He was still unconscious and Keys was still dead when I parked the blue coupe in front of Police Headquarters twenty minutes later. However, while there was no danger of Keys strolling off, I didn’t want to leave Hank alone even long enough for me to go inside for a cop, for I suspected if he awakened in the meantime he might remember he had an appointment somewhere else. Hefting him across my shoulders in a fireman’s carry. I staggered up the steps.
Big George Chester, the chief of police, was leaning over Desk-Sergeant Danny Blake haranguing him about something. He straightened when he saw me.
“Hey, Moon!” he said. “We’ve been looking for you.” He eyed my burden and asked, “What you got there?”
“Something for Homicide,” I told him, starting to lurch past toward the office of Inspector Warren Day.
“Wait a minute!” He moved his huge bulk in front of me to block my way. “You’re supposed to leave corpses at the scene of the crime.”
“This is alive,” I said. “And damned heavy. The corpse is in a blue coupe out front.”
I tried to move around him, but he jabbed a forefinger the size of a sausage in my stomach. “Just a minute, Manny. How come you turned that confession of Ketterer’s over to a newspaper instead of to us?”
Chief George Chester had been in my outfit during the war, and I didn’t have to be formal with him. I said, “I bring you a corpse and an unconscious gunman, and you yammer about a little thing like a gambling racket. Get out of my way before I give you the knee!”
He got out of my way, but called after me, “I still want an answer after whatever you got here is straightened out.”
The office door of Inspector Warren Day, chief of Homicide, was open a crack. Shouldering it the rest of the way open, I staggered in.
Warren Day was dictating something to his right-hand man, Lieutenant Hannegan. He raised his skinny bald head to stare at me over his glasses, started to generate a ferocious scowl, but let it deteriorate into an expression of amazement. Both men watched silently as I gazed around for a suitable place to rest my burden, saw nothing but wooden chairs, and eased it to the floor.
“This is a gentleman named Hank,” I explained. “He didn’t tell me his last name. In attempting to shoot me, he accidentally bumped off his partner, whom I left outside. Killing an innocent bystander while attempting a felony is murder, isn’t it?”
Day merely continued to stare at me. Finally he said, “When you come in this office, knock, damn you!”
It was nearly one p.m. when I entered Day’s office, and all the nourishment I had taken that day was a pot of coffee. By the time Hank was revived and installed in a cell, Keys was shipped off to the morgue and I had explained things to the partial satisfaction of Chief Chester and Warren Day, it was after two.
“May I go home and get something to eat now?” I inquired.
“Sure,” answered George Chester. “Soon as you explain why you turned that notebook over to the Morning Blade instead of to us.”
“I didn’t,” I said wearily. “I gave it to the client who hired me to uncover it.”
“Who’s the client?”
“Raymond Margrove, the only guy in town fatter than you are.”
The chief looked pained. “This seems to be in your department, Day,” he said huffily. “Release Moon when you’re through with him.”
He strode out of the room and slammed the door, leaving me with the inspector and Hannegan.
“All right, Moon,” Day said sourly. “Go home and fill your gut, if you got nothing to add.”
“There is one more item,” I said, suddenly remembering. “I asked Hank which one of the big three in gambling circles was taking over now that the big boss was dead, and he said, ‘What makes you think he’s dead?’ Did Ketterer recover?”
The inspector glanced at Hannegan, who shook his head, never believing in opening his mouth when a gesture would do.
“You sure the corpse was Ketterer?” I asked.
Day glanced at Hannegan again, and got a nod this time. That settled it, because Hannegan doesn’t even nod unless he’s certain.
“Maybe you can work out of Hank what he meant,” I suggested. “And if you can afford the time, I’d appreciate a word dropped into the ears of Ironbaltz, Goodrich and Depledge that you’d be grieved if anything happened to me.”
“Why should I tell a lie?” Day asked coldly.
I rose and stretched. “That’s why I never object to taxes. I know I have the full protection of the police department if gangsters decide to bump me off. At least you might dig a little deeper into Gerald Ketterer’s death.”
“Why?”
“Because guys like Ketterer don’t kill themselves when faced by a five-hundred-dollar fine. My hunch is he was rubbed out for blowing up the racket.”
“Horsefeathers,” Day said. “If the gambling crowd had done it, he’d have a bullet in him. They don’t go in for subtlety. You’re always having hunches.”
“O.K.,” I said, shrugging. “Keep it listed as a suicide. But if I commit suicide in the next few days, don’t believe it. I’ve got a hundred dollars, only two-hundred-dollars’ worth of bills, and a beautiful woman wants me to get ugly drunk with her. I have everything in the world to live for.”
Chapter Five
Kiss a Little, Quiz a Little
Unless I have a client paying for my time, ordinarily I don’t make a practice of poking my nose into police matters. But since the police apparently accepted Ketterer’s death as suicide, and refused to see any connection between it and the attempt on me, I was forced to take some action in self-defense.
In my own mind I was sure Ketterer had been murdered by his three lieutenants, or at least on their order, and I decided my best defense would be to prove it and get them behind bars before they could get me.
Curiously, none of the three had been mentioned in Ketterer’s confession, and actually there was no evidence aside from underworld talk that Dan Ironbaltz was overseer of the bookshops, Jimmy Goodrich managed the slot-machine racket, and Art Depledge ran the house-games.
And since all over town slot-machines and gambling equipment had disappeared the minute the Morning Blade expose hit the streets, leaving the cops who began raiding a few hours later nothing to examine but empty rooms and slot-machineless taverns, there was little chance that any real evidence connecting the three with gambling could now be uncovered. I hardly blamed Warren Day for refusing to waste time questioning the trio.
But with me it was a matter of wanting to stay alive.
As soon as I got some food into myself, I looked up Antoinette DeKalb’s address in the newspaper account of Ketterer’s confession, and drove to 324 Center Street. It proved to be a four-family apartment in a middle-class neighborhood. According to her mailbox, Ketterer’s secretary occupied the lower right flat.
I rang three times before the door opened a crack and the blonde secretary’s voice inquired, “Are you a reporter?”
I said, “No. I’m a suitor.”
The door opened another inch and a suspicious eye looked me over. The suspicion turned to a mixture of surprise and what I hoped was welcome. Apparently it was, for the door opened wide. She wore a green housecoat, carried a towel, and damp blonde hair was twisted in a loose knot above her ears, which made her look about sixteen.
“You’re the man who hit me with a door,” she accused. “How did you find where I live?”
“Love will find a way,” I said noncommittally. “May I come in?”
She stepped aside long enough for me to pass, then shut the door and leaned her back against it. “You caught me in the shower.”