by John Creasey
‘I’ve got news for you,’ Mason echoed Jensen, and his expression had lost its sourness.
‘News is what I want most,’ Goodison said.
‘Those incisions.’
‘Those cuts.’
‘You remember Pillitzer?’
The question had given Goodison its own answer, but he listened patiently to Morgan’s triumphant explanation. A man named Pillitzer had served ten years for a peculiar mixture of crimes: he had stolen valuable paintings, often cutting them from their frames, and had been caught red-handed by a collector who had tried to stop him.
He had slashed the collector’s face, blinding him with his own blood, in an effort to escape.
And twice again he had slashed his way to freedom, until he had been caught in Boston, six years ago.
He ought to have had twenty years, but someone had pulled some strings, and he’d had five. The slashes were Pillitzer’s trademarks; and the trademark now lay on Rapelli’s cold cheeks.
‘How quick can we find Pillitzer?’ Goodison demanded.
‘I can take you to him right now,’ Mason said.
9: Pillitzer
PILLITZER did not live on Madison, he lived on Park; but that didn’t mean luxury. Round the block from his place, a row of five storey houses was falling down, lived in only by rats and the children of Puerto Ricans who lived nearby – since the spate of immigrants had reached its height. At one corner was a delicatessen, at another a bottle store, and between the two, other shops from which one could buy almost anything if one had to live cheap.
Pillitzer usually lived cheap.
‘But not right now,’ Mason said to Goodison as they drew up at a corner from which they could see Pillitzer’s window, overlooking Park Avenue.
‘That’s right,’ a local Precinct man said. ‘Yesterday, Pillitzer got drunk. He hasn’t hit the bottle so hard in months. When he’s in funds, he hits the bottle. When he’s not, he slaps his wife.’
‘Where’s she?’ asked Goodison.
‘Right now, Ella’s out at work. Someone has to earn the living.’ The Precinct man was middle-aged, taut, tough, and cynical.
‘So Pillitzer’s alone.’
‘Sure. That third floor window.’
‘And the place is covered at the back?’
‘Yeah. He won’t get away,’ the local man said positively, ‘but you need a way to get him out. Don’t take any chances with Pillitzer, Lootenant.’ He touched the gun underneath his coat. ‘We gotta wait until he comes out, and then cover him from both sides and from across the road. That guy’s real mean.’
‘We want him now,’ Goodison said, heavily.
‘Brother, we’ve been wanting him for a year – a few hours won’t make any difference.’
‘If he was paid to murder Gorgio Rapelli we want to know who paid him, and we want to know in a hurry,’ Goodison said, ‘so I’m going to get him. I don’t want any help, either. Have one man in that grocery store opposite, and all your men in position, ready to move in. But I want to go in alone.’
‘You have to be a hero,’ the local man said: that was almost a sneer.
‘That’s right,’ said Goodison.
He got out of the car and walked away from the corner, so that he could not be seen from the window of Pillitzer’s room. He felt the hardness of the .38 beneath his arm, and hitched his shoulders and shifted it a little, to make sure it was right for pulling.
All the airports had been watched, there was a check on the road bridges and the tunnels for Michael Ashley, who wasn’t going to stay free for long; but the quick way to break this case was to make Pillitzer talk.
Goodison turned back, ignored the police cars and the anxious men in them, and waited at the light, crossed, went down the street opposite, and round the block so that he approached Pillitzer’s front door. A coloured patrolman came strolling past, the handle of his gun jutting out, as if he wanted to make sure that everyone knew he had it handy. A fat coloured woman was laughing on a wheezy note inside a candy store. A man was sitting alone at the bar of a drugstore, which was empty except for the clerks, with their shiny, perspiring dark faces, and their quiet eyes. A white man was conspicuous here, but no one appeared to take any notice.
A small, tight-looking, swarthy man, better dressed than most, with square shoulders and a swinging walk, passed Goodison, whose long strides were slow and deliberate, and turned into the doorway Goodison was approaching. Goodison reached the doorway, still showing no sign of haste, and heard the sharp footsteps of the little man hurrying up the stairs. The stairway was dark and there was no elevator. A window somewhere out of sight gave a promise of daylight. Here was heat worse than anything Goodison had known in weeks; it was like walking into a room filled with steam. He eased his collar, and started up the stairs. Sweat began to drip out of him as he reached the first landing.
He was counting the other man’s footsteps; fourteen to a landing, then flat footsteps making the different sound of walking on the level. Fourteen more, to another landing. Fourteen more.
They stopped.
The swarthy man was at the third floor.
Goodison began to move faster than he had all day. He went on his toes, making little sound on the hard stairs, but listening intently for a door to open, and for voices. He heard the door; no voices, no tap, just the opening of the door. There would be more than one apartment at the third floor, two, maybe three, so this meant nothing. He came within sight of the third floor, and saw a door closing; but it didn’t close tight.
A man said: ‘That you, Ella?’
Pillitzer, expecting his wife.
A gun spoke on its solitary, barking note; then spoke again. Sounds followed, which might have been of a man collapsing and falling. It seemed beyond doubt that the swarthy man had come to kill Pillitzer, and so rob the police of a vital witness.
Goodison reached the door, and turned the handle and pushed, but it was locked. He fired at the lock, and the door sagged. He forced it open, and staggered inside, but heard and saw nothing; neither the swarthy man, nor a dead Pillitzer.
He had been so sure that he would find Pillitzer with two bullets in him, silent in death.
The door led to a small room crowded with furniture, dark because the drapes were drawn, smelling of tobacco smoke and whisky; a third floor dungeon. A touch of crimson, its colour dimmed in the gloom, stretched across a corner, the other furniture looked old and poor by comparison. A 21 inch television took up another corner.
A second door stood open, and Goodison went to it, cautiously – gun poised, heart pounding; death could be very close. He kicked the door open.
No one shot him.
He did not see Pillitzer.
This was the bedroom, and Pillitzer wasn’t here.
Goodison heard men on the stairs and saw one, the local Precinct lieutenant, coming in.
‘Make sure they’re ready at the back,’ Goodison rasped, and thrust forward into the kitchen. This was empty, too. A door leading to an iron fire escape was open, and the sun showed outside in a strip of fire beyond the door. Goodison reached the door and clattered onto the iron platform to look at a forest of television antennas, slates, chimneys, yards where one tree grew and washing hung, and where windows were wide open with women sitting at them, silently breathing in the hot air.
There was the swarthy man, at the foot, running. Two Precinct men were moving towards him, cautiously, guns ready: and his gun showed.
He threw it down.
Goodison felt like screaming: ‘Where’s Pillitzer?’ Then he saw the two Precinct men close on the swarthy man in triumph, and at the identical moment Pillitzer appeared from a ground floor doorway, and ran past the Precinct men, who were taken completely by surprise. Goodison fired but missed, then raced down the fire escape.
Pillitzer turned and fired at him. Goodison felt the bite of a bullet in his arm; it stopped him. Pillitzer disappeared, with a Precinct man after him, but Goodison was hurt and bitter in the realisation that
he had been outwitted. The swarthy man and his gun shots had been a decoy to help Pillitzer escape.
‘Where are you hurt?’ the Precinct lieutenant demanded in a soft but urgent voice. ‘I can see the blood on your pants, and—’
‘I’m not hurt.’ Goodison was sharp voiced. ‘For God’s sake get Pillitzer.’
A wound in the arm made a man feel faint and sick. Or was it the bitterness of failure?
‘Let me see,’ the local man insisted, and a moment later he looked at an ugly wound and the welling blood. ‘You’re hurt bad,’ he announced. ‘You have to see a doctor.’
‘We want Pillitzer.’ Goodison could not speak as savagely as he wanted to.
‘Sure, we’ll get him,’ the other soothed. ‘You don’t need to worry, Lootenant. We’ve got the other guy and we’ll get Pillitzer.’
The swarthy man lost no time in talking. Pillitzer had hired him to watch, warn him if the police came, and to distract them. He had done just that. He would get three years. He would not or could not say where Pillitzer had gone.
When Pillitzer’s wife came home, she gave them no help at all.
They took Goodison to hospital.
Tollifer himself telephoned Rose, soothed the anxiety from her voice, assured her that it was only a flesh wound, and her husband would want to remain on duty. That wouldn’t be wise, and he needed at least forty-eight hours stand-off. Tollifer was sure that Mrs Goodison understood.
‘Isn’t he bad enough to take a week?’ asked Rose.
‘It’s obvious you understand me,’ Tollifer said. ‘Thank you, Mrs Goodison. You need not worry at all.’
He rang off, lifted his telephone, and checked that the police watches on the bridges, tunnels and ferries as well as the airfields were extended to include Pillitzer as well as Ashley, and set every patrolman the precincts could spare and every available detective from Grade 3 up hunting for both missing men. He did it all quietly. He talked to a dozen Precinct captains himself, pushing them so that they did not know they were being pushed. Pillitzer’s known friends were checked, every relation he had was questioned. By nightfall, over fifty raids had been made on reported hiding places, all without result.
Telisa Rapelli was questioned for an hour and a half, without yielding any information of value. She could not believe that the killer was Michael Ashley, and did not yet know why the police were after Pillitzer. No, she had not known Pillitzer, nor had her father, but of course they had known of him.
The newspapers weren’t on the Pillitzer angle yet, but very soon would be, and then they would screech it to the wide world. Sylvester made dignified protest after protest. All the salesmen at the Rapelli Galleries were questioned, and the galleries were closed for business.
At eight o’clock that night, Goodison was home and in bed, resenting it, when the front door bell rang. Sadie was out, at a late class. Rose hurried to the door, and Goodison found his heart pounding with a kind of fear he knew was unreasonable, but which existed.
He heard Hank Jensen’s voice.
‘Send him in,’ he called, and jerked himself up on his pillows as the Swede entered, with Rose just behind.
‘You can’t stay long,’ she declared. ‘The doctor ordered a complete night’s rest. You shouldn’t have come.’
‘This way, I’ll rest,’ Goodison said. ‘How about a can of beer for our guest? What’ve we got, Hank?’
It was obvious to both Jensen and to Rose that nothing but the case really mattered to Goodison.
‘We haven’t got anything new,’ Hank told him. ‘We haven’t got Pillitzer or Ashley, but we’ve a load of heat and humidity promised tomorrow. If you were smart you’d get Rose to drive you up state.’
‘I don’t trust her driving. Any news from London?’
‘If you can call it news. After getting your cable, they’ve checked and discovered that five years ago Telisa Rapelli was married to a man named Clint, Jeremy Clint, in Chelsea, London, England. There’s no record of any divorce anywhere in England. We’ve cabled everything we have, and the Yard is cabling us the same way. There’s a personal message from that Superintendent West.’
‘He’s been promoted? What does he say?’
‘He hopes the wound isn’t serious, and you’ll be able to finish the job yourself.’
‘That sounds like West,’ Goodison said. He looked tired out. There were dark patches beneath his eyes, although they glittered with eagerness. ‘We’ve got to show Scotland Yard that we’re good. I’ve been thinking about Telisa Rapelli. I want you to check whether she and her father often quarrelled, how she took this sacrifice for Pa’s sake – the lot. Use Mason and dig deep. And there’s this: you needn’t tell Tollifer about yet. A lot of funny business could be going on under the eyes of a blind man. Maybe Telisa didn’t sacrifice so much. Find out, Hank.’
‘Sure.’
‘Any news of Michael Ashley?’ Goodison demanded.
‘I told you, no,’ said Hank. He stood up. ‘Ivan, I’m on my way.’
‘Why don’t you stop acting as if you were married?’ Goodison demanded, but Rose was standing close by him and he gripped her hand. ‘Okay. Let me know what you find out as early in the morning as you can. If you cable Scotland Yard, tell West I’m mighty fine.’ He managed a grin.
‘Yes, suh, yo’ mighty fine,’ Jensen fooled.
‘If the Michael Ashley guy is located at Idlewild, don’t keep him here, send him back where he belongs,’ Goodison said, and grinned. ‘Call me if you find Pillitzer, I regard him as kind of personal.’
Goodison slept through the night.
The cables between Headquarters, New York, and New Scotland Yard had a quiet spell, too. The pace of the hunt for Pillitzer slackened with the darkness, and he was not found. Nor was Michael Ashley. The newspapers all discovered the significance of the police hunt for Pillitzer in the same breath and the scream hit every tabloid front page, as well as radio and video; it even robbed the commercials of some of their time. Was the British killer the real killer, or was Pillitzer standing in for him? And why kill an English beauty and an American antique dealer? If they had not been killed by the same man, had they been killed for the same motive, and what was that motive?
There were several guesses in big black type. Telisa could inherit the fabulously successful business of Rapelli’s but that made Telisa her own father’s murderer. That each victim had shared a secret, and had been killed to conceal the fact. That there was a psycho on the prowl. That …
Jensen spent most of the night doing what Goodison had asked him. The Precinct men had picked up plenty of rumours; Rapelli and his daughter had quarrelled bitterly at times, and Rapelli had been a devil to live with.
More people knew of his failing sight than he had dreamed.
In spite of his night work, Jensen was at Headquarters on time next morning.
‘You’ve been working on this since it began,’ Tollifer said to him, at ten a.m. when the reports were being sifted. ‘You can keep at it, Sergeant, but don’t fall down on any part of the job. If you run into trouble or into anything you don’t understand, report to me at once.’
‘Sure, Captain.’
‘What are your opinions, Sergeant?’
Jensen’s face was absolutely straight; there were some things he could say, some he preferred to keep for Goodison.
‘To me, it looks a very confused situation, Captain, and yet I can understand most of it.’ Tollifer sat at his desk, as if dressed for a parade of veterans, sharp-eyed, sharp-faced, never a man to play with. ‘I can understand how Pillitzer got away, but I didn’t know he was that smart. I think maybe the man who stooged for him could talk, but I don’t know how to make him. There’s a Precinct report saying he had been in the money since the day before yesterday, and that squares with Pillitzer hiring him.’ Jensen was standing straight as a pine from the forests of Sweden and his hair was like Swedish corn, bleached by the sun. ‘There’s big money behind this, Captain – money enough to pay Pil
litzer, to pay his stooge, probably to pay for whoever is keeping Pillitzer undercover. I don’t know whose money it is, but one of the things Goodison planned to do was look for the money behind it.’
Tollifer nodded.
‘What is it you don’t understand?’ It was impossible to be sure whether there was sarcasm in his voice or not.
‘Why we haven’t found the Englishman, Ashley,’ answered Jensen. ‘Englishmen aren’t so easy to hide. They look different, they speak different, they behave different. This guy appeared at the airport under the name of Marshall Abbott, but no one saw him leave, no taxi driver remembers him, no airport porter saw him. He arrived at Idlewild and went through customs with one suitcase, and after that he vanished. He appears to have been at the Rapelli apartment; we’ve fingerprint evidence of that.’
‘Are you doubting fingerprint evidence?’ Now Tollifer was cool.
‘No, sir, he was at the apartment sure enough, but we don’t know when it was. We can’t trace that he was there a week or ten days ago, but that could be the case. He could have made that print any time up to two, even three, weeks ago. Rapelli was on his own, and one of the women who worked at the apartment has been known to put glasses and crockery away without cleaning it properly.’
Tollifer interrupted sharply: ‘Are you stating facts?’
‘Yes, sir, I talked to Fingerprints.’
‘Proceed.’
‘Thank you, sir. A man can be in London one night, in New York the next, back in London the third. We have indications, thanks to Goodison’s enquiries, that Pillitzer might have been the killer here, not Michael Ashley. If Pillitzer wasn’t, why did he run away? What’s he afraid of?’ Tollifer made no answer, and Jensen went on: ‘Ashley might be able to prove an alibi, and since his print could have been made weeks ago, we might not be able to break the alibi.’
‘Exactly what are you driving at, Sergeant?’
‘I’m asking myself this: did Michael Ashley come to New York for a few hours, using the name of Abbott, and did he fly right back to Britain, or did he go to the coast, or did he fly down to South America? He wouldn’t need a passport for the coast or anywhere in the United States, so he could use any name. I’d like to alert all those places for him. I wouldn’t take it for granted that he was still in New York.’