Pardon My Body (3 page)

“But I
told
you I didn't notice anyone in the inn…”

I sighed. “This isn't your bright day, Miss Casson, is it? The point is that the man who sat at that table with Grierson doesn't
know
you didn't see him….”

There was a little noise in the receiver. It sounded like Miss Julia Casson sucking in her breath.

“If the two men who dropped you out of that car had just given Banningham his fatal dose and if one of them doubled back to keep an appointment with Grierson, it's just possible he got a shock when you walked into the Golden Peacock on my manly arm. He figured you were still lying unconscious on the Longwater cutoff. Instead, you walk in as large as life and maybe, for all he should know, you are the one person in the world who can connect the killer of Grierson with the killer of Banningham.”

It wasn't easy to tell whether she was impatient or worried. What she said was, “But the men who stopped my car both wore heavy scarves over their faces.”

“That's fine—except that you blow into the Golden Peacock at the precise time when one of them is getting ready to bump Grierson, or maybe already has bumped him. It could be he gets to won
dering just how much you
did
see of his face when he and his buddy had the pleasure of meeting you earlier in the evening.”

“Oh…” The word came uncertainly over the wire. There was a silence. I didn't try to break it. Then she sounded composed again. “Thank you for putting me on my guard. But do you really think this man will try to…to get me?”

“Frankly, I don't know. Even if you
could
identify him as one of the men who held you up, linking him with the Banningham death doesn't make much difference now since he is known to have stabbed Grierson and can only be sentenced once anyway. But it's just possible that both guys may go into a panic and start looking up all the people they figure can give evidence—MacIlleney and myself, apart from you. I called you up because I wasn't sure whether you'd thought it out along those lines and I just felt you might like to know the possible dangers.”

“Thank you,” said Julia simply, in a little-girl voice. “I'll take care now—just in case.”

“And call me up if you get any ideas.”

The giggle was back. “I get those quite often.”

“I meant ideas about anything that makes you uneasy,” I said. “Now suppose you tell
me
something? Banningham held a fifty-one percent control
in United Textiles, Grierson the other forty-nine. There seems to be a clause under which some sort of handsome annuity has to be paid to the female next-of-kin. So if Grierson dies Banningham gets his share and vice versa.”

“You seem to be well-informed,” she said coldly.

“Yeah.”

“And stop saying ‘yeah'—it's common.”

“Yeah,” I said, “it is. Well, now Banningham and Grierson have both gone out. Okay—so what happens?”

“I'm not supposed to hand out information—least of all to strangers.”

“Strangers…after all that happened last night?”

“You mean the long journey home when you didn't even stop and the intimate way in which you dropped me at my front door and drove straight off?”

“I'm so shy. But what happens?”

“Well, it'll be in the papers tonight anyway. The joint control passed to Mr. Banningham's son.”

“What's his name?”

“Cornel.”

“Hmm.”

“But he graduated from Harvard.”

“So?”

“And Oxford, England.”

“That's fine. But I don't remember ever hearing his name.”

“Mr. Banningham never mentioned it.”

“Black sheep?”

“Very, very black.”

“I suppose he's testing out the old man's chair for size?”

“He lives in London. We cabled him two hours ago. He'll be on the next Clipper, I guess.”

“Prodigal son quits exile for fatted calf?”

“Yes.”

“How fat?”

“Roughly, seven and a half million dollars in cash and supreme control of our humble destinies.”

I whistled. One of those long low whistles that figure in all the best crime books. “Well,” I said, “you've just time to take a bubble-bath, and a hairdo and a facial and get out the ladies' best wear and maybe you can marry into it yourself.”

“I've never even seen the man's picture.”

“You don't have to see anything except seven and a half million.”

“I never take money off men.”

But I noticed the way she pronounced the noun and steered back into the straight and narrow. “All this must be pretty unsettled for the loyal staff.”

“We'll get by.”

I thought for a second. “When will Mr. Cornel Banningham touch down at La Guardia Field?”

“If he can get a reservation today he should be in the office this time tomorrow.”

“Fine. I'll call for you tomorrow evening at six and we'll get out and get ourselves some more steaks.”

“So that I can tell you all about Mr. Cornel Banningham? You're not very tactful, are you?”

“No,” I said, “but I've got hidden qualities.”

I hung up before she could giggle.

I
RODE DOWN IN THE ELEVATOR,
passed through the glass double doors and down the half-dozen steps onto the street. I turned right to round the corner of the block and unlocked the garage. I sat in the Buick for a minute with the motor ticking over. This helps to postpone the date for renewals of moving parts and appeals to me as a thrifty guy. I shut my eyes and tried to remember whether I had ever seen the ash-blond toughie with the scar before. I couldn't place him anywhere in the night life of this city, and though my experience wasn't final it was extensive enough to start me off wondering whether the murder wasn't an out-of-town job in the full sense. But the chances were that blondie had driven into New York after he'd squibbed-off Grierson. The greatest city in the world was still a good place to lose yourself in after knifing someone in a classy rural inn….

Suddenly, I reached out and switched off the
ignition. That downtown ride to dig up newspaper files on Banningham and Grierson could wait. I had remembered something—a little saloon where unusual and unorthodox business was sometimes transacted for the benefit of men taking a runout on their recent pasts. The thought impinged on me that it would be a good idea if I arrived less obtrusively than in a Buick convertible—even a four-year-old one.

I walked a little of the way because I needed to buy a can of tobacco. Then I decided to walk a bit more. It was a nice day and the exercise would do me good. Finally, I rode the Sixth Avenue subway line as far as Rockefeller Plaza, but I used my pins again to cross Forty-Seventh Street to Lexington. At Forty-Sixth another halt on the way—this time for a quiet pre-lunch beer at Allan's. Five more minutes' brisk walking and a couple of turns and I was there.

Mike Hannigan's place hadn't changed. But then, I was there two months back, and by all accounts the place hadn't changed much since Hoover was saying there weren't going to be any lean and gripy times. Even in Prohibition days you could get in without peering through a peephole. You walk straight in through half-length swing doors just like an old-time Western saloon and find your feet crunching a sawdust floor. The bar faces you, horseshoe-shaped,
backed by as imposing an array of hard liquor as you can find anywhere in this city. The prints on the wall are strictly racetrack. Every once in a while somebody gets an idea about a pin-up semi-nude, but Mike soon fixes that. A very particular man is Mike Hanningan. About appearances, I mean.

He was standing behind the bar resting his elbows on the polished top and reading the early edition track odds. There wasn't a soul in the place. The clientele is made up of guys who don't greet the new day until it's half-over—musicians, gamblers, bookmakers and assorted fly-by-nights. It would be another thirty minutes before the advance guard made a preliminary sortie for healing refreshment. I had time to do what I wanted.

I knew Mike had seen me even though he didn't look up. He said, still not looking up, “Hallo, Mr. Bogard. What'll it be?”

“You can draw me off a beer,” I said, “and give yourself a slug of bourbon.”

Mike set up the drinks. Along with his saloon he didn't change much, either. The grizzled, short-cropped hair, slightly weather-beaten face and muscular frame still looked the way they did when I hit New York half a decade ago.

“Ain't seen you around lately,” he offered at last.

I drank a third of my beer and carefully set the glass down, with both hands clasped round it. “Mike,” I said, “I want you to tell me something. If you can.”

“Sure, Mr. Bogard—if I can.” Suddenly, those Irish blue eyes were narrowly cautious.

“I am looking,” I said carefully, “for a slim young man of about twenty-eight wearing ash-blond hair and a long knife scar down the right side of his face.”

There was an unhurried silence. Mike's face wore the kind of revealing look you see on a slab of marble.

I waited. Mike said, “I ain't seen no guy like that in here.”

“Mike,” I said, “I know you always speak the truth to me. That is why I never have to say anything about you to Detective-lieutenant O'Cassidy.”

Those unsmiling Irish eyes were as hard as a con man's heart as he sells a hot line to a nice old lady living off the interest on ten grand and with five years' mortgage still to pay.

“There ain't nothing about me O'Cassidy needn't know,” he said slowly feeling his way. “This is a respectable saloon, as you well know, Mr. Bogard.”

“Sure it is, Mike,” I said easily. “And if times get a little tough in the saloon, why, who should blame Mike Hannigan for helping things along a bit on the side by letting off a room when needed to gen
tlemen who can't stand Detective O'Cassidy and want some innocent meeting-place to talk over their business?”

Mike refilled the glasses without being asked. Then: “I've given you many a tipoff for your newspaper, Mr. Bogard—but I hear you've quit and I don't hand out information anyway that ain't for printing.”

“That's fine,” I told him. “Just the same, I wouldn't like to have the johns take the joint apart for the sake of a quibble.”

Mike spun his little glass in his heavy fingers. Without a change of expression he said, “There's a friend of yours been staying here since last night. Room 13. A pleasant young gentleman.”

“I'll go up,” I said.

Silently, Mike handed me a pass-key. “He said we weren't to disturb him. I don't want no trouble…”

I gave my best smile an airing. “Do I look like trouble? This is a social call.”

But I wasn't smiling as I climbed the faintly carpeted stairs to the first of the two storeys. My stomach was doing a series of delicate handsprings and my feet seemed to be moving independently of my knees because I didn't seem to have any knees. A few yards away was a gentleman who went around sticking Task Force daggers into the inoffensive citizenry and
I was on my way to ask him questions which he might well consider impertinent from a stranger.

Room 13 was on my right as I reached the top of the first flight. I knuckled the plain wooden panel gently. Then quite loudly. Mr. Ash Blond didn't give a damn. Or maybe he'd beat it without even settling his room rent. Mike would like that. Well, if he wasn't there the room would stand a going-over. I put the pass-key in the lock and pushed the door inwards. Nobody sprang out with a Luger—or a knife. I walked on in. The place was dim because the thin curtains were drawn against the single small window. I felt for the light switch and pressed it.

The room came into focus. It contained a cheap wardrobe of the kind they quit making about the end of World War I, a washstand with a colored-pattern china bowl and water jug, and a double bed with iron posts and brass knobs. Circa 1913. The carpet probably had a woven design when it was bought, but now you'd never know.

I stood quite still looking down at the bed. It contained Mr. Ash Blond. The blanket was pulled up to the level of his boyish chin, and his tousled head was slightly to one side. I tip-toed across the room—I still don't know why—and pulled the covers down a little. He had gone to bed in his shirt and underpants and
looked at peace with the world in which he had caused so much trouble.

He should be at peace now, I reflected. Because the hilt of a long Task Force dagger was sticking out of his chest and he was plainly as dead as a man can well be in such circumstances.

 

When I was a very young reporter in the not-so-big city where I was raised, some tough coppers let me see the body of a shot-up gangster on the slab at the morgue attached to the third precinct station. I couldn't eat supper when I got home that night and my mother, who didn't know the reason, put me to bed with some brandy and warm water. Since then I've seen around a dozen dead men—and women—and I've never gotten used to it. Maybe I should have become a rewrite man—he can tackle anything that comes without a thought because he never has to see it. If you're on desk work, violent death is something that comes to you over the teletype or on a sheet of reporter's copy-paper. You don't carry the memory of it around for the next two weeks. Mother—I could drink a double brandy right now. Without the warm water.

But it would have to wait. I stood still by the bedside and let my eyes go over every detail of the
room. The too-smart suit I had noticed at the Golden Peacock was on a collapsible hanger on the door. The black custom-built shoes were alongside the bed, next to a pigskin suitcase with its lid open. Inside were a change of linen, a Luger pistol in a shoulder holster and a soft billfold crammed with money. I bent down and spread it out. Two thousand dollars—four C-notes and the rest in fifties. It was hard counting because I had my gloves on—and it seemed a good idea to keep them on for a little while. There was nothing else in the case.

The suit pockets had been emptied—keys, watch and loose change had been laid atop the washstand. There wasn't a clue to Ash Blond's identity. If he had a Social Security card he didn't carry it around. Or, if he did, the murderer had it now.

Above all, there was no long-bladed Task Force dagger anywhere in sight—except for the one buried in Mr. Ash Blond's chest.

There was a small firegrate in a corner of the room. It contained two cigarette stubs, some crushed pages of the previous afternoon's newspaper and a few charred bits of notepaper. I went down on my knees and gingerly sorted them out. It looked as if Ash Blond had burned them before he went to bed. Or perhaps one of the cigarette stubs had done it ac
cidentally. Better look, anyway. There were only a few bits and they were nearly all charred beyond recognition. But not quite. That was why I knew they had been notepaper. They had been written on with a ball-point. Only two pieces bore anything legible. I could just make out the words “…is 2469 South Franklyn Avenue, Fa…” The next half-inch of the paper was obliterated, then “…must be…Frid…”

That was three days ahead if it meant Friday. It didn't mean a thing to me but I wrote it down on the back of an old envelope and stirred up the charred bits in the grate. Just for the hell of it. Then I straightened up and left. Down in the bar Mike was still staring at his paper, waiting for the customers. He looked up wordlessly.

“Mike,” I said, “I think you will have to call police headquarters.”

His eyes flickered. “I let you go up to see him to keep outa the police's way, didn't I?”

“I'm sorry,” I said, “but your visitor is lying in bed with a dagger sticking out of his chest.”

Mike's hands held on to the bar so hard that his knuckles showed white and taut.

“A killin',” he muttered, without looking up.

“He must have been dead at least eight hours, maybe more.” I paused, remembering something I
wanted to ask. “What name did he sign in the book—or don't you worry about that?”

Mike shook his head. “This ain't an hotel. Only time a guy stays here is as a favor from me.”

“Yeah,” I told him, “that's fine. O'Cassidy will get a great laugh when you try that one on him.”

“I tell ye it's true, Mr. Bogard.”

“Look, Mike,” I said gently. “You don't hire out a room to anyone unless you know who he is—or unless somebody speaks for him. I know that, and if O'Cassidy doesn't already know it he'll figure that's the way you operate. You'll have to tell him something that will stack up. It might as well be the truth.”

Mike leaned heavily against the bar, tapping its surface with a thick, blunted finger. He must have gone on doing it for a minute. When he stopped, it was to give me a long, clear-eyed stare.

“I guess you're right at that,” he said. “But I don't have to tell
you
nothing.”

“You don't have to,” I said, “but you will. It'll be useful to try it out on me for flaws.”

Mike grinned faintly. “Sumpin' in what you say. Well, it's like this. Three days ago I get a phone call booking a room for a Mr. George Clark. For three nights. Like you said, I don't hire the room out to guys I ain't never seen. They have to be spoken for.
Well, that's okay on account of the room is booked by a man…” he hesitated “…by a man I do business with times. If he says this George Clark is all right, that goes with me. In fact, he says Clark is a friend visiting town and will I be kind enough to fix him up? There ain't nobody using the room—it's been empty a couple months—so I say sure that'll be okay. I know the room rent will be…”

“Who booked the room?” I asked.

“Harry Bule.” Mike spelled out the name. I'd never heard it.

“Where does he live?”

“He has two rooms in the Longmoor Apartments just off Fiftieth Street,” said Mike.

“What's his racket?”

Mike tried to look pained. “Harry ain't no racketeer, Mr. Bogard. He…”

“I used the word in a general sense. I mean, what does he do instead of working at a steady job?”

“He has a little business connected with the tracks,” explained Mike, “but he runs a cigar stand just off Broadway. A girl looks after it mostly.”

“While he's taking the dough off the small-time horse players?”