Killer in the Street

by Nielsen, Helen

  “But she’s not in any condition to talk!” Van protested. “She’s emotionally upset and exhausted. She hasn’t even had any food.”

  “Then I’ll send out for some. Geary—!”

  There was nobody on duty to answer the intercom, but Jameson’s voice boomed through the empty corridors and Detective Geary answered the call. He had a report to make before taking new orders. There was a man named Charles Dover living in the environs of Prescott, but he didn’t know Kyle Walker, he didn’t drive a Chrysler and he had been mustered out of the only army he had served in in 1919.

  “Then Kyle told me a big whopper,” Jameson reflected. “I wonder why. Call over to the Downtown Café, Geary, and have them send over some sandwiches and coffee, and then put in a long distance to New York City and see what else you can learn about this story.”

  Jameson circled the Berendo piece with a marking crayon and passed it to Detective Geary’s open hand.

  “And, Geary,” he added as the younger man moved toward the door, “be sure and keep me posted on that other matter.”

  The faces across the desk were curious. Anxious, tired, and curious. Jameson felt a little guilty. No brainwashing inquisitor ever had a better setup.

  “Now, Mrs. Walker,” he said softly, “why don’t you take your story from the beginning? You’ve got me real interested. Why do you think Kyle took such a fright the night a crime syndicate had one of its flunkeys murdered in the garage of the building where you lived?”

  Chapter Twelve

  Kyle couldn’t follow Donaldson when he fled the Apache Inn. The blue station wagon was parked on the far side of the opposite wing. By the time he reached it and got it into motion, the beige Chrysler was blocks away. It was time for Kyle to get moving, too. He nosed the car out of the parking lot and got back onto the highway. Dee had come down from the mountain—that was his fault. He should have remembered to telephone her and make some excuse for delaying his arrival until morning. Unaware of Jimmy Jameson’s discovery of the stolen plates on Donaldson’s car, he assumed her anxiety was what had sparked the visit to the Apache Inn. She would have gone to Van first—frightened and angry. Van’s logic would have sent her to the police. Jameson’s off-the-record search for Charles Dover was the connecting link to the motel. That was the way Kyle’s mind reestablished order out of chaos, but the damage was done. He had lost his advantage over Donaldson. He no longer knew from what base the killer would strike.

  But now he knew why the killer would strike. It was all written down somewhere in proper legal terminology—one of the things he knew because it had been important enough to look up five years ago and had then been forgotten because he wanted to block out one rainy night and everything that pertained thereto. It could be blocked out no longer. Kyle drove into the desert until his panic was gone and his mind clear, and then he took another road back into the city, keeping a wary eye open for anything that vaguely resembled any of Jimmy Jameson’s colleagues. The police could be very efficient husband-finders, and this was no time to discuss domestic relations.

  Kyle had lost track of time. He drove to the library and discovered that it was closed. There was still the campus library and, through Van, he had influence with the custodian. Midterm exams were pending, and another student intent on zero-hour research in the legal section would excite no attention whatsoever. It was the New York Criminal Code that he needed. It took only fifteen minutes to find it, and then he was but seconds away from the reason Bernie Chapman’s killer had come to town.

  It was quite simple:

  Section 399 of the Criminal Code of the State of New York … A conviction cannot be had upon the testimony of an accomplice, unless he is corroborated by such other evidence as tends to connect the defendant with the commission of the crime.

  Jake Berendo was charged with the murder of Bernie Chapman; but Jake Berendo was the accomplice—not the killer. He would talk to save his own skin. He would name the man who had worn steel-rimmed glasses and now called himself R. R. Donaldson, but the testimony of an accomplice wouldn’t convict unless he was corroborated by such other evidence …

  Only Kyle Walker could convict the strangler of Bernie Chapman. “Other evidence” was just a legal term for a man in an elevator watching an act of murder. He replaced the volume and returned to his car. He sat in the darkness and smoked four consecutive cigarettes, and by that time he knew why he still couldn’t go to Jimmy Jameson and tell him the truth. It was obvious that Donaldson had known about Berendo’s arrest before he came to Tucson. It was obvious that he had known where to come. But Kyle had left no forwarding address when he moved out of the Cecil Arms. He had taken Dee to her family in Albany and his only correspondence until she joined him had been sent to her there. It was easy to guess Donaldson’s reactions after that instant in the garage when he looked up to see Kyle staring at him with the execution wire still in his hands and Bernie’s body at his feet. It was easy to imagine how he must have watched the building and identified Kyle Walker as the witness. It was even easy to understand why he took the course of no action when Kyle failed to report his experience to the police. But it wasn’t so easy to understand how he knew exactly where to find that witness when the pressure was on.

  This morning, when the only pressure Kyle was aware of was on himself, he hadn’t considered Donaldson’s modus operandi. It was possible his every action had been watched from the night he left the Cecil Arms for the last time. It was possible he had been lost and painstakingly relocated. It was even possible that word of his recent success had spread beyond the local region and rekindled Donaldson’s interest. One thing was certain. The killer’s target had been definitely identified.

  And so, if he told the truth to Jameson, there would be full police protection for himself and his family. But there would also be a return to New York City, a trial and publicity. There would be delay on the new job with a maximum investment at stake. And even if the district attorney had enough power to outweigh the kind of legal talent Donaldson’s employers could buy and get a conviction, there would be no safety. No family can live under police protection forever, and those who reign by vindictive terror can’t afford a crack in the image.

  By the time he had snuffed out the fourth cigarette, Kyle’s decision was made. He would play the loner game all the way. But he didn’t want Dee getting in that way. He wanted her back at Sam’s cabin with Mike. He consulted his watch. It was half-past ten. He couldn’t call Van because Van was with Dee. He couldn’t call Sam. Sam had gone out to dinner and afterwards to a benefit ball for some orphanage. That left only one ally: Charley of the well-kept memo pad.

  Charlene Evans lived in one of the newer apartment buildings in the Country Club Drive section where the carports were tucked under the rear overhand and nested the tenant’s vehicles like so many chicks under the wings of a mother hen. Charley didn’t own an automobile. A year ago she had dumped her last compact on the used-car market and started peddling her way to the office on a neat, collapsible Italian bicycle.

  “If a secretary doesn’t start watching her hips at twenty-nine,” she informed him, “she can be sure nobody will be watching them at thirty-nine.”

  Kyle was grateful for her foresight when he slid the station wagon in alongside the two-wheeler and made for the nearest stairway. The wagon was too conspicuous to leave parked on the street with Jimmy Jameson on his tail. He took the stairs two at a time and was relieved to see that Charley’s lights were still glowing. He glanced at the illuminated dial of his watch. It was ten-thirty. He rang the bell and waited while the patio light came on. Charley opened the door. She seemed neither surprised nor elated.

  “I had a feeling,” she said. “I had a great big hunch that it might be you. Jack doesn’t get in until tomorrow.”

  “Jack who?” Kyle asked.

  “A man in my life—which isn’t exactly in your territory any more. But don’t just stand there wearing out the doormat. Come inside.”

  Th
at certain rapport between two people who worked closely together was going for them. Kyle accepted the invitation, and Charley closed the door behind him without taking her eyes from his face.

  “What’s your trouble?” she asked.

  “It isn’t exactly trouble,” Kyle said.

  “And it isn’t exactly coming up roses, either,” Charley answered. “Sit down on something and I’ll get you a drink. You look as if you could use one.”

  Charley was right. Kyle sat down on a tangerine-colored sofa and ordered a double bourbon over two cubes of ice. While Charley mixed the drink he had time to notice things: her new hairdo, the fact that she wasn’t expecting callers because she wasn’t dressed in anything more impressive than a softly tailored white robe and a pair of gold house slippers studded with colored glass jewels. An old Bill Snyder disc was spinning on the record player and Kyle remembered, in one of those peculiar ways an exhausted mind recalls unrelated things, that it was called “Lonely Wine.” It seemed important at the moment.

  Charley returned with the drink.

  “God bless you,” he said.

  “Don’t mention it,” Charley answered. “I like a man who knows what he wants and asks for it. But why aren’t you up at Sam’s cabin with Dee?”

  The recorder stopped playing and shut itself off. There was no sound but the noise of the ice in Kyle’s drink. He must have looked surprised.

  “Sam called me about eight,” she explained. “He said Dee rang his house earlier in the evening and asked where you were. The housekeeper relayed the message. You’re supposed to be off duty—at Sam’s orders—for the next three days.”

  “Three days,” Kyle reflected. “What do I do then—rise from the grave?”

  “Is the trouble that serious?”

  Kyle wanted so much to tell her how serious it was—just to reach out and take one other human being into his confidence would have done more good than all the bourbon in Charley’s private stock. But he had made his decision to do a single and that was how it had to be.

  “I’m feeling sorry for myself,” Kyle said. “I’ve got a headache that feels like one of those animated TV commercials.”

  “When did you have dinner?” Charley asked.

  “I didn’t.”

  “Lunch then?”

  Kyle reflected, remembered his early departure from the Booster Club affair and admitted that he hadn’t eaten since breakfast.

  “And you wonder why your head aches!” Charley exclaimed. “Nurse that booze slowly and I’ll get you a plate of the best warmed-over meat loaf you’ve ever tasted…. And take off your shoes before you put your feet on the sofa!”

  Charley was slightly psychic. He slipped off his shoes, loosened his tie and stretched out on the tangerine cushions. He drank very slowly until there was nothing left in the glass but the ice cubes, and then he tilted the glass until he could suck on the ice the way he had when he was a kid. He was beginning to relax for the first time since he had spotted Bernie Chapman’s killer. Back in that room in the motel he had been too intent on watching Donaldson’s window through the binoculars even to realize there was a bed in the room. The binoculars. He remembered now that he had left them in the room. No matter. He still had the gun tucked in under his belt and concealed by the jacket he wasn’t going to remove under any circumstances. He hadn’t thought much about the gun since the war. He wasn’t a hunting man. He liked to climb mountains and ride and absorb nature but leave it as undisturbed as possible. The gun was in the house for defensive purposes only. But now he wasn’t so sure. As he relaxed, his mind sharpened and grew more daring. There was a way out. In spite of Jameson, in spite of the syndicate and the syndicate’s expensive lawyers, there was a way out. It was unorthodox and against all the rules of the game, but the name of the game now was survival for himself and Dee and Mike. It was a game everybody had to play sooner or later and the ground rules kept changing with every move.

  When Charley returned with a plate of food and a cup of coffee, Kyle was just a little drunk and too relaxed. He sat up abruptly and planted his stocking feet on the floor. Calculating loosely, he was going into his fortieth hour without sleep. He ate steadily and didn’t look up until Charley brought in the coffeepot to refill his cup. She was still waiting for an explanation and he couldn’t put it off any longer.

  Kyle shoved away his empty plate. “I always said you would make some man a good wife,” he said.

  “I always said so too,” Charley agreed, “but all of the interesting men are already married.”

  “Maybe that’s what makes them interesting.”

  “I once knew a psychiatrist who had the same idea. But we’re getting off the subject, aren’t we? It’s your trouble we’re to talk about, not mine.”

  Kyle drained the coffee cup before answering.

  “Charley,” he said, “a couple of years ago Dee and I had a stormy period. If you hadn’t been such a diplomatic liar and covered for me all the times I wasn’t in conference when you said I was, one perfectly fine marriage would have landed in Las Vegas. Do you think you could manage one more lie?”

  It wasn’t another woman. He didn’t have to explain anything that sticky to Charley. She had known that the minute he walked into her apartment.

  “Do I get any background material?” she asked.

  “Not tonight—maybe never. It depends on how lucky I am for the next few hours. Charley, I sent Dee and Mike to Sam’s cabin to get them out of the city—for their own good. But Dee didn’t stay up there. She’s in town now—I saw her about an hour ago. She’s looking for me and I’m not ready to be found. I want you to call the cabin and leave a message with the caretaker. Tell him that you’ve heard from me. I had to make an unscheduled trip to Casa Grande. We have a subcontractor there so it will sound right if it gets back to Sam. Make it clear that I’m coming to the cabin the minute I’m free and expect to find my family there waiting for me. I know Dee will be calling the cabin sooner or later and will get the message. Are you with it, Charley?”

  She didn’t like the sound of it, but she would go along. There always had to be one person like that in anyone’s life. One person who was so blindly loyal there would be no argument and no delay. Charley made the call while Kyle stood by to prompt her if she forgot anything. Ramon didn’t understand and she had to repeat the story, and all of the time Kyle could hear Mike’s small voice demanding to be allowed to speak to his mother. Mike, at least, was safe. Charley looked up and caught the naked relief in Kyle’s eyes, which she couldn’t understand any more than she understood why the message was so important; but she was woman enough to remember something that was.

  “And get that child to bed immediately!” she ordered. “It’s much too late for him to be up!” Charley put down the telephone and looked at Kyle. “Any further instructions?”

  “No,” Kyle said, “and thanks.”

  “Then maybe I can buy you another drink? Stir up another meat loaf? It’s all on the house.”

  “Nothing,” Kyle said. “You’ve gone beyond the line of duty already. I might add that I appreciate your bright and smiling manner in the face of adversity.”

  Charley knew he wasn’t going to confide another word and so she said, “I’m always cheerful in the face of adversity. We’re such bosom companions I feel like saying ‘Hi!’ every time another wall falls on me. Where are you sleeping tonight—or shouldn’t I ask?”

  Kyle looked hungrily at the tangerine sofa.

  “It’s yours,” Charley said. “I’ll dump the dirty dishes in the sink and hit the sack. If you need anything in the night come to the bedroom door and call me gently before entering. I scream when a man walks into my room in the middle of the night. Darn it, it always frightens him away.”

  “I’ll call first, gently,” Kyle promised.

  He stretched out on the divan and unbuttoned his coat. While Charley took the dishes to the kitchen he slipped the gun under one of the cushions and closed his eyes. He was glidin
g off into a borderline stupor when she returned, and it was like a dream fragment when she brought in a blanket from the bedroom and spread it over his long body. He had time for only a half-formed thought about a man named Jack who wasn’t coming until tomorrow, and then those forty bone-weary hours dissolved in blissful oblivion.

  Charley waited until Kyle was asleep and then carried the telephone into her bedroom and closed the door. She sat on the bed with the instrument in her lap and smoked two cigarettes down to the mouthpiece before making a decision. It was trouble. She had recognized that the instant Rick Drasco walked into the office and presented the Baemer Air Conditioning card. Drasco had a vicious sense of humor. He would have played it straight if she had let him through to Kyle—just to see if there was any recognition and fear. Fear was important. Drasco liked his victims to be terrified before they died. It was the way he got his kicks.

  Charley knew a great deal about Rick Drasco, even if he didn’t know her. The syndicate was thorough. It knew how to play on people’s weaknesses; it knew how to time its strikes. It had known six years ago how to get a stage-struck girl with a high school business-course background on Sam Stevens’ payroll and into his confidence. The recently widowed and childless Sam, needing to be needed, and luxury-loving Charlene needing a way out of the gambling debt she had been encouraged to accumulate when her dreams of stardom dissolved like a desert mirage. The syndicate was wise. Charlene Evans pined for luxury and limelight. As Sam’s personal secretary she could get certain papers signed, certain documents filed; yes, she could even get a certain young engineer placed on Sam’s staff. As Sam phased off into retirement, turning more and more of the responsibility over to Kyle, she would become Kyle’s secretary and continue her dual role in exchange for enough of life’s goodies to make the game worthwhile, but never enough to buy her freedom.