The Duchess of Skid Row, page 8
I said, “You’re making noises like a wife. And you sound full of gin.”
“Of course I’m full of gin,” she said. “I miss you, lover. And I’m not jealous. Not really. Only I hate to think of you wasting all that talent on anything so cheap.”
I said, “Just because she puts out doesn’t mean she’s cheap, dollbaby. Mind your language.”
Griselda made a hiccoughing sound. “What she did to try to get a break down here was cheap. Or do you think the backlot movie makers make a girl rich?”
I dropped the subject. I had something more important I wanted to talk to her about. I said, “Speaking of names, do you know an Archibald Archer?”
“Of course, lover. Are you jealous?”
I said, “No. I’m in trouble. I told you that. Blow away some of those gin fumes and listen. Did you lease the old Forum to Nick Calumet?”
“Yes, lover. Is there anything wrong with that?”
“I have a feeling there is. But I don’t know why yet. How did Calumet contact you—and when?”
She said, “Before I ever left Puget City to join you down here last month. As soon as the court gave me full title to that Hill Street property, I put an ad in the paper. Calumet leased the Forum and Teddy Jenner and I made a deal. I gave her free rent for a year and she fixed up the old bank building. Then I met Arch down here and talked him into taking the saloon for a restaurant. Does that help your trouble, lover?”
I said, “One more question. Have you met any of the Combine boys down there?”
Her voice turned stiff. “Damn it, just because I worked for a crook, it doesn’t mean that I—”
“Okay. Skip it. Now listen carefully. The rumor is that you used your old boss’s contacts to make a deal with the Combine. The police here think that’s why you went to L.A. They also think you roped me in on the deal so we could both make a killing.”
“That’s ridiculous. I’m coming right home and say so!”
I said, “You stay where you are. I’ve got all the grief I can handle. By the way, Maslin is having you checked out. If you’re clean, the L.A. cops will tell him.”
“Of course I’m clean,” she said indignantly.
I said, “Unless this Arch character works for the Combine. Then you could be in hot water yourself.”
“I don’t believe it!” she said. “Arch is a very nice man.” Then she said plaintively, “Are you in real trouble, lover?”
“Real enough. A murder rap.”
Griselda said slowly, “Did you kill someone?”
“Not yet. I’m being framed all the way around. I hoped you could help me get off the hook.”
“I can’t,” she said. “This Combine bit is new to me.”
“Can you remember anything Calumet might have said that could help?”
Griselda was silent a moment. I was glad she’d inherited money as well as property from her former boss. I wasn’t in any shape to pay the phone bill we were running up.
She said, “I can’t think of a thing. He told me he’d won a pile on the horses and that he wanted to expand his business. But that doesn’t help, does it?”
I said, “It’s the same story he told me. Okay, dollbaby. You hang tight down there. I’ll call you as soon as I have anything.”
I looked at my watch. It was three-thirty. I left the apartment. Stephanie’s coupe was parked where I had left it the night before. I drove it downtown and into the Tower employees’ parking lot. I hiked down Salmon Way to the garage where she had stored my sedan. I got it out of hock and drove away.
I felt better in the sedan. I didn’t know how much hurry-up driving I might have to do and Stephanie’s little coupe wasn’t much on speed.
I took Southeast Boulevard out to the raw suburb where Kay Itsuko lived. Seeing her wasn’t something I looked forward to, but I couldn’t think of any other way to learn what I had to know.
Kay opened the door and looked quietly out at me. I said, “Are you alone?”
She was wearing a fresh housedress. She looked tiny and fragile, and lovely in a gentle way. It hurt me to see the lines of grief that marred her face.
She said, “Come in, Jeff. I was wondering when you’d call.”
I went into her kitchen. She nodded at water boiling on the stove. “Tea?”
I said, “Great.” I felt awkward and clumsy. I couldn’t find the words I wanted.
Kay made a pot of tea, put it on a tray with two cups and a bowl of sugar. I picked up the tray and followed her into the living room. She had me set the tray on a coffee table.
The room was neat with its mail-order, overstuffed furniture, its tiny fireplace, its pleasant lived-in look. I noticed that Johnny’s piperack and big ashtray were gone.
I said, “How’s the boy?”
She sat on the couch and picked up the teapot. “He’s staying with my mother until after the funeral.” She poured some tea. “Pull up that chair, Jeff.”
I pulled a straight chair to the coffee table. I said, “You should have gone too. It can’t be much fun alone here.”
“I’ve kept busy scrubbing everything in sight,” she said. She offered me a tiny smile. “It helps to have something to do.”
She handed me my teacup. Her dark eyes were steady as she looked into my face. “I read in the paper about your resigning, Jeff. Was it because of what happened?”
“Partly. Captain Ritter thinks I killed Johnny.”
She nodded. “I know. He came out yesterday and questioned me. He and Lieutenant Maslin. He’s very nice, isn’t he.”
I didn’t think she was referring to Ritter. I said, “He’s a great guy.”
“Did anything I told Captain Ritter hurt you, Jeff?”
“Since you couldn’t tell anything but the truth, nothing you’d say could hurt me.”
“I’m glad.”
“I know it’s a hell of a time to ask, but could you tell me what you told Ritter? And anything else Johnny said or did? That might help?”
“I’ll try,” she said. She didn’t ask me whether or not I had killed Johnny. She knew that she didn’t have to ask.
She said, “I told the Captain about Johnny’s coming home night before last. I told him about the tape. I gave it to him.”
“What about the tape? When did Johnny bring it in the house?”
“That night,” she said. “When he first came home, he sat in the car for some time. He often does—did.”
She looked stricken. I didn’t say anything except, “He’d stay in the car and finish his report and then bring the tape into the house?”
She nodded. She sipped some tea. I said, “What did he do, keep his extra tapes in the house and take a fresh one with him every morning?”
She looked puzzled. I explained, “If he dictates a report on a tape and then mails or takes that tape to the office, he has to have another tape to put on the machine in case he has something to report the following day.”
Kay said, “He always kept an extra tape in the car, of course. I didn’t understand what you meant at first.”
“There was no sign of anything but the machine itself down at the forensic lab. Could Johnny have brought his extra tape in that night too?”
Kay looked thoughtful. She said slowly, “No, I’m sure he didn’t. He never had before. There’s no reason why he would have that night.”
“He wasn’t expecting any kind of trouble? He didn’t act differently from the way he had been acting?”
“No differently from the way he’d been acting the past two weeks or so.”
“What does that mean?”
She said, “Not long after he started on the investigation, he started to act preoccupied, worried. He didn’t say much to me—he never did about his work—but he did mention you. He told me he thought you were in trouble.”
“That could mean two things.”
She nodded. “That’s what Lieutenant Maslin said. “Only I remember the tone of Johnny’s voice. He was worried—but it was worry for you, not because of you. If you know what I mean.”
I said, “I know, but do the police?”
“I told Lieutenant Maslin,” she said. “He seemed to understand too. But he said my feeling about Johnny’s tone of voice wasn’t the kind of evidence that would do you much good.”
“It helped Maslin give me a break,” I said. “Did you tell this to Ritter?”
She shook her head. “I suppose I should have. But he was so hateful about you, so positive, that I just told him as little as I could. I gave him the tape and that was about all.”
I said, “Did you tell him what you told Maslin; that Johnny got a phone call from me only ten minutes before he went out to the shed?”
“No,” she said.
“But that was the way it happened? Johnny answered the phone and then went out to meet me?”
She said, “I was doing the dishes.” Her voice was soft and sad, remembering. “Johnny was playing with the baby—giving him a piggyback ride—when the telephone rang. I heard him answer it. He didn’t say much. Only, ‘Okay.’ ”
“Do you remember how he sounded—worried or excited or suspicious or anything like that?”
Kay said slowly, “No. He sounded a little puzzled, if anything. But I can’t be sure. I was in the kitchen where I couldn’t see his face.”
“Then did he say anything to you?”
“Just that he was supposed to meet you in the toolshed at six twenty-five. And then he grinned and said something about you wanting to pay him back for flipping you earlier.”
“Did he tell you about our meeting in the Records room?”
“He told me at dinner,” Kay said. “That’s another reason I didn’t tell Captain Ritter more. When he came to talk to me, I remembered that Johnny had said, ‘So I flipped Jeff to make it look good. I had to with Old Hardshell standing there watching. If he thought I might give Jeff a break, he’d have pulled me off the case in zero time.’ ”
“Did you tell Maslin that?”
“Yes.”
I said, “Bless you. Now I see why he hasn’t hauled me in, despite Ritter’s yowling. Did Johnny say anything else?”
She shook her head. “That’s all. At six twenty-five he went out to the toolshed. I watched him walk across the lawn.” Her eyes were beginning to show the hurt that lay deep inside. “He was in the light from the kitchen window for a minute and then he walked out of it. The toolshed light didn’t come on and I remember wondering if he needed a fresh bulb. Then I decided he was keeping it dark for his meeting with you. If I’d gone out there …” Her voice stumbled.
“If you had, you’d be dead too. Somebody set him up. I didn’t make that phone call. Whoever did was waiting for him.” I paused and added, “One more thing, Kay. Did Johnny ever say anything to give you even a hint of what the new racket might be?”
“Lieutenant Maslin and Captain Ritter asked me the same thing,” she said. “I couldn’t remember then. But now I recall something.” She stopped and looked over my shoulder as if searching her memory for the right words.
“It was that same night. When he handed me the tape.” Her voice began to flow. “I know it was. I remember him saying, ‘Here, honey, put this in its box and mail it tomorrow. And treat it tenderly. It’s probably the only magnetic tape that ever short-circuited a bookie.’ And then he laughed. I was busy getting dinner,” she added apologetically, “and it only half stuck in my mind You know how it is.”
I said, “I know. And thanks again.”
“Have I helped you, Jeff?”
I got up. “You can’t know how much, I only wish I could do something in return.”
She looked steadily at me. She said softly, “Just do something so Johnny’s death won’t have been a total loss.”
9
I RODE my sedan hard getting away from Kay Itsuko’s place. I had a telephone call to make before five o’clock. It was almost that when I left Kay.
I pulled up by the first drugstore I came to in the city. I used the phone booth and dialed the DA. Stephanie answered briskly, as if she might be annoyed.
I said, “Get me the boss on the line, will you?”
She said, “Thank heaven! I called and called you. First the line was busy. Then nobody answered. I was halfway out the door to see what was wrong just now.”
“I’ve been busy.”
“Have you made any progress, darling?” She sounded hopeful.
“I think I have. Get me the DA, dollbaby, and I’ll fill you in later.”
She got me the DA. He said, “Don’t tell me where you are, Jeff”—
“The order is out for my scalp?”
“That’s right. Ritter has put on all the pressure he’s got. Maslin says he can’t give you any more time.”
I said, “I’ve already resigned. What difference can it make to your office if Ritter claims I’m a crook?”
“If I don’t issue an indictment, Ritter will tell the reporters that I’m showing favoritism,” the DA said. “You know that.”
I said, “I’m working on a hunch now, sir. You might call Ritter and tell him to hold off. Because if this hunch pays out and he has shot off his face to the newspaper, I’ll get him for libel.”
“That’s a strong word,” the DA said.
“I have the feeling Ritter will know what I mean.”
“Have you anything solid, Jeff? Something I can sell to Maslin?”
“Tell him this. The racket was to be a wire service set-up. I’m not sure where, and that’s what I’m on my way to find out now.” I paused and added carefully, “Hoxey Creen is the key to this deal. He’s the boy who blew up Johnny Itsuko’s car and set fire to the toolshed.”
“And you think he could have beaten a man like Itsuko to death?”
“No, sir, but I think he knows who did—the person who hired him. And I know just how to get him to talk.”
“Keep me posted, Jeff. Call me at home. I’m leaving now. And if I can do anything at all….”
“Sir, the fact that you believe in me has been a big help.”
I hung up. I trotted out to the sedan. I headed west, for Hill Street. It was dark and beginning to drizzle again. I drove slowly now, checking the rear vision mirror. If I was being followed, I couldn’t see any of the signs.
Even so, I moved carefully. Darkness was the time when the filth squeezed out of the woodwork in this part of town. It was the time when men like Minto and Pooly operated best. And the fact that I hadn’t seen Minto didn’t make me think that he had given me up. I figured he was just waiting for me to come back to Hill Street.
I parked on Second, the nose of the car at the edge of the alley. I went into the Blue Beagle by the back door. I climbed the stairs. I passed Teddy’s red door and stopped before Hoxey’s. I rapped with my fist.
I got the echo of silence. I hammered harder. The red door opened. I turned and saw Teddy.
She was wearing a wrapper. Her face was puffed with sleep. She looked peeved.
“Can’t you let people get their sleep?”
I said, “I want Hoxey and I want him fast.”
“Get out of here, McKeon, or I’ll call the cops and give them that film Hoxey took.”
“Go ahead. If he’s willing to swap the rest of his life and about five years of yours for the fun of having the police laugh at him, go ahead.”
“You bastard!” she screamed. “You cocky bastard!”
I said, “Making love noises will get you nowhere, Teddy darlin'. Now tell me where Hoxey is.” I took a step toward her.
She started to curse me some more. Then she stopped and stared at my hands. I had them in front of me, ready to grab her. She took a step backward. She slammed her door inches from my nose.
“I’m big enough to break that down.”
She said through the panel, “Hoxey is with Nick Calumet.”
I said, “Try again. Calumet told me he fired Hoxey because you wouldn’t steer your customers to his place.”
“I wouldn’t know,” Teddy said. “But Hoxey called an hour or so ago. He said he was with Nick. Now leave me alone.”
She was so burned up at me that I could hear the truth in her voice. She was too mad to be acting. I turned and trotted down the stairs. I looked up and down the dark length of the alley cautiously. I thought I might be safer where there was more light. Then I remembered what the DA had said. If I went onto Hill Street, I could end up in a squad car.
I tackled the darkness.
It was empty. I passed Arch’s rear door. I reached Calumet’s. In the old days, when Joe Rome owned the place, the door had always been unlocked. It was a convenient way for a certain type of customer to get into the back rooms without being seen out front. There had been a rabbit warren of rooms then; the bar girls used them as places to “rest” while they waited for customers.
The door was locked now. I thought that was interesting. I took my key ring out of my pocket and went to work on the lock. The third key worked. I eased the door open and stepped into the musty old rear hall. I shut the door behind me.
I tried some of the doors that opened onto the hall. They were all locked until I came to the one that led to Calumet’s office. That opened. I walked in.
Calumet was seated behind his desk. He was smiling. He could afford to smile. He had a gun in his hand. It was pointed at me. He said, “Close the door.”
“I thought you didn’t like guns, Nick.” I closed the door.
“You made a lot of noise opening that back door,” he said. He didn’t say why he’d suddenly grown fond of a gun. But I could guess.
I said, “I want Hoxey, not you.”
“I told you he doesn’t work here any more.”
“He was here last night, Nick. And Teddy Jenner told me not five minutes ago that he’s here now.”
Calumet just shook his head. He looked confident with the gun in his hand and his wrist supported by the edge of the desk. It was a position he could hold for quite a while without getting tired.
He said, “Why so eager to see Hoxey, McKeon?”
“I have some questions to ask him.”
“The same ones you asked me?”
This conversation wasn’t telling him or me anything. I had the feeling that he was sparring for time. To give Minto and Pooly a chance to pick me up? To give Hoxey time to put a lot of distance between him and me?”
