I swore. “You’ve really followed every step I’ve taken, haven’t you?”
“I know what I have to know. I want you to question everybody who might remotely have knowledge as to Liza Flynn’s whereabouts after she left the Lyons’ party last night at midnight — ”
“How do you know she left at midnight? We have her word that her husband left. She might have gone to the powder room. She might have lain down in the guest bedroom. Just because a bunch of drunks — ”
“Some of this city’s nicest families were there.”
“How quaint! The fact remains that you’re wasting your time. And mine.” I hadn’t wanted to tell them about the Greek. But I knew I had to or Hilligan would have swarms of detail men around Liza Flynn’s place.
I couldn’t say why, but I didn’t want that. I wanted those foul-mouthed cops I knew to stay away from her. I wanted them to keep their dirty hands off anything that belonged to her. I’d do the touching.
“All right,” I said. “The blonde I was drinking with happens to be George Flynn’s secretary. She put me on a hot lead.”
“I’ll bet she did. After you took her up to your place.”
This was really beginning to get me. But I didn’t show it.
“Flynn was preparing some old info against Greek Alonzo that he had gathered while he was the County Solicitor. I figured that was a good reason for Alonzo to attack Flynn. If the Greek was hopped up, he might bungle the job, and that would explain why Flynn was so battered.”
“And you went out to Ybor to see Alonzo?”
“Yes.”
“And — ?”
I shrugged my shoulders.
“So there you are. I doubt that the Greek waited around a swank home like the Lyons’ to see if Flynn came out alone.”
“That might have been luck, playing into the Greek’s hands. Maybe he meant to attack him anyway.”
“That’s not likely. The Greek is a syndicate boy. He wouldn’t act without orders. If the Greek was on the spot with Flynn, I don’t think the syndicate would send the Greek to get himself off the spot.”
I had to agree that was true. “But if the Greek got scared and acted on his own?”
“You saw the Greek. What did you find out?”
“That’s it I didn’t see him. That’s why I want you to give me a little time before you send me out on a wild goose chase to Flynn’s.”
“Well, that’s the first time I ever heard you turn down an assignment with a lovely doll in it. I was pretty sure you’d want to look into Liza Flynn’s life.”
“Maybe I do, but on my own time. This other thing is hot. Just give me until ten o’clock tonight.”
“What happens then?”
“Ricales is delivering the Greek to me.”
“All right. Until ten o’clock. In the meantime, I’ll let Dill continue questioning on the Flynn matter.”
“You don’t need to. I tell you something is screwy in this Greek business. Lay off Liza Flynn until — ”
“Look, Carter. I’m giving you the time you want. I’m going along with you on this Alonzo deal. But don’t try to tell me how to run my department … Okay, Dill. You know what I want. Get with it.”
I left there cursing. I hadn’t kept them away from Liza. Why was I so afraid for Dill to go snooping around? Was I afraid of what he would find? Him and his honest face? I was sweating.
• • •
Gale Waring was in the shower when I got back to my place. I let myself in. She came out of the bathroom wearing just what God sent her to earth in. She grabbed the towel around her and pretended surprise when she saw me. I wasn’t fooled. I’d made plenty of noise unlocking the door.
“You promised me I’d be safe here,” she pouted. She reached for her slip and let it flutter down over her head. I could feel the steady acceleration of my heart at the beauty she turned to me so casually.
“Haven’t you been safe?” Something was happening to my voice. It was getting husky. The strap of my shoulder holster seemed to tighten around my chest. I was breathing heavy.
She wriggled the slip down over the full bloom of her blonde young body. She wrinkled her nose at me. “I might as well have been at home with my roommate,” she complained.
“I looked at you. I thought you were beautiful. I decided I could wait for the rest of it.”
“Wait! I don’t like men who can wait. Men who can wait don’t really want it. Besides, how did you know I’d be here when you got back?”
I grinned. “Women who can’t wait don’t really want it,” I paraphrased. “Anyhow, you’re staying here for a while.”
“Am I?”
I nodded. “I looked into that matter of the Greek Alonzo. They seemed to know what I might want to see the Greek about. So I figure if they connect the Greek, Flynn and the police, they might decide that you are the source.”
The smile was gone now, and her face was white. “I am scared, Marty.”
“You don’t have to be. You just stay here for a few days. Nobody knows you’re here but a couple of guys in the police department.”
“But, Marty, I can’t go on the rest of my life being scared. Hiding — ”
“You don’t have to. You call your girl friend and tell her you’re going to be out of town for a couple of days.”
She smiled through the fear in her face. “I already did.”
“Okay. So you stay here. You don’t answer the door and you don’t let anybody in except me.”
“Sounds wonderful.”
I grinned at her. “Will you listen to me? Tonight I’m going to see the Greek. As soon as I talk to him for a while the danger to you, if there was any, will be gone. They’ll call me when I can see the Greek, and it’ll be all over then.”
“Oh, Marty, somebody has called you twice already.”
“Did you answer the phone?”
“Why, yes.”
“Did you tell them who you were?”
“No.”
“You think they might have recognized your voice over the phone?”
“I don’t think so. I didn’t say much. Only that you weren’t here and that I didn’t know when you’d be back. The phone is what woke me up.”
“Okay. We can’t help that. We can only hope that whoever spoke to you didn’t recognize your voice.”
She smiled wanly. “When I woke up, I didn’t even recognize my own voice.”
“Okay. So maybe whoever called didn’t either. Still, there’s a chance if it has anything to do with the Greek they might figure you’re here when they start looking for you and can’t find you. So from now on, no phone calls, and nobody in the door. Right?”
“All right.” She held up the filmy underpants and regarded them, smiling. “Shall I put these on or not?”
“It does seem a waste of time, doesn’t it?”
“Now I feel safer.”
• • •
She was asleep beside me when the telephone rang. We both sprang up on the bed and stared at each other and then looked at the telephone. It rang again.
I picked it up. There was the clicking sound of a falling coin. I knew the call was coming from a pay station. The voice was guarded. I didn’t recognize it.
“Carter?”
“Yes.”
“Tony Ricales was to deliver something to you?”
“That’s right.”
“Tony says he can make the delivery. To you, personal.”
“All right.”
“Tonight. Ten o’clock. He says he would be pleased to see you at the Dutch Slipper.”
I said, “Okay.” But I was puzzled. The Dutch Slipper was west out Grand Central. About as far from Ybor City as you could get and still stay in Tampa.
Tony was going to play ball. But not in his own back yard.
I drove across town, thinking about Gale Waring. Really, I suppose I was thinking about Liza Flynn because she hadn’t been out of my mind since I met her. Not even while I was in the warm bed, warme
d with the heat of Gale’s fresh young body.
Gale was nice. A young lovely. But I knew she wasn’t what I wanted. I had had lovelies before, and dames, and whatever other name they called themselves. I’d had them all. And still I was looking for something. The big thrill. The thrill that sometimes I thought I was getting in the midst of a manhunt. The kind of excitement that I had felt when the two punks jumped me in the darkened corridor of El Toro Manero. The thrill and excitement that I knew I saw smouldering in the dark eyes of Liza Flynn. We were two of a kind, Mrs. Flynn and me.
I parked about a block away from the Dutch Slipper and walked diagonally across the asphalt paved parking lot to the front entrance. The parking attendant saw me and waved.
The Dutch Slipper caters to the crowds that like girlie shows but can’t get them any more on account of the laws against a lot of flesh. The Dutch Slipper hires shows that give out as much flesh per square inch as the law allows.
I went inside and ordered a drink at the bar. The Dutch Slipper made a nice profit on its whiskey. It was cut closer than the flesh shows. I slugged off the drink and looked around. I saw Tony Ricales across the room. And then I stared, my eyes round as saucers. There was somebody with him. But it wasn’t Greek Alonzo.
It was Jerry Marlowe!
• • •
That called for another drink! But I decided to have it with Ricales and his rich young friend, the nephew of State Senator George Flynn. I started across the room toward the booth where Ricales was sitting with young Jerry Marlowe. At that moment the music began and couples sprang up to dance as though they were starved for it.
They barred my way. I pushed through them. It didn’t take more than a few seconds longer, but in that time Jerry Marlowe and Tony Ricales saw me coming toward them. Jerry said something very earnestly to Tony and stood up.
I was standing at his shoulder as he turned around. He stared into my eyes for a full thirty seconds, which is quite a time for that sort of thing. His mouth was tight and he was white-lipped.
“Hello, sonny,” I said. “Aren’t you out rather soon after your beloved uncle’s untimely death?”
He didn’t even bother to answer me. He swiveled around and started across the room. A stew got in his way and Jerry blew his top. He cursed the drunk and slapped him down with the back of his hand.
There might have been trouble but the drunk landed on the floor and sat there laughing as hard as he could. The waiters and the bouncer had started toward them but they all stopped when the drunk began to laugh. Jerry glared at the drunk and you could see that he would gladly have killed the man; Actually, I was sure that that venom had been meant for me. Jerry couldn’t stand to be laughed at. And both the drunk and I had laughed at him.
I sat down across from Ricales, watching Jerry stride across the dance floor toward the exit. “Nice friends you got,” I said.
“You have me wrong, Capitan.” Ricales’ voice was cold. “He is no friend of mine.”
“No? I was wondering.”
“He is no friend of nobody’s but himself.”
“Quite a temper,” I said.
“Inclemente.”
I looked at him, hard. “That’s the second time you’ve said that to me. First I was merciless. Now it is young Marlowe. But what was he doing here with you?”
Ricales studied me while he lit a cigarette. He inhaled deeply and exhaled the smoke through his nose. “He wants me to hire a show for him. You know — girls.”
“Oh? Okay. Well, let’s get going. Where’s the Greek?”
“I can assure you now that the Greek had no part in the death of Señor Flynn.”
“How do you know?”
“I talked to the Greek. Early. He agreed to meet you. He had been warned by the bosses that he is not to fight the charges brought against him by the County Solicitor.”
“Why not?”
Ricales shrugged. “Who can say? Now is a bad time for the syndicate, perhaps. They think that the less publicity is given the matter of Greek Alonzo, the better. They have promised to keep him on the payroll while he sits a year or two in the carcel.”
I felt my stomach go empty. It made sense. It figured. The syndicate wouldn’t fight a noble young knight of the people like Flynn. It made bad reading. Let it pass off quietly, pay Alonzo for his trip to the pen, and forget the whole thing.
I couldn’t see Greek Alonzo murdering Flynn when he was going to be paid to accept a short prison term. I could feel sweat break out across my shoulders at the things I was thinking, though. I was beginning to have thoughts. All of them unpleasant.
“But the Greek is going to show?”
“You still want to see him?”
“I want to talk to him.”
“You are known, Capitan. Inclemente.”
“Stop saying that!”
“Even if it is true?”
“To hell with that.”
“But you can see. It might complicate matters.”
“What are you talking about?”
“A short prison term for Alonzo. That is one thing. But to be taken into your custody. To be left with you in your back room, Capitan. One hears things. And the word — ”
“Inclemente!” I snapped at him.
He smiled and shrugged. I had said it.
“All I want to talk to Greek Alonzo about is the death of George Flynn. I’m on a homicide detail. To hell with the rest of it. If the feds can’t clamp down on him, I’m not going to try. Those narcotics laws are too fouled up for me to fool with. I’m interested in murder.”
“Then I assure you, you are not interested in Greek Alonzo.”
“Don’t tell me what I’m interested in. I told you I wanted to see the Greek. I also told you that if you didn’t produce him I’d have you closed up. I mean that!”
“But I have kept my promise, Capitan.”
I was still sweating. “Where is he?”
Ricales smiled. When he smiled he looked younger, and you could see he had been a hell of a handsome young guy, once. The señoritas must have burned for him. But now he was tired fighting, and probably tired wenching, too. “Well, Capitan, you know the Greek. Hardly one you would bring in here.”
I looked around. The nicely dressed young people laughing, dancing, and waiting for the flesh show. He was right. Greek Alonzo was a string bean of a man with a pod of an Adam’s apple and a twisted nose. He wore a suit of clothes until it was spattered. The Dutch Slipper was no setting for his type of gem.
“All right. Where?”
“He is waiting in the alley behind the club.”
• • •
I told Ricales to sit there until I came back and started toward the rear of the club. One of the bouncers stopped me. I showed him my badge. He nearly fainted for fear it was a raid. I told him nobody was going to be pinched.
I went through the sweet-smelling, girl-infested corridors. They tittered and waved at me, fluttering their wrap-around capes at me like matadors in a bull ring. They gave me a better show than the customers were going to get for twenty bucks out front.
At the rear exit, I slowed down. I had been jumped once today when I dealt with Ricales. He had wept, swearing his innocence. But I didn’t trust Rieales at all. When I stepped out into the alley, it was quiet, dark, and deserted.
I let the door close behind me and stood in the darkness waiting until my eyes became accustomed to it.
I looked around, called, “Greek.”
There was no answer. Out in the parking lot I heard a car start. One of the girls laughed in the corridor. The band started to play in the club up front. I stepped back against the wall, looking around.
I cursed Ricales, wondering what kind of stall this was. He knew damned well that I wasn’t joking. He knew I’d get him for playing games with me.
Plenty mad, I heeled around and grabbed for the exit door handle. That was when I saw Greek Alonzo.
He still looked like a string bean. But he looked like somebody had she
lled him. He was flopped against the wall between two fifty-gallon garbage containers.
I leaped over there and knelt beside him. I grabbed his shirt front and pulled him toward me. His dead eyes stared at me. I released him. Somebody had got to the Greek ahead of me.
But who?
Chapter 7
I LOOKED both ways in the alley. I was alone. I began to be mad. I slammed through the rear exit and went back to the front of the club. This time I moved so fast that I didn’t even look at the half-naked babes who simpered and called to me. I brushed past the bouncer and was almost to the booth when Tony Ricales looked up and saw me.
His mouth parted and he stared at me. “Capitan! What is wrong?”
I hit the side of the booth he was sitting in. My knee braced against the cushion, I caught Ricales by the lapels of his smart coat.
“You know what’s wrong. You clobbered up this deal and I’m going to rip your skin off.”
“Capitan! I swear to you — ”
“Shove it, Ricales!”
People were beginning to stare at us and whisper. The waiters and bouncers stirred nervously. But they knew me. They didn’t come near.
Ricales’ voice was sobbing again. “Please, Capitan! I am a businessman. A man with a reputation to maintain. Please, I beg you, release me. Must you cuff me around like a common criminal?”
I let him go. “I give you that, Ricales. There is nothing common about the kind of criminal you are.”
“What is wrong? I promise to deliver the Greek. He gives me his word to wait for you. As I know better than to cross you, the Greek knows better than to deceive me.”
My voice snapped. “Oh, he’s there all right, Ricales. He’s out there. But he wants to talk to you.”
“Now?”
“Right now!”
He shrugged his coat up on his shoulder and got out of the booth. He looked around, attempting to smile. Dignity is a mighty important thing to Latins like Ricales. He was trying to show all the people watching that he and the sergeant were old friends and this was an amicable matter of business between them.
In the corridor, Ricales turned on the charm, smiling at the girls and bowing to most of them. Portly dignity. That was Ricales. The dirty crook.
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