“What were you doing around here?”
“None of your damn business.”
Tracy shoved abruptly past Druse. He walked to the parked car, leaned in, pawed through it quickly for a gun. He found none. Druse watched him alertly until Tracy turned.
“Mind if I do a little pocket patting?” Tracy rasped.
“You lay your dirty paws on me and I’ll pat you to death!”
They glowered at each other. Then Druse suddenly changed his tactics. He made a small, apologetic sound and his face twisted into a grin.
“This is damn silly! We ought to be teaming up instead of scrapping. Aren’t we both after the same thing?”
“What are you after?”
“I’m not sure—maybe Paul Voisin. What you told me about him back in Linda’s apartment stuck in my mind, you see. If you noticed, I didn’t tell Inspector Carlson about Voisin’s presence in the apartment, or his peculiar method of getting in and out.”
“Are you on the murder side now?”
“I don’t know. I came over here to interview Voisin and see what I could find out. I’m willing to cooperate with you, so long as we keep one thing clear between us.”
“What’s that?”
“Linda. If you honestly believe that Linda was murdered, I’ll back you to the limit. But if you’re deliberately twisting a suicide into a fake murder for the sake of building up a Daily Planet sensation—” Druse’s shaking voice steadied into a whisper that was more ominous than if he had yelled. “Then I’ll most certainly kill you!”
“Your idea is that this bullet hole in my hat is a circulation build-up?”
Druse’s creased lips exposed his teeth. “The hat is why I’m proposing an armistice.”
Tracy didn’t trust this curly-headed guy with the bleak eyes. But he conquered the impulse to get away from him and hunt up Butch. God only knew where Butch had driven the Tracy car! And there was a scrap of paper with a taxi license on it that was burning a hole in Tracy’s pocket. Tracy shrugged and stepped into Druse’s Ford.
“O.K. Drive me to the nearest phone booth. After that, I may have a little something on Monsieur Voisin and his girl friend.”
“Girl friend?”
“Didn’t you know he has a mistress?”
“Hell, no! Are you sure?”
Druse wanted to talk about it, but a horn, sounding like the muted baying of an ocean liner, made Tracy jerk his head out the Ford window. He cursed with exasperated relief. Butch was beckoning with a pleased and guilty smile from the Tracy chariot. “Hi yuh, keed!”
“Where the hell have you been?”
“Now, look, Jerry. Don’t git sore! What I done was a perfectly yooman thing. This here dame had red hair and—”
“And a size 42 bust,” Tracy growled. Well, she wasn’t exactly an ironing-board, Butch admitted. He had coughed Sand the dame had stopped to admire the boat. Butch took her for an easy two-mile swing around town. Just to show her how smooth the boat worked. “I told her I was Rockefeller’s head chauffeur. We got a date for tomorrow night. She slapped me on the puss, but I don’t think she meant it. Anyhow, I’ll find out about that tomorrow night. I mean, if you’re not busy, and don’t mind lettin’ me borrow the boat.” Tracy made a helpless gesture of rage. He and Druse crossed over and got in the roomier car. “Drive, lunkhead! Find me the nearest drug-store.”
It took Tracy a deal of telephoning to run down the license number of the hacker who had carried Julie. The fact that the motor vehicle bureau was closed for the night made it harder. But after some urgent cross talk and a switch to another number, a duplicate record file was turned up and Tracy’s hot eyes quieted down. His man sounded like a Greek. George Metaxas. He owned his cab and lived in Ozone Park, over in Queens. Butch speeded things up after a covert glance at the strained faces of his two passengers. The car skimmed over the Queensboro Bridge and made nice time along Queens Boulevard. Tracy told Druse a few of the things in his mind, but not all. When Tracy swayed sideways he could feel a gun lump in Druse’s pocket. There wasn’t any especial warmth to it, but there had been plenty of time for a hot weapon to cool.
The house of George Metaxas was like all its neighbors on a dark, tree-lined street. Square ugly eggs, laid by a cheap realty company. Complete, with weedy lawns, sagging porches and a twenty-year mortgage plan.
Butch remained at the corner with the car. Tracy and Druse headed through the Metaxas weeds. The house was as dark as the grounds. Tracy had taken it for granted that the hacker had headed straight home after his payoff by Voisin. Now he wondered if the swift trip to Queens had been a waste of time. The damned Greek might have decided to spend Voisin’s dough in some Manhattan bar and grill.
Tracy went around the side and tried the garage door. It was locked. Druse climbed the porch and rang the bell.
The door was opened with savage suddenness by a man with a gun. Druse squealed and flung himself backwards. He collided with Tracy, and the two of them rolled headlong down the porch steps.
The man with the gun cleared the porch with a single leap. He crouched over his victims, almost invisible in the blackness.
“Don’t move, you ——, or I’ll blast your guts!”
He seemed to have his mob with him. They leaped from behind bushes and shrubs. One of them crawled from underneath the porch. Another raced around the house from the rear door.
An electric torch made a blinding white oval of light on the prisoners.
Somebody said, “Damn it!” in a bellow of rage. It was a foghorn voice that Tracy recognized with a cold spasm of wonder.
He whispered tremulously, “Fitz?”
More lights flashed. The front yard of the hack driver’s home began to look like the aurora borealis. None of the cops was in uniform.
Inspector Fitzgerald was twice as stupefied as Tracy. He stood staring at the columnist, his face like a hunk of weathered granite. He had tousled white hair and narrow, stooped shoulders. Inspector Fitzgerald was close to the retirement age. But there was nothing feeble about him or his gun.
“What the hell are you doing here?”
Tracy told him very meekly. He identified Richard Druse. He explained the wild hunch that had led them innocently into a baited police trap. Fitz uttered an oath of disgust.
“I thought I had a pair of cop killers! Well, my scheme is all nicely shot now. Turn on some house lights, Kennedy! We’re through for tonight, it looks like.”
Fitz’s exasperation faded. He and Tracy were old friends. Tracy had cooperated many times on criminal problems that had brought exclusive scoops to Tracy’s column and official prestige to Fitz. It was an ideal arrangement. Tracy didn’t mind Fitz taking the credit. All Jerry ever wanted was the inside news before anyone else.
“We’re hunting two different animals,” Fitzgerald said.
“I think you’re wrong. I think it’s the same animal!”
“Why?”
“The more I keep chasing this Linda Payton suicide, the more I run into that motorcycle cop’s bump. Don’t you think it’s damn queer that you and I start on two different cases—then ram heads together like this?”
“Coincidence.”
But the idea interested Fitz. He found out about the hackman from the summons book of the cop whose head had been bashed in. It was the last entry in the book. The charge was speeding.
“Metaxas is in the clear,” Fitz said. “If he or his fare had killed the cop, they certainly wouldn’t have left that summons stub intact. They’d have ripped it out of the book! No, Jerry, the guy that killed the cop did it before the summons was written out. Maybe right after Metaxas was waved on, and drove this French dame to Payton’s home. That’s why I used the Greek as bait. I publicized the fact over the radio that Metaxas had lingered and caught a glimpse of the killing; then got scared and stepped on the gas. I figured the killer might get jittery and try to rub out a possible eye-witness. And all I get is—nuts!”
“Don’t you think it’s queer t
hat Paul Voisin’s mistress should be in such a hurry to get to Cass Payton’s home on the very night his daughter is supposed to do the Dutch act?”
“I didn’t know that the woman in the cab was Voisin’s mistress. How did you find out that Metaxas drove her to Payton’s home?”
“You just told me,” Tracy said. “Bring that Greek out here! I want to talk to him.”
Metaxas was a hammered-down little man with dark, liquid eyes and a face like rice pudding. He was sweating profusely. He didn’t look like a murder accessory, or even a blackmailer. He admitted that Paul Voisin had tipped him plenty to keep his mouth shut concerning the excursion with Julie. But he insisted that the motorcycle cop had been alive and healthy the last he had seen of him after the ticket episode.
“A woman couldn’t have done the kill anyway,” Fitz said sourly.
“This woman could! She’s as strong as a tigress. When she took a grip on my wrists back at Voisin’s apartment, she left them black and blue. If Julie happened to have a wrench in her hand—”
“Listen, mister—” the hackman began.
Tracy ignored him.
“All she had to do was to let the cop lean over to write the ticket. Before he got his pencil to the paper, she let him have one over the skull. He went down dazed. She sprang out and battered his head in. You know that stretch of road, Fitz; it’s as lonely as hell.”
The hackman finally interrupted.
“You guys are nuts! I keep telling you the dame didn’t do nothing! She just sat there and I took the ticket. She told me she’d pay the speed fine later, and that’s why this feller later on gave me the century extra. Hell, would I take a chance on the electric chair for a hundred bucks?”
“Skip the cop murder,” Fitzgerald told Tracy irritably. “That’s my job! Yours is the Payton suicide. Why should Julie kill Linda?”
“Easy. Julie has a nice arrangement with Voisin. His marriage would queer that.”
“Why should it? The way you described Voisin, he’d just carry on with his left hand, anyway. Julie’s game wouldn’t be to kill Linda. If she went to Payton, it was to tell him that she was Voisin’s mistress so she could block the marriage. But why should she kill the cop?”
“Maybe she was afraid Voisin might discover—”
“Hell! Julie asked him to pay her cab bill!”
Tracy flushed. It did sound fishy, even to him. Fitz’s ire was rising. “Look, Jerry! You don’t often go wrong, but when you do, you smell. You haven’t got a thing except a lot crazy guesswork.”
“Do you call Voisin’s guilty sneak from the alley guesswork? And what about the open service door? What about the wine glass that somebody washed out and put back wet on the table?”
Tracy’s own gorge was rising. Fitzgerald’s mocking smile made him think of the fat-headed Carlson. He mentioned the bottle of cedar oil polish that had been upset in an otherwise spick and span pantry closet.
“Whoever killed Linda got there in time to poison the inner surface of both wine glasses, Fitz. But not in time to get away. Linda showed up unexpectedly—or something. Anyway the killer was trapped in the pantry closet. Couldn’t get out until Linda got tired of waiting for Druse and took her fatal drink. The killer had planned to make it look like a suicide pact between Linda and Druse. Druse’s late arrival ruined that. So the killer washed out the other glass and—”
“I told you once before,” Fitz growled, “that when you’re bad, you smell! There can’t be a murder, if the murderer didn’t read that ‘burning candle’ note from Linda to Druse. And Druce says he showed it to no one at all.”
“That’s one fact I can swear is true,” Druse said quietly.
If he’d shouted, Tracy might have held on to a ray of hope for his tottering murder edifice. But there was complete sincerity in Druse’s low tone.
“Go on home to bed,” Fitzgerald said. “You’re tired.”
Tracy was silent for a moment, looking forlorn and beaten. Then his slumped shoulders lifted. The stubborn look came back into his bleak eyes. He spoke quietly to George Metaxas. “Got a phone in your house?”
“Yeah.”
Tracy went inside. A fat woman in a flannel nightgown was holding a swarthy little Metaxas on her hip. The child was crying and the woman was trying to placate it with a chunk of buttered rye bread. The cop on duty looked bored. He didn’t interfere with Tracy’s use of the telephone.
Tracy called the apartment of Paul Voisin. Nobody answered the ring. Tracy’s stubborn eyes brightened a bit, He dialed again and got the Waldorf-Astoria. Cass Payton always stayed at the Waldorf whenever he came to town. But he wasn’t there now. Mr. Payton had already left, the clerk declared. He had telephoned for a Miss Nixon and the two had hurriedly departed in Payton’s car.
“Thanks,” Tracy said.
He went outside and spoke briskly to Metaxas.
“I’d like you to take a little ride to Connecticut with me.”
“Nix! Why should I do that?”
“For dough. Voisin gave you a hundred bucks to play with. I’ll double that offer. Two hundred smackers.”
“What am I supposed to do?”
“Just answer a couple of questions, maybe.”
Metaxas began to grin like a capitalist.
“It’s a deal, if it’s all right with the cops here.”
Fitz frowned. But Tracy cut in eagerly. “Don’t be a dope, Fitz. You can’t lose! If my hunch is correct, you’ll clean up your cop killing and the Linda Payton case with one shot. It will blow Inspector Carlson and his suicide theory into the ashcan. It will call off the political wolves that are on your tail. Carlson can’t stand another public failure. He’ll be ripe for the sewer.”
Fitz rubbed his long nose slowly. “O.K., Jerry.”
Butch drove the big car across to Flushing and over the Whitestone Bridge. On the way up through Connecticut the car’s hum increased to a steady roar. Butch’s grin widened. Tracy spoke to Metaxas only once.
“You got that speed ticket on the way out here, didn’t you?”
“Yeah.”
“You drove pretty slowly coming back?”
“Sure. I wasn’t taking no chances on another pinch.”
“Did you notice any fast cars passing you?”
Metaxas nodded. He growled angrily at the recollection. “Yeah, one. It musta been doing ninety. It come at me like a bat outa hell. Almost wrecked me in a ditch.”
“Which way? What did it look like?”
“From Noo York. I couldn’t see the driver on account of the bright lights. The car was a sport coupé. An expensive one.”
Tracy nodded and resumed his thoughtful reverie. He woke up when Butch turned into the driveway of Cass Payton’s estate. His hand dipped into his pocket as he hurried to the front door and rang the bell. A wooden-faced servant opened the door.
“I’d like to talk to Mr. Payton,” Tracy said with an official rasp.
“Sorry, sir. He isn’t at home. He stopped here briefly and then drove over to Miss Nixon’s house.”
“Where does she live?”
The butler told him and started to close the door. Tracy stopped that with his foot and a brief flash of his cupped palm. He used the same old badge trick. It worked.
“Was Mr. Payton here when the police first phoned the news of his daughter’s death?”
“No, sir. He had left to keep an eight o’clock engagement with Miss Nixon. I transferred the call over there.”
“Payton was there up until then?”
“No, sir. He was away all the afternoon until early evening. He came in, changed quickly to dinner clothes and left at once. That is, almost at once. There was a brief delay.”
“What do you mean?” Tracy eyes glinted. “Did a woman come to see him?”
“Yes, sir. She was very insistent. Mr. Payton talked briefly with her in his private sitting-room. He was very angry about her visit. I—er, showed her the door.”
At Tracy’s curt demand he described t
he woman. It was Julie, the luscious mistress of Paul Voisin.
“Any idea where Mr. Payton spent his time today?”
“No, sir.”
Tracy went back to his car, his mouth a tight line. He took the wheel himself and drove to Martha Nixon’s home. It was smaller than Payton’s layout, but pleasantly wooded and very nice. Tracy parked the car in leafy shadow and took a look at the house. A lamp was lit in the living-room. Tracy got his eye promptly at a lighted chink under the drawn shade.
Payton and Martha Nixon were talking together. That is, Payton was talking. He seemed excited and pale. Martha listened, occasionally making what looked like a shocked protest. Tracy couldn’t hear a word through the tight glass.
He circled the house, looking for a way to get in. The ground floor windows and the cellar offered no hope. But a glance upward showed Tracy an open window on the second floor. A near-by oak dropped a thin, shaggy branch toward the sill of the opened window. The branch didn’t look very substantial, but Tracy’s tight smile widened.
He sneaked back to the parked car and whispered to Butch and Metaxas. “I’m going inside. There may be some trouble. If anything nasty happens, I’ll raise some kind of a rumpus. If I do, bust in fast through a window and start swinging!”
Butch said, “Swell!” But the Greek hack driver looked dubious. “The hell with that! What do I git out of it?”
“You get two hundred bucks in cash. If somebody bumps me, you get Bung! Think it over.” Metaxas pondered a while, then grinned. “Gimme a tire iron! I can’t afford to be nootral!”
“One apiece,” Butch growled. They took up positions in the darkness outside the living-room. Tracy sneaked back to his oak. He was a small man, as active as a monkey; but the frail branch was a ticklish proposition. Tracy was cold with sweat by the time he clutched the sill of the upper window and bellied inside. He tiptoed toward the hallway. But before he could leave the room, the dull glint of metal at a chimney opening caught his roving eye. It was a metal shield to cover a flue opening that was no longer in use on account of spring. Its carelessly crooked position made Tracy think instantly of a pantry closet and a spilled bottle of cedar oil.
Jerry Tracy, Celebrity Reporter Page 93