“You haven’t even half a mind if you think there was any monkey business.”
He grabbed one of the skates, swung it high. I had no choice. I gave the desk a shove. It pinned him against the chair. He threw the skate. I had a forearm up. It numbed my wrist so for a few seconds I thought it was broken.
I went across the desk at him. He was backed up against the partition. When I bounced knuckles off his chops, his head banged one of those photos of Tildy. I nailed him again on the rebound. A good solid bone-to-bone sock. He went down. The chair went over. The oak arm clipped him as it toppled. His head bobbled around as if his neck was broken.
After I made sure my wrist wasn’t, I shut the door, turned the key on the inside. In case any of his employees barged in and couldn’t see my side of it.
Then I looked around for a lead to Tildy. I frisked him. Went through his pockets, his wallet. What a collection!
Bills, letter from a skate manufacturer with a check in it, letter from a girl who’d been in the Icequadrille line asking for a loan, snapshots of girls, one of a boy wearing a polar-bear-cub costume, press clippings on Skate Mates, a deposition taken by some law firm in a damage suit, a typed report of a metabolism test he’d taken at a hospital recently, business cards from artists, costumers, musicians, advertising men, electricians — nothing about Tildy or where she might have gone.
I put the stuff back in the wallet, in his pockets, rummaged the desk. The only item which might have been of interest was the Manhattan Telephone Directory. Evidently he had the habit of scribbling numbers on the front cover of the phone book. There was one number that had been scribbled within a matter of minutes; it was in ink from a ball-point pen; it smudged a little when I rubbed my thumb across it.
A Lafayette number. I dialed it just on that outside chance. A gravel-voice gent at the other end said, “Blazer — Bill Every speaking.”
Blazer. The Blue Blazer, where Johnny the Grocer had rested his head in a puddle of blood! “Edie Eberlein there?”
“No,” stated Mister Every. “She was. But she stepped out for a short Coke or somethin’. She might be back. Want me to say who called?”