The crime-scene photos from the garage massacre were waiting for him on his desk; they were still damp. He silently thanked Casey for staying through the evening, getting these done; but he saw nothing in the photos that his eyes hadn’t told him on the scene.
He got up and went to a file cabinet and removed a can of chili from a lower drawer (it was not filed under “C,” which he realized was careless of him) and opened the small can and placed it on the hot plate by the window. It didn’t compare to Mike’s chili, but it would suffice.
He was stirring it, bleakly pondering what Officer Moriarty’s family must going through right now, when Sam Catchem came in, smiling, saying, “I got three ugly, mad-as-hades hoodlums who’d like a word with you. They’re having a long, hard, frustrating night.”
“Well, we all have that much in common, don’t we?”
“Don’t we though. After I rousted ’em outta their digs, they started asking for their phone calls, and I explained that ‘departmental policy’ didn’t allow ’em a phone call till after they’d been booked.”
“And of course you never got around to booking them.”
Catchem’s grin was lopsided. “Darnedest thing. I thought Pat was gonna handle that, and here he thought I was gonna. Well. Screwups do happen, don’t they? Pat’s taken ’em down to the holding tank, so they can keep the drunks company.”
Tracy chuckled and turned away from the hot plate, where the chili was starting to bubble. “Bring ’em on up, Sam. I want to apologize for the inconvenience.”
Soon Catchem and Patton were hustling the three hoods into the office. They were a well-dressed trio, at least in terms of money spent, with no sign of casual dress or getting ready for bed, which you might reasonably expect, as they’d been picked up at home relatively late at night. These boys, Tracy knew, were dressed for work.
Which meant they’d been working.
Tonight.
Itchy, who was living up to his name by compulsively scratching under one arm, seemed angriest; he stepped forward, while Flattop insolently laid back, with arms folded, and Mumbles tried to fade into the woodwork.
“We get to make one phone call each!” Itchy said. He began scratching the side of his neck. “That’s the law, copper!”
“Maybe they are a law firm,” Catchem offered.
Tracy shrugged at Catchem. Then he sat on the edge of his desk and said casually, “You guys been denied a phone call?”
“Yeah!” Itchy said.
Flattop nodded.
“Salaa,” Mumbles said.
“What did he say?” Catchem asked.
“He said it was the law, Sam,” Tracy said. “See, the thing is, you guys aren’t under arrest. You’re in protective custody.”
“Protective custody?” Itchy said. He scratched his buttocks. “What are you trying to pull?”
“There was a death threat against the three of you,” Tracy said.
“Dethret?” Mumbles said.
“Yes, a death threat,” Tracy said.
Catchem and Patton sneaked confused looks at each other; even they didn’t know what Tracy was talking about.
“Who made this death threat?” Itchy wanted to know. He was scratching his head.
Tracy shrugged. “I don’t know. It was anonymous. Could’ve been any gangster in town. Big gang war brewing, I understand.” Tracy’s smile was pleasant and false. “Hell—it could’ve even been me.”
That made Itchy twitch.
“You talk tough,” Flattop said with a tiny, derisive smile. “But talk is cheap.”
“I consider that an expert opinion,” Tracy said sunnily, “coming from a cheap hood like you.”
Itchy wasn’t scratching now; his hands were fists and he was shaking them in the air. “We want our phone call.”
With sudden savagery, Tracy grabbed the phone off his desk and yanked it out of the wall. He threw it at Itchy, who caught it clumsily. The eyes behind the Coke-bottle lenses blinked and the lips pursed nervously and then, with an unconvincing show of defiance, Itchy hurled the dead phone to the floor, where it jangled and clunked.
“Sam,” Tracy said, “make a note of that—they waived their phone calls.”
“It’s their privilege,” Catchem said with a shrug.
“Have a seat, boys,” Tracy said, and Catchem roughly sat them down.
“Wastbowtraz?” Mumbles asked, shifting in his seat.
“It’s about Lips Manlis, Mumbles.”
The three hoods said nothing; they were motionless, except for Itchy, who was digging at one eyebrow.
Finally, Flattop said, “Who’s Lips Manlis?”
“Oh,” Tracy said, “I forgot. You’re new in town.”
“That’s right. I never heard of the bum.”
“You ever hear of Lefty Moriarty? Any of you? Officer Lefty Moriarty, who was killed down near the Southside Warehouse tonight?”
The hoods said nothing, remaining motionless, but for Itchy scratching his Adam’s apple.
“Cops get a little testy, you know.” Tracy said blandly, “when one of their own gets it. What about Big Boy Caprice? Any of you ever hear of him?”
The hoods said nothing. A sneering smile had formed on Flattop’s cupid lips.
Tracy moved back to the hot plate and turned the heat down, stirred the chili. “You fellas work for Caprice, don’t you?”
Flattop rose and moved forward. “Are you gonna charge us with something, flatfoot?”
Tracy took a spoonful of chili; he brought it up near his lips, but the steaming stuff changed his mind. “You can talk,” he said, his back to them “or go back into protective custody for a while. I’m sure there are a few dozen holding tanks in town for you to tour before we ever get around to booking you on anything.”
Flattop moved over to Tracy, who turned away from the steaming chili, the spoon still in hand. With a thick finger, Flattop thumped Tracy in the chest. Three times. Hard. He left the finger against Tracy’s chest, like a pointing gun, when he spoke through tiny teeth clenched in his wide, chubby-cheeked face.
“We got rights coming to us, flatfoot. Book us, or shake us loose, or you’ll be the one cooling your heels in stir. If you live that long.”
Tracy gently turned the spoon sideways and the steaming hot chili slid onto Flattop’s hand.
Flattop yowled, recoiled in pain, then instinctively threw a fist toward Tracy.
Tracy ducked out of the way, Flattop’s punch slipping harmlessly past, and the detective came back with a roundhouse right, landing in Flattop’s rather soft belly, doubling him over.
Flattop went down on his knees, as if praying to Tracy; the hood held his belly with both hands and his face distorted like a child’s before crying.
“He said he had rights coming to him,” Catchem said to Tracy, shrugging. “Well, you gave him one.”
“Take the bad man away, Sam,” Tracy said. “He scares me.”
“Come on, pal,” Catchem said. “Come along, before you get a left, too.”
“Take ’em all way,” Tracy said disgustedly, and sat at the desk, while Patton and Catchem herded them out.
Soon Catchem came back in and said, “I’ve got each of ’em in his own interrogation room. But they’re right. We can’t get away with holdin’ ’em much longer.”
Tracy thought about it. “You spent more time with ’em than me. Who’s the weakest?”
“Mumbles, I’d say. Flattop would spit in his mother’s eye on her deathbed. Itchy’s nervous only in the epidermis; I think you’d have to burn the bottom of his feet to get him to talk.”
“I’ve got matches.”
Catchem’s expression was one of concern. “Tracy—take it easy. The D.A. ain’t gonna put up with this.”
Patton peeked around the corner. “Dick—I know how you feel about Big Boy. But you’re the one who always says we gotta stick to the law . . .”
Tracy grimaced.
“Don’t get me wrong,” Catchem said as he was going out
. “I’m no stickler for detail when it comes to making a life of misery for the hoodlums of the world.”
Mumbles was in interrogation room B, seated against the wall under the beam of a blinding spotlight. Other than a few chairs, the room was furnished only with a red table on which sat a ceramic gray-blue polar bear, perched on its hind legs, looking as cool as the room was not; a strangely decorative touch for such a spare, severe cubicle. By way of contrast, the sleepy-eyed hood was swearing, his blond hair messed and matted and moist; he was sitting in his lavender shirt and tie, and boxer shorts and shoes and socks. Catchem had collected the hoodlum’s trousers, as a little humiliation was as good a place as any to start an interrogation. In the darkness, against a plaster wall, a uniformed man watched. On entering, Tracy sent the uniformed man out; then it was just him and Mumbles.
“Tumofflice,” Mumbles said irritably.
“If I turned off the lights, Mumbles,” Tracy said, pulling a chair over and resting one foot on it, leaning an arm on his knee, “then it’d be dark. And we need to throw some light on the subject.”
“Thirdree,” Mumbles said. “Wanmylawr.”
“You’re right,” Tracy said pleasantly. “I am giving you the third degree. And if I were you, I’d want my lawyer, too.”
“Aintawkn.”
“Oh, you’ll talk.”
“Swattyuthnk.”
“It’s exactly what I think.” He took his foot off the chair and went over to Mumbles and grabbed him and shook him till his teeth rattled.
“Lips Manlis is missing,” Tracy said, and grabbed Mumbles by the shirt. “I want to know what happened to him.”
“Dunno! Dunno!”
“A cop is dead, Mumbles. A career cop with a family.”
“Idindunuthin!”
“As long as you didn’t pull the trigger, then I don’t care about you. Get it? I don’t even care if you’re the one that sapped Pat Patton.”
Mumbles blinked. Tracy had hit a little too close to home. “I want Big Boy,” Tracy said. “I know he was there. Did he do it personally?”
Mumbles’s eyes went suddenly wide.
“You wonder how I know?” Tracy asked. “I have evidence. Mumbles. I may even have an eyewitness. How’s your alibi for last night?”
“Sayrtyt.”
“Air tight? For both the garage, and the warehouse?”
Mumbles swallowed. He nodded. Sweat ran down his face from his hair in a steady stream.
“We’re building a case. Mumbles. We’re building it slow, and careful. And you’re going to be part of it. It’s up to you which side of the courtroom you sit on.”
“Ainnosqeeelr.”
“That’s very noble. I’m sure you’re not a squealer. Though you may squeal, some, when they turn on the juice.
“Jooz?”
“The electric chair juice. Mumbles. Big Boy will be sitting in his fancy office, and you’ll be frying in the hot squat.”
“S’hot.” He squirmed. “Tumoftlice.”
“No, I think we’ll leave the lights on.”
Sam Catchem came in.
Tracy was pacing around Mumbles’s chair. “Tell me about Lips Manlis, Mumbles.”
“Dunnonuthn.”
“You know plenty. You give me Big Boy, and I’ll give you a pass. You’ll be our star witness, Mumbles. You’ll be a hero.”
“Smwatter.”
“What’d he say?” Catchem asked.
“He wants some water,” Tracy said. “That does sound refreshing. Get me a couple glasses with some ice, would you, Sam?”
“Sure.”
Catchem slipped back out, and Tracy returned his attention to Mumbles.
“Where’s Lips Manlis?” Tracy asked.
“Dunnonuthn.”
“Where’s Lips Manlis?”
“Dunnonuthun!”
“Where’s Lips Manlis?”
Mumbles folded his arms, sucked in air, and jutted his chin out defiantly; his shirt was soaked with sweat. He crossed his bare, bony legs.
And Tracy noticed something.
“That’s interesting,” Tracy said.
“Wusstrstin?”
Tracy yanked the right shoe off Mumbles’s crossed leg and held it up so the hood could see the dirty sole of it. The dirt was gray, powdery.
“Cement,” Tracy said. “Cement. Maybe I already have Lips Manlis’s murderer in custody.”
“Yrcrazee! Yrscrueeyrnutz!”
“I’m not crazy. I’m not screwy. Nor am I nuts. But you, my friend, are in way over your head.”
Catchem came back in, carrying, waiterlike, a tray with several ice-filled glasses. Tracy directed him to set it on the table near the ceramic polar bear and Catchem did. Then he handed Catchem the shoe.
“Take this to the lab right away,” Tracy said. “Confirm that the substance on the sole is cement, would you?”
“Sure.” Catchem grinned. “Be right back.”
Tracy swiveled the ceramic polar bear slightly and revealed a spigot and filled the glasses. Mumbles’s eyes widened as he realized how close to the water he’d been all along.
Mumbles reached for a glass; Tracy slapped his hand away. Catchem caught this from the corner of his eye as he was going out.
“This water isn’t for you, Mumbles,” Tracy said. “It’s for me. I’m working up a thirst, questioning you.”
Tracy poured a large glassful of water, ice cubes clinking in the glass. Mumbles, his face wetter than a man taking a shower, looked yearningly at the glass as Tracy slowly drained it.
“Ah,” Tracy said. “That’s refreshing.”
Mumbles, caught in the beam of the spotlight like an animal in the headlights of a car, looked frantically at Tracy. And then the hoodlum hung his head. “Awrytawrytawrytalredyahltawk.”
“Hold that thought,” Tracy said, and he called in the plainclothes policewoman stenographer, Mrs. Green, from the hall.
Mumbles was giving his statement when Catchem returned.
“BigBoydidit,” Mumbles said.
“Did what, Mumbles?” Tracy asked, handing him a glass of ice water.
Mumbles gulped it. Then he exploded: “BigBoydiditltelyuhedidit! HekildLpsMlis!”
“Where? When?”
“Warehousetonighcementoverct. Isawtall.”
“Okay, Mrs. Green,” Tracy said to the stenographer, “you heard him. That’s his testimony.”
“What did he say?” the stenog asked.
“He said he was at the warehouse tonight,” Tracy said. “They gave Manlis a cement overcoat. Mumbles said he saw it all.” Tracy nodded to the stenographer. “Thank you very much, Mrs. Green. You may go now.”
The confused woman did, and Catchem nodded for Tracy to step out in the hall. Tracy found Pat Patton waiting there, looking eager but apprehensive.
“That was cement on his shoe, all right,” Patton said.
“Good,” Tracy said. “See if the lab boys can match it to the cement in the back of that truck at the warehouse.”
“And to the dirty water in those mop buckets,” Patton added.
“Right,” Tracy said, nodding. “Good man, Pat.”
Catchem pointed toward the interrogation booth. “What do we do with Mumbles now?”
Tracy shrugged. “Give him his pants and shake him loose with his pals. We’ll keep that statement of his tucked in our back pocket, for now.”
“That was coercion, Tracy,” Catchem said, “and you know it. Inadmissible. And illegal.”
Tracy bristled. “As illegal as killing Manlis? As illegal as killing Officer Moriarty? As illegal as shooting my girl’s father?”
Catchem smiled soothingly, cigarette drooping from his lips. He put a hand on Tracy’s shoulder. “Hey—Dick. Pal of mine. I’m on your side. But if we keep playin’ fast and loose with the law, the bad guys are gonna walk on a technicality.”
“Not if we shoot first,” Tracy said, “and investigate afterward.”
“Good point,” Catchem admitted. “
Unfortunately, right now Pat has some more news—bad news, in this case.”
“Oh?”
Patton nodded glumly. “We checked that cement truck for prints; wiped clean.”
Tracy frowned. “What about the walnuts?”
Patton said, “Lab boys are still working on those.”
Tracy sighed. “Well, we got enough to make the arrest. The fingerprints on the walnuts’ll clinch it, tomorrow.”
Catchem’s eyes tightened with doubt. “We’re picking up Big Boy already? Shouldn’t we have a little more before—”
“Sam, we’re picking him up now. Tonight.”
“It’s a gamble,” Patton said.
“Worth taking,” Tracy said.
“And here I thought gambling was illegal,” Catchem said.
88 Keys was handsome in an insolent, almost pretty manner: his eyes were slanted, dark hair slicked back, cigarette drooping seductively down like an extension of his upper lip.
Skilled fingers glided over the ivories with an effortlessness that belied years of practice. Classical training as a youth, before his father’s business went under; playing honky-tonks and bordello parlors as a kid and a young man. He’d played recitals, and he’d played jam sessions, and spent a season with the Spike Dyke Orchestra.
There’d been an agent, not so long ago, who had him marked for stardom; was getting ready to put a stage band together for 88 to lead. That went south when the agent caught his best girl in 88’s arms.
Dames had always been 88’s blessing and his curse. He couldn’t resist them, and they couldn’t resist him; the only difference was, his attraction was strictly physical, and eventually wore off—the girls always took it more seriously. Saw something in him they wanted to tame. He was a bad boy and good girls liked that.
He’d have never got stuck here, in this rut, in this glorified joint, backing up this two-bit torch singer Breathless Mahoney, if something unlikely hadn’t occurred: he’d fallen for her.
And Breathless liked him, too, or at least so it seemed; she showed him little of the arrogance or the willfulness she’d displayed to Lips Manlis. Her soft flesh was compliant under his touch, reflecting anything but the boredom she flaunted at other men in the same way she flaunted her beauty, her body.
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