42 Days For Murder

Chapter Nine

Just before I got to the hotel I had to pass a newsstand, and I stopped there to get something to read while waiting for Lester. The magazines were spread out by the stand on a sort of platform for display and there was a brick wall back of the platform. Just the space between two stores. I got what I wanted and started to turn back to the stand to pay and something flicked the top of my ear as I did. And right then a brick in front of me spattered red dust.

I heard the gun then but until I’d put my hand up to my ear and brought it down and looked at the blood on it I didn’t realize what the sound had been. It hadn’t been loud; about like the noise a heavy whip makes when cracked.

It didn’t occur to me the slug had been aimed my way. Not in that second. But another brick, just at the side of the one already hit, chipped with another bullet and I got smart to what was going on.

I heard the sound again as I turned and ran. I ducked into the corner store... the door wasn’t more than ten feet away... and stopped inside the shadow and looked across the street.

There was a rooming house there, set above the one story store buildings. Half the windows were open and there wasn’t a way in the world of telling from which one the shot had been fired. I walked through the place, holding my hand up to my ear and stopping most of the blood, went out the side door and into the first drug store I ran into. I told the druggist: “I’ve hurt my ear. Can you put a plaster on it?”

I took my hand away, letting blood pour all over the shoulder of my coat, and he said: “You ought to go to a doctor, man!”

“Patch it up so I can.”

He led me into the back room and swabbed the ear with some antiseptic that burned like so much fire, then asked:

“How did you do it?”

“I didn’t,” I said.

“What happened, mister?”

I said: “As near as I can figure, some kid accidentally fired a twenty-two and I got in the way of it.”

He shook his head. “These damn kids. Their folks hadn’t ought to allow them to have guns. Guns are bad medicine for kids to have.”

I said that was right and thought he shouldn’t single out kids on the gun-owning business. I didn’t think any kid had owned the gun that had dusted the bricks in front of me.

He patched up the ear with tape and said: “It isn’t as bad as I thought, mister. There’s about half an inch of the top gone but it’s taken off clean. I’d go to a doctor, though, just to be sure. I can patch you up in an emergency like this, but I’m no M. D.”

I thanked him and paid him and went in the side door of the hotel. And for the first time noticed I still had the magazine I’d picked out and hadn’t paid for. I’m willing to bet that newsstand man figured I’d put on an act for his benefit but the Lord knows I hadn’t... it had been entirely for my own.

Lester got back to the room about half an hour after I did. He came in, looking guilty, and I said: “Well, did you give in yet? Are you hers and hers alone?”

He said: “No!” looked at me and the tape on my head, and said:: “What’s happened?”

“A guy shot me is all.”

“What for?”

“I’m trying to figure it out. I don’t know any reason anybody should try to do me in.”

He was jumping up and down and making motions with his arms. He dashed over to the phone, started to pick it up, and I took it away from him and said: “What are you going to do?”

“Call the police, of course.”

“I’ve talked to Kirby already.”

“Is he after the man that shot you?”

I said: “Listen, Lester! Use your head! I don’t know the man who shot me and I’ve no way of finding out who he is. At least, not right this minute. What chance has Kirby got? Why bother him about it?”

“What did you talk to him about?”

“He wants me to get out of town. At least he more than hinted that’s what he wanted. It seems I’ve lost my job and that I’m not wanted here any more.”

“Why did you lose your job?”

“Mr. Crandall doesn’t like me. That’s the only thing I can think.”

He sat down on the edge of the bed and watched me take another drink. It was the third I’d had since being in the room and I’d lost part of my peeve. He said, seriously:

“Did you ever think, Shean, getting that job the way you did was sort of funny? You know, just walking into it like that.”

I had and it had been bothering me, puzzling me. But I said: “That’s nothing. The guy was stuck for a piano player and had to have one. That often happens.”

“That’s a better job than most of them around here, isn’t it?”

“Sure. There’s no money in that business any more.”

“Then why wouldn’t some other piano player have heard about it and quit his job and taken that one? Why wouldn’t he?”

I didn’t know and said so. Lester said: “I don’t know but I don’t like Kewpie. I think maybe there’s something wrong with him.”

“Sure there is. He’s too fat.”

“I don’t mean that way.”

“Use your head,” I said. “Kewpie ran into me at the Rustic Bar, not even knowing I was in town. He’d heard this job was open out there and thought I was still in the music business. So he told me about it. How can you make anything out of that? And why would he? Why would anybody want me to take a piano job out there? How would anybody know I wanted to meet Mrs. Wendel and think that was a good way to do it? Tell me that.”

“Suppose he knew you were in town and just pretended to run into you? What about that?”

“How would he know? Don’t be silly, Lester.”

Lester said darkly: “There’s something funny about this matter,” and I said: “You’re damned right there is, now that you bring it up. I’ll tell you. You cracked to this blonde bitch about who I was and what I was here for and she’s passed it on. Now don’t tell me you didn’t; I know you did.”

He opened his eyes wide, taking off his glasses and goggling at me like an owl. “But, Shean, I did no such thing. I told her I was a college man, just up here for atmosphere. That I was writing a thesis on the divorce problem.”

“You let it slip, kid. You must have. How could it have gotten out if you hadn’t?”

“I didn’t. I know I didn’t.”

“What about night before last when you got so lousy drunk? You could have told her anything and not have known what you were saying.”

He hung his head and said that he’d been drunk but that he didn’t think he’d said anything about it. I said: “It’s a cinch. And she’s passed it on to Crandall or Mrs. Wendel or to somebody that’s passed it to them.”

He said, surprisingly: “Didn’t I tell you? She knows Crandall and Mrs. Wendel. She was here two weeks before Mrs. Wendel and she met her the first day Mrs. Wendel got here. Crandall’s her lawyer, too.”

“Well, there you are.”

He almost cried and I read him a blistering lecture about going out with big blonde women and getting drunk and making a fool of himself. This was funny, coming from me. I’d made a fool of myself over big blondes and little blondes as well as every other different kind of gal all my life. I had no reason to talk but he was in no position to point that out. Or in no mood. Finally I laid off the flaying and he quit saying he was sorry about everything, including living, and I took another drink and things got back to normal.

Then he handed me a letter and said: “This was downstairs. The clerk said it just came in.”

The letter was from the Gahagan, back in the office. The first of it was a report on some routine work I’d done about checking on a bird that started bad store accounts and skipped out of town. I hadn’t done much good on the thing, but had found that he’d come from Portland, Oregon, and tipped the police there to watch for him. They’d caught him, which meant we’d get a fee from the department store and no argument with it. Good news.

And then she went on with some not so good. Joey Free’s check had bounced and she was going to try it again in a few days. She’d called Joey’s apartment and he hadn’t been there. Wendel had answered the phone and told her Joey had gone to Los Angeles for three or four days and that he was holding the fort. Naturally, she hadn’t said a word to Wendel about Joey’s check coming back on us. She said Free had called Wendel that same morning, from Los Angeles, and had said he’d be back in three or four days, and that Wendel had said he’d stick close to Free’s apartment, in case I wanted to get in touch with him about anything. I winked at Lester, got Long Distance, and said:

“I’d like to speak to Mr. Todhunter Wendel, at Mr. Joey Free’s apartment in San Francisco. Rush this through sister, and I’ll send you a box of candy; I’m on an expense account.”

She said: “I like flowers better; I’m on a diet. D’ya know the number of Mr. Free’s apartment?”

I said I didn’t. She said: “I’ll look it up, Mr. Connell. Anything for you... and the flowers.”

Lester muttered, sotto voce: “I’ll bet she’s blonde,” and I said: “Forget it, kid! I’m a little upset right now. I don’t like to get shot at.”

“Shean, that’s something. You said you thought it was a .22. Would anybody trying to kill a man use a gun that small?”

“It was a .22 rifle, kid. At a distance like that, a good shot can damned near drive tacks with one. They don’t make much noise and with this new high-speed stuff they burn in them now, they’d kill a man as quick as a cannon. That is, if they hit him in the head. Both slugs were at head level.”

“I thought gangsters used revolvers mostly.”

This was funny and struck me that way. “It doesn’t make any difference what’s used to kill a man if it does the business, does it? He’s just as dead.”

Lester agreed this was reasonable. I said: “D’ya think this big amp-tray of yours could find out what the Wendel woman is getting a divorce for? Why her husband can’t see her? How’s that for an angle?”

Lester said doubtfully: “Well, I guess I could ask her. I could ask her to find out, that is.”

“Let it go,” I said, as fast as I could.

The phone rang and the Long Distance girl said: “I like almost any kind of flowers, Mr. Connell. Here’s your party,” and then after the usual amount of clicking back and forth, Wendel said: “Hello! Hello!”

I said: “This is Connell. In Reno.”

“Oh yes, Connell.”

“Where’s Joey Free?”

“In Los Angeles. He called me from there last night and this morning. I’ll ask for his address there when he calls again.”

“Never mind. Who’s your lawyer here?”

“I haven’t one.”

“Wire whoever you’ve got in New York, then, and have them get somebody here to represent you. Anybody but Crandall, tell them. That’s customary. And do it in a hurry and let me know. Is that clear?”

“Of course. I’ll do it at once. How are you coming along? Have you talked with her?”

“Yeah, but I haven’t found anything out yet. This is tough; it takes time.”

I could hear him groan and then he said: “You haven’t much time, Connell. She’s been there over two weeks already.”

“I’ve got four more. What d’ya know about your wife’s maid?”

“Why, nothing at all. Ruth seemed to think she was very satisfactory. Wasn’t that terrible?”

“Didn’t anybody ask you and Joey questions about her?”

“A few. I couldn’t see any connection between the maid and myself and said so, naturally.”

I said: “Okey! Get that dope and shoot it to me in a hurry. All right?”

He said all right and I hung up. The minute I did Lester said: “What did you mean, let it go? Why shouldn’t I ask Hazel to see Mrs. Wendel?”

“I’m afraid you’d botch it up.”

“I’m smart enough not to do that,” he said proudly.

I said I wasn’t so sure, and then: “D’ya suppose she’s got a friend that would like to party? The four of us, I mean.”

“I don’t know.”

I dug out an envelope I’d happened to have in my pocket when I was working at the Club, and said: “Let that go, too. The only thing is, ask her if she’d like to go out tonight.”

He said: “I’ve got a date already.”

I said: “You would. You’re that sheik type,” and got busy on the phone.

I had four numbers and began to believe I was going to draw a blank. The first two girls I called were busy that night. But the third said she’d just love to go out and so on and I said I’d call for her at eight. I’d taken the numbers more from habit than anything else and couldn’t remember just which one of the many Rucci had introduced me to she was, but I figured I’d know her when I met her. I got the house doctor up and had a bit neater job done on my sore ear, and he was just leaving when Kewpie came in.

Kewpie looked glum and said: “We lost out some way at the Club. Rucci told me had made other arrangements. I meauwed about us getting no notice and he said that was just too bad and for me to take it up with the union. Hell, I didn’t put in my card when I came. I’ve been here three months and nobody’s asked me for one.”

I said: “No need of us going out then,” and shook my head at Lester, meaning for him to say nothing.

He got the idea, for once, and didn’t. Kewpie looked thoughtfully after the doctor, then at my taped ear, and said:

“Didn’t hit you bad, eh?”

“What d’ya mean?”

“So you won’t talk. I heard about it and wondered if you were going to crack, is all. I heard that somebody got shot at on the street.”

“Where’d you hear it?”

I was worried by then. I thought maybe it was common gossip. He made it all right when he said: “I know the news dealer where it happened. He’d seen you and me together and told me about it. He said you’d been gone five minutes before he figured what had happened and that you owed him two bits for the Cosmopolitan you’d taken with you.”

“Did you pay it?”

“I should pay your bills?”

I told him what had happened, blaming it on some kid playing around not knowing what he was doing, and Kewpie said: “Sure, that’s your story. I won’t crack, Shean, but I saw those two bricks. Some bastard was aiming for your head and you can’t tell me different.”

“Maybe so, Kewpie. I don’t know why.” He said earnestly: “Now look, Shean! You and I have worked together a couple of times. I’ve known you quite a while. If I can help, I’ll do it and you know it.” I said: “I catch!”

Lester had been listening to this. He poured out two drinks, one for me and one for Kewpie, and said: “Here you are,” beaming at both of us.

It was right about that time that he decided Kewpie was a good guy; I could have told him that and did, all the time. You learn about people when you work with them.