Room To Swing - Ed Lacy

“If you were in the P.O., you wouldn't have to go chasing off in the middle of the night or—”

“Not now, honey,” I said, kissing her good night. “Maybe I'll be back.”

“No, you don't, don't you break into my sleep—I have to make time tomorrow. I'm going shopping before I go into work.”

“Then I'll phone you on the job, as usual.”

It was eleven eighteen when I started for my car, then hailed a cab on Broadway. I wouldn't have time to play hide and seek with a parking space downtown. I got out my notebook—Thomas-Tutt had room 3 in apartment 2F. Damn, if I was off the case I'd have to give back part of the retainer and I had less than fifty bucks on me. Although Kay had said a minimum of a month. Of course I didn't have to give back a dime, legally, but I wanted to retain Kay's good will. If there was a snafu, why call me to his room? Kay could phone me the deal was off and that would be that. Or did going to his room mean I was still working? Or ...

I sat up straight as the cowboy at the wheel cut into the highway on two wheels. This could only mean one thing— Thomas had taken a powder! Sure, Kay had found out— somehow—he'd flown the coop, and I was up the creek. Me and my big detective agency, couldn't even handle a simple shadow job. But hell, she'd told me herself I only had to check on him twice a day until his case was televised. He was taking his girl to the movies a few hours ago, unless he was smarter than he looked. Thomas wasn't getting ready to run. And how would Kay know? Or was she having somebody else check on Thomas too? And on me?

I paid the cabbie off on the corner. It was still seven minutes before midnight. The house and the block were quiet. I stood in front of the house for a moment. Why exactly at midnight? Two middle-aged stinking winos came out of the house, gave me the usual look, but with bleary-eyed trimmings. As I went up the few steps to the doorway, they wobbled down the street, glancing back at me and mumbling something.

I stood outside 2F, a dim and crummy hallway smelling of stale food and various human stinks. Harlem didn't have a monopoly on lousy houses. I tried the doorknob; it wasn't locked. Another hallway, narrower, hotter, with rooms opening off it. There was a dirty metal “3” on the door nearest the main door. I listened and didn't hear a thing, but there was light coming through the crack under the door. I rapped gently, waited a few seconds, turned the knob and the door opened.

I suppose as soon as I saw the messed-up room I knew the score. Only I couldn't quite believe it.

It was a small room, with only a bed and a metal dresser —all the drawers out and ransacked. Thomas seemed to be sleeping in bed, covers pulled up over his head. I had a sudden, sickening hunch the person in bed might be Kay. Closing the door, I stepped over Thomas' pants and wind-breaker on the floor, and then I saw the wet blood on the gray pillow. There was a large pair of bloody pliers on the floor.

Pulling back the covers I saw the back of Thomas' head bashed in. He was face down, blood all over his head and shoulders, blood still wet. It was even splattered on the cheap-pink painted wall behind the bed.

I stood there like a dummy, still holding the cover with my fingertips, knowing I had to think damn fast, and afraid of what I was thinking. I didn't have to be a detective to know what all this meant.

Maybe I stood there a few seconds, even a few minutes. There were footsteps on the stairs, at the outside door. In the back of my mind, the only part that was thinking clearly, I expected them. I dropped the blanket as the door flew open—a thick-faced white cop stood there. He wasn't expecting a body but when he saw the bloody bed his gun flew out of his heavy blue overcoat pocket like his hand was on springs. His deep voice said, “Keep your hands in sight, up, you black sonofabitch! Got you dead to rights.” Maybe it was my imagination but I thought he sounded almost happy—thinking of promotion.

What I'd known since I first got Ollie's call came into sharp focus: I'd been had, been set up for this from the go. Now my mind was clear and racing—the cops would learn about the fight in the coffeepot when they checked at the school, the beat cop in Brooklyn would remember me, so would the fat cop who wanted to give me a ticket at supper-time. And the winos seeing me enter the house a few minutes ago. I'd been had but tight.

I held my hands up, shoulder high. The cop was alone, probably the beat cop. Exactly at midnight. The timing was so simple, a phone call to the precinct at five to midnight saying there was trouble in room 3, apartment 2F, and the post cop catching me.

He was staring at me, waiting for me to say something. I didn't bother making words. It boiled down to a white cop and black me, and he had the “difference” in his hand. I'd look silly trying to explain... all I could do was stand very still.

In that split second something my old man used to say rushed through my mind. “A Negro's life is dirt cheap because he hasn't any rights a white man must respect. That's the law, the Dred Scott Decision, son. Always remember that.”

I was remembering; any move on my part and I'd be dead.

“Why don't you robbing bastards stay up in Harlem where you belong instead of coming down here to rob and mug people?” His voice was shrill, his white face working with rage as he stepped toward me.

Within striking distance, he raised his gun to whip my head. The second the gun was out of line with my face, with reflex action, my left shot out and grabbed his gun hand by the wrist. My right knee thudded into his groin and my right hand clubbed him on the side of the jaw.

He didn't have a chance to fire at the ceiling; he crumpled in a heap on the floor, moaning, his heavy mouth open wide, fighting for air. I stepped over him, closed the door, walked down the stairs as fast and quietly as I could.

5

THE STREET was empty.

I tried to hold my shaking legs from running as I walked toward Seventh Avenue. A store-window clock said it was nine minutes past midnight. I walked up a block, stopped a cab, told him to take me to Grand Central Station.

It was neat—I'd been framed like a picture. Wasn't only the murder troubling me. In the eyes of the police I'd committed a greater crime than murder—I'd slugged a cop. They'd beat me crazy in the station house before I was even arraigned on the murder rap. It was all so pat, not even a tiny loophole. I didn't have the faintest smell of an alibi. Judging by the wetness of the blood, Thomas had been killed ten or fifteen minutes before I got there. It had all been set, to the smallest detail. I was finished. I was dead. With the cop-slugging over my head, I was worse than dead.

The hell of it was I knew the killer, but that didn't help me. Of course it had to be Kay. Everything added: picking a coloured detective, knowing I'd stand out; the hush-hush bunk, paying me out of “petty cash”—I couldn't even prove I was working for her. But what did Kay have against Thomas? Or was the whole TV pitch a lie?

As I paid the cabbie at Grand Central I put on an act, saying I hoped I could still catch the New Haven train. The police would be checking all cabs soon.

I walked through the station, then down Lexington to Kay's house. I was real mixed up. Somehow I couldn't picture Kay killing him like that, not bashing his head with the pliers. I could see her using a gun but not getting close enough to bust his head. That didn't figure, but everything else added to Kay. I was taking a big chance seeing her. I could be walking into a room full of cops: she'd certainly be expecting me, have a trap ready. But I could hardly be in a tighter squeeze than I was now and I had to see her, confront her. It was my only hope: these perfect-crime jokers sometimes plan too carefully, trip themselves.

I stood on the corner, didn't see a soul around her house. I walked down the block fast, ducked into her doorway. I couldn't risk ringing a bell to open the door. It was an old door. Holding the knob with one hand I leaned back and hit the door just under the lock with a hip block. It jumped open with a dull sound that was magnified by the stillness. I waited; the ground-floor apartment doors didn't open. I stepped in. The lock wasn't too badly sprung—I managed to close the door. I rode the midget elevator to Kay's apartment, rang the bell.

There wasn't a sound. I rang again, long and loud. There was the padding sound of slippered feet approaching the door; Barbara asked, “Who is it?”

“Touie.”

“Who? Oh.... It's late,” she said, opening the door.

I pushed by her, closed the door. She was wearing a kind of thin red ski pajamas and she looked tired, maybe a little drunk. I walked and pushed her into the nearest chair, told her, “Sit still for a second.” I ran through the apartment, keeping the doors open to see if she went for the phone.

Bobby was alone.

When I returned to the living room she was fumbling at lighting a cigarette, her hand shaking badly. “What's all this about?”

“Where's Kay?” I asked standing over her.

“I wish I knew. No, I wish I didn't know.”

I grabbed her thin shoulders, shook her. “Don't play it cute. Where is she?”

Bobby pulled herself together, tried to push my hands away as she asked, “By what right do you place your hands on me?”

Under other circumstances it would have been for laughs. I shook her again. “Damnit, sober up. I'm in a jam. Where's Kay?”

“I took sleeping pills some time ago; my head isn't very clear. Really, I don't know where Kay is. What's your trouble, Toussaint? Oh, that beautiful name. I wish I had a name like—”

“A man's been murdered and the police are looking for me. Does that get through to you? Murder! Kay framed me, set me up for this rap.”

Bobby's eyes seemed to brighten, become almost normal. “Kay? Oh my no. Kay can be silly and mean, but never vicious. Really, a murder?”

“Yes, goddamnit, really!”

“Who?” Her eyes went wide and she tried to stand as she said, “Not Kay!” and her voice rose to a scream.

I pushed her back into the chair. “Cut it out, and wake up. The guy Kay hired me to watch, he's been killed. How much do you know about this TV stuff?”

“All of it. Sorry I nearly ruined everything last night. Kay bawled me out as if—”

“Bobby, listen to me, I don't have time for small talk. I don't have time for anything. Where's Kay?”

“With a so-called man.”

“Who? Her husband?”

She gave me a long look, then threw her head back and laughed hysterically. I shook her hard and she said, “She's with that pansy writer Steve. I'm her husband.” She added this last with quiet dignity in her voice. Her eyes were proud as she stared up at me and said soberly, “Yes, I'm what is known as the Butch in our setup. Now what's all this nonsense about Kay framing you?”

“She left a call at my office for me to go to Thomas' room at midnight. I found him murdered; a moment later a cop came busting in. It all fits; the reason Kay hired me, knowing a Negro would be easy to spot, a setup for this frame. But I'm going to find Kay, get the truth out of her if it's the—”

“Are you saying Kay killed this man?” Bobby cut in, crushing her cigarette on the glass table top.

“You say it, say it any way you want.”

“That's ridiculous. And Kay didn't pick you for this job, I did.”

“You? Don't cover for her. Bobby, I don't want to get rough but this isn't the time for stalling!”

“I'm not stalling. I'm telling you the truth. I met your friend Sid at a party and somehow he mentioned you. Kay had told me about this publicity stunt of hers, about hiring a detective. She was looking forward to it... and... I knew she was restless. I've seen it happen before. She goes off with a... a... man. Of course she's always come running back to me after a night or two, but I live in a nightmare that she won't return. Can you understand how much I love that girl?”

“Skip the love story. Why did you pick me?”

“No, you can't understand what Kay means to me. I simply told her about you, knowing full well she'd like the idea of... I mean, of you being a Negro. I was so pleased when I saw you last night, all your muscles, your... manliness. You were perfect for the affair.”

“Affair? What the devil are you talking about?”

“My dear Toussaint—that exciting name—isn't it obvious? Any relationship between Kay and you could only be temporary, hardly permanent.... You're a Negro.”

“For—! I've had enough of this nonsense, where's Kay now?”

“Wherever she is, it's your fault. She was disgusting, pawing you last night, but you didn't react. Now she's spending the night in some hotel with that horrid creature Steve. That's what worries me. Kay usually goes for the brute type.”

“What hotel?”

“I'm sure I don't know.”

I shook her again. “Damn you, this isn't a game I What hotel?”

The crazy thing was, as I shook her a hard voice, almost a man's voice, barked, “Get your damn hands off me! I told you I don't know. If I knew, do you imagine I'd be sitting here? I'd go up and drag her back home!”

I walked around the living room, thinking hard. If what Bobby said was true, and I had this feeling it was, then it knocked the props out on my Kay-framing-me idea. But if it wasn't Kay, who did frame me and why? Who could possibly have known about my tailing Thomas? Supposed to be all top secret, just Kay and her boss—and Barbara. “What's the name of Kay's boss?”

“I don't know, Brooks something-or-other. Kay calls him B.H.” She shook her head. “Forget about him; he's been out in St. Louis opening a new station for Central. Kay mentioned he had phoned her from there this afternoon.”

“You said you hadn't seen Kay since yesterday morning.”

“She phoned me at school, during lunch hour, to—to tell me she was leaving me.” Bobby began to weep.

I stood there, listening, for some stupid reason, to her crying. It didn't sound phony. Things had been simple when I came up here: I was a dead duck with one possible out— find Kay and get the truth from her, beat it out of her if necessary. Now...? I didn't rule Kay off the list, not till I knew where she'd been when Thomas was killed. But I'd been certain she'd framed me from the go, and that wasn't so. Now...? Now I realized the only way to save my neck was to find the killer before the police found me. I was mixed up: somehow relieved and even encouraged by knowing Kay hadn't double-crossed me, and a little frightened that I was on my own. I really wasn't a detective but a strong-arm bouncer, a slob good at scaring women like Mrs. James. And no one but me, a lousy detective, could save my life!