Inevitably this created some noise. As usual the bed springs creaked, there was a loud thump when I let the frame down a trifle harder than I intended, and the casters squealed when the head started to slide and almost crashed into the wall.
I managed to steady it, however, and stood with my heart pounding, listening for sounds from Al.
Again the snoring had stopped.
I stood stock still, balanced on one foot with my shoulder against the wall and both hands steadying the brass head of the bed. But this time the snoring did not resume. Instead I heard bare feet slap on the floor.
Desperately I drew my lungs full of air and emitted it slowly in what I hoped sounded like a gentle snore. When there was no immediate further sound from the next room, I repeated the snore, then repeated it again.
To my tremendous relief I heard Al roll back into bed. But my relief wasn’t so great that it made me reckless. I continued to issue a gentle snoring sound until it was drowned out by the real snores from Al’s bedroom.
I waited a full quarter hour before chancing another move. Then I lifted the light brass head completely off the floor, my heart moving to my mouth when the casters came loose and dropped to the floor with twin rattles. But when Al’s snoring continued uninterrupted, I was glad to be rid of the caster’s squeals.
Pulling the brass head under my left armpit, I used it as a cumbersome crutch. It was not heavy, being of hollow brass tubing, and it worked with remarkable efficiency. If Al had decided to put me in the double bed instead of the single one, I don’t think I could have managed, because using the head of a double bed as a crutch would have been too awkward. But the single one made a fine crutch.
Nevertheless it took me nearly ten minutes to reach the door of my room, for with each step I had to bring the legs of my improvised crutch down softly while I precariously balanced on one leg, and I had to make sure they were firmly set on the floor and would not slide before I made another hop forward. In between hops I listened for indications that Al might be awakened by my movements.
Getting through the door was difficult, and getting through Al’s door into his bedroom required even more skill, for it was narrower. But somehow I managed it.
Fortunately Al didn’t awaken until I was nearly to his bedside.
Then he sat up abruptly, stared at me in the moonlight filtering through his window and started to thrust his hand under his pillow.
Bracing myself on my brass crutch, I swung my leg forward and planted my foot in the center of his chest.
He went backward as though shot from a catapult, hit the open window and went through it, taking the screen with him. Below I heard the breaking of branches as he passed through a tree just outside the window on the way down.
Clambering off the bed, I got my crutch under my arm again and felt beneath Al’s pillow for his gun. With it in my hand I made my way to the wall where his suit hung, and then had to thrust the gun under the cord of my pajamas in order to have a free hand with which to search for the handcuff keys. I found them in a side pocket of his coat.
Altogether a good five minutes passed before I was free of the brass anchor I had been carrying around and could hop to the window with the gun in my hand. Below I could see no sign of my recent captor. As I puzzledly studied the moonlit terrain, I heard the car start.
The carport opened on the kitchen side of the cabin, but before I could hop to the kitchen window, steadying myself against the walls and pieces of furniture as I went, the car had backed out and roared away up the dirt lane.
It was small satisfaction to know Al had been forced to drive off wearing only pajamas, for he had left me stranded miles from nowhere. And the cabin had no telephone.
The first thing I did was return to my bedroom, free my artificial leg from the grip of the second handcuff and strap it back on. Then I dressed in slacks, sweat shirt and jacket, packed my tuxedo in the suitcase and set the suitcase on the kitchen table.
Then I went through the clothing Al had left behind.
There was nothing of interest in his suitcase except that all his underwear and socks were silk. But his wallet, which I found in the hip pocket of his trousers, gave at least a limited amount of information about him.
According to a driver’s license in it his legal name was Alberto Toma, he was barely twenty-one instead of the twenty-two I had guessed, his occupation was “salesman” and his home address 1812 Sixth Street. I suspected that might be his actual address, since it was in the heart of the slum area which bred most of our local racketeers.
There was no point in sticking around the cabin any more. Checking the money compartment of the wallet, I discovered it contained slightly over two hundred dollars, mostly in twenties, then thrust the wallet into my pocket. The Woodsman I stuck under my belt beneath the jacket, picked up my suitcase, turned out the lights and left.
It was four o’clock in the morning by the time I had walked as far as the river road, and four-thirty before I reached an all-night service station which had a phone. A taxi from town arrived for me forty-five minutes later, and it was six before I finally reached my apartment.
Setting my alarm for three hours later, I collapsed in bed.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
AT TEN O’CLOCK the next morning I walked into Warren Day’s office. The inspector examined the circles under my eyes curiously before he spoke.
Then he said, “This is police headquarters, Moon. You get transfusions over at City Hospital.”
“I only had three hours’ sleep,” I announced.
“After-hours’ joints again, eh? If you’d have sense enough to go home when the legitimate bars close …"
I interrupted him by tossing Alberto Toma’s wallet on his desk. “I’d like a receipt for that. Particularly for the two hundred plus bucks in it. According to the driver’s license he’s Alberto Toma and he lives at eighteen twelve Sixth. There’s a chance that’s his real name and address. In case it isn’t, I’d like to look through the wanted file.”
The inspector opened the wallet, shuffled through the papers in it, scowled at me and wrote out a receipt. As I stuffed it into my pocket, he leaned back in his chair, clasped hands over his lean stomach and silently waited for me to get to the point.
Removing the Woodsman from under my belt, I shoved it across to him. “This goes with the wallet. I’m almost sure it won’t be registered, but maybe ballistic tests will tie it in with some unsolved killing or other.”
“Alberto’s that kind of boy, eh?”
“He’s that kind of boy,” I agreed. “When I last saw him he was driving a dark blue Chrysler coupé, license number X-17-304-G, and was dressed only in pajamas. I think the coupé was stolen, and he’s probably ditched it by now. He’s also probably dug himself up some clothes. I’m just giving you this information for what it is worth.”
“Nothing you’ve said so far is worth much,” the inspector said. “Just why would I be interested in this Alberto?”
“Among other things, he’s a kidnaper,” I told him. And briefly I outlined my experience of the night before.
When I finished, Day carefully searched his ash tray for a cigar butt of sufficient length to suit him, blew it free of ashes when he found one and popped it into a corner of his mouth.
After silently chewing the already frayed end for a moment, he said, “Usually you don’t waste my time, Moon, but aren’t you in the wrong office? I’ve got enough worries running Homicide without piddling around with kidnapers.”
“This kidnaping has a bearing on homicide,” I assured him. “Whoever hired Alberto to get me out of the way did it to stop my looking into the Ford murder.”
The inspector looked dissatisfied. “That’s just a guess. Maybe you’ve been stepping on somebody’s toes in some other case.”
“You don’t want to concede the point because it louses up your nice case against Tom Henry,” I said. “If someone is interested enough to resort to kidnaping to prevent my digging any farther in
to Ford’s murder, it means Henry was framed.”
Passing his hand irritably over his scalp from rear to front in a gesture which would have left his hair a mess if he had possessed any, he said in a weary tone, “All right, Moon. I’ll put out a call for this boy, and we’ll ask him questions about Ford when we net him. Just where was this cabin he took you to?”
When I had described the location as best I could, he lifted his phone, relayed the information to someone and instructed him to chase down the cabin’s ownership. He also read off the Chrysler’s license number to check.
Then he shooed me off to the record room, where after a mere ten minutes of gazing at pictures of men whose descriptions conformed generally to that of my kidnaper, I located my man. It was not a hard search because he had not bothered to change his original name much. It was Alberto Thomaso, and in his short twenty-one years he had managed to accumulate a record of twelve arrests.
Returning to Day’s office, I flipped the card in front of him.
“Lovable child, isn’t he?” he grunted after reading the record.
Lifting his phone, he sent out a pickup call on Alberto Thomaso, alias Alberto Toma.
When I resumed the same chair I had occupied previously and showed no signs of leaving, Day scowled at me inquiringly.
“Now that we’ve decided my client is innocent, how about bringing me up to date on developments?” I suggested.
His scowl deepened. “We’ve decided no such thing, Moon. I’m merely exercising an open mind.”
“Well, how about exercising it some more by letting me know what you’ve uncovered?”
The inspector grumbled a bit, but I think it was just to keep in practice. Despite what I considered a rather unreasonable insistence that his case against Tom Henry remained as strong as ever, I believe the kidnaping convinced him there actually was a probability Henry had been framed, and he was not at all averse to having me do some of the leg work a reinvestigation of the case would involve. An additional man working for him at no expense to the taxpayers was a bargain he had no intention of passing up. And though his attitude was that he was doing me an exceptional favor by bringing me up to date, I suspect that even as he talked to me one part of his mind was secretly considering where he could best use the cop I would release.
A routine check had been made of Walter Ford’s apartment, he told me. The case of twenty-five-caliber automatics had been located there, five of the original dozen still remaining, none of those being initialed. Six of the seven missing ones had been accounted for. In addition to the pistols Ford had given Madeline Strong, Bubbles Duval and Evelyn Karnes, two other female recipients had been located through an address book found in Ford’s apartment. Both women claimed not to have seen Ford in weeks, and both had unshakable alibis for the time of the murder.
The sixth gun was the one found in Tom Henry’s workshop drawer.
“That leaves one still floating around somewhere,” I remarked.
The inspector shrugged. “Probably turn out he gave it to some woman who isn’t listed in the address book.”
I said, “Has it occurred to you as a bit odd that all the pistols Ford gave away were given to women, except for Tom Henry’s? Why would a woman chaser like Ford make a gift to a man he barely knew when he didn’t customarily give presents to even his closest male friends?”
“I can’t say, but there’s evidence he actually did make the gift. In the first place, we traced the guns to the Tulsa Arms Company, and the serial number on Henry’s gun proves it was one of the original dozen. In the second place, we located the jeweler who did Ford’s engraving for him. Jessups, over on West Lucas. It was Ford who ordered the ‘T.H.’ initials on young Henry’s gun all right, just as he ordered the engraving on the other five initialed guns.”
“Only five? You mean the missing seventh gun was never engraved?”
Day shook his head. “Not at Jessup’s anyway. If it had been, we’d have located whoever Ford gave it to by now.”
I said thoughtfully, “Offhand it looks like that seventh gun was never given away. Ford would hardly break his habit of having them engraved.”
“Maybe it was the first one he gave as a present, and it didn’t occur to him to start having initials engraved on the grips until he got to the second.” He paused a moment and added reluctantly, “Except for something Hannegan said.”
“Hannegan said something? It must have been important to make the lieutenant open his mouth.”
“Just one of those odd things nobody but Hannegan would notice,” the inspector said. “I doubt that it means anything. This gun case is a velvet-lined box with velvet-covered spring clips which clamp around the barrel of each pistol to hold it in place. The guns were in three rows of four each. According to Tulsa the twelve serial numbers were consecutive and they were packed in the case in chronological order. In checking the serial numbers of the missing guns against the dates Ford had them engraved, Hannegan figured out he had started with the gun in the top left corner of the case and worked straight across. And the gun unaccounted for is the seventh, not the first.”
I thought this over dubiously, then asked, “Hannegan talk to this jeweler personally?”
“Just over the phone. He intended to follow it up with a visit.”
“I’ll save him a trip by making that check myself,” I said. “I’ll let you know what I get. Find anything else of interest in Ford’s apartment?”
Day grinned sourly. “Not bearing on his murder. They found a few dirty pictures.”
I raised my brows. “Oh? Got them here?”
“You reached the stage where you like to look at dirty pictures?” the inspector demanded.
“According to Ford’s wife, he used them for blackmail,” I said patiently. “Blackmail makes a lovely motive for murder.”
For a moment he scowled at me, then pulled open his top drawer, took out a large manila envelope, withdrew a number of glossy five-by-eight prints and tossed them to me.
There were eleven pictures altogether, and all the poses were approximately the same. A man sat on the edge of a bed, his back to the camera so that his face was invisible, and a woman lay in his arms, her back across his knees. In addition to the pose, all had three other things in common. Despite only his back being visible, the same man was identifiable in each picture, the bed and room were the same, and in each case both the man and woman were naked.
The women were all different, however. The camera angle was such that although the man’s face could not be seen, his companion’s face in each picture was clearly visible.
“You mean to tell me you didn’t even suspect these were blackmail pictures?” I inquired.
“I assumed they were just standard pornography Ford had bought under the counter somewhere to gloat over in private,” Day said. “That man in the pictures isn’t Ford. Too broad through the shoulders.”
“Ford’s confederate,” I told him. “I’d guess these were infrared pictures. It’s not a new gag. In the dark the guy in the picture maneuvers the woman into the proper position, then Ford snaps the picture from some concealed spot. She wouldn’t even know a snap had been taken until either Ford or his confederate offered to sell it to her a few days later.”
The first time I had shuffled through the photographs, I had done it rapidly, barely glancing at each one. Now I went through a second time in a more leisurely manner. Halfway I stopped and whistled.
“What’s the matter?” Day asked.
I began to suspect that I had done the inspector an injustice, and he actually hadn’t as yet given the pictures a close inspection. For if he had, I am sure he would have recognized the face which caused my whistle as quickly as I did.
I tossed the glossy print over to him.
He studied it with gradually widening eyes. There, lying in the broad-shouldered man’s arms and smiling up at him lazily, was Bubbles Duval.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
IT TOOK a bit of argument to talk Warren D
ay into letting me borrow the picture of Bubbles and the broad-shouldered man. The inspector was all for dragging the girl down to headquarters and sweating out of her the name of Ford’s confederate.
I finally convinced him that since I knew the girl personally and she seemed to have some liking for me, I could probably get more out of her than some strange cop.
The only other information I got from Warren Day was that Thomas Henry’s bond hearing at nine o’clock that morning had come to nothing. Despite the legal efforts of the expensive Harvey Brighton, the judge had refused to allow bond, declaring that the nature of the alleged crime indicated that the accused, if guilty, was too inclined to violence for the court to assume responsibility for loosing him on society even temporarily until a jury had decided whether or not he was to be released permanently.
When I left headquarters, I drove over to West Lucas and dropped by Jessup’s Jewelry Store. A gracious brunette with all the suavity of an undertaker’s assistant came forward to wait on me.
When I asked to speak to the proprietor, she wanted to know what about. I told her about some gold engraving and she looked politely interested, but when I failed to elaborate, she smiled pleasantly and led me toward the rear of the store with the air of a headwaiter showing me to a table.
Mr. Jessup, whose first name was Samuel according to the discreet gold lettering on the front window I had noted on the way in, was closeted in a tiny workroom containing nothing but a table, one chair and a rack of intricate tools. The table top was littered with rings, watches and other types of jewelry in various stages of repair, and at the moment the jeweler was resetting a stone in a rhinestone bracelet.
In contrast to his sophisticated clerk, Samuel Jessup was as homey as red suspenders. He was a plump man of about fifty with a benign face and an air of extreme patience. When the brunette announced in a soft voice that he had a visitor, he nodded without looking up and continued to work on the bracelet with a thin-nosed pair of pliers.
Give the Girl a Gun Page 9
