Dan and the Death-Cell Bluff

Chapter Two Death Row Stooge

As the elevator swallowed Dan and Adele, the door to suite 510 opened cautiously. The little man, wearing a fresh seersucker suit as worn as the first, stepped out in the hall with his suitcase in his hand. Quickly he approached room 512, for a moment fiddled at the lock with a piece of wire, pushed open the door and shut it behind himself again.

Rolling the bed away from the wall, he spread his handkerchief on the floor, removed a small brace and bit from his bag, and drilled a hole through the baseboard, allowing the sawdust to fall on his handkerchief. When he felt the bit break through on the other side, he carefully folded the handkerchief and put it in his pocket.

Then he pushed two wires attached to a small microphone through the hole, screwed the mike to the baseboard, rolled the bed back in place and repacked his bag. The whole operation took no more than fifteen minutes.

Dan and Adele had been back from lunch barely a half hour, and were desultorily smoking cigarettes when a knock came at the door. Adele, in her chair by the window, stopped her cigarette halfway to her lips and gave Dan a frightened look. Dan, flat on his back on the bed, came erect lazily and swung his feet over the side.

“Come in!” he called.

The man who opened the door was a giant, towering above Dan Fancy a good three inches and outweighing him thirty pounds. He was blond and chubby-faced and had the slightest suggestion of a paunch, but most of his weight consisted of muscle as solid as Dan’s. His pink face, with its upturned nose, was that of a cherub, but his small bright eyes spoiled the effect. They were the eyes of a hawk, and they glittered coldly when his lips smiled.

Dan gave him a lopsided grin. “Never stopped growing, did you, Jim? Thought I’d have passed you by now.”

“You’re a long way from Pittsburgh, Dan,” Big Jim Calhoun said quietly. He glanced at Adele, jerked his head toward the open door and said, “Outside, honey.”

The girl made no move.

“Better do like the man says, Adele,” Dan told her huskily.

Her face pale, Adele rose and walked to the door. There she paused and gave Dan an appealing look.

Fancy chuckled amusedly. “He won’t eat me, Adele. Wait in the hall.”

When the door had closed behind her, Big Jim Calhoun walked over to the bed and smiled without humor at the seated man.

Dan rested his right ankle on his left knee and leaned back on his elbows.

“You didn’t used to be so careless, Dan,” Big Jim said softly. “I could be all over you before you moved.”

Without taking his eyes from the other man’s, Dan shook his head. “If you move an inch closer, my heel will break your kneecap.”

Momentarily the giant’s eyes clouded. Then he stepped back and walked around the bed.

Effortlessly Dan came to his feet and turned to keep his face toward Big Jim.

“What do you want, Dan?” the giant abruptly asked.

“I want to get a kid named Gene Robinson out of death row over at the state pen.”

Big Jim said impatiently, “He’s a convicted murderer. He had a fair trial.”

Dan said carefully, “I don’t give a hoot in Hades about your rackets down here, Jim. All I’m interested in is the kid.” He paused and examined the other’s cherubic face estimatingly. “I’ll give you a choice, Jim. Throw the real killer to the wolves so the kid can go free, and I’ll leave you alone.”

“What’s the other half of the choice?”

“Fight me and I’ll bust your organization wide open.”

Big Jim shrugged with apparent indifference. “That’s a big order for one man. Even a guy with your reputation.” His tone turned sardonic. “How many crooks have you killed now? Five or six? It’s been in the papers, but I lost count.”

“Let’s stick to the subject,” Dan suggested.

Big Jim’s smile widened without affecting the coldness of his eyes a single degree. “You don’t worry me a bit, Dan. The only reason I dropped in is for old time’s sake. To pass a friendly warning. Be out of town by six tonight.”

“Or?” Dan asked.

“Or you get the works. You can’t buck me, Dan. Not here, you can’t. I own this town, lock, stock and barrel. I can get away with anything. I could kill you right now, and the cover-up would be so complete, I’d never be touched.”

Dan’s lopsided grin grew in dimension. “Wrong, Jim. Passing over the certainty that you’d have a hole in your head before you got your gun out, you couldn’t afford to bump me off. You may be the big frog in your own little puddle, but you’re not big enough to cover the murder of a special investigator for the governor. You’re worried silly, or you wouldn’t be here. Get smart and make it easy for both of us by turning in Saunders’ real killer.”

Big Jim shook his head. “Sorry, Dan. No chance.” He studied the big man and said in a tentative voice, “Don’t suppose it would be worth-while to offer you money?”

“You got a million dollars?”

Big Jim’s grin was a trifle crooked. “Same price as always, eh? I remember when we were kids you used to say you wouldn’t be crooked for less than a million dollars. That’s why you’re still working for peanuts, and I own a city.”

“Only till today, Jim. Tomorrow you lose the city, but I’ll still have my peanuts. I’ve got a little paper signed by the governor, Jim. Tomorrow morning early I’ll be at the courthouse. I’m confiscating all city and county records.”

The giant chuckled. “You’ll run into a battery of lawyers and a squad of cops.”

“They’ll be dead lawyers and dead cops if they get in my way. My paper authorizes me to call on militia.”

Jim’s smile faded. “The governor wouldn’t go that far. You can’t invade an incorporated community with militia against the consent of the local authorities.”

“Read your state constitution. In the public interest the governor can order militia anywhere in the state where local authority has broken down or is incompetent. The governor seems to think yours is incompetent.”

“He wouldn’t dare!”

Dan laughed aloud. “He dared to sign the paper, Jim. And I’ll damn well dare to use it.”

“Let’s see the paper.”

Dan shook his head. “Phone the governor if you want verification. I like my hands free when we’re in the same room.”

Big Jim’s bright eyes became narrow. “Then I guess it’s war, Dan. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.” He rounded the bed and held out a hand the size of a pancake griddle. “No hard feelings, though, no matter how it comes out.”

“Of course not, Jim.”

Dan stuck a hand only slightly smaller into that of Big Jim. A slight smile touched the giant’s lips as he suddenly jerked Dan toward him and started a vicious left cross.

The blow never landed. Expecting the maneuver, Dan added his own impetus to Big Jim’s powerful pull, and smashed his left elbow into the other’s jaw. Big Jim reeled backward, recovered his balance and surged forward again.

At the same moment the door behind Dan opened. With a catlike shift, he sidestepped the giant’s rush and half turned to meet the new adversary. That was as far as he got when a sap caught him behind the ear.

He managed the rest of the turn with a great ringing in his ears. Through the wrong end of a telescope he saw thin-faced Lieutenant Hart in the room. Then the contorted face of Big Jim Calhoun appeared before him and a huge fist started toward his jaw.

His mind willed a left-hand parry, but his arm refused to obey the command.

Dan awakened with his head in a lap and with soft arms around his neck. He looked up blearily at Adele Hudson’s face just as a drop of warm salt water landed on his nose.

“What are you crying about?” he asked thickly. “I’m the one who got belted.”

Her arms tightened convulsively. “Oh, Dan! I thought you were dead.”

The big man disengaged her arms and rose to his feet. She too rose from her seated position on the floor.

“You’re a nice kid, Adele,” he said gently.

Her face flaming, she turned abruptly and walked to the window.

Gingerly he fingered the lump behind his ear, then prodded one finger along the base of his jaw. “What happened to my guest?”

With her back still to him, she said, “Big Jim? He and that lieutenant he owns left right after they knocked you out. Big Jim had a paper in his hand and seemed pleased about something.”

Quickly Dan’s hand darted to his inside coat pocket and came out empty. “Now he knows what a liar I am,” he said ruefully. “That paper was signed by the governor, but all it said was that I was authorized to reinvestigate the circumstances of George Saunders’ death, and requested the local police to cooperate.”

The girl turned to face him. “What are you going to do now?”

The big man ignored her question. He was thoughtfully regarding the baseboard near his bed, against which he had apparently fallen when slugged by Big Jim, for the bed was pushed to one side. Dropping to his hands and knees, he studied the small microphone curiously. Then, placing his lips close to it, he suddenly emitted an ear-splitting shriek.

Through the wall to the room next door, they could distinctly hear a startled curse.

Grinning, Dan moved the bed back in place while the girl regarded him open-mouthed. “Just mark it up that I’m crazy,” he said. “Got a car?”

She shook her head.

“Then we’ll rent one. It’s twenty miles to the state prison, and I want to visit Gene Robinson.”

Crossing to the phone, he called the state capitol and arranged for permission to visit the prisoner in death row. The assistant state’s attorney said he would phone the warden immediately, so that Dan and Adele would be expected when they arrived.

The red tape disposed of, they walked three blocks to the nearest car rental, where Dan managed to obtain a 1948 Buick that seemed to be in excellent condition.

As they pulled away from the garage, Dan said casually, “Don’t look around, but we’re being followed.”

Adele caught her breath. In spite of the warning, she half turned, but settled front again when the big man frowned at her.

“Big Jim?” she asked.

“Not personally. Probably a stooge. A short, heavy-set man in a plaid suit. Bald-headed. Looks like a salesman. I thought I noticed him watching us when we crossed the hotel lobby. He rented a Lincoln and pulled out right behind us.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Nothing,” Dan said. “Let him follow.”

During the twenty mile trip to the state prison, Dan made no attempt to shake the Lincoln, but kept his car at an even fifty-five most of the way, and dropping to forty over the short stretch of mountain road marking the halfway point. In the rearview mirror he could see the other car maintained an even hundred yard interval. But when they stopped before the prison gates, the Lincoln rolled on past without slackening speed. Seconds later a battered sedan driven by a little man in a worn seersucker suit flashed by in the wake of the Lincoln.

As the assistant state’s attorney had promised, the warden was expecting them. Greeting them courteously, he turned them over to the assistant warden, who in turn left them with the chief guard in that section of the prison containing the death house. Here Dan was relieved of his gun before he and Adele were led hack to the somber death row.

The long corridor leading to the execution chamber contained four cells, but only one was occupied. Gene Robinson lay on a hunk reading the Saturday Review of Literature, while immediately outside his cell a yawning suicide guard sat on a straight-backed chair trying to keep awake.

Robinson was a slim, graceful man with even, almost pretty features and a pencilline mustache. He had the longest eyelashes Dan Fancy had ever seen on a man.

When he saw Adele, he smiled a dazzling white smile, rose from his bunk and said, “Hello, dear. It was good of you to come.”

Like welcoming her to a tea, Fancy thought. He waited while Adele offered a dutiful kiss through the bars, and frowned slightly when the condemned man accepted the offer with a reserved reluctance indicating he considered it not quite in good taste to demonstrate affection in front of strangers.

Gene Robinson was a curious man. He seemed not in the slightest degree worried, and his manners were impeccably correct.

“My name is Dan Fancy,” the big man rumbled. “I’m a private investigator, and I’ve been engaged to get you out of this spot.”

Robinson raised one eyebrow. “By whom, please?”

“Your father.”

The young man’s teeth continued to glitter, but the welcome was gone from his smile. “I don’t accept help from my father, Mr. Fancy. I’m afraid I can’t use you.”

Dan moved one big hand impatiently. “Your old man told me all about that. He doesn’t expect any thanks.”

“Then he didn’t tell you enough. I’m sorry you’ve been troubled, Mr. Fancy, but you’re wasting your time.”

Turning his attention back to Adele, Robinson ignored the big man. For a moment Dan watched him broodingly.

“Your old man told me enough,” he said finally. “You’ve been a poet by profession, and before that you were an artist, and before that a musical composer. Only you never made a dime at any of those professions, so you took up hairdressing as a sort of substitute art. You like to associate with people who work with their minds.

“You never had any respect for your old man because the money he educated you in Europe on was made in the disgusting business of manufacturing steel. You never let him forget he started out as a day laborer. He was a peasant and you were an aristocrat. Finally when your snobbery got too far under his skin, he kicked you out. When he got over his mad, he asked you back again, with you writing the ticket. But aristocrats don’t accept largess from peasants.”

The big man paused, then went on huskily, “You’re living in a dream world, kid. Aristocrats are mortal, just like people. In seventeen days they’ll strap you in the electric chair. You’ve got your old man crazy enough now with your martyr act. Come awake and start cooperating. I want some questions answered.”

“I’m afraid I don’t like you, Mr. Fancy,” Robinson said frigidly. “Please inform my father I’m quite capable of taking care of myself.”

“Sure you are. Want to bet when they strap you in the chair, you won’t break wide open and start screaming for your father? But then it’ll be too late.”

“Guard!” the condemned man said crisply. “Please take Mr. Fancy away. I don’t wish to talk to him.”

Without waiting for the guard’s reaction, Dan turned and strode toward the barred and locked door of the cell block. As he walked away, he heard Adele say, “Please, Gene. Don’t make things so difficult. All that Mr. Fancy is trying to do is help.”

During the first mile of the ride back the girl was so quiet, Dan realized she was making an effort not to cry.

Finally he said irritably, “The guy is a psycho, you know.”

Startled, she glanced sidewise at him.

“Delusions of grandeur,” Dan said. “Nothing can touch him. A miracle will happen to get him out of his jam at the last minute, and then he won’t owe his dad a thing.” He glowered at the road ahead. “He doesn’t know it, but the miracle is that his old man even bothered to try to help him. I’d let him fry.”

“Don’t say that!” Adele said passionately. “Gene is a fine man. He’s just too proud and stubborn for his own good.”

Dan glanced at her curiously. “How’d he happen to condescend to become engaged to you? You read all the correct books?”

A slow blush diffused her face. “I thought you were so particular about taking advantage of a man in death row.”

“Sorry,” he said tersely, and lapsed into silence.

A mile farther on he remarked, “Our shadow is with us again.”

The girl tensed, but did not look around. “The same man?”

Dan nodded. “Don’t worry about it. Apparently all he wants is to see where we go.”

But when they reached the short stretch of mountain road Dan began to wonder if the Lincoln was solely interested in tailing them, for in the rear-view mirror he could see the gap between the two cars was slowly being closed. When it had decreased from a hundred yards to a hundred feet, he glanced reflectively at the guard rails flashing by at their right, thin wooden rails which in places edged a sheer hundred foot drop.

The next curve, Dan remembered, formed a narrow horseshoe and the bank fell away nearly vertically over a deep chasm. His lips thinned as the Lincoln edged nearer and suddenly started to pass just short of the curve.

Aside from his tightened mouth the big man gave no indication that he even noticed the other car until it came fully abreast. Then suddenly he slammed on the brakes.

The Lincoln cut in viciously at the same moment, nearly touching the rail a mere car length ahead of the point where the Buick slid to a screeching halt. Careening around the curve, it disappeared in a burst of power.

“He tried to kill us!” Adele gasped, pushing herself back in her seat.

“He would have,” Dan said grimly, “if I hadn’t braked a split second ahead of his swing.”

Shifting into low, he lifted the speed to forty again, but made no attempt to catch the Lincoln.

It was just before five when Dan dropped Adele in front of her beauty shop. Returning the car to its rental garage, he walked moodily back to his hotel, not even bothering to ask the garage attendant for the name of the renter of the Lincoln. In front of the hotel his moodiness increased when he discovered the thin, sharp-nosed man who had been staring vacantly into a dry-cleaning window next door to the garage when he returned the car, was now staring just as vacantly into a jewelry window fifteen feet from the hotel entrance.

Momentarily he toyed with the idea of pitching the shadow into the gutter by the seat of the pants, but decided against it. Just the thought, however, somewhat relieved his feelings.

As he crossed the lobby, Dan saw Billie, the bellhop, standing near the front desk, and crooked a finger at the boy. Billie scampered over like an eager dog, a wide grin splitting his features.

“Yes sir, Mr. Fancy?”

“What does the hotel do with old newspapers, Billie? Sell them to a junkman?”

The boy looked puzzled. “Yes sir. I believe so.”

“Probably stores them somewhere in the basement until they get a big enough pile to sell, eh?”

“I guess so, sir. Did you want a particular back issue?”

“Thirty of them,” Dan said. “See if you can find me every issue for the past month. Either local paper. I’ll be in my room.”

It did not take Billie long. Within twenty minutes he delivered a thick stack of the Lake City Star. Piling them on the floor in front of the window chair, the big man went through them unhurriedly, reading every item he found on the killing of George Saunders and the subsequent trial and conviction of Eugene Robinson.

It was nearly seven when he finished the pile, and the only new information he had gained was the names of the witnesses who had testified against Robinson. Picking up the phone, he ordered dinner sent up to his room, and while waiting for it, methodically went through the phone book and listed on a sheet of paper the phone numbers of all those witnesses he found listed. All, peculiarly enough, were men. Of the five who had testified to bad blood between the deceased and the defendant, three were listed in the book. Of the six who were actual witnesses to the shooting according to their testimony, four possessed phones. The pawnbroker who had testified to Gene Robinson’s purchase of the murder gun had a business phone, but none listed for a residence.

Dinner arrived and the big man wolfed it hurriedly, eager to get on with his work. As soon as he finished gulping the last of his coffee, he pushed the dining cart aside, lit a cigarette and seated himself on the bed by the telephone.

The first number he called was that of a man named Adolph Striker, one of the witnesses to the alleged teasing of Robinson by the murdered man. A woman answered the phone, peremptorily announced that Mr. Striker was “on vacation” and could not be reached for two months. She hung up before Dan could ask any questions.

In chronological order he went down the list, and every number got him a variation of the first reaction. Some of the men had moved and left no forwarding addresses, some were “out of town for a while,” and the informants had no idea how they could be reached. Some simply bluntly denied ever hearing of the person asked for.

The operator answered when he called the last number on the list — that of the pawnbroker.

“That number has been disconnected, sir,” she told him.

Slowly the big man crumpled to a ball the list of names he had made and dropped the ball in a wastebasket. For a long time he sat in the windowside chair, his feet cocked on the sill and his hands locked behind his head. He smoked two cigarettes, arced the butts out the window, and stared glumly at nothing.

Suddenly a startled expression crossed his face, lingered and developed into a pleased grin. Rising to his feet, he thumbed the phone book once more until he came to the name: Bull, Lawrence. He copied the address on a card which he put in his wallet. Then whistling noiselessly, he left the hotel and hailed a passing cab.

“Seventeen-eleven Fairview Avenue,” he said loudly for the benefit of the thin, sharp-nosed man who had trailed him out of the hotel lobby and now stood idly in the entrance.

As he expected, a second taxi pulled out from the curb a few moments after his.

1711 Fairview Avenue was a white frame house in one of the nicer sections of town. A stupid looking but pretty blonde in a tight-fitting red dress answered Dan’s ring.

“Looking for Sergeant Larry Bull,” the big man said.

The woman’s expression as she examined his huge frame was that of a cattle buyer judging a steer, and a flicker of animal interest appeared in her eyes.

“Come in,” she said, stretching the “in” to an open invitation.

She led him through a hallway into an elaborately furnished living room where the police sergeant sat watching television. Dan estimated that the furnishings of the living room would have cost two years of an honest policeman’s salary.

When Sergeant Bull looked up at his visitor, his eyes hardened. Rising, he cut the television switch and said to the blonde in a flat voice, “Scram.”

The woman’s mouth turned sullen and her eyes flicked sidewise once more at Dan, but she turned obediently and left the room, slamming the door behind her.

“Well?” Bull asked.

“Just remembered where I saw your picture,” Dan said easily. “Armed robbery and murder in St. Louis about nineteen forty-six. Can’t remember the name, but it wasn’t Bull.”