Back inside, he climbed the stairs and rang the bell of 6-B. A plump blonde woman of about forty-five answered the door.
Saxon took off his hat. “I’m looking for Ann and Sandra.”
Carefully she looked him up and down, her expression becoming thoughtful when she noted his red hair. “Who?” she asked with rehearsed puzzlement.
“They live here,” he explained.
“Not here,” she said. “You must have the wrong apartment.”
“Well, they did live here,” he amended. “Did you just move in here today?”
“I’ve lived here for three months, mister. All by myself. I never heard of no Nan and Sandy.”
If her stagey manner hadn’t already given it away, Saxon would have realized by the woman’s pretense of misunderstanding the names that she was a plant. He didn’t bother to argue with her. Replacing his hat, he turned and walked away without even saying good-by.
Downstairs the first apartment off the lobby, numbered 1-A, had a sign on its door reading MANAGEMENT. Saxon’s ring brought a buxom, hard-featured woman in her mid-fifties to the door.
Removing his hat, he said, “You the manager here, ma’am?”
She nodded. “But there’s no vacancies, mister.”
“I’m not looking for an apartment. I’m looking for the former tenants of 6-B.”
A film seemed to settle over the woman’s eyes. “Former tenants? The same woman’s lived there six months.”
The woman herself had claimed only three, but Saxon didn’t offer any correction. He decided on another approach. “Larry Cutter sent me,” he said.
Her gaze touched his red hair. “Never heard of him,” she said stolidly.
His damned red hair and freckles, he thought. They made him to easy to describe.
It was obvious that Larry Cutter had moved fast to make Saxon’s story of the kidnaping seem implausible, in case he reported it to the police. The two girls had been whisked out of sight and a different tenant installed in their place. The manager had been bribed to substantiate the new tenant’s story of having occupied the apartment for some time. If the police came around to investigate apartment 6-B on Saxon’s complaint, they would come away convinced he had nightmares. In case Saxon himself showed up, the new tenant and the manager had been briefed on his appearance so that they wouldn’t fall into a trap.
He could, of course, ring the bells of other apartments on the second floor and probably find tenants who recalled seeing the girls. But he doubted that a pair of call girls would have mingled much with their neighbors, so it was unlikely any would know where they had gone. He decided it would be a waste of time.
The same elderly man, wearing the same dirty shirt, was behind the desk of the Fenimore Hotel. Again he said nothing to Saxon when he walked by.
Upstairs there was no reply to his knock on the door of room 203. Trying the knob, Saxon found the door unlocked. He opened it and walked in.
No one was in the hotel room. Nevertheless, Saxon checked. A curtained alcove served as a closet. Jerking the curtain aside, he stared at two bare coat hangers hooked over the clothing rod. He let the curtain drop in place and turned to the battered dresser. Every drawer was empty. There was no sign of human occupancy anywhere in the room.
Downstairs the elderly man eyed him warily as he approached the desk.
“What happened to the tenant in two, oh, three?” Saxon inquired.
“Mr. Zek? He moved out.”
“When and where to?”
“Last night. He didn’t leave no forwarding address.”
“Did he leave alone?”
“No,” the desk clerk said. “Some friend came to help him move.”
“You know the friend’s name?”
The elderly man shook his head. “Tall, kind of skinny fellow with a mustache.”
That would be Spider Wertz, Saxon thought. Larry Cutter had lost no time in removing all witnesses who could possibly corroborate anything at all Saxon told the police. He had done as good a job covering up the blunders of his men as he had in framing Saxon.
Stalking across the lobby to the single phone booth, Saxon flipped open the book to the C section. No Lawrence Cutter was listed.
Of course not, he thought furiously. Big-shot hoods, like call girls, had unlisted phones.
He looked up Tony Spijak’s number, dropped coins, and dialed. The bookmaker himself answered the phone.
“This is Ted Saxon, Tony,” he growled.
“How are you, boy? How’d you make out yesterday?”
“Lousy,” Saxon said coldly. “Do you know Larry Cutter’s address?”
After a moment of silence, Spijak said cautiously, “Yeah, I know it. Why?”
“Because I want it.”
“I don’t like the sound of your voice, old buddy,” the bookmaker said. “You sound sore. You going to do something foolish?”
“Listen, Tony,” Saxon said. “Are you going to give me the address or not?”
“I guess so,” Spijak said reluctantly. “But I hope I don’t read about your mutilated body being found in a car trunk. Cutter can play rough.”
“Just come up with the address,” Saxon snapped.
“Keep your pants on, pal. I have to look it up in my little black book.”
A full minute passed before the bookmaker came back to the phone. “Apartment 4-C, the Gawain Apartment Hotel,” he said. “That’s on North Delaware.”
“I know the place,” Saxon said. “Thanks.”
At the Gawain Apartment Hotel furnished apartments were rented for two hundred and fifty dollars a month and up. The bigger ones, such as Larry Cutter probably had, brought six hundred a month. A self-service elevator took Saxon to the third floor. He walked along deep-napped carpeting until he came to the door numbered 4-C. He unbuttoned his overcoat and suit jacket and loosened the gun in his holster before ringing the bell.
A couple of minutes passed before the door opened six inches and the face of Farmer Benton peered out. His face was just beginning to form an expression of startled recognition when Saxon’s shoulder hit the door and smashed it wide-open, driving Benton backward several feet. The man recovered his balance and was reaching for his armpit when Saxon swept out his gun and leveled it.
Paling, the buck-toothed gunman hurriedly raised his arms overhead.
Saxon’s glance flickered over the room. It was the front room of the apartment. To the right an archway led to a dining room, and the only other door led to a central hall off which Saxon could see into a bedroom. No one except Farmer Benton was in sight.
Saxon moved forward, dipped his left hand beneath Benton’s coat and drew out his forty-five automatic.
“I don’t know why I bother,” he said. “You can’t hit anything with it anyway.” He tossed it over on the sofa. “Put your hands down. You look silly holding them over your head that way.”
Benton slowly lowered his hands to his sides.
A voice from beyond the dining room called, “Who is it, Farmer?”
Saxon had been about to ask where Larry Cutter was, but this answered his question in advance. Grasping the gunman’s shoulder, he spun him toward the dining room and said, “Move.” Stiffly Benton walked ahead of him through the dining room and to the door of a kitchen.
A powerfully built man of about forty with close-cropped blond hair sat at the kitchen table in bathrobe and pajamas. He had a square, granite-hard face and pale-gray eyes. Across from him sat a vivid, baby-faced blonde in her early twenties. She was wearing a white housecoat over a nightgown. Though it was now past noon, they seemed to be having breakfast. Both had coffee cups before them and were munching sweet rolls.
Saxon shoved Farmer Benton to one side. The gray-eyed man looked up and his eyes narrowed when he saw Saxon’s gun. He threw Benton a bleak glance.
“He caught me off balance,” Benton said apologetically. “I wasn’t expecting nothing, Larry. Nobody’s been gunning for you.”