Jerry Tracy, Celebrity Reporter

by Tinsley, Theodore A.

  PARK AVENUE ITEM

  Jerry Tracy, wisecracking columnist, knows tragedy when be finds it

  THERE WERE TWO or three angles to that phone call from McNulty that made Jerry Tracy decide to roil up Park Avenue and have a look at the place. Jerry had a high regard for the old man’s judgment; and the flat, singsong voice on the wire sounded quite positive: “Me think velly much on level okey. Boss. Where hell you stay all night?”

  McNulty was Tracy’s butler, major-domo, conscience and guide. An enormously fat and unsmiling Cantonese Chinaman, he ran the domestic affairs of Libel’s End—which was Tracy’s penthouse—with a wise and stolid tyranny. His ancestral name was Mei-Now-Lee, or something of the sort—so Jerry called him McNulty and so did everybody else. He had, it seemed, been trying to locate Tracy since two o’clock that morning.

  “Make tlenty calls,” he complained. “Hab bleakfast. Make tlenty-four. Where hell you go? You dlunk?”

  Jerry grinned. He was, he told the Chinaman, stone sober. He had been out to an impromptu brawl with Hart Schaffher and the Four Marx Brothers. Just dropped into Frank’s place for a tonic. … His smile hardened.

  “Did Johnny Vega make the call himself?” he asked. “Or did some friend of his pass the tip along?”

  “Me think Johnny Vega. Not sure, Boss. Sound quick, sound velly unhappy.”

  “Okey, McNulty,” the Planet’s columnist grunted. “I don’t have to tell you to keep your mouth shut.”

  He stepped out of the speake’s soundproof booth, nodded to the tall man polishing glassware and started for the door.

  “Gotta go home and prove I’m sober,” he chuckled.

  “That Chink’s a darb,” said the tall man morosely. “S’long.”

  On the way uptown in the cab Jerry glanced again at the address and apartment number he had scribbled in his notebook.

  There were two or three angles. … In the first place, Jerry had never wholly subscribed to the town’s theory that Johnny Vega was the guy that had slipped the heat to Kane. It was a mug’s trick any way you looked at it—a hop-head stunt to drill a first grade Dee like Marty Kane who, everybody knew, was a sob’d, plainclothes veteran with six kids and a million friends. Yet the circumstantial evidence and the whispers all pointed to Vega, and then Johnny had taken that quick, panicky dive out of sight.

  The Department gave Kane an inspector’s funeral and for six weeks now there had been a steady editorial yelp from the anti-administration sheets to nail down the coattails of the vanished Johnny Vega. Up to now the harassed commissioner had been unable to oblige—and here was a phone call, apparently from Johnny himself, telling a Chinaman named McNulty in a scared voice that he hadn’t killed Kane, that he had found out who had, and would Jerry Tracy for God’s sake come around, grab the confidential info and slip it to the commish for a quick pinch?

  Jerry frowned as his cab swung north on Park Avenue. The yarn dicked. Vega was a wrong guy, a grifter; but he wasn’t a crazy hood, a cop killer. Not in Jerry’s album anyway. The phone call proved that he still had his head on right, that he trusted the columnist. And why in hell shouldn’t he? They had always played ball together until the murder of Kane gummed the works. The withdrawal of tie dark-eyed little Vega from circulation irked the Planet man. It was no coincidence that for the past six weeks the column hadn’t tabbed a single muscle item that was worth printing.

  Jerry dropped the cab and walked up the east side of Park Avenue for two blocks with a grimly sour feeling that Detective Marty Kane hadn’t helped anybody a nickel’s worth by sticking his big, honest belly in line with a hot slug.

  The apartment building was typical of the neighborhood—eighteen stories, square as a drygoods box, built to turn in a profit on every last foot of rentable space. With a shallow entry, a canopy and a lazy admiral. Only there wasn’t any admiral. No taxi-stand outside, either. Funny. … The doors were shut tight—they were locked.

  Tracy eyed the pushbell at the side of the door-frame. He had just made up his mind, for no reason at all, not to push it when a voice said mildly: “Lookin’ for somebody?”

  A big bluecoat was grinning at him from the sidewalk; a spruce, good-looking young cop. The smiling eyes glanced with approval at the columnist’s tricky light overcoat and made a shrewd and wrong deduction.

  “You won’t find her here, Bud. She’s pro’ly at the Canopus. Next corner, across on the other side. They moved all the tenants over to the Canopus Hotel two months ago. Didn’t she tip you off? The place here is closed up tight. Nobody around but a caretaker.”

  Tracy blinked. He said, slowly: “What’s the idea? Small-pox?”

  “Depresh,” said the patrolman, and amplified with a bored air.

  “No new leases, d’ye see? Owners tryin’ to keep up the old rent scale. Only a dozen lease-holders in the whole buildin’. So what does the wise big shot in the realty comp’ny do? Moves the tenants over to furnished suites in the Canopus Hotel—signs an agreement to pay all expenses—fires all help except the guy in the basement—locks up the whole place, so help me. … It’s cheaper, d’ye see, to carry the handful o’ tenants in a hotel than it would be to keep the joint goin’ with heat an’ hot water an’ elevators an’ doormen an’ all the rest of it. Both sides save money.”

  Two months ago, the cop said. … The columnist’s eyes gleamed at the thought. You could put six weeks into two months very nicely; and it was just about six weeks since they lowered big Marty Kane to rest in Calvary. A guy in the basement, according to the cop. And, if you believed in telephone messages, a guy maybe in apartment 12-B. Not a bad idea if you were under the hatches and your name was Johnny Vega.

  Tracy didn’t bother calling at the Hotel Canopus. Instead, he turned the corner and took a slow, leisurely stroll around the block. The cop was well up the Avenue now, his broad back a dwindling spot of blue. Jerry halted casually at the service entrance and tried the grilled gate. It wasn’t locked. He closed it behind him, went down a long sloping ramp through a whitewashed tunnel, descended steps to a sheer-walled courtyard, walked into the basement.

  A dim, quiet labyrinth. A few yellow bulbs burning. Through an open door he could see the tubs and dryers of the laundry. His nose crinkled at the faint smell of heat—a funny smell. A turn round a corner showed him the service elevator with its door open and a light burning. He stared at it speculatively and lit a cigarette. As he exhaled expensive smoke he heard the scrape of hurrying feet and a voice growled: “What the hell d’yuh want?”

  A little fellow. Looked like a Swede. Brown dungarees and a big wrench in his right hand. Johnny Vega’s lookout, probably. Scared as hell, too! The wrench was trembling visibly in his fist.

  The Swede took in Jerry’s sartorial splendor with a quick gulp, and added placatingly out of the corner of his mouth: “Was yuh lookin’ for somebody Mister?”

  Tracy studied him silently. He knew this guy—he’d place him in a minute. … His mind clicked suddenly. He didn’t know him—it wasn’t the face that was familiar, but the signs. The hunched shoulders, the cocked head, the pasty phiz, the words clipped out endwise. This mug was an ex-con; he’d been in stir somewhere. Under the stress of his queer panic he was broadcasting The Prisoner’s Song like a brass band. …

  “I’m a friend of Johnny Vegans,” Tracy said.

  The little Swede gulped nervously. “Dunno who yuh mean, Mister. They ain’t no one livin’ in the house now. The whole place is closed up.”

  Tracy shook his head, smiled blandly.

  “Booshwah. … I said I’m a friend of Johnny Vega’s. That means I’m not a dick, a nose, a stool or a screw. Just a friend—get me?—a pal.”

  “Never heard of him, Mister, an’ that’s Gawd’s truth.”

  “That’s funny. He called me up from this building last night and asked me to come over and see him. How do you figure that?”

  The Swede’s quick shrug was like a gooseflesh shudder.

  “Okey. I gotta be careful, y’unnersta
n’. The guy’s on the lam and it you’re a pal of his, you know why.” He paused a moment and licked his lips. “Johnny ain’t here. He breezed last night.”

  “Where’d he go?”

  “Don’t be silly, Mister. Would he tell me?”

  “What time’d he pull out?”

  “ ’Bout midnight.” The Swede studied the expressionless face of his visitor. “Maybe ha’ past twelve. I didn’t notice exactly.”

  Damn’ right you didn’t notice, was Tracy’s thought According to McNulty, Vega’s call came through a little after two a.m. The Swede was a punk liar and a lousy guesser.

  Tracy said aloud: “Okey. Maybe he’ll gimme a ring from his new dive. If he’s got sense, he will.”

  “Sure. He’ll pro’ly do that. That’s what he’ll pro’ly do.”

  They both nodded sagely at this ideal solution and Jerry dropped his cigarette and crushed it under his sole. As he turned away his palm rested for an instant on the whitewashed firebrick wall beside him. The firebrick was quite warm—hot, in fact. The smell of heat was quite perceptible. He sniffed a couple of times.

  “Pretty early for steam,” Tracy said mildly.

  “Yeah. Just a touch o’ pressure to keep out chill an’ damp. These big buildin’s are like tombstones when they’re empty. They git pretty chilly.”

  To prove it he wiped his moist forehead. Jerry said: “I wouldn’t know about those things,” grinned, waved a polite gesture and walked out through the basement

  The Swede stood watching him from the concrete arch outside the laundry door, with the Stillson hanging loosely a his thin, bony hand. Tracy turned out of sight into the long paved courtyard and went up the steps to the sidewalk ramp. There were eighteen steps. He climbed twelve of them and marked time for the remaining six. Then he turned around on his rubber heels and stood there, a thin grimace on his lips. He was going to have a look at apartment 12-B, no kiddin’. He was quite sure about that. If the Swede’s head showed in the courtyard he’d walk down again and ask him something. Take a chance on the wobbly wrench. He wasn’t a hell of a lot impressed with the caretaker’s toughness.

  The Swede didn’t show. After a while Tracy descended gingerly, rubber-heeled it across the courtyard, removed his hat and took a cautious one-eyed peek. The nervous caretaker was gone. There was a faint clanging going on in the sub-cellar below. Jerry listened for a few seconds and grinned. Just a mug from Scandinavia! He slid into the open service elevator and closed the catch with a mild click.

  He rode up to the twelfth floor. 12-B was at the end of the service hall, close to the big fire-door that led to the tenants’ hall and the main elevator. The columnist opened the metal door, looked through and closed it again. The main elevator was probably locked and dark. Johnny Vega would be more apt to use the service shaft. He had become damned leery of Mr. Johnny Vega in the last ten minutes. What was it all about anyway? For no reason at all his belly was contracting nervously. He hated to press the buzzer on 12-B.

  After a brief hesitation, instead he rapped boldly—three times. Nothing happened and he rapped again. After a while he heard the slap of approaching footsteps—sounded like bare feet.

  A nasal voice, a woman’s voice with a nervous saw-edge to it, cried petulantly: “That you, Nick?”

  Tracy gargled unintelligibly.

  “—— sake!” the voice shrilled fiercely. “ ’S a wonder you wouldn’t use your key, you dumb—”

  The door opened partly and he saw the staring, bloodless face of a woman under a green rubber bathing-cap. Instantly he put his foot in the door.

  Jerry knew his little piece by heart now. He watched her curiously as he recited it. “I’m a friend of Johnny Vega’s.”

  Her pale face went paler and she stared at him. After a moment she smiled at him mechanically and allowed him to push the door a bit farther. “You had me scared, brother, jammin’ in like that. … I thought for a minute you was a flattie.”

  He laughed. “Since when do dicks wear coats like this? Believe it or not, it came from London—and I don’t mean London, Ohio.”

  She laughed, too; not a good laugh. “You say you’re a pal of Johnny’s?”

  Tracy nodded. “Johnny and me are just like that.”

  She said: “You’re too late, brother. The kid ain’t here. We was tipped that the place was gettin’ hot and he breezed. How’d yuh know he was here?”

  “He called up my dump three days ago. Needed half a grand. I was out of town and just got the message. He been gone long?”

  “Coupla days. Musta raised the jack somewhere else. Thanks just the same. If you wanta slip me the dough—I’m his babe.”

  She was his babe—and he left two days ago—he must have come back and left all over again according to the Swede in the cellar. What the hell were they all lying about?

  Tracy looked keenly at her eyes, the nervous hands, the pale lips with the sagging flesh-lines at their corners.

  He said, coolly: “Nix. This is Johnny’s dough. I’ll hold it for him. I’m not staking his babe to a trip through Switzerland.”

  She grinned at that. Her right fingertips jerked suddenly to her left forearm with a slow rotary movement of which she was entirely unconscious.

  She said, sneeringly: “You’re a pretty wise jasper, at that. Only I don’t sleigh-ride. Morph’s my dish, dearie.”

  This whole thing was screwy, Jerry decided suddenly. Screwy as hell. The jane was alone and trying hard to bounce him away with a bluff. Well, he didn’t bounce. … He’d give this joint the once-over.

  The girl backed away as he pushed through the door.

  His narrowed eyes flicked from the woman to the room, back to the woman. Her face was like soft putty. She was quite obviously in a state of near nudity except for the silk negligée and the green rubber cap. She had no slippers on her bare feet. Every shade in the room was drawn. A kerosene lamp burned smokily on a side table. The whole place reeked with it.

  “Didn’t get you out of the bathtub, did I?” he said idly.

  The glassy eyes focused sharply. She drew in an audible breath. The fear that had ebbed for a moment came spilling up through her eyeballs. Like a wave on the beach, Jerry thought.

  She grimaced and took a step towards him.

  “Be a nice boy. Scram, like a good fella.”

  He didn’t move from her push. Just stood there. “Why?” he asked her.

  “Because—well—I ain’t exactly wearin’ overcoat an’ hip-boots—an’ if Johnny came back for somethin’ an’ seen us together—he’s a jealous bimbo—”

  Tracy laughed, a chuckle of amusement.

  “You wouldn’t lie to me, would you?” he asked.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Who’s Nick?”

  “I don’t getcha.” He heard her teeth grind.

  “Sure you do. You thought I was Nick. That’s why you opened up.”

  “He’s—he’s the guy downstairs.” Her voice blurred. “The Swede in the basement. He’s coverin’ us. I thought it was him with a letter from Johnny. Jeeze, you’re suspicious, honey.”

  Nick—that Swede in the basement? Not on your tintype, thought Jerry; but he only said: “Aw, no. … Mind if I take a look around?”

  He thought she was going to faint. He hoped she would. But she didn’t.

  He could barely hear the flat whisper: “I guess I can’t stop you.”

  “You’re damn’ right you can’t. … What’s that door? A closet? No, you show me. … ”

  Closet, empty. He followed her. Passage way, pantry, kitchen. About face and back again; bathroom. Three bedrooms; more closets. As he followed the soft slap-slap of her feet on the floor he felt the skin prickling on the back of his neck. It was exactly like the childish game of “search.” “You’re warm; now you’re getting cold; warm again; warmer … ”

  In that third bedroom he had strongly me feeling that the game was getting damn’ hot. The top drawer of the dresser was half open. Slippers and a par o
f stockings on the floor and a drew, a girdle and a crumple of underthings in a heap on the chair next to the dresser. The woman in the negligée stood near the chair, staring at him with about as much animation as a drugged dummy. He crossed the room, opened a closet door, gave it a lightning scrutiny. A few dresses and hats; not many. Nothing else.

  When he turned he was sure that the woman hadn’t moved. Just a drugged dummy next to the chair with the soiled clothing. Yet he saw at once that her right hand was in the pocket of her robe; and the top drawer of the dresser that had been half open, had slid miraculously a third farther out.

  Tracy didn’t say anything, and after a moment she seemed to come awake. He followed her out of the room with ice in his knee-caps and practically no belly at all. He kept pretty close behind her.

  There was one more room at the end of the passage.

  She muttered dully: “Maid’s room. Don’t wanta see that, do yuh?”

  “Might as well.”

  The room was bare. No furniture at all—and still another door. With a ground-glass panel.

  “Maids bathroom,” said the thick, sleepy voice.

  She padded submissively ahead of him, turned partly as though to beckon him. He saw her feet spread a little and brace themselves. He swung at her, and as the gun came out of her pocket his fist connected. It was like kicking a cat—no sound from her at all. Her paralyzed fingers scrabbled on the floor, trying vainly to raise the gun. He kicked the thing loose, scooped it up.

  He sprang to the bathroom door and wrenched it open. His hand stayed on the knob. For a long eternity of seconds the watch on his wrist went tick, tick, tick. … Then he stepped back from the threshold and gently closed the door. The blood had drained from his face, leaving it a curious mottled white; his cheeks and jaws looked suddenly dirty and unshaven. He stared at the semi-conscious woman on the floor and muttered: “Nice girl. … Just a nice girl. … ”

  The private phone in the front room was dead, as he had feared. Probably a single trunkline open on the deserted switchboard in the main hall downstairs. He caught the girl under the armpits and walked her like a wobbly sack to the room where her clothes were, where she had palmed the gun. He dumped her on the bed and tied her ankles and wrists with ripped lengths from the pillow-case, anchored her hands and feet to the bars.