We went out onto Michigan Avenue and around to the alley, which was deserted. Not even a rat was in sight at this time of day. The police barricades at either end of the alley had been removed, and no one was in sight. The lock on the back door of Blount’s had obviously been changed, as Wilchinski had said, but other than that everything seemed just as it was yesterday, except now it was broad daylight. I tried the door, but it didn’t give, so I knocked, not really expecting anyone to answer. No one did.
“What time is it now, Heath?”
I checked my watch again. “Twelve fifty-eight.”
About fifteen minutes later, I began to pace and fidget, mulling over things, thinking about what Mrs. Gittings had said. The alley was now flooded with sunlight, and I was glad for my wide-brimmed fedora.
“Do you think he forgot, Heath?”
I stopped and looked at him, leaning against the wall of the hotel, his hat pulled low. “No, I think he’s making us wait. Childish.” I paced some more, aimlessly kicking an empty can of soup about, bouncing it off trash cans and walls.
Finally, a maroon Pontiac Torpedo pulled into the alley off Superior and came to a stop about five feet from where we stood. Wilchinski got out of the driver’s side, apparently alone.
“I was beginning to think you weren’t coming, Detective. We did say one o’clock, didn’t we? It’s one thirty now.”
“Chicago’s not like Milwaukee, Barrington, and this isn’t my only case. You’re lucky I showed up at all. I have things to do, places to be, and this seems like a big waste of my time.”
“Why?”
“Because I’ve already been in there, and so have my boys. We took fingerprints and photographs, and checked for evidence. What do you think you’re going to find that we haven’t already?”
“I don’t know. I won’t know until I get in there. Maybe nothing, maybe something, but I won’t know if we don’t at least look.”
“Fine, but let’s make it quick. DeCook’s off today, so I’m running solo.” He scowled in Alan’s direction. “Who are you again?”
“Alan Keyes, also from Milwaukee. A police officer and a friend of Mr. Barrington’s.”
Wilchinski looked him up and down. “I see. So, Mr. Keyes, what are you, Barrington’s assistant?”
Alan looked somewhat embarrassed. “Yes, I guess you could say that.”
“I wouldn’t say that,” I said.
Wilchinski and Alan both looked at me, and Alan seemed surprised. “No?” he asked.
I shook my head. “No. I’d say we’re partners, in a manner of speaking.”
“Partners in fighting crime, eh?” Wilchinski grumbled.
“Yes, exactly.” I smiled at Alan, who beamed back at me.
“Whatever works for you two, I guess.”
“It works. Here’s the newspaper you wanted. You can see the folded-over page, and the circled words in the ads and articles.” I held out the paper for him.
Wilchinski took it and glanced at it, turning the pages, squinting to read in the bright sunlight.
“You said someone left this at your door at the hotel?”
“That’s right, this morning. I don’t know who for certain.”
“Interesting. Somebody’s playing games.” He glanced at it once more and walked over and tossed it on the seat of his car. So much for handling it carefully. He slammed the door shut again and grunted in my direction. “Let’s get inside and get this over with. Don’t go touching anything in there.”
“Why?” I asked. “You said your lab guys have already been over the place.”
He nodded. “Yeah, they have, they’re a pretty thorough bunch.”
“Then what does it matter if I touch anything?”
Wilchinski scowled again. “Because this is my case, and you do as I say, got it?”
“I got it, but I’m not going to be able to have a very thorough look around if I can’t handle things,” I said.
“Fine, but be sure and put things back the way they were. Everything’s been photographed.”
“I understand, Wilchinski. Did your guys find anything?”
He shook his head. “There were dozens of sets of prints in there, on everything. More like Union Station than the back room of a store.”
“Well, he did use it as a changing room for his clients, and apparently he did photography back there as well. I imagine there would be quite a few prints.”
“Right. Too many to make any sense out of.”
“Okay.”
“Look, Barrington, I’m pretty confident this was just a random murder, a robbery gone bad, but I’m willing to explore possible suspects, motives, and opportunities and look at any clues you happen to find, if you find any. And if you do find anything, you turn it over to me, understand?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good, but I don’t think you will turn anything up.”
“Because you’ve already looked?” I asked.
“That’s right.”
“Sounds like you have it all under control, then, so this won’t take me long at all. Open the door.”
He unlocked the door and the three of us went in, Alan flipping the overhead light switch next to the door. I pushed my hat back on my head and surveyed the room. Everything was as it had been last night, except for the chalk outline where Blount’s body had been. The bloody “W” was now more of a dark brown stain. A faint smell of death hung in the air, an odor I had smelled too often before.
“So, what are you supposed to be searching for, Barrington?” Wilchinski asked.
“I told you, I don’t know.”
“Right, you don’t know. Like I said, big waste of time.”
I ignored him and began walking slowly around the room, circling the headless dress form that still stood in the center. Something protruding from it caught my eye, and I leaned in for a closer look.
“What?” Wilchinski asked.
“It looks like a hatpin,” I said. “Where have we seen that before, Alan?”
Alan came over and examined it. “That’s Mrs. Gittings’s.”
“That’s what I thought, too. She said she was missing it.”
“How did it get stuck in the dress form?” Alan asked.
“Who’s Mrs. Gittings?” Wilchinski asked, and I felt I had to tell him.
“Just an old lady who used to work for Blount, that’s all. She misplaced her hatpin and asked me to keep an eye out for it. If I had to guess, she probably stuck it in there yesterday without even realizing it.”
“Seems like an odd thing to do,” Wilchinski said.
“Mrs. Gittings is rather odd. She has a bit of a drinking problem.”
“Oh, one of those,” he said.
“I’ll leave it here for the time being, if you want, but I know she wants it back.”
He took out his notebook. “I’ll make a note of it and see it gets returned to her when we wrap things up.”
“Thanks. She lives at the Aimsley Arms Apartments, but you could leave it at the desk for her. She comes in regularly,” I said.
“Duly noted. Is that what you were supposed to be searching for?” Wilchinski said.
I didn’t reply at once, wondering to myself if all Mrs. Gittings wanted was for me to find her hatpin. But there had to be something more. She had been so cryptic and so adamant. “I don’t know yet, Detective. Give me a few more minutes.”
“The clock is ticking, Barrington, and you can’t turn back time, or stop it. I have things to do this afternoon.”
“Right.” I didn’t bother reminding him that he was almost a half hour late getting here. I walked over to Blount’s desk, turned on the desk lamp, and looked around the top of the desk. Apparently Blount had been working on the books when he was fatally interrupted. His sales ledger was open to this week, and I quickly scanned it. Every sale had been neatly recorded in Blount’s tidy script. Most were routine: two shirts on Tuesday, June tenth, to a Mr. A. Winberry for a total of $8.02, cash, and a box of handkerchiefs to a B. Cadbury, on account. On Wednesday, a suit, shirt, and tie to a Mr. Pazdan for a total of $31.41, on account, and a pair of socks to a M. Bloom for fifty-two cents. Thursday, June twelfth, was apparently the start of last-minute Father’s Day shopping, as I noted seven ties, three pairs of socks, and a pair of leather gloves sold, all gift boxed. There was also a sale to Mr. Bennett that day for two dress shirts and two silk ties, for a total of $54.41. Wow, pricey shirts and ties, especially compared to the other sales that week, I thought. Then on Friday the thirteenth, I found my name, one black tux, $30.00, one tux shirt, $4.98, a stud set, $9.49, and one silk tie, $2.49, gift boxed. Above that was an entry for a fedora and a pair of socks to a Mr. Maynard Henning for $38.00, and four dress shirts for Miss Gloria Eye, $58.50. I whistled softly to myself.
“What did you find, Heath?” Alan asked.
I pointed to one of the entries in the book and Alan glanced at it. “A sale of a fedora and a pair of socks to a Mr. Maynard Henning for $38.00. Jeepers, that’s an expensive hat and socks.”
“I agree,” I said.
“I know that name, Maynard Henning, but I can’t place it,” Alan said.
“I know it, too. It was on the banner in the Sky Star. He’s the pianist.”
Alan grinned. “You’re right, good job. Only from back where we were sitting, I thought it said, Heming.”
“Easy mistake,” I replied. “And look here. There’s also an entry in Blount’s sales log for two shirts and two ties to Mr. Bennett for $54.41, and four dress shirts to Miss Gloria Eye for $58.50.”
“Wowzer, that’s a lot of money, too.”
“Even top-of-the-line dress shirts shouldn’t have cost more than $5.00 apiece, tops. No wonder she was upset. I’m sure Wieboldt’s on State does have much better pricing, as she said, so why shop here? And why are hers, Mr. Henning’s, and Mr. Bennett’s purchases so much higher than anyone else’s?”
“What are you trying to prove, Barrington? That Blount’s store was expensive? So what? I don’t think people go around murdering people because they charge too much,” Wilchinski said.
I looked up at him but didn’t say anything before returning my attention to the sales book. Yesterday’s entries for Saturday the fifteenth saw even more tie sales, along with socks, shirts, a pair of pajamas, and handkerchiefs, mostly gift boxed. It looked like the dads of Chicago were going to have a fine Father’s Day. There was the sale of Mr. Bennett’s latest $34.00 suit, too.
I knew I shouldn’t, but I flipped through the sales register and went through it quickly, week by week. For the most part it was some days with no sales, some with a few, some good days, some bad. But in amongst the suits, the shirts, the underwear, and the tie sales were ones for very large amounts for relatively inexpensive goods. There was Bennett’s name again a few months back, and Gloria Eye’s, along with the names of several other men, including Mr. Henning’s, some repeated over and over again, some just a one or two-time occurrence.
“Find anything else interesting?” Alan asked, pushing his hat back on his head.
“I think so,” I said. “Blount seemed to have several repeat customers, all men, except for Miss Eye, who paid two, three, even four or five times the going rates for his product. Very curious indeed. And besides the two sales I mentioned before, Mr. Bennett and Miss Eye both have multiple entries of large amounts for small purchases.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, for example, that the tie I bought he would have sold to those two for four to five times as much as he sold it to me. There are listings for other repeat and some one-time customers with the same thing, large amounts of money for relatively inexpensive purchases.”
“Interesting,” Alan said.
“Very.” I replied.
“What’s so interesting about that, Barrington?” Wilchinski asked. “So he knew who had money and who didn’t and he charged accordingly. Sounds like a good businessman to me. Like I said, no one murdered him because they were overcharged.”
“Charging one person more for the same goods than someone else is illegal, Detective,” I said.
“Ah, so what?” he said.
“So I can’t help but wondering if that’s really what he was doing.”
“What do you mean, Heath?”
“Yeah, Barrington, you just said yourself that’s what he was doing.”
I nodded. “The books certainly make it seem that way. But why would these customers keep coming back to him, over and over? Surely they couldn’t all have been so stupid as to not eventually realize they were being grossly overcharged.”
“Maybe they didn’t care,” Wilchinski said. “Folks with money will pay anything. The Depression’s over.”
“Maybe they didn’t care. Or maybe they were getting something else for their money besides clothes.”
“Like what?” Alan asked.
“That’s a good question,” I said, scratching my chin. “What could he provide these men that they’d be willing to pay large amounts of money for? And something Blount wanted to hide in the books by making it seem like they were just buying merchandise?”
Wilchinski laughed. “Girls comes to my mind, since Prohibition’s over.”
I glanced over at him. “That was my thought, too, Detective.”
“I was joking, Barrington.”
“But I’m not. Blount could have been running some kind of prostitution ring. Men would come in and buy small goods, he’d charge them a large amount, maybe give them a sales check with a code on it that told them where to find the girl,” I replied. “Or if the men were staying at the hotel, he’d send the girl to their room.”
Wilchinski shook his head as he lit up a cigarette. “Not likely, Barrington. Not on Michigan Avenue, not in the Edmonton. Mike Masterson would have sniffed that out in a heartbeat.”
He was beginning to annoy me a lot. This would be so much simpler if I could just get rid of him. But he did have a point. Mike wasn’t one to let unaccompanied girls go wandering the halls without question.
“Well, maybe he arranged for the girls to meet the men somewhere else. He certainly had a good front for it, a respectable clothing store in a top-notch hotel. He gets a lot of older businessmen, probably fairly well off, alone in the big city.”
“And some private, discreet entertainment would be very enticing,” Alan added.
“Exactly. The entries for a one or two-time overcharge were probably out-of-town businessmen, and the multiple occurrences were for businessmen who come to Chicago regularly or locals,” I said.
“Like Mr. Bennett,” Alan said.
I nodded. “My thoughts exactly.”
“You two are dreaming. Besides, even if Blount was mixed up in some prostitution ring, so what? Why would someone murder him for that?”
“Maybe someone got double-crossed or wasn’t happy with services provided for what they paid. I’m not sure, but that’s my theory at the moment, Detective. What’s yours?”
Wilchinski pushed his hat back too and scowled at me as he took a long drag on his cigarette. He blew the smoke in my direction. “My theory, Barrington? My theory is that Blount closed up his shop last night and was working on the books. He’d had a good day because of Father’s Day, and any bum crook on the street would know that and know that most of his sales were cash transactions. Blount steps out in the alley, maybe to have a cigarette. He wouldn’t smoke back here in his shop.”
“How come?” Alan asked.
“Because of all the clothes and fabrics. A man like Blount wouldn’t risk a fire, and he wouldn’t want all these fancy silks and what not smelling like smoke.”
I had to admit Wilchinski was probably right about that, and as I glanced at the desk top again, I noticed there was no ashtray. “And yet you just lit up a cigarette like you did in here last night.”
Wilchinski looked embarrassed, then irritated. He walked over to the alley door and flicked the cigarette out, then closed the door again. “Like I said, he went out in the alley for a smoke.”
“All right, Detective, so he goes out to the alley for a smoke, then what?” I asked.
“Some bum crook who was waiting for him to come out pulls a gun on him and forces him back inside. The crook takes the money, shoots Blount, and flees.”
“I admit that is possible, Wilchinski, but why the bloody ‘W’ on the floor, and the spool of green thread?”
“Ah, geez, you watch too many movies, Barrington. Not everything is some mysterious clue. When Blount was lying there dying his mind probably went to some lost love of his, that’s all.”
Life Wolfgang, I thought. Score one for Alan. “Well, Detective, that is indeed one theory.”
“Makes a lot more sense than yours,” Wilchinski sneered, pointing a finger at me.
“What about whatever was burned in the bathroom sink?” I asked.
“Burned beyond recognition. Nothing to examine. Besides, you said all those people that were being overcharged were men except for Miss Eye. How do you explain her? She paying for some hot little number, too? Some hootchy-kootchy?”
“I thought about that also, Wilchinski. Maybe she was one of those hootchy-kootchy girls for a while, and now Blount’s blackmailing her, or was.”
“If that’s true, she’d be a prime suspect all right,” Alan said.
“Yes, indeed.”
“So who is this Miss Eye, Barrington?” Wilchinski asked.
“Gloria Eye. She’s a singer in the band that played the Sky Star Ballroom last night.”
“And you think she may have been a call girl for Blount and now he’s blackmailing her?”
“I’m saying it’s a possibility,” I said.
“You’re overanalyzing this, Barrington. Typical rookie, and a small town cop mistake. This was just a case of a robbery gone bad, clean and simple. There’s no real clues here. You look at a sales ledger and see some people were overcharged and all of a sudden you’ve got Blount running some prostitution ring.” Wilchinski laughed. “You need to get out of Milwaukee more and experience the real world. Now wrap it up and let’s get out of here, the clock is ticking.”
I bristled again but didn’t say anything. “Right, Wilchinski, I’m almost finished. But still…”
“But still what?” he said, clearly impatient.
“There has to be something more.” I flipped open Blount’s black leather telephone directory and scanned the contents. Most numbers were ordinary: a Chinese take-out, a market, the bank, a florist, and what appeared to be clients of the store. But one stood out. I read the name aloud. “David Greene, editor, Girls Aplenty Magazine. Ever hear of it, Wilchinski?”
He looked slightly embarrassed. “Yeah, sure I’ve heard of it. So what? It’s a sleazy pin-up magazine, nudies, that kind of thing.”
“It doesn’t sound like something Mr. Blount would read,” I said.
Wilchinski laughed. “He was a man, wasn’t he?”
I looked at him. “Yeah, but he didn’t strike me as the type to read girlie magazines.”
“Because he was a buttoned-up businessman? Guys like Blount can surprise you, Barrington.”
“Maybe, but even if he did read it, why would he have the editor’s phone number in his directory?”
“Beats me,” Wilchinski said. “Maybe Greene’s a client of the store. Makes sense he would keep the numbers of regular clients so he could inform them if he was having a sale or something.”
I sighed. “I suppose so. Maybe I am imagining clues that don’t exist,” I said, feeling somewhat defeated.
“First sensible thing you’ve said all day. Now let’s get the hell out of here.”
“Right, right.” I closed the telephone directory and put it back in its place, unsure of what else to do or look for.
“I guess Mrs. Gittings and all her talk of mirrors and cyclops was just the alcohol taking.”
“Hmm? Cyclops, yes.” I looked over at Alan. “I’d nearly forgotten about that. What was it she said again?”
“What the hell are you two talking about?” Wilchinski said, clearly confused.
I ignored him for the moment.
“She was talking about a cyclops. Through the looking glass, remember?”
I nodded. “Yes. A cyclops. Who or what has one eye?”
“Walter Gillingham, of course,” Alan answered.
“Exactly. Perhaps that is who she meant. Maybe she saw him leaving the shop that night”
“That would make sense.”
“Who’s Walter Gillingham?” Wilchinski asked, looking from me to Alan and back to me again.
“A trumpet player and the fiancé of Miss Eye,” I said. I closed my eyes, trying to remember her exact words. “Through the looking glass behind the mirror, the cyclops sits in wait. Through the door they enter and unknowingly seal their fate.”
“What the hell does that mean?” Wilchinski growled.
I glanced at Wilchinski but didn’t answer him.
“Something behind a mirror,” Alan said.
“Right. You enter through a door, into a room presumably, and seal your fate while the cyclops sits and waits.”
“You two been drinking, Barrington?”
“She also said what evil lurks in our reflections, and something about looking into a mirror hard enough that you can sometimes see the evil within,” Alan said.
“She sounds daft,” Wilchinski scoffed.
“She was trying to tell us something, but what? She wanted us to find something,” I said, more to myself than either of them.
“Maybe she was trying to tell us that Mr. Gillingham was waiting for Blount back here,” Alan suggested.
I looked at Alan thoughtfully. “That’s an idea, but how would she have known that? She said through a door, into a room, behind a mirror. Do you think she meant a mirror here in the store?”
“That would make sense. There’s a mirror in the bathroom.”
“I thought we were going,” Wilchinski said, annoyed. “Now all of a sudden you’re both talking nonsense.”
“There’s also a big mirror in the dressing room,” Alan said.
“You’re right, good call.” I turned off the lamp on the desk and walked over to the dressing room door. “You enter through a door and seal your fate.” I pulled it open, gazing at myself once more in the large mirror opposite. “Interesting.”
“Admiring yourself, Barrington?” Wilchinski said. In the reflection I could see both him and Alan behind me in the doorway. I ignored him again, knowing that if I didn’t find anything this time I would be utterly defeated.
I stepped farther into the dressing room and looked into the mirror, cupping my hands to block the light. “I can’t be certain, but I think there’s something behind this.” I ran my hands along the edges of the mirror until I felt something near the top on the right edge. I pressed what felt like a tiny button and I heard a slight click, then I pulled on the mirror and it swung silently open, revealing a small chamber behind.
“Holy cow,” Alan said.
“What the hell?” Wilchinski added.
Staring back at me from the chamber was the cyclops, a camera mounted to a stand. I turned and looked at Wilchinski and Alan. “It appears, gentlemen, that Mr. Blount was taking pictures or movies of people in the dressing room via a two-way mirror, unbeknownst to them.”
“Jeepers. I used that dressing room,” Alan said.
“I know,” I replied, turning back to examine the camera and the chamber.
“Hey, wait a minute,” Wilchinski said from behind me, though I could no longer see him with the mirror swung open. “This is a men’s clothing store. Blount was a guy, and he was filming men changing clothes?”
“Brilliant detective work, Marty,” I said.
“Well I’ll be, he was a perverted pansy,” Wilchinski said.
I flinched. “I hate the word ‘pansy.’ And don’t make assumptions,” I said.
“What’s the matter? Did I touch a nerve, Barrington?”
“I don’t want you touching any part of me, Wilchinski, including my nerves.”
Wilchinski laughed. “Don’t worry.”
“How did he control the camera? Surely he couldn’t fit in there with it,” Alan said.
“If I had to guess, I’d say this camera was rigged to a switch. When you went to change, Blount fiddled with something out front under the counter, and he did the same thing when you came back. A client goes in back to change clothes, Blount turns on the camera. He comes back out, Blount turns it off.”
Alan’s face flushed red. “Good thing I at least kept my underwear on.”
“And a damned good thing I never bought anything in this place,” Wilchinski added. “You about finished now?”
I shook my head. “No, there’s something else in here, too.” I reached in and pulled out a large, black leather file case and carried it out to Blount’s desk.
“What’s that?” Wilchinski asked, following me to the desk.
“Let’s find out,” Alan said.
“It’s locked.”
Wilchinski pulled out a pocket knife and expertly picked the lock. “Not anymore.”
“That’s illegal,” I said.
“So call a cop, Barrington. Just open the damned thing.”
I glanced over at Alan, undid the clasp, and opened it. Inside were small movie reels, each labeled in neat script with a man’s name and a date. There were also manila folders containing files with black-and-white photographs that looked like they were made from the films, all of men in various stages of undress, taken inside the dressing room. I took them out and set them on the desk.
“Yup, big, blooming pansy all right.” Wilchinski laughed, glancing at them.
“You’re hysterical,” I said dryly, pocketing a small reel that said Alan Keyes on it and hoping Wilchinski didn’t notice.
“What else does the pervert have in there? Or don’t I want to know?” Wilchinski asked.
“More folders, all arranged alphabetically by last name, apparently, with files in each,” I replied, taking a few folders out, “but these are different.” I removed the rest of them and set them on the other side of the desk.
Wilchinski picked up one and whistled. “Well, I’ll be damned. Now I’m totally confused.”
“What’s in those files, Heath?”
“Color photographs of posed young women, many scantily clad or nude, and it looks like they were taken right back here in his makeshift studio, in front of those red velvet drapes.”
“Golly,” Alan said, blushing a bit.
“I don’t get it, Barrington, why would a pansy also take girlie pictures?” Wilchinski asked.
I ignored him once more for the moment and started going through the files. “This folder’s empty, curious. Between Ginger Doud and Alice Dove there’s just an empty folder with no file in it.” I continued scanning the contents until I came to one file in particular with a name on it I recognized. “This one is labeled ‘Gloria Eye, Sept. 10, 1943.’” I flipped it open, and I must say I blushed a bit myself. “The photos of her are revealing, to say the least, taken four years ago. She was a brunette back then.” I set it back down on the desk and Wilchinski quickly picked it up.
He whistled again. He really was annoying. “Well, what do you know?”
“As you said earlier, Wilchinski, guys like Mr. Blount can surprise you,” I said.
“No kidding,” Alan said.
“Still think it was a random burglar, Wilchinski?” I asked, looking at him.
He scowled. “So you proved he was a pervert. That still doesn’t mean he was murdered because he took some hidden pictures and movies.”
“Maybe someone found out what he was doing, and they killed him,” Alan suggested.
“I know I would have,” Wilchinski replied.
I glanced over at the detective. “Nice.”
“But I still don’t get the girlie pics,” Wilchinski added. “Even pansies can go the other direction sometimes, I guess.”
“Actually, I’d say the hidden pictures and movies of men were indeed for his own entertainment, but the photographs of scantily clad young women I bet he took to sell to David Greene. Look, there’s a copy of the magazine here.”
I picked up a thin tabloid magazine in the file case, the cover emblazoned with a redheaded girl on a bearskin rug.
“Let me see that,” Wilchinski said, grabbing it out of my hands. He flipped through the pages attentively.
“Do you want to take that home for further study, Detective, or do you already have that issue?” I asked.
“Ha, ha, funny guy.” He handed it back to me, and I scanned the pages, stopping halfway through. “Look at the girls on these two pages. Doesn’t that backdrop look just like the one over there?” I asked, showing both Wilchinski and Alan the photos in the magazine.
“It does, Heath. Those pictures were taken right here.”
Wilchinski squinted. “Eh, that’s a black-and-white photo, and the backdrop is just curtains, could have been taken anywhere.”
I shook my head. “But the curtain on the left has a dark spot on it, and so does the one hanging back there.” Both of them looked at the red drapes hanging behind the platform.
“You’re right.”
“So what?” Wilchinski said.
I set the magazine on the desk next to the files I had removed and examined the case more closely now that it was empty. “There’s a false bottom in this file case, I think.” Using my fingertips, I lifted it out carefully. Inside the false bottom were more folders and small movie reels.
“Wow, there’s more?” Alan said.
I removed them and glanced at a few. I felt myself blush.
“What’s the matter, Barrington? More nude girls?”
“Not quite. Rather graphic, candid photographs of men.”
“We saw those already,” Wilchinski said. “The first ones you took out of the case.”
I shook my head. “No, these are different. They weren’t taken in a dressing room, that’s for sure. The men in these photos all appear to be engaging in various sexual activities with other men and women, all of them undressed. Each folder is labeled with a man’s name, address, and a date.” I handed a few of them to Wilchinski and Alan.
Wilchinski glanced at one and then threw it down on the pile in disgust. “Vile.”
“Jeepers, where were these taken?”
I glanced over at Alan, who was staring at some of the photos wide-eyed. “My guess would be a cheap hotel or rooming house. It looks kind of seedy. The men, I imagine, are or were clients of Mr. Blount’s. Look here. This movie reel has the name G. Bennett on it. There’s a folder of pictures of him, too.”
“Mr. Bennett? Golly, you think he knew about that?”
“Yes, but not at the time it was being taken. I suspect this and the photographs were taken through a two-way mirror, similar to the set-up he had back here in the dressing room.”
“Who’s this Bennett fellow?” Wilchinski asked.
“A man we met the other night and a client of Blount’s. He’s an assistant manager here at the hotel. I can imagine something like this would be ruinous for him were it to get out.”
“Interesting. This Blount was more than a pervert and a pansy. He was a real son of a bitch,” Wilchinski said, making no attempt to hide his disapproval.
“He was certainly crafty and cunning,” I replied. “He may have taken the initial pictures for his personal pleasure, like the dressing room ones, but then discovered he could make money by blackmailing some of these men. The wealthy, married, or influential ones, anyway.”
“Like Mr. Bennett,” Alan said.
“Yes.”
Wilchinski looked skeptical. “What makes you say he was blackmailing them?”
“Diversification. Mr. Blount had expensive tastes, more than he could afford from just his earnings at his little shop, I would say. He drove a fancy new car, lived in an expensive neighborhood in a ritzy apartment building, had a pricey watch and a gold lighter and cigarette case, among other things. So he sold pictures of girls to pin-up magazines and offered the girls’ services to lonely businessmen.”
“Still doesn’t mean he was blackmailing people, Barrington. Maybe he made enough money off the girlie pics and he took all those other pictures and movies for his personal sick pleasure.”
“Maybe, but I doubt it, Wilchinski. The hidden camera in his dressing room was most likely just for his own pleasure. But then he realized his store wasn’t making enough money and he needed to earn some extra cash. With his interest in photography, he decides to set up a makeshift studio back here and he maybe puts an ad in the paper offering his photography services for a small fee. Pretty young girls answer, hoping to break into show business, get their pictures taken. Step one, a new side business is born.”
“Okay, then what?” he asked, wiping the back of his neck with his handkerchief.
“Then he finds some of the girls are willing to pose scantily dressed, and he connects with the girlie magazine editor, who probably was a client of the shop, like you said earlier, Wilchinski.”
“So step two, he sells the girlie pictures to the editor, maybe giving the girls a small percentage,” Alan said.
I nodded. “Very good, Alan. And a second side business comes into being.”
“Is there a step three?” Wilchinski asked, putting his handkerchief back into his pocket.
I nodded. “Indeed. He realizes he gets a lot of lonely businessmen in his store. He approaches a couple of the girls and asks if they want to make some fast cash, and boom.”
“Yeah, yeah, all of a sudden he’s got a third side business.”
“Exactly. And he’s suddenly making some money, using his shop as cover. But then he figures out that some of these lonely businessmen have a lot of money. He has their names and home addresses from checks and bills of sale, and he figures if he takes hidden pictures of these men in the act with these young women, he can blackmail them for some tidy sums. His final side business, and probably his most profitable.”
“You seem to be reading an awful lot into a few photographs and movie reels, Barrington.”
“Not just the photographs, Wilchinski. I’ve also noticed in my interactions with him and people who know him that certain people didn’t care for him much, and I’d say they had good reason if he was blackmailing them.”
“Reason enough to kill him?” Alan asked.
“It could be reason enough for some people.”
“Who are these certain people?” Wilchinski asked. “This G. Bennett fellow?”
“George Bennett. That’s definitely one, yes.”
“That’s the one whose name was on one of these movie reels,” Wilchinski said.
“Correct. Also Miss Gloria Eye, the same one of the photographs, and her fiancé Walter Gillingham, the trumpet player I mentioned earlier. And then there’s Mrs. Gittings, whom I also mentioned before. She used to work for him and felt he was an evil man.”
Wilchinski had taken out his notebook and was jotting down the information as I gave it to him. “I’d say she was right.” He picked up Gloria’s folder and glanced at it again, whistling. “I think I should have a personal word with this Miss Eye, in private.”
I shook my head. “You’ll find you’re up against a tiger if you do. She’s not the same, innocent, cow-eyed girl in those pictures. She’s tough as nails.”
“Well, maybe I’m a hammer,” he said.
“Don’t flatter yourself, Wilchinski,” I said.
He dropped the folder back onto the desk. “Eh, there’s no point in talking to any of them anyway.”
“Why not?” I asked.
“This Blount guy was a pervert and a pansy, and he’s dead. Case closed.”
I bristled once again. “So because he was a pervert and a pansy, as you say, you don’t care who killed him?”
“I know who killed him.”
“Who?” Alan asked.
“An unknown street thug.”
I rolled my eyes. “Seriously? That’s your final word on it?”
He glanced at his watch. “I have bigger cases to work on, so yeah, that’s my final word on it.”
“What about all this?” I asked, motioning to the pile of folders and movie reels. “And the bloody ‘W’? The spool of thread? The burned remains in the bathroom sink?”
He laughed. “You have a wild imagination, I’ll give you that. You find some overcharged customers, a hidden camera, some pictures and movie reels, and suddenly you’ve got this pervert running prostitution rings, selling nudie pics, and blackmailing people. Maybe that bloody ‘W’ was for ‘weirdo,’ which is what this guy obviously was.”
I sighed. “Before you knew he was a pansy, as you call him, you were open to suspects, motives, and clues, all of which I have since provided. Now because you find out he’s queer, you’re writing up his murder to an unknown street thug?”
“Fine, Barrington. Pack up all your so-called evidence back into that case and give it to me. I’ll take it all downtown and have it logged and documented.”
I started tossing the material back into the case angrily. “Logged and documented? Really? More likely you’re going to take this downtown and lock yourself in the men’s room with it, aren’t you? You don’t care about this case.”
“Shut the hell up, Barrington. I told you before this isn’t your case, not your jurisdiction. You got it?”
I closed the case and slid it over to him. “I got it. Loud and clear.”
“Good. Because there’s no point in questioning the suspects you mentioned. Why waste the taxpayers’ money? From the looks of what we found here today, Blount was a pervert, like I said, and a real sick one, so no loss to the community.”
“Blount certainly was not without his faults, Wilchinski, to put it mildly. I think he was a Peeping Tom, a blackmailer, an extortionist, a pimp, and God knows what else, but he was also a human being.”
Wilchinski shrugged. “Maybe so, but a lousy human being. I’m a father of two girls, Barrington. I wouldn’t want a creep like that on the loose, and I can’t say I’m not glad he’s gone. Just goes to show you, even the normal-seeming ones working in stores, selling you shirts and underwear, can be perverts.”
“Even cops, I imagine,” I said.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” he growled.
“Just that no one really knows what’s beneath the surface of anyone. People are like icebergs, Wilchinski. They can be all cool and seemingly harmless on the surface, but beneath the water, there is a whole lot more, and sometimes that whole lot more is dangerous. We just never know, and it applies to everyone, fathers, mothers, sons and daughters, cops, shopkeepers, priests, innkeepers, everyone.”
“No cop I know is a pervert or a pansy, Barrington, unless you’re trying to tell me something about yourself or your friend here.”
“You’re missing the point, Wilchinski. No cop you’re aware of, but that’s not to say they aren’t.”
“You go to hell.”
“Have it your way. Live your life with blinders on. I’m finished here, I can see that.”
“Good. Some of us have real police work to do.”
“You’re right about that, some of us do,” I said.
“Screw you, Barrington, and your buddy, too. Don’t leave town without checking in.” He picked up the case and walked to the alley door without another word, flicking off the lights as he yanked it open. We followed behind, stepping out into the alley. When we were out, Wilchinski turned and locked it up once more. “You can waste your vacation chasing phantom suspects if you want, but I say this case is closed.” He stopped just long enough to set the case down and light a cigarette, then he picked the case up once more and threw it in the back seat of his car.
He opened the driver’s side door and looked back at me and Alan still standing by the shop door, our hats now pulled back down. “Take my advice, Barrington. Forget about Blount and his little perversions. Go find some of those nice Chicago girls and have a good time. Then go back to Milwaukee and play cop on your own time on your own turf.” He climbed in behind the wheel, slammed the door, started the engine, and roared past us down the alley, leaving us in a cloud of dust.
“Jeepers, he sure turned out to be a jerk.”
“I’d say he has issues of his own. Possibly the whole subscription.”
“He’s not even going to bother questioning anybody.”
I shook my head. “It doesn’t sound like it. I’m sure he’ll file a report for his chief that it was a robbery gone bad, and that will be the end of it.”
“Wowzer.”
“Indeed.” I turned and looked at him. “You don’t think I’m reading too much into all this, do you?”
He paused a moment before replying, and I held my breath, wondering what he was going to say. Finally, he said, “I trust your instincts, Heath. I think your idea of what Mr. Blount was up to is right, and I think the bloody ‘W’ and spool of thread have to mean something. So, no, I don’t think you’re reading too much into it at all.”
I released my breath. “Thanks. I wonder myself if I’m getting carried away sometimes, you know?”
“You’re on the right track, I can feel it. So now what?”
“Regardless of his advice, I think we should play cop right here in Chicago and see what we can find out on our own about our four suspects.”
“But we don’t have any authority to question anybody.”
“No one says we can’t have a friendly conversation or two. Let’s go see if Mr. Bennett is around.”
“All right, Heath. You’re the boss.”
I grinned and slapped him on the shoulder. “Partner, remember?”