“That's just like you, Joe, doin' it the hard way. He took the elevator down.”
The lieutenant looked at him thoughtfully as though estimating the truth in the remark; then he glanced at Detective Cuneo standing stiffly by the door. “Sit down, Ted. If everyone who didn't get along with his highness here waited for him to offer them a seat, the chair manufacturers would go out of business tomorrow.” The big man looked across from Cuneo seating himself to the bandage on Johnny's ear. “The report said that Carmody just about took that thing right off you,” he said casually. “Rogers had it that the intern was sewing for ten minutes.”
“A slight exaggeration,” Johnny told him. “How's the ticket read on Carmody, by the way? Nothin' trivial, I hope?”
“Nothing trivial,” Dameron agreed. “And if it weren't due to the circumstances, we'd-”
“Lay off me, Joe,” Johnny told him tightly. “You got a fairly good idea of what was due to happen if I hadn't happened to be there?”
“In the confusion we didn't seem to get it on the record just how you did happen to be there.” The lieutenant's tone was mild. When Johnny failed to answer he continued. “You don't consider it a little bit thick that the girl should be Turner's receptionist?”
“If you've got anything to say, Joe-” Johnny bit off the words-“say it fast.”
Lieutenant Dameron leaned forward in his chair. “Why were you in that girl's apartment?”
“Why, Lieutenant!” Johnny mocked him. “I thought you were a gentleman.”
“What was the information you wanted out of Turner's office you felt that she could get for you?” the big man persisted. “I know you far too well to imagine that it was an accident that you were dating that pipe line.”
“She's a nice kid,” Johnny said quietly. “She's goin' back home, where she belongs.” He stared at the man in the chair. “You've talked to her, Joe. She told you all that. Didn't she tell you what I wanted out of Turner's office?”
The apple cheeks darkened. “She's too damned innocent to know what you were after!” the lieutenant snapped. “And what a wolf like you does with a lamb like that is beyond me!”
“Dear me!” Johnny murmured. “Don't tell me she's going to prefer charges?” He laughed at the big man's irritation.
“He probably made a deal with Turner,” Cuneo threw in coarsely.
Johnny looked at him, then back at Dameron. “Deal? With Turner? You boys don't sound too bright, Joe. Turner's a wheel. He'd make a deal with me?”
Lieutenant Dameron studied Johnny for several seconds, settled back more solidly into the depths of the armchair and folded his arms across his chest. He stared at a point on the wall above and behind Johnny, and when he spoke again his voice was almost neutral. “Ed Keith committed suicide this afternoon,” he said.
Johnny whistled. “On the level? With him I'd have bet it would take someone pushin' the hand that held the razor. So you never know.”
“You never know. He left a couple of notes. He confessed to killing Gidlow.”
“He confessed to killing Gidlow?” Johnny could hear his own voice soaring ridiculously.
“You sound surprised,” Dameron said softly. “You had a candidate?”
“My candidate sure as hell wasn't Ed Keith,” Johnny said emphatically. “Just Gidlow? Not the kid, or Hendricks?”
“Just Gidlow. Keith did it, too.” The lieutenant stopped as though waiting for Johnny to challenge the statement, and when no challenge came he continued. “He wrote it all down very neatly. He lost money he didn't have on that fight, and he went to Gidlow to try to borrow. Gidlow laughed at him. The crusher for Keith was when Gidlow received a call that Keith interpreted as meaning Gidlow had been in on a double cross. He accused Gidlow, who denied it so unconvincingly that Keith lost his head and throttled him. Keith was a big man; when he came out of the fog Gidlow was dead. Keith then did a couple of things rather clever for an amateur. He rigged up the camera, to throw sand in the air, and he called Lonnie Turner and said he'd just walked in on Gidlow's body and that he was getting the hell out of there, and that if Turner had anything of his over there he'd better get it out. He reasoned quite correctly that no one would ever suspect the murderer of making such a call.”
“Who'd he make the other call to?” Johnny asked quickly.
“Other call? What other call?”
“You took the telephone chits outta the hotel,” Johnny reminded him impatiently. “Didn't you even bother to check them?”
“There was no other call of interest,” Lieutenant Dameron said levelly.
Johnny threw up his hands in disgust. “He must anyway have called the police commissioner to establish an alibi, the way you guys are coverin' up.” He thought it over a moment. “I don't get it. He was in the clear on Gidlow, so far anyway, an' he'd finally borrowed the money he needed. Why chuck it now when he'd bridged the gap?”
“He had other troubles, he felt. I told you he left two notes. In the second one he mentioned that he and Dave Hendricks had both bet money on that fight. It was incidental that they didn't have the money they bet; the point was that it was against the rules of what appears to be a little syndicate to which they belonged. It was supposed to be handled centrally, but he and Dave got hungry. When they lost, their scramble to produce the money they needed resulted in their position becoming rather generally known and open to certain interpretation. If not the pattern, certainly the knowledge of the fix was being disclosed by them. Keith felt that Hendricks was killed by the fixer because of this, and that he was next. His nerves were so bad he jumped rather than waiting for the push.”
“Jumped literally?”
“No. Sleeping pills.”
“The easiest suicide to fake,” Johnny remarked cynically.
“There's no question but what it was suicide,” the lieutenant said patiently. He paused for emphasis. “We're back to Turner now.”
“Did Keith name Turner in the note?” Johnny asked instantly. The big man examined him woodenly, and Johnny snorted. “You'll never change, Joe. You think it's Turner, an' you're afraid to go up against him because he's got a couple of dollars.”
“I can do without those wise remarks,” Dameron said coldly. “There were no names mentioned in the note, but I think you'll agree Turner's not the least likely prospect.” He paused again, as though searching for the right words. “We have a little chore for you.”
“I knew damn well you didn't come over here just to sit and gas,” Johnny said with satisfaction. “We gettin' down to the dirt now?”
The lieutenant was leaning forward in his chair again. “Ted's been over talking to the Ybarra girl.” Johnny's glance darted off to Ted Cuneo, who stared back at him impassively. “She claims an insufficient knowledge of English to be able to understand or respond properly. She asked for you as an interpreter.”
“You must have told her you had a dozen at the station,” Johnny said cautiously.
“She made it dear she's not coming to the station, voluntarily. For the time being, at least, we'd prefer to handle it on a co-operative basis.”
“You're barkin' up the wrong tree, Joe. She doesn't know her brother's business.”
“It's always possible she knows more than her brother realizes. The doctors won't let us talk to him just yet, so we'll have to settle for next best. I think this interpreter thing is a stall. You might tell her it's the last stall we're prepared to go along with. She'll talk at our convenience, if she misses this boat.”
Johnny sat irresolutely a moment. The only way he could figure it was that Consuelo at least thought she knew what she was doing. He shrugged, rose and walked to the closet for his coat. “On this you're gonna draw a big, fat zero, Joe,” he predicted.
The big man's smile was wry. “In that case we'll be right in step with the whole operation. Are we ready? Fine.” He pushed himself up on the arms of the chair and glanced from Johnny to Cuneo. “You can reach me at home if you should happen to need me, Ted.”