Читать книгу Hot Bullets for Love - Gentry Nyland - Страница 5

HE MERGED into the street in a deluge of rain. Remembering traffic congestion on Broadway he hugged the building and ducked into the nearest subway station. Ten minutes later he was entering Hillman Hospital.

The hospital was situated on the lower West Side just before it becomes the Village. The group of several quiet, unassuming old buildings had once been a charitable institution. Traces of its humble origin were still visible in the discolored red brick and old-fashioned windows and doors. There the telltale marks ended. Inside it was as modern as Radio City.

During the war the wealthy philanthropist, Charles Gordon Hillman, had bought the site and the buildings and had it transformed into a hospital for the wealthy. One of the smaller buildings had been given over to charity patients and free clinics, but to occupy a private room in the main building meant that the patron could write a check in six figures at least.

To the right of the entrance hall was a large, glassed-in office. Behind the opening in a small window, a white-capped nurse busied herself with stacks of papers.

Joe approached the opening and asked for Parker Raleigh’s room. She smiled coldly and said, “Oh, yes, Mr. South, I believe Mr. Raleigh is expecting you. His room is 315. One moment and I’ll tell him you are here.”

She turned her back as she did things to the switchboard. Joe glanced, idly about the entrance hall. He had located the stairway immediately to the right of the elevators when the nurse returned to the window. “Mr. Raleigh will see you in ten minutes,” she informed him briefly and went back to her papers.

Joe walked toward the elevators directly across from the glass enclosure, watching the nurse from the corner of his eye. He was within three feet of the stairway when he saw her turn to the switchboard. The next moment he was climbing the stairs. He was slightly out of breath when he reached the third floor. Here the hospital held no slightest resemblance to the charitable refuge it had once been. On the contrary, there was little about it to suggest a hospital except lingering antiseptic odors and a soft-footed nurse moving down the corridor in front of him. Scarcely a sound reached him as he examined his surroundings.

The numbers over the doors told him that 315 was to his right. The door was open about two inches and he moved nearer to get a better view. The tableau presented by the occupants of the room stopped him for a moment. There was nothing unusual about it, but something in the atmosphere warned him that this was not just nurse and patient. There was more than ordinary professional concern in the face of the trim, dark-haired figure bending over the man on the bed. Joe couldn’t see the man’s face, but something in the nurse’s eyes as she smiled at him reminded Joe of May on the few occasions she softened toward him. He didn’t try to define the impression, but he was sure that if he were in Raleigh’s shoes he’d try to make the most of the situation too. Maybe more than the most. Money doesn’t buy that kind of nursing.

As he raised his hand to knock the girl looked up and saw him. She was almost as tall as Joe. Brunette and as streamlined as the interior of the building. Only her curves were in the right places, and she was as beautiful as a Red Cross poster. He knew by her slight flush that he had been right. She spoke softly to the man on the bed. “I assume this is the gentleman from Mr. Van Pelt’s office.” Her voice was cushioned and as smooth as velvet. Some nurse. He tried not to stare.

The patient turned his eyes slowly in Joe’s direction. “Very well, Miss Gannon.” He studied the detective for a moment and motioned him to enter. He didn’t speak until Joe stood beside the bed. Then he said, “You’re South?”

Joe nodded, and the sick man said, “I’m Parker Raleigh. Sit down. I’ll be with you in a minute.”

To the right of the door into the hall was a large clothes closet, its door partly open. From his position Joe noted two suits hanging on a rack. He wondered what a man lying sick in a hospital bed could possibly want with a complete wardrobe.

Joe’s eyes traveled from the wardrobe to the man on the bed. It wasn’t hard to see that he was unaccustomed to enforced idleness. He made even that undersized bed look as if it had been designed for the chairman of the board. The investment represented in the richly brocaded dressing gown he was wearing would have kept the detective for a week, including Scotches and sodas. The slippers beside the bed were well-worn, but even Joe knew they hadn’t come from Gimbel’s basement. His hair was the kind of gray smart women try to acquire at forty. Joe thought he might be in the middle fifties.

“All right, South,” Raleigh’s voice broke into Joe’s musing. It sounded like the right side of Hyde Park. “Let’s get down to business. Mr. Van Pelt tells me you’ve done jobs for him before.”

Joe nodded. “Sure. Mr. Van Pelt and I understand each other.”

Raleigh didn’t smile. He said, “Then, of course, you know what your job is.” He paused and stared speculatively at Joe. “I sent for you because I’m not in the habit of hiring men I can’t judge for myself. Stuyvesant Van Pelt’s opinion goes a long way, of course, and I hope he isn’t mistaken this time.”

“Mr. Van Pelt isn’t taking chances where I’m concerned, Mr. Raleigh. He doesn’t make mistakes. He can’t afford to.”

The older man glanced at him sharply and frowned. “All right, South. Suppose you give me some facts about yourself.”

“Oh, sure,” Joe agreed. “Where do I begin? I’m thirty-five and white. I’d have graduated from the university where I was studying law if I’d been able to control the impulse to poke a swell-head professor. That did it and I’m still trying not to lose control. Then I tried the police force in a certain city and quit because I couldn’t stand the routine and dirty politics. I’m single for the same reason. Since then I’ve free-lanced in New York, Atlantic City, Palm Beach, Miami and every banana port south of the Canal. I’m as honest as my profession allows and I’ve donated myself a sheepskin for never having been caught on the wrong side of the law.”

“That’s enough for the moment, South. Your independence does you credit.” Raleigh settled back against the pillows. “Now. Just what did Mr. Van Pelt tell you?”

Joe didn’t like that. He hadn’t come here to give information but to get it. He would have to play along for the moment, however. He said, “He tells me you are a bachelor with a niece and a nephew. Your nephew, Richard, has recently been playing cops and robbers with a couple of mugs—identity unknown—who are apt to rub his nose in the mud. Your niece, Naomi, it seems, got wind of his pranks and came through, bold like, with a message to Garcia. Right?”

Raleigh nodded. His eyes were cold. He said through stiff lips, “Right.” The sick man wasn’t liking this at all.

“When he got that far,” Joe continued, “naturally I wanted to know what a wealthy young Fauntleroy was doing messing around with that kind of society. Van Pelt explained what appeared to be your niece’s idea. Namely, that he’d got himself mixed up in some kind of racket with them. It seems she suspected something was wrong when he began to spend more money than his allowance provided. Much more money.”

Joe struck a match and lit a cigarette from a crumpled package. He passed the package to Raleigh. The older man waved it aside impatiently. “Is that all?” he asked.

“All,” Joe told him, “except that my job would last until Richard’s twenty-sixth birthday. In other words, until January 30—two months from today.”

He was watching Raleigh through a cloud of smoke. Suddenly Joe was convinced that something was being held back. It made him uneasy. He said, “Of course, Mr. Raleigh, I naturally assumed that a man in your position would have investigated the situation a little further before taking a hysterical girl’s word.” He paused to let that sink in, and added evenly, “What did you find?”

Raleigh’s face didn’t change. He said, “That’s my business, South. You’re hired for one thing—to keep my nephew out of trouble. My family’s affairs don’t, concern you. . . .”

Joe didn’t wait for more. He almost knocked the chair over as he bounced to his feet. His face was flushed; his eyes steely. He stood over the arrogant figure on the bed. He said in a voice that rasped, “You’re darned well right they don’t i concern me. What do you think I am? A whining busybody to pick your private skeletons clean and throw the morsels over back fences? Take your darned job and your whimpering brat and to hell with both of them! The sooner they got there the better!”

He turned without waiting for an answer and stormed toward the door. Raleigh’s voice stopped him as his hand touched the knob.

“That attitude won’t get you anywhere, South. Come back and cool off.”

Joe looked at Raleigh suspiciously. A half-smile lifted the corners of the sick man’s mouth. That did it. Joe relaxed, but his anger was still bubbling. He stood over the bed and said between tight lips, “Okay, it’s your move.”

Raleigh’s smile was all the way now. “Quite a temper you have there.”

“Not temper,” Joe corrected. “Pride. You’re no different from all the other guys that shuffle gold and clip coupons. You have no control over your families and when one of them gets in trouble your only concern is how to keep your gilt-edge names, out of the headlines. I repeat. Don’t hand me any of that stuff about prying. I don’t give a hang about your private affairs except that the more facts I have the better I can do my job.”

“Be that as it may. South,” Raleigh snapped, “I can usually take care of my own.”

Joe had planted himself gingerly in the white chair again. He grunted, “It don’t look much like it in this case.”

Raleigh was still smiling. He said, “Right. I can guess now why your license was suspended. You ought to try to control that temper.”

Joe said, “So you know that, do you? Van Pelt didn’t miss a trick when you talked to him. Skip it, and let’s get this over with.”

“My idea exactly, South,” he frowned. “You can understand all this is extremely distasteful to me.”

It was a concession to apology. Joe said, “Van Pelt mentioned your nephew’s allowance as part of the root of the trouble. Why is it so small against the amount of the inheritance?”

Raleigh leaned forward. “All right, South. You can have it for what it’s worth. My brother, the children’s father, left a fortune in trust for them. They were young—motherless—and he made me their guardian as well as one of the trustees.” He paused and looked at Joe as if uncertain how much he should tell the detective. After a moment he went on. “The will is a complicated one, the kind a man of my brother’s temperament would be likely to make. Richard’s income is only two thousand a year until his twenty-sixth birthday—two months from today. If he marries before that he inherits immediately.”

“Yeah. Van Pelt told me all that. What was the idea tying the girl’s dough in knots?”

Raleigh stiffened. “That has nothing to do with your job, South. We’ll stick to the pertinent facts.”

“Okay. Only it’s still screwy. She gets the same allowance until she marries. Then her only reward is a substantial increase, and she still has to wait five years for her share of the estate. If she doesn’t marry she has to wait till she’s thirty for the ‘substantial’ increase.” He shrugged. “But I haven’t ever been a wealthy parent—thank God—so I don’t need any pointers. Skip it.”

Raleigh’s smile was sardonic. “I haven’t either, South, so we’ll both skip it. It isn’t as bad as you think,” he added. “After all, Naomi is nearly twenty-five, and the will protects her in case anything happens to me or to Richard.”

“I see,” Joe mused. “Van Pelt tells me that Richard has been up to these tricks for over a year now. It isn’t hard to guess that he got impatient and decided to grab himself some dough the easy way.” Something about the set look in Raleigh’s eyes prompted him to add, “He hasn’t had advances against his inheritance, has he?”

Raleigh glared, “Look here, South. Need you be so darned inquisitive?”

Joe flushed and started to rise. Raleigh waved him back. “All right, all right,” he said testily. “We’ll never get anywhere if you don’t control that temper.”

“And we’ll never get anywhere if you don’t try to remember that I need information if I’m to work intelligently,” Joe retorted.

Raleigh said with evident distaste, “Naomi thinks he’s had well over fifty thousand dollars from Van Pelt during the last two years. I learned this only recently. I pay his debts, within reason, of course, but I’ve refused to allow him more than the amount provided by the trust.” He closed his lips with a snap.

Joe said, “That’s better. It brings us to the question as to whether he’s messing around with gangsters for profit or just for excitement. In other words, if he had his legacy now, would he drop them?”

“What do you mean?”

“If what Van Pelt says is true I’m afraid the gentlemen Richard is tangled with won’t be so easy to brush off.”

Raleigh looked worried. He said, “Um-m. Yes. I see what you mean. But”—the coldness crept back into his voice—“it’s your job now. Take it or leave it. I usually pay for what I get and I expect results.”

In spite of the arrogance Raleigh’s voice was tired. For a few minutes Joe had actively disliked him until he remembered that he wasn’t a well man. Illness had wiped some of the steel from the handsome features and Joe suddenly felt sorry for him. He said, “And I take it I’m to find the root of the trouble and nip it or see that Richard doesn’t get clipped?”

“That’s it exactly, South.” Raleigh relaxed against the pillows. For a moment he actually looked embarrassed. “And there’s another thing. Er . . . ah . . . I’d rather Richard wouldn’t know that I’ve . . . ah . . . hired a bodyguard for him. I’m sure you will get better results that way.”

Joe hid a smile. The Raleigh pride must be protected. He said with a straight face, “Will he think I’m a Russian prince or just a long-lost cousin?”

The smile that crossed Raleigh’s mouth this time was attractive. He said, “This must sound like a penny thriller to you, South. No, I merely told him that I was expecting an old friend from Montana You needn’t bother about the town. Dick has never been west of Philadelphia.”

Joe said, “Okay,” and waited. This ought to be good.

“You’ll have to stay at the house, of course,” Raleigh reached for the dressing gown and took out a bunch of keys. “There’s the key to the place on 78th Street. You should find Dick there sooner or later. Naomi is staying at a friend’s apartment in Gramercy Park.”

Joe took the key and scribbled the house number on a scrap of paper. He said, “Okay. Anyone else I’ll have to cope with out there?”

“Only the maid. The other servants are on holiday until I get out of here.”

Joe said, “I’ll keep you posted.” Raleigh didn’t answer. At the door Joe looked back. The patient’s eyes were already closed.

The subway back to the hotel was crowded. Those suits in Raleigh’s closet and the nurse. Did the nurse come with the room or the room with the nurse? And who did you have to be to get a nurse like that? A sign on a platform said Times Square.

The Hotel Brant loomed through the weather like a gray ghost Carton and Kierney were no longer there. The suitcase hadn’t been completely unpacked and it took only a few minutes to finish the job. He added a respectable camel hair topcoat, some clean shirts socks and the half empty pint of rye Kierney had deserted. He didn’t remove the neat .82 under the pile of shirts at the bottom of the suitcase. There wasn’t anything in the closet that looked like Montana. The Homburg he was wearing wouldn’t have passed for a half-gallon hat in Hoboken. He did it the easy way. On a shelf in the closet was a walking stick Carton had affected when he first came to New York. Joe took it. He looked around to be sure he hadn’t forgotten anything. Then he called Pete. As he swung through the street door the rain-washed cab skidded to a stop at the curb. Joe made a dash for it and climbed in.

Pete said, “Lousy weather we’re havin’, ain’t it?”

Joe grinned and gave him the 78th Street address.

The Raleigh residence was typical of others in the immediate neighborhood. Built when quality of workmanship meant something, and Dutch conservatism still exercised its influence with moneyed New Yorkers, the house stood with quiet dignity in the shadow of streamlined apartment buildings to the right and left.

Pete looked at the hundred-dollar bill in Joe’s hand.

“Aw, Joey. I told you I couldn’t change that. Who d’ya think I’m workin’ for? Brink . . .” Joe silenced him with a lifted hand. He said.”

“Don’t worry, Pete. I’ll have the change later on. Stick around somewhere. I might need you this evening.”

The button Joe pressed emitted low, musical chimes. Light footsteps approached. Through the translucent glass the figure looked trim and neat.

“Not bad, maybe,” Joe mused.

The girl who opened the door was as black as Joe’s Homburg. Her figure was not as inviting as Gannon’s. Joe said, “Holy cripes!”

She said, “Peace, it’s wonderful!” and grinned widely, showing glistening teeth. One of Father Divine’s educated converts. He followed the neatly clad maid through the foyer into a spacious, beautifully appointed room.

“That fire’ll be fine to get some of the rain out of me, but I need a drink, too. How about it?”

She grinned, took the reversible, hat and stick and hung them in a closet. She returned a few minutes later with a syphon of seltzer, whisky in a cut-glass decanter and a small silver dish of ice cubes, which she put down on a table.

“My name is Precious Lamb,” she informed him. There was no trace of Dixie in her voice. She probably had never been south Of Newark. “Just pull the cord when you want to go to your room.”

Joe was pouring whisky into the glass. At the door she turned and said to his back, “Peace! It’s wonderful.” He swung around, but she was gone. He added ice to his glass and addressed the door. “Not from you, sister. Not from you.”