Epitaph For A Dead Beat

CHAPTER 31

I didn’t tell them. I didn’t say a word. Vasella had gone into the interrogation room, and he and Brannigan were pacing with all the pent frustration of castrated steers when I looked in. Brannigan snorted once and told me to go back to bed.

The Chevy was on Hudson Street. I sat in it for a while, mumbling.

She’d made up the whole story. That was all I would have needed to mention. Pardon me, fellas, tee-hee-hee, but now she says she was just playing. So she could sell her book, you know? You know? I’m really sorry if I’ve put anybody to any trouble…

The girl was as nutty as a two-headed gnu.

Even thinking about it was absurd. There wasn’t anyone else in it. I could run it up and down the flagpole all day, she’d still be the only one to salute.

Okay, Ebenezer. But what have you got to show proof-wise, like?

Let the cops prove it. Me, I’d had enough. I was going back to sleep like the captain said.

Sure I was. So I drove up Hudson two blocks and then parked again. The image in my rear-view mirror was leering at me. I leered back.

This was ridiculous. She did it.

The image kept on leering. It was a dark, amorphous blur, like an inkblot. What do you think you see in the blot, Mr. Fannin?

Fern killed them.

Of course she did. There, now, that’s a good lad. Tell me, when did you first start to get this sensation that people were taunting you? Do you often feel inadequate, left out? Do you find total strangers smirking behind their hands when you walk into a room?

She did it, damn it.

It was 4:19 when I parked in front of a hydrant four doors down from her building. There was a faint mist from the river. The angle was bad, but I could see the glow of a lamp behind her blinds. She probably had a wax statuette of somebody named Harry up there and was huddled over it in a trance, jabbing it with long sharp pins.

Who do it, voodoo it? Something moved in the shadow of an alley across the street and I went over.

“Rotten detail?”

Toomey grunted. “Got to watch her, I suppose. Not that it’ll lead to anything.”

“The publisher with her?”

“Blalock? Yeah.”

“Blalock?”

“Ernest B. Blalock — Junior. I thought you and him got to be pals.”

“I keep telling him to call me by my first name.”

“Those things take time. You look bushed.”

“I’m past knowing.”

“Just feel restless, huh?”

“Unfulfilled. Or does that make me sound like a Beatnik?”

“I know what you mean. They sure can’t dump it on a jury with just your word against hers, in spite of your honest face.” He chuckled. “I supposed you’ll get sued for that, too.”

“Sued for what, too?”

“You missed the cheery news, huh? They’re going to slap papers on you for libel, slander, defamation of character— whatever his lawyers can think of. It’ll make the tabloids for six weeks straight, with pictures of the Hoerner babe looking sexier every day. Hell, I might even buy that book myself.”

I reached for a cigarette. “What’s my face got to do with it?”

“When those newspaper guys asked you what door you walked into — I just meant that Constantine might sue you also. If nothing comes of his end he might feel kind of sore that you called him a dirty name for publication. Although on the other hand I suppose you could prove a few things about him—”

“And his Vice Squad contacts who claimed they didn’t have any file on him last liiesday.” I was fumbling in a pocket. “You got a match?”

“They covered for the guy, huh? Yeah, here—”

He flicked a lighter, and my hand went toward his wrist. I never touched him.

“Jesus!” he said. “Oh, Jesus—”

We both broke into the gutter at the same time. I did not have a gun, but Toomey’s service revolver was in his hand before we had gone three strides. The roar of the gunshots was still reverberating.

They had been incredibly close together, muffled so that they had sounded almost like a single explosion. My brain told me it had counted four but I couldn’t be sure. We bolted around opposite ends of a parked Buick, getting across.

I was ahead of him on the stone steps. I yanked at the door handle once. Toomey pushed me aside, grabbing my arm for balance and slamming a foot against the lock. It gave with a splintering sound and I went through and then doubled over, clamping my jaws against the searing pain in my chest. I stumbled up the one flight after him and around to the front.

The door to the apartment held against his shoulder. He braced himself against the banister opposite it, then vaulted forward and took it with both heels. It rocketed inward.

I stopped dead, and my insides turned to stone.

Ernest Blalock was standing at the far side of the room. He was in his shirtsleeves. The shirt was white, but no whiter than his face. His stare was fixed on the low couch next to him.

She was sprawled hideously. Her head was twisted downward, and her golden hair was trailing along the floor. A trickle of blood had seeped out of her mouth, still gleaming, but I did not have to get over there to know that it would coagulate in a minute. Her eyes were gaping in their sockets.

She was still wearing the tweed skirt, but she’d taken off her blouse and put on that short bluejacket. The jacket was open. The flesh below her black brassiere was so severely charred that the gun had to have been held flush against her. There had been five shots, not four. I could have covered the entire tight grouping with a poker chip.

There were voices in the hall, and I got the door closed somehow. I was vaguely aware of Toomey racing in and out of Fern’s bedroom, and then into the one with the fire escape which had belonged to Josie Welch. He cursed once, reappearing, and I watched him take Blalock by the arm. “Tell it,” he snapped.

Blalock shuddered. His look was glazed. He buckled against the wall when Toomey swung him around.

“Damn it—”

“That — that — Ephraim Turk. We were in the kitchen. He—”

Toomey motioned toward the second bedroom. “He go that way?”

Blalock forced a nod. “Oh, dear God. He literally dragged her around by the hair, he—”

Toomey was already on his way to the phone, jamming the revolver back onto his hip. He dialed rapidly. “Toomey, Lou — get me the lieutenant, fast. Or Captain Brannigan if he’s still on it—”

Blalock had taken a faltering step toward him. He spun suddenly, plunging into the kitchen. “Sure, dead,” I heard Toomey say. “Looks like a forty-five. What the hell, he had half an hour to swipe one someplace, he’s had the habit. Right here, yes sir—”

He hung it up. I was looking at her again, smelling the burned powder and the burned flesh. I could hear Blalock being sick. Toomey frowned at me.

“Hey, fellow, not you too?”

“Too much,” I said. “I better get some air—”

“Yeah, yeah, I can see how you’d feel. It would be your word alone he’d killed her on, wouldn’t it?”

I didn’t answer him. I couldn’t. I went back outside on legs that did not want to do anything but fold in half.