The Screaming Mimi Read online

  “Mr. Sweeney?” said the moon-faced man, more as a statement than a question.

  Sweeney said, “Sit down, Doc.”

  He put his hands in his pockets, quickly, because he had a hunch the shakes were going to come back quick.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  The moon-faced man slid onto the stool around the turn of the bar from Sweeney, so the two of them faced one another.

  He said, “That was an excellent story you wrote about – what happened last night, Mr. Sweeney.”

  Sweeney said, “I’m glad you liked it.”

  “I didn’t say that I liked it,” Greene said. “I said it was an excellent story. That is something else again.”

  “But definitely,” said Sweeney. “In this particular case, wherein lies the difference?”

  Doc Greene leaned his elbows on the bar and laced pudgy fingers together. He said, judiciously, “A man, Mr. Sweeney, might enjoy a bit of voluptuous description of a woman; in other cases he might not enjoy reading it. For example, it the woman was his wife.”

  “Is Yolanda Lang your wife?”

  “No,” said the moon-faced man. “I was merely, you will recall, giving that as an example. You’ve ordered something?”

  Sweeney nodded, and Greene looked at the bartender and held up one finger. The man came with Sweeney’s beer-and-egg and put a shot glass in front of Greene.

  While the shot glass was being filled, Sweeney cautiously took a hand out of his pocket and rested the tips of his fingers against the front of the bar. Carefully, so the shaking wouldn’t show, he began to walk his fingers up the front of the bar, over the edge, and toward the glass in front of him.

  His eyes watched the ones that looked so huge through the thick spectacles.

  Greene’s smile had gone away; now it came back, and he lifted his shot glass. “To your bad health, Mr. Sweeney.” Sweeney’s fingers had closed around his own glass.

  He said, “To yours, Doc,” and his hand was steady as he lifted the glass and took a sip. He put it back down and took his other hand out of his pocket. The shakes were gone.

  He said carefully, “Perhaps you would like to cause my health to deteriorate, Doc. If you want to try, it would be a pleasure to oblige.”’

  The moon-faced man’s smile got wider. “Of course not, Mr. Sweeney. When I became a man, I put away childish things, as the great bard says.”

  “The Bible,” said Sweeney. “Not Shakespeare.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Sweeney You are, as I feared when I read that story under your by-line, an intelligent man. And, as I guessed from your name, a stubborn Irishman. If I told you to – let us descend to the vernacular – if I told you to lay off Yolanda, it would just make you that much more stubborn.”

  He held up a finger for a refill of the shot glass. He said, “A threat of any sort would be silly. If would be equally useless to point out to you the futility of your trying to make my – ah – client. As you may have – indeed as you did – notice, Yolanda is not unattractive. It has been tried by experts.”

  “You flatter yourself, Doc.”

  “Perhaps. Perhaps not. We aren’t discussing my relations with Yolanda.”

  Sweeney took another sip of his drink. He said, “It occurs to me to wonder. Just what are we discussing? I take it that you didn’t meet me here to discuss publicity for any of your other – ah – clients. And you say yourself that threats would be as futile as pointing out to me the futility of what you seem convinced I have in mind. So why did you come here?”

  “To meet Mr. Sweeney. The moment I read that story of yours I knew – I am something of a psychiatrist – that you were going to be a thorn in my side. There was an ineffable something about that story – so might Dante have written of Beatrice, so might Abelard have written of Heloise.”

  “And so,” said Sweeney, “might Casanova have written of Guinevere, had they lived in the same century and had he ever seen her with her panties off.” He grinned. “You know, Doc, I hate you so damn much I’m beginning to like you.”

  “Thank you,” said Greene. “I feel the same about you; each of us admires the other’s capabilities, let us say. Or you will admire mine when you get to know me better.”

  “Already,” said Sweeney, “I admire your line of patter. Immensely. The only thing I hate about you is your guts.”

  “And may the Ripper never expose them to the public gaze,” Greene said. “Not that that seems likely, for thus far he has seemed to specialize in tenderer morsels.” He smiled broadly. “Isn’t civilization a marvelous thing, Mr. Sweeney? That two men can sit like this and insult one another, amicably but sincerely, and enjoy the conversation? If we followed the customs of a century or two ago, one of us would have struck the other across the face with the back of a hand before now, and one of us would be fated to die before the sun rises very far above tomorrow’s horizon.”

  “A beautiful thought, Doc,” Sweeney said. “I’d love it. But the authorities are fussy about such things. But back to Yolanda. Suppose you read correctly between the lines of my story. What are you going to do about it? Anything?”

  “Of course. For one thing, I shall put every possible pitfall in your path. I shall warn Yolanda against you – not obviously, of course, but subtly. I’ll make her think you’re a fool. You are, you know.”

  “Yes,” said Sweeney. “But she may discount the information, since it comes from a bastard. You are one, you know.”

  “Your intuition surprises me, Mr. Sweeney. As it happens, I really am, in the literal sense of the word. Quite possibly in the figurative sense also, but that is irrelevant. Or perhaps I should say that there is a strong probability that I was born of unwed parents; all I actually know is that I was brought up in an orphan asylum. I, myself, made me what I am today.”

  “Only you could have done it,” Sweeney said.

  “You gratify me. I didn’t expect a compliment. But that was a digression. In addition to putting pitfalls in your path, I am going to help you.”

  Sweeney said, “Now you have me really worried.” The moon-faced man tented his fingers into a steeple.

  He said, “You intend to find the Ripper. It’s natural that you’ll try, first because you’re a reporter, but second and more important – to you – you think it will give you an in with Yolanda. Trying will automatically bring you in contact with her – not as close a contact as you have in mind, maybe, but it will give you an excuse to meet her and talk to her. Also you think that if you do find the Ripper, you’ll be a conquering hero and she’ll fall into your arms in gratitude. Am I correct?”

  “Keep talking,” Sweeney said. “As if I need to suggest it.”

  “So. You’ve got two reasons for finding him. I’ve got two reasons for helping you. One–” He held up a fat finger. “–If you do find him, he might stick a knife in you. I think I’d like that. I hate your guts, too, Mr. Sweeney.”

  “Thank you kindly.”

  “Two–” Another finger joined the first. “–the police just might have something in thinking the killer will come back to finish the job on Yolanda. Despite the fact, and the newspapers’ reporting of the fact, that Yo can’t recognize him on a bet, he may decide to take a chance and play safe by killing her. That I would not like.”

  “That I can understand,” Sweeney said. “Also I like it better than your first reason.”

  “And I don’t think, Mr. Sweeney, that finding him will get you to first base with Yolanda. At least, I’ll take a chance on that.”

  “Fine, Doc. One little thing, though. The police force of Chicago outnumbers me, considerably. Just out of curiosity, what makes you think that I, with my little slingshot, might do more than the whole blue army?”

  “Because you’re a crazy damn Irishman. Because you’re a little fey; I suspected that from a sentence or two in your story, and I know it now. Because God loves fools and drunkards, and you’re both.

  “Also because, under the sodden surface, you’ve got a hell of a keen
brain, Mr. Sweeney; another thing I suspected before and know now. And you’ve got a crazy warped streak in you that might take you places where the police wouldn’t think to go. Like the simpleton who found the horse by thinking he was a horse and going where he’d go if he really were a horse. Not that I would compare you to a horse, Mr. Sweeney. At least not to all of a horse.”

  “Thank you. I am a horse’s ass with a hell of a keen brain. Tell me more,” he said eagerly.

  “I think I could. I really am a psychiatrist, Mr. Sweeney, although not a practicing one. An unfortunate occurrence in what would have been my last year of internship got me kicked out on my ear. It occurred to me that satyriasis might be a logical prescription for nymphomania. We had a patient who was quite an advanced satyr, Mr. Sweeney, and I took the liberty of introducing him into the room of an enthusiastic nympholept and leaving them together for an extended period. My superiors were quite stuffy about it.”

  “I can understand that,” Sweeney said.

  “Ah, had they only known some of the other experiments I tried, which were not found out. But we digress.”

  “We do indeed,” said Sweeney. “So you’re going to help me find the Ripper. So go ahead and help.” Greene spread his hands. “It isn’t much. I didn’t mean that I have the killer’s name and address in my notebook, ready to turn over to you. I merely meant that I’ll gladly work with you, Mr. Sweeney; I’ll give you such facts and data as I have. And, since you’ll want to talk to Yolanda, I’ll see that you do. You might have trouble doing even that, with the police on guard around her, as they will be.” He looked at his wrist watch. “Unfortunately, I haven’t more time now. A business appointment. One must eat. Could you, Mr. Sweeney, meet me here tomorrow afternoon, about this same time?”

  Sweeney frowned. He said, “I don’t know. Maybe you’re just wasting my time. Have you really got anything?”

  “I’ve got Yolanda,” Greene said. “She’ll be released from the hospital by then. I’ll bring her here with me. You’ll be here, of course?”

  “I’ll be here, of course,” said Sweeney.

  “Good. We may be seeing quite a bit of one another. Let us, then, dispense with the amenities. Let us not say hypocritical good-byes. My two drinks were on you. Thank you for them, and the hell with you.”

  He walked out.

  Sweeney took a deep breath. He let it out slowly.

  The bartender strolled over. He said, “That’ll be a dollar and a quarter. Don’t you want your beer?”

  ‘No. Pour it down the drain. But bring me a bromo and a shot.”

  “Sure. Mixed?”

  “Not mixed.”

  He put two dollar bills on the bar. When the bartender came back, Sweeney said, “Quite a character, that Doc Greene.”

  “Yeah. Quite a character.”

  ‘What puzzles me about him is this,” Sweeney said. “Those seemed to be his own teeth he was wearing; they weren’t regular enough for false ones. How the hell could a guy like that keep his own teeth that long?”

  The bartender chuckled. “Maybe it’s them eyes of his. Like a hypnotist. I think a guy’d have to be pretty brave to take a poke at Doc. I’d rather not tangle with him. Funny, though, the way women go for him. You wouldn’t think it.”

  “Including Yo?” Sweeney asked.

  “I wouldn’t know about Yo. She’s a funny dame to figure out.” He took Sweeney’s bills and rang up a dollar eighty, putting two dimes on the bar.

  Sweeney added a quarter to it and said, “Have one with me.”

  “Sure. Thanks.”

  “Skoal,” said Sweeney. “Say, who’s running El Madhouse now? Is it still Harry Yahn’s?”

  “Yahn owns it, or most of it, but he isn’t running it. He’s got another place over on Randolph.”

  “Sucker joint, like El Madhouse?”

  The bartender smiled faintly. “Not this kind of sucker joint.”

  “Oh,” said Sweeney. “It’d be a little bar with a big back room and if you know a guy named Joe at the door, you can leave your shirt in the back room.”

  The blowzy blonde at the far end of the bar was tapping the bottom of her glass on the wood impatiently. The bartender said, “The guy at the door is named Willie.” He went down to mix a drink for the blonde.

  Sweeney poured the bromo back and forth between the two glasses and drank it.

  Then he got up and went into gathering dusk on Clark Street. He walked south, toward the Loop. He walked slowly, aimlessly, trying, to think and not quite succeeding. This stage of recovery he knew well. His mind was fuzzy, his thoughts were ghosts that walked in thick fog. But his physical senses were almost blindingly vivid; the honk of auto horn and the clangor of trolley bells were terribly loud; everything he saw was seen vividly and in sharp focus; odors ordinarily not noticed were nauseatingly strong.

  He had to eat, and soon, to get his strength back. Only solid food in him would get rid of the fog, free him of the sensation of light-headedness and dissipate the physical weariness that was beginning to penetrate, it seemed, to the very marrow of his bones.

  All that, and the throbbing headache, still with him.

  He thought how very nice it would be to die, quietly and painlessly, without even knowing it was going to happen; just to go to sleep and never wake up. Sleep, too, could be good, but you always woke up to confusion and complication and the thousand little unpleasantnesses that periodically mount up to one vast unpleasantness from which only immersion in alcohol could bring surcease.

  Only now, today, there wasn’t that. The one drink he’d taken back at El Madhouse bar hadn’t brought any desire for another to keep it company. It hadn’t either cleared his mind or fogged it further. It hadn’t even tasted good, or bad.

  The bridge, when he reached it, was better. There was a cool breeze across it; he stood looking out over the river and letting the breeze blow into his face.

  When he turned back, an empty taxi was coming.

  Sweeney hailed it, and gave his home address.

  In his room, he slid the bottom newspaper out from under the stack on the bed and sat down in the Morris chair.

  He found the story of the first murder – the murder of the ex-chorine, Lola Brent. Six inches on page two, not much in the way of detail.

  There hadn’t been a Ripper, then. It was just a story of a woman – a not very important woman, at that – who had been found, dead, in the areaway between two buildings on Thirty-Eighth Street. A knife or a razor had been the weapon used. The crime had occurred in daylight, between four and five o’clock in the afternoon. There had been no witnesses.

  A child returning home from a playground had discovered the body. Police were seeking a man with whom Lola Brent was alleged to have been living.

  Sweeney took up the next paper. The story had a little better play in that one, and there were two pictures. One was of Lola Brent. She was blonde, and beautiful. She didn’t look the thirty-five years the story said she was; you’d have taken her for early twenties.

  The other picture was that of the man the police had arrested, Sammy Cole. He had black, curly hair and a face that was handsome in the ruggedly honest way that is a con-man’s stock in trade. He denied killing Lola Brent, and was being held on an open charge.

  The following day’s story was a brief rehash; the only new angle was that Sammy Cole had confessed to several counts of operating a confidence game. The following several papers brought out nothing additional.

  The Lola Brent crime had then, it appeared, faded into limbo, unsolved. There was nothing at all concerning it in the last two papers of the week’s series starting two months before. There wouldn’t, Sweeney knew, have been any mention of it – of importance – in the five and a half weeks’ papers that he didn’t have, the gap in between his first series and the series starting ten days ago.

  He picked up the paper of ten days before and skimmed rapidly through the story of the murder of Stella Gaylord, the B-girl from Madison Street. H
e didn’t try to memorize details here; he was going to concentrate on one crime at a time. He was looking, now, only for further mention of the killing of Lola Brent. He found it on the second day after the Stella Gaylord murder; it was then first suggested that the crime might be a psychopathic one, perpetrated by the same killer who had slashed Lola Brent six and a half weeks before.

  The next day’s lead was a build-up of that idea, with a comparative description of the wounds inflicted upon the two women. Each had been killed by a horizontal slash across the abdomen, but the weapon had not been the same one. The knife that had killed Lola Brent had been no sharper than average, but the blade that had slashed Stella Gaylord had been razor keen.

  Sweeney skimmed through the rest of the papers, looking, this time, only for additional details about the Lola Brent case; one at a time was all his mind would handle and absorb in its currently fuzzy condition. Apparently, no further discoveries of importance had been made on the Brent case.

  The police were still not too sure that the killer of Lola Brent was the same homicidal maniac who had killed Stella Gaylord and five days later, Dorothy Lee. But there wasn’t any doubt about the latter two having been killed by the same hand.

  Sweeney put down the last – the most recent – of the papers and tried to think. He now knew everything that had been given out to the papers on the Brent murder, but none of it seemed helpful. For that matter, what could be helpful – short of a lucky guess – when you were hunting a killer who killed without motive? Without motive, that is, applicable to the particular victim and not to any woman who was blonde and beautiful. Yes, there was that in common. The three who had been killed, as well as Yolanda Lang, had all been blonde and beautiful.

  Sweeney went to the phone in the hall and dialed a number. When he got the man he wanted, he asked, “Sammy Cole, the guy that Lola Brent was living with, still in the jug here in Chicago?”

  “Yeah,” said the man to whom Sweeney was talking.

  I won’t mention his name because he’s still holding down the same job and doing right well at it, and this would get him in trouble. Sweeney, you see, had something on him, and reporters aren’t supposed to have anything on important public officials. They often do.