The light clicked off up there. I lit a cigarette and waited, amused by the picture of Foley with Serena, the frantic wildcat. She must have made a date with the little crumb. He probably—
I was wrong, of course. Serena still remained unpredictable. She came out on Foley’s arm. She held it tight, her body close to his, her high heels clacking and tapping away as they passed me across the street. They were walking fast and talking faster, a low and distant mumble as they moved out ahead of me and crossed Lexington Avenue and headed toward the river. They were almost running, Serena’s stride matching Foley’s. I gave them an adequate lead and followed.
Foley led her to an elegant old house, painted ship’s gray, a redone brownstone that now glistened and glowed with upper-class sobriety. They went inside at once, and from the way Foley leaned over the door, he had a key to the place. I heard Serena laugh gently as they disappeared inside. Then I crossed the street quickly and approached the front entrance.
Some slick architect had converted this old mansion into a three-family apartment dwelling. I lit a match and examined the bell markers: Hiram Ashenden—George Dumarette—Mrs. I. B. Hockinson.
The middle name stopped me. Was this the George who had phoned Serena while she was making passes at me with her beautiful torso? George Dumarette … It was a familiar name, out of the long and varied list of familiar names every private investigator gets to know in his erratic career. It echoed in my recollection chamber. Then the echoes stopped and a bell started to ring.
George Dumarette. Yes, a notice had been released with this name on it, a few months back. The police, ever on the alert for a quick grab at an elusive character like Dumarette, had broadcast a lookout appeal to every private dick in town. George Dumarette was really Jim Mackinenny, who had other aliases like Spencer Manton, Larry Devoe, Harry Hakk and Will Trinton. As George Dumarette, this man had beaten the cops in every con game he chose to perpetrate. He was a master strategist, a terrific pitch man in the department of female suckerhood. Dumarette had never been caught at his work. He was a charmer, a crud who used his personality and his animal magnetism to mulct widows and overeager virgins out of their money. Dumarette could take what he wanted from the dolls because of his pretty face and his endearing manners. He had a tall frame, and according to the police pictures, his puss was a combination of Ezio Pinza and Cary Grant: not young, but potent enough to woo the babes with his love-making and his French accent. When his lady victims lay prone and panting, George stepped in for the kill. He mixed sex and illicit monkeyshines with virtuoso skill. He was sly and slimy and reputed to be deadly in close combat. And now he was having a personal visit from Serena and Foley.
They came out, Foley and Dumarette, about fifteen minutes later. Dumarette was easy to spot, a tall and rangy silhouette who moved with the ease and calm of a panther on the prowl in the jungle. He seemed to be listening to Foley, in a way that gave Foley a menial’s role in whatever business deal moved them down the street. I followed at a respectable distance.
At the next street, I was forced to make an immediate decision. Foley stopped at the corner and shook his friend’s hand. Then he moved quickly uptown and away. In the split second of his leave-taking, the big decision hit me in the head and made me sweat a bit. Which one to follow now? Sheer instinct made me choose Dumarette. I wanted to know more about him. He was a fresh lead who might take me anywhere or nowhere. I moved after Dumarette.
He walked like a grand duke, tapping his cane as he strolled, as casual as Beau Brummel in the Easter parade. We marched through the darkened streets, a cat behind a bold and swaggering mouse who might pause and pelt the pussy between the eyes. He turned west again and strode down the next street, a long line of ancient houses, asleep and dreaming of their past. glories. He hesitated before one of the better-looking buildings, and lit a cigarette and puffed it for a while. Then he opened the gate into the alley bordering the house and stepped inside as cockily as if he were the owner.
I followed him into the blackness. He must have known his way around in here, because I couldn’t see a foot ahead of me in the sudden ebony void. I reached out to my left and felt a wall. I stumbled down a few stairs and into a narrow concrete alley. Straight ahead a grayish wall rose up to challenge me.
And directly behind, someone made use of the opportunity to slap me down.
It was a heavy slap at my head, a crack that sent me reeling and rolling against the wall. The immediate parcel of sky above me began to drop on my head. My eyes quit registering and I found myself sinking fast, hurt now, because he was hitting me again. He hacked at my ear and the pain numbed me and froze me where I sat. My head bopped the wall again. I tried to yell for help. Nothing came out of my mouth. I was too far gone, bound for never-never land on a one-way ticket …
CHAPTER 11
I came back to earth slowly, dropping from a great height where I had been surrounded by a variety of nightmare figures, all of them black and headless. My brain rocked and reeled, keeping me inside that awful dream, yet registering a humming and a buzzing, a pounding and a thumping that couldn’t be denied. Then I heard a new, external grinding noise, remote at first, but coming closer and closer to my wakening ear. I kept my eyes shut and listened.
The stench of cigar smoke told me that a man was standing near me, talking over my head. He was behind me and I was lying in a white bed, in a white room, with a white-capped nurse somewhere off in the mists. I opened my eyes only a slit to see those things. I didn’t want the man with the cigar in his kisser to know I was awake. That external grinding noise had been McKegnie’s voice.
“How long will this ape be out?” He was asking the nurse the key question. “I can’t stand around here all night.”
“Almost any minute now,” the nurse said, from some distant corner of the room.
There was a knock on the door and I saw Robley walk in. He was mopping his round head and shaking same wearily.
“No dice,” he said. “One of the boys just phoned in, Chief. That Dumarette apartment is empty. The broad must have beat it.”
“Anybody in the place know her?”
“Nobody,” said Robley. “I put a man on her place—a fancy dressmaking dump in a brownstone. We’ll grab her if and when she heads for home.” There was a pause, then Robley came around the bed and stared down at me. “When is this character going to wake up?”
“Nobody knows but God.”
“Is he hurt bad?”
“Nothing serious. Slight concussion.”
“He would have been killed if I hadn’t followed him into that alley,” Robley said. “What he did was pretty dopey for a private eye.”
“He’s no dope,” McKegnie rasped grudgingly. “Sometimes I wonder about Amsterdam. Usually he thinks like a cop. And then again he does crazy things. He walked in and asked for a bump on the head. But that’s because he’s got a good bump of curiosity.”
“He’s sure curious,” Robley admitted. “He watched the Harper dame’s house until she came out with her boy friend. Then he tailed them like an expert. He must like to follow people. The way he went after the two guys who came out of the other place was a work of art. And later on, when he followed the tall guy, it was something to see. A real sweet job.”
“He’s clever,” McKegnie said, puffing a great cloud of stench my way, so that it lay over my head like a minor atomic burst. “He’s so clever he’s going to get his head caught in a wringer one of these days.”
He was killing me with the stink. I went through the motions of waking up.
“Watch,” McKegnie said. “His first words will be ‘Where am I?’”
“What did I have?” I asked. “A boy or a girl?”
McKegnie snickered. “This guy kills me. All kinds of jokes. A poor man’s Milton Berle.”
“Why not give Milton a cigarette?” I asked.
Robley stuck one between my
lips and lit it for me.
“Anything else you’d like from room service? We got the most obliging police force in the world.”
“Did you grab the guy who slugged me?”
“He got away,” Robley said sadly.
“A fine guard you are,” I said. “Better hire a couple of Boy Scouts to help him, McKegnie.”
“Who hit you, Amsterdam?” McKegnie asked, as sober as a cross-examining attorney. “Did you recognize the guy?”
“It was as dark as an eight ball in that alley.”
“But you have a pretty good idea who did it?”
“I’ve got nothing but a lump on my head.”
“It was Dumarette,” Robley put in. “Dumarette or the other guy. They came out of the house and separated. Dumarette led him into the alley, but the other guy might have reached the alley by another route—one block ahead and then doubling back to slam Amsterdam in the alley.”
“Clever, Robley,” I said.
“Who’s the other guy?” McKegnie leaned down and glowered at me.
“I wish I knew,” I said, rubbing my head and making sad and sorry faces over my hurt noggin. “If he hit me, he must be a big muscle man. I’ve never been hit this way before. It felt like a small building falling on me.”
“Who was he?” McKegnie asked again, frozen in the pose over my head. He was steaming up now, his voice tight and hard, fully aware that I was playing potsy with him. McKegnie didn’t like games. He was a one-track thinker—straight to the point, and no detours. He bit the cigar and wounded it badly, so that brown tobacco juice trickled down the edges of his thick lips. “You’re playing cute again, Amsterdam. You know who those two stumblebums were. You know one of them was George Dumarette. Spill it. I’ve been waiting to put my hooks in that stinker for years. You’d be doing the public a great service, Amsterdam. All you’ve got to remember is the fact that Dumarette slugged you.”
“Maybe I tripped and fell,” I said.
I didn’t want George Dumarette in jail. Not yet. I wanted him free and loose in the city, so that I could meet him again, personally, and ask him a few questions. If the police grabbed him, he would be held away from me for good. He would be booked on an assault rap and grilled to a turn by McKegnie, who was a master at sweating up an overpowering and stubborn silence in all his suspects. I wanted to be sure that George Dumarette slugged me. And right now, I couldn’t swear to it, it might have been Foley. The connection between Serena and Foley and Dumarette would be lost forever, if just one of the three fell into the hands of the cops. Free and loose in the city, they might lead me where I wanted to go—to the killer of Kay Randall.
“Jokes, jokes, jokes,” said McKegnie, pulling his jaw up and away from me. He clopped to the window and Robley followed him. The silence in the hospital room built itself into a pocket of tension. The nurse came over and handed me a glass of water and took my pulse and then went out. She had nice legs. I made a note to look at her face the next time I saw her. If her face was as nice as her legs, I might return for treatments. I laughed out loud at the idea and the sound made McKegnie turn and scowl. He was really mad now. He buzzed for a few more moments with Robley, then both came back to stand over me.
“I want to go home,” I said. “I’m bushed.”
“You’re not leaving yet,” McKegnie snarled. “We’ve got to talk some more. Tell me about that Serena Harper broad.”
“Terrific, McKegnie. You want all the details?”
“Where did you go with her?”
“We took a ride in the country.”
“What country?”
“France,” I said. “It’s beautiful this time of year.”
McKegnie didn’t laugh. His cheeks were coloring with the heat of his anger. “Either you talk sense, Amsterdam, or I may have to put you away.”
“Put me away. Maybe I’ll get some rest.”
“That Harper broad,” McKegnie continued. “She scratch you up that way?”
“You guessed it. Never force a virgin, McKegnie.”
“Where did you meet her?”
“I picked her up. If you don’t believe me, ask the lady.”
“We’ll ask her plenty, when we pick her up.” McKegnie threw me a look that would wither a cobra, then he turned it on Robley. “If we had more efficiency in the department,” McKegnie yelled, “that Harper dame would be in the dog house this minute.”
“I did my best,” Robley whimpered. “I couldn’t stay with her and follow Amsterdam at the same time, could I, Chief? As soon as I took care of Amsterdam I sent a man back to that apartment to grab her. But she was gone. What more could I do?”
McKegnie wasn’t listening. He was back at the window again, sucking the last few breaths from the cigar stub. He wheeled and came back, his mind made up.
“You can take this joker home, Robley.”
“Thanks,” I said. “I was beginning to think I’d be paying rent here. What’s with my head?”
“You’re discharged,” McKegnie said. “I prayed for a fracture or a hot concussion, but the doc says you have a head like a rock.”
“And you’ve got a heart like one, McKegnie. Keeping a poor sick patient up ’til all hours.”
I crawled out of the bed, testing my legs. Around the knees and in the thighs I felt like a man with no marrow in his bones. A tickling, itching rip of prickling pain shot through my bones and dizzied me as I fought for my bearings. Behind my right ear something thumped and banged like the last movement of a bolero. It took a quick breath or two to regain my balance and composure. They had slapped a small slice of adhesive over the egg that blossomed on my skull. I managed to make the mirror over the chest and stare at myself groggily until the three heads on my shoulder merged slowly and became one gray and bloodless face. By way of the mirror, I saw McKegnie and Robley watching me. I returned to the bed and got dressed slowly.
“Take him home, Robley. And see that you tuck him in safe and sound. We don’t want him getting hit again by that nasty, nasty Dumarette.”
He slammed out of the room without another word. Robley breathed easier after he was gone.
“Why don’t you help the chief?” he asked. “He’s burning, Amsterdam.”
“On him it looks good.”
“You could be digging your own grave.”
“Stuff it,” I said, on my feet again. “You coming with me, or do you want to play boy detective?”
“I’m taking you home,” Robley said. “Orders are orders.”
Robley escorted me to my hotel in a squad car, making no further efforts to be sociable. In a way I felt sorry for him. He was the perfect machine dick. He would follow a lead through hell and high water, always maintaining his unruffled calm. He would stand on a plant forever, watching and waiting and following orders, because he was built for that kind of job. He had a good logical brain, but not a creative brain. He could follow, but never lead. He came up to my room with me and I offered him a drink.
“Never touch it,” he said with a sad smile. “You all right now, Amsterdam?”
“I’ll live.”
“Then I’ll say good night.”
“Like hell you will. You’re going down into the street now and call a relief man, Robley. You’re going to put him on a plant across the street. Right or wrong?”
Robley said nothing. He just went. I climbed out of my clothes and poured myself a stiff shot to dull the stinging pain behind my ear. I smoked one cigarette and watched the clock tick off fifteen minutes. Then I got off my butt and went to the window and looked down across the street. Beyond the rim of light from the distant street lamp, a man stood in the semi-gloom. Another man approached and engaged him in conversation. I saw them both look up at my window. And then one of the men moved off into the void, slowly and with a great weariness.
Robley was going home for some sleep, b
ut his substitute was on duty. That sub would watch me all night.
I blew him a kiss and turned out the light and sank back on my pillow; I was asleep before I could inhale my next breath.
CHAPTER 12
My alarm jerked me into reality at eleven in the morning. The great hammering behind my ear had died but the surface sting still irritated me. The pain hit me as soon as my eyes opened, reminding me of my stupidity in the alley, and the mystery of George Dumarette and Hank Foley. The thought of them moved me out of bed. I eased over to the window.
Down below, in the same spot where I had seen his substitute last, Robley himself now stood on a plant, smoking a cigarette and pretending to read a newspaper. Once in a while he would lift his eyes to my window, idly, as innocent as a window shopper conning a display. The surge of midday traffic raced and roared down the busy street, occasionally hiding Robley from me. But when the traffic passed, the square little tail was still in the same spot. He would stand there until I came down. From then on he would stay behind me, plodding patiently, watching, waiting and recording my moves in his index file brain, to be relayed to McKegnie after the day’s chores, were done.
I shuffled into the john and squinted at my pan in the mirror. I looked like a Bowery bum after a hard night in the gutter. The wound under my matted hair felt like a billiard ball hitting the cushions of an old table. The bounce came at rhythmic intervals, not as bad as it was, but still pricking and stabbing me with an insistent fury that made me call it dirty names. The love scratches given me by Serena Harper now were thin and scabby traces of feminine frenzy. If I shaved, the bleeding would begin all over again. I didn’t shave. The face that stared back at me in the mirror belonged to another guy now, a character who was hopped up with anger and frustration. That face would never really smile again until I grabbed the crumb who had rubbed out Kay Randall.
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