Хал Эллсон - Masters of Noir - Volume 3

A: You’ve got no right to say that.

Q: No right. Then let’s say she’s not. Let’s say she is a good girl but she was just having a little fun. But it got a man killed. Do you go to church, Bart?

A: Sometimes.

Q: Do you think a man has a right to lie about murder even to protect his own sister?

A: It wasn’t... She didn’t, Mr. Eglin. Oh, why don’t you leave me alone!

Q: I’ll leave you alone when I get the truth. Let’s start all over. You were there. Bob Garfield was there—

A: No.

Q: Bob Garfield was there. And your sister was there. Garfield and your sister were in that back room together. Crider came in and caught ’em in a clinch and shot Garfield.

A: Elsa wasn’t there!

Q: But Garfield was there, wasn’t he?

A: I didn’t say that!

Q: All right, Bart. Let’s leave your sister out of it. Let’s forget your sister. Let’s say she wasn’t there. That takes away your only excuse for not telling the truth.

A: I don’t know what you mean.

Q: I mean I’m giving you one last chance to tell the truth. I’m putting it up to you in a way that you don’t have a reason in the world for not coming clean. And if you don’t I’m going to send you to the penitentiary as an accessory when I do get the facts, so help me! Now then. You were there. Garfield was there. A woman was there—

A: No!

Q: A woman was there. You don’t have to give her a name, Bart. Elsa was home in bed, remember. A woman was there. Let’s say for now she was a woman you never saw before and couldn’t recognize in court—

A: No! I can’t! I can’t!

Q: The truth, Bart. Quickly now, the truth. A woman was there—

A: I can’t! You don’t know what it would mean. Elsa! I want my sister!

Jordan closed the file. A cold lump seemed to be revolving slowly in his stomach. A woman had been there.

He walked in and laid the file on Eglin’s desk. The chief inspector looked up.

“Gloria Hume,” said Eglin. “Here’s the dope on her. Clerk in Crider’s store at Avery and Mason. Been with him a year. Works from two in the afternoon till ten-thirty. Lives in an apartment five blocks from the Berkey’s. What do you make of it?”

“Avery and Mason. That’s a block south and a block east of the No. 1 store. Was it on Garfield’s beat?”

“It was.”

“Then she was the one.” Eagerness filled Jordan. The cold lump began to dissolve. “She was at Store No. 1 that night. She got Garfield killed.”

“Possible. But not likely.”

“Why not? How often has Crider been seen going in her apartment? Has he bought her any jewelry and stuff? Has she ever been seen with Garfield?”

“Are you beginning to fancy yourself a detective, Jordan? We’ll check those things as a matter of routine... No. You’ve let yourself forget the main fact. Bart wouldn’t lie if his sister was in the clear.”

“Maybe he didn’t lie. How about last night? Crider sent Gloria up there as sure as you sent me.”

“Probably. Could be he just wanted to know if the Berkeys were coming back to work. So he sent someone who knew them. Why are you suddenly so interested in clearing Elsa?”

“I just feel that you’re dead wrong, Inspector,” said Jordan. He spoke slowly. It was almost as though he were talking to himself, arriving at a final judgment he had long delayed. “She’s no better than she ought to he, but still she’s honest and — Well, I’ve never met a girl like her.”

Eglin gave him a long, thoughtful look. “That’s the way it is? First Garfield. Now you. One dead cop isn’t enough. Suppose you go back to your traffic corner.”

“No.” He spoke without thinking. That was what he had wanted once, but not now. “You assigned me to get the low-down on her. And I did. So?”

“Young cops,” said Eglin. He spoke bitterly. “The Lord save the public from young cops.”

Jordan felt annoyed. “Don’t you want an honest report?”

Eglin said, “Where do you carry your gun?”

Jordan tapped his left armpit, looked puzzled.

Eglin nodded. “If you have to get it out, keep the Berkey woman in front of it. As a favor to me, Jordan.”

The steaks were nicely broiled. The meal was a man’s meal, and relaxing. Even Bart’s presence didn’t spoil it. Elsa had probably done some talking to her brother since last night, told him that Ron Jordan from St. Louis might stand between him and a bullet.

During dessert abruptly Bart got up and started limping around the room. Something had him scared. It was working on him now.

“Bart, listen—” began Jordan. He stopped short, aware he had almost given himself away. He had almost told Bart to stop worrying.

He blurted, “You wash the dishes, Bart, and I’ll dry. We’ll show Elsa we appreciate good cooking, huh?”

“I’ll do them,” said Bart shortly.

Elsa sent Jordan a warning glance: Let Bart do them. It’s something to occupy his time. He needs that.

She cleared the table, then came and sat beside Jordan on the couch. He took her hand; she pulled it away.

So that was the way it was going to be. He decided not to waste any time. “You’re not what?” he said.

“I don’t understand?”

“Last night as I was leaving, you were anxious to tell me that you were not something or other.”

She answered quietly, “I’m not a kindergarten teacher any more. But I was once — for a year.”

“Why did you quit?”

“Do you know what a school teacher’s salary is?” She looked steadily into his eyes. “I’m no sweet and innocent young thing, Ron. You saw that last night.”

He said, with a gentleness that surprised himself, “I want to hear it.”

“The starting salary for a probationary teacher wasn’t enough for two. I made more as a nightclub singer, but not enough more. So I found a job where I waited on men and — used my looks to make selling easy and profitable. Until—” She dropped it there, smiling. “You see?”

“I see,” he said. He looked at her eyes and marveled that he had ever thought them hard. He saw that the maternal instinct in her held the quality of fierceness: Bart was the kindergarten class that was denied her by whoever determined the low salaries paid to teachers.

She expected him to walk out now. It was plainly there in her expression.

Elsa said, “Ron?”

“Yes?”

“That trouble I told you about — the policeman who was murdered. It’s not over. Bart knows something he hasn’t told.”

She was confiding in him, and he thought of Eglin’s crack about young cops. “What?” he asked.

“I don’t know. Bart won’t tell me what it is. He’s terrified and — and I am, too.”

“Why don’t you go to the police?”

“I would but the man who was killed — I went out with him a few times. Bart is — well, you’ve seen. He’s dependent upon me, and jealous. He didn’t like this man, just as he doesn’t like you. What if...” Her mouth trembled. “He couldn’t have. He’s just a lonely and wretched boy without anyone to turn to but me. There are dark places in his mind but not that kind. I know he couldn’t have helped...”

The whisper dropped away to nothing. She did not need to finish. Jordan knew the rest of it. Did Bart help Joe Crider kill Garfield? That was what Eglin believed. That was what Elsa feared. He wondered if Bart had done the job himself. That would explain why he was not afraid of being attacked last night, his present troubled conscience.

She said quietly, “I’ve been using you, Ron. When you were a stranger I could do it and it didn’t bother me much. Now I know you and I can’t any more. You must leave. There’s danger here.”