Ed Lacy - Lead With Your Left

I said slowly, “I understand what you mean but I'll never eat crow for any bigoted knucklehead who makes cracks about my race or religion. I don't think you'd want any man to take that—sir.”

Reed brought his chair down hard, waved his long arms. “Another thing, you talk too damn much. Gowan, get going before this old maid calls up about a mouse getting into her.”

I wasn't sure if Reed was smiling or not.

Wednesday Afternoon

It sure was getting muggy. I stopped for a soda and a hunk of pie, finished up with a couple of hamburgers. I was surprised I could eat I was so angry. I mean-this crap about closing the Owens case—that's what it amounted to—and having me off seeing this nutty old maid, Danny working on a stolen car. How important were they compared to that murder?

The address Reed gave me was near the southern end of the precinct, one of these old sections where some of the houses had been remodeled, a mixture of high and low rents.

As I walked down the block I passed this fancy Jaguar sedan. I don't especially care for foreign heaps but what attracted me was this real sharp sport jacket hanging from a side window. It was something: shaggy imported tweed with side pleats and patch pockets. It was a honey, strictly from a swank shop and made to order. I tried to see the label but couldn't make it. Anyway, I was spending too much on clothes as it was.

The house I wanted was a former six-story tenement that had been made over into small apartments. The mailbox name-plate read HENDERSON-HONDURA. I rang the bell and when I got an answering buzz walked up to the third floor and rang 3C. There was one of those one-way peephole deals and I heard it opening on the other side and a woman's voice asked, “What do you want?”

“Are you Miss Rose Henderson?”

“Yes.”

“You called the police a little while ago. I'm Detective Wintino,” I said, watching my face in the peephole and feeling like a sitting duck. My damn collar looked wilted already.

There was a long moment of hesitation, then: “Please show me your credentials.” The voice was deep.

I was off the Owens case for a loony like this! I took out my buzzer and nearly shoved it through the peep mirror. “That do it, lady? My name is Dave Wintino, Detective Third Grade, 201st Precinct. I'm assigned to your case. Now do you think you might open the door and let me get to work?”

As I was putting my shield back in my wallet the door opened. I was off balance: this short girl standing there with very dark close-cut hair hugging a warm and pretty face. The lips were thick and red and she wore a loose plain blue smock showing off one of these built-up-from-the-ground solid figures, almost heavy legs. I must have been giving her bug eyes for she glanced down at herself, then asked, “What's wrong?”

“Nothing. You're a surprise. Had you pegged for an old maid crackpot.”

“My, the frank policeman. This must be a new technique. You're a bit of a shock yourself, more like a college magazine salesman. Let me see that badge again, if you don't mind.”

“As you wish, citizen,” I said, flashing my tin. She grabbed my wrist and studied the badge for a moment, then said, “I'm sorry but I've been on the ragged edge these last few days. Please come in, Mr....?” She had a good grip.

“Wintino, David Wintino, Miss Henderson,” I said, stepping by her. She was using a nice mild perfume. I thought our apartment was small but it was Madison Square Garden compared to this cell. There was just room for a narrow foam rubber couch against one wall, a desk with a typewriter between two small windows, one of those red canvas African camp chairs in front of an unpainted bookcase stuffed with books, a coffee table piled with magazines and old newspapers, a battered file cabinet, then the door to the John, a closet you'd have to enter sideways, and what had to be the world's smallest combination sink, stove and refrigerator. There was a small radio on a shelf, a framed diploma from Barnard and a couple of very bright paintings of tropical scenes on the walls, and some sort of weird mobile hanging from the tricky ceiling light.

Closing the door she put her hands on her hips, asked, “Thinking of buying my place?”

“Give me claustrophobia, Miss Henderson. Where do you want me to sit?”

She pointed at the couch which was covered with a coarse deep red material. I sat and she curled up in the camp chair, her rear making a wonderful curve toward the polished floor. She lit a cigarette and I shook my head before she could offer me one. It was crazy, pretty as she was, I had to keep staring at her stomach. She had this tiny belly making a flat, silly curve as it filled out her dress—and why that excited me I didn't know. And why I was even thinking about that instead of Owens?

She said, “I do wish you'd stop inspecting me—it makes me feel as if I have two heads. Wintino? Are you of Spanish descent? You look Latin. As you may have guessed, I'm Puerto Rican—Hondura is my real name.”

“I'm part Italian. Now Miss Henderson, what's your trouble?”

“Since the beginning of last week my phone has been ringing at odd hours of the night and either nobody answers or a man's voice goes into the most obscene sex talk. Various men have been to the superintendent downstairs, making ridiculous inquiries about me. They've also been to my neighbors. I know I'm being followed on the street. In fact on Monday, Tuesday and this morning when I went to the library— and later when I was shopping—I have been jostled by several different men,” she said through the smoke of her cigarette.

“What do you mean by jostled?”

“Exactly what the word means—tripped, elbowed, pushed around.”

The last thing she looked like was a neurotic babe. “Having any trouble with your boy friends?”

“No, this isn't any so-called boy friend trouble, as you put it. I know exactly why all this is being done.”

“Okay, why?” I asked, watching that wonderful full curve move a little every time she breathed.

“Have you ever read the Weekly Spectator? I suppose not.”

“You suppose right. I hardly ever get my noggin up out of a comic book.”

She gave me a warm-smile. “Sorry, I was rude. Mr. Wintino, I'm a free-lance writer and at the moment working on an article for the Spectator—this is a weekly liberal magazine sort of like the Nation, Harper's, the Atlantic, except it deals entirely with economic subjects. My article exposes a newly formed monopoly in the electronics business. I'm certain the firms I'm writing about are trying to stop the article by making me a nervous wreck.”

I wanted to tell her she had a head start on the nervous wreck angle but instead I got out my notebook, saw my notes taken from the Owens file, said wearily, “Let me get this straight. You're doing an article for a magazine called the Weekly Spectator and you claim that because of this article you're being annoyed on the street and-your sleep is being knocked out of whack by mysterious phone calls—and all this is being done, you think, by some of the business firms you're writing about. Is that correct?”

“Yes. Don't forget the men snooping around the apartment house, and ringing my bell at odd hours of the night, and nobody there when I answer.”

I nodded, and wrote in my book, “This chick is in a bad way,” as I asked, “What makes you think these business companies are back of this?”

“Because this all started last week when they learned from a Spectator query I was writing the article.”

“You were never bothered like this before?”

“Never.”

“Can you give me the names of these firms?”

“Of course: Modern Electric, Wren & Company, Popular Electronics, and Twentieth Century Power, Inc. Two weeks ago I finished working, for over three months, as a typist for Modern Electric, to confirm my material and secure data. The magazine approved an outline and last week I started my final research and a rough draft.”

“Can you identify the men who've molested you as working for any of these outfits you mentioned?”

“Certainly not,” she said impatiently. “They're obviously hiring... uh... private detectives, I suppose, to do this.”

“When do you leave the house every day? Any set time?”

She waved her cigarette as if it was a baton. “No special time. Usually in the morning, sometimes in the afternoon. Depends upon when I get up.”

“Miss Henderson, you're saying they have at least one man, and most likely two, shadowing you all day, not to mention a guy working nights on your phone and doorbell. An all-day shadow job costs about seventy-five bucks per man, which means somebody is spending over two hundred dollars a day to make you—nervous. You claim this has been going on for a week and a half, ten days, over two grand. Lot of money for a—”

She crushed her butt with an angry gesture. “Are you implying this is all my imagination?”

“Yes and no,” I said carefully, thinking it would be exciting to see her breathe fire, and she looked like she could do it easily. “Let's examine your statement calmly. Those sexy phone calls may not mean a thing; it's fairly common for perverts to get their kicks by picking a woman's name out of the phone book, telling her things they'd never have nerve enough to say to her face. Then you say people have been around here asking about you. Could be you applied for a job some weeks ago, or opened a charge account, and they're simply making a routine check on—”

“But I haven't applied for a job or opened any accounts recently. And they ask if I'm a whore, a dope addict!”

“As for being shadowed on the street,” I went on, “many people say that. They see the same man or woman a few times during the course of the day and become convinced they're being followed. And being pushed about, jostled, that happens all the time too—a guy is rushing for a bus and bunks into—”

“Are you supposed to protect my rights or explain them away!”

“Miss Henderson, I have to look at things objectively. I'm not calling you a liar, merely trying to show you there might be other explanations for the things you complain about. For example, let's get back to a boy friend who could be sore enough to phone—'

“Will you stop jabbering about a boy friend!” she snapped, jumping to her feet.” “I haven't been on a date in months, I've been too busy. I told you I was working as a stenographer and in the evenings I did my writing. Matter of fact while I was working I finished a children's book. I don't understand your attitude, why don't you believe me?”

“I haven't said I didn't, only I can't quite see anybody spending a couple of thousand bucks a week to upset you. Suppose you finish this article and the magazine runs it, what happens?”

“Let me give you a picture of these firms. They aren't the biggest, like General Electric, but they do a good business manufacturing small electrical devices—doorbells, buzzers, switches. For the last year there have been rumors of something revolutionary in the business, what might be termed a liquid wire that can be painted on. This would cut the production cost of thousands of gadgets by at least half—do away with wiring, screws and wireholders, as a small example. A patent has already been issued to a California scientist on this. However, a certain type of crushed metal is needed to make the paint conductive and the four companies I mentioned have cornered the market on this metal. In brief, they constitute a monopoly, plan to squeeze everybody else out.”

“I still don't see why they should get so excited about your article.”