Killer Mine (2 page)

“That’s because you always were a clod. Clods don’t think, scare easily or get married. You’re a big, ugly clod. How big are you, Joe?”

“Six-two. Weight, two-oh-two, age, up there as you damn well know. How about you?”

“Three inches smaller, four years younger and forty-two pounds lighter.”

“At least it’ll be a big team. We can tear the top off things,”

“Just like the old days,” she mused. “What happened to everybody?”

I stared out the window and shrugged. “Gone. If they had any sense they got out. All eleven kids in my family took off. The three youngest can’t even be located.”

Her eyes had a faraway look in them. “And Larry… do you hear from him?”

“Chief Crazy Horse,” I said softly. “No, he’s gone… someplace. We met once during the war. It was by accident and we were both drunk. You can guess how that was.”

“You were funny brothers, Joe.” She curled her feet farther under her. “Who was the oldest?”

“He was.”

“Chief Crazy Horse,” she repeated. “Those were the days. It was a fight just to stay alive. I can remember when eating was a luxury, not to be taken too lightly.”

“And your family, Marty?”

“The folks died. Young Sed is in college trying hard to be a dentist.”

“Still living in the same place?”

Marta nodded. “For some silly reason I forgot to move. The folks owned the building, you know, and it was convenient with Sed needing funds.” She gave me that big grin again. “That’s our base of operations, I understand.”

“That’s what I hear.”

“I’ll buy a couch so we can sit and talk.”

“Forget it. Get a bigger icebox instead.”

“You sound just like a lousy cop. All stomach and no heart.”

“That’s me, chicken.” I grinned back and said, “Let’s get under these reports. I need some filling in.”

“Yes, sir. Yes, sir, Lieutenant, sir.”

At six we had sandwiches sent up, and at ten we stacked the folders back in the files. I turned the fan off, stuck the .38 back in the Weber holster and said, “Let’s get some coffee. Real china-cup coffee without a cardboard taste.”

Marta put her jacket back on, buttoned it and picked up her purse. “Are we off duty, Lieutenant?”

“Off duty.”

“Then hello, Joe.”

A laugh twisted its way out of me.

“No wonder you went up so fast. You’re a symbol of devotion to service and stark purity.” Then she reached out and took my hand. “But you’re nice, Joe. Where to for coffee?”

“Down the block. It’s the closest.”

Ray made his money from the oversize urn. It seemed to be all he sold, but at least he was in the right location for it. If he didn’t need a table to do his paper work on he wouldn’t have had the one in the back. To him the counter was the thing. We picked up our mugs and went back to the corner table and sat down.

I said, “We didn’t learn much, did we?”

“Not unless you like biographies.” She paused and put her cup down. “Joe… do you make anything of it?”

“Something’s there,” I nodded. “You helped compile those statistics, didn’t you?”

“That’s right. You saw the woman’s touch?”

“It was a little flowery.”

“They asked for that. They wanted every detail. They thought there had to be a background tie-in someplace. There certainly wasn’t any other connection.”

I blew on my coffee slowly, watching her over the rim of it. “Let’s boil it down real quick, Marty. Let’s get one common denominator first.”

She made circles on the table with the wet bottom of the cup. “The gun. The same .38 killed them all.”

“What else?” I asked her.

She was real sharp. She picked up one skipped detail right away. “Single shot each. Fatal almost immediately. Indicates professional killer. Doug Kitchen was the exception. He was shot on the run and the third bullet was merely insurance for the first two. Further professionalism.”

I nodded. “That’s a common detail, but not the denominator. Now involve us too and you’ll see what I mean.”

Her face was impassive a moment, then she got the point. “You and I knew them all, didn’t we.” It was a statement rather than a question.

“Curious, isn’t it?”

“In a way… at least from a coincidental standpoint. It was your neighborhood and still is mine. That’s why we’re on this one.”

“You haven’t hit it, kid. You’ll never make sergeant this way.”

“I don’t get it.”

“Then I’ll wait until you do,” I told her.

“Smart guy,” she said. “Just because you can pull rank.”

I grinned at her. “Now you sound like old Giggle herself,”

Her eyes flashed quickly. “Listen…”

I waved a finger at her. “You watch it, kid, or I’ll start issuing orders. Then you’ll have to do whatever I tell you.”

The laughter came back in her face again. “Like what?”

“You’d be surprised at what I might order you to do.”

“I wouldn’t be surprised at all,” she grinned back. “Just don’t leave the lights on.”

“Damn dames,” I grunted. “Even when you’re policemen you can’t forget you’re dames.” Then we both laughed and got up and split the check and went back to the office.

CHAPTER TWO

I LOOKED across the desk at Marty, wondering at the size of her and the wild chestnut color of her hair, wondering why such a broad should go cop when she could lay the world at her feet with the
big look.
The resiliency of youth whom so many desired had been replaced by the lushness of maturity, whose desire was superior, and only obtainable by certain few.

I was grinning when she looked up and said, “You’re philosophizing. I can tell.”

“How?”

“You look smug.”

“It doesn’t happen often. Let me enjoy the moment.”

Her smile started gently, then broadened when some subtle intuition gave her an insight into my thoughts.

“Let me,” she said softly. “Please?”

The seconds that passed were years going back and little things coming forth.

“What are you thinking?”

“When you were the
Big Pig
because you wanted to be the cop and Polack Izzie and you got into the fight over me.”

“We didn’t fight over you.”

“You did, friend,” she reminded me. “It was night and I was coming home from the library when he jumped me next to the Strauss store.”

I laughed because I remembered all too painfully. “He beat the hell out of me, chicken.”

“Sure he did,” she chuckled, “but I got away. I never did thank you, did I?”

“Never.”

“So thanks.”

“Don’t bother. We didn’t fight over you. He ran over my foot with that old Packard 120. You happened along at the right time.”

“Don’t be modest, Joe. You fought over me.”

“Old Giggie?”

“Well… maybe you knew how I’d wind up.”

Both of us laughed at that one day so long ago. The laugh was real short, then she bent her head down-into the reports again and I looked at the wild chestnut hair and felt real funny inside.

Real funny.

Both of us playing guns for public money and winding up on the same deal.

Sergeant Mack Brissom rapped on the door and walked in, grinning at the comfortable little scene. “Kind of late, ain’t it?”

I shrugged. “Got to get it done. You have the rest of the stuff?”

He tapped the envelope. “It’s all here. A lot of speculation, but it can count. You know how those things are.”

“Sure.”

“You want me to brief you?”

“Yeah, but in brief. You know? Sit down.” I leaned back in the chair and folded my hands behind my head. “Let’s hear it.”

Mack bit the end off a cigar, spit the piece into his palm and lit up. It stunk, but it was part of the mores of the place.

“Well, you know the guys who were knocked off. René Mills, Hymie Shapiro, ‘Noisy’ Stuccio and Doug Kitchen.”

“I knew them when we were kids.”

“You see the ballistics report on Kitchen?”

I shook my head no.

“Same gun, so now the heat is really on. Bryan says hurry-hurry. Anyway, they all got rap sheets except this Kitchen guy and on him there’s nothing. The rest were backtracked down to when they were still playing hookey, but if you can tie them in to each other you’re better’n I am. You went over the earlies, didn’t you?”

“In detail.”

“Make anything?”

I shook my head again. “Nothing there but a familiarization course. What’s the word from outside?”

“Well…” He reached forward and picked a sheet from the envelope and scanned it quickly, then flipped it back.

“McNeil… he’s on the beat there… he knew them. René Mills and Stuccio had been sharing a pad a month earlier, then René hit a daily double and moved out. McNeil figured Mills was running numbers when he was bumped and he knew damn well Noisy was getting bread by pimping for a couple of tomatoes he had on the top floor over old Papa Jones’ store. But lately, nobody could tie them in. Both had been playing it quiet enough to be let alone.”

“No talk along the street?” I asked him.

“Hell, who’ll talk? The few who would, had nothing to say. But anyway, that’s your bit now. You’re real home town, huh?”

Marty looked up and grinned. “Both of us.”

“Yeah, I heard,” he said. Then he looked at me and winked through the haze of smoke. “It pays to be brass. That it does. A chick like this in the department and they yank her all the way across town to be your buddy. Cripes, you shoulda seen the partners they gave me. Old Grootz, fat as a pregnant cow… Billy Menter who could say ‘yup’ and ‘nope’ and that was all, and one time a matron who looked like my aunt in Linden, but at least that only lasted one day.”

“I’m going to stretch this one out,” Marty said. I glanced at her and grunted. So did Mack. “Why not?” she said seriously. “Until now it was all juvenile. Wouldn’t even put me out in the field where the dips were working.”

Mack and I looked at each other and laughed.

“What’s so funny about that?” she demanded.

“You,” I told her. “I can see you trying like hell to be inconspicuous. Anyway, baby, you were good enough to save for the big one.”

Mack laughed again and Marty made a face at me.

I said to Mack, “We’re going to play this one on the cool side. They laid out the pattern before they gave it to me, and it might work. I’d sooner go after this chappie through regular channels, but someplace along the line politics got involved and you know district captains can raise a stink, specially when he can pull five thousand votes.”

“Well, it happens. What can you do?”

“Marty still lives in the old neighborhood. Nobody knows she’s in the department. In that neighborhood it doesn’t make for a good rep.”

“I know.”

“So I court her.” I grinned at Marty and she smiled back.

“Things can get mighty interesting in the line of duty,” Mack said.

In a stage whisper Marty said,
“I hope!”
and we all laughed.

For some crazy reason all the tension was gone and I had a fat lazy feeling like I used to have back on the beat when it was a hello to everybody and the kids still played stickball and not switchblades and you liked your job, even at the end of the day when your feet hurt but you weren’t really tired,

“So what do you think, Mack?”

“It’s a toughie. There’re nineteen stoolies who put in their two bits out of which we got nothing. The only tie-in is that they were knocked off with the same gun, presumably in the same hand. All neat jobs, no stray shots and strictly big-time pro. The slugs were all .38 specials out of the same box. The lab could check the lube left on each slug.”

“That’s calling it.”

“But that’s all they’re calling, Joe. You can go through those reports all week and still be out in the bleachers.”

“It figures. That’s why they’re making a damned federal case out of it.”

Mack got up and tapped the inch of ash off his cigar into the tray on my desk. “You be careful, Joe. I don’t like this one.”

“I don’t either.”

“You know why?”

“No. Clue me,”

“Some rumbles been coming out of there lately. That Phil Borley extortion thing. Nobody knew he had left Chi until he muffed this operation here. Then that mob business. Nothing’s come of it yet, but the word is that a few of the uptown crowd have been hanging around in strange places. Those lads are working close to the politicos. The campaigning starts early nowadays.”

Across from me, Marta frowned in concentration, taking it all in.

“If these kills are inside an organization,” Mack said, “you’re pushing a big one. If they’re outside, the organization won’t like their field having a light turned on it and might try to clean up the deal themselves. Either way, you can get caught in a pocket.”

I grinned at him. “Don’t worry so much. I’ve been around some.”

Mack nodded. “Okay, you know what you can do with that reputation of yours. Always some punk ready to take you on from behind. What I don’t like is you going it alone. It just ain’t S.O.P.”

“Neither is this case.”

“You been assigned any help?”

“Just Marty. The rest gets played by ear.”

Marta leaned back and crossed her arms. “We can always call for the beat cop.”

“Great,” Mack said. “Anyway, if it gets too cozy, a few of us who know that strip can hang around in our spare time.”

“Thanks. I might need something like that.”

“Sure. You yell. Now, anything you want from our section?”

“I don’t think so.” I tapped the envelope on the desk. “Thanks for this.”

He winked, waved at Marty and sauntered out. On the wall the clock passed the midnight mark and I said, “Enough, kid. Let’s shut up shop.”

“We’re on it, then?” When I nodded she added, “Now what?”

I said, “Now the courtship begins,” and leered at her the best way I knew how.

We waited until Saturday to start the pitch. We let Marta get it going by passing the word to old lady Murphy upstairs and Mr. Clehoe who ran the corner delicatessen that she had met me near where she worked and saw me a couple of times for lunch. It didn’t take long for the news to get around that Marta had picked up the pieces with old Pig Scanlon, the cop, and already she was getting dirty looks from anybody at all who had been in the can.

Normally she had Saturdays off, but spent the morning taking a course in Spanish. But as far as the street knew she had a five-and-a-half-day week in an office someplace, so nothing was out of order when we came out of the subway and started toward her place.

At the corner where my old man was shot down I touched her arm and we stopped so I could look around. It had been a long time. Many moons. Many suns. I looked up the street and knew instinctively what lay behind every dirty brownstone front and the way the clothes looked hanging in the alleys behind and could smell the pigeons on the roof.

Resurrecting memories of youth comes easy. You can slip back fast to the old days when life was hot pavement, new sneakers and a nickel in your pocket. The guy who died on the beach at Anzio is a pug-nosed guinea again and he’s your best friend. The kid with the lisp next door died up at Ossining two years ago for a gang kill, but for the moment you’re ten once more and sharing leads in the class play. The mother of the girl whom you first loved on a sultry rooftop and fought for in the streets below sobs softly at night because the girl is rich and notorious, yet still beautiful despite the channels of whoredom she swam to reach her port of money. But you think of her as lovely, and at fifteen endowed with all those things important to men and boys. You think of Giggie and smile because she was bigger than you were and tougher than most of the kids and sure as hell slated for the school at Hudson if she got caught with you on a stamp into the
Hub’s
turf two blocks over. You remember old Larry whom they used to call Chief Crazy Horse and Sam Staples they called Bad Bear when the gang crawled around the eroded rocks playing Indians on the West Side of Central Park.

And I was the Pig.
Big Pig
they called me because I always wanted to play the cop.

Mischelle Stegman, the hood from the corner, would laugh when they hosed me about wanting to be in the blue uniform, then one day I saw him mug old Jew Jenkins and take off with his roll and I was the only one who would talk up. Two days after he was subpoenaed, Stegman’s buddies took me out of my hallway and went to teach me a lesson. The cop on the beat came along and chewed two of them up and the one who was about to belly-hook him with a switcher suddenly had his back broken by a kid jumping from the stoop railing.

Me.

The slobs shot their mouths off after that, but nobody touched me. They saw to that down at the precinct house.

Then in time it was me on the beat where I had wanted to be for so long. I was off the street and everything looked good. Until the war came. But that passed too, and for a while things were changed. You work, you study, you take tests, a couple of lucky breaks and a couple you sweated for make you a big one on the force with a crazy reputation of hating the politicos and the chiselers and the punks and everybody is scared shitless of you because they can give you nothing and you can slice them every which way. Suddenly the caucus room boys with the thick cigars and thicker bankrolls come to you simpering and smiling because you’re a big one now who doesn’t give a yell for the cloak and suiters or the guinea mafia or ignorant spies or the dutchmen or the micks or S.N.C.C. or any of them who play it sidewise because they’re strictly all alike in the rule book. Strictly.

Marta said, “Still the same?”

I snapped out of it, realizing that a frown had pulled my eyes into a tight squint. “Essentially.”

“You’ve never been back?”

“I’ve never wanted to come back.” I looked at her and took her arm. “I didn’t know about you, Giggie.”

“Would it have made a difference?”

I shrugged, but she knew it might have and grinned back. Then we waited for the light to change again and crossed over to the slop chute everybody called Donavan’s Dive.

You smelled Donavan’s place before you got inside. It had oldness about it, a hangover from the speakeasy days, an air-conditioned mustiness of stale smoke and staler beer. The side entrance let you into a dining room of sorts, the front one directly to the bar.

There wasn’t much room at the bar, just one space about a foot wide where you could sidle in to pick up a drink. The wise guy who saw me steer Marta toward it scrunched around to block it up neatly and the back bar mirror showed a couple of grins.

When the wise guy suddenly and quietly tried to scream from the short hook to the kidney and spilled his drink across the mahogany, the grins stopped. I pulled him away and he staggered to the wall where he tried to catch his breath.

Marta smiled nicely, the guy next to her gave up his stool and we each had a big, cool Pabst in a clear glass mug that made the trip across town worth waiting for.

When the surly faced bartender came back to catch all the details I knew it had come.

It was big and fat with a cigar stuck in the middle of his mouth and his pants carried low under his belly. Somebody had knocked his nose out of line a long time ago, but must have paid for it the hard way. This was the voice of local authority. This was
the man.
With a derby he’d have been the perfect caricature of the old-style ward heeler. Today they call them captains.