“Couldn’t have been much or they’d be breathing down our necks by now,” the first policeman said.
“Better ask just the same.”
An elderly man was cultivating with a one-prong cultivator around some rose bushes behind the house south of the Pettigrew house. The young cop asked him what he knew to cause a police call about next door. Nothing. See the people go out? No, he hadn’t noticed anyone leave. Pettigrews had no car. Roomer had a car, but garage looked locked. You could see the padlock. What kind of people? Ordinary. Never bothered anybody. Radio seemed a bit loud lately? Like now? The old man shook his head. Wasn’t loud now. Had been earlier. What time they turn it down? He didn’t know. Heck, why would he? An hour, half an hour. Nothing been happening around here, officer. I been out pottering all morning. Somebody called in, the officer said. Must be a mistake, the old man said. Anybody else in his house? His house? The old man shook his head. Nope, not now The wife had gone to the beauty parlor. She went for that purple stuff they were putting on white hair nowadays. He chuckled. The young cop hadn’t thought he had a chuckle in him, the way he kept pecking at those roses, kind of short and cross.
On the other side of the Pettigrew house where the driver of the radio car went nobody answered the front door. The policeman went around back and saw a child of indeterminate age and sex trying to kick the slats out of a play pen. The child needed its nose wiped and looked as if it preferred it that way. The officer banged at the back door and got a lank-haired slattern of a woman. When she opened the door some damn-fool soap opera poured out of the kitchen and he could see that she was listening to it with the passionate attention of an engineer squad clearing a minefield. She hadn’t heard a darn thing, she screamed at him, timing her answer neatly between two lines of dopey dialogue. She didn’t have no time to bother with what went on anywheres else. Radio next door? Yes, she guessed they had one. Might have heard it once in a while. Could she turn that thing down a little, the cop asked her, scowling at the table radio on the kitchen sink. She said she could, but didn’t aim to. A thin dark girl with hair as lank as her mother’s appeared suddenly from nowhere and stood about six inches from the officer’s stomach and stared up his shirt front at him. He moved back and she stayed right with him. He decided he was going to get mad in a minute. Didn’t hear anything at all, huh? He yelled at the woman. She held up her hand for silence, listened to a brief interchange of sparkling slop from the radio and then shook her head. She started to close the door before he was half through it. The little girl speeded him on his way with a short sharp and efficient raspberry.
His face felt a little hot when he met the other policeman beside the radio car. They both looked across the street and then looked at each other and shrugged. The driver started around the back of the car to get back in, then changed his mind and went back up the walk to the front porch of Pettigrew’s house. He listened to the radio and noted that there was lamplight around the blinds. He stopped and angled himself from window to window until he found a small chink he could see through with one eye.
After straining this way and that he finally saw what looked like a man’s body lying on its back on the floor beside the leg of a low table. He straightened and made a sharp gesture to the other cop. The other came running.
“We go in,” the driver said. “You don’t see so good this shift. There’s a guy in there and he ain’t dancing. Radio on, lights on, all doors and windows locked, nobody answers the door and a guy is lying on the carpet. Don’t that add to anything in your book?”
It was at that moment that Joe Pettigrew took his second pinch of Professor Bingo’s snuff.
They got into the kitchen by forcing a window up with a screwdriver, without breaking the glass. The old man next door saw them and went right on pecking at his roses. It was a clean neat kitchen, because Joe Pettigrew kept it that way. Being in the kitchen they found they could as easily have stayed outside. There was no possible way into the lighted front room without breaking down a door. Which finally brought them back to the front porch. The driver of the radio car cracked a window with the heavy screwdriver, unlatched it, pulled it up far enough to lean in and knock the screen hook loose with the end of the screwdriver. They got both sashes of the window up and so got into the room without touching anything with their hands except the window catch.
The room was warm and oppressive. With a brief glance at Porter Green the driver went towards the bedroom, unbuttoning the flap of his holster as he went.
“Better put your hands in your pockets,” he told the young policeman over his shoulder. “Could be this isn’t your day.” He said it without sarcasm or anything in his voice but the meaning of the words, but the young officer flushed just the same and bit his lip. He stood looking down at Porter Green. He had no need to touch him or even bend down. He had seen far more dead men than his partner. He stood perfectly still because he knew there was nothing for him to do and that anything he did, even walking around on the carpet, might happen to spoil something the lab boys could use.
Standing there quietly, and even with the radio still going in the corner, he seemed to hear a sound like a faint clink and then the rustle of a step outside on the porch. He turned swiftly and went to the window. He pushed the glass curtain aside and looked out.
No. Nothing. He looked faintly puzzled because he had very keen hearing. Then he looked disgusted.
“Watch yourself, kid,” he told himself. “No Japs near this foxhole.”
You could stand in a recessed doorway and take a wallet out of your pocket and a card from the wallet and read it and nobody could see the wallet or the card or the hand holding it. People passed up and down the street idly or busily, the usual early afternoon mob, and nobody even glanced towards you. If they did, all they would see would be an empty doorway. In other circumstances it might have been amusing. It wasn’t amusing now, for obvious reasons. Joe Pettigrew’s feet were tired. He hadn’t done so much walking in ten years. He pretty well had to walk. He couldn’t very well have got Porter Green’s car out. The sight of a perfectly empty car driving along in traffic would be apt to unhinge the traffic police. Somebody would start yelling. You never knew what would happen.
He might have risked crowding on to a bus or street car in a group of people. It looked feasible. They probably wouldn’t look around to see who was jostling them but there was always the chance that some big strong character might make a grab at nothing and get hold of an arm and be just stubborn enough to hang on even if he couldn’t see what it was he was hanging on to. No; much better walk. Joseph would certainly approve of that.
“Wouldn’t you, Joseph?” he asked, looking into the dusty glass of the doorway behind him.
Joseph didn’t say. He was there all right, but he wasn’t sharp and well defined. He was foggy. He didn’t have the clean-cut personality you expected from Joseph.
“All right Joseph. Some other time.” Joe Pettigrew looked down at the card he was still holding. He would be about eight blocks to the building where, in Room 311, Professor Augustus Bingo maintained an office. There was a telephone number too. Joe Pettigrew wondered if it would be wiser to make an appointment. Yes, it would be wiser. There was probably an elevator and once in that he would be too much at the mercy of chance. A lot of these old buildings—and he knew Professor Bingo would be almost certain to have his office in a building that went with his rusty old hat—didn’t have any fire stairs. They had outside fire escapes and a freight elevator you couldn’t get to from the lobby. Much better make an appointment.
There was also the question of payment. Joe Pettigrew had thirty-seven dollars in his wallet, but he didn’t suppose that thirty-seven dollars would cause Professor Bingo’s heart to bulge with excitement. Professor Bingo undoubtedly selected his prospects with care and would be apt to demand a large slice of their available funds. This was not easy to manage. You could hardly cash a check if nobody could see the check. Even if the teller could see the check, which Joe
Pettigrew supposed would be possible if he put it down on the counter and took his hand away—after all there would be a check—the teller would hardly hold the money out to empty space. The bank was out. Of course, he might wait around for someone else to cash a check and then grab the money. But a bank was a bad place for that kind of operation. The person grabbed from would probably make a great deal of fuss and noise and Joe Pettigrew knew that the first thing a bank did in a case like that was block the doors and ring an alarm bell. It would be better to let the person with the money leave the bank first. But this had disadvantages. If it was a man, he would put the money where it would be difficult for an inexperienced pickpocket to lift it, even if he had a certain technical advantage over the most experienced pickpocket. It would have to be a woman. But women very seldom cashed large checks and Joe Pettigrew had scruples about snatching a woman’s bag. Even if she could spare the money, the loss of her bag would make her so helpless.
“I’m not the right type,” Joe Pettigrew said more or less out loud, still standing in the doorway,” to really get the value out of a situation like this.”
That was the truth and the whole trouble. In spite of having put a neat slug into Porter Green, Joe Pettigrew was fundamentally a decent man. He had been a little carried away at first, but he could see now that being invisible had its drawbacks. Well, perhaps he didn’t need any more snuff. There was a way to find out. But if he did need it, he would need it awfully fast.
There was nothing sensible except to telephone Professor Bingo and make an appointment.
He left the doorway and edged along the outside of the pavement to the next intersection. There was a dim-looking bar across the way. It might well have a secluded telephone booth. Of course even a secluded telephone booth could be a rat trap now Suppose somebody came along and saw it was apparently empty and came in—no, better not think of that.
He went into the bar. It was secluded enough. There were two men on the stools and a couple in a booth. It was that time of day when almost no one drinks except a few loafers and alcoholics and an occasional pair of clandestine lovers. The pair in the booth looked like that. They were very close together and had eyes for themselves and no one else. The woman had an awful hat and a dirty white baby lamb jacket and she looked puffy and spoiled. The man looked a bit like Porter Green. He had that same sharp competent unscrupulous air. Joe Pettigrew stopped beside the booth and looked down at them with distaste. There was a pony of whiskey in front of the man with a chaser beside it. The woman had some godawful mess in layers of different colors. Joe Pettigrew looked down at the whiskey.
It probably wasn’t wise, but he felt like it. He reached quickly for the small glass and poured the whiskey down his throat. It had an awful taste. He choked violently. The man in the booth straightened up and swung his head around. He stared straight at Joe Pettigrew.
“What the hell…” he said sharply.
Joe Pettigrew was frozen. He stood there holding the glass and the man looked him straight in the eye. The man’s eyes went down, down to the empty glass Joe Pettigrew was holding. The man put his hands on the edge of the table and started to move sideways. He didn’t say another word, but Joe Pettigrew didn’t have to be told. He turned and ran towards the back of the bar. The bartender and the two men on the stools both turned to look. The man from the booth was standing up now.
Just in time Joe Pettigrew found it. It said Men on the door. He went in quickly and swung around. There was no lock on the door. His hand gripped frantically for the box in his pocket and he was only just getting it out when the door started to open. He stepped behind it and wrenched the lid off the box and grabbed a big pinch. He got it to his nose a mere second before the man in the booth was in the men’s room with him.
Joe Pettigrew’s hand shook so violently that he dropped half the snuff on the floor. He also dropped the cover of the box. With a diabolical precision the cover rolled straight along the concrete floor and came to rest practically touching the tip of the right shoe of the man from the booth.
The man stood inside the door and looked around. He really looked around. And he looked straight at Joe Pettigrew. But his expression was quite different this time. He looked away. He stepped across to the two stalls. He pushed first one door open, then another. Both stalls were empty. The man stood there looking into them. A peculiar sound came from his throat. With an absent gesture he got out a pack of cigarettes and stuck a cigarette in his mouth. A neat small silver lighter came out next and snapped a neat small flame to the cigarette.
The man blew a long plume of smoke. He turned slowly and moved towards the door like a man in a dream. He went out. Then with appalling suddenness he came back in again, hurling the door in front of him. Joe Pettigrew got out of the way just in time. The man gave the room another raking glance. Here was a badly puzzled man, Joe Pettigrew thought. A very annoyed man, a man into whose morning a large drop of gall had been dropped. The man went out again.
Joe Pettigrew moved once more. There was a frosted window in the wall, small, but adequate. He unlatched it and tried to push it up. It stuck. He tried harder. The wrench of the effort hurt his back. The window came free at last and slid up jerkily as far as it would go.
As he dropped his hands and wiped them on his pants a voice behind him said: “That wasn’t open.”
Another voice said: “What wasn’t open, mister?”
“The window, chump.”
Joe looked around carefully. He sidled away from the window The barkeep and the man from the booth were both looking at the window.
“Must of been,” the barkeep said tersely. “And skip the chump.”
“I say it wasn’t.” The man from the booth was more than emphatic, and less than polite.
“You callin’ me a liar?” the barkeep enquired.
“How would you know whether it was open?” The man from the booth started to get aggressive again.
“Why you come back in here, if you was so sure?”
“Because I couldn’t believe my eyes,” the man from the booth almost yelled.
The barkeep grinned. “But you expect me to believe ‘em. That the picture?”
“Oh, go to hell,” the man from the booth said. He turned and banged out of the men’s room. In so doing he stepped square on the top of Professor Bingo’s snuff box. It crunched flat under his shoe. Nobody looked at it, except Joe Pettigrew He looked at it all right.
The barkeep went across to the window and shut it and turned the catch.
“That takes care of that jerk,” he said, and went on out. Joe Pettigrew moved carefully to the crushed box top and stooped for it. He straightened it out as best he could and put it back on the bottom half. It didn’t look very safe any more. He wrapped it in a paper towel just to be a little safer.
Another man came into the men’s room, but he was on business. Joe Pettigrew caught the door as it swung shut and slipped out. The barkeep was behind the bar again. The man from the booth and the woman with the dirty white lambs-wool were starting out.
“Come again soon,” the barkeep said, in a voice that meant exactly the opposite. The man from the booth almost stopped but the woman said something to him and they went on out.
“What’s the beef?” the man on the stool asked, the one who had not gone to the men’s room.
“I could pick a better-looking skirt than that over on North Broadway at one in the A.M.,” the barkeep said contemptuously. “The guy not only ain’t got no manners and no brains, he ain’t got no taste.”
“But you know what he has got,” the man on the stool said laconically as Joe Pettigrew went quietly out of the door.
The bus station on Cahuenga was the place. People coming and going all the time, people intent on one thing, people who would never look to see who jostled them, people with no time to think and most of them nothing to think with if they had the time. There was plenty of noise. Dialing in an empty phone booth would attract no attention. He reached up and loose
ned the bulb so the light would not go on when he closed the door. He was a little worried now. The snuff couldn’t be trusted for much more than an hour. He figured back from the time he had left the young policeman in the living-room at the house to when the man in the booth had looked up and seen him.
Just about an hour. This took thought. Much thought. He peered at the telephone number. Gladstone 7-4963. He dropped his nickel and dialed it. At first it didn’t ring, then a wavy high-pitched whine reached his ears, then a click and then he heard his nickel drop down into the return slot. Then an operator’s voice said: “What number are you calling, please?”
Joe Pettigrew told her. She said: “One moment, please.” There was a pause. Joe Pettigrew kept looking out through the glass panel of the booth. He wondered how long it would be before somebody tried the door of the booth and how much longer before someone noticed what would seem to him or her a very curious position for the telephone receiver—at the ear of a someone who wasn’t there. He supposed it was that way. The whole damn telephone system could hardly disappear just because he was using one instrument.
The operator’s voice came back, “I’m sorry, sir, but there is no such telephone number listed.”
“There must be,” Joe Pettigrew said violently and repeated the number. The operator also repeated her remark, and added: “One moment, please, I will give you Information.” The booth was hot and Joe Pettigrew was beginning to sweat. Information came and heard and went away and came back.
“I’m sorry, sir. There is no telephone listed under that name.”
Joe Pettigrew stepped out of the booth just in time to avoid a woman with a string bag and an appearance of great hurry. He just slid away from her in time. He got out of there fast.
It could be an unlisted number. He should have thought of that long ago. The way Professor Bingo operated, he would certainly have an unlisted phone. Joe Pettigrew stopped dead and somebody kicked his heel. He skipped out of the way just in time.