“I’m glad you said
seem.”
She ignored my remark. “Apparently the victim was mistaken for you and horribly brutalized. If that was an act of vengeance, the killer certainly must have had a reason.”
“Miss Amory,” I said, “I’m glad you didn’t read me my rights.”
“You’re not being arrested, Mr. Hammer.”
“This is a direct interrogation, you know.”
“Quite so. And you are a licensed private investigator under the laws of New York State, with a permit to carry a weapon and expected to be in full compliance with the laws and statutes of this state and to cooperate fully in assisting in their enforcement.”
There was nothing I had to crawl out from under, so I smiled that little smile again. “What can I tell you?”
“The note has reference to you killing somebody,” she said.
“The note has reference to me killing the killer,” I reminded her.
“And that is the enigma,” Coleman put in. His finger underlined the capitalized YOU DIE FOR KILLING ME.
So far Pat had said nothing. He was letting me carry the ball. “Mr. Coleman ... I’ve never been indicted for murder. Nor for a felony. What you seem to have here is some psycho who decided to crash my place to pull a wild stunt off.”
“We understand you never go to the office on Saturdays.”
“Rarely,” I said.
“You had an appointment with a person you never met.”
“Most of my business is like that.”
“Your secretary didn’t give you any indication of what the meeting was about,” he stated.
“In my business, clients aren’t interested in stating their affairs to secretaries. I’m the prime mover.”
He stared at me a long moment, then: “The entire charade, it seems, was to set you up to be killed. That it was circumvented is not what we’re after. It is why it happened at all. The killer apparently blames you for killing someone.”
“And if he went to such lengths to avenge it, then it must have happened?” I waited. Nobody said anything. I added, “Your enigma is a beaut. He left the office alive with an accusation of having already been killed.”
“Who is Penta?” Candace Amory asked.
But I was ready for that one too. “Why ask it of a dead man?”
“Because that note was written to be read by a man who wasn’t dead yet. He was making sure the victim knew why he was dying and who was doing the killing. If he thought it was you he was murdering then he knew you would recognize the name before you died.”
“Clever thinking, ma‘am, very clever. It could be possible, but unfortunately it isn’t. Now I want to tell you something right now. If I had any information at all on this matter I would have given it to Pat on the scene last night. We have a fluke going here and I don’t know where or how, but damn it, I’m involved now. I’m sure as hell involved. When he put Velda down I was in and I’m going to stay in until that fucking psycho gets nailed to the wall. Sorry about the language, lady, but that’s what it’s all about.”
With a beautifully modulated tone of voice she said, “You’ll do nothing of the fucking kind, Mr. Hammer. You stay completely away from this matter or your license will be revoked immediately. Pardon the language, please.”
“The ball’s in your court,” I said sarcastically.
“Yes, I know. And if I were you, I’d reflect a little on the origin of this name Penta. As a matter of fact, I think I’d reflect for no longer than one more day before you have a letter from the Bureau of Licenses.” She stood up and looked down at me. “Clear?”
I stood up slowly and she wasn’t looking down at me any more. She was tall, but not that tall. “Very clear,” I said.
When they walked out of the room Pat let out a short laugh. “She really dumped one on you.” He laughed again. “She really doesn’t know you very well, does she?”
“Hell, can’t she read the papers?” I kicked the chair out and sat down again. “What did your guys find in my office?”
“Nothing.”
“Just like that? Nothing?”
“You and Velda laid down most of the prints, some came from the cleaning lady and a couple others seemed to have come from the dead guy. Our killer left smudges, so he was wearing gloves, and not the surgical kind that can transfer prints to surfaces on occasion. The adhesive tape was the kind you buy in any drugstore. He used two full spools of two-inch-wide stuff and took the spools with him.”
“They vacuumed, didn’t they?”
“And that’s tedious lab work. A couple days and we’ll see what they picked up.”
“Didn’t anything turn up on the Penta ID?”
Pat gave me an annoyed scowl and shook his head. “That went out on the wires first thing. Washington, Interpol ... they’ve all been notified. Trouble is, it’s the weekend. Everybody takes off the weekend and some overworked clerk has got everything backed up.” He sat back, stretched and said, “What are you planning to tell the Ice Lady?”
“To go piss up a stick.”
“Give her Penta instead. She’ll love you for it.”
“I can do without that. Who is she, anyway?”
Pat got up and poured himself a cup of coffee. He dropped in a couple of Sweet ‘n’ Lows, sipped it and said, “Somebody the DA has been keeping under wraps. She was the tactician on the two major cases that jumped him into the office last year. Suddenly she wants into field work and you drew her, buddy.”
“Great.”
“Don’t try screwing with her brain. She’s a real whiz kid.”
“Not if she tried pulling a stupid bluff on me. Who the hell does she think I am, some kid with a new ticket?”
“Believe me,” Pat said, she’s got something going for her. I’d cover my ass if I were you.“
The big clock on the wall read ten twenty-five and I reset my watch. I told Pat I had some things to do and would call in later. He damn well knew what I had in mind and just said so long.
Weekends are the odd times when the regular shift of office maintenance personnel is off and the occasional help comes on. Some are the steadies picking up a few extra bucks, a few are retirees bolstering their pensions and Social Security, and most of them I knew over the years. They were on yesterday and they were on today. The guard in the lobby was an old-timer who let me know the cops had spoken to everyone on the job yesterday and from what he could find out, nobody had anything to offer. Saturday had been a quiet day and, as always, there had been strangers in the building, but that was common and nobody seemed to have stood out from the rest.
I went in the office and Nat Drutman, the building manager, gave me a typed list of the help. “You had some reporters looking for you earlier,” he told me.
“Let them in?”
“Temptation almost got me. One guy offered me five bills for a couple of photos.”
“What kept you back?”
“Man, the place was still wet from the cleaning. That carpet is going to have to come up.”
“They still around?”
“As of an hour ago they were.”
“I’ll keep my eyes open.”
“Why don’t you check your office? Those guys’ll do anything for a photo.”
There were four on the list that could possibly have seen someone going to my office. Unfortunately, the first two hadn’t seen anything and like they said, “We wouldn‘a told dem cops nothing anyway, Mike. To you we’d say. To them, nuts.”
It was the third name that came up with something curious. Her name was Maria Escalante. She changed the sand in the ashtrays at the elevator banks and she was new in the building. I found her dusting the blinds at the far end of the third floor and said, “Miss Escalante?”
She turned, saw me and stiffened. “I have a green card,” she said almost defiantly. “I told the others, I have a green card.” She reached under her sweater and pulled out a wallet, thumbing its contents. “Look,” she told me. “I show it to you.” Her Mexican accent was thick.
“That’s all right, lady, I believe you.”
She tightened up at that. “You are a policeman?” I rarely ever did it, but I popped my own wallet open to my license. It looked pretty damn official. She shook her head. It wasn’t enough.
“Let me see your
pistola.”
That she could understand. I wondered what part of Mexico she came from. I opened my coat and let her see the .45 in the speed rig on my left side.
“Sí.
I believe. My name is Maria Escalante and I live at ...”
I waved her off. “I don’t need that, Maria.”
“I tell the other policemen I don’t see nothing. They want to know about the trouble on the floor ocho ... floor eight. I—”
“Maria ...” I reached out and took her hand and she was shaking. “They scare you about your green card?”
Immediately her mouth tightened and she held back the tears. “One said ... he could take it ... that maybe it was no good ...”
“Is it good?”
“Yes. After the amnesty I get it. I am legal now. I am going to be a US citizen.”
“He couldn’t take it. He was just trying to shake something out of you, understand?” After a moment she frowned, then bobbed her head. “Where were you yesterday?” I asked.
“From the bottom to floor number ... five. I did the ashtrays. I ran the sweeper.”
“Many people?”
“Some. Mostly it was a day off.”
“You know them?”
She nodded again. “They come in, they leave, nobody stay after noontime. Maybe four people.”
“Think about ten o‘clock. You see anybody then?”
“Who you want me to see?”
I let go her hand. “Beats me. I wish I could answer that.”
“One walker is all.”
“What’s a walker?”
“He comes up the stairs. He walks. The elevator is downstairs a long time, but he walks. He come to floor five and he keeps walking up.”
“What time?”
“Just before my break. I go for coffee at ten.” I motioned with my hands, trying to draw some information out of her. “What was he like?”
All I got was a noncommittal shrug.
“Think.”
She looked up at the ceiling a few seconds. “He was a big man. He wore a hat.” I waited. She shook her head. There was nothing more to add.
“He see you?”
“I did not see his face so he did not see my face,” she stated flatly.
“Very big?” I asked her. “Middle-size big?”
She shrugged again. “He wore a coat. Like for the rain.”
Like he could put on after a kill to cover up any bloodstains.
“He carry anything?”
Another shrug.
“Did you mention any of this to the other policemen?”
A flash of fear touched her eyes again. “I ... they made me afraid and I could not think to tell them. Do you think they will ...” “Forget it, Maria. You have nothing to worry about at all. Just be a good US citizen, okay?”
I got a little smile then.
“Sí,
si, very okay,” she said.
And now I had a walker. He was big. He wore a raincoat and a hat. There would be a thousand other guys just a few blocks away who could answer that description, but at least it was a start.
There was more that went with the description. He carried some kind of a billy club, but most likely a straight professional blackjack. He had a knife that was honed razor-sharp. It would have to be functional, small enough to carry discreetly, big enough to work efficiently. It could be single- or multi-bladed. I elected for a standard brand-name pocketknife with a four-inch main blade with a possible smaller one opposing. He could have a gun, but guys who prefer steel don’t seem to use guns.
That took care of the weaponry.
His personal profile was pretty damn shaggy. He had no compunction about taking out a woman. He felt no revulsion about torturing a victim. He could kill with absolute ease and apparently took a great deal of satisfaction from a grotesque act of murder. He was a deliberate killer and seemed to be acting as an avenger of sorts.
Fear wasn’t in his makeup either. He came at me knowing I could put a gun in my hand pretty quickly and would have used it just as fast, but it was his expertise against mine and he was counting on his own.
But he was a dumb son of a bitch because he killed the wrong guy. And if he wasn’t so dumb he’d know that and come back to have another try at me.
And this time I’d have a little avenging going for me too.
Somebody who was very good had gotten into my office. A pick had been used on the lock and the place had been thoroughly searched. The desk drawers had been pulled open, and only shut to get at the ones beneath. Both closet doors swung wide and the filing cabinets had the drawers completely removed and set on the floor. There was no ransacking, simply a fast search job for something big enough to be seen easily.
I put everything back the way it was, not concerned about disturbing prints. Anybody clever enough to come in with picklocks would have been enough of a pro to wear plastic gloves.
I had to make five calls before I located Petey Benson in the Olde English Tavern on Third Avenue. Ever since he had been on a special assignment covering a serial killer case in London he had shepherd’s pie on Sunday. He was alone, the remains of his dinner pushed aside, and he was finishing the paper with a stein of beer in his hand.
“Now you show up,” he said. “Read the paper yet?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Who’s sitting on the story? All we got were official handouts.”
“There’s a loco loose, Petey. They’re playing this one cool.”
“Bullshit. What’s the story? They said Velda was sapped and there was a killing in your office.”
“That’s the story. Hell, I came in after it was all over.”
“Come on, don’t hand me that baloney. A crack-pot killing doesn’t mean much, but doing it in your office does.”
“All I can figure is, some gonzo came in out of the rain with a big mad on at something he thought I did and went after a guy who happened to be in my office at the wrong time. He made a messy job of it and got out without being seen.”