Dressed to Killed (9 page)

"The beginning of a beautiful friendship," I murmured.

"Not a friendship, exactly, just a sort of mutually profitable arrangement, because I was interested in anything that spelled money and I was curious as to how the racket worked. By doing favors for him once in a while and by keeping my ears open, I found out that he was a sort of local agent for a big-time racket. Stolen merchandise was being routed into Chicago from all over the country, and he was the contact for a gang of distributors. Clothing was just a part of it. Furs, jewelry, cars, machinery, musical instruments, optical equipment, guns—anything that was movable and could be sold for a good price, they'd handle. The take they were making was fantastic. By the time it was split up, of course, it wasn't anywhere near what the stuff would have sold for originally, but I could see that the guys who were heading the racket were coining money."

"So you started rubbing Richmond's hair?" I speculated.

"God, no!" She looked at me as though I'd made an idiotic noise. "I'd graduated from that kind of act. Besides, I'd found out it's possible for a girl to play hard-to-get and to end up wearing diamonds. I'd been giving Eddie the new treatment and it was working swell. That's when I started collecting that ice you found. A kind of insurance, you know."

"Tax free, too."

"You bet." She smiled faintly. "Anyway, what I did—and this is important—I happened to mention Richmond's racket to Eddie one night. He'd known that Richmond was peddling things, of course, but he hadn't caught on to how big it was. Once I explained it to him, he was real interested."

"I'll bet."

"Sure. Why not? Everybody's looking for a way to make a quick buck, aren't they?"

"Even me," I admitted.

"See, that's what I've been saying, isn't it?" She settled down beside me again and, perhaps unconsciously, her hand stroked my arm. "Well, Eddie started inquiring around, but it didn't do him any good. He found out that Richmond was fronting for somebody else, but he couldn't find out who the big guy was, not without letting Richmond know that he was trying to cut in. Then, sort of accidentally, we got a break. A guy had been coming into the joint pretty regularly, spending a lot of money, and making a play for me. I was giving him the hard-to-get routine, but he acted real hard hit, and one night, when we were having some drinks, he asked me how I'd like to have a television set. I told him I'd been dreaming about one. He took down my address and the next day a truck pulled up and a couple guys carried that in." She waved at the DuMorell console. "All I had to do was initial a piece of paper."

She laughed softly.

"No kidding, it kind of floored me. I'd given the guy nothing, not even a hope, really, and here he gives me a thing like that, that's got everything from soup to nuts. When Eddie saw it, he said the guy was a prime sucker. Well, the next time he came in, I thanked him, of course, and then I began to see the light. The guy was warehouse manager for the DuMorell company. I found out he got the set for nix. All he did was make out a phoney order blank, ship it out to me, then fake the inventory at the warehouse so it would look like it was still in stock!"

I whistled softly. "Pretty neat."

"That's what I thought—and Eddie agreed, when I told him. To make a long story short, Eddie and I went to work on the guy, I sort of suggesting that I'd go for him in a big way if he had a good bankroll and Eddie sort of showing him how he could get a bankroll without anyone being the wiser. After all, the DuMorell company is a big manufacturer and there were thousands of sets going through their warehouses every day. Eddie didn't need to draw him much of a picture. He knew how to work it; the only thing he didn't know was how to cash in on the set-up. When Eddie got around to explaining it to him, he fell for it but good."

"So?"

"So the guy went to work and started pitching these sets to Eddie. They sell for eleven hundred each, and Eddie was to take care of the selling. Whatever they got, they were going to cut up between them." She paused and moistened her red lips breathlessly. "Eddie had two hundred twenty-five of them stashed in a loft somewhere."

"Two hundred and twenty-five!" I stared at her. "My God, that's more than a quarter-million dollars' worth!"

"Uh-huh." She snuggled her head against my shoulder. "And guess what—" she whispered, "—now that Eddie's dead, I'm the only one who knows where they are!"

SHE was warm against me and the pleasant scent of her tantalized my nostrils. "What do you expect me to do?" I asked.

"See Richmond. Make a deal with him. He can get rid of them for us."

"Gold's the boss."

"Then see Gold. He won't turn down a quarter-million dollars' worth of merchandise."

"You could see him yourself."

"That's just it, I can't."

"Why not?"

"Look at it this way: We've got the stuff. They'll want it, but it takes a man to talk that kind of business, and you're clever. You can make them listen to you."

"But why me?"

"You're in a jam, and—well, something about you makes me trust you. I know you wouldn't cheat me or hurt me. I like you. I guess I like you more than any man I've met in a long time." Her lips were suddenly close to mine and the heat of her breath brushed my nose, then two fiery petals touched my mouth and clung moistly, while the age-old message surged through my body, reminding me that I was a boy. "Think about it, darling," she whispered huskily. "It's the chance of a lifetime, for both of us."

When my toes stopped curling, I thought about it. In an unscrupulous sort of way, it figured. Richmond or Gold might have erased Sands to protect their own racket. Sands died without telling where he'd stored the stuff. Knowing the location of the loot made this girl Ginny chairman of the board.

I didn't kid myself about Ginny's motives. I'm no Casanova and it wasn't anything chemical, either. It was something bigger than either of us—dough. Like she said, a guy could talk a better business deal than she could. I was handy. Also, I was in a jam and, if I didn't behave, she could toss me to the cops and get somebody else to front for her. If she thought I fell for her lovey-dovey act, that was okay, too. As she said, it looked like the chance of a lifetime for both of us.

"Where's the stuff stored?" I asked.

"In a loft on the west side. I've got the address and the key. When you make the deal, I'll take you there."

I nodded. "You're sure Sands didn't tell Richmond where it was?"

"Positive. Why should he?"

"What's the name of this guy, the warehouse manager?"

"Bob Libby."

"Has he been paid off yet?"

"Eddie took care of him. I don't know how much."

"We don't have to fool with him?"

"No. He's been hanging around, trying to buy me, but I'll get rid of him fast now."

"Maybe he killed Sands. Think so? Maybe Eddie gypped him and—"

"Could be. The hell with him, though. We've got ourselves to think about. Honey, what do your girlfriends call you? Russell?"

"Rusty. Red hair, see?"

"Rusty. I like that. How soon will you try to talk to Richmond?"

"If I talk to anybody, it'll be the boss-man, Gold."

"When?"

"It can't be too soon." I looked at the clock; it indicated 10:15. "I'd better get going."

"Darling-?"

"Yeah?"

"You'll be real careful, won't you?"

"That's for sure."

"And you'll come back here tonight, won't you?"

I grinned. "Guess I'll have to. The cops will be keeping an eye on the hotels. You won't mind if I use your sofa, will you?"

"Rusty, honey!" She sounded reproachful. "Aren't you forgetting we're partners now? I wouldn't make you sleep on any old sofa...!"

I laughed and pulled her into my arms. I kissed her in a way calculated to assure her that I was a man she could depend upon to return in good health and in a hurry. When I left, a couple of minutes later, I was the proud possessor of a key to her apartment and I had the .38 in the right-hand pocket of my jacket.

I walked west to Rush Street, nagged a cab, and had it drop me a half-block from the Crilton Hotel. At a corner newsstand, I bought a copy of the Tribune. The Tribune doesn't favor the lurid journalism that the Journal does, so I didn't rate a banner head, but I was right smack on the front page, only a couple columns away from Eisenhower, McCarthy and a blurb for the Republican Party.

SUSPECTED KILLER

DUPES POLICE

Russell Forbes, Implicated

In Sands' Murder, Escapes;

Singer Questioned Again.

I stood beneath a street light and read the story. While being questioned, it seemed, I had strong-armed my way to freedom and eluded pursuit. The police of five states had been alerted. Commissioner O'Connor had requested a written statement of the facts from Captain Matthews, preliminary to deciding whether or not Matthews or Trottmann should be cited for negligence. Fia Sprite had been turned over to the state's attorney's office for additional questioning.

On an inside page, I found a brief paragraph about Giselle Kent. No blaring headline, just a factual story to the effect that the body of a girl, believed to be that of Giselle Kent, who had been wanted by police for questioning in the Sands' case, had been discovered in an alley behind a dry-cleaning establishment on Cicero Avenue. Superficial examination revealed that she had seen strangled. The coroner's office was seeking to determine whether or not she had been a victim of attack...

Seeing it in black-and-white, like that, it hit me hard. "Hell," I thought, "a young kid gets murdered in cold blood— and they've got to bring sex into it. To them, it's just another possible sex-crime item, something for the suburban matrons to shake their heads over. Goddamn them."

Crying wouldn't do any good. My hand pressed hard against the gun in my pocket. Richmond, Gold, or one of Sands' buddies, whoever it was, I'd get him. He'd find out how it felt to grovel and die.

A thought struck me: how had they gotten her as far west as Cicero Avenue? Had they spotted her as she left Ginny's place and picked her up then, or had they been waiting in her hotel room? A picture flashed across my mind, and I saw her opening the door of her room, expecting it to be me, starting to smile—and him pushing her into the room, slapping a hand over her mouth, forcing her to go down to a waiting car.

The picture vanished, leaving more questions. Why take her to the west side? If they'd cornered her in her room, why hadn't they killed her and left her there? Or if they'd captured her on Bellevue Place, there were alleys there as well as on Cicero Avenue. Why did they carry her so far? Why did they take such chances?

Without conscious planning, I stuffed the paper into my pocket and headed for the Crilton. I had to see her room. I had to know what had happened. I was in an elevator before I realized what a foolhardy risk I was taking—and then it was too late.

"Floor, sir?" the attendant asked.

"Nine."

He took me up, banged the door open, let me out. I walked slowly down the corridor, waiting for the sound of the door closing. It banged at last and the elevator hummed downward. I ran lightly along the corridor, searching for the fire stairs. I found them, dimly lighted concrete steps circling tightly above and below me, and I went quickly down them to the seventh floor. I stepped into the corridor cautiously, listening for the elevator, for voices, for footsteps. It was quieter than a baby's conscience. I approached the door of 712—and listened again. Nothing.

I studied the panel. There was no seal on the door. Evidently the cops hadn't arrived yet. Then I remembered: I didn't tell them she was staying here—and the only address in her purse had been the one on her driver's license, her hometown address in West Frankfort. Unless they'd phoned her parents, or checked the work-sheet in the Cadillac garage, they wouldn't know where she'd been staying. I took a deep breath and relaxed a little:

The lock was a standard tumbler affair, old and well-worn. The key slit, worn wide by the careless insertion of countless keys, lay at a forty-degree angle, suggesting that, the last time a key had been used, it had been removed hastily without returning the tumblers to zero position. I searched through the change in my pocket, found a dime, forced the edge of it into the slit. Then, with steady pressure, I turned it slowly. With a soft, oily click, the bolt slid back. I opened the door silently.

A plank of yellow light from the corridor fell into the room ahead of me, giving me a momentary glimpse of a chair, a dresser, and a rumpled studio bed near a window. Then my back was against the door and darkness was all around me. I stood there, breathing quickly, listening to the sounds behind me in the corridor. There were no questioning voices, no inquiring footsteps. I continued to stand there, nostrils quivering to the faint remembered scent of her perfume which lingered on the stale air, and letting my eyes accustom themselves to the darkness.

The square of the window sharpened gradually and the articles of furniture began to stand out. It looked like a typical hotel room, small, with Grand Rapids furniture and a woman's accessories. From what I could see, it looked as though she had dressed—or undressed—hurriedly, leaving small articles of clothing on the chairs and dresser. Automatically, my hand moved toward the light switch—and paused.

The window was open, its shade up. At regular intervals, an exterior neon sign blinked on, giving the room a reddish-green cast. I moved across the room, my eyes on the window, and came to a stop with my knees touching the edge of the studio bed. I leaned over, my fingers reaching for the shade— and then my heart stopped beating.

The rumpled covers moved suddenly and slim arms rose to encircle my neck. A ghostly voice said: "Oh, Rusty, thank God you've come—!"

I RECOILED as though I'd poked my head into the embrace of a boa constrictor and a horrified yelp started to rattle against my teeth.

"What took you so long?" She sat up. "I thought-" "Giselle!" I gasped. "Good God, you're alive!" A strap of the lacy nightgown slid off her shoulder as, with a sleepy yawn, she shook her head to loosen the blonde hair about her face. I reached for her, still dazed and half-believing, and felt the smooth firmness of live flesh, still warm and faintly damp from sleep, beneath my fingers. With a laugh, she put her arms around me and pulled me against her. Her lips sought my mouth and clung.

"Sure, I'm alive," she whispered. "Do I have to convince you?"

"No, but—" I pushed her away. "Haven't you seen the papers?"

"Of course not." The neon sign outside flashed on, bathing the pale oval of her face with its bizarre reddish-green long enough for me to see the puzzled expression on her face. "You said I should stay here and wait for you. I've been here all day, wondering what had happened. You could at least have called and—"

"But, honey—they said you were dead!"

"Dead?" The neon illuminated her face again, showing the startled O formed by her lips. "Who, me?"

"Yes, you!" I turned a lamp on and pulled the Tribune out of my pocket. I found the item and pushed the paper into her hands. "Here. Read all about it."

As she read, her eyes registered horrified disbelief. "Why, it couldn't be! It must be a terrible joke of some kind! I haven't been out of this room—"

"It's no joke," I said grimly, "not to the girl who got strangled."

"But... how horrible! Who could she be?" "I don't know, but we're going to find out." I reached for the telephone directory and looked up the number of the Sun Times. I gave it to the switchboard operator and, while she was making the connection, I said: "Get dressed, kid. We're going places." With a quick nod, she slid off the bed, and, in a swirl of filmy nylon, scampered into the bathroom.

A metallic female voice droned: "Sun Times..."

"Ed James in the city room," I told her.

"One moment, please..." She went away and the line hummed in E flat. It clicked abruptly and a man's voice said hurriedly: "Yeah. James speaking."

"Ed, this is Rusty Forbes."

I could visualize him blinking at the phone through his horn-rimmed glasses. "No fooling. Where you at?"

"That's not important. Look, Ed—I need a little help."

"You need a lot of help, plus maybe some divine intervention."

"It isn't as bad as it looks."

"What's the story?"

"I've got a witness who'll swear that Sands' body was in the car before I touched it this morning. Also, Fia Sprite's story is part of a frame, and—"

"Who's the witness?" he interrupted.

"Giselle Kent."

He laughed shortly. "I've got news for you. She's dead."

"Like hell. She's with me now, and very much alive. Somebody made a mistake in identifying the other body. I think they killed the wrong girl. Can you tell me where the body is?"

"Not off-hand. The coroner usually uses some local undertaking places as a temporary morgue." His voice changed as the story possibilities hit him. "Are you sure about this?"

"Positive."

"You think you'd know the girl?"

"Giselle Kent might."

"Suppose I pick her up? We could use something to balance the Journal story. I'll keep you out of it, of course."

"How soon?"

"Where are you now?"

"How soon?" I repeated.

"Well, I can leave here in about a half-hour. Tell me where—"

"We'll be in Kritickson's Restaurant on Chicago Avenue, near State. Back booth. I'll be watching for you."

"Right." He hung up.

"Come on, kid," I said. "We've been pushing our luck. We'd better get out of here."

She was staring at my red hair. "You ought to wear a hat," she said. "Somebody might recognize you."

"I'll have to chance it," I told her. "The stores are closed."

"How about a beret? I have a blue one—"

"You want people to think I'm a pansy?"

"It'd be better than having somebody call the cops, wouldn't it?"

She had reason, as the French say. I put it on, pulling it back from my forehead and letting it flop toward my left ear. I felt jerky in it, but it sure as hell changed my appearance.

"All right, let's get out of here," I said impatiently.

She swung out of the room ahead of me, looking trim and smart in the tailored suit of coral cloth which she'd put on. Several people stared at the beret as we rode down in the elevator, and I could feel them winking at each other behind my back, but I just gnashed my teeth. When we reached the street, I hailed a cruising cab.

"You and your bright ideas!" I gritted, climbing in after her.

She giggled. "You look cute. Real arty!"

Kritickson's was crowded but I spotted Ed James at the bar. I waved.

He peered at me through the horn-rimmed glasses, smiled slightly, and started to turn away. "Hey, Ed!" I called. "Over here."

He came toward me. When he got close enough to get me in sharp focus, he grinned suddenly and slapped his forehead in a gesture of complete bafflement. 'Terrific," he said, plopping down beside me, "absolutely terrific. At first glance, I thought one of the girls was waving at me."

"You're asking for a case of no teeth," I told him.

He punched my arm lightly. "One never knows in this neighborhood. Done eating?" He looked casually at Giselle.

I did the introductions. I knew Ed James pretty well. I was sure I could trust him. So as soon as they stopped smiling formally at each other, I gave him the whole story. He listened without comment until I finished.

"All right, let's find out who the kid is," he said. "I phoned Walter Andrews, one of the assistant coroners, and he said he'd meet us there and keep his mouth shut."

The drive took about twenty minutes. On the way, I pumped Ed for information about Leo Gold. "I can't give you a hell of a lot," he told me, "because he's been off my beat. I can tell you, though, that he's had an office in Chicago for quite a few years but never got much attention until the Kefauver Committee came into town and started smelling around a couple years ago. Then he popped up as the mouthpiece for a couple of the big boys. Since then, he's been scurrying around town, dressed real pretty and keeping his hair combed. I think I heard his name involved in a couple real estate deals lately."

He negotiated a sharp curve expertly.

"Personally," he continued, "my guess is that you're making a mistake about him being the big gun in this deal of yours. He impresses me as being strictly errand-boy caliber."

"Richmond took orders from him," I reminded him.

"So what? Richmond's a peddler. That puts him way down the line."

"But if it isn't Gold, who could it be?"

"Anybody," Ed said flatly. "It could be damned near anybody—even me, or my virgin Aunt Susie. It just takes capital, connections and loose morals. All I'm missing is the capital." With a grin, he braked the car and swung it toward the curb.

The building he parked in front of was a wide, glass-fronted store with heavily-draped windows. A chaste legend in gold letters proclaimed: SYDNEY POLLIN—Mortician.

"This is the last place I wanted to go," Ed cracked.

I felt a shiver course through Giselle. I gave her a quick squeeze before taking my arm away, then I opened the door and we got out. Ed James gave her a keen look. "Aren't upset, are you, Miss Kent?"

"No." She tightened her chin. "No, I'm all right."

"Fine." He rang the night bell and stamped his feet impatiently. "With luck, I may be able to make the last editions with this," he said.

A thin, bald-headed old guy in a stiff collar and dark suit peeked around the drapes, then opened the door for us. Sidney Pollin, in person. Inside, a younger man, wearing a rumpled seersucker suit, was waiting. He got up and shook hands with Ed James. It developed that he was Walter Andrews, the assistant coroner.

Pollin led us through a small, spooky chapel to a smaller room at the rear where, on a waist-high table, a sheeted figure lay. I put an arm around Giselle and walked to the table with her. Walter Andrews pulled the sheet away. Stretched before us, as relaxed as though in sleep, was the nude body of a slim, blonde girl who looked so much like Giselle that I did a tripletake.

"Why... that's Diane—" Giselle said in a trembly voice. "Oh, the poor thing!"

"Diane who?" Ed James asked.

"Diane Doll." Giselle's voice sank to a troubled whisper. "That's the name she used, anyway."

"Where'd she work?"

Giselle shook her head. "I don't know. I used to see her at some of the places. You know."

"Any idea where she lived?"

"No. I just saw her around. I think she used to be a dancer. I'm not sure."

"Remember seeing her with anyone in particular?"

"Well... men, of course. I don't know any of their names." James turned to Andrews. "What's the latest, doc? Any definite conclusions?"

"Not many," Andrews conceded. He moved a fluff of blonde hair away from the girl's neck, pointed with a finger at a series of tiny bruises. "Judging by the position of these semilunar bruises, which appear on both sides of the neck, laterally and at the level of the larynx, a rather strong person grasped her from the front, using two hands, and caused the fracture of the laryngeal cartilage. The smaller curved lesions were caused by her assailant's fingernails."

"Man's or a woman's?" I asked.

"It could be either."

"Would a man's nails be apt to leave marks like that?" I insisted.

"Some men have very nice fingernails." He lifted his eyes and glanced at my beret. "On the other hand, I have observed that some women have almost no fingernails at all."

I felt the back of my neck grow hot. "I just wondered," I muttered.

"How about assault?" Ed James asked.

"There was no sexual attack, if that's what you mean," Andrews stated carefully. "Assault—yes, of course. It happened very fast, probably, before she could make any attempt to defend herself."

"How do you figure that?" James asked.

"By the condition of her clothes and by these—" Andrews moved to the middle of the table and lifted the girl's hands. "You'll notice that she has long fingernails, filed to a rather sharp point. None of them are broken, nor were we able to find any foreign particles, such as flesh from her assailant's face, beneath them."

"Umm." James frowned. "What are those marks on her knees?"

"They're rather interesting," Andrews said. He put a hand under her left knee and turned the leg slightly so we could all see a long, bluish discoloration which marred the pallid skin. "This one is pre-mortem; in other words, it occurred shortly before death. Yet, oddly enough, it was covered by a very sheer stocking which was undamaged. It suggests that she bruised herself—or that a severe blow was administered— while she was dressing, immediately prior to the strangulation."

He released the leg and pointed at the other knee, where a series of ugly marks abraded the skin.

"These were caused post-mortem. The stocking over the area was ripped to shreds. It suggests that she was dragged for a short distance because her assailant was not quite able to bear the entire weight of her body."

"Suppose she was thrown from a car. Would she have been marked like that?" James asked.

"Possibly; in fact, very probably."

"Tell me this," I interrupted. "What made everybody jump to the conclusion that she was Giselle Kent? Who made the identification?"

"I'm afraid I'm responsible for that," Sydney Pollin said nervously. "A purse was brought here with the body. When the police inventoried its contents, it was found to contain an envelope addressed to Miss Kent." He coughed delicately. "Naturally, I was interested in locating a relative or... ah... establishing whether or not—"

"Yeah, yeah, I know," I broke in, "you wanted to find out who was responsible for her so you could try to sell them a fancy casket. So what'd you do, open the envelope?"

He recoiled as though I'd clacked false teeth in his face. "Why, yes. I suggested it to the police. They agreed."

"Why, the idea!" Giselle snapped, sounding angry.

"What was in the envelope?" I pursued.

"A letter from a hairdresser—a Mr. Mel—reminding her that... ah... she might need a new permanent."

"He sends them to all his customers every couple of months," Giselle said. "He must have sent it to me in care of the Frolics Club."

"What the hell was Diane doing with it?" I asked. "Anyway, that sounds to me like the lousiest job of establishing an identity that—"

"But Mr. Mel came and looked at her, sir," Pollin interrupted hastily, "and he identified her as Miss Kent. We thought that, being a hairdresser, and so forth, he would be in a position to know."

"Mr. Mel said it was me?" Giselle shrieked incredulously. "Why, he ought to know better!"

"Yes, miss, you'd think so, wouldn't you?" Pollin stammered.

"Wait a minute," I interrupted, "what was in the purse besides the letter? Wasn't there a wallet, some cards, anything like that?"

"No, sir." Pollin shook his bald head. "Just loose change, a package of cigarettes, and some Kleenex tissues. The letter was in a sort of flap inside the purse; the police nearly missed it, in fact."

"Some of the girls don't carry much identification," Giselle put in slowly. She colored a little. "You know, sometimes the guys get sort of out of hand, and they try to look in a girl's purse to find out where she lives so they can—well, so they can bother her, maybe, later." She bit her lip. "It's terrible to say this, now that she's dead, but maybe she was going out to meet somebody, and she thought they'd... Well, you know."

"Sounds reasonable," Ed James agreed.

Andrews soberly drew the sheet over the pallid body. "It's getting late, gentlemen. Any other questions?"

"I'm set," Ed James said. He looked at me. "How about you?"

I nodded.

"In that case, thank you very much, Miss Kent, for setting the records straight. We're sorry it happened, of course, but mistakes do happen."