Brennan reached the switchboard in something like three steps. He grabbed the operator by the shoulder, said, “Trace that call — quick,” so rapidly that words were all run together into one word.
The girl stared at him with dazed dull eyes.
Brennan’s eyes were bright, wild; he raised his hands and for a moment it looked very much as if he were going to strangle her. He yelled: “For the love of God! Quick! This is a matter of life and death! — can’t you get that through that peroxide!”
The girl’s face was almost equally divided between fight and the sarcastic sneer. She pressed in a plug, lisped, “Supervisor,” into the mouthpiece.
The few scattered men at desks at the end of the room had turned to watch them. As the girl went on in a low voice into the mouthpiece and Brennan stood silently, tensely beside her, they turned back to their work.
In about a minute the girl pulled out the plug, turned to Brennan. “It was a pay station — Bradhurst exchange,” she said. “That’s in Harlem. The supervisor’s going to call me back with the number in a minute.”
Brennan nodded, grunted: “Thanks.” He went slowly back to his desk, sat down and poured the rest of the whiskey into the cup. He drank it slowly, put the cup back into the drawer and dropped the empty bottle into the wastebasket. Then he sat staring thoughtfully at his hands.
It was a quarter after nine when Brennan got out of a cab near the corner of One Hundred and Thirty-sixth Street and Seventh Avenue. He paid the driver, crossed the street and shook hands with a slim blond young man who stood at the curb.
The young man ginned broadly, said: “Howdy, Cy.”
“Swell.” Brennan relighted his cold cigar. “Been waiting long?”
The young man shook his head. “Came up on the subway — that’s faster than a cab. I been here about ten minutes.”
Brennan said: “Listen Nick — we’ve got a big night ahead of us. All you need to know about it for now is that I’m going to stick Harley for the murder of Lou Antony’s wife. The Law figures a friend of mine, Joice Colt, did it — they’re looking for her. Harley or Harley’s men have got her but she knows too much for them to turn her in so — knows what they’ll do to her. A little while ago they made her call me a fake a confession — figured I’d go to it an’ drop the Harley angle I guess. The call came from a little bar around the corner” — Brennan gestured with his head — “on a Hundred an’ Thirty-seventh. That’s where we’re going first.”
Nick said: “Fine.”
They went around the corner down the dimly lighted street. The bar was about a third of the way down the long block — a dingy place with a frosted plateglass window. There were two pool tables crowded into a narrow space with a door at the farther end leading into a room at the back of the place. In the back room was a short imitation mahogany bar. There were a dozen or more Negroes around the pool tables, but when Brennan and Nick went into the back room there was no standing at the bar. There was a phone booth at the end of the bar nearest the door.
The bartender, a squat chocolate-colored man with polished hair, slid off his stool at the far end of the bar, came down to them and smiled ingratiatingly.
Brennan said: “Beer.”
Nick nodded and the bartender drew two tall headed glasses of beer from the spigot, set them on the bar.
Brennan’s eyes were cold, lusterless; they caught the Negro’s eyes, held them. There was little expression in Brennan’s face. The Negro smiled meaninglessly.
Brennan said: “About a half hour ago a lady used your telephone.” He jerked his head slightly towards the booth. “Who was with her — and where did they go?”
The Negro’s face was blank. He stuck his thick lips out, shook his head slowly. “Ah don’t know, sah,” he said. “They’s been a lot of people use that phone tonight.”
Brennan leaned slightly forward across the bar. “Who was with her and where did they go?” He spoke like an automaton, barely moving his mouth.
The Negro shook his head.
Nick said: “Think hard.” He had not appeared to move but he held a small Luger against the right side of his chest, its muzzle focused steadily on the Negro’s stomach. Brennan stepped over to the door leading to the poolroom. He stood for a moment in the opening, then closed the door, slipped a bolt in the lock and came back to the bar.
The Negro’s mouth opened slowly; his eyes moved from the Luger to Nick’s face, back to the Luger. He stammered: “Ah don’ know who they was.”
Nick did not move, nor speak; he took the cigar out of the corner of his mouth, held it between his fingers on the bar in front of him, stared at the Negro.
The Negro glanced once, hurriedly, towards the door of the room; then his eyes moved back to the Luger and he said: “One of the men was Ernie White — he works at the Gateway, down the street. Ah don’t know who the other one was. He was a big fella. He tol’ me to forget about them comin’ in but ah don’ see as it’s any of mah business.”
Brennan said: “Right.” He put a quarter on the bar, put the cigar back into his mouth. Nick slid the Luger under his coat, back into its holster; they went out of the place.
The small neon sign of the Gateway glittered about a half-block east, on the other side of the street.
Nick asked: “Ain’t the Gateway the place they used to call Ike an’ Jerry’s?”
Brennan nodded.
“Harley backed their places,” Nick went on, “an’ even if the joint has changed hands, I’ll bet he’s got a cut in it.”
Brennan grinned, relighted his cigar, said: “We’re getting warm.”
They crossed the street, went towards the Gateway.
Brennan pushed the button and after a minute or so a five-inch slit in the heavy door opened, two wide-set brown eyes surveyed them dispassionately.
Nick said: “Is Jerry here?”
The eyes moved horizontally back forth. “Jerry ain’t been here fo’ three months — This is the Gateway, now.”
“We’ll come in an’ have a drink.”
The eyes moved horizontally. “We ain’t open yet — we open at eleven.”
Nick said: “Aw, nerts! We want a drink now. Is Ernie White here?”
“Uh-huh — he’s heah. You know him?” The eyes moved up and down.
Brennan nodded.
The slit was closed, the door opened. They went through a short, wide passageway into a square room. The ceiling was low, the lighting indirect and soft. There was an elevated orchestra platform in one corner and a small square dance floor in the center. The walls were painted with wide vertical stripes of black and silver.
Brennan and Nick sat down at a little round table at one corner of the dance floor. The man who had let then in, a cream-colored Negro in dinner clothes, went to a table at the back of the room where a half dozen waiters were sitting; one of the waiters got up and came over and took their order. Brennan ordered straight Scotch and Nick ordered a whiskey sour.
The cream-colored Negro disappeared through a door near the orchestra platform and in a little while he came out with two men. One was fat and an entirely bald mulatto. The other was Ed Harley.
Harley was big, good looking. His dark curly hair was combed straight back from a wide, high forehead, his nose was straight, well cut; his eyes were wide, candid, smiling. He crossed the dance floor swiftly, said: “Well, well — Brennan — it’s good to see you.”
Brennan smiled up at him, said: “This is Mister MacRae — Mister Harley.”
Harley held out his hand and Nick took it without standing up, bobbed his head. Harley sat down, moved his smile to Brennan. “What’re you doing so far uptown at this time of the night?” he asked. “Things don’t get going up here until two or three o’clock.”