Face to Face (11 page)

27

They tailed the bum on a zigzag course that staggered downtown. Spotty paused now and then to panhandle a passerby, in an absentminded way—not so much for the dime or quarter, they would have sworn, as to keep his hand in. Below Union Square the man's shuffle quickened. At Cooper Square he bore east around Cooper Union and homed into the Bowery like a pigeon.

His destination was a 25¢-a-night “hotel” with a diseased sign over its pimpled door. Harry Burke took up his stand two doors down, in the boarded-up entrance to an empty store. The gray of the sky began to turn slate; snow was palpable in the raw air. Roberta shivered.

“There's really no point in your sticking this with me,” Burke said to her. “This may go on and on.”

“But what are you planning to do, Harry?”

“I told you—stick it,” he said grimly. “Spotty should come out sooner or later, and when he does I want to see where he goes. There may be others involved.”

“Well, if you're going to stay here, Harry Burke, so am I,” Roberta said. She began to stamp her tiny feet.

“You're shaking.” He pulled her to him in the doorway. She looked up at him. For a moment they were silent. Then Burke flushed and released her.

“I'm not really cold.” She was wearing a forest green fuzzy-piled coat with a standup collar. “It's these men, Harry. How can the poor things stand it? Most of them don't even have an overcoat.”

“If they had, they'd sell it for the price of a pint of wine or a shot of whisky.”

“Are you really as heartless as you sound?”

“Facts are facts.” Burke said stubbornly. “Although it's true I'm no bleeding heart. I've seen too much misery no one can do anything about.” He said suddenly, “You must be getting hungry, Bertie.”

“I'm
starved
.”

“I noticed a cafeteria a block or so north. Why don't you fetch us a few sandwiches like a good girl, and a couple of cartons of coffee? I'd go, but I can't chance Spotty's slipping out in the meanwhile.”

“Well …” Roberta sounded doubtful. She was eyeing the passing derelicts.

“Don't worry about the bums. If they accost you, Bertie, tell them you're a policewoman. You're safer among men like these than you would be uptown. Sex isn't their problem. Here.” Burke pressed a $5 bill on her.”

“I can pay for it. Goodness!”

“I'm old-fashioned.” To Burke's astonishment, he found himself smacking her round little bottom. She looked startled, but she did not seem to mind. “On your way, wench!”

She was gone fifteen minutes.

“Any trouble?”

“One man stopped me. When he heard the magic word he almost sprained an ankle getting away.”

Burke grinned and uncapped the coffee.

Darkness fell. The scarred flophouse door began to do a brisk business. There was no sign of the man who called himself Spotty.

It began to snow.

Two hours dragged by. It was now snowing heavily. Burke, too, stamped his feet.

“I don't understand it …”

“He must have gone to bed.”

“While it was still daylight?”

“I don't see what we're accomplishing here, Harry.” Roberta complained. “Except risking pneumonia.”

“There's something wrong,” Burke muttered.

“Wrong? How do you mean?”

“I don't know. Except that it makes no sense, his going in before dark and remaining there. He'd have to eat, and there's certainly no dining room in that black hole.” Burke seemed suddenly to make up his mind about something. “Roberta.”

“Yes, Harry?”

“I'm sending you home.” He seized her arm and steered her across the sidewalk to the curb.

“But why? I mean, aren't you going, too?”

“I'm going into that flea trap, which you obviously can't do. And even if you could, I wouldn't allow you to. And I'd rather not leave you standing out here alone.”

He shook off Roberta's protests, managed to commandeer a taxi, and packed her into it. She craned back at him rather forlornly as the cab took off, its chains slapping and clanking and spitting slush. But Harry Burke was already hurrying toward the bums' hotel.

28

The lobby proved to be a small, poorly varnished desk at the end of a dark hallway, presided over by an old man with a blue-veined nose and acne. The old man wore a heavy sweater; the rusty radiator was hissing, but the place was like the grave. The only illumination came from a 60-watt bulb dangling over the desk under a scratched green glass shade. There was a staircase at one side, with a railing. The steps were worn down in the middle, and the railing reflected a sickish gloss in the murk.

“I'm looking for a man who checked in just before nightfall.” Burke said to the old man. “He calls himself Spotty.”

“Spotty?” The old man stared suspiciously. “What you want Spotty for?”

“Which room is he in?”

“You a cop?” When Burke said nothing, the old man said, “What's Spotty done?” He had dark brown teeth.

Burke's tone hardened. “Which room is he in?”

“Okay, mister, keep your benny on. We got no private rooms here. Dorms. He's in Dorm A.”

“Where is that?”

“Up the stairs and to your right.”

“You come with me.”

“I got to stay at the desk—”

“Old man, you're wasting my time.”

The old man grumbled. But he came out from behind his desk and led the way up the stairs.

Dorm A was like something out of the
Inferno.
It was a long narrow room with cramped ranks of cots on each side, a filthy and cracked linoleum floor that looked like a relief map, and a naked red bulb hanging from a cord in the middle of the ceiling which bathed the scene in blood. Half the thirty cots were already occupied. The room was unpleasantly alive—snuffles, mutters, snores, thrashings about; a blended stench of unwashed bodies, dirty clothing, urine, and alcohol fumes. There was no heat, and the two windows at the end of the room looked as if they had not been opened in a century.

“Which bed is he in?” Burke demanded of the old man.

“How in hell should I know? First come, first served.”

He went up one side, followed by the old man. Burke stooped over each cot. The dim red light made his eyes water. He found himself holding his breath.

The man called Spotty lay on the other side of the room on the rearmost cot. He had his face to the wall, and he was covered to the neck by the blanket.

“That's him,” the old man said. He pushed past Burke and punched the still shoulder. “Spotty! Wake the hell up.”

Spotty failed to stir.

“Must of had a bottle,” the old man said. He jerked the blanket off. He fell back, all his brown teeth showing.

The handle of a switchblade stuck out of the derelict's over-coated back, on the left side. The only blood Burke could see looked black in the red light. He felt for the carotid artery.

He straightened up. “Do you have a telephone?” he asked the old man.

“He dead?”

“Yes.”

The old man cursed. “Downstairs,” he said.

“Don't touch anything, and don't wake the other men up.”

Burke went downstairs.

29

Inspector Queen's interrogation took until 3:00
A.M
. Twice Burke and Ellery walked over to the all-night cafeteria for coffee; the cold in the flophouse went in to the bone.

“He had something,” Burke muttered. “He really did. I knew it. But that damned Frankell had to freeze him out.”

“You didn't recognize anyone going into the place, Harry?” Ellery asked him.

“I was concentrating on spotting Spotty, damn it all.”

“Too bad.”

“Don't rub it in. I'm trying to tell myself that the knifer may have got in and out through the rear. There's a rear door, off an alley, and a back stairs.”

Ellery nodded and sipped his coffee, which was horrible but hot. He said no more. Burke seemed to be taking the murder of the derelict personally; for that disease there was no remedy.

“We'll get nothing here,” the Inspector said when he had finished upstairs. “The knife is a cheap switchblade, and there are no prints on it. And if these bums know anything, they're not opening their traps.”

“Then why are we hanging around here?” Ellery complained. “I can think of better places to be. My sweet clean bed, for instance.”

“One thing.” his father said. “While you and Burke were out I questioned a man who claims this Spotty had a pal, somebody they call Mugger. The two seem to have been thick as the thieves they are—or at least Mugger is. He got his monicker for good and sufficient reason, Velie tells me.”

“Mugging record long as your arm,” Sergeant Velie said. “Works the quiet dark spots. Never hurts anybody, far as we know. He likes to pick on the soft touches—old people mostly.”

“Have you talked to the man yet?” Burke asked.

“He's not here,” the Inspector replied. “That's why I'm waiting. In case he shows up.”

The man reeled in at 3:30
A.M
., decks awash. It took three cartons of black coffee to heave him to within reasonable sight of sobriety. After that, when Sergeant Velie told him with calculated callousness that his pal Spotty had gone out the hard way, with a shiv in his back, Mugger began to blubber. It was a fascinating sight. He was a wrecked fat brute of a man who looked as if he might once have been a heavyweight prizefighter. He would say absolutely nothing to all questions.

But he underwent a sea change when they drove him up to the Morgue and showed him his friend's body.

“Okay,” he growled,
“okay
,” and spat on the floor, hard.

They found him a chair. He overflowed it, glowering at the aseptic walls.

“You going to talk now?” Inspector Queen asked him.

“Depends.”

“On what?”

“On what you ask.” It was evident that any question involving his nocturnal activities would be out of the answering zone.

“All right,” said the Inspector. “Let's try this on for size: You knew what Spotty had to sell, didn't you?”

“Info on that girl up for trial tomorrow on the murder rap.”

“You were partners with Spotty? Going to split the take?”

“Spotty didn't know I knew.”

“What was the information?”

The man was silent. His bloody eyes roved, as if seeking safe harbor.

“Look, Mugger,” the Inspector said. “You may be pretty deep in these woods. Spotty knew something he said would help Miss Spanier. And he was going to collect a thousand dollars for it. You knew what it was all about. That gives you a mighty good motive to want Spotty out of the scene. If Spotty was dead, you could take over and collect the thousand for your own self. Looks as if we're going to have to trace that switchblade to you.”

“Me? Shiv Spotty?” Life crept into the devastated eyes. “My buddy?”

“Don't hand me that buddy stuff. There's no such thing as a buddy on your beat. Not where a score is concerned.”

“He was,” Mugger said earnestly. “Ask anybody.”

“I'm telling you. You either stuck that blade into him—and if you did we'll nail you for it—or you were waiting for Spotty to make the score and then you'd step in. It's one or the other. Which?”

Mugger ran the back of his hairy hand across his mashed nose. He looked around and saw nothing but hostile eyes. He sighed deeply. “Okay,” he said, “so I was going to let Spotty do it. Then I'd put in for my half. Spotty would split with me. We was pals. I kid you not.”

“What was the information Spotty was trying to sell?” Inspector Queen asked again.

It was almost 6:00
A.M
. before the man could bring himself to reveal the precious information. And then it was only when Sergeant Velie brought out some precious information of his own. Mugger was a parolee on a mugging rap. One word to his parole officer about his uncooperative attitude, and he would find himself back in the can. Or so Velie alleged. Mugger was not disposed to argue the point. He spilled.

As a matter of routine, the sergeant checked him out for the Spotty killing. He was clean. He had an alibi attested by two bartenders in a Bowery joint. He had not left the bar from mid-afternoon until past midnight (and what he had been doing between past midnight and 3:30
A.M
. they could guess, which was not difficult, considering the vocation that had earned him his monicker).

The alibi that stood up strengthened his story about Lorette Spanier, although Inspector Queen pointed out that a defense based upon the testimony of a witness of Mugger's nature and character was hardly the sort of thing defense attorneys greeted with huzzahs.

The last thing they did in that dawn was to spirit the hulk to an out-of-the-way hotel, where they locked him in under police guard.

As Ellery said, “Whoever killed Spotty has the identical hex against Mugger. Let's keep him alive at least until he can testify.”

He and Harry Burke went their respective ways for a few hours' sleep. Ellery found Morpheus slippery. He thought, as he rotated on his axis in bed, that he now saw half the face of the mystery as it rotated on
its
axis. But if the three-quarter face was coming round into focus, it was taking its sweet time.

Part 3

Three-Quarter Face

The countenance is the portrait of the mind, the eyes are its informers.

C
ICERO

30

For a man who had been so cavalierly confident that he could cast doubt on the People's case against his client, Uri Frankell seized the straw handed him by the unexpected defense witness with remarkable alacrity.

“I naturally prefer positive to negative testimony.” the defense attorney said, “in a trial by jury.”

“Why don't you try to get the D.A. to withdraw the charge?” Ellery asked him. “Then you won't have to go to a jury at all.”

“Herman wouldn't buy it,” Frankell said. “Not with this character as my witness. In fact, that's what we've got chiefly to worry about. He's going to light into Mugger like a bum into a Salvation Army turkey.”

“Then do you think it wise to restrict the menu to the turkey?”

“It's the best we've got.”

“I thought you were relying on Lorette. Have you changed your mind about putting her on the stand?”

“We'll see. It all depends on how it goes with Mugger.” Frankell looked cautious. “You're sure he wasn't offered a consideration for his testimony? No promise of or actual money payment—anything like that?”

“I'm sure.”

“Then why is he so willing to testify? I couldn't get it out of him.”

“It was tactfully suggested to him in the original police interrogation that he might wind up back in prison if he was uncooperative. He's a parolee.”

“This was a police threat? Not made by someone on our side?”

“That's right.”

Frankell looked glad.

The district attorney did his usual workmanlike job without, Ellery noted, his usual
joie d'oeuvrer.
It was not so much the nature of Herman's case, Ellery decided, as the nature of his witnesses. With the exception of officials, like Inspector Queen and Sergeant Velie, those who had to testify to the circumstances were hostile to his case or, at the least, sympathetic to the defendant. Carlos Armando, Harry Burke, Roberta West, Ellery himself, had had to be subpoenaed. They were far more compliant under cross-examination than direct questioning.

Nevertheless, by the time the People rested, the district attorney had blocked out a persuasive case against Lorette Spanier. She was the last person known to have been alone with Glory Guild before the singer's death. Her statement as to the time of her departure from the Guild apartment, her homeward walk across Central Park, and her arrival at her flat was without support of any kind. The .38 Special that had taken Glory's life had been found in the defendant's closet, in a hatbox belonging to her. She was the victim's principal heir to a considerable estate. She had been neglected—the D.A. used the word “abandoned”—by the victim since early childhood, implying that the motive had been either gain or hatred, or both.

The jury seemed impressed. Their multiple eye persistently avoided the blond child-face at the defense table.

Frankell opened and closed his case with Mugger. It was a far different Mugger from the derelict Lorette's friends had last seen. His suit had been dry-cleaned and pressed; he was wearing a clean white shirt, a dark necktie, and a pair of shined shoes; he was blue-shaven; and he was cold if bleary-eyed sober. He looked amazingly like a hard-worked plumber dressed for church. (“Sure Herman will bring out that we prettied him up,” the defense lawyer murmured to Ellery. “But it's going to take a lot of hammering away to make the jury forget how decent the guy looks. Personally, I think we've got Herman hung up. What's more, Herman knows it. Look at his nose.” The district attorney's nostrils were shuttling in and out as if searching for bad odors which, for all their experience, they could not detect.)

It turned out that Mugger's name was a surprising Curtis Perry Hathaway. Frankell promptly elicited from Mr. Hathaway the information that he was “sometimes” known as Mugger. (“Why did you ask that?” Ellery demanded later. “Because,” the lawyer replied, “Herman would if I didn't. Took the sting out of it. Or the stink—take your choice.”)

“How did you get your nickname, Mr. Hathaway?”

“I broke my nose playing baseball when I was a kid,” Mugger said earnestly. “It give me this ugly mug, see, which I would make faces—you know, clown around, the way kids do—because I was ashamed. So they begin to call me Mugger.” (“Oh, my ears and whiskers,” muttered Harry Burke.)

“Now, Mr. Hathaway,” said Uri Frankell, “you're under oath, a witness for the defendant, an important witness, I might say the most important witness, and we've got to be dead certain the Court and the jury understand just who you are and how you stand in all this, so that nobody can come along later and say we tried to conceal something—”

“He means me!” yelled the district attorney. “I object to speeches!”

“Mr. Frankell, do you have another question of this witness?”

“Lots of them, your Honor.”

“Then ask them, will you?”

“Mr. Hathaway, you have just told us how you came to get the nickname Mugger. Is there any other reason?”

“For what?”

“For your being called Mugger.”

“No,
sir
,” said Mugger.

“Mr. Hathaway—” began Frankell.

“Leading the witness!” shouted the district attorney.

“I fail to see how pronouncing the witness's name is leading him.” said his Honor. “Go ahead, Mr. Frankell. But don't lead him.”

“Mr. Hathaway, do you have a police record?”

Mugger looked crushed. “What kind of a question is that, for gossakes?”

“Never mind what kind it is. Answer it.”

“I been pulled in a few times.” Mugger's tone said, Isn't everybody?

“On what charge?”

“Mugging, they put it down. Listen, I never mugged nobody in my whole life. You mug, you hurt people. I don't hurt people. Never. Only they tag you with it, it sticks—”

“The witness will answer the question and stop,” his Honor said. “Mr. Frankell, I don't want speeches from your witnesses, either.”

“Just answer my question, Mr. Hathaway, and stop.”

“But they tagged me—”

“Isn't that also why you're sometimes called Mugger, Mr. Hathaway? Because the police collared you on a few alleged mugging raps?”

“I told you. They tagged me—”

“All right, Mr. Hathaway, we understand. But the principal reason you're called Mugger is that you've borne the nickname from childhood because of your nose being broken playing baseball and you clowned about it, made funny faces?”

“Yes,
sir.”

“I was under the impression that this witness was testifying for the defendant.” his Honor remarked to Uri Frankell, “not for himself. Will you please get on with it?”

“Yes, your Honor, but we don't wish to conceal anything from the Court and the jury—”

“No speeches, Counselor!”

“Yes, sir. Now, Mr. Hathaway, did you know a man named John Tumelty?”

“Who?” said Mugger.

“Better known as Spotty.”

“Oh, Spotty. Sure. He was my pal. Real buddies, we was.”

“Where is your pal Spotty now?”

“In the cooler.”

“You mean in the city Morgue?”

“That's what I said. Somebody cooled him good the other night. Stuck a shiv in his back while he was grabbing some shuteye.” Mugger sounded indignant. It was as if he would have felt better about his friend had Spotty come to an end on the
qui vive
and face to face with the author who was about to write finis to his life.

“Is that why Spotty isn't here today testifying for Miss Spanier?”

“Object!” cried the district attorney, flapping his fat hand.

“Of course,” said his Honor nastily. “You know better than that, Mr. Frankell. Strike the question. The jury will disregard it.” Mugger opened his mouth. “Witness, don't you answer!” Mugger shut his mouth. “Proceed, Counselor.”

“Before we get to the meat of your testimony, Mr. Hathaway,” Frankell said, “I wish to clear up something for these good ladies and gentlemen of the jury. I ask you—and remember you're under oath—have you been offered any money or other material consideration for your testimony in this case?”

“Not one dime,” said Mugger, not without bitterness.

“You're sure of that?”

“Sure I'm sure.”

“Not by the defendant?”

“The who?”

“The lady on trial.”

“No, sir.”

“Not by me?”

“You? No, sir.”

“Not by any of Miss Spanier's friends?”

“Not me.”

“Not by—”

“How many times does he have to answer the same question?” inquired the D.A.

“—by anyone connected with the defense?”

“I told you. Not by nobody.”

“Then why are you testifying, Mr. Hathaway?”

“The fuzz,” said Mugger.

“The fuzz?”

“The fuzz told me if I didn't answer their questions on the up and up they'd tell my parole officer.”

“Oh. The police told you that when they were interrogating you? When was that?”

“The night they found Spotty shivved.”

“So it's because of police pressure that you're giving your testimony—your truthful testimony—in this case?”

“Object!” howled the district attorney. “Unwarranted inference! The next thing we'll hear is about police brutality in a routine interrogation!”

“Take your seat, Mr. District Attorney,” sighed his Honor. “Mr. Frankell, phrase your questions in the proper way. I'm getting tired of telling you. There has been no testimony adduced from this witness as to police pressure.”

“I'm sorry, your Honor,” said Uri Frankell in a sorry voice. “The point is that this witness's testimony is the result of a police grilling, not from any offer of consideration to the witness by the defense—”

“And don't use the word grilling, Mr. Frankell! Get on, get on!”

“Yes, your Honor. Now, Mr. Hathaway, I want to take you back to certain events that occurred on the night of Wednesday, December the thirtieth last.”

There was an immediate and sensible tightening in the courtroom. It was as if everyone present—in the jury box, among the spectators, in the press section—was telling himself, Here it comes! without knowing just what was on the way, but anticipating, from Frankell's buildup, that it was going to be a real swinger of a blow to the poor public servant at the prosecution table. Even his Honor leaned forward. Among the certain events that had occurred on the night of Wednesday, December the thirtieth last, was GeeGee Guild's push toward eternity.

“Do you recall that night, Mr. Hathaway?”

“I do,” said Mugger, as fervently as if he were at the altar.

“That's quite a while ago. What makes you remember that particular night after all this time?”

“ ‘Cause I hit a real score,” said Mugger, licking his blasted lips at the recollection. “Nothing like that ever happened to me before. That was some night.”

“And what was the unusual event on that memorable night, Mr. Hathaway?”

Mr. Hathaway hesitated, lips moving silently in communion with the glorious past.

“Come, come, Mr. Hathaway, we're waiting,” said Frankell in an indulgent way. His eyes were saying, Stop looking as if you're rehearsing your testimony, damn you.

“Oh! Yeah,” said Mr. Hathaway. “Well, it's like this, see. It's a cold night, and I'm kind of short. So I goes up to this guy and asks can he help me out. Sure, my man, he says to me. And he pulls out his leather and smooches around in it and finally comes up with a bill and sticks it in my hand. I take a look and almost drop dead. It's a fifty. Fifty bucks! While I'm still wondering am I dreaming he says, “Tis the season to be merry, old friend. But never let us forget that it's later than we think. Here, you take this, too.' And he pulls off his wristwatch and gives me
that.
‘Every man,' he says to me, ‘is got to keep an eye on the rear end of Father Time,' or something like that—and off he staggers before I can say a word.”

“Staggers? You mean he was intoxicated?” asked Frankell quickly, not looking at the jury.

“I don't mean he was sober,” said Mugger. “Higher'n the Empire State Building. Full o' sauce. Nice joe. Nicest I ever met.” Ellery would not have been surprised had Mugger added, “God bless him.”

“Where did this encounter take place?”

“On Forty-third off Eighth.”

This time Frankell did look at the jury. Ellery could only admire his astuteness. Frankell knew that no man or woman in the courtroom believed Mugger's yarn about the manner in which he had come by his windfall. Each mind was thinking, He rolled the poor shnook. Sheer technique demanded a frontal attack on the implausibility of the story.

“Let us get this straight. You say you approached a drunk in the Times Square district and asked him for a handout, and he promptly and voluntarily gave you a fifty-dollar bill and his wristwatch?”

“I don't expect nobody to believe me,” said Mugger simply. “I couldn't hardly believe it myself. But that's just what he done, so help me. And I never laid a finger on him.”

“And this occurred on the night before New Year's Eve?” Frankell asked hurriedly.

“Yeah. He must have got a head start on the bottle.”

The jury was hooked. There had been an astonishment in Mugger's voice, an afterglow of wonder at his incredible luck, that could only recall Cinderella's feelings at the touch of the Fairy Godmother's wand. Frankell was satisfied. He pressed on.

“All right, then. What happened?”

“What happened? Nothing. I mean I had to tell somebody about it—Spotty. I couldn't wait to tell Spotty. So I went on up to Central Park—”

“Why Central Park?”

“That's where Spotty liked to make his scores. I figure I'll find him working his old territory, so I go on up there and sure enough I find him.”