James Chase - This Way for a Shroud

“Why, Jack…” Gollowitz gasped, his face going white. “For God’s sake, Jack… !”

Maurer came in and shut the door. His right hand was buried deep in his bulging coat pocket. He stood looking at the four men, his little eyes insane with rage.

“What’s he doing here?” he snarled, pointing at Ferrari.

“Jack! You — you can’t come back here!” Gollowitz said, getting unsteadily to

his feet. “Did anyone see you? Don’t you know there’s a warrant out for your arrest?”

“What’s he doing here?” Maurer repeated, his voice deadly.

“He — he’s come to take care of the girl — the Coleman girl,” Gollowitz spluttered.

“Did you send for him?” Maurer asked.

“The Syndicate thought…”

“—the Syndicate! Did you send for him?”

“What else could I do?” Gollowitz wailed. He had a horrible feeling that Maurer was going to shoot him. “We had to get Weiner and the girl. He was the only one who could get at them!”

Maurer glared at Gollowitz, his mouth working.

“You goddamn fool! Couldn’t you handle a little thing like that without calling in outside help?”

“It wasn’t possible.”

McCann said quietly, “Take it easy, Mr. Maurer. You shouldn’t have come back. Every cop in town’s on the look-out for you. Forest has cooked up a castiron case against you.”

“Yeah,” Maurer snarled, “thanks to the bungling way you three have handled it.” He didn’t include Ferrari in the wave of his hand. “I’ve come back to handle it myself! For the first time in fifteen years there’s a warrant out for me! The first time in fifteen years! That’s what happens when I take my hand off the helm!”

“We did what we could,” Gollowitz said earnestly. He felt the danger was receding. “We got Weiner. Now we’re going to get the girl. It’ll be okay, Jack, only you must keep out of this.”

“I’m not keeping out of it,” Maurer said, and walked to the desk.

Gollowitz hurriedly stepped away, and Maurer took his place behind the desk. He sat down.

Gollowitz pulled up a chair and took his place with the others. Sweat beads covered his forehead. He was sick with frustrated rage and fear. To be suddenly shoved aside to lose his authority in a few seconds, to be deprived of his position which he had believed to be unassailable for a long time, was a devastating blow to his pride.

Ferrari caught Maurer’s eye. The two men looked at each other. Seigel, an interested spectator, was startled to see what could have been uneasy fear in Maurer’s eyes. Ferrari was completely unruffled and indifferent.

“Hello, Maurer,” he said softly.

Maurer shifted his eyes away.

“Hello, Ferrari.”

“Big Joe sends his love,” Ferrari said, and smiled.

Maurer nodded. He knew how dangerous Ferrari was, and he was dismayed to find him here. He had to make an effort to get a grip on the situation.

“What the hell have you three been playing at?” he demanded. “Why haven’t you got rid of the girl? It’s three weeks since I’ve been away. She should have been hit days ago.”

“Not so easy,” Seigel said. “We don’t know where she is, for a start.”

“You knew where she was!” Maurer snarled. “Why didn’t you hit her then?”

“We took Weiner first,” Gollowitz said quickly. “He was the easiest.”

“The easiest! Don’t you realize she is the dangerous one? With her out of the way Weiner’s evidence wouldn’t have amounted to a thing! You should have taken her first!”

Gollowitz had long ago realized his mistake of killing Weiner instead of Frances, and it bothered him that Maurer had so quickly spotted the weakness of his strategy.

“You know she’s talked?” McCann said. “She claims to have seen you knock off the Arnot woman. That’s why there’s a warrant out for you.”

Maurer’s face turned a dusky red.

“Then she’s lying! I didn’t touch June!”

“They have pretty solid evidence,” McCann said slowly.

“Enough to convince any jury.”

Maurer looked at Gollowitz.

“What evidence?”

Gollowitz told him of Frances’s statement and about the gold pencil.

“We tried to get the pencil,” he concluded, “but they beat us to it.”

Maurer stiffened.

“What do you mean — beat you to it?”

“Seigel went out there with a bunch of boys and surprised Conrad and a couple of coppers who were digging up the pencil. There was a gun fight, and before Seigel could clinch it, a bunch of cops took them in the rear. We lost five of our boys.”

Maurer looked as if he were going to burst with fury.

“Was that one of your stunts?” he snarled, leaning across the desk and glaring at Gollowitz. “You crazy fool! You should have left it alone. I knew about that pencil. I had a story to cover it. Five of our men killed! You must be out of your head!”

Gollowitz dropped back in his chair, his face ashen. He felt Ferrari’s eyes on him, and in a moment of sick despair he realized that the story of his failure would get back to the Syndicate.

“You not only throw lives away, but you underline the importance of the pencil,” Maurer went on. “I dropped that pencil down the drain two days before June was killed.”

“But there was her blood on it,” McCann said sharply.

Maurer’s little eyes gleamed.

“It was my blood. I cut my hand on a bottle. The blood smeared the pencil and as I was wiping it clean it dropped out of my hand and fell down the drain.”

“That won’t do,” McCann said curtly. “Sorry, Mr. Maurer, but it won’t do. The blood on the pencil belongs to Miss Arnot’s blood group, and it happens to be a fairly rare group at that.”

Maurer jutted out his chin.

“What group is it?”

“B group.”

“Would it surprise you if I told you I’m also in B group? I had a Wasserman a few years ago, and I was told I was in B group. How do you like that?” He swung around and glared at Gollowitz. “If you hadn’t tried to be so goddamn tough, this would have been a soft touch if it ever came to a trial.”

Gollowitz wiped his face. He looked suddenly old and very tired.

“I didn’t know.”

Maurer looked at him contemptuously, then turned away with a shrug of his shoulder.

“Where’s the girl?” he asked McCann.

“I wish I knew,” McCann returned. “Forest has hidden her somewhere, and no one knows where.”

“Don’t you?” Maurer snarled. “Goddamn it! You’re still Captain of Police, aren’t you?”

“No one knows except the D.A., Conrad and twenty of my best men, who are guarding the girl. Conrad took her away the night Weiner died. Forest tells me no one but his office is to know where she is until the trial.” Maurer clenched his fist and thumped on the desk. “We’ve got to find her and wipe her out!” He looked over at Seigel. “That’s your job! I want to know where she is the day after tomorrow. Understand? If you slip up on this I’ll damn well see you don’t slip up on anything else!”

Seigel started to protest, but the murderous gleam in Maurer’s eyes stopped him. He turned white and glanced over at Gollowitz, appealing to him for help, but Gollowitz had all the trouble he could handle and he didn’t even look at Seigel.

“Okay,” Maurer said, and stood up. “There’s nothing more we can do until Seigel reports where she is. We’ll meet here the day after tomorrow at eleven o’clock and decide on a plan to hit this girl.”

“You won’t find her,” McCann said shortly, as he got to his feet. “I knew how important it was not to lose sight of her, and I’ve been searching for her. She’s vanished. If you ask me, they’ve got her out of town.”