Free Death Is My Comrade by Stephen Marlowe Page A

compartment, took a look at the .45 automatic in there and decided to leave it alone. I put the Magnum in my pocket and gave Al Bock another look. He lay face down. He was breathing deeply and slowly. Deciding he would keep, I walked across the gravel to the outdoor phone booth, put my dime in and dialed Marianne’s number.
    Mrs. Gower answered the phone. “Yes?”
    â€œDrum, Mrs. Gower.”
    â€œThank God. Did you get them?”
    â€œNot yet. I’m going to.”
    â€œMrs. Baker’s sleeping, the poor thing. She started in drinking. The doctor didn’t discourage her. He put something in her whisky.”
    â€œLet me speak to Jack.”
    â€œHe isn’t here. After you left the kidnapers called back. Mr. Morley said he was you. Then he made another call, and after that he left.”
    â€œWhere’d he go?”
    â€œI don’t know. He just left, told me not to worry.”
    â€œDo you know who he talked to?”
    â€œA—a Mr. Pappy?”
    That would be Pappy Piersall, I thought, which meant that Jack and Pappy were off gum-shoeing on their own. But what could they do? Where could they start?
    I said: “If he checks back with you, tell him it’s 327 Custer Street. Tell him I’ll be driving a green Buick, four or five years old. It will be parked out front. The twins are there. Have you got that? 327 Guster Street.”
    â€œYes, sir. Should I call the police?”
    â€œNo. Don’t call them and don’t tell Dr. Nickerson. Just Jack Morley.” When we were this close I didn’t want the cops converging on Custer Street with their sirens wailing, or in their shiny black cars, or even on foot by twos and threes. Sure, it would have been nice to know Jack Morley was backstopping me; but all Custer Street could smell cop a mile off. It was that kind of neighborhood.
    And I had Al Bock. Remove my jacket and shirt, get the letter from his pants pocket, and I would be Al Bock. Leo was waiting for me.
    â€œJust Jack Morley. I understand, Mr. Drum. Good luck.”
    I went back to the Buick. Al Bock hadn’t stirred. I took the envelope from his pocket, took off my jacket and shirt and tucked the Magnum in my belt. I looked down at Al Bock before getting behind the wheel of the Buick.
    â€œWhatever they paid you,” I said out loud, “it wasn’t enough.”

Chapter Ten
    Y ou can spend twenty years in Washington, drawing your paycheck every week and earning your government pension, and—if you’re lucky—never get closer to Custer Street than the Marine Barracks off South Carolina Avenue, or Garfield Park, or the big Naval Gun Factory on the Anacostia River.
    If you’re not lucky, if you’re forced into intimacy with Custer Street, then the street you know is one of cobblestones and greasy-spoon restaurants and fifty-cents-a-flop hotels and dingy bars where the beer you smell on the floor is last years’ and boarding houses where sharp-eyed, tight-lipped men spend their nights dreaming how to turn a crooked buck.
    When I got there in the Buick, darkness had softened the lines of the old clapboard houses along Custer Street. I found number 327, a two-story frame building like most of its neighbors. It stood next to a bar and grill from which raw rock’n’roll music tainted the already tainted night. I parked in front and took one more look at Al Bock. He was still out. I went across the sidewalk wearing a T-shirt and slacks and carrying Ilya’s letter.
    Number 327 Custer Street had a small porch. An enormously fat woman sat on the stoop in front of it, gross legs sprawled in front of her, plump hands waving the hem of her skirt lazily over her thighs. She grinned a dimpled, moon-faced grin at me. She had two punched and empty beer cans on her lap.
    â€œLeo?” I said.
    She shrugged mountainously. Her voice was a high, childlike treble. “In back, waiting for you.”
    I nodded and