“Now you’re pitching, mister. Keep on pouring it in there. Get it off your chest.”
Rossman turned his face sideways, made three quick pushing-away motions with his hands.
“Off my chest I don’t need to get nothing. Facts is facts. Anybody is welcome to them. I got nothing to hide, absolutely.”
“You weren’t so anxious to tell me your business was in a bad way.”
“Is any businessman? Besides, yesterday I ain’t no more in bad shape. Not after Jack sells them squirrels to Dablin.”
“Oh! The sixty gees made you a profit on the season?”
Rossman pursed his lips. “Did I claim I got sixty thousand? A little concession you got to make, sometimes.”
Pedley snorted. “What the hell did you get?”
“‘Jack,’ I say, ‘do the best you can with Dablin. He could dispose of the garments at a nice profit. You should make a good commission. Maybe I pay off a few creditors.’ So he goes out. When he comes back, what’s he got? A check for thirty-four thousand five hundred. ‘It’s breaking my heart into bits,’ I’m complaining with him, ‘but I got to take it.’”
“I bet you were broken-hearted.”
Rossman shrugged. “Beggars couldn’t be choosing.”
“Did you deposit the check? Or cash it?”
“I couldn’t do nothing with it. After banking hours, Jack brings it.”
“Where is it?”
“Mary had it. To make deposit in the morning.” The furrier folded his hands as if in prayer. “Anyhow, it wouldn’t do me no good to try and cash it. With the garments only a pile ashes, Dick Dablin is sitting on the bank steps already to stop payment.”
Pedley slid in behind the wheel of the official car. “How about proving this gabble you’re giving me?”
“Is easy. Call up Jack Boyne.”
The Marshal kicked the starter. “I’m a guy likes to do business in person. Where’s your salesman hang out?”
“At the Hotel Goelet, he’s rooming.”
The Goelet was up above Columbus Circle. The Marshal went through the reds with the siren wide open. Rossman closed his eyes; gripped the back of the seat the way kids hold onto a roller coaster car.
In the shabby gilt-and-rose lobby of the hotel, Pedley showed his badge to a watery-eyed night clerk; got a room number. On the way up in the elevator the Marshal seemed pre-occupied.
“No prompting, now, Rossman. I’ll do the quiz-biz. You speak when spoken to.”
The furrier nodded. “Agreeable by me.”
They went down a carpeted corridor, to 604. Pedley put a finger to his lips.
Behind the door a voice had been droning, monotonously; now it stopped. The Marshal couldn’t make out the words. But when the speaker began again, after a long pause, Pedley knocked. The talker was abruptly silent.
The door opened a slit. A pleasant, boyish face peered out, inquiringly.
“Boyne?”
“Who’re you?”
“Fire Department. Okay to come in?”
“Sure.” The man was in shorts and slippers; he held a Racing Form in one hand, a pipe in the other. “What’s the idea?” He saw the furrier, frowned. “Meyer!” He put the pipe in his mouth, slowly. “What’s up?”
Rossman looked at the Marshal. Pedley closed the door, moved into the room. “Investigating a blaze over at Beautifurs, Boyne.”
The sporting paper dropped from the salesman’s hand; the frown deepened. “Bad one?”
“Yair.” Pedley surveyed the room. “Couple people hurt. Considerable property damage.” There was a stack of Turf & Track magazines on a table; pajamas and a bathrobe tossed on the big double bed; a portable radio set on the bureau. That voice they had heard, out in the hall, had come from the radio. “Reason to believe the fire was incendiary.”
The salesman ran tobacco-stained fingers through rumpled brown hair. “Why’re you coming to me about it?” He scowled at Rossman.
“Thought you might know who wanted to put your boss out of business.”
The salesman took the pipe out of his mouth, laid it carefully on the table. “Meyer, you fat so-and-so. Were those squirrels damaged?”
The furrier held out appealing hands. “Could I help it. Jack? The fire boys done their level best—”
Boyne leaped. His weight forced the fat man back on the bed; his hands went to Rossman’s windpipe.
Pedley grabbed the salesman’s shoulders, hauled him up off the bed. Boyne’s grip dragged the manufacturer upright, too. The Marshal smashed a stiff right to Boyne’s chops. It staggered the salesman and sent him reeling against the wall. Rossman, his face beet-red with congested blood, his hands clawing frantically at the throttling fingers, crashed into the wall alongside his attacker.
Boyne waited until Pedley closed in, then gave him a knee in the crotch. The Marshal grunted with pain, lashed out with a left. It caught the salesman smack in the teeth.
They slid to the floor, Boyne on top. His face was contorted — but he didn’t loosen his death-grip on the fat man’s throat.
Pedley’s right hand snaked to the holster under his left armpit. He didn’t want to shoot either of these men; maybe the butt would do the trick. He clubbed the police positive, clipped Boyne hard behind the ear. The salesman collapsed, his fingers still locked on Rossman’s throat. Pedley got a forearm under Boyne’s chin, wrenched him up and back.
Rossman fell free, tongue protruding from his thick lips. His eyes were open, but only the whites were visible. He was unconscious. The Marshal rolled him over so his tongue wouldn’t strangle him; dragged Boyne’s limp figure into the adjoining bathroom.
There was a lump the size of a pigeon’s egg behind the salesman’s ear. The gun butt had split the skin. A thin ribbon of red ran down Boyne’s shoulder onto his undershirt.
Pedley opened the medicine cabinet. There was a confusion of tooth powder, razor blades, talcum, tooth paste, shaving cream, but no collodion or iodine. He used cold water. Boyne came out of it fighting like a drunk. The Marshal turned on the cold shower, heaved the salesman under it. He spluttered incoherently and swung a punch. Pedley shoved him off balance, bumped his nose against the shower pipes.
“For God’s sake cut it out — or I’ll slap you silly!”
Boyne cursed and struggled to turn off the water. “Did I kill that dirty little drip?”
“You didn’t. And you won’t. You’re a tough cluck, aren’t you?”
Boyne shivered, stripped off his wet underclothes. “Not so tough. Just sore at that chiselling jerk.”
“And why?”
The salesman towelled vigorously. “Who the hell would be setting the shop on fire, except Rossman. That’s how he got his start in business. He was working for Kreiner’s, and Kreiner’s had a fire one night and got cleaned out. Then Rossman started in on his own by stealing Kreiner’s customers.”
“Yair? That might be important.” Pedley went back into the bedroom. “Get some clothes on. You’ll have to go down to the building and check up on what’s been destroyed.” He went to the bed. Rossman was lying on his side, wheezing. He propped himself up on one elbow, glared at the figure in the bathroom.
“Is a filthy, rotten lie, Jack. From Kreiner’s I never took nothing. No more do I burn up my own property — including practical every cent I got in the world!”
Boyne pulled on his pants. “I wouldn’t know how you worked it, sharp-shooter. But you and that bookkeeper you hired away from Kreiner — between you, you’ll manage to come out of it with a few thousand bucks, all right. While I’m up the creek for twelve hundred back commission you owe me.”
The furrier sat up. “How could I pay commission on bills I ain’t collected, yet?”