“I know it doesn’t. I’m just telling you what happened. I don’t know anything about her at all, or why she’d want to kill Stedman. I can’t tell you who that big goon is, or even what he looks like, because it was too dark. But I’m pretty sure he’s a seaman or used to be one.”
“Why?”
“When he was telling the girl to watch me, he said if I came around, to sing out. Sing out is a seagoing expression, and one of the few that sailors ever use ashore. And that thing I hit him with was a fid.”
“What’s a fid?”
“It’s a heavy wooden spike, pointed at one end and rounded on the other, and it’s used in splicing line. So he might be working ashore as a rigger, or on small boats of some kind.”
“All right,” he said brusquely. “Now I want to give you some advice, Foley. I don’t think you realize the dangerous spot you’re in, so let me spell it out for you. It’s probably the luck of the stupid Irish, but you’ve been fouling up the police force of a whole city for a week. There are several hundred men out looking for you. Some of them haven’t been home for days. Some of ‘em have been chewed out till they’re numb. I’m one of ‘em. They’re tired, and they’re mad. You’re wanted for killing a cop. And now to top it off, you’re on the list as being armed and dangerous. Is it beginning to soak in?”
“I haven’t got a gun,” I said.
“Maybe not. But that’s not the point. You told the people in that Randall Street apartment you had one, and the only way those men out there can play it is by the book. You’re presumed to be armed, and if you make one phony move they’re going to cut you down. Tell me where you are.”
Somebody was rattling the door of the booth.
“Hold it a minute,” I told Brannan. The door opened and a big round face looked in at me. It had small black eyes set in it, a flat nose, a thinning fuzz of black hair around a bald head, and it was overflowing with the solemnity of the very drunk.
”Par’n me, Jack,” it said. It blinked at me, swayed unsteadily, and withdrew. It was attached to a massive, thickset body in dark trousers, and a dark gray sweater with no shirt. “You can have it in just a minute,” I said. I hoped he didn’t fall on the booth and knock it over.
“You still there?” Brannan asked.
“Yeah. What were you going to say?”
“Tell me where you are. When you hear the siren coming, stand in the open with your hands on top of your head.”
The party in the other booth went out now, and I heard the big drunk stagger in and try to dial somebody, humming to himself. “Nothing doing,” I said.
“All right. If you’re too stupid to care what happens to you, think about your friend. Somebody’s hiding you. And some of these judges can get damned nasty about harboring a fugitive.”
“I know that,” I said. “So does he. But how about spending a few minutes of your time trying to catch the fugitive that did kill Stedman. I’ll give you this once more, so write it down. Frances Celaya. That’s C-e-l-a-y-a. Shiloh Machine Tool Company. Same name as the Civil War battle.” I dropped the receiver on the hook and went back to the car. We pulled out into the traffic.
“Did it do any good?” she asked.
“I doubt it,” I said. “But at least we tried.”
She put the car in the basement garage. “You go on up,” I said, “so if anybody recognizes me we won’t be together.” I waited five minutes. When I went around to the front door and pressed the buzzer she let me in. I met no one in the corridors. I tapped lightly on the apartment door and she opened it.
She had tossed the fur coat in the bedroom and was wearing a skirt and sweater outfit. The living room and her study were littered with books, notebooks, spread-out maps, and sheets of paper.
“Did you have a cyclone?” I asked.
She shook her head. “I’ve been doing some research. But let’s see how badly you’re hurt.”
We went into the bedroom. I tossed the topcoat on the bed and stripped down to the waist. “Oh, good God, Irish,” she exclaimed. One whole side of my torso, from lower ribs to groin, had turned black. I touched it. It hurt.
“Hadn’t we better get a doctor?” she asked.
“No. He’d have to report me. I think it’s just a bruise, and there’s probably nothing wrong inside.”
“Well, we’ll see, in the morning. But you come lie down in the living room, and I’ll fix you a drink. And some coffee and a sandwich.”
She moved some of the books and maps off the sofa and I stretched out. I felt tired and beat-up and defeated. In a few minutes she brought me a Martini. When I sat up and drank it, life had a little better outlook. She put a sandwich and a cup of coffee on the low table before me and sat on the floor on the other side of it with a cigarette.
“Let’s see where we stand now,” she said thoughtfully. “That girl will never show up for work again, and the chances are she’ll leave town. We don’t have any idea who her boy friend is. It seems almost certain she was in Stedman’s apartment during the fight, she saw you, and she killed Stedman just after you left, and then left herself by the rear entrance just before the police arrived. But even if the police did pick her up now, there isn’t one shred of evidence on which to hold her, and we don’t have the faintest idea why she should want to kill Stedman. Was it jealousy? I mean, she might have heard you accuse Stedman of running around with your wife.”
“No,” I said. I drank some of the coffee. “I don’t think I said a word to him. I just belted him. She must have deliberately picked Stedman up there in Red’s bar because she was going to kill him when she had the chance. But why go to all that trouble? I mean, to play him along for ten days or so? She and that thug could have got him a lot easier than that.”
She drummed her fingers on the table. “There are a couple of possibilities. Maybe she was trying to find out something from him. Or suppose it was revenge? The victim has to know, at the end, and see it coming, or there is no revenge. You follow me? She had to be in a position to tell him, and still do it, and get away with it I think Stedman was being fitted for an eventual ‘suicide,’ on the order of Purcell’s, when you blundered in. Not necessarily that night, but sometime in the near future. You just presented her with the perfect opportunity to do it then. And with you for the goat, the suicide bit wasn’t necessary.”
“Nice crowd,” I said. “I wonder what they do for an encore? But I like the revenge angle. That takes us right back to Danny Bullard and ties it in with Purcell. And that guy with her tonight could very well be Danny Bullard’s brother.”
She nodded. “Except for a couple of things. There’s nothing to indicate she even knew Danny Bullard. Not so far, anyway. And somehow I just can’t see her or this cold-blooded thug declaring war on two policemen merely because they killed him.” She paused, and frowned. “Even if you conceded that she might, in case she was very much in love with him, the brother is definitely out. He hadn’t even seen Danny for years, so far as anybody knows. Criminals may hate all police impartially, but I don’t think they take a personal view of a thing like that; at least, not to the point of endangering themselves for revenge.”
“I agree with you,” I said. “It doesn’t make sense, actually. But let’s drop it for the moment and talk about something else. I’ve got to get out of here, before I get you in serious trouble. Brannan warned me it could get awful rough on whoever was hiding me.”
“Oh, Brannan’s foot,” she said. “You’ll stay here till we solve this thing.”
“I’m not sure we’ll ever solve it now,” I said wearily. “I’ll never find her again.” I lighted a cigarette and stood up to walk back and forth across the room. I had to step over books and maps. “What’s all this research, anyway?”