Bare Trap (11 page)

He took a last drag on his cigarette, crushed it out in the ash tray on the table at the head of the bed. His attention was diverted again to the girl’s scrapbook. He picked it up, flipped through the pages slowly. At first glance it was nothing more than a performer’s vanity book, but suddenly he stopped at a page, examined a clipping. It bore no reference to Terry Devine, was merely a blind item referring to an impending scandal that would
wreck the career of one of our top money-makers if his studio and his ever-loving wife get wind of it.
He reread the item slowly, saw no reason for it being in the scrapbook.

He went back through the pages, checking item after item, and found eight or ten similar blind items, all implying “career-busting” scandals imminent. The items had
been clipped out of the body of a column, bore no column head to indicate from where they had come, no newspaper identification, merely a date and what appeared to be a code number.

Suddenly, he stiffened. There was an unmistakable sound of a key being fitted into a lock somewhere in the apartment. Quickly, he doused the bedroom light, tucked the scrapbook under his arm. It was too late to attempt to reach the living-room lights. After a second, he heard the rasping scrape of the door being opened.

Liddell walked to the bedroom door, pushed it almost shut, leaving only a slit open. He applied his eye to the slit and waited. After a second, the shadow of a man fell across the living-room floor. It was followed by the thin figure of Duke, his .45 poked out in front of him. He stood on the threshold of the room, looked around, and seemed satisfied that it was empty. He walked quickly to the desk in the living-room. He went through the drawers as though he knew what he was looking for. When he failed to find what it was he sought, he stood, looked around the room, a thoughtful scowl twisting his thin face.

Too late, Liddell tried to close the bedroom door. Some instinct drew the thin man’s attention. He stared at the door for a moment, brought up the .45.

“You, in there. Come out or I’ll blast you out,” he ordered.

Liddell flattened against the wall, waited for Duke to come after him. There was no sound from the outer room. There was a slam of a door from the kitchen. Liddell, cursing himself for trying to outwait Duke, pushed open the bedroom door and ran through to the kitchen.

He yanked open the service door. Duke was crouched at the head of the stairs. The .45 in the little man’s hands sounded like a cannon in the confined space. Two slugs chewed pieces out of the door jamb near Liddell’s head. He dropped to his face on the floor, tried to wriggle back into the room. The little man in the hallway beyond stood up, the gun in his hand belching orange flame. A flying
splinter of wood stung Liddell on the forehead. His finger tightened on the trigger of his .45; the gun jumped twice in his hand.

The thin frame of the gunman in the hall seemed to stagger under a body blow. He stared at Liddell, his jaw beginning to sag. Desperately he tried to raise the .45 to firing position, but it had apparently grown too heavy. He staggered backward, lost his footing, disappeared down the steep stairs.

When Liddell walked to the head of the stairs and looked down, Duke lay sprawled at the bottom, a tangle of arms and legs. He was dead by the time Liddell reached him.

The private detective debated the advisability of waiting for Homicide, decided not to take the time, quickly relieved the dead man of a wallet from his breast pocket, a worn leather notebook, some loose slips of paper, and a key with a paper tag from his jacket pocket.

He stepped across the body, rushed down the remaining flights of stairs, oblivious to the screams and curses above, the opened and slammed doors on the flights below. The service stairs led into a small area way. He crossed the area-way, climbed a small fence, found himself in an alley. Somewhere close by a police siren was screaming, and in the distance others joined its full-throated roar. He voted against going up the alley, climbed another fence that brought him into the back yard of a house facing on the far side of the square.

He emerged into a tree-shaded street, walked to a corner, waved down a cab, gave Muggsy’s address, and settled back.

The cab circled the block, passing the entrance to the Denton Towers, which was now clogged with police cars and curiosity seekers.

“Wonder what’s wrong there?” Liddell asked.

The cabby gave the building a contemptuous glance, grunted. “Some dame probably gave herself the deep six. The joint’s full of kepties and every so often they come
out of those windows like leaves in a rainstorm.” He felt his way through the crowded streets, past the police cars. “Some of ‘em ain’t bad before they take the jump, but it sure don’t do anything to improve their appearance when they land!”

M
UGGSY
K
IELY STRETCHED OUT
on the couch in her apartment, watching Johnny Liddell as he pored over the contents of the wallet he had taken from Duke’s body. In a small pile he put the bills, the driver’s license, the gun permit. In another pile he put the business cards, scribbled memoranda, the little notebook, and the loose papers. Then, he took the tagged key, studied it. On the tag it bore the numeral 16 and an inked notation
Ocean View Court.

“What’s it look like to you, Johnny?” Muggsy asked curiously.

Liddell turned the key around, shrugged. “Looks like a motor court key.” He dropped it on the table, started scooping up the bills and identification and returning them to the wallet.

“Don’t you think you should have stayed and notified Devlin, Johnny?” Muggsy wanted to know. “He’s really going to flip his wig when he finds out you were there and didn’t call in a report.”

“If he finds out.” He straightened up, rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands. “I couldn’t afford the time, Muggs. You know what would have happened. I’d have to wait for the Homicide boys, give a statement, answer a lot of questions.” He stirred the small pile of papers still remaining in front of him with his finger. “I can use that time to better advantage.”

“If Devlin tags you for running away from the shooting you’ll have more time on your hands than you’ll know what to do with.” She sat up, nodded at the papers on the table. “Why’d you put them on the side? Something in them?”

“Make me a drink and I’ll find out,” Liddell promised.

“Blackmailer!” Muggsy got up from the couch, disappeared into the kitchen to reappear with a bottle and two glasses. She stopped behind Liddell, stared curiously over his shoulder at the little notebook he was examining. “What’s the list of names for?”

“I don’t know. But take a look.” He underscored the name
Shad Reilly
with his thumbnail. “Shad was on the list.”

Muggsy reached over his shoulder, took the book from his hand, studied the names, whistled soundlessly. “He was in good company, at least. These are all big shots. What’s the connection?”

“My guess is that they were all in the same boat.”

“What’s the check next to certain names mean, do you suppose?”

Liddell took the book back. “That, my pet, is one of the things I intend to find out.” He cleared a space on the table for her to set down the bottle and glasses. “That and a couple of other things.”

“Such as?”

“Let me show you.” He walked out to the foyer, took Terry Devine’s scrapbook from under his hat, brought it into the living-room. “I want to show you something.’ He riffled through the pages, stopping on a page containing a blind item from a column. “Read that.”

Muggsy read through it, nodded. “Could be just a filler to create interest, or it could be some dirty gossip. This town is full of it.”

“Suppose it’s legit. Who would you figure it meant?”

Muggsy reread the item, shrugged. “It could mean any one of a hundred men in this town. So what?”

“So nothing maybe. On the other, so plenty. Suppose you
were a guy who was in a mess like that and you read this item, what would you think?”

Muggsy scowled at him thoughtfully. “I’d probably have a guilty conscience and think it pointed right at me. That what you’re driving at?”

“Part of it.”

“But why would Terry Devine collect these clippings?”

“Maybe they’re her press clippings. Maybe she’s the scandal that’s impending.” He riffled through other pages, stopped at similar items. “There’s over a dozen of them.”

Muggsy sniffed. “She may be good, but not that good. After all, every guy she dates wouldn’t turn out to be a crisis.”

“Maybe that was the idea, Muggs.”

“Meaning?”

Liddell shrugged. “Meaning maybe these guys were hand-picked and set up for a shakedown. From the sound of the items, they all involve guys who are in no position to fight back.”

Muggsy’s eyes widened, her lips formed an O. “The old badger game, eh?” She considered it, wrinkled her nose, shook her head. “That went out with the crystal set. Nobody would fall for an oldie like that. Not in these days.”

Liddell snorted. “Hell, they would in this town.” He flipped the book open to a series of photographs. In each one, Terry Devine was sitting at a table with a man. In the background there were other tables, smears of faces. “What do you make of this?”

Muggsy shrugged. “Night-club photos. Everyone collects them. Sort of a souvenir of a night on the town.” She leaned over, studied some of the pictures closely, whistled softly. “Say, that witch really gets around. Some of these guys are big deals, and — ” She broke off, stared at Liddell. “You’re not hinting that these are some of the suckers?”

Liddell nodded. “She didn’t have a gun handle to cut notches in, so she framed her kills twice — once for the setup, once for the notebook.”

“Sort of a portable trophy room, eh?”

Liddell opened Duke’s notebook to the list of names. “Now, baby, this is where you come in. Take a look at the faces in those pictures and see if they match up with these names.”

“But this is Duke’s list. Why would he have the names of Terry’s conquests?”

Liddell tried the cognac, walked to the ice box, came back with some ice, and dumped three cubes into each glass. “I’m testing a hunch that they worked together. It would make the setup foolproof.”

“How?”

“Blackmail’s a dirty word, Muggs. There-are nicer, safer ways of making a sucker pay off.”

“Such as?”

“Gambling debts. No real gentleman ever reneges on a gambling debt. And when he does, it’s always easy to prod him a little bit.” He pointed to the checks next to some of the names. “My guess is that these needed the prodding.”

Muggsy took the notebook, turned the scrapbook toward her, checked the pictures against the list. Finally she looked up.

“Bingo, Sherlock. Four of them match.”

“Which ones?”

She pointed to a slick-haired man in a summer tux in one of the pictures. “Carter Sales, Mammoth’s white hope for the bobby-socks trade. The studio’s been building him for big things.” She pointed to another picture in which a man with wavy, white hair grinned toothily at the camera. ‘‘Walter Arnold. He’s been doing character stuff for years. I think he’s under contract to Supreme. This one’s Rex Harvey, the cowboy all the kids yelp with on television. The other you know — Shad Reilly.”

“How about the others?”

“They may be on the list but I don’t recognize them.” She pushed back the scrapbook. “This is dynamite, Johnny.”

Liddell nodded. “My guess is that this is what Terry Devine
wanted to tell me tonight. She planned to go back to her apartment, get the scrapbook, and give us the setup. Somehow, Maxie and Duke got wise, short-circuited her message, and met us in her place.”

“Why should she? She’s in it up to her hips.”

“In the shake racket, yes. But I’ve got a hunch that when she found out that Shad had been murdered she started figuring ways and means of bailing out. It’s one thing to set a guy up for a shake or put him on the spot for a beating. But murder’s an entirely different thing. Terribly permanent.”

Muggsy chewed on the tip of her fingernail, frowned at Liddell. “Suppose you’re right about the racket. How did they manage to get the items into a column? And whose column?”

Liddell shrugged. “Easy. The columnist was in on it.”

“I won’t buy that. Why should they cut a columnist in?”

“Why not? In a town like this, who’s in a better position to know who’s vulnerable and where the shake will hurt most? Then, after the sucker’s on the hook, who can put the heat on most effectively?”

Muggsy shook her head, flipped the pages back to one of the blind items, studied it. “Hard to tell which column it came out of.”

“Not too hard,” Liddell told her. “It won’t take you more than an hour.”

“Me? You mean I’m supposed to find out what column these items came out of? You must be crazy. There are more columns in this town than peroxide blondes. And that ain’t a few, playmate.”

“Stop making a federal case out of it, Muggs. It’s simple.” He pointed to a penciled date at the side of each item. “You drop by the public library, get the files on all local papers for these days, check the various columns. I’m sure all these items came out of the same column.”

“Have a heart, will you, Johnny? Suppose it’s some correspondent from the West Falls, Minn.,
Daily Clarion.
We’ve got that kind around, too, you know.”

“Forget them. If this item is to be effective, it would have to appear in a column that carries some weight. A column that a studio might pay some attention to.”

“Like Lulu Barry’s, no doubt?”

“Like Lulu Barry’s. Or any one of a dozen top columns. Maybe it’s from one of the trade papers, I don’t know. After all, that’s your department.”

“And what’s your department?”

Liddell picked up the key with the tag that he had taken from Duke’s pocket, toyed with it. “I’m going to find the door this key fits.”

“Why?”

He dropped the key into his jacket pocket, leaned back. “Terry Devine never showed up to keep our date and she never got back to her place. It figures that Duke and Maxie caught up with her and have her hidden out someplace. We know where Duke is — maybe Maxie is keeping Terry company.”