The Big Kiss-Off of 1944: A Jack LeVine Mystery (8 page)

“Now, you said something about a banker.” He sat down.

“Yes. Eli W. Savage, from Philadelphia. When I was going through the Smithtown house, I found this clipping.” I got up and handed the newspaper photo to Butler. “It’s a long shot. I thought you might have heard of the guy.”

Butler stared at the picture for a few seconds. “Yes, I met him once about five years ago, at a party. It was after the Philadelphia opening of a show of mine called
The Rainbow Hunters.
But that’s the only time, I believe. He’s a big man in Philadelphia. You thought this picture might be important?”

“Beats me what I thought, Mr. Butler. It was the only thing left in the house and it was obviously cut out for a reason.”

Butler smiled. “Maybe this man is blackmailing Mr. Savage.”

“Could be. Or Mr. Dewey.”

“Yes,” and Butler started laughing, “yes indeed, Mr. Dewey. For making improper advances to a gangster.”

It was a pretty funny thought.

“Actually,” Butler said, leaning back in his chair and fiddling with a pencil, “Mr. Savage is a substantial contributor to the Republican Party. Blackmailing him would be pretty juicy, I’d imagine.”

I took a look at all those pictures of Butler with Farley, Lehman, and FDR.

“You must help out the Democrats quite a bit from the looks of those pictures. That’s pretty classy company.”

“Oh, Farley’s not so classy.” Butler tugged at his ear. “But FDR is a great man, Jack, and I’m proud to help the Democratic party any way I can. They saved this country and the whole free enterprise system back in 1933. That’s what nobody understands anymore; without FDR, there would have been a real revolution in the United States and we’d all be up the creek without a paddle.” Butler was getting a little agitated. He had leaned forward and was softly beating the desk with his left hand, emphasizing his points. “My old man died because those mines weren’t supervised properly, because he had to work twelve hours a day, because nobody gave a good goddamn about people like him. But now everybody forgets about that, forgets that there could have been a Red takeover. All they can do is bitch about the reforms he did make. People forget very fast in this country.”

I thought I’d push him a bit.

“Roosevelt got us into this goddamn war.”

“That’s infamous!” Butler screamed, half rising from his seat. The veins in his neck stood out so much you could count them. “I’ll throw you out on your ear, you goddamn tinhorn shamus.”

“You didn’t let me finish, Mr. Butler. I was saying that I’d heard people on the street say that, hackies, barbers, newsies, average Joes. They think FDR knew all along that we were going to get involved.”

“Well, they’re wrong.” He ran his hands through his silver hair. “I’m sorry I blew up like that, Jack. You found my weak spot. I guess that’s the mark of a good detective.”

“That’s what they taught us in detective school.”

He nodded distantly. “Well, let’s give you your money.” His composure had returned as suddenly as it had departed. I watched him count five twenties and held out my hand to receive them.

“Maybe this case is over or maybe it’s just suspended,” Butler said, “while our ‘Friend of the Arts’ is chasing after bankers or whatever. God only knows. That clipping you brought is intriguing, but I’m not sure if it ties in anywhere.”

“Either am I,” I told him. “It hardly even qualifies as a long shot.”

“Yes,” he said, a little vaguely, as if he wasn’t quite sure what I was saying. “In any case I’ll keep you informed of anything that might arise, and I’m confident you’ll do the same for me.”

“For two-hundred fish, you can count on it.”

Butler stood up, which meant he had had enough of me. “That’s all I ask, Jack. Just keep me informed. All my life I’ve kept on top of things and it has brought me this.” He waved his arm around the office. “And I’m not letting anybody,” and his voice dropped to a whisper, “
any
body, take it from me.” I was getting a ham hero with everything on it, but managed to keep a straight face.

“I don’t think anybody said they were going to take away your office, Mr. Butler.” Eileen opened the door and held it there. Time to go. “Afternoon.” I turned and walked out, chucking the redhead under her chin.

“Stay as sweet as you are, Eileen.”

“Get lost,” she said, showing me all four rows of teeth.

I left the Schubert Building feeling a little like a mogul and the uniformed turkey downstairs smiled at me—doormen and guards can judge how much is in your wallet by the way you walk or something. It’s uncanny. I decided to hold on to the cash rather than stick it in my office safe, figuring it would help intimidate the boys at the poker table that evening. When three Sunnyside low-stakes gamblers get a whiff of sawbucks in the air, their game gets affected. It has to.

Which is why I only lost five bucks that evening, at least two or three below par for me. I’m not the most effective poker player in the world for the simple reason that I smile whenever I get a good hand. It’s what they call a reflex. So the hundred didn’t do me all that much good on Friday night.

But it did me a lot of good on Saturday, beginning at 3:00
A.M
., when I heard soft pounding on my door and someone whispering, “Mr. LeVine, Mr. LeVine. Jack LeVine?” I got up slowly, not all that sure I was hearing right, but the beating on my door got more insistent and I didn’t want to wake up the whole building. Peering through the peephole was, as always, useless, and I was so foggy and crusty-eyed that I wouldn’t have recognized Rita Hayworth standing naked in the hall. It wasn’t Rita anyhow. It was some guy who asked me to please let him in because he had to talk with me. He realized it was a funny hour but his life was in great danger. Another hour and he might be dead. I wasn’t sure that I was doing anything right but I let the guy in.

He said his name was Al Rubine.

I
UNLOCKED THE DOOR
and Rubine came through it like he’d been shot out of a circus cannon. He went to the living-room window, opened the Venetian blinds a little, and looked down into the street, just like in the movies. He was breathing hard and perspiring like a guy laying asphalt at high noon.

“Thanks for letting me in, Jack. I appreciate it.” He sat down on the living-room couch, took off his hat and turned my big three-way lamp to low. I just stood and looked at him, still more asleep than awake.

“I’ll make some coffee,” I told him and somnambulated into the kitchen, trailing the cord of my white terry-cloth robe. I fussed with the kettle, got a high flame going and stuck my head out of the kitchen archway to size Rubine up. He sat short and squat in dark slacks, an open sport shirt, and tan lightweight sport jacket. A pinkie ring adorned his left hand. He had a few black hairs combed carefully across his head, but in a stiff wind he’d be as bald as I am. Rubine’s high-cheekboned face was a blank: his nose had been broken a few times, his lips were thick, his skin sallow, and his eyes had been turned off a long time ago. Al Rubine looked like a smalltime crook. And he was in my apartment at a quarter past three in the morning, huffing and puffing like a marathon runner, because he was a small-time crook who found himself in the big time and wanted to get the hell out before he wasn’t in any kind of time at all. Rubine looked very unhappy sitting on the couch. I watched him slick back his side hair with open palms and try and keep his hands still enough to light up a cigarette.

The kettle let loose with a sharp whistle and I turned it off before Mrs. Freundlich upstairs got concerned and started sticking her head next to the steam pipe for a listen. I filled the top of my “Dripmaster” with enough water for eight cups. It might be a long time before the sun came up and Rubine and I had finished.

“How do you like your coffee?” I called from the kitchen. “Light or dark, Rubine?”

“Black, no sugar. Call me Al.”

“Al it is.” I methodically set up two cups and saucers, trying to work myself awake before I started talking with this prince. Just to keep Rubine on his toes, I chucked him a question.

“Who’s chasing you, Al?”

Rubine started and looked toward the kitchen. He ran his hands through his pockets a couple of times, like a mechanical man.

“Jack—mind if I call you Jack?” and he flashed an uncertain grin that started out a smile and ended up a grimace. “I can’t talk this way, you in there and me out here perched like a goddamn canary. You come in here, Jack, we can talk, whaddya say?”

I grunted and sat down on a stool in the kitchen, listening to the coffee drip and looking out of the open window. It was still pretty warm and there was a full moon that cast rays of pale, thin light on the roofs of Sunnyside. No cars were moving, the street lamps were all alone, and the block was so still and sweet that it was almost worth being up. Almost. I guess I couldn’t kick. If I lived in London, I’d look out my window and see nothing but ruins. All I had to worry about was a nervous blackmailer playing with his cuffs in my living room. I waited, jiggled the top part of the coffee pot and filled two cups with steaming java, putting a little sugar in mine. By the time I paraded out to the living room like a good host, I was almost awake.

“I’m here. So who’s chasing you, Al, and why’d you come to me?” I put the cups on the coffee table, sat down in an overstuffed chair to the right of the couch and lit up a Lucky.

“Second part first, okay Jack?” The smile was fast and thin, like a neon sign on the skids. “I came to you because there’s a poor lady lives next door to me in Smithtown. When I pull out the other night, I tell her to let me know if I get visitors and who they are. I give her a number where she can reach me and fifteen bucks.”

“I only gave her five.”

The smile lasted a little longer this time. Rubine’s teeth were as big and yellow as Seabiscuit’s. “That’s why she told on you.”

I shrugged, a good loser. “Must be. I can’t blame her, she looked like she hadn’t seen much dough lately, if ever.”

“I’m with you all the way on that.” Rubine lifted his cup and let the steam fill his broken nose. “Prosit, Jack.” He sipped the coffee very delicately. “Delicious, my compliments to the chef.”

I yawned a little more sleep out of my system and swallowed some coffee. It was excellent. “You still haven’t told me who’s chasing you, Al.”

“Everybody.”

“I was supposed to meet you yesterday—rather, I was supposed to meet somebody called ‘Friend of the Arts’ yesterday—and pick up some stag films. All I found was a picture of Dewey and a banker.”

He was going to take another sip, but his hands got a little shaky and he put his cup down. “Sounds interesting.”

“Fascinating, in fact. But where the hell were you?”

“At a place you can be in a couple of hours, if you’ll take me. I’d like to go and you’d like those films.”

“You stashed the films in another hideout? Why?”

Rubine tried the coffee again but his hands didn’t work and it spilled onto his pants.

“Jack, let me tell you straight,” the words came out in a rush. “All I want is to get my ass into Canada before I get croaked. The films are yours, I don’t give a shit. See, this pal of mine and me got in a blackmail scheme and we were backed up by some very big people who needed some big things done. We were just messenger boys, I swear to Christ.”

“The other guy was Fenton.”

“On the nose, Jack. Duke Fenton. Duke started figuring he could put the squeeze on these guys, and got killed so fast that it’s positively scary. Get me? I figure I’m in for the same treatment on account of being Duke’s partner and knowing the story.” He leaned forward. “Jack, I could put the finger on so many people your hair would stand on end.”

“I don’t have any hair.”

“Your scalp then.” He just said it. He wasn’t even trying to make with the jokes. “The way I see it, Duke and I were set up for suckers the day we got hired. When Duke got cute, it just meant he got the payoff first.”

“Al, who are these guys?”

Rubine shook his head.

“Jack, you’re a nice guy but you could make a fast bundle of cash letting them know where I was. I can’t tell you that. I hardly know you, for Crissakes.”

“How much dough you figure I could get by turning you in?”

“The kind of dough where you could move from Sunny-side to Park Avenue, that much dough.”