Chapter 3
The day man at the Woolsey-Lever Hotel was Lennie Ames and he owed me a favor. Two years ago he had been making book right at the desk when a team from vice came in to tag him, only I spotted them first, picked up his briefcase of receipts, markers and cash and walked off with the evidence. He got them back after the heat was off and never had the nerve to get in the game again. And I hadn’t asked for the favor back until now.
When I walked into the shabby, off-Broadway hotel, Lennie Ames spotted me coming through the door and turned white. Like everybody else, he had seen the papers, only he knew what was coming up. With the barest nod of his head he motioned toward the office and I went in, shut the door and waited. Two minutes later Lennie came in quickly, eased the door closed and plunked down in his chair behind the desk. “Irish... for Pete’s sake...”
Before he could finish I said, “I’m collecting now, buddy.”
“Does it have to be me? Man, ever since those hustlers got rousted off Eighth they’ve been operating out of here. Every night some plainclothes dick comes prowling around. Yesterday there’s an investigator from the D.A.’s office in asking questions...”
“All I want is a room and no trouble.”
“You already got the trouble.”
“That’s something I have to clean up.”
He got up, walked to the window and peered out through the Venetian blinds, then closed them all the way. “Look, Ryan, the cops I can steer off, but suppose that Stipetto mob tracks you here? You think they won’t put things together? They know what you did one time. So they’ll squeeze me and I squeeze easy. I’m chicken, man. I’m ready to run right now. Big Step will put a slug in me as fast as he will you if he knows I’m hiding you out.”
“I don’t remember waiting to be asked to do a favor that last time, Lennie.”
He looked at me, his eyes mirroring his embarrassment. “Okay, Irish, so I was a heel for a while.” He grinned at me and tried to light a cigarette with hands that shook enough so that it took two matches to do it. “We keep a spare on the fourth floor northwest corner. It’s marked MAINTENANCE SUPPLIES and has an exterior fire escape exit that leads down to the courtyard in back. There’s a John, a wash basin and a cot in there and you don’t have to register. The handyman who used it died in a sanatorium three months ago and we’ve been contracting our maintenance work, such as it is. Any questions, you tell them you and he made the arrangements. Leave me out of it.”
“Good enough. What about the night manager?”
“A screaming fag afraid of his own shadow. He’s had a lot of trouble and we’re the only ones who’ll give him a job. He’ll do anything to keep it. I’ll take care of him.”
“You’ll tell him then?”
“Damn right. It’s better they know. I’ll tell him you’ll land on him like a ton of bricks if he opens his mouth.” Lennie pulled the drawer out, threw me a key and said, “It’s all yours now. Don’t do me any more favors and I won’t do you any.”
“Sure,” I said, pocketed the key and left.
It was only a little cubicle, but it was enough. I could sweat out the days there and use the phone if I had to. The door had a barrel bolt on the inside and the window went up easily. I cased the yard, spotted a handy exit through the six foot fences if I needed it, then flopped down on the cot.
Now was a time for thinking.
I had walked into one hell of a mess. Big Step thought I knocked off his brother and I had the motive, the ability and the time to do it. So he was after me.
The fuzz took the same attitude on recommendation from their varied sources of information and were scouring the city for me. I had a record of arrests even if there were no convictions and they’d love to see me take a fall. I had been in their hair too damn long.
Karen Sinclair was next. If she told me straight, and there was no reason for her not to, I was right in the middle of somebody else’s game. She claimed to be a Federal agent and nobody was saying anything. Her job with the FCC could be a great cover. She had passed me something that could make or break our national security and I boffed it.
Damn it, I felt like one hungry trout in a small pond on the opening day of the fishing season! A lousy rabbit that accidentally jumped the fence into a pen of starving hounds.
First move then: I could clean Big Step off my back and the fuzz too if I found Penny Stipetto’s killer. But that left Karen Sinclair and the ones she spotted tailing her. That left a whole damn Federal agency who would be breathing down my throat for that capsule.
And Fly had that.
So find Fly first. Go into Big Step’s back yard and find Fly. It wasn’t going to be easy. The little weasel never holed up in the same place twice and slept in as many doorways as he did beds, but he did leave himself wide open on one count... he had told Lisa he was hurting for a blast and thought the cap he took from me was heroin. If it was, there could be trouble. If it wasn’t, the trouble was even worse. I had to find out.
Dusk came a little after seven and as soon as the supper crowd had cleared the streets I went back downstairs, got a scared glance from the gay boy at the desk and went outside to the drugstore on the corner and put in a call to Bill Grady who did a syndicated column across the nation and waited for him to answer.
His secretary asked me who I was and I gave the name of the State Senator. It got action fast. She told me he was at his hotel, gave me the number to call and before she could notify him I had my dime in the slot and was dialing.
I said, “Grady?”
“Roger. Who’s this?”
“Irish.”
There was silence for a second, then: “Boy, you sure don’t fool around. Where are you?”
“Not too far away. Can we talk?”
“Come on up.”
“There’s a statute about aiding and abetting.”
“So I’ve heard. There’s also freedom of the press and the unwritten law of protecting news sources. I smell a story.”
“Ten minutes.”
“I’ll be waiting. Alone.”
Bill Grady lived in a hotel on West Seventy-Second Street, an old conservative place left over from a different era. I took the elevator up to his floor, touched the buzzer and when he opened the door, stepped inside. I hadn’t seen him for three years, but it didn’t make any difference. We were still a couple of Army buddies who had a short lifetime together and nothing had changed.
We had one drink before he nodded to a chair and said, “Sit down and talk. You’re the hottest item in town.”
I shook my head. “It only looks that way, friend.”
“Oh?”
“Are we off the record?”
“Natch. Shoot.”
So I told him. When I finished he still hadn’t touched his drink, but his face looked tight and his fingers were bloodless around the glass in his hand. I said, “What’s the matter?”
He took a sip of his highball and put the glass down. “You’ve just confirmed something that’s been a rumor if I read it right.”
“So tell me.”
Grady hesitated, debating within himself what he should let out. Finally he turned around and stared at me. “I trusted you with my life a few times. I don’t see why you’d blow the whistle on this. Have you read about the Soviet oceanography work going on since ‘46?”
“Some. They’ve been mapping the ocean floor, studying currents, tidal effects, marine life and all that jazz. Why?”