Ed Lacy - Room To Swing

“She left a call at my office for me to go to Thomas' room at midnight. I found him murdered; a moment later a cop came busting in. It all fits; the reason Kay hired me, knowing a Negro would be easy to spot, a setup for this frame. But I'm going to find Kay, get the truth out of her if it's the—”

“Are you saying Kay killed this man?” Bobby cut in, crushing her cigarette on the glass table top.

“You say it, say it any way you want.”

“That's ridiculous. And Kay didn't pick you for this job, I did.”

“You? Don't cover for her. Bobby, I don't want to get rough but this isn't the time for stalling!”

“I'm not stalling. I'm telling you the truth. I met your friend Sid at a party and somehow he mentioned you. Kay had told me about this publicity stunt of hers, about hiring a detective. She was looking forward to it... and... I knew she was restless. I've seen it happen before. She goes off with a... a... man. Of course she's always come running back to me after a night or two, but I live in a nightmare that she won't return. Can you understand how much I love that girl?”

“Skip the love story. Why did you pick me?”

“No, you can't understand what Kay means to me. I simply told her about you, knowing full well she'd like the idea of... I mean, of you being a Negro. I was so pleased when I saw you last night, all your muscles, your... manliness. You were perfect for the affair.”

“Affair? What the devil are you talking about?”

“My dear Toussaint—that exciting name—isn't it obvious? Any relationship between Kay and you could only be temporary, hardly permanent.... You're a Negro.”

“For—! I've had enough of this nonsense, where's Kay now?”

“Wherever she is, it's your fault. She was disgusting, pawing you last night, but you didn't react. Now she's spending the night in some hotel with that horrid creature Steve. That's what worries me. Kay usually goes for the brute type.”

“What hotel?”

“I'm sure I don't know.”

I shook her again. “Damn you, this isn't a game I What hotel?”

The crazy thing was, as I shook her a hard voice, almost a man's voice, barked, “Get your damn hands off me! I told you I don't know. If I knew, do you imagine I'd be sitting here? I'd go up and drag her back home!”

I walked around the living room, thinking hard. If what Bobby said was true, and I had this feeling it was, then it knocked the props out on my Kay-framing-me idea. But if it wasn't Kay, who did frame me and why? Who could possibly have known about my tailing Thomas? Supposed to be all top secret, just Kay and her boss—and Barbara. “What's the name of Kay's boss?”

“I don't know, Brooks something-or-other. Kay calls him B.H.” She shook her head. “Forget about him; he's been out in St. Louis opening a new station for Central. Kay mentioned he had phoned her from there this afternoon.”

“You said you hadn't seen Kay since yesterday morning.”

“She phoned me at school, during lunch hour, to—to tell me she was leaving me.” Bobby began to weep.

I stood there, listening, for some stupid reason, to her crying. It didn't sound phony. Things had been simple when I came up here: I was a dead duck with one possible out— find Kay and get the truth from her, beat it out of her if necessary. Now...? I didn't rule Kay off the list, not till I knew where she'd been when Thomas was killed. But I'd been certain she'd framed me from the go, and that wasn't so. Now...? Now I realized the only way to save my neck was to find the killer before the police found me. I was mixed up: somehow relieved and even encouraged by knowing Kay hadn't double-crossed me, and a little frightened that I was on my own. I really wasn't a detective but a strong-arm bouncer, a slob good at scaring women like Mrs. James. And no one but me, a lousy detective, could save my life!

I began pacing the room again, trying to think logically. From the little I'd seen of Tutt-Thomas he appeared to be a hard-working joker, living down his past. That didn't rule out the possibility he was in a jam here, but it was unlikely.... He had a record, would be careful. If he was doing anything shady here, why would he be sweating at the freight company, going to a trade school? Hell, he hardly had enough free time to get in trouble. He was strictly small time, a home-town hoodlum.... Only one thing would make sense: some old buddy had knocked him off for revenge. But how did I fit into that picture? And if it was an old buddy, why wait all these years? Perhaps he'd just located Thomas, or maybe been released from a pen a couple days ago, went gunning for Thomas. But how would he—or she—know about me, about Kay? Of course Kay said they'd already interviewed people in Thomas's home town.... Sure, this joker had been hunting for Thomas for years, and the TV idea gives him his lead. Suppose he was tailing Kay and Thomas? That made hard sense. Unknowingly Kay had taken him to Thomas and to me; from that point it wouldn't take a genius to set me up for murder.

I felt much better, as if I'd accomplished something. But there was one loose end I had to tie. I said, “It was a horrible sight, Thomas' bald head split open, his rooms ransacked.”

Bobby didn't say a word, dried her eyes with her sleeve. Okay, I was clumsy, I didn't trip her. I stopped being cute. “When was the last time you saw Thomas?”

“I never saw him. I—” She looked up at me. “Are you crazy, Touie, first accusing Kay and now me?”

“Look, there's only four people knew I was hired to shadow Thomas: Kay, myself, B.H., and you.”

“Oh, for goodness' sake, I've been home all night. You know that—you called me early in the evening and again about an hour ago. It was after your second call I took the sleeping pills.”

That was good enough for me, even if it wasn't air tight. I couldn't see Bobby having the guts to kill. I waved my hands. “I have to consider all angles. Bobby, Kay said the TV show had a complete file on Thomas; did she ever tell you any of the details?”

“Vaguely, something about rape. I wasn't too interested in such sordid matters. She has some files in her desk; Kay often works here afternoons, and evenings.”

I followed her into the bedroom to an oval-shaped desk of ebony wood at one window. There was a typewriter on top of a small file cabinet next to the desk. She leafed through the cabinet, handed me a fairly thick folder with a neatly typed sticker TUTT-THOMAS pasted on it.

It was a good file, names, dates, interviews, and even a few pictures. I rolled it up, shoved it in my pocket. I felt almost happy; I could really work with this. It meant I'd have to get to his home town, Bingston, Ohio, damn fast. That wasn't a bad idea either; it would be dangerous for me to hang around New York.

“I'm going now. Bobby, can I trust you? Are you going to phone the police as soon as I leave?”

“Certainly not.”

“My life is at stake, melodramatic as it may sound. I need time. Do you think you can convince Kay and the TV studio not to say anything about Thomas for a few days?”

“Kay will have to do whatever Central does, but if I know TV and their fear of adverse publicity, they won't make any fuss unless forced to. Toussaint, I'm terribly sorry you're involved in this. I truly don't believe you would kill a person.”

“Thanks.” We were walking toward the door.

“Is there anything else I can do to help you?”

I wanted to ask her for money but couldn't bring myself to do it. “Barbara, if this gets messy, I mean, if I'm caught, our story is I dropped up here to shoot the breeze, stole this file while you were in the John. That will leave you in the clear. One thing you can do, find Kay and tell her to keep quiet.” I added a cover-up: “I'll be hanging around the city, hiding out, so tell Kay not to make any effort to contact me.”