Killer Mine (15 page)

My eyes opened on his words as if I were years back in a different place and I remembered the rules. I cut and ran, hit the door, opened it and lay face down in the empty doorway gasping for breath while my senses came back to me.

I was lucky. It had all seemed so nice. Like freezing to death in the snow when you thought you were nice and warm all the time. I found the unlabeled can under the mattress that had been activated by my weight. A simple thing that could have been a shaving cream container or a deodorant spray if it hadn’t been a deadly sleep inducer from which I never would have awakened.

After the windows were opened and the odor gone, I stuck the can in the refrigerator, locked up and dropped into the sleep I should have had in the beginning.

Somebody really wanted me dead in the worst way.

Even when you’re a cop with a cloud over you, certain avenues are open. I took the canister up to the lab, where Sergeant Ted Marker looked at it before turning it over to the other specialists, letting me sit in the big chair by his desk while we waited for the analysis report.

For me, they did it fast. Ted’s assistant came back in an hour with the can and an elaborate report. Ted studied it a moment before laying it on his desk, then read it over again to be sure. “German compound,” he finally said. “We called it FS-7, Roderick Formula.”

“What’s that mean?”

He peeled off his glasses and looked at me. “Nerve gas. Unassuming and deadly. The trap was cute. You’re supposed to be dead. What’s inside you, Regan?”

“I’m motivated.”

“Stop the crap.”

Ted let a smile flicker across his usually glum face. “It was set up very easily. Like all aerosol bombs, small pressure sets it off. It was put under the springs of your bed. You pushed the button yourself.”

“I’m glad I didn’t have company.”

“The value of being a lonely bachelor,” he smiled.

“Knock it off.” I leaned forward in the chair. “It isn’t a domestic compound?”

“I haven’t seen it since ’45. One of the end products of the Nuremberg trials. It was exposed there.”

“Like Sentol?”

“You think a lot, Regan.”

“I’m supposed to,” I threw at him. “What about the container?”

“German surplus. Somebody has access to unauthorized supplies. Outside of what was released to our own agencies, this stuff was all supposed to be destroyed.”

“Somebody had a sense of the future,” I grimaced.

His answer was quick. “Why?”

“To take care of people like me.”

He nodded, looked at the report a moment, then came back to me. “Some have a great sense of timing. They think ahead. They can wait.”

“How could they get this stuff?”

Ted made a gesture with his shoulders. “How do the punks get guns?”

“That easy?”

“That easy. Money can buy almost anything.”

I got up and put my hat on, thinking of the five grand somebody had left in my room. “Almost,” I said.

Al Argenio came in as I said it, a small box in his hand. He hadn’t shaved that morning and his face had a hard, swarthy look, a guy who had been up all night. He was all badge, gun and efficiency, and he gave me a hard leer and said, “What are you doing here, bum?”

He thought I was going to walk past him and ignore the remark. It was the second mistake he made with me. I laid one on those black chops of his that slammed him into the wall with a glassy stare in his eyes, awake enough to hear what I said but not awake enough to do anything about it. “Watch your tongue, slob,” I said.

The others looked at me, hid their grins and didn’t stop me from going out. None of them liked him either.

Downstairs, I used the pay phone to call the Murray Hill number. The one in the book got me to the PBX board, but the old badge number and the tone of voice got me Miss Mad on a private phone, that cool voice with the throaty timbre saying hello with that little tinge of anticipation I had hoped to hear and I said, “Regan, sugar. We alone?”

“I hope so.”

“Lunch?”

“I hope so.”

“You won’t get shook? A cop isn’t exactly a company president.”

“In your circles I wouldn’t be considered great company for a date unless it was in the line of duty, would I?”

“My circles aren’t the old ones right now, honey… so it’s a date. The Blue Ribbon on Forty-fourth?”

“You never change, do you?”

“Why should I, baby?” I asked her. “About two-thirty… the crowd will be gone.”

The crowd was gone, but the regulars were there, saw her come in and join me and grinned in appreciation. She went through the bar, crossed into the booth behind Angie and sat down in the chair he held out for her.

“How many years has it been, Patrick?”

“Maybe twenty-five.”

“The first time you ever asked me out to lunch before.”

“Would you have accepted before?”

Something had happened to her eyes. The bottomless well wasn’t there any more. “You’ll never know,” she said. “Shall we wait to eat or talk now? I know it isn’t a cruise for you.”

“Let’s keep it like between old friends. You’re easy on the eyes and it makes talking a pleasure.”

“Okay, old friend. Just don’t ask me one question.”

I anticipated what she had in her mind and said, “Like what made you get into the racket in the first place?”

Madaline nodded sagely. “I might decide to tell the truth for a change. I never have before. The others all expected nice scandalous statements tinged with sensuality they could savor with all the gusto of a gourmet and I fed them what they wanted to hear. The truth is very simple and quite sordid.”

“Then save it until you’re ready.”

She watched me, her fingers toying with the napkin, “You’re probably the only one who would understand it.”

The waiter took our orders then, brought a pair of drinks to sip at while we waited for the duckling he had suggested and I lifted the glass in a silent toast. “To now, Mad.”

She winked, sampled the drink and put it down slowly. “I have news for you, Regan.”

I waited.

“Let’s call it hearsay. No confirmation. For your information I put the question to some of the kids and it didn’t take them long to come up with some oddball facts.”

“Like what?”

“Ray Hilquist may have set up Mildred Swiss, but she wasn’t completely cooperative. She had been seen around with Leo Marcus in out-of-the-way places while she was supposed to be keeping Hilquist’s bed warm.”

“What the hell did Leo have to pull in a broad like her?”

Madaline pursed her mouth and shrugged. “Who can tell about women, Regan? Maybe they like most what they can’t have.”

“You know the Syndicate stepped in and cleaned up the deal?”

She nodded gently and picked up her drink. “That’s the strange part.”

“What is?”

“Leo was much bigger than Hilquist. It should have gone in his favor if there was a squabble.” She drank, put the glass down and asked me, “Ever consider that?”

“I gave it a thought. Maybe they didn’t figure little Millie Swiss was right for their top man. Okay for Hilquist, but something Marcus wouldn’t miss after a while.”

“Possibly. They use computers in the rackets these days.” Then she shook her head again, her face thoughtful. “I don’t buy it. I’ve seen too damn much. I know those people…”

“Oh?”

She said, “It was in the last couple of weeks before you shot… before Marcus was killed he was seen with Mildred Swiss. The kids told me it looked like love… all quiet and cozy, stars in her eyes, hand holding under the table and that sort of garbage. She was still in the apartment Hilquist had… the lease was paid in advance and he had left her enough spending money to keep her going for a year anyway after he died.” Madaline grinned at me. “She was a lucky little twist. Most of them don’t make out that well.”

“A cozy situation,” I said. “If Marcus did go for the broad he could have arranged Hilquist’s accident, then took his time about moving in so no finger gets pointed at him.”

“You’re forgetting one thing,” she said.

“What?”

“The wheels in the Syndicate don’t like intramural rivalries. They’d go after anybody acting independently of their instructions, especially if it would jeopardize their operations.”

“That only leaves two conclusions then,” I said. “Either it
was
an accident or they arranged for it to happen.”

“What do you think, Regan?”

“I don’t know. It’ll all too damn pat.”

Before we could get into it deeper the waiter brought the lunch in and set down the plates. At the same time a foursome drifted by, picked the table next to us and sat down, so we relaxed into casual conversation, finished and went back out to Forty-fourth Street, where we waited for a cab.

I flagged one down and helped her into it, keeping my eyes off the flash of white that showed above the nylon hose momentarily, and she grinned when she spotted my prudishness. I said, “Check it out further if you can. I’ll be at the apartment this evening and you can reach me there.”

Madaline made a kiss of her lips and nodded. “Sure. I like to pay off my obligations.”

“Go…”

“Uh-uh… none of that talk,” she laughed.

Popeye Lewis and Edna Rells had been playing at the common-law marriage game for a long time. In the beginning they had been part of the freedom loving sect who had a distaste for permanent ties and decided to try it on for size until it was over, but after four years it still wasn’t ended and they had taken on all the semblance of old married couples without the benefit of law.

The building Popeye had bought with the millions he inherited was the only dip into the estate his father had left him. The renovations came out of his earnings as an oil painter and it was hurting him to be successful. He and Edna would rather have lived as true peasants. Between the two of them they had a five-figure annual income, a crazy sex life and were the envy of the phonies who ran down their talents at the same time they cultivated them for their whiskey handouts and fabulous parties.

Popeye waved me in, a brush between his teeth and his beard clotted with paint. Edna was studying a half-finished canvas, standing beside a full length mirror with a smock thrown over her hastily. I knew she had nothing on under it. The picture was a profile nude of herself and she was her own model. She was irritated at the interruption, stamped her foot with impatience and grinned, “Why the hell should I be bashful on your account, Regan? You know what a naked woman looks like?”

I glanced at the picture. “Now I do.”

“Then go talk to Popeye,” she told me. With a hitch of her shoulders she tossed the smock off and went back to studying herself in the mirror and putting the impression down on the canvas. She was quite a woman. Quite. But somehow there was no indecency to it at all. It was like looking at a bowl of fruit. Not really… but something like that.

Popeye ignored it all and popped open a can of beer and held it out to me. “I was going to send a card of congratulations, Regan. I didn’t know if you’d appreciate the joke.”

“Wouldn’t have mattered.”

He pushed over a bar stool and wiped it off. “Sit down. What’s the word?”

“The redhead.”

“Ah, yes, the redhead.”

“It didn’t come out at the trial.”

“One of many that night, my boy. What about her?”

“She’s dead.”

“So I heard. Spud mentioned it in passing this morning.”

“You saw the papers?”

“I did and she was there.” He drank half the can off without a stop, took a deep breath and went on. “You were riding high, that night, buddy-o. I played it down on the stand… just answered the questions, but if I didn’t know you better I’d say you were mainlining for the first time. I never saw you like that before. What the hell happened?”

“You think I killed Leo Marcus?”

“Regan, I couldn’t care less… but no. You talked it up a lot, but you’re too square for that kind of action. Where’d you really get the load?”

“Somebody goosed me with a mickey.”

“Who? That kind of stuff doesn’t go at the
Climax.
Not with a cop, even for a joke.”

“It wasn’t a joke.”

Popeye dumped the rest of the beer down, opened another can and offered me one. When I shook my head he said, “Why were you there, friend? That wasn’t your beat any more.”

“Al Argenio used to go with a hatcheck girl from the place.”

“Ah, Helen the Melons. Quite a spoonful. Size forty-four chest. They weren’t
simpatico,
kiddily. He used his badge to bump the opposition out of the way and that old Helen the Melons didn’t like. She craved attention and appreciation of her superabundant mammaries. That was her come on, her stock in trade, her excuse of the un-necessity of education and her hope for the future. She did great with casual trade, but to get close to her you’d have to stand behind her or be crowded out of the way. Now you give me Edna there, who is only a simple thirty-eight…”

“Go up a stick,” Edna said without taking her eyes off the mirror.

“True artist type,” Popeye smiled.

“What happened to the melons?”

Popeye nursed his beer again and grunted. “Too much Al Argenio. She asked for a transfer. Nobody told poor Al… he wasn’t the popular type… but she’s over in Brooklyn at the Lazy Daisy inhaling at the natives.”

“What’s this transfer bit?”

He put the can down and picked up a cigarette. His eyes were suddenly sober. “You know the
Climax?”

“How?”

“Check the ownership. Like it’s a Lesbian joint mostly and the squares come in for a look and pay the freight. It cracks a big nut. One of the many holdings in the hands of that abstraction you people call the Syndicate.”

“Who passed that on?”

“My lawyer who’s beating his balls off to get me straightened out. He has me followed, tries to prove I lead a life not conducive to a solid citizen who owns most of three corporations and can draw on a fat bank account. He just don’t know, man. He shows me where I hang out in a den of iniquity run by a nest of thieves. He wants me back in grey flannel suits attending board meetings.”

“I thought Stucker owned the
Climax.”