Fallen Sparrow (8 page)

Kit said, “Your strong arm wouldn’t let me sit down.”

Jake spoke to the major domo. “Mr. McKittrick is to have the best of service whenever he honors us,” or something like that. Kit understood enough Italian.

He said, “I didn’t want to—tonight I’m waiting for Content.”

Jake talked like a gentleman. “She’ll be through her number soon. Have a drink with me in the office while you’re waiting.”

He followed, sank into a splendor of chromium and red leather. A white coat came to the private bar. Jake sat on the scarlet couch. There was no office equipment, not even a desk. He said, “You’ve heard about Louie?”

Kit said, “I just came from Poppa’s.”

Jake’s eyes were unconsciously wide with surprise. They weren’t sad any longer. He was apologizing with manicured hands. “We thought you did not care, Kit. It took you so long to come. You did not even send flowers.”

Kit scowled. “I found out by accident. I was West.”

“Yes.” Jake’s eyes were slits. “Your health—is regained?”

“Yeah.” He took the glass from the servitor, tasted, good as Geoffrey’s stock. “Who got Louie?”

Jake’s shoulders were expansive. “If I knew.” If he knew he had friends who would take care of it. “It was no grudge.” Jake had tried to find out. It wasn’t a hood; Jake could get a line on hoods.

“How did Louie get mixed up with the swells?”

Jake’s shrug was slight.

“Couldn’t have been here at Fifty?”

“Could be.” Jake’s cigar had aroma.

Kit was annoyed. “Don’t be so loquacious.”

He sounded honest. “Louie dropped in to see me now and then. But not to see the customers, Kit.” He deposited a banker’s ash on the scarlet stand.

“Louie liked women, Jake. Beautiful women.”

“Yes.” He regretted his brother’s weakness.

“Toni Donne come here?”

“I know so few by name, Kit.” He was bland. “Barbara Taviton comes here.”

Kit’s jaw was tight. “All right. I made a mistake once. I introduced Barbara Taviton to Louie. When I was sick. Before I went West.” His throat ached. Barby, who didn’t know any better, being used. That’s how they got on to Louie. Jake wasn’t just thinking up customers. Barby mentioning, causally, meeting Lieutenant Lepetino in Kit’s room. Mentioning with stupid casualness that after all these years Kit still had the little detective for friend. Louie awed that day in the bedroom by Barby’s exquisite contours. Louie humbly pleased at being remembered by Barby, meeting her escort, Otto Skaas. Louie meeting Toni Donne, her grandfather, the old Prince who was seen by invitation only? Louie not suspicious. But they knew, knew Kit communicated with someone. They didn’t know that Louie’s knowledge was incomplete. Why was he killed? Because he wouldn’t tell them all he didn’t know? Or because he’d learned too much about them? Because he knew they were stalking Kit?

They. Whom was he accusing of the crime? The old Skaas was in sight of a roomful of guests. The young one not even on the floor. Prince Felix didn’t leave his Riverside apartment. If Louie’d been killed with a gun, it could have been a man; but it wasn’t a gun, it was a shove, and what was Louie doing while the guy pushed? No one but Toni Donne could have done it and Toni Donne could not have done it. Kit was looking for a dame to kill Louie, but not Toni Donne. It wasn’t in her face.

He heard Jake’s voice consulting a millionaire’s silver-thin gold watch. “Content goes on in a few moments—you want to hear her?”

He stood. “I’ve taken enough of your time, Jake.” He looked around. No sea shells in this pristine decorator job. He didn’t know how to ask; he didn’t want Jake messing with his job. It wasn’t something Jake could handle. Then he laughed. “Louie ever show you what I sent him from—” he hesitated “—from Spain?”

“No.” Jake was wondering.

He didn’t satisfy the curiosity. He said, “See you soon,” and unescorted followed the corridor in the opposite direction, dressing-room direction. He stopped at one ajar. “I’m looking for—”

José lowered out of ebon eyes. “You are looking for Miss Hamilton. She is singing. She will not see anyone.”

Whatever the setup was, José didn’t know him. Nor was he interested in one of Content’s chasers.

“This her dressing-room?” Kit looked around, insolent, assured, a rich young man on the loose.

“This is not her dressing-room.” The accent was Spanish. “You disturb me. Go your way. Go.” He brandished the violin from his knees.

“O.K., kid.” Kit turned on his heel, at the door flung over his shoulder,
“Hasta la vista, mi amigo.”

The ears pricked like a faun’s. Kit shut the door, continued down the corridor to sound, to stand behind the golden-starred curtains of makeshift wings. Content was singing. The lyric was no more audacious than the voice, the sheath of gold glittering her smallness. She came behind on applause, hissed, “Where’s José?” and asked, “When did you sober up?”

He grinned. She returned momentarily to insistent hands and he felt the warmth of José looming behind him. He said to the curtain, “Fiddlers can’t ski. Might break a wrist.”

The black eyes turned hate as the Spaniard followed Content into the spotlight.

There was another warm bulk behind him and the hairs on his neck crawled. He hadn’t advanced into José’s dressing-room, one of them could have been parked there. His fingers moved with cautious quickness to his pocket. He smelled cigar. Jake said, “Good act, yes?”

“Swell.” He kept his thumb hooked there. “Content always was a cute kid. Where’d you find the fiddler?”

“She brought him around. He is good. Too good for Jakie’s.”

Kit was casual. “Bet Louie was nuts about him.”

“Yes. Louie loved good music.”

José had been here before Louie was bumped off. Maybe the fiddler put the finger on him. Maybe Content was the sap who gave things away. She’d not seen Kit with Louie but Jake could have mentioned the friendship.

The couple took final bows and the orchestra rushed into cacophony. Content slipped her arm through Kit’s. “You know Jake. And José Andalusian?”

José bowed sulkily, froze with his back. “Tonight I can not play, Jake. Too much disturbings.”

Content called after them, “Only one more number, José. Buck up. Come along, Kit. I’ve forty minutes before the next.” She led him into her dressing-room. It was next to the Spaniard’s. José’s eyes hated them as she opened the door. Jake’s cigar went on down the corridor.

Kit slumped on the chaise. Jake had even done himself proud with these unseen quarters. Content drank coke from a paper carton. She asked, “Who sobered you up?”

He apologized. “I’m sorry. If I’d known the shape I was in I wouldn’t have invaded you.”

She said, “Maybe now you’ll tell me why you were loaded with the prize ring patter when you arrived.”

He stared at the next wall pertinently, turned back to her, “Don’t you want to get some air before the next show?”

“Certainly. I didn’t know you could take it.” She was covering herself with the red velvet cape. She let him out the fire door into the areaway. They walked in the dirty snow to the 51st Street exit and he lighted her cigarette.

“Now what?”

“Why did you tell me those lies about Toni Donne last night?”

“Lies, yet.” Her eyes met his squarely in the dim alley. “Who calls them lies?”

“I do.” He was certain. “She’s too little to toss a man out a window.”

“And who said she pushed?”

“You did.” He corrected it. “It’s the only way in your set-up. Who are you trying to get into trouble? Toni? Why are you jealous of her? Is it José you’re after? Or Otto Skaas?”

She was five foot two of disgust with him. “Why don’t you look beyond your nose?”

“What’s true? What’s lies?” She was the only one who’d talk to him. If he could only beat the truth out of her.

“Everything I’ve told you is true.” She was solemn. “Unfortunately I don’t know everything. You’ll have to do some of the work yourself.”

He clenched his left hand on her shoulder. “How well did you know Louie?”

She didn’t falter. “I didn’t know him at all. He was here once or twice. With Barby’s outfit, and I saw him at Det’s. But—guests will kindly not mingle with the performers.”

“How did Louie get mixed up with that gang?”

She shook her head hard. “I don’t know, Kit. Why don’t you find that out? Why don’t you ask how and why?”

“Ask whom?”

“Barby—or Toni Donne.”

“Toni won’t talk to me.” He hesitated, faced it at last. He’d been gone too long; Barby couldn’t wait forever alone. He’d have to win her back again. “Barby’s too busy right now with her new fellow.”

She was suddenly angered. “I thought you came back to find out who killed Louie—not to make weak-kneed excuses.” She didn’t listen to what he tried to say. She stomped her sequin sandals back to the stage door, pulled it open, entered, and pushed it in his face. He was mad himself. He yanked as if she were trying to hold the door against him. But she wasn’t in sight and her closed dressing-room was forbidding. He jarred the corridor with his heels. He went into the bar and started all over again. “Double brandy.”

At two o’clock they tried to throw him out. Jake wasn’t in sight. They succeeded at two-fifteen. He was drunk but not the way he was earlier. Nothing was fuzzy; the lamps were sharp cut against the night; the thick soles of his shoes solid on the pavement. He had no trouble distinguishing the street signs. At 56th he crossed Fifth, continued on to cross Lexington, started towards her apartment and there he paused to reconnoitre. The vestibule door wouldn’t be open at this hour. If he rang, she wouldn’t let him in. There were two cabs approaching each other. He ducked down the steps into the bookstore entrance to avoid the convergence of their lights.

The west bound passed, the east bound slowed, stopped in front of Content’s brownstone. Kit was on his toes; he would follow whoever it was. None of the tenants would know if there was a newcomer. He could pretend he’d forgotten his key. The lone passenger stood in the cab shadow counting out his change. Kit waited.

The cab croaked away. The man looked up and down the hushed street deliberately. His shadow lengthened on the walk, wavered, lengthened again. There was no sound on 56th Street, no sound save a thud, a pause, and the sickening drag of a wasted foot.

Kit flattened himself against the window glass. He didn’t breathe. He felt rather than heard the man’s painful lumbering ascent of the steps. The Wobblefoot’s shadow would waver that way. Only sound had echoed through the patch of prison window. That tread which meant worse horror to come, horror piled on horror. Those hadn’t been ghost steps he’d heard earlier; they’d been real. Momentarily he was craven, shrinking, here in New York. And then he realized. He wasn’t at the mercy of sadistic perverts. He was McKittrick of Park Avenue with a gun in his pocket. And he knew how to shoot it. He exhaled slowly. He wasn’t afraid. He’d never be afraid again.

Cautiously he moved up the steps to the pavement. The man had vanished. And the night, the cab shadow, the black slouch hat, Kit’s fear, had reinsured his anonymity above the knees.

The escape hadn’t meant escape from danger. The Wobblefoot had followed him here to New York. There was only one person in this building who could give information on him. Content. He didn’t like the taste of that in his mouth. Kit straightened his shoulders. He wasn’t afraid. Tonight he would look upon that face.

He stood there before the dingy façade. He’d shoot it out face to face but he wouldn’t play cat and rat in a vestibule, in the stygian black within. Fear crawled his spine again. The man might be peering at him through the dark blank of the door. He ducked and ran back down into the bookstore entrance. Screwing up his courage, he got some sense. There was one way to get into Content’s without announcing himself in advance. The fire escape.

He wasn’t drunk now. He felt fine. He recalled that the fire escape snaked conveniently up the side wall. He hoisted himself over the palings, dropped into the areaway. The grilled windows of the first floor gave precarious footing but he swung up, caught the lower rungs of the iron ladder. With no thought of anyone discovering him, he climbed three nights. Her window was lighted, the curtains drawn. He listened without breath. He heard no voices. He raised his hand to tap, remembered that he wasn’t afraid and hit the pane a good rap. He repeated.

Her voice asked, “Who is there?”

He spoke with bravado. “It’s me.”

“Who?”

“Me.”

She pulled the curtains aside a crack, saw him with amazement, opened the window. She had on peppermint stick pyjamas and her hair was ruffled. She held the violet handle of a toothbrush in her hand. She looked annoyed. There wasn’t anyone in the room with her.

He shut the window after him, fastened it.

She said, “You can’t come here at this hour. What do you want anyway?”

He crossed to the door, tried it. It was locked.

Her small mouth was angry. “Are you crazy, Kit?” She spoke knowingly. “You’re drunk again.”

“No.” His eyes slewed for a possible hiding place.

“Then why did you come up the fire escape?”

He sat on the foot of her couch. It was made up as a bed now. He said, “I was following a man.”

“Through my window?”

“No. He came in the front door.”

She eyed him. “He came in the door. So you came in the window via the fire escape. And you’re not drunk.”

“That’s right.”

“Who was he?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t see him.”

She glared from wrathy blue eyes. “I’m tired. I’ve worked all night. Go home. “I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

He stayed where he was. “Where is he?”

“Where is who?”

“You know who.”

She had rigid patience. “I suppose you mean this man you didn’t see that you were following.”

“Where is he?”

She said, “Go home before you pass out again. I don’t want to sleep on the floor.”

He walked over to her. “I’m not drunk, Content. I’m looking for a man that wobbles when he walks.”

Her eyes were big as blue spotlights but if she recognized the description it didn’t flicker through.

“He came in this house. He came to see you.” He left it there.