He saw an open space before a private garage, clearly marked No Parking, and pulled into it with a grunt of satisfaction. He set the brake and swung the wheels sharply in order to at least confuse the Charger if it sought to escape by rolling; the two men climbed down and twisted their necks gazing upwards sharply along the vertical pink stucco front of the apartment building. Dondero brought his head down, rubbing his neck and grimacing.
“I’ll never figure people who like to climb four flights of stairs just to finally get to the first floor,” he said. His tone seemed to indicate the sharp incline of the terrain had been put there for the sole purpose of irritating him.
“Don’t exaggerate.”
“Well, to climb three flights, then,” Dondero said grudgingly, “just to reach the basement.”
“That’s better,” Reardon said approvingly, and rang the bell.
There was a delay, but before he could repeat the performance there came the clank of an ancient lever-operated door opener being activated from somewhere above. He pushed into a dim interior followed by Sergeant Dondero, only to find a second door confronting him. He frowned and tried it; it was not only locked, but sturdy. His eyebrows rose; on Grant Street in the old days the situation would have served as an excellent threatening scene from some Yellow Peril Threat movie script, but here? A disinterred voice issued from an old-fashioned speaking tube projecting from the wall. It seemed to take its metallic timbre from the faded brass of the contraption.
“Who are you and what do you want?”
“Miss Messer?”
The voice neither denied nor accepted; it merely repeated. It might have been a recording.
“Who are you and what do you want?”
“Police. We’d like to speak with you.” Reardon kept his voice cool; impersonal. His profound relief at having found her at home at all, was not allowed to show.
There was a brief pause; when the voice came again it was tinged with suspicion.
“Who’s ‘we’?”
“I have a sergeant of police with me. I’m Lieutenant Reardon.”
“I never heard of you.”
“I never heard of you until this morning,” Reardon said. “Open up.”
“How do I know you’re the police?”
Reardon, never known for an excess of patience, bit back his first reply; from her standpoint, Lillian Messer undoubtedly had an argument. He looked at Dondero; the sergeant merely shrugged. Reardon turned back to the mouthpiece. His voice assumed an official hardness.
“Look, Miss Messer, if I have to go to the trouble of getting a warrant, and then go to the extra trouble of breaking down this door to get in and prove to you that we’re from the police, then I’d be damned irked. And I’m pretty sure neither one of us wants that or has anything to gain from that. I merely want to ask you a few simple questions.”
“What about?”
“Damn it!” Reardon snapped. “Open the door and talk to us face to face. Good God! If I wanted to telephone you, I could have done it from the Hall of Justice!”
“Oh?” The thin metallic voice became just the slightest bit calculating, almost amused, as if at some inner thought. “And just what telephone number would you have used?”
“I’d have used 889-5642,” Reardon said flatly. “You don’t really think unlisted telephone numbers are kept secret from the police, do you?”
There was silence for several moments as the woman above apparently pondered this statement; then, at long last, another clang resulted in the heavy door swinging inward. A well-lighted and carpeted staircase led upwards. The two men climbed it slowly, Reardon wondering to himself why the police were apparently welcome — or if not exactly welcome, at least not forcibly excluded — whereas common citizens without badges were quite obviously barred. Not quite the standard attitude for the ideal suspect in a murder case, he thought a bit despairingly; nine will get you thirteen we’ve hit another blind alley. He paused on the landing to stare at the woman who had let them in.
“Miss Messer?”
“Mrs. Messer.” Her voice, freed from the confines of the brass speaking tube, was low, cultured and pleasant. Her eyes were light gray, almost colorless, and, at the moment, very careful. “Could I see your identification, please?”
She examined the two warrant cards held out to her with what was quite evidently sufficient knowledge to determine their authenticity, and then nodded, satisfied, and led the way into a sitting room. Reardon was not surprised to find it both comfortable and well appointed, with good furniture tastefully and decoratively upholstered, and with either originals or excellent reproductions on the walls. The woman herself had been the surprise; once this surprise had been accepted, the apartment, its furnishings and all else followed quite naturally from it. Madames have changed a bit from the days of the Barbary Coast, I guess, he thought, and studied the woman before him. Mrs. Messer was a smallish lady in what seemed to be her middle forties; she was dressed in a mannishly cut suit and looked far more like a buyer for a woman’s shop than a madame in one of Falcone’s houses. Her hair was tinted a slight shade of gray, and neatly put up in a bun; her hands were small and faintly veined, the nails well manicured and covered with light pink polish. The lace from her cuffs peaked from beneath the suit sleeves, starched and white.
She seated herself in a straight-backed chair and waited politely for the two police officers to arrange themsleves in easy chairs on either side of her. Reardon felt himself sink deeply into the cushions; he looked up to find the woman eyeing him with faint amusement.
“Are you comfortable?”
Reardon struggled to a sitting position, feeling slightly foolish. He was sure the woman had selected the chairs for this purpose, and had led them to sit in them. “Quite,” he said, and managed to rest himself on the rim of the chair frame.
“Good. Well, gentlemen? What can I do for you?”
Reardon did the questioning. Dondero left his notebook in his pocket.
“Is there a Mr. Messer?”
“There was, but he died many years ago.” Her look of amusement increased. “Were you looking for him? He’s buried in Los Altos, if you care to exhume him...”
Reardon didn’t waste the time to comment. “That’s quite an armory you have down below. Do you feel you need that much protection?”
“Lieutenant, those doors and those door openers were installed when this house was built — well over seventy years ago. More, in fact — before electricity. Believe me, I didn’t put them in.” She looked at him archly. “Why? Are you gentlemen from the building inspector’s office? You led me to believe—”
Reardon cut in abruptly. “You used to work for Pete Falcone, didn’t you, Mrs. Messer?”
The lady facing him merely nodded in lieu of answering. Her face was calm, her eyes twinkling.
“Could I ask what you did?”
“Certainly. A type of personnel work,” she said easily. She smiled. “You might say I handled some of his employees for him.”
Reardon didn’t bother to argue the semantics; it made no point in any event. “You’ve heard of his death?”
“Of course. I read the papers.”
“Did the fact of his death surprise you?”
“No.”
Reardon waited for more, but when nothing further was forthcoming, and the lady merely relaxed slightly in the tall, hard chair, he prodded a bit. “Just, no?”