Dead in a Bed Read online

  Hockin Chynik, up until six years ago, had been a flourishing burglar. Six years ago, during one three-month spree he had looted apartments on the fashionable East Side to the tune of four hundred thousand dollars worth of jewelry—he specialized in baubles —and one insurance company, Hudson of America, had been socked the hardest for those purloined rocks: it had paid out close to two hundred and fifty thousand bucks in reluctant coin of the realm. Hudson of America had called me in and Mr. Archibold Finch, Executive Manager, had stated flatly, “Something’s got to be done.”

  “Yes sir, Mr. Finch, it sure has.”

  “This is the work of one guy, no question.”

  “How do you know, Mr. Finch?”

  His nostrils had expanded angrily. “Well you’re a detective. Guess!” He was taking out his exasperation on me but he was also going to take out a large fee in short order, so I held still for it.

  Meekly I had mumbled: “Modus operandi.”

  “Correct you are, my dear Chambers. Modus operandi. Precisely. The son of a bitch operates in one fashion. First, he enters by the front door. No bell ringing, no phony delivery of a package, no subterfuge to gain entrance. He’s an expert with keys or with a picklock; whatever, he’s a magician with locks; he simply opens the door and enters. Second, he works only in the afternoon. Third,

  he’s strictly a jewel-man and quite a connoisseur: takes the good stuff and rejects the poor. Fourth, he picks only such people who own valuable jewelry. Fifth, he wears a stocking mask over his head—”

  “But how do you know?”

  “Let me finish.”

  “Yes sir,” I had said but if I was going to take on the assignment the fee would have to be double of what I already had in mind because Mr. Finch, although dedicated, was nasty, and the nasty client pays double the fee of the pleasant client—that’s Rule Number One of the Sleuth Guild.

  “Where was I,” he had said, “before you interrupted?”

  “You were up to: ‘Fifth, he wears a stocking mask.’ ”

  “Sixth, he’s a big broad-shouldered heavy-set guy. And seventh, he uses black tape in emergencies. That’s how we know, Mr. Chambers, that one specific son of a bitch has been pulling these jobs.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Finch, but now, if you please, how do you know about the mask, the heavy-set, and the black tape?”

  “Because we have a full sheaf of reports,” had twittered the Finch. “He enters the apartment and if there’s nobody home he does his job and there’s no trace. Remember, he works afternoons, and if there is somebody home, it generally is not the man of the house. He enters and he prowls. If there’s anybody home, a woman, a servant, he renders them hors de combat by a swift judo swipe. Then he tapes wrists, ankles, eyes, and mouth with black tape and puts them out of the way.”

  Nastiness works two ways. “You left out number eight, Mr. Finch—that he’s a judo-man.”

  “Admitted. I left out number eight. He’s a judo-man. But you’ll see all our papers, all our reports, so it wasn’t a fatal ommission.”

  “What about the cops?”

  “The police, of course, have been working like all hell on this, spurred of course by our pressures and the pressures of the other insurance companies. So far, no luck. That’s why we’re trying our luck once again with you. Thus far the orthodox methods of the police have been without avail. Perhaps your … your unorthodox methods will once again be succesful.”

  “Well thank you,” I had said and stated my fee and he had almost toppled out of his swivel chair but Hudson of America must have been very anxious for my particular type of unorthodox snooping because they paid through the corporate nose whilst smiling politely with the corporate teeth. However, if you please, do not underestimate the corporate mind. I had done work before for Hudson of America and Hudson of America had got its money’s worth and all the executives including my Finch damned well knew it.

  The Finch had not tweeted incorrectly. Certainly the private operator is not hamstrung by departmental rules as is the public operator. I had quite a lot to go on and sundry sources to go to. I was looking for a heavy-set burglar who was an expert on jewels. I was looking for a front-door man who was great on locks. I was looking for a guy who definitely had a fingerman because he hit specific spots rather than breaking in at random. He had been seen by the people whom he had smacked and taped and my first move was to interview all of them. I got no further descriptions from any of them since he was always in stocking mask but all of them agreed that he was somewhat over six feet tall.

  I had gone to private sources, to people in the coterie, to the fences who handled hot ice—people who knew me and trusted me—and I had finally got a line on a Canadian crook who had hit New York a year before, a big bruiser, a front-door man, and a guy with a sparkling appreciation for precious stones. He was of Danish descent, his name was Hockin Chynik, he lived high off the hog, and he traveled with a pretty girl friend. I learned of his haunts and I started to haunt them.

  It took three weeks of sitting around in pubs, clubs, saloons, and jazz joints—spreading around Hudson of America’s expense money—before he was finally pointed out to me. The maitre d’ at Eden Roc touched my elbow and said, “That’s the fella you’ve been asking about. The party of three that Alex is leading to a table. Mr. Chynik is the big guy.”

  There was a big guy, there was a black-haired gal, and there was a tall slim blond guy. I did not know the big guy and I did not know the black-haired gal but I did know the tall slim blond guy and that was the first break in the subsequent apprehension of Hockin Chynik.

  It was ten o’clock in the evening and they ordered drinks and then dinner. I took an out of the way table, but not too far out of the way, and also ordered drinks and dinner. Once when Mr. Chynik went to the men’s room I went to the men’s room with him and we jostled one another at the urinals. As he washed up before the bright mirrors I was able to study him. He had a face as miscellaneous as a trash basket at the United Nations. One eye was brown, one eye was blue, and his eyebrows were white. His hair was white, close-cropped, and balding at the middle, but he was not old. He was about forty. He had a broken nose and a mustache, a black mustache, and the sheen on the clean-shaven cheeks was blue-black. There are men like that, white on top and black on bottom, white of hair on head and eyebrows and black on the bristles of the face. He was about six-feet-one with wide shoulders and powerful hands the nails of which were highly manicured. He was stylishly and expensively dressed and he wore a star sapphire on his left pinky. I quit the men’s room before he did.

  Over duckling with orange sauce at my table, I studied the gal. She had black hair, brown eyes, good shoulders, and nice breasts, period. I did not have to study the tall slim blond guy. I had studied the tall slim blond guy before. He was handsome, his name was Michael Peabody, and he was known amongst the cognoscenti as Mike the Pea. At that time Mike the Pea was twenty-three and he had never done an honest day’s work in his life.

  Mike the Pea was tall, strong, dashing, beautiful, and a doll with the dames. He had a ruddy complexion, large blue guileless eyes, long eyelashes, curly blond hair, a romantic nose, a manly profile, and all the larceny that could be stuffed into one human being. He was an orphan. His father had died in Alcatraz and his mother had been shot to death in a roundup of dope-pushers selling narcotics to teenagers; one could say that Michael Peabody was of the criminal elite, an aristocrat of iniquity by inherited title: sort of to the manure born. He thrived on dissolute desolate rich women, blackmailed elderly impotent men, stole from people who were ashamed to report to the authorities, and was the life of many parties to which he supplied whores for orgies, pornographic film for home movies, and circuses of degenerates for at home theatre-in-the-round as contrasted to at home theatre-for-the-squares. Naturally he moved in the best of wealthy circles and if Hockin Chynik was the burglar I was seeking then certainly Mike the Pea was his fingerman. That was my hunch over duckling with orange sauce but hunches nee
d proof before being converted to evidence, and that became my job.

  Mike the Pea ate quickly and then cut out. Hockin Chynik and gal lingered longer and then made the rounds with me as their tail. They hit, in liquid succession, Birdland, The Roundtable, The Stork, The Harwyn, Chez Vito, and then El Barracho on Fifty-third Street. They came to El Barracho at three o’clock but there they did not do their blotting up sitting down as they had done in the other spots, they attended the bar and were served by Maximilian Bartlett, as handsome a man behind the stick as any saloon in New York could yield, a lean-flanked, big-shouldered, flashing-eyed buckeroo with a well-earned reputation as a gallant with the gals.

  I kept my distance and observed but one did not need to be a trained observer to understand that the couple were at the bar under the subtle persuasions of the lady: the chick and Max had eyes for one another, large eyes. Hockin Chynik was a heavy drinker and heavy drinking prompts frequent visits to the toilet but, each time, no sooner was he engulfed in the first flush of the gent’s room then Max and the lady were touching fingers, whispering avidly, breathing hotly, and eating each other up with their eyes. Something was cooking and the broth could do me no harm, could in fact do me a hell of a lot of good.

  At closing time Harvey Rosen, the working boss, called merrily, “Last call for alcohol,” and Hockin Chynik packed up, paid his tab, took his baggage and departed but I remained. Bartenders, of necessity, do their drinking after hours and Maximilian Bartlett this night was to be my guest. We journeyed together to an after-hours joint in Harlem where I belted him with whiskey and sustained camaraderie and then began pecking at his personal life. “You back with the missus?” I inquired.

  “You nuts? Separated, once and for all and forever.”

  “If you need a divorce lawyer, I can get you a good one, and at reduced rates which he’ll do for me special because he owes me a few favors.”

  “Thanks, Mr. Chambers, but I don’t need no divorce lawyer because me and the missus we don’t believe in divorce. Separated suits us fine, both of us.”

  “Don’t you ever want to get married again, Max?”

  “Who needs it? Once is enough.”

  “Not even if you fall in love?”

  “What’s falling in love got to do with it? If you fall in love, you shack with the dame, live with the dame. Like that you’re on top and you stay on top as long as you don’t get married. Once married, it flips over, and the broad is on top.”

  “That’s quite a philosophy.”

  “Maybe to you it’s philosphy; to me it’s the truth. I learned my lesson the hard way but nobody can never say Maxie Bartlett don’t learn once he does learn his lesson.”

  “Shacking,” I said, “but living, no.”

  “What the hell you talking about, Mr. Chambers?”

  “I mean, this dame you’re not living with, Maxie. Don’t kid me.”

  “Which dame?” He squinted at me.

  “That black-eyed beauty at the bar tonight. The one you’ve got the hots for.”

  “And how would you know I got the hots?”

  “You were erupting lava all over the bar. Maybe you’re a great lover, Maxie, but a great actor you’re not. What I mean—if you were trying to hide the hots, you were far from cool, man.”

  He grinned uncomfortably. “And how would you know that it’s shacking, not living?”

  “Because the guy she was with is doing the living, I’d bet on that.”

  Sourly he said, “You win your bet.”

  “What’s her name, Max?”

  “Angelina Pisk.”

  “She’s traveling in bad company, Max.”

  “Now how in hell would you know that?”

  “Remember me? I’m in the business of knowing things. Now let’s get squared away, Maxie. Do you go for this chick?”

  “I’m out of my brains for her.”

  “Then you’d better get her away from the guy.”

  “I wish I could. I can’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “She won’t go.”

  “Why not?”

  “He’s a rough customer. He can be trouble.”

  “Then why doesn’t she turn the trouble on him?”

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “Maxie, boy, do you happen to know what he does for a living?”

  “I do,” he said. “Do you?”

  I popped all my guns in one volley. “He’s a goniff, Maxie, a grand larceny goniff, but he’s all washed up only he doesn’t know it yet. The cops have got him glommed and his next job is his last and when he gets sent away it’s my hunch your black-eyed beauty is going to get sent along with him. Now I hate to see a chick get it and I hate it worse when the chick is a friend of a friend of mine and you’re a friend of mine, Maxie. So, while there’s still time, let’s you and I pull her off free. You know? Let’s do a good turn for everybody, including you. Are you reading me, kid?”

  I had popped all my guns but I did not know whether I had a target. I sat back and hoped while sprayed by the gush of Maxie’s silence. I waved for more drinks and continued hoping while Maxie hoisted a couple of whiskies aboard. Then he sighed and said softly, deliciously, encouragingly: “How do you know all this, Mr. Chambers?” Oh I had a target, all right. Maxie was breaking out all over in a rash of bull’s-eyes.

  “I’m working for an insurance company and I’m working with the cops,” I said. “We’re interested in Mr. Hockin Chynik and company. Company is the black-eyed chicken, but I can persuade my cohorts to lay off the chicken if the chicken plays ball. Will she play, Maxie?”

  Vehemently he said, “You bet your ass she’ll play, Mr. Chambers.”

  “Can I have the story, pal?”

  “I’m going to lay it on the line right now, Mr. Chambers.”

  It was the old story, always new. Angelina Pisk had been a waitress in a class restaurant of which Hockin Chynik had been a patron. She had a shape, a wriggle, sex appeal, and a desire to better herself, and Hockin Chynik had an appreciation of the sum total of all that. There had been the usual flirtation but he had shown her more money than she had ever seen in her life. She had given up her job and given in to him. They had shacked up as husband and wife in a tony apartment on East Ninetieth Street. She had worn new clothes, new furs, new jewels, new perfumes, but she had also worn new bruises inflicted by her benefactor because he was a brutal man. He had inspired fear in her and his knowledge of that fear had served as basis for her promotion from bed-companion to bed-companion-and-burglar-lookout and Hockin Chynik had intelligently proceeded to instill further fear on top of the initial fear. She had acted, all unwittingly, as lookout on one of his early jobs, but he had then informed her that she had been an accomplice in a burglary and if she talked she would be considered just as guilty as he and would wind up doing a stretch in the can. She was stupid and the stupid are prone to intimidation, and thereafter Hockin Chynik had a trusted accomplice. She had loitered outside whatever apartment he entered in order to stave off any unexpected intruder and warn Chynik inside by means of a prearranged bell-signal. After the job was accomplished he would transfer the loot to her handbag (precious baubles make small bundles); in the event of any untoward confrontation it was the plan that he would engage the interrogator in conversation while she slipped off into the motley anonymity of the city streets. There had never been any such confrontation and the Chynik-Pisk combination had sung a melodious duet of uninterrupted success except that Hockin Chynik was tone-deaf to certain off-key notes of his coerced coloratura: she was unwilling, she was frightened, she was pricked by conscience, and she would have blabbed her fool head off had she not been constrained by the natural dread of the possibility of incarceration for a couple of years in the pokey.

  In time she had been met and conquered by the dazzling Max although perforce our Maximilian had to do his conquering on stolen afternoons upon a quivering mattress in a seedy hotel in the mid-Forties: but she had confessed her naughty n
iceties to her palpitating partner and now they both lived in fear of her possible sequestration in penal solitude: and then Peter Chambers after hours in Harlem suddenly took on the stature of succor in the scrambled love life of the doughty Maxie and the naughty Angie.

  “Mr. Chambers,” said Maxie, “I know you a long time and I know you can be trusted a hunnert percent. You guarantee to me that she gets like immunity and I’ll guarantee to you that she’ll sing you the prettiest song you ever heard in your life. She’s been busting to sing but she’s been afraid of the law. You know the law. Even if they slam the book at him, they figure to throw a few pages at her, and she don’t want no few pages, she don’t want nothing, she’s scared shitless of the can, she’s got like claustrophobia, you know?”

  “I know.”

  “You give me the guarantee, you got a deal.”

  “You’ve got the guarantee, Maxie, but remember they’ll certainly want her to take the stand as State’s witness.”

  “Oh sure fine—but there’s got to be a deal that she don’t do no time.”

  We shook hands on that. “When can you have her at my office?” I asked.

  “Tomorrow afternoon. The boy-friend’s going out to the track on a sure-thing in the sixth race. She’s supposed to go with him but she’ll cop a plea that she’s sick. How about tomorrow one o’clock?”

  “Don’t fail me, Max.”

  He hadn’t failed me. She had told me substantially the same story that he had, with one additional gambit. There was a fingerman named Mike the Pea; she was able to describe him but she did not know him by any other name. She had informed me that some of the unfenced ice was still at the apartment and we went back there for a look-see (it was safe because Chynik was at the track on his sure-thing). I had a list of some of the stolen jewels and when I examined the stuff I knew that Hockin Chynik was our man. I thanked her and told her that she had nothing further to do—just continue in the uneven tenor of her ways—until she heard from me.