Liddell cursed softly. “I sent him over here to stay put.”
The pimple faced operator shrugged. “Nobody tells me he’s not supposed to go.” He eyed Liddell curiously. “Guy hot or something, you’re burying him?”
“No. I just wanted him where I could lay my hands on him for some information. He’ll be back. I’ll wait in his room.”
The elevator stopped at the fourth floor with a spine-jarring jerk. The operator slammed open the grill doors, propped them open. “I got a pass key here. I’ll let you in.” He led the way down the corridor to 412, pushed the door open. He stuck his head in, looked around curiously. “Gone all right.”
Liddell slipped him a folded bill, walked into the room, closed the door behind him. Both the bedroom and bathroom were empty. A light had been left burning in a bridge lamp next to the room’s only chair. Dumped alongside the chair was a stack of rumpled newspapers.
Liddell walked over, picked up a sheet that had been crumpled into a ball, smoothed it out. The item was a small one at the bottom of a column. It merely stated that the victim of Monday night’s hit and run accident had been identified as Dennis Leeman, address unknown.
He stared at the item for a moment, crumpled the paper back into a ball, threw it in the direction of the waste basket. The telephone was on a cigarette-scarred night table next to the bed. He picked up the instrument, asked for the manager’s office.
“Blesch speaking,” a tired, gruff voice informed him.
“Ed, this is Liddell. I’m in 412. My boy’s gone. Any idea where or when?”
Blesch sighed audibly. “You just asked me to check him in, pally. You didn’t say anything about watchdogging him. All I know’s he made a couple of calls just before he went out. I had the operator keep an eye on the room.” A worried note crept into his voice. “No trouble?”
“No trouble,” Liddell assured him. “I’ve got some good news for the guy and I want to pass it along.”
“One of the calls was to your office, the other to Stanton 7-6770. He didn’t get an answer on the Stanton number and went tearing out.”
“Got any idea who has that Stanton number?”
“Look, pally. You’re the detective. Me, I got other things on my mind. Running a riding academy like this ain’t the best way to grow old gracefully.” There was a click as he dropped the receiver back on its hook.
Liddell hung up his receiver, stared at it for a moment. He debated the advisability of waiting until Terrell returned, voted it down. He dropped by the front desk on his way out, left word for the old man to call him as soon as he came in.
4
Johnny Liddell sat with his desk chair tilted back, staring out the window at Bryant Park twelve stories below. He helped himself to a slug of bourbon from the bottle in the bottom drawer, emptied the paper cup, tossed it at the waste basket.
He consulted his watch, frowned at the time. Almost seven! He reached for the telephone, dialled the Hotel Carson, verified the fact that his client hadn’t returned.
He had just hung up the receiver when the phone started to shrill. He let it ring twice, picked up the receiver.
“Liddell?” The voice was familiar, but not the old man’s.
“Yeah.”
“This is Mike Flannery, Inspector Herlehy’s driver. He wants to see you. Can you get down to Perry and Ninth in the Village?”
Liddell frowned at the receiver. “I guess so, but—”
“The inspector says to hurry.” The line went dead.
The cab made the distance from midtown to the Village in a record time. Liddell pushed a bill through the front window to the driver, walked across the street to where Inspector Herlehy’s black limousine stood against the curb in front of a large excavation.
The driver nodded to him. “He’s down in the ditch with a friend of yours,” Flannery told him. “He thought you might want in on this.”
Abel Terrell was sprawled out on his back, staring up at the small circle of men around him unblinkingly. His heavily knuckled hands were clasped across his midsection as though in a last desperate effort to stem the red tide that had seeped through the laced fingers and had spread in an ugly dark stain on his jacket.
He was dead.
Johnny Liddell looked from the body to Inspector Herlehy. “When did it happen, inspector?”
The inspector pushed his sheriff-style fedora on the back of his head, chomped heavily on the ever-present wad of gum. “Can’t tell for sure until the medical examiner gets here. We got the report twenty minutes ago.” He took a leather notebook from the man next to him, flipped through the pages. “Couple of kids discovered the body, phoned it in.” He snapped the notebook shut, handed it back to his aide. “My guess is he hasn’t been dead much over an hour. Ninety minutes at the outside.”
Liddell pulled out a pack of cigarettes, held it up for approval, drew a nod. He hung one in his mouth where it waggled when he talked. “How come you called me?” He touched a match to the cigarette, drew a deep drag.
“You tell me what your connection with him was.” Herlehy clasped his hands behind his back, rocked on the balls of his feet.
“You’re sure there is a connection?”
“Your name and address were written on a slip of paper in his pocket.” The inspector reached into his jacket pocket, brought out a folded note. “You gave him a note to Ed Blesch at the Carson telling him to sign the guy in. Why?”
Liddell shrugged. “He was a client. I wanted him on ice until I could get some information he needed.”
Someplace in the distance, a siren wailed shrilly.
“Come on, Liddell. Don’t make me pick it out of you. Who is this guy and what was the beef?” He squinted at a pencilled memo. “He registered into the hotel as Tefft. That his name?”
“No. His name’s Terrell. He came into my office this morning. Said he killed a man six months ago.”
Herlehy scowled. “So you buried him instead of turning him in?”
“It wasn’t that simple,” Liddell argued. “The man he thought he killed six months ago, turns up dead in a hit and run accident on Monday. He thought it was a trap to bring him into the open. It wasn’t.”
The inspector spit out a wad of gum, pulled a fresh stick from his pocket, started to denude it. “Guy pulled through, eh?”
Liddell grinned glumly. “That’s the funny part of it, inspector. I looked the body over very carefully. There wasn’t a sign of a bullet wound on it.”
Outside a siren reached for a high note, faded away as the ambulance skidded to a stop at the curb. Two men from the medical examiner’s office walked into the excavation, tossed an incurious glance at the body.
“Too bad we’ve got to move him. After he made it so nice and convenient. Just cover him with dirt and he’s set,” one of them grinned. “Your boys through with him?”
The inspector nodded. “Where you fellows been?”
“You’re not the only division giving us business, you know,” the newcomer grinned. He waited until his companion had finished a cursory examination of the body. “Okay to take him?”
“Be my guest,” the inspector nodded. He initialled a form, handed it back to the m.e.’s man, watched while a stretcher was brought in and the body loaded onto it. “Let’s have a report as soon as you can.”
The man in white thought about it for a moment, nodded. “Maybe this will hold you over for awhile. From the looks of the hole in his belly, I’d say it was a pretty safe bet he didn’t die of high blood pressure.” He followed the covered stretcher out to the ambulance at the curb.