The breakout was rigged.
That prison tunnel was too pat, too well constructed, like the CIO had done the work. Doak must have known all along the big boys at the top were springing us. Maybe Carty too. But why? Why would they want to frame me just to bust me loose? I was hoping the H-monkey hadn’t crawled too far into Bunny’s veins; that she might give me some answers. I penciled Red Bank into my itinerary for the day. I could invent theories on the way south.
With one quick motion I jerked open the door and slammed the butt of my gun along side the toad’s head, then flung him across the floor by his collar and hipped the door shut. He spidered back up and crouched, glaring and cradling his scalp. His hat size would be larger for a few days.
“Get up, Guido,” I said roughly, flipping the barrel of the dog that bit him. “We’re all taking a joy ride down the Jersey shore. Princess, get a coat for Snow-Bird and see if you can smear make up on her in the right places.”
“Look,” he whined, “I’m not Guido, and I don’t know you from Eisenhower. I’m Eddie House and I won’t go anywhere with—”
“A .38 leaves a nasty hole, Eddie, as big as a—house—especially when it comes out the other side. Ike’s kind of busy right now. He sent me. What’s more, he knows you voted twice for Adlai. Now grab your hat and let’s go.”
Nobody ever laughs at my political jokes. Heddy didn’t. Bunny didn’t. Eddie didn’t even smile.
The ride down to Red Bank was uneventful. Bunny slept crumpled in the back seat against knucklehead, who I’d made sure was tied securely. Heddy took notes as I told her nearly everything that happened since I hit Trenton—it was the exclusive she’d paid me well for. I didn’t tell her I would have given her the story without payment. She was that cute, even if she was obsessed with her job. The only trouble with a dame like Heddy: she’s 95% career—a woman who can only talk shop after sex. Maybe even during sex. Unless I wanted to take up journalism for a hobby or become a private eye for nymphos, there was no future with this scribbler. So I enjoyed the present and what she brought to it.
I didn’t have to lean on Eddie—we headed for an address in Red Bank that he’d stuffed in his wallet with a time and date—today at eleven. Miss LaVelle was too incoherent to get more than slobber from, and I didn’t want to be on the road when she got the shakes and messed up Heddy’s back seat. I drove straight through.
***
Red Bank is one of those spots with a train depot and a few businesses that looks and feels like a million other spots with a train depot and a few businesses. Some average ordinary folks live in Red Bank and it’s probably not a bad sort of place, but it has about as much enticement as a drive-through dairy. I never find much to do where they park diagonally.
The address was a walkup over another garlic garage on Fourth Street. Before I’d untie Eddie and haul him up a flight of stairs, I decided to circle the place a few times and note the entrances and exits.
A thick growth of digger pine lined the back of the three-story brick building. A rusty fire escape sagged down from one small window in the top. The ground floor shops were boarded up and the eatery looked closed.
We were forty-five minutes early so I parked up the street on a rise where I’d have a clear view of anyone filtering in or out. At a quarter to, a dusty Chrysler limo pulled up. Two men got out and hurried in the front door. One man was a wide body, the other a sawed-off, dark haired mug with a swagger. Nobody else had Bernard Doak’s swagger, except maybe Jimmy Cagney, and he was in Hollywood acting tough.
The office was on the second floor. I decided to leave the cub reporter in charge of the perfect couple and told her if I didn’t come back in thirty minutes to use the phone booth on the corner and call the blues.
Climbing up the prickly pine at the rear of the building, I wondered if Red Bank even had a police department. I pictured some Walter Mitty spit-shining his badge and keeping his gun in the safe.
The tree limbs were frighteningly scrawny once I got high enough to make a leap for the fire escape. Luckily, the window was cranked open and I slid inside, dropping to a second floor hallway. I pulled my .38 and crept down the dim stairwell, hugging the wall. The office building was one of those barns with door transoms and marble floors that echo like the Grand Canyon. I had to move slower than I wanted and find room 216. As luck would have it, 216 was at the far end of the building. Dad must have been taking a nap—no voice of warning. Still the tomblike place put the hairs on my neck on end.
The door was ajar. I leaned my ear close. The two voices were muffled, like they were in an adjoining room, so I slipped inside the empty reception area and tiptoed forward. The boys’ talk was heated enough for me to pick out a few words. Doak was making threats in behalf of the “Detroit interests,” probably the reincarnated Purple Gang, and the other guy liked one-word sentences. Doak was getting worked up while the other man answered easy and controlled in the same pitch. I heard Doak say that the evidence for the Monmouth rub-out was in a certain restaurant’s safe in New Haven. He said it like he was holding it over the big guy’s head. I heard the big one say my name. Something about my name made them keep their voices low. I doubted it was reverence.
I twisted the doorknob and pushed, taking one swift step inside.
There sat Warden Bill Carty and Bernard Doak, ape-staring at my .38.
Chapter 14 – Showdown in Red Bank
“Eddie won’t be joining us, boys.”
Carty looked stunned. He clutched Doak’s arm like it was a railing on icy stairs. Nothing threw Doak.
“Why, Mike,” Doak began, smooth as pussywillows, “I’m don’t know why youse wanted to come solo, but I’m sure you got reasons. Sorry about them cuffs, but Dottie said you enjoyed them.”
“Cut the bull, Bernie, I’m not here to exchange oral exam scores on Miss Peroxide. So this is Mister Big? Mister Lard-ass is more like it.”
Carty’s face reddened and he started in with his Father Warden routine. I laid a slug in the carpet in front of the desk and they both jerked back and got real quiet.
“Listen, you two mugs. I know everything. What’s more the Newark Star-Ledger knows everything. The presses are about to roll, boys—roll. I doubt if the Detroit mob will even cover your headstone bill after the dust clears. Carty, you’re not the first corrupt dick to run a prison and you won’t be the last. There’s a messed up canary in my car—once we clean her up and trim her wings she’ll sing pretty. Eddie’s hogtied too. They’ll make quite the duet.”
Carty’s hand shook.
“One thing grinds me,” I said. “You apes went to a boatload of trouble to land me in the Purple Gang’s pocket, or whatever’s left of them—why? You framed me into Trenton just to bust me out—what gives?” They glanced at each other nervously.
“Purples? That club’s long gone, kid. History. Familia now. Hovard was skimming track receipts on the family,” Carty said. “The order came down to take him out and put you in the picture. We had no say.”
“So you dropped Hovard and pinned it on me. I suppose you set it up for me to take the fall for that Monmouth killing, too. You must have known I was on security there then. An escaped killer you could waste gratis and plant incriminating evidence. Even Bunny didn’t know about Monmouth. Duck soup.”
Big drops of sweat ran down Carty’s face. “Look, Angel, we were following orders. You know how it is.”
Doak started toward me, holding out his hands, like he was making peace. He was wearing another bad suit. “Be smart, Mike, smart. Any idea how much the take is on these racetracks? There’s enough—plenty for all of us. Why, we could use a man like youse Angel, couldn’t we Bill? — Cut Mike in for a major slice, whaddya say Mike?” They nodded like Hirohito.
I wanted to plug them both and blame it on the mob, but I jerked the trigger and slammed a slug into Doak’s shoulder—a sort of compromise. It spun him around to the wall and twisted up his face.
I was feeling nasty. Nasty for the frame up of
Big Nose Hovard’s killing; nasty that the scheme had included Bunny’s alibi with plans to yank it away; nasty for the weeks I spent in stir; nasty for the crawl down the dirty tunnel; and nasty for being cuffed to a bed in Harlem. Plus, I didn’t like his wardrobe; the stripes were too wide for a runt.
“Shut up. I’m feeling nasty,” I said in a dry voice. “Punks like you shouldn’t wear so much shoulder pad.” Blood gushed down Doak’s arm and dripped from his manicured fingers. His face was a green mask.
I looked at my watch. It’d been thirty minutes since I shinnied up the tree. No sirens.
“Anything!” Carty shouted. He was sweating like an exposed stoolie in Wing Five. “Name it, Mike, name it!”
“Some answers, then—and my good name back. Plus the name of the real Mister Big—the man pulling the strings for all this is in the Midwest somewhere. I know he couldn’t be you Carty. You’re not bright enough. The name, or—”
“Look, kid. Be reasonable—you’re asking us to sign our own death warrants. Listen, we can square things with the law by giving up the soldier who rubbed Hovard, but don’t ask us to give you the Detroit name. We might as well blow our brains out here.”
“Not a bad idea,” I said evenly, following it up with my imitation of Richard Widmark laughing.
Desperation glowered in Carty’s eyes. “Don’t you realize you can’t fight this club? They’re not just in Detroit. They’re all over!” he cried.
“Oh, another mob’ll take over the rackets after you and the new day Purples have been pushed out. Your kind’s like cockroaches. But get this—I don’t give a damn. I never lay money on the nags anyway. They can make this whole Jersey shore one long casino and I wouldn’t—”
“Goddammit, Mike,” Doak screamed, stumbling toward me and dangling his bleeding arm, “we’re only the link here for Detroit, get it? We collect and transfer dough—that’s all—make sure other families respect the setup. We ain’t the brains, just pawns. The name we know is probably just an accountant.”
“And what about Bergman—how was he in the way?”
The two looked at each other and back at me with stupid cow eyes. It was a natural look for them. They didn’t have to fake it. So, they didn’t know Bergman.
I fired a slug into the plaster over their heads and a curtain of dust sprayed down.
“Stop! We don’t know any Bergman, Mike. That’s the God’s truth!”
“Then tell me what Joe Ambler was up to, how he’s connected to all this.”
“Small time chiseler skimming our take,” Carty said. “Double-crossing us with Hovard. Thought his grandfather’s name still meant something. He and that dame must have split the country before we could line them up against the wall with Frank.”
“So which one of you pulled the trigger on Hovard?”
“It was Ziggy,” murmured Carty, looking pale and shifty-eyed at Doak. “I took him for a ride and he willingly blew Frank’s face off.”
“Ziagorski knew all along I didn’t murder Hovard?”
“Sure he knew. Whenever Detroit ordered a hit, Zig got out for a few days of fun. Give him some pussy and he’d strangle his own mother.”
I whistled through my teeth. “Pretty smooth,” I said with flash bulbs popping in my head. “The guy’s in Wing Five —an airtight alibi. You make sure he isn’t seen and everything’s jake. But how can I prove that Zig hit Hovard? I don’t want to spend the rest of my days on the lam. Feed me a way to clear myself or I might as well shoot now.”
“The proof’s in the safe of the Boom-Boom Club—help yourself. The manager keeps one shelf for us as a favor. He isn’t in on the contents. Get your detective pal to raid the place. Honest, Mike. Just let us go. Give us at least an hour’s head start—we’ll clear out of the state, head for Mexico. We got you out of Trenton, after all. There’s fifty thousand in it for you. Right here in our safe, isn’t there Bernie?”
Another temptation to be dirty. Maggots shoving big dough under my nose. It brought back all the anger at being forced to quit the department. I wanted to spit in their faces and then blow them away. My trigger finger was getting that burning tingle again, like it did when the commie chinks poured over the Yalu River and swarmed our position.
Hold it, son. Remember who you are.
Dad stopped me half a second away from ending their ambitions. Right after the voice echoed in my brain the outer office door swung open and three Jersey state troopers bounced in followed by Heddy and a photographer, who flashbulbed the happy scene. For once, a dame as on time, if barely.
“Red Bank’s police department was at some convention in Atlantic City, Mike—all three of them. I had to get the state boys. Sorry we’re late.” Heddy winked and kissed my cheek. I could have kissed her feet. Later I did.
Chapter 15 – Lingering worries and a late night phone call
Afterwards, Heddy embellished the scoops she’d written like they were sexual climaxes. Maybe for Heddy, they were. I didn’t mind. I was thankful, real thankful.
The late edition Star hit the streets and the next day Governor Driscoll pledged a full investigation. That’s how politicians appease the little people—form a committee to cluck about the issues, even while the hidden eggs rot and they add more.
The grand jury indicted Ziagorski for the Hovard murder, and Tweedle-Dumb and Tweedle-Dumber for accessories to murder, extortion and money laundering. Income tax evasion was thrown in for good measure, which made the Feds get their rocks off. Even the crooked judge the mob had in their pocket retired under a cloud. Only thing, once they were in a secure cell, Carty and Doak would only laugh about suggestions they had ties to the old Purples or as they claimed earlier, familia. Said it was gossip they’d heard for years, that everyone knew the Purples were busted up back in ’35.
Heddy tied together the loose ends of the six-year-old Monmouth murder case and was nominated for a Pulitzer, the guy who was really a yellow-journalist for the old New York World. Funny how a discredited news junkie got to be a big name in journalism. Maybe he had a judge in his pocket, too.
Yeah, McBright turned out to be a great reporter. She even spelled my name right. I sent her a set of panties from Bloomingdale’s with the days of the week stitched on them in red, adding “Mike” for “Tuesday” and a note that I’d accept a private modeling show. The last time I saw Heddy she was wearing Tuesday and I hung around long enough to help her change to Wednesday. We never got to Thursday.
By the time Carty and Doak were given permanent accommodations in Federal prison, the developers were putting the finishing touches on the Quarry Shore Development Complex. Uncle said the first thing they did was steam-shovel in all the old quarry pits and level the site. It was doubtful I’d ever have to answer questions about Joe’s body. But there was still the little matter of Bergman’s murder.
Haley was still calling me three times a day. I guess once you lose someone you used to love, all of it weighs pretty hard. That big empty palace of hers and that fat bankroll weren’t much comfort in a big cold bed.
I thought of catching a plane to Bermuda, where I could mix a little vacation in with business. There are always a lot of little people around a murder scene—bellboys, cabbies—little people the cops treat like trash who give up information for a fin or two and a kind bedside manner. Before I packed my suntan oil, I figured I should touch base with Rick. I hauled Joe’s family scrapbook on the Purples over to Rick’s office.
“Good job on Carty and Doak. How’d you get dirt on Carty? He’d been operating over twelve years from that cozy nefarious setup, dishing out death to any mob thug who didn’t play along.”
“When you’re a private flattie, you follow your gut. You don’t have to fill out forms all day. Nobody can yank you off a case, not even the client sometimes. You should try it some day, you might like it more than a gold watch and reeling in Marlins in Ft. Lauderdale.” Rick wasn’t too far from retirement. Later he joined me in Chicago.
“You may have expressed
the very thing, but I’d rather not confront the impending transition on such a fine day. My grandfather was a cop, my father was a cop, and I—”
“Yeah. I know the line—you’ll die a cop. PI’s are cops, you know. Smart ones that don’t eat bureaucratic bullshit.”
I flopped the fat scrapbook down on his desk and flipped open the cover.
“What’s this intrusion into my workspace?”
“You really should get cured from that college talk. This here is stuff your grandfather might know about. The history of the Purples, with some connections to our petty squeezer, Mister Ambler, reputedly the grandson of one of the original Purple brothers, baby-faced Izzy Bernstein, the brother who supposedly went straight. I didn’t get Carty to admit Purples were still calling the shot, though—he shook too much when I asked. Plus, I don’t know if Izzy is even still kicking.”
“You might have referenced that item before, the one about Isadore Bernstein, I mean.”
“I couldn’t be sure. A dame told me—a somewhat unreliable dame.”
“The same aforementioned you claimed was in Bermuda with Bergman?”
“Your speech really is permanently crippled from those NYU classes. Yeah, the same, though I doubt she pulled the trigger.”
I still wanted it to be true—everything about Kimbra was still wrapped with stupid wishes. She’d pulled the trigger with Ambler, even though I wanted to excuse her for it. Maybe that was because I accessorized after the fact.
“The Bermuda police found no trace of the woman. She didn’t arrive with him and she wasn’t seen with him, if Bermuda police can be believed. Could be she set Bergman up and she’s on the run? Or, she might be hiding out from the principal culprit or perhaps has even shucked this mortal coil?”
“You mean dead? I doubt it. You mean Bergman’s killer? Who knows? She’s one of those cobra-types who can slip into a town, get her dirty deed done, and slip out. She claimed to be forced into marriage with Ambler, but I couldn’t find any record of a marriage in the Tri-State area. You mind telling me the caliber of the slugs they pried out of Bergman?”
Dark Quarry: A Mike Angel Private Eye Mystery Page 8