“Any idea where she is or who she’s with?”
“No. I phoned her apartment a couple of times and got nothing. I’m sorry, Jerry. I know she’s a friend of yours—but she’s through, and I’m not kidding. She’s gummed up my whole floor show.”
Tracy soothed him with a good-humored gag.
He stepped out into the electric-lit clamor of Broadway. It was hard to thumb a cab at this hour, but he got one finally. He was a peaceable guy and he didn’t like the idea of tangling with a queer number like the swami—but maybe the whole thing wasn’t as nasty as it looked. Lightweight trusted Tracy; she’d pay attention to any advice he gave her. It was a nuisance to have to run out on a good musical, but what else could a decent guy do?
The hotel where Lightweight lived was a dingy old building with a wheezy elevator operated by a rheumatic looking negro. Tracy rang Lightweight’s bell with a nervous pressure of his finger.
“Who is it?” It was her voice—and not hers. Shrill, frightened.
“Jerry Tracy.”
“Oh.”
The door opened. Frightened? She was terrified! Her blue eyes bulged; her face was chalk white. She was wearing a cute apple-green evening gown and green high heeled slippers. Even frightened she looked sweet, babyish and appealing.
“What’s wrong, sweetheart?” Tracy asked her sharply.
“Not—not a thing, Jerry.”
“How come you’re not at the Onyx Club?”
“I was delayed.”
Tracy’s worried glance went past her. A dim light was lit in the bedroom, but the door was partly closed. “You’re sure there’s nothing wrong? I don’t want to pry into your personal affairs. I’m here because I’m your father’s friend and yours, too. If I wasn’t, I’d be off minding my own business.”
“I know that, Jerry.” Her face got paler. “I’m perfectly all right,” she said, but her honest voice couldn’t make the lie sound convincing.
She stepped between Tracy and the bedroom doorway but he moved her gently aside. Her hand on his was like a dab of ice. Tracy didn’t like the idea of opening that door, but he did so gingerly. He felt relieved and a little foolish when he saw that the room was empty.
“Beat it, Jerry,” Lightweight pleaded. “I—I’m waiting for somebody.”
Her wan smile made Tracy feel helplessly angry.
“Who? That fake swami with the turban and the smooth line of gab?”
“What do you mean?” Her voice trembled. “What do you know about Ala Dhinn?”
“I know you were riding in his swanky limousine an hour or so ago.”
“Jerry, will you—please—leave? I can’t talk to you now. I’ll meet you in—in a few minutes at the Onyx Club.”
“Nothing doing. We’ll both go—right now. Where’s your wrap?”
She screamed as he stepped to the closet door. Her scream and his casual twist of the knob came almost simultaneously. Over his startled shoulder Tracy saw Lightweight rushing from the room, her face contorted with terror. Then from the open closet a man came plunging silently at the little columnist, knocking him headlong to the floor.
Tracy let out an instinctive yelp of fright. He punched desperately at the staring face above his. With a quick twist he squirmed from under his assailant, sprang catlike to his feet. The man, like Tracy, was in evening clothes. He lay limply on his face where Tracy’s heave had thrown him. He didn’t move. With a feeling of sick horror the columnist knelt and turned him on his back.
The starched shirt front was dappled with crimson and the ugly smudge of burned powder. He was stone dead.
Tracy’s eyes jerked dazedly towards the man’s blank face. Stuart Parker! A goodlooking, rather vapid playboy who had been, for the last few weeks, making a romantic rush for Lightweight. Dead—and the girl gone!
Tracy forgot his own safety. He darted arrowlike to the living-room intent only on the girl. The hall door was wide open. He ran towards the elevator shaft, his eye flicking the indicator. The pointer showed that the car was motionless at the ground floor. It was barely thirty seconds since Jerry had so innocently jerked the closet door open. The elevator couldn’t possibly have ascended and taken the fleeing girl down in that short space of time.
He turned and ran towards the stairs. One flight down told him the answer. The window at the dimly lit landing was raised from the bottom. He stuck his head out and saw rusted fire-escape steps and a narrow alley that led to Eighth Avenue. There was no sign of Lightweight; terror must have given her the speed of an antelope.
Tracy mopped his pale face. The thought of Lightweight—a sweet little kid in an apple-green evening gown—trying to cover up murder made Tracy gulp sickishly. If she’d only waited, told him the truth … She wasn’t a murderess—not Pete Arlen’s kid!
He turned and ran swiftly back up the stairs. Her door was still open and he closed it, his heart beating. He leaned against the inner panel, wondering what in God’s name to do now. Police? He’d have to. And yet. …
His jaw tightened as he remembered something about the living-room that he had overlooked in his quick anxiety to get at the root of the girl’s terror. Her evening wrap hadn’t been in the closet at all. It had been lying across that arm chair over in the corner. She must have snatched it up as she fled. She had thought faster than he had. Wrapped in the cloak, all she had to do was to grab the nearest cab and vanish like any other fugitive killer. …
It was a tough situation to cope with, but the Daily Planet’s columnist didn’t hesitate. He walked straight to the phone in the living-room and asked for Police Headquarters in a steady voice. He asked to be connected with Inspector Fitzgerald.
“Can you keep something under the hat, Fitz, until you rush up here and have a talk with me?”
“Sure. Where are you, Jerry? I thought you were over at the Summer Scandals for the opening tonight.”
“No.” He gave Fitz the address of the apartment. “It’s police stuff, Fitz—but I don’t want any homicide men here till I’ve talked to you.”
“Homicide?” Fitz sounded puzzled. “You trying to tell me that you’re mixed up in a kill?”
“It’s something I was dragged into, Fitz. Something that looks damn’ dirty.”
“Wait a minute, Jerry! You sound scared. You surely didn’t—”
“No. But someone else did. I’m asking you as a favor to keep quiet about it till you can hop up here.”
“Right.”
Jerry’s fingers jerked as he hung up. He thought: “I’ve got to get a grip on myself, if I’m gonna help Lightweight.” But he was still jittery when Fitz knocked briefly on the door and walked in.
Sergeant Killan was with the inspector. Tracy laughed unevenly as he saw their red, perspiration streaked faces. He’d forgotten it was hot. It seemed funny that his own armpits could be so icy wet on a midsummer night that fairly sizzled with heat.
Killan’s black eyes peered suspiciously at the empty living-room. “What is this—a rib, Jerry?” he snapped. “Pulling one of your Broadway gags?”
“Try the bedroom,” Tracy said.
The wiry, black-browed sergeant bounded out of sight and gave a sudden curt exclamation. “Uh, uh. … Hey—Fitz!”
Tracy didn’t follow Fitz. He was still standing stiffly in the living-room when the gray-haired inspector drifted back and touched his arm.
“Did you do it, Jerry?”
He shook his head.
“Did you see it done?”
“No.”
“Any idea who gunned him?”
“I—I’m not sure.”
Fitz eyed his friend for a slow, probing instant. Then he pushed the Daily Planet’s columnist gently into a chair. “Sit down, Jerry. Pull yourself together for a minute till I take another look.”
After a while Tracy got up and went into the bedroom. Sergeant Killan was over in a corner of the room, holding back a long chintz curtain with his gloved hand. There were hooks in the angle of the wall from which hung a co
uple of Lightweight’s house dresses. Jerry recognized an old hat of hers on a shelf. The curtain, hanging straight down to the floor, could easily have hidden a crouched man. Had Lightweight tried to protect the real killer, drawn Tracy after her to permit a murderer time to escape down the fire-escape that showed dimly outside the opened window?
Inspector Fitzgerald lifted an expressionless face from the sprawled body. “So what, Jerry? How about some facts?”
“The apartment belongs to Lightweight—you know—Peggy Arlen. The corpse is Stuart Parker.”
“Yeah. So I see. I’ve been looking through his pockets. … How come you’re in on this mess, Jerry? Did Lightweight telephone you at the theater and tell you she’d just croaked a boyfriend?”
“No. I—I just had a funny hunch that something was damned wrong. … Did you ever know me to lie to you, Fitz?”
“Nope.”
“Well, I’m not starting now. Here’s exactly what happened—and I’m not holding back a single thing.”
He told Fitzgerald how he had stepped out of Ned Wortman’s car in front of the Garfield Theatre, and he repeated the scrap of information he had received from Eddie, the street gamin, about Ala Dhinn and Peggy Arlen. He detailed his every thought and action up to the moment when he had lifted the telephone in Lightweight’s living-room and called police headquarters.
Fitz frowned. Sergeant Killan looked skeptical.
“You really figure that fake swami is back of all this?” Killan said. “Where’s the logical connection? Where’s Parker fit in?”
“I happen to know that Parker was a nut for Oriental cults. Maybe he was backing this Ala Dhinn, got hep to something phoney and was killed because he threatened to squeal to the police.”
“It just don’t wash, Jerry,” Killan growled. Heat always bothered him and he was in one of his irritable moods. “You think we can take the word of a dirty-faced little sidewalk kid who—”
“You’ll take Eddie’s word and like it before you’re done,” Tracy said.
“Wait a minute, both of you,” Fitzgerald said. He stepped to the phone, identified himself curtly and asked for Ala Dhinn’s number. He talked for a moment and then hung up.
“The swami’s secretary says Ala hasn’t been out of his house since sundown last night. Today is his holy day; he spent his entire time in prayer and meditation.”
“He’s lying,” Tracy said quietly. “That guy’s a phoney.”
“On the kid Eddie’s word?”
“Why not?”
Sergeant Killan snorted and Fitzgerald shook his head. “It’s no use, Jerry. Even if we could bust the swami’s alibi—which I doubt—there’s not a single thing to connect him with this mess. You can’t walk in and grill a guy whose been lecturing to some of the wealthiest people in town. Not on the vague sayso of a kid who’s probably a petty thief from an underworld tenement.”
“And besides,” Killan cut in impatiently, “what’s the fact that the swami was ridin’ with the dame got to do with this killing? You admit the girl was here! She tried to get rid of you, you find the dead guy propped in her closet—and she promptly beats it. If she was innocent, why didn’t she tell you what it was all about?”
“Because she didn’t dare.” He knew from their faces it sounded foolish, and added quietly, “The swami was hiding back of that curtain in the corner. He had a gun on her. She was thinking of my safety, not hers.”
“Nuts,” Killan muttered. His hot face darkened. “What you trying to do—cover this dancin’ dame’s runout?”
“We’ll have to send out an alarm and pick the girl up,” Fitz said. He dropped a restraining hand on Killan’s shoulder. He saw that Tracy and the sergeant, ordinarily the best of friends, were at dagger points. He felt pretty hot and irritable himself. Damn the weather!
“You asked me to keep something under the hat, Jerry. What?”
The anger faded from Tracy’s eyes. He knew Fitz’s intense loyalty to him and he spoke softly, pleadingly. “I don’t want to appear in this, Fitz. I’ve got a show to review and a column to write.” He grinned a little and shoved on the old cynical look. “Tracy meets girl. Tracy forgets job. Tracy remembers job. No kidding, there’s a nude number in the last act I’ve got to catch for the column customers.”
“Okey, Jerry,” Fitz said.
Killan chuckled faintly, and stuck out his red paw. “The heat’s got me down,” he muttered. “Sorry I lost my temper, kid.”
“Forget it, Sarge. My underwear itches, too.”
Jerry Tracy wiped the grin off his face in the elevator. He walked back toward the Garfield. But he didn’t get any further than the Apex Theatre just east of Broadway. The intermission had filled the sidewalk outside the Apex with a languid, cigarette smoking crowd. The crowd didn’t interest Tracy but the three tap dancing kids in the adjoining alley did. He recognized them instantly as pals of the vanished Eddie. They were putting on a shrewd little amateur act, ducking with sweaty grins for the occasional dimes and nickels that people in the crowd tossed.
Tracy watched the ragged trio for a moment and then walked hastily back to the drug-store on the corner. He called the Garfield box office and left a message for Ned Wortman, the theatrical producer who had driven him to the Summer Scandals. Wortman was a good guy. He could depend on him to take a few notes about the opening night celebrities and their escorts, and to shoot the stuff by messenger to the Daily Planet office. Maybe Tracy could pep it up later.
He sauntered back to where the three kids were still energetically doing their tap dance, and waited until the crowd drifted back into the Apex Theatre for the last act. The kids recognized him, but their grins hardened when he asked casually about the whereabouts of Eddie. They hadn’t seen Eddie in a week, didn’t know nothin’ about him!
Tracy, who knew plenty about gutter loyalty, instantly smelled a rat. Eddie had pulled a fast one of some kind; the kids were trying to protect him.
“Okey,” Tracy shrugged. “You’re doing him out of five bucks. If you guys want to be smart about it and gyp a pal, it’s okey with me.”
Three pairs of shrewd eyes stared at him. They were weakening.
“Tell him.”
“Naw. Eddie’d be sore.”
“Not at Mr. Tracy! You dope, he works for him.”
Jerry handed the nearest kid a dollar bill. “Split it three ways and don’t act dumb.” He grinned. “What’d Eddie do, scram with somebody’s change?”
They grinned back, awed respect in their glances. You just couldn’t kid Mr. Tracy. A wise guy!
They told him with suppressed grins what had happened. A sap had given Eddie five bucks and asked him to buy a pack of Egyptian cigarettes in a little shop around the corner. Told him when he came back he’d get a quarter for his trouble. Eddie said sure—and never came back. They figured he had taken a smart runout.
Tracy, who knew Eddie better than that, chuckled with just the right note of amusement. “What did the man look like?”
“It wasn’t a man. It was a loony lookin’ dame. She drove up to the curb in a big automobile. When Eddie didn’t come back she didn’t get sore at all—just drove away.”
“What do you mean, a loony dame?” Tracy asked quietly. “Was she a blonde? A cute looking dame in a green evening wrap?”
“Naw. She looked like a gypsy, only not so dirty. A funny red mark right in the middle of her forehead about as big as a dime. The guy in the car with her looked like a dago. Had a white towel wrapped around his nut. He peeked out after Eddie left.”
“I see,” Jerry said.
The swami was again unexpectedly sticking his phiz into Tracy’s. The “loony dame” was a front, obviously primed by this suave Mr. Ala to scoop up Eddie with a transparent trick.
The whole thing stunk in the nostrils of the Daily Planet’s worried little columnist with the unmistakable odor of a snatch job. This Ala guy wanted Eddie! Obviously because the street gamin was a witness to something the swami was desperately anxious
to keep under cover. And the “loony dame” with the funny red mark on her forehead about the size of a dime? It might or might not be a legitimate caste mark. Where in the name of common sense did Eddie—and Lightweight fit into this screwy puzzle? Tracy’s head ached with the desire to go home like a sensible man and leave the whole thing to the cops. There was a double reason why he couldn’t. Eddie—and Lightweight! Tracy had been hauled into something of which he couldn’t let go. He’d have to ask a couple of questions before he let down a kid who trusted him, and the daughter of his old friend.
“Where’s this Egyptian cigarette joint?
“Around the corner. A block up Broadway. Coupla doors east.”
“Okey.”
He walked casually away. On the crowded sidewalk of noisy Broadway he increased his pace. It was hard to hurry because the sidewalk was roofed over with timbers to protect pedestrians from a building that was being torn down by wreckers. The timbered tunnel continued around the corner into the side street for thirty feet or so.
The cigarette shop was just beyond. A dusty, dogeared sort of shop with a cardboard cigarette cutout in the window and not much visible inside. A bell tinkled as Tracy opened the door, and a fat, olive-faced man behind a small counter glanced up with a greasy smile.
“Goot evenin’, sair. You weesh tobock—cigarette, no?”
“I’m looking for a boy I sent around here a little while ago. I gave him a five spot to buy me some cigarettes. Was he here?”
The greasy smile vanished from the face of the man behind the counter. He looked more like a Greek than an Egyptian. His eyes were suddenly scowling, his fat lips pressed together like sullen red cushions.
“No leetle boy come here, Mister.”
“He had five dollars.”
“No!”
“You sure he wasn’t here?”
“No! No boy come!” The words were spat out with explosive ugliness.
“Okey,” Jerry shrugged. “Have it your way, pal. I guess I was wrong. Gimme a pack of cigarettes to show there’s no hard feelings.”
Smilingly, he closed the door of the shop behind him. His face got serious. There was a narrow alley alongside the building, its entrance cluttered with dented ashcans. Tracy idled closer, glanced keenly east and west, and melted out of sight. He wanted to have a quiet look at the back of that shop. He didn’t like anything about that guy behind the counter—his looks and his talk had been sullen and nasty. There was a bare chance that Eddie might be lying roped and gagged in a small dusty bundle somewhere in the rear.
Jerry Tracy, Celebrity Reporter Page 52