Strange Embrace (11 page)

“Then this,” Haig went on. “Our killers get killed. The old switcheroo. And the killer isn’t the killer anymore, because our killer gets killed the same way our victim got killed. Same position, same set-up, same everything. It’s a goddamn grisly joke and the goddamn joke’s on us.”

Johnny didn’t say anything.

“God knows where we are now,” Haig said. “I don’t need a lab man to tell me we aren’t going to get a print we can use out of this place. We’ve got two murders to solve instead of one and we don’t have a reason for either of them anymore. A virgin turns up nude in bed with her throat cut and we look for a killer. Then a satyr turns up in bed with his throat cut and we still look. A goddamn joke.”

Johnny didn’t say anything.

“For a minute,” Haig said, “it didn’t look possible. You know what I was thinking? I got this bright idea, this brainstorm. Tracy figured his goose was cooked, he might as well go out in style. So he took off his clothes, stretched out on the rack and drew a line across his neck. You know it took me a few minutes before I got to wondering what he did with the razor. This case is getting to me, Johnny.”

Johnny didn’t say anything.

“Go home,” Haig said. “Call everybody and tell them the show isn’t going to happen. Call the papers and tell ’em to print it in the morning. Tell ’em the show is off permanently. Somebody doesn’t want your play to go on, Johnny. He’s holding all the cards. We can’t figure out what his angle is, not to speak of who in hell he is. We’d better let him have his way for the time being. In time he’ll slip and we’ll hit him. Or her, or them, whatever the hell it is. Go home and make your phone calls and take some aspirin. Or some bourbon. Suit yourself.”

Johnny still didn’t say anything. He gave Haig a half-nod and left the apartment. He took the elevator downstairs, walked out of the building and over to Eighth Avenue where he caught a taxi headed uptown. His head ached horribly and his ribs were sore—somehow he hadn’t really noticed the soreness until now. He closed his eyes and let the cabby fight the traffic.

Johnny was sitting in a soft chair with a glass of bourbon in his hand. The calls—to everybody vaguely connected with the show, to four morning dailies plus the trade papers—had been made by Ito. But Johnny had saved Jan for himself. In a way she’d been on the inside with him from the beginning and he wanted to give her the story instead of passing it on through an interpreter. But he didn’t feel up to making the call yet.

“One thing still seem Chinese puzzle,” Ito said. “Not see—”

Johnny sighed. “Ito, cut the comedy.”

“Sorry,” Ito said. “It was that damn Charlie Chan movie. It was funny enough but those things can soak into your system.”

Johnny said, “The Chinese puzzle, Ito?”

“Yes. You told me the doorman said Tracy didn’t have any visitors. How did he get killed?”

“By a visitor.” Johnny finished the bourbon, put the glass down. “One who got past the doorman. That’s all.”

“Without a key to the penthouse?”

Johnny nodded. “The building has an open staircase,” he said. “Every building has. Fire regulations. The stairs reach the penthouse. Tracy’s visitor walked right past the doorman, took the elevator to the floor below Tracy’s, say, and walked up a flight of stairs. Simple enough?”

“Sure. Same thing going down?”

“Maybe, maybe not. It doesn’t really matter. To get down from the penthouse you don’t need a key. You ring and the elevator comes up. Then you press the
one
button and down you go. Puzzle all cleared up now?”

“All clear.” Ito turned away slightly. “Uh…do you want me to stick around tonight?”

“Oh. You got that date with Miss Tokyo?”

“She’s not from Tokyo. But her home town is a filthy word in English. She isn’t aware of this. Which can be embarrassing. Yes, I have a date with her.”

“Then keep it.”

“You don’t need me?”

“Hell, no,” Johnny told him. “If the phone rings I’ll answer it myself. If you can fake a Japanese accent so can I.”

He waited until Ito had left before he called Jan. When the servant was gone he went into the kitchen and poured himself a cup of hot black coffee, carried the coffee back to the living room and lit a cigarette to keep it company. He didn’t want to call Jan until he knew what he was going to do next. And he didn’t know what he was going to do next.

He knew what he was supposed to do next. He was supposed to sit on his behind and wait for something to happen. Nothing would happen, which meant he would have a hell of a long wait. The killer—the son of a bloody bitch whose middle name was Razor—didn’t have to make a move. He had already gotten what he wanted. Two killings and one beating had turned the trick.
A Touch of Squalor
was not going to be on the boards that season.

But what in hell was Johnny Lane supposed to do? The killer would get away. He did not have to stick out his neck anymore and he hadn’t left any trail behind him. No matter how you figured it, there was no reason for anyone to want the show ruined, no reason for anyone to kill Elaine and then Tracy. Hell, there was a reason—there had to be a reason. But there was no way to figure it out.

He picked up the phone, and dialed.

“Hi, Jan. This is Johnny,” he told her. “Anybody call you?”

“Ernie Buell. I heard about Tracy. I thought—”

“That’s what we all thought,” he said. “I found out something else today. Elaine was blackmailing him, had him over a barrel. That must have been why he was so scared he’d be fingered for her murder. I went over with Haig to pick him up, but somebody got there first.”

“And killed him,” she said.

“Same as Elaine—a razor slash across the neck. We’re closing the show, Jan. We’re shutting down while we still have a few people left.”

She made no reply for a second or two. Then: “I guess we have to, Johnny.”

He nodded. Then he remembered that nods didn’t register through a telephone. “Yeah,” he said. “Our hand is forced.”

“That’s the way it looks, Johnny. I suppose the police will get the killer, but—”

“How?”

“What do you mean?”

“How will they get the killer?” he demanded. “Haig is up against six different stone walls. He hasn’t got a single angle to work. I know damn well what he’s going to do. He’ll let the case move along the regular procedural lines until it gets lost in the files. He’ll let it bury itself. You can’t solve every murder, Jan. They’ll work on this one until it stops turning up in the newspapers. Then they’ll forget about it.”

“They might get a break.”

“Sure they will,” he said. “Somebody will get a guilty conscience and turn himself in. Or they’ll get an anonymous tip from a disgruntled mistress. But don’t hold your breath.”

“Johnny—”

“You know what? It’s a temptation to write off the whole thing as the work of a nut. A crackpot. Somebody with a cockeyed grudge against the world. Or against the show, I don’t know. Some moron who doesn’t like the title. Hell, we could have changed the title. Called it
A Touch of Horse—”

“Johnny.”

He took a deep breath.

“Johnny, why don’t you come over for a while? I’d like to see you, Johnny. You could relax.”

He heard the syrup in her voice and remembered the night before. It had been good then. It could be good again.

“My rib cage…”

“We’ll be gentle.”

He let it hang there for a minute. “No,” he said finally. “No, not tonight, Jan. I’ve got things to do. I may be able to turn up something. I’m going to give it a try.”

“What can you do that Haig can’t do? You’re not a cop, Johnny.”

Daylight dawned.

“You’re right,” he said slowly. “Sam Haig keeps telling me the same thing. I’m not a cop.”

“Johnny?”

“I’ve got work to do,” he told her. “I’ll call you as soon as I get a chance.”

And he put down the phone.

T
HE BAR WAS IN HELL’S KITCHEN,
that totally unglamorous section of Manhattan where large four-legged rats devour babies in their cribs and where their two-legged counterparts lend money to dockworkers at rates of interest that would have made Shylock wince. The bar crouched on Tenth Avenue between 35th and 36th Streets. A neon sign with a nervous tic announced that the bar was named Sully’s Place, and the odor that issued forth when the door was open announced that Sully did not believe in washing the floor. The odor was one part spilled beer, one part urine, and two parts vomit.

The man walked into Sully’s Place a few minutes before ten. There were four people inside plus the bartender. Five heads turned lazily to take a look at the man when the door opened; nine eyes—a tenth had been lost in a fight several months before—focused on the new arrival. They took him in at a glance, saw who he was, and turned away instantly.

You did not take long looks at a syndicate man. It was unhealthy. It brought visions of six bullet holes grouped in the precise center of a man’s forehead, of cement overcoats and prolonged swims in the Hudson.

And this man was a syndicate type.

That much was obvious. It showed in his walk—hands in pockets, head set back on shoulders so that the neck nearly disappeared, shoulders set and legs striding easily, cockily. It showed in his dress—black Italian porkpie hat with a brim a little too short, black overcoat cut a shade too long and bulging ever so slightly over beside the heart where a gun was waiting, black Broadway suit, slim and highly polished black shoes.

Most of all, it showed in the face. The firm little lines around the mouth. The hawk nose. The slight pouches beneath the eyes. And the eyes themselves—very narrow, half-closed, and staring flatly ahead showing no expression whatsoever.

The man walked past the four customers without looking at them. He went to the far end of the bar. He did not sit on one of the stools but leaned against the bar itself. He drew the bartender without a gesture. His eyes brought the man over.

The bartender was fat. He carried his stomach in front of him like a proud, pregnant woman. He hurried.

“What’ll you have?”

The man shook his head shortly. When he talked, the words were pitched so that only the bartender heard them. The lips did not move.

“Some muscle,” the man said. “Two boys. Big boys.”

“Nobody around here,” the bartender whispered. “Just a couple of lushes. You wanta go up the street—”

The man’s eyes stopped him cold in the middle of the sentence. The bartender looked into those eyes and saw Death staring him in the face. He wanted to look away but he could not.

“Information,” the man said flatly. “Yesterday two boys did a job.”

“There’s a lot of muscle jobs.”

The man’s hand snaked inside his coat and the bartender took an involuntary step backward. The hand came out holding not a gun but a cigar. The man pierced the end of the cigar with a toothpick, then lit up with a gold lighter. The cigar stayed in the corner of his mouth and he talked around it. The bartender almost relaxed, but his hands were still trembling a little.

He did not want trouble. He did not want any trouble at all. And if this man, this fellow from the syndicate, got annoyed, there would be trouble. The bartender operated with the silent permission of the syndicate. If this permission were lifted, things would happen swiftly. His business would probably disappear. His liquor license could well disappear.

He himself might disappear.

“This job,” the man said. “Over in Gramercy. Last night. Ten or eleven. A Broadway type got a little push-around. A producer named Lane.”

The bartender nodded slowly.

The man shifted the cigar from one side of his mouth to the other. “I want to know who,” the man said. His voice somehow hardened without going up or down in volume, without changing tone. His lips still did not move. “I want to know who and I want to know where I can find them. They did good. I might want to hire them.”

The bartender’s voice dropped from a whisper to a breeze blowing through dry grass. “Lou Rugger is all I know,” he said. “Lou Rugger.”

“There was two.”

“All I know is Rugger,” the bartender said. “Big guy with one mitt bandaged. Real big guy.”

The man said nothing.

The bartender hesitated. There were some things which you were not supposed to tell anybody, he thought. But there were some people you told whatever they wanted to know. The bartender was in the middle.

“A bar over on Twenty-eighth,” he murmured. “The Castle. Either he’s there or they know where.”

“The Castle,” the man said.

“On Twenty-eighth east of Tenth. You ask for Lou Rugger. Or you see him there.”

The man did not answer. The cigar moved in his mouth. Then he turned from the bartender and started walking toward the door. No heads turned to follow him.

The man, of course, was Johnny Lane. He did not resemble Johnny at all, however. A careful application of makeup had changed the face, altering mouth and eyes, building up the nose. He wore appropriate gangland clothes. The walk and the voice and all the mannerisms were carefully stylized, the words and phrases meticulously selected.

The effect was perfect.

Sully’s Place had been the fifth he had visited. In the other four his approach had been effective enough but each of the four bartenders had disclaimed any knowledge of the muscle characters who had knocked Johnny around the night before. Sully’s Place had paid off. Now all he had to do was walk through the night to the Castle and find Rugger. The rest would be easy.

He passed a newsstand at Thirty-fourth and read the headlines on the first editions of the morning tabloids. Tracy’s murder was the lead item, which didn’t particularly astonish him. The
News
and the
Mirror
could not ask for a better piece of news. The killing had all the elements of hot copy—a chain murder, related to Elaine’s death and following the pattern perfectly; a sex angle, since Tracy was found nude. And a celebrity gimmick—every show-business personality automatically became a celebrity in newspaper parlance once he died violently, and Tracy was fairly well-known to begin with. He had been a star, albeit a falling one.