Epitaph For A Dead Beat

CHAPTER 20

I got a pair of them, patrolmen, in about ten minutes. They were both younger than I was, and they took in the situation with all the sentiment of retired storm troopers. “You’re Fanning?” one of them asked me.

I nodded. “They want you to wait here,” he said. He noticed the beer. “Don’tcha know you’re not supposed to touch anything?”

He was serious. He had a vacuous, inoffensive Nordic face that would never mean anything except exactly what it said. “I looked it over first,” I told him. “The can was all misted up. I could see there were no prints on it.”

He pondered that with all the efficacious ratiocination his ninety-two-point-four I.Q. would permit. “Well, I hope you’re sure.” He turned to his sidekick. “It looks under control, Eddie. You better wait in the heap.”

Eddie shrugged, then wandered off apathetically. Santayana shut the door after him, taking a smoke. “Must have been quite a shock for a private citizen. Finding a deceased, I mean.”

“It’s been hours since the last one. I was beginning to think I was slipping.”

“What? Oh, a joker.”

“Makes it easier to take.”

“Sure. Common psychology. Friend of yours, huh? Kind of a sloppy place he kept. All them goddam books, will you look?”

He stuck his face into the back, being curious, but he was just minding the store until some authority got there. I found myself a chair near the front windows.

The patrolman was on a second cigarette when the knock came. He butted the smoke fast and headed for the door, not quite making it. It was shoved inward so abruptly that it almost hit him.

DiMaggio had done the shoving. He stared at the body from the threshold for perhaps six seconds, then turned toward me. His blunt jaw was set squarely, and he had not stepped far enough inside for Toomey to get by. He held his breath. It was another ten seconds before he paid any attention to the patrolman.

“Stand by down below,” he snapped then.

“I’ll have to see some identification, sir. You’re not in my precinct—”

DiMaggio was already past him. The patrolman glanced at Toomey hesitantly and Toomey flashed a badge. “The sergeant’s had a long night, Mac. You know how they fall.”

“Sure. Yes, sir. Just following regulations—”

“Can the goddam talk,” DiMaggio said. “Get that door shut.”

The patrolman pulled it after himself, glowering in my direction as he went. DiMaggio had taken a stance about four feet from my chair with his legs planted wide. “On your feet, Fannin,” he said.

Toomey sauntered over. I sat there.

“Did you hear me, buster?”

“We got to it a lot fester the last time without the drama,” I said.

DiMaggio was kneading his right fist with his left hand. “You got a gun?”

“Four. All home in a drawer next to the Three-in-One oil.”

“Make sure.” He spoke to Toomey without looking at him.

Toomey was at my side. “You 11 have to get up—”

I did what he told me, chewing my lip. He ran me down quickly, then gestured.

“Put the cuffs on him,” DiMaggio said.

Toomey’s hand was still raised. “Oh, now look, Joe—”

DiMaggio came a step closer. His lips were bloodless. Toomey sighed almost inaudibly, finally reaching toward a hip.

I held out my wrists and the metal went on and locked, not tightly. Toomey didn’t look at me. Just once I was going to meet two cops and the reasonable one was going to have the rank.

DiMaggio’s eyes were as dark as wet tar. He was being as outraged as Captain Bligh when Clark Gable set him adrift in that dory. “You lied to me, Fannin.”

I shook my head wearily. He ignored it.

“You used Captain Nate Brannigan’s name and he okay’d you when I checked. So it isn’t just a precinct sergeant the lie fixes you with.”

This time I grunted. He didn’t want answers anyhow.

“You found the Welch body and I let you convince me you weren’t working on anything. The way I read it, the things you didn’t see fit to tell the department Tuesday night might just have prevented the Grant girl’s death and this one too, whoever this one is—”

“I didn’t have a job Tuesday,” I said.

“Don’t lie to me a second time, Fannin. I don’t like to be suckered.”

Toomey had found something to contemplate on Grant’s shoe, most likely a hole. “Why don’t we find out what he’s got to say first, Joe?”

DiMaggio kept measuring me. His forehead was slightly pocked. He flexed his fingers.

“Ten minutes, no more.”

“I’ll need closer to thirty.”

“I’ll know damned well when it stops meaning anything.” He turned toward a chair. “You start at the beginning, Fannin, you got that?”

“Don’t tell me how to tell it, DiMaggio.”

He whirled back. I hadn’t moved.

Toomey was still at the body. “Tallest man since Wilt the Stilt,” he said idly.

“Maybe he’d rather tell it under the lights,” DiMaggio said. “Maybe he thinks it’s more romantic that way. Or maybe he thinks he’ll get somebody else instead of me. Is that it, Fannin? You think because it involves two precincts the boys from Central will take over? Your buddy Captain Brannigan maybe? Well, I’ll let you in on a departmental secret, how’s that? Central’s a little busy tonight, you understand? It so happens this case is mine — so I’m the baby you’re going to have to chat with wherever we do it. And wherever we do it, I still think you’re dirt.”

“The corpse was named Ulysses S. Grant,” I said quietly. “He hired me tonight to find his daughter, Audrey Grant.”

“The corpse was named — why, you fatuous son of a bitch, if you think I’ve got time for a goddam joke—”

Toomey sprang across quickly, stopping him with a hand. “Hold it, Joe—” He flipped open the sandwich-sized wallet

I’d seen when Grant was in my office. “Ulysses S. on his voter’s registration.”

294

DiMaggio curled his lips, controlling himself. “The rest of it, Fannin.”

“I was finished.”

“What the hell—”

I’ve identified my client and told you what kind of a job I was on. I didn’t even have to say that much without a lawyer, not once you put these cuffs on. Although for the record I had a lot more in mind until about twelve seconds after you brought your bedside manner through that door.”

He got around to it then. It was a hard enough punch but I was set for it as well as possible. I caught it along the upper jaw. I hit the cushions of Grant’s couch, elbows first, then slid to the floor with the cuffs biting.

That fluttered a few feathers again. I supposed I could always report him for disturbing evidence before his technicians got there.

Toomey was between us, but DiMaggio had walked off. “Let that team take him in,” he said tightly. “We got work to do here.”

Toomey opened the door and held it for me, saying nothing. DiMaggio was standing over the body with his back turned. I stared at him for a minute and then went out.

That baby was screeching again, or still. I heard it through only one ear. Toomey rang for the elevator. “That was pretty dumb,” he said.

I didn’t answer him.

“So he called you a liar. It ain’t such a highly illogical conclusion under the circumstances, you know. And you got to tell it anyhow, for Chrissake.” The door slid open and he chuckled as we got in. “On the other hand I suppose all we can legally slam you for is leaving that stiff downtown, since you’re right about not having to talk once we make you look like a suspect. If it turns out you’re clean the sergeant will sweat all night, wondering if you’ll mention the incident to your friend Brannigan. The Commissioner’s been pretty touchy about the rough stuff lately. Poor old Joe.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Do me a favor, huh?”

“What’s that?”

“These cuffs — wipe my nose if I cry.”