Masters Of Noir Vol Iii Part 15

She said, "Your wife coming out later after you get settled?"

"No wife. No kids. No nothing."

She looked at Bart through a long, thoughtful silence. When she turned back to Jordan she gave him a smile. "I think we should welcome the new neighbor with a drink."

The Berkey apartment was identical with his, laid out in reverse. But different. The living room was freshly painted, a soft chartreuse that fought the gloom. Wall to wall carpeting-a dark green. A gay slip cover hid the ugliness of the couch. The one big chair, too. She guided him toward it, saying, "You don't mind bourbon?"

"Does a fish mind water?"

He couldn't have been more trite. But she laughed. Her smile said, "You're handsome and witty and I think I'm going to like you a lot." He couldn't figure it. She hadn't looked this easy to him. Too bad this was strictly police business. She was a trim little schooner, and he liked her jib, too.

Bart Berkey was bothered. He had slumped down at one end of the couch. His eyes were puzzled as they followed his sister.

Jordan said to him, "What do you do?"

"Nothin' right now." He spoke resentfully. He didn't like Jordan's presence here. Jordan barely noticed. He was thinking. So they took the advice. They're not working for Crider any more.

Elsa returned with three gla.s.ses in her hands. One was a different color; it looked like tomato juice. She handed it to Bart.

Jordan stood up and took his.

She took a sip, smiled at him, and moved around behind his chair to the front window. Jordan started to sit down. But he couldn't very well sit with his hack to her. He joined her as she raised the window blind.

"Why, it's raining!" she said.

It wasn't actually, he saw. The night sky was depositing something less than a shower, something more than a fog. It was enough to make the streets gleam darkly, and to blur the outline of cars a block away. In this apartment-house district there was never enough garage s.p.a.ce. He could see at least a dozen cars parked for the night. Ben Eglin might have a couple of men in one of them. They might be watching this window, seeing him, at this moment. Well, they could report to Eglin that he had made the grade.

Working on his bourbon, he wondered if Ben Eglin gave all his men that Fourth of July oration about cop killers? Remembering it, remembering Eglin's intensity, Jordan felt again a tingling in his nerve ganglia, and resented it. It was like some high-school halfback being hopped up by his coach. If Bob Garfield was taking, he was a crook like any other crook. The department would snare his killer, sure. But they didn't have to pull a man off traffic to do it.

Bart interrupted his thoughts. He said, "I'm going to bed."

"Sleep tight, Bart," said Elsa.

Jordan ma.s.saged his chin, thoughtfully. A man's afraid of an attack, he doesn't go merrily off to bed. It'd be especially true in the case of a nervous kid like Bart. You'd expect him to be at the window, furtively peeking out, not being able to pull himself away.

Bart stopped at the door of the bedroom nearest the kitchen and sent his sister a questioning look. Jordan saw it, saw the puzzlement that remained on his face as he dragged his foot through and closed the door. Something had Bart scared. But if it wasn't Crider, what was it? Elsa's tone with her brother made Jordan smile. Her throaty voice held the gentle rea.s.surance a grownup uses with a small child. He hadn't seen her give Bart the high sign to get out of the living room. But he knew she had done it.

"Do you know our town?" she asked.

"I've been here before," he said.

"I hate it!" she said vehemently.

"Hate it? Why?"

She brought her gaze around to him, a little off balance, a little confused. "I didn't intend to say that." She smiled. That slow, cozy smile again. "You know how it is. Some nights you feel jumpy and restless."

"Yeah, I know," he said. He knew some other things, too. All of a sudden he knew. Why she was giving him the business. Why she drew him to the window. Why she held him there with small talk. She thought Joe Crider might be down there on the street. The cops had instilled a strong fear of Crider in her. She wanted Crider to see, if he was down there, that she had a man with her. She had protection for Bart.

It was a laugh. Who was conning who? Jordan hadn't done anything. He hadn't had a chance. Not even for an opening pa.s.s at her. If he had had two heads, it would have been the same. Protection for Bart. For all he knew, Bart might have gone off to bed because he and Crider had been in on the killing together, and it wasn't Crider at all who was troubling him.

He left the window and dropped to the couch. Now that he knew all the ground rules, he could relax. He drained his gla.s.s as she came across and held it out. "Same size, same color, hm?"

He didn't get up when she came back with it. "When you get caught up with your ch.o.r.es you can come over and fix up my living room like this."

"There's nothing to it," she said. "Bart did the painting. I bought the slip covers. My kid brother's awfully handy."

He reached up with his right hand and after the briefest of hesitations she came down beside him.

"Gray eyes and red hair," he said. "I'm a sucker for 'em."

"You are? I like blue eyes in a man. Really dark blue. Yours are dark blue, aren't they?"

He reached across her shoulders and pulled her to him. Eglin, you picked the right man. He put his mouth on hers. You sure did, Eglin. Then he was thinking, I ought to bite your lips until that cold blood of yours came and made them really red. That blood so cold you think of using your s.e.x to pull in a perfect stranger and put him between a killer's gun and your punk of a brother.

There was a quick knock at the door.

Elsa broke away and jumped to her feet. Jordan came up, too. The knock was repeated. Bart came out of his bedroom in pajamas and no robe, stood there looking scared.

"Elsa!"

That was a woman's voice, coming distantly through the door.

"Oh," said Elsa. She turned toward Jordan, giving a little laugh of nervous relief. She came to him, her handkerchief in her hand, and wiped her lipstick from his mouth. Bart shot a look of pure hatred at Jordan.

Elsa went to the door, calling through it, "Gloria, is that you?"

"Yes, it's me."

"Are you alone?"

"I sure am, honey."

As the door opened, a small, rounded figure burst in. "Oh, Elsa, I came just as soon as I heard they'd turned you-" She saw Jordan and stopped abruptly, her look of compa.s.sion turning to a bright, questioning smile.

"Miss Hume," said Elsa. "Mr. Ron Jordan, our new neighbor."

"Why, h.e.l.lo there," said Gloria. She came to him and held up her hand for him to take. She was the cuddly type, curvy at bosom and hip. Brown eyes that were soft and round and innocent didn't go at all with her opal earrings in their intricate gold setting. She saw Bart and said, "Oh, Bart, did I get you up? I'm awfully sorry."

"Naw, I was awake," said Bart.

He didn't like Gloria, and didn't mind showing it. Jordan thought, He hates everybody but his sister and himself.

Bart limped back into his bedroom slowly.

Elsa said hurriedly, "Ron just moved in today. He's from St. Louis."

"Today? Then he-does he-" Gloria stopped.

Elsa said, again quickly, "Let me get you a drink."

"No, honey. I can only stay a minute. I just ran in to say h.e.l.lo and to hear about-" She stopped again, making heavy going of it, shooting quick little glances at Jordan. She tried a new direction, "Have you seen Joe since-"

"No," said Elsa.

"But you're going to, aren't you? I mean, honey, you've got your job and all. You can't let something like this get you down. Why, hundreds of innocent people have been locked up and pushed around by policemen! You're not the-" She stopped and put her hand to her mouth. "Oh, Elsa," she wailed. "Me and my big mouth."

She was as deliberate about it, thought Jordan, as a cabbie jumping a signal light. And pretty good at acting, too. The eyes she showed Jordan swam with contrition and self-accusation, all but hiding the sharp curiosity behind them.

Elsa was watching him, too. She said to him defiantly, "A policeman was killed near the cigar store where my brother and I worked. Bart and I were arrested and-and put in jail for two days. They let us go this afternoon."

Jordan tried for the casual touch. "It happens every day in St. Louis."

"Let's not talk about it," said Elsa.

"That's what she came for-to talk about it!"

It was Bart. He stood again at his bedroom door, a robe over his pajamas.

"Bard" said Elsa.

"I don't care, Sis. Why did she have to come? She knows she's got no business coming here." His voice rose, riding out of control. "I didn't tell them anything! I didn't know anything! That's what she came for. To find out for him! To find out what I told them."

Elsa reached him just as his face twisted and the tears came. He backed away from her into his bedroom, pointing at Jordan. "Why is he here, too? Why does he have to be here?"

Elsa followed and closed the bedroom door behind them.

"Poor kid," said Gloria. "Whatever did the police do to him?"

"Worked him over, I guess. Tough on his sister. We'd better go."

"Uh-hm," said Gloria absently, staring at the bedroom door. She took Jordan's drink from his hand, downed a gulp and handed it back to him. "Say, you walked into something, didn't you?"

"It beats killing rats."

That startled her. She said, "Huh?"

Elsa came out. She looked suddenly spent. Yet an expression close to tenderness was on her face fleetingly before she closed Bart's door behind her. d.a.m.n the woman! She wasn't simple enough.

"I'm sorry," she said. "He's-"

"Forget it, kid," said Gloria. "Your friend Jordan and I will run along."

Jordan asked, "Is there a night drug store close? I need tooth paste." It was true. He needed a brush and a razor, too. Always he forgot to pack things.

"The next block down on your right," said Elsa. She threw a quick glance at Gloria. It was accusing. Hostile, even. She thought Gloria made a fast steal while she was in the bedroom with Bart.

Gloria got it, too. Jordan caught another under-the-eyelids appraisal from her. If it wasn't in her mind before, it was now. But she said definitely, speaking of herself in the third person and to both of them, "Gloria needs her sleep. Gloria's headed straight for bed."

Jordan let Gloria make her goodbye small talk and go out ahead of him. From the hall she said to Elsa, "See you at work tomorrow."

Elsa Berkey shook her head vaguely. It wasn't quite no, and it wasn't yes.

As Jordan pa.s.sed Elsa he said. "I'll be back in a minute."

"No." She hesitated, fixing her gaze on the knot of his tie. "Ron ... I'm not ... " She stopped, started again, "Come to dinner tomorrow night, will you?"

"Sure. I'll bring steaks. Three filets," he said, and smiled.

Walking down the hall he thought, You poor fish, what got into you? She would spend her last dime for the finest steaks in town just to get you back. All she was thinking of was little boy Bart's future protection.

Gloria was waiting in front of the automatic elevator. It clanked up as Jordan arrived. They entered and he pushed the down b.u.t.ton.

She said, "What did you mean by that rat-killing crack?"

"That's the business I'm in, baby. Not human rats-the things that crawl. You got any you want killed?" He put a finger under her chin, lifting her face. "Pretty baby," he said, and kissed her. All in line of duty, he thought, while his lips stayed on hers. Eglin wouldn't mind. He'd okay his conning Gloria.

The elevator came to a stop. She said, "I'm not that easy."

That was it. That was what Elsa had started to say just as he was leaving, then didn't. She didn't because she knew he wouldn't swallow it. She had kissed him back. And Gloria had kissed him back. And Bart thought Joe Crider had sent Gloria. Things were whirling merrily.

Gloria left him at the drug store. And as Jordan made his purchases, he thought of the razor ads in which s.e.xy gals ran their hands ecstatically over the freshly shaven faces of men. This a.s.signment did require that he look his best, he told himself, and then felt annoyance that he should feel the need for this justification. The thought came and he couldn't dismiss it, that dead men were shaved and lotioned before being deposited in their coffins.

Ben Eglin had a long, narrow cubbyhole off the homicide detail room.

"They're both in the apartment," said Jordan, "or were when I left this morning. And some salesman or other came."

Eglin nodded. "Who was the other girl you mentioned?"

"Name's Gloria Hume. Bart thought Crider sent her. I do, too. Last night everybody was conning everybody. It was great."

Eglin wrote down the name. He pushed across an open folder file. It was almost two inches thick. "Read it," he said. "Take it out in the detail room."

Jordan picked up the file. He felt Eglin's eyes on him steadily. It was a somehow different stare, not pushing or demanding. Jordan stared back resentfully. To his surprise Eglin dropped his gaze.

Looking down at the desk, Eglin said, "How did you manage it so fast with the Berkey girl?"

Jordan grinned at Eglin's male curiosity. "Trade secret," he said.

In the detail room he took the first empty desk he found. There were a half-dozen men around, some on the telephone, some writing. Eglin's detail. They knew who he was and what he was doing. And they seemed contemptuous of him.

He opened the folder and riffled through the file. This was his first look at a murder file. Report of the coroner's deputies. The autopsy surgeon's report. Photographs. Measurements on the position of Bob Garfield's body. A question and answer statement of the citizen who looked down the alley by chance and first saw the body. Maps. Measurements on the interior of Crider's cigar store. Ballistics on a .32 calibre bullet. A pathologist's finding on submitted samples. Reports by Inspectors Tague, Barry, Furlong, Maloof; there were others. And statements. A great sheaf of question and answer statements, free and voluntary, by Crider, Elsa Berkey, Bart Berkey and somebody named James Lombard. All taken by Bernard Eglin, chief homicide inspector.

At the end of an hour Jordan was only half finished but he had, for the first time, a physical picture of the murder scene in his mind. And he began to understand a little of Ben Eglin's rage.

Crider called it Store No. 1 because he started there. It fronted on School. Alongside it ran Romar Terrace, which was an alley dignified by a name. The store had two rooms. The front was typical-cigars, cigarettes, candy and gum racks, magazine racks, three pinball machines, a claw machine, shaving gear, paper back novels. The other room was directly behind. Shelves for storage. A desk in a corner that Crider sometimes used. A long table. And five telephones. A side door opened from this back room onto the alley. You stepped directly out to the narrow sidewalk. There, in the gutter opposite the door, Bob Garfield's body lay. And there, on the sidewalk an inch beyond the sill, the one drop of Garfield's blood was found.

Garfield lay on his back, stretched at length. His cap was a foot from his head. His service revolver was holstered and unfired. Blood stained his blouse around the single chest wound. But there was no blood beneath him. No blood around him. No blood anywhere except that single drop. Garfield had not died there at all.