by P. N. Elrod
THE neighbor’s attic had some heat seeping up from the lower floors, but it was still cold. It took a few minutes to get myself moving again. My usual sanctuary was fairly close to the basement furnace, and I missed its comfort.
After floating back to the house, I made sure that no one had moved the trunk from the trapdoor, then descended through the floor and down the stairwell to the front hall. The kitchen phone was ringing as I materialized.
It was Bobbi, calling as she’d promised.
“How’s Charles?” I asked.
“He’s fine, sweetheart, just fine. It’s a miracle.” The jubilation in her voice flowed through me, warm and reassuring, and I sagged as the worry fell away. I knew she was smiling, and the spark would be back in her eyes.
“I’ll be right over.”
“Don’t go to the hospital. He left.”
I thought I’d not heard her right. “Come again?”
“He was well enough to check out this afternoon. The doctor wanted him to stay, but Charles insisted on leaving.”
“What the hell? But last night—”
“He’s better, I’m telling you.”
Miracle, indeed. This I had to see.
“Shoe brought him to the hotel. The one I’m at.”
“I’ll be right over.”
She made no reply.
“Bobbi?”
“You should wait awhile, Jack.”
“But—” Oh.
“Shoe’s still upset by what happened.”
“You are, too.”
“Darling, I know that Charles getting blood poisoning wasn’t your fault, but Shoe doesn’t see it that way.”
“He’s right. It was my fault. If I’d…oh, never mind.”
“What did you two fight about? Shoe won’t tell me.”
“He might not know. It was between me and Charles, and it’s over now. Please, believe that.” My tone begged her to drop it.
She grumbled something away from the receiver that I didn’t catch, but it did not sound kind. Time to change the subject. I asked after Roland and Faustine. They were both fine and making plans to leave for Hollywood as soon as Roland was on his feet again. Things were happening, it seemed.
“Does it have to do with that guy who was there?” I asked. “The fast talker in the funny shirt?”
“Lenny Larsen? Yes, he’s got a deal for them. A real movie deal!”
“He’s crazy.”
She went indignant. “For getting them work?”
“No, he’s just a crazy guy. He’s too slick by half.”
“Jack, you only saw him for a minute.”
“It was enough. Don’t you let him spin you around, okay?”
“What do you mean spin me around?”
“Con you. The guy’s got to be a con man.”
“Well, of course he is. They’re like that in Hollywood. You just have to make sure he’s working for you when he’s giving others the business.”
Oh, God. She sounded as though she knew what she was talking about.
“What was that?” she asked.
“Nothing. Look, I’ve got to see Charles. I could find a way in if you tell me which room, which floor.”
“The same floor as mine and Gordy’s—he’s better, too, by the way. He found it’s easier to just rest than to argue with Adelle.”
“That’s good. I’ll want to see him.”
“Am I on your list?”
“You’re first up, baby.”
“That was the right answer.”
I told her Derner’s news about her apartment being clean and ready for her. She didn’t exactly turn handsprings. “I’ll go with you if you like,” I added.
“You certainly will. I’m not sure I want to see the place yet. I’d like to stay another night here.”
“At a noisy hotel?”
“It’s about the same as my place, only I know everyone. I feel safer here with them around. How nuts is that?”
After what she’d been through in the last few days, it sounded perfectly sane to me. “It’s a vacation. Not nuts at all.”
“There’s more.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“It can wait. When do you plan to sneak in?”
“Uh.”
“Thought so. You’ve got business, right?”
“Has to do with Gabriel Kroun.” I braced for a touchy reaction.
“Oh. That’s okay, then.”
What the hell? “Hey, you’re not—”
“Mad? Jack, he saved Charles’s life. If it wouldn’t make you jealous, I’d give him one lollapalooza of a big kiss.”
“Uh…um…uh.”
“Oh, relax. He’s safe. I’ll just shake hands.”
“Uh-nuh…um.” I cleared my throat next. It seemed the best response. “Well, uh, if you really want to thank him—”
“Yes?”
“He likes Adelle, seen all her movies. Maybe she could autograph a picture, put his name on it so it’s specially for him?”
Bobbi thought that was a great idea. She wanted to know more about Kroun, but I didn’t have much to say since I didn’t know much. Telling her about the run-in with the cops, with Michael and Broder, the burgling of the house would just throw a cold, wet blanket on her high spirits.
We moved on to other topics, such as when Lady Crymsyn might open again and how to replace Roland and Faustine’s big dance number. As always, I thought Bobbi should do the whole show, but her instincts were better on what to put on a nightclub stage. While I never got tired of hearing her sing, the customers might have other ideas.
Someone knocked on the front door, loudly rapping out “shave-and-a-haircut” but skipping the “two bits.”
Bobbi heard the noise. “That your friend?”
“Not exactly friend, but I think so.”
“Bring him over. Shoe won’t have a problem with you if he’s along.”
Optimistic of her. “Maybe. I gotta go, don’t know how long it’ll take. Expect me when you see me?”
“Don’t I always?”
We hung up.
I moved a chair from under the doorknob and let Kroun in. He had a few smears of dust on his new overcoat and declined to say where he’d spent his day.
“What put you in such a good mood?” he asked after giving me a once-over.
“My girlfriend.”
He glanced around. “She’s here?”
“She phoned.” I told him about Escott’s recovery. “He’s at Coldfield’s hotel—the one where Adelle Taylor is staying with Gordy.” As I’d hoped, the mention of her got Kroun’s attention.
“Maybe we should go over, say hello,” he said. “Ya think?”
“You got anything else to do?”
He grimaced. “Unfortunately, yes. I’ve an appointment and need a ride.”
“Where? For what?”
“Later. I need a shave first.”
He took one suitcase upstairs to the guest room and soon had water running in the bathtub. He might be a while.
With little to do but kick my heels, I gathered up the day’s papers from the porch and brought in the mail. Nothing in the latter was for me, but the papers were full of reworked angles on Roland Lambert’s escapades as Chicago’s newest gangbuster. Fresh pictures of him grinning or looking devotedly at Faustine were below the fold but still on the front page. Speculation was again raised about Hollywood doing a movie based on their exploits. No pictures of yours truly being affectionately assaulted by Faustine were there, though a couple papers mentioned me as a nightclub owner involved with the mobs. In one they called me “Jim Flemming.” I was almost used to people spelling the last name wrong, but they could at least get my given one right.
The Alan Caine murder had moved to page two, small photo, with the cops apparently following a new lead. There were hints they had a suspect and were close to capturing him. Hoyle had been found. On page four was a two-paragraph filler about a man’s body in a basement under a garage, foul play was suspected. No name, no me
ntion of the address book I’d planted, no connection to the Alan Caine investigation. The cops were playing it close to the vest there.
Back on page two the header on another column read, SINGER’S SUICIDE WAS MURDER! with a quote from the coroner about Jewel Caine’s autopsy proving she had not taken her own life. Cold comfort. Very cold. For a few seconds I wished Mitchell alive again so I could kill him, then discarded it. If I had a wish, then better to use it to bring back poor Jewel instead.
Though the cops were still on the hunt, tomorrow the story would be considered a dry well by most editors and passed over for other news. There might be something in the obituaries about Jewel’s funeral, but no more, a sad and unfair end to a tough life. What was the point in trying if this was all a person had to show for it: a few lines in a paper and a headstone no one would visit. Some people didn’t get even that much.
I tried to shake it off, as this was just the kind of thinking that would annoy Escott. Better come up with a distraction…like the damned broken window at the end of the hall. Despite my makeshift patch, there was quite a draft blowing through.
Taking advantage of being the boss once more, I called Derner. He knew someone who knew someone who could fix the glass after hours.
“I’ll be by the club later,” I said, “to drop off the house key.”
“He won’t need no key, Boss,” he assured me.
The surprise was that I wasn’t surprised.
BY the time I’d worked through the rest of the papers, Kroun came downstairs, ready to leave. His singed hair and eyebrows had filled out sometime during his day sleep, and he looked better for a shave and a fresh shirt.
“Where to?” I asked, resigned to playing chauffeur for the time being.
He gave me a matchbook from the Nightcrawler. There’d been some scattered on the office’s big desk. This was the one he’d scribbled on during his one private call.
I opened the matchbook. An address was written inside. I knew the street, but not the number. “What’s this?”
“Let’s go see.”
We didn’t have much to talk about on the drive over, so I switched the radio on and listened to a comedy show to fill the time. It had me chuckling in the right places, and Kroun snorted now and then. He wasn’t the type to go in for a full belly laugh, though he clearly had a sense of humor. When the show was over, he turned the sound low and asked how long I’d known Adelle Taylor. I filled him in and told some harmless tales about her work at the Nightcrawler.
“She’s a real humdinger,” he said, drawing the word out, looking content.
I grunted agreement and pulled my heavy Buick to the curb, having found the address. It was some sort of a rest home and private hospital in one, to judge by the discreet sign attached to the iron driveway gate. An eight-foot-high brick wall with another foot of iron trim on top ran around the entire block. The trim ended in sharp spearpoints poking up through the latest layer of snow, giving me an idea of just what kind of patients were inside.
Kroun had his box of cigars in hand. He tucked it under one arm and led off.
The gate was locked, and a sign posted visiting hours with a warning no one would be admitted without an appointment. Kroun pressed an intercom buzzer, gave his name, and the gate rolled open along some tracks as though pulled by an invisible servant. It ground shut once we were inside. I thought they only had stuff like that in the movies.
A paved walkway that someone had shoveled clean wound to the main building. It was red brick like the wall, three stories, and on the plain side. The fresh drifts of snow softened its lines, but it didn’t seem too friendly. Most of the windows were dark, with their shades drawn.
A large man in an orderly’s white shirt and pants unlocked the door for us, locking up again. He gestured toward a reception desk in a small lobby where a nurse sat. She was busy with a stack of papers, but left them to deal with Kroun. He took off his hat, switched on his formidable personal charm, aimed it right at her, and damned if it didn’t work. She warmed up, acting like he was an old friend she’d not seen lately, and conducted us down a hall and up some stairs to one of the rooms. The big orderly followed.
He had the keys and opened doors along the way.
It was that kind of hospital, all right, where the patients are shut inside for their own good and everyone else’s. Who the hell did Kroun know here?
I kept my yap shut.
The orderly unlocked the last door and stood back.
The nurse gave Kroun a sympathetic smile, told him to check in at the desk before leaving, then went off.
Kroun cut the charm soon as she was gone. Face grim, he put his fedora on a small table just outside the door. He paused—hesitated more like—before reaching for the handle. I’d never seen him unsure of himself.
“Be careful,” said the orderly.
“Hm?” Kroun looked at him.
“We cut his nails today. They’re gonna have sharp edges.”
Kroun nodded, then went in. He didn’t tell me to stay out, so I followed. Quietly. The orderly hung by the open door.
Pale green paint on the brick walls, a cage over the overhead light, and the tile floor was layered with newspapers. Most lay open with uneven holes torn from the middle of their pages as though someone wanted to save an article. The biggest thing in the room was a hospital bed. It had thick leather restraint cuffs at the corners. Next to it was a reading chair, which looked out of place, so it must have belonged to the room’s occupant, who was in it.
He was a big-boned, lean old devil, seemed to be in his eighties, and ignored us as we came in. He had a newspaper spread over his knees, peering at it through double-thick horn-rimmed glasses. The lenses must not have been strong enough; he hunched low to read. He had things open to a department store’s full-page advertisement for an undergarments sale. Drawings of female figures in girdles and brassieres had his full attention. Carefully, he worked a hole into the sheet, his ink-stained fingertips and recently cut nails outlining an illustration.
On the bed next to him were a number of torn-out pictures, some like the one he was working on, others were photographs. All women. No portraits, he preferred them full length, matrons at charity events, debutantes, mannequins modeling the latest fashions. Painstakingly trimmed of their backgrounds, they lay in uneven piles, limp and ragged paper dolls.
Kroun took it in, his expression unreadable. “Hello, Sonny.”
The old man grunted and continued his task. When he had the drawing torn free, he studied it under the harsh overhead light, then added it to one of the stacks on the bed. He had large hands, once powerful, but his fingers were twisted with arthritis, reduced to knobby joints and tendons. He had to work slowly to get them to do the job.
“Sonny.”
He looked up. His mouth was a wide straight cut with hardly any lip, and he had the big nose and ears that come with age. His skin was flushed a patchy red, mottled by liver spots. White hair on the sides, a shock of gray on top, it needed cutting.
The glasses magnified his blue eyes to larger than normal. They were blank for several moments, then sharpened as an ugly smile gradually surfaced.
Something inside me writhed; it was the kind of instinctive warning that says run like hell even when you don’t see the threat. This old man couldn’t possibly hurt me, but the feeling was there and damned strong.
“What d’you want?” he asked Kroun in a gravelly voice full of venom.
Kroun pulled an institutional wood chair—sturdy with a lot of dents—from a corner and sat almost knee to knee with him. He held up the box of cigars.
“Give,” said the man, quickly shoving papers from his lap. He was in faded striped pajamas and shapeless slippers.
Kroun opened the box. “They’re all for you, Sonny.”
“My birt’day or som’tin’?”
“You want a smoke or not?”
Sonny grabbed a cigar, biting one end off, spitting it to one side. “You forget a light? G’damn
jackets here won’ lemme have no matches.”
Kroun produced a lighter, a new silver one he must have gotten when he bought his clothes. He helped Sonny get the cigar going. I was glad I didn’t have to breathe.
“Now that’s a smoke.” Sonny puffed, eyes narrowed to slits by satisfaction. “Who’re you again?”
Kroun didn’t show it, but he seemed thrown by the question. “Don’t you remember?”
“I see lots of people. Which one are you?”
“Look at me. You’ll know.”
Sonny puffed and stared, but no recognition sparked in his distorted eyes. “What’s wit’ the hair?” He pointed the cigar at Kroun’s white streak.
“Accident at my job, nothing much.”
He nodded my way. “Who’s the creep inna corner?”
“Just my driver.”
“Fancy-schmancy, you gettin’ all the drivers in town. Come here to high-hat me?”
“Thought I’d see how you were doing.”
Sonny snorted and blew smoke into Kroun’s face. “That’s how I’m doin’, you g’damn bastard. Locked in like a dead dog waitin’ to be shoveled inna ground. You know how they treat me? No respect! You get me outta here!”
“I’ll see what I can do.”
“Liar. Everyone lies to me here.”
“When you get out, where would you go?”
A slow, evil grin spread over Sonny’s face. “You know.”
“The fishing cabin?”
Sonny chuckled. At length. He sat back in the chair, his spine not quite straightening. The hunched-over posture was permanent. “Yeah…fishin’. I had some good times there. When you listened to me, you had a good time. You goin’ up?”
“I don’t know how to get there.”
A scowl replaced the grin. “You’re stupid, you know that? G’damn stupid. The g’damn place is still in g’damn ’Sconsin ’less some g’damn bastard moved it.”
“Probably not,” Kroun allowed. “I’m just not sure where in Wisconsin.”
“Jus’ over the state line, y’stupid dummy.”
“And then where?”
“Hah?”
“It was a long while ago, Sonny.”
“You’re g’damn stupid. They got me shut in, treat me like shit, but I know how long, so don’ go pissin’ on me wit’ that. You was here two mont’s back—”
