“I don’t know,” I said, “I’ve got time to be interested in anyone.”
“Out of a job?” The big barman’s face showed sympathy.
“Resting,” I said, yawning. “When I want work, I’ll get work. Well, so long, Willy, I’ll be in again.”
“So long, Mr. Millan,” Willy still looked worried, “I hope you get a break.”
Walking down the street, I hoped so too.
Anyway the morning wasn’t wasted. I had something to think about. Why did Kelly want to get into touch with Peppi? 1’hat was interesting. Had Shumway and the girl double-crossed Kelly? Maybe Kelly had once worked for Peppi and wanted him to put some pressure on Shumway to divide up the dough.
I remembered Peppi well. You couldn’t easily forget him. Last time I saw him was about two years ago. He was on trial for murder. I remember him sitting with his Counsel, listening to the opening address by the District Attorney. He never batted an eyelid throughout the two-day trial and he got away with it without the jury leaving the box. As far as I knew, he’d stood trial four times for murder and four times he’d been acquitted. Now, of course, he could pay some other guy to do his killing for him.
Peppi was a little guy with big bulging eyes. When he was a kid he contracted a skin disease that had stripped off his hair. He’d been as bald as an egg ever since. Apart from looking like a second cousin of Lugosi, he had a mean disposition.
So it came back to the problem. What did Kelly want with him? The only thing I could do was to call on Peppi and find out. If I went with a good enough story I might get somewhere. I didn’t exactly relish the visit, but I argued that if a guy had a house on East Seventy-eight, then he wasn’t likely to cut my throat. Or was he?
Anyway, thinking along those lines didn’t get me anywhere so I hailed a cab and gave Peppi’s address.
The driver knew him all right.
“Friend of yours, Bud?” he said, pushing the taxi through the traffic like he was anxious to get rid of me.
“You ask him. He’ll tell you if he wants you to know,” I returned.
“Wise guy, huh?” the driver snorted. “A dime a dozen. A dime a dozen.”
“I heard you the first time,” I said.
He didn’t say anything for a couple of blocks, then he ventured again, “That Kruger guy ain’t doing us any good in the taxi business. Somebody ought to stop him.”
“Come in with me and stop him,” I said, putting my feet on the spring seat in front of me.
“Yeah?” he said, “I like that kind of advice. It’s like saying why not bop Joe Louis on the snout.”
“Just drive me,” I pleaded. “I would the rest were silence.”
That held him and I didn’t get a yap out of him until he’d stopped outside Peppi’s house. I gave him a dollar. “Hang on to the change,” I said. “You look like you could use some relief.”
He put the dollar away slowly. “Some of you smart guys love yourselves,” he said, spitting on the sidewalk. “I bet you’ve got chapped lips kissing mirrors,” and he drove away before I could think up a comeback.
I concentrated on Peppi’s house. Well, it was a nice joint. It looked like it belonged to Vincent Astor or J. P. Morgan or some high-powered magnate like that. It was solid, big and cool-looking with burgundy brick walls, a terra-cotta tile roof and bay-cottage windows of white stone.
I went up the three broad steps to the massive oak and iron-studded door and rang the bell. An elderly man, got up to look like a butler, opened the door “come in, sir,” he said, without even asking me what I wanted.
I followed him into a Large lounge which was furnished in the most modern style I’d seen this side of Lexington. I can’t say I liked it a lot, but it stank of money and I guess that was all Peppi ever worried about.
The butler looked at me questioningly. He was big with white hair and faded blue eyes. One side of his face was lifted as if he’d had a stroke at one time. It gave him a disagreeable look. “Did you wish to see anyone in particular, sir?” he asked.
“Yeah,” I said, “I’d like a word with Mr. Kruger.”
“Mr. Kruger, sir?” The butler’s eyebrows shot up as if I’d asked to see the President.
“That’s right,” I said, smiling at him.
“I’m afraid, sir,” the butler returned with dignity, “Mr. Kruger never sees anyone except by appointment. Would his secretary do?”
“Look,” I said, “I’m sorry about the appointment. I couldn’t care less about the secretary. I want to see Kruger. Go tell him that Ross Millan of the New York Recorder wants to see him and tell him it’s important.”
The butler studied me for a second. “Very good, sir,” he said and floated away upstairs, leaving me standing in the lounge.
After a while, I began to think that he had completed his stroke and was lying upstairs making noises. The hands of the big old-fashioned grandfather clock kept moving forward with little jerky jumps and I got more and more tired of standing there.
Then I heard someone coming. It wasn’t the butler. Whoever it was came along the passage quickly and lightly and then a girl came down the broad staircase. She was thin, fragile and dark. Her eyebrows were unusually straight and her eyes were very large, cobalt blue with big irises and a vague expression. She wore a pair of biscuit-coloured slacks, a burgundy sweater and a biscuit-coloured handkerchief round her head. She was all right until you came to her mouth. That gave her away. It was a tight, lipless slit of red. I could imagine her sitting up in a half dark room pulling the legs off spiders and getting a lot of fun out of it. Back and front her figure looked like she had been fed through a mangle.
“I’m Mr. Kruger’s secretary,” she said. Her voice was deep and musical.
“Well, well,” I said, “well, well, well.”
One of her eyebrows went up and she tried again, “you wanted to see Mr. Kruger?”
“That was the idea, but I’ve changed my mind. My doctor only lets me have one meal a day,” I said, adjusting my necktie. “What do you do with your evenings?”
“You’re Millan, of the New York Recorder, aren’t you?” she asked. The cobalt blue eyes had darkened.
“Yep,” I said, “Ross Millan. Just plain Ross to you. How about dating me up? The demand’s brisk, but I can manage to-night.”
“What did you want to see Mr. Kruger about?”
Somehow I didn’t feel I was making much headway, but I wasn’t discouraged, “I’ll tell him that,” I said gently. “No offence meant, but this is a little matter between men. Women have their secrets too, you know.”
“Then you’d better come upstairs,” she said and turned and walked back the way she had come.
When we reached the top of the stairs I drew level and walked by her side. “I was just kidding,” I said suddenly. “Don’t let it get your vitamins in an uproar.”
She didn’t say anything.
“Could I have your name?” I went on, “I’d like to know how to introduce you to my friends.”
“Lydia Brandt,” she said, without turning her head, “and I don’t expect to meet your friends.”
“You never know,” I said. “Strange things happen.”
She opened a door that led off the passage and stood aside, “Mr. Kruger will be in a minute.”
“But, you’re not leaving me?” I said, wandering into the room.
The cobalt blue eyes looked sultry, but she didn’t say anything. She closed the door behind her and left me in the room which was large and lined with books.
I glanced round with interest. The library was made up of the most complete collection of crime books I’d ever seen. Even police headquarters couldn’t compete with it. The books ranged from sixteenth century crime to modern crime. There were books on poison, forensic medicine, murder, blackmail, kidnapping, assault and, in fact, something of everything.
I was just getting interested in the second volume of Havelock Ellis when the door opened and Peppi came in.
All right, I admit I startled me. I hadn’t seen him for a couple of years and then, as I’ve already told you, that was when he was rum running.
Now, of course, he had come up in the world. I expected a change, but not such a change as this.
He was dressed in a grey silk dressing gown with a scarlet cord. Under this, he seemed to be wearing white silk pyjamas. His face was smooth and unwrinkled as if he’d had all the electric massage in the world working on him. His small white hands were soft and well cared for and his finger nails manicured. But his eyes were the same. They were the same small pebbles of blue stone and his large bald head was the same except it shone as if he had polished it with beeswax.
