The Last Cop Out Read online

  “You better watch yourself with those two, Vito.”

  “What the fuck did the Frenchman have to bring them up here for anyway?”

  “They got talent. I wouldn’t wanna mess with them unless

  I had a chopper in my hands. We had a couple like that in

  Korea. The pissers usta hold hands in formations and made it in the same sleeping bag. Their Looie never bothered ‘em. Damnedest killers I ever saw. Regular butchers and they loved it. Blood got ’em all sexed up. Y’know, they both got decorated.”

  “Well they oughta called. They’re ten minutes late.”

  “So Bray’s working overtime.”

  “Bray’s a fuckin’ machine. He never goes overtime.”

  “Then call ’em. That’s what they pay us for. To check.”

  Vito threw a nervous glance at the clock again and tossed the cards on the table. He picked up the phone, dialed the building a half block away and heard the phone ring in his ear a dozen times. “No answer,” he said.

  “Hang up and try again. Maybe you got a wrong number.”

  He held the disconnect bar down, released it and tried again. The results were the same. “Something’s wrong,” he said.

  They didn’t waste time trying to think about it. They both jumped up, yanked on their coats as they ran and cut diagonally across the street toward the building that had been so recently renovated. Nobody answered the bell, so Baldie used his key and unlocked the door, hoping it was a mistake and the fags had forgotten the routine.

  But the door only opened a few inches. He had to push it the rest of the way because of the bodies that blocked the way and all he could say when he looked at the horror on the floor was “Son of a bitch?” He said it again when they stood on the next landing looking at the inert figures of Ollie, Matt Stevenson and Woodie, who lay there with blank staring eyes and mouths contorted in agony, their hands still clutching their own dead throats. The shattered remains that had once been a paper-thin glass container meant nothing to them and they both crunched the fragments underfoot as they went up to the next level with the automatics in their fists held ready to fire.

  They saw the body of Leon Bray too, but it wasn’t the deaths that bothered them as much as what Frank Verdun was going to say. They were still thinking about it when they went into the office, hoping that somebody would be there that they could kill that could make up for their own laxity.

  Both of them were so tense that they didn’t recognize the smell of burning powder until they got close to its source and just as Baldie tried to yell for them to get the hell out of there the spark hit the charge and the two hoods dissolved into chunks and shreds of multi-colored material mixed with metal and bits of paper.

  Ten minutes later the fire department was hosing down the area and the police were herding the occupants of the other buildings to safe places. The only reporter on the scene happened to have an idea of what the building had been used for. He took off for the nearest phone and called the city desk.

  7

  She was about to open the door of the cubicle in the ladies room when she heard the two cleaning women come in and the fat one who worked on her floor say, “... and that Manny of mine should keep his big mouth shut I told him. Because he’s in that fancy Newhope Restaurant and sees her there with somebody he knows is no reason to call her boss.”

  When she heard the word “Newhope” Helen Scanlon’s hand froze on the latch. That was where Gill Burke had taken her the night before last.

  “So four calls he makes and he still can’t fine the man,” the voice went on. “I keep saying, ‘Manny, mind your own business,’ and he tells me to shut up. His own mother yet he tells to shut up.”

  No, Helen thought, he didn’t reach Frank Verdun because he hadn’t been in the office and never gave a number where he could be reached. But he’d be in now because he always got in before everybody else. She waited until they were through changing the paper towels in the racks, gave them a few minutes to be out of sight, then walked down to her office.

  None of the others were there yet, but she heard Frank Verdun’s voice on the phone in the other room and he seemed all upset about something. She made the decision quickly and when the Frenchman was off the line, she knocked and walked in. “Mr. Verdun?”

  He looked at her without feeling. “Yes?”

  “Something strange happened that you should know about.”

  “Oh? What’s that?”

  “Before I left the other day I had a call from Mr. Burke ... the one who caused all that ... damage outside. He wanted to take me to supper.”

  The Frenchman kept on looking at her, his eyes flat.

  “You had already gone, so I couldn’t tell you about it, so I went ahead and made the date to find out what he was up to.”

  “Gill Burke,” Verdun mused. His eyes weren’t so flat any more.

  “Yes. He was quite friendly. We had supper together.”

  “And did you find out what it was all about?”

  “He wanted to know about you.”

  “Mr. Burke knows about me.”

  “I gathered as much. He wanted to know more, particularly as pertains to Boyer-Reston—who comes to the office, the nature of your conversations.”

  “And you told him ...”

  “What I told him was flushable, if you know what I mean.”

  For the first time Frank Verdun allowed himself a smile.

  “What did you think of Mr. Burke?”

  “One thing,” Helen told him, “he’s a cop.”

  “True.”

  “He’s on a definite assignment and that assignment concerns you.”

  “That’s a pretty positive statement.”

  “Please don’t forget that I lived with a policeman father for a long time. I know them ... their ways, their habits, all the little wrinkles they try to pull. I even asked Mr. Burke some questions myself, but he evaded them very nicely. I wish I could tell you more.”

  “No, that’s sufficient,” the Frenchman said. “I appreciate your loyalty, Helen. I take it you don’t approve of policemen.”

  She turned on a look he couldn’t miss because Frank Verdun was a perfect reader of faces. Nobody could fool him or fake him out with an act no matter how expert they were and now he was absolutely satisfied with what he saw ... the distaste, the disgust and all the hatred that was inside himself. Her expression was real.

  And it was. The only thing the Frenchman didn’t know was that she wasn’t thinking of Gill when he asked the question. She was thinking of Frank Verdun sitting on the other side of the desk.

  The Frenchman didn’t need an answer at all. He said, “Tell me, my dear, did Mr. Burke ask to see you again?”

  “Yes, he did. I said I’d think about it. I didn’t want to make it obvious either way.”

  “Supposing you take him up on it the next time he calls.”

  Helen hesitated, drowning. “Do you think that’s very practical? Don’t you think he’d suspect I was trying to draw him out?”

  “Mr. Burke is a supreme egotist,” Verdun told her. “He isn’t capable of believing that he could be used by anyone, far less by a woman.”

  She stayed calm and bit into her lip. “Well . . . I don’t know . . .”

  “There will be a bonus in your paycheck from now on,” he said.

  She made herself smile and nodded. “All right, but if he comes on too strong I’m going to cut out. There are a few things I don’t want to get involved with.”

  “I understand,” he said. “And thank you, Helen.”

  When she left he picked up the phone and relayed orders for that shithead Manny Roth to get a working over as a reminder to keep his lip shut. Any creep like that who would get the hots by blowing the whistle on one of his people would do it to him too. When Manny got out of the hospital he could start unloading trucks over at the Philly warehouse.

  He looked at the closed door and barely smiled again. That Helen Scanlon was some doll.
He felt annoyed at himself for even listening to that Manny Roth crumb.

  The city editor of the morning paper had taken the gamble after a pair of expensive, discreet and immediate inquiries were made into the probable owners of the blasted building and the early edition hit the streets with a banner GANG WAR headline that even scooped the early TV broadcasts. The police hadn’t given out any identification of the bodies they found, but a knowledgeable resident of the area knew the score and passed it on in exchange for fifty bucks. With Jan and Lucien spotted, a quick check on the rest of Leon Bray’s personal entourage opened up other possibilities and what was hinted as being speculative was actual fact.

  Robert Lederer threw the paper halfway across the room and strode toward the leather chair banging his fist into the palm of his hand. “Damn it, Commissioner, how can we help it if somebody pulls the cork like that?”

  The burly guy in the black topcoat glared at him. “You should have had that place under surveillance.”

  “We didn’t know it was there. It had only been in operation a couple of weeks.”

  “Somebody knew it was there.”

  “Look, this can be an internal uprising and . . .”

  “Shit, man, don’t try to con me. It’s a damn gang war like the paper says it is. Something’s happening to the goddamn syndicate and we don’t know what it is. They got so many frigging bodies laying around they haven’t got room to bury them and we got the public bugging everybody from Albany to Washington to go after us for inefficiency.” He looked at Captain Long and the two inspectors beside him. “How many arrests have you made?”

  One inspector said, “Plenty, but they don’t connect up with this mess.”

  “Nobody knows anything, I suppose?”

  “That’s right, Commissioner.”

  “Don’t you use informers any more?”

  “They don’t know any more than we do.”

  “And nobody even has a single idea. Great, just great.”

  “We have a lead,” Bill Long said abruptly. “Not much, but it’s an angle.”

  “Well?” The commissioner’s voice was terse. He was tired of getting excuses for answers.

  “That body we got in Prospect Park ... part of the mutilation was similar to that on a couple other bodies a long time back. We sent Peterson out to Chicago and he called back with some information he dredged up about a guy they called Bingo who had a thing about people’s navels. He couldn’t stand them. He hasn’t been seen around about six years.”

  “Beautiful,” the commissioner said, “an absolute revelation. You’re looking for a guy nobody’s seen for six years who hated navels. Wouldn’t the papers love to get hold of that.”

  Bill Long had to grin. It did sound pretty foolish, but there was something spooky enough about it to be true, too. “At least we’ll know when we get the right guy.”

  “How’s that, Captain?”

  “Because he sliced his own navel off when he was a kid,” he told him.

  It was enough for the commissioner. He dropped the stub of his cigar in the half-empty coffee cup and walked out of the room. Before either one of the inspectors could speak, Lederer turned on Bill Long sharply. “Where did you pick up that tidbit?”

  “From your own boy, Robert.” When Lederer didn’t answer he explained, “Gill Burke.”

  “All right. What do you think?”

  “It’s the only thing that makes sense so far. We’ve had weirder things pay off before.”

  “Mr. Lederer.”

  “Yes, Inspector?”

  “What kind of cooperation is your department getting from the other cities?”

  “Total.”

  “But nothing’s come in?”

  “Everybody’s drawing a blank,” Lederer said. “Some of the heavies in the mob have hit the mattress, the big names are surrounding themselves with soldiers and a few have dropped out of sight entirely. We do know the Big Board has called a meeting, but we don’t know where or when just yet.”

  “So the only thing we got is a navel freak,” the inspector said.

  “Let’s hope it works out. Meeting’s adjourned, gentlemen.”

  The three cops said so-long and filed out to the corridor. Down by the elevator the commissioner was laughing at something Richard Case had said and they waved so-long to him too when they got in the down car. Case’s words hadn’t been audible, but there was something in the tone the cop couldn’t stand at all. The guy was a powerhouse, all right, both politically and economically and he was always buddied up to people who had the right connections, but there was still something there, a subtle greasiness whose rancidity only an old pro could begin to detect. After the door closed Long said, “That Case is a pain in the ass.”

  “Don’t knock him,” the tall inspector told him. “He helped push through the pay raises.”

  “I still don’t have to like him for it,” Long grumbled.

  Mark Shelby had gotten where he was by combining his knowledge with shrewd business acumen, guided by some primitive instinct and hunches that really were almost instantaneous computations of all the other factors. When he left for Helga’s it was always by a circuitous route that gave him ample opportunity to see if he was being followed and he was smart enough to alternate his course so as not to set any definite pattern.

  The organization had its own network of internal surveillance and he remembered what had happened to Victor Petrocinni and he wasn’t about to take any chances. Being so close to the top of Papa Menes family group, he wasn’t expected to expose either himself or the power structure to flaws in his character, especially by establishing a more or less permanent liaison with Helga. The rules were simple enough. Get laid if you have to, but do it quick and get out. There were plenty of approved whores the family made available in safe quarters where you could douse the flame and get back to business.

  But Helga was a flame he couldn’t douse, a burning fire that scorched him a year ago and kept getting hotter everyday. In the wife he kept at home, comfortably ensconced in the big house with all its expensive clutter, there was no fire at all, just a constantly harping voice that droned on and on from pursed lips set in a flabby face over a flabbier body. She still got undressed in the closet and the last time he had seen her naked, an accidental viewing by way of a partially opened bedroom door and a full-length mirror, he almost threw up.

  Helga was his dream. His wet dream, his real living dream, and regardless of the rules, she was an absolute necessity in his life and right then he was on the way to see her.

  No one was aware he was leaving the office nor saw where he went. In the basement he put on the padded topcoat, the old hat and picked up the umbrella. It was always easier in the rain with the umbrella shielding his face. Nobody would have taken him for the immaculately dressed executive whose offices took up the entire top floor of the building.

  Four blocks away he took the crosstown bus and sat in the back where he had a clear view of the street behind him, got off at the corner where Guido, his cousin, had the grocery store, went in and changed again and took the cellar exit leading to the alley that ran into the adjoining block and walked east until he waved a cab down.

  He felt satisfied and secure.

  He had paid no attention to the old man with the paper bag under his arm who had been scrounging through the garbage pail in the end of the alley. He never knew it had taken the old man almost six months of patient waiting, step-by-step following and careful anticipation to get this far. But time was the only thing the old man had, that and the monthly check that supplemented his meager pension. Right now he had a little luck going for him too, because he had managed to catch the last three digits of the cab’s license number as it went by to stop for Mark Shelby.

  When she heard the key in the lock, Helga smiled and lounged back in the couch, arms spread out across the back, the front of the yellow shortie nightgown clasped only in one spot below her half-exposed breasts, her legs twisted so Nils would be able
to see all of her in such a delicious pose he would tear his clothes off right there at the door and screw her in a magnificent animal fashion before he even said hello. She was wet and ready and her belly was starting to quiver.

  Then she saw Mark close the door and the quiver turned into a monstrous spasm of fear that squeezed out a gentle fart nobody heard but her. But Helga was a good actress. If Mark hadn’t been an even better audience he might not have overlooked the flaw in her performance, but that one sight of her, and the way she came across the room to meet him, all tanned thighs and bouncing breasts, to greet him with a tongue-thick kiss, wiped out all his thoughts except one. She was there ready for him at any time and his system was screaming for release.

  “You didn’t call first,” she teased him. “I didn’t even make the bed ready.”

  He nipped at her neck and ear lobe, his hands feeling and kneading her breasts before running down to her buttocks.

  “Who the fuck needs a bed?”

  Helga laughed playfully and grabbed his hand to lead him inside. “Then you need a drink.”

  “The hell I do.”

  She pushed him down on the couch. “Not to get you aroused, you beast.” She looked down at the swelling under his trousers. “To cool you off just a little. You are always too fast and never enjoy me when you come in like that. The next time I will wear my old ski suit and you won’t get so worked up.”

  Mark grinned at her and said, “Okay, make a drink.” She grabbed him with one hand, fondled him gently until his eyes shut then picked up the phone and dialed.

  Helga had figured out a system too. Nils didn’t like it, but it wasn’t his choice. Right now she was hoping she would catch him in time. After the fourth ring she began to worry, then Nil’s breathless voice came on and she said, “Lowery’s Liquor Store? Good. Please to send up one bottle of scotch whiskey and one of vodka.”