Shield for Murder

8

Her name was printed on a white card in a brass frame: Linda Wade. Mark pressed the button beside it and the inner door lock clicked immediately. He stepped into a large, paneled foyer that was decorated with pots of ivy and several old-fashioned hunting prints.

A door on his left opened. Linda Wade, in black slacks and a white silk blouse, smiled at him and said, “Come in, please. I’ve always heard that reporters were erratic, but you’re right on time.”

His first impression was that she was smaller than he’d remembered her; but then, as he followed her into the apartment, he noticed that she was wearing flat-heeled moccasins.

The living room was high-ceilinged, spacious, and bright with colorful print drapes and white string rugs. There was a record player in one corner, and beside it, a bookcase full of albums. Music was playing now, a medley of show tunes.

She took his hat into another room and came back a moment later with a coffee tray and a plate of cookies. “Please sit down,” she said. “This is all I have before my first show, so I thought we might share it. Or would you rather have a drink?”

“No thanks, the coffee will be fine.”

She poured their coffee, then smiled at him directly. “I’ve been trying to remember where I’ve seen your name, Mr. Brewster. And I think I’ve got it now. Didn’t you do a feature on Max Leonard when he was at the Simba?”

Mark was surprised and pleased. “Where did you run into that?”

“My agent sent me a file of clips on the Simba before I took the job. I read your story on Max and loved it. I’ve met him a few times and think he’s wonderful, of course. You do, too, obviously.”

“Just about the best, if you like folk music. I do, so I asked the boss to let me take a crack at a feature on him. I’m glad you liked it.”

“I really thought it was fine,” she said, and sounded as if she meant it.

They talked for the next fifteen minutes about folk music, and some of the old and wonderful songs Alan Lomax had found in his trips through the South. By that time they had finished their coffee and were on a first name basis.

Finally she smiled and glanced at her watch. “This is a lot more fun than interviewing me, I’ll bet.”

“Well, we’ll see,” Mark said. He found himself liking Linda Wade, liking her good-humor, alertness, and poise. Also, he decided, she was very lovely. Her skin was soft and fresh, and her face, even in repose, had a quality of vitality and friendliness. He regretted that he had to put their relationship on a dishonest basis.

“By the way, we’ve got another mutual friend, I think,” he said. “Barny Nolan.”

“Oh, certainly. I’ve known him four or five months now.”

“He works at the Division I usually cover, but he hasn’t been there long. I don’t know him too well.”

Linda sipped her coffee, then smiled. “I like him. He’s the diamond-in-the-rough type. His bark is worse than his bite, if you’ll let me exhaust all my clichés in one burst.”

“I get the general idea,” Mark said. “One of the boys was telling me he’s having a rough time financially. That’s too bad, if it’s true.”

“I think it might be,” Linda said. “But he told me last night that he won’t be paying alimony any more, and he seemed sure that would make a big difference.”

“Things have improved for him, then?”

“I suppose you might put it that way.” She regarded him curiously. “I’m not sure I understand this. Did you come here to talk about me or about Barny?”

“You, of course. We just got off on a tangent. Supposing we talk about you now.”

She seemed uncertain, but began talking, telling him the sort of things she had undoubtedly told interviewers on dozens of occasions.

She’d been born and raised in Davenport, Iowa, had gone to the State University where she had sung in the glee club and with several small bands. Her father had taught music in a high school in Rock Island, which was just across the river from Davenport, and had helped train her voice. He hadn’t liked her style very much, but eventually became resigned to the fact that she simply wouldn’t ever be a coloratura soprano. When he had died she’d gone to Chicago where she got her first break in radio. That had been two years ago and she was still delighted and slightly amazed by her good luck.

“Can you remember all of this?” she said. “You’re not taking notes.”

“Oh, sure.”

“Where did my father teach school?” she said.

“What?”

She put her cup down. “I’m not so naive as you apparently think,” she said. “You’re not a bit interested in me. You’re interested in Barny, for some reason, aren’t you?”

Mark started to protest but suddenly he found himself sick of the deception. “Yes, I’m interested in Nolan.”

His abrupt candor put her off balance. She looked puzzled. “I don’t understand at all. Why would you come to me to find out about Barny? Why not talk to him?”

“That’s just not a very practical idea,” Mark said. “And you’re his girl, aren’t you? I thought you might be a good lead.”

“I think you’d better leave,” she said. She stood up, and there was an eloquent finality in every line of her slim body.

“Aren’t you curious about my interest in him?” Mark said.

“Not in the least.”

“Barny Nolan is a murderer,” Mark said.

The words were brutal and harsh in the cheerful room. Linda moved one hand slowly to her throat.

“You’re not serious,” she said.

“That’s not my idea of a funny line,” he said. He leaned forward and met her eyes directly. “I’m sorry if I shocked you. I didn’t mean to. But the facts are these: last night Nolan shot and killed a gambler named Dave Fiest. He shot Fiest in the back, without any credible provocation.”

“He... he tried to escape,” Linda said.

“Sure, sure, that’s Nolan’s story. But Fiest had money on him when he was shot, a lot of it. And that was gone when the other cops got to the scene.”

“Why are you telling me all this?” She picked up a cigarette and lighter from the coffee table. Her voice was strained. “Why... why don’t you go to the police?”

“Nolan is the police,” Mark said. “That complicates things, you see. If he weren’t a cop, I’d take my story to the Lieutenant at the division and he’d carry oh from there. But I can’t go to him with the same story about Nolan.”

“Why not?”

“You probably won’t understand. But cops are very sensitive about having other cops called murderers and thieves.”

She sat down and tucked her feet beneath her in an oddly little-girl pose. He felt slightly sorry for her as she stared at the smoke curling from her cigarette.

“Well, why are you making it your business?”

“That’s a good question,” he said. “Maybe I want to be a hero, like the reporters in movies. I don’t know, but it’s something I’ve got to do. I can’t sit still and let Nolan get away with this. I’d like to skip it, let it go merrily to the devil, but I just can’t. Did you ever have that experience?”

“No,” she said shortly. She had recovered her poise now, and was defiant. “How do I know there’s any truth in what you’re telling me? I don’t think Barny would commit a coldblooded murder, and if you knew him you’d understand why. He’s sullen at times, easily hurt and moody, but that doesn’t make him a criminal. He’s lonely and he feels, oh, I don’t know, that he doesn’t belong anywhere.”

“He belongs in jail.”

“This is preposterous,” Linda said, angrily. “Did you think I’d have the stolen money tucked away in the bosom of my dress? Or that I’d help you lay some sort of trap for Barny?”

Mark shrugged. “I hardly know what I hoped to find out. At any rate, I loused things up neatly.” He glanced at her, frowning. “I can’t make up my mind about you.”

“No one asked you to.”

“I know, but it’s intriguing, anyway. I can’t figure out which one of you is real: The mid-Western kid with the nice father or Nolan’s girl.”

She stood again, more decisively this time if that were possible, and walked to the door. “Will you go now, or shall I call Barny and tell him you’re here and won’t leave?”

“I’ll go,” he said, sighing.

“I’m delighted,” she said, and hurried out and returned with his hat.

“There’s just one thing,” Mark said. “Has Nolan given you anything to keep for him? Any kind of a package?”

“I wouldn’t tell you if he had.”

“Meaning, I take it, that he hasn’t. Very well.” Mark took his hat and she opened the door. “There’s still one more thing though.”

She looked up into his eyes, a faint smile on her lips. “I can guess what that is. You’re going to ask me not to tell Nolan you were here.”

“That’s right. You must be psychic.”

“I just knew you’d be afraid of him.”

“Of course, I’m afraid of him,” Mark said, shortly. “That’s logical, isn’t it? I think he’s a murderer. And I’m afraid of murderers. It’s something Freudian, I suppose.”

He walked out and she closed the door and stood with her back to it a moment, listening to the quick beat of her heart...

Her first number went badly that night. She sat at her dressing table afterward, smoking a cigarette and hating Mark Brewster thoroughly and completely. Why had he done this to her? Irritably she freshened her make-up, and decided as she studied her pale cheeks that she’d tell Barny about it, and ask him to make Brewster leave her alone. This was a situation he could handle perfectly.

Feeling slightly better, then, she changed her evening gown for a severely simple black dress and stepped into black suede sling pumps. She was somewhat annoyed with herself for making this dinner date with Barny’s friends. They might be wonderful people, but she didn’t like the compromising aspects of such an evening, nor did she like dashing in and out between shows. She put on a single strand of pearls, checked her stocking seams, and then, feeling harried and upset, left to meet Barny.

He was waiting for her at the small oval bar in the front of the club. They said hello but very little else until they were in his car driving out Walnut Street to West Philadelphia.

Then Nolan glanced at her and said: “Well, how did the interview go?”

“Not very well.” She hesitated a moment, remembering what Mark Brewster had told her about Barny. Then she decided it was just preposterous. “Does he have anything against you?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, he’s hardly a member of the Nolan Marching and Chowder Club,” she said, glancing at his strong heavy profile. “That’s why he came to see me, I discovered. To talk about you. It wasn’t very flattering.”

“He talked about me, eh?” Nolan said quietly.

“Yes. Does he have any grudge against you?”

“You might put it that way. I want you to tell me what he said. Everything, understand?”

“Well, he seems very curious about you.”

“You’ve made that clear by now,” Nolan said. “Let’s have the details.”

“I’m not sure I can remember everything,” Linda said; and suddenly she was sorry that she had brought up the subject.

Nolan drove along in silence for a few blocks, watching the right side of the street; and when he saw a parking place pulled in and cut the motor. It was very dark and quiet along that stretch of the city. Linda started slightly as Nolan turned to her with a twist of his big shoulders.

“Now, Linda,” he said, speaking very slowly and carefully, “I want you to understand that this is important. You’re right, Brewster don’t like me. And he’d like to get something on me. That’s why it’s important you tell me everything he said.”

She had never felt him so close to her before and the sensation wasn’t pleasant. He was staring at her intently, and she could see the tiny purplish veins in his eyes, and his big square teeth glinting in the dashboard light. She felt that he was closing in on her, smothering her with his power and strength; and suddenly she was afraid.

“Go on, kid.”

“He said... he said you weren’t anyone for a girl like me to be seeing,” she said. She didn’t know why she was lying nor why her heart was beating so rapidly.

“What else?”

It wasn’t easy with his eyes on hers, hard and suspicious.

“He said you were... were just a cop, and that you drank too much and chased a lot of cheap women.”

Nolan leaned back and rubbed his jaw. He was silent a moment, studying her delicate profile. “And then he tried to date you up, I suppose?” he said.

“Yes, that’s right. It’s pretty obvious, isn’t it?”

She glanced at him and saw that he was grinning. He pushed his hat back and she noticed the shining band of perspiration across his forehead.

“I told you he was a bum, kid,” he said. “So what did you tell him? Did you give him the brush?”

“Yes.”

Nolan slapped the rim of the steering wheel with a big hand and laughed out loud; and then he patted her shoulder.

“Let’s forget about Mark Brewster, kid. I’ll take care of him tomorrow. Tonight we’ll have fun. You’ll like the Lavellis, I know.”

The Lavellis lived in a small, conventionally furnished apartment in West Philadelphia. Mike was a tall rangy man in his late thirties, with black hair and a lively bouncing manner. His wife, Carolyn, was blonde and plain, a little stouter than was becoming to her, but with gentle eyes and a warm honest smile.

The living room seemed even smaller with four people in it, but the smallness wasn’t oppressive. It was durably and unimaginatively furnished, Linda thought, but Mike’s heartiness, and his wife’s obvious pleasure in him and her home, made the physical framework unimportant.

Linda and Carolyn had one cocktail, Barny and Mike two; then they went into the dining room. There was a centerpiece of artificial violets on the table, and mats adorned with fat cabbage roses under each plate, and paper napkins in sterling-plated napkin rings. Everything was obviously as festive as Carolyn could make it, and the main course was spaghetti with a pungent meat and cheese sauce that had probably taken her all day to prepare. She promised to give Linda the recipe for the sauce, which she said was a specialty of her grandmother’s, who had learned to make it in Palermo.

After coffee and Spumoni, there was some good-natured kidding about who should do the dishes. Mike flatly refused to help, on the grounds that once a husband started something like that he was stuck with it for the rest of his life. Carolyn protested when Linda began clearing the table, but she seemed grateful for the help. Mike and Nolan went back to the living room with their cigars.

Nolan sat down where he could watch Linda moving about in the dining room and kitchen. He thought she had never looked prettier, as she tidied things up with efficient speed, and chatted smilingly with Mike’s wife. She was a hell of a lot prettier than Mike’s wife, he thought. Nolan had wanted to help with the dishes, but he hadn’t quite known how to suggest it; and now the chance was gone. It would have been fine to work with Linda, kidding her maybe about how she could make him do anything, even dishes, and just talking about things in general.

Mike passed more drinks around later and switched on the television set. He turned to the channel that presented the fights from Saint Nicholas Arena in New York, and for fifteen or twenty minutes they watched a pair of inept heavyweights maul each other with little effect.

“Ah, you could take both those bums,” Mike said to Nolan. “If you’re still in shape, that is.”

“I’m in pretty good shape,” Nolan said, grinning, pleased that Linda had heard his comment.

Nolan was sitting behind her and slightly to the right, and he could watch her profile in the faint fight from the television screen. She seemed to be enjoying herself, he decided. Well, why shouldn’t she? Mike and Carolyn were a great pair, and his friends.

This was what he wanted, he realized almost solemnly. Just to sit around peacefully and normally with Linda. It could work out, he told himself fiercely. It was working out. All he needed to do was look around to see that. Here were his friends and Linda, all enjoying themselves after a good dinner, and all liking each other and getting along fine. There was no reason it shouldn’t work out for him, like it did for most people. After all, he was no freak. He was just like everybody else, wasn’t he? He could get a place of his own, and have friends in for dinner, and have Linda there with him. It was all possible.

They left after the fight because Linda had to get back for her next show. Mike stood in the doorway with his arm about his wife’s waist as they went down the stairs, and everyone called out something about getting together soon. The words mingled together pleasantly, warmly, indistinctly.

“I knew you’d like them,” Nolan said happily, as they headed for town. “Mike’s a great guy. We were buddies for a long time.”

He drove in a relaxed and contented silence for another few blocks, and, then, slowing for a stop light, he saw a small ring of people clustered at the front of a candy store; and inside this human ring two youngsters were battling wildly with each other.

“That looks like a better fight than the one we saw on television,” he said jokingly to Linda.

“Why don’t some of those men stop it?” Linda said.

“Well, sometimes it’s better to let them get it out of their systems.”

“That’s nonsense. Why don’t you stop them, Barny?”

He glanced at her, surprised at the anger in her voice. “You want me to stop them fighting?”

“Yes, of course. They’re just babies.”

Nolan scratched his head. Then he shrugged and turned off the ignition. “Maybe you’re right at that. No point letting the little monkeys kill each other.”

He climbed from the car and walked up to the circle of men surrounding the fighting boys. Pushing his way through the crowd, he caught the kids by the shoulders and pulled them apart. They were about fourteen, as sturdily built as fire plugs, and both of them were bleeding from the mouth.

“Relax, you tough guys,” he said. “You’re going to hurt each other if you keep this up.”

The two boys glared at each other, panting hard, but Nolan saw they weren’t eager to continue fighting. That was the way with a lot of kids’ battles, he thought irrelevantly.

One of the men in the crowd tapped Nolan on the shoulder and said, “Look, Mac, why don’t you take a try at minding your own business? The kids were settling their argument by a fair clean fight, and they got a right to finish it.”

Nolan turned, keeping his body between the two boys. The man who had spoken to him had a cigar in the corner of his mouth, and was strongly and solidly built. He was about twenty-five, needed a shave and was wearing a sweat shirt and denim trousers. Nolan felt the stirrings of explosive anger. He knew this type; they were always ready to insure kids, “a clean fair fight.” Instead of stopping the bickering, they would hustle the kids into a street or alley, form a circle around them, and make them fight until one had to quit. Nolan remembered a dozen street-fights he’d been in just because some older men had wanted a little diversion or excitement.

“The fight’s over, friend,” he said to the big young man in the sweat shirt. “So go find something else to do for the evening.”

“Yeah, who says so?”

Nolan’s anger was deep and savage now, but, oddly, it was directed at everything that created situations like this, instead of at the young punk. Ordinarily, Nolan would have been delighted to crowd the punk into some overt action, and then work off his rage by knocking him senseless. But now he felt strangely sorry for the young man, as he felt strangely sorry for the kids. “You’d better drift along,” he said, in a milder voice. “I don’t want any trouble with you.”

Two men on the edge of the crowd moved away. One of them muttered, “I told you he was a cop. I told you so right off.”

The young man in the sweat shirt heard this and looked uncertainly over his shoulder, then back at Nolan. He wet his lips, shrugged. “Well, if you’re a cop I guess you can stop the fight.”

“I didn’t say I was a cop,” Nolan said. “I said the fight was over, and I told you to run along. So beat it.”

The young man wet his lips again, and then, seeing that Nolan’s feet were spread and his right fist in a position to come up fast, he muttered something under his breath and pushed out of the crowd. He walked quickly away without looking back.

Nolan squatted down between the two youngsters, who were staring at him with awkward respect.

“I want you two boys to shake hands,” he said. “Fighting’s a dumb way to settle anything. What the hell were you arguing about, anyway?”

“He said I went to a lousy school,” one of the boys said.

“He said the same thing to me first.”

“I did not!”

“The hell you didn’t.”

“Now take it easy,” Nolan said, shaking their hard young shoulders. “Get this, and get it straight. Everybody’s school is a pretty sacred thing. You shouldn’t kid a guy about that.” For the moment Nolan believed what he said, and his voice was solemn with conviction. “A guy’s school is like his country and his mother. Everybody should respect his feeling about it, just like you respect his feeling about his mother.” Nolan remembered his own school as he talked, remembered it as it had never been; fine and warm and glorious. “You wouldn’t ever kid a guy about his mother, would you?” he asked the boys.

They shook their heads and stared at the sidewalk.

Nolan stood, took a bill from his pocket and handed it to one of the boys. “I want you to have a soda on me,” he said. “And cut out the fighting, hear?”

The boy fingered the dollar and Nolan suddenly realized that it was Dave Fiest’s money he had given away. He shook his head irritably, nervously, to dislodge that thought; and then he walked back to the car.

They drove on toward the city and Linda said, smiling: “You handled that just fine, Barny. I was proud of you.”

“I’m glad I did, you know. Kids shouldn’t have to bat each other around in street fights.”

Linda smiled faintly, thinking of Mark Brewster. She’d like to tell him about this incident. Barny was hardly a Chesterfieldian type, but his instincts were warm and human.

“Look, I want you to do me a favor,” Nolan said, as they pulled in front of the Simba. “Okay?”

“Yes, if I can, Barny.”

“Good girl.” He opened the glove compartment and removed a thick, newspaper-wrapped bundle that was tied tightly with thin cord. “I want you to hang onto this for a few weeks, kid. It’s evidence I’ll need in a case in a little while, and I want to make sure that no one else gets hold of it. Do you understand?”

She was certain her voice would give her away; but to her amazement it was quite steady as she asked casually, “What kind of evidence, Barny? Or wouldn’t I understand?”

He grinned. “You wouldn’t understand, kid. And you wouldn’t be interested anyway. How about it? Will you stick it away in your apartment for a few weeks?”

He dropped the bundle in her lap, and her hands took hold of it unconsciously. She said nothing for a moment, but she knew that he was watching her closely.

“Yes, I’ll keep it for you, Barny,” she said, and again her voice was miraculously steady.

Suddenly he said: “You like me, don’t you, Linda?”

“Please, Barny—”

“You like me, I know you do,” he said, stubbornly.

“Yes — I like you, Barny. We’re good friends.”

“I’m crazy about you,” he said, and there was an undercurrent of need in his voice. “Remember that, will you?”

He laughed again, strongly and cheerfully.

Linda sat beside him, her hands tensely holding the bundle in her lap; and, oddly, all she could think about was Mark Brewster.

“One thing,” Nolan said, casually, as he helped her from the car. “Don’t tell anybody about that evidence I gave you. It’s too complicated to explain, but it’ll be better if you keep it quiet.”

“Of course,” Linda said, and her voice was still steady.