“Tell your boys to blow.”
Both of them looked up at me a little amused. When I reached for my deck of cigarettes they saw the .45 in the holster and stopped being amused. Woody Ballinger said, “Go wait in the bar.”
Obediently, they got up, went past me without another glance and pulled up stools at the bar with their backs to us. I sat down opposite Woody and waved the waiter over to bring me a beer.
“You lost, Hammer?”
“Not in this town. I live here. Or have you forgotten?” I gave him a dirty grin and when he scowled I knew he remembered, all right.
“Cut the crap. What d’you want?”
“You had your wallet lifted not long ago.”
His fingers stopped toying with his glass. The waiter came, set the beer down and I sipped the head off it. “What’s new about that? The cops found it.”
“I found it,” I said. “Yours wasn’t the only one in the pile.”
“So okay. I get my license back. There wasn’t no money in it. The bum who lifted it grabbed that. Two hundred and twelve bucks. Where’d you find it?”
“Doesn’t matter. The guy’s dead who was holding it. Somebody carved him apart for nothing. The money was all in the bank.”
“Hell, I’d sure like to get my hands on the bastard. Hittin’ me, the dirty punk. Maybe he’s better off.” Woody stopped then, his eyes screwing half shut. “Why tell me about it anyway?”
“Because maybe you might know what dips are working the area. If you don’t know, maybe you can find out.”
“What for? If the guy’s dead he ...”
“Because I don’t like to think it was the guy who was killed. So poke around. You know who to ask.”
“Go ask them yourself, buster.”
“No, you do it, Woody. I haven’t got time.” I finished my beer, threw a buck on the table and got up. When I went by the bar I tapped one of the business types on the shoulder and said, “You can go back now.”
They just looked at me, picked up their drinks and went back to their boss without a word. Ballinger chose his people carefully.
It wasn’t too long ago that the East Side past Lexington had been just one long slum section with a beautiful vitality all its own you couldn’t duplicate anywhere in the world. Then they had torn down the elevated and let the light in and it was just too much for the brilliant speculators to miss.
Oh, the slums were still there, isolated pockets nestling shoulder to shoulder with the sterile facades of the expensive high rise apartments, tiny neighborhoods waiting for the slam of the iron ball to send them into an oblivion of plaster dust and crumpled bricks. If an inanimate thing could die, the city was dying of cancerous modernism. One civilization crawling over another. Then there would be ruins laid on top of ruins. I could smell the artificially cooled air seeping from the huge glassed doorways around the uniformed doormen and thought, hell, I liked it better the other way.
Miss Heidi Anders occupied 24C, a comer patio apartment on the good side of the building where the sun came in all day and you weren’t forced to see how others lived just a ninety-degree turn away from you. The doorman announced me, saying it was in connection with the compact she had lost and I heard her resonant voice come right out of the wall phone and say, “Oh, yes, the policeman. Please send him up.”
The doorman would have liked to mix a little small talk with me but the elevator was empty and I stepped inside, pushed number twenty-four and took the ride upstairs.
I had only seen production photos of Heidi Anders, commercial pictures in the flowing gowns she generally wore in the Broadway musicals. For some reason I had always thought of her as the big robust type who could belt a song halfway across the city without a mike. I wasn’t quite ready for the pert little thing in the white hip-hugger slacks and red bandanna top that left her all naked in between. The slacks were cut so low there was barely enough hip left to hug them up. And if the knot on the bandanna top slipped even a fraction of an inch it was going to burst right off her. What got me, though, were the eyelashes she had painted around her navel. The damn thing seemed to be inspecting me.
All I could say was, “Miss Anders?”
She gave me a nervous little smile and opened the door all the way. “Yea ... but please, call me Heidi. Everybody does. Come in, come in.” Her tongue made a quick pass across her lips and her smile seemed a little forced. No wonder cops were lonely. Even if they thought you were one they got the jumps.
“Hammer. Mike Hammer.”
She took my coat and hat, slipped them on a rack, then led me into the spacious living area of the apartment. She didn’t walk. She had a gait all her own, a swaying, rolling, dancing motion that put all her muscles into play. Unconsciously, she flipped the lovely tousle of ash-blonde hair over her head, spun around with her arms spread in a grand theatrical gesture and said, “Home!”
It might have been home to her, but it looked like some crazy love nest to me. It was all pillows, soft couches and wild pictures, but it sure looked interesting. “Nice,” I said.
She took a half jump into one of the overstuffed chairs and sank down into it. “Sit, Mr. Hammer. May I make you a drink? But then, policemen never drink on duty, do they?”
“Sometimes.” I didn’t trust the couch. I pulled an ottoman up and perched on the edge of it.
“Well, they never do on TV. Now, are you the one who found my compact?”
“Yes, Ma’am.” I hoped it was the proper TV intonation.
Once again she gave me that nervous little smile. “You know, I never even realized I had lost it. I’m so glad it has been recovered. You’re getting a reward, you know.”
“I’d appreciate it if you’d just make a donation to the P.A.L.”
“The Police Athletic League? Oh, I did a benefit for them one time. Certainly, if that’s the way you want it. Do you have it with you?”
“No, you can pick it up from the property clerk after you’ve identified it. It’s a Tiffany piece so they’ll have a record of it and your insurance policy will have it described. No trouble getting it back.”
Her shoulders gave an aggravated twitch, then she ran her fingers through her beautifully unruly hair and smiled again. “I don’t know what I’m impatient about. I’ve been without it all this time, another day won’t matter. I guess it’s just the excitement. I’ve never really been involved with the police except to get my club permit and that was years ago. They don’t even do that any more now, do they?”
“No more. Look, maybe I will have that drink. Show me where the goodies are.”
“Right behind you.” She pointed. “I’ll have a small Scotch on the rocks.”
I got up, made the drinks, and when I got back she had changed from the chair to the couch looking like she was half hoping she was going to get raped. I hated to disappoint her, but I handed her the Scotch and took the ottoman again to try my tall rye and ginger. She toasted me silently, tasted her drink and nodded approvingly, then: “You know ... since you didn’t bring my compact, and you won’t accept any reward, was there something you wanted to talk to me about?”
“Not many of us get a chance to see a luscious actress in the flesh. So to speak,” I added. Her navel was still looking at me.
“You’re sweet, but you’re lying,” she smiled. She tasted her drink again, leaned forward and put it on the floor between her feet. The halter top strained uncertainly, but held.
I said, “I was hoping you might remember when and where you lost that thing.”
“Oh, but I do. I didn’t think about it at first, but when I put my mind to it I remember quite well.”
I took another pull at my drink and waited, trying to keep my eyes off her belly.
“I went to the theater to catch Roz Murray in the opening of her new show. During the intermission I went to the powder room and found it gone. I never suspected that it had been stolen, but I’m always misplacing things anyway, and I supposed I had left it at home. I was sure of it when I found that two fi
fty dollar bills and some singles were gone too. I thought I had scooped some out of my drawer before I left, but I was in such a damn rush to meet Josie to make curtain time I could have pulled a boo-boo.”
“How did you get to the theater?”
“Josie picked me up downstairs in a cab and paid the bill.”
“And you never bothered checking for it later?”
“Oh, I kind of looked around. I always keep a few hundred dollars loose in the drawer and the rest was still there and I didn’t bother to count it. I figured the compact was simply tucked away someplace else.”
I rattled the ice around in the glass and tried the drink again. “One more thing. At any time that evening do you remember being crowded?”
“Crowded?”
“Hemmed in with people where somebody could make a pass at your handbag.”
She looked thoughtful a moment, then reached down for her drink again. It was a very unsettling move. Over the glass her eyes touched mine and her tongue made that nervous gesture again, passing quickly over her lips. “No ... not really ... but, yes, while we were going in there was this one man ... well, he sort of cut across in front of us and had to excuse himself. He acted like he knew somebody on the other side of us.”
“Can you describe him?”
She squinched her eyes and mouth shut tight for a good five seconds, then let her face relax. Her eyes opened and she nodded. “He was about average height ... smaller than you. In his late forties. Not well dressed or anything .. and he had funny hair.”
“What kind of funny?”
“Well, he should have been gray but he wasn’t and it grew back in deep V’s on either side.”
I knew it showed on my face. The drink turned sour in my mouth and that strange sensation seemed to crawl up my back. She had just described Lippy Sullivan.
“Is ... something wrong?”
I faked a new expression and shook my head. “No, everything is working out just right.” I put the glass down and stood up. “Thanks for the drink.”
Heidi Anders held out her hand and let me pull her up from the depths of the cushions. “I appreciate your coming like this. I only wish...”
“What?”
“You could have brought the compact. Police stations scare me.”
“Get me your insurance policy, a note authorizing me to pick it up for you, and you’ll have it tomorrow.”
For the first time a real smile beamed across her face. “Will you?” She didn’t wait for an answer. She broke into that wild gait, disappeared into another room and was back in three minutes with both the things I asked for.
She walked me to the door and held my coat while I slipped into it. When I turned around her face was tilted up toward mine, her mouth alive and moist. “Since you wouldn’t take the reward, let me give you one you can keep.”
Very gently, she raised herself on her toes, her hands slipping behind my head. Those lips were all fire and mobility, her tongue a thing that quested provocatively. I could feel the hunger start and didn’t want it to get loose, so just as gently I pushed her away, letting my hands slide down the satin nudity of her back until my fingertips rested on the top of those crazy hip huggers and my thumbs encircled her almost to those exotic areas where there is no turning back. I heard her breath catch in her throat and felt the muscles tauten, her skin go damp under my palms, then I let her go.
“That was mean,” she said.
“So is painting that eye around your belly button.”
The throaty laugh bubbled up again and she let her hands ease down from my neck and across my chest. Then the laugh stopped as she felt the .45 under my coat, and that nervous little glint was back in her eyes.
“Tomorrow,” I said.
“Tomorrow, Mike.” But she said it like she really didn’t mean it at all.
The afternoon papers were still splashing the death of Tom-Tom Schneider all over their pages. The D.A.’s office was running a full-scale investigation into all his affairs and connections, the State Committee on Organized Crime had just been called into executive session for another joust at the underworld and anybody with a political ax to grind was making his points with the reporters. Everybody seemed agreed that it was a contract kill and two columnists mentioned names of known enemies and were predicting another gangland war.
Someplace there would be another meeting and the word would go out to put a big cool on activities until the heat had died down and someplace else a contract was being paid off and spent.
Lippy Sullivan had been forgotten. Maybe it was just as well. The guy who died on the subway station wasn’t mentioned at all either. When I finished with the paper I tossed it in the litter basket and went into the cigar store on the comer and called Velda.
When she came on I asked her how she made out at the bank and she said, “The teller remembered Lippy all right, Mike. Seemed like they always had a little something to talk about.”
“He remember the deposits?”
“Uh-huh. Tens, twenties and singles. Nothing any bigger. From what was said he gathered that Lippy was in some small business enterprise by himself that paid off in a minor fashion.”
“Nothing bigger than a twenty?”
“That’s what he told me. Oh, and he always had it folded with a rubber band around it as if he were keeping it separate from other bills. Make anything out of it?”
“Yeah. He was smart enough to cash in the big ones before depositing them so nothing would look funny.” I told her briefly about Heidi Anders identifying Lippy in the crowd.
All she said was a sorrowful, “Oh, Mike.”
“Tough.”
“Why don’t you leave it alone?”
“I don’t like things only half checked out, kid. I’ll push it a little bit further, then dump it. I wish to hell he hadn’t even called me.”
“Maybe you won’t have to go any further.”
“Now what?”
“Pat called about twenty minutes ago. He had pictures of Lippy circulating around the theater areas all day. Eight people recalled having seen him in the area repeatedly.”
“Hell, he lived not too far from there.”
“Since when was Lippy a stage fan? He never even went to the neighborhood movie house. You know what his habits were.”
“Okay, okay. Were they reliable witnesses?”
“Pat says they were positive ID’s. Someplace Lippy learned a new trade and found a good place to work it.”
“Nuts.”
“So make Pat sore at you. He’s hoping this new bit will keep you out of their routine work. Now, is there any reason why you still have to go after it?”
“Damn right. Only because Lippy said there wasn’t any reason to begin with.”
“Then what else can I do?”
“Go ask questions around Lippy’s place. Do your whore act. Maybe somebody’ll open up to you who won’t speak to me or the cops.”
“In that neighborhood?”
“Just keep your price up and you won’t have any trouble.”
She swore at me and I grinned and hung up.
I was only three blocks away from Irving Grove’s Men’s Shop on Broadway and there was still time to make it before the office buildings started disgorging their daily meals of humans, so I ducked back into the drizzle and walked to the corner. A little thunder rumbled overhead, but there were a few breaks in the smog layers and it didn’t look like the rain was going to last much longer. In a way, it was too bad. The city was always a little quieter, a little less crowded and a lot more friendly when it was wet.
Irving Grove was typical of the Broadway longtimers. Short, stocky, harried, but smiling and happy to be of service. He turned the two customers over to his clerks and ushered me into his cubicle of an office to one side of his stockroom, cleared a couple of chairs of boxes and invoices and drew two coffees from the battered urn on the desk.
“You know, Mr. Hammer, it is a big surprise to know my wallet was found. Twice bef
ore this has happened, but never do I get them back. It wasn’t the money. Three hundred dollars I can afford, but all those papers. Such trouble.”
“I know the feeling.”
“And you are sure there will be no reward?”
“The P.A.L., remember?”
He gave me a shrewd smile and a typical gesture of his head. “But you are not with the police force, of course. It would be nothing if ...”
“You don’t know me, Mr. Grove.”
“Perhaps not personally, but I read. I know of the things you have done. Many times. In a way I am jealous. I work hard, I make a good living, but never any excitement. Not even a holdup. So I read about you and ...”
“Did you ever stop to think that there are times I envy you?”
“Impossible” He stopped, the coffee halfway to his mouth. “Really?”
“Sometimes.”
“Then maybe I don’t feel so bad after all. It is better to just read, eh?”
“Much better,” I said. “Tell me, are you a theatergoer?”
“No, only when my wife drags me there. Maybe once a year if I can’t get out of it. Why?”
“Whoever lifted your wallet was working the theater crowds.”
Irving Grove nodded sagely. “Ah, yes. That is possible. I see what you mean.” He put his cup down and picked a half-smoked cigar from an ashtray and lit it. “See, Mr. Hammer, I live on the West Side. For years yet, always the same place. I close here and on nice nights I walk home. Maybe a twenty-minute walk. Sometimes I go down one street, sometimes another, just to see the people, the excitement. You understand?”
I nodded.
“So pretty often I go past the theaters just when they’re going in. I watch what they’re wearing. It helps for my trade, you know. It was one of those nights when my wallet was stolen. I didn’t even realize it until the next morning, and I couldn’t be sure until I came back to the store to make sure I hadn’t dropped it here somewhere.” Right away I reported it and canceled all my credit cards.”
“What denomination bills did you have with you?”
“Two one hundred dollar bills, a fifty and one five. That I remember. I always remember the money.”
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