God Save the Mark

by Donald E. Westlake

  Anyway, it was time for my meeting with Professor Kilroy.

  I left the apartment at a fast walk, fumbled with the keys as I locked the door, and even with that door between us, still felt the clammy tendrils of Gus Ricovic trailing along the back of my neck. I shivered, and pushed the button for the elevator.

  My friendly elevator operator arrived, not soon enough, and as soon as I boarded he turned a worried face to me and said, “I been thinking about things, Mr. Grierson.”

  “Fitch,” I said, distracted. I was thinking that I had never seen a dead body before and would prefer never to see a dead body again. Ever. Particularly not in closets in empty apartments.

  “Yeah, that’s right,” the operator was saying. “I remember. Mr. Grierson explained me that one time, how you had different names.”

  “Did he?” I said.

  “Mr. Fitch,” he said urgently, “I hope you won’t say nothing to the management here about me playing cards with your uncle or anything like that. We’re not supposed to mingle with the tenants, you know. I mean, I wouldn’t of done it if your uncle hadn’t wanted me to.”

  “I won’t say anything,” I said.

  “It could cost me my job,” he said. “I wouldn’t know what to do without this job.”

  I said nothing to that, having problems of my own to think about, and when at last the elevator doors opened on the ground floor I went away without reassuring him any more about his tenure. Besides, hadn’t he heard of self-service elevators? Sooner or later automation must spread even to Central Park South, whether I finked on his chumming with Uncle Matt or not.

  I wondered how the Bolivian admiral out front had liked having Uncle Matt for a tenant.

  I wondered how I could manage so many irrelevant thoughts with Gus Ricovic sitting up there in that dark closet.

  Three blocks from the apartment building I found an outdoor phone booth. Being wise in the ways of the Police Department by now, I succeeded in anonymously reporting the body in the closet in under five minutes, having run through the inevitable battery of Sergeant Sreeses and Tective Sreeses and Friggum-Steen Precincts like Roger Bannister through the four-minute mile.

  As I was coming out of the phone booth, it occurred to me to wonder by how narrow a margin had I missed the murderer or murderers of Gus Ricovic. Had they left half an hour before I’d come? Or five minutes? Or thirty seconds?

  Had they perhaps been going down in one elevator while I was going up in the other?

  It was almost time to go meet Professor Kilroy, but the growing realization of how close perhaps I had come to taking the long walk hand in hand with Gus Ricovic made a preliminary stop necessary.

  There was the place, just down the block, its door under the red neon sign that said BAR.

  26

  I HAD ABOUT decided he wouldn’t show up. It was ten minutes past eight, the cavernous interior of Grand Central was sparsely populated. I sat on a bench where I could watch most of the great room, waiting to see any familiar face, any one at all. I would flee as though pursued by demons, which I might as well be. I could still remember, only too clearly, having been shot at not so very long ago. Not to mention the quizzical smile and unblinking eyes of Gus Ricovic.

  But the man who emerged out of nowhere and plopped down onto the bench beside me was no one I had ever seen before in my life. He had a great scraggly bushy black beard with great streaks of gray in it, his hair was long and unkempt and also black with streaks of gray, his face seemed to be just slightly dirty, and he wore great thick spectacles with horn rims, the right wing of which was broken and haphazardly fixed with Scotch tape. He was of medium height, but dressed in an old tweed suit a good two or three sizes too large for him. His shirt was also too large for him, and his orange-and-red tie was put together with the largest knot I’d seen in years, the sort of knot we used to call a Windsor when it was sported by all the sharpest blades in high school.

  “Hello, kid,” he said, in the most gravelly voice I ever heard in my life, “I’m Professor Kilroy.”

  I said, “I guess you already know who I am.”

  “Sure,” he said. “Short Sheet pointed you out to me one time.”

  “Short—? Oh, you mean Uncle Matt.”

  “Matt, yeah.” He wiped the back of his hand across his mouth and looked vaguely out around the terminal. “Let’s go some place and get a drink,” he said.

  “I’d rather stay right here,” I told him.

  “Yeah,” he said. He squinted at me through his glasses. “You gone paranoid, huh?”

  “If you mean I’ve finally learned you can’t trust anybody, you’re right.”

  “Smart kid,” he said. “I figured no nephew of Matt’s could be one hundred per cent shlemiel.”

  I wondered what per cent shlemiel he figured I was, but I said, “You wanted to talk to me about something.”

  “Yeah, that’s right.” He wiped his mouth again, glanced out around the terminal some more, and said, “I could do with a drink, you know? I’m kinda nervous, to be seen with you.”

  That made me nervous. I looked quickly around, saw no one with a machine gun, and said, “Why should you be nervous?”

  “I don’t want em mad at me any more.”

  “Who?”

  “The Coppo boys.”

  “The who?”

  He looked at me. “You don’t know nothing about nothing, do you?”

  “I never heard of the Coppo boys,” I said.

  “Where do you think all that dough came from?”

  “I don’t know. From Brazil somewhere.”

  “That’s right. From Pedro Coppo.”

  “He’s one of the Coppo boys?”

  He shook his head. “Naw. He was their father.”

  “Was?”

  “Lemme start at the beginning, will ya?” he asked me. “Sure,” I said.

  “You heard of Brasilia, right?”

  “I think so. It’s a new city.”

  “Right. Started about ten years ago, in the back country, way the hell away from anywhere. There was a lot of money made there, kid, a lot of money. Me, I operated a little store there myself for a while, down in the workers’ part. Shack City, you know?”

  “A store?”

  He made dealing motions. “Cards,” he said. “Like that. They love to gamble, those South Americans. It’s the hot Latin blood.”

  “Did Uncle Matt have a store there, too?”

  “For a while. We known each other for years, sometimes we put in with each other, sometimes we work single-o. You know what I mean?”

  “I think so,” I said.

  “So there was this bird Coppo,” Professor Kilroy said. “Pedro Coppo. He was one of the boys cleaning up there in Brasilia. Construction, you know? Trucking. Trucking companies made a fortune. Coppo was in all over the place, finger in this pie, finger in that pie.” He demonstrated with downward jabbing motions.

  “I’ve got it,” I said.

  “So Short Sheet had him a con figured, a really sweet con. Complicated, you know? Land tracts and like that. He needed somebody to be a surveyor from General Motors, so I stood in. He took that Coppo for almost a million bucks.” He waved his hands around in remembered excitement. “I got a hundred grand for myself,” he said, “and Short Sheet got the rest. He went to Rio and had himself a time.”

  Trying a long shot, I said, “Is that where he met Walter Cosgrove?” Because Walter Cosgrove was the only other patient of Dr. Lucius Osbertson that I knew of, and he and Uncle Matt had been in Brazil at the same time.

  Professor Kilroy looked startled, then began briskly to wipe his mouth and scratch inside his coat. “Cosgrove?” he asked me. “Who’s Cosgrove?”

  “It doesn’t matter,” I said. I was convinced Professor Kilroy knew who Walter Cosgrove was, but I didn’t see any point in pressing the issue. I didn’t want to scare him away before he’d finished telling me the part he was willing to talk about. So I said, “What happened next? After Uncle
Matt went to Rio?”

  “What happened next,” he said, “is Pedro Coppo killed himself. Who would of thought it? He was a smart type, he could of made himself another million easy. But out a window he went, right there in Brasilia. To show you how new everything was then, he landed in wet cement.”

  “Oh,” I said. “In other words, I’ve inherited blood money.”

  “There’s a lot of blood on that dough, by now,” he said. “Pedro Coppo. Short Sheet. Almost me, and maybe you.”

  And Gus Ricovic, but there was no point my mentioning that.

  “The Coppo boys,” I said, beginning to understand. “The sons. They’re out to revenge their father.”

  “You got it,” he said. He looked around nervously. “And they’re rough boys. Two of them, twin brothers.”

  “They’re here in the States?”

  “They been here for years,” he said. “They come up here long before their old man went out the window.” He leaned closer to me and whispered harshly, “They’re in the rackets. They got the whole mob behind them.”

  “Then they’re the ones that killed my uncle.”

  “Or ordered it done,” he said. “They’re big boys now, they don’t have to do the rough stuff themselves. All they do is point, and you’re dead.”

  I was thinking of the shots from the moving car. That was gangland style, certainly. What sort of inheritance was this, that came with professional killers attached?

  Professor Kilroy was wiping his mouth continually now, and looking more and more agitated. It was no surprise at all when he said, “Kid, I’m sorry, but I need a drink. Will you come with me?”

  “I’d rather not,” I said. “I feel safer here, in the open.”

  “You aren’t safe anywhere, kid,” he said. “That’s the point I’m trying to get across.” He wiped his mouth so vigorously he almost knocked his glasses off. “I really need that drink,” he said. “I tell you what, you wait here and I’ll be right back.”

  “I don’t like that either,” I said.

  “You think I’m going to sell you out, call somebody and say here he is? I didn’t have to show up at all if that’s what I had in mind.”

  That was true enough. I said, “All right. I’ll wait ten minutes, no more.”

  “It’s a deal.” He sprang to his feet, then hesitated, hanging over me, and said, “You wouldn’t have a dollar on you.”

  “A dollar?”

  “I told you a lot already,” he said, “and I got a lot more to tell you. It’s worth a dollar. It’s worth a lot more than a dollar.”

  I took out my wallet, found a dollar bill, and handed it to him. It disappeared at once somewhere within his outsize clothing, and away he shambled, with a funny rushing sort of limp, scrabbling across the terminal floor like some weird bird, reminding me most of Emmett Kelly all made up in his sad-clown costume.

  While he was gone I sat and thought over what he’d so far told me. It was all beginning to make sense now; Uncle Matt’s mysterious acquisition of riches in Brazil, his murder, the try at killing me, the kidnapping of Gertie. That too was gangland style. I suppose they thought Gertie might know where I was, or maybe they were holding her for ransom and sooner or later I’d be hearing from them.

  That presented a problem. If they did find me, what crime would they have in mind, extortion or murder? If murder, my job was to cut and run. If extortion, if they wanted me to pay for Gertie’s release, of course I would.

  I determined to ask Professor Kilroy about Gertie when he came back.

  But would he come back? I looked at my watch and eight minutes had gone by. I was beginning to get a little nervous. Or, that is, I had already been a little nervous and I was now getting a little more nervous.

  It’s astonishing how many people look like members of the mob, if you look at them closely. Carrying suitcases full of bombs, carrying overcoats slung over their arms to hide sawed-off shotguns. There were even three tough-looking guys carrying violin cases.

  Professor Kilroy had sold me out, I was suddenly sure of it. His ten minutes had wound themselves out and he wasn’t here. The terminal was filling up with professional killers, slowly closing in on me.

  I got to my feet, dithering, not knowing which way to turn, and finally just walked briskly off to the nearest rank of lockers. I stood half out of sight behind these and watched the bench I had just left.

  Nothing happened.

  Nothing happened for one hundred and eighty seconds. I thought I might make a dash for the door. On the other hand, that might be exactly what they were waiting for.

  But could they guard all the doors? What if I went out onto the platform and around and out to the taxi stand? Or was there someone out on the platform waiting to throw me onto the third rail?

  Professor Kilroy appeared, hurrying, and scrambled over to the bench where we’d been sitting. He stood there in obvious perplexity, looking around and seeming very agitated. There was no one with him.

  Still hesitant, I came out from behind the lockers and walked slowly over to rejoin the Professor. He saw me coming and rushed over to me, saying, “What happened? You see one of them?”

  “I’m not sure,” I said. “I guess not.” I sat down again where I’d been.

  He stayed on his feet, very agitated, looking all around. “Maybe we oughta get outa here,” he said.

  “No. I feel safe here.”

  “It’s bad to stay in one place too long.”

  “Sit down,” I said. “Tell me the rest. There can’t be much more.”

  “There ain’t.” He sat down, but he was still very nervous, moving his hands and feet a lot. “After the old man kicked off,” he said, “his sons swore to get us. Matt and me. They caught up with me three years ago.”

  “They didn’t kill you,” I pointed out.

  “They knew I was small potatoes,” he said. “They knew Short Sheet was the artist on that one. I give em back all the money I had left, they roughed me up a little, and that was it. They wouldn’t even of roughed me up, but they thought I knew where Short Sheet was.”

  “You didn’t?”

  He winked, and leaned closer, and whispered, “I did, but I conned them. I wouldn’t sell out an old pal.” I could smell whiskey on his breath.

  I said, “But they did kill Uncle Matt.”

  “Because he was the brains. And because he wouldn’t give em back the dough. At least, that’s what I figure. I figure it took em all this time to find him ‘cause they couldn’t believe he’d be right here under their noses in New York City, and of course they didn’t know his real name. But they found him finally. They kept on looking till they did.”

  “And now they’re after me,” I said.

  “They’re after the money,” he said. “They don’t care about you, any more than they cared about me. Less, you didn’t have nothing to do with the con. But they don’t like the idea anybody getting the advantage of that money. That’s why they made me give it back.” He wiped his mouth and said, “I shouldn’t of done it. You know what I should of done?”

  “What?”

  “I should of give it to some charity,” he said. “Some orphanage or something.”

  “But wouldn’t they have killed you if they didn’t get the money back?”

  “What do they care about the money? They got all the dough they need. It’s just they didn’t want me getting the benefit.” Bitterly, he added, “And I shouldn’t of let them get the benefit.”

  I said, “I think they kidnapped a friend of mine. Maybe you know her, Gertie Divine. She lived with my uncle.”

  He squinted at me. “The stripper? They kidnapped her?”

  “What do you suppose? Do they want to kill me, or do they want me to pay ransom for her?”

  “Did she inherit anything?”

  “Not that I know of,” I said. “I think I was the only one inherited anything.”

  “Don’t count on it,” he said. “That wouldn’t be like Short Sheet, leave his pal Ge
rtie out in the cold. He seen to it she got something, don’t you worry.”

  “You think that’s why they kidnapped her?”

  “Sure. Squeeze the dough out of her, what else? Why ask you to pay ransom for her? She ain’t your kid.”

  “I thought that might be what they had in mind,” I said.

  “You worry about yourself, kid,” he said, and patted my knee. “You got plenty to worry about right there, believe you me.”

  “I believe you,” I said.

  He said, “Listen, what was that name you brought up before? Cosgrove?”

  “Walter Cosgrove.”

  “Yeah. That name’s got like a familiar ring to it. Who is he?”

  “Nobody important,” I said. I had the feeling Professor Kilroy had it in his mind to pump me about Walter Cosgrove, to find out how much I knew about the man and where I’d gotten my information, and something I suppose what the Professor had termed paranoia—told me that any knowledge I could keep to myself was nothing but points for my side.

  He persisted though, saying, “I feel like I know the name from somewhere is all. Walter Cosgrove. What is he, another grifter?”

  “It doesn’t matter,” I said. “What do you think I ought to do about the Coppo brothers? Go to the police?”

  “Listen,” he said, “those boys already got half the cops in the city on their payroll, just in the normal line of business. You go to a cop, how do you know he isn’t somebody’ll turn you right over to the Coppos?”

  “I was thinking that myself,” I said gloomily. “In fact, I’d suspected there might be some crooked police involved in this somewhere.”

  “You think there’s any other reason they never solved your uncle’s murder?”

  “I guess not.”

  “Some of these amateur outfits,” he said, “like kak and the Crime Commission, they do pretty good work sometimes, but there ain’t enough of them. The cops still have it all their own way.”

  “So what should I do?”

  “If you think you can disappear,” he said, “go ahead and do it. If not, my advice is unload that inheritance. Turn it all over to some charity, every bit of it. And do it loud and clear, with your picture in the papers and everything. Just so they know.”