“Manny!” she squealed enthusiastically when she saw me. “We going out again tonight?”
“No,” I said. “I just want to talk with you a few minutes.”
Looking mildly disappointed, she handed me her key. As I slipped it into the lock, she managed to stand so close our shoulders brushed, making it difficult for me to manipulate the key.
When, after a bit of fumbling because of the crowded work quarters, I managed to get the door open, she squeezed past in such a manner that her breasts momentarily rubbed across my biceps. Inside she tossed her purse onto a chair, seated herself in the center of the sofa and patted the place next to her.
Shaking my head, I came to a stop directly before her and stood looking down at her.
“I’m going to show you something, Bubbles, and I’m afraid it’s going to upset you a little.”
Taking the photograph of Bubbles and the broad-shouldered man from my pocket, I held it in front of her.
Her eyes grew wide and slowly her face turned crimson. “Where did you get that?” she yelled, making a wild grab for it.
Jerking it out of her reach, I put the picture back in my pocket. “Sorry, Bubbles. If it was mine, I’d let you tear it up, but it’s police evidence and I have to return it.”
“What do you want?” she asked finally.
“I want to know about this picture.”
“Isn’t it self-evident? Walter Ford took it. You must know that. It’s one of the pictures you were talking about last night. Only this one was supposed to be destroyed. I watched Walter burn it myself.”
“You can make an unlimited number of prints from a negative,”
I said dryly. “How about telling me the whole story? I’ll guarantee there won’t be any publicity. The cops do everything possible to protect the reputations of blackmail victims. If you’re ever called to testify against this guy in the picture, you’ll appear in the public records as Jane Doe. And you may never even be called. The cops have a whole series of similar pictures involving other women which they may decide to use instead of yours.”
“They couldn’t use me,” Bubbles said. “I wasn’t a blackmail victim.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
I BLINKED AT HER. “How was that again?”
“It was all a mistake,” Bubbles said. “I thought he was rich and he thought I was rich. When they found out I was just a working girl, they dropped the blackmail attempt.”
I decided to unscramble this array of personal pronouns one at a time. “Who did you think was rich? Walter Ford?”
She shook her head. “Daniel Cumberland. He’s the man in the picture.”
“And when you say ‘they’ dropped the blackmail attempt, do you mean Ford and this Cumberland?” “Yes.”
“Let’s start over at the beginning,” I suggested. “Just tell me the whole story.”
So she started at the beginning and told me the whole story.
Daniel Cumberland was an extremely good-looking man of about thirty, Bubbles told me. He was also extremely well-dressed and managed to exude the affluent air of a successful businessman. His front was posing as junior vice-president of one of the local manufacturing plants.
Bubbles met him casually at the bar of one of the more exclusive cocktail lounges, and in a misguided attempt to impress him had colored her own background as fantastically as Cumberland was coloring his. She let him know that she was executive manager of Saxon and Harder’s, where her father was president of the board of directors.
Properly impressed, Cumberland went all out in pursuit of Bubbles. From the cocktail lounge he took her to dinner, then to a show, and afterward suggested they have a drink at his apartment. Bubbles admitted she was as charmed by Cumberland as he seemed to be by her; and not possessing any great degree of maidenly restraint, she welcomed the suggestion with enthusiasm.
This eventually led to the results indicated in the photograph.
It was two nights later that Walter Ford dropped by her apartment, showed her the photograph and offered to sell it to her for a thousand dollars.
At first she was enraged, Bubbles said, and threatened to call the police. Ford, apparently an old hand in such dealings, merely told her to go ahead. He would simply walk out the moment she picked up the phone, he told her, and she could report her head off. Since up to that time he hadn’t told her his name and she hadn’t the faintest idea who he was, Bubbles realized she might have some difficulty making her complaint stick. When Ford also assured her a copy of the photograph would be mailed to every member of the board of directors at Saxon and Harder’s the next day unless she came to terms, she further realized she probably would lose her job unless she talked him out of this action.
So quite calmly she told him she was merely a dress model instead of executive manager of Saxon and Harder’s, had less than a hundred dollars in the bank and couldn’t afford to pay him a nickel.
Once he became convinced she was telling the truth, Ford’s first reaction was anger at having wasted his time. Then the humor of the situation struck him and he suddenly seemed to decide it was outrageously funny.
Why, after such an introduction, Bubbles didn’t kick the man out of her apartment and refuse to have anything more to do with him, I will never understand. But after Ford ceremoniously burned the photograph in an ash tray, she actually forgave him. The only explanation I can think of is that the girl’s moral and ethical standards must have been as flexible as the blackmailers', because she didn’t even seem to harbor resentment over the use Cumberland and Ford had attempted to make of her. She seemed more resentful over the discovery that Ford had retained another copy of the picture than she did over the attempted blackmail.
“I don’t know,” I said frustratedly. “I guess you and I must have gone to different Sunday schools. Did you also continue to date this Cumberland fellow?”
“Oh, no. Not him.”
I was contemplating that at least she had saved me the mental effort of trying to understand her motives on that score when she burst the bubble by adding, “I phoned him once, but I guess he lost interest in me when Walter told him I didn’t have any money.”
At that point I gave up trying to understand her at all. “Where did this Daniel Cumberland live?”
“He has an apartment at Lincoln and Nebraska. It’s listed in the book.”
Checking her phone book, I discovered that sure enough a Daniel Cumberland was listed at 428 Lincoln Avenue. Dialing the operator, I asked if that phone was still listed under Cumberland’s name.
It was.
Well, well, I thought, the bird hadn’t even flown. And since it was now only a little after seven-thirty, I decided to look up Walter Ford’s blackmail partner before keeping my date with Fausta.
Four-twenty-eight Lincoln Avenue was a three-story apartment house in an upper-middle-class neighborhood. Two walls of the small foyer were lined with mail slots, and by checking the cards beneath them I learned Daniel Cumberland occupied apartment 1-B. The mail boxes had glass fronts and I noted there was quite an accumulation of mail in Cumberland’s.
No one answered the door apartment 1-B.
Returning to the foyer, I discovered 1-A was listed as the manager’s apartment. When I rang that bell, an elderly man with curling snow-white hair and an equally snow-white mustache came to the door. He admitted he was the apartment-house manager and said his name was Stanley Bush.
“I’m Manville Moon,” I said, showing him my license. “I’m working with the police on a case in which one of your tenants is an important witness. He doesn’t seem to be home and I’d like to take a look at his apartment. I haven’t a search warrant, but I can get one if I have to. It would be simpler all around if you’d let me take a quick look now, though. With you present, of course.”
He chewed thoughtfully at his mustache. “Which tenant?”
I indicated the door across the hall from his own. “Cumberland.”
“Hmm. Say you’re working with the police
?”
“Under Inspector Warren Day of Homicide. I can give you his home phone number if you’d like to check me.”
He gave me a careful looking over. “Don’t think that will be necessary, young fellow. Look honest enough to me. Besides, I’ll be right next to you to make sure you don’t lift nothing.”
He disappeared for a moment, returning with a ring of keys. Selecting one, he opened the door of apartment 1-B, The odor hit us the moment the door was open, and we both knew what it was at once. It was not strong, but it was unmistakably the odor of decaying flesh.
“Oh, oh,” Stanley Bush said, pushing the door shut again as soon as we were inside. “Thought it funny I hadn’t seen Cumberland around for a couple of days.”
The apartment was expensively furnished, but at the moment it was a mess. Every drawer in the front room had been pulled out and dumped on the floor, books had been pulled from their shelves and even sofa and chair cushions were strewed around the room. Through an open door we could see a similar cyclone had hit the bedroom.
“Somebody’s been looking mighty hard for something,” old Bush remarked.
He sniffed at the penetrating odor, then followed his nose through the apartment into the kitchen. There we found Walter Ford’s partner in blackmail.
Daniel Cumberland may have been as handsome as Bubbles said when he was alive, but he made an exceedingly ugly corpse. Largely this was because of the temperature, for all the windows were closed.
The man lay on his back on the kitchen floor, a bullet hole between his eyes and a pool of dried blood circling his head. He was dressed in pajamas, robe and slippers; and a half-empty cup of coffee sat on the table in front of the chair in which he had apparently been sitting when he was shot. I noted that another cup and saucer, washed clean, rested on the sink drainboard.
From all appearances the man had been drinking coffee with someone he knew well enough to serve in the kitchen when he was killed. And from his attire, his guest must have been a late and unexpected caller. Apparently after murdering his host, the killer had carefully washed out his own coffee cup, then searched the apartment from one end to the other. He had not even missed the kitchen, for it was as much of a shambles as the rest of the rooms.
Cumberland had been dead well over twenty-four hours, I guessed. Possibly even forty-eight, for the body was already bloated.
The elderly apartment manager said, “Let’s leave some of this stink out,” and started toward the kitchen windows.
“Hold it,” I advised. “We don’t touch a thing before the cops get here.”
Stopping, he scratched his head. “What now, then?” “Now we lock this place up again, go back to your apartment and phone the police.”
“Suits me,” he said. “I’ve seen everything I want to see here.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
A SERGEANT JOHN KIETEL of the night Homicide detail showed up in answer to my phone call. In addition to the usual retinue of scientific assistants he brought with him another detective whom he didn’t bother to introduce, but whose first name I gathered was Harry.
Harry was of the Hannegan school. He didn’t open his mouth once during the whole investigation, merely nodding agreeably whenever the sergeant gave him an order, then meticulously carrying out instructions.
I explained to Sergeant Kietel how Cumberland tied in with the Walter Ford case and how I happened to have called on the dead man.
I stayed around long enough to get the preliminary reports. The medical examiner guessed Cumberland had been dead thirty to forty-eight hours, adding he might be able to reduce the span after an autopsy. Since Walter Ford’s murder had taken place only a little less than forty-eight hours before, it seemed likely to me that the two killings had taken place the same night.
Possibly the killer had gone straight from polishing off one victim to murder the other.
No weapon was found in the apartment, nor any fingerprints, aside from the dead man’s, clear enough to be useable for comparison purposes.
The apartment consisted of four rooms and a bath. The front room, kitchen, bedroom and bath had been searched thoroughly by the killer, as evidenced by the mess left behind, but in the dining room the drawers of the sideboard were untouched. The logical conclusion was that either something had frightened the killer into stopping his search, or he had found what he was looking for in the dining room. When the painstaking Harry found a section of baseboard which slid upward to disclose a small secret compartment, we decided the latter was the case.
The compartment was empty.
By then it was nearly nine and I broke away to keep my date with Fausta. Sergeant Kietel, still awed by my supposed influence with his chief, didn’t even give me the customary instruction to stay available as a witness.
Mouldy Greene looked at me in surprise when I walked into El Patio.
“What’s the matter, Sarge?” he asked. “You and Fausta get your wires crossed?”
“Not that I know of. Why?”
“She said she was going over to your place when she left here a half hour ago.”
“That’s funny,” I said puzzledly. “She knew I was picking her up here at nine.”
Mouldy lifted his massive shoulders in a shrug. Then a customer at one of the tables in the cocktail lounge called him over to introduce him to a friend, and while he was occupied I went on back to Fausta’s office. I used her private phone to dial my own number, and Fausta answered at once.
“What’s up?” I inquired. “What the devil are you doing there?”
“Waiting for you, my one. Where are you?”
“Where I’m supposed to be,” I told her. “At El Patio. Didn’t you say pick you up here?”
“And did you not phone a message to my headwaiter saying you were hung up and I was to take a taxi to your apartment?” she countered.
“No,” I said slowly. “But if someone did, I don’t like the smell of it. Anyone else there?”
“I am all alone. Did you not leave that note on the door saying the door was unlocked and I was to wait inside?”
“Cripes, no,” I said with rising panic. “Listen, Fausta. Go lock both the front and back doors right now. Then sit there and don’t let anyone in until I get there. Got that?”
There was a sudden gasp, a half-articulate cry of pain, and then silence.
“Fausta!” I shouted.
“She decided to take a little nap, friend,” a low voice said in my ear. “But don’t worry about her. I’m as good with a sap as I am with a twenty-two. The bump won’t even show.”
The voice was that of the young gunman, Alberto Thomaso.
Forcing my voice to come out deadly calm, I asked, “What do you want, Al?”
“Me? Nothing, friend. I just work here. My boss wants a thing or two, though.” “Who’s your boss?”
He let out a cynical chuckle. “Let’s not waste time with silly questions, pal. Where are you?” “At El Patio.” “Where at El Patio?” “In Fausta’s private office.” “Alone?” “Yes.”
“What’s the number of that phone?”
In a tight voice I read it off from the center plate.
“I’ll call you back in about an hour,” Alberto said. “You answer personally. If anyone else answers, your blonde girl friend is done. Got it?”
“I’ve got it,” I said bleakly.
“Another thing. Every five minutes until I call, somebody else will ring that number. If the line is busy, the girl is cooked. That’s to make sure you don’t make any outside calls.”
When I made no answer, he said, “Neat, ain’t it? The boss figured when you got Miss Moreni’s message you’d use her office to phone here, and you’d be there all alone. You’re stuck. If you get far enough from that phone so you can’t answer it instantly when it rings, or if you use it to call the cops, the girl gets it. On the other hand, if you play along, I guarantee she won’t get hurt.”
“I’ll play along,” I said. “But I’ve got some instructions
too.”
He emitted a little laugh. “You ain’t in much of a position to give instructions.”
“No,” I admitted, “but I’m giving them anyway. Don’t hurt Fausta and I’ll do whatever you say. If anything happens to her, I’ll hunt you down and kill you. That’s a guarantee too.”
“Nothing’s going to happen to her,” he assured me. “That is, nothing but being locked up for a time. You’ll hear from me in an hour.”
The phone went dead.
While I was talking to Alberto, my mind had been too full of concern for Fausta to even wonder why she was being kidnaped. But the moment he hung up I began to understand the reason. And the more I thought about it, the more amazed I became at the mixture of cleverness and stupidity behind the kidnaping.
It seemed obvious to me that Walter Ford’s killer had engineered the snatch, hoping to use Fausta as a lever to force me to abandon investigation of the case. The manner in which Fausta was kidnaped was clever enough, but the motive struck me as almost incredibly stupid. For even if it accomplished its purpose of making me drop the investigation, the killer should have known that eventually I would tell the whole story to the police, and to them it would simply constitute further evidence that someone was desperately trying to prevent the frame of Thomas Henry from coming to light.
All through the case it was impressing me more and more that Ford’s killer possessed an amazing mixture of brilliance and stark stupidity. These thoughts skipped through my mind almost instantaneously, then my whole attention reverted to plans for getting Fausta out of her situation. The elaborate plot for making sure I would stick close to the phone and couldn’t call the police, like most of the killer’s plots, had a cardinal defect. I had phoned my apartment from Fausta’s private phone, which had a direct line into the building. Next to it on her desk was a phone which went through El Patio’s switchboard.
The inspector dislikes being disturbed on police business after five o’clock in the evening, but at the moment I wasn’t concerned about anyone’s feelings. I cut him off in the middle of a growl.
Give the Girl a Gun Page 11
