“You say you were going somewhere to have it out? You weren’t going to fight at the club room?”
“No. We don’t allow fights there. Bart and me just fixed to meet there.”
“Where were you going?” I asked.
His bony shoulders lifted in a shrug. “Behind the car barns, maybe. Or some vacant lot. We’d have decided that after we met.”
“When a fight for the presidency takes place, are there certain rules?”
“Sure,” Joe said. “You can’t use nothing but your hands. That’s how the guys would know this was a bum rap. They know I wouldn’t use a knife and they know we wouldn’t fight in the club room. Besides, Bart had on his jacket.”
When I only looked puzzled at this, he explained. “Our jackets cost fourteen bucks apiece. We don’t even wear them on a rumble. Nobody in the club would fight without taking his jacket off first.”
I asked, “If the Gravediggers framed you, how’d they know you planned to meet Bart last night?”
“Everybody knew. The Purple Pelicans wouldn’t spread it around, but the auxiliary knew all about it too, and some of them pal around a little with members of the Gravediggers’ auxiliary.”
“What are these auxiliaries?” I asked. “The members’ girls?”
“Yeah. Only they have to be taken in.”
I took this to mean the girl friend of a member didn’t automatically become an auxiliary member, but had to be approved by either the club or the other auxiliary members, or perhaps both.
“So you’re reasonably certain the Gravediggers knew of your planned meeting with Bart, then?”
“Sure. That stuff gets around fast.”
“How would they get at that knife your dad owned?”
He laughed a little sardonically. “Our flat hasn’t been locked in years. What’s there to steal except a lot of empty whisky bottles?”
“The police say some girl phoned in anonymously at a quarter of ten to report a reefer party was going on at the club room. Which is why the cops happened to arrive just when they did. Any idea who the girl would be?”
His face darkened angrily. “First I heard that,” he said. “Probably some gal in the Gravediggers’ auxiliary.”
“The cops think maybe it was either your girl friend or Bart Meyers’, trying to prevent the fight because she was afraid one of you’d get hurt.”
“How’d the cops find out about the fight?” he asked in astonishment.
“They didn’t. They’re only guessing. You think it could have been either your girl or Bart’s?”
He shook his head decisively.
“Give me their names anyway.”
“Bart’s girl friend was Stella Quint over on Sixth. I don’t know the exact address.”
“How about yours?”
After the slightest hesitation he said, “I haven’t got one.”
I suspected he was being gallant about involving his girl, but before I could follow up, Hannegan appeared outside the cell and attracted my attention by banging his keys against the bars. When I looked at him, he pointed at his watch.
“Don’t be so G.I.,” I said. “Give me another minute.”
“Kid’s got another visitor,” the lieutenant said stolidly.
“All right. Just one more question then. Joe, who do I see in the club to steer me around down in that neighborhood?”
He looked thoughtful, glanced at Hannegan, then asked, “Got a pencil and paper?”
I gave him my pocket notebook and a mechanical pencil. I stood beside him, watching as he laid the notebook on his knee and wrote: Stub Carlson, 722 Vernon.
Below this he wrote:
This guy is Manny Moon, who I’ve told you about. You can level with him about anything and it won’t go no farther.
He contemplated what he had written, scratched through the no and substituted any above it. I put the notebook and pencil back in my pocket and waited in silence for Hannegan to come over and unlock the door.
4
When the lieutenant and I arrived in the lobby together, I discovered the other person waiting to see Joe Brighton was his Aunt Sara. Sara Chesterton looked too young to be anybody’s aunt, and as a matter of fact was still short of thirty, but she was a full-fledged aunt nevertheless. She was the sister of Joe’s dead mother.
She was also a strikingly pretty woman in a businesslike sort of way. Years back Maggie Brighton, who was something of a matchmaker, had tried to brew a match between Sara and me. But it didn’t take. While the girl always seemed to like me well enough, she showed no indication of swooning in my presence. And she was a bit too briskly self-sufficient for my taste.
Sara Chesterton was a caseworker for the Division of Public Welfare, and years of dealing with relief clients had given her an impersonal and businesslike manner which carried over to her social contacts. She was a rather small woman, brunette, with attractive gray eyes and a well-rounded but not too plump figure.
When she saw me, she rose from the bench where she had been waiting, came over and thrust out her hand like a man. “How are you, Manny? Haven’t seen you for ages. What have you been doing?”
“Hello, Sara,” I said. “Working, sleeping, eating. Drinking a little occasionally.”
“I’ll bet a little. Married to that Fausta girl yet?”
She meant Fausta Moreni, blonde proprietress of El Patio night club, with whom I’ve carried on a sporadic and volatile romance for some years.
“Hardly,” I said. “We’re just friends.”
“You ought to get married, Manny. You’re past thirty now, aren’t you?”
I grinned at her. “This is me, your old boy friend Manny Moon, Sara. Not one of your relief clients.”
When she had the grace to look a little guilty, I said, “I gave up all thoughts of marriage when you tossed me over a career.”
“Phooey. Maggie practically threw me at your head, and you never even noticed me.” Then her responsive grin faded. “You been in to see Joe?”
“Yeah.”
“How’s he taking it?”
“Pretty well.”
“What’ll they do to him, Manny?”
“Prison, probably, if he’s convicted. He’s a little young for the gas chamber. He claims he didn’t kill that kid.”
“Oh?” She looked dubious. “I understood he was practically caught in the act.”
“He thinks he was framed by some teen-age club his club has rumbles with. I’m going to poke around down there and see what I can turn up.”
Again she emitted an inquiring, “Oh?” Then her expression turned reflective. “Want a guide, Manny? That’s my relief district, you know, and I know the area pretty intimately.”
“I hate to bother you,” I said.
“Bother? Joe’s my real nephew, not just a foster nephew. And I’ll bet you’re doing this poking around on the house. My saturated brother-in-law certainly hasn’t paid you any retainer, has he?”
The bitterness of her tone surprised me. I knew she hadn’t been very thick with Ed since he took up drinking as a hobby, but I’d never before heard her speak of him with anything but liking tempered by faint impatience. But apparently now her attitude toward him was about the same as his attitude toward himself. She was blaming Joe’s situation on Ed’s drinking.
I said mildly, “Ed’s a friend of mine and I like Joe. Ed’s done me enough favors in the past.”
“Name one in the last five years,” she challenged.
When I merely shrugged, she said, “You haven’t said whether or not you want a guide.”
“If you can spare the time,” I said. “I may spend a couple of days down there.”