Where There's Smoke

by Stewart Sterling

  “I’m through with him, time being. You can take him in for felonious assault, attempted homicide.”

  “Who’ll sign the complaint?”

  “I will. He came close to cutting me down in my prime, couple hours ago.”

  Dublin held out a hand toward Staro. “If you’d learn not to bungle these things.”

  Staro said, “Go on. Kid me.”

  The captain raised bland eyebrows. “Would you deny the marshal’s word?”

  “Of course,” Pedley drawled, “I can take you in and book you, myself, Staro. I’d have to park you in my office for a little while, though—and I expect Barney will have told some of the lads—”

  “I’ll take my chances with the cops,” Staro gritted. “I ain’t admittin’ a thing, understan’—but if I’m gonna be arrested, I’ll prefer it to be by the police.”

  “The marshal,” Dublin selected his words with care, “is only running a bluff on you, Staro. He can’t take you into custody. Not any longer.”

  Staro spat resentfully. “The way he was socking me around!”

  Pedley walked close to the captain. “Who says I can’t pin a charge on this dirty heel and make it stick?”

  “The commissioner!” Dublin was astonished. “Hadn’t you heard? You’ve been suspended, Benjamin.”

  Pedley went to the phone on Ned’s desk. Dublin wouldn’t have risked making a crack like that unless it were true.

  Barney filled in the blanks.

  “There is something underhanded on foot, boss. Are you alone?”

  “No.”

  “Then I’ll mention no names.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “Word gets around on the grapevine that a certain party with whom you were to have a conference after lunch isn’t so anxious about that report on the bureau as he is about something else.”

  “Want me to guess?”

  “Your health, boss.”

  “My what?”

  “It comes up that he’ll ask you to take an immediate physical—some sucker having suggested you aren’t precisely in the pink at the moment.”

  “See what you mean.” After 30 hours without sleep, a couple of burns and an underwater catch-as-catch-can, hyped up on coffee and Benzedrine, he’d be in great shape to take a physical!

  “There’ll be a doc at the meeting, so the little bird says, and after the business with the stethoscope and so forth, the aforementioned party will suggest a temporary retirement—on full pay. Don’t sound like such a bad idea, to me.”

  “It sounds putrid, Barnabus. But there’s more than one way to skin a kitty.”

  “Which way do we take?”

  “The now-you-see-it, now-you-don’t routine.”

  “Elucidize.”

  “I’ll be unable to keep the engagement. Press of business. For the good of the department.”

  “Roger.”

  “If anyone wants to know where I’ll be, ask him to contact Captain Dublin at headquarters.”

  He hung up, touched the brim of his hat to Dublin, said, “Be seeing you on the roller coaster, sometime,” walked out.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  A VANISHING ACT

  FOR SOME HOURS he hadn’t given a thought to food; now, suddenly, he was ravenously hungry. He drove to Dinty’s, found the corner table vacant, ordered an outsize sirloin.

  While he waited for the chef to broil it, Pedley made inquiries about Hal Kelsey. The orchestra leader’s hotel said Mister Kelsey wasn’t in, they expected he’d be at the studio. At the International Broadcasting Company, somebody in the production department said the marshal could talk to the control room in Studio 8H.

  That didn’t help; the anonymous voice from the control room was obviously disturbed, but Kelsey wasn’t there, they didn’t know when he’d get there or if he would.

  It struck Pedley as peculiar; after he’d mused over the steak and French fries it began to appear significant. He went up to the skyscraper city where the IBC broadcast originated.

  He came into Studio 8H through a door marked Do Not Enter When Red Light Is On. The red light wasn’t on, but beside it a frosted panel proclaimed Rehearsal.

  The auditorium was empty, except for two actors playing gin rummy in the front row, and a scattering of visitors in the rear. The stage was a clutter of activity.

  Against the huge gold backcurtain with its black sequin message—Winn’s, the Coffee of Connoisseurs—a score of shirt-sleeved musicians picked at violin strings, blew experimental scales on woodwinds, tuned up guitars and bass viols, rustled score sheets on their racks. The sweatered individual on the podium, consulting with a trombonist, wasn’t Hal Kelsey.

  At one side of the stage, an angular brunette addressed a microphone with a full-throated ah-ah-ah-ah to the tune of do, mi, sol, do, casting an anxious eye toward the control room.

  Four young men in tuxedos put their heads together, nodding and emitting sounds like hodel-e-yo, hodel-oh. At the center microphone Wes Toleman enunciated inaudibly with one eye on the sweep second hand of the control-room clock.

  The talk-back emitted a sepulchral, “Quiet, people.” It was Chuck Gaydel’s voice. “We’ll take it straight through for time. Thirty seconds.”

  Through the rectangle of plate glass at the side of the stage, Gaydel’s expression was tautly apprehensive, Pedley thought. Maybe that was just rehearsal tension.

  The studio bedlam died away. The sweatered man turned half around so he could see the producer. Gaydel’s hand went up. The baton rapped twice, was raised aloft. The second hand of the clock circled to vertical.

  Gaydel flipped a finger at the leader. The baton swung down. The orchestra hit the opening bars of the signature. Wes Toleman lifted his script, poised for his cue.

  Ollie came through a door beside the stage, searched the studio as if looking for someone. She saw Pedley; her gaze met the marshal’s blankly; she tiptoed a few steps, craned her neck at the stage, fluttered a hand at Toleman—and smiled entrancingly.

  After a moment, she tiptoed back to the door, went out. Pedley waited until Toleman had announced, “Patsy Ludlow, the singing star of ‘Rainbow Every Morning’”—and Patsy began her throaty blues:

  “Ah been sick, a-layin’ in a bed

  Ain’t had nobody for to hold my head

  De road am rocky, de sun am hot

  Oh, mah Lawdy, what trouble Ah got.”

  Then he made his way inconspicuously to the door through which the tall girl had disappeared.

  She was waiting for him; held out her hands.

  “I thought it was about time you were showing up, darling.”

  “How’s my favorite undieworld character?”

  “Doing as well as might be expected of an alleged grass widow with a susceptible nature. I just phoned your office. Barney said you were officially off the reservation.”

  “The commissioner wishes to relieve me from active duty.”

  “He does?”

  Olive’s eyes opened very wide.

  “Doesn’t think I’m fitten to be up and about my chores.”

  “I hadn’t heard a word about it, Ben. Honest. City Hall must be acting up.”

  “The broadcasting boys are afraid I’ll make a wreck out of a million dollar baby. So-o-o, I’m a zombi, time being. Dead on my feet but still capable of giving folks the jeebies.”

  She patted his arm reassuringly. “Let’s go up to my royal box—I’ve found something, but I’ll be an old woman in a shoe if I know what it is.”

  On the way, he told her about Kim.

  “I read about it, Ben.” Her warm, friendly eyes were disconsolate. “There was a paragraph about the rescue. I thought that might have been you.”

  “No.” He followed her through a long hall, up a flight of stairs. “I should have saved her before the fire. I let her get away from me. Killer followed her down to the Village—or made her go down to her place with him.”

  They went into the client’s booth. There were big easy-chairs, a
cigar stand, a loudspeaker. They looked down on the stage through a duplicate of the control-room window.

  “Sponsor’s pew, isn’t it, Ollie? How’d you rate this?” he asked.

  She threw back her coat, crossed nice legs. “Sit at the side there, darling. With the lights off in here, they won’t see you.” She let him light a cigarette for her. “I’m supposed to be the niece of the vice-president in charge of coffee-bean bags or something. Wesley’s so anxious to please anyone connected with the Winn account that I didn’t have to go into details.”

  “You always were a fast worker.”

  “Toleman’s so easy. We’re going places this evening. To dance, he says. I think his attentions are somewhat less honorable.”

  “That wasn’t your great discovery, I hope?”

  “Oh, no. Did you notice an air of consternation among the control-room biggies down there?”

  “Gaydel’s tense as a fiddlestring. Anything more than show-strain?”

  “Kelsey’s done a vanishing act. No one’s seen hide nor seek of him since he left his hotel after breakfast this morning.”

  “Um.” Pedley listened to the Wasson arrangement of “Make Believe.”

  “Any ideas as to where he might be?”

  “Not exactly. But half an hour ago, just before the rehearsal started, my lustful cavalier confided that he doesn’t think Kelsey’s going to show up at all.”

  “What’s his angle?”

  “Wesley has his doubts whether our orchestra leader will ever be seen around these parts again.”

  “Reasons, if any?”

  “That’s as far as we got when he had to go preach the merits of the fresh-roasted morning cup of joy.”

  “He suggested that Kelsey was behind those fires?”

  “No. Is he?”

  “No savvy.” He patted her knee, casually. “No ketch-um one piece evidence. You findum.”

  “That leather thingumabob Barney mentioned?”

  “Pandora’s box. Belongs to Leila.”

  Olive leaned toward him. “Is she really as stunning as they make out?”

  He nodded solemnly. “Only female I ever met who can hold a candle to you.” He bent over and kissed her ear. “Keep on with that illicit romance. I haven’t checked little Wesley off the list yet. I’m going down and ask him a couple of leading questions now.”

  The quartet was laying into some four-part harmony; nothing but the rhythm section was playing when he came into the studio again. Wes Toleman sat on a folding chair beside the stage, reading Radio Daily.

  Pedley walked up behind him, laid a hand on his shoulder. The announcer’s eyes swiveled to the left, his head and neck remained rigid. When he caught sight of the marshal’s overcoat, he relaxed, turned around.

  “Did you find my pencil?” he whispered.

  Pedley shook his head, pointed toward the control room. “You don’t have to spiel for a few minutes, do you?”

  “No.” Toleman followed him to the passageway leading to the control room.

  After the soundproof door had closed behind them, Pedley said, “What’s with this Kelsey lad?”

  “That’s one for ‘Information, Please.’”

  “Hasn’t called up to say what’s delayed him?”

  “No!” The network man was vehement. “And if anyone should ask me, I don’t believe he will.”

  “Think he’s flew the coop?”

  The announcer flashed his eyes nervously at the control-room door. “It’s just one man’s opinion. I really haven’t a thing to go on except I know Hal’s been eager to be top dog in the show and it was Ned who always threw him for a loss.”

  “Why wouldn’t he put Leila out of the running instead of lighting a fire under her brother?”

  “That wouldn’t have done any good,” Toleman explained earnestly. “Ned would still have the contracts with Winn. It isn’t Leila who matters. I probably wouldn’t have thought anything about Hal if it hadn’t been that he and Kim Wasson got along so badly. But when she got so terribly burned, too—”

  “If Kelsey was in on that one, he must have one of those dual personalities. He was up at the Starlight Roof when the blaze was primed.”

  “He could have had someone helping him, couldn’t he?”

  “Wouldn’t put it past him. What are you holding out?”

  “Sir?”

  “You’ve some reason for tying Kelsey into these crimes. What is it? Does he have the ax out for you, too?”

  Toleman held himself primly erect. “It’s a matter of complete indifference to me what Hal Kelsey thinks. Whether he likes my announcing or not won’t affect my standing with the network. It isn’t that at all!”

  “You’re warming up. Get hot.”

  “Well, there is something. It didn’t seem of any particular importance at the time. But since he hasn’t seen fit to come to the studio today—”

  Pedley controlled an impulse to swing on the announcer’s chin. “I’m tuned in. Proceed.”

  “Everybody on the show knew better than to offer Ned Lownes a drink of anything stronger than root beer. It’s been kind of an unwritten code that when the folks stop at a bar before rehearsal, they’d all avoid taking Ned with them. He always wound up with a jag and nearly always caused trouble. Yet yesterday afternoon Hal was at the Telebar with Ned, buying liquor for him as fast as Ned could put it away.”

  “You were there?”

  “Yes. I saw them. And my personal opinion is that anyone who’d pull a filthy trick like that would do anything. And if he’s gone further with his schemes than he originally meant to, he’ll be afraid to show up again.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  “DADDY SAYS FIRES HELP.”

  AS PEDLEY OPENED the control-room door, the announcer’s voice came through the speaker. “Until next week at this time, when Winn’s, the Coffee of Connoisseurs, brings you another great show featuring Leila Lownes, the Barber Shop Boys, and Hal Kelsey and the Gang—this is Wes Toleman saying ‘So-long’ for Winn’s—the coffee you find on the better breakfast tables from Coast to Coast.”

  The music swelled up to a final crescendo. On the stage, the sweatered man’s baton quivered with the final downbeat. Faces turned toward the control room.

  Gaydel glanced at the figures his assistant was making on the script, pushed the talk-back button.

  “Nice knittin’, kittens! It comes up good. Everybody back at six, sharp.” He took his finger off the button so his voice couldn’t carry outside the control room. “Holy jumping—! You’d rock ’em—in a deaf and dumb asylum. You’d be a beg-off—in Timbuctoo. We can’t go on with a turkey like this!”

  The engineer said, “Patsy’s not bad.”

  “She’s not good.” Gaydel snorted. “She’s not Leila. Cliff Etting isn’t Hal. The whole show’s a hash-house special.” He wheeled about dejectedly, saw the marshal, groaned. “All I need now is to have you mucking around for a while.”

  “Might not take up too much of your valuable time.” Out in the studio, Pedley could see Toleman talking animatedly to Ollie. “Place around where we could get a quickie?”

  Gaydel took him to the Telebar, on the ground floor; ordered a double-gin buck.

  “Set a bonded bottle right here,” Pedley told the waiter. “And leave the rest to me.” He poured a drink. “Your program’s jinxed, seems like, Gaydel.”

  “I won’t go on tomorrow without Kelsey.”

  “Then, according to Toleman, they’ll play recordings during your time.”

  “Wes is a blubber-mouthed yawp. Hal will turn up.”

  “Toleman thinks your band-boy has taken it on the lam because he’s responsible for Lownes’s doing a shuffle-off.”

  “Horse-radish! Hal wouldn’t have touched a hair of that dipso’s head, much as he may have wanted to.”

  “How about you?”

  “I’m in no mood for jesting.”

  “Give me a quick panorama of your whereabouts last night, after I shooed you out of
Ned’s suite.”

  “Pleasure. I beat it home, had dinner with my wife and youngster. We went over the plans for our new house up in Westchester, quit along about one o’clock. I went to bed. Period.”

  “Ought to be able to verify all of that. Where you live?”

  “Marble Hill.”

  “Ten, eleven miles down to Horatio Street. If all is according to Hoyle, you’d be excluded from the Wasson thing.”

  Gaydel brooded into his drink. “Kim’s getting hurt like that hit me a hell of a lot harder than Ned’s getting killed.”

  “All part and parcel. Same bug, same motive. Don’t suppose you could do what Miss Wasson was about to, before she landed in the hospital.”

  “What?”

  “Tell me something about Leila’s past. That leather case you were looking for—that must contain something out of the clear, dead days beyond recall. Obviously it’s something she’s anxious to hush up.”

  The producer held out his right arm, touched the bicep.

  “I’d cut it off, right up to there, before I gave you anything to use against Leila.”

  “Take off your armor, Sir Galahad. Don’t put a girl’s reputation ahead of her life. Or other folks’ lives. This fire-setter’s going to keep on until he kills somebody else. Once he’s started covering up one crime with another, he won’t be able to stop. Lownes, Wasson—maybe, you.” Gaydel ordered another double-gin buck, put half of it under his belt before he made up his mind.

  “All I know is what I read in her press books. I’ve got those. I doubt if you’d find anything in them that Leila wouldn’t want the world to know about.”

  “How far back do they go?”

  “Since Lownes & Lownes were wowing ’em in the bush leagues.”

  “I’d like to take a crack at them. Where are they?”

  “My house.”

  “How’s about running up there with me?”

  “My God!” Gaydel looked at the wrist watch Leila had presented to him. “I’ve a million things to do between now and six. I’ll call up my wife and ask her to show you the clippings. Won’t that do?”