Killer Mine (7 page)

So what happened?
I thought. If Gus had lived here he’d know his way around and the people who lived here. It was doubtful that he’d trust anybody, even his stepbrother, so before he moved in on him he’d hole up somewhere else long enough to feel Henry out. Trouble was then, René Mills saw him and knew about him skipping his bond and made a deal with him. If Gus was packing the Montreal money, René would have wanted it for himself and set up the scene to grab it. He would have had Gus move in with him where he could be on top of everything and his greed bought his own death.

It fitted, all right, even to Doug Kitchen. Doug was a gregarious kind of guy who knew everybody and was always there with a ready hello and handshake. Gus was gone from the neighborhood long enough to warrant a greeting upon his return, and Doug died because he recognized him. From little acorns do big oaks grow. A corny cliché, but true.

We told Henry Wilder good night and went downstairs to the street again. The sidewalks were just starting to take on a sheen from the light rain that had started to fall. While we walked I gave it to Marta in detail and let her process it mentally the way I did and her conclusion agreed with mine.

“I think you have it, Joe.”

I shook my head and turned my collar up against the wind. “I don’t know,” I said. “Something’s loose in the picture. I want everything to fit tight”

“Does it always?”

I grinned and looked at her. “Most of the time.”

We got to Papa Jones’ candy store as he was closing. Most of the lights were out and he was stuffing his daily receipts into his pocket when we walked in. He gave Marta a smile, but when he saw me his face went suddenly tight and his shoulders jumped under his too-loose suitcoat. He was remembering me from a long time ago and the time when he broke my nose with the awning rod and I promised to come back and tear him up but never got farther than breaking his front window with a rock.

“Ease off, Papa.” I said. “The past is past. It’s different now.” To prove it I let him see my badge in the wallet and his face went sideways in a curious change of expression. He finally swallowed hard and croaked, “Joe?”

“Nobody else.”

“A… cop?”

“Haven’t you heard? I’ve been around a few days.”

“I… been out,” he said. “Ronnie’s been taking care… of things.”

Marta turned around and explained, “Ronnie’s his nephew.”

Papa Jones glanced at both of us nervously, his fingers fumbling with the buttons of his coat. Cops always make them nervous. “So… what do you want with me? I’m closing up.”

“Remember Gus Wilder, Papa?”

His false teeth clicked and he nodded. “Sure, I remember him.”

“See him lately?”

“He left here a long time ago. He…”

“I didn’t ask that”

Papa Jones took on new confidence then. “I ain’t seen him since.”

“Know him pretty well, Papa?”

He tried to get my angle, but couldn’t figure it and said, “So enough. He used the phone here all the time. Bought cigarettes and things like that.”

“Phone number been changed lately?”

He scowled and shook his head. “Same since you kids used it. The phone got changed, but not the number, why?”

“No reason.”

“So what’s the phone? Everybody uses it. That René Mills, Stuccio… hell, the whole neighborhood uses it. Who got their own phones around here?” he demanded defensively.

“Sure, Papa. Well look, if you see this Wilder, you call us, hear?”

“Yeah,” he said, but didn’t mean it. “Why don’t you ask his brother where he is?”

“That’ll be taken care of. Just do like I said or I’ll keep that old promise. You remember it?”

He did, all right. “Damn bunch of bums, you kids were,” he muttered. Then his face got a little pale and he watched me closely.

I grinned and took Marta’s hand. “Come on, kid.”

Papa Jones slammed and locked the door the minute we were out and yanked the shade down fast. Marta said, “You make quite an impression.”

“I always did with him.”

“What did you make out of it, Joe?”

“It’s tightening up. Like he said, everybody uses the phone. Gus Wilder could have done just that and been spotted by René. He would have waited until Gus came out so Papa Jones wouldn’t see them together and tapped him then. It even explains why Gus had the phone number in his pocket… a secondary number he knew in the neighborhood if he wanted to make a contact in case his brother’s phone was tapped.”

The sky rumbled again and the lightning flashes moved closer. The main force of the rain was starting to sweep in on the city, driving the inhabitants indoors to their sanctuaries. We hugged the sides of the buildings to get out of the bite of the storm, heading across to Bunny’s place. The street was empty, traffic light, just an occasional cab going by, a couple of trucks, a few private cars looking for a way out of the place.

I heard the curious slap of lead against the bricks before I realized what it was. The sound behind it was muffled in the wind, but it could have come from only one direction. I grabbed Marta’s arm, yanked her into a run and dashed across the street and just as we reached the middle I felt her spin a little bit and let out a yell and knew she was hit. I cursed softly, got to the sidewalk and flattened up against the building there with my gun out and ready.

“Joe…”

“Where’d it get you?”

She reached up and touched the top of her shoulder. The cloth was torn and a faint tinge of red darkened the edges of it. “It… isn’t much.”

“Stay down out of sight. He’s in one of these buildings. I’m going in and if I flush him out, hold a gun on him. Think you can make it?”

“Don’t worry.” She grabbed my hand. “Should you… go in alone?”

“There isn’t time to raise anybody else. I know these damn buildings and every way in and out of them. You do what I told you to.”

Before she could answer me I ran up into the brownstone beside me, taking the steps in two leaps, shoved the door open and went up the stairs. There wasn’t an empty apartment on the block and nobody was letting a killer use his place for a firing range. Those shots came from a rooftop and somewhere the guy behind the gun was looking for an escape hatch.

I made the roof at the top of the four stories and came out into the rain from a rusted metal fire door built into the kiosk, the squeak of the hinges like a shrill scream in the darkness. I hit the pebbled surface of the roof and rolled behind the protection of a weather-eroded brick chimney, my eyes probing the black for any movement, any outline of a person.

Too many times I had played these same games on these same rooftops. I was no stranger to these parts at all and it was like old times when the bunch of us turned rooftops into rolling countrysides doing the cowboy and Indian routine or played out the cops and robbers game. I could almost feel Larry beside me, old Chief Crazy Horse, or hear René’s sharp whisper from near the cornice, and Hymie Shapiro’s nervous cough giving away our position to the ones taking the opposite role. Our guns had been cap pistols then, or rubber band gimmicks… but now they were real and the game a lethal one.

I heard him before I saw him. I heard the wrench of metal and the curse and grinned because I knew what had happened. Fire escapes twenty years out of date didn’t hold any more and the bolts were loose in the cement joints of the brick edging. It all looked good from below and provided a quick getaway… until you tried it and found out lousy contractors had never set them right, the weather had eaten them loose and too many kids wrenching at them had finished the job. Anybody trying to climb down them needed a lot of nerve.

The lightning blossomed again and I saw his outline skirting the back edge of the building at a crouching run and I fired a shot into the air. He looked back, showing the white oval of his face, triggered a shot in my direction, then he grabbed the two loops of the iron rails that hooked into the building and slithered over the top.

I ran then. I took a chance he was alone and crossed between the chimneys and the TV antennas, ducking under the clotheslines strung around the place and reached the spot where he disappeared.

Below me the night was too shadowed, the intensity of the black too deep to pick out any movement and I had to take my chances. I felt the rails under my hands, swung a leg over and felt for the rungs when I heard the scream, a startled yell that twisted into a cry of pure terror and was cut off abruptly as a body hit the concrete yard below with a sickening thud.

There was no sense trying it then. I went back the way I came, past the curious faces looking out the doors at me, ducking back when I let them see the badge in my hand to cut off their questions. I found him lying face up, dead as hell, splashed in red over the garbage and ground, the gun still in his pocket and the fright-look plain on his face. Will Fater wasn’t going anyplace any more.

But I was. I wanted to see what that talk was about he had with Al Reese and Benny Loefert in the back of Bunny’s place.

CHAPTER EIGHT

WHEN the lab crew finished and the body was carted away I took Marta back to her apartment. The doctor had dressed the minor flesh wound, a sear across her shoulder that bothered her more because it ripped her clothes than damaged her. She showered, changed into a housedress and made us some coffee, still a little shook up from the initial experience of getting shot at.

The bell rang and Marta went to the door. Captain Oliver and Inspector Bryan walked in, faces impassive. Marta poured them some coffee and they sat down, glad to be in out of the rain. Captain Oliver said, “This is bad, Joe. The pressure’s coming in from upstairs again.”

“So we scrubbed one hood. Why the beef?”

“Voters’ complaints. This is a tight little political group. Practically everybody is registered at the polls and can be swung one way or another.”

“This is police work, not a political football,” I said.

“Maybe so, but when the papers get this it’ll be murder. They’re all hot over this upstate deal and to have it in their back yard can make us look silly. You got any idea where you’re going?”

I nodded. “In a way.”

“It better be more than that,” Bryan growled. “We’re ready to pull a house-to-house search for Gus Wilder next.”

“Try it and you’ll have every damn door slammed in your face,” I reminded him. “You’ll need a warrant to get into every apartment and by that time our boy will be gone. You think this whole neighborhood doesn’t feel what’s going on? It doesn’t take much to put two and two together. They know I’m here and nosing around. They know who I’ve been talking to and what’s been said. They can read the papers and draw a picture.”

“We’re not revealing Fater’s identity yet.”

“Just the same, they know it was me on that roof. From now on, I’m not just a cop on a date with a local girl. They’ll know I’m here on an assignment and will clam up tight. I want a couple of more days to do it my way. There’s something lousy about this whole thing. It doesn’t stick. It has a hitch in it.”

“Like what, Joe?”

“I don’t know.”

“Two days then,” Inspector Bryan reminded me.

“That’ll do it,” I said.

When they left I finished my coffee and sat looking out over the street that had been my playground. I had my feet up on the windowsill watching the rain beat against the glass and Marta came over and perched on the arm of the chair, her hand absently stroking the back of my neck.

“Thinking, Joe?”

I reached out and put my arm around her. Beneath the sheer cloth of the dress she was a warm, vibrant thing full of life. My fingers kneaded the flesh of her hip and I felt her react to my touch, involuntarily drawing closer. The dead lay outside, but inside myself that knot started again in my stomach and ran up through my shoulders into an explosion I couldn’t stop.

“Should I tell you what I’m thinking of?”

“I think I know,” she said.

She came down into my arms slowly, her mouth lovely and moist, meeting mine in a gentle touch that said hello after a long, long time and fought with the years in between and wiped them away in a violent burst of passion. Her tongue was a separate entity that spoke a new language I had never heard and always missed without realizing it

My hands had held a shield and gun too long to be gentle. They were rough when they pushed away fabric to feel the silky smoothness of bare skin beneath, and she never uttered a sound except to moan softly and give herself fully to my inquisitiveness.

There was no policewoman here now… no little Giggie with childish notions; she was a woman enmeshed in emotions suppressed too long and we were both finding the answers with the complete naiveté of kids endowed with the prowess of adults. It was a ritual of honesty and total love that happened and was consummated despite the tension of murder and a storm that attempted to match our own violence, a ritual of absolute abandonment to something we seemed to know would always occur. We handled each other with a frenzy of desire, searching, finding, enjoying until all that was left was utter exhaustion.

Outside the storm lashed the city, but it was an hour before we heard it. Marty stirred beside me, came awake quickly when she knew I was too. “Joe…”

“I have to leave, kid.”

“Why?”

“He’s still loose.”

“Who is he, Joe?”

“I don’t know yet. I can’t be sure.”

“Can you tell me?”

“No.”

“Then I want to go with you.”

“Orders, sugar. You stay. Your part is done. I can’t use you in the job now.”

“Please, Joe.”

“No choice, Marty. It’s guns now. I don’t want you in the middle. It’s all changed, and I want you where I know I can come back to you.”

“Will you?”

I turned and kissed her, felt her tremble slightly and said,: “I’ll be back. I have to. We started too long ago to let it end now. It’s you and me now, Marty. We’re back where we started, but it’s better and we have a lot to look forward to. We’re on the straight side and can be the builders. I want you, Marty.”

Very simply, she said, “You have me, Joe. It’s always been that way. There never has been anyone else.”

“I know it,” I grinned.

A kill stirs things up. It’s like having a winning ball club. The fans gather to talk about it, to speculate and chew it to pieces. Donavan’s place was packed and so was Bunny’s, but the one I was looking for wasn’t in either one. But that wasn’t the end. There were a lot of places he could go to.

And I looked in them all. I put the word out and let them take it as they liked. I was a cop with a name he wanted and everybody knew it. It wasn’t going to take long. There was always somebody who wanted a favor or some heat taken off and they’d show sooner or later. While I waited I kept on looking and knew the others were all watching, knowing I was there and it wasn’t over yet, not by a long sight.

It was little Harry Wope who found me. He was buried in the shadows of the corner drug store and whistled as I walked past, stepping far enough out into the light so I’d recognize him and when I moved beside him, sought out the shadows again.

“Scanlon…”

“Hello, Harry.”

“It was Will Fater who got it, wasn’t it?”

“Everybody else is guessing.”

“Not me. I knew what they were gonna pull off. I told you.”

“What else do you know?”

“How much money did Fater have on him?”

“A couple hundred bucks. That’s all.”

“He should have had more,” Harry said. “Al Reese promised him more. I heard him. That stupid Fater, for five grand he’d shoot himself. He had a big reputation, that one did. He never said nothin’, but he had it.”

“We know, Harry.”

“So Reese said five grand.”

“Where would he get it?” I asked him.

“He said he was coming into it. Soon, too. He had Will all worked up. He would’na taken the job on if he wasn’t sure.”

“And where is Reese now?”

“That’s what I wanted to tell you. I seen him by Grafton’s place. Over two blocks and…”

“I know where it is,” I said.

“Reese, he got out of a car and was walking,” Harry Wope told me. “He had on a raincoat and was carrying an umbrella, but I seen his face when he was getting out. A couple of people came along and he ducked down behind that umbrella like he didn’t want to be seen, but I knew who he was.”

“See where he went?”

“Raining too hard. He was up near Paula Lees’ place when I couldn’t see him no more. I didn’t wait around, anyway. I went looking for you.”

“Okay, Harry, thanks. You get the hell out of here and don’t mention seeing me.”

“Sure enough. Not a word. You give that Al Reese what he needs, huh?”

“Don’t worry.”

I waited until Harry was out of sight before crossing the street. I knew where Grafton’s place was. Twenty-five years ago I had run errands for the guy, delivered his orders and fought for my right to sell papers on the corner he occupied.

Fifty feet from the intersection a late-model Chevvy sedan was parked, the doors locked. After an initial glance at it I walked on down the street, casing every building as I went. Any darkened doorway or unlighted window could hide a killer behind it. One try was made, another was possible. Will Fater’s try for me was a money deal, not the original one.

But there was a tie-in there too. If Gus Wilder came into the section, Al Reese could have known about it. Political bosses had to keep their fingers on the pulse of every movement in their area. If there was a bite to be taken out of a money pie Al Reese would want his and anybody standing in his way had to be taken out.

The possibility was plain now. René Mills lost his shot at the dough… Reese wasn’t going to miss his. He could have promised René protection for a price, and even if René got killed for his trouble Reese was going to push it. He wouldn’t put himself in the same class as René, not Al Reese. He had power and cover from the party whom he represented. Anybody circulating in his bailiwick was going to pay off no matter who they were.

Up ahead was Paula Lees’ apartment.

Cute deal, Al,
I thought.
A guy is holed up and wanting a woman. You make the arrangements for him and catch him with his pants down and put the screws to him. Maybe you’d be doing it right now and I could nail you both at once.

I took the gun out, checked the load in the cylinders and cut in when I came to the worn sandstone stoop. I would have gone up the steps if the sudden brilliance of the lightning flash hadn’t turned night into day and outlined a quick movement from behind the railing that guarded the basement entrance to the tenement across the street

This time I moved as fast as they did, not quickly, just deliberately. As far as they were concerned, I was just another pedestrian. I had stayed out of the glow of the street lights from force of habit and my pause by Paula’s apartment could have been accidental if they hadn’t seen me with the gun in my hand. I bent down, made like I was flipping water from my cuffs, pulled the collar of my trench coat tighter around my neck and ambled on like a guy walking aimlessly after fighting with his wife.

I didn’t look back to see if the act worked. I kept on going until I reached the corner, found the alley in between the stores and squeezed between the garbage cans and refuse cartons stacked shoulder high until I reached the fence, then climbed over it

For a second I had the funny feeling that it was the game again. A long time ago the bunch of us had come through this same alley over the same fence to scramble through the basement of the apartment to get away from Ralph Callahan who was after us for some piece of hell we had just raised. Now it was the other way around and I was the cop.

The cellar doors set at a forty-five degree angle were still the same, boards warped, braces loose and two hinges rusted away. I pulled one up, went down the steps with the light of my pencil flash showing the way, seeing the same old asbestos-wrapped furnace sitting in the middle of the room like a dead, dirty idol, the coal bin on the left gaping blackly. It was neater now than the last time, probably because a fire inspector had checked the premises and squeezed the landlord.

A flight of rickety steps led to the first floor. The door was locked, but a steady push with my shoulder snapped the lock and sent the door slamming open against the wall with a noise that would have gotten anyone alerted.

But it didn’t. It was drowned in the resonating blast of gunfire from the floor above that rolled through the building with punctuated hammering that was sharper than the echoes they made. They came too fast to identify the caliber, but at least three were going, then two, one, and all that was left was the sharp smell of cordite and a dull reverberation that bounced from the walls until it died out in the yells of the neighbors and the sound of a woman screaming for the police somewhere outside.

I stayed close to the wall, took the stairs two at a time, nearly fell over a body and in stumbling saved my neck. A shot from above snapped down, missing me by an inch, powdering plaster and wood chips into my face. Above me, feet went up the staircases, paused, went up again and stopped.

There were too many times when a cop had things taken out of his hands. I had to get him. I took each landing with the .38 ready to reach out for a target, went up the stairs waiting to catch one myself and damn near eager for the opportunity to swap one for the other, but none came my way. The door to the roof was open and without thinking about it I went through into the rain and dove for the shelter of the parapet.

No bullet sought me out. No feet ran from me. There was just that deathly stillness and the sensation that I was all alone. I got up and walked along the edge, peering down into the alleyway. A garbage can rattled, then a board creaked from the fence and the silhouette of a man showed briefly as he slithered over it. I got off a quick shot, even though I knew the range was too long and the light too bad, then went back down the stairs.

Steve Lutz was dead on the steps near the landing, half his head splattered over the wall. Beamish lay face down near the door of Paula Lees’ apartment, his blood puddled all over the floor from a hole in his throat. I kicked the door open not knowing what I was going to find. The light was on in the kitchen and directly under it half sprawled in a chair, was the fat lump of what was left of Al Reese. The bullet that had torn into his chest had left a fist-sized hole in his back and if the signs were right it had been deliberately placed by somebody who had stood in the doorway leading to the bedroom.

She lay on the bed, eyes wide and staring, her body twisted in the agony of torture applied by an expert in the art of taking pleasure from someone else’s pain. She should have been dead. I thought she was. Apparently the other person thought she was too. The motion of her chest was barely perceptible, a minor spasmodic movement that was involuntary on her part, an effort of a human body hanging on to life.

When her lips moved I bent over and said, “Paula… it’s Joe Scanlon.”

She moved her mouth in an effort to repeat my name.

“Paula… who was it?”