The Best That Ever Did It - Ed Lacy

“Barney, take it easy. A sixty-three-year-old grandmother who lives in some hick town in Michigan came in second— never left town in her life,” Al said wearily. “Any more questions, Mr. Holmes?”

I took a cigarette from his pack on the desk, lit it. “What was Turner doing there in his car?”

“Now you're getting warm. That can be the jackpot question. He wasn't on duty and that street isn't even in our precinct. His wife has no idea why he was there; people in the street think they have seen him around the block before, but they're not sure. No rackets working in that street, either. By the way, the precinct handling the case is the one below us, and a Lieutenant Franzino is in charge of the detective squad. Told him about you and he isn't too happy about having a private snooper around, but I said you'd stay out of his hair.”

“Got anything going yourself—off the record?”

Al smiled with his eyes again. “Got an idea but so far it stinks. But it's the only thing makes sense. Turner and the killer were knocking off Andersun—for some reason—then the killer crossed Turner. That would account for Ed not having his gun out.”

“What about this lucky pinch Turner made?”

“Barney, stop making like a detective. We've run through that—guy was a minor dope runner doing five to ten in Lewis-burg right now. No gang tie-up. Wasn't an important pinch, but we showed up the FBI, and downtown loves that.”

“Wife said he was cited twice?”

Al groaned. “Turner came upon a guy tear-assing out of an apartment house in the early hours of the morning. Said he told the guy to stop, then shot him dead. Seems the guy was merely beating up his gal, but fortunately for Turner they found a gun on the guy—although his gal swore he never had a gun in his life. Could be Ed was smart, in a stupid way; maybe carried an extra gun. Anything else, Mr. Bogart?”

“About your theory—why should Turner be in on killing Andersun?”

Al gave me a belly laugh, then cut it off abruptly. “If we knew that, you'd be out of a job. Look, besides men from both precincts, there's a batch of Homicide guys from downtown working on this, plus men from the detective district. Had a half a dozen men checking on Andersun and his family—drew a zero. The kid worked for a tool company, thirty-eight dollars and fourteen cents take-home pay, lived at home, had a girl friend he wasn't banging, and his big moment was having beers at the corner ginmill. Kid didn't even play cards, or the horses or the numbers.”

I stood up—the rum was making me sweat. “How about Turner being shot first and Andersun merely walking into it?”

Al shook his head. He was getting gray above the ears, or maybe he dyed it gray. “Tried that one for size too. Doc got there fast, is positive Andersun died first. And of course this has been through the labs and they come up with same answer.”

I said, “The one thing out of the ordinary in Andersun's life was his winning the dough, going to Europe.”

Al leaned back in his chair—he never stood up beside me. “That's a terrific deduction—they kill people for talking about taking a trip to Paris these days?”

“Well, I'll look around. Give the family a hello for me.”

“Sure, and bring Ruthie out. Barney, remember downtown is running this show—don't get in their way.”

I stopped at the door to ask, “Ed Turner—a lover?”

“Not as far as we know, too ambitious to get mixed up with dames. And with a wife stacked like his, what would be the point? When you come out to the house, like you to check my new Caddy.”

Guess my face showed things, for Al said, “Don't give me that look. I made some dough in the stock market, show you the brokers' statements that...”

“Who said you didn't make it? I'll keep you informed if I luck up on anything.”

“Well, now, thanks, Perry Mason. Don't trip over any bar bells.”

I couldn't think of a snappy comeback, so I went out. The rum made me hungry. I looked around for a hamburger joint, had a better idea. I drove down to the Grand Cafe, and the guy who named it had a sense of humor.

The bartender was a short, egg-shaped old guy, and there was a couple sipping beer in a booth and playing the juke box, and a blind man at the bar. The blind guy had the shoulders and ears of a wrestler. I ordered a hamburger and the barkeep grumbled about cooking so early in the day. The blind man turned his face toward me, said, “Big guy, ain't you?”

“Two hundred and forty-eight pounds.”

“Can sort of feel a guy's size. Can't I, Jimmy?” he asked the bartender. He had the cracked voice some men get when they start to grow old.

Jimmy muttered, “Yeah.”

I asked, “This the place where they had the two killings?”

“Not in here!” This, Jimmy growled at me. “Never had no trouble in here. Cop, ain'tcha?”

“Private.” I flashed my identification card.

“What they need a private goof on a case like this for?” the blind man wanted to know.

“I'm not just sticking my snoot in for kicks, somebody hired me,” I said as the bartender put a thick hamburger in front of me, asked, “Beer?”

I nodded. It was a hell of a good burger, old-fashioned one, and when I told Jimmy this, he just scowled, asked, “What did you expect, horse meat? Place may not look like much, but we give you honest value. And you're wasting your time, place has been full of all kinds of cops and dicks. Makes the customers nervous.”

“Only doing my job,” I said. The bartender kept on, scowling. Usually you can ease things by saying it's a job, or my duty, or my business—as if that meant a damn thing.

There was a lot of silence and the music of the juke box till the blind man asked, “Like to see me crush a can of beer with my hands?”

“Sure would.” I was getting no place fast.

Jimmy said, “Now, Danny, what you starting so early for?”

“You heard the man, he's buying me a can of foam,” Danny said. He quickly drank the beer, put the empty can in his left hand—which was big as a ham—and crushed it. That was a good stunt for a guy his age. I picked up the beer cap and bent it in half between my fingers, forgetting he couldn't see. I handed it to him and he felt it, asked excitedly, “Jimmy, you see him bend this with his fingers?”

“Aha.”

“Didn't press it against the bar or nothing?”

“No, Danny, just his fingers. A strong ox.”

Danny turned and ran his hands over me. “Weightlifter?”

“Not for the last year or so.”

“What kind of cop are you, no gun?”

I laughed; Danny was sharper than a man with eyes. “Guess I'm not a gunman.”

I made a big impression on Danny. We started talking about strong men and Jimmy joined in. They kept bulling about the old-timers: Sandow, Hackenschmidt, Goerner. They had never even heard of John Davis, or Doug Hepburn, Grimek, or Kono. Then Danny started on wrestlers and was breezing about Grotch, Poddoubny, the time he wrestled one of the Zbyszko brothers, and how he had almost pinned Strangler Lewis. Finally, I asked, “This Franklin Andersun, was he a muscleman?”

Danny laughed, filling the air with the smell of beer. “Couldn't lift a toothpick. Boys today got it too soft, cars to take them here and there, elevators and stuff. Everything is done for them, they don't develop no muscles.”

“What do you fellows think about the killing? You knew the kid.”

The bartender said, “I think it was all a mistake, somebody thought Frank was another guy. He wasn't the kind to be in any trouble.”

“That's the truth. If you was picking a guy to be in a mess, Frankie'd be the last guy you'd pick,” Danny said, as I glanced at his sightless eyes, caused by trachoma and dirty ring canvas.

“How about Turner, the detective? Ever see him before?”

The blind man said, “I never heard him,” and Jimmy added, “That's all the cops been asking me. I keep telling 'em, I only seen him once—out there on the sidewalk, dead.”

“Any strangers in here the night of the shootings?”

“You kidding?” Jimmy said, rinsing out a rag, running it over the top of the bar. “Always a few strangers in a bar. But that night, had mostly neighborhood regulars, to hear about Frank winning the dough.”

“Brown was in,” Danny said suddenly.

“He was?” Jimmy said, rinsing the rag again. “Don't recall seeing him.”

“He was in,” Danny said. “I remember his voice—never forget his voice.”

I motioned for another round of beers, asked, “Who's Brown?”

“Some know-it-all jerk,” Jimmy said. “I been living and rooming around this block for the last... well... forty-five years at least.”

“Me too, even longer,” Danny said.

“Look down the block and you'll see an empty lot across the street. Still got some wide stone steps at the front of it. Used to be a church at one time. That was about 1915, wasn't it, Danny?”

“Right.”

“Well, just before the war, around 1917, old Rev. Atkins died in an auto accident and the church sort of went out of business, if you can say that about a church. Then some German society took it over, put in a lot of dough making it into a gym. Along comes the war and the place is shut down, then it burns, just part of the foundation and steps left. Lot of people think the fire wasn't no accident, you know how feelings ran high during the war. I never thought so, but...”

“What's this got to do with this Brown?” I asked.

“He was coming to that,” Danny cut in. “One night this Brown comes in here and gets to talking to one of the boys— Frankie, come to think of it.”

“Yeah, was him and Frankie arguing,” Jimmy said.

“About what?” I put in.

“Nothing, really. Brown says he was born around here and remembered Frankie's father and mother, that he and Andersun was born a few days apart. Just bar talk, except he said he remembered when the church burned, only it wasn't a church then, and anyway it was before his time.”

“And nobody ever remembered seeing him around,” Danny added. “Why should a guy bull about junk like that? What got me, was his voice, had a kind of twang to it, funny way of saying 'r.' Nobody born here talk that way.”

“Don't remember nothing odd about his voice,” Jimmy said.

The blind man finished his beer. “But I did. I used to wrestle a lot upstate, around Elmira and Ithaca. People talk with that kind of a twang up there.”

“That was the argument—about whether this Brown had been born around here?” I asked.

Jimmy nodded, as he washed and dried his hands. “That's all. Just remembered it because of his lying about the church burning.”

“What did he look like? Recall his first name?”

The bartender examined a spot on his white apron for a moment. “Think he had some ordinary name like Jack, or Joe. As for looks—this was months ago—didn't make any special impression on me. I'd say he was around thirty, stocky, I think, and short.”

“Dressed well?”

“Hell, I don't remember.”

“Color of his hair?”

“Yeah, yeah, I remember that—red!” Jimmy said happily. “Yes sir, real red hair. I remember because not only was it awful red, but he was arguing a lot and I was thinking what they say about redheads being scrappers.”

“He was a mean one, I could tell by his voice,” Danny said. “I think he had a friend, another guy, with him.”

Jimmy shrugged. “I don't remember nobody with him.”

“Let's get back to the night of the killings—did Brown leave before Andersun?” I asked.

Jimmy laughed, showing a mossy set of uppers. “Jeez, mac, I didn't say he was in that night.”

“But he was,” the blind man said. “I been trying to remember where I'd heard his voice before and just now, when you was asking about strangers, it came to me.”

“You only heard the voice twice, with a three-month time lapse between, and you're still sure it's the same voice?” I asked.

“Sure, it's been hanging around the back of my mind ever since the shootings. Like when something is on the tip of your tongue and you can't remember it. I don't mistake a voice. It was him all right.”

“Danny, did you tell this to the cops?”

He shook his big blind head. “Telling you, I just thought of it.”

I turned to the barkeep. “Did you tell the police about this Brown?”

“Of course not. I only saw him once before and as for his being here on the night of the murders, can't prove it by me,” Jimmy said.

The clock up near the TV set said it was ten to four. I gave Jimmy one of my cards, said I'd see him again. I shook hands with Danny and neither of us tried the grip-of-iron shake, and I took off. There wasn't time to drive to the police station so I dropped into a drugstore, phoned Lieutenant Franzino. A gruff, impatient voice asked, “Yeah? Lieutenant Franzino speaking.”

“I'm Barney Harris—the private detective Lieutenant Swan spoke to you about.”

“Aha. What's on your mind, Mr. Harris?” To my surprise his voice became mild and polite.

“Maybe nothing, but I've been talking to the bartender and a big blind man in the Grand Cafe. They told me there was a fellow named Brown, first name something ordinary like Joe, Jack, or John. He's about thirty years old, bright red hair, stocky build, and has a slight twang to his voice. He was in the Grand several months ago, claimed he was born in the neighborhood, that he knew Franklin Andersun. But nobody remembered him, including Andersun. Also, from a mistake he made in talking about a church that burned, the barkeep knew he was lying about being born in the block. The...”

“What's this add up to, Harris?”

“Maybe just a lot of bar talk. The blind man claims he was in the Grand again on the night of the killings, before the shooting. The bartender doesn't remember him being there that night, but the blind guy is positive, says he's good on remembering voices. I figure it's too much coincidence.”

“Yeah. Sure a better lead than we have now. A Tom, Dick, or Harry Brown with red hair. Be tough to locate, but we'll give it a look. Thanks, Mr. Harris.”