by P. N. Elrod
I slumped. We were too late.
The bathroom. Pushed the door open. It wouldn’t go all the way. Her body prevented that.
Didn’t want to, but I had to look, to make sure.
The bloodsmell overwhelmed even the old cigarette reek. It looked like she’d stood in front of the mirror over the sink, put the gun to her head, and that was it. No doubt about her being dead. The white-painted walls were splattered with blood and…and other stuff.
“What?” asked Kroun. He had to pull me out to see for himself.
She still wore her coat. Was that normal? If there was a normal. Didn’t suicides prepare themselves? Write notes or something…?
Distraction. It wasn’t working. I backed away, going to the small kitchen, stood by the sink there, and waited. I was hot and cold both together, feeling the sweats you get as your body works itself up to vomiting.
That didn’t happen, though. The sick weight stayed bunched in my throat, twisting through my belly. I wanted to throw up just to get it over with.
The cold won out. I leaned forward and trembled from it. My knees started to go. Managed to fall onto one of the chairs by the dining table instead of the floor.
Kroun came out. Kept silent a while. I couldn’t look at him. Too busy fighting off the shakes. I would not let myself give in to another damned fit with Kroun looking on.
“Wasn’t anything you could have done,” he said, after some moments.
“Gotten here sooner.”
“I don’t think so. Listen, someone makes up her mind to do that, she’ll find a way no matter what.”
I shook my head. Didn’t quite know why.
“What is it?” he asked.
“She didn’t kill herself.”
“Looked pretty clear to me.”
“Someone made it look that way.” I sat up straight and did what I could to shove all the sick darkness within into a box and slam the lid. I needed to be thinking. “See if you can find her purse.”
He moved around, turned up three purses. One was the same blue as her dress. I upended it on the table, amid the clutter of makeup, keys, tissues, matches, and crushed cigarettes—the twenty and two tens I’d handed over to help with the back rent.
“That’s my loan to her.” I gave him a short version of my talk with Jewel earlier. “The woman was cleaned up. There’s no booze here, check and see. She was sober and had some hope back, had a job waiting. She wouldn’t have shot herself.”
“She would if she’d murdered Caine.”
True. Jewel could have killed her ex, then in a fit of remorse came back here to escape earthly justice. But everything in me said it was wrong. “He meant money to her. She had no motive.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I was with her, she was—”
“Wise up, Fleming. You talk to her for half an hour and think you know what’s going on inside her head? You can know a person a lifetime, and he’ll still surprise you in ugly ways.”
“She was murdered.”
“Give me a reason to believe it.”
Hell, I had to give myself one, besides the churning in my guts. “That gun, what kind is it?”
He went to look and came back. “Long revolver. A forty-five.”
“That’s a lot of iron for a woman to carry.”
“So she kept it under the bed to scare burglars.”
“A woman’s more likely to have a smaller gun.”
“So she was a tougher girl than most. I’ve met more than one broad carting a cannon around and not thinking twice about it.”
“Me, too, but Jewel—” This was getting nowhere. I’d thought of a new angle for him. “Look at these.”
He looked. “Pills. The sleeping kind. Okay. What about ’em?”
I shook one of the bottles. There were enough to do the job. “Lemme put it this way: given a choice, wouldn’t you rather just fall quietly asleep to do your dying? Why put a big, noisy gun to your head?”
Kroun unexpectedly went dead white, his skin almost matching the streak in his hair. Maybe I’d dredged up a bad memory for him, of when he’d been bullet-grazed. “She…might have been in a hurry.”
That wasn’t funny. “I think someone else must have been instead.” Evie Montana? Hoyle? Mitchell? Why, though?
“Someone made her kill herself? How? Holding another gun on her? ‘Shoot yourself before I do it for you’?”
“I donno. She could have been knocked out, he stands her up, puts the gun in her hand, and—”
He shifted. Frowned. He went back to the bathroom again. When he returned his color was no better, but something had changed. “Okay. I’m convinced.”
“Where did I go right?”
“The gun. It’s in her hand. Her hand’s relaxed around it.”
“So?”
“When a shooter that size goes off, it’s gonna kick like an army mule. It should be lying anywhere else, but not where it is. Somebody set her up all right.”
Her hands…he’d reminded me. Wearily, I went and looked for myself. I made my gaze skip over the blood and mess and focus only on her hands. Enough of the skin was visible. No finger marks, no crescent-shaped cuts from Caine’s nails digging into her flesh. She’d not done it.
“C’mon, let’s get going,” said Kroun.
I blinked, my mind trying to shift gears to keep level. “What?”
“That other dame you wanted to see. Let’s find out if she’s still breathing.”
“Shit.”
He snagged up the money. Shoved it at me.
“Hey, I don’t—”
“If you don’t, someone else will. Use it to buy her flowers, but don’t leave it for the damn vultures when they come.”
We’d kept our gloves on, so wiping away prints wasn’t a problem. We left, moving quiet, but it seemed a wasted precaution. If the tenants here had been able to ignore a gun noise like that, they wouldn’t pay mind to much else, including the radio we’d left on.
Kroun drove, with me muttering directions and trying to feel the heater’s warmth again. There might not have been anything I could have done to prevent Jewel’s death, but part of me thought otherwise, and was beating me up about it.
“Hey.” Kroun broke in on the internal pounding.
“What?”
“She was dead before we could have gotten there.”
“How do you know?” And how was it this guy could read me so well? I might as well be wearing a sandwich sign.
“The way the blood was dried. I…got some experience about that.”
I didn’t care to ask for details. I had experience, too, and he was likely right, but her death hurt all the same.
“It’s not fair,” he said, as though agreeing to something I’d spoken aloud. “Not by one damn bit. We’ll get the guy, though. Or girl. We will.”
Cold comfort, Escott might have said. I wanted him here, but the less contact between him and my current business associates the better. I’d tell him about it later.
Evie’s place was in another not-so-great neighborhood. Her flat was one of two above a street-level shoe store. Other small businesses filled out the block, each apparently with living quarters a mere stair climb away. Convenient. Kroun parked out front, and we hurried up to the tenant’s entry. No need for picking the lock, the thing was open.
He banged on the flat’s door, and I called Evie’s name, a too-eerie reprise of what we’d done at Jewel’s.
Thankfully I heard movement on the other side of the door. A groggy-sounding woman wanted to know what we wanted. I said I was Evie’s boss and trying to find her.
“What’s she done now?” the woman asked. Still through the door.
“She left without her pay.”
The door was abruptly opened. A thin brunette, rumpled hair, no makeup, wrapped in a too-large flannel robe, peered out. She gave us the eye, a suspicious one. Kroun stepped diffidently back and looked surprisingly harmless and humble.
“Sorry to come
by so late, Miss,” he said, his smile matching his apology. “But we’re trying to find Evie. It’s important.”
She blinked against the onslaught of charm, then shook it off. “What’s that about her pay? She owes me back rent.”
I pulled out one of the ten-dollar bills. “You know where she is?”
“At work, some club—if you’re her boss, why don’t you know?” She stared with unabashed fascination at the money.
“Evie left suddenly, before the show was over. We thought she might be ill or have an emergency. Is she here?”
“Of course she’s not here, or she’d have answered the door. This is the middle of the night in case you haven’t noticed.”
“Yeah, sorry about that. Where would she go if she had a problem?”
“What kind of problem? If it’s with a man, she moans to me about it. If it’s about money, she moans to her boyfriend.”
“The singer?”
“What singer? That creep Alan Caine? Not him. Her other boyfriend, the sailor.”
What a surprise, but Kroun landed on his feet. “Is he that big blond Swede from Minnesota who stutters?”
The woman rolled her eyes. “She’s got another one? The only guy I know is a bald Polack merchant sailor who talks smooth. He lives somewhere by the river—with his wife. Evie’s got no more sense about men than—than I don’t know what, but she’s an idiot about anything in pants.”
“So where do we find this Polack sailor?”
“Canada. He shipped out a week ago. He sent her a letter from some place. They were stuck in port because the weather delayed a shipment or something, and he said he’d be late getting back. He should be so considerate to his wife.”
Probably wasn’t, I thought. “You sure he’s out of town?”
“Oh, yeah. Evie was in the dumps for a whole hour over it. I had to listen. Say, why are you so interested?”
“It’s really important we find her. What other friends might she go to if she was in a jam?”
“That’s it. She comes to me first, then her boyfriends. She’s angling to be the next Mrs. Caine, you know. What a dope.”
“You don’t like him much?”
“He walks all over her and thinks it’s funny. She doesn’t want to see that, though. I don’t care how handsome a fella is, if he doesn’t treat you right, throw him back in the water, he’s not worth the trouble. Is she in a jam?”
“We just have to find her.”
“Then call the cops. If she’s not here or with Caine or the Polack, then she’s not anywhere. She’s used up her favors with everyone else.”
I pulled out a business card for Lady Crymsyn, penciled the lobby phone number and Escott’s office number on the back, and handed it to her along with the ten-dollar bill. “If she comes home or calls, you ring any of these until you get an answer from someone.”
She looked from the money to me like I’d just become her new best friend. “Well, sure!”
“And you don’t have to say anyone was by looking for her.”
“Sure!”
We said good night and started down the hall. When her door shut and the lock clicked in place Kroun signed for me to wait, then cat-footed back to listen, his ear to the keyhole. I should have thought of that. I’d have heard a lot more.
After a moment he returned, shaking his head. “I thought she might call someone, but no dice. I think she went back to bed. Any other ideas?”
“The Nightcrawler again. See if Derner came up with anything.”
“There’s another place to check…”
“Oh, yeah?”
“Alan Caine’s.”
Damn. I wish I’d thought of that, too. Evie might have taken refuge there given the chance. Strome and his men wouldn’t get over for some hours yet. “I’ll call Derner for the address.”
9
ALAN Caine’s rooms were at a good hotel, which meant Kroun and I had to get around the night man out front. It wasn’t hard. From a drugstore phone booth I called the desk, said that I was Caine, gave the room number, and instructed him to let up two of my friends as soon as they came in.
“And show them respect,” I imperiously added. “They’re important.” I was taking a chance the guy on the line knew Caine’s voice. On the other hand, if I was bossy enough, he might fall for it. Must have worked; I got a weary “yes, Mr. Caine” in reply.
Kroun drove half a block and parked across the street. We walked into the lobby. “I’ll handle it,” he said, and veered away. He murmured to the clerk there, who eventually nodded and handed over a key.
“When the cops start investigating, he’ll remember your face,” I said.
“Yeah, but by then I’ll probably be back in New York, won’t I? Besides, I got one of those hard-to-remember mugs.”
He had to be kidding. The clerk noticed us, noticed Kroun, the moment we came in. There was no dampening of his magnetism at all. On the other hand I was wallpaper by comparison and content to stay that way.
He continued, “Most people only see the white streak in my hair, and I kept my hat on. Let’s go.”
The elevator was one of those fancy push-button ones that didn’t need an operator. Everything these days was going automatic, from gearshifts in cars to toasters. Looked like another job was being shut down in the name of progress.
We stopped on the fourth floor, doors magically heaving open on their own. I noticed the fire exit was close to Caine’s room. That would be convenient for Strome when the time came.
Kroun unlocked, let the door swing open, and paused, listening. No radio going. In a place like this a loud radio would be investigated. So would gunshots. He went in, flipping on the light.
Yeah, Caine had done himself swell. His shades were up, the curtains wide. He had a wide slice of view of the street below. Nothing spectacular, but better than Jewel’s or Evie’s lot.
Evie didn’t jump out at us. Neither did anyone else. We went through each room more thoroughly than they deserved.
Maid service had been in that day. The bed was in order, fresh towels in the bath, wastebaskets emptied. His clothes were hung up or in a hamper. In the living room was a studio piano parked against the outside wall, a stack of sheet music, and a well-stocked bar. He’d taken generous samples from all the bottles and had a preference for scotch to judge by the many brands.
The hotel’s furnishings were in place but no pictures were on display except his own. Handsome portraits abounded. Caine had been a man thoroughly in love with himself.
“Ain’t that cute?” Kroun pointed to a large, beautifully executed nude photo of Caine that had a place of honor hanging above the sofa.
Caine was posed full length, but sideways to the camera so nothing really showed, but there was no doubt he had a body to match his perfectly sculpted face. Every lean muscle showed in the play of shadow and light over his form. I knew a thing or two about photography from my days as a reporter, and understood the kind of work that had gone into making such a picture. You had to be able to get the whites white and the blacks black, yet preserve the countless shades of gray in between.
“That cost him a bundle,” I said.
“Must have been stuck on himself real bad. Only guys I know who put up pictures of themselves are funny. I’ve never seen one go this far, though. Singers.”
“Vanity’s expensive, all right.” I went to a desk and dug in, finding nothing as eye-catching as the portrait. Caine had bills, clothing receipts, old letters, and handwritten IOUs. Lots of those. Nothing for less than a hundred, and several for over a thousand. Trusting souls. They must have fallen for the pretty face and charm, too. The people he owed used nicknames mostly, but perhaps Derner might know some of them. Rather than mess up the investigation for the cops, I pulled out a hotel envelope from the stationery drawer and scribbled down those that were legible. One of them might have gotten fed up waiting to collect and decided to get fatal.
I found an address book and decided to take it along. P
lenty of names—and nicknames—and numbers for both Chicago and New York exchanges to tell by the prefix letters. I could mail it to the cops later. Or not.
Kroun saw what I was doing, grunted approval, and went over the rest of the place again, poking in cupboards. He whistled once, having found a respectable cache of beer in the pantry, with an even larger number of empty bottles crated and ready to go back for the deposits. “Nothing,” he announced when I was done copying. “No Evie, but some of her clothes are in his bureau. It’s sweet stuff.”
“Maybe he was going to pawn it,” I said. I told him what Jewel had said about Caine hocking step-ins.
“You mean women buy stuff like that at a—” He shook his head. “You’re kidding. I’ve never seen those at a pawn shop.”
“Ah, Jewel was kidding. Maybe. My girlfriend doesn’t tell me where she gets her scanties, and I don’t say where I buy my drawers. I’m glad to leave it at that.”
Kroun snorted a laugh. “That it for here?”
“Yeah.”
I went down the fire escape to see where it came out, which was an alley. Strome could use it as a means of getting in the flat.
When I returned, Kroun considerately inquired after my health. Damn. I should have tied a string to my finger so I could remember to act feeble.
“I’m fine,” I said.
“Just watching out for you. That’s what friends do.” He smiled. It was ingenuous, almost too much so, like he had a private joke.
Was he remembering what I put in his mind the other night? The words were a close echo to what I’d given him. There’d be hell to pay if he shook off the suggestions and recalled my vanishing act. The hell would be in my head, since I’d have to put him under again. It could kill me.
We went out the front way, so the night clerk could see us leaving. He didn’t ask for the key back, but considering the way Caine treated people, it was not surprising. The staff must have gone out of their way to avoid all unnecessary contact with their guest, and were willing to extend the policy to anyone associated with him.
Fine with me. We’d need that key for later.
Once outside, the cold returned to my bones. I’d almost been able to put it aside up in Caine’s flat. It wasn’t as bitter as before, but I would be glad when the night was over so I could lose myself in oblivion again. Even when unaware of the passing hours it was still a time of healing. I wanted it to heal me from this before it drove me crazy.
