After spending two years in the pen, pretty girls still gave me the whim-whams and this one raised my temperature an extra degree or two. She had the kind of legs Parisian style creators never thought about when they lowered skirts. She was as willowy as a sapling in the spring. Her eyes were smoky gray and she never had to shape her lips with paint. They were already perfect.
I turned my lapels outward, yanked the brim of my hat down and shuffled up. So did the doorman. I glanced at him and said: “Scram, pal. This is an old chum of mine.”
Freddie gave me a quick look and then a double take. His lips almost smiled. The poor kid didn’t want to recognize me, but he had enough spunk to know a friend when he saw one. Freddie motioned the doorman back.
“Hello, Rick,” he said. “Look, why not come to see me later — at my rooms...”
“Pally,” I told him with both eyes on the girl, “I’m flatter than European treasuries. How about putting the bee on you for a ten spot?”
“Why... why yes, of course.” He reached into his pocket. I had a job to do and carrying it out might mean an answer to this puzzle. I meant to do it no matter how Freddie felt about the situation.
I nodded at the girl. “Freddie’s an O.K. guy, lady. Him and me met in prison. We used to have big long gab fests — when the screws wasn’t too close.”
There were other people heading for the club. Many of them stopped to watch this Manhattan sidewalk scene. There were a few snickers when I mentioned Freddie as a stir-pal. I expected the girl to either slug me across the puss or bust into tears. She did neither. She extended one slim hand in my direction.
“I’m glad to meet any friend of Freddie’s,” she said. “Especially one who helped make his prison life a bit easier. I’m Lila Doane.”
I almost forgot myself and tipped my hat. But Freddie thrust a twenty dollar bill at me. He wasn’t embarrassed any longer. Now that Lila accepted me he didn’t care a hoot in hell what the others thought.
“Thanks, pal,” I said. “I’ll be looking you up. And not for another touch.”
I moved in very close and put on a little act. I talked out of the side of my mouth with grimaces for the benefit of the audience. But the act served two purposes. It also enabled me to give Freddie the low-down on as much of the situation as I knew.
“Watch yourself. I’m on a pitch and I don’t know the score yet. When I do, we’ll hash it over.”
Freddie shook hands with me, Lila smiled and said, “Good night,” and I shuffled away feeling like someone who just snatched a kid’s ice cream dime. I was also more than a little sore about all of this. I’d expected things to happen and nothing had. Clearly my job was simply to embarrass Freddie and when a close fisted monkey like Cooney shells out a hundred bucks for that, something big is brewing.
I decided to make him talk. It would be fun to see how much he could take. I knew he dished it out plenty, but that kind never do like being on the receiving end. Furthermore, I was perfectly safe. Cooney wouldn’t be able to stage any yelps for the cops, not after pulling an angle like this.
I went back to his office building, figuring that although it was past office hours, he’d be there waiting for developments. The place was deserted and reminded me of a gigantic tomb which was, by no means, an error of thinking. I found Gus Cooney huddled behind his desk at the foot of that big leather upholstered swivel chair he filled out so well. Somebody had been very direct about it. The knife had gone clear through Cooney’s fat throat and then been twisted. I doubted that Cooney uttered much more than a gurgle, but I did wonder why he had permitted an intended killer, with a knife in his mitt, to get that close.
Knives as murder weapons are usually used to stick a man in the back, and if used in a fight, there is always plenty of evidence of the scuffle left behind. Here there was none. Not even the rug was mussed and everything on the desk was shipshape. I walked around the corpse, after making sure Cooney was thoroughly dead. I stood a the back of the chair and studied it for a moment. There was just a tiny fleck of blood on the back of it and I thought I knew the answer.
Whoever had knifed Cooney had first moved behind him — an excellent indication that Cooney had no idea as to what was coming — and just reached over his shoulder to let the knife drive deep. Registering that much in my brain, I next searched him without moving the body at all. There was one hip pocket I couldn’t reach, but I thought it held nothing except a handkerchief anyway.
Cooney carried the usual miscellany of junk but nothing that might furnish a lead. I put all the stuff back and tried his desk. There was nothing. His filling cabinets were locked and I guessed that if they contained anything detrimental to the murderer, he’d have made darn sure such evidence was no longer present.
It looked like one of those neat kills, without motive or clues. Even the murder weapon had been thoughtfully removed. I took out my own handkerchief and started wiping the desk top. I wiped the door knobs, inside and out. Then I locked up the place nice and snug.
About the time I hit the street I got my first attack of the shivers. I could be tied up with that kill. I was an ex-con, with plenty of cops for enemies and some cops — like Lieutenant Westover — take the easy way out. I was the easiest way possible. So I made up my mind fast and like all good little boys, I got away from there and went to see Stuart Sedley who was supposed to be my boss and who paid me a weekly salary for doing nothing. Stuart Sedley, you see, didn’t like cops either.
Chapter Two
Hand of the Law
Sedley was gray-haired, aristocratic looking and tough as redwood. He mixed a couple of drinks, knowing I liked the stuff and couldn’t buy it openly without risk of being sent back to the pen. I told him the whole story while he listened attentively.
My association with Sedley began soon after I was paroled. A couple of fancy dans tried to involve his son in a murder and I got him out of it. Sedley was grateful — about as grateful as a man can be. He knew I was a private eye and even without a license I’d still operate after a fashion. So he gave me a job which stood up under the inspection of the Parole Board and the eagle eye of Lieutenant Westover. In return I was expected to do little for him, draw a week’s pay and find my own cases.
I was an ex-con — with an explanation. I drew three to five on a manslaughter rap because when I’d had a license, a gun, handcuffs and everything including an office, I’d been a pretty good shamus. The pay-off came when I was retained to pay blackmail money. I met the blackmailer by arrangement and he did a neat double-cross. He accepted the money and tried to get away without returning his evidence. In the resulting melee I plastered him too hard and broke his neck.
The guy who retained me denied he even knew me. Why not? If he testified, the secret he was paying off to be kept secret would come into the open. Besides, I was paid a fee to take such risks and I had no real beef coming. I served my time and was one of the most obedient boys up the river. Most of it was spent being a barber and my last job was preparing convicted men for the chair.
Stuart Sedley said: “I can’t help you much, Rick. I know the Doane family, of course. Ernest Doane comes of a long line of thieves, gamblers, industrial pirates and, I suspect, killers. Smart people who never cared much what happened so long as they got what they were after.”
“The daughter looked — damned swell,” I told him in her defense.
Sedley chuckled and talked to me over the rim of his glass. “All girls look swell to you. They will for weeks yet — until you get used to seeing them around. Rick — if this has to do with the Doane family, it’s big. Maybe something you should lay off.”