25. “I’m an Honest Businessman”

“Stop worrying,” Malone said to Jake. “She’s all right, nothing’s happened to her.” He gave up trying to light a cigar.

“Of course she’s all right,” Jake said. He managed to make his teeth stop playing the Habañera from Carmen. “Just because they called from police headquarters—”

Malone made another try with the cigar, almost setting the taxi on fire. He tried to think of something helpful to say to Jake and finally fell back on, “Stop worrying.”

“Me worry?” Jake said. His teeth finally settled down to a slow samba. “Helene’s all right. Nothing could happen to Helene. She could look after herself anywhere.” He drew in a quick breath and said, “You stop worrying.”

“Who’s worrying?” Malone said. He threw the cigar out the window and put the burnt match back in his pocket. Then he leaned forward and said to the cab driver, “For the love of Mike, step on it!”

The cab driver said, “Don’t worry.” Conversation lagged.

Helene had been murdered. Helene had been kidnaped. Helene had been arrested for something. The cab drove up in front of police headquarters. Jake was out before it stopped and flung a bill at the cab driver. The elevator inside the building moved slowly, and Malone said, “Hurry up, damn you.”

There hadn’t been any information in the telephone call. Simply, “Are you the husband of Mrs. Helene Justus? Will you please come down to police headquarters, right away?”

Helene had been in a traffic accident. Helene had been robbed. Helene had been raped. It was a hell of a long way from the elevator to Arthur Peterson’s office. Helene had been run over by a subway train. Helene had fallen out of a window. Helene had been trapped in a burning building. Helene had—

Helene was sitting in the most comfortable chair in Arthur Peterson’s office, looking beautiful and serene. She was saying, “It really was just an accident. I didn’t have any idea that Bertha Morrison’s jewels—I mean, it just happened that Mr. Justus had to be out on business this evening, and I didn’t want to stay home alone, so I called up this escort bureau. And then—” She turned her head, her eyes grew wide and bright, and she said, “Oh, Jake!”

He saw then that there was a bruise on her cheek, that her dress was soiled and torn. He walked over to her fast and put his arms around her. She was trembling a little, and she buried her face against his chest. He held her very close, pressing his cheek against her soft hair. It didn’t matter, right now, that the room was full of plain-clothes men. It didn’t matter that a sleepy-eyed Arthur Peterson was watching from behind his desk. Only one thing mattered. Helene was here, and safe, and in his arms.

Arthur Peterson cleared his throat, loudly. Jake looked up. What was this about Bertha Morrison’s jewels? What had Helene been up to this time? Had Arthur Peterson given away any secrets? Arthur Peterson’s eyes told Jake that he hadn’t, and that he wouldn’t. Jake relaxed. He stood up, glared at Helene, and said, “I ought to give you a good punch in the nose.”

“Mrs. Justus has been a very great help,” Arthur Peterson said coldly. “She’s a brave little woman.”

A big blond bruiser, handcuffed to O’Brien, snorted and said a very rude word. O’Brien slapped him across the mouth with his free hand. A little gray-haired hunchback, who’d been weeping silently into a big handkerchief, looked up and said, “I’m an honest businessman just trying to make a living. I didn’t know it was stolen jewelry.”

A hard-faced man, wrapped in a gray police blanket, and with one arm bandaged, said, “Honest businessman—”

“You shut up, too,” O’Brien said.

Malone managed to get his cigar lighted, and said, “Would somebody mind telling me what goes on here? I missed the first few reels.”

A red-faced man in a cab driver’s uniform said, “I dunno who you are, Mac, but believe me, if you know this lady you oughta be proud.”

“Single-handed,” O’Brien said, almost reverently. “Single-handed, she trapped this whole bunch of crooks.”

The gray-haired hunchback wailed. “I’m no crook. I got a family. I got to make a living.”

Arthur Peterson repeated, this time to Malone, “Mrs. Justus has been a very great help.”

“I didn’t mean to be a help,” Helene said. “Honest.” She looked at him appealingly. “I told you. Mr. Justus had to be out on business. Mr. Malone was busy. I didn’t want to stay home alone all evening, so I thought it might be fun to call up an escort bureau. I remembered Dennis Morrison had mentioned he once worked for one, and I called it up, that’s all.” She reflected that the police already knew Dennis Morrison’s life history, she wasn’t giving anything away. “Honestly, that was all. Then I began to get a sort of funny feeling. Like, well, something was wrong. I can’t explain it, really. It was a sort of hunch.”

“Intuition,” Arthur Peterson said admiringly.

“So I thought it might be fun to play along and see what the racket was. And I did. And they got me to this place and pretended there was a raid. I knew it wasn’t a real raid because of the flashlight going off.”

Arthur Peterson looked up and said quickly, “Did you pick up those four women?”

“We sent ’em home,” a plain-clothes man said, “and we got the picture and destroyed it.” He added, “One of ’em’s the sister-in-law of a councilman.”

“Oh,” Peterson said. “Well, there’s no use dragging innocent victims into this.” He smiled at Helene and said, “Go on, Mrs. Justus.”

“That’s about all,” Helene said limpidly. “I was curious to know what they were going to do with my jewelry, so Mr. Sczinsky and I followed them.”

“Just call me Stan,” the cab driver said modestly.

“And you know the rest,” Helene finished. She beamed up at O’Brien and said, “It’s so lucky you were there.”

Jake looked at Helene, at O’Brien, and at Peterson. He said, “What the hell was the idea of having my wife followed?”

“And having me followed?” Malone added. He looked almost agreeably at Schultz, who’d come in just behind him, and said, “Not that it didn’t turn out to be a good idea.”

“Well, to be frank,” Arthur Peterson said, “I felt a little uneasy about all three of you. You know Dennis Morrison, you’d been with him the night of the murder. I thought it might be a good idea to keep all of you in sight.” He scowled and said, “I don’t know what’s happened to Birnbaum.” He changed the subject quickly. “This is a pure and simple extortion case. It really shouldn’t come into this department. This overlapping of cases from one department to another impairs efficiency. But in view of the fact that those were Bertha Morrison’s jewels, and that this young man is Bertha Morrison’s cousin—”

Malone wheeled around to look at Howie Lutts. He was the one Abner Proudfoot had described. It had once been planned that she would marry Howard when she attained her maturity, but for some reason the match never came off. Howard can be a rather difficult individual. He didn’t look like a very difficult individual right now. He looked like a rabbit.

“Listen,” Howie Lutts said hoarsely. “Listen to me. I haven’t seen Bertha for years. I used to know her when we were kids, but she was always a pain in the neck to me. And you know I was working the night she was bumped off. You know that.”

“We’ve checked his alibi,” a plain-clothes man said. “It’s O.K. He took a Mrs. Carl Browne, from Kansas City, to dinner at the Rainbow Room, and to a series of night clubs. They ended up in a hotel on Amsterdam Avenue, where a babe, pretending to be his wife, broke in, raised a rumpus, and Mrs. Browne paid her off. We’ve got the babe locked up, Mr. Browne has heard the whole story and he’s being very nice about it, and Mrs. Browne is filing a complaint against this guy.”

“O.K.,” Howie said. “You hear that? Maybe you got me for extortion, but you ain’t got me for murder. And I’ll get a good lawyer, I’ll get a light sentence. I’m young yet.” There was a half sob in his voice. “It ain’t my fault. I never knew what it was all about. He got me into it.” He jerked his head toward the hard-faced man. “He’s the guy you ought to send up, not me.”

The hard-faced man spat on the floor, and said, “You’re a lying son-of-a-bitch. I was trying to run a nice quiet little night club—”

The gray-haired man howled out something about being an honest businessman. Arthur Peterson cut short the uproar by pounding on his desk. Then he said, “Keep quiet! All this is in another department.” He looked coldly at Howie Lutts and said, “Did you introduce your cousin Bertha to Dennis Morrison?”

Howie shook his head and whimpered, “I never knew he even knew her. I never knew him, neither. Not well, I mean. He was just another guy who worked for Al.”

Al, the hard-faced man, looked up and said, quickly and smoothly, “Dennis Morrison did work for me. Sure, I run an escort bureau. It was a little side line of mine. I’m in the entertainment business, and I like to see people have a good time. There’s a lot of lonely people in the world, and the escort bureau paired them up. It wasn’t licensed or supervised because my competitors bribed the authorities, they were trying to run me out of business. Naturally, I couldn’t control the activities of the people who worked for me. But the bureau was perfectly legitimate. It’s resulted in some very happy marriages. But in every business like mine a few crooks get in, who take advantage of their opportunities. Like this young man. But I’m not responsible. I can prove I’m in the clear. I’ve got a good lawyer.” He drew in his breath. “As far as Dennis Morrison is concerned, he was with me for a little while, and then left, about a year ago. I haven’t seen or heard from him since.” Malone hoped he did have a good lawyer. He was sure as hell going to need a lot of coaching before he got on a witness stand.

“By the way,” Jake said quietly. “Where is Dennis Morrison? I should think he’d be rather helpful right now.”

Arthur Peterson said, “We’re looking for him.” The tone of his voice said, “And don’t ask any more questions.”

Jake pretended he hadn’t noticed the tone of voice, and said, “How about Bertha Morrison’s jewelry?”

O’Brien said, “Yeah, how about that, Mr. Prince?”

The gray-haired man looked up from his handkerchief. “Understand,” he said. “I’m an honest businessman. I try to make a living for my family. My wife, she has to have operations, my daughters, they’re in school yet, my son, he’s out of college, he can’t find a job, my wife’s mother, she lives with us. I try to make them a living. Rent I have to pay, taxes I have to pay, the pawnbroker license I have to pay. Donations to the police benefits I still have to pay. Understand? But I’m an honest businessman, I pay the rent, I pay the taxes, I pay the license, I give to the police. So if somebody brings in a piece of jewelry he should pawn, am I asking questions?”

O’Brien scowled and said, “When these crooks thought they had a bunch of hot ice to dispose of, they brought it straight to you. How do you explain that?”

The gray-haired man smiled and said, “All right. So I’m open evenings.”

Malone said, thinking out loud, “The guys in this fake escort racket disposed of their stuff through this fence. Dennis Morrison had worked for the outfit. If he had any jewels to dispose of—”

“Don’t be silly, Malone,” Helene said.

She was ignored. Arthur Peterson shoved a picture of Dennis Morrison toward the gray-haired man and said, “Who’s this?”

Mr. Prince studied the picture, shrugged his shoulders, and looked apologetic. “I see so many people—”

“How did you get hold of Bertha Morrison’s jewelry?” O’Brien demanded.

“Why, I bought it,” Mr. Prince said. “Understand? I told you, I don’t ask questions. Am I to know where the jewelry came from? Am I to know a young lady has been murdered? The jewelry is offered to me for sale and I buy it for a good price, maybe even I cheat myself a little. Then when I see the picture in the papers, should I go running to the police? Will that bring the poor girl back to life again?”

“Girl?” Arthur Peterson said.

Malone said, “What girl?”

“Why,” Mr. Prince said, “she sold me the jewelry. Poor girl, she was so young. You know who I mean. Gloria Garden.” He looked up, smiled, and said, “Understand?”

There was a little silence. Then Arthur Peterson said, “Gloria Garden sold you that jewelry?”

Mr. Prince smiled again, and said, “Who else?”

“Why didn’t you tell me this in the first place?” Arthur Peterson demanded. His voice was a trifle hoarse.

Mr. Prince shrugged his shoulders. “Did anyone ask me?”

A barrage of questions brought out the rest of the facts. Gloria Garden had appeared in Mr. Prince’s establishment about eleven o’clock on the night of the murder. She’d had on a black dress, studded with gold nailheads, and a tan polo coat. Jake remembered the dress and the polo coat; they’d been hanging in Gloria Garden’s closet. There hadn’t been any bloodstains on them.

She’d explained to Mr. Prince that her mother in Terre Haute, Indiana, was very ill. She had to fly there, immediately. She’d have to hire a very expensive specialist. So he, Mr. Prince, had bought the jewelry. Should he ask questions? Poor girl, and so young and pretty. Was he to know she was going to be murdered? Maybe it was for the money he’d given her, nine hundred dollars, and he’d cheated himself. Nine hundred dollars was a lot of money. People had been murdered for a lot less.

He might have seen Dennis Morrison sometime, he might not. Maybe yes, and then again, maybe no. He saw so many people, he couldn’t swear to it, and he was an honest man, he wouldn’t want to perjure himself. The girl, though, yes. He remembered her very well. So pretty. So young. Too young and too pretty to be murdered. Nothing could shake his story. Probably, Malone thought, because it was the truth. He could tell that Arthur Peterson believed it, too.

Al? Mr. Prince wasn’t sure. He might have seen him before, he might not. The same was true of Howie Lutts. Maybe he’d come in the store, maybe he hadn’t. He, Mr. Prince, couldn’t swear to one or the other.

Could he investigate everybody who came in the shop to pawn a dollar watch? If a young man came in to sell a necklace left him by his grandmother, could he, Mr. Prince, take time out to read the grandmother’s will? He tried to be an honest businessman, but he had to make a living, didn’t he? If a customer said his name was Smith, should he, Mr. Prince, ask for a birth certificate?

Yes, he did have the receipt for the money, signed by the young lady. He located it among a fat bunch of papers in his wallet and handed it to Arthur Peterson.

Jake edged over to Peterson’s desk, looking over his shoulder. It was a standard form, dated April 8, 1943. Received of Mr. Harry Prince, the sum of $900 for merchandise—

It was written with an indelible pencil, it was signed in violet ink, Mary Brown. There might be a lot of girls who used violet ink, Jake reflected, but that delicate, angular handwriting had belonged to Gloria Garden. He was no handwriting expert, but he’d been reading her letters all evening, and he knew.

“Frankly,” Malone said to Arthur Peterson, “I don’t think you can pin a thing on this guy.”

Mr. Prince looked happily at the little lawyer and said, “Believe me, I’m an honest businessman—”

Arthur Peterson called in someone from another department. It turned out that Malone was right. There were no charges against little Mr. Prince. He’d bought jewelry that had belonged to a murdered woman. He’d bought them from a woman who’d been murdered shortly after the transaction. But he’d bought them, paid for them, and made out a receipt to sign, all in good faith. He was in the clear. The hard-faced man, Al, said he didn’t know Mr. Prince from a hole in the ground, and how soon could he call up his lawyer? Howie Lutts, looking white and scared, said that maybe he’d hocked his watch once at Mr. Prince’s establishment, but he couldn’t be sure.

“None of this is in my department,” Arthur Peterson said. “I’m only concerned with evidence bearing on the murder. However”—he beamed at Helene—“if you wish to prefer charges against this man—”

It turned out that Helene couldn’t, even if she’d wished to. She’d seen Al offering her dime-store diamonds for sale to Mr. Prince, but she hadn’t seen Mr. Prince offering to buy them. The honest businessman wanted to go home. He reiterated his evidence regarding Bertha Morrison’s jewelry to a police stenographer, and signed it. There was a little difficulty over the matter of the jewelry itself. Mr. Prince wanted either the jewelry—impounded as evidence in a homicide case—or his money, which had last been seen stuffed into Gloria Garden’s purse. He finally settled for a receipt made out and signed by Arthur Peterson, and left in the company of a plain-clothes man, threatening suit.

The hard-faced man and Howie Lutts answered more questions, willingly, but not very satisfactorily. Howie Lutts hadn’t seen Bertha, his cousin, for years. He hadn’t even known she was married. Al, the hard-faced man, had never seen her in his life. Never knew there was such a dame till he read about her in the papers. Neither of them remembered anything helpful about Dennis Morrison. Al repeated that Dennis had worked for the escort bureau at one time but had left about a year ago. Howie Lutts repeated that he’d met Dennis Morrison a few times, but hadn’t known him very well. Malone, chewing savagely on his cigar, reflected that Howie Lutts and Al were probably telling the truth. Particularly Howie, with his scared eyes, and his police record. Howie would have talked, if he’d known anything to talk about.

Arthur Peterson muttered something about efficiency and the need for departmental reorganization, and sent Howie Lutts and Al away, in charge of a policeman from another department. Jake yawned, and muttered something about going home. Arthur Peterson yawned, and said it was a good idea. Birnbaum turned up, looking pale and worried. Seemed he’d dropped into the drugstore for a bottle of soda mints, and missed Jake’s exit from the hotel. Arthur Peterson gave him a sleepy lecture and sent him home. O’Brien and Schultz had already gone off duty, with starry-eyed farewells to Helene. Malone looked at his watch and observed that it was late. Helene rubbed her eyes and said that she was tired, very tired. Stan Sczinsky said happily that his cab was parked right outside. The meeting adjourned.

In the elevator, Jake put his arm around Helene. She drooped her head against his shoulder, like a sleepy child. He tightened his arm, and brushed his lips lightly against the tip of her ear. In just a little while now, they’d be home. Maybe then, he’d tell her—

They had to wait, downstairs, until Stan Szcinsky brought his cab up to the door. A young man came racing down the hall, calling, “Hey wait, Mr. Peterson!” Jake told himself not to listen. Home. Helene. He listened, anyway. The young man had a teletype message in his hand. He was out of breath. He said, “Gee, glad I caught you, Mr. Peterson. They identified that guy in the hospital. The attempted murder case.”

Arthur Peterson frowned. “I don’t know anything about any attempted murder case.” He took the teletype message and said, “That’s in another department, anyway.”

“Not now it ain’t,” the young man said. “Because they finally got the victim identified.” He paused, caught his breath, and said, “He’s still alive, Mr. Peterson, so you’d better hurry over there.” He paused again, panting. “I hadn’t ought to run up these stairs so fast. He sure as hell is in your department, Mr. Peterson. Because he’s the husband of that babe.” He finally got his breath and said, “You know. Dennis Morrison.”