“Deadlock type of lock?”
“Yeah. You had to turn the knob on the inside to lock it, or lock it with a key from the outside. She was dead and the murderer wasn’t there, so the lock had to have been locked from the outside.”
“Cute,” I said.
“Damn cute,” he said. “Anyway, that’s when I got into this, personally.”
“You think that mugging had anything to do with the murder?”
“Matter of fact, I don’t. Stands to reason. Whoever killed her was able to get in and out of that apartment. That’s for sure. If these babies were able to get into the apartment, they’d have been waiting for her there, wouldn’t they — if the job was for murder? But they were loitering outside, so they figure to be muggers, not murderers. We’re checking that angle, anyway. Had Lawrence’s photo passed around the dance hall, but the kids there clammed. Either they never saw the guy, or they don’t want to get mixed with stooling on hoods. Kids in dance halls are hip kids. They stay away from trouble, and it’s trouble, let’s face it, when you identify a hood.”
“Got a photo for me?” I said.
“Sure. Had a lot of them made. We’re looking for the guy.” He opened the middle drawer of his desk, brought out two photographs, each about four by six, and handed them across to me. One was full face and one was profile. I looked at them briefly and put them away.
“Figure a time of death for her?” I said.
“About one o’clock Tuesday night, that’s the best figure.”
“Wasn’t she supposed to be working then?”
“Took the night off, probably had a date.”
“Any idea whom she had the date with?”
“Yeah, we got an idea. We got an idea she had a date with your client.”
“Really,” I said, and I shifted the subject. “The place was thoroughly searched, you say. Which seems to mean that whoever killed her was looking for something.”
“Whatever they were looking for — they found it, I figure.”
“Why?”
“Because we did a pretty good search ourselves. We found nothing that meant anything to anybody. All we got was the gun right there on the floor, and a diary.”
“Ah,” I said, “there we go. Always a diary.”
“The gun was something,” he said, “but ah the diary, that was nothing. The gun was the murder weapon, but the diary was a kind of new one, with only sporadic entries, which were mostly about somebody with initials G. P.”
“This G. P. have a key to the joint?”
“Nope. Diary specifically says no. Diary says that G. P. was never even at her apartment. Though I bet she was at his. There’s one key on her ring that we haven’t found a door for. I bet G. P. is behind that door somewhere. She saw G. P. Tuesday night before she came home to get killed.”
“How do you know that, Lieutenant?”
“Diary states the date with G. P.”
“Brother,” I said as I went to the door, “you’re one guy who doesn’t figure to jump to conclusions, in my book. Why link initials G. P. to Gordon Phelps?”
“Believe me, I haven’t jumped to any conclusions.”
“Have it your own way,” I said. “Can I see that apartment, Lieutenant?”
He looked dubious.
“You really want Phelps, don’t you?” I said. “Well, you can have him within twenty-four hours. Now can I see the apartment, Lieutenant?”
Again he opened his desk drawer and dipped into it. He threw me a bunch of keys. “You know the address?” he said.
“Yes,” I said.
“Good luck,” he said.
“Any prints on the gun?” I said.
“None,” he said. “Smudges, no prints. And no prints in the apartment that could do us any good.”
“It’s still bothering me,” I said.
“What?”
“Why you insist on linking initials G. P. with Gordon Phelps.”
“There happened to be a serial number on the gun. That told us, after checking, that the gun belonged to a gentleman playboy by the name of Gordon Phelps.”
I trudged the dark city streets from the precinct station house toward Broadway. I dangled keys in my pocket and facts in my brain. The keys jumbled and so did the facts. Parker knew nothing and neither did I. I had a couple of extra facts, but still I knew nothing. I knew where I could lay my hands on Gordon Phelps, and Parker didn’t, but that did not bring me closer to the same solution Parker was seeking. And I knew more about Mousie Lawrence than Parker did, but that was because he was law and order and I was law and disorder.
Mousie Lawrence, born Morris Lawrence, was a fifty-year-old man with the moral scruples of a hungry hyena. He was small, wiry, rough, tough and heartless. Fifteen years ago he was still groping, clawing for his niche in the world of his peers — that was when he was apprehended and jugged for armed robbery. But Mousie was not stupid and he had come a long way since then. Ten years ago, he had hooked up with a major narcotics outfit operating out of Mexico City, and he had been paired off with Kiddy Malone. They had fitted together like a nut and a bolt, they had complemented one another: they were a rousing success in the nefarious traffic which was their milieu. They were front men, advance men, salesmen. Operating out of Mexico City, and with limitless funds at their disposal, they descended upon various points in the United States where they set up depots, organized intricate personnel, managed and stayed with an operation until it was meshed, geared, flawless, and self-performing. Then they retreated to home base, where minds concentrated on the next site of burgeoning business for this enterprising duo. Mousie was a sour little man, dry and humorless, and a teetotaler both of alcohol and drugs. Kiddy Malone was an addict, a small man like Mousie, but outgoing, robust, twinkling-eyed and happy-natured when he was on the stuff — and since he was in the business, he was always on the stuff. Kiddy’s true Christian name was Kenneth, and I was much more intimately acquainted with him than I was with Mousie Lawrence. Kiddy was an Irishman out of Dublin. Fifteen years ago he had been a seaman who had jumped ship and had remained, without benefit of quota or citizenship, in the United States. Kiddy was a womans’ man, and I had met him when he had got into trouble with his first woman (or second or third or thereabouts). He had been effusively appreciative of my efforts in his behalf and a casual acquaintanceship had ripened into a rather ribald and entertaining friendship, until Kiddy had begun to sin with the syndicate, and I had begun to disapprove of the new ways and habits of one Kiddy Malone. Before long, Kiddy’s papers were straightened out, a forged citizenship was forged for him, and he began to go to the right tailors, the right haberdashers, the right barbers, the right hooters, and he began to flash bankrolls as thick as salami sandwiches. He also began to hit the stuff himself — a mainliner — and he became a personality. Then came Mexico City, his hookup with Mousie, and the flourishing of a successful partnership.
I hailed a cab, as I thought about Mousie and Kiddy. If Mousie was in New York, so was Kiddy, and if they were in New York, they were working on a deal, and if they were working on a deal, it was not the kind of deal that Parker was talking about. Mousie and Kiddy in a mugging act was as difficult to contemplate as Rogers and Hammer-stein doing words and music for the pornography of a college-boys’ stag party. Something stank.
At Fifty-fifth and Broadway, I paid the cabbie, and once again I paid admission for the privilege of entering into the fragrant dimness of the Nirvana Ballroom. I went immediately to the bar.