Manhunt. Volume 14, Number 1, February/March, 1966

“I heard you mention the name Ronald Padgett and now I connect it somehow with death notices in the newspapers.”

“It’s the only name on the list not connected in my mind with crime. Until now. He’s the front man for the Big Scum in their undertaking business.”

Tony Waterford called across to them, “Another call, Captain.”

This time it was a desk sergeant at headquarters. “We’ve just found Martin Mulcahy for you, sir.”

“Where the devil was he?”

“Here in the drunk tank under the name of Hiram Johnson. He just woke up and identified himself.”

“How does he look?”

“Like the butt end of a hairy night, Captain.”

“Sober though?”

“Painfully.”

“Give him some of that tired coffee you keep around, with a slug of brandy. You’ll find a bottle in my desk drawer. Then hold on to him. We’ll be right along.”

With Martin Mulcahy valiantly trying to control the shakes in the backseat, McFate drove the unmarked cruiser in the direction of Essex Avenue. Damroth, enjoying his second cigarillo of the day, was verbally exploring the obituary editor’s somewhat muddled recollections.

“You say you got an inkling as to Jackson’s true identity the night you passed out in a steam room?”

“That is correct, Doctor. Do you have another of those little things you’re smoking?”

“Certainly. Here you are.”

“Thanks. Yeah, I was crocked when I went into the place. As usual. The steam got to me and I blanked out. Tippy Welinski found me or I might have died. That’s two I owe the poor bastard. Anyway, he got Jackson or Iacobucci to help lug me out. When I came to, Iacobucci was holding ammonia under my nose and listening for a heart beat.”

“And that’s when you noticed the tattoo on his ear?”

“That is correct, Doctor. The makeup must have come off it in the steam room. D, U, E — it’s the first thing I noticed when I opened my eyes.”

“It rang a bell?”

“Dimly. Very dimly. I was in a daze.”

“How long ago was this, Martin?”

“About two months. But that tattoo kept wriggling around in my thoughts, like a drunken memory, without giving me any clue. Sometimes I thought it was something I’d imagined. Until the night Jackie Whistler disappeared.”

Damroth cast a triumphant look at McFate. “Don’t tell me Whistler was in the Oriental that night?”

“I’m telling you just the same. I saw him and then I didn’t see him. He came in with a couple of other guys just as I was about to leave. I was dressed and dry and thirsty. They went by me in the locker room wearing nothing but towels. I smoked a cigarette and took a drink from a bottle in my locker. The last drink in the bottle. I was still thirsty. Then I remembered seeing Whistler going to the steam rooms. I’m a bum, Doctor.”

“You mean, Martin, that you decided to borrow a few dollars from Whistler?”

“Mooch is the word. Well, I went through the gym to the steam rooms. There are four of them. I looked through the window in each one. They were all empty. Then I looked in the massage room, and nobody was there either, except Tippy and the colored kid. Well, hell, I thought I might have had an hallucination until I read the papers the next afternoon. Whistler was missing.”

“That’s where the chain reaction started?” asked Damroth delightedly.

“More like a slow-motion movie,” said Mulcahy. “It took me a day at least before I remembered somebody else, long ago, was last seen at the Oriental. And it was another day before I remembered that the other missing man was Arthur Iacobucci. I pulled the morgue file and found out about the tattoo on the ear. Holy God, was I scared! I went out and got loaded.”

“How,” asked Damroth, “did you connect the Memorial Mortuary with the Oriental?”

“Half-soused logic, I guess. Next time I was up for a steaming, I concluded that Whistler and his friends couldn’t have gone out the front door voluntarily in the nude. Hence they must have gone out the back door involuntarily. I looked out that door. Nothing but a fire escape and another building within jumping distance. I took a look at the front of that building next morning. Again I got loaded.”

“Understandable,” said Damroth. “After that, though, you did some exceptional research. How far had you progressed before Iacobucci tried to kill you?”

“You said you’d seen my file. That’s about it. Cremation seemed to be a pretty good way of disposing of evidence. I dug into the vital statistics records. There are only about twenty cremations a year in this city. I began to match the dates up with the dates of missing persons. I couldn’t believe what I seemed to be discovering. The clincher could be Jackson. If Jack-son were really Iacobucci — wow! I had a worldwide wire story to make a real reporter of me again.”

“How did Iacobucci get on to you?”

“My own stupidity. Friday night I licked up too much sauce and went to the Oriental to sleep it off. In that state I believe I asked Jack-son if he ever had heard of Arthur Iacobucci.”

“What did he say?”