by Kane, Henry
“Oh yah goot, Mr. Chambers.”
“Now come on!”
“You in hurry, Mr. Chambers. Kaja no hurry, Mr. Chambers. Kaja got load of work here in shop.”
I got the point. “Look, Kaj, it’s worth ten bucks to me for you to open a couple of doors, plus I pay the transportation up and back.”
“No soap,” he said twinkling-eyed but adamant.
“Twenty.”
“No soap.”
I had a date with a murderer. I had no drive for dicker.
“Fifty,” I said sharply but no sharper than the pang it caused within me.
“Yah,” he said. “Goot. Work in shop can wait.” He seized a bag of tools, I seized him, and the cab engulfed us both, disgorging us at 273 West 26th which was a squat rust-brick edifice to which was affixed a tarnished brass plaque bearing the advice in three horizontal neatly-placed lines: BUCKINGHAM TOWERS, FURNISHED APARTMENTS, NO TRANSIENTS.
The lobby was small, clean, airless, and empty with a locked entrance-door in front, a large metal slab slit for many mail-boxes on one wall, and a perpendicular series of buttons and names on the other wall. The button adjacent to the metal-embossed 3 G bore no name in the slender bracket alongside it. I pressed the button just in case Chynik’s lawyer believed in brief conferences (which would make him as anomalous as a sponsor on television who did not believe in ear-splitting commercials) and of course there was no buzz of reply. I gestured to Kaja whose deft hands and dainty instruments quickly delivered us into a large, square, cool inner lobby with a spotless automatic elevator which trundled us upward with a minimum of jerks but returned to normal at the third floor by stopping with the usual massive shudder that almost lurched us loose from our vitals.
Gingerly we vacated the quivering cage and set about through a labyrinth of corridors in quest of 3 G which we found nestled in a dim alcove to the north which was the rear of the house. I laid a thumb on a glistening mother-of-pearl buzzer just in case Hockin Chynik, returned from legal embrace, was hard of hearing, but Hockin Chynik was not hard of hearing; simply and as per prospect he was not yet at home. I motioned to Kaja and he tinkered with a few touches of damn (there were two locks and both solid) but at length the door was ajar and Kaja was agape with a well-earned grin of victory. “Very good,” I whispered. Why I whispered, who knows?
“Yah,” he whispered back at me in seemly decorum. “So it’s now fifty pineapples for little Kaja.”
“You bet. I’ll mail you a check.” It was not an imposition. We had done business like that before.
“Yah. Fine. Goot. Bye.” And Kaja bustled off for another tussle with the elevator.
I closed the door behind me, making sure to turn both locks, and did a rapid reconnoiter. There were three rooms, adequately furnished, period. I looked at my watch. It was twenty after two—about the expected time for the return of my inexpectant host—and it was then that I suddenly realized that I wasn’t wearing a gun. You plan for your war no matter how infinitesimal, eh what? I was awaiting a murderer and I had come equipped with my lame brain and my bare hands as my entire arsenal. How half-arse arsenal can you get? My first step had been fairly clever if elemental: to catch a murderer you lay a trap. That first step could very easily develop into my last toddle. I had laid my trap but here I was caught in it. Hockin Chynik was due at any minute and I was ready to greet him with open arms but nothing else.
Like that you can get killed.
I re-reconnoitered, seeking a weapon. Somewhere the guy had a gun—remember he had pinked Bartlett rather thoroughly—and I didn’t think he’d be sporting a pistol in the peaceful pursuit of powwow with a mouthpiece (or should that be blahblah with a barrister?) but of course I was wrong. Thorough search turned up neither gun nor holster but did turn up, wrapped in a terry-cloth towel in the bottom drawer of a chiffonier, a long wooden-headed ice-pick with a filed point that was sharper than the tongue of a termagent.
So now once again I considered myself clever as I took up battle-station behind the door with the second part of my plan clear as crystal in my mind. Hockin Chynik, all unaware, would make his entrance and I would range up behind him, point first, prick him to rigidity, frisk him for gun, transfer it to me, and cow him with it while I made my call for the bulls. If he stayed cowed until we got bulled, all well and good. But if bovine-brained he went berserk it would be necessary to dress him down as a side of beef.
Arrayed for fray, I lurked, ice-pick-dirked, in the murk behind the door, waiting until I was sagging in the quiet venetian-blinded room, but then at last the jerk of key in lock perked me back to rapt attention.
The door opened. And the door closed.
But I was not behind him. I was beside him.
He moved quickly, in one spring, out of range of ice-pick thrust, and smiled somewhat pleasantly—quite pleased as I could perceive in that one split-second—before he drew the gun and without further ceremony commenced a flurry of target practice. Of course I was a blurred target. I am as firmly against standing still to get killed as I am against sin. The happy smile had hardly lighted his face before I had left my feet and lit into him in what was, considering the circumstances, a rather creditable tackle. His reflexes, however, and the swift action of his automatic, were excellent. Three bullets in rapid fire were detonated, one of which hit me, before I hit him. The gun flounced to the floor and bounced right between my feet but I did not dare stoop for it because Hockin Chynik, solid as a brick outhouse, was still vertical although jarred back several paces, and he was churning for return. He came, aimed at my midsection, head down and knees up, in a powerful bull-rush. This was it now, one way or another, and neither of us was going to ladle up half-measures. I would be a live toreador or a dead private richard, depending upon my luck and my agility. If he got to that gun before I stopped him, I was dead, no question. I did not have a toreador’s cape but I had that ice-pick and so I waited, heaving for breath and praying for luck, until, in his rush, he was at me; then I side-stepped and up-punched the ice-pick with all of my strength. I felt it go in right up to the hilt and then he was beyond me, striking the wall, and then he turned, still upright, and came back toward me in a weaving, jiggling, unnatural dance.
I was sick, transfixed, looking at him. It was as though he were a disfigured Cyclops, blood streaming out of his nose. He had one eye! The socket of the other eye was filled with the wooden hilt of the ice-pick, deeply imbedded. Still upright, still staggering on his feet, he tried to talk but it was a red horrible unintelligible gurgle as blood, in a surging gush, burst from his mouth. Then he whirled about in his crazy dance—and I could see the gleam of the point of the ice-pick protruding from the back of his head—and then he fell into an armchair, supine, arms spread, his one dead glaring eye fixed upon me, inescapably. No matter how far I went from him, or how near, or at what angle, that one dead eye followed me, peculiarly crinkled at one corner, railing at my queasiness, laughing at me in a ghastly malevolence.
Then I did not look upon him again.
I went to the bathroom where I was thoroughly ill. Then I attended to my wound but it was no wound. The bullet had nicked the left hinge of my jaw, hardly even a crease, with pinpoints of blood quickly stemmed by the pressure of a cold towel. Then I came out and called down to Detective-lieutenant Louis Parker and was told to stay where I was and wait. I waited. I sat in a comfortable chair and smoked many cigarettes but the comfortable chair had its back squarely turned to the one dead derisive eye that remained to Hockin Chynik somehow triumphant.
NINE
IN A MILD way, because cops are always mild of praise for any other except a brother-cop, I was certified although not stamped under seal as a hero because I had killed a killer and it is a rule of thumb supported by fingers of morbid logic that whoever kills a killer is a hero. Ballistics had bedizened Chynik with the mantle of murderer—the bullets in Bartlett had been shot from Chynik’s automatic—and since, haphazard or no, I had delivered Chynik I was mildly a hero. Af
fidavits all around closed out Pisk, Bartlett, Chynik, and the case for Parker. The loose end as to how I had discovered Chynik’s address was tied off by my statement that I had inquired indiscriminately at various watering places of various anonymous and unknown stoolies and one of their tips had turned up true. I was not pressed for every facet of detail because who presses when a case clears the books with such dispatch, fortuitous or otherwise. Parker was in charge, and Parker was happy, and Parker bought me three shots of congratulatory resuscitation in a rich oak-paneled booth of a well-appointed saloon-restaurant called Ye Olde Smoky Lox And Cheery Herring Tavern Inc. Parker had two shots of congratulatory resuscitation for himself and then, after one blade-shivering congratulatory clap on my shoulder (par for the course), he hied off for whatever murder would furnish his new order of business while I moped alone in the booth ordering a lunch of two lox-on-toasted-bagel sandwiches and coffee.
I was happy that Parker was happy, but I was not happy. Twice now I had permitted Mike the Pea his green pastures when instead he should have been enclosed in the pen. Once he had been the finger in Chynik’s pie, and now he had known the whereabouts of the said Chynik and had probably been a part of the recent Chynik’s recent nocturnal peregrinations. Furthermore, what with Penelope’s card at Mike’s pad, if those two unworthies had not been planning a grave robbery at Arlington’s, then I was as batty as a mausoleum in Transylvania. Twice now I had bunted the pea to get at the pod. The pod, finally, was extinct, but the pea was merrily rolling along gathering no remorse.
In a sudden ridiculous burst of preventive meddling, I temporarily abandoned my smoked salmon for a steamy clambake in the phone booth. I called Penelope Arlington but the wire served up her Service. “Miss Arlington is out of town, sir,” burped the burdened voice. (As you know, the Sisterhood of Answer Service provides that the gals must pass an ennui-test with flying callers before they can win their head-sets.) “Miss Arlington is expected to return late this afternoon, sir. A message, please?”
“No message, thank you.”
“Thank you, sir,” quothe the bored voice and the plug was pulled with eardrum-perforating alacrity. (Also, as you may not know, there exists a preliminary competition in the weeding-out process of the heady set—the infamous eardrum-perforating alacrity-pull, less sticky but just as demonic as the more subtly dangerous, if more frequently practiced, taffy-pull.)
I hung up and sat thinking and stinking in the unventilated cubicle. Force of habit closes the doors of all phone booths all over the world for the privacy of such top-secret advices as “What time will you be free tonight, baby?” or “Sweetie, I’m stuck at the office, I’ll be home late tonight, don’t worry, I’ll eat out, I’m dying for some Italian food anyway,” and then the ensuing babble of top-secret drivel which is the scintillating dialogue presaged by such brilliant but top-secret opening. I sat and stank in that steamy crotch-wetting enclosure because I had another phone call to make but perhaps because of the poison of my own carbon dioxide or the contagion of inertia out of ennui from Answer Service, it had slipped what passes for my mind, so I just sat and stank, mullingly, and then it came to me. I inserted coins for communication and received connection to the New York National Bank and asked for Mr. Donald P. K. Sloan and was told, of course, that Mr. Donald P. K. Sloan was not there and what message please? I hung up, bitterly regretting my cooling coffee and drying lox and petrifying bagel, and I fished within my soggy clothes until I landed the scribbled memo-hunk that he had so kindly donated to the cause. I called him at home and got him at once.
“Mr. Sloan?” I inquired.
“Yeah, uh huh,” he said as befits a bank president.
“Peter Chambers here.”
“Oh how do! So good of you to call me!” Much more trashy but much more president-like.
“Mr. Sloan, is there anything new on Charlie?”
“Nothing. Not one word. There are instructions to call me here, at any time, day or night, if any information whatsoever pierces this darned vexing mystery. This has begun to assume all the proportions of a vexing situation, sir, vexing, vexing. I am just beside myself, Mr. Chambers. Beside myself. Beside myself.”
“Yes yes,” I said.
“Yes yes,” he agreed.
“Mr. Sloan?” I said.
“Yes yes Sloan here, Chambers.”
“Mr. Sloan, do you know a Frank Nigle?”
“A frank what?”
“Frank, a first name.”
“Ah, Frank a first name. Frank what was that?”
“Nigle.”
“Nigle?”
“Nigle.”
“How do you spell it?”
“N-I-G-L-E.”
“Oh, Frank Nigle.”
“That’s it, Frank Nigle.”
“Um.” Pause. “No, never heard of him. Who is Frank Nigle?”
My ray of hope dissipated, I said, “A friend of Charlie’s. I’d thought, perhaps—”
“No, no, no Frank Nigle. Never heard the name. Now Mr. Chambers, if you run across any information, anything at all that might pierce this vexing situation, no matter how slightly, feel free, please feel free to call me, at any time, day or night, I’m answering the phone myself. I’m hoping against hope that Charlie himself will call. I’ve made the statement, a public statement, that I’m answering the phone myself, myself. No interference, no intermediary, I’m manning the telephones personally …”
“Yes manning personally,” I said. “Good for you, sir. Good show. Carry on. I’ll disconnect now, sir, so that the wires can be free and flowing.”
“Thank you, Mr. Chambers. And remember, don’t hesitate to call, any time, day or night.”
“I’ll do that, sir, if I get pierced by any information that can hex the situation.”
“Thank you very much, Mr. Chambers. So good of you to call.”
“Goodbye, Mr. Sloan.”
“And a very goodbye to you, sir.”
I hung up and dragged feet back to my table where I had it cleared of dregs and had it refurbished with more coffee, hot. I sipped coffee, hot, dredged up Charlie’s appointment book, and sipped more coffee, hot, while I tried to decipher his hieroglyphics. The little red book was a year-book and since only six months of the year had passed I had only half the book to study. Some of the names, including my own, I knew, and I was able to match up initials where old Charlie, grown chary, had narrowed us down. Actually I was interested solely in the spectral F. N. because of Charlie’s appointment with that abbreviated gent for eleven o’clock the night before he had walked out with the hundred gees the afternoon after. I pored over each page with the spilling scrutiny of a horseplayer’s perusal of a racing-form in an endeavor to discover whether F. N. could fit any other but Frankie Nigle, but as my friend Kaja Knishey would say—no soap. F. N. was Frankie Nigle whoever the hell that was, and nobody else. The initials appeared many times, the written-out name, twice. The initials first appeared on April fifth as F. N., meet for dinner at Four Seasons, 6:15 P. M. and last appeared on June fourteenth as F. N. at 515, 12:10 P. M. The written-out name first appeared on March twenty-ninth as Frankie Nigle at Waldorf, 8 P. M. and last appeared on April sixteenth as Frankie Nigle at 515 Fifth, 12:15 P. M. He had had frequent appointments with the initials, sometimes as many as four a week; there were but two appointments with the written-out name.
I sighed, folded away the appointment book, finished the coffee, paid my check, quit Ye Olde Smoky, hailed a cab, gave him my home address, squeezed in, settled back—and then fell apart in a scramble of knocking knees and flying elbows and quivering toes in the longest-delayed double-take since the semi-clement times of Mark Twain.
“Halt!” I bellowed at the pilot up front.
“What the hell!” came that helmsman’s turgid response as the boat rocked in a frightened swerve that capsized me.
“Halt! Halt!” I commanded, imperative tone now muffled since I was speaking from the belly of the ship, busily engaged in collecting mysel
f from the floorboards. Regaining perch I said “Halt” again to my cohort up front.
“Halt my holy ass, if you’ll excuse the expression,” he replied. “You can holler the hell all the halt you want but I just plain can’t halt in the middle of this goddam traffic, now can I?”
“No, no, don’t halt, I didn’t mean halt,” I said, more calm now that I was safely if precariously back on my seat.
“Jesus,” he mourned, “but I get all the nuts. It’s my fate.”
“I wish a change,” I said.
“You and me both, brother.”
“No, no. I wish to change the previous direction.”
“You mean to halt or not to halt? Oh mother-mine, why do all the screwballs fall in on me?”
“Now look here,” I said gathering my dignity like a tattered cape about me. “I’m a paying passenger in this cab which is a public conveyance and I have a right to expect—”
“Cut it out, Mac. Please! I’m asking nice. Lectures I don’t need. Lectures I get enough when I go home to the goddam missus. Lectures on the job I need like a hole in the head. First you scare the living bejazzus out of me with this halt bit, and now you’re off on this lecture tour.”
“I’m sorry.” I said. “I got excited.”
“You all right now?”
“Beg pardon?”
“Not excited?”
“No. I’m fine, thank you.”
“All right, sir. Please let us start from scratch before the halt. What is it you wish of me, sir?”
“I wish to change our course.”
“Yes sir. Very good, sir. From where to where?”
“My original directions were to take me to Central Park South and Sixth. Correct?”
“That is correct, sir.”
“I should like to change that to Five-fifteen Fifth Avenue.”
“And that’s the whole shmear?”
“Whatever that is, it is.”
“So, Christ, what was all the excitement? It’s on our way. Won’t cost you like not even a penny more on the meter. Fact, it’ll cost you less.”
