The Copper Frame (15 page)

“Oh. Then I'd better not send you the clunker I had in mind. I thought maybe you wanted something for just around town. I have a five-year-old Dodge here in pretty good shape. I'll have Lenny leave it in front of your house.”

“Fine,” Saxon said. “Want me to drive him back?”

“Any kid working for me who couldn't walk two blocks I'd fire,” Bell said. “The keys will be over the visor. It'll be there in ten minutes.”

Hanging up, Saxon went upstairs to shower, shave, and dress. Before putting on his jacket, he snapped the holster of his thirty-eight Detective Special to his belt just over his right hip. When he took his overcoat from his closet, he noticed a torn spot on the bottom hem. Examining it, he realized that it was a bullet hole and remembered the bullet plucking at the skirt of the coat as he climbed up the ravine bank. Saxon, a one-hat man, didn't have a replacement for the one he had lost. His father had owned several, though, and their head sizes had been the same. He selected one from the closet in what had been Andy Saxon's room.

A black Dodge sedan was parked at the curb when he left the house. The storm had spent itself during the night and it was a clear, still day. The tireless snowplows had cleared the streets before dawn and traffic had melted what little snow the plows had left. The temperature hovered just below freezing.

Saxon took the Thruway to Buffalo, on the theory that it was more likely to have been plowed free of snow than the less-used Routes Twenty and Five. It had been. He made the twenty-five miles in twenty-five minutes, arriving about eleven o'clock.

He got off at the Bailey Avenue exit and drove straight to the apartment house where Ann Lowry and Sandra Norman lived. In the lobby he threw a casual glance at the card beneath the mail slot for apartment 6-B, then did a double take.

The card read:
Mrs. Helen Fremont
.

Going back outside, Saxon glanced both ways at the apartment houses on either side. He had entered the central of the three buildings on the block, all right.

Back inside, he climbed the stairs and rang the bell of 6-B. A plump blonde woman of about forty-five answered the door.

Saxon took off his hat. “I'm looking for Ann and Sandra.”

Carefully she looked him up and down, her expression becoming thoughtful when she noted his red hair. “Who?” she asked with rehearsed puzzlement.

“They live here,” he explained.

“Not here,” she said. “You must have the wrong apartment.”

“Well, they did live here,” he amended. “Did you just move in here today?”

“I've lived here for three months, mister. All by myself. I never heard of no Nan and Sandy.”

If her stagey manner hadn't already given it away, Saxon would have realized by the woman's pretense of misunderstanding the names that she was a plant. He didn't bother to argue with her. Replacing his hat, he turned and walked away without even saying good-by.

Downstairs the first apartment off the lobby, numbered 1-A, had a sign on its door reading
MANAGEMENT
. Saxon's ring brought a buxom, hard-featured woman in her mid-fifties to the door.

Removing his hat, he said, “You the manager here, ma'am?”

She nodded. “But there's no vacancies, mister.”

“I'm not looking for an apartment. I'm looking for the former tenants of 6-B.”

A film seemed to settle over the woman's eyes. “Former tenants? The same woman's lived there six months.”

The woman herself had claimed only three, but Saxon didn't offer any correction. He decided on another approach. “Larry Cutter sent me,” he said.

Her gaze touched his red hair. “Never heard of him,” she said stolidly.

His damned red hair and freckles, he thought. They made him to easy to describe.

It was obvious that Larry Cutter had moved fast to make Saxon's story of the kidnaping seem implausible, in case he reported it to the police. The two girls had been whisked out of sight and a different tenant installed in their place. The manager had been bribed to substantiate the new tenant's story of having occupied the apartment for some time. If the police came around to investigate apartment 6-B on Saxon's complaint, they would come away convinced he had nightmares. In case Saxon himself showed up, the new tenant and the manager had been briefed on his appearance so that they wouldn't fall into a trap.

He could, of course, ring the bells of other apartments on the second floor and probably find tenants who recalled seeing the girls. But he doubted that a pair of call girls would have mingled much with their neighbors, so it was unlikely any would know where they had gone. He decided it would be a waste of time.

The same elderly man, wearing the same dirty shirt, was behind the desk of the Fenimore Hotel. Again he said nothing to Saxon when he walked by.

Upstairs there was no reply to his knock on the door of room 203. Trying the knob, Saxon found the door unlocked. He opened it and walked in.

No one was in the hotel room. Nevertheless, Saxon checked. A curtained alcove served as a closet. Jerking the curtain aside, he stared at two bare coat hangers hooked over the clothing rod. He let the curtain drop in place and turned to the battered dresser. Every drawer was empty. There was no sign of human occupancy anywhere in the room.

Downstairs the elderly man eyed him warily as he approached the desk.

“What happened to the tenant in two, oh, three?” Saxon inquired.

“Mr. Zek? He moved out.”

“When and where to?”

“Last night. He didn't leave no forwarding address.”

“Did he leave alone?”

“No,” the desk clerk said. “Some friend came to help him move.”

“You know the friend's name?”

The elderly man shook his head. “Tall, kind of skinny fellow with a mustache.”

That would be Spider Wertz, Saxon thought. Larry Cutter had lost no time in removing all witnesses who could possibly corroborate anything at all Saxon told the police. He had done as good a job covering up the blunders of his men as he had in framing Saxon.

Stalking across the lobby to the single phone booth, Saxon flipped open the book to the C section. No Lawrence Cutter was listed.

Of course not, he thought furiously. Big-shot hoods, like call girls, had unlisted phones.

He looked up Tony Spijak's number, dropped coins, and dialed. The bookmaker himself answered the phone.

“This is Ted Saxon, Tony,” he growled.

“How are you, boy? How'd you make out yesterday?”

“Lousy,” Saxon said coldly. “Do you know Larry Cutter's address?”

After a moment of silence, Spijak said cautiously, “Yeah, I know it. Why?”

“Because I want it.”

“I don't like the sound of your voice, old buddy,” the bookmaker said. “You sound sore. You going to do something foolish?”

“Listen, Tony,” Saxon said. “Are you going to give me the address or not?”

“I guess so,” Spijak said reluctantly. “But I hope I don't read about your mutilated body being found in a car trunk. Cutter can play rough.”

“Just come up with the address,” Saxon snapped.

“Keep your pants on, pal. I have to look it up in my little black book.”

A full minute passed before the bookmaker came back to the phone. “Apartment 4-C, the Gawain Apartment Hotel,” he said. “That's on North Delaware.”

“I know the place,” Saxon said. “Thanks.”

At the Gawain Apartment Hotel furnished apartments were rented for two hundred and fifty dollars a month and up. The bigger ones, such as Larry Cutter probably had, brought six hundred a month. A self-service elevator took Saxon to the third floor. He walked along deep-napped carpeting until he came to the door numbered 4-C. He unbuttoned his overcoat and suit jacket and loosened the gun in his holster before ringing the bell.

A couple of minutes passed before the door opened six inches and the face of Farmer Benton peered out. His face was just beginning to form an expression of startled recognition when Saxon's shoulder hit the door and smashed it wide-open, driving Benton backward several feet. The man recovered his balance and was reaching for his armpit when Saxon swept out his gun and leveled it.

Paling, the buck-toothed gunman hurriedly raised his arms overhead.

Saxon's glance flickered over the room. It was the front room of the apartment. To the right an archway led to a dining room, and the only other door led to a central hall off which Saxon could see into a bedroom. No one except Farmer Benton was in sight.

Saxon moved forward, dipped his left hand beneath Benton's coat and drew out his forty-five automatic.

“I don't know why I bother,” he said. “You can't hit anything with it anyway.” He tossed it over on the sofa. “Put your hands down. You look silly holding them over your head that way.”

Benton slowly lowered his hands to his sides.

A voice from beyond the dining room called, “Who is it, Farmer?”

Saxon had been about to ask where Larry Cutter was, but this answered his question in advance. Grasping the gunman's shoulder, he spun him toward the dining room and said, “Move.” Stiffly Benton walked ahead of him through the dining room and to the door of a kitchen.

A powerfully built man of about forty with close-cropped blond hair sat at the kitchen table in bathrobe and pajamas. He had a square, granite-hard face and pale-gray eyes. Across from him sat a vivid, baby-faced blonde in her early twenties. She was wearing a white housecoat over a nightgown. Though it was now past noon, they seemed to be having breakfast. Both had coffee cups before them and were munching sweet rolls.

Saxon shoved Farmer Benton to one side. The gray-eyed man looked up and his eyes narrowed when he saw Saxon's gun. He threw Benton a bleak glance.

“He caught me off balance,” Benton said apologetically. “I wasn't expecting nothing, Larry. Nobody's been gunning for you.”

Larry Cutter turned his attention back to Saxon. The girl gazed at Saxon wide-eyed, her jaws still mechanically chewing a piece of sweet roll.

“Know who I am?” Saxon asked Cutter.

Cutter contemplated him for a moment before saying, “From descriptions I've heard, I'd guess you were Ted Saxon.”

Saxon shook his head. “I never even heard of him.” He crooked his left forefinger. “Come here.”

Puzzled, the man warily got to his feet. Rounding the table, he neared to within a couple of feet of Saxon and stopped. Saxon looked him up and down. It wasn't necessary to search the man to determine he was unarmed. The only place he could have concealed a gun was in his robe pockets, and they were perfectly flat. Saxon holstered his gun.

Larry Cutter gazed at him in astonishment. “I don't think I understand this.”

“You will,” Saxon said.

His right fist lashed out in a short, powerful hook which caught Cutter flush on the jaw and drove him clear across the room against the sink. For a moment the man groped at the edge of the drainboard for support, then his face turned blank and he toppled forward. He hit the floor with a crash and lay still.

Benton gave Saxon a buck-toothed gawk.

“I decided it was my turn for a change,” Saxon explained.

Tipping his hat to the blonde, he turned, stalked to the front door, and let himself out.

chapter 19

There was a Thruway service area halfway between Buffalo and Iroquois, where you could gas up or dine without getting off the Thruway. Saxon stopped there for lunch. It was just 1:30
P.M
. when he drove back into Iroquois.

Emily having worked until 7
A.M
., he knew she would still be asleep. He drove over to Ben Foley's house and found the former mayor home.

When they were settled with drinks in their hands, Saxon said, “I wouldn't ask you to perjure yourself on the stand, Ben, but if there's merely a police inquiry, would you furnish me an alibi for today?”

The plumb lawyer examined him quizzically. “Depends. Who'd you kill?”

“It would only be a forced entry and battery charge. I socked Larry Cutter on the jaw.”

Foley looked pleased. “Did he go down?”

“I knocked him colder than a carp. I suppose it was a childish thing to do, but I suddenly got fed up with him. I thought it was time he got pushed back for the way he's been pushing me, then ran up against a rigged alibi if he tried to do anything about it.”

“Sounds like poetic justice,” Foley agreed. “I wouldn't mind telling a white lie, so long as it's not under oath. Just what happened?”

Saxon told him of the switch of tenants at the girls' apartment and of the disappearance of Alton Zek from the Fenimore Hotel.

“All at once I saw red,” he concluded. “Here this strutting two-bit hood who doesn't even know me first deliberately wrecks my career, then orders me killed. By instructing his hired hands in what lies to tell and bribing others to give false evidence, he arranges things so that if I even make a complaint, the police will think I'm having hallucinations. I found out where he lived and went over there. Farmer Benton, one of the goons who took me for a ride, answered the door. I disarmed him at gun-point and made him lead me to Cutter. Then I socked Cutter and left.”

Foley emitted a low whistle. “Forced entry, assault with a deadly weapon, and battery. I guess you do need an alibi.”

“I may not. He may not care to risk having me explain in court why I was mad at him. But just in case his resentment overcomes his judgment, I thought I'd better have one lined up.”

“You had Sunday dinner with Alice and me,” the lawyer said with a disarming grin. “You know, I lay awake half the night thinking about this thing, Ted. And it doesn't quite make sense to me.”

Saxon raised his eyebrows. “I thought we had the whole plot pretty well figured out.”

“The reason for the rape frame, sure. But why did Cutter suddenly order you killed? From what you told Arn and me last night, I think we can reconstruct what happened something like this: the informer you talked to at the Fenimore Hotel contacted Sergeant Morrison and told him you were en route to see the Lowry woman. Morrison must in turn have got in touch with Larry Cutter. Cutter sent his two gunmen over to get the girls out of the apartment and to wait for you to walk in. Then, as you described it, there was a long wait for instructions. Your two captors didn't even know what plans for you were until the messenger from Cutter arrived several hours later. Spider Wertz was the messenger's name, wasn't it?”