Ellis glared at her, put the cup on the table. “Put that phone where I can reach it.”
“But it’s three o’clock in the morning!”
“Tell the switchboard my wife will call. When she does, put her right through—no matter what time it is.”
“I don’t know—”
“Just put the phone where I can get it,” Ellis snapped. Goddamit! His ribs ached when he barked like that. “If you really want me to get some rest, give the switchboard that message.”
Reluctantly, she nodded, moved the phone closer.
“Now, please crank my bed up as far as you can,” said Ellis. “And leave the door open when you go.”
Miss Birch’s voice was tightly disapproving. “You are not going to be cranked way up. Doctor’s orders. And you should take your pill. You need rest and quiet.”
He waited for her to leave. She fought it, but the habits of obedience were too strong, and Ellis was a man used to giving orders. Disapproval was apparent, though, in the stiff set of her shoulders as she marched out.
Ellis was more aware of his leg than he wanted to be. The sleeping pill was a temptation. But first he had to hear from Jane—and that would take at least an hour, probably nearer two.
He reached for the phone, managed to get through to Bill Torrance in Fairfield.
“I’ll be there when Jane arrives,” the burly deputy sheriff promised. “And I’ll stick with them till I hear from you.”
Ellis cradled the phone. He felt better with Torrance on the job—but he was still uneasy.
Now he understood McCoy’s fear. Ellis shook his head angrily, thinking of the bruise Mrs. McCoy had seen on her husband’s stomach. He could imagine those thugs threatening to do the same thing to McCoy’s pregnant wife. A blow on the stomach—a message. Those low, crawly scum!
Ellis clutched the sheet in his fists, glared at the open doorway, picturing the tiny Mrs. Christian McCoy. So like a child—yet nine months pregnant.
Ellis muttered several of his favorite swear words, tried to shift position, and swore again at the jab of pain in his chest.
A light doze closed his eyes. He woke up sharply when the phone rang. Jane! He took a deep breath of relief as he heard her voice on the phone. He glanced at his watch as he talked to her. 4:00 AM. She’d made good time. The children were safely in bed.
Ellis reached for the sleeping pill, stopped at a familiar sound in the hall. He watched the open doorway, waiting.
In a moment, he saw what he’d waited for: a scrubwoman in a white uniform pushed a mop down the hall. He waited as she plodded back out of sight, then returned, pushing a low cart loaded with a bucket of steaming water and a rack of brooms and mops, stopped in front of his door, and dunked her mop.
A sharp tang of soap and disinfectant filled his nose.
Ellis stared at the mop bucket, thinking. It was almost twice the size of the one Mrs. McCoy had used. And hanging on its side was a heavy lid.
“Hey!” he called in a low voice. “Hey!”
The woman glanced through the door.
Ellis beckoned. “Come here a minute.”
The woman glanced up and down the hospital hall, hesitating, mop in hand. She shook her head slowly. “If it’s booze you want, mister, I’m temperance. You’ll have to get someone else.”
“No,” said Ellis. “Nothing like that.” He pointed at the cleaning cart with the bucket. “Could you wheel that a little closer?”
“You nuts?”
“What have you got to lose?” Ellis asked.
The woman shrugged, pushed the steaming cart half into the room.
Ellis took a long look at the cleaning bucket with its tight lid, nodded. “Okay,” he said. “Thanks.”
The woman shook her head. “Takes all kinds,” she muttered as she wheeled the cart out the door, worked on down the hall.
Ellis leaned back in bed—feeling that there were a lot of pieces, but finally he was beginning to sense a shape. It had been a break, seeing that lid on the mop bucket. That answered a big question.
He began assembling his thoughts, lining up procedure in his methodical way, getting everything in order for when he saw Onstott in the morning.
In the middle of a thought, he dozed off.
He woke up suddenly at an odd noise in the hall—footsteps that didn’t sound right. Someone had paused where he couldn’t be seen, just beside the open door. If it had been a nurse or an aide, they’d have barged right in.
Ellis froze, watching the doorway. He reached under his pillow, shifted the .38 down beside him under the covers. Come in, he thought. I’ve got a score to settle with you.
With one quick motion, the young fireman, McCoy, darted into the room, closed the door behind him.
Ellis waited, all senses alert, hand on the .38. Was this it?
McCoy moved quietly toward the bed, spoke softly. “You awake, Lieutenant?”
Ellis took a deep breath. “I’m awake now. What’re you doing here?”
McCoy smiled and it lit up his thin face. “Everything’s okay now, Lieutenant. Marianne just gave birth to a nine-pound boy.”
Ellis relaxed his grip on the gun at his side, permitted himself a slight smile. “Congratulations, McCoy. That’s wonderful.” Then he stiffened again. “How did you know where to find me?”
McCoy stared. “Is it a secret? Captain Coddington told me. I ran into him in the lobby, and he told me what had happened.”
Some protection this room has, Ellis thought in disgust. “Is there a police guard in the hall?” he asked.
“Not right outside your room.” McCoy swallowed. “But there’s a cop talking to a nurse near the elevators.”
“That figures,” Ellis said. “You got any special reason for seeing me, McCoy?”
McCoy gulped, started to speak, then swallowed his words.
Ellis took a long, careful look at the man. So damned young and eager. Was McCoy the rotten apple in the barrel? He’d be a perfect one. Who’d suspect that ingenuous face—that open, puppy look?
McCoy cleared his throat nervously. “I’m sorry, Lieutenant, if you didn’t want visitors. I—I feel responsible. I had to just let you walk into a mess without—”
“I’m over twenty-one,” Ellis barked. “I walk into any mess I choose.” He stared up at the ungainly traction apparatus over the bed, sorting out his thoughts. Who could you really trust when the syndicate was involved? Onstott? Maybe. McCoy? Probably not. Coddington? Ellis swore to himself. The whole damn fire department was suspect till they got this cleared up.
Ellis focused again on McCoy. The kid looked like he’d lost his last friend. Ellis nodded toward the straight chair. “Sit down,” he said.
McCoy swung the chair into position with its back to the bed, sat down straddling it. “I’m really sorry. I—”
Ellis took a deep breath. “How’d they get to you?”
McCoy gripped the back of the chair, looked down at his hands. “It was Marianne,” he said. “They threatened—”
“Who did?” Ellis asked sharply.
“A couple of guys in the hotel. They beat me up bad, said they’d do the same to Marianne if I didn’t lay off. I’ve never been beaten up like that before.” In the light from the table, Ellis noted McCoy’s face was flushed. “Christ, Lieutenant—the baby and all—I just—”
Ellis remembered his own fear for Jane. “I know,” he said grimly. “Who were they?”
“I never saw them before,” McCoy said. “There were two of them. I went down the hall to that pay phone, and a big guy grabbed me from behind and pulled me into a room. A big, blocky guy—he looked like an ex-fighter. There was another guy there—same type, but less of him. He held the gun while the big guy worked me over.”
Ellis nodded, recognizing the description of the two men.
McCoy took a deep breath. “I didn’t dare tell you yesterday. You don’t know how glad I am to have Marianne safe in the hospital. With her here, I can …” He broke off as the phone rang.
/>
Ellis’s glance darted to his watch. 4:45 AM. What the hell? He picked up the receiver. “Yes?”
The voice was muffled. “You were told to lay off—have you forgotten the message?”
Ellis stiffened, the phone suddenly heavy in his hand. “Who—”
“I said—have you forgotten the message?”
McCoy stared at Ellis’s face, then stood up suddenly, made a futile snatch at the phone. “What is it?” he asked in a loud voice.
Ellis shook his head, but it was too late. “Is McCoy with you?” the muffled voice asked. “Too bad.” The phone was hung up with a click.
Ellis returned it slowly to the cradle, then grabbed it up, dialed the operator. “This is Ellis in 330,” he said. “Where’d that call come from?”
“There was no call through the board, Mr. Ellis. It must have been an inside call.”
Ellis cradled the phone, stared at McCoy. So the young fireman thought his Marianne was safe in the hospital. That was a joke.
“What the hell was that call?” McCoy asked. “You looked sick.”
“This hospital is about as safe as a gas truck in a forest fire,” Ellis said. “It’s wide open. Look how easy you got in here.”
McCoy got to his feet. “Do they know I’m here with you? Those thugs said if I talked to you, they’d get Marianne.”
“Better go to her,” Ellis said. “They know you’re here. That was one of their playmates on the phone. He knew your voice—or he saw you duck in here.”
McCoy started for the door.
“Hold on,” Ellis said. “You’d better know what I think they’re doing.”
McCoy paused, his hand on the doorknob.
“When a man dies in a fire,” Ellis said, “the coroner can tell it from the amount of carbon monoxide in the body. He can tell if the man was already dead—or he could tell if he was drugged or drunk.”
“So?” McCoy’s voice was impatient.
“So in this case, they knocked their victims out with smoke—just as it would happen if it were a natural fire. Remember those rings you spotted on the floor?”
McCoy nodded.
“They’re scorch marks. I think the killers are using empty cleaning buckets—the big commercial kind with a tight lid. They fill them with charcoal or something to produce a dense, heavy smoke. This bucket goes just inside the door of a victim’s room. If he’s asleep, and especially if he’s drunk, the smoke knocks him out. When he’s out, they cover the bucket—maybe douse it first with water—stage a fire in the mattress with a cigarette, pick up the bucket, and beat it.”
“Sounds too tricky,” McCoy said. “Someone would be sure to spot a guy carrying a big bucket.”
Ellis shook his head. “Not if the guy was a cleaning woman. Or a man disguised as a cleaning woman. What would be a more natural thing to see late at night in a public building or a hotel than a cleaning woman with a bucket and mop?”
McCoy’s eyes widened. “For Christ sakes!”
“I may even have found where they hid the bucket after using it in the Sander’s Hotel,” Ellis said. “There’s a scorch ring on the floor of an old supply closet on the fourth floor.”
“Yeah,” McCoy said. “The bucket would have to be full of hot coals. It would leave a burned mark like the ones we found.”
“Better get to your wife,” Ellis said. “Call the local precinct and identify yourself. Ask for a guard. Tell them to call me if there’s any question about it.”
“What about you?” McCoy asked.
“I’ll tell the nurse to send that pet cop of hers in here.”
McCoy nodded, stepped away quickly as the door behind him opened.
His way out was blocked by a very angry Nurse Birch.
She glared at McCoy. “Visiting hours end at nine!” she snapped. She turned on Ellis. “Why haven’t you taken your sleeping pill?”
With a quick motion, McCoy slipped around her, murmuring as he left, “I was just leaving.”
Ellis pushed the gun against his thigh. The last thing he wanted tonight was a sleeping pill. “I’ll take it right away,” he lied.
She crossed to the bed, loomed over him. Her uniform stretched angrily across her superstructure. “I’ll wait right here while you take it,” she said.
Ellis knew her type. This was the sort of female who ran offices, marriages, and hospital wards—would allow nothing to thwart her. “I’m quite tired,” he said in as calm a voice as he could manage. “I don’t believe I’ll need a pill tonight.”
The nurse sniffed. “You didn’t take your pill when you said you would, and it’s almost dawn. Dr. Greenleaf left strict orders.” She picked up the paper cup with its capsule, thrust it at Ellis. “Now!”
He sighed. Wasn’t there enough trouble without having to fight this martinet? “I’m sorry,” he said, “but I can’t take your pill right now. It’s important that I stay awake.”
“It’s more important you get your rest,” she said.
He shook his head, feeling oddly like a recalcitrant child refusing his cod-liver oil. “Look, at least let me talk to that policeman in the hall first.”
“No more visitors,” she snapped. Then she turned on her heel and left the room.
Ellis suspected victory about the sleeping pill was not to be that easy; knew he was right when she returned almost immediately, followed by an orderly.
She stepped close to the bed, and with one swift motion, pulled Ellis’s arm up, produced a hypodermic, and gave him a shot.
Ellis fought to sit up, found it impossible with his leg in traction. Fury filled him. “You stupid bitch! What did you shoot into me?”
The orderly moved closer. “There’s no call—”
“I checked with the doctor,” the nurse interrupted smoothly. “That was just a mild sedative to help you relax.” She reached over, switched off the light.
“Wait a minute,” said Ellis. “I gotta talk to that cop. It’s vital.”
“The patrolman has gone for a cup of coffee,” she said. “I told him I’d keep an eye on you, and that’s just what I’m doing.” She wheeled table, light, and telephone beyond Ellis’s reach. “Good night,” she said and left, flanked by the orderly.
“Wait,” Ellis called, but the door closed firmly behind them.
The only light in the room came from a tiny night-light near the bathroom door. By its dim glow, Ellis could barely see the closed white door to the hall. Beyond the window, there was the faintest suggestion of dawn to come.
Anger made him feel like yelling and fuming; he didn’t dare fall asleep! He glared at the shadowy traction sling overhead that froze him in one position. He could ring; but all he would get would be that same martinet.
He still felt wide awake, but he didn’t know how long the drug gave him.
The extension table with its unreachable light and telephone were silhouetted against the window.
No matter how he stretched, the phone was too far to reach.
Ellis forced himself to take several deep breaths to calm his anger. Just exactly where did he stand? The cop was no good to him—neither was the nurse.
And no use kidding himself that they couldn’t find him. Whoever had rung this phone knew exactly where Ellis was—and would put his own construction on a council of war with McCoy at this predawn hour.
If only McCoy would come back before the drug took hold. Damn that nurse!
And yet—could he be sure of McCoy? Onstott said the gangsters were working with a fireman. But Christ! He couldn’t suspect everyone!
But this whole arson scheme smelled of professional know-how. Smoke in the victim’s lungs. Smoking in bed. The dirty old routine so common it seldom got a second look.
So goddam simple. The only flammable they added seemed to be lighter fluid—and that could be present in any room. Most arsonists got too complicated—and it was their complicated devices that revealed them.
This clever bastard hadn’t made that error.
Ell
is yawned.
He couldn’t help it. Sleep moved across his mind like a cloud of grey feathers, fogged his thoughts.
Christ, he thought, how can I stay awake when I’m full of drugs and fastened in this one position? Damn that nurse!
He tensed his muscles, felt them relax against his will.
Why would a fireman help a bookie? The answer floated drowsily in his mind, just out of reach.
He shook his head, was overtaken by a yawn so deep it hurt his chest near the broken rib.
For a moment pain cleared his thoughts.
Coddington! he thought. Captain Coddington!
Ellis pushed the idea away, but it came back to his drowsy mind with the force of pure logic.
Coddington played the horses; could easily be involved with Tonelli.
Coddington had tried to call Ellis off the case.
Coddington had the know-how to plan the arson- homicides.
Coddington knew McCoy was in the hospital.
“Oh, Christ!” Ellis said aloud. His tongue felt thick. Coddington. He didn’t want it to be true. He turned the thought around as carefully as if he had a year to think about it.
There was a loose piece—something that didn’t fit.
Thoughts swirled by like dreams.
A fireman, he thought.
McCoy or Coddington—one or the other. They were the only ones close enough to all that had happened. Take your choice—McCoy or Coddington. It was like a song.
It had to be a fireman. Onstott said so.
The thought turned over.
Why did it have to be a fireman? Because Onstott said so.
Was he the only one who said so?
Then Ellis remembered the missing piece—the piece that didn’t fit. Coddington couldn’t have ordered the attack because Coddington didn’t know Ellis was in the old hotel. Coddington was out of the office at the race track.
But Onstott knew. And Onstott certainly had more than enough knowledge to plan the arsons.
Now I can go to sleep, thought Ellis drunkenly. All solved. Now I can relax.
He knew he shouldn’t sleep, but he couldn’t remember why. He forced his eyes half-open—
Had that door moved—or was it a trick of his doped mind?
No. It was definitely opening, a little at a time.
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