Where There’s Smoke

Chapter Eighteen Office Into Shooting Gallery

A trim secretary with a sleek, satin-blond bun on the nape of her neck, smiled mechanically over the law journal she was marking.

“Mister Amery’s not in yet. Oh! Good morning, Mister Ross.”

“It’s lousy, Miss Bernard.” Ross nodded. “Mind if we wait in the sanctum sanctorum?”

“Not at all.” She opened a heavy, paneled door to the inner office. It didn’t look like a lawyer’s place of business to Pedley.

There were no bookshelves of brown-backed tomes. Instead, the walls were covered with framed photographs of theatrical celebrities. Autographed, To my bosom, pal. Smuch love, Paul, A friend in need, indeed — and all the other clichés.

The near-great and once-great of Broadway were here; Pedley knew most of the famous faces that looked down on what might have been a pleasant study in a private home. He turned to the secretary.

“We expected to run into another gentleman who has an appointment, miss.”

“There hasn’t been anyone.” She looked blank, examined the memo pad on the enormous mahogany flat-top. “Mister Amery has no appointment until eleven. He shouldn’t come in at all, after that terrible experience yesterday.”

Ross took the chair beside the desk. “They let him out of the hospital this morning.”

“Yes. But the doctor said he really should have a nurse around for a while; he’s in no shape to go out.”

“I can testify—” Amery came through the door abruptly — “that the doctor was right. I feel like ice breaking up in the Hudson.”

He certainly didn’t look good, Pedley thought. Strips of plaster held a wad of cotton in place along the lawyer’s jaw; a wide band of gauze served him in place of a collar. His eyes were rabbit-pink from the smoke; his skin was the shade of mildewed canvas. The wheeze was still in his voice.

“Get the Lownes files for me, Miss Bernard. Everything but the transfers. Morning, Terry—” Amery noticed the marshal, scowled. He took off his balmacaan. “I promised my physician I’d avoid excitement.” He sat down heavily at the big desk. “That was before I knew you were going to be here, sir.”

Pedley said bleakly, “I can’t take time out to be sorry every time somebody has a coughing spell. But I’ll try not to be too great a strain on your constitution.”

The lawyer gestured in deprecation. “Let’s not start with a misunderstanding. I don’t want any consideration on my account. I shouldn’t have come here at all, today, if I’d consulted my own preferences.”

“So what? You came here to meet this ex-bodyguard of Ned Lownes. Staro’s a client of yours, isn’t he?”

“Indeed not!” The lawyer’s chin lifted, resentfully. “I wouldn’t represent that hoodlum for any fee you care to name.”

“Put it the other way, then,” the marshal retorted. “He wanted to consult you. Why?”

“You still haven’t got it quite right.” Amery extracted a pink capsule from a small round box, popped it into his mouth, poured a glass of water from the Thermos set at his elbow, washed the pill down. “Staro telephoned me at my home. Claims to have information about a leather case that had been Ned’s property. Apparently there’s been some trouble about it.”

“What’s this private convoy know about it?”

The attorney didn’t answer immediately. He swiveled around in his chair, stared out the window, pressed his lips together. Finally he swung back to face Pedley. “I don’t see any good reason why I shouldn’t tell you. We’re both working toward the same end, I assume.”

The marshal was noncommittal. “I’m after the person who set a couple of fires, myself.”

“I’m interested in clearing Miss Lownes from any suspicion of connection with those fires. Amounts to the same thing.” The lawyer made his recital brief. Some time previously, according to Staro, Lownes had ordered his hired hand to take possession of the Florentine case in the event of a sudden fatality to his employer. The case was to be turned over to Amery. When the bodyguard heard about the theater fire, he hurried to Lownes’s hotel rooms, searched for the case but couldn’t find it.

However, Staro knew what was in the leather box and was prepared to tell the lawyer — for a consideration. What this consideration was, or how much, hadn’t been discussed in their phone conversation.

Pedley digested the information. “You expect the dope he has for sale is damaging to Miss Lownes?”

“I’ll admit nothing of the sort.” Amery was cautious, rather than indignant. “I’m merely acting as my client’s agent in a matter which is extremely distasteful to her. She has authorized me to use my best judgment to get back this case, which she contends is lawfully her property.”

“Can she prove it’s hers?”

“She — um — she tells me the contents of the case are ample evidence it belongs to her.”

Ross cut in. “Why play guessing games? When Staro gets here, we’ll know what’s in it. Then maybe this dumb gumshoe will let me go about my business.”

“You’ve put Terry under arrest, sir?” The lawyer was startled.

“He says he’s protecting me,” Ross said.

“I’m detaining you,” Pedley answered, “as a material witness.”

“You can do that, of course.” The attorney sighed wearily. “But we can probably work out a better way to give you what you want.”

“I’ll tell you what I want.” Pedley roamed around the office, restlessly, looking at the photographs. “I want Ross to sign a waiver of immunity for his Grand Jury appearance—”

“I don’t mind signing a waiver!” the publicity man shouted. “Why should I mind? I’m not guilty of anything!”

Amery gestured irritably. “If you don’t mind, Terry, let me do the talking. I can’t allow a client of mine to be bulldozed into testifying.”

Pedley sat on the lawyer’s desk. “I might make a deal.”

“Willingness to deal—” the attorney was wary — “implies my client has something to lose by not making it.”

“Sure he has something to lose. Time. His freedom. I can take him downtown and lock him up. But I’ll settle for the Grand Jury appearance on your recognizance — if he’ll tell me what strings he pulled to get the Headquarters Squad interested in Lownes’s demise.”

He thought it unnecessary to mention that just before he’d gone to the Olympiad, Barney had relayed him the Fire Commissioner’s urgent insistence on a conference immediately after lunch on the subject of the B.F.I. report. The party who’d brought influence to bear on the police would be the same one who’d convinced the commissioner it would be politic to pull the marshal off the Lownes case.

Amery began to make arrangements of paper clips on his blotter. “That’s an offer I’d accept, Terry. The marshal can get that information sooner or later from other sources, anyway. Your going to higher authority isn’t incriminating — on the contrary. You’ll have to go before the blue ribbon panel in any event, but it’ll be simpler if you don’t have to do it under duress.”

Ross sneered. “I told you I’d bring influence to bear, Marshal. All I had to do was tip off Gaydel that you were set on ruining his star’s rep; he turned his client, his agency and the International Broadcasting bigwigs loose on the mayor.”

Pedley considered. “So that was the ticket! The power of the loudspeaker. The boys at City Hall need plenty of free time on the air in the next campaign. And a few generous contributions wouldn’t come in amiss. Well, it hasn’t worked. Yet. But it might.”

Amery flipped a hand in annoyance. “Let’s not get off at cross-purposes. It appears Terry overstepped himself out of zealousness to protect Miss Lownes’s interest. We’ll grant that was a mistake. But you’d be making an equal error, Marshal, if you fail to appreciate that Ross and Miss Lownes and I are quite as anxious as you are to put this firebug behind bars.” The lawyer pushed the paper clips together in a heap. “We’ll do whatever we can to help you convict this incendiarist. I don’t know what headway you’ve made, but—”

He stopped. The secretary in the outer office was screaming!

Pedley took three strides; yanked at the doorknob. Miss Bernard was on her knees by the files. She was bending over one of the lower drawers, as if to hide. Her eyes were riveted on the door into the corridor. Pedley followed her glance.

The door was open a little. Through the foot-wide aperture there was a glint of blue metal. Pedley’s reflexes worked at top speed. He ducked, dragged his own gun from the holster, switched off the lights in the inner office in three smoothly co-ordinated movements.

With the click of the switch came the shot. The orange pencil of flame pointed at the door of the private office. Before the glass had stopped tinkling, Pedley stuck his own arm out, blasted at the segment of dark corridor twenty feet away.

The secretary squealed, “E-e-e-e-e-ee!” Ross cursed hoarsely, flattened himself against the wall.

The marshal crossed the outer office, kicked open the door. The corridor was empty, except for Amery, peering nervously around the jamb of the door leading from his private office into the hall. Then a couple of doors opened down toward the elevator; girls peered out cautiously.

“Ran down—” The lawyer pointed to the stair well.

“Who was it?” Pedley had no intention of conducting a man hunt through the 28 floors of the Tower Building.

“I couldn’t see him clearly.” The lawyer was shaking; he clung to the door for support.

“Staro?”

“No.” Amery looked hard at Terry Ross, who came timidly out into the corridor. “Staro’s not that tall. He’s not tanned like this — gunman.”

Ross babbled, “He tried to kill you, Paul!”

“He wasn’t shooting blanks, that’s sure.” Pedley went back into the office, snatched the phone.

“Police — Emergency.” While he waited for the connection, he asked, “What’ll I give ’em for a description?”

Amery spoke reluctantly. “I was going to say he was about the size and build of Bill Conover — but that would be ridiculous. I know it wasn’t Conover.”