Poisons Unknown (6 page)

A man sitting on one of the couches yawned, put his paper down. He got up, strolled across the lobby.

Hook led the way past a bank of elevators to one marked
Penthouse
. The tired-looking man who had been reading the paper on the couch stepped into the cage behind them and nodded for the operator to take it up.

“He clean, Hook?” the tired man wanted to know.

“Packing a peashooter, Tim.” Hook turned to Liddell. “Tim here runs the checkroom for the boss. You check your hardware with him on the way in on account of the boss is very nervous about guns. Especially when someone else has them.”

The tall, tired-looking man leaned against the elevator wall, held out his hand. He made no effort to wipe the boredom from his eyes. “You won’t need a check. I’ll remember you.”

Liddell grinned, pulled the .38 from his pocket, and passed it over. “Take good care of it. I may be needing it.”

Tim nodded, hefted the .38 in his palm, looked it over incuriously. “Nice iron.” He dropped it into his jacket pocket. “You’ll get it back. One way or another.”

The elevator glided to a smooth stop at the penthouse, and the doors slid noiselessly open. A man sat at a small desk, paring his nails with a gold pocketknife. He looked Liddell over from head to foot. “He all set to see the boss?”

Tim nodded, brought the .38 from his pocket. “Now he is.” He dropped the gun back into his pocket.

“You better cover the desk here, Hook. I’ll take care of him.” He nodded for Liddell to follow him and knocked three times on a metal door. There was the stuttering of a buzzer, and the door swung open.

Marty Kirk stood in the center of the room, a glass in his hand. He scowled at Liddell as the private detective walked in.

“Well, where’s the hallelujah shouter? You said you’d deliver him this morning.” He snapped his wrist up, flicked back his sleeve, glared at the gold watch on his wrist. “It’s after ten.”

Liddell studied the gang boss, scowled. He got the impression Marty Kirk was scared. There was a fine film of perspiration on his forehead and his upper lip. The hand shook as he lifted the glass to his mouth, drained it. “Well, where is he?”

“You ought to know where Alfred is, Kirk,” Liddell snapped back.

Kirk nodded. “You’re damn right I do. And no thanks to you.” He raised a clenched fist, brought it down on the back of a chair. “What was the idea of the snow job over the phone? You said you were going to see him.”

“I did see him.”

Kirk snorted. “You’re a liar. You said you were going to meet him out at the lake. He was nowhere near the lake. He’s been hiding out over in San Vincente all the time.” He pointed a finger at Liddell. “You didn’t know that he was taking a powder, did you?”

“Look, Kirk, I’ve had a bad night and I’ve got bumps to prove it. Alfred was nowhere near San Vincente when I saw him. If he got there, someone took him there.”

“You saw him?”

Liddell nodded violently. “You’re damn right I saw him.”

“Then why didn’t you bring him in like you said you would?” Kirk’s eyes narrowed. They were inflamed, red-rimmed. He was having difficulty controlling a little twitch under his left eye. “How come?”

“Because I was sapped, that’s how come. But I’ll find him again. And when I do turn him up—”

“The only way you’ll turn him up now is with a spade. He’s dead.”

Liddell blinked. “Dead?”

Kirk picked up a bottle by the neck and tilted it over his glass. “If he’s not, they’re fixing to play him a dirty trick. They’re going to bury him tomorrow.”

The vein in the center of Liddell’s forehead grew prominent, throbbed. He grabbed Kirk by the front of his coat and pulled him close. “So you crossed me! You used me to bird-dog him for you, then you killed him!”

“Get your hands off the boss.” Kirk’s bodyguard’s voice was low, loaded with menace.

Liddell pushed Kirk away from him. “That was a sucker play, Marty. Nobody uses me as a finger for a hit.” His voice was ice-cold, low. “I’m going to pin it right around your neck.”

“Should I throw him out, boss?” The man from the outside office stood, hand sunk in jacket pocket, a telltale bulge in his fist.

“I’m not finished with him, Leo. When I’m finished, you can throw him out.” Kirk finished his drink, slammed the glass down. He spun on Liddell. “And they told me you were smart. You think I’d stick my neck out?” He wiped the wet smear of his lips with the back of his hand, had to steady himself on the corner of the desk. “He killed himself.”

“You won’t sell that package, Kirk. Not while I’m around.”

“Maybe you’re not going to be around long, shamus,” the bodyguard put in.

Liddell ignored the interruption. “I was with him at four this morning. He had no intention of killing himself then, and—”

“So he didn’t figure on dying. Accidents happen.”

“What kind of accident?”

“Piled his car into a tree. Burned all to hell and gone, him and the car. Musta had a snoot full of liquor.”

Liddell snorted. “His sect didn’t believe in liquor.”

Kirk grinned loosely. “It’s like I always say. You can’t trust nobody these days.” He wagged a finger under Liddell’s nose drunkenly. “My friend the sheriff of San Vincente says car and Alfred all soaked with liquor.” He shook his head. “Sad way to go.”

“I’m not buying it, Kirk.”

“Give him his money and get him out of here. See he leaves town, Leo.”

“Keep your money. I don’t sell out. I warned you I wouldn’t stand still for it if anything happened to him when I turned him up. It still goes.”

The bodyguard grinned at him. The grin never made his eyes. “You don’t catch on very fast, sucker. Accidents can happen to anybody. The hallelujah shouter. You. Anybody.”

“Maybe so. You remember something too. A lot of people can get hurt in an accident on its way to happen. Somebody took a pot shot at me last night. If I happen to trace it to this end of town, I’ll be looking you up.”

“Do that,” Leo told him. “Only when you’re looking at me, be sure you can see. There are a lot of guys who came looking for me—only they couldn’t see me. It happens that way sometimes.”

Kirk cut him off with a wave of his hand. “Cut it out, both of you. You’re scaring me to death.” He focused his eyes on Liddell with difficulty. “I told you I’d pay you off. What do you want to hang around for? Your job’s finished.”

“Finished? Hell, Kirk, it’s just begun!”

J
OHNNY
L
IDDELL TOOK
the elevator down to the lobby of Marty Kirk’s apartment building, asked the starter where the telephones were. He was directed to a bank of phones at the rear of the lobby and ambled back, paying no attention to the lazy-eyed lobby guide who’d ridden down in the elevator with him.

He dropped a coin in the box and dialed Gabby Benton’s office.

“No wonder you didn’t want to come back with me,” she snapped at him. “You sure didn’t stay in that room of yours very long.”

“The house dick again, eh? I see where Mr. McGinnis and I have an overdue talk coming.”

“Where’d you go at four in the morning that you had to hire a car? I could’ve driven you any place you wanted to go.”

Liddell grunted. “I got a sudden overwhelming yen for fresh air. I went out toward the lake and slept in the City Park all night.”

“It was pouring all morning.”

“No wonder I got so wet,” he growled. “Look, baby, I didn’t call you to get a third degree. I don’t feel like answering questions from anybody. I’ve had a bad twenty-four hours.”

A note of concern crept into Gabby’s voice. “Something happen?”

“Something happen, she says?” Liddell groaned. “No. Just that our friend Brother Alfred is no longer with us.”

The gasp came over the wire. “When?”

“A couple of hours ago. I can’t talk here. Want to meet me some place and I’ll fill you in?”

“Where are you now?”

“Kirk’s place. Off Lafayette Square on Charles.”

Gabby hesitated. “How about the French Market? Nobody can get close enough to listen in. And you know how to get there.”

Liddell considered it, nodded. “Sounds okay to me. Leave now. I’ll get there as fast as I can.”

Gabby Benton was on her second cup of coffee, third cigarette, and fourth fingernail when Johnny Liddell stepped out of a cab at the curb. She had selected a sidewalk table well separated from the rest of the patrons. Liddell looked around, nodded his approval, slid into a chair opposite her.

“What’d you do, take the fifty-cent tour through the Vieux Carré?” Gabby complained. “I could have gotten here faster than that on my hands and knees.”

Liddell looked at the coffee-stained menu, put it aside, flagged a waitress down. He ordered a large cup of black coffee, a double order of doughnuts. As soon as the waitress was out of earshot, Gabby leaned forward.

“Alfred’s dead? You’re sure?”

Liddell nodded. “They’ve got him in the morgue over in San Vincente Parish.”

“How did it happen?”

Liddell shrugged. “It’s supposed to be an accident Alfred was driving with a skinful of hooch, piled the heap into a tree, and the car burned to a cinder.”

The blonde chewed on the inside of her cheek, studied Liddell with narrowed eyes. “But you don’t believe it?” she demanded.

Liddell shook his head.

“Why not?” Gabby argued. “You saw what goes at the temple. All that holier-than-thou stuff is just a pose.”

Liddell leaned back and waited until the waitress had deposited a large mug of coffee and a plate piled high with hot doughnuts. She added a glass of water, pattered off.

“I know he wasn’t driving the car. He was with me at four-thirty this morning in the City Park. If I’m any judge, he had a good jolt of dope in him when I met him. Rum and that kind of coke don’t mix.”

“You were with him? Why didn’t you bring him in? Then we could pack this whole thing in and—”

“I was sapped. I told you I slept in the City Park all night. I must have been out two to three hours.” He touched the still-tender spot behind his ear. “When I came to, he was gone.”

“Maybe he got away and was running away from whoever conked you—”

“Without these?” He dug into his jacket pocket and pulled out the smashed spectacles. He laid them down beside her cup. “Take a look at the thickness of that lens.”

Gabby picked it up, rotated it in front of her eye. “Pretty strong correction.”

“He couldn’t have driven a foot in the daylight without these. Let alone at night.”

“Where’d you get them?”

“They were lying on the ground when I came to. They were all mashed into the mud as if there’d been a hell of a struggle.”

“What’s it mean?”

Liddell scowled. “It means he was murdered. That accident is as phony as a three-dollar bill.”

“You think Kirk was behind it?”

“Who else?”

Gabby worried her fingernail between her teeth. “How could he? If he knew where Alfred was, he didn’t need to bring you all the way—”

Liddell snorted. “He didn’t know. He needed somebody to turn up Alfred. Like a damn fool, I called Kirk to tell him I was going to meet Alfred. He must have had one of his goons follow me, conk me, and set up the phony accident.”

“What are you going to do about it?”

“I’m going to prove it was murder and hang it right around Kirk’s neck.” Liddell tasted his coffee, burned his tongue, swore under his breath. “There’s only one catch.”

“What’s that?”

“The accident happened in San Vincente Parish. Kirk owns the sheriff and the whole shooting-match lock, stock, and barrel.”

Gabby nodded. “That’s for sure.” She dumped a fresh cigarette from the pack on the table, lit it from a butt in front of Liddell. “That’s not going to make it any easier.”

“Unless—”

“Unless what?”

Liddell jabbed his index finger in her direction. “Unless you come up with somebody heavy enough to offset Kirk’s influence over there.”

Gabby shook her head sadly. “There ain’t no such animal. The sheriff is top man, and—”

“Maybe we can find somebody who can keep the sheriff from throwing his weight around.”

“You got a for instance?”

“A newspaper. A good loud one, the louder the better.”

“What do they get out of bucking the parish machine?”

Liddell shrugged. “An exclusive.”

Gabby plucked at her lower lip with thumb and forefinger. “The
Dispatch
might play ball. They’ve got nothing to lose.”

“The
Dispatch?”

“A new tab,” Gabby told him. “Started up a couple of years ago. Goes in heavily for sensational stuff—murders, rapes. You know the kind.”

“Got a contact up there?”

Gabby nodded. “Larry Dunlop. He used to be with the
Item
. He-” She broke off. “You should remember Larry. He was doing a column for the
Item
when you were here right after the war.”

Liddell ridged his forehead. “He did the ‘Our Town’ column? A skinny redheaded guy? Used to practically live at Arnaud’s?”

“That’s the guy. He left the
Item
when this new sheet started. He’s running the whole show now.”

“Can you reach him?”

Gabby checked her watch against the big clock on the terminal across the way. “The
Dispatch
is a morning sheet and it’s only eleven. He doesn’t usually show until about three.”

“Can’t you reach him at home?” Liddell persisted.

Gabby dug into her handbag, came up with a leather-covered notebook, flipped through the pages. “I’ve got a number here. I don’t know if he’ll be at it.”

“Try him, will you, Gabby? Tell him I want to meet him. Any place he says.”

She pushed back her chair, got up. “Shall I tell him what it’s about?”

“Just tell him I’m willing to shove a first-class exclusive his way if he’ll back my play.”

Gabby nodded, then walked across the court to the building where a telephone booth could be seen through the window. The sheathlike skirt she wore emphasized the shapeliness of her hips and thighs as she walked.

The coffee and doughnuts succeeded in improving Johnny Liddell’s outlook on life. He leaned back and enjoyed the shadows, the coolness of the morning. Down Royal Street he could see the spire of Cathedral St. Louis reaching up into the late-morning mists, standing its eternal guard over Jackson Square. Across the street the long rows of squat houses, with their uniform iron balconies, stretched for blocks.

He was finishing his second cup of coffee when Gabby returned.

“Okay?” he asked as she slid into her chair.

“He’s coming downtown to his office.” She checked her watch again. “He said he’d be there in about twenty minutes.”

“Did he go for it?”

Gabby shrugged. “He’ll listen.”

Liddell nodded. “That’s all I need. Does his sheet pack much weight in town?”

“I don’t know how much weight it packs, but it makes enough noise.” She passed over a pink-colored tabloid. “I picked up a copy at the stand over there. You made the third page.” She flipped it open to a two-column head:
Shooting Scrape in Quarter; New York Eye Is Involved.”

The story ran for almost half a column.

Liddell ran his eyes over it, grunted. “I don’t have to read about it. I was there.” He flipped through the rest of the pages and nodded. “This is just the kind of rag I had in mind.”

“I won’t be able to go along with you to Dunlop’s office, Johnny. I’ve got a twelve-thirty date back at my shop. If you think it’s important that I go along, I may be able to postpone—”

Liddell rolled up the
Dispatch
and stuck it under his chair. “Keep your appointment. There’s nothing you can do on this deal. Either Dunlop goes for my pitch or he doesn’t. If he doesn’t, there’s no need for you to be there, and if he does you’ve already done your share.”

Gabby nodded. “Okay, then I won’t come along. When am I going to see you?”

“Dinner tonight?”

The blonde shook her head. “We’re setting up an evidence raid at a motel tonight. That’s why I have to get back to the office. The wife’s lawyers and the photog will be there to set the last-minute details.”

Liddell grinned. “We better make it tomorrow night. One date with a guy in a motel should be enough for one night.”

Gabby wrinkled her nose, stuck out her tongue. “You might say that’s only an undress rehearsal.” She pulled a mirror from the depths of her bag, inspected her appearance with apparent approval. “I’ll be back at my place after midnight. Drop by for a drink, will you?”

Liddell nodded. “If I can.”

“I’d better get on back.” She got up and brushed her lips across his mouth. “Take care of yourself, baby.”

• • •

The city room of the New Orleans
Dispatch
was almost deserted at 12:30. He picked his way through the organized confusion of the desks, got a passing glance from the handful of shirt-sleeved men who sat pecking away at typewriters of various ages and vintages.

He headed for a frosted-glass door that was labeled
Managing Editor
. Inside a man stood at the window, staring down into the street below. He turned as Liddell closed the door after him.

The man at the window was short, thick at the waist, narrow in the shoulder. His hair had once been red but had now receded until it was little more than rusty tufts over each ear. He studied Liddell from shrewd, humorous little eyes. He grinned broadly, dimples cutting white trenches into the tan of his face.

“Well, fry my hide.” There was a soft Southern slur to his i’s. “I thought sure Gabby was pulling my leg.” He stuck out his hand and returned Liddell’s handshake with a firm grip. “How long you been back in our fair city, Johnny?”

“Don’t you read your own sheet?”

Dunlop made a humorous face. “There’s a limit to what a man will do for a buck, Johnny. Matter of fact, I’ve been out of town the past couple of days. Flew over to Baton Rouge on a legislative story, just got back.” He walked behind his desk, flipped open the copy of the
Dispatch
on his desk, stopped at the story about the hotel shooting. His eyes jumped from line to line. He chuckled deep in his chest, then looked up. “Looks like business is going to pick up. Liddell in town hardly a day and the shootin’ starts.” He sat down behind the desk and motioned for Liddell to pull up a chair. “Gabby didn’t make no sense on the phone, but she sounded awful interestin’. What’s goin’ on?”

Liddell pulled a chair up to the desk and watched with interest while the newspaperman pulled a half-empty fifth of bourbon from his bottom drawer and set it on the desk. “You got the flash that Brother Alfred’s been killed?”

Dunlop transferred his gaze from the bottle to Liddell, nodded. “In a wreck of some kind. I picked it up on the Teletype as I came in. Too bad. Alive he was juicy copy; missing he was even jucier. Dead?” He shrugged. “You’re younger than me, Johnny. Get a couple of those paper cups by the cooler, will you?”

Liddell grunted his way to his feet and crossed the room to where a water cooler stood humming to itself. He pulled three cups from the dispenser, filled one with water, set them down on the desk. “Suppose he was murdered?”

“Very good copy indeed.” He unscrewed the cap from the bourbon, poured a stiff peg into each of the empty glasses, added a touch of water from the third. “You interest me.”

“I intended to. Suppose the sheriff and some of his more influential friends were determined that it be written off as an accident?”

“And you could prove different?”

“I could prove different.”

The white trenches dug deep crescents into Larry Dunlop’s cheeks. “Then we’d have to contradict the sheriff and his influential friends, wouldn’t we?” He picked up one of the paper cups, held it up. “Here’s to contradiction!”

Liddell picked up his cup, tasted the bourbon, and set the cup back on the desk. “Who’ve you got on the story?”

“As of now? Me.” Dunlop drained his cup. “That is, of course, if you can prove to me that it was murder and not accident.” He spilled some more bourbon into his cup. “You know this Brother Alfred for all his glory-shouting wasn’t exactly a sedentary character. Although I’ve never heard of him doing any boozing.”

“How about dope?”

Dunlop shrugged. “Wouldn’t surprise me none. He was a weird-looking character—”

“I know. I’ve seen him.”

Dunlop stared at the private detective. “I thought you just got into town, that you were hired to find him?”

Liddell nodded. “I had a call in the middle of the night. From this Wanda babe who stands in for Alfred. She set up a date for me to meet him.”