Twenty Plus Two

Chapter 13

Outside, Alder walked to the corner of 83rd Street. He entered a drugstore and went into a phone booth. He dialed the number of his hotel and when the operator answered said, “This is Mr. Alder. I am registered in Room 1819. Are there any messages for me?”

“One minute. Yes, Mr. Alder. A man named Plesch — Pleschette telephoned. He said he would call again.”

“Anything else?”

“Call Murray Hill 7-8383. Just Jim. Urgent.”

“That’s all?”

He left the phone booth and the drugstore. Outside he stepped into a waiting taxicab. In less than ten minutes he got off at the comer of 45th and entered a building.

The offices of Detectives, Incorporated were on the seventh floor. He was ushered instantly into Jim Honsinger’s paneled office.

“Tom Alder!” cried the big man behind the tremendous, modernistic desk. He came around it in quick strides, grasped Alder’s hand in a giant fist and virtually crushed his knuckles. Honsinger was in his early fifties, a paunchy giant of a man, who had gone to flesh. In his younger days he had been a famous athlete, a football player, an amateur boxer who loved to work out at Stillman’s Gym with the visiting professionals.

“Sit down, man, sit down! Scotch — bourbon?”

“I’m working.”

“So am I. Working for you, old hoss. Why I don’t know. And I don’t think you know what you’re getting into.”

“I think I do. I’ve just come from Mrs. Delaney’s.”

“Don’t kid me, boy, don’t kid me. Mrs. Delaney hasn’t talked to anyone in ten years. She’s a hermitess — hates the world. She hates cops especially. I called your hotel just a half hour ago.”

“That’s why I’m here. I telephoned in.”

“Got something for you. That little lady in Los Angeles — the little old lady from Los Angeles—”

“Julia Joliet”

“Alias Kate Killigan, alias Frieda Friday — always alliterative. She’s a nice little lady — used to be, that is. Two convictions, one fine of a thousand dollars and restitution — one three-year stretch. Badger, badger, who’s got the badger? Blackmail!”

Honsinger scattered papers on his desk, scooped up one. “Fine, suspended sentence, January 14, 1919.”

“Forty-one years ago!”

“Gave her age as twenty-one, could have been older. Nineteen twenty-three, convicted, badger game, sentenced three years. Came out in ’25. Arrested again in 1929 in a raid. Posted bail of fifty dollars. Forfeited it. That’s all, but it’s enough. Notice the time in between — 1919, next time 1923. Doesn’t mean she worked it only twice, only twice caught. A sweet little lady.”

“No arrests after 1929.”

“Not here. New pastures, new name probably. Check in California. After ’29.”

A light flicked on Honsinger’s desk. He grabbed up one of three telephones. “Yes?... Put him on. Honsinger, Fred. Go ahead... right!... Hold it a sec...” He clapped one hand over the receiver, said to Alder:

“Fred Tamm, in Washington. A very good man. He said there’s a file of the New York Bulletin in the Congressional Library. He had it photographed and is air-mailing it today. Special delivery. We’ll have it tonight.”

“Ask him what’s on the page — page four, section two, column three.”

Honsinger repeated the question. He listened a moment. “A picture, Tom. That’s all. Goes with the article below. Picture of... what’s the name, Fred? Danny Koenig? Good work, Fred. Send me the bill. Wait... anything else you want in Washington, Tom?”

“I have a friend there. Major General Mattock. He was my Colonel during the war. I can get what I want from him.”

“All right, Tom. That’s all, Fred.”

He hung up. “Pentagon stuff, Tom?”

“I’m trying to get the service record of Leroy Dane, the movie man. He was a hero — but not under the name of Dane. By the way, have you gotten his real name yet?”

“Working on it now. Shouldn’t be hard. Lot of crap gets printed about actors, but the real names can be had. Ought to have it for you by night. It’s early, but lunch?”

“I’ll skip it. There’s a lot to do. Keep at things, will you?”

“Don’t worry, we’ll get what you want. Long as I don’t have to figure it out. It doesn’t make sense. A missing picture, a blackmailer in California, Doris Delaney — it couldn’t possibly tie together.”

“I didn’t say it did.”

“But you didn’t say it didn’t.” The big detective chuckled. “Good thing I’m an honest private eye. One of my crooked colleagues would take the information they’d get — never mind, shouldn’t talk that way about my competitors.”

It was twenty minutes to twelve when Alder reached the street. There were things to digest. A question nagged at his brain and he could not find an answer. He walked to his hotel and tried to sift out the pieces, the information he had, things he suspected, and things he guessed at. They didn’t go together.

At the hotel he asked for his key and went to the message clerk. She handed him a heavy manila envelope and the telephone messages. Four slips of paper. Two were calls from Jacques Pleschette. A third slip he had taken care of — Jim Honsinger. There was a fourth slip.

“Call Mr. Stanley, Chelsea 2-4024.”

His name was on the slip, so there could not be an error. Yet he knew no one named Stanley. He went up to his room, half expecting to find Jacques Pleschette in it. But it was empty.

He picked up the phone. “Get me Chelsea 2-4024.”

After a moment a voice said, “Yeah?”

“Mr. Stanley? I have a message that you called me. Alder...”

“Ah yes, Mr. Alder. This is Mark Stanley. I wondered if we might have a chat, you and I, Mr. Alder.”

“About what?”

“Why — just things. A friendly little chat, that’s all. It might be very beneficial.”

“Not to me, Mr. Stanley. I don’t know you.”

“That may be your loss, Mr. Alder. Not mine. I do think we ought to get together. Say about four? At your hotel if you wish...”

“I don’t wish.”

“You’re being unreasonable, Mr. Alder. I’m trying to be helpful, that’s all...”

“Give me a name that I know, Stanley.”

“Not on the telephone. I do not like tape recorders, tapped wires, or other electronic devices.”

“I can assure you that there are none of those things here.”

“One never knows, Mr. Alder. Not until one gets before a committee and they suddenly produce tapes... with your voice on them. Of course they cannot be used as evidence. Not in the law courts. But committees aren’t courts. They do not convict, but they can cause much embarrassment. A private conversation in a public place — it’s so much more satisfactory. And so much safer.”

“All right, Mr. Stanley. If I am not busy at four o’clock, I’ll be in the grill downstairs.”

“Try not to be busy. Until four then, Mr. Alder.”

Alder replaced the receiver, just as the door opened. Jacques Pleschette came into the room.

“I left the door on the latch,” exclaimed Alder. “You have got a key!”

“Keys, Mr. Alder? Childish devices. I seldom use them.”

“You just say presto, and the doors open!”

“A nail file is an excellent door opener, Mr. Alder. So is the common ordinary paper clip. Although I am an expert with a strip of celluloid and I once opened a very fine tumbler lock with an old-fashioned wooden match, the kind we used back home.”