“What’s your problem, pal?” I asked as I slowly brought my hand up to the inside doorknob.
Velker may be rated as a dope, but he sees good. “Don’t try to slam it, Kelly. I didn’t come to use it this time, but I can, and I will. This is a warning. Stay away from my wife or I’ll kill you.” His voice sounded shaky and he delivered the threat as if he were doing a bad imitation of Jimmy Cagney. “No more dates, you hear?”
“Anything you say, mister, but would you mind telling me who you are?” This, friends, is not false bravado. Down the hall, I can see an apartment door open a crack, so I know that Mrs. Rosen is on duty as the eleventh floor mensch. I wanted a witness. Velker and I were having our own criminal conversation, and it could include an “assault with a deadly weapon” charge.
“You know goddamned well who I am, Kelly. How many wives are you fooling around with, anyway?”
“Let’s not get personal. Who’s your wife?”
“Gina Velker!” He shouted it loud and clear, which was swell, because now all the neighbors knew. “And if you so much as talk to her on the phone, I’ll put a bullet where you’ll turn soprano.”
With this finally off his chest, he whirled awkwardly on his heels and stalked down the hall to the elevator. I watched his retreat, his meatless stooped shoulders trying to swagger, his old fashioned fedora tilted forward on his head, a hand buried deep in the pocket of his dirty raincoat clutching his courage. Exit the pathetic gunman.
When the elevator doors closed behind him, I stage-whispered down the hall to Mrs. Rosen’s still cracked doorway. “Hey, Mrs. R,” I said, “don’t forget a word of anything you just heard. It’s important. Write it down, even.”
With this, her door opened wide enough for her hairnetted head to appear. “You’re a bum, Kelly. That I already knew, a regular Don Juan bummer, and now they come to get you with guns. Good idea you should be a soprano...” the door was closing “...girls coming and going day and night like a harem...” Silence. You will note Mrs. R is not a fan.
The gambling bust happened too late to make the early bird editions, and it was just as well because if, before his visit, Velker had seen what the later morning editions eventually carried, he would have plugged me on the spot. It must have been a slow night for news, for the press pulled out all the stops. Take the headline east SIDE RAID BAGS POSH ROLLERS. This was played off against a four column shot of Gina and me getting into the police van. The cutline read: “COMIC AND CUTIE TO HOOSEGOW AFTER CASINO SWEEP. Chick Kelly, restaurateur/funny man and socialite Gina Velker off to tell it to the judge following gaming bust.”
I thought the socialite bit was over-reach, but at least they spelled her name right and the rest of it was pure gravy. When that Providence lawyer learned that the poor waif of the storm was really a jaded swinger with a rep and a rap against her, my mortgage was secure.
I was reading about my public shame over steak and eggs at Table 36 in my joint’s lower tier dining room at noon. Normally, this area is only open for dinner, but the scandal had filled the two upper rooms and the bar lounge with gawkers. Ah, sweet justice. I nail Gina’s scheme to the floor, land the mortgage dough, get Jay Porter’s undying gratitude and then some, and produce a land office business, despite a mere blizzard.
“It is a classic,” Tall Tommy Tanuka is saying with pride as he slurps a bowl of billi-bi. “Truly a beauty scam, Chick. Only one thing bothers me.”
“Like what, Tall Tommy?”
“When she balked at going to the Plaza.”
“You could look at it in one of two ways. Either she was suddenly hip to our act or, even if she considered me legit, she saw that all the publicity would zonk the criminal conversation charge.”
“Maybe,” Tall Tommy said skeptically, “but I’d like it cleaner, clearer, you know.”
I was about to ask him what the hell he meant by that when Sam, the station captain, brought a phone to the table and plugged in the jack. “Mr. Pemberton for you,” he said.
I didn’t even get past “hello” before he opened up with the panic. “Chick, I have had a wire from Lisa Banks telling me that this Velker fellow is hinting about going to the papers if a settlement can’t be reached.”
“Take it easy, Jay Porter. Haven’t you seen the morning editions?”
“No, I’m calling from Little Neck. We’re snowed in with several houseguests. Getting snowed in is becoming a habit. What’s in them?”
I told him, and he said, “Yes, that is decisive, as far as a court case goes. But he can still smear me in the press.”
“Well, first, Jay Porter, Velker isn’t smart enough for blackmail and his wife may have had the wind taken out of her sails. Why don’t we give it a few days and I’ll negotiate a deal with the lady?”
“I hope you can, Chick. I’m getting a bit desperate.”
I hung up, and Joey, one of the busboys, came to retrieve the phone. He bent down close to my ear and whispered, “Ling says some cops are looking for you up front. Maybe you want to duck out through the kitchen, boss.”
“Don’t sweat it, Joey.” I had half expected some heat over the gambling raid and Ted Summers’ slick moves that got me released. Cops on the public morals squad don’t like slick moves. They like to follow them up with an hour or two at Police Plaza where I’d get my hands slapped, a court visit, and a fine.
I didn’t know the two plainclothes guys who finally worked their way down to Table 36, but they sure knew me.
“Kelly?” the ugly one grunted.
“Mister Kelly.”
“Can it,” he said as he reached over the table and frisked me from the waist up. “On your feet.” I did, and he completed the job from the waist down.
“What the hell is going on?” The less ugly one took out his handcuffs. “Okay, already, I’ll come quietly. Hell, it’s only a gambling charge, fellas.”
“Turn around, Kelly,” the ugly one said, and when I did, I was cuffed. “I don’t know from gambling charges, Mister Kelly.” He turned me about, took out his celluloid Miranda card, and gave me a sardonic grin. “You’re supposed to be a comic, Kelly. Here’s a riddle for you. What’s the sum of murder one plus murder one? It can’t be murder two. Give up? It’s a double life sentence. Okay, you have the right to remain silent...”
Four hours later, Lieutenant Donald Bullethead Jaffee of Homicide was far from silent and getting hoarser by the minute. He seemed to have the persistent notion that I had poisoned Gina and Samson Velker with Jack Mac’s aid and assistance. My kitchen manager had arrived at Police Plaza wearing city bracelets about the same time I did, and was probably going through the same Torquemada drill in some other office on some other floor. I hoped he was playing the same dummy act I was.
“Come on, Kelly,” Jaffee said with false friendship. “She had something on you. Why else would a high roller like you be squiring a working class housewife around town? Kelly, we have the lab reports and the autopsy protocol, and they’ll hang you. The poison was injected by hypodermic through the sealed champagne bottle cork. We can prove that beyond a doubt. Jack McCarthy’s fingerprints are on the bottle’s cardboard half-sleeve, and yours are on the fancy paper it was done up in. You wiped the bottle clean, and either forgot about the bottle’s sleeve or didn’t think it would show prints. We’ve come a long way with computer enhancement of latent prints, chump. Next time you plan a murder, don’t be so sloppy. Remember, you’re killing in the space age. That champagne is an exclusive brand, a Chateau La Codar 1958, stored at your club by a customer, a Mr. Pemberton, Jay Porter Pemberton. Your own wine cellar records prove that.