Badge of Evil (20 page)

“Luck,” Connie echoed bitterly. “This isn’t a game of ball where everybody shakes hands afterwards. Mitch is fighting for his life, Mr. Underwood. He’s been threatened, shot at — the radio says he’s even been suspended from his job. It’s very easy for you and your newspaper. Tomorrow you’ll have a new headline to sell your papers. But what’s Mitch supposed to do?” Holt didn’t think he had ever seen her so angry.

“I don’t blame you, Mrs. Holt, and I don’t even mind being your whipping boy. If your husband comes up with anything definite, anything we can get our teeth into, I can promise we’ll give him a fair shake.” Underwood sighed. “That’s all I can say. And that I’m sorry. Don’t get up — I’ll let myself out.”

Connie’s anger didn’t subside with his departure. “Why didn’t you tell him off?” she demanded of her husband. “You hardly said a word.”

“What was there to say?” Holt asked wearily. “I can’t make them print the story if they don’t want to.”

“You could have at least told him what you think of them.”

“It wouldn’t have done any good. You heard what Underwood said, that he was just a messenger boy. Besides, I still may need them.”

“Sure, they may give you a job selling newspapers.” Connie came over to kneel beside him and her voice lost its bitterness. “Oh, Mitch, Mitch — what are we going to do now?”

“I don’t know,” he said, stating the obvious. The situation appeared so hopeless that he didn’t even want to grapple with it. But that course only added up to disaster. He shook his head to drive away the clouds of gloom. “Well, I’m not going to get anywhere just sitting here, that’s for sure. I’ve wasted the whole day just waiting. Now I’ve got to get moving again.”

“But how?” Connie asked disconsolately. “You’re all alone.”

“I’ve got you,” Holt reminded her, smiling with an effort. “And maybe I’ve got another friend. I think I’d better go find out.”

“Take me with you.”

Holt considered, then shook his head. “No. I’d like to, but I think I’ll get farther if I don’t bring a witness along.”

When he explained what he intended, Connie agreed. They argued then over who would keep the pistol but Holt insisted that it remain in the house. “The legal question aside, I don’t think I’m in any physical danger now. The last thing McCoy would do at this point is to shoot me, because that would prove to the world that I’m right. But you never know who might come around here, some crackpot or somebody.” He won and left the house without the weapon, after giving Connie instructions to admit no one. And before he left, Holt replaced the telephone receiver in its cradle.

Van Dusen lived in an apartment hotel on the edge of the big city park. But he was not at home and the elevator boy had not seen him since early morning. Holt waited in the lobby for a while with no results and then, frustrated, turned toward his own home. His route took him past the Civic Centre. On a sudden impulse, he stopped and entered the restaurant across the street.

Van Dusen was sitting in a booth at the rear. He was alone and he was drunk. “Well, here he is now,” he greeted Holt. “How’s the boy scout?”

“I’ve been looking for you, Van.”

“Sit down and have a drink.” Van Dusen yelled at the bartender. “Hey, Joe, bring over the bottle — and another glass for my friend. I guess I can still call you my friend, can’t I, Holt? Since nobody’s listening, that is.”

The bartender did as he was bidden, with a concerned glance at Van Dusen. “You want the same?” he asked Holt. Holt didn’t care and so the bartender poured two straight shots of bourbon. Van Dusen downed his at a gulp. The bartender said to Holt half-admiringly, “He’s been doing that since four o’clock.”

“I want to get drunk,” Van Dusen announced. “And if your whisky wasn’t ninety per cent water I would be drunk. How about it, Holt? Shall we tie on one together?”

Holt had never seen Van Dusen in such a cynical mood. “It wouldn’t be any effort for me, considering everything. What’s your excuse?”

“You,” said Van Dusen sadly. “I guess I’m just tenderhearted but I do hate to see a sucker get trimmed. What’d you want to walk into the buzz saw for, boy scout?”

“You called it, Van. I’m a sucker.”

“You should have talked to me. I’d have told you what you were asking for. But now …” Van Dusen shook his head pityingly. “Too bad.”

“I’m talking to you now. I want to ask a favour.”

“No, absolutely not. I will not shoot Adair, even as a favour to you.” Van Dusen added thoughtfully, “It doesn’t sound like such a bad idea, though.”

“I don’t want you to shoot anybody. Listen.” Holt leaned across the table intensely. “Am I wrong or is there one of those portable shortwave recording outfits among our equipment some place? You know, the sort of gimmick where there’s an unattached microphone that transmits a short distance to a tape recorder.”

“If it’s cute, we got it.”

“I want it, Van.”

“Then sign it out. Only don’t bother me. I intend to be here for days, toasting your memory.”

“I can’t sign it out. I’m suspended. But you’re not.”

“Ah!” Van Dusen leaned back and regarded him wisely. “What’s the trouble, Mitch? Getting lonely out there in the cold? Why should I get it for you?”

“No reason. I’m presuming on our friendship.” Holt met his gaze squarely. “I’m desperate, Van, as you can guess. Farnum hanged himself tonight. If I don’t get some proof that I’m right — real honest-to-God evidence — then I’m sunk. I need that recorder badly.”

“Who you figuring to bug?”

“McCoy.”

Van Dusen choked and began to cough. Holt continued, “Don’t ask me how because I don’t know. But with Farnum unable to testify, there’s only one thing that will win for me, and that’s a statement of guilt from McCoy himself.”

Van Dusen had his eyes closed and there was a pained expression on his face. “Mitch, you’re ruining what little glow I do have. You’re off your rocker. Do you think McCoy is going to hold still for you?”

“I told you I didn’t know how I was going to do it. But it’s worth a try. Anything is, right now.”

“Crazy as a coot,” murmured Van Dusen. “I could weep.”

“If it ever comes to a showdown, I’ll claim I swiped the thing. You don’t need to worry.”

“And I don’t need boy scouts to protect me,” Van Dusen declared, opening his eyes. “If I’m sucker enough to help a sucker when a sucker’s in trouble, then I’m sucker enough to admit it.” He shook his head wonderingly. “The only question is, am I sucker?”

Holt waited and was silent.

“Oh, go on home,” Van Dusen said angrily. “I’m a drinking man and this is no place for boy scouts. I’ll let you know.”

Despite the halfway hostile dismissal, Holt thought that the chubby investigator would do what he asked and he drove home in a slightly more cheerful frame of mind. Even so, he wasn’t exactly sure how he would utilize the recording equipment but he vowed he’d think of something.

Holt beeped his car horn as he turned into the driveway and made some more unnecessary noise lowering the garage door, so that Connie would know it was he and not become alarmed. His consideration was wasted, however. When he let himself in the front door, no one answered his hail. A quick tour of the house revealed that it was empty.

“That’s funny,” he muttered. He experienced a pang of fear but he quickly dismissed it. Connie had gone out for a few moments, maybe next door to the neighbours, but she would be returning shortly. He lit a cigarette and sat down to wait, ready to open the door for her.

Connie didn’t return. After a little while, Holt got up and re-surveyed his home more slowly. Had she left a note which he had missed? She hadn’t. The house was exactly as he had left it, except that it no longer contained his wife. A worried frown on his face, Holt studied the living room for signs of a possible struggle. There were none.

His third swing from room to room revealed one other disquieting fact. Not only Connie was missing. His pistol and the box of ammunition were gone also.

“Where could she have gone?” he said aloud. No answer came. Connie had been well aware of the possible danger, she would hardly go out for a casual stroll. And she didn’t have a car because Holt had taken it himself. What would lure her out tonight of all nights? The only eventuality that Holt could conceive of was something concerning their daughter. He rushed to the telephone and put in a call to the Mayatorena ranch.

It took an agonizing time to go through and succeed in rousing Connie’s father from his bed. Nancy was fine, sound asleep. No, they had not telephoned Connie tonight. Holt hung up without telling Senor Mayatorena of his concern.

It was a very real concern now and he could feel his fingers trembling. Get a grip on yourself, he admonished his nerves; there’s probably a simple explanation. He thought of several and, although they were simple, they were also ugly. Kidnapping? Foul play? Yet why was there no indication of a struggle? And why had Connie taken his pistol with her?

Slowly, Holt returned to the telephone. This time there was no delay in completing the call. The desk sergeant at police headquarters informed him that Connie had not been the subject of an accident or injury report.

“Do you want me to put out a missing persons bulletin on her?” the officer asked. He sounded curious, apparently aware of Holt’s reputation.

Holt hesitated. “I don’t think so. Not yet, anyhow. But please call me right away if you hear anything.”

After that, there was nothing to do but pace up and down the living room, lighting one cigarette after another. The impulse to do something, to go rushing out into the night in search of his wife, was almost more than he could fight against. But he did, knowing that he would accomplish nothing that way and if Connie should try to phone him …

Or if McCoy should phone him. As one hour followed another with relentless precision, Holt came to believe that that was what he was waiting for. A ring of the telephone bell, and McCoy’s soft voice offering him Connie for his silence. And what would he say to that? “Do anything you like to her, I’m not giving up?” Hardly, yet Holt couldn’t imagine himself surrendering abjectly, either. He didn’t know what he would do.

Holt still didn’t know when the telephone finally startled the silence. It was four o’clock in the morning. He had been waiting nearly six hours, yet he hesitated before answering. “Hello, this is Holt speaking.”

The voice on the other end of the wire didn’t belong to McCoy, after all. It was the desk sergeant at police headquarters and he sounded oddly stiff and formal. “Mr. Holt, I’m calling about your wife.”

“Yes?” Holt’s hand gripped hard on the receiver. “Where is she?”

“We have her here under detention.” The sergeant paused, then added coldly, “Your wife has been booked for possession and use of narcotics.”

I
T
was a twenty-minute drive from Holt’s home to police headquarters. Holt made it in slightly over ten. Even so, the reporters were there ahead of him and they were glad to see him, particularly those who worked for the
Sentinel
and
Evening News
. In his concern for Connie, Holt hardly knew they existed except as obstacles to be shoved aside on his way to her place of captivity.

“Give us a statement, Holt,” they pleaded, while their flashbulbs silvered the early morning blackness. “How long has your wife been on the stuff? Did you know she was a user? Do you intend to stand by her?”

Holt shook his head doggedly. “I have nothing to say until I’ve heard all the facts.”

He repeated this several times but the reporters continued to pursue him, not at all discouraged. They hung at his elbow as he introduced himself to the desk sergeant and rushed after him as he was directed to the Vice detail. They would have followed Holt into the Vice office itself but they were barred at the door by the sergeant in charge.

The sergeant’s name was Zook, a stocky middle-aged uniformed officer with heavy jowls and tired eyes. “Bunch of vultures,” he commented as he shut the door. “You the husband?”

“I’m Holt. Where’s my wife?”

“Women’s section. You might as well sit down. You can’t see her now. The doc hasn’t finished yet.”

Holt took a deep breath of anxiety. “Is she all right?”

“Depends on what you mean. She was hopped up to the eyes when they brought her in, way up there on Cloud Seven.” Zook shook his head sadly. “A real shame, she’s so young. How’d she get on to the weed, anyway?”

“Marijuana,” said Holt slowly. “Is that what it was?”

“Old Merry Jane herself. I can tell it a mile off. Not as if we don’t see plenty of it, this close to the border.”

“My wife is not a marijuana addict,” Holt said. “She never touched the stuff in her life. I’m her husband and I know.”

The sergeant shrugged; he wasn’t interested in arguing. He handed the arrest report to Holt. “Read it yourself.”

Holt did. It was a stark document, couched in concise official terms, and consisting of the report of the arresting officers and a statement from the night clerk of a hotel on lower Fathom Street, the city’s skid-row district. Shortly before midnight a woman, later identified as Mrs. Consuelo Holt, had entered the Frontier Hotel and inquired for a certain room number. The night clerk had directed her to it. At approximately two a.m. occupants of the adjoining rooms had complained that their sleep was being disturbed by a loud-playing radio. The clerk had investigated the source of the noise and, unable to rouse anyone by knocking, had used his pass-key to enter. Mrs. Holt was lying in an unconscious state across the bed, dressed in her slip. The room showed evidence of a large and mixed party, liquor bottle, glasses and several articles of clothing, men’s as well as women’s. The night clerk had summoned the police, who had discovered the odour of marijuana on Mrs. Holt’s breath and garments. A half-dozen smoked-up butts — some bearing lipstick, some not — were discovered about the room, as well as three unused marijuana cigarettes in her purse. The police had proceeded to book Mrs. Holt for possession of narcotics and on suspicion of narcotics addiction.

Holt could scarcely believe that he was reading about his own wife. He asked, “You don’t suppose there could have been a mistake and it isn’t really Connie?”