Al Redman was cashier of the Times Square branch of the Mercantile Bank. He walked to work every morning from the East Forties, had an apple and a glass of milk at noon, and walked home again every night with his evening paper. He was a tall, gangling man with placid brown eyes and a shy, friendly smile. Nothing of the hard Broadway glaze about Al.
Perhaps for this very reason friendship had grown between the quiet cashier and his dapper columnist customer. Not that Jerry saw Al often; that was impossible for a feverish little comet like Tracy. But they did go to fights and hockey matches occasionally, and after Jerry had met Florence, he got in the habit of spending a pleasant evening in their cosy walk-up apartment over near the East River.
After a hectic day rubbing elbows with the phonies, the snides and smoothies along the Main Stem, an evening with the Redmans was like a vacation along a leafy trout stream. No wisecracks; ale instead of daiquiris; good solid talk about things remote from the headlines.
Al’s noon-hour visit to the Tracy penthouse had been utterly unexpected. His voice over the telephone wire had sounded high-pitched, strident. The moment he walked in, Tracy knew that something was desperately wrong with the man. Not from his appearance, although his smile seemed taut and twisted. It was the way Al’s feet tripped over the edge of the rug with unseeing awkwardness, the manner in which his bony fingers vised around Tracy’s extended hand.
“Jerry, I’ve got to talk to you. God knows I don’t want to drag you into anything unpleasant, but I don’t know where else to turn.”
“Trouble?”
“Yes.”
“Florence know about it?”
“No.”
Tracy grinned. “Let’s tackle it. What sort of trouble, Al?”
Redman said faintly, “This sort: I debated for nearly an hour in my cage at the bank, whether I’d use my lunch time today to come to you for advice, or to go to a certain doctor’s office on Park Avenue and kill him.”
There was silence for a moment.
“Sit down, Al,” Tracy said gently. “I’ll mix you a drink and then we’ll—”
“No drink. I’ve got to hand a thousand dollars in hundred-dollar bills to a blackmailer at nine-thirty tonight. He’s already taken every penny of my personal savings. Now he wants me to get it from the bank. Do you understand? From the bank!”
Tracy nodded. “I’ll do the worrying about the dough, Al. You give me the facts, as straight as you can talk. Take a deep breath. O.K. Shoot!”
He listened, watched the rug. Years of listening to the troubles of frightened people had taught Tracy the value of the averted face, the inclined ear, the impersonal silence of the confessional.
Al Redman blurted it out, relief in his racing words. The crook was Dr. Andrew Stoner. Al had gone to him for treatment following a breakdown from overwork in the bank during the hectic days and nights that had followed the market crash. Stoner had cured him—and trapped him. How thoroughly he had been trapped, Al didn’t realize until months later, when he had received a curt telephone summons to a brownstone house on the lower west side. The nature of that summons filled him with sick dismay.
Al had given Florence a fake excuse and gone. He was met at the brownstone door by a masked man with a gun, conducted to a room, handed a sheaf of typewritten pages and told to read. He found it to be a photostatic copy of every word he had uttered months earlier in the secluded quiet of Dr. Stoner’s study on Park Avenue.
Included in the pages was a secret that Redman was unaware he had divulged, lulled to hypnotic peace by the polished discs that always rotated during the psychoanalyst’s treatment. It was a confession that Redman had falsified the books of the bank where he was employed and had borrowed two thousand dollars.
“Borrowed, I said—not stolen!” Al gasped.
Technically, it had been theft; actually, it was not. Redman had needed two thousand dollars for an emergency operation on his wife. He took it, knowing he could replace every penny of it within ten days from savings that were temporarily frozen in an investment. The money was replaced, the books adjusted.
The masked man with the gun had demanded three hundred dollars as the price of his silence. He had pointed out deftly that the sum demanded was not large; that blackmail was cheaper than ruin. The bank officials might sympathize with the motives of a trusted employee, but they could scarcely keep him any longer. Nor would they recommend him to any other bank. Redman would not only lose the only livelihood for which he was fitted; he would be blacklisted for life.
Tremulously he had agreed to pay and was conducted from the house by the masked blackmailer with the gun. From that moment he had paid again and again at intervals nicely calculated to keep him from growing desperate.
Tonight he was expected to pay a thousand dollars which he didn’t have. His tremulous plea that he was broke amused the masked man who always interviewed him. He suggested with a chuckle that Redman repeat his knowledge of bank procedure and hide the theft with a dummy transaction on the books. Nine-thirty tonight or else. …
Tracy’s voice was very steady in the high-ceilinged penthouse room. “You’re certain the guy with the gun was Dr. Stoner?”
“I’m sure of it. Same height, same build. His voice was disguised—metallic, like a damned cricket—but I knew him. And there’s a small, crescent shaped scar on Stoner’s hand—an acid burn. I’ve seen that same crescent on the blackmailer’s hand every time I’ve kept an appointment. I tell you, it’s Stoner himself, shuttling like a damned Jekyll and Hyde between Park Avenue and a musty old brownstone on the fringe of Greenwich Village. God knows how many fools like me he has—”
“We’ll let the rest take care of themselves.” Tracy said curtly. “I’m a columnist, not a cop. I’ve got enough when he tries to put the heat on a pal of mine.”
The rasp went out of his voice. Smiling, he rose. “You’ve got just about time enough to make it back to the bank. Scram, or the vice-president in charge of time clocks will be giving you a look. Forget about blackmail. I’ll take care of the doc.”
“But—”
“I’ll call Florence and tell her I’ve got you dated for a hockey game. What time do you generally eat?”
“Six-thirty.”
“I’ll drop in while Florence is busy in the kitchen. I’ll give you final instructions then.”
He got rid of the dazed cashier by using what he called, the Vaudeville Push. It consisted of loud, jovial, reassuring while the victim was propelled to the door and out. He knew that Al’s ragged nerves were close to a break. But once he reached the street he’d get a grip on himself. Having spilled his secret to Tracy, there was no immediate danger of his going haywire with a gun. The grooves of habit would slide him swiftly back to his cage at the bank.
The taxi in which Jerry Tracy had ridden eastward through windy darkness halted in front of the modest apartment building in which Al and Florence Redman modestly lived.
“Stick around,” Jerry said. “I’ll be down in about five minutes.”
The hackman eyed the expensive derby, the imported Chesterfield, the flash of dinner clothes exposed by the V of the silken muffler. When guys said stick around, it meant either extra business or a gyp sneak. This guy was O.K. With a grunt the chauffeur unfolded a tabloid, swore when he found it was too dark to read, and went into a doze.
Al Redman opened the door upstairs. He said in a quick whisper, “She’s in the kitchen.”
“Swell.”
They moved quietly into the living-room and Tracy closed the door. He handed Al a sealed envelope. “Stick it in your pocket. Quick.”
“What is it?”
“A thousand bucks. Ten centuries. Keep that date at nine-thirty. Let the doc think you stole it from the bank. I’ll get in touch with you later tonight or tomorrow morning.”
Al’s face went white. He said slowly, “I can’t let you throw a thousand dollars away like that, Jerry.”
“Nuts. I spend a grand every year buying my hat back in r
estaurants—and think of the fun I’m getting. … You do exactly what I told you and leave the rest to me. So long, keed.”
He squeezed Al’s cold hand briefly and left the apartment as quietly as he had entered it.
Tracy climbed back in the cab, feeling a little edgy. He wanted to dine alone and do a little thinking before he attempted to crash the brownstone. He hadn’t told Al, but he had decided that was the only thing to do. He wanted to be hidden inside the dump and see the money passed. It might lead to gunplay, but it seem the only logical way to crimp Stoner’s racket. Tracy was confident he could talk the smooth doc out of trouble, once the cards were laid on the table. Stoner was just as vulnerable to police publicity as his frightened victim.
Smiling faintly, the Daily Planet’s little columnist drove to Raoul’s. The swanky Park Avenue atmosphere of Raoul’s would keep his mind on business. It amused him to see the doorman touch his hat respectfully, to see the headwaiter skim toward him with a fawning smile. Even at Raoul’s publicity in Tracy’s famous newspaper column was not to be sneezed at.
He was conducted to his usual table and his favorite cocktail was brought—even to the added dash of gin—without Tracy having to utter a word.
He was sipping meditatively, his back toward the other diners, when he happened to glance at an exquisite mirror on the draped wall. He stiffened, remained staring.
Two more customers had just come in. A tall, serious-faced young man was ordering drinks at a nearby table, his eyes frowning intently at the wine list. The girl opposite him was Gloria Stoner. In spite of himself Jerry had to admit that Gloria was physically gorgeous, a knockout. Tall, well-bred, coolly sure of herself, she sat back against her furred wrap, her shoulders like cream above her silver evening gown. She was watching Tracy.
Tracy sipped some more, set down his cocktail glass. Gloria’s deft glance in the mirror had conveyed very accurately to the columnist the sense that she considered him a small bug in black Tuxedo—though possibly an interesting bug. He could tell from the tightening of her lips that she knew who he was.
The man with her was Hadley Brown, her fiancé. Except for rather sullen eyes, he looked boyish in dinner clothes. A bit like a Harvard tackle with a grouch, Tracy thought. Actually he was a broker who did most of his business at polo fields and golf clubs.
Hadley Brown’s frown deepened as Gloria spoke to him in a low voice. He shook his head, turned to stare at Tracy’s back. Tracy’s interest quickened as he realized what was happening. The girl was getting rid of her companion. She did it so deftly, so competently that it was a pleasure to watch it.
Hadley Brown stood up. He shrugged at the girl, his face politely blank. He started toward the cloak room, then abruptly changed his mind. Veering, he came toward the table where Jerry sat amused and a bit mystified by the whole peculiar procedure.
Brown leaned close over Tracy’s shoulder, so that the columnist had to turn slightly to look up at him.
“Listen, you.”
“Yes?”
“I don’t know what your game is—”
“I like solitaire, if you don’t mind.”
They both spoke in undertones. It was impossible for anyone else to overhear the conversation. Tracy kept smiling. Brown’s face was taut, hostile.
“This isn’t the time or the place to create a scene, Tracy. I just want to tell you that I know you’re trying to cause trouble of some kind for my fiancée, and I’m warning you to watch your step! If you don’t, I’m ready to go the limit to make you stop. Is that clear?”
“Sorry I can’t offer you a drink, Mr. Brown,” Tracy murmured. “I would, only I don’t care either for you or your manners.”
“Remember, if you bother Gloria—”
“Good evening, Mr. Brown.”
For an instant the watchful columnist thought that the angry young man was going to reach out and throttle him where he sat. Instead, Brown straightened, continued his quiet way toward the cloak room. Except for Gloria no one could possibly have guessed the savage tension that underlay Brown’s momentary pause at Tracy’s table. He was gone with a light, springy step. It was as though he had merely halted to exchange a polite, low-voiced greeting with an acquaintance.
The only queer note was the blaze in his narrowed eyes. Tracy knew danger when he saw it. This very swanky guy wasn’t bluffing when he said he’d go the limit. Not by a damned sight!
Tracy thought with cold excitement: “Mr. Hadley Brown, eh? Where the devil does he fit into this little affair of the doc, the duck and the daughter?”
He had a hunch the daughter was going to make the next play.
A few moments later he saw without surprise that Gloria’s waiter was drifting discreetly across the room toward the table where Jerry sat toying with his empty glass.
The waiter said, “Miss Stoner presents her compliments to Mr. Jerry Tracy, and asks if he won’t bring his drink to her table and join her at dinner.”
Tracy grinned. This was stuff he liked. When he spoke his voice was nasal, very clear. “Why not? But tell her the pleasure is all hers.”
Gloria and Jerry Tracy had a cocktail together. He found he wasn’t as calm as he thought he was. He knew it when Gloria cancelled her dinner order, her blue eyes cold with mockery.
“I see by the papers, Mr. Tracy, that duck seems to be in fashion at the moment. Perhaps you’d better bring me roast duck, Henri.”
“A swell idea,” Tracy said harshly. “Eventually your duck will be cooked. Now’s as good as any time.”
But he couldn’t get a rise out of Gloria. He wondered why the hell she had sent for him. She looked wary, tense, but he couldn’t lead the conversation to her father. Perhaps she was nervous because of the decorous silence in the restaurant, the presence of so many other diners.
Jerry got angrier at himself as the meal progressed. There was smiling chit-chat between them, the crisp crackle of nastiness sugared over with amusement. Tracy let his barbed tongue go to work, but Gloria was as clever as he was. It was only after the liqueur glasses had been drained that Jerry got his chance to grin. It came when Gloria asked regally for the check.
“One always pays for entertainment,” she said with cool impudence. “I’ll sign for both of us, Henri.”
To Jerry’s delight, Henri shrugged, dropped his voice to a confidential whisper. “But, Madame, there ees no check. Dinner at Raoul’s, eet ees always complimentary for guests of Mr. Tracy.”
Grinning, Tracy helped Gloria with her furred wrap. She waited while he got his coat and hat at the check room. There was no sign of Hadley Brown. Tracy was still puzzled by this whole apparently senseless interview. Was it chance or a carefully designed maneuver?
Tracy got his answer when the two passed through the revolving door to the starlit chill of Park Avenue. The doorman’s husky whisper to Gloria made things crystal clear.
“Well, I see you found him, Miss Stoner.”
“Yes. I seem to be lucky tonight.”
They moved toward the cab at the canopied curb. Tracy gave the girl an edged smile. “I get it now, sister. A deliberate pick-up, eh?”
“Of course. How else would one meet a Broadway columnist?”
“O.K. You win. If you’ll excuse me, I’ll be getting back to the good old gutter.”
He stepped over the curb, got into the taxi. Before he could slam the door, Gloria slipped in beside him. Sat down with a cold little smile he didn’t quite like.
“Over to Fifty-ninth,” she said clearly to the driver. “Then up through Central Park.”
Tracy looked at his wrist watch. The time was not quite eight-thirty. He had a little more than an hour before he was due at the brownstone house on the fringe of Greenwich Village.
He said abruptly, “I don’t know what the gag is, babe, but I’m busy. I’ll give you to Fifty-ninth to get down to brass tacks. What do you want?”
“I want to talk sense to you.”
“Shoot.”
She turned slightly
and he saw that her silver evening bag was open. The furred edge of her wrap hid the snout of a tiny automatic pistol. It was squat, steady—but no steadier than the sound of Gloria’s whisper.
“One move out of you and I’ll put lead through that cheap shirt front of yours.”
“It’s not half as cheap as a gun bluff, sister.”
The taxi whirled through the plaza at Fifty-ninth, turned into the park. There were not many cars on the dimly lit road. Gloria kept her eyes and the gun on Tracy.
“I’d like to know just what you’ve got against my father.”
“Why don’t you ask him?”
“I’m asking you.”
“How do you want it? On a plate with mayonnaise, or straight?”
“As straight as you can talk.”
“O.K. Your old man is a crook. The rottenest kind. He’s been putting his dirty finger on a personal friend of mine—and holding it there till it hurts. So I’m running him out of town, and you with him, babe, because I think you’re a crooked chip off the same block of ice. And you might as well shove that rod back in your bag because I’ve been gunned by blondes a hell of a lot tougher than you.”
He still didn’t like the look in her eyes. They were slitted counterparts of her father’s. Her voice made him think of Stoner, too.
“Have you any proof of all this?”
“I don’t need proof, sweetheart. I’m not a cop. I told you once, I’m just a pal of the victim.”
“I think you’re a liar. There isn’t any victim, except Dad. So get this! If my father can’t protect himself, I will. You print one more of those slimy squibs about us in your moron newspaper, and—”
“Sure. I know. You’ll kill me.”
“Not at all,” Gloria Stoner said. “I’ll see that you’re killed, Mr. Tracy. A slight difference in method. Get your hand away from that window!”
But Tracy continued calmly to revolve the handle of the taxi’s window. The cab had stopped at a red intersection light. A park cop was leaning against the metal traffic pole, kicking his cold shoes together. Tracy stuck his grinning face out the opened window.
Jerry Tracy, Celebrity Reporter Page 61