you, I guess. We talked to him. He said he’d sent Weiss for his money. He said Weiss never came back. He admitted he was looking for Weiss. He had an alibi for the time of the murder.”
“What alibi?”
Gazzo spoke straight-faced. “A singer-dancer at the Fifth Street Club, Misty Dawn, was with him until one o’clock at her place. A girl named Carla Devine was with him from about one-thirty until past six o’clock. He’s a lady-chaser. We talked to both women; they back him.”
“You’re kidding,” I said. “Who’s the Devine girl?”
“Call her a B-girl if you want. She keeps rich men happy when they come to town. She lives with four other girls in an apartment on University Place. Baron hangs around the place. The girls work for themselves, but Baron drums up contacts.”
“Hell, they’re both in his pocket.”
“Give me some proof they’re lying.”
“I’m pretty sure I saw Misty Dawn with Weiss about eight P.M. Monday. They got into a cab together. Which means Baron is probably lying when he says Weiss never came back to him.”
“Not necessarily. At that time Baron didn’t know Radford was dead. Weiss probably gave the Dawn woman the slip after you saw them, and then Baron started chasing Weiss.”
I lighted a cigarette. “You know, Gazzo, Baron’s a sharp con man, yet he’s supposed to have let Walter Radford get into him for $25,000 when Walter couldn’t pay.”
“You think the money wasn’t a poker debt?”
“Baron’s known more for con games, the squeeze. He works with women, the badger games. No capital, just some polite blackmail. A payoff is more in his line.”
“Does it matter, Dan?” Gazzo said. “Whatever it was for, the uncle wouldn’t pay, and that got him killed.”
“I think it matters. It changes the degree of pressure. It’s no longer a one-shot $25,000. Motives get changed,” I said. “When Weiss came to me, he was worried, but he wasn’t scared to death. He tried to buy an alibi. He wouldn’t have done that if the charge was murder. He’d have run and never stopped.”
“So?”
“So I don’t think he knew Radford was dead then. He’d never have tried to buy me on a murder rap; I wouldn’t stay bought. No, I’ll swear he didn’t know Radford was dead.”
“So he didn’t know the man was dead. So what?”
“He couldn’t have known there was even a chance Radford was dead, stabbed, and he couldn’t have stolen $25,000. Damn it, by coming to me he admitted he was there with Radford. It was as good as a confession. No, his story to me was true. If it hadn’t been, he’d have taken the money and dug to China, just the way he’s doing now that he’s really scared.”
Gazzo ticked off, “Witnesses already placed him there. He didn’t think he could buy you; he just wanted to get his story on record so you could tell it later and create doubt. When you didn’t seem convinced, then he ran for China.” Gazzo leaned back in his chair. “You’re talking logic, Dan; what a rational man would do and not do. A scared punk like Weiss could do anything. I’d be a lot more doubtful Weiss is our man if he was supposed to have acted smart and rational.”
I stood up. “Can I leave?”
“Anytime.”
I watched his face. “I’ll say it again, Captain: you won’t look for anyone while you’ve got Weiss in hand. You won’t even try. They won’t let you up top. But I can look.”
“Don’t buck us, Dan.”
I walked out. I didn’t even feel as good as I should have walking out after a night in jail. I was mad. Sammy Weiss was no one, nothing. He belonged in some jail. What did it matter if maybe there was some doubt this time?
11
Before I dropped in bed, I called my part-time answering service. Weiss might have heard I was looking around and tried to contact me. It was a forlorn hope. In Chelsea people are wary of the telephone. There was no message from Weiss, but a lady had called once: no name and no number.
I set my alarm for one o’clock and collasped in the bed. I thought about the nameless lady, but not for long. Marty would have left her name. I thought about Weiss. Where was he? How was he keeping on the loose? Almost three days with half the New York police looking for him. Someone had to be helping him. I went to sleep thinking that $25,000 buys a lot of help.
The telephone woke me up. My head said I had slept an hour. The clock said it was almost noon. I fumbled with the receiver and managed to mumble something like “Hello?”
“Mr. Fortune?” a woman’s voice asked. Her voice was low and throaty.
“I think so,” I said. “Let me check.”
“You’re working on the murder of Jonathan Radford?”
“Hold on,” I said. “I’ll be back.”
I put down the receiver and went into the bathroom. I doused sleep and morphine hangover from my head in cold water. I came out, lighted a cigarette, and picked up the telephone.
“Who is this?” I asked.
“My name is Agnes Moore,” she said, low and quiet. “I’d like to talk to you. There could be money in it.”
“What about Radford?”
“We’ll talk. Come to 17 West Seventy-sixth Street. Top floor.”
She hung up. I finished my cigarette. Then I took a shower. I wondered if Sammy Weiss had found a devious way to contact me. Someone had to be hiding him. On the other hand, I’d be careful where I walked. When I was dressed, I went out and to the subway.
At Seventy-second Street a thin haze hung over the Park like damp smoke, and lights were on in the tall buildings even in the early afternoon. The feel of more snow was in the air, and it was not so cold. Number 17 on Seventy-sixth Street was the usual brownstone. I rang. The door buzzed to let me in.
The stairs were carpeted and clean, and the wood of the walls shined as I went up. The door of the top apartment was painted black, and had an elegant brass knocker. I used the knocker. She answered at once.
“Come in, Mr. Fortune.”
She was just over medium height. She wore a loose red kimono that swept the floor. Her dark hair was cut short in Italian curls, and her round face was pretty in a scrubbed, mannish way. She was around thirty, give or take, and she looked as if she had just stepped from the shower.
I went inside warily and braced for action.
“Sit down,” she said.
The living room was large for the West Side. The furniture was good and expensive, but oddly impersonal. It looked like a matched set bought complete by someone who had said, “Wrap up the room and send it home.” A model room in a good department store with none of the clutter that piles up after a time of living.
I sat. “How do you know about me, Miss Moore?”
“I have friends, and you’re easy to spot.” She nodded at my empty sleeve.
“What friends? Maybe Sammy Weiss?”
“I don’t know Weiss, and what friends doesn’t matter. I want to talk about the murder, isn’t that enough?”
Her low voice was strong. It reminded me of someone else: Misty Dawn, or Deirdre Fallon, or Morgana Radford. I was collecting contralto females. Maybe it was the New York winter.
“How do you fit with Jonathan Radford, Miss Moore?”
“Close,” she said, and laughed. “I was his girl friend, or lover; you name it how you like.”
Her diction was good, but an uneducated past lurked behind her voice. She was relaxed, but there was a hardness in her that comes from growing up fast where life was not easy. I knew now why Jonathan Radford had
