She Woke to Darkness (12 page)

“Who says she passes out sometimes?” demanded Shayne sharply.

“I don’t know. I’ve heard it around. It was perfectly disgusting,” Birk went on warmly, “to see a guy like Halliday working his wiles on a nice girl like that. When he finally persuaded her to leave with him, I thought, ‘Oh, oh! Watch your step with that old goat, Elsie’.”

“We’re not interested in what you thought. Just facts,” snapped Shayne. “Who would be able to tell us more about Elsie?”

“Now you’re asking really intimate questions,” protested Birk with an assumption of coyness. “It wouldn’t be quite gentlemanly for me to answer, I think.”

Shayne stood up. He moved two steps across the room and his face was set in hard lines. “I haven’t time to waste here. Where can I get the information I want?”

“I’m a citizen and I have my rights. You can’t go around…”

“The hell I can’t,” snarled Shayne. His open right hand struck Birk’s cheek loudly, slewed the heavy figure sideways on the sofa. “Start talking.”

Avery Birk slunk away from him appalled at this show of violence. “I’ll report you,” he sputtered. “You can’t get away…” His voice ended in a high-pitched gurgle as Shayne leaned over and fastened the fingers of his left hand in the pajama collar and twisted it. He heaved Birk up to a sitting position and slapped him again.

“Stop playing games.” His voice was low and hard and his eyes were frighteningly cold. “Where do I go to find out more about Elsie Murray?”

Avery Birk wriggled desperately in his grasp, and tears of mortification ran down his cheeks. “Never in my life,” he sputtered, “Never in my whole life…”

Shayne took a backward step and jerked him upright. He stood with right fist poised, a foot from Birk’s face. “You’ve got just two seconds to give me a name before I knock all your teeth down your throat so you’ll never speak again.”

He meant it! Avery Birk knew he meant it. This was the most terrible injustice he had ever encountered. They should be thanking him instead of knocking him around. He was a hero, wasn’t he? If he hadn’t told them about Brett Halliday…

He swayed back weakly and mumbled, “Try Lew Recker. He knew her best, I guess. He claimed they were sleeping together, though you never can tell about Lew. He’s always boasting…”

Shayne dropped him disgustedly on the sofa where he cowered, covering his wet and bruised face with both hands.

Shayne got out a pencil and wrote down the name. “Address?”

Birk gave it to him. An apartment building on Madison in the forties.

He didn’t hear Shayne go out. All he heard was the loud slam of the door behind the redhead, and he lay there weeping quietly and wondering in bewilderment why he was never appreciated… why things like this were always happening to him.

14.

When Shayne reached the address, it was apparent that Lew Recker was much more commercially successful as a writer than his colleague in the Village. Either that, or he had independent means to help out.

It was a pleasant residential hotel, complete with doorman, nicely appointed lobby with dining room and cocktail lounge on one side. A fresh-skinned girl was at the switchboard, doubling as desk clerk and Information, and she looked doubtful, glancing up at the clock when Shayne asked for Mr. Recker.

“I don’t like to disturb him so early. Not before noon unless it’s extremely important.”

“It’s extremely important,” Shayne assured her.

She remained doubtful. “Would you mind saying what it is? He does have a vile temper when he’s disturbed in the morning.” She smiled briefly and confidentially at the redhead. “Claims he’s writing, you know, and that I shatter his mood. Frankly, I think he probably sleeps most of the morning.”

Shayne returned her smile, but said sternly, “This is police business. Give me his room number, if you wish, and I’ll be happy to do the disturbing myself. No reason he should know you gave it to me,” he added.

She said, “I’d as soon he didn’t know. It’s five-eighteen.”

Shayne thanked her and went to a bank of three elevators at the rear. A smartly uniformed lad took him up to the fifth floor, said, “Down the corridor to your left, sir,” when Shayne mentioned the number.

The detective from Miami went down a well-carpeted hall to a door near the end. He stopped in front of it and faintly heard the tapping of a typewriter from inside. He found no button by the door, so he rapped loudly.

The typing continued without interruption. He grimaced and knocked more loudly.

There was still no result though he knew the occupant of the room must hear him easily. He pounded on the door with his fists, and then called loudly, “Open up, Recker.”

That stopped the typewriter. The door was jerked open violently a moment later and Shayne was confronted by a dark, slender, angry young man of about thirty. His black hair was rumpled and he wore a back velvet smoking jacket with crimson lapels over gaudily striped pajamas and was barefooted.

“What in Christ’s world ails you?” he demanded. “Can’t a man have privacy in his own place? Go away!”

He tried to slam the door shut but Shayne had his big foot in the way. He said calmly, “I want to ask you a couple of questions about Elsie Murray.”

“Elsie Murray?” Lew Recker’s thin face twitched with scornful anger. “You come up here and pound on my door and utterly destroy a creative mood to ask me about Elsie.
What
about her? She’s a fair lay. That’s all I know. Now will you please get your big foot the hell out of my doorway before I phone downstairs to have you thrown out?”

“No,” said Shayne placidly. “I’m coming in, Recker. That wasn’t exactly what I wanted to know about Elsie, though it may help a little. Speaking from personal experience, were you?”

He moved forward implacably as he spoke, and Lew Recker was forced to step back or be trampled on.

He stepped backward, snarling, “You can ask plenty others besides me. Who are you and what do you want?”

“I’m a detective,” Shayne said blandly, “and I want all the information I can get about Elsie. She was murdered last night, you know?”

“I didn’t know,” raged Recker. “Wait a minute. What the hell did you say?” Incredulity replaced the anger in his voice. “Murdered?”

“Uh-huh.” Shayne took off his hat and looked around the room. It was small and orderly, with double windows overlooking the avenue. A metal typewriter desk stood directly in front of the windows, with an expensive “posture” office chair pulled away from it. There was a love-seat slipcovered in deep maroon along one wall, two comfortable chairs in a matching shade of lighter red.

“That’s a hell of a note,” Lew Recker said. There was no real shock or horror in his voice, more a note of personal affront. “How did it happen? When?”

“In her own apartment. Where were you from two to four o’clock this morning?” He sank into one of the comfortable chairs and crossed his long legs.

“Me? I’m not a suspect, I hope.”

“Every man who knew her is a suspect at the moment,” Shayne told him.

Lew Recker laughed a little raggedly. “That gives you plenty of ground to cover. You’d better get a whole squad of dicks out asking questions.”

“That’s not the way I heard it. You’re supposed to be the only one.”

“Nuts! Where’d you hear a thing like that?” Recker closed the door and crossed to the sofa, seated himself carefully and arranged the crimson lapels of his velvet jacket so a goodly expanse of pajama top showed.

“Your friend Avery Birk told me.” Shayne had a cigarette out and was lighting it. He watched Recker’s face keenly past the match flame.

The upper lip with its tiny black mustache that reminded Shayne unpleasantly of Peter Painter’s lifted in a sneer.

“That toad! Just because Elsie was too fastidious to go to that crummy joint of his. He rationalized his failure to make her by pretending to himself that she was unavailable to any man.”

“Except you,” Shayne said pleasantly.

Lew Recker shrugged, and a smirk replaced his sneer. “Well, yes. Even Birk could hardly rationalize that far.”

“All right,” said Shayne. “Where were you between two and four this morning?”

“Right here in my own bed.”

“Any proof of that?”

Recker hesitated the proper interval. He dropped his eyes and murmured, “That’s a leading question.”

“Answer it.”

“I don’t think I will,” Recker said complacently. “I’m not arrested or charged with any crime, am I?”

“Not yet,” growled Shayne. “But it can happen if you hold out evidence in a homicide.”

“I’m not holding out evidence in a homicide. What earthly proof do you have that my whereabouts have a single thing to do with Elsie’s death?”

“Were you at a banquet last night?”

Recker nodded. “The annual Poe Dinner of the Mystery Writers of America. Sure. I was there. Along with Elsie and several hundred others.”

“You a mystery writer?”

“Not exactly, I trust. I joined the organization for fun and games and to give them the support of my name. I write Novels of Suspense.” His voice supplied the capital letters.

“See here,” he went on suddenly, sitting erect and pointing a forefinger at Shayne while his thin dark face twitched with excitement. “Check up on an out-of-town writer named Brett Halliday. He writes those lousy books about a dumb redheaded private eye in Miami. He was really making a play for Elsie last night. Drunk as a coot and being obnoxious all over the place. Throwing his weight around until Elsie must have thought he was someone important. I can’t swear he persuaded her to leave with him, but he was working at it hard. Lots of us at the bar noticed it and were disgusted, and some of them must have seen them leave.”

Shayne nodded, his face blank. “I’ll check on that. Can you give me any other leads?”

“I’m afraid not.” Lew Recker shook his head thoughtfully.

“Tell me about Elsie herself.” Shayne leaned back comfortably and expelled blue smoke. “We often find the vital clue in a murder in the character of the victim. What sort of girl was she?”

“A familiar enough type in New York.” Recker shrugged. “You might almost say a prototype. Girl from the country comes to big city as a secretary and gets in on the fringe of writing and publishing. Meets a few writers and artists and is dazzled by a new sense of freedom. Becomes daringly sophisticated very swiftly. Good-looking enough and with the right sort of figure to be invited out to parties where the liquor flows freely. You know. Not really a party girl, but… susceptible. There are thousands like her. Ready for a good time when it’s offered.”

“I understand she was trying to be a writer herself?”

Recker snorted disparagingly. “Who isn’t? It looks so simple. You just sit at a typewriter and put down words and editors pay you for them. Sure. She gave up her job a couple months ago and settled down to write the Great American Novel.”

“What kind of job did she have?”

“Secretary or file clerk in some importing house, I think,” Recker said indifferently. “She had a pretty nice place about ten blocks down the street from here at the time, but she gave it up to sublet a smaller place on Thirty-Eighth when the writing bug bit her.

“And I can’t help blaming myself for that,” Recker went on soberly. “I’m afraid I encouraged her more than her slight talent justified. I read some of her short junk, and you know how it is. You haven’t the heart to tell a girl like that that her stuff stinks. You should, of course. Kindest thing to do in the long run. But you just don’t. You try to be kind, and that’s a mistake. First thing you know, she’s taken your generalities seriously and decides to give up everything for her Art. And she spells it with a capital A.” He paused to smile condescendingly. “Well, the kids have to get it out of their systems, I guess. They’ll never know for sure until they try that they’re really cut out to be call girls instead of novelists.”

“Where did Elsie live before she moved to the smaller place?”

Recker gave him the name of an apartment building lower down on Madison Avenue. “You haven’t told me how she died… anything about it.”

Shayne said, “Haven’t you seen a paper this morning?”

“Heavens no! I
never
look at a paper until I’ve finished my early writing stint and had lunch.”

“Or turned on a radio for the news?” Shayne persisted.

A look of pain crossed Lew Recker’s face. “I wouldn’t have a radio in the place. The news? My God! Who’s interested in a world that’s intent on self-destruction? One can withdraw to typewriter and find peace if not certitude. Are you through trying to trip me up by getting me to admit I already knew about Elsie?”

“For the moment,” Shayne said indifferently. “You mentioned Elsie going around to parties and drinking. A lot?”

“Plenty to remove small-town inhibitions.”

“Did she handle it all right?”

“Mostly. Sometimes she’d go overboard, I guess, and have to be helped home.”

“That ever happen when you were with her?”

“Unfortunately, no.” Recker sniggered unpleasantly. “From what I heard around, she was really hot stuff when she actually passed out.”

“Around?” asked Shayne.

Recker wrinkled his forehead and looked at Shayne inquiringly. “What do you mean?”

“From what you heard around,” Shayne stressed. “From whom in particular?”

“I don’t recall any names. If I did I certainly wouldn’t repeat gossip about my friends.”

“You intimated in the beginning that Elsie was a pushover,” persisted Shayne. “Exactly who did the pushing?”

“I intimated no such thing.” Recker sat up very straight and brushed his thumbnail across his thin mustache in a gesture of righteous indignation. “She was basically a fine sweet girl who believed in equality among the sexes and in a girl’s right to have an affair if it pleased her to do so. I meant nothing derogatory about Elsie. For God’s sake, do you dicks have to go digging up filth about a dead girl?”

“If it helps catch her killer,” Shayne said unemotionally. “About her drinking, again. You mentioned her being at the bar with this Miami writer last night. Was she drunk?”

“N-n-o-o. He was plenty soused, and forcing drinks down her throat. She had a way of not showing it much when she was actually passed out, but if you knew her well you could tell. I’d say she was fairly sober last night. Another thing is: You haven’t told me this, but you can’t blame me for deducing that the Halliday character maybe killed her in a drunken rage when she resisted his advances. If so, you can be certain, she wasn’t too tight… because she wouldn’t have resisted if she had been.”