Brass Rainbow (15 page)

I expected her to fold, but she didn't. There was a great deal of the Radford steel in her. She sat and looked at me.

“Very well, perhaps Mother doesn't know about Deirdre, but she knows something,” she said grimly. “Mother came to New York on Monday night, quite late and alone. Mother never goes into the city alone at night.”

“Monday? After the murder was discovered?”

“Yes. That night, of all nights, she would never have left the house without some urgent reason. She was waiting to hear again from Walter and George with the police.”

“How'd you find out? You didn't mention it before.”

“I didn't know until today. I told you I was watching Mother. I knew she had gone out that night, but I had assumed it was to visit some local friend. She hadn't even dressed, just put her coat on over her housedress. But today I remembered that she had had a phone call just before she went out. I questioned MacLeod, the butler. He likes me; we think a lot alike. He said he had driven Mother to the eight-twenty train that night. He said she came home late by taxi.”

“Have you asked her about it?”

“No. She never mentioned going anywhere. She would only lie.”

“What kind of coat was she wearing?”

“Her mink. A red housedress.”

“All right,” I said, “anything else you've dug up?”

She shook her head. She stood up. But she didn't move to go. “They'll destroy him, Mr. Fortune. Deirdre will destroy Walter. I know it. I know that, somehow, she killed Jonathan, and she'll destroy Walter.”

“She couldn't have killed your uncle,” I said. “She had no reason, and she has an alibi. It's impossible.”

“I don't care about that. Somehow, she did it. I don't know how. I don't care about the facts. The facts are wrong.”

“Maybe they are,” I said. “Do you know a Carmine Costa? Misty Dawn? Maybe Paul Baron?”

“No.”

“All right. Keep in touch, okay?”

She nodded. “Yes. Yes, of course.”

I watched her go out, and let out a slow breath. Somewhere inside Morgana Radford was on the edge. Maybe it was only that she knew she would lose her last hope of having her Walter back once he married Deirdre Fallon. She was right about that. Deirdre Fallon would make Walter dance her tune, and Walter would love every minute of it. I didn't think she was right about much else.

No, her conclusions from her watching didn't hold water, but that did not mean that her observations were necessarily wrong. She had seen what she had seen, and I wanted to know where Gertrude Radford had gone on Monday night.

Then I heard the footsteps in the corridor. They were not Morgana Radford coming back. They were one man moving softly. I made it to the door on my toes and turned the lock. I listened. He was still at the far end of the corridor. (There is one big advantage to a creaky old building like mine—it creaks.) He could be stalking someone else, some other office, but “could” is not something to stake your health on.

I went to my file for my ancient cannon. It wasn't there. I had left it in my apartment. I headed for the window. People who want to talk don't creep up. At least, that's a good rule to go by. I went out the window. If I was wrong, all I would do is look foolish later. Looking foolish is never fatal.

On the window ledge I did not look down. I knew what was down there—a narrow black shaft with no visible bottom. I knew what was above, too. When your work is digging into other men's affairs, it pays to know how to get out by the window. Another advantage of an ancient building is that all kinds of braces, gingerbread, and ledges stick out of the outside walls.

I gripped an iron brace and hauled up to the middle window frame; caught hold of a deep crevice and hoisted to the slab ledge at the top of the window. From there I hooked my chin over another protruding iron brace and groped for the edge of the roof above. I got a good grip on a piece of gingerbread decoration, and pulled myself up until I could kneel on the iron brace. I wrapped my arm over the roof parapet, hauled, and flopped over the parapet into the snow of the roof.

Below, my office door crashed in. He would spot the open window. I ran for the next roof. I skipped the first three ways down from the roofs because the exits from those buildings were near the door of my building, and my visitor might not have come alone. I made the fourth roof before I heard him behind me. I went down through the fourth building and did not stop until I reached the bottom. I listened. He was still behind me up above. I went out into Eighth Avenue.

I had planned to blend into the crowd. There was no crowd. The wind had risen, the snow had thinned out, and it blew down the avenue that stretched empty like a deserted tundra. I ran right, dove down some steps into a narrow passage beneath the buildings, and ran through and up to the backyards behind my building. I looked for a weapon. All I could find was a pile of loose bricks. I grabbed one, flattened against the dark wall to the right of where the steps came up from the passage, and waited.

A minute passed. Then three. Slower than the slowest rocket countdown. Five minutes. Nothing moved anywhere. He was not coming. Ten minutes. I dropped the brick, climbed some fences, and went out through another cellar passage into Twenty-seventh Street. I flagged a cruising taxi.

20

A
FTER A TIME,
the taxi driver looked back at me.

“Where to, buddy, or did you just come in to get warm?”

It was a good question. Where to? Misty Dawn? Garla Devine? It was well known by now that I was interested in both of those ladies.

“Grand Central,” I said.

The driver made a vicious turn uptown, and I sat back to think. Leo Zar? That was guess number one. Leo was looking for Carla Devine, and so was I. I knew he was, so he probably knew I was. It was not a pleasant guess, but the others were worse. If it had not been Leo chasing me, then I had no real idea who it had been. Ignorance is the big danger. It could have been anyone: Costa; one of the Radfords or a hired hand; maybe that unknown third man asking around about Carla Devine; or even one of Carla's friends, maybe Ben Marno. It had to be about the Radford affair. I wasn't worth killing, or at least maiming, for any other reason. I had no illusions about what my pursuer had had in mind. He had come softly, kicked in my door, and chased in silence.

At Grand Central I paid the driver and went to work. I had no picture, but Gertrude Radford was easy to describe: if she had taken a taxi, and if anyone remembered. My main hope was the fact that taxi drivers are a breed who work on habit, and the same cabs work Grand Central day in and day out. It took me the better part of two hours to talk to a lot of drivers with bad memories. I jumped at shadows the whole time. There is no future to working scared. In my work you have to assume that you are smarter than the enemy, and two jumps ahead at all times, or take up selling shoes. Careful but not nervous. It's easy to say.

By the end of the second hour I had my nerves more or less under control, and I got lucky. The twenty-second driver I braced leaned back in his cab and said:

“I remember. You a cop?”

“Private. You're sure you remember?”

“I said so, mister. Let's see the license.”

I've said it before—don't sneer at luck. Chance, fortune, accident, it does exist. While it's true, in a sense, that men make their own luck, by things like having the gall to question twenty-two cab drivers about something that happened for a few minutes five days ago, there is still, and forever, an area of pure chance. Sometimes I think that's
all there is.

The driver gave me my license back. “She was dressed funny. In some long red thing with a mink over it. She didn't have no bag. She paid me out of her pocket with a twenty. Grand Central's an interesting stand, I watch, you know? She was my only real nut of the night. If she'd been a chick, I'd of figured she ran out on some guy, or got tossed out. But she was an old bag. White hair and no hat. Skinny. Nerved up. I was thinking about the cops. I mean, maybe she'd run out of some nuthouse.”

“Where'd you take her?”

“East Sixteenth Street. You want me to take you?”

“Take me.”

The driver made good time. I suppose I was his nut for that night. He probably had a lot of fun imagining the crazy lives of his passengers. As far as I could tell, no one followed us, and we soon pulled up in front of a tall apartment house near Third Avenue. I gave the driver an extra five. He drove off without looking back. Later, he'd build it all up for friends.

I found the name I expected on the bank of mailboxes in the lobby: Baron Paul Ragotzy. The name was engraved in script on an elegant calling card in the European style. This, then, had been Paul Baron's main residence. The space was a penthouse. That could mean more good luck for me. Staff members notice the action around penthouses, and this building was an older one with an operator-controlled elevator. (Self-service elevators have played hell with a good source of information.)

This operator was a young fellow with clear, alert eyes and an intelligent face. He saw I had more on my mind than a quick trip upward. His slender brown hands held the door open.

“Can I help you, sir?”

“If you can give me some information.”

“If I have it, and it's ethical,” he said. He hooked back the doors and sat down on his stool. I stepped into the car. He let the doors remain open. He had nothing to hide.

“Were you on duty last Monday night about nine-thirty?”

“Yes.”

“There was a woman, about sixty but white-haired. She was wearing a mink and a red housedress and no hat.”

“I remember her,” he said, “a lady. She had good manners. We don't get many like her. You want to know where she went?”

“That's the question.”

“Police?”

He eyed my missing arm. I showed him my credentials. He read them carefully, with interest. He gave them back.

“The police were here. They didn't ask about Monday. They asked about Tuesday and Wednesday.”

“About Paul Baron? I mean, Baron Ragotzy.”

“Yes.”

“Then this woman went to the Baron's penthouse?”

“Yes.”

“Alone?”

“Yes.”

“Did she come here often?”

“I never saw her before.”

“How long did she stay?”

“About an hour.”

“Did she come down alone, too?”

“Yes.”

“Did you see her with the Baron?”

“No.”

I thought it over. At about 8:00
P.M.
on Monday, Gertrude Radford had gotten a telephone call. She had come to see Paul Baron. That was hours after she knew that Jonathan had been murdered, and at a time when no one in the Radford family was supposed to have known that Paul Baron was involved except Walter Radford and Deirdre Fallon. And she denied knowing Paul Baron.

“How long had the Baron lived here?”

“A year or so. He was away a lot.”

“He lived here alone?”

“Yes. He had a lot of guests. They sometimes stayed a time.”

“Women?”

“Those who stayed were usually women.”

“Anyone special? Regular?”

“Quite a few were regular. I couldn't say how special they were.”

I described every woman I could think of in the case: Misty Dawn, Carla Devine, Deirdre Fallon, Morgana Radford and Agnes Moore—clients have lied to me before.

“All of them could have been among the women,” he said. “I remember a couple of redheads as being pretty regular, and that small, dark, young one you mentioned was regular. She was sort of new, the dark kid. I can't do any better, it's a big building. The elevators keep pretty busy.”

“How about men?” I asked. I described Costa and Strega, and saw no recognition. I pictured Walter Radford and George Ames for him, and then tried the unknown sandy-haired man looking for Carla Devine, and the thin, pale boy in the gray coupe. For good measure I threw in MacLeod the butler.

He shook his head. “He didn't usually have men up alone. They came in groups. Poker games, I think.” He smiled again. “I guess I don't notice the men as much.”

“I know what you mean,” I said. “When did the Baron come in that night? I mean on Monday.”

“I don't come on until nine. I never saw him.”

“Then you don't know who else was up there?”

“I didn't see anyone.”

“Who was on earlier?”

“The afternoon men. I doubt if they'd know much, though. They're both old guys, and they don't pay much attention to the tenants. Between five and eight is our busiest time, both cars run then.”

“I'll try them tomorrow anyway,” I said, and I reached into my pocket.

“I get paid,” he said.

I thanked him and went out into Sixteenth Street. The snow had stopped completely again, and the temperature was going down fast. I walked down to Stuyvesant Park at the end of the block. I sat on a bench in the cold and lighted a cigarette. The park was deserted except for a lone man walking his dog. The man had a bushy mustache, and the dog, a golden retriever, pulled him along. The man looked frozen, but the dog was eager. A good man, who walked his dog no matter how cold it was.

I had my first clear lie. Gertrude Radford had gone to see Baron on Monday night, suddenly and in a hurry. Why? My theory said that Baron might have tried to go on with the blackmail after killing Jonathan. But Monday was too soon. He would have been lying low while he worked at framing Weiss. So Mrs. Radford had gone to Baron for another reason, or Baron had not killed Jonathan. The telephone call that had sent her to Baron made it sound as if Baron had not been afraid to contact Gertrude Radford.

Then why had he worked to frame Weiss? For someone else: the missing partner who had sent Weiss the message to contact me? Baron covered for his partner, but the partner couldn't take the risk so killed Baron who knew too much? Except I did not see a man like Baron trusting a killer, even a partner, so much that he sent away Leo Zar at a vital moment. Baron would not have been easily tricked by someone he knew had killed, and he had been tricked badly.