Mourn the Hangman

by Whittington, Harry

  He kept the pillow over his eyes and ears. But though his eyes burned with the weariness, he could not sleep. He thrust the pillow off to the floor, kicked off the covers and sat up on the side of the bed. He was aware that his body was covered with sweat. The room was chilled and the sweat was turning to ice water.

  He lifted the telephone off its cradle. He dialed the unlisted number that Dickerson had given him. “Call that number if you’re caught,” Dickerson had told him, “or if you get some news that won’t keep.”

  This ought to be it, Blake thought wryly.

  He listened to the telephone buzzing. He sat with the receiver held loosely against his ear, listening to the ringing far across the vibrant lines. A man’s voice answered sleepily. “Dickerson. What is it?”

  Blake said, “I’ve got to talk to you. This is Steve Blake. Hell has broken loose. I got news that won’t keep.”

  He could hear Dickerson grunt groggily. “Won’t it keep two hours to daylight, Blake?”

  “It might,” Blake said. “But I won’t. You’d better let me come talk to you now, Dickerson, while you can still listen and while I can still talk.”

  “Come out to my place,” Dickerson said. “If you’re followed, don’t stop. I wish you wouldn’t come anyway, Blake.”

  “I’m coming,” Blake told him. “Leave a boy scout burning in your window.”

  “Be careful!” Dickerson warned.

  “It’s too late for that.”

  “Then don’t come out here!”

  “You might as well hang up,” Blake said. “This is for keeps, Dickerson. What I tell you tonight is going to be the last report on this job. But I think you’d better hear it.”

  He could hear the sharp catch of Dickerson’s exasperated breath. “All right,” he said. “I’ll be waiting for you.”

  Blake quietly replaced the receiver. He got his damp trousers from under the mattress and dressed, hearing the faint, taunting strains of the radio. He wound his watch and strapped it back around his wrist. It was 5:28 A.M.

  At the door, he looked once more about the room, the towel on the floor, the covers kicked back. Well, he’d thought he could sleep in this room. But sleep, too, was for the living.

  He dropped the room key in his pocket. He closed the door of the room after him. He heard the click of a lock and stopped, watching the hall.

  The door of room 305 was opened and a dark haired girl stepped out into the hall. She was wearing a white smock, belted tightly at her tiny waist. Her wavy hair was brushed and rolled under a net. For a moment they stared across the space of the dim corridor at each other. Then she smiled. Blake was positive he’d seen her somewhere before, but he couldn’t remember where or when.

  “Hello,” she said, “don’t you remember me?”

  Blake shook his head, but said, “Yes. You’re the girl in 305. You play your radio all night.”

  “It’s the only way I can sleep,” she said. “I’m sorry if it annoyed you. I didn’t know you lived here.”

  “I don’t,” Blake said. “I’m burglaring the rooms. Yours is next.”

  She looked at him. “You really don’t remember me, do you? At the Palm Club. My name is Sammy. Sammy Anderson. Don’t you know? I returned your wallet — without even looking at the French postcards in it.”

  “Oh, yes,” Blake said. “I remember.”

  “I still have the five dollars,” she said with a faint smile.

  “Then men are bigger fools nowadays than they were when I was young,” Blake said. He started past her along the corridor.

  “I’m on my way to breakfast,” Sammy said.

  “Are you?” Blake said. He ignored the implied invitation in her voice. “Aren’t you up kind of early — working till midnight at the Palm Club?”

  “I — I’ll go back to bed after I eat,” she said. “It’s just that I hate it at night. I don’t like night. I try to make it end as quickly as possible.”

  She started walking with him toward the steps. Blake could see that the girl wanted to say something to him, without knowing how to begin. They descended the stairs in silence. When they reached the street, the girl looked up at him in the vague light of the Regal Hotel doorway. Her dark brows were knotted. She bit down on her full underlip. But all she said was, “Be careful.”

  There was a cab at the curb and Blake got into it, giving Dickerson’s Gale Island address. He sat back in the cab wondering what Sammy Anderson had wanted to say to him.

  He got out a block away from Dickerson’s big stucco house. As he went along the walk, he watched the first fingers of dawn fumbling upward through the rifts in the black sky.

  He rang the doorbell once. Dickerson let him stand there for five minutes. Finally, he cracked open the door and said, “All right, Blake. Come in.”

  The house was still in darkness. Dickerson led the way through it into the library. He closed the door after them and then snapped on a small light over his blond-wood desk. The faint light left webs of shadow in every corner of the room. Dickerson, a tall, humorless man with gray hair, sat down, gestured to a chair.

  But Blake went on standing.

  “All right,” Dickerson said. “What is it you’ve got, Steve?”

  “Trouble,” Steve replied.

  Dickerson didn’t smile. “I hope you know how much trouble, Blake. You’re wanted for murder. Your description is being blared on every radio in the area, every hour on the hour.” Blake felt the shock of that. Had that been what Sammy Anderson had wanted to tell him? “You’re absolutely no more good to me, Blake. I hope you understand that. Your value to us remained in your being just an ordinary guy at work in Arrenhower’s plant. If anyone in that plant knows who you are — ”

  “They know,” Steve told him.

  “How do you know?”

  “Because I believe they framed me for murder.”

  “A man like Arrenhower?”

  “Why not? Your company hired me to find out why Roberts was killed, didn’t they? I was in a plant where they wouldn’t hire a man who ever even heard of your company. Far as Arrenhower knew, I was carrying news out of there daily — the materials that have been diverted from government contract work to more profitable channels, what happens to finished products the government never gets, any other violations. What better way to get rid of me than frame me for murder?”

  Dickerson snarled. “Murdering you would have been simpler.”

  “Murder isn’t ever simple. Would you fellows actually murder a man, no matter what he did to you? You wouldn’t want the stink of murder about you. You couldn’t afford it. Not with defense work. Neither could Arrenhower. But a frame for murder would be different.”

  Dickerson shook his head. “It would still be murder. If you somehow beat the rap, it would still be murder. Somebody in Arrenhower’s employ would actually be guilty of it. No. I don’t like Arrenhower. I don’t like his way of doing business. They’ve put our material supply company on the spot with Uncle Sam. But you’re off base if you think he’d have a murder done just to get rid of you.”

  Blake stared at him. “You don’t think I killed my own wife, do you?”

  “I didn’t suggest you did. I merely said I don’t believe that Arrenhower ordered it done.”

  “Arrenhower has been having me followed.”

  Now, Blake saw, Dickerson was interested. He sat forward, the desk lamp gleaming on his face.

  “How do you know?”

  “I caught one of his creeps listening at my door,” Blake said. “And get this, Dickerson. If they know about me, they know about you. If they’re watching me, they’ll be watching you. No matter what you believe, I think I got in this mess because I worked for you. Okay, that’s a hazard of my racket. I’m not weeping. I’m just telling you. If the fact that I worked as a spy for you in Arrenhower’s plant gets out, you’re finished down here. I’ve got to stay free, Dickerson. Somebody murdered my wife. The only way I can find who did it, is to stay free. The only way I can
stay free is to have help. You’ve got to help me stay free.”

  Now Dickerson stood up. His face looked as though he were suffering in the advanced stages of ptomaine poisoning. Even the shadows under his eyes seemed greenish.

  “That’s where you’re wrong,” Dickerson said coldly. “Where you are dead wrong. My interest is not with you. This thing we are trying to do is too big to be jeopardized by you. Get this. No matter what happens, I’ll deny you have any connection with us. As you know, there is nothing in writing. We even paid the fees in cash to your partner, Bruce Bricker. You’re in trouble with the police, Blake. You’re no good to us. And I’ll tell you this. I’m not going to get myself in trouble with the police by harboring you or concealing your whereabouts.”

  Blake looked at him. “When you kick a man that’s down, you do it good, don’t you?”

  “There’s only one time to kick a man,” Dickerson said. “You’ll learn that working in any government agency. Kick ’em when they’re down, ride with them when they’re on top.”

  “Thanks for the bloody mouth,” Blake said evenly.

  “Oh, I’m not as bad as you think,” Dickerson said. “I’m going to give you an hour, Blake. You’ve got one whole hour before I call the police and tell them you were here.”

  6

  IT WAS full morning as Blake started down the street from Dickerson’s big house on Gale Island. A bright, sunshiny morning. The rich hedges about the rich homes looked richer than ever after last night’s rain. But the world seemed pervaded with wrong this morning. The kind of wrong that eats at you when the man who has hired you and put you on the spot suddenly tells you that you’re on your own. To hell with you. Blake could feel the muscles tighten along his squared jaw.

  As he started across the humped-back bridge, a cruising taxi honked at him. Blake flagged it down and told the driver to take him to the Federal Building. The car was being pulled into the curb before Blake realized why the streets were so deserted and quiet. It was Sunday, early Sunday morning.

  Blake felt a little ache of agony across the bridge of his nose. It wasn’t Sunday to him, it wasn’t any day at all. It was just long eternal hours since Stella had been killed.

  He bought a morning newspaper from the blind news’ vendor in the lobby. The newspaper was wearing its gaudy jacket of Sunday comics. Blake kept it folded under his arm as he went up in the elevator. In the small mirror beside the operator’s head, he could get a nightmare view of his face. His haggard eyes were swollen from lack of sleep. Two hard lines sliced down from his distended nostrils beside the bitter slit of his mouth. His fingers nudged at the heavy blue growth of beard. He averted his gaze.

  On the tenth floor, he entered the office he had shared with Bruce Bricker for the last four years. He gave the door a pat in passing and listened to the lock click behind him.

  He spread the newspaper out on Prue Quincy’s neat desk, dropped the comic section in the waste basket. And there was his picture and an old photograph of Stella on the front page. The headlines had pushed aside the war and the weather: WOMAN MURDERED; POLICE SEEK HUSBAND.

  Slowly, he read the whole story. The coroner had placed the time of her death roughly between 4:30 P.M. and 6 P.M. And, Blake thought grimly, that put him right in the middle of it.

  The husband had been seen to enter the apartment (Ah, Ada Grueter had been talking!) and was seen leaving it by the garage attendant, Bix Glintner. Blake reread the whole story, but there was no mention of one thing he felt was vitally important. Who had known Stella was dead inside that locked apartment?

  Much was made of the fact that the husband had disappeared and was Number One on the wanted list of Police Lieutenant Ross Connell.

  There was a great deal, obviously written by a slob sister, about Stella. Her two marriages — the last one, beginning so idyllically and ending so tragically; the fact that once she had won a beauty contest. Blake was glad they hadn’t published any photos of her as the police must have found her, almost nude, her shoe missing, her face bloodied, on the divan.

  The news stories did nothing for Blake but bring it all back to him, the agony and despair he’d felt. He stood by the desk, his fist clenched on its top, feeling the hurt and the need for tears deep in his belly.

  He balled up the newspaper in his fist and thrust it into the waste basket. He went into the office he shared with Bricker. He peeled off shirt, coat and tie and went into the small private lavatory to shave.

  He knew it was going to hurt, standing there staring into his eyes. What’s worse than looking into your own eyes and knowing you’re alone and despised? Or is it even worse to know that somewhere, near him, the man lived and breathed who had battered Stella to death and he was helpless to find him?

  He glared at the hurt, haggard eyes in the glass. He wasn’t helpless, he told those eyes. He was still free. He was still breathing. Finding people was his job. It was the only job he knew. No matter that Stella hated his profession. He had learned it and he was going to be able to get his hands about the throat of the man who’d killed her.

  As the tempo of his thoughts increased, his hand moved the razor faster on his cheeks and neck. He washed out the razor and went back to the office for his shirt.

  The shirt he had been wearing was soiled and wilted. The wrinkles in it seemed to have been ironed into it. Then he remembered that Bricker kept extra white shirts in one of the filing cabinets. Of course, Bricker was a barrel with short arms. But a clean shirt was all that mattered.

  He pulled at the filing cabinet and almost pulled it over on him. Locked. Bricker and his damned keys, he thought vehemently. With the heel of his hand, he jammed at the lock sharply and listened to it snap with grim satisfaction. That’ll show Bricker how effective his keys are against anyone who really wanted to get into these things, he told himself.

  He selected a carefully laundered shirt and put it on, stuffing it inside his trousers while his thoughts moved over all that had happened to him, every little thing that might have led to Stella’s murder.

  He went over to his desk, flopped down behind it and dialed a number. He listened to the telephone ring a long time. When the man answered, Blake could hear him grumbling about being disturbed this hour on a blamed Sunday morning.

  “Edwards?” Blake said.

  “Yeah.”

  “This is Steve Blake — or Robert Cole.”

  He heard Edwards’ sharp little whistle. “Blake will do. That Cole malarkey is gone. Where are you?”

  Blake laughed at him. “You ought to know.”

  “How the hell should I know?”

  Blake decided to hell with arguing that with Edwards. “I want to see Arrenhower,” he said.

  “What?”

  “You heard me. You could fix it. I’ve got to talk to him.”

  Edwards laughed again. Mirthlessly. “You’re wanted for murder, Blake. You’ve been a very naughty boy, pretending to work for Mr. Arrenhower while, really, you were working for somebody else all the time. You’ve been a fool, Blake. But you ain’t a big enough fool to want to talk to Mr. Arrenhower after all that.”

  Blake’s voice cracked sharply. “I’ve got to talk to him!”

  “Look, Blake, I don’t know what you want. But take my advice. You got troubles enough. Stay away from Arrenhower.”

  “I don’t want your advice.”

  “Nobody ever does,” Edwards said sadly. “But it’s mighty good advice — and for free, Blake. Arrenhower would chew you up and spit you out — right in the laps of the cops.”

  “I’ll worry about that. Somebody killed my wife.”

  “You think maybe Mr. Arrenhower did it?” Edwards laughed.

  “I don’t know. I only know I didn’t do it. I know Arrenhower has plenty of reason to want to fix my tail — ”

  “You are so right.”

  “And I want to talk to him.”

  Edwards was silent a moment. “Tell you what. Now I shouldn’t do this. But I don’t think you’ll
stay out of jail very much longer. So I’ll tell you. Why don’t you get to Tampa about nine o’clock tonight? Mr. Arrenhower loves girlie shows. They have a hot one out in Ybor City at El Toreador. He’ll be there. Why don’t you come? I know Mr. Arrenhower would love to see you. That is if you didn’t stand between him and the girls.”

  There was a sharp click and the instrument went dead in Blake’s hand. He tossed it back into its cradle and leaned back in his chair. God gave you brains to think with, Blake, he told himself. Use ’em, use ’em, use ’em.

  But the whole business was so wrong that Blake could get nowhere with it. Dickerson, by all rights, should have wanted to keep Blake away from the police. Dickerson’s people didn’t want publicity, not even if they denied it in every newspaper and on every radio in the country. And yet Dickerson told Blake that he was through with him, left him to do what he wanted to do. He felt a little cold at the nape of his neck. Was it that maybe Dickerson was pretty sure Blake wasn’t going to live long enough to talk to the police? Dickerson’s kind loved silence. And is there anything more silent than a dead man?

  His jaw tightened and his fists clenched on the edge of his desk before him. That was fine. That was violence and violence he understood. He could fight back. What he couldn’t fight were men who hit at him through Stella and disappeared. He wanted to hit back at something — and there was nothing to hit. Last night, Manley Reeder talked him out of using his fists. Later, Terravasi did the same thing. And he had known they were right. It wasn’t going to help him to fight until he knew what he was fighting.

  Well, there had to be an answer somewhere. If Arrenhower had had anything to do with Stella’s death, it had to begin with Arrenhower’s finding out that Blake was a spy, didn’t it?

  How could he find out? How?

  He got up and paced the room. His shoulder brushed the filing cabinet drawer that he’d left standing open. He thrust it back. It flopped open again, because the lock was broken. Bricker was going to raise hell about that. Bricker —