by Milton Ozaki
I thanked him and headed for my office.
As soon as I opened the door, I sensed that something was wrong. The window was open a few inches and everything seemed to be exactly as I had left it, but there was a faint licorice-like scent in the air—not cologne, not sweat, but sort of a mixture of the two. I stopped in my tracks and carefully studied the room. It hadn't been searched or ransacked. Without moving, I bent from side to side and examined the door. When I was certain that it wasn't wired, I swung it slowly shut and got down on my knees. I moved my head back and forth, then up and down, trying to catch the glint of a wire or a thread strung across the room. There weren't any. I stretched out flat, finally, with my eyes almost on a level with the floor, facing the window, and studied the markings in the thin film of dust which, in a dirty city like Chicago, invariably falls within minutes after anything has been cleaned or polished. There were several distinct trails of feet, all going from the door to the desk in the path I normally followed myself. They could have been my own footsteps, but I wasn't sure. Gingerly, an inch at a time, I crawled around to the other side of the desk and, once more, flattened myself on the floor. Clearly visible beneath the desk where my feet normally rested were two tiny mounds of coarse-grained flecks. I reached an arm toward them, touched them with a finger, rubbed the finger against one of its mates. It felt like wood dust, the kind a small drill makes.
Still moving with extreme caution, I inched toward the back of the desk and approached my chair. I examined it with my eyes, from every angle possible without actually moving it. It stood with its edge about three inches from the knee-hole of the desk, a little too close to the desk for anyone to seat himself in it without pulling it back a bit. I began to get the idea. I got up, went to the filing cabinet, and got a flashlight. By cramping myself down beside the desk, I managed to flash a beam of light into the darkness of the knee-hole. Directly above the tiny mounds of wood dust, a U-clamp had been screwed and, held against the underside of the desk by it, there was the greenish, waffled oval of a grenade.
With a tight grin, I reached in and pressed a thumb down firmly upon its firing pin, then clawed the air with my other hand, searching for the invisible thread which I knew had been set to trigger it. My wrist caught a strong, thin fiber and, activated by the increased tension, the chair moved toward me a couple of inches. The unexpected sound of the casters on the floor made my nerves jump. I waited a second, then traced the fiber to the edge of the chair. The end was fastened with a thumbtack. I pried it loose, kicked the chair out of the way, and wriggled under the desk. A minute later I freed the grenade from the clamp and, holding it tightly in my hand, I crawled out and got to my feet. Then I began to sweat.
While I'd been searching for the hidden booby trap, I'd operated coolly and without emotion, like a trained mind seeking the answer to a pressing problem. But now that I'd uncovered the deadly gimmick and it was lying harmlessly in my hand, emotion flooded through me and I visualized myself walking in, pulling back the chair and sitting down at the desk. The chair would jerk the cord, the cord would pull the pin and, seconds later, the lower half of me would have been blown through the wall. I shuddered violently, remembering the blasted bodies I'd seen splattered across the battlefields of Europe, and I wiped a sleeve against my damp forehead.
I began to tremble with anger. With the grenade in my hand, I strode around the desk and jerked the door open. I jabbed a thumb against the elevator call button and held it there. Switches clicked and the car began to groan its way upward from a lower floor. I took my finger off the button and flexed the wrist of the hand which held the grenade. I itched to throw it at someone, the dirty someone who had planted it beneath my desk—but who?
The car reached my floor and ground to a stop. “Hello, Pop,” I said to the gnarled, wizen-eyed geezer who opened the gate. “I just wanted to find out if you saw anybody trying to get into my office this afternoon.”
“No, sir, Mr. Good,” he said in a thin voice, shaking his head, “I didn't see anybody today. There was the telephone men, but—”
“What telephone men?” I asked.
“The ones that fixed your phone. They were here about three, four o'clock, I guess it was, but they weren't in there more than a minute. Wasn't anybody else around that I know of.”
“Who let them in?”
“I don't know, Mr. Good. Manager of the building must've given them a key. I was pretty busy at the time.”
“What'd they look like?”
“Why, like repairmen, I'd say. One of them struck me as kinda funny, but I may have imagin—”
“What was funny about him?”
“Well, he was a rather big guy—about as tall as you, maybe, but heavier—and he sort of walked like a girl and talked sort of like one, too. The other one was the boss, but he acted like—”
“Okay, Pop,” I interrupted. “Thanks a lot.”
“What's the matter? Didn't they fix your phone?”
“They fixed it,” I told him. “They fixed it fine.”
The answering service reported that my number had received five calls. Mr. Tannenbaum had phoned and wished to have me call him. Likewise Mrs. Pederson. The other three calls were from a Miss Spinosa, who had called at half-hour intervals; her last call had been made at five-fourteen. It was now six-forty-one. She had left no number for me to call.
I hadn't spotted a phone in her room, but I checked the directory to make certain. There was a whole column of Spinosas but no G. Spinosa and none on Wisteria Street. I tried the Redbook, looking under Apartments and Rooming Houses, but 10 East Wisteria wasn't fisted. I remembered the sign company and tried their number. I got a lot of buzz-buzzes but no answer.
I called Morrie next. He was at home and answered the phone himself. “This is Carl,” I said. “I hear you've been looking for me.”
“I called your office to tell you that I have the information you wanted. My client says the party in question has represented him and his friends for several years in real estate matters, but that his work hasn't been entirely satisfactory lately. He says he has been trying to contact him for several days without success. If you know where he is, my client would appreciate the information.”
“That all?”
“Yes.”
“Tell your client that I've been in contact with several important people this afternoon and am making definite progress. I hope to have some interesting information for him shortly.”
“Fine, Carl.”
“I'll see you in the morning, Morrie.” I hung up.
For several seconds, I sat and thought about the guarded way Morrie had talked. He had been careful not to mention any one's name. I decided Pisano had probably warned him to proceed with extreme caution so that, in the event of a wire tap, no one would be able to hang anything on either of them. I dialed Mrs. Pederson's number. The phone buzzed once, then stopped. The receiver hummed in my ear and I had the feeling that someone was listening at the other end, someone who was waiting for me to speak first.
“Mrs. Pederson?” I asked. “Hello? Hello?”
The line hummed for a moment more, then went dead as somebody replaced the other receiver. I stared at the instrument, then phoned the Chicago Avenue Station and told the desk sergeant to rush a squad to the Pederson apartment at seven-hundred-eight Lincoln Terrace. That done, I started for the door. On the way downstairs in the elevator, I realized that I'd picked up the grenade and had it in my hand. I put it in my pocket.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
A black police sedan was already in front of the building when my car screeched to a stop at the curb. I jumped out and sprinted into the building. The door of the Pederson apartment was open. I strode in and found three plainclothesmen standing in the center of the living room, looking down at a sprawled body. The body was Sarah Pederson's.
“Goddam it,” I said with feeling, “you got here too late!”
One of the cops, a Sergeant Tomacik with whom I'd had some dealings when he wa
s attached to the Rackets Bureau, looked up. “Yeah,” he said. “We've phoned for the coroner. You the guy who called?”
“Yes.” I told him, briefly, what had happened and why I had called.
“The lieutenant's going to blow his top,” he commented. “This is the seventh homicide he's had this week.”
“How long do you think she has been dead?”
He shrugged. “She was still warm when we got here. I'd say she got it about the time you phoned.” He stared at the body and wrinkled his nose a little. “Homely old thing, wasn't she? You'd think a guy with Pederson's dough could do better for himself.”
Her legs were bare and protruded from beneath the blue quilted robe like lengths of pale plastic tubing. Messy pincurls covered her scalp, making the gray-flecked ash-blonde hair look like a dome of coiled anchovies. Her face, thin and lined in life, looked emaciated and withered. The ugly gaping wound beside her head didn't help. I had to admit she didn't make a pretty picture.
I was still looking at her when people began pouring into the room and Lieutenant Murray's voice said, “What the hell—is Good in on this one, too?”
“A little too late,” I told him bitterly. “It doesn't figure at all, lieutenant. They had no damn reason to kill her.”
He snorted and began giving orders. An assistant coroner arrived and examined the body cursorily. Flash bulbs popped and a Bureau of Investigation man outlined her position in chalk and began making a diagram of the room. Cops scattered about, looking for the neighbors, looking for prints, looking for anything and everything. I sank into a chair and watched the Law go through its act.
When the dead wagon boys had removed her, Murray came over and sat down beside me. “Tomacik says you phoned in the alarm,” he said wearily. “How come?”
I told him about the answering service's report and how I had called her number. “Somebody picked up the receiver, listened to my voice—then hung up,” I concluded. “I figured something was wrong, and I knew a squad would reach her quicker than I could.”
“Did you think somebody had knocked her off?”
“I didn't know what to think, lieutenant. I just figured something was wrong—and I put in a call to the police. I know you're upset about the sudden epidemic of killings, but I don't know any more about what's going on than you do.”
“I'm not so sure.” Murray smiled dourly. “Three bodies within twenty-four hours—and you're mixed up in all of them. I could probably save myself some headaches by tossing you in the can for a while.”
“Why pick on me?” All I did was—”
“Yeah, yeah, I know. You just wanted to talk to Millie White. But she got knocked off, didn't she? You didn't even know DeGruchy, of course. But he got his in the White girl's apartment, and I wouldn't be surprised to find out that it happened because he arrived while somebody was giving the place a quick frisk. I can't prove it, Good, but you look to me like a nice candidate for the job. You're the guy who was nosing into her affair with Pederson, and you're big enough to have handled him without much difficulty. Why don't you admit it?”
“Jeez, to think some people sit on what you cops are using for brains nowadays!”
“Don't try to act smart, Good. The three stiffs fit together—and you're in there somewhere. This one, now, makes the cheese really binding. We've got to turn up Pederson—and in a hurry. Where do you think he is?”
“Getting a suntan at a nudist camp.”
Murray grunted disgustedly and got up. “I'm too damned tired to listen to a lot of lip. Get out of here.”
I remembered that I hadn't eaten. At Hoe Kow's chop suey joint on Ohio Street, I picked mushrooms out of an order of chow mein and tried fit the pieces of the puzzle together. It seemed to figure like this: Pederson was important to the new mob and it didn't want any questions asked. Bain intended to take me off the trail by satisfying my client with a check from her husband but, for some reason, things had gone wrong and it had been decided to eliminate her permanently. What had gone wrong? Probably Pederson had refused to write the check—or Pederson hadn't been able to write the check. I drank two shot-glasses of tea while I thought about that. Suppose Pederson was a corpse. Where did that put me?
I couldn't come up with an answer, but the rest seemed to fit. The mob was clearing Pederson's trail by eliminating his wife and trying to eliminate me. That meant they were less worried by the questions the cops might ask than they were by what I might dig up and transmit to some other party. Who? Pisano? That seemed logical. There were holes in it, of course, but it held together in a general sort of way.
My fingers reached into my pocket, searching for matches, and touched the grenade. I squeezed my hand around it and made myself promise: They'd pay, by God —they'd pay plenty...
I walked into The Golden Spoon a few minutes later with my hand in my pocket, clasping the grenade. Louie, the penguin-suited manager, was standing near the checkroom talking to a red-headed girl who wore a mantilla, a red rose, and a big Spanish comb in her hair. She held, a little awkwardly, a tray of cigarettes.
I heard him saying: ”... pretend you haven't got change, see, and you'll get more tips. Act like—” Then he saw me and his face froze.
I turned around and walked out.
I jabbed the button beside G. Spinosa three times and nothing happened. I jabbed three other buttons. The electric release began chattering like an angry chimp, and I jerked the door open and started up the stairs. Above me, a male voice asked: “Who is it?”
“I'm looking for Miss Spinosa,” I said.
“For chrissake,” he growled, “don't you guys ever look at the names?” His door slammed.
I took the rest of the stairs two at a time and rapped on her door. I was studying the lock and wondering if I should try to force it when, somewhere beyond the door, a floor board creaked like an old lady's whisper. I stiffened apprehensively, stepped away from in front of the door, and brought my knuckles against the panel again.
“Yes?” a girlish voice asked.
“It's Carl,” I said carefully. “Let me in, Gerrie.”
“Just a minute—” A switch clicked, throwing a line of light beneath the door. A bolt rasped in its socket and the door opened a few inches.
I kicked the door open, stepped in, grabbed the edge of the door and whirled as I slammed it. The guy behind it had one arm in the air and a black leather sap dangled from his fingers. His eyes went wide and the arm began to descend. I caught his wrist, pulled him off balance, and shouldered him into the air behind me. He yalped and cracked head-on into the wall. I crossed him off my mind and swung around, searching for his pal.
He was a big guy and he wasn't a coward, but he had made one mistake. He had tucked his gun down between his shirt and trousers, confident that his pal would smack me from behind and, when he grabbed for it, its front sight caught in the shirt, pulling the fabric out of his pants and deflecting his aim. I jumped him a split second before the gun exploded.
We crashed to the floor together, me on top. With a scream like a girl who has found an ant in her bed, he swung an arm into my face and rolled over, trying to crush me. He was a real fatty, with flesh as soft as dough and reeking with a musky cologne which, combined with the acrid odor of his sweat, had a licorice-like smell. As his weight came onto me, I sank my teeth into his shoulder and jabbed a fist into his gut. He screamed again and tried to knee me. I jabbed him again, caught his arm as it swung into my face, and held on. Gradually, I forced it back. I heard the gun fall to the floor. He began to whimper. I leaned my face into his neck and levered the arm a little more. The elbow joint snapped suddenly—and the big guy fainted. I crawled over him, picked up the gun, and got to my feet.
A glance told me that Gerrie wasn't in the room.
I stood there a minute, gasping for breath, then went to the first guy and patted him for a gun. He had a snub-nosed revolver in the pocket of the brown coveralls. I relieved him of it and found his wallet. His name was Paul Garcia, 28 year
s old, height 5'6", weight 160. The address was a hotel on South Halsted Street. I pushed it back into his pocket, made sure he was still breathing, then gave my attention to the big one, who was beginning to moan and flop around.
I picked up the leather sap on my way across the room and weighed it in my hand. It was loaded with steel shot and could easily have bashed the back of my head in. The big guy was on his knees, like a Turk saying prayers, trying to get up. I swung my foot at his fat butt and he fell on his face, moaned, and rolled onto his back, looking up at me with big, frightened, calf eyes.
“Get up,” I ordered. I slapped the palm of one hand with the sap.
Moaning and holding his dangling right arm with his left hand, he got slowly to his feet and backed away from me. I pointed at the sofa. He waddled toward it and sat down.
“Okay,” I said, “let's—”
“Y-you aren't g-going—” His voice trembled exactly like a nervous girl's.
“Okay, let's talk. I'm not sure whether I'm going to kill you and your buddy or not. I may not, providing you're a good bay and talk real nice. Who sent you here?”
His head went from side to side like the pendulum of a Bavarian clock. “I d-don't know.”
“Like hell. You got your orders from someone. Who was it?”
“She phoned Paul. We didn't even see her.”
“Who's she?”
“Honest, Mr. Good, we really don't know a thing about her! We were told to wait until she phoned and then to do whatever she told us. Paul talked to her when she called this morning. He said she had a real nice voice, but that's all he could tell.”
Garcia groaned and sat up. I dropped the sap into my pocket and pointed one of the guns at him. “Come on over and join the party,” I told him. He looked at us, then buried his head in his arms. “Hurry up,” I said. “I'm a little jittery today. This thing might start spraying lead.” With a deep sigh, he struggled to his feet and walked groggily toward the sofa. He sank onto it, as far from the fat guy as he could get.