Seduction of the Innocent (Hard Case Crime)

by Collins, Max Allan

  “It’s not good for anybody,” Feldman said gravely. “Frederick’s already done his damage. That Ravage the Lambs is a nasty genie that won’t go back in the bottle. And hell, maybe he’ll be a martyr now.”

  “I don’t mean to callous,” Price said, “but he was an awful man. A real enemy to everybody here at EF. When somebody tries to put you out of business, you don’t have much sympathy for his problems.”

  “He doesn’t have any more problems, Bob.”

  He swallowed thickly. He looked pale except for his five o’clock shadow. He looked lousy actually, like he hadn’t been sleeping. Had he been up doing a project last night? Working on a story with Feldman, or maybe a solo effort, a typical Suspense Crime Stories yarn with a snap ending, maybe? Like the one about the shrink who said everybody was sick sick sick, then hanged himself?

  “Maggie’s having me look into this,” I said.

  Feldman was smiling, he almost always was, but his eyes weren’t. “Isn’t that the police’s job, Jack?”

  “They’re on their way here now!” Price blurted. He seemed damn near as nervous as he had testifying.

  “Betty told me,” I said with a nod. “The captain of Homicide is a decent guy. His name’s Chandler.”

  “Like Raymond,” Feldman said.

  “Like Raymond, only not like the corrupt cops in those private eye novels of his. This Chandler’s a good man, fair as they come—you’re gonna want to be straight with him.”

  Feldman asked, “Does he know you’re looking into this?”

  I thought about dodging that, but said, “Yes. He knows I’m in the business and that I know the players. He thinks I may be able to help. Hope I can.”

  Price asked, “Are there any suspects?”

  I just looked at him.

  Feldman did the same.

  “Well,” I said, “they picked up Pete Pine today. He’s been going around town bragging about how he was going to strangle Frederick. But they haven’t interrogated him, because they dumped his ass in Bellevue, to dry him out. He’s been on a two- or three-day binge.”

  “Imagine that,” Feldman said with a smirk.

  “Who else do they suspect?” Price asked.

  I laughed, shook my head. “You do remember, don’t you, Bob, threatening to kill Frederick in front of a bunch of reporters?”

  His smile was sickly, his eyes glazed behind the black-rimmed glasses. “Nobody took that seriously! That’s just an expression. A figure of speech.”

  “Not when the guy you said it about is murdered the next day, it isn’t.”

  Price and Feldman exchanged worried expressions. Had they discussed the probability of Price being targeted by the cops for this? Had Price been disingenuous when he asked about who the suspects might be?

  Feldman asked, quietly, “Is it murder, Jack?”

  I leaned back in the comfy chair. “I’m not in a position to go into detail. I’ve been asked by Captain Chandler to keep what I know to myself, for now. But I was at the scene.”

  Price’s black eyebrows were standing damn near straight up, like India-ink exclamation points. “This Captain Chandler, he called you to the scene?”

  “No. I found the body.”

  They didn’t know what to say. Price stubbed out a cigarette and got a new one going. Feldman just leaned back, folded his arms, and watched me like I was a news commentator on TV with an important breaking story.

  “I can tell you it was murder,” I said. “Of that I have no doubt. And I can tell you he was likely killed sometime between midnight last night and seven this morning.”

  “We were together last night,” Feldman said quickly.

  Price had no expression at all, though his mouth hung open a little, making him look vaguely idiotic, like the caricatures of him that appeared in Craze and in the in-house ones taped to the walls.

  “Be more specific,” I said.

  Feldman continued to take the lead. “We were working on springboards till the wee hours, part of it in Bob’s office, part right here in the lounge. Take a look at the ashtray, if you want evidence.”

  I didn’t comment on the quality of that evidence. I asked, “What’s a springboard?”

  “Oh. It’s basically an idea for a story.”

  “A plot?”

  “Not that detailed. We just come up with a premise and a surprise ending. Some ironic way for the villain to get his.”

  Like the one about the shrink who said everybody was sick sick sick, then hanged himself....

  “You didn’t work on ‘springboards’ all night, did you? You surely went home at some point.”

  Feldman said, “My apartment’s only a few blocks from here. When we work late, we go over there and sort of collapse. I’ve got a couch that Bob’s spent more time on than I have.”

  “You’re not married, are you, Hal?”

  “No. Why?”

  “So there’s no little woman to confirm this. Did anybody see you? Getting home at, what time?”

  “Probably three A.M. I guess not.”

  “Anyone else working here at the office last night? Any artist or writer?”

  Feldman shook his head.

  “Did you take a coffee break and maybe hit the all-night deli down the block? Or have anything delivered?”

  “No,” Feldman said. He pointed to an old refrigerator, chugging in the corner. “We ate here.”

  Price finally said something: “Are we in trouble, Jack?”

  Are we in trouble...not, Am I in trouble...

  “It would be nice if you had any kind of witness,” I said, “to this after-hours story session. Or to getting home afterward. You guys are not just partners, but close friends. Somebody’s gonna say one of you is covering for the other.”

  Softly Price said, “You think Hal’s covering for me?”

  “No.”

  Feldman asked, “Or vice versa?”

  “No.”

  Neither guy had the makings of a murderer, not in my book. My only hesitation was the cute, clever nature of the killing—either one or both were the only suspects so far who seemed capable of coming up with such a wacky murder scheme.

  “There’s a better suspect than Bob,” Feldman offered.

  I was thinking, You mean, you?

  But I said, “Love to hear it.”

  “Vince Sarola.”

  Sarola was the owner of Independent Newsstand Services, one of the two major comic-book distributors. He had mob ties, although not to Frank Calabria, who was connected to the rival Newsstand Distribution, Inc. Americana Comics was aligned with the latter, while Entertaining Funnies and Levinson Publications had distribution through the former.

  “I don’t think so,” I said.

  Feldman’s grin was sly. “You don’t think Sarola has a motive? Our sales are down, thanks to Dr. Frederick. And I hear Lev’s titles really took a tumble. Down from three million copies for their top titles to under two.”

  “No,” I said. “This wasn’t a mob hit.”

  Price asked, “What makes you say that?”

  “None of the earmarks.”

  Feldman frowned. “How so?”

  Well, of course, I couldn’t answer him without getting into the killing itself, and I was trying to find a way around that when Betty stuck her head in.

  The pretty brunette looked frazzled. “Bob...Hal. Excuse me. But I have Will Allison out here. He’s very upset. Wants to see you.”

  Bob seemed about to grant permission when Allison came pushing by Betty, saying he was sorry but almost knocking her over. She rolled her eyes and shut the door behind her.

  The kid was in his Wild One get-up, black leather jacket, t-shirt, jeans. His narrow handsome face was overwhelmed by that massive, greasy duck’s-ass haircut.

  The tall skinny trembling figure, on the brink of tears, stood in front of the seated Price and Feldman like a lowly, loyal subject before his rulers.

  “Can you guys front me some dough?” he asked.

&n
bsp; Again, Feldman took the lead. “Why, Will? Sit down, sit down, tell us about it.”

  He swallowed and sat in another secondhand comfy chair across the coffee table from them. He wasn’t exactly sitting next to me, because the chairs were spaced apart and angled in. We had met briefly but he didn’t acknowledge me or even look my way.

  “I gotta get out of town,” he said. “Man, I gotta split right now.”

  Price asked, “Is it this Frederick thing?”

  He nodded, the pompadour bouncing. “I threatened the guy, right there in court!”

  Hadn’t been court exactly, but he did threaten the doc, all right, in a very public place.

  “I got no alibi,” he said. “Not a damn thing!”

  I said, “How do you know that?”

  His face swung toward me and he blinked, as if noticing my presence for the first time. Maybe that was the case.

  “I’m Jack Starr,” I said. “We met the other night.”

  “Uh...I remember.” He looked at Feldman. “Can I talk in front of this guy?”

  Feldman nodded.

  “Will,” I said, “I’m friends with your shrink, Dr. Winters.”

  “My shrink, too,” Price noted quietly.

  “So you know my shrink?” the kid sneered, but it was all show. “So what?”

  Feldman asked, “What good will money do you?”

  The kid jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “I got my motorcycle out front, and I’m gonna hit the road till this blows over. I didn’t do this thing! I’m innocent!”

  “How do you know,” I repeated, “that you don’t have an alibi?”

  He frowned at me, confused, veins standing out on his forehead. “Huh?”

  “Time of death hasn’t been established, much less announced. How do you know when the doctor was killed? For that matter, how do you know he was killed? He might have committed suicide.”

  Allison stared at me agape.

  “Take your time, son,” I said.

  He swallowed. “Well, the radio said, ‘suspicious death.’ I figure that’s murder. I mean, is it any surprise somebody in our business would kill that guy? I don’t mean he deserved it, nobody deserves to get killed, but...he was killing our business.”

  “I wouldn’t share that thought with the police,” I said.

  He sprang to his feet. “That’s why I need some dough! I need to split! They’ll toss me in the can. They’ll fit me up for this! If I’m gone, they’ll look somewhere else. And then I can come back.”

  Feldman was shaking his head. “We don’t have any cash in the office. I couldn’t give you any if I wanted to.”

  “Okay, okay. How about this. I’ll work for you by mail. I’ll move around, one post office box here, another there, I got wheels, I can do this.”

  I said, “Tell me about your lack of alibi, Will.”

  Exasperated, he turned toward me again. “I live with my mom. In Manhattan. My dad’s dead. We got an apartment, and...”

  He was floundering.

  “Is your mom your alibi?” I said. Maybe he’d figured out that a boy’s mother is not the best witness.

  “That’s just it,” he said. “She’s out of town. Visiting my aunt. I was home alone, working on pages for these guys...” He jerked a thumb toward the couch where Price and Feldman sat. “...and I haven’t stuck my head out of there since that courthouse deal.”

  “No contact with neighbors during that time?”

  “No!” He returned his gaze to the publisher and editor. “Fellas, you know I’m good for it. Have you got any cash on you? Just for gas and food. I know I’m not always reliable on deadlines, but picture this—I’ll be on the move, hiding out, keeping my head down. Nothing to do but pencil and ink pages. What do you say?”

  I said, “Will, you need to go to the police of your own volition. Flight is an admission of guilt.”

  “But I’m not guilty!”

  “Then,” Captain Pat Chandler said from the doorway, two uniformed men behind him, “I wouldn’t flee.”

  The Kaiser-Darrin was parked on Lafayette. I’d left it with the top up because leaving a convertible top down on any Manhattan street was a gamble. I had the driver’s side door unlocked when a big beefy hand slid to open it for me.

  “Allow me,” the low rumble of a voice intoned, or something to that effect. He had the diction of Demosthenes before he spit the pebbles out.

  Like his hand, my new friend was big and beefy, a hooded-eyed ex-pug with the standard-issue misshapen nose, puffy scarred-up lips and cauliflower ears. His suit fit him well enough, either tailored or from a big-and-tall shop, but the bulge of a hip holster hadn’t been accounted for. His hat was on the snazzy side, a light green porkpie with a darker green-and-red feather. Perfect for the hood about town.

  “Have we met?”

  “No. I work for Mr. Sarola. He asks in a nice way that you drop by. You drive. I’ll ride.”

  I just looked at him. This was a city street and if I were to shut this thing down, now would be the time and place.

  “This is a friendly invitation,” the guy said.

  “Well, if it’s friendly, how about you give me the address and I drive myself over?”

  He shook his head, just slightly, but enough to make his point. “It ain’t that friendly.”

  Like a hitchhiker you would not in a million years pick up, he jerked a thumb over his shoulder. Parked behind me was a big green Nash from the late ’40s with another big, beefy guy at the wheel, another probable ex-pug, with features so flattened somebody might have hit him in the puss with a garbage can lid. Repeatedly.

  “You got an escort,” he explained.

  Two escorts, actually. The thug (and that’s what he was) who would ride with me, and the other thug who would follow along.

  Down just two cars behind the Nash—these gangsters seemed to like the ’40s models better than the less-sinister ’50s ones—a police car was parked, and behind that Captain Chandler’s unmarked vehicle, a blue Ford I knew well. If I stalled long enough, maybe Chandler would be down with Will Allison and possibly Price and Feldman, on the way to the Tenth Precinct, and I could attract his attention and find a way to decline this “friendly” invitation.

  “You get in,” the beefy guy said. “Unlock the door on my side. No funny business. Even Uncle Miltie don’t make me laugh.”

  “Even in a dress?”

  No reaction.

  Okay, so no funny business. I slid in behind the wheel and unlocked the door on his side. I was not wearing a gun—I rarely did—and no other weapon was hidden away in the glove compartment, either. The only thing I had in common with those well-armed private eyes on TV was the license in my billfold.

  The guy was almost too big for the convertible, and he had to take off the feathered hat to keep from smashing it, which actually was fairly comical, despite his ban on funny business. I might have smiled if I wasn’t getting taken for some kind of ride, probably not the permanent variety, but a ride nonetheless. And suffering the indignity of providing my own car and driving my own damn self, at that.

  The address was in the Printing District, which was centered around Hudson and Varick Street, near the Holland Tunnel. Not much of a ride really, but an agonizingly slow one at rush hour. I made several unsuccessful attempts at conversation (“Any idea what Mr. Sarola wants to see me about?” “What name did you box under?”) that got nowhere. When we finally arrived, the massive brick warehouse took up half a block, with enough wear, soot and fade to date back to the turn of the century. An automatic door went up, big enough for several good-size trucks to enter side-by-side, and both my little convertible and the big ugly Nash rolled in. The door closed behind us.

  The warehouse was not bustling. This was after five o’clock, and the place was just a big, high-ceilinged box, its darkness interrupted by conical lights hanging high up, with boxes and bundles of comic books and other periodicals stacked everywhere. Walls of the boxes were at the right and left of whe
re we’d parked, and up ahead was another wall of boxes in front of which sat a massive ancient desk with a banker’s green-shaded lamp on it and a man seated behind it.

  The man was Vince Sarola.

  Sarola was a big guy, not as big as his goons but big enough—let’s just say he never had a need for shoulder pads in his custom suits. He was natty, as so many top gangsters are, this afternoon wearing a light green tropical suit with a pale yellow shirt and green-and-yellow tie; even his dark complexion had a greenish tinge, or maybe that was the lamp.

  He bore a massive head with naturally dark, wavy hair that he kept glisteningly immaculate. His eyebrows were heavy slashes from a charcoal pencil riding a slightly protruding forehead, his eyes dark and large, his nose well-formed but big, his lips thick, grooves of past dissatisfactions making vertical lines in his cheeks. He had a prominent facial mole low on one cheek, and yet he had a brutally handsome look. That had helped a parade of chippie mistresses, over the years, put up with him, that and his dough.

  Nobody held onto me as I walked over to Sarola, who smiled at me like I was an old friend who’d dropped by, and rose to extend a hand across the desk, which was cluttered with various bills of lading and other paperwork. But I could hear the hollow echo of footsteps on cement of the big men following me.

  I shook with Sarola, who had a skillet of a hand; he sat, and so did I, in a hard wooden chair that had been waiting. It was cold in the warehouse, but not freezing or anything. No need for heat with winter a memory, even when a couple of unseasonably cool days came along like we’d had lately. The smell in there combined ink from the periodicals piled around and grease from the trucks that would roll in and out of here. We four seemed to be alone—no sound of anyone else in the vast chamber.

  Sarola ran Independent Newsstand Services. This was only one of several INS warehouses in Manhattan—he covered the entire nation, with his string of warehouses and fleet of trucks—and comic books were the backbone of his business. He distributed girlie magazines, men’s adventure rags and low-end paperbacks, too. But he was very much in second place to Newsstand Distribution, Inc., which had the most popular comic-book line in the country (Americana) as well as the best of the slick magazines and paperback companies.