Death is the Last Lover (Prologue Books) Page 6

  “I might. There’s no big top-secret mark on it.”

  “You a peeper?” he said. “Private?”

  “It’s time it got through to you, Stevie.”

  “Interested in a little extra dough?” he said.

  “From whom?”

  “From me.”

  “No,” I said.

  “You want to talk anyway?”

  “Sure,” I said.

  “Okay. Who said I threatened Vivian?”

  “George Phillips.”

  “That old son of a bitch! He’s a liar.”

  “Want me to tell you what he told me?”

  “I want,” he said.

  I told him.

  “That old son of a bitch,” he said when I was finished. “He’s a liar.”

  “All right. Thanks. Just checking,” I said and moved toward the door. “Just a minute.”

  “Yes, Stevie?”

  “The cops didn’t mention none of this to me.”

  “So what do you want from me?” I said.

  “You think they’re playing it cool?”

  “I wouldn’t know.”

  “They pick up Gordon Phelps yet?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You know who Phelps is?”

  “Phillips,” I said.

  “You know plenty,” he said, “don’t you?”

  “A little,” I said.

  “What I mean,” he said. “If the cops picked him up, he must have spilled this crap to them too. What do you think?”

  “If they did, he did, that’s what I think.”

  He regarded me for a long moment. He smiled a remote thoughtful smile. He went to the desk, yanked a drawer, brought out three crisp one hundred dollar bills. “How you fixed for ethics?” he inquired.

  “I’m fixed,” I said.

  “One answer to one question,” he said, holding the money like a bouquet. “How about it, if it don’t crash with the ethics?”

  “Let’s hear,” I said.

  “Did the cops pick up Phelps yet?”

  “No,” I said.

  I took his three hundred dollars.

  “Thanks,” he said.

  “It didn’t crash with the ethics,” I said.

  “Look,” he said, “will you kind of keep me informed on how the thing goes? I ain’t mixed in this, but I got my flanks to protect, if you know what I mean.”

  “I know what you mean,” I said.

  “Will you keep me informed?”

  “I might, if it doesn’t crash with the ethics.”

  “Thanks,” he said and he walked to the door with me and opened it. “This is Peter Chambers,” he said to Amos Knafke. “He’s a real nice fella. Any time he wants to see me, it’s my pleasure.”

  “You’re the boss, boss,” Amos said.

  “Good-bye, Mr. Chambers,” Pedi said. “You’re a real nice fella. I respect a guy with ethics. I like you very much.”

  “I’m thrilled,” I said.

  “ ‘Bye now,” he said and closed the door and left me alone in the corridor with Amos. “I’m sorry, Mr. Knafke,” I said. “For what?” he said.

  “I’m a nothing,” I said. “A wise weenie. I was making with the showboat. I was trying to impress the girl.”

  “Figures,” he said. “Most of the finks here try to make it with a girl just like that. Only most of the finks here wind up with their nose in their mouth when they try to make it with a girl like that. You didn’t. I would love for you to try again, but the boss says you’re a nice fella, you’re a nice fella. I only work here.”

  “I don’t think this really evens it up, Mr. Knafke,” I said, “but I hope it helps.”

  I stuffed Pedi’s three hundred dollars into the meat of his palm.

  ELEVEN

  The lady in red was morosely stirring the dregs of Feninton’s drink with the jagged end of a broken swizzle stick.

  “How’d you make out?” she said.

  “I laid a foundation,” I said.

  “Laid?” she said. “A foundation?”

  “It’s a term in my trade,” I said.

  “Sit down,” she said. “Just don’t stand there.”

  “I’ve got to go,” I said.

  “Are you crazy?” she said. “Go where?”

  “I’ve got work to do.”

  “Wow, you’re a miserable one, aren’t you?”

  “Better you found that out right at the beginning.”

  Her dark eyes came up. “I want you to stay.”

  “I’d love to, but I can’t.”

  The eyes went back to the swizzle stick. “Will you come back?”

  “I’ll try.”

  “I want you to come back.”

  “I said I’ll try.”

  “We’re open here until four, you know.”

  “I’ll try. I’ll try my damndest.”

  “Try,” she said. “Please. Please try.”

  TWELVE

  A young cop kept me waiting outside of Parker’s office for fifteen minutes but when I went in there was no one there but Parker. “Is this a new bit, Lieutenant?” I said. “Keeping the customers cooling their heels? Has the Lieutenant reached the point of half-ass tycoon, where the customer must wait outside otherwise the ego inside gets deflated?”

  “Shut up,” he said. “I was on the phones.”

  There were five phones on the desk, all of them quiet now. “I’m frigged on a case,” Parker said, “and it’s a bitcheroo because the corpse had a lot of glossy photos of herself, all of them sexy. So the newspapers won’t lay off.”

  “Vivian Frayne?” I said.

  “You read the wrong papers,” he said. “There’s no education in cheap tabloids.” He sighed, stood up, rubbed a hand across his stiff black crew-cut. He was short, broad, thick and stocky, with a ruddy face and bright dark eyes. “What brings you?” he said. “I’m told you were here before.”

  “The cheap tabloids,” I said.

  He did not move. His eyes were amused. He grabbed at his mouth and held it as he studied me, his head nodding. Then the hand fell away and he opened his arms and bowed like the burlesque of a corny prima donna reacting to applause. “Okay,” he said, “I feel a cockeyed deal coming on. A Peter Chambers special. What do you know, and what must I do to find out what you know?”

  “Don’t have to do a thing,” I said, “except tell me about Vivian Frayne.”

  “And for that …?” he said.

  “I might produce Gordon Phelps.”

  That rocked him. He jumped as though he’d been unexpectedly pinched in an unexpected place, but he righted himself quickly enough. He pursed his lips, cleared his throat, and glared at me like papa might glare at a favorite son who had stuffed his favorite pipe with toilet paper. “Oho,” he said. “A real Peter Chambers special. I want that guy and I want him badly. You working for him?”

  “I’m afraid I am.”

  “Can you produce him?”

  “I can.”

  “Will you?”

  “Depends.”

  “On what?”

  “On how soon you want him.”

  “I want him right now.”

  “I can’t produce him right now.”

  “When can you?”

  “Let’s talk it up a little, shall we, Lieutenant? You help me, I’ll help you. It’s the same old story: we’re on the same side, you and I. It’s only the approach that may be different.”

  “It may be, mayn’t it?” he said but he was smiling.

  “You’re law and order. I’m law and disorder, I suppose. You’re bound by Department rules. I have no rules, except the ones I make for myself.”

  “Law and disorder,” he said and he chuckled. “I’ll buy that.” He went behind his desk, lay back in his swivel chair, lit up a cigar. “We’re anxious on that Gordon Phelps. I’d like to squeeze that out of you.”

  “We’re past the squeezing stage, you and I.”

  “Yeah.” He growled behind cigar smoke. �
��Lawyer guy wafted us some cock and bull.”

  “I know about that,” I said.

  “Figured you would.” He sat up. “When will you have him for me?”

  “Let’s say forty-eight hours. Maybe sooner, but let’s say forty-eight hours at the outside. I’ll either bring him in or I’ll convince him to come in. Good enough?”

  “And if we pick him up before that?”

  “Then you pick him up,” I said. “But one proviso, please. I don’t want a tail on me. I’d lose him anyway, but why have to bother?” I did a grin for him, as boyish as I could muster it. “We got a deal, Lieutenant?”

  “You got a deal, young fella.”

  Eagerly I said: “Gimme.”

  “Ain’t much, really.” He wrinkled his face, concentrating. “Dance-hall dame. Been in New York about thirteen years. Wise little operator, lived pretty good. Never in trouble. The gals in the dance hall adored her, she was kind of like a mother-hen to them. Investigation shows she’d been to Montreal and Hollywood a couple of times, and that’s all we know about her.”

  “What about background?” I said.

  “Nothing,” he said, “which isn’t unusual. Vivian Frayne’s probably not her real name. Dame comes in from Oshkosh somewhere when she’s about seventeen, probably a runaway, or a go-offer with a guy. Breaks family ties, gives herself a fancy name, gets lost in a city of nine million. Once there’s no record on them — you just can’t trace them back.”

  “What about those published pictures?”

  “Those don’t help either in these kind of cases. These are sophisticated glossies — who can tie up this gorgeous mature woman with the kid of seventeen that scrammed Oshkosh. Even if she has family, and they haven’t forgotten all about her, those pictures wouldn’t make the connection.”

  “No mail from any family?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Okay, Lieutenant. Now let’s have it.”

  “I’ll do it chronologically.”

  “Yes, please, but do it, I’m real anxious to hear.”

  “Sequence started Monday night, late Monday night.”

  “Today’s Wednesday,” I said.

  “She left the dance hall about four ayem Monday night, went home. After the cab dropped her, two guys approached, a mug job. One stuck a knife in her back, the other did the armlock bit around her throat. But as luck would have it, a cop turned the corner and saw the deal. They grabbed her bag and blew, but she struck out at one of them. She hit him and the knife dropped. The cop chased them, but they outran him. That’s it for Monday night.”

  “Did she get a view of either one of them?” I said. “I mean to recognize?”

  “No.”

  “Okay, I’ve got Monday night.”

  “It was a straight mugging, what with grabbing the bag, all in pattern. But we had the knife. There was one faint smudge of a print on it, and the lab boys did a hell of a job. Worked all of Tuesday, and finally came up with it. Turns out to be a grifter named Mousie Lawrence. Ever hear of Mousie Lawrence?”

  “Vaguely,” I said.

  “A one-time loser, did a term about fifteen years ago for armed robbery, and that’s the last we heard of him — until now. Fifteen years is a long time. New hoodlums grow up, you kind of lose track of the old ones, if they stay clean. Didn’t even know this guy was in New York. Anyway, early this morning, about seven o’clock, cops come calling on Vivian Frayne with the gallery-photo of Lawrence.”

  “I thought you said she got no view of them.”

  “This was a different approach,” he said. “Just wanted to ask if she’d ever seen the guy in the photo. After all, these guys were waiting for her practically at her apartment house. Maybe they did a case-job first at the dance hall, maybe they’d got acquainted with her. Wouldn’t hurt to have her look at the photo. Reasonable?”

  “Yes, sir,” I said.

  “There was no answer to their ring. One of the cops was a guy with brains, or maybe an impatient guy. He went down to the super and had him open the door. They found her inside, five bullets in her, a gun on the floor beside her. The apartment was upside down, it had been thoroughly searched. And mind you, when the super had opened the door, it had been locked — from the outside.”

  “Deadlock type of lock?”

  “Yeah. You had to turn the knob on the inside to lock it, or lock it with a key from the outside. Whoever murdered her locked it from the outside. Anyway, that’s when I got into this, personally. When they’re dead, it’s for Homicide.”

  “Think the mugging had anything to do with the murder?”

  “Doesn’t figure. Whoever killed her was able to get in and out of that apartment, that’s for sure. If those babies were able to get in, that’s where they would have been — if the job was for murder. But they were loitering outside, so they figure for muggers, not murderers. But we checked that angle anyway. Had Lawrence’s photo passed around the dance hall, but the kids were clammed. Either they never saw the guy, or they’re afraid to mix with a hood. Kids in dance halls are hip kids, they stay away from trouble, and it’s trouble, let’s face it, when you identify a hood.”

  “Got a photo for me?” I said.

  “Sure. Had a lot of them made. We’re looking for the guy.” He opened the middle drawer of his desk and gave me two photographs, each about four by six. One was full face and one was profile. I looked at them briefly and put them away.

  “Figure a time of death?” I said. “About one o’clock Tuesday night.”

  “Wasn’t she supposed to be working then?”

  “Took the night off. Had a date.”

  “Any idea whom she had the date with?”

  “She had a date with your client.”

  “Really,” I said and I shifted the subject. “The place was thoroughly searched, you say. So whoever killed her was looking for something.”

  “Whatever they were looking for — they found.”

  “How would you know that, professor?”

  “Because we did a pretty good search ourselves. We found nothing that meant anything to anybody. All we got was the gun right there on the floor, an insurance policy, and a diary.”

  “Without a diary, it wouldn’t be a dame,” I said.

  “That diary gave us our first pinch.”

  That hit me right between the eyes. “You mean you’ve made an arrest in this case?”

  “Arrested and released.”

  “Who?”

  “A guy named Adam Frick.”

  “Who?”

  “Adam Frick! What’s the matter with you, you hard of hearing? An angle-bird who’s a pilot. The diary gave us Frick. He was Frayne’s light-of-love, plus her life insurance for twenty-five G’s was in his favor, plus he has a key to the joint.”

  “And you released him?”

  “We’ve got rules, remember?”

  “You mean he had an alibi?”

  “He said he was home sleeping. Lives over at the Wadsworth Arms. Said he’d tucked himself in at eleven o’clock.”

  “And you released him?”

  “Look, any quack lawyer would have gotten him out. We got habeas corpus in this country. Just because a guy’s got a policy in his favor, and he’s got a key — that’s no proof that he committed murder. Oh, he’s still a suspect, but your Gordon Phelps is a much more likely candidate.”

  “What about the gun?”

  “That was the murder weapon. Now look — stop squirming away from Phelps.”

  “All right,” I said. “How’d he get into this?”

  “Dear old diary,” Parker said. “It gave us Adam Frick all spelled out. For the other guy we got only initials — G.P.”

  “This G.P. have a key to the place?”

  “Diary specifically says no. Diary says G.P. was never even at the apartment. Though I bet she was at his. There’s one key on her ring that we haven’t found a door for. I bet G.P. is behind that door somewhere. She saw G.P. Tuesday night just before she came home to get killed.�
��

  “How do you know that, Lieutenant?”

  “Diary states the date with G.P.”

  “Brother,” I said, “you disappoint me.” I went to the door. “In my book you used to be a guy who didn’t figure to jump to conclusions.”

  “Who’s jumping?”

  “Why link initials G.P. to Gordon Phelps?”

  “Believe me, I’m not jumping.”

  “Lieutenant,” I said. “I’d like to see that apartment.”

  He looked dubious.

  “You really want Phelps?” I said.

  “Badly.”

  “Okay, I compromise. You can have him within twenty-four hours. Now can I see that apartment?”

  Again he opened his desk drawer and dipped into it. He threw me a bunch of keys.

  “You know the address?” he said.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Good luck,” he said.

  “Any prints on the gun?” I said.

  “None,” he said. “Smudges, no prints. And no prints in the apartment that could do us any good.”

  “It’s still bothering me,” I said. “What?”

  “Your not jumping to conclusions — about Phelps.”

  “No prints on the gun,” he said. “You told me.”

  “But there was a serial number on the gun.”

  “There generally is, unless it’s filed off.”

  “This one wasn’t filed off. It checked out. It belonged to a fellow with initials G.P. It belonged to a gentleman playboy by the name of Gordon Phelps.”

  THIRTEEN

  I trudged the city streets from the precinct station house toward Broadway. I dangled keys in my pocket and facts in my brain. The keys jumbled and so did the facts. Parker knew nothing and neither did I. I had a couple of extra facts, but still I knew nothing. I knew where I could lay my hands on Gordon Phelps, and Parker didn’t, but that did not bring me any closer to the same solution Parker was seeking. And I knew more about Mousie Lawrence than Parker did, but that was because Parker was law and order and I was law and disorder. The Police Department has its hands full. Crime in a big city is as multiple as the progeny of polygamy. Police minds cannot loiter in the past: they have enough to engage them in the present. Policemen have little time for casual gossip and there are not many who choose policemen to gossip with, especially if the subject matter of the gossip is criminal. Commit a crime that is public knowledge and you are immediately a special-interest target of the constituted authorities, but no matter how many crimes you commit, unless they have pierced the public knowledge, you attract about as much attention as a philanderer in theatrical circles. Professional criminals lust after inattention. Anonymity is a prize, facelessness an attribute, nonentity a requisite for continuing success — and yet, criminal activity, of necessity, must cross with the culture, there must be dealings with other beings, there must be a widening crisscross of intercourse, which in sum total is a part of knowledge, though a very private knowledge. The peeper has more ready access to this nether world of knowledge than the cop. A peeper is private. A cop is public. If a peeper is trusted, a private world is open to him that would amaze the public cop. Or maybe it would not amaze the public cop, if the public cop were a thoughtful man.