by Kane, Henry
Then the peephole moved again, and this time it was Ingrid’s voice. “Yes?”
“Police. Open up.” Parker raised the badge to the peephole.
“Peter?” Ingrid said. She could see me.
“It’s all right,” I said.
“Just a minute.” The peephole closed.
Two minutes later the door was opened by a slender woman with black hair. She was wearing a bathrobe and house-slippers. She led us into the living room.
“Miss Strindberg?” Parker said.
“I am the maid,” the woman said.
I did not know she had a maid.
“Where is Miss Strindberg?” Parker said.
“She will be right out,” the maid said. “We were sleeping. Is there anything I can get you gentlemen?”
“Nothing, thank you,” Parker said.
“May I go, then?”
“Certainly,” Parker said.
“She will be right out,” the maid said and went away and we waited fifteen fretful minutes but Parker did not make a fuss because Parker was an experienced cop and he knew that you cannot wake a lady out of bed and expect her to make an appearance in less than fifteen minutes.
When she came, she was in black slacks, black shoes, and a gold blouse, and her hair was fixed.
Parker said quickly, “You were with Mr. Chambers this evening?”
“Yes.”
“Will you tell me just what you did with Mr. Chambers this evening?”
She looked toward me. I nodded.
She told him—from midnight at Toots Shor’s to brandy here in her apartment.
“What time did Mr. Chambers leave this apartment?”
“Three o’clock.”
“Are you sure of that?”
“Definite.”
“How come so definite?”
“I looked at my watch when he left. I saw the time.”
“Would you swear to that?”
“Of course. Now please, what is the reason for all of this?”
“Would you come downtown with us and swear out a statement to what you just told us.”
Her eyes went to mine.
I said, “You don’t have to if you don’t want to.”
Her eyes went to him. “Would you please tell me the reason for all of this?”
He told her, quick, succinct, but all.
“Your statement, Miss Strindberg,” he said, “will completely clear Mr. Chambers of any complicity. I have known Mr. Chambers for many years and I am delighted that he can be cleared of any complicity. Without complicity—somebody has tried to put him in the middle. That would be all well and good—except that I know Mr. Chambers for many years. He will not let well enough alone.”—(Parker was talking to her but the lecture was for me.)—”Mr. Chambers, an excellent private detective, sometimes becomes impatient with the public detectives. He likes to take matters into his own hands, out of sheer impatience, and he has been known to wind up with broken bones for his trouble. He is, in short, hot-headed if there is enough heat to go up to his head. I hope in this case there is not. Will you come downtown with us, Miss Strindberg, and swear out the statement that will relieve Mr. Chambers of complicity and will, I hope, after he gives us his statement, get him out of our hair?”
“I will do whatever you wish, sir.”
“He is Detective-lieutenant Louis Parker, Homicide, New York City Police Department,” I said. “He is a dear friend and a cool cop and I can’t wait to get my hands on a son of a bitch named Tommy Lyons.”
“You see what I mean?” said Parker.
“I will do whatever you wish, Lieutenant,” said Ingrid Strindberg.
Nineteen
PARKER’S OFFICE, on West 20th, was clean and unlittered and his first customer was Ingrid Strindberg Holly. Parker sat behind his desk and Ingrid sat in a hard armchair and I sat in another hard armchair and a silent stenographer sat with his stenotype machine in another hard armchair and Parker smiled benignly upon each of us separately and then smiled benignly upon his intercom and flicked a key. “They all here, Patsy?” Parker said.
“All,” said Patsy, disembodied, a metallic voice out of a hole in the instrument. “Including the husband?”
“Including,” said the hole.
“Thank you, Patsy.”
“Welcome, Lieutenant.”
Parker clicked off and addressed himself to Ingrid.
“I will ask a few preliminary questions.” The stenographer was pumping on the machine. “Mr. Mulcahy here will take down all we say. It will then be transcribed, and you will read it, and you will swear to it. All right? Name, please.”
“Ingrid Strindberg.”
“Address?”
“870 Park Avenue, New York.”
“Age?”
“Over twenty-one.”
“Married?”
“Divorced.”
“From whom—you need not answer that if you do not wish to.”
“David Holly.”
“Now if you please, Mss Strindberg, in your own words, will you tell us everything about this evening, with particular reference to the time, as best you can recollect, of each event, and with special reference to the time when you and Mr. Chambers parted company …”
“Do you want me to start before midnight, Lieutenant?”
“You met Mr. Chambers at midnight?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“Toots Shor’s.”
“Before …?”
It was time to clue the lieutenant to the stature of his witness.
“Before,” I said, “Miss Strindberg went to see a play in the company of the Ambassador from Sweden to the United States.”
“Oh?” said Parker, gurgling slightly, and plucked a cigar from a pocket and lit it without ceremony, but the lighting of the cigar was sufficient ceremony. “Please proceed, Miss Strindberg.”
She told her story.
“And you are certain,” Parker said, “that Mr. Chambers left your apartment at three o’clock?”
“Absolutely certain.”
“And the reason for this certainty?”
“I looked at my watch just after he left.”
“Thank you, Miss Strindberg.”
Parker waved to the stenographer and the stenographer took his fingers off the machine and rubbed them together to bring back some of the circulation he had beaten out of them.
Affably Parker said, “The stenographer will now type up your statement. After you read it and swear to it, you are free to go home.”
“May I wait for Mr. Chambers?” she said.
“Of course, dear lady. If you would like coffee, or whatever …” He looked at the stenographer. “Lewis,” he said. “I leave Miss Strindberg to you. Please be sure that she’s comfortable.” To Ingrid: “As soon as Peter is finished, you may have him.”
“Thank you.”
“Lewis,” Parker said. “Send in Miss Madison with your replacement.”
The stenographer smiled upon the lady and the lady smiled upon the stenographer and the both of them got the hell out.
Parker chewed on his cigar. “Brother,” he said, “you must have a real good story for me.”
“I’ll tell it in the presence of Tommy Lyons. I hope you’re saving him for last.”
“I am,” he said.
A new stenographer came in with a new stenotype machine and a tall girl. The tall girl had long legs and slender ankles and a bosom like a boy and a wet mouth and huge violet eyes.
“Please sit down, Miss Madison,” Parker said.
She sat and the stenographer sat.
“Miss Madison …” Parker said.
This chick knew her way around without plucking.
She talked directly at the stenographer. “My name is Jane Madison.” She had a deep, slow, sexy voice. “I shared an apartment with the late Monique Lyons at 300 West 55th Street. I am twenty-nine years of age, my vocation is model, photographer’s model. Tonight, this night, Mo
nique went to bed early, about midnight. I was up. I was watching television, late show, old movies. At about two o’clock, the phone rang. I answered it. It was a man, asking for Monique—”
“Did you recognize the voice?” Parker said.
“No. I don’t know all of Monique’s friends. Now that I think of it, the voice sounded sort of muffled. He asked for Monique. I told him she was sleeping. He said to wake her, it was important. I woke her. She talked on the phone and hung up. She started to get dressed. I asked her where she was going. She told me to mind my own business.”
“Did you take offense?” Parker said.
“No, not at all. Monique was like that. She could sound insulting without being insulting. She was a good kid. I went back to the TV, and she took her time dressing. She left the apartment at about two-thirty. That’s all I know until cops started banging on the door and took me out and I saw her in the lobby, bleeding …” She began to cry.
“And you have no idea who it was that called her?” Parker said.
“No.” She sobbed. She was wearing a tan linen dress and she was carrying a bag. She opened the bag and took out a handkerchief and blew her nose.
“Thank you,” Parker said. He motioned to the stenographer.
The stenographer took her out.
I lit a cigarette. Parker talked to the intercom.
“I’ll have the cab driver,” he said.
A round little man came in with another stenographer.
“Please sit down, Mr. Pomerantz,” Parker said.
“Mind if I stand?” said Pomerantz in a whiskey-baritone.
“Not at all.”
“Mind if like I walk while I talk? I’m nervous.”
“Suit yourself, Mr. Pomerantz?”
“Mind if I smoke?”
“Please do,” Parker said.
Pomerantz lit a cigarette and paced. “Okay?” he said.
“Your name, please?”
“Nathan Pomerantz. People call me Nat. I own my own cab, been driving a cab for twenty-two years. I got a wife and four kids. I got a son who is a professor in New York University. I got another son, he’s a physicist with the space program. All off earnings from driving a cab. I work six days a week, twelve hours a day. I got one daughter, married to a CPA, Certified Public Accountant. I got four grandchildren …”
“Mr. Pomerantz!” Parker said.
Pomerantz paced. “My name is Nathan Pomerantz. I live at 101 Pitkin Avenue, Borough of Brooklyn, County of Kings, City and State of New York. I am fifty-nine years old, an American citizen, and never missed one year to vote since I been twenty-one …”
“Mr. Pomerantz!”
“Yes sir, Inspector?”
“Will you please tell us, for the record, what you told me in the lobby at 300 West 55th Street?”
“I will be happy to, Inspector. I got a respect for law and order. There is cabbies that has a needle for the Hack Bureau which is part of the Police Department, and I don’t blame them cabbies because the Hack Bureau has got no respect for the cabbies that is part and parcel of this great city which—”
“Mr. Pomerantz!”
“Yes, Inspector?”
“Mr. Pomerantz, would you repeat for the record which will become a part of your sworn statement, what you told me in the lobby of 300 West 55th Street.”
“I will be happy to. For the record. Sworn statement. You bet. I have dropped off a call on the West Side, Fifty-fifth. I mark it on the trip card, it is like half-past two, a couple of minutes after. I am on Fifty-fifth, my flag is up, and I got the light on top. I see this broad, I’m maybe a block and a half away. She’s in the middle of the gutter, waving to me, but waving big, you know, stiff-arm. It’s the middle of the night, quiet, on an off-street, no traffic, and I am maybe a block and a half away but she has spotted my top-light, that I have no passenger, and I see her distinct in the middle of the gutter flagging me.”
“Flagging you,” Parker encouraged.
“Personally, I don’t want no call at this time. I am thinking of two pastrami sandwiches and a container of coffee out of the Stage Delicatessan and I am heading that way in my mind, but a call is a call, and I start drifting to it. I have to pull up for a red light at the intersection but I have given her the signal that I have saw her, I give her a flash of the brights up front, and she is waiting for me in the middle of the gutter. Of a sudden, out of nowhere, like from the curb, this car comes flying out and hits her square, bing, and sends her way up, maybe ten feet; God, I can hear the plop when she lands. The car zooms, continues. Me, I break the law. Cripes, a broad got hit, got hit bad; Cripes, I can cross a red light. I cross. I pull up where she’s laying. I can chase the car or I can help the broad, which? I help the broad. She’s smashed, too late for help. I get out of the hack and run to the corner. The car has turned the corner. By the corner now, there is the car, one door hanging open, no driver. I go back to the girl in the gutter. I figure her dead but I am not a doctor. She is in front of number 300. I go in and push buttons and people come out. They bring in the poor girl to the lobby and they call the cops. That’s my story, Inspector, all of it. Did I do wrong, or right, or what?”
“You did absolutely right.”
“I thank you, sir.”
“Did you have any opportunity to see the driver of that hit-and-run car?”
“No sir, I did not.”
“Man or woman?”
“No sir, I did not.”
“When you turned the corner, did you see anybody running?”
“No sir I did not, I was too late. Just the door hanging open.”
“Is there anything you would like to add to your statement?”
“Only I’d like to go home now. I’m shook up. I would like to have my lunch—I am a night man—and then call it a day for tonight. I’m shook. I have had a bad experience.”
“I understand, Nathan. I’ll see to it that you get a Hack Bureau citation for this. You reacted with spirit and acumen.”
“Spirit I understand; acumen I don’t dig. Citation even if I crossed a light which is like breaking a law?”
“Citation because you reacted bravely and quickly.”
“Well, I thank you, Inspector.”
“The stenographer will type your statement and you will be sworn and you’ll sign it. After that you will be free to go home, Nathan. I compliment you on the record, Mr. Pomerantz.”
“Well, I thank you very much, Inspector.”
The stenographer escorted him out.
Parker re-lit his cigar and said, “Well?”
“Murder,” I said.
“With you in the middle as the ostensible fall guy?”
“You have just said it real good, Inspector.”
“Do you have any ideas on this, Peter?”
“I sure have.”
“You know these people.”
“I do.”
“What ideas, Peter?”
“I’ll state my ideas in front of Tommy Lyons.”
“You think he’s the guy that tried to put you in the middle?”
“I know he’s the guy that tried to put me in the middle.”
“Why?”
“I’ll tell you and him, together.”
“It’s murder, Peter.”
“And you’re not going to be able to prove it, Inspector.”
“Because he’s a rich man?”
“A multimillionaire with multimillion angles going for him.
He’ll have an alibi a yard wide. Also, Louis, he has powerful political connections. Push him too hard, and you’ll be out of business. They’ll either bust you or retire you.”
“I’ll push as damned hard as I please.”
“Nothing will help you, Inspector.”
“Cut that out.”
“Do we get Tommy now?”
“We get the garage-man and Tommy simultaneously. That’ll be the finish.” He flicked at the intercom. “I’ll have a new stenographer and I’ll have the guy from th
e garage and I’ll have Tommy Lyons.” He was a wise man and he had read me well. “I’ll also have six uniformed cops, big ones.”
He clicked off the intercom and sat up in his chair. He clenched his fists and did rowing-type exercises with his shoulders. Then he sighed and lit his cigar again.
I stood up.
“Sit down,” he said.
I stretched and did rowing-type exercises, fists clenched, with my shoulders. Then I walked. “I want you to sit down,” he said.
“No, thank you,” I said.
I walked. I waited.
We waited.
Twenty
TOMMY LYONS of course was arrayed in habiliment that was par for the course: in the evening one wears evening clothes. His tuxedo was deep purple and his dress shirt was pale lavender and not a hair of his blond head was ruffled. He stood big and tall and insolent and he glanced from me to the lieutenant and then back to me.
“Please sit down,” Parker said. “You too, Murray.”
I recognized Murray from my garage. He was a dark-jawed man in blue denims and he carried a ledger under one arm.
He sat down and tapped the ledger. “The log, Lieutenant.”
“Yes, Murray,” Parker said. “Sit down, gentlemen.”
Nobody else sat except the stenographer.
Six big cops took up stations round the room.
“All right, Murray,” Parker said. “This is for the record, your statement which will be sworn.” The stenographer was pumping the keys of his machine. “Name?”
“Murray Brown.”
“Address?”
“202 West 82nd Street.”
“Age?”
“Thirty-four.”
“Employed?”
“Central Park Garage. 58th and 7th.”
“And you were on duty tonight?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Please tell us what happened with reference to Mr. Chambers’ car.”
“Well, it’s like about two o’clock when I get this call from Mr. Chambers to bring over the car.”
“From me?” I shouted.
“Hold it,” Parker said.
“I didn’t call him, and I don’t want it to go into the record that I did.”
Parker said, “Murray.”
“Yes, sir?”
“Do you know that this call came from Mr. Chambers?”
“Oh no. All I know is the guy said he was Peter Chambers.”
