so it’s worth it.”
“You were asleep?”
“Yeah.”
“Was the caller male or female?”
“A man.”
“Did you recognize the voice? Or is there any voice you’ve heard since that you recognize as that of the caller?”
“No and no.”
Ivan sounded relaxed, resigned now to being questioned. I dug my notebook out of an inside jacket pocket.
“I’d like to hear how the conversation went. Word for word.”
“Ring-ring. ‘Hello.’ ‘Ivan MacAllister?’ ‘Yeah; who’s this?’ ‘Is Ivan a foreign name?’ ‘Not in my case. What is this about?’ ‘Ninety-six Adelaide West. You won’t be sorry.’ Before I could say anything more, he hung up.”
I wrote. “That’s everything? You’re certain?”
“No guff—that’s it.”
“Anything there to suggest the caller’s identity? The foreign-name business, say.”
“I get that sometimes. It would have been worse if my parents had got really cute and called me Siegfried.”
Worse during the war, I thought. By now red Russians were overtaking Jerry in the sweepstakes of villainy. I let it drop.
“What did you do after he hung up?” I asked.
“Lit a smoke and grumbled to myself that it was probably some crank who didn’t like the way I wrote, but while I was grumbling, I was getting dressed and calling for a taxi. The newshound who can pass up a potential scoop might as well hand in his company pencil.”
“What time did you get to 96 Adelaide West?”
“About two fifteen.”
“By that watch?”
“Sure. Did you want to look at it?” Ivan let his cigarette dangle from his lips as he unstrapped the Bulova from his wrist.
It occurred to me that, although Ivan was likely a heavy smoker, too many of his fingers were brown for the stains to be nicotine. What else could they be?
I took Ivan’s watch and noted that it was two minutes faster than my own. Mine was likely the one in error, though; Ivan’s was the better watch, and how! A gift perhaps, or the symptom of a second job. But, if neither, if a crime columnist earned enough to be buying Bulovas, Ivan wasn’t the one in the wrong racket.
“Have you reset it since?”
“Never needs it.”
“So you reached the address indicated by two fifteen. Fast work.”
“I was lucky. The car came pronto.”
“Would you have its number?”
“Didn’t notice, but it was a Danforth Dollar Taxi. They’ll find the driver for you.”
“And was Digby Watt lying dead on the sidewalk when you got there?”
“Sure, just as I wrote.”
“Come on, Ivan,” I said. “Journalism’s show business. And showmen have to pep facts up or, in this case, tone them down to make a picture that thrills the Sunday school teachers but doesn’t shock them. When you and I are talking, I’d never hold you to what you write to earn your pay.”
“Calling my work hokum, Paul?” Calm still, but less agreeable.
“For instance,” I said, “you ask, ‘Who’s next?’ Do you have any reason to believe the killer will strike again?”
“I figured if a man as established as that could be shot down on his doorstep, no one’s safe.”
“And I guess you always want to give folks a reason to buy tomorrow’s paper.” No reaction from Ivan, so I carried on. “Did the caller say anything on the phone, or was there anything at the crime scene to indicate there would be further victims?”
“Neither.”
“And you found Watt just as you write?”
“He was dead when I got there. I didn’t move him.”
“Did you touch him?”
“To see if he needed a doctor and an ambulance—sure. He didn’t. What he needed was the police, so I called you.”
“What about the son, Morris Watt? Was he there when you arrived?”
“He showed up four or five minutes later. He’d been working late with the old man, but he’d gone to get the car from a parking garage. Digby must have been standing waiting for him when someone popped him.”
“Let me get this straight: while you were looking the body over, Morris showed up in Watt’s car.”
“On foot. He said he couldn’t get the car started. Once he arrived, I went to phone the police.”
“And how did Morris take his father’s death?”
“Noisily. ‘This can’t be true! This is terrible! If only the car had been working, I’d have been back in time.’ Stuff like that.”
“So, you were alone with the senior Watt for five minutes. Did you recognize him?”
“Sure. I work for a paper. He gets his picture in the paper.”
“Take any pictures last night?” I asked.
“The Examiner employs me as a writer, not a photographer. And they don’t print pictures of deaders, even fully clothed. You can take that as no.”
Something warned me not to, but I couldn’t pin it down.
“Ivan, who’s this girl Watt was stepping out with?”
“You’d have to ask the guy that writes the Evy Chatters column. He’s not in the office.”
“Was Watt engaged?”
“Search me.”
The sunlight and the smoke from his cigarette were making Ivan squint, which shrunk his already small eyes down to hairline cracks, but I could still see in them a gleam of superiority. He wasn’t altogether enjoying himself, but he still thought he was handling himself well, could perhaps handle any bull’s questions with his brain on two-thirds power.
“When Horny died,” I let fall, “you said you thought you’d look up the man behind Peerless Armaments if you got through the war. Did you ever meet Digby Watt while he was alive?”
“Not once.”
“How
