William McGivern - The Seven File

She stared at him. and he saw the fear and doubt in her eyes. “Don’t you want to fight?” he said harshly. “Don’t you think I’ve got enough guts to help you?”

“No, it isn’t—” She turned swiftly from him and opened the door of the closet. A thin edge of light touched the clothes that hung there, his jackets, suits, odd slacks. “I saw this,” she said, putting her fingers on his army blouse. The gaudy rows of campaign ribbons and decorations gleamed in the ray of sunlight. “Don’t they mean something?”

“Maybe,” he said, staring at the three rows of ribbons. “Maybe they did.”

“I think they did,” she said.

A step sounded in the hall and the door swung inward. Grant stood there, staring at them with ominously alert eyes. In his right fist he held a gun. “Downstairs, you,” he said to Hank. “And keep away from her. This isn’t a college house party. You get out of line again and I’ll bust your other hand wide open. Remember that, Junior. Now move!”

Crowley came on his second lead shortly after his talk with Ellie Bradley. Since then he had been working in the study, fingerprinting every surface the telephone repairman night conceivably have touched; the phone itself yielded nothing, but he was hoping for prints in a less obvious place — around the window or desk perhaps, areas that weren’t dusted and handled every day.

He found a single print on a small black metal box attached to the floorboard behind the desk. The box contained the bell and telephone coil, he knew, an arrangement which was peculiar to older buildings. Crowley opened his fingerprint kit and removed a silver powder, white lifting tape, a brush and scissors. Then he went to work.

When he finally straightened up and turned he saw that Mrs. Jarrod was watching him from the doorway. “I didn’t want to disturb you,” she said, with her stiff, old-fashioned dignity. She was a woman, Crowley guessed, who had little tolerance for scatterbrains and idlers; she was direct and revelant, and she knew the difference between fact and guesswork. She wasn’t here out of curioosity, he was sure of that.

“I’ve been trying all morning to remember something else Kitty told me,” she said.

“Yes? What is it?”

“I–I can’t remember,” she said, and her plump cheeks became pink with annoyance. “I can’t quite get hold of it.”

“Well, that happens to all of us,” Crowley said easily. He lit a cigarette and sat down on the edge of the desk. “And the harder you try, the blanker your mind gets.”

“That’s it exactly.”

Crowley began replacing the fingerprint equipment, making each movement deliberate and casual. If he could get her mind onto something else the information she wanted might pop into her head. “Have you got a scissors?” he asked her.

“Why, yes, of course.”

“I don’t need it now. Later perhaps. Mine seems kind of dull.”

“You use a scissors in taking fingerprints?”

“Yes, to cut the lifting tape. First we powder the prints, then photograph them, then lift them with this tape which, as you can see, is about like the kind you use to repair an automobile tire. Then we put a cellophane cap over the tape to prevent smudging. And that’s it.”

“It’s complicated, isn’t it?”

“Just routine, that’s all.”

Mrs. Jarrod was frowning. “It was something about a nickname. There, I’ve got that much. The man told Kitty something about this nickname.”

“Good. That’s a start.”

“But I can’t remember what it was.”

“Let’s see now. Nicknames usually fall into categories, don’t they? How about physical characteristics? Fatty or Fatso, Slim, Tiny, Baldy, Blackie—” Crowley was speaking quietly and slowly. “Or Lefty perhaps. Then there’s Pudge, Specs, Four-eyes—”

“No, it’s nothing like that.”

Crowley took a pull on his cigarette. “We’ll hit it, don’t worry. Was it unflattering? You know, like Gimpy or Creep or Humpy?”

But Mrs. Jarrod was shaking her head. “It’s just the opposite.”

“You mean flattering? Like Handsome or Big Boy or — let’s see — Romeo?”

“It’s not flattering. It’s — special. I thought when Kitty told me about it that it was pretty high-and-mighty for a j repairman.”

“High and mighty, eh?” Crowley frowned and took another deliberate pull on his cigarette. They were close; he could feel it. But he didn’t want to stampede her thoughts. “How about Champ then? Or Ace?”

“That’s it, that’s it. Ace!” Mrs. Jarrod suddenly shook her head irritably. “No, that’s not it. But it’s closer than anything else you’ve said.”

“Ace? How about cards? Ace, King, Queen. Jack — any of those fit?”

“No, no, no.”

“Just relax, we’ll get it.” Crowley was smiling easily, but he felt like shaking her. “Let’s work on the cards a little more. Joker or Thirty Days — that’s poker slang for three tens. How about Full House, Royal Flush, Deuce—”

“Deuce, deuce! That’s it,” she cried in a high, excited voice. “That’s it exactly.”

“Deuce? You’re sure.”

“No—” She gave a little moan. “It’s not Deuce. But that’s close, so close — Duke! It was Duke! I’m certain of it. His father nicknamed him Duke. He told Kitty that.”

Crowley glanced down at the black metal box from which he had lifted the single fingerprint. “Duke,” he said softly.

“It was silly of me to forget it,” Mrs. Jarrod said.

“You did fine,” Crowley said, reaching for the mike to flash Inspector West...

Shortly after eleven o’clock that same morning a florist’s station wagon pulled up and stopped in front of St. John’s Church on Thirty-second Street. A man wearing a visored cap and a smart green twill uniform climbed out, checked through a sheaf of bills, then took two long boxes from the rear of the car and walked briskly into the vestibule of the church. He returned in less than thirty seconds, hopped into the car and drove off. It was a commonplace occurrence, a millionth part of the city’s daily logistical problem; flowers for a baptism or wedding, a floral piece for the altar — the most alert observer could hardly suspect anything else.

The flower boxes had been placed on a table in the baptistery, and standing beside them now (and trying not to stare at them) was the church’s pastor, a tall, middle-aged man with strong features and deep, thoughtful eyes. He checked his wrist watch every few seconds, and occasionally cleared his throat and patted his forehead with a handkerchief. The baptistery door opened a few minutes later, and a young man in a business suit came in and smiled at the priest.

“My name is Nelson, Father.”

“Yes — I was expecting you. Your office called.”

The young man showed him an identification card with his picture on it, and the priest studied the photograph carefully. “Yes, yes, of course,” he said at last. “Is there anything else I can do? Any way I can be of help?”

“No, everything is all set.” The agent was a generation younger than the priest, and possibly many generations less wise, but he had a veteran’s confidence about him that put the older man at ease.

“The stairs are just there,” the priest said, nodding at a closed door. “I’ll see that no one else goes up.”

“Perfect.” The young man raised the lid of one of the flower-boxes and checked the equipment inside: his alert eyes moved over the reels of film, the camera, the foot-long telescopic lenses... “I’ll get busy then,” he said. “Thanks again. Father.”

Shortly after this an old but rakish convertible pulled up before the brownstone building where Crowley’s uncle lived. The driver, a tanned, crewcut young man in slacks, grinned at two small boys who were staring at his car. “She’ll do sixty-five in second,” he said.