Sure—get my brother out of jail so I could try and take his wife away from him.
I couldn’t sleep, so I got up to make some coffee. As it started perking I thought about Missy and felt guilty about not seeing her or calling her all day. I looked up her home phone in my book and called, but there was no answer. I checked my watch and found that it was only nine-thirty. I’d thought it was later, but it was still too late for her to be out—unless she was on a date, and that was highly unlikely.
I wondered if she’d had Eddie’s body moved from the morgue to a funeral home yet, and if so, which one.
Over my coffee I started to wonder if checking out Eddie’s clients was going to be a waste of time. None of them so far had seemed homicidal, but what did I know about murder and what kind of people committed murder? Was I kidding myself with this private-eye bit, or what?
I remembered hearing once that a cop was only as good as his contacts. I had contacts. Maybe I wasn’t making the best use of them.
I picked up the phone and dialed Knock Wood Lee’s number. Tiger Lee answered.
“Is he in, Lee?”
“To you? Probably, but let me ask.”
Complete silence and then Wood came on the line.
“What’s up, brother?”
“That’s what I want to know from you, Wood. You get a line on what we talked about?”
“I think so, but it wasn’t solid, so I didn’t call you. I’m checking it out further.”
“What have you got so far?”
“Well, there is some imported talent in town, that much I know,” he told me.
“Imported talent? You mean hit men?”
“Hey, if you’re gonna work this side of the street, brother, you’re gonna have to learn the lingo. Yeah, that’s what I mean, Miles, only in this case it’s hit man, singular.”
“Well, who’s his target?” I asked eagerly. “Was it Eddie?”
“That’s what I’m checking further,” he told me.
“What about his name, where he’s staying?”
“Miles, look, one of my ladies saw the guy in town and recognized him. She knows he’s a button man, but she couldn’t remember his name. I’m trying to get a line on who he is and where he’s staying, but I don’t want that line traced back to me. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
“Yeah, I understand. You’re going slow and careful.”
“You got it. Last thing I need is some mechanic finding out I’m trying to track him down.”
“Okay, Wood, I know you’re taking a chance. I appreciate it. Just call me as soon as you have something, okay?”
“Miles, I think you’re barking up the wrong tree.”
“That’s a cliché I always hated, Wood. What do you mean?”
“Well, from what I hear, Eddie was beaten to death, right?”
“Right.”
“I don’t know any mechanics who work that way. It’s sloppy, it’s not sure—”
“It’s all I got, Wood. Just let me know, okay?”
“You got it, brother. You’ll be the second to know, after me,” he promised.
“Okay, Wood, thanks.”
“Hey, you sound down, man. Want me to send a lady over?” he offered. If I thought he was offering me Tiger Lee, I just might have said yes.
“No thanks, Wood. Maybe next time,” I told him, and hung up.
I wondered if Hocus knew that there was a “button man” in town. If he did, what would he do about it? More importantly, now that I knew, what was I going to do about it?
What I did was pour half a cup of coffee down the drain and go back to a bed that was still warm from her and still smelled like her.
What I did was spend a pretty restless night, for more reasons than one.
Chapter Twenty-Four
In the morning I went to the Roger Williams Hotel to look for Corky Purcell.
I grabbed the IRT No. 3 express to Seventy-second Street, then switched to the No. 1 local to Eighty-sixth. The hotel was on Broadway between Eighty-fourth and Eighty-fifth streets. Eighty-fourth Street was also called Edgar Allan Poe Street, and they held street fairs there every year to celebrate Poe’s birthday—or so I’d heard.
The Williams was a bit of old New York. Most of its former glitter—in fact, all of it—was gone now, but it did maintain a sort of seedy, faded class, and still had not sunk to housing drunks and derelicts.
The desk clerk was busy mourning the latest collapse of the Mets defense, and when I asked him what room Corky Purcell was in, he didn’t even look up from the box score when he told me Room 502, on the fifth floor.
“Thanks,” I told him. He didn’t answer. He was back crying over another Taveras error and three more Kingman strikeouts.
I took the creaky, coffin-box elevator to the fifth floor and swore I’d take the stairs back down when I was finished. I decided to look at it as an early start in my training for the Ricardi fight, rather than admit to myself that I was afraid to get into that damned thing for the trip back down.
There was loud music coming from behind the closed door of one of the rooms, and it wasn’t until I located Room 502 that I realized that it was coming from there.
I knocked on the door and got no answer. Figuring that the loud music was keeping him from hearing my knock, I began to pound on the door with my professional right. The results were quick and totally unexpected, catching me off guard.
The door opened inward and two men came running out. They both barreled into me, driving me back against the door opposite 502. I hit it fairly hard and the air was temporarily driven from my lungs. By the time I recovered they had already hit the stairs, and I debated whether to follow them or go into the room on the chance that someone might need some help.
As it turned out I should have followed them. Not that there wasn’t someone in the room; it was just that he wasn’t in any particular trouble at that moment—and he would never be again.
He was dead.
I had to assume that the little man on the floor was Corky Purcell. He was lying on his back, and his eyes were open, staring sightlessly at the ceiling. The smell of burnt flesh was sharp in the air, and I could see that his feet were bare and the soles had been burnt in several places with either a cigarette or a cigar. Apparently they were after some information from the dead little man, and I wondered if it had anything to do with the reason I was there, too.
I walked over to the radio on the dresser, which was still blasting out rock music, and shut it off. Then I picked up the phone and dialed 911. I told the girl who answered that I wanted to report a homicide.
“A dee-oh-aye?” she asked me.
“No, sweetheart, a hom-i-cide,” I replied sweetly. I asked her to please have the proper people respond and gave her the location. She also asked me for my name and the phone number of where I was calling from, and then said she’d send a car right over. I hung up hoping I’d never really need help from the police and have to rely on 911.
I called the desk clerk downstairs and told him that the police would soon arrive and would he send them right up to Room 502. He said he would and hung up. I thought it odd that he didn’t ask me what had happened, but maybe he wasn’t finished reading about the Mets.
When I was finished with the phone I knelt down by the little man on the rug. Aside from being burned, he’d also been beaten about the face, though not too severely. It looked as if they had simply wanted to get his attention before they started questioning him.
About what?
“What did you know that got you killed, Corky Purcell?” I asked the body, but he didn’t answer. He just kept staring up at the ceiling. I would have liked to close his eyes for him, but I didn’t want to touch the body at all until the cops got there.
When the first radio car arrived I identified myself to the two cops by showing them my P.I. ticket, and then told them what had happened, as far as I knew.
One of them bent down and looked at the body, then stood up and to
ld his partner, “You better put in a call for the squad. Tommy.”
“Right,” his partner replied.
The first one was wearing a name tag that said Parlato. His partner’s said Plunkett.
Plunkett turned to me and said, “You’ll have to stick around and talk to them.”
“No problem,” I assured him.
While Plunkett made the necessary requests over the radio— the squad, the duty captain, the sergeant on patrol, the medical examiner—Parlato asked me, “You carrying a piece?”
“A piece of what?”
He frowned at me and said, “A gun, pal.”
“No,” I told him, shaking my head, “no gun.”
“You mind?” he asked, motioning with his hands for me to raise mine so he could frisk me. I complied, and he satisfied himself that I was unarmed.
Plunkett had walked over to the window to transmit his requests, and upon completion of his transmission he rejoined his partner and me.
“Homicide’s on the way,” he told Parlato, “along with a wagon and the M.E. The boss will probably get here first.”
“Good,” his partner replied.
At that point the sergeant walked in, followed closely by the captain. The others began to arrive, and from that point on things got kind of confused. I got shuffled off into a corner while they rushed around, bumping into each other at every opportunity.
It was wonderful watching the law at work.
Chapter Twenty-Five
When the detectives arrived I was surprised to see that it wasn’t Hocus and his partner. The two men who did show up were strangers to me.
“You the guy who found the body?” one of them asked.
“That’s right,” I told him. I showed him my ticket and said, “My name’s Jacoby.”
He handed it back to me and his partner asked, “Are you Kid Jacoby?”
“That’s right.”
“I saw you fight the other night,” he told me.
“Did you?”
“Yep. You were lucky to get out of that ring with your head still attached.”
“So I’ve been told,” I replied sourly.
They introduced themselves as Detectives Vadala and D’Elia. Which was which didn’t really matter, as they were almost interchangeable. Both about the same height and build, both snappy dressers, unlike Hocus and his partner, who always looked like they got dressed in the dark.
For purposes of identification, Vadala had a full head of salt-and-pepper hair, and his partner had thinning brown hair.
“Somehow I thought Hocus would get down here for this,” I told them.
Vadala seemed to take that as a slam against him.
“Hocus can’t catch every case that comes along,” he told me. “You a friend of his?”
I shook my head.
“We’re working on a couple of things at the same time,” I told him.
“Together?”
“Not necessarily.”
While D’Elia went over to speak to the first two officers on the scene, Vadala told me, “You’ll have to come downtown to sign a statement, but why don’t you give me your story now?”
I told him that I was looking for Corky Purcell, had received information that he was registered in this hotel, and what had happened after I arrived and knocked on his door.
“Why were you looking for him?” he asked.
“I wasn’t really looking for him. I’m looking for someone else, and I was hoping that Corky Purcell could lead me to him.”
“Who you looking for?”
“I don’t know his name,” I told him.
“Are you being straight with me?” he demanded suspiciously.
“As straight as I can,” I told him. I just wasn’t being very clear, but that was his fault. I didn’t like the way he came on.
He walked over to the body and said, “So this is Purcell?”
I shrugged.
“I don’t know. I never met the man before.”
“You’re not being very helpful,” he complained.
“Look, I’m perfectly willing to come to your office to make a statement, but you’re going to be here awhile. Why don’t I come by later in the day. Maybe by then I’ll know more, so I can tell you more,” I suggested.
I knew his first inclination was to keep me right there until he was finished, but he seemed to think better of it.
“All right, Jacoby. Come down to the Seventeenth Precinct around five this evening. I go off at six.”
“I’ll be there.”
I started for the door, then stopped short and said, “There is something that might help.”
“What?” he asked.
“You might ask the desk clerk why he knew what room Purcell was in without looking it up and why he wasn’t curious at all about why the police were coming.”
It was kind of a show of good faith on my part, and he said, “I will, thanks.”
I waved and left.
I was hoping to get a chance to talk to Hocus before five, or at least see him as well as Vadala at that time. I wondered if I could get him to work on this case along with Benny’s. I thought I might get more cooperation from him than I would from Vadala.
One of the first things I wanted to find out from Hocus was what had killed Corky Purcell—if the dead man was Purcell. Other than the burn marks on his feet and the bruises on his face, there wasn’t another mark on him that I could see.
Out on the street I got away from the crowd of police vehicles parked in front of the hotel and found a pay phone. I had suddenly remembered that Heck Delgado had asked me to call him, and that was two days ago.
I dropped in a dime and dialed his number.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Jacoby, but Mr. Delgado is in court,” his secretary told me. “May I take a message?”
I told her to tell him that I apologized for not having called earlier and that I’d keep calling in periodically until I got him. I asked her if she had any idea when he’d be back, but she said he could walk through the door any minute or not get back at all. I thanked her for her help and hung up.
Next I called Missy at the office. It wasn’t Eddie’s office anymore, and I couldn’t think of it as mine, so it was just “the office.”
“How’re you doing?” I asked her.
“Fine,” she said, sounding anything but.
“I tried to call your house last night, but you weren’t home,” I told her.
“I went to my mother’s and spent the night there. I didn’t feel like being alone,” she answered. “I saw him, Jack, and that kind of made it too real, you know?”
Damn that M.E. I had asked him to make sure she didn’t see Eddie’s body. Ah, I guess I couldn’t blame him.
“Guess I can’t blame you,” I told her. “Feeling alone is a scary thing. Next time call me, huh?”
I thought I detected a smile in her voice when she said, “Thanks, friend. I’ll remember.”
“Still making phone calls?” I asked.
“Yes, that and getting the office in order. Anything to keep me busy.”
“I’ve got something that should keep you busy,” I told her. “Dig up whatever you can for me on an old fight manager and trainer named Corky Purcell. Newspaper articles, magazine pieces, anything. Call Robie McKay at Ringtime magazine and tell him I need another favor. Talk nice to him; you know how to do it.”
“Yeah, I know how,” she said, and she left the rest unsaid. The part that goes “but why should I?” She knew that Purcell had nothing to do with Eddie’s killer, but still she didn’t say it. Instead she said, “I should know how, I had a good enough teacher.”
“You had the best, kid. We both did,” I told her. “Hey, I should be in a little later. If you’re still there I’ll take you out for a bite.”
“Promises, promises. We’ll see.”
“Okay.”
“Miles?”
I had almost hung up, but I put the phone back to my ear.
“Yeah?”
“The funeral’s tomorrow.”
“Yeah,” I said, and after a pause, “okay.”
“You will be there, won’t you?” she asked.
“Of course I’ll be there,” I told her. “You better write down the address, though, just in case you’re gone when I get back “
“All right, but I’ll be leaving late.”
“Okay. I’ll see you later.”
I hung up the phone and stood there with my hands still on the receiver. I looked down the block to where the police cars were still parked, their turret lights flashing red and white. With Purcell dead, my only link to the man in the fifth row was gone. I should probably have abandoned my search at that point and just concentrated on Benny’ s case, but the way Purcell had died wouldn’t let me do that.
I had given the first officers on the scene whatever description I could of the two men, but our “encounter” had been so fast and unexpected that I knew I would never be able to recognize either one of them even if I were in an elevator with them.
Had they been there to question Purcell, to kill him, or both? And if it were the latter, then how did they do it? If they were there to question him, what did they want to know?
Could they have been after the same thing I was?
Interesting questions, to say the least, and my curiosity wouldn’t allow me to forget them, or Corky Purcell.
I stopped leaning on the phone and walked over to catch the subway back downtown. There were two things I particularly wanted to get done that day. I wanted to talk to both Hocus and Heck.
I wanted to try and get Heck to use me as his investigator on Benny’s case. I knew he had his own men, but it hadn’t been unusual for him to use Eddie on occasion.
As far as Hocus was concerned I wanted to find out if he had come up with anything on Benny’s case. I also wanted to make sure he’d let me know what the autopsy on Corky Purcell came up with.
You get a lot of time to think while you’re riding the subway, and when you’re through thinking about the things you want to think about, you start thinking about the things you don’t want to think about. I got off the train at Times Square and continued downtown on foot. Watching the girls and watching out for the cars kept my mind nice and busy, and by the time I reached Fourteenth Street the depression I’d developed from thinking about the things I didn’t want to think about had disappeared.
Eye in the Ring Page 9