Mary Devlin’s lips got trembly and her eyes started to fill up. “You... you mean the Kurtz of the Homicide Bureau?”
“None other.”
“Is it... is it necessary?”
“You bet your sweet life it’s necessary,” I told her, and Franny broke his record silence to chuckle.
My house is one of those old ones on Spruce Street, and every morning at seven there’s one particular truck that goes by and shakes the dishes in the corner closet so hard it wakes me. But it didn’t this morning. I had been up since five, and I got a good look at it. It was a D.S.C. Mack, Number 78, and I decided to call Bill Kurtz and see if he couldn’t get the mayor to have the truck run down Pine Street instead of Spruce. But Franny arrived, and since Janet was still asleep I took him down-cellar and gave him his instructions.
I said: “You’re to go to Camden Airport, Broad Street Station and Knight’s Agency — to check Johnny’s story.”
He screwed his ugly mug into a look of something like intelligence and said, “Check!”
“Then you’re to go to Belvedere Towers and find out if anybody heard a shot at six o’clock,” which was the time I’d finally pinned Johnny down to.
“Check!”
“And get the names and all information possible on apartments rented in the past few weeks, or months.”
Franny objected. “ ’At’s kinda silly, ain’t it? Bill Kurtz’ll have all ’at stuff.”
I told him he might have been a good bootlegger once but he was a lousy detective now. He grinned at me. He said: “How about ’at cute dame, Mary? Dontcha want me to ask her a few questions?”
“I do not. She’s probably a Mrs. just to discourage guys like you. And don’t get involved with any other dames, either. Now, scram!”
He went. Franny was really a good egg. I often wondered how he put up with me. We met in Trenton Pen. It was the only sentence I ever served despite the fact I had operated in Berlin, Paris, London and a lot of foreign cities where the police used to look down on American law-enforcement bodies as kindergartens. Franny swears he took a jail sentence to get out of the booze racket. I got mine in the Rittenberg diamond job in an Atlantic City Boardwalk hotel. And I was glad it was over. If it hadn’t been for Trenton I wouldn’t have met Janet. She was the “Society Girl Social Worker” who snapped me out of it. We made good newspaper copy for a while. I’m glad that’s over too.
I didn’t like some of the things Franny told me about Johnny Devlin. Franny remembered him as a kid in North Philly. Devlin was a wizard with a pool cue, and being about five years older, all the kids thought he was head man. Franny said he used to be handsome then. A school teacher fell for him and ran away with him. Franny thought they’d had a kid — he wasn’t sure. But Johnny Devlin was caught in the draft, so if he did have a kid it must have been while he was overseas. Johnny might be trying to go straight since Fenwick Green picked him up, but he didn’t have such good companions. Franny told me positively he had seen Johnny shooting pool with Studs Gerber at the Monarch. If it hadn’t been that I had instinctive faith in Mary Devlin I’d have let Bill Kurtz take charge in his own way.
Kurtz hadn’t been to bed yet when I arrived at the Hall.
I said: “Bill, do me a favor. Let the Devlins be bailed.”
Bill’s a big, rugged guy. He looks more like a farmer than a bloodhound. That’s why so many mugs find themselves out on a limb with him. We haven’t any secrets and he’s never used any varnish with me. His eyes explored my insides from cerebrum to intestines. He growled: “What’re you trying to do, kid me? Johnny shot Studsy in an argument over who was going to cut who in on the Knapp robbery at Chestnut Hill. The Knapp housemaid just left here. She showed up by herself this morning and picked Johnny out of the lineup.”
That was news to me but I didn’t show it. I said: “Johnny may be a bad boy, but his wife is O.K. And the housemaid might be wrong.”
“Yeah. So might you, Duke. I don’t go for this wife stuff. In the first place, no law can make ’em testify. And maybe you remember we’ve had a string of house robberies in the past year without a break until the watchman at the Stratford surprised Icebox Sam Furman and put a slug through him. And there were no more robberies until Furman’s gang, which included Studsy Gerber, picked up Johnny Devlin. So?”
“Listen, Bill. Let ’em get bailed. In the meantime, rig a camera opposite Fenwick Green’s wall safe. I let Johnny think it was crammed with valuables. If he wants to lam he’ll try to crack it and you’ll get a picture. If he’s straight, you won’t.”
Bill liked the idea. “Maybe you got something there, Duke. I need some evidence. So far we haven’t found the slug that killed Studsy, and we haven’t found a gun.”
Bill was in good humor when I left him. I promised to make him one of my Welsh rabbits and he promised to stop around and see Janet. I went to a drug store and called the house.
Janet sounded sleepy. She said, “Yes?”
“Darling, how would you like to go in the movies?”
“How would I— Say, who is this?”
I went red. “Who the devil do you think would be calling you ‘darling’?”
“Oh. That’s better. Now you sound natural. I thought you said something about going in the movies. Silly!”
I told her there was nothing silly about it. I gave her the address of the Hollywood Boulevard Movie School and told her to go there. She said she would after I’d agreed to finance it. She has money of her own, but she’s funny about some things.
Back at the Belvedere again I asked myself a question. If I wanted to buy a picture frame in a hurry, I asked, where would I go? I got the answer and went there. It was a little hole-in-the-wall near the University. A doddery old guy came out of the back. He asked: “What can I do for you?”
I told him, “You have some beautiful frames here. It’s hard to imagine anyone buying one of these things,” and I picked up a gold imitation just like the one Fenwick Green’s picture had been in “when they could have something like that sterling-silver one.”
His face lighted up like a Christmas tree. “It’s the price, mister. Only last night a young woman rushed in here. She was a lady. I know because I serve lots of ladies. She had a hammered gold frame that looked like somebody had tried to pound a pebble through one side of it. I told her it could be repaired but it would take time. She said she was in a hurry. She picked up one like you got in your hand and said, ‘How much?’ and I said, ‘A quarter!’ so she bought it. She’d said she was in a hurry but she waited for change from three dimes. And she wouldn’t leave the damaged frame—”
I said they weren’t so bad at that. I bought one for myself, laying down the exact amount. He was staring at me when I left.
There was a call from Franny when I arrived at the office. Junior Stevens had taken it. Some day I’m going to give that kid a haircut. He kept pushing his hair back and saying that Franny had called from Camden Airport. Franny had been very excited. He had been so excited it was hard to understand him, what with the airplanes roaring around and everything—
“What in hell did he say?”
Junior swallowed. “Franny said to tell you that somebody named Green didn’t take the plane for someplace. He said nobody saw Mr. Green after he went in the bathroom—”
I was plenty bothered when I hit Arch Street, but not too bothered to notice a cab pull out right after mine. “Turn down Sixth,” I told my driver. We turned and the cab behind us turned. “Go up Market,” I yelled. We swung right on red and headed for City Hall. At Reading Terminal, when a light stopped us, the other cab was two behind. “Swing up Thirteenth,” I told my driver. When we reached the bus station I shoved a dollar bill in his face and jumped out.