Death House Doll (14 page)

He said, “Sure thing.”

Manny tried to get out of the booth. I thrust my leg under the table and blocked him. He protested to the waiter. “But this guy is wanted by the cops.”

The waiter looked at me. “You’re not figuring on causing trouble, are you, fellow?”

“Don’t be silly,” I said, “all I want is a drink and a few minutes’ talk with my friend.”

He mopped at a puddle of spilled liquor with the towel he was carrying. “I can’t see any harm in that.”

Manny tried again. “But I tell you he’s wanted by the cops.”

The waiter had tired eyes. “Son,” he told the punk, “if a squad was to walk in the door right now, you would be surprised how many guys would try to hide under the tables.” He walked to the service bar to give my order.

My foot was still on the seat beside Manny. He tried to push it away. “You said you weren’t going to cause any trouble.”

I lit a cigarette from the stub of the one I was smoking. “I’m not. All I want you to do is admit you lied to Captain Corson and State’s Attorney Olson.”

“Okay. I lied.”

“You’re willing to go down to Central Bureau and tell Corson that?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because LaFanti would kill me.”

It was a problem. I doubted if I could force him to talk, even if I dragged him down to Central Bureau. He was too afraid of LaFanti. Besides, he wanted to keep the Jaguar. It was probably the nicest thing he’d ever had or ever would have in his life. I said, “Okay. Just talk to me. LaFanti and his boys cleaned up the apartment right after I left the first time?”

“Like they were crazy. They even made the little blonde help. They had her scrubbing the floor on her hands and knees.” He was curious. “Did you really do it to her?”

“No.”

“I figured that.” He wet his lips. “She wouldn’t be hard to take, though. I could go for her myself.” He added, hastily, “If she wasn’t LaFanti’s girl.”

The waiter brought our drinks. I pushed the fin his way and told him to keep the change.

“Thanks. Thanks a lot, pal,” he said, from the corner of his mouth. We were suddenly friends. It was almost as if Manny having told him I was wanted by the cops had made us members of the same graduating class. Joliet ‘50, probably.

Manny sipped at the rye he didn’t seem to need. He acted as if his throat was sore.

“What did they do with Tommy’s body?” I asked him.

“They took it down in the freight elevator wrapped in one of the rugs.”

“And from there?”

“I don’t know.”

I lifted my foot from the seat, drew it back a few inches, then put it where it did the most good. “And if you scream, I’ll shoot you,” I told him.

Pain sweat beaded on his face.

I repeated, “And from there?”

“They put it in the trunk of Mr. LaFanti’s Caddy and took it down to his place in the Dunes.”

I eased the pressure of my foot a trifle. “Be sure.”

He gasped, “I am sure. I heard Mr. LaFanti tell the big guy they call Norm to take both Tommy and Gordon down to his lodge in the Dunes.”

“You know the location of this lodge?”

“No. Just that it’s somewhere past Miller and right on the edge of the lake.”

“Do you think you could find it?” He hesitated. I rammed my heel again. “I asked you a question?”

“Yeah. Sure,” he whimpered. “Please. You’ll ruin me for life.”

I sipped at my beer. If the lad in Pierre came through, if I could deliver Tommy’s body to Captain Corson — I had it made. It was worth thinking about.

I lowered my foot to the floor. “Okay. For now. But don’t try anything funny. Don’t even look like you want to make a break. I’ve a gun I took away from Tommy in my pocket and I’ll use it if I have to.”

He sat holding himself. “I wish to God I’d never seen you.” I said, “You’ll probably see a lot of me. You’re going to drive me to this place you call the Dunes.”

“The hell I am.”

I put my foot back where it had been.

Manny changed his mind. “Sure. Of course. Anything you say.

I sat a moment, thinking. There was no doubt that LaFanti wanted the little doll in the death house to burn. He wouldn’t be safe until she did. I knew the reason now why she was taking the rap but one point still stuck me. Holograph confession or not, if State’s Attorney Olson had been on his toes, the whole thing would have come out in court. It was as much a part of the state’s attorney’s office to protect the innocent as it was to prosecute the guilty.

If he had been on his toes.

What I was thinking wasn’t so good.

I asked the question I had been leading up to. “When did they take the girl down, before or after they took Tommy?”

The question caught Manny off balance. He started to say, “After,” and stopped as if he’d said a dirty word in church. “What girl?”

I put my foot back where it had been. “Look, punk,” I warned him. “We’re not playing games. The cops have orders to shoot me on sight. I’m wanted for rape and attempted murder and general insanity. LaFanti is combing the town for me. I haven’t a thing to lose. So stay on my side or else. When did they take the girl down, before or after they carried out Tommy’s body?”

Pain sweat dripped off his nose into his beer. “After they carried Tommy out.”

“You saw her?”

“Just from a distance.”

“Did you recognize her?”

“No, she was crying too hard. Besides, she had a scarf tied over her head and part of it hid her face.”

“They took her to LaFanti’s place in the Dunes?”

“Anyway she got into the car. Norm and Hymie made her get in.”

“Then what happened?”

“Mr. LaFanti called me into his apartment. He said that you would probably be back in a few minutes with the cops and I should pretend like I’d never seen you before.” He gulped his rye and reached for my glass. “He said if the cops asked me, I should say that he and Miss May had been alone in the apartment all afternoon.”

“Then he gave you five grand?”

“Yeah.”

I stood up. “Okay. Let’s go.”

It pained him to stand up. “Go where?”

“Down to LaFanti’s place in the Dunes.”

“An’ if I refuse to drive you?”

I glanced down at the hand in my pocket, thinking of what the old hotel clerk had said. “That’s up to you. But if you think this is a banana I’m holding you’re crazy.”

He hobbled beside me to the door and we went down the street toward the white Jaguar. He didn’t look too good to me. Part of his hobble was pain but most of it was booze. His eyes were just this side of glassy.

“You call the turns,” I said. “I’ll drive.”

He stopped beside the Jaguar with a smug grin on his face. “That’s what you think, wise guy. We ain’t going nowhere ‘cause I ain’t got any keys. My old man took ’em off o’ me.”

I looked up at the lighted window of the flat and began to sweat again. If I went up and asked for the keys, Kelly, Senior would argue. He’d say we were both drunk. Besides, the prowl car might come back any minute.

“Open the hood,” I told Manny.

He did, unwillingly. The power plant was new to me. I’d never worked on a Jaguar. My fingers were slimy with sweat. It seemed to take me an hour before I managed to jump the ignition and start the car.

“Now get in,” I ordered Manny.

He got into the seat on the right side. I eased the car into gear and pulled away from the curb. As I did, Kelly, Senior pulled the lace curtains aside and stuck his head out the window and yelled, “Come back here, you young fools. You’ll smash up that car.”

I eased the Jaguar from one gear to another. You could feel the surge of power. It was a honey to drive. If the prowl car did show up in answer to the old man’s shouting, I felt sure it couldn’t catch us unless it was equipped with jets.

A mile from where we’d started, I fished the address of the nursing home that was caring for Johnny’s boy from my pocket. I asked Manny if it was on our way to the Dunes. He said, sullenly, that we could go that way and told me how to get there. Then the corks he’d smelled caught up with him and he slumped down in the seat and slept.

I drove carefully, keeping inside the speed limit, making certain I observed all the traffic lights that were still in operation. All I needed now, with the crest of the hill in sight, was to be picked up for passing a stop sign or running a red light.

The nursing home was on the southeast side of the city. All the windows except one were dark. As I drove past, I could see a middle-aged woman in the lighted window. She was wearing a white nurse’s cap and was writing something at a desk.

I curbed the car a block from the house. The street was hushed with early morning. I doubted if there was a stake-out on the home but if there was I would be safer by myself than with Manny staggering beside me.

I shook him hard. “Manny.”

He continued to snore, sucking in his breath noisily and fluttering his lips as he exhaled. Leaving the motor idling, I got out of the car and walked back to the nursing home. I’d come to Chicago to see Johnny’s kid. I meant to see him. There were two bells on the door. One of them was marked Night Bell.

I pushed the night bell and waited. There was still a lot I didn’t know, but I did know to whom Mona had made the two phone calls. I knew why the girl in the death house had waited for three hours before she had phoned the police.

The nurse I had seen through the lighted window opened the door and looked at me without expression. “Yes?”

She was middle aged and crisply professional looking. I took a chance and told her the truth. “I’m Mike Duval. You’ve probably read about me in the papers or heard about me on your TV or radio set. But I didn’t do any of the stuff they say I did. This all came about because just before my brother died in Korea I promised him I’d take care of his wife and boy. It seems some people in Chicago, one of them a Joe LaFanti, don’t think much of the idea.”

Still without expression, she said, “So you are Sergeant Duval.”

I remembered I was wearing a hat and took it off. “Yes, ma’am.”

“But why come here?”

I told her. “I would like to see my brothers’ boy. I would like to leave most of the money I have on hand to take care of his board until I get back to my outfit and can make a more permanent arrangement.”

She sounded like Army to me. Anyway, former Army. “If you ever get back to your outfit.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

She hesitated a moment, then stepped to one side of the door. “Come in, Sergeant.”

I stepped into the hall and watched her close the door. “Thank you.”

She turned and studied my face. “You don’t look crazy to me. A little banged up but certainly not the sort of person who would do all the things you’re charged with doing.”

I couldn’t help it. I grinned. “I don’t think I am. Crazy, I mean. And while I’ve never claimed to have wings, there are some things at which I draw the line.

She continued to study my face. “I believe you.”

“And can I see my brother’s boy?”

“Of course.” She led the way up a flight of stairs.

The kid was in a crib in a big room on the second floor with a lot of other cribs in it. The only light was a dim one but even in the half light there was no doubt he was Johnny’s boy. It was like looking at Johnny when he had been a baby except his and Mona’s baby had red hair.

The nurse said, “He resembles you, Sergeant.”

“Yeah. He does, a little,” I grinned, pleased. “Anyway he’s a Duval.”

“Why don’t you pick him up and hold him?”

I shook my head at her. “No, thanks. I might drop him.” As if he knew that we were talking about him, the little boy opened his eyes and smiled and burped. “Look,” I told the nurse, “he’s laughing.”

She picked him up and jiggled him on the heel of one hand, while she patted his little butt with her other hand until he burped again. “He isn’t really laughing. It’s just a touch of colic.”

As if to make a liar out of her, he threw back his little arms and cooed.

I asked, “Who has been paying his way so far?”

The nurse said, “As I understand it, his board was paid for six months in advance by the friend of his mother who brought him here.”

The friend of his mother.

“You saw this girl?”

“No, I didn’t. I was on day duty at the time.”

I asked, “What time was this? I mean when she brought him.”

“About five o’clock in the morning, the nurse on duty told me. She said the girl was crying so hard she was practically incoherent.”

I thought a moment. “Did she bring any clothes for Johnny?”

The nurse seemed surprised by the question. “As a matter of fact, she did.” Before I could stop her, she handed me the baby and picked up a small rubberized bag from the open shelf on the table beside Johnny’s crib.

The boy was warm and soft in my hands. As he leaned forward, still cooing, he beat at my face with his tiny fists. It was like being hit with rose petals. The nurse couldn’t kid me. He liked me. He was laughing.

She set the bag on the table and unzipped it. It was a common rubberlined canvas duffle bag, the kind you can buy in any drug store for a dollar and ninety-eight cents. “She brought this bag full of clothes. The shirts and dresses we can use when he grows into them, but we have our own diaper service.”

One of the other babies in the nursery cried fretfully. She said, “Excuse me,” and went to quiet it.

While she was gone I slid my hands inside the bag. The bottom was too thick by half an inch. The inside corners felt rough, as if they had been pulled loose and glued back into place.

The baby on the far side of the room stopped crying and the nurse came back to me. “I think you’d better go now, Sergeant.”

I said, “Whatever you say.” I patted Johnny’s little heinie and laid him back in his crib.

The nurse apologized, “It’s just that, after all, you are wanted by the police and I don’t want any trouble that might give the home a bad name. We all feel that Johnny’s mother is getting a raw deal. We feel there is more, much more, to the affair than has ever come out in court. But of course we can’t afford to mix into anything like that. It wouldn’t do any good if we did.”

“No,” I agreed. “Of course not.” I followed her out into the hall. “Now about the money for Johnny’s keep.”