Room To Swing - Ed Lacy

She said, “Suppose I drive you to Cincinnati, Touie?”

“How far is it?”

“Seventy-four miles.”

“Means you'll have to drive 150 miles.”

“I don't mind.”

“No, honey, it's too much.” She was staring straight ahead and I stared at the dark profile of her face, which seemed strong and pretty—and angry. “Look, I want you to know, no matter what happens, I won't forget what you did. You're a wonderful girl.”

“Thanks.” Her mouth was a pretty, thick red line, and the dashboard light did things to the high cheekbones, lighting the skin to a delicious brown. “Don't worry about your car, it will be safe. When do you think you'll come back for it?”

“Soon as I can.” When I came back I'd bring her a pair of big silver loop earrings. She had the face to carry them.

“Are you sure this McDonald did it?”

“I'm not sure of anything. There's also another angle I have to look into, but this is a hell of a lead, the best offer I've had. It's too much of a coincidence not to mean something.”

“But why should he kill his own cousin?”

“I don't know the motive, but I'll soon find out.”

“How?”

“Don't know that either.”

“You might be walking into the arms of the police.”

“If I do; you have yourself a Jaguar.”

“I don't see the joke, Touie,” she said sharply.

“Fran, I'm a long way from home yet on this. It can still add up to nothing, but it's all I have to work on. And if I'm joking—as the saying goes, I'm only laughing to keep from crying. I'll be careful....” A bus was coming down the street. “This mine?”

“Yes.”

“Do I have to sit in the back?”

“No.”

We walked over to the bus and I squeezed her hand and thanked her again, then I got on, bought a ticket, sat down toward the rear. I waved to Frances, blew her a corny kiss. She seemed about to say something, then she turned away and stared at the drugstore window.

As the bus started I looked back and she was waving. In the split-second last look I had, I thought she was crying.

8

I REACHED New York early in the morning feeling good. I'd slept most of the way, sometimes dreaming of Mrs. James and Sybil and Frances. I also had a plan of operation.

I breakfasted at a luncheonette in the station, bought up all the morning papers, retired to a pay booth in the men's room to read them. There wasn't a thing about the killing. A guy has to be rich, or a big shot, to last more than a brace of days in the headlines. Or a woman—for some reason people are interested in reading about dead women.

Of course that didn't mean the cops weren't working like beavers looking for me. At nine I left my tile office, played with the idea of phoning Sybil, but didn't want to hear her wailing about money again. I had a lot of hours to kill and being out on the street made me uneasy. I took a subway up to the Paramount and got in for the early-show price. They lost money on me; I was still there at four in the afternoon. I knew the lines in the movie better than the actors, and was stuffed with popcorn and soda. At four I took a cab to Ted Bailey's office, planted myself across the street. Fortunately Ted came out alone, on his way home. I hailed another cab and picked him up before he reached the subway. Ted was dressed in his usual drab style: a gray suit that didn't fit him, an old overcoat, and a new striped tie he wore like a medal. I told the cabbie to keep driving around the block.

Ted said, “What's wrong with that jazzy car you had, Toussaint? You crashed it?”

“Having it checked. What's new?”

“Same old stuff. Mrs. James came through with the money. You must be doing well, cruising around in a cab.”

“It isn't the salary but the tips that keep me going,” I said, a kind of inside joke Ted didn't get. “I'm on a big divorce case with an expense account a yard wide.”

“Money involved, huh?” Ted grunted. He was acting very natural, but I couldn't risk it being an act. I looked upon Ted as a friend, but when it comes to murder how friendly can you get?

“Enough money. Anybody in your office.”

“No. Why?”

“I need your help. Maybe I'll hire you.”

“Can your client afford me? I charge too much to be padded into an expense account.”

“That's what I want to talk over.” I stopped the cabbie, paid him off. We walked down the block toward Ted's office. We passed a squad car stuck in the traffic. Ted didn't do anything. I had to test him but it was rough on my nerves. Main thing, he didn't know I was wanted.

Once in his office I said, “It's like this, Ted, I want to rent one of your bugs, get checked out on it. Kind I can carry around on me. I'll need a record of a conversation with a guy tonight.”

Ted belched and rubbed his pot belly. “I don't know; if you lose the bug or bust it, runs into folding money.

Besides, that isn't worth a bad dime as evidence, only your word against his. Better tell me what you got in mind, Toussaint.”

“Will you rent the stuff to me or not?”

“Now don't get huffy. I been learning about this tape stuff, and I'm trying to help you. If you really want to nail down evidence, it's best to have two men listening in. What you got in mind?”

I suddenly changed my plans, took a deep breath and plunged in—trusting a white man with my life. “I'll level with you, Ted, I'm jammed up. I want you to do me two favors. I'm going to tell you something. If you don't like the way it sounds, forget I told you a word. If, after you hear me out, well, if you want to help me—that's the second favor.” If Ted backed out it wouldn't be much of a fight tying him up for the night, then doing the obvious— beating the truth out of Steve.

“You mean I'll be a little accessory to something?” he said, smiling wisely.

“The something happens to be murder.” The smile turned false and sickly, his whole face went gray. But since I had my feet wet I had to go in all the way. Ted listened as I told him everything that had happened from the second Kay walked into my office. I talked for a long time and when I was finished Ted took a cigar from a desk box, broke off a hunk and started chewing on it, thinking. I sat on the edge of his desk, right on top of him, watching and ready for any move he might make.

Finally he said in a weary voice, “All right, sit down, Toussaint, I'm not going to tangle with you. You got me on a hell of a spot. It'd be different if you hadn't slugged the cop. I don't have to tell you a private badge can't operate unless he keeps on the good side of the police, and helping a cop fighter—Geezoo!”

“Will you buy this: I came up here, slugged you, took a tape recorder and tied you up for the night?” I asked, wondering what difference it made if he agreed or not.

“I didn't say I was turning you down. I'm in. Can we see this Kay babe on the quiet and—?”

“Wait a minute, let's play open poker—why are you sticking your neck out for me?”

“Well,” Ted grunted, “it ain't because I like you or any of that slop. I mean, friendship doesn't go for murder raps. If you knocked off Thomas I don't picture you hanging around New York, or telling me about it. So I got to go along with your being innocent. Toussaint, I'll level with you: that's an important contact you have and if we can break this my agency will be all over the papers and up and down Madison Avenue. It's worth the gamble.”

“And if it turns out McDonald has nothing to do with anything?”

Ted rubbed his square hands together, as if drying them. “Then I'm messed up. I said it was a gamble—bet nothing, you win nothing. Now sit down and let's talk. I wish you'd come earlier; I could call a credit house and get a complete rundown on McDonald, Kay, the others. But now I'll have to wait till tomorrow, and way I see it we have to act tonight. If the cops get us before we come up with anything —I'm too old to take a beating. We have to talk this Kay into helping us.”

“Why her?” I asked, moving into a chair but still watching him, ready to jump on him. “I figured I'd see Steve, accuse him, and get everything down on tape. I don't trust Kay.”

“But she's the only one who can give us any information on this stooge you mentioned. As for her being in on the murder, I can't see that. No motive. True, we don't know McDonald's motive either, but being a relative he can have a dozen motives we can't possibly know of. Also, if Kay was the big mind behind this, she wouldn't have had you up to her house to meet her friends. We have to talk her into going to McDonald's apartment tonight, or getting him up to her place. She plants a bug and we can be a block away in a car, getting it down. She'll come right out and accuse him of killing his cousin. Even if he didn't do it, I bet his answers will give us a lead, make damn interesting listening.”

“If Steve's our boy, he'll knock her off, too.”

“She gets him up to her apartment, we'll be in the next room, ready to take him. Nice, we have three witnesses to his story.”

“Suppose Steve and Kay are in this together?”

“Naw, that doesn't figure. As I just said, if she had anything to do with this, she would have kept you a secret, not invited you up to see her friends. No, it has to be Kay, it even looks right. Being they were working on the same TV show, etcetera, she'd be the one to suspect him. Main point is, will she have the courage to work with us?”

“And if she turns us down?”

“We're in a bad way.”

“I still think I should see him, plant a bug, and you be down in the car, recording what he says.”

Bailey sent a stream of brown tobacco juice into the waste basket. “Toussaint, if he is the killer, and has set you up, why should he admit a thing to you? Been my experience that criminals like to brag, especially these one-shot amateurs. Talking is a form of confession for them, and he'd love to shoot off his trap in front of her.”

“But they were lovey-dovey the last time I heard.”

“If she's a career gal, she won't want to be playing house with a killer.” He glanced at his watch. “Think she'll be home now? We can't risk phoning; we'll barge in. Faster we see her, the better; probably take a lot of talking to convince her she has to take a chance.”

He got up and I jumped and he said, “Relax, Toussaint, this ain't the time for jumpy nerves.” He unlocked a cabinet, brought out a tape recorder about the size of a portable typewriter, and some other gadgets. “In this holster there's a Minifone recorder, with the mike on your wrist, like a watch. Now this,”—he held up something the size of an old-fashioned pocket match box, with a pin sticking out of it—“is a little broadcasting station. You ought to see the inside; got transistors—that's like radio tubes— big as beans and batteries no larger than a dime. It's really something. My engineer showed it all to me once. You pin this under a chair or on the back of a couch and it will broadcast about 150 yards. Good for 30 hours.”

“Looks like a toy,” I said, examining the little box. Didn't weigh more than a box of matches either.

“Don't juggle it; my heart can't take the strain. If you knew what these 'toys' cost... I keep telling you this racket has become for engineers. I buy 'em, but you think I know what it's all about? My engineer showed me enough so I can work 'em, that's all I need to know. Ready?”

“Yeah,” I said, feeling like an ingrate. I didn't like Ted's plan but couldn't think of anything better.

As he dropped his gray Homburg on his head, Ted said, “There's one condition, Toussaint. If we should be stopped by the cops, don't run for it or put up a fight. You'll have to let them take you in, trust they believe your story. I don't think they'll even start to believe it, but—I'm willing to gamble, but not with my life. Carrying a gun?”

“No.”

He bent over the small office safe, opened it, and took out two guns. I said, “I never even applied for a permit.”

Ted grunted softly. “Nuts. With what we're stepping into, a Sullivan Law rap won't matter much. Since I have a permit, let me carry both rods until we go into action.”

For a fearful second, as he was busy locking the safe up, I had the feeling I was trapped. But I kept telling myself he would have thrown a gun on me right now if he was crossing me.

As he opened the door and turned out the lights, I stepped into the hallway. Ted said, “I know what you're thinking. Sure, I'd get some publicity for turning you in. But what would it prove, except I was lucky because you dropped in to see me? Who would I be selling, the police? Don't worry, Toussaint, I'm not a rat nor a noble character.... I'm in this simply to convince Madison Avenue what a hot investigator I am—not police headquarters. We understand each other?”

“Perfectly,” I said, trying to believe him.

Ted kept his '53 Buick in a nearby garage and I carried the recorder as we walked to the car. At first I was a little steamed, his telling me to carry it like I was his servant or something, but I calmed down when I realized it was almost a form of disguise on the street—as though I was a part of the routine of the city.

We kept circling Kay's block, looking for a place to park. When I asked why he passed up a spot on Third Avenue, Ted said, “Too far. Just in case we decide to do the recording in the car, I want it ready to pick up the bug. That means not more than a block away, or less.”

As we were turning into her block, on our tenth lap, a Caddy pulled out across the street from Kay's house. Before we could get there, a New Jersey car stopped and started to back in as Ted cursed. I ran over and flashed my badge fast, said, “Police. Park elsewhere, we need this spot.”

A thin guy in a tux was behind the wheel and he rubbed his sharp nose with one finger as he repeated, “Police?”

“Didn't you see the badge?” I asked, a growl in my voice. “Come on, get going.”

“Well.... Yes sir, officer. I always co-operate with the police. Raiding somebody?”

“Don't ask questions about police business.”

“Of course, you're right,” he said, driving away. Ted parked and got out, locking the car. The New Jersey guy was waiting at the corner for a light, looking back at us. It was okay, we looked like detectives, burly, and Ted dressed like one. I told Ted to wait. When the guy finally turned the corner, we crossed over to her house, rang her bell. When the door buzzed open I said, “Two of us can't fit in this elevator. I'll walk up, you give me a minute's head start.”