Halo for Satan Page 3

  Nothing happened. I tried again, louder this time, but all it earned me was echoes and sore knuckles. I leaned against the door and rattled the knob by turning it all the way… and walked in.

  It wasn’t much of a room. About large enough to play solitaire in if you held the cards close to your chest. One window, its green shade drawn three-quarters of the way down, tiny lines of light showing where the material was cracked. Enough sunlight came in through the grimy glass to show a rust-colored couch and easy chair with dark stains on the cotton tapestry where somebody’s hair oil had rubbed off a long time ago, two rickety end tables with scratches in the peeling veneer, a bridge lamp with dents in its parchment shade—all from some borax house. The blue Wilton rug had less nap to it than a cue ball. There was a curtained alcove between a closet door, closed, and an inadoor bed turned into the wall.

  It seemed I would have to come back another day to see Mr. Wirtz. Still, as long as I was here, there would be no harm in my looking around. If nothing else I might come across the manuscript. Not that I could do much more than touch it a little. Still it would be fun to touch twenty-five million dollars. A man could spend the rest of his days bragging about a thing like that.

  The more likely places gave up nothing but a cheap brier pipe, a half-filled chamois tobacco pouch, two matchbook covers advertising a brand of chewing gum, an electric razor with a crack in the white plastic casing, two halves of a broken black shoelace and a quarter acre of dust. Those last two items were under the couch and I left them there.

  No manuscript. Not even a letter from home. I stood up and beat dust from my knees and looked around for new worlds to conquer. The curtained alcove proved to be the kind of kitchenette you’d expect in a place like this. That left the closet and the recess holding the inadoor bed. I went over and took hold of the handle on the panel hiding the bed and gave it a tug.

  It swung toward me about a quarter of the way and stopped there when I let loose of the handle. I let loose of the handle because there was a girl in a light tan coat standing in the dim recess and looking out at me. Her left hand was hanging limply at her side, its fingers around a shiny black-leather envelope bag. Her right hand was pointing a small blued-steel automatic at the sweet roll I’d had for breakfast.

  “Hello there,” I said brightly. It took a little while to get the words out because they had to come all the way up from the cuflfs of my trousers.

  She said, “Get out of my way.” Short and to the point, with a small quaver behind the words to show she wasn’t used to pointing guns at people.

  I backed away slowly, stopping when I came up against one side of the easy chair. The girl came out of the recess then, watching me out of eyes as cold and distant as stars in a winter sky. She circled me warily, keeping the gun aimed at my middle. I turned to keep her in view. She didn’t tell me not to. The hall door was where she was going and the gun was to keep me from going along.

  She had her hand on the knob when I said, “Haven’t you forgotten something?”

  It stopped her like running into a wall. She stared hard at me, indecision and suspicion fighting it out on the lovely battleground of her face. She would have loved for me to go on and say what it was she had forgotten. I wasn’t going to, though—not until she asked me.

  Somewhere a toilet flushed and water whispered in hidden but not soundproofed pipes. I ran a finger gently along the back of the easy chair and watched the girl make up her mind.

  She said, “I haven’t forgotten anything and you know it. You just want to keep me here.”

  “Pshaw,” I said. “Why would I want to do a thing like that?”

  A corner of her lip got chewed while she thought that one over. She seemed to have forgotten the gun in her hand, but not enough to stop pointing it at me.

  “All right,” I said, “I’ll tell you what you’ve overlooked. It’s three floors, not counting the English basement, to the street. The minute you get out of here all I have to do is raise that window and start yelling. That will bring out a lot of people and they’ll grab you sure. Then the boys in blue will come and arrest you for going around pointing a gun at folks.”

  “You wouldn’t dare do a thing like that,” she snapped. “You’d have to tell the police what you were doing sneaking around in another man’s apartment.”

  “I’ll bet I can think up a better reason than you can. Shall we try?”

  She stiffened a little at my tone. “I was waiting for Mr, Walsh. If it’s any of your affair.”

  “Behind the bed?” I sneered politely. “Why not under the couch?”

  “It’s certainly none of your business where I wait for him.” She moved away from the door and peered at me. “Just who are you anyway?”

  I peered back at her. It was a pleasure to do so. She wasn’t twenty-five, although this was the year it could happen. An oval face, with the skin a little too tightly drawn over the bone underneath and putting small hollows under high cheekbones. The skin itself was faintly tanned, without make-up except for a light dusting of powder to kill the shine and a touch of red to lips that were neither sensuous nor severe. Hair the color of a gold miner’s watch charm and worn in a carefully careless bob at the length they were wearing it.

  The rest of her went well with the face. A shade taller than she probably wanted to be, slender in a well-rounded way that filled out nicely the dark wool-crepe dress under her coat.

  The gun came up two inches and her blue eyes, so dark they were more nearly violet, narrowed almost imperceptibly. “Who are you ?” she said again, an edge to her voice now.

  I said, “I’m just a man named Pine. Nobody to worry about. Hardly worth a first thought, let alone a second. Why don’t you put away that gun ?”

  She smiled. Suddenly. For no reason at all that I could see. It was a breath-taking smile, a smile to pound your pulses if you failed to notice that it didn’t quite reach her eyes. I leaned against the chair as some of the tension went out of my legs.

  She said, “As a matter of fact, I heard you outside the door. You were just furtive enough to make me—well—hide. In a place like this you never know.”

  She put the gun in her bag with a casual movement and smiled at me again. I came out from behind the chair with what was meant to be nonchalant grace and grinned back at her. We were now a couple of nice people who had happened to bump into each other under peculiar circumstances.

  I said, “I’m waiting for Mr. Walsh myself. Why don’t we sit down and wait for him together?”

  She pushed back the sleeve of her coat and was a little too showy about consulting a tiny wrist watch in white gold. “I’m afraid not,” she said, frowning charmingly at the hour. “I’ve wasted too much of the morning as it is.” She looked up and gave me a flashing, comradely smile. “If you’re staying, would you mind telling him Eve Bennett stopped by about the money ? He’ll understand.”

  “I’ll bet he will,” I said.

  Her breath snagged slightly and the bright smile slid away. After an awkward pause she said, “Yes. Well, good-by and thank you, Mr. Pine.”

  She turned her back on me and had taken one step toward the door when I reached out and yanked the leather bag out of her hand.

  It brought her around and at me Hke a slapped panther. “Give me that, damn you!”

  My shoulder got in the path of her hand. I said, “Hunh-uh,” and backed out of reach while I opened the bag and dug into its contents.

  I removed the magazine from the Colt .25, emptied its five cartridges into my pocket and took the sixth one from the chamber. I sniffed at the muzzle without detecting any odor of freshly burned powder, then put back the clip and laid the gun on the chair arm.

  The only thing in the bag with a name on it was a bill from the Stevens Hotel made out to Miss Lola North and covering rental of Room 2212 for the previous week. There was a square compact in gold with a design in brilliants forming the initials LN. Bank notes in a silver clip, a gold-mounted lipstick, a comb, two whi
te handkerchiefs with L worked into the corner of each, a plain black enameled cigarette case and matching lighter, and a few loose bobby pins to match her hair.

  She said, “Are you quite finished?” in a voice as tight as a pullman window.

  “Uh-hunh.” I took up the gun, wiped it off with my handkerchief and let it slide back into the bag. I snapped the catch and bounced the bag lightly on my palm and gave her the cold eye. “I thought you said your name was Eve Bennett?”

  Anger was making her look a trifle older but no less lovely. “Either I get that bag or I’ll make trouble for you.”

  “You’re in no position to make trouble for anybody.” I pointed a thumb at the easy chair. “You look like an intelligent girl, Miss North. Sit down and rest your indignation while we get our facts straightened out.”

  “I’ve nothing to say to you.”

  “Sure you have. Let me tell you why you have. I’m a detective, Miss North. I find you hiding in a room you have no business being in, as far as I can tell. You point a gun at me and try to walk out. Put them together and it fixes things where I have to ask you some questions. I can ask them here or we can go down to the Bureau and talk it over, with a man taking it down in shorthand. Which will it be?”

  She gave me a long level stare while indecision flickered in dark eyes deep enough to wade in. “How do I know you’re a detective?”

  I had been afraid of that. But I dug into a coat pocket and brought out the 1928 deputy sheriff’s star I carried to show people who wanted to see a buzzer. I let her have a glimpse of it, being careful to hold the ball of my thumb over the lettering.

  She swallowed. “Very well. I have nothing to hide. I thought you were a prowler or something. May I have my bag, please?”

  “Sure.”

  She took it from me and moved up to the lounge chair and sat down, being careful about arranging her skirt.

  I crossed over to the couch and rested a hip against one of its arms. Into the silence I said, “Tell me about it, Miss North.”

  “About what?”

  A touch of my tough-guy manner was indicated. “Don’t play it cute. I don’t have all day.”

  She threw the point of her chin at me. “I don’t see any necessity for your being rude, Mr. Pine.”

  “I’m being businesslike, not rude. Tell me about it. Were you hiding in there to blast Mr. Walsh when he came in?”

  “Certainly not! Of all the idiotic “

  “All right. Don’t waste it on me; the movies give me all the acting I can use. What’s your business with Walsh?”

  She hesitated, then her lips retreated into a straight and stubborn line. “No! You can go right ahead and arrest me. I’m not going to tell you a thing. I’ll get a lawyer! I’m not af—”

  I said, “That will be all, Miss North. If you’re in a hurry, don’t let me detain you.”

  Her eyes opened wide and her mouth went along for the ride. She was surprised—astounded would be a better word— and no acting this time. “You mean I can leave?”

  “Uh-hunh. Any time.”

  “Well …” It worried her: I was up to something. “Thank you, Mr. Pine.” She got slowly off the chair and stood there, fumbling with the catch of her bag. “I really know hardly anything about Mr. Walsh. A—a friend asked me to stop by….”

  “Of course.”

  She started to say something more, then her lips came tightly together and she walked, with quick nervous strides, to the door and out.

  I listened to the sound of high heels click into silence on the uncarpeted stairs. When there was nothing left but quiet, I lighted a cigarette and thought about Lola North. A slip of a girl who could put a flat-footed cop in his place and who was probably proud of doing so. Maybe not, though. Maybe she was worrying a little over how easy the victory had been. And then again, maybe my sheriff’s star had been about as impressive as a grapefruit.

  A lovely girl, Lola North. Enough figure and not too many years and a face that could come back and haunt you and maybe stir your baser emotions. A girl who could turn out to be pure as an Easter lily or steeped in sin and fail to surprise you either way.

  A girl who had been snooping around where twenty-five million dollars was supposed to be.

  I dropped my cigarette on the rug and stepped on it, picked up the butt and put it in my pocket, then went over to the wall-bed recess where Lola North had been hiding. There was a line of empty hooks along the back wall and a faint breath of perfume in the air.

  I came out into the room again and swung the panel back into place. The closet was all that was left. There would be nothing in there. Go out and have your lunch, Pine.

  I went over and opened the closet door.

  There was more space in there than I had expected, most of it occupied. Two beat-up traveling bags in black leather stacked in one corner. Shirts, underwear and socks piled neatly on the single shelf. Several four-in-hand neckties in conservative patterns looped around a hanger. Four suits of clothing. But only one of the suits had a body in it.

  I leaned against the door jamb, breathing gently and thinking about a girl with warm gold hair and hollows under her cheeks and narrow eyes that were dark-blue and deep enough to wade in. A girl who had told me to go take a flying jump at a Ford, practically, before tilting her nose at my taste in hats and walking out the door. I thought about unnatural death and tough-talking homicide cops and twenty-five million dollars. I began to hate thinking.

  The body was suspended by a maroon necktie drawn up under one ear and its ends knotted around one of a row of hooks screwed into a strip of wood against the rear wall. A man’s body, hanging there with its back to me, feet against the floor, knees bent, head tilted to one side.

  I put a hand gingerly on one of the shoulders and gave it a small tug. The body revolved slowly, showing the front of the neatly buttoned, double-breasted coat to be caked with dried blood, blood that exposure had turned almost black. At the upper edge of the stain was a thin slit in the cloth of the breast pocket. I judged a knife had put that slit in there … and the meat beyond it.

  The face was other faces I had come across in my day. Strong in the jaw and weak around the mouth. Cunning and stupid and more than a little vicious. The face of a hoodlum.

  This had been an old hood, though. The gray in his hair and the lines in his skin put him past sixty. Another item was the heavy coat of tan on the face and hands. It was too early in the season for that kind of tan, which might have meant a winter in Florida or Southern California.

  The color of the bloodstains told me enough, but I took hold of one of the dead hands, just to be sure. The skin was cold and damp, and when I moved the arm it swung limp as a spaghetti dinner. I bent and tugged up one of the trouser legs. The skin underneath was purple and the ankle was swollen. Post-mortem lividity in an acute stage. Rigor mortis had come and gone long before, several days before, probably. If Lola North had put a knife in this man it wasn’t during today’s visit. I didn’t think much of the idea anyway. She could hardly have hung the corpse up by the necktie to begin with, then swallowed the knife. Still it was nice to be sure.

  I had seen enough … enough to indicate that, although the body was in Mr. Wirtz’s room, it was not Mr. Wirtz. Not, that is, if the Bishop’s description of him had been accurate.

  There was any one of several things I could have done. But only one of them made sense. I closed the closet door gently, went out into the hall and down two flights to the first floor.

  The old man was sitting within two inches of where I had left him. I stepped out onto the porch and shut the door, banging it more than was necessary, and dropped down next to him. The sun seemed hotter on my back than before and a soft breeze stirred the tangle of old newspapers along the gutters.

  I could feel the old man’s mild blue eyes watching me while I got out my cigarettes and a folder of matches. He said, “You took a while, son. You make out all right?”

  I finished lighting a cigarette, shook out th
e match, stared at it moodily, then threw it away. “Walsh wasn’t at home.”

  “Uh-hunh.” He sucked at his pipe, bringing out a wet bubbling sound but no smoke. I handed over my matches. “Away somewheres, I expect. Else I’d of most likely seen him.”

  “Tell me something, Pop.”

  “Try to.”

  “You see a girl come out of here a couple minutes ago?”

  “Yep. Good looker. Real gold hair and a right nice shape on her.”

  “Did you see her come in ahead of me ?”

  “Yep.”

  “How long before?”

  “Oh—ten, fifteen minutes likely. No more’n that.”

  “Ever see her around here before?”

  “Can’t say’s I have.”

  “Any idea what she wanted?”

  “Asked where she could find Walsh. I told her and she went on up.”

  “Well, for Chrisakes,” I growled. “Why didn’t you mention her when I asked about Walsh?”

  He blinked placidly at me. “None of my business, mister. I can answer a question when it’s put to me polite, but that don’t mean I feel called on to get gossipy.”

  “Okay,” I said. “If it won’t bother your conscience too much, maybe you can tell me about a man. He’s around a hundred and fifty pounds, in his sixties, graying brown hair, brown eyes and a tough-tommy front. He might have a room here or he might be a stranger.”

  He looked off into the distance and thought about it while lighting his pipe. “Sounds about right. Two, three days ago a man like that come around here wantin’ to rent hisself a room. Dressed too good for this part o’ town, so I kind of suspicioned him.”

  “He give his name?”

  “Not to me. He did most of his calkin’ to Miz Trotter.”

  “But he didn’t get a room?”

  “Not here he didn’t. We’re filled up. Miz Trotter told him to try the Meegan’s, down at 1707, and he left. Last I seen him.”

  I clenched my left hand and stared hard at the knuckles. “Well, he’s finally found a place: the closet in Walsh’s room. Strung up by a necktie and dead as yesterday’s ten thousand years.”