He had to think about Lila. He had to make sure that Izzy did not know he was caught out, get rid of him and the car following and get to Damon. Or the Federals. Or someone. It was not his business to be riding with Lila in the car with the man he had been seeking for murder.
He had to make conversation. He said, “It’s a nice day for this time of year.” He felt like a dull clod when Izzy merely grunted.
Lila said, “How are we going to find a still? I wouldn’t know one if it bit me.”
“They have to have tall buildings for any kind of an operation,” said Jack. “Column-shaped stills, you know.”
“I don’t know a damn thing about them,” said Lila. “It is a nice day for a ride, but I’d prefer the country.” If he had let Izzy go on to the West Side, they would have found nothing and after a while he could have abandoned the idea with some semblance of credibility and then he could have called for help. He did not feel very smart and he worried more and more about the car behind them which was keeping a safe distance but persisting in pursuit.
He gathered his wits and knew he would have to take a chance that Lila might be hurt. He put his hand under his jacket and touched the butt of the automatic. A sound from Izzy distracted him.
It was a huge sigh, as though the entire inner soul of the stout taxi driver had expressed itself in one gulp. “Feel bad, Izzy?”
“Real bad, Mr. Ware. You don’t have to pull no gat on me, though.”
Lila leaned forward. “What was that? What are you two talking about?”
“Ask him,” said Jack, keeping his grip on the gun.
“Nothing good, Miss Lila. Nothing good, any way you slice it.”
Jack said, “Izzy wears after-shave lotion.”
“Izzy?”
Jack asked, “Who’s in the car behind us?”
“Sophie. And that fella from the Lodge.”
“I see. And how did that jerk find you?”
“There was a certain connection,” said Izzy sadly.
“With Cancelli,” Jack. said. “Did Cancelli order Alvin’s body stuck in my trash can?”
“Mr. Ware, I got to talk to you.”
“You picked a hell of a time.” The coupé behind them was half a block away. “Make a left turn. I want to drop off Miss Sharp.”
Izzy said, “That you can’t do, Mr. Ware. There is anyway another car, maybe more. They would grab her.”
“If we’d gone west, they wouldn’t have bothered,” said Jack. “Why did I have to get clever?”
“I got to talk to you. I can’t keep going,” said Izzy. “I got involved. Sophie, she involved me.”
Jack said, “Better you should talk to the police. Suppose you just start driving downtown.”
“We’d never make it. Honest, Mr. Ware. They know you are onto the stills, the alky. If I turn downtown, they will gun us.”
With Lila in the car he could not take the chance, he knew. They would have heavy artillery, they were desperate enough. The bootleg business was worth any odds to them. He felt helpless and his anger began to boil with each succeeding minute.
They slowed for a light and Izzy went on, “It was Sophie. Never satisfied, her and her family. Like a fool, I mentioned I could make a buck working for Cancelli, nothing, just information around town. Like I drove Ted Colyer a lot.”
“So you ratted on Ted.”
“Involved,” said Izzy weakly. “You get in, you can’t get out. Like I know Ted has got a date with Alvin on Third, near your place. They are going to talk. Ted is ready to blow the whole business to you. He has found out about Gold Bug, about Alvin and the bootleg business, how Alvin is trying to blackmail Cancelli, Camp, everybody.”
“Then Alvin wasn’t killed in my alley.”
“He was placed in your alley,” said Izzy. He was evasive now and his face grew flushed. He drove slowly on the wide street.
“You killed him.”
“No,” said Izzy carefully. “I hit you in the head. But not hard. Not to hurt, just to let me get away. You’ll admit that.”
“And Sophie drove you.”
“She drove me. You think I could manage Alvin in the trash can alone? She helped me. Then she ran and when you came out I was stuck there.”
“That Sophie is some woman,” said Lila. “Do you know any more female monsters?”
“Only I married one,” said Izzy. “Only I should be dead before I married one.”
“Ted,” said Jack harshly. “Who killed Ted? You were there. You were waiting for me.”
“You got to understand, I was involved.”
“You are involved,” said Jack. “Up to your fat butt. Who killed Ted?”
“You got to understand, Mr. Ware, I don’t know everything.”
“If I thought you killed him, you’d never make another block,” said Jack. “Who did it?”
“I was to keep track of you,” said Izzy. His voice was a whine.
Behind them a big sedan pulled alongside the coupé, hesitated a moment, then fell back into line. Another car turned the corner ahead of them, a green two-door. Izzy gulped, gripping the wheel.
“Closing in,” said Jack. “I’m sorry, Lila. We walked into something, thanks to my friend Blatsky.”
“Could I stop them? Could I stop anything since I took their first dirty dollar, I should buy a place in the country, get away from driving a hack? Could I fight them, the mob?”
It was broad daylight in New York. Women gossiped back and forth on the sidewalks, from window to window. Children went back and forth, everything was normal on the uptown street.
“This is crazy,” said Jack.
“I got to take you to the place,” said Izzy. “If we don’t make it, we’ll all be killed.”
The first thing they would do was take his gun. Jack removed it from the holster. Izzy turned gray.
“You got to listen, Mr. Ware. I didn’t want into this, now I want out. Any old way. I do not want Miss Lila hurt. Look, slip me the gat. They’ll never suspect me, I should have a gat.”
Lila said, “That’s an idea, Jack.”
“Who killed Ted?” Jack asked, his voice cold as ice.
“I don’t know. You gotta listen to me. I’m nothin’ to these people. They’ll kill you and me and Miss Lila, too. The still, it’s right by the river. They got cement all mixed, I’ve seen it there.”
They were coming to the corner of the avenue. Jack took a look behind. Then he said, “Turn the corner, fast.”
“No!”
He slapped Izzy with the pistol, grabbed the wheel. The light was green. He would have made it, too, had not a young, brown-faced, black-eyed child run off the curbing without looking to the left.
He slammed at the brakes. He looked desperately around for a blue uniform. There was none in sight.
The two cars came up very rapidly. The coupé went on, crosstown. He said, “Lila, run like hell.”
She could not get the door open. Katz Manning and Bobo Simon got out of the dark sedan. They had guns on him before he could extricate himself from Izzy and the wheel. Katz said, “I promise you, Ware, we will get the girl if you try anything.”
He almost told them to go ahead. He was completely frustrated, thoroughly disgusted with himself. He was also a bit frightened, more for Lila than for himself. He was pretty cold on himself at the moment.
Simon said to Izzy, “Get this crate over to the joint as fast as you can.”
There was nothing to do but get out of the car. People stared. Katz Manning said loudly, “All right, get back there. This is police business.”
Simon actually had a badge, which he flashed. In a moment they were in the black sedan, going toward the East River again. Lila sat close to him and patted his hand and he saw that she was not too frightened, in fact she seemed thoughtful.
She was a beautiful woman to take a last ride with, but Jack Ware would have planned it differently had they not taken away his gun.
fourteen
Malaney was doi
ng a routine job. Sergeant Wynoski remained in the car because he was on the horn with Headquarters and because Malaney had the front to handle himself in a high-class joint like Jack’s Place.
Business was light at midafternoon, but Brownie was busy and Pat Shapiro was in the kitchen. Malaney felt that since he had been here before he might as well go on up to the office.
The door was locked, but when he tapped, it opened at once. Eloise Camp stood with a glass in her hand, weaving a little, blinking at him.
She said, “Jack’s not here. I thought you were my delightful and loving husband, come to say sweet things to me. I was just going to give him something to remember me by.” She took the other hand from behind her and displayed a heavy ash tray.
Malaney said, “I wanted to ask Jack some questions. About the Colyer boys and maybe about your husband, too.”
“Come in, come in!” she said. “Are you a detective? My, they are making them pretty these days.”
She was pretty drunk, but Malaney was college trained in psychology and something told him he had hit upon a subject ready to unburden. He closed the door behind him.
She was drinking straight gin. “My husband. Now there is a subject I can discuss, any time of day. What would you like to know about him? Would you like to see my scars?”
She pulled her dress away from her shoulder and part of her back. There were criss-cross lines, barely healing.
Malaney said, “That’s pretty terrible. But what I want to know, have you any information about your husband’s real estate leases?”
“I tried to tell them,” she said vaguely. “Lila put me to sleep. But I woke up and found the booze. Have a drink?”
“No, thank you. Then you do know about the leases?”
She said, “Oh, I listen a lot. People talk, because they think I’m drunk. But I have a phenomenal memory when I’m drinking. They don’t realize that, you see.”
“Sure, I see.” He waited, shrewd enough to let her ramble along.
“Acme Corporation. That’s Pete Cancelli. Heard him say so. Then there was this old coal company place. Cyrus thought he was real clever. Got a big price. Rented it. Bragged about it. Said Acme Corporation was some stupid outfit.”
“And do you happen to know where it is located?”
“Cancelli’s corporation and Cyrus’s property. Guess who’s laughing?”
“The address?” He was very gentle.
She put her dress back in place absently, sipped at her drink. “Nobody knows uptown addresses. They are out. Definitely out. Passé. No class.”
“Which side of town is it on?”
“Really, I wouldn’t know.”
If they could move fast, it meant a sure commendation, and he was coming up for promotion to First Grade. “Can’t you try to remember?”
“You’re sure you won’t have a drink?” She looked him up and down, measuring him. “I’m in the mood to do something about my husband. I’m leaving him. It could be a good start, maybe, if you’d have a drink.”
“After work,” he pleaded. “Later. The address.”
“I usually remember very well.” She picked up the gin bottle and slopped the tumbler half full.
He sat, giving her one more chance. It would save going to the City Directory. He was young enough to want to avoid waiting. He wanted action. They had permission to work with Damon, hard-wrung by Wynoski.
She drank. Her eyes brightened. She said, “Why, of course.” She went behind Jack’s desk. She rummaged around.
He said, “Does Mr. Ware have it?”
“No, silly. Here.” She produced a phone book. “Just look under the A’s. They have a phone.”
Damon pulled up at the curb on upper Tenth Avenue and said, “Might as well face it, we’re getting no place.”
“Oh, I don’t know. We’re acquainted. And I got a job. I’m so happy, I’d like to give a party.”
The thought excited him. He said, “You know what? I might just be able to manage it so you could do that, if I’m invited.”
“I don’t mean for you to take me out. I’ve got the key to the apartment. I’m a terrific cook, Hal.”
“A party in Jack’s joint?” The idea appealed to him overwhelmingly. “We could buy a steak, drink some of Jack’s booze.”
“We could do a lot of things,” she promised.
She had never looked at him as though he were ugly or unwanted. Not before he got her the job nor afterward. He couldn’t believe it. He wanted to, but it was terribly difficult. Maybe she had a blind spot. After all, Alvin… but they all said Alvin was “sweet” or “cute” or something.
He said, “Maybe we better go out.”
She leaned toward him and patted his knee. “You’d rather it was just us two. I know. You just don’t want to seem anxious. I like men who are gentle and don’t pick at a girl all the time.”
Hell, he’d been scared to make a pass at her. It really looked as if, at long last, he had fallen into a field of clover.
He said, “I’ll have to call in.”
He had kept the radio off during all the stops on the way uptown. He was in the clear, he knew. He now flipped it on. He reported his position to the operator.
A distorted voice crackled at him, “Damon, is that you? Where are you?”
“I just told you.”
“I mean exactly where.”
He repeated it. There was a pause and then the operator said, “Sergeant Wynoski and Detective Malaney left word for you. You are to proceed to Acme Corporation, a coal silo, on Roosevelt Drive at…”
He wrote it down. There went his party and there went a hell of a lot more, he feared. Wynoski and Malaney had somehow beaten him to it.
He came out to the car, his lower lip hanging. He said, “Look, you take a cab back to Jack’s apartment. I got a call.”
“Oh, no!”
He took out some money he could ill afford, gave her ten dollars. “I’ll be there as soon as I can make it.”
“Promise?” She was smiling, sunny.
“Double promise.”
He watched her go. It figured, he thought. It couldn’t happen to him, not with a dame who had any class. He got into the car and started toward the East River.
fifteen
There were three tall columns of concrete, connected on the floor level by a loading platform, on the roof by a fly-walk. There were huge, somewhat faded signs reading Camp Coal Company * Fuel Oil * Coke * Anthracite. The offices were downstairs also, and Lila walked with Jack Ware up the steps, over the platform and into one of them. It seemed an ordinary business office, bearing several identification marks of the Acme Corporation.
Izzy, Simon and Manning crowded in on the rear, and Jack saw that the outer office, manned by a bright-looking young man, was merely a blind. They went through another door into a spacious room without windows, with brick walls, a part of the towering silo. There was a stairway leading up and he could imagine the ascending ladders, the escape hatches, all built into old coal chutes. The stills would be cylindrical, leaving space for hoists, vents, exhaust pipes to carry the fumes of distilling high above the adjacent river.
It was highly efficient. Pete Cancelli hung up a telephone and looked at them from behind a desk.
“So you had to stick your noses into it,” he said. There was a hint of regret in his voice; his round, brown eyes surveyed them with sorrow mixed with vexation. “You couldn’t leave it alone.”
“At least we know why the booze in the Greystone is so lousy,” said Jack.
“Smart guy. Fun-nee,” said Cancelli. He motioned with his left hand.
Jack did not see it coming. Katz hit him from behind, a swinging, backhand slap that sent him reeling into Lila. He came all the way around and Simon was atop him.
He cut Simon behind the ear and draped him across Cancelli’s desk. Then Katz hit him again, with the barrel of a revolver this time. He stumbled and went down and Katz kicked him hard and the aches of the previous beating ca
me back twofold.
Lila screamed and he staggered to his feet. Katz had slapped her onto a straight chair. Simon got up, groggy, and hit Jack again with his fist, and blood ran down his face.
Cancelli sat quiet behind the desk. For a moment everything was static, the silence broken only by heavy breathing.
Cancelli said, “Ware, you and your nose, and your wisecracks, you were great when you had it. But here, in this place, you definitely do not have it. Understand?”
Jack managed to say, “Screw you.” Then Simon hit him again.
Cancelli said, “What’s more, if you keep on insisting like that, we’ll go to work on Lila. There is a lot I could think of to do with Lila.”
Lila said, “There’s nothing you haven’t done to me.”
“Oh, yes there is. A few things, I’d say.” He smiled, barely breaking the rigidity of his narrow, incongruous face. He looked past them, toward the door. They all turned and saw Sophie Blatsky, framed against the light from the outer office. Izzy, behind her, seemed pallid and shadowy.
Her face was well oiled by sweat glands. Her eyes gleamed, like a cat’s eyes in the night. She was unclean, outside and in. Her attention was riveted on Lila, she went to her, reached out a claw and touched her, fingering the material of her clothing, probing, hurting. Lila slapped her away and Sophie crouched. There was murder in every lineament
Izzy said from the door, “Mr. Cancelli, don’t let her. It ain’t decent.”
Sophie whirled on her husband. “You nothing. You yellow-bellied nothing. You talk! You, who found the way and then didn’t have no guts.”
Cancelli said, “That’ll do. Shut up, already, both of you.”
“He couldn’t do anything right,” Sophie yelled. “He never could. I’m sick of him, y’unnastand? Sick of doin’ his work.” She raised both hands above her head. “What am I, a slave? I’m not a woman because I’m ugly? Because I ain’t got clothes like her, over there? Because I got the guts to do his dirty jobs?”
“Shut up,” said Cancelli.
“All I ask is plain justice,” she went on, unheeding. Her eyes were glazed, turned inward as she spewed words. “Already I got him for a husband, a nothing. I see where you can do us good, we can make it. I did the jobs, didn’t I? I did them. Not him, me!”
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