Death Dives Deep Page 8

  "Dandy, hold on—what happened?"

  He coughed, almost laughing. His eyes tried to find me. He was dying. He knew it and I knew it. By the feel of his back. It was awash with blood. He was soaked with the stuff. I was oblivious to everything else now. The world could have come crashing down around my ears and I wouldn't have heard it.

  "Dandy . . . " I pleaded.

  "Damn dame . . . never should have trusted a dame. . . . Noon . . . " I bent my face toward his lips, the husky, hoarse death rattle coming on him. In only a few more seconds, he'd never have anything to say to anybody. Not in this world. "Noon . . . where are you? . . . Damn you . . . can't see . . . " His knuckled fingers clawed at my tie.

  "I'm here. Right here."

  "Go . . . after them. . . . They know . . . they know . . . everything. . . ." He didn't really say the last word out loud. He couldn't. He only mouthed it, formed the sound. He died even as I lowered him to the floor. He closed his eyes and stopped moving.

  Cursing under my breath, I vaulted his bulk and charged toward 1 E. I didn't need more than five seconds. That's all it took to find an empty apartment and the curtained glass door which was in one corner of the kitchenette opening onto a garden area of space that now showed several sets of footprints tracking out of the area. The surrounding buildings sprung up like rocky canyons all around the enclosed square, showing about a half-dozen alleyways disappearing into the snowy darkness. I got back out of the apartment in a hurry. The old mad medley of noises, windows grating up, people shouting, wanting to know what was going on, and that crazy customer who always complains how-can-a-man-sleep-in-all-this-racket? was coming down at me from all sides. It was a nuthouse.

  In the foyer, slumped in death, Dandy Jaxon's body was still blocking the doorway, keeping it open. It took me another fast five seconds to race through his pockets. I skipped the loose change, the balled handkerchief and keys. There was no scrap of paper or stubs from plays. Only his billfold interested me. It was a thick, lumpy brown leather job and I confiscated it without stopping to look at it. A brave soul in a faded bathrobe was yelling at me from the top of the second landing now. I saw only the hem of his robe and the striped pajama legs. Nobody had the nerve to open a door on the very floor where the shooting had come from. Little Old New York and its curious apathy for getting involved. Or hurt.

  By that time, I had quit the building myself. Running down the snow-crested steps and hurrying up the block toward the East Side. Behind me, the uproar now increased in volume. Thanks to the heavier snow that was falling, pedestrian traffic was down to a minimum. The West Side in the Fifties, after nine o'clock, is pretty deserted except for the supper crowds that like to try the fancier bistros. They'd all be indoors anyway, feeding the inner man. Holing up.

  I faded into the night, without being stopped, finding a south-bound cab on Madison Avenue. Climbing in, I gave the hackie my office address. There was a very important phone call to make that I had put off long enough. The one to the Chief. I had gotten nowhere, really. I had accomplished nothing so much as a mess. A mess and a puzzle.

  It was too early to make any sense at all out of what must have happened at the apartment. Dandy Jaxon and Arvis Healey had gone pile-driving into Serena Savage's home and right on top of that, maybe two minutes later, six shots had rung out. By the look of him, Jaxon had taken all six, in the back it looked like. His dying words pointed the finger at a woman. Serena Savage, obviously. But it could have been Arvis Healey, too. He shouldn't have trusted her, Dandy had said.

  Who her?

  And why had Jaxon been killed in the first place and so fast? For the manuscript, which was only a copy, and had been lifted from him at the time or left somewhere earlier? I just didn't know. And why the hell had Harry Healey, Serena Savage and Arvis Healey suddenly taken off like three big-assed birds without a moment's notice? They didn't know I was outside and even if they had, what difference could it have made?

  No, it all smacked of more fishiness than a Russian agreement with Hitler. And vice versa.

  I had blundered once again, like radar, into a capital-sized nuthouse of a case.

  The cab and its thankfully nontalking driver plowed down Madison and turned into West Forty-sixth Street. I might run into a stakeout, or at the very least, a beat cop, on duty at the building where a shooting had taken place earlier that day. It all depended on what Captain Michael Monks had made of the situation. He could have tied it in with my operations or not, just as easily. But blow hot or cold, I had to get back to that very special telephone.

  I had a few seconds to take a quick run through Dandy Jaxon's wallet. The very first thing I found was enough to make me stop looking. For a long stupid second, my brain literally froze. I've seen too many of them in my time to be fooled. The thing that made me feel like a real idiot was staring at me from one of the windows of the plastic inserts section of the wallet that a man always uses to hold his driver's license, permits and important credit cards.

  There was no mistaking the authenticity of this particular ID card. It was no forgery. It couldn't be. I recognized the quality of the paper and the very famous signatures on the lower left-hand corner.

  It was an identification card signifying that the owner was an agent for the Federal Bureau of Investigation. It was made out in the name of Walter Adams and it bore a photographed likeness of the man I had known as Dandy Jaxon. The photo was him down to the tough mouth, big nose and hard eyes. No passport snap, this one.

  The cab lurched to a stop and the cabbie batted his meter flag. I paid him in a dumb haze. I don't even think I said good night to him. When he left me standing in front of my building, the snow was two inches high and still falling. The street was deserted. I got out my keys. The tiny night light still glowed in the long, narrow lobby of the building behind the plate-glass front door. I didn't see a cop or a plainclothesman. Or anybody. The building was asleep and maybe, just this once, Mike Monks had thought the shooting was somebody else's beef. Unless he had sent a man up to my office and found it open with my .45 on the desk where Jaxon had tossed it when he was still alive. That would have been suspicious and demanded an explanation. You just don't leave loaded .45s lying around. Nor do you leave your office open. Not when you're a working, competent private investigator. But I had to take my chances. The game was getting away from me and I had to ask the scorekeeper what my next move was. Maybe the game was over and I was wasting my time.

  The major burning question sticking in my craw now was: How did Serena Savage know that I was involved in Harry Healey's manuscript? She had known enough to hang around outside the building in a waiting Jaguar. Or was that simply because she had followed Dandy Jaxon and Arvis Healey to my office? Or followed Jesus Killy?

  Dandy Jaxon. Walter Adams. If that part was really on the level, I no longer knew which end was up. How could I? A mere twelve hours since the Chief had called and sent the manuscript from Xerox and I was all tangled and brangled in a mystery and fantasy that made absolutely no sense. And just might stay that way.

  Jesus Killy's blood was still a brownish smear on the tiled floor outside the elevator. I pressed the Up button. It was obvious the M.E.'s office and the lab men had made all their tests and photos and other little stunts so necessary when they get a corpse. There were even traces of fingerprint powder all over the elevator door and vicinity. They probably had a gorgeous set of my ten thumbs, but at least I lived in the building. I had an excuse. Or alibi if I needed one.

  The elevator purred to a stop on the sixth floor. It looked like I was the only one that wanted to work late that night. The doors of all the offices and businesses on the floor were dark and silent. I tried to walk softly down the lighted, tiled corridor because awesome quiet imposes that sort of suggestive command on you. But it was no good. My leather heels clicked. It felt like the Last Mile.

  My front door, pebbled glass and prominent name, seemed to mock me. I turned the knob and tapped the door inward. I waited and listened.
Through the narrow slit I had made I could see the neons from the building across the way glowing lambently. A familiar sight. I also saw something else. And heard something else.

  A shadow that didn't duck back quite fast enough for me to miss, blending with the darkness of Melissa Mercer's desk. There was also a sharp intake of breath. I stood back from the door.

  Suddenly, the office lights blazed on and a strong, mellow voice, unhurried and quite calm, considering the circumstances, said:

  "Stand still. Don't run. Your silhouette is in plain view and we can blast you where you stand."

  Me and my shadow.

  It wasn't the mob. It wasn't the sound of personal threat. It had all the majesty and forbearance and authority that only a big, legal organization can invest in a man's voice.

  "I'm not going anyplace," I said. "What is all this?" The lights were still hurting my eyes. I batted them, adjusting my vision.

  "Federal Bureau of Investigation, Mr. Noon. You haven't been home all day. We thought you might come back here."

  "Why not? It's where I work. Can I come in now?"

  "Certainly. You will stand still for an arms search. Bill."

  I walked into the office. Someone closed the door behind me. I immediately held my arms high. Practiced hands and fingers palmed me from the armpits down, fanning all the way to my ankles. The same hands reached around my body and patted the usual places. It's a scary feeling. It always is.

  I stood still and took it, trying not to think about the wallet in my coat which had belonged to Dandy Jaxon who was now dead and just might be a real, old-fashioned F.B.I. man.

  "Clean," Bill said from behind my back. I half turned, seeing a tall, somber-faced young guy with a cleaner face than mine has ever been. I turned back to the man parked on the corner of Melissa Mercer's desk. Both he and Bill were topcoated in sober blues with trim blue porkpie hats. The man on the desk was penduluming one thigh back and forth as he surveyed me. The trouble with all F.B.I. men everywhere is that they all look alike. Clean-cut, sober-faced, intelligent looking and always the sort of faces you expect to see around a conference table in an executive suite. Young faces, too. They always seem to hide their real age. I've met them before.

  "He's Bill," I said. "So who are you? And let me see some IDs please."

  "Raleigh," the man on the desk said, swinging open a slick leather wallet to show me a card like the one resting in Dandy Jaxon's wallet. "He's Hopton. I'm afraid we'll have to ask you to come down to headquarters with us. We want to ask you a few questions."

  I walked farther into the office and moved around to the chair facing Melissa Mercer's desk. After hours it looked different.

  "What kind of headquarters?"

  "F.B.I. headquarters," Raleigh said, without showing any teeth. "I have the necessary subpoena. We want to talk to you in reference to the man who was killed in this building today. Jesus Killy." He pronounced the name the proper way. Hay-sooz.

  "I see."

  "Do you want to see the subpoena?"

  "No, thank you. Suppose I tell you right now I don't know any—how do you say that—Hay-what Killy?"

  Raleigh smiled bleakly and got off the desk. His shoulder jerked at Bill Hopton behind me. I felt Hopton's body move toward me. I didn't turn around. I smiled at Raleigh.

  "You're not going to strong-arm me, are you, Raleigh?"

  "I wouldn't think of it, Mr. Noon. No handcuffs, no guns, no fuss. You'll even get a limousine ride. Red carpet and everything. That suit you?"

  "Sure. Why not? I don't suppose you'd let me make one telephone call?" I gestured toward the inner office.

  "Why—do you think you need a lawyer?"

  "I have a date at eleven o'clock. If I go with you, my lady friend is going to be awfully sore about waiting. You know how it is. I wouldn't want to lose this particular lady friend. She plays a whopping game of chess."

  Hopton laughed behind my back.

  Raleigh frowned at him. Hopton shut up.

  "I can't let you use the phone, Mr. Noon. Sorry about that. If we hold you, you're entitled to a phone call. Until then, let's just have a nice visit. All right?"

  "You call that a choice?" I was trying to think fast. Nobody knows about me and the Chief and the red-white-and-blue-phone. That was the way it had always been and the way it had to be. I had no official status with him and not even the F.B.I. could have known about me despite some very good public and official relations in the past when I had helped them out on cases where the President had had no direct part.

  Raleigh motioned me toward the door. I shrugged. "Mind if I get my topcoat out of the closet? The snow's gotten heavier."

  "Go ahead. Just don't be stupid about anything. You're in no trouble yet. We just want to ask some questions. Remember that. Hopton is a crack shot and I'm not so bad, either."

  "You didn't have to tell me," I said.

  It was while I was wrapping myself up in a raglan-sleeved salt-and-pepper coat that Hopton suddenly remembered something. His face wore a curious grin. He had a question for his superior.

  "Aren't you going to ask him about that fruity-looking phone in his office?"

  I kept my face blank. "Is that any way for an F.B.I. man to talk? The colors red, white and blue are not fruity, friend. I'm ashamed of you."

  Hopton glared. "Sappy colors for a telephone. That's all."

  Raleigh made a sour face. "Forget that phone, Bill. It's out of order anyway. All we got was a crazy squawking sound. Like a record played at the wrong speed."

  "That so? Must be out of order," I said, off-handedly. "Well, Alexander Graham Bell never knew what he started way back when. Not to mention Donald Ameche."

  "You mean Donald Duck, don't you, Noon?" Hopton sneered. "Out with it. Who's that phone really belong to? You don't look like the sort of man who'd go in for such oddball colors. Psychedelics?"

  "To tell you the truth," I said, "it's a hot line to the White House and anytime the President needs my advice on Vietnam, he just picks up his phone and calls me on that line."

  Nobody ever believes the truth, not the crazy kind, and they were no exceptions. I'd been pulling that sort of verbal stunt for years but I wasn't prepared for the reaction I got from Federal Agents Raleigh and Hopton. They both froze and their faces got a little colder, tighter, harder and less friendlier.

  "You've got a poor sense of humor, Mr. Noon," Raleigh said in an odd voice. "Considering the circumstances."

  "Come on," Hopton barked. "Let's get going. You've stalled long enough." He looked mad enough to sock me.

  Something about their voices and demeanors checked me.

  "Wait just a minute. That was just a joke . . . ."

  "Some joke," Raleigh said. "Or didn't you get anywhere near a radio or TV set today?"

  I was afraid to ask. They saw the fear in my eyes. Hopton shrugged, his manner relenting. "Maybe you didn't know. But the President suffered a heart attack this afternoon. At the White House. About three P.M. The whole country's on a minute-to-minute standby for some very bad news."

  "The worst kind," Raleigh said with some finality. "Come on. Let's get out of here."

  There wasn't any quarrel or argument left in me.

  They led me out of the office, turning off the lights and locking the door. I couldn't think of a single thing to say. Not anything that would be sensible at any rate.

  My brain had been short-circuited.

  The snow was still pelting down when we reached the street.

  God wasn't in his heaven and all was not right with the world.

  There are times when even the Brownings can be dead wrong.

  F. B. I.–CAUGHT A SPY

  AGENT Raleigh wasn't kidding about the limousine but his red carpet was slightly worn around the edges. It took him and his partner Hopton about twenty minutes to hustle me into a dark touring car and whisk me through the snowy Manhattan streets to the Federal Bureau of Investigation office on East Sixty-ninth Street. I'd never been there before.
Under the circumstances, I could have skipped this trip, too. I was carrying a stick of dynamite in my pocket. A dead F.B.I. agent's wallet. I got a headache thinking about if the kill had already been phoned in.

  In the old days, in a spot like this was sizing up to be, I would have tried to evade being brought in. Maybe even by putting up a fight. But I was older now and maybe smarter. Or less agile than in the old days. Trying to dodge out of Raleigh and Hopton's arrest—they couldn't kid me, for that's all it could be—would have meant nothing but trouble. And a possible bullet in the back.

  I was still too young to die. And where could I have gone? I had no leads, Melissa Mercer was out of town, Michael Monks couldn't protect me from an F.B.I. interrogation and there wasn't anybody I could tell: Honest, guys. I'm a special deluxe agent working for the President. In fact, only he knew about it.

  A sudden heart attack. What lousy luck—for the Chief and for me. And Harry Healey, Arvis his daughter and Serena Savage his mistress were getting farther and farther away, taking with them the questionable mystery of the manuscript and all those water people. Dandy Jaxon and Jesus Killy were both dead, and if Dandy had been Walter Adams, truly, I was up the governmental creek without any kind of paddle at all.

  Raleigh's red carpet began to show the frayed edges as soon as he parked the car off Columbus Avenue. The still-falling snow would have hidden the carpet anyway. But suddenly he and Hopton clamped both my arms at my side and strong-armed me into a wide, cold-looking building whose ground floor windows were softly, subtly lit. The air was freezing now and steam poured from our mouths and noses. I was getting a little numbed by my predicament so I didn't put up much of an argument. I would simply have to wait to see what they threw at me. I expected the good book in about sixty-seven languages.

  They didn't waste too much time or do much talking. I found myself planted in a nice square office room with a lot of filing cabinets, the familiar American flag on the left wall and a portrait of the Chief on the right one. And Raleigh and Hopton disappeared into the woodwork and I was left alone for a few minutes to think up a good story. At least, they had left me my cigarettes and all my personals. So I lit up a Camel and tried to think.