The Big Bang Page 11

  She made a face—on her, it looked good. "Every building's a neighborhood in that area. There's at least twenty flophouses calling themselves hotels within six blocks. Besides, Frazer moved out of the Avondale a long time ago."

  "It stinks," I said.

  "Sure it does," Velda told me. "And it won't smell any better until you stop horsing around fighting windmills."

  "Why would I want to stop, with a Sancho Panza that has your shape?"

  I tore the photos off the file cards and stuck them in my pocket, letting Velda put the rest back in her handbag. I took a sip of the watered drink, grimaced and put it down. "How about the other thing?"

  She reached over and flicked the ash of my cigarette off with a fingernail. "Your friend Tiller says not to quote him, but there's talk of promotions going around the narco squad."

  "Oh?"

  "The D.A.'s office is filled with people sporting shit-eating grins, and Washington has sent up two top men from the Treasury Department to confer with the NYPD inspector who handled all the recent narcotics busts."

  "Pat claims both local and federal agencies have put a big dent in the traffic. How big a one, I wonder?"

  "Big enough for the Syndicate's Commission to call for a general meeting—the six New York families and factions from all over America and Europe, too."

  "You're kidding."

  "No. Biggest one since Appalachia in '57. Inside sources say one is due and there's going to be some head-rolling."

  I grinned at her. "Pussycat, you are just bursting with news."

  "Naw—Bud Tiller was just playing secret agent again, trying to impress you. Maybe he thinks you need a partner."

  "I already have one, kitten."

  She paused, let out a warm chuckle, and said, "Getting back to business—the law-enforcement agencies, federal and local, are keeping all this under wraps, officially, anyway."

  I gaped at her. "Why aren't they bragging?"

  Her expression grew sly and even more catlike than usual. "Nobody seems to want to mention the fact that it wasn't superior police investigation that put such a kink in the Syndicate's drug operation."

  When she paused, I said, "Do I make a wild guess?"

  "Try it."

  "I dunno. Anonymous phone calls?"

  "You joking?"

  "You aren't laughing."

  Her forehead frowned and her mouth smiled. "How the hell can you always be so damn right, then?"

  I could feel the scowl start between my eyes and run down into my fingertips. "Are you joking now? These arrests are due to anonymous damn tips?"

  "No joke. The various agencies got calls that stated places and times, and they would have dismissed the first one as a gag if it hadn't been so accurately detailed. It was too big not to follow up ... and everything proved out."

  I gave a low whistle. "Somebody's spilling from the inside, all right. And that kind of a leak will get plugged up in a hurry."

  "Right. Which is why the feds and the cops aren't taking public bows—their success story could be all too temporary."

  "It may explain all the attention I'm getting from Assistant D.A. Traynor."

  An eyebrow arched. "There's something else, Mike."

  "Like what?"

  "After the first call? The other calls were taped."

  "Then they have a voiceprint of their tipster!"

  But she shook her head. "The lab boys tried taking a voiceprint, but everything came out scrambled. It would be impossible to identify the caller from those tapes ... even if they knew who it was."

  "Shit," I said.

  "That's your comment? 'Shit'?"

  I thought about it. "So now we have an electronics expert figure it out," I told her. "For us."

  "Who's better than the federal people?"

  "Remember Vincent Rector?"

  Her eyes widened. Of course she remembered Vincent Rector—the electronics genius who had revolutionized the hi-fi industry and developed the first videotape. Who had semi-retired to happy puttering only to have his young wife try to frame him for a divorce action. I'd put aside my usual prejudice against divorce cases, and proved that Rector had been drugged and photos of him with a hooker staged, and also got my own shots of the wife in bed with the photographer.

  Velda said, "There's nothing Rector wouldn't do for you."

  "I'll talk to Pat and get a copy of one of those tapes, and you talk to Vincent. Maybe he can tell us how you can scramble a tape so a voiceprint doesn't come through."

  "You got it."

  I took a last drag on the butt and let it fizzle out in the remains of my drink. "And tell Bud Tiller thanks. All favors are now officially paid back—strictly cash-and-carry from now on."

  Her expression was odd. "Mike..."

  "What?"

  "You got me all jumpy inside."

  "Hell of a time to discuss our love life, kitten."

  She folded her arms to her chest and shivered. "I wish it were that kind of jumpy."

  "What other kind of jumpy you mean?"

  "The in-over-your-head kind. Like ... you can't land a white shark on a twelve-ounce line."

  I looked at her and let a slow grin spread across my face.

  "You can," I said, "if you use a hand grenade for bait."

  "Really?" she asked. "And whose dead meat are you going to wrap it in?"

  If you didn't decide to go to the movies, you wouldn't have walked past the construction site where they dropped a brick on your head.

  Or if the doll you wound up marrying had never taken the wrong turn down that hall, she would never have met you.

  That's coincidence.

  You hook up with a whore, screw her silly, and catch the clap.

  That's not coincidence.

  I cut in to save a working kid's ass from three punks and two of them get killed and another hospitalized because I happen to have a client at a building where the shit went down. That's coincidence.

  A bastard tries to knife me in the back and two hit men wait for me in my own lobby to blow my brains out. That's not coincidence.

  But the trouble was conceived in coincidence, incubated in curiosity, and given birth with inquiry—all uptown in a strange backyard where the bridge and the park and the towers of Manhattan loomed behind me like the disinterested spectators they were.

  The last customers at the Village Ceramics Shoppe were having their packages wrapped while a pudgy, balding, tired-looking middle-aged man waited impatiently by the door to lock up when I edged in. He had the weary expression of minor managerial authority, so I supposed he was Mr. Elmain and said to him, "Just have to give Miss Vought a message," and brushed on past.

  There were no green smudges this time, no smock or dusty hands, just a lovely, shapely blonde in a navy blue suit topped by a pert little hat and a ready smile.

  I said, "Be a shame to get that smart outfit dirty."

  "It's suppertime, Mr. Hammer," she said. Her eyes did that little dance again. "You do eat, don't you?"

  "I'm a card-carrying carnivore. Maybe we could do it together?"

  "Do what together?"

  "Eat. Let's make it my treat."

  "What makes you think I don't already have a date?"

  "I'd be surprised if you didn't. I was hoping you'd cancel."

  That made her laugh—a nice throaty one. "And I was hoping you'd ask. Date accepted."

  She excused herself and went off to use a phone at the rear of the workshop/storeroom. I couldn't hear the conversation, but it didn't last long, and soon she was returning, her smile turned up at the corners.

  She tilted her head, pulling on her coat. "I'll try not to act frightened by your rather ... unconventional appearance."

  "Nobody ever accused me of being a pretty boy."

  "I think you'll do quite nicely," she said.

  Another Neanderthal-lover.

  "Now," she said, "where do you intend to take me?"

  I shrugged and grinned at her. "This isn't my turf, ma'am. S
uppose you pick the spot."

  She tinkled a laugh at me and nodded. "Okay, we'll try a little French place I know. It's chic, secluded, and the food is delicious. It's quite expensive, but I didn't promise to be a cheap date."

  "No, you didn't."

  She shrugged and blonde tresses bounced. "Anyway, between courses you can interrogate me."

  "Why would I want to do that?"

  "Because it's too early to do anything else."

  "It's never that early," I said.

  "No, I don't suppose it would be," she told me, with an appraising look. "Not for you, Mr. Hammer."

  I ushered her through the curtained portals from the back room into the shop, where the presumed Mr. Elmain opened the door with a smile and closed it behind us without one.

  "That's the boss?" I asked.

  "That's the boss. He's really very sweet."

  "I'll take your word for it."

  Le Petite wasn't quite what I had expected. It was in an odd little corner of the city that I wasn't familiar with. A half-dozen chauffeur-driven limousines lined the curb, the drivers clustered in a group, most of them smoking, some eating sandwiches from home, all of them talking in low tones.

  The uniformed doorman greeted Shirley Vought by name and held the door open for us. Inside, the maitre d' repeated the performance and personally escorted us to a finely carved oaken booth as though my date owned the place. The captain was equally solicitous, hovering over us as if attending a queen.

  I didn't miss the glances we got from several other tables, including a couple of envious looks from a pair of national television personalities. My mug was well-known enough to garner that kind of reaction, at least in some quarters, but I could tell the scrutiny wasn't for me ... unless it was respectable folk wondering what was a nice girl like her doing with a face like this?

  When my drink and her white wine came, she lifted her glass and asked, "Curious, Mr. Hammer?"

  I tasted my tall rye with ginger, put it down, and lit a Lucky. "You caught me off base, baby, and let's keep it on a first-name basis, okay?"

  "Certainly, Mike. Now back to your question."

  "I didn't ask one, Shirley."

  "You were about to. Let's see—how would you phrase it? Why is a working girl like me getting all this attention at such an exclusive bistro?"

  "That's a good start."

  Her smile poked fun at me a moment, then: "Don't let my occupation throw you. I happen to be independently wealthy."

  "Yeah?"

  She shrugged. "A small matter of a large inheritance. Ceramics is a hobby I've always enjoyed, and rather than be the playgirl type, I stay up to my elbows in clay and paint. I'm one of those many people who find the hobby quite therapeutic, and very rewarding."

  "So is marriage, some would say."

  Another shrug. "I tried it once. That's why I need the therapy. Incidentally, have you checked out my address?"

  "Nope."

  "No automatic background check?"

  "Nope."

  "Well, just in case you're telling the truth—it's a penthouse affair in the East Fifties."

  I let some smoke out. "We're practically neighbors—except I live halfway downstairs with the rest of the riffraff."

  "Hell to be poor, isn't it?"

  "I get by on my character," I grinned.

  "Which leads us into your next question," she said.

  "Clue me."

  But she waited until the waiter had brought our main course, and watched me try to fathom an odd taste—that's what I hate about French food, "sauces" that aren't anything but weird gravy.

  Then she said, "I'm not sure exactly what your next question would be ... just that it would have something to do with Russell Frazer, Billy Blue, or Dr. Harrin."

  I looked up from what was supposed to be veal, and waited.

  Her mouth smiled but her brown eyes were dead serious. "All roads lead to Rome, as they say. Frazer, Billy, the good doctor ... they all had some connection with the shop, and you had a connection with them, Mike. How am I doing so far?"

  "Right on the track, sugar."

  "Right in the middle, wouldn't you say?"

  "Not exactly..."

  "Then start your interrogation." She was still smiling impertinently, something of the little girl in her showing through. Spoiled rich kids have a cocky attitude that can endear or irritate, depending on the context. I was endeared ... so far.

  "Okay," I said. "How did Frazer get the job there?"

  She mulled a second, her fork poised over her plate—she was having the Dover sole, and I wished I was.

  "Russell came in about a year ago," she said. "He had been making deliveries for another company in the area—paper supplies, shipping materials—and we were one of his stops. He seemed to be genuinely interested in ceramics, and when the shop expanded, Mr. Elmain asked him if he'd like to work there. Russell grabbed at the chance."

  "You ever see his apartment?"

  "No. I told you, Mike, we weren't close."

  "Regular lover-boy bachelor pad, and a closet full of Carnaby Street. Trust me, he spent a lot more than he made with you."

  She shrugged noncommittally. "Maybe he had a sideline."

  I shook my head. "I think the ceramics shop was the sideline."

  Now she frowned, interested, confused. "Sideline for ... what?"

  "Beats me," I lied.

  Shirley studied her plate a few seconds, as if looking for permission there, then looked up. "I don't know if you've run across this in your investigations, Mike, but you know, Russell ... he liked to gamble."

  "Didn't know that. Care to elaborate?"

  "Well, I know he played the numbers. Could he have hit one, from time to time?"

  I shook my head. "Daily players don't lay out that much, so the take couldn't have accounted for his assets."

  She sat forward, the brown eyes alert. "But that isn't all—I heard him call in horses occasionally. Supposing he parlayed one chunk of money into something really big?"

  "It's possible," I agreed, "but luck rarely runs like that. For the guys who make a profession of gambling, maybe. For small-timers like Frazer likely was, it's generally a washout."

  Her eyes tensed. "Then ... where would he get that kind of cash?"

  "That's one of the things I'm going to find out."

  "Mike..."

  "What?"

  "You told me that ... that Russell tried to kill you."

  I nodded and filled her in on most of it. The rest involving the drifter Brooke, she had read in the papers. Now she watched me, frowning. Finally she asked, "Are you sure Russell tried to kill you?"

  "Take it from an old soldier, doll. He made a damned good try at it. If I hadn't had my mind on other things, I would've known it wasn't some punk trying to mug me."

  Her eyes squinted up and she cocked her head. "Mike—you said we're practically neighbors."

  "Uh-huh."

  "Two men were killed in the lobby of—"

  "My building. Nothing to do with you, sugar. Maybe nothing to do with me, either."

  Her tongue dampened her lips and she laced her fingers together, not able to take her eyes from mine. For an instant there, she was looking at me as if I were something that just crawled out of a hole. It was a look I'd seen before.

  I wasn't about to louse up my story, so I said, "Last week there was a mob killing down on the corner. Two days later, the bank a block away was hit. Who knows what's going to happen anymore? This is big bad New York, honey."

  The cloud left her eyes and she shrugged. "I guess you're right, Mike. But it is kind of frightening, isn't it?"

  "Especially when you see it for the first time. To me, it's everyday stuff. I only get bugged when it's my ass somebody is after."

  For some reason, that made her smile. Then I figured it out, and said, "I get it—you're used to having guys after your ass."

  She didn't blush or pretend to be shocked. She just said, "Like you said, Mike—everyday s
tuff."

  For a few minutes we ate in silence, then her eyes drifted upward again. "Why do you do it, Mike? Put yourself at risk, I mean. There must be safer jobs."

  "Safer, but not as satisfying. Anyway, day in day out, my work is routine. Recovering lost property, finding missing kids, looking into insurance claims. But it does have its moments."

  "I know. I've read about some of them...."

  "Don't believe everything you read in the papers."

  "Oh?"

  "Some of it is worse."

  She managed a tiny smile, then asked, "Does it bother you to kill somebody? Or is there a ... rush of some kind?"

  I thought about it, then felt around for an answer. "There's no thrill to it, if that's what you mean. If you're in a firefight, sure there's a rush. But killing itself.... If it has to be done, all I can say is that I don't feel any remorse afterward."

  Her expression was blank but somewhere behind it, she was disturbed. "How do you justify killing somebody?"

  "No sense in trying."

  "No ... remorse?"

  "It's either you or them. When it comes to survival, I want to be on the breathing end. Remorse doesn't enter in."

  She shuddered, just a little. "I would think killing someone would always bring remorse to somebody."

  I shrugged. "Sometimes it brings relief to the survivors."

  Shirley shook her head slowly. She was getting a crash course in the cost of being attracted to Neanderthals. "What about Dr. Harrin's son? He took that awfully hard."

  "Grief and remorse are related, but not the same animal." I was lighting up another smoke. "It hit the doc hard because that kid died too young, too early. Did you know the boy?"

  She nodded. "He came in the store a few times, to pick up some things for the hospital. Twice the doctor was with him ... and when he came back, after his son died? I couldn't get over how Dr. Harrin had changed. He looked ten years older."

  "I didn't know him before, so I've got no basis for comparison."

  "Well, trust me on this, he was a vital older man, very upbeat, very jovial ... clowned around with everybody, and had a real interest in the ceramics project he had going in the children's ward. After his son died, though, he seemed to lose interest. Oh, he kept things going with the program, but he didn't have that personal involvement anymore. Billy Blue managed everything for him."