The Long Wait (25 page)

“Damn near forgot,” he said. “Your name Johnny?”

I told him it was.

He slid an envelope across the bar at me. “Logan told me you might come in looking for him and to give you this.”

I picked up the envelope and slid my finger under the flap. “Before he left he gave you this?”

“Yeah, not five minutes before. Want a drink?”

“Beer.” I waited while he drew a tall one and carried it over to the table. I put the drink down in a hurry before I pulled the two sheets out of the envelope. Across the top of the first one was the notation: Harlan ... name of several counties and cities in the U. S.: Harlan, Inc., manufacturers of electrical appliances. Harlan, paint supply house in Va. Harlan, stage name of actress copyrighted. George Harlan, holdup, murder, life sen. and escaped, captured, killed in attempted escape Alcatraz. Harlan, William, prominent South American financier. Harlan Gracie, worked con game. Convicted N. Y. 1940. This sounds interesting. See clipping.

Logan had stapled the news account to the sheet underscoring a couple of lines. The gist of it was that Harlan Gracie was suspected of being a partner to a con game in which prominent out-of-towners were fleeced. It was the usual thing, a dame and a small-town playboy shacked up in a hotel room with a blackmail aftermath. None of her victims stepped forward to accuse her, but it wasn't necessary because she had talked too much and a smart D. A. got enough of a confession out of her to send her up a few years. The inquiring reporter who covered the affair added that the sum extracted from her victims was suspected to be considerably more than she let on and that she had worked with a confederate or two who steered the victims her way. However, this was not established at the trial.

The note that Logan had added stated that these were all the Harlans he could uncover, and if it was a place, the nearest Harlan was better than a thousand miles off, and if it was a person, Harlan Gracie was the only one with a criminal record. He said he'd try to get further details from a news source in New York by the name of Whitman and would let me know more about it when he saw me.

I looked the list over again, grinning at the copyrighted Harlan because she was the one Venus had told me about. At least my tall lovely wasn't handing me any baloney. I folded the stuff back into the envelope, tucked it in my pocket and drained off the dregs of the beers. It was a whole hatful of Harlans, but I'd give every one to know who the hell it was who bothered letting me know about them in the first place.

I didn't stick around the Circus Bar any longer than I had to. Logan was someplace getting tanked up and I wanted to get him while he was still able to do some good. He'd probably be sore as hell about my little fracas with the boys and if he was it was too bad.

By eleven-fifteen I had traced him through seven bars. In the first one there had been two men with him and they had talked awhile over a drink. The bartender saw them taking notes about something or other. Logan hadn't seemed happy. In the next six he had been alone and from what I could gather he was pretty well in his cups and brooding hard.

There was one thing that seemed peculiar. None of the bars he had been at belonged to Servo's Business Group. Maybe it was because he didn't want a lot of noise and people intruding on his thoughts or maybe it was something else again. At least the bars were still fairly empty with the bartenders standing around ready to pick up the late trade getting squeezed out of the places with the wheels and dice tables. The last bar was a ratty place on a side street called The Last Resort. The bartender said he had been there for about ten minutes, talked to a couple of hustlers, made a phone call, had a few more drinks and left. Wherever Logan went from there he didn't know and couldn't even guess.

That's when I gave up. Logan could wait. Let the guy enjoy his drink and maybe he'd feel better tomorrow. I told the bartender to make me up a whisky and ginger and sat down to watch a redhead operate on a reluctant prospect.

She was going good then all of a sudden she stopped and moved over a seat. The bartender looked at the door and scowled a little bit, automatically reaching for the Scotch bottle on the back bar.

The guy who came in was middle-aged, lanky and in plain clothes, but he had might as well been wearing a sign around his neck that read COP. He said, “No drink, Barney,” and pulled a photo out of his pocket and slid it across the bar. “Ever see him before?”

The bartender studied the picture, read the caption underneath, then shook his head.

“Sure?”

“Positive.”

“You see him around, call in, understand?”

“Yeah, I know.”

“Okay.” He put the picture back in his pocket.

“Want a drink?”

“Not now. Maybe I'll come back.” The cop started to go when he saw the redhead. His smile was a dirty twisting of the mouth. “Hello, Ginger.”

The redhead didn't bother answering. She barely glanced at him and went back to her drink. “Stay off the streets,” he said.

The redhead flushed, but she had a lot of nerve. “You can't make pay-off dough when you don't work someplace, copper.”

His smile kind of warped a little before he got out through the door.

I looked at my hand and it was white around the knuckles from squeezing the glass so hard. The bartender saw it too but didn't say anything. He glanced back at my face and mentally compared it with the wanted circular and the copy showed him. “Your name really George Wilson?” he asked.

I let him keep a fin out of my change. “Could be, friend. Could very well be. Thanks.”

“No trouble. If that dumb dick had eyes for something else except what comes easy he coulda spotted you quick. I ain't helping him out none.” He leaned forward confidentially. “I been in stir once myself.”

So I got out of there in a hurry before the cop came back for his drink. There wasn't any sense in giving him a second chance. Nice, I thought, now the door is shut right in my face. They want me by day or night and there will be a price on my head to make it interesting.

Before I went back to the car I ducked around the corner into a drugstore. I got my number, heard it ring about a dozen times before the receiver lifted off the hook, then a hesitant voice said, “Yes?”

“I want your boss, honey.”

The background hum muffled out for a few seconds and I knew she had her hand over the mouthpiece. A minute later she said, “I'll put her on.”

The next “Yes,” was a little different. Scared.

“Johnny, sugar.”

“Oh.” That was all she said.

“Somebody there? Can you talk?”

“Yes ... go ahead, please.” In the background was the grating sound of a man's voice, but there was no click or dimming out that would indicate an extension being lifted.

I said, “Did the cops come looking for me?”

“Yes ... I'm sure ...”

“Did they expect to find me alive or dead?”

“Oh,no ...”

“Alive?”

“Certainly.”

“Okay, pretty girl, you can tell the copper bedtime stories. I'll see you again when there's no watchdog around.”

I hung up slowly and dug in my pockets for a cigarette. So the cops had come looking for a live man and right after that they were on the prowl for a certain George Wilson.

Somebody had talked.

That somebody had to be either Logan or Wendy and they were going to have to talk a lot more when I caught up with them. And since Logan was dead drunk someplace there wasn't any use looking for him.

Only Wendy was left. Lovely bottle-blonde black-background Wendy.

I sat there on the corner seat of the booth staring at the phone. When I stared a pretty long time I dropped another nickle in the slot and punched out the number the card said to if you wanted the cops.

Then I asked for Captain Lindsey.

At first he didn't believe me when I told him who I was. I added real quick, “Don't bother tracing the call, friend. I'll walk in if you want to see me.”

“I want to see you,” he said. He sounded like a tiger ready to pounce.

“Swell. Then I'll walk in and see you. Just tell me on thing, Captain.”

The phone was quiet. I could hear him purring. He liked it fine this way. He liked for me to be so damned cocky I'd put my head under the knife without being prodded. “Sure,” he said. “Shoot.”

“How'd you find out?”

“A little birdie told me. Cops have a lot of little birdies flying around. We call 'em stool pigeons but they like to be known as anonymous phone calls. This little birdie called the turn right on the nose.”

“The little birdie got a name, Captain?”

“No, not this one. He was very careful to disguise his voice.”

“He?”

I could feel his frown come over the wire. “It could have been a she. I didn't ask. You can come on in and talk to me now.”

The laugh trickled out of my chest. “Oh, Captain, not right this minute.”

“Damn you! I ...”

“Uh-huh, Captain, I said I'd be in. I didn't say when. Pretty soon, maybe, but not right this second.”

“You get your ass down here right ...”

I hung up on him.

Two minutes later I was back in my car with a ten-second start over the police car that came screaming up the avenue. It was enough.

When I found enough traffic to cover me I loafed along in line and ran over it in my mind. So far there had been two anonymous phone calls and I was wondering if the same party made them both. I kept trying to bring back the voice who had told me to look for Harlan. It was feminine enough then, but now I couldn't be sure.

It could have been a he or a she.

Harlan could be a he or a she or an it.

Harlan. Harlan Harlan. Son of a bitch, there was something I should know about her and couldn't think of. The damn thing was knocking against the inside of my head trying to make me see that it was there sure enough if I'd only use my brain.

It took a long time, then my fingers went cold around the wheel and I saw it. I had seen the name right after I had gotten the phone call and it hadn't registered. Harlan was a name that had been scrawled across one of the envelopes the D.A. had on his desk the night he died!

My foot touched the brake at the next intersection. I made a U-turn and drove back through town. I stopped at a bar for five minutes and made a phone call, then drove on to a certain street and parked.

I didn't have to wait long. The sedan came up behind me, a door slammed, then the one on my right was yanked open. I said, “Hello, Lindsey.”

He wasn't taking any chances. There was a gun in his hand. “Wise guy.”

I was too tired to argue with him. The gun came up when I pulled out my pack of butts and went down hesitantly when I offered him one.

He took it, waiting.

“You can get me any time, Lindsey. I'm not trying to get away.”

It was the tone of my voice that brought his head up. “I'll get you now. I'm sick of gags. Maybe we don't have your prints, but George Wilson and Johnny McBride are both wanted for murder. The lawyers'll have fun with it, but you'll swing.”

“First wouldn't you like to find out who killed Minnow?”

An impotent rage choked him. He kept fiddling with the gun trying to decide right there whether he ought to kill me himself or not. “I'd like that.”

So I told him who I was and why I was there, but that was all. He didn't believe it. I didn't care whether he did or not. I said, “Stay off my back for a week. Can you do that?”

“Why should I?”

“Because I may be right, that's why. If you had a decent police force you would find out things yourself. You can't. You're just like me. One guy, hoping to come across something, only you're too blind to look in more than one direction. You're tied hand and foot by rules and regulations. Your cops make more in shakedowns than salary so they take orders from somebody else. Servo runs the boys who run you so all you can do is hope. Let me have a week. Hell, it isn't much. One week and if I don't get what I want you can take me in and let the lawyers have their field day.”

“You're nuts.” There was indecision in his voice. “Or I'm nuts for listening.”

“I could have gotten away any time, Lindsey,” I reminded him.

He put the gun away. I watched his fingers wrap around the butt and send it spinning out the window. “What do you want, Johnny? Say it before I change my mind.”

I leaned back and stared at the ceiling. “The night Minnow died ... had his office been searched?”

His breath hissed out slowly. He said one word. “Yes.” “What was taken?”

“I don't know. The killer didn't look far because things weren't too messed up.”

“And you were the only one who noticed it.”

He looked out the window and spit disgustedly. “I didn't notice it until two days later when I went back to his office.” His shoulders moved under a sigh. “I was so damned mad it took me that long,” he explained.

“There was a letter there. It had ‘Harlan' written on it.” He got the pitch right off. “You saw his wife?”

“Yeah.”

“I checked on that angle.”

“Without finding the letter. There was nothing.” He held out his hand. “Give me another cig.” I shook one out and lit it for him. “I checked every movement he made that night. His wife was pretty excited about the whole affair ... thought he contacted the girl or something, but he didn't.

“He went out and bought a paper. He drove downtown, stopped in Philbert's where he made a few purchases, went across the street to a bar and had a few drinks and went home. The bartender said that while he was there he was deep in thought. He didn't do anything special and nobody noticed anything special.”