She kicked off her shoes and started for one of the doors. I saw the point; it made sense to kick off your shoes in here. Then you could walk in a straight line; it didn’t matter whether you stepped on floor or padding. Luckily, I was wearing loafers and I stepped out of them and followed her.
She was looking into a closet behind the door she’d opened and I looked over her shoulder. There were some clothes hanging there, but not many.
“There were two suitcases in here, and a lot more clothes. He cleared out, all right. With his phonograph and as many clothes as he could get into the two suitcases. I think he probably went to Los Angeles.”
“Huh?” I said.
She pointed to one of the garments still in the closet. “His overcoat. He’d have taken that, even if he had to carry it over his arm, if he was going to New York. Or even San Francisco. It’s an almost new overcoat; he just got it last winter.”
“Why rule out Florida?” I asked.
“He told me he went there once and didn’t like it. And that was Miami, the nearest thing there to a big city. And he didn’t like the South, in general. Or Southerners, or Texans.”
I tried the dresser while she looked into the bathroom and reported his shaving things were gone. The top three drawers of the dresser were empty. There was dirty linen in the bottom drawer; he hadn’t had room for that. I ran my finger across the top of the dresser; there was at least a week’s accumulation of dust.
“Doesn’t seem to be any doubt he took off,” I said.
Honey was disappearing behind the curtain that screened off the kitchenette. I wondered what she was looking for there. Not food, surely, after the big dinner we’d just eaten.
Then she pulled back the curtain part way and grinned at me, holding up a bottle. “Anyway, he left us half a bottle of Scotch.”
“Going to take it along?”
“Not in the bottle,” she said. “I’ll find us glasses. Pick yourself a chair, man.”
I laughed and picked myself a pad.
And jumped almost out of my clothes when a buzzer buzzed. Someone had just pushed the button under Albee’s mailbox. I looked at Honey and she looked back, as startled as I was.
My first thought was to ignore it and then I realized that, as this was a front room, whoever was ringing would know that there was a light on, that someone was here.
I stood up quickly as it buzzed a second time. “I’ll handle it,” I told Honey. “Stay behind that curtain out of sight,” I told her. I found the button beside the door that would release the catch on the door downstairs and held it down a few seconds.
“If it’s someone you know,” I told Honey over my shoulder, “come on out. Otherwise stay there.”
It was probably, I told myself, some casual friend of Albee’s who, happening by, saw his light on. If that was the case, I could easily explain, identify myself, and get rid of him.
I stepped back into my loafers, for dignity, and waited.
When there was a knock on the door, I opened it.
I never really saw what he looked like. He stepped through the door the instant it opened and hit me once, with a fist like a piledriver, in the stomach. I hadn’t been set for it, and it bent me over double and knocked the wind out of me, all the wind. I couldn’t have spoken a word if my life depended upon it.
Luckily, it didn’t. He could have swung a second time, to my chin, and knocked me cold and I wouldn’t even have seen it coming. But he didn’t. He stepped back and said, quite pleasantly, “Red would like you to drop up and see him. I think you better.”
And he walked away. Honey was beside me by the time I could even start to straighten up. She was the one who closed the door. “Ed! Are you hurt?”
I couldn’t talk to tell her that I couldn’t talk and that that was a damn silly question anyway. She helped me to cross the room and to lie down on the mattress and she moved the pillow so it was under my head when I was able to straighten out enough to put my head down. She asked me if a drink would help and by that time I had enough breath back to tell her not yet, but if she wanted to help sooner than that she could hold my hand.
I’d been partly kidding, but she took me at my word, sat down on the edge of the mattress and held my hand. And maybe it did help; pretty soon I was breathing normally again and the acute phase of the pain had gone. I was going to have somewhat sore stomach muscles for several days.
What time I got home that night doesn’t matter, but Uncle Am was already asleep. He woke up, though, and wanted to know what gave, and I made with the highlights while I undressed. He frowned about the Kogan goon bit and wanted to know if I wanted to do anything about it. I said no, that obviously he hadn’t known Albee by sight and had made a natural mistake under the circumstances, and that what I’d got was no more than Albee would have had coming.
I said, “I’ll talk to this Jerry Score tomorrow, but I guess that’ll wind it up, unless I get a lead from him. Up to now, the only thing that puzzles me is why old man Nielson still thinks there’s a chance Albee didn’t do what he obviously did do.”
Uncle Am said, “Uh-huh. I didn’t set the alarm, kid. I got to sleep early enough so I’ll wake up in plenty of time. You sleep as late as you want to, since you can’t see Score till afternoon.”
I slept till ten. I was surprised when I got up to find a note from Uncle Am: “Ed, I’ve got a wild hunch that I want to get off my mind. I’m taking the car, and a run up to Kenosha. We won’t bill our client for it unless it pays off. See you this evening if not sooner.”
I puzzled about it a while and then decided to quit puzzling; I’d find out when Uncle Am got back. I took my time showering and dressing and left our room about eleven. I had a leisurely brunch and the morning paper and then it was noon. I phoned our office to see if by any chance Uncle Am was back or had phoned in; I got our answering service and learned there’d been no calls at all.
I went back to our room and read an hour and then it was time for me to leave if I wanted to get to the Graydon Theater at one-thirty. Rehearsal hadn’t started yet, but Jerry Score was back and Carey Evers introduced us. He’d already explained about me to Score, so I didn’t have to go through the routine.
He was a tall blond young man about my age or Albee’s. Maybe just a touch on the swish side but not objectionably so.
And quite likeable and friendly. He gave me a firm handshake and suggested we go into the manager’s office to talk. He wasn’t in the first scene they’d be rehearsing and had plenty of time.
The manager’s office contained only a battered desk, a file cabinet, and two chairs. He took one of the chairs and I sat on a corner of the desk.
His story matched what I’d learned from Honey and from everybody else. Yes, he was convinced Albee had taken a powder, and like Honey he was annoyed with Albee for not even having said so long before he took off.
I asked, “He didn’t even give you a hint when he gave you back the car keys that Saturday night?”
“I didn’t see him Saturday night. The last time I saw him was Saturday morning when he borrowed the car. He just dropped the keys into my mailbox when he brought it back.”
I said, “But Lieutenant Chudakoff said that you said—” And then realized Tom hadn’t said Score had seen Albee, just that Albee had returned the car keys.
I asked Score if he’d been home Saturday evening and he said yes, all evening. But that if I wondered why Albee had left the keys in the box instead of bringing them upstairs to him, the answer was simple. Since he’d decided to lam anyway he wanted to keep his get-away money intact, and he’d promised Jerry ten bucks for use of the car on the trip to Kenosha. If he’d seen him he’d have had to fork it over.