The Mike Hammer Collection Part 38

"Fresh on the scene. Levitt had been there some time. Days."

"Waiting for you?"

Let them think it, I figured. I wasn't cutting him in on anything. "I'm trying to find that out too," I told him. "When I do you'll get the word."

Grebb and Force got up together and headed for the door. Their inspection trip was over. They were satisfied now that I'd make a good target. Grebb looked at me through those cold eyes, still smiling twistedly. "Be sure to do that," he said.

When they were gone Pat shook his head. "You don't make friends easily."

"Who needs them?"

"Someday you will."

"I'll wait until then. Look, buddy, you know what the action is in town?"

Pat just nodded.

"d.i.c.kerson?"

He spread his hands. "We're working on it."

"How can a wheel come in already operating and not be known?"

"It isn't hard. You want to know what we have?"

"d.a.m.n right."

"Hoods are showing up from all over the country. They're all clean, at least clean enough so we can't tumble them. We can roust them when we want to, but they have nothing we can pin on them."

"How many?"

"Not an army, but let a dozen wrong types. .h.i.t town at once and it sets a pattern. Something's about to happen."

"They're not holding a convention."

"No, they're getting paid somehow. Either there's loot being laid out or they're operating under orders. There are Syndicate men in and sitting by nice and quietly waiting for the word. All we can do is wait too. In the meantime there's a shake-up in the rackets. Somebody's got the power to pull strings long enough to get action out of the Midwest and the coast. There's a power play going on and a big one. I wish I could figure it out."

He sat there drumming his fingertips on the desktop. "What do you you think, Mike?" think, Mike?"

I gave it to him straight, right down the line, laying the facts face up from the time I walked into the apartment until I reached his office. I watched his mind close around the details and put them into mental cubbyholes to hold there until he had time to a.s.similate them. But I gave him no opinions, nothing more than facts.

Finally he said, "There are some strange implications."

"Too many."

"I suppose you want something from me now."

"Yeah. Get a killer off my back."

His eyes touched mine and narrowed. "We'll do all we can. He can't get around too long with a bullet in him."

"Up to now he's been doing great."

I got up off the desk and put on my hat. "This Arnold Goodwin . . ."

"I'll get a team out on it. This is one of the implications I don't like. These are the real potential killers. Whether Torrence likes it or not, I'll see that somebody is staked out around his house. We'll keep it quiet, so what he doesn't know won't hurt him."

"Good deal. I'll see you later."

"By the way, Joey Adams called here for you. He wants to see you about something." He grinned at me. "Said he got stopped on a traffic violation and flashed his honorary badge with all the little diamonds and just found out from the arresting officer what it was good for."

"Old joke."

"Funny though."

I called Joey from downstairs and had him meet me in the Blue Ribbon. It was between the meal hours and n.o.body was there, so George and I sipped coffee until he got there.

After he ordered milk and cake I said, "What's the bit?"

"Look, you had me chasing down Sally Devon's old friends. Well, I'm up in the office when Pauline Coulter comes in to tell me what she forgot. About a week ago she ran into Annette Lee, who was with Sally when she died."

"Man, she was old then."

"She's older now, but still kicking. Annette Lee used to be a wardrobe mistress in a show Sally worked in and afterwards worked for Sally as sort of personal maid. Now how about that? You think I'll make a cop yet?"

"Not if you keep flas.h.i.+ng that police badge." I grinned.

"Come on!"

"Okay, it was a joke." I laughed. "No kidding though . . . this Lee gal might clean up a few things. It's nice to have friends in important places."

"Anytime, Mike." He pulled out a card and scribbled down an address. "Here's where she is. It's a rooming house across town. She never goes anywhere so you can always find her home."

I stuck the card in my pocket. "How about now? You free?"

"Like a bird, man."

Annette Lee had a front room downstairs in one of the countless brownstones along the street. Her pension money kept her adequately, her cat kept her company, and whatever went on outside her window was enough to keep her busy. She was a small woman, shrunken with age, but in the straight-back rocker, with tiny feet pus.h.i.+ng against the floor with tireless rhythm to keep her in motion, she had a funny pixyish quality that was reflected in her faded gray eyes.

There was no telling her accurate age, but it had crept up on her so that her talk wandered into peculiar directions and it was difficult to keep her on one track. But she remembered Sally Devon well. They had been good friends and it was Sally who had taken her in when she was sick and needed an operation, and Sally who cared for her and paid her expenses, so that when Sally needed her, she was glad to go.

She eyed us sharply when I questioned her about Sally's background, but until she was aware that I knew about her past, was reluctant to talk about it. It was Sally's earnings in the seamier side of life that paid her expenses and she was grateful. Little by little she gave it to us. Sally had left show business to take up with men, had gotten involved with the wrong ones and found herself in trouble.

Yes, she knew Sim Torrence, and although she didn't like him, thought he had done well by Sally. He had taken her in when she needed help, and if it hadn't been for Sally's drinking the marriage might have been successful. What she thought was that Sally's guilt complex for bringing a tarnished background into Sim Torrence's life drove her to alcoholism.

She remembered the night Sally died, too. Outside in the cold. Drunk. It was a shame. She couldn't revive her. I asked her directly if she thought Sim Torrence had anything to do with Sally's death.

Annette Lee gave me a shriveling glance. "Don't be silly," she said.

"Just clearing up a point," I told her.

"Then what's this all about, young man?"

"Sue thinks so."

"Sally's little baby?"

"That's right."

"Rubbish. She was only a mite."

"Maybe," I said. "But she's pretty insistent about it. One minute she has the idea Torrence was responsible, the next she says it was a snake."

Annette's face pulled into a tight expression and for a moment her eyes were less faded-looking. "Snake? Sally used to talk about that. When she was drunk. She kept mentioning the snake. Funny you should bring it up. Never thought it would make an impression on a child. Yes, she used to talk about the snake all right. But no snake killed her. She died right there in the front yard, right in my arms. Like to froze, the poor thing did, all drunk up and sick. Maybe it was for the best though."

She sat back in the rocker and closed her eyes. Too much talking was wearing her down. I motioned to Joey and we got up. "Well," I said, "thanks for the talk. Maybe I'll come back again sometime."

"Please do."

We walked to the door as the rhythm of her rocking slowed down. Just as I was about to leave it picked up again and she said, "Young man . . ."

"Ma'am?"

"They ever catch him?"

"Who's that?"

"The one who ran off with all that money. A whole lot of money. Sally's old boyfriend."

I called Joey back in and shut the door. "A lot of money?"

"Indeed. Three million dollars. Conley, I think his name was. Blackie Conley. He was a mean one. He was the meanest of them all. They ever catch him?"

"No, they never did."

With her eyes still closed she shook her head. "Never thought they would. He was a thinker. Even heard where he was going after they stole it."

"Where, Miss Lee?" I asked softly.

She didn't answer. She was asleep.

"d.a.m.n," I said.

The picture was suddenly getting a sharp outline.

I dropped Joey at his AGVA office and went back to my own where Velda was waiting. She had compiled a report on Del Penner for me and from what it looked like he was in solidly now, a natural inheritor of Kid Hand's old territory. It was a step up and he was ready for it, taking advantage of an occupational hazard. Nothing was solidified yet, but he was there and holding on.

When I finished it I got Pat on the phone, asked him if he could pull a package on Blackie Conley from the file, then told Velda to run over and pick it up. When she left I sat back in my chair and swung around so I could stare out the window at the concrete escarpment that was New York.

It was getting dark out and a mist was closing in. Another hour and it would be raining again. The multicolor neons of the city were bursting against the gray overcast like summer heat lightning and someplace across town a siren wailed. Another followed it.

Trouble out there. Trouble all over, but trouble out there all the time. Someplace was a guy with a slug in him and a gun in his hand. Someplace was Marv Kania, hurting like h.e.l.l, waiting for me to show up so he could put one in my gut too. It was Levitt who had done it, but me in his mind. I was the living one, so I did it. Screw him. Let him hurt.

Three million dollars. That could bring trouble to a city. That could bring a man back to power and buy muscle. That was big starter money and a prize for anybody.

Sim Torrence thought Blackie Conley could have made it. Okay, suppose he did. Suppose he sat on that three million all these years, afraid to spend it, not wanting to convert it because of the loss he'd take in the transaction. He just sat on it. It was power to him. Brother, he sure waited for the heat to cool, but it happens like that sometimes. Harmony Brothers sat on a million and a half for forty-one years and only told where it was on his deathbed. Frankie Boyle kept seventy thousand in his mattress for sixteen years, sleeping happily on it every night without ever touching it, then went out of his mind when the rooming house was burned down along with his unspent fortune.

So Blackie Conley got away and sat on three million for thirty years. In the last of his life he gets a power complex and wants to buy his way back in. He'd know how to do it all right. If he could stay undercover thirty years he could still do it.

Blackie Conley! Mr. d.i.c.kerson.

A big, fat possible.

Question: Why try to knock off Sue Devon? Why try to knock off Sue Devon?

Answer: A cute possible here too. If Blackie was in love with Sally, and IF Sally had a child by another man, there might be enough hatred to want the child destroyed.

There was only one thing wrong with the premise. Too many people wanted Sue dead. Basil Levitt was trying for it when Kid Hand and Marv Kania came in.

But there was an answer to that one too, a money answer. Sue was a target with a price on her head and if it was big enough the shooters would fight each other for a crack at her. Kid Hand could use the dough and make himself a big one in somebody's eyes at the same time. That could explain why Levitt came in so fast after I got there. He thought I was after head money too.

Blackie Conley, Mr. d.i.c.kerson, three million bucks. And the vultures.

Velda came in then and laid the package on my desk. Inside the folder was a picture of Conley. I had seen one like it not too long before in Sue's room. Blackie Conley was the guy in the nightclubs with Sally Devon.

His arrest history went back to when he was a child and if he was alive today he'd be eighty-two years old. There were a lot older people still around and some of them right up there with the best. Age doesn't hit everybody the same way.

Pat had included some notes for me suggesting I go into a transcript of the trial if I wanted more information on Conley since it was the last that he was ever mentioned. He was tied in with the gang and his history brought out, but since the trial was a prolonged affair it would take a lot of reading to pick out the pieces.

I looked up at Velda and she stuck her tongue out at me. "I know, you want me to do it."

"You mind?"

"No, but what am I looking for?"

"Background on Conley."

"Why don't you ask Sonny Motley?"

"I intend to, kitten. We have to hit it from all sides."