I barked into the phone for room service and ordered a pot of black coffee. I dressed quickly and sat at my small table near the window, rubbing a long thin piece of paper in my fingers. It was the grocery list I had found in Kay’s apartment. I stared at it, cursing it slowly and methodically.
“Speak to me, you stinker,” I said. “Talk a little.”
Nothing happened at all. Paper can’t talk. It was an ordinary adding machine slip from some ordinary delicatessen on an ordinary street in an ordinary neighborhood. But where? Who can measure the number of small eateries, small specialty shops, small food and dairy dumps, groceries, delicatessens and gourmet havens in a town as big as New York?
The cute little waitress cut me off from my line of thought when she brought the coffee. She didn’t wait for her usual pinch this morning. She took one look at my barbed-wire puss and ran. I didn’t blame her. Only big-time movie tough guys can get away with it—probably because the dolls who play opposite him get paid for letting him rub his stubble against their silken skin.
The hot coffee scalded and stirred me. Coffee acts like a hypodermic for me, racing my blood and gathering my nerves together and returning my head to a more normal pattern of thinking. I looked once again at the sales slip. It was the key to a big storeroom of information. It would tell me much about who Kay Randall entertained. It might even tell me the killer’s name, because of his fancy tastes in food. I took out a pencil and made a rough map of the area surrounding Kay’s apartment. Out of the picture in my mind’s eye, I recalled a good section devoted to shopping of one sort or another. It would take sweat and patience to track down the delicatessen where she bought the fancy eats. If she bought them in a delicatessen!
I took a cab and ordered into Kay’s neighborhood. Behind me, of course, Robley slid his fat pratt into another cab and sailed after me. I turned away from the near window. The hell with him. It would do him good to track me on this little task. It would just put him to the extra trouble of backtracking along my path and interviewing the many clerks and countermen I would see, to discover exactly what it was that I wanted from them.
I found four food stores around the corner from Kay’s place. None of them had the adding machine that produced the sales tag. The slip was printed on an IBM job, and I was familiar enough with the model to recognize it without asking questions. I play-acted at being a salesman for an adding machine company. It cut short my question and answer time in each store. I circled the area so that my meanderings included a radius of ten square blocks. I got nothing but exercise out of my explorations.
The little slip of white paper was turning grimy in my hands and I felt like flinging it down the nearest sewer. I stared at it and snorted at it. I sniffed at it and sneered at it. I rubbed it and folded it, groping for another avenue, feeling my way for a quick switch from the route I was traveling
And, finally, I got an idea. Kay Randall’s door man!
I ran back to the entrance and found him in the lobby, dressed in his Hungarian general’s costume and quietly eating a pickle and a salami sandwich under the phony shade of a potted palm in the lobby. He greeted me affably and offered me a seat beside him on the marble step leading to the fire door.
“Good appetite,” I said. “Mind if we chew the fat for a while?”
“Fat?” he asked. “What does this mean?”
“I’m from the police, General. Questions is what it means.”
He dropped his pickle and gawked at me in alarm. All of a sudden the big military man had turned cringing peasant. He put down his sandwich nervously. “Please,” he said. “I have already talked to the police. I know nothing at all.”
“Relax,” I told him gently. “I only want to know a little something about Miss Randall’s shopping habits.”
“Shopping?” he asked himself. “But what can I tell you about such a thing?”
“Where did she shop?”
“But how would I know this?”
“You never ran any errands for her?”
“I cannot,” he pleaded, his eyes watering with fright. “I am not allowed to leave the door, mister. Believe me.”
“Think, General, think. There must have been times when you maybe saw a delivery boy come to her place?”
“Two hundred tenants and I must remember such things?” His gentle old face clouded with anxiety, the open and obvious emotions a foreigner adds to his dialogue. The old boy must have been great back in Europe. He was worth a star spot in the Passion Play. His eyebrows rose and fell as though a fitful wind blew at them. He waved his hands hopelessly. “Please, mister, such a thing is impossible. So many tenants here, all they expect me to do for them is the opening of the door and the saying of a good morning.”
“And a good morning to you,” I said, and patted his knee and started away from him through the lobby. When I reached the street door, the general was flying after me. He came puffing and wheezing up to me and I waited for him to regain his breath.
“I have only right now remembered,” he began. “There was a small boy, every once in a while, a boy who brought her packages.”
“Groceries?”
“I am quite sure.”
“Yesterday?”
“Yesterday he came,” said the general. “He was here, this boy, on a bicycle that pulled a small wagon behind it.”
I put my arm around him and watched him beam. “Now you’re helping the police,” I told him. “You know this boy?”
“That I do not,” he said. “But the bicycle you can discover easily, I am sure. It was white, the whole affair painted white, including the small wagon it pulled.”
“No name on that wagon?”
“Of course, of course.” The old man sighed. “But without my glasses, you understand, I could not—”
I slipped him a bill and ran away from him, back to the shopping section. The clerk in the first delicatessen store looked at me as if I needed a straitjacket.
“You came in here before,” he said. “Listen, I got an adding machine. I’m happy with it—”
“I’m out of that line now,” I said. “I’m looking for a bicycle.”
He gave me the special smile reserved for lunatics and queers. “Sure, sure,” he nodded. “We’re having a special on bicycles tomorrow, brother, in the fruit department.”
I didn’t blame the guy. I said, “All I want to know is the name of the store that delivers in a white bicycle. Know of any?”
“Why didn’t you say so in the first place? That’s Barrett and Beam, over on Madison, in the Sixties. They use trick gimmicks like that white bike because they got fancy customers. I sell the same food they do, but people that pay their prices like to see their stuff riding in a white bike. Go figure it out.”
I went. I found Barrett and Beam between an antique shop and a cocktail lounge in an exclusive stretch of Madison Avenue. An old gent with a linen coat designed by some haberdasher who had lived during the time of Dickens eyed me with refined suspicion. I couldn’t blame him for the quick appraisal. In the small mirror behind him, I looked like the final loss of a lost week-end. My unpressed suit and fuzzed chin told him that I couldn’t be a member of his caviar and canapé brigade. The place smelled of rare spices and the shelves were lined with odd foods from all over the world. A glass-enclosed counter displayed a galaxy of good cheeses, bolognas and hams, neatly squatting in a special type of silver foil. The refrigerator was as trim and neat as a Tiffany jewel window.
The old boy sniffed at me over the counter. I slid the sales slip to him. He picked it up and held it away from his eyes as though it might be a test slide of the bubonic plague.
“You recognize that?” I asked.
“One of our sales slips, sir. What’s wrong? A clerical error?”
“Not quite,” I sighed. “For once, everything begins to add up.” I showed him my card. “I’m trying t
o track down one of your customers,” I said. “Somebody who shopped here yesterday some time.”
“A good customer,” the old man observed, admiring the total on the slip. “But rather hard for me to remember, unless you’re more explicit.”
“I’m going to try. She bought a box of King Edward cocktail biscuits, a can of Roussainville imported French turtle soup, and three jars of Caspian Sea Brand Russian caviar—black. There were other items, but the ones I’ve given you should stir up your memory.”
The old buzzard shook his head wearily. “I’m sorry, but I can’t help you, young man. We have so many customers—”
“Hold it,” I said. “We’ll hit an item you can remember. There must have been something she ordered that most of your other customers might consider rare.” I closed my eyes and reconstructed the bag of groceries, reliving the quick moment in Kay’s kitchen, restoring the contents of the bag on her table, complete…
“Snails!” I shouted. “Latouche Brand snails!”
“Ah! Better. Much better. I think I know the lady you refer to, a special customer for the last month or so, one of the few who seemed to like snails. They are a rare delicacy, and not many people, even the gourmets, seem to favor—”
“Her name,” I interrupted. “Remember her name?”
“But of course. Miss Randall.”
“She came in here alone?”
“Always alone.”
“Always? Are you sure? You don’t remember a man with her at any time?”
He shook his head stubbornly. “I have a good memory for my customers, young man. Miss Randall always came in alone.”
Dead end. I walked out of the place and skipped into a nearby bar and had myself a quick drink and a few moments’ reflection. I had come a long way since opening my eyes: down the alley for a ten strike in the department of search and squint. I had what I wanted—the name of the grocer who had sold Kay the eats, the fact that she bought the stuff from him regularly—everything I needed but the name of the faceless bastard who had eaten at her table. It irritated me to think that he was clever enough to bury himself behind the smoke screen of anonymity. He had deliberately stayed away from outside contact with Kay. He had arranged his affair with her so that he could never be tracked down. I hated him for his sleazy cleverness. I sat there staring into my drink, chain-smoking the rest of a deck of Chesterfields, closing my eyes to the present and dipping back into the broth of events that had led me into Kay Randall’s apartment. I relived the past, bit by bit, up to the moment when I had rung Kay’s bell and practically fallen into the arms of Jordice Gray.
Jordice Gray? Jordice Gray!
I hopped off the stool and over to the phone booth. She was listed in the directory, on a street down in the Village. I started to use the phone and then changed my mind. I wasn’t taking any chances on brush-offs. It was almost one in the afternoon but Jordice would still be sleeping soundly, in the erratic pattern of life all show-business workers must follow because of their late hours. She had reported for work at eleven last night. That meant she checked hats in a late club, the type of bistro that closed its doors after curfew. Yes, she would be asleep now.
I decided to wake her—in person.
CHAPTER 13
Jordice lived in the deep core of Greenwich Village, in a section peopled by those lower class Bohemians who couldn’t afford the barn-studios and glamor of the high rent districts. The streets in the neighborhood of Jordice’s flat were lined with pushcarts featuring an assortment of pickles, Italian cheeses and a thousand other smells and sights, mingled with a thousand voices and bodies, all of them pushing and shoving each other in a good-natured riot.
The cabby threaded his way among the peasants and dropped me in front of Jordice’s apartment. Apartment? The dreary four-storey building was painted a dirty blue, scabbed and seared by the weather. A three-step stone stoop led to an ancient glass door. Somebody had scrawled a dirty word in the small, square vestibule. Somebody else had answered the obscenity with one of his own.
I squinted for Jordice’s name on the mailboxes. She was in A-11—the last flat on the end of a long and narrow corridor to the rear of the dump. At the far wall of the hall a barred window looked into a dim and dismal court, a thin wedge of stale air between the surrounding walls of adjoining apartments. No light found its way here. Only the vagrant noises from the distant street echoed in this canyon of neglect. Behind an apartment door, a baby blubbered and wailed. A black cat slithered into the debris, yowling in muffled anguish to its mate. I stood outside Jordice’s door, aware of the same feeling of itchy horror that had clawed at me in Kay’s place last night. I lit a butt, intending to give the smoke a minute to kill the uneasiness in my gut. But it never had a chance. In the gloomy silence, I took a second look at the door to her flat.
It was ajar.
The cigarette dropped from my fingers in a reflex of surprise and curiosity. And at that moment, before the sparks were blotted out under my heel, something else froze me and held me staring bug-eyed. It was a scream, muffled and tortured. It was a shout of terror, a howl of fright. It came to me through her inner hall, out of the blackness beyond the door. It held everything a woman could put into a cry of mortal fear.
I pushed open the door and ran inside.
The scream came from far back, to the left and through a narrow and confusing hallway. There was no light. The shades were drawn. I stumbled into a small chair. The chair went flying ahead of me, through the next doorway and into the bedroom. The room lay in a pall of fogged light, not dark completely, despite the drawn black shades. A sliver of light slanted in from the court, just enough light to outline the shadow hovering over the bed.
The shadow was a woman.
She turned and saw me. She came at me fast, so fast that I almost missed seeing the knife in her hand. I ducked instinctively. She had the shiv set for a slashing rip at my face, but I sidestepped her. She went on past me, headed for the door. I lost my balance and went to my knees. When I finally righted myself she had gone—all but the clatter of her high heels, echoing through the narrow hall and moving fast toward the street.
I started after her, slipping and sliding along the corridor in my haste to cut her off before she could lose herself in the crowd out there.
But she was gone, of course. The sunlight played tricks with my eyes. The glare and glint blinded me, after that session in the gloom of Jordice’s place. I fell against the stone wall on the steps, I noticed a kid playing with a doll.
“That lady,” I said. “Did you see where she went?”
The little girl pointed a tired finger down the street and returned to her doll. Along the pavements, the push-carts formed a barrier of confusion. Too many people milled around, making too many noises.
I loped back to Jordice’s fiat. She lay unconscious on the bed, her flimsy nightgown ripped down the center. I pulled up the blinds and let the gray light fill the room. It wasn’t enough. I jerked them down again and turned on the lights. In the small kitchen there was a bottle of brandy. I filled a glass and drained half and brought the rest in for Jordice. She licked at it and moaned. I patted her face gently.
“You all right, baby?”
She opened her eyes. When she recognized me she began to sob again, burying her head in my shoulder and holding on tight. I gave her another gulp of the brandy and it seemed to do her some good. She quieted and just lay next to me, her cold hands gripping mine with a quiet desperation.
“What brought you here, Johnny?” she asked.
“I’m studying to be a hero,” I told her.
She grasped my hand and pulled it to her breast. “Feel my heart. If you hadn’t come when you did—”
“I’m always a cornball in the bedroom scenes,” I said.
The touch of her silken breast stirred me more than I cared to admit. I took my hand away and used it to light a
cigarette. I took a puff and gave her the rest. “How did it happen, Jordice? A jealous girl friend?”
“No jokes, please, Johnny.” She shivered and tossed the butt into an ash tray. “I got home late from the club and fell asleep. I’m a light sleeper. I saw her come in with that knife in her hands and then I screamed.”
“She didn’t talk?”
“Not a word.”
“Think,” I said. “Do you have any jealous lady friends?”
“I don’t encourage that type,” Jordice said.
“Tell me about last night. After you left me. All of it.”
“I went to the Six Palms, to work. I checked hats from eleven-thirty to about four. I had my usual sandwich and coffee and came home to bed.”
“All alone?”
She smiled for the first time. “Don’t be so modest, darling. I was with you for a couple of hours last night, remember? I didn’t need any more male companionship.”
“Fine and dandy. When you don’t go home alone, who do you go home with, baby?”
“That’s a nasty question.” She looked up at me, hurt. “Will you believe me if I tell you there’s nobody?”
“I’ll believe you. I’m only trying to help you, Jordice. And help myself.”
“Yourself?” She eyed me with a mixture of curiosity and befuddlement. “I don’t understand, Johnny.”
So I told her. “You go to bed too late to catch the morning papers, baby. So brace yourself for a shock. Kay Randall’s been murdered.”
She took it hard. She broke up again, a sighing, sobbing bundle of upset. I felt like a heel for spilling it that suddenly. But it was part of my general plan, my round-about scheme of action. I wanted to know for sure whether Jordice was tied in any way to the death of Kay. And now I had my answer. She was out, as cold as a plucked duck. I ran into the john and got some water and tried it on her face. It didn’t work. I unloaded the ice tray from her tiny refrigerator and massaged her with ice. The frigid treatment rallied her and she blinked her eyes open slowly. I gave her more brandy and waited for some sign of life to return to her ashen face.
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