Night Extra

7

The Riley Hotel was a gloomy red-brick building four blocks from the ocean, facing an unrelieved stretch of penny arcades, garages, shooting galleries and cheap restaurants. In Beach City’s well-publicized social stratifications, the Riley simply didn’t exist; all values here, personal and material, were estimated from the waterline, and four blocks from the water took one into social Siberia. But there was a kind of despairing defiance in the Riley’s chromium and gilt entrance, Terrell thought; it was incongruous, silly, but rather brave, like a fat woman’s decision to wear a bikini and to hell with it.

The lobby was drafty and needed cleaning; the beery wind eddying from the lounge set little flurries of dusty tobacco and cigar bands skipping across the hard-wood floor. Terrell knew the Inspector of Detectives in Beach City, a man named Moran. He mentioned Moran’s name to the elderly desk clerk, and then asked if he might look at the register.

“Why, of course,” the desk clerk said. “The inspector was in just the other day, as a matter of fact. No trouble, just a misunderstanding. A girl passed out in the bar, and somebody slapped her to bring her around — and it frightened her. As I say, it was a misunderstanding.” He smiled, displaying large, very white and false teeth. “There are people who judge a hotel by its location. It’s a form of snobbery, don’t you think?”

“You have a point,” Terrell said, looking at the register. Paddy Coglan had checked in the day before, at ten in the morning.

“The man in 103 — is he up there now?”

“Yes, nice, quiet fellow. Has his food sent up. Is anything wrong?”

“Nothing serious. But don’t bother to announce me.”

Terrell took the elevator to the third floor and walked down a wide gray hallway to Coglan’s room. A breakfast tray was beside the door, the napkin crumpled, the stub of a cigarette pressed into a mound of rubbery-looking scrambled eggs. Terrell studied the tray for a few seconds, then sighed and rapped lightly on the door.

Someone had been moving about inside the room, but now those small shuffling sounds faded into silence.

“Open up, Paddy,” he said. “This is Sam Terrell. I want to talk to you.”

The knob turned slowly, and the door swung back a few inches. Coglan stared up at him, his eyes shifting and his lips trying to work themselves into a smile. “Well, Sam boy,” he said, laughing a bit. “You could knock me over with a feather. I needed a rest, and I ducked over here all by myself.” He rubbed his mouth with the back of his hand. “That’s all I wanted, some place where I could have a drink in private without scandalizing the neighbors.” He smelled of whiskey, and he needed a shave.

“Can I come in?”

“Why sure, Sam.” Coglan moved away from the door and Terrell walked inside and took off his hat. The room was meanly furnished; a faded carpet, thin as paper, a bureau with half the drawer knobs missing, beige curtains shadowed in streaks with dust. It was a still life of small losses, of meagre defeats; a bitterly appropriate place for Coglan to run to ground, Terrell thought.

“You want a drink, Sam?”

“No, thanks.”

“Well, I’ll have just a touch.” Coglan moved over to the bureau where there was a half-full bottle of whiskey and. a blue plastic tooth-brush glass, its sides faintly streaked with a pink dentifrice. He poured himself a long drink and then sat down on the edge of the bed. “You take the chair,” he said. “I save it for guests.” He wasn’t wearing a shirt, and the skin of his shoulders was blotchy with freckles. He finished his drink in one swallow, and it reddened his cheeks and brought a film of moisture over his eyes. “Boy, that does it. I seem to need a drink today. Must be coming down with something.” He smiled at Terrell. “Well, how come you’re over this way?”

“You know why I’m here, Paddy. Me or somebody else — what difference does it make?”

“Yeah,” Coglan said, in a gentle, whispering voice. “Yeah.” He smiled again, blinking his eyes rapidly, and the liquor on his lower lip gleamed in the harsh light of the room. “Somebody had to come, I guess.”

“Because you lied, and an innocent man may die for it.” Terrell sat down and took out his cigarettes. “You can’t live with a thing like that. There’s not enough booze in the world to give you a night’s sleep.”

“They had too much on me,” Coglan said. He nodded wearily at the empty glass in his hands. “Too many times playing around with this stuff instead of minding my work. They’ve got reports, suspended verdicts — stacks of them. They could toss me out in less time than it would take to fill in the forms. And Stanko said he would if I didn’t—” Coglan sighed and looked into the bottom of his glass. “Unless I lied. Unless I said I didn’t see the man who ran out of Caldwell’s. He said it was hush-hush business — that I’d understand later and that sort of thing. I didn’t believe him. But I pretended I did. Even to myself.” Coglan wet his lips and walked over to the bureau. “Sure you won’t have a nip?”

“No thanks, Paddy. You go ahead.”

“So I lied to you, to everybody, including the judge,” Coglan said, measuring out his drink slowly and carefully. “I finish my twenty-five years in two months. Then my pension comes through. I want it, Sam, not for me, but for my wife. We never had kids, you know, but with the pension we could go out to California where her youngest sister is living. They’ve got a big family, lots of young ones. And that’s what my wife’s been thinking about all these years. You know how women are. It changes them not to have babies. It hurts them. And she wanted to be near those youngsters.” Coglan looked up at Terrell, his eyes pleading for understanding. “I owe a lot on the house still, and we’ve got doctor bills going back to when she had that heart trouble. Without the pension I’d be. on the streets, Sam, a guy fifty-seven years old who’d been thrown off the force for drinking. Great recommendation for another job, eh? I was scared. Not of being slugged or shot. But of being out on my can, without a dime. Do you understand, Sam?”

“I think so,” Terrell said.

“I was never a bad cop,” Coglan said slowly. “I was just no good. There’s a difference. I never shook people down at accidents, or went looking for married guys necking in cars with their girl friends. I just was a nothing. Pulling boxes, telling people to keep their dogs locked up, stopping fights between kids.” Coglan turned the glass around in his hands, staring at the darkly shining liquor. “But I always thought I’d get a chance to prove myself. Going up a flight of stairs with a gun after a killer — that kind of thing. But the chance never did come along. You got to be lucky to prove you’re any good. Did you ever think of that?”

“Sure,” Terrell said. “But you’re getting your chance. What happened the night Eden Myles was murdered?”

“I heard her scream,” Coglan said in a weary, hopeless voice. “I had just turned the corner from Regent Square into Manor Lane. I started running. I was only two or three doors from Caldwell’s house. Otherwise I wouldn’t have heard her yell. It was cut off in a hurry, you see. Well, I went up to Caldwell’s door. You don’t bust in on an important man like that without some good reason, so I just sort of waited there, wondering whether I’d imagined the noise. Then the door was jerked open, and out came this big guy. I got a good look at him, Sam. He was surprised and he just stood there for a second. He was big, with thick black hair and a wide, tough face. A gorilla, Sam. Wearing a trenchcoat. No hat, so I could see a deep scar on his forehead. Then he pushed past me and ran across the street, angling toward those shadows from the wall around the church. You see how it was?”

“I see. So you lost him. Then you came back to Caldwell’s?”

“That’s right. The door was open. Caldwell was lying in a chair out cold, and she was dead on the floor. Her face was all swollen and blue. I called the district and Stanko answered the phone. He just told me to sit tight, and hung up.” Coglan finished the drink and ran his tongue around his lips. “Then you called, and I gave you a line on what happened. When Stanko showed up he told me to forget all about the big man I saw running out of the house. So I lied. But sitting over here in this crummy joint I realized I couldn’t stick it out.”

Watching Coglan pour himself another drink, Terrell was touched by a deep, inarticulate pity; this sad little man had been smashed by the morality that admired compromise more than any other virtue. Put up with it, that’s the way the world is, only suckers try to change it. The seeds of destruction might have been with him from birth, but this particular city had provided lush soil for them to thrive on.

“So what do I do?” Coglan said.

“Good question,” Terrell said drily. “You’re on record with one story. Stanko will deny your second version. And you’re going to be in the middle.”

“Can’t I do anything?”

“You can give me the true story, and well run it,” Terrell said. “That will take the heat off Caldwell, and put it where it belongs. But the cops who take orders from the Hall will be gunning for you. They’ll boot you off the force as a liar and a drunk. And they’ll hound you off any other job you try to get in the city. And they’ll stop your pension.”

Coglan stared at his empty glass. “You put it pretty hard, Sam.”

“We’re telling each other the truth, that’s all.” Terrell glanced at his watch. “Does anybody know you’re here?”

“Just my wife. Stanko said get out of town for ten days and stay quiet.”

“Okay, you just sit tight. I’ll call you tonight — around eight-thirty. I’ll tell you where to go then. Everything will be arranged for you. We’ll put what you’ve told me on tape, and then let it fly.” Terrell hesitated, looking down at Coglan. He said, “Have you got your gun?”

“Sure, I don’t travel without it.”

“Good.” Terrell stood and walked to the door. “Just one other thing. I can’t promise it, but Mike Karsh might fix things so you don’t miss that pension. He can spend the paper’s money with real talent.”

“I’ll take my chances. I don’t deserve anything for what I’m doing.”

“Okay. I’ll call you at eight-thirty.”

“Sure, Sam.” Coglan smiled and put out his hand. “I’ll be waiting. I’ve got nowhere to go...”

Terrell was back at the paper by five that afternoon. Karsh’s office was empty, and Tuckerman told him he was at the track. Terrell went to his desk, and looked through his mail. He called Karsh’s apartment at six, but the maid said he wasn’t in. Terrell ordered coffee and smoked a few cigarettes, trying to shake his mood of depression; the session with Coglan had left him feeling tired and bitter. At seven he called Karsh again, and this time the maid said, “Just a minute, please.”

Karsh said, “Hello, Sam, what is it?”

“I’ve got something good.”

“That’s what the touts were saying all afternoon. It cost me six hundred bucks.” Karsh sounded sharp and irritable. “What is it?”

“I found Paddy Coglan.”

“Who said he was lost?”

“He got sent out of town in a hurry after testifying. But I found him. He’s at the Riley in Beach City. And Mike, he’s willing to talk for publication. The whole story. Who he saw leaving Caldwell’s, who ordered him to lie about it.”

“Oh, brother,” Karsh said softly. “Get over here fast, Sam. We’ve got our story now. Get moving...”

Terrell reached Karsh’s suite around seven-thirty, and walked in on the disorderly beginnings of an impromptu party; Mayers, a bookmaker, was on the phone ordering food and liquor sent up, and two blondes sat cross-legged on the floor looking through record albums. A couple of county bailiffs stood at the bar free-loading with efficient relish, and Karsh’s mistress, Jenny Patterson, was talking with Nat Clark, a fight manager. They had all been at the track together and their mood was animated and gay. Except Jenny’s, Terrell noticed; she had been crying, and Nat Clark was patting her hand.

Karsh wasn’t in sight. Terrell joined Jenny and Nat Clark and said, “Where’s Mike?”

“In there with Gloria,” Jenny said, staring with large, martyred eyes at the hallway and door that led to Karsh’s bedroom. Gloria was Karsh’s ex-wife, and she wouldn’t have set foot in his apartment unless she had a grievance, Terrell knew; and her only grievances were financial. He glanced at his watch, twenty minutes to eight. Still plenty of time for his call to Coglan.

“She came bursting in here like a fishwife,” Jenny said, dabbing at her eyes. “He took her in there because he hates scenes. She knows that.”

“What’s her trouble?” Terrell said.

“One of Mike’s checks bounced,” Nat Clark said, shrugging. “Those things happen. Mike wouldn’t know an overdraft if it bit him in the ankle.”

“She just wants to embarrass him,” Jenny said. “She likes to make us all seem cheap and dirty.”

“Now, now,” Nat Clark said.

“It’s true,” Jenny said, in a breaking voice. “Mike and I want a life together — but she won’t get married because it would cost her his alimony. I know her kind.”

Jenny was attractive, dark and slender and well-groomed, but Terrell found her almost intolerable; she was everlastingly shifting from one emotional crisis to another, eternally suffering from fancied slights and injured feelings. And she was shrewd enough to make Karsh feel responsible for all of her troubles. She played like a virtuoso on his compassion, and his rather old-fashioned sense of guilt. It sickened Terrell. She wanted to be innocent again — this was what she plagued Karsh with, her nostalgic and wistful yearning for virtue. According to Jenny, Karsh had turned her into a creature of dreadful sophistication and wickedness. She could never go back to the sweet, simple person she was before she met him; the bridges were burned.

All of this kept Karsh uncomfortably off-balance. She had persuaded him to make a ridiculous charade of domesticity for her parents, and when they were in town he was dragooned into taking them to the zoo and the automat, and in general behaving as if he were acting out cozy scenes for magazine covers. This complicity was a confession of guilt, and Jenny made him repeat it each time her family attacked his flanks.

But Karsh put up with it. He obviously got something from her in return. She was the shadow of a woman, at least, and a certain involvement with the human situation. Was that enough? Terrell wondered. Or was it all he could get?

Mayers covered the phone with his hand and called, “All right now, lemme try to get this straight. Who wants steak? Don’t shout. Just raise a pinkie like good little boys and girls. One, two, three, four — that’s what I figured.” And into the phone: “Yeah, four steaks, all medium-well, and three chicken curries. And don’t just dab on the chutney. Send up a bottle. What? Yeah, Mike Karsh, that’s right.”

Jenny was saying to Nat Clark, “Honest to God, I never knew what the word meant until I met Mike. I mean, I’d never heard it used in a sentence. I never knew people — well, like you, for instance.”

“We’re a desperate bunch,” Nat Clark said, sighing.

Terrell excused himself and went into the guest bedroom which was generally used as a cloakroom during parties. He wanted to wash his hands; he felt grimy, not so much from five hours on the road as from five minutes with Jenny.

As Terrell entered the room a man named Diddy turned quickly toward him, a bright smile flashing on his small, shrewd face. “Hi, Sam, how’s it going? Long time no see, keed.”

Diddy had been in the act of putting an unopened bottle of whiskey into the pocket of a camel’s hair overcoat. Terrell stared at him for a few seconds and Diddy wet his lips. “We may be going out later, Sam. Mike likes a drink when we’re driving. So I thought I’d take one along for him.”

“Where did he find such thoughtful friends?” Terrell said, shaking his head slowly. “You’d better take some money, too. He keeps that in his wallet. He might want to look at Lincoln’s picture while he’s driving around.”

“Very funny,” Diddy said gently. He straightened up, not smiling any more. “What’s it to you, Sam? It’s not your booze.”

“Ownership interests you? I wouldn’t have guessed that.”

“Very funny indeed,” Diddy said, but there were spots of color in his cheek. He walked out of the room carrying the bottle by the neck and muttering something under his breath. Terrell went into the bathroom and washed his hands. He was surprised by his appearance; his face was pale and his eyes were hard and bright with anger. Where did Mike find these slugs, he thought, wadding up a towel and flinging it aside.

When he left the bedroom he almost ran into Karsh and his ex-wife, Gloria, standing together at the front door. Karsh looked harassed and weary, but Gloria, a chic, tiny creature with fantastically drawn eyebrows, seemed in a good mood.

“Sam, love,” she said, putting out a hand. “We simply never see each other any more. Why have you crept out of my heart?”

The hand was soft and deceptive, like the paw of a cat with the claws sheathed.

“You’re looking fine, Gloria,” he said.

“You put things so extravagantly. I suppose it’s your Latin streak.”

“Yes, it runs north to south just along my femur,” Terrell said.

“You must show me someday,” she said, squeezing his hand. She glanced at Karsh and made a little face at him. “Sorry I embarrassed all your lovely friends, Mike. Such an elegant crowd. Does the delicatessen send them up as a premium with food orders?”

Karsh said, “Gloria, will you please get the hell out of here?”

“You doll,” she said, smiling pleasurably at the anger in his eyes. “Just take care of that little matter for me in the morning, will you? The deposit, remember? And about our darling’s new car — I leave that to your generous judgment. I’m absolutely stony.”

“Okay, okay, I’ll think it over.”

“Bye, bye, darlings.” She walked jauntily toward the elevators, showing off her cute little body like a saucy child. Karsh closed the door and took Terrell’s arm. “Let’s go into my bedroom,” he said. “The only reason I enjoy making dough is to keep that bitch at a distance. A paycheck to me is what a whip and a chair is to a lion tamer.”

The party was accelerating rapidly, and it was a relief when Karsh closed the bedroom door behind them and shut off the badly synchronized cacophony of jazz, talk and laughter. Karsh sat down slowly in a leather chair before the fireplace. He still looked tired, but the irritation was gone from his face and eyes; work was performing the familiar alchemy on him, burning out everything but an excitement for the job at hand. “Let’s have it all in order,” he said, glancing up at Terrell.

Terrell told him what he had learned from Paddy Coglan, and when he finished Karsh looked at his watch. “Eight-fifteen,” he murmured.

For a few seconds he was silent, frowning at the backs of his hands. Then he said, “Paddy Coglan is a ticking bomb, Sam. When he explodes the whole blazing city may be up in smoke. We’d better get him over here. Let’s see, there’s a train from Beach City around nine. Tell him to catch it. And tell him to keep out of the club car. I don’t want him loaded. I’ll have Tuckerman and a few of the boys from the press room meet him at the station, and I’ll arrange a room for him here. You can spend tonight getting his story, and we’ll cut loose tomorrow morning.”

“How are you going to play it?”

“Straight, absolutely straight. There’s something to remember. You don’t have to hoke up an honest story.” Karsh glanced up at Terrell, a cold enthusiasm lighting his features. “Power comes from appropriateness, Sam. We could trick this story up with circus stunts, but we’d cheapen it. Pictures of Coglan at a typewriter, hat on back of his head, telling all. That kind of corn. But we have a story that can stand on its own without props. Appropriateness comes from taste, and that’s why you might make a good editor some day. You’ve got taste.” Karsh stood and looked at his watch. “Get Coglan now. I’ll try to promote us a couple of drinks.”

The circuits to Beach City were loaded, the operator told Terrell, but she promised to call him back in a few minutes.

Karsh came back with two whiskeys and soda and gave one to Terrell. “They were pretty nice about it,” he said drily. “I interrupted their dinner, but they didn’t mind. They’re a considerate bunch.”

“Why don’t you tie a can to them?” Terrell said. He realized from the expression on Karsh’s face that he had made a mistake but he couldn’t stop. “Then open the. windows and let the cold air blow in for a while. They’re slugs, Mike.”

“And after they’re gone, what’s left? Me, sitting all alone with a drink in my hand. Maybe they’re better than nothing, Sam.”

“Get a dog,” Terrell said. He hated having forced Karsh to make that admission. Sometimes it was a kindness not to point out the obvious. “A dog would like it here,” he said, looking away from the tight little smile on Karsh’s face. “Good hours, incentive pay.”

“It’s no place for a clean, young dog,” Karsh said. “But I’ll tell you what.” He lit his cigarette and sat down on the arm of the leather chair. “I’m going to need an assistant in a year or two. A man to take over some of my chores. The publisher wants to quote protect me from my selfless devotion to the paper unquote. You keep on learning, and you’ll be my boy.”

Terrell found it difficult to realize that he was. casually being offered one of the top newspaper jobs in the state. He said foolishly, “You mean that?”

Karsh smiled faintly. “Sure. A year on the news desk, some time in Washington maybe, and a little homework on where woodpulp comes. from — that’s all you need. You could take over the office next to mine, and at the risk of sounding sloppy, I’d be damn glad to have you there. You’ve got a little extra, Sam. I don’t know the word for it, decency maybe. An autopsy wouldn’t show it, but it’s there.”

The phone began to ring. “Many thanks,” Terrell said. “That’s an inadequate way of putting it, but it’s what I mean. Many thanks.”

“Get the phone,” Karsh said.

The operator said, “I have your party now, just one moment.” There was a click, and then a voice said, “The Riley Hotel, reservations.”

“I’d like to talk to Patrick Coglan, please.”

“Yes, sir.” There was a silence, and then: “Who’s calling, please?”

“Sam Terrell with the Call-Bulletin.”

“Yes, just a moment.”

Terrell heard a murmuring sound in the, background, and then another voice came on the line. “Terrell? This is Tim Moran, Homicide. What did you want to see Coglan about?”

Terrell felt a chill go through him. “It’s a personal matter, Tim. What’s up?”

“Sorry to give it to you this way, but he shot himself about half an hour ago. Was he sick, or anything like that?”

Terrell covered the receiver and looked at Karsh. “Coglan’s dead, suicide. I’d better get over there.”

“See what they’ve got to say first.”

Terrell uncovered the receiver and said, “I don’t know if he was sick, Tim. Can you tell me what happened?”

“All right. He was found by a maid. Her name was Schmidt, Mary Schmidt, age 43, and she lives in Brownsville, 24 Mt. Airy Road.”

“I don’t need all that,” Terrell said.

“All right. She found him at about eight o’clock. He shot himself with his own gun. In the left temple. The doc thinks he might have been dead a couple of hours though. Those shooting galleries across the street covered the shot.”

“Did he leave any note?”

“We didn’t find anything.”

“Was he drunk?”

“I don’t know. The doc will have all that in a little while. What did you want him for, Sam? You were over this morning, I know.”

“I was doing a piece on him,” Terrell said. “Profile of an average cop, that sort of thing. He had his moment of glory the other night on that Caldwell murder, and I was tying him into our Sunday run-down.”

“Well, how did he seem when you talked to him? Depressed? Worried? Anything like that?”

“No, he seemed fine. Thanks, Tim.” Terrell put the phone down slowly and looked at Karsh. “In the left temple, seven-thirty or earlier, no note. That’s it, Mike.”

“You should have got his story on paper. You should have taken a statement from him and had it witnessed and notarized.” Karsh threw his cigarette into the fireplace, rose and began pacing the room. “Or you should have used a dictaphone.”

“I’ll remember next time,” Terrell said.

“Okay, relax. I’m not riding you for kicks. But there was too much pressure on Coglan — from inside and out. You might have guessed this was going to happen.”

“He didn’t act like he was going to kill himself,” Terrell said.

“Maybe he got drinking and thinking.”

“Maybe,” Terrell said. He smiled faintly at Karsh, but his eyes were bitter. “I fumbled this one, I guess. A little smarter work and he might be alive right now.”

“You couldn’t help that.”

“Thanks.”

Outside the party was blasting away merrily. The music was loud and one of the blondes was dancing. in a slow, mesmerized fashion with the little man named Diddy. A waiter was collecting cigarette-littered dinner plates, and Mayers was pouring brandy into balloon-shaped snifters. The second blonde stood swaying in front of the record player, staring in frozen astonishment at a full glass of whiskey which someone had placed on the slowly spinning turntable. Terrell glanced back from the front door and saw Karsh walking slowly and wearily in to join the party.