Juvenile Delinquent (13 page)

I
CHECKED
the hall carefully before I stepped out of the room, but no one was in sight. I locked the door behind me.

I also went down the stairs carefully, my hand on the butt of my gun in case Buzz Thurmond had grown tired of waiting in Bremmer’s office and was on his way up to investigate the delay. But I might as well have strolled down to the lobby with my hands in my pockets insofar as any danger was concerned. I didn’t encounter a soul.

Behind the desk the old man was sleeping as soundly as Betty and the hotel proprietor were sleeping upstairs. I laid the key to 301 on his desk without disturbing him.

No one was in the lobby, but as I started toward Bremmer’s office, the street door opened and a man came in. I paused to glance at him, he glanced at me too, then looked away without interest and crossed to the desk.

He was a thin, timid-looking man of middle age with gray hair, a weak chin and an arthritic gait. I guessed he was one of the permanent residents.

Since he looked about as formidable as a senile mouse, I turned my back on him and continued toward Bremmer’s office.

A moment later I got my first view of the man I had heard so much about. He was seated behind Sherman Bremmer’s desk, his feet on its top, reading a newspaper.

Buzz Thurmond had changed considerably during the eight years since the photographs on his police record card had been taken, but he was still recognizable as the same man. His description at age twenty-two had listed his weight at two hundred and six; I guessed it now as two fifty. His thick-featured face was also much heavier than it had been in the photographs, but it had the same strong jaw and the same sullen expression.

Peeking over his paper at me, he said, “If you’re looking for Bremmer, he’ll be back in a few minutes.”

“I’m looking for you,” I said.

Dropping his feet to the floor, he folded the paper and carefully laid it on a corner of the desk, all the time peering at me with a mixture of suspicion and puzzlement. Not having the advantage of having seen my picture in a rogues’ gallery as I had seen his, apparently he didn’t even suspect I was the man who was supposed to be stretched out cold in room 301.

“You’re Buzz Thurmond, aren’t you?”

He nodded warily.

“I’m Manny Moon,” I told him chummily. “Heard you were looking for me.”

His body became completely still. Both hands were flat on the desk top, but after a moment the right one started to drift off. I shook my head at him.

“You’re in too awkward a position, Buzz You’d be full of holes before you even touched it. We’ll have a little gun duel if you like, but I’d prefer just to talk.”

His hand stopped its movement and he licked his lips. “What you want?” he asked huskily.

“Just a little conversation. First why you felt you had to stir the Purple Pelicans up against Stub Carlson. Then about the announcement you made to the club that you’d take care of me. If you’re still conscious when we finish those subjects, we’ll talk about Bart Meyer’s murder.”

His eyes narrowed. “What you mean, still conscious?”

“I wouldn’t expect a crumb who steers kids into dope addiction and crime to talk freely without a little persuasion,” I explained. “Matter of fact, I’d be a bit disappointed if you did.”

I reached behind me to push the door shut, but instead my hand encounted rough cloth. This startled me, but not enough to make any sudden moves. Cautiously I pressed against the cloth and discovered a thin leg beneath it.

After that I wasn’t terribly surprised to feel a gun muzzle press into my back.

“Put your hands on top of your head,” a thin voice said in my ear.

I put my hands on top of my head.

“You got here just in time, Limpy,” Buzz Thurmond said, coming to his feet. “This is that Moon character I was telling you and Bremmer about.”

Moving forward, he relieved me of my P-38 and patted my pockets for other weapons.

“He’s clean,” he finally decided.

The gun in my back shoved me forward and I heard the door close.

“Okay, Buster,” the thin voice said. “You can turn around now.”

I turned around and looked at the gray-haired man who had entered the lobby just as I started for the office. I felt a little silly for having walked right past Limpy Alfred Levanthal after having seen his picture and having studied his description. But this hadn’t been quite as stupid as it sounds, because even after I knew who he was, he looked nothing like I had imagined he would.

Aside from his slight build and receding chin there was little resemblance between the two-year-old photographs in his file and the man himself. The features were the same, of course, but the police pictures had shown a sinister-looking man with a gash for a mouth and the expression of an habitual criminal. This must have been a trick of photography, for he actually resembled Caspar Milquetoast without a mustache. Nor could his halting gait properly be described as a limp. It was more a stiff manner of walking, as though he had general arthritis instead of merely a game leg.

On top of everything else he looked fifty-five instead of the forty-two he was. In the pictures his hair hadn’t even been gray.

“What’s the deal?” Limpy Alfred asked Thurmond.

The big man shrugged. “Bremmer was supposed to have the guy Mickey Finned up in room 301. He’d gone up to make sure he was out, and I was waiting for him to come back and for you to show up when Moon walked in here and started spouting off.

You know as much about how he got out of that room as I do.”

Limpy Alfred said, “Maybe we better check what goes on upstairs.”

Buzz Thurmond went first, checking the lobby to make sure it was clear. When he announced that it was, the gray-haired man gestured me ahead of him with his gun.

The ancient room clerk still slept behind the desk when we went by, and we encountered no one either on the stairs or in the third-floor hall. When we reached room 301, Thurmond tried the knob.

“It’s locked,” he said.

Limpy Alfred curtly ordered, “Get up the key, Moon.”

I said, “I turned it in at the desk.”

Both of them looked at me with faint exasperation.

“You knew we were coming up here,” Thurmond complained.

I grinned at him. “Why should I make your job easier?”

“Go get the key,” the gray-haired man ordered Thurmond. “I’ll see that Buster doesn’t go anywhere.”

With a scowl at me, the big man walked away down the hall. Limpy Alfred stood a careful four feet away from me, his pistol unwaveringly leveled at my belt buckle. I wondered what he’d do if some tenant unexpectedly stepped out into the hall, but the possibility didn’t seem to disturb Limpy Alfred, for he made no attempt to make the gun inconspicuous. I decided that considering the type of clientele the Bremmer Hotel catered to, there probably was little chance of anything happening even if some tenant did see us. Probably he’d simply walk by without even looking surprised.

In a few minutes Thurmond returned with the key, puffing from his extra climb. When he had opened the door and entered the room, Limpy Alfred prodded me in after him.

Both men thoughtfully regarded the sleeping girl and the sleeping hotel owner.

“Looks like Bremmer’s Mickey Finn idea backfired,” Limpy Alfred commented with mild amusement.

Buzz Thurmond wasn’t amused. “What in the devil are we supposed to do now?” he asked. “Bremmer didn’t tell me what he wanted done with this guy.”

“I thought he wanted him bumped?”

“Not here, he didn’t,” Thurmond said. “He had it figured where he wanted us to take him, but he didn’t get around to telling me. He said he’d outline it to both of us after you got here.”

I said, “He can’t tell you now. Guess we’d better call the whole thing off.”

Ignoring me, Limpy Alfred said, “Why not just take him out somewhere and dump him?”

Thurmond shook his head. “I think Bremmer had some kind of plan to frame it like an accident. Or maybe frame somebody he didn’t like for it.”

“Like you framed Joe Brighton for the Bart Meyers kill?” I asked.

Both of them looked at me.

“Why don’t you just shut up?” Thurmond inquired in an irritated voice.

Limpy Alfred said, “I guess all we can do is wait for him to sleep it off. How long you think he’ll be out?”

Thurmond shrugged. “Depends on how much stuff Moon made him drink.” He turned to me, opened his mouth and closed it again. “Damned if I’ll ask the smart apple and get another of his silly answers.”

He looked at a gold wrist watch. “It’s three-thirty now. The way he’s sleeping, I don’t guess he’ll stir before dark anyway.”

“I have a dinner engagement,” I said. “Maybe I’d better leave and come back later on.”

Again I was ignored. Stiffly Limpy Alfred walked over to the dresser and examined the bottle of Mount Vernon. Approximately a half pint remained in the bottle.

“This the stuff?” he asked Thurmond.

“I don’t know.” He looked at me. “Is it?”

“Naw,” I said. “The knockout drops are in the soda. That’s pretty good whisky. Let’s all have a couple of snorts for old times’ sake.”

“That’s the stuff,” Thurmond told Limpy Alfred.

Still keeping his gun on me, the gray-haired man uncorked the bottle with his left hand, sniffed at it then poured about four ounces in a tumbler. Bringing the glass across the room, he handed it to me.

“You’re going to take a little nap,” he informed me. “You can take it this way, or get a gun barrel bent over your head. Take your pick.”

I considered the two alternatives with equal lack of enthusiasm. “Why can’t we just all play pinochle until Bremmer wakes up?”

Thurmond said, “For God’s sake, just belt the guy and shut him up, Limpy.”

When Limpy Alfred’s expression indicated he was about to do just that, I said hurriedly, “I’ll take the Mickey Finn.”

Both men watched as I slowly raised the glass to my lips. “Do I have to drink it all?” I asked.

“Every last drop,” Limpy said. “Bottoms up.”

“Thanks. Cheers to you too.”

I filled my mouth with whisky, which half emptied the glass, then lowered the glass as though I intended to take it in two swallows with a recovery interval in between.

When nobody seemed to have any objection to this, I spurted the whisky in my mouth straight into Limpy Alfred’s eyes.

As he staggered backward, blinded, I pivoted and shot the liquid remaining in the glass at Buzz Thurmond’s face. But his reactions were too fast. He jerked his head to one side and the stream passed over his shoulder to land in Sherman Bremmer’s lap.

As Buzz’s hand darted under his coat, I threw the now empty glass like a baseball. This time he didn’t move his head fast enough. The tumbler clanged against his forehead, ricocheted against the wall and shattered. Buzz stumbled backward and sat heavily in Bremmer’s lap.

I shot a quick glance at Limpy Alfred, saw he was standing with his eyes squeezed shut, rubbing at them with a handkerchief, and returned my attention to Thurmond. Half stunned, he was groggily dragging a gun from under his arm.

Taking a step forward, I belted him on the jaw.

His lantern-shaped jaw looked as hard as a rock, but it must have been glass. He slid to the floor off Bremmer’s lap as cold as though he too had been Mickey Finned.

But in the three or four seconds it had taken me to dispose of Thurmond, his cohort apparently managed to wipe enough whisky from his eyes to regain at least blurred vision. As I started to swing toward Limpy Alfred, his gun barrel caught me behind the right ear.

T
HE
first time I awoke it was still daylight. When I opened my eyes such a blinding pain surged from behind my right ear to the top of my head, I could see nothing but swimming colored lights in which a golden red predominated. The pain continued unabated, but gradually the lights slowed down and took the shape of definite objects.

The golden red became a mass of red hair tumbled across white shoulders inches in front of me. My gaze painfully traveled down a slim bare back to rounded hips encased in green.

It took me a few more minutes to orient myself, but then I realized I was lying on the bed next to the unconscious Betty. For some reason I couldn’t move my hands from behind my back and I was vaguely aware that my left knee felt wet.

I had reached the point of figuring out that my knee rested in the center of the sag where I had poured my first drink when the pain in my head built to such an unbearable level I drifted off into unconsciousness again.

The second time I awakened the room light was on. When I opened my eyes, the glare of the naked bulb hit them so painfully I squeezed them shut again. The blinding pain in my head had now reduced to a dull throbbing ache, I was glad to discover. After a moment I let my eyes open to slits, and as they gradually adjusted to the light, I just as gradually let them open wide.

My bed partner had disappeared. Only one other person was in the room. Buzz Thurmond sat in the chair where Sherman Bremmer had previously slept, an automatic lying in his lap and his eyes studying me broodingly.

“Decided to join the party, eh?” he said.

When I tried to sit up, I discovered my hands were lashed behind my back. They felt as though they were asleep. I only made it to a half sitting position, because when the pain in my head grew sharper the moment I moved it, I collapsed back on my side again.

“What time is it?” I asked in a croaking voice I hardly recognized.

“Eleven o’clock. You been sleeping seven and a half hours.”

The inconsequential thought passed through my mind that Fausta was going to be madder than a scalded cat. I’d had a date with her two hours ago.

“Where’s Bremmer and Limpy Alfred?” I asked.

“The boss is lying down with an icebag on his head. Limpy’s on an errand.”

Thurmond’s tone was an unfriendly growl, but his answers were civil enough in content. As long as he was being so congenial, I decided to get all the information I could out of him.

“What are your plans for me?”

He stopped being congenial. “Why don’t you shut up and stop asking questions before I come over there and pay you back for that bat on the chin.”

So I shut up and stopped asking questions. Instead I examined my jailer with a mixture of pessimism and pride. The pride was due to the large bump on his forehead, where I had thrown a strike with the tumbler, and the smaller lump on his oversized jaw.

A few minutes later the door opened and Sherman Bremmer came in. His normally sooty white complexion was even sootier than usual and his eyes possessed the slightly glazed look of a man with a terrific hangover. Apparently he still had a headache, because when the sight of me distorted his face into a snarl, he winced and smoothed out his facial muscles again.

“Isn’t Limpy back yet?” he asked Thurmond in a heavy voice.

The big man shook his head.

Then we all looked toward the door as dragging footsteps sounded in the hall. In a moment the door opened and Limpy Alfred moved stiffly into the room. He handed Bremmer a leather key case which even across the room I recognized as my own.

“He wasn’t there,” the gray-haired man said. “What now?”

Bremmer frowned and rubbed his forehead as though it hurt him. Crossing to the bed, he glared down at me.

“Where’d you hide that kid, Moon?”

When I merely looked up at him silently, he started to bend forward with the apparent intention of slapping me across the face, but the instant his head lowered he winced and straightened up again.

“Get out of him where he put the kid,” he ordered Thurmond.

Rising, Buzz Thurmond walked over to the bed, grabbed me by the shirt front and jerked me to a seated position. I swung my legs over the side of the bed, closed my eyes until my head adjusted to its new position and the searing pain reduced to a mere ache, then looked up at him.

“Where’d you put him?” Buzz asked.

“He’s in jail,” I said. “He was describing you to the cops, and they arrested him for indecent language.”

He swung a roundhouse slap at my head from a point straight behind him. With his two hundred and fifty pounds behind it, probably it would have knocked me silly if it had landed. But it took so long to arrive, I decided not to wait.

Dropping flat on my back, I brought up both feet, stuck them in his stomach and shoved. He trotted backward across the room, crashed into the door with such force the whole room shook, and let out a roar like an enraged gorilla.

As he started back at me, Bremmer said, “Hold it!”

Buzz stopped to glower at him and Bremmer said, “Not so much noise. For cripes sake, can’t you do it quietly?”

His petulant tone convinced me it wasn’t concern for the tenants which brought on this request, but merely his splitting headache.

Buzz continued his advance in silence. Carefully avoiding my feet, he jerked me completely off the bed to a standing position, held me up with one hand and methodically slapped me both forehand and backhand until my ears were ringing.

Then he threw me back on the bed.

I said thickly, “If that’s the best you can do, you big ape, you ought to get a different job. You’re a washout as a torturer.”

Buzz growled deep in his throat. Leaning over me, he grasped my shoulders and dug a thumb into the joint on each side. When he found the nerves he wanted, he pressed until I had to bite my lips to keep from screaming.

Eventually he let up and asked, “Where’s the kid?”

I had to wait a minute for the pain to subside before I could speak. Then I asked thickly, “Have you tried his home?”

With an exasperated expression on his face, Buzz started to dig in his thumbs again.

“This time I’ll probably scream my head off,” I said tightly. “You’ll give the hotel a hell of a reputation.”

When his thumbs only bored deeper, I did scream. I’m not an expert screamer, but as Thurmond’s face was only inches from mine, it startled him enough to make him release me and straighten up.

Thurmond said to Bremmer, “Get something to gag him with.”

“That’s no good either,” I pointed out. “If you gag me, I can’t tell you what you want to know.”

Buzz studied me broodingly before turning back to Bremmer. “Do we have to listen to this all night?” he asked in a fretful voice. “Why don’t we just bump him and hunt for the kid later?”

Bremmer was again rubbing his aching head. “He’s got a point,” he said. “We can’t have him letting out screams like that in the hotel.”

Limpy Alfred said, “We ought to call in Sam Polito. He could make anybody talk.”

The hotel proprietor’s face brightened. “Yeah. Maybe that’s an idea.” For a few moments he cogitated. “Just hold things up until I get back,” he said finally. “I want to make a couple of phone calls.”

He left the room and was gone about ten minutes. In the interim the two men chain-smoked cigarettes and I lay on the bed wishing I had a cigar.

When Bremmer returned he was all brisk efficiency.

“Take him over to Harry Krebb’s place,” he ordered. “His house, not the garage. He’s got a basement that’s almost soundproof, and there isn’t anybody else living in that block. It’s all business and they’ll be closed now. I’ll pick up Sam Polito and meet you over there.”

Again Buzz jerked me to my feet. But this time instead of slapping me silly, he shoved me toward the door. Since my hands were tied behind my back, I had to wait for somebody else to open it. Limpy Alfred performed the service.

We went downstairs in single file, Limpy Alfred first, me second, Buzz with a gun in his hand third, and the fat hotel owner bringing up the rear. At the first floor landing the rest of us waited while Limpy Alfred checked the lobby alone.

When he reappeared at the foot of the stairs, he climbed up to us again instead of motioning us down.

“There’s a guy sitting in the lobby,” he said.

“Anybody you know?” Bremmer asked.

The little man shook his head. “Just a guy. Probably waiting for one of the girls. Kind of stupid-looking cluck.”

Bremmer considered. “Untie his wrists,” he finally decided. “Buzz, stick your gun in your pocket, but keep it on his back. While the three of you are walking out, I’ll go over to say something to this guy and stand in front of him to block off the view.”

A knife appeared in Limpy Alfred’s hand and he told me to turn around. A moment later the severed rope fell to the floor. I rubbed my wrists to restore circulation.

Then we were moving down the stairs again, this time Bremmer in the vanguard, Limpy Alfred in second place and Buzz behind me as usual. Limpy held the rest of us back until Bremmer had time to reach the lobby and cross to the stranger. Then we moved on quickly.

As we started across the lobby, I saw Bremmer standing in front of one of the couches, his body blocking everything but the thick legs of the man he was talking to. As we passed, I heard him saying, “My name is Bremmer, sir. I’m the manager here. If there’s anything …” Then we were beyond them at the front door and I couldn’t hear the rest of the sentence.

Just before we went outdoors I risked a quick glance back. This got me a scowl from Buzz Thurmond, but didn’t prevent me from getting a profile view of the man Bremmer was talking to.

To my complete amazement I saw it was Mouldy Greene.