Poisons Unknown (13 page)

The girl reached up, mussed his hair, smeared sticky lips across his face and mouth. Liddell took a deep breath and tried to still the pounding of his heart.

There were heavy footsteps in the hall, then a pounding on the door.

“Open up!” a heavy voice commanded.

The girl slipped out of bed, grabbed up a kimono, padded out to the door. Liddell could hear her open the door, her shrill voice arguing, the heavier voices of the police. Footsteps clattered across the living-room floor, and two cops entered, guns in hand.

“You have no right to break in my house,” the girl shrilled at them.

The cops ignored her. “Who’s this?” One directed the beam of the flashlight at Liddell.

“Mi pichonsita
. I his sweetheart,” she snapped.

“Shake the rest of the place down, Jake,” the cop told his partner. “I’ll see the guy.” He walked over, pulled the covers back from Liddell, snickered. “How long you been here, mister?”

“A couple of hours. I—”

“See anything of a guy running through here or hiding any place?”

Liddell shook his head.

The cop turned, looked at the girl appreciatively. “You want to watch these hot peppers, mister. You can get burned.”

The other cop returned from a check of the other rooms. “Not here, Ed. How the hell could he get across from that other roof? He can’t fly. I tell you he’s still hiding in Number Seventy.”

They stamped across the floor, slammed the hall door behind them. Liddell could hear the sound of their feet going down the stairs, the slam of the hall door. He wiped the perspiration from his face with the back of his hand.

The girl walked over to the window and watched the street from behind the upturned corner of the shade. Liddell gathered up his clothes and started dressing.

“They going, Chiquita?”

The girl turned from the window and nodded. “They leave two men to watch for you.” She snapped on a small lamp and stared at him curiously. “You kill somebody?”

Liddell shook his head. “They’ve got me mixed up with someone else.” He got his first good look at the girl. She was small, dark. Her lipstick was smeared all over her mouth, her eyes were big black marbles. She wore a cheap kimono that gaped open in front, exposing her nakedness. “You can’t leave now,” she pointed out. “They waiting for you.”

Liddell nodded. “There must be a back door, isn’t there?”

She shrugged. “Through the cellar.” She cocked her head. “Why you not want to stay? You don’t like me, eh?”

“I’m crazy about you, but I’d better get out of here before they decide to come back.” He dug into his pocket, pulled out a roll of bills, peeled off two fives. “That’s to show you how much I like you.”

She took the two bills, counted them, danced off to the bedroom. In a moment she came back, struggling into a skirt and blouse. “I go with you, show you the way through the back yard. The
policia,”
she snapped her fingers, “they never catch you.”

T
HE NOISE SOUNDED
like distant thunder, settled down to the sharp chatter of a machine gun. Johnny Liddell groaned, tried to burrow his head under the pillow, but the noise refused to go away. Finally, he reluctantly opened one bleary eye and decided it was only someone trying to knock his door off its hinges. The clock on the table next to his bed said eight o’clock, the rain pelting against his window frame gave no hint whether it was a.m. or p.m.

The pounding on the door showed no signs of abating. Liddell pulled on his pants, slid his feet into slippers, and shuffled to the door.

“Okay, okay. Keep your pants on,” he growled.

He turned the key and pulled open the door.

“That’s a fine way to greet an eager young lady paying you a call at your apartment.” Donna Espirito grinned at him impishly. This morning she wore her thick blond hair in a long page boy that cascaded down onto her shoulders. She wore a loose silk peasant blouse that made her look even younger and complemented the color of her eyes. Liddell noticed that most of the lines of strain he had detected in her face the day before had been erased.

He groaned, covered his eyes. “Oh, no. Not you.”

The girl walked past him into the room and looked around critically. She placed a large paper bag she held in her arm on the table. “I brought some breakfast. Hot coffee, hot crullers.”

Liddell pushed the door shut resignedly. “How jolly.” He walked over to the coffee table in front of the couch and helped himself to a cigarette. “Now my reputation in this riding-academy is really made. They looked at me like I was a cross between a satyr and perpetual motion when I staggered in last night, and now you come waltzing by.”

Donna grinned, wrinkled her nose. “Who cares what they think?” She lifted two cardboard containers of coffee and a tissue-wrapped bundle from the bag, set them on the table. “You’ll feel better after you have some coffee.” She stopped, sniffed, looked around. “What’s that smell?”

Liddell grunted, blew a double stream of smoke through his nostrils. “What’s it smell like?”

“Well, to tell you the honest truth, it smells like a cut-rate Sadie Thompson.”

Liddell bridled. “I don’t know about that cut-rate business. She cost me ten bucks.”

The blonde set down the coffee, went over to Liddell, and sniffed at him. “It is you. What’d you do, fall in a gallon of fifty-cent passion water?” She pinched her nostrils delicately between her thumb and forefinger. “Penetrating, isn’t it?”

“What are you complaining about?” Liddell growled. “I’ve got to live with it. I’ve taken so many hot showers in the past couple of hours, my hide’s peeling right off.” He sniffed, scowled. “If anything, it’s getting stronger.”

“Where’d you get it?”

“In bed with a Puerto Rican gal,” he told her. He took another suck on his cigarette, blew the smoke through the nostrils. “I can’t get the damn smell out of my nostrils.” He crushed the cigarette in an ash tray.

“Have fun?” Donna wanted to know.

“Where?”

“In bed with the Puerto Rican girl, of course,” she snapped.

Liddell grinned. “Believe it or not, I was hiding from the cops.”

The blonde’s eyes widened, and she started to giggle. “Of course. What a perfect place to hide. Who’d ever think of looking there?”

“The cops did.”

The blonde leaned back, howled. “You mean they actually—” She covered her face, laughed until the tears streamed down her face. “You must have made a dignified picture.”

“It was better than getting dragged down to headquarters to explain what I was doing in Martinez’s apartment.” Liddell walked over, selected a container of coffee, gouged out the top.

“You think it was a trap?”

Liddell shrugged. “I was careless. I guess somebody reported lights in the flat. First thing I knew, the whole area was crawling with cops.” He tried the coffee, burned his tongue, swore.

“How’d you ever get away?”

He shrugged. “I managed to make the roof, went over a couple of buildings, ducked into the end one. I started down the stairs and almost ran right into the arms of a couple of cops doing a house-to-house check.”

Donna whistled soundlessly.

“I was sure I was cooked. Then this little tamale opened her door, told me to hide out under her sheets. By the time the cops came busting in, I looked as though I’d been there all night.”

“You smell it, too,” Donna told him. She picked up her container of coffee, cupped her palms about it. “So it was a dry run, eh?”

“Not exactly.”

“Aside from your romantic exploits, I mean,” the blonde told him coldly. “You went up to Angie’s to look for something? Remember?”

“That’s what I mean.”

Donna put down her container. “You mean you found it?”

“Certainly I found it,” Liddell grumbled. “That’s what I went for.”

“What was it?”

Liddell shook his head. “That’s where the dry run comes in, baby. It was nothing. A wallet with some papers in it. It didn’t make a bit of sense to me.”

The blonde’s features mirrored his disappointment. “But it must have, Johnny. Angie must have thought it would mean something to you when she called. And certainly the one who killed her thought it was important—”

Liddell shrugged. “I’m not even sure this is what she wanted to show me.” He walked over to the closet, fumbled in the breast pocket of his jacket, brought back an alligator wallet, and tossed it on the table. “The guy it belongs to was Puerto Rican. It might have been there when Martinez moved there.”

“No, this couldn’t have been there more than a few days, Johnny. Here’s a ticket stub dated only a couple of days ago.” She flipped through the papers, picked out a postcard-sized picture of a half-naked, generously proportioned brunette. She looked it over, whistled. “This look like your alibi?”

Liddell shook his head. “That was in there.”

Donna held the picture so she could squint at the inscription. “I can make out her name. Benita. What’s the rest of it say?”

“Quien besabas tu hoy,”
he read. “That’s the Spanish equivalent of ‘I wonder who’s kissing her now.’ ” He watched while she riffled through the wallet. “There’s nothing in it. Belongs to some guy named Ramón Jorges apparently. From the stuff in it, looks like he’s a Riqueno. That San Juan ticket stub and the courtesy cards.” He shrugged. “Doesn’t mean a thing.”

The blonde stuffed the papers back into the wallet and tossed it on the table. “Hear from the hospital yet?”

Liddell shook his head. He finished his coffee, crushed the container in his fist, and threw it at a wastebasket. Then he walked over to the phone, lifted it from its cradle. “This is Liddell in three-forty. Got anything down there for me?” He waited while the girl checked. “A letter? Send it up, will you? No calls, though?”

The receiver chattered at him.

“Get me Doctor Steckler at Mercy Hospital, will you?”

He dropped the receiver back on its hook. “No word from the hospital yet.” He ran his fingers over the faint stubble on his face. “I figured there would be some word before now.”

Donna finished her coffee and dumped the container in the bag. “Maybe she’s resting, and they don’t want to disturb her.” She rewrapped the doughnuts, dropped them into the bag with the empty coffee container. She started slightly as the phone jangled.

Liddell picked it up, held it to his ear. “Doctor Steckler? My name’s Liddell. Sergeant Hennessy called early this morning—”

The receiver cut him off with a metallic chatter.

“Oh, I see. What are her chances, doc?”

He nodded as the voice on the other end droned on, and scowled at the faded rug.

“I understand. Suppose I get there in an hour or so. Think I can see her for just a minute?” The receiver reassured him. He nodded. “Thanks, doc,” he said and hung up the phone.

“How is she?” Donna wanted to know.

Liddell shook his head. “Not good. They kept her under opiates all night. They’ve been giving her infusions. She doesn’t seem to rally the way they think she should.”

“Will they let you see her?”

Liddell nodded. “She should be coming out of it in about an hour. The doc says she’s been calling for me, working herself up into a state. I guess it would be easier on her if they let me talk to her than to keep her fighting them.”

There was a knock on the door. “That’s a boy with some letter, Donna. Take it for me, will you? I’m going to get under the shower again and try to scald off this stench.”

He closed the bedroom door after him, stepped under a red-hot shower, followed it with a skin-tingling cold shower. He was shrugging into his shirt when Donna knocked on the door.

“Come on in, I’m decent,” he called.

She came in with a large Manila envelope in her hand. “I thought you might want to see this. The return address says Federal Bureau of Investigation.”

Liddell frowned, took the envelope out of her hand, and stared at it for a moment. Then he tore the end open and dumped the contents on his bed. It consisted of a B.I. card with a front and profile portrait and a set of fingerprints and a note. He handed the card to the girl and unfolded the note. It was dated Washington the day before and said:

• • •

It was signed
Mel
.

Liddell flipped the note down onto the bed, walked over, and peered at the B.I. card over the blonde’s shoulder. The man on the card was round-faced, wore a thin pencil-line mustache. His eyebrows were bushy, his eyes set close to the bridge of the thin, pinched nose. He was almost totally bald.

“Recognize him?” Liddell asked.

The blonde looked up, then studied the card again, shook her head. “I never saw him before in my life.”

“That’s what you think. That’s the way your pal, Brother Alfred, looked without all his hocus-pocus beard.” He picked up Mel’s note, glanced through it again. “His real name’s Al Frederici. He was a mobster out on the coast until the F.B.I. ran him underground.”

Donna stared hard at the picture, then shook her head. “How many hundred years ago was this picture taken? He didn’t look like that at all.”

Liddell selected a tie and knotted it around his neck. “He wasn’t supposed to. Don’t forget, he was on the lam.” He took his shoulder holster from the back of a chair, hung it in his closet, turned the key, and dropped it into his pocket. From his dresser drawer, he took a little snub-nosed .38 and dropped it into his jacket pocket. “One thing’s a cinch. They’ll never recognize him the way he looks now.”

Johnny Liddell left the blonde in a cab in front of Mercy Hospital. As the cab pulled away, he sprinted across the teeming sidewalk and up the steps. He crossed the lobby to a small desk where a nurse in freshly starched uniform presided.

“I’d like to see Miss Benton, nurse. Gabrielle Benton.”

The nurse consulted a small filing-cabinet, checked a card, looked up. “I’m sorry. Miss Benton can’t have any visitors.”

“I know. But I was sent for.”

“Your name?”

“Liddell. Johnny Liddell. Doctor Steckler asked me to come right out.”

The nurse turned the card over, nodded. “Yes, Mr. Liddell, doctor is expecting you.” She got up from her desk, led the way to a double glass door, pushed it open, and held it for him. “You follow this corridor to the end, then bear right. The charge nurse’s desk is right at the turn. She’ll take care of you.”

Liddell nodded. His heels clicked loudly against the concrete floor of the corridor. At the far end, he turned to the right, stopped at another desk. The nurse was fat, comfortable, and gray-haired. She smiled at him.

“Looking for someone?”

“Miss Benton.”

The nurse consulted a sheet in front of her. “You’re the Liddell she’s been calling for?” She looked him over and smiled. “Can’t say I blame her.” She waved to a white chair. “Sit down for a minute. Doctor just went in to see her. It won’t take long.”

Liddell nodded. “How’s it look, nurse?”

The gray-haired woman pursed her lips. “She might make it. Stranger things than that have happened. But it would be a miracle.” She tucked a stray wisp of white hair under her cap. “We’re doing everything we can for her, of course, but she’d lost an awful lot of blood by the time we got her.”

Liddell nodded, fished a cigarette from his pocket, and stuck it between his lips. As an afterthought, he pointed to it. “Okay?”

“Better not if you’re going in there.”

He nodded, pulled the unlit cigarette from between his lips, tossed it at a sand-filled urn. A door marked 105 opened; a nurse came out wheeling a treatment table.

“They’re finishing up now,” the gray-haired woman whispered.

Liddell got up just as a thin little man in surgical blues walked out of the room. A sickly-sweet odor seemed to flow from the open door.

“This is Mr. Liddell, doctor,” the nurse told the little man.

Dr. Steckler looked up from the notes he was making. “Oh. I’m glad you got here, Liddell.” He capped his fountain pen and stuck it in his breast pocket. “She’s been calling for you again.”

“How is she?”

The doctor pursed his lips, shook his head. “Her condition is very grave. The bullet penetrated her right lung. There’s been a lot of hemorrhaging internally.”

“Didn’t they get the bullet out?”

Dr. Steckler stuck a badly macerated fingernail between his teeth, chewed at the cuticle. “We couldn’t risk going in after it. She’s too weak.” He consulted the watch on his wrist. “You’d better go in. Don’t stay too long.”