Homicide at Yuletide Read online

  “I like to know just how criminal my employers are.”

  Mirthlessly he said, “Ha, ha.”

  “Ha,” I said.

  “Boy, you get worse as you get older. Stick around. I’ll see if I can get the arresting officer.”

  I stuck around. I smoked. I blew rings. I looked at pictures of wanted guys tacked onto a bulletin board with rewards under their names. Why do these lads always need a shave? Why are they always ugly? I turned away and shifted the channel to Gene Tiny. I liked that. I went out and stood on the Courthouse steps and watched the rain dribble to a stop. I smelled the clean air, filling my lungs, and then Parker came out with a guy that looked like his lungs were always filled.

  He was a barrel-chested cop in leather puttees and a Sam Browne belt, a motorcycle boy, and he looked as tough as a motorcycle boy is supposed to look. He had a red weather-seamed face, and his eyes looked like they didn’t like me, like they didn’t like anything, except maybe rye whisky with a beer chaser.

  “The star witness,” Parker said.

  “What’s your name?” I asked.

  “What’s it to you?” he answered.

  “Be nice,” Parker said.

  “Yentsayalli.”

  “What?”

  “Call me Yen.”

  I called him Yen.

  “What happened, Yen?”

  He wanted to know when. I said this forenoon. He wanted to know where. I said I didn’t know where. He wanted to know with whom. I said Gene Tiny. He wanted to know why. I said what did he mean, why. He said why was it my business. I said I loved her. He wanted to know, me, and how many others. I said, me, and I didn’t know how many others. He said, “Sucker.”

  “Who ain’t?” I said.

  “I ain’t,” he said.

  “So what happened, for Chrissake?”

  “This happened, for Chrissake. She’s coming down the East Side Highway maybe doing seventy. I’m on her tail, but she’s losing me. I got the wailer wailing, but she’s giving it no good gahddamn. Then bingo, she swerves off the Highway, and before she can really get started again, zip, into this parked Chevvie, and this parked Chevvie, mister, it does a double for an accordion.”

  “She told me she tried to stop for a light.”

  “Maybe she did. But she come to that decision awful sudden. She should have made her mind up maybe fifty feet previous. What’s the difference? I latches on to her, and I get sass, but sass. I like to have busted her one, but I ain’t ever hit no lady, yet, though this one’s certainly begging for it. Then she pulls the switch. Offers me dough. I pull up high, and I look her over, and I disdain her. You know what I mean? I disdain her, but good.”

  Parker said, “All right, stop making a production out of it. What happened after you disdained her, but good?”

  “I ask her for her license. So her license is home. So I commence a lecture, real polite. So what do I get? Sass, I get. I get that she’s in a hurry, and I got no milk of human kindness. Milk of human kindness, and her polluting the air with alcohol fumes, yet. So I waltz her in.”

  “From the way it sounds,” I said to Parker, “there are a good many charges racked against my beloved.”

  “Plenny,” Yen said. “You’re going to be a lonesome guy Waiting for said beloved, take it from me.”

  “Speeding,” Parker said, with grin, “reckless driving, drunken driving, malicious mischief, abusive language, attempted bribery.”

  “How many are going to stand up?”

  “Depends,” Parker said. “I’ll say this much. She’s got a good lawyer.”

  “That’s all she needs.”

  “Why?”

  “Because a good lawyer’ll blow this red-faced bird to heaven on the witness stand—with only the slightest prod of cross-examination.”

  “Red-faced bird, huh?” Yen said. “Blow, huh? I would like to put in here and now that that jane was fried. To the ears.” He came up close to me. “Fried. I will not blow on that.” He floated his eyebrows. “Fried, at twelve-fifteen in the afternoon.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I smelled her.”

  “That the test?”

  “Test enough for me.”

  “See what I mean?” I said to Parker.

  “To me, lover-boy,” Yen said, “you’re fried, too. Simply on the smell. How do you like that?”

  “I love it. That’s the kind of testimony I expect from you.”

  “Wise, huh?”

  “Be nice,” Parker said.

  I said, “All right, Big-badge. It was nice talking to you. I could have lived without it.”

  “Real wise guy, huh?”

  Parker said, “Break it up, kiddies.”

  Yen shoved, flat-hand, and my ribs bent. I coughed, and Parker got between us.

  “A real doll,” I said. “Just the kind I always run up against on the road. Aren’t there any other kind?”

  “Wise guy,” Yen said.

  I tried to get a fist around Parker, but I couldn’t reach. Parker said, “That’s all, Yen. Thanks.”

  “Nice friends you got, Lieutenant.”

  Yen went away on short bowlegs.

  Parker grinned, wide open. “Tangle with the Finest, will you? Like that you’ll join your client in the can.”

  I touched my ribs. “I’ll hurt for a week.”

  “They’re effective, those guys. The new crop is more polite. But old-timers like Yen are good. They keep you in order. You’re right about the witness stand, though. He’ll blow higher than that Chevvie she knocked up. You leaving?”

  “Yep.”

  We walked to where his car was parked by a hydrant.

  “I’m going up,” he said. “Can I give you a lift?”

  “Thanks. I’m going to Thirteenth off Fifth.”

  “Sure thing.”

  We said nothing for a couple of blocks. Then I said, “Where do you fit into this?”

  “No place. I don’t fit.”

  “How come you called me?”

  “I was at Headquarters. Her lawyer got me on the phone, said she wanted a favor. I’ve known her for a couple of years, worked on a few matters that she had an interest in. She always shaped up as a pretty nice girl; Old Man Karken broke her into the business. Anyway—I had a couple of things for Traffic Court that I’d been saving up, so I figured I’d kill a couple of birds with one stone, figured I’d talk to the kid—in person.”

  “You’re a married man. Remember?”

  “Anyway, down here, she told me she needed a recommendation, urgent, and when I mentioned you, she liked it, because she’d heard of you … so you bite my ear off when I call you. Maybe I should have let Yenny-boy paste you one, just for laughs.”

  “When?”

  “When, my good detective—what?”

  “When did that ape bring her in?”

  “Twelve-thirty.”

  I looked at my watch. It was half past two. “Two hours they’ve got that lovely thing cooped in that dirty pen. Just because maybe she had a couple of nibbles. So what’s the big deal? So she ran into a parked car. So what? Everybody’s covered for running into cars. Nobody was hurt. What’s the crime?”

  “Look, I’m Homicide. For me, murder’s a crime. Less than that, it’s out of my province. Province. Good, huh? Province is also a small town—”

  “Hey, we’re passing Thirteenth.”

  He backed up, and turned. “Be a good boy.”

  “Thanks, Louis, for the recommendation.”

  “Merry Christmas.”

  “You too.”

  He dumped me on the corner of Thirteenth and Fifth, waved, and went wrong way up a one-way street.

  Cops.

  2

  I WENT INTO A DRUGSTORE with red crepe Christmas bells dangling in the window. I pushed past a Christmas tree and found the phone books. I checked Barney Bernandino. Barney owned the Kitten House on East Eighty-Ninth. The Kitten House was four stories of modern glass brick with a lavish night club in the
basement and a plush saloon with distressing prices on the main floor. The next three floors, in a perpendicular order, were a private gaming-room in green décor with suave attendants presiding over the enticing attractions of blackjack, roulette, shimmy, and crap; and a private gaming-room in red décor offering the same but at higher minimum stakes, polished, well-mannered and soundproofed; and on top, Barney’s penthouse. Barney’s influence reached out in a compelling triangle, New York to Chicago to Miami, and up along the East Coast back to New York. In the East, a reference to the Syndicate is a reference to Barney Bernandino.

  I dialed and I asked for Barney.

  “One moment, please,” the girl said.

  Then I got a man. “Hello?”

  “Barney?”

  “Who’s calling?”

  “Pete Chambers.”

  “Just a minute.” Then: “Not in.”

  “Hey, hold up.”

  “What?”

  “Change that.”

  “Change what?”

  “Let’s begin again.”

  “Oh, a comic. One of them, huh?”

  “Sheldon Talbot.”

  “Come again?”

  “Tell him.”

  “Tell who?”

  “Tell Barney.”

  “Barney’s not in.”

  “Try, huh? Tell him Sheldon Talbot.”

  I got the numb sound of a palm over the mouthpiece. I waited, warm in the phone booth. Then, a new voice, more polished.

  “Hello, Pete.”

  “Hello, Barney.”

  “How are you, Pete?”

  “Swell, Barney. You?”

  “Fine, Pete.”

  “They told me you weren’t in.”

  “You know my bums, always trying, always overstepping themselves. I’m always in to a friend.”

  “Thanks, friend.”

  I let him cook for a while, for the hell of it. Silence. Not a bleat at either end of the wire. Then I said, “I’ve got a message for you.”

  “Yeah, Pete?” Nonchalance missed wider than a banker’s piazza. It clogged in his throat. The lady in the pokey hadn’t exaggerated. This was a deal. When Barney squeaked, it was real money. For the jump of a second I wondered how I could cut myself in. I let it slide.

  “It’s a message from Gene Tiny.”

  “Yes, Pete?”

  “I’m to tell you there’ll be a delay.”

  “Delay on what?”

  “Talbot.”

  “She’s supposed to have him up here.”

  “I don’t know anything about that.”

  “What have you got to do with this?”

  “Nothing.”

  “So how come you’re calling?”

  “I’m just to give you the message. She’s in jail.”

  “What?”

  “A traffic jam.”

  “Oh.” Relief brought a pause. “Where is he?”

  “Who?”

  “Talbot.”

  “I don’t know.”

  You could feel him wiping a handkerchief over his face. “Traffic jam, huh? Sure. She sits around up here lapping Martinis, what do you expect? All right. I’ll get a shyster over there quick. Where, Pete?”

  “She’s got her own. He’s down there now. Downtown Traffic Court. Nothing serious. Nobody hurt. Nothing like that. She ran into a car.”

  “Okay, Pete. All right. Thanks.”

  “She says for you to wait.”

  “Thanks, Pete.” He hung up.

  I brushed around the Christmas tree and went out. Barney was in a sweat and the girl was in the clink and this was real dough and I was around loose. Could that total up to more than five hundred dollars? With Barney perspiring, would a lady operator know enough to put on the squeeze? She had mentioned a big fee. Was it big enough? I wrapped my coat around me and blustered back at the December wind. Barney Bernandino was squeaking in the throat. That was an excellent symptom. Perhaps, with further probing, a growth of stipend could be diagnosed for the comely Gene Tiny. And, incidentally, for me.

  The house was an eyesore. In a street of old mansions and quiet apartment hotels and gold-knockered town houses, it stuck out like a broken tooth on a smiling prima donna under a bright-white spot. It was three crumbling stories of peeling paint, a brownstone stoop with cracked brass banisters, and an old red door. A gray sign said Rooms in black letters and beneath that, No Vacancies.

  I walked up seven worn steps. There were no bells. The door opened on pressure. The lobby was small and square and dim with a wooden door on either side. There was an old mahogany table in the middle wearing a frayed doily on which postmarked letters were scattered, and postal cards, and flap-in-the-envelope Christmas greetings. It smelled of dust and disinfectant. Front and center was a steep wooden stairway with a smooth wood rail.

  The steps creaked as I went up. That was the only sound. I stopped for breath on the first landing. There was an apartment in back, facing the stairway, and an apartment in front. Nothing else, except dirty walls. I walked along the hall and around to the next flight of stairs. I trudged up. The door to the back apartment was ajar. Presentiment put a coil of prickles on the back of my neck. On the landing I leaned against the rail, breathing with my mouth open, catching up with my heartbeat. I thought about knocking. Then I pushed the door open with my foot.

  Disarray said hello. The room was a shambles. A Venetian blind hung from its moorings. Green portieres were askew. A window was broken. A sofa sat on its side. A table was upside down. A desk chair was shattered. Ink stained the rickety desk, reaching down to a splintered inkwell on the floor. Lamps were overturned and pictures were twisted. The room was a jumble of the mute farrago that is the residue of violence.

  On the floor, straight and supine against the table with the stuck-up legs, in a clean white shirt and pressed plaid pants, a man without a forehead stared at the ceiling. He had a fine full head of wine-red hair and a fluffy wine-red beard. Most of his forehead was shot away, sharp white bone sticking out over one eye. The rest of the forehead was a thick wide crust of blood. Blood spattered the worn carpet in ugly design.

  I gulped once, stemming nausea.

  If not for the girl, I’d have done a quick right about-face and bumped down the stairs and opened my lungs to the brisk resuscitation of December ozone.

  If not for the girl, I’d have moved faster than a nervous Romeo pricked by the click of a uxorious key in the latch. I’d have been out of that apartment. I’d have never reached that apartment. I’d have been waylaid by a passing saloon, returning to wassail, to the everlasting loss of the five hundred apples. I’d have—

  But there was a girl.

  There always is.

  Well, now—isn’t there?

  She was huddled in a fat-bodied armchair, horror in her eyes, and a gun in her hands, facing the man with the wine-red hair. I looked from him to her and back to him. I closed the door and leaned on the doorknob with my hands behind me. If I was intruding, no one noticed. He couldn’t see, and she didn’t look. I let go the doorknob and passed one hand over my face. Nothing changed.

  “Excuse me,” I said.

  No one answered.

  “This you, lady?”

  I pointed at him.

  She didn’t answer.

  “Lady!”

  She turned her head, young, pale, with enormous black eyes. She looked at me, but she didn’t see me. I saw her: the round smooth face and the deep black eyes and the full curved glossy mouth, a red underlip protruding in a pout that flicked at your libido despite the flung-about furniture and the dead man turned to the ceiling and the narrow wind pushing in through the broken window and the blue gun in both her hands.

  “What goes?” I said.

  Her eyes slid back to him.

  “Lady.”

  “Yes?” Still staring at him.

  “Lady.”

  She came back to me.

  “Yes?”

  She wasn’t out of her trance. The yes was the yes
of an idiot, the wailing yes of a mimic, the extended high-pitched yes of shock. Her brown fur coat was buttoned to the neck and her fur cadet-type hat was forward on her head, strapped beneath her chin.

  “This your party?”

  “No.”

  “You do this?”

  “No.”

  “You’re wearing a gun.”

  She looked at it, and opened her hands. It dropped to the floor.

  “Whose gun?” I said.

  “His.”

  “How do you know?”

  “He always had it.”

  “How do you know that?”

  No answer.

  “Lady!”

  Her eyes came up to me, enormous. The bubble of tears held for a moment in the inside corners, then ran over. She shuddered, and cried out loud, half laughing, her upper lip tight back, white teeth showing to the gums. I crossed quickly and I slapped her with my left hand. I caught her face coming back and slapped it hard with my right. I lifted her part out of the chair. Her hat fell off and she stood up straight and close, and there I was with a girl in my arms (again), insulated, of course, by a fur coat, but a girl in my arms, nevertheless.

  “God,” she said at my ear. “Oh, my God. God.”

  I shook her. “Slow down.”

  “Yes.”

  “Take it easy.”

  “Yes.”

  “Please.”

  “Yes, yes, yes.”

  We stood like that, cheek to cheek, in the pose of newly discovered lovers, body to body, divided by a fur coat. She shook. I waited. After a while, she stopped shaking.

  “Fine,” I said.

  “Thank you.”

  “Better?”

  She pushed back. “I think so.”

  “Let’s talk it up, huh?”

  “Yes.”

  “You do it?”

  “No.”

  “You know who did?”

  “No.”

  “Do you know him?”

  “Yes.”

  “Sheldon Talbot?”

  “Fred Thompson.”

  “Don’t con me, sister.”

  “Fred Thompson.”

  “Stubborn, huh? How long you been here?”

  “I don’t know. Ten minutes.”

  “Sit, huh? Sit down.”

  “All right.”

  She went back to the chair. She kept her eyes off him.

  I looked at him and I looked at her and I looked at the gun and I looked around at the battered room and I looked at her again and I sighed. I was in. I had joined. I was a member. So I did it right. All it could cost would be a couple of minutes. I went toward him, toward the vertical soles of his pointed shoes, and around them, and I touched him.