“Miss Bayliss?” the redhead said. “We’re police officers, miss. I’m Detective Sergeant Sam Dolan. Can we see you a minute?”
She closed the door, unhooked the chain and let them in. The redhead beamed. “Take off your hat, Moe. Joe Friday always takes off his hat.”
“Funny man,” Moe said. He sat down in the big chair and put his hat on his knee and watched the television show.
“What’s this all about?” Jane asked.
The banter was gone. The blue eyes were quick. “A woman phoned in at daylight this morning and said as how there was a body in her yard, that she found it when she was setting out for early Mass. We went over there. She lives practically under the new Expressway Bridge. You know, it’s got those places where you can pull over out of traffic if your car quits. If they’d tossed him over the railing a hundred feet further along, he’d be floating down the river right now. But instead he lands in her yard and some fancy knife work has been done on him. He’s wearing clothes from the West Coast. His wallet is gone. No keys, no address. Nothing. In the side pocket of his coat we find a book of matches. Fingers are stained and two matches gone. They’re from the Taffeta Room.”
“That’s where we—”
“I know. You and your boy friend, Saddler, last night. We got the manager out of the sack and he went down and opened up and got your addresses for us. He gave us the waiter’s address and the doorman’s, too. By then we had glossy prints of the body. The manager didn’t recognize the picture. The waiter thinks the picture is of one of the two men. He gave us a meager description of the other one.”
“One was taller and—”
“Take a look at these.” Dolan took out two glossy prints. They were of the man’s head. Death had ironed the face to a ritual blankness. She shut her eyes and saw in memory the man’s quick backward look at the roomful of people. She shivered and handed the pictures back.
“That was the man.”
“Would you mind coming along to look at the body to make doubly certain?”
She swallowed hard. “I guess I wouldn’t mind.”
“Now try to remember as clearly as you can. Take your time. What did the other man look like?”
“Shorter. Heavier through the shoulders. Broader. He made the tall one look frail. They both wore dark suits. They both had dark hair.”
“Would you recognize the other one?”
“I never did look directly at him.”
“Your boy friend is going to be the best bet.”
“Yes, Howard looked right at them.”
Dolan said that if it was convenient, they would wait down in the car for her while she dressed. She did so, hurriedly, looked out at the rain and put on a transparent raincoat.
The police car was a black sedan. Dolan started up, and it shambled around corners, bounced violently over slight irregularities in the pavement. It took fifteen minutes to get to City General, where the body lay. Jane spent three minutes in the basement and came out on unsteady legs. She felt gray-green.
“Okay now?” Dolan asked solicitously.
“I guess so.”
A tall boy walked over toward them. He had a sideways gait, like a puppy. He wore a porkpie hat with a feather, damp raglan topcoat in a herringbone tweed reaching almost to his knees, and soiled white buckskin shoes.
“This on the John Doe knifing, Red?” he asked Dolan, jerking his head toward Jane.
“Don’t call me Red. Yes, this is on it. Miss Bayliss, this is Walker Locatta of the Journal. Don’t tell him a thing — yet.”
Locatta gave Dolan a sour look and turned and gave Jane a smile of searching approval. She realized at once that the boyish look was a cover; the face was hard. The lean throat was wattled. Fifty perhaps. He could be sixty.
“Know who he was, Miss Bayliss?”
“She won’t talk until I say she can talk,” Dolan said. “And I’m off on Friday and I like the card at the Arena.”
“Venality, Miss Bayliss,” Locatta said softly. “Degenerate minions of the law. Will ringside be good enough, Red? Or do you want me to get you a bout?”
“Two ringside.”
“I hope she identified him.”
“She doesn’t know him, but there could be a nice little story in it, Loco. She and her boy friend sat next to the deceased and saw the murderer hold a knife on him and walk him out of a joint last night. No one else saw it but this lady and her guy. Worth the tickets?”
Locatta pursed his lips and looked at the far gray sky over the city. “It will have to do, Red.”
He took a stenographer’s notebook out of the side pocket of the topcoat and wrote down the details. Her name and address and where she worked. The same with Howard Saddler. What time it had happened. Then he crossed the street, unlocked the trunk compartment of a gray coupe and brought back a cumber-some-looking camera. He smiled his aged smile at Jane.
“Never could find a photographer when I wanted one. So I had to learn how to do it myself. Now just relax. Pretty girls sell papers.”
He focused on her and then said casually, “Red, I don’t know why I waste my good time giving these publicity hounds a break. I’ve taken more pictures of featherheaded, stupid young females lately.”
Jane gasped and stared at him and the bulb popped. He lowered the camera.
“Just what do you mean?” she demanded.
“Sorry, Miss Bayliss. I wasn’t getting enough expression. Now I’ve got it. Outrage, indignation, incredulity. Thanks.”
She relaxed. “That’s a rough game.”
“I guess. This used to be a rough business. Too many rules now. Stop around, Red. I’ll leave the tickets at the desk in an envelope.”
As they drove back, Dolan talked about Locatta. “Loco mispelled Moe’s name once and Moe is still sore at him.”
“What is your name?” Jane asked.
Moe spelled it. “W-a-s-t-a-j-i-v-e-t-s-i.”
“He put in an extra ‘s’,” Dolan said.
“Right after the ‘v’,” Moe said. “It’s in the book. He could have looked it up.”
“It was important to Moe,” Dolan said. “His first citation.”
“For what? Is that like a medal?”
“Sort of. Moe went into a hotel to bring out a D and D. There were three of them and three guns and a bowling-ball bag full of dough. They shot him and he lost his temper.”
“Oh.” said Jane.
“Imagine putting dough in a bowling-ball bag,” Dolan mused. “Here you are, Miss Bayliss. Thanks a lot. Look, maybe you want to go with me to the fights Friday?”
“Well, I—”
“I’ll give you a ring.”
Chapter Two
On Monday morning Jane bought a Journal at the newsstand near her bus stop. She found herself on the first page of the second section. She was gazing light into the camera, frowning in an ugly way and looking mad as a hornet. It was hideous.
Beside her picture was a picture of the Expressway Bridge with the usual dotted line extending from the parapet down into the front yard of a rather grubby-looking house. There was a fat woman in the yard of the house, a tiny figure pointing at the big maltese cross at the end of the dotted line.
GIRL SPOTS KILLER, the headline said. She felt indignant. That wasn’t fair. Howard spotted the killer, if anybody did. She’d had one good look at the victim. The article hardly mentioned Howard.
She read with interest that the victim had a real name now. Walter Fredmans. Age, thirty-six. Resident of Los Angeles. He had served two terms in prison, one for auto theft and one for burglary. He had left the small apartment hotel where he lived about two weeks ago, checking out for good. He was driving a blue Kaiser sedan. Occupation, unknown.