He waited, with his mouth a little open and the cigar in front of it, held up by a hard freckled hand and his pale blue eyes full of dim satisfaction.
“Well,” I said, “if he was going to confess anyway, it wouldn’t have made very much difference. Will he cop a plea?”
“Sure. I think so. I figure Palermo could get him off with manslaughter. Naturally I’m not sure.”
“Why would Palermo want to get him off with anything?”
“He kind of likes Hench. And Palermo is a guy we can’t push around.”
I said: “I see.” I stood up. Spangler looked at me sideways along glistening eyes. “What about the girl?”
“Won’t say a word. She’s smart. We can’t do anything to her. Nice neat little job all around. You wouldn’t kick, would you? Whatever your business is, it’s still your business. Get me?”
“And the girl is a tall blond,” I said. “Not of the freshest but still a tall blond. Although only one. Maybe Palermo doesn’t mind.”
“Hell, I never thought of that,” Breeze said. He thought about it and shook it off. “Nothing in that, Marlowe. Not enough class.”
“Cleaned up and sober, you never can tell,” I said. “Class is a thing that has a way of dissolving rapidly in alcohol. That all you want with me?”
“Guess so.” He slanted the cigar up and aimed it at my eye. “Not that I wouldn’t like to hear your story. But I don’t figure I have an absolute right to insist on it the way things are.
“That’s white of you, Breeze,” I said. “And you too, Spangler. A lot of the good things in life to both of you.”
They watched me go out, both with their mouths a little open.
I rode down to the big marble lobby and went and got my car out of the official parking lot.
24
Mr. Pietro Palermo was sitting in a room which, except for a mahogany roll-top desk, a sacred triptych in gilt frames and a large ebony and ivory crucifixion, looked exactly like a Victorian parlor. It contained a horseshoe sofa and chairs with carved mahogany frames and antimacassars of fine lace. There was an ormolu clock on the gray green marble mantel, a grandfather clock ticking lazily in the corner, and some wax flowers under a glass dome on an oval table with a marble top and curved elegant legs. The carpet was thick and full of gentle sprays of flowers. There was even a cabinet for bric-a-brac and there was plenty of bric-a-brac in it, little cups in fine china, little figurines in glass and porcelain odds and ends of ivory and dark rosewood, painted saucers, an early American set of swan salt cellars, stuff like that.
Long lace curtains hung across the windows, but the room faced south and there was plenty of light. Across the street I could see the windows of the apartment where George Anson Phillips had been killed. The street between was sunny and silent.
The tall Italian with the dark skin and the handsome head of iron gray hair read my card and said:
“I got business in twelve minutes. What you want, Meester Marlowe?”
“I’m the man that found the dead man across the street yesterday. He was a friend of mine.”
His cold black eyes looked me over silently. “That’sa not what you tell Luke.”
“Luke?”
“He manage the joint for me.”
“I don’t talk much to strangers, Mr. Palermo.”
“That’sa good. You talk to me, huh?”
“You’re a man of standing, an important man. I can talk to you. You saw me yesterday. You described me to the police. Very accurately. they said.”
“Si. I see much,” he said without emotion.
“You saw a tall blond woman come out of there yesterday.”
He studied me. “Not yesterday. Wasa two three days ago I tell the coppers yesterday.” He snapped his long dark fingers. “The coppers, bah!”
“Did you see any strangers yesterday, Mr. Palermo?”
“Is back way in and out,” he said. “Is stair from second floor also.” He looked at his wrist watch.
“Nothing there then,” I said. “This morning you saw Hench.”
He lifted his eyes and ran them lazily over my face. “The coppers tell you that, huh?”
“They told me you got Hench to confess. They said he was a friend of yours. How good a friend they didn’t know, of course.”
“Hench make the confess, huh?” He smiled, a sudden brilliant smile.
“Only Hench didn’t do the killing,” I said.
“No?”
“No.”
“That’sa interesting. Go on, Meester Marlowe.”
“The confession is a lot of baloney. You got him to make it for some reason of your own.”
He stood up and went to the door and called out: “Tony.” He sat down again. A short tough-looking wop came into the room, looked at me and sat down against the wall in a straight chair.
“Tony, thees man a Meester Marlowe. Look, take the card.” Tony came to get the card and sat down with it. “You look at thees man very good, Tony. Not forget him, huh?”
Tony said: “Leave it to me, Mr. Palermo.”
Palermo said: “Was a friend to you, huh? A good friend, huh?”
“Yes.”
“That’sa bad. Yeah. That’sa bad. I tell you something. A man’s friend is a man’s friend. So I tell you. But you don’ tell anybody else. Not the damn coppers, huh?”
“No.”
“That’sa promise, Meester Marlowe. That’sa something not to forget. You not forget?”
“I won’t forget.”
“Tony, he not forget you. Get the idea?”
“I gave you my word. What you tell me is between us here.”
“That’sa fine. Okay. I come of large family. Many sisters and brothers. One brother very bad. Almost so bad as Tony.”
Tony grinned.
“Okay, thees brother live very quiet. Across the street. Gotta move. Okay, the coppers fill the joint up. Not so good. Ask too many questions. Not good for business, not good for thees bad brother. You get the idea?”
“Yes,” I said. “I get the idea.”
“Okay, thees Hench no good, but poor guy, drunk, no job. Pay no rent, but I got lotsa money. So I say, Look, Hench, you make the confess. You sick man. Two three weeks sick. You go into court. I have a lawyer for you. You say to hell with the confess. I was drunk. The damn coppers are stuck. The judge he turn you loose and you come back to me and I take care of you. Okay? So Hench say okay, make the confess. That’sa all.”
I said: “And after two or three weeks the bad brother is a long way from here and the trail is cold and the cops will likely just write the Phillips killing off as unsolved. Is that it?”
“Si.” He smiled again. A brilliant warm smile, like the kiss of death.
“That takes care of Hench, Mr. Palermo,” I said. “But it doesn’t help me much about my friend.”
He shook his head and looked at his watch again. I stood up. Tony stood up. He wasn’t going to do anything, but it’s better to be standing up. You move faster.
“The trouble with you birds,” I said, “is you make mystery of nothing. You have to give the password before you bite a piece of bread. If I went down to headquarters and told the boys everything you have told me, they would laugh in my face. And I would be laughing with them.”
“Tony don’t laugh much,” Palermo said.
“The earth is full of people who don’t laugh much, Mr. Palermo,” I said. “You ought to know. You put a lot of them where they are.”
“Is my business,” he said, shrugging enormously.
“I’ll keep my promise,” I said. “But in case you should get to doubting that, don’t try to make any business for yourself out of me. Because in my part of town I’m a pretty good man and if the business got made out of Tony instead, it would be strictly on the house. No profit.”
Palermo laughed. “That’sa good,” he said. “Tony. One funeral—on the house. Okay.”
He stood up and held his hand out, a fine strong warm hand.
25
In the lobby of the Belfont Building, in the single elevator that had light in it, on the piece of folded burlap, the same watery-eyed relic sat motionless, giving his imitation of the forgotten man. I got in with him and said: “Six.”
The elevator lurched into motion and pounded its way upstairs. It stopped at six, I got out, and the old man leaned out of the car to spit and said in a dull voice:
“What’s cookin’?”
I turned around all in one piece, like a dummy on a revolving platform. I stared at him.
He said: “You got a gray suit on today.”
“So I have,” I said. “Yes.”
“Looks nice,” he said. “I like the blue you was wearing yesterday too.”
“Go on,” I said. “Give out.”
“You rode up to eight,” he said. “Twice. Second time was late. You got back on at six. Shortly after that the boys in blue came bustlin’ in.”
“Any of them up there now?”
He shook his head. His face was like a vacant lot. “I ain’t told them anything,” he said. “Too late to mention it now. They’d eat my ass off.”
I said: “Why?”
“Why I ain’t told them? The hell with them. You talked to me civil. Damn few people do that. Hell, I know you didn’t have nothing to do with that killing.”
“I played you wrong,” I said. “Very wrong.” I got a card out and gave it to him. He fished a pair of metal-framed glasses out of his pocket, perched them on his nose and held the card a foot away from them. He read it slowly, moving his lips, looked at me over the glasses, handed me back the card.
“Better keep it,” he said. “Case I get careless and drop it. Mighty interestin’ life yours, I guess.”
“Yes and no. What was the name?”
“Grandy. Just call me Pop. Who killed him?”
“I don’t know. Did you notice anybody going up there or coming down—anybody that seemed out of place in this building, or strange to you?”
“I don’t notice much,” he said. “I just happened to notice you.”
“A tall blond, for instance, or a tall slender man with sideburns, about thirty-five years old.”