The Long Vendetta

by Clifton Adams

  “Did anybody see how the kidnapper got away with Miss Kelly?”

  The cop spread his hands helplessly. “I don't think so. Lieutenant Stanton and some other men are inside questioning the tenants, but I don't think so.”

  A big artery pounded in the lieutenant's neck. “From the beginning,” he said coldly. “A woman's been kidnapped, a cop killed, another one hurt. While all this was going on, I'd be curious to know what our police force was doing.”

  Calloway turned another shade whiter and looked sick.

  “Well,” he said uneasily, “to start with, the place went dark. I was up front here by the main entrance and Matt Forrester was standing watch in the hallway near the rear exit. There's another exit in the east wing, but we sealed that one up for tonight. Anyhow, like I say, the whole place goes black. One of Lieutenant Stanton's men found the place out back where the killer shorted the lead-in wires and blew the fuses, but of course we didn't know that then. I yelled at Matt and started back into the building, toward the Kelly girl's apartment, and that was when I heard the shot. The one that killed Forrester, I guess...”

  Calloway paused for comment, but Garnett said nothing. The cop moved his shoulders in a hint of a shrug. “This here hallway, the corridor that runs the length of the building, was like the inside of a tar barrel. I ran smack into the wall. All the tenants were yelling what's wrong with the lights, and some of them were blundering out into the hallway. I didn't dare do any shooting, even if I could have seen something to shoot at. About that time I struck a match and had myself a look at what was going on, and that's when I got it. I saw him for just a second— the fellow you had a picture of. Then he cracked me on the forehead. Knocked me out clean—must have been out almost fifteen minutes, according to Lieutenant Stanton.”

  Garnett said tonelessly, “I don't suppose you heard the shot that got Corporal Jansan?”

  Calloway shook his head. “That was after the killer hit me.”

  “You know it was the killer?”

  The cop blinked. “Who else?”

  Garnett's face turned an unpleasant shade of purple, but his voice didn't change. “You say Lieutenant Stanton is on the case? Where is Stanton now?”

  “In the Kelly girl's apartment. Him and the Doc and a couple of ambulance boys.”

  Garnett turned and I followed him into the building. The hallway near Jeanie's apartment was jammed with bug-eyed, pajama-clad tenants, but Garnett bulled through them. Lieutenant Ray Stanton, a gaunt, hungry-looking man of no particular age, waved us in and said to Garnett, “I thought you were on days.”

  “I've made this case a personal thing; I hope you don't mind.”

  “Why should I mind? I'm not bucking for anything.”

  Everybody stood back as the ambulance boys rolled Corporal Elizabeth Jansan out of the apartment. Her eyes were closed, her face was as pale as the sheets that covered her, and her blue lips were icy and lifeless. She looked dead to me, but the doctor said, “She'll be all right soon's we get that bullet out of her,” speaking to no one in particular. He followed the stretcher out of the room, and Lieutenant Stanton closed the door and sighed.

  “What a lousy mess. I don't like to think what the newspapers are going to say about this.”

  “Have your men turned up anything?” Garnett said.

  “Nothing to tell us what the killer did with the Kelly girl, if that's what you mean. You say this case is a pet of yours?”

  “Something like that.” He nodded in my direction. “This is Mr. Coyle; he and the Kelly girl are engaged to be married...” He glanced at me and added, “I think.”

  “Lousy break,” Stanton said. “But we've got this town corked tighter than French champagne. We'll get her back.”

  “Alive?” It must have been my voice, but it sounded like a crack in river ice.

  Stanton shot a glance at me, then at Garnett. He had me pegged. I was high explosive on a short fuse. “We're doing everything we can, Mr. Coyle.”

  “It's not enough.”

  He shrugged and sighed. Garnett said, brisk and businesslike, “That's enough, Coyle.”

  Stanton said quietly, “My men are turning this block upside down looking for something, anything, that might give us a lead. Some of those men haven't slept for almost twenty-four hours. They didn't have to come; they weren't drafted for the job.”

  He was right and I was being unreasonable, but that didn't change the fact that Jeanie was in the hands of the killer. I couldn't just stand there waiting. Stanton and Garnett looked at me thoughtfully. The killer didn't have their girl; they could afford to be objective.

  I turned to leave the apartment and Garnett said, “Where you headed, Coyle?”

  “I don't know.”

  As I was leaving the building, pushing my way through the gawking crowd, Sergeant Lavy came up behind me and said, “Can I take you somewhere, Mr. Coyle?”

  “I'll get a cab.”

  “No trouble. I've got a car right out front.”

  He slipped around me and opened the door of the police sedan. I said tightly, “I'd rather be by myself right now, if you don't mind.”

  He moved casually when I started to step around him, very efficiently blocking my way without appearing to. “Did Garnett send you?” I asked.

  He nodded. “You know how it is, Mr. Coyle. The lieutenant says keep an eye on you. It's my job.”

  “Don't you ever take some time off?”

  He smiled wearily. “Why don't you get in, Mr. Coyle? A free lift on the city, anywhere you want to go.”

  Arguing was a waste of time, and time was something I had too little of as it was. “All right,” I said. “Take me home.”

  Lavy made idle, soothing conversation as he drove, and I tried not to scream at him.

  He braked at the curb in front of my apartment building, and then, sighing: “You're not going to do anything foolish, are you, Mr. Coyle?”

  “Foolish?” I barely recognized my own voice. “Of course not, Sergeant. I'll just get myself a good night's sleep. We've got to be philosophical about these things. It's a well-known fact that there are more women than men in the world, so what's the big tragedy if just one girl dies tonight? Isn't that the way to look at it, Sergeant?”

  He hunched uncomfortably behind the wheel. “You know what I mean. Let the police handle this thing their own way.”

  There was a hot response on the tip of my tongue —then I remembered the near thing with Storch and swallowed the words. “... Good night, Lavy.”

  I got out of the car and climbed the dingy stairway to my apartment, and when I looked out of the window he was gone.

  I backtracked down the stairs, left the building by the rear exit and made for the M.G. The only thing I could think of was getting more information out of that skid-row boozer, even if I had to choke it out of him. If his memory was good enough to work with a police artist, then it was good enough for other things.

  Maybe it was Garnett's habit to pamper alcoholic bums like Milton Ainsworth, but I....

  The thought dangled, unfinished. The M.G. wouldn't start. I pulled the starter button and nothing happened. The battery turned the motor, but there was no fire; something was wrong with the ignition. I heard somebody cursing hoarsely, repeating the same four words over and over. The voice was mine.

  Somehow I knew what I was going to find when I raised the hood. The rotor on the custom dual-contact distributor was missing. There must be at least a thousand ways to put an automobile out of commission in a hurry, but for some reason it is always the rotor. This time, there was something added—a single sheet of paper, folded, tucked between the distributor and the engine block. The same cheap tablet paper.

  In the beam of the M.G.'s headlights, I read:Time is running out for Miss Kelly. If you want to see her before she dies, follow these instructions. Come to 318 Horner Street, identify yourself to a man named Ben. Come alone. Do not tell the police of this note and make certain that you are not followed. Failure to
comply with these instructions will result in the immediate death of Miss Kelly.

  I crumpled the paper in my hand and squeezed it so hard that my arm ached. The killer was playing with me, taunting me with my own ineptness, savoring every drop of misery that he could squeeze out of me.

  I had to do as he said—exactly as he said. I unclenched my fist, smoothed the paper in front of the headlights and read the note again.Failure to comply with these instructions will result....

  A big hand darted in over my shoulder and grabbed the paper.

  I wheeled, cursing, and swung wildly. Sergeant Frank Lavy took the right-handed punch on his cheek and fell back two steps. I piled in after him and he tried to hold me off with one hand. I butted him in the stomach. It was like ramming a concrete wall, but he fell back just the same, still trying to fend me off with one hand while holding the paper with the other.

  “Take it easy, Coyle! It's Lavy!”

  He had the paper—the key to keeping Jeanie alive. I would do anything to get that paper back; I think I would have killed him if he had given me the chance.

  “Coyle!”

  I took another wild swing, deliberately low. I heard him grunt as he faded away toward the rear of the M.G. I bored in again, but this time a rock-hard fist loomed in my face and exploded.

  “Coyle, stop it!”

  I hit him full in the mouth. I could feel his big front teeth grinding into my knuckles. It looked like he was going down and I kept after him. He landed a punch alongside my head that made my ears ring. I stumbled forward. Lavy cuffed me on the back of the neck and then cracked my chin with his knee when I started to fall.

  I fell heavily on my side and then rolled over with my face in the gravel alleyway. Panting, the sergeant knelt beside me and rolled me over. “Coyle, you all right?”

  “Give me that paper!” I screamed. “I'll kill you!”

  He took a patterned handkerchief from his chest pocket and dabbed at his bloody mouth. “Yeah,” he said dryly, “you'll live, I guess.”

  Slowly, he got to his feet, then stepped in front of the M.G. and read the note. He looked at me, read the note through a second time, then folded it and slipped it into his pocket. I dragged myself to my hands and knees, shook my head several times to clear it, and got shakily to my feet.

  “You just can't keep your nose out of my business, can you?” I snarled.

  “You're forgetting something,” he said mildly. “I'm a cop. When it comes to murder, that'smy business.”

  I leaned against the M.G. and looked at Lavy, hating him. “And you won't be satisfied, will you, until you and Garnett and all the rest of you get Jeanie Kelly killed!”

  He looked at me for what seemed a long time. “Mr. Coyle,” he said finally, in a voice as smooth as silk, “this may get me fired off the Force, but I'm going to tell you something. It is my personal opinion that you are a middle-aged spoiled brat. These things...” nodding at the M.G. “Souped-up kiddie cars. If you don't get your way, you hold your breath until your face turns blue, or knock your head on the floor, or call people dirty names. No matter what goes wrong, it's never your fault; it's always somebody else's. It is my opinion that you're long past due for somebody to knock some sense into that head of yours —unfortunately, I can't be the one because I'm a cop. But I'll tell you something: the police are not going to get Miss Kelly killed. If anybody gets her killed, it will be you.” The sergeant touched the paper in his pocket. “I suppose you meant to follow these instructions, just the way the killer wants.”

  “Yes. I've got no choice.”

  “How do you know how much choice you have? How often does a man in your line get to deal with extortioners and murderers?”

  I began to cool a little, but not much. “Maybe I don't get to meet killers every day of the week, but I know this one means business. Look at Koesler, and Roach, and Carson.”

  Lavy's eyes narrowed at the mention of his partner's name. “Sure, he means business, but those three deaths didn't really mean anything to a killer like this one. Detective Carson's death—that wasn't planned. Koesler and Roach died not because they were important in the killer's scheme of things, but because they were part of a chain of which you form the last link. You're the pay-off, Coyle. This madman has to squeeze fifteen years' worth of satisfaction out of your dying, and you can be sure that he's not planning anything quick and easy.”

  I wanted to yell, but the words came out a hoarse whisper. “Can't you understand! His plans for me don't count. I'm thinking of Jeanie.”

  “So am I. That's why I'm not letting you play into this maniac's hands. The minute he gets his hands on you, Miss Kelly is as good as dead.”

  Slowly, he was getting through to me. “How... can you be sure?”

  “There's no such thing as being sure, when it comes to dealing with nuts. But the experience of almost fifteen years as a cop tells me this is the way he's thinking.

  Deep in that cold void around my stomach I knew he was right. If he could possibly avoid it, the madman wouldn't harm Jeanie until he got me there to see it. An eye for an eye. He wanted to see me hurt in exactly the same way he had been hurt—that was the whole point and substance of his madness.

  “Well, Coyle?” Lavy asked.

  “Mabe you're right. But what if you're not? What if I fail to carry out his instructions to the letter and he kills Jeanie?”

  He shot me a gray, tired look. “On the other hand, what if I'm right? What if you do as he wants and he kills her a little at a time right in front of your eyes?”

  I sagged against the M.G.

  “You ready to try it my way, Coyle?”

  I nodded.

  Three eighteen Horner was an all-night cafeteria, a place with worn oilcloth on the tables and one-arm chairs against the walls. The air was steamy and sour with the smell of thin gravy and unwashed bodies. I skipped the steam table and picked up a cup of coffee at the end of the line.

  I asked the cashier, “Is Ben around?”

  He fixed an unblinking stare on my face. “Who wants to know?”

  “The name's Coyle.”

  A customer came through with liver and bacon. The cashier rang up the sale and fixed me again with the stare. “Ben know you?”

  “We never met, but he probably knows the name.”

  He shifted his stare and glanced over my shoulder, and somebody must have given him the nod. “The end chair,” he said. “By the cigarette machine.”

  Ben was a gaunt wolf of a man of no particular age, a cheap-Jack hustler exactly like a thousand others of his mark. “Coyle,” I said. “I think you have some information for me.”

  He glanced at me with pouchy eyes. “What kind of information?” he asked sleepily.

  “An address, I think.”

  “And how do I know you're who you say you are?”

  I showed him my driver's license and some other things from my wallet. He yawned. “All right, Coyle. The Cedars.”

  He started to get up from his chair, but I grabbed his arm and held him there.

  “What did the man look like?”

  His eyes went frosty, then blank. “What man is that, Mac?”

  “The one who gave you the money to wait for me.”

  “Mac, I don't know what you're talking about.” Even his voice had gone blank. “I don't know any man and I wasn't waiting for anybody.”

  “Listen to me, hustler,” I told him. “See that man up front, in the chair by the door? He's a cop. There are more cops outside, and none of them have had much sleep the past forty-eight hours, so they're not in the mood for stalling. The man who paid you is probably a murderer. How about it, Ben? Did he pay you enough to make you risk a rap for accessory?”

  The hustler's eyes were no longer sleepy. He glanced at the door and saw that I had spoken the truth about Lavy, and he began to worry.

  “Look, mister, I told you all there is. I can't tell you something I don't know, can I?”

  “All right, I guess I'll just h
ave to get the detective to take you down to headquarters.”

  I started to get up and this time he reached out and grabbedmy arm. “Just a minute. I don't want nothin' to do with murder. You on the level about that?”

  “Talk!”

  He spread his hands and rolled his eyes up in his head. “Cripes, I wasn't just puttin' you on, mister. I was down the street mindin' my own business, standin' in front of a pool hall, when this creep comes up to me and asks where's there a decent place to eat, so I tell him this place here, where we're at now...”

  “What time was that?”

  “Seven... eight hours ago. It was just gettin' dark.”

  “What did he look like?”

  “Like I said, a creep. A long horse face and a voice like the call to judgment. Funny-looking eyes. Anyhow, I told him to try the cafeteria. Maybe an hour later I drop in for a cup of Java and who do I run into but him, the creep again. That's when he hit me with this proposition—says it's worth a pair of twenties if I'll just sit here and give you the words, The Cedars, when you show up. He left and I haven't seen him since. Not that I mind. He paid me in advance.”

  That had a queer ring to it. “Just like that, he gave you forty dollars? How'd he know you wouldn't walk off the job?”

  The hustler started getting nervous all over again. “He just knew—I can't tell you how. He sat there looking me up and down with those funny eyes, and I knew he'd just as soon kill me as look at me. Maybe rather. Without saying a word, he let me know that my health would take a sudden turn for the worse if I didn't do like he said.”

  “That's all?”

  “So help me!”

  Lavy had faded out of the place while my back was turned, but I found him around the corner from the cafeteria, in an unmarked police car, talking to Garnett.

  “The Cedars,” I said. They looked at me blankly. “That was the message. 'The Cedars.' What does it mean?”

  Garnett said, “There's a roadhouse south of the city; a third-rate cocktail place, jukebox, dancing. I think there's a motel.”

  Lavy nodded. “That's the place. The Cedars.” He was already pulling away from the curb.