“We’ll give her a call first thing in the morning.” He glanced at his watch. “Later in the morning, that is. By that time, you should have confessed to this horrible crime.” He sighed and shook his head in self-pity. “A policeman’s hours—”
“Look, Mac,” I said, trying to subdue my annoyance, “you haven’t a thing on me and you know it. A lot of people went in to see Jake Richey last night. The fact that I was one of them means a lot more to you than it does to me.”
“And to the late Mr. Richey.”
“Who was a dirty, no-good louse who deserved what he got,” I supplied. “But I didn’t give it to him.”
MacPherson studied his fingernails. “It’s hard to tell what you junkies will do,” he said calmly.
He should have been prepared with that one, but he wasn’t. I’d made a mistake once and MacPherson was determined to not let me forget it. I surged up out of the chair and belted him one right across the chops, and then before he could recover I picked up his .38 and held it under his nose.
“Look, MacPherson,” I said, “I can take only so much from you. You think you’re the bright-eyed avenger of the force. You think you have to crucify me because I was once one of your men and I had the lousy luck to get on dope. Well, that was a long time ago. I kicked the habit, and so help me if it’s the last thing I ever do, I’m going to kick you—right where it’ll do the most good.”
“It might be,” MacPherson said slowly, rubbing his jaw. “It just might be the last thing you’ll ever do.”
“It would be worth it,” I told him. “You’ve been hounding me ever since I got off the force, giving me a bad reputation every chance you could.” I made a motion under his nose with the gun. “You’re going to call Cherry Collins right now and get me an alibi.”
“What makes you think I will?”
“Call,” I said, handing him the phone.
He shrugged, dialed the number I gave him, and waited. Cherry was probably climbing slowly out bed and sleep. The phone rang at the other end and was cut off by a click.
“Is this Miss Collins? Miss—er, Cherry Collins?” MacPherson said into the phone. A pause, while Cherry admitted she was. “This is Lieutenant MacPherson of the Los Angeles Police Department. There’s a person in my office who claims he spent some time with you last night. A man named Mark Wonder. Do you know him?” Another pause. MacPherson’s grin was humorless. “I see,” he said into the phone. To me: “She says she never heard of you.”
I grabbed the phone from him. “Cherry?” I said into it. “This is Mark. Mark Wonder.”
“Mark,” Cherry said in a relieved tone, “I’m so glad to hear your voice. Are you all right?”
“I’m all right. Did you tell this lunkhead you don’t know me?”
“Why, no, of course not. I told him you had a drink at my place late last night, after the show. I didn’t mention anything about the—the man coming out of the closet and hitting you. Was that right?”
“Yes,” I said, “that’s right.” MacPherson was looking at me steadily. I wondered why he pulled a dumb stunt like saying Cherry didn’t know me. I said to him, “Are you through playing games, or do you want to talk to her again.”
“You may let the young lady go back to bed,” he said graciously. “She’s apparently had a hard night.”
I ignored that crack. I wanted to ask Cherry some of those questions I’d thought up before, but now was not the time, with MacPherson’s beagle ears bending at every word. I said into the phone: “I’ll call you later, Cherry. Good night.” And hung up.
“I met Cherry out at the beach yesterday afternoon. The only reason I went out to the Nocturne was because she works there.”
MacPherson snorted.
“Jake Richey called me into his office, so I went to see what he wanted. Ask the waitress.”
“We’ve already asked the waitress,” MacPherson said.
“She’ll tell you I was only in with Jake a few minutes.”
“Just long enough to threaten to kill him,” MacPherson reminded me. “We have some witnesses to that, too. What did Jake want to see you about?”
I told him the truth on that. “He said Cherry was his fiancée, and he wanted me to stay away from her.”
“After which you went to spend the night at her apartment,” he mused, nodding pleasantly to himself. “Jealousy is always a good motive for murder.”
“Damn you, MacPherson, I could shoot you right now.”
“Oh, come off it, Wonderboy. You don’t really think I’d leave a loaded gun on my desk where you could grab it, do you? I just wanted to give you a little more rope. So I did, and you took it and wrapped it around that neck of yours all by yourself.”
I looked at the gun in my hand and then at MacPherson. He was smiling a self-satisfied smile.
I stepped back away from him and flipped open the cylinder. Each chamber was loaded with a live shell. But when I looked back at MacPherson, he had another gun in his hand. Mine.
Slowly I put the gun down on the desk, sat in the chair opposite him, and leaned back with my hands folded in my lap.
“Okay, now what happens? Do you shoot me for talking back to the great man? Or just send me to jail for the next ninety-nine years? There’s one thing, though, you should consider. One of your sheep turned black, but you’re painting him blacker than he is. By railroading me instead of letting the past die, you’re giving the force a worse name. How is any citizen going to put faith in a cop if he might turn out to be an ex-cop whose hobby is murder?”
It wasn’t a very good try, maybe, because I didn’t really believe it myself; there are rotten apples in a lot of barrels. Besides, my heart was up in my throat, trying to clog the words.
MacPherson put the gun down and retrieved the one I’d taken from him.
“Wonderboy,” he said, “your story has touched my heart. I’m not really the mean, crotchety old man you think I am. I’m really a humanitarian—kind, gentle—”
“Get to the point before I vomit!”
“I’m letting you go,” he said.
“What?”
“Beat it, Wonder. We don’t want you stinking up the city jails. When I get you it’ll be to put you away for good.”
He shoved the gun across the desk to me. I holstered it, got up and walked out of the room before he changed his mind. I went into the reception room, where the two plain-clothesmen were talking. I nodded wearily at Paul Williams, who nodded back at me. One of these days Paul and I would have to get together and talk over old times. The good old times, not the ones I’d just as soon forget if people would only let me.
But right then I was heading for home and bed and a nap that would make Rip Van Winkle’s record look like a one-night stand.
I walked down the steps and into the street. It was dark and cool, and the sun was coming up, and I felt good all of a sudden. I started walking until I got to a cab stand, and in a few minutes I was hunched over in the back seat taking a preliminary nap. Then something occurred to me, and I sat up and looked out the back window. There was a car out there, right in back of us but a half block away.
“Turn left,” I told the cabbie.
We turned left, and the other car followed us.
“Turn right at the next turn,” I said, “and then keep going.”
The car stayed with us.
I sank back down in the seat and tried to puzzle it out. I wasn’t off the hook, after all. MacPherson was still angling after me. The question was, why?
I didn’t bother trying to figure it out just then. I was in no shape to figure out two and two, much less cops and women.
I paid the cabbie and staggered up the stairs to my apartment, fitted the key to the door and walked in, switching on the light. I had my coat off, was loosening my tie and heading for the bedroom, when I noticed something was wrong. I stopped in the middle of the room and pivoted slowly, wondering what there was about the room that was different. It was something subtle, something I c
ouldn’t just pick out from the maze of things cluttering the place. I shook my head in an effort to shake loose some of the cobwebs, but I made myself dizzy instead, so I decided to forget it.
I forgot it and went into the bedroom. I should look under my bed, I thought crazily, for old maids. But I didn’t. I reached the bed and collapsed on it. It felt fine.
Chapter Nine
THE NIGHT WAS dark, the road a narrow ribbon twisting away beneath the car lights. Edie was beside me, laughing happily. I was laughing with her. It was good to be alive. My veins held a delicious fire, a burning contentment, and I felt as though I could do anything. I floored the accelerator to prove it. The car lurched, then rocketed toward the turn ahead. I swung the steering wheel, expertly, confidently. The car skidded. The dark night came to meet us with a roar, an explosion of fear, a scream of metal combining with flesh.
I landed on my bedroom floor clutching the bedspread. The phone was ringing. I ignored it. I sat trembling with a chill that was not from cold though my body was soaked with sweat.
When I realized where I was, I was surprised to find myself on the floor, fully clothed. But the phone was still ringing, so I picked myself up and limped out into the living room. I rubbed my chin and felt a stubble of beard and looked at my wristwatch. The sun was making patterns on the rug, so the two o’clock must have been in the afternoon. Which afternoon it was I didn’t try to figure out just then. I felt like I’d never had a shower in my fife, my mouth tasted like a cave full of bats, and I wanted to get to a window to let some air in. Instead, I answered the phone.
It was Lenny Price.
“Mark,” he said excitedly, “I’ve been trying to get you all morning. Have you heard the news about Jake Richey?”
I yawned and blinked sleep from my eyes. “I heard about it all right,” I told him, “from the cops. My old friend Sherlock MacPherson naturally assumed that I did the job on Jake.”
There was a pause, then Lenny said, “Did you, Mark?”
“Of course not!” I said, annoyed.
“Sorry. Just wondering, that’s all. I wouldn’t blame you if you did.”
“Well, I didn’t. I’m afraid Mac is going to be on my tail until he does find the guilty one, though. It’s the curse of being popular.”
I was wide awake now. I glanced around the room, and that same old feeling came nagging back. Something was wrong. And then I got it. In fact, I got two flashes both at once. I had to get Lenny off the phone.
“Suppose I give you a call later, and we’ll discuss it,” I said. “Right now, I’ve got to take a shower.”
That suited him, so I hung up. Then, for a minute, I stood looking around the room. A bachelor gets used to hanging things up on the floor and stuffing things in spare corners. And while the room may seem cluttered to the uninitiated, it has a pattern for him. It may be an unconscious one, but it’s there, and when somebody moves something, the pattern is jarred.
At least a dozen things in the room were misplaced. Not by very much, but misplaced just the same. That meant the room had been gone over, and carefully. Why? That same question, still with no answers to match up with it. Perhaps Mr. Abernathy had returned, or his friend from the zoo.
Not a good bet, though. Whoever it was didn’t want me to know the apartment had been searched. Abernathy would have no qualms about tearing the place apart to get the film. Cherry, maybe. I didn’t know where she fitted into the picture, so she could be blamed for practically anything. Also Mr. Closet, whom I must meet again one of these days.
More likely, it was old buddy Lieutenant MacPherson’s doings. It smelled of undercover police work. They were looking for something but didn’t want me to know about it.
I sat there, dirty, half-awake but getting there, my stubble of beard growing, putting together rows of twos and coming up with lines of fours and zeros.
MacPherson wanted to search the place, so he took me down to the station to give his men time to give it the fine comb treatment he thought it deserved. He wanted me down there for just that long. He never intended to book me. He wanted me free, so I could be tailed. And there was that second flash! I’d bet money the phone was bugged.
But there was that same old question digging into me: why? And now it had a pair of running mates: what was I supposed to have, and where was I supposed to go?
I cut out the guessing games, since there were no consolation prizes for failing to answer your own questions. Instead, I went into the bathroom, where I remembered my secret hideaway in the toilet tank.
It wasn’t a surprise, really, but it was a disappointment. The plastic bag, complete with half-filled hypodermic needle, pornographic picture, and threatening note, was gone.
I took myself a shave and a shower. I was in the middle of the shower, of course, when the phone rang. I grabbed a towel and made puddles across the floor.
“Wonderboy,” a gruff voice said, “I do hope I didn’t disturb your rest. You certainly need all you can get.”
“You’ll be happy to know I was in the shower, MacPherson,” I said crossly. “But don’t let it bother you; I had to get out to answer the phone anyway.”
MacPherson chuckled, not at the ancient joke, but in genuine delight at my annoyance and discomfort. “I just wanted to tell you the police department is on its toes. When a private citizen loses something, we go right out and find it for him.”
“Now what?”
“Your car,” he said. “We found it holding up a telephone pole. Apparently you wandered off without it last night.”
“Very funny,” I said. “I’ll stop by and pick it up.”
“You needn’t bother. I had a couple of the boys take it over to your place. It’s probably parked in front right now.” I’d forgotten about the car. After I’d been drugged and slugged, I’d wanted to get away and if the car wouldn’t take me, I had to depend on my wobbly feet. I didn’t mention this to MacPherson.
“Thanks,” I said.
“Don’t mention it,” he said. “Anything interesting happen last night?”
“No,” I said, and hung up.
Well, one thing was sure: Mac didn’t want me to be without transportation. As long as he was tailing me, he wanted me to go someplace without unnecessary delay. I wondered where I was supposed to go.
I returned to the shower and afterward dressed in fresh clothes. I even put on my Sunday tie. It felt good to be among the live people again.
As promised, my Chevvy was parked right out in front of the apartment. Being a suspect had its advantages. I thought briefly of going over to see Cherry, but only briefly. I had time right now for only a short visit, and when I saw that girl again I wanted a lot of time to ask her a lot of questions. And I had some preliminary research to do.
There was a shiny last-year’s Ford parked about a halfblock away, a man in the front seat reading a newspaper. I got in the Chevvy and drove to my favorite restaurant on Sepulveda and somebody was in back of me all the way. Who said it’s nice to be wanted? I picked up a late edition of the Mirror-News from a stand in front and went in and sat at a booth.
My tail decided he’d come in for a coffee himself, probably in an effort to stay awake on such a boring job. He sat at the end of the counter on a corner stool where he had a full view of the place. I ignored him, ordered steak, and unfolded the newspaper.
Jake had made the front page. I hoped I hadn’t. There are some kinds of publicity I can do without.
There was a picture of the late Mr. Richey, complete with cigar, and the news, NIGHTCLUB OWNER MURDERED. Mr. Richey, the story said, had been in his office after the late show, when he’d been shot. No one had heard the shot, but the assistant manager, a Mr. Michael McClosky, had discovered the body about 4:00 A.M. The apparent motive was robbery, since the wall safe had been emptied. Police were busy chasing down clues.
Fortunately, they didn’t spell my name wrong. Or at all.
The food arrived, so I put down the paper and devoted my attention to fi
lling my stomach. The steak was good, and even the coffee was better than an old bachelor like me was used to. I lingered over it, planning my next move. It seemed pretty obvious. A return to the scene of the crime, the Club Nocturne.
I went there.
There was a sign on the door that said: CLOSED BECAUSE OF DEATH. I rapped at the door. I kept rapping until someone answered.
A beefy character opened the door; his white shirt was open at the collar and the sleeves were rolled up. He looked like an ex-boxer. He was smoking what looked like one of Jake Richey’s expensive cigars.
CIGARS! The word flashed in my skull like a neon sign, and I remembered the cigar I’d found in Cherry’s apartment. If Jake had taken her home that night, she was probably the last one to see Jake alive. If Jake hadn’t, then somebody else was with her. Maybe Mr. Closet.
“We’re closed,” the beefy character told me.
“I read that,” I told him. “I’m a detective,” I added vaguely and flashed my identification card at him. “I’d like to ask you a few questions.”
He looked annoyed, “Look, I told you guys all I know.”
“I’m sure you did, but I’d like to hear that story again to check a few details, Mr.—?”
He hesitated. “McClosky, Michael McClosky,” he said finally. “Look, I’ve got a lot of things to clear up, now that Jake’s dead. I’ve got the books to go over yet, and—”
“Mr. McClosky,” I said, just a trifle impatiently, “are you trying to hide something?”
The cigar drooped. “What do you mean?”
“Jake Richey was murdered. It seems strange you don’t want to help us find the murderer, doesn’t it?”
He shrugged nervously and held open the door for me. “Okay, okay, I got nothing to hide. C’mon in, but make it brief, huh?”
“I promise.”
The place was dark inside, but there was a light coming from one end of a hallway and another from Jake’s office. The tables looked like black skeletons thrown in bunches on the floor. He led me toward Jake’s office, we went inside, he closed the door.
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