13
I parked in front of my office and herded Weiss up. I called Mort Fenner at Cassel’s horse room. I asked Mort to check on any bets made by Paul Baron on Wednesday that came in at 25-1. Mort didn’t have to check. № 25-1 shot had come in all week.
“All you had to do was check the results,” I said to Weiss.
Weiss said nothing. He had been too busy to check. He had been too scared. He might have learned the truth.
“Baron lives on East Sixteenth Street?” I said.
“He got a couple of pads,” Weiss said reluctantly. “He paid me at the Fifth Street place, above the club.”
I took my ancient. 45 caliber service revolver out of the file. There is an exception to every rule. I hate the touch of a gun, it feels degrading, but there was a chance I was going to meet Paul Baron’s gunman, Leo Zar, again, and the old cannon would stop a buffalo if I got close enough to hit.
When we reached Fifth Street, the club was doing business. The apartment entrance next to it was dark. Sammy pointed to a bell with no identification. I did not want to give Paul Baron that much warning. The inner door was old and had play on the buzzer-lock. I leaned on the door and gave a sharp kick. The lock sprung. I sent Weiss up ahead of me. He stepped as lightly as a cloud. Clear and present danger takes precedence over unfocused fear.
On the third floor I listened at the rear apartment door. I heard nothing. The lock was a common spring type, but picking is slow work. The door and frame were old and warped. I drew my cannon, motioned Weiss back against the corridor wall, and aimed my left foot for a hard kick just below the lock.
The door crashed open, and I jumped inside with my gun ready. You can feel emptiness. There was no one home. I put on the overhead light and called Weiss in. He came with those big eyes rolling in his sweating face. He stood in the exact center of the room as if he were afraid to be touched by anything.
“You’re sure this is the place?” I asked him. Because the room was a surprise-it was a warm, comfortable room. The furniture was old, but it had been carefully cared-for as if by a woman.
“Sure I’m sure, Danny. We had a drink at that table.”
“Did Baron live here with a woman?”
“There was a girl here when he paid me.”
“Misty Dawn?”
“Nah, a young kid. Carla he called her.”
Carla Devine, Paul Baron’s other alibi witness. I felt even better. Then I went into the bedroom and switched on the light and didn’t feel good anymore.
Paul Baron was on his back on the floor. The blood around him was brown and dry. There were two holes in his shirt. He seemed flat, and his flesh had shrunk into a leering grimace and a quarter-inch growth of beard. His left arm was flung out, and his right arm was twisted under his back in a position that would have been agony if he had been alive. I rolled him over gingerly. He was stiff as steel and moved all in a piece. The hand under his back held a wicked five-inch switchblade. He had not gone gentle, but he had gone. I let the body fall back and looked under the bed.
In the living room there was a strangled groan, and feet running, stumbling away.
I ran out into the living room. Weiss was clawing at the broken door. I reached him just as he got it open. I got a neckhold on him and dragged him back. We went down, and I lost my grip. I cursed my missing arm. Sammy crawled to his feet. I made it up and jumped to block the door. I’ve never seen a cornered animal, but now I know what one looks like. He came at me like a man turned into a rhinoceros. I hauled out my heavy revolver.
“Stop it, Sammy!”
Weiss couldn’t hear, or didn’t want to, and deep down in his cunning little brain he knew I wouldn’t shoot. He came at me with both hands flailing. I swung the gun and got him on the shoulder. He grunted. I slashed at him again and got his left hand. It must have jammed his thumb. He howled and sat down on the floor and sucked at his thumb like a giant baby. The deep Levantine eyes looked up at me with unbelieving sorrow: I was ruining him, killing him.
“You wouldn’t last two hours, Sammy,” I said as gently as I could. “I’m the only friend you’ve got now.”
“Some friend! Some friend!” His voice was like a hurt child.
I squatted and looked into his face. “Listen to me, Sammy. Baron is dead. He set you up for a frame on the Radford murder, and now he can’t be made to admit it and clear you. I think he killed Radford himself, but maybe I’ll never prove it now.”
He listened, but I’m not sure he heard. His face was that of an animal caught in a forest fire, and there was only one thing on his mind: escape. Run, run, even if it was into a river or over a cliff. But I had to reach him.
“Tell me exactly what happened here last night, Sammy.”
He blinked, thought, and the effort seemed to bring him out of his trance a little. “I told you, Danny. I came up, we had a drink, he gave me my money, and I went out to that hideout.”
“Who drove you out? Leo Zar?”
“Leo wasn’t here; he never come up. I grabbed a cab out front. There’s a stand outside the club.”
“You took a taxi all the way out to Jamaica Bay?”
“Sure, why not? I had the dough.”
I sighed. “Anyone else see you go in or come out?”
“A drunk was giving one of the tenants a hard time in the front hall when I come out.”
I just looked at him. He was all the way out of his panic now. In a way I wished he wasn’t. It would hurt more.
“Baron’s been dead around twenty-four hours, Sammy. Since just about when you were here last night. Did you kill him, Sammy? Did you spot the frame? Did he try to hold you to turn you in? Did you know he killed Radford, so he tried to kill you to shut you up before he called the cops and handed them a dead fugitive?”
He scrambled up. “I didn’t kill no one! I never had no gun my whole life. I can’t hardly shoot a gun.”
It was impossible to tell if he was lying or not. Fear was deep in Weiss, but so was cunning. If he had killed both Radford and Baron, he would have talked and acted the same way.
“No one will believe the bet, Sammy,” I said. “No one could, and there was no bet. They’ll believe you got the money from Radford or from Baron, they won’t care which. You killed Radford for the money, or Baron killed him for the money. They won’t care about that, either. They’ll be sure one of you killed Radford, and they’ll close the books, because Baron’s dead and they’ll nail you for his killing.”
He shrank away. “No, I swear!”
“You were seen leaving here just about when Baron died. A cab driver gets one call a year that takes him to a place like Jamaica Bay, so he’ll remember you good. Everyone knows Baron was looking for you. You have the money. I’ll give you odds no one saw Baron alive after you left, if he was.”
Sammy stared at me, and suddenly there were tears in his cow eyes. Big, hopeless tears like a crying hippo, only it wasn’t funny. I was thinking of what I could say to help him, when a great, wide smile spread over his face among the tears as suddenly as the tears themselves had started.
“The girl! Carla! She was here when I left! It’s okay, it’s okay, Danny. Find that girl. Carla. She’ll tell you.”
I watched him. He had mentioned the girl earlier, so maybe it was true. Maybe the sun was going to shine on Sammy at last.
“All right. We’ll find the girl. I think I know where to find her. You can describe her first to Gazzo to show him you really saw her.”
“Gazzo?” His smile faded. “You got to hide me!”
“No, Sammy.” I held the gun. “No more running. If you’re not lying in your teeth, there’s a killer around who’s framing you six ways from Sunday. Baron figures as Radford’s killer, but someone killed Baron. If you were found good and dead, maybe a suicide, that would tie it all up neat and end the case for the cops. On the loose you’re a clay pigeon.”
“I don’t care! I’m not…”
“Yes you are. For both of us. Just by being here I’m harboring a fugitive, concealing a felony, and obstructing the law. If you’re innocent, I hope I can prove it for you. If you’re guilty, I’m not taking the fall with you.”
