“Where’d he drop th’ taxi?”
“Forty-second an’ Broadway. Around seven-thirty. He’s down in that Times Square station so fast Ed can’t find a place to park so he loses th’ cluck again. Don’t pick him up until midnight, then he puts Wilter to bed.”
“The guy would’ve had time to bonfire half the midtown section by then.” Pedley swore disgustedly.
“That’s about it. Wilter goes to work this morning, been in th’ shop all day. Ed went in to get an estimate on air-conditioning his Madison Avenoo mansion, an’ he met another cluck who works there. Ex-con. Charley Lerquick. Just come down from doin’ three to five, breakin’ an’ enterin’. Prob’ly he helped Wilter latch onta th’ job.”
“Yair. Barney, find out if they do much theatre work. Ventilating ducts, stuff like that.”
“It’s after six. An’ I think they close at five.”
“Then get hold of the man on beat. He’ll know where to rout out the boss.
“And, Barney. Tell Ed if he misses Wilter tonight, I’ll send him back to doing housework on the brass at Engine Sixty.” Pedley hung up, went down, climbed in the red sedan.
He drove uptown without using the Mars light or touching the siren. A block and a half from the Belfonte he parked by a fire plug, went into the structure housing the big red wagons.
In the captain’s office he picked up blueprints of the Belfonte, which he studied, and caustic comment from the lieutenant — which troubled him.
“The damn building should have been condemned three years ago, but they keep getting postponements from the Municipal Courts, Marshal. They’ve fireproofed the carpets and put in spun-glass drapes, but the place would go up like a carload of matches if it ever got half a start. Wood in those dressing rooms is soaked with grease. Plaster’s cracking off the laths. Enough old paint ground into the backstage floor from those canvas sets to cover a ten story building.”
“Yair.” Pedley noted with some satisfaction that the property was owned by one of the giant realty combines; they wouldn’t have any interest in collecting insurance; they made their money renting, not rebuilding. “It’ll probably be just as big a hazard three years from now, too. I’m just checking around.”
The lieutenant knew better, but he didn’t say so.
Pedley walked to the theatre, used his badge at the stage door. For half an hour he checked extinguishers, sand pails, exit lights, panic bolts on the huge steel escape doors. All in order.
He was inspecting the house alarm in the lobby when a hearty voice hailed him. “Hey! Marshal!” The big man called to him through the gilt grillwork of the box-office.
Pedley said, “Hello, George. You the manager here?”
“Heck no.” Fehlman looked surprised. “I’m the treasurer. Lily and I own one-eighth the company. I just sit in here while the ticket man goes to supper, that’s all. You want to catch the show tonight?”
“Thought I might. Hear Lily’s sensational.”
“Best act on Broadway. Not even a close second. Up to last night, anyhow.” The treasurer frowned.
“What was with last night?”
“I couldn’t believe it. She laid the biggest egg this side the Natural History Museum. Must’ve felt rocky. I don’t know what hit her all of a sudden. She was okay when you were up at the apartment, but afterward we went skating at the Arena. She may have caught a touch of flu, didn’t realize it.”
“That’ll knock anyone for a loop.” Pedley nodded. “But if I was in this business I’d rather catch cold, than hot.”
Feldman didn’t get it.
“You’ve a fused-up fire trap here, mister. Every time you jampack this place with standees, you’re paddling around in a pool of T.N.T.”
“But we never admit more than the legal—”
“I’m not fixing to count heads,” Pedley cut him short. “But if I were you, I’d make the rounds of the exits every night to see there weren’t any obstructions.”
Feldman was disturbed. “You have a fireman here, on duty, every night.”
“That’s the trouble. He’s here every night. He gets used to things. He’s probably a good man. But if everything looks all right, he’ll assume it is. I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”
“You expecting trouble here?”
Pedley said, “That’s my business, brother.”
It was ten past eight when Pedley knocked on the starred door.
Doranne called, “Come in.”
She stood in front of a tiered mirror in wisps of flesh-pink lingerie. A stout woman, with hair whiter than the frilly cap atop it, held out a pair of gauzy pajama pants for Doranne to step into.
Pedley said, “I’ll come back.”
“You can stay,” Doranne assured him. “Plenty of times I don’t even wear this much on-stage. If the close-up doesn’t destroy all the illusion, it’s all right with me.”
“No wonder the bald-headed boys go for those down front seats.” He dropped into the wicker chair. “You seen Wilter?”
“Yes.” She turned for the dresser to unhook the brassiere. “I haven’t spoken to him. But he was out front last night — tenth row, center. I noticed him on my first entrance. It practically paralyzed me with fright. George says I gave a miserable performance, but I just couldn’t seem to get organized after that.”
“Wilter come around backstage after the show?”
“No. No message, either. I don’t know what I was expecting, a bomb in a box of flowers, or what. Maybe he figures his being out there once in a while — my remembering his threats — will be enough to send me into a nervous collapse. It might be, too. I’m as unstrung as last Christmas’s toy ukulele. I’ll probably louse up the show again, tonight.”
“Why don’t you go away for a vacation?” He watched her in the mirror; it seemed indecent to stare at her, a yard away.
“I told George I wanted to; we were talking about it only half an hour ago. He thinks it’ll smash the road trip they’re booking; my understudy’s a wonderful kid and a lot better dancer than I ever was on my best night — but—” she ran the fingertips of her right hand along her thigh caressingly — “well, she just doesn’t excite people, somehow.”
“Yair. That’s what they pay for,” Pedley said.
“So I’m in the middle. I can’t tell him why I want to run out on the show, unless I spill the whole keg of nails. If I have to stay on, and Ted keeps coming and giving me that cold, icy stare, I’ll crack up for sure. What can I do?”
Pedley could understand why George Fehlman was reluctant to let her spend many evenings away from him. “You might try for a court order to restrain him from annoying you. But that would mean you’d have to go on record about his threatening you.”
“I don’t want to do anything to hurt Ted,” she cried. “You can’t imagine how many bad times it’s given me to remember that he might not have spent all those years in prison if it hadn’t been for me.”
“You didn’t send him there,” the marshal said. “All you did was help us lock him up a little more quickly than we’d been able to without your testimony. And keep yourself from getting indicted as an accomplice — which you’d have been if you’d backed up that phony alibi of his.”
“I know. I keep telling myself that. But you can’t expect Ted to feel like that. I don’t honestly blame him for being sore; what gets me, if he’s going to do something, I wish he’d do it and get it over with, before I pop my top.”
The call boy came along the narrow corridor, rapping on each door. “Five minutes — five minutes.”
The door burst open.
Doranne whirled angrily. “What’s the idea?” Then she exclaimed, “Georgie!”