The naked face, p.12
The Naked Face, page 12
Then he heard Angeli’s nasal voice. “Hello?”
“Judd Stevens. Moody just called.”
There was a quickening in Angeli’s voice. “What did he say?”
Judd hesitated, feeling a last vestige of unreasonable loy alty and—yes, affection—toward the bumbling little fat man who was plotting to cold-bloodedly murder him. “He asked me to meet him at the Five Star Meat Packing Company. It’s on Twenty-third Street near Tenth Avenue. He told me to come alone.”
Angeli laughed mirthlessly. “I’ll bet he did. Don’t budge out of that office, Doctor. I’m going to call Lieutenant McGreavy. We’ll both pick you up.”
“Right,” said Judd. He hung up slowly. Norman Z. Moody. The jolly Buddha from the yellow pages. Judd felt a sudden, inexplicable sadness. He had liked Moody. And trusted him.
And Moody was waiting to kill him.
Chapter Thirteen
TWENTY MINUTES LATER Judd unlocked his office door to admit Angeli and Lieutenant McGreavy. Angeli’s eyes were red and teary. His voice was hoarse. Judd had a momentary pang at having dragged him out of a sickbed. McGreavy’s greeting was a curt, unfriendly nod.
“I told Lieutenant McGreavy about the phone call from Norman Moody,” Angeli said.
“Yeah. Let’s find out what the hell this is all about,” McGreavy said sourly.
Five minutes later they were in an unmarked police car speeding downtown on the West Side. Angeli was at the wheel. The light snowfall had stopped and the gruel-thin rays of the late afternoon sun had surrendered to the oppres sive cover of storm clouds sweeping across the Manhattan sky. There was a loud clap of thunder in the distance and then a bright, jagged sword of lightning. Drops of rain began to spatter the windshield. As the car continued downtown, tall, soaring skyscrapers gave way to small, grimy tenements huddled together as if for comfort against the biting cold.
The car turned into Twenty-third Street, going west toward the Hudson River. They moved into a land of junk yards and fix-it shops and dingy bars, then past that to blocks of garages, trucking yards and freight companies. As the car neared the corner of Tenth Avenue, McGreavy directed An geli to pull over to the curb.
“We’ll get out here.” McGreavy turned to Judd. “Did Moody say whether anyone would be with him?”
“No.”
McGreavy unbuttoned his overcoat and transferred his service revolver from his holster to his overcoat pocket. An geli followed suit. “Stay in back of us,” McGreavy ordered Judd.
The three men started walking, ducking their heads against the wind-lashed rain. Halfway down the block, they came to a dilapidated-looking building with a faded sign above the door that read:
FIVE STAR MEAT PACKING COMPANY
There were no cars or trucks or lights, no sign of life.
The two detectives walked up to the door, one on either side. McGreavy tested the door. It was locked. He looked around, but could see no bell. They listened. Silence, except for the sound of the rain.
“It looks closed,” Angeli said.
“It probably is,” McGreavy replied. “The Friday before Christmas—most companies are knocking off at noon.”
“There must be a loading entrance.”
Judd followed the two detectives as they moved cautiously toward the end of the building, trying to avoid the puddles in their path. They came to a service alley, and looking down it, they could discern a loading platform with deserted trucks pulled up in front of it. There was no activity. They moved forward until they reached the platform.
“OK,” McGreavy said to Judd. “Sing out.”
Judd hesitated, feeling unreasonably sad that he was betraying Moody. Then he lifted his voice. “Moody! “ The only response was the yowling of an angry tomcat disturbed in his search for dry shelter. “Mr. Moody!”
There was a large wooden sliding door on top of the plat form, used to move the deliveries from inside the warehouse to the area where the trucks were loaded. There were no steps leading onto the platform. McGreavy hoisted himself up, moving with surprising agility for such a large man. An geli followed, then Judd. Angeli walked over to the sliding door and pushed against it. It was unlocked. The great door rolled open with a loud, high-pitched scream of protest. The tomcat answered hopefully, forgetting about shelter. Inside the warehouse it was pitch black.
“Did you bring a flashlight?” McGreavy asked Angeli.
“No.”
“Shit!”
Cautiously they inched their way into the gloom. Judd called out again. “Mr. Moody! It’s Judd Stevens.”
There was no sound except for the creaking of the boards as the men moved across the room. McGreavy rummaged in his pockets and pulled out a book of matches. He lit one and held it up. Its feeble, sputtering light cast a wavering yellow glow in what seemed to be an enormous empty cavern. The match guttered out. “Find the goddam light switch,” McGreavy said. “That was my last match.”
Judd could hear Angeli groping along the walls looking for the light switch. Judd kept moving forward. He could not see the other two men. “Moody!” he called.
He heard Angeli’s voice from across the room. “Here’s a switch.” There was a click. Nothing happened.
“The master switch must be off,” McGreavy said.
Judd bumped against a wall. As he put his hands out to brace himself, his fingers closed over a doorlatch. He shoved the latch up and pulled. A massive door swung open and a blast of frigid air hit him. “I’ve found a door,” he called out. He stepped over a sill and cautiously moved forward. He heard the door close behind him and his heart began to ham mer. Impossibly, it was darker here than in the other room, as though he had stepped into a deeper blackness.
“Moody! Moody…”
A thick, heavy silence. Moody had to be here somewhere. If he weren’t, Judd knew what McGreavy would think. It would be the boy who cried wolf again.
Judd took another step forward and suddenly felt cold flesh lick against his face. He jerked away in panic, feeling the short hairs on his neck rise. He became aware of the strong smell of blood and death surrounding him. There was an evil in the darkness around him, waiting to close in on him. His scalp tingled with fear and his heart was beating so rap idly that it was difficult to breathe. With trembling fingers he fumbled for a book of matches in his overcoat, found one, and scraped a match against the cover. In its light he saw a huge dead eye loom up in front of his face, and it took a shocked second before he realized that he was looking at a slaughtered cow dangling from a meat hook. He had one brief glimpse of other animal carcasses hanging from hooks, and the outline of a door in the far corner, before the match went out. The door probably led to an office. Moody could be in there, waiting for him.
Judd moved farther into the interior of the inky black cav ern toward the door. He felt the cold brush of dead animal flesh again. He quickly stepped away and kept walking cau tiously toward the office door. “Moody!”
He wondered what was detaining Angeli and McGreavy. He moved past the slaughtered animals, feeling as though someone with a macabre sense of humor was playing a horrible, maniacal joke. But who and why were beyond his imagining. As he neared the door, he collided with another hanging carcass.
Judd stopped to get his bearings. He lit his last remaining match. In front of him, impaled on a meat hook and grin ning obscenely, was the body of Norman Z. Moody. The match went out.
Chapter Fourteen
THE CORONER’S MEN had finished their work and gone. Moody’s body had been taken away and everyone had de parted except Judd, McGreavy, and Angeli. They were sit ting in the manager’s small office, decorated with several im pressive calendar nudes, an old desk, a swivel chair, and two filing cabinets. The lights were on and an electric heater was going.
The manager of the plant, a Mr. Paul Moretti, had been tracked down and pulled away from a pre-Christmas party to answer some questions. He had explained that since it was a holiday weekend, he had let his employees off at noon. He had locked up at twelve-thirty, and to the best of his knowl edge, there had been no one on the premises at that time. Mr. Moretti was belligerently drunk, and when McGreavy saw that he was going to be no further help, he had him driven home. Judd was barely conscious of what was happen ing in the room. His thoughts were on Moody, how cheerful and how full of life he had been, and how cruelly he had died. And Judd blamed himself. If he had not involved Moody, the little detective would be alive today.
It was almost midnight. Judd had wearily reiterated the story of Moody’s phone call for the tenth time. McGreavy, hunched up in his overcoat, sat there watching him, chewing savagely on a cigar. Finally he spoke. “Do you read detective stories?”
Judd looked at him, surprised. “No. Why?”
“I’ll tell you why. I think you’re just too goddam good to be true, Dr. Stevens. From the very beginning I’ve thought that you were in this thing up to your neck. And I told you so. So what happens? Suddenly you turn into the target instead of the killer. First you claim a car ran you down and—”
“A car did run him down,” Angeli reminded him.
“A rookie could answer that one,” McGreavy snapped. “It could have been arranged by someone who’s in this with the doctor.” He turned back to Judd. “Next, you call Detective Angeli with a wild-eyed yarn about two men breaking into your office and trying to kill you.”
“They did break in,” said Judd.
“No, they didn’t,” snapped McGreavy. “They used a spe cial key.” His voice hardened. “You said there were only two of those keys to that office—yours and Carol Roberts’.”
“That’s right. I told you—they copied Carol’s key.”
“I know what you told me. I had a paraffin test run. Carol’s key was never copied, Doctor.” He paused to let it sink in. “And since I have her key—that leaves yours, doesn’t it?”
Judd looked at him, speechless.
“When I didn’t buy the loose maniac theory, you hire a detective out of the yellow pages, and he conveniently finds a bomb planted in your car. Only I can’t see it because it’s not there any more. Then you decide it’s time to throw me another body, so you go through that rigmarole with Angeli about a phone call to meet Moody, who knows this mysteri ous nut who’s out to kill you. But guess what? We get here and find him hanging on a meat hook.”
Judd flushed angrily. “I’m not responsible for what happened.”
McGreavy gave him a long, hard look. “Do you know the only reason you’re not under arrest? Because I haven’t found any motive to this Chinese puzzle yet. But I will, Doctor. That’s a promise.” He got to his feet.
Judd suddenly remembered. “Wait a minute!” he said. “What about Don Vinton?”
“What about him?”
“Moody said he was the man behind all this.”
“Do you know anyone named Don Vinton?”
“No,” Judd said. “I—I assumed he’d be known by the police.”
“I never heard of him.” McGreavy turned to Angeli. Angeli shook his head.
“OK. Send out a make on Don Vinton. FBI. Interpol. Po lice chiefs in all major American cities.” He looked at Judd. “Satisfied?”
Judd nodded. Whoever was behind all this must have some kind of criminal record. It should not be difficult to identify him.
He thought again of Moody, with his homely aphorisms and his quick mind. He must have been followed here. It was unlikely that he would have told anyone else about the rendezvous, because he had stressed the need for secrecy. At least they now knew the name of the man they were looking for.
Praemonitus, praemunitas.
Forewarned, forearmed.
The murder of Norman Z. Moody was splashed all over the front pages of the newspapers the next morning. Judd picked up a paper on his way to the office. He was briefly mentioned as being a witness who had come across the body with the police, but McGreavy had managed to keep the full story out of the papers. McGreavy was playing his cards close to his chest. Judd wondered what Anne would think.
This was Saturday, when Judd made his morning rounds at the clinic. He had arranged for someone else to fill in for him there. He went to his office, traveling alone in the elevator and making sure that no one was lurking in the cor ridor. He wondered, even as he did so, how long anyone could live like this, expecting an assassin to strike at any moment.
Half a dozen times during the morning he started to pick up the phone and call Detective Angeli to ask about Don Vinton, but each time he controlled his impatience. Angeli would surely call him as soon as he knew something. Judd puzzled over what Don Vinton’s motivation could be. He could have been a patient whom Judd had treated years ago, perhaps when he was an intern. Someone who felt that Judd had slighted him or injured him in some way. But he could remember no patient named Vinton.
At noon he heard someone try to open the corridor door to the reception room. It was Angeli. Judd could tell nothing from his expression except that he looked even more drawn and haggard. His nose was red, and he was sniffling. He walked into the inner office and wearily flopped into a chair.
“Have you gotten any answers yet on Don Vinton?” Judd asked eagerly.
Angeli nodded. “We got back teletypes from the FBI, the police chiefs of every big city in the United States, and Inter pol.” Judd waited, afraid to breathe. “None of them ever heard of Don Vinton.”
Judd looked at Angeli incredulously, a sudden sinking sensation in his stomach. “But that’s impossible! I mean—someone must know him. A man who could do all this just didn’t come out of nowhere!”
“That’s what McGreavy said,” replied Angeli wearily. “Doctor, my men and I spent the night checking out every Don Vinton in Manhattan and all the other boroughs. We even covered New Jersey and Connecticut.” He took a ruled sheet of paper out of his pocket and showed it to Judd. “W e found eleven Don Vintons in the phone book who spell their name ‘ton’—four who spell it ‘ten’—and two who spell it ‘tin.’ We even tried it as one name. We narrowed it down to five possibles and checked out every one of them. One is a paralytic. One of them is a priest. One is first vice-president of a bank. One of them is a fireman who was on duty when two of the murders occurred. I just left the last one. He runs a pet shop and he must be damn near eighty years old.”
Judd’s throat was dry. He was suddenly aware of how much he had counted on this. Surely Moody wouldn’t have given him the name unless he was certain. And he hadn’t said that Don Vinton was an accomplice; he had said he was behind the whole thing. It was inconceivable that the police would have no record of a man like that. Moody had been murdered because he had gotten onto the truth. And now that Moody was out of the way, Judd was completely alone. The web was drawing tighter.
“I’m sorry,” Angeli said.
Judd looked at the detective and suddenly remembered that Angeli had not been home all night. “I appreciate your trying,” he said gratefully.
Angeli leaned forward. “Are you positive you heard Moody right?”
“Yes.” Judd closed his eyes in concentration. He had asked Moody if he was sure who was really behind this. He heard Moody’s voice again. Dead sure. Have you ever heard of Don Vinton? Don Vinton. He opened his eyes. “Yes,” he repeated.
Angeli sighed. “The n we’re at a dead end.” He laughed mirthlessly. “N o pun intended.” He sneezed.
“You’d better get to bed.”
Angeli stood up. “Yeah. I guess so.”
Judd hesitated. “How long have you been McGreavy’s partner?”
“This is our first case together. Why? “
“Do you think he’s capable of framing me for murder?”
Angeli sneezed again. “ I think maybe you’re right, doctor. I’d better get to bed.” He walked over to the door.
“I may have a lead,” Judd said.
Angeli stopped and turned. “Go on.”
Judd told him about Teri. He added that he was also going to check out some of John Hanson’s former boy friends.
“It doesn’t sound like much,” Angeli said frankly, “but I guess it’s better than nothing.”
“I’m sick and tired of being a target. I’m going to start fighting back. I’m going after them.”
Angeli looked at him. “With what? We’re fighting shadows.”
“When witnesses describe a suspect, the police have an artist draw up a composite picture of all the descriptions. Right?”
Angeli nodded. “An identi-kit.”
Judd began to pace in restless excitement. “I’m going to give you an identi-kit of the personality of the man who’s behind this.”
“How can you? You’ve never seen him. It could be anyone.”
“No it couldn’t,” Judd corrected. “We’re looking for someone very, very special.”
“Someone who’s insane.”
“Insanity is a catchall phrase. It has no medical meaning. Sanity is simply the ability of the mind to adjust to reality. If we can’t adjust, we either hide from reality, or we put our selves above life, where we’re super-beings who don’t have to follow the rules.”
“Our man thinks he’s a super-being.”
“Exactly. In a dangerous situation we have three choices, Angeli. Flight, constructive compromise, or attack. Our man attacks.”
“So he’s a lunatic.”
“No. Lunatics rarely kill. Their concentration span is ex tremely short. We’re dealing with someone more compli cated. He could be somatic, hypophrenic, schizoid, cycloid—or any combination of these. We could be dealing with a fugue—temporary amnesia preceded by irrational acts. But the point is, his appearance and behavior will seem perfectly normal to everyone.”
“So we have nothing to go on.”
“You’re wrong. We have a good deal to go on. I can give you a physical description of him,” said Judd. He narrowed his eyes, concentrating. “Don Vinton is above average height, well proportioned, and has the build of an athlete. He’s neat in his appearance and meticulous about everything he does. He has no artistic talent. He doesn’t paint or write or play the piano.”
