“What did he sound like?” Bowman asked.
“He had an accent, if that’s what you mean.”
Bowman did not answer. He went into his inner office, closed the door. He sat down in the swivel chair, lit a cigarette, and sucked in harsh smoke with quick, savage puffs. After he stubbed it out, he picked up the phone and called. “Eva?.. Yeah, it’s me. Who else would it be?.. No, I’m not in jail, for God’s sake... What do you mean, you called them up and they said they didn’t have me?.. What time was that?... I was gone by then... No, I didn’t see any point to coming home when I had to go in to the office anyway. I ate breakfast and did some looking around. Now I’m here. All right?”
He hung up, smoked another cigarette, and went back out of his private office. From his pocket he took the silver dollar he had not given to the lascar sailor. He dropped it on his secretary’s desk. It rang sweetly. “Go around the comer and get me some coffee and doughnuts. Get some for yourself, too, if you want.”
“I thought you already ate breakfast,” she said. She picked up the cartwheel and started for the door.
Bowman swatted her on the posterior, hard enough to make her squeak. “I’m going to have to soundproof that door,” he said gruffly. “Go on, get out of here.”
He returned to his office, pulled the telephone directory off its shelf, pawed through it. “Operator, give me McPherson’s Agricultural Supplies.” He drummed his fingers on the desk. “McPherson’s? Yeah, can you tell me if you’ve filled any big, unusual orders for hay the last couple of days?.. No? All right, thanks.” He went through the book again. “Let me have the manager.” He asked the same question there. He received the same answer, and slammed the earpiece back onto its hook.
The outer door opened. Hester Prine came in with two cardboard cups and a white paper sack. Grease already made the white paper dark and shiny in several places.
“I thought maybe you were Wellnhofer,” Bowman said.
“No such luck.” Hester Prine took a half dollar, a dime, and a nickel from her purse and gave them to Bowman. He dropped them into his pocket. She opened the bag and handed him a doughnut whose sugar glaze glis-tcned like ice on a bad road. He devoured it, drained his coffee. She pointed to the bag and said, “There’s another one in there, if you want it.”
“Don’t mind if I do.” Bowman was reaching for it when several sharp pops, like firecrackers on Chinese New Year, sounded outside the office building. Down on the street, a woman screamed. A man cried out. Bowman snatched the doughnut from the bag. “That’s a gun,” he said, and ran for the stairs.
He gulped down the last of the doughnut as he burst out into the fresh air. The man who lay crumpled on the sidewalk wore a navy blue jacket with four gold rings at each cuff. His cap had fallen from his head. It lay several feet away, upside down. The brown leather sweatband inside was stained and frayed.
“I called the cops,” a man exclaimed. “A guy in a car shot him. He drove off that way.” The man pointed west.
Bowman squatted beside Captain Wellnhofer. The seaman had taken two slugs in the chest. Blood soaked his shirt and jacket. It puddled on the pavement. He stared up at Bowman. His eyes still held reason. “Warehouse,” he said, and exhaled. Blood ran from his nose and mouth. With great effort, he spoke through it: “Warehouse near Eddy and Fillm—” He exhaled again, but did not breathe in. He looked blindly up at the pale blue morning sky.
Bowman was getting to his feet when a car pulled to a screeching stop in front of him. Out sprang Detective Dwyer and Captain Bock. Bock looked from Bowman to the corpse and back again. “People have a way of dying around you,” he remarked coldly.
“Go to hell, Bock,” Bowman said. “You can’t pin this on me. Don’t waste your time trying. I was upstairs with Hester when the shooting started.” He pointed to the man who had said he had called the police. “This guy here saw me come out.”
“What were you doing up there with Hester?” Dwyer asked, amusement in his voice.
“Eating a doughnut. What about it?”
“You’ve got sugar on your chin,” Dwyer said.
Bowman wiped his mouth on his sleeve. Bock asked several questions of the man who had called the police. His mouth curling down in disappointment, he turned back to Bowman. “Do you know the victim?” he asked.
“His name’s Wellnhofer,” Bowman answered willingly. “He was coming to see me. He had a ten o’clock appointment.” He looked at his watch. “He was early. Now he’s late.”
“You were down there by him when we drove up,” Dwyer said. “Did he say anything to you before he died?”
“Not a word,” Bowman assured him. “He must have been gone the second he went down.”
“Two in the chest? Yeah, maybe,” Dwyer said.
“Are you going to take a formal statement from me, or what?” Bowman asked. “If you are, then do it. If you aren’t, I’m going back upstairs.” He jerked a thumb in the direction of Wellnhofer’s body. “A hole just opened up in my schedule.”
“You’re a cold-blooded so-and-so,” Dwyer said. He and Captain Bock walked over to their car and put their heads together. When they were done, Dwyer came back to Bowman. “Go on up, Miles. We’ve got enough from you for now. If we need more later, we know where to find you.”
“Yeah, I know,” Bowman said bitterly.
Hugo pushed the room-service cart to the door of Gideon Schlechtman’s suite in the Clift Hotel. He opened the door, pulled the cart through, left it in the hall. Then he closed the door and returned to the others in the ever so modem living room.
To Schlechtman, Bowman said: “Much obliged. Lobster and drawn butter, baked potato. I usually like my liquor hard, but that wine was tasty, too.”
“That was a Pouilly-Fume from the valley of the Loire, Mr. Bowman, and a prime year, too,” Gideon Schlechtman replied, steepling his long, thin, pale fingers.
“Didn’t I say it was good?” Bowman asked equably. “Now, before we go any further, we have to figure out who gets thrown to the wolves. There’s three bodies with holes in ’em lying on slabs in the morgue. That kind of business gets the cops all up in arms. They’re going to be looking for somebody to blame. If we give ’em somebody, they won’t do any real digging on their own. Cops, they’re like that.”
“Whom do you suggest, Mr. Bowman?” Schlechtman enquired.
“Hugo’s just hired muscle,” Bowman answered. “Turn up a flat rock and you’ll find a dozen like him. Dwyer and Bock’ll see it the same way.”
The hard-faced man snarled a vile oath. He yanked out his revolver and pointed it at Bowman’s chest. Schlechtman raised his hand. “Patience, Hugo. I have not said I agree to this. What other possibilities have we?”
Bowman shrugged. “Alexandria there’s a squiff. With three strapping men dead, that might do. Rollie Dwyer, he’s got seven kids.”
“You are an insane, wicked man,” Nicholas Alexandria cried shrilly. His hand darted inside his coat. Lamplight glittered from his chromed automatic. He aimed the little gun at Bowman’s face. Hugo still held his pistol steady.
“Nicholas, please.” Schlechtman held up his hand again. “We do have a problem here which merits discussion. Everything is hypothetical.” He turned back to Bowman. “Why not Miss Tellini?”
“We could work the frame that way, for Tom and Thursday, anyhow,” Bowman said. “A guy plugged Wellnhofer, though. We’d have to drag in Hugo or Alexandria any which way.”
Gina Tellini sent Bowman a Bunsen burner glance. “Why not Schlechtman?” she demanded.
“Don’t be stupid, darling,” Bowman answered. “He’s paying the bills.”