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If Nico Caras had anyone looking for me today, they’d have an easier time spotting my car than they would me, I reasoned, so I walked. I walked with my eyes peeled for a tagalong, afoot or awheel, and for vacant buildings where a man who didn’t want to be there could be stashed for a week.
Once Barney mentioned the blue scarf, I’d had no doubt the duo who’d been meeting in his pub were the same ones who’d tried to make off with Eve Tremain. Further questioning of the barman confirmed it. The one in the blue scarf had “bad teeth” he said. When I pressed him, he mentioned the gap, and the fact one eye tooth stopped halfway above its neighbors. Amazing how when you’re being shot at, you miss such details.
The way I’d pieced things together, the two of them meeting but one of them leaving almost immediately indicated a shift change. One was coming and one was going and I’d bet my bottom dollar they were taking turns guarding Gil Tremain. The spot where they were rendezvousing suggested he couldn’t be too far away. If not in The Pompeii, where Tremain or the thug now wearing his scarf had been, then where?
I worked my way several blocks south of where I’d left Barney and Steve Lapinski, back and forth and then along cross streets. Most places of business were open, though the ones in retail didn’t look very busy. It surprised me to see how few places were vacant when only five or six years ago businesses big and small had been going under. The ones with FOR SALE or FOR RENT signs were small, save one in a building with other tenants. In all of them, a captive man who managed to yell or make some sort of noise would attract attention.
It occurred to me I should have thought to contact the real estate man and ask to see some of the other buildings he’d been so keen to show me. I passed a drugstore and noticed it had a soda counter. Maybe it would have a pay phone too. It did, but when I called the real estate office no one answered. I had a cup of coffee and mince pie to rest my feet, then set out again.
Ten minutes later I was on a stretch of Wayne where people got robbed and assaulted at night and drunks slept off their excesses during the day. The warehouse Barney had mentioned was just on the fringe. It was also farther than I could see anyone walking to meet and pass along information at Barney’s place, especially anyone guarding a prisoner who shouldn’t be left alone too long. For that reason I hadn’t started there. Now I had no other possibilities.
I had my tweed suit on today, and serviceable shoes. Glad both could take dust and a scrape or two squeezing through tight places if they had to, I approached the front door of the two-story warehouse. It had a padlock. A sturdy one that I held little hope would yield to the coaxing of my crochet hook. In any case, I wasn’t keen to stand there on a busy street in broad daylight while I tried. Looking to see if anyone apart from denizens of the area disinterested in legal niceties was taking note of me, I tootled around to the side of the building.
All the downstairs windows and most of those on the top had wood nailed over them, inside or out. Edging along the wall, I tested those that faced the weed-grown parking lot. None gave. The door to a loading bay had a bar welded across it as well as a padlock. I made my way around to the back. Pry marks on both doorframe and hinges at the door there attested to numerous attempts at entry. Some possibly had been successful, judging by the extra locks. If worse came to worse, I’d try to work my way through all of them.
On the last side, however, I spotted a boarded-up window held in place only by two loose nails at the top. Keeping flat to the wall, I got close enough to try it. The bottom edge pulled out a foot, maybe more. I wore a drab little gray beret, handy for when I didn’t want to stand out. I found a piece of broken handle and eased my hat through the opening. Nobody shot at it. Going in blind was risky, but the way I saw it, I had no choice. Smith & Wesson in one hand, I hauled myself over the window ledge into the building.
The stench of the place made me gag. As I struggled for breath, a crouching shape sprang at me, lifting a club. I spun to the side with my .38 leveled.
“Don’tshootdon’tshoot!” a voice whined. The man with the club thrust his hands up, dropping it.
A second voice yelped and someone swayed up to a sitting position.
“Didn’t mean you no harm,” the man moaned. “Oh, please don’t shoot!”
My eyes were getting used to the dim. My nose wasn’t faring as well. The stink of unwashed bodies and human waste was overwhelming. I breathed through my mouth.
“It’s one of those Japs! They’ve bombed here now,” the voice from the floor wailed. A woman’s voice, I was pretty sure. She clutched a blanket to her chin.
The man swayed. The woman did too. They were both drunk as skunks.
“I’m not a Jap,” I said sharply. “And if you stop yelling and answer some questions, I won’t tell the cops about you. Who else is in here?”
“Jis us ‘n Frank, ‘n Leon over there. Leon coughs blood, so best not go near him.”
I made out other shapes now, one a few feet away, another in a distant corner. At least I supposed the shape in the corner was that of another wino like the two I was talking to. When I left home this morning, I hadn’t anticipated breaking into a place floored in grime and curtained in cobwebs, or I might have dressed in something with room for a flashlight. The one I’d tucked into my waistband had gotten lost in my tumble over the windowsill, so for all I knew the shape in the corner could have been a gunny sack or just a shadow.
“Where are the stairs?”
The man pointed.
“Anyone up there?”
He shook his head.
How would he know?
“Did anybody come here with a man who didn’t want to be here? One who was unconscious or tied up?”
Then man’s jaw worked like he was repeating my words to get them up to his brain.
“No.”
“You sleep here most of the time?”
He worked his chin again.
“Mostly. Me and her.”
I sighed. Asking if anybody they didn’t know had come here recently would be pointless. They probably wouldn’t remember me five minutes after I left. I told the man to sit down, that I was just going upstairs.
Halfway up, a cobweb hit me full in the face, persuasive evidence no one had been up or down for a while. I continued anyway, only to find a great empty space not quite as wide as the downstairs. I went back down and made a circuit to make sure I hadn’t missed anything. The duo I’d talked to, after a fashion, were sitting shoulder to shoulder and muttering to each other. I don’t think they even noticed when I squeezed back out over the windowsill.