I sat up, my mouth filled with unspoken curses, and bent my wrist up until I could see the illuminated dial of my strap watch. I :i2. In the morning. I bent sideways over the edge of the bed and fumbled around, found the dangling receiver and got it into position against my ear.
I said, "Yeah. What d'ya want?" Even to my ears it sounded as cordial as a lion at feeding time.
"Mr. Pine? I was so afraid you weren't in. This is Mr. Pine, isn't it?"
A voice I almost didn't recognize. A voice trying to be calm and even a little stately, and not succeeding worth ai darn. The voice of Bishop McManus and probably as excited as a bishop's is permitted to get.
"This is Pine, Your Grace. Awake, now, and reasonably) clearheaded."
"He just called me, Mr. Pine. Just this minute. He wants
to turn the manuscript over to me, but he's af "
110
"Hold on a minute," I said. "I want to turn on a light."
I sat there in the darkness with the receiver glued to my ear and listened to a high windy silence along the wire. It was the wrong kind of silence and that told me what I had wanted to know. I said, "I'm going to say something, Your Grace. Don't hang up until I explain what it means."
It puzzled him but he was game. "Very well."
Very loudly I said into the mouthpiece, "Get off the wire, you snooping son of a bitch, before I come down there and pull you off!"
The gasp came from His Grace and the faint click from a switchboard key being closed. Then the high windy silence was gone, leaving only silence.
Into that I said, "The language turned out a little stronger than I intended, but we have a night clerk here with more nose than an anteater. You say Wirtz called you?"
"Yes." He seemed to have his excitement fairly well controlled now. "He wants to place the manuscript in my hands, Mr. Pine, then leave town. But he's afraid to come to the rectory. He's quite worked up, nearly hysterical with fear. Claims the police are closing in on him because of that body found in his room. He even has an idea the rectory is being watched."
I remembered the big man in the Palm Beach suit, his toothpick and his newspaper. Louie Antuni's man. I said, "I p think he's right. And it's not only the buttons who are after ihim."
j| "What do you mean, Mr. Pine ?"
\ "It's a long story, most of it fantastic. What does Wirtz suggest?"
"He wanted me to meet him on a street corner out in the northwest section of Chicago. Obviously it is impossible for me to do a thing like that at this time of morning. I'm not
able to drive a car, for one thing, and I wouldn't care to take a taxi. I suggested he send it to me by messenger, but he refused. Said there was only one person in Chicago he could trust and that he was beginning to have doubts about him. The man was almost incoherent, Mr. Pine."
"There's probably a good reason behind his incoherence," I said. "What arrangement did you finally make. Assuming, of course, that you made one."
He hesitated for a few seconds, then came out with it—in a rush of words.
"I'm afraid I've taken a great deal for granted, Mr. Pine. You see, I told him that while I wouldn't be able to come there myself, I would send someone whom I trust implicitly."
He paused to give me a chance to get set for a shock. But the shock had come and gone by this time. I was way ahead of him.
I said, "It'll be a pleasure to wind this one up, Your Grace. I was afraid it wasn't going to work out this easy—if it does. Where do I meet him and when?"
He sounded as happy as a pup with a new bone. "At the southwest corner of Sacramento Boulevard and Glenlake. At two-thirty. About an hour from now."
I repeated the instructions, then said, "He won't quibble over giving it up, will he?"
"Oh, no. Just say to him, 'Good morning, Mr. Smith. Do you have a book for me to read ?' "
It gave me my first laugh in the past twelve hours. "Sounds like a day in a rental library. Whose idea was that ?"
He laughed a little too. "Mine, I'm afraid. He wants to be sure you're representing me."
"Fair enough." I yawned, covering the mouthpiece first. "I'll be there on time, Your Grace."
"I'm really very grateful for this, Mr. Pine." His voice was solemn now. "Call me, please, at Wabash 9900 at your first opportunity after you have the manuscript. After that I'd like you to come directly to the rectory. I'll arrange to let you in myself."
I remembered the arrangement with Louie Antuni. A call to him at the same time I called the Bishop w^ould give the old man a chance to meet me in front of the rectory.
I nodded before I realized a nod was wasted, and said, "I'll be able to call you between, say, two-forty-five and three."
"I'll be right here," he said simply.
He broke the connection and I snapped on the nightstand lamp before replacing the receiver. I pushed back the light blanket and put my feet on the floor and stared at them without interest. They looked large and white and slightly obscene, the way bare feet do in the morning. I yawned again and pawed my hair and scratched my sides through my pa-jama top. The bottle of Scotch stood stiff and tall beside the lamp, but the bucket for ice cubes had only water in it now.
I lighted a cigarette from the pack next to the Scotch and wavered into the bathroom to splash water on my face and comb my hair. I wondered why I bothered. A face leered 1)ack at me out of the mirror—a face I hardly knew and instantly disliked. Its tired eyes were bloodshot and the skin around them had been left six months under a stone. The face of a private detective, without a future and without hope.
In the kitchen, I put fire under a pot of coffee and went i)ack to the bedroom to dress. Dark trousers that needed ("icssing, good enough for the rain I could hear against the ^vindow; a soft-collar shirt and the first tie my fingers came across. The shoes needed a shine but this wasn't my night to ^o dancing.
Two cups of the coffee, hot as the bowels of Vesuvius and
114 HALO FOR SATAN
touched up with a few drops of black molasses rum, made a new, if not better, man of me. I put the cup and saucer in the sink, got my suit coat and trench coat out of the closet and laid them on the bed while I strapped on an underarm holster and put my one gun—a .38 Colt Detective Special— into it.
In case I met Fu Manchu or Dillinger. Or an unknown quantity named Jafar Baijan.
I pulled my hatbrim down over my eyes, went out and rode the elevator to the first floor. A pool of light marked the desk, with Sam Wilson, the night man, behind it at the switchboard, his hands and eyes filled with a pulp-paper magazine. I could see the picture on the cover from across the distance. It would have given nightmares to Jack the Ripper.
Wilson jerked up his head before I reached the counter. He stood up quickly and came over to the opposite side, reflected light glinting on the thick lenses masking his muddy eyes. His sagging lips were trying to smile but not with much success. He was worried and I knew why.
I said, "I'm saying this once and only once. The next time you leave the key open on me you'll have to climb a flagpole to wash your ears—if you ever do. Is that clear ?"
His thin voice shot up to a screech like an E string. "Aw gee, Mr. Pine, you got me all wrong. Honest, I don't listen in on your calls, Mr. Pine. I wouldn't dream "
"That's all," I said. "Don't wait up for me."
I was three steps on my way to the front door when he said wistfully, "Another big case, hunh, Mr. Pine?"
I stopped to turn around and look at him. I had hurt hi? feelings but not enough to dent his curiosity. You couldn't have dented it with a cold chisel. His round sagging face brooded at me, patches of hair where the razor had skidded standing out in the bright light.
HALO FOR SATAN 115
"Just to keep you in touch," I said, ''I'm on my way to pick up twenty-five million bucks."
He shook his head sadly and turned back to the switchboard, I pushed open one of the heavy doors and went out, standing in the recess while buttoning my collar around my neck.
>
It was still raining, not so heavy as before but still enough of it not to go out in if you had your choice. I ducked south along the walk, dodging what puddles I could, and on into the Plymouth.
The motor started with understandable reluctance. I lighted a cigarette I didn't want and rolled south along Wayne Avenue between twin rows of parked cars. An occasional lighted, window in the buildings along there marked where people were still up and playing bridge or raiding the icebox or arguing over the family budget. Not Pine, brother; he was out hunting a case of pneumonia.
I turned off at Pratt Boulevard and on over to Western. It was getting to be a familiar route.
Glenlake Avenue came in a stone's throw south of Devon and Sacramento was six blocks west of Western. The district was still in the subdivision stage: a good many empty weed-covered lots interspaced with bright new houses surrounded by freshly seeded lawns that were black and gooey mud under the rain. The homes themselves were a long way from being pretentious, but they had that nice solid middle-class look that went with the folks who lived in them.
I drove slowly past the corner where Wirtz was to be waiting with a fabulous manuscript under his arm and his heart in his mouth. He might have been there but I couldn't see him. There were too many trees and far too little light for me to see anything. My wrist watch put the time at two-thirty-three.
I went on by and another block south. More trees, more empty lots, more houses. It didn't seem anyone was tailing me with a long black car filled with machine guns. I made a complete turn at the end of the block, my headlights picking out the words on a realtor's tin sign nailed to a stake.
Three-quarters of the way back to the proper corner I drew up at the curb, got out into the wet, jaywalked to the south side of Sacramento and on down toward Glenlake. No sounds except the drip of water and my shoe soles slapping concrete. A bleary street lamp picked up my shadow and threw it away out ahead of me.
At the corner, I cupped my hands around a match flame and lighted a cigarette while I peered south and west along the walks. Nothing moved along them but more shadows and more rain. No man with a manuscript and only one man without one. Me. I felt as conspicuous as the Swedish minister to Liberia.
I blew smoke through my nose, coughed lightly and walked around in a tight circle. The strips of parkway were lined with large trees so close together their upper branches intermingled. Around their boles was no light at all. Ten men could have been hidden within twenty feet of me. I hoped there weren't. Maybe Wirtz was standing behind one of those trees, watching me.
He had watched me long enough. Out loud I said, "Hey, Mr. Smith." The words sounded plaintive and not very robust, mufiled by the weather. I decided not to try that again.
I took the gun out and held it along my leg and set out to prowl the parkway strip west along Glenlake. And at the base of the fourth tree down I found him. I found him a split second before I stepped on his head.
He was stretched out, face down on the wet grass and beyond caring about it. In the darkness he was just a long
HALO FOR SATAN 117
lumpy shape with a bent elbow sticking out and the hand below it underneath him somewhere. A small dim object near his head was a snap-brim hat and a sequin of light from the distant street lamp touched the design on one of his socks.
It wasn't necessary to hold a mirror to his lips or hunt around for his pulse. His pulse would be missing and his soul gone to wherever souls go after the motor stops. You can always tell, even in a bad light, when they lay limp as wetwash in the tub.
I bent down part way and said, "Good evening, Mr. Smith. Do you have a book for me to read ?" Then I laughed, hollowly, briefly and without humor, and knelt beside the body and struck a match. With my free hand I lifted the head by its hair and looked at the face.. ..
It was the face of Sergeant Frank Tinney.
It was four in the morning, still dark, still raining, still miserable. I was sitting in a low-backed armchair in a cubbyhole of an office at the Summerdale station. I had been sitting there, alone, for over ten minutes now, and getting fed up with it.
The door opened and closed, and the same lieutenant from Central Homicide who had listened to my story four times already during the past hour, sat down behind the desk and across from me.
He was a lean, soft-spoken man a year or two past fifty, with neatly combed black hair graying at the temples, sharp steady eyes and a chill manner. At least what I'd seen of his manner was chill. A plain maroon bow tie nested high on his white shirt and his lightweight brown suit was just off the rack. His name was Overmire, and tonight, over a fresh corpse, was the first time we had met.
He moved some papers aimlessly about on the ragged green desk blotter. They were papers that had something to do with zoning violation complaints and had nothing to do with me. I knew that because ten minutes is too long just to stare at walls and your fingernails.
He pushed them aside finally and sighed the deepest sigh in the world. Without looking at me, he said, "I talked to the Bishop, Pine. His story bears you out."
"I gave you the truth, Lieutenant. That's why it bears out."
He sighed again and put one of his stubby-fingered hands palm down in front of him. His face seemed a little grayer and his lips even tighter than an hour before. He said heavily, "Tinney was a good man. A wife and two kids—the youngest just three. She's going to miss her dad."
I didn't say anything. Smoke from my cigarette moved sluggishly in the room's stale air.
Overmire leaned back in his chair and rubbed the back of one hand slowly against the top of his thigh. "Let's go over it once more, Pine. In case you forgot something the first three times."
"Four," I said.
"All right, four. You're lucky It's not going to be forty. We get on the touchy side when one of our boys gets pushed."
I said, "Yesterday morning, around ten-thirty, I called on Bishop McManus. At his request. He told me a man named Raymond Walsh had called on him three days before and tried to sell him a rare and valuable manuscript. Walsh was to have returned the next day with the manuscript. He failed to show up. The Bishop asked me to go out to the address Walsh had given and see why. I did and I found a body in the closet of Walsh's room. I notified Homicide and Sergeant Tinney came out. I told him what I've just told you.
HALO FOR SATAN 119
"At one-seventeen this morning Bishop McManus telephoned me and said Walsh wanted to meet him, the Bishop, at the corner of Glenlake and Sacramento. At two-thirty this morning. The Bishop said he couldn't keep the date himself but he would send me. I went out there at the right time. I 1 didn't find Walsh, but I did find the body of Sergeant Tinney. I immediately drove to the Granville el station and ] called Homicide from a phone booth there." The lieutenant put his right hand around his right kneecap and squeezed it until his knuckles showed, "A cop killer," he f muttered. "The son of a bitch. The lousy son of a bitch." He i let loose of his knee and reached for the papers again and I pushed them another two inches toward the telephone. His voice got up to normal again. "Nothing else, Pine?" "Not a thing."
"I wouldn't want to find out different later on." "Yeah." I He slapped his hand smartly against the blotter, so sud-[ denly it made me jump. "We'll get him," he growled. "As ' sure as Christ we'll get him. We know a lot about him already. Pine. Tinney really worked on this thing. We know he's from Los Angeles, we know his real name is Raymond Wirtz, we know his background. A goddam university professor. How d'ya like thatf When those boys go sour they really go sour. All of that came out of leads from the clothing and stuff found in his closet out on Erie Street."
He struck the desk top three light measured blows with the bottom of a fist. "All that we found in Tinney's reports. But nothing at all in them to tell us how he happened to know Wirtz was going to be at the corner of Glenlake and Sacramento this morning. But he did know it and Wirtz was there and Wirtz killed him. Killed him the way he killed Willie Post: a long-bladed knife and smack-dab into the h
eart."
He called Wirtz what he had called him twice before and sighed again. "We've covered every hotel and rooming house in this town. I'inncy was doing that in a small way; now we're doing it in a big way. Maybe that'll uncover Wirtz. We've got the best description the Bishop could furnish. It could fit a thousand men but we've got it. Los Angeles is mailing us a photo if they can find one. We'll get him, Pine, and when we do he'll fall down a lot of stairs before he goes to trial."
I didn't say anything. He leaned halfway across the desk and put his crossed forearms on the blotter and impaled me with those chill eyes. "I'm a reasonable man. Pine. I have a lot of respect for most of you private guys and recognize the help the Department gets from them occasionally. While it never got out to the public, your part in the Sandmark case* is in the records and I've read them."
He stopped there and looked off into the distance and thought his thoughts. I scraped a thumbnail against the stubble on my chin and just sat.
"All right," he said suddenly. "You can go. You can go because of what I know about you and because you're working for Bishop McManus . . . maybe only because you're working for him. Your story fits with his and that's good enough for me. Up to right now, anyway. But the next time —if there is a next time—Wirtz tries to make a date with either of you, I want to know about it. In advance, mister."
I stood up and swung my hat against my leg. "Good morning. Lieutenant."
He nodded briefly. I put on my hat and went out the door.
* Halo in Blood, 1946, The Bobbs-Merrill Company.
Nine-thirty was early for me to be at the of' fice any morning. But I had wakened about eight o'clock, dull-eyed and unhappy and filled with a vast restlessness that had no answer.
It was a dreary, rain-swept day, raining the kind of rain that comes out of a sky the color and texture of a flophouse bed sheet and goes on and on. I opened the inner-office window behind its glass ventilator, put my hat and trench coat on the customer's chair and poked my shoe toe at the windrows of office junk ^ left on the floor by yesterday's prowler. The cleaning woman must have taken one look at the wreckage and gone downstairs to quit.
The Long escape Page 10