“Right. But they’d come around and ask questions. You got all the answers, Art? About the parties, and where the money goes, stuff like that? You keep a nice set of books for the Internal Revenue boys? They like books you know. And maybe there’s a little blackmail going for you too, on the side. No, you’re right. They may not take my word, but they’d certainly want a nice long talk with you.”
He dropped the gun on the bed and passed a weary hand over the blue stubble.
“I knew I should never have answered that door,” he groaned. “What did I ever do to you?”
“Nothing,” I assured him. “Nothing at all. Now, why don’t we keep it that way? Just come up with what I want, keep the money, you may never see me again.”
“I should be so lucky,” he grumbled. “All right, suppose I do tell you, what do you do then?”
“I go away. That’s all you need to know.”
“Maybe that’s the best thing for me. Look, I’m taking an awful chance for twenty lousy bucks.”
“What kind of a chance?”
He hesitated, as though he were afraid of something.
“You see this dame, this O’Connor, she has a guy kind of looking out for her. He told me to keep my mouth shut about where she lives.
“So? You already told the police and every newspaper in town.”
He shook his head in denial.
“No. Cops, yes. I hadda tell them. When those guys ask, you tell if you got any brains. This feller, he understands that. The reporters just followed the fuzz. But you’re different.”
“And what’s this terrible chance you’re taking? You mean this guy will come visiting?”
“Could be. He has an awful mean temper.”
Somewhere at the back of my mind a name sounded, but it was probably too much to hope for.
“Well all right Art, tell you what we do. You say I got rough with you, and you had to tell me. Would it sound more convincing if I laid one or two on you?”
He jumped.
“No, that won’t be necessary. But thanks for the offer. Yeah that oughta keep him off me.”
“Then how about the address?”
He went to the table and tore yesterday’s date off the calendar. On the back he quickly scribbled with a stub of pencil. As he handed the paper over he scooped up the two bills and stuffed them in a pocket. I put the address away and got up.
“Nice to do business with you, Art.”
“Likewise. Only do me a favor and forget to come back, willya?”
I smiled at him pleasantly and left him to get on with all his big deals.
CHAPTER TEN
THE PALM BEACH APARTMENTS are not everything the name would lead you to suppose. There wasn’t very much of Florida grandslam about the place, in fact there wasn’t much of anything at all. Despite the high faluting title it was tucked away in a fairly respectable street in the residential section. It wasn’t exactly Beverly Hills, and then again it wasn’t Crane Street. Just an ordinary middle price kind of place, with the anonymous look that betokened traffic in, traffic out, nothing permanent. Shiralee O’Connor, according to my information, was to be found on the sixth floor, apartment 614. With relief, I found the elevator was in working order today, and rattled my way up to six. There was nothing about the door to say who was on the other side, and I wondered whether Art Green’s bad-tempered friend was around.
The bell made musical sounds inside, and I straightened my tie, recalling the photograph in the Globe. The door opened and I looked at a young tired woman wrapped in a flannel robe. She waited.
“Miss O’Connor?”
“Another reporter,” she said disgustedly. “I already said all there is to say.”
“No, not this time. I’m making a few enquiries and you may be able to help. I’d be glad to pay for your time.”
“Yeah?” she didn’t believe it. “My time is worth twenty bucks an hour.”
I produced a ten and wagged it.
“How’s for about thirty minutes? Maybe less.”
“I don’t know,” she said doubtfully. “You could be some kind of crum. Those pictures in the newspapers.”
I flashed my sticker and she nodded.
“Cop huh? Well I guess it’s all right.”
I followed her inside and she closed the door.
“Just making some coffee,” she invited.
“Thanks. Black.”
I sat on a cane chair while she went through a door and banged cups carefully. The coffee smelled good.
“Brother, what a night,” she wailed.
“Work late?”
“Late?” she shrugged. “What’s late? So long since I went to bed in the dark I forgot what the word means. Say I must look an awful mess.”
She put a hand to the uncombed hair and waited for me to contradict her. I grinned.
“Let’s put it this way, you’re not entirely ready for any handout stills right this minute.”
She made a face, then chuckled ruefully.
“You’re not so bad. You gotta sense of humor. This I like. Now, what is it you want to know? Got a cigaret?”
I fumbled for my Old Favorites and she leaned over to get a light. The robe fell partly open, but she didn’t bother to grab at it. I didn’t get the feeling it was a come-on. It was just that when a girl has danced a few hundred private parties that kind of thing isn’t important any more.
“That’s good.”
She leaned back, inhaling deeply, and studying me at the same time.
“What was that name, Preston? Mark Preston?”
“It was.”
“I heard it some place.”
“Maybe. Look Shiralee—may I call you that?”
“My friends call me Pook.”
“All right then, Pook. I’m looking around to find out who killed this man Brookman.”
She snorted.
“You and everybody else in town. I can’t tell you much.”
“Perhaps not. But I can’t overlook anything, anybody. How well did you know him?”
“I didn’t know him at all,” she denied. “O.K. if they say he was at Hugo’s he was there. But the first I ever heard of him was when the law came banging on the door.”
“I see. Was it a big party?”
“You know Hugo—or do you?”
“I’ve talked with him.”
“He throws these wingdings, people wander in and out the whole time. I guess there was twenty people there, thirty. Maybe more. I’m not so hot at figures.”
I thought I heard a movement from the second door, the one that didn’t lead into the kitchen, which would make it the bedroom.
“But after you saw his picture, did you recognize him then?”
“No, that’s what they kept asking. Now honestly, I’ve been dancing all over the state for nearly two years. One thing I learned a long time ago, never look at their faces. The look on most of ‘em would scare a girl half to death. I can’t help you mister.”
I sipped at the scalding coffee. It was an excuse to listen for any more sounds from the bedroom. Nothing.
“I guess you’re right. Thanks for trying. Keep the ten anyhow, the coffee was worth it.”
She smiled, and I got a quick glimpse of the girl in the photograph. At the door I turned and said clearly.
“By the way, you know a man named McCann?”
No smile now, her face froze and she pointed to the door.
“I can’t help you, I said. Beat it.”
“No, no, honey, that ain’t polite.”
The bedroom door had opened and there stood Legs McCann.
“Well, well,” I muttered. “This is a big surprise, Legs.”
“I can imagine. I thought I knew the voice when you were giving honeybunch the con.”
“That was no con. I need information.”
He advanced into the room.
“You didn’t get your full thirty minutes. Come on back in, and let’s have a little loving talk.”
&nbs
p; “Why not?”
I went back and sat down again. Shiralee looked from one to the other fearfully.
“You guys know each other?”
“Sort of,” he replied. “He ain’t a real cop, he’s private.”
I hadn’t seen him in a year or so, but there was no great change in him. He’d be, let’s see, thirty two or three now, and good-looking in a florid way. McCann was always way out in front on two counts, his quick fists and a smooth way with the dames. Judging by appearances, he hadn’t lost any of his old technique, and from the way he moved I’d have said he was still keeping in shape. Legs had been on the muscle for the bookies for years, and I could remember one time it took four policemen to calm him down when he was being pinched. I never knew him to carry a gun, but I noticed today he kept one hand in his pocket.
“You knew I was here,” he accused.
“Wrong. I thought there was an outside chance you could tie in with this somewhere. I just tried the name out on Pook here as a long shot. Sometimes they pay off.”
“H’m.”
He didn’t know whether to believe it or not. Either way it didn’t matter. Here we all were, and the important thing was, what happened next. McCann must have been reading my mind.
“So what happens now?”
“Ah,” I sighed. “That’s a good question. Tell me, did Randall find out about your—ah—involvement here?”
“No,” cut in Pook, “That big dumb flatfoot couldn’t find a kiddy-car in a nursery. All he wanted to do was keep getting an eyeful of me. And I gave him plenty to look at.”
McCann turned on her sharply.
“How many times do you need telling? Randall ain’t dumb. He looks sleepy, and he talks kinda tired sometimes is all. On the murder squad they don’t keep dumb sergeants.”
“He’s right, Pook. Don’t let Randall fool you with that bumpkin routine. Still, he didn’t find out about you?”
I spoke again to McCann. He shook his head.
“Not so far. You gonna tell him?”
There was something wrong with his approach. The McCann I knew was all aggression and bounce, forcing things and people into the shapes he required. Now here he was asking.
“I have too much to do to run police errands,” I told him evenly.
“Of course, if they want you for a couple of axe murders, or like that, it might be different.”
“Nothing like that,” he said indifferently. It was almost as though he didn’t care whether I turned him in or not. “So you found me. What are you going to do about it?”
I wondered how much I ought to trade for whatever he might know.
“I’ll tell you the score, Legs, You know me, and you know it costs plenty to persuade me to work. I’m working.”
“And? Who’s picking up the tab?”
I wagged a forefinger.
“You also know I won’t tell you that,” I admonished. “Let’s say it’s big people.”
“Lots a big people in town,” he shrugged.
“Right. But these are big rough people. Kind of people you and I understand. They want to know who knocked off your friend Brookman. I’m supposed to find out.”
He didn’t contradict my use of the word friend. Not right away, that is.
“You a finger-man now, Preston? I never figured you for that kind of work.”
“A man does what he can.”
“And hey,” he remembered. “Whaddya mean, my friend Brookman? I never heard of the guy.”
I shook my head.
“I know better. You’ve been seen with him.”
“You’re crazy.”
It isn’t always easy to know when people are lying. But I had an uneasy feeling he could be telling the truth.
“Won’t do. You were seen talking to him out at the track.”
“I don’t get it. This is some kinda frame. Anybody could tell a story like that. I talk to hundreds of people out at the track.”
That was true. I reflected for a moment.
“Have you seen a picture of Brookman?”
“Just the one in the paper yesterday. Didn’t mean a thing to me.”
The one in that paper had been taken down among the rocks where they found the body. Nobody could have identified anybody from that picture.
“How about today’s paper?”
“Didn’t get around to it yet. Honey?”
He looked a question at Pook, and she went out into the kitchen. McCann stared at me in puzzlement, till she came back.
“Here it is, right here,” she pointed.
Today’s picture was the face of the man I’d seen in the morgue, after the morticians had been to work on him. McCann took the folded paper and stared, biting at his lower lip in concentration.
“Wait a minute, this guy.”
He let the paper fall by his side and hung his head thinking. Then he raised his arm again and concentrated on the dead man’s face.
“A horse player? Could he be a horse player?”
“He was,” I confirmed.
“I think I got him. I seem to remember a guy, oh it would be a month back. This guy was into the book for a lotta dough, about three g’s if I remember. Somebody asked me to talk to him about it.”
I knew what that meant. McCann had to show Brook-man his muscles in an attempt to shake some money out of him.
“So you had to lean on him? I’d have expected you to remember a little thing like that.”
“Nah,” he denied. “All I did was tell him these people don’t like guys who don’t pay. It makes them nervous. He had a week to find the dough, or I’d be seeing him for another little talk. That was when I was going to lump him up a little.”
“I see. And the second time you saw him?”
“Wasn’t no second time. He musta found the dough, I guess. Or else maybe somebody else got the job. I only saw him that one time. Yeah, I think this is the guy.”
“Who did he owe money to?”
McCann hesitated.
“I don’t think I’m going to tell you that. It was business. If I told you who it was, you could get to figuring that was the guy had this Brookman knocked off. That would make me kind of a stool-pigeon. This I don’t wanta be.”
It was a fair answer. It fitted the few facts I had, and it fitted what I knew of McCann’s attitude to life. All this time, Shiralee O’Connor was standing with her arms folded, watching us.
“I just had one of those ideas,” I said slowly. “You haven’t been around much lately, Legs. Could be you’re hiding from somebody.”
He squared his shoulders as though he might be about to take a poke at me. I hoped he wouldn’t. I was probably no match for him standing up. Sitting down, I was no match for Mickey Mouse.
“Why would I do that? You know me Preston, anybody has an argument with Legs McCann, I don’t hide in no cellars.”
“Not ordinarily, no,” I agreed. “But this could be different. Suppose now, suppose this bookie got tired of waiting for his money. Suppose he thought he’d just knock off a heavy loser, and call it quits? If he did that, he might get to thinking about anybody who knew Brook-man was in to him for the dough. And that anybody could be you.”
“Nuts,” he said with a laugh. “Everybody in this town knows me. I never hollered copper in my life, and I ain’t about to start. I’m surprised at you, Preston, making up a yarn like that. And I’m not hiding from anybody. Pook and me, we’re having kind of a vacation.”
I looked at the girl for confirmation, and she nodded without smiling.
“A vacation?” I echoed. “With her working half the night?”
“She works nights, I work days mostly. If we was gonna get together one of us’d have to rest up.”
That made sense. Shiralee said.
“That’s right enough, mister. We tossed for it, and this bum won.”
McCann chuckled.
“And she can call me that. That’s what I am, living off a woman.”
“Don’t talk like
that,” she scolded. “We tossed for it, and I lost. It was the only fair thing to do.”
I held up a hand. The picture of happy domestic squabbling between this girl who danced the private circuit, and the bookies one-man persuasion squad was more than any stomach could take at that hour of the morning.
“Knock it off,” I begged. “What is this, an audition for a happy family series? What are you birds trying to sell me?”
McCann scowled.
“As for that, peeper, I ain’t about to sell you anything. And that includes information. So why don’t you button your trap and get outa here?”
“Ah,” I said, with satisfaction, “That’s better. That’s more like the old Legs. Now I know who I’m talking to.”
“You’ll know in a minute if you don’t get lost,” he assured me.
From the way he was moving around, easing off his muscles, I had no reason to think he was bluffing. But I didn’t get up. Instead I crossed my legs nonchalantly and leaned back.
“Stop using up all your wind,” I advised. “You ought to be grateful to me.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. If I wasn’t such an all-right guy, I might walk out of here and tell not only the cops where you are, but every bum in town. That way, whoever’s looking for you will know where to come.”
“Nobody’s looking for me,” he snarled, but it lacked conviction.
“Then you won’t mind if I do just that. Can’t hurt anybody.”
I began to get up. The girl started, and put a hand to her mouth.
“Mac——” she said urgently.
McCann stood in front of me bouncing his right fist inside the open left palm. My jaw began to twitch in anticipation. Then he snorted with exasperation and turned away. My jaw was grateful.
“What’s the use?” he said disgustedly. “So I belt him around, so what does it get me? I know I’m not going to knock him off. And so does he. Right, Preston?”
“I think so Legs. I never heard of you taking up that kind of work.”
“Nah.”
He held up his fists, gnarled and knotted, and turned them round for everybody to inspect.
“This is me. I don’t go for the rods and all that jewelry. I lean on somebody, all right. If he’s quick enough on his feet, maybe he gets a coupla pokes at me, too. That’s fair.”
The Blonde Wore Black Page 10