Cold In The Grave_A Kilroy Mystery

by Stephen Mertz

  “It'll be easy enough to pull her file down at the paper and check.”

  “What can you tell me about the daughter, off the top of your head?”

  “Sara Carlyle sounds to me like a nice, crazy spaced lady with a good brain in her head,” said Teddy. “She's made lots copy for all the media in town, none of it to her mother and father's liking. Worked as an actress on and off at some of the dinner theaters around town and she gets good reviews from the play critics.” He lit a cigarette, warming to the subject as he drove. “Sara appears to be a contradiction in terms. Daughter of one of Denver's most prominent families, but she refuses their money and lives the starving artist's life in the Capitol Hill area downtown. Supposedly embraces a wild, swinging lifestyle but last year she marched on the capitol with an anti-abortion group, definitely not a hip stance in her social circle. Appears to be the sensitive, creative type with a strict preference for men of the caveman variety. Although I should add that Mom and Dad may have tamed her down after all.”

  “And why do you say that?”

  “She hasn't been good for copy lately, for one thing. Her father's name is back in the news again and you're right, Paul Richmond is said to be his fair-haired boy. But for the most part, the Carlyle name is keeping to its low profile in the media.” He tossed his half-smoked cigarette out the window. “Nasty things,” he grunted. Then, “So how am I doing? Is that the kind of stuff you want? That's all I've got, without digging.”

  “It's a start,” I said. “Concentrate this afternoon on trying to tag that older guy sharing the sofa with Richmond.”

  “Will do. I’ll comb the Richmond and Carlyle files and see if that shows up. I should have everything from the morgue files that I can find by this afternoon. How do we make contact?”

  “I'll call you. Thanks, Teddy.”

  By that time, we were into the city, well past Kalamath where the freeway becomes just another downtown street. Teddy steered the Volkswagen left onto Speer. When we got to the News building on Colfax, he brought the bug to a stop in an employee parking area.

  “I guess this is where the favor comes in about me lending you my car,” he said, concerned, somewhat hesitant. “Do be careful with it, Kilroy. I need my wheels to--”

  “I will, Teddy,” I assured him. “Thanks.”

  I got in behind the wheel, and with a last wave and a “Take care,” Teddy crossed the parking lot area and disappeared into the newspaper building. I drove from the parking lot and navigated back downtown. I cruised north on Lincoln until I located a pay phone.

  It took three calls for me to locate the man I wanted but finally I tracked him down at a bar along the Spanish section of Larimer Street. It wasn’t much of a call. The guy didn't like me but with what I knew about him I could have put him in all kinds of trouble with one phone call, and he knew I wouldn't have minded. He was a junked-out pimp, an exploiter and degrader of women in particular and human souls in general, and I thought he was scum that had no business living and he knew it. So, to keep me from getting him in bad trouble--not with the cops but with people who would kill him slowly--and for the few token bucks I passed to him whenever he periodically and begrudgingly gave me something I could use, he functioned as one of my informants.

  He didn't much like talking about the Boss of the Denver Mafia Family, but I got what I wanted. Salvatore Fallaci kept two places with unlisted numbers: a residence in the foothills near Evergreen where he lived with his wife and two high school age kids, and an apartment in a residential hotel on Logan that even Mrs. Fallaci, especially Mrs. Fallaci, did not know about.

  By the time I hung up that pay phone, I had already decided to try the Logan Street address first. I was through researching and theorizing. It was time for the next move.

  11

  I was on the run, now that the game was in play. I did not have a whole lot of time in which to operate. If you're lucky, you can stay underground in a city forever. Or you can find yourself pinched the first time you step out for a six-pack or a breath of fresh air. Like anything, it's a matter of playing the odds. Which is exactly what I was doing.

  The address on Logan was an older brownstone, well maintained, with a definite air of aged respectability about it. You wouldn't guess that it could house the private get-away-from-it-all refuge of a Mafia Don. But it did, and I was betting that Sal Fallaci's little love nest would lack the tight security I'd undoubtedly run into if I had attempted to confront him at his mountain home in Evergreen.

  This was not a confrontation that I was looking forward to, exactly, but I didn't see any other options open to me. I had no idea whatever where Robert Pierpont might have taken off to after what happened at his apartment, but I did know that Salvatore Fallaci fit into the picture someplace. His club, The Tattle Tail, and his hired muscle, Limp Gallagher and the Boines kid, were obviously involved. I had too few leads at the moment to overlook any of them.

  I rode the cramped self-service elevator to the fourth floor of the brownstone and stepped out into a sedately carpeted hallway. I walked down to the door I wanted and thumbed the tiny, unassuming black button beside it. The sounds of muted chimes drifted to me through the panel from inside.

  The door was opened by a woman, in her early twenties, with a bright red thatch of red hair worn short and stylish. Her slanted green eyes gave her a distinctly feline appearance. She had an exquisite body and there was plenty of body to see. Despite the season, she wore a two piece something that consisted of maybe enough material to clothe an undernourished parakeet. But on her it looked just fine. Rust colored freckles dotted bare shoulders and flecked her neck and upper shoulders right down to the firmly filled halter top. Her hips flared out right where they were supposed to, tapering down into a set of legs that belonged in a Penthouse centerfold.

  I'd never seen Sal Fallaci, but I had a hunch this wasn't him.

  “Is Sal around?” I asked brightly.

  “Uh uh.” Her tone said that was meant to finalize that. “I'm Martha,” she said. A smile dimpled. Her tongue darted out to moisten her lips. “I like to screw.” She stepped back inside the apartment, out of the doorway, offering me a cardiac-skipping side view. “Come on in. I only bite sometimes.”

  Damn. This was no time for come-to-life sex fantasies. I was supposed to be solving a gaggle of homicides.

  I followed her in. I was wearing my jacket open, with the .44 Magnum within easy reach in the shoulder holster if I needed it in case Martha proved to be Sal Fallaci's way of bringing the fly to the spider. Happily, though, no one assaulted me when I stepped in.

  Fallaci's love nest was an expensively appointed multi-level affair featuring a bay window that looked out over Denver to the east and the endless expanse of prairie beyond. An impressive panorama.

  But the best view was the one inside of the apartment.

  The redhead closed the front door as I turned. She leaned against it, clasping her hands behind her, trying to look coy, I guess. Her tongue darted out again over those full, glistening lips. She reminded me of a hungry cat licking its chops before a meal.

  “Uh, d’you know when Sal will be back?” I asked, still brightly.

  A disappointed look crossed her face. “Oh, heck. Don't tell me you're gay. Now that would be a real waste.”

  I attempted to maintain a degree of outer calm.

  “I am not gay,” I said as evenly as I could. “Not even bi. But right now, I've got to see Sal. Do you know when he'll be back?”

  Her arms snaked around my neck, those exquisite curves sashaying forward to paste themselves against me like a postage stamp to an envelope.

  “Ah, not gay,” she echoed. “Well then, there's no problem. We're all alone, you and I. Sal took off somewhere with Leon this morning and he said they'd be gone all day. Now what do you say? Let's get it on!” Her hips moved enticingly against mine. “Really, it's perfectly cool.”

  It occurred to me that Martha hadn't bothered to ask my name or anything else about me ex
cept my sexual preference, and her proposition right now definitely demanded a response. But any reply I may come up with was interrupted at that instant by the brisk click of a key fitting into the apartment's front door lock, right across the living room from where Martha and I stood.

  My mind was clicking on something: Fallaci had left this apartment this morning with someone named Leon. That could only be Leon Somerset.

  A man let himself into the apartment. I recognized him. It was the mystery face from one of the two snapshots Gia/Sandy had given me; the guy on the sofa who was saying something to Paul Richmond at a party. He looked every bit as impressive and intimidating in the flesh as he had in the snapshot: mid-fifties, thick silver hair combed straight back from a face of chiseled granite.

  He paused there in the doorway for a second, coldly taking in the scene that met him with an expression as stony as granite.

  The redhead jumped away from me but not nearly fast enough.

  “Sal! Baby, wait, I can explain!”

  Salvatore Fallaci's frigid glare took us both in before zeroing in on her.

  “Can't keep your hands off 'em, can you?” he snarled tightly.

  “Sal – “

  “Shut up. Get in the bedroom.”

  “Sal, no! I'm sorry, baby . . . oh, please, Sally-- “

  “The bedroom, I said.” He repeated it slowly, deliberately, like giving an ill-behaved child one last chance to obey.

  Wordlessly, the redhead padded out of the living room without a backward glance at either of us, her eyes downcast and resigned like the condemned being led to the guillotine. She closed the bedroom door behind her.

  Fallaci shed his overcoat and draped it over a nearby chair. Then he walked over to face me.

  He said, “Martha likes to live dangerous sometimes. She's a little crazy.” He paused for icy effect. “Do you know who I am?”

  “I know,” I said. “My name's Kilroy. Two of your street soldiers tried to kill me last night.”

  Another icy pause, longer than the first. He reminded me of a snake, coiled and ready to strike. Waiting to strike . . .

  “That changes things,” he said at last. He crossed over to a bar set up with bottles and glasses against the far wall. “Care for a drink, Kilroy?”

  I said, “This isn’t a social call. I'm here to talk, not drink.”

  He chuckled and poured three fingers of whiskey into a glass.

  “What'sa matter? Afraid I'm going to poison you, or something like in The Godfather or something?”

  He dropped ice cubes into the glass and turned to face me. Eyes like polished dark marble glared at me over the rim of the glass as he took a sip.

  I said, “You and Martha looked mighty sociable to me. I want to know why Sparky Boines and Limp Gallagher were hassling Gia Passionne at The Tattle Tail last night. I'm here because you can answer the question. Getting sociable was Martha's idea.”

  He shrugged.

  “Gallagher takes on freelance work. Hell, I don't know what kind of moonlight jobs he does. He tends bar and keeps things cool for me down at the Tail. Or he was supposed to. I think Limp may have just aced himself out of a job.”

  “Do you know where he is? I want to find him.”

  Another sip of the drink. A humorless, laughing grunt of sound.

  “I wouldn't think you'd want to find Gallagher after what I heard you did to him yesterday. Limp doesn't like being made a fool of. Next time he sees you he's likely to bust off your arms and use 'em to pick his teeth.”

  “Forget yesterday,” I said. “Let's get a little more up to date. Like this morning at Robert Pierpont's apartment.”

  He finished his whiskey with a long pull, then set the empty glass on the bar with a final sounding clunk. He glowered in the direction of the closed bedroom door.

  “Looks like I'm gonna have to teach someone a lesson about keeping their mouth shut.”

  I said, “I think you shot and killed Leon Somerset this morning. The police think a client of mine did it. I'm doing something about setting that right.”

  He sat down on a bar stool.

  “Do you know how easily I could have you killed?” he asked quietly.

  His matter-of-factness chilled my spine, but I plowed ahead with an idea that had been percolating while we'd been talking. I played tough guy to the hilt, letting my jacket fall open so he could see the butt of the .44 Magnum.

  “If you do kill me, or have me killed, you'll only be setting yourself up to take the big fall,” I said with a confidence I did not feel. “And don't get on Martha's case. She didn't tell me anything. I’d put together in my mind what happened before I came here. Right now, I'm the only one who knows that you murdered Leon Somerset to frame Robert Pierpont for it. And I'm willing to keep that information to myself. There’s a way we can help each other, Sal. But just so you know: everything that I know about this has been typed up and is in a safe deposit box in my attorney's name. Anything happens to me and my lawyer has instructions to send that envelope to the District Attorney.”

  12

  It had been a polite conversation so far, but Sal Fallaci hadn't once lost that snake-about-to-strike look, especially around those dark marble eyes. No, he didn't fool me. I could see him figuring the angles as he spoke. He would deal now and figure out a way of taking care of me later. The important thing, though, was that he was willing to talk.

  “We can settle this without violence,” the Mafia boss told me. “We can deal. What did you have in mind?”

  “I'm a realist,” I said. “Even with what I know, you'll never be convicted of killing Somerset. Not with your connections. But they will investigate you from top to bottom just the same and that would be bad enough for you, right? Your associates back east don't like publicity. They might decide you're a bad risk.”

  “So, your part of the deal is that you sit on what you think you know,” he grunted. “What do you want in return from me?”

  I said, “This client of mine is running around halfcocked and there's no telling how much trouble he's liable to get himself into before I can track him down. You do know who I'm talking about?”

  “Yeah, I know. The chump that was stuck on the Kaplin whore. So, what?”

  “Give the kid a break, that's what I'm asking from you.”

  He stared at me unblinking.

  “Break? What the hell kind of break?”

  “You set Somerset up this morning and capped him at Robert Pierpont's, knowing that if anyone took the fall it would be Pierpont. Right?”

  “You are pushing it, pally,” he said without inflection, and I felt another spinal chill.

  I said, “All I want you to do is toss the cops a lead that will take the heat off Pierpont. Alibi yourself for Somerset's kill. You probably have already, anyway. But see to it that word trickles down to the street that the Somerset kill was in fact a mob hit. Once the police follow that lead and tie Somerset up with Family business, as I'm sure they will, the case will essentially be closed for them. There's never been a mob killing solved in this city or any other city, and this one won't be any different. The cops know that, and they're overworked as it is. The police will be satisfied, if not happy. My client will be off the hook. And I'll forget all about you and Somerset going out together to Pierpont's place this morning. How’s that for a deal?”

  He stood from the barstool.

  “Okay, we got a deal.” He said it almost absently. “Now blow, huh?” He glanced again at the bedroom door. With slow, deliberate movements he unbuckled and removed his belt until it dangled to the floor like a whip. “Right now, I've got to teach a certain bimbo to keep her mouth shut.”

  “Two questions,” I said. “Just out of curiosity, why did you kill Somerset?”

  It was obvious to me; it would have been obvious to anybody, that he had no intention of letting me live. As far as he was concerned, I would be dead within a week. I didn't happen to agree with him, but I could use his mindset against him. Get him to reve
al to me things he didn't figure would matter because he thought I was a walking dead man.

  He said, “I killed Somerset because he screwed up one time too many. He wasn't even Italiano. I sponsored the jerk into the organization two years ago because he was good at busting heads and had a good cover with that body shop business. Figured I'd be able to use him. Kind of an ace up my sleeve when I didn't want to use Family talent. And he was good, at first. Then six months ago I got word he was running hot cars through his shop. The reason I took him on was because he was supposedly to be an honest businessman, and suddenly he's running around behind my back working his own scams and breaking half the laws in the book.”

  “So, you capped him.”

  “It was more than hot cars,” he said. “Dope. Extortion. Strong-arm stuff. Not like Gallagher. Limp Gallagher's a pro who knows how to cover himself. Somerset was something else. He got a taste of easy money and didn't know when to stop. I told him six months ago to lay off the moonlighting. He promised me he would. Then yesterday I hear he ran down the Kaplin piece outside my club. The crumb was doing it again, lining up his own contract work on the side. So, I had to dump him. I sponsored him in the first place, so it was my responsibility to un-sponsor him. That enough for you?”

  “Then you don't think it could've really been an accident, Somerset running Cheryl down?”

  He snorted.

  “Do you?”

  “I guess not. But about Limp? You think he was in on it with Somerset in whatever it was?”

  Fallaci snorted again.

  “Frankly, I don't really give a damn now that Somerset's out of the picture. I'm not worried about Limp. That's for you to do. Now cop a walk. I've got personal business to attend to.”

  As if forgetting that I was there, he started toward the bedroom door, the leather belt dangling, ending in its heavy silver buckle.

  “Wait'll I get my hands on that slut --”

  I unleathered the .44 and sighted along an extended arm at the back of Sal Fallaci's head. He sensed this and turned. He blinked. It was his only reaction. Fallaci was boss of his jungle. I was playing off one cool customer.