COPYRIGHT INFORMATION
Copyright © 1949 by John Roeburt
Published by Wildside Press LLC.
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CHAPTER ONE
1.
The muscular fellow in the barber chair drew one foot in, then set the other on the shoe-shine box. The shine boy dabbed cream on the toe, then flipped the rag vigorously across the shoe. The closing strains of the “Star-Spangled Banner” emptied into the room, and New York City’s own station went off the air. The shine boy went to the wall radio.
“Off,” the man in the chair ordered. “I can’t hear myself think.”
The barber set his scissors down, and selected a bottle from a shelf.
The patron shook his head. “No tonic, Tony. Just comb it dry.”
Tony worked the comb, pushed an unruly forelock back on the head, completed a few final pats, then held a square mirror to the rear of the patron’s head.
Tony said affectionately, “Like a movie actor, Mr. Devereaux.”
Devereaux grimaced into the large wall mirror. Opaque cheeks and a thin, aquiline nose with a broken bridge grimaced back at him. “Movie actor named Boris Karloff,” he said wryly.
Devereaux got off the chair nimbly, recovered his coat from a wall peg, got into it, and then, before departing, gave the room with the single barber chair a last lingering look.
There were streamers in red, white, and blue strung from the ceiling lights, a mammoth cutout of a face that looked like Mr. Devereaux, and was, and the wall mirrors were soaped with print that said repetitiously, “Good Luck, Johnny Devereaux.”
More than an intimate barbershop, this back room in a celebrated night club was a mirror of the importance of its patrons. Not moneyed importance, but achievement and color, the special and extraordinary color of glamorous people who were actors, columnists, round-the-world fliers, zanies; the famous and the infamous—and topflight detectives. Johnny Devereaux was, or had been, a topflight detective.
“Reads like an epitaph.” Devereaux smiled regretfully. “Hey, I’m not dead. Just retired.”
Tony’s face creased seriously. “Excuse me, Mr. Devereaux. But why you retire?” His eyes shone admiration. “So young. Like a boy yet.”
“A gray-bearded boy,” Devereaux said. “I’m tired of knocking heads together, Tony. Tired of being a tough cop in a world of shills, con men, killers, and plain crooks.” His face clouded slightly. “I used to read good books, improve my mind, a long time ago, Tony. I want to pick up where I left off twenty years ago. I want to pick myself up and start traveling before I run out of time. Understand?”
Tony nodded doubtfully, opened a drawer, then came over with a book and a fountain pen. He uncorked the pen. “You autograph the book, Mr. Devereaux?” he said.
The dust jacket showed a newsreel montage of Manhattan scenes, and the type across it read: Twenty Years a Cop, by Johnny Devereaux.
Devereaux scribbled inside the cover, restored the pen and the book to the barber, then placed a ten-dollar bill on the wall ledge. “Buy a drink on me,” he said fondly. At the door, he gestured at the soaped mirrors. “And hire yourselves a window washer.”
The shine boy’s face shone, and the barber blew a kiss.
2.
Outside the club, with handshakes and good wishes finally in limbo, Devereaux slid behind the wheel of his brand-new Buick convertible—a farewell gift from the Department.
He sat stock-still, then began jingling his key ring moodily. What, he wondered, already feeling the burden of sudden freedom after decades in harness, did a man in retirement do with his time? He fingered the ignition key. Where, he ruminated sadly, now feeling a little old and used up, did retired detectives pasture?
He looked into the street and read the signs as far as his eye could reach:
IN PERSON—BILLIE HOLLIDAY,
THE THREE LESTERS,
SUGAR JOHNSON—BOOGIE-WOOGIE PIANIST.
The row of after-theater clubs was just off Broadway. It was past midnight on a routine Tuesday night. The pushing throngs had disintegrated, and the few stragglers reeling under the shock of alcohol dragged into his focus in tortured slow motion. Taxicabs were glued bumper to bumper, their motors asleep and their drivers drowsing.
Devereaux sighed, and turned the key in the ignition.
The motor had coughed, awakening, when he saw her duck around the doorman and run to his car. She slammed the door.
“Hurry, please!” Her voice behind him was urgent.
“Ditching someone?”
“Yes.”
“Why my car?”
“Hurry, please!” She was close to tears.
Devereaux swung out from the curb in quick, automatic movements, oddly happy for the activity, grateful for the distraction. The Buick reached the avenue and turned into it.
“Who were you ditching?” he asked after a while.
“My father.”
“Under age?”
“I’m twenty.”
“Past the age of consent.” He signaled a car ahead, then passed it. “So what’s the problem?”
“He’s—unreasonably possessive.”
A red light showed and Devereaux stopped, then turned to survey her. Baby-faced, red-headed, cream-cheeked—a treat to the eye. Unspoiled looking; a budding flower in a cellophane wrapper.
“Why take you clubbing, then? Drunks are bound to make passes.”
“He didn’t. Take me clubbing, I mean. He followed us.”
The light showed green and the Buick loafed along at twenty-five. “Sneak off to City Hall with the boy friend,” Devereaux said. “That will kill Pop’s penchant for following you.”
“It’s not so simple as that.” He felt her sigh. “Even if I were in love, I’d be afraid to—to marry.”
Her tone revealed more than what was said. Fear, he adduced it to be. The pent-up fear of someone too taut to cry out. It engaged Devereaux, piqued his imagination. He swung out of avenue traffic and nestled into the curb.
“You’re out of danger now.” Devereaux smiled. “Maybe you’d like to come up front and just sit a while?”
She came to sit beside him, and he stared at her curiously. The make-up, if she wore any, was subtle; the hair-do enhanced the very young impression she gave. There was nothing in her face that he could read, nothing of the tensions he sensed in her. The fear he had detected was only evident in the small fluttering of her hands.
“You’re really in trouble, huh?” he said.
She nodded, and as her head came forward slightly, he looked into her eyes. The tensions that weren’t evident in her face lived in her eyes. He smiled at her sympathetically, and watched her draw her underlip in, brake its tremble with white, even teeth. Tears were close; a kind word would precipitate a flood.
He said gently, “Suppose I keep eyes strictly front while you let go and cry yourself out?” He saw the tears start down her cheeks, and turned severely front. Not long after, when the noises of grief had died away, he turned to face her.
Devereaux