Stewart Sterling
Hot Number
Chapter One
The warden said, “I don’t think you need worry about Wilter, Marshal. Our psychiatrist thinks he’s cured.”
“You don’t cure firebugs.” Ben Pedley, chief fire marshal, ran his knuckles along the purplish welt of scar tissue which laced across his bony jaw. “You seldom cure pyros. Never a commercial torch like Wilter. No compulsive mania with him. Just the same old stuff that lands most of the boys up here in your little, stone school-house. Lure of the fast buck.”
“Oh, I agree.” The warden crackled a confidential report. “What I meant, our records indicate Ted Wilter’s learned that lesson — and a trade, in the bargain. At the time of his sentence, he’d been a drifter.”
“A bum,” Pedley corrected brusquely. “He’d tried everything from panhandling to prestidigitation before he found what he thought was a soft snap, touching off retail stores whose owners wanted to sell their stocks to the insurance companies.”
The warden nodded patiently. “Quite right. But now,” he consulted the buff card marked Parole Approved, “after four years and eight months, he’s turned out to be a pretty fair pipe-fitter. He’s been taking care of all the plumbing fixtures in the C block for some time.”
“Sounds great.” There was no enthusiasm in the fire marshal’s long, weather-leathered horseface. “Question is, how long’ll he be content to fix clogged pipes after he’s had time on the outside to think about the quick coin he used to grab off for those bonfires? But I’m not here to protest his release. I came up to give him a word of warning before he’s turned loose.”
The warden spread his palms. “We don’t like to give a man the feeling he’s going to be hounded.”
“I’m not planning to hound him,” Pedley said bleakly. “I wish I could. I don’t have enough deputies to watch all the glowworms who get out on parole so they can try out the gimmicks they’ve thought up, or dreamed up, here in the pen. If I did, he’d be the first one I’d sic a tail on; two old women died in that last job we got him for, and one of the boys at Engine Thirty-four went to the hospital for a month.”
“Assuming he’s had a change of heart,” the warden laid the release card aside, “you’ll—”
“Give him the benefit of the doubt?” Pedley cut in. “I’ll do better than that. If he’s on the up and up, I’ll go to hell to help him get a job. We have a lot of contact with plumbing contractors in the department. But if he’s got it in the back of his mind to get back in the bonfire business, I’ll go to hell to stop him.”
“Yes. Naturally. Your job. I hope you’ll find he has no such intention.” The warden shook hands. “Let me know what you think, after you’ve talked to him.”
“Chances are,” the marshal was brusque, “it’ll be the same’s I think now. You do scare some of your graduates so they keep clean after they get out, in order not to have to come back. A few of ’em really get religion, turn out as all-righters, none better. I’ve one working with me, so I know. But, for what it’s worth, my opinion is Ted Wilter won’t qualify under either of those classifications.”
“I understand your feeling so about him. I talked to him myself an hour ago. Difficult to get under his skin. He’s — hard, cold.”
“Unless he’s changed considerable,” Pedley said dryly, “he’s a slimy so-and-so. I hope I’m wrong, but I’m not willing to gamble on it. Where do I find him?”
“In the interview room. Just to the right of the guard-room time-clock, Marshal.”
Ted Wilter sat on the battered oaken table, fingering the crease in one trouser leg of his P.I. blues. He was paler than when Pedley had last seen him in General Sessions Court, but even the clumsy cut of the prison-issue serge couldn’t hide the slim elegance of his tall figure. His face was a trifle leaner but still darkly handsome; the eyes held the same old watchful arrogance. His voice was bored.
“Whaddya know! The plain-clothes fire-laddie.”
“Hi,” Pedley said stonily. “You look kind of naked without your mustache. You’ll feel better when you’ve grown it back.”
“I’ll prob’ly grow a beard so some of you plaineys won’t be able to tag around after me so easy.” Wilter showed his prison dental work without smiling. “You come all the way up here to rib me about the way I look, Pedley?”
“Came up to offer you a lift — unless you have a car stashed away outside somewhere,” Pedley said.
“I don’t have any car, and you know it. I’ve got a ticket to Grand Central, and, if you think I’m in such a rush to get there I can’t wait for the train, you’re way off your beat.” Supercilious eyebrows arched in the familiar sneering expression. “I got nobody waitin’ for me.”
“Doranne’s not going to meet you?” Pedley dead-panned it.
“Oh, she’ll meet me, all right—” Wilter half closed his eyes — “when I’m ready to see her.”
“That’s what I wanted to see you about,” the marshal went on, woodenly. “If you’re all set to check out, I’ll run you over to the station.”
“Why not?” Wilter shrugged. “You ran me in here. Might’s well run me out.”
Pedley waited while the formality of the final pass-out was concluded. As Wilter tossed his suitcase in the back of the red sedan he said, “You bring me a message from that tramp?”
“No.” The marshal drove through the great stone gates, swung up the hill toward the station. “I haven’t seen her, or heard from her. Don’t even know where she is.”
“Neither do I.”
“That’s okay, then,” Pedley said shortly. “Just let it ride that way.”
“Look, mister.” Wilter’s voice was gentle. “I’m on the outside now. Long’s I behave myself, I don’t have to take any guff from you or anyone else. If I want to see Doranne, I’ll see her.”
Pedley slurred the red car around on the gravel of the station parking area. “Long’s you keep clean, you’re entitled to say what you want, Wilter. But not to do what you want. Under the terms of your parole, you’re to stay away from former associates. Remember?”
“Nothing in that application about my girl, is there!”
“No. This is between the two of us. Nobody else knows you threatened to kill me, and her, too, if we sent you up.” Pedley opened the door. “I don’t think you really meant it. I don’t hold it against your But I haven’t forgotten it. So... watch your footwork, fella. Lay off her.”
Wilter got out, took his suitcase. “Thanks for the buggy ride. Sorry I can’t spare any cash for the fare, but I’ll give you a free tip, so long’s there’s no one in on this but the two of us. I haven’t forgotten, either, mister, and I never say anything I don’t mean all the way!”
The doors to the big apartment house in the east eighties were of that tempered plate glass which firemen find harder to break through than sheet steel; the lobby was chaste in stainless steel and gray tile; the magnificently uniformed elevator man bent a polite ear to Pedley’s, “Mrs. Fehlman?”
No hesitation to his reply:
“Sixth, sir. Six F.”
The chimes which sounded inside 6F, when the marshal pressed the black button, played Hail, Hail, The Gang’s All Here. Doranne, he thought, had come up in the world, and more than six flights, since the days she’d been the Peerless Peeler of Slansky’s Girlesque.
A chic trick in black and white, a starchy frill of abbreviated apron and a figure-fitting maid’s dress, opened the door. Who was it, please? She would see if Mrs. Fehlman was able to receive Mister Pedley. Mrs. Fehlman rarely received visitors before noon.