“They tried to kill me because I was putting the pieces together to prove Wherthman didn’t do it,” I explained. “They figured my next step was to Peese, and they were right. My curiosity ends there.”
It wasn’t exactly the truth, and something still gnawed at me. Chandler’s detectives were probably full of germs of curiosity and covered with the poison ivy of responsibility. Those diseases could get you killed in my business. It was still a mess, and I wasn’t sure Phil would or could pull it off with what I had; but short of trying to force a confession out of Grundy, I was finished. If a forty-five-pound midget could flatten me with a single punch, what would Grundy do to me? He might not be able to shoot straight, but there was nothing wrong with his hands.
I was facing out toward the street when I saw the woman. There were a lot of people walking in both directions, but she had stopped and was looking up. She had a big brown paper bag in her arms and a look on her face I’d never seen. Her hand went to her mouth and the package fell. She had just been to a Chinese carry-out place. The little white cartons exploded on the sidewalk. Shrapnels of rice and egg roll flecked the unwary. I stepped out from under the canopy and looked up. Someone seemed to be hanging out of a window in the hotel. Someone else was not helping him get back in. It was hard to look up into the sun, but the lady and I saw that much. Other people were looking up now, too.
About fifty people saw the hanging man fall. He tumbled over in five or six circles without a sound before he hit the top of a passing Sunshine Cab and bounced off onto the sidewalk about fifteen feet from me. The body almost hit the purple lady with the purple poodle. I don’t know what Chandler did, but I stepped forward a foot or two to be sure the body was Peese’s. It was, though he’d be hard to identify by anything but his size and the clothes he was wearing. His face had hit the Sunshine Cab on the way down.
I turned to Chandler, who looked grim but controlled, as if he had always expected to see something like this, and life had proved him right.
“That’s Peese,” I said, and ran back into the hotel.
People were pushing past me to get out and see what had happened. Someone asked me. I pushed and ran for the door markedSTAIRWAY. I pulled out my. 38 and started to run up the stairs two or three at a time, listening for footsteps above me. The killer might take the elevator, or he might take the stairs. I didn’t know how many stairways there were in the hotel. I doubted if he would risk attracting attention by going down the fire escape. I also gambled that he wouldn’t want to cut off his options by using the elevator.
Somewhere I guessed wrong. No one came down the stairs. By the ninth floor I was winded, but my handball hours and running kept me up, and my back didn’t scream. No one was in the hall. It would take a few minutes for someone to figure out what floor Peese had flown from. The desk clerk would identify him, and the cops would be coming. Peese’s door was open. I stepped in, not expecting to find anything or anyone; I was right. The window was open and I had no intention of looking out. I put my gun away and looked around the place quickly, not worrying about prints. I had visited the place earlier and there were witnesses to it. There was also a witness to my being on the sidewalk when Peese went flying. Chandler’s testimony would probably be good enough even for my brother, but I didn’t wait to be tied up explaining things. I hurried through the place and found a closet. It was open, and a little chair stood inside. I stood on the chair and looked where someone had apparently looked a few minutes before. Standing on the chair, I was eye level with a shelf. I turned on the closet light. The shelf was empty but the dust showed the outline of a circle the size of a big plate.
I got down trying to figure what might be shaped like that. I kept figuring as I left the apartment and headed for the elevator. When it opened, the desk clerk I had talked to in the lobby was on it. So was a uniformed cop complete with cap, dark tie, long sleeves, and a serious look on his freckled young face. They stepped off, and I stepped on.
The doors were closing when I heard the clerk say, “That’s him. The man who was with Mr. Peese.”
The young cop turned to me too late. The elevator doors closed. He had a few choices. He could run down the stairs and stand a good chance of heading me off if the elevator made any stops. He could call the lobby and have someone try to stop me. If he were really stupid, he’d wait for another elevator. I counted on him taking about fifteen seconds to make up his mind unless he was really a sharp rookie. He didn’t look all that sharp. I put my luck on the elevator instead of getting out and running down.
My luck held. No one got on the elevator, and I hit the lobby in about fifteen seconds. The lobby was almost empty, except for a few people looking out of the windows at the body. Everyone else was already outside. Chandler spotted me hurrying through the door and stepped over to me.
“I think I saw your man,” he said. He described Grundy right down to the biceps and bleached hair.
“Was he carrying anything?” I asked.
“Yes,” said Chandler. “A can, a big tin can. Looked something like a giant nickel.”
“About two feet across?” I asked, looking back over my shoulder for the cop.
“Yes,” he said. “What was it?”
“Film,” I said. “Movies. Whoever killed Peese took the film from the apartment.”
Chandler scratched his head and pushed his glasses back to keep them from falling.
“What’s on the film?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” I said, “but I know who to ask.”
I took his hand, shook it, and thanked him for his help. I also told him that I might be needing his help with the police. The crowd around Peese’s body had reached riot size.
“Of course,” he said. “You’re going after the killer?”
I shrugged, and he looked pleased. I was doing what private detectives are supposed to do. I was walking the mean streets. I was acting like a damn fool.
7
Grundy had a can of movie film and, for all he knew, all the time left in his life to put it away. He didn’t know I was behind him. With luck I might even get to his place before him, if that’s where he was going.
He wasn’t going there. I parked on Highland and went to his door. It was open. The upstairs door wasn’t. I knocked and prepared to greet him with a gun in my hand, but he didn’t answer. I listened at the door and heard nothing. I could have jimmied the door without much trouble, but what I was looking for wasn’t there. I wanted Grundy and that film. He was probably driving around with it in his trunk. I didn’t even know what his car looked like though I’d seen it twice, once when he took a shot at me on Normandie and once when he was pulling out of the Happy Byways Motor Court after trying for me again.
I went back to the restaurant where I’d watched him eat. The frizzy waitress was there, and her face was blank. She probably hypnotized herself into not thinking or feeling till the work day was over. The trouble with that was eventually the hypnotism doesn’t wear off at quitting time, and you’re like that all the time. It happens to waitresses, senators, movie stars, and cops.
I ordered a coffee from her while I sat at the counter and remembered too late that the coffee there was awful. It was late in the afternoon so I added a tuna sandwich and a grilled cheese on white. Nothing much was going on in the restaurant. It was well past lunch and too early for dinner. An old guy with thick glasses and a cigarette stuck to his lower lip sat at a back booth reading the newspaper and nursing a coffee and roll. He was the only customer. The frizzy waitress had her elbows on the counter next to the cash register. She looked at the window, but I didn’t think she saw anything.
“I was in here the other day with Barney Grundy,” I reminded her.
She got off her elbows and looked at me, trying to place me. I’ve got an easy face to remember, but she couldn’t place it. All she had seen was Grundy, but he wasn’t here now.
“You a friend of his?” Her head tilted to the side like a curious bird. A touch of rouge that hadn’t been absorbed stood out on her cheek. She looked like an unfinished clown, and I felt sorry for her.
“We’ve been spending a lot of time together,” I said, finishing the grilled cheese first because it was hot. “He’s really something.”
“He sure is,” she said, a smile touching her face.
“Come in here a lot?”
“Just about every day,” she said.
