The Long Night

by Hartley Howard

  “And?”

  “What d’you think? He turned a squad of private dicks loose on Mister Richard Gilmore’s affairs and . . . blooey! That was it. They dug up enough dirt on King to make him less eligible than Mossadeq. When the big shot found out he’d been under the X-ray, he got mad and said some nasty things to his future father-in-law not quite. Which made Warner point out that he’d rather see young Susan dead than married to a louse like Gilmore . . . that character keeps looking at the clock like he thinks it was about time you were getting on your train.”

  “Never mind him,” I said. “How did Susan take the break-up of her romance?”

  “There you have me. The old man sent her off somewhere to heal her maiden heart. Europe, I think. I heard she was back but I wouldn’t know for sure. While she was out of Gilmore’s reach, her father was organising his Citizen’s Committee in a big way. Now, he’s got his teeth into Gilmore and he won’t let go.”

  “King must be slipping. What’s happened to his accident policy? It’s always taken care of awkward guys like Warner.”

  “Up to now,” Gerry said. He glanced at his watch and took a long manilla envelope from his pocket. “Nearly time you weren’t here . . . Lloyd Warner didn’t pile up his sugar by being dumb. He’s had a twenty-four hour bodyguard from the moment he decided to put the skids under Gilmore. The President isn’t as well protected. King couldn’t get at Warner if he controlled the U.S. Marines.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “You’re a useful guy to know. I’ll return your clippings intact. Just one thing more. Would you happen to know anybody in Washington who could use a thousand bucks?”

  “For doing what?”

  “Nothing—but nothing.” I could hear Gilmore’s cold, precise voice again inside my head saying almost the same words. He wanted his hands free same as I did. Only difference was he was prepared to pay much bigger dough.

  “Ask Cartwright,” Gerry said. “He’s on the Washington Mail. Tell him you’re a pal of mine or he’ll think you’re nuts . . . ten C’s for nix doesn’t ride into the Capital every day.” He tapped me lightly on the chest with a hard fist and threw a parting glance at the guy who was watching us. He said, “Dead Pan’s getting worried . . . wonder what his orders were if you didn’t board the train?”

  I said, “ No need to wonder. You shouldn’t know of such things. So long . . . and thanks again for everything.”

  “You’re very welcome,” Gerry said. For a moment, I thought he had just recalled something that had slipped his mind. Then he smiled and said, “So long, soldier. Take care of yourself. See you in three weeks’ time. . . .”

  The dark, impassive character who’d tailed me all morning followed me through the gate and watched me go on board. In the two or three minutes before departure, he strolled past my coach twice. He didn’t look at me or near me, but he had me placed all right.

  When we pulled out, he was still there—still looking at nothing and seeing everything. Ricky Gilmore was taking no more chances.

  In the next few hours I had plenty of time to think while I read and re-read the clippings and ate cigarettes. Everybody else called him King . . . or plain Gilmore. But the name on the scrap of paper in Pauline Gordon’s bag was Ricky . . . she’d guessed the phone number . . . maybe she’d been around when Judith called him . . . if you keep your eyes open, you can sometimes spot the numbers that are being dialled . . . and she could’ve heard Judith use the name Ricky. . . .

  Or it might’ve been Carole Van Buren . . . except that he’d tacitly admitted he was tied in with Judith Walker . . . but he hadn’t killed her . . . or so he said for what it was worth. Yet, someone had—someone who’d turned circumstances to his own advantage . . . her crazy talk on the phone that had set the stage for murder and a frame-up which had come unstuck.

  And there was another funny thing: Gilmore knew that she had called me at two a.m. Only Cooke and Sullivan should’ve known that. How did Gilmore know? It could be he had a private line to Headquarters and somebody was feeding him info. . . . Had he been the party who’d bopped me in the bathroom? If so, why was he there? Why hadn’t he strangled her and got the hell out of the apartment before I arrived? Why had he expected me to go into the bathroom? Why had Judith set the trap to encompass her own death?

  For one fleeting moment, I saw a picture shine brightly at the back of my mind—the picture of a girl who’d used herself as bait. And I had an idea that was nearly as crazy as the rest of the set-up.

  Then the idea faded because I remembered her dark beauty . . . and King Gilmore’s reputation. Yet . . . he’d been willing to marry Susan Warner. He’d stuck out his neck for her. And he’d made her father his greatest enemy. Warner was out for the kill with no holds barred . . . maybe the idea wasn’t just so crazy.

  In the last hour of the journey, I fell asleep on it. Funny thing, it was the best sleep I’d had in the past forty-eight hours.

  Travelling two hundred and fifty miles hadn’t got me away from the New York weather. Washington was wet and cold, with a blustering wind that froze the marrow. It was getting dark by the time I contacted Cartwright.

  He was a cynical guy with a thin, shiny face and deep-set eyes. Eyes and face and voice were sardonic. I got the impression he’d seen and heard most things and didn’t fancy any of them.

  I asked him if he knew anybody who was interested in picking up a fast buck and he gave me a sour grin. “How big is this buck?”

  “Ten yards,” I said.

  “The rate of exchange being one century per yard?”

  “That’s how it works out where I come from.”

  “So’s I can be sure we’re both talking the same language,” he said, “you’re offering a thousand dollars to the right person . . . is that it?”

  “In cash, in advance . . . and tax-free,” I said.

  He took hold of me by the elbows and put his head on a side and studied me like he was counting my eyelashes. Then he said, “I’m the right person. Who d’you want me to kill?”

  “Nothing like that,” I said. “This is a sucker job—no work, no backfire. Only one thing: you married?”

  “Brother——” he let go of my arms and rubbed the back of his hand over his chin “—the lines you see here are from ulcers, not incompatrimony. When do I start?”

  “When I’ve told you what you have to do and had your word you’ll ask no questions and keep your lip buttoned for at least three weeks.”

  “You make it sound like it was maybe kinda criminal.” He didn’t care either way. Before I could say anything, he added, “If it is, don’t tell me, then I can always say I didn’t know.”

  “Unless it’s a crime to take a gonnof for a ride,” I said, “there’s nothing criminal about any of this.”

  “Who’s the gonnof?”

  “That’s the first question you haven’t to ask,” I said.

  Cartwright sucked at his tongue and made a thoughtful face. He said, “O.K. . . . O.K. I’ll make like a clam. What do I have to do?”

  “Just this.” And I told him.

  Outside the Winchester Hotel, I gave him one minute flat and then I followed him in.

  It was a plush joint—loaded with warmth and artistic lighting, and smelling of ten-spot Havanas and mink wraps and Schiaparelli. Through a half-open door, I caught a glimpse of the cocktail bar and a lot of bare shoulders and diamonds.

  Cartwright was at the desk talking to the clerk. Among the few people in the vestibule, there was no one I knew. And no one who should’ve known me. I loitered near the news-stand and bought an evening paper. Now and again I looked at my watch. I was just a guy who was waiting for someone.

  The clerk had gone some place through a door behind the desk. Cartwright smoked a cigarette and doodled with the fancy pen attached to the blotter. He didn’t once look at me.

  Then the clerk came back and handed him a bulky envelope and a nice smile. A bell-hop took the room key and waited for Cartwright to stub out his cigarette. The
y went across the vestibule and an elevator took them up.

  I read my paper. Nobody was interested in a guy who’d been stood up on a date. People came and went and none of them even glanced at me. A youngster with a girl who could’ve been his sister sat discussing something earnestly on a bench-seat near the entrance to the cocktail bar: a dumpy woman with a small girl stood watching the revolving doors to the street: an elderly dame dozed in a club chair in the far corner of the vestibule.

  King Gilmore and his kind seemed a long way off. But I couldn’t be certain; with enough money, you can buy most anybody. Even the old party in the corner could be suspect. I went into the bar and had a short and killed another five minutes.

  When I went back, the old biddy had gone. The woman and the kid with pigtails had been joined by a boy in short pants, and the girl near the bar was now alone. I took a slow stroll over to the desk.

  The clerk said, “Yes, sir? Can I help you?” He had an egg-shaped head and a centre-part in his plastered hair and round spectacles with gold rims. His smile was as sincere as a commuter’s handshake.

  I said, “A Mr. Stone—Valentine Stone—is supposed to be meeting me here. I wonder if he checked in before I arrived . . . could you tell me?”

  “Why, certainly, sir. If you’ll give me a moment——” he adjusted his spectacles more firmly on his thin nose and swung the register round towards him “—I’ll have a look . . . and see. . . .” His well-manicured forefinger began to travel down the open page.

  I took out a cigarette and lit it at the constantly-burning gimmick on the desk. Below the gimmick there was an ashtray. And in the ashtray there were two stubs. With the tip of my cigarette, I turned them over idly while I waited for the clerk to dig up Mister Valentine Stone . . . whoever he might’ve been.

  One stub was just a stub smudged with lipstick. The other had the number 731 printed in ink below the maker’s name. I used the red end of my cigarette to scorch the paper until the numerals disappeared.

  By that time, the clerk had reached the foot of the page and he was beginning to make little negative noises. Then he looked up at me and shook his head and made a small, round mouth. “I’m afraid not, sir. It doesn’t appear that Mr. Stone has arrived yet. And we have no reservation in that name. . . .”

  “He’ll be here,” I said. “If you don’t mind, I’ll wait.”

  “Not at all, sir. Perhaps you’d care to go and have a drink while you’re waiting? . . . I’ll page you when Mr. Stone checks in. . . .”

  I went back to the bar and had another bourbon. When I returned to the vestibule there were three or four people clustered at the desk and the clerk was busy. He didn’t see me go past and skip upstairs.

  On the first floor I positioned myself at the elevator gates where I could see both ways. No one came up after me. I allowed two full minutes and then I pushed the call button.

  The elevator had no other passengers. Without looking at me, the jockey said, “Seven . . .? Yes, sir.”

  We went up with no in-between stops. I got out and the elevator slid down quietly out of sight and I began walking along the corridor past 703 . . . 705 . . . 707 . . . 711 . . . 719 . . . 725 . . . 729. . . .

  Cartwright opened the door an inch and showed me the snout of a little belly-gun. I went in and he shut the door and locked it. He said, “I been thinking.” He still had the gun in his hand.

  I said, “What’ve you been thinking?”

  He took the fat manilla envelope out of his inside pocket and tapped it on the barrel while he stared right through me. In a wooden voice, he said, “Before I get in too deep, there’s one question you gotta answer whether you like it or not, so I don’t go around leading with my chin.”

  “Let’s have the question,” I said.

  “There’s a lotta dough in this envelope and you got me to sign the book in your name so you can work a double-cross and maybe somebody won’t like it . . . right?”

  “You’re asking three questions, not one. But they’ve all got the same answer; it’s yes. You getting cold feet?”

  “Not so cold as to make me pass up a thousand bucks. I just wanted to know before I set myself up as the fall-guy.”

  He came away from the door and handed me the envelope. With no expression on his face he put the gun in his hip pocket. He said, “Nothing like being prepared. There’s twenty-one lonely nights in three weeks and you never know who might go walking in my sleep.”

  “You shouldn’t have any trouble,” I said. “Nobody knows me in this town. If anyone checks, Bowman collects his key each night and goes out the next morning, day after day. My guess is that any checking will be done by long distance from New York. If you should have to take a phone call, act Bowman and say as little as you can . . . got it?”

  “Yeah,” he said. “I got it. But I don’t like it.”

  I said, “For a thousand bucks, I could’ve found ten guys who wouldn’t do any griping.”

  He grinned with one side of his face as he held out his hand. “But you had to pick on me . . . and who’s griping, anyway? Gimme. . . .”

  I never saw Cartwright again. Sometimes I wonder what he thought about while he lay in bed in room 731 . . . night after night . . . with a gun under his pillow . . . waiting . . . and saying, “Maybe to-morrow. . . .”

  I guess we’ve all got to take a chance in this life. He took his for a thousand dollars. Now and again, I don’t feel so good about Cartwright.

  Chapter XI

  Strange Encounter

  FOR THREE days, I hung around Washington, eating, sleeping and thinking in a semi-respectable rooming house where nobody poked his nose into his neighbour’s business. Each night, I called Cartwright. Each night, he said he was O.K. No phone calls, no visitors. He didn’t ask me why I was still in town.

  On the fourth day, I went back to New York in two stages. At Elizabeth, I got off the train and caught a bus the rest of the way. Just to be on the safe side. Gilmore might’ve had a watch on the railroad depot and the airport, but he could hardly have kept tabs on the bus terminal as well. Or so I hoped.

  Believe it or not, when I got in it was still raining. More important, I didn’t have any reception committee to greet me.

  Within an hour I was holed up in a nice quiet dive—the kind of place that doesn’t remember your name or what you look like or where you come from . . . and doesn’t want to. I had a room with a clean bed and a sound lock on the door and complete privacy for two dollars a day.

  Soon’s it got dark, I went out and got myself a solid meal. Then I set off on a one-man scouting patrol. I had a yen to see what came off in or around the home of a certain Mr. Lloyd Warner.

  As Long Island establishments go, it wasn’t a big house—maybe six or seven bedrooms at the most. The gardens were nicely laid out from what I could see in the light of an uncurtained window on the ground floor. A concrete drive ran in a straight line from the gates to a roomy garage, with a curving off-shoot leading up to the front door.

  The gates were open and fastened back like somebody was expected shortly. Young chrysanthemums in bud flanked the drive on both sides; floral bushes surrounding the lawns had shed their petals on the sodden earth; close-cropped grass and trimmed hedges were a wet, shining green in the streamer of light from the window. House and gardens dripped unhappily after five days and nights of unending rain.

  Down where the road joined the main highway, headlights rode the darkness. Far out on the Sound red and green sailing lights trained their reflections on the black water. Where I stood, there was only an occasional street lamp and a few scattered windows painted on the night.

  I got wet. While I snooped around and learned nothing that was worth knowing, I got very wet. It might’ve saved me possible rheumatism to have rung the bell and asked for Miss Susan Warner. But I didn’t want to do that. Not yet. Sometimes in my line of business, if you let yourself drift for a while and wait to see what comes off, you get a break. Only a genius can get by without a bre
ak. I’m no genius.

  So I tried to shelter as best I could under a skinny plane tree on the sidewalk and I let time drip on. Maybe twenty minutes in all.

  Then I heard a car climbing up from the highway—climbing fast and without slowing on the bends. Twin beams of light probed through the rain and lost themselves in the laden sky. Either the driver knew the road very well, or he or she was in a big hurry.

  The car rushed nearer and its lights levelled out and the noise of the motor slackened. Fifty yards from the open gates, its indicator began winking on and off for a left-hand turn. When it swung across the road, it was still knocking up a fair lick.

  There was a dame at the wheel. That much I managed to see in the time I had to make up my mind. And a dame was as good a break as I could expect in the circumstances. When the nose of the car was almost on the kerb, I stepped away from the tree and into the glare of the offside headlight.

  She must’ve got a helluva fright. I know I did. Soon’s I’d done it, I was filled with more regrets than a middle-aged virgin.

  If her reflexes were slow . . . if she’d been hitting the bottle . . . if her philosophy said, “The hell with a jay-walker!” A lot of ifs . . . and not a lot of time to do much about it.

  With the scream of brake-shoes all around me, I flung myself back. The glittering chrome grill grinned over me below two white-hot eyes . . . I struck the sidewalk and skidded on one shoulder and a fender flipped the skirt of my coat . . . the squeal of the brakes died and the car jolted to a stop.

  I lay in the shadow like I was cold meat until I heard her fumble with the catch of the door above me. Then I groaned. And while I was groaning, I wiped a wet, dirty hand down the side of my face. After that, I lay very still again.

  The door clicked shut and somebody got down beside me—somebody who smelled nice and who had smooth, soft hands. She started to raise my head and then she changed her mind. She opened a rear door and rummaged around for a couple of seconds. Then she lifted my head again and put a cushion under it. I loosed another deep groan that made even me feel bad.