by Ed Lacy
“Yes, I'm listening,” I said quietly, my voice sounding as though I was talking into an echo chamber.
I knew at that moment it was all over, the world seemed to be squeezing in around me. I was caught. Murder had caught up with me, as it always does, I suppose. Odd, the little things that you couldn't figure on... that private dick... and now a kid fishing up the gun. Odds were probably a million to one against anybody hooking the gun... but somebody had. A kid, excited at his catch. Only he couldn't have known he had caught me on that hook.
“... Guess you never met my younger brother Bud, Mr. Jameson. He's a photographer in New York. Anyway, he wanted the gun and I was glad to get rid of the thing. Well, sir, the darnedest thing happened: Bud's got a combination studio-office and apartment, and the place is robbed by some sneak thief. Bud must have caught him in the act because the guy fled up the fire escape to the roof, and run away. But it turned out he left a pillow case with the loot in it on top of a skylight. Just threw it up there while he was running. The spunky bastard returns the next day and picks it up. Well, Bud... You ain't sick or nothing, Mr. Jameson? Seem kind of pale.”
“Stuffed myself with lobster last two days,” I said, a strange calm, low voice that didn't seem to belong to me. I heard my own voice like a man listening to a judge sentencing him to death... a sentence expected.
“Want a glass of water? Maybe a shot?”
I shook my head. “I'm all right.”
“Well, sir, to make a long story short, Bud reported the robbery, of course. The robber didn't take much, but Bud lost some equipment worth a couple hundred and if you report a theft you can deduct it from your taxes. Bud forgot all about it till last week a cop comes to his studio and says they found the crook. Picked him up for carrying a gun in a bar brawl, and it turns out this very Luger is checked by the cops and it's a gun that killed some man over in Newark....”
Killed some man over in Newark.... The words cut through my brain like a knife. Everybody in the world seemed to know about it. A nobody, a lousy mama's boy like Mac is shot, and suddenly it becomes interstate gossip. That crack about it being a small world... it was making a noose around my not-so-small neck.
“... Of course they try to pin the killing on this here sneak thief. A youngster too. Telling you, kids these days scare the pants off me. But it turns out this kid had a perfect alibi, he was in the army at the time of the killing. So he tells the cops where he got the rod—in Bud's apartment. Now Bud ain't got no gun permit and he plays it cool—says it's all a lie. Since the crook admits he left the stuff he stole on the roof overnight, Bud suggests maybe whoever owned the gun might have stuck it in the pillow, on the roof. Well sir...”
“That's a good out,” I said, my lips moving on their own, as if they weren't a part of me. I don't know why I bothered to talk. I didn't want to. I didn't want to do a thing but flee... get out of the world.
“Mr. Jameson, Bud is a sharp thinker. Always had a good head on him. They question Bud as to where he was on the day of this murder and he also has a perfect alibi—a magazine sent him to Chicago to cover a convention. Well, sir, you know how the police are—human beings—not looking for no extra work. The New York cops say the case belongs to the New Jersey cops and the Jersey police, well they got the gun but they don't know whose it is. They check on Bud again and then drop the case. Bud don't hear nothing more about it. This thief gets a year under the Sullivan Law and a suspended sentence for robbing Bud, in fact Bud even gets some of his stuff back from a hock shop. Tell you, we all breathed a sigh of relief, might of got Bud and me and my kid in a peck of trouble.”
“You mean... that's the end of it?” My voice suddenly came alive, became my voice again.
“That's what we thought. Bud didn't tell me this, but last week a private detective drops in to see Bud. He tells...”
“A private dick?”
“Yep. Brash fellow, too. Tells Bud right to his face he believes the crook, that it was Bud's gun. Seems he's working on the case. He don't say Bud did the killing, mind you. Fact is, he promises to keep Bud's name out of things, if Bud will only tell where he got the gun. Bud don't fall for that because if the police ever knew he lied... well, you know how it is in those things.”
“I know,” I said, my voice weary and dead again.
“Now this Logan, the detective, he ain't got no rights like a real cop has and Bud sends him packing. Only this Logan is a sharp one. You see...”
“Too sharp,” I mumbled. And I thought: So sharp he'll cut my heart out, slice my life to pieces.
“You see, photographers, doctors, people like that, get a lot of small cash fees and well... you know... don't always keep records. They don't make out truthful income tax reports either. They all do that. This detective, he starts snooping around and tells Bud he'll get him on a tax charge if he don't come clean about the gun. Bud is plenty worried. Calls me into town yesterday and we have a long talk.”
“You talked to Logan... I think that's what you said the dick's name was...?” I asked, my voice so very polite, the polite voice of a talking corpse.
“No, no, Mr. Jameson, not with him, what to do about him,” Len said, impatiently. “Thing is, Bud don't want him snooping around his customers. Scares them away, and suppose he finds something, turns Bud in for a tax dodger? Be messy. Either way he's got us over a barrel with our pants down. What Bud wanted to discuss with me. Suppose he tells the guy where he really got the gun, then what happens to me, my kid? I mean, we have to decide whether we trust this bird, make a deal with him.”
“Did you make a deal?”
“Naw—not yet. Hell, I don't want to do no year in the can for not reporting a gun. And I sure don't want them to send my kid to no reform school. This is real serious. Bud had a chat with this dick, told him he was getting to be a pain in Bud's rear, and they got an appointment to talk again this Saturday. Be a showdown. By then we got to decide whether to tell him or fight him. You know, Mr. Jameson, I shouldn't be telling you this or...”
“Damn right you shouldn't! Got to watch your mouth, Len. For Christsakes, they make saints out of stoolies these days—never know who you're talking to,” I said curtly, marveling at the anger in my voice. What did it matter if I was angry or not—now? What did anything matter? But if Tony heard this.... I don't know, guess that crack about hope springing eternal is true, for I still had a faint ray of hope... hope that made me sick to my guts. But it was there, waiting for me to turn to it.
“Absolutely right,” Len said, looking me over. “Of course I know I don't have to worry about you, Mr. Jameson. And...”
“I've forgotten every word you said. Told anybody else?”
“Not a soul. Guess I simply had to get this off my chest to somebody, why I spilled it to you. Feel better now that I've talked it out, too.”
“Best you don't tell anybody else. Same goes for your son.”
“Sure. Got my kid so scared he wouldn't let out a peep. Well, been burdening you with my troubles and thanks for listening—and forgetting. Now what you want to do about the car?”
“The car?” That faint ray of 'hope'—there was only one thing I could do... murder is a sickness, a trap, a one-way street with only one possible out—another murder. This Harry Logan had to be killed before Saturday, for once the trail led to Len, to this neighborhood, to Elma, everything would point toward me. The simplest deduction would turn up...
“About the car, Mr. Jameson?”
“Yeah, the car. Why... I don't know.”
“This Buick is a real steal, and that's no sales talk. Won't be able to hold it for long—guy needs cash badly. Of course, you want to fix up your old car, that's up to you.”
“We'll probably take the Buick. Have to.... to... eh... talk it over with my wife,” I said, wondering why at the moment I wasted time on a car. A gun was what I needed. Good God, where would this killing stop? Would I ever be in the clear? Did Logan have a partner? Had he told the cops what he thought about the gun
and Bud's story? Would Mama Morse hire another dick, another snooper trying to spoil my happiness, my life?
“That okay, Mr. Jameson?”
I jumped. “What? Sorry, seem to be daydreaming. What did you say?”
“I said today's Tuesday, you talk it over and I'll wait till Friday before I show it to anybody else. Okay?”
“Yes. I'll call you tomorrow. Maybe tonight,” I said, talking without thinking.
I drove back to the house and told Elma about the Buick, talked to her calmly, as though I was interested... and all the time I felt like a bystander, an eavesdropper.
She thought we should buy the Buick and I called Len and said we would probably take it, but Elma wanted to see it. He said he'd drive it over to our place Thursday or Friday and we could settle the deal.
I went out to my studio, lit my pipe, stared at my sketches of the blow-fish mobile. How unimportant all that seemed now! It had taken all my courage, everything I could get up, to kill Mac. In a way it helped that I hated him... but now... to shoot down this Logan, to kill a man I'd never seen or talked to... in sheer cold blood. I wasn't sure I could do it.
And could I get away with it... again? Again. I was getting to be an old hand at murder. Would it be again and again and again and...?
Sid came over to drive us to the beach and I mechanically got into my trunks, held the baby, even took part in the small talk, discussed my idea of the mobile, as we drove. And all the time my inner mind was working like an adding machine, turning over and discarding ideas—ways of killing.
I still had that same old advantage—Logan didn't know me from a hole in the wall. I'd have to see what he looked like, then surprise him, ambush him. And the gun?
Good God, I ought to at least buy the tools of my new trade!
And the gun? I could steal Tony's new revolver, but would the same scheme work again? One thing—if Logan was killed the cops would certainly learn about Mama Morse, but unless Logan had told anybody about Bud and the gun, the cops would be right back where they started— looking for the swarthy fat man who shot Mac... and now Logan. The same old false trail, but for a double murderer this time. What about Bud? Would he run to the cops when he heard about Logan dying?
Bud might... but it was a fifty-fifty chance. From what Len told me the only idea Bud had was to get out from under. I'd have to chance his clamming up. Christ, all the things I'd have to chance! Was my luck still riding, or was I pushing it too hard?
Everybody is lucky—only one can't tell if it's good or bad luck 'til it's too late to matter.
It was all crazy: I lay on the beach and sunned myself, as though the sun or lack of sun was the main thing wrong with my health, my chances of being alive a year from now. I joked and played around with Elma in the water, and under it all only one thing was on my mind—murder.
That night I even slept and in the morning there was a letter from my agent, he had a possible buyer for the bronze of the baby's lips sucking Elma's breast. It was a legitimate reason for going to town... and I made up my mind I'd kill Logan that day.
Just like that, practically on the spur of the moment, I decided to take a man's life. I wondered if I was crazy, or was the violence in the air so great these days that taking a life seems almost normal?
I didn't know how I would go about it, but I felt a certain sense of relief that I had made up my mind, that within a few hours things would be settled for me, one way or the other.
I borrowed Sid's car and stopped off at the Alvins to ask Alice if she wanted anything from the city. She and a woman in one of the summer cottages were going to make a big outdoor barbecue and while Alice went to ask what sauces they'd need.... It was so easy to find a gun, take it... a long-barreled target automatic... lighter than the Luger. What a gun expert I was becoming!
Crossing the Tri-Borough Bridge I suddenly turned off into the Bronx and drove around aimlessly. North of the Yankee Stadium I came upon this old residential section that almost looked like the side street of a small town. I found a little alley that had this square wooden house on one side, the drawn dusty shades evidence it was either empty, or maybe shut for the summer. On the other side of the alley were these nice high hedges that needed trimming, then a wide open lot and a small modern brick house. The alley ran around the old wooden house to an unused garage. Back of the garage there was the exposed skeleton of an apartment house foundation—a house that was probably started way back during the depression years and never finished. This was surrounded by a sagging wooden fence that kids had knocked down in several places, and a street with more private houses.
I looked the scene over as though it was all a stage set, something especially built for what I had in mind—a personal drama.
Suddenly everything fell in place: if I could only get Logan in the alley, a quick shot that nobody would notice... Sid's car waiting in front of the sagging fence on the other street... me rushing across the old foundation and a clean get-away.
It sounded too easy, too simple, and yet I knew its very simplicity was in my favor. There were no complicated plans here to go wrong... I'd lucked up on this place by chance, nothing to identify me with it again.
I drove downtown and called my agent. He was out and I left my name, said I was coming into town from Sandyhook and would call later in the afternoon; even that was a sort of alibi—a mild one.
Driving over to Newark made me feel a bit queasy... I kept thinking over and over—the murderer returning to the scene of his crime. Harry Logan was in the book. I figured him for a small, one-man agency... he'd been doing all this snooping himself... and I knew I was right when he answered the phone himself, saying, “Yes? Logan speaking.” He had a dull, clear voice.
“Are you Harry Logan, the private detective?”
“Not the, but a private detective. Who's this?”
“Free to do some work today?”
“Maybe. Who is this?”
“Tell you when we talk. Have some shadowing I want done. I'm willing to pay well for it.”
“Fine. Come up to my office and start talking. Anybody who can pay well is more than welcome in my...”
“I can't come up to your office,” I said. “I think I'm... eh... being followed. Explain it all when I see you. Can you meet me in about ten minutes? I'm a big guy in a baggy tweed suit, bald head.”
“Funny way to do business. Why can't...?”
“This is a kind of funny case. Mean a hundred bucks for a few hours' work.”
“Got yourself a boy, baggy tweed. Where do we meet?'
I was phoning from a drugstore across from his office. “There's a drugstore across the street from your place. I'll be able to be outside there in ten minutes. What do you look like?”
“Tall, girls sometimes tell me I'm handsome—even when they're sober. I'm wearing a blue suit and a brown coconut straw,” Logan said, as though I amused him.
“Okay, ten minutes,” I said and hung up.
I drove around the block twice and even stopped at the drugstore for a red light. Logan was tall and handsome, didn't look at all like a dick—nothing tough about him.
I drove north and when I came across the George Washington Bridge, I parked and called him again. “This is baggy tweed, Mr. Logan. Sorry I couldn't keep our date.”
“What is this, a rib?”
“Oh no, this is on the level. For...”
He said, “I don't like this.”
I said quickly, afraid he'd get off the hook, “You see, I got scared. It's... eh... sort of dangerous for me to be in New Jersey. Process server after me.”
“Gotcha. This a divorce case?”
“Why... yes. Any objections?”
“Nope, long as you put the green on the line. How do we get together?”
“It's one-thirty. Have you a car?”
“It's been called that.”
“Suppose you come to New York, to my place in the Bronx? If you use the George Washington Bridge, shouldn't take you more than an ho
ur to get there. Let's make it for three.”
“Right. What's the address?”
I gave him the address of the house in the Bronx, added, “My wife has been giving me a hard time, so if the shades are down, don't worry. Don't want her to know I'm living there. Just come around to the back door. I'll give you fifty dollars then, and another fifty by seven tonight, when you tell me who she's seeing for supper.”
“Got yourself a deal. Only, be there—this is a long ride, chum.”
“I'll be there. This means a great deal to me.”
I drove up to the Bronx, parked the car on the street side of the sagging fence and old foundation. There wasn't a soul on the street, the kids must have been in a neighborhood pool, or park. Walking around the block to the deserted house, I passed a woman wheeling a baby carriage—no one else in sight. I knew my luck was with me, I'd stumbled on the ideal spot for murder. It was two-twelve. My seersucker coat was wet with sweat and my mouth sandy dry. I had to walk three blocks before I found a candy store. A bottle of soda made me feel a little better, only I wished the soda had been a whisky bracer.
