Freeze stubbed out his cigarette. His pretty nose twitched.
“Why would a man you’d never met show up to threaten you and wreck your office?”
“He said a friend of his, guy named Elwood Beale, had a beef over me asking questions.”
I thought the name had registered. I couldn’t be sure.
“Questions about?”
“About Beale.” I crossed my fingers mentally and hurried on. “His name came up in the course of a job I’m working.”
I was breathing easier now. Alibis didn’t come any tighter than mine for last night, which is when I gathered Mr. Hair, now identified as Benjamin Norris, had been killed.
“What’s the job?”
I gave Freeze a polite little shrug.
“Nothing to concern the police. Family matter.”
He wasn’t too pleased. I had a feeling he was even less pleased with Fuller, though. Twice now he’d flicked an irritated glance in that direction.
“Anything else that you’d like to tell us?” he asked tightly.
“Norris said Beale spent big on dames he liked – furs and such. I know Beale goes around in a dark green Packard with a driver and a toughie.” My client Throckmorton had landed me in a mess without so much as a hint, so I had no qualms mentioning the car. At best I’d saved the cops some digging. My reward was seeing Fuller get another sharp look from his superior. “Oh, yeah,” I added remembering. “He – Norris – was smoking a fancy Havana. What I saw of him makes me doubt he had cash for that kind of stogie.”
“What else do you know about Beale?”
“Nothing. Never heard the name until a couple days ago.”
Freeze drummed his fingers. He stood. “I’ll be back.”
Fuller and the young cop followed him out. My temples throbbed from lack of coffee. I’d had a meeting scheduled with Throckmorton first thing this morning. He wouldn’t take kindly to my being late. After awhile I asked to use the Ladies and the matron took me. Fuller and partner were back in the swell little room contemplating their shoes when we returned.
I’d just about settled back in my chair when Freeze entered. No sitting this time; he tossed my purse on the table and paced.
“Your alibis check out. People saw you both places.”
Fuller chimed in. “Those dames could have lied – you know how they stick together–”
Freeze cut him off with a look. A guy in plain clothes came in with my laundry bag held stiffly before him.
“Doc says there’s no need checking. The, uh, stains are from female business.”
“Gee, just what I told the geniuses who dragged me down here.” I got up. “Can I go now?”
“We have to follow all leads, Miss Sullivan. I trust you’ll be around in case we have more questions?”
“Yeah. Sure. How about having some of your boys drop me back where they Shanghaied me?” Freeze’s expression told me I wasn’t going to make his Christmas card list.
The crowd that had gathered to have a laugh at my expense when I got dragged in had melted away by the time I made my exit. Guys who knew me had thought it was all a joke until they learned I was actually being grilled. A few stragglers – probably Fuller’s cronies – found they had urgent business elsewhere when they saw me come out.
I stalked down the walk from the station house ready to chew nails. I’d missed my appointment with Lewis Throckmorton. Even if he could still fit me into his schedule I’d have to put up with his pompous lecturing. And without my car I’d have to lug my laundry ten blocks to Spotts’, which was inconveniently far from a streetcar line.
My head hurt. I wanted coffee. All because that s.o.b. Fuller had seen a chance to even scores.
I stepped into the intersection. A horn blared and a cop car rounded the corner, stopping smack in front of me.
“Fancy a ride somewhere, Maggie Liz?” asked a cheery voice.
Billy Leary and Seamus Hanlon were leftovers from my dad’s era. Nearing retirement now, they’d been regular fixtures at our kitchen table.
“You guys drive like cops,” I said leaning into the open window.
Seamus, who was nearest me, grinned. “Fuller’s getting what-for up his backside and it’s like to go on for a time. We figured no one would miss us if we ran you somewhere.”
“You can put me top of the list of girls who want to marry you both if you’ll run my laundry over to Spotts’. It weighs a ton. Make sure Sal gets it, will you? You’re angels for sure.”
With them solving that problem for me, I’d be free to walk a few blocks south and maybe solve a couple more.
Three
Once a month and on special occasions I got my hair cut and set at Goldie’s. That acquaintance plus two pennies got me use of her phone to call Throckmorton’s office.
“Mr. Throckmorton waited as long as he could,” his secretary told me primly. “He’ll most likely be out the rest of the day.”
Maybe it was true; maybe it was a brush off. Neither way improved my mood. The missed appointment made me look unreliable in running my business. On top of that, two incidents in as many days were making me curious why Throckmorton’s job had landed me in the middle of a murder investigation. Five minutes after entering Goldie’s I left and retraced my steps and went another block south to the Daily News building. I took the elevator up to the newsroom to corner Matt Jenkins, whom I usually count in my Friends column.
Photography was at one side toward the back of the newsroom. I knew some of the reporters bent over clattering typewriters, but I wasn’t feeling chatty so I was glad none of them looked up. I went through the door to the outer room of the photogs’ lair, the non-sacred part that held their desks topped with In and Out baskets and connected them via two windows to the newsroom beyond.
“Go tell Jenkins if he prints that picture I’ll wring a part of him that hurts a whole lot more than his neck,” I told a round-shouldered old guy named Stutzweiler.
The codger had seniority and a reputation for picking those assignments most likely to involve attractive women and plentiful skin. Word was he spent a lot of time in the darkroom when no one else was around and emerged with prints he didn’t show. It led to speculation he scheduled private photo sessions that didn’t involve a lot of clothing. He shuffled off through a heavy black curtain. It covered an inner door through which chemical smells from trays and dryers escaped. He hadn’t uttered a word, which was standard for him. Made me wonder how he enticed girls to pose.
A few minutes later Matt Jenkins nudged the curtain aside and came out wiping his hands on a rag. He was just a year shy of thirty and already bald on top. His halo of frizz was more gold than red. Tossing the rag on a desk he put his fingers together to make a frame and pretended to squint at me through it.
“You oughta be in pictures, Mags. I mean it. What’s Sam Goldwyn doing out in California when there’s a looker right here?”
“If you pass that shot of me around to those hacks out there, I’ll feed you your socks.”
His wire-rimmed specs didn’t hide the twinkle in his eyes. There was an altar boy sweetness about Jenkins which was mostly true. He didn’t scare easy.
“I was hoping you’d be in handcuffs, though,” he said.
“Gee, thanks. Getting grilled for an hour by a suit named Freeze was fun enough.”
He straightened, his breeziness vanishing.
“Scout’s honor? Jeez. Somebody called and said they were bringing you in. I thought it was some kind of joke.”
“If you want to make amends, you can find out a couple things for me.”
“Like what?” he asked cautiously. Friendship and work sleep in separate beds.
“A guy named Benjamin Norris turned up shot in the back of the head sometime last night. He’d come in yesterday threatening me. Wrecked my office. Find out who he was. All I know is he had some connection with a guy named Woody Beale.”
As soon as I’d told him I wanted something, Jenkins had motioned me into the co
rner and moved to one side himself, out of line of the windows. Only someone passing directly by the open door and looking in would see the two of us talking together.
He was frowning now. “This connected to something you’re working on?”
“Maybe. I’m not sure.”
Jenkins had his arms crossed, which he did when he thought. He levered up from the desk he’d been leaning against. “Had breakfast?”
“No.”
“Meet you at the Fox in fifteen minutes.”
I stood up. When we got to the door Jenkins waved his arms in a shooing gesture and raised his voice.
“Maybe you should get a sense of humor, huh? But no – you’d rather march around with a chip on your shoulder demanding everyone kowtow to you!” he shouted.
I gave a flounce and stomped through the newsroom as heads rose and a couple of catcalls rang out. After the morning I’d had, the stomping part felt good.
* * *
The Red Fox Grill was long and narrow and dimly lighted. In front a grill and service area ran along one wall. A counter for eight or nine customers angled around it. That left just enough space to get past to some booths in back. The place had decent food at bargain prices. I was into my third cup of coffee and just starting scrambled eggs with buttered toast when Jenkins arrived.
“Figured chances were slim we’d see note pads or billy clubs this far past Main,” he grinned sliding in across from me. He ditched his camera and gadget bag on the bench beside him. “Nice exit.”
“Thanks. How’s Ione?”
“Great. Had a scare a few weeks back when she thought she might be in a family way, but it was just bad fish. She just sold a story to Harper’s.”
His wife was as smart as they came. I was glad she wouldn’t be knee deep in diapers.
“I’m supposed to be on my way to shoot bigwigs at the Engineers’ Club, so we’d better get down to business,” he said after ordering a banana muffin. “Didn’t learn a whole lot more about your boy Norris than what you already knew. He was a small-time fixer. Ran errands for Woody Beale.”
“Who is...?”
“We’ll get to it. I didn’t dare act too interested right after you’d been there, so on my way out I said to Parenteau, ‘Hear you caught some big-time stiff last night’.”
Parenteau was crime reporter for the early beat. I nodded. “And?”
“He snorted. Asked if I meant the darkie who got knifed out on West Fifth or the white sap who got popped in the back of the head. Told me if a low-life like Benny Norris was big-time we both worked for the New York Herald.”
“And Beale?”
“After you left I groused to Stutz how you couldn’t take a joke, that I’d happened to see you at the station and didn’t know they’d stepped on your toes looking into a beef over someone named Woody Beale. Stutz did his usual decline-of-the-empire lecture on how young guys these days don’t bother to learn who’s who. I don’t know what Beale’s game is now – Stutz thinks he may own a couple of clubs – but back before repeal he was bookkeeper for a bootlegger.”
“Book KEEPER?” I repeated.
“Yeah, accounts not bets.” He began to shrug into his camera gear. “Got to run. I’ll keep an ear open for more. But listen, Mags, be careful. It sounds like you may have stuck your foot in a mess. Stutz kept calling this Beale a gangster.”
“Okay. Thanks. Say ‘hi’ to Ione.”
“Will do. It’s been too long since the three of us closed down a jazz joint.”
“I’m game.”
He popped the last of the muffin into his mouth, gave a nod and breezed out the door.
* * *
The cops had left my place midway between how it looked after Norris left yesterday and how it looked after I’d tidied it. At least the splinters of broken glass had been cleaned up, but that was only because they hadn’t undone all the work of the cleaning girls.
The room felt stuffy so I opened a window and stood for a minute listening to the sounds that drifted over from the produce market on Fifth Street. Ordinarily the calls of vendors and the clatter of handcarts on brick lifted my spirits, but not today. Jenkins was right. I’d put my foot in something. But I didn’t know what. Had my client lied about why he was hiring me? Was he as much in the dark as I was? Either way I didn’t like it.
A train went by on the tracks that angled between my office and the market. I closed the window all but a crack and tackled the day.
The cops had found my .38. I wondered whether it was before or after I’d told Freeze where it was. I also wondered when I’d get it back. Just now I wouldn’t mind having it where it ought to be.
Someone in the office around the corner from me, which turned out to be an employment firm for household help, had left a note inviting me to come use their phone if I needed one. I took them up on the offer at noon and three and again at half-past four. Throckmorton still wasn’t back, at least according to his secretary.
Meantime I went over the notes I’d made on the Throckmorton job, jotted a few more thoughts, and shoved the file under my blotter. Some time ago I’d figured out that was the handiest place for my current case. Since I seldom had more than one at a time that necessitated more than a page or two, the blotter didn’t object.
Just as I was opening the door to the street, I saw a dark green Packard glide past. At least I thought I did. In case it wasn’t imagination, I decided to give it five minutes and see if a car like that came by again.
Five stretched into ten. I wedged the door open and leaned where I could watch through the crack. As I was about to give up, I saw a dark green car come past. A Packard.
I waited until it turned the corner, then lit out for the trolley.
Four
The advantage to being a dame in my game is not many people expect you to be smart. I wore a good-looking hat the next day, pumpkin yellow felt with a couple of finger-length feathers. Good for giving someone the slip since all I had to do was duck in somewhere, roll the hat in my purse, and walk out unnoticed. Good for a meeting with Throckmorton if I got one, too.
No cops snatched me up as I walked to my car. I had oatmeal and coffee on time on my favorite stool at McCrory’s. I picked up my laundry at Spotts’ only half a day later than usual. As a nod to caution I left my almost new gray DeSoto in a different lot than the one I normally used when I drove. I was optimistic as I walked to my office.
In the lobby, which was just about large enough for a kitchen table, the woman from the employment agency on my floor was waiting by a roll-around chair with a carton on the seat.
“If you need to use the phone again, we’ll be up in five or ten minutes,” she said. “Willard’s bringing in a couple more cartons.”
Willard was her husband.
When I got off the elevator I made sure to sneer as I passed the open door of the sock wholesaler. The middle-aged priss who’d most likely blabbed to the cops about me threatening Norris screwed up her mouth and got very interested in the newspaper spread on the counter before her.
I went half a dozen steps more and nearly stumbled as I stopped to stare at the door to my office. The glass with neat black letters advertising ‘Private Investigations’ had been broken out. I moved toward it uttering words that would have won me a ruler across the mouth at Holy Trinity.
Even before I tried the knob I knew I’d find the door unlocked. Dreading what I’d see I pushed it open. For several moments I just stood looking. Then I kicked the umbrella stand. The wreckage facing me made the aftermath of Benny Norris’ visit look like a butler’s tidying. File drawers out. Folders dumped and contents scattered. Books pulled out of the bookcase. One drawer was completely gone from my desk; contents of the other two littered the floor. Even the picture of my dad in his uniform, my diploma from Julienne, and a framed certificate of commendation from my days as a Rike’s floorwalker had been yanked off the walls.
Either someone was desperate to find something or they meant to scare me. Underscoring
it with a silent raspberry, the snapped wire that two days ago had connected my telephone still stuck from the wall. I spun and stormed back toward the sock wholesaler. A pretty young woman working an adding machine on the counter blushed and dropped her eyes in embarrassment when I came in. The priss – still reading her paper and apparently in charge – took a quick step back.
“May we help you?” she asked warily.
“Yeah. Since you run to the cops with gossip faster than you report a break-in, you can let me use your phone.”
She dodged sideways toward where it sat between her and the younger woman.
“It’s not for public–”
Before she could fling herself on it, the younger woman snatched the phone away by the cord and shoved it toward me. She bit her lip nervously.
The older woman glared at us both. I dialed.
“Let me speak to Hanlon or Leary. Tell them it’s Sullivan.”
The adding machine clicked and ka-chunked a couple of times.
“Maggie Liz. Something wrong, is it?” asked Billy’s voice.
“Someone broke in at my place. Turned everything upside down. If Freeze isn’t curious enough to send one of his boys, can you get whoever’s on the beat to pay me a visit?”
“Your house or your office?” asked Billy.
“Office.”
“On the way.”
* * *
Back in the office I turned my chair right side up. I eased myself into it, planted my hands on my desk and tried to focus on what was still the same. The desk was still upright. So was the file cabinet. So was the umbrella stand, although it had two dents in it now, one from where I’d beaned Benjamin Norris and one from kicking it a few minutes ago. In the four years since I’d hung out my shingle there’d been only one other time when someone snooped through my office. He at least had been polite enough to pick the lock. Now, in just three days, the cops had turned the place over, persons unknown had turned the place over, and a guy whose name I hadn’t known at the time had torn the place up.
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