“From what I read, nobody saw who gunned him.” The picture was beginning to take shape in my mind, a little blurred. “Or was that more newspaper mahooley?”
“Yeah.” Hacklin took out a cigar, stuck it in his mouth at an angle like a schooner’s bowsprit. “I got to tell you this so you’ll see why it was prob’ly an inside job.”
I said I wouldn’t guarantee to go along on that.
“You’ll go along — or come along, don’t worry about that.” He flexed the fingers I’d punished. “It was given out officially that nobody saw the actual shooting or the crut who used the gun. But there was one witness.”
“Tildy Millett.” I’d seen that coming.
“Yeah. Johnny Scaluck was drilled in one of two phone booths that stand right adjoining. He got it through the glass, while he was gabbing. Waiters rushed to the booth but the gunman ducked through a fire door. Nobody remembered seeing him. But after the commotion was over, Herb hustled over to quiz around for the Prosecutor’s office. He found Miss Millett had been in the next booth only a few seconds before Johnny got his. She’d seen the murderer but had been too scared to say so ’til Herb dragged it out of her.”
“How’d she happen to be in a dive like the Blue Blazer, anyway?” That wasn’t the question I really wanted an answer to: What if this killer was still roaming our corridors?
“Lanerd was with her. They didn’t want to go to the class joints, afraid she’d be recognized.” Hacklin tongued the unlighted cigar around. “After she identified this chopper, ordinarily we’d have turned her over to the police, protective custody. But the Prosecutor didn’t want any more mortalities among his witnesses. Johnny the Grocer’d been dropped because he was going to incriminate some high-placed cops. So we didn’t even tell the Centre Street people about her, or let on she’d seen the murderer.”
“You didn’t even tell the security office.” No matter what he thought, that had been dumb.
He didn’t bother to answer. “We had a conference with Lanerd and her agent. They told us Miss Millet was under ironclad contract to appear on this Stack O’ Jack show until somebody guessed her identity. They were ready to tear the Criminal Courts building down, brick by brick, if we tried to keep her from appearing on the show.”
“This killer—” I realized why Lanerd had found that gun so comfortable, nestling in his pocket — “this murderer knew she’d seen him at the time of the shooting?”
“Sure. He warned her to keep her mouth shut or he’d get her, later.”
“Then, supposedly, he’d tell his friends on the Confidential Squad about her, wouldn’t he?”
“He might.” Hacklin spat out a shred of leaf. “Or he might not. He wouldn’t know she’d picked his picture out of the Gallery. ’Course we don’t know for positive any of the force was connected with Scaluck’s wipe-out. But the idea was not to take any chances. That’s why I don’t go for your talking to this lieutenant pal of yours.”
“So you let Tildy Millett stay here. Knowing her being here put other people in danger.” I was beginning to stew about what a killer like that would do if he was cornered in a hotel.
“Either Herb was with her or I was with her all the time. Herb had the noon to midnight tour; I came on at twelve and stayed till noon. I suppose you could have done more than we did!”
“Goes without saying. Two of you. Eight hundred hotel employees. But that’s locking the stable. How about letting us have photos of this killer so we can watch for him?”
“He’s Al Gowriss. Two-time loser. A morphy, besides. Stop at nothing when he’s geared up.” Hacklin took a police flyer out of his pocket, unfolded it.
The muddy photo showed a lean, mean face with narrow-set eyes menacing out of deep-shadowed sockets; I’d never have forgotten features like those, if I’d seen them. “New to me.” I glanced at his record. Al Gowriss, alias Al Gorce, Al Manning, etc., etc. Two convictions. A dozen arrests for armed robbery, atrocious assault, manslaughter. Warning: dangerous, likely to be armed. “Sweet boy.”
“Most likely he wouldn’t have tried to crash in here; he’d be as out of place as a crocodile in a pansy bed, around a swankery like this. He’d hire somebody who could get into her room with no trouble.”
“That ‘inside job’ is a fixed idea of yours.” I smelled cigarette smoke, strong cigarettes, probably British.
A wavery wisp of gray drifted in under the corridor door — there’s a quarter-inch space above the sill so floor patrols can check for fire at night. Our air-conditioning pulls a slight draft in under all the doors.
Hacklin was puzzled by my going toward the door. “Gowriss would have had enough dough to hire a dozen room-service waiters.” He eyed my movements suspiciously. “What’re you—”
I jerked open the door before he unwittingly warned the smoker.
The blonde must have had her ear smack against the panel; she sprawled into the room.
When I caught her, to keep her from falling, she didn’t try to free herself. Instead she looked at me, eyes swimming with tears.
“Let me see him,” she whispered. “Please let me see him before they take him away!”
Chapter seven:
Keyhole-peeping blonde
She was what our maître d’hotel would have called a dish of the most desirable. Medium height, lithe waist, and — not to kick the clichés around too much — stocking-ad legs, diving-girl figger. Say, twenty-twoish. Eyes too large for the small, sunburned oval of her face; behind the tear-glisten they were grayish-green with sparks of deeper, luminous emerald. Like the gleam in a cat’s eyes when headlights hit them. Snub nose, reddened at the tip; evidently she’d had the weeps for some time.
Those lobby experts who claim to be able to name what part of the country a guest hails from, what he’s worth, his profession or business, merely by sizing up clothing, jewelry, luggage, and mannerisms, they wouldn’t have doped out a great deal from her.
I couldn’t tell anything from the white nylon print in Tahitian pattern — scarlet and gray. It went nicely with the pale, corn-silky hair sleeked back from her forehead.
She might have bought that dress in one of the Fifty-Seventh Street shoppes where they tax an extra twenty for the label, or it could have come from a bargain counter free-for-all down on Fourteenth. Her hairdo told nothing. All she carried was that British reeker which had given her away. I did notice she filed her nails short, the way our public stenos keep theirs.
I wasn’t in any rush to let her go. Hacklin moved in beside me to block her off from peeking past us at the body.
“Who you want to see?” His tone was equivalent to flashing a badge.
She raised her left hand, touched the tip of her cigarette to the back of my thumb. I let go for just that split second that allowed her to wrench away, dodge around me, to where she could get a good look at the dead man.
“Dowie.” It was hardly a whisper; she kept it under her breath in a kind of smothered wail.
Hacklin made a grab for her, caught her, but only because she’d frozen into a crouch in front of the closet.
“It’s not — not him!” She began to blubber, leaning limply against Hacklin, who couldn’t think of anything better than to shake her.
“Cut it,” he commanded. “Shuddup!”