Shakedown

by William Campbell Gault

  Then I said, “Business before pleasure. Josie is waiting.”

  She took a deep breath, studying me. “You’ll pay for that, iron man. I’ll have you crawling before I’m through with you.” She smiled.

  “I’ll crawl. You’re worth it.”

  She flicked at my nose with a forefinger. “See you later.”

  I watched her walk down to the car and get in. Then I went over to put some records on the player and into the kitchen to mix a drink. Charles Adam Roland might be too smooth for me and Deutscher too tricky, but Jean was the key card in this game. And I held her, I was sure.

  I went back to the window with my drink and was still standing there, five minutes later, when the Department car stopped in front. I saw the man getting out from behind the wheel but I couldn’t see his face. I didn’t wait to check it.

  I took the box Jean had left on the davenport and shoved it onto a high shelf in my service porch. I checked for any signs of Josie’s occupancy, but there was none beyond the cleanliness of the apartment.

  The chime sounded, and I went to the door. The man who stood on the concrete stoop that served as a porch was a bit shorter than I was but just as broad. My friend, Sergeant Manuel Rodriguez.

  “Come in, Manny,” I said. “Have a drink.”

  “Not this morning.” His brown eyes were mean, tortured. “I checked Deutscher and he sent me to that quack. And I checked the quack.”

  “Come in,” I said again. “The neighbors will think I’m being run in.”

  He came in and closed the door, but advanced no further into the room. “Where’s Josie?”

  “How the hell should I know?”

  “Don’t give me that. You worked with Deutscher on that Condor business. I can’t prove you paid Josie to lie but I’m damned sure of it. Using a girl like Josie to get a bastard like Rickett off the hook! And you’d be the boy who’d want her out of sight. Where is she?”

  “I haven’t the faintest damned idea, Manny. I know you think a lot of the girl, but she just was a whore. Why worry about her?”

  “Never mind the why. I could beat it out of you, you know, Puma. I haven’t got enough to run you in but I could work it out of you.”

  “Easy, boy,” I said. “You’re not that big. Without the badge, you’re not big at all, Manny. Run me in or get the hell out of here, Cop.”

  “We’ll forget I’m a cop,” he said. And he threw the right hand at my chin.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  STRICTLY A SUCKER PUNCH, but I was available. His fist missed the button but caught me on the mouth, and I went back a step, tasting blood. And then I lost my sense.

  I caught him with a left hand, high on the head, and felt a knuckle go. The left would be no good for this one. I brought the right in from the mezzanine while he was still in that second of unthinking rage.

  I put all my two hundred and thirty pounds into that right hand and my feet were flat beneath me. It caught him a shade above the button, but his head twisted with the force of it and crashed into the door jamb. His knees folded and he started to crumple. Just for insurance, I caught him with a button shot as he went down.

  Still as death, he lay, crowding the door. I looked down at him, cursing myself. Hitting a cop; I’d live to regret it. Strangle your mother, butcher your wife, burn up your kids—a smart lawyer will get you off with ninety days. But hit a cop and know you’ll never see a courtroom. You might pray to see one, but they wouldn’t be that dumb. Things can go wrong and then justice might mistakenly be dispensed in a courtroom. Especially if there’s a jury.

  I knelt, after a few seconds, and took his gun from the shoulder holster. I stripped the cartridges from it and put the gun back into the holster. I put the cartridges into his jacket pocket.

  Then I got my .38 from the bureau in the closet and put it in my pocket before going to the phone and calling McGill. The knuckle throbbed like a toothache. Blood was dripping off my chin from my torn lip as I waited to get through to McGill.

  His gruff voice came on. “Captain McGill speaking.”

  “Joe Puma, Captain. Sergeant Rodriguez is here. He threatened me. He hit me. I hit him back. He accused me of running some Mexican whore out of town, some girl he sails for I guess.”

  “Put Sergeant Rodriguez on. I want his story.”

  “He’s still out, Captain.”

  “Well, damn it, do something about it. You phoned me before you took care of an unconscious man?”

  “I figured I might not be alive to phone you after he was conscious again, Captain.”

  “Don’t you worry about that, Puma. We don’t operate that way. Bring him around and have him phone me.”

  “Yes, sir,” I said.

  I hung up as Rodriguez started to moan. Then he sat up and put his head forward into his hands, rotating his neck, breathing harshly. I had my hand on the .38 in my pocket. I still stood near the phone.

  He swore softly in Spanish. He looked up at me. “This I won’t forget, you son-of-a-bitch.”

  Nothing from me.

  He put the flat of one hand on the floor and started to get up, but some of the rattles must have come to his brain with the movement. He sat back again, breathing heavily, blinking at me.

  “Your head hit the door jamb,” I explained. “Captain McGill wants you to phone him as soon as you’re able to.”

  He was rubbing the back of his neck, digging at it. He took a deep intake of breath and held it and put a hand down to lift himself up.

  This time he made it and stood there, his back supported by the door. He expelled the breath he’d been holding.

  “The captain’s waiting for your call, I said quietly.

  “I’ll call him. I wouldn’t use your damned phone. We’ll meet again, you and I, Joe. I was the only friend you had down at headquarters and you’re going to regret this.”

  I said nothing. I could see there was still some rubber in his legs and he was stalling for a dignified exit. Then, finally, his hand fumbled for the door knob.

  When the door closed behind him, I took my hand from the .38 and it was wet with sweat. There was a little rubber in my own legs, but I didn’t sit down. I went over to where I could watch him through the blinds. My stomach rumbled and nausea crowded almost to my chest. Even in the event McGill would back me up, Manny would spread the word among his Department buddies and they’d remember it if the opportunity ever came.

  But even that was less important than having trouble with the law at this time. Now, when I seemed to be on fair terms with McGill, and with the big pitch coming up, I should have been walking on eggs.

  Minutes dragged by and Manny still sat in the car. My hand throbbed and my lip was puffing and two teeth were loose, but I stood there, waiting for him to drive away.

  Blue showed in the bulged, taut flesh between my first and second knuckles. The ache was spreading through my whole forearm. Sweat ran down my legs, the back of my neck, my sides.

  The ringing of the phone startled me as the Department car in front pulled away.

  It was McGill. “Is Rodriguez still out?”

  “No, Captain, he’s left. He refused to use my phone.”

  “Oh.” A pause. “I suppose you’ll be phoning the Daily News about this example of police brutality?”

  “I’m a Times reader myself, Captain. And I never try to make trouble.”

  “Speak plainer, Puma.”

  “I’ve no complaint,” I said. “I’m sorry I hit him back.”

  “What are you mumbling about?”

  “I’m trying to talk plain. But he caught me in the mouth. I’ve some loose teeth and a lip like a watermelon, Captain.”

  “I see. About that girl, that Gonzales it was, eh?”

  “Right.”

  “Well, he’ll be disciplined. Don’t worry about that.”

  “Yes, sir,” I said.

  “Don’t you worry about a damned thing,” he said and hung up.

  The News had been screaming about police b
rutality for a month now, and the Department was getting sensitive. If I had to hit a cop, I’d picked about the best time possible.

  I went into the bathroom and filled the basin with hot water and shoved the hand into it. That made it worse. Damn it, was it supposed to be cold water for a thing like this? In the mirror over the sink, my shiny face stared sickly back at me. There was dried blood all over my chin, and the tight skin of the swollen lip looked ready to split with the tension.

  I washed out my mouth with warm water and ran a wet washcloth gingerly over the bloody lip and chin. I opened the window to get some fresh air and saw the pretty, pretty geraniums. To hell with this damn geranium jungle. To hell with this angle-shooting, double-crossing four hundred and fifty square miles of false front. Once I got my hands on the boodle. It would never see me again.

  I stunk. The sweat had been pouring off me and my clothes were heavy with it. I peeled down and climbed into the shower.

  Easy does it, Joe. Temper will get you nowhere with these operators. Your old man was always burning about something and remember what happened to him. I kept telling myself: I’d play it cold and play it smart and play it alone. I still held the big cards.

  I rubbed myself down with one hand, dressed with one hand, and lay on the davenport in the living room and tried to calm down.

  I was nursing a cup of lukewarm coffee when they came back, loaded with packages, happy and noisy.

  Jean saw my lip first and stopped where she stood. “What happened?”

  “I had a visit from a cop.”

  Both of them stared at me without saying a word. I said to Josie, “It was your friend. It was Manny. He wants to put you away.”

  Her big eyes were frightened. “He knows I’m here?”

  “No, but he knows you’re not dead. He thought I might know where you were. Because I wouldn’t tell him, he did this to me.” I lifted my swollen hand. “I tried to hit him back. All I hit was the door jamb.”

  Jean came over to study the blue-brown streak between the knuckles. “Oh—Joe—” She ran her finger-tips lightly over the swollen lip. “Joe—baby—”

  Josie said quietly, “Manuel hates gringos.”

  “It’s you he was after, Josie, not me. With Target dead, you’re all he has left. He means to put you away for a long time.”

  Jean said, “Nobody’s going to bother Josie. Not while you and I can protect her.”

  “That’s right,” I said. “You trust us, don’t you, Josie?”

  She nodded.

  “Well,” Jean said, “to hell with Manny, whoever he is. Baby, I’m going to soak that hand. And Josie, you put on the gray-green dress. I want Joe to see it.”

  Jean went into the kitchen to get some hot water while Josie went into the bathroom to dress. Miss Roland was playing a new role, mistress of the household.

  The dress was of some coarse, linen-like material, giving Josie the look of a sweet young peasant who’d gone to an exclusive girl’s school. My hand was in the basin of hot water and I lay on the couch. Jean sat on the edge of it, holding my good hand.

  She said, “A girl shouldn’t hide her—characterizing features. I’ve tried to buy Josie clothes that will emphasize her special charms. Women have really nothing to sell but themselves.”

  “It should bring her to a higher-priced level,” I agreed.

  Jean looked at me quietly, started to say something and seemed to change her mind. “How’s the lip?”

  “I’ll live, I guess.”

  Josie came out in a green suit with a frilly white blouse, and that passed our inspection, too. And then in a quilted, brightly patterned patchwork skirt and embroidered off-the-shoulder blouse.

  I told Jean, “That’s what you wore when you came here. It looked a lot like that.”

  “Mmm-hmm. It seems like a long time ago.”

  Josie said, “Do you like them all, Joe?”

  “You’re a knockout, Josie,” I said. “You’re a beautiful girl.”

  She flushed and went back to change again.

  Quiet. Then Jean said, “The girl likes you.”

  Nothing from me.

  “Everybody seems to like you,” she said, “but you can’t forget the police killed your father, can you?”

  “Cut it out,” I told her. “Don’t make like a psychiatrist. You haven’t got the beard. I can’t forget what kind of a world this is, if that’s what you mean.”

  “There’s justice in it,” she said quietly. “It may be crude, and sometimes we don’t recognize it, but we always pay for our sins, Joe.”

  “All right, we pay. So the more money I get, the more I can pay for. I’ll buy my way to immortality.”

  “Your father was Catholic, Joe?”

  “And my mother Lutheran. Isn’t that a sweet set-up?”

  “And what are you, Joe?”

  “I’m a cultist. I worship money.”

  She began to chuckle. “Well, anyway, you’re consistent.” She leaned over to put a finger into the basin of hot water. “That’s too cool.” She stood up and looked down at me a moment before taking the basin out to the kitchen.

  I wondered if Florence Nightingale had her build.

  Josie came back before Jean had finished in the kitchen. Josie said quietly, “You have a wonderful girl. She is an angel.”

  “Yes,” I said. An angel? Jean Roland?

  Then Jean came in and saw the dress Josie was wearing, the cheap cotton dress she’d worn when she came here yesterday.

  Jean shook her head. “Not that thing, Josie. Burn it.”

  “But those others are—so fine—I thought—”

  Jean said, “Josie, if you want to be expensive, you’ve got to look expensive, inside and out. You have to get used to good clothes and good living so it all seems natural to you.

  This was a little different from the palaver she’d been handing me. This was the way she really believed.

  She said, “Girls haven’t the weapons men have, Josie. So they’ve got to look expensive, at least. Price is one thing all men understand and value.”

  Jean looked at me. “What are you grinning at, ape?”

  “I was thinking of poor, defenseless Jean Roland.”

  Josie said, “Jean means like the Condor girl. It is the good girls who are defenseless.”

  Silence. Jean put my hand gently into the new basin of hot water. She changed the cool, wet cloth on my lips. Josie went back into the bathroom. Jean lighted a cigarette and went to leaf through my stacks of records. Art Tatum was what she settled for and I had a lot of them.

  “Hungry?” she asked.

  “I could eat, if this lip doesn’t get in the way.”

  “Soup?”

  “Eggs. I’ll get ’em down.”

  “Okay. You stay right here. I’ll feed you.”

  We talked about Papa and Deutscher while she fed me, Charles Adam Roland had double-crossed partners before and it just isn’t a thing that’s done in the big con.

  “And that Deutscher,” she said. “Dad brought him in for no reason I can think of.”

  “Deutscher has something on him. Deutscher might be planning a cross of his own. Your papa may not be as smart as he thinks he is, teaming up with Deutscher.”

  “Papa,” she said, “is exactly as smart as he thinks he is, no more or less. He can’t afford to underestimate or overestimate himself in his trade.”

  “So—then what?”

  “You could watch them.” She gave me a sip of coffee.

  “Tail them? Which one? Not Deutscher! He’d know it in a minute. And your dad is probably conditioned to watch for tails.”

  She shook her head irritably. “We’ve got to watch them, Joe. I know Dad checked out of the hotel. If you could learn where he’s staying—”

  “Why?”

  “Because last time, before he collected the money from my friends, he did the same thing, moved out of the place where I thought he was staying.”

  “You think Willi’s that close
to being sold?”

  “Dad must think so. He and Willi are going to the ballet tonight. He’s moving right in there.”

  “Willi—going out with a man?”

  “Why not? Wouldn’t you go to a show with a man, or a fight? Willi doesn’t mind cultured men—except sexually.”

  I thought about the two of them together. “And he’s got the gab, too. He might not need you and me at all.”

  She gave me the last of the egg. “And what can we do about it?”

  I said, “It would be best to tail your dad. He doesn’t know my car and he wouldn’t be as quick to spot a tail.”

  “Tonight when he brings Willi home?”

  “A good idea. I’ll do that. I think I can get Josie lined up in a job today. You phone me when Willi and your dad leave.”

  She stood up and leaned over to kiss my forehead. “I’ve got to run. Willi will be wondering. I’ll phone you.” She studied me a few seconds. “I suppose Josie doesn’t want—honest work?”

  “Do you?”

  “Oh, shut up. Well, it’s her life. You keep your hands off her, understand?”

  “That’s a promise.”

  She waved and went into the bathroom to say goodbye to Josie and then left.

  Art Tatum kicked an oldie around on the record player and I thought back to the day Jean had first come here. She seemed to sail for me and she wouldn’t be a bad partner for a life I intended to get used to.

  Josie came out of the bathroom in her new quilted skirt and embroidered blouse. She wore sandals and no stockings. She smiled at me and put a towel over her skirt before going into the kitchen to do the dishes.

  I phoned Jack Budd and caught him at home.

  “Joe Puma, Jack. How’s business?”

  “Fine. You in the market for something?”

  “No, thanks. Are you?”

  “Always. What have you got?”

  “A very lovely girl who’s had some experience, was tied up with Target. Latin type.”

  “Mexican, you mean?”

  “Come and see her.”

  “I could. It’s not far. This is something new for you, isn’t it, Joe?”

  “What are we arguing about, Jack? If you’re not interested, say so.”

  “I’m interested. What do you expect to get out of it?”