Mourn the Hangman (6 page)

IT WAS full morning as Blake started down the street from Dickerson’s big house on Gale Island. A bright, sunshiny morning. The rich hedges about the rich homes looked richer than ever after last night’s rain. But the world seemed pervaded with wrong this morning. The kind of wrong that eats at you when the man who has hired you and put you on the spot suddenly tells you that you’re on your own. To hell with you. Blake could feel the muscles tighten along his squared jaw.

As he started across the humped-back bridge, a cruising taxi honked at him. Blake flagged it down and told the driver to take him to the Federal Building. The car was being pulled into the curb before Blake realized why the streets were so deserted and quiet. It was Sunday, early Sunday morning.

Blake felt a little ache of agony across the bridge of his nose. It wasn’t Sunday to him, it wasn’t any day at all. It was just long eternal hours since Stella had been killed.

He bought a morning newspaper from the blind news’ vendor in the lobby. The newspaper was wearing its gaudy jacket of Sunday comics. Blake kept it folded under his arm as he went up in the elevator. In the small mirror beside the operator’s head, he could get a nightmare view of his face. His haggard eyes were swollen from lack of sleep. Two hard lines sliced down from his distended nostrils beside the bitter slit of his mouth. His fingers nudged at the heavy blue growth of beard. He averted his gaze.

On the tenth floor, he entered the office he had shared with Bruce Bricker for the last four years. He gave the door a pat in passing and listened to the lock click behind him.

He spread the newspaper out on Prue Quincy’s neat desk, dropped the comic section in the waste basket. And there was his picture and an old photograph of Stella on the front page. The headlines had pushed aside the war and the weather: WOMAN MURDERED; POLICE SEEK HUSBAND.

Slowly, he read the whole story. The coroner had placed the time of her death roughly between 4:30 P.M. and 6 P.M. And, Blake thought grimly, that put him right in the middle of it.

The husband had been seen to enter the apartment (Ah, Ada Grueter had been talking!) and was seen leaving it by the garage attendant, Bix Glintner. Blake reread the whole story, but there was no mention of one thing he felt was vitally important. Who had known Stella was dead inside that locked apartment?

Much was made of the fact that the husband had disappeared and was Number One on the wanted list of Police Lieutenant Ross Connell.

There was a great deal, obviously written by a slob sister, about Stella. Her two marriages — the last one, beginning so idyllically and ending so tragically; the fact that once she had won a beauty contest. Blake was glad they hadn’t published any photos of her as the police must have found her, almost nude, her shoe missing, her face bloodied, on the divan.

The news stories did nothing for Blake but bring it all back to him, the agony and despair he’d felt. He stood by the desk, his fist clenched on its top, feeling the hurt and the need for tears deep in his belly.

He balled up the newspaper in his fist and thrust it into the waste basket. He went into the office he shared with Bricker. He peeled off shirt, coat and tie and went into the small private lavatory to shave.

He knew it was going to hurt, standing there staring into his eyes. What’s worse than looking into your own eyes and knowing you’re alone and despised? Or is it even worse to know that somewhere, near him, the man lived and breathed who had battered Stella to death and he was helpless to find him?

He glared at the hurt, haggard eyes in the glass. He wasn’t helpless, he told those eyes. He was still free. He was still breathing. Finding people was his job. It was the only job he knew. No matter that Stella hated his profession. He had learned it and he was going to be able to get his hands about the throat of the man who’d killed her.

As the tempo of his thoughts increased, his hand moved the razor faster on his cheeks and neck. He washed out the razor and went back to the office for his shirt.

The shirt he had been wearing was soiled and wilted. The wrinkles in it seemed to have been ironed into it. Then he remembered that Bricker kept extra white shirts in one of the filing cabinets. Of course, Bricker was a barrel with short arms. But a clean shirt was all that mattered.

He pulled at the filing cabinet and almost pulled it over on him. Locked. Bricker and his damned keys, he thought vehemently. With the heel of his hand, he jammed at the lock sharply and listened to it snap with grim satisfaction. That’ll show Bricker how effective his keys are against anyone who really wanted to get into these things, he told himself.

He selected a carefully laundered shirt and put it on, stuffing it inside his trousers while his thoughts moved over all that had happened to him, every little thing that might have led to Stella’s murder.

He went over to his desk, flopped down behind it and dialed a number. He listened to the telephone ring a long time. When the man answered, Blake could hear him grumbling about being disturbed this hour on a blamed Sunday morning.

“Edwards?” Blake said.

“Yeah.”

“This is Steve Blake — or Robert Cole.”

He heard Edwards’ sharp little whistle. “Blake will do. That Cole malarkey is gone. Where are you?”

Blake laughed at him. “You ought to know.”

“How the hell should I know?”

Blake decided to hell with arguing that with Edwards. “I want to see Arrenhower,” he said.

“What?”

“You heard me. You could fix it. I’ve got to talk to him.”

Edwards laughed again. Mirthlessly. “You’re wanted for murder, Blake. You’ve been a very naughty boy, pretending to work for Mr. Arrenhower while, really, you were working for somebody else all the time. You’ve been a fool, Blake. But you ain’t a big enough fool to want to talk to Mr. Arrenhower after all that.”

Blake’s voice cracked sharply. “I’ve got to talk to him!”

“Look, Blake, I don’t know what you want. But take my advice. You got troubles enough. Stay away from Arrenhower.”

“I don’t want your advice.”

“Nobody ever does,” Edwards said sadly. “But it’s mighty good advice — and for free, Blake. Arrenhower would chew you up and spit you out — right in the laps of the cops.”

“I’ll worry about that. Somebody killed my wife.”

“You think maybe Mr. Arrenhower did it?” Edwards laughed.

“I don’t know. I only know I didn’t do it. I know Arrenhower has plenty of reason to want to fix my tail — ”

“You are so right.”

“And I want to talk to him.”

Edwards was silent a moment. “Tell you what. Now I shouldn’t do this. But I don’t think you’ll stay out of jail very much longer. So I’ll tell you. Why don’t you get to Tampa about nine o’clock tonight? Mr. Arrenhower loves girlie shows. They have a hot one out in Ybor City at El Toreador. He’ll be there. Why don’t you come? I know Mr. Arrenhower would love to see you. That is if you didn’t stand between him and the girls.”

There was a sharp click and the instrument went dead in Blake’s hand. He tossed it back into its cradle and leaned back in his chair. God gave you brains to think with, Blake, he told himself. Use ’em, use ’em, use ’em.

But the whole business was so wrong that Blake could get nowhere with it. Dickerson, by all rights, should have wanted to keep Blake away from the police. Dickerson’s people didn’t want publicity, not even if they denied it in every newspaper and on every radio in the country. And yet Dickerson told Blake that he was through with him, left him to do what he wanted to do. He felt a little cold at the nape of his neck. Was it that maybe Dickerson was pretty sure Blake wasn’t going to live long enough to talk to the police? Dickerson’s kind loved silence. And is there anything more silent than a dead man?

His jaw tightened and his fists clenched on the edge of his desk before him. That was fine. That was violence and violence he understood. He could fight back. What he couldn’t fight were men who hit at him through Stella and disappeared. He wanted to hit back at something — and there was nothing to hit. Last night, Manley Reeder talked him out of using his fists. Later, Terravasi did the same thing. And he had known they were right. It wasn’t going to help him to fight until he knew what he was fighting.

Well, there had to be an answer somewhere. If Arrenhower had had anything to do with Stella’s death, it had to begin with Arrenhower’s finding out that Blake was a spy, didn’t it?

How could he find out? How?

He got up and paced the room. His shoulder brushed the filing cabinet drawer that he’d left standing open. He thrust it back. It flopped open again, because the lock was broken. Bricker was going to raise hell about that. Bricker —

He wanted to retch. It was as though a hand grasped at his belly and shook it until he was sick.

He stared at Bricker’s desk. He began to see Bricker as his partner had been yesterday afternoon when he arrived in the office. Bricker had been nervous as hell. He hadn’t thought anything about it at the time. He’d thought it was because tight-mouthed little Prue Quincy had hot pants in the outer office.

Bricker had practically sprinted back to his desk. Fumbled around while he talked. And locked something in his desk drawer.

Calmly and coldly, Blake went around Bricker’s desk and sat down. He tested the drawer. It was still locked. His heart had begun to slug hard against his ribs.

First, Blake decided to pick the lock. Then he shook his head. Hell no. Let Bricker know the truth. He had been through Bricker’s desk.

With a sharp thrust of the heel of his hands, he broke the second of Bricker’s locks.

But he didn’t have to go through Bricker’s desk. The papers were there just as Bricker had fumbled them together and shoved them into his drawer yesterday afternoon.

One letter was from Dickerson. Terse, brief, it was dated Friday. It simply terminated any agreement between Dickerson and Bricker & Blake, Confidential Investigations.

Dickerson had called it off on Friday!

Sick at his stomach, Blake remembered how Bricker had smiled when Blake had said he was through on the Dickerson job.

His fingers were trembling slightly as he read the other brief note. It was bold as hell. It was on Arrenhower stationery. It was written, scrawlingly, in ink and unsigned. Simply, “Enclosed. For value received.”

BLAKE HEARD the outer door of the office opened and closed.

A smile, grim as the outskirts of hell, sat on his lips. He sat back with the two letters in his hands. He heard the footsteps across the outer office, heard the humming. Then the inner door was shoved open.

The humming stopped. Bricker’s mouth stayed open. His eyes widened. The blood crept down out of his face.

“Did you mess in your pants, Bricker?” Blake inquired. “I hope you didn’t. You’re a big boy now.”

“What — are you doing here?”

“Reading. Waiting. Wondering what in the hell. What made you do it?”

Bricker took another step into the office. Plainly, he was sick at his stomach.

“It was over, Steve. Finished. There wasn’t any choice.”

“What do you mean, there wasn’t any choice? I’m your partner. I was your partner. You sold me out.”

Bricker took another step forward. “Look, Steve. Look at it this way. For the past five years or so, it’s all been investigations of companies like Arrenhower’s, who’ve been cheating on the government. Right? The government couldn’t hit hard enough at profiteers and chiselers. Right? So they wanted Arrenhower investigated, because the small businessmen who supplied his raw materials wanted him investigated. Is that still right?”

“You’re talking, Bricker.”

Bricker dampened his lips. “But now there is a war scare. It’s like the early forties all over again. The government needs the big plants. To hell with investigations. They’re kissing the big boys again. The people being exploited can go to hell. If they howl, the government don’t like it. They’re unpatriotic; they’re practically Commies. So that’s what happened, Steve.”

“Talk sense.”

“But damn it, I am talking sense. Dickerson was in the driver’s seat. He had plenty of money and he hired us. Then all of a sudden, Arrenhower was crying to a few senators and the government withdrew its tacit support of Dickerson. And Dickerson was left holding the bag. Only we were left holding the bag. They came around to me. From Arrenhower. Somebody was working for Dickerson and I had just so long to make up my mind. I could tell them, Steve, or, well, damn it, they’d have put us under. And they could do it if they wanted to!”

“That figures. But there is still something you’re not telling me.”

Bricker was sweating. “Look, Steve. I know you’re upset. My God, it’s a wonder you ain’t crazy. Stella dead and all — ”

“I know how bad you feel, Bricker. I heard you grievin’ when you came into the office.”

“I am sorry, Steve. Sorry as hell. But the police are after you — ”

“I’m still waitin’, Bricker. How about it? How much? Arrenhower’s men weren’t crude enough to threaten you. How much did they offer you — ” his jaw tightened; he felt the muscles in his belly constrict — “to see that I was in that plant yesterday?”

“I tell you we’d have been finished!” Bricker whined. “License revoked. Clients gone. Trouble. Trouble.”

“How much, Bruce?”

“All right, Steve. Ten thousand. Prue and I talked it over — ”

“Prue and you talked it over! Prue and you! Since when have you been partners with Prue Quincy?”

“I had to talk to somebody! I was worried crazy!”

“And I wasn’t around — ”

“No, Steve, you weren’t around — ”

“Bricker, you’re a son-of-a-bitch — ”

“All right, Steve-”

“You’re a dirty son-of-a-bitch — ”

“I said, all right, Steve!”

Blake stood up.

“So you sold me out to Arrenhower? What would you have done if I’d been accidentally killed walking out of his plant? That happened to Roberts, remember? That’s how we got this job in the first place. Suppose I’d been hit by a hit-and-run driver. That happens, doesn’t it, Bricker? Especially to guys who don’t know they’ve been sold out! Would you have sent flowers, Bricker? Is that why you tried so hard to get me to go back over there yesterday?”

Bricker mopped at his face with his handkerchief. “It wasn’t like that, Steve. They just wanted you out of the plant.”

“Yeah. Sure. Lucky for me I was worried about Stella and got out of there before they could put Operation Exterminate to work!”

Bricker came forward slowly. “Why don’t you go to the police, Steve? You didn’t kill Stella — ”

“Do you think I can prove it?”

“You don’t have to prove it! They’ve got to prove that you did!” Bricker cried. “You know that. At least, Steve, you’d be safe from Arrenhower — ”

“What do you care if I’m safe from Arrenhower or not? You got your ten grand, didn’t you? Besides, you just got through saying you knew nothing was going to happen to me! Remember? Arrenhower didn’t want to hurt a hair on my head. Remember? Wasn’t that what you said?”

“Yeah! Sure, Steve. That’s what I thought. God almighty, I’d have never gone along with them if I’d thought anything else. You know that!”

“The world’s flat, Bricker. Ends at the North Pole. I know that.”

“Stop, Steve. Good God, don’t you think it’s hard enough for me?”

“I think it ain’t started being hard for you, Bricker. I think you got out of your warm bed, patted Prue Quincy’s tight little behind and came down here to destroy two letters that you meant to destroy last night. But I came along and you didn’t get a chance to. I think if that had happened, you’d have smiled in my face and told me you didn’t know a goddamned thing about it. You’d have smiled at me all the way down the river. Because that’s the kind of sneak you are!”

“Be reasonable, Steve! I did what I thought I had to do. But I’m trying to make it up to you now. I want you to give yourself up to the police — you’ll be safe from Arrenhower — ”

“Why don’t you give yourself up to the police? Then you’d be safe from me — ”

“Stop it, Steve! Damn it. You shouldn’t have come here. You think that elevator operator didn’t recognize you? She called me instead of the police. That was a lucky break for you-”

“Oh, I’m all over four leaf clovers. I got you on my side.”

“I am on your side, Steve.”

“Then may God help me — ”

“Steve, I’m going to work for you. I didn’t know that Arrenhower was really after you — ”

“How do you know now? How’d you find out?”

“I tell you, I’m working for you. Dickerson called me — ”

“Boy, that busy little telephone of yours!”

“Stop hating me, Steve, and listen. Dickerson called and said you’d told him that one of Arrenhower’s private police was tailing you. Terravasi — ”

Steve felt the jolt of that in his diaphragm. The wrongness again.

“Who?” he said. “Who was tailing me?”

Bricker’s gaze wavered. His face flushed slightly. “That’s — that’s what Dickerson said you told him. Terravasi — ”

“You’re lying, Bricker. Again. I know. I didn’t tell Dickerson. I said that one of Arrenhower’s goons. He must have twenty men on that police squad of his. I didn’t mention any names.”

He started slowly around the desk. Bricker gasped sharply and took a step backward.

“Steve!” he whispered. He jammed his hand into his coat pocket. “Steve, stay where you are. One murder is enough. Stop right there. Don’t make me be guilty of one.”

Steve looked at the outline of the small automatic in Bricker’s coat pocket. Slowly, he lifted his gaze to Bricker’s eyes. Bricker was smiling!

Bricker began to talk, his voice more confident. “You’re in bad trouble, Steve. Trying to assault me wouldn’t help you any. Some day, you’ll thank me for stopping you like this.”

“You’re still a son-of-a-bitch, Bricker. Even with that gun in your hand.”

“Some day you’ll thank me, Steve.”

“Yeah. When they strap me in that electric chair at Raiford, my last thoughts will be of you, Bruce. Believe me.”

“I hate for it to be this way, Steve. Honest to God. But I know how wild you are. With Stella dead and all. I just can’t take any chances with you losing your head — ”

Blake shrugged. “So you might have to shoot me. That would be terrible. You wouldn’t be able to sleep until you got back in bed with Prudence, would you? All right, Bricker. What do we do now? Have you called Ross Connell of Homicide, Dickerson of American Materials or your new boss, Arrenhower?”

“I haven’t called anybody, Steve. You can get out of here. I’ll give you plenty of time.”

“Everybody giving me a chance! Everybody loving me — you guys are going to love me to death.” He walked over and picked up his coat. He slid his arms into it and shrugged it up on his shoulders. “I think Stella was killed because somebody wanted to frame me for her murder. Even you look pretty sour to me, Bricker. It might be a good idea if you shot me now. You’d sleep a lot better if you know too much about this thing — ”

“I don’t know a thing, Steve! So help me God. This — this other thing — with Arrenhower — that was business. I had to do what seemed best. But, my God! Stella was — my friend!”

“Yeah. So was I.”

“Steve — believe me, anything I can do to help you — ”

“Oh, no. I think I’m here because of you. But you could help me a lot if you’d tell me how you knew Terravasi was tailing me.”

“It’s the God’s truth, Steve. Dickerson told me.”

“He couldn’t have! I didn’t mention that name. And Terravasi is working for Arrenhower!” Suddenly, he stared at Bricker. “Or he was working for Arrenhower!”

Bricker dampened his lips. He shook his head. “No, Steve. Dickerson was hiring Terravasi, too. He worked for Dickerson — at Arrenhower’s — just like you did.”

Blake’s shoulders sagged. “It don’t figure,” he whispered.

Bricker stepped away from the door and gestured for Blake to pass through it on his way out. “But that’s the way it is, Steve. I guess Dickerson wanted to know what you were doing, too.”

Blake moved slowly past Bricker. At the door he stopped. “Well, this is it, Bricker. Four years shot to hell. I don’t want you to think it hasn’t been wonderful. Because it hasn’t.”

He turned and walked across the outer office. God, how his little part of the world had tumbled about him. But beside the grief and loneliness he felt at the loss of Stella, losing this partnership and this office and even the plans he’d had for it, meant nothing. To care about things was another luxury peculiar to the living, he told himself bitterly. And there was no place in him for anything except finding Stella’s killer.

Manley had been in town. Bricker had sold him out. Dickerson had tossed him over. Arrenhower had discovered his secret. Those were the things Blake had found out. He had to stay free until he found out what those things meant. Maybe, if he could stay free long enough to get to Arrenhower in Tampa tonight….

He was positive now that Stella had been killed as part of a plan to eliminate Steve Blake via a framed-up murder.

He pushed through the stairway door and started walking slowly down the open iron stairs. Down. Around. Down. The building throbbed with its unaccustomed Sunday morning silence. At the ground floor, Blake stepped out the rear exit into the alley. He looked both ways. He smiled grimly and started walking east in the alleyway.

At Third Street there was a current of churchgoers. Blake counted this as fortunate. He mingled with them, moving sedately in their midst to the corner of Central. He crossed the street then, remembering to wait for the green traffic signal. There was no sense in getting arrested for an ordinance violation.

He still had the key to his room in the Regal Hotel. He wasn’t sure when a day ended in this scabby establishment, but he meant to find out.

He climbed the stairs slowly. There was a clerk on duty in the second floor lobby, but he only looked up disinterestedly as Blake crossed the wide corridor and started up to the third floor landing.

Daylight lent no enchantment to the dim hallway with its pockmarked doors closed and locked against theft, the shabby runner and the ceiling with the paper torn and peeling. At 305, he listened for the radio. But the room was silent. Maybe the girl — Sammy Anderson — could sleep now, in daytime and silence.

At the door of 308, Blake fitted the key into the lock and sighed a little as the door swung open. He didn’t envy Sammy Anderson living in a place like this, but at least 308 would be a haven for a few hours more.

He had already closed the door, hearing the lock click into place, before he was aware of the man across the room.

He was sitting on a straight chair that was propped on two legs against the window that he’d opened to the morning sunlight. He was wearing a lightweight topcoat, and his gray felt hat was in his lap. He wasn’t a handsome man and he wasn’t a big man. He was about medium height, with sandy, thinning hair, a thin nose and tired blue eyes. He was the most patient man that Blake had ever known. His name was Ross Connell.

He was a lieutenant in the homicide bureau of the Gulf City police.

“I thought you were smarter,” Connell said mildly. “Why’d you come back here, Blake? You ought to know. First thing we do is put a check on hotel registers. How long’d you think it would be before we found out you’d been here?”

Blake shrugged. “I thought you’d give me credit for more sense. I thought you’d figure I knew about the hotel check and would stay away.”

“Yeah,” Connell said. “That’s what I thought you’d figure. That’s why I waited.”