Vengeance Is Mine

“Now do what I told you to do or you’ll get the hell slapped out of your hide,” I said.

She lowered her eyes and covered herself up with the coat. The grin she tried so hard to hide slipped out anyway. “You’re the boss, Mike. Any time you want to be my boss, don’t tell me. I’ll know it all by myself.”

I put my thumb under her chin and lifted her face up. “There ought to be more people in this world like you, kid.”

“You’re an ugly so-and-so, Mike. You’re big and rough just like my brothers and I love you ten times as much.”

I was going to kiss her again and she saw it coming. She shed that coat and flew into my arms and let her body scorch mine. I had to shove her away when it was the one thing I didn’t want to do, because it reminded me that soon something like this might be happening to Velda and I couldn’t let it happen.

The thought scared the hell out of me. It scared me right down to my shoes and I was damning the ground Clyde walked on. I practically ran out of the apartment and stumbled down the stairs in my haste. I ran to the comer and into a candy store where the owner was just turning out the lights. I was in the phone booth before he could tell me the place was closed and my fingers could hardly hold the nickel to drop it in the slot.

Maybe there was still time, I thought. God, there had to be time. Minutes and seconds, what made them so important? Little fractions of eternity that could make life worth living. I dialed Velda’s number and heard it ring. It rang a long time and no one answered, so I let it go on ringing and ringing and ringing. It rang for a year before she answered it. I said it was me and she wanted to hang up. I shouted, and she held it, and cautiously asked me where I was.

I said, “I’m nowhere near your place, Velda, so don’t worry about me pulling anything funny. Look, hold everything. Don’t go up there tonight . . . there’s no need to now. I think we have the thing by the tail.”

Velda’s voice was soft, but so firm, so goddamn firm I could have screamed. She said, “No, Mike. Don’t try to stop me. I know you’ll think of every excuse you can, but please don’t try to stop me. You’ve never really let me do anything before and I know how important this is. Please, Mike . . .”

“Velda, listen to me.” I tried to keep my voice calm. “It isn’t a stall. One of the agency girls was murdered tonight. Things are tying up. Her name was Jean Trotter . . . before that she was Julia Travesky. The killer got her and . . .”

“Who?”

“Jean . . . Julia Travesky.”

“Mike . . .. that was the girl Chester Wheeler told his wife he had met in New York. The one who was his daughter’s old school chum.”

“What!”

“You remember. I spoke of it after I came back from Columbus.”

My throat got dry all of a sudden. It was an effort to speak. “Velda, for God’s sake, don’t go up there tonight. Wait . . . wait just a little while,” I croaked.

“No.”

“Velda . . .”

“I said no, Mike. I’m going. The police were here earlier. They were looking for you. They want you for murder.”

I think I groaned. I couldn’t get the words out.

“If they find you we won’t have a chance, Mike. You’ll go behind bars and I couldn’t stand that.”

“I know all about that, Velda. I was with Pat tonight. He told me. What do I have to do, get on my knees . . .”

“Mike . . .”

I couldn’t fight the purpose in her voice. Good Lord, she thought she was helping me and I couldn’t tell her differently! I was trying to protect her and she was going ahead at all costs! Oh, Lord think of a way to stop her, I couldn’t! She said, “Please don’t bother to come up, Mike. I’ll be gone, and besides, there are policemen watching this building. Don’t make it any harder for me, please.”

She hung up on me. Just like that. Damn it, she hung up and left me cooped up in that two-by-four booth staring at an inanimate piece of equipment. I slammed the receiver back on the hook and ran past the guy who held the pull cord of the light in his hand, ready to turn it out. Lights out. Lights out for me too.

I ran back to the car and started it up. Time. Damn it, how much time? Pat said give him a week. A while ago I needed hours. Now minutes counted. Minutes I couldn’t spare just when things were beginning to make sense. Jean Trotter . . . she was the one Wheeler met at that dinner meeting. She was the one he went out with. But Jean eloped and got out of the picture very conveniently and Marion Lester took over the duty of saying Wheeler was with her, and Marion Lester and Anton Lipsek were very friendly.

I needed a little talk with Marion Lester. I wanted to know why she lied and who made her lie. I’d tell her once to talk, and if she wouldn’t I’d work her over until she’d be glad to talk, glad to scream her guts out and put the finger on the certain somebody I was after.

Chapter Eleven

I tried hard to locate Pat. I tried until my nickels were spent and there wasn’t any place else to try. He was out chasing a name that didn’t matter anymore and I couldn’t find him at the time when I needed him most. I left messages for him to either stay in his office or go home until I called him and they promised to tell him when, and if, he came in. My shirt was soaked through with cold sweat when I got finished.

The sky had loosened up again and was letting more flakes of snow sift down. Great. Just great. More minutes wasted getting around. I checked the time and swore some big curses then climbed in the car and turned north into traffic. Jean Trotter and Wheeler. It all came back to Wheeler after all. The two were murdered for the same reason. Why . . . because he saw and recognized her as an old friend? Was it something he knew about her that made him worth killing? Was it something she knew about him?

There was blackmail to it, some insidious kind of blackmail that could scare the pants off a guy like Emil Perry and a dozen other big shots who couldn’t afford to leave town when it pleased them. Photographs. Burned photographs. Models. A photographer named Anton Lipsek. A tough egg called Rainey. The brains named Clyde. They added.

I laughed so loud my chest, hurt. I laughed and laughed and promised myself the skin of a killer. When I had the proof I could collect the skin and the D.A., the cops and anybody else could go to hell. I’d be clean as a whistle and I’d make them all kiss my rear end. The D.A. especially.

I had to park a block away from the Chadwick Hotel and walk back. My coat collar was up around my face like everyone else’s and I wasn’t worried about being seen. A patrolman swinging a night stick went by and never gave me a tumble. The lobby of the hotel was small, but crowded with a lot of faces taking a breather from the weather outside.

The Mom type at the desk gave me a smile and a nasal hello when I went to the desk. “I’d like to see Miss Lester,” I said.

“You’ve been here before, sonny. Go ahead up.”

“Mind if I use your phone first?”

“Nah, go ahead. Want me to connect you with her room?”

“Yeah.”

She fussed with the plugs in the switchboard and triggered her button a few times. There was no answer. The woman shrugged and made a sour face. “She came in and I didn’t see her go out. Maybe she’s in the tub. Them babes is always taking baths anyway. Go on up and pound on her door.”

I shoved the phone back and went up the stairs. They squeaked, but there was so much noise in the lobby nobody seemed to mind. I found Marion’s room and knocked twice. A little light was seeping out from under the door so I figured the clerk had been right about the bath. I listened, but I didn’t hear any splashing.

I knocked again, louder.

Still no answer.