Flight from danger
That was a bad few minutes, in that booth.
Even at one-thirty ayem, a flock of nighthawks were flitting in and out of the drugstore, looking for pickups — or pick-me-ups.
I realized how helpless a guy in a phone booth could be if a killer cornered him there. There’d be nothing to do but take it, even if a man had a gun. No room to aim. No shelter to dive beneath. I kept my eyes peeled for cream-colored suits, for weasel-faces like the one on that police flyer, for ruddy-cheeked individuals — while I extracted what I could from Tim.
Dow Lanerd was dead. Bullet in his brain. Found in the bathroom of his suite about an hour before by special Prosecutor’s assistants seeking to get Lanerd’s fingerprints for comparison with the bloody marks on Tildy’s bedroom door. Tim couldn’t, or wouldn’t, say whether they’d chalked it for murder or suicide. He confined his replies to “Yuh” and “Uh, uh.” Clearly a plain-clothes man was in my office, listening to what Tim said. That’s what he’d meant to warn me about when he’d suggested my phone line was tapped.
I cut it short, told him I’d be in soon’s possible, said nothing about Tildy. It didn’t seem as if she could have had anything to do with Lanerd’s death. Ha!
I didn’t know what to do with her. Hacklin wouldn’t have let her stay in 21MM. Anywhere around the Plaza Royale she’d be taking a big risk. After this third death in the case, not to mention the thin margin by which those slugs had missed us on Atlantic Avenue, I needed no more convincing that she was in extreme danger. Even hanging around in that drugstore was plenty perilous.
I made a quick purchase, whisked Tildy out to the taxi rank on the opposite corner. The driver was half asleep, cap over eyes; he didn’t have an undershot jaw or look as if he’d mashed his nose against the steering wheel in a collision with a hydrant.
It seemed brutal to break it to her cold. I tried to work up to it, step by step. “Remember Auguste, your room-service captain? They arrested him for Roffis’s murder.”
It took her mind off her own troubles for a minute. “That’s ridiculous! Why would they? He’s so gracious!”
“Idea seemed to be he’d stolen a diamond-crusted compact from you, Roffis caught him with the goods.”
“But I gave it to Auguste. It was a present.”
“That’s what he said. They didn’t believe him. It’s quite a bauble to get for pourboire.”
“Yes, it’s valuable. I hope he can sell it for something. I told him so. Once,” she gazed sadly out at the Times Square turmoil, “it had also a sentimental value for me. But no more — no more.” She sighed. “Since I did not wish to use it, I couldn’t bear to see it around. I gave it to Auguste gladly.”
“Fixes Auguste on that score. They’ll still hold him for murder.”
“They mustn’t, they mustn’t. I’m positive he didn’t do it, absolutely positive.” She accepted the peasant kerchief I’d bought at the drugstore counter, began to fold it to arrange over her head. It wouldn’t be as effective a disguise as that theatrical wig, but it made her less conspicuous.
“Being positive doesn’t salt any celery. Mrs. Lanerd was positive you stabbed Roffis.”
“She would be. She hates me for taking Dow away from her.” Tildy held her head very high; I think she was crying but she wasn’t noisy about it. “She doesn’t need to worry. All that is — over.”
“Jeff MacGregory was reasonably positive, too, about your having killed your bodyguard. Because of something you said at the studio tonight, to the effect you had to do it, you couldn’t give him up. He thought you were referring to Roffis.”
“Oh! No!” She clasped her hands pathetically. “I did not. I never did.”
“You meant Lanerd?”
She made a little strangling noise in her throat; her shoulders shook.
“If that’s what was in your mind, you’ll have some explaining to do, now Lanerd’s dead.”
For the time it took our cab to go half a block I thought she hadn’t heard me.
Then she whispered, “Dow? Not Dow!”
I nodded.
Barely audible: “I don’t believe it.”
“He’s at the hotel. I suppose they’ll let you see him.” I tried to make it matter-of-fact.
She whimpered as if I’d struck her. “You’re being cruel. To frighten me.”
“Frighten you? After what happened on Atlantic Avenue?”
“It is true then? Honestly?” For a bit she couldn’t seem to understand. When she spoke again her tongue was blurred as if she was tight. “Do they know — have they any idea — who did it?”
“Not yet. Might have been suicide.”
“You couldn’t say that if you’d known him. No one ever was fonder of life than Dow.” If I hadn’t been watching her, I’d have thought she’d taken a long pull from a secret flask; she began to weave back and forth on the seat, drunkenly. “Was that — that same — horrible person.”
I put a hand on her shoulder. “Get hold of yourself; we’ll be at the hotel in a few minutes.”
“Driver,” she slurred it so it sounded like “Drier.”
“Stop this cab! At once! Let me out!”
The driver slowed, looked over his shoulder, scowled at me, pulled in toward the curb.
“Go on,” I said quietly. “The lady’s a little upset. She’ll be all right, soon’s—”
She flung the door open. The cab was still moving. She stumbled out, collapsed on the curb.
The driver braked the car with a jerk, swearing under his breath. “Want I should call a cop to handle this, miss?”
“Shut up.” I poked a bill over the window ledge at him. “She’s all right.”
Tildy lurched to her feet, started down the street, half running, head down, bumping blindly into passers-by.
As I went after her the driver’s scorn followed me. “... ashamed yaself, gettin’ a nice goil like that plastered...”
“Tildy!” I caught her, held her. “Snap out of it.”
“My fault,” she whimpered. “All on — ’count of me.” She leaned weakly against a store window. “He’d be alive this minute if I hadn’t been a rotten coward.”
“Don’t you start blaming yourself. There’ll be plenty of others doing that. Let’s get off the street, back to the hotel, huh?”
“I’d rather die.” She drew a long, shuddering breath, opened her eyes. “If you take me back, I’ll kill myself first chance I get.”
“Now, now—” Couples began to slow their strides to observe us. I couldn’t watch her and keep an eye out for a man who looked like Roy Yaker at the same time. “No need to talk wild.”
“Mean every word of it. I’ll jump out the window — anything—”
“Okay. All right. Tone it down.”
Someone in the clustering crowd inquired loudly, “Hey, isn’t she Tildy Millett?” I wanted to get away from there, on the double.
“I couldn’t bear to see Dow — like that.” She let me lead her along the sidewalk, away from the onlookers. “I want to remember him as he was.” Her teeth chattered as if it were eight below instead of eighty above. “I’m not going, that’s all.”
“Well, hell. I can’t let you go back to Brooklyn.” I quickened our pace. “That sharpshooter may still be hanging around the Narians’. He might not miss next time. I can’t leave you here on the street—”
“No!” She moaned in terror. “Don’t leave me — please don’t leave me. I couldn’t stand being alone.” Half a block away, a marquee necklaced with yellow bulbs shone dimly over the entrance to the Hotel Brulard. I hurried her toward it before any more pedestrians collected around us.
She glanced dully up at the marquee. “What’s this?”
“Hotel. You have to spend the night somewhere.”
She hung back. “I won’t go ’less you promise not to leave me.” Hers was a loud plaintive voice for that street, that late!
If the back of my neck wasn’t red at some of the comments made by busybodies within earshot, it’s only because I long ago forgot how to blush.
But I said, “Kayo. Okay. I promise. Let’s go.”
We went in.