“Where’s Gloria?” Brown growled.
“You talkin’ to me, pal?” Tick replied amiably.
Again Stoner cut in with a bland murmur. His hand lifted to his gray goatee, smoothed it. He smiled patiently.
“We may be mistaken, of course, but Mr. Brown thinks and so do I, that you may be able to cast some light on the rather erratic movements of my daughter tonight.”
“What makes you think that?”
Tracy was eying the back of Stoner’s lifted hand. On it, clearly distinct, was the bluish outline of a small, crescent-shaped scar.
“Gloria had dinner with me at Raoul’s on Park Avenue, if that’s what you mean.” Tracy’s smile glinted mockingly toward the doctor’s sullen companion. “Mr. Brown can tell you about that, I think. He was a party to the—dinner arrangement.”
“Where did you take her afterwards?” Brown growled.
“She took me. We went riding in Central Park. The conversation became boring and I left her.” Tracy’s quiet voice got cooler. “What am I supposed to do? Follow the gal all night and turn in a half-hourly report? I think you must have me mixed up, Doctor Stoner, with some other guy. Someone that you’ve hired, maybe? For five grand?”
Tick Anderson sat playing with the stem of his cocktail glass. He seemed not quite interested, not quite aloof. Stoner frowned as he noted that diners were staring across from near-by tables. The restaurant orchestra blared suddenly into a noisy swing number. Under cover of the brassy din, Stoner leaned toward Gloria’s fiancé and whispered an inaudible sentence. Hadley Brown shrugged, nodded. The two walked away.
Jerry Tracy let a waiter help him on with his Chesterfield and adjust the velvet collar above his silk muffler. “So long, Tick. Be seeing you—and I hope I see you first.”
His gibe brought no response from Tick. Hadley Brown’s sullenness seemed to have transferred itself to the heavy-featured gunman. Tick’s blue eyes were sultry. After a brief, unpleasant pause, the Daily Planet’s dapper little columnist clicked briskly through the noisy warmth of the restaurant and twirled himself out through the revolving sidewalk door.
Taxthi, Mithter Trathy?” the doorman spluttered cheerfully.
Jerry shook his head. He turned, heeled it northward along the cold sidewalk. The bite of the wind in his face felt good, seemed to wash him clean of tobacco smoke, breaded veal cutlets and jazz. The exhilaration lasted for three blocks, then he began to get cold again. It was ridiculous to think of walking all the way to Jane Anderson’s flat. That was where he had decided to go—Tick or no Tick.
This was one of those damned confidential things where Jerry’s police connections were of no use whatever. Jane was on the level, a good friend of Tracy’s. If she knew that Jerry’s life was actually in danger, she might take a hand, tell him things. She’d never betray Tick; but to imagine her sitting idly by and allowing Jerry Tracy to be sprayed into a graveyard with bullets—well, that was unthinkable.
He hailed a cab, climbed into its heated interior with a wriggle of pleasure. The taxi followed Broadway’s crooked slant across town. Tracy grinned, thought of a mild little squib for the column: “Broadway—consistently crooked from Bowling Green to 103rd.” A punk gag—but what the hell—you can’t always be good.
He watched street lights wink past, blurred and blobby outside the frosted window of his cab. At Lincoln Square the driver swerved into Columbus Avenue and racketed expertly north under the gloomy structure of the Elevated.
Tracy paid him off at a windy corner in the Seventies. Jane Anderson lived on the top floor rear of a dismal old barracks. It gave Jerry the creeps just to look at the cheap brown varnish on her apartment door.
There was no immediate answer to his ring and he was about to push the button again, when the door opened on a hesitant crack and Jane was staring at him.
“Oh! Hello, Jerry.” Her smile was quick, forced. He could see tension in the thin, sensitive lips. There was a sort of angry hangover in her eyes that he couldn’t understand. “I—I never expected to see you tonight. What are you doing so far from Times Square?”
She was trying to be offhand and making a botch of it.
He grinned. “Now that I’m here, sweetheart, don’t I get asked in?”
“Listen, Jerry, if you don’t mind—some other time. … ”
A voice said with cold clarity from inside the apartment. “Mr. Jerry Tracy, eh? By all means, have him in!”
It was a cool, high soprano, edged with contempt. The familiar sound of it pulled Tracy’s brows together. Gently he shoved the door open in Jane’s hand, so that he could step past her and in.
There was no foyer to cross. He found himself standing in a shabby living-room, staring grimly at Gloria Stoner. She had laid aside her furred wrap and had made herself comfortable on the sofa. She was still wearing the silver evening gown, one shapely leg crossed comfortably over the other. A cigarette waved him welcome.
“How do you do?” she said, her voice a nasal mockery of Tracy’s. But the cigarette gesture was jerky. Her eyes had the same angry tension as Jane’s. Tracy knew that the crossed legs and the cigarette was a build up, a swift pose decided on the moment she had heard his voice outside the apartment.
He turned away as though he hadn’t seen her. “I didn’t know you went in for blond bims from Park Avenue, Jane. What’s she doing here?”
“I sent for her.”
“Why?”
Jane didn’t answer.
“You’re always talking about brass tacks, Mr. Tracy,” Gloria said from the sofa. “How about opening a box of them right now, and sit down?”
Tracy’s fingers reached out, cupped Jane Anderson’s slack hand in his. She flushed under his probing stare. “I think I understand. She’s here because you’re worried about me. Right?”
“Yes.”
“We won’t mention any names because it’s not necessary. You found out that somebody has hired somebody else to gun me to death. You figured that Gloria is part of the crooked setup. So, knowing how hopeless it would be to argue with—”
“Tick—isn’t that his name?” Gloria interrupted spitefully. “We’ve been through all that before you came. Your girl friend with the blue eyes has just finished threatening my life, if I don’t call off a mysterious gunman named Tick who, I gather, is her brother.”
“O.K. So what are you gonna do about it?”
“Do?” Gloria rose abruptly to her feet. “I’m going to protect myself and my father. I’ve heard talk about blackmail and extortion until I’m sick of listening. I knew before I came here that—”
She sprang to her feet, faced Tracy with blazing eyes.
“You think I’m a fool, don’t you? You think I’m a pampered, over-soft deb, and that I don’t know what it’s all about. Well, I do! It’s plain enough to me now what I’m up against.”
“For instance?”
“A wise, undersized little crook, using your newspaper prestige to hide the fact that you’re a criminal racketeer. Pretending to be so damned noble, and in league with a killer and his moll. The Broadway type—a man who would sell out anything or anybody for the dirty dollars it brings. All right! Let’s talk business—your kind of business!
Eying her warily, Jerry drew in a quick breath of instinctive admiration. Gloria’s rage had stripped away all of her cool poise, all the sophisticated Park Avenue veneer. She was like a sinuous, vital young animal—a damned beautiful one, too.
“What’s your price, Mr. Tracy? How much do you want to call off this clever hold-up of yours?”
Tracy smiled. The momentary gleam washed out of his hard, practical eyes.
“No bribes, thank you. Maybe I know about your type, too. The Park Avenue type. Everywhere you go—butlers and footmen and grafters with their palms out! Drop a little perfumed dough in somebody’s palm, and no more worries, huh? As far as you’re concerned, you think everybody is a butler. Well, I’m not, sweetheart, and you can’t square me with a cash register!”
/> Sobbing, Gloria swung away from the tight-lipped columnist. Jane recoiled as the girl swished fiercely toward her, her bare arm outflung passionately.
“Jane, for God’s sake, why don’t you stop this—this horrible farce? You know exactly what’s going on. Your brother’s a gunman. Do you want him used as a stupid catspaw by Tracy? Do you want him hounded by police, arrested for conspiracy, sent to jail?”
“No, no. I—” Jane’s face was ashen. She shook her head as though trying to clear it of doubt and dismay. “Jerry, are you sure that—that you—”
“Forget it, Jane. I’ll talk to this dame. She’s got a swell act, but there’s one little question Gloria hasn’t answered yet. She’s going to, right now!”
With a quick gesture Gloria threw her furred wrap across the satin sheen of her shoulders. She moved regally toward the door. Tracy stepped in front of her, slightly shorter, not so rigid, but immovable nevertheless.
“Wait a second, babe. Why the big rush?”
“I’m leaving, Mr. Tracy!”
“You told me in the park that if I kept bothering you, you wouldn’t kill me yourself—you’d have me killed. Remember that ‘slight difference’ you talked about?”
“Get out of my way!”
“You wouldn’t be coming here to try to put the finger on somebody, would you, Miss Stoner?”
She slapped him stingingly across the face.
Jane Anderson cried out breathlessly, sprang toward the other woman. But Tracy, his cheek dead white except for the four red marks where gloved fingers had struck him, fended Jane away. He bowed to Gloria, stepped out of her path.
With her hand on the knob, Gloria turned. Her eyes were startlingly like her father’s. The same lidded look. Then the door clicked and she was gone.
The roar of a passing El train made the floor quiver. Jane was looking at Tracy, dull incredulity in her gaze.
“Jerry.”
“What?”
“Did Tick really—”
“Yeah. He did.”
“My God!”
“Come over here, Jane. Let’s sit down. We’ve got to figure this thing out some way. Did Tick tell you I was lined up?”
“He sort of hinted,” Jane whispered.
Tracy nodded. “Queer guy. Funny, the cockeyed slants he has. I was talking to him a little while ago over in the Blue Grotto. He told me how glad he was he missed. And he meant it, too.”
“That won’t stop him from trying again.”
“I know it.”
The carpet was faded in front of the sofa. So were the brown curtains that hung in the doorway between the living-room and Jane’s bedroom. Spotlessly clean, though, with the proud neatness of poverty. You could see where the nap was worn down from Jane’s restless feet. Poor kid, she had plenty to make her restless, even after a long day on her feet at Gimbels.
“Do you think there’s any truth in this stuff,” she said faintly, “about bones and skull pressure and—” She picked at a loose thread on the sofa cushion.
“You mean a surgical operation? Nuts. Tick’s trouble goes deeper than that. It’s his way of thinking. The guy’s got no imagination. He likes me as well as anyone, but if he popped me tomorrow I’d be just a tin can on a fence to him. He—well, he’s just incapable of seeing that when a guy gets killed, he dies. That’s as close as I can get to it. Does it make sense to you?” The rumble of an approaching El train drowned out Tracy’s hesitant words. He stared dully across the room at the brown curtain in the bedroom doorway. Some wiseacre on the editorial desk had told him once that a kid run over by an ice-wagon in front of his mother was a more poignant tragedy than the end of two million anonymous Chinks in a rice famine. There was a connection with Tick somewhere.
Suddenly Tracy stiffened. He was staring at a small ominous O in the vertical gap where the brown curtains were slightly parted. He saw a gun muzzle, a gloved hand. … The muzzle was swaying infinitesimally sidewise, toward the end of the sofa. Toward Jane’s averted profile. …
Tracy’s body moved like a steel spring. His hand clutched at Jane’s arm as flame spat from the curtain fold. The grinding roar of the passing El train masked the sound of the explosion. Jane Anderson fell head-first to the floor with Tracy tangled on top of her. There was a dusty bounce against the back of the sofa as if something had slapped it.
He heard something hit the living-room carpet behind him and he whirled on his knees. The fleeing killer had tossed his weapon into the room. It was lying on the floor, a small automatic with thin grayish vapor rising from its muzzle.
A door slammed somewhere as Tracy dove for the gun. Before he could wrench the brown curtains aside he heard the distant click of a bolt. He went billowing into the bedroom, fighting awkwardly to free himself from the tangling curtain.
The door he had heard slamming was on the opposite side of the bedroom. He tried it fiercely. Locked. He flung himself against the panel a couple of times before he realized he was too small a man to break it down. With the killer’s pistol still in his hand, he raced back to where he had left Jane.
She was up on her feet, the sleeve of her house dress ripped from shoulder to elbow where Jerry had clutched at her.
“You hurt, Jane?”
“N-no.”
“What’s on the other side of that bedroom door?”
“Bathroom and kitchen.”
“Is there a fire-escape in the kitchen?”
“Yes. It’s the only one there is. Did you—did he—”
“The guy made a getaway, if that’s what you mean,” Tracy snapped. “He’s gone—powdered—on the lam.” His glance moved downward to the pistol in his hand. Suddenly he gave a queer bewildered exclamation. “Here’s a funny one. It’s my own gun!”
“Yours?”
“Yeah. I lost it earlier tonight in an alley down in Greenwich Village.” He examined the weapon and found that just one bullet had been exploded. No fingerprints except Jerry’s; the killer’s hand had been gloved. He had meant Jerry to pick up the discarded gun; the tossing to the floor had been planned, not accidental.
Jerry shivered as his glance moved from the brown curtains to the bullet hole in the sofa. He guessed, instantly, the whole purpose of the attack. Frame-up!
He explained the frame jerkily to Jane. A girl dead; a slug from Jerry’s .32 in her body; Jerry’s own prints on the weapon. And a brother who loved the girl with fanatical devotion, racing to the apartment on a lying tip that Jerry had gone there to strong-arm her.
“Tick?” she gasped.
“Who else? Tick and I had an argument about you before I left him at the Blue Grotto. Stoner came up in time to hear the tail end of it. He sees his chance for a beautiful double-cross, playing on Tick’s one weakness. He thinks that Tick deliberately missed that alley ambush and allowed me to get away. But if he could make Tick hate my guts, what a beautiful out for the doctor! The kill would look like a personal vendetta. Stoner’s real motive would never appear—which is to wipe me out and end the threat to his blackmail business.”
“But the frame-up didn’t work.”
“You think so?” Tracy murmured huskily. His face was toward the apartment door. He seemed to be listening while he talked. “Try and make Tick think it’s O.K. when he sees my gun and the bullet hole in the sofa, and that ragged rip in your sleeve where I yanked you to the floor.”
“He’ll never believe me,” Jane gasped.
“He’s got to believe you. Sssh! Listen!”
Outside the apartment a faint thudding sound became audible; the hurrying rush of feet ascending stairs. It grew swiftly louder, approached the door. There was heavy breathing audible, then the swift rattle of the knob.
“Has Tick got a key?” Tracy breathed in Jane’s ear.
“Yes.”
Standing rigidly beside the girl in the center of the room, Jerry waited. He had tossed his gun over to the sofa. He felt icy-cold along the spine as he heard the lock click open.
Tick’s muddy-wh
ite face appeared in the doorway. The gunman’s left hand closed the door gently behind him. He remained rigid, watchful, only his clouded blue eyes moving. They took stock of Tracy and his sister; noted the long jagged rip along her sleeve; swung toward the gun on the sofa and the bullet hole above it.
His own gun lifted. He began to circle sidewise.
Jane threw herself desperately in front of Tracy. “Tick! You’ve got to listen to me. You’ve got—”
“Get away from her, Tracy.”
“Don’t do it, Jerry. Don’t move.” Jane’s voice was shrill, pleading. “I know what you’re thinking, Tick, but it isn’t true.”
“The hell it isn’t.”
“The hell it is!” Jane retorted. Terror left her as if by sudden magic. Her words became taut, steady. Tick gaped at her, disconcerted a little. He had never seen her so coldly imperious. Not a shrinking line in her whole slender body. Jerry had wisely kept quiet. He saw that with every passing second, Tick’s mastery of the situation was slipping. Tick was confused, uncertain.
“Have I ever lied to you?” Jane said. “Do you think I’d double-cross you—for Jerry Tracy or anyone else on earth?”
He said thickly, “I got eyes, ain’t I?”
“It’s brains you need, Tick, not eyes!” The hardness swept away from her. She made a queer laughing sound, more sob than laughter. There was impatience in it, the half-amused anger of a mother with a stubborn child. “Oh, Tick, Tick! It’s so hard to talk sense to you!”
“Tracy came over here to rough you up, didn’t he? He fired that gun, or maybe you grabbed it and—”
Jane shook her head. She told him in a level voice exactly what had happened. Tick blinked. When Jane talked like that, looked like that, it was the pay-off. Good enough to cash bets on.
There was a long silence. Tick put his gun away.
He said to Tracy, “Who do you think it was?”
“Are we on the same side, Tick?”
“The guy tried to kill my sister, didn’t he? For —— sake, Jerry, how much guarantee do you want?”
“O.K. Who hired you to rub me out?”
“The guy was about Stoner’s build. He had a black mask on that covered his whole pan when I talked to him. Spoke damn little. But he sounded a hell of a lot like Stoner. Come to think of it, so did the voice on the phone that told me to come tearin’ over here.”
Jerry Tracy, Celebrity Reporter Page 63