Inside, the worn brown-leather couch and two chairs were as empty as ever, and nobody had disturbed the stack of magazines on the reed table. I unlocked the inner office door, entered, tossed my hat on one of the two empty brown filing cases against the far wall, picked the morning mail off the tan linoleum under the letter drop and went over to draw up the Venetian blind and open the window a few inches from the bottom.
I lighted a cigarette and set it in one of the ashtray grooves to act as incense against the wet-plaster smell of the room, then got into the cheerfully creaking swivel chair to open my mail. It came to two ads and a perfumed note from a former client whcfse husband had left her again. The letter suggested I was duty-bound to find the guy, without charge, as it was less than two months since I had dug him out of hiding. It put me in the same category with her watch-repair man.
The ads went into the wastebasket and the letter into the desk's middle drawer. I was going to have to straighten out the contents of that drawer one of these days. Ash Wednesday would be a good day for it. I leaned back and put creases in my chin with a thumb and forefinger and listened to the murmur of traffic from eight floors below and watched the wavering line of cigarette smoke reach for the ceiling. I added up the day's events. I got about as much out of it as I had put in: hardly anything at all.
Not that the morning had been uneventful. A manuscript worth, to one customer at least, twenty-five million dollars; a girl lovely enough to make you gnaw your nails, who was the owner of a gun and a cloudy motive; a gangster from Prohib days who everybody thought was sunning himself in Florida but whose punctured body had turned up hanging by a necktie in an Erie Street flophouse—enough there for a full caldron of trouble. So far, my part in the picture was confined to the role of bewildered spectator. I figured it was time for me to stop wading and begin to swim.
I got out my book of phone numbers from a drawer of the desk, turned to an entry I had made the day before and dialed the number shown. The elderly receptionist put me through to Bishop McManus without question.
He said, "I hardly hoped to hear from you so soon, Mr. Pine. Have you made any progress ?"
"Very little. And I'm afraid it won't make for pleasant listening."
After a bottomless pause he said, "Oh ?"
"Wirtz," I said, "wasn't at home. He hasn't been, it seems, for the past three or four days. His door was open, though, and I took the liberty of looking around. There was a dead man in his closet."
"Merciful heavens!" He sounded more anxious than startled. "Not Wirtz himself ?"
"Not according to the way you described him. Besides, the body has been identified as that of a man named Willie Post."
"Just that? I mean, Mr. Pine, was there anything at all to indicate a connection with Wirtz?"
"Not a smidgen," I said. "Post, as you may recall, had his name In the papers a lot back sixteen years ago. He was Louie Antuni's chief chopper back in the bad old days. The cops seemed pretty wide-eyed about finding him in town. At least the one I talked to was."
"Antuni," the Bishop said thoughtfully. "Chicago's most notorious gangster. . . . This seems to be getting quite involved, Mr. Pine. Isn't it generally believed that Antuni is no longer active? That he is a very sick man and is in seclusion in Florida?"
"There doesn't seem to be much doubt about that." I leaned back and put my heels on the blotter pad and smiled a little to myself at the thought that maybe His Grace sat that way now and then. "No one seems able to think of any reason for Willie's being back in the big town."
The wire hummed faintly for a long moment before the Bishop spoke again, his voice sounding graver than before. "What have you done about all this, Mr. Pine ?"
"I called the police. You understand, Your Grace, it was something I had to do."
"Certainly."
"Sergeant Tinney of the Homicide detail insisted on knowing what was behind my call on Wirtz. I refused to say more than was necessary, but I did give him your name. I made him work for it, though, and got a small concession in return which may help. As it is, he may drop around to see you, but he'll be a lot more considerate in asking questions than any cop is accustomed to being."
"You mentioned nothing about the—ah—matter of major interest ?"
That would be the manuscript. "No, sir. If you don't mind a suggestion, I see no reason for you to mention it, either. Not unless you're satisfied to have the story spread all over the Sunday supplements."
I could almost feel his shudder over the telephone wire. "That mustn't happen," he said sharply. "I must insist you keep confidential everything I told you on that subject."
"You can depend on it."
His voice softened slightly. "Do the police think Wirtz murdered this man Post ? That is, it is murder, isn't it ? From what you've told me ..."
"You bet it's murder. With a knife and very messy. They seem to think so, all right. The fact the killing took place in his room, plus his being missing, kind of piles it up against him."
"Your own opinion?"
"I have no opinion. Yet. I'll try to get one if you wish."
"Find him, Mr. Pine." His voice sounded curiously flat. "He's a troubled man; a disillusioned man. But he seems too—well—too academic to kill a man with a knife. That way. He should have somebody on his side, at least until all the facts come out.
"Besides—" he cleared his throat—"the manuscript. As you know, it has fired my imagination until I can think of little else. If there should be such a document "
"I'll be in there swinging," I said soothingly.
"Please keep me informed."
"I'll do that."
He said good-by, his voice a little unsteady, and I laid the receiver gently back in its cradle and reached for the stub of my cigarette. I finished it and most of another before I could dig up an idea that might do me some good.
The phone again. I dictated a lengthy telegram to Western Union, addressed to Cliff Morrison, a wine-drinking, woman-chasing friend of mine who had worked for several of the private agencies around town before moving to Los Angeles and starting an agency of his own. He was getting rich—^not off the movie colony either—and for the past two years had been after me to come out there and work for him. But I had steadfastly refused on the grounds that I was afraid of being brained by a falling orange.
One more avenue left to follow. The phone book gave me the number. Two buzzes came over the wire, then one of those disinterested female voices you find behind all switchboards said, "Stevens Hotel."
"Room 2212," I said.
A click for the plug going in, three more quick ones for a key being waggled . ..
"Yeah?"
A man's voice. I saw him as a man of beef and thinning hair and clothing cut to hide a paunch. A man who spent a lot of time in barber chairs, who dated the manicurist and was strong for girlie shows. A man who had been out all morning peddling cosmetics or concrete mixers or corrugated boxes and who was getting ready to step under a shower.
I said, "Is this 2212?"
"Yeah, that's right." Impatient now. "Who'd you want?"
"I understood a Miss North had this room."
"No such luck, brother! Haw, haw! I just now come in here and not a woman in the place. Course I ain't looked in the bed yet, but "
I pressed the cut-ofif bar, then called the Stevens again. Miss North, I was told, had checked out less than an hour before, leaving no forwarding address. I asked for the permanent address shown on her registration card and got snooted by an assistant manager until I thought up a story plausible enough to learn she had put down only New York City. People do that when they think such information is none of the hotel's business.
It seemed I had muffed one by not hanging onto Lola North until I chiseled a few facts out of her. It was just that I hadn't known about the corpse in the closet while she was still with me. That, I reflected gloomily, was my fault too.
HALO FOR SATAN 59
Well, she was gone now, gone completely, and not
hing I could do about it. If she was interested in the manuscript Wirtz was supposed to have I might run into her again. It was a possibility, however faint. But now my only real remaining hope of a lead on Raymond Wirtz. depended on Cliff Morrison's answer to my wire. That might be days away.
Interviewing a client, finding a body, sparring with the law and losing a nicely filled pair of nylons seemed enough work for one day. I got out of the chair, closed the window and took my hat off the filing cabinet. There was a movie at the Apollo about a private eye that should be good for laughs. I could certainly use a few.
The phone bell stopped me as I was opening the corridor door. I went back, unlocked the inner door again and picked up the receiver.
"Mr. Pine?" A man's voice, young and crisp and self-confident, against background noises of typewriters and loud conversation.
"Uh-hunh."
"My name is Grant, Mr. Pine. With the Herald-American. We're informed you were the one who found Willie Post's body out at that Erie Street address this morning."
"Who gave you that?"
He must have caught the annoyance in my voice; it was there to catch. He sounded a little apologetic. "One of the police officers on the case."
That would be the young cop with the leading-man profile. Any cop who went around leaning on his siren when there was no need for it would spell his name and spill his guts on the first leg man who showed up.
I said, "What's on your mind?"
He turned on a brand of persuasive charm. "Simply a matter of getting the facts straight. We wouldn't want to
60 HALO FOR SATAN
say anything you might object to. Naturally. That's why we'd like your own version of how you happened to find the body."
"I was looking for the bathroom," I said, "and got my directions mixed."
His polite laugh was as hard and humorless as a tombstone. "Well now, Mr. Pine, I'm sure you can do better than that. We understand the police are looking for this man Walsh, whose room Post was found in. Who is he ? Where's he from ? What did he have to do with Willie Post ?" "Who's Walsh?" I said. "I never heard of him." There was a pause. Then: "I do w^ish you'd be more cooperative, Mr. Pine." Mr. Grant w^as hurt and a little offended in a gentlemanly way. "Try to understand our position. Besides, a man in your line might need some help from us occasionally."
"Sorry," I said, "but I give all my business to the News." I hung up on him and left the office. While on my way down the hall I heard the telephone start up again. I left it ringing and went on to the elevators.
The corner clock said four-seventeen when I came out of the theater. I stood there and blinked at the strong sunlight filling Randolph Street and thought about going back to the office for an hour or two before dinner. There was no reason to go back actually. I had a case but it was at a dead end and would probably stay there until I got an answer to the wire I had sent Cliff Morrison.
There was a phone number or two in my address book, either of which could keep the evening from being a total loss. But there was a novel by Phillip Wylie on the night table next to my bed and there were Scotch and seltzer in the kitchen. . . .
Off to the east gray clouds, so dark they were almost black, were piling up out over the lake and the slight breeze was noticeably cooler. It appeared we were going to be in for some rain, and not very long before it arrived, either. That made the thought of my own apartment the best one of the day.
But suddenly I realized I was no longer interested in that novel on my bedside table. I wanted soft lights and glasses filled with amber liquid and warm curves in a party dress across from me at a secluded table. This had been a day filled with the wrong kind of people, largely. An antidote was indicated, and thanks to Bishop McManus I could afford to fill the prescription.
I scooped a late edition of the Herald-American off the
I corner newsstand, got into a cab and gave my office address—
where I kept my list of phone numbers—then leaned back
61
and unfolded the paper. The headline that had caught my eye read : find antuni aide slain.
The left-hand column had the story, under bold black subheads. I read it through with that slightly pleasant feeling of being part of the news.
The body of Vito Postori, alias Willie Post, onetime lieutenant and alleged trig-german for the once-powerful Antuni syndicate, was today found in a rooming house at 1730 West Erie. Death had resulted from a knife wound below the heart. According to a coroner's report, Post had been dead for several days. Discovery of the crime was made by Paul Pine, a private detective, whose presence at the scene has so far not been explained.
Mrs. Agnes Trotter, owner and operator of the rooming house at the Erie Street address, reported that the room in which Post was found had been rented two weeks before by a Raymond Walsh. Walsh is said to have been missing for the past several days, although his personal belongings were still in the room. Police are searching for him.
The balance of the article told of Post's disappearance from , the Chicago scene nearly thirteen years before, explaining that it was no secret that he, along with other of Antuni's [ boys, had joined the Big Guy in Florida after the latter's release from the Federal penitentiary on California's Terminal Island. The last line of the piece mentioned what was com- j mon knowledge: Louis Antuni was sufifering from an "incur able" disease and his sands were about to run out.
A drizzle was falling by the time I got out of the cab in front of the Clawson Building and people were huddled in
the entrance, looking forlornly at the sky, I pushed through into the lobby and rode up to the eighth floor.
My reception room was dim and shadowy in the gray half-light from the window. I got out my keys, turned the right one in the lock on the inner door and was two steps over the threshold before I realized the door hadn't been locked at all.
That couldn't be right. I had locked it. I always locked it. A careful guy like me.
Whoever was behind the blackjack must have been an old hand at the game. I never heard a thing.
It was one of those dinky hunks of ribbon women call hats. This one was blue and there was a smooth triangle of shiny silver cloth to hold the ends together. What there was of it was set at a fetching angle on smooth red hair.
Both hair and hat faded and came back and faded again. Then they spun sideways in a breath-taking swoop like a falling elevator . . . and I shut my eyes and clamped my lips to keep from committing a nuisance.
Bells, great golden-toned bells, pealed out their notes in an empty echoing hall twelve miles wide and sixty miles long. I shook with the sound and wondered why there was no light.
And then there was light—too much of it and too bright, and the clang of bells became words :
". . . Open your eyes? Are you all right? Can you hear me?"
I got a shoulder under my eyelids and heaved hard and they slid up about halfway before they stuck again. It was like opening cottage windows after a rain. Pain gnawed at the back of my head like rats in a granary.
The hunk of ribbon and the smooth red hair were back again, with a face under them I hadn't noticed before.
It was a face to bring hermits down out of the hills, to fill divorce courts, to make old men read up on hormones. A face that could sell perfume or black lace undies and make kitchen aprons a drug on the market. Good skin under expert makeup to make it look even better. Brown eyes, with a silken sheen to them. Eyes with a careful, still look as though never just sure what the brain behind them was up to. A nose you never quite saw because her full lips kept pulling you away from it. Hair smooth on top and a medium bob in back that was pushed up here and there to make it casually terrific.
And my aching head was supported pleasantly on a cloth-covered length of firm warm flesh that was one of the lady's thighs.
I said, "I laughed at a scene like this not more than an hour ago. I thought the usher was going to throw me out."
Her expression said she thought I was out of m
y head. I would have liked to be, after what had been done to it.
"Are you all right ?" It was the kind of voice the rest of her deserved : husky, full-throated, yet subdued.
I said, "How do I know if I'm all right? I think I'll kind of stand up."
She helped me into a sitting position and I sat there and stared at the section of linoleum between my legs until my head stopped spinning. Then I clawed my way up the side of my desk, hung there for another minute before weaving my way to the swivel chair. Sitting down helped. Not as much as two weeks in Hot Springs would have, but some. I blinked at the confusion of papers, matchbook folders, blotters and rubber bands littering the floor in a broad semicircle behind the desk.
My visitor stood across from me, half-smiling to help my
morale but concerned a little, too. "How do you feel, Mr. Pine?"
"Adequate," I said. "Thanks for being patient. I'm awake now and reasonably alert. Were you the one who sapped me ?"
"Certainly not! I came in just a few moments ago and found you on the floor and things strewed around."
"I see." The ceiling light was on and, the Venetian blind was down and closed. Neither had been that way when I walked out earlier that afternoon. A ladies' green-and-white-checked umbrella, closed, stood handle up in the corner nearest the open door. It didn't appear to have hit any heads lately.
She was eying me curiously, just the hint of a smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. "Aren't you going to make sure nothing of value is missing?"
"I never had anything of value. Won't you sit down ?"
She laughed musically. "You seem to be an unusual person, Mr. Pine. Thank you; I will sit down."
She moved the customer's chair into position alongside the desk, sat in it and crossed not quite slender legs in black nylons. I never did notice her shoes. She was wearing a dark-blue sheer wool dress, very simple in the lines and very flattering to a figure that was going to be voluptuous in a few years. The neckline was rounded and not too high and the skin above it was as clear as a saint's conscience.
The Long escape Page 5