Annalou snapped a fingernail briskly against a glossy black and white print. “Not quite, Lieutenant.”
Don flung an arm around her shoulders, bent to examine the photo. “That him?!”
“Yep.”
Wiley reached for the picture. He had to reach around Don. “Pardon me, Dick Tracy. You positive this is the man, Miss Kenyon?”
“Uh-huh.” Annalou shuddered a little. “If this is the same fellow who stuck up those other stations,” Wiley said, “and we’re pretty sure he is, we’d better get busy. All those other attendants could remember about him was that he had eyes like a couple ice-cubes.”
“Maybe they also had phone calls which might have affected their memories no little,” Annalou suggested.
“Could be. Still and all, you wanna be absolutely certain,” counseled the officer. “Remember you didn’t get a gander at this guy within fifty or seventy-five feet. He had his hat on, then, too.”
“He could have been wearing an Eskimo parka,” Annalou said bitterly. “I’d know that pug nose and cleft chin anywhere.”
Wiley turned the photo over, studied the data on the back. “I hope you’re right about this.”
“Who is he?” Don asked.
Wiley ignored him. “This lug you identify, Miss Kenyon, is Larry, the Gong. There are readers out for him from Cleveland, Pittsburgh and points east.”
“Larry, the gong?” Annalou’s eyes made inquiry.
“They gave him that handle because he is all the time booting that gong around, Miss Kenyon. Y’understand? He is one of those wacky heroin hounds who never know themselves what they’ll do next.”
Don Rixey stuck his chin out aggressively. “I got a pretty good idea what he’ll try to do. He’ll try to fix Annalou’s wagon so it won’t squeak. That’s what he’ll try to do!”
Annalou’s mother was in the kitchen, washing the breakfast dishes. Annalou sat on the sofa in the living-room, chain smoking and arguing with Don.
“What do you want me to do? Stay shut in here all the rest of my life?”
Don patted her shoulder. “I don’t want you roaming around where this Larry, the Gong, might get a shot at you. Particularly I don’t intend to have you going out to that ’burg joint where you been working. It’d be the first place he’d look for you.”
“But, Don, if I don’t show up, I’ll lose my job,” she wailed. “I can’t afford to lose my job. Don’t forget how hard we’re trying to save up for our marriage.”
“They won’t fire you for being out a few days, snooks.”
“Who says the police’ll round him up in a few days, anyhow!” Annalou wanted to know.
“Every cop in six states is looking for him. They’ve been broadcasting his description every hour on the hour. That’s just why he’ll go gunning for you. He’ll be sure you’re the only person who could have identified him.”
“I don’t care,” Annalou persisted, “I’m not going to be cooped up here like a hermit, for weeks, when all the time this Larry is probably a thousand miles away, in Miami or Los Angeles or some place. He wouldn’t dare stay around this city. He’d be sure to be caught.”
“Lieutenant Wiley thinks he’s still here.” Don was grim. “He says none of the trainmen or bus conductors or airports or bridge tenders have seen anyone answering that description, heading out of town. It’s a cinch he can’t be traveling very far by car, because every gas station within three hundred miles is on the lookout for him. Chances are he’s holed up right here close by somewhere, waiting until the heat is off, before he tries his getaway.”
Annalou ground out a cigarette she’d just lighted. “And you think I’m going to stay penned in all that time until the heat is off! Well, let me tell you something, darling!”
He beat her to it. “No, I don’t expect you to hole up here, indefinitely. I have an idea. Listen.”
She listened. Right up to the time he grabbed her with one hand, his hat with the other — and kissed her good-by...
The sergeant behind the desk squinted dubiously at the clock on the wall behind him.
“Lootenant Wiley goes off duty at four o’clock. ’Tis now half-past three. What might be the nature of your business with him?”
Don could hardly restrain himself from blurting out: “I know where Larry, the Gong, is hiding!” He did say:
“I’ve got some important information about that gas station bandit, I think.”
“You think.” The sergeant pondered. “Would it be important enough to confide to Detective First Grade O’Hare, you think?”
“If he’s on the case. Sure.” Don was getting sore. Didn’t these cops want any help in finding a murderer?
“Upstairs. First right.” The sergeant dismissed him.
Ten minutes later, Detective James O’Hare tilted his straight-backed chair against the wall and pulled his hat down over his eyes as if the light hurt him.
“I got to get this straight, Mr. Rixey. You never saw this Larry yourself?”
“No, sir.”
“Nor saw this ritzy dame who was with him at the time of the murder?”
“No, but—”
O’Hare held up a traffic cop palm. “So you couldn’t identify either of ’em, if you was to see ’em. But anyhow, you don’t claim you have seen either of ’em at this—” he glanced at scribbling on the desk pad in front of him “—this School Street address?”
“I haven’t even been around there to try to,” Don admitted. “If you’d only let me—”
The hand came up again, in the Stop signal. “Nobody at this department store actually remembers this dame, either — so you draw a blank there, too?”
“That’s right. Only—”
“Still, you’d like for the police to stick their necks out by going around and arresting somebody, just on your guesswork?”
“It’s more than guesswork,” Don protested. “She was the only one—”
O’Hare smiled tolerantly. “This Bureau doesn’t pull stuff like that, sonny. We’re sort of old-fashioned, maybe. But we like the least little bit of evidence, before we go bustin’ in people’s homes. A wee smidgin, so to speak, of identification. We like some slight indication that we won’t get bawled out by the Commissioner, raked over the coals by the newspapers and sued for false arrest by the wrong parties.” He brought his chair down on all fours with a bang. “Not that we don’t appreciate your public-spirited interest.”
“Public-spirited, bosh! I’m interested in Annalou!” Don rose angrily. “Then you won’t even investigate this lead?”
“We’ve too much to do to’ go wild-goosin’ off at every crackbrain suggestion from amateur gumshoes, sonny.” Gently O’Hare tapped the address in front of him. “By the same token, we won’t overlook any bets, however goofy they may seem. We’ll put this in the hopper. In the morning, the boys will make a routine investigation quietly.”
“By morning this Larry may have taken a run out powder!” Don raged.
O’Hare smiled patiently. “If he runs, we’ll get him. If he stays — and if, he’s where you say, we’ll still get him. We may not be Mounties. We don’t always get our man, but our battin’ average isn’t so bad. Thanks for comin’ around. We’ll let you know, if we hear anything.”
Thirty minutes later Don parked his Regal Radio Repair truck on School Street, in front of the address he’d given O’Hare.
“In the morning!” He mimicked the detective’s tone. “We’ll look into it, in the morning. Maybe, if we don’t forget about it, and if we don’t change our minds!”
He took his kit, stalked into the building. There was a row of mail boxes. Apartment 5-B had a black metal plate with gilt lettering: Tolman. That was the name they’d given him at the store.
He avoided the elevator, mounted three flights, and put his ear to the door of 5-B. Someone was singing “Doin’ What Comes Natch’rally.”