“You’ve been reading about the investigation on Patello?”
The fat man shrugged. “Who hasn’t?”
Nat Peters was right. All New York was reading about it. Vince Patello, numbers man, gambling czar and slot-machine king, was gangland’s number one pin-up boy and the D.A.’s target for the month. It was suspected that his immunity in court was due to his closeness to someone high up in the political machine. Rumor said it was a judge. But what the newspapers needed was proof — the D.A. needed proof.
“How come you and Patello are like this?” Don crossed two fingers.
Peters grinned. “Me? I’m friends with everybody son.” Don looked disgusted and Nat went on. “In my business, it’s got to be that way. So what’s wrong with it?”
Davis ignored his question and asked one of his own. “How long have you known Judge Manson?”
Nat’s face got white then, except for two small red spots high on his cheek bones.
“You, too, huh?” he muttered. “Some skunk outside the machine starts the word around, then the crucifixion begins. What the hell’s the matter with you guys? The D.A. believe everything he hears, or is it just because he’s going to run for Senator?”
“That’s a long speech, Nat?”
Peters eased his sweating back against the cool firmness of the leather chair. His palms were wet, too.
“Yeah,” he agreed, “a long speech for me.”
“But you meant it, huh?”
“I meant it, yeah.”
The D.A.’s top assistant picked up doggedly where he’d left off.
“You and the judge were kids together, weren’t you, Nat?”
“Everybody knows that.” He spoke angrily. “That ain’t news. We were kids together, boys together, and men together. So what? I’m in the restaurant business and he’s a judge. Everybody knows that. He’s a good judge, too.”
“Yeah.”
Nat’s face split open in a big grin. “Then you don’t think that—”
“When did the judge and Patello meet here last? What night?”
The fat man’s hand came down heavily on the desk.
“Get out!”
Don got up. “If that’s the way you want it.”
The stout man at the desk didn’t move. Only his eyes — and his tongue.
“Trick questions I don’t like. From now on if you got to ask, bring around a little paper and I’ll bring my lawyer. No more for-free answers. Get out!”
The assistant D.A. turned and walked towards the door. Nat Peters still didn’t move. The door came open in Don’s hand and the carefre sounds from outside slithered into the tense atmosphere of the room.
“What side are you on, Nat?”
Peters straightened up and relighted his long Havana.
“My own,” he said in an unusually soft tone of voice. “Strictly my own.”
Nat waited five minutes after Davis left, then picked up the phone and dialed a number. A few minutes later the restaurant-owner opened the door of his office and walked out into the subdued noise of the lounge.
Kay Winters was still holding court up on the platform, interviewing a famous zither player. Next she would play his record and then would come more talk. Suddenly Nat Peters felt hot and tired, his throat parched. He went over to the bar.
“Gimme a drink, Ed.”
“But I thought your stomach—”
Nat’s eyes flashed and so did his heavy fist as he brought it down hard on the bartender’s finger tips.
“I said, gimme a drink!”
Ed needed the job and he sucked in his fingers like a baby, a frightened look in his watery eyes.
“Sure, Mr. Peters, sure,” he squeaked obediently. “Coming right up.”
Nat leaned against the bar again and surveyed his domain. The assistant District Attorney was still there, sitting at a table close to where the blonde disc-jockey was broadcasting. He was alone and looked it, and Nat noticed that Kay Winters could hardly keep her eyes off him.
The bartender set Nat’s drink down on the bar and he picked it up and went over to where Sue Grinnell was sitting. She glanced up at his fat bulk but hardly saw him. She too, had noticed the way Kay was looking at Don, and it disturbed her.
Nat sat down and bobbed his head at the blonde attraction.
“That thing still going on with them?” When there was no answer he commented brusquely, “He’ll get her yet — he sure will.”
Sue’s fingers were bloodless sticks under the table, her eyes cold and set.
“You’re wrong,” she said in a tight voice that didn’t fit her. “That will never be.” Her voice got too loud, “Never!”
Nat’s loose jowls shook gently as his massive head jerked up in unexpected surprise at her tone.
“So how come you hate the guy?” His voice sounded calm but he looked like a man who had just heard some good news.
Sue blinked in the blinding glare of his searching gaze.
“I... I don’t,” she said with unconvincing slowness. “It’s just that... well... she’s too good for him.”
“Nuts,” grunted Nat Peters coarsely. “You still afraid your meal ticket will get married and leave you?”
She almost slapped his face. Instead, she forced herself to pull back on the check reins as she murmured quietly, “Aren’t you?”
“Huh?”
“You, too, Mr. Peters. She’s your meal ticket, too.”
He looked annoyed and upset.
“So how come she squawks to the D.A.?” he retaliated. “Huh? Can you answer me that?”
Sue couldn’t because suddeply all the breath had gone out of her and there was a pasty color to her face that made her look very unhealthy.
“What do you mean?” she whispered nervously.
“Listen kid, for the mistakes we make we got to pay — only Vince Patello pays off in a very funny way.”
“I... I don’t understand.”
“No?” He seemed almost gentle in the way he handled her. “For what your gal Kay saw in my office she’s been paid — five hundred extra bucks a week’s she’s been paid.” He shook his head from side to side. “Uh-uh, Patello won’t like this at all.”
There was a lop-sided grin on Sue’s white face. “You’re crazy,” she muttered. “Kay would never do a thing like that. She couldn’t!”
“No?” he stabbed at her.
“How could she?” She was looking past him. “She—” Her jaws snapped shut like a steel trap, the pasty color spreading to her lips. “I don’t believe it,” was all that came out of her.
Nat Peters looked glum. “She don’t believe it,” he mocked. “So how come he knows enough to ask me questions about the judge?” He was looking straight at the assistant D.A. “That one ain’t working on rumor. He acts like a guy who knows something, has maybe a secret witness.”
She put a firm hand on his fat forearm. “Look, Mr. Peters,” she told him slowly. “When Kay walked in on you and the judge and Patello, you all started scurrying around like a room full of mice. But I told you then that she wouldn’t talk and I’m telling you now.”
“Okay,” he admitted testily. “For five hundred a week she hasn’t talked. I just wonder how much it would take to make her open to the D.A.”
Sue spouted angrily, “The D.A. hasn’t got that kind of money.”
Nat took another look at Don’s broad shoulders and remarked, “Maybe it doesn’t take money, huh?” He rocked nervously in his chair. “All they need is a witness who saw the judge together with Patello, and believe me they can take it from there.”
“And you believe me, Mr. Peters. Kay won’t talk. I promise you she won’t.”
Big Nat Peters chewed hard on his inner lip. He was thinking about Vince Patello.
“Kay won’t say a thing, Mr. Peters,” he heard Sue Grinnell saying, and thinking about Vince Patello, Nat was inclined to believe she was right.