“Keep quiet and get away from here. I think there’s been an ear on my phone and I may have been followed.”
“The D.A.’s boys?”
“Yeah, and they’re within their rights. I stopped being a cop when I lied for you. I deserve any kind of an investigation they want to give me.”
“But why all the secrecy?”
Pat looked at me quickly, then away. “You’re wanted for murder. There’s a warrant out for your arrest. The D.A. has found himself another witness to replace the couple he lost.”
“Who?”
“A local character from Glenwood. He picked you out of the picture file and definitely established that you were there that night. He sells tickets at the arena as a side line.”
“Which puts you in a rosy red light,” I said.
Pat muttered, “Yeah. I must look great.”
We drove on around the block and on to Broadway. “Where to?” I asked.
“Over to the Brooklyn Bridge. A girl pulled the Dutch act and I have to check it myself. Orders from the D.A. through higher headquarters. He’s trying to make my life miserable by pulling me out on everything that has a morgue tag attached to it. The crumb hopes I slip up somewhere and when I do I’ve had it. Maybe I’ve had it already. He’s checked my movements the night I was supposed to have been with you and is getting ready to pull out the stops.”
“Maybe we’ll be cellmates,” I said.
“Ah, pipe down.”
“Or you can work in my grocery store ... while I’m serving time, that is.”
“I said, shut up. What’ve you got to be cheerful about?”
My teeth were clamped together, but I could still grin. “Plenty, kid. I got plenty to be cheerful about. Soon a killer will be killed. I can feel it coming.”
Pat sat there staring straight ahead. He sat that way until we reached the cutoff under the bridge and pulled over to the curb. There was a squad car and an ambulance at the wharf side and another squad car pulling up when Pat got out. He told me to sit in the car and stay there until he got out. I promised him I’d be a good boy and watched him cross the street.
He took too long. I began to fidget with the wheel and chain-smoked through my pack of butts. When I was on the last one I got out myself and headed toward the saloon on the corner. It was a hell of a dive, typically waterfront and reeking with all the assorted odors you could think of. I put a quarter in the cigarette machine, grabbed my fresh deck and ordered a beer at the bar. Two guys came in and started talking about the suicide across the street.
One was on the subject of her legs and the other took it up. Then they started on the other parts of her anatomy until the bartender said, “Jeez, cut it out, will ya! Like a couple ghouls ya sound. Can the crap.”
The guy who liked the legs fought for his rights supported by the other one and the bartender threw them both out and put their change in his pockets. He turned to me and said, “Ever see anythin’ like that? Jeez, the dame’s dead, what do they want of her now? What ghouls!”
I nodded agreement and finished my beer. Every two minutes I’d check my watch and find it two minutes later and start cursing a slimy little bastard named Clyde.
Then the beer would taste flat.
I took it as long as I could and got the hell out of the saloon and crossed the street to see what was taking Pat so long. There was a handful of people grouped around the body and the ambulance was gone. The car from the morgue had taken its place. Pat was bending over the body looking for identification without any success and had the light flashed on her face.
He handed one of the cops a note he fished out of her pocket and the cop scowled. He read, “He left me.” He scowled some more and Pat looked up at him. “That’s all, Captain. No signature, no name. That’s all it says.”
Pat scowled too and I looked at her face again.
The boys from the morgue wagon moved in and hoisted the body into a basket. Pat told them to put it in the unidentified file until they found out who she was.
I had a last look at her face.
When the wagon pulled away the crowd started to break up and I wandered off into the shadows that lined the street. The face, the face. Pale white to the point of transparency, eyes closed and lips slightly parted. I stood there leaning up against a plank wall staring at the night, hearing the cars and the trolley rattle across the bridge, hearing the cacophony of noises that go to make up the voice of the city.
I kept thinking of that face.
A taxi screamed past and slid to a stop at the corner. I backed up and a short fat figure speaking a guttural English shoved some bills in the driver’s hand and ran to the squad cars. He spoke to the cop, his arms gesticulating wildly; the cop took him to Pat and he went through the same thing again.
The crowd that had turned away turned back again and I went with them, hanging on the outside, yet close enough so I could hear the little fat man. Pat stopped him, made him start over, telling him to calm himself down first.
The fat man nodded and took the cigarette that was offered him but didn’t put it in his mouth. “The boat captain I am, you see?” he said. “The barges I am captain of. We go by two hours ago under the bridge and it is so quiet and peaceful then I sit on the deckhouse and watch the sky. Always I look up at the bridge when I go by. With my night glasses I look up to see the automobiles and marvel at such things as we have in this country.
“I see her then, you understand? She is standing there fighting and I hear her scream even. She fights this man who holds his hand over her mouth and she can’t scream. I see all this, you understand, yet I am not able to move or do a thing. On the barge we have nothing but the megaphone to call with. It happens so fast. He lifts her up and over and she goes into the river. First I thought she hit the last barge on the string and I run and shout quickly but it is not so. I must wait so long until I can get somebody to take me off the barge, then I call the police.
“The policeman, he told me here to come. You were here. The girl has already been found. That is what I have come to tell you. You understand?”
Pat said, “I understand all right. You saw this man she fought?”
The guy bobbed his head vigorously.
“Could you identify him?”
Everyone’s eyes were on the little guy. He lifted his hands out and shrugged. “I could tell him from someone else ... no. He had on a hat, a coat. He lifted this girl up and over she goes. No, I do not see his face for I am too excited. Even through the night glasses I could not see all that so well.”
Pat turned to the cop next to him. “Take his name and address. We’ll need a statement on it.”
The cop whipped out a pad and began taking it down. Pat prompted him with questions until the whole thing was straight then dismissed the batch of them and started asking around for other witnesses. The motley group hanging around watching didn’t feel like having any personal dealings with the police department for any reason at all and broke up in a hurry. Pat got that grim look, muttered something nasty and started across the street to where I was supposed to be.
I angled over and met him. “Nice corpse,” I said.
“I thought I told you to stay in the car. Those cops have you on their list.”
“So what. I’m on a lot of lists these days. What about the girl?”
“Unidentified. Probably a lovers’ quarrel. She had a couple of broken ribs and a broken neck. She was dead before she hit the water.”
“And the note ... did the lover stuff that in her pocket before he threw her overboard?”
“You have big ears. Yes, that’s what it looks like. They probably argued previously, he invited her for a walk, then gave it to her.”
“Strong guy to mess her up like that, no?”
Pat nodded. I opened the door and he got in, sliding over so I could get behind the wheel. “He had to be to break her ribs.”
“Very strong,” I mused. “I’m not a weak sister myself and I know what it’s like to
come up against one of those strong bastards.” I sat there and watched him.
A look of incredulity came over his face. “Now wait a minute. We’re on two different subjects, feller. Don’t try tell me that he was the same ...”
“Know who she was, Pat?”
“I told you she was unidentified at present. She had no handbag but we’ll trace her from her clothes.”
“That takes time.”
“Know a better way?”
“Yeah,” I said. “As a matter of fact I do.” I reached behind the seat and dragged out an envelope. It was jammed with pictures and I dumped them into my lap. Pat reached up and turned on the overhead light. I shuffled through them and brought out the one I was looking for.
Pat looked a little sick. He glanced at me then back to the picture. “Her name is Jean Trotter, Pat. She’s a model at Anton Lipsek’s agency. Several days ago she eloped.”
I thought he’d never stop swearing. He fanned out the pictures in his hand and squinted at them with eyes that blazed hot as the fires of hell. “Pictures. Pictures. Goddamn it, Mike, what are we up against? Do you know what that burned stuff was that you found in Emil Perry’s house?”
I shook my head.
“Pictures!” he exploded. “A whole mess of burned photographs that didn’t show a thing!”
The steering wheel started to bend under my fingers. I jammed my foot on the starter and roared away from the curb. Pat looked at the picture again in the light of the dash. His breath was coming fast. “We can make it official now. I’ll get the whole department on it if I have to. Give me a week and we’ll have that guy ready to face a murder trial.”
I glowered back at him. “Week hell, all we have is a couple of hours. Did you trace that piece of fabric I gave you?”
“Sure, we traced it all right. We found the store it came from ... over a year ago. It was from a damn good suit the owner remembered selling, but the guy had no recollection for faces. It was a cash transaction and he didn’t have a record of the size or any names or addresses. Our killer is one smart Joe.”
“He’ll trip up. They all do.”
I cut in and out of traffic, my foot heavy on the accelerator. On the main drag I was lucky enough to make the lights and didn’t have to stop until I was in front of the Municipal Building. I said, “Pat, use your badge and check the marriage bureau for Jean Trotter’s certificate. Find out who she eloped with and where she was married. Since I can’t show my nose you’ll have to do this on your own.”
He started out of the car and I handed him the photograph. “Take this along in case you have to brighten up a memory or two.”
“Where’ll you be?”
I looked at my watch. “First I’m going to see what I can get on the girl myself. Then I’m going to stop a seduction scene before it starts.”
Pat was still trying to figure that one out when I drove off. I looked in the rear-vision mirror and saw him pocket the photograph and walk away up the street.
I stopped at the first drugstore I came to and had a quarter changed into nickels then pushed a guy out of the way who was getting into the booth. He was going to argue about it until he saw my face then he changed his mind and went looking for another phone. I dropped the coin in and dialed Juno’s number. I was overanxious and got the wrong number. The second time I hit it right, but I didn’t get to speak to Juno. Her phone was connected to one of those service outfits that take messages and a girl told me that Miss Reeves was out, but expected home shortly. I said no, I didn’t want to leave a message and hung up.
I threw in another nickel and spun the dial. Connie was home. She would be glad to see me no matter what the hour was. My voice had a rasp to it and she said, “Anything wrong, Mike?”
“Plenty. I’ll tell you about it when I get there.”
I set some sort of a record getting to her place, leaving behind me a stream of swearing-mad cab drivers who had tried to hog the road and got bumped over to the side for their pains.
A guy had his key in the downstairs door so I didn’t have to ring the bell to get in. I didn’t have to ring the upstairs bell either, because the door was open and when Connie heard me in the hall she shouted for me to come right in.
I threw my hat on the chair, standing in the dull light of the hall a moment to see where I was. Only a little night light was on, but a long finger of bright light streamed from the bedroom door out across the living room. I picked my way round the furniture and called, “Connie?”
“In here, Mike.”
She was in bed with a couple of pillows behind her back reading a book. “Kind of early for this sort of thing, isn’t it?”
“Maybe, but I’m not going out!” She grinned and wiggled under the covers. “Come over here and sit down. You can tell me all your troubles.” She patted the edge of the bed.
I sat down and she put her fingers under mine. I didn’t have to tell her something bad had happened. She could read it in my eyes. Her smile disappeared into a frown. “What is it, Mike?”
“Jean Trotter ... she was murdered tonight. She was killed and thrown off the bridge. It was supposed to look like suicide, but it was seen.”
“No!”
“Yes.”
“God, when is it going to stop, Mike? Poor Jean ...”
“It’ll stop when we have the killer and not before. What do you know about her, Connie? What was she like ... who was this guy she married?”
Connie shook her head, her hair falling loosely around her shoulders. “Jean ... she was a sweet kid when I first met her. I—I don’t know too much about her, really. She was older than the teen-age group of course, but she modeled clothes for them. We ... never did the same type work, so I don’t know about that.”
“Men ... what men did she go with? Ever see them?”
“No, I didn’t. When she first came to work I heard that she was engaged to a West Point cadet, then something happened. She was pretty broken up for a while. Juno made her take a vacation and when she came back she seemed to be all right, though she didn’t take much interest in men. One time at an office party she and I were talking about what wolves some men are and she was all for hanging every man by their thumbs and making it a woman’s world.”
“Nice attitude. What changed her?”
“Now you’ve got me. We sort of lived in different parts of the world and I never saw too much of her. I know she had a good sum of money tied up in expensive jewelry she used to wear and there was talk about a wealthy student in an upstate college taking her out, but I never inquired about it. As a matter of fact, I was very surprised when she eloped like that. True love is funny, isn’t it, Mike?”
“Not so funny.”
“No, I guess not.”
I put my face in my hand, rubbing my head to make things come out right. “Is that all ... everything you know about her? Do you know where she was from or anything about her background?”
Connie squinted at the light and raised her forefinger thoughtfully. “Oh ... I think ...”
“Come on, come on ... what?”
“I just happened to think. Jean Trotter wasn’t her right name. She had a long Polish name and changed it when she became a model. She even made it legal and I cut the piece out of the paper that carried a notation about it. Mike ... over there in the dresser is a small leather folder. Go get it for me.”
I slid off the bed and started through the top drawer until Connie said, “No ... the other one, Mike.”
I tried that one too but couldn’t find it. “Damn it, Connie, come over here and get it, will you!”
“I can’t.” She laughed nervously.
So I started tossing all her junk to the floor until she yipped and threw back the covers to run over and make me stop. Now I knew why she didn’t want to get out of bed. She was as naked as a jaybird.
She found the folder in the back of a drawer and handed it to me with a scowl. “You ought to have the decency to close your eyes, at least.”
&n
bsp; “Hell, I like you like that.”
“Then do something about it.”
I tried to look through the folder, but my eyes wouldn’t stand still. “For Pete’s sake, put something on, will you!”
She put her hands on her hips and leaned toward me, her tongue sticking out. Then she turned slowly, with all the sultry motion she could command, and walked to the clothes closet. She pulled out her fur coat and slipped into it, holding it closed around her middle. “I’ll teach you,” she said. Then she sat in a low boudoir chair with her legs crossed, making it plain that I could look and be tempted, but that was all, brother, that was all.
The Mike Hammer Collection Volume 1 Page 61
