Carefully, I closed the cover and undid the metal clamp that bound the sheets through holes punched in the margins. Then I removed page three and laid it next to the others. While the holes in these pages showed the natural wear incurred by something round impaled by something flat and carried around for a while, the holes on the sheet in question were sharp and new.
For no reason other than to gain time to think, I put the whole thing back together and set it aside and sat staring across at this month’s calendar shot of a tall blonde caught bathing under a waterfall. For once I wasn’t looking at her. I was thinking about Jack Billings and what reasons he might have for replacing a page of the report. Then I stopped thinking and dialed the DeLancey house. The maid answered.
“Hello, Carmen, this is Amos Walker. I was there earlier. Is Mr. Billings in?”
She answered without hesitation. “I am sorry, Mr. Walker, but Mr. Billings left a few minutes ago for the airport. He is going on vacation.”
“Going on vacation where?” We both answered in unison: “Hawaii.”
I thanked her and hung up. My hand was still on the receiver when the door opened and Lieutenant Fitzroy came in, followed closely by Sergeant Cranmer. They looked unhappy.
“W
ELL,”
I
GREETED,
casually scooping the Reliance report into the top drawer and pushing it shut, “if it isn’t Cheech and Chong. Which one gets the straight lines today?”
“What a dump.” Cranmer, bareheaded, his color grayer and looking more unhealthy than ever against the bright plaid of his sports jacket, dragged runny eyes over the bubbled wallpaper, the weary customer’s chair, the flies trapped in the ceiling fixture.
I said, “Bette Davis. Now do a hard one.”
Fitzroy, everybody’s favorite uncle, smiled sadly. He was wearing a green suit today, with a polka-dot tie and his narrow-brimmed hat. There would be poems about that hat on the men’s room walls at police headquarters. “You’re funny,” he said. “Like a leak in an oxygen tent you’re funny.”
Policemen’s patter. It doesn’t change from year to year, and though it darkens with age it never shows wear, like government green or the linoleum in a third-floor back apartment. It was old stuff when some dick used it in Plato’s time, but every cop who employs it acts as if he wrote it that morning. He expects applause and when he doesn’t get it he tends to get mean. A mean cop is not a pretty sight any time of the day. In the morning it’s worse. I smiled engagingly.
“What brings you to poverty row?”
“So witty after such a busy day and morning.” Fitzroy lowered himself into the customer’s chair and placed his hat on the edge of the desk. His hair looked indecently yellow in the morning glare streaking in through the window. I got up, drew the blinds, and resumed my seat. His bright little eyes followed every movement. “I thought you might want to rest after spending the last twenty-four hours hotfooting it ahead of the hounds.”
“Come on, Fitz,” I said. “We’re old friends now. You don’t have to be coy with me. You’re upset about something.”
He rose and with one arm swept everything off my desk. The lamp, the blotter, the pen set that hadn’t worked in two years, the unpaid bills, the telephone, his hat—everything went crashing to the floor. The bulb in the lamp blew with a report like a pistol shot. Even Cranmer jumped.
“Jesus,” said the sergeant.
“I’m Fitz to my friends and other cops.” His partner was leaning over the desk with his fingers curled under the edge. He wasn’t shouting—his smile hadn’t even faltered - but in the silence that slammed down on top of the sudden din he might as well have bellowed. “To you I’m Lieutenant Fitzroy.”
I got up and gathered the stuff from the floor and put it back where it belonged. I even retrieved his hat and set it where he had set it. Before replacing the receiver on the telephone I listened to see if it was still working. It was. If General Motors built their cars with what Ma Bell puts into her instruments there wouldn’t be a body shop left in business. I resumed my seat.
“That’ll be a buck for the lightbulb,” I said quietly. “Edison doesn’t give them away anymore.”
Cranmer, over his shock now, sneered. “Hell, you’re not so tough.”
I ignored him, watching Fitzroy. “Just because I don’t dump my clients’ money into plastic plants and a blonde in the front office with calluses on her back doesn’t mean the place is condemned. Pay up or get out. I’ll take the sight of your fat butt waddling through that door in trade.”
The sergeant stepped forward, drawing his head down between hunched shoulders. “Just say ’sic ’em, Lieutenant. We can tell the skipper he fell downstairs.”
His partner was still watching me, still smiling. It could mean anything. In his position he could reach me easily with one of his small, hard fists or dump the desk over on top of me. I braced myself to meet his move, whichever it turned out to be. Outside the seasons went on changing.
He said, “Give him a buck.”
Cranmer’s jaw met the floor with a clunk. He turned to gape at his superior.
“Go on, toss him a one-spot. I guess that’s his price today.” Fitzroy’s eyes never left mine. They were kind eyes, humorous eyes. Like Janet Whiting, he had been put together by partners who never spoke to each other.
“Not mine,” I said. “Edison’s.”
Painfully, like a professional virgin saying yes, the sergeant hauled a tattered leather billfold from his hip pocket, peeled it open, and thumbed through some bills inside. There were a couple of crisp singles that hadn’t been in circulation long, but he went past them and settled on a fuzzy one that someone had used to mop out a grease pit. He flung it down on the desk, from where Washington’s dirty face leered up at me like a syphilitic degenerate. I pushed the eraser end of a fresh pencil under the crease, lifted it, and draped it over the telephone.
“I’ll spray it later.”
He growled and started around the desk. I rose to meet him.
I said, “Let’s do it. Two moves, maybe three, and you’ll be a detour in the street. I’ve had three years of martial arts training courtesy of Uncle Sam and he’s been waiting eight years to get his money’s worth.”
He blinked stupidly. Then he smirked and continued coming. I readied myself. In another moment I was going to rupture him. How long his partner would let me live after I had was immaterial. It was going to be worth it.
“Down, Prince,” Fitzroy said. “Anyone can see you eat nails and wash them down with battery acid.”
“You heard him asking for it, Lieutenant. That jujitsu crap don’t scare me.”
“Nothing scares you, does it, Roy? Except maybe me.”
There had been no threat in his tone, just straightforward logic. Yet the sergeant’s gray face went ashen, and he resumed his former position on the other side of the desk. I made a mental note to ask John Alderdyce about those two the next time I saw him.
“You too, op,” said the lieutenant. “Looking up at you puts a crick in my neck.”
I decided not to tell him where he gave me a pain. “I’ll sit if you will.”
We sat. Our relationship got more juvenile every time we met. Pretty soon we’d be scraping lines in the dirt with our shoes and daring each other to step across them. I lit a cigarette and flipped the match into the ashtray with a picture of Grand Traverse Bay in its base and waited for him to begin. I didn’t wait long.
“We picked up Franklin Detwiler at Metro. I guess you know who he is.”
I said I’d heard the name. He was plucking at something on the knee of his trousers and looking at it. I leaned forward to see past the edge of the desk. There was nothing on the knee of his trousers.
“He told us he’d been paid by Phil Montana to let Bingo Jefferson fill in for him at The Crescent, and that after Jefferson was iced Montana paid him again to blow. We also talked to his girlfriend, Coral Anthony. She told us you’d been to her apartment and talked to her. We went over and talked to Phil Montana. He told us you’d been to his office and talked to him. We got the squeal on a shooting at The Crescent. Krim wasn’t in any shape to talk to anyone ever again, but the janitor told us you’d been there and talked to
him.
Just now we called Leola DeLancey and she told us you’d been out to her place and talked to her. I figured maybe we could save the trip to Grosse Pointe by coming here and talking to you. If you don’t have laryngitis from all that talking.” He looked up at me through his pale eyelashes. He was as coy as an avalanche.
“You’d be missing a lot,” I said. “It’s a nice day and the view of the lake is a honey.”
“Does that mean you aren’t going to tell us what you found out?”
“I couldn’t tell you anything that you don’t already know, or couldn’t learn at the library. You’ve spoken with Montana. He gave you what he gave me or you wouldn’t have known about DeLancey. Mrs. DeLancey said her husband was having tax trouble at the time of his death. She said his mistress was screwing up their attempt to have the old man declared legally dead by claiming the existence of a later will naming her as chief beneficiary. Her son, Jack Billings, told me that Montana and his stepfather broke up over a bad stock tip on DeLancey’s part. Something called Griffin Carbide that dropped out of sight faster than the Susan B. Anthony dollar. I have no idea where that fits in or even if it does, but it’s yours for nothing. That’s the kaboodle.”
“You’re forgetting something. A ring.”
“I didn’t forget it. I left it out because I didn’t think you came here for a crash course in deductive reasoning. The ring’s what led me to Phil Montana, who set me straight on Ann Maringer’s real identity. You’ve got that.”
He was looking at me squarely now, no false modesty, no picking at nonexistent imperfections in his clothing. His smile broadened. He and Leola DeLancey would like each other. “I’m kind of peculiar,” he said. “I don’t like the
Reader’s Digest
version of anything. I like unabridged stuff. Let’s see the sparkler.”
I produced the box and opened it for his edification. Cranmer moved in for a closer look. When he reached for it I slapped the back of his big hairy-knuckled hand. He withdrew it, snarling.
“We’ll just take that,” said Fitzroy.
“Not without a warrant.” I tapped the lid back on and returned the box to my pocket.
“I don’t see how you’ve stayed in the game this long, the way you cooperate.” It was the first time he’d seemed human since he cleared my desk. I disliked him a little less this way. Nevertheless I got mad.
“When is your kind of cop going to learn that cooperation doesn’t come free? Don’t look so damned snide; I’m talking about courtesy, not graft. I could maybe forgive what happened yesterday morning at headquarters. You had a murder on your hands and I was the most likely suspect. But you can’t barge into a man’s place of work and do a bad impression of Barton MacLane from an old Bogart flick and expect him to fall all over himself making your job easy. You want something, do it by the book.”
He listened without interrupting. Then: “I suppose the same goes for whatever that was you ditched in your desk drawer when we walked in.”
“The same,” I acknowledged. “You can take your suspicions over to the Frank Murphy Hall of Justice and convince the judge it wasn’t this month’s
Field and Stream
and come back with a warrant.”
“We can pull you in on suspicion of murder. Krim’s murder this time.”
“Warrant.”
“We can put you in custody as a material witness.”
“Warrant.”
“We can arrest you for obstruction of justice, which in this state can tie you up in the courts longer than a homicide rap.” I started to open my mouth. “Don’t say it!” Color bled into his cheeks. “There’s one thing I don’t need a warrant for, and that’s yanking your ticket to practice. I’ve got friends on the State Police.”
“I’ll get a hearing, and the board will want to know why you parked Krim’s murder around the corner. Why did you, by the way?”
He stood and looked down at me. I hoped that didn’t hurt his neck. “I could have put out an APB on you, had you in the cage by this morning,” he said. “I didn’t, because I wanted whoever knocked down the Arab and made it look like robbery to think we’d bought the scenario. I’ve been a cop for sixteen years and I know a big case when I’m involved in one, and this one’s so big I can’t see around it. Phil Montana’s mixed up in it somewhere and so is Mrs. DeLancey, and your client’s smack in the middle of it. And you know where that puts you.”
“Right at the top of your S-list,” I responded.
“Not just mine. Your friend Montana makes out like he’s the Lone Ranger and the Scarlet Pimpernel rolled into one, but you know and I know that while he was in the slam the boys with Italian names and monogrammed violin cases got their hooks into United Steelhaulers but good. They don’t like publicity. Joe Columbo liked publicity. He liked big crowds and applause and microphones and TV cameras and his picture on the front page. He got lead in the head and a speaking acquaintance with a turnip.” He picked up his hat from the desk. “Be smart, Walker. Don’t tell the big mean cops nothing on account of they spilled your dominoes. I’ll come visit you someday in the produce section of the supermarket.”
“Nice to see they’re zipping up your dialogue,” I commented. “I suppose the next we can expect is a funny neighbor. Maybe you’ll get picked up for another thirteen weeks.”
“I’m laughing. You better hope the button men they send after you have my sense of humor.” He pulled on his hat and went out through the open door. He walked with a peculiar skip that blew a hole in his huff. Cranmer hung back.
“Next time maybe he won’t be there to interrupt us,” he said quietly. I told him to go eat a Buick.
After he had gone I finished my cigarette. Then I got up and went through the outer office and stuck my head out and looked up and down the hall. Cops set a lot of store by eavesdropping. When I was sure they had taken the stairs I closed and locked the outer door from the inside and went back into my private office and sat down behind the desk and opened the deep drawer.
I wasn’t after the bottle. I forget how exactly, but sometime within the past couple of years I had acquired a directory of Michigan newspapers. It almost never came in handy, but I can never bring myself to throw anything away. I lifted the three-inch-thick volume onto the desk, waited for the dust to settle, and began paging through it swiftly.