Inside, bacon and sausage sizzled on ancient grills, the odours spicing the heady aroma of roasting coffee. The decor was nondescript, a well-worn combination of stainless steel, formica, pale green walls, and dark green vinyl seats. A dining room had been added to the rear of the diner years before and there Papa sat, at a corner table, mesmerized by the menu from which he was about to order a breakfast big enough to delight an entire Marine brigade. Sharky and Livingston joined him and a few minutes later Friscoe arrived, an apparition in scruffy corduroys, a peaked deep sea fishing cap, and a scarred jacket that predated antiquity.
He appraised the ragtag bunch, their eyes charcoaled from lack of sleep, their cheeks scraggly from not shaving, their bodies sagging under the weight of a sleepless night.
‘Jesus,’ he said, ‘you all look like you just got sprung from Auschwitz.’
‘And thank you, Cinderella,’ Livingston said.
‘So where’s Abrams? He ain’t gonna be one of those late guys, is he?’
‘On his way,’ Sharky said. ‘He got hung up on a phone call.’
A gargantuan waitress with arms like a wrestler’s hovered over the table. ‘Are we ready here?’ she said. It was more a demand than a question.
‘We’ll have coffee all the way around while we’re deciding,’ Sharky said and she padded off towards the coffee urn on slippered feet.
Friscoe leaned back in his chair and looked at the other three detectives. ‘I’ll tell you what. I hope to shit you guys did better than me. I musta put in five hours trying to get a line on this Neil and what do I get out of it? Sore feet and a fuckin’ goose egg, that’s what.’
Papa took a tattered notebook from his pocket and licking a thumb, flicked it open. ‘His name’s Dantzler,’ he announced. ‘With a t.’
‘What’sat?’ Friscoe said.
‘Dantzler with a t. D-a-n-t-z-l-e-r. He lives in a condo in The Courtyard, which, if you’ll remember, is also where Tiffany lives. That’s because she’s Dantzler’s girlfriend. She uses her apartment mainly for tricks. She also has another boyfriend on the sly and she occasionally shacks up at Domino’s place. Dantzler’s a rich kid gone sour. His game’s pimping and scam. He’s outa town, be back a week from tomorrow.’
Friscoe stared at Papa with a hint of indignation. ‘Sounds like a pornographic soap opera,’ he said. ‘Where’d you come up with all that shit?’
‘A snitch.’
‘You got all that from one fuckin’ snitch?’
‘Had a little help from the security guard at The Courtyard.’
‘Maybe I just should have stayed in bed,’ Friscoe said, feeling suddenly inadequate.
‘Sometimes you get lucky,’ Papa said.
‘Well, sometimes wasn’t last night for me,’ Friscoe said. ‘Is there anything else?’
‘Dantzler’s sporting a new Ferrari, braggin’ on the street how he took some cowboy to the cleaners. Domino is out. Didn’t know about it.’
‘And just how did you find that out?’ Friscoe said.
‘Snitch.’
‘Shit, who is this fuckin’ stoolie?’ Friscoe said. ‘Maybe we oughta put him on the goddamn payroll.’
‘One more thing,’ said Papa. ‘Dantzler hasn’t got the guts to kill anybody or get it done. Rule him out. Ditto Tiffany.’
‘Same snitch?’ Sharky said.
Papa nodded.
‘You sure he’s reliable, Papa?’ Friscoe said.
‘Yes. When this guy talks, it’s bankable.’
‘So that retires Dantzler, Tiffany, and the mark in Texas as possibles,’ Livingston said.
Friscoe shook his head. ‘Too bad. They would have been the easiest shot we bad.’
At that point The Nosh arrived, alert, ebullient, and smiling. Friscoe glared at him sourly. ‘You look like you just come back from a week at the beach,’ he said.
‘I think I’m on to something,’ The Nosh said.
‘Okay, everybody gets their turn. Papa there just made himself an A-plus. Now it’s Sharky’s turn at bat.’
Sharky quickly described the deal on red devils made by Shoes and the layoff bets made by Arnold, the bartender at the Matador. Before he was through, the waitress returned with the coffee and demanded their orders while The Nosh complained bitterly that they might at least have selected a place that had bagels on the menu.
‘This here’s a diner, not a deli,’ Friscoe said.
When the waitress had gone again, Sharky said, ‘We didn’t make Shoes. He never showed up on the street last night. But both these leads tell Arch and me that the shooter’s still in town.
‘Could be coincidence, Shark,’ The Nosh said.
‘if it was just one or the other, I’d agree’ said Livingston. ‘But here we got information from two completely different sources and it dovetails.’
‘Yeah,’ Friscoe said, ‘I never been big on coincidence myself. It’s like circumstantial evidence. Where there’s smoke there’s fire.’
‘Arch and I are going to move on Shoes tonight,’ Sharky said. ‘But we need somebody to get on this Arnold, find out who the big better is.’
‘Can you maybe get a line on this Shoes before tonight, bit him in his nest?’ Friscoe asked.
‘It’s pushy. If we move too bard on him we could blow Ben’s cover,’ Sharky said.
‘Okay, I’ll worry about Arnold, there, sc. what I can come up with,’ Friscoe said. ‘We just don’t have time. We got nothing but maybes and probablies, and what we need, we ain’t got. We ain’t got a face, we ain’t got a name, we ain’t got a motive, we ain’t got shit.’
‘Is it my turn yet?’ The Nosh asked.
‘Jeez, you’re like some kid in grammar school thinks he’s got all the answers,’ Friscoe said.
‘Go ahead, Nosh,’ Sharky said. ‘Let’s hear it.’
‘Okay, I got a positive make on the prints.’
Friscoe almost swallowed his coffee cup. Sharky, Livingston, and Papa froze in mid-bite, like sculptured figures.
‘You know who the killer is?’ Sharky said.
The Nosh nodded. ‘Howard Burns. Male Caucasian, age 59, owned a short-haul trucking outfit in Lincoln, Nebraska.’
‘A trucking company?’ Friscoe said, ‘This Mafia button owns a trucking company?’
‘What do you mean, owned?’ Sharky said.
The Nosh smiled. ‘According to the Bureau, Howard
Burns was killed in an automobile accident on October twentieth.’
Again silence, broken finally by Friscoe. ‘That ain’t possible.’
‘That’s right. It sure ain’t,’ The Nosh said. ‘I checked it out again with George Barret. He says the prints are fresh, no question about it.’
‘What kind of accident?’ Sharky asked.
‘A single-vehicle wreck on the outskirts of Omaha. Car went off the road, bit a tree, and exploded. Burns’s wife made the identification using dental charts.’
‘Ub oh,’ Friscoe said, and a smile began spreading across his face.
‘Neat,’ Livingston said.
‘Now that ain’t a coincidence,’ Papa said.
‘And think about the date,’ Livingston said.
‘Yeah about two weeks before he surfaced here looking for red devils and a healthy bookmaker,’ Sharky said.
‘There’s more,’ The Nosh said.
‘I shoulda stayed in bed,’ said Friscoe.
‘Look at this Bureau telex on Burns. Notice anything funny?’ The Nosh asked.
They all looked it over, reading the lines, the background information on the questionably deceased Howard Burns. Born in Newark, raised in Philadelphia, worked as truck driver and then in the navy yard there during World War II, returned to trucking after the war, left Philadelphia in 1960, worked at various trucking jobs until 1968 when he purchased the Interstate Van Lines in Lincoln. It was sketchy, but a resumé nevertheless.