“We’ll start over right away,” he said. “Nothing to do here anyway.”
So that let me out of the game. I stood up and yawned, and by the electric clock on the wall, it was two minutes before five. In two minutes I could leave, and I was going to have three stiff drinks to see if it did my toothache any good. Then I intended going to the Deauville Arms myself. If there was a murder, the homicide boys would want my story about the call. And having something to do would help make the time go faster until nine o’clock when there’d be a dentist available.
If there wasn’t a murder, then I wanted a little talk with Sibi Barranya. He might still be there, or up in his own apartment two floors higher. Maybe “talk” isn’t the right word. I was going to convince him, with gestures, that I didn’t appreciate the gag.
I put on my hat at one minute of five. I looked out the window and saw Captain Burke, who relieves me, getting out of his car across the street.
I opened the door to the waiting room that’s between the hall and my office, and took one step into it. Then I stopped—suddenly.
There was a tall, dark, smooth-looking guy sitting there, looking at one of the picture magazines from the table. He had sharp features and sharp eyes under heavy eyebrows, each of which was fully as large as the small moustache over his thin lips.
There was only one thing wrong with the picture, and that was who the guy happened to be. Sibi Barranya—who’d just been talking to me over the telephone a minute before…from a point two miles away!
I stood there looking at him, with my mouth open as I figured back. It could have been two minutes ago, but no longer. Two minutes, two miles. There’s nothing wrong with traveling two miles in two minutes, except that you can’t do it when the starting point is the fourth floor of one building and the destination the second floor of another. Besides, the time had been nearer one minute than two.
No, either someone had done a marvelous job of imitating Barranya’s voice, or this wasn’t him. But this was Barranya, voice and all.
He said, “Sergeant, are you—psychic?”
“Huh?” That was all I could think of at the moment. On top of being where he couldn’t be, he had to ask me a completely screwy question.
“The look on your face, Sergeant,” he said. “I came here to warn you, and I would swear, from your expression, that you have already received the warning.”
“Warn me about what?” I asked.
His face was very solemn. “Your impending death. But you must have heard it. Your face, Sergeant. You look like—like you’d had a message from beyond.”
Barranya was standing now, facing me, and Captain Burke came in the room from the outer hallway.
“Hello, Murray.” He nodded to me. “Something wrong?”
I straightened out my face from whatever shape it had been and said, “Not a thing, Captain, not a thing.”
He looked at me curiously, but went on into the inner office.
The more I looked at Barranya, the more I didn’t like him, but I decided that whether I liked him or not, he and I had a lot of note-comparing to do. And this wasn’t the place to do it.
I said, “The place across the street is open. I like their kind of spirits better than yours. Shall we move there?”
He shook his head. “Thanks, but I’d really better be getting home. Not that I’d mind a drink, but—”
“Somebody’s trying to frame a murder rap on you,” I told him. “The Deauville Arms is full of cops. Are you still in a hurry?”
It looked as though a kind of film went across his eyes, because they were suddenly quite different from what they had been and yet there had been no movement of eyelid or pupil. It was somehow like the moon going behind a cloud.
He said, “A murder rap means a murder. Whose?”
“Charlie Randall, maybe.”
“I’ll take that drink,” he said. “What do you mean by ‘maybe?’ ”
“Wait a minute and I’ll find out.” I went back into the inner office, but left the door open so I could keep an eye on Barranya. I said, “Cap, can I use the phone?” and when he nodded, I called the Randall number.
Someone who sounded like a policeman trying to sound like a butler said, “Randall residence.”
“This is Bill Murray. Who’s talking?”
“Oh,” said the voice, not sounding like a butler any longer. “This is Kane. We just busted in. I was going to the phone to call main when it rang and I thought I’d try to see who was—”
“What’d you find?”
“There’s a stiff here, all right. I guess it’s Randall; I never saw him, but I’ve seen his pictures in the paper and it looks like him.”
“Okay,” I said. “The homicide squad’s already on the way over. Just hold things down till they gel then’. I’m corning around too, but I got something to do first. Say—how was he killed?”
“Bullet in the forehead. Looks like about a thirty-eight hole. He’s sitting right there; I’m looking at him now. Harry’s going over the apartment. I was just going to the phone to call—”
“Yeah,” I interrupted. “Is he tied up?”
“Tied up, yes. He’s in pajamas, and there’s a bruise on his forehead, but he isn’t gagged. Looks like he was slugged in bed and somebody moved him to the chair and tied him to it, and then took a pop at him with the gun from about where I’m standing now.”
“At the phone?”
“Sure, at the phone. Where else would I be standing?”
“Well,” I said, “I’ll be around later. Tell Cap Holding when he gets there.”
“Know who done it, Sarge?”
“It’s a secret,” I said, and hung up.
I went back to the inner office. Barranya was standing by the door. I knew he’d heard the conversation so I didn’t need to tell him he could erase the ‘maybe’ about Charlie Randall’s being dead.
We went across the street to Joe’s, which is open twenty-four hours a day. It was five minutes after five when we got there, and I noticed that it took us a few seconds over two minutes just to get from my office to Joe’s, which is half a block.
We took a booth at the back. Barranya took a highball, but I wanted mine straight and double. My tooth was thumping like hell.
I said, “Listen, Barranya, first let’s take this warning business. About me, I mean. What kind of a hook-up did it come over?”
“A voice,” he said. “I’ve heard voices many times, but this was louder and clearer than usual. It said, ‘Sergeant Murray will be killed today.’ ”
“Did it say anything else?”
“No, just that. Over and over. Five or six times.”
“And where were you when you heard this voice?”
“In my car, Sergeant, driving—let’s see—along Clayton Boulevard. About half an hour ago.”
“Who was with you?”
“No one, Sergeant. It was a spirit voice. When one is psychic, one hears them often. Sometimes meaningless things, and sometimes messages for oneself or people one knows.”
I stared at him, wondering whether he really expected me to swallow that. But he had a poker face.
I took a fresh tack. “So, out of the kindness of your heart you came around to warn me. Knowing that for a year now I’ve been trying to get something on you so I could put you—”
His upraised hand stopped me. “That is something else again, Sergeant. I don’t particularly like you personally, but a psychic has obligations which transcend the mundane. If it was not intended that I pass that warning on to you, I should not have received it.”
“Where had you been, before this happened?”
“I went with a party of people to the Anders Farm.”