The Last Cop Out (26 page)
“But...”
He walked over and took her by her arms, his fingers kneading her gently. “We got this far, Helen. Let’s stretch it out as far as we can. It’s a lousy business and I can handle it better when I handle it alone.”
“Gill, Gill ...” She smiled up at him, her eyes moist. “I love you, Gill. Be careful for me.”
“I’m a pretty good survivalist.”
“The odds are terrible.”
“Not when you can manipulate them,” he told her.
He leaned down, kissed her damp lips and let his fingers drift through her hair. “I won’t be long.”
The strident ringing of the phone interrupted her answer. He picked up the receiver and heard Bill Long’s voice say, “Burke ... get your tail over here now. A prowl car will pick you up downstairs.”
“You get Shatzi?”
“We got better than Shatzi, soldier. Now get here before Lederer does so you can get a story ready. None of his boys had this location on the books at all.”
“The beat cop coulda told him.”
“Uh-uh. He’s a new one. The old regular retired out three months back like I should have done. Now get moving.”
“Yeah.” He hung up the phone and grabbed his raincoat. “I’ll have to do the intimidation bit later.”
“You still want me to wait?”
“It’ll help hurry things if I know you are.”
“I’ll be here,” she told him.
The strange part was, he could slip his forefinger as far in the hole as it would go, yet it didn’t hurt at all. There was a tingling sensation around the edges of the wound, something like when your hand falls asleep and down below there was a creeping numbness, but for Shatzi, it was all very pleasant.
He coughed and leaned up against the side of the building a moment to rest. He still had the thing in his hand and he looked at it again, a puckered obscenity indented in a little hill of fat. He frowned, trying to remember what had happened to the other one, but the thought didn’t come and he shrugged it off.
That stupid fat Case and the other guy. They must have thought he was a pushover. He could remember the sudden impact of something against his skull when he was bending over that guy in his room, the one who tried to jump him with a billy. So he was dumb there, but he was smarter when he woke up because he was on the floor in the back of a car and that guy Mack was wanting to kill him right there and Case wouldn’t let him do it. Twice that bastard Mack wanted to see if he’d come around and stuck a knife in his leg, but he didn’t move or let out a groan and when Mack went back to arguing with Case, Shatzi had slipped out the foreign switch blade from his sock and when the car pulled into the alley between the buildings he reached up and almost cut Mack’s head off before sticking the blade into Case’s chest. The slob was so fat he had to slam him three more times before he collapsed and as he did the grisly remains of Mack stirred, the head trying to twist with the shoulders and not quite making it, blood pumping and squirting like somebody squeezing a gory sponge. Then the little gun in his hand spit once and Shatzi felt the tiny fist action a little above his belt on the right side.
It hardly bothered him when he performed his ritual surgery on the two bodies.
Now he had to follow his plan. He had had one, he knew, but it wasn’t easy to remember. He was going to a place out west ... a shack in tiny town nobody knew about and he could look at what he had in the bottle and know that once he had been bigger than them all. But he didn’t have the bottle any more. All he had was that sticky thing in his hand. He coughed again and sat down. He could hear police sirens in the distance, but they didn’t mean anything to him at all. He felt the hole in his side again and wiggled his finger there idly. There was a burst of rain that felt cool on his face and he tilted his head upward. Three other faces were looking down at him, but little by little they dulled to pale ovals and he felt himself toppling over.
The four police cruisers and the rain were enough to keep the curious back. Not being a residential area, only a handful bothered to see what the flashing lights were about, but since there wasn’t any apparent action, they kept moving. Only one who knew the diverse uses of the warehouse bothered to make a call that would be relayed to the higher echelon.
Gill Burke walked away from the two bodies in the rubber sheets and waited until the other morgue wagon drove up. A uniformed attendant hopped out of the back still shaking his head. Until now he thought he had seen everything. “What’s with that one?” Gill asked.
“Dead as hell. Took him a while, but he never had a chance. That slug turned his insides into muck. You know what he had in his hand?”
“Yeah, I know.”
“Son of a bitch. What’re we supposed to do with it?”
“Guess you sew it back on the right party.”
“Beautiful. Just great.”
He heard Captain Long come up behind him, heard the terse, angry voice of Bob Lederer and spun around to give them both that bold, flat look that was so much a part of him again. Before Lederer could talk, Burke asked, “Got it figured out yet?”
“Not for public consumption,” the D.A. said softly.
Burke glanced around and scowled. The only two reporters were talking to the coroner’s men with not much success. “You going to keep Case in it or out?”
Lederer sucked his breath in, held it a second, then let it hiss out slowly. “Mr. Case was a very public-spirited man. He happened to have a C.B. radio in his car and probably was alerted to Shatzi’s whereabouts when the call was put out.”
“Not bad,” Burke agreed.
“His car was seen parked not too far from the building, so that when an escape vehicle was needed, his was comandeered.”
Burke let out a little laugh and lit a cigarette. “Who’s going to buy that crock of shit, mister?”
“Gill . . .”
“Oh, Captain, come on, you aren’t buying that stuff, are you?”
“No, but we’re hoping somebody will.”
“Richard Case was your security leak,” Burke said. “How much will it take to tie him into the mob.”
“Probably not too much, Gill,” Long said, “but it could be better if we left it alone.”
“Bullshit. Their whole structure is coming apart right now and you want to handle this one with kid gloves.”
“Look, Gill, that’s the way we’re going to play it, so stay cool, buddy.”
“Sure. Okay. So now what? You got enough here to go out busting heads on. What do we do?”
“We sit tight. We go home, have a drink and let all the great brains get together and come up with an official attitude and issue orders and all the usual crap and try not to make waves.”
Burke barely turned his head and looked at his friend. The captain felt something cold run down his back. It wasn’t the rain or the wind. It was just
something,
and in those few silent moments of stark contemplation, Bill Long was remembering about those items in the paper datelined somewhere in South America and his mind began its own analysis of the details of the past months until a hardness slipped into his eyes. “Just do what I told you, Gill,” he said.
something,
and in those few silent moments of stark contemplation, Bill Long was remembering about those items in the paper datelined somewhere in South America and his mind began its own analysis of the details of the past months until a hardness slipped into his eyes. “Just do what I told you, Gill,” he said.
When Herman Shanke got the message he sent out two of his least valuable dummies to bring in the truck. He wasn’t that stupid not to figure a plant by the enemy, and after they had alternately driven, towed and pushed the truck into several preselected areas, Herman the German got a look at himself and gave an approving grunt to three of his lieutenants and said, “How do you like the balls of that Moe Piel! Son of a bitch, whatever kind of deal he made he sure cleaned house!”
“Wonder why he didn’t call us?”
“What for? The thing was to get this stuff bought and on the road.”
“Moe shoulda brought it himself. He shoulda been here.”
“Moe’s got more to do than play war, dummy. He’s a hustler.”
But Herman’s lieutenant just wouldn’t leave it alone. Everything had to be black or white without a touch of gray showing, otherwise it left him edgy with the little hairs on the back of his neck and hands standing straight out. “I don’t like it, Herm,” he said.
“You don’t like what?”
“How come we got that other truck first, Herm?”
“Come on, man, this one got a sick engine.”
“You sure that’s Moe’s truck?”
“Look, shithead, I can see the plates from here. I know the rig, get it? Now go check it out and if it’s okay, get it back of the hotel. Once you get in the alley we seal the place off.”
“Sure, Herm. How come Moe didn’t show?”
“Maybe he’s making another deal. Who the hell knows. He’ll be back.”
Twenty minutes later the truck turned into the back alley, pushed by the old four door sedan, eased down the incline after a gentle bumper nudge and was braked to a stop in back of the old hotel that was the new headquarters for the rapidly expanding Shanke organization. The move from the old place had been subtle, clever and expertly carried out. At that moment six of Papa Menes’ torpedoes were raiding the old place. What they didn’t realize was that the guns inside belonged to police officers investigating the emptied building and they had already called for reinforcements on their walkie-talkie radios. Within ten minutes, the cream of the Menes armed forces was about to be eliminated.
And so was a square block of the city. The troops of Herman the German had moved in all but four cases of armament from the truck, gloating over their new acquisitions, revelling in the power of powder and steel, then the critical case was lifted and a wild inferno of flame and smoke erupted with a terrifying roar that dismantled everything within the perimeter of its destruction and threw the wreckage in mad, burning arcs into other city blocks where they could create their own little holocausts and in a single microsecond there was no army led by Herman the German.
But within thirty seconds news of the ravaged section of Miami flashed out on radio and television and five minutes later confirmation was made by a charred, staggering Shanke supporter that everything was lost because the Menes forces had suckered them all.
In Chicago, it was an hour before the Big Board could convene. Every one of them was aware of what had happened in Miami and silently cursed Papa Menes for jeopardizing the entire organization with one stupid move. Right at that moment, every civic organization, every governmental agency was getting ready to mount a massive thrust against the underground empire that was their life’s blood. One spurt of true public indignation and their present and future, families and selves, would be wiped out of existence.
There was a single redeeming factor. Papa Menes was in the Miami area, it was his operation to conduct and his responsibility to assume. Throw Papa Menes to the dogs, the public would be satisfied and they could go back to business as usual.
Since the decision wasn’t all that imaginative, they appeased their lack of originality by a lengthy discussion and parceling out of public relations assignments designed to focus attention on Papa Menes while detracting from their own notoriety.
All in all, it was a very harmonious meeting, with much drinking and shaking of hands.
All in all, it was a very stupid meeting because they underestimated the very person who had put them in their relative seats of power. When Papa Menes heard the news of the Miami destruction he put in an immediate call to Joey Grif, who sat across and down from the meeting room of the Big Board with a fix-mounted, precalibrated bazooka.
Joey answered the third ring, knowing who was on the line because nobody else knew the number, and said, “Yeah, boss.”
“They meeting tonight, Joey?”
“Yeah. Big deal. This time everybody’s there.”
“You ready?”
Joey Grif felt a wave of the most incredible excitement he had ever experienced in his life wash over him. It was like being drenched with boiling oil that didn’t even burn, but just made you feel good, so good it was even better than when you made it with a broad. He didn’t want the boss to call it off because he seemed excited or overanxious, so he kept his voice even and said, “All ready, boss. Tell me when.”
“How well can you see them from where you are?”
“Not too good. They’re all sitting down. Talking, I guess.”
“When they get up, they’ll have drinks. Then do it.”
“Got it, boss.”
“Good luck, Joey. You’re well taken care of.”
“I know that, boss.” He heard the receiver click and he hung up. Downstairs his car was waiting, the house was ready up in the mountains with the money safely stashed. No one would be able to trace him or the equipment, and with a satisfied smile he made an adjustment on the rubber gloves he wore, loaded the bazooka with a rocket projectile especially designed for this single shot and sat down to watch the windows of the room where the Big Board convened for the proper moment.
At precisely the right moment, Joey Grif triggered the bazooka and a moment later a cascade of searing flame roaring in front of a deadly hail of explosive pellets that churned inside a hellish explosion wiped out the heads of the crime syndicate in the western two-thirds of the United States.
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