One Night Stands and Lost Weekends

One Night Stands and Lost Weekends Page 57

“Take it easy.”

“I can’t take it easy. I killed him. Good God, I killed him!”

I calmed her down. A cigarette helped. She smoked it greedily. Then I asked her how it had happened.

“I fought with him, I didn’t even fully realize what was happening. I just knew he was trying to shoot me, and I screamed. I must have deflected the gun…It went off and—”

Ralph lay dead, a bullet wound in his throat. I looked at Jill. The intruder had torn her dress and her bra in the struggle. Her body was visible to the beltline. She pulled the dress together in unnecessary modesty.

“It’s over now,” I said. I crossed the room and picked up the phone.

NINE

“I thought you were a friend of mine,” Jerry sneered.

“I am.”

“You should have called me when you found the girl in the park. You should have called me when the sister showed up at your apartment. You should have called me when you ran up against Traynor the first time. You should have—”

The dead man was Ralph Traynor. It said so in Jackie’s address book and on a batch of cards and papers in his wallet. He lived somewhere in Brooklyn.

“You should know better, Ed.”

I gave Jerry my side of it. I told him that my first aim was to keep the girl free and clear and save her from publicity and the killer. “You would have spotlighted her,” I said.

“I would have stuck her in a cell.”

“And we never would have gotten anywhere. You know that and I know it, dammit. My way worked.”

“It did?”

“Yes, Jerry. You have the killer. He’s dead, but he would have been just as dead in a year after a trial and a batch of appeals. The state comes out a few dollars ahead and the case is closed out that much faster.” I took a breath, smiled. “I know I played it cute. Maybe I was wrong. My reasons seemed good at the time.”

He sighed, then punched me in the arm to show that we were still friends. I took Jill by the arm and went down the stairs behind Gunther. A police car was parked in front alongside a fire hydrant. Jerry’s uniformed driver was at the wheel.

Jerry got in next to the driver and Jill and I sat in the back. The driver didn’t use the siren. We drove moderately across town, then went down to Centre Street on the East Side Drive.

It took time for them to get our statements. I gave them mine as quickly as possible in a little room with Gunther and a police stenographer. I took it from the top, starting with the first phone call the day before and concluding with the arrival of the law. I left out little things like the interlude with Jill at Maddy Parson’s apartment. Certain facts don’t belong in a police report.

Jill took a little longer with her statement. The stenographer typed them both up and we signed them.

“You can both go now,” Jerry said. “We’ll be getting a report from ballistics and a run-down on Traynor pretty soon. So far everything checks out.”

Jill nodded. She got to her feet and turned to me. “Are you coming, Ed?”

“I’ll stick around for the ballistics report,” I said. “But how about dinner?”

“Wonderful,” Jill said.

Jill said goodbye to Jerry, and we watched her go. Afterward we sat for a few minutes without saying anything. Then Jerry commented on Jill’s looks. He poked me in the ribs. “Hearty appetite, tonight.” He smiled. Then, serious again, he said, “Ed, you certainly fall into some bizarre cases.”

“I guess so.”

“But it all works out. Ballistics should confirm what we’ve already pretty well established. Jacqueline Baron was shot with a slug out of a .25 caliber automatic, probably foreign-made. The gun that finished Traynor was an Astra Firecat. It fits.”

“A little gun.”

“Uh-huh. Easy to hide in a pocket. No bulge under the jacket, like the cannon you’re wearing.” He tapped me over the heart. “No gun for deer hunting, but good enough at close range. And he got close enough to the Baron girl to leave powder burns on her forehead.”

“I know,” I said. “I saw them.” I lit my pipe. “A peculiar gun for a man like Traynor to use. A little gun would get lost in those big mitts of his.”

Jerry grinned. “Sure. Chances are he’d have bought himself a Magnum, if he had the choice to make. But when it comes to picking up an unregistered gun, you take what you can get. We had a little old lady who shot her husband with a Super Blackhawk. The recoil on that thing must have knocked her into the next room. And then a hulk like Traynor uses a little job like the Astra. Those foreign guns—the thing is you can get ’em sent to you through the mail, Ed.” He frowned. “Traynor’s gun did a job though. Killed the Baron girl, then killed him.”

He had things to do. I went outside and walked around the corner to a lunch counter.

When I finished, I went back to Headquarters. The ballistics report had confirmed what everyone already took for granted. The same gun had killed both Jackie Baron and Ralph Traynor.

Gunther passed me in the hallway. He said, “Go home now, Ed. We have everything we need. We’ll want you and Jill Baron for the inquest in a day or two. Let her know, will you?”

TEN

Something stank.

I spent a long time sitting at my window watching the rain come down on 83rd Street.

The packet of pornographic pictures was still in my jacket pocket. Gunther had not wanted them. They were evidence, but with Traynor dead there would be no trial, just the formality of an inquest to tie up what loose ends remained so the file could be marked closed.

I took out the manila envelope and opened it. I spilled the black-and-white glossies into my lap. Then, one by one, I examined them again.

An odd sensation. Pornographic photos, sure to arouse the libido of any vicariously oriented lecher. But this was a special case: both subjects engaged in such lively activity were lively no more. The nubile blonde was dead, and the massive man was dead, and neither would again have the chance to play bedroom games.

I looked at the pictures again. Three of them had similar scratches, little seemingly meaningless spots…

At a quarter after four I called Centre Street and got through to Jerry Gunther. “I was wondering about Traynor,” I said. “Get anything more on him?”

“A little. Listen, it’s over, Ed. And you’re out of it anyway. What’s your interest?”

“I’ve got to type up a report for my client.”

He didn’t argue. They had found a little more about Traynor, not a hell of a lot but enough. He was in good shape financially, though not rich. He had been seeing a lot of Jackie Baron, and his wife knew he was playing around—but not with whom. She had been thinking of divorcing him, had even gone to a lawyer to ask what a divorce would entail. She wanted to get rid of him, but she also wanted to gouge him for every nickel she could get.

“That made him a good blackmail prospect,” Jerry Gunther said. “With those pictures in her lap, Mrs. Traynor wouldn’t have to take a plane to Reno. She could get a New York divorce and a nice piece of alimony. But Traynor wasn’t rich enough to pay forever. He forked over money once or twice, which accounts for the dough you found in Jackie’s safe-deposit box. Then she squeezed too hard and he decided to kill her instead.”

“Did you check his bank account for large withdrawals?”

“Ed,” he said exasperatedly, “we’re not working on this case. We’re closing it. Something eating you?”

“No. Just routine, Jerry.”

I thanked him. He said what the hell, call him anytime, he was just a public servant.

I took him up on it twenty minutes later, after two cups of coffee and a lot more thought. I got him on the phone and heard him growl something to somebody else; then he asked me what the hell I wanted now.

“A favor.”

“Shoot.”

“Has Jackie Baron’s body been released yet?”

“No.”

“It’s still at the morgue?”

“Yes. The sister hasn’t claimed it yet, probably won’t until tomorrow, I guess. Why?”

“Call the morgue for me. Tell them I have permission to look at the body.”

He didn’t say anything at first. Then he spoke softly. “Ed, you’re onto something.”

“Partly.”

“You think there’s something funny?”

“There could be. Make the call for me, will you?”

The little man at the morgue had thick glasses and no jaw. He was not a lovely man and he had an ugly job.

“Here we are,” he said finally. “Miss Jacqueline Baron. We didn’t know who she was, you know, until a few hours ago. That’s dreadful, isn’t it?”

“What is?”

“To be dead and unknown. I’d hate that. People should have serial numbers.” He clucked his tongue. “Do you want to see the girl?”

“Yes.”

He nodded, drew the sheet down as far as her neck. They had performed an autopsy. It wasn’t pretty.

“All the way,” I said.

He took the sheet off and we stood viewing the body like a pair of necrophiliacs in paradise. I tried not to look at the chinless man’s eyes. His job might have unwritten compensations for him, and I did not want to think about them.

I looked at the body, at the legs. Smooth white skin everywhere. No scars, no blemishes. Nothing but clear flesh frozen in the gray permanence of death.

I turned away. The little man covered her with the sheet and joined me. We walked to the exit. He asked me if I had known the girl. I said I had seen her once, not mentioning that she had been dead at the time. He did not say anything more.

At 7 P.M. I parked in front of the building on 58th Street. I went up the stairs for Jill Baron. She was ready, and she looked better than ever. “You’re on time,” she said. “Let’s go, I’m starving.”

We drove to a steakhouse on Third Avenue.

Afterward I said something about a club downtown where they played good jazz. She took my arm, stepped up close, and let me smell her perfume. “We don’t have to go anywhere,” she said.

“I thought you’d want to celebrate your deliverance from terror.”

“I do.” Her voice turned husky. “But we can celebrate at my place, can’t we?”

I smiled. Who was I to argue with a woman?

We drove back to her apartment.

She poured drinks and we sat on the couch and imbibed them. Traces of chalk marks remained on the carpet, and a throw rug did not quite hide the stain of Traynor’s blood.

“I won’t be living here much longer,” she said. “I may even leave New York. One thing is sure…I’m getting out of this business, Ed.”

I didn’t say anything.

“I can’t say I hated every minute of it because I didn’t. It was easy and profitable. But it does things to a girl, makes her start hating herself. Jackie wasn’t a blackmailer, not at heart. The work changed her. It must have. I don’t want to turn into something that would fill me with self-loathing. It’s important to like yourself, Ed.”