Night Extra

10

After leaving Sarnac, Terrell phoned Gray Gates and asked for Connie Blacker, but learned that she had left Eden Myles’ apartment the day before. She had given the Beverly Hotel as a forwarding address, but the desk clerk there told him she wasn’t in.

“Do you know when she’ll be back?”

“Is this by any chance—” The clerk’s small laugh telegraphed the joke. “Is this by any chance Mr. Chance?”

“Yes, that’s right,” Terrell said. “Why? Is there a message?”

“She’ll be in around two o’clock, Mr. Chance. She’s at the city morgue now, I believe — she asked me for directions, you see.”

“Thanks very much.”

Terrell took a cab to the morgue at Thirteenth and State. It was one o’clock and the early winter sunlight fell like bars of gold across the city. A wind was rushing excitedly through the streets. Men leaned against it, gripping their hats, and girls caught at their skirts and laughed as cross-currents swirled about them at intersections.

Terrell smoked and paid little attention to the city scenes that flashed past him. He was trying to fit what Sarnac had told him into a clear picture. Caldwell had been framed. Start there. Because his election was a threat to Ike Cellars, the Mayor and sundry other thieves. Any cab driver or housewife in the city might have drawn the same inference. But the rest wasn’t guesswork. Eden Myles had been murdered by a hired hoodlum to incriminate Caldwell. Except for Paddy Coglan there had been no slips. And now Paddy was dead. But proof, Terrell thought. Proof... a lever to start things rolling. They had nothing. And Sarnac talked wistfully of indictment by bookkeeper...

In the lobby of the morgue Terrell glanced into the general offices, which were separated from the waiting rooms by a high, wooden counter. Clerks were busy at typewriters and filing cabinets, and two young men in beige cotton jackets stood behind the counters to assist the public in making out forms and affidavits. One of them was talking to Connie Blacker now, pointing to a line on the blank she was studying. She was nodding her blond head slowly. The clerk seemed eager to help, and it was obvious why, Terrell thought. She wore a simple black suit and a short tweed coat, but with her figure and legs she might as well have been wearing a bikini.

Terrell wondered if Frankie Chance had moved inter her life. It figured; his girl was downstairs with the iceboxes and running water and he would need a replacement. Connie might just fit. She was young, lovely and manageable. Everything required for the job, including a strong stomach. He sighed, wondering why in hell he felt so bitter about it.

She would be busy for a while, he knew, completing the arrangements to send Eden’s body home. He drifted down the wide corridor looking for someone to pass the time with. The inquest rooms were empty and the slanting sun gleamed on the blackboards used by medical experts in explaining their conclusions to the inquest juries. Terrell had covered a thousand postmortems and had seen every conceivable kind of damage that could be done to a human body by bullets, knives, brass knuckles and blackjacks. He hadn’t been sorry to leave this beat. Downstairs were the iceboxes, the sliding trays on which the bodies were rolled out for identification, and the peculiar smell, neither pleasant nor unpleasant, but not of the living world, which drifted up through the corridors and offices, and was as much a part of the place as its joists and beams and bricks. Terrell had covered this beat for a year, before Karsh had sent him to the state capital for some political seasoning.

As Terrell turned back toward the general offices he ran into a cleaning woman he had known, a big and cheerful colored woman who had worked in the morgue for the past years. He was pleased to see her. Martha was a kind and gentle person, Terrell knew, happily free from the macabre humor and affectations that were the usual trademarks of people who worked at the morgue. The bodies that were brought in from fires and accidents touched her deeply; she spoke of them with respect, and suffered for those who must come in later to make the identifications. They talked for a few minutes and then Martha said, “You coming back to work here, Mr. Terrell?”

“No, Martha. I’m waiting to talk to a person who’s signing the forms on Eden Myles.”

“Wasn’t that a shame? That poor thing, so pretty and all. What do you suppose is the matter with that Mr. Caldwell? You think he went crazy or something? A man must be crazy to kill a girl so pretty and young. What good did it do him to have her dead?”

“I don’t know, Martha.”

“But why did he have to do it? She’s so pretty. And expecting a little baby. That made it worse, if you ask me.”

Terrell’s expression didn’t change. He lit a cigarette, and said, “It’s a damn shame. But how did you know she was pregnant? That’s supposed to be a secret.”

“Oh, oh.” Martha put a hand over her mouth. “I’ve done it again, Mr. Terrell.”

“It’s nothing serious.”

“I heard one of the doctors talking the night she was brought in. I didn’t know it was to be kept quiet. You won’t say I told you, will you?”

“Of course not, Martha. So long now.”

Terrell walked back down the corridor, covering ground with long strides. In the coroner’s reception room, Terrell told the secretary he wanted to see Dr. Graham, who was the city’s chief coroner. She smiled mechanically at him, spoke into an intercom telephone, and then nodded at the door behind her. “Go right in, Mr. Terrell.”

Dr. Graham, a tall man with a long, thin nose, came around his desk and extended a big, but seemingly boneless hand. “We don’t see you around much these days, Sam,” he said. “Too busy being an important columnist, eh?” Dr. Graham’s tone was calm and good-humored; he was a man past middle-age, competent in small affairs, a cousin of Mayor Ticknor’s wife. He had no ambitions and no worries.

Terrell smiled. “It’s a nuisance keeping the space filled every day. It’s like an extra mouth to feed.”

“What can we do for you?”

“I’d like to look at the report on Eden Myles.”

“That’s all been in the papers, Sam.”

“I know, but I’m running down an angle. I’d like to see the report.”

“I read the autopsy report to the press,” Dr. Graham said, rather irritably. “You think I’ve left out something?”

“You left out the fact that she was pregnant,” Terrell said. “I’m wondering if you left out anything else.”

Dr. Graham fumbled through his pockets and finally brought out cigarettes. His face had become white and damp. “What kind of a bluff do you think you’re running?”

“Now, now,” Terrell said patiently. “I know she was pregnant, Doctor. I want to know how far gone she was.”

“You’re wrong, dead, flat wrong,” Dr. Graham said.

“I apologize if I am. But I want to see the report.”

“No, that’s impossible.” Dr. Graham rubbed his big limp hands together in a gesture that was meant to suggest decision and finality. “Don’t jump to conclusions now. We don’t pass out autopsy reports any more. It involves too much clerical help. Questions must be submitted in writing now. Then we answer them as fast as we can. But let me know what points you want checked and I’ll put a girl on it right away. For auld lang syne.”

“That document is a matter of public record,” Terrell said. “I carry a press card that entitles me to examine it. Are you telling me different?”

“I’m simply explaining a new procedure here, Sam.”

Terrell swore in disgust. Then he said, “I’m going over to the Hall and get a court order to pry that autopsy out of you. And I’ll bring back a photographer with me. And the character on our front page with the rosy, embarrassed look won’t be me, Doc.”

“Are you trying to start trouble?”

“Do you think I just got out of the Flash Gordon school of journalism? If you’re worried about the records, burn ’em. But don’t try to sit on them. You’ll get a hot foot in a most curious spot.”

“Sam, wait a second.”

“Why?”

Dr. Graham sighed heavily and sat down behind his desk. “I don’t want trouble. I don’t want to be in the middle. As God is my judge I’ve done nothing wrong. The girl’s condition had no bearing on her death or Caldwell’s guilt.”

“She was pregnant then. How many months?”

Dr. Graham sighed again. “Almost three months.”

“Why didn’t you give it to the papers?”

“Captain Stanko said—” Pr. Graham took a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped the damp hollows under his eyes. “Well, he said there was no point in blackening the girl’s name.”

“The old softie,” Terrell said. “Mother Stanko. Friend of the working whore. This girl has been travelling with hoodlums since she was twelve. She probably learned the difference between sodomy and rape at her mother’s knee. But Stanko doesn’t want her reputation besmirched. Come on, Doc, try again.”

“The case is open and shut,” Dr. Graham said in a hurried, pleading voice. “Why introduce something irrelevant? She met Caldwell just five weeks ago. But she’s three months pregnant. That might cause gossip, speculation. She’s a martyr now. Sweet kid, innocent victim, that sort of thing. Why not leave it that way? Why worry about messy details? Caldwell killed her — that’s what counts.”

Was that why they had covered it up, Terrell wondered. Possibly. It was a detail, but why not take care of it? That’s the way they would reason.

“Well, maybe Stanko’s got a point,” he said. “Don’t worry about me broadcasting any family secrets.”

“We’ll just forget it, then?” Dr. Graham said, smiling nervously at him.

“Sure. Why bother the public with details? So long and thanks, Doc.”

In the tiled lobby Terrell looked into the reception room and saw that Connie Blacker was collecting her gloves and purse from the counter, smiling a thank you at the clerk. He didn’t know how to use the information about Eden Myles; he couldn’t fit it into the rest of his theory.

Connie pulled open the glass door of the reception room and Terrell walked toward her. “Hello there. All through in there?”

“Yes, I’m through.” Only a slight tremor in her voice gave her away; otherwise she seemed completely poised and at ease. “I just had to sign some forms. It was no trouble.”

“Dead people are never any trouble,” Terrell said. “But let’s not be bitter. Can I buy you some lunch?”

“No, I have a date.”

“With Frankie Chance at two o’clock. I know. But couldn’t you be a little late? I’d like to talk to you.”

“I’m sorry. I don’t have time.”

She started past him but he caught her arm. “I still need your help,” he said.

“Please let me go. We don’t have anything to talk about. I told you that the other night.”

“I thought maybe your conscience would be acting up by now.”

“Let me go!” Her eyes were mutinous and angry. “Do you want me to start screaming?”

“I want you to start talking,” he said. “Who was the man who came to Eden’s apartment the night she was murdered? What job did he want her to do? Why was she afraid?”

“Let me go. I don’t know anything.”

“You’re lying, Connie. You can save the life of an innocent man. You can put Eden’s murderer in the death house where he belongs. But if you keep quiet nothing will happen.”

“Nothing will happen to me,” she said tensely.

“And how about Eden?” Terrell’s voice sharpened with anger. “You’ve signed the forms and off she goes by fast freight. Is that the end of it? Have you gone downstairs to look at her? She’s lying like a piece of frozen meat with a name tag tied to her ankle. Like something in a butcher shop. Only they kill animals a bit more humanely.”

“Stop it, stop it.” She turned away from him, tears starting in her eyes.

Terrell released her arm. “Okay I’ll stop.” In his heart he couldn’t blame her; why should she risk her life to help him. She had obviously been warned to keep quiet. If she ignored that injunction there would be a reprisal; it might be swift and merciful, or slow and vengeful. In either case it would be final.

“I’ll drop you at your hotel,” he said.

“No. I’m all right.”

“It’s on my way. Come on.”

Terrell paid off the cab at her hotel, intending to walk the remaining two or three blocks to the Call-Bulletin’s building.

“Thanks for the lift,” she said.

“If you change your mind remember the name. Terrell. I’m with a local paper.”

“I’m not changing my mind.”

“Is he the reason?”

Terrell was looking over her shoulder. The revolving doors of the hotel were spinning, and the sun flashed on the turning glass panels. Frankie Chance had come out to the sidewalk a second or so before, and was looking down the street, a faint frown on his sulky handsome features. He was fastidiously groomed, and wore a light blue flannel suit, a shirt with long collar points and a gaudy but expensive-looking tie.

“Is he the reason?” Terrell said again.

“Good-bye.” She turned away from him, but Frankie Chance had turned also, and was walking swiftly toward them, a tight, angry look on his face. “You’re late,” he said to Connie. “Two o’clock means two o’clock. Okay?”

“Yes, sure,” she said.

“You been crying,” he said. He still hadn’t acknowledged Terrell’s presence. “Is he bothering you?”

“My name is Terrell, Sam Terrell. Now we’re formally introduced, Frankie. You can talk to me direct.”

Chance turned and stared coldly at him. “What do you want with her, Sam?”

“Nothing in particular. I was covering a story at the morgue and bumped into her. I gave her a lift back here. You came along and here we are, chatting pleasantly in the fine fall sunlight.”

“It’s all funny, eh? The morgue part and everything.”

“No, it’s not funny,” Terrell said. “I can guess how you feel.”

“Guess? That’s good.” Chance stared down the street and Terrell saw the lines tightening at the corners of his mouth and eyes. “To you she was a bum. I don’t want you being sorry for her. She can do without your sympathy.”

His emotion was genuine, Terrell felt; he wasn’t a good enough actor to fake it.

Chance took Connie’s arm and turned her toward the hotel. “Keep away from her,” he said to Terrell. “Keep away from us. We’re in different leagues.”

“Well, maybe we’ll meet in the Series,” Terrell said. He watched them walk into the hotel, seeing the sun flash on Connie’s slender beautiful ankles. Then he sighed and headed for the paper.

At his desk Terrell typed out an item for his column. He described Eden Myles’ killer, the big man with the thick, black hair and scarred forehead, and suggested that the police were looking for him in connection with the Caldwell case. For several minutes he sat frowning and staring at what he had written. This was risky business. Karsh wasn’t in or he would have asked his advice. As it was, this had to be his baby. He called a copy boy. and gave him the item as an insert for his column; it would be squeezed in time for the next edition, the two star, and be on the streets around four o’clock. And after that there would be an eruption in the Hall.

At his apartment Terrell made a mild drink, then showered and put on a fresh suit and a cheerful-looking bow tie that failed completely to match his spirits. He was expected for dinner in Crestmount, a suburb of the city, but he was reluctant to leave. For a while he stared out the window, humming to the soft music from the radio, and then he picked up the phone and called Connie’s hotel.

When she answered he said, “This is Terrell again, but I’m not selling anything. Work’s over, and I punched out. So could I talk to you just a second?”

“Yes — but why?”

She didn’t sound so bad, he thought; hardly warm, but not exactly cold. “I’m going to dinner with friends tonight, and I wondered if you’d come with me. It might be a pleasant change for you. They live out in the country, completely surrounded by air. And they’re nice people. Would you like to give it a try? I can get you back early, if that’s a problem.”

“I don’t know — I hadn’t planned anything. Is it a dress-up affair?”

“Good lord, no. This is suburbia. Host in a chef’s hat, hostess in pants. We’ll eat outside and five will get you ten that someone says, ‘This is the life!’ before the second Martinis are served.”

“I’ll need half an hour to get ready.”

“Perfect!” He couldn’t keep the surprise out of his voice. “Where shall I pick you up?”

“Right here at the hotel.”

“Will that be tactful?”

She said quietly, “You’ll strain yourself leaping at conclusions.”

“Sorry. See you in half an hour.”

She was waiting when he pulled up at the entrance, wearing a black dress with a stole and white gloves. He had called the Hamiltons to tell them he was bringing a date, and he realized that he was a bit eager to show her off. They didn’t talk much on the drive to Crestmount, except to comment on the beauty of the autumn countryside. It was a restful interval; she sat watching the scenery and Terrell didn’t find the silence a strain.

The Hamiltons made a great fuss over them. Bill Hamilton took Connie under his wing with a fine show of avuncular heartiness, the sort of roguish jolliness that married couples consider indicated when bachelor friends turn up with new girls. They had a drink inside and then Mona Hamilton took Connie upstairs to the powder room, and then everyone went outside to the backyard barbecue pit where Bill Hamilton was waiting with a fresh shakerful of Martinis. He said expansively, “Now you cliff-dwellers may be puzzled by a certain aroma in this vicinity. Let me put you at ease: what you are smelling now is fresh air. You probably haven’t noticed any in the city, but it won’t hurt you at all. Breathe as much as you want.”

Another couple arrived in time for the second round of drinks. Their names were Tom and Elsie Brogan, and they were young and attractive, casually chic in country clothes made not for the outdoors but for cocktail parties and brandy milk-punch breakfasts. Tom Brogan accepted a drink and stretched out gratefully in a wicker armchair. “This is the life,” he said with a deep benign sigh.

Terrell caught Connie’s eye and she smiled quickly before timing away to talk with Elsie Brogan.

Bill Hamilton broiled the steaks and Mona took charge of the drinks. Terrell found himself in a critical mood. He wished Bill would stop behaving like a master of ceremonies. Jokes, gestures, flourishes — he acted as if he were introducing the Rockettes instead of serving dinner. And Mona’s stories about her daughter struck him as plain damn silliness. Little Mona didn’t want grown-ups to tell her stories. Oh no! She told them stories. And such imaginative inventions! Mona was going to take them down on the wire recorder some night. They were so charming. No tension in them at all. Just freeform happiness.

The Brogans had children, too. Elsie Brogan indicated that she was a serious but liberal mother by suggesting that her five-year-old son might need. a psychiatrist if his adjustment to kindergarten continued unsatisfactory.

Tom Brogan began a long story about a lady analyst but decided not to finish it; the punch line wouldn’t do in the present company, he said, smiling, and obviously pleased with himself and his erotic secrets. Nothing would make him change his mind. “My masculine intuition tells me to stop,” he said, grinning broadly.

After dinner they went inside and Bill Hamilton touched a match to the logs stacked in the fireplace. Over brandies the talk switched to politics.

“It looks like Caldwell’s a dead duck, eh, Sam?” Bill Hamilton said.

“He’ll need a miracle,” Terrell said.

“He won’t get it, you watch,” Tom Brogan said. “It will be Ticknor again, and Ike Cellars and the rest of that miserable crowd. And the people couldn’t care less. They’re stupid for one thing, and they don’t give a damn for another.”

“I’ll grant that for the sake of argument,” Terrell said. “But how about you people who aren’t stupid. You don’t give a damn either. It seems to me that’s considerably worse.”

“I don’t get you, Sam,” Bill Hamilton said. “We care about what happens, of course.” His mood was serious now. “But except in a sort of philosophical way, the city isn’t my responsibility. I got sick of it, and I moved out. The schools are crummy, the streets are filthy, and it’s no place for kids. So I decided, as just one little guy, to take my family somewhere else. So what do I owe the city?”

“You make your money from it,” Terrell said. “It affects the whole state you live in. So you owe it a certain attention, at least.”

Mona Hamilton said defensively, “We sound un-liberal and un-progressive, I know. But I couldn’t stand living in the city another day. I want to be with my own kind of people. People who care about. the same things I do.”

“Everyone does,” Tom Brogan said. “Don’t apologize for how you feel. Hell, people in slums probably have the same ideas. If you had regular garbage collections they’d start moaning about the good old days when the trash collected for weeks in the gutters.”

“Well, that’s one way of looking at it,” Terrell said drily. “But here’s another: people with money and education received those advantages from the community. But they won’t put those to work except in areas that pay off in favorable zoning laws, and a pleasant life for themselves and their immediate family. They don’t accept the fact that what they’ve got has a string to it — a string tied to something called responsibility.”

Mona Hamilton looked unhappy. “I feel that sometimes. I feel we’re so lucky we should do something about it. But what can one person do?”

“Nothing at all,” Tom Brogan said, settling himself deeper in his chair. “So let’s have a nightcap and forget about politics.”

Terrell had been watching Connie during part of the discussion, and he was gratified by the worried little frown that settled on her forehead. He decided to accept Brogan’s offer to change the subject. “You’ve got a point,” he said pleasantly, “but we’ll have to skip the nightcap, I’m afraid. I promised Connie I’d get her home before the milkman.”

There were protests from Bill and Mona, and finally urgings to come out again when they could really make a night of it. Terrell drove back toward the city in silence. At the winding approach to the bridge he slowed the car and coasted off the road onto a grassy bluff that overlooked the river, and the dark light-flecked mass of the city. He cut the motor, then turned and smiled at her set profile. “Wrong,” he said. “I’ve got nothing like that on my mind.”

“Then why did you stop?”

“I thought we’d have a last cigarette, talk over the evening. How did you like my friends?”

“They seemed very nice.”

“A bit fat-headed maybe? Just as though wrapped up in their own blissful little lives?”

She glanced at him, and said, “I thought you weren’t trying to sell anything tonight.”

“I’m not — I’m just ripping our hosts apart. It’s an old suburban custom. You break their bread and drink their wine and then tell everyone what bastards they are.”

“No, that’s not it. You want me to agree that they’re selfish and narrow, don’t you? Then to prove I’m different I’ll offer to help you. Isn’t that what you’re hoping?”

“Now who’s leaping to conclusions?”

“I saw it in your face tonight,” she said, in a sharper voice. “You looked so damned smug — the pure and noble young man surrounded by tiresome dead-beats. That’s the way you acted. But what’s wrong with your friends? What have they got to be ashamed of?”

“Why don’t you ask them?” Terrell said.

“It’s no business of mine. They’re living the way they want, paying taxes, obeying the laws. What do you expect them to do? Join your vigilantes? Or start pulling down slums with their bare hands?”

“Now wait a minute,” Terrell said.

“I’ll tell you something,” she said angrily. “They live the way I’d like to someday. Taking care of their children, with no doctor bills or grocery bills hanging over their heads, in a clean, comfortable house. You think they’re fools because they make sense.”

Terrell sighed. After a moment, he said, “Do you think it’s admirable to evade a clear responsibility?”

“It’s not their responsibility.”

“I’m not talking about them now. I’m talking about you. A man may hang unless you help him. That’s a pretty high price to pay for a split-level home in the country.”

“Do you know why I came with you tonight?” she asked him in a low voice.

“I couldn’t even guess.”

“They told me to. They said be nice to you and find out what I could. Does that tell you what side I’m on?”

“They? Frankie Chance, you mean?”

“That’s right.”

“Well, this is interesting,” Terrell said. His voice was casual, but his stomach had suddenly gone cold and tight. “Frankie doesn’t do much on his own, you know. Cellars gives him a little leeway in choosing his ties and cigarettes, but that’s about all. So it’s Cellars who wants you to be nice to me. That’s practically a mandate.”

“I’d like to go home now,” she said.

“Why sure. But what about Ike’s instructions?”

“Don’t be a fool!”

Terrell turned and pulled her to him roughly, clamping her elbows to her sides with one arm. She struggled fiercely against him, but with his free hand he forced her chin up until he could look directly into her eyes. “Ike likes obedience,” he said. “He told you to be nice, remember?”

“Let me go!” she whispered in a tight, straining voice.

He put his lips down hard on hers, and held them there until her resistance broke and she went limp in his arms.

“How nice did he tell you to be?” he said bitterly. “The works?”

“You bastard,” she said, crying.

“Come off it,” he said. He released her and switched on the ignition. “Tell Ike I’m not interested.”

“Take me home. Please.”

“Okay.” Terrell swung the car back onto the highway with angry speed. He felt sorry for her, and pointlessly sorry for himself. Sorry for the whole damned mess.