Bullet Proof

by Frank Kane

  “Says he hopes it ain't in twenty volumes before you get around to having any.”

  “See how it is, Johnny? Even Pop is out trying to get me a man. Discouraging, ain't it, Pop?”

  The old man grinned. “These young bucks don't know how good they got it, Muggs. If I was forty years younger, myself—” He caught himself, grinned. “You didn't come down here to hear an old man's life history, though. What are you really after, Johnny?”

  Liddell scratched his head. “Damned if I know exactly, Pop. Anything that will show a connection between Matt Merritt and Pete Velie, I guess.”

  Pop Michaels sucked on his pipe, pursed his lips. “That's kind of a broad order, Johnny. Break it down for me.”

  “Put it this way, Pop. Matt Merritt and Pete Velie have cropped up in a case I'm working on. The way things stack up it looks like they knew each other sometime in the past. I've got to find out when and how. Ever hear of their paths crossing?”

  The old man clamped the pipestem between his teeth, ran the heel of his hand across the silver bristles on his chin. His bright-blue eyes seemed to be consulting the card index of his mind. “Matt Merritt and Pete Velie, eh?” He sucked contemplatively on his pipe, shook his head. “Can't recall that they ever did, Johnny. I've known Pete ever since he used to raid pushcarts as a fresh kid on the East Side and I was a district man in the courts.” He shook his head again. “He never played in Merritt's league. Not that I can recall.”

  Muggsy nodded. “It sounds goofy to us, too, Pop, but it's worth a try. Get us the files on Merritt and Velie, would you?”

  The old man pushed over a pad of forms to be filled out, waited until she had written the information, then shuffled down the line of filing-cabinets toward the rear.

  “Let's see anything you have on Frankie Capolla, too, will you, Pop?” Muggsy called after him.

  After a minute the old man was back, carrying three bulging Manila envelopes.

  “Been reading the story on the Capolla kill, Johnny,” he said. “What's the inside?”

  Liddell shrugged. “Just like it says, Pop. He and I were having a little talk when somebody started tossing lead. Frankie forgot to duck.”

  The old man grinned slyly, pushed the envelopes across the desk. “Frankie was a bad boy. Funny thing about him not going for that Luger of his, wasn't it? If it was in his holster when the shooting started, that is.”

  “Yeah, isn't it?” Liddell agreed.

  “I hear the D.A. is wondering about that, too, Johnny. If I were you I'd watch my step. Deats's file back there is a pretty skinny one. He don't care how he fattens it or who he has to stamp flat to do it.”

  “Thanks for the tip, Pop.” Liddell winked. “They don't have a thing on me. Not a thing.”

  “Yet,” added Muggsy. She picked up the folders, led the way to a library table at the side of the room, spilled the contents of the Merritt file out. “Let's see what we can find in this one.”

  They divided the clips into two files, each pored through half. The clippings ran back through the years, traced the growth of a poor Irish immigrant who rose to an important national figure before his death. Roto prints, news stories of trips abroad, news photos, predictions of prosperity at the height of the depression, warnings of recession at the height of prosperity, business and social triumphs, his daughter's debut, his son's death in a shooting-accident, and finally his own death and the homage paid him by friends and associates at the funeral.

  After half an hour of examining the file, Liddell straightened up, eased the cramp in his back, suppressed a yawn. “Looks like Merritt never knew Pete Velie existed,” he grumbled.

  Muggsy Kiely chewed on the end of a fingernail. “Merritt was a big contractor. Maybe he used Velie in some strikebreaking or keeping his workers in line. Think that could be, Pop?”

  The old man sucked on his pipe, considered it, shook his head. “Merritt never had any labor trouble far's I know.” He pointed with the stem of the pipe. “If he had you would have come across it in there. That kind of stuff always hit the papers, especially if there was violence. And if Pete was mixed up, there was violence.”

  “No hits, no strikes—plenty of misses,” Liddell said with a grunt.

  Muggsy nodded, riffled the pile of clips with her fingers. “How about the daughter? Maybe she got mixed up with Pete in some way?”

  “Wasn't Pete kind of old for her?”

  “That wouldn't make any difference to a screwball glamour puss like Jean Merritt. You know the way the movies and teevee have glamorized two-bit hoodlums like Velie. In her circles knowing Pete Velie would be a real accomplishment.” She shoveled the clippings back into the folder marked Matthew Merritt—Deceased, handed it back to Pop. “It's not like in her old man's day when the racket boys and society traveled in different circles. Now they both hang out in the upholstered sewers we laughingly call night clubs.”

  “It's worth a try as long as we're here, I guess.”

  “How about it, Pop? You knew Velie from away back. Was he the kind of guy that might take a shine to a society kid like Jean Merritt?”

  The old man scratched his head, surrounded himself with a blue fog of pipe smoke, shook his head. “I wouldn't know, Muggs. That society stuff was off my beat. I can let you have her file, though.” He shuffled back to the files, reappeared with another Manila envelope.

  Another half hour of poring through gossip items in columns, reams of copy on Jean Merritt's debut, an announcement of her engagement to Dr. Tony Seville got them no farther.

  “What a screwball! Looks like I had the doc wrong. She seems to have leveled off a little since she met him,” Liddell growled.

  “Hurray for him. Maybe we've both been wrong.” Muggsy sighed. “Maybe this isn't such a good idea after all.”

  Liddell rubbed his eyes wearily, yawned. “One more to go, then we'll pack it in.” He poured the voluminous contents of the Pete Velie file out on the table in front of them, selected a handful at random, started glancing through them. They went through the pile methodically, reading, discarding, reading, discarding. Suddenly Liddell stiffened. He held a clipping up to the light, studied it carefully for a minute.

  “I think I've got something, baby.” His voice was heavy with suppressed excitement. “So help me, Hannah, I think I've struck pay dirt.” He was holding a two-column picture that had apparently been used in a centerspread picture layout. “Take a look at this one, Pop.”

  The old man took the picture, adjusted his glasses, peered at the date. “August 12, 1938, eh? That was in my time, all right.” He held the picture out at arm's length, studied it.

  It was the picture of a man, sprawled out on his back in the gutter, a folded overcoat under his head. A whiteclad intern was kneeling at his side, two uniformed patrolmen were watching with halfhearted interest.

  “That's Pete Velie there.” The old man stabbed the man in the gutter with a gnarled finger. “I remember that time. That was the garage ambush back in '38 down on the East Side. Damn near got Pete that time, too.”

  “Okay, okay. I know that's Pete Velie. But who is this?” Liddell pointed to the intern.

  Pop Michaels studied the picture, shook his head. “Just an ambulance doc, far's I can see. Them young fellers came and went, Johnny. Never around long enough to get to know them well.”

  “How about letting me in on this?” Muggsy complained. She took the picture from Pop Michaels's hands, studied it, frowned. “What's all the excitement, Johnny? I thought you had something.”

  “Take another look at that doc. Doesn't he look familiar?”

  Muggsy studied the picture obediently, shook her head. “Not a bit. Just another intern.” She read the caption under the picture. “He rode the Gouverneur Hospital ambulance. Name of Anthony Annsevillaro. So?”

  “So? What do you mean so?” Liddell roared. “You mean you don't recognize him as Doc Seville, the guy Jean Merritt's going to marry?”

  “Doc Seville? You sure, Johnny?”
/>
  “Of course I'm sure. I'd know that smooth-haired pill pusher any place. Even if he has changed his name.”

  “It could be,” Muggsy conceded. “I don't know Seville well enough to say for sure, but it could be. Even the name. Annsevillaro to Seville. It could be.”

  “It's got to be. It's the link we're looking for. Now at least we can tie two people up in this screwy mess, Seville and Velie. Now we're beginning to get some place.” He turned to the old man. “Got a file on Doc Seville, Pop?”

  Chapter Eleven

  The file On Tony Seville proved disappointing. The batch of clippings dated no farther back than five years, the earliest being an account of Dr. Seville escorting one of that season's more publicized debs. He had apparently made no effort to get publicity of either nature.

  After the files had been returned to the metal drawers, Liddell leaned back, stared morosely at the ceiling. “I'm beginning to get a couple of ideas of what's been playing around here for the past couple of days, but it sounds so screwy, even to me, that I'm afraid to mention it.”

  Muggsy Kiely made an effort to erase her disappointment, but failed. Her full lips drooped, though she showed no signs of giving up.

  “Think hard, Pop. Can't you tie this young doc in with Pete in any way? It can't just be coincidence. There's got to be a connection between them.”

  The old man sucked noisily on his pipe, rattled the juice in the stem. “Can't say I do, Muggs. Matter of fact, I don't believe there was any. Pete was the last guy in the world to have any truck with medics anyway.”

  “Why, Pop?”

  “Scared to death of them. Always was.”

  “How come?”

  Pop Michaels chuckled deep in his throat. “Had good reasons to be, I guess. Doctors always meant trouble for Pete. Back in the old days he was always getting shot up and every time he'd go to a doc for treatment they'd turn him in.”

  “You'd think he'd have stayed away and taken his chances.”

  The old man shook his head. “Not Pete, Muggs. He was scared to. His kid brother Mickey died from an infected wound he refused to have treated. Pete saw the kid die and he had an unholy fear of infection after that.”

  “Yet he knew Seville. That's the only thread we've got and we're hanging onto it. Let's take it from there, see where it goes. Try filling us in on this garage ambush, Pop,” Liddell prompted.

  The old man chewed his pipestem, ran his mind back over the stories he'd covered. “It was a good yarn,” he nodded. “They backed my piece up with a centerfold of pix. That one you saw was one of them.” He tapped the ashes out of the pipe, started repacking it. “They surprised Pete and five of his boys in a garage down on Monroe Street. Pete was the only one to walk away.”

  “Who did it?”

  “Word around was that it was the Mulligan boys. Always was bad blood between Artie Mulligan and Pete. Ever since they were kids. Anyway, Pete clammed up, and the case was never solved. Not by the cops, anyway.”

  Liddell nodded, watched the old man light his pipe with a long wooden match. “Pete shot up bad?”

  “Pretty bad. But Pete always was a tough one to kill. We got the flash down at the Elizabeth station, got there before they loaded him into the ambulance. Real scared, Pete was that time. Real scared.”

  “But you didn't know the intern?” Liddell persisted.

  “Like I said, those kids came and went. Never paid them much mind.” Pop shook his head. “Never saw him before, can't recollect ever seeing him after that.”

  “How about Pete?”

  The old man screwed up his forehead in concentration. “Don't recall that I saw much of him after that, either, until they sent him up on the Federal rap. No, wait a minute, I did. About a year later he was up for questioning about the epidemic of lead poisoning Artie Mulligan and his boys suddenly contracted. Eight of 'em in two weeks.”

  “Nothing come of it?”

  Pop Michaels shook his head. “Not in the courts. But the other Mulligans didn't take it lying down. Every so often you'd hear of one or another of Pete's boys being found with a Mulligan trade-mark in his back.”

  “But not Pete?” Liddell made some rapid computations. “That was almost fifteen years ago. Pete's been inside for about three on the Federal rap. You mean that in twelve years he never turned up?”

  “You saw his file. He's been up for questioning on a couple of killings and things, I guess.”

  Liddell nodded. “But he never showed up with any bullet holes?”

  “Can't say that I ever remember Pete getting into a shooting-scrape from that day to this. None of his boys, either, now that you mention it. Dead, yes. But not wounded.”

  Liddell beat a noiseless tattoo on the table with his finger tips. He stared at a framed picture on the wall above Pop Michael's head. After a moment, as though arriving at a decision, he stood up, caught Muggsy under the arm, lifted her to her feet.

  “Thanks, Pop. That's about all we can learn around here, I guess.” He pulled a roll of bills from his pocket, separated two fives, shoved them into the old man's hand. “Have a beer on us.” He caught Muggsy by the arm, led the way out of the morgue, down the corridor toward the Advance editorial offices.

  “Ten bucks. You really must have an idea vegetating under that spreading scalp of yours. What is it, Johnny?”

  “Nothing very definite. Just an idea, baby.”

  “Don't kid me, Johnny. This is Muggsy,” the girl chided. “You just aren't the type to go scattering fivedollar bills in your path just because somebody gave you an idea. Something Pop said back there rang a bell. What was it?”

  “You heard what he said.”

  “I heard. But to me it didn't mean anything. It did to you. Don't hold out on me, Johnny,” she pleaded.

  “I'll give you the whole thing when I'm surer that I'm on the right track. There's no use in both of us being confused.”

  “Scout's honor?”

  Liddell grinned, chucked her under the chin. “You know I never hold out on you, baby.”

  “Then what hit you so hard back there?” she persisted.

  Liddell pulled a pack of cigarettes from his pocket, held it out to the girl, who shook her head, hung one from the corner of his mouth.

  “Quit stalling, Johnny. What hit you?”

  “A lot of things, I guess. For instance, what's a kid who was interning in a city hospital a few years ago doing with a fancy Park Avenue office and private sanitarium in Westchester?”

  “And?”

  Liddell shrugged. “And how come Pete Velie gets involved in a gang war with the Mulligans and yet neither he nor any of his boys ever show up for treatment of gunshot wounds?”

  “You think there's a connection?”

  “Could be. But first we've got to be sure that Annsevillaro and Seville are both the same guy.”

  Muggsy considered it, conceded that it was reasonable. “How are you planning to go about that?”

  “I thought you might dig me up a press card for a couple of hours.”

  “What for?”

  Liddell shrugged. “Just checking a hunch. I can do it without the card, but having one'll make it a lot easier. Can you get one?”

  “I suppose so. Jim Van Arsdale always keeps a couple of extras stashed away in the city side for when the space rate boys need one.” She led the way to a frosted-glass door labeled Advance- Editorial Employees Only and parked him on the doorsill.

  She was back in a few minutes with a shield-shaped card in her hand. “You're now Tom Terry of the Advance. Every guy on assignment who needs a card becomes Tom Terry on account of that's the name the card is made out to.”

  Liddell stuck the card in his hatband, shoved the hat on the back of his head. “Now if I only had on my baggy pants and hadn't shaved the disguise would be complete. How do I look?”

  “Like Darryl Zanuck's conception of a reporter.”

  “You think that's bad?” Liddell countered. “Hearst never saw the day he could pay hi
s reporters what Zanuck pays his.”

  “Where do we go from here?”

  Liddell took the press card from his hatband, slid it under the cellophane flap in his wallet. “You go home and wait to hear from me. This is strictly a one-man operation.”

  Muggsy started to protest, permitted herself to be dragged to the street. Liddell flagged down a cab, pushed her into it, gave the cabby her address.

  “I'll check you as soon as I get this off my chest,” he promised.

  “How nice. I'll have some beer and cheese ready.”

  Liddell was pleasantly surprised. “Now you're making sense. I thought you were going to cut up, and—”

  “How do you want your cheese? On bread or in a trap?” the girl snapped. “Let's go, driver.”

  The cab charged away from the curb, leaving Liddell standing, his mouth open. As it pulled away, he had a final view of Muggsy in the rear window. He waved, and she put her thumb to her nose and waved back.

  * * *

  A half hour later, Liddell loped up the steps of the drab stone building that housed the administrative offices of Gouverneur Hospital. He walked down a poorly lighted hallway to a door marked Information. Inside, a white-haired woman sat behind a grilled counter, making entries in a large ledger. She raised her eyes as Liddell walked in, smiled.

  “Can I help you?” she asked.

  Liddell flashed the shield-shaped press card. “I'm Tom Terry of the Advance. I'm down here to do some feature pieces on famous doctors who've interned here. Who would I have to talk to?”

  The woman was suitably impressed. “I think you'd want to talk to Mr. Morrisey, our director. Will you come this way, sir?” She opened a gate, led him to a wooden door in the rear of the office. “Would you wait here a moment, Mr. Terry?”

  She disappeared into the office beyond, was gone only a minute.

  “Mr. Morrisey will see you now, Mr. Terry.”

  Mr. Morrisey had a thin, long, sad face running up into a thatch of iron-gray hair that matched the bushy eyebrows perching precariously over a pair of cold, gray, appraising eyes. His mouth was a thin, colorless split that formed the base of a triangle connecting with the long pinched nose. He delicately removed a pince-nez as Liddell walked in.