by Rex Stout
Wolfe grunted. “That was too specific.”
“I guess it was, but I was playing for a rise, and you said I was to go on your assumption. And I got the rise. Most of them wasn’t interested, except to tell me to forget it and get a new wife, but afterward one of them took me to a corner and wanted to know things. He was sharp, and I did the best I could. Finally he said it looked like I had a bum steer, but there was a guy that could give me the lowdown on Birch if anybody could, and if I wanted to see this guy a good time would be between nine-thirty and ten tonight, there at Danny’s. A guy named Lips Egan.”
“It is now nine-twenty-eight.”
“I know it is. I was going to blow in right after nine-thirty, but I got to thinking. You ever hear of Lips Egan, Archie?”
“Not that I remember.”
“I think I have. I think he used to beat carpets for Joe Slocum on the waterfront. If this is him maybe I showed too many cards and I’m going to be called, and I thought you might want to be around, but if you don’t I can go ahead and play it.”
“Go ahead and play it.”
“Right.” He didn’t sound enthusiastic.
“But wait till I get there. Which side of the avenue is Danny’s on?”
“West.”
“Okay. I’m leaving now. I’ll take the sedan. When you see me park across the street, go on into Danny’s and keep your date. I’ll stay in the car until I hear you scream or they roll your corpse out. If you leave with company I’ll tail. If you leave alone head downtown and keep going, and as soon as I make sure you’re loose I’ll pick you up. Got it?”
“Yeah. How do I play him?”
“As Mr. Wolfe says, you got specific. You’ve bought it, Mr. O’Connor, so hang onto it. I’ll find you a new wife.”
“Any new instructions, Mr. Wolfe?”
“No. Proceed.”
We hung up. From the drawer where I had put them on returning, I got a gun and holster and put them on. Wolfe sat scowling at me. Physical commotion and preparations for it irritate him, but as a practicing detective he defers to the necessity of putting people—me, for instance—in situations where they may get plugged or knifed or shoved off a cliff. In view of his distaste for such doings it’s damn generous of him. I got an old hat and raincoat from the hall closet and left.
After getting the sedan from the garage around the corner, I crossed to Tenth Avenue and headed uptown. The drizzle was worse, if anything, and the mist thicker, but the staggered lights on Tenth Avenue keep you crawling anyhow. Turning right on Fifty-sixth, and again on Ninth Avenue, I made for the left side and slowed. There was a drugstore at the corner of Fifty-fifth. Ahead, across the street, a neon in a window said: Danny’s Bar & Grill. I rolled to the curb and stopped before I was even with Danny’s, killed the engine, and cranked the right window down so I could see through the weather. In half a minute Fred appeared on the opposite side, proceeded to Danny’s, and entered. It was 9:49.
Leaning back comfortably, through the open window I had a good view of Danny’s except when passing cars intervened, and there weren’t many. I decided to wait half an hour, until 10:19, before crossing the street and entering to see if Fred was still intact, but I didn’t have to sweat it out that long. The dash clock said only two minutes past ten when Fred emerged with a man about half his size. The man had his right hand in his pocket and was at Fred’s left elbow, so for a second I thought it was the old convoy game, but then Fred moseyed across the sidewalk, and the man headed uptown.
Fred stood at the curb, giving no sign, and I sat tight. The man turned left on Fifty-fifth. Three minutes passed, Fred standing and me sitting, and then a car came out of Fifty-fifth, turned into the avenue, and stopped where Fred was. The driver was Fred’s companion, and he was alone. Fred got in beside him, and the car rolled.
With my engine still warm, there was nothing to it. I have good night eyes, and even in the drizzle I could give him a full block, and with Ninth Avenue wide and one-way I could keep over to my side, out of the range of his mirror. But I had barely catalogued those points in my favor when he left the avenue, swinging right into Forty-seventh Street. I made a diagonal across the bow of a thousand-ton truck, and the turn. He was on ahead. At Tenth Avenue a red light stopped him, and I braked to a crawl. When the light changed he turned uptown on Tenth, and I just did make the corner in time to see him swing, in the middle of the block, into the entrance of a garage. By the time I floated past he had disappeared inside. I went on by, turned into Forty-eighth, parked a foot beyond the building line, got out, and walked across the avenue to the west side.
The sign said NUNN’S GARAGE. It was an old brick building of three stories—nothing remarkable one way or another. I moved along to an entranceway across from it, stepped in out of the rain, and took a survey. The light inside was dim, and I couldn’t see far into the entrance. On the two upper floors there was no light at all. The only adequate light was in a small room to the right of the entrance with two windows. In it were two desks and some chairs, but no people. When I had stood there ten minutes and still no sign of anyone, I decided that I didn’t like it and it would be a good idea to try to find out why.
After going to the corner and crossing the avenue and coming back on the other side, I stopped smack in the middle of the entrance for a look. No one was in sight, but of course there could have been several platoons deployed among the congregation of cars and buses. I slipped in and to the left, behind a delivery truck, and stood and listened. There were faint sounds of movements, and then somewhere in the rear someone started to whistle “Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin’.” As the whistler came nearer, off to the right, I edged around to the end of the truck. He finished his tune, but his footsteps were just as good on the concrete floor. He kept to the right—his left—almost to the entrance, and then a door opened and closed. He had gone into the office.
I moved fast but quietly, over nearly to the wall and then toward the rear through the maze of vehicles. When bumpers touched I detoured rather than risk a loose bolt under my weight. Halfway back I saw an objective, wooden stairs going up near the corner, and I made for it, but as I approached I became aware of a better objective. There were also steps going down, and up through the opening came the sound of voices. One of them was Fred’s. I went and stood at the top of the steps but couldn’t catch any words.
There’s only one way to reconnoiter in such a situation without exposing your feet and legs before your eyes have a chance. I lay down on my left side with my shoulder above the first step, gripped the upright with my right hand, and gently inched down until my eye was level with the basement ceiling. At first I saw nothing but another maze of cars and parts of cars, fading into darkness, but as I twisted my head around, nearly breaking my neck, I saw and heard that the voices were coming through a doorway in a partition that was apparently one wall of a built-in room. The door was open, but people in the room couldn’t see the stairs unless they came to the door for a look.
I got to my feet and went downstairs, though not that fast. All you can do on a wooden stair is keep to the side, put your weight on each step a little at a time, and hope to God it was a good carpenter. I made it. The basement floor was concrete. I navigated it, now as silently as silence, across to the first car at the right, and behind it, and then slipped along to the next car, and the next. There, crouched in shadow, I could look straight into the room and hear their words. They were seated at a bare wooden table in the middle of the room, the little guy on the far side, facing me, and Fred at the left, in profile. Fred’s hands were on the table. So were the little guy’s, but he had a gun in one of his. I wondered how he got it staged that way, since Fred was not paralyzed, but that could wait. I got my gun from the holster, and it felt good in my hand. With the car to rest on, I could have picked any square inch on him.
He was talking. “Naw, I’m not like that. A guy that plugs a man just because he likes to feel the trigger work, he’s goin’ to get into trouble som
eday. Hell, I’d just as soon not shoot anybody. But, like I told you, Lips Egan don’t like to talk to a man with a gun on him, and that’s his privilege. He ought to be here any minute. Why I’m makin’ all this speech—keep your hands still—I’m goin’ to lift yours now, and you’re big enough to break me up, so don’t get any idea that I never would pull a trigger. Here in this basement we could have a shooting gallery. Maybe we will.”
From the way he held the gun, firm and steady but not tight, he was a damn liar. He did like to feel the trigger work. He kept it firm and steady while he pushed his chair back, got erect, and stepped around back of Fred. From behind a man it’s a little awkward to take a gun from under his left armpit with your left hand, but he did it very neatly and quickly. I saw Fred’s jaw clamp, but except for that he took it like a gentleman. The man backed up a step, took a look at Fred’s gun, nodded approvingly, dropped it into his side pocket, went back to his chair, and sat.
“Was you ever in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania?” he asked.
“No,” Fred said.
“I met a guy there once that made his own cartridges. I’ve never saw nothin’ like it. He claimed his own powder mixture had more zip, but that was all hooey; he was a goddam maniac, that’s all it was. If I ever found myself falling for a nutty idea like that I’d quit and hoe beans. Sure enough, a coupla years later I heard that this guy got it out in St. Louis, Missouri. I guess he musta forgot to put in the zip.”
He laughed. Until then I had had no special personal feeling toward him, but that laugh was objectionable.
“Was you ever in St. Louis, Missouri?” he asked.
“No,” Fred said.
“Neither was I. I understand it’s on the Mississippi River. I’d like to see that goddam river. A guy told me once there’s alligators in it, but I’d have to see ‘em to believe ‘em. About eight years ago I—”
A buzzer sounded—inside the room, I thought. A long buzz, then two short, close together, then another long. The man sidled to the wall, keeping his eyes and the gun on Fred, got his thumb on a button, and pressed it. It looked like one short, two long, and one short. Then he circled to the door and stood straddling the sill, facing the stairs, but with Fred well in range. In a moment there were footsteps overhead, and then the feet appeared on the stairs, descending. I ducked low, behind the car. It would be natural for a new arrival to glance around, and I wasn’t ready to join the party.
“Hello, Mort.”
“Hello, Lips. We been waiting.”
“Is he clean?”
“Yeah, he had a S and W under his arm takin’ his tempachure.”
I stayed down until the newcomer’s steps had crossed to the door and entered, then slowly came up until one eye reached the glass of the car’s door. Mort had circled back to his former position and was standing beside the chair. Lips Egan stood across the table from Fred. He was fairly husky, with saggy shoulders, and was gray all over except for his blue shirt—gray suit, gray tie, gray face, and some gray in his dark hair. The tip of his nose tilted up a little.
“Your name’s O’Connor?” he asked.
“Yes,” Fred said.
“What’s this about Matt Birch and your wife?”
“Someone told me they saw her in a car with him last Tuesday afternoon. I think maybe she was cheating on me. Then he got killed that night.”
“Did you kill him?”
Fred shook his head. “I never heard about her being with him until yesterday.”
“Where were they seen?”
“The car was parked in front of Danny’s. That’s why I went there.”
“What kind of a car?”
“Dark gray Caddy sedan, Connecticut plate. Look, all I want is about my wife. I just want to check her. This man, Mort, whoever he is, he told me you might be able to help me.”
“Yeah, I might be. Where’s his stuff, Mort?”
“I didn’t go through him, Lips. I was waitin’ for you. I just took his gun.”
“Let’s see his stuff.”
Mort told Fred, “Go hug the wall.”
Fred sat. “First,” he said, “about that name O’Connor. I told you that because I didn’t want to use mine, my wife being in it. My name’s Durkin, Fred Durkin.”
“I said go hug the wall. There back of you.”
Fred moved. After he had gone three paces I would have had to edge to the right to keep him in view, and look over the hood, and there was no point in risking it. Mort disappeared too. Faint sounds came, and after a little Mort’s voice, “Stay where you are,” and then he backed into view and took an assortment of objects from his pockets, putting them on the table. They were the usual items of a man’s cargo, but among them I recognized the yellow envelope which held the photos I had delivered to Fred the day before.
Lips Egan, going through the pile, concentrated on that and the wallet and notebook. He took his time with the photos. When he spoke his voice was quite different. Not that it had been sociable, but now it was nasty. “His name’s Fred Durkin, and he’s a private dick.”
“He is? The dirty bastard.”
You might have thought Egan had said he was a dope peddler. He did say, “Get him back in the chair.”
Mort issued a command, and Fred returned into view. He lowered himself into the chair and spoke. “Look, Egan, a private dick has his private life. I heard that my wife—”
“Can it. Who you working for?”
“I’m telling you. I wanted to check—”
“I said can it. Where did you get these pictures?”
“That’s another matter. That’s just business.”
“There’s one of Birch. Where’d you get ‘em?”
“I thought I might get a line on the murder of that Mrs. Fromm and pull something.”
“Who you working for?”
“No one. I’m telling you. For myself.”
“Nuts. Give me the gun, Mort, and get some cord and the pliers.”
Mort handed the gun over, went to a chest of drawers in the rear and opened one, and returned with a brown ball of heavy cord and a pair of pliers. The pliers were medium-sized and had something wrapped around the jaws, but I couldn’t tell what. He came up behind Fred. “Put your hands back here.”
Fred didn’t move.
“Do you want to get slammed with your own gun? Put your paws back.”
Fred obeyed. Mort unrolled a length of cord, cut it off with a knife, went down on his knees, did a thorough job of tying Fred’s wrists, and wrapped the ends of the cord around the rung of the chair and tied them. Then he picked up the pliers. I couldn’t see what he did with them, but I didn’t need to.
“Does that hurt?” he asked.
“No,” Fred said.
Mort laughed. “You be careful. You’re goin’ to answer some questions. If you get excited and start jerkin’ you’re apt to lose a finger, so watch it. All set, Lips.”
Egan was seated across from Fred, with the hand that held the gun resting on the tabletop. “Who you working for, Durkin?”
“I told you, Egan, myself. If you’ll just tell me if you saw my wife with Birch, yes or no, that’s all there is to it.”
Fred finished his sentence, but he gave a little gasp and went stiff in the middle of it. I suppose I could have stood it a little while, maybe up to two minutes, and it would have been educational to see how much Fred could take; but if he got a finger broken, Wolfe would have to pay the doctor bill, and I like to protect the interests of my employer. So I slipped to the right, rested the gun on the hood, drew a bead on Egan’s hand holding the gun, and fired. Then I was around the front of the car on the jump, with all the muscle I had, and springing for the door.
I had seen Mort drop Fred’s gun into his left pocket, and unless he was a switch-hitter I figured that should give me about three seconds, especially since he was down on his knees. But he didn’t wait to get up. By the time I made the door he had flung himself around behind Fred. I dropped flat and from there, looking
underneath the seat of Fred’s chair I saw his left hand leaving his pocket with the gun in it. I had dropped with my gun hand extended in front of me along the floor, and I pulled the trigger. Then I was on my feet again, or rather in the air, coming down behind Fred’s chair. Mort, still on his knees, was reaching for the gun on the floor two feet away, with his right hand. I kicked him in the belly, saw him start to crumple, and jerked around for Egan. He was ten feet toward the rear, stooping over to pick up his gun. If I had known what his condition was I would have stood and watched. As I learned later, the bullet hadn’t touched him. It had hit the cylinder of the gun, tearing it from his grip, and he had been holding it so tight that his hand had been numbed, and now he was trying to pick up the gun and couldn’t. Not knowing that, I went for him, slammed him against the wall, picked up the gun, heard commotion behind me, and wheeled.
Fred had somehow got himself, chair and all, across to where his gun was, and was sitting there with both his feet on it. Mort was on the floor, writhing.
I stood and panted, shaking all over.
“Jesus H. Moses,” Fred said.
I couldn’t speak. Egan was standing against the wall, rubbing his right hand with his left one. Mort’s left hand was bleeding. I stood and panted some more. When the shaking had about stopped I put Mort’s gun in my pocket, got out my knife, and went to Fred and cut the cord.
He took his feet off of his gun, picked it up, stood, and tried to grin at me. “You go lie down and take a nap.”
“Yeah.” I had about caught up on breathing. “That bird upstairs must be curious, and I’ll go up and see. Keep these two quiet.”
“Let me go. You’ve done your share.”
