The Bigger They Come

Chapter 9

The cab driver was waiting for us. He held the door open. Bertha Cool said, ‘Stillwater Apartments,’ and pulled herself into the cab. I followed, and said, as the cab driver closed the door, ‘Didn’t you want to go to see Sandra?’

‘Not just yet,’ she said.

The cab lurched into motion. I said, ‘I’ve got a wild idea.’

‘How wild?’ she asked.

‘Awfully wild.’

‘Let’s hear it, Donald.’

‘A couple of things about this case are screwy. I have a hunch Cunweather is connected with this slot-machine business. He’s probably higher-up. Morgan Birks was contact man. Morgan was given money for a pay-off, and now that information about the pay-off is commencing to come out before the grand jury, it appears that Morgan Birks was making a rake-off of his own. In other words, every time he told the ring they had to pay off a hundred dollars, the pay-off was really only fifty. He was giving fifty to the cops, and salting fifty in a safety deposit box.’

‘There’s nothing wild about that idea,’ she said, groping around in her bag for a cigarette, ‘and nothing very original. It’s been done before — you’re probably right at that.’

‘Wait a minute,’ I said. ‘I’m coming to something.’

She pulled out her cigarette, and said, ‘Go ahead and come to it.’

‘Earlier in the evening Cunweather was confident that Morgan Birks never got to the Perkins Hotel. He seemed to know everything I did at the Perkins Hotel. I played one person at the Perkins Hotel for information. That person was the bell captain. The bell captain must have been one of their gang who was planted there.’

She said, ‘That’s sense.’

‘Then they must have planted the bell captain before I got there.’

‘That’s right.’

‘And it probably took a little money and preparation so they must have been working on that for a day or two.’

‘All right.’

‘But the Perkins Hotel didn’t actually figure in the play until Sally Durke went there,’ I said, ‘and I was right on her heels. And the bell captain was pretty well established by that time.’

‘That means they had a good tip-off service,’ she said.

‘It means more than that. How did anyone know Sally Durke was coming to the Perkins Hotel? She didn’t have any occasion to meet Morgan Birks until after I’d gone to her and made my play. That was what started her hunting for Morgan.’

‘Go ahead. What’s your idea, Donald?’

I said, ‘Cunweather knew Birks used the hotel as a place to meet his sweetie. He didn’t know who the girl was. He did know Morgan Birks would come there to meet the girl sooner or later. Cunweather is a pretty able citizen. You can gamble he had the hotel sewed up so Birks couldn’t get in or out. Yet Birks got in, and he got out.’

Mrs. Cool said, ‘What the hell are you trying to pull, Donald? You say he couldn’t get in or get out — and yet he did get in and get out. You’re the one who’s screwy.’

‘Look here,’ I said. ‘Let’s figure this thing from a different angle. Notice that they put us in room 620. I tried to get a room across the hall. That’s what a detective would ordinarily have done. He’d have wanted a room where he could watch the door of Sally Durke’s room. But all of those rooms had been taken. Now that may have been an accident. You’d think so if it weren’t for the fact that Sally Durke had reserved room 620 for me.’

‘For you, Donald?’ she asked.

‘Yes.’

‘How do you figure?’

‘She’d telephoned in and reserved two rooms with connecting bath. She had 618 and 620. When she came in, she took 618. Unless there was another bath in connection with that, she took the room without the bath. That left 620 with the bath for me. Now that was damned considerate of Sally, no matter how you try to figure it.’

‘But what makes you think she left it for you?’

‘Everything. She wanted me to have the room with the bath because she wanted me to use the bath.’

‘But you didn’t use it. Bleatie was in there.’

‘Can’t you see?’ I said. ‘That’s the whole thing. Bleatie was intended to be in there. Bleatie isn’t Sandra’s brother. He’s her husband. Bleatie’s Morgan Birks!’

She looked at me with cold, hard eyes, and said, ‘Don’t be a God damn ass, Donald.’

‘Everything points to it.’ I went on, ‘We’ve been dumb not to see it before this.’

‘Don’t you suppose Sandra Birks knows her own brother when she sees him?’

‘Of course she does — if she has a brother. But she was in on this play. That explains why Bleatie was always sticking up for Morgan. It explains why he made Sandra kick through with a release of any property that was in the safety deposit boxes. It explains every single fact in the whole case. Sandra Birks wanted a divorce. Morgan Birks was willing to give it to her — probably wanted a divorce just as badly as she did. But she had to serve papers on him. He was a fugitive from justice. Someone had to make the service — someone who could go into court and swear that the service had been made. That’s where we came in. We were the fall guys.’

‘But she met Bleatie at the train, and had this automobile’ accident and—’

‘Look up that automobile accident,’ I said, ‘and you’ll find that there wasn’t any. It was all a frame-up. They hired this doctor to put splints on the man’s nose. It was a big heavy nose guard which ran pretty well up to his forehead. Then there was tape to pull his eyes out of shape and twist his mouth. You, certainly couldn’t see what he looked like with his face all’ patched up with that nose business.

‘That’s the only possible explanation to account for the facts.. Cunweather was watching the hotel and apparently making a good job of it. He’s absolutely certain Morgan Birks never went into that hotel. He wouldn’t be mistaken. He was fooled. Dr. Holoman is in on the play. We were taken for a ride. The whole thing was a frame-up. I thought that Durke girl was too damned easy. She went directly to the Perkins Hotel and never looked back. The skids were all greased for us. I telephoned Sandra where I was. Sandra and Bleatie insisted on coming up, very much against my wishes. From there on, the play was all blue-printed. Bleatie pretended to work up a blood pressure and have a hemorrhage. Dr. Holoman took him into the bathroom. As soon as he got in the bathroom, and closed the door to my room, Sally Durke opened the bathroom door of her room. Bleatie changed his clothes, took off his nose bandages, came in, and lay down on the bed. That elaborate combination of splints and tape to protect his broken nose was really a mask to conceal his appearance. The adhesive tape plastered over his forehead and cheekbones pulled his eyes out of shape. Bleatie had black hair that was parted in the middle and combed down on each side, but there was a bald spot on top of his head. Now, no man on earth with thick black hair in front would part it in the middle and comb it down the sides and leave a bald spot staring naked and unadorned from the top of his head. Morgan Birks had black hair and a bald spot. He combed his hair straight back.’

Bertha Cool’s eyes narrowed. ‘That would account for them being so worked up when you stayed away so long. They were having a hard time keeping that bathroom business going. But how about the blood on the towels and things?’

‘It wasn’t blood. It was mercurochrome or some stain the doctor had fixed up to resemble blood. Lord, I don’t know all the details. I’m giving you the big play. It could have been done that way. Everything fits together when you figure it like that. There’s no other way things do figure. There’s no other way it could have been done.

‘Bleatie went into the bathroom, took off his nose business, and became Morgan Birks. He went into 618 and waited until I’d served him. As soon as we went out of 618, he jumped off the bed, went back into the bathroom, changed the parting of his hair, changed back into his bloodstained clothes, had his nose guard taped back into place, and became Bleatie again. Then it was a cinch for him to add the finishing touch. Standing in the bathroom, he was able to impersonate Morgan Birks as calling from 618, and Bleatie as answering from the bathroom. Bleatie’s voice was distinguished from Morgan’s because it sounded as though Bleatie was talking with a clothespin over his nose. And that bandage business made a perfect disguise. In that way he was able to come to the hotel and leave it right under the noses of the gang that was looking for him. That’s the way he’s been able to dodge the police. He’s been at the place where they least expected him, living in his own apartment with his own little wife. She’s covering him up in order to get that divorce. That’s why he’s so sore at Holoman.’

‘Being sore at Holoman doesn’t fit in,’ she said. ‘The doctor must be in on it with him. He must be a confederate.’

‘Sure, he’s in with Birks, but only on this one play. Birks didn’t get Holoman. Sandra did. Holoman is Sandra’s friend. Morgan and Sandra came to a parting of the ways. Morgan told her about his mistress, and she admitted having a lover. They fixed up the divorce business. They needed a doctor to fix up the disguise. Sandra’s lover was called in.’

The taxi driver drew up in front of the Stillwater Apartments.

‘How much is the meter, Donald, darling?’ she asked.

‘Four dollars and fifteen cents.’

She handed the cab driver a five-dollar bill. ‘Give me seventy-five cents,’ she said, ‘and keep the rest.’ He gave her a fifty-cent piece and a quarter.

She turned to me. ‘Donald,’ she said, ‘you’re a darling. You’re the fair-haired boy child. This job takes brains, and you’ve got them!’ She put her arm around my shoulders and said, ‘Donald, I could love you for this. You figured the thing out, and here is where Bertha Cool goes to town. I’ll make a cleanup on this, you darling! — and you owe ninety-five cents on this taxi meter, Donald. I’ll take it out of your salary.’

She stood on the sidewalk, fished a notebook out of her purse, and marked three dollars and thirty cents in her expense account under taxis. Then she turned the page, and marked down D. L., advance on taxi meter, ninety-five cents.

I said, ‘Thanks for your praise, Mrs. Cool. Some day I’ll try to think of an idea that will cost me an even dollar.’

She closed her notebook, dropped it into her purse, smiled at the cab driver, and said to me, ‘None of your lip; Donald.’ As soon as the cab driver had pulled away from the curb, she grabbed my arm and swung me around. ‘All right, Donald, darling, let’s go. We’ll cash in on this.’

‘Going to Sandra?’ I asked.

‘No, no,’ she said. ‘To Dr. Holoman. We’ll make him jump through hoops.’