Madman on a Drum
Page 13
The police were out of the coupe now, staring up at his window.
Through the amplifier he shouted: "Come up the stairs. You'll have to break down the door. Hurry!"
And the speaker repeated his words, a gigantic mouth speaking in his voice: "COME UP THE STAIRS..." The impact of his own voice, echoed back and forth through the street, was almost frightening.
They were crashing against the inside door, now, battering at it, trying to force their way in.
Graham shouted through the amplifier: "GET MORE POLICE! THIS ISN'T ENOUGH!"
And there were more coming. He could hear the screaming sirens, against the thunder; see the flashing red headlight boring toward him on 125th,
The cops were coming up the stairs, now. He went to the head of the stairs, carrying the records in his hands, still tightly wrapped in the three thicknesses of paper, and met the leading policeman at the top of the stairs.
"Follow me, officer," he said.
He led the way into the soundproofed room, hearing the battering of the men in the stairway, still hammering at the door. He pulled open the cupboard door, showed the policeman the cases inside, pulled one out and broke open a Castille Soap package, permitting the crystals to fall to the floor. "Heroin," he said. Succinctly.
"Hero what?"
"Heroin. Dope. The stuff the treasury department is after." Three other officers had arrived.
"You'd better get your guns out," Graham said. "The men coming up the stairs have another charge against them. I charge them with the murder of Lois Morgan, committed here, in this place, last night. Here is the evidence." Graham held up the flat package. "I have a recorded confession on these records."
The policemen drew their guns, holding them pointed at the barricaded door. Graham pulled back the counter and the men tumbled through the doorway.
Graham recognized none of them. But they recognized him. They came straight at him in a running dive, until they were brought up short with the sight of the guns in the officers' hands. Graham said, in a loud, clear voice: "I charge these men with complicity and actual participation in the murder of Lois Morgan." He felt an exaltation, as though some hidden reserve of power had been suddenly tapped in his body. "I further charge them with illegal possession and distribution of H--heroin, a narcotic." He knew his speech was a little grandiose. But he was entitled to be grandiose.
The first officer said: "Vince, I've been waiting a long time to get something on you."
A short stocky man stepped forward from the group at the stairhead, "You haven't got anything on me, MacNamara. The kid you have there is Larry Graham. He's wanted for the murder of Lois Morgan."
Graham kept his voice calm, "Remember the confession I told you about, officer? I have it here, on these records."
MacNamara said: "I'm on your side, kid. Play your records, son."
Graham found a turntable and connected it to the amplifier in the window.
He turned the speaker around to face into the room.
He said: "You'd better keep them covered, Officer."
MacNamara grinned and nodded his head. "I told you I'd get you, Vince. You and the whole damned gang. If this kid comes through you'll hardly know yourself tomorrow morning after we get through with you at the station house."
The thunder overhead crashed a dramatic period to his sentence. The rain had not yet struck. Even the few drops of five minutes ago had ceased. Slow thunderstorm. Awful slow.
Graham began unwrapping the records, laying the package flat on the counter. The first disk, the one he had tested, lay on top. Might as well play the whole thing through. He picked it up.
The second record, the important one, was in two neat halves.
Chapter XVIII
GETS YOU IN THE END
Graham thought fast. They wouldn't know. They couldn't tell how far he'd gone with his recording. He'd have to take a chance, brazen it out.
He said: "I was in the cupboard I showed you, Officer, while this man and O'Hannagan, the candidate for District Attorney, were talking over their crime. Right under their noses, the record was being made. I'll have to apologize for the poor recording job. The microphone was too far away to give good reproduction, and the thunder almost spoiled it. But the confession is on the records."
Graham watched Vince's face as he spoke. The man was glaring. You could see the wheels turning inside his skull as he though back over the conversation with O'Hannagan. With the tips of his fingers Graham pushed the two broken halves of the second record together.
He went over to the turntable with the first, placed the platter on the rotating surface.
Gently he lowered the needle into the groove. He turned the volume up. The recorded thunder crashed through the room, joined with a burst from outside the window.
Graham turned the volume up and up. Words flowed from the speaker: "... ALL RIGHT. ONLY I DON'T WANT TO KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT THE MACHINATIONS OF YOUR BOSS ... FINE POLITICIAN YOU ARE, NOT KNOWING ..." On and on. Graham watched Vince's face.
He could see it coming. Clear as day, he could see it. Suddenly Vince leaped. He raced across the room at the turntable and smashed down at the record on the surface with his fist. The splinters of glass cut his hand. But he kept on. Toward the other record. He brought his fist heavily down on the two halves, shattering them beyond identification.
"It wasn't me," he shouted. "It wasn't me. It was Chimp did it! Chimp! You understand. He shot her. And he and the boss took her downtown and planted her in Graham's room. I didn't have anything to do with it. It was Chimp and the boss."
"Who's your boss?" MacNamara snapped. Vince opened his mouth to speak: "His name ..." There was a sudden report, sharper and smaller than the thunder, coming from the head of the stairs to the street. They whirled around. Nothing there. They turned back. Vince was slowly toppling to the floor, his mouth wide.
One of the officers raced down the stairs, with drawn gun. Or the street there was a series of explosions, tangling with the overall explosions of the clouds.
"Dead!" MacNamara said, bitterly, as he raised his head from Vince's chest. "Got him in the ticker." He swung on the little knot of men at the head of the stairs. "Well? Talk fast. Who was the boss?"
One man, a lean and hungry-looking mulatto with freckles, said: "We dunno nawthin' about de boss. We ain' got nawthin' to do wid him. We seen him aroun', but dat's all. Don't even know his name."
Another group of policemen came up the stairs, headed by the one who had gone down a moment before. "We got the one who shot Vince," he explained. "He wanted to shoot it out, and some of the boys coming up in the car plugged him."
Thunder crashed through the room, rolling hysterically over the roof. Still no rain.
"You got any ideas, Graham?" MacNamara asked.
Did he? Graham couldn't remember. What had they said that would identify the boss? They might be able to get it out of O'Hannagan. But O'Hannagan was a lawyer. He wouldn't talk.
No. It was gone. He couldn't remember. He wasn't even sure there had been anything. Still, somebody had said: "..." Somebody had said something that identified him. Something.
He turned to MacNamara. "No dice," he said. "I thought there was something one of them, Vince or O'Hannagan, had said. But I can't remember."
"O.K. Marty," he turned to another officer, "you and Jim take a walk to that parade and pick up O'Hannagan. Bring him up here."
The thunder crashed through his words, rolling, explosively, like drunken drumbeats. Drumbeats. What was the line from Wilde: But each man's heart beat thick and quick, Like a madman on a drum!? Drum? Madman on a drum. On the drum. That was it!
Graham shouted: "Wait a minute, Officer. I remember, now. He's playing the drum on the bandwagon. He's playing the drum in the parade."
"Let's go," MacNamara said. "Marty and Jim, come with us."
Together they raced down the stairs, together toward the parked police cars. Graham squeezed in with MacNamara, and the car leaped into motion.
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br /> East on 125th. The radio in the car blared erratic speech: "Car 72 go to ... CRASH ..." Some lightning. Even breaking in on the shortwave.
Bluish glares flickered over buildings, outlining them starkly like skeletons against the sky. Flashes caught the framework of the 125th Street station of the New York Central and made it livid over the street.
Like a madman on a drum. Madman on a drum. Madman on a drum. Over and over the phrase turned in Graham's head.
MacNamara had started the siren. Ahead they could see the flaring torches of the parade, brightening and dimming in the lightning.
They were abreast of the procession, now. Even with it as it pulled to one side of the road to let them pass.
It was a long parade. Long seconds and longer police-calls later they reached the head. O'Hannagan was sitting in an open top car, behind the bandwagon. He waved at the police car. Graham restrained a chuckle.
The car stopped with a squealing of brakes, and behind was another shriek of tires on payment.
MacNamara said: "Wait here, Graham." The parade was still moving as the officer stepped from the car. Graham could see the drummer, high on the last seat in the bandwagon. His elbows moving rhythmically, as the padded drumsticks thudded their obbligato to the thunder.
There was a little flurry of raindrops.
Graham watched MacNamara running toward the bandwagon, gun in hand. The vehicle stopped suddenly, and Graham saw the peculiar movement of the drummer's elbows cease. It was a weird movement, viewed from the rear.
The other two cops had come up to MacNamara, now. They faced toward the drummer. Graham couldn't see his face.
MacNamara shouted: "You up there. You on the drum. Come down off there, son. You're under arrest."
The drummer was standing up, one stick still dangling by its thong from his left hand.
The policeman shouted again: "You are under arrest for the murder of Lois Morgan and I warn ..."
The drummer's hand darted downward toward his hip.
The gun in Mac's hand exploded. Once. Sharply.
The figure of the drummer swayed backward, over the rear of the wagon, somersaulted in the air and sprawled spread-eagle on the pavement.
A curtain of rain dropped with the timing of the theater.
The three policemen raced around the end of the bandwagon and bent over the fallen form. One of them kept on to the car in which O'Hannagan was sitting.
MacNamara was signaling Graham to come over.
Graham twisted the knobs of the door, stepped from the car into a burst of rain.
He knew. He knew before he got there, before he saw the face upturned to the falling drops, the outstretched hand, with the thong-fastened drum stick still lying across the palm. It all fitted in so nicely. He knew.
The man lying in the road, staring lifelessly at the lightning-scarred downpour was, of course, Ken Clark.
Graham rode to a hotel in the police car with MacNamara.
THE END
Table of Contents
Chapter I
Chapter II
Chapter III
Chapter IV
Chapter V
Chapter VI
Chapter VII
Chapter VIII
Chapter IX
Chapter X
Chapter XI
Chapter XII
Chapter XIII
Chapter XIV
Chapter XV
Chapter XVI
Chapter XVII
Chapter XVIII