The Long Wait Page 13

  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 li
ke 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.”

  Then she hung up. It happened so fast I turned the receiver around and stared at it before I put it back. On second thought I took out another nickel, dropped it in and dialed the operator. When she answered I said brusquely, “This is Tucker, city police. I want a numbed traced. 5492. Want me to wait?”

  “Just a minute please.” I waited, then: “That number is a pay station on the corner of Grand and the boulevard.”

  “Okay, thanks.”

  I didn’t get it at all. I went back to the bar and had my beer. Logan was curious without asking questions so I told him that it wasn’t for me and he seemed satisfied.

  We had another beer and halfway through it the door to the men’s room on the other side of the bar opened and a little guy with a funny walk came out. He kept his head down and edged in to where he left his drink and started working it over.

  Logan wanted another round, but I shook my head. The little guy over the way was collecting his change and I did the same thing. Across my back the muscles were lumping up into hard knots and my fingers wouldn’t hold still. Not ten feet off was the son of a bitch who tailed me last night, the same boy who had gotten away from me up at the quarry.

  I made it look casual as possible because I didn’t want Logan in on it. I gave the guy about thirty seconds, got outside in time to see him stepping into a car and hustled over to Logan’s Chevvy. I managed to mumble something about never having driven a late model like his and he told me to go ahead and try it.

  That was nice because I was able to tail the guy all the way back to town without getting wise. And for a change I even got a break. There was a red light showing when we came to the Circus Bar and the guy had to stop for it. I had a chance to say good night to Logan, hop out and make my own heap before the light changed and picked the guy up as he drove past.

  He swung down the main drag with me right behind him and he never got wise to the tail job for a minute. When he slowed up and started to crowd the curb I knew he was looking for a parking place, so I pulled ahead of him, found an empty slot before he did, and backed into it. About a half a block down he got a place too, parked the car and walked back toward me.

  I let him pass. I gave him a hundred feet of space between us then took up the tail again. This was even easier than driving. The drizzle was steady now, blowing in from the west, but neither that nor the flashes of lightning in the sky were doing anything to hamper business.

  Place after place was a madhouse of noise that overflowed to the sidewalk. People were changing spots constantly hoping for a change of luck. Most of them had a slight edge on and were in a hurry to get back to the bars and the tables. I had to weave through them to keep up with the guy and finally stayed on the outside near the curb where there was a narrow open lane.

  He turned into the gaudiest spot on the street. It had a canopy extending from the doorway to the curb with an admiral in full dress uniform helping the patrons from the cabs. It had a fancy French name with tiny gilt letters on the windows that proclaimed, “Edward Packman, owner.”

  And Eddie Packman was the guy Vera West had seen at the station just before she ran. Or so Jack said anyway.

  The bar was fifty feet long with the crowd four deep behind the rail. A dozen bartenders tried to keep up with the orders, moving with short, jerky motions like comedians in old-fashioned movies. The rest of the room was just one big gambling casino jammed to the rafters with more people than the fire laws allowed trying their luck on anything that came along.

  They even had mouse games. The women screamed, the men cheered and the live mice ran into holes that paid off at six to one. But there were about two hundred holes in the board and only three mice to each game so the hous
e could not lose at all.

  My little guy was half the bar away finishing a beer. When he set the empty back on the bar he backed through the mob and walked down the back. A flight of stairs went up and disappeared into a dimly lit alcove. I watched him until he was out of sight and took it easy with my drink.

  A half hour later he was back. This time he didn’t stop for a drink. His face had a peculiar set to it; pleased, but still showing the signs of recent anger. He went past me, out the door and started back to his car.

  I was right there again when he pulled away. He turned right at the corner, right again on a street that was without much traffic and kept going until he intersected the highway. You could see that there wasn’t a car in sight going either way and I didn’t expect him to make a stop just because the sign said to. He jammed on the brakes and I had to yank the wheel to cut around him and for the first time he saw my face. His mouth dropped and he let the clutch out so fast the car hopped ahead like a jackrabbit.

  I gave the Ford all it would take and screamed out on the highway. His taillight was a tiny red eye going like hell, but the Ford was up to it and closed the distance down fast. We were both up past the eighty mark, taking the turns with the tires whining and I was getting edgy enough to curse myself for not having taken him sooner. On the straightaways I could pick up on him, but the Ford was too light to make the turns and he was holding his own.

  Then there was a nice long straightaway and I pushed the gas pedal all the way to the floor and crouched there trying to keep the Ford on the road. I would have had him if I hadn’t seen the lights of a truck sweeping around a curve about a mile ahead. I knew damn well I wouldn’t make it and eased on the brakes, but the guy in front of me tried to take it wide open.

  He went into the turn skidding, started to recover, lost control for a second then all he was was a blur tumbling end over end through the fields in a horrible screeching noise of tearing metal and breaking glass. I overshot him by a half mile, turned around and pulled off the road where he went into the weeds.