Innocent Bystander

by Craig Rice

  He wished it had been almost anyone else in the world, sitting on Amby’s stool last night. But the brown-haired girl was the only person standing between him and safety.

  Well, almost the only person.

  It was just as they left the pony ride that he spotted them, a few hundred feet away. McGurn’s men.

  “Just one more thing,” Tony said quickly, “and then we go home.” He led them toward the Diving-Bell.

  Had the two gunmen spotted him? He couldn’t be sure. He decided that after leaving the Diving-Bell, they’d go through the undersea museum. From there he’d be able to tell if the gunmen were still hanging around and make plans accordingly.

  Suddenly he wasn’t afraid for himself but for Kit and Pat. For Ellen. Then he laughed at himself. Softy!

  A moment later the Diving-Bell came up with a gigantic splashing and churning and was ready for new customers. Tony had the tickets and, in one more moment, they were safely inside, making the slow descent.

  Holding Pat up to a porthole, Tony was barely conscious of what they were seeing or of Pat’s delighted comments. He thought things over. McGurn’s men wouldn’t dare anything on the Pier in broad daylight, with the crowds around. Not any more than he would. Especially with the two children there.

  As the Diving-Bell prepared to come up with its usual rush, he made up his mind. He’d walk down the length of the Pier right past McGurn’s men, if they were still there. Even thumb his nose at them if they looked in his direction.

  Out in the blazing sunlight he looked, more curiously than cautiously now, down the Pier. They were out of sight.

  Not for long, he reminded himself grimly.

  He walked down to the end of the Pier with Ellen and the children and paused at the door of the hotel. Kit and Pat rushed in through the door to greet a woman he guessed must be Mrs. Murphy.

  He took Ellen’s arm for a moment. Very gently. “Wait. What do you do when you’re not taking care of Kit and Pat? I mean—I thought perhaps we might—”

  “I’m sorry,” she said, quickly and smoothly. “I’m busy tonight.” Without another word she disappeared into the dismal little lobby.

  Tony mentally kicked himself. Using a line as if she were just another Pier pick-up! He knew better than that.

  He watched her through the glass door as she crossed the lobby and headed for the stairs. Suddenly he saw something that made him stiffen.

  O’Mara was standing in the lobby. He looked as though he’d been waiting for a long time. O’Mara had seen the girl come in, and he had started in the direction of the stairs.

  For O’Mara to get to the girl before he did would be ruin! Somehow, some way, he had to get O’Mara away from there. Fast.

  Chapter Seven

  HIDE-OUT

  Ellen Haven crossed the lobby hastily, almost breathlessly. Her face had grown slightly pale again. All she wanted now was to reach the security of her room.

  She stopped short when she heard a gruff voice calling out, “Hey, you!”

  Instinctively she knew it was calling her; just as instinctively she turned her head.

  She saw O’Mara’s towering six-foot-one frame lumbering toward her. The word “copper” was written all over him. He was handsome in a heavy, brutal kind of way, slickly dressed from his highly polished shoes to his carefully knotted tie. His blond hair was glistening with oil. It wasn’t his clothes or his appearance that spelled copper; rather it was something about his movements, his whole attitude. There was an unlighted cigarette in the corner of his mouth.

  She thought of flight and then paused. “Did you call me?”

  O’Mara took the cigarette from his mouth and grinned. “Uh-huh,” he grunted. He dug one hamlike hand into his coat pocket and came up with a leather-enclosed badge, which he flashed noncommittally at Ellen. “Yeah, you,” he said. “Where can you and me sit down and talk—about this, that, and the other thing?”

  Ellen stared at him, her dark blue eyes puzzled. “Talk about what?” she demanded.

  O’Mara grinned. He’d decided long ago that he was irresistible to women. “You know,” he said smoothly, “you’re too nice a dame to go and get yourself mixed up in, well—” He paused. “Well, this, that, and the other thing.” He took hold of Ellen’s arm. “Come on,” he insisted. “Let’s you and me talk about old times over a beer, huh?”

  Ellen tried to free herself from his clutching fingers. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said frantically. “And I don’t know you, either. Let me go!” She managed to wrench her arm loose, and it tingled with pain from his tight grasp. Tears came to her eyes.

  O’Mara shook his head sympathetically. “You don’t, huh?” he said. “Now don’t try to tell me you weren’t the same girl who—”

  The sudden explosion of two gunshots froze the rest of the sentence in his mouth. Automatically his right hand dropped to his holster as his left hand pushed Ellen back toward the stairs. Terrified, she stifled a scream.

  O’Mara leaped away from her and ran to the front of the lobby, from which the two shots had come. He saw a small crowd of people gathered around someone on the worn leather sofa. Brandishing his gun, he strode over to the sofa and pushed his way through.

  “What’s going on here?”

  He looked down at the sofa and saw a sheepish-looking, emaciated man holding a 22-caliber rifle. A thin curl of smoke drifted up from the barrel. The man looked up at O’Mara and grinned apologetically.

  “It went off accidental-like,” the man said.

  “You got a license to carry a gun?” O’Mara roared.

  The skinny man felt in his pocket and jerked his head in the direction of the Pier. “I run the shooting-gallery. This here gun was jammed, and I was only trying to fix it. That was all.”

  O’Mara snorted in disgust. “I got a good mind to run you in, anyway.” Suddenly he remembered. The girl. He’d left her alone. The pit of his stomach fluttered ominously. He wheeled and ran back to the foot of the stairs, where he’d left Ellen.

  O’Mara groaned, cursed, and wailed all at one time.

  Ellen wasn’t there.

  Tony sat in the rubber-neck bus and stared at Ellen silently. He saw a wisp of brown hair curling along the nape of her white neck. Soft, shining brown hair. Trusting eyes. But not smiling eyes, not now. Frightened and bewildered, and not seeing the hot-dog stands, the fortune-telling joints, the delicatessen stores, all the shops and hotels streaming past them as the bus sped silently up the oceanside boardwalk. Her face was pale; tiny drops of perspiration showed on her upper lip. She was still breathing fast.

  She turned to Tony. “What happened? Who was shooting?”

  Tony smiled reassuringly at her. “I got Happy Jack to do me a favor,” he said. “Hap runs the shooting-gallery. I told him to see what would happen if he accidentally fired one of his rifles in the lobby of the hotel.”

  “Why?”

  “Why,” Tony said, “I knew that would get the cop away from you. Then I ducked in the side entrance and grabbed you. And here we are.”

  “Where? Where are we?”

  Tony studied her face carefully. Did she know anything? Was she pulling an act? No, she couldn’t be. Not with a face like that. Innocent and frightened. Not with her eyes. Deep blue, and still shining with tears. Just as Amby had drawn them. He decided that Amby wasn’t a bad artist, after all.

  “Where are we going?”

  “You can’t go back to the hotel,” Tony said. “That’s a lead-pipe cinch. Not with the cops on your tail. I’ll find a place for you to hide out.”

  “But why? Why?” Tears threatened to flow again. “I haven’t done anything. I don’t understand. The—that—policeman—and the shooting—”

  “Take it easy,” Tony said very calmly. He pulled out his handkerchief and touched her eyes gently. “That’s right.”

  Lucky, he told himself, there weren’t any other passengers within earshot. Because right now he had to sell her on the idea of hidi
ng from the police, until he could find out for sure how much she really did know. He shifted his body so that he was facing her squarely.

  “Listen, kid,” he said. “I just met you this afternoon, but I like you. I happen to know you’re in a jam through no fault of your own and, because I like you, I want to help. That’s why you’re here.”

  She was watching him closely, wide-eyed.

  “A guy was murdered last night,” Tony said. “On the Ferris wheel. You happened to be having your picture drawn by Amby about the time he was being murdered. The cops think maybe you saw something.” He stopped talking. He watched her face for the slightest sign of a reaction. The flickering of an eyelid. The twitch of a mouth corner. But there was nothing. Only puzzled concern. “Did you see anything?”

  She stared at him blankly. “I was there,” she said slowly. “I thought I’d have a picture made to send to my folks.” She paused. “I didn’t like it, so I tore it up and threw it away. But I don’t think I saw anything.” She seemed to be trying to dig back into the mists of memory for something solid to seize upon. “I couldn’t have. Because if I’d seen anything like that, I’d remember it.”

  Tony scowled. She thought she didn’t remember anything, but he knew better. Right now she didn’t associate him with what had happened on the wheel, but let the cops get hold of her and put her through the wringer and she’d remember, all right.

  Was she pretending? No, he told himself. She was just a nice kid who’d gotten mixed up in a rotten mess. Just how rotten for her, she couldn’t even imagine.

  She said suddenly, “That policeman frightened me—he was—rough. But if that’s all they want, I can tell them I was there and I didn’t see anything.”

  “If you think he was rough,” Tony said. He paused. “Look, baby, they can hold you as long as they want to, as a material witness. And jail is a lousy place to be. You’ll be a lot better off if you let me hide you out somewhere until this is all over.”

  “Well—if you think I’d better—”

  As she seemed to soften against his arm, he wondered if she’d agreed too easily. Then he dismissed the thought indignantly.

  He got up suddenly and grabbed her arm. “Okay,” he said, “here’s where we get off.” He helped her down to the sidewalk and said, “I know a little side street motel where you’ll be safe. Nothing fancy, but at least you won’t need to worry about a thing.”

  They walked up the narrow street in silence. Tony found himself watching the little curl of hair that wisped out over Ellen’s neck and wanting to touch it. It looked so soft, so silky.

  He steered her into a sleazy, shabby motel court, where he knocked at the door of the manager’s house. A wizened little old woman opened the door. Cotton stockings were bunched around her pipestem ankles; her dirty gray hair stuck out from her head like an evil nimbus. She smelled heavily of onions and stale beer.

  When she saw them, her eyes glittered. A young couple like this meant a couple of bucks for only a couple of hours. She wasn’t too eager to rent out one of her cabins for longer.

  Tony turned on all his charm. He knew how to get around women, especially this kind. He got a cabin for an indefinite stay.

  The old woman led them to the vacant cabin, where Tony tucked an extra dollar bill into her hand along with two days’ rent in advance. He managed to smother his distaste enough to chuck her chin with his forefinger. There was a hairy wart on it.

  “You’re not so bad yourself, cutie,” he said.

  The old lady grinned gratefully and left them standing alone in the cabin.

  They saw sickly calcimined ecru walls. Soiled. Everything about the place was soiled. Dirty. Used. Overused. The sagging bed. The patched coverlet. The crippled chiffonier. The crookedly hung pictures of “The Last Indian” and a blind girl playing a lute. Even the odor of the room was soiled.

  Tony felt immediately misgivings. A girl like Ellen should have a better place than this to—he stopped his thoughts sharply. After all, he still didn’t know.

  He examined the layout of the cabin. It was perfect for a getaway. His practiced eye always made sure of that. A rear door opened into a back alley. The alley led to an open street. No dead end to get cornered in. The windows opened into a tiny yard. The fence was low enough to hop over easily. Beyond the yard was an open vacant lot. Yes, it was good for a swift getaway, he reflected. He might need one. Soon.

  He turned to Ellen apologetically. “It isn’t much,” he said.

  Ellen touched his arm. “It’ll do,” she said gratefully.

  The slight pressure of her hand, the soft curving smile of her pink mouth set his heart pounding. He hadn’t intended to touch her; indeed, he’d made up his mind not to. But before he realized it, his arms were around her.

  Her lips were soft and warm, as he’d known they would be. Warm and yielding, like the rest of her.

  Suddenly he let her go, almost roughly, and stepped back from her. For a long moment neither spoke. Then Tony turned toward the door.

  “You stay here till I get back.”

  She looked at him fearfully. “Where are you going?”

  “You’ll need something to eat,” he told her. “I don’t dare take you out to a restaurant. The cops will be looking for you, and I don’t want them to find you.”

  She relaxed and smiled at him.

  He opened the door. “I’ll be back before you know I’ve gone. And don’t be afraid.”

  “I’m not,” she said simply. “Not a bit. Not with you around.”

  Tony closed the door behind him and walked jauntily to the street. When he straightened his coat, he felt the sag of the gun in his shoulder holster. The happy grin on his face clouded over.

  She trusted him. That sweet, innocent little kid trusted him. He felt like a heel.

  Chapter Eight

  “A MOUTH LIKE A BRUISED ROSE.”

  “Some damn bum gets beat to death in some damn alley,” Art Smith said bitterly, “and nobody cares. Except, maybe, the bum. Maybe he wanted to stay alive. Or maybe his folks care, if he has any, back in Whosiwats, Michigan, or Whatchamaycall it, Maine.”

  Lee Dickson, Chief of Detectives, listened and said nothing.

  “McGurn gets knifed in an amusement park, and who cares? The whole stinking police department.” Art Smith lighted a cigarette and threw a match inaccurately at the wastebasket.

  “McGurn is just as dead as the bum,” Lee Dickson said gently. “Maybe he didn’t want to be murdered, either.”

  A shudder ran through Art Smith’s body. “Nobody wants to be murdered. Right now I’d rather find out who murdered the bum. Dead or alive. I like him better than I do McGurn.”

  “So do I,” said Dickson. “But the newspapers don’t.”

  “The hell with them,” Art Smith said.

  Dickson looked at him thoughtfully. Art Smith’s eyes were bloodshot and red-rimmed from lack of sleep.

  “The newspapers are riding us,” Dickson said. “But you’re dead on your feet, Art. Go home and take a nap.”

  “I was home,” Art Smith said stubbornly. “I took a nap.”

  Lee Dickson sighed. A lifetime on the police force had given him a few theories about people. One, that he liked them. He stared at Art Smith and wondered what he wasn’t being told.

  He had a few theories about murder, too. The most important one was that he was against it.

  Lee Dickson was a big man. Six foot one, and definitely on the plump side. It wasn’t easy for him to lift himself from the swivel chair behind his desk. He started the slow process.

  “Art,” he said, “maybe I should put somebody else on this case, huh?”

  Art Smith shook his head.

  Dickson braced his elbow on the arms of the chair. “Look,” he said, “the newspapers are riding the D.A.’s office. And the D.A. is riding me. So I’m riding you. And maybe you can ride O’Mara. And he rides anybody who has the tough luck to get in his way.”

  “What about it?” Art Smith g
rowled.

  “It was McGurn who was killed, remember? Not some bum killed in an alley, stinking of rot-gut.”

  Dickson managed to pull himself to his feet with the aid of a few labored grunts. “McGurn,” he repeated, “the gambling boss. Knifed on the Ferris wheel at the Pier. That’s front-page stuff.”

  Art Smith ground out his cigarette in the desk ash tray. “Maybe you’re right,” he said slowly. “Maybe you better put somebody else on this one.”

  “Art,” Lee Dickson said, “you ought to get married. Some nice little babe who would keep house for you, wash your shirts and socks, and sew on your loose buttons.”

  Art Smith stiffened.

  “A babe who’d have dinner waiting for you,” Dickson went on relentlessly, “waiting for you no matter what time you got home at night.”

  Smith looked up. He wondered if his boss suspected anything.

  Dickson eased himself toward the window. “I’ve known you since you passed the police exams with the third highest average in twenty-two years. I knew then you’d be a good man. And you have been. Up to now.”

  “You were talking about McGurn,” Art Smith said coldly.

  “I’m talking about a girl now,” Dickson said. He picked up a report from his desk. “Missing witness. Details. Good report, Art. Suspect, with motive and alibi. Couldn’t have done it, though, according to your report. What’s the matter, are you a friend of Tony Webb?”

  Art Smith bit his lower lip, then said, “I’d like to see him in hell.”

  Dickson said, “Nice description of the girl, too. When did you write it?” He read aloud, “‘Height, not known; weight, not known; coloring—’” He went on ruthlessly and finally read, “‘A mouth like a bruised rose.’”

  Art Smith leaped to his feet, grabbed the report from Dickson’s hand, and tore it in half.

  “It was late,” he snarled. “I’d been drinking.”

  Dickson smiled at him and didn’t say a word.

  “I’ve never even seen the girl,” Smith said.

  Dickson picked the torn paper from the rug, crumpled it, and threw it at the wastebasket.