Stab in the Dark (4 page)

K
NOX
returned to the lobby and idled there until he saw Jock come out of the washroom and turn toward the service entrance. He moved then, going out the side door and to the alley. He was in time to see Jock climb into a dilapidated coupe. Walking easily, he intercepted the car at the mouth of the alley.

“One minute,” he said.

Jock peered at Knox, outlined only by the backwash of headlights and a dim street lamp. He looked as if he wanted to slam the car into gear and get out of there. Knox was ready and let a ten dollar bill come into sight.

Jock relaxed. “Yeh?”

Knox grinned. “I’m not one of Beeker’s boys. But I have got a proposition. It’s worth a few bucks to you.”

“I haven’t got anything you want, mister.”

“Okay,” Knox said. “I’ll buy you a drink and let you tell me about nothing.” Knox waited, watching Jock’s expression. The strong chill of evening had come down over the city and he shivered a little, wishing he had his overcoat. But there was no time to go get it now. He thought he had this man and he wanted to hang on to him.

Jock looked more at the bill than at Knox. He said, “Climb in. I’ll always take ten for saying nothing about nothing.”

Knox went around the car and let himself down on the lumpy seat. “Name your spot.”

They drove four blocks toward the industrial section, turned onto a more quiet business street and pulled up before a place labelled Hod’s Tavern.

Knox saw the other car when they got out. He had been conscious of the headlights behind them because he was always aware of such things. But they did not imprint themselves forcibly on his mind until the coupe had turned off the main boulevard. Now he glanced at the other car, casually, watching it drift on by, neither fast nor slow. It was a late model Ford. Beyond that he couldn’t tell much in the bad light.

He said nothing to Jock, just followed him into the tavern, noisy now with on the way home drinkers. The place served beer and something called local wine, nothing else. Jock ordered two on draft, and they went to a booth where they could be served. Knox took a position where he could watch the door easily. Before their beer arrived, two men came in. One was in overalls. He took a place at the bar and chatted familiarily with some of the men there. Knox dismissed him.

The other man wore a business suit, dark, conservative. He was smallish with wispy gray hair combed carefully over a balding head. It showed when he took off his homburg hat and sat at a front table. He did not look around but simply ordered a beer, lighted a cigaret, and then stared at nothin. Knox did not dismiss him.

After their beers came, a third man entered and caught Knox’s interest. He was as big as Beeker but he walked with a rolling gait that threw his heavy shoulders forward, making him look shorter. He had a thick-featured face, the nose askew, the eyes showing scar tissue. He took a seat at the end of the bar where it curved to meet the wall. From there he could easily survey the entire room.

Knox might not have thought much about him except that he recognized the man. His name was Eddie Pillow and he was a hangover from the rum running days of Prohibition. When the old city administration fell, it was rumored that he had gone to South America. Knox was surprised to see him walking openly in the city.

He turned his attention to Jock. “I’m a writer. I’m doing a feature story for a magazine on what happened today. We may never get a chance to print it, but if the clamps ever come off, then we can. I get paid big if it goes, so why not cut you in on it?” He reached again for his pocket.

“Why me?”

“Why not? You found him.”

Jock’s pale blue eyes looked into his beer. “Said who?”

Knox felt as if he were cheating. Taking this man was too easy. He made little effort to be subtle. “Beeker told me. We’re friends from way back.”

Jock sampled some of the beer. “Then let Beeker tell you the rest of it,” he said reasonably.

“I want an eye witness account,” Knox said. “I won’t break the story until the cops give an okay. Then you’ll get a spread—how you felt when you found him, what you did, the works.” He paused and sipped his beer. It was green.

“That is,” he went on, “if you want it that way. Pictures, too, maybe.”

Jock bought it. Knox could see him puffing a little. “A big magazine? Like
Life?”

“More like the
Post
,” Knox said.

“And it’s q.t. until it’s okay with the cops? I don’t want any trouble with that Keehan.”

“You won’t have any trouble. This story won’t break until I get an okay,” Knox assured him. “It’ll have Beekers’ views and Maddy Keehan’s too. When they can talk, then it’s safe for you to.”

Jock seemed impressed that Knox could call Keehan by his first name. He was obviously much more worried by the sergeant than by Beeker himself. He said, “I got but one story to tell. Listening to that Keehan, you’d think I was covering for somebody. I told it to him this way and that’s the only way I can tell it—and not lie.”

He sounded sorry for himself. Knox slipped ten more across the tabletop. “Take this for a starter. Go ahead.”

Jock sounded a little as if he were reciting. “This Deane dame, a public stenographer—one of those that works out of the lobby—calls me a little after three. She has a busted chair and how can she type with a busted chair. I look it over and see that it’ll take some fixing. One of the big screws that hold the springback on has worked loose and gouged itself a hole in the wood. She tried to fix it and only made it worse. I have to plug the hole and put the screw back in. That takes more equipment than I carry with me, so I hoist the chair and go down for another.”

He paused and tasted some more of the beer. “I leave the chair in the workshop and go on to the storeroom. It’s dark-like. When I turn on the light, I’m half blind for a minute. When I can see, I start into the room for the chair. And there’s this guy with his back to me. I got to him. What the hell—I think he’s one of that crummy kitchen crew snoozing off a load.” He paused and refreshed his throat again.

“Sure,” Knox said, “anybody would.”

“That’s what I tell Keehan. Anyway, I get one hand down and then I can see the blood. It’s on his face. I guess it came from his eye. Then I see this icepick in his gut. That does it. I leave fast.”

“What about the chair?”

Jock grinned shamefacedly. “You know, I have that chair in my hands like a club. I don’t even know it until I’m in the elevator. So I deliver it and then I make my squawk to McEwen.”

“You didn’t see or hear anything or anyone?”

“No, I told that to Keehan but …”

“But you were moving too fast.” Knox grinned and started to get up. “It’s a good story; I’ll buy it. If we can use it, there’ll be a few more ten spots. Okay?”

Jock’s expression agreed that it was okay. Knox deliberately kept his back to Eddie Pillow, feeling the man’s eyes on him and not liking it. If this was something Pillow was mixed up in, he hoped that Jock didn’t get stepped on as a routine measure. Jock didn’t know very much, Knox felt sure. Not that he believed the man one hundred per-cent. There was two small points in Jock’s story that Knox hadn’t liked, that he wanted to check. But he didn’t think they were worth causing Jock trouble over.

Knox dropped money for the beers on the table, ordered another for Jock and started for the door. His eyes went casually to Pillow, who was looking elsewhere now, and then on to the wispy-haired man. He wasn’t noticing Knox either. Knox went on out into now cloudy darkness and looked for a cab.

He saw none and started for the corner and the main boulevard. He stopped for a traffic light and turned right, giving a backward glance at the tavern. He was in time to see Pillow’s bulk going the other way, and to see the little man poised at the door, scowling up at the clouds that had began to spit a fine, misty rain.

Knox decided to walk. He hadn’t walked in one of the northwest’s cool and somehow not wet rains for three years. He had gone halfway to the hotel when headlights picked him up, held him briefly, and then went on past. He had a glimpse of the car as it slowed for a corner. It was the Ford and Eddie Pillow was driving it.

It was another block before Knox made out the little man treading along a half block behind. He debated whether to have some fun now or let it ride a while. He decided to let it ride and continued walking. Reaching the hotel, he stopped to buy an evening paper before going up to his room. It gave him time to see the little man come doggedly into the lobby, glance too casually his way, and then plow on through to the coffee shop. Grinning, Knox went to the elevator.

In his room, he called the operator. “Is there a stenographer available at this hour?”

“I may be able to get one, sir. There’s an extra charge after five.”

“That’s all right,” Knox said. “See if Miss Deane can do some work for me. I like the way she handles my affairs.”

He hung up, lit a cigaret, and waited. Within five minutes his phone rang. There was a husky feminine voice on the other end. “This is Cora Deane. I understand you wanted some typing done.”

“Paul Knox here,” he said. “I’m sorry to trouble you at this hour, Miss Deane, but I have some important reports.” He let it hang.

She sounded confident, not diffident. “I’ll be glad to. Only I’ve had a trying day. I’d like to rest and have my dinner before I start to work again. Would later do?”

Knox liked her voice. He said, “That’s fine. Say a couple of hours?”

She said a couple of hours and hung up. Knox looked at his watch and decided to have a drink to get rid of the taste of Hod’s beer. The telephone caught him as he started for the door. It was Mel Beeker.

“I have something you might be able to use, Paul.”

“Anything gratefully received.”

Beeker said, “In his two weeks here, Auffer made friends with a pair called Tinsley. A father and daughter. They moved into the penthouse suite about three months ago, took a year’s lease on it.”

Knox whistled. Beeker grunted. “Yeh, you know how we have to handle that kind of dough. Anyway, we did what checking we could. Tinsley claims to be a retired mining engineer who struck it down south of the border some time ago. He’s also a sports fan and does a good deal of betting. He was here for the racing season and now he’s back and forth to California for racing and football.”

“Alibis for the time, I suppose?”

“As good as we could check. But you never know.”

“Thanks, Mel.”

“If anything opens up….” Beeker said in a faintly plaintive voice.

Knox debated briefly and decided to be generous. “I saw Eddie Pillow tonight, Mel. When did he get back into town?”

“I didn’t know he was.” Beeker swore softly. “Pillow and that new crew of politicians.”

“You mean the old crew dressed in new clothes,” Knox said. “I thought of that. And of the little deal your Vice squad may look into. Pillow isn’t the kind to let anything—clean or dirty—bother him.”

“So I know. Thanks, Paul.”

Knox hung up. He hadn’t said anything about his interview with Jock. Holding out that way made him feel like a heel, but he had learned on his job that the best thing was to take all he could get and pay as little as possible for it. He started for the door again. This time he made it.

P
ALMING A
five dollar bill, Knox sought out the wizened, red-haired bellhop. Knox got him alone and studied him thoughtfully. For all of his dried up appearance he was not old. Knox guessed him to be in the neighborhood of forty, the type of man who, with a little less self indulgence along the way, might have been a jockey. He was small and wiry but with a protruding pot stomach that hinted at too much beer.

Knox said, “How much does it cost me for you to keep your mouth shut?”

The bellhop looked at him as if trying to remember the size of the tips Knox handed out. He grinned a little. “That depends on what you want kept quiet.”

“I want to know where the workshop it. Then forget I asked.”

“Hell, that won’t cost anything.”

Knox gave him the five dollars. “Insurance,” he said.

The bellhop took it quickly. “First basement, to the right at the foot of the stairs. Right across from the service elevator. You could have found that out for yourself.”

“Sure,” Knox said, “but I might want to buy something else later.”

This time the bellhop’s survey was more thoughtful. He nodded. “The name is Carl. I live here, in one of the employee rooms, in case you need anything when I’m off duty. Okay?”

“Okay,” Knox said. He walked off, humming softly. Finding a cooperative bellhop had always been a paying policy, he discovered some time ago. And this one he judged to be the handiest type—the kind who was willing to cut things as fine as he dared for a few dollars. A man like Carl would, for his own financial health, have his finger on the pulse of as much as he could that went on in the hotel.

Knox walked to the first basement, turned right, and went through the unlocked door of the workshop. The room was empty at this time of the night; tools and equipment were locked away and only a few items that needed repairing stood around where they could be taken. Knox passed up a radio, two tables, and a coffee stand before he found what he sought.

The stenographer’s chair lay on its back on a far corner of a waist-high workbench. Knox went to it and began an examination. He was no carpenter but it didn’t take a carpenter to see that Jock had described the trouble correctly. A large wood screw that helped hold the spring-controlled back to the frame of the seat lay loosely in its socket. Using one of his keys, Knox worked the screw out and looked at the hole.

At first glance it looked as though someone had tried to work the screw deeper into the hole and had succeeded only in gouging out the wood. The second look told Knox what he had suspected—that if the stenographer had tried to fix the chair, she had worked hard at it to make the hole that big. There seemed little point in that unless she, or someone else who had access to the chair, had wanted a maintenance man to go down to the storeroom.

Knox gave the broken chair a third, thorough look, decided that it had taken more than the screw to gouge the hole, and was about to turn for the door, when the light went out. He stood motionless for the fraction of time that it took for the door to slam. It had happened too fast for him to see anything. And now he stood in thick, window-less darkness. It was almost a reflex action for him to drop to the floor.

He moved crab-like along the floor, parallel to the workbench, working himself around the corner and toward the door. But it didn’t open. Nothing happened; there was no noise, nothing. Puzzled, Knox rose to his feet and eased cautiously up to the door. He put out a hand, found the knob and turned.

The door came open, pushed from the other side. Knox dropped the knob and tried to step back. A bright light, funneled from a powerful flash, struck him in the eyes. Involuntarily, he put up a hand. He tried to twist aside, to move out of range but he wasn’t fast enough. The hiss of something heavy coming through the air reached his ear just before the blow caught him on the temple. The bright light went away. The floor came up and caught him hard across the back. But he felt nothing.

• • •

Knox wanted to sneeze. It took him some time to realize why. His face was pressed into a dusty cement floor. He sneezed. The pain went up through his head and that brought him awake. He sat up. He was still in the storeroom, the door to the corridor open letting in faint light. Swearing, he got to his feet and put a hand to his head.

He felt like hell. At first all he could do was lean against a workbench and swear, both at himself and whoever had tricked him. That was what made him mad—letting himself be tricked in such a simple fashion.

After a few moments, he found that he could navigate again, and he turned on the light. He looked for the chair. From where he stood it appeared just the same, undisturbed. But Knox could think of no other reason for an attack on him than that he had been snooping around that chair and so he went to it.

His examination was brief. One glance told him all that he needed to know. It was a stenographer’s chair and it had a loose screw in the back. But it was definitely not the same chair. Someone had made a substitution. Only, Knox thought with faint pleasure, they had made it too late. It took more than a blow on the head to drive away the memory of what he had seen.

He left the room and sought the service elevator. It took him to the tenth floor. From there it was easy to reach his room without being seen. In the room, Knox looked down at his suit, covered with dust and wood shavings. He peeled it off and went into the bath. There was a small, purple lump visible when he pulled back the hair at his temple. It was sore but the skin was not broken. He decided that he would live.

A shower made him feel a good deal better. So did another suit. When he was ready to return to the lobby, he glanced at his watch. It surprised him to find that just a little over an hour had passed since he had made the appointment with Cora Deane. He had been out more briefly than he thought.

The bellhop Carl was nowhere in sight when Knox reached the lobby. He decided to let the little session he had planned with the man go for now and sought McEwen. When he found him, Knox used his best leer.

“There’s a dish in this hotel I’d like to get acquainted with, Mac. But she lives in the penthouse so it has to be subtle.”

McEwen looked hungrily at Knox’s breast pocket. Knox brought out his billfold. McEwen said, “You mean the Tinsley dame.” He shrugged. “I like mine meatier but then …” He stopped and gave Knox a sly grin. “Or is it her old man you want to meet?”

Knox let his expression indicate that McEwen had found him out. “A little bet now and then makes things interesting,” he murmured.

He had evidently hit the right note, and he thanked Beeker for having provided the information. McEwen nodded. “They’re in the bar, on the terrarce, right now. How do you want to work this?”

Knox let him see twenty dollars. “I want it quietly noised around that I’m looking for a fat bet on Saturday’s football game here. If that gets me the knockdown, I’ll double this. Maybe more.”

McEwen took the bill and did a conjuring act with it. If he was surprised at Knox’s eagerness to spend money just to make a bet, he said nothing about it. His comment was, “Tinsley’s the guy to see. I understand he’ll take a flyer on anything that gets room on the sport pages. It’s a hobby with him.”

Knox left the rest of it up to McEwen and drifted off to the bar. He glanced casually around as he entered, spotted two groups of people, either of which might be the ones he sought, and then took a seat about the center of the terrace. From where he sat, Knox could see either of the tables he had looked at before. His view was mostly of the colored neon that ran up and down the organ tubes as the organist gave out his version of soft evening music.

Knox ordered a double rye and water and let it further soothe the pain in his head and the bruise to his pride. He waited quite awhile. McEwen was definitely being subtle; it took twenty minutes before a waiter appeared at Knox’s elbow.

“Pardon, sir, but are you the Mr. Knox who was in the Riviera yacht races last year?”

Knex admitted it. The waiter said, “There’s a gentleman, a Mr. Tinsley, who wondered if you would be so kind as to discuss it with him. He’s quite interested.”

Knox looked interested but not too interested. “I’d be glad to,” he said. He rose.

The Tinsleys, Knox discovered, were the couple he had thought less likely to be they. The table also contained a tall, sleekly dark young man that Knox had seen occasionally in the lobby. He rose to leave as Knox approached.

Tinsley had a voice as rich as an organ. “I’m Gerard Tinsley, sir. My daughter, Natalie, and Thomas Catlin.”

“Paul Knox,” Knox said unnecessarily. He shook hands with both men, finding Tinsley’s grip a little too firm, Cat-lin’s a little hesitant. Catlin murmured an excuse and departed. Knox sat down in his chair and looked over his prey.

Tinsley looked very much the retired mining engineer. He was a well set up man with a mane of gray hair and a gray mustache that gave his tanned countenance a distinguished cast. His daughter looked equally healthy and as well tanned but not quite as athletic. She had a slender, almost boyish figure. Her hair added to that impression. It was very dark, cut short, and worn brushed back to expose two small and handsome ears and a fine neck. At first glance the dark dinner dress she wore seemed almost prim in comparison to some of those worn by women at other tables. But a second glance made Knox realize that the dress actually revealed a good deal more figure than it concealed. He guessed that Natalie Tinsley’s slender figure was a very well proportioned one.

It was her face that struck him most forcibly. She was not a beautiful woman, but her tanned skin was stretched over the most finely molded bone structure he had ever seen. Her eyes were too large, her nose too small, and her mouth too generous for beauty, but taken altogether the ensemble of her features created a handsome and very attractive picture. Added to that, there was a vivacity, a pixie-like quality in her expression that captured him completely.

“What were you drinking?” Tinsley asked.

“Rye and water,” Knox said. “This is very kind of you. I was growing bored.”

Natalie Tinsley laughed. “Oh, Dad will make you pay for it. He’ll question you to death.” Both her laugh and her voice were deep and well modulated.

It went smoothly, almost too smoothly to suit Knox. They were a charming couple, he had to admit. Tinsley knew his sports and so did his daughter. They were obviously widely traveled and, equally obviously, both gamblers from down deep inside. Knox admitted having made and won a modest wager on the yacht race. The talk veered to horses, in which he expressed less interest, and then to football.

“I like the University this year,” Knox said. “As underdogs they should pay a lot for a little.”

“Do you prefer points or odds?” Tinsley asked. His face was a little florid from three drinks. Natalie, Knox noticed, was still on the same one she had had when he arrived.

“Both if I can get them,” Knox said. They all laughed. He added, “In this case, I’ll take odds. No points. How does the betting stand about now?”

“With no points, about three and a half to one,” Tinsley said. “But you’d be throwing away good money. I’ve watched that California bunch play. They’re headed for the Rose Bowl.”

“Maybe it’s misplaced loyalty,” Knox said with a smile. “But I have a feeling …” He let it hang there.

Tinsley nibbled, tasted, and bit. “Well, if you insist on spending your money, let’s make a private bet. Why give the bookmakers everything?”

“You name it,” Knox said.

“Your thousand to my thirty-five hundred.”

“Rain or shine,” Knox agreed.

Before they parted, he made a side bet with Natalie Tinsley on which team would make the first touchdown. He excused himself shortly after; it was time to see Cora Deane.