For one of the few times in my life, I didn’t know what to think. Or what to do.
THREE
Two hours later I still didn’t know what to think. I was in the hotel room, sitting kind of dazed in one of the three chairs and surrounded by confusion.
My phone call to Headquarters had started it all.
The police photographers had come and gone, the fingerprint squad had gone over the entire room as if they were looking for a planted bomb, and some noisy newspaper men had bounced in and bounced right out before the firm hands of four of the biggest policemen in captivity.
Monks was there, Hadley was there. Lieutenant Hadley now, since Mike had moved up. Cigarette smoke filled the room. A police steno had taken my statement and I had signed it but it had sounded thinner and weaker than bad coffee.
Only one thing stayed the same. Walsh was still lying on the floor by the door as big as life. As big as my biggest mistake could be. Someone had had the decency to throw a sheet over him. That’s one thing about your big mistakes. They grow on you if they’re still staring you in the eye.
I needed a cigarette bad. My pack was empty. Somehow I couldn’t bring myself to bum one from any of the bunch in the room. The four big cops were giving me looks that are strictly reserved for landlords who don’t give heat in the winter. Hadley had that prominent lower lip of his pushed out and Monks was slowly stalking up and down the length of the two windows, his big mitts buried in coat pockets.
Me, I felt George. Real George. A nice, big kid of a cop was dead and even though I hadn’t pulled the trigger, I might just as well have.
Nobody was saying much. Monks had pumped me drier than a well in a hot summer. I’d given him everything I had, skipping all the wisecracks and fancy patter I’d ever learned. I leveled with him as much as I could about Mr. Arongio. You see, a private cop getting mixed up in police cases is one thing. But a private cop getting mixed up with a cop killing, that’s like nothing there ever was.
The awesome silence of the official bunch in the room had told me as much. I was beginning to feel smaller than an ant walking across Yankee Stadium.
Suddenly I couldn’t take it any more. I straightened out of my chair and six pairs of police eyes swung on me like indicators on a gasoline gauge. Monks, Hadley, and the four little boys in blue.
“Let up, for God’s sake,” I rasped. “I didn’t kill the kid.”
A dark thundercloud blew up in the face of one of the cops. A big pair of hands started to reach toward me.
“Watch your lip. We’re not going to take any guff from you.”
I ignored him, feeling my own gorge rising. I looked at Monks.
“Okay, Mike,” I said quietly. “I played ball. I did it by the numbers. Your way. I took along a regular cop on a regular police investigation. I had a lead. A hot one. Walsh was good. Very good. He clicked on all six and used his noodle. But he slipped. Just once. That’s all it takes. He rushed an armed man with only his night stick. Okay. So now I’m left holding the bag. And all of you have been giving me the business for the past sixty minutes. Christ, do you think I wanted the kid dead? Do you think it’s my idea?”
“Shut up, Ed!” Monks’ voice was a flat, clipped bark that cut me dead. Hadley shifted his bulk, his slight paunch poking out at me. His lower lip was still pushed out but his eyes were sad. Hadley wasn’t going to say anything. Pro or con. I’d saved his life once but it wouldn’t help me now.
“Okay, Mike.” I turned to a big cop that had edged in on me. I suddenly saw the Sergeant’s stripes on his sleeve. “Get it off your chest, Sarge. You’ve got something to say. Say it.”
The Sergeant flashed a look at Monks. Captain Monks. The Captain’s broad shoulders shrugged. I couldn’t recognize his voice the way it muttered, “Go ahead, Dan. It’s your privilege.”
Dan’s beefy face swung back to me. I saw the face of a cop who’d been on the force more years than I’ve been alive and damn proud of it.
“Noon, you’re through. The Department isn’t makin’ any more deals with your kind. No matter what luck you’ve had in the past. This finishes it. And I’m warnin’ you. The first time you step over the line, any complaints at all, we’ll not only be havin’ your license, we’ll make certain a prison rap goes along with it. That’s the way it is from now on. Now get your hat and get the hell out of here.”
I looked at Monks again. His flat, funny-looking face was cold and unfriendly. I wouldn’t have minded the song and dance coming from him, but taking it from a proud antique of the force made it hard to swallow. The hot lump in my throat wouldn’t go down.
“Is that official, Mike?”
“That’s it, Ed.”
“I see.” I couldn’t think of anything else to say. The new promotion had made some pretty big changes. Hadley looking uncomfortable about it all nearly made me laugh. But the faces of the other five kicked the notion right out of me.
“Stay out of the way, Ed,” Monks rasped away at my nerves some more. “You’re out of this investigation altogether. The Department …”
“… takes care of its own.” I finished the old theme song for him. “Yeah. I know.” I got my hat and started for the door. When I reached it, I turned instinctively. Just in time to see the old thirty-year man, Dan, starting to raise a pointed shoe in purple-faced anger.
My turn checked him and his cheeks blew his rage out in a noisy blast of air. Our glances locked. I stared him down. I was feeling pretty ugly myself right then.
“Never kick a man, Dan,” I said quietly. “Especially when he’s down and when his back is turned toward you. And most especially when he’s young enough to be your own son.”
I closed the door behind me with a terrific slam that left a silence loud enough to be heard in outer space.
Going down in the elevator, I kept thinking of just two things. The awful thing that had happened to Walsh. That and something else.
The address that small, redheaded Mrs. Arongio had given me when she hired me to shadow her husband.
FOUR
It was a number on Minetta Street. It was a job finding it but New York cabbies are pretty good at their chosen profession. It was just below West Third in the Village. You cut down a narrow street that was called Minetta Lane and turned off into an even narrower one that was also street-signed Minetta.
I got out of the cab just where the Street bisected the Lane. The Street surprised me. It seemed no wider than a bowling alley, with the sidewalks a short spit apart. It was a street you might find in Paris. But this was Greenwich Village and the block curved like a bow off into Sixth Avenue.
I checked my watch more from force of habit than anything else. It was close to six-thirty. In the five hours or more since I’d picked up Mr. Arongio’s trail, a lot of things had happened. All bad. A ball player named Lake had been murdered in the Polo Grounds and a big cop named Walsh had earned his widow, if he had one, a pension. And I was still tailing the mysterious Mr. Arongio. A man who got around like a bull in the well-known china shop.
Also, the cops had crossed me off the list, closed the iron door on me. But the thing that hurt the most was Mike Monks giving me the business like he had. Me, who’d helped him earn his damn promotion.
I stopped feeling sorry for myself and got down to business. Mrs. Arongio had told me Minetta Street and here I was.
It was midway down the block, a six-storied atrocity that stuck up like a giant among the rest of the buildings that were left. I squeezed into a cheesebox-sized hallway and found a row of ten mailboxes. ARONGIO stared up at me from the last one on the line. Apartment 5, right side. That was it.
I tried the door leading into the place. It was open. It figured. It was only April but the weather had been hot and sticky lately and people get careless when they’re all sweated up and uncomfortable.
I swung up the stairwell, shaking off a feeling of claustrophobia all the way. The place was no bigger than the inside of a drum. And a helluva lot hotter.
The next time I saw Arongio I was making damn sure it was over a gun barrel. He was one impulsive guy.
I crouched and peered through the keyhole. One look was just enough.
Cursing, I hit the door with my good shoulder. The one Arongio hadn’t mistaken for a bell cord. The panel crashed in and slammed back against the inside wall.
I pushed in quickly, got it closed behind me, and put my gun away. I wouldn’t be needing it this time. Not for a while anyway.
The dame on the floor was Mrs. Arongio. The one room—that’s all that it was—was as upside down as a mining town on Saturday night. And so was she.
She was half on the floor, half on a flashy divan, one long white leg hooked into the back rest like she’d been stealing third. She must have been interrupted packing. A half-stuffed suitcase yawned open on the floor.
Someone had given her a terrible beating. And nearly killed her doing it.
She was still breathing when I got to her.
FIVE
The little redhead had taken quite a going-over. My finding her alive was strictly an accident. Whoever had worked her over had probably left her for dead.
She’d put up quite a battle though. The tiny room was chaos. What little furniture there was, the flashy divan, two chairs, an end table, and a feeble attempt at a bookcase, had changed position so many times that most of her blood was all over them.
I didn’t ask myself why, with the racket that must have been going on while Mrs. Arongio was taking her lumps, none of the good neighbors had called the cops or tried to help at all. Greenwich Village is a strange place.
I flipped a towel off the rack near the sink, hit the faucet hard, and made a fast, damp compress. I went back to where she was, unhooked the long white leg that was caught in the divan, and straightened her out on the floor. I eased a couple of red pillows under her head. Then I mopped away at the red on her face until I could find where her mouth was. A groan bubbled past her lips surrounded by a crimson froth of blood. I grimaced and mopped away until the towel in my hand resembled a red flag.
I rinsed it out at the sink. While the water was gurgling in the basin, I rummaged in the tiny kitchenette that was practically part of the same room. The gods were good. A fifth of Schenley’s was tucked away in the cupboard of a one-door closet.
Another groan came from behind me. I got back to her fast. The hell with a glass. I cupped a hand under her red thatch of hair, lifted it, and tilted the bottle right into her mouth. Giving it to her baby-style seemed the best way.
It was. The burn of the alcohol seared through her ruined mouth, fired her throat. She coughed, gagged, and sprang half erect like a person waking from a bad dream. I grabbed her by both shoulders, keeping her from flying off the point of no return. It was just about time for the shock of the beating to set in.
She looked at me, wild-eyed, a maniac for a minute. Her tongue pushed out through her battered lips. It was worse than I’d thought. She had two teeth less than the last time I’d seen her. Both of her eyes were starting to purple and her nose would never be the same again. Somebody’s big fist had made a swollen masterpiece of it.
“Hello, Mrs. A.,” I said as her eyes fought to place me in the proper position in her life. “Ed Noon. I came to make my report.”
“Oh, my God!” she said.
“Not as bad as all that.” I tried to smile. “Take another pull at that bottle.”
“Oh, my God!” she said again.
I’m not much at calming hysterical women. Nobody is, really. But you have to try.
“Come on. Get up. Stretch your legs. You’ll feel better.”
She got up all right. She practically bounced out of the side pocket. Right at me.
“A mirror!” she wailed. “Geez, get me a mirror before I lose my mind!” She didn’t shout because she couldn’t. The beating had put a frog in her throat so that her voice was hoarse and unrecognizable.
Women. I’m not the kind of a guy that carries a mirror. Besides that, I had about ten thousand questions to ask her. But you have to humor a woman. Especially a hysterical one. I found a mirror, a long-handled bedroom job on top of the wooden bureau by the door.
She scraped it out of my fingers, pawed to get it turned the proper way, stared at it for a full two minutes. Then she screamed. What I mean screamed. Frog, hoarse throat, and all. I was too late to catch her. She took the floor with a thud in the deadest faint this side of a third-rate play.
Sighing, I helped myself to the bottle. I straightened out one of the chairs and sat down. I was tired. Dead tired and confused. My head was popping with ideas, but none of them would graduate into solutions. So I just sat and drank till she made up her mind to revive. Either way, I let nature take its course.
It took all of ten minutes. She sat up slowly, pulled what was left of her torn bathrobe into a semblance of something, and sagged down again on the divan. Her small, rounded shoulders heaved and kicked with the waterfall she cascaded. I sat and fumed and waited.
Suddenly her head came up to where I could see her face again.
“Give me a cigarette,” she said.
That was better. I dug out my pack and gave her one. She let me light it for her and I was surprised that the butt wasn’t shaking at all. What I could see of her eyes between the mounds of purple flesh were two chunks of ice. Dry ice.
“You didn’t tell me the truth this morning,” I suggested.
“No, I didn’t,” she whispered in a dead voice. That was my cue.
“You gave me fifty bucks to tail your husband on the premise that he was holding hands with some other chick. That wasn’t so.”
“You’re telling,” she said dully. Like she was too tired to fight. Any more that is.
“Yes I am,” I said quietly. I didn’t want her flying off again. “From the actions of your husband who went to a hotel boiling mad, came out the same way and his similar behavior at a ball park, I’d say the shoe was on the wrong foot. Your husband was packing a gun and he just couldn’t or wouldn’t take his eyes off a bush-league third baseman I’ve never heard of until this afternoon. A good-looking kid named Lake.”
She kept inhaling on the butt like it was marijuana. She needed that cigarette bad.
“So what?”
“So I’m not the smartest man in the world. But when a wife hires me to shadow her hubby and her hubby acts madder than a wet hen and I find my client worked over as a jealous husband can work over a faithless wife, I put two and two together and I get a triangle. You were playing footsie with this Lake and you hired me just to protect Lake. Your husband had found out about him somehow and you knew he was a violent man—your present condition is proof enough of that—so you put me on him just so I might be around to prevent what happened this afternoon at the Polo Grounds.”
Conversation is a wonderful thing. Certain words especially. Her head swung up in my direction, like a dog who points for a living. Her eyeballs rolled and she fought with her tongue.
“What are you giving me, what do you mean … ?”
“Easy, sister. Your husband had nothing to do with that. Even though he played with the idea for six or seven innings.”
You’d never know she was a thoroughly whipped dame the way she lunged from the divan and came over to me. She rocked above me, her tiny hands knotting and unknotting.
“Tell me. Now. Quick. What are you trying to tell me?”
I put the bottle down.
“Lake is dead. Somebody killed him. Somebody on the ball field. Seems like he had a lot of guys mad at him. Mad enough to kill him.”
Her eyes went dead again. She swayed, then caught herself. She grabbed the bottle and got a whole lot of it down in a hurry. She brushed at her mouth and coughed some more. She w
ent back to the divan and sat down. The bathrobe fell away from the long white legs but she wouldn’t have cared if she had been naked. I wouldn’t have cared either. At ten o’clock this morning she had been the cutest redhead I had ever hired out to.
“It’s not too hard to figure about you and Lake,” I kept on talking while she caught her breath. “Not after I got here. You see, Minetta Street is a new one even on me. I’d never heard of it before. Naturally, when you gave me the address this morning, I assumed it was your family number. After all, a fancy antique dealer can afford better than this or else I’ve been sadly misinformed. Your husband must have gotten the address out of Lake’s room at the hotel.” I skipped the part about Walsh. I didn’t even want to remind myself about that cop. “And by the looks of that half-packed trunk on the floor there, you and Lake were planning to go bye-bye today after the game. But he went bye-bye before you both could. I guess my good pal Mr. Arongio got the same idea when he broke in on you. If he didn’t then he beats you up like that just for laughs.”
“Jesus Christ, how you like to yak it up!” she snarled. “Why don’t you go on the radio?” Under all the iron though, I could see Lake’s murder had hit her like nothing else had. Or ever would.
“Yeah, why don’t I?” I agreed amiably. “I’ll tell you why. Because right now I couldn’t get permission to shoot myself.”
“I got troubles of my own.”
“Why did you marry him, sister? You and Arongio don’t match in my book.”
She sneered. “The hell with your book, Mister. He got me out of the chorus, that’s what marrying him meant to me. He had dough. Big dough. I saw a chance for Easy Street. But I was wrong. Dead wrong. He kept me cooped up. No fancy furs, no sables, no diamonds. All he had time for was those damn relics of his! Not a real, live woman …” Her breathing was animal hot now, “And that God-damn Poe of his. Filling the house with all that junk from the past. Stuffed birds and guns and old rocking chairs. Well, I had it, that’s all.” She ran down like a clock, catching her breath in gasps.
Dead Game Page 3
