Peter Gunn

by Henry, Kane,

  “My father…?” she said.

  “He’s dead.”

  There was no change in her expression. She moved from him, saw the revolver on the floor, went toward it.

  “Leave it alone!” said Gunn.

  She looked at him, face strangely tranquil, lips tight, dark eyes blinking.

  “Don’t touch it. We don’t touch anything.” He went to her, took her hand, led her out to another room, a study, where there was, mercifully, a bar. He poured brandy for her and said, “Drink it.”

  “He didn’t do it, Mr. Gunn.”

  “Drink the brandy.” She gulped it. “Good girl,” he said.

  “Please, Mr. Gunn, he didn’t do it, not Sam Lockwood, I know him, I know him.”

  Gunn poured more brandy into the glass, brought it to her, said, “Sit down.”

  She sat. He placed the glass in her hand, curled her fingers around it, went back to the bar, poured a shot of Scotch, gulped it, poured another shot of Scotch, gulped that, went to the telephone and made his call. “They’ll be here soon,” he said. “We just sit and wait now.”

  “He didn’t do it, Mr. Gunn!”

  “We just sit and wait now.”

  “Please, please, you’ve got to give him a chance, I beg you.”

  “Drink the brandy.”

  She sipped, then, “Please, Mr. Gunn…”

  “What do you want?”

  “Please give him a chance.”

  “What the hell kind of chance?”

  “Please, Mr. Gunn, I know him, he’s not a murderer.”

  “Don’t you care about your father?”

  “I care about this poor guy. He’s not a murderer, not Sam Lockwood. He wouldn’t kill and run.”

  “He’d kill and stand still? Is that it?”

  “Yes. I know him. A woman knows a man. Sam may be bad and mean, I don’t care what, but he’s not a murderer; and if it happened, he’d stand up to it. Please give him a chance.”

  “For what?”

  “For some kind of explanation. He’ll tell me.”

  “He will, will he?”

  “Yes, yes, he will.”

  Gunn went back to the bar and now he made a slow highball. “What do you want me to do?”

  The girl sipped her brandy. Color seeped back to her face. Her eyes grew clear, reminiscent of her father’s. “Look, if he committed murder, I’ll turn him in myself, I promise you. But let’s give him a chance before the police fall all over him. He ran. He must have had reason to run. Let’s find out why. Let’s first find out why. Please. Please!”

  “What do you want me to do?”

  They heard the stamp of many feet.

  “Here they come.” said Gunn.

  The girl finished her brandy. She stood up, breathed deeply, handed the glass to Gunn, touched a trembling hand to her hair, smiled a strangely gallant smile and straightened her shoulders. Way down deep in his heart, wise and cynical Peter Gunn admired her; admired, rather, the symbol of her; the frail shield raised between man and danger since the beginning of time, utterly feminine but indomitable, inpenetrable and indestructible. Once upon the beginning of time a lady offered up an apple and shattered the quiet of the beatific garden and since then as though in compensation…

  chapter 7

  Lieutenant Jacoby was cool, sad, efficient, noncommittal, polite and considerate. His minions performed the routine inspections; his doctor pronounced the time of death as approximately noon; his stalwarts carried out the body and bore away the gun; and then, alone with his material witnesses, Jacoby remarked, “All right, let’s have it.”

  Instantly Alice Bain said, “Mr. Gunn came with me.”

  “Figures,” said the monotoned Jacoby. “You’re pretty enough.”

  “My father called me and asked me to get Mr. Gunn. He was working on some important contracts and wanted a good, trustworthy man to deliver them.”

  “Gunn is nothing if not good and trustworthy,” said the lugubrious Jacoby.

  Gunn considered this introductory palaver. He was sparring with his conscience and there was not yet a victor. If the girl flunked out on pertinent evidence he would pop her balloon. He listened curiously.

  “Mr. Gunn picked me up at my apartment and we came here.”

  They were in the study. The girl had a large hooker of brandy to which she made occasional obeisance, Gunn had a Scotch highball, and Jacoby munched on a cigarette.

  “And here you found what?” said Jacoby, blowing smoke.

  “There was a blue convertible outside.”

  “And inside?”

  “In the drawing room, my father was on the floor as you found him. A redheaded young man was standing over him with a gun in his hand.”

  “Description?”

  She gave a perfect description.

  “Then?” said Jacoby.

  “I fainted,” said Alice Bain.

  “Then?” said Jacoby to Gunn.

  “The guy butted me in the stomach,” said Gunn, “and blew.”

  “And the revolver?” said Jacoby.

  “I belted it out of his hand as I was going down,” said Gunn.

  “Nice work,” said Jacoby. “The police department will strike a medal in appreciation. Right now my people are checking that gun. What else?”

  “I came to,” said Alice.

  “I hope our handsome private eye didn’t take advantage of you in between,” said Jacoby.

  “Oh, now, please, Lieutenant.”

  “Joke, Miss Bain. Like to clear the air. Sometimes I can be very funny. Even hilarious. This time I wasn’t. So?”

  “I came to. Mr. Gunn told me not to touch anything.”

  “Bully for Mr. Gunn.”

  “That’s it,” said Alice Bain.

  Jacoby looked to Gunn. Gunn nodded.

  “Okay,” said Jacoby. “Party’s over. We go downtown and we have your statements taken and then you’re free to do as you please.”

  In a green-shaded office, Gunn dictated his statement first. It was a quiet office with only Alice and the police-stenographer present. When he had finished his recital and Alice had begun hers, Gunn stepped out of the office and made a call from a public booth in the corridor. For the second time that day he communicated with an associate private detective, this one named Fred O’Connor who operated out of Los Angeles. When the connection was made, Gunn said, “Get into your heap and get down here.”

  “Where’s here?” said O’Connor.

  “I’m in Lieutenant Jacoby’s office. I want you parked outside the building.”

  “When?”

  “Now. You free?”

  “Yes. What’s the deal?”

  “I’ll come out with a girl. You’ll see her. I’ll take her home. I want you on her tail around the clock, use anyone on your staff that’s necessary. Anywhere she goes, I want you to call in to me, especially if she goes to a bank. Check?”

  “Check,” said O’Connor and hung up.

  Gunn returned to the office as Alice was completing her statement. The stenographer smiled and said, “I’ll have these typed up in a few minutes and then you’ll sign and swear them, thank you.” He smiled and went out of the room.

  “There’s a guy that’s full of smiles,” said Gunn. “Happy fellow.”

  Alice Bain said nothing. Gunn proffered cigarettes and they smoked. Gunn lifted a green shade and saw Fred O’Connor parked across the street in a no-parking area. Fred would either get a ticket or talk his way out of it or bribe the cop, but Fred would be there when they got out. Fred was young, smart, glib and tenacious as a terrier. Suddenly the girl said, “Thank you, Mr. Gunn.” Gunn, staring out the window at Fred O’Connor, felt embarrassment—a fine moment the girl picked to voice her gratitude. He mumbled, “Well, you see…”

  “I appreciate…”

  “Now, please, Miss Bain…”

  Succor arrived in the person of Jacoby and Gunn was saved from further mumbles. Jacoby rubbed his hands briskly and wore one of his r
are smiles. “Wrap-up,” he said. “Here’s one we’ll close out quick. Murder weapon is registered in the name of a guy Samuel Lockwood, Jr. Prints on gun are his. We take their prints, Miss Bain, when we issue them a license. Bullet in the deceased came from the murder weapon. So we know who we’re looking for and it’s just a matter of time.”

  There was a knock on the door.

  “Come in,” called Jacoby. It was the policeman with the typed statements. “All right, all right,” said Jacoby in excellent humor, “sign, swear and git. You’re cluttering up the premises.”

  They signed and swore.

  “We’ve even got the exact time of death,” said Jacoby. “His watch smashed when he fell. Twelve o’clock noon. Good-by now, everybody.”

  Outside Gunn was pleased to see that O’Connor was uncomplicated by cops. He eased the girl into his car, took off and saw O’Connor behind him in the rear-view.

  “I’m going to want to talk to Lockwood,” he said.

  “Yes,” she said.

  “If he’s got a story, I want to hear it.”

  “Yes,” she said.

  He added more bait. “The police have no idea of your connection with Lockwood.”

  “Thanks to you,” she said.

  “So you’re free to move around. There’s no police tail on you.” And he coughed and coughed. “It must be the pollen or something,” he apologized. And in front of her apartment he said, “Here we are, Miss Bain.”

  She got out.

  “Thank you for everything,” she said and she squeezed his hand.

  “Yeah,” he said and coughed and coughed.

  chapter 8

  Edie Hart opened her blue eyes at the proper hour of one o’clock in the afternoon, yawned beautifully, flicked off the sheet and stretched luxuriously, nude and unhampered. The room was dim because of the light-proof shades. She stretched again, grinning at nothing, swung her long legs off the bed, donned a white diaphanous negligee, lifted the shades and let the sun pour in merrily. She went to the kitchen, set the coffee to perking, returned for a shower, came out with her blond hair high on her head, sat on the bed, nude and glistening, and called Peter Gunn. A frown marred her white brow when she got Answering Service instead of Peter.

  “Did he leave any word for me?” she inquired.

  “He hasn’t even called in today,” said the clearly enunciating voice.

  “If he calls, please tell him I called,” said Edie.

  “Yes, ma’am, Miss Hart,” said the voice.

  “Thank you,” said Edie and hung up. She rose and reached into the closet for a freshly-laundered, lightweight housecoat and buckled it around her and went to the kitchen, squeezed a grapefruit and drank her vitamins, carefully pried open an English muffin and placed it in the toaster, put her cup on the table with butter and marmalade—and the toaster popped in unison with the ring of the doorbell. She glanced through the peephole, saw Gunn, opened the door, and was smothered in an embrace. “Puh-lease!” she said when her lips were released.

  “It’s wrong to kiss my girl?” queried Gunn.

  “But the hands are inside the housecoat.”

  “And where else should the hands be, my beloved?”

  “But the hands are hot.”

  “A cold lover you would prefer?”

  “A cold lover I would not prefer,” she said, “but the hands are hot and sticky.” She pushed him from her, pursed her lips, regarded him. “All of you looks hot and sticky. What have you been doing, man? Racing motorcycles?”

  “I have been pursuing my profession,” Gunn said sternly. “Has it been running away from you?”

  “Maybe it has, at that. I’m hungry.”

  “Want breakfast, lover?”

  “Lunch,” he said. “But first a shower.”

  “You look like you can use a shower, man. Who got you hot?”

  “Alice Bain.”

  “So?” said Edie, suddenly nasal.

  “And Sam Lockwood and Steve Bain who is dead.”

  “Bain is dead!”

  “Dead as a herring.”

  “Tell me.”

  “First the shower. I’ll tell you over lunch.”

  “Nice table conversation.”

  “Next time don’t choose a private richard for a boy friend.”

  “Next time I’ll choose an undertaker, I’m broken in for it. What do you wish for lunch?”

  “Bacon, eggs, toast, coffee. Three eggs all looking at the sky, and the hell with cholesterol.”

  “Man, you’ve got that cholesterol on the brain, haven’t you?”

  “Who hasn’t—the male of the species—in this our hypochondriacal age?”

  “Go take the shower, old fuss-pot. I’ll cook the lunch.”

  He came back wearing only his boxer shorts.

  “Well,” she said, “you look like a lifeguard.”

  “Is that good?” he said.

  “It’s good,” she said and lightly kissed his chest. “Sit down. Eat.” And she served him. “Tell me,” she said, sitting near him, sipping coffee. And he told her, as he ate. And when he was finished and they were smoking cigarettes over more coffee, she said, “Why did you go along with her?”

  “Young love,” he said. “I’m sympathetic toward young love.”

  “Yeah,” she said.

  “Do you disapprove?”

  “No,” she said.

  “A gal usually knows her guy.”

  “True enough.”

  “Here’s a kid whose father is murdered and yet she insists, right from down in her soul, that Lockwood couldn’t have done it and run like he did. Now this Alice is no soft creampuff. There’s a lot of her father in her. I figured I’d play along, for the hell of it.”

  “You would,” said Edie. “Yet you hired O’Connor.”

  “I’m not going to let young love make a sucker out of me, sweetheart. I want to talk to that guy and I’m going to and if he killed old man Bain I’ll bring him in, young love or no young love.”

  “You’ll talk to him?”

  “Oh, it’s a sure-pop. His gun, his bullet in Bain, and the gun in his hand, so he’s running. But he can’t go home, he can’t go to his bank, he can’t go to any of his haunts, he knows the cops are looking for him. He was in sports clothes. Whatever loot he had in his pockets that was his dough, and he’ll start running out of it. He’ll have to get through to her sooner or later. I’ve fixed it in her mind that she’s free to move. She’ll move, and O’Connor will move with her, and then I’ll move.”

  “And in the meantime?”

  “I’m not going to sit around here with you.”

  “Oh, you’re not?”

  “I’m going to work.”

  “Work on what?”

  He stood up. “The old man paid me five thousand bucks and it kind of itches because already the deal is finished. I may as well shinny around for angles, like I’m duty bound. I crossed up my friend Jacoby but that was only temporary. Right now I’m working on his side, duty bound, and I’ve already collected the fee. The girl says Lockwood didn’t do it. All right, I string along with that, but only temporarily. I’m out looking for a murderer. If it turns out Lockwood, it’ll be my pleasure to slam him, and the hell with the girl. Any questions?”

  “I’ve asked them.”

  “Mind if I get dressed?”

  “I’ll help you.”

  It took time.

  chapter 9

  In the teeming downtown heart of teeming Los Angeles there is an old wooden building which is the castle of an old labor union having to do with carpenters. The head of this union is a venerable fighter for the rights of labor named Kevin Murphy who has been elected and reelected president since 1920. Mr. Kevin Murphy, respected and revered even by those who were once his enemies, is the man who almost single-handed reorganized the motion-picture industry, having waged and won the long battle in favor of the present-day firmly entrenched technicians. Today, Kevin Murphy, aged eighty-one, is sought out by
leaders of management as well as leaders of labor in the highest echelons for advice and counsel, and today Peter Gunn sought out old-friend Murphy for personal advice and counsel. Seated opposite across the battered desk of the white-thatched, wrinkled, spry-eyed old man in the rickety shambles of his important office, Peter Gunn said, “You know that Steve Bain is dead?”

  “Yes, yes, I’ve heard,” said Murphy.

  “Murdered,” said Gunn.

  “He’s had it coming,” said Murphy.

  “Murder is murder, Mr. Murphy.”

  “You working on this, Mr. Gunn?”

  “That’s why I’m here, Mr. Murphy.”

  “Yes,” said the old man. “The law is the law. Murder cannot go unpunished although that which was obliterated was utterly evil.”

  “Utterly?” said Gunn.

  “Utterly,” said Kevin Murphy. “Slime that filters in. Horrible people that can make a bad thing of a good thing. Once long ago in the dead days, the bosses held sway and squeezed the sweat out of labor. Gradually the pendulum swung back, and labor assumed its rightful, honorable position. For a time, there was an even balance, there was respect on both sides, abuses were curtailed, and there was respect and propriety on either side. Then the pendulum swung further. Abuses set in on the part of labor, pushed by fantastic people who had discovered a new racket. These are not labor people who have given labor a bad name, these are racketeers, pure and simple, abhorred by the respectable workingman as well as by the respectable industrialist. Labor has a new fight on its hands—the disreputable people within its own ranks. Steve Bain was a prime example, an outlaw, a hood, a muscle-man, a racketeer grown rich and powerful. Steve Bain—all the Steve Bains—stink to high heaven.”

  “So you speak of the dead, Mr. Murphy?”

  “Evil stinks dead or alive,” said the doughty old man. “I’m no hypocrite, Mr. Gunn.”

  “Can you help me, Mr. Murphy?”

  “Help you how, Mr. Gunn?”

  “Who wanted Steve Bain dead?”

  “A myriad people, Mr. Gunn, including myself, God help me.”