I shook my head. “No, she said ‘Kissy’ not ‘Cassy.’ She called me ‘Kissy’ when we were alone. She said it by accident one day and it made me laugh, so it became her nickname for me.”
A knock sounded on the door, and he went to answer it. He stepped out of the room and spoke to someone on the other side. I couldn’t discern any of the particulars, but the other voice rose in anxious agitation. Paolo made a reply: smooth rhythmic tones. The other voice interrupted, increasing in agitation and volume. I didn’t care, none of the men in the other room meant anything to me. None save one.
Paolo reentered the room and sat down beside me. “We have a problem. Some people in the other room want to take you down to the precinct to answer some questions.”
“Some people. You mean your people, right?”
He swallowed hard and licked his lips. “No, they’re not my people.”
“Feds?”
“Some of them are, I don’t know about Greene.”
“Do you mean Colonel Greene?”
Paolo rubbed his forehead and stared at me. “How did you know that?”
“I’ve heard the name.”
“Oh yeah? Where?”
“Just around.”
“Jesus, Kissy. Right now this town is crawling with G-men and Army Intelligence, and they won’t even tell us what the game is. Please tell me you aren’t tangled up in whatever it is that they’re after.”
I picked up the pack of smokes I’d been burning through, but it was empty. “I need cigarettes.”
“You are, aren’t you?” He threw up his hands and paced back and forth between me and the window. “Cassandra. Kissy, these men want to put you in a little cell in some godforsaken federal prison! You’ve got to give me something, or I can’t help you.”
I bit my lip and stepped over to him. I had to look up to see his face. “Remember your murder, the one in Mt. Washington?”
“Yeah.”
“The victim was a Nazi, right?”
He expelled a lungful of air. “We think so.”
“You found some literature in the top dresser drawer, right?”
“You were in that house! Kissy, you didn’t kill that man. Did you?”
I grinned. “What do you think?” I paused, holding his eye for a moment. “Right now, the Feds have pushed you out of the game. I can deal you back in, but you have to get me out of here.”
“Are you saying the Mt. Washington murder victim was killed by the Feds?”
I turned away from him. “Are you gonna help me, Paolo?”
“If I do, what’s the plan?”
“I know who to shake down for information. We find out who shot Shultz and nail them. We find out who or what the Feds are after, and we give it to them and tell them to get the hell out of town.”
He nodded. “You’d make a good cop.”
“I’d make a terrible cop because I have one more condition. When we find the guy who shot Norman, I’m gonna bleed him out.”
He stood there, watching me. “Well, I see you’ve not lost your thirst for vengeance. You know I can’t agree to that last part.”
“I know. When we find the guy, I’ll wait for you to leave.” I twitched my lips into a grin.
He waved his hands. “A fine plan, but how can I get you out of here? The other room is full of cops and more than a few Feds.”
“We’ll just have to scam them.” I pulled him down and whispered into his ear.
Paolo opened the door and we stepped into the sitting room. Detectives, photographers, Feds and beat cops all hushed themselves into silence. I clung to Paolo’s body and simpered as pitiably as I could. I trembled, I whined, and I wailed. His arm draped over my shoulder and he held me tightly. He motioned to another man and spoke up. “Sergeant Hobbes, I’m taking this young lady down to the hospital. I’m worried that, in the condition she’s in, she might do herself injury. Please take over here.”
A squat, ugly man in a gray suit intercepted our progress across the room. “You aren’t taking her anywhere, Belvedere. Not until I say you can.” He swaggered toward us.
That was my cue. I let go of Paolo and grabbed my hair in my fingers and I shrieked and shrieked. I dropped to the floor and pounded my fists on it. I looked up at the ugly man and howled like a banshee! My throat burned from the force of my lamentations, but I didn’t stop.
The ugly man took a step away from me. “What’s the matter with her?” He looked to Paolo. “Can’t you shut her up?”
Paolo just shrugged. “She’s been traumatized, Colonel. It took me an hour to get her to agree to go to the hospital. For some reason, it seems that she has an unreasonable terror of you. Why would that be, Colonel?”
Colonel Greene’s mouth hung open. “I-I don’t know!”
Paolo gestured at me with his hands. “Well, she’s all yours, Colonel. You may begin your interrogation of the subject.”
I kept up my keening wail, adding in some choking and coughing for effect.
“Better hurry though, Colonel, you’ll want to get what you can out of her before she swallows her tongue. After that she won’t be fit for much besides burying. I’ll let you explain to the district attorney how a subject in your custody choked to death.”
The colonel’s mouth worked, and he looked like he might be ill. “Get her out of here, Belvedere!”
Paolo smiled. “Oh, no hurry. I can wait until you’ve had a chance to talk to her.” He jingled the loose change around in his trousers pocket as if he watched women pitch a fit every day.
“Dammit, Belvedere! Take her out of here! She belongs in the nuthatch!”
“Well, all right. If you’re sure you’re done with her, Colonel.” He knelt and slipped his arm around my shoulder. “Come on, Miss. We’ll take you away from here. It’ll be just fine now.”
My screams dropped to whimpers and gasping sobs. I let him guide me out of the room and close the door behind us.
He pursed his lips and looked sideways at me. “You are amazing.”
I showed some teeth. “I know.”
Chapter Fifteen
We exited the Aristocrat and stood under the awning for a moment. Paolo pointed down the street. “My car is right over there.”
I squinted through the rain. “Does Colonel Greene know what kind of car you drive?”
He blinked a few times. “I don’t know. I suppose he could.”
“Let’s assume he does. We’ll have to take a different car.” I made a show of looking up and down the street. I pointed to my green Chrysler. “How about that one? It looks about right.”
“What are you talking about? I’m not stealing a car!”
I shushed him. “Of course not. I am.” Before he could say anything, I swam through the downpour and down the street to my car. I already had the keys in my hand, so within a sawed-off second, I had the door open and the engine purring like a tame tiger. I switched on the headlights and pulled up to the awning in front of the Aristocrat. I rolled down the window and handed him a grin. “Get in, copper.”
He stared at me, long enough that I thought he’d refuse to get into the car, but eventually he heaved a titanic sigh, opened the door, and sat in the passenger seat. “We’ll have to reevaluate our estimates on how long it takes to hot-wire a car. You must be some kind of pro.” I thought he looked sad, and I had to laugh.
“It’s my car, dummy.” I pointed to the key in the ignition. “I just wanted to make sure it was Paolo the man who was with me. I knew Paolo the cop wouldn’t get in a stolen car.” I parked about a block away from the Aristocrat and gave him a serious look. “You aren’t here as a cop, right?”
“Kissy, it’s what I am. I’m a cop.”
I shook my head. “No, that’s what you do, not who you are. Being a cop is just a job, Paolo, no different from a greengrocer or a ditch digger. It doesn’t have to define you. What you are is a man. You’ve just played policeman so long that you’ve forgotten how to act like a man. I’m hoping that we can salvage Paolo the man fr
om the wreckage of Paolo the cop.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
“Because until this mess is cleaned up, we might have to do things far worse, both morally and legally, than stealing a car. If you can’t accept that, you’ll have to get out right now.”
“You’re asking a lot.”
I chuckled. “I’m not asking anything. I’m telling you the way things are gonna be. It’s up to you, Paolo. Are you gonna be a man or a cop?”
His jaw clenched and he stared through the windshield at the dancing droplets of rain. He suddenly turned to me with a toothy smile on his face. “I’m already in Dutch with Colonel Greene, might as well see this through to the end.” He stuck out his right hand. “Partners?”
I shook it. “For now. Say, what kind of car does Colonel Greene drive?”
“Uh, it’s white.”
I pointed my finger at a Packard parked on the street. “Is that it?”
He squinted through the deluge. “Yeah, I think it is.”
“Good.” I opened the door and sprinted toward the Packard. I opened my pocketknife and stabbed each tire a time or two. The air hissing out of each one sounded like a basket of angry cobras, and that image set me to laughing. I laughed the whole way back to my car, and brayed even after I got inside.
Paolo shook his head, frowning. “Why did you do that?”
My laughter made it hard for me to speak, and it took a while before I could give him an answer. I finally fought the giggles to a standstill. “Because he fell for that stunt we pulled on him back there.”
Paolo’s frown deepened. “Huh?”
“Look, the only reason he let us go is because he thinks so little of women that he honestly believed a woman would react to trauma like that. He’s an idiot. I also want to keep him off our backs for a while.”
“He’ll just get another car.”
I drove past the crippled Packard with a broad smile on my face. “I know, but that’ll take some time. Besides it felt really good.” My smile stretched my face to the limit. “Really good.”
He suddenly leaned his head back and bellowed out his rich laughter. “You are a wicked woman, Kissy Lisbon.”
“I need to find an open drug store.”
“Why? Are you sick?” He seemed to be waiting for a punch line.
“Well, all that screaming isn’t easy on the throat. I want to buy something soothing for it.”
“Oh. Try the one on Vine Street. I think it’s open until 10:00.”
The rain began to slacken as I parked in front of the store. Paolo waited in the car while I ran inside. I came back outside with a cigarette between my lips and a bottle of bourbon in a brown paper bag. Once I’d gotten in the car, I took a tug from the bottle and hissed my pleasure. “That’s better.”
“You bought cigarettes and whiskey to sooth your raw throat?”
“Yeah, what do you use?”
He threw up his hands. “I remember a time when I couldn’t get you to take a sip from a martini.”
My brows knit. “Hmm. I don’t remember that. You must be thinking of some other person.”
“I’m starting to think you’re right. So, where do you want to start?”
“I want to go see a lawyer.”
He nodded. “Good idea. I have a feeling we’ll need one by morning.”
“That’s not what I mean. I know a lawyer who’s in deep with Colonel Greene.”
“You do? Bah, Kissy, I think you need to start at the beginning. Tell me everything.”
I chewed my lip for a moment. “Okay, but remember, you’re not a cop tonight.”
He rubbed his forehead and gave a little moan. “I’m gonna regret this, I just know it. Okay, start at the beginning.”
So, I did. I told him the high points, but left out just enough to make sure I stayed in charge. His eyes never left my face, and there were times when I felt certain his eyeballs would roll out of his skull and rattle around on the floor.
When I’d caught him up, he whistled. “When you get in trouble you don’t hold anything back, do you? Why do you want to see this Martingdale guy?”
“Because I think Colonel Greene, or one of his goons, shot Norman.”
That woke him up. “Why do you think that?”
“Shultz worked for Martingdale, right? When I went to Martingdale’s office to find out where Shultz lived, I overheard Martingdale mention that Colonel Greene would be interested to know somebody was looking for Shultz. So, Greene knew Shultz. Shultz ended up dead.”
Paolo ran his fingers through his curls. “You think Greene had Shultz killed. Why?”
“I think Shultz was working for Greene. Mrs. McKnight, the lovely old woman you caught me speaking to in Mt. Washington, said that sometimes a white car picked up Shultz. We know Greene drives a white Packard.”
He shook his head. “That’s all circumstantial. There are hundreds of white cars in Cincinnati. Even if Shultz was working with Greene and Greene had him shot, how do you connect Greene to Norman’s shooting?”
“When Norman and I left the Aristocrat this morning, we were being followed. I don’t think it was the first time either. There was another guy at the auction.”
“So what? Your tail could have been working for the Bund.”
I laughed. “When the Bund follows you, they also shoot at you. No, I think this guy worked for someone else. At the time I thought he might be a cop. Now, I think he was a Fed.”
Paolo’s forehead dented as he thought.
“Tonight, before we left for the Aristocrat, a white Packard nearly ran us off the road. It went in the same direction we did. Toward the Aristocrat.”
“Still circumstantial. This could all just be a series of coincidences. It’ll never hold up in a court of law.”
I hurled a scowl at him. “Be careful, Paolo, you almost sounded like a cop just now.”
He held up his hands in surrender. “I’m sorry, bad habit. I’m just saying that we can’t prove any of this. Why would Greene shoot Norman?”
“Whoever shot Norman was in the room where we’d met with Gottlieb earlier. He could have been looking for something. Or someone. Gottlieb, Ruger, or maybe even Heloise Kendall.” I threw my dead cigarette out the window. “The guy in that room tackled me with his body. Believe me, he was built like a bull. All I remember about him was his size and his cheap gray suit.”
Paolo grimaced as if in pain. “Built like a bull; that’s a great description of Greene, and Greene had on a cheap gray suit tonight.”
I nodded. “Yeah, I’m convinced Greene shot Norman. To be sure, we have to go to the one person who seems to know what Greene is up to.”
“Martingdale.”
“Right.” We drove through the rain and I parked the car on the street next to Martingdale’s office building. A light burned on the third floor, right in the same window where I’d seen Martingdale standing after my last visit to his office. “Looks like he’s still here.”
“You know, Kissy, he might not want to talk to us.”
“Just flash your buzzer at him. He’ll talk to a cop.”
“Oh, now I’m a cop?” He laughed. “I can’t force him to talk. He’s a lawyer.”
I waved that away. “Once he hears our story, he’ll want to talk, believe me.” I opened the door and gestured to the stairs. “If not, I’ll have to get rough with him.”
Paolo stopped on the second-floor landing to frown at me.
I threw him a grin. “Just kidding, officer.” I scurried past him and made it to the third floor before he did. I pointed out the door to Paolo. “There it is. Maybe you’d better be the one to knock.”
“Because I’m a cop?” He sighed and rapped on the door. “Mr. Martingdale? This is Detective Belvedere with the Cincinnati Police Department.” He shot me a glance while we waited. Nothing. He knocked again. “Mr. Martingdale? I’d like to speak with you.” Silence reigned from within. He tried the knob, but the locked door wouldn’t budge.
; I pointed up to the transom, which was open. I took off my jacket and put my hand on his shoulder. “Give me a boost.” Reluctance chiseled itself into his face, but he lifted me until I could pull myself through the transom. I dropped through it and landed on my bottom on the other side of the door. “Ow!”
He rattled the doorknob. “Kissy? Are you all right?”
I turned the lock and opened the door. “Yeah. Just perfect.” Darkness swathed the room, except for the sliver of light that escaped around the edges of the door leading into Martingdale’s inner office. Paolo handed my jacket to me, but he had my Colt in his hand.
“What’s this?”
“A gun.”
“Why do you have a gun?”
“Why do you?” I snatched it from him and held it in my hand. “Stay out of my pockets!”
He held up his hands again. “I give up.” He knocked on Martingdale’s door. “Mr. Martingdale? Police, please open the door.” Not response. He shrugged. “Maybe he just forgot to turn off the light.”
When I tried the doorknob and it turned easily. I sighed. “This seems awfully familiar.” I clutched my pistol tightly in my hand and flung the door inward.
Martingdale sat in his swivel chair with his head leaned back. A neat round bullet hole decorated the center of his forehead.
I turned to Paolo. “You were right, he’s not gonna talk to us.”
Chapter Sixteen
Just like that, Paolo became a cop again. “Don’t touch anything! The entire room is a crime scene.” He started to leave the room.
“Where are you going?”
“To call this in. We need to start collecting evidence immediately.”
I chuckled. “Have you forgotten that we’re in this office illegally? How do you intend to explain that?”
He ran his fingers through his hair a time or two. “This is a murder scene, Kissy!”
“Yeah, he’s dead. He’s not going anywhere. So, we don’t need to be in a hurry to call anyone. It’s a safe bet his secretary will call the cops in the morning. We need to see what he can tell us.”
He grit his teeth, but didn’t leave the room. “I don’t like it.”
Big Shots and Bullet Holes Page 11