“Lew Recker?”
“He’s one. Avery Birk. Fifty others, of course, who were around last night.”
“Give it to the police.”
“Dorothy has already done that.”
“Good. What’s the number where I can reach her?”
Radin gave it to him and Shayne jotted it down. Again, they left the building together.
16
Michael Shayne’s first stop was at Elsie Murray’s former address on Madison Avenue. He paid off his taxi, went up a short flight of stone steps and through swinging doors to a small entry exactly like the one described in Elsie’s script. Beside the lock on the inner door was the bell she had mentioned with the brass plate beneath bearing the word SUPERINTENDENT.
Shayne exhaled a sigh of satisfaction and went back out. So far, so good. The script appeared to be more and more factual all the time. He stood on the sidewalk and looked up and down the avenue. A few doors away on his right was a canopy with the words RESTAURANT — BAR. There was nothing on his left to indicate a drinking establishment.
Shayne went to the canopy and entered a long cool room with a bar on one side and small tables ranged against the wall. In the rear was a square space with a dozen or more dining tables. A few of the tables were occupied at this early lunch hour, and half a dozen of the bar stools were filled.
He walked down the bar to the other end, found a telephone book chained there, and the phone booth was across the room. Again, Elsie’s description was perfectly accurate.
A genial-faced and paunchy bartender came up to Shayne, and the redhead said, “Cognac. Martel or Monnet if you have it.”
“We’ve got Martel. Drink or pony?”
“A double drink, please. A little ice water on the side.” There was a second bartender at the front end of the bar serving the drinkers congregated there. He was tall and young, with a completely bald head.
When Shayne’s drink came, he asked, “Either of you fellows been working here long?”
“Don’t know what you call long, Mister. Six months for me, and Jack down there has been around a couple of years.”
“Good enough.” Shayne put a five-dollar bill on the counter and said, “I wonder if either of you remember a girl named Elsie Murray who used to drop in quite often a few months ago. Lived right down the street.”
“Say! That’s real funny. We was talking about her just a little while ago. Read in the paper about her getting killed last night. Damn shame. She was real nice except when she’d had one too many which wasn’t often.”
“Who is we?” asked Shayne.
“Come again.” The bartender frowned his puzzlement.
“You said we were talking about Miss Murray just awhile ago. Who were you talking with?”
“Jack… that’s the man up front, and…” The paunchy bartender leaned closer and lowered his voice discreetly. “And the young lady sitting right back of you. She used to come in sometimes with Miss Murray a few months back… before she quit coming all of a sudden. We was talking about how funny that was.”
Shayne took a long, slow drink of straight cognac, rolling it gratefully around in his mouth to wash out the taste of Radin’s whiskey, and asked patiently:
“Who quit coming in suddenly? The young lady behind me or Miss Murray?”
“Miss Murray. We never knew why, but then we heard she’d moved away from where she lived right down the street. What’s your angle, Mister?”
“I’m working on the case.” Shayne turned on his bar stool slowly to glance along the row of tables against the wall behind him.
There was a threesome of giggling shopgirls, a middle-aged couple intently absorbed with martinis and themselves, and a young woman seated alone on a bench against the wall facing Shayne across a table for two.
She sat very erect with her shoulders squared against the wall behind her which made her look quite tall, and the effect was heightened by an upswept hair-do which showed off the clean lines of a somewhat thin neck above a severely plain white blouse and tailored gray suit.
There was something of a haughty look about her face, with a nose that was a trifle too long and too sharp, and a short upper lip that drew away slightly from upper teeth. She was looking directly towards Shayne as his casual gaze slid down the row of tables and stopped to survey her. She didn’t avert her eyes as they met his, but continued to look calmly through him as though he didn’t exist. A thin-stemmed cocktail glass stood on the table in front of her, half-full of a yellowish liquid that looked like a side-car.
Shayne considered her gravely for a moment, then continued around in a full circle to face the bartender again. He asked quietly, “You don’t happen to know her name?”
“No, sir. I don’t believe I ever heard it mentioned. You’re not the cops?”
“Private,” Shayne told him. He drank more cognac and took a sip of ice water, asked, “Can you remember if either you or Jack were on the late closing shift about three months ago?”
“That’d be Jack. He always worked the last shift until two weeks ago when he got hitched. Now he’s got something better to do at home than hang around here till four in the morning shooing out drunks.” The bartender chortled meaningfully. “So he traded off with one of the day men. What was it you wanted, Mister?”
“A word with Jack if I can have it.” Shayne pushed the bill across the counter. “Keep that for your help. What’s the young lady at the table behind me drinking?”
“Say, thanks.” The bill went into his pocket. “That’s a stinger she’s got.”
Shayne said, “Why don’t you ask Jack to bring a fresh one, and a pony of Martel for me to her table?”
“Coming right up.” The bartender bustled to the front of the bar to confer with his colleague, and Shayne finished his double brandy. He lit a cigarette and slid off the stool, crossed to the girl’s table and pulled out the vacant chair in front of her, asking, “Do you mind if I sit here and buy you a drink?”
Her upper lip curled away from her teeth a trifle more than when it was in repose. She said, “Sorry, but I didn’t come in for a pick-up.”
Shayne said, “I know,” settling himself in the chair. “You came in to talk about Elsie Murray. So did I. So, let’s talk.”
“Elsie?” Surprise and fear slid briefly into her cool blue eyes. She really looked at him now, with intense interest. “I don’t know you at all.”
“You didn’t know all Elsie’s friends, did you?”
“Of course not. I didn’t really know her well.”
“Well enough to come around here and discuss her with the bartender when you read about her murder.”
She finished her cocktail and shrugged elaborately. “That doesn’t mean anything.” She put her hands flat on the table as though to get up.
Shayne leaned forward and put one big restraining palm over the back of one of hers. “I’ve ordered you a fresh stinger. I want to talk about Elsie.”
She hesitated, compressing her lips and looking down at his hand covering hers on the table. “Are you another of her boy-friends?” Her voice was icy, but it trembled a trifle.
Shayne shook his red head. “I never met the girl. But a friend of mine was in her apartment last night just before she died and I’m trying to help him out.” He withdrew his hand as the tall bald-headed bartender came up to their table with a tray.
He looked at Shayne with interest as he placed the glasses in front of them, and said, “You were asking about Miss Murray that got killed last night?”
Shayne said, “Yes,” and leaned back in his chair to look up at the waiter. Another five-dollar bill lay on the table. “Were you on duty here from midnight to closing about three months ago?”
“I would’ve been, sure. Always worked that shift until lately.”
“And you knew Elsie Murray by sight?” Shayne persisted.
“Yeh. Nice girl. She mostly dropped in alone late for a nightcap. Lived in that apartment right down the street.”
“I know. Do you remember one night around midnight when she came in pretty tight and borrowed a dime from you to make a phone call because she’d lost her purse and hadn’t any change?”