The Hoods (54 page)

“Okay, Ed,” I said, “big shot or little shot is all the same to us.”

“The worms don't know the difference either,” Max said.

We arrived. Eddie parked his car. We walked into the newly built apartment house. The doorman hesitated about letting us go up. He called the apartment on the house phone. When he received the okay, he apologized to us.

“You understand, gentlemen—this unusual hour.”

We went upstairs. The door was ajar, and a tall man was standing guard in the doorway. He gave Max and me a sharp look as we entered, the characteristic once-over of a trained police officer.

Sure enough, Eddie said, “How are you, inspector?”

The inspector answered, “How are you, Ed?”

Then I recognized him. I had seen him around.

Max and I glanced at each other; we didn't like to be involved with a police inspector on a job of this sort. Even though he was in the know and on the payroll, it was too risky. We believed in the axiom: never trust a cop.

The inspector led us into the living room, which was large and luxuriously furnished. There were two or three steps leading down. I spied the stiff lying on the floor at the far end, covered with a white bedsheet.

I motioned Eddie into a bedroom. There was a man sitting on a chair. He turned his terrified face away as we entered. I recognized him. He was a prominent lawyer and a big Tammany politician.

I whispered to Eddie, “Get that goddamned inspector the hell out of here.”

“He's okay,” Eddie said. “He's in on this.”

“I don't care how okay the bastard is, get him out of here,” I insisted. “We don't want any part of him.”

Eddie shrugged. “I'll see what I can do,” he said.

We walked back into the living room. The inspector was standing guard over the covered body. The stiff's right hand had slipped out from under the sheet. I noticed the index finger was smashed, as if it had been caught in a door, years back. The finger next to it was circled with a yellow metal Masonic ring. The inspector noticed it at the same time I did. He bent down on one knee and twisted it off. The inspector's hands shook as he put it in his pocket.

He said nervously, “I want you fellows to remove this body immediately. I have to go along to see—”

Maxie interrupted him. “We'll pick the time when to remove the stiff, and you can't come along.”

“You can't wait, it's dangerous to have him around. He has to be done away with immediately.”

The inspector took off his hat and wiped his forehead. He continued putting his hat on and taking it off with trembling hands. He looked at us, ill at ease.

“We're not removing him now,” I said.

“That man's wife—” the inspector jerked a fluttering thumb toward the bedroom, “is coming in from the country this morning.”

I shrugged.

The inspector floundered in a quavering voice. “You have to—you have to—get him out quick. This is dynamite. It will break things wide open, all the way to the top.”

Eddie, Max and I went into a huddle in a corner.

“We're doing this our way, in our own sweet time,” I said to Eddie.

Max said, “Get the goddamned inspector the hell out of here!”

“I can't,” Eddie said. “I don't know how. That guy is in the middle of it, and he's supposed to go along with the body to make sure everything's okay.”

“Well, he's not going along, Ed. That's definite,” I said.

“We don't need him around. Everything will be okay without him.”

“I can't help it, Noodles,” Eddie said. “He's got to tag along. That's orders.”

I looked at Maxie. We agreed.

I said, “I don't care what your orders are. The sonofabitch doesn't come along.”

Max said, “Who gave you this contract?”

Eddie hesitated. “The office,” he said.

“Who, specifically?” I asked.

“I'm not supposed to say.”

“Whoever gave you the orders should know we do things our way,” I said.

“Yep, and you can tell 'em so,” Max said.

Eddie shrugged.

“Tell the inspector to take a powder,” Max said.

“Okay, okay,” Eddie grunted.

Eddie walked over to the inspector. The inspector stood his ground.

“No—no,” he murmured.

He came over to us. “I'm sorry, fellows,” he said, “I can't leave. I'm here to see that nobody gets a look at his face.”

“We're not interested who he is. We don't care if he's Jimmy Walker or the President of the United States. To us he's just a stiff. Don't worry,” I continued. “We won't look at the guy. Nobody will.”

“I gotta go along,” he insisted.

“Well, we don't handle it then,” I said.

Eddie came over.

“Don't worry, inspector, they'll handle it okay,” he said.

He gave us a long look. He walked out of the apartment in anger.

“He's sore,” Eddie said.

“So let him use vaseline,” Max said.

Max and I walked over to the stiff. I uncovered him. He was a distinguished looking guy even in death. He was middle-aged and about six feet tall. He looked familiar.

I said to Max, “I seen this guy around.” I looked closer.

“Yeh,” I said, “I seen him all over Broadway. He likes the girls. He's a chippie chaser.”

I turned to Eddie. “This guy is a judge or something?”

Eddie nodded. “This guy was a Supreme Court judge,” he said.

I looked at his wound. It was a bullet hole in the abdomen. Blood was still trickling to the floor.

I said to Eddie, “See if there is any adhesive tape in the bathroom and get me some rags.”

Eddie came back with a towel and a quarter-inch tape. I tore up the towel and plugged up the hole. The guy was still warm to the touch as I taped all around to hold the bit of towel from falling out.

Eddie whispered, “Can you get him right out?”

“No, not at this hour,” I said.

“That guy's wife—” Eddie jerked his thumb towards the bedroom, “is coming in from the country this morning.”

“Find out what time she's coming in,” Max said. “We'll try to get him out before she arrives.”

Eddie went into the bedroom. He came back. “The guy said you got to get the stiff right out,” he said. “His wife is coming back early.”

“The hell with him,” I said. “How does it look for a rug cleaner to pick up a rug at four in the morning?”

“Yeh,” Eddie said, “it would look suspicious. But you got to get rid of him fast.”

“Don't worry, Ed,” Max said. “We'll get rid of him.”

“Even his disappearance will be dynamite,” I said. “He isn't like the ordinary unknown guys we handled. The cops and papers will never let up. He's too prominent.”

“Well, we can't do anything before eight o'clock,” Max said, “so we may as well take a powder.”

Eddie stayed in the house with the attorney. Max and I left.

We drove directly to Thompson Street. Pete was in his shop busy with his new enterprise, printing United States postage stamps. They were stacked in regulation sheets, on a large table.

“Right off the presses,” Pete chuckled. “How do they look to you?”

I took a sheet in my hands.

“Here's the McCoy.” Pete handed me a sheet of stamps from his desk. “Can you tell the difference?”

I compared the sheets.

“They look alike to me.”

I handed the sheets to Maxie.

“Perfect,” Max said.

“I got me some of the best engravers,” Pete chuckled, “direct from the Italian Mint.”

He took us into his little storeroom. There were little bins all along the walls. He was proud of his stock. One wall of bins was completely filled with phony labels for every domestic and foreign whiskey and beer on the market. Other bins were filled with United States revenue stamps, bogus Mexican currency and counterfeit United States bills of every denomination.

“Some day,” Pete boasted, “I will put out a batch of dough that the T men themselves won't be able to tell the difference.”

“Has it ever happened?” I asked.

“No, but some day it will. That's the dream of every guy in this racket: to print the perfect bill.”

“When that happens, call us up,” Max chuckled.

“Yeh, I will,” Pete laughed.

He took a death and burial certificate out of a bin and sat down at his desk.

“Male or female?” he asked.

“Male,” Max said.

Pete filled them out and stamped them.

We said, “So long,” and left.

We drove up to the Eden. Patsy and Cockeye were alone in the place with the twin dancing team. We interrupted something. We closed the place, and the twins took a cab.

We went to Lutkee's Baths, had a few hours sleep, a quick rubdown and a cold plunge in the pool.

We were in the funeral parlors at seven-thirty. Cockeye and Pat left to pick up Klemy's rug cleaning truck, with instructions to meet us at the Riverside Drive address.

Max and I put a large burlap rug cover in the Caddy. I put a long needle and a ball of heavy twine in my pocket.

Eddie opened the door of the apartment. He looked tired and wan.

“That bastard made me more nervous than the stiff did,” Eddie said.

We looked at the lawyer. He was a disheveled, terror-stricken sight.

He watched as we rolled the stiff into the rug.

In a plaintive, dazed sort of way he murmured, “That's a five-thousand-dollar Chinese rug.”

We ignored him. We wrapped the burlap all around. I sewed the ends securely together. We found a cut glass decanter half full of whiskey. Max and I helped ourselves to a drink. We sat around smoking for about twenty minutes until Pat and Cockeye showed up. They were dressed in the uniform of a rug cleaning company.

The freight elevator wasn't high enough. The operator had to lift the wire top of the car to get the rug in.

Max and I stood a distance away and watched Patsy and Cockeye struggle to put the awkward, bulky object into the truck. They finally succeeded and were about to drive away when a cop walked over. Max and I hurried to see what he wanted.

The cop was arguing with Cockeye that the bundle extended beyond the rear of the truck.

“You got to get a red flag on the end of that thing. That's the traffic regulation,” he insisted.

I sent Cockeye back up to the apartment to get a piece of red cloth from a dress or coat. He came down with a piece of red silk from a dress. He tied it to the projecting end. We followed the truck downtown.

Rosenberg was all alone in the parlors. There was a funeral scheduled for later in the day. The body was ready in the chapel.

Max told Rosenberg to take off part of the day.

I didn't like the way Rosenberg said, “Okay, if you want me to,” as if he suspected something. I decided to have a talk with Max about him later on.

Max was busy calling the cemetery. Patsy went around the corner to get the hearse out of the garage while Cockeye backed Klemy's truck to the back door. He and I carried the burlap covered roll inside. I cut the outer covering. We unrolled the rug and put the stiff in a pine box.

A half-hour later the body was on its way, with Patsy driving the hearse. It was followed by Cockeye in the Caddy with a few old men, paid mourners, solicited from the schul around the corner.

We sat in the office waiting for Rosenberg's return.

Max said, “So the stiff looked familiar?”

“Yeh, I've seen him in restaurants on Broadway. They whispered that he was a judge or something. I never met the guy.”

“Yep, he was a Supreme Court judge,” Max said. “That's what Eddie thought. I don't know,” Max continued. “Somehow he don't look like a Federal Supreme judge.”

“He probably wasn't a Federal. He seems too young. Most likely he was on the State bench.”

“Who dunnit? Do you think that lawyer?”

“It looked like it,” I said. “They were probably both involved in some kind of big swindle.”

“Some Supreme Court judge,” Max said sarcastically.

“A married guy and a chippie chaser,” I said.

“Some Supreme Court judge,” Max repeated.

“You and I know what judges are today, Max. Any lawyer with twenty-five grand to pay Tammany can get on the bench.”

“Yep, and when they get on, they try to get their dough back fast. You can buy 'em with a charlotte russe. I wonder if they'll raise a fuss about his disappearance?”

I shrugged.

“What's the stiff's name?” Max asked.

I shrugged.

“Judge—Mater—no, let's see.” I thought a moment. “He was a well known chippie chaser on Broadway.”

“Like you, hey, Noodles?” Max laughed.

“Yeh, like me,” I said.

Max chuckled.