The Hardboiled Mystery Megapack

by John Roeburt

  “It’s what you feel in your heart, too,” Emma said softly. “Not only what you read. Anyone can read the words, Emil.”

  “Emma!”

  Stephanie’s eyes were saying, please get out, get out, please. I looked at her, then back at her father. For all this beauty, all that ugliness. Side by side, the way of the world.

  “You’d better go,” Emma told me, sullen now. “You have no business here.” She got my coat and gave it to me. Stephanie was standing in front of the stove with her back to us, not moving.

  “That girl ought to be spanked,” Pop said. If he wasn’t so deadly serious, the small eyes staring straight ahead, unblinking, the voice a dry, throat-injured rasp, it would have been funny.

  “She’s a grown woman,” I bristled. “You can’t…”

  “In my house, Mr. Chase, and with my girls, I can and I will. Anything the Good Lord tells me is right. Now get out.”

  “Maybe that’s why Julia’s a drunken tramp,” I said softly. A silence filled the room. Stephanie whirled around and faced me, one fist clenched in front of her mouth, her breasts rising and falling rapidly under the white jersey blouse. Emma glared at me, then at Pop, and shook her head. It was a spiteful thing to say, but the words were out and I couldn’t retract them. I shrugged into my coat and headed for the door, wondering how long they’d stand that way, like statues.

  Pop bellowed and I spun toward him in time to see his great hammer of a fist blurring at me. I kept spinning and caught it on the side of my jaw and went numb all over, not hurt, but numb, slamming back against the shut door and sliding down into a sitting position while the door shuddered some in its frame behind me. I rubbed my knuckles against my lips and they came away red. Then the strength flowed back into me until I exploded with it all at once, leaping to my feet and roaring back at him. But Stephanie got between us, not facing her father, facing me. “I’ll walk you downstairs, Jason,” she said. “Right now. Please.”

  “You’ll not leave this room,” Pop rasped at her.

  “Come on,” Stephanie said, taking my arm. I wasn’t trembling, she was.

  “You can’t come back here, then,” Pop told her.

  “Emil, now Emil,” Emma said.

  “It’s all right, Steffy,” I grinned, and chucked her one playfully on the jaw. “I deserved that.”

  I closed the door behind me and took the stairs down two at a time.

  Chapter Seven

  Walking back toward Washington Square as snowflakes started to swirl out of the darkening sky, I couldn’t even find room inside me to hate Pop Grujdzak, not with thoughts of Stephanie filling me to bursting. But there were other things, so many other things which demanded attention in this cockeyed world. Was it only last night, less than twenty-four hours ago, that Jo-Anne had met me in the Madison Square Hotel? Was it this very morning that we had found Phyllis Kirk’s body?

  There was a drugstore off one corner of the Square, its lights warm and bright through the snowy murk. Inside, I found a booth and called Dr. Kincaid’s number. A strange voice answered.

  “This is Jason Chase,” I said. “Dr. Kincaid?”

  “Speaking.”

  “Doc, I hope you’re not too sore at Jo-Anne for walking out with those papers. She’s a great practical joker—I don’t know, almost pathological with her. But she didn’t mean any harm—”

  “Chase, I’m a social psychologist. I know enough about people to understand they have all kinds of quirks. I couldn’t be ‘sore’ at Jo-Anne for being herself. But I do regret the tragedy. Phyllis was a fine girl, one of the finest.” His voice broke, but I didn’t interrupt. After a moment, he asked, “Now, what can I do for you?”

  “I’d like to talk to Jo-Anne, please.”

  “But Mr. Chase, we were hoping you’d know where she was.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Jo-Anne is gone. She left earlier this afternoon.”

  “The police—’”

  “Were given the slip, as the expression goes.”

  “Damn!” I swore. “That crazy gal. Have they notified the New York cops?”

  “I think so. We assumed Jo-Anne had gone to meet you.”

  “Uh-uh. Did she make any phone calls?”

  “That’s impossible to say. There’s an extension in her room, you see.”

  “Weren’t the cops monitoring phone calls?”

  “Only incoming ones, I believe.”

  “If you get word from Jo-Anne, please call my brother’s place and leave a message for me.” I gave him Ken’s Park Avenue number. “I’ll be looking for her, Doc.”

  “Keep in touch.”

  I mumbled something and hung up, dialing Ken’s business phone as soon as I could deposit another dime and get a dial tone.

  “Hey, Ken,” I said. “Jase. Wompler’s agreed to stop blackmailing you.”

  “That’s wonderful, boy! Good old Jason.”

  “You’ll have to pick up the pictures yourself, he said. It was so easy, maybe I ought to go into the business.”

  “Julia and I will always be grateful, Jason. Provided Wompler’s on the level.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He’s cagey. Could be he just wanted to get you out of his hair. He didn’t surrender the negative or the prints, don’t forget.”

  “Yeah, but…”

  “I’m not saying he pulled a fast one on you. I’m saying he might have. We’re grateful either way.”

  “Listen,” I said, “you mentioned a private detective this afternoon. Working on the case for you? Well, I’d like to see him.”

  “Not about Wompler?”

  “Something else.”

  “Tad Barrett’s the name. 1675 Broadway.”

  “You think he’s good?”

  Ken paused to consider. Then, “As good as any, probably. Those snoopers are too detached and impersonal.”

  “Just what I want. And Ken, you or Julia might be getting a call for me at your apartment. It’s important.”

  “We’ll take the message. But say, boy, why don’t you come on over to our place till you get things straightened out for yourself? We’ve got plenty of room and it beats any flea-bitten hotel…”

  “No, I couldn’t.”

  “I insist, boy. Least I can do. What do you say?”

  “Well, no. Thanks, Ken, but no.”

  “You want to hire Barrett for something? What are you going to pay him with, promises? Tell him to put it on my bill, Jason. Then come on over here to live. My own brother, it’s the least I can do. I’ll tell Julia to get one of the guest rooms ready. What do you say?”

  Maybe he was really trying to do the right thing. It was a peace gesture, anyway. I said, “Okay, Ken. You twisted my arm.”

  Then I was outside in the snow looking for a subway to take me uptown to Barrett’s. We had the guy surrounded, whoever he was. Manhattan West probably had half a hundred detectives canvassing the flats in Phyllis Kirk’s neighborhood. Guido Isaac was digging into Wompler’s past for me. I was trying to play footsie with the killer in my own way, and so was Jo-Anne. Now I’d usher in a well-recommended private cop and we’d have our killer good and hemmed in. If he lasted through the night it would be amazing, I tried to tell myself. Nuts. I was still plenty worried about Jo-Anne by the time the BMT let me off a couple of blocks from Barrett’s office.

  “Sit down, Chase,” Tad Barrett told me a few minutes later. “There’s a family resemblance, all right.” I looked at him and liked what I saw. Clean-cut and tweedy, a pipe smoker with everything from meerschaum to yellow-boles on the rack in front of him. And big enough to start pushing people around if the going got tough. Now he tossed a pocket-sized book on the desk in front of him and grinned at me.

  “A lot of us read Mike Hammer for kicks,” he admitted. “Here’s a secret, Chase: it’s more fantastic than science-fiction. What can I do for you?”

  “It’s a long story,” I said.

  “Go ahead and bend my ear. That’s why t
he shingle’s up outside.”

  “It goes on Ken’s bill. I don’t have spare cash, at the moment.”

  “Your brother’s money is good. So far I haven’t been able to do a thing for him.”

  I thought that was peculiar but let it pass. If I’d had no trouble with Wompler, Barrett should have had even less. I told Barrett about Dr. Kincaid and his forthcoming book while he broke open a can of Mixture 79 and fired one of his pipes. I gave him everything: how Jo-Anne had pulled her practical joke, how we’d found Phyllis Kirk last night, how Phyllis had written Wilson Wompler’s business number down some time before she was murdered, how Jo-Anne had been sent to live with the Kincaids under guard but had slipped away and was probably prowling around through the snow somewhere right now.

  “That’s what has me worried,” I said. “Whoever took the Kincaid papers will realize they’re useless unless he can break the code. So Jo-Anne might be walking right into his arms.”

  Barrett emptied ash from his pipe into a large bronze tray and frowned at me. “These papers, Chase. Are they everything you say?”

  “You figure it. Five hundred people, many of them rich and important, answer all sorts of personal questions. Some of the questions might send the wife packing to Reno, others might bring down the Internal Revenue boys or the Better Business Bureau or even the F.B.I.”

  “Do the police know this?”

  “If they talked to Dr. Kincaid, they know.”

  “Then you want me to find the Stedman girl, is that it?”

  I shrugged. “Break the whole thing if you can do it. I’ll look for Jo-Anne myself. If you can find the guy who took the papers and killed Phyllis Kirk, no one’s going to hurt Jo-Anne. I’ve got one other safeguard, too.”

  “What is it?”

  “Me,” I said. “A clay pigeon. I let Wompler think I can break the Kincaid code. Of course, it’s not true. Only Kincaid and Jo-Anne know the code. But if Wompler’s mixed up in this thing, let him go gunning for me instead of Jo-Anne.”

  “You’re all right, Chase,” Barrett said. “That takes guts.”

  I sat there staring at Barrett and wondering. When I’d mentioned Wilson Wompler the first time, it didn’t get a rise out of him. But if Barrett had been after Wompler on that blackmail business, the coincidence should have struck him at once. He acted as if he didn’t even know who Wompler was.

  “I wish I could give you more to work with,” I said. “If anything comes up, I’ll let you know.”

  “I’ll keep in touch with you,” Barrett said. “Where can I reach you?”

  “I don’t know about tonight.” There was a lot I still had to do. “But starting tomorrow, my brother’s place. You have the number?”

  Barrett nodded, we shook hands, and I asked if I could use his phone. A moment later I was speaking to Dr. Kincaid again. Jo-Anne hadn’t been heard from, but the cops had issued an all-points bulletin for her. Phyllis Kirk’s family, I learned, lived in Forest Hills. It was snowing so hard up in Putnam County, Jo-Anne couldn’t return there even if she wanted to, except by train. Then she’d disappeared in a car? Yes, a ’49 Dodge convertible. No skid chains or winter tires. The State Police had checked the Taconic Parkway all the way down to Hawthorne Circle, though, and she wasn’t stuck on it. I thanked Dr. Kincaid for the information and called Guido to take him up on that beer. He had a little information, but not much. It could keep. I’d meet him tonight at nine in a bar on Eighth Avenue.

  Barrett was picking up the phone himself when I left. “Calling the Credit Bureau,” he explained. “To start a file on this Wompler guy.”

  * * * *

  Chase Construction and Management Corporation had erected a few apartment buildings in Forest Hills, but we hadn’t been able to compete with the two outfits which almost monopolized the long curving stretch of Yellowstone Boulevard and the fertile cliff-dweller territory to north and south. The snow had been falling harder out here, a dozen miles from the heart of the city. My damp feet had been warmed by the subway but began freezing again as soon as I stepped out into the night.

  The Kirks lived in one of those six-story jobs set far back from the street, with a snow-mantled garden in front and a fair-to-middling lobby done in colonial furniture because the building was named after one of America’s early presidents. I leaned against the downstairs bell and was rewarded with an answering buzz immediately, as if the Kirks craved company.

  It was apartment 5-F. Mrs. Kirk came to the door wearing black and no make-up. Here eyes were swollen and red-rimmed. Behind her I could hear a low, sad murmur of conversation and caught a glimpse of many people in the living room.

  “I’m a friend of Phyllis’ roommate,” I said, as gently as I could. “I’d like to talk with you, Mrs. Kirk.”

  “Is it very cold out, Mr.…?”

  “Jason Chase, ma’am. It’s cold.”

  “My poor girl. We’re burying her tomorrow, you know. Out there, in all that snow, in all that cold.”

  “There, Millie.” It must have been her husband, joining us now. “There, Millie. The gentleman came to pay his respects.”

  “That was silly of me,” Mrs. Kirk said, although her tone hadn’t changed. She was beyond crying, and hurting all the more inside. “But she was so young,” she said. “Why should anyone want to kill our Phyllis?”

  “It was a terrible tragedy,” I said. I tried to keep my voice soft but I suspected it was heard by all those mourners sitting around listlessly inside. “I wouldn’t like to see it happen again to another young girl.”

  “Come in, Mr. Chase,” Mrs. Kirk said and led me toward the living room.

  “Make it the kitchen,” I said. “It won’t take long.”

  So, we were seated around the kitchen table and I went on, “Jo-Anne is in trouble. The same thing.”

  “Jo-Anne’s a nice girl,” said Mrs. Kirk.

  “What do you mean, Chase?” Kirk asked me.

  “She’s on the prowl for your daughter’s killer. I know the cops want him and will get him eventually, but Jo-Anne is like that. If you can give me some indication of—”

  “Just a minute, young man,” Mr. Kirk said. “You just missed Jo-Anne by about an hour. She was here.”

  “Oh, no.”

  Kirk nodded. “Paid her respects, asked some questions. You know.”

  “What kind of questions?”

  “Paid her respects and stopped in out of the cold a while,” Mrs. Kirk said.

  “What did she ask you? Please try and remember.”

  “Well, now,” Mrs. Kirk said. “Let me see…”

  “Mainly, she wanted to know if our Phyllis ever talked about the Kincaid research,” Kirk told me.

  “You know,” said Mrs. Kirk, “just questions while she warmed up.”

  “Did she ever talk about it?” I asked.

  “Some,” Kirk said. “We told Jo-Anne that a publisher called her a few days ago. He got our number from the Dean of Faculty at Columbia, I guess. They didn’t know Phyllis and Jo-Anne were living in that bachelor-girl apartment.”

  “It was such a pretty place,” Mrs. Kirk said.

  “What was the publisher’s name,” I demanded, “Wompler?”

  “Yes. Yes, that was it. Wompler. Funny you should know.”

  I said, “Did you tell Jo-Anne?”

  Kirk nodded. “As a matter of fact, we did. Is anything the matter?”

  An eight-year-old boy wandered into the kitchen for a glass of water. “Mama,” he said, “When’s Phyllis coming home? It’s cold out.”

  “Norman,” Kirk said.

  “We had them so far apart,” Mrs. Kirk told me. “He’s still a baby. He’s all we’ve got.”

  “I on’y wanted to know,” Norman pleaded.

  “You go back inside and play with your cousins,” Mrs. Kirk said.

  “Did she ask anything else, Mr. Kirk?”

  “No, that was about it. It was all we could tell her. Is she in some kind of trouble?”

  “I d
on’t know,” I told them truthfully. “I’ve got to find her. You’ve been a big help. You’ve been swell.” I shook hands with Mr. Kirk and nodded to his wife. “I’m sorry about this,” I said, and watched Mrs. Kirk swallow with difficulty. As I reached the front door, it was quiet in the living room. Half the people there were huddled over crossword puzzles, their pencils darting down nervously to scribble a word every time they thought of something. They avoided one another’s eyes desperately, as if looking at each other would tighten the common bond of tragedy and make them all cry at once.

  Chapter Eight

  An hour later, I picked up Guido Isaac in the Club Enchantment on Eighth Avenue. It was neither a club nor very enchanting but it was good for a beer and I had a bottle of Blatz while Guido kept swatting me on the back with a bony hand and saying, “It’s you. It’s really you. Man, you can wallop like a mule. I ain’t forgot it, Jason.”

  “Sure,” I said. I swallowed the last of the beer and looked at my watch. Almost nine-thirty. “What did you find out about Wompler?”

  He shrugged expressively and scratched at kinky hair. “Not much, I guess. Five years ago he got in trouble for peddling pornographic comic books, but got off with a stiff fine and a suspended sentence. I brung one of the books if you want to see.”

  I shook my head. “I’ve got to get going, Guido.”

  “The same business?”

  “Wompler.”

  “I got nothing to do. I can tag along.”

  “Why get yourself involved?” I said.

  “Because you got yourself involved with me.”

  “I don’t think you ought to.”

  “Trouble?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe.”

  “Deal me in,” Guido said cheerfully, finishing his own beer. “Lookit this.” He lifted his jacket and revealed the butt of an automatic in his belt.

  “Keep that thing out of sight,” I grunted. “You want to go back up?”

  “I thought you might be able to use it.”

  I considered this and said, “Okay. Give.”

  “Nope. She goes with me. Am I dealt, Jason?”

  I grinned at him. “Guido, there’s something about you. You’re dealt.”

  He buttoned a frayed tweed coat up to his neck while I paid for our beers. “Your man Wompler lives over in the East Side in Peter Cooper.”