by Kane, Henry
“Stop kidding, Louie.”
“I’m not kidding, Pete.” His smile was an unfunny grin, it was something to do with your mouth. “Just between you and me, all I’ve really got so far—is you.”
“Big joke,” I said. “But let’s be serious. This deal of mixing a private eye in a murder frame is so old, I’ll be ashamed to mention it in my memoirs, the critics will have my head. You don’t really think I killed the guy, do you, Louie?”
“No,” he said, “I don’t. You’re an old-timer in the business, you don’t figure to be that stupid. You don’t figure to go around killing people in their own apartments and leaving your prints all over the lot and carrying the murder weapon in your side pocket and hanging around to admire your handiwork …”
“You bet your sweet ass I don’t.”
“For me, you square up. You always square up. I happen to know you. But I don’t own this town, laddie. I’ve got superiors, and they’re beginning to grind down on me already. And then there’s the D.A. Real nice fella, but awfully bloodthirsty, and the kind of a guy who sticks his two cents into cop business. I’m going along with you, but I can only go just so far. I hope it breaks off somewhere, and soon. But if it doesn’t, you better have that little Elsa Corey primed and ready.”
“Yeah.” I jumped the track, fast. “You talked with both of them?” I said. “This Jack Burke and Loretta?”
“Yeah. I’m going to talk with one of them again. I’m on my way right now for a date with Jack Burke.”
“Where?” I said. “Where’s this date?” Excitement crawled all over me like hives.
Louis pretended he didn’t notice. “Casa Morretti,” he said evenly. “Upstairs private room. Number 4.”
“A favor, Louie.” I wheeled around him like a terrier after a toy. “One favor. Please.”
“I’m kind of beginning to run out of favors, laddie.”
“Nothing, Louis. Just a little one. Just one more. Ten minutes. Give me a ten minute jump on you. That’s all, Louie. A ten minute jump.”
“Jump? What the hell are you talking about?”
“Jack Burke.”
“You mean you want to keep my date with him? That what you mean? Give you ten minutes with him first?”
“That’s what I mean, Louie.”
“Why?” he said.
“I’ve got a bill to collect.”
“Bill to collect? With Jack Burke?”
“That’s right. Ten minutes. Please, Lieutenant? Please!”
“Well …” His dubious tone left him open. I practically kissed him. His tone remained dubious but I had my ten minutes.
“I hope,” he said, “you know what you’re doing.
6
Casa Morretti is in Greenwich Village and it serves the longest, skinniest, most flavorsome spaghetti west of a little town called Rome which, they tell me, is in Italy. Casa Morretti has a narrow unobtrusive small-awninged entrance, a wide downstairs dining room, and, upstairs, private rooms where you can run yourself a tete-a-tete or a banquet, depending on your mood. My mood, at the moment, was for a bit of serious chatter, very private, and I could hardly contain myself as I rubbed my knuckles against the door marked 4. Jack Burke opened up without inquiring and then, when he saw me, his hand went limp on the knob. The rest of Jack Burke went limp directly after that because, adhering to the time-honored technique of the private detective in the classic tradition, I rushed a fist to his chin without preliminaries. Mr. Burke billowed to the floor like a ballet dancer dying as a swan. I pushed him in and closed the door. Then I bent to him and examined the contents of his clothes. I found nothing of interest, so I picked him up, deposited him in a chair, and began slapping him back to consciousness.
“Come on,” I chanted. “Come on, Mr. Burke. Listen to the birdies sing.”
“Wha …?” he said. “Wha …?”
“Live it up, Mr. Burke.”
“Wha …?” His lids fluttered open.
“Come on, Mr. Burke. Listen to the birdies sing.”
Recognition returned to his eyes.
“I’m listening,” he said, “and you’re no birdie. Cut out that slapping.”
“There you go,” I said and stood back.
He tried to get up.
“Sit tight, Mr. Burke,” I said. “Sit there!”
“What’s going on?” he said. “What are you doing here? What the devil do you want?”
“A bit of polite conversation, Mr. Burke. Nothing more.”
“You’ve a fine method of getting to it.”
“Partial payment on a bill you owe me.”
“Me?” he said. “A bill?”
“Skip it. Where’s Willie? I don’t smell him around.”
“You will, fella. I promise you that.”
“I’ll be looking forward to it, Mr. Burke. Now let’s get back to the polite conversation.”
“What do you want?”
“Johnny-one-note, that’s me. Like we kind of started to talk about back there at the Ascot—little dame by name Elsa Corey. Know her?”
“I do.”
“Know her well?”
“I do.”
“See? Progress. Okay. How well do you know her?”
“She’s the second lead in the show we’re rehearsing.”
“You know her better than that, Mr. Burke, don’t you?”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“Means you two are real friendly-like. Means that little dame is in love with you. Means she’s kind of living with you. That’s what it means.”
“How do you know that?”
“Your brother told me,” I said. “My brother!” He struggled to get to his feet. I pushed him back. “Look,” he said, “may I please get up?”
“If you promise not to have a Willie materialize out of the walls.”
“No Willie,” he said. “Not now. There’s no one here. Just me.”
“Okay. Get up.”
He rose from the chair, stretched, shuddered, walked about, lit a cigarette. There was a tightness in his throat as he said, “May I know what this is all about?”
“I’m inquiring about Elsa Corey, that’s all.”
“What’s your interest in Elsa Corey?”
“Well, sir,” I said. “It’s a beautiful day. I’m in my office, admiring the beautiful day, and bemoaning the fact that nobody in the wide wide world has any need of a real up and coming private nothing, when a cute little wench drops in. She’s got a message. Guess who the message is from, Mr. Burke?”
“I wouldn’t know.”
“From your brother. She tells me your brother sent her. Did you introduce her to your brother, Mr. Burke?”
“No.”
“Happen to know if your brother was acquainted with her?”
“Look,” he said. “Let’s stop fencing.”
“I stopped some time ago,” I said.
“My brother’s dead, Mr. Chambers. Do you know that?”
“Yes,” I said.
“He was murdered. This very afternoon. Do you know that too?”
“Yes,” I said.
Now his eyes narrowed and he punctuated the air with the glowing tip of his cigarette. “Happens,” he said, “that I know something too. And it’s a something which I informed the police, a Detective-lieutenant Parker. It’s a something about a private detective named Peter Chambers. It’s a something my brother once told me. That this Peter Chambers hated his guts.” “I’m told,” I said, “that I’m supposed to know about that too.”
“Don’t you?”
“I don’t, Mr. Burke,” I said. “And now, as long as we’ve stopped fencing, and you know so much, perhaps you know why Elsa Corey came visiting me wearing a gun in her hand?”
“Elsa? A gun?”
“Yeah,” I said. “Elsa. A gun.”
“I don’t believe you. Not Elsa. Not a gun. You’re a liar, fella. And you’d do me a favor if you’d get the hell out of here, now, right now.”
&n
bsp; “All recovered, aren’t you, Mr. Burke? Back to cracking the whip.”
“Get out of here. Quickly. Before I call the management.”
I reached, grabbed and pulled him over by his tie.
“Polite,” I said. “Remember, Mr. Burke? Polite. Now say it nice.”
“Will you please leave, Mr. Chambers?”
“Much better, Mr. Burke. Be happy to.” I released the tie and attempted a gentlemanly bow. “Pleasure, Mr. Burke. Pleasure, indeed.”
7
I had done the merry-go-round. I had gone the full circle. There was but one stop left. Elsa Corey had said 13 East 39th Street. I went there. It was a paint-peeling wooden tinderbox, ramshackle as a wind-torn barn on a prairie. I sighed as I went into a narrow dank-smelling hallway. I sighed, thinking about young actresses, thinking about kids from Oregon, and widows who wanted their daughters to be actresses, and kids from Oregon making the rounds and worrying about rent and bread, and kids from Oregon going to auditions, and finally meeting the Big Producer, and getting to be second lead in a show that was folding in rehearsal for want of money, and kids from Oregon having affairs with the Big Producers and not knowing that the Big Producer’s affairs with kids from Oregon were as common as pits in an apple and just as casual. I sighed, pulling myself up the creaky stairs, and then I was at 2 B which was a design of cheap metal nailed to a door that was thin as melba toast and, when I knocked, it offered up just about as much resistance. There was no answer and I shrugged and turned to leave when a large hunch unfurled and clobbered me. All of a sudden, I was squash in the middle of a very wicked hunk of deal, and there was no out. All of a sudden, I was as worried as Lieutenant Parker had pretended not to be.
I shoved a shoulder at the rattletrap door and leaned hard.
The lock ripped from the wood and the door shot open.
I was in a clean little room with the barest of trimmings and my hunch had paid off because I was not alone. Elsa Corey was seated in a rail-back chair. She was looking directly at me but her eyes were not blinking. Her face was mottled and there were blue bruises on her throat. Elsa Corey had been strangled to death.
8
Now what?
It was still a beautiful day, only it was not day any more, day had merged to night. I had walked the city streets, I had sat in on a movie on Forty-second Street, I had walked again, I had smoked a good deal and I had drunk a good deal of coffee. I had tried to puzzle my way out of a stinking dilemma but it was like shooting darts at a phantom, nothing wanted to stick. I had gone home, and I had tended to the bump on my skull, and I had put in a bit of early-time sleeping—but it had not helped. I was way down deep in a ridiculous jam and I could feel it closing in. And then I was dozing again, and I was having a nightmare, and my nightmare was full of cops knocking on many doors, and I was behind every door, and then the doors began falling in, and cops were pouring in, and they were all going to get me, me, ME, and then I awoke with a lurch, and there was a rapping on the door as though I was still dreaming my nightmare. I wobbled from the bedroom and opened the door for Louis Parker.
“How goes it,” he said, “detective?”
“It stinks,” I said, “out loud.”
“Aren’t you going to ask me in?”
“Please. Be my guest.”
He came in. He smiled. The smile did nothing for his face. His expression remained that of a pall-bearer with rheumatism doing his job on a rainy day.
“Brother,” I said, “you look like you can use a drink.”
“Brother,” he said, “that I can.”
“I hope you don’t mind if I join you.”
“Now you be my guest.” He smiled his sorrowful smile again.
I built a couple of balls, two stiff ones, and I handed him his.
“To us,” I said. “Good luck.”
“To you,” he said. “You’re going to need it.”
“Sit down, Louis.”
“Thank you.”
“How goes it?” I said when he was seated. “Not good.”
“Real bad?”
“Stinks.” He sipped of his highball. “Elsa Corey,” he said. “Remember your Elsa Corey?”
“Yeah?”
“She’s dead. We got another one of them calls—anonymous.”
“I can clear that one for you, Louie.”
“Like how?”
“Like I made the phone call.”
“What?”
“I called downtown. After I found her.” “You found her?”
“Yes.”
“You bust that door down too?”
“Yes.”
“Just jump from murder to murder, don’t you? All right Lemme hear.”
“There’s very little to hear, Louie. I went there, mostly, I think, to talk her into coming down to you and making a statement. That would have cleared me on the Bruce Burke thing, and would have cleared you with your conscience.”
“So?” “I knocked on the door, and there was no answer. And then I suddenly got a hunch, the worst kind of hunch, the kind of hunch that would knock my clearance right out from under. I busted in that door and I found her—like you found her.”
“We found her choked to death.”
“Yeah. I got out of there, walked around some, called it in to Headquarters anonymously, went to a movie, and came home. What kept you so long?”
“Routine. I didn’t want to bring your name into it. Yet. Not before I talked with you. You know what her death means, kiddo?”
“I’ve got an idea.”
“Let me blueprint it for you.” He finished his drink and lit a cigar. “You and Bruce Burke—according to the world—you’re enemies. I get a phone call to go up there and I go up there. I find him dead, and I find you there with him, and I find nobody else. You’ve got a gun, with only your prints on it. And only your prints are on the doorknob. Gun’s got two bullets discharged, and both those bullets are in Bruce Burke. Right there, you’re it. As they say in my racket, its prima facie. Only it happens it’s me that finds you there and I happen to know you pretty good. You tell me a story, and I believe you. Same reason, I happen to know you pretty good. Your story hinges on a witness, name of Elsa Corey. Okay. I let you run around, because you’re in the business, and a little bit you’re in a spot, so you’re an extra man I got, and a smart one, who might come up with some angles. Surest thing of all, of course, sooner or later, you’ll bring in that Elsa Corey. So I’m working on a murder case, leaving you out, waiting for maybe you’ll pop with angles. Waiting also for you to bring in your clearance. Now your clearance is dead. Where does that leave you?”
“Crouched behind the eight-ball,” I said, “only it’s not big enough to hide me. Classic tradition.” I went and made myself another drink.
The phone rang.
I lifted the receiver.
It was Miranda.
“Hi, Miranda,” I said.
“What’s the matter?” she said.
“Why?” I said.
“You sound hoarse,” she said, “or sick. Something wrong, Boss?”
“No.”
“You sure you’re not sick?”
“Not sick. Frightened.”
“Oh.” She chuckled. The chuckle was relief. Good old Miranda. If I wasn’t sick, nothing could be wrong with me.
“What is it, Miranda?” I said.
“I’ve been trying to reach you.”
“I went to the movies,” I said. “Well, that’s a good way to drum up business.”
“What is it, Miranda?”
“You had a visitor, just before I closed up shop for the day.”
“Client?”
“She didn’t say.”
“She?”
“But of course. Very pretty, but a little grim. Wanted to see you real bad.”
“Leave a name?”
“Yes. Loretta Burke.”
“Leave a message?” “Said she was very anxious to talk to you. Said you could come visit her tonight. M
entioned, a club. The Flame. That’s about it.”
“Thanks, Miranda.”
“Take care of yourself.”
“Yes, Miranda.”
I hung up and sucked at my drink.
“Pete,” Parker said.
“Yeah?”
“You know how I feel about you, kid?”
“Yeah.”
“But I’ve got my shoulders pinned. I’m in a spot now where I can’t move.”
“Yeah,” I said.
“I want you to come downtown with me, Peter.” He spoke quietly and kindly. “I’d like to take you in to the D.A.’s people. I’d like you to tussle it out with them. They might come up with something.”
“Classic tradition,” I said.
“What the devil are you mumbling about?”
“Classic tradition,” I said. “This one’s gone all the way, from the girl with the gun in the office, to the tight frame hung around the private eye. It would be funny if … if it weren’t serious. Only item missing so far is the violence. True, I got a little hit in the head, and I did mess up Jack Burke a bit, but none of that was real violence. I wonder when that’s coming.”
“Maybe you ought to stop with the whiskey already,” Parker said.
“You think I’m drunk?” I said.
“You sound like you’re drunk,” he said.
“Louie,” I said, “let’s keep it in the tradition. Let’s carry it through.” I walked around a bit, then I came back to him. “Tomorrow morning,” I said.
“What?” he said. “What’s tomorrow morning?”
“Tomorrow morning, I present myself to you. Tomorrow morning you can take me to the D.A. and maybe he can come up with things. But tonight—I want tonight. That’s all. Tonight. I know it’s a goddamned imposition. I know that I’ve already put you in a lousy spot, that I’ve taken advantage of your friendship. But right now, Louie, I’m begging. I won’t powder on you—I think you know that.”
“Why tomorrow morning?” he said. “Why not now?”
“Because by tomorrow morning, you’ll either have a murderer, or you’ll have me, or I’ll be dead. One of the three. I know I’m pushing you, Louie, but I won’t push any more after this. Please, Lieutenant. Tomorrow morning.”