It was enough. Heavy feet came pounding around the side and I made a dash up the corridor, out the door and dived into the bushes before the puzzled cop got back to his post scratching his head in bewilderment. The fence, the driveway, and I was in my car pulling up the street behind a trailer truck.
The package was burning a hole in my pocket. I turned down a side street where the neon of an open diner provided a stopping-off place, parked and went in and occupied a corner booth. When a skinny waiter in an oversized apron took my order I extracted the bundle. I rifled through the deck, ignoring the bonds and policies. I found what I was after.
It was York’s will, made out two years ago, leaving every cent of his dough to Grange. If that female was still alive this put her on the spot for sure. Here was motive, pure, raw motive. A several-million-dollar motive, but it might as well be a can tied to her tail. She was a lucky one indeed if she lived to enjoy it.
Sloppy Joe came back with my hamburgers and coffee. I shelved the package while he dished out the slop, then forced it down my gullet, with the coffee as a lubricant. I was nearly through when I noticed my hands. They were dusty as hell. I noticed something else, too. The rubber band that had been around the package lay beside my coffee cup, stiff and rotted, and in two pieces.
Then I didn’t get it after all, at least not what York was searching for. This package hadn’t been opened for a hell of a long time, and it was a good bet that whatever had been in the fireplace had been there until the other night. The will had been placed in the package years ago.
Damn. Say it again, Mike, you outsmarted yourself that time. Damn.
CHAPTER 6
I set my watch by the clock on the corner while I waited for the light to change. Nine fifteen, and all was far from well. Just what the hell was it that threw York into a spasm? I knew damn well now that whatever it was, either Grange had it with her or she never had it at all. I was right back where I started from. Which left two things to be done. Find Mallory, or see who came downstairs the night of the murder and why that movement was denied in the statements. All right, let it be Mallory. Maybe Roxy could supply some answers. I pulled the will from the package and slipped it inside my jacket, then tossed the rest of the things in the back of the glove compartment.
Henry had the gates open as soon as I turned off the road. When he shut them behind me I called him over. “Anyone been here while I was gone?”
“Yes, sir. The undertaker came, but that was all.”
I thanked him and drove up the drive. Harvey nodded solemnly when he opened the door and took my hat. “Have there been any developments, sir?”
“Not a thing. Where’s Miss Malcom?”
“Upstairs, I believe. She took Master Ruston to his room a little while ago. Shall I call her for you?”
“Never mind, I’ll go up myself.”
I rapped lightly and opened the door at the same time. Roxy took a quick breath, grabbed the negligee off the bed and held it in front of her. That split second of visioning nudity that was classic beauty made the blood pound in my ears. I shut my eyes against it. “Easy, Roxy,” I said, “I can’t see so don’t scream and don’t throw things. I didn’t mean it.”
She laughed lightly. “Oh, for heaven’s sake, open them up. You’ve seen me like this before.” I looked just as she tied the wrapper around her. That kind of stuff could drive a guy bats.
“Don’t tempt me. I thought you’d changed?”
“Mike . . . don’t say it that way. Maybe I have gone modest, but I like it better. In your rough way you respected it too, but I can’t very well heave things at you for seeing again what you saw so many times before.”
“The kid asleep?”
“I think so.” The door was open a few inches, the other room dark. I closed it softly, then went back and sat on the edge of the bed. Roxy dragged the chair from in front of her vanity and set it down before me.
“Do I get sworn in first?” she asked with a fake pout.
“This is serious.”
“Shoot.”
“I’m going to mention a name to you. Don’t answer me right away. Let it sink in, think about it, think of any time since you’ve been here that you might have heard it, no matter when. Roll it around on your tongue a few times until it becomes familiar, then if you recognize it tell me where or when you heard it and who said it . . . if you can.”
“I see. Who is it?”
I handed her a cigarette and plucked one myself. “Mallory,” I said as I lit it for her. I hooked my hands around my knee and waited. Roxy blew smoke at the floor. She looked up at me a couple of times, her eyes vacant with thought, mouthing the name to herself. I watched her chew on her lip and suck in a lungful of smoke.
Finally she rubbed her hand across her forehead and grimaced. “I can’t remember ever having heard it,” she told me. “Is it very important?”
“I think it might be. I don’t know.”
“I’m sorry, Mike.” She leaned forward and patted my knee.
“Hell, don’t take it to heart. He’s just a name to me. Do you think any of the characters might know anything?”
“That I couldn’t say. York was a quiet one, you know.”
“I didn’t know. Did he seem to favor any of them?”
She stood up and stretched on her toes. Under the sheer fabric little muscles played in her body. “As far as I could see, he had an evident distaste for the lot of them. When I first came here he apparently liked his niece, Rhoda. He remembered her with gifts upon the slightest provocation. Expensive ones, too. I know, I bought them for him.”
I snubbed my butt. “Uh-huh. Did he turn to someone else?”
“Why, yes.” She looked at me in faint surprise. “The other niece, Alice Nichols.”
“I would have looked at her first to begin with.”
“Yes, you would,” she grinned. “Shall I go on?”
“Please.”
“For quite a while she got all the attention, which threw the Ghents into an uproar. I imagine they saw Rhoda being his heir and didn’t like the switch. Mr. York’s partiality to Alice continued for several months then fell off somewhat. He paid little attention to her after that, but never forgot her on birthdays or holidays. His gifts were as great as ever. And that,” she concluded, “is the only unusual situation that ever existed as far as I know.”
“Alice and York, huh? How far did the relationship go?”
“Not that far. His feelings were paternal, I think.”
“Are you sure?”
“Pretty sure. Mr. York was long past his prime. If sex meant anything to him it was no more than a biological difference between the species.”
“It might mean something to Alice.”
“Of that I’m sure. She likes anything with muscles, but with Mr. York she didn’t need it. She did all right without it. I noticed that she cast a hook in your direction.”
“She didn’t use the right bait,” I stated briefly. “She showed up in my room with nothing on but a prayer and wanted to play. I like to be teased a little. Besides, I was tired. Did York know she acted that way?”
Roxy plugged in a tiny radio set and fiddled with the dial. “If he did he didn’t care.”
“Kitten, did York ever mention a will?”
An old Benny Goodman tune came on. She brought it in clearer and turned around with a dance step. “Yes, he had one. He kept the family on the verge of a nervous breakdown every time he alluded to it, but he never came right out and said where his money would go.”
She began to spin with the music. “Hold still a second, will you? Didn’t he hand out any hints at all?”
The hem of her negligee brushed past my face, higher than any hem had a right to be. “None at all, except that it would go where it was most deserving.”
Her legs flashed in the light. My heart began beating faster again. They were lovely legs, long, firm. “Did Grange ever hear that statement?”
She stopped, poised dramaticall
y and threw her belt at me. “Yes.” She began to dance again. The music was a rhumba now and her body swayed to it, jerking rhythmically. “Once during a heated discussion Mr. York told them all that Miss Grange was the only one he could trust and she would be the one to handle his estate.”
There was no answer to that. How the devil could she handle it if she got it all? I never got a chance to think about it. The robe came off and she used it like a fan, almost disclosing everything, showing nothing. Her skin was fair, cream-colored, her body graceful. She circled in front of me, letting her hair fall to her shoulders. At the height of that furious dance I stood up.
Roxy flew into my arms. “Kiss me . . . you thing.”
I didn’t need any urging.
Her mouth melted into mine like butter. I felt her nails digging into my arms. Roughly, I pushed her away, held her there at arm’s length. “What was that for?”
She gave me a delightfully evil grin. “That is because I could love you if I wanted to, Mike. I did once, you know.”
“I know. What made you stop?”
“You’re Broadway, Mike. You’re the bright lights and big money . . . sometimes. You’re bullets when there should be kisses. That’s why I stopped. I wanted someone with a normal life expectancy.”
“Then why this?”
“I missed you. Funny as it sounds, someplace inside me I have a spot that’s always reserved for you. I didn’t want you to ever know it, but there it is.”
I kissed her again, longer and closer this time. Her body was talking to me, screaming to me. There would have been more if Ruston hadn’t called out.
Roxy slipped into the robe again, the cold static making it snap. “Let me go,” I said. She nodded.
I opened the door and hit the light switch. “Hello, Sir Lancelot.” The kid had been crying in his sleep, but he smiled at me.
“Hello, Mike. When did you come?”
“A little while ago. Want something?”
“Can I have some water, please? My throat’s awfully dry.”
A pitcher half full of ice was on the desk. I poured it into a glass and handed it to him and he drank deeply. “Have enough?”
He gave the glass back to me. “Yes, thank you.”
I gave his chin a little twist. “Then back to bed with you. Get a good sleep.”
Ruston squirmed back under the covers. “I will. Good night, Mike.”
“’Night, pal.” I closed the door behind me. Roxy had changed into a deep maroon quilted job and sat in the chair smoking a cigarette. The moment had passed. I could see that she was sorry, too. She handed me my deck of butts and I pocketed them, then waved a good-night. Neither of us felt like saying anything.
Evidently Harvey had retired for the night. The staircase was lit only by tiny night-lights shaped to resemble candle flames, while the foyer below was a dim challenge to the eyesight. I picked my way through the rooms and found Billy’s without upsetting anything. He was in bed, but awake. “It’s Mike, Billy,” I said.
He snapped on the bed lamp. “Come on in.”
I shut the door and slumped in a chair next to him. “More questions. I know it’s late, but I hope you don’t mind.”
“Not at all, Mike. What’s new?”
“Oh, you know how these things are. Haven’t found Miss Grange yet and things are settling around her. Dilwick’s got his men covering her place like a blanket.”
“Yeah? What for? Ain’t she supposed to be drowned?”
“Somebody wants it to look that way, I think. Listen, Billy, you told me before that you heard someone come downstairs between York and me the night of the murder. It wasn’t important before except to establish an alibi for you if it was needed, but now what you heard may have a bearing on the case. Go over it again, will you? Do it in as much detail as you can.”
“Let’s see. I didn’t really hear York leave, I just remember a car crunching the gravel. It woke me up. I had a headache and a bad taste in my mouth from something York gave me. Pills, I think.”
“It was supposed to keep you asleep. He gave you a sedative.”
“Whatever it was I puked up in bed, that’s why it didn’t do me any good. Anyway, I lay here half awake when I heard somebody come down the last two stairs. They squeak, they do. This room is set funny, see. Any noise outside the room travels right in here. They got a name for it.”
“Acoustics.”
“Yeah, that’s it. That’s why nobody ever used this room but me. They couldn’t stand the noise all the time. Not only loud noises, any kind of noises. This was like whoever it was didn’t want to make a sound, but it didn’t do any good because I heard it. Only I thought it was one of the family trying to be quiet so they wouldn’t wake anyone up and I didn’t pay any attention to it. About two or three minutes after that comes this noise like someone coughing with their head under a coat and it died out real slow and that’s all. I was just getting back to sleep when there was another car tearing out the drive. That was you, I guess.”
“That all?”
“Yeah, that’s all, Mike. I went back to sleep after that.”
This was the ace. It had its face down so I couldn’t tell whether it was red or black, but it was the ace. The bells were going off in my head again, those little tinkles that promised to become the pealing of chimes. The cart was before the horse, but if I could find the right buckle to unloosen I could put them right back.
“Billy, say nothing to nobody about this, understand? If the local police question you, say nothing. If Sergeant Price wants to know things, have him see me. If you value your head, keep your mouth shut and your door locked.”
His eyes popped wide open. “Geez, Mike, is it that important?”
I nodded. “I have a funny feeling, Billy, that the noises you heard were made by the murderer.”
“Good Golly!” It left him breathless. Then, “You . . . you think the killer . . .”—he swallowed—“. . . might make a try for me?”
“No, Billy, not the killer. You aren’t that important to him. Someone else might, though. I think we have a lot more on our hands than just plain murder.”
“What?” It was a hoarse whisper.
“Kidnapping, for one thing. That comes in somewhere. You sit tight until you hear from me.” Before I left I turned with my hand on the knob and looked into his scared face again. “Who’s Mallory, Billy?”
“Mallory who?”
“Just Mallory.”
“Gosh, I don’t know.”
“Okay, kid, thanks.”
Mallory. He might as well be Smith or Jones. So far he was just a word. I navigated the gloom again half consciously, thinking of him. Mallory of the kidnapping; Mallory whose very name turned York white and added a link to the chain of crime. Somewhere Mallory was sitting on his fanny getting a large charge out of the whole filthy mess. York knew who he was, but York was dead. Could that be the reason for his murder? Likely. York, by indirect implication and his peculiar action, intimated that Myra Grange knew of him too, but she was dead or missing. Was that Mallory’s doing? Likely. Hell, I couldn’t put my finger on anything more definite than a vague possibility. Something had to blow up, somebody would have to try to take the corners out of one of the angles. I gathered all the facts together, but they didn’t make sense. A name spoken, the speaker unseen; someone who came downstairs at night, unseen too, and denying it; a search for a stolen something-or-other, whose theft was laid at the feet of the vanished woman. I muttered a string of curses under my breath and kicked aimlessly at empty air. Where was there to start? Dilwick would have his feelers out for Grange and so would Price. With that many men they could get around much too fast for me. Besides, I had the feeling that she was only part of it all, not the key figure that would unlock the mystery, but more like one whose testimony would cut down a lot of time and work. I still couldn’t see her putting the cleaver into York then doing the Dutch afterward. If she was associated with him professionally she would have to be brilliant
, and great minds either turn at murder or attempt to conceive of a flawless plot. York’s death was brutal. It was something you might find committed in a dark alley in a slum section for a few paltry dollars, or in a hotel room when a husband returns to find his woman in the arms of her lover. A passion kill, a revenge kill, a crude murder for small money, yes, but did any of these motives fit here? For whom did York hold passion . . . or vice versa? Roxy hit it when she said he was too old. Small money? None was gone from his wallet apparently. That kind of kill would take place outside on a lonely road or on a deserted street anyway. Revenge . . . revenge. Grange said he had no enemies. That was now. Could anything have happened in the past? You could almost rule that out too, on the basis of precedent. Revenge murders usually happen soon after the event that caused the desire for revenge. If the would-be murderer has time to think he realizes the penalty for murder and it doesn’t happen. Unless, of course, the victim, realizing what might happen, keeps on the move. That accentuates the importance of the event to the killer and spurs him on. Negative. York was a public figure for years. He had lived in the same house almost twenty years. Big money, a motive for anything. Was that it? Grange came into that. Why did she have the will? Those things are kept in a safe-deposit box or lawyer’s files. The chief beneficiary rarely ever got to see the document much less have it hidden among her personal effects for so long a time. Damn, Grange had told me she had a large income aside from what York gave her. She didn’t care what he did with his money. What a very pretty attitude to take, especially when you know where it’s going. She could afford to be snotty with me. I remembered her face when she said it, aloof, the hell-with-it attitude. Why the act if it wasn’t important then? What was she trying to put across?
The Mike Hammer Collection, Volume 3 Page 44