Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 34, No. 13 & 14, Winter 1989

All of this activity is mere prelude to my blockbuster, which came the next night, or rather at twelve twenty-seven Saturday morning. I know the exact time because that’s what the arresting officer put on the rap sheet when we were hauled into the 19th Precinct with the rest of the high rollers from Monk Doyle’s private gambling den on Third Avenue in the 70’s.

Of course, if Monk ever finds out that I had a hand in tipping the cops to his newest location (and arranging for the press to be on hand), it will be cement shoes and East River time for yours truly, but I never liked Doyle anyway, so I took the chance.

The guys with the flashguns had a ball, and thanks to our previous exposure, Gina and I got all the attention. Somehow or other, my lawyer, Ted Summers, got us out on a legal maneuver and Mario was waiting with his limo to whisk us to the Plaza, where I had reserved a suite.

“But why can’t I go home, Chick? A hotel is silly.”

“You won’t think so when you see the morning papers, Gina. Your phone won’t stop ringing, believe me, and chances are you won’t be able to get your number changed until Monday, so you’re better off at the Plaza.”

“No. I’m going home. I’m sorry, but that’s it. As for the phone, I’ll take it off the hook. Driver...” She gave him the address (which Mario already knew) and there went the frosting on my discredibility cake. She pecked my cheek goodnight at her front steps, said she was tired, and left me standing in a new snowfall.

“Whatcha think, Chick?” Mario says from the driver’s seat as we pull away from the curb. “She could be hip to the plan. Maybe the raid was overkill.”

“I don’t know, Mario. Something spooked her. Maybe it was the sight of all the blue coats and the seven minutes she spent in a cell. That could have put some cold reality into the consequences of breaking the law.”

“It’s early. You want to go to the joint?”

I looked out at the snow still coming down at a good clip and said no, and for the first time in twenty years, I was in bed alone at one o’clock in the morning.

Maybe breaking one lifelong precedent sets you up for another, because I woke up to an insistent buzzing. Half an opened eye told me it was two fifteen and the dark outside told me it was still ante meridian. The world knows that Chick Kelly does not speak on the phone before noon, but I broke another rule and picked up the receiver. Big problem. I’m listening to a dial tone with one ear and hearing the buzzing with the other. It’s the bloody doorbell, and if I don’t speak on the phone before noon, you can bet a bundle that I don’t answer front doors before one.

The buzzing suddenly turned to knuckle rapping, and as I lay there getting the blood reintroduced to my brain, I expected the next noise would be the baboom of a battering ram. Give ’em an inch and, well, you know the rest.

On my way down the hall and across the living room, I’m figuring out ways to kill whoever’s beating the hell out of my door. I know it isn’t the Girl Scouts with cookies because they’re a civil bunch, bill collectors always dun me at the club, and even my ex-wives’ lawyers always send their letters, threatening as they are, via express mail. I figured strangulation or bludgeoning by fist would have to do since I wasn’t carrying a gun but, to my surprise, my early morning caller was.

I don’t have to tell you that my entire attention was on the gun, so a description of its bearer will be scant. He was shortish and probably on the thinnish side under his soiled trench-coat. In spite of the gun, my comedian’s brain was wondering why a guy who works in a dry cleaners walks around with a filthy coat. Samson Velker looked even more haggard in the flesh than he had in Cy Tregannon’s telephoto prints.

“What’s your problem, pal?” I asked as I slowly brought my hand up to the inside doorknob.

Velker may be rated as a dope, but he sees good. “Don’t try to slam it, Kelly. I didn’t come to use it this time, but I can, and I will. This is a warning. Stay away from my wife or I’ll kill you.” His voice sounded shaky and he delivered the threat as if he were doing a bad imitation of Jimmy Cagney. “No more dates, you hear?”

“Anything you say, mister, but would you mind telling me who you are?” This, friends, is not false bravado. Down the hall, I can see an apartment door open a crack, so I know that Mrs. Rosen is on duty as the eleventh floor mensch. I wanted a witness. Velker and I were having our own criminal conversation, and it could include an “assault with a deadly weapon” charge.

“You know goddamned well who I am, Kelly. How many wives are you fooling around with, anyway?”

“Let’s not get personal. Who’s your wife?”

“Gina Velker!” He shouted it loud and clear, which was swell, because now all the neighbors knew. “And if you so much as talk to her on the phone, I’ll put a bullet where you’ll turn soprano.”