A Sad Song Singing

  Contents

  Copyright Information

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Copyright Information

  Copyright © 1963 by Thomas B. Dewey.

  All rights reserved.

  Published by Wildside Press LLC

  wildsidepress.com | bcmystery.com

  Chapter One

  The girl came in and sat at the bar, two stools removed from me. She wore a small white cap at an angle on her head and a white suede jacket over a black wool dress, cut low at the top and high at the bottom, and her nylon knees thrust roundly at the bar facing. She had blond hair that hung straight to her shoulders and down her back. Her face was long, narrow, austere, like an advertisement for a French movie. She smoked with dedication, with slow, deep inhalations, and the hand that held the cigarette trembled from time to time, as, possibly, with a little girl trying to be a big girl.

  We were in Tony’s, across the street from my office. I had been there for an hour; she had just arrived. I’d had a phone call about her from my answering service, a sentimental organization, which had interrupted my nightcap because the girl sounded “so desperate.”

  “You may tell her,” I had said, “where I am and that I will stay until she comes. From there on, it’s up to her.”

  “Thank you,” the answering service had said.

  “Don’t mention it,” I had said.

  So she had come and sat down and there were only the two of us in the joint, besides Tony, who had heard my end of the phone conversation and stood politely behind the bar now, waiting, while the girl opened her purse and found a cigarette and lit it.

  “I’m Mac,” I said.

  “Yes,” she said.

  “Would you like something to drink?”

  “Well—I—could we talk?”

  I shrugged at Tony, who shrugged back and moved away. I tossed off the dregs of my nightcap and swung on my stool toward her.

  “Sure,” I said. “We’ll go over to my office.”

  “Where is it?”

  “Just across the street.”

  “Oh.”

  “No hurry,” I said. “Finish your cigarette.”

  She looked at me directly for the first time, with eyes that were dark and frightened.

  “All right,” she said.

  And that’s what she did. She sat there and finished her cigarette, methodically, all the way, and snuffed it out when it got down to where it was burning her fingers. Her fingers were slender, like her face, which came to a point at her chin.

  I helped her down from the stool. When she stood up, she reached to my shoulder. Her weight had been that of a bundle of dry sticks. I could see now that the clothes she wore were a bad fit, as if they were hand-me-downs, or something she had picked up at a rummage sale.

  “My things,” she said nervously.

  I had seen her stow something in the booth behind us but had forgotten about it. We went over there and the “things” were a battered suitcase and a guitar case.

  “Quite a load you’re hauling,” I said.

  “I took a taxi,” she said.

  That made me feel somewhat better. I reached for both cases, but she slid ahead of me somehow and took the suitcase herself.

  “I’ll take it,” she said.

  Its weight seemed to give her no trouble. Carrying the guitar, I opened the door for her, nodded good night to Tony and followed her outside. She hung very close, without touching me except inadvertently now and then with her shoulder. At the street, which was deserted now, though there was still traffic on Michigan Avenue, a block away, she looked in all directions before stepping down from the curb. We crossed over, climbed the front steps and got to my office. When I reached in to snap on a light, she hung back in the hall.

  “It’s all right,” I said. “The blinds are closed.”

  She came in then, carrying the suitcase, her big eyes taking in the room and a partially exposed section of my living quarters adjoining the office.

  “You live here too?” she said.

  “Yes. Would you like some coffee?”

  “Yes, I would.”

  I went through the bedroom to the kitchen to get the percolator, and she came along at my heels, watching.

  “It’s just ordinary coffee,” I said, “nothing fancy.”

  “It’s all right.”

  We went back to the office and I plugged in the pot. She sat on the sofa with the suitcase at her knees and held the handle with both hands, so tightly her knuckles were white.

  “You’re a musician?” I said, nodding toward the guitar, which was on the sofa beside her.

  “No,” she said. “I sing a little.”

  “For a living?”

  “Oh no. I’m not good enough.”

  “Well, you wouldn’t be alone in that—”

  “And I don’t have any songs.”

  “I see.”

  “Richie has the songs.”

  “Richie?”

  “Richie Darden—you’ve heard of him.”

  “Of course,” I lied. “What is your name?”

  “Crescentia,” she said. “People call me Cress.”

  “You’re Italian?”

  “Yes.” She put her hand to a strand of her hair. Her long face was intent, serious; her mouth hadn’t twitched since I’d set eyes on her. “I dyed my hair,” she said.

  “For a reason?”

  She didn’t say anything. She let go of the suitcase, opened her purse and took out a cigarette. I went over and lit it for her, then sat down on the edge of the desk. The percolator started bubbling.

  “Why did you come to me?” I asked.

  “Because—somebody told me about you—a lawyer I know.”

  “I mean, for what reason? What is your problem?”

  She inhaled deeply on her cigarette.

  “You see—it has to do with Richie.”

  “Richie is your boyfriend? Husband?”

  “No, he’s my own true love.”

  “I see.”

  “This is his—Richie’s.”

  She took hold of the suitcase grip with one hand.

  “I’m to take care of it for him, till he gets back. There are people who want it. They’d do anything to get it. They’d kill. They’d kill me to get it.”

  “Do you know who they are?”

  “No.”

  “Why do they want it?”

  “I don’t know,” she said simply.

  “Do you know what’s in the suitcase?”

  “I—no.”

  “You haven’t opened it?”

  “It’s locked. Richie has the key.”

  “Where is Richie now?”

  “He’s out on the road, singing and collecting songs.”

  “And he left the suitcase with you.”

  “Yes.”

  “Can you get in touch with him?”

  “No. See—he’s on the road; he doesn’t know where he’ll be.”

  “You said he was singing—you mean in coffeehouses and so on? Doesn’t he have any advance bookings?”

  “No, he just plays where he happens to be, if there’s a spot. Besides, even if I could get in touch with him—it’s my responsibility. I told Richie I’d take care of it.”

  “But if somebody’s trying to kill you—”

  “You don’t believe me.”

  “Yes, I beli
eve you.”

  She finished her cigarette, totally, as before, and snuffed it out, handling it carefully with her long fingers.

  “What is the name of the lawyer who sent you to me?” I asked.

  “Lathrop—Willard Lathrop.”

  I tried to place the name and couldn’t.

  “Did you tell him what the problem was, about Richie and the suitcase?”

  “No,” she said. “I just told him I was afraid for my life and he suggested I come to you. I wasn’t sure I would make it. They were coming up the front steps of the building when I started out—I got out the back way.”

  “How many were there?”

  “Three.”

  “You have no idea who they are?”

  “No.”

  I got out a couple of cups and poured coffee. She held the saucer in both hands, almost lovingly, inhaling the aroma.

  “I have some money,” she said. “I don’t expect you to do anything for nothing.”

  “Well—just what did you have in mind that I might do?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Have you told the police about it?”

  She made a face, her first change of expression.

  “No,” she said. “What good would that do?”

  “Might do some good, and it wouldn’t cost anything.”

  “One way or another,” she said moodily.

  “What would you have done if you hadn’t found me?”

  “I don’t know. I just would have—I don’t know.”

  She savored the coffee gingerly. It occurred to me that she was undernourished.

  “When did you last have something to eat?” I asked. She shrugged.

  “I forget.”

  “Are you hungry?”

  “No.” She tried the coffee again. “But the coffee is good, thank you.”

  We drank the coffee. When she finished, meticulously, as with the smoking, draining the last dregs, she set the cup aside. She opened her purse, took out some money and brought it to me, then returned to her seat. There were four tens and three twenties, and I looked at them in my hand, while she looked at me, waiting.

  Here’s a hundred dollars—think of something.

  I finished my coffee, took the money around the desk and dropped it into a drawer.

  “Where have you been living?” I asked.

  She mentioned an address, north and west.

  “Do you have any of your own things in there?” I asked, looking at the suitcase.

  “No. I had no time—this was all I could carry.”

  “We’ll have to find a safe place for you, and you’ll need some things,” I said. “Is your rent paid up?”

  “Yes—till tomorrow.”

  “Do you still have the key?”

  “I think so.”

  She looked through her purse and came up with a key attached to a pasteboard tab.

  “Do you want to come with me,” I asked, “or would you rather stay here? I think you’d be safe here. I won’t be long.”

  She thought it over behind her big dark eyes. She looked around the room and down at the suitcase and finally she said, “I’ll go with you.”

  “All right, Cress,” I said, “let’s go then.”

  I pulled the plug on the coffeepot while she put on her jacket and adjusted the odd little cap. I was holding the door when she got up from the sofa. She took three steps forward, stopped, turned back and picked up the suitcase. When she caught my eye, her thin little figure stiffened and her chin lifted stubbornly.

  “All right,” I said, “we’ll lock it in the trunk.”

  This we did; she released it to let me stow it in the trunk and stood by while I made sure it was locked. There was no weight to the suitcase.

  Chapter Two

  After we got across the avenue, it was a fifteen-minute drive to where she lived, in an old section near Division Street. There was still considerable late-night activity on the business streets, but the side streets were empty, and in the solid banks of apartment buildings on both sides few lights burned.

  “This is it right here,” she said, pointing.

  I pulled in a little way beyond the building. Getting out of the car, I examined the neighborhood in all directions. There were no loiterers in sight.

  Her building was four stories, walk-up, and there was no entry light. She didn’t wait for me to let her out but was standing on the walk, gazing back at the trunk.

  “We’d better leave it,” I said. “I’ll lock the car. We’ll be back before anybody can get away with it.”

  “All right,” she said.

  I locked both doors and we went up the short front walk, climbed half a dozen steps and went in by the glass front door, which was unlocked. The vestibule had a tile floor and thirty mailboxes set in the wall. The only light was a feeble glow from the inside hall, and I could see that anyone coming home late would have to use a flashlight to get his mail.

  We went on through swinging glass doors to the inside hall, which ran straight back to a red-lighted rear exit. Midway along, a narrow staircase reared.

  “Mine’s on the third floor at the back,” she said. I was looking along the hall.

  “You said you left by the back door because these three guys were coming in the front.”

  “Yes.”

  “But they weren’t inside yet?”

  “No, they were just opening the outside door. I ran out the back and up the alley to Division Street and there was a taxi.”

  “How did you know they were after you? Had you seen them before?”

  “Yes, they were hanging around The Mill—the coffeehouse—where I work. It’s up the street here.”

  “Had they accosted you at The Mill?”

  “Well—yes, sort of. See, I was a waitress there and they were sitting back in a corner—this was the night before last. It’s pretty dark in The Mill and these were older fellows and they were just fooling around, I thought. You know, they would make dirty little jokes and—like that—and they kept ordering coffee, and I was about to tell Roger—he’s the manager—to get somebody else to wait on them, when one of them said, ‘Lay off now,’ he said. ‘She’s Richie Darden’s girl.’ So they knew who I was.”

  “Did they ask any questions?”

  She looked along the deserted hall, upward to the staircase.

  “We’d better get started,” I said.

  “No,” she said, “they didn’t ask any questions then. But later, when I was leaving, about two-thirty, they were waiting for me beside the building on the side street.

  “‘Heard from Richie lately?’ one of them asked.

  “‘I forgot something,’ I said, and I went back in The Mill and told Roger there were some fellows outside giving me a bad time and I was afraid to walk home. So Roger said I could wait for him and he would see me home. And about half an hour later we left and he walked me home. We didn’t see them around anywhere.”

  We made the first landing and she was somewhat out of breath, so I eased off on the questions till we reached the third floor. She paused there, leaning against the wall in her borrowed jacket and cap, her long, serious face hovering.

  “How did you know they might kill you?” I asked. “That they would kill to get hold of the suitcase?”

  Her eyes shifted for a moment, then that pointed chin thrust at me.

  “Because,” she said, “when I was waiting on them at The Mill, one of them—his jacket pulled open for a second, and he had a gun strapped under his arm—and I saw it.”

  “I see,” I said.

  “You still don’t believe me.”

  “Come on,” I said, “let’s get your things and get back to the car.”

  “Do you have a gun?” she said.

  “Yes, I have one, but I don’t like to carry it around.”

  “Why not?”

  “You can get in trouble with a gun.”

  “Even in self-defense?”

  “Even then.”

  I
reached for her hand and she let me lead her down the hall to the rear of the building. Her hand was cold, small and still in mine.

  “This one,” she said.

  I found the key she had given me, unlocked the door and pushed it open.

  “Where’s the light?” I asked.

  “To your left just inside the door.”

  I reached in and switched on the light.

  “All right,” I said, “all clear.”

  We went in and closed the door.

  The apartment was small and, though not disorderly, seemed cluttered, because the furniture was too big for the space and there was no discrimination in its placement. This wouldn’t be Cress’s fault; it was obviously a furnished apartment. An alcove contained a Pullman kitchen, and two pairs of stockings hung over the sink. That was the only disorder in the kitchen; the dishes were put away and the sink and the top of the two-burner gas plate were clean. All this I could see from the main room, in which there were a double bed, neatly made up, a large armchair, and beside the bed, a straight chair with an alarm clock and telephone on its seat. Opposite the foot of the bed was a high chiffonier with a cloth cover on top, a boudoir lamp, a scattering of guitar picks, mingled with bottles of masculine and feminine toiletries, and a large photograph in an easel of a young man in blue jeans and a sport shirt, holding a guitar. The photograph was signed simply, “Richie.” He was a muscular fellow, with an Irish smile and thick, black hair. His hands on the guitar were large and strong.

  “That’s Richie,” Cress said.

  “Nice-looking fellow,” I said.

  She was gazing at the picture and I left her with it and turned to a wardrobe set against the wall, between the bathroom door and the door to the hall. It was in two sections, both covered by roll-down doors. I rolled up the left side and there were some jeans and slacks on hangers and two pairs of worn men’s shoes.

  “Richie was living here too?” I said.

  She didn’t answer right away and I glanced around. She was looking at me with that little chin in the air.

  “Yes,” she said proudly, “he was.”

  “All right,” I said.

  “Like man and wife,” she said firmly.

  “Okay, just asking.”

  I rolled up the other door and saw a pathetically meager array of skirts, sweaters and one cheap print dress. On the floor beneath them, as if to drive the poignancy all the way home, sat a pair of gold evening slippers, in good condition aside from a little dust. They looked as if they had never been worn.