Long Live the Dead

by Hugh B. Cave

  You wouldn’t expect to run into a mugg like Vanetti at Number Ten Casavant. We have a Social Register in our town, and a lot of those lads with too much money and nothing to do like to play around; and Number Ten Casavant is where they do it.

  What I mean, you have to be properly dressed, properly named and quite properly heeled; otherwise your ambitions are deflated at the front door and you are reminded that for ordinary bums like you there are beer joints, bowling alleys and backroom crap games.

  The police shut both eyes when looking in that direction. It would have been voluntary suicide for any mere cop to get tough with that glittering collection of money-changers.

  I spoke to Paul, the gate-keeper. I said, “How’s everything tonight, Paul?” and he said, “Oh, so-so. Quiet.” I’d been there before. Venny Hamlin was always very nice to cops, provided the cops were nice to Venny.

  “Mr. Hamlin around, Paul?” I asked.

  Paul nodded.

  I strolled in, and at that hour the place was a morgue. A couple of blue book ladies were sipping cocktails at the fancy bar, and off in a corner four well dressed men were silently playing with a deck of cards, and that was all. I hiked along a soft red carpet, went down the hall to Venny Hamlin’s office and knocked.

  Venny was a bit surprised when I entered. He arched his eyebrows and said, “Well I! My friend, Detective Thompson!” He pushed a box of cigars toward me, leaned back in his chair and frowned. “Sight-seeing or what?”

  “Sleuthing,” I said.

  “Here?”

  “I’m as surprised as you are. The tip almost floored me.”

  He hung onto his scowl. It didn’t mean anything. Venny Hamlin was really a good egg when you got to know him. No gangster background, no gutter upbringing. Out of college four years ago, he’d chauffeured for some old gal with a heap of bank books. This Number Ten Casavant Street was a natural outgrowth of a dawning realization that the money-money people didn’t mind losing a few dollars if they could be entertained while parting with them.

  I said, “Strictly off the record, Venny, I’m checking the activities of one Leon Vanetti. He was here Monday night.”

  “Leon Vanetti? That the Vanetti who hung himself?”

  I nodded.

  “I don’t think I know him.”

  “You might not, by name,” I told him. “But he was here Monday night. Bill Donahue says he was here, and Bill’s never wrong.”

  Venny shrugged.

  “Listen,” I said, and described Vanetti. Described the face, the form, the limp. The limp did it.

  “Right,” Venny admitted. “He was here.”

  “Who brought him?”

  “Why?”

  “Just curious.”

  He hesitated, looking very thoughtful. “Thompson,” he said finally, “you don’t want to know the answer to that.”

  “Why don’t I?” I snapped.

  “Look. This Vanetti is gone, forgotten. From what I’ve read in the papers, he won’t be missed any more than a case of smallpox. You, Thompson, you’re a good guy, a smart dick. You’ve got a future. You take my advice and drop this. There’s nothing in it for you except trouble some night in a dark alley.”

  It was funny, and I don’t mean humorous. Joe Evans had handed me that same line; now I was getting it from the sachem of a gambling casino. Lay off.

  I didn’t press him for more. I knew one thing, anyway, and it was big enough to chew on for a while. I said, “Well, thanks, pal,” and walked out.

  Business, I noticed, was picking up. There were three more cars outside now than when I’d entered.

  I piled into my own jalopy and drove back to town, slowly, thinking about Leon Vanetti and his limp, and that room at Mrs. Fretas’ place. I had a lot to think about, and I must have driven three miles before I waked up to the fact that someone in a machine behind was more than a little interested in me.

  I slowed to a nice smooth twenty on a four-lane highway. By rights the fellow should have whizzed past. He didn’t. I reached up, tipped the rear-view mirror to a better angle and hoofed the jalopy up to forty. He came right along.

  One of Venny Hamlin’s men? I didn’t think so. True, Venny had gently tried to nudge me off this job, and perhaps he had other reasons than an interest in the future state of my health, but this particular bit of play was crude. Venny Hamlin was never crude.

  I did my level best for a mile to make that lad go by me, so I could get a look at his face, but it didn’t work. When I slowed, he slowed. When I stopped—just once, as an experiment—the louse pulled off into one of those shady glens built by WPA to accommodate neckers and picnic hounds.

  Disgusted, I said to hell with him and gave my jalopy the gun. He wasn’t behind me when I turned into Mitchell Street, where I live.

  And yet, I wasn’t alone.

  I’m a quiet guy with few bad habits, and I selected that Mitchell Street apartment house three years ago because in more ways than one it’s soothing to jaded nerves. You don’t hear street cars. You don’t have kids yawping on the sidewalks before breakfast. I’m harmless, I like to be left alone; and now, damn it, I was being watched. Not only followed, but waited for.

  Because when I parked my crate at the curb and got out of it, a lad across the street ducked quickly for the shelter of a doorway. And on Mitchell Street people don’t move that fast unless they have guilty consciences.

  I stood there and stared holes in the doorway, my mind half made up to go over there and yank him out and demand of him how-come. Nothing makes me sorer than to be spied on. But I let it go, knowing the guy would most likely have vanished by the time I crossed over. And besides, from the window of my front room upstairs, I’d probably get a better look at him.

  I walked up and let myself in, and my phone was ringing. I scooped it up. “Thompson speaking.”

  It was Jojo Evans. He was excited. “Listen,” he said. “You remember those pictures I took?” And before I could reply, to tell him I not only remembered them but was wornout with waiting for them, he rushed on: “I developed ’em tonight, Tommy, and they’re hot. They’re dynamite! You get over here quick!”

  “Right over,” I said, and hung up.

  I went right out. The guy across the street could wait, I told myself, until I saw those pictures. If he wanted a look at me hard enough, he’d be there again, some other time. I breezed downstairs and pushed my jalopy across town with my heart pounding and fire in my nostrils.

  Those pictures taken of Vanetti’s body and the room in which he died were going to tell me something. They were going to explain the queer feeling I had. Otherwise I was going to be the sorest Homicide dick this side of the place where detectives go when they decompose.

  Evans lived in a swank little apartment house overlooking the park lake. I scraped a fender getting the car parked, and near pulverized a lady with a poodle when I barged into the place. My thumb went to the bell and stayed there. I’d been twenty minutes getting over from Mitchell Street, I figured, and that was nineteen minutes too long when you smelled the end of a trail. No answer. “Damn it,” I stormed, “that’s like him, to go out for a beer at a time like this!”

  I stepped out, looked for his car. It was down the line a short way, snugly parked. He couldn’t have gone far on foot, I told myself, so I sat on the white steps in the lobby and waited for him.

  Five minutes, ten, fifteen. Twice I rang the bell again. And he didn’t come.

  I buzzed the janitor. I snapped, “Detective Thompson, Police Department!” at him, and in a couple of minutes he came wobbling up from his basement suite, fat and anxious and out of breath.

  He let me into Jojo’s apartment, and the place was empty. I looked around. I barged from bedroom to living-room and back again; into the kitchenette, the bathroom.

  There was a faint smell of chemicals around the joint, and in the bathroom on a shelf were some wet white enamel trays. But no Jojo, no pictures.

  I glared at the janitor. “I suppose y
ou’ve been down cellar. You wouldn’t know if Mr. Evans had any visitors in the past half-hour.”

  He wagged his head. “I wouldn’t know.”

  It looked bad. After calling me, he wouldn’t have gone out alone on the trail of any clue furnished by those pictures. He’d have waited. Unless, maybe, he’d rushed over to Headquarters.

  I phoned Headquarters. They hadn’t seen him. I was worried as hell.

  I was a lot more worried when I got through shuffling around and began to think the thing out. You look. Jojo’d phoned me to hustle over and see those pictures. Hot pictures. He’d been expecting me. Those pictures were going to prove that I was right about Vanetti’s suicide being no suicide.

  Vanetti’d been murdered. His murderers were wise to the fact that I was smelling along and getting warmer. They’d had me watched. More than likely they’d had Joe Evans watched, too, because the photographer was with me when we first laid eyes on the corpse.

  Suppose that telephone conversation was overheard? Suppose the wire was tapped?

  I was at Headquarters before I got things straightened out to my own satisfaction, and by that time I had the jitters. It wouldn’t have been so bad if I’d found the pictures; but their absence meant that whoever walked Jojo out of that apartment had confiscated the pictures also. That was bad. Those pictures were hot. They’d burn ’em. And unless we worked fast, lightning fast, they’d take steps to put Jojo out of the way, too.

  I boiled into Headquarters and spilled it, the whole of it, because this was no time to play lone wolf. I threw it at the Chief in one big chunk and he turned pale. Then I demanded Bill Donahue, because if ever we needed a man with brains, with uncanny ability to see through fog, this was it. But the Detective Inspector wasn’t there. He wouldn’t be, the Chief informed me.

  “They took him to the hospital this afternoon, on a stretcher. His heart again.”

  I could have cried. It wasn’t fair to put a mastermind like Donahue in hospital when the life of a swell guy might depend on him. “You send someone over there!” I croaked. “Send someone to tell him what’s happened!”

  Then I barged out.

  I didn’t use my own jalopy. It was too slow. I used a police car that would do eighty, and I was out at Number Ten Casavant before the engine warmed. There were two ways, I figured, to get Jojo Evans back. One was to comb the city, dig into every possible hide-out in search of him. It wouldn’t work in time. He’d be dead before we found him.

  The other way was to smash the Vanetti business wide open and put a finger on the man or men responsible. They were the ones who had Joe Evans.

  It began to rain when I drove driveway of Number Ten. I didn’t park the car. The yard was crowded and there was no room. I bailed out, ducked up the steps, and when Paul tried to block me off, not recognizing me, I shouldered him aside and barked, “Hamlin.”

  Venny Hamlin was talking to a nice genteel group of blue-bloods near one of the gaming tables. I just shoved in and grabbed his arm.

  “See you alone!” I snapped. “Important.”

  He was smart. He took one look at the sweat on my face, the fire in my eyes, and knew better than to cross me. He didn’t even excuse himself, just nodded, jerked around and strode down the hall to his private office. I yanked the door shut behind me.

  “All right,” I rapped out. “Who was he with?”

  “What the hell’s eating you, Thompson?”

  “Time’s precious! Who was Vanetti with when he came here Monday night?”

  He took a deep breath, then shook his head. “I can’t tell you.”

  I damn near lost my temper. My arms went up in the air, waving, and I yodelled: “Get me, Hamlin, this isn’t a game any more! It’s life or death! Who was he with?”

  Hamlin’s right hand was in his pocket and he said softly: “I think you’d better go away and cool off, feller.” That iced me.

  I was cooler at that moment than I’d been since leaving Joe Evan’s apartment. I looked at Hamlin’s pocket and said, “Listen. Get this straight. I came here to find out who Vanetti was with and I’m not leaving till I know. The guy was a big shot; otherwise you wouldn’t be so reluctant to spill his name. Big shot or not, you talk or I’ll tear the joint apart. And you with it!”

  I walked straight toward him. It sounds dumb, maybe, but it wasn’t. He had nothing to gain by blasting me, except maybe a kind word from the big shot whose name, as a mere matter of ethics, he was holding back. Nothing to gain and the world to lose, because if he shot down a cop it would be the end of him.

  He didn’t shoot. He showed me both his hands, heaved a sigh and said, “You win, Thompson. It was Dane Moeller.”

  “Thanks,” I said. Dane Moeller was the right-hand man of Mr. Nick Lomac, and his name on Venny’s lips bore out what I had known from the beginning: that Venny would not be protecting small fry, but someone high up in the political or financial parade.

  I said, “Why’d you hold back?”

  He shrugged. “Moeller is one of my best customers.”

  “And Nick Lomac, too?”

  He nodded. “Lomac, too.”

  I said gently: “O. K., Venny, I’ll play ball. My mouth stays shut provided you keep away from telephones for a while. Whatever happens, no one knows you opened your trap.”

  I hiked out. The Thompson brain was beginning to click on all cylinders by then, and I had a pretty fair idea of what lay ahead. If I made mistakes, it would be lights out.

  Even if I didn’t make mistakes it would probably be fatal to my career as a detective, but anyhow, I knew what had to be done.

  I drove back to town and headed for the palatial residence of Mr. Nick Lomac, without wasting any time at all.

  Lomac had A big joint on the boulevard, something like a transplanted Spanish castle. You and I, if we pooled every cent we could get our hands on, wouldn’t be able to buy a foot of land in that district, because our names aren’t in the Blue Book. Mine isn’t, anyway. But little things like that never bothered Nick Lomac. He bought himself an acre and built himself house. The citizens paid for most of it, thinking they were buying bricks for a new airport. And the citizens paid for most of the upkeep. Nick Lomac knew all the angles.

  I rang, and a servant opened the door to me. I asked if Mr. Lomac was in, and told who I was.

  When I paced into the parlor, Nick Lomac stared at me without smiling, put down the highball he was sipping, and said, “Sit down, Thompson.” The servant vanished.

  I didn’t sit. I hadn’t come to do any sitting.

  “Where is he, Lomac?” I said.

  He blew smoke from his nostrils. Despite his lack of size, you’d never make the mistake of underestimating Nick Lomac. You’d never make it twice, anyway. He was little, but so was Napoleon, so’s your wife, probably.

  “What’s the trouble, Thompson?” he said softly.

  I would have enjoyed fooling around him, but there was no time for it. A glance told me we were alone in the room, and that was enough. I said, “Where’s Joe Evans?”

  “Who?”

  I snapped, “You want to hear me talk?”

  “Well,” he said, shrugging, “I certainly would like to have an explanation of some sort, Thompson.”

  “All right, you’ll get it. But, first, let me tell you something. If Joe Evans dies, Lomac, you burn for it. So it might be a good idea if you went to a phone right now and told your gorillas to lay off. If I were you I wouldn’t take any chances.”

  I watched him when I said that, but might as well have been watching the outside of an egg. His face didn’t change. His eyes didn’t blink. “I don’t know what you’re getting at,” he said.

  I threw my guesses at him. “Vanetti was murdered. Moeller, your right-hand man, stole the key to his room Monday night; then later you sent some boys up to get rid of Vanetti and fake the suicide. Joe Evans and I were wise when we saw the set-up. You had us watched. When Evans phoned me about those photographs he’d taken, those hot pictures,
you snatched him. Where is he?”

  It didn’t even jar him. He smiled that oily smile of his and said, “You’ve been seeing too many movies, Thompson.”

  I said, “I hope you’ve seen a few. Then you’ll know what this is.”

  I showed him my gun. Muzzle first. He took a quick backward step. A lot of tough lads get the jitters when you aim guns at them.

  “Where is he, Lomac?” I said.

  “Thompson, you’re crazy.”

  “Where is he?”

  He dragged in a deep breath. The kind you need when you get a hollow feeling in your mid-section. “Well,” he said, “it so happens I do know where Evans is. But I didn’t have a thing to do with him being there.”

  “Where is he?”

  “Over on Dexter Street. The Dexter Social Club. You go over there and you’ll find him.”

  “And you’re not responsible,” I said sarcastically, “for his being there.”

  “No.”

  “Of course not,” I agreed. “Okay, Lomac, you’re coming with me.”

  “Me?”

  “If you think I’d let you out of my sight, you’re crazy.”

  He threw out a sigh and shrugged his shoulders. “I’ll order the car,” he said.

  I let him pick up the phone. What the hell, I had a gun on his back, and wouldn’t he be the world’s biggest fool if he tried any stunts? Besides, I couldn’t use my own car unless I forced him to drive it. You can’t drive and hold a gun on a man at the same time.

  He said into the phone: “Tell Andy to bring the car around front right away.” Then he forked the phone and looked at me and said nothing.

  I should have been tipped off right then. If he’d been really scared, he would have done a lot of talking. About how he wasn’t responsible for what had happened, and so forth. But he just stood there, looking at me. Looking at the gun in my fist.

  In a couple of minutes a horn tooted outside. I put the gun in my pocket and kept my hand on it. “You first,” I said.

  We walked out and down the hall and out the front door into the darkness, Lomac first, me a couple of steps behind. Everything was in order, I told myself. The guy was scared and he was going to take me to the joint where Joe Evans was imprisoned. When he got me there, his gorillas might make a play to keep me there, but that was a bridge we hadn’t yet reached. The point was, we were on our way.