Poisons Unknown (12 page)

D
ONNA
E
SPIRITO
was sitting in the back booth of a street-corner bar near her apartment. She waved Liddell down as he stood in the doorway, squinting through the slowly swirling smoke. He nodded to her, shouldered himself to a place at the bar, and ordered a straight bourbon.

The bartender spilled an ounce into an oversized shot glass, shoved it across the bar. Liddell pushed it back.

“Better make it a double. I want to be able to taste it.”

The man behind the bar grunted, tilted the bottle over the glass again, and filled it to the etched white line. He dug under the bar, came up with a handful of ice, a highball glass. He drenched the ice down with a flat soda and spun it across the bar. “One-thirty,” he told Liddell. He had difficulty with his upper denture when he talked.

Liddell dropped a bill and two quarters on the bar. “I’m going to be sitting in the rear booth back there. In about three minutes send another one over.”

The bartender picked up the bill and change, rang it up. He held the two dimes in his hand, looked at Liddell, who nodded. The bartender dropped the two dimes into a glass alongside the register and shuffled off to the other end of the bar.

Liddell turned around, leaned his elbows on the bar, looked the place over. He kept his eyes on the door, waited a few minutes before he picked up his glass, then walked to the rear booth.

“What was that all about?” the blonde wanted to know as he slid in opposite her. “I thought you were passing me by.”

“Not a chance, baby. I just wanted to be sure the D.A. didn’t slap a tail on me when I left.”

“How did everything go?” Donna wanted to know breathlessly.

“Smooth as silk. You’re out of the investigation completely.” He took a deep swallow and set his glass down. “What are you drinking?”

“I can’t drink tonight, Johnny. It goes down just this far, sticks there.” She fumbled in her bag, brought up a cigarette, and put it between her lips with a hand that still shook. “Have you heard from the hospital?”

Liddell found a pack of matches and held a light for the girl. “She’s in bad shape. She hasn’t regained consciousness.”

Donna took a deep drag and let the smoke dribble from between her lips. “I’m awfully sorry. You’ve known her a long time, haven’t you?”

“After tonight, I’m not sure I ever knew her, baby.”

“She sure had what it took when the cards were down, Johnny. That goon was going to kill you.”

Liddell nodded, drained his glass, and set it down. “Yeah, she took it for me.” He scowled down at his glass. “I wonder why. I was upsetting what she’d worked years to get—a connection with a foolproof setup. Even if Sammy hadn’t gotten her, it would have meant the end of all that.”

Donna shrugged. “She loved you. Isn’t that enough?”

Liddell grinned. “She also loved her powder-blue Cadillac and her apartment on Carondolet and all the other things the money could buy. She was a funny girl, baby. I don’t think even she could understand some of the things she did.”

A waiter with a white apron tied around his middle flatfooted over with a double shot of bourbon on a tray. “You call for this, mister?” he wanted to know.

Liddell nodded, lifted it off the tray. He dug into his pocket, came up with two bills, dropped them on the still outstretched tray. The waiter went away.

Donna took the remains of her drink and swirled it around her glass. “I guess it’s not very easy to turn down a quick buck when you’ve always wanted the things that only money can buy.”

“That’s just the point. Why kick over that setup for a broken-down private eye who can do you no good at all?”

The blonde smiled. “Every so often something comes along that you can’t buy with money. You want it so badly that the things you can buy with money and the money itself isn’t very important any more.” She shrugged. “Maybe that’s what happened with her.”

“Don’t go philosophical on me, baby.” Liddell grinned humorlessly. “Gabby was a hep gal. She knew how to keep her business life and her sex life well separated. She wasn’t too sentimental to have Angie Martinez killed yesterday afternoon.”

The blonde stopped with the cigarette halfway to her lips. “She had Angie killed? Why? How do you know?”

“Martinez was killed because she was getting ready to open up to me. I think the news that Alfred was dead must have made up her mind.” He picked the cigarette from between Donna’s fingers, took a deep drag. “Gabby’s the only one who knew that Angie tried to contact me.”

“How do you know that?”

He replaced the cigarette. “The musclehead on the desk at my hotel spilled it. Angie had called three or four times, left an urgent message. When Gabby called, he thought it was Martinez again and told her he had all her messages, that he’d have me go see her as soon as I came in.”

“But why should she be killed just because she wanted to see you?”

Liddell raked his fingers through his hair, shook his head. “I’ve been trying to figure that out since it happened. The only sensible guess I’ve been able to make is that she knew who killed Alfred, and more important, had the proof.”

Donna sighed. “In that case, the killer probably has it by now.”

Liddell took a deep swallow from his glass. “I’m not too sure of that, baby.” He swirled the liquor around his glass and watched the reflections of the lights in the place blink in its depths. “From the looks of her apartment when I walked in there, it had been ransacked from top to bottom.”

“So?”

“So unless the killer found it in practically the last place he looked, he didn’t find it.” The girl frowned, shook her head.

“I don’t follow,” she admitted.

“Suppose you’re searching a place for something. The minute you find it, you quit. Right?” The girl nodded. “Then, there’d be some drawers that hadn’t been pulled out, or a closet that hadn’t been emptied. Or the bed wouldn’t have been ripped apart. In other words, there would have been some signs that the search was successful, that they found what they were looking for.”

Donna took a drag on the cigarette and stared down at the ash tray as she crushed it out. “Then whatever it was she wanted to give you may still be there?”

“That’s my guess.”

The blonde wrinkled her brows and plucked at her full upper lip. “But by now it will be gone. Maybe the killer’s gone back, maybe—”

Liddell shook his head. “Right after he left, you got there. You were still there when I arrived, and we left just before the cops showed up.” He made concentric circles on the table top with the wet bottom of his glass. “The police probably kept a man around most of the evening just as a matter of routine. But by now he should be gone.”

“You mean you’re going back there?”

Liddell nodded; the girl shuddered.

“I wouldn’t go near that place for a million dollars.” She laid her hand on his arm. “Why take a chance like that?”

“You probably wouldn’t understand it if I explained, and I haven’t got the time to do it justice. But just put it down to this. I came here to find a man. I found him, and because I found him he was murdered. Now I intend to find the killer, and when I do, I’ll wrap him up in a nice, neat little package and drop him into the D.A.’s lap.”

“You’re right.”

Liddell’s eyes widened. “Most women wouldn’t under—”

“I don’t mean that I agree with you. I meant you’re right. I don’t understand it at all.”

• • •

Marseilles Road in Little San Juan still showed signs of life at two in the morning. A few drunks, white and black, weaved down the street. Some sat on the steps, head sunk below their knees; others snored in vestibules and hallways. A yellow-faced girl in a bright-red dress perked up as Liddell swung onto Marseilles, and fell into step beside him. She whispered to him suggestively, tugging at his sleeve. Liddell grinned, shook his head.

The girl lost interest and fell behind.

Liddell walked past Number 70 slowly, looked in all directions for some evidence of a policeman on duty, then was satisfied that Hennessy had left no one to keep an eye on the premises. He turned around, ambled back, and walked up the three steps to the vestibule.

He waited until his eyes had become adjusted to the darkness, then felt his way cautiously to the stairs. Slowly, he climbed the flight to the upper hall, paused at the head of the stairs, and listened. There was no sound but the steady breathing of a sleeping house.

Liddell walked softly to the door of the front apartment, fished out the strip of celluloid, and slid it into the jamb of the door. After a moment, he was able to turn the knob and walk in.

The smell of death still hung over the apartment. He stood against the door, listening for a moment. Then, taking a match from his pocket, he scratched it and took his bearings. The room was just as he had left it that afternoon. The piles of papers and clothing on the floor showed signs of having been examined, but nothing had been removed. He crossed the room to the bedroom.

The bed still held the dingy linen with an ugly brown stain. No attempt had been made to clean the spot on the floor where Angie Martinez had bled to death. The match flickered down to his finger tips, burning him. He dropped it, swearing. He decided to risk a light with the drawn shades.

Methodically he set about searching every inch of the flat. He pulled the drawers out, dug his hand into the recesses, turned them upside down to be certain nothing was attached to their undersides. He stood on his tiptoes and probed into the corners of the shelves on top of the closets. He examined the molding around the room and went over the furniture inch by inch.

The tank on the toilet was equally disappointing. Ready to call it a day, he got down on his knees, examined the sink in the bathroom. Attached to the underside by strips of adhesive tape was a thin alligator wallet. He tore it loose and flipped it open. There were papers in the compartments. He started to finger through the papers, flipping through the cards in it.

There was a screech of tires from the street below. The sound of a car door being opened. Liddell snapped off the light and crossed to the window. Down below was the familiar white-and-green of a police squad car. Two uniformed policemen were piling out of the car, running for the front steps. Liddell dropped the corner of the shade and sprinted for the hall door.

As he closed the door behind him, he could hear the heavy steps of the cops on the staircase below. He melted into the shadows, started up the stairs to the flight above, two steps at a time.

Behind him he could hear the running steps of the police, the opening and slamming of doors. Liddell cleared the third-floor landing just as the policemen started banging on the door he just left. He headed for the rear of the landing where a short stair led to a door that opened onto the roof. He pushed through and closed the door after him. There was a chair standing there. He propped it under the doorknob of the roof door and wedged it shut. Then he ran for the next roof.

The next two houses were uniform and joined, the third was separated by a six-foot chasm. Liddell tried the roof door of the last house, found it bolted from the inside. Desperately he looked around for some way down, spotted a large plank. He dragged it to the edge of the roof, bridged the chasm to the next roof.

Behind him he could hear the shouted curses and instructions as the cops tried to break open the door to the roof. From below came the shrieking of brakes as other squad cars pulled up to join in the search. The perspiration formed in the hollow of Liddell’s shoulders, ran down his back in rivulets.

He tested his weight on the plank, tried to avert his eyes from the three-story drop below. He crossed quickly and jumped onto the other roof.

There was a growing hubbub as the residents of Marseilles Road were dragged from their beds by the shrieking cars, the police whistles, the noise of running feet and smashing doors.

Liddell pulled the plank after him to cut off access. Behind him, the roof door at Number 70 gave way with a smash as the policemen managed to batter it from its hinges. They stood on the roof, their flashlights stabbing fingers of light in all directions. Liddell could hear the shouted commands as other cops joined them on the roof, joined the search.

Liddell flattened himself against the roof he was on, wormed his way to the rickety penthouse that housed the stairs. His palms were wet; he could feel the perspiration beading on his forehead, running down into his eyes. When he reached the door, he took a deep breath, prayed that no night lock or bolt would hold it fast. He reached up, grabbed the doorknob, tugged. The door swung open.

He slid through it, closed it behind him, ran down the short stairway to the third-floor landing. Above him, he could hear the cops a couple of roofs away, shouting commands, searching every square inch.

Liddell guided himself along the wall to the staircase. He was halfway down the stairs when the door to the street burst open down below. Flashlights played up the stairwells, there was a clatter of hard-heeled boots as the cops started to do a floor-to-floor search. Liddell froze back against the wall, out of the prying range of the flashlights, climbed back to the third floor.

Above he could hear the police on the next roof, separated from the house he was in by a three-story chasm. Below, their comrades were working their way up to where he huddled in the malodorous darkness. He cursed under his breath, tried to estimate his chances of getting back onto the roof and making a run for it, realized he was cornered.

He heard the faint scrape of the door first, then the hiss.

“This way,” a low voice with a soft Spanish accent ordered.

He squinted in the darkness, could see the dim oval of a face up front. He felt his way along the wall, slid through the door.

“Get off your clothes.
Rapido, por Dios!”

Liddell ripped off his coat and shirt, wrapped his shoulder holster in them, tossed it under a chair. He kicked off his shoes as he crossed the room to the bedroom beyond, tore off his pants, jumped into the bed. In a moment, bare warm flesh squeezed in against him.