I gave Al Reese one hard shot in the kidneys with my fist to punctuate the argument and all the breath went out of him in a long sigh and Loefert turned eyes of pure hate my way while the others played it cool and just looked away.
But they got the message.
Paula Lees got her freedom.
It was that easy. So far.
I was a cop coming home to his old turf who didn’t like what he saw and decided to clean it up. I could hit the punks and take care of the unfortunate. Word would go out and maybe talking to them would be easier. Maybe.
At six I knocked at Marty’s door and heard her run across the room to answer it. She had changed into a skirt and blouse, let her hair down, and the welcome home smile she gave me sent that feeling back into my stomach again. I could smell the coffee and hear chops sizzling in the kitchen and went in licking my lips.
“Hungry, Joe?” She saw my expression and added, “Don’t answer that,” with an even bigger smile. “Grab a beer out of the fridge. Everything’ll be ready in a minute.”
Damn, my place was never like this.
We ate with a peculiar intimacy neither of us wanted to mention, but it hung in the air like a wild perfume. We talked about little things, both of us prolonging the moments we had until it came to an end over coffee. Marty poured a second cup and said, “The boys will kick you out of the club if they know you’ve been consorting with girls.”
“No more. Most of them are dead.”
“Strange, isn’t it?” She put the pot back on the stove and sat down. “Time goes so fast. I can remember chasing you and Larry, trying to get into the game... you sending me on stupid errands so I’d get lost or Larry making like he was going to scalp me with that tomahawk...”
“I was thinking of him before,” I said.
“You miss him, don’t you?”
“We were pretty close. We were those kind of brothers.” I shrugged. “Life, kid.”
“I know.”
It had to end sooner or later so I said, “Finish your check today?”
She regretted the sudden switch as much as I did and nodded ruefully, her attitude suddenly professional. “Verbal?”
“That’ll do.”
“Murphy had the most to contribute,” she told me. “He has some people inside their ranks and the word is that there is something hot brewing. The top men are pretty disturbed about something and have been doing a lot of traveling between New York and Chicago. Looked like a high-level series of meetings. There is a definite connection with the mob here and upstate... they’re looking out for Gus Wilder, all right, but that factor isn’t of prime importance. It’s something else... and that nobody is talking about.”
“Still leaves us guessing,” I said.
“Not quite. Orders that came from one of those meetings directed Loefert, Fater and Steve Lutz into this area. We concentrate on them, and we might find out something.”
“Those guys don’t break very easily,” I reminded her.
“Somewhere, they always have a chink in the armor, don’t they?”
“Always,” I grinned. She was beginning to think like a beat cop now and not a social worker.
“Then how do we start?”
“With the first kills. It’s a homicide case, baby.”
“Until now nobody’s talked. Nobody saw anything.”
“I’m glad you’re so damn confident.”
“Kitten, I’ve been at this job a long time,” I said. “There are times when they get ready. All you have to do is prod them a little.”
“Okay then, ugly, I’m ready whenever you are,” she laughed.
Chapter Seven
The supper crowd had left Tony’s Pizza when we got there. One couple was at the small bar, and two tables were occupied. Fat Mary was busy forcing another helping on one pair and Tony was behind the bar listening to a small transistor radio. Marty and I climbed on the stools and Tony saw us and came over grinning, the first time I saw him smile in a long time. He said hello in his rich Neapolitan accent and drew two beers automatically.
“You do nice thing for those girls, Joe,” he told me. “I see them, they very glad. Terrible a woman should be on the streets and pushed around. Terrible.”
“They should have kept their mouths shut or people will think the cops are getting soft.”
“Ah, no. It is not like you think.” He gave us a knowing glance then. “Now you two, you belong here. Good maybe that you come back, Joe. Things are bad here, very bad.”
“Those killings?”
Tony nodded vigorously. “Very bad, that.”
“It’s another department and I’m off duty. The hell with it.”
His face pulled itself into a seamy, concerned frown. “Who cares about here, Joe? The cops? They don’t care. Somebody dies, so what?” He leaned forward confidentially. “That killer, he’s still here. He can kill anybody.”
“What can I do, Tony? Hell, I knew all the guys who got knocked off. I went to school with “em.”
Tony gave me a typical shrug. “So they’re no good, well okay. But still good people here, you can bet. You oughta know. Plenty good people. They’re scared, that’s what.”
“You scared?”
“Sure. I was scared of that stupid René Mills. I’m scared of everybody like them.”
I kept my voice down. “What was with him, Tony? He was flashing money around and it was more than he ever had before. René never had the brains to set up a heist and nobody was going to just give it to him. He was a low-type punk.”
Tony let his eyes rove around the place before he answered. “You know what I think? He had something on somebody. He was expectin’ plenty money soon. He had it all set.”
“Yeah?”
“Better’n that even. I tell you somethin’, Joe. That René, he stays up all night watching that damn TV or playing cards. Always like that. Never his light go off like he’s scared of the dark. Then alla sudden he got them lights out right after it gets dark. He comes down and goes up, but never a light goes on and when it does the shade is down like never before. He got somebody up there with him.”
“Hiding him out?”
I got another big shrug that lasted three seconds. “Who knows?”
“Doesn’t sound reasonable, Tony. Who the hell would trust René Mills?”
Tony gave me a face full of fat lip. “Suppose there’s nobody else he can go to?”
“It wouldn’t be René Mills, buddy.”
“For whoever it was, he kicked Noisy Stuccio out, didn’t he? René, he wouldn’t give a pork chop to his own mother if she didn’t pay. So Noisy paid him, then gets the boot. Noisy was pretty damn mad. Plenty years he live with René and pays most the bills ’cause he’s scared of René. Then the boot. How about that?”
“How about that?” I repeated. “René still feeling pretty high when he got killed?”
“Sure. He thought he was all set. You gotta get that one, Joe.”
“There’s nothing to get.”
“No?” He gave me a curious look. “Then ask that Al Reese. That fat bum, he knows. He shoves everybody. He always looking for his bite, that bum. He hooked into René, because I seen René pay him off,” he confided.
I finished my beer and nudged Marta to do the same. “Okay, Tony, maybe. Just maybe, remember? I’m out of my district and I don’t want to make trouble around here.”
“Screw you, Joe. When you and Larry was kids, you made plenty trouble for everybody. That... that... what you call him?”
“Chief Crazy Horse,” I said.
“Yeah him. Nutty Indian. Always wearing them feathers and you want to be a cop. Nobody wanted to play with you, did they?”