Call Me Killer (Prologue Crime) Page 8

  “Oh, no, mister, I — ” Reamly saw that terrible open hand coming again. Back and forth. His jaw sagged loosely under the numbing blows. “I — I’d know him, mister. Yes. Yes.”

  10

  IT WAS between three and four a.m. before Manton got to. the big Bush Garage that served as office and communications center for Bush Independent cabs.

  At midnight, he had stopped in his tour of the all-night hack stands, and ate supper of a dollar and a half steak with French fries, tomatoes, and three cups of coffee. He had decided then he’d worked enough for the night. It was more than eighteen hours since he’d slept. He had made one more fruitless call on a cab company and then driven to his boarding house.

  He didn’t undress, but lay across the bed in the still darkness. Lying on his back, legs crossed at the ankles, he’d closed his eyes. But he could not sleep. There was the thought that at the next taxi office he’d find the man he sought It was too much. He’d come too far now to allow anything to happen.

  Still, ne forced himself to go on lying there for an hour. He got up then, showered and shaved and dressed with excitement rising in him.

  There were several leather-jacketed men awaiting calls in the outer office at the Bush Garage. Beyond them, a glass door marked the telephone room. A crudely lettered card had been taped to the glass door: “Private. Keep Out Here.” Three men sat with note boards before them at the telephones.

  “I m looking for a driver who picked up a fare about five-thirty or six o’ clock on April 26th. It was raining and cold if any of you fellows remember.”

  “Yeah. I remember. I got in out of that rain, buddy. I was shacking up with a babe I know. Her husband goes to work at four. I was in a nice warm bed.”

  “I left my motor running, mister, and sat in a sandwich joint. There wasn’t anything doing. No use being out in that cold.”

  The third man, with a battered cap on the side of his head, a toothpick dangling from his twisted mouth, spoke: “I picked up a lush — a drunk, outside the Citizens Trust. I was just cruising back in from a call. Some guy was standing with a woman outside the Citizens Trust. He ran out in the street and I carried him — ”

  “Okay,” Manton said. “Let’s go.”

  “Where we goin'?” the driver demanded. “I work for a livin', you know.”

  “It’s on my expense account, buddy. You’ll get paid.”

  As they pulled around the corner of the Citizens Trust, it was almost five o’clock. Patches of light lay across the wide, silent walk before the entrance of the Citizens Trust.

  “All right,” Manton said. “Pull in to the curb there.”

  He got out, crossed the walk, and shook the doors of the exit. All were tightly sealed, so securely locked that even when he put all his weight in shaking them, there wasn’t even enough noise to attract the night operator inside the corridor.

  Satisfied, Manton recrossed the walk.

  “Was the man you picked up in his shirt sleeves, Al?”

  “Lord no! I think he was drunk, but he’d been froze if he’d been in his shirt sleeves that morning. No, he was wearin’ some kind of coat. I didn’t pay any attention.”

  “But it could have been a sport coat?”

  “Yeah. Come to think of it, Sergeant, I don’t think it matched his pants.”

  “Okay, now drive out to Wilkins Road.”

  “Wilkins Road? That’s right where I taken this joe. Say, Sergeant, you’re all right. He’s the guy murdered this Lambart, huh? Boy, you’re close to him now, ain’t you, Sergeant?”

  “Did he talk any on the way out?”

  “No. Never said a word until he told me he wanted out at the corner of Boulevard and Wilkins Road.”

  “Uh, huh. Not too fast now. I wanta see how long it takes us to get out there.”

  “I drove pretty fast that morning,” Al said. “It was raining. I got out in the fast lane of the Boulevard, like this, and sat there listening to the pretty sound the tires make on the wet pavement.”

  When the driver slowed at the corner of Wilkins Road, his brakes locked and they slid into the curb, hard. Manton was thrown against the door and his right thumb was bent under, agonizingly.

  His jaw set and he was still massaging it when he stepped into the street. Coldly, he tossed Al a bill and when the apologetic driver asked if he should wait, Manton cursed him.

  He walked slowly down the street, past the Kinsey Arms, the community stores with their night lights glowing faintly. The rising morning wind stirred in sibilant whispers in the trees along the silent street. Before the darkened Gowan house he stopped, and in the light of a street lamp, checked his watch.

  He frowned. Then, looking down at his coat, he smiled grimly. He retraced his steps to the Kinsey Arms apartments. For about five minutes he stood there, his cold eyes searching the streets and intersections in every direction. As he turned back along Wilkins Road, an old car roared, muffler howling, into the curb. A horn wailed imperatively, and standing there Manton stared at the driver hunched behind the wheel.

  He crossed the walk as the woman hurried down the steps of the apartment house. “Do you come here every morning at this time?” Manton said to the driver.

  “Yeah. What’s it to you? You been watchin’ me or something?'”

  “Why?”

  “Why? Wasn’t you standin’ right over by that alley just the other day? Hey, Nell, wasn’t this the joe we talked about? Standin’ over there the mornin’ it rained. Remember, you wondered if your husband was havin’ you watched?”

  Nell got into the old car and stared across the driver at Manton. “Naw. I don’t think so. Anyway, Perkins ain’t havin’ me watched. Why’d he spend money for that when he could spend it for whiskey?”

  “Where was this guy standing that morning?” Manton said as the driver hunched forward to shift gears.

  “Looked like he was goin’ in that alley, or comin’ out of it. What you care, if it wasn’t you?”

  The car was reversed loudly out into the through boulevard, gears screaming protestingly.

  Manton looked at his watch again. He hurried up the alley between the stores. The easement was bare, not even garbage cans were allowed stored in it. There were no openings, not even gutters.

  He crossed the parking lot three ways before he walked out on the littered field west of it. He walked about the field, noting that part of it backed the Gowan lot. There was an alley, a low, wooden fence, and the Gowan house beyond.

  He didn’t go at once to the house, but recrossed the field to the street. As he reached the sidewalk, he found himself walking in water. There was a layer of water over the pavement although it hadn’t rained since the morning of the 26th.

  He splashed out in the slush to the culvert in the parkway. This was filled to overflow with dirty, stagnant water.

  He didn’t even bother to investigate. He ran back across the parking lot, entered the Kinsey Arms from the rear and called the City Street Department on the public pay phone in the downstairs corridor.

  He was waiting out in the street before the field when the yellow truck raced up and made a running stop beside him.

  The two men went to work with the unhurried air of experts. The culvert top came off, flexible lines were carefully inched into the outlet, and everytime they were blocked, the hooks were pulled out. There were sticks, limbs, broken bottles and finally a man’s coat.

  Without outward excitement, Manton spread the coat on the ground. A gaudy thing, he thought, remembering the way Elsa Gowan insisted her husband wore only the conservative.

  The line and hooks continued to grapple, although the gurgling water was being sucked quickly out into the main sewers below the street now.

  “There’s a level shelf down there,” one of the workers said. “There may be something else. Nothing heavy will carry beyond that shelf, except in a heavy rain.”

  Manton nodded.

  “Here’s something,” one of the workers said. They hauled up a small .
32 automatic.

  • • •

  He wrung the water out of the coat, shoved the pistol into his own pocket. He carried the gaudy sport jacket loosely in his fingers. Manton now crossed the field, the alley and climbed the fence into Gowan’s back yard.

  It was almost full daylight now. Manton’s eyeballs ached in the first sun rays, but he was conscious of no other signs of weariness.

  Faced with this evidence, what would Gowan’s wife say now? He smiled grimly as he battered on the back door. It was tightly locked. There was no answer. He ran around the house The windows were pulled down and securely bolted. Pulling himself up from the soft earth about the rim of the house, Manton tried to see within. There was only darkness, only silence. He banged on the front door until all the neighbors wakened. He rang the doorbell until he himself was tired hearing it. And only then did he admit it, Elsa Gowan had run out on him, fast and far!

  He ran all the way up the street, the sport jacket dragging after him, the .32 automatic slapping against his side. His fury mounted, but it was cold and did not in any way impede his thought processes.

  At the Kinsey Arms again, he telephoned for a taxi, demanding immediate action.

  “We’ll radio a cab in your neighborhood, sir,” the operator cooed. “In less than five minutes a taxi will be at your door. This service always assures Purple Cab patrons the quick — ”

  Manton slammed the receiver back on its hook. He went back into the street and paced up and down the sidewalk until a cab skidded to the curb beside him.

  “The Star Detective Agency,” Manton said. “In the — oh, to hell with it, do you know where the Star Agency is, driver?”

  “The Montana Building, Sir, on 12th?”

  “Sure. That’s right.” Manton was sitting on the edge of the seat. He had known the Star Agency was in the Montana Building, but his urgent desire to be there already, battling with the mounting fury that Elsa Gowan had dared to run out on him, stoppered his freedom of speech and thought.

  His hands were trembling as he rapped hard on the door lettered, Star Detective Agency, on the musty third floor of the old Montana Building.

  It seemed five more wasted minutes before Hal Slimer answered the door. The private detective looked immaculate, and Barney knowing he was swollen eyed, damp and rumpled, found his fury increasing to feverishness.

  “What’s the matter?” Manton snarled. “Did you have to shave before you could open up?”

  “Business hours,” Slimer told him airily, “begin at 9 a.m. except by appointment.”

  Manton brushed by him into the office. It was a stuffy box-like place with a row of locked windows forming the outer wall. A roll-top, scarred up desk with battered swivel chair was pushed against a left wall so that light from the row of windows fell across it. There was a cheap, black metal filing case. A couple of straight chairs. A few pictures of police and detective associations, and Slimer’s license, proudly framed.

  A door to the right was closed. This, Manton knew was the room in which Slimer slept and cooked his meals. Slimer had had a rugged time of it as a private eye. He managed to be poor, but beautiful, even when everybody else by hook or crook, was making money.

  “So Lambart hired you to find Sam Gowan,” Manton said precipitately. “Did you find him, Hal?”

  Slimer regarded his fingernails. “Why don’t you ask Mr. Lambart, flatfoot?”

  Manton smiled to himself. He was glad of this. Slimer was rising to the bait so beautifully. He felt his right hand clench at his side.

  “What does that mean?” he inquired, egging Slimer on further.

  “Drop dead, brother Manton,” Slimer replied. “And if that’s all you came for, you can — ”

  Manton stepped toward the private detective.

  “That’s not all I came for, Slimer. Gowan’s wife, Elsa, is missing, too. I wondered if you might know anything about that?”

  He watched Slimer’s slow inhalation. “What you want with her, Manton?”

  “Material witness in a murder, Slimer. She’s run out. I think you can find her for me.”

  “And I think you’re a swelled-headed cop, Manton. Too good to spit on.”

  Manton stepped right, jockeying Slimer around so that the tall blonde-headed shamus was standing with his back to the door of his private living quarters.

  Slimer took a step toward the window, but Manton smiling, stepped with him. This brought him a step nearer in toward the investigator.

  “We’ll let the little matter of Elsa Gowan go for the minute,” Manton said. His left flicked out and he caught up Slimer’s coat lapels in his fist. He jerked the tall man off balance toward him.

  Although Slimer towered three inches above Manton, he flung out his arms, appearing helpless.

  “Did you find Gowan?” Manton snapped.

  Slimer tried to regain his footing, writhing away from Manton’s grasp. Manton released him with his left and brought up a short, twisting right.

  Slimer went back and down, hard. A line of red had been ripped along his chiseled chin. For a moment, he sat there against the wall, and then as Manton stood grinning over him, he doubled up and sprang at Barney, snarling with hatred.

  Hal’s left was wild, and his right swung past Manton’s face. Manton laughed at him. He struck Slimer’s left temple with his right fist, the right temple he clipped with his left.

  Stunned, seeming to lose control of his nerve centers, Slimer stood helpless for the space of two seconds. This was too long. Manton, grinning, brought a hard left into Slimer’s trim belly. The tall man folded, retching,

  Manton stepped back and drove two final blows into Slimer. A straight right into the man’s classic face, and then as Hal crumpled, the side of his hand across the back of Slimer’s neck to send him a little harder to the dusty floor.

  The door to the living-quarters was thrown open. Elsa Gowan ran out into the room. There was a .38 in her hand, and Manton glancing at it supposed it belonged to Hal Slimer. But Elsa’s horror at the sight of Slimer lying in his own vomit and blood on the floor, unnerved her, and she dropped the gun, covering her stricken eyes against the sight of Slimer helpless and beaten.

  Ignoring the woman standing with her hands over her face as she sobbed, Manton pulled Hal Slimer roughly to a sitting position. Hal’s head lolled on his neck. Manton slapped Slimer’s face back and forth with his open hand.

  Slimer stared up at him, too stunned now even to show the hatred he felt.

  “All right, Slimer,” Manton said hoarsely, “when did you find Gowan?”

  “About — about four months ago,” Slimer whispered. His gaze went to Elsa, but she was still standing with her hands covering her face. She was sobbing, and she hadn’t moved.

  Manton shook him.

  “Where’d you find him, Slimer? Where?”

  “He was living in the Monterey Hotel — off Fifth Street — with a woman named Marion Dyana…. He called himself David Mye.”

  11

  IT WAS a dark street. It was littered with refuse, with barrels and cans of refuse. A lean gray cat licked at the shadows. Men were standing in doorways along the dark street. Faces that, almost, Sam recognized. But before he could place them in his harried mind, they’d slipped silently past into deeper darkness.

  She was far up the street ahead of him. He liked the way she walked, straight and hurrying a little, with her white skirt whipping against her knees. She turned into the lighted lobby of the Monterey Hotel, and after a couple of minutes, Sam followed.

  He asked for her room number at the desk, and the clerk Stared at him as if he thought him crazy. Then he went up the steps. He felt his heart pound, felt his pulses race. He knocked on her door, and she answered it at once.

  There was something in her face this time. Something food. Something that made him feel that he was coming back home again. Really coming back home this time.

  He tried to smile. “I followed you home,” he said.

  She nodded. “I know.
I saw you.” She opened the door wider. “Come in.”

  He went into the room. The familiar room! There were suits on hangers in a small clothes chest, and he didn’t need to ask whose clothes they were. There were shoes, lined beside hers, and he knew that they were his shoes. It was a miserable feeling, and a good feeling, all at once. He saw a bottle of wine, chilled, on the small table beside the bed. He smiled.

  She’d closed the door, and leaned against it, watching him. “David, darling, what are you smiling about?”

  “The wine,” he said. “Is that for me?”

  “You were the only company I was expecting,” she replied. She came near him. She touched his hand, lightly at first, and then her fingers dug into his. “You used to like it. When we’d come home nights from work.”

  He sat on the edge of the bed and drew her down beside him. “Listen to me,” he said tensely. “I need help terribly. I’ve hurt you. I know that from what you said at Slow Joe’s tonight — ”

  “No, darling, I’m not sorry — ”

  “But all I can say is, something very strange has happened to me. They say that not very many people ever honestly lose their memory and identity. But I lost mine. I remember sitting in Slow Joe’s Bar one November afternoon. I was with a man named Lambart. There was his bodyguard named Eddie Heron, I think. The next thing I knew at all, and you must believe this! The next thing I knew I was standing over Lambart’s body in his office at the Citizens Trust Building. I must have killed him — ”

  “No.” He felt her fingers cover his hands, tighten on them.

  “I came down stairs, and in the street, you were there — ”

  “I was waiting for you, David. I went with you — ”

  “But, I tell you, to me, it was as though I had never seen you before.”

  “Oh, God.”

  “I’m telling you the truth.”

  “I believe you, darling. Don’t you see, you’ve never done anything to make me doubt you. It’s just that we had such a lovely life, David. You’ll have to forgive me, I can’t call you Sam. It’s impossible for me to think you can’t even remember any of it at all.”