“Uh-huh. And you let her get away.” Kells shook his head. “I thought you had more on the ball. If Emil Ryker pulled a stunt like that”—Emil was my predecessor as Squawk editor—“I could understand it. He’s the dumbest creature on God’s earth. But you…”
“What’s wrong?”
“Just this.” Kells crushed his cigarette. “Even if squawkers appear to be kooks, we don’t scare ’em away. We learn what’s on their minds. Anything’s possible. Maybe that dame’s story was worth five grand.” Sid paused. “How do you suppose our boss, Murray Hale, became such an important man?”
“He broke the police scandal.”
“Yeah. He was a reporter, just like you. A bum drifted into the reception room one day and Murray went out to talk to him. The bum said he’d speak only to the publisher; he wanted to sell a story for ten thousand bucks. But Murray wheedled and cajoled and got him to tell his story for a beer and a steak dinner. It took months of digging afterward, but based on what that bum told Murray, the Express copped three journalism awards, eleven police officers went to prison for taking payoffs, the city got a new police commissioner, and Murray married the boss’s daughter. That’s why Murray set up the Squawk Department, so any other oddball with a tip will get a fair hearing.”
“All right,” I conceded. “Maybe I should have tried to learn more about her, but she walked out.”
“You could have stopped her. What was her name?”
“Irene Brown.” I folded my arms and leaned back. “You know, with those gaudy clothes and all, she could have been a hooker.”
“Fine. A possible hooker with a story, the Express just dying to dig up something on Syndicate vice, and you brush her off. But I guess that’s what you learned in journalism school, not to touch a story unless it’s got big social significance. If I were you, though, I’d write a memo on your kook and give it to Totten, for protection. If that dame’s picture turns up alongside a front-page blast in some other paper, Gladys will remember you talked to her. Her memory for faces is almost as good as mine.”
A photographer came by. “I’m ready, Sid.”
“Okay.” Kells straightened his tie and winked. “Don’t take me too seriously. You ain’t really as dumb as Emil, but you did goof. Compose that memo. Meanwhile, I gotta run to the Food Show and interview Lulu, the talking seal. I bet that’s something you never learned in journalism school either, how to interview a seal.”
Kells and the photographer took off. I stared at my typewriter for a minute. Then I got up, crossed to a bank of windows and looked down. Possibly Irene Brown was still waiting at a bus stop. If so, I might be able to catch her.
I saw Irene, but not at the bus stop. As Kells and the photographer hurried from the building to the photographer’s car, Irene drove to the exit of a parking lot across the street in an old blue convertible. You couldn’t miss Irene, not with the orange turban and the green dress, although at this distance I couldn’t make out her features. At the street, she braked; then she turned left and rolled away at a brisk clip.
That was that.
Bill Totten, our city editor, was a long, lean, outwardly easygoing man in his early thirties, with unkempt, sandy hair. Poker-faced, he listened to my story. When I was through, he said, “Kells was right, you know. I understand how he gets your goat sometimes. He rides all the new men. But it is unusual, a woman offering to sell a story for five thousand dollars.”
He swiveled in his chair, avoiding my gaze. “Of course the odds are she’s a nut. On the other hand, if her story’s any good, it’s damn sure we could talk her into settling for less than five thousand. But don’t worry about it. If she wouldn’t confide in you, it’s not your fault.” Totten said that, but I sensed he wished some other reporter had gone out to interview Irene Brown. “You had all you could handle, without spending time with a squawker. It’s my fault for giving you so much to do. But you were right in telling me about this. Write your memo, and I’ll alert the reception room in case she turns up again. Next time, we won’t let her get away so easily. That’s all you know about her? Her name?”
“I’m afraid so. But I checked the city telephone book. There are only five Irene Browns in it. If you want, I could…”
“Don’t bother. She might have a phone under her own name, she might not. She might be Mrs. Somebody Brown and she might even live in a suburb, in which case she wouldn’t be in the city directory. She might not have a telephone at all, or Irene Brown might not be her real name. And if she went to work, as you say she planned to do, she wouldn’t be home to answer her phone anyhow. Well just wait for her to return.”
Totten lit a cigar. Stolidly, he puffed. “If anything like this happens again, forget the obits and the weather and whatnot. We can always put someone else on that. I should have made this plainer when I made you Squawk editor. It’s become so routine to give the job to the new man that I forget sometimes. But a squawker, especially one who comes to the paper, always takes precedence over any and all of your other assignments. In the future you’ll remember that.”
* * * *
That afternoon the home team won the ball game, an alderman died of a heart attack, and the body of a minor gangster was found in the trunk of a car, but Weather was shaping up as the main local story for the first edition, which would hit the street at 5 p.m.
On the phone, I learned that water pressure was low in the suburbs, pavement on the new expressway had buckled in four places, beaches were jammed, twenty-nine people had been hospitalized for heat prostration, the mercury had set a record for the date of 101 degrees at 2 p.m., and thunderstorms moving in from the southwest were expected to break the heat wave during the night.
At 3 p.m. I began to write the story. The head of the copy desk conferred with me and drafted his tentative page-one banner: AT LAST! RELIEF IN SIGHT!
At 3:15 Kells came back from his interview with Lulu, a creature made famous by a television show sponsored by a diversified food manufacturer. Sid’s creed was that, when a reporter covered a story arranged by a publicity man, he’d damn well better get something for it. He was so obviously on the take that management had rapped his knuckles more than once. This time his loot was a big jar of fish labeled “Lulu’s Pride.”
Sid pulled off his sports coat, lit a cigarette and began pounding his typewriter, working as fast with two fingers as most touch-typists can with all ten. What emerged would never win a Pulitzer, but Sid knew all the clichés. In thirty minutes, he had completed nearly four pages of triple-spaced copy, which he dumped with elaborate casualness before an assistant city editor.
He lumbered back and picked up the jar. “How d’ya like that? The booth is full of canned hams, and that cheap press agent gives me fish.” He unscrewed the top. “Phew! What an odor! But at least the martinis at the press lunch were tolerable.”
Totten walked by. “Sid, Deuce is out on a gangster killing.” Deuce was our police reporter. His full name was Charles Dawes Ducey, but everyone called him Deuce. “Meanwhile, some Japanese police chiefs are touring the Detective Bureau. Their reactions will make a nice feature for the Three-Star. Take a cab, phone in to rewrite and you’re through for the day.”
Totten left. Kells said, “You do what I told you? About the memo?”
“Yes.”
“Good. That’s the secret of survival in this shop. Protect yourself.” He donned his coat, put the jar in a paper bag and dropped that into his pocket. “Ill feed this junk to my landlady’s cat. If that don’t kill the bastard, nothing will.”
* * * *
Connie Thurlow was in public relations, an elastic term that encompasses everything from crude schlockmeisters operating out of phone booths to high-powered representatives of billion-dollar corporations. Connie’s agency fell somewhere in between. At six I got off work, showered and changed at my apartment, and walked to an art gallery where Connie was helping stage a c
ocktail party. Connie nodded and went on moving from guest to guest, carrying a glass from which she appeared to sip but which somehow never emptied. It was a trick of her trade. A public relations girl who tried to match drinks with guests at her cocktail parties would soon be in an alcoholic ward.
By eight the place had fairly well cleared out. Connie drained her hitherto bottomless glass and walked to me, her lips twisted in a wan smile. She was a tall girl, nearly as tall as Irene Brown. The demure cut of her dress somehow accentuated rather than concealed the fullness of her breasts and the clean lines of her hips and thighs. Her hair was a tone of dull gold, and her eyes were blue. We had met my first day on the Express, when she walked in and charmed me into writing a story about one of her clients.
“This,” Connie announced, “was a fiasco. The air conditioning failed, the art editor of the Beacon spilled a drink on the gallery’s wealthiest customer, and the artist denounced the art editor of the Journal for his views on civil rights. I should have stayed in bed. Let’s scram.”
We went to the Press Club, the only place in town so far where I could sign a dinner tab. After we ordered, Connie asked, “Well? You thought it over?”
“I have. I appreciate the offer, but the answer’s still the same. No.”
“You’re a damn fool.” She said it reasonably cordially.
“I’m sorry. But I just don’t think public relations is for me.”
“Well, don’t forget us. If you change your mind, we won’t fill the position for a while. I spoke to Leo about you again this morning.” Leo was the president of her public relations agency. “He said he’d start you at ten thousand. That’s a lot more than the Express is paying you. Ames, you’d be a natural. You’re clean-cut, articulate, know how to dress and can write. In a few years you’d be earning more than a city editor.” She looked down. “This job with the Express—you plan on keeping it long? Or are you one of the dreamers? With ambitions of building a national reputation in New York or Washington?”
“I like it here. I’ve knocked around long enough.”
“Uh-huh.” Connie studied me. Her eyes were wide set, and she had a long, thin nose and a sharp jaw. She was only twenty-four or twenty-five, but she’d already established a sound reputation in a highly competitive field. In part, her success was due to the fact that her late father had been a much-beloved reporter on the old Express, which meant the pre-Murray Hale days. Old-timers in the city’s newsrooms still regarded Connie with paternal affection. But more than that, Connie wrote well, had good news judgment, and was brave enough to argue with her clients when she thought their ideas unreasonable.
“You,” Connie said, “are a lot like my old man. Nice, but foggy about the practical side of life.”
“Maybe I can change your mind about what’s practical. At any rate, I’m practical enough to give some thought to what we’re going to do after dinner. The last time I took you out, you made me bring you back to your apartment by ten.”
“I’m a working girl. The clients expect me to be fresh and starry-eyed every morning.” Connie smiled. “But okay. Let’s hear these plans of yours.”
“Well, I thought…”
A waiter tapped my shoulder. “Mr. Pete Ames? Of the Express?”
“That’s me.”
“Your paper wants you to call the desk.”
I looked at Connie. “If you’ll excuse me a moment…”
“If I know your desk,” Connie said dryly, “it’ll be for more than a moment. If they tracked you here, they really want you for something. But don’t worry.” She turned her head. At the next table, two middle-aged men nodded. “I already see a dozen of my father’s old cronies, so I’ll have no trouble finding company for dinner. Or getting a ride home.”
In a booth, I dialed the Express. The nasal voice of Foley, the night city editor, drawled, “Ames, I’ve got a memo in front of me about a woman you spoke to this morning. You said she was about thirty-five, name of Irene Brown.”
“That’s right.”
“Well, Deuce just phoned. An Irene Brown, about thirty-five, was found dead in an apartment at 1524 Grace Street. I’ve already told Deuce to call Totten at his home, to get any details about your interview with that woman that weren’t in the memo. And Murray Hale’s back in town—he wants you to run right over to 1524 Grace. If it’s the same woman who came to the Express this morning, we’ll have one helluva story. And the cops will want to ask you a lot of questions.”
CHAPTER TWO
Emergency vehicles jammed the 1500 block of Grace Street, their flashing top-lights bathing the scene with a kaleidoscopic red glow. The air was muggy, and the usual crowd of curiosity seekers lined the walk in front of a brick, three-story apartment building. This was an old neighborhood, not far from downtown and only a few blocks from Riverfront Park, biggest in the city. A prestige location before the turn of the century, the area was riddled with blight now, its stores vacant or marginal, its residents young or middle-aged people unable to afford better housing or elderly owners of ramshackle frame homes unwilling to move no matter what.
I paid my cab driver and edged through the crowd. Reporters and photographers from television newsrooms and the Journal and the Beacon, the other two papers in town, clustered near the door. The Journal, like the Express, was a morning paper and hence was our prime competitor. The Beacon came out in the afternoon.
Vance Hargrove, the Journals chief crime man, recognized me first.
“Here’s another guy,” he growled, “from the Express. Deuce is already up there, but we can’t get in. And how come they sent someone to help Deuce? He can cover a murder in his sleep. What gives?”
“I dunno,” I said innocently. “Let’s find out.” I turned to a patrolman. “I’m Ames.”
“Oh yeah, go ahead.” The patrolman stepped back and I went inside. Behind me, the other reporters howled in protest. From their point of view the Express was getting outrageously favorable treatment.
The cloying odor of gas hit me as I passed through the vestibule into the hall. At the first-floor landing, a detective said, “Ames? No smoking. The place is pretty well aired out now, but we re not taking chances.”
“Where’d the gas come from?”
“The oven. You’ll see.”
Beyond the detective, an army of plainclothesmen and technicians were going over every inch of one of the first-floor apartments. The windows yawned wide. In a corner, Charles Dawes Ducey huddled with a tall, heavy-set, ruddy-faced man.
“Over here, Pete.” Deuce was in his late thirties, short, trim, dapper and dark-haired, with puckish features and bright little eyes. Although his name had appeared over thousands of stories, he never wrote a word. Everything he learned he told to rewritemen, who composed the crisp prose that ran under his by-line. “This,” Deuce went on, “is Lieutenant Dan Moberg. I’ve already told him about the woman you saw this morning.”
“So far,” Moberg said, “it all fits, even the old blue convertible you saw her driving. Irene Brown owned a car like that—it’s parked down the street. But come on, let’s make it official.”
His small apartment was shabbily furnished and in disorder. Newspapers, magazines, and odds and ends of clothing littered the floor. Irene Brown had been a poor housekeeper.
The lieutenant led us down a short hall to the kitchen.
“This,” Moberg said, “is how the janitor found her at about eight o’clock. He let himself in with a key after the neighbors smelled gas.”
A woman in a bright-green dress slumped on her knees in front of the stove, her arms limp at her sides. Her head rested on the oven. I kneeled for a close look at her face.
“That’s her. Without a doubt.”
It wasn’t the first time I’d seen a corpse, but I was glad when Moberg steered us back to the living room, so his men could go on photographing the body.
“The desk,” I said, “called it murder. How can you be sure it isn’t what it appears to be—suicide?”
“A lot of reasons. For one, there are signs of a struggle in the living room. A busted chair, a wastebasket tipped over. For another, the intern found marks around her larynx. He thinks it was broken.”
“Strangulation?”
“Yeah. I think someone strangled her, hauled her to the oven and then turned the jets on in a crude attempt to simulate suicide, hoping we couldn’t tell one kind of asphyxia from another. Of course the autopsy will pin it down definitely.”
“What about the manila envelope she had at the Express this morning? It was manuscript-sized, although I didn’t see any writing on it”
“That’s the clincher. We know she had an envelope of that type with her when she got home a little before six. A neighbor saw her with the envelope in the hall. But we’ve searched the apartment thoroughly and there’s no envelope here. Apparently her killer took it.” Moberg looked at Ducey. “I’m sorry, Deuce. Now that Ames has made his identification, you’ll have to join the others. The press can come up in about half an hour, but I can’t give you any more preferential treatment”
“Preferential my fanny,” Deuce snapped. “I’m up here because my paper went out of its way to cooperate. We didn’t have to tell you about Pete’s talk with Irene Brown. We could have let you read about it in our Three-Star edition.”
“I appreciate that. But you’ve already got your exclusive. It’ll be on the street in your Three-Star by the time the other reporters are allowed up. I can’t protect you beyond one edition. And after we interrogate Ames…”
“Interrogate? Murray wants Pete to go back to the Express and write a detailed account of his interview with the woman.”
“Murray will have to wait.”
“Have it your way.” The little reporter’s eyes burned brightly. “I know you’ll be fair, Dan. But the Express plans to take an extraordinary interest in this case. The way it looks, that woman was murdered to keep us from printing her story.”
The James Michael Ullman Crime Novel Page 22
