Mourn the Hangman Read online

  MOURN

  THE

  HANGMAN

  HARRY WHITTINGTON

  a division of F+W Media, Inc.

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  Also Available

  Copyright

  1

  RAIN WAS the evil omen….

  Only Steve Blake wasn’t thinking about evil omens that April afternoon as he returned home to Gulf City, Florida.

  He wasn’t even thinking about the rain. He came off the Silver Meteor into the Seaboard Station, shrugging his lightweight topcoat up snugly about his neck. The porter grinned when Blake tipped him a dollar. His grin bared his teeth, even, white and gleaming. He said, “Thank you, Mistuh Blake!” It was the fourth time in a month Blake had made this trip.

  Blake claimed his brown leather traveling bag and crossed the narrow waiting room to the taxi stands. Palm trees hung bedraggled and dripping over sodden grass plots. Oil slick puddles stood in the street and trickled into sluggish rivers at the gutters.

  The taxi driver leaned over and swung open the rear door as Blake hurdled a puddle and slid into the hack. “Howdy, Mister Blake! Welcome back!” the cabbie said. “Home?”

  Blake’s rugged face pulled into an abstracted smile. He looked up at the driver, his green eyes thanking him for asking, and shook his head ruefully. He settled back against the seat and glanced at the Gruen watch strapped about his thick, hairy wrist.

  “Not yet, I guess,” Blake said. You’d better drop me at the Federal Building.”

  The driver regarded him with a puzzled smile. Then he shrugged. Four times he’d hacked Steven Blake from the station this month and four times he’d gotten his orders — “Home, Nick! Two dollars says you can’t make it in six minutes.”

  The driver pulled out into Ninth Street, cut sharply right to Central and made another right turn as the caution light switched into red.

  “You can take it easy, Nick,” Blake said from the back seat. “I’m in no hurry.”

  When Blake stepped out of the taxi, a newsboy ran out from the shelter at the entrance of the Federal Building. “Hello, Mr. Blake! Paper?”

  Blake nodded, pulling change from his trouser pocket. He dropped a quarter in the boy’s hand and took the green “sheet of the Independent. “Selling many today, Ted?”

  The boy’s freckled face pulled into a wide grin. “Sure, Mr. Blake. They make a swell umbrella!”

  Blake glanced at the headlines: U.S. CRACKS DOWN ON CONTRACT PROFITEERS. Blake thought wryly, Oh, Brother Arrenhower, does that mean you! He looked down at the freckled newsboy and made a wry face, spreading the newspaper tent-like over his snap-brim felt hat. “By golly, you’re right,” he said.

  There was a floral design in the frosted window. Blake hesitated a moment and then entered the florist shop. A young woman came from behind a sweated showcase. She bulged delectably against the sheer black material of her frock. Her pale blonde hair was caught loosely at the nape of her neck. She had a pencil mark across the tip of her nose. She looked at Blake and the direction of her thoughts showed in her slow, warm smile. “Yes, sir?” she said.

  “I’d like a dozen roses,” Blake said. “Long stems.” He gave her a ten dollar bill. “Would you leave them out at the cigar stand in the corridor? I’ll pick ’em up on my way out.”

  She nodded and watched him move to the corridor entrance of the shop. At the door, he turned suddenly, grinning, and winked at her. Caught gaping at him, she flushed slightly and then smiled.

  The barber in the Federal Barber Shop looked up and waved a soap-heaped razor. Blake worked against the outgoing tide of five o’clock workers. The redhaired girl at the cigar counter was leaning on her elbows listening listlessly to a customer’s delicately worded proposition. Her gaze, fixed across his shoulder, moved over the crowd. When she saw Blake, she said rudely, “Sorry, I have a customer. Was that all you wanted?”

  But the smile she bestowed on Steve was etched in thick honey.

  “Hi, Peggy,” Blake said. “What’s the good word?”

  Her eyes glazed a little, meeting his. “The same old one’s good enough for me, Mister Blake.”

  “Why, Peggy. I’ll have to wash your mouth out with Schenley’s.”

  “Any time, Mr. Blake. Any time at all.”

  He held up his hand as though warding her off. “I love you, kid, but, oh, my wife,” he quoted. He pointed to a large box of chocolates. “Wrap it up, will you, Peggy? I’ll pick it up on my way out.”

  On the tenth floor, he moved more slowly along the wide corridor, still carrying the brown valise, his shoulders sagging a little. At 1012, he hesitated, reading without pleasure his name in gold leaf on the frosted glass of the door: BRUCE BRICKER & STEVEN BLAKE, CONFIDENTIAL INVESTIGATIONS. Blake grimaced and swung open the door. The secretary, Prue Quincy, was just settling the dust cover over her typewriter. She was about thirty and a look of indrawn chastity kept her from being pretty to Blake’s disenchanted eyes. She held her red mouth in a perpetually tight circle.

  “Hi, doll,” he said. “You’re looking.”

  She smiled tautly. “You’re looking, too, Mr. Blake. We didn’t expect you back this weekend.”

  He dropped his hat on a chair and set his valise on the floor beside it. Pulling off his coat, he started toward the inner office. “Bricker decent?” he said over his shoulder to Prue. She nodded and sat in the chair behind her desk to wait.

  Bricker was getting his hat and rain slicker from the coat closet. When he heard the door close, he spun around with a smile — a smile meant for Prue Quincy, Blake knew — and the smile died when he met Steve’s eyes. Bricker dropped his hat and rain slicker on a chair and returned to his desk, moving with deliberate speed.

  He put his hands, fingers wide, over the papers spread out on the desk blotter and smiled falsely. “Well, Stevie! We thought we were rid of you for a week more. Welcome home, boy. You got news?”

  Blake shook his head. But he was thinking of the first man who’d tackled this undercover job in Arrenhower’s big plant. That man’s name had been Roberts. His eye had been quick and his ears had been open. But his eyes should have been open and his gun should have been quick. Roberts was dead. Accidental death. A foolproof die casting machine had blown up and left a gaping hole in Roberts’ head where his face had been with its quick eyes and open ears. Dickerson of American Materials had come to Bricker & Blake two months ago. Dickerson had hired Steve to work in Arrenhower’s giant plant to find out what Roberts had learned, why he’d been killed, or if his death had been accidental as reported.

  An involuntary shudder moved through Steve’s body. “They sent me out to an old deserted building down on the bayfront docks in Tampa today,” Steve said. “That building isn’t deserted, Bruce. There must be a million airplane parts in there. Only they’re crated. The building’s near the banana wharfs, so I guess the crates will go out some night with some banana boat flying a neutral country flag. Only I don’t know that. I haven’t seen it happen.” He shrugged his coat up about his neck. “Dickerson has put us on the spot, Bruce. I’m beginning to pity that poor devil Roberts. We’re spying on a man that’s playing for keeps. I’m up to here with it. Arrenhower’s stake is millions.”

  “It’s tough,” Bricker said soothingly, still smiling. “But I thought you’d stay over there, with Stella out of town and all
— ”

  Blake slumped to a chair. He spread his long legs out before him and regarded the rain splattered tops of his black shoes, size 10-C.

  “Stella is the reason I came back, Bruce. You’re looking at a man possessed, old son. A man in love. I hope to Christ it never happens to you.”

  “Sex is good enough for me,” Bricker said with a nervous glance toward the door. His voice tightened slightly. “Looks like if you were coming on to something, trouble between you and Stella could wait.”

  “That business is the trouble with Stella and me. I’m pulling out, Bruce. You can print Bricker in ten inch Gothic Bold on that door out there. It’s all yours.”

  Bricker leaned across his desk. “Let’s take it slower,” he said. “You’re letting this Arrenhower business scare you. You’re the one guy I know who can take care of himself anywhere, Steve. What’s your being in love with your wife got to do with your quitting this job? It’s money!”

  “To hell with money. I’m through being a private snitch — ”

  Bricker’s smile faded. “A private snitch? That’s a fine new one. Where’d you pick that one up?”

  Blake smiled ironically. “From Stella. That’s what she called me last week. One of the things. While she was drunk. While we were yelling at each other like a couple of screwballs.” He grinned, remembering. “She was drunk when I came home — first time I ever saw her drunk. And she was still drunk when I walked out.” He cursed sharply. “I walked out, Bricker. Me. Am I so holy I can look down my nose at anybody, no matter what they’ve done? I’ve always prided myself. I’m one guy who believes in living and letting live, judging not and casting no stones. And what did I do? I come in and find Stella drunk. I was shocked. Finding out she wasn’t perfect. Like I was some kid coming home to find his old lady screaming with laughter on the boarder’s bed.”

  Bricker glanced at his watch, rustled a couple of papers together and shoved them into his desk drawer. He fumbled around for a key, locked the drawer and dropped the key in his vest pocket. He was a two hundred pound man, with thick, narrow shoulders, a barrel chest and short heavy legs. His hair was closecropped brown salted with gray although he wasn’t yet forty. His smile was professional. He could hear himself described as a son-of-a-bitch and go right on smiling, if it meant anything to him in dollars and cents. He and Blake had been partners for four years. Bricker had come from the police, where he’d been a lieutenant of detectives until he was caught spending bribe money.

  “What’s that got to do with this agency and Arrenhower?” he smiled.

  “Stella married me to make an honest man of me,” Blake replied. “She hates private detectives. Loathes ’em. Something about her first husband. He hired one to spy on her.”

  “She knew what you were when she married you, didn’t she?”

  Blake grinned crookedly. “She said all she knew when she married me was that I was it. I was it. I was what she was looking for.”

  “Okay. So I said you’re a big man,” Bricker said. “You even thrill a divorcee so she thinks she’s never been in love before.” He stood up, waved his hand impatiently. “All right, you’re in love with your wife. You’re on a tough job that would scare the guts out of anyone else I know, including me. That’s still no reason for you to throw it all over.”

  Blake stood up, too. “That’s just it,” he said evenly. “Stella was pretty insistent about my quitting before I got in this Arrenhower thing. But since I’ve been in that plant, she’s harped on it night and day — said that’s why she got drunk, so she wouldn’t have to think about it. Now I agree with her. Suppose Arrenhower gets wise and starts playing rough? This kind of life was okay before I met Stella. But she and I want something else — a cottage and chickens. I’ve got what I want with Stella. I’m through playing rough with guys who’ll put a slug in your back between their Canasta hands. This thing is big. You’ve got to have your heart in it, or get out. I’m gettin’ out.”

  Bricker strode around the desk. “What’s the matter, Blake? Are they scaring you over there? You ought to be over there right now. Christ, I never knew danger would give you the shakes.”

  Blake shook his head. “You never saw danger like this either, sonny. Stella wants me out. I’m getting out. Stella has had a miserable life. Before I came along there was some psychiatrist who tried to tell her what was the matter. She hit the bottle. Then she and I. We were going to be different. Only we’re not. She’s been God’s own angel all the time I’ve known her. She wants me to quit this job and do something honest. Rob banks, anything. Only stop prying into other people’s lives. I put her off. I knew what I was doing scared her and made her sick. But I put her off. Then I come in and find her drunk.” He stood at the window and stared down at the rain-washed street. “This is it, Bruce. I’m through. You can draw up any kind of arrangement you like.”

  Bricker took it calmly. He was still smiling. “I’m going to let you think it over,” he said. “I want you to go back over there and think it over — say to Monday.”

  Blake turned slowly from the window. “I’ve thought it over, Bruce. I’m home to patch up my life with Stella. I came home because I made a bet with myself. Stella has been as miserable as I have. She’s come back home. She was going to be away two weeks. Two weeks.” He shivered. “No, Bricker. She’s going to be home when I get there. She’s going to be waiting for me. I’m going to tell her what a son-of-a-bitch I am.”

  It was silent in the office. They could hear Prue Quincy moving about in the reception room. Bricker gathered up his rain slicker and set his hat on the back of his head. “You’re being a fool,” he said. “The goddamnedest fool I ever met.”

  Alone, Blake stood dejectedly in the center of the room. He made an involuntary movement toward the telephone on his desk. Then he stopped. Damned if he’d call. She was going to be there. God only knew how he would stand it if she wasn’t. All he wanted to do was tell her he loved her. He shook his head. A guy that was never in love like that, he wouldn’t know what happened to you. Poor devil. Hell, all he wanted was to see her face, see her smile, see it was all right with them again.

  He got his belongings, locked the office. The elevator was empty except for the girl operator. She smiled and he grinned back. At the cigar counter, he picked up the long box of roses, the chocolates.

  Peggy smiled impishly. “I can let you have my phone number,” she said. “In case — you want anything — later.”

  He winked at her and carrying his packages haphazardly, went out into the early darkness. A taxi cruised by, three people ran shouting after it in the rain.

  He hesitated at the corner of Central and decided to walk home. There was no hurry. Stella had written, “I’ll be gone for two weeks. We’ll have time to think and time to want each other again. Don’t try to find me, Steve. Please. Oh, I know you could because you’re a private snitch and that’s what a private snitch is for. But if you found me that way, I’d hate you because I’d know you were a private snitch at heart. Wait, darling. I’ll come back and we’ll both be sad and sorry and glad together.”

  He walked east through the empty rain, turned south on Fifth. There ahead of him was the apartment house. Built flush with the sidewalk, it was red brick, wet red brick in the night with the street lights on it. There were seven floors and their apartment was on the fifth one and Steve didn’t look up because he didn’t have the guts to take a chance. There might not be a light in that window. Im almost there now, he thought. Hell, this is going to be a wonderful night.

  He pushed open the thick wood door. The corridor was dimly lighted. There were mail boxes in a row, the stairway and the automatic elevator, the door standing open. Sidling in through the narrow door with his packages, he listened to the mechanism hum as he was slowly lifted.

  When he stepped out on the fifth floor, Ada Grueter was standing there. A thin spinster of fifty, her face was sharp. Her rain cape was tied in a tight knot at the base of her throat. A black hat was push
ed down tightly about her graying hair. She was carrying rubber overshoes and an umbrella.

  “Hello,” Blake said. “How are you, Miss Grueter?”

  She just looked at him. He smiled a little. Well, so she hadn’t forgiven him yet for the way he and Stella had yelled at each other that Saturday night. He shook his head. Grueter must have heard every well-chosen word of it.

  She bobbed her head at him and stepped past him into the elevator. She looked down at the packages he was carrying and her mouth moved disdainfully. Blake bowed to her and she closed the elevator door with a sharp bang.

  He went along the corridor, feeling the urgent need for Stella in the crannies of his belly. He had to drop packages and valise and fish the apartment key from his trouser pocket. He inserted the key in the lock, then he took off his hat, beat the rain out of it, set it on the back of his dark head. He shook out his raincoat, picked up the packages and pushed open the door.

  And Blake took his first step into hell.

  Inside the apartment, the lights were on. Every light in the apartment was burning. He let the packages slip from his arms. He toppled back against the door, closing it, listening to the lock click into place.

  He had no idea how long he stood propped against that door.

  The room before him was wrecked. His shocked gaze moved to Stella. He felt his legs tremble and almost buckle under him. She was battered and bloody, almost nude, sprawled across the divan, her eyes wide and staring in death.

  For God only knew how long, Blake stood with his back against the door. He thought nothing. He had no strength or will to move.

  His eyes went over it all a hundred times. Stella had been brutally bludgeoned to death. Someone had killed her after a violent struggle that wrecked the room.

  First, Blake’s knees began to bend under him and he thought he would fall, for he had no will to go on standing. Then it began to form in his belly, the grief and the agony and the tears, all balling up and burning upward through his throat. And he knew he was going to sob and groan, that he would cry and never stop crying. And then as it filled his throat, scalding and searing, it stopped there, choking him. And he knew he wasn’t going to cry. He knew with horrible clarity that it would be better if he did let it out of him. But he also knew he couldn’t. Steve Blake died, he thought coldly, just as he was about to sob and go on living.