Where There's Smoke Page 8

  “Step two?”

  “Ned. He was in Hal’s way, if Hal was to put it over. You can say what you like about brother Edward and I’ll agree with all of it doubled and redistilled. But Neddie knew show biz. He knew how to handle Leila. On the stage, I mean. Off it—well—what’s the use of calling a dead dog names!”

  “Why didn’t she ditch her brother, if he treated her so scummy?”

  She looked at him sideways. “That’s for her to say, isn’t it?”

  “It’s for you to say, if you know. He was holding something over her head, wasn’t he?”

  “He might have rattled the family skeleton around in the closet a little.” She opened her handbag, dabbled around in it, laid coins on the counter. There was a pucker of perplexity between her eyes. “Maybe Hal Kelsey knew about that, but I don’t think so.” She finished the sentence slowly, as if doubting it herself.

  “I guess I’m the only person besides Leila who knows, now Ned’s about to push up the daisies. She’d cut my throat for telling you.” Kim did things with lipstick, compact and puff; Pedley forced himself to be patient. Eventually she completed the prettying process. “Promise me you won’t use it any way that’ll hurt her?”

  “If she isn’t the guilty party.” He nodded.

  “I don’t know why I should take your word for it. But you couldn’t be so hardboiled and a two-timer to boot. Well—four or five years ago—five, I think—Leila was—” She had been preening herself with the aid of the mirror back of the fountain—now she stared fixedly at it.

  Abruptly she spun around on the stool, bumping into the marshal, spilling him off his perch and back against a pyramid of display cartons which toppled down around his head.

  As he was freeing himself from the cardboard clutter, he wondered if that sudden movement of hers had been intentionally awkward. That expression of mingled alarm and apology as she peered out the store window might be the McCoy—or not.

  “I’m terribly sorry.” She whispered so the soda jerker couldn’t hear what she was saying. “But there was a man out there on the street! With a gun!”

  “Where?” Through the window, Pedley couldn’t see anyone. He slid out the door. The street was empty except for a taxi driver reading a tabloid behind his wheel.

  Pedley sprinted to the corner. Nobody there but an old woman wrapped in a shawl, huddling over a pile of newspapers on the curb.

  He went back to the cab driver. “See a guy standing at the drugstore window there, a minute ago?”

  “There’s always somebody hangin’ around this corner, Mac.” The taximan rattled his newspaper. “I don’t pay no attention.”

  Perhaps there hadn’t been any man. The arranger might have been putting on an act. But why? He went back inside.

  Kim Wasson wasn’t there.

  “Where’d the babe disappear to?” he asked the counterman.

  “Side door.” The man slapped the cartons back in place aggrievedly. “Like to know why she tore out in such a dither, without helpin’ pick up these things.”

  “Don’t ask me. I haven’t an idea. Not a glimmer.” Pedley went out the side door, but he didn’t expect to see Kim.

  He was right about that.

  Chapter Thirteen

  A VIOLENT DIFFERENCE OF OPINION

  THE MARSHAL USED THE PHONE in the drugstore booth to call Barney, gave instructions to dig up the Wasson girl’s address. Then he went out on the street, waited a minute or so on the corner. There was an outside chance Kim might come back when she got over being scared. If she had really been scared. If it hadn’t been a put-up job to get away from Pedley so she wouldn’t have to make good on the inside story of Leila’s past.

  He pulled up his coat collar and watched the snow eddying around the towers of the Waldorf, across the avenue. Maybe he was wasting time, trying to pin down the motive behind the firebug. There were too many motives, too many people who had personal and private reasons for wanting Ned Lownes below ground:

  Terry Ross, who’d knocked Lownes out, there at the theater. Ross would be taking over the managership of a piece of talent that could earn up to half a million a year. He’d do better, now Ned was out of the way.

  Bill Conover—Bill had threatened to push the button on Lownes; if Leila’s brother could have blocked her marriage to Bill, or made it difficult, that might be enough reason for a youngster whose nerves had been shot to pieces by what he’d been through in the war.

  Chuck Gaydel’s position wasn’t quite the same, but the producer had been close to Leila—he still thought enough of her to make a try at getting back that Florentine box—and he would have been able to get around the theater better than almost anyone else. And that was probably one of the keys to the answer, familiarity with the Brockhurst.

  Wes Toleman? Pedley wouldn’t have any data to go on, there, until Ollie checked in with something. And this Hal Kelsey. Kim Wasson had done her best to point the finger at the band leader, but that might mean nothing more than that the arranger was mixed up in it herself. Or that she held a grudge against Kelsey and had picked this time to put him in wrong.

  Maybe a few words with the band leader would clear that up.

  The Starlight Roof. That’s where Hal Kelsey and his Gang were featured attractions at the moment. Pedley gave a final glance up and down the avenue for Kim Wasson, decided it was no use waiting, walked across the street, and went into the hotel.

  When the elevator let him off on the top floor, he pushed through the knot of people herded against the red plush cord, beckoned to the maître.

  The headwaiter observed him without enthusiasm. “Your party at a table, sir?”

  Pedley said: “The skinny lad leading the orchestra. That Kelsey?”

  “No, sir. Mister Kelsey doesn’t come on again until the floor show is over.”

  The marshal surveyed the big room. The tables were nearly all taken. Mostly couples or parties of four; evening gowns and dinner jackets with here and there a man in business clothes.

  On the dance floor a line of straw-skirted bare-midriffed cuties were doing a sultry hula. Behind them, musicians in tropical linen were playing softly enough to let the steel guitars take a solo.

  “Where’ll I find this Kelsey?”

  “I couldn’t say, sir. He might be in his dressing-room.”

  Pedley unhooked the plush cord, let himself in, before the maître could prevent him.

  “I’m sorry, sir. Unless you have a reservation—” The marshal held out his hand with the gold badge cupped in his palm.

  “Oh!” Supercilious eyebrows lifted in concern. “I hope there’ll be no trouble—?”

  “None at all.” Pedley strode over to the wall aisle, headed for the red light-bulb over the EXIT sign beside the orchestra platform.

  A hand touched him lightly on the shoulder. He turned. It was Shaner. He had been sitting at one of the wall tables, in the shadow; had stepped out into the aisle after the marshal had passed him.

  “Looking for somebody, skipper?” the deputy inquired lazily.

  “What the hell are you doing here?”

  “That publicity flack is here.”

  “Ross? Where?”

  “Out back. With Kelsey.”

  “Get to it.”

  “I tail Ross over here. He gets a table and right away the band leader comes over and sits down with him. They don’t order any eats but they do a little serious drinking. Also, they get into an argument.”

  “What about?”

  “I don’t know. The nearest table I could rent wasn’t in good listening range. Anyhoo, this argument gets steamed up considerable and they must notice they are attracting attention. Because they take their fight to more private quarters.”

  “You didn’t hear anything they were saying?”

  “I only catch a tidbit, here and there, as I am passing to and fro to the little boys’ room.”

  “Pitch.”

  “Ross states he’s going to be kingpin of the radio show now
Lownes has taken his final bow. Kelsey insists he’s in the driver’s seat and means to hold a very tight rein on Ross.”

  “Why’d they break up the discussion?”

  “This I can’t tell you. I catch a snatch about some lawyer—”

  “Amery?”

  “Could be. Kelsey bounces up all of a sudden and allows as how he’ll see this lawyer himself and would Ross kindly go to hell in a handbasket. Then he stamps off in low or medium dudgeon—and the publicity professor sprints right after him.”

  “And you don’t go after them! I’ve got a good mind to send you back to straightening hose kinks. Didn’t it occur to you it might be important to know what goes on, out there?”

  Shaner shrugged. “I called Barney, asked him to locate you, tell you the status. I was sort of waiting for a callback with instructions.”

  “You’ve got ’em now. Come on.”

  Pedley led the way out back of the orchestra platform, into the dressing-room hall. They located Ross and the band leader by the simple expedient of listening. The quarrelers were in a locker-room marked: INSTRUMENT STORAGE ONLY, NO SMOKING. The door was shut, but it was thin.

  Ross was bellowing. “Why don’t you use some sense for once in your life, Hal? Don’t rock the boat. I’ll see you get what’s coming to you.”

  “That’s what I’m afraid of.” Kelsey’s voice was softly venomous. “I’ve got your cute little canary over a barrel. I’m going to keep her there until I get what I want.”

  “What’s your price?”

  “I stay with the show. I run the show. I’ll use Leila long’s she makes the grade. I’ll decide when she doesn’t.”

  “She won’t agree to it. Amery wouldn’t let her.”

  “She will. And he will. When he knows I’ve got that Florentine case. Mister District Attorney wouldn’t ask for a better motive for murder than what’s in that leather beauty.”

  “Before I’d let you put the bee on her like that, I’ll—”

  “What’ll you do!” Pedley could scarcely hear the band leader, he spoke so gently.

  “I’ll sick Staro on you!”

  For the space of a breath there was silence from the other side of the door. Shaner hunched his shoulders, held out his hands, palms upward. Pedley got a hand on the knob.

  A chair scraped on the floor, inside the storage-room. Ross cried, “Put it down, Hal. Put it down or—” Pedley swung the door wide. Several things happened so fast they seemed to be simultaneous.

  The tall, taper-shouldered band leader swung a chair from above his head. Ross pulled the trigger of the nickel-barreled hammerless he held pointed at Kelsey’s lower vest button. Pedley kicked at Ross’s wrist.

  Ross dodged; the gun spat at the floor. Pedley’s boot caught the publicity man in the groin. He caromed back against the wall. The chair crashed down, knocked him sprawling. Shaner stepped in swiftly, hooked a left to Kelsey’s face, rocked the band leader back into a corner.

  Pedley toed the broken chair out of the way, bent down, took the gun away from Ross.

  “Didn’t know it was loaded, I bet!”

  “You, again!” Ross got to his knees, put his hand below his belt buckle, grimaced. “What’s it to you if Hal and I have a little disagreement?!”

  “I’ve known these private Donnybrooks to get hot enough to burn people.” The marshal broke the pistol. “Where’s your permit for this?”

  “At the Olympiad.” Ross staggered to his feet. “You won’t take it away, either. I was using it in self-defense.”

  “You were going to gut-shoot your chum here in a spirit of good clean fun. If I hadn’t given you the boot, you’d be facing a felonious rap right now.” Pedley closed the hammerless, stuck it in his pocket. “I’ll have Ballistics check this and send it back to you. You better trot along, now.”

  “There’s some unfinished business to be attended to,” Ross said stiffly.

  “Isn’t that a fact! But your part of it’ll hold. On your way, now.”

  Ross went out, walking with his feet placed well apart. Shaner cleared his throat. “All right if I leave this chair-heaver to you, coach?”

  “Wait a sec, Shaner.” Pedley stepped to the door with his deputy. “Never mind the butter-ball. I’ll have to give him a going-over, myself. I’ve a better chore for you.”

  “Be reasonable, skipper! I’d figured on having a brief interim on my own after I tucked the Rossboy in the hay.”

  “Tend to your homework some other night. It’s a cinch job you’re getting, anyway.”

  “Such as—?”

  “Relievin’ Maginn. Riding herd on Leila Lownes.”

  “Now that—” Shaner smiled clear back to his ears—“is another color of a horse. Give me my boots and sad-dle!”

  “Watch her close. I want her where I can put my hands on her if I need to.”

  “Who wouldn’t?” The deputy went away. Pedley shut the door.

  There was sheer malignancy in the way Hal Kelsey squinted up when the marshal propped a chair under the doorknob in lieu of a key.

  “You’re a pretty shrewd operator, Kelsey.”

  “Trying to con me?”

  “Just laying some cards on the table. You want to get hold of the Winn radio show, now Lownes has departed these precincts. I don’t know whether you can do that or not. It’s no skin off my seat, either way. Unless you’re the firebug I’m after.”

  “You’re about to proposition me. I can tell—”

  “That was the general idea. You might save me some trouble—I might make things easier for you.”

  “How?”

  “There’s a little matter of a leather case.”

  “What about it?”

  “I want it.”

  “You won’t get it from me. I haven’t got it.”

  “You told Ross different.”

  “To keep him from mucking up my plans, that’s all.” Kelsey smiled cunningly. “Ross doesn’t know where the gadget is; he says somebody stole it from Ned’s hotel room. I don’t know what’s in it, but I know it’s dynamite of some kind. So I put two and two together and get a notion. If neither Terry nor Leila knows where the thing is, maybe Ned hid it where nobody can find it. All I have to do is admit I have it—and the old black magic works just the same as if I had the gimmick right in my locker. But if you’re going to tell everybody I haven’t got it—you’ll wash me up good.”

  “I’ve a single-track mind. I’m after a firebrand. Where’d you breeze to this afternoon after the flame broke out?”

  “International Broadcasting. To make arrangements for another rehearsal studio.”

  “The show must go on? Your star won’t be able to—”

  “You’ll be surprised—” Kelsey’s eyes were very bright; the color high in his cheeks—“how little the Lownes vocals will be missed. There’ll even be those who’ll contend it’s a better show without her.”

  “You’ve kind of a single-track mind, yourself.” Pedley took the chair away from the door. “I just hope for your sake you haven’t been trying to outfox the Fire Department.” He went out into the hall. “Don’t arrange for any Havana vacation until you hear from me.”

  From a phone booth beside the checkroom, he phoned his office.

  “Anything on the Wasson chick, Barney?”

  “Sure have, boss! Listen—”

  “What’s her address?”

  “Twelve-ten Horatio! The damnedest thing—”

  “Apartment house?”

  “If you’d lemme tell you!” Barney was excited.

  “What’s eating you?”

  “A still alarm come in from there just a few minutes ago!”

  Pedley snarled at the transmitter. “From where?!”

  “Twelve-ten Horatio, boss. There was an explosion of some kind.”

  Barney was talking to a dead line.

  Chapter Fourteen

  CURIOUS FIREMAKING APPARATUS

  THE GREENWICH VILLAGE STREET was a welter of noise. Women sh
rieked. Men yelled incoherently. Teen-age girls, wrapped in blankets, giggled hysterically. Half-clad children scampered screaming from frantic parents.

  Policemen bellowed at young boys pressing against the fire lines—at the crowds milling out of near-by houses into driving snow tinted claret from the headlamps. The thunder of the pumpers reverberated across the icy rubble. Water lanced up hoarsely toward the roof of Twelve-ten.

  The top of the building was glowing like a brazier seen from beneath. Against the dark line of the cornice, orange flashes illuminated black, oily coils spewing up from below.

  The gusts whirled smoke down into the street, blotting out the bedlam, momentarily. A sprinkling of sparks was whipped by the wind from the windows on the top floor; intermittent showers of brick chips and broken glass rattled down on the red hoods of the apparatus.

  Below that radiance on the fifth floor, the apartment house was dark, save for firefly flashes of lanterns moving behind the windows of the lower floors. But every window in the adjoining buildings was lighted. Heads were silhouetted against squares of soft yellow, all up and down the block.

  Short ladders were in place across the sidewalk. In the middle of the street, Hook Eighty’s giant extension ladder was being cranked up toward the top floor.

  To the morbidly excited or frightened people on the streets, this was a scene of inexplicable and ominous confusion. But like one of those old slapstick films in which the automobile ran backward and the hat that had been knocked off the fat man’s head magically rose from the ground to perch again upon his bald pate, the picture unwound itself backward to Pedley.

  Without being conscious of it, his mind retraced in an instant what must have happened before he reached the spot.

  The engine company had raced in, gated their hoses to the hydrants. The hosemen had unreeled their lines, started one in the front door at the street level, another up an extension ladder which the first truck company would have slapped up against the building within a few seconds after its arrival. A third line would have been laid in through the alley and up back of the building on the fire escape.