They lined up at the check-room like an impatient queue at the box office of a hit show. The men obtained their hats and coats, took the arms of their girl friends, and hurried the hell out through the heavy glass doors.
I found a spot near Parker at the bar and I said, “Is it all right if I have a drink?”
“Sure. And I want to thank you for the way you handled this, Pete. Nice job, locking the doors and keeping them here.”
“Scotch,” I said to Tobias. To Parker: “How does it look?”
“Stinks,” he said.
“But why?”
“First, no gun. No weapon. Nothing in sight, and this is a big joint. Second, these.” He brought up a pair of old leather gloves. “Found them right by the archway. Dropped during the excitement after Whitney screamed. They don’t belong here, do they? Don’t belong in a snooty night club, a pair of broken-down, grimy, ordinary leather gloves.”
“No, they don’t.”
“Whoever did this job, planned it. You shoot off a gun, you get nitrate impregnations in your palm. You wear leather gloves, the impregnations remain in the gloves. These pair fit a man or a woman. Where does that leave me?”
“You can trace gloves, can’t you?”
“You ought to know better than that, Pete. With you I don’t have to make like a sherlock. These are an ordinary pair of leather gloves purchased, maybe, easy, six months ago. Thousands of stores sell them to hundreds of thousands of customers right across the counter. We’ll make the routine try, of course, but it don’t figure.”
“You’re so right, Lieutenant.”
“Now we’re taking that bunch from Mrs. Malamed’s table downtown for a fast paraffin test for disclosure of nitrates in the palm. We’ll find nothing.” He tapped the gloves. “We’ll find it all here.”
“What about prints? On the gloves?”
“Whoever was smart enough to figure the gloves was smart enough not to get prints on the gloves.”
“Stinks,” I said, “is right.”
I drank part of my drink and turned toward the check-room. Most of the clients of the Long-Malamed had already vacated. Frankie Hines got his coat and hat and tipped Irene a dollar.
“Well, thank you,” Irene said.
Hines and Melvin Long, wearing their coats, joined us at the bar and ordered drinks from Tobias. The next in line at Irene’s check-room was a tall, distinguished man of about thirty-five, with grey temples, curly dark hair, light blue eyes and a thin mustache.
“Charles Morse,” the man said to the cop with the notebook. “Book critic.” He showed identification, then he handed his check to Irene. She helped him with the coat, accepted his tip.
“What’s the address?” the cop said.
“Fifteen East Nineteenth.”
“Thanks,” the cop said. “You stay.”
“Yes. I know.”
Morse moved toward us at the bar, shoving his hands deep into the pockets of his dark blue coat.
Suddenly, he froze.
A grimace grew on his mouth.
“What’s the matter?” Parker called.
Morse’s right hand came out of his coat pocket. It held a gun. A nickel-plated, pearl-handled revolver that looked like a thirty-eight. I heard a gasp. I turned. Melvin Long’s face had gone whiter than a napkin at the Waldorf.
Parker and Frank Hines rushed at Morse. Parker used a handkerchief and took the revolver out of Morse’s hand.
“This yours?” Parker said.
“No. Of course not.”
“What’s it doing in your pocket?”
“I wish I knew.”
Parker squinted down at the gun and an unhappy smile widened his mouth. “This looks like it.” He wrapped it in the handkerchief and handed it to a cop. “You sure?” he said to Morse.
“Sure I’m sure. Look, Lieutenant, I wouldn’t kill a man, then put the gun in my own coat pocket, then come up with it and display it to you. Now, would I?”
“No. You wouldn’t,” Parker said. “Figures during that excitement around the checkroom, everybody grabbing for coats, somebody shoved that gun into the first available coat pocket. Thai’s the way it figures.” He sighed, and his voice came up. “All right. Everybody on my list, let’s go.”
Fingers squeezed my arm. Melvin Long said, “I want to talk to vou.”
“Now?”
“As soon as I can.”
“Now you’re heading for downtown.”
“I know. But as soon as possible after that. Where?”
“You know Schmattola’s?”
“Yes.”
“I’m always there after curfew.”
“After curfew? I said as soon as possible.”
“By the time they get through with you, it’ll be after curfew.”
“All right, Mr. Chambers. Wait for me. Please.”
“Check,” I said.
Parker called: “Let’s go, everybody. Come on. Come on.”
III
Ernie Schmattola’s Pizza Parlor was located on Forty-ninth Street off Sixth Avenue. Ernie had figured out a deal and it had paid off. Ernie had been born in Naples but he was more New York than New York. He knew the town, he breathed the town, he loved the town, he lived the town. Where most restaurants opened at about eleven in the morning and closed at about eleven at night, Ernie opened at eleven at night and closed at eleven the next morning. There are a good many late birds in New York who get hungry at the most inappropriate hours, and these are the birds that Ernie served. Schmattola’s was always crowded, giving a view of a cross-slice of the populace, from the parasites of low syndicate to the paragons of high society.
Schmattola’s was a mass of many rooms, with scurrying waiters and the thrum of constant and overlapping conversation. The cooks in the kitchen were the best in the land, as were the prohibitive prices which prohibited, it seems, nobody. Ernie himself was a squat man, the shape of a butter tub and with the strut of a penguin. He was swarthy with dark, beady, humorous eyes, and he was the soul of compassion. To his friends he served, on call, compassionate after-hour drinks in reminiscent tea-cups. I was a friend.
He met me at the door and I said, “I want privacy, Ernie. I want privacy, a double scotch, water, white bread and ravioli.”
“It’s my pleasure, Mr. Chambers.”
“I’m expecting a friend. He’ll ask for me.”
“It’s my pleasure, Mr. Chambers.”
He took me to a nook away from the crowd. I sipped my scotch, sniffed my ravioli, and dug in. I began to think about the Long-Malamed. Of the people at the table of jeopardy, as Parker had so quaintly put it, I had seen Frankie Hines (of whom I knew by past bright reputation), I had seen Charles Morse (of whom I knew by present unblemished reputation), and I had spoken with Melvin Long. I had not even seen Mrs. Claire Malamed, or if I had, I didn’t know who she was. Ruth Benson I had observed singing from afar at various clubs about the town. So much for the cast of characters.
I had finished the ravioli and was mopping up the plate with the wonderful white bread when Ernie ushered Melvin Long to my table.
I said, “Something?”
“Can I get a drink?”
“It might be arranged.”
“I need one. Gin and tonic.”
“That’s too fancy for here. You can have gin, in a tea-cup.”
“Gin. In a tea-cup.”
I nodded at Ernie.
“How was it downtown?” I asked. “Pretty lousy.”
“They find anything?”
“They found nothing. All of us responded negative to the test. We were all sent home.”
“I see. Now what’s with the urgent conversation with me?”
He squirmed around in his seat like he was sitting at a concert and didn’t like music. Then he blurted, “That was my gun.”