Murder for Madame Page 4

  CHAPTER 6

  Tiny lived on Forty-Sixth Street, between Fifth Avenue and Sixth; a block of assorted walk-ups, old-fashioned flats that rented at old-fashioned prices. Her apartment, on the top floor, overlooked the street. It was a smallish place, two square rooms and a kitchenette, with a skylight window that gave the apartment a suggestion of Bohemia. She had curtained the skylight window, using a heavy material that would screen her social life from any snooping vagrant on the rooftop. There was a studio bed in the living room, neatly covered to give the feeling of casual furniture. A dozen soft cushions were scattered around on it and their brightly festive color added a touch of coziness to the room. In the other room a smaller couch sat against the wall, above which she had hung a few sad chromos. She had put a bridge table in there and was sipping coffee when I arrived. I joined her at the table.

  “Your friend Doughty didn’t keep me long,” Tiny said. “But I don’t trust him.”

  “Who does?”

  “He has a man outside, on the street.”

  “I wouldn’t put it past him.”

  She got up and went to the window. The shade was pulled down and she fingered it slyly away from the window and beckoned me.

  “Take a look at him,” she said. “Maybe it’s somebody you know.”

  He was standing across the street under an awning, a short man in a colorless suit. He smoked a cigarette and pretended to be waiting for a streetcar on a street where no trolleys ever ran. He was as obvious as a wart on your nose.

  I said, “Fider is as dumb as a lox. If Doughty sent him up here to watch you, you can relax, Tiny. He never sends Fider out on any important missions. How long has he been there?”

  “Ever since I came home, an hour ago.”

  “Forget about him. He won’t bother you. When Fider watches you, you know all about it. He telegraphs it. He’s got the biggest feet on the force and the simplest mind.”

  “He annoys me,” Tiny said, squirming a bit. “It’s a horrible feeling to know that a man’s watching you down the street.”

  “A girl like you should be used to it.”

  “Why should Doughty have me watched? Does he think I had something to do with Mary’s murder?”

  “It could be.”

  “And how about you?”

  “I don’t make snap judgments. I’m not as good a brain as Doughty, maybe.”

  She poured some more coffee for herself and drank it hot and without sugar. She was making an effort to be calm about it all, but her hands weren’t listening to her brain. She was wearing a yellow slack suit of the beach variety, as translucent as wet silk on a wet torso. Her legs were bare, and when she crossed them, her shapely thighs showed a provocative sweep. The green evening gown hung over the kitchenette door. I didn’t blame her. It was hot enough in here nest to fry ostrich eggs, with or without bacon. And still she continued to sip the hot java, unaffected by the steaming brew.

  She said, “Why don’t you take off your jacket, Steve? This place is hot as a furnace.”

  I threw my coat over a chair. I loosened my tie. I rejected her offer of coffee and went to the refrigerator and mixed myself a Scotch and soda. She had a good stock of Scotch, in a trick cupboard near the kitchenette. I made my drink strong and took the glass and sat myself in the chair next the couch while she finished her coffee.

  She put the dishes away neatly. She came over and sat on the couch, her head against the wall on two of the yellow cushions. Her red hair vibrated against the canary yellow and her dark skin promoted fantasy in the dimly lit room. She was an East Indian houri, at ease on the Sultan’s mattress.

  She had a cigarette in her mouth and took long, deep drags, letting the smoke curl around her, watching me, and waiting for me to make the first move. It would be easy to let the Scotch go to work on my inner man. It would be enjoyable to forget about Mary Ray for an hour or so. But I had the feeling that she was playing me that way. So I put down my drink and lit a cigarette. And changed my point of view.

  I said, “Tell me all about it now. From the beginning.”

  “Again?” she said. “God, I’ve been through that with Doughty.”

  “Play it again.”

  “Oh, please. I didn’t call you up here to go through the questions and answers.”

  “Break it down, Tiny. I want it all, from the beginning. Who came into Mary’s this evening?”

  “The two that I told Doughty about.”

  “I know,” I said. “They came in, period. Then Anita and Rose took them on. And after that, Anita and Rose left for a while. But somebody else might have entered the house and you wouldn’t have seen him. Somebody who might have waltzed through the alley and entered by way of the side door.”

  “You and Doughty,” she said with a tired little laugh. “Great brains—and in the same groove. You’re coming to the same conclusions that he did. He asked me the same sort of guff. No, I wouldn’t have seen or heard anybody who came in through the alley, because the stairs are too far back.”

  “How about Anita and Rose? Did they get along all right with Mary?”

  “You know better than to ask that one, Steve. The girls all loved Mary.”

  “Did you?”

  “Of course. Mary was a good friend to me.” She put out her cigarette nervously. She leaned my way. “Are you all finished now? I have something for you. Something that I didn’t tell Doughty.”

  “Save it for a while. A detective has to have a one-thought mind, Tiny. I’ve got to clear an awful lot of junk out of my mental attic. For instance, why are you lying to me?”

  She sat up suddenly, and glared at me.

  I said, “Pull yourself together, Tiny. You’re coming apart in the seams.”

  “Go to hell,” she said. “Why should I lie to you?”

  “I’ll answer that one when I get to it. You said that nobody came into Mary’s tonight but the two customers?”

  “That’s no lie.”

  “How about Joy Marsh?”

  “Joy Marsh?” she asked herself. “Joy hasn’t been working for Mary since two months ago.”

  “She was there tonight.”

  “I didn’t see her come in.”

  “And you didn’t hear her upstairs, with Mary?”

  “Oh, stop it,” Tiny said with a desperate shrug. “I’ve told you before that I couldn’t hear anybody talking up in Mary’s room. Not from the hall. If Joy Marsh was up there with her, she must have come in through the alley and gone up the backstairs. If she did, I don’t know about it.”

  “Why would Joy come back to visit Mary?”

  “I wouldn’t know.”

  “Did they part friends?”

  “So far as I know they did.”

  “What about Joy?” I asked. “Where did she go after she left Mary’s?”

  “She was going out on a job,” Tiny said. “Joy got herself a nice job—with a man named Plummer, a young guy in the advertising business. She was going to be a receptionist, I think.”

  “How well did you know her?”

  “I only saw her a few times. She used to come back once in a while, to talk to Mary.”

  “She never took on any more work from Mary?”

  “She didn’t need it. She was doing swell at her new job,” Tiny said. Her eyes were focused on some personal horizon, over my right shoulder. A vague and interesting sadness had clouded them, a touch of dreaminess that might have meant that Tiny envied Joy Marsh’s escape into the world of normalcy. “Do you still believe that I’m a liar, Steve?”

  “You’re changing my mind.”

  “Are you finished with the questions now?”

  “For tonight, maybe.”

  “Don’t you want to know why I asked you up here?” Tiny said. “Why I didn’t meet you down at the Rebus?”

  “Whenever you�
��re ready.”

  CHAPTER 7

  “I didn’t come down to the Rebus because I was afraid,” Tiny began. She was sitting up straight and tall again, delivering her lines in a rapid flow of rhetoric. “No, it wasn’t Fider I was afraid of, Steve. It all began this afternoon when I reported for work, about five o’clock.”

  “Hold it,” I said. “Take it easy, Tiny. Did you spill any of this to Doughty?”

  “Of course I didn’t give this to Doughty.”

  “What stopped you?”

  “I said I was afraid. Doughty doesn’t scare me. But Haskell Moore does.”

  She dropped it flatly and watched my face for the expected reaction. I let her have it. I showed her my surprise by getting off my tail and advancing to the couch to sit alongside her. I grabbed her arm and held it tight. I could feel the trembling.

  I said, “Now we’re getting somewhere. Haskell Moore threatened you?”

  “He was with her late this afternoon,” Tiny said. “She was waiting for him in the living room for almost an hour.”

  “He came often?”

  “Oh, he was a steady customer for Mary.”

  “What in hell do you mean by that?” I yelled. “You’re not insinuating that Mary was just servicing him? I don’t like to hear smart cracks about Mary Ray. I want the truth, not toilet gossip, understand?”

  “I’m sorry,” Tiny said, as though she meant it.

  “What happened when he didn’t arrive?”

  “Mary went upstairs. That was around six.” She paused and closed her eyes to check the time in her memory. “It was a bit after six when he came in.”

  “Through the front door?”

  “He always used the front door. He came in the way he usually did, all smiles and full of tonic. You’d have to know him to understand what I mean. Did you ever meet him?”

  “I’ve met him at Mary’s. He looks drunk all the time.”

  “That’s it exactly. He gives me the heaves, Steve. He’s some kind of special lush—a middle-aged jerk with romantic ideas. He never came through the door unless he made a pass at me. It always turned my stomach, just being near him. I never could understand what Mary saw in him, nor could any of the other girls.”

  “He was drunk when he arrived?”

  “Not drunk, but high. He was always high.”

  “Mary was waiting for him upstairs?”

  “He went up right away,” Tiny said, her eyes still closed. A tremor shook her body in the pause. “I heard them arguing up there for almost a half hour.”

  “Arguing? About what?”

  “It wasn’t clear enough to tell. But he was yelling at her so loud that it frightened me. Then he came running down the stairs, his face all red and blotchy, the way it always gets when he’s awfully mad. He didn’t say a word to me. He just ran through the hall and out into the street.”

  “And after that?”

  “Nothing, after that,” Tiny said. “I didn’t see Mary until I went up for her, after you came. But Haskell Moore was in the building when you were there.”

  I squeezed her arm harder. I said, “Are you trying to tell me that he was the bastard who killed her? And slugged me afterward?”

  “I don’t know. You’re hurting me, Steve.”

  “You’re lying. A little while ago you told me you couldn’t hear anything from where you stood in the hall. Now you’re lousing yourself up. You’re pulling a switch, telling me you could hear Moore and Mary arguing up there.”

  “They were shouting.”

  “Both of them?” I leaned into her. “You heard Mary yelling, too?”

  “Please,” Tiny whispered, struggling under my arm. “You’re hurting me. If you don’t believe me, I’ll stop right here.”

  I released the pressure. “Where did he find you?”

  “It was in the butler’s pantry, where the phone is.”

  “He was waiting there?”

  “He came in behind me. He looked crazy to me, the way he lunged for me. He grabbed me and pulled me into the kitchen. He threatened to kill me if I told anybody I had seen him.”

  “He threatened you with a gun?”

  “No, he didn’t have a gun.”

  “What did he say?”

  “He began to mumble something about Mary ruining an exhibition of his paintings, coming up soon. He was pretty drunk and he didn’t speak clearly, but I gathered that he was upset because of his exhibition being ruined.”

  “He came after you had called the police?”

  “Right after the call. He must have heard what I told the police.”

  “Where did he come from?”

  “I don’t remember.”

  “Think!” I yelled. “It’s important. He could have come down the back stairs. That would mean that he was the crud who slugged me.”

  “I can’t remember, Steve. I was a little upset at the time.”

  “What happened after he threatened you?”

  “He ran out.”

  “Which way—through the alley?”

  “That’s right. He was pretty wobbly on his feet.”

  “You’ve sold me the fact that he was drunk,” I said. “What happened after he ran out?”

  “I went upstairs and found you out cold. After that, the clicks came right away. It seemed only a minute before they arrived.”

  “It adds up,” I said. “Haskell Moore was the stinker who slugged me, all right. And from the way you tell it, he also murdered Mary Ray.”

  “I’m sure of it.” Tiny shivered. “But I wasn’t sure until he came up here to my flat.”

  “He came here? When was that?”

  “After Doughty finished with me, about an hour ago. He was waiting for me up here when I arrived.”

  “He’s pretty efficient for a lush.”

  “He’s not the type of drunk who loses his head, Steve.”

  “He threatened you again?”

  “He scared me so much that I was afraid to leave here.”

  “How long did he stay?”

  “About ten minutes.” She closed her eyes and trembled under the impact of her memory of him. “He threatened again to kill me if I told anybody I saw him at Mary’s.”

  She sat there, tense and jittery, gnawing her lip. I went to the window. Fider was no longer parked under the awning. Nothing else stirred on Forty-Sixth Street. I let the shade fall and listened to the immediate noises of Tiny’s travail on the couch. She was on her stomach now, sobbing into the mattress, her long body limp as she wailed. She was muttering a dismal series of woeful entreaties to me. “You’ve got to help me, Steve. He’ll kill me. He’s crazy, I tell you, crazy.”

  And then she arose, suddenly, and reached up for my hand. She held it tightly, so that I could feel her nails biting into me. I allowed her to pull me down alongside her.

  “I don’t get it,” I said. “Why didn’t you give all this to Doughty?”

  “Because I’m afraid of Haskell Moore, Steve.”

  “You think he killed Mary?”

  “I’m sure of it.”

  “So you waited to give me the story because you thought I’d handle him for you?”

  “Do you hate me for it?”

  “I love you dearly.”

  “You’re going to see Haskell Moore?”

  “I’m going to pin his ears back.”

  “Be careful, Steve. Wouldn’t it be better to let the police take him?”

  “They’ll take him, but I’ll deliver him slightly damaged.”

  “What’s in it for you?” Tiny asked softly.

  “Only this: the joy in damaging him. Mary Ray was my friend.”

  “She must have been.” Tiny moved closer to me and her eyes seemed lost in speculation, suddenly damp and misted and warm with a subtle fire. “You m
ust have been awfully fond of her. A girl doesn’t find many guys who let themselves go sloppy and sentimental the way you do. It could be worth an awful lot to someone to have you on her side.”

  “I don’t like to see anybody kicked around by a crud like Haskell Moore. He’s going to talk to me, Tiny. He’s going to spill his guts—and then I’ll have him transported down to Doughty for an official confession.”

  “He’s dangerous, Steve,” she said, and let me feel the coolness of her hand over mine. “Be careful. I wouldn’t want you to get hurt.”

  “I didn’t think you cared.”

  “You’ve been awfully sweet to me,” she said, smiling the little girl’s smile she could turn on in moments of tenderness. “You’re a good guy, Steve. You’ve believed me.”

  Her hand was warm now, and she was turning it gently in mine so that it was performing for her, doing the little things symbolic of her ripening mood, the rub and touch of persuasion that could make a man forget his purpose.

  “You broke me down,” I said.

  “You’re not half as tough as you sound, Steve.”

  “I’m a good listener.”

  “Why do you act it up so tough all the time?” she said, and her face was suddenly close, so that I could catch the delicate odor of her personal perfume, the combination of womanhood and manufactured fragrance. “You’re not really tough at all.”

  She was lifting her arm to the side, up on the wall, so that she touched me with her breath as she leaned to kill the lights. The room glowed with the flickering radiance of a street sign outside, highlighting the wetness of her brightly colored lips…

  CHAPTER 8

  I dropped into a convenient drugstore on Sixth Avenue to study the phone book.

  There were all kinds of Moores listed, pages of them, but nothing resembling Haskell in or near Greenwich Village. This meant that he was either too poor to afford a telephone, or too proud to be listed among the common folk. I cursed him heartily for his lack of a telephone, because it meant doing the job the hard way, developing a lead to him through a neighborhood tip-off, a clue through a butcher, a baker or a candlestick maker. It meant pounding the pavements and asking skilled questions. It meant work.