by Jack Kline
I got to my feet and held out my hands. “That’s okay, gentlemen. I know my way.”
As I slid my chair back to the table, Palmisano got off a parting shot, “I don’t want to see you around anymore, Morris.”
“Funny,” I said. “I’ve been getting a lot of that lately.”
Back at our table, I gave Rusty the gist of our brief conversation while some folks completed set-up for the orchestra. Basie would begin soon.
“You think he’s on the level?” Rusty said.
“Don’t know. Something wasn’t right. It seemed like he told me what he did just to get me off his back.”
“Sound rehearsed?”
“Yeah, Russ, it did. Doesn’t mean it wasn’t true. Might not be the whole truth, though.”
“And nothing but the truth so help him God?”
I didn’t respond. What Palmisano told me probably was true, and it made sense up to a point. But if the kid worked for him and ran errands, he probably made collections. And Palmisano’s attorneys may be licensed to practice law, but that wasn’t all they practiced. When somebody signed a contract with them, that somebody knew that a failure to perform contractual obligations wouldn’t bring a lawsuit, but rather a redress a little more excruciating.
So chances were that Tommy was up to his chin in New World Import business. And then there was the car.
It seemed like Palmisano should have felt a little more upset if Tommy vanished. Unless he knew where Tommy was, and knew that his “import” business secrets were safe. Normally I’d put a tail on a guy with those kind of ties to a missing person. But putting a tail on Tony Palmisano would be like tailing a pack of hungry wolves through their own woods. I’d have to think on that.
“So what now?” Rusty asked.
“Let’s listen to some jazz.” We clinked glasses and drained them.
Basie knew how to swing, and his orchestra was really tight, like they’d all grown up playing together. After a while, though, I only half listened. The more I thought about it, the more Palmisano’s involvement with the kid seemed to hold the key.
Was Beverly Cresto tied in with Palmisano too in some way? Maybe she and Tommy had discovered something about Lazzeri’s Black Hand mob, or Palmisano individually. That might explain why the asshole detectives were keeping Cresto cocooned. How should Rusty and I proceed to avoid Mutt and Jeff or the rest of the Sicilian mob taking us on a one-way boat ride down the Missouri River?
Not once did I think about Colleen Holloway until right before Basie’s 11:30 break. But when the orchestra swung into the opening strains of the Gershwin brothers’ But Not for Me, the memory of our dance pushed every other thought away. I felt her body pressed against mine. The scent of her perfume, and of her, filled my nostrils. I had it bad, and that wasn’t good.
The crooner seemed to look at me when he sang “I was a fool to fall and get that way.” A guy in my line gets his ticket punched if his head isn’t one hundred percent in the game. But I couldn’t help casing the place for her. I checked every table. Palmisano’s Peg sat up against him, her hand in his lap. Jeff wasn’t at the minion table, but Mutt sat with his eyeballs fixed on me. All around the room I scanned—no Colleen anywhere. Part of me was relieved. Part of me felt a hungry hollowness. When the guy crooned the song’s final lines, “Although I can’t dismiss, the memory of her kiss, I guess she’s not for me,” I determined his advice was sage. Remember the kiss; forget the dame.
When the orchestra returned around midnight, I told Rusty that I’d had enough for one day. He agreed and we finished our drinks and grabbed our hats and coats at the cloakroom. The hat-check lady glowed when we each gave her six bits.
Outside, rain pelted the street and we stood for a moment under the canopy. We agreed to meet at Nick’s for breakfast at 9:00. Rusty’s car waited in the lot on the corner, so he had twice as far to run. As we began our sprints, a car pulled out of a parking space a half-block away and headed our way. Fast. It fishtailed when the driver gave it too much gas. The headlights were turned off.
We were about half-way across Vine when I saw a man in a big-brimmed hat lean out the back window. He had something black and heavy-looking in his arms.
“Rusty!”
Rusty saw it too, and we both cleared the street and dove behind adjacent cars as the Tommy gun spat lead. The black sedan slowed and nearly stopped as the gunman emptied a thirty round clip. They missed me but peppered my Plymouth, and when he paused to slide in another clip I popped up and let him have it. My first round punched the door and the shooter let out a yelp, dropping his gun in the street. He collapsed in the seat or my second shot would have thumped his ear drum. The driver let loose a couple of rounds from a handgun that shattered my windshield, then took off lickety-split. Again the car fishtailed, and this time side-swiped a parked car before careening haywire up Vine. Rusty, while still on his knees, and I both emptied our weapons into the retreating sedan.
“You okay, Russ?”
“Yeah, you?”
The Chesterfield Club’s doorman called across to us that someone inside was calling the cops. He asked if we needed an ambulance. I said no.
Rusty approached and I saw his right arm hanging limp. Blood ran out of his sleeve and mixed with the rain on the sidewalk.
“It’s only a flesh wound,” he said. He held up his other arm. “Good thing I’m left-handed.” He dropped to his knees and vomited.
Across the street under the Club’s canopy people were gawking as a patrol car pulled up far too quickly to have responded to any phone call. I spotted Mutt standing in the crowd showing a mouthful of teeth. Rusty had finished vacating his belly but looked woozy. I knelt beside him.
The cops hopped out. One picked up the Tommy gun and placed it in the back seat of the patrol car while the other came our way. He had his gun drawn, and remembering what Holloway had said about the cops, I held onto mine.
“He okay? You need an ambulance?” The cop squatted in front of us.
Sitting on the curb, Rusty shook his head, but the blood-water mix running across the pavement looked to be fifty-fifty. “I’m going to take him,” I said.
The cop stood and holstered his pistol. “I need you to hang around until the detectives get here.”
“Sorry, pal; my friend here needs a doctor and I’m taking him. When your detectives show, tell them that I’m Phil Morris and this is Rusty Callahan. We’ll be at General Hospital on Locust.”
“I don’t know if I can allow you to leave. We’ll get your friend an ambulance.”
I wasn’t getting through to this guy. “Look, officer, Detective Chief Myers and I are pals. I worked on a case with him in his office just yesterday. He won’t mind.”
The cop wavered.
“In fact, Chief Myers will mind if Mr. Callahan suffers waiting for an ambulance. Tell your detectives I’ll be at General, and they can talk to me there.” I didn’t wait for a reply.
One look at the Plymouth told me it wasn’t going anywhere. Russ was lucid enough to see that as well. With his left hand, he held up his keys. I pocketed them, took off my overcoat and draped it over his head. He nodded but said nothing. I ran to the corner lot, got Rusty’s Chevrolet and brought it around. The officer sat on the curb next to Rusty holding my overcoat over his head. The other officer crouched in the street picking up shell casings.
We got Rusty into the passenger seat. As I got behind the wheel he gave me a weak smile.
“How you doing, buddy?”
“Okay. Feel tired.”
Blood drooled out of his sleeve onto his lap where he rested the arm, more blood than I’d seen in similar arm wounds. He had his eyes closed. At 17th Street, I pulled to the curb.
“I’m going to try to slow the bleeding.”
“Okay.” His eyes stayed shut.
I removed my belt, leaned over and slid it under his armpit. He grimaced, drew a clinched-teeth breath, and then held it as I cinched it the belt tight.
“Almost
there,” I said as much to myself as to him.
Two detectives already waited at the entrance when we pulled up. Instinctively, I felt to make sure the .38 was still in my belt. Had I reloaded?
They approached the passenger side and opened the door. Before either opened his mouth, I said “He’s lost a lot of blood. Help me get him inside.”
They obliged. I didn’t have to worry about a cop gun in the ribs or a nightstick on the noggin with them helping me with Rusty. Both a nurse and doctor began treatment the moment we got him inside, which was not always the case after midnight on the weekends.
The detectives and I watched them cut away Rusty’s shirt. He was bone-white in the room’s bright light. The nurse removed my belt and blood rhythmically pumped out of a hole in his upper arm. Rusty did not wince or react at all. He remained still on the examining table, his eyes closed. The doctor examined the wound.
“Looks like the bullet went through his arm. There’s an exit wound here. But I’m afraid it may have clipped an artery, probably the ulnar collateral.” He wrapped a rubber cord around Rusty’s upper arm and tied it off. “Nurse Simms, prep this man for surgery. I’m sorry, gentlemen, you’ll have to wait in the lobby.”
Seated in the main waiting corridor, I got a verbal once over from the two detectives. After I explained what happened, gave them a description of the car and what I saw of the driver and the shooter, they wanted to know why someone would want to fill us with holes.
“That’s the two-dollar question,” I said. “I suggest that you look around for a black four-door sedan with bullet holes and body damage. And while you’re at it, look for a button man with a bullet hole and body damage. The guy slinging lead with the Thompson gun took one in the torso.” One detective scribbled away on a notepad. “And make sure that you tell Detective Chief Myers about our conversation. Tell him about the guy I shot and that I suggested he check the hospitals.”
The older detective gave me a bored nod.
“What cases are you currently working, Mr. Morris?” asked the pock-faced younger one, the one with the pad.
“I’m kind of in-between jobs now,” I said with a solemn face.
The young one deferred to the older one, who paused, gazing down at his hands folded in his lap—a bit of drama for my benefit. They knew something.
The older one, Sanderson I think his name was, brought his eyes up to mine. He wore the hint of a smile. “Heard you were working on the Holloway disappearance.”
“Tom Holloway disappeared?”
“The Holloway kid. Don’t get wise with me, son.”
“Don’t call me son and I won’t call you pops, pops.
That made him angry. “The son, Tom Holloway,” he said with his jaw clenched.
“Look, old man, Holloway asked me to see what kind of a bender his boy was on. Turns out he’s run off with a girl from the Plaza, probably partying in L.A.” For all I knew that could have been the truth.
The young one licked his pencil lead and scribbled away. “What’s the girl’s name?” He asked.
“Never got that far. The old man told me I’d dug up enough, that the kid would come home when he ran out of money.”
They looked at each other. Sanderson continued. “You were involved in a shooting on Wednesday and now this. It appears that somebody wants you dead.”
“Don’t forget that somebody broke into my flat on Tuesday.”
He cocked his head and looked at his partner. “Higgins?”
“No, Sam, I don’t know nothing about any break in.”
This would have been fun were the circumstances different, getting police dogs to chase their own tails. “Well, there you go, fellas! The guy I plugged on Wednesday broke into my apartment Tuesday evening. He killed my dog. I confronted him the next day, and he pulled a gun on me. It’s got nothing to do with tonight.”
I could see the older man wasn’t too pleased with my levity. He pushed on. “So who do you figure was involved in the shooting tonight? Might it have been friends of the man you killed Wednesday? Or have anything to do with your search for the kid?”
I threw my hands up like I held a long loaf of French bread between them. “Beats me.
“Look, fellas, I’ve got two full file cases in my office, and at least half of those files include someone who’s not pleased with the outcome of my investigation. My secretary will be in the office on Monday. If you fellas want to drop in and take a look, just come on by.”
“We might just do that,” the older one said.
I paused for a moment as the pock-marked guy wrote in his pad.
“But those are my personal business files, you understand. So make sure you bring a warrant.”
“Okay, wise guy, we’ll see you on Monday,” the older one said. The flatfoots stood, buttoned up their overcoats and donned their hats.
As they walked toward the exit, I offered a gentle reminder, “Don’t forget the warrant.” Sanderson held his middle finger aloft as they walked out into the rain.
As I sat waiting for news of Rusty, I replayed the day. Chief Myers knew about me sleuthing for Holloway. So did the detectives. Apparently so did the ones who tried to kill me. I wondered if there was anybody in KC who didn’t. Somebody in the family must have been wagging his or her tongue.
The Shea kid said that the man I shot in the alley by Nick’s had left Leary’s mob and not only freelanced but handled jobs for Lazzeri, which also meant for Palmisano. Palmisano said Tommy was an errand boy and nothing more. And Palmisano said that he had nothing to do with the kid’s disappearance and really wasn’t concerned about it. And then somebody tried to kill Rusty and me. There was something else.
I rewound our visit to the Chesterfield Club and the conversation with Palmisano. But once again my damned head circled around to Colleen Holloway. Was she the talkative one? Her eavesdropping story about how she already knew of my dog’s death could have been on the level. Or maybe she heard it from someone who was there—or she heard it from someone who gave orders to Hardy and the other rat who killed Sammy. Then it dawned on me what I had missed.
When my eyes roamed the joint for Colleen a few hours ago, Mutt sat there watching me. His pal Jeff was gone. And Jeff wasn’t under the canopy when the crowd showed for all of the excitement. He could have been in the gentlemen’s room. But, maybe he was in that car. Or maybe he had signaled to set it in motion.
A door opened down the hall. Our doctor stepped through the doorway, saw me and headed my way. I stood and waited.
“The bullet did nick the artery and we repaired the damage. It didn’t shatter any bones. He’s being given blood now. Your pal’s lost a lot of it.”
“So he’ll be okay?” I asked.
He nodded. “We’ll keep him for a few days. His hemoglobin is dangerously low. We need to get it back up and make sure there’s no infection. Probably release him on Tuesday or Wednesday if all goes well. Any family we should notify?”
“None here in town. Can I talk to him?”
“No, he’s in recovery and still under anesthesia. Come back tomorrow.”
I thanked the doc and made my way into a steady rain. A careful, look down both 17th and Locust made sure that no rat-a-tat Tommy gun surprises lurked. Rusty’s jalopy started on the first crank. I stroked my vest for the watch chain and noticed my clothes were stained with enough blood to make it seem I’d been shot. Dad’s watch showed it was almost three a.m. The weight of the day pressed down hard, and from eighteen blocks away my bed beckoned.
Sunday, October 14, 1934
(Day Six)
Rusty’s bald tires slipped and slid me up Paseo Boulevard—maybe this case would ring up new tires for Russ. I figured Holloway was already on the hook for Rusty’s medical bills and my car as “reasonable expenses.” I pulled into my lot. A yellow Duesenberg sat in the lot’s corner not too far from the entrance to my flat. I’d never seen one there. After I parked, I approached the Duesy and ran my hand across the hood. Though wet, it
felt still barely warm. It must have arrived sometime after midnight.
With my .38 in hand, I opened the door to the building’s entryway. Its sole light gave me a dim but good view of the first floor and the stairs. Everything looked copacetic. Nothing to see on the second floor either. I stood still at the top of the stairs, listening. Silence. At the door, the match stick lay on the floor. Someone had opened the door. I tried the knob. Locked.
I unlocked the door, and with my revolver ready, silently swung it open. A light glowed in the living room; I was sure I hadn’t left one on. A peek into the kitchen on my left revealed nothing, so I slipped forward into the main room. The lamp next to the couch had been switched on, but nothing else seemed out of order.
Tiptoeing along the wall on my right toward the bedroom, I heard a thump behind me and swung around ready to blast, but there was no target. Another thump and another. They came from the davenport facing the far side of the room. I inched up from behind and peered over. The thumping from Sally’s tail grew louder and more rapid. The pup looked up at me, her tail whopping the cushion. She lay all curled up against the belly of Colleen Holloway, who was lying on her side, sound asleep.
I walked back into the kitchen and poured three fingers of Jim Beam into a water glass, tossed my bloody overcoat on a chair, then returned and sat in the easy chair across from the davenport. I swirled the drink and sipped. Sally hopped down and padded over to me. I picked her up and she settled in my lap. I stroked her downy fur with my free hand. Was there anything softer than puppy fur?
Colleen still slept. A woman’s breasts seem bigger and more inviting when she lies on her side, and the plunging neckline of her silky emerald dress enhanced the image. I found myself staring, trancelike, at the motion her rhythmic breathing created. She wore too much make-up, but it accentuated her green eyes when they were open.
Watching her sleep, it struck me how a guy’s life can change in the turn of a card. Three days ago, I was a contented man. I worked at a trade I loved. Sure, a lot of cases were humdrum, but just as many challenged me, occasionally to the point of danger. I had fired my .38 in a handful of life or death situations, and in each instance my aim was true. I lived with a lovable dog, and in many ways, Sammy had served in place of the mate I had purposefully avoided.