, wasn’t there?

  It was supposed to be the old and oft-played scene, where the detective is caught off-base by the mastermind criminal and the latter holds off actually shooting to give time to fill in most conveniently all the gaps in the story, to confess his misdeeds with a gloating leer because “you won’t live to tell anybody,” and then at the last moment to be somehow foiled by a trick or by the fortuitous arrival of the police or the FBI or even of the Marines or the posse, depending on what channel you were watching.

  No such luck. Keyes didn’t follow the script. He flicked the light switch uselessly, but his eyes were becoming accustomed to the dark now. He pulled the trigger. Nor did he miss—as the guys in the black hats were supposed to do in the Westerns. Rook was slammed backward as if struck by a baseball bat, and in a split second he thought, “Maybe this is it!” There was always the note he had left for Hal, his ace in the hole. But if he were killed here and now, all Keyes had to do was to take down his art gallery before the police came and found him standing over the body of a dead prowler, from whom he had wrested a pistol …

  But Rook had one good arm left. He suddenly flung the sockful of sand into the other’s face, following it up with a flying tackle. The room echoed to a second shot—but if it hit, Howie Rook felt nothing. He finally had his big hands on the man he wanted, and they went down together in a crash that shook the building …

  Eventually there were sirens outside in the street, there was the crash of the outside door being kicked in, and then suddenly the room seemed full of flashlights and uniformed policemen. But here again nobody seemed to want to follow the script. The officers evidently recognized Keyes as the upstanding local citizen and householder here, at least as soon as the light came on. Rook was rudely grabbed and forced to stand with his hands against the wall.

  “I caught him burgling my place!” shrilled Anton Keyes almost hysterically, his gargoyle-face full of righteousness and anguish. He was crying, great gusty sobs, for both his wrists flopped uselessly.

  Rook was bleeding all over the rug. “You … West L.A.?” he tried to say. But nobody was listening. One officer was bending over Keyes, the other holding a gun on Rook.

  “We’ll get you to a hospital right quick, Mr. Keyes.” The cop then ran down the stairs, no doubt headed for the radio phone.

  “Sergeant McDowd!” gasped Rook, as he started to slide to the floor. “If he’s off duty—call him—home.” Then, fighting it every inch of the way, Howie Rook passed out cold.

  Pain jerked him back to semiconsciousness when he was being none too gently hoisted onto a stretcher. Somebody who looked a little like McDowd had materialized out of nowhere, sketchily dressed in civvies, and was looking at him. “Photos—all over wall,” the big man whispered.

  “I saw ’em,” said the sergeant. “It’s all right!”

  Rook felt relieved enough to pass out again, coming to in what seemed to be the emergency room at some hospital, for there was a red blanket over him and numerous internes and nurses. Somebody demanded to know if he had hospitalization insurance or could write a check, and then McDowd appeared again and put an end to that, looking angry with everybody.

  “Help—help me up,” Rook said in a voice that didn’t sound like his own. “Make statement—later. Got to phone Agnews, write story …”

  “You’re not going anywhere,” said McDowd gently but firmly. “They’re going to give you a nice transfusion now.”

  “But gotta call Hal—”

  “You’ve been out quite a while, Howie. I called Agnews. There’s been a lot going on, and Wilt Mays finally had to spring Mrs. Charteris at two o’clock in the morning …”

  “So she didn’t have to—spend one night—” Then, as the transfusion began, he stopped trying to talk and passed out again. He was a man who never could stand the sight of blood, anybody’s blood.

  When he came to again it was a thousand nightmares later and he was in a private room somewhere, with a jar of murky fluid hanging overhead and a tube running down into a vein in his arm. He found it impossible to turn his head, and hard to focus his eyes. He was a mess, and he wanted to be left alone, but the room seemed to be full of people, and for some reason their faces were spinning around in wild confusion.

  Then—was it another dream?—he thought he saw Deirdre’s face, the wide azure eyes deep with concern. “Not—even one—one whole night in that place!” he whispered.

  “They say you’re not to talk,” she said. And she leaned over to kiss him wonderfully and warmly on the mouth. “I love you, I love you, I love you, Mr. Howard J. Rook! My knight in shining armor!”

  “You got it wrong. Keyes was the knight. Rook takes Knight and Black resigns because Mate in two. Inevitable.”

  “He’s still full of dope,” came Hal Agnews’ voice. Then the attorney leaned down, coming into some sort of focus. “Don’t try to talk, Howie. I know that’s almost impossible for you, but shut up! I only wish you could have seen the face of a certain Assistant D.A. when this thing broke. But it worked out so you handed the case over to Sergeant McDowd, like a gentleman and a scholar. The cops get the honor, as it should be.”

  “Keyes?” Rook whispered.

  “Already broke down and made a confession. You left him in bad shape, Howie. I wish sometime you’d show me how to break both a man’s wrists, using one arm.”

  “This woodchuck had to climb a tree,” said Howie Rook. Now a very starched and toothy nurse came in and tried to shoo away the visitors, but Rook summoned up enough strength to say, “Out of my sight, Miss Bedpan!”

  “We’d better let him rest now,” came Deirdre’s voice. Too bad she had that flat Midwestern accent instead of a good Irish brogue, Rook thought. Too bad about a lot of things … but he wanted to talk.

  “Wait around,” he said. “I’ve only got a scratch—”

  “Correction,” Agnews said. “Howie, you’ve got a bullet through the shoulder muscle and another through your side that just missed the lung, and you were in surgery for three hours and you’ll be flat on your back in bed for some weeks.”

  “But the feature story—for old Lou Elder—”

  “You didn’t have to write it, you were it.”

  “But I’ll keep all the clippings for you, Howie dear,” Deirdre promised. “And I’ll be a regular visitor.”

  Maybe she would, maybe she wouldn’t. Somehow it didn’t matter a whole lot now. But he felt he had to explain something. “I should have remembered—clipping in my files, Hartford, Connecticut, 1943. A photo-lab man fell in love with a society girl just from processing pictures of her, and tried to force her into eloping with him. It was all right there—”

  “Don’t worry about it now, Howie,” Deirdre said. “Just get well.”

  “Keyes was in love with you—and he didn’t even know how to pronounce your name! ‘Harmless old Tony the Pinch,’ you called him. You ought to watch yourself, lady. You’re just too damn beautiful, you’re the type every man is in love with, at least a little. Poor Danny Ruggles—and Holtz—and Max Linsky—and even me—”

  “Thank you, Howie. And if you’re interested, Danny Ruggles is here in this same hospital and they say he’s out of danger. And his wife flew down here, and she says all is forgiven and she thinks he did a very brave and noble thing to come forward with the lie about an alibi for me …”

  “That’s nice,” murmured Rook. Maybe she was still lying now, but it didn’t matter. Maybe she’d been parked outside Ruggles’ apartment and maybe she’d been inside in the arms of a former sweetheart. It didn’t make a whole lot of difference. Things were shaking down
into a proper perspective. Deirdre would probably marry Harry Holtz, that collector of perfections. Or maybe Max Linsky would get her a television job playing herself in a reenactment of her own story. Or maybe she would even get together with Charley Booth now that they had Carbon Copy in common …

  Anyway, she was out of jail—and she had kissed him. He said clearly, “ ‘… kissed me when we met, leaping from the chair she sat in, Fate you robber thief who likes to get sweets into your list, put that in—say I’m weary, say I’m sad, say that fame and wealth have missed me, even say I’m growing old, but add—Deirdre kissed me.’ Leigh Hunt.”

  “I think he’s babbling,” came Agnews’ whisper.

  “I don’t think so,” came Deirdre’s voice, receding. “Goodnight, sweet prince!”

  And as they tiptoed out of the doorway they heard him say, quite argumentatively, “ ‘Sweet prince’? ‘I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be.’ T. S. Eliot, 1888–1966 …”

  As was pointed out before, Howie Rook was a man more than likely, in any extremity, to come up with a quotation.

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  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 1968 by Jennifer Palmer

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