The Blonde Wore Black Read online

  “He may not have known it was yours.”

  “Maybe. It don’t make no difference. I want it back.”

  Hamilton spoke for the first time.

  “I get the feeling Mr. Preston doesn’t have the stomach for this type of operation.”

  “You step out back a moment and we’ll talk some more,” I replied nastily.

  Martello chuckled briefly, his brother merely watched.

  “Boys, boys,” sighed Jake. “Anybody’d think you fellers couldn’t get along.”

  “You better tell the pretty boy not to needle me, or I’ll spread him over some alley,” I warned.

  Jake patted Hamilton on the arm as he was about to speak.

  “Calm down. Clyde here is new in town. He don’t know about you, Preston.” Turning to Hamilton he said, “Preston’s O.K. He does what he does and he keeps his mouth shut.”

  “Whatever you say, Mr. Martello.”

  Each word was forced unwillingly through the handsome mouth.

  “That is absolutely right. Whatever I say. Well Preston, what’s it gonna be?”

  I was thinking about it.

  “If I turn up this killer, how do I know you won’t knock him off?”

  “Because I tell you so. Me personal, Jake Martello. And I guess my word’s been good enough around this village for twenty years or more.” That was true. Jake was as good as his word, whether for good or bad.

  “Mind you,” he qualified, “I ain’t saying the guy wouldn’t get pushed around some. People has to be taught manners when they mess in my business.”

  “No objections,” I replied. “I don’t like guys who shoot from behind anyway.”

  “Then it’s a deal?” he beamed.

  “I don’t give guarantees,” I repeated. “Let me try it for two days. If it comes up empty, I’ll ask you whether you want to spend more money.”

  Jake turned to his brother.

  “Ya see? Like I told you, this guy is on the level. You’ll need some dough. Here.”

  He pulled a wadded roll of bills from his pocket.

  “There’s a grand, just to get you started. You need more, holler.”

  I got up, stuffing the roll in my pocket.

  “After nine any evening at Rose’s?”

  He looked at my face to be certain I wasn’t pulling his leg. Jake’s admiration for Rose Suffolk was a byword in Monkton.

  “Yeah, I get around there most nights,” he nodded. “I’ll be in touch.”

  The Martello brothers nodded. Hamilton studied the ceiling.

  CHAPTER TWO

  THE OLDEST NEWSPAPER in town is the Monkton City-Globe, and I went around to the office for a word with Shad Steiner. He was surrounded by the usual heaps of paper, and busy bawling somebody out over the telephone when I walked in.

  “No,” he was shouting, “There’s no hurry, no hurry at all. We only print this magazine twice a year. You have thirty minutes to get that story in front of me.”

  The phone went down with a bang.

  “Reporters,” he scorned. “They call them reporters. I’d like to have seen a few of those bums covering the old 12th Ward thirty years ago. They’d have died of fright. What can I do for you, Preston? And why should I?”

  “Now Shad, just calm down. It isn’t my fault you have a bum staff.”

  He quivered with wrath.

  “Bum staff? Who says I got a bum staff? Let me tell you, no newspaper in this town can match the Globe in any contest. And that includes staff. Anyway, what would a bar-haunting peeper know about real work, like running a newspaper?”

  “I thought you said——”

  “Never mind what I said. I don’t have time to sit around flapping the breeze with you all day. State your business.”

  At least I needn’t enquire after his health. When Steiner barks and snaps that way, it means he is one hundred per cent fit.

  “I noticed a few lines about the guy who fell off Indian Point today. Anything there for me?”

  He squinted suspiciously over the top of his spectacles.

  “You know something,” he accused.

  “No, I just don’t happen to be working, and I wondered——”

  “Don’t lie to me. People have been trying for forty years and I always know. You got anything I can print?”

  “No. But if I find out anything, I’ll see you get it.”

  “H’m.”

  Diving into one of the heaps around him he fished out a sheet of paper.

  “You might as well see this. Be on the street in two hours anyway.”

  It was a two column story now, with one-inch headlines. It confirmed what Martello had told me. What had seemed at first like natural causes turned out to be murder. Brookman lived alone at 824 Monteray Building and his occupation was poet. None had seen him later than eight o’clock the previous evening when he left the house of his friend, Hugo Somerset. Somerset was stated to be an entrepreneur, whatever that might be. He’d had a few friends in for drinks, one of them was Brookman. No, he didn’t remember him leaving, nor whether anyone accompanied him. It sounded like that kind of party. There was a photograph, and obvious publicity handout, of a girl called Shiralee O’Connor, dancer. She’d been at the party too, presumably with more clothes on than the photograph indicated. In fairness to Somerset, if I had been present, I doubted whether I’d have known what time Brookman left either.

  “Wow,” I muttered.

  Steiner chuckled.

  “You should see some of the others her agent sent in. Sometimes I regret I’m such an old man.”

  “We’d soon see how old you are if she walked in here in this rig,” I told him. “Who’s working on this?”

  “Randall, so far. They tell me Rourke is off with a head cold.”

  I didn’t know whether that was good news or bad. Neither of them was much improvement on the other, from my point of view.

  “You got anything you didn’t print?” I demanded.

  “The Globe prints all the facts,” recited Steiner monotonously. “Our readers are entitled to know everything that happens.”

  “Don’t stall me, Shad.”

  He whipped off the spectacles and tapped on the desk with them.

  “The girl they call a dancer,” he rapped. “She only dances the private circuit.”

  “Good. Anything else?”

  “Got a list of the other people at the party. Here.”

  Another shuffle with the paper and he handed over a list of names. I didn’t recognize any.

  “Queer bunch,” he submitted. “They’re all poets, ballet dancers, composers nobody ever heard of. Fringe characters. I’ll bet there isn’t one with his rent paid up. Except this Somerset, of course. He seems to have plenty.”

  I made a note of Somerset’s address. He’d need plenty to go with a neighborhood like that.

  “I’m obliged to you Mr. Steiner. What was the name of this newspaper again? Maybe I’ll buy one some day.”

  “We don’t need it. Don’t forget, if you come up with anything, it’s mine.”

  ‘Til remember.”

  Stuffing the names in my pocket, I went back out into the street. It was almost one o’clock and my stomach was muttering something about food. I knew a place where I could grab a sandwich and maybe spend some of Martello’s talk money at the same time.

  I went to the Dutchman’s, a place off Conquest Street where a man can get a schooner of beer and something to eat. You can also get more free advice in the Dutchman’s than any other place I know. It is a hang-out for the horse players, that trusting band of citizens who are going to get rich tomorrow. And I’m not speaking about people who take an occasional interest in the ponies. These are the real players, the ones who eat sleep and talk nothing but nags, nags, nags. They know what’s running in every race at every track, every day. They have all the inside stories, all the stable gossip, the conditions of every blade of grass at the track. The only thing they lack is the plain horse sense to notice that they
’re on the losing end ninety per cent of the time. They don’t get rich, just old. They are one class of citizen who are always in need of money, either to pay out on losses already achieved, or to put down on the next race.

  The guy I was looking for is one of these. Everybody calls him Charlie Surprise, although his real name is Suprosetti, or thereabouts. All I know for sure is that nobody could ever pronounce it, so he got stuck with Surprise.

  As I walked in the door a thin unhappy looking man saw me at once, and sidled up.

  “Hi, Mr. Preston.”

  “Hi, Mournful,” I replied. “Say have you seen——”

  “Listen, I know why you’re here,” he dropped his voice a whole octave, and I had to shove my ear almost against his mouth to get the rest. “I know Mr. Preston, and you are absolutely right.”

  “I am?”

  “Sure. It’s a boatrace. You don’t imagine Wheeler wasted all that time running this nag in sticks tournaments? Of course you don’t. And you’re absolutely right. The whole thing is a boatrace. Hey, Mr. Preston, how’s about putting on five for old Mournful? I mean lookit, did I ever steer you wrong?”

  “Well, I guess not——” I began.

  “Sure, I didn’t. And would I start now for a lousy five bucks? Naturally not. Well, whaddya say?”

  “What time is the race Mournful?”

  His face dropped and all interest left his voice.

  “You’re putting me on. You don’t even know what I’m talking about.”

  “Right,” I confirmed. “Still, if five is going to save your life, here.”

  I stuffed a note in his hand, and he shook his head in disbelief.

  “Such things don’t happen. What do I have to do?”

  “Nothing. It’s my birthday. Just tell me where Charlie is and then go make a fortune.”

  He looked over my shoulder and the distant echo of a smile flitted across his face. With Mournful Harris, that is the equivalent of a great belly laugh from anyone else.

  “Sure. He’s right behind you.”

  I turned, and there he was coming through the door.

  “Hey, Charlie.”

  He blinked nervously, and turned reluctantly towards the greeting. Your horseplayer is always expecting to hear from people he owes money.

  “Oh it’s you Mr. Preston. Listen, I’m pretty busy——”

  “Let’s go over and sit a while. You want a beer?”

  I carried two schooners over to an empty corner. Charlie stood shuffling his pointed feet. I was glad of the poor light in the bar. In full daylight, Charlie can be very painful on the eyes. He was wearing a rainbow shirt with a screaming mauve collar, mustard colored pants and yellow shoes with a green stripe around the sides.

  “Looking at you.”

  He dipped his sharp face into the foam and came up with bubbles all over his nose. Then he sat down abruptly.

  “What’s it all about, Mr. Preston?”

  “It’s about some folding money,” I told him. “Just help me if you can, and you get some.”

  “Suddenly, I like the conversation.”

  He cheered up noticeably, and finally I had his attention.

  “You ever hear of a guy named Brookman, Poetry Brookman?”

  He rubbed anxiously at his nose.

  “Brookman, Brookman.”

  “Had an address at the Monteray Building.”

  He shook his head.

  “You’re kidding about this Poetry tag, huh?”

  “No. He was quite a horseplayer. Thought you were supposed to know all those guys.”

  Now I’d hurt his feelings.

  “Sure I know ‘em. I know everybody. And how do you mean, was? This Brookman ain’t around any more?”

  “He fell off Indian Point last night.”

  “Oh. That’s too bad. Hey, wait a minute, would this be a skinny guy, kind of pale faced, looks like he oughta eat more?”

  I’d never seen Brookman, and I wondered whether Charlie was dreaming up what he would normally expect anyone with a name like Poetry to look like.

  “Could be. What about him?”

  “There’s been a guy around for a couple months looks like that. He’s from outa town, and nobody knows him. But a player all right.”

  “What kind of age man would he be?”

  “Who knows from birthdays?” he shrugged. “He wasn’t no kid, but then again he wasn’t nobody’s grandfather.”

  Brookman had been thirty-one. At least Charlie’s broad classification didn’t exclude him.

  “Tell me about him.”

  “Nothing to tell. He didn’t talk to nobody, never made no trouble. A real student, though. I can tell.”

  It didn’t sound as though Charlie was going to be much help.

  “And you never saw anybody with him?” I pressed.

  “No. At least, wait. Just hold on a little minute.”

  He screwed up his face in awful concentration.

  “There was just the one time. It was, oh, weeks ago. I remember it struck me funny at the time. You know how it is, you keep seeing a guy around, all on his own lonesome. He never makes any contacts, never even passes the time of day. You get to thinking maybe he never does talk to anybody. A real loner. Then one day you see him with somebody. It’s a surprise, you know what I mean?”

  “I know what you mean. About this somebody, you have some idea who it was?”

  “Oh sure. That’s what struck me so funny, you know?”

  Very patiently, I said.

  “No Charlie, I don’t know. Not yet. But if you’d like to come out with a name, then maybe we could all be surprised.”

  “Eh, oh sure. It was McCann.”

  He lowered his voice at the mention of the name, and I didn’t blame him for that. Legs McCann was a man who didn’t care for people shouting his name around.

  “O.K. so I’m surprised,” I conceded. “Where did you see them, what were they doing?”

  “It was over at Palmtrees one day. They was just standing there, talking. Wasn’t no more to it than that.”

  It could be enough, I reflected. The mere fact that Brookman might have known McCann was something worth a look. I put two fives on the table and skinny fingers scooped them up and pushed them out of sight.

  “What does McCann do these days? I don’t seem to be hearing too much about him lately.”

  Charlie’s expression became wary.

  “Lookit Mr. Preston, you know I like to help you if I can, and I can do with the bread. But I don’t wanta have nothing to do with guys like that. I mean just to mention his name gives me the hives.”

  “Come on Charlie, I won’t tell him.”

  He darted quick nervous glances all around the bar, then repeated the performance.

  “I hear he’s shacked up with some dame.”

  “That maybe, but they have to have groceries,” I pointed out. “What else is he doing?”

  “That’s just it. Far as I know, the answer is nothing. It’s like he retired or something.”

  “You wouldn’t know who the woman is, or where they’re staying?”

  “Come on Mr. Preston, this ain’t Information Please.”

  I put down another five and watched it disappear in the same direction as the others.

  “Try to win a few huh, Charlie?”

  I went out before he had a chance to explain at length just how he proposed to do that.

  CHAPTER THREE

  I WENT ACROSS TOWN to the Monteray Building and headed for the manager’s office. What I wanted was to get into the late Mr. Brookman’s apartment and see what I could find. What the manager wanted was a reason for letting me in. I waved my license under his nose importantly.

  “Looking for a guy who jumped his bond in Sacramento a year ago. He cost his company twenty thousand dollars, and they’d sort of like to know what became of him.”

  “Why not go to the police? They know more about the man than I do.”

  “Been there. The officer handl
ing the enquiry is now off duty. And I don’t want to be working when he comes on again. That will be at midnight.”

  “Oh well.” It was evident from his attitude that the manager had already had more than his fill of the late occupant of apartment 824.

  “If it’s the right guy there’s a reward,” I hinted.

  “Which you get.”

  “Sure. But I’d be prepared to spread say twenty-five dollars for all this cooperation I’m going to get around here.”

  He got up then, and took a key from a drawer.

  “Nothing up there, but naturally if it’ll help you.”

  The elevator shot smoothly to eight and we walked around a corner or two before reaching the apartment. I thought apartment was a fairly toney word to be applied to the cramped room we entered. The manager was right. There was nothing here to tell me much about the recent tenant. He seemed to have been a neat, methodical kind of man, to judge by the contents of the drawers. His clothes were not expensive, but they were laundered and well cared for.

  “Any family been around for that stuff?”

  “No. You’re the first one outside of the police.”

  I took a final look at the light gray suit hanging on the back of the door. It had nothing to tell me.

  “What kind of looking man was he?”

  The manager said suspiciously.

  “If you’re looking for a bond jumper, you have a full description. It’s always circulated along with the wanted notice.”

  “Yes,” I agreed patiently, “I know exactly what my man looks like. But I don’t know whether this Brook-man is my man.”

  That seemed to make sense. The manager scratched his head.

  “Mind you, I never laid eyes on him personally. But various people here have described him so many times today that I have a kind of picture of him. I’d say he was over medium height, and on the thin side. That’s being kind. At least two people have said he looked half-starved.”

  Three, I thought, if you counted Charlie Surprise. It began to sound like the same man.

  “Did he have a job?”

  “I doubt if he’d have had the time for any regular work. There were so many newspapers and books up here, all to do with horse-racing, I would say it must have taken all his time to keep up with them.”