The hand was soft and deceptive, like the paw of a cat with the claws sheathed.
“You’re looking fine, Gloria,” he said.
“You put things so extravagantly. I suppose it’s your Latin streak.”
“Yes, it runs north to south just along my femur,” Terrell said.
“You must show me someday,” she said, squeezing his hand. She glanced at Karsh and made a little face at him. “Sorry I embarrassed all your lovely friends, Mike. Such an elegant crowd. Does the delicatessen send them up as a premium with food orders?”
Karsh said, “Gloria, will you please get the hell out of here?”
“You doll,” she said, smiling pleasurably at the anger in his eyes. “Just take care of that little matter for me in the morning, will you? The deposit, remember? And about our darling’s new car — I leave that to your generous judgment. I’m absolutely stony.”
“Okay, okay, I’ll think it over.”
“Bye, bye, darlings.” She walked jauntily toward the elevators, showing off her cute little body like a saucy child. Karsh closed the door and took Terrell’s arm. “Let’s go into my bedroom,” he said. “The only reason I enjoy making dough is to keep that bitch at a distance. A paycheck to me is what a whip and a chair is to a lion tamer.”
The party was accelerating rapidly, and it was a relief when Karsh closed the bedroom door behind them and shut off the badly synchronized cacophony of jazz, talk and laughter. Karsh sat down slowly in a leather chair before the fireplace. He still looked tired, but the irritation was gone from his face and eyes; work was performing the familiar alchemy on him, burning out everything but an excitement for the job at hand. “Let’s have it all in order,” he said, glancing up at Terrell.
Terrell told him what he had learned from Paddy Coglan, and when he finished Karsh looked at his watch. “Eight-fifteen,” he murmured.
For a few seconds he was silent, frowning at the backs of his hands. Then he said, “Paddy Coglan is a ticking bomb, Sam. When he explodes the whole blazing city may be up in smoke. We’d better get him over here. Let’s see, there’s a train from Beach City around nine. Tell him to catch it. And tell him to keep out of the club car. I don’t want him loaded. I’ll have Tuckerman and a few of the boys from the press room meet him at the station, and I’ll arrange a room for him here. You can spend tonight getting his story, and we’ll cut loose tomorrow morning.”
“How are you going to play it?”
“Straight, absolutely straight. There’s something to remember. You don’t have to hoke up an honest story.” Karsh glanced up at Terrell, a cold enthusiasm lighting his features. “Power comes from appropriateness, Sam. We could trick this story up with circus stunts, but we’d cheapen it. Pictures of Coglan at a typewriter, hat on back of his head, telling all. That kind of corn. But we have a story that can stand on its own without props. Appropriateness comes from taste, and that’s why you might make a good editor some day. You’ve got taste.” Karsh stood and looked at his watch. “Get Coglan now. I’ll try to promote us a couple of drinks.”
The circuits to Beach City were loaded, the operator told Terrell, but she promised to call him back in a few minutes.
Karsh came back with two whiskeys and soda and gave one to Terrell. “They were pretty nice about it,” he said drily. “I interrupted their dinner, but they didn’t mind. They’re a considerate bunch.”
“Why don’t you tie a can to them?” Terrell said. He realized from the expression on Karsh’s face that he had made a mistake but he couldn’t stop. “Then open the. windows and let the cold air blow in for a while. They’re slugs, Mike.”
“And after they’re gone, what’s left? Me, sitting all alone with a drink in my hand. Maybe they’re better than nothing, Sam.”
“Get a dog,” Terrell said. He hated having forced Karsh to make that admission. Sometimes it was a kindness not to point out the obvious. “A dog would like it here,” he said, looking away from the tight little smile on Karsh’s face. “Good hours, incentive pay.”
“It’s no place for a clean, young dog,” Karsh said. “But I’ll tell you what.” He lit his cigarette and sat down on the arm of the leather chair. “I’m going to need an assistant in a year or two. A man to take over some of my chores. The publisher wants to quote protect me from my selfless devotion to the paper unquote. You keep on learning, and you’ll be my boy.”
Terrell found it difficult to realize that he was. casually being offered one of the top newspaper jobs in the state. He said foolishly, “You mean that?”
Karsh smiled faintly. “Sure. A year on the news desk, some time in Washington maybe, and a little homework on where woodpulp comes. from — that’s all you need. You could take over the office next to mine, and at the risk of sounding sloppy, I’d be damn glad to have you there. You’ve got a little extra, Sam. I don’t know the word for it, decency maybe. An autopsy wouldn’t show it, but it’s there.”
The phone began to ring. “Many thanks,” Terrell said. “That’s an inadequate way of putting it, but it’s what I mean. Many thanks.”
“Get the phone,” Karsh said.
The operator said, “I have your party now, just one moment.” There was a click, and then a voice said, “The Riley Hotel, reservations.”
“I’d like to talk to Patrick Coglan, please.”
“Yes, sir.” There was a silence, and then: “Who’s calling, please?”
“Sam Terrell with the Call-Bulletin.”
“Yes, just a moment.”
Terrell heard a murmuring sound in the, background, and then another voice came on the line. “Terrell? This is Tim Moran, Homicide. What did you want to see Coglan about?”
Terrell felt a chill go through him. “It’s a personal matter, Tim. What’s up?”
“Sorry to give it to you this way, but he shot himself about half an hour ago. Was he sick, or anything like that?”
Terrell covered the receiver and looked at Karsh. “Coglan’s dead, suicide. I’d better get over there.”
“See what they’ve got to say first.”
Terrell uncovered the receiver and said, “I don’t know if he was sick, Tim. Can you tell me what happened?”
“All right. He was found by a maid. Her name was Schmidt, Mary Schmidt, age 43, and she lives in Brownsville, 24 Mt. Airy Road.”
“I don’t need all that,” Terrell said.
“All right. She found him at about eight o’clock. He shot himself with his own gun. In the left temple. The doc thinks he might have been dead a couple of hours though. Those shooting galleries across the street covered the shot.”
“Did he leave any note?”
“We didn’t find anything.”
“Was he drunk?”
“I don’t know. The doc will have all that in a little while. What did you want him for, Sam? You were over this morning, I know.”
“I was doing a piece on him,” Terrell said. “Profile of an average cop, that sort of thing. He had his moment of glory the other night on that Caldwell murder, and I was tying him into our Sunday run-down.”
“Well, how did he seem when you talked to him? Depressed? Worried? Anything like that?”
“No, he seemed fine. Thanks, Tim.” Terrell put the phone down slowly and looked at Karsh. “In the left temple, seven-thirty or earlier, no note. That’s it, Mike.”
“You should have got his story on paper. You should have taken a statement from him and had it witnessed and notarized.” Karsh threw his cigarette into the fireplace, rose and began pacing the room. “Or you should have used a dictaphone.”
“I’ll remember next time,” Terrell said.
“Okay, relax. I’m not riding you for kicks. But there was too much pressure on Coglan — from inside and out. You might have guessed this was going to happen.”