The Perfect Host (20 page)

I didn’t see anyone around. There were lights on in the house—in what seemed to be the living room, and in the hallway just inside the door. I could see how anyone passing by could get a look at such a thing if it had happened.

I told Sam to stay in the prowl car and ran up the path to the house.

I knocked on the door, figuring maybe there’d be prints on the bell push. There was no answer. I tried again, and finally opened the
door, turning the knob by the shaft, which was long enough for me to get hold of without touching the knob.

It had happened all right. The stiff was just inside the door. The guy was on his back, arms and legs spread out, with the happiest look on his face I ever saw. No kidding—that guy looked as if he’d just been given a million dollars. He had blood all over his front.

I took one look and went back and called Sam. He came up asking questions and stopped asking when he saw the stiff. “Go phone,” I told him, “and be careful. Don’t touch nothin’.”

While he was phoning I took a quick squint around. There was a few dirty dishes in the kitchen sink and on the table, and half a bottle of some liqueur on an end table in the living room, sitting right on the polished wood, where it’d sure leave a ring. I’d say this guy had been in there some time without trying to clean up any.

I inched open the drawer in the big sideboard in the dining room and all the silver was there. None of the drawers in the two bedrooms were open; it looked like a grudge killing of some kind; there wasn’t no robbery I could see.

Just as I came back down the stairs the doorbell rang. Sam came out of the front room and I waved him back. “There goes our prints on the bell,” I said. “I’ll get it.” I pussyfooted to the door and pulled it wide open, real sudden.

“Mr. Stoye?” says a kid standing there. He’s about fourteen, maybe, small for his age. He’s standing out there, three o’clock in the morning, mind you, smiling real polite, just like it was afternoon and he’d come around to sell raffle tickets. I felt a retch starting in my stomach just then—don’t know why. The sight of the stiff hadn’t bothered me none. Maybe something I ate. I swallowed it down and said, “Who are you?”

He said, “I would like to see Mr. Stoye.”

“Bub,” I said, “Mr. Stoye isn’t seeing anybody just now. What do you want?”

He squinted around me and saw the stiff. I guess I should’ve stopped him but he had me off guard. And you know, he didn’t gasp or jump back or any of the things you expect anyone to do. He just straightened up, and he smiled.

“Well,” he says, sort of petting his jacket pocket, “I don’t s’pose there’s anything I can do now,” and he smiles at me, real bright. “Well, good night,” he says, and turns to go.

I nabbed him and spun him inside and shut the door. “What do you know about all this?” I asked him.

He looked at the stiff, where I nodded, and he looked at me. The stiff didn’t bother him.

“Why, nothing,” he said. “I don’t know anything at all. Is that really Mr. Stoye?”

“You know it is.”

“I think I did know, all right,” he said. “Well, can I go home now? Dad doesn’t know I’m out.”

“I bet he doesn’t. Let’s see what you got in your pockets.”

He didn’t seem to mind. I frisked him. Inside the jacket pocket was a jump knife—one of those Army issue paratrooper’s clasp knives with a spring; touch the button and
click!
You’ve got four and a half inches of razor steel sticking out of your fist, ready for business. A lot of ’em got out in war surplus. Too many. We’re always finding ’em in carcasses.

I told him he’d have to stick around. He frowned a little bit and said he was worried about his father, but I didn’t let that make no difference. He gave his name without any trouble. His name was Ronnie Daniels. He was a clean-cut little fellow, just as nice and polite as I ever saw.

Well, I asked him all kinds of questions. His answers just didn’t make no sense. He said he couldn’t recall just what it was he wanted to see Stoye about. He said he had never met Stoye and had never been out here before. He said he got the address from knowing the phone number; went right up to the telephone company and wormed it out of one of the girls there. He said he didn’t remember at all where he got the number from. I looked at the number just out of curiosity; it was Homeland 2065, which didn’t mean nothing to me.

After that, there wasn’t anything to do until the homicide squad got there. I knew the kid’s old man, this Daniels, would have to get dragged into it, but that wasn’t for me to do; that would be up to the detective looey. I turned the kid over to Sam.

I remember Sam’s face just then; it turned pale. I asked him what was the matter but he just swallowed hard and said he didn’t know; maybe it was the pickles he had with his midnight munch. He took the kid into the front room and they got into a fine conversation about cops and murders. He sure seemed to be a nice, healthy, normal kid. Quiet and obedient—you know. I can’t really blame Sam for what happened.

The squad arrived—two carloads, sirens and all, making so much noise I thought sure Stoye would get up and tell ’em to let him rest in peace—and in they came—photogs, print men, and the usual bunch of cocky plainclothesmen. They swarmed all over.

Flick was the man in charge, stocky, tough, mad at everybody all the time, especially on the night detail. Man, how he hated killers that worked at night and dragged him away from his pinochle!

I told the whole story to him and his little book.

“His name’s Tommy,” I said, “and he says he lives at—”

“His name’s Ronnie,” says Sam, from behind me.

“Hey,” I says. “I thought I told you to stay with him.”

“I had to go powder my nose,” says Sam. “My stomach done a flip-flop a while back that had me worried. It’s okay. Brown was dusting in the room when I went out. And besides, that’s a nice little kid. He wouldn’t—”

“Brown!” Flick roared.

Brown came out of the living room. “Yeah, chief.”

“You done in the front room?”

“Yeah; everything I could think of. No prints except Stoye’s, except on the phone. I guess they’d be Sam’s.”

“The kid’s all right?”

“Was when I left,” said Brown, and went back into the living room. Flick and me and Sam went into the front room.

The kid was gone.

Sam turned pale.

“Ronnie!” he bellows. “Hey you, Ronnie!”

No answer.

“You hadda go powder your big fat nose,” says Flick to Sammy. Sam looked bad. The soft seats in a radio car feel good to a harness
bull, and I think Sam decided right then that he’d be doing his job on foot for quite a while.

It was easy to see what had happened. Sammy left the room, and then Brown got finished and went out, and in those few seconds he was alone the kid had stepped through the short hall into the kitchen and out the side door.

Sam looked even worse when I suddenly noticed that the ten-inch ham slicer was gone from the knife rack; that was one of the first things I looked at after I saw Stoye had been stabbed. You always look for the kitchen knives in a home stabbing.

Flick returned to Sam and opened his mouth, and in that moment, believe me, I was glad I was me and not him. I thought fast.

“Flick,” I said, “I know where that kid’s going. He was all worried about what his old man would think. Here—I got his address in my book.”

Flick snapped, “Okay. Get down there right away. I’ll call what’s-his-name—Daniels—from here and tell him to wait for the kid and hold him if he shows up before you do. Get down there, now, and hurry. Keep your eyes peeled on the way; you might see him on the street. Look out for that knife. Kelly, get a general alarm out for that kid soon’s I’m off the phone. Or send it from your car.”

He turned back to me, thumbed at Sam. “Take him with you,” he says, “I want him out of my sight. And if hot damned nose gets shiny again see he don’t use your summons book.”

We ran out and piled into the car and took off. We didn’t go straight to Daniels’ address. Sam hoped we would see the kid on the way; I think he had some idea of a heroic hand-to-hand grapple with the kid in which maybe he’d get a little bit stabbed in the line of duty, which might quiet Flick down some.

So we cut back and forth between Myrtle Avenue and Varick; the kid could’ve taken a trolley on one or a bus on the other. We found out soon enough that he’d done neither; he’d found a cab; and I’d like to know who it was drove that hack.

He must’ve been a jet pilot.

It was real dark on Daniels’ street. The nearest streetlight was a couple hundred feet away, and there was a big maple tree in Daniels’
front yard that cast thick black shadows all over the front of the house. I missed the number in the dark and pulled over to the curb; I knew it must be somewhere around here.

Me and Sam got out and Sam went up on the nearest porch to see the house number; Daniels was two doors away. That’s how we happened to be far to the left of the house when the killer rang Daniels’ bell.

We both saw it, Sam and me, that small dark shadow up against Daniels’ front door. The door had a glass panel and there was some sort of night light on inside, so all we saw was the dark blob waiting there, ringing on the bell. I guess Daniels was awake, after Flick’s phone call.

I grabbed Sam’s arm, and he shook me free. He had his gun out. I said, “What are you gonna do?” He was all hopped up, I guess.

He wanted to make an arrest or something. He wanted to be The Man here. He didn’t want to go back on a beat. He said, “You know how Stoye was killed. Just like that.”

That made sense, but I said, “Sam! You’re not going to shoot a kid!”

“Just wing him, if it looks—”

Just then the door opened. There wasn’t much light. I saw Daniels, a stocky, balding man with a very mild face, peering out. I saw an arm come up from that small shadowy blob. Then Sam fired twice. There was a shrill scream, and the clatter of a knife on the porch. I heard Ronnie yell, “Dad! Dad!”

Then Sam and I were pounding over to the house. Daniels was frozen there, staring down onto the porch and the porch steps.

At the foot of the steps the kid was huddled. He was unconscious. The ham slicer gleamed wickedly on the steps near his hand.

I called out, “Mr. Daniels! We’re the police. Better get back inside.”

And together Sam and I lifted up the kid. He didn’t weigh much. Going inside, Sam tripped over his big flat feet and I swore at him.

We put the kid down on the couch. I didn’t see any blood. Daniels was dithering around like an old lady. I pushed him into a chair and told him to stay there and try to take it easy.

Sam went to phone Flick. I started going over the kid.

There was no blood.

There were no holes in him, either; not a nick, not a graze. I stood back and scratched my head.

Daniels said, “What’s wrong with him. What happened?”

Inside, I heard Sam at the phone. “Yeah, we got ’im. It was the kid all right. Tried to stab his old man. I winged him. Huh? I don’t know. We’re looking him over now. Yeah.”

“Take it easy,” I said again to Daniels. He looked rough. “Stay right there.”

I went to the door, which was standing open. Over by the porch rail I saw something shining green and steel blue. I started over to it, tripped on something yielding, and went flat on my face. Sam came running out. “What’s the—
uh!!
” and he came sailing out and landed on top of me. He’s a big boy.

I said, “My goodness, Sam, that was careless of you,” or words to that effect, and some other things amounting to maybe Flick had the right idea about him.

“Damn it, Delehanty,” he says, “I tripped on something. What are you doing sprawled out here, anyway?”

“I was looking for—” and I picked it up, the green and steel blue thing. It was a Finnish sheath knife, long and pointed, double razor edges, scrollwork up near the hilt. Blood, still a bit tacky, in the scrollwork.

“Where’d that come from?” grunted Sam, and took it. “Hey! Flick just told me the medic says Stoye was stabbed with a two-edged knife. You don’t suppose—”

“I don’t suppose nothin’,” I said, getting up. “On your feet, Sam. Flick finds us like this, he’ll think we were playing mumblety-peg … tell you what, Sam; I took a jump knife off the kid out there, and it only had a single edge.”

I went down the steps and picked it up. Sam pointed out that the kid never had a chance to use the ham slicer.

I shrugged that off. Flick was paid the most for thinking—let him do most of the thinking. I went to the side of the door and looked at the bell push to get an idea as to how it might take prints, and then went inside. Sam came straight in and tripped again.

“Pick up ya feet!”

Sam had fallen to his knees this time. He growled something and, swinging around, went to feeling around the porch floor with his hands. “Now it’s patty-cake,” I said. “For Pete’s sake, Sam—”

Inside Daniels was on the floor by the couch, rubbing the kid’s hands, saying, real scared like, “Ronnie! Ronnie!”

“Delehanty!”

Half across the room, I turned. Sam was still on his knees just outside the door, and his face was something to see. “Delehanty, just come here, will you?”

There was something in his voice that left no room for a wisecrack. I went right to him. He motioned me down beside him, took my wrist and pushed my hand downward.

It touched something, but—
there was nothing there
.

We looked at each other, and I wish I could write down what that look said.

I touched again, felt it. It was like cloth, then like flesh, yielding, then bony.

“It’s the Invisible Man!” breathed Sam, bug-eyed.

“Stop talking nonsense,” I said thickly. “And beside, it’s a woman. Look here.”

“I’ll take your word for it,” said Sam, backing away. “Anyhow, I’m a married man.”

Cars came, screaming as usual. “Here’s Flick.”

Flick and his mob came streaming up the steps.

“What’s going on here? Where’s the killer?”

Sam stood in front of the doorway, holding his hands out like he was unsnarling traffic. He was shaking. “Walk over this side,” he said, “or you’ll step on her.”