Innocent Bystander

by Craig Rice

  Ellen sat in front of her dressing-table and ran the brush through her long brown hair.

  Again that curious smile of smug self-satisfaction crooked her mouth.

  She’d slipped away from Tony in the fog of the night before because some instinct had warned her of danger. The same instinct had kept here away from the hotel all day. But at last she’d crept back, tired and bedraggled, and made her way up the back stairs. A warm bath had erased the signs of the long hours spent hiding on the beach, and now she sat before her dressing-table.

  Her eyes seemed to be staring through and behind the mirror.

  When she remembered O’Mara’s blows, her hand went up to her cheek and stroked it slowly. The smile tightened to a grim line of hatred.

  Then she remembered Art Smith’s kiss. The smug smile returned.

  And when she remembered Tony, a warm glow suffused her cheeks and flowed over and into and around her whole body.

  Chapter Twenty

  A MAN WITH A LOAD OF FEAR

  At 4:15 Art Smith was wrestling with his conscience. He had left for the Pier earlier in the day. But his conscience began to intrude itself before he was halfway to it. Liquor, Smith found, was always an excellent aid with which to wrestle a conscience. It tended to deaden it, drug it into inertia, salve it.

  That’s why he stopped off at a tavern.

  He was still there at 4:15.

  He was convinced that Ellen was alive, in spite of the condition of her room. If Tony had killed her, he would not have done it there, and he would have done it neatly and quickly. There wouldn’t have been any struggle.

  She had disappeared. But a line from his early police training pounded in his brain. Nobody was dead until you found the body. Yes, Ellen was alive. He knew that.

  The question was where to find her and what to do with her when he did find her.

  Dickson’s stinging words came back to him. Dickson had been right. Tony had become almost a fixation with him. Not because he believed so much in Tony’s guilt, but because he wanted so much not to believe in Ellen’s involvement in the mess. The more determined he was that Tony was the man, the less possibility there was that Ellen was the woman.

  It was when he thought of Ellen being his woman that he decided to stop off and imbibe a few at the tavern. Now he sat in a dark booth and wrestled with his conscience.

  His conscience told him, You’d be willing to railroad an innocent man to the chair because you were afraid that the woman you’d gone nuts about might be—

  Conscience dissolved in three fingers of Scotch.

  His conscience whispered to him, You’re willing to forfeit fifteen years of your professional life as a good cop for a few kisses—on her bruised mouth—

  Three more fingers of Scotch again did their job.

  But by 6:30 his conscience had won out.

  He got up from the booth gravely, paid his bill, and walked out of the tavern with that dignified, calculated gait so typical of a seasoned drinker who can carry his liquor and who is overly anxious not to give any evidence of his condition.

  A passer-by who saw him hesitate just before getting into his car outside thought he was nuts.

  Imagine a guy deliberately tearing a good button off his coat!

  O’Mara was drunk.

  All morning he had brooded over the beating Tony had given him. The more he thought about it, the more he wanted to get even with Tony.

  And with that girl.

  He’d show them. He stood at the end of the bar of his fourth tavern and looked bleary-eyed into the back mirror. The sight of his blackened eyes infuriated him all the more.

  Reaching to his back pocket, he took out his sapper. He slammed it viciously against the edge of the bar.

  The bartender came up alarmed. “Whatsa big idea?” he demanded.

  O’Mara got tough. “Wanna make something of it?”

  He hit the edge of the bar again with the sapper.

  The bartender looked at O’Mara. Then at the dents in the bar. He shrugged his shoulders and turned away to tend another customer. Why get mixed up with a drunken cop? It wasn’t his bar.

  O’Mara stared at the bartender, wondering suddenly if he shouldn’t show the bastard who was boss around here.

  He remembered Tony. And the girl.

  And he lurched out of the bar and onto the street.

  They’ll be at the Pier, he thought. That’s where they’ll be. Both of them. He’d beat hell out of Tony. Whang the sapper into his goddamned face until the blood came. Both of them. Tony and the girl!

  O’Mara lurched down the street to his car.

  He was too drunk to see that he was being followed.

  Behind him, far enough so that she could not be recognized, Ellen was looking into a radio-shop window. Out of the corner of her eye she could see O’Mara stumbling up the street.

  She guessed he was headed for his car but she made no effort to follow him. He wouldn’t be able to use his car. Because he had left his car key in the lock. And right now his car key was in her purse.

  O’Mara reached his car, got in, and cursed when he was unable to find the key. After a long search he got out of the car again and looked at it morosely.

  Then he kicked a dent in its fender and started up the street, staggering drunkenly.

  Ellen followed a short distance behind.

  Had Tony entered the Pier ten minutes later, he would never have made it.

  It was four in the afternoon when he crossed over from Mrs. Murphy’s hotel. He had to duck out of the way of a boardwalk rubber-neck auto. He had been so deep in thought he hadn’t even heard the clamorous honkings of the horn. He walked under the electric-globe-blazoned arch and entered the Pier at 4:01.

  At exactly 4:10 Jack O’Mara stumbled out of a bus and lurched down the side street that led to the Pier. O’Mara flung himself down on one of the stone benches, shoved his hands deep into his pockets, stretched out his legs, and stared malevolently at the few people entering the Pier. Tony and the girl wouldn’t get by him. When they came—

  At about 4:15 the taller of the two New York gunmen sidled down to the Pier and stationed himself in the lobby of one of the mean hotels directly across from the Pier entrance. He made sure it gave him a perfect view of the arch and of all who entered. A short while before a squad car of Federal dicks had surprised him and his pal. They had tried to shoot their way out and his pal had gone down in the hail of bullets.

  One of the slugs had gone through his own groin. He could feel it bleeding slowly under the handkerchief he had stuffed into the wound. It had not hurt at first, but now it was sending knife jabs through his guts.

  But he had ducked the cops for a while, at least. Until he could take care of that little matter with Tony Webb—the dirty, rotten, squealing stoolie!

  Tony spent the following three hours shmoosing with the Pier’s concessionaires. He didn’t tell them of the developments in the McGurn case. They didn’t ask him. Carny folk are tight-lipped that way. A guy’s troubles are his own. If he wants to share them, he’ll spill his own guts. Otherwise, let him alone.

  He spent some time with Mamie. She didn’t have to be a fortune-teller to diagnose what was the matter with him.

  “You’ve got it bad, son,” she said dolefully.

  Tony snorted. “You’ve been at this fortune-telling racket so long,” he replied, “you’re beginning to believe the stuff yourself.”

  Mamie reached over the card table and patted his hand with her pudgy fingers. “Take it easy,” she said. “I’m an old friend of the family, remember?”

  Tony tried a grin. It didn’t take. “Okay,” he said, “so I got it bad. So what?”

  “I just don’t like the looks of it.”

  “Of what?”

  Mamie shrugged her ample shoulders. Her burgeoning chest quivered like Jello. “I don’t know.”

  “I don’t know, either.”

  “There’s something on your mind,” Mamie said, “something
that ain’t good. It’s bad. Evil. It’s something you’re planning on doing.”

  “Aw, get your nose out of the crystal ball!”

  “It’s not in the ball,” she countered. “It’s in your eyes. As clear as day.”

  “What?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Can’t you see that in your phony ball?”

  Tony ground out his cigarette under his heel on Mamie’s flash carpet. She was too troubled to reprimand him. Instead she shook her head from side to side commiseratingly.

  “Take it easy, son,” she advised. “Take it easy. Think twice before you go ahead with what you plan to do.”

  “Where’s little Amby?” he asked abruptly.

  “In the shed.” She frowned. “What do you want with him?”

  He avoided the question. “How’s he doing?”

  “Okay.” A troubled tone crept into her words. “You let little Amby alone,” she said. “He’s gone through enough already!”

  Tony got up and yawned. “Don’t worry.”

  Mamie wagged a warning forefinger at him. “He’s in it deep enough,” she said, “without you getting him in any more. Let him alone, son. Give the poor little guy a break.”

  Tony turned to leave. “Will you stop worrying, Mamie?”

  “I will,” she said, “when I know you’re in the clear.”

  “I will be.”

  “I doubt it. I’ll know it when you are!”

  Tony reached over and took her deck of greasy cards. He flung them across the table so that they lay outspread in front of Mamie. “Here,” he said, “try and read what’s in the cards for me. Maybe that’ll stop you from worrying.”

  He laughed and went out.

  Mamie looked down idly at the spread of cards. “Black queen on the red king,” she muttered aloud. “That’s bad! That’s bad!” When she saw another set—black queen on a red king—she gasped. She was a better fortune-teller than she thought.

  When Tony emerged from the little alley behind Mamie’s, he looked up and down the main drag before stepping out. A few customers already walking up the street gawked at the concessionaires, who were still picking the remnants of their evening meals out of their teeth. In fifteen minutes the battery of lights would be switched on and the Pier would be open officially for the evening. By seven the street would be thronged with visitors.

  He decided to hang back in the alley behind the rickety wooden door until Ellen came along. No sense in getting caught by O’Mara, or the New York goons. There was a job he had to do first. Then he could tangle with them.

  Before he was aware of it, the Pier suddenly exploded in light. Festooned over the main drag, rows of lights blinked into a garish blaze. Then the Ferris wheel lights went on—red, yellow, blue, and white. The last set of lights were those on the High-Boy. They bloomed with light all at once as the master switch was shoved in. The barkers began their evening spiels, the Merry-Go-Round Wurlitzer suddenly began to play a waltz; from the loudspeakers outside most of the booths came the raucous blare and wail and moan of phonograph records, their many-played grooves rasping and scratching and grating on the nerves of the attendants.

  Gradually, like a ballet dancer starting to whirl, the Pier began to pulsate with activity. The few stragglers walking up and down the main street became thin lines and then thicker ones. By seven o’clock the Pier was pretty well packed with patrons intent on fun. The pennies jingled merrily into the slot machines of the Penny Arcade. The girls trapped in the mirror maze of the Fun House giggled nervously while the crowd outside roared at their predicament.

  The scooter cars in the Bumpmobile echoed with the whine of electric motors and the solid crashes of vehicles. The loud speakers outside the Diving-Bell crackled with the voices of those submerged in the bell, staring in awe at the sharks and other marine monsters that peered into the glass windows. The Chute-the-Chutes cars roared down the steep incline and landed in the pool with a great splash. The guns in the shooting-gallery cracked and the bells pinged with bull’s-eyes.

  Everything on the Pier was alive.

  Tony waited patiently for Ellen. She hadn’t been at her hotel all day, but she hadn’t checked out. She’d come to the Pier. He knew that.

  When he saw her, his heart took an extra beat.

  God, she was beautiful! Tony thought.

  He watched her walk up the street past him, unmindful of his presence in the alley close by. What was she thinking about? Her eyes looked as though she was thinking deeply about something. And there was a curl of bitterness around the corners of her mouth. He thought of her warm, pink lips when he had kissed them, and something deep inside him went soft.

  He saw her approach the Ferris wheel. Little Amby, his face still swollen and discolored, had set up his easel again. Tony watched her climb up on the high stool, smile at the artist. Amby picked up a crayon.

  Tony stepped out onto the street and squinted down to the entrance of the Pier. He saw nothing suspicious, no one who might interfere. Then he walked quickly to where Ellen was posing.

  She jumped, startled, when he spoke to her.

  “Oh, it’s you!” she said.

  “Were you expecting anyone else? Why did you run out on me last night?”

  She shrugged.

  “Had dinner?”

  She nodded.

  Then he realized that little Amby was staring at her, that he’d put down his crayons.

  The little artist’s eyes were popping. His mouth had dropped open, the skin in the corners of his lips still adhering slightly.

  He looked like a man with a load of fear.

  “What is it?” Tony demanded. He was shocked at Amby’s expression. Then he remembered Amby was a dee-dee, and he flashed a finger signal.

  Amby replied with another set of flickering finger symbols. His hands shook.

  Ellen watched. The smile on her face froze. Her eyes were narrowed to slits.

  Tony’s mouth clamped shut hard. Little Amby wanted to talk to him. “About the girl.”

  Suddenly, for no reason at all, the gun in his holster seemed to weigh more heavily on his shoulder.

  He shivered.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  DEATH IN A BARREL

  “What about the girl?” Tony signaled to Amby.

  Amby glanced back to where Ellen was sitting.

  “While I was looking at her,” Amby told him, “I looked over her shoulder, and a funny thing happened.” His agile fingers paused, as though he were groping for words.

  “Yeah! Go on!” Tony said.

  Amby took another look at the girl. She hadn’t moved an inch. She still sat, with her legs crossed, waiting for them to return to her. But she was staring at him.

  “I saw the Ferris wheel stopping and going. And stopping and going. And then I began to remember something that had happened before. That had happened when I was drawing her portrait the last time. The time the man was found murdered.”

  “What? What?” After signaling, Tony grabbed Amby’s shoulders.

  “Maybe I was only dreaming it,” Amby said. “Maybe it’s all screwy.” His fingers scintillated with the words.

  “What?”

  Amby gulped. “The girl. I thought I remembered where the girl came from. Just before she sat down on my stool. It all came back to me clear. She was—”

  Tony suddenly felt his shoulder pushed violently. He went stumbling backward from the impact.

  Jack O’Mara was scowling in front of him.

  Most of his drunk had already worn off while he sat outside the Pier and waited for Tony. His first thought had been to find Ellen, smack her dirty little face. But he changed his mind. Tony was the boy he was gunning for. Tony.

  But Tony hadn’t arrived. He’s been in the Pier all the time, O’Mara had decided. That was when he had gotten up stiffly and stalked under the arch into the Pier, his bloodshot eyes searching out the various crowds for Ellen or Tony.

  Then he had seen Tony and Amby.


  “Tough guy, huh!” he croaked as Tony stumbled back from his shoulder blow.

  He lunged forward with clenched fists at Tony and landed a solid blow on Tony’s cheek. Tony went down. Staggering to the fallen man, O’Mara planted a vicious kick in Tony’s side. Tony grunted. Then he leaped to his feet and flung himself on O’Mara, poking, elbowing, kneeing, kicking, gouging.

  A crowd of curious passers-by stopped to watch.

  The Merry-Go-Round Wurlitzer ground out a Strauss waltz.

  Tony agilely ducked most of the bigger man’s blows. O’Mara was still muzzy from the alcohol and his brain ticked sluggishly. But suddenly he shot a stiff-arm blow smack into Tony’s face, and Tony went careening backward all the way across the street. He landed in a heap against the counter of the Dart the Balloon booth, his back to the booth, his arms spread-eagled over the surface of the counter.

  He saw O’Mara stumble up to him. Now there was a sapper in the copper’s hand. It hung from his fingers, ready for action.

  Tony’s hand moved. The tip of his finger nudged against something cold. Steel. Tony remembered. One of the kitchen knives the customers used for throwing at the balloons. His fingers coiled around the wooden handle. He lay back, waiting in readiness for O’Mara’s lunge.

  It came with O’Mara’s arm raised to bring down the sapper.

  Tony’s arm went up. The knife cut across O’Mara’s wrist. The sapper dropped heavily to the street.

  Then O’Mara flung himself at Tony, his bleeding hand clutching at Tony’s knife arm. Tears of pain welled up into the copper’s eyes and down onto his puffed cheeks. His right eye was shut tight with swelling. His bloodshot left eye glittered balefully.

  Locked together, they writhed in each other’s embrace, inching their way down the street, twisting, squirming, falling sometimes to the street, tumbling over each other in violent jerks and jabs.

  The crowd around them grew larger. Women shrieked. Men hollered cries of unheard advice. Children stared in wide-eyed, awed fright.

  The Strauss music still floated in from the Merry-Go-Round.

  Inch by inch the two lunged and stumbled down the street. When they came to the front of the Toonerville concession, they stood there for a while, trading blows, snorting labored breaths, the blood dripping down from them to the street.