“So why didn’t they just accept it as a case of mistaken identity? You don’t go out and kill one of your pool buddies just because some stranger thinks he’s somebody he used to know by another name.”
“They might have been suspicious already,” Simon suggested.
“I don’t know,” Brad Ryner said. “I didn’t realise it if they were, but of course they wouldn’t have told me if they smelled a rat, since I was the rat.”
“There’s no point wasting time theorising about that,” Stacey said. “What’s done is done. It’s a rotten shame, though, even if it was nobody’s fault.”
“Yeah,” said Ryner, shifting painfully in his bed. “I’m on the sidelines permanently as far as this game is concerned, and there’s nobody else on our side playing.”
“You mean playing under-cover?” Simon asked.
“Right,” Ryner croaked. “The lieutenant here already had one New York man disappear on this job; that’s why he called me in.”
“Sounds tough,” Simon said with growing interest. “What’s the game exactly?”
Lieutenant Stacey looked questioningly at Ryner. Ryner attempted a nod of approval.
“Have a chair,” Stacey said to the Saint, and the two men sat down beside the bed.
“It’s tough all right,” Stacey said. “We’re on the trail of a guy who’s getting all the organised crime in these parts sewn up. He makes the Mafia look like the Dead End Kids. When he gets finished, the only thing he won’t run in this state will be the clocks.”
“I suppose it would be superfluous to ask why you don’t arrest him,” Simon said. “No hard evidence?”
“Not only that,” Lieutenant Stacey said with a helpless gesture, “we don’t even know who he is.”
“That does make it difficult.”
“Evidence?” Ryner put in weakly. “There’s evidence all over the place, but it never leads to the top.”
“We’ve made arrests,” Stacey said. “Even got a few convictions — which isn’t easy, considering this guy seems to have half the judges in his pocket, and the witnesses have a way of vanishing or forgetting everything but their own names. But even the thugs who carry out his orders don’t know who the boss is. They call him the Supremo. We’ve found out that much.”
“Big deal,” Ryner said. “They could call him Sitting Bull, for all the good it does us.”
“And we know a few other fairly useless facts,” Stacey went on. “Such as the fact that some of the Supremo’s muscle men hang out at Sammy’s Booze & Billiards.”
“Is Sammy’s some kind of a headquarters or communications centre?” Simon asked.
“No,” Ryner answered. “Strictly for amusement.”
“But there is a club we think may be an operations centre for the organisation...” Stacey hesitated. “Why should I be taking up your time with all this? I’m sure you’ve got plenty to do on your visit here without listening to a cop’s tales of woe.”
Simon smiled.
“What you mean is, why should you be divulging information to somebody who’s not on your team?”
“Maybe,” the lieutenant conceded, “although Brad’s told me you can be trusted come hell or high water, and I know enough about you to realise that you’re your own man. You’d never work for the Supremo or any other gang boss.”
“I appreciate the confidence,” Simon said to Brad Ryner. “I wish I’d lived up to it better last night. Now I suspect you’re back to square one.”
“We never got past square one,” Ryner assured him. “The most I ever found out was some information about some little frogs in a mighty big pond.”
“And now we won’t even be getting that much,” Lieutenant Stacey said morosely. “We’re right where we were six months ago, and I’d be willing to bet we’ll be in exactly the same place a year from now.”
Simon stood up suddenly and paced across the white antiseptic room.
“Not necessarily,” he said.
Ryner, who had closed his one visible eye, opened it again. Stacey turned in his chair to peer up into the Saint’s intent face.
“You know something us public servants don’t know?”
“No,” Simon answered. “But if you’ll let me, I might be able to help you.”
Chapter 4
It was a strange offer for the Saint to make, and an uncharacteristic way for him to word it: But if you’ll let me, I might be able to help you. Stacey had been right; Simon Templar did not work for big or little Caesars. He did not work for anybody but himself. Yet in the circumstances his usual motives were thrust into the background, temporarily at least, because of the responsibility he felt for what had happened to Brad Ryner in trying to expose the man known as the Supremo.
“Look,” he said to the two detectives. “Brad was brought into this game because he wasn’t known in Philadelphia. I got him knocked out of the game, right on his head, even if I didn’t know what I was doing. What you do when that happens in football is send in a substitute. Well, here I am.”
The silence that followed was full of astonishment, doubt, and awe of the net of red tape that was bound to descend upon anyone who departed from officially marked paths of police investigation.
“You ain’t thinking of becoming a cop, are you?” Brad Ryner asked nervously.
“I was thinking more in terms of becoming a fellow-traveller.”
“Before I say anything,” Stacey said cautiously, “I’d better find out exactly what you have in mind.”
“I have an idea for getting close to the Supremo,” Simon said. “Possibly even face to face with him. And I’m in a good position to do it: I’m from out of town — further out than Brad was. I have a breath-taking gift for bamboozling people. I have a fantastic record of successfully overwhelming criminals of every size and shape. And I have the strength of ten because my heart is pure.”
“Bravo,” Ryner said feebly. “Bravo!”
Lieutenant Stacey looked fascinated but dubious.
“It’s very good of you to think of doing something like that, but I’m not even sure I could consider... Even if I felt convinced it was the best thing, I don’t have the authority to...”
“Would it help any if I told you I intend to go ahead and do it anyway, no matter what you decide?” The Saint’s expression was not so much defiant as blandly innocent, as if he were making an announcement of what he intended to have for his lunch.
Lieutenant Stacey came out with a kind of snorting laugh, because it was all he could think of to come out with. Ryner was too uncomfortable to waste his breath.
“Good,” he said with conviction. “You do it. But what is it?”
“What’s the name of that club you mentioned, that the Supremo’s gang uses as an operational HQ?”
“The Pear Tree,” Lieutenant Stacey replied. “Do you know of it?”
“Only by name,” the Saint answered. “Very elegant spot, I’ve heard.”
“This is a very elegant crew,” Stacey said.
“I could tell that last night,” Simon remarked. “That large gentleman had a very refined way of putting his dancing pumps into Brad’s stomach.”
“Those were just the floor-sweepings of the gang,” Brad Ryner said. “I had to start somewhere.”
“Well, I intend to start at The Pear Tree,” Simon told them. “My first job is going to be to get somebody other than the bouncer or the headwaiter to listen to me. I may have to use a little muscle, but somehow or other I’ll get word up the communications lines that I have to see the big chief.”
“Big chief, big deal!” Ryner said sceptically. “I might as well walk into the White House and say I have to see the President.”
“But if you were the ambassador from France, you wouldn’t have much trouble getting an appointment.”