Finally she said, “I don’t understand it.”
“What?”
“Lublin didn’t know who the killers were. That’s what he said, isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“Then he must have been lying. Lee and the other man were in the car. They were driving around looking for us. Is there anyone besides Lublin who knows about us?”
“No. Unless someone recognized you at Lublin’s last night.”
“Who? No one could have. So Lublin had to tell them. That meant that he hired them in the first place, and that the whole business about Washburn was a lot of nonsense, and that—”
“He wasn’t lying.”
“He must have been. He—”
“No. Wait a minute.” He picked up the glass of beer and took a long drink. The beer was very cold and went down easily. He made rings on the top of the table with the cold glass.
He said, “Lublin was telling the truth. I think I see it now. After we left, there were two things he had to do. He had to keep us from getting to Washburn, first of all. But he also had to let Lee and the other one know about us, that we were coming. They were the logical people to set after us. They were the ones we were after, first of all, and that would give them a personal stake in nailing us. It would save his hiring men to run us down, too. All he had to do was tell the two of them that a man and a woman were in town looking for Corelli’s killers, and then the two of them would handle the rest. If they got to us and killed us, Lublin was in the clear. And if we got to them first, and killed them, he was still in the clear. Because we would pack up and move out without Washburn hearing about the whole deal.”
“Is he really that scared of Washburn?”
“Washburn killed Corelli — had him killed, that is — just because Corelli tried to swindle him. Didn’t succeed, just tried. Lublin did worse than that. He informed on Washburn. I guess Lublin has a right to be scared.”
She was shaking her head. “It still doesn’t add up,” she said. “Last night, Lublin didn’t know who the killers were. If he had known he would have told us, wouldn’t he? I mean, assuming that he was telling us the truth. So how would he know who to call today? How would he know to set them after us?”
“That’s easy.”
She looked at him.
“All he had to do was ask Washburn,” he said. “Jesus, I’m so stupid it’s pathetic. He called Washburn and asked him who the men were, and Washburn told him without knowing what it was all about, and then he got in touch with them, with Lee and the other one. We went around playing detective, staking out his apartment, everything. All around Robin’s Hood’s barn, for God’s sake. We missed the shortcut”
“Where are you going?”
“To call Washburn.”
He made the call from the telephone booth right there in the bar. At first he tried to find Washburn’s number in the phone book, but there was no listing. Then he remembered and dug out his notebook. He had copied the number, along with the address, from Lublin’s address book. He dropped a dime and dialed the number, and a soft-voiced woman picked up the phone almost immediately and said, “Mr. Washburn’s residence.”
He made his voice very New York. He asked if he could speak to Mr. Washburn, please. She wanted to know who was calling. Jerry Manna, he said. She asked if he would hold the line, please, and he said that he would.
Then a man’s voice said, “Washburn here. Who’s this?”
“Uh, I’m Jerry Manna, Mr. Washburn. I—”
“Who?”
“Jerry Manna, Mr. Washburn. Mr. Lublin said that I should call you. He said that—”
“Maurie?”
“Yes,” Dave said. “I—”
“Hold it,” Washburn said. He had a very deep voice and spoke quickly, impatiently. “I don’t like this phone. Give me your number, I’ll get back to you. What’s the number there?”
Could Washburn trace the call? He didn’t think so. Quickly, he read off the telephone number. Washburn said, “Right, I’ll get back to you,” and broke the connection.
He sat in the phone booth, the door closed, and he wiped perspiration from his forehead. The palms of his hands were damp with sweat. Right now, he thought, Washburn could be calling Lublin. Lublin would tell him he never heard of a Jerry Manna. And then—
But why should Washburn be suspicious? Unless Lublin had told him everything after all. But Lublin wouldn’t do that, because it didn’t make any sense, that was the one thing Lublin had to avoid. And it took a long time to take a number and find out who it belonged to, where the phone was. The police could do it. Otherwise the phone company wouldn’t give out the information. But Washburn was an important criminal, the kind who would have connections in the police department. One of them could get the information for him. Then he would stall on the phone, and a couple of goons would head for the bar.
They couldn’t stay in the bar too long. If Washburn called back right away, they might be all right. But if he took too long it could be a trap.
Jill stood at the door of the phone booth, her eyebrows raised in question. He shook his head and waved her away. She went back to the table and poured beer into her glass, tilting the glass a few degrees and pouring the beer against the side of it. She raised the glass and sipped the beer.
The phone rang.
He reached for the receiver, fumbled it, knocked it off the hook. He grabbed it up and said, “Hello, Manna speaking.”
Washburn said, “All right, I can talk now. What’s the story?”
“Mr. Lublin said I should call you, Mr. Washburn.”
“You said that already. What’s it about?”
‘It’s about a builder from Hicksville,” he said carefully. “A man named Joe. Maurie said—”
“What, again?”
He took a quick breath. What, again?
“You want to know the two boys on that, is that right?”
“That’s right, Mr. Washburn. I—”
“Dammit, Maurie called me already today on that. When did you talk to him?”
“Last night.”
“Well, he called here this morning. Early. He woke me up, dammit. I gave him all of that right then. Didn’t you talk to him?”
“I can’t reach him, Mr. Washburn. I tried him a couple of times. He maybe tried to get me, but I’ve been out and he couldn’t call me where I’ve been. I thought I could take a chance and call you direct, Mr. Washburn, after I couldn’t get hold of Maurie.”
There was a long pause. Then Washburn said, “All right, dammit, but I hate these goddamned calls. They are two New York boys who work out of East New York near the Queens line. Lee Ruger is one, he’s the one to talk to, and the other is Dago Krause. The price depends on the job, what they have to do. They get a good price because they do good work, they’re reliable. That what you wanted?”
“If you could give me the address, Mr. Washburn, I would—”
“Yeah. Jesus, this is all stuff I told Maurie this morning. He got me out of bed for this, and now I’ve got to go over it all. This is a pain in the ass, you know that?”
“I really appreciate it, Mr. Washburn.”
‘Yeah. Just a minute.” He waited, and Washburn came back and said, “I can’t find the damned phone number. Krause’s address I don’t have, I never had it. Ruger’s the one you want to talk to anyhow, see. That’s 723 Lorring Avenue. There’s a phone, you can probably find it. Maurie—”
“Thanks very much, Mr. Washburn.”
Washburn wasn’t through. “Maurie’s a goddamned idiot,” he said now. “He gave you my name, is that right?”
“Well, he—”
“He should damn well know better than that What’d he do, just let it drop out?”
“More or less, Mr. Washburn.”
“You tell him he should watch his mouth, you got that? Or I’ll tell him myself. What did you say your name was? Manna?”