Hard Case Crime: House Dick (12 page)

Only two more blocks to the intersection. Novak slowed the Pontiac, let it idle toward the curb. He turned off the ignition, dropped the key in his pocket and turned off the lights. A southbound truck zoomed past. Food for Washington’s central market from the lush fields of southern Maryland. The dash clock showed ten minutes to two. His right hand slid inside his coat pocket, nudged the revolver and let it drop back into the holster. His license was good for the District, not Maryland. Now that he was over the line they could jug him for carrying concealed weapons. Two of them. He grinned at the darkness and got out of the car.

Locking it, he started up the road.

Streetlights flooded the intersection. He felt as conspicuous as a fly on vanilla icing. Not even the sound of traffic to cheer him. A lonely road, lighted at far intervals. Dark houses set far back from the road. Five minutes to two. Turning he looked back at the intersection. A car whizzed down Connecticut, tail-lights twin cigarettes in the darkness. Novak plodded on, stumbled on a stone and caught himself against a telephone pole. Ahead in the distant darkness the glow of headlights coming toward him. Novak moved farther to the right. The shoulder grass was high enough to wet his cuffs. He could hear the car’s engine now coming at a measured, unhurried pace. He wondered if this was it.

It would be smart strategy to get him alone in headlights that could pick out any police covering him.

The car was closer now, only ten or twelve yards away. Novak strode along the shoulder, drainage ditch at his right. He could hear gravel crackle under the car’s tires. Then a spotlight blinded him.

Novak covered his eyes with his left hand and kept walking.

He heard the car crunch to a stop. A voice barked, “Close enough. Let’s have the dough.”

“Let’s have the jewels.”

“This ain’t your play, pal. Pull it out, and toss it over. Stay where you are. You’re covered and plenty.”

Novak drew the envelope from his pocket and sailed it at the car. It landed ten feet from the door. The door opened, someone got out, scooped up the envelope and got back in.

The spotlight went out and the voice snapped, “Here it comes.”

Something sailed from the car window. Blinking, Novak snatched at it, let it land in the ditch behind him. Turning he knelt, grabbed his pencil flash and swiveled around. The beam cut through the darkness, illuminated the face of the driver.

The man’s face twisted, the mouth gritted a curse, and the car spun away. A cloth was bound over the rear license plate.

There had been another man in the rear seat of the sedan, a man whose face he couldn’t see. He had never seen the driver’s face before, but he would remember it. The nostrils bulged grotesquely. They were packed with rolls of gauze to support the bridge of a broken nose.

Through the night came the squeal of tires as the car turned down Connecticut.

Novak played the light over the grassy ditch, reached down and brought back a roll of cloth tied with string. He stood up, brushed moisture from his knees, wiped sweat from his face and put the cloth roll into his coat pocket. Then he moved onto the road and began walking back toward Connecticut, whistling tunelessly as he went.

When he was behind the wheel he flicked on the map light and took the cloth roll from his pocket. Untying the string he unrolled the cloth across his knees. Suddenly fire sparked through the car: green white and milky-blue. A bracelet, brooch and a ring.

Just like the man said.

He covered them carefully, separating each piece with a fold of cloth, and then he slid the roll into his pocket again.

Driving back into the District he stopped at a diner, ate a minute steak with French fries, a slab of peach pie and sloshed it down with black coffee. The cook rang up
NO SALE
, and took a dime from the register and dropped it in the counter tune selector. Fast pulsing jive flooded the diner. Novak wiped his mouth with a paper napkin, left money beside his plate and got back in his car.

He stayed on Connecticut as far as Massachusetts, turned down Sixth and drove over C as far as Police Headquarters.

Morely was typing a report when Novak went into his office. He glanced around and said, “You get up early these nights.”

“I never really go to bed.” Novak sat down in a wall chair, tilted it against the wall and watched Morely fill in and sign the last part of the report form. Morely got up, said, “Back in a minute,” and took the report out of the office. Novak stared at the scarred desk, the tarnished spittoon, the chipped gooseneck lamp on the desk, and lighted a cigarette. After a while Morely came back.

“Not much of a place,” he said sourly. “I always figured it’s to keep us on the street and out of Head quarters.” He sat down, lighted a half-smoked cigar and stared at Novak. “What’ll it be, Pete?”

Novak leaned forward and laid the cloth roll on Morely’s desk. Morely glanced at him and unrolled the cloth. Under the desk bulb the stones seemed to shine with life of their own. Morely raised his head slowly. “Jesus!”

Novak said nothing.

“How’d you come by them?”

“An hour or so after you left, a nameless voice called me. Said he had the jewelry and would trade it for five grand. I told him to lay off hophead schemes. We sparred back and forth, and I finally suggested he send the jewels to the police, the insurance company or Mrs. Boyd, their owner. Then I rang off.”

Morely rolled the cigar slowly between his thumb and index finger. “Funny the guy’d call you.”

“Thought so myself. Anyway, it wasn’t long before Julia Boyd called with much the same story. The agreed price was one grand, with another for me when I return the stuff to her in the morning.”

“So you went out and made the switch,” he said unpleasantly. “With never a care in the world.”

“I like money as well as the next fellow,” Novak said evenly. “If you’d check your phone messages you’d find my name among them. It occurred to me you might like to have a lad or two nearby. To identify the sellers.”

“Oh, you thought of that, did you?” Morely said a little wildly. “That shows great powers of reasoning. But of course the switch couldn’t wait until I could be found.”

“I didn’t make the arrangements, Lieutenant. Mrs. Boyd did. Leaving me with barely time to get to the rendezvous before the car showed up.”

Morely restrained himself with difficulty. “Mind telling me what happened then?”

“That’s why I’m here, Lieutenant. The time was two o’clock, the place, down Bradley Lane. Outside your jurisdiction, I might add.”

“That makes me feel tons better,” he said acidly. “Go on.”

“Well, after I was a couple blocks from Connecticut —long blocks in the darkness, Lieutenant—this car came creeping toward me. When it was close it fanned a spot on me and a man told me to throw the money envelope at the car. When I’d done that they tossed this cloth roll at me. I let it go over my head, got down to look for it and put my pencil light on the driver’s face.”

Morely rubbed his hands together. “I was beginning not to like you. But you take chances, pal.”

“A thousand dollars buys a few. Well, the driver had a damaged nose plugged with gauze. When he got the light on his face he got mad and drove away. Fast.”

“Get the license number?” Morely had his pencil poised.

“Plate hidden by cloth. Dark blue sedan. Fifty-eight Chevy.”

“Ever see the driver before?”

“No. But last night in the alley I kneed a guy in the face. His partner called him Tags.”

“That’s something,” Morely mused. “Can’t be too many hoods with that call-name. And you said Barada sent the two of them around. All out-of-towners probably.”

Novak flicked cigarette ash at the spittoon, reached over and rolled up the jewelry.

Morely said, “Hey, that’s material evidence.”

“Of what, Lieutenant? Anybody find it at the scene of a crime? Anybody even know for sure it was ever there?”

“It had to be. Hell, look how you got it back. The guy who drilled Boyd copped them and sold them back.”

Novak restored the cloth roll to his pocket. “That thought occurred to me, Lieutenant. It’s so obvious that maybe we ought to sleep on it.” He stood up. “Not many hours from now I may be richer by a thousand dollars. And you’ll have only half as many things to look for. One murderer. Size and shape unknown.”

Morely butted his dead cigar and wiped his face. “Barada gets more interesting by the hour. Think I’ll ask the ex-wife where he can be reached.”

“Think she’ll tell you? If Barada’s smart he’s staying outside your jurisdiction. Even if you knew he was holed up, in say, Maryland, you couldn’t follow him across the line except in hot pursuit.”

“Legally,” Morely said thinly.

“We’re talking legality. Hell, this is Police Headquarters. To do it legally you’d need a competent judge and damn near a writ of extradition. And you haven’t got anything resembling grounds that any reasonable judge would listen to.”

“Dream on,” Morely said smoothly. “You finger him for me anywhere between the Pennsy border and South Carolina, and we’ll see how much time I waste breaking a judge out of bed to keep things nice and legal. Judges are fine; some folks think they’re even necessary. For me they’re guys you tell the story to
after
all the action’s over. And even then most of the bastards couldn’t tell a crook from a Congressman.”

“And that’s not always easy. Any word from Winnetka on the late Chalmers Boyd?”

Morely lifted a sheet of yellow teletype. “Owned a bank, couple of loan companies and a factory that makes chemicals used in plastics. The name’s here, but I can’t pronounce it. Chamber of Commerce type, active in local charities—hell, you know those butter-and-egg men. More dough than sense. Paid his club bills on the day due, shot mid-eighty golf and had no known enemies. In short, a model citizen.” He glanced up at Novak. “Except for the floozy he kept in Chicago.”

“That make him unique?” Novak rattled the jewelry in his pocket. “I may sleep a little late in the morning, Lieutenant. Walking in the dark tends to tire me.”

Morely shrugged, pulled a sheaf of papers from the corner of his desk and began looking through them. Novak went out the same way he had come.

In the hall he stopped at a pay phone and dialed the Tilden. Paula’s phone rang three times and then she answered sleepily. “Pete Novak,” he said and heard a quick gasp of relief.

“Pete, what on earth....? It’s after three o’clock. Don’t you ever—?”

“Hardly ever. Called earlier but you were out. Thought I’d see if you got back. No problems?”

“No new ones. You were worried about me—is that why you called?”

“Uh-huh.”

“I think that’s rather nice, but good God, what a time to do it.”

“I’ll sleep better knowing you’re sleeping well.”

“And in my own bed.”

“That, too. Oh, Lieutenant Morely may visit you in the morning. He’d like to get in touch with Ben Barada.”

“I’ll have to disappoint the Lieutenant. Ben checked out of that motel. For all I know he’s gone back to Chicago.”

“Even that much will interest him. We’ll meet tomorrow, pumpkin.”

He heard a kiss breathed close to the receiver, and then the line clicked off.

Novak walked down the echoing corridor and out into the night.

What little moon there was had come from behind the clouds, and there was a ring around it. Bad weather tomorrow. Or maybe just bad luck. He got into the Pontiac, started the engine and drove home.

The alarm broke him out at seven-thirty. For a little while he sat numbly on the edge of the bed, beating back an impulse to indulge himself in more sleep, then his mind began to function, reason took over, and he remembered the details of what he had to do.

The cold shower etched a plan in his mind. Toweling himself he turned on the coil under the coffeemaker and listened to the early news as he got dressed. Spring floods near Lancaster, plane crash at Richmond, a busty screen star married for the fourth time, some Congressman spouting on the German problem. Novak dunked the last piece of toast in his coffee, finished it and went down the staircase to a brilliant spring morning.

Instead of walking directly to the Tilden he cut over to Connecticut and went into a store. He was the only customer, and what he wanted took less than ten minutes. From there he strolled to K Street, crossed a nearly empty lobby and rode the elevator to the fifth floor.

Paula answered the door sulkily, and when he was inside she said, “God, what a nervous life you lead. Do you go without sleep entirely?” Knuckling her eyes, she turned and drew her dressing gown around her as she walked toward the sofa. “Don’t mind me. I’m still in dreamland.”

He shook out a cigarette, lighted it and gave it to her. Then he lighted one for himself and sat down in a chair. “I’d treat you to coffee,” he said, “but I’d just as soon the help didn’t know we were on intimate terms.”

“For my reputation or yours?”

“Skip that one. I want to make this fast because Morely may be stopping by, and I wouldn’t want him to think there was any collusion here.”

Paula stretched her feet, yawned and said, “I’m listening.”

Novak rested his cigarette on an ashtray and leaned forward. Slowly he told her what had happened the night before. As she listened her eyes widened, and the flesh seemed to shrink to the bones of her face. When he had finished she said, “You’ve given the jewelry back to Mrs. Boyd?”

He drew the cloth roll from his pocket and opened it on the sofa. She reached toward it, but he moved her hand aside. Quietly, he said, “Look like the real thing?”

“Of course.” She stared at him. “Pete, let me have it. I can make a deal with her. There’ll be plenty for both of us.”

He shook his head slowly. “Sorry, beautiful. I take on only one customer at a time.”

“You’re crazy,” she said quickly. “You’d let this go for a thousand when I could get you twenty.”

“I’d be doing Ben Barada a favor. And I’m in the wrong mood for that.”

“What would put you in the right mood?” she said suggestively.

He shrugged, reached out and rolled the cloth together. Then he put the roll in his pocket. Her eyes were still fixed on his face. “Small-time,” she hissed.