04-Strangler

by Parnell Hall

  “But here’s the thing. You’re busy with doctors and what have you, you’re in and out, and you don’t want to see an investigator right away. So you make an appointment for two days later.”

  “Two days later?”

  “Right. And make it for first thing in the morning. Say, nine A.M.”

  “OK.”

  “And one more thing. You have no phone. You tell ’em you want to fix the time of the appointment right then because they can’t reach you because you have no phone.”

  Leroy shrugged. “So far it sounds incredibly easy. Then what?”

  “Then you go hang out in a bar. Duke’s Place, on Lenox Avenue.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding.”

  “I’m not.”

  “This does not sound like the type of establishment I would normally frequent.”

  “It isn’t. In fact, it’s the type of establishment where if you use words like ‘regularly frequent’ you’re liable to find yourself thrown out on your educated ear.”

  “Sheee, no sweat, man, ah jus’ jibe it up and blen’ rite in.”

  I doubted that. Leroy’s jive was passable at best. But it would have to do.

  “That’s fine,” I told him.

  “So what do I do then?” Leroy asked. He had reverted to his normal voice, for which I was grateful.

  “You hang out in the bar, getting soused, telling everyone who will listen, and even those who won’t, how you fell down and broke your arm, and how you’re really pissed, and how you’re gonna sue the city and make a shitload of money, and how you called Rosenberg and Stone and you got an appointment for nine in the morning.”

  “Jesus. How long do I have to do that?”

  “For two days.”

  He looked at me. “Are you serious?”

  “Yes, I am. Can you handle it?”

  “Of course I can,” Leroy said. “It’s a bit of an inconvenience, but no problem. This doesn’t seem to be that big of a favor.”

  “I’m not finished yet.”

  “I figured that. So what do I do then?”

  “The night before your appointment, you hang out in the bar until midnight getting soused. Then you leave. When you do, you make a point of the fact you gotta go home because you gotta be up early in the morning to keep this appointment.”

  “Of course. Then what?”

  “Then you go back to your apartment, and you wait.”

  “I see,” Leroy said. “And what happens then?”

  “Then,” I told him, “someone will try to strangle you.”

  39.

  IT DIDN’T TAKE THAT long to set up. The whole charade must have appealed to Leroy’s sense of adventure because he really threw himself into it. By the time I got home from my last assignment that evening at six-thirty, he had already left a message with Alice for me to call him. I did, and even though Leroy spoke in his usual reserved and refined manner, I could tell he was pretty pleased with himself.

  I couldn’t blame him. In the course of a few short hours, Leroy had managed to acquire himself an apartment in a brownstone on West 139th Street, not three blocks from Duke’s Place. He had also managed to inveigle a doctor into encasing his left arm in a plaster cast that caused him only “a modicum of discomfort.”

  At any rate, Leroy was all set, and wanted to know if he should go ahead and call Rosenberg and Stone first thing in the morning.

  I told him not to.

  You see, since talking to Leroy I had had second thoughts. Not about the trap itself—that was all right—just about certain aspects of it.

  And one aspect in particular.

  If Leroy called Rosenberg and Stone and asked for an appointment, then Sergeant Clark would know about it. And the thing was, I didn’t know everything Sergeant Clark was doing. But I knew he was up to something. And it wasn’t illogical to assume that he was thoroughly investigating every new client that came in. So if Leroy asked for an appointment two days in advance, that would give Sergeant Clark a lot of time to investigate. And the problem was, Duane Wilson’s bonafides were not going to stand a lot of investigating. The minute the police began poking into Duane Wilson’s background, they were going to realize something wasn’t quite kosher.

  That was one reason.

  And I tried to tell myself it was the main reason, and maybe it was.

  But there was another reason.

  Because there was one thing I knew that Sergeant Clark was doing, and that was staking out the homes of all the clients that called in. And if the police staked out the apartment that Leroy had rented, even if they didn’t realize it was bogus, even if they didn’t realize the whole thing was a setup, they’d be there. And then if it worked, if everything went exactly as planned, then Sam Gravston would come walking into their trap and not mine.

  And somehow that didn’t seem fair.

  So, for whichever reason you might choose, I didn’t want Leroy calling Rosenberg and Stone.

  And there was no reason that he should. I could work it perfectly well another way. Of course, by doing so, I’d be giving up the possibility of trapping any other employee of Rosenberg and Stone, if indeed they were guilty and not Sam. But that didn’t seem to me too great a loss. Having talked to all of them, and having investigated all the possibilities, I just couldn’t imagine any of them being guilty. I had the answer, and the answer was Sam. It had to be. If this didn’t work, well then I could backtrack and set up another trap for the rest of the office personnel. But I didn’t think I’d have to.

  It had to be Sam.

  And if I needed any further reason for Leroy not calling Rosenberg and Stone, it was this: it was now Wednesday night. If Leroy called Thursday morning and asked for an appointment in two days, that would push it into the weekend and the appointment would be made for Monday.

  And that was just too far off. It had to be soon. Actually, it had to be now. Right now. It had to be dangled in front of Sam’s nose and made attractive enough that he would have to bite.

  Before something better came along.

  Before he killed someone else.

  So I had decided to push the schedule up. The appointment would be made for Friday morning.

  Which meant the dry run would be tonight.

  That was no problem for Leroy. He was already installed in the apartment. He was actually calling from there. It was a furnished apartment that belonged to a friend of Leroy’s, who had been happy to loan it to him for the purpose, which was one reason he’d been able to set it up so quickly. All it had entailed was sticking a strip of tape with the name Duane Wilson on it over the mail slot.

  I got in my car and drove over there.

  Leroy was waiting for me outside. He had dressed for the occasion in an old army jacket, blue jeans and a pair of sneakers with no laces.

  Only one arm was through the sleeve of the army jacket. The left sleeve hung limply down from the shoulder, and the left arm that poked out from under the coat was encased in a white cast.

  “Where’d you get the nifty threads?” I asked.

  Leroy grinned. “Goodwill. Care to see my pad?”

  “Don’t mind if I do.”

  We went up the front steps and into the brownstone. Leroy pushed open the foyer door, which was unlocked.

  “Security’s not a big selling point here, I see,” I said.

  “It does leave a bit to be desired,” Leroy said. “But the apartment’s not bad.”

  It wasn’t, either. The apartment was a fairly nice one-bedroom on the third floor. It was clean and tastefully, if modestly, furnished.

  Which didn’t really concern me. Oh sure, I wanted Leroy to be comfortable and all that, but I had more important considerations.

  Specifically, the front door.

  It had a police lock, one of the old-fashioned kind with a steel bar that sets in a metal plate on the floor and runs at an angle up to another metal plate on the door. I tested it, and it was sound. With the bar in place, there was no way anyone was goin
g to get in the door.

  I checked the windows. There were no fire escapes, bad in case the building should burn down, but great in that no one could get in through the window.

  There was no service door. No other way in or out of the apartment.

  So once Leroy was locked inside with the bar in place, he was presumably safe.

  “OK,” I said, after I had checked everything out. “Looks good.”

  “I thought so,” Leroy said. “So, shall we begin?”

  “I have to warn you. This could be dangerous.”

  I felt stupid saying that. It was so corny and dramatic.

  It didn’t help when Leroy laughed in my face. He smiled and shook his head. “But that’s the whole point now, isn’t it?” Leroy was really enjoying himself. He punched me in the arm playfully, which was totally out of character for him. “Come on,” he said. “Let’s go.”

  We went.

  I left my car where it was and walked with Leroy over to Lenox Avenue. We split up there, as I didn’t want to be seen with him, and he walked on up Lenox Avenue to Duke’s Place. I tailed along, across the street and about a half a block behind. I stopped in the shadows and watched as Leroy pushed open the door and went into Duke’s Place.

  The bar was not the type of place that made a selling point of putting its patrons on display. The front windows were blacked out. The front door had two narrow panes of clear glass in it, so I could see light within, but that was about it.

  I walked on up Lenox Avenue, crossed the street and started back down again. I slowed down as I passed the bar and snuck a look in door. It was just a glance, but it was enough for me to get a glimpse of Leroy Stanhope Williams standing at the bar. He had shrugged the army coat off his shoulders, and he was gesticulating with his cast-encased left arm, while in his right hand he held a shot glass of what I am sure he considered to be particularly foul spirits.

  I kept on going. I couldn’t risk stopping, and there was no need. Nothing was going to happen in the bar. And, after all, this was just the dry run.

  I walked back to the apartment. My car was parked right out front, where I’d left it. That, I realized, was something I couldn’t do tomorrow. Sam Gravston knew my car. It would be a dead giveaway.

  I hadn’t thought of that until now.

  It occurred to me it was a good thing I’d had a dry run.

  No, I couldn’t be waiting in my car. But I had to have somewhere to wait. I wasn’t going to stake out the bar. There was no point. That was just my back-up plan, anyway, my tip of the hat to Sergeant Clark. But Sam Gravston didn’t know about the bar. All he would have would be Duane Wilson’s address. I had to stake out the apartment.

  I looked around for a spot. Across the street would be best. I looked for an alcove, and soon found one. It was one building further down the street, away from Lenox Avenue, so I’d be looking diagonally across the street, but that was fine by me. It was steps down to a cellar door and a row of garbage cans. I went down. It was pitch dark. No chance of being seen. It was perfect.

  But I didn’t have to stay there tonight. Not for a dry run. It was only nine-thirty by then. I went out and walked around.

  And thought about the case. The whole setup. The whole plan.

  And I liked it. I mean, I hated the whole thing: the fact that Sam was guilty, the fact that I had to trap him and the whole bit. But, given the circumstances, I liked the plan.

  By the time midnight rolled around, and from my alcove I watched a rather unsteady Leroy Stanhope Williams come down the street, push open his foyer door and go up the steps to his apartment. I was convinced of one thing.

  It was going to work.

  40.

  D-DAY.

  I called Sam Gravston at seven-thirty in the morning and fed him the bullshit spiel: I’d been given a signup for Friday morning, but I’d forgotten that Tommie had a doctor’s appointment I had to take him to, and the client had no phone so I couldn’t call and change it, and could he cover for me?

  What could he say? After all the cases I’d covered for him in the last week, the only thing he could say was yes, and that’s what he said.

  So the trap was set. It was as easy as that. Sam Gravston now thought that he had a genuine signup for Friday morning at nine. There’d be no reason for him to check back with Rosenberg and Stone to make sure it was legitimate. Why should he doubt it?

  But it wasn’t a real signup, and it wasn’t on the books of Rosenberg and Stone, and there was no way Sergeant Clark and the police could know anything about it.

  It was perfect.

  After that, the day dragged. I did three signups, and I sure hope I got the information right, because, I must confess, my mind was elsewhere.

  I got home by six. Alice had dinner waiting for me, but I was too nervous to eat. I kept choking on my food. Alice seemed nervous, too, and dinner was a strain. The only one who was relaxed at all was Tommie, and even he was bolting his food so he could get back into the living room to watch “The Monkees.”

  When he finally fled, Alice turned to me and said, “Nervous?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Me, too.”

  “I’ll be all right.”

  She smiled. “I know you will. It’s just—”

  “What?”

  “Well ...” She looked down at her plate. “I hope you’re wrong.”

  “What?”

  She looked up at me. “I hope it isn’t Sam.”

  “Oh.”

  That bothered me. That was, of course, the bottom line for Alice. She hoped it wasn’t Sam. She didn’t want that nice young man to be guilty of murder.

  And I didn’t either. I didn’t want it to be Sam. But it was, and I’d figured it out and solved the case. And while I didn’t want it to be Sam, I didn’t want it not to be Sam, if you know what I mean.

  And that bothered me.

  We finished up dinner, and I called Leroy Stanhope Williams. At his home in Queens, not at the apartment in Harlem. I hadn’t wanted Leroy hanging out there during the day. In the first place, there was no need—Sam wouldn’t strike during the day and so far in advance. And in the second place, if Sam did, if he tried it, I wouldn’t be there to stop him. So Leroy had spent the day at home.

  Leroy was all set and raring to go. You’d have thought he liked the idea of being strangled.

  “OK, I’m leaving now,” I told him.

  “Me, too.”

  “Be sure you give me time to get in place.”

  “Don’t worry. I have to come all the way from Queens.”

  “Yeah. I know.”

  “So don’t worry.”

  I worried. I worried driving over there that I’d get stuck in traffic, that I’d have a flat tire, and that I wouldn’t find a parking place.

  None of that happened. Everything was smooth as silk. I parked three blocks over and two blocks down, so there’d be no chance of Sam spotting my car, and walked over to Leroy’s address.

  To Duane Wilson’s address.

  It was seven-fifteen when I got there. It was dark, which was good, because I needed to hide, and bad because I needed to see. Because I didn’t know what Sam Gravston was doing. He could be watching the building now. He could be in the building now.

  I took up my position on the cellar steps and waited.

  It was close to eight when Leroy showed. We’d agreed that he’d take a taxi into town and get off several blocks away, just in case anyone was watching. So when he showed up, it was on foot. He came walking down the street from the direction of Lenox Avenue.

  There was no one around. I was sure of it. I’d been keeping careful watch. So when Leroy reached the front of the building, I stepped out from my hiding place.

  “All clear,” I said.

  “As expected.”

  “You see anyone taking any interest in you?”

  “No. Why should there be?”

  “There shouldn’t. I’m just edgy.”

  Leroy smiled. “Relax. Afte
r all, it’s my neck.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Well, let’s go.”

  We went up the steps and in the door. This was all according to plan. Because, with the foyer door unlocked, it was possible that Sam Gravston was already waiting inside.

  He wasn’t. The hallways were clear. I checked them all, right up to the fourth floor. There was no access to the roof, either—I checked that, too.

  Leroy unlocked the door and let us into the apartment. He locked it behind us, went over and sat down on the couch. He sighed, and rubbed his head.

  “You OK?” I said. “Having second thoughts?”

  Leroy waved it away. “No,” he said. He grinned. “It’s this damned cheap booze they serve.”

  I smiled. “A little out of your league, huh?”

  “It tastes like kerosene, but it has quite a kick. And the thing is, you wake up feeling like having another.”

  “We’d better solve this thing fast, before you’re ready for detox.”

  “A valid point.” Leroy got up. “OK, I’m ready.”

  “Fine. Give me ten minutes to get in place.”

  Leroy let me out the door. I went outside and checked up and down the street. No one was in sight. I crossed the street and took up my position on the cellar stairs.

  Leroy was out ten minutes later. He didn’t look around for me, or wave, or wink or do anything cute. He was playing his part. He just walked off down the street.

  Leaving me to wait.

  See, I wasn’t going to stake out the bar. In the first place, there was no point. Sam didn’t know about the bar. The bar thing was just my personal insecurity, my nod to Sergeant Clark. But it wasn’t important.

  But the apartment was. Sam couldn’t know whether or not Duane Wilson was home. Sam could come at any time. So I had to wait.

  It was a long wait. You ever sit on a cellar steps in Harlem for four hours? I wouldn’t recommend it. It’s uncomfortable. It’s boring. It’s dull.

  And it’s scary.

  People pass by. You have to see them, but you don’t want them to see you. If they did see you, what would they think? What would they do?

  Time passes quickly when you’re having fun.