by Ralph Dennis
“Huh?”
“Too much to drink. Two guys brought him in half an hour ago and put him in the back booth in the other room.”
“You know the two guys?”
“Never saw them before,” he said.
“I’ll check on him.” I went into the other room. The johns were in the far left corner. At one time there’d been a bowling machine, a couple of pinballs and a football. It turned out that winos didn’t play the machines. Now there were just marks on the floor where the machines had been and a wide-open area, not used, and five booths against, the far wall. I could see Willie there, his head down on the table.
“Willie?” He didn’t move. I edged into the seat next to him. My hand was on the seat and, before I got too far into the booth, I felt the sticky liquid. It could have been vomit, but it wasn’t. I lifted my hand and looked at it in the bad light. It was like a black smear. I held the hand away from me and eased out of the booth. I leaned in and tried to find a pulse in Willie’s neck. There wasn’t one. His skin was cold, and he was getting rigid.
I went back to the bathroom. It had a rankness in it hard to believe. There wasn’t any soap or towels. I rinsed the blood from my hand and dried it on a wad of toilet paper.
Hump was seated at the bar, a beer in front of him and a full beer and glass for me at the seat next to his. I waved at the bartender and he eased down the bar to me. “How was he doing when they brought him in?”
“Couldn’t walk. His feet were dragging. That must be some load he put on. He must have put a touch on you.”
“A buck or two,” I said.
He grinned and moved away. Hump turned and looked at me. “What is it?”
“Willie ran out of cons.” I reached into the scattering of change in front of him and located a dime. Taking the beer bottle with me, I went to the pay phone near the front entrance, called the police, and asked for Art Maloney’s desk.
CHAPTER TEN
The full, bright overhead lights were on in the back room of the Hollywood. It was probably the first time in a long time they’d been on at all. You could see the rainwater marks on the ceiling, and the half-hearted strokes the swamper had passed over the floor that morning.
They’d cleared away the customers and the gawkers and closed the bar for the night. The bartender and one wino who said he’d seen Willie being brought in were being questioned. I’d remained there long enough to hear their vague descriptions of the two men. They could have been anybody, or they could have been two of the hoods we’d had the brawl with. Maybe two of the studs who’d broken Hump’s wrist.
Hump and I were seated in the back room, in the one next to the booth where I’d found Willie. We’d bought a couple of beers about the time the two cops from the street beat came in, and we’d talked to them some, but mostly we’d waited for Art to arrive. Now we were drinking the last of the beers, and we’d watched Willie being carted away. I’d felt bad about that, and it was going to take me a long time to get over the feeling that I’d sent Willie out to get himself killed.
Art came in from the front room and sat down across the booth from us. “So now you’re getting people killed, huh?”
“He was supposed to ask around. He wasn’t supposed to take them on single-handed.” Art wasn’t helping the bad feeling I had. Except for not giving a shit about farmers and taking them every chance he got, Willie had been a good guy. Except when he was hustling, he was straight down the line with you.
“You interested in how it happened?”
“Yeah.”
“Doped-up whiskey or wine. He was knocked out but alive when they brought him in here. Sat him down in the booth behind us and stuck a few inches of knife in between his ribs five or six times.”
I turned to Hump. “That means they knew we were meeting Willie here at eleven o’clock.”
“A message to us,” Hump said.
“You two are bothering somebody,” Art said.
“Nothing like it’s going to be.”
“No use talking,” Hump said. He spread his huge right hand on the table, palm down, ready to get up. “You know if Willie has any family?”
“I’ll check around.”
“Let us know. If you can’t find any family, we’ll put up for the funeral. All right with you, Hump?”
“Fine with me,” Hump said.
“You’re nice boys.” I didn’t miss the sarcasm in his voice. It would have been hard to. It was wet and dripping down his chin.
Two days passed. Slow days. The hardest kind of time to do, the waiting time. Marcy came by the first night and fixed the crown roast. I found time to drop by the hardware store on Highland and bought three dozen tomato plants. I spent a cool twilight putting them in, watched by the mama cat, who stretched out on the terrace wall, sleepy-eyed and waiting her turn.
On the morning of the third day, Wash Johnson called. The call was brief and to the point. “Pickup’s in the reference room of the library on Carnegie Way. Same as the time before. Twelve noon today.”
“Got it,” I said.
“You better cover me.”
“You’re covered.”
“I mean it.”
“My word.”
I rang off and called Art. I think I caught him with one knee on the bed.
Even with the short notice, we had it set up and ready by eleven-fifteen. Wash Johnson probably wouldn’t arrive until a few minutes before the pickup. We went ahead and built a box around the library, inside and out. Because there was a chance the pickup man might be one of the four who’d seen Art, Hump and me, we arranged it so that our heads were down.
I was in the second level of stacks at the rear of the reference room, hidden by a thick shelf of books. I had a good sightline with Art’s man, who was behind the reference desk. He seemed to have the best job of all. He wasn’t doing anything but brushing hips with a couple of well-built librarians and, every minute or so, looking up at me.
Carnegie Way is a two-way street. It would have been easier if it had been one-way. As it was, Art had to cover both possibilities. Art and Hump were in a car that pointed down Carnegie Way toward the Davison parking lot. Another car, staffed by plainclothes men, headed in the direction of Forsyth Street and Margaret Mitchell Square.
At ten of twelve, after I’d read the same page of a book on genetics about ten times without understanding any of it, Wash Johnson came in and took one of the front tables, near the reference desk. He had dressed for it like a real dude. Blue blazer and cream-colored slacks and white shoes. Art’s man noticed him and looked up at me. I nodded. My part was done. I remained just a moment longer, and saw Wash take a narrow brown envelope from the inside pocket of the blazer. He placed it on the table in front of him. I left the stacks then, hurried to the elevator, and took it to the basement level. There was a door there, kept locked most of the time, that led to Forsyth Street. I left by that door and crossed Forsyth on a dead run. I entered the Dunkin’ Donut Shop on the triangular point that separates Forsyth and Peachtree. I sat at the end of the counter near the window and ordered a milk and a chocolate honey-glazed. While I sipped the milk and ate the donut, I turned in my seat and watched the front of the library. I had a good view of Carnegie Way and the two stakeout cars.
At twelve, exactly, a car pulled up in front of the library and a fat teenage girl got out and waddled up the steps under the weight of about fifteen books. Unlikely. She proved me right by coming down the steps a minute later, arms empty now and no envelope in sight. Other cars passed but none stopped, and there was the steady noon traffic of people walking in and out of the library. I finished the donut and ordered another chocolate honey-glazed. When I turned back to the window, I realized that we hadn’t boxed it in completely, that we’d missed it, or they’d changed the rules on us. I knew that when I noticed the man. He’d come from my blind side, from down Forsyth, and now he stopped on the sidewalk outside my window. There wasn’t a crosswalk there, and he waited his time and found an openi
ng in the traffic. As he stepped off the curb, I saw the bulge high on his right hip. It could have been one of those huge wallets, but I didn’t think so. And then the seersucker jacket settled over the bulge like it had been tailored that way, and he reached the other side of the street and walked the thirty yards or so and up the steps into the library.
I finished the milk and took the partly eaten donut outside with me. The only vehicle parked on this side of Forsyth was a truck unloading at the back of Brooks Brothers. That meant he’d probably walked. I moved away from the donut shop and toward the point of the island, where the newspaper boxes were. I leaned on one of the boxes and watched the front of the library. Three or four minutes after he entered, the man in the seersucker jacket came out again. I fished out a dime, leaned over the Constitution box, and got out a paper. When I looked around again he was at the curb near the corner, ready to cross to the narrow concrete island where I was. Behind him, just coming out of the library and stopping on the steps, Art’s man from behind the reference desk nodded toward the man in the seersucker jacket and lit a cigarette. That was the established signal.
I had one more look at him, this time closer and full front face. It was a bland, round face with a pencil-line mustache out of some 1930’s movie. It was a quick glance, because he was angling toward me. He wasn’t going back up Forsyth. I put my back to him and stepped out. I hit a seam in the traffic and crossed Peachtree. I was fairly sure that somebody from one of the stakeout cars would be tailing him. If I played it right, I could head him and we’d have him boxed in, front and back. The chase running a distance, we could switch off occasionally and give him something new to look at now and then.
I hesitated on the other side of the street and looked into the window of the novelty shop there. I got enough of his reflection in the glass to see that he was coming on. I made a slow turn and walked toward Peachtree and Ellis. I was about twenty yards ahead of him and I tried to maintain that interval. The light was red at Ellis and it looked like I might lose it, but at the last moment the light changed and I kept going. I passed Bailey, Banks and Biddle, and I was in front of Woolworth’s before I risked a look over my shoulder. The man in the seersucker suit wasn’t there.
Art Maloney was. He gave a nod toward the S&W cafeteria, and pushed through one of the revolving doors and went inside. I turned into Woolworth’s, fished out some change, and took my time buying a pack of cigarettes at the machine near the window. I was lighting one when Art passed outside the window and nodded at me. I put my back to the window and counted to ten. When I turned around, the man in the seersucker jacket was passing. I let him get a few paces on me and then I went back outside. I remained twenty feet behind him, trying to keep a few shoppers between the man and me. Beyond him, now and again, I’d get a flash of Art. He was the head now and I was the tail, and I guess the man in the seersucker could be called the dog’s body.
At Cain, the man crossed the street and stopped, turning left, waiting for the light to change. He was going to cross Peachtree again. Art kept going, heading toward Peachtree Center. There wasn’t much else he could do. I saw him in time and didn’t cross Cain. I turned and waited for the same light to change. When it went green, we stepped off the curb about the same time, Cain Street separating us, and headed for the other side of Peachtree. Along the way, a horde of women shoppers edged up on me, and I let them gain on me and finally surround me. It was good cover and, when I glanced over at the man we were tailing, he didn’t seem aware of me at all.
I reached the other corner, the construction site where they had torn down the old Henry Grady Hotel and were getting started on the new Peachtree Plaza Hotel. The pickup man continued straight down Cain, toward Spring. I looked up Peachtree and saw that Art had stopped, but he wasn’t coming back yet. It was up to me. The light changed, and I started across Cain. I was about halfway across when a car making a left onto Cain honked at me. I turned and saw Hump in the back seat of one of the unmarked cars. He shook his head at me and I stopped and let him make the turn. Then I crossed over and stopped. Far down the block, the pickup man was heading for the bus station. The car with Hump in it passed him near the corner of Spring. The car eased to a stop near the curb and Hump got out. A coat folded over his arm hid the cast.
Art was at my elbow. “Hump’s got him,” I said.
The pickup man crossed Spring and went into the bus station. Hump was almost shoulder-to-shoulder with him. Art and I took our time getting there. When we reached the bus station, the unmarked car was still there. Art got into the front seat next to the driver. I stripped off my jacket and tie and tossed them through the open window into the back seat. “Watch those for me.”
“Is that supposed to be a disguise?” Art asked.
“According to the Arco book on how to be a detective, it is,” I said.
I was going in after him, but I didn’t have to. The pickup man came out, pushing past without looking at me. He was carrying a black leather attaché case now. Hump was right behind him. He stopped beside me and we watched him head back up Spring, the attaché case banging against the side of his leg.
“He got the case from one of the lockers and put a couple of envelopes in it,” Hump said.
“Collecting’s over for the day,” I said. “Might have made a number of trips here to the bus station, each time dropping off a couple of the payoffs. Didn’t want to be caught with the whole load on him.”
We moved out to the curb. The unmarked police car with Art and the driver in it kicked over and headed down Cain. They would take the first left they could and work their way over to Spring. Hump and I let the pickup man have a half-block, and then I led off. Hump stayed half a block behind me. After a block or so, I stopped and looked into a store window and Hump moved up and took the lead. We leapfrogged that way for three or four blocks, and then I started getting nervous. I knew the area well enough to know there were a number of small parking lots scattered about, and I made my guess that he was heading for one of them. There still wasn’t any sign of Art and the car, and that bothered me. If he didn’t show soon, we might lose the pickup man and the tag home.
It started to blow apart. Hump was tailing the man and I was drifting a good distance back. Suddenly, the man turned and looked down the street, directly at Hump. I’d seen the turn coming and was able to ease into a doorway. Hump was in the open and couldn’t do much more than he did. He looked at the pickup man and looked away. He was a few steps from a side street to his right. He kept on going for those few steps, then he turned and went down the side street.
It was up to me now, and I didn’t like it. The man was jumpy now. Maybe he had a feeling. It was like that, sometimes. The only hope I had was that the pickup man, now that Hump was gone, would fall back into his original pattern. He’d think he’d been wrong about Hump tailing him, and he’d tell himself that he was just getting jumpy.
I counted to fifteen and stepped out of the doorway. It looked like luck was with me. He’d turned and walked on. He was about a full block or more ahead of me now, and I’d have to make it up somehow. I set out at a brisk walk. I needed some cover. I felt naked, guts out and wrapped around my neck, but there wasn’t anything I could do about it. Art had failed us and, if we were going to lose him, I wanted to be sure that I was close enough to get the tag numbers off his car.
I’d made up half the distance between the man and me when he turned off the sidewalk and went out of sight. That probably meant there was a parking lot beyond the building ahead. I had to get closer before he pulled out, so I set out at a lope. I reached the far end of the building, stopped, and put my back to it, still not looking past it. I tried to ease my breath, and felt around in my pocket for a scrap of paper. I found an old deposit slip and uncapped my pen.
I heard the engine kick over and it seemed very close, next to the wall of the building. I started to move away, heading toward a doorway about twenty yards away, but the black Buick nosed past the end of the building and
stopped on the sidewalk ramp. The rear door swung open. I looked inside and saw the nose of a .38 pointed at me, held in the hand of the pickup man.
“Come here.”
I played it dumb. “Who? Me?”
“You,” the man said. “Unless you want it on the street.”
I stepped into the Buick and didn’t touch the car door.
“Close the door,” the man said.
I pulled it closed. As I did, I looked in the front seat and saw two of the bruisers from the fight at the Book Store Bar. One was the stud with the bad throat, the one that I’d handled. He was in the front passenger seat. The driver was the one that Hump had hit first and put out of the fight early.
“Yeah,” the one with the bad throat croaked at me, “it’s me.”
The Buick pulled out, down the sidewalk ramp and into the street. It turned right and moved off at a good clip.
“Don’t you know all that walking might be good for your heart and still bad for your health?” The pickup man grinned at me.
The two in the front seat laughed. The one with the bad throat said, “This time you didn’t bring a chair with you.”
I turned and looked at him and, when I did, the pickup man pushed me forward and hit me in the back of the head with the flat side of the .38. It hurt like hell and it dazed me, but it didn’t put me completely out. But I acted like it did and I went limp, and he pushed me onto the carpeted floorboards and put a foot on the back of my head.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Playing possum wasn’t all that it’s cracked up to be. It didn’t take long for me to find that out. I’d got a few less lumps from the side of the .38. That was the credit side. On the debit side, there I was, face down on the floorboards, with the weight of the pickup man’s foot on the back of my head and neck. It Was uncomfortable, and the shoe seemed to weigh about twenty pounds.
“Hardman,” the one with the bad throat croaked. “They ought to call him Softman.”