“Thanks buddy. What do I owe you?”
“Nothin’. You took me out of a jam once. We’re square now.” He hung up abruptly and I stood there for a minute trying to figure out who it was. Hell, a lot of people owed me favors. I went back, finished my beer and went out the same way I came in, mixing with a group going past the door to the subway station.
Ernie South had started off in the wholesale candy business fifteen years ago, working the fringe areas of Harlem before he switched to dope. He had peddled the stuff for Treetop Coulter before he took his first fall, did his time in Sing Sing, then came back and muscled Treetop right out of the business. He wound up operating in Big Primo Stipetto’s territory, managed to get himself in the good graces of the boss and ran a neat operation the cops weren’t able to break.
Everybody had been hearing a lot about Ernie South lately. He and Penny Stipetto were thick as blood brothers, especially since ‘62 when Big Step turned over a prime section uptown to his kid brother to run as he saw fit. Penny Stipetto had been on the verge of being a big time operator when he was knocked off and since they thought I was his killer, Ernie South would have his hands out looking for me too. Penny’s death left the section wide open and until Big Step moved back in or designated another lieutenant to handle it, Ernie was moving things around.
Damn it! I should have kept my hands to myself, but when Penny tore into old Rudy Max and broke him up for not paying protection money to operate a news stand I couldn’t help myself. I broke his jaw and four ribs and left him in a mess of his own blood on the side walk, not giving a damn how big he or his brothers were. Two of his men were right there when it happened and neither of them had the guts to go for a rod because they knew I had a blaster in my belt and would chop them down the second they moved. They had seen it happen before. No, they could wait. Big brother Step would take care of it if Penny didn’t. Only Penny Stipetto didn’t want to look like a lily with everybody waiting to see how he took it. No, he had to go gunning for me himself.
And somebody else nailed him.
Why?
It didn’t take too much doing to locate Ernie South. I had enough friends in the area who didn’t dig the narcotics bit and had seen too much heat brought in on their own operations because of his. They were glad to pinpoint him at a sleezy gin mill that featured a belly dancer, and let me work out my own arrangements with him. They knew damn well there was a price on my head from all directions, but they had lived under the shakedown racket Big Step ran too long to help him out any. All I got was a word to watch myself, a couple offers of an assist I waved off and a silent word that meant they hoped I could make something stick.
For an hour and a half I stood across the street waiting, watching the customers come and go until the place was almost empty. Then, through the window, I saw Ernie flip a bill to the bartender, say something they both thought was funny, then go to the door.
He was looking west watching for a cab when I put the nose of the .45 in his ribs and said, “Hello, Ernie.”
Even before he turned around he started to shake like he was going to come apart at the seams. He stiffened, seemed to rise on his toes and twisted just enough to see me. Then his eyes met mine briefly and a smile flickered across his mouth and he relaxed until he was almost casual. “You’re taking big chances these days, Irish.”
“Not from you, punk.” I nudged him with the gun, ran my hand over his pockets and beltline to make sure he wasn’t heeled and said, “Start walking. Get out of line just once and you’ve had it, boy.” I wasn’t putting on an act. I’d scatter his guts over the street as fast as I’d look at him and he knew it, but he knew it didn’t have to happen either so he simply shrugged and turned toward Broadway and strolled along with me at his side like a couple of buddies.
“You’re in the wrong end of town, Irish. Big Step has his people all over the place.”
“Then hope we don’t meet any. You’ll catch the first one.”
I saw his nervous glance to both sides of the street, hoping nobody would show. Hopheads Ernie could handle. Me he couldn’t. “What’s the gimmick?” he asked. “We never tangled. I’m not any part of the show.”
“I want Fly. He peddled around for you and you supplied his H. Where is he?”
“How the hell should I know?”
“The last time I saw him he needed to blast bad. You’re his source.”
Ernie South didn’t answer me. He reached for a cigarette and lit it with a hand that shook badly.
I said, “Ernie, I’m going to point this rod at your leg. I’m going to put one right through the back of your knee and roll out of here before a squad car can get near the place. You’ll be going around on an aluminum and plastic peg the rest of your life.”
He tried to sound calm about it. “You wouldn’t do it.”
“Remember Junior Swan? Ever see his hands? He can’t use either of them now. Remember Buck Harris and Sy Green? Sy’s mind is going on him now and Buck is still in a wheelchair in a charity ward trying to forget that night.”
Ernie remembered all right. I could see the sweat on his forehead glistening under his hatbrim. He swallowed, wiped his hand across his face and half whispered, “So Fly’s on the out list. He don’t get a thing from nobody.”
“Why?”
“Because Big Step said so. He’s making Fly hurt for doing a dumb thing like he did with you.”
“Where is he, Ernie?”
“I don’t know! I…”
He heard the .45 go off half cock and the tiny click was like a sonic boom in his ears. “Come on, Irish, I don’t know where he is. Try somebody else!”
“Name them.”
“Cortez maybe. Connie Morse or Joey Gomp on Ninety-Sixth Street. He used to hit them sometimes.”
“That’s still Big Step’s territory.”
“Sure, and they’re all cuttin’ him off. So try downtown. He had some contacts there only don’t ask who. My turf is here. I don’t know them guys.”
I knew he was telling the truth. Ernie South wasn’t about to lie to me right then or he knew what would happen. “Where’s his pad, Ernie?”
“Basement joint two places down from Steve’s Diner on Second.”
I caught the expression that came into his face and let him feel a touch of the gun again. “Finish it, Ernie.”
He was caught and knew it. If he didn’t lay it on the line he knew I’d come looking for him. He said, “Big Step’s got a man covering the place.”
“Why?”
“So Fly can’t make his pad if he’s got anything stashed away in there.”
“Nice. Step holds a big mad, doesn’t he?”
“You’ll find out,” he said viciously.
“Who killed Penny Stipetto, Ernie?”
He stopped then, turned his head to look directly at me and his eyes were black with hate. His whole face seemed drawn in a tight mask. I grinned at him deliberately and shook my head. “Not me, boy.”
“You’re dead, Ryan. You might just as well jump in front of a subway and get it over with.”
I thumbed the .45 back on half cock again and shoved it under my belt. “When I go it’ll be the hard way and it won’t be alone. Go tell Big Step I’m looking for him.”
He almost ran getting to the corner and when he was out of sight I cut across the street, through an alley and came out the other side, flagged down a cab and told him to take me to the Cafeteria. Big Step, Newbolder, Schmidt and the rest might be looking for me but they wouldn’t be expecting me to turn up in a place I ate in five nights a week. Enough of the Broadway crowd would be on hand as usual to pass me any information if they weren’t too scared of the action.
Wally Pee was the first one to spot me and he almost spilled his coffee. He gave me the signal that he was no good for talking and let his eyes sidle to the back corner where Izzy Goldwitz was finishing a pot pie with his usual relish. I walked up, got a cup of coffee and took it back to Izzy’s table where I sat down w
ith my back to the rest. It could be a fatal mistake, but I didn’t want anybody picking me up by sight. Izzy got that sick look again and couldn’t finish his pot pie, reaching for his coffee to quiet down what was happening to his stomach.
When he put the cup down his eyes pleaded with me. “Get lost, Irish. Get away from me, huh? You got this town on its ear already and I don’t want to be there when the shooting starts again.”
“No sweat, Izzy. All I want is Fly. You see him around?”
“Me, I don’t see nothing. Now scram, okay?”
“Fly’s hitting all the suppliers.”
“I know. Big Step’s got him cut off. Fly’s taking a cure whether he likes it or not and it’ll kill him for letting you off the hook. So whatta you want him for? Another guy was looking for him before. Got Pedro the bus boy all shook?”
I frowned at him. “Who?”
“I dunno. Ask Pedro. Just get away from me.”
“Sure, Izzy. Thanks.”
“From you I want nothin’, not even thanks.”
Pedro was a little Puerto Rican with a multiplicity of last names nobody could pronounce who worked his heart out hustling dirty dishes to support six brothers and sisters. He was quick as a banty rooster and always ready with a big smile, but when I found him in the back room off the kitchen he was neither quick nor smiling. He was sitting on an upturned lard bucket, his head in his hands and when I came in he jumped, his face contorted, his hands clutching his belly.
I said, “Hi, Pete.”
When he recognized me he tied on a smile but it didn’t fit very well and he dropped it. “Mr. Ryan,” he acknowledged softly.
“What happened, kid?”
“I theenk nothing happened, please.”
With my toe I hooked an empty coke box and set it up so I could squat down beside him. “Let’s have it Pete. Who took you apart?”
“It ees nothing.”
“Don’t kid me. I’ll find out anyway, so save yourself some grief. Whoever did it can come back.”
Sudden terror filled his eyes and he huddled up against the wall, his teeth biting into his lip. He looked at me, shrugged resignedly. “A man, he look for Fly. He look for you too.”
“Who came first?”
“You, Mr. Ryan. He ask about you the other night. I theenk he is police and I tell heem how you left here. I tell heem how Fly was back there waiting too.”
“What else?”
“Nothing. I can’t tell heem where you are. I tell heem where Fly lives after he hit me.”
“Describe him.”
“Not beeg as you, Mr. Ryan. Funny voice like I have to speak English, only different. Very bad man. Mad.”
“So you know where Fly is?”
He shook his head. “No. I do not see him seence then.”
“He was your friend, Pete. You know he was hooked on H?”
“Sure, I know.”
“Do you know where he gets his stuff?”
“Before, from Ernie South mostly. Now, I do not know.”
“Anybody around here?”
“Nobody will sell to Fly now. He ees in a very bad way, I theenk.”
I stood up and rubbed the top of his head. “Okay, kid, thanks. Don’t you worry about the guy coming back. Until it’s over you’ll get a little cover.”
“Please, you don’t have to…”
“No sweat, Pete. No trouble at all.” I grinned at him and this time he managed a small smile for real. I said, “There a phone around here?”
He pointed toward the door. “Right inside the kitchen.”
I reached Newbolder at his home after the precinct gave me his number. He said, “Sergeant Newbolder speaking, who is this?”
“Your buddy, Irish.”
He didn’t say anything for a few seconds and I could hear him breathing, then flick on a cigarette lighter. “Okay, I can’t put a tracer on your call from here, Irish. Now what’s the pitch?”
“There’s a kid at the Cafeteria, a bus boy named Pedro. Maybe you’d better keep him covered for a few days. He just took a shellacking from an unknown person that might fit into your case.”
I could hear a pencil scratching, then: “You got friends of your own who could do that, Ryan.”
“Yeah, I know, but that’s what you’re for.”
“Don’t get snotty,” he said. “You’re after something.”
“A hophead named Fly.”
“What about him?”
“Has he been seen around?”
“No squawks on him.”
“Then you’d better run him down quick before you have a corpse on your hands. Big Step cut off his supply and if he doesn’t fold he’ll knock off somebody to get a charge.”
“Where does he fit in?”
“I’d like to tell you, copper, but if I want out of this mess I have to get out myself.”
“You’re not doing too well. If you make another day on the streets your luck is running first class.”
“I’ll play along with it.”
“When you get smart, pass it up. Right now that Federal agency you shilled for a couple years ago is breathing down your neck. You’re on everybody’s ‘S’ list and it’s only a matter of time. Until Big Step moves we can’t lay a hand on him and by then it’ll be too late, you’ll be dead, so I recommend protective custody.”
“And a murder charge for bumping Penny Step? No dice, Sarge.”
Casually, he said, “Have it your way, friend.”
“I will.” Then I added, “By the way, how is Karen Sinclair?”
And just as off handedly he said, “I couldn’t tell you. An hour ago she was kidnapped from her room.”
It was like I had been sapped again. “What?”
“Blame yourself a little, Irish. Try this one on your conscience if you have any.”
My fingers squeezed the phone so hard my knuckles turned white. “How was it worked?”
“Two doctors under a gun. The third guy posed as an intern. He shot the guy he took the uniform from in front of the doctors and they had no choice except to go along. They moved her into an ambulance under the guard’s noses and got her out. We found the ambulance ten minutes ago, but she could be anywhere by now.”
“Damn!”
“So chalk one dead girl up on your list, hood. I think you got the picture pretty well by now. We took Bill Grady in and he had to lay it out for us. You’ve made everybody a lot of trouble and when you dream, think of that lovely broad stretched out on a slab somewhere.”
Under my breath I began swearing, then stopped when I was so tight I wanted to tear the damn phone right off the wall. “They won’t kill her,” I said.
“No? Why?”
“Because I have what they want and it won’t do them a bit of good to bump her unless they know where she dropped the little goodie they’re all after.”
I hung up then, stared at the phone a minute, then crossed the kitchen and took the back way out through the service entrance. Fly was the key. Someplace he was roaming around carrying a bombshell of information big enough to tear apart the world. They knew it and I knew it, but I couldn’t get to it without making myself a target for the cops, Big Step and a team of Soviet killers.
The hell I couldn’t.
I was looking for a cab when the black Chevy came idling by. The light on the corner was green and in New York you don’t loaf when you have the signal on your side. It was too out of character for a cab with N.Y. plates and I had played too many games the same way not to notice it.
Even before the first shot flamed from the window I was down and rolling, scrambling sideways for the cover of the trash cans at the curb and right behind me two more rocketed off the sidewalk with a brief, shrill ricochetting scream before they plastered against the wall. I had just a single look at the face turned my way that was framed in the light of the street lamp, a sharp, hawklike face under a shock of pitch black hair with one unruly twist of it hanging down into his eyes.
The car wa
s gone around the corner before I could get the gun out and except for a drunk who looked at me soddenly, nobody caught the action. They heard the noise though, even if most of it was contained inside the Chevy. Two couples were dodging traffic to get across the street, but before they made it or I had to offer any explanations, I got up, dusted myself off and started away.
The drunk wiped the drool from his mouth and laughed. “Nice friends you got, mister.”
“Only the best,” I told him.
So now I was being stalked. Somebody figured I might come back looking for Fly, or word would get to me about somebody looking for him. I was being set up very nicely by a pack of pros and the perimeter of the jungle was getting smaller and smaller. Well, I lived here too and I wasn’t going to make it easier for them.
But I wasn’t really thinking of myself. I was thinking of the loveliness of Karen Sinclair, the broad who was willing to give her life for a purpose. Now they had her… and I knew why. To break her out meant a trade… the microfilm for her, and even then it was a rotten deal because once they had their information back, she would go under a gun too. And what they wanted was in the possession of a crazy junkie who wouldn’t know the time of day when I found him. If I found him.
Chapter 5
A COUPLE of years ago a Fed team had me picked up. It wasn’t a pinch, though I would have been better off if it were. It was a cute pressure play because they wanted my peculiar services at their command since it was the only way they could handle a project. They laid my neck on the line and I had no choice about it so I played cop with them and came out of the deal a hood-type patriot and it took a long time to wash the smell of the association out of my system. My kind of people didn’t go along with any kind of cops, even a recruited hood.
Now the time for returning favors was back again. The card in my wallet was worn at the edges and a few odds and ends were scribbled across the face, but the number was still legible and I called it. Somebody was always at that office night and day and I wasn’t worried about getting an answer at this hour. The phone was lifted and a voice said, “Varlie Imports, what can I do for you?”
Me, Hood! Page 12
