Stewart Sterling - Where There’s Smoke

Conover ignored the glass Leila held out to him. “Keep on, if you want to get clouted.”

“Look at the way it stacks up in the reports down at my office, Lieutenant.” He reached up for the drink she handed to him; Conover made a threatening gesture with the gun. “Your wife was one of the few people who could have had access to Miss Wasson’s rooms around twelve o’clock at night; she left this apartment and went down to the Village about an hour before the explosion blew her arranger’s place six ways from the jack.”

Conover balanced on the balls of his feet; his clenched left fist began to hammer against the table softly.

“That’s enough, fireman.”

“Enough to set her in the defendant’s dock. But there’s more. Mrs. Conover was at Columbus Circle for a while this afternoon, about the time the police estimate Kelsey had his jugular vein bisected. The Circle’s only a half-mile from the spot where the band leader’s body was discovered.” He took a swig at the bourbon.

Leila put her hands to her breast as if it hurt her to breathe. The lieutenant crouched, moved toward Pedley with cautious, catlike steps. His mouth twisted up on one side; twitched. He held the gun like a club.

The marshal drew one knee up under him.

“You’ll want to sleep in a separate room with the door locked, Lieutenant. Married to a girl who gets around like that!”

Conover sprang, the butt of the gun swinging down.

Pedley hurled the glass, flung himself aside in a half-roll, half-dive, hit a table, sent it crashing. Lamp, tray, bottles rolled on the carpet. The lieutenant kept coming. The gun thudded against the left forearm Pedley threw up to ward it off. The arm went numb.

The marshal knew he was no match for a bucko ten years younger and trained for in-fighting. He might have been able to hold his own for a while if he hadn’t been doing without sleep for the last 48 hours. But as it was, it didn’t look good.

The gun landed again; only an unconscious reflex jerked Pedley’s head aside enough to take the blow on the shoulder blade. He grabbed the bourbon bottle, smashed it against a table leg, held out the jagged neck.

It kept the lieutenant at a distance, momentarily.

“Use some sense, Conover. Blowing your top won’t make things easier for your wife. Unless, of course, you happen to know she’s guilty—”

Conover circled, trying for an opening. As he moved, catlike, past Leila, she grabbed at his gun arm, pulled him off balance. He whirled to shake free. Pedley hit him under the left ear with a left hook that would have dropped a grizzly.

The lieutenant fell down on top of the lamp shade, rolled as he fell, came up fighting. Pedley gave him the knee, under the chin, as Conover rose. The lieutenant’s jaws clicked together, his head snapped back. He collapsed.

Leila threw herself on the floor beside him. “You’ve killed him!” she wailed.

“He’ll be all right in fifteen minutes.” The marshal bent down to recover his gun.

Conover opened his eyes. The gun came up from the floor, hit Pedley on the bridge of the nose.

A million flash bulbs went off in his head; then he was falling into darkness.

Somewhere a clock chimed eight. Pedley tried opening his eyes, but it was too much exertion. He lay there trying to reason it out.

The clock must be wrong. It had been close to nine when he got here; therefore, it couldn’t be eight now. There’d been that angry exchange with Conover and the fight; then he’d probably been lying here on the floor — he turned his head.

Somebody’d put a pillow under his head. A nice soft pillow. He moved his fingers. Nobody would put sheets on the carpet.

He wrenched his eyes open. He was in bed, all right. A four-poster. Leila’s!

The Venetian blinds kept out most of the sunlight, but there was enough for him to see his clothes hanging over a chair.

He closed his eyes again. Somebody had undressed him, put collodion over the cut on his neck, tucked him in with an extra comforter. He recoiled at the thought of how he’d feel when he got up from this soft mattress.

He was wearing pajamas. Blazer-striped things in blue and white. Probably the lieutenant’s.

He sat up and groaned.

The bedroom door opened. Leila looked in.

“Praise be. I was dreadfully worried that I ought to have called the doctor earlier. He’ll be here any minute now.”

“I don’t need a doc.” He groaned again. “What I need is a headstone.”

“I don’t believe you’ve any broken bones.” She came in the room, to the bedside, put her hand on his forehead.

“Ouch! Easy on that welt.”

“I’m so-o-o sorry.” She sat on the edge of the bed. She wore a long-skirted morning coat of something soft and white, with loose-flowing sleeves — and a different perfume. “I’ll bring you some coffee before the doctor comes, if you like.”

“That’d be great. Where’s the lieutenant?”

“Oh, he’s gone.”

She went out, with no further explanation. He debated whether to attempt dressing before she returned with the coffee, decided against it.

The coffee was in a silver service; there were cigarettes in a silver goblet; the morning paper was folded neatly at the edge of the tray.

“Everything but the morning mail,” he said. “In time to make the eight-twenty. Thanks.”

“How do you feel?”

“I’ve felt better. How’s the other Kilkenny cat?”

“Bill can’t use his wrist very well. He thinks there may be a green fracture.”

“That won’t slow him down any more than a mosquito bite. He’s going to kill somebody, one of these days.” Pedley blew on the hot coffee. “I thought he was going to punctuate me. Why didn’t he?”

“Because I told him you saved my life.”

“How’d you find out?”

“Terry told me.” She stood in front of the door mirror, primping her hair. “I didn’t know, the first time you were here. I wouldn’t have been so snooty, if I had.”

“Think nothing of it. Part of our service to regular customers. Conover must have been disappointed at not finishing what he started.”

“It’s hard to tell how Bill feels. I’m a little afraid of him, myself, sometimes.”

“Ah! He’s as transparent as a kid on a pantry chair. He thinks you’re the glow-worm.”

“So do you — don’t you?” Her mouth and eyes were wistfully unhappy.

“He can’t dope out any way to help you except the direct action method. Problem: I’m a menace to your safety and his happiness. Solution: eliminate me. Primitive way of thinking. All those marines were taught to be primitive — or else.”

“You didn’t answer my question.”

“You’re the one to answer it.” He emptied the coffeepot. “Not easy to lie here and look at you and remind myself that appearances are deceptive as hell. That you were in the dressing-room and in the Village and on Central Park West at or about the time of the crimes. That, as far as I know, you’re the only person who was at all three places.”

She sat on the bed again, leaned over with what might have been anxiety — or something else.

He’d have had to be beat up much worse than he was, Pedley realized, not to be affected by her. He’d run across a few girls of this sort before — the kind who considered sex something to be shared casually whenever its sharing was agreeable or profitable or useful. That was the way this girl used it, had always used it, apparently. As something which could be depended on to help her over the tough spots in the road.

Leila knew he wanted her now; she was using the certainty of it for all it was worth. She rested a hand carelessly on his knee, “Suppose I were — the glow-worm?”