“We’ll check it out, Mr. Brokaw. If it’s as you say it is, the information will go no further.”
He gave me the name and address, and I entered it in my notebook.
“How long were you there?” I asked.
“Well, let’s see... I got there about ten minutes after eleven, I guess. A couple of minutes one way or the other. The reason I’m sure is because I called her at eleven o’clock sharp. I’d just looked at the clock, because Maude had yelled at me to know what time it was. She has to take her medicine at a certain time, you know.”
“And what time did you leave?”
“Few minutes ago.”
“You always call this woman before you go to see her?”
“Not unless I want to spend the night. Then I got to call her, to make sure it’s agreeable.”
“Didn’t your wife overhear you talking to this other woman?”
“It ain’t likely. Our apartment’s laid out like they are in railroad flats, you know. Maude was back in the bedroom, and there are a couple rooms between that and the living room, where the phone is. And besides, I always use a sort of code when I call. I make out I’m calling a man, see? I pretend I’m calling a guy to see if there’s going to be a poker game. I call this woman ‘Mike’ on the phone. She knows what I mean, when I ask if there’s going to be a poker game. If she wants me over there all night, all right, I go. And if she doesn’t, then I tell Maude there ain’t no game. I do that just in case Maude ever does kind of tune in on me one of these nights.”
“I see. What was your personal opinion of Miss Lawson?”
“You’d never find a finer girl than her, mister. They just don’t come no better. I guess I liked her better than any woman tenant I ever had in this house. She never got snotty, the way a lot of these extra-pretty girls get.”
“You see her often?”
“Quite a bit. She was just about the most helpless woman ever was born. Couldn’t fix a thing. Had me up lots of times, to fix this and that. I didn’t mind doing it, though. You just naturally like to help a person like her.”
“You know where we might find the switchboard operator?”
“I sure don’t. He’s a funny one, Benny is. Don’t say nothing to nobody. I did hear him say a couple of times that he walks to work. A fella like Benny, he’s the kind would walk all the way from the Bronx, just to save subway fare.”
I nodded. “I guess that’ll be all for now, Mr. Brokaw.”
He got to his feet slowly, glancing at the pocket where I keep my notebook. “You sure Maude won’t get wind of where I was?”
“I’m sure.”
“Yeah. Well, if there’s anything I can do to help you find the one that done it, you let me know. Hear?”
“Thanks,” I said. “We’ll do that, Mr. Brokaw.”
“I’m stronger than I look. You leave me alone with him five minutes. That’s all — just five minutes. He won’t stab any more girls like Miss Lawson, I guarantee you.”
I got up and walked to the front door with him. “Benny’s last name is Thomas, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, that’s it. Thomas.”
“Who owns this apartment house, Mr. Brokaw?”
“Corbett Brothers. They got an office on Sixth Avenue.”
“Well, thanks again.”
He nodded and walked toward the elevator. I watched him until the car came up and he got into it. The patrolman I’d posted in the car glanced at me questioningly.
“Mr. Brokaw’s going down to his apartment,” I said, making it just pointed enough for Brokaw to get the drift.
I wanted to check Brokaw’s story immediately, of course, and I called the station house, gave the lieutenant the data, and asked if he would send a detective over to see the woman Brokaw had said he’d spent the night with. The lieutenant called a detective to the phone, and I repeated my request to him. He told me he would be able to check it out right away, and would call me back as soon as he finished. I thanked him and hung up. If the detective found any cause for suspicion, I would, of course, make a personal check.
I looked up the phone listing for Corbett Brothers and called their office. Although I identified myself as a police officer, the girl to whom I talked refused to give me Benny Thomas’ home address. I wasn’t surprised. People in personnel work get a number of calls from men impersonating police officers, and most of them are under strict orders to release personal information about employees to no one except when the one requesting the information goes to the office and positively identifies himself.
When I knew my attempt was hopeless, I hung up and called BCI. I asked for run-throughs on Gus Brokaw, Benjamin Thomas, and Edward Henderson. I’d been thinking about the man with the dark tan and the white hair ever since I’d talked to him. He hadn’t struck me as the kind of man who’d go up on the roof every morning just to see if the Hudson River was still there.
The phone rang, and the officer on the switchboard told me there was a delivery boy downstairs with a package for Miss Lawson. I told him to send the boy up.
5
I was waiting for him at the elevator. He was about nineteen, I judged, with the smallest features I’d ever seen on a man’s face. He was only an inch or so shorter than I, and his head was of normal size, but his eyes and nose and mouth belonged to a boy of seven or eight. He was carrying a long white box, of the kind florists use for cut flowers.
“You Detective Manning?” he asked.
“That’s right.”
He smiled at me, a little weakly. “They told me downstairs you’d want to talk to me.”
“Uh-huh.” I dropped my cigarette in the sand urn near the elevator and gestured toward Barbara Lawson’s apartment. “We can talk in there.”
He bobbed his head, still smiling that unsure smile, and walked toward the door.
The tech crew had finished their work in the living room and had gone into the bedroom. I motioned the delivery boy to a chair and sat down across from him. He kept staring through the open doorway to the bedroom where the techs were working. He wasn’t smiling at all now, and his tiny, child’s eyes were troubled.
“What’s happened?” he asked.
“We’ll get around to that in a minute,” I said. He’d put the box on the floor beside his chair. I reached down and picked it up, shucked off the white ribbon, and glanced at the dozen or so roses it contained. Then I replaced the lid and the ribbon, and put the box down beside his chair again.
“You deliver flowers here often?” I asked.
“Yes, sir. Every day, except on week ends.”
“You always bring them yourself?”
“Yes, sir. I mean, I do unless I’m off sick or something.” He tried to look at me, but he couldn’t seem to keep his eyes away from the techs. “Miss Lawson has a standing order with the shop. We send her a dozen roses — or whatever happens to be extra nice — every morning about this time.”
“I see. You ever notice anything unusual on your deliveries?”
He moistened his lips. “Unusual?”
“Uh huh. Like Miss Lawson having an argument or a fight with someone. Like that.”
“Oh.” He shook his head and the wide forehead between the miniature eyebrows puckered a bit. “No, I never did. I don’t remember ever seeing anyone else here with her. No, wait... I did see another girl here once. But they weren’t fighting or arguing or anything.”
“Where’s the shop you work for?”
“Across the street, up near the corner.”
“You ever see Miss Lawson anywhere else but here? At a party, or in a bar somewhere — anything like that?”