The nurse beside us reached for her pulse automatically, seemed satisfied and laid her arm back down.
“How badly was she shot?” I asked her.
“Luckily, clean wounds. The bullets missed vital organs.”
“Is she out of danger?”
“That is for the doctor to say. Now if you don’t mind...” She walked to the door and held it open. Grady followed her, but I hesitated just a moment. There was a barely perceptible flicker of her eyelids, then they opened slightly and she was looking at me.
I had to do it quickly. I had to make myself known and hope she could think fast despite her condition. I knew I was unrecognizable by my face, but I could duplicate a situation. Without moving my lips, I said softly, “What was the powder in the capsule? Was it heroin?”
For a half second there was no response, then she got it. In the same way, with no motion, her voice a whisper, she said, “Powdered sugar.” Then her eyes closed again and I walked away.
Our impatient guide who waited for us in the corridor said, “Satisfied?”
Bill nodded and shrugged. “Sorry to bother you. It’s nice to be sure.”
“The press will be officially notified of any changes. We’d appreciate it if you would not speculate and stay with the communiqués.”
“Sure.” Bill looked at me. “Let’s go. Thanks for the tour.”
The guy bobbed his head. “Don’t mention it... to the other reporters, I mean.”
When we were on the steps outside the hospital, I steered Grady to one side and held a match up to the cigarette in his mouth. “They have something hot on this one. Did you get what he said in the beginning?”
“About what happened?”
“Yeah.”
“Let’s make a phone call. I have a solid in at headquarters. They’ll feed me any action if I promise not to let it out until it’s cleared.”
We crossed the street to a drug store and I waited while Bill put in his call. When he came out of the booth his face was serious, his eyes dark with concern. He sucked nervously on the cigarette and let the smoke stream through his nostrils. “Well?”
“You could have been the key, Irish,” he told me. “She was an agent, all right.”
“That wasn’t what you had on your mind.”
He dropped the butt and ground it out under his heel. “The police recovered the spent slugs and matched them with the guns. The shots that hit her didn’t come from the police or Stipetto guns. Bullets from those guns got Vincent Stipetto and Moe Green too.” He looked at me hard. “Can you break it down now?”
“I think so,” I said, “the Stipetto mob was laying for me. When she came out the others starting banging away and the Stipetto boys were caught in between and thought it was part of a crash out on my part. They never lived long enough to find out different. Then Newbolder and Schmidt made the scene and nailed the rest of the gang. In the meantime, the others saw Karen go down and since they thought they nailed their target, they cut out. All the cops saw was the Stipetto boys, tied them in with me and didn’t look any further.”
“Until now,” he mused.
“And where do they go from here?”
“No place until the Sinclair woman can talk. She’s the crux. She brought the thing to a head. Trouble is, none of it’s over. She’s still alive and you’re still free.”
“And you got my obituary already written.”
“No,” Bill said, “but I’m thinking of it.”
Chapter 4
Through Pete-the-Dog I passed the word down the street to start scratching for Fly. He was hooked on H and someplace he had to locate a source of supply so he’d be hitting a dealer. If he tried mainlining with the sugar in the capsule he’d find out in a hurry he had nothing going for him and would do a crazy dance to get a charge. He wouldn’t even try to be careful and the word would go out like a brush fire. What I had to hope for was that he wouldn’t discard the microfilm in the capsule where I couldn’t find it. A junkie with a big hurt is liable to do anything. If I was lucky he’d keep the cap for a reserve and stick with his regular pusher. He had been in the business long enough to have solid contacts but let trouble touch a hophead and everybody steered clear. Right now little old Fly could have trouble if I knew Big Step. For letting me bust loose he could be getting the hard squeeze.
Chuck Vinson’s saloon had a side entrance and I didn’t have to go through the bar to snag a booth in the back room. I took the furthest one back and pushed the button for the waiter. Old Happy Jenkins came shuffling back, napkin over one arm and a bowl of pretzels in his hand. He had to peer at me over his glasses a second before he saw who it was, then he swallowed hard and looked back toward the front with eyes suddenly scared.
“You bugs, Irish? You outa your mind? What the hell you doon in here?”
“Trying to get a beer,” I said.
“A half hour ago Big Step himself come in asking. Chuck said he ain’t seen you but it don’t mean they ain’t covering from outside.”
“So I’m all shook up over it. Do I get that beer?”
“Irish... come on. Step had that new guy with him — the one from Miami. They’re looking, man. They want you bad.”
“Doesn’t everybody?”
He licked his lips again and edged in closer. “The cops got a tail on Step in case he finds you. You know that too?”
“It figures. Now get me a tall Piel’s with a foamy head like you see on TV and I’ll blow. And ask Chuck if I got any phone calls.”
Happy nodded joylessly and shuffled off. Two minutes later he was back with a Stein, slid it over in front of me and said, “You got a call from somebody.” He handed me a matchbook cover with a number scrawled on it. “You gotta buzz ’em back. Chuck says not to use his place like an office while the heat’s on.”
When he left I finished half the beer, found a dime and hopped into the phone booth beside me. The number was a Trafalgar exchange which put it somewhere in the West Seventies but I didn’t recognize it. The phone rang just once before it was picked up and a cautious voice said, “Yeah?”
“Irish. You call?”
“Where you at?”
“Chuck Vinson’s.”
That seemed to satisfy him. He said, “Pete-the-Dog saw me today. Said you wanted to know about Fly.”
“Got anything?”
“No, but I know where he gets his junk from. He was peddling for Ernie. Ernie paid him off in H. If you want Fly, try him.”
“Thanks buddy. What do I owe you?”
“Nothin’. You took me out of a jam once. We’re square now.” He hung up abruptly and I stood there for a minute trying to figure out who it was. Hell, a lot of people owed me favors. I went back, finished my beer and went out the same way I came in, mixing with a group going past the door to the subway station.
Ernie South had started off in the wholesale candy business fifteen years ago, working the fringe areas of Harlem before he switched to dope. He had peddled the stuff for Treetop Coulter before he took his first fall, did his time in Sing Sing, then came back and muscled Treetop right out of the business. He wound up operating in Big Primo Stipetto’s territory, managed to get himself in the good graces of the boss and ran a neat operation the cops weren’t able to break.
Everybody had been hearing a lot about Ernie South lately. He and Penny Stipetto were thick as blood brothers, especially since ’62 when Big Step turned over a prime section uptown to his kid brother to run as he saw fit. Penny Stipetto had been on the verge of being a big time operator when he was knocked off and since they thought I was his killer, Ernie South would have his hands out looking for me too. Penny’s death left the section wide open and until Big Step moved back in or designated another lieutenant to handle it, Ernie was moving things around.