Hard Case Crime: House Dick (14 page)

“Delirious. Working girl makes good. You worked for it, too.”

Her hands dropped away, her lips quivered slightly. “You’re damn right I worked for it!”

“Let’s hope you get it. Only don’t think the widow will give it up without a fight.”

“Let her try,” she flared, then her eyes narrowed. “What could she do?”

“Charge undue influence, among other things. Judges and juries are pretty conservative, beautiful. I’d guess they’d take a poor view of a solid citizen depriving his wife of anything in favor of an after-hours cutie. So long, gorgeous. See you in the headlines.” He moved past her, but one hand held him.

“Damn you. You’d love to see that happen.”

Turning he faced her. “Hell, you’re worse off than ever. We cleaned up the jewelry problem, but another motive’s cropped up. One the police won’t be likely to ignore. And Julia will be in there every minute, pitching and batting out the whole arsenal of legal and wifely tricks. If you get anything after the smoke’s cleared away, you’ll
really
have earned it.”

“Any more advice?” she said tightly.

“Don’t spend the dough until you’ve got it.” He laughed shortly. “That’s good advice for anyone.”

Her chin lifted and her eyes surveyed him. “What a cheap little world you live in. Nickels and dimes and two weeks’ vacation a year. How much are you charging me for the other night?”

“For bringing romance into your life?”

She flushed quickly. “For removing a body.”

“Half of anything you get,” he said coolly.

She stepped back and crossed her arms. “That would be about right, wouldn’t it? But you can’t prove anything. Only you and I know he was ever there.”

“And the murderer.”

She bit her lower lip. Then she snapped, “He won’t be telling anybody. But I’ll pay you, Novak. I wouldn’t be under obligation to you for the world.”

“That’s a fast reverse. Not long ago you were grateful beyond words. Now I’ve got a claim if I can prove it. Well, don’t bother. Long ago I charged it off to charity.”

Paula spun around and half-ran toward the doorway. A few eyes stared at Novak. Wetting dry lips he reached for a cigarette, found the pack empty, crumpled it into an ashtray and strode toward the cigar counter.

A short fat man was kidding the girl behind the counter. When she saw Novak she moved quickly to the cash register, rang up the sale and pressed change into the man’s hand. He opened his mouth to say something, but she had already forgotten him. His mouth clamped shut, and he walked huffily away. She slid a package of cigarettes across the counter to Novak and added a pack of matches. He gave her half a dollar and said, “Didn’t mean to break up anything.”

“Those old goats never give up, and all the young, good-looking guys are married.” She smiled sexily. “Most of them anyway.”

Novak opened the package, extracted a cigarette and lighted it. “Don’t mind me, Sylvia,” he said dully. “I’m not myself these days.”

“You don’t even look like yourself. Where’d you spend the night? On a coal barge?”

“Wish I had,” he said moodily. “I’d feel less frayed.” Resting one elbow on the counter he blew smoke at the paperback rack.

Sylvia said, “I’ve been thinking about that cup of schnapps you mentioned. It just happens I haven’t a thing to do tonight except brush my hair and watch TV.”

Novak reached for a postcard and took out his pen. He scribbled on the slick card and handed it to her. “Address and phone number. We might even improve on the schnapps. Any time after eight.”

“Make mine bourbon,” she said throatily. “Mixed or straight. How do you like your breakfast eggs?”

“Over easy. And a rasher of bacon.” He saw Connery crossing the lobby and moved away from the counter. As he glanced back she blew him a kiss.

Novak turned around in time to see a man moving hurriedly toward the street door. Doctor Edward Bikel in a dark topcoat and dark hat. Bikel pushed through the revolving doorway almost knocking down an incoming bellhop. The hop dropped the bags and gave Bikel’s back a redfaced glare. Then he jerked up the bags and trudged toward the reception desk. Behind him followed two chesty ladies in tweed coats and sensible shoes. Career travelers on their husbands’ insurance money, and fond of cream sherry and English cigarettes.

His eyes returned to Bikel who was fitting himself into a taxi.

Novak walked through the doorway, waited until Bikel’s cab had pulled away and made a sign at the doorman. The lead cab ground up, and the doorman opened the door. Novak got inside and said, “Follow that cab.”

The driver half-turned and sneered, “Give me a reason, buddy.”

“The reason is I’m the hotel security man, and I’m asking for some quiet cooperation.”

The driver’s foot hit the accelerator and the taxi leaped ahead. “Cripes,” he complained. “I was only asking. This here’s a screwy town. That’s Al Fornella’s cab, and we’re on him like bumper tape.”

Novak sat back and stubbed his cigarette in the ashtray. The cab stayed on K Street, rounded the public library, passed the market and stayed on K another four blocks. At First Street the cab turned and drove north past Armstrong Tech.

The driver said, “He’s slowing. What do I do now?”

Novak sat forward. Bikel’s cab was making for the curb a block ahead. “Pass him, and go around the block. I want to spot where the fare goes.”

Bikel was getting out. He hurried up a walk that led to an old red brick house. As Novak went by he saw a flaked wooden sign over the porch steps:
HOTEL JENSEN. GUESTS BY DAY, WEEK OR MONTH.
Bikel jogged up the steps and opened the screen door. The waiting cab’s flag was still down. The driver was bent over, tuning the radio.

Novak’s cab went around the block slowly. As it came back onto First Street, Bikel’s cab pulled away. Framed in the rear window was the back of Bikel’s head. The driver said, “What now?”

“Let me out at the Jensen.” He read the meter, got out the fare and added a dollar. As the cab stopped Novak handed it to the driver.

“Thanks. Say, that’s okay. Any time, pal.”

“The name’s Novak.” He got out and walked up the sidewalk.

A four-story brick house old enough to have ten-foot bow windows and crenellated balconies, set far back from the street under tall elms that had won a stand-off battle with a scanty lawn. Roots lifted the walk unevenly, and dry rot had made away with most of the bannister supports along the front steps. Dusty windows deflected filtering sunlight, and the stillness made Novak tread lightly as he crossed the wooden porch.

Inside the door was a reception counter with a punch bell and a length of inkstained blotter. The curling calendar on the wall advertised a patent cough medicine. In better days it had been a reception hall where servants greeted guests and helped with their cloaks. The flowered hall-runner was worn down almost to burlap. At the far end there was a carved door with frosted glass panels. The door was partly open, and from the opening there peered a white-thatched head. Nothing more. The face was pale and wrinkled with surplus flesh. A pince-nez bridged the thin nose, a satin ribbon trailing away behind the door, it was a face so old as to be almost sexless, except for the way the white hair was parted and combed.

The door opened a little further, and Novak saw trousers, white suspenders and a striped, collarless shirt. Slippered feet shuffled toward Novak, and the voice piped, “We have a nice vacancy, young man. Two dollars a night. But for a week or more we could offer a nice discount. Would you care to see it?”

“I’m sorry. Dr. Bikel asked me to meet him here. I’m a little late so perhaps he’s already arrived.”

Disappointment gnawed the bloodless lips. “I...I don’t believe I know a person by that name.”

“Tall and thin. Wears glasses and dark clothes, also a pencil mustache.” Not much of a word picture, Novak thought as the old man shuffled closer.

Light spread downward from the old eyes. “That must be Dr. Barnes. Such a nice man. So very pleasant. Considerate, too. Yes, that would be Dr. Barnes. From out of town.” One finger tapped his lower lip. “Dr. Barnes arrived not long ago. But I believe I heard the door close. So he must have left.”

“Or it could have been me coming in,” Novak said helpfully. “I’ll just go on up and see if he isn’t there. What was the room number?” His face formed a frown of concentration.

The old man blinked and stared at Novak uneasily. Bothered by failing memory, probably. Wasn’t sure of the day or the month. A perfect place for Bikel.

The old man said, “The room is Number Four. Just walk up the stairway, and follow the hall down to the far end. At the back. It’s really quiet easy to find. All of our rooms are numbered. Number Four is a nice room. For Dr. Barnes we made a special rate—he being a medical man and all.”

“A credit to his profession,” Novak murmured and began walking up the long stairway.

At the jog there was a tall window of colored glass in an old-fashioned geometric design. Falling sunlight spattered the risers with red, green and yellow in a senseless pattern. It stained Novak’s shoes as he trod the steps to the hallway.

There was a grimy chandelier suspended by a tarnished gilt cable, and spaced along the hall were blackened gas pipes mounted with dusty glass mantels. An old, old house, relic of a far more gracious age.

The flooring was grimed oak, partly covered with cheap carpeting in a somber shade. Brass-plate house numbers had been nailed to room doors. As the old man had said, Number Four was the farthest down the hall.

Through one of the doors drifted a ragged, rubbing sound. Novak decided someone was scrubbing clothing on a basin washboard. He moved on and stopped in front of the door with 4 tacked onto a center panel. For a moment he listened, heard nothing, then knocked.

The lock must have failed to catch, because the rap of his knuckles moved the door inward. It opened far enough to show speckles of light slanting into the room through a tattered roll curtain. There was a brown bureau with peeling veneer, a washbasin with a small wooden mirror cabinet above it, two chairs and an iron bed.

The bed had chipped, yellow enamel with vertical rods at the end to hold the mattress in place. The bedspread had faded stripes, and it was rumpled from the body beneath.

She lay on her right side, arm under her head and projecting stiffly beyond the mattress. The fingers were curled slightly as though death had halted a reaching movement.

Novak felt for the wall switch and turned on the bulb.

Even without her glasses he could recognize her. She was the woman who had run from Bikel’s room, the woman he had followed to the chapel. Her eyes were closed, and her lips were parted. The skin of her face looked as if it had been washed with light blue dye.

Join the fellowship of prayer, he thought, and stepped closer to the bed. Bending over he touched the dead hand and drew back. Rigor mortis...hours dead. Turning he walked to the wash basin. The flat edge held an empty water glass. Beside it stood an open brown bottle labeled
Keep Away from Children.
Peering into it he could see that whatever it might have held, it was empty now.

His body was chilled. He moved stiffly toward the bureau and opened the top drawer. Nothing there except her glasses. Nothing in the other four drawers either. In the closet a cheap fiber suitcase lay open. It held a disarranged dress, a pair of shoes and some cheap stockings and underwear. Nothing more.

Novak went back to the bed, pulled down the covers and stared at the body’s left hand. The third finger held a plain gold wedding band, not new. He rearranged the covers and stared around the room. Yesterday the little woman had carried a handbag. Now there was no trace of it. The bag would have held cards, a driver’s license, perhaps, or a Social Security card. Without them there was no easy way of identifying her.

Turning off the wall light he felt death hovering close, like a smothering fog. He went out of the doorway leaving the door as he had found it, walked quietly along the hall and down the stairway.

The old man was sitting in a rocker, eyes closed, chin on his chest, sleeping the shallow sleep of the very old.

Novak went behind the counter and opened the thick registration ledger. The cover was bound in frayed blue buckram, corners worn down to the original cardboard. Novak thumbed the wide pages until he found a place where a page had been torn out. The registrations ended the month before. Closing the book he moved softly to the door, opened it carefully and went out to the porch. Bikel hadn’t missed a trick. He’d taken the handbag and the identifying registration as well.

Novak’s throat was tight, constricted. He moistened his lips and gulped a deep breath as the steps creaked under his weight. Then down the uneven walk, past patches of starving grass and out to the street. He walked south as far as a sagging grocery store and stepped into a phone booth. The tattered directory gave him Police Headquarters, and when the duty sergeant answered Novak said, “First Street, the Jensen Hotel. Room Four.”

“Yeah? What’s your name? And what’s in the room?”

“A corpse,” Novak rasped and hung up.

Near Armstrong Tech there was a cab stand. Novak got into one and rode back to the hotel.

From the house phone he called Bikel’s room, let the phone ring a long time and hung up. Then he went into his office. His secretary was at the file safe checking names. Novak slid behind his desk, turned on the lamp and opened the center drawer. He laid the telegram blank on the blotter and got out the bottle of graphite powder and a small camel’s hair brush. Working carefully he distributed the fine black powder over the surface of the blank, brushed gently and blew away the surplus. Where there had been nothing but blank impressions, block letters had formed. Most of the message was legible, including the address.

Mary was looking over his shoulder. “Reading other people’s mail?”

“I had to.” He slid the developed message into his desk drawer and locked it. Mary said, “Must be important.”

“Evidence.” He reached into a lower drawer, felt for the bottle and set it on the blotter. Unscrewing the cap he lifted the bottle and let a good two ounces wash down his gullet. Then he capped the pint and put it back in the drawer. Mary said, “I don’t see how you can drink it like that—without water or ice or anything.”