by Black Alley
“Yeah. He kept me alive so that soon enough I can do anything. One round with you under the sheets and I’ll be on a slab.”
With a tiny smile she said, “What a prude. He can brace two tough guys with no gun and one bullet and can’t make love to his fiancée.”
“Just following doctor’s orders, sweetie.”
“Mike,” she said, “I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
The building was simple, wasting no space. It was concrete, boxlike, with a minimum of ornamentation, a cemetery supermarket where urns could be placed to be seen in delicately formed mini-caves pressed into the cement or hidden behind inch-thick facades with histories worked into their surfaces.
Marshall Brotorrio toured me through the lower recesses of the modern crypt knowing that would be all the inspection I would need. Since Dooley would not be getting many visitors he suggested the last niche on the row. I went along with that, opted to keep the urn in view, then went back to his office to complete the paperwork.
Dooley was still sitting on his desk, but somebody had cleaned and polished the metal container while we were away, slipping a plastic shield over it to keep fingertips from spotting its beauty.
“Would you like to see the urn placed in its resting place?”
The words didn’t seem right coming from a big guy like Brotorrio. I shook my head. “I’m not much on ceremony.”
“I understand,” he said. And he did. An old pal burying his buddy after carrying his remains from one borough to another wasn’t going to go all teary-eyed at this stage. I made out the check, signed the papers, shook hands with Marshall Brotorrio and went back to flag down a cab.
Now I had to find Dooley’s son and pass over the papers to him, then find the slob who had iced Dooley.
I looked out the window and watched the skyline of New York coming up. From three miles out it looked clean and angular, but the closer you got the grayer the color was and the duller the angles seemed to be. At one point I got a momentary glimpse of the prettiest building in the city, the old Woolworth Building. It used to be the tallest in the world, but now it was dwarfed by the steel and glass structures that entombed the mighty organizations that breathed life in and out of great populations. I had only a brief peek, but it was nice to know the old lady was still there.
Velda got back to the office a few minutes after me. She watched while I downed two capsules Dr. Morgan had given to me. I had to flip them into an already-chewed cracker to get them down, but taking pills had never been one of my strong points. When I put the cap back on the plastic bottle I asked, “Well?”
She flipped open a small notebook and scanned it. “Our fat man is a Treasury agent, all right. Just where he stands in the pecking order, my friend couldn’t tell me, but he’s way up there. She called him a funny money sniffer. Whenever the government suspects a person or organization of holding back big tax funds, Homer Watson is called in.”
“Homer Watson?”
“I know,” she said, “sounds like a country boy, but he broke the Fintel scandal and nailed those Wall Street insiders who almost took a billion dollars home to mama.” Velda was watching me closely now. “That story you gave to Pat was real, wasn’t it?”
After a few seconds I shrugged. “I don’t know. Nothing’s been proven. It’s only what I’ve been told.”
“But you believe it,” she stated flatly.
“Yes,” I said. “I believe it.”
“Why?”
“Because I went through a war with the guy who told me.”
“A real man thing, I suppose.”
“You suppose right, kitten. Why the interrogation?”
“I want to believe it too and it scares me. Will you answer me one question?”
“Sure,” I agreed.
For a moment she stood there, thinking silently, then said, “Eighty-nine billion dollars is an almost impossible amount of money. There is no way a person could spend it all. Governments or individuals would gladly kill to pull in numbers like that, and there are organizations and persons who have the financing and technology to search out a treasure that big.”
I nodded and told her, “That’s not the question, doll.”
“True,” she agreed. Then: “How are you going to beat them all to it?”
My laugh was almost a grunt. “I’m smart,” I said.
“Don’t give me that.” Now a frown had started between her eyes. “You can have the entire government of the United States on your back just like that.”
“So?”
“How are you going to handle that?”
“No problem,” I said.
“Oh, great.”
“Come on, Velda, I can’t tell them what I don’t know.”
“What did Dooley tell you?” she asked me shrewdly.
“Not enough.”
“You knew the amount.”
“Sure, but not where it was. I think Dooley wanted to tell me, but all he said was that he had changed the signs so nobody could find it.”
“Why do you suppose he called you in, Mike?”
Now I grinned real big. “Because I’m not nobody. Somehow Dooley dropped it right in my lap and now I have to look down at all the wrinkles in the napkin to see where the crumb is. That’ll tell me where it is.”
“And what do you do with eighty-nine billion dollars after you find it?”
“Same thing Pat would do. I’d buy a new car. Hell, you can have some too. New dress, shoes, things like that.”
“Get serious,” Velda told me.
“I am,” I said. “Now, what about Dooley’s history?”
The change of pace rattled her for a moment, then she thumbed over another page of her notebook. For a moment she frowned at it, then her eyes drifted up to mine. “Those navy serial numbers were wrong, Mike. They weren’t his.”
Before I could answer her she cut me off with a wave of her hand. “Oh, I found him, all right. I ran down the personnel on the destroyer Latille, and there he was. Then I got his proper ID. I had to mention a few names to get his son’s name and addresses, but I knew you wouldn’t mind.” She ripped a page out of the notepad and handed it to me. “Anyway, there’s the kid’s location as far as they know.”
I looked at the address, memorized it and tucked the paper under my desk blotter. “We still have a problem, kitten.”
She waited for me to say it.
“What are those other numbers on the urn then?”
“Maybe . . .” she searched for a name, then found it, “Marvin can tell you.”
A little nerve tugged at my jaw. Dooley had always been out front with everything. He had wanted to bust right into a bunker rather than smoke an enemy out. He never seemed to be devious with anything, so it was hard to give him credit for it now. Hell, he could have made a mistake, but that sure didn’t seem likely. Nobody ever forgets his military serial number. Nobody. Ever. You don’t forget where to wear your hat either. Or put your socks.
So? Okay, Dooley was trying to be devious. Oh boy, if those numbers were a code to all that loot and the government picked it up, their computers could break it in ten seconds. Maybe five. And the mob had the same technology too. So where did that leave me? I looked at Velda’s face and knew that she was thinking the same thing, picturing all those beautiful IBM machines and supercomputers and assorted goodies lined up in the government offices in Washington, making subtle clicking sounds, churning out reams of information all generated by a steady current of electricity smug with its power.
“They’re only as good as what people put into them, Mike,” she offered.
“Yeah,” I agreed.
She smiled a little sweetly, then tested me. “What’s better than a computer virus, Mike?”
But I knew the answer. “When they don’t know what to feed them.”
Velda had left early, trying to expedite locating Marvin Dooley. It was almost five, no new business had come in and I was ready to close up shop. I heard the two short buzzes i
n Velda’s office and hit the door button to let the visitor in.
It was the little fat man from Washington, affable, well dressed and seemingly on a happy errand rather than one that would necessitate a visit to a private investigator’s office. All I could think was, I am from the government and am here to help you.
“Well,” I said, “Mr. Homer Watson, I presume.”
That took his breath away a little. The upturned corners of the false smile turned down and the affable look just wasn’t there anymore. “Sharp, Mr. Hammer. It didn’t take you long.”
“It never does, pal.”
“You know why I’m here?”
“Certainly,” I said. I nodded to a chair and sat down myself, the desk a barrier between us.
My approach had gotten him unfocused, something that probably never happened before.
“And what would that be?” he asked.
I didn’t let him off the hook. “I take it you’re not here to ask for my professional help, are you?”
We were fencing now. “Oh. I’ll pay it,” he told me easily.
“You’d be lost in the rush, Mr. Watson.”
I still hadn’t asked him what he wanted and he was doing a mental search to make his point known. Annoyed, he said, “How did you know my name?”
“I’m a detective. State licensed. Can carry a weapon and all that kind of stuff, you know?”
“Yeah, I know,” he told me tartly. “Please don’t be a smart ass.”
“Okay, then tell me why you’re here.”
“A call was made to Washington by your secretary. The subject party had been red flagged and the information was passed on to me.”
“So?”
His face reddened. “What did you want to know about him?”
Now I put the hook in deeper. “You carry a badge?”
“Yes.”
“Let me see it. And the other credentials too.”
Homer Watson was really teed off now, but he dug out his badge and photo ID and passed it over. I took a minute scrutinizing it then handed it back. “You have a warrant?”
“No,” he admitted.
“That’s bad,” I said. “Then this is just a normal business meeting, right?”
Rather than answer, he frowned, trying to get around the situation.
Finally I let him off the hook. I grinned and said, “What do you want to know about Dooley and the mob, Homer?”
He looked at me for ten seconds, then shook his head in mock disgust. “I should have listened to the street talk when they tried to tell me about you.”
I nodded knowingly.
“What was your connection with Dooley?”
“We were in the army together. After the war he steered Pat Chambers and me into police work.”
“How did you know he was connected with the mob?”
“I didn’t.”
“But . . .”
“He mentioned he had done some work for one of the families, but hell, so have I. So have a lot of people, but that doesn’t mean he was connected to the mob. Dooley and I have been out of touch for a long time.”
“Yet he called for you when he was dying.”
“He had to call for somebody. His wife was dead and he probably didn’t know where his kid lived. He wanted me to pass on his remains to his boy if I could find him. Why, what do you think he wanted to see me for?”
“It could have been a deathbed confession.”
“Come on, Dooley had no part of religion. He lost that during the war. Do I look like a clergyman?”
“He could have been entrusting you with some vital information.”
I leaned back in my chair and let a grimace cross my face. “Like what? When Dooley died he left an old house in a shoddy side of Brooklyn. There was an old car out back. If he had a bank account there wouldn’t be much in it. Possessing things wasn’t his big stick.”
“He had a long-time connection with the Ponti organization, Mr. Hammer.”
“Like how, Mr. Watson? Damn, I sound like Sherlock Holmes.”
“Dooley took care of his estate on Long Island and his place in the Adirondacks.”
“Big deal. He was a handyman. He raked grass, he planted shrubs and took out the garbage. How does that make him an associate member of the Ponti bunch? Come on, use some sense.”
“He could have overheard things.”
Watson was reaching now, so I reached too. I said, “What things, Homer?”
“You know what I’m talking about.”
“Like how all the young bucks in the families are grousing about their futures?”
A new light came into his eyes. “What would that be?”
“Beats me, but I hear a lot of them are pretty uncomfortable with all the legitimizing that has been going on. Seems like the old dons had a better life of it when they played dirty.”
He couldn’t put a finger on my answer at all. What I had said was totally ambiguous, yet common knowledge on the street. Yet in a way, it had sense to it and he tried to read something into my expression.
Covering his consternation, he nodded. “The new heads of the families are all looking for something.”
“They ought to be. It’s a new business world out there. It isn’t booze and whores anymore. It’s high-tech crime on airline loading docks and the financial houses of Wall Street. They buy a plane to run in one big load of coke, ditch it after making the drop and charge the cost off to business expenses. A kilo of H used to be a heavy deal, but narcotics comes in tonnages now and who knows how much loot gets passed under the table.”
“We estimate it pretty well, Mr. Hammer.”
Lightly, I said, “And how much would that be?”
Just as lightly he shot back, “Could go into the billions, I imagine.”
“Imagine the taxes on that,” I said.
“Yes, and the government could use it,” he told me. There was a sharp tone in his voice.
“What would they do with it?” I asked him.
“I don’t think that would be any of your business, Mr. Hammer.”
“We, the people,” I said softly.
He didn’t hear me. “What?”
“Nothing. I figured you’d say that.”
The conversation wasn’t giving him what he was looking for at all. He eased himself to his feet and looked at me across the desk. “I think we both have the same objective in mind, Mr. Hammer. I would prefer your cooperation, but I don’t think I’m going to get it. However, please keep in mind the enormous potential of the federal government. There’s nothing it can’t do.”
“Don’t make it so complete, Homer. Say there’s little it can’t do.”
He stared at me a few seconds and said, “Let’s make that as little as possible.”
When Watson had gone I sat back in my chair and stared out the window. The sky had clouded over, so that meant it was going to rain and my side was going to start burning again. Before it could happen I thumbed open the bottle of capsules and shook one out. Good lunch. A saltine and a pill. At the rate I was taking those things I was going to need a refill, and Dr. Ralph Morgan was the only one who had the prescription. I made a cryptic note on my desk pad for later.
First I had to find out something about Bulletproof Ponti. Pat’s earlier remarks on the two shoot-outs had a casual overtone to them, but he was using me as a sounding board and I hadn’t made much of an echo. It used to be that only the big agency teams or the SWAT boys went into a firefight wearing armor. The hoods seemed to wear their macho image the way the Indians used magic medicine to ward off the bullets and always got sucked up the tube for their egotism.
But now, things had changed. They didn’t use old hard-tire trucks to haul their goods in. Planes did that. Ground rules might have been laid down during the prohibition days, but there had been a lot of improvement since. Even in the last five years body armor had undergone a radical transformation. Planes went from reciprocating engines to jet driven overnight. They still had wings,
but the power had been so drastically upgraded they hardly acted like airplanes anymore.
I dialed a number I hadn’t used in a long time. Bud Langston was still at the address. He was really glad to hear my voice.
Bud was a super secret whose mail-in paycheck came from some bureau in the Washington loop. His office was small, well organized and laid out for his business, which was computer programming. Any one of the major electronics firms would gladly have had him in their organizations, but Bud was not into corporate living.
Bud Langston was an inventor. Tell him what you needed and he’d invent it for you. We had met when we had adjoining seats for a Wagner presentation at the old Metropolitan Opera House before they tore it down and all the singers trooped over to Lincoln Center.
So we sat and talked Wagner and Franz Liszt for a half hour before Bud said, “What’s bothering you, Mike?”
I grimaced, twisted in my seat and favored the bad side.
Bud shook his head. “That’s not what’s bothering you, my friend.”
“I need some information, Bud.”
His eyes looked directly into mine. “If it isn’t classified I might help.”
“If it were redlined I wouldn’t ask,” I said. “Have you heard anything new about body armor?”
“Let’s skip past the Kevlar developments, right?”
“Right,” I said.
A little muscle pulled at the corner of his mouth, making him grin a little lopsidedly. “Well, that’s not classified.”
“I didn’t think it would be.”
He nodded slowly and clasped his hands behind his head. “You sure can get into some strange research, Mike.”
“So?”
“So yes, there was a buzz in the armaments business a few years ago. Remember when the scuba divers were experimenting with a metal mesh designed after the old chain mail the knights used?”
“For stopping shark bites, wasn’t it?”
“Yes, and it worked. At least on smaller sharks. Nobody ever tested it out on a great white.”
“And that stopped high-power bullets?”
“No. That experimentation just led into other avenues and along the way somebody lucked into a material that nothing short of a twenty-millimeter could penetrate. It was light, flexible . . . all the things needed for military use. The only trouble was the expense.”