Black Mask (Vol. 21, No. 8 — November, 1938)
- Автор: Баллард Уиллис Тодхантер, Cave Hugh B.
- Год: 1938
- Язык: английский
- Год: Pro-Distributors Publishing
- Жанр: Другие детективы
Электронная книга - «Black Mask (Vol. 21, No. 8 — November, 1938)». Краткое содержание книги:
“Did Vanetti lose his keys very often?”
“Oh, no. Just once.”
“You remember exactly when that was?”
I didn’t think she would, but after scowling at a potato for a couple of minutes, she surprised me. “Today,” she said, “is Thursday. Now let me see. Mr. Vanetti, he kill himself yesterday, which is Wednesday. The day before that I go to the movies with Mrs. Molinoff. That is Tuesday. So it is Monday Mr. Vanetti lose his key.”
“Monday, hey?”
“Monday. I am sitting here reading the noosepaper. My husband, he is go out for some beer. It is maybe ten o’clock when Mr. Vanetti comes in. He goes straight up the stairs. Then he comes down again and he says, ‘Mrs. Fretas, I lose my key I am afraid. You give me another, please, and tomorrow I get a new one made for myself and give your key back to you.’ So I give him my key and he goes upstairs again.”
“Ten o’clock Monday night, eh?” I said. “I don’t suppose you’d have any idea where he went that night.”
She shook her head. “No-o. He go to the doctor that afternoon, I remember, because his leg trouble him But where he go at night...” She shrugged her shoulders.
I almost had it then. The reason for my queer ideas about that upstairs room, I mean. The doctor. Vanetti’d been to a doctor because his leg troubled him. A couple of years ago Vanetti’d been banged up in an automobile accident which had left him with a limp.
I almost had it. It came up to me like a wave on a beach, whispering closer, closer, and then suddenly receding without having washed out the cobwebs in my brain. Like a name you almost but can’t quite remember. Like a strain of music, or a voice on the telephone. Close, but not quite.
I closed my eyes and conjured up a remembered him: Small, thin, ratty in face and figure, dipping along like a two-wheeled cart with one wheel off center. I made fists of my hands and tried to force my brain to think through that last thin layer of mist. But it was no go.
I sat there, struggling, then gave it up. You can put yourself in a chuckle college that way. I stood up and said good night to Mrs. Fretas and her old man, and walked out of there, my face so full of scowl that it ached.
It was all over town, of course, that Vanetti’d committed suicide, and that didn’t help me a bit. When I asked my questions, I got a flock of negative head-shakes for replies, and I put those questions to citizens who couldn’t possibly have been so void of information. I asked bartenders in joints where Vanetti had hung out. I asked men who had palled around with him. They just didn’t want to remember. Had any of those muggs seen Vanetti Monday night? Hell, no!
I made a nuisance of myself for two days. I covered the town like an epidemic, visiting every possible place the guy could have been to. But he hadn’t been anywhere. So far as Monday night was concerned, Vanetti could have hung himself Monday morning.
I had a talk with Bill Donahue, who d sat in on my little conference with Nick Lomac and my Chief. Bill didn’t get around much lately. A seige of the flu had taken plenty out of him, and the doctors had warned him to ease up. But he still had the best brain in the department. Put that guy flat on his back, lop off his arms and legs, and with his brain alone he could solve more cases than most of the healthy lads who do their thinking on the hoof. Including me.
He heard me out and then spent a long time looking at me, with a solemn frown on his rugged face. Finally he said, “Why don’t you drop this business, Thompson? After all, Vanetti was just a heel. No one misses him.”
“And besides,” I said, “I have no proof he was murdered. I can’t even convince myself.”
“Huh?”
“You’re telling me,” I said, “what Joe Evans told me. Keep out of dark alleys. Pull in my horns before someone breaks them off and rams them down my throat. Oke, Bill. You want me to go on living, and I like you for it. On the other hand I’m single — no wife, no kids — and I’m an insatiable glutton for punishment. And this thing has me goofy.”
He did his best to dissuade me, and he failed. I’m a sap. I’m a dope. I’m always going into barrooms and gulping down some screwy concoction the barkeep claims will knock your hat off.
So Bill said, “Well, if you must find out where Vanetti was Monday night, try number 1 °Casavant Street. And be careful.”
I thanked him. On my way out I bumped into Jojo Evans. “Listen, you,” I snorted. “When do we get a look at those pictures of the room and body?”
“I’m gonna do them up tonight,” he informed me.
I told him he’d better. Then I drove out to Casavant Street.
You wouldn’t expect to run into a like Vanetti at Number Ten Casavant. We have a Social Register in our town and a lot of those lads with too much money and nothing to do like to play around; and Number Ten Casavant is where they do it.
What I mean, you have to be properly dressed, properly named and quite properly heeled; otherwise your ambitions are deflated at the front door and you are reminded that for ordinary bums like you there are beer joints, bowling alleys and backroom crap games.
The police shut both eyes when looking in that direction. It would have been voluntary suicide for any mere cop to get tough with that glittering collection of money-changers.
I spoke to Paul, the gate-keeper. I said, “How’s everything tonight, Paul?” and he said, “Oh, so-so. Quiet.” I’d been there before. Venny Hamlin was always very nice to cops, provided the cops were nice to Venny.
“Mr. Hamlin around, Paul?” I asked.
Paul nodded.
I strolled in, and at that hour the place was a morgue. A couple of blue book laddies were sipping cocktails at the fancy bar, and off in a corner four well dressed men were silently playing with a deck of cards, and that was all. I hiked along a soft red carpet, went down the hall to Venny Hamlin’s office and knocked.
Venny was a bit surprised when I entered. He arched his eyebrows and said, “Well! My friend, Detective Thompson!” He pushed a box of cigars toward me, leaned back in his chair and frowned. “Sight-seeing or what?”
“Sleuthing,” I said.
“Here?”
“I’m as surprised as you are. The tip almost floored me.”
He hung onto his scowl. It didn’t mean anything. Venny Hamlin was really a good egg when you got to know him. No gangster background, no gutter upbringing. Out of college four years ago, he’d chauffeured for some old gal with a heap of bank books. This Number Ten Casavant Street was a natural outgrowth of a dawning realization that the money-money people didn’t mind losing a few dollars if they could be entertained while parting with them.
I said, “Strictly off the record, Venny, I’m checking the activities of one Leon Vanetti. He was here Monday night.”
“Leon Vanetti? That the Vanetti who hung himself?”
I nodded.
“I don’t think I know him.”
“You might not, by name,” I told him. “But he was here Monday night. Bill Donahue says he was here, and Bill’s never wrong.”
Venny shrugged.
“Listen,” I said, and described Vanetti. Described the face, the form, the limp. The limp did it.
“Right,” Venny admitted. “He was here.”
“Who brought him?”
“Why?”
“Just curious.”
He hesitated, looking very thoughtful. “Thompson,” he said finally, “you don’t want to know the answer to that.”
“Why don’t I?” I snapped.
“Look. This Vanetti is gone, forgotten. From what I’ve read in the papers, he won’t be missed any more than a case of smallpox. You, Thompson, you’re a good guy, a smart dick. You’ve got a future. You take my advice and drop this. There’s nothing in it for you except trouble some night in a dark alley.”