Night Extra

16

It was nine o’clock when Terrell pulled into the parking area reserved for police and press at the Beach City courthouse. The day was brilliant with sun, but the wind off the ocean cut through him like a knife as he went up the broad stone steps to the marble lobby. He had already relayed Connie’s story to Karsh, and the presses were ready to run. He needed Tim Moran’s story, but he had everything else; the why and how of the frame around Caldwell, the Parking Authority mess, everything. And it was Connie’s eye-witness account that tied it all together.

Terrell went up to Moran’s office on the second floor and found the detective at his desk with a littered ashtray beside him and a rank of empty coffee cartons at his elbow. Moran was in his shirtsleeves, his tie loose, his collar open, and he looked gray with exhaustion. But his eyes were narrow and sharp with a hunter’s excitement.

“Well, you made pretty good time,” he said. He stretched his arms above his head, then slumped back comfortably in the chair. “Tired as hell. Sit down, Sam. I’ll tell you what I’ve got. Then I think you can tell me something. Is that fair enough?”

“Sure,” Terrell said.

Moran picked up a glossy print from his desk and handed it to Terrell. “There’s the mug who shot Paddy Coglan. Know him?”

Terrell studied the dark face, the low, scarred forehead, the bold, angry eyes. He shook his head slowly. “I don’t know him. Where did you get the picture?”

“You know something about him though, Sam. I saw your expression.”

“This could be the guy Coglan saw leaving Caldwell’s.” At Moran’s puzzled frown he said, “I’ll sketch it in for you, don’t worry. But tell me the rest of your story. Where did you get this picture?”

“It’s a weird thing, Sam. As odd as I ever ran into in this business. We wrote Coglan off as suicide, you know. Well, two days after his death I got a call here in my office. It was from a guy who’d been registered at the hotel at the same time as Coglan. He was on the same floor, just a room away, and he heard the shot. He looked out into the corridor and saw a man closing Coglan’s door. He saw only the man’s back. But he was able to describe his overcoat, his hat and the color of his hair and general build.”

“Why did he wait two days to speak up?”

“That’s what’s weird. He was with a girl instead of being over in New York on business. He couldn’t get involved with the police. Otherwise his wife would know he’s cheating on her.” Moran lit a cigarette, and grinned faintly at Terrell. “He was pretty damn indignant about it. He has kids in school, a solid pillar of the community. He wasn’t going to throw that away just to testify against a killer. But his conscience obviously bothered him a bit, and I started digging. I took the description to the hotel, and talked to the bellhops, elevator men and desk clerks. They’d seen this man, all right. He’d been in the lobby in the afternoon and right after suppertime. And an elevator operator remembered taking him to the floor above Coglan’s. Then I played a long hunch. You know there are quite a few sidewalk photographers working this area, so I rounded them up and looked at the shots they’d taken the day that Paddy Coglan was shot. That’s how we got this picture. The photographer remembered the guy. These photographers, you know, are all poolroom psychologists. They’ve got to spot newlyweds, couples in town for vacations, people who’d want a souvenir picture. Well, he thought the big boy looked like a fighter or a wrestler, someone who might be flattered by a picture of himself. But it didn’t go. Our guy stopped and glared at the photographer and then walked off fast.” Moran grinned without humor. “I like to think of what that did to his nerves. Anyway, we sent the print to Washington, and they traced it. He’s Nicholas Rammersky, alias Nick Rammer, age forty-two, with two convictions and a record of minor stuff stretching back twenty years. He’s a paid killer. And I want to know who paid him to kill Paddy Coglan.”

“I said I’d fill you in,” Terrell said. “I had everything but Rammersky’s name when I came over. It goes this way...”

Twenty minutes later Moran came with him to the door. He said, “Rammersky will burn for the murder of the girl or the cop. Either way, I’m not particular. He can’t hide after your story breaks. And neither can those other crumbs in your backyard...”

Terrell drove back through heavy traffic and reached the city shortly after two-thirty. He parked in front of his apartment, and checked the time as he went up the stairs. They would need a couple of hours to get the story organized. By working fast they could make the three-star final at four-thirty. But tomorrow there would be little else in the paper. Karsh would know how to handle it; the editions establishing Caldwell’s innocence would hit the city like sledge hammers.

Terrell unlocked the door and said, “Hey!”

There was no answer, no stir of life in the apartment. He stood with his hat in his hand, feeling the grin stiffen on his lips. For several seconds he waited, and then he closed the door and walked slowly through the little apartment. Empty. The breakfast dishes were on the kitchen table, the robe that she had worn was lying across the foot of the bed. The blinds were still drawn, and the bed was unmade. There was the light fragrance of her perfume in the air. But that was all.

He lit a cigarette and looked around the living room, a frown touching his face. She didn’t have any reason to risk her neck, he thought. Why shouldn’t she clear out? What was in it for her? That was the question everyone had to answer in the cold light of self-interest. What’s in it for me? Trouble? Thanks, but no thanks. She must have figured it that way. Why the devil should I feel surprised? he thought.

But he was surprised, Terrell realized sadly. He couldn’t mask his disappointment with a practical cynicism. He would have bet anything that she’d stick. His conviction was illogical, but that didn’t matter; convictions about people usually rested on criteria that logicians wouldn’t accept.

It was then, as he was putting his cigarette out, that he saw the note on the telephone table. He picked it up, feeling the leaden disappointment moving in him. It was written in pencil, in a neat and careful hand: “Maybe I picked sides in too much of a hurry. I’m trying to be sensible now. Forgive me for backing out. Give me that much of a break.”

Terrell stared around the room, shaking his head like a weary fighter. Without her testimony much of his story fell apart. The Rammersky part was intact, but that only proved that Coglan was murdered; it wouldn’t help Caldwell. Not in time.

He sat down and called the paper, but Karsh wasn’t in. His secretary told him he was at the game. The Game. Terrell had forgotten; Dartmouth was playing and Karsh was there with a party of friends. It irritated Terrell; it seemed incongruous and silly to think that twenty-two young men were now engaged in what they believed to be a struggle of life or death significance; that eighty thousand persons were crowded into the Municipal Bowl to cheer one side or the other; that drunks were waving pennants and that women in fur coats and stadium boots were leaving their lipstick on countless cardboard cartons of coffee. While Caldwell was in jail, and the truth couldn’t be told...

Terrell stood and looked around, frowning again; something was wrong. The dirty breakfast dishes, the unmade bed — that was wrong. She wouldn’t leave without tidying up. Terrell looked at the note he had dropped on the coffee table. That was genuine. His heart was beating faster. He was suddenly hoping that she had walked out on him. That she had left of her own free will.

He sat down and dialled her hotel. When the clerk answered, Terrell said, “Is Connie Blacker there?”

“She’s checked out, sir.”

“When was this?”

“Let me see — that was around ten this morning.”

“Did she leave a forwarding address?”

“Just a second — no, I’m afraid not.”

“Was she alone?”

“Sir, I can’t tie up this phone indefinitely. I—”

“Was she alone?” Terrell repeated sharply.

“No, sir — there were friends with her. Two gentlemen.”

“Was Frankie Chance there?”

“There’s a call waiting, sir. If you could stop by—”

Terrell put the phone down and picked up his hat. He went downstairs to get a cab; with the game traffic in town there was no point in taking his car. She’d walked out on him, he was sure of that; when she’d looked the situation over with a cold, little eye, she had seen that it wasn’t for her. Heroics, sacrifices — hardly her dish. These thoughts flicked through Terrell’s mind as the cab took him across town to her hotel. But they didn’t ease the unpleasant tension in his stomach.

At the hotel Terrell talked to the desk clerk, a plump little man with an air of nervous efficiency about him. The clerk described the men who had been with Connie: one was large, with dark skin and hair and the other was sharply dressed, with light hair and thin features. The big man sounded like Briggs, Cellers’ bodyguard.

“Would you give it to me in order, please?” he said. “They came in together, the girl in the middle, the men on each side. The big man came to the desk with her, and the smaller man waited a little behind them. Is that right?”

“Yes, Miss Blacker asked for the key and told me she was checking out.”

“They all went upstairs together?”

“Yes, that’s correct. She must have packed in a hurry. They were down in ten or fifteen minutes.”

“Did you hear any of their conversation? I mean, do you have any idea of where they were heading?”

The clerk smiled in a manner that suggested a philosophical approach to life. “People come and people go. That’s the story of a hotel.”

“Did she seem reluctant to leave? Worried or anything like that?”

“I’m afraid I couldn’t say, sir.”

“Well, thanks anyway.”

Terrell went outside and stopped on the busy sidewalk, wondering what to do next; for a moment he was completely at a. loss, unable to think or act. He was caught between two fears, the first that she had walked out on him, and the second that she had been picked up by Ike Cellars’ hoodlums. The first fear was selfish, but the other thing was a matter for the police or FBI — but he had no proof beside his illogical conviction that she wouldn’t have run out on him. He had nothing. He couldn’t alert the FBI because a girl had checked out of a hotel with a couple of men.

Terrell went back to his apartment and called Karsh, but the maid told him everyone was still at the football game. Karsh’s son was in with a group of friends, she said, and everybody was coming back after the game for a buffet dinner and some drinks. She’d been working all day on it, she added in tones of happy martyrdom. She liked working for Karsh, Terrell thought, as he put down the phone. Everybody did.

Terrell paced up and down the apartment, smoking one cigarette after another, tracing and retracing his steps like an animal in a cage. Everything his eyes fell on seemed to remind him of her; the robe she had worn, the lipstick on the rim of a cup, the bow tie she had used for a hair ribbon; they all brought back memories of her face and form. The silence became exasperating, and he fiddled with the radio until he found a program of dance music. That didn’t help particularly, and the announcer kept breaking in to hum the lyrics in a middling-to-bad voice. Terrell cut him off and fixed a drink. He stood in the middle of the room for a few seconds, his frown settling deeper on his face, and then he turned decisively and scooped up the telephone. Superintendent Duggan wasn’t in his office, his secretary said; he could be reached at home if it were important. Terrell broke the connection and dialled Duggan’s home number.

Duggan’s wife answered, and said just a minute, she’d tell Jack, and then Duggan was on the phone, speaking in a soft, worried voice. “Sam, it’s been a wild day. I guess you’ve heard all about it.”

“I haven’t heard anything. I’ve been working. I want to report a kidnapping.”

“A kidnapping? Who’s been kidnapped?”

“A girl named Connie Blacker who worked for Ike Cellars.”

Duggan paused, and Terrell heard his heavy breathing. “Why come to me?” he said at last. “It’s a Federal charge.”

“Aren’t you interested? Did Ike Cellars dampen your flaming official zeal?”

“Who the hell do you think you’re talking to?” Duggan said, in an angry, rising voice. “I’ve been kicked around all day, and I’m sick of it. The Council didn’t suspend me — but only by three votes. Ticknor told me off like I was a rookie cop he’d caught drunk on a beat. I’m not taking any more of it — from you or anybody else.”

“You’re going to take a lot more,” Terrell said. “Ticknor can scare up three more votes, don’t worry. And after that you’re through — another ex-cop winning that he got squeezed out by political pressure. But the charges will read different. You’ll wind up at the track keeping an eye on pickpockets for coffee-and-cake money. And you’ll jump to attention when Ike Cellars and Mayor Ticknor stroll past you to the fifty-dollar window.”

“Save your fight talk,” Duggan said. His voice was under control again. “I’m not throwing away thirty-five years in the bureau. You can talk loud and big, Terrell, because you’re on the outside. But I’m not.”

“You’ll be outside pretty soon,” Terrell said, “because they’re getting ready to plant a boot in your big fanny and kick you out. But if you find that girl you’ve got a chance.”

Duggan said, “What do you mean? What’s she got to do with me?”

Terrell was aware of the quickened interest in his voice; then suddenly he realized that he’d been beaten on this story from the start: Paddy Coglan, Connie — someone was always ahead of him. He was the one fighting shadows in the dark.

“I don’t understand,” Duggan said. “What did you say her name was?”

“I forget,” Terrell said. “It started with Smith or something like that.”

“Why the cute stuff? I asked you a question. What’s the girl’s name? What’s she got on Ticknor and Cellars?”

“Nothing at all,” Terrell said. “I was dreaming.”

“You sound wide-awake to me.”

“It’s a trick I learned in college. Take it easy.” Terrell put the phone down on Duggan’s protesting voice, and picked up his hat and coat. Duggan wouldn’t help. No one would help. She was trouble, and the smart boys would want no part of her. A pillow over her face, the pressure of a finger on her throat — that was the best thing all around. So the smart boys would figure it. But there was still a chance, Terrell knew. He had enough to print now. Enough to blow a loud whistle on Cellars.