by Dale Bogard
“Bella,” I told her, “you’re a smart girl. When I become famous I shall appoint you as my secretary.”
“I shall hold you to it,” she said gaily, adding, “Mr. O’Cassidy is waiting in your apartment. He said he was sure you wouldn’t mind and that he’d be mixing a drink for you.”
I said, “That’s fine. Just give him a call and tell him I’ll be there in ten minutes—if I can get out of this traffic.”
It was exactly twelve and a half minutes later when I walked into my apartment. O’Cassidy had looted four bottles of Budweiser from the icebox.
“Don’t you have no whisky in this dump of yours?” he asked.
“Cass,” I said, “I’m a poor man. And, besides, I was in England during the war, I acquired the Englishman’s fondness for beer. There’s a fine old inn in Cheshire where I…”
“Yeah,” said Cass, “I remember. You used to eat there Saturday nights. You told me.”
“Yes?”
“Yeah, you did.” He brooded for a moment. “I don’t want to hear no more boosts for England. When I think of Cromwell…”
I sailed my hat onto a chair. “All right,” I said, “let it ride. Suppose you tell me what you’re doing here opening my booze.”
O’Cassidy pushed his hat back. He said, very slowly, “A guy who calls himself George Clark was found in a bed at Mike Hannigan’s place with a Task Force dagger sticking out of his chest.”
I didn’t know what the comeback was to that, so I didn’t try to improvise one.
“Hannigan buzzed us at headquarters. Sounded like he was in a panic. I went with a couple of uniformed men. Mike says he gets uneasy when this bird don’t come down for no meals or even ring for sumpin’. So up goes Mike and there is the paying guest as cold as last Sunday’s roast. Another nice, neat job. The way it looks to me, Mr. George Clark—” O’Cassidy pronounced the name with sardonic emphasis “—never knew what was coming to him.”
I thought Mike has kept me out of this for some reason. Aloud I said, “Better to collect it that way, huh?”
Cass gave me one of those unwinking homicide bureau stares which mean you’d better watch yourself, bub, or the wagon will be taking you to the Tombs so fast you’ll think you’re an odds-on bet for the Kentucky Derby.
“Was that the way you figured it when you found the body?” he asked.
I looked right back. “Did I find it?”
“Look,” he said, “I don’t have to tell you, but I will go out of my way to say Mike didn’t come across with a thing. Maybe he thought life was getting complicated enough without bringing you into it.”
“So you complicated it for him?”
“No, I let Mike kid himself along for the time being.”
There didn’t seem to be anything to say.
O’Cassidy went on, “You showed me a nice bland face when I moved in on you this morning and I didn’t like the look of it one little bit. So I put a tail on you.”
I fetched out one of those rueful grins. “Seems I’m only half as smart as I think.”
Suddenly, Cass let his voice crackle. “I told you to keep outa the police’s hair, but I knew damn well you’d go right ahead sticking your chin out. Okay, if that’s the way you want to play it. You’ve been a personal friend of mine ever since you came here, Dale—but I’m here to tell you that it won’t stop me taking you in for a grilling with no punches pulled if I think that’s what I have to do. And a third degree session ain’t no picnic.”
“Okay,” I said, “I’ll give. But what the hell does it add up to? I ride the subway express and walk a few more blocks to Mike Hannigan’s place because I am playing a hunch…”
“What hunch?” Cass cracked the word like he was chewing on steel filings.
“I remembered that guys sometimes use Mike’s place as an hotel when it isn’t convenient to stay someplace else. Maybe I should keep my nose out of things, but I got the idea that the man who knifed Grierson was likely to hide out in New York and that there was a chance he might have an introduction to Mike Hannigan. I was right both times—that’s all.”
O’Cassidy was about to speak when I thought of something else. “I’m sure Mike knew nothing about this guy,” I said.
“Yeah—you checked on that, didn’t you?” said Cass.
I let that one drift with the tide, but Cass fetched it back.
“The dick who tailed you followed you into that roominghouse in the Fifties. Or rather, he went in when you come out. He had words with the girl behind the desk.”
“You seem to know it all,” I told him.
“You went into th’ Longmoor to see a guy named Harry Bule, a two-bit bookmaker who runs a cigar stand on Broadway.” He paused while he picked up his drink. “That icebox of yours keeps the beer real cool,” he said.
“How else would it keep it?” I asked.
“That’s right,” he said. “How else would it? And how else would George Clark get into Mike Hannigan’s place if Harry Bule didn’t speak up for him?”
I let that one go, too, but I might as well not have tried.
“Who gives Bule his orders?” he repeated.
“Bule told me these things were fixed by phone. He said he had never met the man who buzzed him. He got paid in dollar bills which were mailed to him.” I started filling my pipe. “Why don’t you take Bule in and ask him yourself?”
O’Cassidy set his drink down and said clearly, “Because Bule has taken it on the lam. The man who tailed you came down to Center Street to report. He hadn’t any reason to pull Bule in—and when we sent two bluecoats back up to th’ Longmoor later, Bule had blown. He ain’t been seen since.”
He handed me another of those long, flat stares. “We didn’t have a tail on you after you quit the Longmoor. Maybe we should have had. Care to say where you’ve been tonight?”
“No,” I said “I wouldn’t care.”
O’Cassidy reached for his old raincoat. “I’m going to let you have a little more rope. It ain’t going to ball my end up.” He paused at the door and said over his shoulder, “Only it won’t do you no good to squawk if you gets tied up in a knot. You’d better keep that in mind.”
Then he was gone again.
I picked up the phone and got the Skyline number. Mr. Canting purred into the mouthpiece.
“Yes, Mr. Bogard?”
I grinned into my end. “It’s getting cold nights,” I said. “Maybe you should put some warm clothes on Marie.”
“Indeed, is that all…”
“No,” I said. “Not quite. Detective-lieutenant O’Cassidy is getting all set to take the town apart.”
“Indeed?”
“Yes, indeed. He has a tail on me.” I didn’t think it necessary to tell him that Cass had taken the tail off because it suited him.
Mr. Canting made a small noise into the instrument.
“So it will be just too bad if the police tail ends up tailing the Canting tail, won’t it?”
“It could be embarrassing,” he admitted. “Thank you for telling me. I shall see that your movements are unhampered, Mr. Bogard. By the way, you…er…”
“That’s right,” I said, “I kept my part of the bargain.”
“Excellent. Goodbye, Mr. Bogard.”
“Au revoir,” I said.
I walked whistling into my little bedroom and switched on the center light. The room had a French window opening onto a verandah which gives access to a fire escape leading down to the alleyway at the back of the block. I was suddenly aware that the drapes across the window were slightly parted. I hadn’t left them like that. I frowned. O’Cassidy must have been snooping. Somehow, I hadn’t thought he would do that.
Then I knew he hadn’t. The drapes lifted just a little as though there was a draught blowing. I moved over and wrenched them aside. The windows were ajar. I stepped out onto the verandah. Nothing. I closed the windows, pulled the drapes and went back into the room. I stood quite still letting my eyes take it all in.
&nb
sp; I quit when I looked at the floor immediately in front of my clothes closet. Those icy fingers were running up and down my spine again. There was a trickle of dull brownish-red fluid seeping under the closet door and soaking into the carpet.
If my knees were knocking I wouldn’t be surprised. But I managed to make it. I got hold of the knobs on each of the closet doors and swung them wide open.
Next moment I was struggling with a body. It fell out into my arms. It was the body of a sallow-faced man wearing a flashy suit. His jacket was flapping open and there was a lot of congealed blood around the two small holes in the middle of his shirt. His eyes were wide open and his features were twisted in the last expression they ever had. Not a nice expression. But I knew who the man was.
It was Harry Bule.
CHAPTER EIGHT
IT WAS ELEVEN O’CLOCK in the morning when I got out of bed, feeling as though I hadn’t been there more than a half hour. The homicide boys, the fingerprint experts, the photoflash men and a couple of criminal lawyers from the D.A.’s office had been camping out in my apartment until 3:00 a.m. They had asked all the questions in the book, taken all my suits out and put them back, looked under the carpet and covered all the show surfaces with graphite powder. They didn’t tell me whether they had found anything. They didn’t have to tell me. I knew damn well they hadn’t. The only thing you could say was that somebody had bumped Bule, carried him up the fire escape and dumped him in my closet. If the idea was to throw a scare into me, it had. When I got into bed I had carefully locked all the doors and windows, oiled and cleaned an old Luger and borrowed some shells from O’Cassidy, who didn’t even ask if I had a licence—though I had. I woke up three times in what was left of the night and every time I found my hand under the pillow hanging on to the Luger.
I awoke with a headache which appeared to have started in my feet, getting steadily worse on the way up. My mouth seemed to be using a tongue from a hobo’s cast-off boot. I put eight helpings of coffee into the percolator and took a hot bath and a cold shower while it was brewing. I began to feel part human by the time I had shaved. The coffee and three aspirins settled it. I could bear conversation now, if nobody spoke higher than a whisper.
I skipped breakfast and walked all the way to Central Park. It was early fall but the day seemed to have strayed in from summer. I sat in the sun watching the young matrons with their baby carriages and the old men who had nothing to do and wished they were young again and the shop clerks who strolled to and fro around lunchtime.
Next thing I knew I was waking up again. My watch said it was three-fifteen. I had slept two and a half hours. I was hungry now but it was the wrong time to eat. I went swimming instead. I hiked up to an under-glass plunge bath where I go to keep myself fit and kid myself I’m still young—until the twenty-year-olds start doing double flips off the fifteen-foot springboard. But, hell, I can kid myself every once in a while, can’t I?
The only other swimmer was a tall, olive-skinned girl with long black wet hair which she didn’t bother to tuck under her cap. She swam with an effortless crawl and gave me a friendly eye twice but I wasn’t in the mood for swimming-pool small talk. I’d have passed up Esther Williams right then. Besides, I had a date. I’d forgotten it, but the presence of the longhaired girl in the two-piece swimsuit brought it back.
I climbed out, towelled and dressed, and bought myself coffee and frankfurters at a drugstore counter on the way back to my apartment. By the time I had changed my clothes it was time to get the convertible and keep that date.
I got stalled in a traffic pile-up but I finally made the Wall Street country with five minutes to spare. I pulled into the side and killed the motor. I didn’t go into the office block. I stayed in the car smoking a pipe and leafing through the afternoon editions. The evening editions had Bule on page one in a thirty-six point headline with over half a column of text from which it appeared that Detective-lieutenant O’Cassidy had everything under control and would be arresting somebody any minute now. Like hell he would. O’Cassidy is one smart operator but even O’Cassidy has to have a clue, and at this moment there wasn’t one that pointed any place in particular.
Then Miss Julia Casson stepped through the swing doors and moved over the sidewalk. I stuck my head through the window and said, “Hello.” She was wearing a Russian ermine coat which swung open to announce a soft woolen two-piece in pastel blue. After that came mile-long legs in nylons and ending in black court shoes. She had a large blue saucer poised on top of her magnificent mane. She looked cool, composed, competent and bedworthy but I decided not to tell her. She knew it already.
“Where to, big man?”
“You’ll like this,” I said. “We’re going to the Village.”
She smoothed her two-piece in order to draw attention to her legs, but she was a little late for that.
Then she said, “Not the Oval room at the Ritz Carlton, then?”
“No.”
“Or the Persian Room at the Plaza?”
“No.”
“Or even the El Morocco?”
“No.”
“Okay,” she said, “what do we do—dig some Dixieland at Eddie Condon’s?”
“We’re not going to Eddie’s tonight,” I said. “There is a new place that’s opened nearby. We’re going to try that.”
She got out a cigarette and eyed me sideways. “You don’t look the kind of man who would go for that hot jazz music.”
“You never can tell,” I said. “Maybe it reminds me of my youth.”
“Your misspent youth?”
“I fear not.”
“What a shame. It’s time you had some fun, big man.”
“Yeah,” I said, “maybe. But not just this minute.”
The drive was as trying as it always is in this city. I went out of the way to buy tobacco and again to see if a detour would speed things up. It didn’t. Fifty-second Street was dead except for Jimmy Ryan’s, bravely reminding you that this was once the hottest street in jazz. We drove south on West Third Street, made a couple of right-hand turns and we were there.
It was a little club dispensing better-than-most food and jazz of the kind that would stack up to Mr. Condon’s standards, even though the seven-piece didn’t have the benefit of Wild Bill Davidson’s resounding brass. The place had been opened by Marty Alton on part of the fortune he had inherited from his recently lamented father and Marty had ideas about cooking and music. I thought it would be all right and it was.
The horseshoe bar had the most glittering array of hard liquor I had seen. It also had beer on draught, which was all right by me. The floor was the usual stamp-sized affair but nobody bothered to dance. The seven-piece was located on a platform which rose only a foot from the floor and the boys were giving out that kind of noise. That was all right by me, too.
The place was already more than three-parts full but we wedged ourselves into a table for two and ordered porterhouse steaks with all the trimmings.
I said, “I found a dead man in my clothes closet last night.”
Her cigarette stopped half-way to her mouth, and her pupils widened out as if somebody had shot them full of atrophine.
“A sharp little guy named Harry Bule,” I went on. “It’s in the afternoon papers.”
“I haven’t read them.” She paused a moment, then: “Is…it something connected with…the…”
I said it was. I told her. She didn’t speak, but when I finished she shivered a little.
“Somebody,” she said at last, “wants you out of all this. Canting, the sybaritic gentleman with the glass furniture?”
“It could be.”
Suddenly she reached out a hand and let her fingers touch mine. Her eyes looked at me unwinkingly.
“Why don’t you?”
“You mean quit?”
“Yes,” she said quietly. “Why should you go on with it? You don’t want to put your life in danger for the sake of writing a book. It’s too absurd.”
“Well,�
� I said, “when I gave up newspaper work to write, the idea was merely to look around for some current color and marry it to my own knowledge and background. I guess I didn’t expect to fly straight into a series of killings. The trouble is, I’m an inquiring guy. Maybe I shouldn’t—but I’d like to see what comes next and the only way I can see it is to stay on the case until it cracks.”
“Or until some hood cracks your basal structure with a bludgeon.”
“Maybe.”
“Dale, don’t go on with it—please.”
She said it so violently I stared at her. “Why should you worry?” I asked.
Her gaze fell, then peeked up. “It could be that I like you,” she said simply. “I wouldn’t like to see you hurt.”
“Look,” I told her, “too much has happened for me to turn it up now. When they start leaving dead guys in your closet to scare you off you just naturally get damn curious. I’m so damn curious I mean to find out what makes Sammy run if it takes me all winter.”
Then the food came. I looked across a half-pound steak and said, “Have you seen Cornel Banningham?”
“Yes, he landed this afternoon, came straight to the office and went into conference.”
“What’s he like?”
“Tall, dark, slim. Brown eyes. Good-looking if you don’t mind men who have slack mouths and the kind of morals that go with them.”
“Smart guesser, huh?”
“I can tell.”
“What else?”
“Oh, I guess he’s pleasant enough. Dresses well, too. English clothes. Immaculate cut. Quiet, no tie-clasps or silver bracelets.” She broke off. “What are you looking at?”
“I am looking,” I said, “at a tall, slim guy wearing English clothes of immaculate cut. He’s just walked in. I can’t see whether he wears a bracelet…”
She was following my gaze.
“That,” she said, “is Mr. Banningham Jr.”
He was alone and standing at the entrance to the bar with an air of insolent grace, letting his eyes run casually over the crowded floor. Suddenly, they stopped running around. They had focused on Miss Julia Casson, and the heir to the Banningham dough and the Banningham troubles was on his way to us with that kind of easy assurance which makes for a straight passage through the most crowded restaurant.
