He dropped the first jigger he picked up, left it where it fell, and only finally managed to fill the second one. But he didn’t seem drunk. Just nervous.
“Luck,” he said. He lifted the glass and the whisky was all gone, in five seconds, less than five seconds, almost in a flash. When he put down the jigger and picked up the bill I laid on the bar he noisily smacked his lips. “First of the day,” he said. “That’s always the best. Except for the last.”
I sipped my beer, and when he laid down the change, he was charging 75 cents for his own Scotch, I said: “So that’s your personal museum. What’s in it?”
He turned and looked at it and he sounded much better. “Everything. You name it and I’ve got it. What’s more, it’s an experience what happened to me or my family.”
“Sort of a petrified autobiography, is that it?”
“No, just my personal museum. I been around the world six times, and my folks before me been all over it. Farther than that. Name me one thing I haven’t got in that museum, and the drinks are on me.”
It was fantastic. I didn’t see how I’d ever get any information out of this fellow. He was an idiot.
“All right,” I said, humoring him. “Show me a locomotive.”
He muttered something that sounded like, “Locomotive? Now, where did that locomotive get to.” Then he reached away over in back of a football helmet, a stuffed bird, a bowl heaped to the brim with foreign coins, and a lot of odds and ends I couldn’t even see, and when he turned around he laid a toy railroad engine on the bar. “This here locomotive,” he confided, slapping it affectionately and leaning toward me, “was the only toy of mine what got saved out of the famous Third Avenue fire next to the carbarns fifty years ago. Saved it myself. I was six years old. They had nine roasts.”
I finished my beer and stared at him, not sure whether he was trying to kid me or whether he was not only half drunk but completely out of his mind besides. If it was supposed to be humor, it was certainly corny, the incredibly childish slapstick stuff that leaves me cold. Why couldn’t I have gotten the Van Barth, where I could at least read in peace and comfort, without having to interview a schizophrenic, probably homicidal.
“That’s fine,” I said.
“Still runs, too,” he assured me, and gave the key a twist, put the toy down on the bar, and let it run a few feet. It stopped when it bumped into The Creative Review. He actually sounded proud. “See? Still runs.”
God, this was simply unbelievable. I might as well be back in the office.
The lunatic gravely put the toy back behind the bar, where I heard its spring motor expend itself, and when he turned around he wordlessly filled up our glasses again, mine with beer and his with Scotch. I was still more surprised when he tossed off his drink, then returned and absently paused in front of me, appearing to wait. For God’s sake, did this fellow expect a free drink with every round? Not that it mattered. He had to be humored, I suppose. After I’d paid, and by now he seemed actually friendly, he asked: “Yes, sir. That’s one of the best private museums in New York. Anything else you’d care to see?”
“You haven’t got a crystal ball, have you?”
“Well, now, as it happens, I have.” He brought out a big glass marble from a pile of rubbish surmounted by a crucifix and a shrunken head. “Funny how everybody wants to see that locomotive, or sometimes it’s the airplane or the steamroller, and usually they ask to see the crystal ball. Now this here little globe I picked up in Calcutta. I went to a Hindu gypsy what told fortunes, and he seen in the glass that I was in danger of drowning. So I jumped the ship I was on and went on the beach awhile, and not two days passed before that boat went down with all hands. So I says to myself, Holy Smoke, how long’s this been going on? I never put much stock in that stuff before, see? So I went back to this fellow, and I says, I’d like to have that there gadget. And he says, in his own language of course, this been in his family for generations after generations and he can’t part with it.”
This juvenile nonsense went on and on. My God, I thought it would never stop. And I had to look as though I were interested. Finally it got so boring I couldn’t stand any more of it. I said: “Well, I wish you’d look into that globe and see if you can locate a friend of mine for me.”
“That’s a funny thing. When I finally paid the two thousand rupees he wanted, and I took it back to my hotel, I couldn’t make the damn thing work. And never could since.”
“Never mind,” I said. “Have another drink.” He put the marble away and drew another beer and poured himself another Scotch. I couldn’t see how a fellow like this stayed in business for more than a week.
Before he could put his drink away I went on: “A friend of mine I haven’t seen for years comes in here sometimes, and I wonder if you know him. I’d like to see him again. Maybe you know what would be a good time to find him here.”
The man’s eyes went absolutely blank.
“What’s his name?”
“George Chester.”
“George Chester.” He stared at the far end of the room, apparently thinking, and a little of the mask fell away from him. “That name I don’t know. Mostly, I don’t know their names, anyway. What’s he look like?”
“Oh, medium height and build,” I said. “A mutual acquaintance told me he saw him in here late last Saturday afternoon. With a good-looking blonde.”
He threw the shot of whisky into his mouth and I don’t believe the glass even touched his lips. Didn’t this fellow ever take a chaser? He frowned and paused.
“I think I know who you mean. Clean-cut, brown-haired fellow?”
“I guess you could call him that.”
“I remember that blonde. She was something for the books. She wanted to see the raven that fellow wrote about, nevermore quoth he. So I let her have a look at it. Yes, they were in here a couple of nights ago, but he don’t come around here very often. Four or five years ago he was in here lots, almost every night. Smart, too. Many’s the time I used to show him my museum, until me and some hacker had to pick him up and carry him out. One night he wouldn’t go home at all, he wanted to sleep right inside the museum. ‘Book me the royal suite on your ocean liner, Gil,’ he kept saying. We got him home all right. But that was several years ago.” He looked at me with sharp interest. “Friend of yours?”
I nodded. “We used to work for the same advertising agency.”
He puzzled some more. “I don’t think he did then,” he decided. “He worked for some newspaper, and before that he and his wife used to run a joint upstate, the same as mine. No museum, of course. Seems to me his name might have been George Chester, at that. I had to garage his car once or twice when he had too much. But he gradually stopped coming in. I don’t think he was here more than twice in the last three or four months. But he might come in any time, you never can tell. Very intelligent fellow. What they call eccentric.”
“Maybe I could reach him through the blonde.”
“Maybe.”
“Who is she, do you know?”
This time his whole face went blank. “No idea, sir.”
He moved up the bar to serve some customers who had just entered, and I opened The Creative Review. There was a promising revaluation of Henry James I would have to read, though I knew the inevitable shortcomings of the man who wrote it. A long article on Tibetan dance ritual that looked quite good.
I finished my beer and went to a phone booth. I called the office and asked for Stroud, but got Cordette instead.
“Where’s Stroud?” I asked.
“Out. Who’s this?”
“Ed Orlin. I’m at Gil’s Tavern.”
“Found it, did you? Get the right one?”
“It’s the right one, no question. And what a dive.”
“Pick up anything?”
“Our man was here last Saturday, all right, and with the blonde.”
“Fine. Let’s have it.”
“There isn’t much. The bartender isn’t sure of his na
me, because the guy doesn’t come in here any more.” I let that sink in, for a moment. I certainly hoped to get called off this drab saloon and that boring imbecile behind the bar. “But he thinks his name may actually be George Chester. He has been described by the bartender, who is either a half-wit or an outright lunatic himself, as very intelligent and eccentric. Believe me, Chester is probably just the opposite.”
“Why?”
“It’s that kind of a place. Eccentric, yes, but only a moron would come into a dump like this and spend hours talking to the fellow that runs this menagerie.”
“Go on.”
“The physical description we have does not seem far wrong, but there’s nothing to add to it, except that he’s brown-haired and clean-cut.”
“All right. What else? Any line on the blonde?”
“Nothing.”
“That certainly isn’t much, is it?”
“Well, wait. Our man is unquestionably a dipsomaniac. Four or five years ago he was in here every night and had to be sent home in a taxi. At that time he was a newspaperman, the bartender believes, and he never heard of him as working for an advertising concern. And before he was a newspaperman he ran a tavern somewhere upstate, with his wife.”
“A drunk. Formerly, with his wife, a tavern proprietor. Probably a newspaperman, eccentric, clean-cut in appearance. It isn’t much, but it’s something. Is that all?”
“That’s all. And our baby hasn’t been in here more than twice in the last eight or ten months. So what should I do? Come back to the office?”
There was a pause, and I had a moment of hope.
“I think not, Ed. He was in there two days ago, he might not wait so long before he returns. And you can work on the bartender some more. Psychoanalyze him for more details. Have a few drinks with him.”
Oh, my God.
“Listen, this fellow is a human blotter.”
“All right, get drunk with him, if you have to. But not too drunk. Try some of the other customers. Anyway, stick around until we call you back, or send a relief. What’s the address and the phone number?”
I gave them to him.
“All right, Ed. And if you get anything more, call us at once. Remember, this is a hurry-up job.”
I hoped so. I went back to the bar, already a little dizzy on the beers. It would be impossible to concentrate on the magazine, which demanded an absolutely clear head. One of the customers was roaring at the bartender, “All right, admit you ain’t got it. I ask you, show me a mot de passe out of that famous museum, so-called.”
“No double-talk allowed. You want to see something, you got to ask for it in plain language.”
“That is plain language. Plain, ordinary French. Admit it, and give us a beer. You just ain’t got one.”
“All right, all right, I’ll give you a beer. But what is this here thing? How do you spell it? Only don’t ask for nothing in French again. Not in here, see?”
Well, there was a newspaper at the end of the bar, thank God. This morning’s, but it could kill a couple of hours.
George Stroud VIII
WHEN they all cleared out of my office on their various assignments, I called in Emory Mafferson. His plump face was in perpetual mourning, his brain was a seething chaos, his brown eyes seemed always trying to escape from behind those heavy glasses, and I don’t believe he could see more than ten feet in front of him, but somewhere in Emory I felt there was a solid newspaperman and a lyric investigator. “How are you coming along with Funded Individuals?” I asked him.
“All right. I’ve explained it all to Bert, and we’re finishing the article together.”
“Sure Bert understands it?”
Emory’s face took a turn for the worse.
“As well as I do,” he finally said. “Maybe better. You know, I can’t help feeling there’s something sound in back of that idea. It’s a new, revolutionary vision in the field of social security.”
“Well, what’s troubling you?”
“How can you have a revolution without a revolution?”
“Just leave that to Bert Finch. He has your Futureways notes, and he can interpret the data as far as you’ve gone with it. Suppose you let Bert carry on alone from here?”
Emory sighed.
If I understood him, many an afternoon supposedly spent in scholarly research at the library or interviewing some insurance expert had found him instead at Belmont, the Yankee Stadium, possibly home in bed.
“All good things have to come to an end sometime, Emory.”
“I suppose so.”
I came abruptly to the point. “Right now I have got to work on a special, outside job. At the same time, one of the most sensational murders of the year has occurred, and beyond a doubt it will assume even greater proportions and sometime Crimeways will want a big story about it.”
“Delos?”
I nodded.
“And I don’t want Crimeways left at the post. You wanted to go on our regular staff. This can start you off. Suppose you go down to Center Street, Homicide Bureau, and pick up everything you can, as and when it happens. The minute you’ve got it, phone it to me. I’ll be busy with this other assignment, but I want to be up-to-date on the Delos story, every phase of it.”
Emory looked more stunned and haggard than ever. Those brown goldfish eyes swam three times around the bowl of his glasses.
“God, you don’t expect me to break this thing alone, do you?”
“Of course not. If we wanted to break it, we’d give it a big play, thirty or forty legmen. I just want all the facts ready when the case is broken, by the cops. All you have to do is keep in close touch with developments. And report back to me, and only me, regularly. Got it?”
Emory looked relieved, and said he understood. He got up to go. My private detective force wasn’t much bigger standing than sitting, and looked even less impressive.
“What have you got for me to go on?” he asked.
“Nothing. Just what you have, no more.”
“Will this be all right with Bert?”
I said I’d arrange that, and sent him on his way. After he’d gone I sat and looked at that Patterson Study in Fury on the opposite wall, facing me, and did nothing but think.
The signature was quite visible, and even moving the canvas downward into the lower part of the frame would not obscure it. I did not believe it possible, but there might, also, be others in the Janoth organization who would recognize a Patterson simply from the style.
I could not remove that picture. Even if I changed it for another, the change would be noticed by someone. Maybe not by Roy, the writers, or the reporters, but by someone. Lucille or one of the other girls, somebody else’s secretary, some research worker.
If only that picture weren’t there. And above all, if only I had never brought home The Temptation of St. Judas.
Because Georgette had seen the new picture.
Hagen was certain whoever had bought it could be traced through it. If he thought it necessary, he would insist upon a far more intensive search for it than the one I had, as a safeguard, assigned Don Klausmeyer to undertake. I knew Don would never trace it clear through from the artist to the dealer, let alone to me. But Hagen might at any moment take independent steps; I could think of some, myself, that would be dangerous.
I had better destroy the Temptation.
If somebody did his job too well, if Hagen went to work on his own, if some real information got to him before I could short-circuit it, that thing would nail me cold. I must get rid of it.
I put on my hat and went into Roy’s office, with two half-formed ideas, to destroy that picture now and to find a means of locating Earl Janoth at 58 East through other witnesses. I could trust no one but myself with either of these jobs.
“I’m going out on a lead, Roy,” I told him. “Take over for a while. And by the way, I’ve assigned somebody to follow the Delos murder. We’ll want to handle it in an early issue, don’t you think?” He nodded thoughtfully.
“I’ve assigned Mafferson.”
He nodded again, dryly and remotely. “I believe Janoth will want it followed, at least,” he said. “By the way, I’m having the usual missing-person index prepared.”
This was a crisscross of the data that came in, as rapidly as it came, simplified for easy reference. I had myself, at one time or another, helped to simplify it.
Over my shoulder I said, briskly: “That’s the stuff.”
I went out to the elevators, rode down and crossed the street to the garage. I decided to get the car, drive out to Marble Road and burn up that business right now.
In the garage, I met Earl Janoth’s chauffeur, Billy, coming out of it. He had just brought in Janoth’s car. I had ridden in it perhaps a dozen times, and now he nodded, impassively pleasant.
“Hello, Mr. Stroud.”
“Hello, Billy.”
We passed each other, and I felt suddenly cold and aware. There were two people Janoth trusted without limit, Steve Hagen and Billy, his physical shadow. When and if the missing unknown was located, Billy would be the errand boy sent to execute the final decision. He would be the man. He didn’t know it, but I knew it.
Inside the garage an attendant was polishing Janoth’s already shining Cadillac. I walked up to him, memorizing the car’s license. Somebody else, somewhere, had seen it that night, and Earl, I hoped, and seen them where they were not supposed to be.
“Want your car, Mr. Stroud?”
I said hello and told him I did. I had often stopped for a minute or two with this particular attendant, talking about baseball, horses, whisky, or women.
“Got a little errand to do this afternoon,” I said, and then gave him a narrow smile. “I’ll bet this bus is giving you plenty of trouble.”
I got a knowing grin in return.
“Not exactly trouble,” he confided. “But the cops have been giving it a going over. Us too. Was it cleaned since Saturday night? How long was it out Saturday night? Did I notice the gas, the mileage, anything peculiar? Hell, we guys never pay any attention to things like that. Except, of course, we know it wasn’t washed, and it wasn’t even gassed.”
The Big Clock Page 9
