He washed the blood from his face and painted three cuts with iodine. His stomach felt a little shaky too by this time, so he took some bicarbonate of soda. Then he returned to the bedroom, picked up a chair and broke down the connecting door. The living-room was empty but on the floor next to the rim of the carpet the stub of a cigar smoldered. It was triangular in shape.
The beating-up called for a drink. After a ten-minute talk with the plum-liveried negro, Kennedy hopped a cab and returned to Enrico’s, hoping to catch MacBride. But MacBride had left.
“Did he say where?”
Paderoofski shook his head. “He’s say he was take his car and go f’r a long ride, suzz he’s not pastered by pipple. It’s to me a great mysterium, the skipper he’s so axcitement.”
Kennedy sighed, “The lug would do something like that,” and turned to go. But he saw Jaeger sitting at a corner table, obviously plastered to the eyebrows. Jaeger’s eyes wore that dizzy expression of a drunk who sees nothing, hears nothing. Kennedy strolled over and sat down opposite him, saying, “Trying a bit of the hair of the dog, eh?”
Jaeger’s fat brown eyes revolved, his big head wabbled. It took him a minute to place Kennedy. “Yeah,” he said, “I’m having a li’l’ pick-me-up.”
“How long have you known Emmy Canfield?”
“Lishen. When I’m on the job, and I’m a damn’ goodsh headwaisher, I” — he waved his index finger — “never tush drop likker. Never! Likker ’n’ work don’t mix, hah? Nope. But no job, no work — so drink likker. Hah? Sure.”
“How long have you known Emmy Canfield?”
“Never, never mixsh work ’n’ likker, my friend. Don’t pay. Lookit me — besh headwaisher in business. Why? Never mixsh work ’n’ likker.”
“Does Emmy Canfield come from Detroit?”
“Emmy? Sure. Everybody cumsh from Detroit. Ever know that? Hah? Sure. Lots ’n’ lots people cumsh from Detroit.”
“When did Emmy come from Detroit?”
“Shanksgibbin Day.”
“Thanksgiving Day?”
Jaeger banged the table petulantly. “Damn it, di’n’t I shay Shanksgibbin Day!”
“Did she kill Marty Sullivan?”
Jaeger’s eyes bounced. He stared stupidly at Kennedy for a full minute, then began to chuckle. His chuckle grew and grew until it became a laugh and then he was roaring, shaking with laughter, the tears streaming down his face. He put his head on the table and laughed and laughed and slapped the table uproariously with his hands. Then suddenly he sat up and looked grave in the manner that only drunks can look grave.
“Me,” he said, touching his chest, “I killed Marty.”
“Why?”
“Sh!” whispered Jaeger, leaning forward. “Becaush hish left eyebrow wash yeller an’ hish right wash black. Time an’ time again I ashked him, please, Marty, either bleach black one ’r dye yeller one. He laughs at me. Laughs at me! Sho I kill him. Ha, ha, ha! Pretty good, hah!” He hiccupped. “Well, think I’ll git drunk. Ober! Rye!” He giggled and pawed his face and shook with silent mirth.
Kennedy gave it up. He rose, turned up the collar of his topcoat and went out. He took a cab to the Free Press and had a talk with Flannery and then he made a long distance call and spent twenty minutes on the wire.
It was three o’clock when he drifted into Dan Osborne’s office. Osborne, busy with a sheaf of papers, looked up, frowned, and sat back. He said with real concern:
“What the hell happened to your face?”
Kennedy was tranquil. “When are you going to put your cards on the table, Dan?”
“What are we playing,” Osborne grinned, “poker?”
“I don’t know what you’re playing, Dan.”
Osborne chuckled good-naturedly. “What’s troubling you, kid? Let’s have it.”
“What were you doing at the Somerset this morning?”
“Telling the manager that his cocktail-hour entertainment was not funny, it was smutty. He was reasonable. He said he’d cut it out. Why?”
Kennedy went over and stood by the window, his hands in his pockets. He gazed drowsily down at the street traffic for a minute, then turned and sat on the broad windowsill, his feet dangling.
He said, “I always thought you were a bachelor.”
“I am.”
“You weren’t always.”
Osborne sat back, clasped his hands behind his head and smiled jovially. “Been checking up?”
“Where’s the wife?”
“Kennedy, I married twenty-four years ago. A girl named Sally McLean. She ran away from me three months after we were married. I never heard of her again.”
“Ever hear of Emmy Canfield?”
“No.”
“Inez Canfield?”
“No.”
“Ever been in apartment forty-eight at nine-ten Waterford?”
“No.” Osborne leaned forward. “Why?”
Kennedy crossed to the desk, opened the humidor and lifted out a triangular cigar. “I found one of these in that apartment.”
“I suppose other men smoke them, too.”
“I suppose so.” Kennedy dropped the cigar into the box. “It happens to be the place where I got beaten up. I found the fan dancer there.”
Osborne’s eyes were steady. “Where is she?”
“She skipped. Her name’s Inez Can-field. Her mother’s name is Emmy Can-field. Emmy’s an Amazon. She came at me with a knife and while she was doing it Inez left by a fire-escape, from another room. I knocked Emmy out with a chair and went in the other room to get Inez. But she was gone and while I was looking out a window the connecting door slammed and I was locked in. When I broke it down, Emmy was gone, too. There was this triangular cigar, still burning, on the floor.”
“You figure that somebody came in and took Emmy out, eh?”
Kennedy looked at him. “Yeah.”
Osborne knit his brows thoughtfully. His eyes stared at the surface of the desk, glazed with thought, and his fingers drummed lightly on the square blotter. After a couple of minutes he shook his head, said, “I can’t make it out, Kennedy.”
“You wouldn’t happen to know a young fellow named Joel Webb, would you?”
“No.” He looked up. “Who is he?”
“He’s in the puzzle, too. He’s stopping at the Somerset.”
Osborne sat back. “Oh, so that’s who you thought I went to see. Did you grab him?”
“No. I put a tail on him. I didn’t want to grab anybody until I had a talk with you.”
Osborne eyed him speculatively. “I can’t make you out, kid. But you needn’t worry about me. Grab anybody you like.”
Kennedy dropped his eyes, gazed curiously at the floor. Then he turned and went out slowly, his head still lowered. He was still in a kind of day-dream when he reached the street, but the sharp wind roused him and he looked up as if surprised to find himself there. He walked around to the Free Press office and found Tucker sitting gloomily in the office.
Kennedy said, “Don’t tell me you lost him.”
“He checked out of the Somerset with a bag and took a cab and I took another cab. The cab I took got a flat and before I could get another your special oyster was among the missing.
I shot right down to the railroad station, got in a booth where I could watch people come in and phoned Bob Angler at the airport. I told him to watch and see if Webb took a plane — gave him a description of the guy. Well, he didn’t, show up at the railroad station and according to Bob Angler he didn’t show up at the airport.”