“How long were you with him?”
“I went by for him at eight. That was when I was supposed to pick him up. The alley we were going to is on Division.”
“He was sick in bed?”
“Yeah.”
“Who answered the door?”
“He did.”
“I thought he was sick in bed.”
“He was. He got out of bed to answer the door.”
“What time was this?”
“Eight.”
“You said eight-thirty.”
“No, it was eight. Eight, I said.”
“What happened?”
“He said he was sick, said he had ptomaine, said he couldn’t go with me. To the bowling alley, I mean.”
“Then what?”
“He told me to go without him.”
“Did you?”
“No, I stayed with him all night.”
“Until when?”
“Until the next morning. All night, I stayed with him.”
“Until what time?”
“All night.”
“WHAT TIME?”
“About nine in the morning. We had eggs together.”
“What happened to his ptomaine?”
“He was all right in the morning.”
“Did he sleep?”
“What?”
“Did he sleep at all that night?”
“No.”
“What’d you do?”
“We played checkers.”
“Who?”
“Me and Davey.”
“What time did you stop playing checkers?”
“About four in the morning.”
“Did he go to sleep then?”
“No.”
“What did he do?”
“We began telling jokes. I was trying to take his mind off his stomach.”
“You told jokes until nine the next morning?”
“No, until eight. We started breakfast at eight.”
“What’d you eat?”
“Eggs.”
“What bowling alley did you say that was?”
“The Cozy—”
“Where’s it located?”
“On Division.”
“What time did you get to Davey’s house?”
“Eight o’clock.”
“Why’d you kill Jeannie Paige?”
“I didn’t. My God, the newspapers are killing me! I didn’t go anywhere near the Hamilton Bridge.”
“You mean, that night?”
“That night, any night. I don’t even know that cliff they wrote about. I thought cliffs were out west.”
“Which cliff?”
“Where the girl was found.”
“Which girl?”
“Jeannie Paige.”
“Did she scream? Is that why you killed her?”
“She didn’t scream.”
“What did she do?”
“She didn’t do nothing! I wasn’t there! How do I know what she did?”
“But you beat up your other victims, didn’t you?”
“Yes. You got me on that, okay.”
“You son of a bitch, we’ve got a thumbprint on the sunglasses you dropped. We’ll get you on that, so why don’t you tell us about it?”
“There’s nothing to tell. My friend was sick. I don’t know Jeannie Paige. I don’t know that cliff. Lock me up. Try me on assault. I didn’t kill that girl!”
“Who did?”
“I don’t know.”
“You did!”
“No.”
“Why’d you kill her?”
“I didn’t kill her!”
The door opened. Meyer came into the room. “I called this Lowenstein character,” he said.
“Yeah?”
“The story is true. Clifford was with him all that night.”
When the comparison tests were made with Clifford’s thumbprints and the single print found on the sunglasses, there was no longer any doubt. The prints did not match.
Whatever else Jack Clifford had done, he had not murdered Jeannie Paige.
18
There was only Molly Bell to call.
Once he’d done that he could leave the Jeannie Paige thing with a clear conscience. He had tried; he had honestly tried. And his efforts had led him into the jealously guarded realm of Homicide North, where he’d damn near wound up minus a shield and a uniform.
So now he would call her, and he would explain how useless he was, and he would apologize, and that would be the end of it.
Sitting in an armchair in his furnished room, Kling pulled the telephone toward him. He reached into his back pocket for his wallet, opened it, and then began leafing through the cards and scraps of paper, looking for the address and telephone number Bell had given him so long ago. He spread the cards on the end table. The collection of junk a man can…
He looked at the date on a raffle ticket. The drawing had been held three months ago. There was a girl’s name and telephone number on a match folder. He didn’t remember the girl at all. There was an entrance card to a discount house. There was the white card Claire had given him to explain Jeannie’s childish handwriting. He put the card on the table so that the reverse side showed, the side reading “Club Tempo, 1812 Klausner Street.”
And then he found the scrap of paper Peter Bell had handed to him, and he put that face up on the table alongside the other cards, and he reached for the phone receiver, studying the number at the same time.
And, suddenly, he remembered what he’d seen in the street at the first subway stop. He dropped the receiver.
He put all the cards and scraps of paper back into his wallet.
Then he put on his coat.
He was waiting for a murderer.
He had taken a train uptown, and he had got off at the first stop he’d visited earlier that week, and he was in the street now, standing alongside a police department sign and waiting for a murderer, the murderer of Jeannie Paige.
The night had turned cold, and there weren’t many people in the street. The men’s clothing store was closed, and the Chinese restaurant belched steam into the air from a vent on the side of the building. A few people straggled into the movie house.
He waited, and when the car pulled up, he put one hand on the police sign alongside him and waited for the door to open.
The man came out of the car and started walking toward the curb. He was not a bad-looking man. He had even white teeth and an enviable cleft in his chin. He was tall and muscularly built. There was only one bad feature on his face.
“Hello,” Kling said.
The man looked up, startled. His eyes fled to Kling’s face and then to the sign alongside Kling.
The sign read:
HACK STAND
NO PARKING
THREE TAXICABS
Peter Bell said, “Bert? Is that you, Bert?”
Kling stepped into the light. “It’s me, Peter,” he said.
Bell looked confused. “Hi,” he said. “What… what brings you down here?”
“You, Peter.”
“Well, good. Always glad to have a friend…” He stopped. “Listen, you want a cup of coffee or something? Take the chill off?”
“No, Peter,” Kling said.
“Well… uh… what is it?”
“I’m taking you with me, Peter. Up to the house.”
“The house? You mean the precinct?” Bell’s brows swooped down. “What for? What’s the matter with you, Bert?”
“For the murder of your sister-in-law, Jeannie Paige,” Kling said.
Bell stared at Kling and then smiled tremulously. “You’re kidding.”
“I’m not kidding, Peter.”
“Well, you… you must be kidding! I never heard such a stupid—”
“You’re a murderer!” Kling said vehemently. “I ought to beat you black and blue and then—”
“Listen, hold it. Just hold—”
“Hold it!” Kling shouted. “You egotistical son of a bitch, did you think I was an absolute moron? Is that why you picked me to begin with? A rookie cop? A cop who wouldn’t know his knee from his elbow? Is that why you picked me to placate Molly? Bring a cop around, show the little woman you’re trying, and that would make everything all right, wouldn’t it? What was it you said, Peter? ‘That way, Molly’ll be happy. If I bring a cop around, she’ll be happy.’ Isn’t that what you said?”