by Kane, Henry
“You put your hands on my partner.”
I shrugged. “Okay. A good enough reason.” Then I stooped to one knee over him. “Finchie,” I said. “Your pants are down. I want information, and you’re going to give it to me. I may have to beat it out of you. There are guys who enjoy that. I don’t. I’ve evened up a headache with you. But if you insist, I’ll oblige.”
“What do you want?”
“What were you doing in that corridor?”
“Johnson was in the corridor. I was around front.”
“What were you both doing there?”
“Wipe my mouth.”
“My handkerchief is around your ankles.”
“Use mine. It’s in my pants pocket.”
I looked and I found it. I also found a switch-knife that yielded a four-inch blade. I wiped blood from his mouth with the handkerchief and then I presented the point of the knife to the point of his chin. I said, “Finche, please don’t make me try to prove I’m in earnest. Please talk it up, and please remember that if you don’t talk it up, it’s your knife, and your decision. You know me long enough and well enough to know that I’ve done things before which, in my heart, I don’t approve of. I don’t approve of what I’m going to do—if you force me. Now, it’s your decision.”
“What the hell do you want?”
“Why were you two there?”
“We were keeping an eye on him.”
“Whom?”
“Hart.”
“Who employed you?”
“I’m not telling you.”
I was on thin ice there. Ethics, among the private operators, are sparse but stringent, and Rule Number One is that you do not divulge the name of the client. Finch was plenty bad, but like a lousy singer that can hit one good note, the saving feature of Finch’s existence was his bulldog grip on that one cardinal rule. Twice, in Court hearings, he had served time for contempt because he had refused to name a client in contravention of the order of the learned Justice. “Finchie-boy,” I said. “I’m going to make a deal. I’m not going to press for the name of the client. I could, you know. And when I say press—I mean with the point of this knife.”
“It ain’t going to help you.”
“Depends. Because I would go it slow. And you’d have lots of time to think while you’re bleeding.” I made a face. “Pretty nothing, huh? Pretty nothing business we’re in, huh?”
“Yeah, pretty nothing.”
“So … last call. I won’t press for the name of the client, but I press for all the rest of it. Either you answer my questions, or you wind up a mess that’ll match your entrance-door.” And to make my point, I shaved a bit of skin off his neck.
“Okay,” he said, “bastard. Ask the questions.”
“How long you been on Hart’s tail?”
“A month.”
“Make regular reports to your client?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“What means—how?”
“In person, by mail, by messenger—how?”
“Client comes here, once a week, and picks up a report.”
“How’d you get the client?”
“Heard about us. Read about us in the papers.”
“What’d the client want to know about Hart?”
“Everything. Regular tail-job.”
I sat down beside him on the floor. “All right. What did you get?”
“Got that he’s in trouble with Internal Revenue. Got that they tied him up, tied up his assets. Got something they didn’t get. That he beat them to the punch.”
“What does that mean?”
“He knew they were going to put a Court order lock-up on his bank vault. Which they did. He got there first, and emptied it.”
“Of what?”
“Search me.”
“What did he do with the stuff he took out?”
“Search me. We’re doing a tail-bit, not a magician-bit.”
“What else, Finchie-lad?”
“Stuck on that pigeon that works for him, a real class pigeon. Sleeps over with her now and then. But she’s doubling on him. When he don’t sleep, there’s another guy sleeps. Young guy, good looking.”
“Name of?”
“I don’t know. Our job is Hart, not no other guy.”
“What else?”
“Nothing else.”
“Do you know,” I said, “that his wife left him?”
“Yep.”
“You didn’t mention it.”
“You wanted information on Hart. Not Hart’s wife.”
“You know why she left him?”
“Nope.”
“You know where she is?”
“Nope.”
“What else you got for me, Finchie?”
“No more. You got it all. You square now for that rap on the bean?”
“Yes,” I said. “I think so.” I stood up and lit a cigarette.
“Look, pal,” Finch said. “I like to smoke too. I like to stand up too. I like to kinda have my belt around my belly instead around my wrists. And also you own a handkerchief that you ought to snot your nose in. So take it off my feet, and go snot your nose.”
“You’re funny, really funny. You make me laugh.” I laughed. “How’re you fixed,” I said, “for hard feelings?”
“I ain’t got none.”
“If I let you stand up, do we tangle?”
“We already tangled. I’m a businessman. I don’t earn no loot tangling with a peeper who’s trying to prove to himself he’s got muscles.”
“You hit first, remember? Back there in Hart’s corridor.”
“You were pulling on my little partner’s collar. You can choke a guy like that. What did you expect I’d do?”
“Exactly what you did. And after you did it, Finchie-boy—tell me true—what’d you expect that I’d do?”
“Exactly what you did. Only if I didn’t have my back turned when you came in, you’da had a little more trouble doing it.” He bounched his behind on the floor, puckered his eyes at me. “You that call from Tamville?”
“Uh huh.”
“Mighta known. I’m getting dumb in my old age.”
“Maybe I am too. Because I’m going to let you up.”
I untied the handkerchief, got him to his feet, and, while his trousers drooped, I untied the belt around his wrists. He looked at me a moment, stuck the belt in his trouser-loops, hitched it tight, and walked toward me. I still had the knife in my hand and I would have used it had he insisted, but he went by me to a sink. He turned the faucet, washed his hands and face, and dried them with a dirty towel. “Square?” he said.
“Yeah,” I said.
“Wanna give me back the knife?” he said. “I think I’ll keep it,” I said. “Why, pal?”
“I don’t want you to get into trouble. I happen to know that your license for weapons has been revoked.”
“That’s for public cops. That’s their worry. That ain’t no worry for a private cop. You’re a private cop, no?”
“You’re going to get public cops, Finchie.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“They’re going to crawl all over you. It’s going to be like you got lost in an ant-heap with molasses on your face.”
“Why?”
“I’m going to make a report on you.”
“On what I told you, fink?”
“On everything.”
“But why, for Chrissake?”
“Jonathan Hart.”
“Hart? What’s he got to do with it?”
“Trouble.”
“Hart? Cop trouble?”
“Correct.”
“Feds or local?”
“Local.”
“Where they holding him?”
“On ice.”
“Nowquit with the kidding around, Mr. Chambers. We’re supposed to be on his tail. You jammed that up. Now kindly un-jam. Where they holding him? Maybe I want to go see him. Where do I go?”
> “You go to the morgue, Finchie-boy. Downtown. To the morgue.”
8
Police Headquarters was wearing lights in its windows. September gets dark early even though it’s trying to play like it’s a sultry day in June. I was anxious to see Falkner, I had a little favor to request, but the good sergeant was much more anxious to see me. His face was flushed, his dark eyes were glinting, and the mask of sweat on his face was thicker than pancake makeup on a new chorine.
“Where’ve you been?” he said when I entered his office.
“Around,” I said.
“I’ve been trying to reach you.”
“I’m here,” I said.
He rubbed a towel across his face. “Jonathan Hart.” he said. “We did the autopsy.”
“Much obliged, Mr. Falkner. But right now I’d like to ask a favor. Got some fingerprints. Love to have you give them a quick run-through. Got a client—”
“He did not die of a heart attack.”
“Now this client is paying a nice fee for—”
“He did not die of a heart attack.”
“Simple matter of routine, fingerprints—”
“He did not die of a heart attack.”
“What?”
I took his towel and I wiped my face. I sat down and I squirmed. I lit a cigarette and I belted smoke at my lungs. I wanted to say it strong but it came out meek: “See? Now are you glad I talked you into an autopsy? Pills, huh?”
“No.”
“What then?”
“Never mind right now. First I want your story. All of it. That’s not a request. That’s an order. Official.”
“Remember me, Sergeant? With orders I’m not so good. I’m much better with requests.”
“Peter!” he roared.
“You be nice to me, Sergeant. I’ll be nice to you.”
He started up out of his chair, then sank back. He banged the heel of his fist on the edge of his desk. A vein in his forehead stuck out like an urchin’s tongue behind his Mama’s back. He had a fight with himself, and he won. In a tone as mild as the knee-touch of a spinster playing footsie in a movie palace, he said: “What can I do for you, Peter?”
I took Danny’s photographs from my pocket and I laid them on his desk. “Fingerprints,” I said. “I’d like a favor, please. I’d like them processed, and I’d like that even you don’t look at the report. I’d like, please, a sealed report. I have a client who is paying a nice fee, and that’s the way he ought to have it for his nice fee. Okay, Sergeant? A favor for me, a favor for you.”
“And what—is the favor for me?”
“I give you every single detail of whatever I know about Jonathan Hart.”
He took my photographs, glanced at them casually.
“Whom do they belong to?” he said.
“Nobody. Just put the thing through, please, and let’s get the report back—sealed. Okay, Sergeant?”
He looked again, put the photographs aside on his desk. “Okay,” he said.
But I pressed it. “When, please, Sergeant? It’s kind of hurry-up.”
“I’ll have it for you by tomorrow night.”
“Tomorrow night? But tomorrow night I’m a pirate.”
“What? What’s that?”
“I’m going to a party. Masquerade.”
“Tamville?”
“Oh, these cops. They know everything.”
“All right,” he said. “You’ll have your report delivered there. Sealed and not looked at. Good enough?”
“How can it be better?”
“We have a bargain?”
“Of course, dear Sergeant. Your word is my bond.”
“All right, then. Let’s hear. Jonathan Hart.”
I told him the entire story, from Tamville’s recommendation to my playing barber to Finch with his knife as my razor. When I was finished, he sat back, scratched at an ear, said, “If Hart was done in, do you think Finch had anything to do with it?”
“I do not.”
“Why not?”
“Because Finch and Johnson were hanging around outside the office. You didn’t kill a guy and then wait around for alarms. Was he murdered, Mr. Falkner?”
“I think so.”
“Any suspects?”
“We haven’t even gotten to that. We’re trying to figure out how he was murdered.”
“You know the cause of death?”
“Yes.”
“Then you do know how he was murdered.”
“No we do not!” He shoved away from the desk, stood up and started putting heel prints on the floor. He paced, blowing his cheeks in thought, rubbing fingernails through his hair. “Look,” he said, stopping in front of me. “Could he have been knocked off outside, and then brought back into his office?”
“How?” I said.
“I’m asking you!”
“How, Mr. Falkner? It was during business hours. There are two secretaries sitting right outside, the redhead and that mad mad blonde. Then there are eight guys with tickers and sharp-pointed pencils. Then there’s the receptionist with the purple eyes. It’s kinda tough to drag a dead man through all of that without causing, let us say, a bit of a stir. Don’t you think?”
“Yes, I think. How about the back door to his office?”
“Finch and Johnson, remember? They were operating there.”
“Yes,” he said, almost in wonder. “Locked in. Completely locked in. It’s crazy.”
“What’s crazy, please, Mr. Falkner?”
His self-control abandoned him. He seized my lapels and pulled me up. “Was he wet,” he said, “when you found him?”
“Wh-a-a-t!”
“Wet!”
“Wet? What the hell’s the matter with you, Sergeant?”
“Was he wet?”
“No.”
“Damp? Was he, maybe—damp?”
“Bone-dry. He was bone-dry. Sergeant, if I may ask a personal question—have you been indulging in a vile habit? Something like knocking hell out of a bottle of bourbon?”
He released my lapels. He returned to pacing. He wiped spread hands over an agonized face. He murmured, almost to himself: “The damned autopsy was absolutely conclusive.”
“Autopsies are supposed to be conclusive.”
“Quiet!”
“What did it show, Sergeant?”
His mouth twitched. He came near to me. He took my face in his hands, almost tenderly. His bewildered eyes looked directly into mine. “No question whatever,” he said, “about that autopsy. You ready, Peter?”
“Ripe and ready, Mr. Falkner. Let’s have it.”
“Jonathan Hart was drowned!”
9
Monte’s Cave was a supper club with more adornments than the uniform of a visiting general. The rear room, all plush and ivory, had candlelight, fifteen violins playing romantic music, and a minimum charge of ten dollars per person. The outside room had smoked glass walls, a smoked glass ceiling, tiny tables, amber lights, and a guy on a zither who could produce as much encouragement in your lady for the evening as the fifteen violins for the ten dollar minimum. Sunny Saunders operated in the outside room, deftly placing her card on a table, bowing, nodding, flirting; Sunny Saunders, who looked so much like Jessica Rollins, except that she just didn’t have the cold-eyed class of Jessica. Also, Sunny was kind of bigger on top, cream-skinned big, in a blue deep-cut dress that bulged the cream-skinned bigness. Sunny, seated at a corner table, was engaged in getting drunkie with Peter, now washed, showered and shaved. “Promised to call, didn’t you?” Sunny was saying. “What happened?”
“Got busy,” I said. looking about the room.
“Busy with what?”
“Busy with business.”
“Brunette business or blonde business?”
“Business business.”
“Sure,” she said, lapping at a stinger.
“Sunny,” I said, “one day I’m going to let you read my handwriting.”
“Never read the handwriting of
my friends.”
“Why not?”
“Learn too much about them. Don’t want to know too much about my friends.”
“What about your friends knowing too much about you?”
“That a crack?” Her blue eyes came up from the cocktail glass.
“Me? Cracks?”
“Let me tell you something, Pete.” She touched my arm for attention. I gave her attention. “I’m not afraid of a lot of people,” she said, “but I’m afraid of you. Something about you, I don’t know. Maybe too much head goes with your heart. I don’t know, but I’m afraid of you. When you want your way, brother, I bet you get your way.” She finished her drink. “Why didn’t you call me this afternoon?”
“I was working.”
“Don’t you ever relax?”
“I’m relaxing now. And I’m going to relax the rest of the night. I’m going to relax real hard. Want to do the after-hours spots when you’re through?”
“Can’t. Got a date with the boss. Boss thinks he’s going to hit a home run. He ain’t even gonna get to first base. How’s about tomorrow afternoon? Will you call me?”
“I promise.”
“Like you promised for this afternoon?”
“Business.”
“You do your business with me tomorrow. Okay? Okay, Petie? Maybe I’m afraid of you, but maybe I like people I’m afraid of.” She pressed herself to me. Her breath smelled of brandy and menthe. “You’re a real son of a bitch, ain’t you, Petie?”
“Yeah. Real son of a bitch.”
A waiter came up and bowed a continental bow he had learned on the continent of Staten Island. “Lady would like a reading,” the waiter said. “Lady over there. The skinny one. Lady with the falsies.”
“Got to go to work,” Sunny said.
I admired the way she pulled herself together. I admired the way she walked without a wobble. Each to his own—there is a professional aspect to every profession. I crooked a finger at the waiter with the continental bow, paid my check, got out into the street, breathed deep of the soot of Indian Summer, swam through the humidity to Third Avenue, turned left, and walked. At Seventy-third Street, I pushed through the swinging doors of MacKenzie’s.
10
The joint was jumping. The bar was four deep. The clientele was as different from Monte’s as a swank interior-decorator is different from a female impersonator in Greenwich Village. It was beer here, beer in goblets, and no-tie customers, and sport shirts without jackets, and girls who used eyebrow-pencil as if it were charcoal. The room was stinking with smoke, and the visibility was poor, but one could make out Gladys Rose at the far end, on a dais, rasping a song and wriggling a mountainous bosom. I ordered Scotch, drank it straight, and worked my way toward the dais, listening until she was finished. Then she lumbered off, leaving her accompanist to do piano solos. She went directly to a table marked RESERVED and grabbed at the drink that was sitting there, waiting. I moved over, sat down, said, “Hello.”
