The Hundred Dollar Girl

by William Campbell Gault

  “We still are. At least I thought we were. We’re close friends.”

  “You’re more than that. You’re in love with her. Admit it.”

  “Freely,” I said. “I’m in love with her and with you, with a woman named Mona Greene, and a few others. Are you in love with me, Mary Lopez Loper, or still in love with Bugsy? Have I ever criticized you for loving Bugsy?”

  “Shut up!” she said.

  “Did Terry steer you onto Mary Pastore?” I asked her. “Shut up,” she said again. “The least you could have done is deny that you — that you — well, you know what.”

  “I haven’t denied or admitted anything,” I told her gently.

  “I try to lie as little as possible. What got you off on this kick?”

  “You damned dago tomcat,” she said. “Cut it out,” I said harshly. “Please quit acting like the village virgin. It’s ‘way out of character, Mary.” “Is it? Why?”

  I said wearily, “I don’t know. The more we talk, the more unreasonable you get. I’m not a rapist. I didn’t come here to find out about your brother.”

  “Sure, sure,” she said skeptically. “And last night you slept in a motel. Alone, of course.”

  “Alone,” I said. “Hiding from two hoodlums who were probably working for Al Martino and were waiting at my apartment. Al Martino is the hoodlum brother of the deceased hoodlum, Bugsy Martin. And did Bugsy ever suggest marriage?”

  “Get out,” she said.

  I stared at her, and then stood up. “You’re being absurd.” She didn’t look at me. “Leave. Go!”

  I stood where I was. “I never mentioned the motel. I simply said I was hiding. How did you know I was at a motel?”

  “I phoned the West Side Station,” she said grimly, “and an officer told me you could be reached at the Western Vista. Will you please go?”

  “I’m on the way. First, though, I want to tell you I learned that the alibi Terry gave the police was a lie. He wasn’t at home with his wife when Galbini was killed. I haven’t told the police that. Does that look like I’m trying to railroad your innocent brother?”

  Surprise on her face and I had a feeling she was about to say something less belligerent than I had heard in the last few minutes.

  But I didn’t give her a chance to say anything. I turned and walked quickly out.

  Women…. A single bedroom communication and they want to put you on a timetable. Well, in this case, a double communication, a single night’s experience. Had I twisted her arm? Had I forced myself on her?

  Why hadn’t she come right out and asked about last night’s motel lodging and the reasons for it? Why did she have to build up her peeve first on the rationalization that I only visited her to find out about her brother. Women!

  Aren’t they wonderful?

  She’d phoned last night; she’d phone again.

  The old two-door went chugging along, back to the scene of the crime, as the phrase goes. Last night, with Barney in the room, Marie Veller had not been very communicative.

  The sun was breaking through the overcast now; we could easily have a sunny afternoon. I turned off Sunset as I had last night, and again there was a big car parked in front of the Galbini apartment building.

  It wasn’t a Bentley this time; it was a Cad De Ville.

  I parked around the corner and transferred my .38 from its shoulder holster to my right-hand jacket pocket. It sagged the pocket there but would be easier to reach without arousing suspicion.

  I hadn’t written down the license number Apoyan had given me this morning, but I had remembered the first three letters — U, V and L. It didn’t seem likely coincidence could make this anything but the Lefkowics Cadillac.

  A brassy taste in my mouth and some tightness in my throat but I went resolutely to the Veller unit and rang her bell.

  I had heard voices from behind the door before my ring. A silence now, not even the sound of a footstep. I rang again.

  A man’s voice said, “You’d better answer it, Miss Veller.” “What if it’s the police?” she asked. “You’d better answer it.”

  She opened the door and I smiled at her as she looked at me doubtfully.

  “Remember me?” I asked her. “Joe Puma. I was here last night. Could I speak with Manny and Jack?”

  They were both shorter than I was, but equally broad. One of them was the scarfaced man who had come to my office. His cousin was as dark as scarface, with a badly pock-marked complexion.

  “Manny and Jack,” I said cheerfully. “The happiness boys. Figure this would make a restaurant corner?”

  The scarfaced one said, “You never learn, do you? What do you want now?”

  “I wanted to tell you that your brother had been buried, the one you left on my desk. He’s probably cremated by now, at the city dump.”

  Scarface smiled. His cousin said, “We’re busy now, Puma. Wait outside. Miss Veller has some things to tell us.”

  Marie Veller shook her head emphatically. “That is not true. I have nothing to say, nothing to tell anybody.”

  Scarface continued to smile. “Not even for money, Miss Veller, a lot of money?”

  She shook her head again and looked at him evenly. “I don’t trust you two.”

  “A wise decision,” I told her, and looked at them. “Goodbye, boys.”

  They looked at me scornfully.

  I took out the .38 and pointed it in their general direction. “Goodbye, boys.”

  Their scorn evaporated. Scarface said, “You got no authority to order us out of here.”

  “Miss Veller wants you to leave. That’s authority enough.”

  They looked at her and she nodded. They looked at the gun and then at each other. They went past me and out.

  When the door had closed, Marie Veller said, “I don’t want to talk to you, either. I have nothing to say.”

  “I’m working with the police, Miss Veller. You can confirm that by calling Captain Apoyan. Don’t you want Gus Galbini’s murderer to be found?”

  “Why should I?”

  “He was good to you, wasn’t he? He didn’t charge you rent, remember.”

  “I’ve been thinking about that,” she said firmly. “The money he made off Joey, he could still owe me more than rent.”

  “You? Joey did the fighting. Mr. Galbini didn’t owe you anything.”

  She looked at me stubbornly. “Please go.”

  “I don’t want to,” I said. “I wish you’d listen to me. Your life could be in danger, if you don’t.”

  She looked fearfully at the gun, still in my hand. I put it away.

  “Please go,” she repeated. “I don’t want to talk. I’m sick of talk.”

  “Maybe,” I persisted, “Mrs. Galbini would be willing to pay some money to — ”

  “Go,” she said. “Go, go, go!”

  I wasn’t the most popular man in the world with the ladies today. I took a deep breath, considered some more words and decided not to voice them, but to watch this place from now on, or to watch her, wherever she went. This was the first sign of an important break in the case.

  “Okay,” I said, and went to the door.

  There, I turned, but she hadn’t moved and it was clear she wasn’t going to say anything. I opened the door and stepped out, and turned once more.

  And was suckered as stupidly as a TV P.I. I heard a rustle to my right, looked that way — and the other cousin sapped me behind the left ear.

  I can’t believe he had enough touch to plan it that way, but the belt he gave me didn’t send me to the floor. I was still erect, on rubber legs, my sense of balance precarious, my logical mind worthless.

  They steered me like a robot to the Cad, into the back section. And one of them said, “On the floor, face down. Or you die now.”

  I believed him. I did as he ordered.

  One of them climbed into the rear and used my back for a footrest. The other got behind the wheel.

  I thought of reminding them that kidnaping could bring
the death penalty, but decided it wasn’t the time. I turned my mouth away from the dusty carpeting on the floor and cursed my intrinsic stupidity.

  I should have considered the probability of their waiting for me outside. I should have realized these men had a mission and I was the target. I almost deserved what I was likely to get.

  My head was clearing a little and I wanted to get up, to make a stand, to inflict some damage. Purely emotional, this suicidal impulse; my rational mind won out, fortunately. I remained prone and quiet.

  Neither of them said a word. They had probably done all their planning while they were waiting for sucker Puma to come out of Miss Veller’s. The big car purred along through traffic in a direction I couldn’t determine.

  We turned and the sound of traffic diminished and the man above me said, “In the back, you know, off the alley.”

  “I know,” the man in front said.

  We turned again, more abruptly and there was a slight bump, as though we had driven over a low curb, another abrupt turn and the big car came to a stop.

  Above me, the cousin got out, stepping on my ankle in the process. He said, “Up and out, Puma.”

  I got to my knees and saw the driver was on one side of the car, his partner on the other. I scrambled out, my legs still weak.

  There was a U of building around this back court and a dead-end alley squaring off the U. Perhaps it wasn’t an alley, but a service driveway. I could smell food and I turned toward the smell to see a row of enormous garbage cans next to a door that could only be the service door to a restaurant.

  What must have been a gun prodded me in the back and the pock-marked cousin said, “Follow him.”

  “Him” meant his cousin, who was heading for a latticed fence at the rear of the building, about fifteen feet to the left of the door with the garbage cans.

  The fence was L-shaped and effectively screened what was behind it from the casual gaze of any person in the alley. What was behind the fence was a steel door set in a steel frame.

  The man in front of me put a key into the middle of this door. The key evidently didn’t open it; as he turned it I could hear a buzz inside the building. He took the key out again, and we waited.

  Another buzz, and an amber light went on over the door. He reached now toward the knob on the right side of the door and opened it.

  There were steps ahead of us. Halfway up, I heard what sounded like a radio. It was giving the results of the sixth race at some track. This early? I thought, and then realized it was probably an eastern track and the time differential could be as much as three hours.

  A bookie joint?

  We came up, finally, to a hallway and the man ahead turned to the left. I stole a glance to the right and saw a big room at that end of the hall, and a number of telephones on a long table. It could have been a boiler room for phony stock promotion, but I was sure it wasn’t. Only one man was in sight, using one of the phones.

  We went past two closed doors to the door at the left end of this long hall. The man ahead of me opened it and stepped aside for me to enter.

  There was nothing in this room but a cot. There was no window, only an air vent in the ceiling. The door through which I entered was metal-sheathed, like a fire door.

  I was still looking at the cot when the door closed and I was alone. Outside, I heard a noise that sounded like a bar being put across the metal-sheathed door.

  For a moment I thought they had forgotten to take my gun because I hadn’t remembered them frisking me. But the gun was gone; one of them must have taken it when I was still punchy from the sapping.

  I went over to sit on the cot, to light a cigarette and consider the potentials of my possible future.

  They had kidnaped me. That could get them the death penalty. I knew who they were; if released they knew I would identify them. What future could I have?

  My hands trembled and my cigarette dropped to the floor.

  I picked it up slowly, fighting for calmness. Bigmouth Puma. Big mouth, big nose, big muscles; small, quiet goodbye.

  No! Not yet. I was breathing. My balance was almost back, most of my strength. Think, Puma, think….

  If this was a syndicate operation, there might still be time for a deal. If it was an Al Martino local, I was due for some lumps. He wasn’t likely to forget his trip to the hospital.

  The walls must have been soundproofed. It was like a tomb, that room, remote and quiet. I rubbed the ankle that had been stepped on and tried to plan my moves.

  How could I plan without knowing theirs? It would have to be extemporaneous and it would have to be instinctive and fast. Surprise was the only weapon left to me.

  A rasp broke the quiet. The bar was being lifted on the other side of the door. The door opened, and Al Martino came in.

  His soft eyes were blank and his voice controlled. “You wouldn’t listen, would you?”

  I looked past him to where the pock-marked cousin lounged in the doorway. I looked back at Al and said nothing.

  “Ready to listen now?” he asked.

  “Have I another choice?”

  He nodded slowly. “But it would be a pity, at your age.”

  ‘To die? What other choice have you? Your boys kidnaped me, Al. That could easily mean the death penalty. The way I see it, you just have to bump me.”

  He shook his head, his brown eyes studying me. “Not if you’re willing to say they didn’t kidnap you.”

  “Even if I promised,” I said, “you wouldn’t trust me to keep the promise. Why shouldn’t I lie to you, sitting where I am?”

  His face was stiffer and his eyes less blank. “Christ, you’ve got a lot of mouth!”

  “What do you want me to do, beg for my life?”

  “Do you think I couldn’t bring you to that, if I tried? I can make you one hell of a lot less man than you are right now, Puma.”

  I didn’t argue. I looked at the floor.

  “Maybe you’ve never been worked over by experts,” he said. “I can get all the experts I want, in five minutes.”

  He had called me mouthy, but listen to him. Why was he talking so much? I looked past him at the quiet man behind him and thought of the steel door downstairs.

  “What do you want from me?” I asked.

  “I want you to forget all about that Mueller-Lopez fight. I want you to stop asking questions.”

  “The fight doesn’t interest me,” I said. “Only the murder.”

  “That’s a lie,” he said. “What did that meeting in Barney’s gym have to do with murder?”

  “I don’t know, but I’ll bet you do.”

  He shook his head. “I don’t know anything about the murder.”

  “Why are your boys bothering Miss Veller, then?”

  “For the same reason you are, to find out who killed Gus. And if we find that out, maybe the law will stop digging into the rest of my business.”

  “Your business?” I asked. “You mean, you’re the new local boxing king?”

  He stared at me and didn’t answer. He wanted to be, that was probably it. With the Feds breaking up the national ring, Al Martino had seen a big, fat, lucrative opening in the local picture and he was moving into it.

  “I can’t promise you anything, Al,” I said finally. “The police already know about that meeting in Barney’s gym. They got it this morning from one of the men who was there.”

  His sleepy eyes widened. “Barney?”

  I shook my head.

  “Not Golde,” he said, “and Galbini’s dead and I sure as hell didn’t tell ‘em.” His eyes narrowed again. “Not that Kraut?”

  I shrugged.

  “Talk, Puma,” he said.

  The man behind him said, “Easy, boss. Who else but that Berlin blockhead? Puma doesn’t have to tell us. We know.”

  Al turned to look at the stocky man. “I’ll do the thinking.”

  The pock-marked face showed nothing. “Sure, boss. But do it. You’re telling him more than he’s telling you.”

>   I chuckled.

  AI flushed. He turned to stare at me. “What’s funny?” “A second lieutenant trying to act like a general.” This time, the cousin chuckled.

  Al whirled and his voice was harsh. “You know, Manny, I don’t really need you.”

  Manny’s smile was calm, “You sure as hell don’t. I figured, being Bugsy’s brother, you’d know your way around. But Jesus, the way you’re messing this deal — ”

  A silence, while they stared at each other. AI was the boss, in a way, but unarmed. Manny was the underling, but armed. These thoughts must have gone through Al’s mind. Al’s brother was dead, but Manny’s cousin was alive — and also armed.

  Finally, Martino said, “All right, brain — how would you handle it?”

  He had tried to be a general and wound up a corporal. And Manny knew it.

  Manny said calmly, “We could take Puma about halfway to Catalina and tie a cement block around his neck. Or we could get him to promise to forget the kidnaping gimmick.”

  I said, “I like that last part better, Manny. I could tell the law I asked you guys to bring me to Martino and you did.”

  “You don’t have to tell them anything,” Martino snapped.

  I said patiently, “Yes, I do. I’m in business. I’m not in public business, like the police, but there is only so much I can lie about, or get out of the business.”

  “Who cares if you stay in business or not?” Martino asked.

  Manny answered for me. “He’s entitled. As long as he stays out of ours. Next time he gets into ours — ” He smiled and stared at me. “I’ll bet you can’t even swim.”

  “Not very well,” I admitted. I stood up and stretched.

  Al asked, “Where do you think you’re going?”

  “Halfway to Catalina or back to my car,” I answered. “It’s not my decision to make.”

  Manny chuckled again. “I wish you were on our side, Puma.”

  “I never will be, Manny,” I said.

  He nodded thoughtfully, looking between Al and me. And then said musingly, “Wops — Who can figure wops? C’mon, I’ll take you back to your junker.”

  chapter nine

  DOWN IN THE COURT, JACK GOT BEHIND THE WHEEL OF THE big car and Manny said to me, “You’ll have to lay down again. I’ll keep my feet off of you, this time.”