Stewart Sterling - Where There’s Smoke

Something Underhanded on Foot

“Hal Kelsey, hah?” Pedley sat with the back of a chair between his knees, rested his elbows on the top of the back. “Did he pay you to torch the Brockhurst, too?”

Staro fingered his throat, tenderly. “I had nothing to do with the fires whatsoever.”

“You’ll be all set with an alibi.”

“One you won’t be able to finagle, either. I was on East Fifty-first from two o’clock yesterday afternoon until around ten o’clock last night. Until I could get a bondsman to bail me out.”

“The East Fifty-first Street police station?”

“Look it up on the blotter, you doubt my word.”

“What’d they pick you up for?”

“D and D. It was Ned’s fault, tossing a bottle through the bar mirror like that, because they wouldn’t serve him no more in his condition. But it was my job to be fall guy so when the cops come, I says I’m responsible an’ they run me in.”

There was nothing he could do about that, Pedley knew. Whoever had set the fire at the theater had been at the theater. If Staro had been in the lockup all that afternoon, that put him in the clear, so far as the Brockhurst was concerned.

“Don’t congratulate yourself, my slug-ugly friend. I can still keep you making little ones out of big ones for ten to twenty. Keep a loose upper lip and tell me why Kelsey wanted me rubbed off the blackboard.”

“Honest to God, I don’t—”

“Now, now. Barney’s only out putting Mac in the car. He’ll be back in a minute. And the hose is still handy.”

“It was something about that leather case—”

“Here we go again!”

“You could gimme the squeeze with that hose all day an’ that’s all I know about it.”

Pedley reached out, cuffed the bodyguard on the side of his head so the toupee fell over one of Staro’s eyes. “You worked for Lownes. You were with him when he was under the influence, which was most of the time. You know where the case is—”

The man cringed, readjusting his wig. “I know where he kept it.”

“Sing.”

“In his safe.”

“I didn’t see any in his suite.”

“At the office.”

“Where’s that?”

“Ambrose Building.”

“You have a key to the office?”

“You got it. It was in my pocket.”

“Yair. Know the combination to the safe?”

“Nobody knew it but Ned.” The answer came just a bit too readily.

“He wouldn’t trust you with it, I can believe that. But you’d be around when he was schwocked and had trouble opening it. You know the numbers, all right.”

Staro shook his head.

Pedley picked up a loop of hose. “This is where you came in.”

Before the canvas touched him, Staro yelled, “Right nineteen, left two, right eight.”

“Must be one of those old tin cans the Wells Fargo people threw out in ninety-six. Okay. Put your foot in the road. After we get there, if you claim somebody’s switched the combination, I’m likely to shove the hose right down your throat and give you the full blast.”

The signal box rapped out a brassy bing-bing-bing-bing, as Staro shuffled out of the office ahead of Pedley. Neither the boys at the checker table or the ancient Dalmatian snoozing under the hook-and-ladder paid any attention to it; Thirty-six only rolled on boxes in the 800 to 900 group.

One of the firemen called, “Want to sit in for a while, Marshal?”

“Not this afternoon. I have a couple of jumps to make, in line of duty.”

The offices of Lownes Enterprises, Incorporated, were something unusual for Tin Pan Alley. The furnishings were dignified Victorian; there were old hunting prints on the walls; not a piano in sight. Not even a casting couch.

The safe stood in the corner of Ned’s private office. It was a Mosely, circa 1910, painted black and gold; nineteen, two, and eight opened it on the first twirl. There were ledgers and papers and blue bundles of legal documents; in the cash compartment, a small stack of ones and fives with a little silver. But no leather case.

“I thought it was too good to be true,” said Pedley. “He wouldn’t have kept it here.”

“I saw it in there,” Staro insisted.

“How long ago?”

“Maybe a month or a little more. It was the day she was in here fighting with him.”

“Leila? What about?”

“This Conover she’s been honeying up to. She’s goof about the guy. Ned gives her the razz, gets the case out of the safe an’ waves it in her face. ‘The lieutenant wouldn’t be so cuckoo about you, if he knew what was in this,’ he says. ‘An’ I’ll show it to him, if I have to, to keep you in line.’”

Pedley swung the safe door shut, twirled the knob. Somebody else was trying to get into the office. A blurred figure showed through the ground glass of the outer office door.

A key made noises in the lock.

“Face the wall,” Pedley whispered to Staro. “Don’t turn around. Unless you want to know how it feels to get hit with a thirty-eight!”

The hall door opened. Sime Dublin’s voice said, “You keep the key. I’ll keep the warrant, superintendent.”

Pedley strolled out.

“And when he got there, the cupboard was bare—”

The captain of the Special Headquarters Squad raised both hands in mock disgust.

“Don’t tell me you’ve been balling things up again, Benny boy!”

“If you’re after that leather case, it’s numbered among the missing, Cap. But I have something to repay you for your trouble. A slight token of my regard for you.”

“I can bear up without any expressions of your fond affection.” Dublin squinted suspiciously.

“Notwithstanding — come on out, polo player.”

Staro backed away from the wall, grudgingly, into the captain’s line of vision.

Pedley inclined his head toward the bodyguard. “Meet the gentleman your teletype’s been chattering about — Staro Lasti.”

Dublin scrutinized the toupee carefully.

“The Police Department’s been co-operating to locate this man, Benny. Now you have your dukes on him, he’s your pigeon.”

“I’m through with him, time being. You can take him in for felonious assault, attempted homicide.”

“Who’ll sign the complaint?”

“I will. He came close to cutting me down in my prime, couple hours ago.”

Dublin held out a hand toward Staro. “If you’d learn not to bungle these things.”

Staro said, “Go on. Kid me.”

The captain raised bland eyebrows. “Would you deny the marshal’s word?”

“Of course,” Pedley drawled, “I can take you in and book you, myself, Staro. I’d have to park you in my office for a little while, though — and I expect Barney will have told some of the lads—”

“I’ll take my chances with the cops,” Staro gritted. “I ain’t admittin’ a thing, understan’ — but if I’m gonna be arrested, I’ll prefer it to be by the police.”

“The marshal,” Dublin selected his words with care, “is only running a bluff on you, Staro. He can’t take you into custody. Not any longer.”

Staro spat resentfully. “The way he was socking me around!”

Pedley walked close to the captain. “Who says I can’t pin a charge on this dirty heel and make it stick?”

“The commissioner!” Dublin was astonished. “Hadn’t you heard? You’ve been suspended, Benjamin.”

Pedley went to the phone on Ned’s desk. Dublin wouldn’t have risked making a crack like that unless it were true.

Barney filled in the blanks.

“There is something underhanded on foot, boss. Are you alone?”

“No.”

“Then I’ll mention no names.”

“Go ahead.”

“Word gets around on the grapevine that a certain party with whom you were to have a conference after lunch isn’t so anxious about that report on the bureau as he is about something else.”