The Last Cop Out (15 page)
One inspector said, “Plenty, but they don’t connect up with this mess.”
“Nobody knows anything, I suppose?”
“That’s right, Commissioner.”
“Don’t you use informers any more?”
“They don’t know any more than we do.”
“And nobody even has a single idea. Great, just great.”
“We have a lead,” Bill Long said abruptly. “Not much, but it’s an angle.”
“Well?” The commissioner’s voice was terse. He was tired of getting excuses for answers.
“That body we got in Prospect Park ... part of the mutilation was similar to that on a couple other bodies a long time back. We sent Peterson out to Chicago and he called back with some information he dredged up about a guy they called Bingo who had a thing about people’s navels. He couldn’t stand them. He hasn’t been seen around about six years.”
“Beautiful,” the commissioner said, “an absolute revelation. You’re looking for a guy nobody’s seen for six years who hated navels. Wouldn’t the papers love to get hold of that.”
Bill Long had to grin. It did sound pretty foolish, but there was something spooky enough about it to be true, too. “At least we’ll know when we get the right guy.”
“How’s that, Captain?”
“Because he sliced his own navel off when he was a kid,” he told him.
It was enough for the commissioner. He dropped the stub of his cigar in the half-empty coffee cup and walked out of the room. Before either one of the inspectors could speak, Lederer turned on Bill Long sharply. “Where did you pick up that tidbit?”
“From your own boy, Robert.” When Lederer didn’t answer he explained, “Gill Burke.”
“All right. What do you think?”
“It’s the only thing that makes sense so far. We’ve had weirder things pay off before.”
“Mr. Lederer.”
“Yes, Inspector?”
“What kind of cooperation is your department getting from the other cities?”
“Total.”
“But nothing’s come in?”
“Everybody’s drawing a blank,” Lederer said. “Some of the heavies in the mob have hit the mattress, the big names are surrounding themselves with soldiers and a few have dropped out of sight entirely. We do know the Big Board has called a meeting, but we don’t know where or when just yet.”
“So the only thing we got is a navel freak,” the inspector said.
“Let’s hope it works out. Meeting’s adjourned, gentlemen.”
The three cops said so-long and filed out to the corridor. Down by the elevator the commissioner was laughing at something Richard Case had said and they waved so-long to him too when they got in the down car. Case’s words hadn’t been audible, but there was something in the tone the cop couldn’t stand at all. The guy was a powerhouse, all right, both politically and economically and he was always buddied up to people who had the right connections, but there was still something there, a subtle greasiness whose rancidity only an old pro could begin to detect. After the door closed Long said, “That Case is a pain in the ass.”
“Don’t knock him,” the tall inspector told him. “He helped push through the pay raises.”
“I still don’t have to like him for it,” Long grumbled.
Mark Shelby had gotten where he was by combining his knowledge with shrewd business acumen, guided by some primitive instinct and hunches that really were almost instantaneous computations of all the other factors. When he left for Helga’s it was always by a circuitous route that gave him ample opportunity to see if he was being followed and he was smart enough to alternate his course so as not to set any definite pattern.
The organization had its own network of internal surveillance and he remembered what had happened to Victor Petrocinni and he wasn’t about to take any chances. Being so close to the top of Papa Menes family group, he wasn’t expected to expose either himself or the power structure to flaws in his character, especially by establishing a more or less permanent liaison with Helga. The rules were simple enough. Get laid if you have to, but do it quick and get out. There were plenty of approved whores the family made available in safe quarters where you could douse the flame and get back to business.
But Helga was a flame he couldn’t douse, a burning fire that scorched him a year ago and kept getting hotter everyday. In the wife he kept at home, comfortably ensconced in the big house with all its expensive clutter, there was no fire at all, just a constantly harping voice that droned on and on from pursed lips set in a flabby face over a flabbier body. She still got undressed in the closet and the last time he had seen her naked, an accidental viewing by way of a partially opened bedroom door and a full-length mirror, he almost threw up.
Helga was his dream. His wet dream, his real living dream, and regardless of the rules, she was an absolute necessity in his life and right then he was on the way to see her.
No one was aware he was leaving the office nor saw where he went. In the basement he put on the padded topcoat, the old hat and picked up the umbrella. It was always easier in the rain with the umbrella shielding his face. Nobody would have taken him for the immaculately dressed executive whose offices took up the entire top floor of the building.
Four blocks away he took the crosstown bus and sat in the back where he had a clear view of the street behind him, got off at the corner where Guido, his cousin, had the grocery store, went in and changed again and took the cellar exit leading to the alley that ran into the adjoining block and walked east until he waved a cab down.
He felt satisfied and secure.
He had paid no attention to the old man with the paper bag under his arm who had been scrounging through the garbage pail in the end of the alley. He never knew it had taken the old man almost six months of patient waiting, step-by-step following and careful anticipation to get this far. But time was the only thing the old man had, that and the monthly check that supplemented his meager pension. Right now he had a little luck going for him too, because he had managed to catch the last three digits of the cab’s license number as it went by to stop for Mark Shelby.
When she heard the key in the lock, Helga smiled and lounged back in the couch, arms spread out across the back, the front of the yellow shortie nightgown clasped only in one spot below her half-exposed breasts, her legs twisted so Nils would be able to see all of her in such a delicious pose he would tear his clothes off right there at the door and screw her in a magnificent animal fashion before he even said hello. She was wet and ready and her belly was starting to quiver.
Then she saw Mark close the door and the quiver turned into a monstrous spasm of fear that squeezed out a gentle fart nobody heard but her. But Helga was a good actress. If Mark hadn’t been an even better audience he might not have overlooked the flaw in her performance, but that one sight of her, and the way she came across the room to meet him, all tanned thighs and bouncing breasts, to greet him with a tongue-thick kiss, wiped out all his thoughts except one. She was there ready for him at any time and his system was screaming for release.
“You didn’t call first,” she teased him. “I didn’t even make the bed ready.”
He nipped at her neck and ear lobe, his hands feeling and kneading her breasts before running down to her buttocks.
“Who the fuck needs a bed?”
Helga laughed playfully and grabbed his hand to lead him inside. “Then you need a drink.”
“The hell I do.”
She pushed him down on the couch. “Not to get you aroused, you beast.” She looked down at the swelling under his trousers. “To cool you off just a little. You are always too fast and never enjoy me when you come in like that. The next time I will wear my old ski suit and you won’t get so worked up.”
Mark grinned at her and said, “Okay, make a drink.” She grabbed him with one hand, fondled him gently until his eyes shut then picked up the phone and dialed.
Helga had figured out a system too. Nils didn’t like it, but it wasn’t his choice. Right now she was hoping she would catch him in time. After the fourth ring she began to worry, then Nil’s breathless voice came on and she said, “Lowery’s Liquor Store? Good. Please to send up one bottle of scotch whiskey and one of vodka.”
Nils said, “That bastard. I was just leaving to go over there.”
“Yes, she told him. Quarts.” She gave her name and address and hung up.
“How come you ran out of booze?”
She sank down beside him. “How come you drank it all the last time?”
His hand ran up her leg and nestled in the soft, furry place between her thighs. She pushed him away with a teasing gesture. “You wait until we both have our drinks or I won’t show you something I thought of.”
“Do it now.”
“No. The boy will be here in a minute.”
It was closer to five minutes and when Nils handed the liquor in as all had been planned out, she gave him a twenty dollar bill and said, “Thank you, and keep the change.”
Nils whispered something foreign and nasty and she closed the door on him. It had been close, much too close. Now she would have to do something distasteful to Mark Shelby she had been saving as a surprise for Nils. She rationalized, figuring that a practice session would help her perfect the trick. Of course, with Nils it would be easier because he was much bigger than Mark Shelby, but it would hurt more, though. Not much, just a little, and it would be a pleasant kind of pain.
“You sure?” the Frenchman said.
Erik Schmidt ran his fingers over his thick graying mustache and nodded. “No two ways about it, the Germans stopped making that gun in nineteen-forty because it required too much hand work on the components. The slugs were all a special alloy and they weren’t diverting any priority metals into the sporting industry. Right now the gun itself is a collector’s item.”
“How many do you think are around?”
“The factory lists only three hundred produced. I doubt if more than six are in this country. An advertiser in a gun magazine has been offering three grand for a model the past year and hasn’t had any offers yet.”
“And the bullets?”
“Crocker was the only one who had them. If that ballistics cop hadn’t checked by my shop with the spent slug I never would have known about it, but I spotted that special alloy as soon as I saw it. I even ran a spectro test to be sure. I told the cop I couldn’t help him and I’ll be damned if I know of anybody who can. They were hitting all the gunsmiths and I wised up Crocker to fake them out and started running down that lead right away.”
“Tell me again,” the Frenchman said.
“Sure.” He lit a cigarette and sat back with the butt dangling from his lips, making it bob as he spoke. “Crocker had one box of those shells in his shop since the end of the war. This guy came in and bought six of them at a buck apiece. Crocker tried to talk to him about the gun, but all he said was that he had had it for a long time and the way crime was going up, he thought he ought to put some bullets in it. He remembered him, all right, a tall guy who needed a haircut, had on an old raincoat and wore eyeglasses. The thing that got Crocker though, was that he didn’t look old enough to be having a gun after the last war.”
“I see.”
Schmidt grinned, puffing on the cigarette. The Frenchman wished those damned foreigners would use their hand when they smoke. “There’s something even better,” Schmidt said.
“He had a bandage on his left forearm that came off while he was looking at the slugs. Under it was a scab that covered a fresh tattoo.”
Verdun’s eyes went bright. “He get a look at it?”
“No, but it was about the size of a quarter and could have been a star. He wasn’t sure.”
“That’s good enough,” the Frenchman told him. “You’ll be getting a check in the mail.”
Schmidt left and Verdun sat down at the phone. It was better than good enough. There weren’t that many tattoo parlors around and they’d be able to cover every one of them from coast to coast within twenty-four hours. He picked up the receiver, got his party and issued the instructions. The wheels of the great machine ground into action.
It was hot, humid, the damned air conditioner in the sedan wasn’t working right, and Papa Menes was aggravated at having to go to Homestead to get tied in on a conference call with the big board where he had to listen and talk instead of being able to see people face to face and challenge expressions that could reveal motives and desires. He reached the coin booth five minutes before the prescribed time and went in and made believe he was making a call, his finger on the receiver cradle so nobody could tie up the line.
The call lasted twenty-five minutes, during which time he learned where the shaky areas were with the new generation of punks, who, sensing the disruption of the organization, had disregarded the respect they should have shown, put away the fear they should have known, and had begun edging in where they didn’t belong. No one group had shown its hand yet, but it was beginning to take off its glove to operate more sensitively. The board wasn’t at all pleased with the New York affair. The loss of Leon Bray and the infinite amount of information he had had at his command was immeasurable and they hoped Mark Shelby would be able to duplicate everything with the help of Papa Menes and their
hope
was tantamount to an imperial order of a tyrant ruler with only one penalty for failure.
hope
was tantamount to an imperial order of a tyrant ruler with only one penalty for failure.
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