The Long Wait (17 page)

“Not so good for him. These men are from Washington. They specialize in that sort of thing. They're going to take you downstairs and check your fingerprints.”

Then I saw why he wasn't too concerned about my alibi. Hell, he didn't care about the two at the quarry. He wanted to get me for Minnow's murder. There he
had
a set of prints to go on, not a smudge.

I shrugged like I didn't give a damn and that much was the truth.

For two years I had had experts work those same finger over just to find out who I was, and now I was damn glad nothing came of it. The two guys got up, led the way, I got in the middle and Lindsey and Tucker followed along behind me.

The whole thing took better than an hour. I let them play with their gadgets, do things to my fingers that left them raw and bleeding, take sample impressions one after the other and never squawked when I got blisters from holding my hands too near the ultraviolet lights.

I was the most co-operative subject the boys had ever had and when it was over all they had was a bunch of smudges and a brand-new case history for rookie cops to study because I was the first one who ever had his fingerprints removed completely. The boys were shaking their heads when I left, Lindsey was cursing to himself trying to hold his temper in check and Tucker was watching me like he was glad because he might be able to even things up with me his way.

I went in the barbershop off the lobby and picked out a chair along the wall. Looth Tooth had a customer in the chair and was fidgeting over him like an old woman. A bellboy came in and handed the guy two telegrams and a telephone message slip and when he got a fat tip said, “Thanks, Mayor.”

Two men came in after me, gave the mayor a fat hello, then parked and talked shop. One was a councilman. I was in the Waldorf of Lyncastle. Where the elite meet for a shave and a haircut and some choice cuts of local gossip. Logan should hire Looth Tooth, I thought. It would be better than taking a poll.

When the mayor climbed down I took his place in the chair. Looth Tooth had the apron around my neck and was about to pin it shut when he met my eyes in the mirror and turned white. His hands started to shake when he put the towel 90 around me and I was beginning to think that it wasn't such a good idea after all.

When he had about five minutes of it I said, “Look, quit being so nervous. You gave me a treatment with the cops and I got back at you in that bar. It's over. Finished. I'm not mad any more.”

The sigh he let out whistled through his teeth. “I ... I'm awfully sorry about that, sir. You see ... I thought... well, I
do
have quite a memory, and I thought the police... well, it was sort of a public duty and ...”

“Sure, I would have done the same thing myself. Forget about it.”

“Oh, gladly, sir, gladly!” He laid a hot towel across my face and began to massage in the heat. It felt good. I lay there stretched out in the chair while he went through all his tricks. My eyes closed and the sounds from the street got dimmer and dimmer and the brush was a gentle thing floating across my cheeks.

It was nice for thinking. Johnny and I used to make a habit of being barber-shaved on Saturday afternoons. We'd sit next to each other and crack jokes under the towels and make plans for the day. We sure had a hell of a good time together. It wasn't so nice without him any more. Wherever he was, I hoped he'd keep an eye on me. Maybe he'd like what I was doing ... or maybe he wouldn't. It wasn't too nice to bring things back that were better off forgotten, but as long as he was dead now he was going to have died honorably. Somebody else didn't want that past brought up again... they were scared silly when I came around, enough to try to have me bumped. And somebody else was looking for Vera West too, according to Jack.

I wondered about that.

Looth Tooth rattled something I didn't hear, something about getting slicked up for tonight. I said, “Make me pretty, mister. Tonight's a big date night.”

The stuff he patted on my cheeks bit in. “You mean, Miss West? Yes, I remember. You and she... oh, I ... I'm sorry, I didn't mean ...”

“Hell, man that's okay. All over the hill now.”

He was smiling when he dusted me off and I handed him a buck tip. He did everything except kiss me good-by when I left and he was glad to see me go. The poor slob probably figured he had talked his way out of a smearing and would have something else to gas about to the rest of his customers.

A light drizzle had put a slick on the streets. Off in the west, sheet lightning turned the sky a dull orange momentarily and seconds later there was a faint rumble of thunder. I stepped up my pace until I got back to the car, then sat there deciding where to go. A kid in a green sweater came along with a batch of papers under his arm, turned into the gin mill and made the rounds. When he came out I called him over and asked him where the Circus Bar was. He told me it was straight down the avenue and I couldn't miss it because there were pink elephants painted across the windows. I bought a paper, flipped him a quarter and rolled away from the curb.

The Circus Bar was back-to-back with the
Lyncastle
News building and for all its fancy name, it was strictly a place for reporters and linotype men. There must have been twenty phones on the bar with half of them in use. It was between shifts and eyerybody but the reporters were either having one for the road or a pre-work quickie.

It didn't take me long to find Logan. He was all the way down at the back of the bar with a phone pressed against his mouth, shifting around every second or so to keep from being overheard. He saw me the same time I saw him, slammed the phone back and grabbed me on the run.

“Come on, if you want to see me you can do it while we ride.” He yelled so long to a couple of people and hustled me outside. I climbed in the Chevvy with him and waited until we had backed out to the street and turned around.

“Where we going?”

“Item for my column. Some jane got bumped.”

I let out a whistle. “Who?”

“Don't know. A guy that tips me to these things just called in about it. There's a dead woman in a hotel over by the river. The way Lindsey and the coroner operate, they won't give out any details to the press for a week unless we're right on the spot when they arrive. What have you been up to all day?”

“I've been visiting with friend Lindsey,” I said. Logan's eyes drifted to mine for a second, then went back to the road. The wipers buzzed steadily, keeping time to the hum of the wheels.

“What'd he want?”

“He had a couple of experts with him. They wanted to bring my prints out.”

“So?”

I hunched my shoulders in a shrug. “So they couldn't do it.” “George Wilson's as dead as Johnny McBride then, isn't he?”

“Looks that way.”

Logan wrenched the wheel over and sent the car skittering around a curve onto a gravel drive. Up ahead was a ramshackle wood frame building with a veranda that ran completely around the place. He stopped, backed into a parking area and nodded for me to get out.

Over the door a sign read “Pine Tree Gardens.” There was an old pickup truck around the side, but nobody seemed to be around. Logan started up the steps and pushed the bell. “This used to be a fairly decent boarding house. It's next door to a flophouse now.”

The dirty curtain that stretched the length of the door inched to one side and a pair of eyes took us in. Something like relief showed in the face and the door creaked open. The guy standing there biting his lips said, “Geez, Mr. Logan, this sure is trouble. I don't know whatta do.”

“Did you call the police yet?”

“No, no, no! I didn't do nothing 'cept tell Howie and he said he'd call you. Geez, Mr. Logan ...”

“Where is she?”

“Upstairs. Second room on the front. You want to look, you go ahead. I ain't going in no dead room.”

We went inside through a foyer, up the stairs and the guy waved toward the only door on the floor. Logan said, “There?”

“Yeah.”

I went in behind him. It was a shabby room with an old-fashioned brass bed, a couple of ratty chairs and a dresser. The closet doors were open, the windows were open and the dead woman lay stretched out in the middle of the bed with her head still cradled on her arm. Somebody had planted a knife in her back right through the bedclothes and she died so fast she didn't even bother to bleed.

Logan let out a coarse shudder. “Right through the heart it looks like. Neat job. Missed the ribs so there was no trouble working the knife out.”

“All that in one glance,” I said sarcastically.

“I've seen as many of these as Lindsey has. Where's that guy?”

“Waiting in the hall.”

Logan swung around and went back to the door. He yelled, “Who is she, Mac?”

“Name's Inez Casey. She and some other broad have that room together. They're waitresses someplace. Work shifts in the same joint.”

“You stay here?”

“Downstairs. Yesterday they told me they wanted a window fixed so I came up to fix it. I found ... her ... there like that.”

Logan grunted something and came back in the room. I was on my knees looking at the babe's face and he knelt down beside me. “She wasn't a bad-looking tomato,” I said. “What do you make of it?”

He got up with a shrug and felt her arm. “Hell, who knows? Things like this keep happening in this town now. Probably a love angle in it. The dames they get for waitresses in the joints around here are never too careful who they fool around with. Good knife job, though.”

“Yeah,” I agreed, “it has a regular professional touch. Whoever did it knew where to place that shiv. Didn't even have to feel around for the spot.”

Logan shuddered again. “I'm going to call Lindsey.”

“I'll wait outside,” I said. “He won't be too happy to see me around.”

So I sat in the car and Lindsey didn't see me. Neither did Tucker nor the two plain-clothes men nor the fat little coroner. The D. A. came in last and left first. He didn't see me either. Almost an hour later Logan came back and got in under the wheel. I asked, “What's the decision?”

“Stabbed. Unknown assailant. Lindsey was on the phone most of the time and picked up a few details. She worked in the ABC Diner out along the highway. Her roommate is there now. There's a couple of guys involved but nobody knows their names.”

“Not even the roommate?”

“Nope. It's a fairly recent thing and they don't seem to get much time together to talk over love affairs. Evidently she met them both in the diner and has been playing them along. The past week she's been going strong for this one joe and broke off with the other one after some sort of a fuss. Lindsey'll track 'em down. Won't take long.”

“Not much of a story, is there?”

Logan wrinkled his mouth. “Not for my column.”

“I was doing a lot of thinking while I waited for you,” I said.

He looked at me without speaking.

I said, “She didn't move when she was killed.”

“Hell, she got it right through the heart. She died instantly.”

I made like I hadn't heard him at all. “She was on her belly with her face buried in her arm.”

“What about it?” he demanded impatiently.

I grinned at him, then let out a short laugh. “Don't pay any attention to me, Logan. Wild ideas, I guess. I wish I knew where the hell I get them.”

He turned the key and started the engine. Tucker was pulling away in a police car and we stayed behind him to the highway. On the concrete the police heap turned on the siren and picked up speed. Logan didn't bother to keep up with him.

Right on the edge of town Logan said, “Hey ... almost forgot. You see the paper tonight?”

“I bought one, but I didn't read it. Why?”

“Take a look in the personal column.”

I scowled at him then pulled the paper out from behind my back. When I found the personal section I held it under the dash light and fingered my way down the column. Next to last from the bottom were two lines that read: J. Mc call 5492 at 11 P. M. Urgent.

I tore the spot out and tucked it in my pocket. “Could be me, couldn't it?”

“Could be,” Logan nodded. “It came in just before the paper went to bed. I happened to catch it in the proofs accidentally. A boy brought it in and paid for it.”

“What time is it?”

He looked at his watch. “Ten-thirty. Want to stop for a beer?”

“Sure,” I said.

There wasn't any trouble finding a roadhouse. The trick was in finding one that had room to spare in the parking lot. We had to cut back away from town to a dump that was supposed to look like a log cabin and the only reason there was a half empty parking place was because of the lack of gambling facilities inside. There wasn't any blue sign in the window, either.

It was almost eleven by then so I told Logan to order for me while I put in a call. I could see the clock on the wall and held my nickel back until the time was right, then spun my number. It rang once and a voice said, “Yes?”

It was a woman's voice, a nice deep, controlled voice that painted pictures of what was on the other end of the line.

“I'm calling about a certain piece in tonight's paper.” She didn't offer any information except, “Go on.”

“I'm a ‘J. Mc' .. if it helps.”

“That helps some.”

“Johnny McBride is all of it.”

“Yes, Johnny, you're the one I meant.” There was just the slightest pause between her words. “See Harlan, Johnny. You must see Harlan.”