“Or,” Reardon suggested conversationally, “a smart dame like you, with lots of experience around cops — good and bad — might just figure that would make a good story to tell the dumb flatfoots when they finally got around to questioning you.”
She shook her head, as if in disgust with his ignorance. Reardon started to come to his feet, convinced they were wasting their time, when Dondero got into the act by clearing his throat significantly. Reardon sank back in his chair as Dondero leaned forward, speaking in a quiet voice, his tone even.
“How long since you saw Sadie Chenowicz?”
She swung her head sharply, wary of this attack — if it was an attack — from her flank.
“Who?”
“Sadie Chenowicz. A hooker.”
She shook her head. “Never heard of her.”
“Oh, come on, Lily,” Dondero said in a friendly, almost joshing voice. “You must have. In your spot you must have known every pro in the business. What’s the harm in admitting it? Of course, she never had your class; she probably never worked a house in her life. Strictly a pavement-pounder. Come on, you’ve got to know her! She works the bars on the Embarcadero mostly, nowadays. Sailors or dockers, you know. A blowsy blonde, getting fat, a barfly, about your age—”
Mrs. Lillian Messer’s eyes flashed.
“About my age? Why, you blind bastard, Sadie Chenowicz has ten years on me if she has a day! A month after my mother died — God bless her — at the age of sixty-seven, she looked better than Sadie does right now! My age! Good Christ where do they get their cops from, today? The Braille Institute?”
“So now that you finally managed to remember her,” Dondero said with consummate patience, “when’s the last time you saw her?”
“Who knows?” Lily Messer’s shrug also said, Who cares? “It’s got to be twenty years, at least.”
“And when you last saw her — twenty years ago — your mother, God bless her, looked better than Sadie does today? Come on, Lily. When did you see Sadie Chenowicz last? Last week? The day before yesterday? Which was the day Jerry Capp got hit, in case you forgot?”
“What are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about when you saw Sadie last. Because she was in that bar where Jerry Capp got hit.”
“What!” Her face whitened; she sat erect in her hard-backed chair.
“Surprise, surprise!” Dondero’s voice turned from mockery to cajolery. “Look, Lily, all I have to do is ask her, and she’ll tell me. You know Sadie. For two bucks, or for a couple of drinks of damn near anything, Sadie wouldn’t only tell me that you paid her to finger Jerry Capp, but she’ll tell us how much. To the dime. To the number of seven-and-sevens it bought, if it came to that—”
“You bastard! What are you driving at?”
“Me? Nothing? However,” Dondero went on philosophically, “when you deal with a barfly like Sadie Chenowicz, you ought to know beforehand the chance you’re taking—”
“You miserable, lying, stinking—!”
“Not to mention what muscle actually did the shiv job personally. If she knew, that is.” Dondero sighed. “Funny, the bunch of nuts you run into on the Embarcadero nights. Days, it’s not too bad, but nights?” He shuddered dramatically. “Weird... What did it cost, Lily? Money — hard cash? Or your lily-white body? Yes,” he added thoughtfully, studying her up and down, “you’ve got it over Sadie like a tent. Whether you’re both the same age or not...”
Lily Messer bit back her first reply. There were several moments during which the two police detectives were once again treated to the Jekyll-Hyde act of Lily, the Madame, turning back into Mrs. Lillian Messer, mother and widow. When at last she spoke she was once again the calm, controlled, cultured woman with the evenly modulated voice they had first met. She was the lady who, in the course of entertaining guests, had unfortunately found them overstaying their welcome — but who knew how to handle the situation. She came to her feet, brushed a bit of offending lint from her skirt with meticulous care, folded her hands before her, and looked at them steadily, unemotionally.
“Well, gentlemen! It’s rather a pity I don’t have a recording device around, because those last statements certainly sounded to me like a threat to suborn a witness. A bribe to Sadie Chenowicz to have her say anything you want her to say.” She shrugged delicately. “However, it’s on your conscience, not mine.”
“Look, Lily, get smart—”
“My name isn’t Lily to you — just to my friends. To you I’m Mrs. Messer, and my attorney is Daniel Farbstein of Gorman, Farbstein and Finch. You’ll find their address in the telephone book. From now on they’ll answer all questions for me.”
Reardon stepped in, speaking as friend to friend.
“Look, Lily — I mean, Mrs. Messer. You call me stupid; well, don’t be even more stupid. Somebody did kill Jerry Capp and Pete Falcone and Ray Martin. They didn’t die of heart failure, and we didn’t make up their obits. Those three are dead and somebody killed them. If you really had nothing to do with their deaths, then you should be as interested as we are to find the killer. To take the pressure off you—”
“Daniel Farbstein, of Gorman, Farbstein and Finch. They’re in the phone book.”
“You don’t like to live behind locked doors. Who does? You might as well be in jail. Give us a hand—”
“Daniel Farbstein,” Mrs. Messer said in her well-controlled lady’s voice. She turned gracefully, leading the way politely to the door and the staircase landing. She might not have heard a word Reardon had said. “Of Gorman, Farbstein and Finch. They’re in the phone book...”
Friday — 6:00 p.m.
Reardon sat in the parked Charger, staring through the windshield at the sharp drop down Greenwich Street, but not really seeing it. Instead, he saw the smirk, the folded hands, the sharp, clever glint in the almost colorless gray eyes; heard again the soft but vicious voice. He sighed and turned to Dondero.
“What do you think?”
Dondero shrugged. He reached for a cigarette and lit it; he puffed deeply, as if for sustenance, exhaled, and then paused to pick a bit of tobacco from the tip of his tongue. He stared at the offender a moment and then flicked it away, too big a man to make an issue of the matter. These chores attended to, he leaned back.
“God knows,” he said wearily. “I wouldn’t put a little matter like a killing past Sister Mary upstairs, here, and I can see her buying and paying for professional clout without the slightest qualm. And I can also see her setting herself an alibi at the convent at the time. But in that case I can’t see her locking herself in like this.”
“Why not?” Reardon asked, sure that Dondero had a good answer. He enjoyed watching the swarthy detective sergeant use his sharp intelligence. “If, as she said, she thought some of Pete’s friends might think she had a hand in his killing and came after her? I’d say if she did the killing, or was responsible for it, she would have a very good reason for locking herself in. Tightly.”
Dondero shook his head stubbornly.
“You’re not thinking clearly, Jim. You say your pigeon told you this morning that these killings aren’t inspired by the mob, and I buy that. But you can’t tell me that if your pigeon knows it, and you know it, and I know it, that Mrs. Lillian Messer doesn’t know it. And that she’s also damn sure that Pete’s friends know it.”
Reardon stared at him with a frown. “You lost me about four blocks back, pal. If Lillian Messer had a hand in getting Pete Falcone knocked off, that doesn’t make it a gang kill. Quite the opposite.”