“Brother!” he said with a short laugh.
Ernie Bentley gave us both a disgusted snort and shook his head. “You let Martin Grady hear that kind of talk and you’ll wind up behind a filing cabinet. For two guys with all the field experience you’ve had you still play kid games.”
Don glanced at him, smiling. “You know what they say about all work and no play, Ernie.”
“How many times has a woman ever shot you?” Ernie asked him.
“Once.”
“I heard different.”
“The other wasn’t in the line of duty.” Don grinned again. He nodded toward me and said, “Ask him the same question now.”
“Shut up,” I said. I looked at my watch. “Let’s get things rolling.”
Doug Hamilton had lived in Manhattan in a four-room apartment that was one of the newer eyesores in a rebuilt city. Five years ago the site had been a row of great restaurants frequented by those who had loved the city and made it a modern wonder of the world. Now it was an index system of people in a massive complex of commercialism whose character had gone from blood and flesh to concrete and steel.
The personnel folder Don had delivered to me on Hamilton listed his salary from Belt-Aire Electronics at two hundred dollars a week and estimated another one-fifty from other contracts he handled through his office. His agency was small but efficient and in business since the end of 1946. Recommendations had come from five other major companies who had used his service with satisfaction and all the checks Belt-Aire had put through gave him a clean bill.
The only thing wrong was that the cheapest one-and-a-half-room apartment in the building went for three-fifty a month and Doug Hamilton had one of the most expensive layouts in the place whose advertised rental was almost ten thousand dollars a year.
Six months before he had lived in a fifty-dollar flat in Brooklyn.
When the doorman called the superintendent into the lobby for me I got one knowing look and didn’t have to bother with explanations. He was old and wise and had seen too many people like me and judged accordingly, except that this time he mistook me for a cop. “Aren’t you people ever going to call it quits?”
“Shortly.”
“They’ve photographed the place, they’ve dusted it, I’ve talked to a couple dozen other cops and I can’t think of a thing to tell you I haven’t told them.” He waved his hand aimlessly toward the street outside.
“Well, you know how it is. Just a job,” I said.
He nodded, hunching his shoulders in a shrug. “Sure, but what’s to see? No other tenants on that floor yet. He paid rent in advance, never bothered anybody, no parties or stuff like that. I liked him.”
“Somebody didn’t.”
The super motioned with his head for the doorman to go back to his post, then said softly, “What’s it all about? All I get is that he died.”
“He was killed.”
“I figured that. He was a private dick too. I saw a lot of his outgoing mail with the agency name on the envelopes. What happened?”
“Nobody knows just yet. He got involved with something too big for him.”
“So what do I do with the apartment? He was paid up for a year, in cash yet.”
“Check with your lawyer. How about letting me see the place?”
He pointed to the elevator. “Be my guest. It’s still open. Top floor.”
“Thanks.”
The elevator opened into a small private lobby with the floor blanketed in a thick nylon pile rug, the walls boasting finely framed oils by some good but obscure artist. The door to the apartment swung open all the way and the smell of cigar smoke still hung in the air.
I walked in, stood in the doorway a moment and looked around. Nobody had bothered to shut the lights off. Doug Hamilton had rented the apartment unfurnished, but wasn’t responsible for selecting his accouterments. All the earmarks of a decorator were there — one who had unlimited funds to work with.
Somewhere along the way Hamilton had made it. Then he had to pay for it. The hard way.
I knew I wouldn’t find anything there. In a way I wasn’t looking for anything either. All I wanted was an insight into the man I had never seen until he was dead, strapped out on a torture table with the handiwork of an expert etched into his flesh.
For ten minutes I walked around the place, opening cabinets and drawers, seeing the accumulation of a person taking on a new life. He had had everything a man could ask for except living and even that wasn’t much. All the information Don Lavois had dug up showed Hamilton to have been a frugal liver and it still showed here. Two quarts of scotch, one opened, two suits, a half dozen shirts and shorts with socks to go with them, a few odds a d ends and that was all. It was as if he had just moved in, yet he had been there several months.
Over all lay the powder smudges the police had spread and the evidence of their search. Methodical and thorough. The kill hadn’t taken place here so there wasn’t much to look for. Routine, with everything they found held in check until it matched something else.
Some of his work Hamilton had done at home and one corner of the living room was taken up with a mahogany desk and a small filing cabinet, but the files held nothing more than carbons already filed with his employers, receipted bills and notes on planned activities.
Out of curiosity I fingered through the top drawer looking for the folder on Belt-Aire Electronics. It was there, all right. Just the folder. I pulled it out of the alphabetical sequence and looked at it. Not too long ago it had been well filled. The gauge lines at the bottom of it had been creased on the last one to accommodate a good half inch of papers. I stuck it back where it came from and pushed the drawer shut. Either Doug Hamilton had kept his present employer’s information more confidential than the others or someone else was interested in what went on in Belt-Aire Electronics.
On the way out I stopped at the desk where the super was thumbing through some papers, waited until two women passed by us and said, “Did anyone make arrangements to forward his mail?”
“No... no one mentioned it.”
“Anything come in for him yet?”
“Not today.”
“Hold whatever shows up. You’ll be notified what to do with it.”
“Sure thing,” he said, then added, “Think I should button up the apartment?”
I gave a small shrug. “There will be a court action in a few days and you’ll be notified. Meanwhile you might as well keep the place locked. I don’t know who would be interested in seeing the place anyway.”
“Well, I could rent...”
“Take it easy. He paid in advance, didn’t he?”
The guy looked a little sheepish, passed it off and went back to his papers.
I went outside and waved down a cab and gave him the address of Belt-Aire Electronics.
Chapter 3
The factory was a new one, erected on reclaimed land between La Guardia and Kennedy Airport, completely surrounded by heavy wire fencing and patrolled by armed guards. There was a good reason for all the security checks. Inside, this single Martin Grady firm was engaged in a top priority project of a missile guidance system that could pick a flea out of the stratosphere, and when the system was completed it would put us hands-down ahead of any potential enemy.
I had to wait twelve minutes at the gate before I was cleared through to the main office where the plant manager introduced himself as Henry Stanton and gave me a nervous wave toward a leather chair facing his desk.
“Mr. Grady seems to have the utmost confidence in you, Mr. Mann,” he told me.
I nodded while he offered me a smoke and held a lighter out to me.
“We don’t often get visitors. That is, those not in an official capacity.”