Jail Bait

Chapter One

They sat side by side on an upholstered bench that ran the length of the crowded room. The small tables were close together. The lighting was very subdued. There was a raised stage at one end of the room. They had sat through three floor shows. The floor shows were a bit too clever, too brittle, too self-consciously smart. And they had talked too much and too intently. She know he had brought her here in the forlorn hope that it would please her.

Jane looked furtively at his face. He was staring down at the red plastic swizzle stick, bending it between his fingers. He glanced at her quickly. “Recapitulation?” he asked sourly. “Over it once again? Maybe I’m being dull about this. I just don’t see it.”

“I’m not good with words the way you are,” she said, feeling the quick anger come. “I go by feelings, Howard, I can’t just add up and find totals. I don’t think about this with a lot of plus and minus signs. Here I am. Jane Bayliss. I was horn here. I’ve been as far away as Cleveland in one direction and New York in the other. I’m twenty-four and I’ve worked for five years. There was a notice in the paper when I was born. There’ll be one there when I get married, if I do. And a final one when I die.” She put her hand on his arm, digging her fingers in, looking intently at him, living to make him understand. “Howard, there’s got to be more than that. Life has to have some glamour and excitement and danger. I just get up and plow through the day and go to bed. You say let’s get married now. Sure. It takes me out of one trap and puts me in another home, babies and all that. There hasn’t been enough happened to me, Howard. I haven’t lived at all!”

The swizzle stick broke between his fingers and he put the two halves in the ash tray. “If you feel like that, it’s not much use then, is it?”

“Not much, I’m afraid.”

“I wish I could think of some way of giving you a taste of this glamour and danger stuff you talk about, Jane. Just one time the feeling that somebody is doing his damnedest to kill you. I’ve had that happen to me, and it wasn’t pleasant. I want nothing to happen. I want a home and love and you.”

She touched his hand. “I could lie. I could pretend. Honestly, Howard, isn’t it better to say what I think?”

He looked beyond her at the people at the next table. He stared for a moment and took her wrist and said in a lower tone, “Don’t look around.”

It took a great effort for her to keep from turning around. “What is it?”

The table next to theirs was pushed out of the way. A man bumped clumsily against her shoulder as he got up and went out, a second man close behind him.

“What was it, Howard? What was happening?”

“Did you notice those two men at that table?”

“Just when they went out.”

“The one furthest from you was holding a knife on the one nearest you. The light happened to catch the blade just right. It was below the table level. The one near you had his hands flat on the table and the other one was going through his pockets with his free hand.”

The two men were just going out, walking close together, the smaller one to the rear. The man in the lead looked back over his shoulder expressionlessly — yet. Jane thought she detected despair in the glance. The light from above slanted against his white face, accentuating the fragile bone structure.

“Could we follow along and see what kind of car they have?”

“Darling, I’m not Mike Hammer, and people who use knives are not pleasant people. I’m going to wait about twenty seconds and then tell the management, who can then call the police. If you want a man who is going to bust up a private disagreement between a pair of rough characters, then you’d better get yourself another boy.”

“But if one man was being robbed?”

“Don’t look at me with such haughty scorn, honey. They knew each other. They came in together. They talked a long time. They ignored the last floor show. You stay right here.”

She was ten feet behind him when he went out into the bar. She was beside him when he asked for the manager. He glanced at her with disapproval.

The manager came out of some hidden recess. He was a short, bald man with bored eyes and a hairy sports jacket. “Having trouble, folks?”

“No trouble. I wanted to report something. Two men just left. They had the table next to us. One was holding a knife on the other.”

The bored look was gone. “Are you positive?”

“I saw the knife. He searched him first. He held the knife below table level.”

“Where were you?”

“At one of the tables along the side.”

“Barney, get me Jake on the double.” Their waiter came hurrying up. “You had these people?”

“Yes, sir. I gave them good service—”

“Two men at a table next to them. Just left. Know them?”

“I never saw them in here before, sir.”

“Did they seem to be quarreling?”

“They were doing a lot of talking. I came up to change the ash tray and heard one of them call the other a dirty name.”

The manager said, “Suppose you give me your names, folks, in case anything comes up.” He waved the waiter away and wrote down their names and addresses. He thanked them again and left.

In the parking lot Howard said dryly, “Was that enough excitement for a dull evening?”

“Howard, it isn’t that it’s dull being with you.”

“It’s just that nothing ever happens. I know.”

“We can’t talk about it, I guess.”

“I guess we can’t.”

He drove her back to her apartment in moody silence. She sat as far from him as she could. He parked in front and walked her to the outside door, took her key and opened it for her, held it open.

“Thank you, Howard.”

“Be a hypocrite and say it was a lovely evening.”

“Please don’t say things like that.”

“When will I see you again?”

She looked up at him. “Let me have a month, Howard.”

His mouth hardened. “Take a month. Take two.” He grabbed her roughly there under the lights and forced his mouth down on hers. It took her breath away. He released her. She opened her eyes. She stood on trembling legs and watched him walk quickly to the car, slam himself in and roar away.

The small elevator climbed sadly up through the sleeping building. She tiptoed down the hall and let herself in. Usually the small apartment felt crowded. Her roommate was a rawboned brunette named Betty Alford. Betty had been away for a week and would be gone for at least another three. Her kid sister was having a second baby and Betty had gone down to Wilmington to keep house for her. And somehow with her gone, the place seemed dreadfully big.

Sunday was a dreary day of rain, low clouds, traffic hissing on wet streets, lights on in the apartment. She did her hair and her nails, altered a skirt, wrote two letters, paced restlessly, and finally curled up in the big chair in her lime-green corduroy robe, cigarettes at hand, Sunday paper discarded, looking through a haze of boredom at the frantic efforts of a television comedian.

She was half asleep when the buzzer sounded. She pushed the button that unlocked the inner front door, hooked the night chain with automatic caution and stood, leaning against the wall, yawning.

When there was an authoritative knock on the door she opened it a few inches and looked out at the two men who stood there. The older one, dumpy, with a face like putty, stared at her out of dull, colorless little eyes. The younger one was tall. He had a weather-reddened face, flame-orange hair. He was almost grotesquely ugly. A sharp snowplow chin jutted up, and a beaked nose curved down. Both men were drably dressed.

“Miss Bayliss?” the redhead said. “We’re police officers, miss. I’m Detective Sergeant Sam Dolan. Can we see you a minute?”

She closed the door, unhooked the chain and let them in. The redhead beamed. “Take off your hat, Moe. Joe Friday always takes off his hat.”

“Funny man,” Moe said. He sat down in the big chair and put his hat on his knee and watched the television show.

“What’s this all about?” Jane asked.

The banter was gone. The blue eyes were quick. “A woman phoned in at daylight this morning and said as how there was a body in her yard, that she found it when she was setting out for early Mass. We went over there. She lives practically under the new Expressway Bridge. You know, it’s got those places where you can pull over out of traffic if your car quits. If they’d tossed him over the railing a hundred feet further along, he’d be floating down the river right now. But instead he lands in her yard and some fancy knife work has been done on him. He’s wearing clothes from the West Coast. His wallet is gone. No keys, no address. Nothing. In the side pocket of his coat we find a book of matches. Fingers are stained and two matches gone. They’re from the Taffeta Room.”

“That’s where we—”

“I know. You and your boy friend, Saddler, last night. We got the manager out of the sack and he went down and opened up and got your addresses for us. He gave us the waiter’s address and the doorman’s, too. By then we had glossy prints of the body. The manager didn’t recognize the picture. The waiter thinks the picture is of one of the two men. He gave us a meager description of the other one.”

“One was taller and—”

“Take a look at these.” Dolan took out two glossy prints. They were of the man’s head. Death had ironed the face to a ritual blankness. She shut her eyes and saw in memory the man’s quick backward look at the roomful of people. She shivered and handed the pictures back.

“That was the man.”

“Would you mind coming along to look at the body to make doubly certain?”

She swallowed hard. “I guess I wouldn’t mind.”

“Now try to remember as clearly as you can. Take your time. What did the other man look like?”

“Shorter. Heavier through the shoulders. Broader. He made the tall one look frail. They both wore dark suits. They both had dark hair.”

“Would you recognize the other one?”

“I never did look directly at him.”

“Your boy friend is going to be the best bet.”

“Yes, Howard looked right at them.”

Dolan said that if it was convenient, they would wait down in the car for her while she dressed. She did so, hurriedly, looked out at the rain and put on a transparent raincoat.

The police car was a black sedan. Dolan started up, and it shambled around corners, bounced violently over slight irregularities in the pavement. It took fifteen minutes to get to City General, where the body lay. Jane spent three minutes in the basement and came out on unsteady legs. She felt gray-green.

“Okay now?” Dolan asked solicitously.

“I guess so.”

A tall boy walked over toward them. He had a sideways gait, like a puppy. He wore a porkpie hat with a feather, damp raglan topcoat in a herringbone tweed reaching almost to his knees, and soiled white buckskin shoes.

“This on the John Doe knifing, Red?” he asked Dolan, jerking his head toward Jane.

“Don’t call me Red. Yes, this is on it. Miss Bayliss, this is Walker Locatta of the Journal. Don’t tell him a thing — yet.”

Locatta gave Dolan a sour look and turned and gave Jane a smile of searching approval. She realized at once that the boyish look was a cover; the face was hard. The lean throat was wattled. Fifty perhaps. He could be sixty.

“Know who he was, Miss Bayliss?”

“She won’t talk until I say she can talk,” Dolan said. “And I’m off on Friday and I like the card at the Arena.”

“Venality, Miss Bayliss,” Locatta said softly. “Degenerate minions of the law. Will ringside be good enough, Red? Or do you want me to get you a bout?”

“Two ringside.”

“I hope she identified him.”

“She doesn’t know him, but there could be a nice little story in it, Loco. She and her boy friend sat next to the deceased and saw the murderer hold a knife on him and walk him out of a joint last night. No one else saw it but this lady and her guy. Worth the tickets?”

Locatta pursed his lips and looked at the far gray sky over the city. “It will have to do, Red.”

He took a stenographer’s notebook out of the side pocket of the topcoat and wrote down the details. Her name and address and where she worked. The same with Howard Saddler. What time it had happened. Then he crossed the street, unlocked the trunk compartment of a gray coupe and brought back a cumber-some-looking camera. He smiled his aged smile at Jane.

“Never could find a photographer when I wanted one. So I had to learn how to do it myself. Now just relax. Pretty girls sell papers.”

He focused on her and then said casually, “Red, I don’t know why I waste my good time giving these publicity hounds a break. I’ve taken more pictures of featherheaded, stupid young females lately.”

Jane gasped and stared at him and the bulb popped. He lowered the camera.

“Just what do you mean?” she demanded.

“Sorry, Miss Bayliss. I wasn’t getting enough expression. Now I’ve got it. Outrage, indignation, incredulity. Thanks.”

She relaxed. “That’s a rough game.”

“I guess. This used to be a rough business. Too many rules now. Stop around, Red. I’ll leave the tickets at the desk in an envelope.”

As they drove back, Dolan talked about Locatta. “Loco mispelled Moe’s name once and Moe is still sore at him.”

“What is your name?” Jane asked.

Moe spelled it. “W-a-s-t-a-j-i-v-e-t-s-i.”

“He put in an extra ‘s’,” Dolan said.

“Right after the ‘v’,” Moe said. “It’s in the book. He could have looked it up.”

“It was important to Moe,” Dolan said. “His first citation.”

“For what? Is that like a medal?”

“Sort of. Moe went into a hotel to bring out a D and D. There were three of them and three guns and a bowling-ball bag full of dough. They shot him and he lost his temper.”

“Oh.” said Jane.

“Imagine putting dough in a bowling-ball bag,” Dolan mused. “Here you are, Miss Bayliss. Thanks a lot. Look, maybe you want to go with me to the fights Friday?”

“Well, I—”

“I’ll give you a ring.”