I told him it was.
“Did you see the paper. Ed? They had a bit about Sheila. That she was involved with some gangsters and they killed her.”
I wondered where they got that. “They’re right,” I said.
“Then why not let it go? You know how those men operate. Fly a killer in from the other side of the country, then fly him away when he’s done. You can’t solve a crime like that. Why knock yourself out trying? Why waste time?”
“You all worried about my time, Jack?”
A sigh. “All right,” he said. “Okay, I’m scared. If you come up with anything you’ll have to give it all to the police. Then everything’s out in the open. I’m scared, Ed. I’ve got a lot of things to be scared about. A family and a practice. I don’t want them to blow up in my face.”
“I can keep you out of it.”
“Can you?”
“Uh-huh. And I couldn’t let go even if I wanted to, Jack. Two heavies handed me a beating yesterday. Another guy was tailing me. Somebody else missed me with a bullet a while back. I’ve been on one end or the other of enough handguns to win the West ten times over. So I can’t leave it alone.”
“God,” he said. “They’re trying to scare you?”
“They’re trying to get a briefcase from me. I don’t have it.”
“Who does?”
“I don’t know. Jack, didn’t Sheila ever mention anything about a briefcase? Anything about jewels or criminals?”
“No. Never. Let me think.” I let him think. “Never,” he said flatly. “I told you what she talked about. There was never anything about a briefcase or jewels or crooks.”
I let go of it. “About the apartment,” I said, shifting. “When you found Sheila. Maybe you were mistaken, maybe the apartment was neat and Sheila was naked and your mind did a little dance with itself. You were under a strain, Jack. You might not have seen things the way they were. Hell, you’re a doctor. You know how the human mind can react to shock.”
I listened to heavy breathing. Then: “You think you and I saw the apartment the same way.”
“That’s right.”
He hesitated. “That’s been bothering me,” he said finally. “I almost called you last night. I wanted to tell you about it.”
“Want to tell me now?”
“It’s just a feeling I had.”
“Go on.”
He said: “I was thinking about the murder. The way I found the body. I went over it in my mind and it didn’t seem to mesh together properly. Do you know what I mean? I had a certain distinct memory — a dead girl, Sheila, and a messed-up apartment, and all that. But somewhere in the back of my mind was the idea that it wasn’t that way at all. There was a conflicting picture that hadn’t been there before. A picture of Sheila nude and dead in the middle of a neat apartment. I don’t know if the second picture is real or if it stuck in my mind when you described it to me. It could be either way.”
“I see.”
“I’m not sold on it one way or the other,” he went on. “But if you’ve got a hunch I was seeing things, well, I’ll go along with you. It makes sense to me.”
I said something innocuous. He told me again that he hoped I’d keep him out of it and I said I’d do my best. We spent a few seconds looking around for something to say to each other, then settled on “So long” and ended the conversation. I held onto the receiver and studied it, trying to think clearly. Then I put it down and poured the last of Maddy’s coffee into my cup.
The conversation with Jack hadn’t proved anything one way or the other. He was too busy trying to forget forever the fact that he had managed to commit adultery and get mixed up in a murder. Now all he cared about was staying in the clear and smelling like a rose. Anything he said or did was going to be colored by that desire. He’d go along with any theory I came up with just to keep things simple.
I finished the coffee, washed out my cup and put it away. I found a broom and gave the apartment a quick sweeping. I wrote Maddy a note, then read it over and decided it was painfully cute. I tore it up and wrote her a blander one, put it on the rickety kitchen table and set the brandy bottle on top of it.
At the door I turned to take a last look at the apartment and think pleasant thoughts about the girl who lived in it. Then I went down two flights, passing Madame Sindra and the machine shop, and out onto the street.
The sun was high in the sky and the air was hot. I managed to snag a cab on Eight Avenue. I sat back and gave my home address to the driver, letting him fight the traffic.
A few points bothered me. Both Armin and Bannister knew I went to the girl’s apartment. They sure as hell didn’t pool information between them. Which meant both of them had seen me.
How?
They couldn’t both have kept the apartment under surveillance at the same time. They both knew I went there, but neither one knew I didn’t come out with the briefcase.
Why?
I tossed it around and didn’t get anywhere with it. I lit my pipe while the cab clawed its way through the beginnings of the noon rush hour. My cabby inched his way north on Eighth Avenue, jockeying for position with Puerto Rican boys pushing hand trucks of ladies’ dresses, I sat and smoked.
The city was getting hotter as the day rolled along. Maddy was reading for a good part; I was chasing a briefcase and a killer. A good day.
When we hit Forty-second Street I started wondering about my own apartment. I lost the thought when we passed the Ruskin and Peter Armin came back to mind. I got back to it a few blocks along the line and wondered what sort of a job Cora Johnson had been able to do. And how much of the damage was permanent.
And how well five grand would compensate for it.
My stomach-ache wasn’t bothering me. Ralph and Billy still were, though. I sat there and remembered. And hated them.
I reached into my pocket. The Beretta was still there, small and sleek and deadly. I stroked cool metal and thought about Ralph and Billy.
I climbed stairs to my apartment, lifted a corner of my Welcome mat — which says Go Away, incidentally — and picked up my key. This was one of Cora’s less logical habits; she couldn’t believe I had two keys to my own apartment and always left the damned key precisely where I had left it for her. This always gave me a bad moment. I couldn’t be sure whether she’d been there or not until I opened the door.
I bent over again, scooped up the Times. I straightened up, stuck key in lock, held my breath, and pushed. She had been there.
I thanked her silently. The place looked livable again. Hell, it looked great — each book was back in the bookcase, the rugs were clean, the furniture polished. I closed the door and tossed my newspaper on a chair. There would be time to read it later on. Now it was more fun to look around.
Some of the books were still ruined, of course. A bookmaker could patch up most of them as soon as I had time to run them in. And the chair cushions were still slit open. But Cora had done one beautiful hell of a job. I took a deep breath, feeling very pleased with the world in general and with Cora Johnson in particular.
Only one thing was out of whack. I looked at it and the room started to spin around. I stood there with my mouth wide open and my stupid face hanging out.
There was a tan cowhide briefcase on the coffee table and it had never been there before.
Eleven
I went to the shelf and poured a little cognac in one of the glasses. I drank it off and turned around.
The briefcase was still there.
One of the slick mags had a feature running a few years back under the title “What’s Wrong With This Picture?” The pitch was quietly mindless — a Mona Lisa frowning on a wall, a man with two left hands, a face without eyebrows. The reader was supposed to puzzle it out, figure out what was wrong.