Bruno Fischer

by J. Max Gilbert

  “He might have recovered consciousness on the way. I couldn’t be bothered with him. I wanted to get home as fast as I could to make sure Esther was all right. For all I knew, Vital had gone into the house after all to get the key from her as soon as I was out of the way.”

  “You said he was a gentleman. He wouldn’t get tough with a woman.”

  “Why should I have believed that about him?”

  “You might have picked up a cop on the way.”

  “I didn’t pass any.”

  There was silence. Woodfinch’s pipe bubbled. He frowned at it, then took a pipe cleaner out of his desk and worked on the stem. The lack of words got under my skin. That was probably the idea.

  I said: “Have you found out who Larry is?”

  “No.” Woodfinch pulled the cleaner through the pipe stem. “If there is such a person.”

  “My God!” I said. “He was in my garage, he took me for a ride. I knocked him out, I dumped him on McDonald Avenue.”

  “He wasn’t on McDonald Avenue when I sent a squad car.”

  “That was almost an hour later. By that time he’d recovered and gone away.”

  Woodfinch pushed his pipe together and unfolded his pouch. He was taking it very slowly. A war of nerves. “Nobody saw this man Larry. Not even your' wife.”

  “What about Gillette?” I said. “He was driving his car into his driveway when we came out to the street.”

  “He says he didn’t see you.”

  “What about Larry’s fingerprints on the gun and the car?” I said desperately. “A man like that must have a police record.”

  Woodfinch looked at Scavuzzo, and Scavuzzo said: “You find fingerprints in detective stories. In all my life I’ve seen only two usable prints on a handgun, and one was a fluke. Then the car. The outside was wiped that day. Lots of people put their fingers on door handles and door frames and the wheel. Too many people. The only prints brought up were smudges. Trouble is people don’t put their prints on a clean surface and then keep everybody else from messing them up.”

  “But guns can be identified,” I persisted.

  Scavuzzo shrugged. “The war scattered lots of Colt 45’s alt over the country. Maybe we’ll trace this one and maybe we won’t.”

  “But where would I have got the gun if not from Larry?”

  “Vital had no rod. Could be that was his.”

  I kept trying. “Didn’t Larry go with Vital to see Howard Pine?”

  Lieutenant Woodfinch had a light that satisfied him. He answered that one. “Pine says only Vital visited him. Only Vital visited the hospital and asked about the bag. Only Vital spoke to Patrolman Craw who drove Teacher to the hospital with your wife, and he learned from Craw that the bag was probably still in the car. Larry is just somebody you told us about.”

  “And I suppose the same goes for the man with the crooked nose?” I said angrily.

  “Well, he at least was seen by Mr. Redfern,” Woodfinch conceded. “But we don’t know who he is except that he had asked Mr. Redfern how long you’d worked for him and didn’t leave his name. We’ve only your word that he was watching your house and later followed you and Larry.”

  “Gillette saw him outside my house.” “Gillette remembers that you spoke to a man, but he says he paid no attention to him and has no idea what he looked like.” '

  “What about the man who phoned me about the bag and said he was Teacher’s brother?”

  “Once again — we have only your word to go on, Mr. Breen. Sorry.” “That’s no surprise,” I said. “But I spoke to .whoever that man was and my wife spoke to him too. Isn’t she a witness? And look — he must also have made inquiries about the bag before he knew it was in my car.”

  Woodfinch started a nod and cut it in half. “There were two inquiries. Vital spoke to Patrolman Claw in person. Shortly after that a phone call came to the desk about the bag and Claw was put on the wire- Guess he was the guy who. phoned you because he also said he was Teacher’s brother. Claw saw no reason not to believe him and told him where he thought the bag was.”

  “What’s the matter with you police?” I said. “That bag was police business when Teacher died. Claw should have gone to my house for it as soon as he realized it had been left in the car.”

  “We all make mistakes,” Woodfinch said in the tone of a cop placating an irate citizen. “Claw couldn’t know the bag was valuable or important.”

  “Anyway, you can’t say I dreamed up the man who said he was Teacher’s brother. He was after that bag. He went straight to the garage and found Vital there and killed him and left with the bag”

  “Is that your idea?”

  “It stands to reason. I can’t prove it. That’s your job.” I turned to Scavuzzo. “Were there fingerprints on the tire iron?”

  “Brother,” Scavuzzo said, the cigar bobbing in his mouth, “these days killers know too much about prints to leave ’em around. Even when they’ve had no previous experience. That tire iron was wiped clean except for the bloody part. All it shows is that you could’ve wiped it off. Say, another one of your red herrings.”

  “So that’s it?” I said to Lieutenant Woodfinch. “That’s the way you’re going to play it?”

  He didn’t appear to have heard me. He stood up and put his hat on without saying anything to me.

  “Does that mean you’re finished with me?” I asked.

  The corners of his mouth lifted in what was possibly a smile, but the rest of his face remained static. “No, Mr. Breen, I’m not finished with you. Stay here till I come back.”

  “Have you the legal right to hold me?” I demanded.

  “No, Mr. Breen, I have not, but I can get it if you make me. I’m not holding you.” He knocked out his pipe and headed toward the door. The stenographer closed his notebook and followed, and so did Scavuzzo.

  “Lieutenant,” -I said. All three men turned. “Last night I told you that Larry mentioned somebody named Tilly. Is that a clue?”

  Woodfinch looked vaguely annoyed. “There are thousands of women named Tilly, or it might be a Mr. Tilly.”

  “There was an address that went with it. Bad-something. I can’t remember exactly. I think I told you Badley Place. Tilly on Badley Place. That ought to narrow it down.”

  Lieutenant Woodfinch shrugged. “Except that there is no Badley Place in Brooklyn or anywhere in New York.”

  So that was that. Everything that might have helped came smack up against a dead end. I crushed out my cigarette in Woodfinch’s ashtray piled high with pipe ashes and burned matches. I heard the door close and they were gone.

  I wasn’t left alone for more than a couple of minutes. Scavuzzo returned unpeeling the wrapper of a fresh cigar. This time he placed a chair behind his desk and sat in it tilted back precariously and blew smoke at the ceiling.

  It was four-ten on my wristwatch. I went to one of the windows and looked down at back yards through a screen of clotheslines. I could feel Scavuzzo’s eyes on my back.

  “Is Lieutenant Woodfinch going to search my house for the bag?”

  “If he wants to. He’s got a warrant in his pocket.”

  “Why doesn’t he want me around when he searches the house?” Scavuzzo grinned and blew smoke at the ceiling.

  I smoked four cigarettes, lighting one from the stub of the other. Then I said: “Have you any idea what was in the bag?”

  “We’re waiting for you to tell us.”

  “It was heavy,” I said. “Something like large stones inside. Maybe jewelry.”

  “Sure. Say fifty pounds of uncut diamonds. Say a couple of thousand carats each so they’d rattle like large stones.”

  “How about gold bullion?”

  “Where’d they get it? Rob Fort Knox?”

  “It wasn’t money,” I said. “But something valuable enough to kill a man for.”

  “Now you’re kidding, Mr. Breen.” He grinned again.

  Conversation didn’t get anywhere. I went to the window again and looked at back ya
rds and smoked cigarettes until my pack was empty.

  At a few minutes after five the phone on Scavuzzo’s desk rang. He grunted into it, hung up, told me I could go home.

  CHAPTER SIX

  The offices of the Homicide Squad were on the second floor of the police station. Scavuzzo accompanied me to the head of the stairs. “Stick around where we can get you when we want you.”

  “You know,where I live,” I said.

  “Well, don’t leave town.”

  “Why should I?”

  Scavuzzo grinned and said, “Be seeing you,” and went back up the hall. I descended the stairs.

  In the lobby a young woman stood with .one arm on the high desk. The desk sergeant, a bald, chubby man, was simpering at her, and she was laughing in a husky, pleasant voice. Whatever wit was passing between them was ended by my appearance. The sergeant said in a stage whisper: “There’s Breen.”

  She turned. She was tall and broad shouldered and wore a wide-belted blue coat which did not quite reach her knees. “So long, Sarg,” she said with a smile that took thirty years off his age.

  I waited for her to come over to me. She had a forthright mannish walk. “I’m Molly Crane of the Courier-Express,” she said.

  “I’ve nothing to say,” I muttered and headed for the door.

  Molly Crane fell into step beside me, not having to hurry like other women who tried to keep up with my stride. We went through the swinging doors together, each of us through a door, and then down the steps like the leaders of a platoon marching in double file. It was comic in a way, especially as she said nothing during the march, and there was nothing I wanted to say to any reporter.

  When we were on the sidewalk, she tucked her hand intimately through my arm. “What we need, Adam, is a drink.”

  “You’re wasting you sex-appeal on me. Not that you haven’t plenty, but I’m not in the mood for it. I’ve done enough talking for one day.” “The cops must have given you a pretty bad time, Adam.”

  “Mr. Breen to you,” I said. “I’m going to be as formal as hell if that will help get rid of you.”

  Molly Crane hung onto my arm and smiled. That smile was calculated to melt stone. It didn’t make me simper the way it had the desk sergeant, but you couldn’t get tough with it. Besides, I could use a drink after that session with Lieutenant Woodfinch, and I could think of worse drinking companions.

  “Okay,” I submitted.

  With her hand still through my arm, we walked up the street. She wore no hat. A wide blue ribbon was tied over her hair which was the color of store-bought honey. It fell loose and wavy to within an inch of her shoulders. Her shoes were low-heeled. They helped her mannish stride and cut her down nearer to the size of ordinary women, though even so her shoulders weren’t more than four inches below mine.

  Around the corner there was a beer joint. A couple of men were drinking beer at the farther end of the bar and listening to the Dodger-Giant game on the radio. It was at the end of the eighth with the Giants ahead 9-3, but the two men and the bartender were tense with hope because we had two men on base with one out.

  I ordered a bourbon highball and Molly Crane a sidecar. The bartender mixed the drinks with a head cocked to the radio.

  “Look,” I said to her. “It’s not much of a murder. No glamor. Nobody important is the victim or the killer. The Brooklyn papers aren’t giving it much space and the New York papers only a couple of lines or nothing. Why should the New York papers send you over here for a story they’re not interested in?”

  “I wasn’t sent. This is my own idea. I’m a feature writer, and the city editor lets me dig up my own stuff. You know, human interest.”

  “Molly Crane,” I said, thinking about the name. “I read the Courier-Express. I don’t remember your name.”

  “I almost never get a byline. Not yet. But a really big story will make me.” She touched my hand and gave me the smile. “I think you can help me get it.” Her eyes were gray flecked with yellow. Her earrings looked like wedding rings, broad gold bands, two of them on each ear. They jangled when she turned her head to the bartender bringing up our drinks. ■

  “What’s big about this story?” I asked when the bartender had hurried back to the radio. The Dodgers had the bases loaded now and still only one out. A six-run rally wasn’t impossible. We’d done it before.

  Molly Crane sipped her sidecar and made a wry face. “Bitter.” She put the glass down. “I’ve been hearing things, Adam. I’m friendly with a number of cops.”

  “Lieutenant Woodfinch?”

  “I know he did. That’s the only way thoughlin- itmakessense.” '

  “I haven't met him, though I intended to. Cops aren't in the habit of chasing me away.”

  “You don’t strike me as being easy to chase away.”

  “Anyway — “ She lifted her cocktail glass and spoke into it. “There’s a rumor that you know what was in the bag Teacher left in your car.”

  “That’s a polite way of putting it.” She drank, her face showing that she didn’t like the sidecar, but she finished it. “The police think you have the bag.” I pushed my half-finished highball away and got off the stool-and dropped money on the bar. She stood up also. A Dodger hit into a double-play, ending' the inning without a score.

  “You’re a funny guy,” Molly Crane said when we reached the sidewalk.

  “I like a good joke. I’m almost hysterical with laughter because the cops are on the neck of an innocent man, and I’m the man.”

  “You haven’t denied that you have the bag.”

  Her hand was back on my arm. I shook it off. “What are you after?” I said. “If I say I haven’t the bag, there’s no story for your paper. If I have it, I wouldn’t tell you. Either way you don’t get anything.”

  Her gray eyes regarded me gravely. “We could help each other.”

  “We could if you have any idea who the man is who phoned me last night, the one who wanted the bag and called himself Teacher’s brother.”

  “You think he murdered Jasper Vital?” f

  “I know he did. That's the only way it makes sense.”

  “I've been around. If you're perfectly frank with me, I might be able to help.”

  “Look,” I said. “I’m tired and frightened. I admit it. To you this is just a story, a chance to rate a byline in your paper, maybe by luring me into making a confession. I’ve told everything I know to Lieutenant Woodfinch. He has it neatly typed out. Your sex-appeal will persuade him to show it to you, and then you won’t believe it any more than he does. So long.”

  I walked away.

  “Thanks for buying me a drink,” she called after me.

  “Sorry it didn’t taste better,” I said over my shoulder and went on.

  Carol and Susan Levy were playing jacks on the sidewalk. When Carol saw me, she snatched the ball from the other girl’s hand and gathered up the jacks and ran to me with hands full and braids flying. I swung her up in my arms.

  “Papa, policemen were here,” she cried. “Mommy made me go out of the house, but Allen Gillette said they were having to face somebody who was perhaps a murderer. I could feel his eyes continue to watch me.

  “Papa, Susan’s father said it too,” Carol was saying. “Susan’s father told her mother a man was killed in our garage. It isn’t true, huh, Papa, is it true?”

  “It was an accident.”

  “How did it happen, Papa? Who was the man?”

  Susan Levy saved me from thinking up a reply. She was waiting in front of my house. “Aren’t you going to finish the game, Carol?”

  “Can’t you' see my father came home?” Carol said importantly.

  The door opened and Esther stood in the hall. She had a smile for me, but it was a wan, forced thing that required an effort. Her face had lost its rich color. She kissed me before I could put Carol down — a fierce, clinging kiss that had no passion but only fear.

  I set Carol on her feet. “Did they search the house?”

  Es
ther nodded vaguely and looked back at the phone, as if expecting it to ring. “That man called a short

  while ago, the one who called last night and said he was Raymond Teacher's brother.”

  I stared at her. A thin line of madness ran through everything that had happened since six o'clock yesterday.

  “What did he want?”

  “He would only speak to you. He said he would call back. I didn't — “

  “Mommy, what man called.?” Carol broke in.

  Esther said sharply: “Carol, for God's sake!” she caught herself and made her voice casual. “A man Papa is trying to sell a car to. Come into the kitchen and help' me with supper.” She rolled her eyes toward the stairs — a signal to me.

  I went up to our room. Esther followed in less than a minute. She left the door open, stood just inside the room so that she could hear Carol in case she decided to follow. “I set her to shelling .peas,” she explained. “That should keep her busy for a few minutes at least.”

  “Why didn’t you get rid of her like this yesterday when I wanted to know about the bag in the car? You could have followed me up to the bathroom.”

  “It was a long story and I wanted to tell it all at once.” She shook her head distractedly. “Does that matter now?”

  “What about that phone call?”

  “He asked to speak to you. That slow voice of his frightened me so that I could hardly tell him you weren’t in. Then he said he’d call back and hung up.”

  I reached in my pocket for the cigarettes I had bought on the way home, but didn’t get them out. Esther threw herself at me and held me. “Darling, he’s the man who killed Jasper Vital. Shouldn’t we call the police?”

  “What did Lieutenant Woodfinch do beside search the house?”

  “He came with two other detectives and asked all sorts of questions. Then they searched every corner, from the attic to the cellar.” Her fingers dug into my back. “Darling, they think you have the bag.”