His body grew momentarily rigid when he saw whom he had addressed, but he didn’t change expression.
“Afternoon, Mr. Moon,” he said, relaxed again. “May I do something for you?”
“Possibly,” I said. “Got an office somewhere?”
He led me into a small office containing a plain desk, two extra chairs and a safe. There was one window with frosted glass in the panes.
I told him I wanted to see Buzz Thurmond, when we were seated.
“What do you want with Buzz?”
“Nothing,” I said. “He wants it with me. I heard he was looking for me, and thought I’d save him the trouble.”
“Looking for you? Why?”
“Tell me where to find him and I’ll ask him.”
“Don’t you know?”
“Don’t you?”
“I haven’t the faintest...” He broke off and a look of enlightenment suddenly grew in his small eyes, almost instantly to be suppressed again.
“I really couldn’t say,” he said calmly.
I grinned at him. “It just registered, eh? What happened? Buzz just refer to me as a private cop, and forget to mention my name?”
He managed to get the puzzled expression on his face again, but this time it was obviously forced. “I haven’t the faintest idea of what you’re talking about, Mr. Moon.”
“I’ll bet,” I said, rising. “Thanks for the information, Bremmer.”
I meant it. I knew for sure Sherman Bremmer had given the order to get rid of me, without even knowing it was me. Either his Purple Pelican informant had forgotten my name when he initially passed along to Buzz the information that a private detective knew all about his connection with the Purple Pelicans and hoped to pin a murder rap on him, or Buzz had simply neglected to mention my name when he relayed the news to his boss.
As I started to leave, Sherman Bremmer said, “Don’t go yet. If you want to see Buzz, I’ll get him for you. Meanwhile, have a drink.” He picked up the desk phone. “Scotch or rye?”
He was so glaringly obvious, it was almost funny. Now that he knew who I really was, he was as anxious for me to meet Buzz Thurmond as I had been. Since I was still interested in meeting Buzz, I said, “I’ll take rye.”
In a few minutes the door opened and the old man who had been at the desk carried in a tray containing a bowl of ice cubes, a bottle of soda and a half-full quart of Mount Vernon.
I felt by the way the old man kept looking at me as he put down the tray before he left that something more than a request for whiskey had gone over the phone when Bremmer called him. A signal of some sort? I watched Bremmer warily as he poured the drinks, or I might not have given any significance to the way the hotel proprietor first handed me my drink, and then let his disappear for a moment beneath the desk. I switched my drink to my left hand, dipped my hand under my coat to produce my P-38 and pointed it at Bremmer. “I prefer my rye without chloral hydrate,” I told him and clicked off the safety.
His small eyes grew big at the sight of the gun and his mouth popped open.
“When Buzz Thurmond gets here, does he expect to pick up my drugged body, ready for disposal?”
“I... don’t know what you mean.”
Centering my gun on his stomach, I let my face grow expressionless and slowly increased the trigger pressure. It was a ticklish thing to do, because the safety wasn’t on. But though I have an aversion to shooting unarmed men in cold blood, even accidentally, I suspected Bremmer was too familiar with guns for me to work a bluff with the safety on, and that he knew even an expert can’t always control trigger pressure.
“Don’t!” he squeaked. “For God’s sake, don’t!”
“Where’s Thurmond?” I asked.
“Outside, waiting,” he managed to whisper. “But it’s not what you think. I swear...”
“Shut up,” I cut him off.
Relaxing my trigger pressure, I thrust the glass I was holding in my left hand under his nose.
“You’ve got a choice,” I informed him. “Gulp this down in two swallows, or take a bullet in the guts. Don’t strain my patience by stretching it to three swallows.”
He stared at me fascinatedly until I let my expression become a little resigned and at the same time steadied the gun on his stomach again. Then he quickly reached out, grabbed the glass from my hand and drained the contents in two shuddering gulps.
By my watch it was only four and a half minutes until the hotel proprietor dropped off to slumber still sitting in the chair.
13
I didn’t have long to wait. In a few minutes, there was a light tap on the door, and then it opened, and Buzz Thurmond came in. He froze as his eyes took in the room and the gun I held pointed at him.
Buzz Thurmond had changed considerably during the eight years since the photographs on his police record card had been taken, but he was still recognizable as the same man. His description at age twenty-two had listed his weight at two hundred and six; I guessed it now as two-fifty. His thick-featured face was also much heavier than it had been in the photographs, but it had the same strong jaw and the same sullen expression.
“What do you want?” he asked huskily.
I motioned him into the room. “Just a little conversation. First about why you felt you had to stir up the Purple Pelicans against Stub Carlson. Then about the announcement you made to the club that you’d take care of me. If you’re still conscious when we finish those subjects, we’ll talk about Bart Meyers’ murder.”
His eyes narrowed. “What you mean, still conscious?”
“I wouldn’t expect a crumb who steers kids into dope addiction and crime to talk freely without a little persuasion,” I explained. “Matter of fact, I’d be disappointed if you did.”
I reached behind me to push the door shut, but instead my hand encountered rough cloth. This startled me, but not enough to make any sudden moves. Cautiously, I pressed against the cloth and discovered a thin leg beneath it.
After that I wasn’t terribly surprised to feel a gun muzzle press into my back.
“Put your hands on top of your head,” a thin voice said in my ear.
I put my hands on top of my head.
“You got here just in time, Limpy,” Buzz Thurmond said. “This is that Moon character I was telling you and Bremmer about.”
Moving forward, he relieved me of my P-38 and patted my pockets for other weapons.
“He’s clean,” he finally decided.
Aside from his slight build and receding chin there was little resemblance between the two-year-old photographs in his file and Limpy Alfred Leventhal himself. The features were the same, of course, but the police pictures had shown a sinister-looking man with a gash for a mouth and the expression of a habitual criminal. This must have been a trick of photography, for he actually resembled Caspar Milquetoast without a mustache. Nor could his halting gait properly be described as a limp. It was more of a stiff manner of walking, as though he had general arthritis instead of a game leg.
On top of everything else he looked fifty-five instead of the forty-two he was. In the pictures his hair hadn’t even been grey.
“What’s the deal?” Limpy Alfred asked Thurmond.
The big man shrugged. “Bremmer was supposed to have the guy Mickey Finned. With Bremmer out, what are we supposed to do now? Bremmer didn’t tell me what he wanted done with this guy.”
“I thought he wanted him bumped.”
“Not here, he didn’t,” Thurmond said. “He had it figured where he wanted us to take him, but he didn’t get around to telling me. He said he’d outline it to both of us when we got the guy.”