I said, “Carr claims not to be involved with hoods like Costello and Wortman, beyond the occasional favor. Is that on the level?”
“More on a slant,” she said. “It’s true he stopped doing their books for them and, like I told you, the place got too successful for mob guys to use to cool down or hide out — you know, beyond an hour or an overnight with their piece on the side. But Jack still has business ties.”
“Like your, uh, escort service?”
She nodded. “Wortman gets an overall slice — I started out with him, years ago. I was his... special girl for a while, and he still has a fondness for me. Costello gets a kickback when a cabbie lines up a john. Those Coral Court rooms wired for sound have made any number of politicians, of whatever persuasion, cooperative. Sometimes at the No-Tell Motel not telling costs you.”
“But Carr is not Mafia.”
“No. He’s nothing in the greater scheme of things.”
“Who is something?”
A cocktail waitress stopped to ask if we wanted another. Sandy ordered a second highball but I was fine with my first rum and Coke.
Sandy said, softly but unblinking, “Well, for one thing, Joe Costello got the Greenlease money.”
Almost exactly the words Mollie Baker had used; and confirmation of what Elmer Dolan had told me. Also, calculated shock value on her part.
I asked, “How is it you know that?”
She had a little speech ready; she put it across with a tiny wicked smile and an admirably droll delivery: “I don’t mean to be crass, Heller. But you already had one on the house, last night. I’m sure you’ll be picking up the check tonight, and I appreciate that. Still, it’s what any gentleman out on the evening with a more or less respectable lady is expected to do.”
“No argument.”
She leaned closer, spoke softly. “I put you off, last night, before getting into anything you really wanted to know, because I had to talk to somebody today. Somebody who owes me money. I’ll be frank with you.”
“Please.”
“If this party had come through, you and I wouldn’t be having this pleasant evening out together. But he didn’t come through.”
“If I might ask — with what?”
“I’ll get to that. We need to back up a little. Actually... more than a little. Say... five years?”
The hair on the back of my neck prickled.
She was saying, rather archly, “After I came to your room that long-ago night... and you found me less than irresistible...”
“Hey, you were sexy as hell. I just had a drunken kidnapper on the brain.”
“No apologies necessary. What’s done is done. But back then? Turned out my evening was just beginning...”
Very quietly, interrupted only by the arrival of her second highball, she told me how she had caught a cab and gone back to her aunt’s apartment, to borrow the woman’s car. She had a pal in Buster Wortman’s second-in-command, Elroy “Dutch” Downey, and caught up with him in East St. Louis at the Paddock Lounge, a sleazy bar of Wortman’s. But Buster was out of town, Dutch said; and after a moment or two of soul-searching (had she found one, I wondered?), she filled her pal Dutch in about the drunken big spender at the Coral Court with luggage full of loot. Dutch’s eyes got big and then he went off to use the phone.
“When he came back,” she said, “he told me I’d get a nice finder’s fee, if anything come of it. I said, so you got hold of Buster? And he said, no. He’d called Joe Costello. The Coral Court was Costello’s turf. So, obviously, was the cab business, and of course that cabbie Hagan was involved.”
“And did you get a finder’s fee from Joe?”
“No. And when it became obvious Costello and Shoulders had taken that ransom dough, I told Joe I wanted a piece. I led him to that windfall! He scored three hundred grand — ten percent for pointing him to it was a bargain. I said I wanted thirty grand or I’d turn his pale ass in.”
I sipped rum and Coke. “Where that money came from didn’t bother you?”
The wide red mouth twitched. “Money doesn’t know where it comes from.”
I’d said that myself enough times; how could I judge her?
But she was sitting in judgment on herself, somewhat at least, saying, “I wanted that money. I was human, poor and desperate. I had my own kid, who was alive and hungry. And I wasn’t really thinking past the payoff.”
“You’re lucky to be alive, you know.”
“Oh I know,” she said, embarrassed. “But I always got along with Joe Costello pretty well. He’d been decent to me. I was one of his Ace Cab girls. And he’s the one who set me up at the Coral Court with the... escort service. I’ve never had to do much but make phone calls and play house mother to a few of the younger girls, till they get broke in.”
“So him setting up the service, that was how he paid you off?”
She shook her head and the short dark hair bounced. “No, he still me owed me. And here I was kicking back money to him and his cabbies on their, you know, referrals. Not that my cut was unfair or anything. But, Heller, man, I’m sick of the life. I’m gonna be forty. No. I’m already forty. Fuck, I’m already forty-two.”
“You’re a swell-looking forty-two, kid.”
“Thanks. But I don’t wanna be part of the life anymore. I got my eye on a cozy restaurant back east. Medium-size burg with nice people, nice schools for my little girl. Not so little now — junior high.”
“So then it was Costello you went to see today, huh? To ask for what he owed you?”
The gray-blue eyes flared. “No!... Yes. I, uh, said I’d settle for ten grand. I can secure that little restaurant for that and stay with some people till it gets going. I said I’d turn the whole escort business over to him.”
“And he said?”
“Joe told me he didn’t owe me a damn thing. And that the escort service was his and Carr’s, and go to hell. So. Is me coming forward with this worth ten grand?”
“Is it?”
Our food came. It was delicious. We said not a word. Not even pass the salt. Coffee came.
Then she said, “Or am I reading this wrong? I figure you’re working for the Greenlease family. They want the rest of their money back, but it’s probably gone and I can’t help with that. But if I came forward and told the FBI what I know, they would have Joe Costello by the short and curlies. Dutch Downey would be in dutch. That creep cop Shoulders, too. And maybe Buster, which I kinda hate, ’cause I like the guy. Anyway. This whole thing would come out.”
“Dangerous for you.”
Her eyes tightened. Her mouth dropped like a red-rimmed trap door. “Or... are you working for somebody who doesn’t want this to come out? I... I can do that, too. Ten grand would seal these lips forever. I’ll work with you, Heller. I will work with you.”
How desperately unhappy she was, behind her glib tough-girl facade, was clear. She was filled with needs that were overriding caution.
I said, “Look. You’re a smart kid, and—”
“I’m not a kid and I sure as hell am not smart.” She got a deck of Chesterfields from her purse and started lighting one up, nervously.
My whispered words were like terrible sweet nothings. “Honey, I’m afraid you know just enough to get yourself killed, but not enough to change anything in the Greenlease case. Do you have family you can turn to?”
She laughed and smoke and bitterness came out. “Well, I’m the product of a rape, Heller, what do you think?”
I put a hand on one of hers. “Maybe I can help you out. You’ve given me an important piece of the puzzle and that’s going to be worth something. I can’t promise it’s worth the ten grand you’re after, but you won’t have to go public. Listen. I will help.”