Dropping low, I chanced a look in the alley. I saw a parked pickup truck, the usual garbage cans, a loading platform. It was a scene of desertion, of quiet, almost of stark desolation. A few blocks away the multitudes cheered a bathing beauty on a float of flowers.
A drop of sweat came down and stung the corner of my eye. As I eased into the alley, a tightness spread through my chest, transforming the normal act of breathing into a conscious, labored process. My grip on the .38 had the trigger on a hairline.
He wasn’t hiding behind the first rack of garbage cans, or the next. The pickup truck was empty, and he wasn’t crouched and waiting beyond the loading platform.
The end of the alley was marked by a meeting of sunlight and shadows. I slipped the gun in the side pocket of my suit jacket and padded across to another sidewalk.
I went a block and rounded a corner. Ahead of me was a solid jam of humanity. Over their heads I glimpsed the upper portions of a passing float. A baby was crying fretfully somewhere in the crowd. Cardboard periscopes bobbed up and down. Young daddies stood with kids straddling their shoulders. At first glance I counted a dozen coconut straw hats, like chips floating on a restless sea.
He was under plenty of tension, I reminded myself. I stood in readiness for the natural thing to happen, waiting for one of those hats to turn as the man under it sneaked a glance backward.
A band blaring Sousa strains came and went. On the following float, a tall, leggy girl, gleaming with golden gilt, stood on the back of a golden dolphin, a golden chain in her hand.
The golden image slipped past the edges of my vision. A grinning, gigantic pirate, two stories tall and inflated with helium, floated past the intersection. A troop of cowboys from the Kissimee ranching area clop-clopped by on spirited palomino horses. Another band marched past with drums rattling a swift cadence.
None of the hats had turned. I knew he was a cool, experienced professional. He had to be aware of my presence, but he had the self-discipline to keep from revealing himself.
My hands had gradually become hard knots of frustration. I wheeled abruptly and headed toward my office.
When I got back to Jean Putnam, a glistening green fly had landed on her smooth, firm cheek and was crawling toward the young, innocent mouth. With a thick curse, I shooed the fly away, cut my eyes from her, and hurried up the stairs.
Trying to keep my mind away from the implications attached to the young, cooling body on the stair landing, I phoned police headquarters.
Over a route of back streets, an official contingent made an almost stealthy arrival in about ten minutes. Two cars and a sleek, black Caddy ambulance disgorged tech men, meat-wagon boys, uniformed cops, and Lieutenant Steve Ivey of Homicide.
The preliminaries were quiet, Ivey surveying the girl, murmuring instructions, motioning me back to my office.
A big, bald, placid man, Steve never made headlines. But he was a good detective, making up in integrity and determination what he might have lacked in brilliance. He rested against the edge of my desk patiently while I told him what had happened.
“And you’ve no inkling why she called, Ed?”
“Only that she wanted a question settled in her mind,” I said.
“I wish you’d got a better look at the gunman.”
“Look, hell,” I said. “I would have guaranteed his medical or funeral expenses for one clean shot at him.”
“Know anything about Jean Putnam, Ed? Where she lived? Who her people were?”
“Nothing. I don’t even know if she was a Tampa resident. She might have been a nice young secretary from Topeka vacationing here during Gasparilla week.”
“Chances are she was local.”
“Chances of anything are just about endless at the moment,” I said. “She was single.”
“Unless she wasn’t as nice and innocent as she looked,” I said, “and had shucked her wedding band for some hanky-panky during Gasparilla.”
Ivey used a padded handkerchief to wipe moisture from the sweatband of his hat. “A swift, hard strike by a cool gunman...” he murmured. “We’re reasonably sure of only one thing. It was a professional killing. The toughest kind. He fills his contract. He makes his hit, and this time tomorrow he could be in Gary, Detroit, or L.A.”
“I know.”
“Except,” Ivey said, “I don’t think he will be. I think he’ll be right here in Tampa, thanks to you.”
“Did you have to put it into words?” I said.
“He has no way of knowing how much the girl might have been able to tell you, Ed. A pro killer can’t leave loose ends like that.”
“The pay-off party won’t be happy until the error is fixed,” I admitted.
Ivey looked up slowly. The office was very quiet. Steve and I had known each other a long time. “I could put you in protective custody, Ed, or jail you as a material witness.”
“For how long?” I asked. “Until the guy dies of old age?”
Ivey sighed heavily. “The idea is full of negative values.”
“It leaks negative all over the place, Steve. I should sit in jail while the gunsel regains his balance? While whoever hired him has a chance to mend fences, plan the next move, really set me up? No thanks!”
I stood at the window, looking at the holiday spectacle passing on Franklin Street. A Shriners’ band was really giving out with “There’ll Be a Hot Time in Old Town Tonight.”
I looked at Steve over my shoulder. “I won’t be much good in this town if I let a prospective client get knocked off on my doorstep and run and hide. I didn’t make the eight ball, Steve, but you add everything up and it looks like I’m right behind it.”
“Maybe we can grab our man quick, Ed.”
“And supply the pallbearers if you can’t.” I said. The bitterness in my voice was for real, and Ivey was left without an answer. He looked at me a couple of seconds longer, then punched me on the shoulder and turned to leave.
As he neared the door, he stuck his handkerchief in his pocket and covered his peeled-egg pate with his hat. A coconut straw. In this climate, even cops in plainclothes wear them.
Two
There is always a way.
I picked up the phone book and opened it to the C section. “Clavery” wasn’t a common name. I hoped the Clavery throwing the party that had been Jean Putnam’s destination didn’t have an unlisted phone.
I started dialing.
The first few Claverys didn’t answer. Then a salty voice expressed an opinion of people who call a wrong number and wake a night-shift worker in the middle of his bedtime.
I got another Clavery on the line and repeated the question: “Has Jean Putnam got there yet?”
“Who?”
“Jean. She was on her way to your party.”
“Party? Ain’t no party...”
“Sorry,” I said. “I dialed the wrong number.”
The next-to-last Clavery phone rang three times before it was picked up. The aloof voice of a trained domestic answered. “The Van W. Clavery residence.”
Bursts of laughter, stereo jazz in the background. My hand tightened on the phone.
“Has Miss Jean Putnam arrived?” I asked.
“I haven’t seen her, sir. Who is calling? I’ll look among the guests if you wish.”
“No, don’t bother.”
“Is there a message?”
“No,” I said. “No message.”
I hung up, made a note of the address, and left the office.
Located in swank Palma Grande, the Clavery home was a modern architect’s dream in glittering glass and concrete. I turned off the wide boulevard and parked behind the string of cars in the driveway.