Dead of Night

by Stewart Sterling

  “That’s right. Leave word with Ada, she’s to ask each maid before the girls go on the floors. Don’t forget it. It’s important.” I wasn’t sure it was, but if the wax had gotten on the spread the way I thought it might have, it would be practically decisive. “Maybe the girl remembers whether there was any wax on the glass top of the bed table, too.”

  Down in the PBX room, Mona was still on the 21MM section of the board. I told her what I wanted.

  She put her tongue in her cheek. “We strive to please. The voice with the smile is the voice worth while. And so forth. But that’s a toughie. You know we don’t keep any record of locals, Mister V.”

  “The operators mark ’em down as they come through, don’t they?”

  “Yes. But they scrap the Numbers Wanted sheet as fast as they’re checked off, completed.”

  “See ’f you can find any old ones that cover charges for 21CC. Lanerd may have called a certain babe whose name isn’t in the phone book. He might have called an unlisted number.”

  Mona rolled her eyes, caught her underlip between her teeth.

  “Plenty of numbers call him, from what I hear. Quite a Casanova, isn’t he?”

  “You get a lot of attention from the tender sex when your income is in six figures.”

  “How trite but true.” She departed. “See what I can do.”

  What she did was to come up with a crumpled slip; on it a number which Lanerd had called twice within an hour Saturday morning. It was in the Trafalgar exchange.

  “Now you want me to find out who the subscriber is?”

  Mona was a step ahead of me most of the time.

  “If it’s a Miss Ruth Moore, I want the address, too.” It was.

  Moore, Ruth, residence, four twenty-nine West Seventy-Fifth,” Mona reported, after a chat with some chum in the traffic supervisor’s office. “By the by, somebody in 21CC wants me to locate you, Mister V.”

  “You tried. You failed. You’re sorry. Thanks. Go home now, or wherever it is you go Saturday nights.”

  “Puh-leeze, Mist-er Vine.”

  I cabbed up to Seventy-Fifth, phoned from a basement beer and grill just off Broadway, had no answer for my nickel.

  Four twenty-nine was a four-story brownstone, sedate and dignified. Four mailboxes, buttons to press under each one. Name cards above the buttons. R. Moore, engraved, was Apt. 2.

  I pushed the button. Waited.

  The street door, which ought to have been latched at that time of night, was hooked back because of the heat. I climbed stairs smelling of soap powder and furniture oil. The door to the second-floor apartment was open a crack. Warm light spilled out into the dark hall; a radio or a phonograph was playing Nobody’s Sweetheart Now.

  I thumbed the buzzer. It was out of order or else it didn’t make enough noise for me to hear out in the hall.

  I pushed the door open farther, called, “Miss Moore?”

  On the floor, about a yard inside the door, was a square envelope. Face down. With the Plaza Royale crest on the back.

  I had my fingers on it when the roof fell in.

  Chapter Twenty-Four: BLACKJACK DELUXE

  THE BUZZING BEGAN before I hit the floor; I remember thinking someone must be punching that button downstairs.

  I’d have gotten up right away except someone was holding my wrists. The buzzing kept right on. I tried to get a little leverage into my twisting, to break the guy’s grip, but he held me easily. The light became brighter; it hurt my eyes to focus on the face above me. A dark face, black eyes behind pince-nez, a spiky black beard. And a soft, soothing voice. Like Peter Lorre. “Don’t try to get up, just keep quiet.”

  Furniture in the room began to lose its blurred shape, and I closed my eyes to steady myself. I knew I hadn’t been unconscious even for half a second, but the room I was in wasn’t the foyer of the Moore girl’s apartment. This was blue or blue-gray, with dozens of lights.

  I opened my eyes just a slit to see if I could catch Pointed Beard relaxing his grip. A second face bent over me, Ruth Moore.

  “Don’t try to move.” She put a hand on my chest. The lights became only two, one on a table beside the bed I lay on, one in the ceiling. The rest were reflections from mirrors in the modern bureau, and an ash-blond vanity against the blue-gray wallpaper. On the table beside the lamp was a black bag.

  “That’s better.” The Peter Lorre voice sounded relieved. White teeth smiled above the Van Dyke. “You’ll be all right. But you must be still.”

  The secretary patted my shoulder. “You had a concussion. Doctor Elm thought we’d have to take you to the hospital.”

  I said, “Sure,” but it sounded like “Sewer” because I didn’t seem to have much co-ordination. Beside a huge cabinet photograph of Dow Lanerd wearing an open-necked wool shirt, a tiny gilt clock ticked away beneath the buzzing; its hands pointed to quarter to five. I compared it with my wrist watch. The clock was two minutes slow. I’d been out more’n an hour!

  The doctor stirred stuff in a glass. “This’ll take some of that fuzziness off your tongue.”

  I drank it. Poor substitute for lager.

  “What was it?” I put my hand up to my head, found it turbaned with a rubber bandage. The back of my neck was cool and damp where the compress had leaked down.

  Ruth held up a beautifully grained piece of wood about eighteen inches tall, a carved statue, all sinuous thighs and pointed breasts, tapering down to a sort of fishtail base. Kind of thing you see in a jeweler’s window on a black velvet background. Very arty. “This was on the floor beside you, Mister Vine, when I came back from the delicatessen.”

  The doctor replaced paraphernalia in his bag. “Your Panama saved you. The statuette apparently hit you squarely in the back of the head, where the sweatband cushioned the blow sufficiently to prevent a skull fracture.”

  I told him the hat had been repaying a just debt; I’d ransomed it often enough at checkrooms. I began to feel halfway human. The buzzing died away some. “Who crowned me?”

  Ruth exclaimed, “We were waiting for you to tell us!”

  “Never saw him. Was stooping over. He was behind the door.”

  “I don’t know, either!” She hunched her shoulders up, made an O of her mouth. “Maybe he was still here in the apartment when I came back and found you. Maybe—” she glanced fearfully at the closet.

  The doctor opened the closet door. A light came on inside, automatically. There were a half-dozen neckties on a rack on the inside of the door, but no intruder. “As I suggested before, my dear young lady, it would be wiser if you called the police. I will be required to report the assault, in any event.”

  Ruth said in a very small voice, “I’d rather not. Not right now. Mister Vine?”

  “I’ll take care of it.” I sat up. “How much I owe you, Doc?”

  They both rushed at me, pushed me back on the bed.

  “You must not try to get up,” she scolded.

  The doctor nodded vigorously. “She’s right. You have a good nurse. Mind her. I’ll be back later to—”

  “Hey! Wait!” He’d turned, headed for the door. “I’ve got too many things to do—”

  “You’ll sleep,” he said. “Nothing else is as important to you as sleep. Good morning, Miss Moore.”

  I got one foot off the bed. “Sleep, hell.” My head was clear as a bell. No girl was going to keep me in bed. But I’d better take it easy at first. Rest a bit. Yair. Just half a minute.

  When I woke, hot sunlight latticed through the Venetians. My wrist watch said 12:45. There was singing out in another room; it wasn’t good enough to be the radio. She was singing O Sole Mio. New style.

  I got out of bed. My mouth tasted like burned insulation smells. But my eyes were all right. My legs weren’t shaky. And my voice sounded normal when I said, “Good morning.”

  She was determined I should pile right back in bed. She wanted to call the doctor immediately. It wasn’t safe. I might collapse any minute.

  I told her very
likely I would unless I got something to eat. Did she have any suggestions?

  When she saw I wasn’t going to nosedive on the kitchenette linoleum, she thought she could make me a bacon omelette with broiled mushrooms and hot biscuits. Did I prefer tomato juice or orange juice? Coffee or milk? Would raspberry jam be all right or would I rather have wild honey?

  I told her all of it sounded good, went back to the living-room, called the Brulard, asked for 416.

  “That party does not an-swer,” the gal at the switchboard said presently. “Would you care to leave a message?”

  I said I’d like to be connected with Mister Ashmore.

  Pat came on. “Security. Ashmore speaking.”

  “Gil Vine, Pat.”

  “Your chickadees have flew, Gilbert. They tried t’get room service, but you know we ain’t had room service on Sundays here since FDR was a freshman.”

  “Ouww! They went out for scup scoff?”

  “Well, yeah. But not together. Little Goldilocks, the looker with the glamorous gams—say, I just remembered who she looks like—that Millett babe—”

  “Set a day.”

  “She does, though. Well, she comes kitin’ down th’ stairs an’ out, an’ grabs a cab. About th’ time her taxi is pullin’ away, the other one bounces out of the elevator and chases after her. What kind of ring-around-a-rosie goes on, huh, Gil? You wouldn’t get th’ Brulard messed up in no scandal, nothin’ like that, would you?”

  “Everything sweet and clean, Pat. But I’ll make you a small side bet.”

  “What about?”

  “Ten bucks says you can’t locate the hackie who took Little Goldilocks away—and find out where he took her.”

  “That ain’t a bet. That’s a new pair of kicks. Sure. Where you want me to call you?”

  I gave him Ruth’s number, went in the john, and scrubbed up. I felt a little woozy, first time since getting up. I couldn’t tell whether it was the aftereffects of that crack with the symbol of passion, or whether I was just punchy from so many bad breaks.

  Calling the office didn’t make me perk up any. Tim was groggy from having been up past his bedtime, unstrung by the news a warrant was out for me and I was subject to instant arrest and detention if I showed up at the Plaza Royale.

  “Hacklin swore out the warrant, Gil. Right after you took off. The blues are in on the case now, and Harry Weissman’s burned to a cinder about your not callin’ him in, yourself.”

  “Oh! What a bee-yutiful morning.” I gave him the Moore number. “I’m a trifle indisposed at the moment so I won’t rush over to try on my new bracelets. Was there anything else? Gowriss picked up, yet?”

  “Nah. They wrote him off, skipper. Accordin’ to Schneider this’s strickly a cream passion hell.”

  “What culture the man has! What insight! Did you hear from Ada?”

  “Oh, yuh, yuh. I nearly forgot. Something about wax on a bedspread. From room two-o-one-o.”

  “Yaker!”

  “I couldn’t know what you was after, Chief, but that guest checked out last night around ten-thirty.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five: NEEDLE OF JEALOUSY

  WHEN IT COMES to solving a crime passionnel there’s one thing beats all the scientific equipment criminologists can bring to bear. Give the hommy experts their fluorescent dusting-powder, their spectroscopic examination of a cross-section of a hair, throw in that sodium pentothal truth-serum for good measure. I’ll take the jealous wench and beat ’em to the answer four times out of five.

  But the hammer and tongs can’t be used; the proper instrument is the needle.

  So after I slid my knees under the nook table with its cheery breakfast cloth and gay china, when I’d duly complimented my hostess on the luscious smells of bacon and coffee, I went to work.

  “When was the last time you talked to Lanerd?”

  “Yesterday afternoon. About three. At the office.” She filled her coffee cup too full, sopped the saucer dry with a paper napkin. “Is the omelette all right?”

  “Wonderful.” It wasn’t quite that good. But I’d have relished pancakes of tar paper at that point.

  “We had a spat, at the office. I opened a letter he didn’t think I should have; I open all his mail except the ones specifically marked ‘Personal’; usually he shows me those, except the ones from girls. This letter was from a bank. It mentioned the name of a gentleman at its branch in Rio de Janeiro in case Mister Lanerd wished to take up any matters about the fifty-thousand-dollar letter of credit. We-e-ell! I hadn’t heard anything about any trip to Rio, but I could guess what it meant. The Icequadrilles are due to open in Brazil, fifteenth of next month.”

  I tried not to think of the place Lanerd had actually had his ticket punched for—that evil-smelling autopsy room down on Twenty-Sixth, where they take all suspected ’cides. “Mushrooms’re out of this world.”

  “He loves them.” She caught herself. “What really made him mad, I called Marge to ask if she’d relay the dope about the man in Rio. Course she didn’t know anything about a projected trip, either, and naturally I knew she didn’t, but I had to put her wise.”

  “Why?”

  “She’s the only one who can handle him at all. If I want to keep him from doing something that’s bad for his health or his business, I might as well talk to the statue of General Sherman, across from the Plaza Royale.”

  I thought as things stood, she might. But I just helped myself to more of the crisp bacon.

  “So I did let Marge know what marched. She’d just finished thanking me and saying she’d bustle right in and throw a monkey wrench where it would do the most good, when Dow came in the office and overheard me.” Ruth gazed drearily at me over her cup. “I’d better tell you about Dow and me.”

  “Not necessary, is it?” I couldn’t bring myself to casually mention that he was dead.

  “I’d feel better if I told somebody. You seem to understand, sort of. I want to tell you.”

  She did, while the simple act of buttering toast made me think of that steak knife being brandished by a shrewd Prosecutor before a crowded courtroom.

  “Dow’s different from most men. Not because he’s always having affairs; I guess most men do, one time or another. But he’s never serious; he never even pretends to be with anyone except Marge. He always tells a girl he’s devoted to Marge, wouldn’t dream of leaving her for any other woman. I know; he told me—and I was idiot enough to fall in love with him in spite of it. The secretary he had before I got the job, she had a nervous breakdown, went completely to pieces, simply because she thought he’d change his mind, after sleeping with her a few times, and leave his wife. Of course he didn’t.”

  I couldn’t think of any comment that wouldn’t sound like Simple Simon.

  She spilled marmalade on the tablecloth; all I could see were dime-size spots of wax dropped on a bedspread by someone coating finger tips with wax so they wouldn’t leave any prints.

  She scraped up the jelly. “It’s been the same with singers and actresses on his radio and television shows. He’d take one to dinner, and before dessert she’d know he was the most interesting man she’d ever met. Or they’d go dancing, really he’s as good as most professionals. Or sailing or skiing or flying; he’s good at pretty near everything exciting that most people only read about or talk about.”

  I couldn’t dispute it.

  “He’s so thoughtful and so—I don’t know—he has a flair for doing little things to please a girl.” She sighed at some intimate reminiscence. “There’d be presents, too, flowers, baskets of wine, things like that Stardust compact he gave Tildy. Next thing, the girl would be calling up two or three times a day, asking when he was coming up to her apartment. I had to talk to the poor things; it made me angry at him and sorry for them and bitter at myself.”

  “Why didn’t Mrs. Lanerd divorce him?”

  “She plain won’t. She knows he’ll always come home to her eventually. He always has, until Tildy put a spell on him. Give her credit
; she didn’t hide the fact she was after him. I was in the studio the night Jeff introduced her to Marge. Tildy came right out with it. Laughing, but serious underneath it, you know: ‘Your husband’s absolutely the most attractive man I’ve ever known, Mrs. Lanerd. I believe I’ll try to snare him away from you.’”

  “What’d Mrs. Lanerd say to that?”

  “Don’t remember exactly. She laughed, too. Then there was some remark about preferring to put a knife in his gallivanting heart before she let him put a wedding ring on another girl’s finger. Kidding like. But she recognized the danger. She went to lunch with Jeff to question him about Tildy. She had Keith Walch, Tildy’s manager, out to dinner at Manhasset to see what he could suggest. She even tried to influence her through that firebrand maid, Nikky Narian. Marge nearly got her eyes scratched out for trying to tell Tildy where to head in.”

  I wondered how much of it Ruth would tell Hacklin & Co., when they buzzed her door, as they were certain to do almost any minute. “You think the South American trip was for the purpose of Lanerd’s getting a divorce down there?”

  “Yes.” She got up abruptly, went to the stove, began clattering pans. “I don’t know what there is about Tildy. They do have a lot in common; they’re both hipped on sports. And they’re both from Kentucky, least he was born there and she’s moved there—”

  “Where’d he come from? Lexington?”

  “Near there. Bourbon County. North Middletown.”

  “Hm.” I told her about the Seven-for-a-secret note I’d left with Tildy at the Brulard. “Any idea who might have signed that ‘Lx’?”

  “Oh, Dow, I suppose. They have a sort of code, all abbreviations. Not secret, just affectionate. She’d call up to leave a message for him and say, ‘Tell him Lx will be late.’ Or he’ll send her a crate of orchids with nothing but ‘Lx’ on the card. Doesn’t have any significance. Only a reference to the Bluegrass they’re both so fond of.”

  I said I guessed it was just jive-talk, no meaning. Had she seen any note on the floor when she came in and found me cooled?