by P. N. Elrod
Tonight’s repast finished the job of waking me up completely as my body and mind flooded with the joyous heat of it. I always felt stronger, more alert afterward, making the trek through the appalling surroundings worth the trip.
But once finished, I quit the Stockyards gladly enough and finished my drive to the office. Escott’s big Nash was the only car parked on the street at this hour. When the wind was blowing in the wrong direction no one working here lingered in the neighborhood if they could help it. Hell, even when the wind was blowing in the right direction everyone seemed to hoof it home fast. I hoofed it upstairs and let myself in.
God bless him, Escott was stretched out on the army cot he kept in the inner room for just such occasions. He wasn’t fully asleep, though, just dozing. I could tell the difference by his breathing and heartbeat. Still, I hated to interrupt even this small a rest. He sat up slowly and swung his feet to the floor.
“You look like hell,” I said amiably.
“No doubt, and you’re looking disagreeably rested and fit.”
I spread my hands, palms out. “What’s the scoop for tonight?”
He went to the washroom and splashed cold water on his face, then scrubbed dry with a clean towel. “A little break-in job on our blackmailing fellow. McCallen will be out for the evening, allowing you time to make a thorough inspection of his flat and hopefully find the envelope containing Miss Sommerfeld’s letters. When she called today she was somewhat less than pleased with my progress. I’m hoping your work tonight might improve her mood.”
I’d done this sort of operation before, and because of it Escott’s business had benefited to the point where he was considered to be something of a miracle worker. We were both well aware that it was completely illegal, but with me on the payroll the chances of our getting away clean were one hundred percent. On the one occasion when I had been surprised by a belligerent adversary, I not only hypnotized him into forgetting the whole thing, but persuaded him to turn over the item I’d been trying to find.
“When do we leave?”
“Now, if you’re ready,” he said, buttoning his vest and pulling on his coat.
“Fine with me, but I think you need some coffee.”
“That might not be amiss, but I’d rather not squander the opportunity while we have it.” He put on his hat and topcoat, locked the joint, and I followed him down to his Nash.
A special body shop had done a remarkable job at repairing the pockmarks left by a machine-gun strafing. The insides, protected by thick steel and bulletproof glass, were untouched, as was the motor, which started up smooth as a purring cat. Escott had bought it used from an old friend of his, Shoe Coldfield, who was now the head of one of the larger mobs in Chicago’s Bronze Belt. The two of them had been in the same acting company in Canada years ago before drifting apart to end up on opposite sides of the law. How that happened I still wasn’t sure, but I was glad of Coldfield’s shady profession. Because of it, the protective refinements he’d added to his former property had once saved Escott’s life.
Escott drove without hurry, but without wasting time or saying much. He still looked tired, and I wondered whether all of it had to do with the bout of insomnia or if it was boredom with the case. While Miss Sommerfeld was a more than generous employer, the job was not the sort to seriously challenge the resources of the agency—i.e., Escott himself. He craved mental stimulation and had a near addiction to physical danger, both of which were absent this time around. The closest threat we’d had was the scuffle with McCallen in the café—kid’s stuff. Not that I minded having things this quiet. Maybe it contributed to Escott’s insomnia, but at least he wasn’t in danger of getting himself killed.
“How’d the day go?” I asked.
“The same as the previous one, but singularly lacking in new clients. I turned down yet another divorce case.”
“You could get rich on those.”
“Too sordid for my taste, old man. I think it would be better for society in general to do away with the whole business of marriage altogether. It would make things much simpler for the concerned parties to divest themselves of each other without going through all that expensive hoop jumping to obtain grounds for divorce.”
“There’d be hell to pay in other areas then.”
“Yes, but the law courts would be freed up to try true criminal cases, and armies of lawyers would have to find some other type of work.”
Just what the country needed—unemployed lawyers standing in the breadlines. “Well, maybe what they do in Reno will spread to the rest of the country.”
“All unnecessary if a couple doesn’t marry in the first place.”
“It might be tough for their kids, though.”
“Not if society accepts them as being no different from any other children.”
I’d heard his opinion on the issue of marriage before. Some of it made sense, and some didn’t. It mostly boiled down to the certainty that Escott wasn’t going to commit that particular social crime if he could help himself. He touched on a few related subjects during the drive, and I gladly listened. It seemed to cheer him up to have someone around.
Jason McCallen lived near the University of Chicago, in a stuffy, tree-shaded neighborhood. The buildings ran mostly to two-story jobs, brick, and bunched close against one another. They looked cheap, but fairly comfortable. The fronts had a postage-stamp patch of dead grass and steps that went straight up to the doors, no porches. A narrow alley walkway led around to the backyards and most of those were blocked off by wrought-iron fences. The house we wanted was dark.
“Where’s McCallen tonight?” I asked.
“He’s a regular at a bar one block from here and spends several evenings a week there with his cronies. Miss Sommerfeld used to go with him and told me of his routine. He should stay until about half-past ten, walk home, go to bed, then drive to work at seven. That’s his car over there.” He nodded to a four-year-old black Ford parked across and down from us.
“What’s he do?”
“He still works at the plant.”
That surprised me. “I thought her family didn’t like him.”
“They didn’t like the idea of their daughter associating with him, but he’s good at his job, so they kept him on.”
“That’s pretty fair-minded. Ever think he might have something on her folks as well?”
“It’s a possibility, but if so, then it’s only enough to keep him at his present post, but not sufficient to promote him.”
I got a flashlight from the glove compartment, went invisible, and floated across the street toward the house gate. I materialized long enough to get my bearings, then went up the steps and sieved through the cracks around the door. Good thing for me and for Escott’s business that I didn’t have to bother about getting an invitation before crossing any new threshold.
Once inside, I went completely solid and took a moment to listen on the off chance that Escott’s information was less than perfect, but all was quiet. The shades were down, so my bobbing flashlight beam would be less likely to be seen by curious neighbors. I could have searched just as well without the flash, but I wanted to be thorough.
It helped that the house wasn’t large, McCallen had few furnishings, and kept them basically tidy. Most of the stuff looked like it had come piecemeal from a secondhand store. Nothing matched, but it seemed to be of good quality. He bought what he needed and no more. A big chair with a floor lamp looming over it appeared to be his favorite roost downstairs. Within easy reach of it was a table with a radio. Scattered on the floor around was a stack of newspapers, another of magazines, and another of books. He had lots of those lodged in a number of bookshelves. I didn’t bother getting nosy about titles; I was here to find the envelope, not a handle on his character. I flipped through the papers and magazines and turned out any books large enough to hide an envelope, then flipped the chair over and checked there. Everything went back the way I found it, and I moved on to other areas.
&
nbsp; In ten minutes I’d given the downstairs a good once-over, hitting all the obvious places. Nothing jumped out at me, though I did startle a cat and vice versa. The thing hissed at me and shot upstairs, and if my heart had been working it would have given out just then. I eventually followed the cat, thinking that if McCallen had hidden the goods anywhere, it would be in his bedroom. I spent half an hour there, going through the bureau, the closet, every shelf, every cranny, under the bed, behind the bed, under the mattress. At the risk of getting caught I turned on the light for a second to see if he might have tossed the goods up into the suspended overhead globe, but it was empty.
That left the rest of the place to cover, and I was starting to get frustrated and was wishing that Escott was along. Maybe he couldn’t disappear at the drop of a bullet, but an extra pair of hands and eyes would have helped speed things. I checked the undersides of furniture and drawers to see if McCallen had taped anything there and did a fine-tooth comb routine around a desk. It was stuffed with all kinds of papers, mostly handwritten, but not the ones I wanted.
Once finished with that, I hit the ground floor again, getting more detailed. I even checked the sleeves to his phonograph records to see if all they held was music. They did.
The basement was next. This time I turned on the lights. It was dank and cool except near the furnace, with lots of crannies and dust, which proved helpful. Where it was thick and undisturbed I didn’t have to look so closely. To judge by the footprints, he hadn’t been down here in a while anyway. I went back up.
Two hours gone. I was nearly out of time and nothing to show for it. My guess was that McCallen had taken the stuff with him or hidden it in some other location, possibly even at his workplace. I’d looked at the tops of the bookshelves and under the rugs. The cat got over his fear of me and came out. While checking the icebox I found a plate of cooked fish and gave him a sliver or two. In a transport of feline affection he kept trying to turn figure eights around my ankles, meowing for more. A nuisance, but he gave me an idea, and I went up to the bathroom, where McCallen had a long flat aluminum pan full of sand for his pet. The envelope had been slipped exactly under it.
Feeling pretty cocky, I gave the cat another sliver of fish and quit the place a few seconds later. Materializing across the street in a dense patch of tree shadow, I walked up to the car where Escott patiently waited. I half expected him to be asleep, but he had his eyes open, keeping himself occupied by puffing on his pipe. He perked up when I waved the envelope at him. I opened the passenger door, letting out a cloud of tobacco smoke, and boosted inside.
“Excellent!” he said, looking pleased. “Are you sure it’s the right one?”
“I took a gander and found a lot of stuff in a woman’s writing. Didn’t bother to read it.”
He accepted the flashlight from me and looked for himself. “That’s her hand all right.” I told him where it had been stashed and he chuckled and congratulated me on the fit of genius.
“McCallen’s gonna be madder’n hell when he finds out,” I said.
“I’ve no doubt of that, but he won’t be able to accuse Miss Sommerfeld of robbery without incriminating himself. If he becomes a nuisance, then your talent for persuasion might be necessary.”
“Sure, just hope that he’s sober.” My hypnosis didn’t work so well on drunks. “What now?”
“A swift delivery to our client and that should conclude things for us—if you have the time for it?”
“Yeah, sure. I always wanted to see how a cracker heiress lives.” The evening was still young for me. Plenty of time before Bobbi’s last show. If there was no party afterward, I could take her to some all-night place for food, and then back to her flat for a little drink if she was in the mood.
Escott put the Nash in gear and drove a few miles west. Miss Sommerfeld lived in what the fancier estate agents might call a honeymooners’ cottage. It wasn’t big, but had plenty of frills, standing on its own lot surrounded by a prissy-looking picket fence that wouldn’t keep out a determined Mexican hairless. The shutters, which were for decoration only, were painted pink and had little heart shapes cut into them. The window set in the front door was also heart-shaped. I’d seen something like it in a cartoon. The architect must have tied one on during Valentine’s Day and this was what he’d designed during the hangover.
She had a lace curtain covering the window and twitched it aside after Escott’s knock. Her eyes went wide as soon as she saw us, and she instantly unlocked the door and welcomed us in.
“Good news for you, Miss Sommerfeld,” said Escott, handing her the envelope with a little bow that only English guys can get away with and not look awkward.
She went nuts in a happy kind of way for a few minutes, squealing, hopping, dancing around, and breathlessly thanking him half a dozen times. When she calmed down enough to remember herself, she invited us into her living room and offered to make coffee. Escott accepted, and while she went to the kitchen to fix things, he dropped onto her couch and allowed himself to deflate a bit. I felt tired just looking at him.
Her place wasn’t as fussily decorated as one might expect from its Swiss-chalet exterior. She had a few quality antiques mixed with quality modern, and the abstract paintings were expensive originals. When she came back with a tray of coffee and cookies, I asked if one of the paintings was by Evan Robley.
She was surprised and pleased. “Why, yes. You’re familiar with his work?”
“I met him a few times before last Christmas. He’s a nice guy.”
“You met him! How interesting!” She launched into the source of the painting, some gallery I never heard of, and how she’d fallen in love with the colors and lines sprawling over the big canvas. “I can’t tell you why I like it, but I just do. It is beautiful, isn’t it? Quite my favorite.”
I agreed with her and stood about ten feet away from the thing. As I’d thought, this was one of Evan’s specialty works. From any other angle, from any other distance, it was an abstract, but if you looked at it just right and focused hard, the hidden image he painted into the thing would reveal itself. Or in this case himself. Evan favored doing highly disguised self-portraits of his favorite piece of his own anatomy. Escott raised one eyebrow, apparently recalling what I’d once told him about Evan’s art, but I kept my mouth shut. Miss Sommerfeld’s sensibilities were safe with me.
Escott accepted a cup of black straight and did not provide her with details on how we recovered her papers. “The method is not as important as the fact that they are now in your possession. Mr. McCallen will likely be furious when he discovers what’s happened, so I hope you will take any necessary precautions to protect yourself.”
“But he wouldn’t hurt me . . . or do you think—”
“It has been my experience that when one has prepared a defense against the darker side of human nature, one never suffers regret when it attempts a mischief.”
“Yes, I suppose he might try getting back at me.”
“Are you armed?”
She blinked, slightly shocked. “I’ve got a .22 in the nightstand, but I don’t think I’ll need it against him. He’s a lot of brag and bluster, but he would never hurt me.”
“Famous last words,” I said.
Her mouth sagged open.
Escott looked her hard in the eye. “Forgive my partner’s bluntness, Miss Sommerfeld, but you should take what he says to heart. I would prefer you to be safe rather than sorry.”
Some of the color went out of her and she stammered out a thin thank-you for his concern. After that it was a question of her signing a last receipt, and then we left. Escott made sure she had one of his cards with the home, office, and his answering-service numbers on it.
“Call us if you feel uneasy about anything, and call the police instantly at the least sign of trouble,” he said.
She promised to do so and firmly locked her door behind us.
“Think she bought it?” I asked as we settled into the car again.
“
One may hope so.”
“Are you really worried about her?”
“A little. She’s all by herself.” Escott had a streak of white knight in him. “Although my contact with McCallen has been brief, I would judge him to be too intelligent to make further trouble, but . . . ”
“He could be Einstein and still fly off the handle and do something crazy,” I concluded.
“Unfortunately, yes. I’ll phone her tomorrow to make sure she’s all right.”
“Be careful. With all that attention she might dump that prince of hers for you.”
“If you insist on being absurd, I shan’t stop you.”
“What about me discouraging McCallen?”
“Only if he becomes a nuisance.”
“If I get to him first then he won’t be.”
“I’m willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.”
“Famous last words,” I repeated cheerfully.
Once we were back at the office, he counted out fifty dollars in bills and handed them to me.
I grimaced. “You know I don’t need this.”
“Of course you don’t need it, but you have earned it. You did all the work tonight, and are more than entitled to your share of the payment. Take it so my books will balance.”
I took it. “You heading home?”
“After a stop or two.”
“Make sure one of ’em’s an eatery. McCallen’s cat is better fed than you.”
He gave an amused snort and promised to see to his nutritional requirements before too much time passed. I wanted to tell him to get some sleep if he could, but bit it off. He could look after himself. Most of the time.
In my own car again, I drove a few blocks to a telegram office and bought a twenty-five-dollar money wire, arranging to have it delivered to my folks in Cincinnati Monday. The profits from the hardware business had dropped after the Wall Street crash, and Dad needed the help. My brothers and sisters had their own families and worries and couldn’t spare much themselves; I was the happy exception and sent something every month. I had to be careful, though. If I sent too much too often, Mom would demand to know where it all was coming from, and I never did learn how to lie to her, not face-to-face. It was easier in a letter or over the phone.