The Walt Whitman MEGAPACK ™

by Millard, Joseph J.

  He squeezed her leg under cover of the umbrella. “You’re tops, Toots. I’d never gotten from under Morf’s clutches without your help. And you arranged this meeting place right under Morf’s nose by mentioning barbecued ribs. Joe’s was the only place I could remember where we’d ever eaten them.”

  Gail smiled brightly. “You missed the best part, when Ryan ran into the ‘Stairway’ and smacked into the shelves of the linen closet. He bounced out of there like a rubber ball, with bedclothes draped all over him.”

  “How’d you work that? Switch the name plates?”

  “Yes.”

  Di squeezed her leg. She said; “Grandma, what cold hands you’ve got.”

  Di got serious. “I’m going over to the Berkshire Arms. In this get-up I ought to be able to fool anybody that Morf might have left there to watch the place. I can slip in the back way or else go up the fire escape.”

  “You’d better shave first, darling. No scrubwoman would have a two-day beard like yours.”

  “I can’t go home. Morf’s got that place picketed, I’ll bet.”

  “What can I do?” Gail said.

  “Plenty. Go back to the Journal and dig everything out of the morgue about Anton Spivak that you can find. Meet me back here at eight o’clock tonight. And bring all the newspapers with you. For a guy that’s supposed to have bumped off Spivak I don’t know much about it.”

  She got up. Peered closely at her husband. “I’m worried, Di. After the man slugged you in the Berkshire you fell down the stairs, your gun went off and creased your head—isn’t it queer that nobody heard you? That there was no alarm?”

  “Broadloom carpeting all over the joint, Toots. And the rooms are all soundproof.” He patted her hands. “Don’t worry, baby. It’ll work out all right.”

  The waiter came along the counter then, and peered suspiciously at Di. Gail hastily said, “Goodbye, grandma,” to Di, and walked out of the diner. Di waited a long moment and left, and moved slowly along the sidewalk, trying to mimic the walk of an elderly woman in her old-fashioned clothes, supporting her faltering steps with an umbrella. In less than fifteen minutes he was nearing the Berkshire Arms.

  Di circled the front of the building cautiously, his eyes peering under the scarf, searching for evidence of plainclothes men that might have been planted nearby by Inspector Morf. After a long survey, he moved into the courtyard at the rear of the apartment building, keeping close to the tall hedge along the walk so that the rays of the ornamental electroliers did not reach him.

  He used the crooked handle of the umbrella to leap up and hook the end of the weighted fire escape and pull it down. He clambered upward silently to the level platform at the third floor, his black coat and scarf happily blending into the darkness of the building’s surface.

  He raised a window gently and felt the movement of warm air against his face. He stepped quickly inside into Anton Spivak’s darkened living room, and hastily lowered the window shade behind him. He moved quietly to the other window and jerked the shade down silently. He walked across the polished floor and the soft throw rugs to the door and pressed the light switch.

  He looked around the sumptuously furnished living room and his eyes crinkled in the bright light that gleamed off polished antique furniture and sleek. Oriental rugs. It did not look like a place in which a man had met violent death. The room was in perfect order; everything was in its place. Over the fireplace was a tremendous life-size painting of Seabiscuit. The plastered walls were dotted with tasteful etchings and line drawings of famous horse races of the past. The wall between the window and the bedroom door was lined with shelf after shelf of brightly-jacketed and evidently seldom-read books.

  A table held an empty vase, a tobacco humidor, and a copy of Racing Form. He picked it up and noted suddenly that the date was November 1941. He wondered why Anton Spivak would have a copy of a six-year-old Racing Form on his living room table. He turned the pages carelessly and then stopped, as he noted that a page had been torn out. Page 22. He spread the paper open on the table, and his eyes caught the faint indentation on Page 20—a faint circle, as if someone had previously circled an item on Page 22 with a pencil.

  He folded the paper thoughtfully and began to tuck it in the capacious folds of his old woman’s coat and then threw his body violently sideways as he caught a faint movement by the bedroom door.

  CHAPTER III

  WIN, PLACE AND SHOW

  There was a flash of flame. Flying lead smacked into the table and he felt the wood tremble under the tearing impact. Then he was running toward the bedroom door. He leaped through the opening into the dark, his flesh cringing with dread expectation of another bullet. Instead, he saw a brief flash of light from the hall door and the click of a spring lock.

  He raced to the door. Paused crazily while he dragged his handkerchief from his pocket to cover the shining knob as he fumbled with the spring lock. He jerked the door open and leaped into the hall. The hall was empty and silent but the curtain at the end of the hall was waving gently in the breeze from the open window on the fire escape.

  He hurried to the window and peered down. Far below him he saw a dim figure scampering down the fire escape. He could hear the muffled scrape of shoes on the iron rungs. And then he saw his would-be assassin drop from the end of the fire escape and vanish in the shadows of the hedge along the courtyard walk.

  Di lowered the window gently, careful not to touch the glass. He moved to the rear stairway. He was silent on the thick broadloom and he went like a shadow down the stairs. He reached the second floor and stopped. He tried to remember the events of the preceding night.

  He remembered the sickening blow on the head, the raking pain along his jaw; the brittle voice saying ‘Joe’, and the queer rattle his gun had made as it tumbled from his hand and rattled on the metal spokes of the banister. He remembered the explosion of the gun—and far up in the plastered wall his searching eyes caught the tiny round circle where the bullet from his gun had plowed in. He stood on his toes and tried to reach the hole but it was just beyond his fingertips.

  He tucked the copy of Racing Form more firmly under his coat and descended the stairway to the ground floor and moved out past the courtyard hedge to the street. He walked as rapidly as possible to reach Joe’s diner and his rendezvous with Gail.

  He circled the block across from Joe’s diner twice and watched the place with his keen eyes. He remembered the odd way in which the waiter had glared at him and he didn’t want to walk into a trap.

  He suddenly faded back into the shadows of the building across the street from Joe’s as he saw the bulky, oafish Chuck Ryan step out of the dark at the end of the diner and walk to the door and sit on a stool.

  Di muttered under his breath. “Joe isn’t as dumb as I thought. He must have wondered about grandma and her two-day whiskers and phoned the cops.”

  His eyes caught the headlights of a coupe moving slowly down the street. He sensed that it was Gail in the Journal’s press car. He prayed that she wouldn’t park in front of the diner and walk into Ryan’s trap.

  He held his breath as she turned into the curb. And then, suddenly the engine raced, and she pulled away, and came down the street toward him. He pulled up the skirt of his long coat and sprinted across the street in front of the moving car.

  She braked the car so quickly that the tires squealed. He jerked open the door and leaped inside and sat down on the thick pile of newspapers on the seat. “Beat it, Toots! Ryan’s keeping watch in Joe’s diner!”

  She put her foot on the gas and whirled the coupe around a corner. “I know. I saw him.” She devoted the next few minutes to putting as much distance as possible between them and the diner. Then she said, “Find anything helpful?”

  Di looked up from the papers he had been scanning hurriedly under the dim light from the instrument panel.
“Enough. The cops say that there was one bullet fired from my gun, and it matched the slug they took out of Spivak. But during the fight last night at the Berkshire my gun went off and creased my temple—and the bullet buried itself in the wall. It’s still there.”

  Gail’s eyes warmed. “Then, if only one shot was fired from your gun—and that bullet’s still in the wall—then you couldn’t have shot Spivak.”

  “Right.” He folded a copy of the Journal savagely. “They don’t say a word about the caliber of the bullet they took out of Spivak’s body. I wish I knew.” He peered at her. “What did you find out about Spivak in the morgue?”

  “He came originally from New York State. Son of an architect who was chased out of Europe years ago. He had dough to start with and everything he touched turned into gold. He’s worth a million or two and has investments ranging from a half interest in a carnival to a controlling interest in the race track here. His hobby was serving as chairman of campaigns to raise money for anyone in need. He was a general all-around good guy.”

  She saw the Racing Form as Di pulled it out from under his coat. “This is no time to try to pick a long shot, darling. You’re in trouble.”

  Di grinned. “I’d have a tough time picking a winner out of this rag. It’s six years old.” He told her briefly about his adventure in Spivak’s apartment. “This Racing Form was on Spivak’s table. I had just found out that page twenty-two had been ripped out when somebody took a pot shot at me from the bedroom.”

  “Maybe Morf had a man hiding there?”

  “A cop wouldn’t run away. This guy did. He beat it down the fire escape. I didn’t see his face. I can’t say whether he was short or tall. About all I can say is that he wasn’t fat.”

  “What do we do now?”

  “Hunt up a copy of the Racing Form for November 1941. Drive out to the track. Maybe we can find the night watchman. But you do the talking. I can’t risk being seen yet.”

  They drove out to the track and Di sat in the car, reading all of the accounts of Spivak’s murder in the papers. He tried to make sense out of the puzzle but the crazy pieces wouldn’t fit together. And then Gail came back.

  “The watchman was impressed with my press card. He showed me into the library in the clubhouse. They’ve got bound copies of the Racing Form from way back. And every copy is there—except this issue from November, Nineteen Forty-one.”

  Di’s breath eased out of him. “Then the copy I found in Spivak’s room was taken from the track library. Why? What interest could he have in a six-year-old Racing Form?”

  “Where to now?” asked Gail.

  “A telephone. I’ll call the boss. He’ll have to contact every bookie in town till we find a copy of that Racing Form. We’ve got to find out what there was on page twenty-two that Spivak was so interested in that he circled it with a pencil.”

  Gail smiled. “We could try Mr. Harrison. He owns race horses. And he’s a nice guy. Maybe he could help us out.”

  “Okay, Toots. I’ll call the boss. You see what you can get out of Harrison.”

  Back in town, Gail parked in front of a drug store and Di shut himself in a telephone booth. He dialed the Journal and asked for the city desk. Tuffli’s voice came to him, brittle and hard.

  Di said, “Tuff, this is Berke.”

  Tuffli roared. “Where in the blazes are you? Come on out of hiding. I know damn well you didn’t plug Spivak and if you did you had a good reason. I’ll fight that bone-headed Morf till his teeth rattle. They’ll bust him back to a beat in the sticks.”

  “Keep your shirt on, Tuff,” Di said. “I’m okay. I can do a better job of hunting the killer from outside of a cell. You can help, though. Try to dig up a copy of the Racing Form from November 8, 1941. Give it to Gail. She’ll see that I get it.”

  Tuffli said, “Give up this detective stuff. Let Morf do the dirty work. After all, if they find you, they might shoot first and ask questions afterward. You’re the only suspect they’ve got. You’re flirting with the cemetery!”

  “I know, Tuff, but I’ve got to do it my way. What was the caliber of the slug they took out of Spivak? None of the stories in any of the newspapers mentioned it.”

  “That’s what happens when cubs write up a killing. I’ll find out and let Gail know.”

  “Thanks, Tuff.”

  “For Pete’s sake, Di, take care of yourself.”

  * * * *

  The next morning, about nine, Gail picked Di up in a cab at the corner of Eighth and Grand. In the cab, Di shed the heavy dark, women’s clothes and took the bandages off his head and ripped the strip of adhesive tape off his jaw. He then put on a pair of dark glasses he had purchased in a drug store.

  “Remind me never to sleep in the park again,” Di said. Then he asked, “What caliber was the slug they took out of Spivak?”

  “Tuffli said it was a .45,” Gail said.

  Di grinned, as the heavy burden of doubt was lifted off his shoulders for the first time. “That puts me in the clear. My gun was a snub-nosed .38 on a .45 frame. It was a Jap gun I picked up on the beach at Saipan. If Morf had any brains he’d have checked my permit to carry a gun. He’d have found out that Spivak wasn’t killed with the gun I had a permit for.” He queried Gail, “How about the Racing Form? Did Harrison have one?”

  “No. He looked all over his apartment but he couldn’t find any from that far back. He was most cooperative. He’s a nice guy.”

  “I’ve heard that before.” Then he smiled as Gail pulled a Racing Form out of her long purse. “Tuffli must have located one at some bookie joint. Let’s take a look at page twenty-two.”

  He turned the pages hastily and glanced at the inside column on page 22. He compared it with the page he had taken from the Racing Form found in Spivak’s apartment—the page marked with the faint indented circle of a pencil mark. “Hmm,” he said, “Spivak circled the eighth race at Oaklawn way back in November, Nineteen hundred forty-one. A horse called Shame; a six-year old mare by Shameless out of Careless. Owner Frederick Sloan. Trainer Joseph Patola. Bazooka!”

  “What’s up?”

  “The trainer’s name was Joe. That’s the name the guy called me before he slugged me at the Berkshire apartments.” Impulsively, his voice rose in its excitement. He called to the cab driver. “Pull into the service station on the corner. I want to use the phone.”

  He dropped the nickel in the slot of the service station telephone and called the race track. “I’m trying to locate a trainer or exercise boy that I knew several years ago at Oaklawn. His first name was ‘Joe’ but I don’t remember his last name. A friend told me he’s been there at the track for about ten days.”

  A voice said, “I think I know who you mean, pal. Joe Francisco. He’s been working for the Allendale stables. Been here just about a week, and he’s leaving for Gulfstream. They open down there next week.”

  “Where’s he live here in town? What hotel?” Di tried to keep the excitement out of his voice.

  “No hotel. He’s staying at a rooming house at three-twelve Mason.”

  Di hung up the phone and his voice held a note of triumph as he grinned at Gail. “Toots, I think we’re getting warm. I think this Joe Francisco who’s getting ready to fly the coop is the same Joe Patola that we learned about in the Racing Form. He’s been operating here. If we nab him, we’ll find Spivak’s killer.”

  “How can we nab him when we don’t know what he looks like?”

  “That’ll be easy. He looks like me. A guy that probably wears a tan topcoat like mine.”

  Gail caught on quickly. “Then you think that whoever slugged you the other night thought you were Joe Patola?”

  “You got it, Toots.” Di’s actions were quick and his voice was eager. “From here we go to three-twelve Mason to call on Joe Patola. But first I’m going to
phone Morf.”

  “Are you crazy? He’ll trace the call. Radio cars’ll be thicker than fleas around here before you hang up.”

  “I hope he does trace it.” Di dialed police headquarters and asked for Homicide. When Morf’s rasping voice reached his ears, Di said, “Don’t have a stroke, Inspector. This is Berke.”

  Morf waited a minute at the other end of the wire. Di laughed, “Either you fainted dead away, or you’re having one of your stooges try to trace this call. Don’t bother. I’m calling from a service station at the corner of West and Central. After I leave here I’m going to three-twelve Mason Street.”

  Morf’s voice blustered. “You asinine fool! I’ll have you behind bars in ten minutes. You can’t make a fool out of the police department.”

  “I won’t even try. You’re taking care of that.”

  Morf spluttered. Di broke in. “Watch your high blood pressure or you’ll bust. Listen, jug-head, if you’ll check the permit the police department gave me to carry a gun you’ll find it was a snub-nosed .38 on a .45 frame. It was a Jap gun I picked up on Saipan. The slug you took out of Spivak was a .45.”

  The inspector’s voice was raw. “Why in the devil didn’t you say so in the first place?”

  “You didn’t let me talk—and I didn’t find out till a few minutes ago that it was a .45 slug that killed Spivak. You’ve been chasing the wrong rabbit, Inspector. If you cool down, I’ll give you a hot tip that might let you save your face.”

  Morf paused. “Listen, Berke, anybody can make a mistake. What’s the tip?”

  Di grinned to himself. “Go to the Berkshire Arms. By the rear stairway on the second floor you’ll find a bullet buried in the wall. You’ll find one just like it buried in the table in Spivak’s apartment. I fired the one in the hall. Spivak’s killer fired the other one—at me. Both bullets came from my gun.”