by John Roeburt
“I’m very sorry about Ricky, China,” she said softly. “But Cole will find whoever did it. He’s not as stupid as he looks. Honest.”
China smiled and then turned soberly to me. “Do you have a pencil?” she asked.
Toni got one out of her purse and gave it to her. She took one of the club’s match books from the bar and scribbled something on the inside of the cover. Putting it in my hand, she stared up at me.
“That’s my phone number,” she said. “Call me if you need me for anything.”
She came up close and touched my arm.
“I want to help, Cole. I’ll scour the Village for you if it’ll help, but please find him. Ricky wasn’t much of a man, I guess, but he was mine and his killer can’t go free.”
She reached up on tiptoes and kissed me on the cheek. I felt a little ashamed, under the circumstances, at the warm sensation I got from the pressure of her full, soft breasts against me.
I made the same promise for the third time in forty-eight hours. The first time to myself, then Louise, and now China.
“I’ll get him,” I said.
She smiled and stepped back, putting her hip mask back on.
“I’ve gotta split,” she grinned. “I’ve got a date with a passionate Lezzie with four nickel-bags, who’s got mad eyes for me.”
She moved from the bar. “’Bye, Toni,” she said. “You’re sweet and I hope you hook him.” Her smile faded as her eyes swung to me. “’Bye, pops. Good luck.”
She left us and worked her way through the crowd, waving hello to almost everyone. Toni and I sat down.
“Quite a girl,” I said.
She nodded her head.
“She’s sweet,” she said. “Do you think she’ll ever quit?”
“Who knows? I doubt it.”
I lapsed into silence, listening to the music and thinking about China and her habit. Suddenly, Toni caught her breath next to me and turned around.
“Oh!” she cried. “I forgot to tell you!”
“Forgot to tell me what?”
“I almost got picked up!”
I grinned at her.
“How’d he make out?”
“Not a him, silly. A her. In the ladies room.”
This time I really grinned.
“Have fun?” I asked.
She glared at me.
“It’s not funny! She scared me half to death. I was standing in front of the mirror combing my hair when suddenly she just came up behind me and—”
“And what?” I prompted.
“Never mind what. But it gave me ideas. Is that terrible?”
“Is it terrible to be human?”
“I’m glad for your attitude. I guess we’re all only human.”
“Right, honey.”
I ordered drinks and we consumed them and a few more while we listened and watched during the next couple of hours. Neither China nor Valerie came back to interrupt the cozy warmth that began to play between us. I decided that as soon as the Ricky Parks puzzle was finished I would make it a point to set aside a special candle-lit evening for us. I owed her a real date.
By midnight we were tiring of staring down passionately inclined characters, and decided to call it a night. At least at The Purple Pit. I had further plans for Toni’s apartment.
We left the bar with a happy grin from the over-tipped bartender and a few sad shrugs from the boys and girls at the bar, and went out to get my hat.
The pectoral wonder was still on duty, smiling her over-developed promises at me, but Toni shot her down with a cocked eyebrow and we left The Purple Pit.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Toni was quiet on the way out. As we buzzed along East Side Drive she snuggled against my shoulder and tucked her legs up under her, contentedly listening to Frank Sinatra purr from the radio. The warm silence between us spoke volumes anyway, and it was nice to just dummy up for a change and think together.
Usually, it bugged me a little to have to go through the involved runaround of taking a ferry and then driving way out on Staten Island just to get her home to the exclusive, upper-stratum project where she had her apartment, but tonight I felt expansive. Besides, it was usually worth it once we got there.
When we reached South Ferry I paid the man in the toll booth and pulled into the loading lane. The ferry wasn’t in so I cut the engine and we waited. The radio was broadcasting an hour’s worth of Sinatra, which made the ten minute wait pleasant enough. And Toni’s soft weight against my shoulder kept me comfortably lulled.
There were a dozen or so cars waiting with us by the time the ferry arrived, and the attendant waved us through the ramp entrance. The GOLD STAR MOTHER was waiting for us in the slip with her gate pulled up. I drove on board, and because we were first in line, were able to park the Jag up front beyond the upper deck where we could keep the radio on without the usual static.
When the ferry finally moved out, I let Sinatra take care of Toni while I did a little wool-gathering.
So far I’d spent over forty-eight hours getting nowhere. I had talked to creeps, junkies, and various forms of homosexuals that supposedly knew him, and still hadn’t made first base. I was beginning to wonder.
There were over eight million people in the city of New York, and as China had so adroitly pointed out, the killer could be any one of them. Louise’s brother wasn’t the nicest of guys in anybody’s book—and when you considered the number of careless barflies and not so careless hustlers he must have beat at one time or another with his boosting prowess at a bar, the list of Ricky-haters could very well be endless.
Manny Zato, if not heading the list, was pretty high on it for my money—in spite of his eloquent denials. But even he needed a motive, and a motive I couldn’t find. If I just knew what Ricky had that made him so important—or even if the killer had found it. I still had qualms about Louise’s safety. Even though she insisted that she couldn’t possibly be in possession of something of her brother’s that was so important, without being aware of it, I still had qualms. I would’ve felt a hell of a lot better had she not refused Javitts’ police protection.
China, I discounted, almost. I believed her when she’d told me she’d been in love with Ricky. And if she seemed a little less than properly bereaved, I reminded myself that a beautiful kid on a daily quest for forty dollars worth of sanity can’t be judged by normal measures.
I even considered Bradley and his old man, but neither of them fit the picture. The sadistic angle was incidental. I’ve seen little old ladies in Bellview who looked like homemade apple pie, but got their kicks by clobbering their neighbors with a hatchet on weekends. So the Neals’ display of social mildness meant nothing. It was strictly the motive again. Why? Neal, Sr wouldn’t gain anything by killing Ricky. He certainly couldn’t expect to keep his son away from what he figured was a shady lady merely by killing the lady’s brother. If he was contemplating murder at all, Louise would have been the logical target, not Ricky.
Bradley, on the other hand, was even more remote. Even though he had found out that Ricky was an addict, I couldn’t picture him committing murder just to eliminate an undesirable brother-in-law.
Some case. I’d already run out of reasonable suspects. But when I brought back to light the big question of the all important something that Ricky must have possessed, it loomed big enough to bring them all jumping back into the picture again. Without knowing what the killer was looking for, I couldn’t eliminate anyone.
The cobwebs in my head were fuzzier than ever when we reached St. George Terminal and docked. I sighed and let it go for the time being as I started the Jag and drove up the ramp to Bay Street.
Staten Island was tucked in sleepy darkness at that hour. I put my arm around Toni and drove with one hand.
“Cold, kitten?” I asked. “Want me to put the top up?”
She stretched under my arm with her eyes closed.
“Uh-uh,” she sighed. “Just get us home, Jeeves.” She rubbed her cheek against the lape
l of my jacket and sighed again. “And when we get there, sing to me. Like Frank.”
I pinched her provocatively propped behind lightly and she giggled.
We passed Silver Lake and swung over to Howard Avenue with the road almost to ourselves. Toni lived in a big apartment project way out on Howard that took awhile to reach, so I kicked the Jag up to a steady sixty for the next few miles. The wind whistled through the open top, making it seem like we were flying low.
I glanced at the rear view mirror as we passed Horrmann’s Castle and almost jerked Toni’s head off straightening up.
They were right behind us. Not more than ten feet from my back bumper. Because of the wind I hadn’t heard them come up.
Toni got her legs on the floor and looked up, startled.
“What is it, Cole?”
“I don’t know, honey. Sit tight!”
I didn’t want to frighten her, but I was telling the truth. I didn’t know who was playing tag with us, and I wanted her braced if things got rough.
At first I thought it was just a bunch of playful teenagers nerved up on a six-pack. I eased up on the gas pedal hoping they would figure us for squares and cut out to find braver playmates. The car stayed persistent and eased off with me.
By the time I had slowed to forty, I was beginning to feel the sweat start to trickle down the inside of my shirt. The car was a black Ford coupe, nine or ten years old, with one functioning headlight that stayed glued to our rear-end, ten feet behind us. There were two of them in the front seat. I got a quick look at the driver as the moonlight caught their windshield.
They weren’t teenagers.
We were just starting the long S-curve that would bring us up the hill to the beginning of the projects. A fast glance at the darkness around us made me remember that we were all alone on a very lonely road.
As the needle dropped under the forty mark they made their move, pulling out suddenly to the left and gunning the coupe into a sudden burst of speed. I saw the gun come out the window when they were still a few feet away.
“The floor!” I yelled, and yanked Toni down past my knees. I floored the gas pedal and wrenched the wheel to the left with both hands just as the coupe drew abreast and the pistol flash spat at me from two feet away. The bullet shattered the vent window an inch in front of my face at the same second the Jag piled into them.
I felt the jarring impact of the steering wheel stab my stomach as we tore into their right front fender. The coupe swerved to the left with the Jag riding their right wheel like a sudden growth and crashed through the guard rail bordering the road. There was a loud screech of metal rubbing against metal and the Jag broke free, skidding on two wheels to the right.
We hit a guard rail post solidly with our rear-end and teetered undecidedly for a second before the Jag shuddered and fell back with a jolting drop to all four wheels.
I grabbed Toni by the arm and pulled her with me through the opposite door. We tumbled to the shoulders of the road and fell in a heap on the grass.
I knelt beside her and got her face between my shaking hands, while my heart pumped like a piston.
“Baby, you all right?”
Her eyes were wide with fright. She nodded weakly and clutched at me, but I lowered her softly to the ground and stood up. My stomach felt like it was torn in half but I didn’t take time to look at it.
Crouching low, I moved to the front of the Jag and looked over the hood. The coupe had careened off the guard rail and landed at the bottom of the short decline that hedged the woods at the side of the road. It was about fifty feet away from the Jag, up on its side, with the wheels still spinning.
I waited a minute catching my breath. I was puffing like a quarter-horse. When I could breathe again I pressed against the rig under my arm and felt the cold steel of the .38 drop into my waiting fist.
No one moved in the coupe as I crossed the grass and moved down the decline. I felt the sweat start trickling again. The thought passed through my head that it might be blood but I was too busy to look.
I reached the coupe and stopped. The car was facing away from me, tipped over on its left side with the right door hanging loosely from one hinge. I glanced at the ground around it; the grass was empty. They were still inside; either hurt or dead—or waiting.
I drew clear air into my lungs and moved around to the left.
I had almost reached the squashed roof, moving as quietly as I could, when he showed himself. He raised his head past the broken door and fired at me point-blank.
The bullet went high as I ducked and fell to one knee. I caught a brief glimpse of a beefy face with a bleeding gash over one eye before I fingered the .38 without stopping. I emptied four cylinders at him before the face disappeared under the door.
Gripping the gun in my wet palm, I got to my feet and leaped up to the chassis, falling head first over the exposed door with the .38 cocked.
They were both dead.
The driver was bent into an impossible curve around the steering wheel that curled his spine like a pretzel. My beefy ambusher was lying on top of him with his one remaining eye staring straight up at me. At least two of my slugs had caught him dead center in the face.
I grabbed my aching stomach and got sick all over the windshield. When the retching stopped, I sat there looking down at the mess inside. It wasn’t pretty. Hanging on to the broken door jam, I leaned down into the front seat, keeping my eyes away from that splintered face. When somebody tries to kill me I just naturally like to find out why.
I eased my Spanish friend’s wallet out of his inside pocket without too much trouble and straightened up. Squatting in the moonlight, I went through it. His driver’s license told me that his name was Juan Moreles and that he had a 116th Street address over in Spanish Harlem. Nothing else—no cards, no photos, and no timely little note from whoever had sent him. I don’t know what I had expected, but at least I had a name.
I put the wallet back in his pocket and nodded good-bye to brother Moreles. Our association had been brief but not without a definite intimacy.
About two slugs worth.
I dropped to the ground and started back to the road. I had heard the wail of a siren while I was going through the wallet, and now I could see the blinking red light of a squad car coming up the hill as I climbed the slope to the road. Somebody in the projects must have heard the crash and called them.
Toni fell into my arms when I reached the Jag again, and that’s how we were when the cops arrived. She was shook up but otherwise all right. And other than the pain in my stomach and ribs when I moved too suddenly, I had come through the thing with nothing worse than a dark brown taste in my mouth.
The cops were thorough and courteous. They heard me out, listened to Toni verify it, and went over to check the coupe for themselves. They came back looking a little ill and suggested politely that I show them my button and the thirty-eight. The badge got a cursory glance and the gun got a couple of sniffs before they were satisfied that I might be telling the truth.
Another squad car pulled up from somewhere with an unneeded ambulance behind it, and we went through the whole thing all over again. Reaction was setting in by then. I felt
Toni quivering under my arm and spent an inspired five minutes talking the officer in charge into taking the two of us to her apartment in the squad car. Homicide Lieutenant Javitts’ name sounded fairly impressive as it tumbled off my tongue at every other sentence. The cop finally agreed to take us home.
He dropped us at the apartment building with a warning that we were to be available later in the day for further questioning. I thanked him and half carried Toni up to her apartment.
Within ten minutes I had her undressed and in bed with a double shot of Irish whiskey drowning some of the shock. She insisted that I stay the night with her. I was tempted, thinking of a novel way of breaking up the lingering effects of the shock, but I kissed her instead and declined. I had other things to do.
Her seductive pout belied most
of her helplessness, anyway, so I kissed it warily again and stood up before she persuaded me to crawl in beside her. I borrowed the keys to her T-bird and left her lying there with pursed lips and a bottle of booze. It was some picture.
* * * *
It was almost 3:00 A.M. when I got back to Manhattan. I left the ferry and gave the T-bird its head, pushing it around the thin traffic on the drive. I wanted to get to The Purple Pit again before China left, if she hadn’t already.
I had a name. Juan Moreles. I hoped that China had a connection to go with it. It was a long shot, I admitted, but I was fresh out of short ones. Moreles was dead and it had been a swift, violent death from a lethal reaction to the law of kill or be killed. It was going to be different with the bastard who’d sent him.
Him, I’d enjoy.
The Purple Pit had thinned out a little when I got there, but not enough to give the owner any pains in his cash register. The lisping, lavender crowd was still holding up the bar, and, although the combo seemed to have left the scene, the main room was far from empty.
I found a spot at the bar, ordered a drink and looked around. A minute’s worth of casual scanning got me four cow-eyed invitations and a toothy smile or two, but no China. When the drink arrived I paid for it and gulped it down. It warmed my bruised stomach nicely, caressing the tangled nerves on the way down. It isn’t every day I get to shoot it out with a gun-happy Spaniard, and at the moment I was more than happy to pamper my Scotch-inclined guts.
I set the empty glass on the bar and sighed. Much better. I was about to order a quick refill when I saw China. She was over by the exit, about to leave the club on the solicitous arm of a natty, very attentive escort. China seemed as high as before and looked very gay and happy as she laughed at something her escort was whispering to her. I took another look at the guy and almost wished I hadn’t.
It was Manny Zato.
By the time I’d completely digested what my eyes told me had to be true, they were gone. I sat there like an idiot for a minute wondering what to do. What could I do? Run after them and tell China what a disappointment she was?
I shook out a cigarette and jammed it in my mouth. This case had more angles than a skinny chorus-girl. Here was the ex-girl friend of Ricky Parks, happily playing footsie with the number one suspect of said Ricky’s murder.
