E. Hunt - House Dick

The man’s face twisted, the mouth gritted a curse, and the car spun away. A cloth was bound over the rear license plate.

There had been another man in the rear seat of the sedan, a man whose face he couldn’t see. He had never seen the driver’s face before, but he would remember it. The nostrils bulged grotesquely. They were packed with rolls of gauze to support the bridge of a broken nose.

Through the night came the squeal of tires as the car turned down Connecticut.

Novak played the light over the grassy ditch, reached down and brought back a roll of cloth tied with string. He stood up, brushed moisture from his knees, wiped sweat from his face and put the cloth roll into his coat pocket. Then he moved onto the road and began walking back toward Connecticut, whistling tunelessly as he went.

When he was behind the wheel he flicked on the map light and took the cloth roll from his pocket. Untying the string he unrolled the cloth across his knees. Suddenly fire sparked through the car: green white and milky-blue. A bracelet, brooch and a ring.

Just like the man said.

He covered them carefully, separating each piece with a fold of cloth, and then he slid the roll into his pocket again.

Driving back into the District he stopped at a diner, ate a minute steak with French fries, a slab of peach pie and sloshed it down with black coffee. The cook rang up NO SALE, and took a dime from the register and dropped it in the counter tune selector. Fast pulsing jive flooded the diner. Novak wiped his mouth with a paper napkin, left money beside his plate and got back in his car.

He stayed on Connecticut as far as Massachusetts, turned down Sixth and drove over C as far as Police Headquarters.

Morely was typing a report when Novak went into his office. He glanced around and said, “You get up early these nights.”

“I never really go to bed.” Novak sat down in a wall chair, tilted it against the wall and watched Morely fill in and sign the last part of the report form. Morely got up, said, “Back in a minute,” and took the report out of the office. Novak stared at the scarred desk, the tarnished spittoon, the chipped gooseneck lamp on the desk, and lighted a cigarette. After a while Morely came back.

“Not much of a place,” he said sourly. “I always figured it’s to keep us on the street and out of Head quarters.” He sat down, lighted a half-smoked cigar and stared at Novak. “What’ll it be, Pete?”

Novak leaned forward and laid the cloth roll on Morely’s desk. Morely glanced at him and unrolled the cloth. Under the desk bulb the stones seemed to shine with life of their own. Morely raised his head slowly. “Jesus!”

Novak said nothing.

“How’d you come by them?”

“An hour or so after you left, a nameless voice called me. Said he had the jewelry and would trade it for five grand. I told him to lay off hophead schemes. We sparred back and forth, and I finally suggested he send the jewels to the police, the insurance company or Mrs. Boyd, their owner. Then I rang off.”

Morely rolled the cigar slowly between his thumb and index finger. “Funny the guy’d call you.”

“Thought so myself. Anyway, it wasn’t long before Julia Boyd called with much the same story. The agreed price was one grand, with another for me when I return the stuff to her in the morning.”

“So you went out and made the switch,” he said unpleasantly. “With never a care in the world.”

“I like money as well as the next fellow,” Novak said evenly. “If you’d check your phone messages you’d find my name among them. It occurred to me you might like to have a lad or two nearby. To identify the sellers.”

“Oh, you thought of that, did you?” Morely said a little wildly. “That shows great powers of reasoning. But of course the switch couldn’t wait until I could be found.”

“I didn’t make the arrangements, Lieutenant. Mrs. Boyd did. Leaving me with barely time to get to the rendezvous before the car showed up.”

Morely restrained himself with difficulty. “Mind telling me what happened then?”

“That’s why I’m here, Lieutenant. The time was two o’clock, the place, down Bradley Lane. Outside your jurisdiction, I might add.”

“That makes me feel tons better,” he said acidly. “Go on.”

“Well, after I was a couple blocks from Connecticut —long blocks in the darkness, Lieutenant—this car came creeping toward me. When it was close it fanned a spot on me and a man told me to throw the money envelope at the car. When I’d done that they tossed this cloth roll at me. I let it go over my head, got down to look for it and put my pencil light on the driver’s face.”

Morely rubbed his hands together. “I was beginning not to like you. But you take chances, pal.”

“A thousand dollars buys a few. Well, the driver had a damaged nose plugged with gauze. When he got the light on his face he got mad and drove away. Fast.”

“Get the license number?” Morely had his pencil poised.

“Plate hidden by cloth. Dark blue sedan. Fifty-eight Chevy.”

“Ever see the driver before?”

“No. But last night in the alley I kneed a guy in the face. His partner called him Tags.”

“That’s something,” Morely mused. “Can’t be too many hoods with that call-name. And you said Barada sent the two of them around. All out-of-towners probably.”

Novak flicked cigarette ash at the spittoon, reached over and rolled up the jewelry.

Morely said, “Hey, that’s material evidence.”

“Of what, Lieutenant? Anybody find it at the scene of a crime? Anybody even know for sure it was ever there?”

“It had to be. Hell, look how you got it back. The guy who drilled Boyd copped them and sold them back.”

Novak restored the cloth roll to his pocket. “That thought occurred to me, Lieutenant. It’s so obvious that maybe we ought to sleep on it.” He stood up. “Not many hours from now I may be richer by a thousand dollars. And you’ll have only half as many things to look for. One murderer. Size and shape unknown.”

Morely butted his dead cigar and wiped his face. “Barada gets more interesting by the hour. Think I’ll ask the ex-wife where he can be reached.”

“Think she’ll tell you? If Barada’s smart he’s staying outside your jurisdiction. Even if you knew he was holed up, in say, Maryland, you couldn’t follow him across the line except in hot pursuit.”

“Legally,” Morely said thinly.

“We’re talking legality. Hell, this is Police Headquarters. To do it legally you’d need a competent judge and damn near a writ of extradition. And you haven’t got anything resembling grounds that any reasonable judge would listen to.”

“Dream on,” Morely said smoothly. “You finger him for me anywhere between the Pennsy border and South Carolina, and we’ll see how much time I waste breaking a judge out of bed to keep things nice and legal. Judges are fine; some folks think they’re even necessary. For me they’re guys you tell the story to after all the action’s over. And even then most of the bastards couldn’t tell a crook from a Congressman.”

“And that’s not always easy. Any word from Winnetka on the late Chalmers Boyd?”

Morely lifted a sheet of yellow teletype. “Owned a bank, couple of loan companies and a factory that makes chemicals used in plastics. The name’s here, but I can’t pronounce it. Chamber of Commerce type, active in local charities—hell, you know those butter-and-egg men. More dough than sense. Paid his club bills on the day due, shot mid-eighty golf and had no known enemies. In short, a model citizen.” He glanced up at Novak. “Except for the floozy he kept in Chicago.”

“That make him unique?” Novak rattled the jewelry in his pocket. “I may sleep a little late in the morning, Lieutenant. Walking in the dark tends to tire me.”