Hank put down his cup. “Did you say Miss Ost? I think I know her.”
“You think you know her?” hissed Mrs. Oberhover. “How could you forget a woman like that. Well, all the boarders wouldn’t have heard a word about that girl if it wasn’t for that Ost person. I says, ‘Who told you about the girl?’ They told me. ‘Miss Ost.’ Well, I could have told them plenty about that Ost person myself. I don’t mind a woman talking, but this Ost woman didn’t have a right, after her own carryings on.”
“You mean with that Mr. Smith, of course?”
Her eyes opened wide and she bit savagely at a piece of doughnut at last. “You know him?” Her manner changed. She was frowning now. “You get what I mean, then, about her going around with a little heel like that? Why, that Smith is just a plain, common, ordinary Nazi, is all!”
Hank said, “I didn’t know that part of it. How did you find out he’s a Nazi?”
Her eyes went wise. “How do I know? I got ears, haven’t I? Just how much stuff you think a guy like that can get away with in a place like this? Couple of nights that bedroom in the back near hers was empty. That was after that girl I told you about moved. Those walls are like paper, you understand?” She winked at him slyly and showed her big teeth in a smile. “I got good ears. I heard plenty of Hitler talk through them walls, I tell you.”
“That’s a shame,” he said and then waxed thoughtful. “You know, I often wondered what those Nazis talk about. You ever hear anything important?”
“Junk. Hitler junk is what they talk about. First off, I knew he was a bad one long before he talked in the bedroom. Once he walked in here and left a book on the landing. All wrapped up in grey paper it was. Just by accident I happened to see it and opened up to the front. You know what that book was? Well, it was that Hitler Mein Kampf—and written in German! You surprised? Well, my husband Oscar was German by descent, see? He taught me how to read it a little after we were married. So when I heard them talking in German it wasn’t like I couldn’t make out what it meant.”
“What did they say?”
“Junk, I told you. He used to talk a lot about that Bund camp in Jersey.”
“Did you ever talk to him?”
“In German, you mean?”
“No. I mean, were you friendly with him?”
“Oh, sure,” she said blandly. “I can’t afford to be enemies with my boarders, can I? And I had to count him a boarder, because of that Ost person. After all, she was getting old, so why should I make it tough for her? Much as I didn’t like her, she had her good points, too.”
“That’s nice of you, Mrs. Oberhover. I’d be sore as blazes if she walked out on me the way she did. You know why she left?”
Mrs. Oberhover shrugged a dainty shrug and licked the powdered sugar from her fingertips. “Probably wanted a more private place, maybe.” She leaned again toward MacAndrews. “You know how it is.”
Hank fingered his hat and started for the door. “It’s getting pretty late,” he said, fingering the doorknob. “I’ve got to report to my boss.”
“What a shame,” cooed Mrs. Oberhover. “I have some pig’s knuckles tonight. We don’t have them every night in the week, you know. Why don’t you stay a while? Your boss could wait.”
“Some other time, maybe. I don’t want to lose my job.”
She waved to him from the porch. “Any time at all, Mr. MacAndrews. Maybe we won’t have pig’s knuckles, but my cooking is good.”
Two men leaned against the grey dock posts and discussed the personal habits of the red snapper, the bluefish and the bass. A stiff wind blew in across Great South Bay, skittering over the blue-grey water and sending sharp little waves against the dock with a gentle splat. The sun played games with a bank of dark cumulus. There was rain in the sky, far to the southeast.
“You dropping some more?” said the old man, pulling in his line. “I got nothing better than this bass here all day. I figure the wife’ll raise hell if I just keep sittin’ without catchin’.”
The young man jerked on his line, made a face and then jerked harder. “I’m stuck again, damn it!”
“Your hook’s too big.”
“So what? I caught plenty on this hook yesterday, didn’t I?”
The old man took the other’s line and tugged it tentatively. He handed it back with a sigh. “Pull her yourself, son. I don’t want to break her. Your hook’s catchin’ on something down there and it ain’t no fish.”
The other tugged a vicious tug. The cord snapped. He spat disgustedly into the water and began to haul in his line. It was then that he saw the bubbles. They rose in a great white mass and broke with a hiss at the surface.
“Now what in hell did I hit down there?”
“They say seaweed does that when you stick a hook in it.”
They watched the bubbles in silence.
“That isn’t seaweed, pop. Seaweed couldn’t hold so much air.”
“If it isn’t seaweed, what else could it be?”
“I don’t know. Couldn’t be a fish, could it?”
“Fishes don’t blow no bubbles.”
“There’s only one way to find out,” said the boy. “I’m going back up the beach and borrow Andy’s rowboat and a clam pole. Maybe I can work the thing up from there.”
“Pretty deep for a clam pole, ain’t it?”
“I’ll tell you when I get there.”
The old man shook his head doubtfully, played with his line and sucked his pipe.
Five minutes later he heard the boy shouting to him from the rowboat. He stood forward in the boat, the clam pole deep in the water. He worked the pole up and down with great energy.
“It hits bottom,” yelled the boy.
The old man grinned. “You’re crazy, son. Bottom out there’s a lot deeper than that stick.”
The boy didn’t hear him. He was bent over the side of the boat, staring into the water. He stood up suddenly.
“It’s a car!”
The old man stood up. “A what? You sure of that, sonny?”
The boy looked again.
“It looks like the top of a car—a black car.”
“Well, I’ll be damned! Say, maybe we better call old Lem Wolpert. Lem’s the local sheriff.” He pushed back his hat. “Can’t say I can see Lem believin’ a yarn like this, but we might as well tell him, don’t you think?”
“Damn well right I do. There may be someone in that car!”
CHAPTER 17
In Herb Merritt’s studio, Homer and Dumbo sipped their third Scotch and soda. The interview had been easy, for Merritt, salesman supreme, was an easy talker, a man who volunteered information freely and mixed his facts with a sprinkling of fiction.
He sat, now, at his drawing table. With the bottle of liquor and a dishful of ice at his elbow, Herb paused in his latest story to sip his drink and smoke his cigarette. “I should have been the guy bumped off,” he laughed.
“You know why? You couldn’t know. There isn’t a man drawing funny pictures who doesn’t hate Herb Merritt’s guts. It’s a kind of jealousy, you might say. The boys like me personally, but they burn their guts out when they find my stuff appearing more often than theirs. There’s a reason, Homer.” He tilted the bottle again toward Dumbo’s glass. “Finish this bottle, Waddell—I got others where this came from. I was saying, Homer, about why the guys hate me. It’s because of how I sell my stuff.”
He put down his glass and waited for the reaction to his speech.
Bull said, “I don’t understand.”
“I thought you wouldn’t. Well, it’s this way; most of the boys meet an editor and what happens? When they show their work they tie their knees with rope to keep ’em from knocking together. To them, all editors are—well, sort of like monsters, who can’t be treated as human beings. Do you get the angle? They’re like high school kids, most o
f the boys are. But what happens when Merritt sees an editor? Do I shiver? Do I shake? Like hell I do. I treat the mugs as if they were human. I slap ’em on the back and tell ’em jokes. And it works! After a while they see I’m not just another bashful artist goon and we go out for a couple of snorts. We get chummy and then I find business taking care of itself.”
“Bravo!” said Dumbo. “You’ve even sold me, Merritt. Got any drawings I can buy?”
Bull said, “I can understand what you mean, Merritt. Of course, most men in your business would soon become professional introverts. It’s pretty much the same in any business where a man sells his brain children. I suppose each cartoonist has his own hidden jealousies, eh?”
Merritt made a sweeping gesture. “The business is lousy with jealousy, Homer. Some of my best friends would take a keen delight in knifing me behind my back—with words, I mean. But it isn’t only me they hate—they hate each other! Take Simonson for instance. Sim’s a swell guy—I like him fine. But Winters hates his gizzard. You know why? It’ll kill you! Simonson had a style of drawing that Winters copied and cashed in on. So Winters hates Simonson.” He rolled his eyes to the ceiling. “Crazy? Of course it is, because Sim doesn’t know a thing about all this. Sim is a sweet boy—one of the best. It’s the same throughout the whole business. One hates the other for no reason at all. Or if there is a reason, it’s a stupid one.”
Bull looked at his watch and smiled. “I’m really only interested in one of your friends. Perhaps you can give me a little information about Bragiotto.”
“Dino? He’s a good pal of mine.”
“Is he well liked? He struck me as being rather surly.”
“You’re wrong there,” said Merritt and became suddenly serious. “I know what you mean about Dino. It’s his pan, I guess. But underneath that dirty look he gives you is a heart of gold.”
“Do the boys like him?”
Merritt made a face. “I can’t answer yes to that one, Homer, much as I’d like to. They do a lot of dirty talking about Dino—all of them. But that’s because of the same reason they talk about editors. They’re, well, they’re afraid of Dino, afraid to talk to him because of his frankness, I guess. He’s not the sort of boy who listens to crazy gripes about editors and things, that is, unless the griping is founded in fact.”
“A man like Dino has many enemies, then?”
“I didn’t say that,” said Merritt apologetically. “But he has one guy who’s kind of an enemy, you might say. I don’t think Tim Alfonte would give him the right time.”
“What’s wrong with Alfonte?”
“Girl trouble. Alfonte was crazy about Dino’s girl. To make it worse, Marcia went out with Alfonte a couple of times. Dino almost killed the guy one night up at The Quill. He’s a handy boy with his fists.”
“I see,” said Bull. “Did the feud continue after the fight?”
“If you mean do the boys talk to each other, the answer is no,” said Merritt. “But that’s as far as it’s gone with them.”
“How long ago did this happen?”
Merritt thought back. “About two years ago. Since then the boys managed to stay away from each other without too much trouble. It’s a damned shame that it happened, really. I mean on account of Dino. There’s a guy who really has guts—all kinds of fire in his blood. Looking at him, you’d never dream that Dino was a red hot patriot—a flag waver, a man who thinks deep politically, I mean. His sour pan kind of fools people, I guess. But Dino is a real pioneer, Homer. He was the first cartoonist to think of organizing Anti-Nazi posters.”
“It all comes back to me,” said Dumbo. “I remember his big caricature drawing of Schicklgruber last year. That was one for the books—I saw it in the Apex Galleries. Didn’t he make a couple of front pages with that drawing?”
“He certainly did. But Dino didn’t do the thing for that reason. He has a deep and bitter hatred for all things that smell a little of Fascism. That’s his purpose in life, in a way—saving this country from the type of stuff Mussolini was dishing out to his father’s people in Italy.”
The grandfather clock in the corner of Homer’s hotel room bonged ten times. A waiter gathered up the dinner dishes and staggered into the hall under a monster tray. Soft falling rain pattered against the windows while wind rustled the leaves of the tall old oak that somehow flourished in the yard below.
It had been a hard day. Homer Bull’s dumpy figure reclined deep in his easiest easy chair. Chin on chest, eyes half closed, he meditated upon his vest buttons. Now, in the good quiet after dinner, he was suddenly weary of all the day’s endless talk.
Dumbo Waddell lay asprawl the huge couch, deep in a copy of David Low’s Ye Madde Designer. Hank MacAndrews bent over his shoelaces, loosened his shoes and swore to himself that he would never again be shipped off to the Bronx to interview boarding house proprietresses, even though Mrs. Oberhover had rewarded him with good coffee. Her endless saga of local scandal had left him limp.
Only McElmore was active. With even strides he slowly paced the room, chewing an unlit cigar. “I’ve been working this sixteen ways to the middle,” he said, “but I’m afraid we’ve drawn a blank, Homer. The boys assigned to Ninety-Fourth Street reported a big man with a nose living on Amsterdam between Ninety-fifth and Ninety-sixth. But they found the guy owned the delicatessen store under him and also he didn’t walk with a limp and was short and fat. Then they located another one, in a flat on Ninety-Seventh Street. They waited all day to see this one because the landlady was sure he had a nose as big as Jimmy Durante’s. So I go up there and wait around with the boys, all set for the pinch, when this fellow walks in. I took one look at him and damn near belted the landlady. All right, so he did have a big nose, but that landlady’s schnozzle was about five times as big, and the pot calls the kettle black.” He paused in his walk and turned desperately to Homer. “Anyhow, how in hell am I going to locate a nose? How can I send all my men looking for a big bum with a bigger bugle?”
Bull opened an eye. “You had his limp, too, didn’t you?”
“Did I?”
“Remember what Mrs. McGinness told us?”
“That Mrs. McGinness was batty, I tell you.”
“Nonsense. She was well equipped for observing such things. With the field glasses she had you could stand on Amsterdam Avenue and read a newspaper over on Broadway.”
McElmore got up again. “I wish I could agree with you, Homer. But how do we know your man with the nose was killed? After all, he may have been wounded by those birds in the car. Maybe he was dumped in an empty lot somewhere and got away.”
“You’ve checked the hospitals, of course?”
“Sure—we’ve checked everything, including the small towns from here to Boston. We haven’t got a thing to help us, I tell you.”
“But we have. We know that the man was shot on Ninety-Fourth Street. We also know that he had a big nose, a limp and all the other characteristics of the murderer who stabbed Earl Chance.”
“That’s the theory I don’t like anymore!” snapped McElmore. “You’re only guessing when you figure Chance’s murderer is the guy who was bumped off on Ninety-Fourth Street. You’re working on the evidence of three women and a crazy janitor.” He clapped a hand to his head. “What witnesses! One of them is old enough to take a nap under a tombstone. The other one goes whacky if you look at her the wrong way. Matter of fact, the only one of the three I believe is the Prentiss girl, and she just saw the guy for a few seconds before he snapped out the light and went for her. I tell you you’re grabbing at straws when you work on the stories those people told us.”
“I like straws.” Bull rose and went to his desk. He took three sheets of paper from the desktop and returned to his chair. For a moment he perused the typewritten pages. “It seems to me that all the straws, thus far, have begun to point in a certain direction. We’ve discovered several new threads today.
In the first place, we must reconsider the murder of Earl Chance. I have here a list of people who might have had cause for killing him. For the most part, of course, these are cartoonists, men like Dino Bragiotto, Tim Alfonte, Lincoln Winters, Sim Simonson, Jeff Grundy, Tinnover or Hedge. You’ve met them all, Dick—do you think any of them could have killed our man?”
McElmore shook his head sadly. “What do I know about cartoonists?”
Hank MacAndrews said, “I agree with Homer. Those boys might get sore at Chance, but it wouldn’t be the type of anger that would inspire murder.”
“I’ve seen men killed for less than a cartoon,” said Dumbo. “Take that plumber, last year, out in—”
“Let’s consider the facts a bit,” interrupted Bull. “We must remember that the murderer paused long enough in his flight to stab another man—our mysterious friend named Smith. Assuming that the murderer was a cartoonist, can we establish a theory about this second killing?” He looked around the room and continued. “Again, still assuming a cartoonist killer, can we disprove the airtight alibis each of them gave us? Remember those alibis, Dick. With the exception of Dino Bragiotto, all the others have accounted for themselves. Tim Alfonte has his girl Mary to prove that he went directly from the meeting for a walk. Lincoln Winters sat with his gag man and then walked to The Quill. Jeff Grundy and John Hedge were together all evening. Herb Merritt went to a parking lot immediately after the meeting and then drove to The Quill. It’s the same with all of them.”
“Except Dino,” said the inspector, brightening. “That sort of puts the finger on him, doesn’t it? He was the only one of them who had a real reason for killing Chance, and he might have bumped off Smith because he was afraid the guy saw him do it.”
“With a knife?” sneered MacAndrews. “Dino would have to be crazy to do a thing like that.”
The Man with the Lumpy Nose Page 14