The operator’s voice came back, “I’m sorry, sir, but there is no such telephone number listed.”
“There must be,” Joe Pettigrew said violently and repeated the number. The operator also repeated her remark, and added: “One moment, please, I will give you Information.” The booth was hot and Joe Pettigrew was beginning to sweat. Information came and heard and went away and came back.
“I’m sorry, sir. There is no telephone listed under that name.”
Joe Pettigrew stepped out of the booth just in time to avoid a woman with a string bag and an appearance of great hurry. He just slid away from her in time. He got out of there fast.
It could be an unlisted number. He should have thought of that long ago. The way Professor Bingo operated, he would certainly have an unlisted phone. Joe Pettigrew stopped dead and somebody kicked his heel. He skipped out of the way just in time.
No, he was being silly. He had dialed the number. And even if it was an unlisted number, the operator, knowing he had the number and that it was a correct number, would simply have told him to dial it again. She would think he had made a mistake in dialing. So Bingo had no telephone at all.
“All right,” Joe Pettigrew said. “All right, Bingo. Maybe I’ll just drop over and tell you about it. Maybe I won’t need any money at all. A man your age ought to have more sense than to put a phony telephone number on a business card. How can you expect to sell the product if the customer can’t get to talk to you?”
He said all this in his mind. Then he told himself he was probably doing Professor Bingo an injustice. The Professor looked like a pretty smooth operator. He would have a reason for what he did. Joe Pettigrew got the card out and looked at it again. 311 Blankey Building, on North Wilcox. Joe Pettigrew had never heard of the Blankey Building, but that didn’t mean anything. Any big city is full of ratholes like that. It couldn’t be more than half a mile. That would be about all there would be to the business part of Wilcox.
He walked south. The building had an even number, which would put it on the east side. He ought to have asked the telephone operator to check the address when she couldn’t find the name. Maybe she would and maybe she would tell him to go fishing.
He found the block easily enough and he found the number not quite so easily, but by a process of elimination. It wasn’t called the Blankey Building, though. He read the card again and made sure. No, he hadn’t made a mistake. That was the right address, but it wasn’t an office building. Nor was it a private home, nor a store.
Quite a sense of humor, Professor Augustus Bingo had. His business address turned out to be the Hollywood Police Station.
Besides the lab men and photographers and the fellow who did the block sketch to scale, showing the position of the furniture and windows and things, there was a lieutenant of detectives and a sergeant. Being from the Hollywood division they both looked a bit more sporty than you expect plainclothes cops to look. One had his sport shirt collar outside the collar of his shepherd’s plaid jacket. He wore sky-blue slacks and shoes with gilt buckles on them. His argyle socks gleamed in the darkness of the clothes closet that opened under the stairs between the bedroom and the bathroom. He had the square of carpet rolled back. Underneath was a trap door with a sunken ring in it. The man in the blue slacks—he happened to be the sergeant although he looked older than the lieutenant—pulled at the ring and got the trap door up against the back wall of the closet. The space down below was half lit from the ventilating screens in the foundation walls. There was a rough wooden ladder leaning against the concrete wall of the basement. The sergeant, whose name was Rehder, got the ladder into position and backed down far enough to see what was under the floor.
“Big place,” he said speaking up. “Must have been stairs down here once before they floored the space in hardwood to make the closet. They put the trap in to get at the gas and water pipes and the outfall. Think it’s worth looking in the trunks?”
The lieutenant was a big handsome man built like a blocking back. He had sad dark eyes. His name was Waldman. He nodded vaguely.
“There’s the bottom of the floor furnace,” Rehder said. He reached out and rapped on it. The sheet iron rang. “That’s all the furnace there is. And that would be installed from the top. Anybody check the air vents?”
“Yes,” Waldman said. “They’re big enough all right, but three of them are nailed shut and painted over. The one in back of the house is loose but the gas meter is just inside it. Nobody could get past that.”
Rehder came back up the ladder and lowered the trap to the closet floor. “Also there’s this carpet,” he said. “Pretty hard to get that to fall in place without a wrinkle.”
He dusted his hands off on the piece of carpet and they went out of the closet and shut the door. They went into the living-room and watched the lab men fussing around.
“Prints aren’t going to mean anything,” the lieutenant said moving a finger along the edge of his chin against the dark close-shaven bristles. “Unless we happen to get a clear overlay. Or something on a door or window. Even that wouldn’t be too conclusive. After all Pettigrew lives here. It’s his house.”
“I’d sure like to know who reported that shot,” Rehder said.
“Pettigrew. Who else?” Waldman kept on rubbing his chin. His eyes were sad and sleepy. “I can’t go for suicide. I’ve seen too many and I never once saw one where a guy shot himself through the heart from a distance of not less than three feet and more likely four or five.”
Rehder nodded. He was looking down at the floor furnace. It had a big grating partly in the floor, partly in the wall.
“But assume it could be suicide,” Waldman went on. “The place is locked up tight—all except the window the prowl boys got in at, and one of them stayed right beside it until we got here. The door’s not only locked but bolted with a deadlatch that is not connected with the lock. Every window is locked and the only other door, the one that connects with the breakfast room at the back of the house, has a deadlatch on this side which can’t be opened from the breakfast room and a spring lock on the other side which can’t be opened from in here. So the physical evidence proves Pettigrew couldn’t have had access to these rooms when the shot was fired.”
“So far,” Rehder said.
“So far, sure. But somebody heard that shot and somebody reported it. None of the neighbors heard it.”
“They say,” Rehder put in.
“But why lie about it after we found the bodies? Before that maybe, just not to be involved. You could say whoever heard it doesn’t want to be a witness at an inquest or a trial. Some people don’t, sure. But they’re likely to be bothered a lot more, if they didn’t hear anything—or think they didn’t—than if they did. The investigators are going to keep trying to make them remember something they think they’ve forgotten. You know how often that works out.”
Rehder said: “Let’s get back to Pettigrew.” His eyes were on his partner now, very watchful and faintly triumphant, as if at some secret thought.
“We have to suspect him,” Waldman said. “We always have to suspect the husband. He must have known his wife was playing around with this Porter Green. Pettigrew’s not out of town or anything. The mailman saw him this morning. He either left before or after the shot. If he left before, he’s clear. If he left after he still might not have heard it. But I’m saying he did because he had a better chance than anyone else. And if he did, what would he do?”
Rehder frowned. “They never do the obvious thing, do they? No. You’d say he’d try to get in and he’d find out he couldn’t without breaking in. Then he’d call the law. But this guy is living right in the house where his wife is playing footie with the roomer. Either he’s an awful cold fish and doesn’t give a damn …”
“That’s happened,” Waldman put in.
“… or he’d be humiliated and pretty savage inside. When he hears that shot, he knows damn well he’d like to have fired it. And he knows we’re likely to think the s
ame. So he goes out and calls us from a pay station and then disappears. When he comes home he’ll be the most surprised guy in the world.”
Waldman nodded. “But until we get a chance to size him up, it doesn’t mean a thing. It was pure chance nobody saw him leave, pure chance nobody reported the shot. He couldn’t rely on any of that, therefore he couldn’t rely on pretending not to know. If it’s suicide I say he didn’t hear the shot and didn’t call in. He left either before or after and he doesn’t know a thing about anybody being dead.”
‘So again it’s not suicide,” Rehder said. “So he had to get out of here and leave the place locked up. Fine. How did he do it?”
“Yes. How?”
“Floor furnace. It heats the hall too. Didn’t you notice?” Rehder asked triumphantly.
Waldman’s eyes went to the floor furnace and back to Rehder. “What size man is he?” he asked.
“One of the boys looked at his clothes upstairs. Five-ten, one-sixty, wears an eight and a half shoe, a thirty-eight shirt, a thirty-nine suit. Just small enough. That piece behind the upright grating just hangs on a rod. We’ll print it and then try it out.”
“Not trying to make a chump out of me, are you Max?”
“You know better than that, Lieutenant. If it’s homicide, the guy had to get out of the room. There’s no such thing as a locked room murder. Never has been.”
Waldman sighed and looked towards the stain on the carpet by the corner of the cocktail table.
“I suppose not,” he said. “But it does seem a pity we can’t have just one.”
At sixteen minutes to three Joe Pettigrew walked down a path in a quiet part of Hollywood Cemetery. Not that it wasn’t all quiet. But here it was remote and forgotten. The grass was green and cool. There was a small stone bench. He sat down on it and looked across at a marble monument with angels on it. It looked expensive. He could see that the lettering had once been in gold. He read the name. It went back a long time, to a lost glamor, to the days when a star of the flickering screen lived like an Eastern caliph and died like a prince of the blood. It was a simple place for a man who had once been so famous. Not much like that hoked up demi-paradise over on the far side of the river.
A long time ago, in a lost and dingy world. Bathtub gin, gang wars, ten percent margin accounts, parties where everyone got paralyzed as a matter of course. Cigar smoke in the theater. Everybody smoked cigars in those days. A heavy pall of it always hung over the mezzanine boxes. The draft sucked it across on to the stage. He could smell it as he teetered fifteen feet in the air on a bike with wheels like watermelons. Joe Meredith—Clown Cyclist. Good too. Never quite a headliner—you couldn’t be with that kind of act—but a hell of a long way from the acrobats. A solo. One of the best falls in the business. Looks easy, doesn’t it? Try it some time and find out how easy—fifteen feet and land on the back of your neck on a hard stage and roll gently to your feet with the hat still on your head and nine inches of lighted cigar stuck in the corner of a huge painted mouth.
He wondered what would happen if he tried it now. Probably break four ribs and get a punctured lung.
A man came along the path. One of these young hard-looking kids that go coatless in any kind of weather. About twenty or twenty-one, too much black hair not clean enough, narrow flat black eyes, dark olive skin, shirt open on a hard hairless chest.
He stopped in front of the bench and measured Joe Pettigrew with a quick sweep of the eyes.
“Got a match?”
Joe Pettigrew stood up. It was time to go home now. He took a paper match folder out of his pocker and held it out.
“Thanks.” The kid picked a loose cigarette out of his shirt pocket and lit the cigarette slowly, moving his eyes this way and that. As he handed the matches back with his left hand he looked over his shoulder, a quick glance. Joe Pettigrew reached for the matches. The kid dropped his right hand swiftly inside the shirt and jerked out a short gun.
“Now the wallet, chum, and take it s——”
Joe Pettigrew kicked him in the groin. The kid doubled over and began to sweat. Not a sound came from him. His hand still held the gun, but not pointed. Tough kid all right. Joe Pettigrew took a step and kicked the gun out of his hand. He had it before the kid moved.
The kid was breathing in harsh gasps now. He looked pretty sick. Joe Pettigrew felt a little sad. He had the floor. He could say anything he liked. He had nothing to say. The world was full of tough kids. It was their world, the world of Porter Green.
Time to go home now. He walked away along the sunlit path and didn’t look back. When he came to a neat green trash barrel he dropped the gun into it. He looked back then but the kid was nowhere in sight. Probably walking fast to get away and groaning as he walked. Perhaps even running. Where do you run to when you have killed a man? Nowhere. You go home. Running away is a very complicated business. It takes thought and preparation. It takes time, money and clothes.
His legs ached. He was tired. But he could buy coffee now and take the bus. He ought to have waited and thought it out. That was Professor Augustus Bingo’s fault. He made it much too easy, like a short cut that wasn’t on the map. You took it, and then you found that the short cut didn’t go anywhere, just ended in a yard with a vicious dog. So, if you were very quick and very lucky, you kicked the vicious dog in the right place and went back the way you came.
His hand went into his pocket and his fingers touched the packet of Professor Bingo’s product—a little crumpled and partly spilled, but still usable, if he could think of any use for it, which was now unlikely.
Too bad Professor Bingo didn’t have a real address on his card. Joe Pettigrew would have liked to call on him and twist his neck. A fellow like that could do a lot of harm in the world. More harm than a hundred Porter Greens.
But a character as resourceful as Professor Bingo would know all that in advance. Even if he had an office, you wouldn’t find him there unless he wanted you to.
Joe Pettigrew walked.
Lieutenant Waldman saw him and knew him three houses away, long before he turned up the walk. He looked exactly like what Waldman had expected, gaunt face, neat gray suit, precise and exact way of moving. Right weight and build.
“Okay,” he said, standing up from a chair by the window. “Nothing rough, Max. Feel him out slowly.”
They had sent the police car off around the corner. The street was quiet again. Nothing looked sensational. Joe Pettigrew turned into the walk and came towards the porch. He stopped halfway, stepped over on the lawn and got out a pocket knife. He bent down and cut a dandelion off just below the surface. He folded the knife carefully after wiping it off on the grass and put it back in his pocket. He threw the dandelion off towards the corner of the house out of sight of the men watching.
“I don’t buy it,” Rehder said in a harsh whisper. “It just ain’t possible that guy cooled anybody today.”
“He sees the window,” Waldman said, pulling back into shadow without moving too quickly. The lights were off in the room now and the radio had long since been stilled. Joe Pettigrew was looking up at the broken window right in front of him from where he stood on the lawn. He moved a little more quickly up on the porch and stopped. His hand went out and pulled at the screen enough to show that it was loose. He let go of the screen and straightened up. His face had an odd expression. Then he turned quickly towards the door.
The door opened as he reached it. Waldman stood inside looking out gravely.
“I think you would be Mr. Pettigrew,” he said politely.
“Yes, I’m Pettigrew,” the gaunt expressionless face told him. “Who are you?”
“A police officer, Mr. Pettigrew. The name is Waldman, Lieutenant Waldman. Come in, please.”
“Police? Somebody break in here? The window …”
“No, it’s not a burglary, Mr. Pettigrew. We’ll explain it all to you.” He stood back from the door and Joe Pettigrew stepped in past him. He took off his hat and hung it up, just as he
always did.
Waldman stepped close to him and ran his hands rapidly over his body.
“Sorry, Mr. Pettigrew. Part of my job. This is Sergeant Rehder. We’re from the Hollywood Division. Let’s go into the living-room.”
“That’s not our living-room,” Joe Pettigrew said. “This part of the house is rented.”
“We know that, Mr. Pettigrew. Just sit down and take it easy.”
Joe Pettigrew sat down and leaned back. His eyes searched the room. They saw the chalk marks and the dusting powder. He leaned forward again.
“What’s that?” he asked sharply.
Waldman and Rehder looked at him with level unsmiling expressions. “What time did you go out today?” Waldman asked, and leaned back casually and lit a cigarette. Rehder sat hunched forward on the front half of a chair, his right hand loose on his knee. His gun was in a short leather holster inside his right hip pocket. He’d never liked an under-arm clip. This guy Pettigrew didn’t look like it would take a gun to knock him over, but you never knew.
“What time? I don’t remember. Somewhere around noon.”
“To go where?”
“Just walking. I went over to Hollywood Cemetery for a while. My first wife is buried there.”
“Oh, your first wife,” Waldman said easily. “Any idea where your present wife is?”
“Probably out with the roomer. Fellow named Porter Green,” Joe Pettigrew said calmly.
“Like that, eh?” Waldman said.
“Just like that.” Pettigrew’s eyes went to the floor again, over where the chalk marks were and the dark stain in the carpet. “Suppose you men tell me …”
“In a moment,” Waldman cut in, rather more sharply. “Did you have any reason to call the police? From here or while you were out?”
Joe Pettigrew shook his head. “As long as the neighbors didn’t complain, why should I?”
“I don’t get it,” Rehder said. “What’s he talking about?”
“Pretty noisy, were they?” Waldman asked. He got it all right.
The Collected Raymond Chandler Page 276