Death on the Waterfront

by Robert Archer

  “Naturally.” Nicholson took a cigar from his vest pocket and lit it, scratching a big kitchen match on the scarred desk top. He took a deep puff and gestured with the cigar. “That proves premeditation,” he said. “That suit was stolen from the garage sometime tonight. It was an extra they had hanging on a nail in the office.”

  “I don’t like it,” said Stern.

  “You don’t like what?”

  “This case. I don’t like anything about it. It’s all confused.”

  “Confused?” Nicholson sounded incredulous. “It’s as plain as A B C. We know it was premeditated murder. We know the motive. We’ve got the weapon and we know who owned it. All we have to do now is wait for the boys to round him up.” He pulled his hat down on his head and started for the door. “I’m going home,” he announced. “I can do my waiting in bed.”

  Stern sighed. He followed the big police captain out of the station house and down the stone steps to where the headquarters’ car waited. He refused a lift and watched Nicholson drive away. Then he went back into the station house and talked to the reporters clustered around the desk. This done, he thought of taking a taxi to his hotel and then, despite the lateness of the hour, decided he would rather walk. Walking was an aid to clear thinking, and he wanted a chance to think.

  7. Hotel Room

  Dawn was two hours away on the water front; the street lights were still burning, the bars and pool halls and seamen’s outfitting stores were still closed. The wide stretch of East Street was empty of traffic, except for an occasional produce truck speeding under the elevated express ramp. In front of the closed gates of one of the pier faces across the street a cop chatted with the night watchman; save for these two, the long stretch of pier fronts was deserted, and everything was quiet as a tomb.

  There were still three hours to go to “shape up” at seven-thirty, but the water front would be awake long before then; East Street would be teeming with traffic—cab-and-trailer jobs and big sixwheelers and all the assortment of lesser fry that make up the commercial traffic of a great city. Overhead on the ramp a steady ever-increasing stream would be moving, mostly southward, carrying the white collars to their downtown jobs. The early stream would be small cars and taxis and an occasional overland bus, but later would come the long, slick limousines with the big shots, speeding unconcernedly along over the heads of the workers like a cartoon in the New Masses. Below, on the land side of East Street, the sidewalk would be filled with longshoremen, men of every nationality dressed in dungarees or khaki pants with zipper work shirts and with the steel hook that is the tool and badge of their trade thrust through their belts. They would stand alone or gather in small groups, talk, argue, read newspapers to pass the time, until the boss stevedore’s shrill whistle sent them scurrying through the traffic to the pier gates, to line up in a semicircle, while the boss chose those he wanted for the day’s job. Then those who were rejected would come trailing back across the street to wait in the saloons and pool halls for the next “shape” or move off to another pier, where a ship was .due that would have to be unloaded in a hurry.

  Whitey Gordon turned the corner and then ducked out of sight into a doorway to watch a green-and-white prowl car come cruising slowly up the street. When the car had passed he hurried along East River, in the opposite direction, and turned in at a doorway over which was a sign reading “Rooms $i Up.” He went in through a tiled foyer, took the steep bare steps two at a time, and turned past the empty clerk’s cage, down a long dim-lit hall to room seventeen.

  He knuckled the door lightly, then harder, finally pounding it with the side of his closed fist.

  “Jack, hey, Jack! For Christsake, are you dead in there?”

  Jackson was awake. He had been awake for some time. The night before, when he came home to the hotel, there had been a letter waiting for him, and now he was propped up in bed reading it again for the third time.

  “Dear Chris,” the letter said. “We are finally established here in Washington, and I realize suddenly how long it has been since we have seen or even heard from you. Your sister gave me your address when we left Portland, but in the flurry of moving, like a ninny, I lost it. Fortunately I have found it again, together with the time to write to you.

  “Don sends his love. He feels he will be very happy here at the university. He is a full professor now, you know, and the salary, together with his writing, will enable us to live in the style to which we are definitely not accustomed.

  “He would be completely happy—and need I say that so should I?—if you were here with us. Ever since you left Portland so suddenly five years ago he has missed you terribly. You were such good friends.

  “Frankly, Chris, I feel, to a certain extent, responsible for keeping you apart—and for much more than that—for the way in which you are wasting what Don calls ‘one of the best brains’ it has ever been his pleasure to know.

  “For you are wasting it, Chris dear, despite all your high-sounding idealism. A brilliant student and promising scholar—a labor leader! Chris, darling, it isn’t rational. I’m sorry if I seem to be lecturing you but I can’t help it. If Don knew I were writing this way he would be furious. He always says I try to run everyone’s life.

  “Seriously, darling, I think you owe it to yourself and to all of us who are fond of you to give it up. It isn’t too late. Don says the university here might find a place for you on the faculty. And wouldn’t it be grand for all three of us to be together again just as we were before Don and I were married?”

  There was more—gossip about former mutual friends and long-forgotten details of a design for living, to escape which Jackson had traveled, first to San Francisco and then, because eight hundred miles was still not far enough, across the continent to New York.

  The letter was full of poignant memories: Don Fairchild, once his best friend, the cedars on Cortland campus, and the secluded life of a college town. Jackson was a little surprised that he was not more moved and disturbed by it—and by the memory of the writer who had once brought the very stars tumbling about his head by marrying his closest friend. He read it still again, reveling in the fact that everything it represented was over and remote and no longer had the power to hurt.

  The pounding on the door finally penetrated his musings.

  “Who is it?” he called.

  “It’s me, Gordon.”

  “You mean I.” Jackson slipped the letter hurriedly into the pocket of the jacket hanging on a chair. “Come in.”

  A shade flapped in the open window across the room at Gordon’s entrance, and the door swung back. Whitey caught it to keep it from banging and closed it gently.

  “Boy,” he said, “why you live in a dump like this, I’ll never know. Don’t you even lock the door?”

  Jackson swung his feet from under the covers and sat on the edge of the white iron bed, reaching for a pair of blue-striped shorts. His naked, triangular torso, flat stomach, and narrow hips made him look like a fighter about to climb into the ring. The narrow blue eyes were half closed, and the wide mouth opened in a prodigious yawn. He stretched and scratched his chest vigorously.

  “I can’t remember to lock doors,” he said. He retrieved a black brier pipe and a penny box of matches from a chair beside the bed, tamped the pipe with his little finger, and lit it. His movements were slow and deliberate.

  He looked at Gordon, squinting to shut out the cloud of smoke. “What are you in a lather about? What time is it, for the love of Pete?”

  “Time? About five, I guess.” Whitey picked up a blue tobacco can from the only chair and tossed it on the bed. He sat down.

  “What time did you leave Riorden last night?”

  “About twenty minutes after you left us on the corner.”

  “Where?”

  “We walked over by the hall. Riorden said he had to meet someone. Why?”

  “The cops are looking for you.”

  “Me?” Jackson removed the pipe from his mouth and yawned again. �
��What for?”

  “Pop Riorden was killed last night.”

  Jackson’s mouth remained open. He said stupidly, “What?” Then, as comprehension began to dawn, his mouth snapped shut, and a dangerous look came into his eyes. “Tell me what happened.”

  Whitey related the circumstances of the finding of Riorden’s body. When he finished Jackson eyed him narrowly. Then he asked a seemingly irrelevant question.

  “Why were you so hot for strike last night?”

  Gordon frowned. “You’re developing into a lousy bureaucrat in your old age, Jack,” he snapped. “You’re suspicious of everybody who disagrees with you. You and I have been pals for a long time, brother, and if you’re not convinced by now that I’m on the level you can go to hell.”

  Whitey jumped off the chair and started for the door.

  “Wait,” said Jackson.

  Whitey stopped and looked at him with hot, angry eyes. Jackson made a placating gesture. “I know I’m wrong, Whitey,” he said. “You’re the one guy I’d swear by in this outfit. But I’m getting so I don’t trust myself. I know we got a stool pigeon somewhere. I can smell the stinking rat but I can’t put the finger on him. So I have to suspect everybody.” He looked up and met Gordon’s eyes candidly. “Even you, Whitey,” he said.

  “You got a lot of guts talking like that,” said Whitey. “After the way Riorden put the finger on you last night. And now Pop’s dead. But do I fall for that frame? No, I come and tell you what the score is because I know you’re on the level. Would I have done that, you bastard, if I was a rat?”

  “All right,” said Jackson. He got up and held out his hand. “Let it go at that, will you?”

  Whitey shook hands with seeming reluctance. “Anybody on God’s earth but you——“ he said.

  “I know,” said Jackson. Still holding Gordon’s hand, he looked down at the smaller man. “Who did it, Whitey?”

  Whitey did not answer immediately. He returned to the chair and sat down, took out a cigarette, and ran it between his fingers, examining it carefully.

  “The cops say you did, Jack.” At last he looked up, straight into Jackson’s eyes. “Did you?” he asked.

  Jackson’s jaw clenched, but he did not seem to resent the question. He shook his head slowly. “You know I didn’t.”

  “Yeah.” Whitey lit the cigarette and dropped the match on the worn carpet. “But I ain’t the cops. Somebody’s hung a god-awful neat frame on you, brother. You’re hotter than a stove lid.” He grinned, his good-nature returning. “You’d be in the clink, right now, only nobody knew your address last night. They put a tail on me this morning when I left the station house, but I lost him.” His eyes met Jackson’s again, and the grin faded. “Look, Jack,” he said, “you still got that spy report?”

  “Why?”

  “They found one just like it on Riorden.”

  “What?” Jackson reached for his leather jacket and thrust his hand in the inside pocket. It came out with the onionskin document that had caused so much discussion the night before.

  Gordon breathed a sigh of relief. “That’s all right then. But that’s nothing.”

  “Wait a minute,” Jackson interrupted. “You say the paper they found on Riorden was just the same as this?”

  Whitey nodded.

  “You’re sure?”

  “I saw it. It was a carbon copy, on the same kind of paper and everything.”

  “Then this doesn’t mean a thing,” said Jackson. “They were both made at the same time by the same person. The cops’ll say I typed them both.”

  Whitey said soberly, “That ain’t all they got. You remember that old hook with your initial carved in the handle that you used to keep hanging over your desk? What’d you do with it?”

  “Why, it’s here—in that suitcase over there.” Jackson pointed to the end of a battered leather bag protruding from beneath the curtain which served as a closet.

  “Take a look,” said Gordon.

  The suitcase was empty. Jackson squatted on his heels beside it, a slightly ludicrous figure in the blue-and-white shorts. He looked up at Whitey.

  “You mean,” he asked hesitantly. “Somebody—used—that——?”

  “I’ll say they used it. Ripped poor old Riorden’s throat open clear to his backbone. The cops found the hook in an ash can a block away from the truck. It and an old pair of canvas gloves were wrapped up in a teamster’s monkey suit that had been stolen from the Overland Garage, and there was plenty of blood. They figured whoever did it used the monkey suit and the gloves to keep from gettin’ himself bloodied up.”

  Whitey rose and moved around the bed to the open window. Standing behind the soiled lace curtains, he looked down into the street for a minute, then snapped his cigarette stub out the window, and turned back to the room.

  “You better get some clothes on,” he said. “It’ll be light in another hour.”

  Jackson, frowning thoughtfully, began to dress. He put on a white shirt and blue serge suit. Tying his tie before the dresser mirror, he spoke over his shoulder.

  “What happened at the station house?” he asked.

  “They let the other guys go,” replied Whitey, “but they held Sangster and Colletti and me and went over us with a fine-tooth comb. There was a couple of times when I thought they were gonna take the hose to us, but those guys don’t work that way. They’re smooth. They even blew up our alibi about the crap game by gettin’ us to admit that we couldn’t swear who was there all the time and who wasn’t. But after the flatfoot brought in that hook they laid off us, except for trying to make us admit we knew where you were.”

  He paused and glanced up at Jackson’s back. “Funny thing about that hook,” he said. “It was filed.”

  “Filed?”

  “Yeah. The point and the inside curve—somebody had put a cutting edge on it damn near as sharp as a furrier’s knife.” Jackson shuddered. “Poor old Riorden. I’m kind of sorry now I rode him so hard.”

  Shrugging into a shabby but well-brushed, dark overcoat, Jackson asked:

  “What about the others? Whom did the cops talk to beside you and Colletti and Sangster?”

  “They found Doc Painter home in bed. He was lucky; his landlady alibied him for any time after midnight. Melius came into the station house just as they were getting through with us, and I guess they grilled him plenty although I didn’t hear much of it. They couldn’t find Burke and they’re still looking for him but not as hard as they are for you.”

  “I don’t know who did the killing,” said Jackson, “but I know damn well who’s back of it.”

  “I got two hunches”—Whitey got up as Jackson prepared to leave—“and both of them say, ‘Fink Weller.’”

  Jackson shook his head slowly. “One of Fink’s boys may have done the actual killing, although it’s not Fink’s style. He’s too smart and too yellow to mix in murder—but the guy who rigged this frame and who knows the actual killer is John Murdock.”

  “But why kill Riorden?” Whitey objected. “If anyone wanted to frame you bad enough to commit murder why didn’t they go after you instead?”

  “Riorden knew something. I tried to get him to tell me what it was last night, but he wouldn’t. He was nervous and scared. The way I see it, somebody wanted to get rid of Riorden and got the bright idea of framing me and killing two birds with one stone.” He opened the door and glanced up and down the hall, then closed it again.

  “Look, Whitey. I got things to do and I got to do them before the cops catch up with me. You go over to the hall and sit by the telephone, will you? I’ll call you as soon as I can.”

  “Where you going?”

  “To blackmail John Murdock,” said Jackson shortly.

  8. Penthouse

  Jackson ran down the stairs and turned east, away from the water front, walking at his usual pace, a rolling, long-gaited stride. After two blocks he turned under the el, walking south, his eyes sharp for familiar faces or prowl cars. Headquarters dicks didn’
t worry him, but he knew that if he ran into one of the precinct men he would be picked up on sight. It was a chance he had to take. Several blocks south he turned again toward the water front along a quiet street fronted with warehouses, machine shops, and garages. Halfway down the block a narrow driveway ran between two warehouses to the rear entrance of a garage facing the next street.

  Dawn was just breaking on a gray day, and a chill mist swirled in off the river. The street lights had been turned off, and the driveway lay deep in shadow. With a quick look back along the deserted street Jackson ducked into the shadows close to the wall and walked rapidly to a point directly beneath the upswung lower flight of a fire escape. A glance told him that the free end of the last flight of iron steps was high beyond his reach. Continuing on to the yard at the rear of the building, he found an empty tar barrel and carried it back. By standing on the barrel and jumping up he was able to catch the end of the iron stairs and swing with them to the ground. The rusty iron squeaked protestingly as it came down, and he waited there patiently for several minutes before he rolled the barrel across the alley with his foot and climbed carefully up to the first-floor landing of the fire escape, easing his weight off the steps so that the iron counterbalance swung them slowly and comparatively silently up behind him. He went up three more flights of iron steps and paused with his head just at the level of the roof. There was a penthouse and garden on the roof, looking particularly dejected and out of place in the gray water-front dawn.

  Satisfied that the garden was deserted and that here were no overlooking roofs from which he might be observed, Jackson swung himself over the top rung of the fire escape. Walking noiselessly on the balls of his feet, he went toward the penthouse. He found an open window protected by a screen on a separate frame held shut by a hook. The sharp blade of his knife slashed a hole in the weather-beaten screening, with only a slight grating noise, and in a moment more the screen was unhooked, and he had slid through into the dim room beyond.