The Tooth and the Nail, page 11
Next recalling the handwriting expert… Alvin G. Hartney… to the stand, Cannon showed him the memorandum book. “You have examined the writings and notes in this book and have compared them to samples of the writing of the defendant. Would you say they are written by the same hand?”
“Yes,” said Hartney. “The writing in the memo book is identical with other specimens of handwriting of the defendant.”
“Here,” continued Cannon, “is a sheet of paper… supposedly from that notebook. Have you examined the writing on it?” Cannon gave the blue-lined note to the witness.
“Yes,” replied Hartney.
“Can you identify the writing?”
“Yes, sir. It is identical to both the writing in the notebook and the other handwriting specimens of the defendant.”
“You would say, positively, they were written by the same person?”
“I would!” Hartney replied with assurance. Cannon excused him from the stand.
“Mary Deems,” the clerk announced, and a middle-aged woman still retaining a trim and youthful figure made her way to the witness chair. Her round face was unmarked by lines, and she wore no make-up except lipstick. She identified herself as a house maid, in the house on East Eighty-ninth Street, having worked for the defendant. Dressed in a neat dark suit, she crossed her ankles, folded her hands in her lap, and continued with her testimony.
“You have said you were a house maid. Will you please tell us about your duties?” asked Cannon.
“Well, sir… actually I kept the house picked up, answered the door and the downstairs phone, and in the mornings prepared a light continental breakfast…”
“Explain about the breakfast, if you will.”
“I’m not a cook,” she replied firmly, “but in the mornings, I’d make coffee, and warm up crisp rolls to be served with marmalade for breakfast.” She nodded, thinking back. “When I was hired I said I wasn’t a cook and I was told that there wouldn’t be any cooking to be done. Breakfast, a real light one, was the only meal in the house. Sometimes… there might be a little private entertaining, but then a caterer would just send something in.”
“Did you live on the premises, Miss Deems?”
“Yes, sir. I had a room in the upstairs servants’ quarters.”
“Were there any servants other than yourself?”
“There was Isham Reddick. He lived in, too. He was employed as a combination houseman-chauffeur.”
“Was that all the help to run a large house like that?”
Mary Deems shook her head. “That was all the help that lived in… just Isham Reddick and me. There was a couple… Mr. and Mrs. Lightbody… who came in days to help. He was a super in another building down the street…”
“Just a moment. What do you mean by super?”
“Superintendent. He was superintendent, and janitor, of a small apartment building down the street. He came in every day to take out ashes, check the furnace, and fix anything around the house that needed fixing. Mrs. Lightbody, his wife, came in regularly to do the heavy cleaning and vacuuming.”
“I see. Now, returning to Isham Reddick. You said, a few moments ago, that he was a houseman-chauffeur. I understood that he also acted in the capacity of a valet. Is that right?”
“Yes, sir, he did a little bit of everything.” Mary Deems was not inclined to argue definitions.
“Now, Miss Deems, you have been in service… for how many years?”
The woman hesitated, “Since I was a young girl…”
Cannon was understanding. “I’m not going to ask for a definite reply. Is it fair to say around twenty years?”
“Yes…”
“Good! Now in that time you’ve seen many servants when you’ve worked for other families. How would you compare Isham Reddick with other houseman-valet-chauffeurs?”
The woman considered the question and replied slowly. “Not very well, sir…” Her honest face was worried with the idea of speaking disrespectfully of the dead, “but he really didn’t take an interest in his job. Of course,” she added brightly, “maybe he didn’t like the idea of doing so many things. Usually a valet is a valet… and a chauffeur is a chauffeur.”
“Did you get to know Isham Reddick very well?” Mary Deems blushed, and Cannon qualified his question. “I don’t mean in any personal way, but did he talk to you very much?”
“No, sir. Not very much. Usually when he wasn’t on duty, he’d remain up in his room. There was just the one time he ever acted very friendly. Once when we were alone, he asked me to go see a movie. Afterward we stopped and had something to eat.”
“You remember that incident very well, Miss Deems. Is there any reason for it, other than it was the only time he ever took you out?”
“Yes, sir. There’s another reason, too. There was a little restaurant near the movie up on Ninety-second Street. We stopped in there to get a bite to eat, as I said, and I was reading the menu carefully because I didn’t want to spend too much of Mr. Reddick’s money. I decided I’d just have a sandwich and a cup of tea and he said, “Go ahead and order anything you want. I’ve got plenty of dough.”
“Isham Reddick said, ‘Go ahead and order anything you want. I’ve got plenty of dough,’ ” Cannon repeated. “By that, Miss Deems, you understood that he had plenty of money, is that correct?”
“That’s what I thought he meant, although there was the possibility he was just joking… or bragging a little. Kidding him back, I said that I bet he didn’t have an extra shirt to his name. He looked at me and said, ‘What do you think of this?’ He pulled a big thick roll of bills out of his pocket. He held them out in front of me for a minute, very proud like, and then put them back.”
“Did Reddick tell you how much money there was in the roll?”
“No, sir. But when he held the bills up, I could see there were a lot of hundred-dollar ones among them.”
“In your opinion, could there have been eighty-five hundred dollars in that…”
Cannon was interrupted by Denman springing to his feet.
“Objection,” Denman stated.
The judge agreed. “Objection sustained.”
“All right, Miss Deems,” Cannon said, returning to his witness. “After Reddick had showed you a large roll of bills, many in the denomination of a hundred dollars, what did you say?”
“Naturally, I wondered where he had gotten all that money. I knew it wasn’t from his salary…”
“Objection!” Denman shouted angrily.
“Sustained!” The court ruled.
“What did he say?” asked Cannon, addressing the maid.
“Well, first I laughed and said, ‘Boy, you must have a private gold mine!’ Then he laughed, too, and said, No, he didn’t have a private gold mine. He was more like an undertaker—he knew where the bodies were buried.”
“Let me get this straight now, Miss Deems,” Cannon said deliberately, driving his point home. “Isham Reddick told you that he was like an undertaker—that he knew where the bodies were buried. Is that correct?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And by that remark, you understood that Reddick was not talking about real bodies—but that he knew some important information?”
“That’s right. That is what he meant.”
“It hardly sounds to me like a man who could scarcely afford the cost of a tooth,” observed Cannon. “Did it sound that way to you?”
“No, sir,” the maid replied, “it didn’t. It sounded like he had plenty of money.”
“Was Isham Reddick wearing the tooth the night you went to dinner?”
“He couldn’t have been,” she said. “I remember there was a big wide gap in the front of his teeth—just like always.”
Fourteen
IN THE MAGICIAN’S LAND of make-believe and illusion what one doesn’t see is always there… only one doesn’t see it until the conjurer is ready to show it. The silks are stuffed within the hollow egg, the flowers collapsed within the palm of his hand; the card concealed on the back of his fingers. But Death is the greatest necromancer of all; in a moment of inattention, he makes his sleight and palms a life, and one does not realize that the breathing figure is gone.
The illusion of life persists… you listen for the voice in the next room; you await the footsteps coming up the stairs—the well-known, well-beloved ones; you anticipate the turn of a profile in a busy restaurant, the tinkle of a laugh in a bar, the lovely swiftly moving legs on a busy street. The illusion is there still; yesterday has not yet become today. Today must never become tomorrow, because tomorrow will be too late.
Hope lingers on, the last soft breeze in the trees before winter; the last strain of music before silence. It is there before despair wilts completely the last bouquet of make-believe flowers, and Death takes his curtain bow before the black velvet drapes.
The delicate, well-remembered lips brush your cheek in the night, but in the morning there are only the twisted bedclothes beside you. In your own mind alone the voice remains; only behind your sleeping eyes does the face become reality. In the misery of the endless nights, the wretchedness of the matching days, hope vanishes. Then is the illusion completed! Because only then, is she gone forever…
I didn’t lose Tally in the street before the McAndrews that afternoon, nor on Locust Street… nor on any of the other little Philadelphia streets. She disappeared one night several months later in New York. I was lying on my back, on the sidewalk, in front of a bar on Eighth Avenue; I was lying there because I had been thrown out. I had been thrown out because I had been unable to pay for my drinks—and I couldn’t pay for my drinks because I hadn’t worked since Philadelphia. Thinking to myself without indignation what a cheap lousy joint to get bounced from, I lay there for a moment looking straight up into the sky. I could see no blue, no stars, no heavens. Only the murky haze… half translucent, half opaque… of blue neons and red neons, yellow fluorescents and green fluorescents; white Mazdas and amber General Electrics. They were all there in the murk above the street, mixed into a brown fog of quivering colors. Rolling over slowly on my stomach I pushed myself to my feet and staggered to the building—leaning against it for support. Wretchedly I spewed the cheap liquor back over the building in which I had drunk it. That was the moment I decided to murder Greenleaf! In the morning I went to see my agent. I had slept in my clothes for a week, my shirt was as filthy as an oiler’s rag; I needed a shave, and I hadn’t eaten in… I don’t know… three or four days. I had to walk to his office as I didn’t have the price of a subway ride, and I didn’t think I would make it. Each block I was forced to sit down to rest. As I sat on the curbing, panting with exhaustion, passers-by walked around me in a careful antiseptic arc. Eventually I reached his office and I waited outside the door until he appeared.
“Sol,” I said, “I want to talk to you.” He nodded and opened the cubbyhole, helping me in. He is a little man with a round, compact potbelly. Seating me in a chair by his desk, he gave me a cigarette; the smoke gagged in my raw throat. “You’ve got to help me,” I said.
“Sure, Lew,” he replied sympathetically. “I heard about what happened in Philly, I’m sorry…”
“I need some dough. I’m broke.”
“Sure, sure. I understand.” His eyes brushed past my filthy clothes to search my face. “You all right now, Lew?”
“Yes,” I replied, “I’m all right now.”
“You got a good act, Lew. It don’t make sense to throw it away. Even… as a single… I can keep you going pretty good. You got to lay off drinking, though.”
“Sol,” I said urgently, his little office swiveling before my eyes while my stomach cramped and crawled, “don’t lecture me. Just give me some dough… let me get out of here!”
“How much you want, Lew?” He reached in his pocket and withdrew a thin, well-worn checkbook.
“I don’t know… whatever you’ll trust me for. I need it bad, and it isn’t for drinking.”
“Sure, sure,” Sol agreed heavily. He scribbled a check and handed it to me. “Two hundred enough?”
“Thanks,” I said, folding the check and stuffing it in my pocket. Swaying to my feet, I held onto the desk. “Now I can get back in my hotel room.”
“When are you coming back to work?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” I told him truthfully, “I’ve got something important to do first. But in case I don’t come back, I’ll see you get the dough.”
“Forget it, Lew,” Sol replied, “it’s for old times’ sake…”
A hot shower washes away many sins—at least the sins of dirt, grime, and grease. Back at the hotel, I showered, shaved, and slept the clock around. The following morning, in fresh clothes, I forced some breakfast into my protesting stomach. Although I was still lightheaded and couldn’t concentrate for very long, I began planning to get Greenleaf. And each successive day, I continued to think about it, weighing the probabilities, considering the possibilities. Little by little, day after day, the idea began to go together. My most urgent problem, however, was money which I needed to complete my plans. And I needed it quickly. The money Sol had given me, after paying my hotel bill, left very little.
There was one fast way to get funds, and I decided to take it, although it was a dangerous and calculated risk. As soon as I felt better, and the shakes had left my hands, I looked up Max the bell captain. Tipping him, I said, “I’ve got a friend coming in from the sticks in a day or two. He likes a little action. Know where there’s a game?”
“Craps?”
“No. Poker…”
Max gave it to me straight. “Sure this guy’s a friend of yours?”
“Absolutely,” I replied.
“I know a game, but a stranger might get hurt. Particularly, if there’s any fast dealing. The mug who runs it ain’t no Union Leaguer.”
I shrugged. “I can’t guarantee this guy’s morals,” I replied. “But he’s been around. I kind of figure it’s up to him.” I stared straight back at Max.
Max lit a cigarette. “What the hell,” he said, “it’s no skin off my ass. What’s this guy’s name?”
“Tom Murphy,” I said. “His father’s name was Tom Murphy, and his grandfather’s…”
“Yeah, I know,” interrupted Max, “his name was Tom Murphy, too.”
“I don’t know how you guessed it, but you did.”
“Okay. Tell Tom Murphy to ask for Jack at the cigar store. Tell him, I sent him.” Max described a small tobacco shop, near Times Square. “Ask for Jack before nine-thirty any night. The game starts at ten… it’s a floater. Jack’ll tell him where it’s going to be.”
The next night I contacted Jack. With the last fifty dollars in my pocket, I sat in a seven-handed game of dealer’s choice, in the back room of a shoe store. It was a typical minor league, floating game. A consumptive and dangerous Greek named Steve operated it, taking a small percentage drag out of each pot. The other players were a used car dealer from the Bronx, a small restaurant owner, two out-of-towners attending a convention, a radio director, and a traveling salesman.
I played carefully and cautiously… not being able to afford any losses, and I played it straight. When the game broke up about four in the morning, I was seventy dollars to the good. For my purpose, the amount was just about right. It wasn’t too much… large enough to cause comment… and yet Steve noticed it.
During the next two weeks, I sat in Steve’s game every night; we played in hotel rooms, garages, back rooms of restaurants, record shops, haberdasheries, barber shops, antique stores, and any other place where an owner was willing to pick up a fast twenty bucks for the use of his premises. The players came and went; new faces every night—except mine. The Greek, of course, didn’t care who won as his take was a fixed percentage from each pot. However, to be careful, I deliberately lost small amounts on two occasions, and indirectly brought it to his attention. At the end of two weeks, I was about five hundred dollars to the good.
One night, when the game had broken up, I said to Steve, “How about grabbing some breakfast at the automat?” He agreed and we walked down Broadway to Times Square. At the table, I put it right to him. “I want to make some dough, fast! I’d like to sit in a big league game…”
Steve ate his Danish pastry without replying. When he had completely finished, he wiped his lips on a paper napkin. “You play a pretty good game. You make a little dough. What you want to lose it for?”
“I don’t think I’ll lose it,” I said.
Steve shrugged. “Maybe not. But that’s what they all think.”
“All right,” I said, “so I lose it. It’s my dough. But if I win you get 10 percent off the top.”
The Greek’s eyes swiveled around to meet mine. He stared for a minute, then dropped them indifferently. “You’re pretty eager,” he said obliquely.
I agreed. “There’s a good thing I can get a piece of on the West Coast. It’s not going to be open forever. I either get some dough, quick, or forget it.” I kept my voice expressionless. “You’ve got contacts, you know where the big game is… get me in it. I’ll make it right.”
“You said 10 percent.”
“That’s it.”
He looked over my shoulder, not seeing me. “Maybe I can do something,” he said. Abruptly he returned his attention. “How much dough you got going in?”
“Half a yard,” I said.
“Not enough.”
Now came the gimmick. This was the important pitch. He was right; with only five hundred dollars going into a big game, I couldn’t hold down a chair. “Okay, Steve,” I said, “I need some front money. You lend me another five hundred, and I give you another 10 percent.”
“No dice. My five on the bottom, not playing.” What he meant was that I’d bet my own five hundred dollars, and leave his on the table for show. If I lost my five, I’d cash in the chips for his money and return it.
