Blow Hot, Blow Cold

13

There was a man coming down the alley, trying doors. If the rear of a building was flush with the alley, he would pause merely long enough to assure himself that the back door was secured; but if there was a parking area between the building and the alley, he disappeared for a minute or two and Masters knew he was trying another door out of the line of sight. The door-tester dragged one leg, the result of an injury years ago when he was a brakeman on the railroad. He had received a large settlement at the time; but the money was long gone, and now he lived on a small pension supplemented by his earnings as a night watchman. His name was Jake Kimble.

Masters, waiting on a side street at the end of the alley, could follow Jake’s progress by the approaching flashlight; he could also hear the slithering sound of Jake’s maimed foot dragging over the uneven brick. The detective was familiar with old Kimble’s route. He had been waiting now for a quarter of an hour. It had occurred to Masters that the watchman might be the possessor of vital information.

In due course Jake Kimble emerged from the darkness into the glow of the street lamp.

“Hello, Jake,” Masters said.

“Hello?” The old man was startled. He peered through the poor light. “Lieutenant Masters?”

“That’s right. Any trouble, Jake?”

“No. No trouble.”

“You had a little trouble the other night, though, didn’t you?”

“Not me, Lieutenant,” old Jake said quickly.

Masters laughed. “Wouldn’t you call a suicide unusual?”

“Oh, you mean Mr. Connor killing himself in his office after killing his wife. No, he didn’t make any trouble. Not for me, anyway.”

“Saturday night, wasn’t it?”

“Saturday night my first round. Sunday morning when I came round again.”

“Did you try his back door both times?”

“Yes, sir. And it was locked. I know my job, Lieutenant.”

“I know you do, Jake. I’m on the case, and I wondered if you noticed anything special.”

“Can’t say I did. He wasn’t in his office on my first round, I’m sure of that. But he was there, all right, when I came round again. Maybe already dead.”

“How do you know?”

“That he was dead? I don’t. I said maybe.”

“Not that he was dead. That he was there.”

“Why, his car was parked behind the building!”

Masters smiled ruefully to himself. “Any other reason?”

“Sure. He’s got an air-conditioner stuck in the window next to the back door. First time around it wasn’t running. The second time it was.”

It was a little after eleven. Having shot so much of the evening, Masters decided he might as well shoot a little more. He left town by the main highway; and fifteen minutes later, halfway to Kansas City, he parked before a fancy building decorated with stone urns and glass brick and a giant’s intestine of neon tubing.

There was an elegantly carpeted lobby, and beyond it a large room crowded with tables, which he surveyed from the entrance. Not all the tables were occupied; week-night business was relatively slow. At the moment the room was dark except for a bright bluish spotlight, in which a girl in a tight evening gown was singing to the accompaniment of a small combo. Inside the entrance, armed with a stack of menus, stood a maître-d’ in a tux that was only slightly bluer than his jowls. This man surveyed Masters coldly. Well, Masters conceded, he surely didn’t look like much in his crumpled suit and wilted shirt and tired tie.

“A table for one... sir?” The “sir” was grudging.

“No,” Masters said. “I’m looking.”

“For a friend? Maybe I can help you.”

“I wouldn’t call him a friend. Lewis Shrill. Is he here?”

“Mr. Shrill is in his office, but I don’t think he can be disturbed.”

“We’ll disturb each other.” He flipped open his badge case. “Don’t bother, friend. I know the way.”

The office was to the left, behind a heavy oak door. Masters knocked, and a voice that seemed to come past a large obstruction told him to come in. Masters went in.

The obstruction was composed of scrambled eggs and chicken livers. Lewis Shrill was eating his supper. It reminded Masters that it had been a long time since dinner and it would be a longer time until breakfast. He helped himself to a chair by Shrill’s desk.

“Have a chair, Gus,” Shrill said.

Masters parked his hat on the floor beside him. “Don’t let me interrupt your supper, Lew.”

“You want some? I’ll order another plate and fork.”

“I’d better pass. Someone might see me and think it was a pay-off.”

“Still satisfied with peanuts, hey, Gus? If there’s one thing that gripes me more than a crooked cop, it’s an honest one.”

“I came for a favor,” Masters said, smiling.

“You’re outside your jurisdiction, ain’t you?”

“Outside my jurisdiction, out of my element, and maybe out of line.”

Shrill stopped shoveling it in long enough to stare at Masters. Then he said, “You tell me what it is, we’ll see.”

He went back to his eggs and livers, and Masters watched him with a watering mouth. It was certainly coincidence, but Shrill’s voice — even clogged with food — was compatible with his name. High, lilting, almost effeminate. Coming from that gross body, it was ludicrous. Until you learned, or were taught, that there was nothing ludicrous about the man whatever. Shrill had a vast dark face with little still eyes imbedded in darker puffs of flesh; his hair, parted in the middle, was as black and shiny as a toupee, which it was. He also possessed an effeminate hunger for gossip, preferably of a sexual nature. Shrill knew more disreputable things about more unlikely people than anyone in the Middle West. To raid this storehouse of information was the purpose of Masters’s visit.

“I’m after information, Lew,” Masters said.

“Since when do the cops have to come to me for information?”

“You’re a short cut, and I’m running out of time.”

“Get to it, Gus. What do you want?” Shrill kept eating with a steady voracity.

“Anything you can give me on two people. Lila Connor and Dr. Jack Richmond.”

Shrill’s fork halted in mid-air. After a moment, it finished its trip and returned to the plate. Shrill’s jaws worked. His voice made its way through what his jaws were working on.

“The lady’s dead, Gus. I don’t talk about dead people. It’s bad luck.”

“Take a chance this time, Lew. I need this.”

“You night-flying or something? Doing divorce work on the side?”

“So it was grounds for divorce,” grinned Masters.

“Don’t play tag with me, Gus. It was also grounds for murder, from what I read. Her husband knocked her off, and I wouldn’t have been surprised except he wasn’t exactly lily-white and clean-o himself.”

“You mean a certain secretary?”

“Oh, you know about Connor and her.” Lewis Shrill seemed surprised. Suddenly he laughed. “Hell, it’s no skin off my nose. You want to know about the doc? Well, he likes variety. The Connor broad wasn’t his first, and she won’t be the last.”

“Lew.” Masters leaned forward. “What’s the dirt on Richmond and the Connor woman? Was he way in over his head with her?”

The fat man shrugged. “Who the hell knows a thing like that? He gave her a long play, that I do know. He even brought her here a few times — that’s what made me curious. I get my kicks out of guys like the doc, and sometimes — you know, Gus — I can turn an honest dollar out of what I find. I’ve got connections in K.C. — hotels, motels, private agencies, you know? I arranged to get some reports.”

“And?”

Shrill winked. It was startling, like seeing a Buddha wink. “Those reports made spicy reading. I could account for a few nights that Mrs. Doc, say, might like to know about.”

“Involving Lila Connor?”

Shrill pushed his plate aside and wiped his lips on a tablecloth-sized napkin. He folded the napkin meticulously and laid it beside the well-shined plate.

“Yeah,” he said, “involving Lila Connor, and I’ll tell you this, Gus. That guy Richmond was lucky to get out of it so easy. She was a real mean broad — the kind that acts like a nympho and she ain’t even breathing hard.”

Masters stooped and retrieved his hat. “Did you turn an honest dollar, Lew, on the basis of those reports?”

“Now, Gus,” squeaked Lewis Shrill, and then his great belly was shaken by a belch. “Excuse me... Would you believe me if I answered no?”

“No,” said Masters.

“Then why ask me? But the fact is, I never got around to that file. Connor cost me a lot of honest dollars.”

Masters looked skeptical. Nevertheless, he smiled when he said, “Thanks, Lew,” and left.

He thought about stopping in at a diner in town for hamburgers and coffee, but he found that his appetite was gone. He compromised on a couple of shots of rye in a back-street bar.

The Howells were gone and the dark house seemed to be breathing in time with a slow, giant pulse. Vera Richmond, lying in bed beside her husband, listened to the breath and counted the pulse; both were her own. She had been lying on her back for a half hour but she could not sleep. She wondered if she would ever be able to sleep again. She would, of course. Sleep, like death, came in its due time, and maybe in the end there was little difference.

“Are you awake?” she said.

“Yes,” Jack Richmond said. After a while he said, “I’ve been thinking.”

“So have I. I’ve been thinking about what Nancy Howell told us tonight. What do you suppose will happen next?”

“I don’t know. We may as well face one thing, Vera. Lila was alive after Larry left Saturday night. So either he came back later, or... she was killed by somebody else.”

They were silent again. After another while, Vera said, “But what about Larry’s death? How can you make anything but suicide of that?”

“It’s not a question of what I can make of it. It’s a question of what the police can make of it. That fellow Masters has demonstrated that he’s no fool. God knows what else he’s found out or may have in mind.”

“It all seemed so simple at first,” Vera said. “It would be better if it had stayed that way.”

Jack cleared his throat. “All I know is, I can expect a call from Masters any time now. It’s bound to come.”

“Surely he can’t arrest you, Jack! On what evidence?”

“There’s no use going over all that again. Motive and opportunity may do me in fine. If Masters can’t prove my guilt by direct evidence, neither can I prove my innocence. By the time he’s finished he may have a circumstantial case that will sound like proof, even if it isn’t.”

“It’s not fair! I won’t let it happen!”

“There’s nothing you can do. There’s nothing I want you to do. I’ve been the stupidest kind of jackass, and I suppose I’ll have to pay for it. I’m sorry, Vera.”

“Everything will come out all right! You’ll see.”

“Yes, dear.”

“Jack, can’t we move away? I want so much to move to another part of town.”

“If it’s not too late,” Dr. Richmond said.