Down Among the Dead Men

XVIII

Henry Sutlee Fross marched briskly down the marbled corridor of the thirty-eighth floor, past an arched door with the unobtrusive inscription:

He used a pass-key, opened a door bearing no lettering nor any number. The furnishings of the room were somewhat unusual for an office building. In a blue-tiled fireplace embers glowed cheerfully; the pungent tang of hickory was evident. A chaise longue was arranged at one side of the tile hearth, a chair in cinnamon-colored chintz on the other. Carafes and bottles on a midget bar glistened under the soft light of a lime-shaded table lamp. The paintings on the walls were cubist still lifes; the frames wide and unpainted.

Fross took off his rubbers, placed them neatly on the floor of the tiny lavatory, scrubbed his hands vigorously with a silver nail-brush, craned his neck up to a heavy, circular mirror. What he saw through his pince-nez was a round moon-face with chastely pink cheeks, a clipped military mustache above small, thick lips. He brushed his hair back from its mathematically centered part, went out into the private cubicle, still brushing.

A cherry-wood box was murmuring: “...gentleman has been waiting fifteen minutes, sir... says it’s urgent and he knows you’re in...”

Fross tapped a switch. “Don’t be obscure, Herman. What gentleman?” The switch clicked once more.

“...Morrie Schlauff, sir... says you will want to see him...”

“He hopes.” Fross curled up the corners of his lips, unsmiling. “Two minutes. In the office. I’ll be out to anyone else.”

“How’re you today, Mister Fross?” The man who came in was thin and alert; there was practically no chin under his sleazy mustache; his front teeth protruded like those of a rodent. “You’re harder to get to than the box-office man at a hit show.” He carried a folded newspaper in his right hand, slapped it against his thigh, as he spoke.

“I’ve been at court. What’s so urgent?”

“Dough.” Morrie Schlauff sat down, crossed his legs. “The purse is starving for dough.”

“You’ve already received your... ah... retainer. We agreed on that.”

“Past tense.” Schlauff waggled the toe of a worn, brown oxford. “This is present. I’m upping the price. I want three hundred dollars an’ I got to have it now.”

Fross put on a patient expression. “I’ll have to get hold of the client.”

“Do we have to go over that same routine again? I told you I know who the client is. You’re the client. So go ahead. Tell yourself to come across with three hundred more. On account.”

“You’re in error, Morrie.” The lawyer made his eyes smile. “I’m acting for a client.”

“I know who you’re acting for. Do I get the money?”

Fross chuckled. “I presume you’ve earned it?”

“You presume right.” Schlauff held the newspaper in his lap, smoothing the fold.

There was a pause. Fross laughed outright. “I’m waiting to see if it’s worth an advance, Morrie.”

“You’ll grow roots in that chair, then, Mister Fross. I got something and it’s red hot. But it cost me to get it. There might be more where that came from and that’ll cost, too.” He waved the newspaper. “If you don’t want it, I know where I can peddle it.”

The lawyer tilted his head to one side, shook it once. “You’re a very difficult person to deal with.” He slid open the top right-hand drawer of the desk, leaned over it and said: “Herman.”

“...yes, Mister Fross?”

“Three hundred dollars. In fives and tens. Debit to the Schlauff entry. Have it ready there.” He closed the drawer. “If I’d known at the beginning—”

“You’d still have hired me. Or someone like me. You couldn’t have gone to one of the big agencies. So why bellyache now! Maybe if I’d known what I was getting into I wouldn’t have taken the business, myself.”

“Difficulties?”

“I never run into such a flock of plainclothes cops in my life. All kinds, — city police, Uncle Sams, private guards. They been in my hair.”

Fross registered mild surprise. “Why all the commotion?”

“A mere matter of homicide, is all.”

The lawyer’s face showed no emotion. “Mrs. Ovett?”

“Uh, uh. Man. That suitcase thing. It’s in all the papers.” He giggled. “I should be telling you. You probly know more about it than I do.”

“I know nothing about it.”

“Here.” Schlauff unfolded an afternoon edition, tossed it on the desk. “Second colyum. Halfway down.”

The lawyer read it swiftly “This doesn’t tell me anything. Who was he? Who killed him? How does it concern the subject of our investigation?”

The fox-faced man held up a finger. “Ansel Gjersten, late engineer aboard the good ship Seavett.” His second digit went up. “Nobody knows. Least, the cops or the G-boys don’t seem to be sure. They’re running around in circles, masterminding.” A third finger joined the first two. “My private, off-the-stand opinion is, a certain M.O. gave him the bump. On account of Mrs. O.”

Fross put his tongue between his lips as if he was trying something on his taste buds. “Rather complicates the situation.”

“Not as long as I’m the only one who knows it. You wanted something on M.O. I cased the Wyatt end, north and south. There might be something to it, but it would be tough to establish. M.O.’s been out of town most of the time. He has a residence up on Riverside. The Wyatt girl hasn’t ever been there, or to his yacht or anywhere else with him except spaghetti joints around the waterfront. So that wouldn’t amount to much if you were figuring to use it as a lever for... whatever you want it for.”

Fross smiled pleasantly. “For a client.”

“So whatever you say. But this murder angle is something. Providing they don’t catch up with him and give him a fifteen-thousand volt hot-foot. You will have something on him which ought to make him hold up his paws and bark for a biscuit.”

“I believe penalties are provided for the compounding of a felony, my agile-minded friend. Withholding information concerning a murder would distinctly come under that classification, would it not?”

“You’re damn tooting it would.” Morrie giggled again, stroked his mustache. “That’s what I get paid for. Withholding the information that lets you put over this, — uh, — coercion... for your client.”

The lawyer examined his fingernails, took out a file, began to rasp them energetically. “As a member of the bar and an officer of the court, I couldn’t condone any such suggestion, Morrie. But,” he raised his eyes quizzically, “I doubt if you have your facts in hand.”

“I got enough. I trail M.O. from the bus station when he gets in from Charleston. I’m on his rear bumper over to a place on Swamp Street where he has a heart-to-heart with a man name of Joslin. He’s sitting in one end of a subway car over to Brooklyn, and I’m on the platform at the other end. I’m right behind him out to a shipyard over there, Rodd’s, they call it. I even crash the gate past the guard by saying I’m for the Seavett, too. I don’t see him after he goes on board the yacht. But I hear him and some other man, likely this Gjersten, talking through a porthole. I can’t get close enough to catch much of the conversation because there is an old boy fussing around with ropes on the deck. But I hear M.O. say something about Big Dommy’s place. He is supposed to meet someone there, maybe this other man he is talking to. So when the motors begin to buzz and some Porto Rican or maybe a Filipino comes out on the dock, I beat it.”

“Interesting,” Fross smiled a reproof, “but not conclusive.”

“Wait’ll I finish. It takes me a while to locate this Big Dommy’s, which is a dump over behind the Erie Basin and I mean a dump. I spend some jingle at the bar and don’t see M.O. But while I’m standing there guzzling, in comes a skinny blonde with henna hair and a kind of lonesome look to her. She goes around the barroom and asks everyone if they have seen Ansel around. This Ansel must be known in those parts because they don’t say they don’t know him, just that they haven’t seen him.” Morrie retrieved the newspaper, crackled it significantly. “Ansel is the party of the first part in this suitcase story.”

“I read it. What is the point?”

“The point is this. I stick around quite a while and this girl who everybody calls Claire goes upstairs to the stopover rooms and comes down a few times, but all along she is whining about Ansel not having met her like he promised. According to her, he was there in the afternoon and didn’t pay off but told her he would see her later. By and by she goes away and in comes a flint-face from the city force; I can spot one of those badge-carriers like a sore thumb. He ruffles up the proprietor’s feathers some and they go upstairs together. I am just deciding M.O. is not going to show and am about to run along when down comes the city sleuth with Big Dommy in tow. They are looking for someone and who do you think it is?”

“M.O.?”

“No. At least, not right then. The city cop is inquiring about Claire. The girl who was with Ansel in the afternoon.”

The lawyer laced and unlaced his fingers, abstractedly. “What has all this to do with our little investigation, Morrie?”

“Quite a good deal, quite a lot. I don’t hang around while the badge does his business but later on I go back and the place is swarming with buttons. I buy a drink where it will do the most good and I use my ears and after a while I get the layout. The room upstairs where Ansel and the girl went earlier in the day, that was where the murder was committed. The corpse couldn’t be identified completely, being in sections as it were, but the police are convinced it is Ansel.”

Fross let annoyance sharpen his tone. “All very absorbing, Morrie. But it leaves a little to be desired. You haven’t placed M.O. at the crime.”

“I heard him say he was going there. I heard him say it to the man who got killed. The buttons have flyers out for M.O. They sent his description out on the teletype and on the radio. It might not be enough for the prosecutor’s office but it ought to go a long way to help you. I don’t know just what it is you’re after. But I got a four-star hunch there’s more to it than just some stock deal.”

A green glass button on the inner edge of Fross’s desk glowed like a lighted emerald, went out. He opened the drawer.

“...a gentleman to see yon, Mister Fross...”

“Mister Fross has gone out, Herman. He will be back in an hour.” Fross started to close the drawer but the box inside spoke again, hurriedly.

“...the gentleman is from the police, sir... his name is Koski... Lieutenant Koski... and he says he must see Mister Fross immed — HERE — STOP — YOU CAN’T—” the voice changed abruptly. “...Do you come out, Fross? Or do I come in after you?”

Schlauff got to his feet fast. “Psst!... Let me out through that trick exit of yours. That’s the city badge I was telling you about. I don’t want him to find me—”

Fross slammed the drawer. “You imbecile! He heard you! That switch was open—”

The door opened softly.

Koski walked in.