The Deep (17 page)

“Well, there won't be any party now. Tell National to cancel it.”

“Okay, Mr. Deep.”

I took a quick tour through the building with Henny in my wake, whining an opinion about almost everything and hopefully trying to find out if I was going to keep him on. When I said I would he quit whining and followed me quietly.

When we were downstairs again I asked him, “Did Bennett have a safe in the building?”

“Safe? No, sir. Any papers like after a meeting he took out. He never kept nothin' here.”

The assumption was logical enough. Anybody could get into the building without any trouble including the kids. If Bennett kept anything big on board old Henny certainly couldn't stop them from tearing the place apart piece by piece to find it. Even if anybody thought there was something hidden on the premises they could always put a torch to the place and that would be that.

No, if Bennett had a package someplace it would be safe from fire, theft or anything else.

The only annoying thing about it was the knowledge that he would have made sure there was some way I'd know how to find it.

It'll be just you and me
,
Bennett,
I had said.
Why the hell whack this town in half when it's only big enough for one of us? We ain't always gonna be kids, by damn. We shot out Sobel's behind. Pretty soon we'll be talkin' loud enough for everybody to hear.

And nobody could think bigger than me. Sure. So
why compete? There's other cities and other places. We stay here and pretty soon we're bumping heads. That good? Hell, no. So we split. We flip a coin and loser takes off and finds a new place to take over. That's thinking sensible, pal. No blood being spilled in the family for us.

It wasn't new talk. We had planned it months ago and we knew every detail of it.
Whoever goes, Deep
,
I'm sure gonna miss you. Remember how we said... like if anything happens to the other one, his buddy will get everything? Whatever I get if anything happens to me you can have and you'll know where it'll be. I'll never change. K.O.'s ain't like them other clubs. We signed it in blood.

He woke up Henny who tossed the coin. It came up tails. I lost. We shook hands solemnly and I walked out to find my own turf. I had never come back until now.

Absently, I said, “Henny, do you remember flipping the coin?”

Henny looked back just as absently. He didn't even know what I was talking about. I gave him a fin for his trouble and stood on the street corner until a cab came by and gave him Batten's address.

 

A new Picasso had been added to the Gauguins on the wall. It was a smear of color and crooked forms and the signs of being expensive. Batten sat tilted back in his chair looking at it and when he turned his head the girl behind me said without apology, “He wouldn't let me call, Mr. Batten.”

Wilse nodded, the girl smiled at me and closed the door.

“Don't spend money you haven't got yet, Batty.”

“I can wait.” He rolled over to the desk and made himself comfortable. When I sat down he asked, “What's on your mind?”

“Bennett.”

“Ah, yes.”

“Did he have a safe deposit box anywhere?”

Batten let a sardonic smile twist the edges of his mouth. “Still looking, Deep?”

“You got to dig to find gold.”

“You find lead the same way.”

“Don't be so damned enigmatic, friend.”

The smile came loose and his eyes narrowed. “I didn't mean to be. I thought a blunt person like you would understand.”

“It came through. Now let's speak plainly.”

He waved vaguely.

“Did Bennett ever hint to you what he was holding over everybody's head?”

“Never.”

“You were his only legal advisor?”

“The only one.”

“You were aware, of course, how Bennett operated.”

The chair came forward and Batten leaned into his desk. “Let's not be so specific. It was a conclusion I came to that was the basis of long examination. I see you came to the same one yourself.”

“It wasn't hard. It was hinted at pretty strongly.”

“Well, it isn't spoken of as general conversation, let's say. When you discuss certain people it's always quietly and in private and even then you can't be sure who's listening in. The best thing to do is keep quiet about it.”

“I'm not the quiet type.”

“You can be a dead type.”

“But not until your connection has been definitely established.”

“Like how, Batten?”

“If you're no threat you go out for talking too loudly. If you are a threat you get the ax taken away and get hit for trying to move in and wave it.”

“Tell me about Bennett.”

Batten nodded sagely, paused, then: “Unless you knew him well you would never realize that he was retarded.”

“Retarded!” The word exploded out of me.

“That's right, retarded. He had more of a juvenile outlook on things than an adult one. You've been in his apartment. You know how he hung on to the past. Look at how he set things up for you if you came back. Your erstwhile friend was retarded.”

I said, “He did pretty well for a backward child.”

“No doubt about it. Like all juveniles he had a shrewdness an adult can hardly duplicate. He had a child's callousness and a solid criminal bent that helped him right along. These are the attributes that put Bennett on top. He worked things from a wild angle that nobody but a juvenile would even consider and because he did he caught certain persons off guard and before they could recover Bennett had the ball.”

“That doesn't sound like a retarded action.”

“It isn't. I said he had a criminal bent. Bennett wasn't a retarded
juvenile ...
he was a retarded adult. Along certain lines he still thought like an adult. A criminal adult. That, Deep, is a rough, unpolished, but accurate picture of Mr. Bennett as I see it. You should see it too.”

“For me it's harder,” I told him. “I only knew him as a juvenile.”

“You were lucky.”

I pulled a chair over and perched on the arm of it. “So Bennett picked up choice bits and pieces of people and held them over their heads. Now, the big question, where did he keep them?”

Batten sat back and stared at the ceiling. “I wish I knew. I really do.”

“What would you do with it?”

Only his eyes moved back to me. “Simple. I'd make a lot of friends. I'd make a present of those choice bits and pieces as you call them to the parties concerned and sit back and enjoy their largesse. All legal, no trouble, everybody saying thank you and I would need no more.”

Before I could answer the phone rang. Batten picked it up, frowned and handed it to me. It was Cat on the other end and he told me he still hadn't run Lew James down but hadn't checked out all the places he could be either. He had gotten to the Westhampton after the cops and made out a little better than they had. With the aid of a double sawbuck the desk clerk, who was an inveterate cop hater, thought he could remember a number that one of them had called. He couldn't recall it then, but knew it would come back to him after a while because it had a certain rhyme to it. Meanwhile Charlie Bizz was hitting the medicos a guy could see without worrying about gunshot wound reports.

Wilson Batten was waiting for me to clue him in but I didn't bother. When I put the phone up I said, “Supposing you figure out where Bennett put the stuff before I do, Batten?”

He meant it when he answered, “Then I'll tell you all about it. You see, I figure you for a psychotic too, and like most psychotics, clever in certain fields. If I thought it out, then so would you and I'd rather not have you on my back with a gun than enjoy the profits such a discovery could bring me. Life, after all, is worth more than money.”

“Keep it in mind, friend. You have it pegged exactly right except for the first part.”

“About being psychotic?”

“Yes.”

“Does the thought gnaw at you?”

“Not the slightest.”

“Time will tell.”

I nodded. “You have any immediate plans?”

“Nothing I can't cancel.”

“Good. Then you hold down that chair. I might want you in a hurry.”

“I'll be waiting,” he said.

I dug out the piece of paper Helen had written her number on and called from a drugstore down the street from Batten's office. Her place was an apartment hotel in the west seventies and she wanted me to come over as soon as I could. I told her to have something ready to eat and I'd be there in twenty minutes.

She was more beautiful than ever, standing there in the doorway waiting for me. A black velvet housecoat accentuated the panther-black of her hair, the thin scarlet beading matched the moist redness of her lips.

Big. Beautifully big. She stood with one leg partially thrust out and the velvet molded itself around the fullness of her thigh in a manner more sensual than nakedness itself. She needed no open neckline to highlight the grandeur of her breasts. Their eloquence was evident in their proud thrusting, having motion and life of their own under the rich texture of the gown.

“Do I pass?” she smiled.

When I grinned back she took my arm and pulled me inside.

“Didn't mean to stare,” I said. “It's just that I got a fetish for big lovely broads. Besides, black intrigues me.”

“It's supposed to. To intrigue you even further I might suggest that I haven't got a damn thing on under it, either.”

I tossed my hat on an end table and sat down. “Suggestions, suggestions, never any proof.”

She stuck her tongue out at me, suddenly flipped open a button with the tip of her fingers and threw the housecoat open like a pair of great batwings. I had that one brief flash of an incredible combination of black and white sweeping through curves and planes into beautiful hollows and columns then just as quickly the batwings folded shut again. It was exactly like getting hit in the pit of the stomach when you weren't expecting it and left sucking air and wondering what happened.

I stood up feeling disjointed and said, “Damn it, Irish, don't ever do that again!” My voice came out rough on the edges and I could feel the dryness in my mouth.

She didn't back off. She took a step nearer, then her hands were on my face. “Why shouldn't I, Deep?”

Having a shaky feeling when a dame was close was a new sensation to me. There had been many women and many times. There were other big ones and other beautiful ones, but never one like this.

I didn't dare touch her. I couldn't take the chance. I wanted to push her away but I knew that if I touched her at all the moment would be too explosive and I couldn't afford the resulting emotion.

“Deep ...?”

“You said it once, kitten. I'm poison. Nobody knows it better than you.”

“It doesn't have to be like that.”

When I finally could breathe right I sucked my gut in and stepped back. “Something just occurred to me, Irish.”

She knew what I meant. She seemed to retreat inside herself for a second and when she turned her head away it was because her eyes were wet.

“You mean that once I would have given anything to see you killed?”

“That's what I mean.”

“You think this is part of that wanting?”

“I don't know. You're an actress. I'm not a good critic. There are times when I don't know what to think.”

Helen turned, looked at me and there was no guile in her at all. She smiled gently. “You're not fooling me at all, Deep. You know how I feel and I know how you feel. Shall I be direct?”

I nodded.

“I love you, Deep.”

She said it quietly, with dignity, as though she had known about it and thought about it all her life. She stood there watching me, waiting patiently until I grinned at her because there was nothing I could say then because she knew it all anyhow.

“Does it always happen this way, Irish?”

“I don't know. It never happened to me before this.”

“We'll have to talk about it some more,” I said. “Later.”

Her face clouded somewhat and she folded her arms across her chest. “Will there be a later, Deep?”

“Why?”

“You're out to kill. You know what will happen.”

Once again I opened my coat. Like Hurd, her eyes went to my belt and when they came back to mine it was worth seeing. She came to me slowly, her hungry mouth reaching for mine, her arms possessive and demanding, the body warmth of her through the soft folds of her clothes. I could still taste her after she took her mouth away.

“There's a big chance for us yet, Deep. Can we make it?”

“We'll make it.”

“There will be a later then?”

“A long time of it.”

“Hungry?”

“For you.”

“You came up here to eat,” she said. “Remember?”

“You'll do for a starter.”

She laughed deeply and impishly. “Later.” She tipped her head back and kissed me again. “But not much later, darling.”