The Body Looks Familiar

by Richard Wormser

  “All right,” Latson said. “You can hear me now. What I’ve done so far is first-grade stuff, kindergarten. Now, you talk or we go into high school.”

  Neal Harrison put both hands up, grabbed at Latson’s wrist. Latson let him hold it, thinking the man wanted to be helped up to a seat. But after he’d gotten to his feet, lowered himself down into Jim Latson’s best chair, Harrison hung onto the wrist.

  Latson finally made out that the private detective wanted to look at Latson’s wrist watch. He let him.

  Harrison let out a weird noise, halfway between a moan and a chuckle.

  Jim Latson said, “All right. Talk, man, talk up.”

  “Too late,” Harrison said. His breath was ragged. “Too late. Used your own—trick. Western Union boy… If he couldn’t deliver the—papers—to me, hotel room, take ’em back to sender.”

  “Sender?” Jim Latson put a harsh rasp into his voice, sank his fingers into Harrison’s shoulder. “You were the sender.”

  “Didn’t tell ’im that,” Neal Harrison said. From somewhere he got some strength and for a moment his voice was very clear. “Told him I was Dave Corday, to bring the envelope back to me at my office. I was lying. Stalling for time. Never meant to send ’em any place but to Corday. He hates you the most.” He giggled, weirdly.

  And then he pitched forward, out of the chair, onto Jim Latson’s smooth gray carpet, his wall-to-wall carpeting that the apartment house had been so glad to put in for the deputy chief of police. His blood and his saliva stained Jim Latson’s carpet, slightly at first, and then much more freely, because Jim Latson had pulled back his foot and kicked Neal Harrison in the ribs.

  Then Jim Latson stood, rubbing his right hand gently through his close-cropped hair. Harrison could still be lying. But the papers weren’t on him, and—

  Jim Latson said aloud, “When I work ’em over, they don’t hold out on me.” Then he laughed. Harrison had built up a big scene. He had been going to tell Jim Latson that he, Harrison, was inviolate, because if he wasn’t handled at once and with money, Latson’s enemy, Corday, would have the evidence to send Jim Latson a long, long way away.

  Only trouble was, Jim Latson had hit the little man before he could get the scene built up.

  Jim Latson stood there, staring down at his good right fist. It had been his best friend, and in the end it had betrayed him.

  He laughed again; laughed at himself, Jim Latson, getting fancy thoughts like that. Still laughing, he looked down at Neal Harrison and said, “Little man, you haven’t scratched me. If there’s one thing I’m not scared of, it’s Dave Corday.”

  Then he was busy, tying Neal Harrison’s hands and ankles with towels, shoving another towel into his mouth, binding it expertly so the man wouldn’t choke.

  “I’ll be back,” he said. “Until then, you figure out what I can do with you. If you come up with a real good scheme, I might buy it.”

  Chapter 25

  HARRY WEBER said, “Is the big man in, Alice?”

  The girl smiled. “We’re certainly seeing a lot of you these days, Harry.” She reached out, thumbed the squawk-box, said Harry’s name. Corday’s voice saying, “All right, all right,” was weak and irritated.

  Alice winked, and turned off the box. “Temper, temper.”

  The last time Harry Weber had seen Dave Corday, the district attorney had been jubilant; before that, he had been distraught to the point of collapse; now he seemed to be in a glowering rage that didn’t seem to be able to get off the ground; instead of making him terrifying, it only underlined his pettiness.

  He greeted Harry with: “What is it now? What?”

  Harry said, “A couple of questions, is all.”

  “More about Guild?” Dave Corday cleared his throat. “Frankly, I haven’t done any more on that case. More important things.”

  “Don’t know if it’s about Guild or not. Well, a legal question. If a case—say murder—runs into two states, does it become a federal case?”

  Dave Corday slapped the top of his desk. “Oh, really, now. Hypothetical questions? Doesn’t your paper have a lawyer you can bother with things like that?”

  “Oh, I’d just like your opinion. The states involved are this one and Missouri—Kansas City.”

  It was a shot in the dark; this was a fishing expedition. The shot missed. Dave Corday said brusquely, “Well, if a body is taken over a state line, I suppose the federal attorney might have an interest. If a person is taken over a state line alive and then killed, there is a kidnaping charge under the Lindbergh Law; but since murder is the greater charge, the kidnaping would probably never be filed… In practice, such matters remain with the states.”

  Nothing had happened that time except the fish had eaten the bait off the hook. But it was apparent that, having gone this far, Harry Weber had to keep on driving. If he didn’t, Corday would simply sit still and the interview would be over.

  “I was over in Kansas City yesterday,” Harry said. “On a story. The funniest thing, I thought I saw Captain Martin over there. What in the world would take him to Kansas City I can’t imagine. I must have been mistaken.”

  Dave Corday looked at him. “You’re babbling, Weber,” he said. “Whatever is the matter?” He stood up, came around the desk, stared down at Harry Weber. “Did you come here to confess something? Are you involved in some crime you want to tell this office about?”

  Anyone else could be bluffing. But not Dave Corday. He didn’t have the strength, the guts, to carry on a protracted bluff like this.

  Harry Weber said something unintelligible; he wasn’t sure what it was himself.

  Corday said, “I don’t understand you,” and then turned sharply, his voice rising to a peevish snarl. “Alice, I have told you—”

  But the girl stood her ground in the open door. “Something most peculiar has happened, Mr. Corday. And this boy insists on your signature in person.”

  She stood aside then, and a kid in a messenger boy’s uniform came in, holding out a letter. “I was to try an’ deliver this till four o’clock,” he said, “and then bring it here. The guy give me ten bucks; I don’t want him complaining to the manager he didn’t get what he paid for.”

  Dave Corday said, “Let’s see that thing.”

  He took the envelope from the boy, read the address. “Neal Harrison, Esquire, Mandan Hotel. That’s not my name, boy.”

  “In the corner. For return-like.”

  Dave Corday looked. He said, “Yes, I see.”

  “Ya sign here.”

  Dave Corday signed. As he did so, he said, “I hate mysteries,” and took the envelope. The boy waited a minute, perhaps for a tip, and then scooted. Alice went after him, and shut herself out.

  Harry Weber said, “Aren’t you going to open it?”

  Dave Corday held the envelope up to the light, to see which end was safe to tear, and ripped the paper open in his deliberate, prissy way.

  “Go on,” Harry said. “Maybe your aunt died and left you a millionaire.”

  “I haven’t any aunts,” Corday said automatically, and started unfolding the letter.

  Because he was Dave Corday, he did not glance at the contents until everything was unfolded, neatly. The bank books he stacked to one side on his desk blotter.

  So Harry Weber saw the books first; and saw the name written on them. The whole thing was clear to him before Corday even started reading the letter from Neal Harrison.

  Later he would wonder why. He wasn’t particularly conceited about his quick-wittedness. And he didn’t think, recalling all his conversations with Cap Martin, that the captain had ever even hinted at the true story about Corday and Latson.

  But when he saw those bank books—all different colors, all different banks—he grabbed one. And when he saw the name James Latson on the cover, he knew what the letter to Mrs. Latson had been—a letter conspiring to pull the props out from under Jim Latson.

  A lot of little things fell into place, and he knew Corday was not Ji
m Latson’s friend, but his bitter rival.

  So he put his hand down hard on the bank books, to keep Corday from hiding them.

  And just then Alice said, on the box, “Chief Latson is here—”

  She never finished, because Jim Latson had already charged into the office.

  Chapter 26

  MOST OF THE ADJECTIVES in the English language had been applied to Jim Latson at one time or another; the complimentary ones by boards of review and his political allies; the others by men he had sent up, cops he had broken, girls he had used and discarded, and by his political enemies.

  But nobody had ever called him slow-witted. Long before Dave Corday had managed to stammer out Latson’s name, the police chief had taken in the little tableau; the bank books on the desk, the letter on hotel stationery, and the newspaperman with his hand on the bank books.

  “So you sold out, Corday.”

  But Dave Corday was done for, pulled apart, beaten and ruined. His white face told Jim Latson that, his unlawyerlike, meaningless gabble, his shaking hands.

  “Spilled your guts to the newspapers, didn’t you?” Jim Latson could feel the anger growing in him; and after all these years of caution and craft and deep thought, it felt good to him to let go, to let anger take over from his brain.

  “Did he tell you he killed the DeLisle girl, Weber?” Jim Latson asked. “Killed her and tried to frame me for it?”

  Harry Weber was saying, “Good Lord,” or something like that. But Jim Latson was not worrying about Harry Weber. He said, “Cap Martin has the dope, Weber. He’ll send Corday up for you. He would have before, but I had to protect that sniveling—” He couldn’t think of a noun for Corday, and anyway it didn’t matter; the time for talking was over.

  Days of practice paid off one at a time, and his draw was a classic for all rookie policemen to study; smooth and fast and on the target a split second after his hand started for his holster.

  Harry Weber was jumping back, as though the noise could hurt him, and Dave Corday was going down on the desk, a mess.

  “He isn’t dead,” Jim Latson said. “I gut-shot him. He’ll die in about ten minutes. I’m taking a powder, Harry. Tell your paper, tell the mayor, tell the FBI. I’m betting I’m smart enough to get away with it, too.”

  Harry Weber said, “The South Seas? Hongkong? They’ll find you, Jim.”

  “No one ever told you you could use my first name,” Latson said, and turned away, for the door. His mind was already ahead of him; it was getting him past the girl in the outer office, past the people who must have heard the shot, getting him down to the street and—

  And then Dave Corday shot him in the back with the pistol from his desk drawer.

  Harry Weber grabbed the red phone. He yelled into it, “Get an ambulance crew to Dave Corday’s office, on the double.”

  He heard the police operator answering, and slammed that phone down and grabbed the other one, dialed the News-Journal, asked for the desk, gave his name out, and gave them a masterful one-sentence summary: “Jim Latson and Dave Corday just shot each other. They are dying before my eyes.”

  They got him a rewrite man, fast, and he started dictating an eyewitness account. Over at the office it would be like a movie; they would really be stopping the presses, something he’d never seen done; they would be replating fast, and calling in all the trucks, they would be dispatching reporters to Latson’s apartment, his office.

  He said, “Hold it. Latson’s trying to say something.”

  Jim Latson had been knocked down by the force of the bullet. But he twisted around, he got a little off the floor. He said, “I didn’t think he had it in him. I didn’t think so. And you know something? He couldn’t have done it if I’d kept my eye on him. He shot Hogan DeLisle; but he never had the guts to put a slug in me, not while I was watching him.”

  Harry said, “Ambulance on the way, Chief.”

  “A hell of a chief. Wasn’t even man enough to keep watching a louse like Corday. He dead yet?”

  “Going fast,” Harry said.

  “So am I,” Chief Latson said, and fell back to the floor.

  Harry said, “All right, take this: Before he died, Jim Latson said—”

  He was still talking when the ambulance men came in, past a screaming Alice; but it was too late for Dave Corday. And for Jim Latson.

  Chapter 27

  DEPUTY CHIEF OF POLICE (ACTING) B. L. MARTIN came out of the grand jury room to face a mess of reporters. He stood calmly, one hand raised, waiting for silence. He had chosen to wear his new uniform, with stars instead of tracks, to the hearing, and he was amused at himself for it. Vanity, he thought. At age fifty, I get tracked down by vanity.

  He said, “Nothing happened. You can’t indict dead men. I’ve been ordered to clean up Headquarters. See Mr. Van Lear.”

  Frederick Van Lear had been masterful, he thought, conducting the hearing. Frederick Van Lear would be elected governor in all probability, and what did he want it for?

  One of the reporters said, “Has your appointment been made permanent?”

  Chief Martin frowned. He had been offered Jim Latson’s job on a permanent basis; it meant more money, and he ought to take it.

  But the Gardens had been so peaceful. A man could think out there.

  And at Headquarters—the temptation was something terrible. The papers were full of denunciations of Latson and Corday. Phrases like “betrayal of great trust,” and “perfidy in high places,” and “shocking breakdown of leadership,” were being used with frequency and unction.

  But Chief Martin (acting) didn’t see it that way. They shoved temptation at a man like Latson, and they paid him a cop’s salary, and they asked him please not to bother the citizens with any troubles. Just run the department.

  What did they expect?

  And Corday, with his miserable G.I. years behind him, trying hard to make up for poverty and deprivation—and life in a Quonset hut—what did they expect of him?

  And B. L. Martin wasn’t much better. He’d taken it for years, from the Latsons and the Cordays, the politicos and their sponsors, the rich and the powerful. He had to admit it felt good to have all the strong ones running to him, saying, please, take over our police department, put it back on its feet.

  He said, “Boys, I’ll tell you. I’m too weak a man and too old a one to stand the gaff in the chief’s office. Soon as things are running right again, I’m going back to the Gardens. Come see me when the first crocus blooms through the snow; I’ll give you a statement on it.”