“I remember,” I said. “I thought he was still in jail.”
“He got out about two months ago. I bought the film off him a couple of days after he hit the street. He told me he made it just before he went in, ten years ago.”
“You know where he might live now?”
“The last I saw him, he was down in some flea-bag flop on the Bowery. The Palace, I think it was.”
“Thanks, Dixie,” I said as I turned to leave. “I’m glad to hear you aren’t running stag shows, after all.”
“Who, me?” he said. “I’d never even think of such a thing.”
Downstairs in the bar I talked to enough people to satisfy myself that Dixie had been there at the time of Yeager’s murder. Then I called the squad room to see whether there had been any messages for me.
A little to my surprise, the phone was answered by Stan Rayder. “I thought you’d still be over at Yeager’s apartment,” I said.
“I just got here. Pete, we got a break. They found the gun.”
“Good,” I said. “Where?”
“Beneath a parked car, about half a block from Yeager’s building. It’s a .22 Smith & Wesson Masterpiece.” He sounded mildly excited — which, for Stan Rayder, was a very rare thing. “And not only that, but we know who it belongs to.”
“I wouldn’t have thought Ballistics would have had time to—”
“Oh, but they did,” he said. “Their test slug and the slugs from Yeager’s body all came out of the same gun. It’s registered to a buy named Earl Lambert, 834 East 31st Street.”
“You check him through BCI?”
“Sure. Nothing on him, though.”
“You think Mr. Lambert might enjoy a little visit from us?”
“There’s no doubt about it.”
“Then Suppose I pick you up in front of the station house in fifteen minutes. Okay?”
“Right. And listen, Pete. Take your time but hurry. We don’t want to keep the man waiting.”
It took me no time to hurry, and less time to reach Lambert’s.
A big delivery truck was just pulling away from the curb in front of Earl Lambert’s apartment building, and so finding a parking space for the Plymouth was, for once, no problem.
I looked along the name cards beneath the mailboxes until I found Lambert’s apartment number, and then Stan and I rode the self-service elevator up to the seventh floor and walked along the corridor to 710.
The door was opened by a young man with a couple of big cowlicks in his dark chestnut hair, a pleasantly homely face with a lot of laugh wrinkles at the corners of the eyes, and a broad-shouldered, hipless body shaped like a wedge.
“Mr. Lambert?” I asked.
He nodded, smiling tentatively.
“Police officers,” I said. “My name’s Selby. This is Detective Rayder.”
Lambert’s smile wavered a little, but he held the door open a bit wider and motioned us inside.
“You know a man named Larry Yeager?” I asked.
He said the name over to himself, then shook his head. “No, I can’t say that I do. Why?”
“Where were you around noon today?”
“Here. Listen, what’s—?”
“There’s a .22 Smith & Wesson registered in your name. Mind getting it for us?”
“It — I don’t have it. It was stolen.”
“I see.”
“I’m telling you the truth. It was in a footlocker down in the basement. Somebody broke in down there and stole it. They stole a lot of other stuff down there, too.”
“What was it doing in a footlocker in the basement?”
“I wasn’t going to be using it for a while, so I put it and some other things I wouldn’t be needing in the footlocker and stored it down there, out of the way.”
“How come you to have the gun in the first place?” Stan asked. “Somebody threaten you or something?”
“No. I used it as a target gun. I belong to a couple of gun clubs.”
“When did this burglary take place?” Stan asked.
“About six weeks ago. You can ask them over at the police station.”
“We will,” Stan said.
“What am I supposed to have done with it? Hold up somebody, or kill somebody, or what?”
Neither Stan nor I said anything.
“Well?” Lambert said. “You asked me if I knew a man named Larry Yeager. Am I supposed to have held him up or shot him or—” He broke off abruptly and stood there with a stunned, incredulous look in his eyes. “Good Lord!” he said. “You said noon, didn’t you? You asked me where I was at noon.”
“That’s right,” Stan said. “And you told us you were right here.”
“I was,” Lambert said. “And I can prove it. I talked with someone on the phone at noon. I know it was noon because the twelve o’clock news had just come on.”
“Who’d you talk to?” Stan asked.
“My boss,” he said. “It’s after closing time at the office, but I can give you my boss’ phone number.”
I took out my notebook. “His address too,” I said.
“I wonder what ever happened to him?” Stan said sourly.
I glanced at him. “Who?”
“Santa Claus,” he said.
By the time Stan and I had checked out Earl Lambert’s alibi, confirmed his account of the burglary with the local precinct detectives, and driven down to the Palace Hotel on the Bowery, it was half-past midnight.
Like many skid-row hotels, the Palace was oh the second floor, with a small desk at the top of a steep stairway that began the moment you stepped off the sidewalk. Fred Beaumont, the desk clerk told us, was in room 203.
The man who opened the door to my knock was nearing seventy, a small, fragile-looking man with fine white hair like spun cotton, an almost saintly face, and gentle brown eyes that seemed close to tears.
“Sit down, gentlemen,” he said, gesturing toward the bed. “I’m sorry my accomodations are so limited.”
Stan and I sat down on the bed and waited while Beaumont shuffled across the floor to the room’s single chair.
“Some night, I knew, there would be a knock on the door, and it would be the police,” Beaumont said. “But then, all parolees are rather prone to visits from the police, aren’t they?”
“Not if they keep their nose clean,” Stan said.
“Oh, that I have done,” Beaumont said. “Yes, indeed.”
“You don’t consider selling that stag film to Dixie Ryan a violation of parole?” Stan asked.
Beaumont sighed softly. “Oh,” he said. “That.”
“Yes, that,” Stan said. “That could put you right back where you came from.”
“You don’t understand,” Beaumont said. “I was in such desperate need of money that I—” He paused. “Are you going to send me back?”
“That depends,” Stan said. “A little cooperation goes a long way in this town, Mr. Beaumont.”
“Ah, yes,” Beaumont said. “And I do want to cooperate, sir. I most assuredly do.”
“We understand you made that film ten years ago, just before you went to prison,” Stan said. “Why?”
“For my own amusement. I simply installed a two-way mirror over the, fireplace in one of the bedrooms, and then set up a 16 mm movie camera in the adjoining room. Then, whenever some of my guests would wander into the bedroom, and nature took its course, I would record the proceedings.”
“Without their knowledge, of course?”
“Of course.”
“How many people were in the film altogether?” Stan asked him.
Beaumont’s forehead furrowed. “Six, I believe,” he said. “Yes, six. Three men and three women.”
“You make it all in one night?”
“Yes. And now I recall that there was someone else in it. Another girl. And a very beautiful young girl, too. I don’t know why I didn’t recall her at once.” He paused reflectively. “She did a very provocative little dance for me. Yes, very provocative. She was about fifteen, I would say, and hair as yellow as butter.”