Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine, Vol. 34, No. 5, April 1974

“How about Larry Yeager?” I asked. “What’d he have to say when you told him what had happened?”

“I never told him.”

“You didn’t warn him about the danger he was in?”

“I figured he was old enough to take care of himself.”

“What you really figured was that as long as Cogan was looking for Yeager, he wouldn’t be looking for you,” I said. “Isn’t that about the size of it, Mr. Grimes?”

“Anybody else would’ve done the same,” he said. “It’s every man for himself in this world, and you know it.”

“Where’s Vernice Cogan live?”

“The Dorsey. It’s an apartment house between 65th and 66th on Amsterdam, about halfway down the street on the east side.”

I took a moment to write down the address, and then reached for my phone. “All right, Mr. Grimes,” I said, dialing BCI. “Thanks very much for coming in.”

He stood up, mumbled something to himself, jammed the straw hat on his head, and stalked out of the room.

When BCI came on the wire, I asked that they make a check on Roy Cogan and call me back as soon as possible.

“Now all we have to do is wait,” I said as I hung up. “Stan, how’d you make out with that list of people in the stag film? You get BCI and the Information Unit squared away on them?”

“I was just finishing up when Grimes came in,” Stan said. “They said they’d do the best they could for us.”

When BCI called back, it was to say that Roy Cogan, in addition to his jolt for manslaughter, had been picked up for questioning three times as a suspect in burglaries, and released each time for lack of evidence.

Perhaps, I reflected, the .22 Smith & Wesson burgled from-the basement of Earl Lambert’s apartment house hadn’t changed hands so many times after all.

I told Stan what I had learned from BCI, and then stood up and got into my jacket. “I think I’ll run uptown for a little talk with Vernice Cogan,” I said. “It just might happen that I can get a line on where her husband is.”

“You want some help?”

“She’s just one woman, Stan.”

“If the husband’s there—”

“If he is, so much the better. I’ll bring him back with me.”

VII

The Dorsey was one of an unbroken, block-long row of scabrous-looking converted brownstones behind an iron jungle of fire escapes and barred windows.

I got out of the Plymouth, went up the trash-strewn steps to the front door, and looked around for the bell button, but there wasn’t any. I started to rap on the door, but decided I might jar loose the single glass panel that hadn’t been replaced with cardboard, and knocked on the doorjamb instead.

Nothing happened. I knocked again, waited again, and had just raised my hand to knock a third time when the door began to creak open slowly, a few inches at a time, the way they do in the horror movies.

The woman glowering at me in the dimness of the hallway was about fifty, dressed in a grimy T-shirt, sleazy black pajama bottoms, and high-heeled shoes with red anklets. Her flushed, sharp-featured face looked hung-over and she smelled the same way.

“All right,” she said in a tight, harsh voice. “What is it now?”

“Mrs. Roy Cogan live here?” I asked.

“No,” she said, starting to close the door. “She moved.”

I reached out and caught the door. “Police,” I said.

“Oh, God,” she said.

“There are worse things,” I said.

“Name one,” she said, moving back just far enough to let me step into the dank, malodorous hallway. “She ain’t here, I tell you.”

“I’ll talk to the super, then.”

“I’m the super. The super, and the handyman, and hell, you name it.”

“I’m not so sure there was one. I never seen any men around here at all. In fact, the only time I saw her was when I picked up the rent. She was a bum and a boozer, and I’m glad she’s gone.”

“This is very important,” I said. “Anything you can do to help will be appre—”

“What could I do? All she was to me was a face and a name.”

“All right, then,” I said as I turned to leave. “Thanks, just the same.”

“For what?” she said, and slammed the door. The single remaining glass panel didn’t jar loose after all.

When I got back to the squad room, Stan Rayder was hunched over his junkheap typewriter, hammering the keys so rapidly it sounded like someone popping corn.

I didn’t stop him at first.

After I’d asked Communications to put out a pickup for Roy and Vernice Cogan, I told Stan the result of my visit to the Dorsey, and then asked what BCI and the Information Unit had been able to find out about the various performers in the stag film Larry Yeager had bought from Dixie Ryan.

“They did a terrific job, considering,” Stan said, reaching for his notes. “They couldn’t do anything about that teenage blonde girl, the one that did the dance for Fred Beaumont, because the only name Beaumont knew her by was Honey. But they did fine with the other six, the ones Beaumont did know the names of. In fact, they eliminated three of them for us, right off the bat.”

“Which ones?”

“Well, first there was Dave Anders, the young guy Beaumont said was studying to be an accountant. Anders is dead. A car wreck, six years ago.”

“Who were the other two?”