“It breaks my heart,” I told him. “What am I supposed to do now?”
“Go in with the copper and tell your story to Wooley. If we can’t get a fee we may as well ingratiate ourselves with the department. I don’t think they like us, Joey.”
Which was the understatement of the week.
After I had spent an hour or so at headquarters, it dawned on me that we were being pushed around. Sackler had met me at Wooley’s office, where I had told my story. Later, we waited outside in the anteroom, with a uniformed copper standing over us, while Wooley made a number of private telephone calls.
Finally, he joined us again. He smiled and there was malice in that smile. There was an odd twinkle in his eyes.
“Come on,” he said. “We’re going over to the courthouse.”
“For what?” asked Sackler. “I’m busy on a case, Wooley. You’ve heard Joey’s story. There’s nothing to add to it. What do you want us for?”
“Perkins, the assistant D. A. wants a word with you,” said Wooley. “Come on.”
Puzzled, we went along with him. A few moments later we sat in the chambers of Judge Morrow. The judge, gray and exuding a beneficence which had enabled the machine to elect him several dozen times, sat behind his desk, toying with his watch chain.
Perkins and Wooley held a whispered conference in a corner of the room. Once Perkins looked at Sackler and me over his shoulder. The smirk on his face duplicated the expression on Wooley’s.
My feeling that something screwy was going on strengthened. Sackler looked annoyed.
“Look here,” he said suddenly. “Why are we being held here? It’s sheer malice, Wooley. You don’t like me because I make more money than you. You’re wasting my time merely to annoy me.”
Wooley didn’t answer. Instead he winked at Perkins. Perkins moved over to the judge’s desk, cleared his throat, and spoke like a congressman addressing the electorate.
“Your Honor, a prominent citizen has been murdered. It is an important police case. This man, Joey Graham, was a witness to that murder. The prosecutor’s office needs his testimony to convict. I ask that you hold him in ten thousand dollar bail as a material witness.”
Sackler’s jaw fell open. His eyes gaped open. There was stark horror written on his face.
“Ten thousand dollars!” he exclaimed. “That’s utterly ridiculous. It’s—”
The judge hammered severely on the desk with a pencil. “I shall be the judge of that, Mr. Sackler,” he said. “In cases of this sort I am guided by the advice of the district attorney’s office. I’ll hold this man Graham in ten thousand dollar bail. Where are the papers?”
Perkins, Wooley and the judge grinned widely. Of course, it was a put-up job. It was a cinch I wasn’t going to disappear. But I saw their point quite clearly. Asking Sackler to put up ten thousand dollars was a really beautiful thing. I grinned myself. Then suddenly I asked myself what the hell I was laughing for.
If it were a matter of my languishing in a cell for a few weeks or of Sackler withdrawing ten grand from his various Postal Savings accounts, I was as good as a prisoner right now.
“This,” said Sackler, “is persecution. I’m working on a case now. I’m working on the side of law and order. I need my assistant badly. I should think the police department would want to aid the cause of justice, not hinder it.”
“It shouldn’t work any hardship,” said Wooley. “You’ve got the ten thousand. You get it back later. It doesn’t cost you a nickel.”
That was true enough. But even the idea of withdrawing money from his accounts sent a tremor of horror down Sackler’s spine. The judge wrote something rapidly on a form which Perkins had handed him.
“All right,” he said. “Commit this man.”
Perkins waved the paper. “Well,” he asked, “are you bailing him or not?”
Sackler looked like a man who is offered the choice of hitting either his mother or his wife. He shook his head slowly.
“If only I wasn’t working on a case,” he said. “But I might need you, Joey. I guess I’ll have to spring you. But for God’s sake don’t leave my side. If you get lost or anything I’m out ten thousand dollars.”
“My pal,” I murmured, “my great golden-hearted pal.”
They held me in the detention pen while Sackler scurried around town and returned with the money. As we left the building, he linked his arm through mine. It was a most unusual gesture for him. But I understood it.
A few hours ago I was just Joey Graham, his underpaid, long-suffering assistant. Now I was a valuable property. I was worth ten grand on the hoof. And for once Rex Sackler was going to take very good care of me.
We went uptown again. We walked into the office to find two men sitting there. They were sitting quite calmly with their legs crossed. Each of them held his right hand balanced delicately on his left knee. In each of those hands were guns.
Sackler stood upon the threshold and blinked.
“My God,” he said, “are we going to be held up again? This, Joey, is too much. I can bear no more.”
I looked over his shoulder. One of the thugs I recognized. It was the scar-faced individual who had stuck us up a few days before. He stood up now, held his gun in my direction and spoke to the tall dark man with the Celtic face who was with him.
“Mike,” he said, “there’s two of them. What are we supposed to do?”
Mike got out of his chair. He looked at Sackler for a thoughtful moment. “Hymie,” he said, “we better take them both. Otherwise, this money here” — he indicated Sackler with his gun muzzle — “will start howling copper right away and they might pick up our taxi on the way out.”
Hymie nodded gravely. “O. K. Come along, both of you.”
“Look,” said Sackler, “I’m getting damned tired of having guns stuck in my stomach. Now what the devil’s it all about this time?”
“There’s a pal of mine in this town,” said Hymie, “who ain’t got any intention of burning in the chair. The coppers are looking for him. They’ll probably find him. But if this here guy Joey is put where he can’t talk, it don’t matter whether the cops find my pal or not.”
I felt a sudden emptiness at the pit of my stomach. It didn’t take a genius to figure out what was going on. Sackler opened his mouth to speak again but Mike prodded him gently in the stomach with a thirty-eight. Sackler shut up.
“All right,” said Hymie, “come along, you two. Going downstairs we’ll have our rods in our pockets. But we’ll stand so close to you we couldn’t miss anyway. I don’t expect any funny stuff.”
We went along. In the elevator I could feel Mike’s gun pressing into my back. I was, at the moment, one scared assistant shamus. I looked at Sackler. He didn’t resemble any conquering hero himself.
Chapter Three
Anything for a Pal
It was a long silent drive across the Manhattan Bridge deep into the heart of Brooklyn. Sackler and I sat in the back seat with Hymie between us. Facing us from the collapsible seat was Mike, his hand in his pocket, through the fabric of which I could see the outline of his gun.
Sackler stared at the back of the hack driver’s neck in brooding silence. He registered deep thought and I hoped to God he was accomplishing it. No one would need to pass a civil service exam for detective-sergeant to figure out the object of this snatch. I was the only living guy whose testimony could send Big Joe Angers to the chair. Without me he was clean.
There was a queasy emptiness at the pit of my stomach, and my pulse beat at least ten strokes above normal. For once I was praying that Sackler would master-mind a way out of the jam we were in. For once I wasn’t hoping that he’d make a humiliating mistake.