Stewart Sterling - Dead of Night

Nikky got peeved at my persistence.

She did add a few details. Which dropped into place snugly, too. For one, Tildy’d left Lanerd’s table at the Blue Blazer to phone Nikky, who was with her cousin Golub in Brooklyn. That’s why Nikky hadn’t been near her mistress at the time Gowriss shot the Grocer-boy. For another, Nikky was convinced Gowriss, or someone working for him, had tracked her down at the Narian house, sometime Sunday, in the belief Tildy’d confided in her maid even if she hadn’t told the D.A.’s men about Gowriss.

That would have been important, if true. It could have accounted for the blitz on Atlantic Avenue. But in that event, why did Tildy claim the guy who’d shattered my windshield had been the one who’d stabbed Roffis? The gent who could have been Yaker’s twin? I didn’t ask Nikky that.

I did ask her to plane to Manhattan with me in the morning. She refused. I had to bear down.

I told her Tildy was in the greatest possible danger; wasn’t going to be able to get to the Bluegrass right away; would need her friend and companion as never before. That didn’t work.

So I hollered cop. If she wasn’t going to come back to New York willingly to testify, I’d have no recourse except to have her held for extradition. Of course I couldn’t have done it. But she didn’t know that. She agreed sullenly.

Whether she thought she’d put over her yarn about Lanerd, or suspected I’d uncovered the truth, I couldn’t tell. She was a cool one. The Prosecutor’d have little luck trying to fluster her, if he got her on the stand.

While I finished that sumptuous breakfast, I wondered what she would admit, when it came right down to the courtroom.

I wandered out to the porch with the torn screen door. Castor and Pollux were agreeably noticeable by their absence.

“Whoopee-ti-yo,” I called as Tony hightailed ’round the corner. “Practicing to give Roy Rogers a run for his box office?”

“Uh, uh.” He brought the pony to a prancing stop. “I wouldn’t give a candy bar to be th’ best doggone cowboy there is. I wanna be a champion skater like Aunt Tildy. Ever see her do the sword dance? On ice?”

“She’s great.”

“Bet she is! She can do stunts Ev Chandler and Idi Papez can’t — an’ they’re tops, not countin’ Aunt Tildy.” He dismounted. “’Course in the summer I can’t practice, an’ Mamma says it takes an awful lot of practice. But Aunt Tildy’s goin’ to take me to New York when I pass my class-one test. I can do a Mohawk and a rocker pretty good, already.”

“That’ll be swell. You come stop at the hotel, when you get there.” That, I thought, was one invitation that might not be taken up for some time.

Nikky came out on the porch. She carried a small, cloth-covered suitcase.

Tony wailed, “You aren’t goin’ away again, Nikky!”

“I have to, Tony. I don’t want to. But I have to go back with this gentleman.” Her resentment hadn’t decreased a bit.

“You bring Aunt Tildy back with you, huh?” He could tell there was something disturbing going on.

“I hope so.” She ruffled his hair. “I hope I can bring her back. I’ll tell her how well you’re getting along with your riding. Let me see you gallop.”

He mounted, went pounding down the lane of oaks. Mrs. Marino came out. We got in her car, passed Tony almost at the gate. I waved good-by.

Nothing but polite chitchat on the way to the airport. Even winging north to Cincinnati, Nikky wasn’t inclined to conversation.

What did she know about “Seven for a secret”? She gave me an inscrutable Syrian stare. I even started her off with “One for sorrow, two for mirth.” She remained a sphinx.

When we’d changed planes, were kiting along at ten thousand over the Alleghenys, I did get one scrap of information. I wanted to know who might have been hunting her through Little Syria down on Washington Street.

She didn’t know. Couldn’t conjecture.

After she thought about it awhile, she said, “That Scotsman in the advertising agency. Jeff MacGregory. He was asking me, week or so ago, if I’d ever eaten in the Syrian restaurants. I told him once in a while I went there to get some shish kibbab or mehche with rice. He said perhaps he would see me there sometime.”

That was all. She didn’t elaborate. I didn’t comment. She went to sleep, or pretended to. I tried not to think of all the various kinds of trouble I could be in when we got to Manhattan.

There are always a brace of plain-clothes men on eagle-eye duty at the LaGuardia ramps; I thought we might be picked up on orders from Hacklin, as we came in. But nobody paid any attention to us. I was content not to have any loud huzzahs or dancing in the streets.

It was half past one when we climbed into a cab and headed for the city, nearly two when I left Nikky in the taxi with the meter clicking, while I descended to the broiling basement of the Finnish Baths.

Pud registered tremendous relief. “Am I glad you come back! I been havin’ one hell of a time with that tizzy you dump in my lap.”

“You have to tie him down with wet sheets?”

“Nah. No violence, whatsoever. It’s only this here is a healtherie,” Pud said, “not a nut house.”

I braced myself. “Cutting out paper dolls? Or what?”

“Nothin’ like that. He’s no trouble, akshally. But he’s blacked out. He can’t remember a thing. His name. His home. How he got here. Where he come by that shiner. Nothing. Absolutely nothing.”

“That’s great,” I said. “All we need is a nice case of amnesia. That’ll goof it up good!”

If it was on the level, my case was out the window in a high wind.

There is such a thing as amnesia. It’s not invariably a convenient lapse dreamed up by some guy who can’t think of any other way to explain a three-day absence from home and hearth. Almost always, in those cooked-up instances, there’s a sudden, complete recovery. Maybe it’d be that way with Yaker.

I told Pud to show the pollster how to use a zipper, case he’d forgotten. While Yaker was dressing, I tried Mr. Bell’s system. Ruth Moore wasn’t at her apartment. Mrs. Lanerd wasn’t at home. Jeff MacGregory, so some bright babe at Lanerd, Kenson & Fullbright informed me, was downtown in the Criminal Courts building. With the Grand Jury.

If the producer was there, the others would probably be testifying, too, I thought. When Pud came back presently with Crew Cut fully arrayed in all Walch’s glory, I said, “Le’s go play charades with Mister D.A. Right with you?”

Yaker stared blankly. Of Pud he asked, “Who’s this?”

Pud grunted, “Gil Vine, bud. He brought you here. You hadda fight somewhere. You were stinko. Remember?”

Yaker waggled his head dazedly. “No. I wish I could. Why does he want me to go with him?”

I paid Pud off, took Yaker’s arm. “Maybe it’ll come back to you, when you get down there.”

Pud came up to the sidewalk with us. “If he’s in that kind of trouble, I don’t want anybody to say I’ve been hiding him out here.”

“You’re in the clear, Pud. I’ll take the blame.” I pushed Yaker in the cab ahead of me. I sat between him and the Syrian. We got rolling.

Nikky had a queer expression as she watched Yaker. He gazed at her with the same puzzled air he’d used on me.

I asked him a couple of questions about Edie and Ruth Moore, elicited nothing except: “I don’t remember those people — do I know them?” I said he’d had dealings with them, let it go at that.

There are several waiting-rooms outside the grand jury chamber where the DAides present their evidence to the twenty-three good men and true. A cop on the third floor wanted to know who I was looking for. “Mister Hacklin — the Lanerd business.”