A Handy Death (16 page)

“Well,” Ross said, cutting away, “enough of this Sybaritism, if there is such a word. Let's get back to business. What have you got for us?”

Gunnerson finished his drink, signaled for a refill, and reached for his knife and fork.

“Well, my man up in Glens Falls was at this Jim Marshall for hours, but Marshall refuses to say a thing. He's got a little shop up in Lake George Village about eight or nine miles above Glens Falls; he repairs bicycles and does odd jobs. Lives in a sort of shack about a mile from his shop. Not too prosperous. Don Evans—my man up there—has a feeling some money might loosen up his tongue.”

Ross looked up from his plate. “So offer him money.”

“I intend to, but I want to do it myself. I'm taking the early morning plane up there tomorrow morning.”

“Good. Anything new on Neeley?”

“I've had a man backtracking on him and I've got the report here in my pocket.” He tapped his jacket pocket for confirmation, accepted his second drink, tested it, and went back to his dinner. “But later you and I are meeting an old friend of mine who may be able to give us a bit more on Neeley than I have in this report. And information that's a bit more reliable.”

“Oh?” Sharon paused in eating. “I'm not invited?”

“Not to this place,” Mike said positively.

“Not with two big, strong, and tough men to protect me?”

Mike laughed. “Oh, the place is safe enough. It's just that I had enough trouble getting my friend to agree to talk even in front of Hank here. Bring along anyone else and all we'd get would be the silent treatment.”

“Well,” Sharon said, “then I guess I should have double-dated with Molly tonight instead of tomorrow night.”

Ross looked at her. “Why not both nights?”

“Because I don't have Molly's energy. If I kept her hours and spent them all dancing, too, I wouldn't be able to stay awake in the office.” She sighed. “Maybe I'll take in a movie, like Billy.”

“No double features, though,” Ross warned. “Remember staying awake in the office.”

Sharon made a face. Ross grinned and turned back to Mike.

“What about that report in your pocket?”

“Well,” Mike said, speaking around a large bite of steak, “it's odd. Or at least it strikes me as odd. Neeley still lives—lived, would be closer—in that same apartment after all these years. The only one, as I said before. And as far as we have been able to determine, he's never left town, not even for a vacation. I don't understand it.”

“What's to understand? Lots of people never leave town.”

“Well, I was sure he'd go after this Grace Melisi, wherever she was, and I was sure she wasn't in New York. I figured he had to try and get his hands on her if only to break her arm, maybe. Just to teach her manners.”

Ross said, “Maybe he couldn't afford the luxury of revenge. Sometimes it comes high.” He studied Mike across the table. “How was Neeley fixed financially? What did he do for a living?”

“When he didn't have some mark on the hook? I don't know. That's one of the things I'm hoping to find out tonight.”

“How would your friend react to an attaché case?”

“With a recorder in it?” Mike shook his head decisively. “Not a chance! Don't even have bulky pockets if you want him to talk. He's cagey.” He glanced at his watch. “I told him between nine and nine-thirty.”

“Then let's eat and get over there,” Hank said, and attacked his steak. He grinned at the girl beside him. “Besides, I wouldn't want Sharon to miss the trailers.…”

CHAPTER

11

Frank Bukvic was nondescript in the extreme. His suit was of neutral gray and cut to fit his body neatly but without any detracting stylish innovations; his hair was thin and colorless, neither too long nor too short; his eyes were pale in color and his small features extraordinarily regular. His general appearance was so subdued that one could easily forget that he was around. This anonymity was far from accidental; it was cultivated to bolster Bukvic's principal profession. While he did many things from time to time to earn a living, in general Frank Bukvic was a salesman. He sold information.

Now, seated in the back booth of a small, dimly lit, and poorly attended bar on Second Avenue, sipping his highball, he spoke in a quiet voice that seemed to issue from motionless lips. The sound reached the two men across from him but miraculously went no further.

“Ray Neeley? Sure. A runner.”

“The numbers racket?” Mike was doing the talking, Ross merely listening.

“That's what I just said.”

“A loner?”

“Nobody lones for near ten years, which is what Neeley did. He worked for the Organization. He had the section from Seventh to Eighth, Fifty-fifth to Sixtieth, if I remember right. Not the hottest property in town, but when he worked it properly he managed all right.”

“What about his love life? Ever hear of him and a Grace Melisi?”

“Never.”

“Or any other dame?”

“No idea,” Bukvic said. “Nothing real loud, that's sure, or the Organization would have cracked down. Like they did when he tried to shake down that kid—that baseball kid. I forget his name.”

Ross leaned over, his eyes bright.

“You
know
about that? That it
was
a shakedown?”

“Me and half the town.”

“You can
prove
it was a shakedown?”

“Prove it? Who has to prove it?”

“I mean, would you be willing to testify in court—?”

“Court?” It was such a stupid question that Bukvic, usually exceptionally polite, pressed his lips together in disapproval. “I'm not in the business of proving; I'm in the business of reporting.”

“Well, then, do you know of anyone else—for a generous fee—who would consider testifying? One of those ‘half the town'?”

“No.”

“Look, Mr. Bukvic—”

“The answer is no.” The tone was as nondescript as the face, but final.

“
Damn
it!” Ross said to Mike, savagely, “how in the hell come nobody dug these facts out eight years ago? When they were hot?”

“If you don't look, you don't find,” Mike said in a soothing tone, and turned back to Bukvic. “Frank, how did they crack down on Neeley?”

“Just told him one more try to do something on his own and that would be that. They didn't spell it out, but those boys don't have to.” For the first time the faintest hint of a smile crossed the thin lips, but it disappeared so quickly that Ross wondered if he had imagined it. “Lucky for Neeley the heads of the numbers end were a bit more lenient when he tried to hire Jennings.”

Mike frowned. “Jennings? Russ Jennings?”

Ross cut in. “Who's Jennings?”

“Local investigator,” Mike said, and went back to Bukvic. “What happened?”

“All I know is the Organization didn't like it, but they weren't too tough on him that time. Had him on the carpet, but he must have promised to keep his nose clean, because nothing came of it.”

“Who reported it to the Organization?”

“Jennings himself, I imagine. He must have figured it would be smart to check it out. Jennings is lots of things, but stupid isn't one of them.”

“What did Neeley want Jennings to do for him?”

Bukvic shrugged. “No idea. Strictly between Jennings and the top boys. Never leaked, as far as I know.”

There were several moments of silence. Bukvic took advantage of the pause in conversation to sip his drink. Ross frowned down at his hands on the table in frustration, then looked Bukvic straight in the eye.

“Look, Mr. Bukvic, I have a client who can get life because nobody believes his story about that woman being in Neeley's apartment.”

“I know,” Bukvic said. “Tough.”

For a moment Ross thought he saw a gleam of pity in the small man's pale eyes, but he knew that even if it was there, nothing would be done about it. He sighed. Mike looked at him.

“Anything more, Hank?”

“No.” Ross shook his head in disgust. “Damn it, Mike, we have our case! We made a wild guess and we were right! Only how the hell do you prove it? If we could get
anyone
to testify …”

He looked at Bukvic imploringly. The slender man's face was impassive.

“No way,” he said, and went back to his highball.

Mike stood up and sidled from the booth. Ross followed, Mike leaned down.

“Thanks, Frank. The usual post office box?”

“The same,” Bukvic said. He looked past Mike. “Sorry, Mister.”

“Me, too,” Ross said, and walked out of the bar with Mike Gunnerson right behind him. At the curb Mike stepped into the street and waved down a cab. The two men climbed in; Gunnerson leaned forward, giving the driver an address unfamiliar to his companion. Ross looked at him.

“Russ Jennings' pad,” Mike explained.

“Will he talk?”

“To me, he will,” Mike said confidently.

“Shouldn't we have called?”

“Better this way,” Mike said cryptically. “This way we find him home.”

The drive was finished in silence; the cab pulled up before an apartment house on Central Park West in the high eighties. The men climbed down, Mike paying, and walked into the lobby. The building had obviously seen better days; the marble table set beneath the large but flaking mirror was stained and cracked; the lobby was otherwise bare and hadn't been painted in many years. Mike led the way past the tiny self-service elevator and took the steps two at a time.

The second-floor hallway was lit by a small bulb hanging unshaded from a cord; graffiti decorated the wall, illegible in the gloom. The dirty broken-tile floor was littered with cigarette butts. Ross wrinkled his nose.

“It looks as if your friend Russ isn't doing so well.”

Mike looked over his shoulder, his face blank.

“Don't worry about Russ Jennings. He could buy and sell both of us a few times over. Two things: One, this is still a good mailing address. Out-of-town agencies go for the Central Park West bit—”

“And two?”

“Two, Russ Jennings probably has the first dime he ever stole. He's a miser.”

He paused before a door and rapped sharply. There was silence. Mike rapped again, louder this time. There was the sound of movement behind the solid panel; a cautious voice spoke.

“Who's there?”

“It's Mike Gunnerson, Russ.”

“Just a second.” There was a hesitant pause. “How do I know it's Mike Gunnerson?”

“How the hell do I know?” Mike asked cheerfully and turned to Hank Ross. “A character,” he said. “Funny thing, he's not a bad investigator. Barring being a bastard filled with more than his share of the milk of human larceny.”

There was the rasping sound of a bolt being withdrawn, followed by the scrape of a second; the men in the hallway could next hear a heavy bar being removed and apparently tilted against a wall. The door finally swung away from the sill the length of a safety chain. A suspicious eye surveyed the two men, after which the door closed again to permit the chain to be removed. At long last the panel swung back to admit them. Mike walked in, surveying the protection with honest wonder.

“What's the matter, Russ? Somebody after you?”

Jennings was busy replacing the hardware.

“Nobody's after me,” he said sourly. “What's the matter? You just move to this town? This neighborhood's changed. And I don't bulk as big as you.”

It was an understatement. Jennings' five feet six barely came to Mike's shoulder, and his scrawny body looked as if it hadn't had a good meal in years.

“So why don't you move?”

“You got any idea the rents those thieves are asking over on the East Side?” Jennings led the way into the living room. He pointed to a sagging sofa and sat down in a straight kitchen-type chair. The windows were without curtains or drapes; old-fashioned shutters were closed and barred. Jennings looked uncertainly at the two men.

He said, “Sit down.”

Ross tried the sofa and almost fell through; he was saved by a broken spring. He struggled to the edge and sat there. Mike Gunnerson preferred the arm of the sofa; it wiggled under his weight, but held.

“All right,” Jennings said. “I know Mr. Ross, at least by sight. Well, what brings you two out slumming? I'm pretty sure it wasn't to tout me on a pad in the high-rent district.”

“No,” Mike said. “It wasn't.” He leaned forward. “Russ, some time ago a man named Raymond Neeley came to you and wanted to hire you to do a job for him. Right?”

Jennings' face could have been carved from stone. He sat motionless, his small hands on his thin knees. He said, “You're telling it.”

“What did he want?”

There were several moments of silence. Through the closed shutters came the normal sounds of the neighborhood; a child screaming, the screech of skidding tires, a derisive hoot from some boys in the street, and the distant wail of a siren. Then Jennings shook his head.

“You know better than that, Mike. That's a confidence between me and my client.”

“I know,” Mike said sympathetically. “And you don't want to go down to the morgue and ask his permission to divulge.” His voice lost its false humility, becoming harder. “Stop the crap, Russ. This is old Mike asking, remember? The guy you owe a few favors to, like not breaking your back for trying to steal the Webley account from me? What did you think, I didn't know? All right, now, let's take it from the beginning without the violins in the background. What did he want?”

“There are people who would rather—”

“Russ,” Mike said, his voice deadly serious, “I'm going to ask you one last time and then I'm going to lose my temper. As for the people you're talking about, I know them, too, and they won't save you from getting set on your ass if you don't open up. Like you say, I bulk larger than you. Now, what did he want?”