The Second Longest Night

by Stephen Marlowe

  The big mastiff face looked at me. There was very little expression on it. “Because Deirdre was a Communist, you mean? But Duane couldn't have known that at the time.”

  “So what?”

  “I see what you mean. Guilt by association.” If a man wouldn't tell you what you wanted to know, you had to look for the little unexpected things. Like Senator Hartsell calling Cabot by his first name. Not the Congressman. Not Cabot. Duane.

  “I'm at a disadvantage, Senator,” I said. “Apparently Cabot knows about your Venezuelan oil venture. I don't.” He stripped off his smoking jacket and pajamas and dressed quickly and without speaking in pale blue slacks and a buff-colored corduroy jacket. Finally he said, “Chet, I don't know what to tell you. If you feel your job is contingent upon that information, my hands are tied. You see the position I'm in, don't you? Other people are involved. I cannot violate the confidence and the trust which they placed in me. Does that finish it as far as you're concerned? I hope not.”

  “Fifty dollars a day plus expenses can be a lot of money,” I said, “if I decided I had to leave the country to continue my investigation.”

  “You mean Venezuela?”

  “Yeah, that's what I mean.”

  “And you're saying it's contingent on that?”

  “It's contingent on that. Are we still in business?”

  “You're being unreasonable, Chet. I told you that what happened to Deirdre has nothing to do with Venezuelan oil.”

  “I don't know if it has anything to do with Venezuelan oil or not. I think it has something to do with Francisco Del Rey, though. Senator, I'm getting mad enough to throw this whole thing back in your lap.”

  “Please don't raise your voice, Chet. You'll disturb Mrs. Hartsell.”

  “Then goddamn it, listen to me. I saw Del Rey kill a man. I was this close. He showed me a gun and showed me a silencer from his collection. He said he had quite a collection. I stood there watching him. This guy Lubrano had been knocked around some, but he was going to be all right. Del Rey put the silencer on his gun and shot Lubrano twice in the face with the same emotion your gardener would show clipping those boxwood hedges downstairs. You have nice friends, Senator.”

  “Holy God! You saw him do that?”

  I nodded. I walked to the bedroom door and opened it. Outside, I had heard something. Blairy came stumbling into the room. He didn't have the breakfast tray with him.

  “Too cold for you outside?” I said. Blairy said something extremely nasty. I had not minded when his father said it. I grabbed his shirt front in both hands and bunched it, drawing him toward me. “Look, you useless son of a bitch,” I said. “When I'm talking business with your father, I don't want you snooping around. You get me?” I pushed hard and sent him stumbling across the room. He fell back into an antique rocking chair which didn't look as if it really could rock. It rocked.

  He sat there sulking. He stared mutely at the Senator. The Senator said, “If you're feeling frustrated, Chet, don't take it out on my son. I wouldn't have let you pull a stunt like that even when you were one of the family.”

  “I didn't know Blairy then.”

  “I didn't have the pleasure,” Blairy sneered.

  “Senator,” I said, “I don't give a damn one way or the other. Either you say I can go to Venezuela or you say I can't. I could hang around doing nothing for another week or so, collecting fifty bucks a day from you and enough money to keep my car full of high octane gasoline and myself full of high octane whisky, but I don't work that way. The rate is high and I like to show results for it. Now, do I go to Venezuela or do we forget about the whole business?”

  Blairy smirked. The Senator said, “You have nothing certain to go on?”

  “Nothing but Del Rey and what I saw.”

  “Would you promise not to bother yourself about my oil interests down there?”

  “I won't promise anything. I told you my snooping might get to be a pain in the ass. Remember?”

  The Senator sighed. “Chet, I hate to say this. I'm afraid we'll have to call it quits. No hard feelings?”

  “Why should there be?” Blairy wanted to know. “He has our retainer.”

  It was costing me a couple of hundred bucks, but it was worth it. “I'll mail your retainer back in the morning,” I said. Blairy's face made like a morning glory at night.

  The Senator had a pained look on his face. “You don't have to, Chet.”

  I walked out of there without answering. Mrs. Hartsell Was just coming out of one of the other bedrooms. She was wearing a quilted bathrobe, white, which trailed along the floor. She looked at me and sucked in her breath with a kind of asthmatic wheeze. “Dear Chester,” she said, composing herself, “I was hoping you would come and pay you condolences. You must come downstairs with me and have a cup of coffee.”

  I paid my condolences over coffee and a cigarette for ten minutes. Mrs. Hartsell had quite a reputation as the unofficial official hostess of Georgetown, but she didn't act the part now. She was neck-deep in self-pity and was still going down. She spoke more about the electoral defeat than about Deirdre. “At least all this tragedy has brought Blairy back to us,” she sighed as I got up to go.

  Blairy met me at the door. Before I could tell him to go somewhere and unclutter his mind so he could write poetry, he said, “Why the hell did you have to bother her like that?”

  Chapter Six

  I HEARD THE TELEPHONE ringing when I stuck the key in my apartment door. I don't know how long it had been ringing, but I counted six by the time I reached it. I stood there and let it ring for a while longer. Except for my yearly purchase of a sweepstakes ticket, there was nothing that important. I lit a cigarette and wondered if it would stop. I was feeling ugly. Every now and then the life of a hermit made pretty good sense to me.

  The telephone rang and rang.

  I picked it up and said, “Wrong number,” and cradled it again. I had time to explore the refrigerator in the kitchenette and find out there wasn't any beer when it started ringing once more. This time I growled hello into the mouthpiece on the first ring .

  “Thank God I reached you!” the voice cried. The voice belonged to Pat Casey, a lieutenant with the district police and one of homicide's best and, I now found out, not merely a friend but a very good friend of mine.

  “What is it, Pat?” I said.

  “Thank your patron saint, if any,” he said, “that I got you in.”

  “There isn't any.”

  “Then thank your fairy godmother. That's me. We just got an anonymous phone call, Chet. The caller identified you as the man who was seen in Francisco del Key's neighborhood asking questions about Francisco Del Rey the afternoon Lubrano got it in his apartment. Were you?”

  “I were,” I said.

  “What's so funny? You didn't kill him, did you?”

  “No, but you don't pay attention to every crank who calls in, do you?”

  “You know we do. We've got to. Especially in this one. The Alexandria police have a postman and a couple of kids who saw you there, if you were there.”

  “I said I was there.”

  “They'll be able to identify you.”

  “You're not the Alexandria police, are you? It looks like the crank called the wrong outfit.”

  “Sure,” Pat groaned. “But I didn't take the call. Someone else did. He told the crank to get in touch with Alexandria. If he does, Alexandria will get right back in touch with us and want you picked up for an I.D. Did you have a good reason for being there?”

  “I thought so at the time.”

  “But you didn't kill him?”

  “I already said I didn't.”

  “Okay. Lay low for a while. If they come looking for you, be someplace you won't be found. It's legal. You don't know from nothing, as the expression goes. Meanwhile, maybe we'll get another break in this case. Then you'll be able to come out of hiding. Otherwise they're liable to suspend your license. They don't like shamuses very much in D.C.”

 
; “Don't I know it,” I said.

  “Then you'll do it?” Pat sounded relieved.

  “It won't help,” I said. “I know who killed Lubrano. I saw him do it.”

  “For crying out loud,” Pat said.

  “Yeah. He's the guy who rented the apartment. Del Rey. He's down in Venezuela now. He's got diplomatic immunity.”

  “Oh, no,” Pat said. “What the hell can you do?”

  “I can go to Venezuela.”

  “Yes, but—”

  “Listen, Pat. Thanks a million. I'll leave here. I'll call in once in a while. If you can get your hands on the Alexandria call when it comes in—”

  “You think it will? The crank might change his mind.”

  “Not this crank.” His name, I told myself, was Blairy Hartsell. It had to be. “You can expect the call. If you can intercept it and let it hang fire for a few days, long enough for me to get out of the country, maybe I'll have some answers for you when I conic back.”

  “Nine years on the force,” Pat said.

  “Pat. You don't have to do it. I guess I shouldn't have asked. Just telling me, you've done more than you had to already. Forget it.”

  There was a short pause. Then Pat said, “No. I'll go through with it because I believe you, Chet. But brother, you better not be suckering me. I can hate as much as I can like.”

  “You're the best there is,” I said, and meant it. I hung up and called Jack Morley's place and spoke to Betty. It would be safer than using an alias in a hotel if things got real bad and they decided to dragnet the city for me. I told Betty I had wife trouble. She said I didn't even have a wife. I said that was the kind of wife trouble I had.

  An hour later, armed with two overnighters and the necessary toilet articles, I was ringing Jack's doorbell. Jack answered it and mumbled ixnay, which meant he knew I was in trouble but Betty didn't know and I wasn't to tell her. I went inside and said hello to Betty and asked her how Junior was. Betty smoothed the tent of her maternity dress with a little self-conscious smile and said he was awful peripatetic.

  Betty served coffee and coffee cake and then said Junior wanted some sleep. Over a couple of V.S.O.P. brandies and a couple of refills, I brought Jack up to date. Then I said, “How soon can I leave the country?”

  “By the middle of the week, if we're lucky. A fellow in passports owes me a favor. But I hope you know what you're doing, Chet.”

  “I think so.”

  “I don't want to pry, but if this client you don't want to name gave you your walking papers, what are you going to Venezuela for? There are easier ways to hide, assuming you have to hide. My God, man, it would probably be better for everyone, including you, if you went to the police with what you know.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “But that doesn't help Alex Lubrano.”

  “Nothing you can do now will help him.”

  “What do you want me to say, Jack?”

  “Nothing, I guess. It's because you saw him die. isn't it?”

  I shook my head and stuck a cigarette in my mouth. “It's because of the way that bastard killed him.”

  “And so,” Jack announced, “to the stirring music of the William Tell Overture, our undaunted hero brings law and order to—“,

  “Oh, cut it out, Jack,” I said, lighting a match. “I'm no hero. But I've got to live with myself. It's bad enough, this business I'm in. Most people go to private detectives because they don't want to go to the police. Most of the things they want leave a bad taste in your mouth. But when something like this comes along and you're the only one who can do a damn thing about it—”

  “Light your cigarette,” Jack said. “You're making me nervous.”

  I lit it and got rid of the match and said, “That's all. No speeches. I'm through. I'm going down there because I have to go.”

  On Monday, Jack started pushing my passport papers. I went to the bank and found I had a balance of twelve hundred dollars and some change. I left the change there to work for me and bought a money belt to hold the twelve hundred. It represented a year of scrimping for no particular reason except that a man is supposed to have a bank account. It would not last very long in Venezuela, but I hoped it would last long enough.

  Monday morning, Pat Casey had heard nothing from Alexandria. Monday afternoon, he had. “Keep away from your apartment,” he said. “A couple of boys are looking for you.”

  .”Sleeping there?”

  “No. They're checking every hour or so.”

  “My office?”

  “The same. They have no reason to think you're hiding. They just think you're not around.”

  “The airport?” I said.

  “No. Why should they? It's just a routine pickup for them, so far. Here's a word of advice, though. Keep it that way. Keep out of sight. Because if they ask you to come in and you don't, you're going to be in trouble.”

  Keep out of sight. That meant not going near my apartment, which was easy. I didn't miss the rattling windows at all. It meant not going near my office, which was something else again. I could check with the telephone answering service from outside, but what the hell, a man had to at least pick up his mail.

  I remained away Monday afternoon. I bought all the newspapers and read them. I found another copy of the shamus book about Mike on the newsstand across the street from Jack's apartment, and finished it. Mike solved the whole case by grunting four letter words and, breaking bones. He had the Mafia cringing with terror before he was through. I wanted to change places with him. I held out until the second mail delivery on Tuesday. Maybe they were announcing sweepstakes winners the wrong time this year. Maybe the executor of a million-dollar estate needed help finding an eccentric heir. Maybe Mae West wanted a real live private detective to go along with the musclemen in her beefcake show. I went to the . Farrell Building and took the elevator up. The elevator operator didn't look nervous, but it was me they were looking for, not him.

  The transom of my office door was not open, but I could hear the voices. I had visitors. My visitors were arguing. It sounded like two against one. I listened.

  “You've got it all wrong,” the first voice insisted. It was a familiar voice. If I had enough time, I would place it. “I ain't Drum.”

  “He doesn't look like Drum, Charlie,” the second voice said.

  The third voice, which belonged to the unseen man named Charlie, merely grunted.

  “Okay, you're not Drum,” said the second voice. By this time, I was right outside the smoked glass of the door. It was partially opened. “Then what are you doing here?”

  “I was waiting you should ask that,” the first voice said. The first voice was playing for time. I wondered if the second voice and the third voice knew that.

  “All right. We asked it,” said the second voice.

  There was a silence.

  “Ask him again,” said Charlie.

  “What are you doing here in Drum's office?” the second voice said. A typewriter was click-clacking busily down the hall. The elevator stopped on my floor and someone walked by. I made like I was straightening my tie.

  “Well,” said the first voice, “I work for Mr. Drum.” The silence which followed was not profound, but it seemed to worry the first voice, which added, “Is there anything wrong I should be working for him?”

  “No,” said the Charlie voice.

  The second voice said, “Maybe you can tell us where he is.”

  “He's in some kind of trouble?” the first voice asked.

  “He's wanted,” said the second voice.

  “For questioning,” said Charlie.

  “Oh, I dunno where he is,” said the first voice. “You know how it is. He's his own boss. He comes and he goes. Maybe he's home where he lives?”

  That brought no response. Charlie finally said, “What's your name?”

  “Max Joy,” said the first voice. Max. With big ears and a squashed nose. Francisco del Key's handmaiden.

  “Can you prove it?” the second voice wanted to know. I
n the silence which followed, Max must have proved it. Charlie asked, “How come you don't have a private cop's card?”

  “Oh, I ain't no shamus.”

  “But you work for him. For Drum?”

  “ “A job now and then. You know how it is.”

  “Mr. Joy,” Charlie said, “if Drum should get in touch with you, will you tell him to contact Lieutenant Breen at District Homicide?”

  “I sure will,” said Max Joy.

  Two silhouettes approached the smoked glass. I walked quickly down the hall and opened the first door I reached. The busy typewriter was being pounded to a slow death inside by a gum-chewing receptionist. The sign on the door said Lucas, Peabody & Peabody, Insurance.

  I told the receptionist I was selling insurance. Selling, not buying, she said. She seemed surprised. Hadn't I seen the sign on the door? I thought I heard footsteps retreating down the hall. Wait until she told the Messrs. Peabody. They'd sure get a laugh out of it. What about Mr. Lucas, I wanted to know. I was waiting for the sound of the elevator. Mr. Lucas, I was informed, had been dead these seventeen years. Dear me, I said, that was too bad. Down, said the elevator operator faintly. Well, thank you, I told the receptionist, who went back to manhandling her typewriter. Max Joy had brought the whirlwind back to my office. I could hear him moving around in there, upsetting things. He had shut the door. I opened it and said, “Are you looking for something in particular? Since you work for Mr. Drum, I guess it's all right.”

  He blinked at me. His big hand blurred under his jacket toward the waistband of his trousers. As he brought the gun out where I could see it, I slammed the edge of my hand down across his wrist. Needles of pain stabbed up my arm, but Max Joy's gun clattered on the floor.

  “You son of a bitch,” he said. He must have learned his boxing in Siam, for he lashed out with one thick-soled brogan and caught my kneecap with it. I suddenly found myself supporting my weight on one foot and then on no feet at all as Max Joy followed up his kick with a short hard left cross which didn't travel six inches but had a lot of steam behind it. I crashed back against the smoked-glass door, shutting it. I sat down against it.