A Private Party Page 6

  "Where was the note?"

  "In Stanzyck's pocket."

  "What pocket?"

  "How's that?"

  "Trouser pocket? Jacket? Overcoat?"

  "Oh! Stuck in his jacket."

  "Was he wearing the jacket when he was killed?"

  "Yep. His clothes are in a bundle down at the morgue. You want 'em?"

  Dane didn't answer. "Is Stanzyck at the morgue, too?"

  "No. I understand George Davis, the undertaker, picked him up this afternoon. George's got a job cut out for himself this time. Wouldn't surprise me none if they keep the coffin closed tight, what with the mess that man's face is in. . . "

  "What about the other things in his pockets?" asked Dane. "Where's his wallet?"

  "That's been claimed. Along with his wrist watch. Mrs. Stanzyck picked them up early this morning."

  "Mrs. Stanzyck?"

  "Did I do wrong?" asked Purdy, his voice concerned. "Didn't see any reason to refuse her. Damn pretty girl, too. Made you feel kind of bad, all dressed in black that way. "

  "I wouldn't be surprised. How old was she?"

  "Well, you know them actress-type women. They look older than they are and younger than they are, depending.

  "How about Mrs. Stanzyck?"

  "I'd guess she looked older than she is. Damn'dest-looking girl. Soft voice, shiny white teeth. And well put together." The chief took a slip of paper from the corner the desk blotter and handed it to the investigator. "This is the receipt she signed," he said.

  It was a form card, listing the various items given to her plus her acknowledgment and the signature, "Mrs. A. Stanzyck." At that moment there was a knock on the door and without waiting for Chief Purdy to speak, the bald-headed policeman stuck his head into the room.

  "There seems to be a mixup, Chief."

  "Mixup?"

  "There's somebody else out here from New York. This one says he's the detective you was expecting . . ."

  Purdy's face swung sharply to Dane and Dane return the hard gaze blandly. The chief maneuvered his giant frame from behind the desk and lumbered toward the door.

  "We'll straighten this thing out in just two minutes flat,” he said, his voice booming through both rooms officiously. Dane watched calmly until the broad back was out of sight then gave his attention to the desk.

  It was less than two minutes when Purdy returned to his office—stormed back into it, his face a great crimson ball, his barrel of a chest thrust forward menacingly. Behind him was another man, walking slowly.

  "Let's see your credentials, young fella!"

  "What credentials?"

  "What credentials? Didn't you tell me you come from Lieutenant Bannerman down in New York?"

  "No. I said I was Timothy Dane from New York. . .”

  "A snooping newspaper reporter!"

  "No," said the one who had entered with Purdy. "Just a hustler. They call themselves private detectives."

  "You know him?"

  "No, thanks," said the other. Then, stepping around Purdy easily, his hands thrust in his topcoat pockets, he came close to Dane. "What's the big idea?" Who are you?"

  The name is Stern," was the unfriendly reply. "Detective, Homicide Bureau, Manhattan. That enough?"

  “I talked to Bannerman this morning," said Dane.

  "So?"

  "He left a folder for me in the squad room."

  "What are you trying to prove?"

  Dane thought that under different circumstances he might have got along with the competent-looking, good-looking city detective. But not here and now in the office of Chief Purdy.

  "I'm trying to get straightened out," Dane said. "What did Bannerman send you up here for?"

  Purdy answered. "That's none of your blamed business, Mr. Smart Aleck. I've got half a mind to toss you in the cooler and show you a little respect for the truth!"

  "Chief," said Dane, "I'm sorry if you went off half-cocked. Believe me, my intentions were good. I came here hoping to find out what you had on the case. We're both trying to fill in that John Doe on your warrant."

  "Spoken like a man," commented Mike Stern. "What did he get to see, Chief?"

  "What did he see? The whole folder, that's what he lied me into showing him. For a plugged nickel I'd?"

  "This folder?" interrupted Stern.

  Purdy nodded apoplectically.

  "Would you mind looking through it, Chief?"

  "He wouldn't dare tamper with that evidence."

  "Just give it a look, Chief, if you don't mind."

  Purdy's thick fingers riffled the pages held by the clip. He tilted the envelope and the slugs poured out on the desk. He counted them and nodded his head. Then he looked up, his face thoughtful.

  "Wait a minute," he said. "There was something else in here . . ."

  "Something missing?" asked Stern.

  Purdy swung on Dane.

  "That note!" he thundered. "Where is it?"

  "Search me," said Dane with a shrug.

  "You can count on it," the homicide man assured him. "What was this note, Chief?"

  "Just a note. It said something about 'Where've you been' or the like. I forgot exactly."

  "Where did you find the note?"

  "It was on Stanzyck's body. In his pocket, his jacket pocket," he corrected. "Mrs. Stanzyck wanted it along with his other things, but I wouldn't release it."

  "Mrs. Stanzyck?" asked Stern, his voice a replica of Dane's earlier.

  Purdy, hearing it twice, looked unhappy.

  "Sure. What's so surprising about a widow claiming her husband's belongings?"

  "Nothing at all, Chief. Tell me, what color hair did Mrs. Stanzyck have?"

  "Red. More like the sun when it's setting than when it's coming up. A real rich red color . . ."

  Dane decided that there was something about Mrs. Stanzyck that had affected the Chief of Police very strongly.

  "Did I do wrong?" he was asking Stern. "Shouldn't I have given her those things?"

  "We'll talk about it when we're through with Mr. Dane here," said Stern. Then, "Okay, buster. Let's have that note."

  There was a sour smell in the investigator's nose. Something rotten, and it had to do with Bannerman's man being here, hightailing it to Newchester when Bannerman had indicated his department had no interest in the death of Al Stanzyck. Was it that Bannerman didn't trust Dane—or was he trying to keep Dane on the leash, as he had with that uninformative folder labeled "Stanzyck"?

  "What note?"

  "Strip," said Stern.

  "Says who?"

  "Says Chief Purdy," said Stern, smiling. "Who do you think?"

  "You heard him," threatened Chief Purdy. "Strip!"

  "This is the third degree," Dane told the fat policeman. "That's against the law."

  Purdy turned anxiously to Stern.

  "Don't mind him," said the detective. "He gets his sense of humor on Broadway, where he buys his clothes."

  "Madison Avenue," said Dane.

  "Wherever you got them, get out of them. I'm a busy man."

  "You must be. The Homicide Squad is sure ranging far and wide for work these days."

  "Can it, Dane."

  Dane unloosened his tie and pulled it from his collar. He unbuttoned his shirt, slipped his arms from the sleeves and laid shirt and tie on the desk. Bare to the waist, he unlocked his belt.

  "Isn't somebody going to close the window?"

  "There ain't a soul to see you," growled Purdy.

  "Quit stalling," Stern said, sending a long jet of cigarette smoke from between his lips.

  Dane dropped the trousers, stepped out and then folded them neatly at the crease before setting them over the back of the chair. He sat down, pulled off shoes and socks and stood up again. Almost as an afterthought he peeled his shorts from his legs and tossed them on the chair. Then, completely at ease, he faced the two other men.

  "Go through the stuff carefully, Chief," said Stern, just managing to keep his voice properly subordinate. "Be ca
reful of seams and watch for scraps of paper, not necessarily the whole note."

  Some five minutes later they were through. Stern came close to Dane.

  "Open your mouth, wise guy."

  He looked inside.

  "Lift your tongue."

  "Should I say ahhh?"

  There were no pieces of paper there either.

  "Can I get dressed now, doctor?"

  Stern, his face reflective, nearing anger, turned away from him and Timothy Dane unhurriedly redressed.

  "This isn't going to win you any popularity contest, Dane," the detective told him.

  "I'm not crazy about Bannerman, either, right now."

  "Why don't I just toss this troublemaker in the pokey?" asked Chief Purdy.

  "Go ahead," Dane invited him. "But make sure you think up something that will stick."

  "You threatening me?" demanded the big man and Dane laughed.

  Stern's voice overrode the sound. "Don't make a hero out of him," said the city man. "It's exactly what he and his lousy friends want?"

  "What's that supposed to mean?"

  "It means Bert Hill," Stern said heatedly, his eyes narrowed. "And King, and Mayer and all those other sons-of-bitches you're running with. Take their dirty money, Dane, but, by God, if you try to frame one of us for getting Stanzyck I'll kill you myself!"

  Dane took the blast with a face that was outwardly calm. But his mind was seething with its own anger—and now its own doubts.

  The police chief looked from one of the young men to the other, wondering if they were going to fight, wondering how such a fight would turn out.

  "There seems to be something," he said into the tense silence, "that you fellows know and I don't."

  Dane answered him with his eyes still locked in Stern's. "Are you really interested, Chief, in finding out who killed Al Stanzyck?"

  "You're damn well told I'm interested! We're trying to run a reasonably clean town up here?"

  "Then keep your eyes open," he was told. "Wide open. Don't make the same mistake I did about a policeman named Bannerman." He stepped forward then, toward the door, coming close to Stern who seemed about to stop him but changed his mind. He opened the door, heard no voice detain him, and went on out.

  He crossed the outer office, not hurriedly, opened the main door and passed through. Then down the steps and along the walk toward his car. He had the car door open in his hand.

  "Hey, you!"

  It was low and carrying, just enough above a whisper to identify it as a woman's voice. Dane turned his head in its direction and made out the shape of a long, expensive-looking car parked in the shadows near by.

  "Come over here!"

  But instead of obeying, Dane continued on into the rented Chevrolet. A moment later the motor roared to life, headlights flashed on and the car rolled away from the police headquarters. A hundred yards later he jammed the accelerator to the floor and the machine leaped from twenty-five to forty, to fifty, to sixty. By this time Stern would have searched Purdy's wastebasket in the chance that the missing note had been dropped in there—and when he found the works from a wrist watch case among the rubbish he would know where the note was and come running.

  Pursuit was already a fact. Two powerful beams of light danced crazily in Dane's mirror as a car behind began to overtake him. He urged the needle to seventy, holding the wheel gingerly on the narrow, curving country road. Still the following car gained. Dane shook his head in disbelief, but the other car must be doing ninety. Ninety! Whatever else he thought of Stern, he had to admit that Banner-man's man was careless of his life.

  At seventy-five the Chevrolet began to sway dangerously from side to side. Twenty seconds went by and Dane gauged that his pursuer had shortened the distance by thirty yards. Then his own beams picked out a fork in the road ahead. To the left it led to the parkway route to New York. To the right—what?

  Dane did not want the parkway, and with only the least possible reduction of speed, and a prayer, he swung the wheel hard to the right. For an agonizing moment the light coupe teetered on its two right wheels, settled to the left with a jolt and straightened along the new road with a protesting shudder of its badly straining chassis. One second, two seconds, three seconds of darkness at his back. Then headlights careening recklessly around the turn, stabbing furiously in his, mirror again.

  This new road was even narrower than the last, but it was straightaway, and with a roar that was audible inside his own car, the pursuer leaped forward with a lunge that swallowed the thousand feet between them. In the next instant it was alongside the Chevrolet. Then, unbelievably, its front fender was coursing across his path and Dane had no choice but to throw his car into the bordering woods and to jam his foot brake as powerfully as he was able. With a terrifying screech of tires, the Chevrolet lurched across a narrow gully, crashed through bushes and threatened to dive into a picket line of trees before it skidded to a halt.

  Dane sat without moving, his breath coming heavily, his eyes gazing speculatively at the forbidding barrier only a foot ahead of his bumper. Sat gathering his strength for one good shot at Stern's smug-looking jaw . . .

  "End of the line. Everybody out," said a totally unexpected voice and the investigator turned to look up into the face of a woman.

  A dry voice, low and confident, with the hint of a smile in it although there was no smile on her serious face.

  "Who the hell are you?"

  "I'm Roxanne Garde, and your name is Dane, and I don't like profanity."

  "What the hell is the idea?"

  "I said?"

  "I heard what you said. What's the idea of trying to kill me?"

  "Don't cry until you're hurt," she drawled. "If you'd come over when I called you back there I wouldn't have had to come after you."

  Dane jammed his finger against the starting button of the stalled engine.

  "What are you doing?"

  "I'm getting out of here," he told her curtly. "I'll talk to you, Mrs. Stanzyck, when I want to talk to you. Which isn't now."

  The cylinders caught and came to life.

  She had to raise her voice to be heard. "Why did you call me Mrs. Stanzyck?"

  "Move," he said, "or I'll run you over."

  But she grasped the window frame firmly and when Dane shoved the car into reverse it took her back with it.

  "Stop it!"

  "Get away from the car." The coupe rolled steadily backward, dragging her along.

  "I said stop! Who do you think is paying you?"

  He braked the car. "Listen, Mrs. Stanzyck," he told her, "save that routine for your big fan, Purdy."

  "Stop calling me Mrs. Stanzyck. And Purdy is what I want to talk to you about. Does he have the briefcase?"

  "What briefcase?"

  She dropped her hands from the window and straightened. "He didn't show you a briefcase?"

  "How do you know he showed me anything?"

  He made out a smile on her face. "I was watching through the window," she said. "I saw him showing you things." There was a pause while the echoes of her voice died in the night air. "I saw what you showed him."

  "This is your lucky night. But that sort of thing must bore you by this time." Dane spoke out of his pent-up anger .with the girl, regretted having given way to it.

  "Don't be so hard to get along with," she said. "Incidentally, what time do you have?"

  "No time at all," he said, releasing the brake and letting the automatic gear edge the car backward again.

  "Wait. What do you want with that note?" She kept pace with the slowly moving car.

  "Why? Did you write it?"

  "Me? Do you think I'd have to write something like that to Al?"

  "I don't think anything at all," he said, craning his head anxiously out the window. Suddenly he jammed on the brake, his eye just catching the different shade of blackness between the ground and the culvert. Shoving the gear shift to neutral, he opened the door and stepped out to look the obstacle over.

&nbs
p; "The gas tank will be caught," Roxanne said, standing at his shoulder.

  "No it won't."

  "We don't seem to agree on anything."

  "No." He swung around, brushing her aside, his mind on the gas tank and whether it would clear the shallow ditch or not.

  Her fingers grabbed his jacket arm, halting him.

  "Let go," he told her.

  "No," she answered. "I like it."

  His hand covered her fingers and he pulled them loose. But then she moved close to him, putting herself between him and the car.

  "I'm supposed to be special," she said in a low voice. "Why is it you don't react?"

  "I must be backward," he said. "Get out of my way."

  "You do it," she said. "You get me out of your way."

  Now, what the hell is this? Dane thought. But even as his irritation with her mounted he could not ignore the overwhelming confidence she had in her womanness. And as though she could guess his conflicting emotions, she edged even closer.

  "Go on," she said, her voice curiously both virginal and wanton. "Get me out of your way."

  He slid his hands around her waist and she leaned forward to be kissed. But there was no kiss as he suddenly lifted her clear off the ground and set her down out of his path.

  He walked in silence to the car, feeling her eyes on the back of his head, got inside and continued the backing process until his wheels had regained the road again. The last he saw of her was in his headlights, standing as he had placed her, looking strangely appealing against the incongruous background of woods beside a country road.

  "Why don't you get in your car?" he called to her, holding the Chevrolet still so that its lights could guide her.

  "Why don't you go to hell?" she called back.

  Dane shrugged, waved goodbye and was gone.

  CHAPTER 6

  Mike Stern threaded the car through the early morning downtown traffic. Beside him, his face a dark cloud, was Bannerman.

  "Come on, Mike," he growled peevishly. "I'm late as it is."

  "Look at it, Lieutenant," Stern answered, indicating the slowly moving jam of trucks, buses, cabs and other civilian cars ahead of them. "We should have taken a patrol car."

  "Them and their damn conferences! You'd think I had nothing else to do today but come down to Centre Street and talk to a bunch of blockheads."