The Case of the Murdered Madame (Prologue Books)

by Henry, Kane,

  I was hardly past the door when I realized that I was persona non grata. The word was in. The bartender’s glare was colder than incompatibility in an igloo and almost at once a bouncer with heft bellied up to me. Softly he said, “Out.”

  I opened my innocent eyes at him. “But why, sweetie?”

  “Because them’s orders. And don’t call me sweetie.”

  “You’re big, sweetie, but I’ve got a hunch I can take you.”

  “Try.”

  “I would if it made sense.”

  “Try. Maybe it’ll make sense.”

  “Can I ask a question before I try?”

  “Sure. Ask.”

  “Who gave the orders?”

  “Johnny Hays.”

  “That little prig?”

  “He’s one of my bosses.”

  “Nickie know about these orders?”

  “Look, pal, I only work here. Johnny’s one of my bosses. I don’t ask no bosses no questions. I get orders and that’s what I am paid for. Now look. You going out of here nice and quiet? It’s better for business if you’re going out of here nice and quiet. But just between you and me, I wish you would not go out of here nice and quiet, because I would love to shove a fist through you. You’re one of them big-mouthed dressed-up dudes that thinks he’s a muscle. You’re a fink what thinks he’s one of them TV killers. Get fresh a little, pal. I would love to tell my friends how I kicked over a private eyeball.”

  It didn’t make sense but it’s the same old story. Business is business and in my business you’ve got to keep them respecting you or you lose face and when you lose face you lose business. I was well enough patched up from the bullets and they hadn’t been really serious to begin with. So I lifted a quick knee to his groin which brought a grunt from his face and then I swung a tennis racket right to the top of his head and then a straight left to the point of his rough-bearded chin. All his pretty speeches died inside of him and he fell like a log and before there was any commotion I was out in the night.

  And thereafter I was out many nights, night after night, milking the underworld, trying to coax a tip on the Reed snatch, but it was locked up tight and nothing wanted to happen. I kept making calls to Nickie Darrow but the big shot made no call back to me. I didn’t see Trina, I didn’t see Johnny, I didn’t see Nickie, I didn’t see Florence, I didn’t see Abner, I didn’t see Aunt Ethel, and I didn’t see Uncle Harry. I saw Parker, and between the two of us we had accumulated a great big bunch of nothing. The holster I was constantly wearing was growing heavy and tiresome and the flesh beneath it was growing more tender than an inquisitor’s pride … yet…. nothing. And then, late one sunny afternoon, I was sitting in the office thinking about my next possible move, when the move was made for me. The phone rang and the husky female voice said, “Mr. Chambers?”

  “This is Chambers.”

  “Good.” She spoke quickly. “My name is Sandra Mantell. I live at Fifty-two West Forty-ninth, Apartment Two, downstairs.”

  “Yes, Miss Mantell?”

  “I want to talk to you. Personally.”

  “You are talking to me. Personally.”

  “I mean I want to see you.”

  “I’m a little busy, Miss Mantell.” It wasn’t true but you always say that to a new client or they throw you out of the union.

  “It’s important, Mr. Chambers.” The voice dropped a note. “It’s about a kidnapping.”

  Crinkles commenced on my scalp. “Pardon?”

  “The kidnapping of Abner Reed.”

  I sat bolt upright. “What? What’s that?”

  “Listen, please. I … I’m involved in it. It was my idea, really. I dreamed it up. I was supposed to get a third. One third.” The voice got harsh now. “But … I’m not getting it. So … I want to talk. Understand? I want to talk.”

  “Yes,” I prompted. “Talk, Miss Mantell.”

  “Look. I want you to make a deal for me. If I spill … I want to be able to cop a plea. If I give them the evidence, worst I want to get is a suspended sentence. Can you swing it?”

  Now I tried the crafty approach. “Why you calling me, Miss Mantell?”

  “Because I know you’re mixed up in it. Because I’m the one who recommended you, got your name from a real hip friend. Because I know you can be trusted and I want you to feel out the cops for me. You tell them I’ll spill if they guarantee me a plea. Keep my name out but I’m ready to talk, Mr. Chambers. No son of a bitch is gonna cross me and think they’re gonna get away with it …”

  The raps over the wire were gunshots.

  Could have been backfire, could have been explosions, could have been firecrackers — but they weren’t — none of that — not with the quick cry from her, and then the sigh, and then the thud of the receiver to the floor. The connection was open but I broke it. I hung up and I ran. Fifty-two West Forty-ninth was near enough to my office and I ran most of the way … and then I was there … downstairs apartment … a long hallway and then Apartment Two … and then I was there in the presence of death … a blonde with blood on her face … and standing above her … a sobbing brunette … and I didn’t know the blonde … but I knew the brunette.

  Her name was Trina Greco.

  “What the hell?” I said. “What’s going on here?”

  Sobs.

  “Trina!”

  “Yes?”

  “You didn’t kill her?”

  “No.”

  I closed the door and I prowled. The receiver was still off the hook, a discordant buzz pouring through it. The blonde was in a sheer housecoat, naked beneath that, a big-bosomed blonde with long full legs, shot through the head. A revolver lay near her. I came back to Trina and I shook her. “You do this, Trina?”

  “No.”

  “Did you call the cops?”

  “No.”

  “What are you doing here?”

  “I live here.”

  “Talk it up. Talk it up fast. We’ve got to report this. Now come on. Let’s have it.”

  She was trying to pull herself together but she kept falling apart. “Let me tell you,” she gasped. “Let me tell you what happened …”

  Then the sobs came again.

  “I’ll ask the questions,” I said, “and you try to answer them. And get hold of yourself, will you please?”

  “Yes. Yes.”

  “You say you live here?”

  “Yes.”

  “This the new apartment you moved to?”

  “Yes.”

  “She live here too?”

  “Yes. My room-mate.”

  “You know her well?”

  “I met her a couple of months ago. I was introduced to her.”

  “By whom?”

  “A man. Johnny Hays.”

  “Johnny Hays, huh? That guy mean anything to you?”

  “Nothing. An acquaintance. I went out with him a few times.”

  “And this Sandra Mantell? Was she a friend of his too?”

  “No. She was a friend of a friend of his. Nick Darrow.”

  “And how well do you know this Nick Darrow?”

  “I don’t know him at all.”

  “Now this Mantell. You met her a couple of months ago. What do you know about her?”

  “She lived in Jersey. She was a dancer, working in Union City.”

  “What kind of dancing?”

  “A burlesque turn. But she was a trained ballet dancer. We were short a girl for our show, and I brought her in, and she qualified. We became better acquainted and she suggested taking this apartment.”

  “And how’d you get along?”

  “It was a mistake. I found her tough, hard, unpleasant. I told her I was going to move out after the first of the month. My rent was paid until then.”

  “And how’d she take that?”

  “She said she didn’t care. She said if things worked out for her, she’d be living in a penthouse, and very soon.”

  “Yet she attended rehearsals as a ballet dancer?”

&nbs
p; “Attended them faithfully. It was a thing with her. She wanted that, terribly. It was as though she were trying to prove something to herself. She made much more money in burlesque, she did a specialty, but still she wanted ballet.”

  I went away from her and looked over the apartment. It was clean, neat and nicely furnished. When I came back, I said, “Okay. I think you’re in shape now. I want to know what happened here, and I want it coherent.”

  She wiped her palms with a handkerchief and laid it away. She said, “We had both been at rehearsal. She said she had a date, and a very important one — a business date.”

  “Did she say where?”

  “At a restaurant. She didn’t tell me which restaurant. She said she was on her way to talk business. She said she was going to give somebody a last chance to make her rich. That’s what she said.”

  “Did she sound serious?”

  “Yes.”

  “And where did you go?”

  “I went to a movie.”

  “Then?”

  “I came home. As I came into the hallway, I heard these shots. Then our door opened and a man ran out. We collided, and that’s when the gun dropped to the floor.”

  “What gun?”

  “The gun right here.” She pointed a trembling finger at it.

  “Wait a minute, Trina. If you and the guy collided in the hallway — what’s the gun doing here?”

  “Well, when I looked in here and I saw her like that, I went to her, and she was dead, dead. Then quickly I went back into the hall for the gun. I remembered about not touching things … fingerprints. So I kicked it … with my foot … kicked it along with my foot until I worked it into the apartment.”

  “Good enough. Now what did the guy look like?”

  “I don’t know.”

  I grabbed her shoulders and pulled her to me. “Honey, you just told me you collided with him, out there in the hallway. You must have seen what he looked like.”

  “No.” She moved away from me. “Remember that I was coming in from a sunny street, into a dim hallway. And he was running. And we collided. And then he ran out. I just have no idea what he looked like.”

  “Okay,” I said. “That’s it. Now we go out and call cops:”

  “Out? Can’t we call from here?”

  “I don’t want to touch that receiver. You’re supposed to leave things as close to what they were as is possible. Sometimes it helps. Come on.”

  On the way to a phone booth, I asked her for a favor. I asked her to tell her story exactly as she had told it to me, but to leave out one item. Nickie Darrow. Not to mention Nickie. That was all. Nothing else. Just to omit Nickie Darrow.

  “Why?” she said.

  “It’s a personal thing, my little Greek philosopher. I’ve been trying to get through to him, on a thing of my own, and this gives me a wedge. Don’t worry. You won’t be breaking any law, and if there’s any trouble, I’ll take full responsibility.”

  She was hesitant but she was co-operative. “All right, if you say so, Peter.”

  “I say so.”

  I called downtown to Headquarters and then we went back to the apartment and pretty soon there were cops, lots of cops, tons of cops, and they were in the charge of Detective-lieutenant Louis Parker, and Parker was in a gruff mood. “Never fails, does it? How come whenever there’s a corpse there’s you?”

  “It’s mixed up with the other thing, Lieutenant.”

  “What other thing?”

  “The Abner Reed snatch.”

  “You kidding?”

  I straightened him out on current events, from Sandra Mantell’s phone call to right now (omitting friend Darrow) and his mood was ameliorated and he was very much on my side again. “Go home,” he said. “Go home and stay home.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you’re a good kid.”

  “That’s why you want me to go home?”

  “Listen. For once will you listen? There’s nothing you can do here and there may be a lot I can do. But I’ll come up and see you, Pete, as soon as I get loose from all of this. You’ve played ball with me — I’ll play ball with you. I’ll come up and see you and we’ll kick it around some more. Okay?”

  “About Trina Greco, Lieutenant …”

  “Yes?”

  “Please remember she’s a friend of mine.”

  “So?”

  “Treat her nice.”

  “Okay. She’s a friend. I’ll treat her nice. Now will you please go home?”

  VII

  So you go home. You’re a good little boy and you’ve listened to Papa. You sit around like an old lady with lumbago … but you sit. You do some home cooking and some home eating and some home drinking … but you sit. You get sick and tired of sitting … but you sit. Day melts into night, and night is getting more wearisome than a practical joker trying to prove himself, and you’re still sitting. Finally, at twelve-thirty, Parker shows up, perspiring and tired-looking.

  “Hi,” he said. “How you doing?”

  “Been sitting. Been sitting real good. My butt’s numb. How you doing?”

  “Pretty bad.”

  I went to the liquor cabinet. “A bit of the potables, Lieutenant?”

  “I thank you. I can use a couple of shots.”

  He used three quick ones. Then he said, “Well, sir, the gun on the floor at the Mantell apartment, that was the murder gun, all right. And we were able to garner a gorgeous set of prints off it, real clear and distinct. Only sets of prints on it, as a matter of fact. Gun’s an old one. Couldn’t do any tracing from the serial number. Dead end on that phase.”

  “How lucky do you want to be, pal? Gorgeous fingerprints, I heard you say.”

  “There’s a catch.”

  “As my Greek philosopher would say — isn’t there always?”

  “Who’s your Greek philosopher?”

  “Another time, Lieutenant. Where’s the catch?”

  “Gorgeous set of prints but they match nothing we’ve got on file. And they don’t match anything out of Washington either. So where’s that leave us?”

  “Way out in left field on a rainy day and the ball game’s been called.”

  “Very well put, me lad. Time for another drink. You think only the private detectives know how to imbibe what you call the potables?”

  I served him another drink, a large one. I said, “You check her friends?”

  “Sure. I’ve got forty men working on this. We’ve checked everybody that’s ever had the remotest connection with her. No prints fit the prints on that gun.”

  “You couldn’t know everybody that had the remotest connection.”

  “We’re only human, kiddo. We’ve run down every single possible lead and we’re no place. We’ve got fingerprints. Now we need fingers to match. Stinks pretty good, huh?”

  Poor Louie. He looked as sorrowful as a lover who’s lost his touch. My conscience reared up on its hind legs and pawed at me. Casually I said, “You guys have Nickie Darrow’s prints downtown, haven’t you?”

  “Darrow? He have any connection with this?”

  “Not that I know of. Let’s say I have a personal hate for the guy and I’m trying to shove him on a spot. All I’m asking — do you have his prints?”

  “You bet we do.”

  “And he cleared on that gun?”

  “Definitely. I told you we don’t have any prints downtown that fit that damn gun, the ones on that damn gun.”

  “Okay, Lieutenant. I was only trying to help. So Darrow’s out. Don’t glare at me like that. What about Mantell? Any special dope on her?”

  “Nothing, except she was a looker with a real upholstered torso. Knew a lot of the best people, and knew a lot of the worst. A cooch dancer, and a top-notcher. Used to live in New York, then moved to Jersey when she got permanent work in a burlycue joint in Union City. Played around in New York though, and played plenty. There’s a lot that we don’t know about her, that’s for sure, and there’s a lot of people that knew her we d
on’t know a thing about.” He stood up, sighed, had another drink, flipped the glass away. “But we keep plugging. We’re cops and we keep plugging. We’re not brilliant private eyes, that sleep with all the girls, a new girl on every case, and run around, and slug a few people, and then come up with all the right answers. We’re only cops, and we plug, and a good deal of the time we solve our cases, and some of the time we do not. We work without too much fanfare and we do a lot of leg-work and routine and we don’t get paid by publishers and TV sponsors to tell our stories. Good night now, sonny. I’m tired and I’m grumpy and I’m going to sleep. You ought to do the same.”

  VIII

  You close the door behind him and you hit the horn. You dial the Club Trippa, and you ask for Nick Darrow, and they ask who’s calling, and you tell them, and you get the same old answer: not in. This time you leave a message instead of a phone number. You say that a lady by name Sandra Mantell has been murdered, and that you’ve been working on it, and that you left out the name of Nickie Darrow when you made your report to the police. You say that you’ll be home the rest of the night and then, like you did so many times before, you leave your phone number. Then you hang up and you make yourself some frozen blintzes out of the freezer, with sugar and sour cream, and you’re in the midst of relishing it, when the phone tinkles, and guess who …?

  Nickie Darrow’s voice was smoother than my sour cream. “How are you, Pete? Where you been keeping yourself?”

  “Been hiding, Nickie.”

  “My club too lowdown for a high-hat like yourself?”

  “Haven’t had time for night clubs, Nickie. Haven’t even had the time to call you on the phone, a nice old friend like you.”

  “No? Too bad. You should call some time. People should always keep in touch.”

  “Yeah. You got something there, Nickie.”

  “Why don’t you drop in tonight, Pete? You free tonight?”

  “Matter of fact, I am. And I’m in the mood for slumming. Nice of you to invite me, Nickie.”

  “Think nothing of it. Come up to the office, Pete. Say … two o’clock, eh? Love to see you. How’s two o’clock?”