by Ed Lacy
“Frankie know any Brown?”
“You mean a colored man?”
“No, a red-haired man named Brown?”
“Not that I know of and I knew all his friends. We were going to get married soon as he got a better job. I'm a secretary— out of work, at the moment. I told Frank I was willing to work for a while, so we could get married now, but he wouldn't hear of it.”
“What about the trip he was going to take?”
The-heel-and-toe strut stopped. “That was the dumbest idea I ever heard of!” Cissy shrilled. “When I read about it in the papers, I couldn't wait to give him a piece of my mind. Of course I never did. Poppa belongs to a checker club and I had to close up the store that night. Are you going to ask me where I was at the time of the killing, like the other dicks did?”
“No.” I stood up. “Could have used that thousand dollars to get married,” I said for no reason, except to watch her get steamed.
“Exactly what I was going to tell him. After all, I'm twenty-three, sure time I got married. One thing, I'm glad I never gave in to Frank. You know.” This was followed by a giggle and a modest blush.
I thanked her and made for the door. She looked up at me, said, “My, you're a big big man. Married?”
“Six wives, honey. Good-by.”
I drove over to the taxi-garage Irving Spear hacked out of, waited around—dozing in my car—till three when he drove in. He was leanly built, about twenty-seven, and had a pigeon-toed walk. His face was small and heavy shell glasses made it look smaller, and his noggin was on the bald side. From the way he moved and acted, he was a tough joker who could handle himself. I asked him if he'd have a beer. We got a booth in a crummy ginmill and he looked at my card, said, “Even private operators getting into the act. I can't understand the murder, Frank didn't have an enemy in the world. He was the mousy type.”
“His folks said he was a pusher, business-tycoon type.”
Irv laughed. “Frank wanted that but didn't have the guts. Actually he was a moody kid, like an artist or a poet. And he wasn't too smart. Surprised he had guts enough to even talk about taking off for Europe. Trip like that might have made him.”
“Cissy Lewis, his girl, didn't go for the idea.”
“That dumb tomato—she wasn't his girl. The way it was, Frank started taking her out a few times because she was always around. Bet in time she would have hooked him, too, even though he wasn't serious about her. Just a kid we grew up with.”
“Frank ever know a girl named Betsy?” I asked, starting to describe Mrs. Turner, surprised at all the details I could recall.
“You're off base,” Irv said, cutting in. “Frank wasn't a guy that chased. He didn't even have the nerve to talk Cissy into the sheets. Frank still had to pay for it.”
“Where?”
He shook his head. “Now look, this gal is okay, I don't want to make no trouble for her. I never even told the real cops about her.”
“Why should I make trouble? All I'll do is ask her a few questions. This is a rugged case, never know what will help.”
“Okay, but I don't believe in knifing anybody. I'm strictly a live-and-let-live joker. Her name is Louise, you'll find her in the basement of a private house down the block—515.”
“Did you know this man named Brown?”
“Who's he?”
“Guy with red hair who was in the Grand Cafe several months ago, said he knew Andersun, they were kids together— Brown said he remembered the church burning down.”
Irv grinned. “Yeah, I remember that liar now. Never could figure what his angle was in bulling Frank. Had a guy with him who was giving me the bull treatment too. Handsome guy with wavy hair. Said his name was Smith, or Jones, something like that. He kept asking if I was related to a Spear he knew. Odd part was—and why I remember him—he said this Spear was an accountant; that's what I'm studying.”
“What else did he ask?”
“Buddy, this was months ago and only beer talk then. He just asked about my folks being related to this other Spear, where I was born. That's all. I never saw him again. In fact I'm not swearing he was with Brown. But it was the same night.”
“Did you see Brown in the bar the night of the murder?”
“Was he there? Like I told the other cops, I was in school that night. They checked. You people think Brown is the killer?”
“I don't think anything. Brown is merely a name that's come up twice. Going home? I'll drive you there. I want to see Juanita.”
Juanita Andersun was alone. Her folks had gone for a walk, or in her own words, “Told them to get the hell out and air off.” She was a wiry, sharp-faced young woman of about twenty-one, rather pretty, with clean thin features and eyes like twin judges. She dressed simply and smartly and looked like a pert college kid—till she opened her mouth, breathed acid. Looking me over, she said, “So you're the man-mountain the folks said was here. Come on in, if you can get through the door. Just crawled home from the job myself. Work is a bitch.”
I sat in the living room as she went into the bathroom and said through the wide open door, “Be with you in a moment, got to exercise my bladder.” When she came back she stood in the doorway, stripped to her bra and panties, watching my reaction as she showed one of those hard slender figures that never change much between the ages of fourteen and forty-four. She threw on a beach robe, pasted a cigarette to her lower lip, then kind of flung herself in a chair as she asked, “What's with your great big birdbrain, shamus?”
The “shamus” made me grin; the sale of detective stories must be sensational, and meeting Juanita was sure an experience —a lousy one. “Like to get your ideas on the killings, ask some questions. Ever see Turner, the detective, before?”
She gave me a shake of her poodle hair-do.
We split a moment of silence, then I asked, “What do you think of the killings?”
“What's there to think? Either the work of a maniac, or Frank walked into a fight. As I told the other dicks, my brother was not involved in anything—he didn't have the guts.”
“Meaning?”
“In basic English it means he's the one that went to college. Me, I had to work after two years of high school—Frankie was a boy and in this family a boy is a Golden Boy. When Frankie came out of the army he was full of ginger, the old pep. Said any person with a little sense and willing to gamble, could make a pile—only suckers stayed poor. I thought maybe it was a break for us that he did go to college. He'd come home, tell me about the business methods he was studying—all the learned and fancy names for the old con racket. Frank and I would split a bottle of beer and he'd tell me how this and that guy started on the road to folding dough by putting a few bucks on some stock, parlaying the deal. Give you an example—Frank told me about some Englishman who heard about surplus U.S. Army supplies on an island in the West Indies—Trinidad, I think. So this guy bought all the stuff from Uncle Sam by cable, then sold them to the government of the island—by another cable. Made himself three hundred thousand bucks in less than a day, and all at the cost of two cables. That's operating. Sort of deal Frankie was looking for. On a smaller scale, of course.”
“Was this Paris trip part of a would-be deal?”
Juanita gave me a full-lip sneer. “What deal? Frankie was all talk. If bull was electricity Frankie would have been a dynamo. Soon as he left school he dropped a few hundred in the stock market and that kayoed his spirit too. Part of the loss was my dough, but I didn't kick. Can't expect to win every bet. All his education, his books and big talk—Frankie ended up a stock clerk, another one of the beer hounds at the corner dump. Although I have to admit the kid finally came through, made good.” She smiled at the blank look on my face. “We're collecting his ten grand G.I. insurance policy. You watch Irv and me hustle my share of that into some real salting money!”
“Ever hear of a man named Brown? Brother ever mention him?”
“Never heard of him. Should I have?”
“Guess not. W
hat about Cissy Lewis?”
The lippy sneer again. “That drip. Frankie sure was lucky escaping her. Jeez, you don't suspect her, do you?”
“Just asking questions. Any other girls in Franklin's life?”
“Franklin—what a handle! No other dames—Cissy was for dancing and holding hands in the movies. There's a pro down the street who was hauling Frankie's ashes.”
“Tell that to the cops?”
“They never asked me. All they wanted to know was what 7 was doing at the time of the shootings. In case you're thinking of asking me, I'll tell you... I was waiting right here, with the folks, to talk Frankie out of the trip junk when he came in. Any more questions?”
“Not for now,” I said, heading for the door.
Without getting up she ran her eyes over me, asked, “How did you escape being a TV wrestler—big as you are? Well, I trust I've been of some help.”
“You're a regular real live doll,” I said, walking out.
I had over a half hour before I was due to call for Ruthie. I walked down the street to 515. This was a three-story brownstone; only now rooming-house fire escapes spoiled whatever beauty it once had. I walked down two steps to the basement, pressed the bell button next to the iron-gate door. After a minute, a man opened the inner door, asked, “Yeah?”
He was wearing sharply pressed slacks, a white wool shirt, and an expensive nylon sport jacket. He was tall and slim, long black hair carefully combed away from a face that was handsome in a kind of sensitive way, or maybe it was all the almost feminine mouth. One thing for sure—he spent a lot of time in front of a mirror. “Louise in?”
“Louise who? Whatcha want?” There was an uneasy whine to his voice.
“Louise.”
“You a dick?”
I nodded and he opened the gate and I followed him into what had formerly been a dining room but was now a one-room apartment with a kitchenette behind a cheap screen. It was furnished in standard installment-plan furniture, including a new model TV set and a square Hollywood bed with a fancy red throw over it.
Louise stepped out of the bathroom, wearing a white robe, lot of lace on it. She was a chunky girl with solid breasts. She could have been in her late twenties, maybe older. Jet black hair flowed to her shoulders and framed her face. The face was exciting and would have looked even prettier without the heavy blackened eyelashes. She had a heavy lush mouth, painted a deep red. She looked sexy—a man would stare at her on the street, without knowing why he looked—at first. She glanced at greasy-hair, asked, “Cop?”
He nodded and I sat down without being asked. I didn't have to ask if she knew Turner—his picture was on her dresser in a cheap gold frame!
She asked weakly, “Pinch or shake-down?”
“Neither. I'm a private dick.”
A big change came over pretty-boy. He put his hand on his back pocket, actually snarled, “Get out!”
The pocket seemed too flat for a gun. A knife. I said, “Take it easy, I'm not here for money or trouble. Only doing my job to...”
“Get out!”
“A cop has been killed, the police are looking for a fall guy. You'd rather talk to the police, all right with me.”
“Ain't going to tell you again to scram!” the man said, advancing toward me. He took a switch blade out of his pocket, a knife carefully wrapped in a white silk handkerchief.
My insides got awfully chilly as I tried to say in a steady voice, “Use your head, the police get rough when one of their own is killed.”
“Cliff, put that cheese sticker away,” Louise said. “Put it back in your pocket.” She had a nice voice, soothing. “What you want, mister?”
“Ask some questions about him.” I motioned at Turner's picture with my hand. I didn't take my eyes off Cliff, who mumbled something about, “Comes barging in, like he was taking over.” But he pocketed the knife, backed to the wall and watched me.
“Private badge—how are you in on all this?”
“I'm working for Turner's wife.”
The tense lines in her face softened as she said, “What do you want to know?”
“Why didn't you go to the police when Turner was killed?”
“I have an alibi!” Cliff sort of screamed. “I can prove I...”
Louise said gently, “Baby, shut up.” Then she smiled at me, that wonderful sensuous big mouth. “Why should I go to the police? I don't like cops, and I didn't do anything wrong. Sure I knew Ed Turner. He was a pest.”
“He was an unbathed louse,” Cliff put in.
Louise asked me, “What's your name?”
I gave her and greasy-hair one of my cards, said, “Let me get a few things straight. Turner was in here just before he was killed. That's why he was parked in his car down the street.”
Louise nodded, looked around for a cigarette. I threw her my pack. She lit one and tossed the pack back to me, said over a cloud of smoke, “Here's the whole story: Cliff had me working a hotel, and Ed Turner was in on a raid. Whole thing was hushed up, a payoff. My Cliff has connections. But Turner got my address and the next thing we knew he was hanging around here, for free. He was a little nuts, I think.”
“He was a miserable bastard!” the pimp said.
“Cliff, let me do the talking. I never had no trouble with cops, Mr. Harris. The hotel had its own protection and around here I just have a few local regulars. I play it smart, never let business get so big I attract attention. With Turner, at first all he wanted was to be on the free list. All that man had on his mind was bed, like a vitamin rabbit. It went on like that for a couple of months. That's all. As you say, I suppose he was leaving here when the fireworks started in the street. I don't know a thing about that.”
“And Franklin Andersun?”
She chuckled. “A once-a-month customer, afraid to even nod to me on the street.” She made a face and crushed the cigarette. “Cliff, cigarette me.”
“Told you I was out.”
“Go around the corner and get me a pack.” She turned to me. “I can't smoke anything but mentholated ones.” She turned back to her pimp, said slowly, “Gowan, Cliff. It's okay.”
To my surprise Cliff slipped on a pork-pie hat and went out. When he was gone and we heard his steps on the sidewalk, Louise pulled a chair over beside mine, and she had an odd perfume or smell to her that my nose liked. She looked at my card, said, “I'm going to tell you all I know, so help me. But don't get Cliff in no trouble. In this racket a girl needs a man behind her and Cliff is tough, yet he's like a kid that needs a mother.”
“A kid with a big switch blade.”
“Sure, he's a mean kid at times. Know what we do? Sometimes when I knock off work, in the middle of the night, Cliff and I get into his MG and we race out to Long Island, or up through the mountains, going nowhere, but it feels fine to be tearing through the night knowing you're as good as anybody else, feeling like a big apple. Pretty hard in this world to feel like you're somebody. Anyway, Cliff is my personal business and I don't want to see him hurt. I used to hate Ed Turner's guts for his petty graft—a lousy free lay—but after a time I felt sorry for him. He needed mothering too. Trouble was, he fell in love with me. That was big trouble.”
She lit one of my cigarettes. I didn't know what to say, so I said, “I'm listening.”
“That's the truth. He drove me crazy. He loved me the way Cliff does. He wasn't jealous of any of my customers, they didn't count, but he didn't want Cliff around. Once he pulled a gun on Cliff and the poor guy had a nervous stomach for days. Believe me, it wasn't for me. Ed would have killed Cliff. I kept telling him I needed Cliff—hotel work is my main income—but Ed said he'd get me a better pad. But I didn't care for Ed like I do for Cliff, and anyway, his being a cop made me nervous—never know when a cop will throw you to the wolves. Ed began hanging around in his car outside this house, watching for Cliff. Got so I was afraid to go to the hotel some days, afraid he'd arrest Cliff, kill him. And in this business you can't hang up no days. They want you ther
e when you're supposed to be there. That's the way it was on the night of the killings.”
“What way?”
“Ed was in his car outside, mad as a boil, waiting to see if Cliff came in. Tell you, Mr. Harris, I know lots about men, and with whores they love 'em so much they hate 'em. For a time Ed used to get a bang out of slapping me around, playing tough. Then he started taking my money—got a joy out of leaving me just enough to eat. And that got Cliff so mad he wanted to take a knife to Ed. But after a day or two, Ed would show up with a gift worth twice the dough he took. A diamond ring once, then a watch. I still have the watch, but the ring is in hock. I'll show you the pawn ticket if you want.”
