Ed Lacy - The Best That Ever Did It

For a second I nearly bawled Ruthie out, before I told myself it wasn't her fault. She was highly satisfied with things. When we got back to the apartment and finished breakfast, she asked what we were going to do now, and I said we might as well do the laundry. I got her dresses and underwear, together with my things, and the towels. We had one piece of luck—one of the two machines in the basement was empty. While we were waiting for the clothes to wash, a couple of housewives came down and made the usual comments about how nice Ruthie looked, etc. All in this patronizing tone of, “You poor, poor bastard, so brave to raise a child all alone,” which always got my water on.

We took the clothes up to the roof and hung them up. Ruthie suggested we go to Coney Island, but I wasn't up to that, and Betsy Turner was paying me thirty dollars to do some work during the day. We went down and changed the bed linen, swept and dusted, cleaned up the apartment, and by then the clothes were dry.

I usually spent the week end with Ruthie, so I took her to the office. There were two skip-tracing jobs in the mail and a request from an insurance company that I go out to Hempstead to identify the remains of a car wrapped around a lamppost. The wreck was now in a garage, so that could wait a few days. I sent out my usual first form letter to the guy who had moved with his unpaid TV set, and the family that took a deep freeze with them. It was Ruthie's day to investigate O'Hara's desk, and I yelled at her a couple of times, which didn't put either of us in a good mood. There was a phone message from the garage, reminding me to finish the wiring job on the foreign heap. I put that in my pocket and locked up.

There were too many cars on the roads for a ride, so we came back to the flat for lunch. The phone rang. My cousin Jake said he was working and Grace thought it would be an idea if he picked up Ruthie, took her back with him. “She can play with the boys, spend the night, and you'll be here on Sunday.”

Ruthie was against the idea—violently against it. “I want to be with you, Daddy. I didn't see you much this week.”

“But I told you I have to work.”

“On Saturday?”

I nodded. “Tell you what, you go with Uncle Jake and I'll pick you up after supper, take you home. Then we'll both drive out tomorrow.”

“Well... all right, but you're trying to get rid of me.”

“Stop that kind of talk. You know I'm on a big case, have to work.”

Over the phone, Jake shouted, “Give it to her, Dick Tracy. I'll be off in an hour. Want me to pick her up, or will you be at the P.O.?”

“We'll be outside the post office.”

I made French toast with chocolate syrup for lunch and Ruthie felt better. Jake was sitting in his old Dodge when we drove up. As Ruthie got into the front seat beside him and said, “Don't forget to come for me after supper,” Jake asked, “How come you're so busy-busy these days?”

“I'm on a m-u-r-d-e-r case.”

“Well now,” Jake said, impressed. “Who is it?”

“Gee, Daddy, you never told me you were working on a killing,” Ruthie said, as I silently cursed TV and comic books.

“Nobody important,” I said quickly as Jake winked and stepped on the starter, asked, “What time will you be over?”

“Eight o'clock,” Ruthie said, and I nodded. “And I want to know all about the murder....”

As they drove off and I climbed back into my car, I remembered I was supposed to be at the Turner apartment at eight. I would have to phone Jake later and tell Ruthie to stay over, and she'd raise hell.

I sat in the car, wondering what to do, where to begin the day's “work.” I needed to do a lot of straight thinking and I can think best when I'm working with my hands. Reaching for a cigarette, I came up with the message from the garage.

Joe, the garage manager, was glad and surprised to see me. I got into my coveralls, went to work on this low-slung job. I worked steadily for the rest of the afternoon and of course I knew what was wrong with me—I'd acted like a goon last night, slipping the dope on her husband like I was slugging Betsy. All things considered, she'd taken it pretty well, but I'd been too rough on her.

The truth was, I was giving her an all-around rooking. I couldn't solve the murders, was in way over my head. As Al Swan had said, there wasn't much any private agency could do here, but that wasn't any excuse for taking her dough.

Granted I wasn't much of a detective, but what little work I was doing was sloppy as hell. But what else could I do? It would take me months to check all the Browns in New York City, and that was probably a blind alley.

I could tail Cliff Parker, but I was convinced he and Louise were in the clear. That was sloppy—my being convinced didn't mean a thing. The Andersun family—all blanks. Betsy—? I didn't think she did it, but I couldn't rule her out. A man or woman feeling she was unsatisfactory in bed could snap her cap enough to murder. And hiring me could be a corny cover-up. Should check what the police had on her.

The police—I was playing the game wrong with them, holding out about Cliff. All told I was doing a good job of snafuing the works. It would be more honest to take Betsy's money by snatching her pocketbook.

I kept going over the possible angles, wishing I could come up with a motive—any motive. All I came up with was a headache. By four I'd finished and rechecked the car, drove it around the garage, and picked up twenty-five dollars. Joe tried it himself, and he was almost as big as I was and laughed as he squeezed into the small front seat. As I was washing up, I noticed him making out the bill. All told I'd put in nine hours and he wrote down, “Labor—two days.” I didn't ask what he was charging the car owner.

He gave me the usual, “Barney, any time you want a steady job...”

“Yeah and thanks. Call me again, Joe, whenever you have something special.”

I stood outside the garage for a moment, still restless, and finally I drove down to the police station, asked for Lieutenant Franzino, almost hoping he'd be out. I had to wait a few minutes, then I went into his office, which was as dingy as Al's.

Franzino was a surprise... a small man, shabbily dressed, with his suit wrinkled and a button missing. He had a thin face with a banana nose that had been busted a long time ago. An old hat was pushed back on his head, covering most of the iron-gray hair, and he looked serious, humorless, and very capable.

His voice was low and polite as he lit a fancy-looking pipe, sent out a cloud of aromatic smoke, asked, “What's on your mind, Mr. Harris?”

“Any news?”

“Not a thing. Put a dozen men on the Brown angle—no dice, so far. Running down one or two other things, but to date not a sniff of anything promising.”

We were silent for a moment, and of course he didn't bother to ask if I'd found anything. “About Turner's wife, what's her alibi?”

“Says she was home alone. The super of the house was installing a lobby light between ten and midnight—he didn't see her leave. Got anything on her?”

“No.”

There was another dull silence, then he asked in a mild voice, “What made you think your client might have done it?”

“Told you, nothing. Merely checking on all alibis.”

He smiled and his teeth were a tobacco yellow. “You can be sure we've worked over every alibi. How's it feel to be in on a murder case? Swan told me this is your first criminal case.”

His voice reminded me of the patronizing housewives at the washing machine. I lit a cigarette, let him have it gently. “By the bye, I found out what Turner was doing on the block, the night he was killed.”

Franzino straightened up, like I'd stuck a pin in him.

“He was playing around with a woman named Louise who lives in the basement of 515. She's selling it and seems Turner was competing with her pimp, guy named Cliff Parker, a waiter. Ed Turner was a little sex-screwy and was waiting in his car, playing the jealous lover—or jealous pimp. Parker has a good alibi that checks, working a wedding at the Pigalle that night. Louise says she had a girl friend with her at the time of the bang-bang stuff.”

“When did you find this out?” The voice was like a whip now.”

“Yesterday. I was checking on Franklin Andersun—he was one of her customers—and she had Turner's picture in her room. Talked freely about...”

“Andersun too! Damn!” Franzino got to his feet and it was like pulling him out of a hole—he was over six feet tall, but all legs. “Why the hell didn't you tell me this yesterday?” he shouted as he strode to the door, yelled at the desk sergeant to bring in Louise and Cliff.

I reached over and grabbed his arm. “Now wait up....”

“Get your goddamn hands off me!” he actually growled, his eyes narrowing.

I let go of him and he went back to his desk, sat down and somehow got his long legs under the desk. He said calmly, “One thing I can't stand, anybody holding me. What's the idea keeping important info to yourself?”

“Maybe because I knew you'd act just as you did. Sure, they're a whore and a pimp, but they're still people, and you can't ride roughshod over...”

“Harris, this is a hell of a case. Everything ends up against a blank wall. Two people have been murdered, one of them a cop. In these tough cases, these impossible deals, one small break usually knocks everything wide open. We have the first and only link between Andersun and Detective Turner, and you sit there like a goddamn stuffed dressmaker's dummy, handing me some crap about a whore and a pimp! What's with you, sentimental over mudkickers? And what the hell do you think I'm going to do to 'em... cook 'em and serve 'em with apples in their mouths?”

“I think you'll beat the slop out of Cliff, make life miserable for the girl. I don't make any pretense of being a good detective, but I know this—if either of them had been guilty, or implicated in any way, they wouldn't have talked, or had Turner's photo around. I don't want you to push them about—I sort of promised her they wouldn't be in a jam for talking, and that Cliff wouldn't be made the fall guy for...”

“You made them a promise!” Franzino cut in, and for a thin guy he sure got a lot of power into his voice. “Who the hell are you to make promises? What makes you think we'd frame this pimp? Harris, what the hell do you know about the Police Department?”

“Not much, but everybody knows...”

“Everybody—everybody isn't a cop! Harris, that badge you carry is one degree above the kind they give out with box tops to kids.” He yanked open his drawer, came out with a blue cardboard box which held a gold medal about the size of a half dollar. “I've been a cop all my life, even before I came to New York City. It's my profession and I'm pretty good at it, and proud of it. This medal was given to me by the Lieutenants Association for my general skill as a policeman. No matter what the hell you think or read, I don't go about beating people with rubber hoses, or busting their heads with a blackjack. We'll bring in this Louise and Cliff, question them. Maybe they won't like it, but I don't care about that. If they give me straight answers, and we don't have to hold them as witnesses, they can go. As for her hustling, that has to stop—in my precinct. Let her set up shop someplace else.”

I shrugged. “That's a fair shake. I'll hold you to it.”

He gave me an evil grin. “That's swell of you, Harris. And what else can you do about it?”

“Not much I can do,” I said carefully. “Except this case has been good headline bait. When it breaks, everybody concerned will be interviewed. If Louise and the pimp are innocent, as I believe, and you give them a hard time... well, papers are always interested in police brutality—when they can tie in a sex angle.”