The Duchess of Skid Row, page 10
Her face crumpled. She said “Yes.”
“Put a name to this somebody. That’s all I want right now—a name.”
“I don’t know,” she said. “Hoxey told me what the deal would be.” She had the grace to look ashamed. “I gave him your lighter.”
I was getting nowhere. “All right, let’s say I buy that. Hoxey came to you and made the proposition and you bought it. When was this?”
“A little over a month ago,” she said. “I brought him up here late one night and he fixed the dictating machines.”
“That was about the same time the rumors got started about the Combine coming back and about my helping it.”
“I don’t know about those,” she said quickly. “Hoxey said he was working for the Combine, so he wouldn’t have done that.”
“But he did tell you to help set me up for the kill.”
She wet her lips with her tongue. “He just told me to listen more carefully when you came back.”
I said, “What about that message you told me was from Johnny Itsuko?”
“Hoxey told me to do that,” she admitted.
“And you had something to do with setting me up for Minto and Pooly too, didn’t you?”
She said, “No, I—” She stopped. I saw the expression of sudden withdrawal as she chopped off her words. And what she hadn’t said told me more than what she might have said.
I said, “That’s it. Minto! He’s the boy the Combine sent up here. You knew him when you were in California, didn’t you? So when he came up he found who you were working for and he sweet-talked you into helping him.”
“I told you it was Hoxey!” she said.
I said, “Hoxey’s dead. He can’t make you out a liar. But Minto is still alive, so you’re protecting him. Hell, yes, that fits. You got wind of how close Johnny was getting to blowing the lid off the deal. He could put the finger on you. So you had Minto get Pooly to beat him to death. Hoxey was in it, all right, but only a stooge, a handyman to set the shed on fire and steal Johnny’s car so they could hunt in it for the taped report. And then Hoxey became too great a risk. You knew that I was going to keep after him until I made him talk. You couldn’t afford that, so you told Minto and he killed Hoxey.”
“No!” She was screaming. “That isn’t true. Would I have saved you from Minto if it was true, Jeff?”
“Sure, if you figured it wasn’t yet time to have me bumped off. If you wanted more information from me. Then you’d have saved me. And that’s the way it was. You made yourself look good. You gave me a reason to trust you. And I fell for the trick. I spilled my guts to you.”
“It wasn’t that way at all,” Stephanie said. “I didn’t do anything except phone Hoxey and tell him what I’d overheard. Please believe me, Jeff. Can’t you believe me?”
“I’ll answer that after I hear this tape.”
Stephanie sat and watched me. She wore no expression at all now. But her eyes seemed to be waiting. For what, I couldn’t tell.
I pressed the broadcast button. The tape began to wind through the mechanism. I heard the soft popping sounds a tape picks up when someone is dictating with a car’s motor running.
A voice burst out at me suddenly. It was harsh and clear and too loud. It said, “Take this to Jeff McKeon, DA’s office. Whoever hears this, take it to McKeon.”
The voice was Hoxey Creen’s. Hearing it was a little frightening, gruesome. It hadn’t been very long since I had seen Hoxey kneeling in death in a dirty bathtub.
I reached out and turned the volume down. Hoxey’s voice came more softly now. It said; “McKeon, this is Hoxey Creen. If you get this, it means I’ve been killed. This is my insurance. Listen close, McKeon. I’m going to spill the whole deal—who’s been trying to set you up, who killed Itsuko, the works. Then you’ll know who killed me. See what I mean about insurance, McKeon?”
The voice was getting jerky. It stopped. I could hear heavy breathing. I could almost see Hoxey sitting in Johnny Itsuko’s car, putting the tape on the machine, picking up the microphone, swallowing away his fear so he could get his voice working. For the first time in his life he was playing with the big operators, the hard boys. He wasn’t very smart, but he was smart enough to know that he was expendable.
Stephanie said, “I’m going to be sick,” in a desperate voice.
I pushed the stop button on the machine. I said, “Come on then.”
I went with her into the DA’s office and to the door of his private washroom. She went inside and pulled the door shut. I listened to water running. I could hear gagging sounds. I wondered if she was being sick from the tension she had been under or from fear of what she might hear Hoxey say next.
The sound of running water stopped. She came out of the washroom. She was patting her face with a hand towel. She held it to her mouth.
She said, “I think I’ll be all right now.”
I led her back to her office. I punched the broadcast button on the machine again. There was a minute more of Hoxey’s ragged breathing. Then he began to talk again.
His voice said; “McKeon, whoever finds this should have found some papers too. The papers I took out of the Real Estate Records room when you nearly caught me. Today, it was. Remember, McKeon? Get those papers and take a good look. They’ll tell you where the set-up is. It’s a wire service, a real deal with plenty of dough behind it.” His voice began to drop as if he had moved away from the mike.
I heard Stephanie’s chair creak. She made a retching sound. I was too busy listening to watch her. I hoped she had the towel up where it would do her some good. I leaned toward the machine to make sure I wouldn’t miss what Hoxey had to say next.
“You go to Hill Street, McKeon,” the voice said. I could hear a jeering note now. Hoxey had recovered some of his cockiness. He was beginning to get a little pleasure out of what he was doing.
I saw Stephanie’s shadow shift. I barely caught the movement out of the side of my vision. I wasn’t concentrating enough to connect the movement with trouble. And I wasn’t worried about Stephanie anyway. She had no way of getting a weapon.
I’d been wrong a lot of times during this case. I was wrong again. She did have a weapon. A heavy bar of soap knotted into one end of the hand towel. I felt it hit me at the base of the neck.
I pitched forward on the desk. My chest hit the machine, sliding it away from me. She hit me again. I went to my knees. She didn’t make a sound. She just kept swinging her homemade blackjack at my head and face.
My vision cleared. I had a glimpse of her face. Her eyes were wild. Her expression was twisted with the kind of madness that means a person is beyond knowing what he’s doing. She wasn’t thinking. She was like a frightened animal, seeking to protect itself. If I didn’t stop her, she would keep on swinging until I was dead.
The sap caught me on the cheekbone. I rolled away and tried to keep rolling. She came after me. A blow caught me behind the ear. I want down, my face burrowed into the carpet.
I tried to push myself up. I had no muscles, no strength at all. I could feel the beating she was giving me, but it had no meaning. It was as if I dreamt it was happening.
After a while the beating seemed to stop. I thought I heard her walking. Then there was the sound of her voice as if she was talking on the telephone, but in some other room. Then a door slammed and there was no more sound.
I tried to move. I managed to lift my head. Then I could sit up. Finally I got to my hands and knees. I crawled into the DA’s office and through it to the washroom. I pulled myself up by holding to the edge of the basin. I turned the cold water tap and filled the bowl. I pushed my face down into the icy water.
I was better then. I lifted my face and stared at my reflection in the wall mirror. I could see discolorations and the beginnings of lumps where Stephanie had hit me.
I wondered why she had stopped before she killed me. It could be that she didn’t know how much of a beating a man could take before he died. Or maybe she hadn’t wanted to kill me after all. Maybe she had only wanted time to get away.
I wished I could believe that.
I walked slowly back to her office. I sat in her chair and reached for the machine. The tape had been wound all the way back onto its original spool. I had a pretty good idea what had happened, but I punched the “broadcast” button anyway.
I was right. The tape unreeled with only the background noise coming out of the speaker. Stephanie had done a thorough job of erasing. A third of the way through there was a high-pitched squawking, indicating the point where she had started erasing Hoxey’s voice.
I let the tape run all the way to the end. I got nothing but an earful of silence. I tried to write down exactly what Hoxey had said so I would have at least that much to go on. I reached the place where I recalled his saying: “McKeon, whoever finds this should have found some papers too. They’ll tell you where the set-up is.”
I dropped the pencil and reached into my pocket. I pulled out a pack of cigarets and half a book of matches. The papers were gone. I tried my other pockets. No papers.
I swore helplessly. I settled slowly back in the chair. My neck and shoulder muscles hurt where Stephanie had hit me. I thought I should be glad it wasn’t Pooly on the end of that sap. I remembered Johnny Itsuko and Hoxey Creen.
I smoked a cigaret. I felt better. The ideas were beginning to come again. I picked up the phone and dialed the DA’s private home phone number. When he answered, he sounded irritated, as if I had interrupted his evening coffee drinking.
I said, “This is Jeff. I have something to report.”
He said, “If it’s about Hoxey Creen, you’re a little late. He’s been found. And Maslin is looking for you with blood in his eye this time.”
I said, “Sir, I didn’t kill Hoxey. I can prove it.”
He said, “There’s a witness who claims you did.”
I said, “Stephanie Bartlett?”
He said sharply, “What’s she got to do with it? Did you get her sore or something?”
“I’ll tell you later. Who claims I killed Hoxey?”
“That woman of his, Theodora Jenner,” the DA said. “She called in and reported he was dead. She told Maslin you and Hoxey had been fighting. She said you threatened him. Did you?”
I said, “Yes, sir. I guess I did.”
“She said you hit him. Did you do that?”
“I just pushed him around a little. But that was yesterday.”
“The way she tells it,” the DA said, “you had motive and opportunity and she swears you killed Hoxey.”
I said, “I found him dead. He had been dead twenty or thirty minutes then.”
“Can you prove that?”
I was getting lightheaded. I sat down in his chair. I said, “Yes, sir. I took off when I heard the police car come. Maslin must have found the body right after I left.”
“What does that prove?”
“I have a witness for where I was until I found the body, and that wasn’t ten minutes before the police got to it.”
“It had better be a good alibi.”
I had been talking without doing very much thinking. Now I started thinking. And I had nothing to say. Because I remembered who could confirm my alibi. Nick Calumet.
I said, “On second thought, sir, it isn’t a very good one. But damn it, I didn’t kill Hoxey.”
“Who is this alibi?”
“Nick Calumet. I was talking to him just before I found Hoxey.”
He made a disgusted sound. His voice was full of ice when he said, “Calumet told Maslin that you came to his place looking for Hoxey. He said you were crazy mad. He said he tried to stop you but you knocked him down and ran out. Is that true?”
“It’s almost true. Calumet was trying to hold me with a gun.”
“What are you going to do now, Jeff? Where are you?”
“I’m in your office, sir. But I’m leaving right now.”
“You stay there. I’ll call Maslin and have him come for you. If you have a story, he’ll listen to it.”
I said, “There isn’t time, sir. I have something to do. Call Maslin. But tell him to get Captain Ritter and go to Hill Street. Somewhere in Calumet’s or Arch’s or the Blue Beagle there’s a wire service set-up. I’m going to find it.”
“Are you sure?”
I said, “Sure enough that I’m going to risk my neck to locate it—and a murderer.”
“Then let the police handle it. You sit tight. That’s an order.”
“No, sir. I’m going. Give me thirty minutes and then call Maslin.”
I didn’t give him a chance to give me any more orders. I hung up.
11
I LEFT the office and went down the hall to my own cubbyhole of an office. I opened the center desk drawer. I took out my gun. I put it in my belt and draped my jacket to hide the bulge of the butt.
I went to the service stairs and started down them. A search of my pockets told me that Stephanie had taken my car key. That meant she had my sedan. And I was a little too hot to go into the street and flag a cab.
I found that I didn’t have to worry about transportation after all. I went out the same service door I had come through. I stepped out of the dark shadow of the entryway and headed across the lawn.
Then I had company. Two of them. One came up on either side. I felt the hard hand on my left arm. I felt the gun nuzzle my ribs under my right arm.
I looked right. The face under the pulled down fedora belonged to Minto.
He said, “You took long enough coming out, McKeon. For a while we thought the cops got you.” He paused and added, “But she said you’d be too smart to let that happen.”
I swung my head and looked down at Pooly. He had an expression of happy anticipation on his face.
Minto had his car waiting on the dark south side of the City Park. He helped himself to my gun and then climbed in the back seat with me. Pooly drove.
Pooly swung the car toward Hill Street. He said, “You figured out how we’re going to work this, Minto?”
Minto said, “It’s all figured out. First McKeon is going to unbutton his lip a little. Then you can have him, Pooly. After that, we’ll run his car down the River Road and through the barricade at the end. What’s left of McKeon and his car will go in the river. How does that sound?”
“Swell,” Pooly said happily.
“You’re full of great ideas, Minto. But this one is too late. And your lady friend made a mistake. The Combine should be more careful when it hires women. Most of them aren’t stable enough to see a job of this kind all the way through.”
Minto laughed at me. He rapped the muzzle of his gun lightly into my ribs. He said, “Tell me all about it, McKeon.”
I was willing to tell him all he wanted to hear. The more I talked, the more time I would have. And right now I needed time to get back the strength Stephanie had sapped out of me.
I said, “As I see it, the Combine sent you up here to start the wire service. If all went well, they figured on expanding, taking over the whole Northwest. So you remembered a doll who had tried to lay her way into Hollywood. You went to her and bought her help.”
I paused. “How am I doing?”
He laughed again. “Just great.”
I said, “I want a cigaret.”
“Help yourself.”
I helped myself. I drew a lungful of smoke. I said, “She knew what the score was and she told you I was the one to get rid of first. With me on your back, you’d only have trouble. And she told you about one of my stoolies; one that hated my guts way down deep. So you roped Hoxey in. And then he or she cooked up the idea of throwing a smokescreen by tipping off Captain Ritter that I was working with the Combine. Only that backfired. Ritter swallowed the story, all right, but he also put an investigator on the job. Johnny Itsuko. And Johnny was smart enough to go around the smokescreen to see what was behind it. He came too close to the truth. So Stephanie warned you and you had Pooly beat him to death. At the same time you tried to frame me for the job.”
Minto slapped his thigh with his free hand. “Hear that, Pooly? McKeon’s a real smart boy, all right.”
“Ask him what brand he smokes,” Pooly said, and laughed.
Minto said, “All right, McKeon, keep going.”
“Before you could get your frame really tight, Hoxey stepped in to do a little work on his own. He tried the badger game on me so he could get back the evidence I’m holding over him and his girlfriend. He also put the heat on you. For cash or because he wanted a bigger cut or maybe you were just afraid he would talk to me. And Stephanie told you about the badger game angle. You figured you had a perfect frame for me again. So you had Pooly get rid of Hoxey too.”
I glanced out the window. We were crossing Hill Street. Pooly swung right at the next corner and pulled up at the curb. We were in the dark warehouse district. My sedan was parked just ahead of us. Pooly blinked his lights. The sedan swung away from the curb.
I said, “I’ve got a few more ideas.”
“Tell me on the way to the river,” Minto said.
Pooly let the sedan disappear around the corner. Then he followed.
Minto said, “Let’s hear your ideas, McKeon.”
“I have a pretty good idea where the wire service set-up is located.”
“You should, if you got a look at those papers Hoxey had.”
“I didn’t. Your girl friend rolled me first. But I don’t think I need them to know what they showed.”
He said softly, “What did they show, McKeon?”
“After Hill Street stopped being the main drag of the city, it was Chinatown for a while. The Chinese of those days weren’t interested in becoming part of the community. They wanted to live in their own little section, to keep out of sight as much as possible. So they did the same thing they did in the other cities they settled in. They hooked up the basements of all the buildings with tunnels. That way they could go back and forth without coming up to the street. They could have their fantan games, smoke their pipes, run their fancy whorehouses—in other words live as they wanted and not be bothered.”
