Manhunt. Volume 9, Number 1, February 1961

Inspector O’Leary wasn’t bluffing when he said he could ruin me. I knew it and he knew I knew it. I’d been called in before the Board of Directors of my company a couple of times on cases and knew just what I could expect from them. I don’t think one of them ever had to work for a living. The only thing they did was get enough education so the family fortunes would never shrink during their lifetimes. Maybe their fathers or grandfathers or great-grandfathers piled up the family fortunes in the beginning by running dope or smuggling or maybe a little white slavery here and there but of course that was all forgotten now and they were oh so eminently respectable and super honest it was disgusting. And heaven help any dumb employee like me who ever got himself in trouble by cutting a legal corner now and then or who got himself featured on the wrong side of a front page newspaper story. It would shock them silly — so silly they’d fire you in five minutes and see to it that you never went back to work with any of their cousins who ran other companies the same way. Okay, so I’m dumb and stubborn, but I was still going after Leon Schell.

I fished up another dime and called the Night Wire Chief back. He had the information for me and I jotted it down. The telephone that Larry Coster had dialed was listed to a Sandra LaCoeur in Apartment 21 in a fancy Sutton Place apartment building. With an improbable name like that she’d have to live in a fancy joint. I didn’t much care where she lived. That’s where Schell was and that’s where I was going.

There was only one more thing I had to do. Now I needed the attache case with the junk jewelry in it, so I went out and got a cab on the corner and gave the driver a ten dollar bill and told him to get me to Grand Central Station as fast as he could. The guy was a real jockey and for once I got my money’s worth.

I half ran through the main waiting room to the bank of lockers where the case was, thankful I hadn’t told O’Leary I’d left it there. If he knew that he’d have about ten guys waiting for me. I got the case out of the locker and half ran for the exit on the east side of the building. The clock over the information desk showed me it was almost a half hour since Coster had made his call. It would take me at least another ten minutes to get up to Sutton place. That wasn’t good, but it couldn’t be helped.

The second cab driver was better than the first guy. He got me to the front of the building in nine minutes flat, but I had him roll past and leave me out at the corner. I walked back slowly, looking the place over. It was a fancy place, alright. The entrance doors were all glass and chrome. The lobby walls were all white marble that gleamed softly under the indirect fighting. The rugs inside were ankle deep. There was no doorman — either the management was saving money or he was off for a beer. A big directory board with a house phone hanging next to it was back near the elevators. S. LaCoeur, Apartment 21, was printed in gold letters under where it said Second Floor. The elevators were self service jobs. I stepped in and punched 2, then felt in my jacket pocket for the recorder switch and turned it on again — this was where I really needed this gadget.

Apartment 21 was almost right across from the elevator. I stepped across and pressed the button twice and wondered what kind of a gun Leon Schell would have on me when he opened the door.

He opened it almost immediately, without even looking through the interviewer and he had nothing in his hands. His eyes flickered momentarily in surprise when he saw me standing there alone, then narrowed as they swept over the attache case in my right hand.

“Are you Leon Schell?” I asked him.

“Yes.” There was no expression on his face but his eyes were as sleepily alive as a lion’s.

“I’m Bill Young,” I said. “Monk Saunders and Larry Coster sent me up here. They told me to give you this bag.”

“Oh. Won’t you come in?” He held the door open a little wider and moved to the side for me.

“Sure,” I said.

I went in and heard him close the door behind me. I placed the attache case on a small upholstered chair near the door and looked around. It was a beautiful apartment — obviously a woman’s — with everything in good taste and very, very expensive. Just ahead of the small entrance foyer we were in was a dropped living room. Several lamps were on and a large console radio, a deluxe Hi Fi job, was turned on, playing classical music very softly. There was a little hallway at the far left end of the living room, but all I could see was a closed door — probably the bedroom. A kitchen and dinette were off the foyer to the right. I didn’t see any sign of the woman.

“I expected Monk and Larry along with you,” Schell said in a mild voice.

I shrugged my shoulders and put a dumb look on my face.

“They drove me over here,” I said. “All they told me to do was bring the bag up to you and tell you they’d be up in a little while.”

“Strange,” he muttered.