Shayne nodded, his face blank. “I’ll check on that. Can you give me any other leads?”
“I’m afraid not.” Lew Recker shook his head thoughtfully.
“Tell me about Elsie herself.” Shayne leaned back comfortably and expelled blue smoke. “We often find the vital clue in a murder in the character of the victim. What sort of girl was she?”
“A familiar enough type in New York.” Recker shrugged. “You might almost say a prototype. Girl from the country comes to big city as a secretary and gets in on the fringe of writing and publishing. Meets a few writers and artists and is dazzled by a new sense of freedom. Becomes daringly sophisticated very swiftly. Good-looking enough and with the right sort of figure to be invited out to parties where the liquor flows freely. You know. Not really a party girl, but… susceptible. There are thousands like her. Ready for a good time when it’s offered.”
“I understand she was trying to be a writer herself?”
Recker snorted disparagingly. “Who isn’t? It looks so simple. You just sit at a typewriter and put down words and editors pay you for them. Sure. She gave up her job a couple months ago and settled down to write the Great American Novel.”
“What kind of job did she have?”
“Secretary or file clerk in some importing house, I think,” Recker said indifferently. “She had a pretty nice place about ten blocks down the street from here at the time, but she gave it up to sublet a smaller place on Thirty-Eighth when the writing bug bit her.
“And I can’t help blaming myself for that,” Recker went on soberly. “I’m afraid I encouraged her more than her slight talent justified. I read some of her short junk, and you know how it is. You haven’t the heart to tell a girl like that that her stuff stinks. You should, of course. Kindest thing to do in the long run. But you just don’t. You try to be kind, and that’s a mistake. First thing you know, she’s taken your generalities seriously and decides to give up everything for her Art. And she spells it with a capital A.” He paused to smile condescendingly. “Well, the kids have to get it out of their systems, I guess. They’ll never know for sure until they try that they’re really cut out to be call girls instead of novelists.”
“Where did Elsie live before she moved to the smaller place?”
Recker gave him the name of an apartment building lower down on Madison Avenue. “You haven’t told me how she died… anything about it.”
Shayne said, “Haven’t you seen a paper this morning?”
“Heavens no! I never look at a paper until I’ve finished my early writing stint and had lunch.”
“Or turned on a radio for the news?” Shayne persisted.
A look of pain crossed Lew Recker’s face. “I wouldn’t have a radio in the place. The news? My God! Who’s interested in a world that’s intent on self-destruction? One can withdraw to typewriter and find peace if not certitude. Are you through trying to trip me up by getting me to admit I already knew about Elsie?”
“For the moment,” Shayne said indifferently. “You mentioned Elsie going around to parties and drinking. A lot?”
“Plenty to remove small-town inhibitions.”
“Did she handle it all right?”
“Mostly. Sometimes she’d go overboard, I guess, and have to be helped home.”
“That ever happen when you were with her?”
“Unfortunately, no.” Recker sniggered unpleasantly. “From what I heard around, she was really hot stuff when she actually passed out.”
“Around?” asked Shayne.
Recker wrinkled his forehead and looked at Shayne inquiringly. “What do you mean?”
“From what you heard around,” Shayne stressed. “From whom in particular?”
“I don’t recall any names. If I did I certainly wouldn’t repeat gossip about my friends.”
“You intimated in the beginning that Elsie was a pushover,” persisted Shayne. “Exactly who did the pushing?”
“I intimated no such thing.” Recker sat up very straight and brushed his thumbnail across his thin mustache in a gesture of righteous indignation. “She was basically a fine sweet girl who believed in equality among the sexes and in a girl’s right to have an affair if it pleased her to do so. I meant nothing derogatory about Elsie. For God’s sake, do you dicks have to go digging up filth about a dead girl?”
“If it helps catch her killer,” Shayne said unemotionally. “About her drinking, again. You mentioned her being at the bar with this Miami writer last night. Was she drunk?”
“N-n-o-o. He was plenty soused, and forcing drinks down her throat. She had a way of not showing it much when she was actually passed out, but if you knew her well you could tell. I’d say she was fairly sober last night. Another thing is: You haven’t told me this, but you can’t blame me for deducing that the Halliday character maybe killed her in a drunken rage when she resisted his advances. If so, you can be certain, she wasn’t too tight… because she wouldn’t have resisted if she had been.”
Shayne shrugged and got up. His big hands itched to take the neck of the self-important writer and wring it thoroughly, but he resisted the impulse. Most of his two hours were up, and he was eager to compare notes with Ed Radin.
Lew Recker got up and followed him toward the door, saying eagerly:
“I do hope you feel I haven’t been uncooperative. I’ve honestly tried to give you every relevant fact without dragging the names of innocent people into the mire of a murder investigation. A gentleman owes a certain duty to his friends, I think. Perhaps a cop doesn’t see it that way, but I’m not a cop, thank God.”
Shayne paused to say disgustedly, “When we decide we need further names from you, we’ll be around… and we’ll get them. In the meantime…”
A telephone rang shrilly in the room, interrupting him. Recker turned aside to a small table with a wood inlay top and a silk fringe hanging down all around it. He stooped and pulled the instrument from a shelf behind the fringe and said, “Hello,” while Shayne waited with his hand on the doorknob.
Recker said, “Yes, this is he.” He listened a moment and a puzzled look spread over his face.
“Certainly, I’m home,” he snapped, “and I expect to remain here the rest of the morning, but I don’t see why I need to be bothered again. After all, goddamnit, my morning’s creative work has already been ruined by one of your men asking silly questions, and I simply don’t see why…”
Shayne moved back swiftly. A big hand shot out to wring the receiver from Recker’s hand, and he stooped to replace it on its prongs behind the silk fringe.
When he straightened, Lew Recker had stepped back and was surveying him intently, his thin face white with fear and sudden anger.
“You’re not a cop!” he burst out. “That was a Detective Peters who’s in charge of the investigation. You’re a damned impostor. You… By God! I get it now.” He was trembling with indignation. “You’re the dick Halliday is always writing books about. Mike Shayne. Redheaded and tough.” His voice shook with rage. “How-come you’re stooging up here for him? That was mighty fast work, wasn’t it? Did he wire you he was planning a murder and needed your help to frame someone else so he wouldn’t be caught for it? Wait till I tell the real police that you came here impersonating an officer. That’s a criminal offense in New York if you don’t happen to know it.”
Shayne grinned happily at the outraged man. “I told you I was a detective, bud. That’s all. I am. Want to see my license?”
“You had no right to come here and pump me. It’ll take more than you to get your precious friend out of this one. You tell Brett Halliday for me…”
Shayne snorted disgustedly and went out the door. He didn’t know where Peters had telephoned from, but he knew it would be just as well if he were gone from the premises by the time the precinct detective arrived.