The Naked Face (7 page)

“DRINK?”

McGreavy shook his head moodily, studying Judd. Judd poured himself his second stiff scotch while McGreavy watched without comment. Judd’s hands were still trembling. As the warmth of the whiskey floated through him, he felt himself beginning to relax.

McGreavy had arrived at the office two minutes after the lights had come on. With him was a stolid police sergeant who now sat making notes in a shorthand notebook.

McGreavy was talking. “Let’s go over it once more, Dr. Stevens.”

Judd took a deep breath and began again, deliberately keeping his voice calm and low. “I locked the office and went to the elevator. The corridor lights blacked out. I thought that the lights on the lower floors might be working, and I started to walk down.” Judd hesitated, reliving the fear. “I saw someone coming up the stairs with a flashlight. I called out. I thought it was Bigelow, the guard. It wasn’t.”

“Who was it?”

“I’ve told you,” said Judd. “I don’t know. They didn’t answer.”

“What made you think they were coming to kill you?”

An angry retort came to Judd’s lips, and he checked it. It was essential to make McGreavy believe him. “They followed me back to my office.”

“You think there were two men trying to kill you?”

“At least two,” Judd said. “I heard them whispering.”

“You said that when you entered your reception office, you locked the outside door leading to the corridor. Is that right?”

“Yes.”

“And that when you came into your inner office, you locked the door leading to the reception office.”

“Yes.”

McGreavy walked over to the door leading from the reception office to Judd’s inner office. “Did they try to force this door?”

“No,” admitted Judd. He remembered how puzzled he had been by that.

“Right,” said McGreavy. “When you lock the reception-office door that opens onto the corridor, it takes a special key to open it from the outside.”

Judd hesitated. He knew what McGreavy was leading up to. “Yes.”

“Who had the keys to that lock?”

Judd felt his face reddening. “Carol and I.”

McGreavy’s voice was bland. “What about the cleaning people? How did they get in?”

“We had a special arrangement with them. Carol came in early three mornings a week and let them in. They were finished before my first patient arrived.”

“That seems inconvenient. Why couldn’t they get into these offices when they cleaned all the other offices?”

“Because the files I keep in here are of a highly confidential nature. I prefer the inconvenience to having strangers in here when no one is around.”

McGreavy looked over at the sergeant to make sure he was getting it all down. Satisfied, he turned back to Judd. “When we walked into the reception office, the door was unlocked. Not forced—unlocked.”

Judd said nothing.

McGreavy went on. “You just told us that the only ones who had a key to that lock were you and Carol. And we have Carol’s key. Think again, Dr. Stevens. Who else had a key to that door?”

“No one.”

“Then how do you suppose those men got in?”

And Judd suddenly knew. “They made a copy of Carol’s key when they killed her.”

“It’s possible,” conceded McGreavy. A bleak smile touched his lips. “If they made a copy, we’ll find paraffin traces on her key. I’ll have the lab run a test.”

Judd nodded. He felt as though he had scored a victory, but his feeling of satisfaction was short-lived.

“So the way you see it,” McGreavy said, “two men—we’ll assume for the moment there’s no woman involved—had a key copied so they could get into your office and kill you. Right?”

“Right,” said Judd.

“Now you said that when you went into your office, you locked the inner door. True?”

“Yes,” Judd said.

McGreavy’s voice was almost mild. “But we found that door unlocked, too.”

“They must have had a key to it.”

“Then after they got it open, why didn’t they kill you?”

“I told you. They heard the voices on the tape and—”

“These two desperate killers went to all the trouble to knock out the lights, trap you up here, break into your office—and then just vanished into thin air without harming a hair of your head?” His voice was filled with contempt.

Judd felt cold anger rising in him. “What are you implying?”

“I’ll spell it out for you, Doctor. I don’t think anyone was here and I don’t believe anyone tried to kill you.”

“You don’t have to take my word for it,” Judd said angrily. “What about the lights? What about the night watchman, Bigelow?”

“He’s in the lobby.”

Judd’s heart missed a beat. “Dead?”

“He wasn’t when he let us in. There was a faulty wire in the main power switch. Bigelow was down in the basement trying to fix it. He got it working just as I arrived.”

Judd looked at him numbly. “Oh,” he said finally.

“I don’t know what you’re playing at, Dr. Stevens,” McGreavy said, “but from now on, count me out.” He moved toward the door. “And do me a favor. Don’t call me again—I’ll call you.”

The sergeant snapped his notebook shut and followed McGreavy out.

The effects of the whiskey had evaporated. The euphoria had gone, and he was left with a deep depression. He had no idea what his next move should be. He was on the inside of a puzzle that had no key. He felt like the boy who cried “wolf,” except that the wolves were deadly, unseen phantoms, and every time McGreavy came, they seemed to vanish. Phantoms or…There was one other possibility. It was so horrifying that he couldn’t bring himself to even acknowledge it. But he had to.

He had to face the possibility that he was a paranoiac.

A mind that was overstressed could give birth to delusions that seemed totally real. He had been working too hard. He had not had a vacation in years. It was conceivable that the deaths of Hanson and Carol could have been the catalyst that had sent his mind over some emotional precipice so that events became enormously magnified and out of joint. People
suffering from paranoia lived in a land where everyday, commonplace things represented nameless terrors. Take the car accident. If it had been a deliberate attempt to kill him, surely the driver would have gotten out and made sure that the job was finished. And the two men who had come here tonight. He did not
know
that they had guns. Would a paranoiac not assume that they were there to kill him? It was more logical to believe that they were sneak thieves. When they had heard the voices in his inner office, they had fled. Surely, if they were assassins, they would have opened the unlocked door and killed him. How could he find out the truth? He knew it would be useless to appeal to the police again. There was no one to whom he could turn.

An idea began to form. It was born of desperation, but the more he examined it, the more sense it made. He picked up the telephone directory and began to riffle through the yellow pages.

AT FOUR O’CLOCK the following afternoon Judd left his office and drove to an address on the lower West Side. It was an ancient, run-down brownstone apartment house. As he pulled up in front of the dilapidated building, Judd began to have misgivings. Perhaps he had the wrong address. Then a sign in a window of a first-floor apartment caught his eye:

N
ORMAN
Z. M
OODY

Private Investigator

Satisfaction Guaranteed

Judd alighted from the car. It was a raw, windy day with a forecast of late snow. He moved gingerly across the icy sidewalk and walked into the vestibule of the building.

The vestibule smelled of mingled odors of stale cooking and urine. He pressed the button marked “Norman Z. Moody—1,” and a moment later a buzzer sounded. He stepped inside and found Apartment 1. A sign on the door read:

N
ORMAN
Z. M
OODY

Private Investigator

RING BELL AND ENTER

He rang the bell and entered.

Moody was obviously not a man given to throwing his money away on luxuries. The office looked as though it had been furnished by a blind, hyperthyroid pack rat. Odds and ends crammed every spare inch of the room. In one corner stood a tattered Japanese screen. Next to it was an East Indian lamp, and in front of the lamp a scarred Danish-modern table. Newspapers and old magazines were piled everywhere.

A door to an inner room burst open and Norman Z. Moody emerged. He was about five foot five and must have weighed three hundred pounds. He rolled as he walked, reminding Judd of an animated Buddha. He had a round, jovial face with wide, guileless, pale blue eyes. He was totally bald and his head was egg-shaped. It was impossible to guess his age.

“Mr. Stevenson?” Moody greeted him.

“Dr. Stevens,” Judd said.

“Sit down, sit down.” Buddha with a Southern drawl.

Judd looked around for a seat. He removed a pile of old body-building and nudist magazines from a scrofulous-looking leather armchair with strips torn out of it, and gingerly sat down.

Moody was lowering his bulk into an oversized rocking chair. “Well, now! What can I do for you?”

Judd knew that he had made a mistake. Over the phone he had carefully given Moody his full name. A name that had been on the front page of every New York newspaper in the last few days. And he had managed to pick the only private detective in the whole city who had never even heard of him. He cast about for some excuse to walk out.

“Who recommended me?” Moody prodded.

Judd hesitated, not wanting to offend him. “I got your name out of the yellow pages.”

Moody laughed. “I don’t know what I’d do without the
yellow pages,” he said. “Greatest invention since corn liquor.” He gave another little laugh.

Judd got to his feet. He was dealing with a total idiot. “I’m sorry to have taken up your time, Mr. Moody,” he said. “I’d like to think about this some more before I…”

“Sure, sure. I understand,” Moody said. “You’ll have to pay me for the appointment, though.”

“Of course,” Judd said. He reached in his pocket and pulled out some bills. “How much is it?”

“Fifty dollars.”

“Fifty—?” Judd swallowed angrily, peeled off some bills and thrust them in Moody’s hand. Moody counted the money carefully.

“Thanks a lot,” Moody said. Judd started toward the door, feeling like a fool. “Doctor…”

Judd turned. Moody was smiling at him benevolently, tucking the money into the pocket of his waistcoat. “As long as you’re stuck for the fifty dollars,” he said mildly, “you might as well sit down and tell me what your problem is. I always say that nothin’ takes more weight off than gettin’ things off your chest.”

The irony of it, coming from this silly fat man, almost made Judd laugh. Judd’s whole life was devoted to listening to people get things off their chests. He studied Moody a moment. What could he lose? Perhaps talking it out with a stranger would help. Slowly he went back to his chair and sat down.

“You look like you’re carryin’ the weight of the world, Doc. I always say that four shoulders are better than two.”

Judd was not certain how many of Moody’s aphorisms he was going to be able to stand.

Moody was watching him. “What brought you here? Women, or money? I always say if you took away women and money, you’d solve most of the world’s problems right there.” Moody was eyeing him, waiting for an answer.

“I—I think someone is trying to kill me.”

Blue eyes blinked. “You think?”

Judd brushed the question aside. “Perhaps you could give me the name of someone who specializes in investigating that kind of thing.”

“I certainly can,” Moody said. “Norman Z. Moody. Best in the country.”

Judd sighed in despair.

“Why don’t you tell me about it, Doc?” Moody suggested. “Let’s see if the two of us can’t sort it out a little.”

Judd had to smile in spite of himself. It sounded so much like himself.
Just lie down and say anything that comes into your mind.
Why not? He took a deep breath and, as concisely as possible, told Moody the events of the past few days. As he spoke, he forgot that Moody was there. He was really speaking to himself, putting into words the baffling things that had occurred. He carefully said nothing to Moody about his fears for his own sanity. When Judd had finished, Moody regarded him happily.

“You got yourself a dilly of a problem there. Either somebody’s out to murder you, or you’re afraid that you’re becoming a schizophrenic paranoiac.”

Judd looked up in surprise. Score one for Norman Z. Moody.

Moody went on. “You said there are two detectives on the case. Do you remember their names?”

Judd hesitated. He was reluctant to get too deeply committed to this man. All he really wanted to do was get out of there. “Frank Angeli,” he answered, “and Lieutenant McGreavy.”

There was an almost imperceptible change in Moody’s expression.

“What reason would anyone have to kill you, Doc?”

“I have no idea. As far as I know, I haven’t any enemies.”

“Oh, come on. Everybody’s got a few enemies layin’ around. I always say enemies give a little salt to the bread of life.”

Judd tried not to wince.

“Married?”

“No,” Judd said.

“Are you a fairy?”

Judd sighed. “Look, I’ve been through all this with the police and—”

“Yeah. Only you’re payin’ me to help you,” Moody said, unperturbed. “Owe anybody any money?”

“Just the normal monthly bills.”

“What about your patients?”

“What about them?”

“Well, I always say if you’re lookin’ for seashells, go down to the seashore. Your patients are a lot of loonies. Right?”

“Wrong,” Judd said curtly. “They’re people with problems.”

“Emotional problems that they can’t solve themselves. Could one of them have it in for you? Oh, not for any real reason, but maybe somebody with an imaginary grievance against you.”

“It’s possible. Except for one thing. Most of my patients have been under my care for a year or more. In that length of time I’ve gotten to know them as well as one human being can know another.”

“Don’t they never get mad at you?” Moody asked innocently.

“Sometimes. But we’re not looking for someone who’s angry. We’re looking for a homicidal paranoiac who has murdered at least two people and has made several attempts to murder me.” He hesitated, then made himself go on. “If I have a patient like that and don’t know it, then you’re looking at the most incompetent psychoanalyst who ever lived.”

He looked up and saw Moody studying him.

“I always say first things first,” Moody said cheerfully. “The first thing we’ve gotta do is find out whether someone’s trying to knock you off, or whether you’re nuts. Right, Doc?” He broke into a broad smile, taking the offense out of his words.

“How?” Judd asked.

“Simple,” Moody said. “Your problem is, you’re standin’ at home plate strikin’ at curve balls, an’ you don’t know if anyone’s pitchin’. First we’re gonna find out if there’s a ballgame goin’ on; then we’re gonna find out who the players are. You got a car?”

“Yes.”

Judd had forgotten about walking out and finding another private detective. He sensed now behind Moody’s bland, innocent face and his homespun maxims a quiet, intelligent capability.

“I think your nerves are shot,” Moody said. “I want you to take a little vacation.”

“When?”

“Tomorrow morning.”

“That’s impossible,” Judd protested. “I have patients scheduled…”

Moody brushed it aside. “Cancel them.”

“But what good—”

“Do I tell you how to run your business?” Moody asked. “When you leave here, I want you to go straight to a travel agency. Have them get you a reservation at"—he thought a moment—“Grossinger’s. That’s a pretty drive up through the Catskills… Is there a garage in the apartment building where you live?”

“Yes.”

“OK. Tell them to service your car for the trip. You don’t want to have any breakdowns on the road.”

“Couldn’t I do this next week? Tomorrow is a full—”

“After you make your reservation, you’re going back to your office and call all your patients. Tell them you’ve had an emergency and you’ll be back in a week.”

“I really can’t,” Judd said. “It’s out of the—”

“You’d better call Angeli, too,” Moody continued. “I don’t want the police hunting for you while you’re gone.”

“Why am I doing this?” Judd asked.

“To protect your fifty dollars. That reminds me. I’m gonna need another two hundred for a retainer. Plus fifty a day and expenses.”

Moody hauled his large bulk up out of the big rocker. “I want you to get a nice early start tomorrow,” he said, “so you can get up there before dark. Can you leave about seven in the morning?”

“I…I suppose so. What will I find when I get up there?”

“With a little luck, a scorecard.”

Five minutes later Judd was thoughtfully getting into his car. He had told Moody that he could not go away and leave his patients on such short notice. But he knew that he was going to. He was literally putting his life into the hands of the Falstaff of the private detective world. As he started to drive away, his eye caught Moody’s sign in the window.

SATISFACTION GUARANTEED.

He’d better be right,
Judd thought grimly.

The plan for the trip went smoothly. Judd stopped at a travel agency on Madison Avenue. They reserved a room for him at Grossinger’s and provided him with a road map and a variety of color brochures on the Catskills. Next he telephoned his answering service and arranged for them to call his patients and cancel all his appointments until further notice. He phoned the Nineteenth Precinct and asked for Detective Angeli.

“Angeli’s home sick,” said an impersonal voice. “Do you want his home number?”

“Yes.”

A few moments later he was talking to Angeli. From the sound of Angeli’s voice, he had a heavy cold.

“I’ve decided I need to get out of town for a few days,” Judd said. “I’m leaving in the morning. I wanted to check it with you.”

There was a silence while Angeli thought it over. “It might not be a bad idea. Where will you go?”

“I thought I’d drive up to Grossinger’s.”

“All right,” Angeli said. “Don’t worry. I’ll clear it with McGreavy.” He hesitated. “I heard what happened at your office last night.”

“You mean you heard McGreavy’s version,” Judd said.

“Did you get a look at the men who tried to kill you?”

So Angeli, at least, believed him.

“No.”

“Nothing at all that could help us find them? Color, age, height?”

“I’m sorry,” Judd replied. “It was dark.”

Angeli sniffed. “OK. I’ll keep looking. Maybe I’ll have some good news for you when you get back. Be careful, Doctor.”

“I will,” Judd said gratefully. And he hung up.

Next he phoned Harrison Burke’s employer and briefly explained Burke’s situation. There was no choice but to have him committed as soon as possible. Judd then called Peter, explained that he had to go out of town for a week, and asked him to make the necessary arrangements for Burke. Peter agreed.

The decks were clear.

The thing that disturbed Judd the most was that he would be unable to see Anne on Friday. Perhaps he would never see her again.

As he drove back toward his apartment, he thought about Norman Z. Moody. He had an idea what Moody was up to. By having Judd notify all his patients that he was going away, Moody was making sure that if one of Judd’s patients was the killer—if there was a killer—a trap, using Judd as the bait, would be set for him.

Moody had instructed him to leave his forwarding address with his telephone exchange and with the doorman at the apartment building. He was making certain that everyone would know where Judd was going.

When Judd pulled up in front of the apartment house, Mike was there to greet him.

“I’m leaving on a trip in the morning, Mike,” Judd informed him. “Will you make sure the garage services my car and fills the tank?”

“I’ll have it taken care of, Dr. Stevens. What time will you be needing the car?”

“I’ll be leaving at seven.” Judd sensed Mike watching him as he walked into the apartment building.

When he entered his apartment, he locked the doors and carefully checked the windows. Everything seemed to be in order.

He took two codeine pills, got undressed, and ran a hot bath, gingerly easing his aching body into it, feeling the tensions soaking out of his back and neck. He lay in the blessedly relaxing tub, thinking. Why had Moody warned him not to let the car break down on the road? Because that was the most likely place for him to be attacked, somewhere on a lonely road in the Catskills? And what could Moody do about it if Judd were attacked? Moody had refused to tell him what his plan was—if there was a plan. The more Judd examined it, the more convinced he became that he was walking into a trap. Moody had said he was setting it up for Judd’s pursuers. But no matter how many times he went over it, the answer always came out the same: the trap
seemed designed to catch Judd. But why? What interest could Moody have in getting him killed?
My God,
thought Judd.
I’ve picked a name at random out of the yellow pages of the Manhattan Telephone Directory and I believe he wants to have me murdered! I am paranoiac!