“Will you arrest him, then?”
“Yes,” Ramussen said. “We don’t know that he killed Sternmueller, although I’m sure he did. Your guesses are probably all correct. Sternmueller came in to report something about Dave Fiest’s shooting, and had the bad luck to run into Nolan. Nolan lied to Lindfors about what the man really wanted, and then, when Odell gave him that job on Crab Street, he ducked into Sternmueller’s.”
They were silent for a few moments. Then the phone buzzed. The Lieutenant picked it up, and said, “Ramussen, Thirteenth Detectives.” He waited a moment, then said: “Go ahead.”
Mark moved closer to the desk and lit a fresh cigarette from the stub of his old one. Ramussen listened in silence for a few seconds. “That’s definite, then?” He paused again, then said: “Thanks, Doctor.”
He put the phone down and glanced up at Mark. “Sternmueller had no gas in his lungs. He died of a heart attack apparently induced by a blow that struck his jaw just below the right ear. It’s murder, all right.” He pressed a buzzer on his desk.
Sergeant Odell stuck his head in the door. “What is it, Lieutenant?”
“Where’s Nolan?”
“He’s not back yet. I sent him over to a taproom at Eleventh and Maple. He called just a while ago and said he’d be back in an hour or so.”
Odell glanced from Ramussen to Mark, and back to the Lieutenant. “Want me to call him and have him come in?”
“No, never mind. That’s all, Sergeant.”
Odell hesitated momentarily, obviously consumed with curiosity; but finally he turned and lumbered from the room.
“Well, what now?” Mark said.
Ramussen put his finger tips together. “I’m not sure, Mark. Frankly, I’m worried. He’s been gone two hours now. I don’t believe in sixth-sense or intuition, of course, but Nolan is a cop, and he might just smell trouble. He may know his luck is running out. I don’t want to send out an alarm for him, because that might make him bolt. And catching him would be dangerous.” He stood up, frowning. “What’s the number of that singer?”
“Why do you want her?”
“She’s got Nolan’s money, or Espizito’s, depending on how you look at things. Anyway, if Nolan starts on the run, that will be the first thing he’ll head for. I don’t want her to be in his way.”
“She’s at the Simba now, of course.”
“And where’s the money? At her apartment?”
“That’s right.”
“That’s different. But supposing you give her a ring anyway and tell her not to see him tonight.”
Mark called the Simba and, after a considerable delay, got Jim Evans on the phone. He learned then that Linda wasn’t feeling well, that she’d called earlier to say she wouldn’t be in that night.
“Call her apartment, then,” Ramussen said, his voice worried. “Let me talk to her. We’ll send a police car for her if necessary or an ambulance. Damn it, Mark, I’ve got the feeling that all hell is about to break loose.”
Mark realized as he lifted the phone that Nolan was caught now in the steadily intensifying pressure of the situation he had created. He couldn’t deviate from the course he had taken by killing Dave Fiest. It was too late for that. Nolan would know that, of course, if only subconsciously. His time had run out, and there was nothing left for him but to get his money and make his final break. He had to go to Linda’s, and Mark was suddenly certain that he was with her now or on his way to her apartment. He dialed her number quickly, desperately.
Nolan realized that he was getting drunk. He was swaying slightly as he poured the last of Linda’s bottle into his glass.
“Kid, this is living,” he said.
“Barny, you shouldn’t be drinking so much.”
“Why?” Her concern pleased him.
“Well, you’ve got to get back to work, don’t you?”
“Work?” He laughed and put the bottle down on the table. “I may never go back. Work is for slobs.”
His face was uncomfortably warm and his fingers felt thick and clumsy. He decided that some cold water might make him feel better.
“Excuse me a second, will you?” he said, and went into the bathroom. He filled the basin with cold water and unloosed his tie and collar. Bending over he splashed the water onto his face and the back of his neck, and then he ran his damp hands through his hair.
That made him feel better. He dried himself with a woolly blue towel and looked around with a grin on his face.
There were bottles of colognes and perfumes and jars of cold cream and bath salts on a shelf beneath the medicine cabinet. Nolan studied them with interest. The bottles were pretty, and their contents looked gay and colorful. Everything about the immaculate bathroom was like her, he thought; clean, dainty, gracious.
There was a pair of nylons on a hanger behind the door, and he touched them gently with his fingers, excited and pleased by their fineness and quality. It gave him an oddly intimate pleasure to touch her stockings like that, and to look around at her bottles of colognes and perfumes. He turned back to the medicine cabinet and studied his face closely in the mirror. His face was flushed with liquor, but he liked the sight of his big square features and damp healthy-looking hair. He squared his shoulders and sucked in his sagging stomach. Still a first-class man, he thought. A little extra weight around the middle, but the muscles of his shoulders and arms were thick and powerful, and he knew damn well he could handle most punks half his age.
Nolan put up his hands slowly in a fighting stance, and snapped a left hook at his reflection. He followed it with a hard straight right, perfectly thrown. His right shoulder dropped, his right foot twisted sharply inward, snapping his hip and his torso behind the punch. He stopped his fist half an inch from the mirror and then dropped his hands to his side, smiling self-consciously.
The phone was ringing as he walked out of the bathroom. Some instinct made him pause. He heard Linda’s light footsteps, and then her voice, high and rather nervous.
“Oh, hello Mark.”
Nolan stepped quickly into the archway of the living room. Linda stood with her back to him, holding the receiver to her ear with both hands. She listened for a moment, and then she said, in low voice: “Yes, Lieutenant. I’ll do what you say.”
Nolan closed the distance between them with one long stride. He caught her throat in one hand, and ripped the phone away with his other. He put the receiver against his ear and heard Ramussen’s hard precise voice.
“We’re going to pick up Nolan tonight, Miss Wade. Mark has told me you have Nolan’s money, so I want you to leave your apartment immediately. He’s a dangerous man and I don’t intend to give him the opportunity to kill anyone else. Is that clear? Hello! Hello! Can you hear—”
Nolan put the phone slowly down in its cradle, cutting off Ramussen’s sharply pitched voice. He swung Linda about and stared into her face with murderous eyes.
“Double crossing bitch,” he shouted at her, his breath coming in uneven heaving gasps. He could feel the rage in his body, as if it were some tangible, physical thing that might blow him apart with its intensity. “Bitch, bitch,” he yelled, and struck her across the face with the back of his hand.
“No, Barny, no,” she cried, clinging to his arm.
He threw her to the floor and stared about wildly. A lamp caught his eye and he knocked it halfway across the room with a blow of his fist. Then he dropped to one knee beside Linda and caught her shoulders in his big hands.
“Where’s my money?” he said, his voice hoarse and wild. “Where’s my money?” He shook her until her hair loosened and fell in disorder about her face and shoulders.
“In the closet, in the closet,” she cried, and the words sounded as if they were torn and shaken from her body. “On the shelf, behind the shoes.”