Happily, Walter Ignatius Grabow wasn’t in the habit of spending his evenings loping around Gramercy Park. If I’d had a long-distance runner chasing after me I wouldn’t have stood a chance. As it was, I don’t think he even made an effort. I had a few steps on him and took him utterly by surprise, and while I didn’t stop to see whether he was pounding the pavement after me, I did hear his yells of “Hey!” and “What the hell?” and “Where you going, damn it?” trailing off behind me. They trailed rather sharply, suggesting that he merely stood in place and hollered while I ran, appropriately enough, like a thief.
Unhappily, I wasn’t a jogger either, and by the time I’d managed a couple of blocks on sheer adrenaline stimulated by rank cowardice, I was clutching my chest in earnest and holding onto a lamppost with my other hand. My heart was hammering in a distinctly unhealthy fashion and I couldn’t catch my breath, but the old master painter was nowhere to be seen, so that meant I was safe. Two cops wanted me for murder and another cop wanted half the jewels I hadn’t stolen, but at least I wasn’t going to get beaten to death by a crazy artist, and that was something.
When I could breathe normally again I found my way to a bar on Spring Street. There was nothing artsy about the place or the old men in cloth caps who sat drinking shots and beers. It had been doing business long before SoHo got a face-lift, and the years had given it a cozy feel and a homey smell that was composed of equal parts of stale beer, imperfect plumbing, and wet dog. I ordered a glass of beer and spent a long time sipping it. Two gentlemen a few stools over were remembering how Bobby Thompson’s home run won the 1951 pennant for the Giants. They were the New York Giants then, and as far as my fellow drinkers were concerned it all happened the day before yesterday.
“It was Ralph Branca threw that pitch. Bobby Thompson, he hit it a ton. What I always wondered is how Ralph Branca felt about it.”
“Made himself immortal,” the other said. “You wouldn’t be remembering Ralph Branca but for that pitch he served up.”
“Oh, go on.”
“You wouldn’t.”
“Me forget Ralph Branca? Now go on.”
When my beer was gone I went to the phone at the back and tried Jillian’s number. While it rang I thought of things to say to Craig when he answered, but he didn’t and neither did anybody else. After eight or ten rings I retrieved my dime and got Craig’s home number from Information. It rang three times and he picked it up.
“Hi,” I said. “I got a toothache. Let me talk to Jillian, will you?”
There was a long and thoughtful pause. Pensive, you might say. Then he said, “Sheesh, Bern, you’re really cool.”
“Like a burpless cucumber.”
“You’re something else, Bern. Where are you calling from? No, don’t tell me. I don’t want to know.”
“You do not want de information?”
“Who are you supposed to be?”
“Peter Lorre. I know it’s not very good. I do a pretty good Bogart, shweetheart, but my Peter Lorre’s strictly Amateur Night. Let me talk to Jillian.”
“She’s not here.”
“Where is she?”
“Home, I suppose. How should I know?”
“You were over there before.”
“How did you-oh, you were the wrong number. Listen, Bernie, I don’t think we should be having this conversation.”
“You figure the line is tapped, eh, shweetheart?”
“Jesus, cut it out.”
“It’s not a bad Bogart impression.”
“Just cut out the whole thing, will you? I’ve been in jail, I’ve been hassled by cops, my whole life’s been spread all over the fucking newspapers, and my ex-wife is dead, and-”
“Well, it’s an ill wind, right?”
“Huh?”
“You were praying Crystal would die, and now-”
“Jesus! How can you talk like that?”
“I’ve got the guts of a burglar. When did they let you out, anyhow?”
“Couple of hours ago.”
“How did Blankenship manage that?”
“Blankenship couldn’t manage the Bad News Bears. All Blankenship wanted was for me to sit tight. I kept sitting tight and I’d have gone on sitting tight while they shaved my head and attached the electrodes. Then they’d have thrown the switch and I’d have sat even tighter.”
“They don’t do that anymore.”
“With my luck it’ll come back into style. I got rid of Blankenship. The prick wouldn’t believe I was innocent. How could he do me any good if he thought I was guilty.”
“My lawyer’s done me loads of good over the years,” I said, “and he always thought I was guilty.”
“Well, you always were, weren’t you?”
“So?”
“Well, I was innocent, Bern. I dumped Blankenship and got my own lawyer in my corner. He’s not a criminal lawyer but he knows me, and he also knows his ass from a hole in the ground, and he heard me out and told me how to open up to the cops a little, and by ten o’clock this morning they were unlocking the cell door and treating me like a human being again. It made a nice change, let me tell you. Being locked up isn’t my idea of a good time.”
“Tell me about it. What did you give them?”
“Who?”
“The cops. What did you say that made them let you off the hook?”
“Nothing important. I just leveled a little, that’s all.”
“Leveled about what?”
Another pause, not as long as the first one. Not so much pensive this time as, well, evasive. Then, “Jillian says you’ve got an alibi anyway. You were at the fights.”
“You bastard, Craig.”
“I just told them about the jewels, that’s all. And about the conversation we had.”
“You told them you talked me into going after her jewels?”
“That’s not what happened, Bernie.” He spoke carefully, as if for the benefit of eavesdropping ears. “I was talking about Crystal’s jewelry, bitching about it more or less, and you seemed very interested, and of course at the time I had no idea you were a burglar, and-”
“You’re a real son of a bitch, Craig.”
“You’re really steamed, aren’t you? Sheesh, Bern, don’t you have an alibi? Wait a minute. Wait. A. Minute.”
“Craig-”
“You actually did it,” he said. Maybe he believed it, maybe he was still talking to an electronic listener, maybe he was trying to rationalize blabbing my name to the law. “You went in Thursday night. She interrupted you and you panicked and stabbed her.”
“You’re not making much sense, Craig.”
“But why would you use one of my dental scalpels? How come you just happened to have one of them in your pocket?” He was thinking his way along as he spoke and I guess he wasn’t used to the process. “Wait. A. Minute! You had the whole thing planned, burglary and murder rolled into one, with me set up for it. You must have been making a pitch for Jillian, that’s what it was, and you wanted me out of the way so you could have a clear field with her. That’s what it was.”
“I don’t believe I’m hearing this.”
“Well, you just better start believing it. Jesus, Bernie. And then you call up here and ask to speak to her. You’re incredible, that’s all I’ve got to say.”
“I’ve got the guts of a burglar.”
“You can say that again.”
“I don’t particularly want to. Craig, I-”
“I don’t think we should be having this conversation.”
“Oh, grow up, Craig. I want to-”
Click!
He’d hung up on me. First he handed me to the cops and now he had gone and hung up on me. I stood there holding the dead phone and shaking my head at the inhumanity of man to man. Then I fed it another dime and tried him again. It went unanswered for eight rings. I broke the connection, put the dime back in the slot, dialed again. And got a busy signal.
When Jillian’s number didn’t answer on a second try, I wondered if I’d gotten a couple of digits switched around. I looked through my wallet for the card she’d given me but of course I hadn’t put it back after the go-round with Grabow. I checked my pockets. No luck-it was gone. She’d said the number was unlisted. I tried Information and sure enough, there was no listing for her. I dialed the number again as I remembered it and got no answer, and then I looked up and dialed the number of Craig’s office and while it rang I asked myself why I was wasting my time, and before I could answer myself she picked up the phone.
She said, “Oh, thank God! I’ve been trying your number for hours.”
“I haven’t been home.”
“I know. Listen, everything’s going crazy. Craig’s out of jail. They released him.”
“I know.”
“What he did, he gave them your name, told them you probably took Crystal’s jewels or something like that. He sort of glossed over what he told them.”
“I’ll just bet he did.”
“That’s why those policemen came up this morning. They must have known he was going to be released and they wanted to talk to me before he did. I guess. Plus they were looking for you. I told them what you said to tell them, at least I tried to get it all right. I was nervous.”
“I can imagine.”
“It’s good you were at the boxing matches and can prove it. I think they’re trying to frame you for murder.”
I swallowed. “Yeah,” I said. “It’s lucky I’ve got an alibi.”
“Craig says they’ll be looking for witnesses who saw you in Crystal’s neighborhood the night she was killed. But how are they going to find anybody since you weren’t there? I told him he was awful to do what he did but he said his lawyer told him it was the only way to get out of that cell.”
“Carson Verrill.”
“Yes, he said the other man wasn’t doing him any good at all.”
“Well, thank God for old Carson Verrill.”
“He’s not old. And I’m not very thankful for him, to tell you the truth.”
“Neither am I, Jillian.”
“Because I think the whole thing was really rotten all the way down the line. I mean, here you were trying to do him a favor and now look what he’s done in return. I tried to tell him you were after the real killer and I don’t even think he paid any attention to what I was saying. He was over at my apartment and we had a fight about it and he wound up storming out. Actually he didn’t storm exactly. Actually I asked him to leave.”
“I see.”
“Because I think it stinks, Bernie.”
“So do I, Jillian.”
“And I came here because I wanted to look in the files, but so far all I’ve done is waste time. There’s no patient anywhere in the files named Grabow.”
“Well, I found Grabow. He may be a hell of a painter but he can’t run worth a damn.”
“If you’ve learned Knobby’s name I’ll look him up right now. I didn’t happen to see anybody listed as working at Spyder’s Parlor. That’s the name of the place, isn’t it?”
“Uh-huh.”
“But I didn’t look at all the cards. I also was looking for people named John and then checking to see if they were lawyers, but that’s really beginning to seem hopeless.”
“Forget it,” I said. “That’s not how this is going to get solved anyway. Look, I want to check Knobby, and there are a couple of other things I ought to see about. Where are you going to be tonight?”
“My place, I guess. Why?”
“Will you be alone?”
“As far as I know. Craig won’t be coming over, if that’s what you mean. Not if I have anything to say about it.”
“How about if I come over?”
A pause, neither pensive nor evasive. Call it provocative. “That sounds nice,” she said. “What time?”
“I don’t know.”
“You won’t be, uh-?”
“Drunk? I’m staying away from olive oil tonight.”
“I think you should stay away from Frankie while you’re at it.”
“Sounds like a good idea. I don’t know what time I’ll be over because I don’t know how much time everything else is going to take. Should I call first? Yeah, I’ll call first. I lost the card with your number on it. Let me get a pen. Here we go. What’s your number?”
“Rhinelander seven, eighteen oh two.”
“One year before the Louisiana Purchase. That’s what I dialed but there was no answer. Oh, of course there wasn’t, you were at the office. In fact you still are, aren’t you?”
“Bernie-”
“I’m a little crazy but I’m told I have nerves of steel and that’s something. It looks as though I’m going to need them, too. I’ll call you.”
“Bernie? Be careful.”