woman smell I couldn't miss. It had the jaunty, carefree quality that was Michael Friday and when I snapped the lights on I saw I was right.
There was an orderly disarray of things scattered around that said the woman who belonged to the room would be back. The creams, the perfumes, the open box of pins on the dresser. The bed was large with a fluffy- haired poodle doll propped against the pillows. There were pictures of men on the dresser and a couple of enlarged snapshots of Michael in a sailboat with a batch of college boys in attendance.
Scattered, but neat.
Other signs too, professional signs. A cigar ash in the tray. Indentations in the rolled stockings in the box where a thumb had squeezed them. I . sat on the edge of the bed and smoked another cigarette. When I had it halfway down I reached over to the night table for an ashtray and laid it on the cover beside me. The tray made an oval in the center of the square there, a boxy outline in dust. I picked it up, looked at the smudge on the cover and wiped at it with my fingertip.
The other details were there too, the thin line of grit and tiny edges of brownish paper that marked the lip of a box somebody had spilled out in emptying it on the bed. With my fingers held together the flat of my hand filled the width of the square and two hands made the length. I finished the butt, put it out and went back downstairs.
The cop on the porch said, 'Make out?'
'Nothing special. You find any safes around?'
'Three of ?em. One upstairs, two downstairs. Nothing there we could use. Maybe a few hundred in bills. Take a look yourself. There's a pair in his study.'
They were a pair, all right. One was built into the wall behind a framed old map of New York harbor, but the other was a trick job in the window sill. Carl was kicking his psychology around when he had them built. Two safes in a house a person could expect, but rarely two in the same room. Anyone poking around couldn't miss the one behind the map, but it would take some inside dope to find the other. The dial was pretty badly beaten up and there were fresh scratches in the wood around the thing. I swung the door open, held my lighter in front of it and squinted around. The dust marked the outline of the box that had been there.
The cop had moved to the steps this time. He grinned and jerked his head at the house. 'Not much to see.' 'Who opened the safes?'
'The city boys brought Delaney in. He's the factory representative of the outfit who makes the safes. Good man. He could make a living working lofts.'
'He's doing all right now,' I said. I told him so-long and went back to the car. Lily was waiting, her face a pale glow behind the window.
I slid under the wheel, sat there fiddling with the gearshift, letting the thought I had jell. Lily put her hand on my arm, held it still and waited. 'I wonder if Pat found it,' I muttered.
'What?'
'Michael Friday stooled on her brother. She went back home and found something else but this time she was afraid to give it to the police.'
'Mike...'
'Let me talk, kid. You don't have to listen. I'm just getting it in order. There was trouble in the outfit. Carl was expecting to take over somehow. In that outfit you don't work your way up. Carl was expecting to move up a slot so somebody else had to go. That boy knew what he was doing. He spent some time getting something on the one he was after and was going to smear him with it.'
I put it through my mind again, nodded, and said, 'Carl was close enough to start the thing going so the other one knew about it. He went after what Carl had and found it gone. By that time the cops were having a field, day with the labor department of the organization so he had a good idea who was responsible. He must have tailed her. He knew she had it and what she was going to do with it so he nailed her.'
'But... who, Mike? Who?'
My teeth came apart in the kind of a smile nobody seemed to like. I was feeling good all over because I had my finger on it now and I wasn't letting go. 'Friend Billy,' I said. 'Billy Mist. Now he sits quiet and enjoys his supper. Someplace he's got a dame on the hook and enjoying life because whatever it was Carl had isn't any more. Billy's free as a bird but he hasn't got two million in the bush to play with. He's got an ace in the hole with Velda in case the two million shows up and a deuce he can discard anytime if it doesn't. The greasy little punk is sitting pretty where he can't be touched.'
The laugh started out of my chest and ripped through my throat. It was the biggest joke I ever laughed at because the whole play was made to block me out and I wasn't being mousetrapped. I was going back a couple of hours to the kitchen and what Lily had said and back even further to a note left in my office. Then, so I wouldn't forget how I felt right there at the beginning when I wanted to kill something with my hands, I went back to Berga and the way she had looked coming out of that gas station.
I kicked the engine over, pulled around the squad car and pointed the hood toward the bright eyes of Manhattan. I stayed with the lights, watching the streets click by, cut over a few blocks to the building with the efficient look and antiseptic smell and pulled in behind the city hearse unloading a double cargo.
It was a little after one but you could still find dead people around.
The attendant in the morgue called me into his office and wanted to know if I wanted coffee. I shook my head. 'It takes the smell away,' he said. 'What can I do for you?'
'You had a body here. Girl named Berga Torn.'
'Still have it.'
'Slated for autopsy?'
'Nope. At least I haven't heard about it. They don't usually in those cases.'
'There will be one in this case. Can I use the phone?'
'Go ahead.'
I picked it up and dialed headquarters. Pat wasn't around so I tried his apartment. He wasn't there, either. I buzzed a few of the places he spent time in but they hadn't seen him. I looked at my watch and the hand had spun another quarter. I swore at the phone and at myself and double cursed the red tape if I had to go through channels. I was thinking so hard I wasn't really thinking at all and while I was in the middle of it the door of the office opened and the little guy with the potbelly came in, dropped his bag on the floor and said, 'Damn it, Charlie, why can't people wait until morning to die?'
I said, 'Hi, doc,' and the coroner gave me a surprised glance that wasn't any too pleased.
'Hello, Hammer, what are you doing here? Should I add `again'?'
'Yeah, add it, doc. I always seem to come home, don't I?'
'I'd like it better if you stayed out of my sight.'
He went to go past me. I grabbed his arm, turned him around and looked at a guy with a safe but disgusting job. He went up on his toes, tried to pull his arm away, but I held on. 'Listen, doc. You and I can play games some other time. Right now I need you for a job that can't wait. I have to chop corners and it has to be quick.'
'Let go of me!'
I let go of him. 'Maybe you like to see those bodies stretched out in the gutter.'
He turned around slowly. 'What are you talking about?'
'Suppose you had a chance to do something except listen for a heartbeat that isn't there for a change. Supposing you had it in your hand to kick a few killers right into the chair. Supposing you're the guy who stands between a few more people living or dying in the next few hours... how would you pitch it, doc?'
The puzzle twisted his nose into a ridge of wrinkles. 'See here... you're talking like...'
'I'm talking plain. I've been trying to get some official backing for what I have in mind but nobody's home. Even then it might take up time we can't spare. That chance I was talking about is in your hand, doc.'
'But . . '
'I need a stomach autopsy on a corpse. Now. Can do?'
'I think you're serious,' he said in a flat tone.
'You'll never know how serious. There may be trouble later. Trouble isn't as bad as somebody having to die.'
I could see the protest coming out of the attendant. It started but never got there. The coroner squared his shoulders, let a little of the excitement that was in my voice trickle into his eyes and he nodded.
