Mourn the Hangman Page 4

  Through the small aperture in the elevator door, Blake inspected the basement garage before he stepped out into it. He saw why there were no cruisers parked in the street. They were all parked down here. He knew that the detective from the foyer was on his way to the basement. He had to leave the elevator. He had to take his chance in the garage.

  As he stepped out of the elevator, handsome young Glintner walked around the rear end of a Cadillac. For a full second they stood frozen and stared at each other. Blake moved first. He went forward on the balls of his feet. With his left hand, he caught Glintner’s cheeks. He clamped the palm of his hand hard over Glintner’s mouth just as the youth opened it to yell. Blake’s fingers dug so hard, they pulled Glinter’s eyelids down and stretched his pretty face out of shape.

  Glintner jerked his head back. Blake drove his doubled fist just under Glintner’s belt buckle. Agony leaped into Glintner’s blue eyes. Blake released him and the attendant stumbled forward retching up his insides.

  Blake didn’t even stop to look at him again. He kept close to the wall, shielded by the line of cars. He moved cautiously out of the garage entrance. He slid around the corner of the wall and stood with his back against it until he could pick out the cops waiting in the shadows. He moved slowly then around the side of the apartment house to the alley.

  The alley appeared silent, empty and inviting. For a moment, Blake hesitated. But it was too silent. He didn’t like it. Cops don’t have to be smart, he thought, they just have to be patient. He walked across the alley and went through an oleander hedge into the yard of the big, old guest home. He walked out on the sidewalk as though he had come out the front door and then began to walk steadily toward the corner of Fourth Street.

  He heard the roar of a police cruiser as it was raced up the ramp out of the apartment house garage behind him.

  He tried to keep walking steadily, but his gait increased and suddenly he was running, his head turned as he watched over his shoulder. He saw the headlights spearing ahead of the cruiser in the darkness. Just as the car swung out into Fourth, its tires squealing, Blake leaped into the darkness of a hedge. The cruiser sped past, was whipped around in a circle at the next block and now inched past along the street, its spotlight bobbing along the dark places of the sidewalk.

  Holding his breath, Blake inched back out of reach of the probing light. The backs of his legs brushed a small picket fence. He stepped over it and walked stealthily across the yard. He rounded the corner of the house and started toward the street. He was almost there when a second cruiser came west up the avenue, moving slowly, its spotlight bobbing along ahead of it.

  He stood stock still and then he backed slowly around the house. He knew this wasn’t going to last long. They’d have every cop in the area beating through the yards and the alleys. Any moment now, lights would begin to pop on through the windows of the houses along here.

  He waited until the cruiser idled past the yard, then he walked out to the sidewalk and turned east. He walked swiftly, doggedly, trying to keep from running. He didn’t want to look over his shoulder. But he knew if he ran, he’d meet a cop before he could see him. The cops weren’t looking for a man of any particular description, although they’d probably been briefed as to Blake’s appearance in a general way. Their orders would be to bring in any man caught on the streets.

  He crossed the street and turned a corner. He walked north along Third. His stomach was empty with something more than fear. He knew he was hungry. He hadn’t eaten since noon. It must be after 1 A.M. now, he was sure. He could hear the cars behind him. In his weariness and his hunger, it seemed to him that the sounds were exaggeratedly loud.

  He was so tired he felt that it would be nice to lie down on the wet grass and sleep. The shock of finding Stella dead in their apartment had weakened him physically and mentally. Weariness was settling over him and now anxiety was about to finish him. He had to rest soon and he had to eat soon. It was almost a temptation to allow the cops to take him in. In the jail there would be a cot and in the morning, coffee.

  He shook his head and kept moving one foot ahead of the other, persistently. He had to find the man who killed Stella. He had to find him before the police did. He had to stay free to find him. If the police got him, he knew it would be a long time before he was free. And if it was some kind of frame-up, he might never be freed. His lagging steps hurried.

  It seemed to Blake that he must be very light-headed. His own footsteps were loud in his ears and the sound of them was doubled. Abruptly, he stopped walking. The second sound lasted just a second too long. There was someone following him.

  When he looked over his shoulder, there was only silence and darkness in the street behind him.

  It’s not a cop, he thought. A cop’s orders would be to shoot, to bring him in. It wasn’t a cop back there. Blake shrugged his coat up on his shoulders and began walking again.

  There was an open-all-night café just around the corner on Central. Blake walked past it once. There were no cops inside. Two taxi drivers talked over their coffee. A short-order man and a blowsy waitress talked at the end of the long counter.

  Blake started in: The warm odors of food through the front door were tormenting him. But with his hand on the knob, he stopped. He walked back to the corner then and stepping out beyond the building, looked down Third. At the alley, a shadow leaped back into the security of darkness.

  Blake let his breath out slowly. He was being followed. It wasn’t a cop.

  He returned to the restaurant and went in to one of the booths at the rear of the room. He sat facing the front door, but pulled around so that he was pretty sure he couldn’t be seen from the street.

  The blowsy waitress sauntered over. She scrubbed at her pink nostrils with the back of her hand and sniffled.

  Blake looked at the menu. He ordered a sirloin steak and French fried potatoes. “I want the steak well done,” he said, “and coffee, black.”

  He was pretty certain he saw the thick shadow of a man stroll past the sweated window of the restaurant. The cook was frying the steak at a griddle near him though and the aroma of the sizzling meat struck him. He made up his mind to eat this meal if he hung for it. Only, you don’t hang in Florida, he thought grimly, they lead you into a little room and cook you, the way that steak’s frying on that griddle.

  When the waitress brought his meal and slid it into place before him, Blake said, “I’m a stranger here, Miss. Is there a good hotel near? Reasonable, you know.”

  She looked at him. “There’s one upstairs over this joint,” she said, “if reasonable’s all you want.”

  “That’s what I want,” Blake told her, attacking his steak. It was well-done on the outside, leather brown, in fact. But blood oozed out of the middle of it. Blake had to swallow hard. But he sat there until he had eaten it all. Only the hell of it was, it didn’t help him. The food and the coffee made a scalding knot in the middle of his belly. Food is for the living, too, Blake, he told himself. And you’ll begin to live when you find the man who killed Stella.

  He got up, left a tip under the side of his plate, picked up his check and paid the short-order man at the front of the café. He went out the door then and stood for a moment in the light. Wind tumbled newspapers along the vacant street. A truck turned out into the avenue two blocks away. The silence was thick through the heavy sleeping town. The man who was following Blake was nowhere to be seen.

  Blake started walking slowly west toward Third. Keenly aware of every movement, he was sure that the man had stepped out of a doorway east of the restaurant. He counted five. Then he turned and looked over his shoulder. A man was entering the café. He was wearing a brown suit and a brown hat pulled low on his head, the brim snapped over his eyes. He was too far away for Blake to recognize him. Still, Blake was sure there was something familiar about him.

  He took long strides across Central to a small walk-up hotel on the south side of the street. A faded sign advertised it to be the Regal H
otel. Steve stepped quickly inside the frosted door. There was a littered stairway leading to the desk and lobby on the second floor.

  Blake waited just inside the door until the big man came out of the restaurant across the street. The fellow moved purposefully now. He entered the doorway of the hotel at the west side of the café. When the door closed behind him, Steve sighed heavily and started up the shabby runner to the second floor of the Regal Hotel.

  He climbed slowly, letting his thoughts race ahead of him. It was a frame. Whoever had killed Stella was out to get Steve Blake. They had attempted to set him in the middle of a murder rap. Well, he was still free and he was still breathing and whoever had done it would live to regret it under Steve Blake’s merciless hands. He shivered. He couldn’t imagine anything that would keep him from violently throttling Stella’s murderer.

  Blake had to ring the bell four times before a thin, gray little man came through a door behind the counter, yawning and peering at Steve through thick-lensed glasses.

  “I’d like a room,” Steve said.

  “Four dollars,” the little man yawned. He pushed a card toward Steve. Steve hesitated a moment. Then he scrawled, “Robert Cole, Tampa,” on the card. Instantly, he wished he hadn’t. It was just that he had not thought, his brain was too foggy. That was the name he worked under in Arrenhower’s big industrial plant. But it was too late to change it.

  At least, maybe the name would buy him a few hours of sleep.

  At most, he thought cynically, it might buy you a fast ride to the death house in Raiford.

  He shoved the card away. The gray little man glanced at it sleepily. “Be four dollars in advance,” he said.

  Steve paid him. “Any place I could get these clothes pressed?” he asked.

  The man looked at him and shook his head. “Nowhere until in the morning, mister.” He handed him a key. “Room 308, up on next floor. It’s got a private bath. You got no luggage?”

  “No. I came in on the bus. I must have beat my suitcase to town.”

  The man shrugged. “That happens. Well, goodnight, mister.” He yawned.

  “Will you send a paper to my room in the morning?” Steve said.

  “Sure.” The little man made a note on the card Steve had signed.

  Sluggishly, Steve climbed the stairs to the third floor. The numerals were screwed on the door facings, large, cheap tin figures from Kress’s. There was a line of light under the door at 305 and faint music streamed out of the radio. Some faraway, all-night radio broadcast, a sleepy disc jockey and a man sleepless in room 305.

  Blake unlocked 308, snapped on the light and then closed the door behind him. It locked automatically. There was a chain latch. Steve dropped it into place. There was a sign pinned to the door. “Not Responsible for Theft. Keep Your Door Locked.”

  Charming hole, Blake thought bitterly.

  The window was down, the room was warm. There was a musty odor, but Blake decided he’d rather have warmth than fresh air. There were blankets on the old-fashioned iron bed and Blake was thankful for that. He looked forward to lying under those blankets, warm and asleep.

  He undressed quickly. He put his shoes on top of the lukewarm radiator. He hung his underwear over the back of the straight chair. He put his wallet and room key on the dresser. Then he shook out his sodden trousers and folded them where the crease had been, once. He pulled back the mattress then, spread an old newspaper over the springs and carefully laid out his trousers. He let the mattress down easily.

  In the bathroom, he took a shower. The water was hot. He began to feel warm and he was sure the blood was stirring through his veins for the first time in hours. When he had dried with the big towel, he came back into the bedroom, yawning. He was bone tired, but he felt almost human again.

  He went over and turned down the covers on the bed. That’s when he heard the stealthy movement in the hallway. He straightened slowly, listening.

  Someone was breathing shallowly just beyond his door. He looked at the chain catch and swore soundlessly. He moved cautiously over to the wall beside the door. Painstakingly, he lifted the chain from the catch and inched it back against the door so there wasn’t a sound.

  He could hear movement as the man outside pressed closer to the door, listening. Steve put his hand on the knob of the automatic lock. With his left hand he grasped the doorknob. He twisted both of them at once and flung the door open.

  The big man in the brown suit half fell into the room upon him. While the fellow was still off balance, Blake chopped down across his neck with the side of his thick hand. The man grunted just once. His knees bumped and then he sprawled forward on his face.

  Steve closed the door, cutting off the faint sound of the radio down the corridor. The man’s rain-splattered hat had fallen off. His head was large and balding. Steve bent down and roughly turned him over on his back.

  He recognized him then. And the cold came back. And Steve knew he was going to get the shakes again. The man’s name was Terravasi. He was one of Arrenhower’s company police goons.

  They know, he thought sickly.

  Arrenhower has somehow discovered who I am, what I am and what I was doing in his big plant. And then he thought, how long have they known? How long have they been watching me?

  Long enough to plan Stella’s murder? Long enough to set a murder-frame to catch me in?

  He shook his head weakly. It was a chance you took in his racket. But you can’t ever know what it will be like to be caught. Not until it’s too late. Not until they send their goons to follow you in the night.

  Poor Stella, he thought anguishedly, it must have been hell for her, facing it alone. He felt a shudder wrack at his belly.

  He looked down at Terravasi. The big man was beginning to stir on the scabrous rug. There was a man in the room with Steve Blake. But he had never felt so alone in all his life.

  5

  BLAKE WENT in the bathroom, got the towel he’d dried with after his shower and knotted it about his flat-bellied waist.

  He sat down then on a straight chair. He could feel that knot of fear congealing in his belly. Terravasi was one of Arrenhower’s goons. That meant Arrenhower knew that Robert Cole, employee, was actually Steven Blake, private eye, who had moved in to take the place of the murdered investigator named Roberts.

  He sat perfectly still in his chair. Finally, Terravasi sat up on the floor and hung his head loosely forward. A groan bubbled across Terravasi’s mouth.

  At last, he looked up. His pain-ridden eyes bored into Blake’s, showing cold hatred.

  “All right, guy,” he muttered.

  Blake leaned forward. “You want more, Terravasi?”

  Terravasi shook his head painfully. “No.”

  “It would be no inconvenience,” Blake said evenly. “There’s plenty more where that came from. You’ll remember that, won’t you, Terravasi?”

  “I’ll remember it.”

  “I’ll remember it, Mr. Blake.”

  Terravasi looked at him. “I’ll remember it, Mr. Blake.”

  “How long you been tailing me?”

  Terravasi just looked at him.

  “Did you kill Stella, too?” Blake muttered hoarsely. “Did they send you to take care of all of it, Terravasi?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “You will, Terravasi. I imagine it would take a lot of noise to disturb the management of this watering place. It wouldn’t take a lot of noise right now for me to beat you to death.”

  Terravasi stared up at him from the floor. “Ain’t no use, Blake. I just work. Same as you. Go ahead, beat me. I guess right now you could. But I won’t say anything. What’s the use to talk to keep you from killing me? If I talked to you, I couldn’t even get out of this stinkin’ town alive.”

  Blake met Terravasi’s sullen gaze. He knew the swarthy goon was telling the truth. This was the second time in one night that Blake had allowed himself to be dissuaded from using his fists. Somebody has got to
talk, he told himself, somewhere they’ve got to begin talking.

  There had to be a way to force talk. But he knew that a beating wouldn’t help him with Terravasi.

  He stood up, trying to keep the defeat from his face, trying to keep his aloneness from showing in the despairing sag of his bare, cold shoulders.

  “Okay, Terravasi, get out. This room is taken. I got a scruple this week, Terravasi. No men guests in my room after midnight.”

  Terravasi stood up, holding his head slightly askew.

  Blake looked at him. “Sorry about the neck, Terravasi. Next time, let me know when you’re coming. I’ll break it.” Their eyes met. “You know I mean that, don’t you, Terravasi?”

  The goon nodded. “I know.”

  Blake held the door open. “This is where you came in, Terravasi.”

  Terravasi walked past him. The music was still streaming out from under the door of room 305. For a moment, Blake stood and watched the thick-shouldered man plod down the hall. He closed the door again then and bolted it.

  He shivered. The room had been warm when he came into it. But it was chilled now. Blake could feel the muscles in his belly constrict with cold. He pulled off the towel and let it fall in a heap on the rug. He sank down on the bed and covered up, lying there staring at the paint-scabbed ceiling. He thought bitterly, I’d hate to be a whore and live in a room like this. Nothing to look at but that filthy ceiling and some man’s filthy eyes. The room was silent now and the thin stream of the music filtered through the walls from the room down the hall.

  There was a telephone on the table beside the bed. He turned his head on the pillow, staring at the black instrument and its round dial face. A lot of things you could do with a telephone. You could call the police and tell them to come and get you. And you’d be safe then from Arrenhower and his goons. He shook his head. No, he was like Terravasi in that deal. There was no choice. Heads, I lose. Tails, I lose.

  He buried his head in the pillow and tried to sleep. The music sifted through the stuffing of the pillow. It was a haunting love song. He had danced to that song, with Stella. How sweet. How romantic. Christ, didn’t that guy down there ever turn that thing off?