“So?”
He paused. His eyes locked onto me, hard. “Look, Captain. You did me a favor once.”
“Yeah?”
“You probably don’t even remember. You coulda hauled my ass in and I’da done a stretch, a real one — I was over eighteen. You gave me a one-time pass.”
I had no memory of it, but if he thought he owed me, fine. “Know something, Paddy?”
He swallowed, then jumped in. “We had a bad apple in our bunch. A squealer. Turned the cops on to us four different times. The guys wanted to bump him, but that would only pull more law down on us, so the rough guys in the club figured out a cute dodge. Bucky, he wanted out from his family and he suddenly had a load of dough to lay out, so if the Uptowners could fake a kill on him and get somebody else in his place, and like really mutilate him up bad, Bucky would put his ID on the body and two birds would be killed with one beer bottle.”
“How did Bucky know about your squealer?”
“Man, word gets around, you should remember that.”
I bobbed my head in agreement. “What happened?”
“This a clean game you’re playing, Captain?”
I squinted at him.
“That was a long way back,” he said. “But there’s no time limit on murder, is there?”
“No.”
“I wasn’t in on this play. I came in right after the hit and got details from another member. I don’t remember who, either.” Something tightened his face. “Captain, there’s such a thing as accomplice after the fact, and—”
“Consider this a civilian inquiry.”
“You swear it?”
“I swear it.”
“Okay,” he said and took a deep breath. “I don’t know who drove the car, but the deal was when Bucky came up the street the Uptowners would send a member out to identify him and bring him back to us. Our guy would walk on Bucky’s left so when the car made the move, Bucky would jump clear and the squealer would get mashed. Well, it worked. The driver went over the body four times and when he finished you couldn’t even tell it was human. Bucky took the guy’s ID, put his own in its place dropped his jacket or something down and took off.”
“No accident investigation?”
“Come on, Captain. Who cared a hoot about a street gang in those days? Just one more punk out of the way. Remember?”
“I remember, but you guys asked for that attitude.”
His eyes were steady, unblinking. “And that’s why and when I got out of that life, Captain.”
“What happened to Bucky?”
“Who knows? He was a downtowner anyway.”
Suddenly Paddy The Bull’s eyes squinted at me and I asked, “What?”
The old Blue Uptowner said very seriously, “Has he surfaced somewhere?”
“Why, he owe you money?”
“Oh, he paid his tab. He laid a grand on the club with an extra bill thrown in for five hundred. It was a crazy bill, the money itself I mean.”
“Crazy how?”
“Crazy weird, crazy odd. Looked real for sure, but was a lot bigger in size than a regular note. It was pinned to the wall in the club until some old guy offered us six hundred bucks for it and everybody had a great beer party.”
I grunted. “The government stopped printing those large bills back in the twenties, Patrick me boy.”
“No kidding!” Then he asked, “I wonder where he got it from.”
I said, “Beats me,” but a germ of an idea was infecting my brain. I told him so long and went down to the corner to flag down a cab.
When one came along I sat back and dropped another piece into the puzzle. Old Bessie was right. Bucky Mohler was alive. He had something going for him now that could make him the biggest frog in the pond.
And it all had started on the Street that was dying.
It’s nice being a retired cop.
It’s great to have a finely honed reputation too, so that when the desk boys see you go past they think, “He was a tough apple, that one.” They’re glad to let you in on their knowhow because even if it was a little off the base line, they were doing their duty to protect the citizenry like the men in blue did on the hard pavements.
Nothing much that was exciting ever happened in the development office. They okayed repairs and new building, the papers and inquiries handled between bored clerks. Then an old hotshot comes in, gets instant access to the head man’s office and the buzz starts going around.
John Peter Boyle, a grizzled character in an executive’s suit, shook hands with a toothy smile and waved me to a chair. “My phone started to ring the minute you came in, Captain.”
“Just call me Jack. I’m in civvies now.”
He gave me a grin that said he hadn’t always been behind a desk. “Come on, Captain — my pop was in World War Two, but afterward he couldn’t call Eisenhower ‘Ike’ to his face now, could he? So... Captain — what can I do for you?”
“Mr. Boyle, I need a permit to inspect a house that’s up for demolition.”
“Should I ask why?” When I shrugged, he said, “Is this personal?”
“I’m asking as a retired cop.”
He shrugged and his grin widened. “In that case, you got it. Want to give me the details?”
Before I got back to the Street, I made a short stop at my favorite locksmith’s shop on Third Avenue. It had been five years since we’d had any contact, but I didn’t have to spell out any details. The round-faced little old guy looked at my face after we shook hands and knew that this wasn’t a personal visit.
He said, “Okay, Jack, what’s going down this time? Terrorists? Murderers?”
I let him see my grin and said, “I need a key for a Waylord lock. Outside door, oval-shaped key latch, solid brass.”
“That’s a good standard unit. Nothing special. They used a lot of them on the old tenement buildings a long time ago. You any good at picking that thing?”
“Haven’t got the time. Besides, I’m out of practice.”
“No sweat, old friend.”
He went back to his tiny workshop, came back with two new keys and laid them in my palm.
I said, “How much?”
“Jack, I have another hundred of them. The jokers in those old tenements were always losing theirs, and a new key was cheaper than kicking a door down.”
I put the keys in my pocket and winked my thanks at him.
And now I was strictly legal, a permit to secure my entry, a working key to get inside without damaging the property, and a retired cop’s ID in my wallet. Absently, I patted my side where the holster... .45 used to hang. Nothing was there.
But the Glock was in my waistband.
Shadows were angling down the street now, big, long ones because nothing was there to break them up. Bessie’s building was there and her upstairs window was still open, but her elbow pillow was gone. A small corner of a curtain fluttered out, then blew back in again. It was the same curtain that had always been there.
I walked slowly, taking my time, then turned onto Bucky Mohler’s concrete walkway and into the shadow of the old structure. In those old days, when Big Zappo Padrone had built the place, it must have been a lulu. There were scars on the building that said a huge porch had once been there and for a grand space around the building there was openness. Hell, this one domicile could have been the only building on the block.
And, like the Street, it was dead.
Or was it?
I merged right in with the shadows and put the key in the lock. It opened easily. I turned the knob and pushed the door open. Nothing was in the way. My miniature flashlight was enough to lead me through the three floors of the building and illuminate dirt and dust that had collected on old-fashioned furniture and rotted rugs on the floor. It was hard to tell if this place had been empty for ten years or a hundred. Nobody had been here in the last five years of my time at the station house. Once, back there in the wild days of city crime, this must have been one hell of a command post. Bu
t no sign of that was left any longer.
Without disturbing anything, I went back down the dust-heavy stairs and stopped halfway down. Bucky Mohler had been here. Where were his footprints? Curious.
At the bottom landing another flight of stairs led into the cellar. These weren’t fancy like the ones above. They were constructed of heavy planking, wider than usual, bulked up with massive timbering. They didn’t even squeak when I went down them. A pair of rats scurried across my path, running from the thin light of my flash. Then I moved the beam across the area.
Except for where I was standing, the entire house was resting on solid earth. There was a coal furnace and electrical boxes next to me, some tools propped against the flatly carved dirt walls. The contractors had most likely laid down the foundation blocks that ran around the house, then just built the rest of the structure up from the dirt. Damn. What kind of building codes did they have then?
Another couple of rats skittered away in the floor debris and I aimed the light down on them. Two pairs of red eyes looked back at me for a couple of seconds, then they broke and ran. I saw in the floor mess what might have been footprints, but nothing I could be certain of.
Something was all out of kilter here. I couldn’t tell what it was, but there were ways to find out. When I turned and went back to the stairs, I looked at the shovel and old pickax that leaned against the wall. The pickax was pretty old and the shovel hadn’t been used much.
Things had taken a strange turn since I’d been here. It wasn’t like the old days when all the crazy details could be laid out before a team of experienced pros and the answers would come back in no time. This business of being retired from the department wasn’t all that hot. I still had irons in the fire, and one of them was taking me back to Sunset Lodge.
Davy Ross took me to LaGuardia Airport, and when I got off in Florida, Darris Kinder was waiting for me with the throaty roar of his hopped-up Sunset Lodge police vehicle telling me where he was. “Miss Brice informed me when you were getting in.”
“Like coming home again.”
“Good trip?” It was a subtle question that only a couple of cops would recognize. He knew damn well something was happening and wanted to know if the waters were calm.
“Very good trip, Darris, but it’s not the last.”
The answer was enough. He understood what I meant.
And Bettie was waiting on her porch, the dome light behind her showing through her lightweight sundress so she almost looked naked. I heard Tacos make that happy growl of his and dashed out of the car and up the steps to grab my beautiful doll in my hands. I squeezed her waist the smallest fraction before she melted against my chest and her mouth was reaching for mine. It was wonderful wetness that I never wanted to end.
Then Tacos whined and pawed at my leg and Darris came up and laid my small bag down beside me and said, “Glad to have you back with us, Jack.”
“Thanks for the ride, pal.”
“Any time. Everything okay in New York?”
“Crazy, but it’ll get straightened out.” I paused for a little bit and added, “How about here?”
“Under control right now, but something’s in the air. You know what I mean? That full moon feeling?”
“I sure do, Darris.” I watched his face and he caught the tone of my voice. “We’ll talk in the morning, okay?”
He got back in his car, waved me an okay and drove off.
I sat in a rocker beside Bettie and put my hand on hers. The dog saw me and his tail did that floor-banging bit again. I said, “Honey,” but got no further.
Bettie said, “I like that word.”
So I said it again. “Honey... do you have any... souvenirs from when you worked at Credentials?”
“I’m not sure. Dr. Brice made sure I had a few personal things like that, thinking they might help me some.”
“Did they?”
“Not really. I was blind. I couldn’t see them.”
“Are they here?”
She took her hand out from under mine and stood up. “I’ll get them.”
Most of her trinkets were what girls would keep in their desks. I wondered how old Dr. Brice had gotten his hands on them. Several were cards with holiday greetings lavishly splashed across them. Two were office photos and one showed the back of an unidentified man talking to her old boss. His face was turned away from the lens; he was a big guy, but beyond that there was no way to identify him. The next picture showed Burnwald with a smaller, younger man dressed in casual clothes and though it only showed part of his face I could tell it was the same young tech in the Credentials pamphlet with the 20th anniversary photo. The man in the picture looked familiar somehow.
I looked at the picture a long minute and Bettie asked, “What’s the matter?”
When I described the photograph, she frowned and said, “They must have come out of the collection Florence had. She owned an old Nikon camera and was always snapping shots of anything.”
Maybe old Doc Brice had tracked Florence down and, without tipping Bettie was still among the living, somehow snagged some items that he hoped might help jog Bettie’s memory. Now, finally, those odds and ends were doing that very thing. And maybe it was time to bring Florence back into the game.
“Think I could find her?”
Bettie raised her eyebrows at the request and said, “It’s been a long time, Jack. But I do... I do remember she lived in her family house taking care of her parents. After all these years I’d assume the parents must have died and she’d own the house now. Is that helpful?”
“Maybe. Where was the house?”
“In Brooklyn. Near the Parade Grounds.”
“What street?”
“I think it was...” She flipped through mental files, then smiled as she remembered. “Beverley Road! I think it was Beverley Road.”
“Remember the number?”
“Now you’re pushing it.”
“Can’t blame a guy for trying.”
“You know... Dr. Brice told me one of the things he was able to turn up was my old address book. It might be in there...”
She got up again and rummaged through her desk drawer and brought out a small leather-bound pad and handed it to me. I found Florence Teal’s name, address and phone number and transcribed them into my own notes.
I wasn’t going to go back to New York for this information, so I picked up Bettie’s phone and dialed the number.
And it was still active.
I asked, “Florence Teal?” when the lady answered and she said, “It’s Florence Randall now. Who is this?”
“My name is Jack Stang, ma’am.” It was a big secret to share with Bettie’s old friend. But Bettie trusted her, and I would have to. “I’m here with someone you used to work with at Credentials — Bettie Marlow.”
“That can’t be,” she told me abruptly. “Bettie has been dead a very long time.”
“Presumed dead, Mrs. Randall. How would you like to speak to her?”
“First, who are you?” Her tone was very sharp, though an element of hope was in there, too.
“I am a retired New York City police officer, ma’am. If you want I can give you my badge number and you can call the city police and verify my identity.”
The whole episode must have been a little too heavy for her and she said in an odd tone, “Put Bettie on.”
I handed the phone to Bettie.
She said, “Florence, this is me, Bettie. It really is me.”
And that was all she had to say.
Her friend recognized her voice at once and I could hear her squeal and watched Bettie laugh with pleasure and for five full minutes they exchanged innocuous information... and one not so innocuous exchange, Bettie making her old friend swear to keep this contact absolutely confidential.
Bettie laid the facts out and I could hear the sharp intake of breath Florence made after each revelation.
Finally, Bettie got to the photos and waited while her friend got out her old scrapb
ook of duplicates and turned pages until she found the ones Bettie described. The big man’s name she didn’t know, but he had come in several times over two months to check information in his files.
The other was the young computer repair tech from downstairs. Apparently he must have been working on some difficulty on their floor the day the photo was taken. She remembered he had a “cowboy name.”
I wrote that down too.
Bettie stayed on the phone another half hour while I rubbed Tacos’ head. The dog would look up at me and bang his tail down on the floor and finally he sat up and put his chin on my leg. I was getting to be a real part of this family.
Bettie asked me, “What’s a ‘cowboy’ name?”
“Like an old-time western star. Tom Mix, Roy Rogers...”
“Who?”
“Before your time, doll.” Before both her times. “Listen, do you remember that young computer tech at all? I know I asked you before, but has anything solidified in your mind?”
She shook her head and came back and sat down beside me. “Is it that critical?”
“Non-entities disturb me. His work would have taken him all over the place. He should have been noticed. Remembered.”
“That was a long time ago, Jack. I only seem to recall things when you thrust them right in my face.”
Funny thing for a blind gal to say. “Like what, doll?”
She smiled. “Like calling me ‘doll.’”
I ran my fingers through her hair and she nestled against me the way teenagers do and that feeling came back that made me think that a young kid’s body had suddenly been transmitted to an old man’s frame.
“What are you thinking, Jack?”
“Sure you want to know?”
But she already did. She wasn’t all that blind.
My cell phone let out its low signal, killing the moment, and I pulled it out and thumbed the talk button.
“Stang here,” I said quietly.
“Paul Burke, Jack.”
“Hi, Paul. What’s up?”
“Some follow-up on that stolen atomic shipment. You all clear down there?”
“Roger. Go ahead.”
“Right after the theft, the Feds got a pair of the conspirators and squeezed out some information. It was pretty complicated, so I won’t go into it now. But they arranged for the switch right under the noses of the inspecting group and got the container into a waiting truck, drove it to a transfer point where Benny Orbach was waiting to get it to the final point.”
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