But each man had found within the other a streak of vulnerable warmth as carefully and successfully concealed as a picture of Trotsky in Moscow.
They stood at the comer of the bar. “This,” said Stenn, “is still the Jane Doe and now I am going around in more circles than I ever see before.”
“It’s a dance that cops do. A mating rite, I’m told.”
“When we’re stuck we come running to the fourth estate.”
“You touch me.”
“Because anybody sifting dirt long enough has a criminal-type mind.”
“I take it back.”
“What does the name Clove mean to you? With a dollar sign in front of it.”
“Clove, Clove. Not hard, that question. Once upon a time that was a big name in this town. I guess right after the Civil War they owned most of the town. The last of the line was somewhat of a bum and by then the family fortunes had sagged more than somewhat. Roger Clove. At the age of forty or thereabouts he married a tramp of some kind. That was maybe twenty years ago or a little more. They had some public battles and separated. Roger drove his Pierce Arrow into a bridge abutment. There was a kid and it was a big story for a time because the wife got nothing and the kid got the works. Not right then, but when it got to be twenty-one. There was some sort of a maintenance income for the years in between. Say, you might have a yarn there, Paul! The kid ought to be taking that dough out of the deep freeze pretty soon. It’s just about time, I’d guess.”
“Very much dough?”
“Unless I’m very wrong it was a half-million bucks in the beginning, and it maybe has earned a little increment. Now tell me how this works into the severed blonde.”
“Because one of the two witnesses turns out to be one Della Clove. Maybe it is just coincidence. I worry about coincidences. All but one person out of a thousand is a plain ordinary joker like you can read his life history across the front of his vest. Then when you find some kind of an angle fastened loose like onto another case, more often than somewhat there is a connection. Nine times in my mind I am about to put my nose to the ground in another direction but there is one little fact I can’t swallow.”
“Like what?”
“Like two coincidences in a row. It seems that Miss Clove is playing a sucker-type pattycake with a very smooth citizen who could very possibly be from Mexico.”
“Can you turn loose on him?”
“Not without maybe looking very silly. I think you ought to whip up a feature on an enterprise called the Theater of the Dance. You could interview the female lead, who is the same Miss Clove. The establishment can be located at the end of Kimball Alley off Proctor.”
“What will you be doing?”
“I shall be bending the ear of the law firm which is supposed to be looking out for Miss Clove’s interests.”
Stenn spent an hour over reports and picked up two routine assignments off the board. They filled the rest of the morning, resulting in one arrest, one positive identification from the gallery. He had fried fish for lunch and went back to Kimball Alley with the meal a solid lump in his middle, adding to his irritability.
The day cleared off as he reached the converted warehouse. The door was unlocked. He pushed it open, walked between the cot and the table to the second doorway. Shafts of dusty sunlight came through the high barred windows and patterned the floor. Raoul, in black tights and a sweat shirt, sat on his heels at the edge of the stage directing Della.
“Try it again,” he said. “Right toward me. And express, darling. Express! Every line of your body must mean something.”
Stenn stuck an unlit cigarette in the corner of his mouth and looked moodily on as Della Clove, her hands over her head, fingertips touching, head back, chest arched, came slinking diagonally across to Palma in a bent-kneed stride. Stenn decided that it could be good or bad. To him it merely looked inexpressibly comic.
As she struck her pose close to Palma, Stenn lit a kitchen match on his thumbnail. The cracking sound in the silence swiveled their heads toward him. Palma dropped lightly down to the floor and came across toward him.
“Ah, the persistent policeman! We’ll take a break, Della, darling.”
Della remained on the stage, her arms folded, her face scowling. “You broke the mood, you crummy cop,” she said loudly. The voice had a harsh urchin quality.
Stenn ignored Palma and strolled over and stopped ten feet from the stage looking up at Della. “So it was a mood,” he said. “I’m glad to know that. To me it looked like a lot of no-talent being taught how to look funny by a guy who doesn’t know anything about it either.”
She turned red and then white. “What would you know about anything?”
“I know you’re the corniest looking female ham I’ve seen since they closed the Lido Burlesque. They had a dame there did pratt-falls. At least you were supposed to laugh.”
“That’s quite enough,” Palma said sharply.
Stenn turned and looked at him with a mild stare. “What’s the matter? Scared I’ll wise her up? Scared she’ll find out you’re a phony?”
“He’s not a phony!” Della yelled. “You lunk cop, Mr. Palma was a director of the Mexican Ballet.”
“Shut up!” Raoul said, too late.
The girl ignored him. “Raoul’s got more talent in his little finger than you’ve ever had in your whole family.”
Stenn shoved his hands into his hip pockets, bunching up his coat. “Sure he’s got talent. I’ll admit that. That teen-age blonde he was leading in here last night at one o’clock proves that.”
Della’s mouth sagged open. She snapped it shut and turned on Raoul. “Is that true?”
“I wasn’t happy about the way Tommy, Berta and Lorraine handled their parts yesterday, darling. I found them and brought them back to run through it again. Don’t let this man distress you.”
“I’m sorry, darling.”
“He’s got a handy way of lying about women,” Stenn said casually. “Look at that fat line he fed you about the blonde.”
Della’s folded arms tightened across her breasts. Stenn felt the tension in her. Palma said smoothly, “My dear fellow, I’ve just explained that it was a late rehearsal.”
Stenn stared at him with hooded eyes. “You’re smooth, fella. You’re a treat to a tired cop. I’ll give you that. But she’s already showed you she’s a weak link. I would think you might worry about that. I would think it might interfere with your sleep.” He gave Palma no chance to answer. He walked stolidly across to the doorway and left.
The firm was Kalder, Harness and Slade. Stenn worked his way through the phalanx of secretaries until he reached Mr. Marion Harness. Harness sat behind a green-steel desk with an inlaid-linoleum top. The backs of his hands and the skin under his eyes and chin were over fifty. But Mr. Harness wore an expensive wavy brown wig, a dentist’s carefully uneven work of art, the sheen of contact lenses, padded shoulders and, Stenn was certain, an adequate girdle. He was fifty-five trying desperately to look forty, succeeding in looking like a sixty-three trying to look fifty. The tip of his tongue ran slowly back and forth along the thin red underlip.
“I do not feel that we can give out that information.”
Stenn shifted his bulk in the chair. “I do not care how you feel or how you don’t feel. I do not care who your friends are or how high up they may be.”
“There’s no need to be insolent.”