Black Mask (Vol. 22, No. 2 — Mary 1939)

Amend and I take the stairs three at a time; the manager muttering to himself like a straight-jacket subject; me with a very crummy taste on my tongue. Because, if it turns out the Hipper Dipper gave Del Grave a dose of lead medicine, the comedian will crisp in the chair or maybe, if he gets the breaks, he will merely go nuts playing stir solitaire. In either case, a large group of guys who take their laughing straight from the stomach, will miss him like hell. Harry Frinkey can dish out the old chuckle-berries like nobody; I hate to be the mugg who. shoves him out of circulation...

But business is business and a watchdog can’t be choosy about who he puts the bite on. So I march in 705, Amend creeping along behind me like a quarterback behind his interference.

The room is as empty as Mother Hubbard’s frigidaire. A gladstone bag is open on the bed; some black pajamas and bed slippers say the Hipper Dipper planned to sleep off his bout with the bones.

There is no liquor in sight, and only a couple of cigarette stubs. But on the night table by the head of the bed there is a pack of flat paper matches all burned out together. None of the matches has been torn from the pack. That gives me a memory nudge. I peer around on the table and on the carpet but draw blank.

Then I spot the little drawer where they tuck those Gideon Bibles. In the drawer, I find what I am after — a spoon. With a little brown stain in the hollow of the bowl. I don’t need to sniff at it to catch that peculiar odor, but I do, anyway.

“Snow,” I explain to Amend. “Used this to melt up a mix for his joy needle.”

“Cocaine?” he squeals, astonished.

“Right, dope.” I don’t mind which way he takes my reply. “The spoon’s still warm. That means Frinkey was in here, taking a ski-ride, in the last three-four minutes.”

I go to the open window and look up. 705 is close enough under 801 so Frinkey probably heard Levinson doing his ledge juggling and got the jeebies for fear it is his turn next.

Amend has a brain-wave. “He couldn’t have used the elevators; they’re being watched. P’raps he sneaked into one of the service closets.”

It was worth a look-see. We comb the cleaning closet, the broom-alcove and the linen-room in that order. We find nothing except a heap of soiled sheets and pillowslips on the floor of the linen-room. The manager hisses he will fire every maid on the floor for leaving this stuff out of the laundry. It seems to be a rule that all dirty linen must be in the hamper before employees go off duty in the evening.

“Where do they keep this hamper?” I inquire.

“Why,” he seems startled, “out by the service elevator. You don’t imagine—”

I tell him imagination is strictly for suckers; I have a hard-rock diploma and a yen for solid facts.

We locate the green-enameled metal hamper. It is about five feet tall, three feet square and open on top; it stands on a low-wheeled trolley ready to roll on the down-car. I tilt it up on one side.

“Somebody must of dumped the plates and knives in with the dirty table cloths, fella. This thing feels like it is packed with pig-iron.” I put my shoulder to it and heave. It topples off the trolley and hits the cement floor with a smack that must have jarred the janitor in the subbasement.

A heap of rumpled cloth spills out; inside the mound of sheets and towels gleams a pair of bright and frightened eyes.

I peel off the coverings and am I sorry for that Hipper Dipper! He is higher than an altitude record; the drug has dilated his pupils and made the muscles in his roly-poly face twitch like a frog on a stove-lid. His red hair is all stringing down over his face; his snappy yellow and red butterfly bow is untied and he has a set of shakes that puts Brother Vitus in the also-ran class.

“What were you doing in there?” Amend is backed up against the elevator, scared there is going to be shooting. “How did you get in there?”

“The maid just gathered him up and threw him away, dummy. How do you think he got there?”

The manager puts on an injured air and sulks in the background.

Frinkey doesn’t offer any argument; he is so flabby and limp when I lead him up the stairs to the eighth, that I feel like the warden lugging a condemned man to the cooker.

“You shot Del Grave?” I ask as a matter of form.

“Yuh. I shot him.” His voice quavers, uncertainly.

“I’m no flatfoot floogie, Mister Frinkey. I’m just a hired hand the Louse pays to guard the game. So if there’s anything I can do to make it easier—”

Tears are streaming down his face, but he is staring straight in front of him, his cheek muscles jumping and jerking.

“I see you on the stage, many’s the time,” I add, figuring he will know I am pulling for him. “To me, you rate.”

“I shot him,” he goes on, as if he is in a trance. “But it wasn’t my fault.” He turns to me as if he doesn’t expect to be believed. “I didn’t know it was a real bullet.”

I remember Del Grave’s curtain line and the crack the girl made about the biggest jest of the year. “What were you doing? Playing cops and robbers?”