Mourn the Hangman (5 page)

He took long strides across Central to
a
small walk-up hotel on the south side of the street. A faded sign advertised it to be the Regal Hotel. Steve stepped quickly inside the frosted door. There was a littered stairway leading to the desk and lobby on the second floor.

Blake waited just inside the door until the big man came out of the restaurant across the street. The fellow moved purposefully now. He entered the doorway of the hotel at the west side of the café. When the door closed behind him, Steve sighed heavily and started up the shabby runner to the second floor of the Regal Hotel.

He climbed slowly, letting his thoughts race ahead of him. It was a frame. Whoever had killed Stella was out to get Steve Blake. They had attempted to set him in the middle of a murder rap. Well, he was still free and he was still breathing and whoever had done it would live to regret it under Steve Blake’s merciless hands. He shivered. He couldn’t imagine anything that would keep him from violently throttling Stella’s murderer.

Blake had to ring the bell four times before a thin, gray little man came through a door behind the counter, yawning and peering at Steve through thick-lensed glasses.

“I’d like a room,” Steve said.

“Four dollars,” the little man yawned. He pushed a card toward Steve. Steve hesitated a moment. Then he scrawled, “Robert Cole, Tampa,” on the card. Instantly, he wished he hadn’t. It was just that he had not thought, his brain was too foggy. That was the name he worked under in Arrenhower’s big industrial plant. But it was too late to change it.

At least, maybe the name would buy him a few hours of sleep.

At most, he thought cynically, it might buy you a fast ride to the death house in Raiford.

He shoved the card away. The gray little man glanced at it sleepily. “Be four dollars in advance,” he said.

Steve paid him. “Any place I could get these clothes pressed?” he asked.

The man looked at him and shook his head. “Nowhere until in the morning, mister.” He handed him a key. “Room 308, up on next floor. It’s got a private bath. You got no luggage?”

“No. I came in on the bus. I must have beat my suitcase to town.”

The man shrugged. “That happens. Well, goodnight, mister.” He yawned.

“Will you send a paper to my room in the morning?” Steve said.

“Sure.” The little man made a note on the card Steve had signed.

Sluggishly, Steve climbed the stairs to the third floor. The numerals were screwed on the door facings, large, cheap tin figures from Kress’s. There was a line of light under the door at 305 and faint music streamed out of the radio. Some faraway, all-night radio broadcast, a sleepy disc jockey and a man sleepless in room 305.

Blake unlocked 308, snapped on the light and then closed the door behind him. It locked automatically. There was a chain latch. Steve dropped it into place. There was a sign pinned to the door. “Not Responsible for Theft. Keep Your Door Locked.”

Charming hole, Blake thought bitterly.

The window was down, the room was warm. There was a musty odor, but Blake decided he’d rather have warmth than fresh air. There were blankets on the old-fashioned iron bed and Blake was thankful for that. He looked forward to lying under those blankets, warm and asleep.

He undressed quickly. He put his shoes on top of the lukewarm radiator. He hung his underwear over the back of the straight chair. He put his wallet and room key on the dresser. Then he shook out his sodden trousers and folded them where the crease had been, once. He pulled back the mattress then, spread an old newspaper over the springs and carefully laid out his trousers. He let the mattress down easily.

In the bathroom, he took a shower. The water was hot. He began to feel warm and he was sure the blood was stirring through his veins for the first time in hours. When he had dried with the big towel, he came back into the bedroom, yawning. He was bone tired, but he felt almost human again.

He went over and turned down the covers on the bed. That’s when he heard the stealthy movement in the hallway. He straightened slowly, listening.

Someone was breathing shallowly just beyond his door. He looked at the chain catch and swore soundlessly. He moved cautiously over to the wall beside the door. Painstakingly, he lifted the chain from the catch and inched it back against the door so there wasn’t a sound.

He could hear movement as the man outside pressed closer to the door, listening. Steve put his hand on the knob of the automatic lock. With his left hand he grasped the doorknob. He twisted both of them at once and flung the door open.

The big man in the brown suit half fell into the room upon him. While the fellow was still off balance, Blake chopped down across his neck with the side of his thick hand. The man grunted just once. His knees bumped and then he sprawled forward on his face.

Steve closed the door, cutting off the faint sound of the radio down the corridor. The man’s rain-splattered hat had fallen off. His head was large and balding. Steve bent down and roughly turned him over on his back.

He recognized him then. And the cold came back. And Steve knew he was going to get the shakes again. The man’s name was Terravasi. He was one of Arrenhower’s company police goons.

They know, he thought sickly.

Arrenhower has somehow discovered who I am, what I am and what I was doing in his big plant. And then he thought, how long have they known? How long have they been watching me?

Long enough to plan Stella’s murder? Long enough to set a murder-frame to catch me in?

He shook his head weakly. It was a chance you took in his racket. But you can’t ever know what it will be like to be caught. Not until it’s too late. Not until they send their goons to follow you in the night.

Poor Stella, he thought anguishedly, it must have been hell for her, facing it alone. He felt a shudder wrack at his belly.

He looked down at Terravasi. The big man was beginning to stir on the scabrous rug. There was a man in the room with Steve Blake. But he had never felt so alone in all his life.

BLAKE WENT in the bathroom, got the towel he’d dried with after his shower and knotted it about his flat-bellied waist.

He sat down then on a straight chair. He could feel that knot of fear congealing in his belly. Terravasi was one of Arrenhower’s goons. That meant Arrenhower knew that Robert Cole, employee, was actually Steven Blake, private eye, who had moved in to take the place of the murdered investigator named Roberts.

He sat perfectly still in his chair. Finally, Terravasi sat up on the floor and hung his head loosely forward. A groan bubbled across Terravasi’s mouth.

At last, he looked up. His pain-ridden eyes bored into Blake’s, showing cold hatred.

“All right, guy,” he muttered.

Blake leaned forward. “You want more, Terravasi?”

Terravasi shook his head painfully. “No.”

“It would be no inconvenience,” Blake said evenly. “There’s plenty more where that came from. You’ll remember that, won’t you, Terravasi?”

“I’ll remember it.”

“I’ll remember it, Mr. Blake.”

Terravasi looked at him. “I’ll remember it, Mr. Blake.”

“How long you been tailing me?”

Terravasi just looked at him.

“Did you kill Stella, too?” Blake muttered hoarsely. “Did they send you to take care of all of it, Terravasi?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You will, Terravasi. I imagine it would take a lot of noise to disturb the management of this watering place. It wouldn’t take a lot of noise right now for me to beat you to death.”

Terravasi stared up at him from the floor. “Ain’t no use, Blake. I just work. Same as you. Go ahead, beat me. I guess right now you could. But I won’t say anything. What’s the use to talk to keep you from killing me? If I talked to you, I couldn’t even get out of this stinkin’ town alive.”

Blake met Terravasi’s sullen gaze. He knew the swarthy goon was telling the truth. This was the second time in one night that Blake had allowed himself to be dissuaded from using his fists. Somebody has got to talk, he told himself, somewhere they’ve got to begin talking.

There had to be a way to force talk. But he knew that a beating wouldn’t help him with Terravasi.

He stood up, trying to keep the defeat from his face, trying to keep his aloneness from showing in the despairing sag of his bare, cold shoulders.

“Okay, Terravasi, get out. This room is taken. I got a scruple this week, Terravasi. No men guests in my room after midnight.”

Terravasi stood up, holding his head slightly askew.

Blake looked at him. “Sorry about the neck, Terravasi. Next time, let me know when you’re coming. I’ll break it.” Their eyes met. “You know I mean that, don’t you, Terravasi?”

The goon nodded. “I know.”

Blake held the door open. “This is where you came in, Terravasi.”

Terravasi walked past him. The music was still streaming out from under the door of room 305. For a moment, Blake stood and watched the thick-shouldered man plod down the hall. He closed the door again then and bolted it.

He shivered. The room had been warm when he came into it. But it was chilled now. Blake could feel the muscles in his belly constrict with cold. He pulled off the towel and let it fall in a heap on the rug. He sank down on the bed and covered up, lying there staring at the paint-scabbed ceiling. He thought bitterly, I’d hate to be a whore and live in a room like this. Nothing to look at but that filthy ceiling and some man’s filthy eyes. The room was silent now and the thin stream of the music filtered through the walls from the room down the hall.

There was a telephone on the table beside the bed. He turned his head on the pillow, staring at the black instrument and its round dial face. A lot of things you could do with a telephone. You could call the police and tell them to come and get you. And you’d be safe then from Arrenhower and his goons. He shook his head. No, he was like Terravasi in that deal. There was no choice. Heads, I lose. Tails, I lose.

He buried his head in the pillow and tried to sleep. The music sifted through the stuffing of the pillow. It was a haunting love song. He had danced to that song, with Stella. How sweet. How romantic. Christ, didn’t that guy down there ever turn that thing off?

He kept the pillow over his eyes and ears. But though his eyes burned with the weariness, he could not sleep. He thrust the pillow off to the floor, kicked off the covers and sat up on the side of the bed. He was aware that his body was covered with sweat. The room was chilled and the sweat was turning to ice water.

He lifted the telephone off its cradle. He dialed the unlisted number that Dickerson had given him. “Call that number if you’re caught,” Dickerson had told him, “or if you get some news that won’t keep.”

This ought to be it, Blake thought wryly.

He listened to the telephone buzzing. He sat with the receiver held loosely against his ear, listening to the ringing far across the vibrant lines. A man’s voice answered sleepily. “Dickerson. What is it?”

Blake said, “I’ve got to talk to you. This is Steve Blake. Hell has broken loose. I got news that won’t keep.”

He could hear Dickerson grunt groggily. “Won’t it keep two hours to daylight, Blake?”

“It might,” Blake said. “But I won’t. You’d better let me come talk to you now, Dickerson, while you can still listen and while I can still talk.”

“Come out to my place,” Dickerson said. “If you’re followed, don’t stop. I wish you wouldn’t come anyway, Blake.”

“I’m coming,” Blake told him. “Leave a boy scout burning in your window.”

“Be careful!” Dickerson warned.

“It’s too late for that.”

“Then don’t come out here!”

“You might as well hang up,” Blake said. “This is for keeps, Dickerson. What I tell you tonight is going to be the last report on this job. But I think you’d better hear it.”

He could hear the sharp catch of Dickerson’s exasperated breath. “All right,” he said. “I’ll be waiting for you.”

Blake quietly replaced the receiver. He got his damp trousers from under the mattress and dressed, hearing the faint, taunting strains of the radio. He wound his watch and strapped it back around his wrist. It was 5:28 A.M.

At the door, he looked once more about the room, the towel on the floor, the covers kicked back. Well, he’d thought he could sleep in this room. But sleep, too, was for the living.

He dropped the room key in his pocket. He closed the door of the room after him. He heard the click of a lock and stopped, watching the hall.

The door of room 305 was opened and a dark haired girl stepped out into the hall. She was wearing a white smock, belted tightly at her tiny waist. Her wavy hair was brushed and rolled under a net. For a moment they stared across the space of the dim corridor at each other. Then she smiled. Blake was positive he’d seen her somewhere before, but he couldn’t remember where or when.

“Hello,” she said, “don’t you remember me?”

Blake shook his head, but said, “Yes. You’re the girl in 305. You play your radio all night.”

“It’s the only way I can sleep,” she said. “I’m sorry if it annoyed you. I didn’t know you lived here.”

“I don’t,” Blake said. “I’m burglaring the rooms. Yours is next.”

She looked at him. “You really don’t remember me, do you? At the Palm Club. My name is Sammy. Sammy Anderson. Don’t you know? I returned your wallet — without even looking at the French postcards in it.”

“Oh, yes,” Blake said. “I remember.”

“I still have the five dollars,” she said with a faint smile.

“Then men are bigger fools nowadays than they were when I was young,” Blake said. He started past her along the corridor.

“I’m on my way to breakfast,” Sammy said.

“Are you?” Blake said. He ignored the implied invitation in her voice. “Aren’t you up kind of early — working till midnight at the Palm Club?”

“I — I’ll go back to bed after I eat,” she said. “It’s just that I hate it at night. I don’t like night. I try to make it end as quickly as possible.”

She started walking with him toward the steps. Blake could see that the girl wanted to say something to him, without knowing how to begin. They descended the stairs in silence. When they reached the street, the girl looked up at him in the vague light of the Regal Hotel doorway. Her dark brows were knotted. She bit down on her full underlip. But all she said was, “Be careful.”

There was a cab at the curb and Blake got into it, giving Dickerson’s Gale Island address. He sat back in the cab wondering what Sammy Anderson had wanted to say to him.

He got out a block away from Dickerson’s big stucco house. As he went along the walk, he watched the first fingers of dawn fumbling upward through the rifts in the black sky.

He rang the doorbell once. Dickerson let him stand there for five minutes. Finally, he cracked open the door and said, “All right, Blake. Come in.”

The house was still in darkness. Dickerson led the way through it into the library. He closed the door after them and then snapped on a small light over his blond-wood desk. The faint light left webs of shadow in every corner of the room. Dickerson, a tall, humorless man with gray hair, sat down, gestured to a chair.

But Blake went on standing.

“All right,” Dickerson said. “What is it you’ve got, Steve?”

“Trouble,” Steve replied.

Dickerson didn’t smile. “I hope you know how much trouble, Blake. You’re wanted for murder. Your description is being blared on every radio in the area, every hour on the hour.” Blake felt the shock of that. Had that been what Sammy Anderson had wanted to tell him? “You’re absolutely no more good to me, Blake. I hope you understand that. Your value to us remained in your being just an ordinary guy at work in Arrenhower’s plant. If anyone in that plant knows who you are — ”

“They know,” Steve told him.

“How do you know?”

“Because I believe they framed me for murder.”

“A man like Arrenhower?”

“Why not? Your company hired me to find out why Roberts was killed, didn’t they? I was in a plant where they wouldn’t hire a man who ever even heard of your company. Far as Arrenhower knew, I was carrying news out of there daily — the materials that have been diverted from government contract work to more profitable channels, what happens to finished products the government never gets, any other violations. What better way to get rid of me than frame me for murder?”

Dickerson snarled. “Murdering you would have been simpler.”

“Murder isn’t ever simple. Would you fellows actually murder a man, no matter what he did to you? You wouldn’t want the stink of murder about you. You couldn’t afford it. Not with defense work. Neither could Arrenhower. But a frame for murder would be different.”

Dickerson shook his head. “It would still be murder. If you somehow beat the rap, it would still be murder. Somebody in Arrenhower’s employ would actually be guilty of it. No. I don’t like Arrenhower. I don’t like his way of doing business. They’ve put our material supply company on the spot with Uncle Sam. But you’re off base if you think he’d have a murder done just to get rid of you.”

Blake stared at him. “You don’t think I killed my own wife, do you?”

“I didn’t suggest you did. I merely said I don’t believe that Arrenhower ordered it done.”

“Arrenhower has been having me followed.”

Now, Blake saw, Dickerson was interested. He sat forward, the desk lamp gleaming on his face.

“How do you know?”

“I caught one of his creeps listening at my door,” Blake said. “And get this, Dickerson. If they know about me, they know about you. If they’re watching me, they’ll be watching you. No matter what you believe, I think I got in this mess because I worked for you. Okay, that’s a hazard of my racket. I’m not weeping. I’m just telling you. If the fact that I worked as a spy for you in Arrenhower’s plant gets out, you’re finished down here. I’ve got to stay free, Dickerson. Somebody murdered my wife. The only way I can find who did it, is to stay free. The only way I can stay free is to have help. You’ve got to help me stay free.”

Now Dickerson stood up. His face looked as though he were suffering in the advanced stages of ptomaine poisoning. Even the shadows under his eyes seemed greenish.

“That’s where you’re wrong,” Dickerson said coldly. “Where you are dead wrong. My interest is not with you. This thing we are trying to do is too big to be jeopardized by you. Get this. No matter what happens, I’ll deny you have any connection with us. As you know, there is nothing in writing. We even paid the fees in cash to your partner, Bruce Bricker. You’re in trouble with the police, Blake. You’re no good to us. And I’ll tell you this. I’m not going to get myself in trouble with the police by harboring you or concealing your whereabouts.”

Blake looked at him. “When you kick a man that’s down, you do it good, don’t you?”

“There’s only one time to kick a man,” Dickerson said. “You’ll learn that working in any government agency. Kick ’em when they’re down, ride with them when they’re on top.”

“Thanks for the bloody mouth,” Blake said evenly.

“Oh, I’m not as bad as you think,” Dickerson said. “I’m going to give you an hour, Blake. You’ve got one whole hour before I call the police and tell them you were here.”