The room had that remote, heartless, not quite dirty, not quite clean, not quite human smell that such rooms always have. Give a police department a brand new building and in three months all its rooms will smell like that. There must be something symbolic in it.
A New York police reporter wrote once that when you pass in beyond the green lights of a precinct station you pass clear out of this world, into a place beyond the law.
I sat down. Breeze got a cellophane-wrapped cigar out of his pocket and the routine with it started. I watched it detail by detail, unvarying, precise. He drew in smoke, shook his match out, laid it gently in the black glass ashtray, and said: “Hi, Spangler.”
Spangler turned his head and Breeze turned his head. They grinned at each other. Breeze poked the cigar at me.
“Watch him sweat,” he said.
Spangler had to move his feet to turn far enough around to watch me sweat. If I was sweating, I didn’t know it.
“You boys are as cute as a couple of lost golf balls,” I said. “How in the world do you do it?”
“Skip the wisecracks,” Breeze said. “Had a busy little morning?”
“Fair,” I said.
He was still grinning. Spangler was still grinning. Whatever it was Breeze was tasting he hated to swallow it.
Finally he cleared his throat, straightened his big freckled face out, turned his head enough so that he was not looking at me but could still see me and said in a vague empty sort of voice:
“Hench confessed.”
Spangler swung clear around to look at me. He leaned forward on the edge of his chair and his lips were parted in an ecstatic half smile that was almost indecent.
I said: “What did you use on him—a pickax?”
“Nope.”
They were both silent, staring at me.
“A wop,” Breeze said.
“A what?”
“Boy, are you glad?” Breeze said.
“You are going to tell me or are you just going to sit there looking fat and complacent and watch me being glad?”
“We like to watch a guy being glad,” Breeze said. “We don’t often get a chance.”
I put a cigarette in my mouth and jiggled it up and down.
“We used a wop on him,” Breeze said. “A wop named Palermo.”
“Oh. You know something?”
“What?” Breeze asked.
“I just thought of what is the matter with policemen’s dialogue.”
“What?”
“They think every line is a punch line.”
“And every pinch is a good pinch,” Breeze said calmly. “You want to know—or you want to just crack wise?”
“I want to know.”
“Was like this, then. Hench was drunk. I mean he was drunk deep inside, not just on the surface. Screwy drunk. He’d been living on it for weeks. He’d practically quit eating and sleeping. Just liquor. He’d got to the point where liquor wasn’t making him drunk, it was keeping him sober. It was the last hold he had on the real world. When a guy gets like that and you take his liquor away and don’t give him anything to hold him down, he’s a lost cuckoo.”
I didn’t say anything. Spangler still had the same erotic leer on his young face. Breeze tapped the side of his cigar and no ash fell off and he put it back in his mouth and went on.
“He’s a psycho case, but we don’t want any psycho case made out of our pinch. We make that clear. We want a guy that don’t have any psycho record.”
“I thought you were sure Hench was innocent.”
Breeze nodded vaguely. “That was last night. Or maybe I was kidding a little. Anyway in the night, bang, Hench is bugs. So they drag him over to the hospital ward and shoot him full of hop. The jail doc does. That’s between you and me. No hop in the record. Get the idea?”
“All too clearly,” I said.
“Yeah.” He looked vaguely suspicious of the remark, but he was too full of his subject to waste time on it. “Well, this a.m. he is fine. Hop still working, the guy is pale but peaceful. We go see him. How you doing, kid? Anything you need? Any little thing at all? Be glad to get it for you. They treating you nice in here? You know the line.”
“I do,” I said. “I know the line.”
Spangler licked his lips in a nasty way.
“So after a while he opens his trap just enough to say ‘Palermo.’ Palermo is the name of the wop across the street that owns the funeral home and the apartment house and stuff. You remember? Yeah, you remember. On account of he said something about a tall blond. All hooey. Them wops got tall blonds on the brain. In sets of twelve. But this Palermo is important. I asked around. He gets the vote out up there. He’s a guy that can’t be pushed around. Well, I don’t aim to push him around. I say to Hench, ‘You mean Palermo’s a friend of yours?’ He says, ‘Get Palermo.’ So we come back here to the hutch and phone Palermo and Palermo says he will be right down. Okay. He is here very soon. We talk like this: Hench wants to see you, Mr. Palermo. I wouldn’t know why. He’s a poor guy, Palermo says. A nice guy. I think he’s okay. He wanta see me, that’s a fine. I see him. I see him alone. Without any coppers. I say, Okay, Mr. Palermo, and we go over to the hospital ward and Palermo talks to Hench and nobody listens. After a while Palermo comes out and he says, Okay, copper. He make the confess. I pay the lawyer, maybe. I like the poor guy. Just like that. He goes away.”
I didn’t say anything. There was a pause. The loudspeaker on the wall put out a bulletin and Breeze cocked his head and listened to ten or twelve words and then ignored it.
“So we go in with a steno and Hench gives us the dope. Phillips made a pass at Hench’s girl. That was day before yesterday, out in the hall. Hench was in the room and he saw it, but Phillips got into his apartment and shut the door before Hench could get out. But Hench was sore. He socked the girl in the eye. But that didn’t satisfy him. He got to brooding, the way a drunk will brood. He says to himself, that guy can’t make a pass at my girl. I’m the boy that will give him something to remember me by. So he keeps an eye open for Phillips. Yesterday afternoon he sees Phillips go into his apartment. He tells the girl to go for a walk. She don’t want to go for a walk, so Hench socks her in the other eye. She goes for a walk. Hench knocks on Phillips’ door and Phillips opens it. Hench is a little surprised at that, but I told him Phillips was expecting you. Anyway the door opens and Hench goes in and tells Phillips how he feels and what he is going to do and Phillips is scared and pulls a gun. Hench hits him with a sap. Phillips falls down and Hench ain’t satisfied. You hit a guy with a sap and he falls down and what have you? No satisfaction, no revenge. Hench picks the gun off the floor and he is very drunk there being dissatisfied and Phillips grabs for his ankle. Hench doesn’t know why he did what he did then. He’s all fuzzy in the head. He drags Phillips into the bathroom and gives him the business with his own gun. You like it?”
“I love it,” I said. “But what is the satisfaction in it for Hench?”
“Well, you know how a drunk is. Anyway he gives him the business. Well it ain’t Hench’s gun, you see, but he can’t make a suicide out of it. There wouldn’t be any satisfaction for him in that. So Hench takes the gun away and puts it under his pillow and takes his own gun out and ditches it. He won’t tell us where. Probably passes it to some tough guy in the neighborhood. Then he finds the girl and they eat.”
“That was a lovely touch,” I said. “Putting the gun under his pillow. I’d never in the world have thought of that.”
Breeze leaned back in his chair and looked at the ceiling. Spangler, the big part of the entertainment over, swung around in his chair and picked up a couple of bank pens and threw one at the cushion.
“Look at it this way,” Breeze said. “What was the effect of that stunt? Look how Hench did it. He was drunk, but he was smart. He found that gun and showed it before Phillips was found dead. First we get the idea that a gun is under Hench’s pillow that killed a guy—been fired anyway—and then we get the stiff. We belie
ved Hench’s story. It seemed reasonable. Why would we think any man would be such a sap as to do what Hench did? It doesn’t make any sense. So we believed somebody put the gun under Hench’s pillow and took Hench’s gun away and ditched it. And suppose Hench ditched the death gun instead of his own, would he have been any better off? Things being what they were we would be bound to suspect him. And that way he wouldn’t have started our minds thinking any particular way about him. The way he did he got us thinking he was a harmless drunk that went out and left his door open and somebody ditched a gun on him.”
He waited, with his mouth a little open and the cigar in front of it, held up by a hard freckled hand and his pale blue eyes full of dim satisfaction.
“Well,” I said, “if he was going to confess anyway, it wouldn’t have made very much difference. Will he cop a plea?”
“Sure. I think so. I figure Palermo could get him off with manslaughter. Naturally I’m not sure.”
“Why would Palermo want to get him off with anything?”
“He kind of likes Hench. And Palermo is a guy we can’t push around.”
I said: “I see.” I stood up. Spangler looked at me sideways along glistening eyes. “What about the girl?”
“Won’t say a word. She’s smart. We can’t do anything to her. Nice neat little job all around. You wouldn’t kick, would you? Whatever your business is, it’s still your business. Get me?”
“And the girl is a tall blond,” I said. “Not of the freshest, but still a tall blond. Although only one. Maybe Palermo doesn’t mind.”
“Hell, I never thought of that,” Breeze said. He thought about it and shook it off. “Nothing in that, Marlowe. Not enough class.”
“Cleaned up and sober, you never can tell,” I said. “Class is a thing that has a way of dissolving rapidly in alcohol. That all you want with me?”
“Guess so.” He slanted the cigar up and aimed it at my eye. “Not that I wouldn’t like to hear your story. But I don’t figure I have an absolute right to insist on it the way things are.”
“That’s white of you, Breeze,” I said. “And you too, Spangler. A lot of the good things in life to both of you.”
They watched me go out, both with their mouths a little open.
I rode down to the big marble lobby and went and got my car out of the official parking lot.
TWENTY-FOUR
Mr. Pietro Palermo was sitting in a room which, except for a mahogany roll-top desk, a sacred triptych in gilt frames and a large ebony and ivory crucifixion, looked exactly like a Victorian parlor. It contained a horseshoe sofa and chairs with carved mahogany frames and antimacassars of fine lace. There was an ormolu clock on the gray green marble mantel, a grandfather clock ticking lazily in the corner, and some wax flowers under a glass dome on an oval table with a marble top and curved elegant legs. The carpet was thick and full of gentle sprays of flowers. There was even a cabinet for bric-a-brac and there was plenty of bric-a-brac in it, little cups in fine china, little figurines in glass and porcelain, odds and ends of ivory and dark rosewood, painted saucers, an early American set of swan salt cellars, stuff like that.
Long lace curtains hung across the windows, but the room faced south and there was plenty of light. Across the street I could see the windows of the apartment where George Anson Phillips had been killed. The street between was sunny and silent.
The tall Italian with the dark skin and the handsome head of iron gray hair read my card and said:
“I got business in twelve minutes. What you want, Meester Marlowe?”
“I’m the man that found the dead man across the street yesterday. He was a friend of mine.”
His cold black eyes looked me over silently. “That’sa not what you tell Luke.”
“Luke?”
“He manage the joint for me.”
“I don’t talk much to strangers, Mr. Palermo.”
“That’sa good. You talk to me, huh?”
“You’re a man of standing, an important man. I can talk to you. You saw me yesterday. You described me to the police. Very accurately, they said.”
“Si. I see much,” he said without emotion.
“You saw a tall blond woman come out of there yesterday.”
He studied me. “Not yesterday. Wasa two three days ago. I tell the coppers yesterday.” He snapped his long dark fingers. “The coppers, bah!”
“Did you see any strangers yesterday, Mr. Palermo?”
“Is back way in and out,” he said. “Is stair from second floor also.” He looked at his wrist watch.
“Nothing there then,” I said. “This morning you saw Hench.”
He lifted his eyes and ran them lazily over my face. “The coppers tell you that, huh?”
“They told me you got Hench to confess. They said he was a friend of yours. How good a friend they didn’t know, of course.”
“Hench make the confess, huh?” He smiled, a sudden brilliant smile.
“Only Hench didn’t do the killing,” I said.
“No?”
“No.”
“That’sa interesting. Go on, Meester Marlowe.”
“The confession is a lot of baloney. You got him to make it for some reason of your own.”
He stood up and went to the door and called out: “Tony.”
He sat down again. A short tough-looking wop came into the room, looked at me and sat down against the wall in a straight chair.
“Tony, thees man a Meester Marlowe. Look, take the card.”
Tony came to get the card and sat down with it. “You look at thees man very good, Tony. Not forget him, huh?”
Tony said: “Leave it to me, Mr. Palermo.”
Palermo said: “Was a friend to you, huh?A good friend, huh?”
“Yes.”
“That’sa bad. Yeah. That’sa bad. I tell you something. A man’s friend is a man’s friend. So I tell you. But you don’ tell anybody else. Not the damn coppers, huh?”
“No.”
“That’sa promise, Meester Marlowe. That’sa something not to forget. You not forget?”
“I won’t forget.”
“Tony, he not forget you. Get the idea?”
“I gave you my word. What you tell me is between us here.”
“That’sa fine. Okay. I come of large family. Many sisters and brothers. One brother very bad. Almost so bad as Tony.”
Tony grinned.
“Okay, thees brother live very quiet. Across the street. Gotta move. Okay, the coppers fill the joint up. Not so good. Ask too many questions. Not good for business, not good for thees bad brother. You get the idea?”
“Yes,” I said. “I get the idea.”
“Okay, thees Hench no good, but poor guy, drunk, no job. Pay no rent, but I got lotsa money. So I say, Look, Hench, you make the confess. You sick man. Two three weeks sick. You go into court. I have a lawyer for you. You say to hell with the confess. I was drunk. The damn coppers are stuck. The judge he turn you loose and you come back to me and I take care of you. Okay? So Hench say okay, make the confess. That’sa all.”
I said: “And after two or three weeks the bad brother is a long way from here and the trail is cold and the cops will likely just write the Phillips killing off as unsolved. Is that it?”
“Si.” He smiled again. A brilliant warm smile, like the kiss of death.
“That takes care of Hench, Mr. Palermo,” I said. “But it doesn’t help me much about my friend.”
He shook his head and looked at his watch again. I stood up. Tony stood up. He wasn’t going to do anything, but it’s better to be standing up. You move faster.
“The trouble with you birds,” I said, “is you make mystery of nothing. You have to give the password before you bite a piece of bread. If I went down to headquarters and told the boys everything you have told me, they would laugh in my face. And I would be laughing with them.”
“Tony don’t laugh much,” Palermo said.
“The earth is full of people who don’t laugh
much, Mr. Palermo,” I said. “You ought to know. You put a lot of them where they are.”
“Is my business,” he said, shrugging enormously.
“I’ll keep my promise,” I said. “But in case you should get to doubting that, don’t try to make any business for yourself out of me. Because in my part of town I’m a pretty good man and if the business got made out of Tony instead, it would be strictly on the house. No profit.”
Palermo laughed. “That’sa good,” he said. “Tony. One funeral—on the house. Okay.”
He stood up and held his hand out, a fine strong warm hand.
TWENTY-FIVE
In the lobby of the Belfont Building, in the single elevator that had light in it, on the piece of folded burlap, the same watery-eyed relic sat motionless, giving his imitation of the forgotten man. I got in with him and said: “Six.”
The elevator lurched into motion and pounded its way upstairs. It stopped at six, I got out, and the old man leaned out of the car to spit and said in a dull voice:
“What’s cookin’?”
I turned around all in one piece, like a dummy on a revolving platform. I stared at him.
He said: “You got a gray suit on today.”
“So I have,” I said. “Yes.”
“Looks nice,” he said. “I like the blue you was wearing yesterday too.”
“Go on,” I said. “Give out.”
“You rode up to eight,” he said. “Twice. Second time was late. You got back on at six. Shortly after that the boys in blue came bustlin’ in.”
“Any of them up there now?”
He shook his head. His face was like a vacant lot. “I ain’t told them anything,” he said. “Too late to mention it now. They’d eat my ass off.”
I said: “Why?”
“Why I ain’t told them? The hell with them. You talked to me civil. Damn few people do that. Hell, I know you didn’t have nothing to do with that killing.”
“I played you wrong,” I said. “Very wrong.” I got a card out and gave it to him. He fished a pair of metal-framed glasses out of his pocket, perched them on his nose and held the card a foot away from them. He read it slowly, moving his lips, looked at me over the glasses, handed me back the card.