“Let’s try this again,” I said. “This time with me asking a few questions.”
He sighed, let some coffee roll down his throat, said, “Why not?”
“Who do you make for the target on that street corner tonight?”
He gave me the you’re nuts look. “What do you mean? You were.”
“Something I’ve always wondered,” I said, sitting up. “Do you keep separate files on all your cases? You know, so there’s no chance of one case brushing up against another and contaminating it.”
Only somebody who knew me as well as Pat would have read the sarcasm in my easy tone. His eyes tightened and he leaned forward.
“Okay,” he said. “I’m an idiot.”
I gestured with an open hand, as if to say, No argument.
“Billy was the target,” he said, and bounced a fist off his desk. “It’s that hit-and-run he saw! He’s the only witness who can identify the driver. Damnit. I’m an ass.”
I gestured with the open hand again.
Then he pointed a finger at me, a prosecutor indicating the defendant. “But everybody’s going to read this thing as another hit attempt on you. The odds of you being involved in three tries on your life and an attempt on someone else’s life are infinitesimal... Mike, if I look into this as if Billy is the target, I’ll get laughed off the force.”
“If you don’t do that,” I said, “you don’t deserve to be on the force.”
“Do you have a suspect?”
I nodded. “Borensen.”
His eyes widened, but soon he was nodding. “Makes sense. Really makes sense. Hell, he could have set you up for the kill twice!”
So I emptied the bag on his desk, gave him everything from Hy’s background on Borensen’s youthful drug-dealing activities through his mob money laundering past and present.
“And you’re convinced,” Pat said, “that Borensen put a high-priced hit out on you to clear a safe path to removing Billy.”
I leaned back, folded my arms. “Is that too big a leap for you, old buddy?”
He shook his head. “No. Not at all. You’d have stepped right up to the plate with a big bad bat in your hands, if they murdered that little guy. What kind of shape is he in, anyway?”
“I don’t know. He was still out cold when they loaded him in the ambulance.”
He frowned. “I don’t get it, Mike. Why not leave Billy to us?”
“Let’s just say I want him in my protective custody. Think about it. To everybody but you in this department, Billy will be an unfortunate little guy who took some bullets meant for Mike Hammer. How long can you arrange a twenty-four-hour police guard for that?”
“I have some influence.”
“Okay. So maybe hiding Billy away somewhere isn’t necessary. Maybe Billy would be just as well off or better out at Bellevue under police protection. But have you considered I might have another agenda?”
“Such as?”
“Such as someone we both care about.”
His eyes flared. “...Velda.”
I nodded. “Pat, I want her out of here, away from my side. I’m entering into a very dangerous sort of competition, and I don’t want to see her get between me and the next bullet triggered my way.”
He was sitting forward. “What do you mean... dangerous competition?”
I told him, in some detail, about last night’s phone call from the self-styled greatest of all contract killers. Pat frowned through much of my account, occasionally shaking his head.
“Mike, this guy is worse than just some professional killer. He’s a lunatic. A madman.”
“Maybe that’s why he identifies so closely with me.”
“It’s not funny, but... I get it, where Velda’s concerned. You know she wouldn’t leave town or in any way lay low, if you just asked her to, for her safety. You had to give her a job that got her out of harm’s way.”
“That’s right. Pat, I have a suggestion.”
“I’m not surprised. What is it?”
“The Martin Foster suicide. That wasn’t your case.”
“No. That was out on Long Island.”
“Well, get whatever you can on it from the local PD out there. Look at everything. Crime scene photos, autopsy report, the works.”
He was frowning. “You think Borensen staged it?”
“Very possible. Whether he knew his prospective father-in-law had cancer or not is immaterial. What likely happened is Dick Blazen told Foster the truth about his son-in-law-to-be. Which meant they both had to go.”
“Why, because Borensen loves the girl?”
“Well, it would be easy enough to. But you might start with all the money she’ll inherit.”
“Okay. Can I assume you’re working this from your own end?”
I saluted him with my coffee cup. “You know, when I get to the finish line before you — and I will get there before you, Pat — how would you like me to drop Borensen right in your lap?”
“And not just kill his ass?”
“Well, no promises, but... yes, if he doesn’t pull anything. With his connections, a live Viking might be very useful to your department in putting some worthy mob slobs in the Graybar Hotel.”
“Agreed.” Pat went deadpan on me. “Now you’ll tell me what you want from me.”
“I assume you weren’t working that hit-and-run.”
He nodded. “Vehicular homicide isn’t my bailiwick.”
“Well, round up everything the department has on that crime.” I dug in my trenchcoat pocket and found the three slugs from earlier and tossed them on the desk. “And you’re going to want these. I dug ’em out of Billy’s jacket tonight.”
“What the hell did you take them for?” His face got a little red.
“Just wanted to make sure they got to you. Didn’t want to leave them to the uniforms, and I planned to get Billy out of there before any plainclothes showed.”
The red faded but he was still annoyed. “You’re tampering with crime scenes now?”
Really I’d been tampering with crime scenes for a long time, but I said, “You have a decent chain of evidence. I’m an officer of the court, after all, and I preserved material that might have been lost in the shuffle, and instead turned them over to the Captain of Homicide.”
“Where would I be without your help?”
I chose to treat that as a rhetorical question, since the answer might embarrass him.
“Look, Pat, assuming Billy is just unconscious, and not in a coma or anything, what we really need on Borensen right now is an ID. You had a police photographer at the Waldorf suite this afternoon. You were interviewing Borensen while your guy was snapping shots. Think it’s possible that our suspect might be in the background of one?”
Pat was already reaching for the phone. He got the crime lab and made the request.
After he hung up, he said, “I can see why we need a photo for Billy to identify, since Hy says shots of Borensen are as scarce as honest P.I.’s. But what would make the man feel he had to get rid of Billy? All the bastard needed to do was stay away from Billy’s corner. It’s not like we’d haul Borensen in for a line-up, or that Billy would turn him up in our mug books. Back when you say he was dealing drugs, Borensen was never even arrested.”
“Let me answer you with a question. What do guys who run newsstands do when things get slow?”
Pat shrugged, thinking about it. “Well, they sure don’t read the girlie mags. They could get hauled in for that, and it would discourage female customers. And they don’t read the funny books, because it just doesn’t look good. I suppose they read the papers. Each day’s papers.”
I gave him a big sunny smile. “And what will be in the paper, one day soon? Not on the sports page. Not on the editorial page. Not in the funnies. But the—”