Murder Doll

by Milton Ozaki

  “No.”

  “Did she?”

  “No.”

  “Tell me about the drinks again. When you sat down at the bar, did you order a brandy right away?”

  “No. I usually drink scotch. But the girl came over, like I said, and, when I asked her what she wanted, she ordered a brandy. I told the bartender to make it two.”

  “Why?”

  “For no damned reason at all. I usually drink scotch, but there's nothing wrong with brandy. I knew the girl figured me as a sucker and was ordering brandy instead of a highball because she could drink them faster and make a bigger commission, but I intended to slap it all on the expense account and didn't care. Hell, when I was in France during the war I drank cognac most of the time.”

  “Paratrooper, weren't you?” Murray lifted his eyebrows a little.

  “Yeah.”

  Murray grunted, then asked, “When Millie White came over, did she order brandy, too?”

  “Sure. You know the routine as well as I do, lieutenant The girls get a percentage of the take, and brandy disappears a hell of a lot faster man bourbon or champagne. The stuff she drank was probably tea or vermouth, but the charge was for brandy and most suckers wouldn't even suspect the dodge.”

  “Did you switch drinks with her at any time?”

  “No. The only time I might have was when I carried our glasses from the bar to the dining room. I'd have noticed a switch, though. I hate tea and vermouth gags me.”

  Murray thought awhile, then cleared his throat. His eyes settled on me and drilled into mine. “As a private eye, your reputation is okay except when it comes to the girls,” he said levelly. “The word is that you got a quick eye and loose morals. There's nothing I hate worse than a poisoner, so I hope you're giving it straight to me about this girl. If you've been playing around with her, you'd better admit it right now.”

  “I never saw her until the moment she joined me at the bar.”

  “Okay, that's your story. We'll let it ride that way. I'm going to have the boys grill the waiters and the bartender, and I'm going to check and double-check every word you've said. I can put up with junkies and whores and gamblers, but not with poisoners.”

  A sergeant entered and laid a thin sheaf of reports on Murray's desk. Murray stopped in mid-sentence and picked up the top one. When he finished reading it, he eyed me quizzically. “This may interest you, Good,” he said casually, tapping the paper. “Preliminary lab tests indicate that Millie White was drinking brandy and not tea or vermouth. Are you still sure you didn't switch glasses?”

  I stared at him.

  “Think it over, Good,” Murray said abruptly. “Be here at nine o'clock tomorrow morning. In case you want to change your story, you can do it then.”

  As I drove the few blocks to my apartment, I tried to visualize the exact way I'd taken the brandy glasses off the bar and set them down on the table. She had been sitting on my right. I must have picked up her glass in my right hand then, and my glass in my left. I'd bent over the table carefully, so as not to spill the brimming glasses. Hers on my right, mine on the left. She had come around the table and I had reached over and pulled back the chair for her. I had done it with my left hand...

  The hair on my neck prickled and I almost drove head-on into a northbound streetcar. I had switched glasses. The poisoned drink had been intended for me, not her! The shock of the realization made me shudder, just as, during the war, seeing a shell explode where I'd been standing a few minutes before used to do. I parked, walked blindly upstairs, and unlocked the door of my apartment.

  When the lights came on, I got another shock. Millie White's face, almost life-size, smiled intimately at me from a large framed photograph atop my desk. I gazed at it incredulously for a second, then locked the door and strode across the room. In flowing, feminine script across the lower right hand corner of the photograph, there was written:

  Darling,

  When Time who steals our years away

  Shall steal our pleasures, too,

  The mem'ry of the past will stay

  And half our joys renew, —Millie

  “For chrissake!” I muttered. Then: “Why, the dirty bastards... How low can you get?”

  I ripped the photograph into tiny pieces and Bushed them down the toilet. Then I unlocked the desk drawer, took out the .32 which I kept there, and made sure it was loaded. I put on a shoulder holster, tucked the gun into it, and snapped off the lights. I went downstairs.

  Out on the street I took a deep breath, but the clean, cool air didn't help much. I still felt dirty... I felt as though I'd never be clean again.

  “The dirty bastards!” I muttered again.

  I got into my car and gunned the engine.

  CHAPTER THREE

  The doorman had gone off duty and there were very few pedestrians on the street. I leaped out of the car, flung the door shut, and strode into the building. I had to wait for the self-service elevator to come down from one of the upper floors. When it arrived, I got in, jabbed the button for the ninth floor, and loosened my gun in its holster. The car ascended with agonizing slowness and stopped with a soundless lurch. I slid the door back and stepped into a long, carpeted corridor. The door closed behind me with a faint click. I loped down the corridor to the door of 906.

  I paused, listening for a moment, then ran to the end of the corridor and looked up and down the cross-corridor. All the doors were shut. A transom was open over one of them and light and the subdued music of a radio were trickling out. I ran back to 906, listened again, and quietly tried the door. Locked, of course. Taking a thin sheet of celluloid from my wallet, I slid it between the edge of the door and the jamb, then forced it down at a sharp angle until it met the lock's bolt. Gradually, I increased pressure until I felt the celluloid begin to bend. Perspiration beaded my forehead. Brushing it impatiently away, I continued to force the celluloid down until, with a sharp click, it edged into the socket, forcing the bolt back. I leaned gently against the door. It opened.

  I stepped in quickly and shut the door. The room was full of darkness and silence. Slipping the gun from its holster, I balanced it in my right hand while I felt for the light switch with my left. My fingers found the switch. Excitement surged within me briefly, like a spurt of hope, as I flicked it up. Light flooded the room. Without moving, I stood with my back against the door, with the gun poised, with every sense alert. Nothing happened.

  I advanced cautiously, opening the doors of closets and turning on lights. When I was certain that no one was hiding in any of the three rooms, I put the gun back into its holster and turned off the lights in the living room, kitchen, and bathroom. The bedroom was a lavishly furnished room, smelling faintly of cologne and stale cigarette smoke. I checked the closet swiftly, then the drawers of the two matching bureaus, then the cosmetic laden dressing table. A man's brown suit hung in the closet, but it wasn't mine. One of the bureaus contained a man's pajamas and an assortment of shirts and ties, none of which was mine, either.

  I turned out the light in the bedroom and went into the bathroom. Except for a cheap gold-plated safety razor, nothing in the medicine cabinet suggested the presence of a man. The razor was a Gem, the kind which uses a single-edged blade; mine was a Gillette, equipped with double-edge Pal blades. Being careful not to leave prints on anything, I put everything back into the cabinet and tried the kitchen. Except for a fancy collection of pots, pans, and electrical gadgets, none of which showed signs of much use, everything was run-of-the-mill and standard.

  I checked everything, though, just to make sure, even the oven, refrigerator, and garbage can. Frowning, I returned to the living room. I felt damned sure that anybody sharp enough to plant a photograph of Millie White in my apartment on the chance that the cops might make a search and spot it would also be sharp enough to do the job right and see that something belonging to me would turn up in her place. To hit the right note, it'd have to be something which would point to an intimacy between us. It'd be in the be
droom then, or the bathroom. I went into the bedroom again. For the second time I went through the closet, bureaus, and dressing table, with the same result as before. The bed caught my eye. I stripped back the covers and felt under the pillows. My fingers found a crumpled piece of pink kleenex. Then it hit me: Maybe they hadn't gotten here yet. Grimly, I turned out all the lights and settled down in a corner of the bedroom to wait. The minutes crawled by like crippled caterpillars. I got out a cigarette and stuck it in my mouth, then shook my head and put it away. The luminous dial on my wristwatch indicated ten-fifty p.m. I got up, stretched my muscles, and moved to a position behind the bed where I could prop my back against the wall and lean my head against the edge of the mattress. The minutes continued to crawl. I thought about Lieutenant Murray and police routine and wondered when his boys would arrive to search and seal the deceased's effects. I thought about that quite a while, and with considerable uneasiness, but decided that it was about six of one and half-a-dozen of another; I wouldn't be in any more trouble if the cops came and found me in her apartment than I'd be if they searched through it later and came up with one of my suits. I had to gamble on Murray being short-handed or too busy and not getting around until morning ...

  It was eleven-twenty p.m. and I was beginning to feel drowsy when my ears caught the faint click of metal against metal. I straightened, senses alert, and peered through the darkness toward the door. The click came again—a key searching for its hole. I grinned and slid my gun from its holster. The sound of the lock snapping back seemed as loud as the explosion of a firecracker. Then a crack of light appeared and disappeared. Someone had entered the apartment; someone was standing in the living room, near the door, listening...

  A tiny light flashed in the living room and moved out of my range of vision. I deduced that he had a pencil-sized flashlight and was flicking it over the walls and furniture to get his bearings. A moment later, the narrow beam cut through the darkness of the bedroom, striking the wall across from me, and soft footsteps came into the room. I held my breath and crouched lower, expecting the beam of the flashlight to dart in my direction. It didn't. He was confident—and in a hurry. As soon as he located the door of the closet, he opened it and laid the flashlight on a chair so that its beam illuminated the row of hangers and clothes. By raising myself a little, I could see that he was a small man in a dark suit and wide-brimmed hat. He removed something from the closet and laid it on the bed, then he tore paper from a package, unwrapping something. It was a suit, a grey suit, my suit...

  Anger flushed through me. Dropping the gun into the pocket of my jacket, I waited until he turned to arrange the grey suit on a hanger; I quietly slid out of the chair and circled around.... The intruder sensed my approach and began to back away. I flung a fist at his face and felt the sharp sting of resisting bone. He lurched away, stumbling a little; then, with animal-like cunning, the figure sprang at me. Automatically, my eyes and brain registered the long, narrow glint of an arcing knife blade headed towards my throat. I slapped hard at the hand behind the knife, grabbed the wrist with both hands as it swept past, and twisted it hard. His fingers went limp and the knife fell to the floor. I kicked at it and missed, but I retained the grip on his wrist. I twisted it more. Again, he made the odd animal-like sound in his throat, then bent backward and went slowly to his knees, forced there by the cruel leverage created by the pressure on his wrist.

  Holding him on his knees with one hand, I slapped his armpits, waist, and pockets. Except for the knife, he hadn't been armed. I kicked at him and he fell onto his back with the tiny beam of the flashlight shining onto his face. He had short, curly, brown hair, dark squinting eyes, a longish tanned face, and a flattened blob of a nose. A thin scar, dotted on each side by a surgeon's stitches, ran from the left side of his battered mouth almost to the lobe of a cauliflowered ear. I stared at him. He wasn't anyone I knew.

  “Okay, wise guy,” I said softly, releasing his arms and grabbing him by the throat, “who sent you here?”

  He squirmed and gurgled and shook his head. His eyes were dark with terror and his lips writhed like the hide of a dying snake.

  I tightened my fingers on his neck and shook him. “Who sent you?” I demanded.

  His head made a muffled, thudding sound against the broadloom and his lips continued to writhe. I kept watching them, waiting for his tongue to protrude and indicate the extent of my pressure on his throat. His face became suffused with blood but his tongue didn't appear.

  “Goddam it,” I gritted, “who... sent... you... here?” I banged his head to underline each word, and I jabbed my thumbs deep into his neck, determined to make him beg for mercy. His eyes went opaque, then he gurgled and became limp. I released his neck and watched him closely, expecting him to start gasping for air. He didn't. Puzzled, I tore open the front of his shirt and slid a hand over his heart. It wasn't beating—and his lungs were as still as a piece of cheese...

  My anger seeped away, and, for an instant, consternation flooded through me. The bastard was dead. He had died without the usual physical symptom of choking. It was incredible, but it was a fact. The army had drilled one thing into me: Accept facts—and act. A dead soldier is of no use to anyone but the enemy. I began to act.

  I stood up, stepped over the prone body, and snapped on the lights. I took the brown suit from the bed and put it back on its hanger in the closet. I took my grey suit off the hanger on which he had placed it, folded it neatly, and laid it on a chair near the door. I picked up the torn paper with which my suit had been wrapped, crushed it together, and pushed it into my pocket. Then I studied the room. The body had to stay where it was—and the flashlight, too. The knife, also. Kneeling beside him, I went systematically through his pockets. I found a worn leather wallet and a long, narrow paper box. The box contained a red Dr. West's toothbrush with dilapidated bristles.

  I grunted. The toothbrush was mine and unquestionably filthy with my fingerprints. They'd even thought of carrying it in a box so that none of the prints would be obliterated, the bastards. He'd probably intended to hang it in the bathroom, right next to Millie White's. If the suit didn't damn me, the toothbrush would. I should have broken his bones one by one, the dirty conniving pig, instead of letting him die so easy.

  I put the toothbrush, paper box, and wallet into my pocket, draped the suit over my left arm, and snapped the lights off. I got out of there.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  I drove south on Michigan Avenue to the Wrigley building, parked about twenty-five feet from the bridge, and began examining the wallet in the light from the dashboard. It contained fifty-four dollars in cash—four soiled one-dollar bills and a crisp new fifty-dollar one. In addition, there was a driver's license issued by the State of Pennsylvania to Peter H. DeGruchy, age: forty-one, height: five-six, weight: one hundred and sixty-two, hair: brown, race: white, address: 141 South Washtenaw, Germantown. Under the license, there were several three-cent stamps, a sheet of cheap green-lined paper bearing lines of penciled Italian or Greek, and a new-looking snapshot. The subjects of the snapshot were a buxom, heavy-breasted woman with a square face and long, light hair, and a paunchy, smiling guy with short, curly dark hair. Even though the scar wasn't discernible, the man was obviously DeGruchy. The background wasn't clear, but they appeared to be in a grassy place, resting on a large flat stone.

  I tucked the snapshot, money, and stamps into my own wallet, tore the driver's license into little pieces, and got out of my car. The river was dark and wavey with the ripples of a sluggish current. I leaned on the rail and let the wallet and confettied license flutter into the waters. A car passed behind me, headed into the Loop. I waited a moment, then took the crumpled paper and box from my pockets and consigned them to the murky waters, too. Another car passed. Taking a deep breath of the cool night air, I looked casually up at the Wrigley tower clock. It was twelve-thirty-two p.m. I strolled back to my car and drove home.

  I didn't sleep very well—but not because of DeGruchy. I felt no more
remorse about having killed him than I had felt during the war when I'd machine-gunned lead into the ranks of the enemy. Life is a sort of war, and he'd been playing it dirty. He—or the big boys behind him—had sent him on a mission calculated to put a period to my activity; the mission had backfired and he'd gotten the big push instead of me. The hell with him. What bothered me was this: What the hell had I done to merit all this attention?

  I'd gone to The Golden Spoon and asked Millie White a few questions about Orville Pederson, a guy who'd been two-timing his wife and double-bunking with her. So what? What was there to get excited about? It was a standard situation which had occurred countless times all over the world; it called for bickering and legalistics and divorce, but certainly not for poison and sharp conniving—and especially not for poison and conniving against me. Hell, if the gang were on Millie's side, the one to poison was old lady Pederson; if the bright boy was one of Millie's jealous suitors, then the one to poison was Pederson, the guy who was creating the competition. I wasn't even in it, yet the poison had been aimed at me and they were knocking out their brains trying to screw me with the cops. It didn't add. Either they were stupid as hell—or I was.

  Wednesday morning dawned bright and clear. I ate breakfast, then drove to the Chicago Avenue police station. The desk sergeant said Lieutenant Murray had gone out on a new homicide but was expected back shortly. I asked him to tell Murray that I'd been in and that I'd drop back in an hour or so. He said he would. I got in my oar and headed south on Clark Street to the hole-in-the-wall which serves me as an office. It's on the tenth floor of a run-down office building on the north edge of the Loop, and the only elevator is a model built the year Lincoln freed the slaves, but the rent is cheap and it's warm and dry in winter. Like most private investigators, I don't require the services of a brace of hot-and-cold running secretaries because I carry most of my business in my pockets. My typing, when I have any, is handled by an old, stringy-haired bag on the fifth floor, who charges me by the page. My office contains a desk, three chairs, a wastebasket, a calendar, a phone, and a wooden filing cabinet. I keep a clean shirt and a pair of crepe-soled shoes in a desk drawer, and the other drawers are full of air and receipted bills. The filing cabinet is the only thing I keep locked—and not because it contains liquor, which it doesn't; it's locked because I sometimes park a gun there.