“He don’t like coffee,” Gregorius said. “He’s a swifty. He moves fast. Good reflexes.”
Nobody said anything. Gregorius looked me over with fish eyes.
“In here, mister, a dick license don’t mean any more than calling card. Now let’s have your statement, verbal at first. We’ll take it down later. Make it complete. Let’s have, say, a full account of your movements since ten P.M. last night. I mean full. This office is investigating a murder and the prime suspect is missing. You connect with him. Guy catches his wife cheating and beats her head to raw flesh and bone and blood-soaked hair. Our old friend the bronze statuette. Not original but it works. You think any goddamn private eye is going to quote law at me over this, mister, you got a hell of a tough time coming your way. There ain’t a police force in the country could do its job with a law book. You got information and I want it. You could of said no and I could of not believed you. But you didn’t even say no. You’re not dummying up on me, my friend. Not six cents worth. Let’s go.”
“Would you take the cuffs off, Captain?” I asked. “I mean if I made a statement?”
“I might. Make it short.”
“If I told you I hadn’t seen Lennox within the last twenty-four hours, hadn’t talked to him and had no idea where he might be—would that satisfy you, Captain?”
“It might—if I believed it.”
“If I told you I had seen him and where and when, but had no idea he had murdered anyone or that any crime had been committed, and further had no idea where he might be at this moment, that wouldn’t satisfy you at all, would it?”
“With more detail I might listen. Things like where, when, what he looked like, what was talked about, where he was headed. It might grow into something.”
“With your treatment,” I said. “it would probably grow into making me an accessory.”
His jaw muscles bulged. His eyes were dirty ice. “So?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I need legal advice. I’d like to co-operate. How would it be if we had somebody from the D.A.’s office here?”
He let out a short raucous laugh. It was over very soon. He got up slowly and walked around the desk. He leaned down close to me, one big hand on the wood, and smiled. Then without change of expression he hit me on the side of the neck with a fist like a piece of iron
The blow traveled eight or ten inches, no more. It nearly took my head off. Bile seeped into my mouth. I tasted blood mixed with it I heard nothing but a roaring in my head. He leaned over me still smiling, his left hand still on the desk. His voice seemed to come from a long way off.
“I used to be tough but I’m getting old. You take a good punch, mister, and that’s all you get from me. We got boys at the City Jail that ought to be working in the Dockyards. Maybe we hadn’t ought to have them because they ain’t nice clean powder-puff punchers like Dayton here. They don’t have four kids and a rose garden like Green. They live for different amusements. It takes all kinds and labor’s scarce. You got any more funny little ideas about what you might say, if you bothered to say it?”
“Not with the cuffs on, Captain.” It hurt even to say that much.
He leaned farther towards me and I smelled his sweat and the gas of corruption. Then he straightened and went back around the desk and planted his solid buttocks in his chair. He picked up a three-cornered ruler and ran his thumb along one edge as if it was a knife. He looked at Green.
“What are you waiting for, Sergeant?”
“Orders.” Green ground out the word as if he hated the sound of his own voice.
“You got to be told? You’re an experienced man, it says in the records. I want a detailed statement of this man’s movements for the past twenty-four hours. Maybe longer, but that much at first. I want to know what he did every minute of the time. I want it signed and witnessed and checked. I want it in two hours. Then I want him back here dean, tidy, and unmarked. And one thing more, Sergeant.”
He paused and gave Green a stare that would have frozen a fresh-baked potato.
“—next time I ask a suspect a few civil questions I don’t want you standing there looking as if I had torn his ear off.”
“Yes, sir.” Green turned to me. “Let’s go,” he said gruffly.
Gregorius bared his teeth at me. They needed cleaning—badly. “Let’s have the exit line, chum.”
“Yes, sir,” I said politely. “You probably didn’t intend it, but you’ve done me a favor. With an assist from Detective Dayton. You’ve solved a problem for me. No man likes to betray a friend but I wouldn’t betray an enemy into your hands. You’re not only a gorilla, you’re an incompetent. You don’t know how to operate a simple investigation. I was balanced on a knife-edge and you could have swung me either way. But you had to abuse me, throw coffee in my face, and use your fists on me when I was in a spot where all I could do was take it. From now on I wouldn’t tell you the time by the clock on your own wall. ”
For some strange reason he sat there perfectly still and let me say it. Then he grinned. “You’re just a little old cop-hater, friend. That’s all you are, shamus, just a little old cop-hater.”
“There are places where cops are not hated, Captain. But in those places you wouldn’t be a cop.”
He took that too. I guess he could afford it. He’d probably taken worse many times. Then the phone rang on his desk. He looked at it and gestured. Dayton stepped smartly around the desk and lifted the receiver.
“Captain Gregorius’ office. Detective Dayton speaking.”
He listened. A tiny frown drew his handsome eyebrows together. He said softly: “One moment, please, sir.”
He held the phone out to Gregorius. “Commissioner Allbright, sir.”
Gregorius scowled. “Yeah? What’s that snotty bastard want?” He took the phone, held it a moment and smoothed his face out. “Gregorius, Commissioner.”
He listened. “Yeah, he’s here in my office, Commissioner. I been asking him a few questions. Not co-operative. Not co-operative at all… How’s that again?” A sudden ferocious scowl twisted his face into dark knots. The blood darkened his forehead. But his voice didn’t change in tone by a fraction. “If that’s a direct order, it ought to come through the Chief of Detectives, Commissioner… Sure, I’ll act on it until it’s confirmed. Sure ... Hell, no. Nobody laid a glove on him… Yes, sir. Right away.”
He put the phone back in its cradle. I thought his hand shook a little. His eyes moved up and across my face and then to Green. “Take the cuffs off,” he said tonelessly.
Green unlocked the cuffs. I rubbed my hands together, waiting for the pins and needles of circulation.
“Book him in the county jail,” Gregorius said slowly, “Suspicion of murder. The D.A. has glommed the case right out of our hands. Lovely system we got around here.”
Nobody moved. Green was close to me, breathing hard. Gregorius looked up at Dayton.”
“Whatcha waiting for, cream puff? An ice-cream cone maybe?”
Dayton almost choked. “You didn’t give me any orders, skipper.”
“Say sir to me, damn you! I’m skipper to sergeants and better. Not to you, kiddo. Not to you. Out.”
“Yes, sir.” Dayton walked quickly to the door and went but Gregorius heaved himself to his feet and moved to the window and stood with his back to the room.
“Come on, let’s drift,” Green muttered in my ear.
“Get him out of here before I kick his face in,” Gregorius said to the window.
Green went to the door and opened it. I started through. Gregorius barked suddenly: “Hold it! Shut that door!”
Green shut it and leaned his back to it.
“Come here, you!” Gregorius barked at me.
I didn’t move. I stood and looked at him. Green didn’t move either. There was a grim pause. Then very slowly Gregorius walked across the room and stood facing me toe to toe. He put his big hard hands in his pockets. He rocked on his heels.
“Never laid a glove on him,�
� he said under his breath, as if talking to himself. His eyes were remote and expressionless. His mouth worked convulsively.
Then he spat in my face.
He stepped back. “That will be all, thank you.”
He turned and went back to the window. Green opened the door again.
I went through it reaching for my handkerchief.
8
Cell No. 5 in the felony tank has two bunks, Pullman style, but the tank was not very full and I had the cell to myself. In the felony tank they treat you pretty well. You get two blankets, neither dirty nor clean, and a lumpy mattress two inches thick which goes over crisscrossed metal slats. There is a flush toilet, a washbasin, paper towels and gritty gray soap. The cellblock is clean and doesn’t smell of disinfectant. The trusties do the work. The supply of trusties is always ample.
The jail deputies look you over and they have wise eyes. Unless you are a drunk or a psycho or act like one you get to keep your matches and cigarettes. Until preliminary you wear your own clothes. After that you wear the jail denim, no tie, no belt, no shoelaces. You sit on the bunk and wait. There is nothing else to do.
In the drunk tank it is not so good. No bunk, no chair, no blankets, no nothing. You lie on the concrete floor. You sit on the toilet and vomit in your own lap. That is the depth of misery. I’ve seen it.
Although it was still daylight the lights were on in the ceiling. Inside the steel door of the cellblock was a basket of steel bars around the Judas window. The lights were controlled from outside the steel door. They went out at nine P.M. Nobody came through the door or said anything. You might be in the middle of a sentence in a newspaper or magazine. Without any sound of a click or any warning—darkness. And there you were until the summer dawn with nothing to do but sleep if you could, smoke if you had anything to smoke, and think if you had anything to think about that didn’t make you feel worse than not thinking at all.
In jail a man has no personality. He is a minor disposal problem and a few entries on reports. Nobody cares who loves or hates him, what he looks like, what he did with his life. Nobody reacts to him unless he gives trouble. Nobody abuses him. All that is asked of him is that he go quietly to right cell and remain quiet when he gets there. There nothing to fight against, nothing to be mad at. There are quiet men without animosity or sadism. All this stuff you read about men yelling and screaming, beating against the bars, running spoons along them, guards rushing in with clubs—all that is for the big house. A good jail is one of the quietest places in the world. You could walk through the average cellblock at night and look in through the bars and see a huddle of brown blanket, or a head of hair, or a pair of eyes looking at nothing. You might hear a snore. Once in a long while you might hear a nightmare. The life in a jail is in suspension, without purpose or meaning. In another cell you might see a man who cannot sleep or even try to sleep. He is sitting on the edge of his bunk doing nothing. He looks at you or you look at him. He says nothing and you say nothing. There is nothing to communicate.
In the corner of the cellblock there may be a second steel door that leads to the show-up box. One of its walls is wire mesh painted black. On the back wall are ruled lines for height. Overhead are floodlights. You go in there in the morning as a rule, just before the night captain goes off duty. You stand against the measuring lines and the lights glare at you and there is no light behind the wire mesh. But plenty of people are out there: cops, detectives, citizens who have been robbed or assaulted or swindled or kicked out of their cars at gun point or conned out of their life savings. You don’t see or hear them. You hear the voice of the night captain. You receive him loud and clear. He puts you through your paces as if you were a performing dog. He is tired and cynical and competent. He is the stage manager of a play that has had the longest run in history, but it no longer interests him.
“All right you. Stand straight. Pull your belly in. Pull your chin in. Keep your shoulders back. Hold your head level. Look straight front. Turn left. Turn right. Face front again and hold your hands out. Palms up. Palms down. Pull your sleeves back. No visible scars. Hair dark brown, some gray. Eyes brown. Height six feet, one half inch. Weight about one ninety. Name, Philip Marlowe. Occupation private detective. Well, well, nice to see you, Marlowe. That’s all. Next man.”
Much obliged, Captain. Thanks for the time. You forgot to have me open my mouth. I have some nice inlays and one very high-class porcelain jacket crown. Eighty-seven dollars worth of porcelain jacket crown. You forgot to look inside my nose too, Captain. A lot of scar tissue in there for you. Septum operation and was that guy a butcher! Two hours of it in those days. I hear they do it in twenty minutes now. I got it playing football, Captain, a slight miscalculation in an attempt to block a punt. I blocked the guy’s foot instead—after he kicked the ball. Fifteen yards penalty, and that’s about how much stiff bloody tape they pulled out of my nose an inch at a time the day after the operation. I’m not bragging, Captain. I’m just telling you. It’s the little things that count.
On the third day a deputy unlocked my cell in the middle of the morning.
“Your lawyer’s here. Kill the butt—and not on the floor.” I flushed it down the toilet. He took me to the conference room. A tall pale dark-haired man was standing there looking out of the window. There was a fat brown briefcase on the table. He turned. He waited for the door to close. Then he sat down near his briefcase on the far side of a scarred oak table that came out of the Ark. Noah bought it secondhand. The lawyer opened a hammered silver cigarette case and put it in front of him and looked me over.
“Sit down, Marlowe. Care for a cigarette? My name is Endicott. Sewell Endicott. I’ve been instructed to represent you without cost or expense to you. I guess you’d like to get out of here, wouldn’t you?”
I sat down and took one of the cigarettes. He held a lighter for me.
“Nice to see you again, Mr. Endicott. We’ve met before—while you were D.A.”
He nodded, “I don’t remember, but it’s quite possible.” He smiled faintly. “That position was not quite in my line. I guess I don’t have enough tiger in me.”
“Who sent you?”
“I’m not at liberty to say. If you accept me as your attorney, the fee will be taken care of.”
“I guess that means they’ve got him.”
He just stared at me. I puffed at the cigarette. It was one of those things with filters in them. It tasted like a high fog strained through cotton wool.
“If you mean Lennox,” he said, “and of course you do, no—they haven’t got him.”
“Why the mystery, Mr. Endicott? About who sent you.”
“My principal wishes to remain anonymous. That is the privilege of my principal. Do you accept me?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “If they haven’t got Terry, why are they holding me? Nobody has asked me anything, nobody has been near me.”
He frowned and looked down at his long white delicate fingers.. “District Attorney Springer has taken personal charge of this matter. He may have been too busy to question you yet. But you are entitled to arraignment and a preliminary hearing. I can get you out on bail on a habeas corpus proceeding. You probably know what the law is.”
“I’m booked on suspicion of murder.”
He shrugged impatiently. “That’s just a catch-all. You could have been booked in transit to Pittsburgh, or any one of a dozen charges. What they probably mean is accessory after the fact. You took Lennox somewhere, didn’t you?”
I didn’t answer. I dropped the tasteless cigarette on the floor and stepped on it. Endicott shrugged again and frowned.
“Assume you did then, just for the sake of argument. To make you an accessory they have to prove intent. In this case that would mean knowledge that a crime had been committed and that Lennox was a fugitive. It’s bailable in any case. Of course what you really are is a material witness. But a man can’t be held in prison as a material witness in this state except by court order. He’s not a materia
l witness unless a judge so declares. But the law enforcement people can always find a way to do what they want to do.”
“Yeah,” I said. “A detective named Dayton slugged me. A homicide captain named Gregorius threw a cup of coffee at me, hit me in the neck hard enough to bust an artery—you can see it’s still swollen, and when a call from Police Commissioner Allbright kept him from turning me over to the wrecking crew, he spat in my face. You’re quite right, Mr. Endicott. The law boys can always do what they want to do.”
He looked at his wristwatch rather pointedly. “You want out on bail or don’t you?”
“Thanks. I don’t think I do. A guy out on bail is already half guilty in the public mind. If he gets off later on, he had a smart lawyer.”
“That’s silly,” he said impatiently.
“Okay, it’s silly. I’m silly. Otherwise I wouldn’t be here. If you’re in touch with Lennox, tell him to quit bothering about me. I’m not in here for him. I’m in here for me. No complaints. It’s part of the deal. I’m in a business where people come to me with troubles. Big troubles, little troubles, but always troubles they don’t want to take to the cops. How long would they come if any bruiser with a police shield could hold me upside down and drain my guts?”
“I see your point,” he said slowly. “But let me correct you on one thing. I am not in touch with Lennox. I scarcely know him. I’m an officer of the court, as all lawyers are. If I knew where Lennox was, I couldn’t conceal the information from the District Attorney. The most I could do would be to agree to surrender him at a specified time and place after I had had an interview with him.”
“Nobody else would bother to send you here to help me.”
“Are you calling me a liar?” He reached down to rub out his cigarette stub on the underside of the table.
“I seem to remember that you’re a Virginian, Mr. Endicott. In this country we have a sort of historical fixation about Virginians. We think of them as the flower of southern chivalry and honor.”
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