Survival...Zero Read online

  “Afraid I’ll scoop you on your own program?”

  Eddie finished his first piece of pie, washed it down with half a glass of milk and reached for the other. “Sure, man,” he grinned. “No, it’s just funny, is all. Remember when I did the news for the Washington, D.C., station? Well, I got to know a lot of the local citizenry. So when I went down to the hospital I spotted a couple of familiar faces. One was Crane from the State Department. He said one of his staff was in with an appendectomy and he was visiting. Then I saw Matt Hollings.”

  “Who’s Hollings?”

  “Remember that stink about the train loaded with containers of nerve gas out West ... the stuff they were going to dump in the ocean only they wouldn’t let it travel across the country?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Hollings was in charge of the project originally,” Eddie said. “So when I saw Hollings and Crane talking I checked on Crane’s friend. She was there with an appendectomy, all right, but she was a young girl in the steno pool who had only been with State six weeks. Seems funny they could have gotten that close in such a short time.”

  “She could have been a relative.”

  “Unlikely. The girl was a native Puerto Rican.”

  “Guys and gals are a strange combination,” I said.

  “Not with a wife like Crane’s. Anyway, it was a coincidence and I don’t like coincidences. They get admittance, we get the boot. All because some bum twitches to death on a subway platform. If they got a make on him it wouldn’t have been so bad, but there was no identification at all.”

  “It’s a shame you guys work so hard for a story,” I laughed.

  Eddie finished his pie and milk, belched gently and got up. “Back to the grind, buddy. I got to get my garbage ready for tonight.”

  I looked at him, nodded silently and watched him leave. Eddie Dandy had just told me what I had forgotten. Damn, I thought.

  Outside it had started to rain.

  The kid perched on the steps of the brownstone lifted the cardboard box off his head and peered up at me. The super, he said, went down to the deli for his evening six-pack of beer. From there he’d go to Welch’s Bar, have a few for starters, tell some lies and make a pass at Welch’s barmaid before he came home. That wouldn’t be for another hour yet. Smart, these kids. Twelve going on thirty. I tossed him a quarter and he put the box back on his head so he could listen to the rain hammer on it and ignored me.

  I didn’t bother to wait for the super. I went to the back of the hallway, found the stairs to the basement and snapped my penlight on. I had to pick my way around the clutter of junk to the bottom, then climb over trash that had been accumulating for years before I came to the current collection. Four banged up, rusted cans, each half filled with garbage, were nested beside the crumbling stairwell that led to the backyard and the areaway to the street. Tomorrow was collection day.

  Garbage. The residue of a man. Sometimes it could tell you more than what he saved.

  I turned the cans over and kicked the contents around on the floor, separating the litter with my foot. A rat ran out over my toe and scurried away into the darkness. Empty cans, crumpled boxes and newspaper made up most of the contents, the decayed food smell half obscured by the fumes from some old paint-soaked rags at the bottom of one can. A fire inspector would flip over that. There was a pile of sticky sawdust in a stained shopping bag that was all that was left of Lippy. It almost made me gag. Farther down was some broken glass, two opened envelopes and a partially crushed shoebox. The envelopes were addressed to Lipton Sullivan. One was a notice from the local political organization encouraging him to vote for their candidate in the next election. The other was a mimeographed form letter from a furniture store listing their latest sale items.

  I tossed them back and picked up the box, ripping the folded-in top back with my fingers.

  Then I was pretty sure I knew where all of Lippy’s bank deposit money had been coming from. The box was loaded with men’s wallets and some goodies that obviously came from a woman’s purse. There was no money anywhere.

  My old friend Lippy had been a damn pickpocket.

  Velda was already at my apartment when I got there, curled up like a sleek cat at the end of the sofa, all lovely long legs that the miniskirt couldn’t begin to hide and a neckline it didn’t try to. Those gorgeous breasts were still high and bouncy, flaring out in a wild challenge, her stomach flat until it took that delicious swell outward into her thighs and always that silky pageboy of auburn hair framing a face that was much too pretty for anybody’s good.

  “You look obscene,” I said.

  “It’s a very studied pose,” she reminded me. “It’s supposed to have an effect on you.”

  “And it does, kitten. You know me.” I tossed the box on the coffee table.

  “Why don’t you get out of those wet clothes and then we’ll talk.”

  “Don’t mind the garbage smell,” I said. “It’s a dirty business. Make me a drink and take a look at that stuff. Don’t touch anything. I’m going to take a hot shower. This racket is beginning to get to me.”

  The impish grin she had greeted me with was lost in the look of concern and she nodded. I walked into the bedroom, peeled off my coat, yanked the .45 from the shoulder rig, tossed it on the dresser and got rid of the rest of my clothes. I spent fifteen minutes under a stinging needle spray, got out, wrapped a towel around my middle and walked back into the living room trailing wet footsteps.

  Velda handed me my drink, the ice clinking in the glass. “Now you look obscene. Why don’t you ever dry yourself off?”

  “That’s what I got you for,” I said.

  “Not me. I’d only make you wetter.”

  “Someday I’m going to marry you and legalize all this nonsense.”

  “You know how long I’ve been hearing that?”

  I tasted the drink. She’d hit the blend right on the button. “At least you’re engaged,” I said.

  “The longest one on record.” I grinned at her and she smiled back. “That’s okay, Mike. I’m patient.” Her eyes drifted toward the box on the table. She had dumped out the contents and sorted things out with the end of a ball-point pen. “Sorry about Lippy, Mike. Pretty disappointing. I always had him figured for a right guy.”

  “He gave that impression,” I said. “What do you make of it?”

  “Plain enough. Somebody knew what he did in his spare time and tried to heist his take. He wouldn’t tell where he hid it because it wouldn’t have done any good since it was in the bank. So he was killed. Getting rid of the stuff is part of the pattern. They take the money and dump the rest. He probably could have tried using some of the credit cards in those wallets, but that doesn’t fit a pickpocket’s usual routine.”

  “Sure looks that way.”

  “You go through any of that yet, Mike?”

  “I didn’t have time. Why?”

  “Because Lippy didn’t hit just anybody. That’s the money crowd you see there. Wait until you check it out. If Lippy was a working dip he wouldn’t be allowed inside their circles. He even got to a woman.”

  “I saw that compact.”

  “Gold with real diamonds. Expensive, but not pawn-able.”

  “Why not?”

  “Look at the hallmark and the inscription. It’s a Tiffany piece given to Heidi Anders.”

  “The actress?”

  “The same. The donor signed himself Bunny, so we’ll assume it’s Bunny Henderson with whom she’s been seen these last few months. Playboy, jet setter, ne’er do well, but carries a load of power in his back pocket.”

  “What’s it worth?” I asked her.

  “My guess about five thousand. But that would be nothing to her. She’s loaded with gems. To her that compact was more utilitarian than ornamental. I’m surprised a pickpocket specializing in wallets would tap a woman’s handbag.”

  “Women aren’t generally wallet carriers, kitten. He could have gotten a handful of money and that at the same time.�
�

  “Your buddy got plenty.” She nodded toward the table. “Check it.”

  I walked over and took a look at some of the wallets she had spread open. All of them were expensive leather items, the plastic windows filled with top-rated credit cards. I picked up a pen and turned a few of them over, then stopped and tapped the inside of the large pigskin job. The top half of two pink pieces of cardboard were sticking up out of the slot. “There’s your answer, kid. Theater tickets. He was working the new Broadway openings. Those ducats are being scalped at fifty bucks a pair which is a little more than the ordinary workingman can afford.”

  “Mike ... those bank deposits. They weren’t all that big.”

  “Because the people he was hitting didn’t work with cash. They’re all on the credit card system. But at least he knew he was always sure of something.”

  “You missed something, Mike.”

  “Where?”

  Velda pointed to the worn black morocco case at the end. “He didn’t have any credit cards, but there’s a driver’s license, some club memberships and a very interesting name on all of them.”

  I finished half my drink, put my glass down and studied the wallet. Ballinger. Woodring Ballinger. Woody Ballinger to his friends and the cops alike. Big-time spender, old-time hood who ran a tight operation nobody could get inside of.

  “Great,” I said.

  “He could have run Lippy down and put some heat on him.”

  “Not Woody. He wouldn’t take the chance. Not any more. He’d lose his dough and let it go at that.”

  “So it had to be someone who knew what Lippy was doing.”

  “Pat still has two sets of prints he’s checking on.”

  “What will you do with this stuff?”

  “Take it down to Pat tomorrow and let them process it. The suckers will be glad to get their credit cards back.”

  “Mike ...”

  “What?”

  “You could have brought this right to Pat, you know.”

  “Yeah, I know. And they could have gone to the trouble of poking around in Lippy’s garbage too.”

  “That puts you right in the middle. You’re going to stick your neck out again”

  “Something’s too off balance for me. If Lippy were big enough they’d be giving this a rush job like they are with Tom-Tom Schneider. Everything gets priority when you’re a big name. So now Lippy goes down in the books as a pickpocket knocked off for his loot. Maybe one day they’ll get his killer on another charge. End of story.”

  “But not for you.”

  “Not for me.”

  Velda shook her head and gave a mock sigh. “All right, I took down the names and addresses of everybody heisted. The list is over there.” She pointed to a half-used steno pad on the TV set.

  “You always try to outthink me, don’t you?”

  “Generally,” she said. A smile started in the comer of her eyes.

  “Know what I’m thinking right now?”

  With a quick motion of her hand she reached out and flipped the towel from around my waist and let it fall to the floor. Those beautiful full lips parted in the rest of the smile and she said, “Yes, I know what you’re thinking.”

  CHAPTER 3

  Pat made a big production out of the glare he was giving me, but the edge was all mine because his group should have found the stuff in the first place, not me. It’s great to be public-spirited, but not when you’re soaking wet, stinking from cellar garbage and alone with a beautiful broad.

  He finally said, “Okay, Mike, you’re off the hook, but you can still get a stinger up your tail if the D.A.’s office decides to probe.”

  “So cover for me,” I told him. “Now, any of that stuff reported missing?”

  Pat flipped through the report sheets on his desk and nodded. “Practically all of it. The credit cards have been canceled, two license renewals have been applied for and you’ll be three hundred dollars richer. Reward money.”

  “Forget it. That way the D.A.’ll really nail it down. How about that compact?”

  “Miss Heidi Anders thought she had mislaid it. She never reported it as missing or possibly stolen. Incidentally, it was well insured.”

  “Great to be rich. Did any of them know where the stuff was lifted?”

  “Not specifically, but they all felt it was on the street somewhere. Three of them were positive it was in the theater area, William Dorn pinpointed his on Broadway outside of Radio City Music Hall. He had used his wallet money to pay off a cabbie and remembered being jostled in the crowd outside the theater. A block later he felt for the wallet and it was gone.”

  “How did Ballinger take it?”

  Pat shrugged and put the reports back in the folder. “Surly as usual. He said he had a couple hundred bucks in his wallet that we could forget about. Getting his driver’s license back is good enough. We can mail it to him.”

  “Nice guys are hard to find.”

  “Yeah,” Pat said sourly. “Look, about those rewards. My advice is to take them before they insist and put through an inquiry that might attract attention.” He tore a sheet off his memo pad and passed it to me. “Irving Grove, William Dorn, Reginald Thomas and Heidi Anders. There are the addresses. You don’t exactly have to lie, but you don’t have to mention you’re not with the department.”

  “Hell, cops don’t collect rewards.”

  “People are funny. They like to do favors too.”

  “I’ll donate it to the Police Athletic League.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “What about Lippy, Pat?”

  “Hard to figure people out, isn’t it? You think you know them, then something like this happens. It isn’t the first time. It won’t be the last. Someday we’ll nail the guy who did it. The file isn’t closed on him. Meanwhile, just leave it alone. Don’t bug yourself with it.”

  “Sure.” I got up and tossed my raincoat over my shoulder. “Incidentally, any news on Tom-Tom Schneider?”

  “He thumped his last thump. A contract kill. One of the slugs matched another used in a Philly job last month.”

  “Those boys usually dump their pieces after a hit.”

  “Maybe he was fond of it. It was nine millimeter Luger ammo. Those pieces are getting hard to come by.”

  “How’d you do with that body in the subway?” I asked him.

  Pat’s face stiffened and he stopped swinging in his chair. His eyes went cold and narrow and his voice had a bite to it. “What are you getting at, Mike?”

  I stuck a cigarette in my mouth and held a match to it. “Just curious. You know how I pick up bits and pieces of information. New York isn’t all that tight.”

  He didn’t move, but I saw his knuckles whiten around the arms of his chair. “Buddy, how you get around is unbelievable. Why the curiosity?”

  I took a guess and said, “Because you have every available man checking the guy out. Even some Feds have moved in, but when it comes to Lippy it’s a one-day deal.”

  For a moment it looked like Pat was going to explode, then he looked at me, his mind trying to penetrate through mine to see if I was guessing or not. It was my mention of the Feds that put the frown back on his face again and he said, “Damn,” very softly and let go the arms of the chair. “What do you know, Mike?”

  “Want an educated opinion?”

  “Never mind. It’s better that you knew so you wouldn’t be guessing in front of the wrong people.”

  I took a pull on the butt and blew a shaft of smoke in his direction. “So?”

  “A sharp medic in the hospital didn’t like the symptoms. They autopsied him immediately and confirmed their suspicions. He was infected by one of the newer and deadlier bacteria strains.”

  “Unusual?”

  “This was. The culture was developed in government laboratories for C.G. Warfare only. They’re not sure of the contagion factor and don’t want to start a panic.”

  “Maybe he was a worker there.”

  “We’re checking that
out now. Anyway, just keep it to yourself. If this thing gets around we’ll know the source it came from.”

  “You shouldn’t be so trusting then.”

  “Oh, hell, get out of here, Mike.”

  I snubbed out the butt in his ashtray, grinned and went through the door. Eddie Dandy would give his left whoosis for this scoop, but I wasn’t in the market for left whoosises.

  I managed to reach Velda just before she went out to lunch and told her I wouldn’t be in the rest of the day. She had already cleaned up most of the paperwork and before she could start in rearranging the furniture I said, “Look, honey, one thing you can do. Go to Lippy’s bank and find the clerk he deposited that money with.”

  “Pat has a record of that.”

  “Yeah, of the amounts. What I want to know is if he remembered what denominations of bills were deposited.”

  “Important?”

  “Who can tell? I’m just not satisfied with the answers, that’s all. I’ll check back with you later.”

  I hung up and went back into the afternoon rain. A couple were getting out of a cab on the corner and I grabbed it before anyone else could and told the driver where to go.

  Woodring Ballinger had a showpiece office on the twenty-first floor of a Fifth Avenue building but he never worked there. His operating space was the large table in the northeast corner of Finero’s Steak House just off Broadway, a two-minute walk to Times Square. There were three black phones and a white one in front of him and the two guys he was with were in their early thirties with the total businessman look. Only they both had police records dating back to their teens. That businessman look was one that Ballinger never could hope to buy. He tried hard enough, with three-hundred-buck suits and eighty-dollar shoes, but he still looked like he just came off a dock after pushing a dolly of steel around. Scar tissue laced his eyebrows and knuckles, he always needed a shave and seemed to have a perpetual sneer plastered on his mouth.

  I said, “Hello, Woody.”

  He only half looked at me. “What the hell do you want?”