Ron Jordan got the full force of it, then. Eglin had been systematically setting them all on edge, pitting them one against the other, as a means of making something happen that would break the Garfield killing. And ladies-man Jordan had a noble part to play. He was to be the observer — the buzzard flying overhead. He must con the girl to stay close inside, be in a position to report whatever happened. Jordan saw it all now.
Ben Eglin stared at Crider and played out his perfidy, that might mean the life of Bart Berkey. Crider turned his head to examine the half-open door; the glare on his glasses gave Jordan the queer impression that opaque, depthless eyes were fixed on him. Slowly Crider brought his attention around to Sline, studying him, then to Eglin.
“Let’s stop horsing each other,” he said. “Bart’s a kid. He couldn’t stand up to you. If he had known anything, you’d have got it out of him. Now tell me, why with the cop-pressure off, should he suddenly start talking?”
“That’s right,” said Eglin, ignoring Crider’s question. “He couldn’t stand up to me. You should have seen him cry like a baby and call for his sister when I hammered at him about a woman being in your joint that night.”
Eglin dropped it there, left it to Crider to figure what might have been added but wasn’t. Bart Berkey had almost broken. Eglin didn’t have long enough to work on him. Eglin couldn’t hold him any longer without filing a charge, and Bart didn’t confess enough to make a charge stick. That was what Crider was supposed to think. It was clear, without Eglin coming out and saying it, that Bart was so weak his silence couldn’t be depended on and that he was the kind of a kid who might crack at any time.
Captain Sline stood up. “All right, Crider,” he said. “You can go, now.”
Before the door closed on Crider, he looked back, smiling. The last little trick was his. And maybe all tricks. Jordan couldn’t for the life of him figure out under which one of the three Sline and Eglin had set the keg of dynamite.
This was the time for Jordan to count himself out. They couldn’t touch him for it. There was nothing in the manual that said a traffic cop could be ordered to do a job on a woman.
Crossing toward Sline he said, “I tried to tell you, Captain—”
“Tell it later, Jordan,” broke in Eglin. “Go change to a suit and pack a bag. Then come back to homicide. I’ll be there. You’re moving in across the hall from her tonight.”
Jordan came on. He told himself, Don’t look at Ben Eglin. Don’t look in those eyes or he’s got you. He looked down at Sline’s desk. The ash tray there had two stubs in it. One butt was Bart Berkey’s, the other was Crider’s. If Elsa Berkey were a chain smoker she would have needed a smoke when Eglin was working her over. But she hadn’t smoked. That was the thing that didn’t fit. Her throaty voice was natural.
Sline spoke. “What did you try to tell me, Jordan?”
“Nothing. Only — only you didn’t ask me if I would.”
Eglin came around the corner of the desk. “How long have you been in the department, Jordan?”
“A bit over a year.”
“That’s long enough. You should know when a police officer is murdered, a chunk of you dies, too. You should know if a cop killer ever got away with it, it would be open season on the department for every cheap gunman in town. You should know when a police officer is murdered, the wives of every one of us don’t sleep nights, wondering if their man is next. You wouldn’t think about the wives, would you? You don’t know that kind of women.” The voice sank, mimicking Jordan with a world of contempt, “ ‘You didn’t ask me if I would.’ Godamighty!”
Ben Eglin spun on his heel and stalked out.
In the silence that followed, Captain Sline said, “You’d better run along now and pack.”
2.
Ron Jordan stood in the middle of the strange living room. The couch’s velour was a dirty brown, its nap slicked by time. The wood pieces bore the scars of conflict with a hundred tenants.
He said to himself, How did you get here and what do you do next?
He hadn’t kept his nose clean. That was how he got here. He had got himself tagged at headquarters as a lady killer, and now Ben Eglin was using him. He had to warm up the girl across the hall. That’s what he had to do next. The world was full of floozies who didn’t smoke.
In homicide, an hour ago, Ben Eglin had said, “We shook down the Berkey apartment while we had them here. Found nothing. The one across the hall was empty and we grabbed it. The landlady knows who you are. We’ll have a phone in there by morning. There’s no time tonight to fill you in on background. Come back here in the morning; get it then.”
Jordan had got to the door with his bag when Eglin’s voice reached for him again. “The games you play with that dame are police business, Jordan. You’re going up there to get information out of her. Don’t forget it.”
Odd, how this little runt of a man could make Jordan forget the rule book. Jordan had snarled, “You’re funny. When I want to have fun with a girl, she’ll be one I pick.”
This living room looked down three stories to the street. In front of him, as he stood, was a kitchenette-dinette. On his right, a bedroom. Then a bath. Then another bedroom. Two bedrooms. That might need explaining. Why would he need two bedrooms? He could tell her he had to find an apartment quick, and this was all he could find. Or he could work up a leer and let it answer for him.
He stepped into the kitchenette. He opened the refrigerator aimlessly, seeing the heavy coat of frost around the coils, arriving slowly at an idea. The freezer control was a knob that turned in a half circle from “off” through numerals to five. He worked on the knob for several minutes, and it came off in his hand. He dropped it into a drawer, then went across the hall, smiling.
He rapped four times at her door, trying to make his knuckles talk briskly rather than alarmingly. “Who is it?”
“Your new neighbor,” he said.
Silence again. After a time she repeated, “Who?”
He caught on. It was his voice she was studying. She wanted to hear it again, make sure whether she knew it.
He said quite loudly, “My name is Ron Jordan. I just moved in across the hall and I can’t figure out how to defrost my refrigerator.”
The door opened three inches; a night chain caught it there. Her face was wary and hostile.
“Sorry.” He smiled. “It is kind of late, isn’t it? But I thought maybe you had the same kind of refrigerator as mine and could show me what gadget to turn. I’ve been fooling with it for ten minutes and it’s got me whipped.”
She studied him coldly. He kept his smile, feeling a stiffness in his lips. The great lover — yeah! She was going to close the door in his face.
“Bart,” she called. Then to Jordan, “Just a minute.”
He heard the murmur of voices, then the chain dropped and the door came open. Bart stood behind her, his mouth sullen.
“I’m Ron Jordan,” Jordan repeated, catching her guarded glance down the hall.
“I’m Elsa Berkey. This is my brother Bart. Why didn’t you call the landlady?”
“You know how it is. You start griping the first day you’re in, and you get tabbed as a complaining tenant.” He grinned. “I always wait ’til the second day.”
Still unsmiling, she said, “Come on, Bart.” She closed her door carefully. The night latch clicked again. They crossed and entered behind Jordan.