Bline looked at him sharply. “That’s not for publication. But yes.”
“About that knife-throwing,” Nick said. “What about if he can throw them?”
Sweeney said, “Here he comes. Ask him if he can.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Doc Greene was coming toward them, worming his way through the people who were leaving after the first floor show, a wide, satisfied grin on the bland, round face that Sweeney would have loved to slug.
Bline looked to see who was coming and then looked at Sweeney disgustedly. He said, “You and that damn hunch.” Maybe you feel disgusted with him too, and if so I hold no brief for him. It was just a hunch, and you know what a stubborn fool an Irishman with a hunch can be; if you didn’t know when you started reading, you should know by now.
Once a hunch gets into him, you almost have to blast to get it out; there wasn’t much chance of blasting, happening in the case of Sweeney. There was, of course, a much better chance, an excellent chance, of his finding out whether his hunch could leak out – along with other things – through the slit a knife or a razor could make across his abdomen. Yes, there was an excellent chance of that happening, and it almost did happen; but not just then. Doc Greene was carrying a foul, fat cigar, but no knife.
Nick stood up and said, “Hi, Doc. Well, I got to go. So long.”
Doc nodded to him, and asked Bline how he liked the show.
Bline said, “Great. Sit down, Greene.”
Guerney, coming back, hesitated as he saw his chair being taken. Bline motioned to him and then told him to take a break and get some fresh air outside. Guerney left.
Doc Greene grinned at Sweeney. Not a nice grin. He said, “Do I have to ask how you liked it?”
“No,” Sweeney told him. “I hear you held Nick – or rather, Harry Yahn – up. For a thousand bucks.”
“I wouldn’t call it a hold-up. Yolanda shouldn’t be dancing so soon after what happened. It’s taking a chance with her health. Naturally, she deserves something extra for that, if she does.”
“Does she get it?”
“Naturally. Of course, as her manager, I get my cut.”
“What per cent is that?”
“That’s my business.”
“And business is good,” Sweeney said. “You know, Doc, there’s something I’d like to ask you.”
“I might even answer it.”
“How come Yolanda is playing a place like this? It’s peanuts to the bookings you could get her.”
“You’re telling me. But we’re under contract here; I told you that. Yahn won’t let us break the contract. Know what we’re getting here? A lousy two hundred a week. I could get her a thousand a week damn easy, and we have to be tied down here for another month. And by that time–”
“You don’t get me,” Sweeney said. “What I mean is why was she working for a lousy two hundred a week? Even without the publicity, she ought to have been nearer to the big time than Clark Street.”
Greene spread his hands. “Maybe you could do better for her. It’s easy to say, Sweeney. Only you won’t get a chance to try; I got her signed up under contract.”
“For how long?”
“Again, my business.”
Sweeney said, “I suggest you haven’t wanted to get her better bookings, for reasons of your own.”
“You’re very suggestive. Would you like me to make a suggestion?”
“I could guess it in advance. But I can make another one.” Sweeney glanced quickly to see that Bline was listening. He said, “How’s this for a suggestion? Maybe the Ripper never attacked Yolanda at all. Maybe it was a publicity stunt. Nobody saw the Ripper slash at her. Maybe you cooked it up; she could have given herself that little cut with, say, a safety razor blade, and then she could have lain down on the floor till someone saw her through the glass.”
“Having swallowed the razor blade?”
“Having possibly, dropped it in her mailbox slot. She was standing right by the mailboxes.”
Bline said, “No, Sweeney. The hallway was searched, including the mailboxes. No weapon. And it wasn’t in a shoe or in her dress, either. She was searched at the hospital. Don’t think we didn’t think of the possibility of it being a hoax.” Sweeney said stubbornly, “Doc could have been there and gone off with the blade, as easily as the Ripper could have been there and gone off with his weapon.” Greene bowed ironically. “Thank you, Sweeney. For implying for the first time that I’m not the Ripper.”
“Don’t mention it. And then, Cap, there’s still another possibility. Maybe you’ve already thought of it. But that wound was pretty slight; not enough to incapacitate her. How do you know she got it in the hallway at all?
“I mean, she could have come home, gone up to her apartment, made that slit with a razor and washed the razor or whatever and put it away, then she could go back downstairs and lie in the hallway till somebody saw her.” Bline said, “We thought of that. Several little things against it, and one big one. Little things like the scratch marks on the back door. They could have been put there, sure, for the purpose of being found. And the fact that it would take a lot of nerve to give yourself a cut like that. Could be done, sure. Another little thing; it couldn’t have been sure – unless you were in on it, Sweeney – that you’d be there to give it that write-up. Were you in on it?”
Sweeney grinned. “Sure. That’s why I’m suggesting it now. Doc won’t give me my cut, so I’m turning him in. But what’s the one big thing that proves it wasn’t a put-up job?”
“The shock, Sweeney. She got over it within twelve hours, yes, but she was really suffering from shock when she got to the hospital. Bad. And genuine. I talked to the doctors who treated her, and they’re positive it couldn’t have been acting – nor drugs, either, for that matter. It was bona fide shock and you can’t fake it.”
Sweeney said, “Okay. It was an idea while it lasted. I’m glad it was wrong. It would have made a prize sucker out of me for the story I wrote.”
Greene said blandly, “I’ll tell Yo what you thought and that you suggested it to the police. She’ll like you better for it, no doubt.”
Sweeney glared at him.
Greene smiled and leaned across the table. He said, “The thing I like about you, Sweeney, is that your reactions are so completely predictable, so primitive, so utterly lacking in subtlety. You should know that I would do no such foolish thing as to inform Yolanda of your base insinuation.”
“And why not?”
“Because I am subtle, and civilized. The last thing I would do is to make Yolanda angry at you, lest anger react. Women are subtle, too, whether civilized or not. But you wouldn’t understand that. Even you, however, should have realized that if I were actually going to snitch to Yolanda, the last thing I would have done is to forewarn you that I would.” Bline was grinning at Sweeney. He said, “I’m liking this. It’s your turn.”
Sweeney said, “I’d rather discuss this outside.”
“The animal plane,” Greene said. “The three things for which the Irish are famous: drinking, fighting, and – well, the third, in Sweeney’s case, is reduced to voyeurism.” He leaned still farther across the table and he no longer smiled.
“And even for that, Sweeney, I hate your very guts.”
“The mask slipped then,” Sweeney said. “You really are a psychiatrist, Doc?”
“I really am.”
“And you honestly do not recognize that you yourself are not sane? Look, I don’t know your relations with Yolanda – and don’t bother trying to tell me, because I wouldn’t be able to believe you, either way. But, whichever, your attitude toward her is not sane and normal. As her manager, you let her get up in front of a crowd of creeps in a honky-tonk, strip for them, and get their tongues hanging out, and you tolerate it. Maybe you even like it; maybe you’ve got a case of inverted voyeurism. Or something. I wouldn’t know what, but you ought to, if you’re a psychiatrist.” Bline was looking from one to the other of them, chuckling.
He said, “At it, boys; I’ll referee. The first one to lose his temper to the extent of taking a poke at the other loses – and maybe goes to the hoosegow.”
Neither Greene nor Sweeney even glanced at him.
Sweeney said, “Thousands of men must have wanted her and tried to get her. You couldn’t have reacted to all of them as you’ve reacted to me; your adrenals wouldn’t have stood the strain. So there’s something different in my case. Know what it is, Doc?”
Greene was wary, his eyes hooded. You could have counted to ten, slowly, before he answered, and then it was only to say, “No, I don’t.” He sounded honestly puzzled.
“Then I’ll tell you. It’s because these other guys have only wanted, and tried. You know I’m going to succeed.” Bline must have been watching Greene’s face, because he was on his feet and leaning over the table even as Greene started across it. Greene’s chair went over backward, but he stopped as Bline caught his arms, although he paid no attention to Bline. He said softly, “I’m going to kill you, Sweeney.”
Then he jerked loose from Bline’s grip, turned and walked away.
Nick was suddenly there. “Anything wrong, gentlemen?” he asked.
“Everything is lovely,” Sweeney told him.
Nick looked uncertainly from one to the other of them. He said, “Shall I send another drink?” Sweeney said,
“Thanks, no, not for me,” and Bline said, “I’ll pass this one, too, Nick.”
“There’s not going to be any trouble?”
“No, Nick,” Bline said. “But – yeah, I’ll have a drink at that, if I can.”
Nick nodded and left them. Bline relaxed in the chair and turned to Sweeney. “Just wanted to get rid of him. Sweeney, you’d better be careful.”
“I guess maybe you’re right, Cap. I honestly don’t think he’s completely sane. That’s why I goaded him; I wanted to show you.”
“Of course he didn’t mean what he said about killing you; he wouldn’t have said that in front of me if he really meant it. He was just trying to throw a scare into you; that’s all.”
Sweeney said, “I wish I was sure of that. If he’s sane, yes. But – Ripper or no Ripper – I wouldn’t bet on his being sane.”
“How about yourself?”
Sweeney grinned. “I may be crazy, but I’m not insane.” He stood up. “Maybe that’s enough excitement for one evening. Guess I’ll hit for home.”
“Your door got a good lock?”
Sweeney frowned at him. “You should know,” he said. “Unless I left it unlocked the other night when you borrowed my razor.”
Bline stood up too. He said, “I’ll walk with you a block or two; I can use some fresh air.” When they were outside, walking north on Clark, he said, “If your razor being missing really scared you, Sweeney, I’m sorry about it. Happened this way; I sent two of the boys around to bring you in for questioning Thursday night and told ‘em to bring your arsenal too. I didn’t tell them to bring the arsenal if you weren’t there, and they overstepped a little.
One of them – I won’t say who – is pretty good on locks and loves a chance to show off how he can open them.”
“I know who that would be. You needn’t tell me.”
“Don’t be foolish, Sweeney. Lots of guys on the force are good at locks.”
“But only one of them has been to my room before, and anybody else would have had to ask Mrs. Randall instead of going straight up. And with her there they couldn’t have gone on in. So that makes it the guy I’m thinking about. And I thought he was a friend of mine.”
“Forget it, Sweeney. God damn it, man, friendship doesn’t count when you’re looking for a killer. And I’d told him you were under strong suspicion. Sweeney, we’ve got to get that guy before he butchers any more dames.”
“For the dames’ sake, or so you don’t lose your job?”
“Both, I guess, but it’s not all on account of my job. I wasn’t on the Lola Brent one two months ago, but they dumped it in my lap after the second case, when it began to look like there was a psycho loose. I looked at the B-girl, Gaylord, at the morgue for a starter, and I saw the steno, Dorothy Lee, before they moved her. They weren’t nice to look at. Christ.”
He turned to look at Sweeney. “You saw a job of his work – a botched one. It wouldn’t be so funny to you if you’d seen the real McCoy.”
“I don’t think it’s funny.”
“Then I wish you and Doc Greene would lay off that Punch-and-Judy show of yours and quit messing things up trying to make each other out to be the Ripper. Yeah, he fooled me, Sweeney. It was after a talk with him Thursday evening that I sent the boys around for you and your cutlery. I didn’t know then that he was using me as a cat’s-paw because he hated you for personal reasons.”
“And if I try to get you to suspect him, I guess you think it’s for personal reasons, too.”
“Isn’t it? Mostly?”
Sweeney sighed. “That and a hunch.”
“Well, play your hunch if you want to. But don’t expect me to. Greene’s couple of alibis may not be perfect, but they’re good enough for me – especially because, like I told you, I figure that the killer either knew all the dames or none of them. One kind of nut might kill the woman he’s crazy about, but it’s another kind that follows strangers home and kills them. For my money – not that I’m a psychiatrist – the same kind of nut doesn’t do both.”
They were nearing the corner of Erie and Bline slowed down. He said, “You turn east here. Guess I’ll go back to the Madhouse. And look, stay away from Greene. I don’t want to have to jug you both for mayhem, and it’s going to be that or worse if you keep tangling.” He stuck out a hand. “Friends, Sweeney?”
“I’m not the Ripper? You’re sure?”
“Reasonably sure.”
Sweeney took his hand, and grinned. “And I’m getting to be reasonably sure you’re not a son of a bitch, Cap. I sure had you pegged as one for a while.”
“Can’t say I blame you. Well, so long.” Sweeney stood for a moment on the corner. He saw Bline look around and then cut diagonally across the street, which took him out of his way if he was returning to El Madhouse. He understood when, a hundred yards down, Bline stopped to talk to a man who had been looking into the window of a hockshop, and then Bline and the man walked south together.
That meant – unless there’d been two of them, which he doubted – that Bline had pulled Sweeney’s tail off the job.
To make sure, he pretended to turn south at Erie and State and then waited in the doorway of a store next to the corner one to see if anyone would turn into State Street after him.
No one did.
He whistled a little as he went back to Erie and on east to his room. There was no Ripper waiting for him. But there was Mimi.
Number SM-1 of the Ganslen Art Company of Louisville, Kentucky. Screaming Mimi.
He picked her up and held her gently, and she screamed at him, pushing toward him with tiny, fending hands; again that little chill went down his spine.
Somewhere in Chicago there was another Mimi just like this one, and she had something to scream about. The Ripper had her.
Call her Mimi number one. What if the Ripper knew that he, Sweeney, had Mimi number two?
But the Ripper couldn’t know that. At least, not unless the Ripper was Raoul Reynarde, who’d sold him Mimi number two, after Lola Brent had sold Mimi number one to the Ripper and had tried to drag down the money on the sale.
And if Raoul was the Ripper, then Raoul wouldn’t have had any reason to tell him about Mimi and– Hell, if Raoul was the Ripper then the whole story about Lola having sold a Mimi might have been out of the whole cloth, to distract attention from himself. But then Raoul would have told the police about it. Well, of course, Raoul had told the police the same story, but the police hadn’t happened to follow through by looking at a duplicate of the statuette on which Lola had dragged down, and so they’d missed the point – the point that the man who’d bought the s
tatuette had been the Ripper.
Raoul himself had missed it. He, Sweeney, might have missed it except for the hunch that made him buy Mimi from Raoul – and then the remark of the counterman in the lunchroom.
He put Mimi down, very gently. He wished she’d stop screaming, but she never would. A silent scream can never be silenced.
No, definitely the police didn’t know about Mimi; otherwise Bline would never have sat here in the same room with her without noticing or mentioning her. He’d looked right at her at least once.
And, of course, he’d mentioned Mimi to Doc Greene and Doc hadn’t reacted. But – although he couldn’t believe it – Doc might have been able to control his nerves enough not to let that sheet of paper move when “small black statuette” had been sprung on him. No, if Greene really was – despite alibis, despite everything – the Ripper, then maybe the whole Mimi lead was a blind alley; maybe the Ripper hadn’t made that purchase from Lola Brent at the gift shop.
Sweeney, he told himself, you can’t have your cake and eat it too; if Mimi is a legitimate lead to the Ripper, then Greene can’t be the Ripper – as you damn well would like to have him be.
He sighed.
Then he sat down on the bed and started the job he’d come home to do – reading up on the third murder, the Dorothy Lee one. He felt that he knew Stella Gaylord and Lola Brent pretty well by now.
He picked up the Blade of August 1st.
That story, of course, he didn’t have to look for; it was the third Ripper job, and it splashed page one banners the day it broke, in the biggest type size the Blade used short of a declaration of war or an armistice.
RIPPER SLAYS ANOTHER WOMAN
There was a three-column picture of Dorothy Lee, and Sweeney studied it. She was blonde – like Lola, like Stella, like Yolanda – and definitely pretty, if not beautiful. It was a good portrait photograph and – if it was taken recently – she was probably in her early twenties. Details were not too clear, as though it had been blown up from a small picture or – more likely, since it was a portrait – they’d had to make the halftone from a toned sepia print instead of a glossy. At any rate, Dorothy Lee had been at least attractive; she might have been beautiful.
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