We got our first real break when Mrs. Ferroni showed up with the key. She placed it on the desk in front of Johnny and said, ‘I was cleaning out her things. I found this. It doesn’t fit any of the doors in the house. I don’t know what it’s for.’
‘Maybe her gym locker at school,’ I said.
‘No. She had a combination lock. I remembered she had to buy one when she first started high school.’
Johnny took the key, looked at it, and passed it to me. ‘Post office box?’ he asked.
‘Maybe.’ I turned the key over in my hand. The numerals 894 were stamped into its head.
‘Thanks, Mrs. Ferroni,’ Johnny said. ‘We’ll look into it right away.’
We started at the Williamsbridge Post Office right on Gun Hill Road. The mailmen were very cooperative, but the fact remained it wasn’t a key to any of their boxes. In fact, it didn’t look like a post office key at all. We tried the Wakefield Branch, up the line a bit, and got the same answer.
We started on the banks then.
Luckily, we hit it on the first try. The bank was on 220th Street, and the manager was cordial and helpful. He took one look at the key and said, ‘Yes, that’s one of ours.’
‘Who rents the box?’ We asked.
He looked at the key again. ‘Safety deposit 894. Just a moment, and I’ll have that checked.’
We stood on either side of his polished desk while he picked up a phone, asked for a Miss Delaney, and then questioned her about the key. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I see. Yes, thank you.’ He cradled the phone, put the key on the desk and said, ‘Jo Ann Ferris. Does that help you, gentlemen?’
‘Jo Ann Ferris,’ Johnny said. ‘Jean Ferroni. That’s close enough.’ He looked directly at the manager. ‘We’ll be back in a little while with a court order to open that box. We’ll ask for you.’
‘Certainly,’ the manager said, nodding gravely.
In a little over two hours, we were back, and we followed the manager past the barred gate at the rear of the bank, stepped into the vault, and walked back to the rows of safety deposit boxes. ‘894,’ he said. ‘Yes. here it is.’
He opened the box, pulled out a slab and rested the box on it. Johnny lifted the lid.
‘Anything?’ I asked.
He pulled out what looked like several rolled sheets of stiff white paper. They were secured with rubber bands, and Johnny slid the bands off quickly. When he unrolled them, they turned out to be eight by ten glossy prints. I took one of the prints and looked at Jean Ferroni’s contorted body. Beside me, the manager’s mouth fell open.
‘Well,’ I said, ‘this gives us something.’
‘We’ll just take the contents of this box,’ Johnny said to the manager. ‘Make out a receipt for it, will you, Mike?’
I made out the receipt and we took the bundle of pornographic photos back to the lab with us. Whatever else Jean Ferroni had done, she had certainly posed in a variety of compromising positions. She’d owned a ripe, young body, and the pictures left nothing whatever to the imagination. But we weren’t looking for kicks. We were looking for clues.
Dave Alger, one of the lab men, didn’t hold out much hope.
‘Nothing,’ he said. ‘What did you expect? Ordinary print paper. You can get the same stuff in any home developing kit.’
‘What about fingerprints?’
‘The girl’s mostly. A few others, but all smeared. You want me to track down the rubber bands?’
‘Comedian,’ Johnny said.
‘You guys expect miracles, that’s all. You forget this is science and not witchcraft.’
I was looking at the pictures spread out on the lab counter. They were all apparently taken in the same room, on the same bed. The bed had brass posts and railings at the head and foot. Behind the bed was an open window, with a murky city display of buildings outside. The pictures had evidently been taken at night, and probably recently because the window was wide open. Alongside the window on the wall was a picture of an Indian sitting on a black horse. A wide strip of wallpaper had been torn almost from ceiling to floor, leaving a white path on the wall. The room did not have the feel of a private apartment. It looked like any third-rate hotel room. I kept looking at the pictures and at the open window with the buildings beyond.
‘You think all we do is wave a rattle and shake some feathers and wham! we got your goddam murderer. Well, it ain’t that simple. We put in a lot of time on...’
‘Blow this one up, will you?’ I said.
‘Why? You looking for tattoo marks?’
‘No. I want to look through that window.’
Dave suddenly brightened. ‘How big you want it, Mike?’
‘Big enough to read those neon signs across the street.’
‘Can do,’ he said.
He scooped up all the pictures and ran off, his heels clicking against the asphalt tile floor.
‘Think we got something?’ Johnny asked.
‘Maybe. We sure as hell can’t lose anything.’
‘Besides, you’ll have something to hang over your couch, Johnny cracked.
‘Another comedian,’ I said, but I was beginning to feel better already. I smoked three cigarettes down to butts, and then Dave came back.
‘One Rheingold beer billboard,’ he said.
‘Yeah?’
‘And one Hotel Mason. That help?’
The Hotel Mason was a dingy, grey-faced building on West forty-seventh. We weren’t interested in it. We were interested in the building directly across the way, an equally dingy, grey-faced edifice that was named the Allistair Arms.
We walked directly to the desk and flashed our buzzers, and the desk clerk looked hastily to the elevator bank.
‘Relax,’ Johnny said.
He pulled one of the pictures from under his jacket. The lab had whitened out the figures of Jean Ferroni and her male companion, leaving only the bed, the picture on the wall, and the open window. Johnny showed the picture to the desk clerk.
‘What room is this?’ he said.
‘I... I don’t know.’
‘Look hard.’
‘I tell you I don’t know. Maybe one of the bellhops.’ He pounded a bell on the desk, and an old man in a bellhop’s rig hobbled over. Johnny showed him the picture and repeated his question.
‘Damned if I know,’ the old man said. ‘All these rooms look alike.’ He stared at the picture again, shaking his head. Then his eyes narrowed and he bent closer and looked harder. ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘that’s 305. That picture of the Injun and the ripped wallpaper there. Yep, that’s 305.’ He paused. ‘Why?’
I turned. ‘Who’s in 305?’
The desk clerk made a show of looking at the register. ‘Mr. Adams. Harley Adams.’
‘Let’s go, Johnny,’ I said.
We started up the steps, and I saw Johnny’s hand flick to his shoulder holster. When the hand came out from under his coat, it was holding a .38. I took out my own gun and we padded up noiselessly.
We stopped outside room 305, flattening ourselves against the walls on either side of the door.
Johnny reached out and rapped the butt of his gun against the door.
‘Who is it?’ a voice asked.
‘Open up!’
‘Who is it?’
‘Police officers. Open up!’
‘Wha...”
There was a short silence inside, and then we heard the frantic slap of leather on the floor.
‘Hit it, Johnny,’ I shouted.
Johnny backed off against the opposite wall, put the sole of his shoe against it, and shoved off toward the door. His shoulder hit the wood, and the door splintered inward.
Adams was in his undershirt and trousers, and he had one leg over the windowsill, heading for the fire escape, when we came in. I swung my .38 in his direction and yelled, ‘You better hold it, Adams.’
He looked at the gun, and then slowly lowered his leg to the floor.