The Long Wait Page 19

  Logan had stapled the news account to the sheet underscoring a couple of lines. The gist of it was that Harlan Gracie was suspected of being a partner to a con game in which prominent out-of-towners were fleeced. It was the usual thing, a dame and a small-town playboy shacked up in a hotel room with a blackmail aftermath. None of her victims stepped forward to accuse her, but it wasn’t necessary because she had talked too much and a smart D. A. got enough of a confession out of her to send her up a few years. The inquiring reporter who covered the affair added that the sum extracted from her victims was suspected to be considerably more than she let on and that she had worked with a confederate or two who steered the victims her way. However, this was not established at the trial.

  The note that Logan had added stated that these were all the Harlans he could uncover, and if it was a place, the nearest Harlan was better than a thousand miles off, and if it was a person, Harlan Gracie was the only one with a criminal record. He said he’d try to get further details from a news source in New York by the name of Whitman and would let me know more about it when he saw me.

  I looked the list over again, grinning at the copyrighted Harlan because she was the one Venus had told me about. At least my tall lovely wasn’t handing me any baloney. I folded the stuff back into the envelope, tucked it in my pocket and drained off the dregs of the beers. It was a whole hatful of Harlans, but I’d give every one to know who the hell it was who bothered letting me know about them in the first place.

  I didn’t stick around the Circus Bar any longer than I had to. Logan was someplace getting tanked up and I wanted to get him while he was still able to do some good. He’d probably be sore as hell about my little fracas with the boys and if he was it was too bad.

  By eleven-fifteen I had traced him through seven bars. In the first one there had been two men with him and they had talked awhile over a drink. The bartender saw them taking notes about something or other. Logan hadn’t seemed happy. In the next six he had been alone and from what I could gather he was pretty well in his cups and brooding hard.

  There was one thing that seemed peculiar. None of the bars he had been at belonged to Servo’s Business Group. Maybe it was because he didn’t want a lot of noise and people intruding on his thoughts or maybe it was something else again. At least the bars were still fairly empty with the bartenders standing around ready to pick up the late trade getting squeezed out of the places with the wheels and dice tables. The last bar was a ratty place on a side street called The Last Resort. The bartender said he had been there for about ten minutes, talked to a couple of hustlers, made a phone call, had a few more drinks and left. Wherever Logan went from there he didn’t know and couldn’t even guess.

  That’s when I gave up. Logan could wait. Let the guy enjoy his drink and maybe he’d feel better tomorrow. I told the bartender to make me up a whisky and ginger and sat down to watch a redhead operate on a reluctant prospect.

  She was going good then all of a sudden she stopped and moved over a seat. The bartender looked at the door and scowled a little bit, automatically reaching for the Scotch bottle on the back bar.

  The guy who came in was middle-aged, lanky and in plain clothes, but he had might as well been wearing a sign around his neck that read COP. He said, “No drink, Barney,” and pulled a photo out of his pocket and slid it across the bar. “Ever see him before?”

  The bartender studied the picture, read the caption underneath, then shook his head.

  “Sure?”

  “Positive.”

  “You see him around, call in, understand?”

  “Yeah, I know.”

  “Okay.” He put the picture back in his pocket.

  “Want a drink?”

  “Not now. Maybe I’ll come back.” The cop started to go when he saw the redhead. His smile was a dirty twisting of the mouth. “Hello, Ginger.”

  The redhead didn’t bother answering. She barely glanced at him and went back to her drink. “Stay off the streets,” he said.

  The redhead flushed, but she had a lot of nerve. “You can’t make pay-off dough when you don’t work someplace, copper.”

  His smile kind of warped a little before he got out through the door.

  I looked at my hand and it was white around the knuckles from squeezing the glass so hard. The bartender saw it too but didn’t say anything. He glanced back at my face and mentally compared it with the wanted circular and the copy showed him. “Your name really George Wilson?” he asked.

  I let him keep a fin out of my change. “Could be, friend. Could very well be. Thanks.”

  “No trouble. If that dumb dick had eyes for something else except what comes easy he coulda spotted you quick. I ain’t helping him out none.” He leaned forward confidentially. “I been in stir once myself.”

  So I got out of there in a hurry before the cop came back for his drink. There wasn’t any sense in giving him a second chance. Nice, I thought, now the door is shut right in my face. They want me by day or night and there will be a price on my head to make it interesting.

  Before I went back to the car I ducked around the corner into a drugstore. I got my number, heard it ring about a dozen times before the receiver lifted off the hook, then a hesitant voice said, “Yes?”

  “I want your boss, honey.”

  The background hum muffled out for a few seconds and I knew she had her hand over the mouthpiece. A minute later she said, “I’ll put her on.”

  The next “Yes,” was a little different. Scared.

  “Johnny, sugar.”

  “Oh.” That was all she said.

  “Somebody there? Can you talk?”

  “Yes ... go ahead, please.” In the background was the grating sound of a man’s voice, but there was no click or dimming out that would indicate an extension being lifted.

  I said, “Did the cops come looking for me?”

  “Yes ... I’m sure ...”

  “Did they expect to find me alive or dead?”

  “Oh,no ...”

  “Alive?”

  “Certainly.”

  “Okay, pretty girl, you can tell the copper bedtime stories. I’ll see you again when there’s no watchdog around.”

  I hung up slowly and dug in my pockets for a cigarette. So the cops had come looking for a live man and right after that they were on the prowl for a certain George Wilson.

  Somebody had talked.

  That somebody had to be either Logan or Wendy and they were going to have to talk a lot more when I caught up with them. And since Logan was dead drunk someplace there wasn’t any use looking for him.

  Only Wendy was left. Lovely bottle-blonde black-background Wendy.

  I sat there on the corner seat of the booth staring at the phone. When I stared a pretty long time I dropped another nickle in the slot and punched out the number the card said to if you wanted the cops.

  Then I asked for Captain Lindsey.

  At first he didn’t believe me when I told him who I was. I added real quick, “Don’t bother tracing the call, friend. I’ll walk in if you want to see me.”

  “I want to see you,” he said. He sounded like a tiger ready to pounce.

  “Swell. Then I’ll walk in and see you. Just tell me on thing, Captain.”

  The phone was quiet. I could hear him purring. He liked it fine this way. He liked for me to be so damned cocky I’d put my head under the knife without being prodded. “Sure,” he said. “Shoot.”

  “How’d you find out?”

  “A little birdie told me. Cops have a lot of little birdies flying around. We call ’em stool pigeons but they like to be known as anonymous phone calls. This little birdie called the turn right on the nose.”

  “The little birdie got a name, Captain?”

  “No, not this one. He was very careful to disguise his voice.”

  “He?”

  I could feel his frown come over the wire. “It could have been a she. I didn’t ask. You can come on in and talk to me now.”

>   The laugh trickled out of my chest. “Oh, Captain, not right this minute.”

  “Damn you! I ...”

  “Uh-huh, Captain, I said I’d be in. I didn’t say when. Pretty soon, maybe, but not right this second.”

  “You get your ass down here right ...”

  I hung up on him.

  Two minutes later I was back in my car with a ten-second start over the police car that came screaming up the avenue. It was enough.

  When I found enough traffic to cover me I loafed along in line and ran over it in my mind. So far there had been two anonymous phone calls and I was wondering if the same party made them both. I kept trying to bring back the voice who had told me to look for Harlan. It was feminine enough then, but now I couldn’t be sure.

  It could have been a he or a she.

  Harlan could be a he or a she or an it.

  Harlan. Harlan Harlan. Son of a bitch, there was something I should know about her and couldn’t think of. The damn thing was knocking against the inside of my head trying to make me see that it was there sure enough if I’d only use my brain.

  It took a long time, then my fingers went cold around the wheel and I saw it. I had seen the name right after I had gotten the phone call and it hadn’t registered. Harlan was a name that had been scrawled across one of the envelopes the D.A. had on his desk the night he died!

  My foot touched the brake at the next intersection. I made a U-turn and drove back through town. I stopped at a bar for five minutes and made a phone call, then drove on to a certain street and parked.

  I didn’t have to wait long. The sedan came up behind me, a door slammed, then the one on my right was yanked open. I said, “Hello, Lindsey.”

  He wasn’t taking any chances. There was a gun in his hand. “Wise guy.”

  I was too tired to argue with him. The gun came up when I pulled out my pack of butts and went down hesitantly when I offered him one.

  He took it, waiting.

  “You can get me any time, Lindsey. I’m not trying to get away.”

  It was the tone of my voice that brought his head up. “I’ll get you now. I’m sick of gags. Maybe we don’t have your prints, but George Wilson and Johnny McBride are both wanted for murder. The lawyers’ll have fun with it, but you’ll swing.”

  “First wouldn’t you like to find out who killed Minnow?”

  An impotent rage choked him. He kept fiddling with the gun trying to decide right there whether he ought to kill me himself or not. “I’d like that.”

  So I told him who I was and why I was there, but that was all. He didn’t believe it. I didn’t care whether he did or not. I said, “Stay off my back for a week. Can you do that?”

  “Why should I?”

  “Because I may be right, that’s why. If you had a decent police force you would find out things yourself. You can’t. You’re just like me. One guy, hoping to come across something, only you’re too blind to look in more than one direction. You’re tied hand and foot by rules and regulations. Your cops make more in shakedowns than salary so they take orders from somebody else. Servo runs the boys who run you so all you can do is hope. Let me have a week. Hell, it isn’t much. One week and if I don’t get what I want you can take me in and let the lawyers have their field day.”

  “You’re nuts.” There was indecision in his voice. “Or I’m nuts for listening.”

  “I could have gotten away any time, Lindsey,” I reminded him.

  He put the gun away. I watched his fingers wrap around the butt and send it spinning out the window. “What do you want, Johnny? Say it before I change my mind.”

  I leaned back and stared at the ceiling. “The night Minnow died ... had his office been searched?”

  His breath hissed out slowly. He said one word. “Yes.” “What was taken?”

  “I don’t know. The killer didn’t look far because things weren’t too messed up.”

  “And you were the only one who noticed it.”

  He looked out the window and spit disgustedly. “I didn’t notice it until two days later when I went back to his office.” His shoulders moved under a sigh. “I was so damned mad it took me that long,” he explained.

  “There was a letter there. It had ‘Harlan’ written on it.” He got the pitch right off. “You saw his wife?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I checked on that angle.”

  “Without finding the letter. There was nothing.” He held out his hand. “Give me another cig.” I shook one out and lit it for him. “I checked every movement he made that night. His wife was pretty excited about the whole affair ... thought he contacted the girl or something, but he didn’t.

  “He went out and bought a paper. He drove downtown, stopped in Philbert’s where he made a few purchases, went across the street to a bar and had a few drinks and went home. The bartender said that while he was there he was deep in thought. He didn’t do anything special and nobody noticed anything special.”

  “But you never found the letter?”

  “No.”

  “Did you ever think about what could have happened to it?”

  “I think I know. The person came back and claimed it.”

  “Maybe,” I said. “Mrs. Minnow said Tucker called him about a special delivery letter.”

  “That’s right.” He took a long pull on the cigarette and filled the car with smoke.

  “What was it about?”

  “Hell, how do I know? He picked it up at the desk and stuck it in his pocket. He probably filed it away somewhere.”

  “Find that letter, Lindsey. Go through every damn cabinet and drawer in the place, but find it.”

  “Just a minute ...”

  “You said you wanted to find a killer.” I looked at him coldly. “I’m not ordering you around, I’m giving you something that might tie in. Find that letter.”

  His mouth clamped tight. “And what will you be doing?”

  “Finding out who wrote it and why.”

  He smoked that cigarette right down to the tip without saying anything. When it was finished he threw it out after the other one, squinted his face into a snarl and climbed out. Behind me I heard his car turn over, then pull away from the curb.

  A week I told him. Seven days. It wasn’t very long. I rolled the car forward and turned the corner. I traveled slowly and kept my eyes on the street signs until I found the one I wanted.

  I parked in front of the building, took the elevator up and pushed the bell that had Servo on the nameplate.

  Nobody answered.

  I tried again, waited and still nobody answered. I went back downstairs to the super’s apartment and pushed his bell too.

  The guy was all smiles at the prospect of company even if he was in his shorts. I said, “Servo come in?”

  He shook his head. “Hell, I dunno. His babe went outa here in a hurry awhile back, I know that. Just as I was coming up from fixing the hot water burner.”

  “She have clothes on?”

  “Yeah.” He showed his gums again. “They didn’t fit, neither. You know what? She had on a green dress with spangles. Them whores upstairs ... one of ’em got a dress just like it.”

  “Okay. I got it.”

  He squinted his eyes at me and kept his voice down. “Somebody kicked Servo around.”

  “That was me.”

  “Thought so. Give it to him good?”

  “Uh-huh. Why?”

  “I was wondering. Him and somebody been doing a lot of arguing up there. For a while I thought maybe there was a fight in his place only I didn’t hear anything like that. Just arguing. They was sore as hell about something.”

  This time I gave him a ten. He folded it up and kept it in the palm of his hand. “What floor are the babes on?”

  “Top. 7E. They’re alone tonight.”

  I went back to the elevator and let it haul me up. At 7E I rapped on the door until somebody told me to cut it out, they were coming and to take my time.

  The brunette that open
ed the door had on a housecoat and nothing else. She gave me a surprised grin and said, “Well, if it isn’t our tired playmate. So you finally woke up. Come on in.”

  She was one of the pair Jack had sent up to me in the hotel. I said, “I’m not in the market, sugar. Right now I want some information. Downstairs there’s a girl ... Servo’s girl. She left awhile ago.”

  Her professional smile disappeared. “So what.”

  That was the sister-in-trouble act. This was another wall I had to break down fast. “She came up here and borrowed a dress. She lammed and I want to know why.”

  “Maybe she wanted to see the town. How’d I know. Look, feller, you go ...”

  “The kid’s in hot water up to her ears. If you want her to get in deeper then clam up. I can find out someplace else, you know.”

  She didn’t like it a bit. Her teeth fastened to her lip while she tried to make up her mind. Maybe I looked honest enough to suit her. “She was scared, that’s why.”

  “Servo?”

  “She didn’t say. She was damn near hysterical and wouldn’t talk. All she wanted was some clothes. You know what the matter was?”

  “No. Did she say where she was going?”

  “As far as I could make out she was leaving town. She was scared stiff about something and we thought that maybe Servo had worked her over. He’s good at doing things that don’t show any marks. Good at doing it so it does show too.”

  “Just that?”

  For a second she chewed on her lip again. “No ... there was something else. She was babbling about something in the paper tonight. She said she’d be next or something like that. I was running around too much to notice.”

  I let it sink in, then reached behind me and opened the door. “Thanks, I’ll find her.”

  “I hope so. If anybody asks where she got the clothes, you don’t know, understand?”

  “Don’t worry.”

  “That crazy bastard was afraid to let her out without him. He did everything but keep her on a leash.”

  “She liked it that way, didn’t she?”

  “Hell, why not? She got everything she wanted. She went out often enough and she kept talking of going away for good next year. That’s all she lived for ... a little place in California all her own.”