Death is the Last Lover (Prologue Books) Page 9

  “I’m not here for advice, Lorenzo.”

  “Naturally not. Well, that’s all I know about Steve Pedi, and honestly I just don’t want to know too much about that guy. That’s my information, my lad — for free.”

  “What do you know about Mousie and Kiddy, not for free?”

  He studied buffed fingernails, then looked up and cocked his head at me. “I don’t get you,” he said. “This some kind or rib?”

  “Pardon?” I said.

  “I think you know about as much as I do about those two. Why do you want to throw your money away?”

  “I don’t want to know about their past history. I want to know about the present. Are they here in New York?”

  A pleased smile grew on his face. He was beginning to contemplate earning a fee. “Yes, they’re here in New York.”

  “How long they been here?”

  “About a month, I think.”

  “Why are they here?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You slipping, Lorenzo?”

  “Lorenzo doesn’t slip. They’re only here a short time. I don’t know just why they’re here — yet. I’ll know, sooner or later, but I don’t know yet. You want to be in touch with either one of them?”

  “I want to be in touch with both of them.”

  He rubbed his hands together. “Now we’re on much firmer ground,” he said. “Is it important to you?”

  In the age-old manner of every purchaser looking to keep the price down, I lifted my eyebrows and shrugged my shoulders.

  “It’s important to you,” Lorenzo announced, “or you wouldn’t be here. A thousand bucks does it.”

  “Are you kidding?”

  “Lorenzo doesn’t kid. You know that.”

  “But a thousand bucks! For what?”

  “For information as to where they’re staying, under what names they’re staying, plus information about the brand new gal Kiddy’s palsy-walsy with.”

  I grabbed an hors d’oeuvre and munched. I knew Lorenzo. The guy could be as stubborn as a wing collar. When Lorenzo set a price, you take it or leave it. I took it.

  “Deal,” I said.

  “Delighted,” he said. “I’ll call at your office tomorrow for payment.”

  “You won’t have to trouble yourself,” I said. I took out Barbara Phelps’ check, endorsed it, and handed it over.

  He looked at it, nodded, folded it away. “You must be clairvoyant,” he said, “coming with exactly the correct amount of buckshot.”

  “It’s swindle-money,” I said. “Maybe in a way I’m glad to get rid of it.”

  “Well, I’m glad you’re getting rid of it here. I have no compunctions, as long as it’s money.” His jowls shook as he chuckled without sound.

  “Okay, enough with the patter,” I said. “You’re paid. Talk it up.”

  “Of course, dear Peter.” He sat back and clasped his hands once again over his stomach. His eyes rolled up to the ceiling; and then the lids came down and he sat as though communing with the spirits. He was thinking. I let him think. Then the words came. “Mousie Lawrence,” he said, “is Emanuel Larson. Kiddy is Kenneth Masters. They have a suite at the Montrose Hotel, Fifty-seventh and First, Suite 916.”

  “Charming,” I said. “Now the bonus.”

  “Bonus?” he said, his eyes still closed.

  “Kiddy’s girl friend.”

  “Oh yes,” he said. “She’s a waitress in a fish restaurant on Fulton Street called Old Man Neptune. She’s a redhead with a terrific shape. If I ever got my mind off eating, she’s the type I’d like to make myself. She’s a gal who ought to be in a pleasant mood these days, because she’s a junkie and Kiddy keeps her well supplied with the stuff. Name, Betty Wilson; three-room apartment at 244 West 65th Street, first floor, rear apartment to the right. There are four apartments on each floor, two in front and two in the rear; it’s an old brownstone, a walkup, and you don’t have to ring downstairs if you don’t want to because the entrance door is on the fritz and it doesn’t snap shut on its lock.” He opened his eyes. “Okay?”

  “Wow,” I said in wonderment.

  He blinked smiling eyes at me. “Leave it to Lorenzo.”

  “Wow,” I said and I stood up. “Happy-happy with the swindle-money. I enjoyed the demonstration.” He extended his hand and we shook. I said, “Please remember, I only dropped in to say hello. I didn’t inquire about anybody.”

  “Leave it to Lorenzo,” he said.

  SIXTEEN

  The Montrose was one of those newly-built thousand-room monstrosities, tier upon jagged tier of stone, chrome, brick and steel. I stalked through the lobby as though I belonged and a shiny-doored elevator took me up to nine. I marched to 916, put my finger on the doorbell and squeezed.

  Nothing happened. I continued to squeeze the doorbell and nothing continued to happen. I marched back to the elevator and rode down to the main floor. I was quite anxious for a look-see into Suite 916. I was right there on the premises and you never can tell what a look-see can turn up, even a fast look-see. If the boys were there — just not answering the bell — well, old Pete was an old friend, and maybe we could work out a little chatter: I might even discuss a fingerprint the cops had laboriously developed on a knife dropped by a mugger. If the boys were not there, I’d have my look-see. I am an old hand in my racket. You press every angle. You push every button. You go through every door.

  I strode quickly to the desk.

  It was long and wide with a white marble top. There were five clerks behind it, two busy, and three trying to look busy with nothing to do (which is a neat trick if you can pull it). I started yelling almost as soon as I got there. I reached across and grabbed tha lapel of one of the three, a kid with a butch haircut, a white face, and a black bow tie.

  “I’m Larson!” I yelled. “Jack Larson! I’m Larson!”

  “What the hell?” said the white-faced kid.

  “I got a brother here! Emanuel Larson! 916!”

  “So what?” said the white-faced kid. “Let go, will you, Mac?”

  One of the others moved near, a portly, gray-haired man with glasses. “What is wrong?” said the gray-haired man.

  “My brother called me!” I shouted. “Called me, threatening suicide!”

  “Suicide,” breathed the gray-haired man.

  “Let go the jacket,” implored the white-faced kid.

  “I tried to call here, but your gahdamned switchboard operator must be asleep!” I yanked at the lapel. “Let’s get moving, Mac!”

  “You sure he called from here?” said the gray-haired man.

  “I don’t know where the hell he called from! He called! He lives here! 916! Now let’s get a move on! Please!”

  The gray-haired man said, “There is a Larson in 916.”

  “Yes there is,” said the kid I was holding. He moved abruptly, wrenching loose from my lapel-hold. “916,” he said to the gray-haired man who was moving away. “Emanuel Larson and Kenneth Masters.”

  The gray-haired man took a ring of keys and came out from behind the desk.

  “This way,” he said to me. “Come along, please.”

  He was sprightly for a fat man. We ran across the lobby and into an elevator.

  “Nine,” he said to the elevator boy, “and no other stops.”

  Upstairs, he opened the door of 916. All the lights were on. We went through a small square foyer into a large square sitting room. It was an expensive suite. The sitting room was expensively furnished: floor-to-ceiling casement windows, velvet draperies, ankle-deep carpet, gilt-framed mirrors, soundproofed walls, artful adornments tastefully disposed — except for one unexpected adornment, rigid in the middle of the ankle-deep carpet, which completely destroyed the decor of the room: Mousie Lawrence, fully dressed, and very dead. He lay, face up and hideous, his upper lip a red gaping hole. The lower half of his face was a mass of dried blood, crusted and scaly, broken teeth gleaming in a bullet-destroyed grin. His eyes were open in an unblinking fish-s
tare. Forehead and ears were stamped with the wax-yellow of death.

  Retchingly, the gray-haired man gasped as he bent to examine him. I did not bend to examine him. A private richard is like an embalmer: he has seen enough of death to recognize it instantly. Instead, I went through to the bedroom. That, too, was brilliantly lighted, but it was uninhabited. A shoulder-holster, with pistol, was on the bed. Another holster, belt-type, and also with pistol, hung on the back of a chair. I examined both pistols. They were fully loaded.

  I returned to the sitting room. The gray-haired man was latched to the phone, chanting, “Yes, yes, dead, dead, Mr. Larson….”

  I went to the door.

  The gray-haired man cupped his palm over the mouthpiece and called to me: “Sir! Sir! Where are you going? Just a moment!”

  “I’m going to the cops,” I said.

  “I’m arranging for that right now.”

  “Arrange,” I said. “You arrange your way. I’ll arrange mine. I’m going for the cops, and the hell with you and worrying about bad publicity for the hotel.”

  He was back on the phone.

  “No, please,” he was saying. “No excitement. Have the girl call, there are very few people in the lobby at this time….”

  I went out, and down in the lobby I was met by two of the desk clerks in the company of a very tall, lean, dignified man in a black suit. “This is the manager,” one of the clerks said. “This is Mr. Hopkins. We were just going up — ”

  “Go up,” I said. “I can’t stay up there.”

  “Of course, of course,” Mr. Hopkins commiserated.

  The three of them went into an open elevator, Hopkins said, “Nine, quickly” to the elevator boy, and I walked across the lobby into the street.

  I walked, aimlessly, until I found a hamburger joint. I had coffee and smoked cigarettes and tried to paste a few of the pieces together. Whoever had killed him had been a friend. Guys like Mousie and Kiddy didn’t keep their artillery in the bedroom unless they were entertaining a friend in the sitting room — a friend — someone whom they trusted — that is, unless it was Kiddy himself who had put the blast on Mousie. That sort of thing has happened before: they both toss off their holsters, but one of them has an extra piece on his person, and that is the piece he uses to put a splash on the ankle-deep carpet and spoil the decor of the sitting room. But why should Kiddy Malone kill Mousie Lawrence? Then again, why not? People fall out, especially animals of the stripe of Kiddy and Mousie, and I could inquire into that because I knew where to catch up with Kiddy Malone. All the Kiddy Malones, since the time of Cain, hole up, in a moment of fright, in the self-same place: the abode of the mother symbol. They scurry to the comfortable cocoon of the soft-enveloping arms of a convenient female. Don’t they all? Turn an eye to page three of the tabloids! Every lamster has to be shot to death or tear-gassed out of the apartment, the shack, the house, the bungalow, the cottage, the love-nest of his dearly-beloved. And I knew of the most recent of Kiddy Malone’s dearly-beloveds. And Kiddy Malone did not know that I knew, or that anyone knew, about this most recent dearly-beloved, because no one, especially not Kiddy, could have any possible idea as to the remnants of off-beat information which were within the peculiar ken of a genius named Lorenzo Dixon. Kiddy had only been in town about a month, and Lorenzo had said that Betty Wilson was a brand new girl friend, so where else would Kiddy Malone be? And there was no rush. I had time. Mousie Lawrence, from the blood-crust on him, had been dead for quite a number of hours. So there was no rush. I had time. I wanted Kiddy Malone well bedded-down before I called upon him. I sighed, grunted, pressed out my cigarette, mopped up the dregs of my coffee. I looked at my watch. It was an hour and ten minutes since I had talked with Adam Frick.

  SEVENTEEN

  The Wadsworth Arms was a sprawling oldtimer on West End Avenue near Ninetieth Street. Thirty years ago, West End Avenue had been the Park Avenue of the West Side; today it had grown old and shabby and the Wadsworth Arms had grown old and shabby with it. When my cab was stopped for a light at Ninetieth Street, I said, “All right, this will do,” paid, got out, and strolled toward the Wadsworth Arms. A woman emerged, looked about hurriedly, and walked in the direction away from me. The cab, cruising, caught up with her, and its horn honked gently, as it moved to the curb beneath a street lamp. The woman turned, and entered the cab, but she had stopped for a moment beneath the street lamp and I had recognized her. It was Mrs. Barbara Phelps. The cab started, picked up speed, and turned the corner. I stood quite still for a moment, finished my cigarette, and flung it into the gutter. Then I proceeded to the Wadsworth Arms.

  Its tall, graceful, downstairs doors had grown ancient and rickety and were unlocked. The marble of the spacious inner lobby was cracked and the rugs were color-drained and threadbare. There were wall brackets with light bulbs, a few tables, and lamps upon the tables. The light bulbs had metal protectors around them so that they could not be unscrewed and stolen. The lamps were chained to the tables. The Wadsworth Arms now catered to a furnished-room clientele and, it appeared, they did not trust their customers, or, at least, were distrustful of the vandals of the neighborhood. There were three elevators, two of which bore “not working” signs. The third was open on the lobby floor, a self-service contraption with paneled mirrors, one of which was missing. I pushed the six button because Adam Frick’s furnished apartment was 6B. The elevator lurched and creaked like an elderly wife trying to impress a young husband. It jolted to a stop at six, and I got out safe and sound. I walked to 6B and was about to push the button when I noticed the door was ajar. Presentiment shimmered through me like a chill. I pushed at the door with my foot. It swung open silently.

  The place was fully lighted. I stepped across the threshold and stood still, listening. I was in a small foyer. Inside, there seemed to be a faint rasping sound. It was indefinable — a faint rasping sound. I moved the door back, leaving it as I had found it, slightly ajar, and straining my ears to the sound, I went forward, carefully.

  Adam Frick was in the living room. He was seated in an easy chair, his head lolling, his eyes closed, blood leaking from his mouth. The faint rasping sounds were emanating from him — a weak, gurgling wheeze from his throat.

  I went to him swiftly, tilted his chin back.

  He had been shot through the neck, blood still spurting from a jagged hole, and he had been shot through the left side of the chest, blood a sickening red formless stain on his shirt.

  Just then his eyes opened.

  And he recognized me.

  “Pete.” It was supplication. “Pete.”

  I took his face in my hands and held it firm.

  There was nothing I could do. The man was dead. He was dead right now though his heart was still pumping the blood out of him.

  “Easy, kid,” I said. “Easy does it, Adam.”

  It was amazing that he knew me. Dying as he was, final death in his eyes, the brain still functioned in recognition.

  “Pete!”

  He said my name again and then the gurling rasp became a rattle. A convulsive movement of the body threw it upward and it held, rigidly, and then it went limp and sank to the chair. The rattle persisted, and then the eyes opened, opened wide, and the blue glazed eyes had intelligence, and he said clearly, “The wife,” and then the rattle was a faint sighing whistling, and he murmured, “Wife … wife …” and then the blue eyes rolled up, and the head grew heavy in my hands, and he was dead.

  And then I heard the door kicked open, and there was the tramp of many feet, and the place was flooded with cops.

  EIGHTEEN

  The technical boys had completed their tasks, the photo boys had clicked off their work, the ambulance-man had officially declared the remains a corpse, and the basket boys had removed the body — the police routine was done and finished. Detective Lieutenant Parker had given his orders, the army of cops had retreated to their jobs downtown, and Adam Frick’s apartment contained but the two of us, Parker and myself, Parker seated in th
e selfsame easy chair in which I had found Adam Frick. We were each of us — illegal heirs to Adam Frick’s Scotch — sipping from tall glasses. “Okay,” Parker said. “Let’s have it.”

  “Am I to consider myself under arrest or something?” I said.

  “Don’t be silly,” Parker said. He ignited a fresh cigar. “But don’t make me look silly. Please.”

  “I don’t quite get that,” I said.

  “Don’t, don’t you?” Parker puffed fragrant blue smoke. “Now look. We come in here and find you with a dead guy, blood all over you. Okay, you washed up, and you’re nice and clean now. There’s no gun on you, nothing like that, but still, we find you — and the dead guy. I’ve got to make a report, and you’ve got to be in my report. So … kindly don’t make me look silly. Give me the stuff for my report. Kindly, if you please.”

  “What brought you?” I said.

  “Pardon?” he said.

  “Suddenly there were cops,” I said.

  “Oh, that,” he said. “Somebody somewhere picked up a telephone, got an operator, said, ‘I want a hospital, emergency.’ The operator put them through to the Polyclinic. The somebody said to the switchboard of the Polyclinic, ‘A man has been shot, emergency,’ and gave them this address, apartment 6B. The somebody hung up — which makes it what’s known as an anonymous call — and the switchboard girl, at once, called it in to the police, which is routine. That’s how we got here and the ambulance got here practically together with us. Now, please, how the hell did you get here?”

  “Adam Frick invited me.”

  “When?”

  “Tonight.”

  “Where? How? What?”

  “I ran into him, a couple of hours ago, at Lorenzo’s, at the cocktail lounge. He was slightly swacked on brandy. He said he wanted to talk to me.”