Chapter V (1)

    "I've got to look into a butcher store," Fink said. "Drive over with me. You can tell me about those letters."
    They got into a dusty car parked in front of the Precinct Station. Fink was a small, slender man with thin blonde hair and the harmless manner of a bank clerk. He had a soft sweet voice. He seemed shy. His smile was hesitant and haphazard, as though he acknowledged humor but had given up hope of ever recognizing it.
    "Shopping for dinner?" Lennox asked.
    "No. The Health Department had a complaint this butcher is selling bad meat. They couldn't find anything so they handed it to us. You can tell me about those letters."
    Lennox told him. Fink drove carefully and listened without comment. Finally he shook his head.
    "Tough," he said.
    "You mean dangerous?"
    "Tough to locate the writer."
    "Are the letters dangerous?"
    "Everything's dangerous."
    "That isn't much help. I'm scared."
    "It's smart to be scared. You don't know who they're written to?"
    "No. Like I told you, it could be a choice of eight."
    "Maybe." Fink smiled. "We'll see if we can find out who's writing them. You've got all the letters in this folder?"
    "Yes."
    "If you're worried about next Sunday why don't you keep the public out of your theater?"
    "We can't do it, Sergeant.... Mr.... Which is it?"
    "Bob."
    "I didn't know you people were so informal."
    "We're not. It's code."
    "Code! You're kidding. I don't believe it."
    Fink nodded. "Say you're in my office being questioned. One of my associates walks in and he doesn't know who you are. I have to warn him to be careful what he says. Instead of calling him by his first name I call him Mister. That's the tip-off."
    "I'm flattered. You make me feel like a deputy."
    "If you're worried about next Sunday why don't you keep the public out of your theater?"
    "How do you know I'm not a crook, Bob? Why'd you teach me your code?"
    "Any friend of Ned's."
    "No. Honestly."
    "You know everybody in your business, don't you?"
    "Practically."
    "I know everybody in my business."
    "But suppose I tell other people and it gets out?"
    "What difference? We're protecting ourselves. We don't care who knows it. If you're worried about next Sunday why don't you keep the public out of your theater?"
    The third repetition of the question, identically phrased, made Lennox aware of a tenacious quality in this quiet little man. He could not be diverted.
    "It's a comedy show," Lennox explained. "We have to have an audience. Our star wouldn't work without one."
    "He could try."
    "He wouldn't want to try."
    "You can ask him."
    "I'll ask him, but I know the answer. I thought ... well, that you might put some of your men in the house Sunday night."
    "For eight hundred people? It wouldn't do much good." Fink smiled haphazardly. "How do you hand out the tickets?"
    "Mostly through the network. They're requested by mail."
    "They never keep any record. Doesn't your sponsor get tickets too?"
    "I'll let you in on our code," Lennox grinned. "We never call them the sponsor. Always the client. In case you want to pass as a TV artist."
    "Thanks. Doesn't your sponsor get tickets too?"
    "He gets a batch. So does the agency. Also the producer, Mel Grabinett."
    "How far ahead do you hand out tickets?"
    "About two weeks."
    "Then they're all out for next Sunday?"
    "Yes."
    Fink smiled. "Well.... We'll see if we can find out who's writing them. You've got all the letters in this folder?"
    "All. Oh. I had them photostated. Is that all right?"
    Fink nodded and parked the car before a small butcher store in a run-down tenement. He opened the glove compartment, placed the manila folder inside, then carefully locked the compartment. They got out of the car and he locked the doors carefully.
    "Need any more from me, Bob?"
    "The letters are enough."
    "Then I'll be going."
    "What's your hurry? Come on in."
    Fink led the way to the tenement doorway alongside the butcher store. Lennox had expected him to enter the store. Instead, Fink entered the house in which the store occupied the street floor front. The letter boxes were battered and unnamed. A card stuck in the glass door read DUGAN—SUPER.
    "It's a condemned house," Fink said. He pushed open the door and walked past a lopsided flight of stairs. He knocked on the door of the rear apartment. Lennox held his breath. There was an incredibly foul odor in the building.
    The door opened and a shriveled woman appeared.
    "Mrs. Dugan?" Fink said quietly. "The Health Department had a complaint this butcher is selling bad meat. I'm Fink from the Precinct." He slipped his wallet out, flipped it open to display the blue and gold badge pinned inside, then returned it to his back pocket.
    "I don't know nothing about it, I'm sure," Mrs. Dugan quavered.
    "This is just routine."
    Fink pushed into the apartment, followed by Lennox. They went down a hall to a tiny parlor facing a narrow court. It was dark and cluttered with dismal furniture. Fink remained standing. He caught Jake's eye, looked down at a chair, then back at Lennox and shook his head slightly. Lennox remained standing. His skin began to crawl. Mrs. Dugan slumped down in a rocker.
    "The Health Department had a complaint this butcher is selling bad meat," Fink repeated. "Anybody in the building buy from him?"
    "There's nobody but us," Mrs. Dugan said.
    "No tenants?"
    She shook her head.
    "Just you and your husband?"
    She nodded.
    "Dugan's the super?"
    "Yes."
    "You buy meat from this butcher?"
    Her hands twitched on her knees. Fink waited patiently for her to answer.
    "You buy meat from this butcher?"
    "Yes," Mrs. Dugan whispered.
    "Any of it bad?"
    "No."
    Fink took out his notebook and scribbled. Lennox flexed his right arm against his chest, then looked around uneasily.
    "Where's Dugan?" Fink inquired.
    "He went up to the roof to look for leaks." The woman tapped her knee with a stained forefinger. "On account of the snow."
    "Uh-huh. Snow was pretty bad last night?"
    She nodded and tapped her knee again. "Awful. He been up there all morning. The roofs is shot."
    Fink put away the notebook. As he turned to leave he jerked his head at a framed photograph of a man in World War I uniform.
    "That Dugan?"
    "Yes," she said. "He lost his eye at Shatto Theory."
    "Tough," Fink murmured and departed.
    Outside in the hall the odor was sickening.
    "Smell that?" Fink said. "It's why the Health Department got those complaints."
    "Aren't you going to check the butcher?"
    "Is the old lady still in the apartment?"
    "Yes."
    "Uh-huh. Where's the way to the basement? Oh. Here. Come on." Fink opened a wooden door behind the flight of stairs and produced a flashlight. He started down. Lennox followed.
    "Why the basement?" he asked.
    "Didn't you see her give it away?"
    "Give what away?"
    "When she said Dugan was up on the roof. She kept pointing down with her finger."
    The basement was a reeking mass of rotting crates and cartons. There was a furnace in the middle with hot-air ducts spreading up to the low ceiling like square octopus arms. Fink located a hanging light bulb and switched it on. He walked to the street end of the basement, crouching under the ducts.
    "We'll try the coal bins first," he said. "That's the usual."
    "Bob! What is this?"
    "She was lying," Fink explained. "You have to be good to make all of you lie at the same time. Part of you always gives the truth away. That finger gave her away. Dugan's down here." He picked up a long-handled shovel and began turning over coke in the wooden bunkers.
    "Dugan's down here?"
    "Uh-huh. Didn't you see his war picture? The wives hate to give up the pension when the husbands die, so sometimes they don't report the death. But they have to hide the body...." Fink shoveled vigorously, then grunted: "Look."
    A hand and arm were thrust out of the coke. It was a left hand, rotting, swarming with maggots. Lennox let out a hoarse cry and backed away. He turned and ran crouching under the ducts to the basement stairs.
    "Hey! Lennox!" Fink called in surprise.
    Lennox gasped out an apology and raced up the steps. He held his breath. In the hall he came face to face with Mrs. Dugan just coming out of her apartment. He averted his head and ran out into the street. He found a saloon, went in and had two quick shots of brandy, trying to forget that hideous left hand. The brandy took hold in his stomach and he was able to relax. Presently he nodded emphatically. "By God!" he muttered. "He'll find out who's writing those letters. He'll save us. I wouldn't have believed it. A bank clerk."
    He was still nodding and muttering to himself when he met me in Sabatini's. I took him to the coat room, showed him the burberry and handed him the check. I took out his gimmick book and gave it to him. He patted it fondly, the way you pat a faithful dog, and slipped it into his pocket. Then he flexed his right arm against his chest and grinned at me.
    "Like getting my heart back, Kit," he said. "Thanks. I had one hell of a fantastic experience this morning. What are you drinking?"
    We went to the bar and gave Romo our orders and Lennox told me about his guided tour through a nightmare and the corpse in the coke. "If you didn't come up with anything in the library," he said, "I'll make you a gift of the story."
    "I can't use the story, Jake. Continuity would never pass it. But I could use the gimmick."
    "It's yours."
    "You mean that? Thanks." I really was grateful. Lennox knew how to pay for a favor. "It's solid, Man. That finger pointing down when she's swearing the husband's up on the roof. Great sight gimmick. It's the most." I began to drift off into a plot.
    "Write it down, Kitten."
    "What? Oh, I don't have to. Gimmicks like this you never forget."
    "Locate anything this morning?"
    "Something real odd. Poison-eaters."
    "Poison-eaters? You're putting me on."
    "No, Jake. I'm not kidding. I'm going to use it for a switch on the tired routine about an unknown killer menacing unknown victims. You know. Who's doing what to who and why."
    Lennox spilled his drink.
    "What's the matter?"
    "Nothing. Go on."
    "Here's the gimmick. You know about the dope habit. People start hitting heroin or cocaine and can't get off the hook. Well, the same thing happens with poison."
    "I don't believe it."
    "Some people acquire the poison habit. They eat arsenic for their health and—"
    "Their health!"
    "That's right. They take it in small doses so it isn't lethal and they build up a tolerance for it."
    "Why?"
    "They've got an idea it's good for them. For malaria. A tonic. An aphrodisiac. But dig this. Once they start they can't stop. It's habit-forming like dope. They've got to keep on eating poison the rest of their lives."
    "I'll be damned."
    "And they thrive on it, Jake. That's the truth." I waited a couple of minutes and then asked: "Why'd you throw a fit before?"
    He grimaced. "That line about an unknown killer and unknown victims. It was a little too close to home."
    "How?"
    "I'm in the same fix, Kitten."
    "You're an unknown killer?"
    "No. One of the victims."
    "This I got to hear."
    He shrugged. "Let's have another drink. I'll tell you about it if you swear to keep it quiet."
    I reached out with both arms and touched the crowd surrounding the bar. "On a stack of agency men."
    Jake snorted. We had another drink and he unloaded the letter story in a low voice, his eyes flashing angrily, his fists clenching and unclenching. He had a set of photostats in his pocket, but he wouldn't show them to me then ... not in Sabatini's with half the business leaning over our shoulders warning Romo to leave the garbage out of the old-fashioneds. When he was finished, Lennox looked at me expectantly.
    "You're a mystery writer, Kitten. How would you crack this one?"
    "When I plot 'em," I said, "I've got sense enough to give myself a gimmick to get out on. A left-handed man pulls matches from the left side of the book. The U. S. didn't mint any silver dollars from 1909 to 1921. All ticket punches have different designs ... and so on. Where's your gimmick?"
    "There isn't any I know of."
    "Then leave it to Fink. Smart cop, Fink. He'll find the gimmick."
    Lennox nodded. "But damn it, I can't sit on my credits and wait for the explosion Sunday. I've got to do something."
    "You're an amateur, Jake. Stay out of the act."
    "I've got a crazy feeling that everything's hanging on this one week. If I fight through the week, I'm safe. I've got to fight, Kitten."
    "You fight too much. Sit tight for a change and wait."
    "No. Damn it. No." He brooded, then burst out: "I've got an idea what to do."
    "What?"
    "While Fink's looking for the guy who's writing these letters...."
    "Could be a dame."
    "What?"
    "A dame. A doll. A tootsie. A—"
    "I heard you. I never thought of that, but you're right. It could be a woman. So. While Fink's looking for the writer, I could be looking for the writee."
    "Where's your gimmick?"
    He waved around at the bar. "Right here in this Violent Ward."
    "You better explain. Take it from the top."
    "If I called in everybody on the show and just told them about the letters, they'd deny they were written to them. There wouldn't be any impact. They'd be able to cover up the secret."
    "Why should they cover?"
    "You don't get threatening letters unless you've got something dirty in your past."
    "Why should it be secret?"
    "Because the letters are anonymous. No addressee. No signature. It's got to be a secret between two people. Yes?"
    "I'll buy it."
    "Whoever's sending those letters knows the right man will recognize them as soon as he sees them. All right. I know how to tag the one out of the eight who's getting the threats."
    "How?"
    "They're all in the business. Mixed up, neurotic, sick in the head like this sunny straight-jacket crowd in here right now. You have to be sick to like this rat-race. The higher up you rise in the spiral, the more precarious your balance becomes ... like a kid on ten-foot stilts."
    "I think of them balancing like tightrope walkers."
    "But balance is the gimmick, Kitten." Lennox pounded his point like a piledriver. "Balance. Balance. Balance. Suppose I pulled these letters on them in private, one after the other. Mason. Sachs. Stacy. Kay Hill. Plummer. Charlie Hansel. Took the letters out and said: 'This was sent to you. Read it.' Watched them read it. You know how precariously they're balanced. On twenty-foot stilts. Living on nerves. Wouldn't the impact knock them off? Wouldn't the right one give himself away?"
    I thought that over. "The trouble with your idea," I objected, "is that if they're all precarious like you—"
    "They are. You know that. The whole damned business is. That's what I hate about it. I feel like a visitor in a booby-hatch."
    "Then they'd all be knocked off balance, guilty or not guilty. They'd all fall off their tightrope."
    "No, you're wrong."
    "What about Blinky? You said he threw a fit."
    "But not a guilty fit. That was obvious. No, by God! It'll work. I know it'll work. I'm going to try it. You want to place any bets? I'll make book."
    "My money's on Sachs. He stole that song he wrote back in Chicago."
    "What about Kay Hill? From Brooklyn. Trying to pass as English. She's from Canarsie where they really breed crooks. What about Charlie Hansel, the undercover queen? Trying to pass with that hoofer he married."
    "She's married? That fag?"
    "Yes. To a dame named Gretel. They used to be 'Hansel and Gretel, Dansomimes.'"
    "Oh no! Dansomimes?"
    "The queens could be catching up with Charlie. What about Oliver Stacy? He's run through every woman in town. He went through the Rehearsal Club like a plague. Forty-three ingenues in thirty-six days. And how about Johnny Plummer? He's a Commie."
    "You sure?"
    "Almost positive."
    "God knows, you may be right about them, Jake. When the right man reads those letters there could be a blast that no one could miss. Maybe a complete confession. If—"
    I broke off because Lennox wasn't listening. He was staring at Roy Audibon, the network veep, who was passing through the crowded bar on the way into the restaurant. Vice-presidents are job lot in Sabatini's and Lennox couldn't be gaping at Audibon even though he is the original charm-boat. Tall, slender, grizzled hair, hornrim glasses, a smile that could register on a Geiger Counter.... Audibon is the veep's veep. He's Mr. Network. I noticed that he was with a dark girl in a grey flannel suit. She had cropped curly hair, oriental eyes, and a lazy carriage. She was a looker, but you get to expect that in Sabatini's. Only the lookers get taken there. It was Gabby Valentine, of course, but I didn't find that out until later.
    "Roy Audibon!" Lennox exclaimed angrily.
    "What's the matter?"
    "I'm in pain."
    "Where does it hurt?"
    "I don't know. Let's find out." He waved to Heitor, the head waiter. Heitor came bustling up to the bar prepared to give us a hard time. I saw Lennox slip him two tens and lay down the law in a whisper.
    "Yes, Mr. Lennox? At once, Mr. Lennox?" Heitor always made every statement a question. "If you will bring your drinks to the table, please? The table is ready now, gentlemen?"
    "I'll spring for lunch," Lennox said and we went into the dining room. Heitor bustled to the side tables against the wall and pulled an empty away from the banquette. It was alongside Audibon's. Lennox, who is invariably punctilious, broke his rule and held me back with a firm nudge. He slipped in first and sat down alongside Gabby who was gazing at him with big eyes. Then I sat down and the table locked us in.
    That was one of the best luncheons I never had. I got stuck with the check, too, but that didn't bother me. I knew Lennox would settle up, once he recovered his sanity ... if he ever did. He started off ignoring Gabby. He just pressed against her as he leaned over to speak to Audibon.
    "I beg your pardon, friend. I'm a stranger in town. Would you point out some celebrities, if any?"
    "Hello Jake," Audibon smiled. All the Geiger Counters went clickety-click.
    "Are you a celebrity?" Lennox inquired genially. "They say that real life vice-presidents can be seen in the flesh, or was it the Altogether?"
    "Why sure, son. Got your autograph album? There's Mr. Avery Borden right across from you." Audibon smiled across the restaurant to Avery Borden who also is the original charm-boat. Tall, slender, grizzled hair and hornrim glasses. Mr. Agency. Borden smiled back. Clickety-click. Clickety-click.
    "But are you a vice-president?" Lennox wanted to know.
    "I'll show you my tax statement," Audibon answered and turned to Gabby.
    "I beg your pardon, Miss." Lennox drew back. "Was I leaning on your derriere?"
    "I'd have to answer that in French."
    "Are you a vice-president?" Lennox asked her. "Answer in English."
    "Not altogether," Gabby said. "Haven't you accosted me before?"
    "I hardly think it possible. I just got out of stir."
    Gabby clapped her hands. "Of course I know you. You're famous. They wrote you up in the Calabash Chronicle."