Five minutes later, at the wheel of the Sandersons’ car, he drove out the driveway, after carefully locking the garage doors behind himself.
Traffic was inordinately light and he made good time getting into New York. He found a parking lot not far from Grand Central Station and after checking the car in, took the zipper bag in one hand and the brief case under his arm and walked the two or three blocks to the station. He realized that the public locker services had a twenty-four hour time limit, so he went to the parcel checkroom on the ground floor level. He checked both the zipper bag and the brief case.
He stopped in the lobby of the Biltmore long enough to obtain an envelope and a couple of sheets of stationery. Then he walked around the corner and over to the post office. Standing at the desk in the lobby, he addressed the envelope to himself, folded the check in two sheets of paper and inserted them. Then he purchased a stamp, sealed the envelope and dropped it into the slot.
Returning to the parking lot, he felt considerably relieved.
It took him only a few minutes to drive directly cross town and find the entrance to the Lincoln Tunnel.
A lot of changes had been made during the last seven years, since the last time he’d driven this way, but he had no difficulty in finding the place. It wasn’t surprising; he’d made the trip often enough, heaven knows, during the two years he’d worked for the garage while completing his course at college. They’d painted the building, added a wing and the name of the firm had changed, but it was still a glass factory. Parking in front of the place, he sensed a feeling of relief. It was an odd sensation walking inside once again.
A man he had never seen before greeted him at the long counter and he guessed that the place had probably changed hands. He asked for a windshield for a ’56 Chevrolet convertible. He had the model number, but the man behind the counter didn’t need it. The man had the right size glass in stock. Hanna paid for it in cash.
By one o’clock he was back in Roslyn.
He knew a moment’s nervousness as he drove into the driveway and stopped. The place was completely deserted, but he still felt the tension as he opened the garage doors. The Chevvie stood where he had left it the previous evening.
It took him longer than he thought it would and once he bruised his knuckles badly, but at last he had the windshield installed. When he was finished, he went out to the drive and picked up a handful of sand and gravel. He rubbed it over the windshield, purposely scratching it. Next he covered the glass with a thin layer of mud and then wiped it off, leaving stray bits around the edges.
At three-thirty he was finished and he went upstairs and washed up. Not until then did he sit down and relax. He picked up the newspapers he had purchased on his way back to Roslyn.
CHAPTER THREE
The lieutenant had been very emphatic and Patrolman Hoffman was not a man to disregard a superior officer; especially as the lieutenant was attached to Homicide and was a detective. No one was going to pass through the door and get into that room. No one. That is, of course, with the exception of the day and night nurses and the doctor.
Looking down from his six feet four inches of muscle and brawn into the upturned face of the slender man in the immaculate pin-striped suit, Officer Hoffman again repeated himself.
“You heard me,” he said. “I made myself very clear. No one. No one at all. Those were my orders and I’m going to follow them.”
“You do just that, Officer,” Steinberg said. “Go right ahead and follow your orders-and the next thing you know you’ll be walking a beat somewhere so far out in the sticks they’ll have to fly your relief in by helicopter.”
Officer Hoffman very carefully removed the toothpick from the side of his mouth.
“A wise shyster from the city,” he said. “You know all the answers, yes? Well, let me tell you something, mister. You may be a big shot over in Manhattan, but out here, in Nassau, you ain’t nothing. Less than nothing.”
“Keep your voice down, Officer,” Steinberg said. “This is a hospital after all, you know. And perhaps you would like to look at this,” he added, taking a folded piece of paper from his pocket. “That is, of course, if they taught you to read. It happens to be a note from the assistant D.A. It’s an order permitting me to see my client, Jake Riddle. I don’t give a damn for you or your lieutenant. I happen to be Mr. Riddle’s attorney and I have every right to see him. This little paper says so. And I’m going into that room and I’m going to talk to him. Alone.”
He handed the paper to the other man.
“The doctor…”
Steinberg whipped out a second piece of paper.
“His permission,” he said. “So just roll over and I’ll go on in.”
Officer Hoffman carefully read both papers and then handed them back.
“And how do I know you are Leon Steinberg?”
“Oh, my God.” The attorney reached into his breast pocket and pulled out a wallet. “Do I look like somebody who’s going to go in there and shoot him?” he asked. “Do I…”
“It would be a good thing if you did,” Hoffman said. “The dirty cop killer! O.K., go on in. But five minutes. That’s what the doc says. Five minutes. And if you can get a word out of that rat in that time, you’ll be doing a lot more than we’ve been able to do.”
He reached down and turned the key in the door and then opened it.
Steinberg entered the sterile white room, unconsciously observing the barred window and slightly repelled by the heavy anesthetic atmosphere.
He waited until the officer had closed the door of the room and once more turned the key in the lock. Then he moved over to the high white bed and leaned down, speaking in a low, hoarse voice.
“How is it, Jake?”
Jake opened his eyes and stared at the lawyer.
Looking down at him, Steinberg knew that the Assistant D.A. had been right; knew he’d been telling the truth when he’d said that the man was dying. That he wouldn’t even need a mouthpiece.
Steinberg wondered if he’d be able to talk at all.
“Dommie’s dead,” Steinberg said, “but Vince made it. Only he hasn’t turned up yet and Fred’s worried. You’re going to be all right, boy,” he said as Jake again closed his eyes. “You’re going to be O.K. and we’ll get you out of it. Be sure of that-we’ll get you out. But try and tell us what happened to Vince.”
Once more Jake opened his eyes.
“I’m dead,” he said in a choked whisper. “You know it-I’m dead.”
“Don’t be a fool,” Steinberg said quickly. “You’ll be O.K. But try and think now, kid. What happened to Vince?-Fred’s gotta know. We gotta find Vince.”
Jake groaned and tried to turn away, but quickly fell back on the bed. Five minutes later, when Hoffman opened the door to tell Steinberg his time was up, the little lawyer was still pleading with Jake.
Steinberg picked up a cab a half a block from the hospital and gave the driver the address. It was an apartment hotel in upper Manhattan, and the driver didn’t want to make the trip that far out of his territory, but Steinberg slipped him a ten spot and so he drove him. On the way, Steinberg muttered to himself under his breath.
“Fred ain’t gonna like it-not one little bit. He just ain’t gonna like it.”
One thing was good about it, though. Dommie was dead and Jake couldn’t last much longer. And Jake hadn’t talked. Jake wasn’t talking to anyone, not even to his own mouthpiece.