The Duchess of Skid Row (9 page)

They were old remodeling permits for the three properties Griselda now owned on Hill Street: the Blue Beagle, Arch’s, Calumet’s. They were dated over twenty years ago. About the time Joe Rome had first bought the Forum, I thought. They contained detailed descriptions of the remodeling proposals, including scale drawings of the buildings themselves. The drawings were particularly interesting.

I was moving under the dusty bulb for a better look, when I heard footsteps in the other room. I crammed the papers into my pocket and went softly to the door.

Stephanie stood looking toward me. Relief flickered across her face. She said, “Something is wrong, Jeff. I can’t find Teddy Jenner anywhere.”

“She may have a good reason for not being around. Hoxey’s in here. He’s been murdered.”

She gasped. “Jeff, did you …”

“He’s been dead for a good half hour, maybe more.”

Stephanie stared at me. She shivered. Her mouth opened as if she had something to say. Then it closed abruptly. Outside, there was the sound of a siren coming fast toward Hill Street.

I said, “Cops, Let’s get out of here.”

I took her arm and steered her toward the door. She looked back toward Hoxey’s bathroom. I felt the shiver run through her again. I said, “Take my word for it. He’s dead.”

She said, “I was thinking—would she have killed him? I mean, you said she loved Hoxey and—”

“Let’s get out of here first and talk later.” The siren was closer. I placed it on Second Avenue.

I said, “I’ll get away from here. You get my sedan. Bring it into the alley, behind Arch’s place.” I pushed the keys into her hand. “I’ll be waiting there. Hurry it up.”

I opened the alley door. She stumbled into the darkness. I followed. She turned right. I went left. The siren was earsplitting now. I ran through the darkness to Arch’s rear door. I pulled it open and stepped into the back hallway. I shut the door and leaned against it.

No one disturbed me. The siren began to run down as the police car stopped on Hill Street. I heard the sound of my own car. I opened the door and stepped into the alley. Stephanie skidded the sedan to a stop. I opened the door. She slid across the seat. I get beneath the wheel.

“Where are we going?” asked Stephanie.

“To the office.”

I put the sedan in gear and started down the alley. I kept my lights off.

Stephanie said, “How will you ever get into the office? You’ll be arrested as soon as you’re seen.”

I swung to the right and headed south on Third. I cut left as soon as I found a through cross street. I worked my way over to Southeast Boulevard and turned toward the Inlet.

I said, “I haven’t figured that out yet.”

“But why go there?” she protested.

“For two reasons. I need a breathing spell, a chance to think. And it’s the last place Maslin will look for me. And I want you to type some dictation for me.”

“Now? At a time like this?”

“Some very important dictation.”

The lot was dark. Except for the permanent glow from the basement emergency hospital and headquarters on the fifth floor, the Tower looked sombre and dark against the cold sky.

We made a wide swing and walked toward the rear of the building across a sweep of lawn. I stepped up to the recessed double doors that led into the service rooms. I drew Stephanie into the shadows of the recess. I got out my keys and opened the door.

We moved carefully through the collection of power lawn mowers, janitorial supplies, and all the paraphernalia required to keep a big building and its grounds maintained.

We stepped into the service hall. I started up the stairs.

She was winded by the time we reached twelve. I put a hand under her arm and hurried her along to the DA’s office. I opened the door and led her into the familiar room. I snapped on the light switch.

I said, “If anyone comes, I’ll hide in the DA’s restroom and you can tell them you had work to catch up on. Let’s get at it.”

I crossed the room to her desk. Her electric typewriter was covered and the earpiece to her transcribing unit lay across the top. I set the earpiece aside and pulled the cover off the machine. Then I took the tape out of my pocket and turned to her transcribing unit.

Stephanie came quickly to my side. “Let me do that, Jeff.”

She tried to take the tape from my hand. She said, “Where did you get this?”

I stepped casually away from her. “You get your typewriter ready. I’ll put the tape on.”

She sat down in her typing chair. I took the cover off her transcriber. The metal of the machine was warm.

“I said, “You forgot to turn this off when you left.”

“I was in a hurry to find you,” she said.

I was staring at the transcriber. It was warm but the light that glowed when the switch was in
playback
position wasn’t on.

I picked up the transcriber. I turned it over. Between the dustplate on the bottom and the edge of the metal framework there was space for air circulation. A soft glow as from a radio tube showed through the space.

I said, “So that’s what happened to my cigaret lighter.”

“Your what?”

“Griselda gave me a cigaret lighter when we were in California together. It turned up at the place where Johnny Itsuko was killed. I couldn’t figure out how it got there. Now I know. When I flew up here, I packed it in my suitcase.”

She was trying to look puzzled, but she wasn’t doing a very good job. I said, “You had my suitcase, remember? You took the lighter. Did you drop it on purpose when you killed Johnny?”

She gasped. “Killed Johnny! My God, Jeff, why would I do a thing like that?”

I put my hand on the dictating machine. I said, “Because he found out how you bugged the DA’s office.”

S
TEPHANTIE SURGED
up out of the typing chair. She caught my arms and pressed her big breasts against me. She pressed hard to make sure I wouldn’t miss the sensation.

“Jeff! What a horrible thing to say!”

She was good. There was just the right amount of shock in her voice, just the right amount of surprise in her expression.

I said, “How does it work, dollbaby? Is the transmitter in the DA’s dictating machine? Sure, that’s it. A wide open transmitter sitting on his desk all the time. And the receiving unit in here.”

Her hands convulsed on my arms. She whispered, “Jeff, Jeff….”

I said, “And you picked up everything he said through the earpiece. Of course. Nobody would think anything of you wearing that gadget.”

She made a whimpering sound in her throat. Her hands dropped from my arms. She stood motionless, her eyes search-my face. I moved between her and the door.

I said, “The DA is going to be a lot sicker than I am when he finds out about this. I’ve had a little time to get used to it.”

Her mouth began to tremble. I said, “I was pretty sure when I left the apartment this afternoon. I knew I was right when you showed up at Calumet’s. It wasn’t Minto he was waiting for at all. It was you. And this about cinches it.”

I slapped a hand on the transcribing unit. “You were in too big a hurry to set me up tonight dollbaby. You ran out and forgot to shut off your bugging machine.”

The madness reached her mouth. She screamed at me. “How did you know? How could you know?”

I said, “Griselda Cletis told me.” I took a steadying breath.

I said, “I guess you’re quite a byword along Sunset Strip, dollbaby. You tried to lay your way to fame and fortune. It didn’t work so you came home. But you couldn’t be satisfied with four hundred a month as the DA’s secretary. Hell no. Not you. You had to sit around and think of all that body going to waste. So when you got a chance to make some money, you took it. Even when you knew what it meant to the DA, to the City, you took it.”

I took a step toward her. “Who hired you?”

She just stared at me. Then she said slowly, “What are you going to do with me?”

I said, “I’m going to listen to you. Then I’m going to play that tape I found. I don’t know what’s on it, but I have an idea you do. And what you say had better come close to matching what’s on the tape.”

“I don’t know anything about a tape,” she said.

“I’m giving you a chance to buy your way out of part of your trouble. Don’t louse it up by lying to me.”

Hope flared in her eyes and then died. She said bitterly, “You wouldn’t give me that kind of a break. You and your damn loyalty to the DA.”

“I won’t enjoy doing it, but I might do it anyway. I’ve had to do a lot of things I don’t enjoy,” I paused and added, “Like using Hoxey for a stoolie instead of putting him away.”

She turned her back on me and walked to her desk chair. She sat down. She didn’t say anything. She just looked at me.

I said, “You managed to keep your boss pretty well posted on what the DA and I were up to, didn’t you? Who thought up this idea, Stephanie. Was it Nick Calumet or Arch or Minto?”

She said in a low voice, “None of them. It was Hoxey Creen.”

I said, “Crap! You work for a scum like Hoxey? He never had an original idea in his life.”

“I can’t help that,” she said. “Hoxey fixed the machines so I could listen in on the DA’s office. And he was the one I phoned to tell what I’d learned.”

“And what did he do to get you to do all this for him? Did he tell you how gorgeous your front is? Did he agree that you’ve been cheated because the whole world hasn’t fallen down and worshipped what you were lucky enough to be born with?”

“Stop it!” she screamed.

I hammered at her with my voice. “Hoxey, hell. Somebody behind Hoxey made you the deal, didn’t he? Somebody from the Combine. He told you that when this was over, he’d see that you got your break in Hollywood, didn’t he?” I was shouting.

Her face crumpled. She said “Yes.”

“Put a name to this somebody. That’s all I want right now—a name.”

“I don’t know,” she said. “Hoxey told me what the deal would be.” She had the grace to look ashamed. “I gave him your lighter.”

I was getting nowhere. “All right, let’s say I buy that. Hoxey came to you and made the proposition and you bought it. When was this?”

“A little over a month ago,” she said. “I brought him up here late one night and he fixed the dictating machines.”

“That was about the same time the rumors got started about the Combine coming back and about my helping it.”

“I don’t know about those,” she said quickly. “Hoxey said he was working for the Combine, so he wouldn’t have done that.”

“But he did tell you to help set me up for the kill.”

She wet her lips with her tongue. “He just told me to listen more carefully when you came back.”

I said, “What about that message you told me was from Johnny Itsuko?”

“Hoxey told me to do that,” she admitted.

“And you had something to do with setting me up for Minto and Pooly too, didn’t you?”

She said, “No, I—” She stopped. I saw the expression of sudden withdrawal as she chopped off her words. And what she hadn’t said told me more than what she might have said.

I said, “That’s it. Minto! He’s the boy the Combine sent up here. You knew him when you were in California, didn’t you? So when he came up he found who you were working for and he sweet-talked you into helping him.”

“I told you it was Hoxey!” she said.

I said, “Hoxey’s dead. He can’t make you out a liar. But Minto is still alive, so you’re protecting him. Hell, yes, that fits. You got wind of how close Johnny was getting to blowing the lid off the deal. He could put the finger on you. So you had Minto get Pooly to beat him to death. Hoxey was in it, all right, but only a stooge, a handyman to set the shed on fire and steal Johnny’s car so they could hunt in it for the taped report. And then Hoxey became too great a risk. You knew that I was going to keep after him until I made him talk. You couldn’t afford that, so you told Minto and he killed Hoxey.”

“No!” She was screaming. “That isn’t true. Would I have saved you from Minto if it was true, Jeff?”

“Sure, if you figured it wasn’t yet time to have me bumped off. If you wanted more information from me. Then you’d have saved me. And that’s the way it was. You made yourself look good. You gave me a reason to trust you. And I fell for the trick. I spilled my guts to you.”

“It wasn’t that way at all,” Stephanie said. “I didn’t do anything except phone Hoxey and tell him what I’d overheard. Please believe me, Jeff. Can’t you believe me?”

“I’ll answer that after I hear this tape.”

Stephanie sat and watched me. She wore no expression at all now. But her eyes seemed to be waiting. For what, I couldn’t tell.

I pressed the
broadcast
button. The tape began to wind through the mechanism. I heard the soft popping sounds a tape picks up when someone is dictating with a car’s motor running.

A voice burst out at me suddenly. It was harsh and clear and too loud. It said, “Take this to Jeff McKeon, DA’s office. Whoever hears this, take it to McKeon.”

The voice was Hoxey Creen’s. Hearing it was a little frightening, gruesome. It hadn’t been very long since I had seen Hoxey kneeling in death in a dirty bathtub.

I reached out and turned the volume down. Hoxey’s voice came more softly now. It said; “McKeon, this is Hoxey Creen. If you get this, it means I’ve been killed. This is my insurance. Listen close, McKeon. I’m going to spill the whole deal—who’s been trying to set you up, who killed Itsuko, the works. Then you’ll know who killed me. See what I mean about insurance, McKeon?”

The voice was getting jerky. It stopped. I could hear heavy breathing. I could almost see Hoxey sitting in Johnny Itsuko’s car, putting the tape on the machine, picking up the microphone, swallowing away his fear so he could get his voice working. For the first time in his life he was playing with the big operators, the hard boys. He wasn’t very smart, but he was smart enough to know that he was expendable.

Stephanie said, “I’m going to be sick,” in a desperate voice.

I pushed the
stop
button on the machine. I said, “Come on then.”

I went with her into the DA’s office and to the door of his private washroom. She went inside and pulled the door shut. I listened to water running. I could hear gagging sounds. I wondered if she was being sick from the tension she had been under or from fear of what she might hear Hoxey say next.

The sound of running water stopped. She came out of the washroom. She was patting her face with a hand towel. She held it to her mouth.

She said, “I think I’ll be all right now.”

I led her back to her office. I punched the
broadcast
button on the machine again. There was a minute more of Hoxey’s ragged breathing. Then he began to talk again.

His voice said; “McKeon, whoever finds this should have found some papers too. The papers I took out of the Real Estate Records room when you nearly caught me. Today, it was. Remember, McKeon? Get those papers and take a good look. They’ll tell you where the set-up is. It’s a wire service, a real deal with plenty of dough behind it.” His voice began to drop as if he had moved away from the mike.

I heard Stephanie’s chair creak. She made a retching sound. I was too busy listening to watch her. I hoped she had the towel up where it would do her some good. I leaned toward the machine to make sure I wouldn’t miss what Hoxey had to say next.

“You go to Hill Street, McKeon,” the voice said. I could hear a jeering note now. Hoxey had recovered some of his cockiness. He was beginning to get a little pleasure out of what he was doing.

I saw Stephanie’s shadow shift. I barely caught the movement out of the side of my vision. I wasn’t concentrating enough to connect the movement with trouble. And I wasn’t worried about Stephanie anyway. She had no way of getting a weapon.

I’d been wrong a lot of times during this case. I was wrong again. She did have a weapon. A heavy bar of soap knotted into one end of the hand towel. I felt it hit me at the base of the neck.

I pitched forward on the desk. My chest hit the machine, sliding it away from me. She hit me again. I went to my knees. She didn’t make a sound. She just kept swinging her homemade blackjack at my head and face.

My vision cleared. I had a glimpse of her face. Her eyes were wild. Her expression was twisted with the kind of madness that means a person is beyond knowing what he’s doing. She wasn’t thinking. She was like a frightened animal, seeking to protect itself. If I didn’t stop her, she would keep on swinging until I was dead.

The sap caught me on the cheekbone. I rolled away and tried to keep rolling. She came after me. A blow caught me behind the ear. I want down, my face burrowed into the carpet.

I tried to push myself up. I had no muscles, no strength at all. I could feel the beating she was giving me, but it had no meaning. It was as if I dreamt it was happening.

After a while the beating seemed to stop. I thought I heard her walking. Then there was the sound of her voice as if she was talking on the telephone, but in some other room. Then a door slammed and there was no more sound.

I tried to move. I managed to lift my head. Then I could sit up. Finally I got to my hands and knees. I crawled into the DA’s office and through it to the washroom. I pulled myself up by holding to the edge of the basin. I turned the cold water tap and filled the bowl. I pushed my face down into the icy water.

I was better then. I lifted my face and stared at my reflection in the wall mirror. I could see discolorations and the beginnings of lumps where Stephanie had hit me.

I wondered why she had stopped before she killed me. It could be that she didn’t know how much of a beating a man could take before he died. Or maybe she hadn’t wanted to kill me after all. Maybe she had only wanted time to get away.

I wished I could believe that.

I walked slowly back to her office. I sat in her chair and reached for the machine. The tape had been wound all the way back onto its original spool. I had a pretty good idea what had happened, but I punched the “broadcast” button anyway.

I was right. The tape unreeled with only the background noise coming out of the speaker. Stephanie had done a thorough job of erasing. A third of the way through there was a high-pitched squawking, indicating the point where she had started erasing Hoxey’s voice.

I let the tape run all the way to the end. I got nothing but an earful of silence. I tried to write down exactly what Hoxey had said so I would have at least that much to go on. I reached the place where I recalled his saying: “McKeon, whoever finds this should have found some papers too. They’ll tell you where the set-up is.”

I dropped the pencil and reached into my pocket. I pulled out a pack of cigarets and half a book of matches. The papers were gone. I tried my other pockets. No papers.

I swore helplessly. I settled slowly back in the chair. My neck and shoulder muscles hurt where Stephanie had hit me. I thought I should be glad it wasn’t Pooly on the end of that sap. I remembered Johnny Itsuko and Hoxey Creen.

I smoked a cigaret. I felt better. The ideas were beginning to come again. I picked up the phone and dialed the DA’s private home phone number. When he answered, he sounded irritated, as if I had interrupted his evening coffee drinking.

I said, “This is Jeff. I have something to report.”

He said, “If it’s about Hoxey Creen, you’re a little late. He’s been found. And Maslin is looking for you with blood in his eye this time.”

I said, “Sir, I didn’t kill Hoxey. I can prove it.”

He said, “There’s a witness who claims you did.”

I said, “Stephanie Bartlett?”

He said sharply, “What’s she got to do with it? Did you get her sore or something?”

“I’ll tell you later. Who claims I killed Hoxey?”

“That woman of his, Theodora Jenner,” the DA said. “She called in and reported he was dead. She told Maslin you and Hoxey had been fighting. She said you threatened him. Did you?”