by P. N. Elrod
“Perhaps they’re exactly what you’ve been needing to stimulate your own literary efforts,” Escott suggested.
“I don’t think McCallen would stand for it.”
“You’ve the means to get around him. The only foreseeable problem would be your not partaking of a beer with them, but you could get around that as well.” Then he must have thought of the communist angle and again began chuckling and groaning at the same time.
I let him wheeze on without comment. He needed the laughs. Whether he’d ever admit it or not, the near miss of his own murder had shaken him, and this was a release from the tension.
After a few miles he eased up on the hysterical humor when he saw the direction I took would not bring us home.
“Why here?” he asked as I made a decisive turn into the Bronze Belt.
“Because after McCallen, Gil Dalhauser is my next choice for a suspect. If it was him, he’ll have connections all over the city—except here.”
“Dalhauser?”
“You know how he was staring at the party. He was throwing hot needles at you. And he’s tall enough to fill the bill.”
“True, but to be that angry after all this time, and then to do the shooting himself seems a bit of a stretch. Even were he so murderously minded, I should think he’d be more likely to employ muscle in his stead.”
“Not if he wanted to keep it quiet. There’s also the personal touch to think about. After all the grief you gave him—are still giving him since the tax guys aren’t letting up—he’d find it a lot more satisfying than fobbing it off onto another.”
“A most logical argument—but to wake Shoe up at such a late hour . . . ”
“I don’t think he’ll mind. You need a place to lie low.”
“I’ll be safe enough at home—”
“Like hell.”
“—because Dalhauser will think I’m dead. He saw me fall.”
“But there won’t be anything in the papers on it, the cops won’t have a report, and no hospital will have heard of you. He’ll be watching for those. When he doesn’t see ’em, he’ll figure he missed or only just wounded you and we got away.”
“Very well, I’ll concede those points. If he is the one, and if I am the target.” He touched the holes in his clothing lightly. “These could very well have been meant for you. People have mistaken us one for the other before.”
“Not this time. The shooter had plenty of chances to see me coming and going when I took that walk, and in my shirtsleeves he’d be able to tell me from you easy enough.” Knowing that, I still had to suppress a shudder. He’d been standing dark and unmoving in the deep shadow of that doorway watching the whole time, patient, patient, patiently waiting. “Besides, I don’t have anyone mad at me, except maybe Archy Grant, only I took care of him, so he’s no threat. Ike LaCelle had a beef but slipping me a Mickey was his payback. He wouldn’t expect me to be up and around to be shot. Unless you can think of anyone else you might have mortally offended at the club, it must have been Dalhauser coming after you.”
“At the club? Oh, yes, of course, whoever it was would have followed us from there. But why kill me and leave you alive to spread tales?”
“Gordy warned him off.”
“But both of us are under his protection.”
“Me more than you because of the business with Bobbi. Dalhauser must had thought if he let me go, Gordy might allow him to get away with bumping you off. The score he tried to settle tonight dates from long before Gordy’s order.”
Escott frowned over that one. “It’s not impossible, but I don’t see it as very likely. He would surely expect you to avenge me or for you to demand that Gordy do so.”
“Maybe. By doing that, then all bets are off. If I went after him he’d be able to kill me, claiming self-defense.”
“It does make for a neat package. But still . . . ”
“What?”
“If he’d shot both of us at the same time, then no one would be left to accuse him in the first place. We’d have simply been the targets of some other person’s revenge.”
He had a good one there. “Meaning maybe it wasn’t Dalhauser, but someone who would know I’d suspect him?”
“Then either you or Dalhauser or both of you would eventually be removed. I’m sure he has plenty of enemies who would like him out of the way, and one of them could be clever enough to use you to do it.”
“That’s just too complicated and open-ended. But if a mug in mob business is going to be killed, always look at his friends first for a motive, not his enemies. It’s a little something I learned from Gordy.”
“Wise man. I shall have to speak to him tomorrow about it.”
I pulled the wheel left, then right, and eased off the gas. The Shoe Box Nightclub was just half a block away. It was dark, but there would be people on watch to notice our arrival and let us in. “You know, it could be someone completely outside of all this, the club, and the rest. Who else would want to kill you?”
“Not many, actually.”
“I thought in your work you’d have hundreds lined up.”
“The advantage of being a private agent rather than a conventional investigator is that most of my cases have nothing to do with life-and-death matters. Certainly I have enemies, but they’re more likely to do me a minor ill turn such as LaCelle tried with you, not risk hanging to kill me.”
“You can’t think of anyone?” I found a space by a fireplug and parked.
“Not at the moment. Give me a bit of time.” Escott shifted on the seat. “Damn. It feels like a bowling ball’s been smashed into me. I hope Shoe has an aspirin on the premises.”
SINCE he owned a bar, Coldfield had something better than aspirin available; it was just too bad for me I was unable to have any. I could have used a nice, numbing drink.
We were semifamiliar figures to some of his people, but two white guys turning up in the dead of night still inspired a lot of caution. We were in the process of being given a slap-down search when their boss arrived and called them off.
“What the hell’s wrong?” he demanded, hurriedly descending the stairs from his rooms on the second floor. He wore a bathrobe and his feet were bare, but he looked alert and ready to take on anything.
“We’ve only a minor favor to ask—” Escott began.
“Don’t try that crap with me, Charles. There has to be something mighty wrong for you to come this late looking like you do.”
“It was my idea to come here,” I said. “Check his shirtfront.”
He checked and his eyes widened. “Shit, Charles.”
Escott gave him that corpse’s smile. “Fortunately my extra insulation against the cold came in quite handy.”
“Are you all right?”
“A little sore . . . ”
“He’s a lot sore and needs a safe place for the night,” I put in.
“He’s got it, but I want to know what happened.”
“I’ll give you the goods if you can get him off his feet.”
Coldfield took over from there, dismissing everyone but Isham, who was still dressed and accompanied us upstairs. He took a chair by the door and watched and listened as I related the evening’s main event to his boss and what had led up to it. Coldfield wanted to send for Dr. Clarson to give Escott a once-over, but the patient turned him down.
“This can wait until morning, Shoe,” Escott insisted, then swallowed four aspirins with a big glass of water.
“You could have a broken sternum.”
“If I did, then I’d be in considerably more discomfort than I am and would readily agree to an examination. Right now all I want is a place to lie down and no one shooting at me for a few hours.”
“It’s yours, but first thing tomorrow you see the doctor.”
To that Escott gave in. He actually looked like he might get some sleep for once. Isham escorted him out to settle him in a spare room.
Coldfield turned to me. “What about you? You going or staying?”
“Going. I should keep an eye on the old homestead. I’ll be safe in my hideaway.”
He had reservations about that, and also wanted to talk more. I spent an hour discussing all the stuff with him that Escott and I had covered. Coldfield knew Dalhauser, having had some dealings with him through the unions.
“He’s dangerous,” said Coldfield, “but he’s nothing near to stupid. Standing around waiting to shoot Charles like that is plain stupid, and crossing a man like Gordy is just as dumb. You sure he’s the gunman?”
“Neither of us got any kind of a real look, but Dalhauser’s the most likely. Tomorrow Charles will call Gordy and let him know somebody’s not listening to orders. The two of ’em might come up with a better choice for idiot of the year, and when they find him I’m gonna wring his neck.”
“Shouldn’t that be Charles’s job?”
“Not if I get there first. I honest to God thought he’d been killed, Shoe. And the only thing I could think of was that it wasn’t fair for him to die. Like he’d been playing a game and was counted out too soon by a crooked umpire. It sounds childish.”
“It’s called grief,” he said.
“But Charles didn’t die.”
“Don’t matter. The grief is for what might have happened. It don’t hurt the same, but it still hurts. Say you’re standing on the edge of a cliff and a gust of wind pushes you over, but at the last second someone grabs you back to safety. You’re alive, but you’re going to be shook up for a while about it. About what might have been. Charles is going to be feeling that stronger than you are.”
“And doing his best not to show it.”
He heaved a great sigh. “Oh, yeah. But there’s gonna be a reckoning before this is done. I just hope he doesn’t tear himself apart over it.”
“What do you mean?”
“He’s had some shit thrown at him in the past. He didn’t handle it too good.”
“What was it?”
Coldfield shook his head. “Not my story to tell.”
I’d hit that wall before, and knew better than to try to get more out of him. Isham returned, and Coldfield told him to drive me home in Escott’s Nash, then bring the car back.
“Keep him here until I’m awake?” I asked Coldfield.
He snorted. “Do my best. But you know what he’s like.”
ISHAM hung around long enough for me to ascertain that no ambush lurked in the house, then drove off in the predawn light. I wondered if he ever slept, but not for long. The pale graying in the east was already starting to hurt my eyes. Funny how artificial things like candles and lightbulbs didn’t affect me as powerfully as the sun. I hurried inside, dumped my tux coat and topcoat carelessly on the couch, then vanished to enter my basement chamber while I still could. If I waited too long, I lost the ability to vanish and would have to use the trick trapdoor, which was a pain to bother with when I was rushed.
My limbs stiffened up even as I sank onto the earth-padded cot. When my head hit the pillow I was gone for the day.
The next night I woke to the sound of the kitchen phone ringing, and knew it must be for me. Someone had been waiting for sunset, probably Coldfield; Bobbi always gave me a few minutes to stretch out the kinks. I shot up through the cracks and materialized, snagging the receiver and cutting off the annoying bell.
“Yeah?”
“It’s Shoe.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing that I know of, but I thought you should know that Charles took off around noon, so be on the watch for him.”
“He took off? I thought you were going to—”
“You ever try to stop him when he really wants to do something?”
“Yeah, like trying to catch air in your hands. Did he say anything to you? Any idea where he went?”
“We had a late breakfast and he said he was going to do some poking around. I thought I’d talked him into waiting for Clarson to see him, but I had to think again. The son of a bitch.”
“How was he feeling?”
“Good enough to slip away without me noticing—and I’d been expecting him to try something like that.”
Great, Escott was on the hunt with no forwarding address, running on the edge of the cliff again. I hoped he’d not get so focused on his prey that he’d lose his footing. “The man’s got a lucky star, he’ll be all right.”
“You saying that to convince me or yourself?”
“A bit of both, my friend. If he drags in home I’ll call you at the Shoe Box.”
“And I’ll call you if he shows here,” he said, and hung up.
I took a look at myself and decided I was a mess that needed to be swept under a rug. Just as I started for the stairs the phone rang again. This time it was Bobbi.
“Hi! I just wanted to thank you,” she said, sounding fresh and bright, everything I wasn’t.
“Uh . . . ”
“You awake yet?”
“Yeah, sweetheart. But what’d I do again?”
“You fixed things with Archy, remember? And have you seen the papers yet? The reviews for both shows are fantastic.”
“That’s good. I’m glad something’s going right.”
“What’s happening there? You sound off. You can’t be having a hangover.”
“Some stuff came up for a case Charles is working on, and it’s got me distracted. Just as well you called, I might be busy tonight. If I’m not there by the end of the last show, can you get a ride home?”
“No problem. What case? That blackmailer?”
“A new one. Tell you later. What’s the deal about Archy? You saw him today?”
“Adelle invited me to come to the Variety Hour rehearsal so we could have lunch and shop afterward, and Archy was a perfect gentleman to me. No double meanings under the jokes, no trying to impress me with extra attention. I mean he was friendly, but that’s where it ended. You’re a miracle worker, Jack.”
“I’m glad to be doing something right.”
“It was great, even Adelle noticed what a good mood he was in.”
“Is she still solid with Gordy?”
“She’s coming to the club for dinner with him tonight.”
It was good to know where he’d be later if I had to find him. Escott would have talked to him, and he might have a line on where my partner had taken himself.
Bobbi had to leave to get ready for her first show, so I was soon dropping the receiver back on its hook, free to finish the trip up to my room. I stripped and bathed and was just doing the last button on a fresh shirt when I heard a noise downstairs.
I went to the landing and saw a man’s shadow moving against the frosted panes of the glass inset of the front door. His hat obscured details, but he had height. Maybe the gunman had decided to come check on me, the one he’d ignored. I vanished and reappeared in the lower hall, tucking my shirttails into my pants, listening with interest as he fumbled noisily with the lock. He apparently wasn’t worried about alarming anyone. The knob turned, and he pushed the door open. It swung back hard and banged against the wall, rattling the glass. The man swayed on the threshold, then lurched a few unsteady steps inside.
It was Escott.
“Charles?”
He didn’t seem to hear me, and plowed toward the stairs, hand out to grab at the banister. He missed it by a mile and overbalanced, stumbling forward to sprawl gracelessly onto the treads. I went to him, got him turned over. For an awful moment I thought he’d been shot again, this time for real—until I caught a whiff of the booze. He reeked like a bum on Saturday night.
He looked at me earnestly, but didn’t see me at all. He was drunk out of his mind, and his eyes were wild. In a pleading tone I’d never heard from him before, he slurred out, “Din’ do it, Shoe. I swear I din’ do it.”
12
“DIDN’T do what?” I asked, too flabbergasted to do more than gape.
“Was Raymond, cou’ o’ly be him. O’ly one. Swear it.”
“Who’s Raymond?”
&
nbsp; “Not my fault, but my fault. ’F I’d jus’ been there!” He pushed me away and tried to stand, then winced and sat again. “’S wrong. Hurts.” He gingerly rubbed his chest, puzzled by the pain.
“Yeah, I know. Come on with me, we’ll fix things.” I got an arm around him and hauled him up. He groaned with the movement, but didn’t fight as I guided him upstairs.
“No good,” he said sorrowfully, his feet dragging. “No good at all.”
We made it to his room, and I got him to the bed. He lay down flat, staring at the ceiling, and still mumbling nonsense. He wouldn’t or couldn’t answer any of my questions.
His tuxedo was well creased, same as his topcoat, like he’d been in them both too long. His tie was gone, and his shirt gaped open around the neck. He hadn’t shaved since yesterday and the uncharacteristic stubble, along with his present crazed state of mind, put fifteen years on him.
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” he said again and again.
“It’s all right,” I told him. “It’s all over now.” Whatever it was.
I got his shoes off and pulled the bedspread across his body. He kept a carafe on the night table. I filled it in his bathroom, poured water in a glass, and managed to get him to drink most of it down. There was a storage closet in the hall. I rummaged and found a bucket, placing it next to the bed in case he woke up sick, which was very likely. Having survived a number of hangovers myself, I knew what a long trip it could be to the bathroom when your gut’s unhappy and your legs aren’t working.
“They proved it,” he said earnestly. “You know they proved it.” He was talking to the ceiling.
“What did they prove?”
“Tha’ I din’ do it.”
“Do what?”
“’S was Raymond. O’ly one.”
“Charles? Charles, you hear me?”
“Mm?”
“You need to sleep now.”
