Atlanta Deathwatch

by Ralph Dennis

  “You want to know if she’s eighty or twenty.”

  I nodded. “And bring back something to eat.”

  He closed the door. I watched him stride down the street, looking like every Southern white lady’s black-rape nightmare. The way he walked, it wouldn’t take him long. I figured about ten minutes, each way. Maybe a couple of minutes for the phone call. So twenty-five minutes. If Alice was the hot crotch, I could figure on Lockridge being there for a time. At least that long. Hell, he looked corrupt enough to like it with whips.

  Ten minutes passed. I got out the Hennessey and sipped at it. Now and then a car would pass, but I’d see the lights in time and flatten out across the seat.

  I’d cracked the window on the passenger side. Otherwise I might not have heard it. It was a distant pop, pop, pop, like somebody breaking balloons. I slid to the passenger side and looked up. Perhaps I’d have written it off, but with the next pop there was the tinkle of glass, and the front right window on the second floor broke, and I could see the shattered pane with the lights behind it.

  I was out of the car on a run. I cut across lawns and jumped one low hedge. I reached the white stucco house and did the steps two at a time. The door to the hallway was locked. I tried to force it with my shoulder and, when that didn’t work, I got my gun out and broke the window section of the door with the butt and reached in. I got the inside doorknob and twisted it, and I was in the hallway, skidding on the glass fragments, and then getting my balance and springing for the stairs. I knew I was making too much noise, and my breathing hurt. After the run, my legs weren’t steady. Goddamn middle age, anyway! But I kept going, using the banister, until I reached the landing. Ahead of me was a narrow walkway or hall, with the banister to my right and the stairwell below it; on my left was a wall unbroken by doors. The main door was at the end of the walkway, and I was halfway there when the lights went out. It must have been one of those two-way switches, activated from inside the apartment.

  The door opened, but there was no light in the apartment beyond. I braced myself and started to bring my gun up. At that moment, the man ran into me. I caught the smell of shaving lotion and tobacco and sweat, and the soft brush of tweed across my face. A knee or a fist hit me about waist high, and the wind went out of me. I tried to bring the gun up, but something hit my right shoulder, and my whole arm went numb. The gun flew out of my hand, and I heard it land on the stairwell below. I swung at him with my left hand and missed, but my hand grabbed cloth and held on. At the same time, I felt a hand on the back of my neck pushing my head down. The cloth I held onto tore, and something struck me on the back of the head. The tearing seemed to go on, and I thought it was my skin tearing that I heard. I felt myself falling, and there must have been a second blow on my head. Maybe there was even a third. The last thing I felt was the rough carpet slapping against the side of my face.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  I was still in the hallway, but pushed to one side. I felt the wall all down my right side. People were passing me, going both ways, and a dark shape loomed over me, blotting out the light. There was wet cloth on my face, and the top of my head was throbbing to my heartbeat.

  “Hardman, Hardman, you all right?”

  “Hump?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I feel like God’s worst hangover.” I tried to push myself up into a sitting position. “Help me up.”

  Hump pulled me to my feet and steadied me. I was dizzy, and the throbbing in my head got worse, and I thought I was going to throw up. I choked it down, feeling the bubble of vomit just below the back of my throat. But it stayed down. “Art here?”

  “Inside.” Hump led me into the apartment. The lights were too bright there, and I stood blinking until Art came over.

  “Back with us, huh?” Art took my other arm and they led me over to a soft chair and sat me down. While Art made notes, I told them what had happened after Hump had left to go the 7-11 store. When I was done, I said, “Picked up Lockridge yet?”

  “As soon as the meat wagon gets here,” Art said.

  I’d been looking at the form on the floor. It was covered with a sheet, but a woman’s feet and shoes stuck out at the bottom. “I thought . . . ”

  “Alice Jarman or whoever she is got it in here. Lockridge got as far as the front bedroom. One of the shots that got him must have broken the windowpane, and the one you heard. The way we read it, the girl got it first, once in the chest and once in the head. Lockridge made a run for the bedroom, got hit once on the way, and then got hit three more times, including one in the back of the head.”

  “Six shots,” Hump said, “and maybe no time to reload.”

  “That might be why you’re still alive,” Art said. He reached into his topcoat pocket and brought out a wad of cloth. “Hump found this in your hand.”

  “I remember a tearing sound, but I thought that was my head.” I got the wad of cloth and spread it out. It was the inside pocket from a jacket or a coat. J.Mabry. Atlanta, Charlotte, Richmond. I passed it to Art and he dropped it into his pocket once more. “Very exclusive place. Do a background check on you before they even consider tailoring for you. Don’t want their clothes to be worn by gangsters or disreputable people.”

  “I’ve called the manager. He’s staying after closing hours.” Art looked at his watch. “He’s expecting me now. You got anybody you want checked our? Anybody you think might have their tailoring done by Mabry?”

  “Two,” I said. “No, make that three. Ben Coleman, Hugh Muffin and Arch Campbell.”

  “Muffin, your client?”

  “Just because he’s my client doesn’t mean he walks on water.” I shook my head. “Whoever it was must be built like a fullback. Muffin’s too old and soft, and so is Campbell.”

  “That leaves Coleman,” Hump said.

  Art closed his notebook with a loud smack. “First, let’s see what Mabry has. Where you going to be, Hardman?”

  “Emergency room, first,” Hump said. “Then his place.”

  “While you’re there,” I said after Art, “see about one of their three hundred and fifty dollar bargain suits.”

  At the doorway, Art turned and gave me the finger.

  After the hospital, where a patch of hair was shaved and a few stitches taken on my scalp, Hump drove me home. I told Hump to look in the cabinet for the J&B, and I went into the bedroom and called Marcy. She wanted to come over but I told her, in the shape I was in, I’d be the worst gentleman suitor around, and how about Christmas Eve instead? She said fine, and I said I’d call her.

  Hump sat at the kitchen table with the bottle of J&B and a glass. My flask of Hennessey was on the table, next to my .38.

  “Found it on the stairs,” Hump said.

  I got myself a shot glass and drank a bit of the cognac. “Anybody around when you got there?”

  “Nobody in the neighborhood even cracked a window. Talk about New York City, and that woman getting killed in the courtyard. Shit! There could have been a war in the street, and nobody’d have looked.”

  “I can’t blame them.” I touched the taped patch on the back of my head. “Look what it got me.”

  “It could have got you dead.” Hump went to the refrigerator and looked in. “We never did have any supper. Your head might be dulling your appetite, but mine’s still sharp.”

  “Pack of roast beef in the foil.”

  “Got it.” Hump loaded up the table with the sandwich and snack stuff I’d bought to replace the spoiled food from Eddie Spence’s visit about five or six days before. “About your head. I thought you lost it back there.”

  “Maybe.” I reached across and picked off a slice of roast beef.

  “Maybe, shit! Charging upstairs into a gun fight . . . by yourself.”

  I chewed on the beef. “I guess it was impulsive of me.” It was hard forcing it down, but I wanted something in my stomach. “If I had it to do over, I might sit down in the dark yard and wait for him to come to me. Unless he went out the back door, a
nd left me with egg on my face.”

  “Better than a bullet in it.”

  Art called. “Hardman, you got two out of three, and an almost on the third. Hugh Muffin’s been a customer for about ten years, Ben Coleman for about two years, and Arch Cambell just made application.”

  “Where are you?”

  “At the department, trying to get a search warrant for Coleman’s apartment. If it’s Coleman, I want to get there before he has a chance to get rid of the coat.”

  “Where’s his apartment?”

  “The Mesa Verde apartments, 8 E.” A pause. “Why?”

  “I can’t sleep. Hump and I’ll drive over there and sit out front until you get there.”

  “Sure you’re up to it?”

  “What’s ten stitches, more or less?”

  “All right,” Art said, “but don’t flush him.”

  “I’ve got this idea,” I said. “I’m the one with the busted head, right?”

  “Right.”

  “Before you get there, Hump and I could talk to him. With me, he can’t ask for his lawyer.”

  “Or choose to remain silent,” Art said.

  “People just look at Hump and start talking.”

  “See you there.”

  The door to 8E opened a few inches. Ben Coleman squinted out at us, then flicked on the porch lights. “What do you want, Hardman?”

  “I wanted to talk to you about the reward.”

  “Not tonight,” Coleman said. “Come and see me in the morning and . . . ”

  Hump stepped around me and put his shoulder to the door. Coleman fell away from the door and we went inside. Hump closed the door and put on the chain lock. Coleman, in a bathrobe and pajamas, watched this with a hard eye. “I’m not sure the police will . . . ”

  “That’s tomorrow,” I said. “Right now, the police don’t have anything to do with it.” I gave Hump a nod. “You know what we’re looking for.”

  Hump moved around Coleman and went into the bedroom. Coleman turned his head, following Hump, and then looked back at me. “You know this is an illegal search.”

  “As illegal as it can get,” I said. “But I’m not the police, so it won’t get to court.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” He sounded angry, but there was a lot of bluff in it.

  “What it sounds like.” I looked around the room. “You got a drink?”

  “Over there.” He pointed to a cabinet near the bedroom door. “I think there’s a vague threat in this somewhere.”

  “It’s not vague.” I got out a glass and a bottle of Walker Red. “Let’s just say I’m pissed, and I’ve got a lump on my head and a headache. That’s enough for me.”

  “Enough for what?”

  “So I won’t lose sleep if you end up in a garbage dump somewhere.”

  “That’s not funny.” Under his winter tan, he’d paled some.

  “Who’s trying to be funny?”

  The rattling around in the bedroom ended with the slamming of a door, and Hump came back in. “Lots of suits and sport coats with the Mabry label. None with a torn pocket.”

  I sipped at the scotch and looked at Coleman. “Find a tweed topcoat?”

  “No topcoat in there, tweed or otherwise.”

  Coleman dropped his eyes.

  “That’s strange, isn’t it? A well-dressed fellow like this without a topcoat.” I motioned at the bottle of Walker Red. “Be his guest, Hump.”

  “Why not?” He poured himself a big shot. “He’s not going to need it.”

  Coleman jerked his eyes open. “I know you’re bluffing. You just don’t go around killing people in cold blood.”

  “Mine’s not cold at the moment.” I held out my glass and Hump topped it off. “No topcoat, huh?”

  “It’s at the cleaners.”

  “Which one?”

  His lips moved, but nothing came out for a few seconds. “The one on Briarcliff. I forget the name.”

  “That’s a fat lie,” Hump said. “He tossed it out of the car somewhere.”

  I watched his eyes. Nothing.

  “Or it’s in the incinerator,” I said.

  His eyes. Still nothing. “Or in the trunk of his car.” I watched his eyes and he blinked. That might not mean much, but it was worth a try. “See if you can find his car keys.”

  “They’re on the dresser,” Hump said. “I saw them a second ago.”

  While Hump was in the bedroom, I leaned over Coleman. “Which car’s yours?”

  “You know so much, you find it.”

  “Smartass.” I hit him across the mouth with my open hand. “But I think you’re telling me something, Ben.”

  His tongue licked at the left corner of his mouth. I must have cut the inside of his mouth. “That kind of search, it’ll never stand up in court.”

  “I keep losing you. I don’t think you’re listening. You’re the one who keeps talking about this going to court, not me.” I slugged down the rest of my drink and got out my handkerchief. Without looking at him I wiped the glass and put it back in the cabinet. “I just want to be sure in my mind before I do anything rash.”

  “Here they are.” Hump tossed me the car keys.

  I looked down at the half-dozen or so keys and the miniature license tag. “It’s better you don’t help us, anyway. This way, I can keep my mad going.” I read off the tag numbers to Hump and tossed the keys back to him. “It ought to be out front, probably on this side of the street.”

  I heard a couple of car doors slam out front. I went to the front window and looked out. Art was coming up the walk with two uniformed cops.

  “No help,” I said to Coleman. “It’s a friend.”

  I unhooked the chain lock and let Art in. “Coleman hasn’t been too helpful.”

  “His scotch is okay, though,” Hump said.

  “The search warrant you’ve got,” I asked, “does that cover his car too?”

  All nodded. He showed the warrant to Coleman. I tossed him the keys. “I think the topcoat’s in his trunk.”

  “Which is your car?” Art asked.

  Coleman shook his head.

  “You see? Not helpful. The tag numbers are on the key chain.”

  “Oh, what the hell,” Coleman said. “It’s the tan Dodge.”

  “That’s more like it.” Art sent the two uniformed cops out to search the car trunk. He closed the outside door and leaned his back against it. “Why’d you kill Lockridge and the girl?”

  “I didn’t kill the girl or Lockridge.”

  “The coat with the torn-off pocket, that’ll place you there. That’s step one. We’ll build up the rest of it.” Art looked at me. “We could make a love triangle out of it. You and Lockridge had it out over the girl. You got mad and killed both of them.”

  “I hardly knew the girl,” Coleman said.

  “I’ve got a witness who’ll say otherwise,” Art said. “Right, Jim?”

  “Sure.” I grinned at Coleman. “I was following you. In my notebook, I’ve got four or five times you went over to the Jarman girl’s place around midnight and stayed until the next morning.”

  “Anything else?” Art asked.

  “You mean something that’ll give us a motive? Let’s see. How’s this? One night, I heard Coleman and this Alice girl having a hell of an argument in a parking lot. Coleman was saying he knew she was seeing Lockridge, and she’d better stop it or else.” I winked at Hump, letting Ben Coleman see me doing it. “You got any idea what parking lot that was, Hump?”

  “It’d be a high-class place,” Hump said. “The Chateau, maybe.”

  “That was it, the Chateau.”

  “That ties it up,” Art said. “Relationship with the girl, motive for the killings and, with the topcoat, we place you there, Coleman. That’s murder one.”

  “You’re serious?” Coleman looked like he might faint. “You really serious?”

  “That’s my case.” Art nodded toward me. “What do you think, Jim?”

  “I’d buy
it. And to strengthen it, we’ll add Hump. Hump’ll say he was with me two or three times.”

  “Right.” Hump laughed. “I was with you that night outside the Chateau when he had the shout-out with the girl, and I was with you twice when you had the girl’s apartment staked out. Coleman, you stayed to breakfast both times.”

  “Art, you’ll get a citation for breaking this one,” I said.

  “It was easy,” Art said. “The wonder is, it took as long as it did. I should have known two hours ago.”

  “It wasn’t me,” Coleman choked out. I could barely hear him.

  “Speak up,” Art said. “I can’t hear you.”

  “I didn’t do it. Hugh Muffin did.”

  Lockridge reached Hugh at a cocktail party at the Regency, around four-thirty. Lockridge was in such a panic that Hugh could hardly understand him. There was something about two men coming by asking questions about Mullidge, and saying that the police would be by to ask the same questions. And they’d frightened his secretary into a mild case of shock. To calm him, Hugh said he’d meet Lockridge right away, and they’d settled on Alice Jarman’s apartment. It was a safe meeting place they’d used before. Hugh and Coleman arrived first and parked down the street. They had a drink with Alice Jarman, and Lockridge appeared not long after them. At first, it seemed that Hugh had it under control, that he had Lockridge snowed. It turned out that it wasn’t that way at all. Lockridge was frayed around the edges. He kept saying that his only connection with the case was that he’d gotten Mullidge off on the theft-from-auto charge. He wasn’t about to take any of the rap for murder. Yes, he knew about the murder of the girl, and he wasn’t about to . . .

  That was when Hugh went berserk. He pulled his hand from his pocket and there was a gun in it. The girl got in the way and took the first slug, and she went down hard. Hugh winged Lockridge as he ran for the bedroom, and then Hugh followed him into the bedroom and finished him off. He was still in the bedroom when Coleman got over the panic and shock. He was afraid that Hugh would kill him, too, and that was when he switched off the lights and made a run for it. It was then, out in the hallway, that he ran into Hardman. He got by Hardman, but not without losing part of his topcoat. The rest of it was out of the same nightmare. He’d come over in Hugh’s car, and now he had run for what seemed like miles until he reached a service station. He got a cab and rode downtown to the Regency, where he picked up his car. On the drive home, he discovered the torn inside pocket of the topcoat. When he reached the apartment, he locked the topcoat away in the trunk of his car while he tried to decide what to do with it. Whether to destroy it or try to have it repaired.