“Go ahead with your story.” I dismissed the banter by waving my hand with the lit butt.
“Big Nig turned to go and I kept my mouth shut. Rossi said something like, ‘Wait, he’s no pushover. Ya know that redheaded Margolies dame?’ Big Nig jerked a nod. ‘Call her at the Dolphin, second floor. Tell her the score without telling her too much. Tell her to be there at the bar. Distract him. McCoy’ll put the sap to him and take him out to the alley. Then she can clear out. Tell her to be there or she’ll be back on the street with her sick mother’.”
Being six feet from that murdering creep made my skin crawl. His version of the prior night’s events was triggering my gag reflex. I was having trouble telling the players without a scorecard.
“So, then what happened?” We were both chain smoking.
“That’s it. Then, we have another drink, Rossi and me. I tell Vito, that’s my neighborhood you were talking about and what can I do. He tells me what a good friend I am. He says he appreciates that. We’ll talk soon. Again, he’s sorry to cut short our time together. There’s something he must see is done correct. I took that as what it was, him tellin me to take it on the heel and toe. Sizing up the situation, I grabbed my hat and drove back to Queens. Figured I’d find out what the play was soon enough.”
Those hotel rooms all had ice water circulating in the walls. The air was cool; Gallo was sweating.
“This morning I get a call at seven o’clock at my house. SEVEN O’CLOCK... AT MY... HOME! A business acquaintance needs to come by to see me. He brings me the news that Vittorio Rossi has put a hit out on me, knows nothing else. Ain’t that some merda! It ain’t safe for me to be asking around. What do you and Logan know?”
“One thing I know, I know you lied to Logan this morning!” I looked him right in the eye.
“NO...”, he started.
“COGLIONATE!” That was the extent of my Eyetalian, but I needed his attention. “That’s a load of bunk! You gave Logan the impression that you left that joint at seven o’clock last night. Period. Now, you tell me you went back for a couple more hours.” I left out the part about him faking me right out of my skivvies.
“Look,” he polished off the tumbler of ice water, “that was fer nothing. I didn’t know what Rossi was up to, and didn’t want to know. I just skipped that part with Logan. How’s that connected?”
“Joey, if there’s one thing you can bet your meatballs on, it’s that everything is connected.” Didn’t want to know what Rossi was up to, my big ol’ butt. That dirt bag wanted to be right in the middle of it, but Rossi shut him down. I needed a minute to think and I needed to compare notes with Dan Logan. Besides, I was thirsty and wasn’t about to share ice water with that sewer rat.
“Okay, Joey. We’ll get to the bottom of this. I’ve got to go downstairs and talk to the others from the DA’s Office,” I lied. “Gimme your room key. I’m not gonna be locked out again. I’ll be back up in a little bit. Grab yourself a real drink and relax.”
As I pulled on the heavy oak door, “Don’t forget I got your key. So, I’ll just knock and come in when I get back.” I told him that in the event he had a back-up piece stashed.
CHAPTER TEN
I entered the lobby from the elevator, took a quick-glance survey and walked into the inviting dimness of the ‘George Washington Grille’. A slim old man with shiny black skin and a red vest smiled and pushed a napkin across the bar.
“What’s your pleasure, Big Boss?”
“Some shuteye, but I’ll take a double Jack Daniel’s, neat, and a telephone.” I lit a Lucky Strike and enjoyed the cool velvet liquor. The bartender retrieved a phone, sat it on the bar in front of me and plugged it in somewhere back there. A glance at my watch told me it was 7:40. Dan Logan answered on the second ring.
“Dan, Woody. Little late to be at work isn’t it?” Thank God he was there.
“Just layin on the couch restin my eyes. Waiting to see if the other shoe is gonna drop. You talk to Joe Gallo?”
“Yeah, I’m at the George Washington. We had a long talk. I had to come down to the front desk to use the telephone. Can’t breathe around that hogwash Gallo uses for cologne.”
I sketched the picture that Gallo had painted for me.
“Dan, What you had me doing got under Rossi’s skin plenty good. He was shook enough to want to be there when I got mine. I think when things turned to shit at the Fish Camp last night, Rossi thought Gallo ratted him out. That’s why Gallo has joined me on Rossi’s list of things to do.”
“That makes a lot of sense.” Dan stopped for a four-count. “That East Harlem meeting today was Rossi getting the nod from the other families. They all think Rossi’s crazier than a shithouse rat, but I can’t imagine anybody caring about Gallo’s future. The Gambinos are the only ones making money from Gallo, far as I know. Wonder how the vote went. Look, Woody, can you keep an eye on Gallo for another hour, maybe? I’m gonna put blues outside his door tonight.”
“Will do, Dan. I’m headed back up to his room. Want me to tell Gallo anything?”
“Tell the bottom feeder I’m working on it. He should stay put. You watch your six o’clock. And, Woody, now what do you make of that dame showing at your office this morning?”
“Yet to be determined.”
I dropped the Ameche in the cradle. The bartender was there before the receiver stopped rattling. I told him I’d take another hook. I put three aces on the bar and told him to keep the change. He gave a little bow and a thank you, sir.
Going back to the room, I started to get that old stomach dropping feeling, and it wasn’t being caused by the elevator ride. Gallo was suddenly no one to keep company with. ‘Wonder how the vote went’, Dan had said. Excellent question. I seriously doubted that Vittorio Rossi had been overruled in East Harlem, but Logan had gotten Gallo squirreled away early on. I personally would’ve staked out Gallo as bait just to pin his murder on the fat dago.
I knocked on 208 and turned the key. I expected to see Joey Gallo waiting in the entryway, nobody. I called his name, nothing. I unholstered my heater and walked full into the room. At the foot of the windows, there it was on the hardwood beyond the carpet. Glossy, rich red blood spread in three directions from the facedown body. Hard to believe how much blood a body holds until you lay it all out flat. From the looks, that body held no more.
Looking around the room, I saw nothing disturbed except a broken cut-glass water pitcher. I backed slowly out of the room making sure I was alone in the hallway. I was glad to see things were quiet down in the lobby as I approached the daisy behind the front desk.
“Hey, kid, I’m with the DA’s Office. You got a hotel detective on duty?”
He pointed to a door twenty feet to the left. I identified myself to the fat middle-aged man who answered my knock. Behind him I saw a tall roll-top desk and a heavy wooden chair like I had in my office. He said his name was Fitzpatrick. He had a bloodshot beezer and wore a very old suit. He probably had given the best years of his life to the NYPD, and then circumstances sentenced him to roam those hotel halls for the rest of it. He turned sideways and motioned me in. I shook my head.
“Look, we got a problem on the second floor. If you’ll just come with me, I’ll tell you on the way.” I reached around him and pulled his door shut.
We were walking across the lobby to the elevator when his curiosity got the best of him. “Say, this got anything to do with that wop stoolie you guys got stashed in 208?”
Logan had covered his bases. Or had he? It occurred to me that Fitz might be adding to his nest egg by selling information. Hell, he already knew more than I had planned to tell him.
“HAD him stashed, as in past tense. He’s dead as a doornail. Looks like your hotel has security problems.”
We stepped into the elevator and Fitzpatrick turned, puffed up and pointed a sausage finger at me. “Wait a minute, kid. I don’t want to hear that kind a’ malarkey. Not my detail. I wore city tin for twenty-seven years. I know what’s what.” He
jutted his lower jaw for emphasis.
I gave him a quick rundown as we walked toward Room 208. He produced a big ring of keys. “I got the room key”, I said, and I used it. I pulled my .45 and stood sideways as I pushed the heavy door open with one hand. Fitzpatrick marched right by me. He stopped about eight feet in where he could see the whole room.
“You’re right about one thing”, he said. “Nobody loses that much blood and lives. This one’s ready for the Bronx sleeping bag.”
I closed the door and followed him across the room to the body. The hotel dick had already placed his brogan on the shoulder and now he gave the stiff a big push. That flopped the corpse over on its back. A dead arm followed an arc and slapped the blood pool. Blood splattered up on the curtains and wall. There had been stab holes on the back of his coat, and there were more on the chest and gut. Somebody wanted Joey very dead. Wait a fu... No gold anchor.
“Son of a bitch! That’s not Gallo!”
“So, I guess it ain’t Charles Smith, either.” Fitz was obviously a man who can find humor in most anything. “Is that a pig’s foot there on the rug?” He nudged the severed tongue with his toe.
I slowly turned my whole body closely inspecting the room. I half expected some ape to jump out of hiding.
Satisfied we were alone with the stiff, I slid my automatic back in its holster. I squatted and reached across the blood slick. Patting his coat, I found his billfold. Inside, behind a cellophane window was a blood-soaked New York driver license. We were standing over the last remains of one, Victor Spillazzo. The late Victor Spillazzo of the ‘Pig Alley Hanging’ notoriety. Victor Spillazzo, former cousin of Crazy Joe Gallo.
There was a knock at the door. I went and looked out the peephole and saw a uniformed policeman. ‘Reporting for duty?’ I thought. I opened the door and checked his buzzer. It looked legit, and he knew about Charles Smith. I brought him up to speed and introduced him to Fitzpatrick. I told him I had to get back to the DA’s Office.
The young flatfoot showing up at the crime scene was a good thing. He became the official on the scene. One dead guinea, I had no interest in the official investigation - right then. I thought I’d dip my bill and headed back down to the George Washington Grille. The shift had changed but the service was still aces.
I tried to get Logan on the horn at his office and hotel without answer. I left a message at his hotel: ‘Things got gummed up. Check blotter at the clubhouse. Need to talk ASAP’. I saw the popping of flashbulbs in the lobby. There went Weegee, chomping on a cigar, chasing his next twenty-dollar tabloid picture. I had a few drinks and watched the cop activity building. It was late when I took a cab back to the Taft. I thought I’d get a few hours sleep.
***
(Sunday, June 12, 1960. Hotel Taft, Manhattan)
I woke up at nine a.m. Sunday, got cleaned up and tried Logan’s hotel again. Logan answered and said he got my message early that morning, said he tried to call me earlier but got no answer. Guess I had been dead to the world; I had a vague memory of a bell ringing while the gooks attacked in my dream.
“What the hell happened at the Washington last night?” He was down to business.
“After I talked to you on the blower about 7:30, I went back to 208 and found a body bled out on the floor. Thinking it was Gallo, I got the hotel dick and took him up to investigate. The stiff turned out to be Gallo’s cousin, Victor Spillazzo. He was stabbed to death. Your uniform showed so I gave the mess to him and went home to flop. That’s when I left the message for you. We need to talk this through.”
“You ain’t just a-whistlin Dixie, bo. I was in a radio car in East Harlem when I got word about the rigid citizen at the George Washington. I went down there hoping it wasn’t you, figuring it was Gallo. What a goddamn mess I found, a stiff in an ocean of blood, you and Gallo in the wind. I talked to the hotel’s man, Fitzpatrick. He tells me the same as you. He said you were alive, but lammed off on him.” Logan was talking faster than usual.
“When I went to the office this morning, I had it doped out that Rossi had made good, took out Gallo with Spillazzo as a bonus. Then I get a friggin phone call from none other than Joe Gallo! He’s his old smug self again. He said he’s really in no position to do anything about what he’s gonna tell me, but wants me to see how he’s cooperating. He said his heart is broken. That drunk flatfoot I sent over there last night killed his cousin, Vic Spillazzo.” Dan paused; I heard his Zippo, then he continued.
“He said he’d called Spillazzo earlier and told him to drop by the room. He said Stone was so plastered he threw a joe on the couch. When you came to, you flew off in a rage. You started stabbing the kid. Gallo said you made him give you his .38 when you first got there. All he could do was run out of there and grab a taxi. According to him, Vicky was like a brother. Then I remembered that Fitzpatrick had said you had the key to Room 208 and that you smelled plenty boozed up. AND you had blood on your shoes. I need you to come in, Woody. You at your hotel now?”
“No,” I lied. “Everything in Room 208 was silk when I left to call you last night, see. I didn’t kill anybody. That might change. I’ll be in touch.”
“GOD DAM...” was all I heard as I dropped the phone in the cradle.
I sat down and lit up a gasper. In somebody’s book, I was supposed to be the patsy. I threw a glance at the bottle of hooch on the nightstand. Nix on that. I had to get it all straight. I didn’t think that was Rossi’s work, dusting Spillazzo like that. What I did think was, Joey Gallo was trying to square things with Vito Rossi by putting the Harlem-sunset on his own cousin.
Then he had the rocks to kiss the DA’s ass by turning me in as the killer. Did he think I was so far out on the roof I couldn’t remember what happened? Joey had it mapped that he had the bulge on me. My plan was to cool his veins and I was so pissed I thought about using his own roscoe to do it - just for fun. ‘I got your number, Gallo’.
What the hell, I walked across the room and poured a two-finger hooker in a water glass. It would help me think. The way I had it crabbed, Gallo didn’t give a rat’s ass about his gowed-up cousin when it came down to saving his own skin. As far as I knew, Gallo didn’t get the rumble about the queered dance at the Fish Camp Friday night. Maybe, in his mind, things were gummed up with Rossi because of the public mess Spillazzo made bopping Benny Fein and hanging him on the tracks.
The mob high pillows didn’t like flashy brunos. They sure didn’t like pictures of their deeds-gone-wrong splashed in the papers. On top of that, Gallo probably thought, ‘What if Vito Rossi got the sniff a’ me cozying up with the DA’s Office’? Then it struck me like a mule kick to the head. Logan didn’t mention Spillazzo’s tongue on the hotel room floor. The reason he didn’t mention it was because it wasn’t there when he arrived. The reason it wasn’t there was...
One thing I’ve always hated worse than commies is a lying lowlife like Joey Gallo. I needed a cup of java, still felt a little jingled-brained. I knew I had to start getting more sleep. Finding a hash house started sounding good. I was starving.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
(Sunday, June 12, 1960. George Washington Hotel, Manhattan.)
The cab pulled up to the curb at 23 Lex. I was out of it before it stopped its forward motion. I was looking for answers and I was going to start by bracing the house peeper at the George Washington. The Sunday lobby was deserted. Saturday night’s circus had folded its big top and cleared out.
When Fitzpatrick answered my knock, I drove him in the chest with both hands. He stumbled back and fell into his oak chair. I followed him in and pushed the door closed behind me. I figured he was heeled so I told him if he flinched, even gave a thought to skinning that heater, I’d break every bone in his paw.
I gave him the lay right off. I knew he was a plant for Joey Gallo. At the very least, he’d done a job for him. He’d glommed that orphan tongue the night before and made it disappear. He slapped his fat mitt on the desk and told me I was goofy. I sat on the corner of his desk and li
t a pill.
“Look here, Jasper, you can throw an ing-bing all you want. I gotcha nailed. If the mazuma’s right, a man will do most anything. I know Gallo had you 86 that evidence, and I know why.”
Cutting out a stiff’s tongue was Gallo’s MO. He did it so Rossi would know what he’d done and why he’d done it, slight change of plans when he decided to frame me. The rookie copper being the first on the scene must’ve made it easy for Fitz to rearrange things.
“Don’t be a bunny. You’re in a jam with me, Fitzpatrick. If you don’t want the beef to leave this hotel, you tell me what I want to know. You know an old copper ain’t gonna last long when they send you up to Rikers Island. I’ll run it down one more time. You give me a shake, yes or no. Savvy?”
He glared up at me. I brought an open right hand against the side of the rum hound’s map so hard it made his jowls shake. “SAVVY?” I repeated.
He jerked a nod. I laid it out again like I had it doped. Fitz nodded in agreement.
“What’s the idea tellin the DA I had blood on my shoes when I came to getcha?” I raised my hand fast. He winced and tried to get small in his chair as I patted the blubber on his cheek.
“This can be the end of it, but if I get wind you dropped a dime with Gallo, it’s gonna get plenty ugly. Stay out a’ trouble, bo.”
In spite of our newfound understanding, I kept an eye until I was on the other side of the oak door. I had sized him up as a hardboiled old flatfoot but he was just another tired sap chasing the geetus, and that’s the crop.
I lit a fag and walked across the lobby. The nance at the desk smiled. If he’d had a bell cap, he’d’ve been calling for Phillip Morris... I wasn’t much further ahead after my talk with the hotel bull. At least I got confirmation on how I figured things went down. That can be a lot, prevents false starts.
I was thinking I was hitting on eight when I drifted into the dim coolness of the hotel bar. I leaned on the hardwood and ordered a snort of my favorite. As my eyes adjusted, I spotted a metal contraption further down. Squinting brought focus to a big ol box flash camera perched on the bar. Edward G. Robinson sat beside it chewing on a cigar.
The Case Of The Little Italy Bounce (Woody Stone, Private Investigator Book 1) Page 8