Blue Murder

CHAPTER 13

Capp continued to point at Shayne. “He threw a burning rag in through the window. I got a good look at the guy.”

The charge couldn’t be made to stick, of course, but at this time of night, in this part of town, it might take hours for Shayne to get back into contention. This would give Capp time to pick up the pieces here without any interference. Shayne decided — it was more of a reflex action than a conscious decision — to take Capp out until he himself was circulating again.

He reversed the.45, as though to hand it over, stepped forward and chopped at Capp’s mouth with the butt. He sidestepped, meeting the cop as he turned, moved in close and dragged down on the cop’s gun arm.

“Let’s not do any more shooting. I know that was uncalled for, Frankie. I apologize.”

It was doubtful if Capp could hear him. A bloody gap had appeared in his face and he was making a bubbling sound.

The cop tried to get away, swearing in an ugly voice, but Shayne had him in a firm grasp.

“You’ve got a good pinch here,” Shayne told him. “Arson, aggravated assault, resisting an officer. You see these two guys on the ground. I did that — two more counts. There’s a kid in back of the building with a broken leg. I broke it. This is a stolen car, with a load of stolen property. There’s a professional thief named Swenson around somewhere, and there’s also a guy with a gun out in the bushes. But things are complicated enough, and I have a feeling you’ll be satisfied with what you’ve got.”

“You’ll be sorry about this,” the cop said hoarsely.

“We’ve got a lot to talk about, so let’s get started. If I let you go, will you promise not to shoot anybody?”

“Try it and find out.”

Shayne shifted his grip to the cop’s elbow and jerked the gun out of his holster before letting him go. He collected the guns. There were four.

“I have a carrying permit, but I’m afraid none of these are mine.”

Capp was blowing blood, trying to speak. He was barely conscious. The security man was holding him up.

“What he’s trying to tell you,” Shayne said, “is that the Warehouse has been robbed. Dirty movies, very artistic stuff. Look in the VW.”

Another patrol car drove up. There was a delicate moment while Shayne surrendered the guns. One of the newly arrived cops recognized Shayne, and might have listened, but several of the Warehouse customers, who had been arrested for possessing the wrong kind of cigarette, broke loose and had to be chased and recaptured. It was decided that the confusion could only be resolved in the quiet of a station house.

As Shayne bent over to get into the back seat of one of the police cars, a back seat without inside door handles, and a wire grate to separate the prisoners from their captors, the cop he had had the altercation with sneaked a two-knuckle punch into his kidneys. Shayne had had this kind of thing happen to him before, but he had never learned to like it.

Entering the police station, he was sorry to see that the sergeant on duty was one Gus Neihart, who at the moment was attempting to live on his city salary and finding it difficult. In happier days, he had had a lucrative assignment in the hotel district, netting him over $60,000 a year. A Tim Rourke series in the News, based on information developed by Shayne, had been followed by several jail sentences and Neihart’s transfer to a part of town where the private-enterprise money was considerably thinner.

There wasn’t much Neihart could do except spin things out. Shayne was a licensed private detective, with friends at Headquarters. The man who had accused him of arson was equally well known, and the idea of calling Frankie Capp as a prosecution witness couldn’t be taken seriously by anybody. Nevertheless, an hour and a half went by before Shayne was permitted to make his phone call. He made it to his client, Congressman Nicholas Tucker.

Twenty minutes later, the door of the detention cell was unbarred and Rourke was admitted. The reporter’s eyes were bloodshot, and his long face, always an indoor gray, was drawn tight with fatigue.

“Excuse me for bothering you,” he said, extending a pack of cigarettes. “I know it’s a pleasant change for you here, after chasing porno girls all night, but will you kindly tell me what the hell went on at the Warehouse and why you didn’t let me know in advance so I could be there?”

“I didn’t schedule most of that.”

After lighting the cigarettes, Rourke shook out the match and dropped it on the littered floor. The cell had two other occupants, arrested at the same time as Shayne. They were asleep.

“Barnett Pomeroy,” Rourke said. “That’s a wire service story if I could get in to see him, but I can’t.”

“Was Pomeroy there?”

“Mike, please. I’ve been pawing through clippings most of the night, and my eyes have a tendency to cross.”

“Something must have happened after I left. People were doing a lot of running around and jumping up and down. Did somebody shoot Pomeroy?”

“Don’t take that line with me, Mike,” Rourke said wearily. “I know it’s a great act, and sometimes I’ll go along with it. Wait till you know all the answers, so you can surprise everybody. Just for a change, this time will you call the plays as they happen? When a leading congressman gets into a beat-up Volkswagen bus and it blows up when he turns on the ignition—”

Shayne breathed out smoke. “So now I know what happened. How is he?”

“It tore up his feet and ankles. Broke a few bones. Whoever planted the thing did a sloppy job. Nobody cares anymore, Mike. I don’t know what’s happened to the craftsmen there used to be in this country.”

“What happened to the bus?”

“They towed it away. Are you wondering if there were any stolen movies in it? Nothing unusual. A satchel of tools, punches, one of those little collars they use to pull the stem out of a safe. That kind of thing. Which would seem to bear out your story about a robbery, except that Baruch is maintaining that nothing’s missing.”

“Have you got a drink, Tim?”

“As a matter of fact, I do. I know how easy it is to get dehydrated in jail.” He brought out a half pint. “I’m probably breaking all sorts of regulations offering it to you, because I understand you’re in for resisting arrest. That’s one of the worst crimes there is. If everybody resisted arrest, who’d have any respect for the police?”

Shayne drank; it was a harsh American blend, which Rourke claimed to prefer.

“Would Pomeroy be about a forty-four short, with white hair over his ears?”

“That sounds like him.”

Shayne, trying to fit this new piece into his unfinished puzzle, said nothing more, and Rourke went on, watching him, “Here’s a small fact. Maybe you’ll feel grateful. I told you I’d call the AP guy in Washington to find out if there’s any connection between Tucker and Pomeroy. It took me an hour, but I got him. Yeah, there’s a connection. Pomeroy was the one who put through that Select Committee and got the chairmanship for Tucker. There was a special resolution that he floor-managed. True, it’s Tucker’s subject, but he’s fairly junior for that big a plum. The idea is, he’s being groomed.”

“Which makes Pomeroy his sponsor.”

“In a way. But it’s a loose tie-up, Mike. If Tucker gets hurt on this thing, it won’t damage Pomeroy. It can’t. He’s in too solid. One other thing I forgot to mention when you asked me about him. He’s treasurer of the national campaign committee.”

Shayne arched his eyebrows.

“Right,” Rourke said. “Political money on that level flows in and it flows out, and the bookkeeping is very scratchy and imprecise. Not because they can’t afford accountants but because they don’t like to put too much in writing. If Pomeroy wants to take care of Tucker and the only way he can do it is by laying out cash, the cash is available. Now catch me up, Mike.”

“I was trying to dovetail too many things, and my timing was off. Pomeroy? I don’t know. My client was very edgy when I asked about him. I called Capp to get him out to the Warehouse. I didn’t think I could handle Pussy Rizzo and three others by myself. While the shooting was going on, I thought I could get hold of the films. Pomeroy must have been with Capp when I called. Or watching the house, I don’t know. He seemed pretty swacked, but I only saw him for a minute. He must have seen Rizzo wheel out the films and load them in the VW.”

He snapped his fingers, remembering. “That must have been the son of a bitch who took those shots at me. Then when everybody cleared out — yeah, he thought he’d get in and drive off, and solve Tucker’s problem and get back the film without spending any money.”

“So who ended up with the film?”

“Don’t ask me tonight.”

“I heard from Gretchen Tucker.”

“What?” Shayne said, sitting forward.

“I thought that might grab you. Gretchen Tucker was the name she gave. I’ve never heard her voice on the phone, but it sounded like her.”

“Hurry it up,” Shayne said when Rourke broke off to drink from the common flask.

“It was all very friendly. She sounded a little excited, but not as though she was falling apart, or spooked, or spaced out. Just a pleasant social call at three thirty in the morning.”

“Yes, Tim. Now what did she say?”

“She knows you’re working for her husband. She knows I’m a friend of yours, and that’s why she called me. She said she had a story, and where was I going to be at nine thirty in the morning? Nine thirty on the dot. I said I could make a point of being anywhere, and she said at home would be O.K.”

“And then you asked her what the story was about.”

“Naturally. And she said politics, naturally. At nine thirty she’ll send me the key to a locker in the Greyhound bus terminal. It’ll take me twenty minutes to get there from my place. Are you following this?”

“That means she has a date to meet Tucker at nine thirty.”

“Or a little before. And it means she’s selling him something. Some cans of film, maybe? She’ll need duplicate keys to the locker, but they wouldn’t be hard to get. The film’s in the locker, or it will be at nine thirty. If he meets her terms, whatever they are, she can give him the key, or drive to the terminal herself, pick up the films and hand them over. And when I get there, the locker will be empty.”

He drank. “But if anything goes wrong — if he refuses, if he doesn’t show up, if, God forbid, he decides that the way to get off the hook is to put out a murder contract on the lady — she’s protected. I’ll pick up the films with my key and break the story.”

“Whatever it is.”

“Right, whatever it is. So what do you want me to do besides be home at nine thirty?”

“Be awake.” Shayne scraped his chin with his thumbnail. “You’re a newspaperman. What are you supposed to do with a blue movie starring a congressman’s wife? Rent a theater and charge admission? It’s a one-day story. What’s the follow-up on it? People are talking about fantastic amounts of money, a quarter of a million dollars. A quarter of a million dollars for what?”