“I saw the flyers and read the news accounts.”
Ralph bobbed his head. “He lived two blocks over for five years. Still got a brother there. The brother’s straight... runs a dry cleaning shop, but I’m thinking they’re watching him to see if Wilder makes a contact”
“Why?”
Callahan grinned at me. “Things you brass cops seem to forget. The Gordon-Carbito mob upstate did the local boys a favor once... a big one. Could be now the locals are returning it by keeping an eye out for Wilder. If he talks the upstate combo will fall.”
“A possibility,” I agreed. I stood up and pushed the chair back. “Keep your ears open... I’ll appreciate it. If you need a contact, try Marta Borlig, only keep it on the q.t that she’s on the force.”
“Will do, Joe.”
“Thanks for your time.”
“Don’t mention it.” I said good night and went downstairs to look for a cruising cab.
My morning reports were finished at nine and I handed them to Mack Brissom. “Want some coffee? I’m meeting Marty at the diner.”
“Can’t do, friend. I’m tied up with that Montreal thing. A cross check on the ballistics came in and the gun used in Montreal was the same used in an attempted bank heist in Windsor a week earlier and to kill a gas station attendant in Utica four days after the Montreal bit”
“That’s not our jurisdiction,” I said.
“Yeah, I know. But the gun was found in a B.M.T. subway train by a passenger and turned in. No prints, unregistered and probably deliberately left there. It could be a red herring dodge to keep the action here while the killer is miles away, but we have to push it all the way.”
“Any of the money showing up yet?”
“Nothing. Lousy thing is, who could tell? Only part of the loot was in bills big enough to have the serial numbers recorded. It’s like the Brinks job... they’ll hold off until things quiet down before dumping the stuff.”
“Well, have fun.”
Mack didn’t seem to hear me. He shook his head, looking out the window. “Screwy deal, that one. The bank heist was a bust because four detectives were on the premises cashing their checks and stopped it. The Montreal job took a lot of planning... more than one single week. That was a top operation.”
“Maybe the guy who used the gun was brought in just to give them cover,” I suggested.
“Ah, I don’t know. It smells. It’s real sour. We got a tipoff from Canada that something had been in the wind a long time. Two mobsters from the States had been spotted up there a couple months earlier and sent back across the line, persona non grata. The day after the job an abandoned American automobile was found three miles from the scene that had been stolen in Detroit a week before, so there’s a general tie-in.
“Take the guy with the gun... he grabbed a car in Detroit, ran over to Windsor to pull the bank job, muffed it, then pulled the Montreal deal, dumped the car and took off. A report from a motel in the area where the car was left, that catered to tourists from the States, called in a stolen car with Jersey plates the same day.”
I said, “It looks nice except for that one thing, Mack. You don’t plan that kind of holdup in a week... not on the run, anyway.”
Mack collected his papers from the desk and folded them under his arm as one of the duty officers came in and handed him a sheet. He looked at it, scowled, then glanced at me. “That stolen car from Jersey was found in the Bronx.”
“The boy’s coming home,” I grinned.
“So he takes the subway, leaves the gun there so he can’t get picked up with it and finds a hideout. But where?”
“Why don’t you try the Ritz,” I suggested. “He’d have enough cash along to afford the rates.”
“Drop dead.”
We left together and I went down to meet Marty at the diner. She was already there, tall, fresh and cool looking in a trim suit that couldn’t hide her loveliness no matter how businesslike it was cut. She had coffee and pie ready for me and a notepad open on the table in front of her. I said, “Hi, little Giggie,” and sat down.
“If you weren’t my superior you’d hear something,” she told me.
“Superior in all things, sugar.”
“All?”
“Like I said... all.”
“Maybe you need a lesson, big boy.”
“In what?” I grinned.
“Oh, shut up.” She sipped at her coffee, then pulled the pad toward her. “I had a talk with a few people on the block.”
“And...?”
“Remember what Fat Mary said about René Mills hinting about coming into some money?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Confirmed. He was seen with a roll, paid off two big bar bills, cleaned up an account overdue by three months at the grocer’s and made a pitch at Helen Gentry who has pretty expensive tastes and only goes with the boys who are loaded. On top, he laid in a case of expensive Scotch whiskey and paid for it in cash.”
“So?”
Marty closed the pad and said, “He’d been pimping for those two girls who live over Papa Jones’ store for three years now. Cheap trade, and the take couldn’t have been big, but it was all he had, then suddenly he tells them both to take off... that he’s going out of business.”
“Not much cash was found on the body,” I said. “None of that Scotch was found in the apartment, either.”
“Screwy,” she mused.
I told her about my conversation with Ralph Callahan the night before and she nodded, thinking the same thing I was. I said, “He could have been hiding out Gus Wilder for a price.”
“We could check and see if they ever had a previous contact.”
“Not now we can’t, kid. You’re supposed to be a working girl. Until tonight we’ll go at it from a different angle. If the local mob is looking for Wilder they’ll have their own sources. Let’s see if they really are. Think you can run a check?”
“Sure. Regulation procedure accelerated by native ingenuity. I’ll see those who are assigned to that detail.”
I finished my coffee and dropped a bill on the table. “Good enough. I’ll pick you up at the apartment tonight.” I started to leave, then stopped and turned around. “Don’t get involved personally. Let somebody else do the legwork.”
“I can handle it myself, Joe.”
“Perhaps, but I don’t want you to lose your cover. Probe too far and some newshawk will get curious and your picture will be in the paper. That would wipe out your effectiveness in the neighborhood.”
“All right, Joe,” she smiled, “I’ll be careful.” But all that time she knew what I really meant I was getting a damn funny feeling about that woman, one I had never experienced before. Something that was like a fist tightening in my belly and sending a warm, crawly sensation across my back.
Chapter Six
Henry Wilder’s dry cleaning place was a hole-in-the-wall operation that catered to the local trade. Enough business kept him from poverty, but he was never going to get rich there. He lived upstairs over his store, a prematurely balding bachelor about fifty with tired lines around his eyes and a nervous flutter to his hands. I caught him on his lunch hour, flashed my badge and got invited in to a shabby room cluttered with junk and three racks of clothes customers had either forgotten about or didn’t have the money to redeem.
When I sat down he fidgeted on the edge of his chair waiting for me to speak. Finally I said, “Ever hear from your brother Gus?”
“That bum!”
“I didn’t ask that.”
“Sometimes I get a letter. He was up on charges in Toledo.”
“Hear from him since?”
Henry Wilder was going to say no, but knew he couldn’t make the lie stick. “Sure... a phone call. After he jumped bail.”