The Last Cop Out (22 page)
“Damn right. I called in another dozen of our bunch to go at it too.” He paused, exasperated, “What the hell is going on any more? Here we’re all riding fat and easy and suddenly the fucking building is crashing down on our heads!”
“Relax, it’s happened before. We take care of these things.”
“We didn’t have any idiot navel nippers around before either.”
“Who told you about the Frenchman?”
“I was there when Lederer was blowing his top. I could hear him right across the hall. City Hall must have leaned on him because he’s gotten all leaves canceled, got the detectives working overtime and eating the ass out of Bill Long because Burke’s disappeared someplace and nobody can find him”
“Okay, finish your drink and go on home. Chicago dropped the whole thing in my lap until Papa comes back and I’ll take it from here. Tomorrow we’ll get some action.”
He locked the door behind Case and stood there a moment thinking of Gill Burke. He didn’t like for that bastard to be missing. He wanted him right where he could get to him.
Only Bill Long had gotten to Burke and told him about Shatzi.
Gill said, “You sure?”
“Positive make. Doorman and the cop. The medical examiner confirmed that Verdun died just minutes before the cop saw Shatzi run out of there.”
“So you got a break finally”
“No two ways about it. He mutilated the Frenchman like he did the others, only worse. Cut his damn pecker right off. He even left bloody prints in the elevator.”
“He was pretty damn dumb about it.”
“Hell,” Long said, “Verdun knew him, let him in and got it right out of left field. He never expected Shatzi would even try to take him.”
“One mistake is all it takes,” Gill said.
“And Lederer wants you back here. He wants to have a long talk about Verdun with Helen Scanlon and you’d better be ready with some fast answers or you are strictly up the creek. He’s beginning to think you’re tracking around dung on your shoes, old buddy. He’s even got a couple of his own men running a check on you.”
“Let him go screw himself.”
“You said that before.”
“Then what else is new?”
“When you coming back?”
“Monday morning. And in case you’re thinking of coming to get me, remember that this is New Jersey.”
“Come on, Gill, I didn’t tell him where you were.”
Burke laughed into the phone. “Keep up the good work. A guy needs a rest occasionally.”
“You’re not getting any damned rest,” Long told him as he hung up.
When Gill put the phone back, Helen was grinning at him.
“You’re not going to get any, either. Come back here, you big pig.”
Burke leaned back against the pillow, his arm around Helen’s warm shoulder. But something had happened to him and he wasn’t there with her at all. His mind was back in New York and suddenly little things began to come together, not swiftly, but swirling in like the first flakes of snow in a gusty wind, twisting and revolving while they looked for a place to settle. One would alight, stick a moment, then blow on into another place until it adhered, then waited for another to come and attach itself. It was forming now, and when the pieces stopped coming together everything would be covered and in place.
She knew he had left her and didn’t disturb his thoughts, content to be there while he tunneled into secret places after the hidden things only cops look for, wishing she could help, but knowing she couldn’t. The only thing she could be sure of was that tonight was all she had of him until it was over. She closed her eyes and tried to blanket herself with sleep.
On the top floor of the cheap hotel on Forty-ninth Street, sleep was something that couldn’t come to Shatzi Heinkle. He kept looking at the chunk of flesh in the pickle jar of rubbing alcohol that was beside him on the night table and felt a thrill of excitement unlike any he had ever experienced before.
Alive! He had done it to somebody who was alive!
He licked his lips and took another pull on the bottle of cheap whiskey he had picked up downstairs and grinned foolishly. Outside they’d be searching the city for him, but right now he couldn’t care less. The fleabag hotel was a safe place for him as long as Bert was at the desk, but tomorrow he’d move on to another safe place until he reached the clapboard shanty halfway across the United States where he was born and he could live there happy and peaceful all his life with his trophy in the bottle of alcohol and know that he finally got back at the world. Oh, he was too damn smart for them. Or too dumb for them, maybe. They never could think like he could and that’s why they never tagged him. And who would look in a place that didn’t even have a post office?
One by one, he went over the moves he would make and how he would make them, knowing his escape route was perfected. The only thing that bothered him was the bottle beside him and the wild excitement he felt. Hell, if just one of those things could make him feel so good, how would he feel if he had two or even three in the bottle? His mouth went dry from pleasure and he wet it down again with the whiskey.
Sure, there was that big wheel Shelby, the fat guy from downtown they called Little somebody. There was Remy who had told him to get lost once when he was waiting for Frank outside the office. Damn, but he could go back to that safe place with maybe two bottles full, knowing he left behind the story of what a really big man he was after all and that kind of food would sustain him forever.
He could always leave, but if he left now, he could never add to the bottle. And he was much too smart for them anyway.
Or dumb. Either way was just as good.
11
The years of professional whoredom had left Louise Belhander with a total callousness, an absolute lack of sensitivity and, until she saw the name Verdun again, an almost complete forgetfulness of her past. But that one word had brought it all back to her again, even the moments when she unconsciously went through the V listing in the phone book while she was making a call. Wherever she had been, she had never found the name, and now all she had was a terrible sense of stifled rage burning in her mind as she remembered nearly every detail of her sordid life that began that day in the barn.
Even if the old bastard and his friend had paid them well for their services, they were somebody who knew a man named Verdun and if it were the same Verdun she was going to see that they all paid even more.
When Artie Meeker drove them back to Miami she said she was going to stay at a friend’s house and stopped in Homestead to make a call. What she did was arrange to have a car ready for her use and when Artie dropped her off she got in the waiting sedan, followed him while he let out the other girl, then headed back to the Keys with him. Artie never realized he was being followed because Louise stayed well ahead of him, and on the Florida Keys, there is only one road. At a gas station along the way Artie stopped for a good ten minutes at an outdoor phone booth, then practically ran back to his car and drove like hell. When she saw the lights of his car slow down, then turn, she swung around, spotted the cottage, parked in a deserted driveway and ran back to Papa Menes’ cottage.
She squeezed into the clump of bushes outside the open window, oblivious of the insects that welcomed her, watching the small living room, listening to every word they said, feeling the shock waves bounce through her brain at what Artie was telling Papa Menes.
Only once in his life had Papa ever felt a curdling in his stomach and felt the inside of his thighs quiver because he was afraid. Now he was feeling it again and he squeezed the arm of the chair so he could control himself and when the spasm passed he said, “Now, give me that shit once more.”
Artie Meeker stopped his pacing and swung around. “It was like I said, boss. Verdun’s dead. That Shatzi cut his button right outta his belly and even took it with him. Blam, just like that and the Frenchman’s outta it. The Big Board’s got Shelby handlin’ everything up there and they’re raising hell because nothing’s getting done down this way.”
“Shelby ain’t handling nothing,” Papa said nastily.
“I’m just telling you what they told me.”
More to himself than Meeker, Papa said, “The Board’s a pack of nitheads. If they think they can cancel me out with Shelby they’re crazy.”
“Boss ...”
“Shut up, Artie.” He stared at his hands, clenched them, then opened his fingers. “Those asses sent Verdun in themselves. They called him over my head without even asking me and now they’re screaming.”
“Boss ... you were the one who brought the Frenchman in the first time,” Artie reminded him.
“And once was enough. What else did they tell you?”
“Everybody on the cops in New York is looking for Shatzi. Our guys want him first and the lid’s ready to blow. That damned D.A.... Lederer ... is really laying on the heat. They want you to clean up here, then get back to the city.”
“Just like that.”
Meeker shrugged. “They said you got the soldiers down here, now use ’em. They want that Herman punk hit like right now.”
“Didn’t you tell them how I was playing it?”
“Sure, boss. Real cool, I said. No excitement. The Board said to screw the fancy stuff and get in there.”
“Fucking idiots,” Papa said.
“So what do you do, boss?”
For a minute or so, Papa Menes didn’t answer. He sat there thinking until his mind was made up, then turned his head toward Artie. “How many of our boys are down here?”
“Only four.”
Papa nodded. “Call them off. The rest are all the ones the Big Board sent out themselves. When it hits the fan we’ll let Chicago catch it. That damn bunch of westerns need to get burned. Maybe the coast families’ll wise up and get back in line then.”
“Want me to do it now?”
“No. Tomorrow’s time enough.”
Artie picked up his beer, took a long pull and made like he was studying the label on the can. Finally he said, “Hey, Papa.”
“Now what?”
“Who the hell you think knocked off all our guys?”
“Somebody who wants to take over, that’s who.”
“Herman the German ain’t got that much smarts, Papa.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“Then it’s gotta be somebody else.”
“I know that too.”
“Who do you think then, Papa?”
“Hit this Miami prick and if it happens some more I’ll sure as hell know.”
Artie nodded thoughtfully, still looking at the can. “One thing screwy, boss ... Verdun was careful. He wouldn’t let a slob like Shtazi walk in and tear him up. Shit, the Frenchman could tear him apart. He got it right by the shower so whoever came in had a key and he wasn’t about to give no key to Shatzi.” Artie shuddered and his mouth twisted. “The fucker cut his pecker right off and chopped out his belly button.”
“Knock it off,” Papa barked. He didn’t want to hear about it again either.
But outside the window Louise Belhander felt a warm glow of satisfaction wash over her and she savored the mental image with pleasure. Verdun was dead then, and that was all right. But here were two others he was associated with and they’d do just as well. She watched Artie Meeker pick up the old man’s beer can, then hugged the wall while he walked outside to toss them in the trash can. When he went back inside she stayed in the shadows, crept to the can and retrieved the two empties, handling them with the tails of her blouse.
There were things she wanted to know.
What she found out came from an ex-cop now in private business specializing in divorce cases. He lifted the prints for her, had them identified through a friend in the department and didn’t ask her any questions at all.
But being a cop he recognized the local brand of beer, photographed the stamped price marking on the lid and noted the distribution numbers on the label.
Louise Belhander spent all the next day reading old newspapers at the library and was a little stunned at what she discovered. That one time with Verdun in the barn was going to cost an international organization plenty.
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