In under twenty minutes I had three copies on unwieldy oversized sheets. It didn’t come cheap. But the woman who’d waited on me had warmed up. When I asked to use scissors, she told a younger girl who worked there to trim my copies on their paper cutter. I slid the end product into the manilla envelope I’d brought and scooted.
Whatever happened now, the evidence against Beale would be safe.
Provided I made it to Finn’s in one piece.
Thirty-nine
It was quitting time, so there were people on the street. Mostly good, but it made it harder to keep an eye on who was around me, too. I was ready to jump ten feet by the time I walked through the door at Finn’s and slid onto a stool. My thin leather gloves were okay for gripping the Smith & Wesson in my pocket but lousy at keeping out cold.
“Fancy a black?” Finn asked with a wink as I blew through my hands.
“Yes, but I’ll have to start a tab.”
It was rare that I ran one, though plenty did. Unconcerned, Finn moved off to put the perfect top on a Guinness. By the time he returned I’d unfolded another manilla envelope and dropped one copy of my evidence against Woody Beale inside.
“Mind hanging onto this for a couple of days?” I asked licking the flap and sealing it with the edge of my fist. “Someplace safe where it won’t get lost? I might make a buck if I’m right about something.”
Finn grinned, thinking this involved some kind of bet between friends, which is what I meant him to think. If anything happened to me, he’d give it to Seamus or Billy or one of the other cops, who’d be smart enough to figure out what it was. I enjoyed my beverage and feeling my nerves uncoil while the pub filled up. I kidded some with a grammar school classmate who took the stool on my right. After a time I made my way back to the “convenience”.
My preparations for getting and safeguarding the magical prints had included a regular envelope, stamped and addressed to a post office box I keep. Much as I hated to crease the stiff photostat paper, I folded another copy and shoved it inside. On my way out of Finn’s I’d drop the envelope into a mail box half a block up. That left the original, which went into a pocket a seamstress had made for me under the shoulder pad of my coat; plus one copy which I’d work with, comparing it to the list from Flora Throckmorton. The blackprint I’d give to Jenkins once things played out a little bit more. He could read a negative as easily as a real image, and he’d have a scoop.
Back at the bar I ate some stew and bet one of the regulars two bits I could spot more Plymouths between Finn’s and my office than he could. He wasn’t about to pass up a bet like that with a dame. Half a dozen others trotted along beside us, enjoying the free entertainment and shouting encouragement. The regular won, but meantime I’d had a chance to shove my envelope through a mail slot, not to mention getting a dandy escort back to my office.
“Double or nothing from here to the parking lot,” I challenged. “You can pick the kind of car.”
He took the bait again and didn’t object when I said I needed to run upstairs first and pick up some papers. While I retrieved Flora’s list, he had a chance to crow like a rooster. It didn’t last long. By the time the boy-os from Finn’s delivered me to my car, I’d spotted six Dodges to his three.
* * *
I spent Friday night on my bed cross-checking lists: the one of businesses Al had visited with Peter; the one I’d made of places burglarized; the addresses on the sheet Benny Norris had hidden.
On Saturday I fidgeted.
On Sunday I went to dinner at Kate and Billy’s. I’d promised, and it meant a lot to Kate and it kept my mind off work.
By nine-fifteen Monday morning I was fidgeting again, this time in a coffee shop on South Ludlow. Across from me stood a serious looking office building whose occupants included Montgomery Security. Fifteen minutes more and I’d exhausted my patience. By now the man I needed to see should be at his desk. I entered the building with the sort of satisfaction an actor probably feels stepping onto stage for the final scene of a long drama. Except I wasn’t completely sure how this particular play was going to end.
Montgomery Security occupied the whole top floor of the building. A door with a polished brass handle let me into a reception area with cornice molding. A receptionist raised her head with a courteous smile. Two younger girls worked away to her left, one typing and the other answering the phone, possibly the same girl whose hesitation had helped me pick up the scent when I called pretending to hunt Cal Houseman.
“Maggie Sullivan, “ I said. “I’m here to see Ed Viner.”
Beyond the filing cabinets lined side-to-side behind the receptionist a well-lit hallway led in three directions.
“Is he expecting you?”
She was cordial, unlike the woman at Houseman’s firm. Leaning closer I lowered my voice.
“No, but I can maybe put a tourniquet on the cash he’s bleeding from this rash of break-ins.”
Her eyes swung to the younger girls. They were lost in their own work. She pushed uneasily to her feet, drawing back as I held out a business card. With a couple of glances over her shoulder she disappeared into the hallway. Before I’d drawn more than a couple of breaths she was back.
“If you’ll follow me, please.” The sweep of her hand betrayed tension.
I followed her past the file cabinets. We turned left down the hall and stopped at a half-open door.
“Miss Sullivan,” she announced, withdrawing even as she spoke.
A man with ruddy cheeks and a keen gaze surveyed me from behind a desk stacked with paperwork.
“Before your Girl Friday calls the cops, talk to Abner Simms up at Rike’s. He’ll vouch for me.” I kept my eyes on his.
His gaze never wavered. I waited. His finger raised. Still watching me he jiggled the hook of his telephone.
“Never mind that call. Get Rike’s Security instead. Abner Simms.”
The regulator ticking on his wall was the only sound. Then a bubble of voice seeped from inside the telephone.
“Ab? Ed Viner. There’s a woman named Maggie Sullivan in my office–” Some comment by Ab made Viner almost grin. His wariness eased a fraction. “You know her, then? Okay. Good. I appreciate that.”
He hung up and regarded me without much evidence of a thaw.
“Why don’t you sit down,” he said at last.
I took the chair in front of his desk and crossed my ankles.
“I’m not looking to shake you down,” I said. “I needed to get your attention. Fast.”
“You did that all right.”
“An investigation for a client turned something up. I don’t have quite enough proof yet, but if you’ll hear me out, I think I will have. And maybe we can help each other. I figure you’re getting a ton of mud you don’t deserve from these burglaries.”
“Go on.”
“I need to know about Lyle Houseman.”
“Spoiled. Cocky. Cuts corners. Stoops pretty low to get what he wants.”
I liked Viner. No beating the bush.
“Low enough to set up burglaries at businesses using your alarm systems?”
He sat back slowly. “You think that could be happening?”
I took out a photostat and slid it to him. For a minute he studied the diagrams and handwritten notations, too intent to breathe. His eyes sucked in every dot and letter. Finally he let the sheet fall to his desk. His expression was grim.
“It’s his handwriting. I recognize the hook in the Ls. Among other things.”
“Those drawings are your gadgets? Alarms?”
“Yes. Where did you get this?”
“From a dead man. A small-time hustler who got his head blown off, most likely for seeing something Houseman didn’t like. Maybe a meeting Houseman thought could link him to this.”
“He’s underhanded, but it’s hard to imagine he’d kill anyone,” Viner said frowning.
“He has friends who would. Who do.” I slid him a list I’d hand-copied of the places Peter had stopped
when Al was riding with him, addresses plus business names. It held at least twice the number of businesses burglarized so far. “How many of these places use your burglar alarms?”
Viner scanned it. He set it on top of the photostat.
“About forty percent. We’re just about neck and neck with Caldwell-Carter when it comes to installations at businesses. But this other list...” He tapped the groups with numbers after them at the top of the photostat. “...I don’t keep all the addresses stored in my head, but some I recognize as belonging to our customers. And those numbers after each batch – they match model numbers for some of our alarms.”
Confirmation. But not enough to take to the cops yet.
“We keep a list by street numbers. For servicing, mostly, and checking when an alarm goes off.” Viner picked up his phone. “Edith, bring me the street list.”
While he waited he steepled his fingers and tapped them against his lips.
“Lyle.” He let out a breath of frustration. “The little bastard worked for me. I trained him – promoted him.” The ruddiness of his cheeks had condensed into angry patches of red.
“You said he was spoiled.” I wanted to fill in some gaps, and Viner looked ready to talk.
“His family had money,” he said grimly. “Not money like the Pattersons and Ketterings, but some. Enough for good schools, a fancy car, expensive tastes. He apparently had some sort of falling out with his father. Got cut off. That’s the version from people who knew the family, anyway. Lyle had some sort of trust from a relative – aunt or grandmother – but apparently not enough to live on, at least in the style he liked.”
“How’d you come to hire him?”
“Mutual acquaintance. Said he knew a bright young fellow looking for work, did I have any openings. Happened I did. When times got bad and the streets filled up with people who’d lost everything, more and more businesses started wanting alarm systems.”
“They could have hired night watchmen. Taken a few of those people off the streets.”
Viner looked away. “The trouble is, people can go soft when a cousin or brother-in-law’s out of work and has kids to feed. They can turn blind while a few things are pinched here and there, even let themselves be tied up and gagged so more can be taken and it looks like a robbery.”
A knock at the door announced the secretary who had shown me in. She placed a folder on Viner’s desk and withdrew. I sat in silence, watching him run the finger of one hand methodically along the groups on the photostat. With his other hand he flipped back and forth through the typewritten file he’d requested. His steel-jawed focus, unlike Throckmorton’s indignation, was likely to accomplish things.
When he finished he sat back and regarded me for some time.
“Every address on this page with the schematics has one of our alarms.” He tapped it. “Curious math, don’t you think? A hundred percent when – as I said – the number of local businesses using our systems adds up to less than half of the market?”
“Curious,” I agreed.
“Now let me show you something.” Opening the lower right drawer of his desk he took out a phone book. Bending again he took out a sheet of lined paper. I surmised it was something he’d hidden. “We guarantee our alarm systems. When two in a row failed I couldn’t believe it. When it happened again, I was numb with shock. Our alarms don’t fail. They have excellent engineering. Excellent parts.
“These are places hit in these recent break-ins. Ones large enough to use an alarm and large enough to get written up in the press anyway.
“All ours but one. My senior installer and I have gone crazy every time there’s another one – analyzing what could have gone wrong, trying experiments. I’ve been placing long distance calls to the manufacturer twice a week, sometimes more, hoping their engineers have been able to find something.
“But the units haven’t been failing, have they? That bastard Lyle’s been disabling them. Or telling someone else how to, by the looks of it.”
I gave a nod. “That would be my guess.”
Viner had been pacing. He sat down now. He steepled his fingers again and blew between them.
“I believe you said something about us helping each other, Miss Sullivan? Let’s talk.”
Forty
Three hours after we met, Ed Viner and I said good-by with a hearty handshake. He’d hired me for as long as it took to nail Lyle Houseman. In addition to writing a check up front, he’d offered me a handsome bonus if my carpentry took place before another business using one of his alarms had a break-in.
If Viner was anything but a straight shooter he was a swell actor. He’d recognized Woody Beale’s name from the papers. My description of Al hadn’t rung any bells. The acquaintance who’d recommended Lyle Houseman turned out to be a respectable businessman who’d served on a parish board with my dad. What was I missing that linked Houseman first to Viner and now to Beale?
“I’ll call as soon as we’ve checked every damn alarm we’ve installed since Eve ate the apple,” Viner promised walking me to the door.
He was itching to get rid of me. Freed from the nightmare he’d been stumbling through in recent weeks, he could scarcely contain his impatience to act. Well before I’d finished my questions, he’d begun laying plans to visit half his customers while his chief installer called on the others. Between them they’d ensure every alarm they’d sold was functioning properly.
“Stop by my office instead,” I said. “I’ll get some work done.”
“It may be after six before I get there. Small talk’s going to take more time than making sure the equipment’s working.”
“Don’t worry if it takes ‘til midnight. I’ve slept at my desk before. I’ll tell the night watchman downstairs to keep an eye out for you.”
* * *
It was well past noon, so I swung by McCrory’s and let Izzy serve me one of my favorites which also happened to be the Friday special, tuna salad on toast. This time of year when the fresh tomatoes were gone it came with an extra slice of pickle. Dad always had lectured me not to eat tuna salad at lunch counters where it might have sat too long and turned. It was one of the rare issues where I ignored him, and I hadn’t died yet.
While I savored the sharp, sweet taste of my sandwich, I sifted through my new information about Lyle Houseman. He’d been hired as a salesman and according to Viner he was a natural. Charm. Polish. A quick mind. In less than a month he’d learned the workings of the various alarm systems well enough to dazzle would-be customers by reeling off advantages and drawbacks of different models and exuding assurance.
Needless to say, the other salesmen hadn’t liked him. Neither had the other men at Montgomery Security – installers, repairmen, clerks. A couple of the young women developed crushes on him, but he ignored them.
“Lyle was better educated and he didn’t bother to hide it,” Viner had told me. “Didn’t mingle. It was hard to escape the feeling he thought he was better than everyone else.”
His work was excellent, though. Within a year it netted him a small promotion. His new responsibilities included coordinating schedules for half the installers. It wasn’t surprising Houseman had the skills to draw those diagrams on the back of the florist’s receipt, but Viner didn’t think he’d acquired them because he was contemplating something underhanded down the pike. Neither did I. So why was he mixed up with Beale and the burglaries?
“More coffee?” asked Izzy. An easier question to answer.
“No, but you can bring me a vanilla malted.” It would get me through a long afternoon of waiting, and in case I had to hang around past suppertime for Viner’s phone call.
Back in my office and sufficiently fortified, I doodled on a tablet and sorted the nuggets of new information I’d gotten from Viner. I couldn’t see Houseman’s current employer risking involvement in burglaries to put a competitor out of business. When I’d asked whether Houseman himself might have grudge enough, Viner had given a mirthless laugh and ticked off three: Vin
er’s choice of an employee with twenty years’ experience for a new supervisory position which Houseman had eyed. Nixing things when Houseman asked out Viner’s daughter. Last of all, reading the riot act when he forgot something and returned to his office to find Houseman bent over his desk reading financial sheets.
“You fired him,” I’d guessed.
“Damn right. He was good, but not irreplaceable. He wanted to be the golden boy without the drudgery of crossing t’s and dotting i’s. He worked at what came easily to him and sloughed off the rest.”
If Houseman was as stuck on himself as Viner had made him out to be, I reasoned swiveling in my chair, he might have drawn those diagrams to get revenge. But that didn’t explain Beale’s involvement. I groaned. Some of the burglaries connected to this had resulted in substantial losses, but they still were peanuts by Beale’s standards.
I got up and paced to crank my brain. I sat down again. I paced some more. I sat some more. A good part of the afternoon slid by with me grabbing for connections as successfully as a dog snaps at fireflies.
By four o’clock I was fidgeting so I could hardly sit still. If I walked to the bank it might clear my head, and I could deposit Viner’s check so I’d stay solvent. But if Viner finished earlier than he’d thought, I’d miss him. I gave his receptionist a jingle.
“Mr. Viner back yet?” I asked when I’d introduced myself.
“No, nor Matthew either. Is there a message?”
“Just tell him I’ve stepped out to the bank. I’ll be back in ten minutes.”
I scribbled a note to the same effect and hurried out. It was payday for a lot of folks, but it was early yet so only four or five people were in line ahead of me. I made my deposit and kept a few bucks for the weekend, then headed back. As I stepped outside, the blustery autumn wind bit into me with an equally chilling thought why Beale was mixed up with Houseman. I all but ran back toward my office, slowing at the end enough to spot what might be one of Beale’s lookout cars across the way.
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