by Henry, Kane,
“What policy?”
“Keep your mind on your own business, will you, sweet?” And then a hunch uncoiled and sprang at me like an outraged husband at a discovered lover. I snapped my fingers. “You know something,” I said. “If she saved your letters, I think I know where they are.”
“Do you?” she said and she came near and she was suddenly as smooth as yeast, and of similar propensity. “Help me,” she said. “Please help me. I’m scared. I admit it. A little bit, I’m scared.”
I backed off. “You want to do a little business?”
“Business with you? Of course.” She was coy now.
“You want to stop being a liar?”
“Liar! Now what — ”
“I’ll try for your letters — if you’ll stop being a liar.”
“I’m telling the truth, you damned — ”
“About Mousie Lawrence?”
“Mousie Lawrence?” she said. “I never heard of a — ”
“The picture I showed you? Back there at the Nirvana?”
“Oh.” She sucked in her breath.
“You were lying about that, weren’t you?”
“Yes, but only because I didn’t want to talk about what isn’t my business. You said I was smart, well, maybe kids like me learn early, we learn to keep our noses clean.”
“Start getting it dirty, my love.”
“About … Mousie Lawrence?”
“About … Mousie Lawrence.”
“I never heard that name in my life — before you sprang it on me.”
“Okay, you never heard that name in your life. But you damn well recognized that picture I showed you.”
She was silent.
“Did you?” I said.
“Yes,” she said.
“Okay, let’s have it.”
She was silent.
“Baby,” I said, “you’re jammed on this deal. I told you I was working with the cops. If I open up, you’re very jammed.”
“You won’t. Please.”
“I won’t, only because I want to get together with you, because I’ve got a thing going for you, and I’m not especially proud of myself for that. Maybe I wouldn’t even open up if I were certain you’d hung this thing on Vivian. There are all kinds of chumps — ”
“No, you’re not, no.”
“But if I did open up, oh sister, you’d be so very jammed. You’re wide open on one o’clock last night, you’ve admitted threatening letters, maybe there are even other reasons why you’d have liked to knock her off, plus your breaking and entering into here with a criminal instrument — sister, you’d be so very jammed, if I opened up — ”
“I know, I know, but you won’t, please.”
“On the other hand, so far you’ve been the complete clam with me, and I’ve been the complete chump. How’s about trying to be a little fair? How’s about showing a little appreciation? I’m way out on the limb — for you.”
She strode about the room. I watched her, enjoying every nuance of movement. She went to the couch and sat down and studied her knees. Then she looked up with a tiny, peculiar, guilty little smile, like mama looking up from the pleasure of a comic book and finding junior glaring down at her.
“Yes, I want to be fair,” she said. “I want to be fair. What is it? What do you want to know about the man whose picture you showed me?”
“Do you know him?”
“I don’t know him as Mousie Lawrence.”
“You know him by any other name?”
“Manny Larson.”
“Fine,” I said. “Where do you know him from?”
“The Nirvana.”
“My God,” I said, “it’s like pulling teeth. Let’s have it. Come on, let’s have it.”
“There was another guy,” she said. “Kiddy Malone? Kenneth Masters?”
“Masters. That’s it. Kenny Masters. A little guy too, with a kind of red face.”
“All right, all right, let’s have it.”
“They were picking out girls, kind of picking out special girls, girls who wanted to make a little extra loot, girls who knew how to keep their noses clean, girls who would kind of work a little racket without worrying too much about it.”
“What kind of racket?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Did they approach you?”
“Yes.”
“Did they make the proposition?”
“Yes.”
“Did you accept?”
“No.”
“What proposition?”
“Simple. I would be given a few packages, oh, a few small packages, no bigger than a couple of lumps of sugar, no bigger than that.”
“Who would give them to you? Where?”
“They’d be given to me at home, a man would deliver them. Then, at the dance hall, sooner or later, a man would be dancing with me and he would say, ‘I come from Larson.’ And I was supposed to say, ‘Who’s Larson?’ And he was supposed to say, ‘A friend of Masters.’ Then, while we were dancing, I was supposed to slip him the little packet and he was supposed to slip me a folded hundred dollar bill. Somebody, later on, would come to my home to collect. Either I had all the packets, or I had hundred dollar bills for the packets I didn’t have. I’d get five bucks for every transaction. Could happen two-three times a night, they told me.”
“Why didn’t you make the deal?”
“Because it was penny-ante.”
“Didn’t you also figure it for trouble?”
“I did, but they explained that it couldn’t actually be trouble.”
“How not, my lass?”
“If anything happened, they said, I was just to tell the truth. A man had come to me with a package, I hadn’t known what was in the package, and somebody had paid me for it, and I had delivered the money to someone who had called for it.”
“Innocent-pawn-type deal. It could be a little trouble, but it couldn’t be big trouble. What about the delivery guys and the pickup guys?”
“They told me the men would constantly be changed up, and if one of them happened to get caught up with — nobody would blame me. On the other hand, I was to keep my nose strictly clean. If I talked it up, the least that would happen to me would be a dose of acid in my eyes.”
“Pretty,” I said. “Real pretty.”
“What?” she said. She was being coy again.
“They set up a dope-drop in a dance hall,” I said. “It’s all quiet and furtive in there anyway. They pick special girls who know enough not to shoot their faces off. They use stooges for delivery and pickups. A girl has two-three transactions a night. They pick twenty girls, and they’re doing a minimum gross business of four thousand bucks a night, which is approximately twenty-five thousand bucks a week. Given a little luck — once the thing shapes up — it runs a year. That’s over a million dollars worth of business, just in one year. Could be much more than that. Could run more than a year. Could use more than twenty girls, could use fifty. Could step up the amount of transactions a night to five or six. Those figures could run up fast to real heavy millions. Fantastic, out of one lousy little dance hall in New York. And the guys who set it up would be in the clear. There’d be layers and layers of in-between nobodies who would take the rap once the thing bust. How about Steve Pedi? Did he talk to you about this?”
“No.”
“Did he know what was going on?”
“I don’t know.”
“Didn’t you talk to him about it?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“I was afraid to talk to anybody. They warned me what would happen if I discussed it. I wasn’t going out of my way looking for trouble. It was take it or leave it. I left it.”
“And the racket’s been working? Going on right now?”
“Yes, I’m pretty sure. Since they talked to me, I’ve kind of been watching. It’s hardly noticeable, no one would notice unless they were actually watching hard for it, but I’m pretty sure it’s been going on.”
“Okay,” I said, “thanks a big bunch. Now get up, and let’s get out of here.” I started putting out the lights.
She stood up, pushed into the black coat, lifted her bag. “My letters …?” she said.
“Always there’s letters, aren’t there? It wouldn’t be a murder case without letters. It’s like espionage without The Plans, or The Papers, or The Formula.” I took her hand. “Come on,” I said. “Let’s go try for The Letters.”
TWENTY-ONE
And so once more I was on my white charger which in this case was a yellow cab and we tooled through the New York night, Sophia Sierra and I, close and comfy, true enough, but as primly conservative as though we were seated in a church pew. And at 11 Charles Street, I paid the cabbie and waited until he tilted his clock and then I laid an additional two dollars in his palm. “Please wait,” I said. “You’ll have another customer in a few minutes.”
“Thanks,” he said.
“Will you wait?”
“You bet I’ll wait, boss. If it’s another customer tips like you, I’m happy. But how’ll I know it’s your customer?”
“He’ll say that Larson sent him.”
“Good enough, Mr. Larson.”
“Very funny,” Sophia said as we entered the vestibule. “I suppose a cockeyed sense of humor is better than no sense of humor at all.”
“I suppose,” I said and pushed the Phillips’ button, five short pushes, a pause, and then one long push.
The clicker clicked back faster than the goodnight kiss of a disappointed date. Upstairs, after the peekhole routine, Gordon Phelps opened the door for us. He cast a glance at Sophia and then a quick one back at me.
“Hi, sucker,” he said.
“I bring you a guest,” I said.
“I notice,” he said. “The sulphuric Sophia. You just won’t listen to an old man’s advice, will you?”
“What advice?” Sophia said.
“An old man’s advice based on an old man’s experience,” I said.
“You guys are nuts,” she said.
“Sophia,” I said, “would you please go into the bedroom, and please close the door behind you?”
“Bedroom?” she said. “Me?”
“And what could be more appropriate?” Gordon Phelps said.
“The hell with both of you,” she said, but she went though she slammed the door viciously.
Gordon Phelps was wearing expensive slacks and a white silk sport shirt. He tried to act chipper but the strain was beginning to show on him. He was pale, satchels bulged beneath his eyes, and he kept chewing on his lower lip as though he were trying to pry loose a piece of stuck cigarette paper.
“Any news?” he said.
“Plenty,” I said.
“I’m dying,” he said.
“You look it,” I said.
“Never mind the comments,” he said, “I’m dying to hear.”
“The cops are very anxious for you.”
“As Sophia would say — the hell with them.”
“They’ve got reason to be anxious. Special reason.”
“Special? Why — ”
“Vivian Frayne was murdered with bullets shot out of a gun that belongs to you. That’s definite. On the line. No question.”
“My gun?”
“Your gun, Mr. Phelps. And if you’re not the guy that used it, I suggest you turn yourself in.”
“Now look here,” he said. “I didn’t pay you a fee for you to tell me to turn myself in.”
“I’m working, Mr. Phelps, believe me. And I’m going to keep on working right through this night. But if I don’t come up with something, I suggest you let me bring you in.”
“Now, look!” he said.
“You look,” I said. “You claim you didn’t kill her.”
“I didn’t.”
“You claim you’re worried about stuff that may hit the papers.”
“Yes, that’s right.”
“Then listen. The guy in charge of this deal is a good friend of mine, a Detective Lieutenant Louis Parker. He’s not a little guy with a big badge. He’s a human being. You notice that it’s not been splashed all over the papers that that chick got it from your gun — ”
“I gave her that gun — ”
“I know. She had burglars.” His eyes opened in a show of respect. He began to realize that I had been working. “I don’t mean she had burglars,” I said, “but she was afraid of burglars, there had been burglars in the apartment house. All right. I know that, but Parker doesn’t. Do you see what I mean?”
“Not quite.”
“He’s not a guy to look to ruin a reputation by wild accusations to the newspapers, that’s what I mean. There are cops like that — they get publicity by shooting sensational things at the newspapers. Not Parker. Parker’s a human being.”
Phelps creased his eyebrows together. “What are you trying to say?”
“I’m trying to say that by tomorrow, Parker will give his stuff to the newspapers, and legitimately so. By tomorrow, you’re a fugitive, whether innocent or not. By tomorrow, it’ll be public knowledge that Vivian Frayne was killed by a gun owned by Gordon Phelps and that Gordon Phelps has disappeared. Now that’s just the kind of publicity you want to avoid. Do you follow me, Mr. Phelps?”
He reached for a chair and sank into it slowly. Suddenly he was an old man and his problems were showing. Miserably he said, “I follow you.”
“Now when I take you in,” I said, “I’ll explain the whole bit to Parker, how you hired me, why you hired me, the whole bit. Parker will understand — you’re lucky that the guy in charge is Lieutenant Parker. Now, they may hold you, I’m not saying they won’t. If you’re telling the truth, then they may hold you as a material witness. If you don’t raise a stink and start screaming for a lawyer, they’ll probably put you up at a hotel, and the papers won’t have a word about it. Oh, they’ll question you, they’ll shove you through the meat grinder, you can be sure of that.”
“Pleasant prospect,” he groaned but I could see he was beginning to fall in with the idea.
“If you stay with your story, and there are no real cracks in it — that’s all they’ll have — your story — and even if you did this thing — and you stay with your story — that’s no proof of murder. You might get deeper into the jam jar, but you’re right deep in it at this moment. Look at it from any angle you like, Mr. Phelps — my bringing you in is the right thing. Even if it happens you’re tried for this murder, it’ll look good for a jury — coming in with me instead of running away — it’s coming in voluntarily, not being caught up with as a fugitive.”
He got up out of the chair. “Then why don’t we go in now, right now?”
“Because I’ve given myself this night to keep working. Maybe, if I get lucky, I can save you a lot of grief. On the other hand, I may pin it on you a hundred percent. You want to take that chance?”
“Yes,” he said.
“Good boy,” I said. “Okay, get on your jacket and start getting out of here.”
“Out of here? What are you talking about?”
It was time for a bit of fabrication. In my profession, it is called goosing the client. “I’m talking about cops,” I said. “They’ve been doing a lot of checking amongst Vivian’s friends. She may have talked out of turn about this little hideaway. Somebody may slip with something, and then they’re here, and they’ve caught up with you, a fugitive in hiding. That will not look very good, in the papers, with a jury — anywhere. Now here’s what I want you to do.”
“What?”
I gave him my address and apartment number, and my keys. “Slip into a jacket and go over to my place. Nobody will be looking for you there, except me. I’ll stick around here for a short while. When I go, I’ll lock up.”
He closed the collar of his sport shirt, went to a closet, unhooked a suburban jacket, and shrugged into it. He was as pale as the belly of a shark. He poked in the pocket of his trousers and produced a leather packet.
“My keys,” he said.
“I don’t need your keys.”
“Then how’ll you lock up here?”
“I have Vivian Frayne’s keys.”
I took them out and jingled them.
He looked as though he were going to faint.
“Where’d you get those keys?” he said.
“From the cops. One of those keys fits here, as you know.”
“From the cops?” he said.
“Where else?” I said.
There was a white tinge of fright around his nostrils. “Look, you’re not going to railroad me, are you? You’re not in cahoots with them?”
“Don’t you trust me, Mr. Phelps?”
“In a situation like this, I don’t know whom to trust. I’ve been sitting here, thinking, going crazy all day.”
“You didn’t kill her, did you?”
“No!”
“Then how can you be railroaded? I’m in cahoots with the cops up to this point — I’ve told them that I’m working for you, and I’ve told them that I’d bring you in by this morning. That’s the truth. If you call that being railroaded, well then, you’re railroaded.”
He stared at me for a long time, shrugged, started for the door.
“Call your wife,” I said.
“What?” He whirled about.
“Your wife,” I said. “She’s been in town for the past couple of days. She’s been reading the papers. She’s worried about you.”
“How would you know?” he said. “The lady retained me.”
“For what?”
“To find you. She paid me a thousand dollars.”
His eyes blinked in a frightened squint. “Kind of a crook, aren’t you?” he said but he said it mildly. He was worried about me, worried about what he had gotten himself into with me, and he showed it.
“Why a crook?” I said. “The lady can afford it, and if I’d have insisted upon an extra thousand from you, I’d have gotten it, wouldn’t I? As a matter of fact, as it turned out, I used that thousand for expenses, and you’re not going to have to reimburse me.”
“Expenses? For what?”
“For trying to keep you out of the can, if that’s possible. Now go keep my hearth warm, Mr. Phelps, and if anybody calls, don’t answer. It might be Adam Frick.”
That laid an egg.