I exhaled, looking around that shabby, scrubbed apartment. Maybe for a second there I hated myself more than usual; maybe I just hated her.
“Sure,” I said. It was sharp and angry the way I said it. She was driving me crazy misunderstanding every attempt I made to get near her. I began to feel a throbbing in my temples. Next thing I knew, I’d be going to bed with three aspirin.
She had no idea what I meant by that word sure, either. She said, “I’ll make us some coffee. It’s the instant kind. I hope you won’t mind. I don’t have time to make coffee around here in the morning. I’m so rushed, going to work. Besides, it’s no fun making coffee just for yourself.”
She went into the little kitchenette. I followed. I leaned in the door. I watched her and wondered if she were purposely teasing me. Was it possible for a woman to be that innocent or stupid, or whatever she was? Not the women I’d known; they knew the score.
I said, “All right. If the investigation suited you. What about the trial? Was there anything there left undone?” Hell, I knew better. I’d read every word of the case, right down to conviction and sentence.
She lighted the stove, put water on to boil. There was something about her moving around that kitchen in a frock that snugly encased her; everything she did was exciting, because excitement was stored in her, packed down tight and charged.
She turned, and looked at me. “There was one man,” she said. “He was the bartender in the place where Earl said he stopped to drink. When they put him on the stand, he lied. But they believed him.”
“What was his name. Remember?”
“Remember? I’ll never forget. It was Gonsmart. Tino Gonsmart. After the trial, I looked for him. I went to see him. I was going to beg him to tell the truth.” She gave a rueful little laugh. “You won’t believe it, but I was going to—tell him he could have me if he would tell the truth. I know you’ll laugh, and think I was a fool for thinking he would want me.”
I licked my lips, feeling the warmth rising up from my shoulders. “It’s possible,” I said.
She shivered. “Now you’re being kind again. I would think about how repulsive he looked up on that stand, and the way I hated him because he lied. But I knew what he would want—and I didn’t have anything else to offer him.”
I stood there, feeling this sickness gorge up in me from my stomach. I forced my voice to remain level.
“And so? What happened?”
“I looked for him. I asked everywhere. I couldn’t find him. Right after the trial he completely disappeared.”
Chapter Seven
The next morning I woke up early and I felt good. I thought about that in the shower. The idea of feeling good, the mess I was in, was funny.
Just the same, I knew that Peggy had given me something to work on. I didn’t see that it particularly made any difference, but I could put through a check on Tino Gonsmart. I might even turn up something on him. I could play that angle along, just as long as I needed an angle.
At police headquarters, I put through Gonsmart’s name and last known occupation. The Crystal Room Bar was in the neighborhood where Ruby Venuto was killed. According to Peggy, Earl had bowled near there, dropped in afterward for a drink, had a couple and met Ruby there.
It took a couple of hours to go through the files. I went up to the bureau office and goofed off while I waited.
Ernie Gault came in while I was there. He didn’t look happy to see me. Why should he? I was no longer Mike Ballard to him; I was another debt he had to face. The poor slob, up until Monday he’d always been able to feel superior, he could tell himself the kind of money I had was dirty money, and he wouldn’t touch it. I grinned to myself. Hell, a man doesn’t know what he’ll do.
He spoke and that was all. Maybe the rumor was out that they were checking me in the department. When that happens, you’re poison.
I sat there and drew pictures on a pad. I thought about Gonsmart. I wondered if he really had lied at the trial, and if he had lied, how had he made it stand up under cross-examination? Who’d said he lied? What had he lied about?
The phone rang on my desk. I picked it up. It was a clerk in the files room.
“Lieutenant? I’m sorry, there’s nothing on Tino Gonsmart. Not under that name, anyhow. You don’t have his fingerprints, do you?”
“No. If I’d had them I’d have given them to you.”
“Sorry, Lieutenant. Nothing we can do.”
I dropped the receiver back in the cradle. I sat there and thought about Tino Gonsmart. He was a bartender by trade, he had worked at the Crystal Room Bar, he had given false testimony in a murder trial. He had no previous police record. Immediately after the trial he left his job, moved and left no address.
I thumbed through the transcript of the trial of the People vs. Earl Walker. There were a lot of pages, but the name Gonsmart stuck out like a taped thumb.
Question: Please state your name and address.
Answer: Tino Gonsmart. 1854 Brevard Road.
I stopped reading, feeling a faint stirring of anger. I’d already run across that address when I checked on the Crystal Room Bar. The address Tino gave was that of the taproom where he tended bar.
He began to have an odor in my nostrils. I wondered what had happened at that trial. Wasn’t anybody listening? The Crystal Room must have figured in all the testimony. How did Tino get away with giving that as his residence?
I decided to hold off until I saw what the defense attorney did to Tino on that one.
Question: The defendant has stated that on the night of August 8th, from about eight until twelve he sat at the bar in the Crystal Room. Would you please state to the court your occupation?
Answer: I’m a bartender. I tend bar at the Crystal Room.
Question: Would you state how long you have been so employed?
Answer: Yes, sir. I been there about a year.
Question: A year?
Answer: Yes, sir. A year, that’s close enough.
Question: Were you tending bar in the Crystal Room the night of August 8th, this past year?
Answer: Yes, sir.
Question: You can unequivocably state that you were so employed at this taproom that night?
Answer: Yes, sir. I was there. I was night bartender. I worked alone, during the week. On Saturday I had another fellow to help me.
Question: You were there alone this night?
Answer: Yes, sir. I was. This was on a Thursday night. I was tending bar alone.
Question: Was business good, or fair, on that particular night?
Answer: Slow, sir. The way it is middle of the week. People straggle in. No rush any part of the night.
Question: I want you to consider carefully. You are rather positive in all your replies to me here today. You’re sure about the date, the people in the place, and that you were on duty that night. Would you mind stating why you are so positive?
Answer: Because I ain’t ever likely to forget that night. Not that night. Fellow comes running in. He says that Ruby has been killed. She was in there every night. Everybody knew her. Everybody liked Ruby. It hit us hard, all of us.
Question: There was a crowd present?
Answer: No sir. Just a few people drinking beer, watching TV. But all of us knew Ruby. The regulars. Ain’t none of us soon going to forget the way we felt when this fellow comes in and says that Ruby is dead.
Question: Thank you, Mr. Gonsmart. Now, I want your carefully considered answer. Earl Walker contends he was in your bar. I want you to look at him now and tell the court if you have ever seen this man before.
Answer: Yes sir. I’ve seen him. He was in the bar a few times. Once or twice talking with Ruby.
Question: Now I ask you to consider the night of August 8th, just passed, the night burned so indelibly upon your memory. Now, was this man Earl Walker in your bar at the time you first heard the news that Ruby Venuto was dead?
Answer: No, sir.
Question: Was he in there at any time that n
ight after this?
Answer: No, sir. He was not.
Question: Could he have been there and you not have seen him?
Answer: Not if he drank. I was the only bartender.
Question: Now, I ask you, was Earl Walker in your establishment previous to the moment when you heard that Ruby was dead?
Answer: You mean that Thursday night?
Question: That is correct.
Answer: No, sir. He was not. He was not in the Crystal Room at all that night. I would have seen him, and he wasn’t there.
Question: You have considered this carefully, searched your memory, so that you will swear—as you do swear—that Earl Walker was not in the Crystal Room Bar at any time during the evening and night of August 8th, this past year.
Answer: Yes, sir. That’s right. He was not in there.
Question: Thank you, Mr. Gonsmart. No more questions, your honor.
Judge Billings: The defense may cross examine.
Attorney Prather: No questions, your honor.
Captain Burgess’s office door was closed today, too. I knocked. Just at the moment, I had this urgent feeling about a man named Gonsmart. There were too many strikes against this boy. Even if it led right up a blind alley, somebody had to talk to him. Maybe he didn’t lie, maybe Earl got drunk in some other rathskeller, but one thing sure, he had to be drunk that night, and full of rage, to have killed Ruby Venuto. That girl died a violent death.
“Come in.”
I went in, let the door close behind me. Burgess and Police Chief Waylin turned, looking at me. They’d been talking about me. The way they fell silent in the middle of a sentence shouted that.
Waylin punched his rimless glasses up tight on his nose and stared at me through them. Light from Burgess’s window glinted in them.
“All right, Ballard.” Neal’s voice was sharp. “Go ahead. What is it?”
“I want to be relieved from the vice squad for a couple of weeks.”
“That won’t help a damned bit,” Waylin said. He spoke before he thought. He caught his breath and his face turned red. Burgess stared at him. Waylin exhaled. “You better stay where you are, Ballard.”
Burgess’s voice was deadly soft. “You got a reason, Ballard, for wanting to shift?”
“Yes. I want to work on a homicide.”
They both scowled, first at me and then at each other. Waylin shifted in his chair.
Burgess said, “Which one?”
“The Earl Walker case.”
“Who?”
“It’s not current. He’s been sentenced. He’s going to the chair.”
“Then forget it. You got your own woes.”
“Either let me work on it, or give me two weeks without pay.”
“At this time,” Waylin said, “I think that would be ill advised.”
“If you’ll let me handle it, Chief.” Neal’s voice had that softness again. He hated anybody trying to run his department. “Have you some new evidence, Ballard?”
“No.”
“Then forget it. That case was thoroughly checked. There’s no angle.”
“There’s an angle.”
“All right. Let’s hear it.”
“One of the witnesses lied.”
“How do you know?”
“I read his testimony. He lied at least twice. Then after the trial—immediately afterward, Neal, he quit his job and drifted.”
“Pick him up.”
“It’s not that easy. He’s gone. I want to find him.”
“Why?”
“I want to know why he lied. I want him to tell me the truth.”
“You’ve no proof he lied, have you?”
“No.”
“Did he swear to his testimony on the stand?” Waylin asked.
“That’s right. Then he quit his job. Left.”
“Bartenders do things like that,” Burgess said. “They drift. You know that.”
“He picked a hell of a time to drift.”
“Does he have a record?”
“No.”
“You checked him through and didn’t find a thing on him?”
“That’s right.”
“A man without a record. A witness under oath. Looks like he has a right to drift when he wants, Mike.”
Waylin stood up. “Is this some kind of diversion in left field, Ballard?”
“What are you talking about?”
“You’re about to come up in the middle of a sweet mess yourself, Ballard. All of a sudden you’re interested in a murder case that’s a year old.”
“I am interested in it. If you won’t let me off, I’m taking off. I’m that interested.”
Waylin looked at Burgess. “I don’t believe a leave without pay would look good for the department right now, Neal. Why don’t you work out something?”
Burgess wiped his hand across his face. “You’re no good to me where you are, Ballard. I’ll tell you what. Why don’t you work on this Walker business? It might look good on your record. It might be just what you need.”
Chapter Eight
I left police headquarters and walked across four blocks to the county building. The district attorney’s secretary recognized me. She spoke my name on the intercom and the D.A. said to send me in.
I went into his office as he was shrugging into his lightweight coat. “You don’t need to go formal with me,” I said.
He didn’t smile. “I’m sorry you decided to come to me, Mike. I wish you hadn’t. It won’t sit well, not with anybody. And the worst part of it, there isn’t a thing I can tell you.”
I stared at him. I got a sinking sensation in my stomach. These boys were working on me downstairs. They were so full of it, they thought I was. The bastards were convinced they had me on the run.
I felt the ache across my nose. I remembered what they’d done to my old man, and a more honest poor son of a bitch never lived, which was more than I’d ever attempt to say for myself. There was one thing, Pop never knew how to claw back. But these people were going to know they’d walked through the alley before they got through with me.
I stood there and looked at the D.A., the worried, talcumed, close-shaven, honest-till-it-hurt lawyer.
“You could have been a credit to the department, Mike. Handsome, big as a house, smart. You really loused.”
“I came here for an address.” I kept my voice even.
His mouth parted. He’d been so convinced I was here to beg for mercy he hadn’t even thought twice about it. I had him feinting with lefts and hadn’t even walked into the ring yet.
“What did you say?”
“I said I’m looking for an address.”
“Yes. What kind of address?”
“On a witness your office used in the Earl Walker case. Remember it?”
He scowled, nodded. “What witness?”
“A bartender. Named Tino Gonsmart.”
“I think Miss Perry can give you his address. You mind saying why you wish to see him?”
“No. I don’t mind saying. I think he lied on the stand.”
“Lied? In what way?”
“I think you know.”
Honesty was all he had, sometimes, in his job. “Be careful, Mike.” His voice lashed.
“I didn’t say you asked him to lie, or told him to lie, or encouraged him to lie. I just say he lied, and you accepted his lie.”
“You bring me the truth, Mike. I’ll right any wrong this office might have committed. But I need the truth to do it. You bring me the truth. If it will save Earl Walker, I’ll work as hard to do that as I worked to convict him. All I want is the truth. At the time of the trial, I thought I had it. What should I have done?”
“You’re the district attorney.”
“You want me to try Prather’s cases for him? Why didn’t he question Gonsmart?”
“I don’t know, but I’d like to know. Why did the defense accept the word of this Gonsmart? He was the only witness called to prove whether or not Walker was in the Cr
ystal Room that night.”
The D.A. looked at his hands.
“I can explain that. Judge Billings and I discussed that, prior to the trial. Walker wasn’t well known in this neighborhood. He knew nobody over there, but felt sure that Gonsmart would recognize him and remember him. Other than that, he had no idea who else was in the bar, whether they saw him or not. It seemed the evening was a blank to him, and he doesn’t know if there were other people in the room or not. His story was full of contradictions.”
“Sure. The kind any drunk’s is likely to be.”
The D.A. frowned. “Nevertheless, he was willing to accept the word of Tino Gonsmart. I had him brought in, and I tell you I was amazed when he told me he knew Walker, but that Walker had not been in the Crystal Room that night.”
The address I got from the D.A.’s Miss Perry was in a section of town that should have been condemned three days before the first rat nest was constructed on Tower Street.
It was a narrow, ugly street, with smells to match. They hung out of windows and sprawled on steps. Cats slithered in the garbage and in some upstairs room somebody was playing the blues on a tin-plated piano.
I went up the steps at this apartment house. It was opened through a breathless dark corridor to the rear. After a moment, from the last doorway down there, a woman started toward me.
She was scratching herself and punching hairpins in at the same time. When she got near enough I saw she was working her lips over her teeth and trying to push something out of them with her tongue.
She looked old and shriveled with age. The flesh hung along her cheeks and jaw. Her eyes were dry and faded.
“What do you want?” she said. She tried to scratch a place in the middle of her back. “You’re a cop. What do you want?”
“I’m looking for Tino Gonsmart.”
“Who?”
“Let’s not play games. You tell me where Tino is and you can go back to your scratching.”
She laughed, her face wrinkling like parchment. “I don’t know where Tino Gonsmart is.”
“You’ve already said it. I’m a cop. Don’t try to shield him.”
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