"How what?"
"How'd he get dead ? Hung hisself?"
"No. Somebody left him leaning. With a knife. Into the heart. Like dirty fingernails into an overripe watermelon."
The hand holding the pipe twitched a little but nothing showed in his voice. "Kind of upset, ain't you ? What do you figger on doin' about it, mister?"
I stood up and looked down at him, hard. "You do only one thing at a time like this, pop. Yon just call the buttons."
If that made any difference to him, I couldn't see it. I hadn't really thought that it would. He said, "Might use Miz Trotter's phone. Plrst door on your left, inside."
I threw away my cigarette and went back into the shadowy hall and pounded a hand on the proper door. It opened immediately and a withered old woman with yellow skin and lumpy features peered out at me. There was a faded housecoat wrapped primly about her shapeless body and a lacy pink dustcap sat drunkenly on graying hair that probably had already been combed once that month. She looked at me without pleasure and said, "You want something, young man?"
It seemed everybody was throwing my youth at me this morning. I said, "Not that I want to bother you, Mrs. Trotter, but I'll have to use your phone. There's been some trouble."
Suspicion flared in her tight little eyes, suspicion and open hostility. "I don't know about no trouble. This here's a respectable rooming "
"This can't wait, Mrs. Trotter," I said patiently. "After I make my call I'll be glad to tell you about it."
She dabbed the back of her hand at a stray strand of stringv hair escaping from the dustcap. "You don't set foot in this house until I know what's going on! You think for a minute I let every "
"It's your house," I said wearily. "There's a dead man in Mr. Walsh's room and the police will want to know about it. Where's your phone ?"
That unhinged her lower jaw until I could see a pair of badly fitting store teeth. "Who's dead ? Mr. Walsh ? How do you know he's dead ?"
"A man," I said. "I don't think it's Walsh. The blood ran out of him and hardly anyone can live without blood."
That got the glare it deserved. "You drunk, young man?"
"Pardon me," I said, and put out a foot. She backed away while she was making up her mind not to and I brushed past her and went into a small living room overcrowded with heavy, dark-wood furniture that had been old before Pearl White was making cliff hangers. There was no sign of a telephone and I had to mention it again before Mrs. Trotter pointed to a stand holding a large French doll in a fluffy orange hoop skirt that needed laundering.
I lifted the skirt without blushing, found a cradle-type phone and dialed Central Station. After the operator put me through to Homicide I reported my discovery to a Sergeant DeMuth. He sounded reasonably interested until I mentioned the address, then he asked my name and told me to stick around, that somebody would be along shortly. From his tone I got the impression "shortly" would be about a week.
I replaced the receiver and gave the instrument back to the doll. Mrs. Trotter started to leak questions from every pore but I put her off. Then she wanted to go up and look at the corpse but I discouraged that by saying the cops wouldn't like anybody tramping on the clues. That seemed to run us out of conversation, so I put on my hat and went out the front door.
Pop was still out there, gnawing on the bit of his pipe and looking thoughtfully off into a private world I had no place in. I sat down and stretched my legs. "I guess Mrs. Trotter is a little upset."
He made a vague sound deep in his throat. "I wouldn't wonder. That's what comes of ownin' propitty. Some roomers ain't goin' to take kindly to bein' asked questions by policemen."
"Any of her roomers handy with a toothpick ?"
He squinted at me. "Toothpick, you said ?"
"A knife."
"Oh. Never heard it called that. I couldn't rightly say."
I said, "You could do me a favor, pop."
"Like what?"
"Don't mention that blonde to the boys. I'd like to handle that angle myself."
He cackled unexpectedly. "More curves 'n angles to that one, young feller! Mebbe I'd be gettin' myself into trouble, though."
"Forget I asked," I said coldly.
"Don't do no good to get huffy at me, son. If they don't mention her, I won't neither. Best I can do."
"Sorry." I reached for a cigarette, looked at it, sighed and put it back. "That should be enough. I don't think anybody else around here saw her."
He grunted. After a moment he said, "Strikes me kind of funny, Walsh bein' away and a dead man in his room."
"I thought of that," I said.
It wasn't more than ten minutes before a gray Mercury Tudor from the West Chicago Avenue station came bulling along Erie with its siren wide open. People, mostly women, began popping out of houses along the street and a crowd had collected even before the squad screeched to a stop across from us.
Two uniform men piled out, crossed over and came quickly up the steps. The one in the lead was no more than twenty-five, if that, with curly black hair showing from under his uniform cap and an olive-skinned face as handsome as a screen star's. He stopped a step or two below the old man and me, gave us an up-and-down stare and snapped out in a tough voice: "Homicide reported at this address. What about it?"
"Third floor, front," I said.
That earned me the chill eye. "Your name Pine ?"
"Yeah."
"The report is you found the body. What else do you know?"
"Nothing to speak of," I said.
His expression said I wasn't showing the proper attitude and something would have to be done about it. He was accustomed to having citizens choke up when he did the talking.
"Don't give me that," he said nastily. "Let's have the story and let's have it quick."
I lifted an eyebrow at him. "Aren't you a little out of your line, Jack? The Bureau boys usually ask the questions."
He reared back like I'd pulled a gun on him, and angry color poured into his face. In a suddenly soft voice he said, "Well, well. I think we're going to have fun, buddy. Let's see something with your name on it."
"Why, sure," I said agreeably. I took out my wallet, started to hand it to him, then drew back my hand and emptied the currency compartment of its bills. I gave him the wallet, and if his face had been red before it was nothing to what it was now.
He flicked angrily through the identification panels, then slapped the folder back into my palm. "Private snoop, hunh ?" he snarled. "Too big for your britches like the rest of your breed. I'll see what I can do for you in my report."
The other cop, who had been standing by while all this was going on, joggled the pretty boy's elbow. He was an older man, gray at the temples and with the patiently tough expression that comes with too many years in the business. He said, "We better get up there, Clint, before somebody shows up from Central."
I finished putting my money back where it belonged, then took them upstairs and pointed out the body. They didn't touch anything, just looked around and sneered at the dust. The gray-haired cop remained behind while his partner and I went back to the first floor. There was a zone car parked behind the one from the district, and a couple of the boys were talking to Mrs. Trotter in the hall.
On the porch again, I leaned against one of the railings and watched the crowd in the street. Pop had disappeared somewhere while I was upstairs and all the company I had was a plain-clothes man from the zone car. Ten more minutes dragged by, then a Homicide detail arrived from Central Station.
The man in charge was a sergeant named Frank Tinney, whom I remembered from the days when he was on a robbery detail. He nodded blankly to me, said, "I won't be long, Pine," and went on through the paint-blistered door. A hell of a lot I cared how long he would be. I had all day. I had three or four days if he wanted them. When the police crook their fingers your private business ceases to be pressing.
I yawned and smoked my cigarette and looked at the empty faces of the crowd.
In less th
an half an hour, but not much less, Tinney came out again, alone. He said, "Let's you and me talk, hey ? How about your car ?"
"Okay."
Most of the sight-seers had drifted away by this time and the district and zone cars were gone, leaving a swirl of gas fumes in the air and skid marks on the pavement. I led Tinney over to the Plymouth and we got comfortable in the front seat.
He refused my offer of a cigarette, found two sticks of gum in one of his pockets and began to strip away the wrappers with slow movements of his stubby fingers. He was a tall, raw-boned man in his early forties, with thinning red hair and an angular homely face full of wisdom and blackheads. After he finished tucking the gum between his molars, he moved his jaw around a time or two and looked at my necktie with faint approval. He said, "How've you been. Pine?"
"Can't complain."
"Keeping you busy?"
"A job here, a job there. Nothing to make me rich."
His gaze wandered from me to the steering wheel, from there to the windshield and on along the dreary vista of Erie Street limp and yielding in the midday sun. He said, "Hell of a neighborhood to die in."
"You know one that isn't ?"
"Yeah. You're right, at that." He turned those disillusioned gray eyes back to me, "How about it, Pine? Did you make that guy in the closet ?"
"Complete stranger to me," I said. "I'd put him down as a tired muscle."
He nodded. "You're right in there. Pine. Ever hear of Willie Post?"
"Certainly. Louie Antuni's lieutenant. You're not going to tell me that was Willie ?"
"So I'm told. Kennedy, one of the boys who came out here with me, pulled him in a time or two back in the old day-He didn't hesitate a minute in identifying him."
I said, "Willie was before my time, back in the days when Taylor Street smelled of sour mash from Jefferson to Robey and was so thick around Halsted Street the school kids could get a cheap jag from inhaling the air. I was sixteen and playing left tackle for Senn High when Louie took that income tax rap." I flicked cigarette ashes out my window. "I'd always heard that Willie stuck with the big boy and was living wath him in Florida."
"So everybody says. He couldn't of been in town long, else the Department would of heard about it."
"He still had his Florida tan," I said.
"Yeah. I noticed that."
We sat there and he chewed and I smoked while a minute or two drifted aimlessly by. Finally he stirred on the seat and looked at me with a combination of wariness and solemnity in his eyes. An honest cop, who had come to the place where he must push his weight around some and who was aware that a sergeant's weight is figured in milligrams,
"How do you figure in this, Pine ?"
"I hardly figure at all," I said. "I came around to see this man Walsh. I knocked on his door and when he didn't answer I got a little worried and kind of walked in. In looking over the place some I found the body. Naturally I ran for a phone and let you boys know about it."
Tinney's snort was half anger, half envy. "Brother! The things you private guys get away with! Any old time we pull a thing like that our hides would be drying on the wall."
There wasn't any room in that for a remark from me.
He tapped his fingers on his knee and blew out his breath. I could smell the flavor of his gum. "Tell me about this man Walsh."
"I don't know him," I said.
His eyes seemed to grow a bit grayer, a bit bleaker. "You were calling on him. Pine."
"Who says I wasn't? I get paid to call on people I don't know personally."
He bulged out a cheek with his tongue. "I see. A case, hey?"
"Yeah," I said. "A case. A job. I have a client. Knock on wood."
"What's his connection with Walsh?"
"I couldn't say."
Nothing changed in his face. "You know better than this. Pine. I'm not telling you how to run your business and you've got some rights, of course. But this is murder. It's a murder that's going to get a lot of attention around town and I'd like to do a good job of work on it. I could use a boost in rank, and this is my chance."
"I still can't help you," I said. "Much as I'd like to, you understand."
Anger brought a sharp flush to his cheeks and his eyes began to glitter. "Listen to me, goddam it. I got to find Walsh. I talked to that crummy landlady and her cheap-john roomers and all it got me was disgusted. Maybe you don't know anything about Walsh, but you'll never in Christ's world make me believe your client don't. He's my only lead and I'm asking you for his name . . . and don't give me none of that crap about 'privileged communications.' I can lock you up if I have to."
"On what charge?" I said, being calm about it.
He shoved out his jaw at me. "Material witness, obstructing justice—what the hell do I care? You think I can't hold you, fella? Listen, I can waltz you around every outlying station in town until you grow whiskers down to your socks. How do you like that ?"
"I don't like it," I said. "And you won't do it. I'll tell you why you won't do it. Because it wouldn't get you a thing, in the first place . . . and because I could make a trick like that snap back on you."
He chewed it over, along with his gum. "Okay. You know all the answers. That's fine." His tone and his scowl said it wasn't fine at all. "And the next time you want a favor from the Department, you can whistle up a post. Good-by and bad luck to you!"
He slammed a palm angrily against the door handle and stepped out onto the curb. Before he could swing the door shut again, I said, "We could make a deal, Sergeant."
It put surprise on his face and froze it there. First I called his tough talk down to a whisper; now I was talking deals. I could almost hear the wheels spinning behind his wrinkled forehead.
"What kind of a deal ?" he said cautiously.
"I'll be looking for Walsh myself and I may find him ahead of you. If I do you'll get him from me. But if you beat me to it, I want to know about it immediately and I want a private talk with him."
His scowl deepened. "Go to hell. Any old time we can't get by without your kind of help, I want pictures." His arm tensed to slam the door.
"Plus the name of my client," I said.
His hand slid slowly from the edge of the car door and some of the lines went out of his face, leaving it a bland mask. "That's more like it."
"We do business ?"
"All you want is a talk with Walsh when we nab him ?"
"Yeah."
He ran a broad forefinger slowly along the angle of his jaw. "Well, far's I'm concerned, okay. Course, I can't guarantee what the lieutenant'll have to say about it."
"Then go get a note from him," I said coldly. "When you bring it around, we'll make our deal."
He nodded to himself and stared at my right knee while making up his mind. "Okay, Pine, we'll work it out your way."
"One favor," I said. I was enjoying this, although Tinney didn't know it. "Talk to him but don't push him around. I it don't want him sore at me."
He moved his shoulders impatiently. "I don't have all day, shamus."
"Uh-hunh=" This was going to be one of the high spots in my career. "I'm working on this thing for His Grace, Bishop McManus, Sergeant."
If I had suddenly grown a second head he couldn't have looked at me any differently. At the end of fifteen or twenty seconds he said woodenly, 'T find that a little hard to believe, friend. You better let me have some more to go with it."
"No, sir. A deal is a deal. Anything more will have to come from His Grace."
It was a tough one for him to take and his thoughts were spread out on his unhappy face for the world to see. You don't pull in a bishop and stick a light in his eyes and snarl at him. Especially when your name is a good solid Irish name like Tinney. And if you throw it into the lap of your immediate superior and it backfires on him, then you're lucky not to be busted down to a patrolman and put to work rattling store doors out in the Kensington district at three in the morning.
Pie fumbled around, started twice to say somethin
g only to have it die in his throat. ". . , I'll see you around, Pine." "Sure you will. We made a deal." "Yeah." He eyed me sourly. "Boy, am I lucky!" Sergeant Frank Tinney closed the car door gently—the best indication yet of his frame of mind—and stepped back onto the sidewalk. I gave him a grave salute, started the motor and pulled away, leaving him standing there.
Chicago's Loop is a few acres of skyscrapers encircled by elevated train tracks like an iron wedding ring on the upthrust hand of a giant. A place of big business and little people, of smoke and noise and confusion beyond Babel, where there is satisfaction for every appetite and a cure for every disease.
The Indians lost it a long time ago. The Indians were never luckier.
It was well past noon by the time I came down Wabash Avenue, dodging the el pillars south to Adams Street, and turned in at my usual parking station. A colored attendant in white coveralls slouched over and took the Plymouth away from me. I picked an early edition of the Daily News off the corner newsstand, read it over a leisurely lunch at the Ontra, then plodded slowly back through the heat to Jackson Boulevard where I supported a two-room office suite in the Clawson Building, a few doors west of IMichigan Avenue.
The Clawson Building was. and is, twelve floors of dirty timeworn red brick dating back to the Columbian Exposition. It was sandwiched between two modern skyscrapers that seemed forever to be trying to edge away from their neighbor. It had a deep lobby, narrow and dim, paneled in gray and white imitation marble, a pair of secondhand bird cages masquerading as elevators and a sullen air of decay. The upper halls smelled like a Kansas hayloft after two weeks of rain, and my fellow tenants ran the type of businesses that attracted more process servers than customers.
The building superintendent, a bitter-faced man who had seen better days and would tell you so, was relieving the regular operator during the lunch hour. He took me up to the eighth floor, wrenching at the controls as though he'd like to pull off the lever and hit me with it, and I walked slowly along the deserted corridor to 812, with my name and Private Investigations in black on the ground-glass panel.
The Long escape Page 4
