Wall of Eyes

Chapter 13

Joey’s customers were leaving. Half of them were drunk and the other half were pretending to be drunk. They jostled at each other and pushed their way to the checkroom. A fat woman without a brassiere spied Stevie at the door and flung herself toward him, crying shrilly. “Stevie! Darling! I missed you! Honestly, I came here just to see you, Stevie!”

Stevie grinned at her and hoped that Joey was within hearing distance and the lady’s husband wasn’t.

But the lady’s husband was. He strode after her, a fat man who looked as if he’d be hairy under his clothes.

“Lilian,” he said. “Stop acting like a whore.”

“Who’s a whore?” Lilian said. “You son of a bitch hairy ape.”

“You’re drunk. You’re a drunken whore.”

“Who’s a whore?”

“You are.”

Lilian stared at him, blinking her eyes slowly. “Who did you say was a whore?”

Stevie disentangled his coat sleeve from her hand and slipped away past the checkroom in to Joey’s office. The office was empty and he sat down in the swivel chair to wait for Joey.

He felt funny, almost dazed. Too many things had happened, that queer man Sands — and mixing beer and scotch — and thinking about Geraldine again. He couldn’t have looked at that picture with Geraldine’s face dead and covered with blood.

Someone knocked softly at the door.

Stevie said, “Come in,” and the door opened slowly and Mamie came through it.

When she saw it was Stevie her eyes widened and she looked scared.

“You,” she said uncertainly. “What are you doing here?”

“Waiting for the marster,” Stevie said.

“But I...”

“But you what?” Stevie said in a hard voice. “Thought I was in jail maybe? You’ve been drooling maybe?”

She jerked her head in a defiant gesture and pulled her coat around her. It was the coat Tony had given her, she’d worn it tonight specially. There weren’t many nice things to remember and the coat was one, with its real silver fox collar.

“I had to tell them what I knew,” Mamie said in a whine. “That goddamn policeman...”

“What did you tell him?”

“Just what happened, what you did and what you said. Because after all you said it.”

“You slobbering bitch.”

“I... don’t you dare to...”

“Wanted to pin a murder charge on me, did you? You thought I’d be the goat for Murillo. You knew Murillo had done it, didn’t you?” He got up and walked round the desk toward her. “Didn’t you?”

“You’re crazy,” she said in a strangled whisper. “Don’t come any closer or I’ll...”

“You’ll scream,” Stevie said with a laugh. But he stayed where he was. “I told you last night that I knew where Tony was. You thought I was kidding. I knew where he was because I saw him. Get that, Mamie, I saw him. He was running like hell.”

“You’re lying.”

“And I bet you’ve got no idea how that guy can run — after committing a murder.”

She half turned as if the suggestion of running was too powerful to resist. But when she had opened the door she didn’t run. There were too many people, and no place to run to, and no reason for running.

She turned back. “Did you tell anybody?”

“Not a soul,” Stevie said pleasantly. “I’m only telling you so you can get used to the idea of being a rope-widow. After all, Mamie, we’re pals, aren’t we? Maybe you did try to frame me for a murder, but I can let by-gones be by-gones — if it doesn’t happen again.”

“He... he did it? He really did it, honest to God?”

Stevie nodded. “The girl was knifed and Tony was running. Use your head.”

“I can’t believe it!”

“Yes,” Stevie said sadly, “how hard it is to believe! Our Tony doing a thing like that, staining his honor, falling from the paths of virtue.”

“Shut up!”

She was staring at him, her eyes bright with hate. She had her teeth clenched and her breath hissed in and out like a snake’s.

Stevie took out a package of cigarettes. By the time he had one lit Mamie was gone, and he wasn’t sorry.

I must have been crazy, he thought, wiping the sweat off his forehead.

The noises outside the door were becoming softer, less confused. You could distinguish individual footsteps and voices, hear the cars driving away from the front of the Club; the rattle of coathangers and small change had stopped, the orchestra was gone. A few minutes later all the noises ceased and the Club sank into its grave for the night.

Stevie lit another cigarette and looked around the desk drawers in the faint hope of finding a drink. He didn’t find one but the act of looking reminded him again of Sands.

Sands was a little crazy, he thought. You couldn’t be so sure of yourself if you weren’t. Planning that whole thing tonight, taking the matches and killing the engine in the car and waiting at the other end of the alley.

So that makes me a grasshopper. And I jumped, but not all the way. He’s a cop, I can’t trust him. If I’d told him the works he’d have thought it was too pat and I was making it up to get even.

Let him look at the pictures of the accident first, let him see I’m not lying about that and then I’ll tell him the rest.

He closed his eyes and leaned back in Joey’s chair, smiling.

I’m going to blow Johnny Heath sky-high.

Sands sat on the edge of his bed and smoked a final cigarette. He was shivering. The apartment house had had its first spurt of heat for the season but that had already disappeared and the radiators had stopped clanging and hissing and were cold and quiet in a little death. Though there were no windows open, small winds formed near the ceiling and swooped down at him, slithering through his pajamas and whirling the smoke away from his head.

He did not get up to put on his bathrobe. The coldness had become important to him, it was a premonition, coming at him like the winds from the ceiling, effectual yet without source.

Something’s going to happen tonight, he thought. Perhaps it was Murillo, perhaps Murillo was going to come out from his hiding place and blubber his confession. That’s what Murillo’s kind did when they got in over their heads and tried something too much for them. Murillo belonged to the substratum of criminals, the petty thieves and pickpockets, the pimps and hopheads and peddlers of dirty pictures. Nothing big-time about Murillo.

Yet he had committed a murder, a completely unnecessary and stupidly bungled murder. He had left behind the print of his glove and the shreds from his cigarette, and the jewels he had come to take. He had run madly out of the house — these were the footsteps that Mr. Heath had heard — and he had been seen plainly by Stevie Jordan.

Strange that Murillo, apparently content until now to live on this woman, should have returned to the field of crime by planning two robberies in one night, both of them failures. Not so strange that the first had failed. Murillo, unarmed, had demanded the night’s receipts from the proprietor of the tavern and when he didn’t get them simply ran away.

But the second robbery — easy enough to pick up a jewel box and escape. There was no need to pick the lock there on the spot, to wake the girl up, to kill her.

How had he known about the Heaths in the first place? Through one of the servants, or through Johnny Heath. Johnny’s current girl friend worked at Joey’s with Murillo’s girl friend. Probably they exchanged confidences: “Johnny says...” “Tony says...” “So I said...” Mamie fitted that picture, but Marcella Moore did not.

One of the servants. He thought of Ida and smiled. The golden girl, Ida. Unassailable virtue so frequently went hand in hand with acne and petty malice. It would be simple for a man like Murillo, well used to the ways of women, to persuade Ida to leave the front door open.

And it was Ida who had brought Kelsey Heath the morphine. No charge could ever be proved there, of course. Ida could have been told to fetch a box or phial of tablets and not have known what the tablets were. Whether she had known or not could never be proved. The whole business of the poisoning had better be laid aside. Loring had violated his professional code but his motive was understandable. No good would come of reporting him.

Yes, that part of the poisoning could be forgotten, but what of the girl’s motive for killing herself?

Kelsey Heath was the common factor in both murders and the poisoning. She had been driving the car when Geraldine Smith was murdered. She had taken the morphine. She was murdered.

A lapse of two years between the first murder and the poisoning, a lapse of only a few hours between the poisoning and Kelsey Heath’s murder.

Would she have lived, blind, for two years and then decided to kill herself because of her blindness, only a few hours before someone else killed her for another reason? Or did the attempted suicide suggest the murder?

In that case how did Murillo come into it? Had the robbery been planned before Kelsey Heath poisoned herself and was it then too late to change the plan, too late for Murillo’s inside help to let him know?

Sands stubbed out his cigarette in an ashtray. He was no longer cold.

Murillo would turn up sooner or later. He’d confess, he’d tell who had helped him or who had hired him. There was no use worrying over confusing side issues now. Murillo had killed the girl, that fact was clear.

Sands looked at his watch. Three o’clock. He felt a vague excitement, a desire to talk to somebody.

He went into the sitting room and poured himself a drink. He was very warm now, and cheerful. Might be a good idea to telephone and let Alice Heath know that Murillo had killed her sister. She probably wouldn’t be sleeping anyway and she’d want to know that an outsider had done it.

He picked up the phone and dialed, and while he waited he kept smiling to himself: imagine ever suspecting Alice Heath of committing a murder — poor bloodless frigid constipated Alice.

So the first of the three telephone calls which were to solve the case took place at three o’clock.

A sleepy voice said, “The Heath residence.”

“Is that Maurice?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Inspector Sands speaking.”

“Yes, sir.” Maurice was politely irritable. “The family is in bed, sir. May I take a message?”

“It’s not urgent. I thought Miss Heath, if she was still awake, would like to know that we have identified the murderer. We have a witness who saw him running away from the house.”

“Oh.” Maurice paused. “That’s very good news, sir.”

Sands thought he sounded surprised and rather disappointed.

“Yes, sir, very good news,” Maurice repeated. “I shall see if anyone is awake.”

“Tell them to relax,” Sands said, thinking, he’ll spread it around all right and maybe someone will relax too far.

“Thank you, sir.”

“Good night.”

“Good night, sir.”

The second call was twenty minutes later. Stevie was still waiting in Joey’s office for Joey to appear and count up the night’s receipts. Joey never left this job until morning. He had a supernatural respect for money, and nickels might grow legs and walk off.

The phone rang. Stevie took his feet off the desk and picked up the receiver.

“Yes?” he said. That was how Joey answered, with polite suspicion.

“Joey?” The voice was a whisper. The man who owned it was either scared or unable to talk any louder because there were people around.

“Yeah, this is Joey,” Stevie said. He put his hand in his pocket and jingled some loose change to complete the illusion. “Who’s that?”

A silence, a faint cough, then the whisper again, “You all closed up?”

“Yeah. Must be the weather,” Stevie said. “Who’s speaking?”

“I want to talk to Mamie Rosen. Is she there?”

“Why, yes,” Stevie said. “Why, of course, Mr. Murillo. Your friend is here. She says all is forgiven, come home to momma.”

The whisper grew into a voice. “So it’s you, Jordan, you wise little bastard.”

“You come over here and say that,” Stevie said, “and leave your knife at home. We’ll talk this over like little gentlemen.”

The dial tone began to buzz. Stevie hung up slowly. His hand was shaking and crazy little sentences teetered back and forth in his head: Trace that call. Herman the patrol car. Get Murillo. Calling car three six. Is there a policeman in the house?

“Hell,” he said. “Holy hell.”

So Mr. Murillo was alive and well and in town and mad. Some day he’d come slinking out of an alley with his black fedora pulled down over his eyes, and his mouth thin and sharp as a blade.

He wiped the sweat off his forehead. I’d better tell Sands, he thought. I’d better get it all off my chest and tell him about the other time too, when I saw Murillo coming out of Child’s. With Johnny Heath beside him. Murillo looked quite respectable that day. You’d never have thought the two of them had been planning and working it all out.

“Yes?” Sands said into the phone.

“Mr. Sands.”

“Mr. Jordan,” Sands said dryly.

“Yes,” Stevie said. He liked Sands very much then, he liked the way he’d said “Mr. Jordan,” without surprise or interest. Silly to think you couldn’t trust Sands. You could trust him because he didn’t give a damn. “I’m in Joey’s office. I just had a phone call from Murillo. Thought you’d like to know.”

“Thanks. What did he want?”

“Mamie Rosen. And listen...”

There was a pause. Sands could hear the squeak of a chair before Stevie put his hand over the mouthpiece of the phone. He didn’t hold his hand tight enough and Sands heard him say something in a muffled whisper.

The hand was removed then, and Stevie said, “Excuse me, Mr. Sands. I thought I’d better tell you I saw Murillo...”

“Who’s in that office with you?” Sands said urgently. “Jordan...”

“Who...?” Stevie said.

Someone whispered, “Stevie,” and the chair squeaked again just once before the shot. There was a sigh and a thud, then a crash as the telephone fell from the desk.

Sands said, “Jordan!”

For ten seconds there was no answer. Then he heard the faint sound of footsteps. The telephone must have fallen so that the mouthpiece was against the floor and picked up the footsteps.

Sands counted. Five footsteps. And then nothing.

“Jesus Christ!” Joey said.

He stood in the doorway and watched Stevie bleeding all over his desk, and thought how hard it was going to be to wash the blood off. Maybe he’d have to buy a new desk.

“Slaughter me for a pig,” he said. “Move off there, you souse. What’s the matter with you?” He edged closer to the desk and then he saw that Jordan was unable to answer, having a bullet in his stomach.

He moved back to the doorway and began to bellow names and obscenities, strangely mixed.

“Jesus Christ! Come here! Hey, Jim, Jesus Christ, police police, Jim!”

The doorman and Sergeant Stem arrived together. They had both heard the shot and had come into the club, leaving the front door unwatched.

Stern went over to the desk. He didn’t recognize Stevie because Stevie’s head was down on the desk, as if he’d gotten tired and decided to sleep there.

“Who is he?”

“Jordan,” Joey said. “He works for me. Jesus Christ.”

“Call an ambulance,” Stem said. “Not that phone! Use another. Make it snappy.”

Joey bounced out of the room, still swearing but feeling better now because an ambulance meant Jordan wasn’t dead. He wouldn’t want Jordan to die, for a number of reasons.

The doorman simply stood, dazed, and looked at Stevie, and shifted his weight from one foot to another. His mouth moved slightly as if he were practising an after-dinner speech.

He found a voice finally, and said, “A good guy, Stevie,” but the voice wasn’t his. It was too high and small and he discarded it hastily like a man who’d been given the wrong hat from a checkroom.

“What’d you say?” Stern asked.

The doorman coughed. “Nothing.”

“You said he was a good guy.”

“Well, he was.”

“Well, why’d you say you said nothing?” Stern said, angry at himself, and the doorman and Stevie and even Sands. He thought of the razzing he’d have to take when the rest of them found out that the man he was supposed to follow got himself shot about fifty yards away.

The ambulance clanged up the street and shrieked to a stop.

“The ambulance,” said the doorman.

“Yeah,” said Sergeant Stern.

They parted forever on this note.

Joey’s phone call to the hospital had been so vivid that the ambulance was equipped with an experienced doctor in addition to the usual interne and orderlies. They came prepared to give a transfusion, and they did it there, right in Joey’s office. While Joey stood outside the door wringing his hands and swearing and wondering if he’d have to buy a new desk.

Sands himself arrived just after the ambulance clanged back to the hospital. He found Joey and Sergeant Stern glaring at each other across the bloody desk.

“Dead?” he said sharply to Stern.

“No, sir,” Stern said. “This guy wants to wash off the desk and I said he couldn’t.”

Sands said to Joey, “That’s right, you can’t.”

“Well, for Christ’s sake,” Joey said, sounding as if he wanted to cry. “He’s still living, isn’t he? It’s not a murder, is it?”

Sands didn’t answer. He was walking slowly around the room, not touching anything. It was a very small room. He stood in front of the desk, then turned and walked to the door, stealthily. Three steps, possibly four, if you tiptoed. But there had been five.

“You try it,” he said to Joey.

“Try what?”

“Go to the desk and then walk to the door.”

Joey made it in four steps, Sergeant Stern three.

“The gun wasn’t very big,” Stern volunteered. “Maybe a .32. I heard the shot.”

“So did I,” Sands said softly. “I was talking to him on the telephone.”

“Talking to him?” Joey said, and began to swear again, almost absently.

“Powder burns?” Sands said to Stem.

“Yes sir.”

“Fix up the telephone before an operator starts buzzing,” Sands said. “Where’s another phone?”

“Checkroom,” Joey said.

“I’ll find it. Stay here.”

In the checkroom he dialed a number. It was a full minute before a man’s voice, sleepy and angry, said “Hello.”

“Miss Mamie Rosen live there?”

“Who wants to know?” the man said. “What’s the idea waking people up in the...?”

“Police-Inspector Sands speaking,” Sands said. “Call Miss Rosen to the phone please.”

The man said, “All right, keep your shirt on,” and went away. Sands could hear his slippers flapping along the floor.

“She ain’t come in yet.”

“All right, thanks.”

He went back to the office.

“Stay here, Stern, until the boys arrive. No need for you to stay, Mr. Hanson.”

“Hell, no,” Joey said bitterly. “I should just leave and let your hoodlums tear up the office by the roots. I stay.”

“You stay,” Sands said. “Who cares? Good night.”

Once out of their sight Sands ran along the hall and out to his car. He was on Charles Street within ten minutes. Most of the house lights were out. The houses were built alike, a row of them, dark and blank and mysterious.

One hundred and ten in tin letters nailed on a muddy-red pillar. A hall light was burning. Sands got out of the car and walked up to the front of the house and looked in. But he did not press the bell because a light had gone on suddenly in the front left room and a woman came to the window and pulled down the blind.

Sands rapped at the door, very quietly, so that only the woman could hear him. She came out immediately into the hall as if she’d been expecting someone. She was smiling when she opened the door.

The smile fled from her eyes though her mouth remained as it was, with the corners turned up.

“What do you want?” she said.

A man came sauntering up the street, and both Sands and the woman turned to look at him. Sands recognized him as the policeman assigned to watch the house.

“Miss Rosen?” Sands said. “My name is Sands.”

“Well?”

“I want to talk to you.”

“So do a lot of other guys,” Mamie said. “But I don’t like their language. Beat it.”

“I would like to borrow some of Mr. Murillo’s clothes,” Sands said. “Shall I wait here or come inside?”

She stared at him and her eyes were big brown glass marbles ready to fall out and roll down the steps.

“Police,” Sands said.

“What do you want?”

“What I said. Some of Murillo’s clothes.”

“Why?”

Sands smiled. “Oh, say for sentimental reasons. Shall I come in?”

“No, don’t you dare! Don’t you dare!”

She leaned against the wall, breathing so hard that her breasts shook. She rubbed her left foot up and down her right leg, like a child seeking comfort. Sands noticed that her shoes were too tight. There was a puff of fat where the shoes stopped.

“Do your feet hurt?” Sands said.

“My... my feet?” The question frightened her more than the others. She didn’t understand that he simply wanted to know, had always wanted to know if it was true that women would suffer to make their feet appear half an inch smaller. This seemed the right time to find out.

“What about my feet?” she said huskily. “You must be crazy. What about my feet? What about them?”

“Did you walk home from the club?”

“Yes.”

“In those shoes?”

“What’s the matter with these shoes? You beat it. I don’t believe you’re a policeman. Get the hell out of here.”

“I want some of Murillo’s clothes. Hat, shoes, coat and a shirt, unlaundered if possible.” He stepped inside the hall and she made no move to stop him. She was still leaning against the wall as if she was exhausted.

“Do I go in alone?” Sands said. “Or are you coming?”

She blinked at him. “I’m coming. But don’t you touch me!”

“Why should I touch you?”

“Why in hell shouldn’t you?” she said angrily. “Who do you think you are? Think you’re too good for me?”

He had hit her professional pride for the second time and he knew she was dangerous without her pride. He let her walk in ahead of him, still watching her feet. She walked with small mincing steps, her body bent forward, adjusting itself to the high heels.

He looked around the room. The best room of the house undoubtedly, which was not saying a great deal. The bed had a chenille spread, there was a studio couch, a fireplace with a litter of unburned cigarette ends and waste paper, an easy chair, and a wardrobe standing along one wall.

He pulled open the wardrobe. Mamie’s clothes and Murillo’s hung together on the rack in conjugal bliss.

“Help yourself,” Mamie said bitterly. “I can’t stop you. Steal anything you want to.”

“Borrow is a better word,” Sands said.

He took a hat, a black fedora, from the top shelf, a coat, a dirty shirt from a pile of clothing on the floor, and a pair of shoes.

“What, no pants?” Mamie said.

He shut the wardrobe carefully. With the clothes piled over one arm and the pair of shoes in his hand he looked like a junk man who had just closed a bargain.

“Any rags, any bones, any bottles?” Mamie said, “Now get out and leave me in peace.” Her mouth was shaking and she covered it with the back of her hand.

“Nerves?” Sands said. “I shouldn’t wonder. What did you do with the gun?”

“G-gun? What gun?”

“The gun you used on Jordan.”

She began to sob. “Oh, you’re crazy, you’re just crazy. You keeping saying these things to me and I can’t stop you and I don’t know what you’re meaning. And I just don’t know...”

“Then I’ll tell you. Jordan was shot in the stomach tonight in Joey’s office. It’s a very nasty place to shoot anyone. They don’t die fast, they just bleed away. It’s the place a woman usually aims for. Women like big targets.”

“I don’t know,” Mamie sobbed. “I just don’t know.”

“That’s why I’m telling you. Jordan isn’t dead. They gave him a transfusion and took him to a hospital. The odd part of it is that he was talking to me when he was shot. I heard someone say ‘Stevie’ so it was someone he knew pretty well, don’t you think? Not Murillo. If Murillo had come into the office Jordan would have yelled. And besides, Murillo doesn’t use a gun. After the shot I heard footsteps, five of them. We tried it out later when Jordan was taken away. A man wouldn’t need to take five steps to reach the door. A woman would, especially if she wore shoes that were too small and had high heels.”

She stopped sobbing and cried, “And I’m the only woman in town who does?”

“Rather cool night,” Sands said. “What did you wear on your walk home?”

“A coat.”

“Gloves?”

“What about it?”

“Where are the gloves?”

“None of your business!” she yelled.

He began to walk toward her, slowly. “Everything you do is my business,” he said softly, “because I’m out to get Murillo. I’m going to get Murillo. I’m going to get Murillo.”

She fell forward on her knees, screaming.