“I might, if it doesn’t crash with the ethics.”
“Thanks,” he said and he walked to the door with me and opened it. “This is Peter Chambers,” he said to Amos Knafke. “He’s a real nice fella. Any time he wants to see me, it’s my pleasure. Dig?”
“You’re the boss, boss,” Amos said.
“Good-bye, Mr. Chambers,” Pedi said. “You’re a nice fella. I respect a guy with ethics. I like you, like you very much.”
“I’m thrilled,” I said.
“Bye, now,” he said and he closed the door and left me alone in the corridor with Amos.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Knafke,” I said. “I’m a nothing.
I was making with the showboat. I was trying to impress the girl. Maybe this can even it up.”
I stuffed Pedi’s three hundred dollars into the meat of Knafke’s beefy palm.
Downstairs, I found the lady in red morosely stirring the dregs of Feninton’s drink with the jagged end of a broken swizzle stick. “How’d you make out?” she said without looking up.
“About like I’d expected,” I said. I looked at my watch. “I’ve got to get to work.”
“Will you come back? I want you to come back. We’re open here until four, you know.”
“I’ll try. I’ll try my damnedest.”
4
“I’m fouled up on a case,” Lieutenant Parker said, when I got into his office to see him. “And it’s a bitcheroo, all because it’s got to do with a dame who had lots of glossy photos of herself, all of them sexy. So the newspapers are not going to lay off it.”
“Vivian Frayne?” I said.
“You read the papers,” he said. “The wrong ones.” He sighed and stood up, rubbing a hand across his stiff black crewcut. He was short, broad, thick and stocky, with a ruddy face and bright dark honest eyes. “What brings you?” he said. “I’m told you were here before.”
“Vivian Frayne,” I said.
He did not move. His eyes were amused. “Okay,” he said, “I feel a cockeyed deal coming on. A Peter Chambers special. What do you know, and what must I do to find out what you know?”
“Don’t have to do a thing,” I said, “except tell me about Vivian Frayne.”
“And for that...?” he said.
“I might produce Gordon Phelps.”
That rocked him. He jumped like he’d been unexpectedly pinched, in an unexpected place. “Oho,” he said. “A real Peter Chambers special. I want that guy and I want him badly. You working for him?”
“I’m afraid I am.”
“Can you produce him?”
“I can’t produce him right now.”
“When can you?”
“Let’s talk it up a little, shall we, Lieutenant? You help me, I’ll help you. It’s the old story — we’re on the same side, you and I. It’s only the approach that may be different.”
“It may be, mayn’t it?” he said. He went behind his desk, lay back in his swivel chair, lit up a cigar. “We’re anxious about that Gordon Phelps. I’d like to squeeze that out of you.”
“If you tried to squeeze, Lieutenant, I’d deny any knowledge. I think we’re past that stage, the squeezing for information stage.”
“Yeah,” he growled behind cigar smoke. “Lawyer guy came in with cock and bull.”
“I know about that,” I said.
“Figured you would.” He sat up. “When will you have him for me?”
“Let’s say forty-eight hours. Maybe sooner, but let’s say forty-eight hours at the outside. I’ll either bring him in or I’ll convince him to come in. Good enough?”
“And if we pick him up before that?”
“Then you pick him up. That’s your business and I can’t stop you from working at your business. One proviso. I don’t want a tail on me. I’d lose him anyway, but why have to go through the bother?”
“Okay, no tail.”
“Then we’ve got a deal, Lieutenant?”
“What do you want to know?”
“All about Vivian Frayne.”
“Ain’t much, really.” He puffed on his cigar. He wrinkled his face, concentrating. “Dance hall dame. Been in New York about thirteen years. Wise little operator, always lived pretty good. Never in trouble, never caught up with law. Had a nice reputation, the gals in the dance hall adored her, she was kind of like a mother-hen to them. Investigation showed she’d been to Canada a couple of times, and that’s all we know about her.”
“What about background?” I said.
“Nothing,” he said, “which isn’t unusual. Vivian Frayne’s probably not her real name. Dame comes in from Oshkosh somewhere when she’s about seventeen, probably a runaway, or a go-offer with a guy. Breaks family ties, gives herself a fancy name, and gets lost in a city of nine million. Once there’s no record on them, you just can’t trace them back.”
“What about the published pictures?”
“Those don’t generally help either in these kinds of cases. These are sophisticated glossies — who can tie up this gorgeous mature woman with the kid of seventeen that scrammed Oshkosh. Even if she has a family, and they haven’t forgotten her — those pictures wouldn’t make the connection. These kinds of cases, you’ve got to work them from the present, from the recent life of the deceased. Background is out. If you fall into background, that’s just a lucky break.”
“Okay, Lieutenant,” I said. “Let’s have it.”
“Want it chronologically?”
“Want it any way you’d like to give it.”
“Chronologically,” he said. “Sequence started here on Monday, late Monday night. She’d worked Monday, left the dance hall about four ayem, went home. Cab dropped her, and as it pulled away, two guys approached, a mug job. One stuck a knife in her back, the other did an armlock around her throat. But, as luck would have it, just then a cop turned the corner. They grabbed her bag and blew, but she struck out at one of them. She hit him and the knife dropped. The cop chased them, but they outran him, and blew. That’s the Monday night bit.”
“Did she see either one of them, I mean to recognize them?”
“No.”
“Okay, I’ve got Monday night.”
“It was a mugging, we figure it for a straight mugging, what with grabbing the bag, all in pattern. But we had the knife. There was one faint smudge of a print on it, and the laboratory boys did a hell of a job. Worked all of Tuesday, and finally came up with it. We did the search and it turns out to be a grifter named Mousie Lawrence. Ever hear of Mousie Lawrence?”
“Vaguely,” I said.
“A one-time loser, did a term about fifteen years ago for armed robbery, and that’s the last we heard of him — until now. Didn’t even know he was in New York. Fifteen years is a long time. New hoodlums grow up, you kind of lose track of the old ones unless they’re in open operation. Anyway, early this morning, about seven o’clock, cops come calling on Vivian Frayne with the gallery-mug photo of Lawrence.”
“But why if she’s said that she hadn’t recognized either one of them?”
“Just to see if she recognized the photo. After all, these guys were waiting for her practically at her apartment house. Maybe they were acquainted with her, met her at the dance hall. Like that, we’d have a better line on them, maybe she’d even be able to give us some information on the other mugger. Anyway, we wanted to see if she’d recognize the photo, if she’d have any angle on it. Reasonable?”
“Yes, sir,” I said.
“There was no answer to their ring. The milk bottles were outside the door, waiting to be taken in, but there was no answer to their ring at her apartment. One of the cops was a guy with brains, or maybe an impatient guy. He went down to the super, and had him open the door. They found her inside, dead. She was dressed in lounging pajamas. There were five bullets in her, and a gun on the floor beside her. The apartment was upside down, it had been thoroughly searched. And, mind you, when the super had opened the door, it had been locked — from the outside.”