CHAPTER 6

“Grab yourself another guess,” said Dave Cushing.

“You can make it if you try,” said Harry Gahan.

“I’ll try,” I said.

It was a relaxed meeting, nothing stiff or formal, the four of us sitting around in Police Lieutenant Dave Cushing’s office like the old friends we were. In the corner, Harry Gahan sucked at his dead pipe and blinked his tired eyes at me. He always reminded me of an ancient mastiff, a good-natured old dog with a very keen nose and a great and powerful intelligence—the doglike look due, I suppose, to the perpetual bags under his quiet eyes. He was an old pro, a seasoned city detective, well respected in police circles and Dave Cushing’s right arm for the past seven years. They made a fine team, two police dicks the Commissioner never criticized.

“I can maybe have a guess, too?” Max asked.

“The guesses are on the house,” Dave Cushing said.

“A tip,” said Max. “Offhand, I’d say it smells like you got an anonymous call you should go to the Karig girl’s flat and find the knife.”

“You serious?” Harry Gahan asked.

“Maybe I’m just sleepy,” Max said.

“How about you, Steve? You sleepy too?”

“I’m cold on it, Harry. I can think of several pretty smart answers, but they’re sort of tired ideas, too—like checking Flato’s reference files.”

“Now that’s something we didn’t think about,” Dave Cushing said, amused. “Which files, Steve?”

“I was thinking of the file of actors they have in the theatrical places. You know, photos of the types for various parts, that kind of thing.”

“How does it happen you know so much?” Harry Gahan asked casually. “About show business, I mean?”

“I read a lot, Harry.”

“Sure you do.”

“Listen,” said Max. “That kind of knowledge even I’ve got. Any meshugenah knows a director in television keeps a file of people he might be using in his shows.”

“Little Sir Echo,” laughed Harry Gahan. “Any more guesses, Steve?”

“The obvious.”

“And what would the obvious be?”

“Mrs. Timmerman,” I said. “Linda was seen by Mrs. Timmerman.”

“Ah? The boy is good,” said Harry Gahan. “He even knows the landlady’s name. Now how would you know a thing like that, Steve?”

“The papers, Harry. The late editions carried it.”

“He reads late editions,” said Dave Cushing pleasantly. “Did the papers also state that Linda Karig had been identified by Mrs. Timmerman?”

“I hope not, Dave. The kid will die if she gets any publicity on this thing. You promised to keep her name quiet, remember?”

“I keep my promises, Steve. The fact is Mrs. Timmerman identified Linda Karig’s face from the Flato office files. We had a bundle of wild guesses, men and women from the acting lists. Mrs. Timmerman plucked Linda out without urging. She saw Linda enter the house. But it smells to high heaven. It’s too cut and dried. Hell, I guess you can take her home. She tells the same pat story over and over again. It makes sense. I can’t see her stabbing him and then strolling out into the living room to faint. She would have collapsed when she stabbed him. And you? I could book you for breaking and entering, Steve.”

“The hall door was open,” I equivocated.

“Open, shmopen. And a nice breeze blowing through a broken pane in the terrace door,” Harry remarked.

“And for what?” asked Dave Cushing.

“I saw a girl on the floor. You’d move in yourself under similar circumstances.”

“You don’t go browsing around on terraces, looking for girls on floors,” Harry Gahan said softly. “Does that sound like our Stevie, Max?”

Max shrugged dutifully. “You’re asking me, Steve could be browsing anywhere, Harry. Once I caught him in my office going through the top drawer in my personal desk. You know what he told me? Lox and bagels he was looking for. So I’m the wrong one to ask such a question, understand?”

“How about booking him as an accessory?” Harry asked.

“That’s a better idea,” Dave said pleasantly.

“Dandy,” I said. “But if I’m an accessory, you’ve got to prove Linda Karig the murderer.”

“Listen to my boy talk,” laughed Max Ornstein. “A regular Clarence Darrow he turned out to be, right, Dave? A regular mouthpiece.”

“A mouthpiece without a tongue,” said Cushing. He regarded me with quiet amusement and a certain amount of pique. “You still won’t tell me why you walked in, Steve?”

“I’ll tell you what I told you before. I’m committed to do a quiet locate job for my client. I just can’t tell you about my job, Dave. You know that.”

“Not even a hint?” Harry Gahan grunted, his massive face souring for my benefit. “What the hell is this anyhow, Dave? We’re playing games, maybe? For God’s sake, tell him to take the broad and leave before I get up and kiss him for you.”

“Easy, Harry,” said Dave. “Steve would help us if he could.”

“And maybe I will,” I said. “If I feel there’s any connection between what I want and what you need. A deal?”

“A deal,” sighed Dave Cushing and got out of his chair and flipped the intercom. “Take the Karig girl out into the hall, Charlie,” he said into the intercom. “Steve Conacher will pick her up.”

“Thanks,” I said.

“Goodbye, Dave,” said Max. “It’s a big thing for me, all this again. Like old times. So long, Harry.”

“Don’t let Conacher keep you up late nights,” said Harry, and shook his hand. “You look human since you opened that trap in Lynbrook. One of these days I’ll have to ride out with the wife and kids for some hamburgers.”

“On me,” said Max. “Any time, Harry. And you, too, Dave.”

“See that the girl can be reached, Steve,” Dave said. “I may need her.”

“She’s not going anywhere,” I said.

She was going back to her flat with Max and me, of course. Her face was dead with fatigue under the impact of the experience in Cushing’s office. She had little to say until we closed the door behind us in her rooms. Then she wept a little and battled for composure while we stood by and made assuring noises.

“You’re sure he won’t give this to the papers?” she asked. “That’s my biggest worry, Steve.”

“Dave Cushing is a man of his word.”

“And the other man? The other detective?”

“He takes his orders from Cushing,” Max said in a fatherly way. “Listen, my girl, what I think you need is plenty of sleep right now. I’ve got one at home almost your age so I know what I’m saying, understand? If you did nothing, what have you got to worry about? And if Steve thinks you did nothing, you did nothing.”

“Can I make, you some coffee?” she asked.

“Your bed you should make. And right away. It’s already almost two o’clock.”

“The shank of the evening,” I said.

“The shank?” Max asked wearily. “To me it feels like the dead bottom.”

“You want to sleep, Max? I’ll drop you off at my flat.”

“My bones say rest, Steve. But my head won’t let me. How much more do you need in such a hurry? Somebody’s chasing you, maybe? It couldn’t wait until tomorrow morning, early?”

“It can’t wait.”

“What can’t wait?”

“I left some unfinished business down at Gretchen’s. We’ve got to get back to the Nowist den. When do they close the place, Linda?”

“Gretchen has no curfew, Steve. Some of them will be sitting in odd corners and strumming instruments until breakfast time. From the way it looked when we left it, I’d say the party’s still going strong. You may find all the regulars down there.”

“Is Jeff Masterson a regular?”

“Jeff is the top man,” she laughed. “He can’t leave. He’ll continue to read his priceless prose so long as he’s got an audience.”

“This I’ve got to see,” said Max, brightening.

“This you will see,” I told him.

Outside, the street blossomed with the strange stillness of the sleeping city. To the left, the skyline was dotted with low lights, the sick windows of Welfare Island. The black river slid by the dead piers down there. From some distant reach a tug hooted mournfully. Nobody answered the hoot. Max hesitated before we made the turn that would block Linda’s house from view. He stalled on the curb opposite, staring back at the building. On the first floor, her living room lights went out and after that complete darkness. Max braced himself on his stocky legs, his hands clasped behind his back as he hummed a quiet tune. It was an enjoyment for me to watch him. It brought back good memories of other jobs with him.

“You were thinking?” I asked.

“And you, Steve? Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

“An easy house to enter?”

“On the nose,” he chuckled, proud of me. “You know something that hits me all of a sudden like an egg in my face? I’m standing here and letting it sink in—the idea of how somebody tried to frame that poor girl. It would be so simple to get in over there—just walk behind the house, through the alley, and right into the kitchen. Who would see it? This neighborhood is so dead maybe only the pigeons would notice it. Correct?”

“You’re sold on Linda?”

“Sold? What can I tell you? Only a family man’s reactions simply on the strength of bringing up one of my own, my daughter Sandra, just about the same age, remember? So all right. Sandra is a secretary and not in crazy show business, but the emotional problems, aren’t they the same with all of them? So then, if Sandra has a bad time with a boy, is she going to stab him? To kill him? And besides, how about the knife? Smart this Linda certainly is. I ask myself would she leave a bloody knife in a kitchen drawer? Because that was where Cushing found it. She wouldn’t first wash it off, for God’s sake?”

“She’s a drinker, Max. Maybe she could be a forgetter.”

“That I won’t buy.”

“You’re getting soft.”

“And you? What’s the big deal in it for you, Steve? I’m talking about this pretty girl. You like her?”

“The love of my life, Max. Just like on television. We’ll be married before you know it.”

“Funny jokes,” said Max quietly. “You’re sticking your neck out for her, right?”

“She’s a nice bundle,” I said. “But only as a coincidental bundle, if you get what I mean. She’s an old chum of Mari Barstow. College pals. Murder? Hell, I don’t think she did it, nor do you, nor does Dave Cushing. But she’s a hot lead to our locate, Max. I like her on that level.”

“She’s very pretty. A very, very pretty girl.”

“You’re breaking my heart, Max,” I said.

Tony Granada was playing an engagement at a midtown club, an excessively Spanish place called “Pepito’s” where the upper-class rhumba, mambo and cha-cha addicts gathered to bump and bounce. He had a large band that served up Latin music in the Cugat tradition, loud and with a firm beat. The place was only sparsely inhabited when we arrived, a few tables of late diners munching arroz con pollo while listening to the music.

We had one of the rice dishes while waiting for Tony Granada. We listened to a young thrush under a strong spot sing a few South American numbers. Her hips and belly held the rhythm along with her deep, unladylike voice.

“This is a Spanish girl?” Max asked. “From what I heard about Spain, girls like this one don’t live there anymore.”

“Tony converts them,” I explained. “He can take one from Flatbush and make her queen of the fiesta.”

“A beautiful girl, Steve. As pretty as the Barstow girl, I’ll bet.”

“Not quite. Have a look at Mari.”

“I see what you mean.” He examined the small press shots of Mari Barstow studiously. They were taken in a variety of poses, many of them deliberately shot to show her mammary features and her excellent legs. But Max paid little mind to the cheese pictures. He was interested in her face. He returned the photos to me and laid the head shots out on the table before him, squinting and scowling at them. He finished, finally, and closed his eyes, letting the composite build in his mind.

“The world in her hands,” he sighed, “and she walks out on it? Foolishness. A really beautiful face, she has. You don’t forget a face like hers.”

Tony Granada agreed with Max. He arrived at our table a bit breathless, shook hands, spoke briefly about his respect and admiration for our mutual friend Oliver Silverton, and then launched into a Latin lamentation about Mari Barstow.

“Hated to see that girl go. Terrific. The tops.” A little man with a great sorrow, he spoke with an undisguised New York tongue. He stood about my size, but much beefier in the face and frame. He had a sort of oily appeal, a softness that might endear him to young girl singers willing to do almost anything for a break. “Silverton tells me you need my help. What kind of help would that be?”

I gave him the details quickly, and he listened without interrupting, nodding and staring down at the table. There were beads of perspiration in the soft hollows of his hands. He caught me looking at his fingers and sought to divert me by flourishing a diamond and silver cigarette case which he offered to both of us.

“Typical,” he said when I was finished. “Just like Mari. Kind of a crazy kid in many ways.”

“How?”

“Well, now. She’s done it before. Walked away, I mean.”

“When was that?”

“Last year. In Syracuse. She left us for two days. Just like that.”

“Only once?”

“Once more, before that. In New Orleans. Three days.”

“And when she returned?” I asked, “She explained her absence?”

“Ha. Don’t make me laugh. You don’t ask Mari questions. She hates questions. Blows her stack. I asked her once—in New Orleans—and she almost exploded. She said that what she did was her business. That was all.”

“A man?” Max asked quietly. “Maybe she went away to see a boyfriend?”

“Not while she was with me,” Tony said with a little hard laugh. “Not until she hit New York, that is.”

“I don’t understand you,” Max said.

“He means he was sleeping with her until they arrived in New York,” I suggested. “Isn’t that what you mean, Tony?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“We’re not going to book you for rape,” I said. “But it would help if we knew the facts. You shacked with her?”

“At one time. Out of town, that is. Hell, you’d probably find out about it, nosing around. It wasn’t rape. Mari’s been around all the way out and back again.”

“So she picked up a new man in New York?”

“A man?” Granada broke into unrestrained laughter. “Mari never settled for one. A regular female wolf.”

“Know any of their names?”

“Is this all off the record?” He watched me slyly as he put the question, a worried little man. “Just between us boys?”

“Off the record.”

“You talked to Silverton?”

“Who else?”

“Another little guy from the same office.”

“Arthur Haddon?”

“On the nose,” agreed Tony. “Listen, she had plenty of them hanging around. How could I know them all? There was always a fresh one waiting for Mari Barstow.”

“Think,” I said. “Drop a few names.”

He thought briefly. “A crumb with a beard, lots of times. A newspaper columnist who followed her from New Orleans, name of Nick Genardi. A character in Silverton’s outfit, skinny guy with a moustache. A singer, I forget his name. A couple of sharp operators one night—Abe Kenny and Luigi Calabrese.”

I stopped him there. “Luigi came often?”

“Hell, I don’t keep score, not with a chick like Mari. She knows how to level them. Never saw any girl operate better. Hello, baby, you sang real good. I’ll be right with you.”

The Latin thrush had minced to our table and leaned over him and ran her delicate hand along the side of his neck. He sat there, taking it, and looking like a fat, comical dog. It was an odd tableau; the girl seemed suddenly infantile alongside him.

Max must have been working his imagination my way because he became suddenly interested in his cold pollo, not enjoying the sight of Granada’s concubine. How long ago had Mari Barstow played him this way? And with which variations? It would take a certain type of adventuresome female to lavish this dumpy little musician with affection. It would take strange drives and a taste for lewdness.

“Weren’t we going to get doing downtown?” Max asked, showing me his subdued distaste. “That appointment we had, Steve?”

“We’re a little late, at that,” I said. “Thanks for your help, Tony.”

“Any time, Conacher. Any time.”

But he was lost to us even before we left him. He was pulling her down to the seat alongside him and whistling to a waiter and beginning to talk it up for her. The sound of her husky laughter reached us as we made the exit, a quick surge of artificial joy followed by Granada’s soft chuckle.

“Unclean,” said Max as we hit the street. “You got a Bisodol on you, Steve? Me, I’m going to have a bad heart burn in a minute.”