Everybody's Watching Me Read online

  Helen said, “What was it?”

  “There was a dead man out there. Tomorrow there’ll be some fun.”

  “Joe!”

  “Don’t worry about it. At least we know how we stand. It was one of their boys. He made a pass at me on the street and got taken.”

  “You do it?”

  I shook my head. “Not me. A guy. A real big guy with hands that can kill.”

  “Vetter.” She said it breathlessly. I shrugged.

  Her voice was a whisper. “I hope he kills them all. Every one.” Her hand touched my arm. “Somebody tried to kill Renzo earlier. They got one of his boys.” Her teeth bit into her lip. “There were two of them so it wasn’t Vetter. You know what that means?”

  I nodded. “War. They want Renzo dead to get Vetter out of town. They don’t want him around or he’ll move into their racket sure.”

  “He already has.” I looked at her sharply and she nodded. “I saw one of the boys in the band. Renzo’s special car was hijacked as it was leaving the city. Renzo claimed they got nothing but he’s pretty upset. I heard other things too. The whole town’s tight.”

  “Where do you come in, Helen?”

  “What?” Her voice seemed taut.

  “You. Let’s say you and Cooley. What string are you pulling?” Her hand left my arm and hung down at her side. If I’d slapped her she would have had the same expression on her face. I said, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it like that. You liked Jack Cooley pretty well, didn’t you?”

  “Yes.” She said it quietly.

  “You told me what he was like once. What was he really like?” The hurt flashed in her face again. “Like them,” she said. “Gay, charming, but like them. He wanted the same things. He just went after them differently, that’s all.”

  “The guy I saw tonight said you know things.”

  Her breath caught a little bit. “I didn’t know before, Joe.”

  “Tell me.”

  “When I packed to leave…then I found out. Jack…left certain things with me. One was an envelope. There were canceled checks in it for thousands of dollars made out to Renzo. The one who wrote the checks is a racketeer in New York. There was a note pad too with dates and amounts that Renzo paid Cooley.”

  “Blackmail.”

  “I think so. What was more important was what was in the box he left with me. Heroin.”

  I swung around slowly. “Where is it?”

  “Down a sewer. I’ve seen what the stuff can do to a person.”

  “Much of it?

  “Maybe a quarter pound.”

  “We could have had him,” I said. “We could have had him and you dumped the stuff!”

  Her hand touched me again. “No…there wasn’t that much of it. Don’t you see, it’s bigger than that. What Jack had was only a sample. Some place there’s more of it, much more.”

  “Yeah,” I said. I was beginning to see things now. They were starting to straighten themselves out and it made a pattern. The only trouble was that the pattern was so simple it didn’t begin to look real.

  “Tomorrow we start,” I said. “We work by night. Roll into the sack and get some sleep. If I can keep the landlady out of here we’ll be okay. You sure nobody saw you come in?”

  “Nobody saw me.”

  “Good. Then they’ll only be looking for me.” .

  “Where will you sleep?”

  I grinned at her. “In the chair.” I heard the bed creak as she eased back on it, then I slid into the chair. After a long time she said, “Who are you, Joe?”

  I grunted something and closed my eyes. I wished I knew myself sometimes.

  Chapter 4

  I woke up just past noon. Helen was still asleep, restlessly tossing in some dream. The sheet had slipped down to her waist, and every time she moved, her body rippled with sinuous grace. I stood looking at her for a long time, my eyes devouring her, every muscle in my body wanting her. There were other things to do, and I cursed those other things and set out to do them.

  When I knew the landlady was gone I made a trip downstairs to her ice box and lifted enough for a quick meal. I had to wake Helen up to eat, then sat back with an old magazine to let the rest of the day pass by. At seven we made the first move. It was a nice simple little thing that put the whole neighborhood in an uproar for a half hour but gave us a chance to get out without being spotted.

  All I did was call the fire department and tell them there was a gas leak in one of the tenements. They did the rest. Besides holding everybody back from the area they evacuated a whole row of houses, including us and while they were trying to run down the false alarm we grabbed a cab and got out.

  Helen asked, “Where to?”

  “A place called Gulley’s. It’s a stop for the fishing boats. You know it?”

  “I know it.” She leaned back against the cushions. “It’s a tough place to be. Jack took me out there a couple of times.”

  “He did? Why?”

  “Oh, we ate, then he met some friends of his. We were there when the place was raided. Gulley was selling liquor after closing hours. Good thing Jack had a friend on the force.”

  “Who was that?”

  “Some detective with a Mexican name.”

  “Gonzales,” I said.

  She looked at the. “That’s right.” She frowned slightly. “I didn’t like him at all.”

  That was a new angle. One that didn’t fit in. Jack with a friend on the force. I handed Helen a cigarette, lit it and sat back with mine.

  It took a good hour to reach the place and at first glance it didn’t seem worth the ride. From the highway the road weaved out onto a sand spit and in the shadows you could see the parked cars and occasionally couples in them. Here and there along the road the lights of the car picked up the glint of beer cans and empty bottles. I gave the cabbie an extra five and told him to wait and when we went down the gravel path, he pulled it under the trees and switched off his lights.

  Gulley’s was a huge shack built on the sand with a porch extending out over the water. There wasn’t a speck of paint on the weather-racked framework and over the whole place the smell of fish hung like a blanket. It looked like a creep joint until you turned the corner and got a peek at the nice modern dock setup he had and the new addition on the side that probably made the place the yacht club’s slumming section. If it didn’t have anything else it had atmosphere. We were right on the tip of the peninsular that jutted out from the mainland and like the sign said, it was the last chance for the boats to fill up with the bottled stuff before heading out to deep water.

  I told Helen to stick in the shadows of the hedge row that ran around the place while I took a look around, and though she didn’t like it, she melted back into the brush. I could see a couple of figures on the porch, but they were talking too low for me to hear what was going on. Behind the bar that ran across the main room inside, a flat-faced fat guy leaned over reading the paper with his ears pinned inside a headset. Twice he reached back, frowning and fiddled with a radio under the counter. When the phone rang he scowled again, slipped off the headset and said, “Gulley speaking. Yeah. Okay. So-long.”

  When he went back to his paper I crouched down under the rows of windows and eased around the side. The sand was a thick carpet that silenced all noise and the gentle lapping of the water against the docks covered any other racket could make. I was glad to have it that way too. There were guys spotted around the place that you couldn’t see until you looked hard and they were just lounging. Two were by the building and the other two at the foot of the docks, edgy birds who lit occasional cigarettes and shifted around as they smoked them. One of them said something and a pair of them swung around to watch the twin beams of a car coming up the highway. I looked too, saw them turn in a long arc then cut straight for the shack.

  One of the boys started walking my way, his feet squeaking in the dry sand. dropped back around the corner of the building, watched while he pulled a bottle out from under the brush, the
n started back the way had come.

  The car door slammed. A pair of voices mixed in an argument and another one cut them off. When I heard it I could feel my lips peel back and I knew that if I had a knife in my fist and Mark Renzo passed by me in the dark, whatever he had for supper would spill all over the ground. There was another voice, swearing at something. Johnny. Nice, gentle Johnny who was going to cripple me for life.

  I wasn’t worrying about Helen because she wouldn’t be sticking her neck out. I was hoping hard that my cabbie wasn’t reading any paper by his dome light and when I heard the boys reach the porch and go in, I let my breath out hardly realizing that my chest hurt from holding it in so long.

  You could hear their hellos from inside, muffled sounds that were barely audible. I had maybe a minute to do what I had to do and didn’t waste any time doing it. I scuttled back under the window that was at one end of the bar, had time to see Gulley shaking hands with Renzo over by the door, watched him close and lock it and while they were still far enough away not to notice the movement, slid the window up an inch and flattened against the wall.

  They did what I expected they’d do. I heard Gulley invite them to the bar for a drink and set out the glasses. Renzo said, “Good stuff.”

  “Only the best. You know that.”

  Johnny said, “Sure. You treat your best customers right.”

  Bottle and glasses clinked again for another round. Then the headset that was under the bar started clicking. I took a quick look, watched Gulley pick it up, slap one earpiece against his head and jot something down on a pad.

  Renzo said, “She getting in without trouble?”

  Gulley set the headset down and leaned across the bar. He looked soft, but he’d been around a long time and not even Renzo was playing any games with him. “Look,” he said, “You got your end of the racket. Keep out of mine. You know?”

  “Getting tough, Gulley?”

  I could almost hear Gulley smile. “Yeah. Yeah, in case you want to know. You damn well better blow off to them city lads, not me.”

  “Ease off,” Renzo told him. He didn’t sound rough any more. “Heard a load was due in tonight.”

  “You hear too damn much.”

  “It didn’t come easy. I put out a bundle for the information. You know why?” Gulley didn’t say anything. Renzo said, “I’ll tell you why. I need that stuff. You know why?”

  “Tough. Too bad. You know. What you want is already paid for and is being delivered. You ought to get your head out of your whoosis.”

  “Gulley…” Johnny said really quiet. “We ain’t kidding. We need that stuff. The big boys are getting jumpy. They think we pulled a fast one. They don’t like it. They don’t like it so bad maybe they’ll send a crew down here to straighten everything out and you may get straightened too.”

  Inside Gulley’s feet were nervous on the floorboards. He passed in front of me once, his hands busy wiping glasses. “You guys are nuts. Carboy paid for this load. So I should stand in the middle?”

  “Maybe it’s better than standing in front of us,” Johnny said.

  “You got rocks. Phil’s out of the local stuff now. He’s got a pretty big. outfit.”

  “Just Peanuts, Gulley, just peanuts.”

  “Not any more. He’s moving in since you dumped the big deal.”

  Gulley’s feet stopped moving. His voice had a whisper in it. “So you were big once. Now I see you sliding. The big boys are going for bargains and they don’t like who can’t deliver, especially when it’s been paid for. That was one big load. It was special. So you dumped it. Phil’s smart enough to pick it up from there and now he may be top dog. I’m not in the middle. Not without an answer to Phil and he’ll need a good one.”

  “Vetter’s in town, Gulley!” Renzo almost spat the word out. “You know how he is? He ain’t a gang you bust up. He’s got a nasty habit of killing people. Like always, he’s moving in. So we pay you for the stuff and deliver what we lost. We make it look good and you tell Phil it was Vetter. He’ll believe that.”

  I could hear Gulley breathing hard. “Jerks, you guys,” he said. There was a hiss in his words. “I should string it on Vetter. Man, you’re plain nuts. I seen that guy operate before. Who the hell you think edged into that Frisco deal? Who got Morgan in El Paso while he was packing a half a million in cash and another half in powder. So a chowderhead hauls him in to cream some local fish and the guy walks away with the town. Who the hell is that guy?”

  Johnny’s laugh was bitter. Sharp. Gulley had said it all and it was like a knife sticking in and being twisted. “I’d like to meet him. Seems like he was a buddy of Jack Cooley. You remember Jack Cooley, Gulley? You were in on that. Cooley got off with your kick too. Maybe Vetter would like to know about that.”

  “Shut up.”

  “Not yet. We got business to talk about.”

  Gulley seemed out of breath. “Business be damned. I ain’t tangling with Vetter.”

  “Scared?”

  “Damn right, and so are you. So’s everybody else.”

  “Okay,” Johnny said. “So for one guy or a couple he’s trouble. In a big town he can make his play and move fast. Thing is with enough guys in a burg like this he can get nailed.”

  “And how many guys get nailed with him. He’s no dope. Who you trying to smoke?”

  “Nuts, who cares who gets nailed as long as it ain’t your own bunch. You think Phil Carboy’ll go easy if he thinks Vetter jacked a load out from under him? Like you told us, Phil’s an up and coming guy. He’s growing. He figures on being the top kick around here and let Vetter give him the business and he goes all out to get the guy. So two birds are killed. Vetter and Carboy. Even if Carboy gets him, his load’s gone. He’s small peanuts again.”

  “Where does that get me?” Gulley asked.

  “I was coming to that. You make yours. The percentage goes up ten. Good?”

  Gulley must have been thinking greedy. He started moving again, his feet coming closer. He said, “You talk big. Where’s the cabbage?”

  “I got it on me,” Renzo said. “You know what Phil was paying for the junk?”

  “The word said two million.”

  “It’s gonna cost to take care of the boys on the boat.”

  “Not so much.” Renzo’s laugh had no humor in it. “They talk and either Carboy’ll finish ‘em or Vetter will. They stay shut up for free.”

  “How much for me?” Gulley asked.

  “One hundred thousand for swinging the deal, plus the extra percentage. You think it’s worth it?”

  “I’ll go it,” Gulley said.

  Nobody spoke for a second, then Gulley said, “I’ll phone the boat to pull into the slipside docks. They can unload there. The stuff is packed in beer cans. It won’t make a big package so look around for it. They’ll probably shove it under one of the benches.”

  “Who gets the dough?”

  “You row out to the last boat mooring. The thing is red with a white stripe around it. Unscrew the top and drop it in.”

  “Same as the way we used to work it?”

  “Right. The boys on the boat won’t like going in the harbor and they’ll be plenty careful, so don’t stick around to lift the dough and the stuff too. That breed on the ship got a lockerfull of chatter guns he likes to hand out to his crew.”

  “It’ll get played straight.”

  “I’m just telling you.”

  Renzo said, “What do you tell Phil?”

  “You kidding? I don’t say nothing. All I know is I lose contact with the boat. Next the word goes that Vetter is mixed up in it. I don’t say nothing.” He paused for a few seconds, his breath whistling in his throat, then, “But don’t forget something…You take Carboy for a sucker and maybe even Vetter. Lay off me. I keep myself covered. Anything happens to me and the next day the cops get a letter naming names. Don’t ever forget that.”

  Renzo must have wanted to say something. He didn’t. Instead he rasped, “Go get the cash for t
his guy.”

  Somebody said, “Sure, boss,” and walked across the room. I heard the lock snick open, then the door.

  “This better work,” Renzo said. He fiddled with his glass a while. “I’d sure like to know what that punk did with the other stuff.”

  “He ain’t gonna sell it, that’s for sure,” Johnny told him. “You think maybe Cooley and Vetter were in business together.”

  “I’m thinking maybe Cooley was in business with a lot of people. That lousy blonde. When I get her she’ll talk plenty. I should’ve kept my damn eyes open.”

  “I tried to tell you, boss.”

  “Shut up,” Renzo said. “You just see that she gets found.”

  I didn’t wait to hear any more. I got down in the darkness and headed back to the path. Overhead the sky was starting to lighten as the moon came up, a red circle that did funny things to the night and started the long fingers of shadows drifting out from the scraggly brush. The trees seemed to be ponderous things that reached down with sharp claws, feeling around in the breeze for something to grab. I found the place where I had left Helen, found a couple of pebbles and tossed them back into the brush. I heard her gasp, then whispered her name.

  She came forward silently, said, “Joe?” in a hushed tone.

  “Yeah. Let’s get out of here.”

  “What happened?”

  “Later. I’ll start back to the cab to make sure it’s clear. If you don’t hear anything, follow me. Got it?”

  “…yes.” She was hesitant and I couldn’t blame her. I got off the gravel path into the sand, took it easy and tried to search out the shadows. I reached the clearing, stood there until I was sure the place was empty then hopped over to the cab.

  I had to shake the driver awake and he came out of it stupidly. “Look, keep your lights off going back until you’re on the highway, then keep ‘em on low. There’s enough moon to see by.”

  “Hey…I don’t want trouble.”

  “You’ll get it unless you do what I tell you.”

  “Well…okay.”

  “A dame’s coming out in a minute. Soon as she comes start it up and try to keep it quiet.”