Rex Stout - The Cop Killer

“How bad is she hurt?”

“Not enough for the hospital. Doc let us keep her here. She was hit above the right ear with a bottle taken from the supply shelf against the partition, six feet from the entrance to her booth. The bottle was big and heavy, full of oil. It was there by her on the floor.”

“Prints?”

“For God’s sake, start a school. He had a towel in his hand or something. Come on.”

“One second. What did the doctor say when you asked him if she could have been just testing her skull?”

“He said it was possible but he doubted it. Come and ask her.”

Feeling that I had enough for a basis for conversation, I followed him. As we went toward the partition all the barbers and dicks along the row of chairs gave us looks, none of them cheerful. Fickler was absolutely forlorn.

I had never been behind the partition before. The space ran about half the length of the shop. Against the partition were steamers, vats, lamps, and other paraphernalia, and then a series of cupboards and shelves. Across a wide aisle were the manicure booths, four of them, though I had never seen more than two operators in the shop. As we passed the entrance to the first booth in the line a glance showed me Inspector Cramer seated at a little table across from Tom, the barber with white hair. Cramer saw me and arose. I followed Purley to the third booth, and on in. Then steps came behind me, and Cramer was there.

It was a big booth, eight by eight, but was now crowded. In addition to us three and the furniture, a city employee was standing in a corner, and, on a row of chairs lined up against the right wall, Janet Stahl was lying on her back, her head resting on a stack of towels. She had moved her eyes, but not her head, to take in us visitors. She looked beautiful.

“Here’s your friend Goodwin,” Purley told her, trying to sound sympathetic.

“Hello there,” I said professionally. “What does this mean?”

The long home-grown lashes fluttered at me. “You,” she said.

“Yep. Your friend Archie Goodwin.” There was a chair there, the only one she wasn’t using, and I squeezed past Purley and sat, facing her and close. “How do you feel, terrible?”

“No, I don’t feel at all. I am past feeling.”

I reached for her wrist, got my fingers on the spot, and looked at my watch. In thirty seconds I said, “Your pump isn’t bad. May I inspect your head?”

“If you’re careful.”

“Groan if it hurts.” I used all fingers to part the fine brown hair, and gently but thoroughly investigated the scalp. She closed her eyes and flinched once, but there was no groan. “A lump to write home about,” I announced. “Doing your hair will be a problem. I’d like to give the guy that did it a piece of my mind before plugging him. Who was it?”

“Send them away, and I’ll tell you.”

I turned to the kibitzers. “Get out,” I said sternly. “If I had been here this would never have happened. Leave us.”

They went without a word. I sat listening to the sound of their retreating footsteps outside in the aisle, then thought I had better provide sound to cover in case they were careless tiptoeing back. They had their choice of posts, just outside the open entrance or in the adjoining booths. The partitions were only six feet high. “It was dastardly,” I said. “He might have killed you or disfigured you for life, and either one would have ruined your career. Thank God you’ve got a good strong thick skull.”

“I started to scream,” she said, “but it was too late.”

“What started you to scream? Seeing him, or hearing him?”

“It was both. I wasn’t in my chair, I was in the customer’s chair, with my back to the door — I was just sitting trying to think — and there was a little noise behind me, like a stealthy step, and I looked up and saw him reflected in the glass, right behind me with his arm raised, and I started to scream, but before I could get it out he struck—”

“Wait a minute.” I got up and moved my chair to the outer side of the little table and sat in it. “These details are important. You were like this?”

“That’s it. I was sitting thinking.”

I felt that the opinion I had formed of her previously had not done her justice. The crinkly glass of the partion wall could reflect no object whatever, no matter how the light was. Her contempt for mental processes was absolutely spectacular. I moved my chair back beside her. From that angle, as she lay there flat on her back, not only was her face lovely to see, but the rest of her was good for the eyes too.

I asked, “But you saw his reflection before he struck?”

“Oh, yes.”

“Did you recognize him?”

“Of course I did. That’s why I wouldn’t speak to them. That’s why I had to see you. It was that big one with the big ears and gold tooth, the one they call Stebbins, or they call him Sergeant.”

I wasn’t surprised. I knew her qualify now. “You mean it was him that hit you with the bottle?”

“I can’t say it was him that hit me. I think people should be careful what they accuse other people of. I only know it was him I saw standing behind me with his arm raised, and then something hit me. From that anyone can only draw conclusions, but there are other reasons too. He was rude to me this morning, asking me questions, and all day he has been looking at me in a rude way, not the way a girl is willing for a man to look at her because she has to expect that. And then you can just be logical. Would Ed want to kill me, or Philip or Jimmie or Tom or Mr. Fickler? Why would they? So it must have been him even if I hadn’t seen him.”

“It does sound logical,” I conceded. “But I’ve known Stebbins for years and have never known him to strike a woman without cause. What did he have against you?”

“I don’t know.” She frowned a little. “When they ask me that I’ll just have to say I don’t know. That’s one of the first things you must tell me, how to answer things to the reporters. I shouldn’t think I can keep on saying I don’t know, or why would they print it? What hit you I don’t know, who hit you I don’t know, why did he hit you I don’t know, my Lord, who would want to read that? What shall I say when they ask why he hit me?”

“We’ll come back to that. First we—”

“We ought to settle it now.” She was pouting fit for a Life cover, but determined. “That’s how you’ll earn your ten per cent.”

“My ten per cent of what?”

“Of everything I get. As my manager.” She extended a hand, her eyes straight at mine. “Shake on it.”

To avoid a contractual shake without offending, I grasped the back of her hand with my left, turning her palm up, and ran the fingers of my right from her wrist to her fingertips. “It’s a darned good idea,” I said appreciatively, “but we’ll have to postpone it. I’m going through bankruptcy just now, and it would be illegal for me to make a contract. About—”

“I can tell the reporters to ask you about things I don’t know. It’s called referring them to my manager.”

“I know it is. Later on it will—”

“I don’t need you later on. I need you right now.”

“Here I am, you’ve got me, but not under contract yet.” I released her hand, which I had kept as something to hold onto, and got emphatic. “If you tell reporters I’m your manager I’ll give you a lump that will make that one seem as flat as a pool table. If they ask why he hit you don’t say you don’t know, say it’s a mystery. People love a mystery. Now—”

“That’s it!” She was delighted. “That’s the kind of thing!”

“Sure. Tell ’em that. Now we’ve got to consider the cops. Stebbins is a cop, and they won’t want it hung on him. They’ve had one cop killed here today already. They’ll try to tie this up with that. I know how they work, I know them only too well. They’ll try to make it that somebody here killed Wallen, and he found out that you knew something about it so he tried to kill you. They may even think they have some kind of evidence — for instance, something you were heard to say. So we have to be prepared. We have to go back over it. Are you listening?”