“My apartment,” she said. “But it’ll be hours before we can get you in there without running into somebody.”
“Maybe a service station—”
“Wait,” she interrupted. “I know. That Playland on the beach at the end of Tarleton Boulevard. It’s closed this time of year, but there are some booths on the sidewalk.”
“Do you mind?” I asked.
“Let’s go,” she replied. “Put on the topcoat and hat. And turn the collar up.”
It was less than ten miles straight up the beach, a sort of miniature Coney Island about five miles from downtown Sanport. We met few cars. The two amusement piers, closed down for the winter, were dark and foreboding in the rain. She slowed. On the left all the concessions were shuttered and the only illumination came from the street lights. I could see the shadowy arc of the Ferris wheel and the uneven dark tracery of the roller coaster.
“There’s one,” she said.
The white booth was on the left, near the entrance to a boarded-up chile parlor. She stopped and dug a slip of paper from her purse. “Here’s the number. And a dime, if you don’t, have change.”
I slid out of the car and crossed the street with my coat collar turned up and the hat brim slanted across my face. A car went past, but I was across ahead of its lights. When I closed the door of the booth its light came on. I hunched over the instrument, with my back to the sidewalk, feeling naked. I dialed.
“Sidelines Bar,” a man’s voice answered. I hoped it wasn’t one of Red’s friends on the Force.
“Red Lanigan there?” I asked.
“Just a minute.”I heard him call out “Hey, Red!” The jukebox was playing a Cuban number. I waited, listening to the rain on the overhead of the booth.
“Hello. Lanigan speaking.”
“Red, I hear you wanted me to call.”
“Who’s this? Oh—Bill, where the hell are you? I thought you were coming over.” I heard him push the door shut, and then he went on, talking quietly and rapidly. “Jesus, Irish, that was a man from Homicide that answered the phone. They were, just talking about you. Listen—don’t tell me where you are; I don’t want to know. Your girl friend got the message to you okay?”
“Yeah,” I said. “What do you know?”
“I don’t know anything; I’m just trying to add up some wild guesses. I don’t think you did it or you wouldn’t have called back here the other night. I’ve tried to sell that to the police, but they won’t buy. You’re their boy all the way.”
“There was something about a girl?”
“I’m coming to that. If you didn’t do it, it had to be somebody who was already up there. Right? So maybe an ex-con, somebody he’d sent up. Or a stool-pigeon he was riding a little too hard or something. But the chances are since it was in his apartment, it was a woman. You know what his reputation was with babes. You still with me?”
“Keep firing,” I said.
“All right. This will bring you up to date, but it’s not very promising to start with. Stedman was killed with a bone-handled hunting knife. His. He usually kept it in the desk of his living room to open letters with. No fingerprints, of course. It was one of those carved handles. No sign anybody else had been in the apartment that night. Except you. God knows you left plenty of signs. The Homicide boys say the living room looked like the two of you had been playing polo on bulldozers. But no babes. I mean, no cigarette butts with lipstick, no highball glasses, nothing. No prints except his. He came in around eight-thirty p.m. alone, and didn’t go out again, as far as anybody knows. Nobody seen going into his place afterward, except you. That was around ten, or a few minutes past Nobody came out after you did. That’s definite.
“But of course there’s a rear entrance. You know that;your apartment has the same layout. And here’s what I’m going on. He was in here about eight that night, just before he went home, and he bought a bottle of champagne from me. Stedman never drank champagne, so he was expecting company.”
I was growing excited. “Do you know if he opened it?”
“No. It was still in the freezer compartment of his refrig. That killed it, as far as the boys from Headquarters were concerned. But still they could have been just about to open it when you broke up the party. Or maybe she came in the back way while you and Stedman were racking each other up out in the living room.”
“Stedman knew dozens of girls,” I said. “You got anybody in particular in mind?”
“Yeah. A real wild guess. She’s a new one. He picked her up about ten days ago, right here in the bar. And all she was drinking was champagne cocktails.”
“Who is she?”
“That’s just it; I don’t know. All I know is she ought to be against the law. Stacked? Brother! But never mind. What I’m driving at is that I saw him pick her up, and I got the impression that was exactly what she came in for. Not just for anybody, but for Stedman. And believe me, this babe could do better; she’d already brushed off at least two good bets before he got there.”
“Did you ever see her again?”
“Once. Three or four days later I happened to be passing the Wakefield around eleven a.m. just as she came out the front entrance. I’m pretty sure she doesn’t live there, so Stedman must have scored. But that’s not what I want to tell you. The beautiful part of it is that when she came in the bar I remembered I’d seen her once before. This is not a babe you ever forget. If you’re interested in her, I may know where you can find her.”
“Where?” I asked.
“Look. I don’t know the number, but there’s a little hash-house and coffee shop on Denton Street, over near the ship channel. That’s a kind of an industrial area in there, warehouses, small factories, like that. This beanery is right across the street from the offices of the Comet Boat Company. You know, they make those plastic outboard hulls and runabouts. That boat of mine we used to fish in is one of them. Well, I went over to their office about a month ago with a friend of mine that’s trying to get a franchise to handle the line and we stopped in this diner for a cup of coffee. And that’s where I saw the girl. It was around ten a.m. and she came in with three other girls. Typical coffee-break safari, so she works in an office somewhere in that area. Maybe even for Comet, I don’t know.
“If you see her you can’t miss her. She’s a real Latin type, dark brown eyes with a lot of moxie in ‘em, shiny black hair. She wears it long. Real white teeth, about five-five, one of those smoky-looking babes that you’re never quite sure whether they’re going to freeze you dead or burst into flame. Twenty-five, twenty-six, like that. No wedding ring. The three rimes I saw her she was wearing those dangly earrings.”
“Thanks a million,” I said. “Anything else?”
“One more pipe dream, and this is really reaching for it. Stedman was on the Robbery Detail, you know. He had partner named Jack Purcell, a real cool cat. One of those smooth ones without a nerve in his body. Well, you were probably at sea when it happened, but Purcell committed suicide just about three weeks ago. No note. No reason, that anybody could ever find out.”
“It was suicide?”
“What else could they call it? He was alone in the house while his wife was at the movies. He was shot through the head with his own thirty-eight, which was lying beside his body with his fingerprints on it. It was a contact wound, as they call it.”
“Well, it happens,” I said.
“But very seldom to guys like Purcell. I realize it’s goofy, but I keep thinking there may be a connection somewhere. Just after it happened a friend of mine told me he thought Purcell might have been stepping out. Said he saw him once in a car with a real dish of a brunette.” There was a pause. “Be careful, Irish,” he said and hung up.