The Hoods (48 page)

“They don't look so noble,” Cockeye said.

“They're private detectives,” I said.

“Noble detectives?” Cockeye asked.

“Yeh—noble detectives,” I said.

Max opened one of the bottles from Gerhaty's. He poured.

I said, “Have a drink, Lefty, Ed?”

They both nodded and reached for their glasses. We drank up.

“Good stuff,” Lefty said.

Eddie gave a deep belch of appreciation. I cut the drugged liquor with the whiskey from Gerhaty's. I used some water glasses to mix the stuff up good. I handed Lefty and Eddie a bottle each.

I said, “You recognize a noble when you see one?”

“Yeh, we know them all,” Lefty said.

“You give every noble you see on duty a drink of this stuff. It's spiked—knockout drops,” I said.

Lefty smiled. “Yeh, it's a good idea,” he said, “to put them out of commission.”

“Then chase them,” Maxie said.

“Most of them will take a powder when I tell them the Combo is behind this thing,” Lefty said.

“Okay,” Max said, “but you guys don't take a powder until you do your work. No friggin around,” he cautioned.

“You want the dough back and pay us later?” Lefty asked. He was insulted.

“No, it's okay, we trust you,” I said.

They walked to the door. I called after them, “Come around later in the day.”

Lefty nodded and said, “So long.”

Eddie nodded and belched.

Eventually, there were about fifteen men sprawled around the waiting room, asleep.

I said to Max, “The waiting room is all crapped up with those sleeping bastards. It looks lousy out there.”

“Okay, dump them in there.” Max jerked his thumb toward the adjoining office. “I got to call Ed and tell him to start sending his zulus out on the streets.

He picked up the phone. I heard him talking to Eddie.

Pat and I carried about half of the sleeping crew out of the waiting room. We were bent over, about to pick up another sleeping figure, when we heard the door open and a voice said, “What the hell—”

Rarely have I heard these three words uttered with such stunned bewilderment.

Pat and I turned around. There was a middle-aged, well-built man with a startled expression, standing at the door surveying the scene.

“Who the hell are you guys? What the hell is going on here?”

We didn't answer him.

The man repeated, “Who the hell are you guys? Where's Walter and Luke?”

He walked angrily into the inner office.

He stuttered his “What the hell” again when he saw Maxie with his feet on the desk, smoking a cigar. He stood speechless and flabbergasted.

Maxie looked at him. He flipped the ashes off his cigar. He smiled disarmingly. Quietly he asked, “Mr. Livingstone, I presume?”

The standing man sputtered, “Livingstone, my ass. My name is Thespus and what the hell are you doing at my desk?”

“Don't get your balls in an uproar,” Maxie replied curtly. “It's bad for your blood pressure.”

“Listen,” Thespus said angrily. “What the hell's going on here? Where's my men Luke and Walter?”

“In there.” Maxie stood up. He took Thespus under the arm and opened the closet door.

Thespus stood there dumbfounded, gazing at the couple sitting helpless on the floor.

Maxie led Thespus to the adjoining office, showed him the men asleep on the floor.

In a hushed whisper, Thespus asked, “Are they dead?”

“Not yet,” Maxie replied flippantly. He escorted the subjugated and shaky Thespus to a chair. He sat there panting, mopping his forehead.

Suddenly he grabbed for the phone. Max took it out of his trembling fingers.

“Who are you going to call?” Max snapped.

“The police department.”

Max laughed. “How does it look for the Thespus Detective Agency to call the police department?” Maxie asked.

“Who are you men?” Thespus looked us over. He didn't know how to figure us. “You men from Bergoff's outfit?”

“How did you guess?” I said.

“Yes, where else would you men come from?” he asked.

Now that Thespus thought we were from a rival agency, trying to cut in on his strikebreaking contract, he was on ground that he understood. He seemed a little relieved. He tried flattery.

“You guys are okay. I got to hand it to you, fellows. You certainly are smart cookies.”

With shaky hands Thespus lit a cigar. He tried to speak with friendliness. “What is that cheapskate Bergoff paying you fellows?”

“Why?” I asked.

“Well, I'll tell you why. Maybe I'll give you fellows a better proposition.”

He leaned back. He assumed the manner of an easygoing guy. He beamed and smiled at us.

Max said, “Bergoff pays us a yard a week.”

“That's pretty good money from a cheap bastard like him. I'll tell you what I'll do for you boys.”

He cleared his throat. He was about to astound us with his munificence.

“I'll pay you lads a yard and a quarter a week. How's that—how's that, hey?” he beamed.

The old humbug. A hundred and a quarter. I tried to act impressed.

“That's fine,” I said.

“We're overcome,” Max said drily.

I picked up a bottle of spiked Mt. Vernon. “Let's drink on it,” I said.

Thespus downed his with, “Here's mud in your eye.” I hurriedly filled his glass again. Thespus looked at our full glasses suspiciously. “Aren't you fellas drinking?”

We lifted our glasses. Maxie said, “Sure, here's mud in your eye.'

Thespus downed his drink. He looked at us standing over him with the full glasses in our hands.

He mumbled, “Mud—in—your—eye.” He slumped in his chair fast asleep. Cockeye and Patsy carried him into the adjoining office.

We had a lull for awhile. Cockeye sat at the reception desk playing his harmonica. Patsy had found a hammer and was trying to pry the files open. Max and I were examining the contents of the desks.

Then a miracle happened. A detective walked into the waiting room and refused Cockeye's offer to have a drink. Cockeye had come to tell us.

“This bastard claims he don't drink,” he said.

“Ask the guy where he lives,” I said.

Cockeye came back with his address. It was Washburton Avenue, Yonkers.

I picked up the Staten Island phone book. I thumbed through the pages and picked out a name and address at random and wrote it down on a sheet of paper.

I said to Cockeye, “Let the Yonkers lad come in.”

As he walked in, I said, “Just the type I need—a nice, clean living, private detective who don't drink.”

The big shmuck stood there smiling self-consciously.

Max asked, “You never drink?”

“As long as it's against the laws of the country, I won't touch the stuff,” he said primly.

“Did you ever drink before Prohibition?” I asked.

“No. Truthfully, I don't like the stuff.”

“So you're not refusing because liquor is against the law like you first said. You don't drink it because you don't like it. Right?” I asked.

“Yes, that's it,” he admitted embarrassed.

“One more question,” Maxie said. “Did you ever masturbate on the high seas?”

“I don't understand the question. What does it mean?” the shmuck asked.

“Skip it. Skip that question,” I said. “Here's an important assignment. This is the name and address of a party out in Staten Island.” I handed him the slip. “Tail him day and night until relieved. Give us a full report of every move he makes. This is important. This is a big case. Now don't miss up.”

“Don't worry. I'll be right on his tail,” he replied. “I'll bring in a detailed report.”

He walked to the door briskly. He turned back. “Excuse me,” he asked, “what's the best way to get to this address?”

Maxie said gruffly, “Find out. You're a private detective, aren't you?”

He mumbled something unintelligible and went out.

“Hey, I got the goddamn thing open,” Patsy called out.

I walked over to the files. They were crammed full of correspondence, documents and folders of all descriptions.

“What did you expect to find?” I said.

“I don't know—maybe some dough,” Pat said.

“Yeh, you'll find dough,” I laughed. I walked away.

Pat continued to look through the folders.

A moment later Patsy called out again, “Hey, Noodles.”

He laid a bundle of pictures, negatives and letters on the table.

The pictures were pornographic shots of a well-known female Hollywood star. She was in all sorts of interesting postures with an unknown nude male companion.

Max said, “Yep, I remember her.” He mentioned a name. “She started off at the Silver Slipper, remember, Noodles?” I nodded. “Then she went to Hollywood,” Maxie continued. “She did okay. She made a name for herself. She married...”

He mentioned the name of a male movie star. Maxie was reading the letters and smiling to himself.

“Hot stuff,” he said.

He handed the letters to me. It was a correspondence between some guy and the girl movie star.

“What's he got this filed away for?” Patsy asked.

“Divorce evidence; maybe blackmail,” I said.

Calls began coming over the phone from different real estate companies clamoring for men. It seemed Eddie's boys were doing a thorough job.

All Maxie answered was, “Yup—yup, I'll take care of it. I'll send men around. You should live so long,” and he would hang up.

One voice insisted on talking to Thespus. Maxie answered, “Thespus is too busy.”

The voice persisted, “Tell him it's Crowning. He'll talk to me.”

Max and I exchanged glances.

Maxie hung up on him twice. Men continued coming in with complaints and assignments. We were all busy as hell. We had twenty unconscious men lying around the place. Most of our liquor was gone. Maxie picked names at random out of different phone books. He dispatched men to out of the way parts of the city to trail unknown people. He gave them instructions to bring in detailed reports on their activities.

We had a breather for awhile. Maxie stood up, stretched and walked around.

“Goddamn, I thought a white-collar man in an office had a snap. This is hard work.”

He opened and shut his big fists. He did a little shadow boxing. Patsy was still busy at the files.

A big punch-drunk guy came in. I gave him a name and address out in Brooklyn to shadow. The guy squawked.

Max said, “Why, what's the matter with you?”

“I was hired as a noble. I don't do no goddamn shadowing,” the big guy said.

Max asked, “Why? What's the difference? It's a day's work.”

“I like some goddamn action. I like to smack some of those pickets around.”

Maxie stood up smiling. “You like to smack people around?”

“Yeah, I like to practice on them,” the punchy moron admitted.

“Did you ever try this?” Maxie asked. He gave him a kick in the groin.

As he bent over gasping in pain, Max hooked him a right to the jaw. He went crashing against the partition.

“Sorry, I was only kidding,” Maxie said.

I bent over him with a glass of whiskey.

“Here, drink this.” I put it to his lips. He drank it slowly.

He looked at us in a dumb sort of way.

Maxie said solicitously, “How yuh feeling, pally?”

We stood watching as his eyes glazed. Then he fell asleep.

I dragged him by the feet and threw him in with the others.

“There's a little bastard out there who says he wants Thespus,” Cockeye announced.

“Give him a drink and let him go to sleep,” Maxie said.

“He's smart. The guy looked at those bums sleeping out there. He said he wasn't sleepy. He's a wise one.”

“Okay,” Maxie said. “Send him in.”

A slim good-looking baby-faced guy walked in, smiling.

“Hello, fellas,” he said.

He sat down nonchalantly, slung one leg over the arm of the chair, took out a pack of Luckies and offered them around. We refused his smokes. He seemed a cool, natural sort of guy, quite different from the big blustering customers we had had up to now. He sat smiling and dangling his leg, perfectly at ease.

Max said, “Okay, pal, we're busy. What's on your mind?”

“Where's Thespus?”

“Look, pal, we ask the questions around here,” Max said.

The guy repeated, smiling, “Where's that jerk Thespus?”

If any person can be called typical, this one was. He was an uninhibited guy. A guy of the streets and off the streets. A knockaround guy. A wiseguy. He could be a typical Italian wiseguy from Mulberry Street, a Jewish wiseguy from Delancey Street, or, like this guy, a typical Irish wiseguy from Tenth Avenue.