Lead With Your Left

by Ed Lacy

  Landon shook his little head. “Don't take your job home with you, Dave. Leave it in your locker with your walking shoes. What are you made of, Dave? You have two days off, take your wife to the movies, get high... young fellow like you should be in bed a lot. And never come a-running, they'll get you out of bed often enough. All an eager beaver gets is tired.”

  “Cut the eager-beaver bull. Owens and Wales are different than an ordinary case and I thought—”

  “Why don't you get drunk with your wife and stop thinking so much?” Landon said, turning back to his desk. “And let me finish my work, I'm going home in a few minutes. You ought to do the same.”

  “Is that an order?” I asked sarcastically.

  Landon looked up quickly. “Don't act the snotnose around me, Dave. Heard you slugged one of the boys today. Okay, you don't have to prove to me you're young and tough and full of ginger. Me, I'm just tired. Now beat it. And that is an order.”

  I was so damn mad I waited a second before I asked, “Be okay if I do some looking around on my own—on my off days?”

  “It's your time, wear your nose down to the bone. Look, Dave, I'm not eating you out. I'm just busy and in a hurry to get home and get my sleep. Sure, look around if you like, only take it easy, don't get in the hair of those supersleuths downtown, the glory hounds.”

  I suddenly felt let down as though all the air had gone out of me. “Sorry I blew up, Tom. Just that... two retired cops... Hell, guy can't help thinking that it could be me, in time.”

  “Nobody is goofing on the case, so don't worry about it. You got to learn how to unwind, Dave. That's as important as getting steam on.”

  I started for the door, stopped. “What's the latest dope on Wales?”

  “He was shot with a .22 through the right eye, at short range. Whole side of his face has flash burns. Must have used a silencer. There were two other men in the rooming house at the time, one asleep, one reading in bed—they say they didn't hear a thing. Wales hadn't been to work today so he must have been sleeping off a drunk when he got it. Medical Examiner places it around noon. Nothing was touched. Wales was fully dressed, probably passed out in bed. Maybe the killer didn't know about the money belt and the eleven grand. So far, no leads, no prints—nothing. Now go home and let me finish up.”

  “I suppose they're checking the arrest record and—”

  “Central Office boys know their business.”

  “Hell of a way for a couple of good cops to end,” I said, making for the door.

  Landon nodded. “Wales was especially good. This isn't out yet, so keep it damn quiet, Dave. They found a .38 Smith & Wesson that belonged to Wales in his room. Ballistics says it's the gun that killed Owens.”

  Thursday Morning

  We had a rough night. Mary came home half-bagged, which didn't help my mood. Then I stupidly told her what had happened at the precinct and she said, “The boy wonder got his prat booted home where it belongs. And you had to dash out like a fool, before my friends.”

  “Your friends keep up their clever conversation, did they ever find put who was on the gate?” I asked, and we took it from there.

  I couldn't even keep up with her, most of my mind was busy trying to figure why Al Wales shot his partner. After a while Mary fell off and I stared at the darkness and nothing made sense. Wales had said a crime was like an iceberg. This one was sure hidden, needed a lot of spadework. Two old coots, friends and partners for nearly a quarter of a century and when they're both hanging around, taking it easy before they die, one kills the other. And Al Wales, dressing like he was warming the buffalo on a nickel and eleven grand in his kick. I went to sleep full of questions—and not a single answer.

  Mary was up at eight and had the same record on: namely I was the all-American jerk and she hoped last night would teach me a lesson and be sure and see Uncle Frank today and where in hell were the aspirins.

  I didn't get up to have breakfast with her, stayed in bed and thought about a cop killing his partner. What would Danny Hayes have to do for me to kill him? When Mary took off I got up and made the bed back into a couch, had some orange juice. I felt lousy, restless and blue. For no reason I put on old slacks, army shoes, a sweatshirt and a long sport shirt to cover my gun in a belt holster, and decided to do some roadwork. I walked over to Central Park and trotted around the reservoir, throwing punches like a pug. I enjoy exercise and the clean air in my lungs seemed to drive away the blues. But when I reached the west side of the reservoir I suddenly stopped—what the hell was I training for? I wasn't a would-be pug anymore but a detective and I'd already wasted too much time. I was on my own these two days, and could devote all my time to the case. I walked over to Central Park West and took a subway to Brooklyn. I had two addresses I wanted to check.

  The first was out in the Fort Hamilton section and I walked past rows of old two-story private houses that reminded me of the Owens dump, till I stopped before a shingle house with a tiny garden and a busted picket fence in front. The house looked pretty seedy—it was clean and recently painted, but soap and paint won't hold a house together. There were two doorbells, two battered old-style mailboxes. Neither had the name Kahn, Sal Kahn's mother. I rang the downstairs bell. A frightful biddy answered the door. A fat sausage wrapped in a dirty pink housecoat, her face powdered a dead white with zigzag lightening eyebrows and lipstick an inch wide around her mouth, like a circus clown. Her thin, frizzled hair was too red and the powder on her puss seemed to accent the wrinkles. She had two flashy rings on her fingers and a thin marriage band. Didn't seem possible a guy had ever married this bag. She said, “Yes, sonny?” and smiled.

  The smile was the clincher. She didn't have any teeth and when that red smear opened it was a shock—a deep gash across her face. “Are you the owner of the house?”

  “All that the mortgage company doesn't own,” she said, her small eyes growing cautious. “What's it to you, sonny?” She spoke pretty clearly without teeth.

  I didn't mind the “sonny.” With a sport shirt and slacks on I did look like a big fifteen. “Can you tell me where I can find a Mrs. Kahn?”

  The gash opened wide as she shrieked, “Martha Kahn? The Lord rest her soul, she's been at peace six years now. You related?”

  “Yeah, a distant cousin. I'm in New York for a few days with... uh... our school basketball team. Thought I'd look the family up.”

  “And you didn't know Martha was dead? Why...” The over-red mouth clamped down. “You from the California branch of the family?”

  “No, ma'am, from the Michigan branch.”

  “That's good. When I bought this house from Martha just before she died, while she was so sick, I kept writing them in California to send someone here to look after the old woman. Not a peep out of them. But don't you know, soon as she died they had a lawyer here johnny-on-the-spot claiming the estate. And them acting so snooty to Martha just because of that old trouble.”

  “You mean about Uncle Sal?” I asked carefully.

  “Indeed I do. Like I kept telling poor Martha, what that had to do with her I couldn't see. But those smug sisters of hers out in Los Angeles—well!”

  “Of course Uncle Sal was before my time and I'm a distant relation, but I remember hearing about him. Went to jail, didn't he?”

  “Died in the electric chair, he did!” the biddy said, her voice full of enjoyment at finding a new listener for old gossip. “Got himself in trouble during Prohibition, but then everybody was making bootleg booze. You can bet I used my tub for something besides taking a bath. Sal was just unlucky, got hisself mixed up with gangsters, had to kill one.”

  “Did you know Uncle Sal?”

  There was a slight drawing up of a lot of flabby bosom. “Me? I did not. Martha didn't buy this house till many years after her son died. But she told me lots about him. Always good to his mother, a fine son.”

  Tin not up much on this line of the family. Are there any other members around here?”

  “They're all in Calif
ornia, well-off I hear, but wouldn't ever send Martha a Christmas card or nothing, on account of Sal's trouble. She never told me of any family in... where did you say?”

  “Michigan. Mother was some kind of cousin to Mr. Kahn's brother-in-law. Pretty complicated. Was Uncle Sal her only child?”

  “Sure was, not counting two miscarriages before Sal. Poor Martha, husband dead, son dead, and her sick and alone and those snooty relatives out there in the sunshine never sending her a card. You can bet she always remembered them with cards. Wasn't for the money she got, she'd have starved.”

  “If she owned this fine house she must have been comfortable.”

  The gash opened wide. “Hummp! First of every month, regular as the calendar, there was a registered letter with two hundred dollars—always ten twenty-dollar bills. I know. The last few months when the poor woman was confined to her bed and only had me to look after her, she opened the letters and I saw the money. But she never would say who it was from.”

  “Maybe from California?”

  “In a pig's... eye! I did notice the return addresses on the last two letters being I had to sign for them. Different names and addresses and both of them phony. Yes, sir. I was such a decent friend to poor Martha I went over to each address, figuring might be a relation who could look after Martha. First time wasn't no such street number, next time wasn't no such party. I asked Martha and she says she had no idea who did send her the money, it just came regular for years.”

  “Sounds strange, you'd think she'd know who was sending her money,” I said.

  Baggy nodded. “Ask me, she once told me Sal had a partner in his business but Sal didn't see no sense involving him in this trouble. Ask me, I'd bet this here partner maybe agreed to look after Martha if Sal didn't talk. Yes, sir.”

  “Didn't Aunt Martha know who this partner was?”

  “Said she never knew.”

  “The letters stop when Aunt Martha died?”

  “Sure, soon as the postman returned the next one as deceased, they stopped.”

  “Can you recall the two false names and addresses you mentioned? Or the name of Aunt Martha's doctor?”

  “Now that was over six years ago and... Say, you ask a lot of questions for a kid.” The clown mouth became a rough, heavy line as she stepped back and slammed the door, shouting, “I bet a fat dollar you're the son of one of them California bitches! Scoot before I take a broom to you!”

  I walked back toward the subway, stopped for a cup of coffee and toast, picked up a paper and read about Wales. He made the fifth page. There were pictures of him and Owens, taken years ago, and nothing I didn't know in the news story. I had a second cup of Java and a hunk of pie which was pretty good.

  Two hundred dollars a month, $2,400 a year for Mrs. Kahn, over how many years? Somebody had to be in an awful tight spot or grateful as hell to shell out that kind of dough. And it would have to be a big operator to pay that sort of green. Wales? What would he be grateful for? What could old lady Kahn possibly have on him? Maybe the biddy was only repeating gossip, had the story screwy? I wondered if it was worth while going back and flashing my shield at her. But I had a hunch she'd told me all she knew.

  I made some notes in my book, decided against more pie, and left. The other address was the garage where Sal ran his still, where he killed Boots Brenner in 1930. This was in another part of Brooklyn and traveling in Brooklyn is like going over a giant obstacle course. After I'd paid three carfares I was getting low on money—I'd been so sore at Mary I hadn't asked her for a couple of bills—so I flashed my badge in the last bus. The baldy driver asked, “Young to be a cop, aren't you?”

  “See the badge, don't you?” I said, walking by him and sitting down.

  So a couple of blocks later this billiard ball-head stops the bus to call over a beefy beat patrolman. I was embarrassed as hell and stepped off the bus with him rather than cause more of a scene. I showed him my badge and Police Benevolent Association card, pulled back my shirt so he could see my gun. He said, “I don't want to make no mistakes, one way or the other. First off you hand me your gun, butt first, all nice and easy. Then I'll put through a call at my box and we'll see. You do look young and short but no hard feelings if I'm wrong. Understand?”

  I handed this big bum my gun, telling him, “Be careful it doesn't go off and you shoot yourself.” I gave him a dime and told him to save time by using a regular phone to call my precinct. When he finally got Reed on the phone and described me they must have made some crack because the big dumb ox laughed and said, “Looked more like he'd be packing a zip gun than a badge. Thank you, Lieutenant.” I knew the ribbing I was in for when I reported back to duty.

  The cop gave me my gun, said he was sorry but I must have stood on my toes when I took the physical.

  “That's right. And I borrowed my old man's beard too. Look, maybe you can do me some good for a change. Know how to get to this address?”

  “You aren't three blocks from it. Dye plant. On my beat when I'm working radio car. Good people at Christmas.”

  “Dye plant? Was it ever a garage?”

  “I been in this precinct for five years and it's been a dye plant all that time. New building. I think before that it was an empty lot and a ruin. Tell you, Detective”—he stumbled over the word—“seems to me I heard a kid was hurt playing in the old building years ago and they had to put a watchman in. An old duffer in the neighborhood. Still works as a night watchman for the dye company. Old George Davis. He might be able to tell you about it being a garage. Anything important?”

  “Naw, checking a reference. Where's this Davis fellow?”

  “When you get to the dye plant keep going a block. You'll see an old brown house that looks like a good wind would carry it away. Can't miss it; same side of the street. Old George lives there. Be working in his garden now. Doesn't hit the sack till noon.”

  I said thanks and walked away, knowing the big cluck was staring after me with a puzzled look in his dumb eyes.

  The dye plant was one of these one-story efficient-looking buildings, all spick and span. It had glass-brick windows and air conditioning, looked like a big outfit.

  The old brown house was exactly that and air-conditioned in a different way. It sat back from the sidewalk with a whitewashed flagpole in the center of a small lawn just starting to look green. I followed a broken walk around the house to a large garden. A plump old gent with a fat nose and a shabby derby on a lot of gray hair was digging up the ground with a pitchfork. He had on a worn flannel shirt and his old work pants were held up by wide fireman's suspenders. He was stinking up the sunshine with a battered pipe.

  “Mr. Davis?”

  He nodded.

  I showed my badge as I told him, “Detective Dave Wintino, 201st Squad. And I've had about all the cracks I want about my looking young. If you can spare a few minutes, I'd like to chat with you.”

  “I got plenty of time,” he said and his voice had a kind of whine you find in lots of big old men. “It's a fact you look young. What's this all about?” He leaned on the pitchfork the way a real farmer does—I guess.

  “You remember when the dye plant was an empty garage and a vacant lot?”

  “Sure do. I was always for raising tomatoes in that lot but between the kids playing ball and the rocky soil I got no place.”

  “Were you around when they had the shooting in the lot?”

  He patted his crazy hat. “Sure was. I mean I wasn't at the actual shooting or when they found the body, but I was there when the cops were. Now that was way back in nineteen—”

  “Nineteen-thirty.”

  He nodded. “Yep and times was real bad. Garage had been standing empty maybe two, three years when one day I seen two men working in it. Never knew exactly what they was doing, all very quiet. So didn't surprise me none when it turned out they was bootlegging. Sometimes when I'd be working my tomatoes in the lot on Sundays, or late in the afternoons, I'd see them. The one they killed in prison and the other.”r />
  “The other—what did he look like?”

  Davis relit his pipe before he said, “One thing I got to hand you cop fellows, you never give up. Like I told that other detective, it's been a—”

  “What other detective?”

  “Tall one that was handling the case. Even after they give the fellow the chair and the garage was just an old building with busted windows—them darn kids around here—why, every now and then this dick would still come around and look through the building. Although there wasn't anything to see that I knew of.”

  “Was the detective named Owens or Wales?”

  “Hard to say, I'm not much on names. Fact is, I'm around here a good deal, always have been. Some men like bars and shows, me—give me a hunk of ground. Even while the trial was going on and then when the one man was waiting to go in the chair, many is the time I'd see this detective just sitting in his car, watching the empty garage. Thought to myself, it don't make sense to...”