The Man with the Lumpy Nose

by Lawrence Lariar

  “He musta’ been. He was stinkin’.”

  “Was he sitting alone when you went to the john?”

  “Yep,” said Adolph without hesitating.

  “Do you think he could have left by himself after so many drinks?”

  “Not a chance.”

  “Then I assume that somebody must have helped him to the street?”

  “Yep.”

  Homer asked Domonick, “How about Alfonte? Did he pay you for his drinks?”

  “Yeah—Alfonte I remember. He paid me at the bar on his way out.”

  The owner returned to the bar. A customer had come in. Adolph said, “Anything else? The boss don’t like to play bartender.”

  “One thing more,” said Bull. “Was the place very crowded last night?”

  “Mobbed. When I come back from the john, the place is loading up solid with customers. There was a meeting of some carpenters union around the corner and we got the overflow. From eleven to twelve the place is a madhouse.”

  The interview was over.

  On the street, they walked uptown.

  “Who’s next?”

  “Winters!” said Bull. “According to the bartender, Winters was in last night with his gag man. Perhaps they saw something we might find useful.” Homer and Dumbo turned a corner and headed East on Fifty-Seventh Street. “It’s important that we find where Dino Bragiotto went after his drinking bout.”

  “I see,” said Dumbo, although he didn’t see at all. “Then you think Dino bumped off Chance, after all?”

  Bull chuckled softly. “I didn’t say that. You reporters are all alike. You want me to point my finger at Dino so that you can break some sort of a story about him?”

  “It could be.”

  “It couldn’t be. There is a murderer at large who couldn’t possibly be a cartoonist. Cartoonists aren’t created with killers’ brains. The man who did this job was a killer; he was a large man with a small head. He wore a slouch hat and had big hands. He spoke with a foreign accent; he walked with a slight limp. Marcia Prentiss was the first to define his silhouette, unless she was creating a fictional monster to protect Dino Bragiotto. But we know she wasn’t lying, because Sue Bates corroborated Marcia’s testimony. Sue went a bit further in her description of the man. She told us that he had a peculiar nose—a large and lumpy nose. Then Mrs. McGinness added her field glass evidence.” Homer flicked his ashes away. “Mrs. McGinness makes it tough for us, because her evidence points to the fact that our murdering friend has been—ah—liquidated. By whom? Why? No, Dumbo, these murders were designed by a man with a purpose. What that purpose was is our problem. Did you know Dino Bragiotto?”

  “Met him once or twice.” Dumbo shrugged. “He didn’t look like the sort of guy to go around bumping off people. Give that guy a bottle of Guinea Red and he’s in heaven. But why in the world should Dino take a powder? Do you think he might have been afraid that he would be accused of killing Chance?”

  “No. You’re assuming that he knew Chance was dead. Don’t forget that Dino entered The Quill shortly after ten o’clock. If Dino was innocent, he couldn’t have known about the murder until he read this morning’s paper. If he were guilty, do you think he would stroll calmly to The Quill for a drunken spree immediately after killing a man?”

  “Don’t ask me. Latins are screwballs.”

  Lincoln Winters’ studio was on the east side of town, well out of the high rent districts. The building itself had been converted into studios not long ago. It was an ugly pile of brownish black brick. An unintelligent architect had done little to disguise its unsavory origin. Not too many years ago, the entire building had been one huge stable. The street floor had been altered simply by eliminating the stable doors and substituting long and narrow windows.

  Inside, a narrow stairway rose at a steep angle to the second floor. The ancient steps groaned under Homer’s weight.

  Lincoln himself let them into the huge studio and waved them cordially to chairs. The room was tremendous; it was the largest studio Homer had ever seen. A great window faced over the yard, flooding the floor with the glow of the outdoors. On the walls hung scores of original drawings, occasionally relieved by a good-sized oil painting. A drawing table sat near the light and in the corner stood a full-sized artist’s easel.

  Bull peered down at the yard, then turned to survey the room from a new angle. “This is a wonderful place, Winters. A man could work his head off in a room like this. Do you paint in oils, too?”

  Lincoln Winters joined him at the window. “I don’t like to talk about my painting,” he smiled. “So many of my cartoonist friends think it’s lousy and I never mention it anymore.”

  Dumbo studied a huge nude, full-bosomed and lush, who sat in an arbor of varicolored flowers. “Professional jealousy, Winters. This doll here is painted well enough to make any cartoonist jealous.”

  For a while they talked art over glasses of Scotch.

  Bull said, “I understand that Dino Bragiotto is the only real fine arts talent among the cartoonists. Do you know him?”

  “Dino’s a good friend of mine, yes.” He pointed to a newspaper on the couch. “It’s too bad about his girlfriend, isn’t it? I mean, all that mess up in Chance’s office last night. Dino must be all broken up about that. He’s pretty far gone on that girl.”

  “He’s altogether gone,” said Bull.

  There was a silence.

  Homer said, “Do you know where he’s gone?”

  Lincoln Winters put down his glass and stared at Homer quizzically. “I don’t quite get what you mean.”

  “Dino has disappeared.”

  “Disappeared? Why would Dino disappear? I saw him last night at The Quill, absorbing his favorite poison. If he wasn’t cockeyed, he was certainly well started. You mean you haven’t seen him since last night?”

  “Nobody has. Did you talk to him last night?”

  “Not a word.” Winters refilled Dumbo’s glass as he answered. “Dino doesn’t make good conversation when he’s lit. Ned and I had our Whiskey Sours and left the place.”

  “And then?”

  Winters shrugged. “Ned took his train, I guess. As for me, I took a walk over to the Paramount.”

  Bull put down his glass and lit another cigar. “This man Earl Chance—you knew him pretty well, didn’t you?”

  The cartoonist stared unseeingly at the rug. “It was a ghastly thing, wasn’t it? Yes, I knew him well. I guess I knew him better than most of the boys. After all, I worked for him for years before most of the men even met him.” He ran a hand over his eyes. “This has been a great shock to me. Earl didn’t have many real friends to mourn his passing. He was pretty well hated but he and I always hit it off rather well. I liked Earl Chance.”

  “How well did you know him? Ever visit him at his home?”

  “Often. I used to have all my cartoon parleys right in his living room.”

  “Ever meet any of his other friends?”

  “Only a few,” said Winters. “Of course I met Sue Bates quite often—that is, up until a few months ago. Then there were a few people up there occasionally from his office; from the magazine, I mean.”

  “You say you met Sue Bates there up until a few months ago. She hadn’t seen him recently, then?”

  “Oh, I don’t really know about that.” He made a face. “Everybody knows he was about to drop her, I guess. You don’t think—”

  “That Sue Bates murdered Chance?” Homer laughed softly. “Only an Amazon could have committed such a murder. No, Sue Bates isn’t the type, Winters. Aside from that she has a pretty good alibi.”

  As they were leaving, Bull paused at the door and once again examined the studio. “A beautiful place. You don’t live here, of course?”

  “Oh, no, that’s impossible. I have another apartment uptown with all the comforts of home. This
is just a workshop, you see. I like to work near my markets and this place is about as close to the magazines as you can find.” He pointed to the street side of the studio where a couch rested under the bay window. “Once in a while Ned and I use this place for rabbits, of course. That’s a super-soft studio couch.”

  Lincoln lit the hall light and they went down the rickety steps. In the little hall downstairs Homer stood with his hand on the knob, peering through the glass door. He jerked Dumbo to his side, suddenly. “That man across the street—near the lamppost—isn’t he the doorman from Chance’s place?”

  Dumbo sucked in a gasp. “I’ll be damned if he isn’t. Look, he’s running down the street—want me to grab him?”

  He leaped through the open door and began to run. But Bull called him back. “You’ll never make it, Dumbo. You’re not built for pursuit, and I can’t be responsible for a heart attack. Our friend must have spotted us at The Quill, somehow, and followed us here. Let him go—we’ll get him later.”

  CHAPTER 16

  The fact that the great and handsome Alfonte kept them waiting on the porch of his bungalow annoyed Dumbo. They had come a long way to see Alfonte. He lived in a small shack on a lonely road east of Jones Beach. Here a small group of hardy vacationers had built themselves summer homes, far from the busy villages of Long Island. The colony thrived on the simple pleasures; existed without the utilities. A narrow planked pathway wound through the dunes to the beach. Alfonte’s shack, bright blue and yellow in the grey afternoon, stood on a hillock a few hundred feet away from the others.

  Dumbo rapped again, impatiently. “Maybe the guy isn’t in, Homer.”

  “He’s in, all right,” smiled Bull. “You must have patience with cartoonists, Dumbo. When we knocked the first time, I heard a door squeak at the rear of the shack. If you turn your head sharply east you can still catch the fast fading figure of a girl, running toward the beach. I think our good friend Alfonte saw us approaching.”

  Before Dumbo turned, the door swung open. Alfonte stood before them, dressed in a purple robe. His handsome face was full of sleep. He scowled at them balefully, both hands thrust deep in his pockets. “What the hell’s up? You’re Homer Bull, aren’t you? Saw you last night, didn’t I?”

  Bull walked in with a nod and sat in a chair near the fire. “Snug little place you have here, Alfonte. And that was a pretty little girl you let out by the back door. Is she the girl you had down at The Quill last night?”

  “Who wants to know?”

  “Come, come, Alfonte,” cooed Bull. “No reason to get your dander up. You were at The Quill last night. I’ve come down here to ask you a few questions about Dino Bragiotto. Dino’s disappeared and my friend, Inspector McElmore, wants me to find him.”

  Alfonte sat down, befuddled. He lit a cigarette and leaned forward. “I don’t get it, Bull. How should I know anything about Dino?”

  “You saw him at The Quill?”

  “Of course I saw him. He was sitting in the back of the dump, in a booth. But I didn’t talk much to him.” He frowned. “Dino is a nasty boy when he’s liquored up.”

  “Was he drunk when you spoke to him?”

  “Cockeyed.”

  “What did you talk about?”

  Alfonte smiled a thin-lipped smile. “Nobody talks much to Dino when he’s drunk. He does all the talking himself, and it isn’t the sort of stuff you like your best girl to hear. We left his table when he shifted to one syllable words.”

  The sun suddenly came out from behind a cloud and the room came into focus. The new brightness changed the character of the place. You noticed the pile of dirty dishes in the sink, the littered tabletop. Outside, a seagull screamed into the wind.

  Bull said, “What was he talking about?”

  “Lots of things, but mostly Earl Chance. He wasn’t very fond of the guy, you know.”

  “I know. What did he say?”

  Alfonte recited a thesaurus of epithets. “Of course, Dino was drunk as a lord. He kept banging his fist on the table and telling us what a kick he’d get out of putting a knife in Chance’s back. He—”

  “Are you sure he talked about a knife and not a gun?”

  “Positive.”

  “Did Dino own a knife?”

  “What are you getting at?” Alfonte rose and walked to the window. He fingered the drapes nervously. “How should I know whether he owned a knife? Why don’t you ask some of his pals a few questions?”

  “A good idea. Which friends would you suggest we see?”

  “Any number of guys. You want to talk to his close friends? Then get in touch with Herb Merritt, or Lincoln Winters, or Simonson, maybe. I never knew Dino very well; we were reception room friends, you might say. I guess I never met him socially more than once or twice since I turned cartoonist. When I saw him at The Quill I went to his table because, well, it was because Mary liked his work and wanted to meet him.”

  “I see,” said Bull. “And what happened after you left his table? Could you see him from where you sat?”

  Alfonte nodded vaguely, still gazing out of the window. There was a long silence.

  Dumbo said, “Stop worrying about the dame, Alfonte. I saw her a minute ago. She went for a walk.”

  Alfonte glared at the reporter and fumbled with another cigarette.

  Bull said, “Did you see Dino leave the place?”

  The cartoonist closed his eyes and struggled with his memory. “Did I? Let me try to remember, Bull. Yes, somebody sat down at his table; he was a little guy, with a pug’s face. He had a drink or two with Dino and then they left.”

  “Dino walked out unassisted?”

  “No. I remember that Mary—that’s my girl friend—she noticed that the other man was helping Dino to the door. I remember this because she told me how disgusting it looked for a bigshot artist like Dino to be that drunk. Dino was out cold. He must have been, because the little guy was having his hands full.”

  “They went out through the side exit?”

  “Maybe. I can’t be sure. They might have gone into the can first, you know. It’s right near that exit. I can’t say that I saw them walk out into the street, if that’s what you mean.”

  “How about the man who helped him out? Did you know him?”

  Alfonte shrugged. “Never saw him before in my life.”

  “Would you know him if you saw him again?”

  “Maybe. I was a little plastered myself, Bull. But Mary wasn’t—she’d know him.” He got up again and walked to the sink for a drink. “I don’t get all this. What’s the matter with Dino?”

  Homer got up and they walked to the door. “Not a thing, Alfonte. Are you going to be here for the rest of the week? I may want you to come into town for a while.”

  “I’m in town every day. You can get me at The Quill. What do you want me for?”

  Homer leaned out of the car. “All the cartoonists will be in town, Alfonte. McElmore probably imagines that one of you boys stuck a knife into Earl Chance’s back.”

  The car shot into gear. When they reached the highway Dumbo said, “His mouth is still open, Homer. He’s standing on the porch with his mouth open.”

  They passed the water tower and headed north.

  “The more I mingle with cartoonists, the greater respect I have for their versatility,” said Homer. “Alfonte is a seasoned actor. Hollywood pays millions for talent like his. His little act reminded me of a scene in a movie; all his gestures were right out of stock.”

  “You mean he knows all about Chance’s murder?”

  “He knows as much as we do. The story of Earl Chance’s murder broke in every paper in New York, but only two tabloids had it on the street a little after midnight. Alfonte bought one of those tabloids on the way out here—I spotted an early morning edition of The News on the table near the sink!”

  Hank MacAndrews dun
ked his sixth doughnut and avoided Mrs. Oberhover’s warm glance. He was getting tired of Mrs. Oberhover, despite the fact that her coffee was well brewed and the doughnuts he had consumed lay lightly under his belt. There was something in the way she looked at him that made him blush.

  Mrs. Oberhover was approaching the age of rounded matronliness, but she had not yet arrived, quite. In her middle thirties, the curves of her torso still had the firmness of youth and her oval face was not unattractive.

  She wouldn’t be half bad, thought Hank, if she talked less.

  Mrs. Oberhover held her doughnut poised before her mouth, but her mouth had little chance to bite it while she talked.

  “So you’re a detective, hah?” she said. “Well, I know all about you fellows on account of my brother Herman was a detective once, just before he joined up with the Marines.” She studied her doughnut. “It gets pretty lonely up here in the Bronx for a young widow. You live in the Bronx, maybe?”

  “No, I’m living downtown. But—”

  “Downtown?” she gushed, and dropped the doughnut. “You mean in Greenwich Village, maybe? Oh, my, that’s the place for me. Before I married Oscar, that was when I went by my maiden name, Susie Garrity; I studied dancing down there with that Russian teacher, I don’t remember her name.” She sighed a sharpish sigh. “Of course, I was younger then, I was full of life and all. I didn’t ever want to move to the Bronx, though—this house was Oscar’s idea. I don’t know what I’d do if I didn’t have such a big house where I could take in boarders and all. It is big, you know. Think you can guess how many rooms it has?”

  Hank leaped at the opening. He studied the hall and the huge sitting room. “I’d say you must have at least ten rooms here. Room for plenty of boarders.”

  “Ten?” she almost shrieked, then bent over the table confidentially. “Why, man, do you know I’ve got over ten bedrooms alone in this place?”

  “That makes it easy,” he said. “I mean for renting out rooms. What kind of people do you take in?”

  “I’m not fussy. I always say, other people’s business is strictly none of my worry. They pay their rent and I put it in the bank. Of course, once in a while I got to be strict, like when that girl came in here and made out like she was married when all along she wasn’t. She was a nice girl, but a lot of boarders didn’t like it much, especially that Heiny Miss Ost.” She snorted. “She should have kept her trap shut tight.”