“One of the best. You know him long?”
“Long?” The little jockey scratched his stubble chin and reflected. “How long would you say, Linda?”
“Maybe three, four months?”
“That’s about it,” Champ agreed, creasing his face with a wise grin that brought more wrinkles out around his eyes. At his ease and with a liquor glass in his hand, he looked like a boy of twelve play-acting at being grown-up. “I guess I first met Sid about two months ago.”
Linda was edging close to me at the table, and in the conversational lag, Champ Crowley gave her a slow wink, and a small part of his wit.
“You don’t expect Sid any more tonight, Linda?” he asked.
“He could come.”
“But you don’t want him knocking at your door?”
“You’re my boy, Champ.” She blew him a kiss, gulped the dregs of her drink and squeezed my arm purposefully. “Champ don’t fall asleep until maybe the sun is coming up. He’s an A-Number One watch dog for me, once in a while, hah, Champ?”
I dawdled with my drink. What was happening here tickled my curiosity and glued me to my chair. This kind of talk could open the door to Sidney Wragge for me, laying bare the personal pattern of his life, the intimate, day-to-day revelations that could stack up well for me in the summing up. What he meant to Linda Spain interested me. She was laying into me and nuzzling her pretty face against mine. But the horseplay didn’t seem to disturb Champ at all. Had he seen it before? My mind struggled for a clear and well-imagined picture of the fat man in a situation like this. The zany tableau, the projection of Sidney Wragge into this room, into these circumstances, among these people, all these things combined to evoke laughter. He would be funny here, that was it. He would be a ponderous, elegant, dignified tub of lard, out slumming with his ten-cent lady love, visiting a bony midget. My memory of Champ Crowley included a headline story of a jockey who was involved in a fix. A long time ago. Ten years? Fifteen years? And after that, it came to me that Champ had gained some notoriety as a bookie, an upper-crust tout with a list of clients among the socially elite. And what did Sidney Wragge have to do with this intelligent midget? And how often did he come to wrestle with his amour, the Amazonian Linda Spain?
The conversational bout was stimulating her jittery restlessness, so that she gave me her liquored eyes, laying her message on the line. And through all of this, Champ Crowley only sat and slurped his drink, his eyes half closed, his mouth alive with a knowing smile, as though the routine was something he had seen before, over and over again. Linda stood up and tugged me to my feet and escorted me to the door.
CHAPTER 15
Linda Spain’s Apartment
2:43 A.M.—July 19th
Linda’s rooms were decorated in the harum-scarum pattern of showgirl existence, a combination of furniture styling and upholstered lavishness that betrayed her profession. The small living room was jam-packed with a variety of cheap stuff including a couch that was broad enough to accommodate a visiting ball club, complete with the manager and bat boy. It was a velvety monstrosity, dominating the room, with cushions out of some nightmare of a Turkish harem.
A huge chromo hung over the couch, a picture of bright and lavish nonsense that caught your eye and held it. It was a landscape, an original, done by a painter who should have limited his activities to brushwork on garages. It was bad. It was corn. But the sight of a work of art, however bad, seemed out of place in such a living room.
“You like my oil painting?” Linda asked, joining me as I squinted at it. “Pretty, isn’t it?”
“The best,” I said.
“Sidney gave it to me.”
“He’s got a great eye for art. I’ll bet a picture like this is worth a lot of loot.”
“You think so?” She eyed the chromo curiously, as though she had just seen it for the first time. “How much?”
“Hard to say. Where’d Sid get it?”
“An auction place up on Sixth Avenue. Sidney’s a sucker for those clip joints. I’ll bet he paid plenty for this thing. I’ll bet he paid maybe a couple of hundred.”
“At least,” I agreed. “I didn’t know Sid was an art lover.”
“Poo,” said Linda. She waltzed over to a small table and showed me a small Chinese incense burner, complete with grinning figurine and a square receptacle for the smoldering junk. It was a masterpiece of brass and filigreed carving, the sort of trinket the sucker tourists fall for on their trips to Chinatown. “Look at this. More junk from the auction dumps.”
She retired to her bedroom and I busied myself with the fresh bottle of bourbon. Her windows faced the rear of the house, overlooking a broad court now black with gloom. I pulled the drapes and squatted on the horrible conch, dosing myself with two large hookers of liquor. She came back wearing a robe of shining silk, pulled tight against the lines of her voluptuous figure. Her red hair was combed out and fell in graceful swoops over her shoulders, long and almost as colorful as her costume. She sat alongside me.
“I feel like a heel,” I said. “Sid wouldn’t like this. He’s out on a tough deal.”
“What tough deal could Sid be out on?”
“Monk Stang.”
“Who the hell is Monk Stang?”
She asked the question easily, frowning at it, her eyes half closed.
“You mean to say that Sid never mentioned Monk to you?” I asked.
“When Sid comes to see me, he doesn’t waste too much time gabbing.”
“Maybe I don’t blame him.”
“Stop talking, lover boy. Forget about Sid, hah?”
“You’re making it easy.”
“I’ll make it easier,” she said, and set about proving it. Her lips were warm and sweet. She treated me to a long taste of them. “You feel better now?”
“Feeling no pain, Linda. No wonder Sid talks about you so much.”
“He does? What does he say?”
“He’s nuts about you.”
She leaned away from me and studied me for a short interlude. She was drunk, but she was thoughtful. “What’s the idea of your big pitch for Sid?” she asked. “The way you talk, maybe you’re his brother, or something.”
“We’re good friends, that’s all.”
“You want to tell him something for me?” she asked. “Something special? Listen. Tell him to stop with the serious routine. I got other friends, you understand? In my business, a dame does funny things, crazy maybe, but that’s the way I like it. I see a guy like you and he does me a favor, why I want to pay off for him. I do what I like, and when I like it. But that don’t mean I have to marry the lug I’m wrestling, does it now?”
From somewhere in another county, a church bell bonged once, a brassy, hollowing ring that died slowly in the summer air over the city. Two-thirty? Three? How could I fiddle with time? She was near me, close enough so that her bodily fragrance became an overpowering command, a deep and penetrating summons to my animal instincts.
CHAPTER 16
Linda Spain’s Apartment
4:45 A.M.—July 19th
I slept with a jittery restlessness. In the blackness of the first deep pit of slumber, Linda left me. The studio couch sagged and lifted as she eased her weight away from me. After that, there was the vague and foggy tinkle of glass and running water from somewhere beyond her bedroom. Sleep won me, finally. But my mind still seemed to boil with disquiet filling my rest with nightmare images drawn from my hectic hours during the past day. Impulse told me to be up and away. I had neglected Izzy, failing to call him as I promised. He would be wondering about me. I dreamed of his trip to Rico Bruck and built a fantasy out of his interview with the skillful little gangster. What had happened? The little bells in my conscience rang a tune in my subconscious, stirring me, irritating me, biting at the strings of sleep that bound me to the couch in Linda Spain’s living room.
/> But Morpheus had stunned me. I was dead to the world, sunk deep into the cushion of fatigue, against which my will could not stir me. I rolled and pitched myself awake. I made the gateway to consciousness the hard way by slamming my head against the wooden arm of the couch, so that I arose in a hurry.
I was wide awake and sitting up. The room still seemed unreal and vague, like a part of the fogged and gossamer background of my recent dreams. But reality came to me quickly. There was gray light filtering through the courtyard window. My watch told me it was almost six. I had been dead to the world for over two hours.
Something stirred. Behind me? In the next room? I rubbed at my eyes and sat there, as wooden as a stiff in the morgue, feeling my spine go cold with the prickles of tension. There was a dull and padded sound from somewhere close by, a noise that was not a noise. A padded footfall? A body in motion? Linda? And was she awake and coming toward me through the door behind my back?
I shifted my weight and a fickle spring sang a whined tune beneath me from the bowels of the couch upholstery. And then I tried to turn, but it was too late.
Somebody hit me. It was a flat clap of pain, high behind my ear, a lightning crash that caught me off balance and brought strange music to my inner ear, an offbeat twang in a shrieking flood of noise, a vicious chord, complete with twisting bands of sharpening light. The hammers of hell banged in my brain. The stabbing pricks of a thousand needles lit at my head and I began to fall, to one side, off the couch and to the floor and through the rug into the black hole of sleep from which I had just come. I struggled against the blow, but my eyes were blinded, shut tight in the reflex spasm of dizziness that was carrying me away from the bastard who hit me.
Then I was out for good, as stiff and dead as a plucked duck.
The sun was a straight and narrow beam of light aimed at my eyes through the window on the court. It burned into me. I clawed up at it and rolled away from it, and in the process of shifting my body, the spark of life was revived in me and I came awake.
My head pounded and bounced. It took time to bring the room back into focus, long enough for the little band of sunlight to move a few inches away from me. I lay on my side and watched it travel, losing myself in the perspective of rug and desk, on the far wall.
“Linda!” I yapped, and rested after the feeble shout.
There was no answer from the bedroom. Was it Linda Spain who had slugged me? I shouted again, stronger this time. I pushed my body up and grabbed a chair and struggled to sit. I made it after the third try. The noises of the city came through to me, slowly. There was traffic moving outside in the busy street. From across the courtyard a cacophony of off-key music spread itself around me, somebody practicing the piano and doing a very bad job of it. The sound of dishes and pots and pans came through the wall across the room. My nose picked up the smell of bacon and coffee. My eyes rolled to the window again. The window was open.
I dragged myself up and let my muscles grab hold of my legs and keep me standing. I crossed the room and stood at the window, staring out at the fire escape and letting my brain oil itself into action again. Had somebody come in through this window while I slept? The window hadn’t been open when Linda and I were wrestling on the couch.
My head, above the right ear, was wet with blood. The touch of my tentative fingers on the wound set off a skittering rush of pain; enough to make me yell out. I looked at myself in the mirror. Whoever hit me had tried for the jackpot. The blood stained my cheek and neck. I stifled the impulse to upchuck. I got away from that mirror in a hurry and ran into Linda Spain’s bedroom.
In the dim light I saw her on the bed in an attitude of blissful slumber, her well-rounded body relaxed on the coverlet. She slept in a delightful pose, her arms outstretched as though welcoming her long lost love, her long and beautiful legs crossed. Her wealth of red hair swept down over her shoulders. She was as naked as a stag reel. I stepped forward to wake her.
And then my knees jellied. And I stared down at her and listened to my heart pump blood into my head, my eyes riveted on the right side of her tantalizing torso. Somebody had ruined forever the graceful lusciousness of the Amazon beauty. Somebody had stabbed her as she slept. Her chest was lacerated with gore, an ugly wound that dug at my eyes.
Linda Spain was dead.
I stepped away from her, weak and soft in the head now, overcome by the fresh surge of sickness that clawed at my gut. I ran for the bathroom.
I made it just in time.
CHAPTER 17
Izzy Rosen’s Apartment
7:56 A.M.—July 19th
“You feeling better?” Izzy asked. “Or do you want me to get a doctor?”
“I’ll survive,” I said, and adjusted the adhesive over my ear.
He was frying another pair of eggs for me in his kitchenette. The coffee was hot and good and I gulped it thirstily. It was only eight but Izzy had not slept well all night, holding the door open for my arrival. He was dozing in his easy chair when I walked in, but the sight of my bloody head had made him bounce with his accustomed vigor, tending my wound with the skill of a practised medico. He asked me no questions while mopping me up. He muttered an esoteric curse when it was time for the bandaging, light-fingering the tape in place with nimble hands.
Now he joined me at the table and waited for me to spill. I spilled for him.
“Crazier and crazier,” Izzy commented, after I had put a period to my personal account. “Your hunch must have been right, Mike. Sidney Wragge was a personality, a man with many enemies. One of them guessed the set up; one of them figured Linda Spain had the Folsom cluster.”
“The man who followed her?”
“Who else?”
“It doesn’t make sense, Izzy. I had a long talk with her. She didn’t seem to know anything about her fat boy friend. She also didn’t want any part of him.”
“That wouldn’t prevent fatso from letting her hold the gems for a while, would it?”
“He’d have to be a lunkhead to trust her. She might have been playing Sidney for the number one sucker on her list. But I can’t see him falling for her line of chatter. She was a lightweight mentally, with none of the subtleties a man like Wragge would demand in a dame. He hit me as being a pretty hep guy, complete with an Oxford-type accent straight out of a British movie. Why would a cosmopolite trust a two-bit shimmy queen?”
“Cosmopolite, shmosmopolite,” said Izzy. “Love is a kick in the slats, Mike.”
“Not for Sidney Wragge, it wouldn’t be,” I insisted. “He was too dignified for that kind of horseplay.”
Izzy leaned over and poked me in the ribs, slyly. “And you, Mister Smartboy? How about you? Didn’t you just admit she conned you into a session on the couch? If she was clever enough to sidetrack you from your business, she could have been just the gal to land a fat fish like Sidney Wragge. Nobody loves a fat man, remember? And when a big and lusty piece like Linda Spain makes a pass at a heavyweight, who’s to say he wouldn’t fall for her like a tub of lard? She could have talked him into believing he was the big flame in her life. She could have worked him around to going soft in the head, the way you describe her. For my money, it happened that way.”
“You think she had the Folsom stones?”
“Why not? Maybe Wragge hid them in her flat and told her to sit on them for a while.” Izzy warmed to his theory, abandoning his coffee while he outlined his brainstorm. “If he was going to double-cross Monk Stang, her apartment would be a good hiding place, no? He might have met her during the day yesterday, slipped her the gems and told her to stash them away. Now, just suppose that Frenchy Armetto happened to be on Wragge’s tail when the gems were passed. What would Frenchy do? You guessed it. He’d wait for her and follow her home after the show, wouldn’t he? He would be the man who watched her at the dogcart. He followed you when you escorted her home. He waited until he figured you were asleep. Then he ca
me in by way of the fire escape, knifed her, and returned to the living room to crack you. A deal like that would add up, Mike. The cops would find you conked and bleeding and assume that you and the girl had a lovers’ quarrel, after which you knifed her and returned to sleep off your drunk. Period.”
“Question mark,” I added. “A big question mark, Izzy. You’re basing your entire pitch on the fact that Sidney Wragge put his trust in Linda. I can’t buy it.”
“You got any better ideas?”
He had me there. It could have been the hammering in my head that had damned my mental flow. It could have been the empty anger that boiled my stomach and cut me away from any successful reasoning at this hour of the morning. I knew only that I was filling with a gnawing impatience, a restlessness that would wear me out soon.
Izzy understood my mood. He let me pace the floor, and I threw him a few questions about Rico Bruck and yesterday evening. He had made contact with Rico, finally, in his suite at the Waldorf. He had quizzed Bruck and Gilligan for a full hour, running over the account of their activities from the time their plane landed at LaGuardia. But they were shocked and puzzled to hear of the fat man’s murder. They had alibied themselves across the board. Gilligan and Bruck had visited a few clubs, because Rico intended to buy a new bistro in town and set up his first New York outfit.
“I checked their stories,” Izzy said. “It took time, but I reached all of their contacts. They visited three night clubs—one in Greenwich Village and two uptown. The club owners had set dates for Rico and backed him up. He and Gilligan were out shopping, all right.”
“They bought those alibis!” I yelped. “You don’t really go for their routine, Izzy?”
“I checked it, Mike.”
“Who were the club owners they visited?”
“Three crumbs, of course,” Izzy admitted sadly. “Three heels you could buy off for buttons, naturally. But also three characters who would stand up and scream for Rico because they’re all dirty, as dirty as Bruck. Still, what Rico says he’s got, he’s got. And how are you going to prove he maybe butchered the fat boy?”
You Can't Catch Me Page 8
