Brass Rainbow Read online

  Baron let a silence hover in the room as if to give his point time to sink in. I could hear the rasping breathing of Leo the buffalo.

  I said, “You know, it’s strange, but I’m having trouble seeing Sammy Weiss with the nerve to cross you.”

  Baron sighed. “Let’s try it once more, okay? I sent Weiss for my money. Something went wrong, I guess, and Sammy panicked. He killed Radford. I don’t care about that. But it seems like Sammy figured if he had to run he could use $25,000 to pay his way. That I care about. Now you go ahead and help Weiss on the murder rap, but after I get my money. Right now I don’t need you nosing around. Check?”

  “The money is evidence in a murder, Baron.”

  “Sure. That’s why I need it before anyone finds Weiss. I’m doing Sammy a favor. They won’t find the money on him.”

  “You’re sure they’d find it on him now?”

  He looked straight at me for the first time. His eyes were pale gray like the rest of him. Barbarian eyes under the veneer.

  “You’re a bug, Fortune. A hard-head bug. Leo!”

  The buffalo-man was on me before I could even start to think of moving. He was behind me with my arm in one hand and the back of my neck in the other. My neck isn’t thin, but Leo’s hand held it like a clamp on a pipe. Baron stepped to me.

  He took a hypodermic syringe from his pocket. Leo held me as immobile as a strait jacket. And Leo had more than muscle; he knew what he was doing. He held me so that if I moved hard my arm would break, and maybe my neck.

  I looked at the syringe and wondered if this was my last day. I didn’t want it to be my last day. Not now, not ever. But there was nothing I could do. I had no chance at all to fight. None. Like a Jew going to the gas chamber. That is a terrible moment.

  “Just relax, Danny boy,” Baron said.

  He rolled up my sleeve and shot me in the vein. He grinned into my face and massaged my arm. I waited. Leo’s grip did not relax. After a time I felt the sleep coming. I hoped it was sleep.

  When my knees sagged, Leo picked me up and laid me on the bed. I raised up and swung at a shadow. I hit empty air. Something pushed me back flat on the bed. I breathed.

  Leo leaned close. A hand slapped my face, hard. Leo went away. He had not spoken once. Maybe he didn’t know how.

  I hoped it was sleep.

  I lay in dim light on something flat. I saw a window high in a gray wall. There was darkness beyond the window. A barred window. I saw a washbasin and a toilet. Only three walls. The fourth wall was vertical bars.

  I sat up. I stood up. My legs were shaky. I wondered what Baron had fed me. It had the feel of morphine. I didn’t want to think about why it had been morphine. I sat down again to let my legs steady and my head clear. The cell looked like a precinct cell. I reached for a cigarette. I had none. The men in the other cells heard me moving.

  “Hey, junkie, you gonna get hung.”

  I had the urge to get up and pace. I resisted. The one thing you never do in a cell is pace. Every minute would become an hour. What you do is lie flat and think about something with many, many small parts—like a walking trip across the city, step by step.

  “Sweat, junkie!”

  Everyone has to hate something. But the shouts told me that I had been found on Weiss’s bed with the syringe and makings. In another cell a man began to whistle flat and off key. Voices echoed:

  “Shut up! … For Chrissake shut it off! …”

  Somewhere someone began to cry. I wondered how good a fix Baron had hung on me. I guessed that he had not wanted to kill me because of the risk. A push under a train is one thing, a killing in a room where Baron could be placed is another. The whistler down the corridor didn’t stop. Detective Freedman was at my cell door before I heard him.

  “You got real trouble now, Fortune.”

  “I’m no junkie. You know it’s a frame.”

  “We found you with all the equipment and knocked out on M. It’s good enough. Where’s Sammy Weiss?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Hiding a fugitive is a bad charge.”

  “Trying to find one isn’t.”

  “Don’t try to be a hard guy. Tell me about Weiss.”

  “I haven’t seen him since Monday night. I turned him away, told him to give himself up. I guess he had his own ideas.”

  “You turned down his money?”

  “He didn’t have money. He was broke.”

  “He told you that?”

  “Yes. Weiss is always broke.”

  “You believe he’s broke now?”

  What did I say? I didn’t know if I believed Weiss was broke or not. It looked like he was far from broke.

  “Where is he, Fortune?”

  “I still don’t know. And in here I’m not going to find out.”

  Freedman watched me for a time before he turned and vanished. He hadn’t used his fists. That made me wonder. I could think of only two reasons why Bert Freedman would hold back on his fists: he was sure the drug charge would hold up, and I would tell all soon; or he had orders from higher up that they were interested in me.

  I thought about both possibilities for a long time. I didn’t sleep much. No one came near me. The off-key whistling went on. Other men complained. Men coughed. It was a long night.

  They got us up early, let us scratch and dab water in our eyes, fed us, and marched us to the paddy wagon. The wagon drove us through a gray dawn city in bitter cold. We hunched, and hawked, and spat, and coughed. (Even one night in jail and you begin to think not as “I” but as “we.”)

  At Centre Street we were herded into Headquarters fast as if they were afraid that our collection of drunks, bums, and petty crooks was planning a daring escape with the aid of gunmen hidden behind every parked car. We waited in the bullpen behind the line-up stage. No one talked. For the detectives with us, the line-up was an annoying duty too early in the day. For us prisoners it was the final moment of hope; the last chance.

  Ninety percent of prisoners each day are small, habitual lawbreakers. Once arraigned and charged, they know the rest by heart. They can tell you the result of the trial, and the sentence, the instant they are charged before a judge. So it is the line-up they face uneasily. The line-up is where they can still hope for release, where maybe they will still walk away free for one more day. And as each name is called, they shuffle up the steps onto the stage, nervous and with hopeful eyes. For ninety-nine out of a hundred it is a feeble hope.

  My turn came, and Freedman pushed me up the four steps. I stood out under the bright lights with my head just reaching the five-foot-ten mark. It is an unnerving experience. You can never know what you look like to other people, and on that stage you know you look guilty of every crime there is.

  “This specimen is Daniel Fortune,” the interrogating officer of the day announced.

  I recognized the voice. It was Captain Gazzo.

  10

  GAZZO TALKED to the audience, “Fortune was picked up on a tip. He was under morphine, the tools around him. He …”

  I thought about that game they play on television: To Tell the Truth. It is the line-up made into amusement for the millions. Something is wrong with people who make the pain of the line-up into a parlor game. When a man is in the line-up, he is trying to save his existence. If he lies, it is because he is desperate, because he faces pain and the terror of a cell. On the TV show a man lies for applause and a prize. If he lies well, he feels important. It makes you wonder.

  “Tell us about it, Fortune,” Grazzo said.

  I told them about the frame, and about my search for Weiss, but I left out Baron’s story about Weiss and the $25,000. I heard them breathing out there. Most of them were police, professional and detached, but some were ordinary citizens. The public. The gray monster. Not because they were mean or vicious, but because they don’t know, they are in the dark. They cannot know the pain of the single stranger up on the stage. That is not an accusation; it is a fact. We are all part of the gray monster u
ntil, by some stroke of chance, we are up there alone on the stage.

  “Fortune has no history of junk,” Gazzo explained to the audience. “He’s got no yellow sheet. He’s a private detective, when he works at it. He’s also been a seaman, waiter, tourist guide, farmhand, laborer, actor, student, sometime journalist, and God knows what else. A middle-age roustabout. I doubt if he ever made enough to support even a small habit. How come you never work hard, Fortune?”

  “I never found the work, Captain.”

  I never found work worth doing for its own sake. The best I found is trying to solve other people’s problems. I’ve talked to people all over the world, and not many could ever tell me, simply and with conviction, why they work at what they do, why they went into their work, or what they get out of it. Most gave me a three-hour sales talk full of overenthusiasm and too many words. A lot just stared at me. They seemed mystified. No one had ever asked them why they worked at their work, and they had obviously never asked themselves. Maybe they were afraid to ask themselves.

  “All right, Fortune, step down.”

  Usually a prisoner is ordered to Felony Court, or Magistrates Court, or some such disposition. Gazzo gave no instructions on me, so I knew that where I was going had been arranged in advance. That was good to know. It meant that Gazzo and the others had only been softening me up.

  I was taken across to the Annex by a detective who made no show of guarding me. In Gazzo’s office the detective left me to wait with Gazzo’s female sergeant. She is pretty, but I never had learned her name. Gazzo doesn’t really know her name. He never married, and women make him nervous. I waited an hour in silence and cigarette smoke.

  “Inside,” Gazzo said when he arrived.

  I sat in the dim midnight of Gazzo’s inner office, and it was hard to believe that it was early morning out in the winter city. Gazzo watched me from behind his desk. He is a hard man who has lived long enough in a hard world to leave the obvious hardness to others. An eager man no longer eager to punish.

  “I had enough to cool you a week, Dan.”

  “I know,” I said. “You can get to business, Captain.”

  “You’ve been busy,” Gazzo said. “Upper East Side, Lower East, the Village, Westchester. All for Sammy Weiss?”

  “Why not for Weiss?”

  “You’re not that close to him. Did he pay you big?”

  “He didn’t pay me at all.”

  “You’re sure, Dan?”

  It was a serious question. Gazzo had a special reason for wanting to know if Weiss had paid me. Something more than whether or not Sammy had money or I could be bought. I let it slide. If he wanted me to know, he would tell me.

  “I’m sure,” I said, and then I told him what I had done, except for my trip to the morgue and Baron’s story. I told him about George Ames, the North Chester people, Carmine Costa, and what I knew of the murder.

  “Weiss said he hit Radford and left him alive?” Gazzo said.

  “That’s what he said. About one-thirty.”

  “So we know that Radford was alive at one-fifteen when Weiss got there. I wasn’t sure of that. The doorman saw him at one. We only had the Fallon girl’s word for one-fifteen. Now Weiss agrees.”

  “He was alive when Sammy left at one-thirty, too.”

  “According to Weiss only. Mrs. Radford got no answer at two. We know she had no key, and there wasn’t time for her to get in, kill Radford, and still get back down in time for the doorman to see her when he did.”

  Gazzo rubbed his stubble. “Everyone in the family is clear from around noon until past three o’clock. We haven’t found any suspects in Radford’s private or business life. If Weiss didn’t kill him, we’ve got fifty minutes for someone else to get in, kill, and get out unseen. And we’ve got no reasonable suspect.”

  “The sister, Morgana, suspects Deirdre Fallon.”

  “Swell. Only she’s got an alibi, and not much motive.”

  “The engagement is pretty sudden.”

  “They all agree Jonathan liked her. What does she gain?”

  “Walter is the prime suspect to me,” I said. “He needed money, he was on a leash that pinched, he had most to gain, and he’s a weak, arrogant type who probably never knows what he’ll do.”

  “He’s been all that for a lot of years,” Gazzo said. “Why does he kill with less than a year to wait for his money?”

  “Paul Baron.”

  “Walter was squeezed before; he never killed.”

  “The uncle wouldn’t pay this time. He admits that.”

  “It’s not enough, not with just a year to go. Anyway, show me how Walter kills from North Chester and I’ll book him.”

  “What about the weapon?”

  “Looks like a souvenir Malay kris Jonathan had on his desk. It’s missing.” Gazzo’s gray eyes jabbed through me. “Okay, sure, it was crazy for anyone to take the knife, but that’s just what a panicky killer might do. We all know Weiss wouldn’t plan a murder, but he’s just the type to grab the knife out of fear, and then run with it. Too scared to stop and wipe the knife, but just smart enough to know his prints would be on it. Panic.”

  I changed direction. “What do you know about Paul Baron?”

  “Everything, including that we have nothing against him, unless you want to make a charge.” Gazzo grinned. He knew I had no charge that could stick. When I said nothing, he went on, “After Walter Radford told us it was Baron he really owed the money to, we looked for Baron. He came in on his own late last night. After he worked on you, I guess. We talked to him. He said he’d sent Weiss for his money. He said Weiss never came back. He admitted he was looking for Weiss. He had an alibi for the time of the murder.”

  “What alibi?”

  Gazzo spoke straight-faced. “A singer-dancer at the Fifth Street Club, Misty Dawn, was with him until one o’clock at her place. A girl named Carla Devine was with him from about one-thirty until past six o’clock. He’s a lady-chaser. We talked to both women; they back him.”

  “You’re kidding,” I said. “Who’s the Devine girl?”

  “Call her a B-girl if you want. She keeps rich men happy when they come to town. She lives with four other girls in an apartment on University Place. Baron hangs around the place. The girls work for themselves, but Baron drums up contacts.”

  “Hell, they’re both in his pocket.”

  “Give me some proof they’re lying.”

  “I’m pretty sure I saw Misty Dawn with Weiss about eight P.M. Monday. They got into a cab together. Which means Baron is probably lying when he says Weiss never came back to him.”

  “Not necessarily. At that time Baron didn’t know Radford was dead. Weiss probably gave the Dawn woman the slip after you saw them, and then Baron started chasing Weiss.”

  I lighted a cigarette. “You know, Gazzo, Baron’s a sharp con man, yet he’s supposed to have let Walter Radford get into him for $25,000 when Walter couldn’t pay.”

  “You think the money wasn’t a poker debt?”

  “Baron’s known more for con games, the squeeze. He works with women, the badger games. No capital, just some polite blackmail. A payoff is more in his line.”

  “Does it matter, Dan?” Gazzo said. “Whatever it was for, the uncle wouldn’t pay, and that got him killed.”

  “I think it matters. It changes the degree of pressure. It’s no longer a one-shot $25,000. Motives get changed,” I said. “When Weiss came to me, he was worried, but he wasn’t scared to death. He tried to buy an alibi. He wouldn’t have done that if the charge was murder. He’d have run and never stopped.”

  “So?”

  “So I don’t think he knew Radford was dead then. He’d never have tried to buy me on a murder rap; I wouldn’t stay bought. No, I’ll swear he didn’t know Radford was dead.”

  “So he didn’t know the man was dead. So what?”

  “He couldn’t have known there was even a chance Radford was dead, stabbed, and he couldn’t have stolen $25,000. Damn it, by comi
ng to me he admitted he was there with Radford. It was as good as a confession. No, his story to me was true. If it hadn’t been, he’d have taken the money and dug to China, just the way he’s doing now that he’s really scared.”

  Gazzo ticked off, “Witnesses already placed him there. He didn’t think he could buy you; he just wanted to get his story on record so you could tell it later and create doubt. When you didn’t seem convinced, then he ran for China.” Gazzo leaned back in his chair. “You’re talking logic, Dan; what a rational man would do and not do. A scared punk like Weiss could do anything. I’d be a lot more doubtful Weiss is our man if he was supposed to have acted smart and rational.”

  I stood up. “Can I leave?”

  “Anytime.”

  I watched his face. “I’ll say it again, Captain: you won’t look for anyone while you’ve got Weiss in hand. You won’t even try. They won’t let you up top. But I can look.”

  “Don’t buck us, Dan.”

  I walked out. I didn’t even feel as good as I should have walking out after a night in jail. I was mad. Sammy Weiss was no one, nothing. He belonged in some jail. What did it matter if maybe there was some doubt this time?

  11

  BEFORE I DROPPED in bed, I called my part-time answering service. Weiss might have heard I was looking around and tried to contact me. It was a forlorn hope. In Chelsea people are wary of the telephone. There was no message from Weiss, but a lady had called once: no name and no number.

  I set my alarm for one o’clock and collasped in the bed. I thought about the nameless lady, but not for long. Marty would have left her name. I thought about Weiss. Where was he? How was he keeping on the loose? Almost three days with half the New York police looking for him. Someone had to be helping him. I went to sleep thinking that $25,000 buys a lot of help.

  The telephone woke me up. My head said I had slept an hour. The clock said it was almost noon. I fumbled with the receiver and managed to mumble something like “Hello?”

  “Mr. Fortune?” a woman’s voice asked. Her voice was low and throaty.