Man On The Run (10 page)

”Par’n me, Jack,” it said. It blinked at me, swayed unsteadily, and withdrew. It was attached to a massive, thickset body in dark trousers, and a dark gray sweater with no shirt. “You can have it in just a minute,” I said. I hoped he didn’t fall on the booth and knock it over.

“You still there?” Brannan asked.

“Yeah. What were you going to say?”

“Tell me where you are. When you hear the siren coming, stand in the open with your hands on top of your head.”

The party in the other booth went out now, and I heard the big drunk stagger in and try to dial somebody, humming to himself. “Nothing doing,” I said.

“All right. If you’re too stupid to care what happens to you, think about your friend. Somebody’s hiding you. And some of these judges can get damned nasty about harboring a fugitive.”

“I know that,” I said. “So does he. But how about spending a few minutes of your time trying to catch the fugitive that
did
kill Stedman. I’ll give you this once more, so write it down. Frances Celaya. That’s C-e-l-a-y-a. Shiloh Machine Tool Company. Same name as the Civil War battle.” I dropped the receiver on the hook and went back to the car. We pulled out into the traffic.

“Did it do any good?” she asked.

“I doubt it,” I said. “But at least we tried.”

She put the car in the basement garage. “You go on up,” I said, “so if anybody recognizes me we won’t be together.” I waited five minutes. When I went around to the front door and pressed the buzzer she let me in. I met no one in the corridors. I tapped lightly on the apartment door and she opened it.

She had tossed the fur coat in the bedroom and was wearing a skirt and sweater outfit. The living room and her study were littered with books, notebooks, spread-out maps, and sheets of paper.

“Did you have a cyclone?” I asked.

She shook her head. “I’ve been doing some research. But let’s see how badly you’re hurt.”

We went into the bedroom. I tossed the topcoat on the bed and stripped down to the waist. “Oh, good God, Irish,” she exclaimed. One whole side of my torso, from lower ribs to groin, had turned black. I touched it. It hurt.

“Hadn’t we better get a doctor?” she asked.

“No. He’d have to report me. I think it’s just a bruise, and there’s probably nothing wrong inside.”

“Well, we’ll see, in the morning. But you come lie down in the living room, and I’ll fix you a drink. And some coffee and a sandwich.”

She moved some of the books and maps off the sofa and I stretched out. I felt tired and beat-up and defeated. In a few minutes she brought me a Martini. When I sat up and drank it, life had a little better outlook. She put a sandwich and a cup of coffee on the low table before me and sat on the floor on the other side of it with a cigarette.

“Let’s see where we stand now,” she said thoughtfully. “That girl will never show up for work again, and the chances are she’ll leave town. We don’t have any idea who her boy friend is. It seems almost certain she was in Stedman’s apartment during the fight, she saw you, and she killed Stedman just after you left, and then left herself by the rear entrance just before the police arrived. But even if the police did pick her up now, there isn’t one shred of evidence on which to hold her, and we don’t have the faintest idea why she should want to kill Stedman. Was it jealousy? I mean, she might have heard you accuse Stedman of running around with your wife.”

“No,” I said. I drank some of the coffee. “I don’t think I said a word to him. I just belted him. She must have deliberately picked Stedman up there in Red’s bar because she was going to kill him when she had the chance. But why go to all that trouble? I mean, to play him along for ten days or so? She and that thug could have got him a lot easier than that.”

She drummed her fingers on the table. “There are a couple of possibilities. Maybe she was trying to find out something from him. Or suppose it was revenge? The victim has to know, at the end, and see it coming, or there is no revenge. You follow me? She had to be in a position to tell him, and still do it, and get away with it I think Stedman was being fitted for an eventual ‘suicide,’ on the order of Purcell’s, when you blundered in. Not necessarily that night, but sometime in the near future. You just presented her with the perfect opportunity to do it then. And with you for the goat, the suicide bit wasn’t necessary.”

“Nice crowd,” I said. “I wonder what they do for an encore? But I like the revenge angle. That takes us right back to Danny Bullard and ties it in with Purcell. And that guy with her tonight could very well be Danny Bullard’s brother.”

She nodded. “Except for a couple of things. There’s nothing to indicate she even
knew
Danny Bullard. Not so far, anyway. And somehow I just can’t see her or this cold-blooded thug declaring war on two policemen merely because they killed him.” She paused, and frowned. “Even if you conceded that
she
might, in case she was very much in love with him, the brother is definitely out. He hadn’t even seen Danny for years, so far as anybody knows. Criminals may hate all police impartially, but I don’t think they take a personal view of a thing like that; at least, not to the point of endangering themselves for revenge.”

“I agree with you,” I said. “It doesn’t make sense, actually. But let’s drop it for the moment and talk about something else. I’ve got to get out of here, before I get you in serious trouble. Brannan warned me it could get awful rough on whoever was hiding me.”

“Oh, Brannan’s foot,” she said. “You’ll stay here till we solve this thing.”

“I’m not sure we’ll ever solve it now,” I said wearily. “I’ll never find her again.” I lighted a cigarette and stood up to walk back and forth across the room. I had to step over books and maps. “What’s all this research, anyway?”

“The battle of Shiloh,” she said, tapping a pencil absently against her teeth. Then she jerked erect. “Oh, of all the stupid idiots—”

“What’s the matter?”

“I just remembered where I ran across the name of that machine tool company. It was the other day in the library, when I was going through the back copies of the
Express,
looking up Purcell’s suicide.”

I whirled. “Did it have anything to do with Purcell?”

“No-o. That wasn’t it,” She bit her lip, concentrating.

I crushed out the cigarette. “Let’s go over to the library and see if we can find it again.”

She started to get up; then she glanced at her watch, and shook her head. “The library’s been closed for nearly an hour.”

“Well, we’ll go in the morning, then.”

“Oh, I could look it up tonight,” she replied, still frowning. “I can always get into the morgue over at the
Express
building.
But what the devil was it?
It was only a small item on a back page, and I think it was a followup on some older story.”

Then she snapped her fingers and got to her feet. I’ve got it! It was something about a robbery.” She ran into the bedroom to get her coat.

“But why in God’s name would anybody hold up a tool company?” I asked, helping her on with the coat.

“To steal a lathe?”

“No, no, of course not.” She gestured impatiently. “The payroll was held up. You stay right here. I’ll be back in less than an hour.”

I paced the floor, smoking one cigarette after another. Just after eleven-thirty I heard her key in the door. She came in and closed it quickly, and I could see intense interest and excitement in her eyes. I took her coat.

“Don’t bother to hang it up,” she said. “Toss it here on a chair. I think we’re onto something.”

She shoved one of the hassocks up to the coffee table and sat down. Opening her purse, she took out two sheets of paper covered with notes. I knelt on the floor across from her and watched eagerly.

“It was held up?” I asked.

She nodded. “But that’s not it alone. There are really
two
stories, apparently not related at all. But if you struck them together in just the right way you might get a hell of an explosion. Listen—”

She consulted the notes. “On December twentieth of last year—that would be a little over two months ago—the payroll of the Shiloh Machine Tool Company was hijacked just as it was being delivered by the armored car company. It had all the earmarks of a professional job, very thoroughly studied and thought out—cased, I believe the term is. In the first place, it was the last payday before Christmas, and all the employees were getting a cash bonus. The whole thing came to a little over fourteen thousand dollars. The timing, and the exact method of delivery of the money, had apparently been studied for some time. There were two men involved in the actual holdup, and a third was driving the getaway car.

“But something did go wrong. A police car showed up unexpectedly just at the last moment, and one of the two gunmen was killed. They both wore masks, incidentally. The other one, and the driver of the car, got away clean. Along with the money, of course. The case has never been solved. They don’t know to this day who the two men were, and none of the money was ever recovered.”

”What about the one who was killed?” I asked. “Didn’t they identify him?”

She nodded. “Yes. But there was no lead at all to the other two. He was an out-of-town hoodlum, from Oakland, California, I think. As far as the police could find out, he’d never been in Sanport before, and didn’t have any connections here at all. His name was Al Collins and he had a record a mile long, but he might as well have been from the moon as far as identifying the other two was concerned.

“Of course, the police checked out all the Shiloh employees who worked in the accounting and payroll departments as a matter of routine, but found nothing. If the gunmen had got any information from inside, the fact was well hidden. So much for the first story.

“Late the following night—that would be Saturday night December twenty-first—a liquor store was held up in one of the suburban shopping centers. It was a routine sort of thing, one gunman, fifty- or sixty-dollar haul, nobody killed. The case was turned over to Purcell and Stedman, along with several others they were working on.

“The next day, the owner of the liquor store tentatively identified a photograph of Danny Bullard as the gunman who’d held him up. This wasn’t particularly surprising; he’d held up plenty of them and had served time in prison for at least one. Late that afternoon Stedman and Purcell got a tip from a stool pigeon as to where Bullard was living. It was an old apartment house in a run-down section of town on Mayberry Street. They went out to pick him up for questioning. He didn’t answer their knock, but they thought they heard him inside, so they broke down the door. He was trying to get out a window and turned with a gun in his hand, ready to open fire. They shot and killed him. They made out their report, there was the customary hearing, and they were completely exonerated. End of second story.” She glanced up at me. “You can see the possibilities now.”

I nodded. “Did they ever find out if Bullard actually did rob the liquor store?”

“The case was closed that way. After all, he had a record of liquor store robberies, and the owner was pretty sure of his identification.”

”Then if your guess is right,” I said, “there would be one person—and maybe two—who knew Bullard hadn’t held up any liquor store and that he was just hiding out with fourteen-thousand from the Shiloh job; fourteen-thousand that hasn’t showed up to this day.”

“That’s right,” she replied. “And it goes a long way toward establishing the revenge motive. Justifiable killing in line of duty is one thing, but cold-blooded murder by two crooked cops for a pile of money is something else. But I’m inclined to think they might be wrong, about the killing, at least.”

“It’s possible,” I agreed. “Their idea probably is that Purcell and Stedman found out about the Shiloh loot and deliberately fast-talked the liquor store man into an identification, for an excuse.”

“That’s right. But they’d have to be pretty gruesome to do it. It’s more likely they didn’t even know Bullard had anything to do with the Shiloh job until they found the money in the apartment after they’d already killed him for resisting arrest. The temptation was overpowering, it looked safe, so they risked it. They probably thought the third man was also an out-of-town import. And he probably was, except that he was Danny Bullard’s brother.”

“Yeah,” I said. “And a cold-blooded goon who’d already killed two or three men. They picked a lovely spot to turn crooked.”

She lighted a cigarette. “There’s only one trouble with it, of course. And that is there’s still not the slightest connection between Danny Bullard and Frances Celaya, as far as anybody knows. And remember, the police have checked it in both directions. They investigated the Shiloh employees for underworld connections after the holdup, and looked into Bullard’s girl friends after Purcell’s death.”

“But there
has
to be,” I said. I got up and walked across the room. “Jesus, if I could only have got into her apartment. I might have found a letter or something.”

She looked thoughtful. “You’re absolutely positive there was nothing else in her purse that might have the address?”

“No,” I said. “Just the usual cosmetics and junk, and a pair of stockings she bought at Waldman’s.” I stopped. “Oh, sweet Jesus, how stupid can you get?”

”What is it?” she asked.

“There’s a charge-a-plate in it and the sales slip for the stockings! She charged them, and I forgot all about it.”

She came instantly alert. “Well, maybe we can find the purse.”

I shook my head. “I don’t think there’s a chance.”

“Think,” she ordered. “Try to remember about how far you ran, and in what direction, after you jumped out of the car.”

“Oh, that part’s easy,” I said. “It was only three blocks, and I could find it blindfolded from there. But I don’t know where I jumped out of the car. I was lying on the floor. I don’t know how long. Part of the time I may have been unconscious. All I can remember is that it was a little neighborhood business district, maybe two or three blocks long. There was a movie theater on one side of the street and a drugstore on the other, and a filling station down at the end of the block. There are probably a hundred little districts like that in the city.”

“Hah! And you’re supposed to be a navigator.” She grinned. Springing up, she went into her study and returned with a city map. She spread it out on the coffee table. “I’ll bet we can find it in thirty minutes. Now come around here so we’re on the same side.”

I moved over. “Look,” she said, “right here is where I picked you up. Octavia, in the 700 block. See? Now, which way did you approach Octavia?”

“Down this street,” I said, tracing it with my finger, four or five blocks.”

“All right. And did you turn into that street from the right, or left?”

“Hmmm—I made a right turn.”

She nodded. “Good. Then you were coming from this section. From the west. So let’s extend this line a short distance and leave it for the moment, then try from the other end. Do you remember what bus she took?”

“Wait—” I said. “I do. It was a number seven. And we got off at Stevens Street.”

“I think we’re in business,” she said. She went over to the telephone, looked up the number of the Transit Company, and called it.

“Could you tell me where your number seven line crosses Stevens?” She held on for a moment, and then nodded, “On Bedford? Thank you very much.”

She came back and sat down. Referring to the street index at the bottom of the map, she said, “Bedford Avenue—R-7. Hmmm. Here we are. You were going north on Bedford. Here’s Stevens.”

I ran a finger along the line. “And here’s the playground, three blocks from the bus stop. That’s where they jumped me.”

“Right,” she said. She made a mark there with her pencil. “You were put in the car there. And that’s south and west of Octavia Street. You approached Octavia from the west, so they were taking you in a generally northeasterly direction.” She extended the two lines until they intersected and drew a circle around them some fifteen or twenty blocks in diameter. “Now hand me the telephone directory again.”

I put it in front of her. She flipped through the yellow pages to Theaters. “Read them off, with the street addresses,” she said. “I know most of the downtown ones, so we can eliminate them and just concentrate on the neighborhood houses.”

It took about ten minutes. We wound up with two neighborhood movies whose street addresses fell inside the circle. “It’ll be one of those,” she said.

“Probably this one,” I said. “The Vincent, on Stacy Avenue. It’s nearer Octavia. I couldn’t have walked much over a mile.”

She stood up. “Let’s go get it.”

I put on my shirt, tie, and coat, and was just reaching for the topcoat when I stopped abruptly. “The key!” I said. “My God, I don’t know what I did with that. The address is no good if I can’t get in.”

I’d had it in my hand when he grabbed my topcoat. Had I held onto it? I shoved a hand into the right topcoat pocket and sighed. There it was. I must have dropped it in there while pretending I had a gun in it

“You still have it?” she asked.

“Yeah. I guess I’m getting tired.”

I went out first and she picked me up a block away. “Listen,” I said, “this time, if I get in trouble, run.”

She shook her head. “Relax. I’m getting the feel of this business of being a fugitive.”

Fifteen minutes later we turned off an arterial into Stacy Avenue. It was strictly residential here. We went straight up it for about ten blocks.

“That’s it,” I said excitedly. “Right ahead there.”

It was after midnight now, and the theater marquee was dark, as well as the big drugstore across the street, but the service station was still open down at this end of the block.

“Turn right at the corner beyond the drugstore,” I said. “Then it’s less than three blocks.”

She made the turn. The streets were deserted now, and nearly all the houses were dark. We went slowly past the mouth of the alley in the second block. “That’s it,” I said. “But go on for another block, and I’ll walk back.”

She crossed the next intersection and parked under some trees at the curb. She switched off the lights. I got out, softly closed the door, and walked back. When I reached the mouth of the alley there was no one in sight anywhere. I ducked in. It was on the left, about halfway to the other end, I thought. When I was almost there I could make out the gate, still open.

It was pitch dark inside the yard, but I could see the blacker mass of the oleanders in the corner. I slipped toward them and bumped into something. It was a garbage can. It fell over, the lid clattering. I froze, crouching beside the high board fence. A minute passed, and then two, but no lights came on in the house. I eased past the fallen can and reached into the oleanders. Kneeling, I pushed into them, groping with my hand. In a moment my fingers touched it. I slid it out, clamped it under my arm, and hurried to the car.

“Well, that was fast,” she said softly, as she pulled away from the curb. She turned, went back to Stacy Avenue, and swung left, toward the arterial.

I set the purse on the floor between my feet, and bent over it, flicking the cigarette lighter. Taking out the little bag containing the nylons, I extracted the sales slip. The imprint of the charge-a-plate was inked on it.
Frances. Celaya,
it said.
1910 Keller Street. Apt. 207.

“Keller Street,” I said. “You know that one?”

“No,” she replied. “We’ll have to look it up on the map.”

I pulled it from the glove compartment and unfolded it. At that moment she made a turn into the arterial and pulled to the curb under a street light. We both bent over the map.

“Here we are,” she said quickly. “K-3.” She ran a finger out along the line and found it. “That’s in the same area as Randall Street. Only five or six blocks over.”

“Maybe we’ve got her this time,” I said. “But, God, I hope she’s lost that gorilla.” I put the map away.

She had lifted the purse onto the seat and was taking everything out of it. I checked the wallet. There were five or six dollar bills in it, but no other identification except a Social Security number. I was about to drop it back into the purse when I noticed it had a zippered compartment in the back. I, opened it. At first glance it appeared to be empty, but then I saw a folded scrap of paper down in one corner. I fished it out and unfolded it. There was a telephone number penciled on it, and a girl’s name.
GL 2-4378 Marilyn.

“What is it?” she asked.

I showed it to her. It looked as if it had been in the wallet a long time. “Odd way to write it,” she remarked. “With the number first.”

It probably wasn’t important, but I shrugged and dropped it in my coat pocket. “Nothing else?” I asked.

She shook her head and began replacing everything in the purse. “That seems to be it.” She turned and dropped the purse in the back, and we pulled away from the curb.

I glanced at my watch. It was after one a.m. now. I was probably already too late. If I’d got the correct address the first time I might have made it to the apartment before they did, but now there was no telling what I’d run into. Would she have left town, or would she be waiting for me with that cold-blooded killer? I gave up. There was no way to guess what she would do.

It was a little nearer the downtown area than the Randall Street address, a run-down district of grimy apartment buildings and small stores, shadowy and empty at this time of night. 1910 was an old three-story brick. She drove slowly past. Only two or three of the windows showed any light.