I kicked at an ink bottle, watching it crash against the far wall in a burst of glass, the blue ink spreading against the buff background, an angry blob, as maniac as the man who kicked it there.
I forced my eyes back to Abe Feldman, standing over him, trying to overcome the sickening horror his figure inspired. He had been living and breathing only a few minutes ago. And before that? An hour ago? What creeping ghoul had wrecked the little guy? I kneeled to examine the wound above his ear. He had been slugged savagely, but he had fought back. There were other welts around the side of his face, evidence of a valiant struggle against an overpowering force.
Whoever his assailant was, he must have been possessed of oxlike strength. There were marks of the strangler around Abe’s throat, thin signals of an attempt at strangulation. Abe’s collar was ripped, and his jacket, too, showed the maniac effect of tremendous energy, unleashed for the purpose of mutilation. Only an attacker who had practiced mayhem could rip and tear a man like Abe apart. Abe had been well schooled in all the protective gymnastics. Abe had fought back at the monster, to die at last when the brute struck out with an iron hand.
A hand?
A man with iron hands?
Something snapped inside me and I stepped away from Abe’s body and walked to the window and let my mind run free. And when I closed my eye on it, only one name burned before me. There could be but one great apelike goon for this type of murder, one ape of a man who killed with his fists.
I picked up the phone and called homicide. I said, “There’s been a murder committed in room 918 of The Cronner Building. This is Steve Conacher phoning it in. The dead man is Abe Feldman.”
The cop at the other end knew me. He said, “What the hell! Who did this one, Conacher?”
“I’ll let you know when I find him.”
I hung up and walked back to the reception room. I took my gun from Liz’s middle drawer, where I always kept it.
Then I ran out of there.
And I knew where I was going.
CHAPTER 16
I arrived at the Fan Club just as the weary doorman was putting the lock on the door. The bar was closed and only a small light burned in the front of the place where two waiters were stacking the chairs and tables and a fat scrub woman was slapping a mop on the floor around the bar. The back of the place was dim and dead except for a small spotlight that still glowed near the bandstand. Monk Fleming sat in the circle of light, tickling his drums in a few rumbling riffles. From somewhere through the walls, I heard the sound of girlish laughter. Some of the chorus line, probably, rubbing their faces with cold cream.
Monk looked up at me when I stood over him. He did not stop drumming, tapping a beat with his sensitive fingers, as skittery as the distant rustle of leaves in the wind.
I said, “Am I too late for Patty?”
“Jesus, Steve, she really hit you hard, didn’t she?”
“You don’t know the half of it. Where is she?”
“She’s back there taking the slop off her face,” Monk said. “Why don’t you relax? You look mad enough to spit.”
“I’ll spit hard if I find the target,” I said. “Did Hands Vincetti come back here after I left?”
“Maybe he did. Maybe he didn’t.”
“Stop with the drumsticks and listen to me,” I yelled at him. “This is important. Did you see him come back?”
“Put your pratt down and relax, Steve. Give me a chance to remember. I was busy as hell after you left, murdering a few specialty numbers that Jeff Eames arranged for me, solos on the drums, mister, and when you’re working a solo on the skins you don’t get a chance to look around and count the house. Maybe he did come in and I didn’t see him. Listen, the next time you want information in a dump like this, it might be a good idea to come supplied with your own stooges.”
“What about Patty Price? Is she still here?”
“I didn’t see her walk out. What’s up? You’ve got rape in your eyes.”
“That’s not rape, Monk; it’s murder.”
He licked his chops at the idea. “Don’t tell me you’ve got something on pretty Patty. This I would enjoy.”
“Show me the way to her room. You may be in for the time of your life.”
He got off his stool and started me back through the curtains that separated the dressing rooms from the cabaret. There was a narrow hall with a door on the end where some joker had stuck a sign: LADIES ONLY—MEN SOMETIMES. Monk pushed the door open and there was a rising flood of girlish dialogue, brisk and gay. We walked between the dressing tables to another corridor in which there were two more doors. There was a small and ragged silver star glued on one of them and then the name Patty Price written in chalk, probably by her own hand. Here Monk knocked and waited for the feminine welcome, a shrill “Okay, cookie.”
Patty Price sat at the dresser, her shapely torso covered with a white mesh gown, as opaque as a store window. She played with her face, rubbing on fresh lips and making womanly passes at herself in the mirror. She shot her eyebrows up at us with a show of surprise, as though somebody else was supposed to come in when she yelled “Cookie.” She did not turn her beautiful body our way, nor did she discontinue her cosmetic contortions.
She said, “Squat, fellows. I’ll be with you in a jiff.”
“I want you to meet a friend of mine,” Monk said.
“I can’t wait,” she said, squinting at me prettily in the mirror. “Who’s the cute little lad?”
“This is John Sebastian Zanuck,” Monk said. “He’s from Hollywood, Patty.”
“Don’t tell me he’s looking for talent,” she cooed.
“He liked your routine,” Monk said.
She paused in her facial decorations. From where I stood, she was no longer the cute babe I had seen with Hands Vincetti. She knew too many of the tricks. She was firm in the flesh but old in the head, a common type of wren in the show business. Her penciled brows wavered on her colorful face as she made up her mind about me. She could begin to like me soon.
“John is scouting for Fox,” Monk said.
“Kill it,” I said. “That Hollywood deal is stiff, Monk.”
I waited for the confusion to leave her pretty puss. She was running over me and making the circuit in record time, casing me, measuring me, estimating my size and putting me down in her private ledger I said, “My name isn’t Zanuck, sweetie, and I don’t come from Hollywood. I was born in Brooklyn and I work in New York and my name is Steve Conacher.”
“That makes us soulmates,” she said. “I was born in Brooklyn, too.”
“Some of my best friends come from Brooklyn,” I said. “I got around a lot over there. I’m a detective.”
She let the powder puff fall from her fingers and worried her eyes over Monk. She got angry quickly. “What the hell kind of a gag is this?” she asked. “I’m too busy for games, Monk.”
“Give him a break, Patty. He’s a good pal of mine.”
“I don’t fiddle with dicks,” she shouted.
I said, “I didn’t come here to fiddle.”
“Beat it.”
“I’m in no hurry,” I said. “You and I have got to talk a bit. A few questions.”
The anger was building in her. Her face soured and her smile was crooked and she put her hands on her hips and glowered at me. “Listen to the cocky little bastard. What makes you think I’ll play?”
“You’d do good in the legit stuff,” I said. “You have a great gift for drama. I can see you doing a long run on Broadway. I can also see you playing ball with me.”
“In the pig’s crotch,” said Patty, returning to her eyebrow pencil and lipstick.
“Steve’s a good friend of mine,” Monk said. “He’s an okay guy, Patty.”
“I don’t care if he’s General Ignatz MacArthur,” she said. “Tell him to shake his little pants out of
here. He bothers me and I don’t like to be bothered after a hard day’s work because when I bother I begin to shake and I’m tired of shaking. I’ve been shaking out there for the past five hours. Now scram.”
“No dice,” I said, and sat down. “I’m staying and we’re making nice talk together.”
“Go to hell,” she said. “You bother me.”
“I’ll do that later, lady.” My anger hit her and turned her around to me, on her feet now so that the diaphanous gown fell away from her completely. She made no move to tighten the gown around her. She was standing there with a small gun in her dainty fingers and it was aimed at my nose and she looked as though she had played with guns before because her fingers did not quiver on the trigger.
She made a pretty picture but not the calendar type. The gun was incongruous in her little hand but her face was adjusted for the pose. She was calm and cool as she faced me. Her eyes snapped fire and when she talked her voice was as hard as the voice of doom.
“Out!” she said.
“Maybe we’d better leave,” Monk said, viewing her with a sad eye. “I thought Patty was still a pal of mine.”
“Times have changed,” Patty said, “Now get the hell out of here, both of you, and make it snappy.”
I was watching her eyes as she addressed him and when the time was ripe I stepped forward and slapped it away from her, up and out of her reach, against the wall. It fell with a bump on the dresser, upsetting a few oversized bottles of perfume in a tinkling spatter of glass. Patty viewed the debris angrily. I had her hand in mine and I was squeezing it. I squeezed it harder and she yelped under the pressure and lashed out at me with the manicured talons of her free hand. She lunged for my eyes in a practiced gesture. She missed me completely and ducked her head and opened her mouth to bite my wrist. Her timing was all off. I pulled her down on the couch and rolled her back until her head cracked against the wall. The mesh gown was trapped behind her now. I put a leg over her thighs to control her because she was trying to kick my groin out.
“You lousy crumb!” she yelped. “You’re breaking my hand.”
“And you’re breaking my heart, Patty. Do we play nice, or must I slap you around?”
“You two-bit little shill,” she cried. “I wouldn’t play with you if you paid off in ten-grand notes.”
Monk stood at the door. “I’ll leave you two lovebirds alone. You seem to be making progress now.”
“We’ll get along,” I said.
She stared at the door as though she meant to bore a hole in it. She worked her shiny white teeth on her lower lip, as evil as a small and vicious animal. I released the pressure on her hand and she rubbed at it feverishly, saying quick things in a masculine tempo that I could understand, a muttered, half-whispered flood of violence that spewed out of her in a rush of invective. I waited her out, listening to her uninhibited observations on the character of all detectives. I was watching her right hand, following the sparkle of a jeweled finger. She was wearing a gold ring on her pinky, a masterpiece of the jeweler’s art; a thin-banded item featuring a stone that shot off pinpoint sparks when it caught the light. It was a brilliant gem. There was only a dim and feeble glow from the lamp on her dressing table, but it was enough to show off the bright radiance of the stone.
“What are you fighting for?” I asked. “Are you and Hands Vincetti getting married? Or do you always wrestle this way?”
She stopped squirming and let her head rest against the wall. She frowned at me. “What do you know about Hands Vincetti? Who the hell shot his big fat mouth off? Monk?”
“What if he did? Everybody in the club knows you’re playing him, lady.”
“You’ve got a nasty mouth.”
“Flattery will get you nowhere. What’s your pitch with Hands?”
“I don’t have to answer your questions, little man.”
“I’m asking them nicely,” I said. “How would you like to go down to the cops and sit under a light? How would you like to play guessing games with Sam Doughty?”
“You’re frightening me to death,” she said with an attempt at laughter. “You’re no city dick.”
“Some of my best friends are city dicks, Patty. Maybe I’d be a lot smarter taking you down to their little sweat room.” I let it sink in for a minute, studying her reaction, the sudden confusion building in her eyes now. I released her legs, but I caught her hands and gave them some fresh pressure. “Put your duds on and come along with me, lady. You’ll spill your guts for Doughty. And I’ll be standing by, getting what I want, the easy way.”
Something was happening to her face. She pulled against me now, her hands a little shaky in mine. She didn’t want to get up. She was beginning to break. I didn’t give her time for reviving her confidence. I pulled her to her feet and she stumbled on her high heels and swayed against me, yelping a little because I was hurting her now.
“Get dressed,” I said. “And no tricks, or I’ll slap your tail around until you can’t wiggle it for the boys out front.”
“Wait,” she said. “Listen. Hands Vincetti and me are nothing. All I give him is encouragement.”
“Your duds. Get them on.”
“Don’t take me down there,” she pleaded. “A thing like that could ruin me in show business. I’m on the way up. It’ll kill me if I go downtown.”
“Why didn’t you think of that when you began to play goosey with Hands Vincetti?”
“I didn’t play,” she said. “Honest. Hands and me are nothing, like I said. Maybe he thinks—”
“He’s paying off, isn’t he?”
“So what? That doesn’t mean he’s my dream boat.”
“You’ve been around with him.”
“I’ve been around with plenty of them,” she said. “Didn’t Monk tell you?”
“Monk told me. But Monk isn’t a murderer.”
It was enough to wilt her. She slid down into a convenient chair and sat there, trembling now, kneading her hands and trying for control of the little muscles around her mouth. I didn’t push it. I stood over her and let her see that this was no parlor game. She avoided my eyes and began to mutter and moan to the rug.
“Murder?” she asked herself. “Jesus, no.”
“Does it surprise you? What makes you so sure your little boy friend wouldn’t murder?”
“Please,” she said. “He’s not my boy friend.”
“That will make it easier for you when you go to his funeral, lady. Because he is going to fry for it.”
“Who did he kill? Who was it?”
“Nobody you know,” I said. I put my head down close to hers and spat the words at her. “But the man he killed was my best friend. Do you understand? And I don’t like gorillas who hurt little people, any more than I like cold-bottomed tarts who play around with apes like Hands Vincetti. You made your bed, lady, and now you’ve got to bounce in it.”
“No, no,” she wailed. “You’re wrong about me. We weren’t that close.”
“You were close enough to keep him interested. A crud like Vincetti gets soft and babyish with a frail like you. Sometimes maybe he gets liquored up and begins to talk from deep down around his inner man. And you could make him talk plenty. You could know all about his comings and goings, his latest deals.”
She covered her eyes with her hands. She was a little girl now and I had taken away her lollipop. “You’ve got to believe me,” she said. “He was nothing to me, nothing at all.”
“He was sucker bait for you, and that’s plenty. For one look at your gams, he’d murder his grandmother. He’d tell you the story of his life. And you gave him more than a gander, sister. Enough to get the minks out of him and to soften him up for the big money stuff.”
I pulled away from her and tried to quiet the rip of temper that was making me scream at her. I listened for the sounds of the girls outside, but they were no longer
in the big dressing room. We were alone and there was no noise in our room except the noise of her sobbing. Honest tears now, perhaps because the mascara was running down her cheeks and staining her make-up, a thin coat of black over the loud cherry color.
“Which is it going to be?” I asked. “Do I listen here or do we go down to Doughty?”
“Doughty?”
“A police dick,” I said. “And one of the toughest on the force. Doughty will take you downtown and put you under the lights and sweat what he wants out of you. He’s a conscientious dick and he has no imagination at all. Do you follow me? A witness is a witness for Doughty and his special weakness is women. He has a sadistic streak in him. He loves to torture them, especially the pretty ones. He’ll lather you up down there all right. He’ll take twenty pounds off that slick chassis of yours.”
“Please,” she pleaded. “I tell you you’re all wrong about me and Hands.”
“So I’m all wrong. Break it down for me.”
“There was nothing. He didn’t tell me a thing. He’s just a stupid jerk, I tell you, and I was playing him for the laughs. You’ve got to believe me. You can’t take me downtown.”
“You were with him last night. What were you talking about?”
“Talk? He only had one thing on his mind.”
“When did he come in?”
“About ten. He always came in at the same time.”
“Every night?”
“Every night.” She squirmed in her chair, uncomfortable now, as though the memories of her friendship with him were eating at her mind, reminding her of his repulsive figure. “God, maybe you hit it on the nose when you called me names, detective. How could I take it?”
“He paid off.” I was sitting alongside her now, close enough to lift her hand and rub the ring around on her finger. It didn’t fit well. It rolled easily. “When did he give you this item?”
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