by Basil Copper
“Can I take it that whatever we say in this room tonight will go no further?”
“I’ve never welshed on a client yet,” I said. “I was in jail a night or two back.”
He smiled. “I heard about that. My turn to say sorry.”
He leaned forward. “Briefly, what I want you to do is this. My brother Paul has got himself into a situation which can only end one way. I tried to look after him. He could have had as much money as he wanted working for me, but he prefers to be independent and go his own way. With the mob he’s running with, he’ll finish up on a vacant lot some night.”
I had a quick moment of insight — like lightning flashing in a dark room.
“Like Braganza and Ralph Johnson,” I said. Mandy’s mouth flew open and he sat staring at me for at least ten seconds. The silence was so intense that a mouse coughing would have sounded like a 100-megaton blast at Bikini Atoll. He caught my arm.
“Look, Faraday,” he said. “All I want is out for Paul. Do it any way you like. But don’t leave any trails back to me and don’t let him know I hired you.”
“There must be some pretty big boys at the back of this to frighten a king-wheel like you, Mandy,” I said. He licked his lips, then went over to the sideboard and mixed himself another drink. I let mine stand.
“This Johnny …” I said. He almost visibly winced.
“All I know is this,” he said. “Paul just drives the cars for them, a sort of glorified chauffeur. No names. But one day he’ll get in too deep. Then the whole town will blow up. I don’t want that to happen, Faraday. Will you help me?”
“I’m already on the case,” I said. “Another retainer wouldn’t hurt any. But I can’t guarantee results.”
He went over to the desk and took out a cheque book. He wrote a cheque and handed it to me.
“Win or lose,” he said. I looked at the figure. I didn’t whistle but I felt like it.
“I’m not worth it,” I said. I handed the slip back. “Halve it,” I said. “I’m not that hard up for eating money.”
“That was the retainer,” he said.
I laughed. “It’ll settle for the whole job.”
He tore the cheque up and wrote another.
“I like you, Faraday,” he said. “This town hasn’t spoiled you. Pity you stick to your line. I could find a place for you in my organization.”
“Then I would get spoiled,” I said. “How long has he been hanging around with this crowd?”
“About a year or so,” he said. “I’ve only ever seen him with the man called Johnny.”
I finished my drink. The time seemed to tie in with the Braganza killing, give or take a month or two. That set me off on another tack.
“You realize I may dig up something about your brother that I can’t cover up?” I said. “That no one can. And in that event the police may have to be called in.”
“Faraday,” he said with a thin smile, “I believe the military boys call it a calculated risk.”
“What I want is a rundown on your brother’s habits, where he hangs out and so on,” I said.
He sat down at the desk and jotted down a few details on a slip of paper. “Burn this after,” he said. It wasn’t melodrama either. There wasn’t much on the paper but I did as he said.
“Just one last thing,” I said as I got up. “Have you got his address? I presume he doesn’t hang out here?”
He shook his head. He named a cheap rooming house over on the other side of town. I must have looked surprised, but he didn’t explain.
“People are funny,” he said. I suddenly felt sorry for him. I wrote the address down in my book, then rubbed it with my thumb, to make it look like it had been there for a long time.
“Ring you in a day or two,” I said and went out. I looked back at the door, but he was still standing at the desk. He didn’t say good night. It was still only around nine and I had time for more social visiting. I had another free drink down at the bar and then went into a booth and called Charlie Snagge at home.
“Faraday,” I said.
“Elusive Pimpernel,” he said.
“I have to work now that I’m not on the force,” I told him. He ignored that. “I understand you had some information that might help me,” I said.
“Well,” he said, in the maddeningly slow way he had. “Might help, might not. But I’ve been studying the case again and there’s an interesting point. I got in touch with Captain Tucker and he let me have a transcript of the Johnson case in Detroit.”
“All right, Holmes,” I said. “I thought this was restricted information.”
“It’s common talk around the police canteens in this city,” he said. “It was a tiny point but a link that seems to have been overlooked. But in both the Johnson and Braganza cases a young man with white hair was seen in the vicinity of the murders just a short time before.”
I felt a prickling of the scalp. I took the short-barrelled revolver out of my pocket and wrapped it in my handkerchief. It must have been the blow on my head that made me so slow these days, but I didn’t tell Charlie Snagge.
He was going on. “A deposition in the Braganza shooting describes a youngish man with white hair who called at a gas station in a hired car, driven by a negro chauffeur. Of course it may have no connection at all.
“If this man could be linked in some way with the Horvis shooting, there’d be a common factor … are you listening,
Mike?”
“Sorry,” I said. “I think this may be useful, Charlie. But why didn’t you bring this to the notice of the official force?” “Only just thought of it,” he said. “‘Sides, blood’s thicker than water. All the local forces had a go at these shootings, but they never got anywhere.”
“Many thanks, Charlie,” I said and hung up.
Then I rang Dan Tucker and told him about my commission from Mandy Mellow. I left the best bit to the last. When I told Dan about Johnny Whitehair I thought he was going to choke.
“And you had him right in your hands?” he said.
“Well,” I said, “that was before I had the latest information. I didn’t do any better than the official force, I must admit. However, it shouldn’t be too difficult to trace this character through Paul Mellow. I want you to lay off for twenty-four hours and give me a chance to have a talk with him. If you want to come along it’s all right with me; maybe we could go tomorrow after I meet you at HQ”
Tucker agreed and then his voice changed. His tones were deceptively smooth.
“By the way,” he said, “I shouldn’t take everything Sherry Johnson tells you as gospel.”
“Oh,” I said.
“We had a cable back from Detroit this afternoon. They traced the photograph. Her name’s not Sherry Johnson and she wasn’t Johnson’s sister. She was his mistress and her real name is Carol Channing. Horvis has confirmed this. Seems pretty conclusive. Thought you’d like to know.”
“Thanks,” I said. “Hope her cheque’s good, anyway.” Then I rang off. I needed to go somewhere to sit down and think things out. My reasoning hadn’t been so good since Captain Jacoby’s working over, and the ends in the case kept sticking out.
7 - Carol Channing
It was about a quarter to ten. I got the hell out of the Jazz Inn and drove downtown. There was no one around outside the gambling house and so far as I could make out no one was following me. I turned off on to the turnpike and doubled back just to make sure, but without result. The air was still blowing hot against my face, but a small breeze was beginning to spring up.
What little traffic there was went by like a dream, but on the main boulevards in town the restaurant crowd was thickening things up. On my way across I called in at the station and asked the desk sergeant for a big envelope. I put the wrapped revolver in it for Dan Tucker and the ballistics boys in the morning. I had arranged this with him on the phone. Besides, it put my suit out of line. Then I went on over to the Bissell Building.
Admiral Dewey tore me off a smart sal
ute this time. He was learning. I went on over to the parking lot. I drove around three or four times, blipping my lights up and down, but nothing moved. There was nobody there but I was learning too. I parked the Buick as near to the Building as I could, right under the brightest light I could find. While I was doing this I was reminded of something else I should have done days ago, but for being in the tank.
I went into the phone booth and called Stella. “Just so you won’t worry,” I said. “I’m sober, un-bounced, unshadowed and under cover.”
“That’s fine,” she said. “I’m undressed and unimpressed.”
I let that one go. There was an obvious answer but she’d only come back with something better. I saw there was a new phone book hanging up in front of me. It had some more dirty words on it. Looked as though Admiral Dewey was all scrambled egg and low efficiency rating.
I told Stella I’d be in around nine in the morning. There was a mirror in the booth and in it I could see part of the lobby. I had been staring at the glass for perhaps ten seconds, thinking about nothing in particular when a familiar face drifted by. It was Johnny Whitehair and he had his boy friend with him.
I flattened myself back in the booth and watched the mirror. I had to grin. Johnny had a wodge of sticking plaster across the side of his head and he looked as sore as all hell. Somehow, that reminded me of my broken tooth. The two stopped in front of the elevator. The boy opened up the door, a couple of people got out and Mellow and the trigger boy went in. They looked as though they owned the whole of L.A.
I opened the booth door and sneaked on over to the elevator. It stopped at the sixth floor. Then it started to come down. It didn’t stop until it got to the lobby. I went over to the cigarette kiosk and made myself inconspicuous, but only a pair of elderly women got out. I had a pretty shrewd idea the two gorillas were on their way to see Sherry Johnson; 219 was on floor six and they didn’t look as though they were on their way to a Lodge meeting.
I had two choices and not much time. I could take a chance on finding Dan Tucker at home and get him to put a tail on their car in case they gave me the slip in the building. In which case something pretty drastic might be happening up top. Or I could ask the management for a bit of cooperation and go on up myself and see what transpired. Either way it was a risk.
I thought of three bodies and Mr. X with a silenced revolver and hesitated. I could do it the police way or my way.
It didn’t take me long to make up my mind. Trouble is my business and she was my client. I went on over to reception. There was a low mahogany railing with a gate in it. I went on through. There was no one at the desk behind the railing but there was another door with gold letters stencilled on it: Manager. Private.
I knocked and went on in. A woman was standing at a filing cabinet, looking at a bundle of papers. She had grey hair scraped into a bun at the back of her neck; a grey suit that matched the hair, a rat-trap mouth and square spectacles that made her look like Dr. Galigari. I took an instant indifference to her.
“This is private,” she snapped.
“I can read,” I said. “I want to see the manager.”
“He isn’t here,” she said. “He’s having dinner.”
While this circus was going on I suddenly saw a head appear over in one corner of the room. There was another partitioned-off part of the office and I could see a desk. A little man with a bald head, pudgy face and a Charlie Chaplin mustache was sitting at the desk, eating a meal and reading a newspaper. He noticed that I had spotted him and came over.
“That will do, Miss Rutger,” he said with surprising sharpness. The dragon shut the drawer of the filing cabinet with a vicious slam.
“Can I help you, sir?” he said. “No trouble I hope?”
“None,” I assured him. “I’d like a little cooperation.”
He hesitated; the woman still stood glaring at me.
“In private,” I said pointedly. She flushed.
“You may leave us, Miss Rutger,” the manager said. She went out with a sniff and shut the door none too gently. We went over towards the manager’s desk.
“I have a client up in No. 219 on the sixth floor,” I said. “A Miss Johnson.” I showed him the copy of my P.I. licence in the celluloid folder. His eyes popped and he looked nervous.
“It’s all right,” I said. “There won’t be any trouble — providing I get your help.”
“What do you want, Mr. Faraday?” he said.
“Two characters just went up” I said. “I think there could be trouble but I want to keep an eye on the situation. Have you got a vacant room adjoining 219 where I could hole up for half an hour?”
He stared at me for a moment. “Shouldn’t we get the police …” he began.
“I’m working with the police,” I told him. “By the time they got here anything could happen. Do I get the cooperation?”
He nodded. “All right, Mr. Faraday, I’ll get the book.”
He went out and came back in a few seconds with a small black register. He had a key, too.
“No. 221 is unoccupied,” he said. “I thought that would be best; it has an adjoining balcony.” He gave me the key. I thanked him. Then I asked him to ring Tucker and told him what to say.
He repeated the message and then I thanked him again and went on out. I could hear him dialling the number as I closed the door. This way I could have a tail put on the pair and still be in on what was going on upstairs.
All this had taken less than a couple of minutes and I didn’t figure Mellow and his friend would take any risks in the middle of a crowded building, even if they had any homicidal intentions towards the Johnson girl. I still thought of her as that. Assuming that she was in, of course … something else I’d forgotten to ask about. I gave a cheery smile to Little Mary Sunshine when I left the reception desk and walked on over to the elevator. Welcome to the Friendly Inn. I whined up to the sixth floor.
*
Two-two-one was a typical suite of one of the ritzier hotels. A lounge about two acres in area; lots of real leather and glass, imitation stone, a bar with a sliding door at one end; too many ashtrays; a master bedroom, two dressing rooms and a bathroom. I stood in the room in the red dusk of the neon signs and smelt danger the way kids can hear a sweet wrapper crackling a mile off.
I went on through the master bedroom; the walls seemed to be made of mink and it made Buckingham Palace look like a two-bit flop joint. Sherry Johnson appeared to be home; I looked through the master bedroom window. A pale lozenge of light from her windows was stencilled on the tiling of the balcony next door. I went through the window and over the low balcony separating the two suites with all the grace and agility of a musk-ox.
I prowled along the balcony; it was a big one, floored with ceramic tiles and had a lot of potted plants, frosted glass sunscreens, Italian cane chairs, ornamental tile-top tables; that sort of thing. There were big beach umbrellas in metal holders anchored to the floor at intervals. The balcony was bigger than the one in 221 and occupied a corner site. I looked over the edge of the roof.
There was a fire escape that went down a short way below, with a wicket gate on to the balcony; it was unlocked. Convenient. I saw that directly below was the parking lot but I couldn’t see any particular car very well from that height; I turned back to the windows and eased forward carefully. I was facing into the big main room where I’d sat and talked with Sherry Johnson. I couldn’t see anything at first. Two of the big shaded lamps were on and one of the wall lights, but the interior still looked dim. Then I saw shadows and a man walked across a gap in the drapes, which were half pulled across the window. It was Paul Mellow. Looked like I had won the kewpie doll.
I stayed put for a minute or two but couldn’t hear anything. I got a little closer and then more figures crossed the interior. They seemed to be moving into the next room for a light suddenly went on in there. There were no drapes across this one. I gum-shoed my way farther down the terrace and found another wrought iron balcony rail
ing across my path. It was only waist high and I almost stepped over. I was on another balcony with the same sort of tiled floor. There was a clipped box hedge, let into wooden trunking, more tables and beach umbrellas.
I got near the window and stopped. Sherry Johnson was standing inside; the room was a bedroom and she wore some sort of yellow house-coat. The man with white hair was doing most of the talking and Paul Mellow was standing by, looking dramatic. I got as near as I dared but the sound-track was still out. It was a bit comic. I could stay here, hear nothing and understand nothing and perhaps follow when the two gorillas left. Or I could barge in and play it by ear from then on.
As it turned out, the problem was solved for me. I had been out there perhaps ten minutes, making a very good target from the street against the lit windows. When I next looked up the tableau was in action. Paul Mellow had got Sherry Johnson by the lapels and her housecoat was gaping open; the girl was lunging at the junky with her hand raised to strike and he had opened a pig-sticker and was waving it in front of her face.
I thought it was time to intervene. I set off at a smart trot towards the window, six feet away. I made a grand job of it. What I hadn’t seen was that the nearest metal table had wide splayed legs coming out from the centre like a rosette; I found one of them with my foot. I went down with a helluva crash, the table went the other way with a noise like all the symphony orchestras in Christendom were tuning up and to make matters worse the table rolled and hit the window with one big bang as a finale.
The group inside froze for one split second, then the girl went down and the two figures vanished from view. I got up cursing and put my shoulder at the big windows. Unlike the movies they didn’t give and I had only a bruised shoulder for my trouble. Then I saw Sherry Johnson get up unhurt so I didn’t worry. I went over the balcony like Jesse Owens in a hurry and then some mug in a prowl car set his siren going as the police wagon I had sent for, to shadow Johnny Whitehair, turned into Corona Avenue.
That left me two choices. To leg it down the fire escape and be in at the kill in the parking lot. Or to hustle out through 221 and hope the lift jammed. As it happened I chose the latter but the way the police were organized that night I don’t suppose it would have mattered. I got out through 221 without wrecking any furniture and found the lift was already way down.