Chapter VI
One More Victim
Sitting on the Gay Nineties bed in the high-ceilinged hotel room, his stiff knee stretched out on the spread, Keene worked the portable in his lap. He clattered the keys at top speed, pulled out the sheet of paper, extracted the carbon, read the original, put it on the bed-table, signed it, stuck it in an envelope already stamped.
In the bureau mirror he examined his bunged-up features, gave his crew-cut a lick and a promise. He slipped on his Beverly Hills suede, went downstairs, found an empty old-fashioned phone booth as big as three of the 1949 models, standing in solitary grandeur near the taproom.
He called Information and was put through to a bored male voice.
“Who’s handling the Gretsch thing?” he asked.
“Lieutenant Asmussen. Why?”
“Just wanted to know.” He hung up, addressed the envelope against the glass of the phone booth, found a mail chute in the lobby, dropped it in.
He felt better, putting what he knew down on paper. If anything should happen to him in the next few hours — and all the signs indicated such a possibility — at least the record would be straight, for what belated good it might do Clay Larmin’s reputation.
After a few years of professional investigation, you got so your conscience was covered with calluses, Keene reflected moodily. You got so all you considered was the job in hand and to the devil with the consequences as they affected other people. They’d affected young Larmin, all right.
Not that anything Keene might have reported would necessarily have absolved the Claybrook heir of involvement in the Gretsch girl’s murder. But if Larmin should have had a rock-ribbed alibi for the time between one and two ayem — and if the police had known that was when the waitress had been bludgeoned to death — maybe Clay wouldn’t have tried to short-cut himself out of his troubles.
The carbon copy in the pocket of the suede jacket set it all down, ABC. What had happened at the Stirrup & Saddle, the pussy-footing out at the Lake Avenue cottage, the stuff about the use of the depressant to kill the chances of odds-on winners, the results of that “closed session” with Towbee. If Keene wasn’t able to walk around to the police station in the morning, the cops could take it from there.
Going out, he crossed Broadway and followed the street that backed up against Congress Park. The red brick of the Casino glowed warmly in the late afternoon sun. Quite a change at the Spa since Canfield’s day. Keene wondered what the old-time gambler would have thought of the establishment down the street, there.
From the sidewalk it was just a second-hand store. The sign above the door merely said: AUCTION TODAY. The window was a hodgepodge of shabby clothing, worn rubber boots, cracked crockery and battered stew-pans. A hum, like the buzzing of a bee swarm, came from inside. Keene pushed open the door.
Forty or fifty people — mostly men — were milling around in a smoke-hazy room, two sides of which were lined with blackboards bearing chalked-in headings: Jamaica, Rockingham, Saratoga, Bowie, Washington Pk., Churchill Downs. A third side was boarded up to within a foot of the ceiling. The partition had a row of small, steel-barred wickets spread about five feet apart, with a door at the far end.
A tinny public-address system announced: “Off time in the third at Churchilclass="underline" four oh seven, Eastern Daylight. Fancy Gal, four-forty, three-twenty, two-sixty.” It croaked on.
Only a few horseplayers were putting their money on the line at the moment. Keene waited until they began to crowd up to the wickets again to get down on the fourth. Then he strolled down the line of peep-hole wickets.
The openings were set just a little more than waist-high. They were only about six inches square, the steel grille coming down to within an inch of the horizontal sill on which the money and tickets were slid in and out. The hands of the men behind the peep-holes were visible, but unless a person stopped, put his chin right on the sill, it would be impossible to see their faces. Keene watched the hands.
At the fourth wicket he saw what he was after. The seller behind the opening was dealing out slips of paper clumsily, with a big bandage on his right flipper.
Keene went to the door in the partition, rattled the knob. Nobody opened. A short, hard-eyed man with a blue jowl and a mean expression sidled over. He’d been studying a Racing Form, a moment before.
“Trouble, pal?”
“No trouble,” Keene said. “I just want to speak to a joe in there.” He pointed.
“Speak to him through the window, why don’tcha?”
“Have to be sure he’s the right joe.” Keene reached for his inside jacket pocket. The man crowded against him, threateningly.
Keene pulled out the fat sheaf of banknotes he’d borrowed from Towbee. “I don’t want to turn this bunch of lettuce over to the wrong grocer.”
The hard eyes inspected the bankroll. “Y’got somep’n there, chum. Maybe we oughta let you in, if you got that kinda admission jack.” He produced a key, fitted it into the lock, swung the door.
The alley behind the partition was no more than four feet wide — just room for cash drawers, high bar stools, ticket racks and a small safe. All the men on the stools looked up from beneath green eyeshades, their expressions blank.
The man with the bandaged hand only stared for an instant, then continued scribbling on slips. He had huge, muscle-bound shoulders, a bulge around his belt-line, a nose that could have been used as a night advertisement for a bar.
“Hey, Plumnose.” The hard-eyed man was genial. “Pal here has a jarful o’ cookies for yuh.”
The red nose turned in Keen’s direction. “Huh?”
Keene tossed the elastic-bound packet of bills up, caught them. “You Vince Towbee’s partner?”
Plumnose got down off his stool, flattened himself against the back wall. “Never heard of the guy.”
The hard-eyed man eased in behind Keene. The Bureau detective got the odor of garlic from his breath.
“He said a joe with a banged-up duke. From getting it mashed in a car door.”
The eyes beneath Plumnose’s eyeshade were small and bright. The voice was low and ugly.
“I got this—” he held up the bandaged fingers — “movin’ that damn safe, lettin’ it drop. I don’t know no Towbee. Nobody owes me that much moola. So—”
“I shaved off Santos’ beard,” Keene said slowly.
One of the other sellers laughed. “The car’s off its trolley, Plumnose.”
“Out, Buster!” the mean-eyed man said.
Keene stood still. The man grabbed his elbows from behind.
Plumnose took off his eyeshade. “This ginzo sounds like he’s lost some of his marbles, Charley. Maybe I better go along with him. Just to humor him.”
He took a Panama from a rack over his window.
Cold sweat was running down Keene’s spine before they got out of the horse parlor. The mean-eyed man didn’t want to let Plumnose go. He smelled a possible raid and a closing up of his place of business. But he didn’t start anything.
Plumnose went out onto the street ahead of Keene. When he got to the sidewalk, he said, “How much you want?”
“Not much. Just a little leveling.”
The scuffler was disappointed. “If you’d care t’ listen to the nice, cracklin’ noise of a few hunnerd dollar bills, now—”
“No dice,” Keene said. “Just the plain, unvarnished truth. Which one of you finished the Gretsch girl?”
“I got no idea what your git-gat-giddle’s all ’bout, pal.”
“There’ll be a dozen of your prints on the door of my Buick, Plumnose.”
“One’ll get you fifty if you find any.” The man smirked.