The James Michael Ullman Crime Novel

by James Michael Ullman

  “I see.” Doyle frowned. “Presumably, then, someone on Clay Street burned your brother’s credit card late the night he disappeared or very early the next morning. And with it, presumably, all his other credit cards and everything else in your brother’s wallet.”

  “I figure it that way too. And you know what else I think?”

  “What?”

  “I think,” I said, “that if there was any doubt before, it can be forgotten now. My brother was murdered. He could have dropped his watch somewhere and some innocent party could have picked it up. But now we know someone deliberately burned Ed’s credit cards, deliberately tried to destroy evidence of Ed’s existence, hours before the story of my brother’s disappearance was made public. Concealment of murder is the only motive I can deduce for that. Moreover, I don’t think Ed was murdered for the money he carried. If the killer—or killers—wanted money, I think they would have tried to use the credit cards and traveler’s checks somehow, instead of burning them. And I confess, in a perverse way, I’m relieved. Knowing Ed was murdered simplifies my problem. All I have to do now is find his body. And figure out who murdered him—and why.”

  I did not sleep easily that night. Doyle gave me a pass on the shooting of Luke McNair. Luke, I learned later, had a record of two convictions for mugging, and Doyle probably guessed accurately at the circumstances surrounding the shooting. At 4 a.m. I climbed out of bed, stuck a cigarette in my mouth, and reached for a match.

  The match book on the side table was empty. I had several matchbooks in my jacket pocket and I fumbled for one of those. The book I pulled out bore the dignified imprint of the Midtown National Bank and Trust Company. I had no recollection of where I had picked it up. I did not think much of the incident at the time.

  BOOK THREE: AUGUST

  CHAPTER 8.

  Irma Bronson rubbed her eyes and stifled a yawn. She perched on a chair beside a second-floor window overlooking Clay Street, her feet resting on a radiator. She wore a blue print blouse, a billowy skirt, bobby socks, and tan-and-white loafers. In silhouette, the baker’s daughter’s strong features were surprisingly attractive. Hers was a placid beauty, reminiscent of the hefty maidens of antiquity whose profiles adorned ancient coins and trinkets.

  Irma said, “I’M sorry. But it’s like the other times. I don’t recognize anyone down there. I think I’m too far away anyhow. And it’s time for me to go home.”

  “It’s only five,” I said. I sat on a chair behind a battered desk. The walls and floors were bare. In one hand, I held a warm can of beer.

  “I know. But I told my father I’d be home by five thirty. The girl tending the counter for us goes home for supper then.”

  “You could spare another hour.”

  “No. I don’t want my father to start wondering. He thinks I’m uptown, shopping with friends. If he knew I was here with you, he’d be furious.”

  “You’re a grown woman.” I tried to keep impatience from my voice. “You’re old enough to lead your own life without getting your father’s permission for everything you do.”

  “I realize that.” Irma swung her feet down and smoothed her skirt. “And my father isn’t as domineering as you think. It’s just that he feels very strongly about this. He’s a shy man. He hated it when the newspaper reporters interviewed us, after the police told them we found your brother’s watch. I won’t try to explain it to you. But I don’t want to worry my father now. Ever since my mother died, he’s had enough trouble on his mind.”

  “Sure.” I smiled. I finished the beer and tossed the empty can into a cardboard box alongside two other empty beer cans. “Anyway, I appreciate this. I know it’s probably a waste of time, but there is a chance you’ll spot one of your regular customers down there. If so, the odds are fair that customer is the person who lost my brother’s watch in your bakery.”

  “Would that be so important—finding the person who lost the watch?”

  “I think so. I think my brother was murdered near here. I know his credit cards and identification were burned near here. I think the killer, or killers, kept the watch because it looked untraceable, like a million other old Time-0 watches. Nobody bothered to open the watch and see the name scratched inside. But after someone lost the watch in your bakery, you put up a sign saying the owner could claim the watch by identifying the name inside the case. Whoever lost the watch probably saw the sign, but didn’t dare come forward. That person guessed quickly enough whose name would be in there. Nobody claimed the watch because the person who lost it either killed my brother or knows who did.”

  I donned sunglasses and pulled a lightweight hat low over my brow and left the office first. The name on the door was Kay Enterprises. Half the other offices in the building were vacant. Third-rate tenants occupied the remainder. Most of those were already empty and locked, although the one-man export-import firm banged on his typewriter as I passed.

  The rickety old two-story structure had no elevator. I walked down a flight of stairs and out onto Clay Street, a half block north of Jackson. Irma and I always left the building separately. The last thing I wanted was to be spotted near the building with Irma, since her picture had appeared in the newspapers when the watch was found. Word would get around, and the person who lost that watch might avoid Clay and Jackson like the plague. Irma had written me a short note three weeks earlier, volunteering to help me without her father’s knowledge. She promised to telephone for details later. By the time she called, I’d already rented the office through Max Fuller, and Irma and I worked out our security precautions then.

  At Harrison, a block north of Jackson, I turned east and walked three blocks to a parking lot. To get in and out of this lot you dropped a quarter into a slot which activated a gate. In the lot, I’d parked Sam Alban’s family car. I borrowed the car from him because his cab, No. 444, was as well-known to Clay Street’s denizens as I was.

  I drove out of the lot toward Clay on Harrison. But a block before Clay I turned left down a narrow residential street. I pulled up beside a fire hydrant. I sat there, the motor running, waiting for Irma. Her instructions were to leave the building five minutes after I left, walk on Clay to Jackson, walk down Jackson to this street and then walk to the fire hydrant. I calculated that if she followed my schedule, she’d arrive at the hydrant about the time I did. But she’d been ten minutes late the first two times. She was going to be late now, too. Just as she’d been late when I picked her up near the bakery that afternoon.

  I sighed. I turned the motor off and lit a cigarette.

  Unhurried, Irma rounded the corner twelve minutes later. I opened the door. She climbed into the car.

  “I thought you wanted to get back by five thirty,” I said. “It’s almost that now.”

  “I had to get ready,” she explained. That ended that. It dawned on me that Irma was like a number of other girls I’d known. She was a chronic late arrival.

  In silence I battled the rush-hour traffic. At two minutes before six I parked beside a high stone fence surrounding a school two blocks from Bronson’s Bakery. Irma peered in both directions.

  “I guess it’s all right. I don’t see anyone who knows me.” She opened the door.

  “I wish we didn’t have to do it this way,” I said. “You sneaking around with me near your own home, as though we were committing a crime.”

  “It can’t be helped.”

  “When do you think you could try it again?”

  “Not for a while. I’m not sure. I’ll let you know.”

  “Next time,” I suggested, “let’s watch during a different time span. We were in the office from one until five the first three times. Next time, I’d like you to watch through the rush hour and into the early evening. Until nearly dark. A different crowd of people turn out then.”

  “All right. I guess I could tell my father I’m going uptown to have dinner and see a movie.”

>   Irma closed the door. She walked away.

  Sam Alban lived five miles across town. I drove to his apartment building and parked in front. I went upstairs and gave the car keys to his wife. A dumpy, amiable woman, she made me comfortable in her kitchen and gave me a cup of coffee and a piece of pie. We exchanged meaningless pleasantries while Sam’s two boys, twelve and fourteen, wrestled in the living room in front of the television set.

  At seven exactly, Sam’s cab pulled up in front of the building. He tooted his horn. I went back down and climbed into the rear seat.

  “Thanks, Sam. Let’s go to my place. I don’t know when I’ll need your car again.”

  “Any luck?”

  “Not yet. But were just starting. Did you have another talk with the cab driver who thought he saw my brother’s ring?”

  “Yeah. But it’s like he told you.” Sam wheeled into traffic. “He thinks he gave a ride to a fare wearing a ring like that a couple months ago. But he doesn’t remember what the guy looked like or where he took him. Just the ring. This cabbie spent two years with the occupation in Japan and he spotted the ring as something special.”

  “Well, at least it’s something. That’s two reports on Ed’s ring so far. The CGL director Pete Ordway introduced me to didn’t remember where he saw the ring, either. But he’d spent military time in Japan, too, and he knows some of the language. He told me he recognized the brotherhood symbol. This director goes to business and social functions all over the state. He thinks he saw the ring on a man’s hand at one of those affairs. He meets so many people he couldn’t recall the circumstances.”

  “That ain’t much help.”

  “I disagree. We’ve found two people who think they’ve seen the ring now. And with your cabbies, Betsy’s girlfriends, and those CGL guys on the alert all over town, if anyone is wearing that ring in public, we’re bound to get him sooner or later.”

  Lorene had invited me to a free dinner at the restaurant that night. The Dugout was expecting an important guest—Jerry Gourmet, restaurant columnist for the Journal. Unlike restaurant columns in the city’s other newspapers, Gourmet’s column could not be bought by signing an advertising contract. Gourmet visited restaurants whether they advertised or not, and he wrote up only the best. Consequently, Gourmet’s column was the only one in town with significant influence on the dining public.

  Martin Moss, the restaurant’s public relations man, had persuaded Gourmet to give The Dugout a trial. Moreover, while Gourmet’s visits were supposedly unannounced, Moss managed to learn the date and hour. To be sure Gourmet was served properly, Lorene was remaining at the restaurant through the evening instead of going home to Jackie at four thirty as usual. She also asked her friends to be there when Gourmet arrived to provide a respectably full house. On ordinary summer week nights, The Dugout was often half empty. Martin Moss didn’t think empty tables would help impress Gourmet with the restaurant’s apparent success.

  Lorene met me at the door. Her eyes were bright, her cheeks a little flushed.

  She winked and said, “The great man has already arrived. He and his wife are drinking martinis and they both ordered stroganoff. Pop’s going to help me prepare it personally.”

  “From the looks of the crowd, you don’t need me here.”

  “I know. Most of the investors came with their families. But thank God, Harry Bagwell couldn’t make it. Harry invited me to a party Friday night, by the way. He’s our moneybags, I guess I’ll have to go. Wanna be my escort?”

  Lorene asked the question lightly. But it meant a lot. For the first time, she was willing to see me away from the restaurant.

  “Sure. I warn you, though. I don’t think Harry likes me.”

  “Harry won’t bite. Not at his own party. Anyhow, I’m damned if I’ll go up to Harry Bagwell’s apartment alone, even if a hundred other people are present.”

  I shared a house table with Martin Moss and a girl he had hired recently to assist him. The girl’s name was Joan Engstrom. Nervous and intense, she was in her early twenties. She wore a suit, but the garment somehow accentuated her very feminine curves in almost blatant fashion. Joan was a Clay Street girl, a petite brunette with a small nose, narrow lips, and a strong chin. Joan had worked as a secretary for half a dozen small advertising and public relations firms, trying in vain to talk herself into a more responsible position, before she saw Moss’s classified ad for a “Writer—Female.” Joan convinced Moss to give her a shot at the job. While her obvious ambition and drive no doubt impressed Moss, her undeniable physical attributes may have played a role in his decision too. Moss, the devoted father of four, was squeezing Joan’s hand and whispering in her ear as I approached. Joan laughed.

  I pulled up a chair. Moss glanced at me with momentary annoyance. Then his big round face relaxed into a bland smile. He was a shaggy, bearlike man, and for all his tasteless tactics, apparently a man of basic good humor. He was also uninsultable. I had insulted him the first time I met him and had heard Bagwell insult him a half dozen times. But Moss refused to take any cutting remark to heart. I had long stopped hating him for trying to induce me to plug one of his night-club clients on television during my first week in the city. Charitably, I concluded that Moss simply didn’t know any better.

  “Hi, Kolchak. You know Joanie. Been hitting the Clay Street dives again?”

  “A few. Tell me. How are you going to explain your presence here to Jerry Gourmet? He’s just around the bend and he’s bound to see you. His visits are supposed to be surprises.”

  “Hell, I already told him the food is so good I eat here every night.” Moss waved for service. Tony appeared. Moss ordered a round of drinks. “This will be a good deal for Lorene and her old man. A write-up from Gourmet will draw people from all over town. And the Journal will include The Dugout in its annual restaurant guide.”

  “Lorene deserves it. She and her father work pretty hard, trying to build up this place.”

  “Restaurants are a miserable business,” Moss philosophized. “Worse even than mine. You gotta work morning to night, seven days a week. Trust anyone else and they’ll steal you blind.”

  Joan Engstrom had pulled away from Moss. Coolly she surveyed me. I sensed she had me categorized as a potentially dangerous oddball who would never be in a position to help her up the ladder of success. But she condescended to recognize me by remarking, “Lorene likes you, doesn’t she?”

  “I’d like to think so. But I’ve been too busy lately to really find out.”

  “She does, though. I know. Lorene and my older sister went to high school together. Lorene always ignored men. Always waiting for the right guy, I guess. She dated Pete Ordway awhile in high school, but I think that was just because Pete was captain of the football team.”

  The notion of wiry Pete Ordway playing football struck me as unreasonable. But then, Ordway had probably been a tough, dogged little competitor.

  “Pete,” Joan went on, “took it hard when Lorene married that air force lieutenant. But when she came back with the baby, Pete asked Lorene to marry him. He was just starting his night law courses then. He worked in his father’s drugstore. Lorene turned him down. I guess Pete got over Lorene, though. He’s got two kids of his own now. As for Lorene, after the lieutenant she never looked at another man until you came along.”

  I had to smile. “Good grief,” I said. “I’ve never seen Lorene except in the restaurant.”

  “She sits down and talks to you, doesn’t she?”

  “Yes, but…”

  “Lorene,” Joan said, “hasn’t made small talk with a man for years, except to ask how the food tasted or if the service was good. The bachelors in the Clay Street Junior Chamber of Commerce call her ‘The Iceberg.’ The way she warms up to you is the scandal of their monthly luncheon meetings.”

  During our meal, Moss discussed his dream. He wanted to publish a Clay Street newspaper, su
pported with advertisements from the street’s more expensive night clubs, strip joints, and restaurants. The publication would capitalize on Clay Street’s notoriety and stress entertainment news. It would be distributed to every hotel in town. The only hitch was, few of the night clubs, strip joints, and restaurants Moss approached with his plan displayed even the remotest interest.

  But Moss kept plugging. Now he was considering toning down entertainment news and going in for neighborhood social items and strong political editorials. The only neighborhood newspaper then circulating around Clay Street was part of a chain and took no editorial stand on anything. Moss figured that if he took an editorial stand supporting Hiram Schell, Schell might reciprocate by helping line up advertising or even by providing some capital of his own. Schell had not enjoyed the full support of any newspaper of any kind in more than twenty years. The novelty of the situation, Moss hoped, would appeal to him. So far, though, Schell hadn’t nibbled.

  I recalled, from Max Fuller’s report, that Phil Amber owned two night clubs and one restaurant on Moss’s list of clients.

  “What,” I asked, “does Phil Amber think of your scheme?”

  Moss looked embarrassed at the mention of the gangster’s name.

  “Yeah, I know Phil. They say bad things about him, but I never had no trouble. A real gentleman.”

  “Sure.”

  “It would help if Phil would get all his joints to take ads in the paper. But as for outright financial backing—I couldn’t accept money from a source like that.”

  Tony walked to our table.

  “Sir,” he said to Moss, “Jerry Gourmet has finished his meal. He is talking to Mr. Heineman and his daughter now, and it was suggested you join them. Mr. Gourmet liked the stroganoff very much.” Tony turned to me. “Jerry Gourmet wants to meet you, too.”

  “Thanks,” Moss said. He dug into his pocket. “Here’s something for you. For taking care of us.”