Ghost of a Chance (7 page)

“What’s Mrs. Loerch’s brother’s name?”

“Huh? Her brother?”

“The sister-in-law’s husband.”

The woman wiped up the wet square of scrubbed floor with a rag, then stood. She picked up the bucket. “I don’t know his name. Come to think of it, I never heard Mrs. Loerch mention a brother until this morning.”

“And you two are old friends,” Jeff said.

She nodded thoughtfully, then shrugged. “Mrs. Loerch always was close-mouthed. Excuse me, I got to get myself clean water.”

“Wait a minute,” Jeff said. “Did you know Frank Lorimer?”

“Frank who?”

“Lorimer. He was one of Mrs. Loerch’s tenants.”

“I never knew none of her tenants. She always come over and set in my kitchen.” The woman moved away from us toward a flight of stairs to the cellar. “Excuse me, I got to get my water.”

She lowered herself rheumatically down the steps and out of our sight. I looked at Jeff. He pushed his hat up off his forehead and looked down at me.

I said, “Mrs. Loerch has scrammed.”

“I didn’t expect that,” Jeff said.

“You knew she was in on it. It was she who tricked us into going up to see Eddie Joyce.”

“Yes, but we were to be taken care of there, immobilized. Mrs. Loerch left before we got out of the cellar. She doesn’t know we got out. Maybe no one knows yet. But Mrs. Loerch is gone. What was she afraid of?” I couldn’t answer Jeff’s question; in desperation he undertook it himself. “Somebody might have followed us when we went to the police. They might have been afraid that after we disappeared the police would get at Mrs. Loerch. So they suggested that she leave town.”

“Somebody’s being very thorough,” I said. “It’s organized.”

“It’s an organization.”

“You mean there are more people in it than Joyce and Mrs. Loerch?”

“I’m guessing,” Jeff said. “But the landlady doesn’t look as if she’s the brains of the outfit. And I doubt that Joyce is.”

“Somebody’s giving them instructions.”

“I wish,” Jeff said, “that we had bought a morning paper on the way down here. To see if the body of a woman has been found.”

“Don’t be pessimistic. Let’s look at Frank Lorimer’s room again.”

The old man’s room, at first glance, seemed unchanged since our visit of the night before. Its dingy sparseness appeared undisturbed. Then I saw that the room had a straightened-up look about it, like a hotel room made ready for its next guest. Jeff had seen that, too. He was walking quickly toward the wardrobe.

The few shabby clothes were no longer there. The shelf had been cleared. The wardrobe was completely empty. Jeff yanked open the drawers of the battered bureau, then he circled the room in a minute tour of investigation. It was bare of anything that belonged to anyone. It was a furnished room, now unoccupied. It might have been waiting for a tenant for a week, a month or a year. This morning it told us nothing; in the event that the police called it would not tell them that, up until the day before, it had been the room where Frank Lorimer had lived.

“Nice work,” Jeff said.

“Don’t start admiring this pack of murderers. You’ll get an inferiority complex. And there’s a lady somewhere who needs you to be at your best.”

We heard the rhythmic bang of a brush against woodwork. Mrs. Loerch’s old friend was doing the cellar steps. I could see that Jeff was thinking about her. Then he dismissed her and returned his attention to the room. He looked at the bed, the two chairs, the, bureau, the fireplace. He looked at the garish-framed calendar pictures over the mantle, at a faded photograph over the head of the bed. Mrs. Loerch’s attempt at interior decoration was at most halfhearted.

“Let’s go,” I suggested. “There’s nothing more we can do here.”

Apparently the photographer in Jeff drew him to the picture over the bed. With one knee on the worn spread he leaned forward and peered at it. He took it down and carried it to a window. I followed him. Over his shoulder I looked at the photograph.

It was a carefully posed picture, not a casual snapshot. A hansom cab, sleek and luxurious, stood behind a horse that seemed proud to be its locomotion. At the horse’s head, standing at attention, was a coachman, every inch a coachman from boots to high hat.

“Frank Lorimer,” Jeff said.

He put the picture in my hand. I tilted it to catch all the light that seeped through the grimy window. I studied the face of the coachman. The man was somewhere in his fifties. He was straight and still strong-looking, his face had only the suggestion of wrinkles. But there was no doubt it was a picture of Frank Lorimer.

“Yes,” I said.

Jeff took the picture from me, broke it out of its frame, put it in his overcoat pocket.

“Let’s go,” he said.

I didn’t have to ask him where we were going.

A half hour later we were hurrying around the snow bedecked fountain in the Plaza before the hotel of the same name. To our right Fifth Avenue had already been dug out and the snow spirited away. Ahead of us Central Park took off from Fifty-ninth Street for One Hundred and Tenth. We crossed Fifty-ninth to the row of six or seven hansom cabs that stood at the curb and waited for people who had five dollars to spend on a ride through the white wonderland that was Central Park this morning.

The group of coachmen stopped chatting together and perked up at our purposeful approach. Each and every one of them was a study in applied nostalgia. They were strictly characters by Dickens, quaint as olde England at its merriest. They were ruddy and jolly and their red noses poked out between the brims of their ponderous high hats and the great, seedy fur collars of their great, engulfing, brass-buttoned coats.

“Gentlemen!” Jeff said. I expected him to add, “God rest ye.” But he didn’t. He took the picture of Frank Lorimer from his pocket and handed it to the nearest of the coachmen. “This man used to work with you, as you can see. I need some information about him and I thought you might give it to me.”

The photograph went the rounds. Each man took a look at it, shook his head, passed it on, and then it was back in Jeff’s hands again.

“C’mon, boys,” Jeff pleaded. “You aren’t trying.”

The eldest of the boys spoke up. “I been here driving a cab for more than twenty years. I never saw that fellow.”

“Maybe it’s a bad likeness,” another said. “What’s his name?”

“It’s a good likeness,” Jeff said, “but his name is Frank Lorimer.” “Frank Lorimer,” one of them said.

They all said Frank Lorimer then, slowly, rolling it around in their mouths, tasting it. But they all shook their heads. The name meant nothing to them. The man who had first seen the picture eased it out of Jeff’s hands and studied it again.

“Somethin’ about this,” he said, “seems familiar to me.”

“The horse?” Jeff said. “Do you recognize the horse?”

“Never seen the horse.”

He glanced over at the row of hansoms and back at the picture. Jeff and I crowded close to him and did the same thing. We all got it at once.

“That’s my cab,” the man said.

The picture went the rounds once more and everybody agreed that the hansom in the picture was the hansom now being driven by Tom Markey. Tom took this as a bit of glory; this was something that didn’t happen to a man every day. He was all smiles now, and his red nose seemed to glow ten watts more.

“What d’ya know about that?” Tom chuckled. He held the picture at arm’s length. “Good likeness.”

“Do you own this cab?” Jeff asked.

“No, oh, no,” Tom said. “We all rent them. Except Larkins there, he owns his.”

“Where do you rent them?”

“Tollman’s Stable. On Sixty-third, right off First Avenue.”

“They might be able to help me,” Jeff said.

“Wouldn’t be surprised,” Tom said. “Talk to old Tollman himself.”

“Thanks,” Jeff said.

“Say, young fellow,” Tom said.

“Yes?”

“Mind if I keep this picture of my cab?”

“Right now I need it. But I’ll see that you get a copy.”

“I’d appreciate it if you would.”

“I will,” Jeff promised.

We thanked everybody again, said good-by and lit out for Tollman’s Stable. We couldn’t find a taxi. We walked across Fifth Avenue and over to Madison in search of one. There we decided to take a crosstown bus to First Avenue. Jeff whistled a merry tune while we waited.

I, too, felt fine. Actually, it wasn’t much. Locating a man who owned a hansom cab that was driven years ago by a man who knew the name of a woman who was slated to be murdered was still a long way from finding that woman. But it was something, a little something. After hours and hours of nothing but high, thick, stone walls it was worth whistling about. I joined Jeff, supplying some doubtful harmony to his doubtful melody of that recorded cantata in praise of Piel’s light beer of Broadway fame.

I looked at Jeff; he had stopped whistling.

He put his hand on my arm. “It’s all right to look now,” he said. “Across the street. On the corner.”

Across the street, on the corner, his head turned in profile against the wind while he lit a cigarette, was Eddie Joyce. He got his cigarette going. He took a deep drag and let all the smoke come out of his nose. He flipped his coat collar up closer to the brim of his hat and turned toward us. By the time his eyes reached us we were studiously looking at each other.

“He can’t be following us,” I said. “How could he have found us?”

“He must have discovered that we were gone right after we got out of the cellar. He knew we’d go back to Frank’s rooming house, it was the only place for us to go. He picked us up there.”

I glanced back at Joyce. He had found a spot in a shop doorway that was a nice place from which to watch us. I could tell from his nonchalance that he didn’t know yet that we had spotted him.

“Haila,” Jeff said, “you go to the stable.”

“You mean we’ll separate?”

“Yes. Joyce will follow me. I’ll take care of him; you take care of old man Tollman. Show him the picture. Find out anything you can about Frank.”

“All right.”

Jeff casually turned his back to Joyce’s side of the street and slipped the picture to me. I slid it quickly into my purse.

I said, “How will we get together again?”

“Let’s see… it probably should be in this part of town. The Waldorf. The Park Avenue lobby of the Waldorf. Go there as soon as you can. If you have to wait long for me, ask for a message at the desk. I’ll try to get word to you.”

“Jeff, what might happen to you?”

He laughed at me. “Just wait till you see the other guy.”

We walked to the Madison Avenue curb. For five minutes we unsuccessfully hailed taxis while we ignored Mr. Joyce. At last a cab stopped for us and Jeff handed me into it. He told the driver to take me down Madison. He winked cheerfully at me and closed the door.

I watched him as he started west of Fifty-ninth, then the cab moved me past the edge of the corner building. I looked through the rear window, but other cars blocked my view of Joyce’s nook.

“Driver,” I said, “make that the corner of First Avenue and Sixty-third.”

“Right,” he said, and smiled at me in the mirror. “Hold on, lady, I’m on my way home for lunch.”

He used Fifty-seventh Street to get to First Avenue, then turned uptown, chattering all the while about what a wonderful cook his wife was. It was all I could do to keep my mind on old Mr. Tollman and plan my procedure with him. Jeff had given me a job to do; I mustn’t muff it.

My driver was racing along so enthusiastically that when we flashed across Sixty-second Street without slowing down I thought he had misunderstood my directions. I told him again. Fie grinned at me in the mirror and pulled the cab to such a sudden stop at the corner that my head nearly took off from the rest of me.

I heard the squeal of brakes behind us. Another cab swerved to the side to avoid piling into us. Its driver’s face was red with fury. At first I thought his passenger had been thrown to the floor. Then I saw that he was only hunched down in the seat, his head ducked out of view.

I told my driver to get going. As we began moving I leaned back sideways into the corner, glanced out of the rear window. The cab behind started after us.

Joyce was following me, not Jeff. He was all mine; whether I liked it or not, he was my baby.

Joyce’s taxi was having no
trouble at all staying with us. It was a half-block behind, cruising easily along in our wake. I leaned forward and spoke to my driver.

“I’m being followed,” I said. “I don’t want to be followed. I’ll give you ten dollars if you get away from that cab behind us.”

I saw the man hunch forward over the steering wheel, his back stiffened for action. He jerked the car to the right and expertly maneuvered it between two delivery trucks and into the curb. He shut off his motor.

“Sorry, lady,” he said. “This is where you get out.”

“What?” I wasn’t sure that I had heard him correctly.

“I’m not interested in ten bucks.”

“Mister,” I said, “you don’t understand. I have to get away from that man. It’s important.” I put my hands on the back of the driver’s seat. I wanted him to see that they were trembling. “That man mustn’t catch me. I… I don’t know what he’ll do.”

The driver kept his face straight front. He said, “I don’t want any part of any trouble. I just got married.”

“But you can’t throw me out here, right into his lap! You’ve got to—”

“I’m sorry,” he said woodenly. “I got responsibilities. If I got in a jam, what would happen to Alice?”

He settled stubbornly in his seat. I saw that there was no use arguing. I gave the bridegroom a dollar. Quickly I pushed open the cab door, started through it and then stopped. I looked for Joyce. I couldn’t find him, couldn’t spot his cab. If I couldn’t see him, maybe he couldn’t see me. I forced myself to jump to the sidewalk. I ran directly across it and darted into a butcher shop.

The store was crowded with customers. One of them was talking to the butcher, shouting to make herself heard above the roar of an ailing meat grinder. The butcher was an amiable man, interested in his work. It was nice being here, nice and warm and comforting. Everything was normal, business as usual. Nothing could happen to me here.