Long Live the Dead (35 page)

Turning, he said huskily: “What Corley?”

“Ed.”

“You’re crazy!”

“No, I ain’t, Link. With my own eyes I seen him in Kepner’s place drinkin’ beer, less’n ten minutes ago.”

Link Latham wet his lips with an unsteady tongue. He left his cue leaning against the table and started across the room, his round, lumpy face yellowing with each step. He walked slowly on stiff legs, like a man struggling to walk straight with too much liquor in him.

Three or four men in the pool parlor straightened to watch him, aware that something unusual was happening.

Latham stepped into the phone booth and mechanically pulled the door shut. His eyes held a hunted look as he unhooked the receiver and fumbled for a nickel. His fat finger trembled in the dial slots.

He got his number and sent a furtive glance through the door’s glass panel. Then, though no one stood within ten feet of the booth, he put his mouth close to the instrument and spoke in a whisper.

“Tony,” he said. “Get me Tony.”

Beads of sweat formed on his lip while he waited.

“Tony? This is Link. Tony, listen to me. Ed Corley is back …
Ed Corley
! … What?—No, I ain’t seen him yet. Palumbo just told me. Why is he back, Tony? What does he want? … Yeah. Yeah, that’s what I think, too. And listen, Tony, I’m gonna need help. You understand? I’ll be at my place in twenty minutes. You hustle over there. Bring some of the boys.”

A
lderman Harlan Grossman, alone in a small private office on the seventh floor of the Grayley Building, turned the pages of his evening paper idly. The war news failed to interest him—he was not high enough in politics to turn the war into personal profit. He was weary this afternoon anyway. Sometimes the boys were stubborn. Sometimes it wore him out haggling with them. They were saps to haggle. They should know by now that Harlan Grossman always had his own way in the end.

An item in the paper stopped him and he scowled, pulling the page closer to his eyes. It was about the new high school under construction on Laydon Street. The new Laydon Street High School, destined to be the city’s pride and joy.

Something had happened. A night watchman named Moriarty, father of four kids, had been crushed to death last night under a falling ceiling. The contractor was on the carpet. There was to be an investigation.

Grossman turned quickly to the editorial page. His lip curled as he read a long article on city politics. Moisture formed in the palms of his hands as he read on.

For some time, the thinking persons of this city have suspected Skullduggery among those who govern them. The stench has been particularly odious in the matter of awarding contracts for public buildings. Now, in a new building which has been called
The City’s Pride
, a ceiling collapses and a human life is snuffed out. We ask why? We demand a thorough investigation, not only of the entire construction set-up but of materials used, and the source of those materials. In short, we demand, and the public is entitled, to know where lies the responsibility for what has happened.

Harlan Grossman reached for his phone. “Get me Creeley,” he muttered. While waiting, he ran a finger under his collar and squirmed uncomfortably in his chair.

“Creeley? Hank. About the school—” The receiver chuckled against his ear and a voice said

softly: “Forget it, Hank. No one knows a thing.” “You sure?” “Positive. The investigation is just so much hooey.” Grossman put the phone down and exhaled noisily through

his mouth, regaining his composure. The phone rang and he picked it up, his hand steady again. “A Mr. Heffler is calling, Mr. Grossman.”

“Put him on.”

The phone did not chuckle this time. The voice was so low that Grossman had to center all his attention on it. “Grossman, listen. I got scary news. Ed Corley is back.”

Grossman wet his lips, stared at the phone and weakly, stupidly, said, “What?” “Ed Corley. He’s been seen around. He’s staying at the Minmar.”

“My God!” Grossman said, the words strangling him.

“I figured you ought to know, Hank.”

Grossman hung up. When his secretary entered a few moments later with some letters, he was in the same position, his hand on the phone-cradle. She glanced at him wonderingly. Harlan Grossman was shaking. One thin hand was white and tight against the edge of the desk, and his bony body was queerly tense. Too tense. Sweat gleamed on his high white forehead.

“Is something wrong, Mr. Grossman?”

He stood up and reached clumsily for his hat, dropped it, bent his knees and picked it up again. “No, no. I’m all right. Look, Miss Allen, I’m going out. I may not be back this afternoon. Take care of things… .” The words tumbled over one another and were unintelligible as Grossman stumbled on the threshold.

He went home.

The telephone in the hall closet of Harlan Grossman’s suburban house was not listed in the book. He preferred to have this number known only to himself and a few selected confidantes. He used the phone now—three times—and then went nervously into the living-room, where he mixed a drink at the small mahogany bar and spilled most of it before getting it to his lips. He was alone in the house.

Between five and six o’clock he had three callers. Matt Downey was a police sergeant. Philip Patterson, peering near-sightedly through rimless spectacles, was a politician. Rigney, the third caller, was a wiry, white-haired little man who spoke scarcely a dozen words but listened attentively and did a lot of nodding.

At six, Grossman took a cab downtown. He emerged from the cab on Green Street and walked two blocks, furtively, to the step-down entrance of Club 13. The headwaiter called him by name and admitted him to the private sanctum of the club’s proprietor, Nick Vierick.

He thought Vierick would be surprised to see him. He was mistaken.

A
slender, sleek-haired man of unguessable age, Vierick nodded without rising, without extending his hand. “I thought you’d be around,” he said as Grossman shut the door. His voice was soft. Men who worked for Nick Vierick had to pay close attention to everything he said, so gentle was his voice, so swift and savage his anger if they asked him to repeat.

“Ed Corley—” Grossman began.

“I know. The boys keep me posted.”

Grossman sat down, uneasy in Vierick’s presence. He dabbed a handkerchief at his high white forehead and it came away damp. He wet his lips—they were thin and taut and trembling. “What am I going to do, Nick?”

Nick Vierick’s smile was very slightly a sneer. “Aren’t you getting the jitters a little early?”

“Early? My God!”

“How do you know he came back to look you up?”

“What—what else would bring him?” Grossman moaned.

Nick Vierick held a match to a cigar, blew the flame out and carefully shredded the match with his immaculate fingernails. He touched the tip of his tongue to the backs of his upper teeth and let smoke curl lazily from his mouth-corners. He appeared to be enjoying himself at Grossman’s expense.

“A lot of others had a hand in what happened to Corley,” he said.

“I know, but—”

“He could be here to see any of them. Why should
you
be jittery, Hank? You’re supposed to me smart.”

“For God’s sake,” Grossman said hoarsely, “talk sense, Nick. What am I going to do?”

“I wouldn’t know.”

“You won’t—help me?”

“I help anyone,” Vierick said soberly, “for a price. The

price will be high, though. The night-club business is lousy

lately.”

“How much?”

“I’ll send one of the boys up to see you,” Vierick said,

“after I give it some thought.” A look of shrewdness entered

his eyes. “There’s one thing I don’t quite get, Grossman. Link

Latham used to do your dirty work. Why the sudden shift to

me?”

“This is too big for Latham!”

“You think so?” Vierick smiled. “That’s good, Grossman.

That will jump the price at least five grand.” He stood up, yawned, gently patted his mouth with a slender hand. Opening the door he said softly: “It’s a shame, in a way. I always thought Corley was a pretty right guy, in spite of you. Still, business is business.”

S
he had a spacious and expensive apartment, but the furnishings were just over the border-line of good taste. A shade too flashy. Impressive enough at first glance, perhaps, but too garnish, too dazzlingly brilliant. She herself was like that.

At first glance she took a man’s breath away with the slender perfection of her body, the studied grace of her step, the easy sparkle of her smile and the provocative way she held her head. Men stared and wet their lips, and felt old. Or felt foolishly young and reckless. But her smile was too easy, too mechanical. Behind it lay a hardness acquired through four years of show business. The subtle shadows in her voice could vanish instantly in crisp, metallic accents of anger. She was a lady, but she could be a tramp.

Shapely arms aloft, she wriggled into an eighty-dollar evening gown that hugged her hips, tautened and pointed her breasts. Then she sat before the full-length mirror of her dressing-table and carefully dressed her face. Getting old, she thought angrily. Twenty-nine next month, wasn’t it? Or thirty. She had lied so much about her age, first to Ed Cor-ley—the sap!—and then to Nick Vierick and others, that the truth was hard to remember. But anyhow, she wasn’t getting any younger.

A key turned in the entrance door and for a moment she was motionless, her hands upraised, dark eyes impassively studying her reflection in the glass. She did not turn when Nick Vierick’s voice called softly: “Where are you, kid?”

“In here,” she said.

He walked up behind her and her eyes watched his image in the mirror. She lowered her arms and Nick’s cool hands pressed her shoulders, pulling her against him. He stooped and kissed her. “Hot stuff, that dress,” he said.

She smiled up at him. “It ought to be. Did you get the bill yet?”

“No. How much?”

“Eighty dollars, Nick.”

“Stiff,” he said, scowling.

“You want me to look nice, don’t you?”

His scowl faded more slowly than it usually did. He looked her over, not amorously but critically, withdrew his hands from her shoulders and stepped back. “Hurry it up. I want to talk to you.”

She put the very best of herself into the languid look she gave him then. The slow parting of her lips, the softly indrawn breath, the studied subtlety of her body-movements. She could do no better and knew it. Even her voice was just right when she murmured: “Can’t we talk—here, Nick?”

Nick Vierick laughed shortly, mirthlessly, with his lips tight. “I never said a sensible thing in this room yet, kid. We’ll talk over a drink, in decent light.” He turned abruptly and walked into the living-room.

He had a cocktail mixed for her, on the bar, when she emerged. Handing it to her, he raised his own, stared at her for an instant without touching his lips to the glass. Then: “Ed’s back,” he said.

She didn’t hear it. She was studying the amber liquid in the glass and wondering if she ought to get a little bit drunk tonight. Nick liked her to get drunk once in a while. He liked to think she was being herself, being “natural,” when liquor loosened her tongue and melted the cloak of restraint which ordinarily kept him from getting too rough. Perhaps tonight, to thaw him a little …

“Why the hell don’t you listen to me once in a while?” Nick said with sudden anger.

She came out of her thoughts, stared at him in amazement. “Are you talking to
me
in that tone, Nick Vierick?”

“I’m telling you,” he said darkly. “I’m telling you Ed’s back.”

She got it then. Under the eighty-dollar gown her body was suddenly taut and cold, her flesh was shrinking. There was a hand at her throat, squeezing her breath back. She could feel the bones of her face aching, and realized that her tongue was jammed against the back of her teeth.

“
No
, Nick!”

“You didn’t know, eh?”

She knew what he meant. She sensed that he was stabbing at her, testing her, and realized numbly that she must meet the test—or else.

“I didn’t know, Nick,” she whispered, cringing. “My God, I never dreamed!”

Nick Vierick gripped her shoulders, held her at arm’s length and stared at her. His face wore no expression that she could analyze. It was the face of a shrewd card player studying his hand.

“You haven’t been hearing from him, by any chance?”

“No!”

“Women don’t usually lie to me, kid.”

“Nick, I’m not lying! I’m not!”

Nick Vierick held her for a moment, then gave her a light shove that sent her stumbling into one of the ultra-modern chrome-and-satin chairs.

“O. K., I believe you,” he said softly. “But get this. You’re staying here—right here—until Corley’s taken care of. I wouldn’t go out if I were you, sugar. When I give the boys an order, I never soften it with any ‘ifs’ or ‘buts’—I just give the order. Understand?”

Her hands were wet and white on the gleaming arms of the chair, and she watched him as a terrified bird watches a snake.

“Understand, sugar?”

She nodded, her lips too dry to make words.

Nick Vierick put a hand on her head, roughed her hair and kissed her. He was smiling, but men who knew him feared that particular smile, knowing its implications. With a gentle, “So long, kid,” Nick went out, closing the door behind him.

Mrs. Ed Corley sat where she was, motionless in her eighty-dollar evening gown.

E
d Corley stepped from the doorway of the Minmar at nine o’clock that evening into a drizzle of rain. A tall, too-thin man, he wore a limp-brimmed felt hat, and a gray raincoat that hung shapelessly to a point about six inches above his knees. The brim of the hat half-covered his face. His hands were in his pockets. He limped.

Pausing for a moment on the sidewalk, he looked up and down the street, then lowered his head against the turned-up collar of his coat and began walking. He appeared to be in no hurry.

A year ago, Ed Corley had weighed fifty pounds more. A year ago he had worked for the mayor as special investigator, his job the smelling out of the crime and corruption that had made this city the joke of the nation.