“You remember me, Spud?”
He nodded. “Yessir.”
“You remember the party that night?”
He made a small gesture with his shoulders. “I remember some. I had a party at every table that night.”
“But you’ve had reason to remember this party, Spud. With all the publicity and having it start right here I bet you’ve thought back on it plenty of times.”
When I stopped and waited he shuffled his feet and fidgeted. “I gave it some thought,” he finally admitted.
“Who was at the party?”
He stared at me blankly a moment, thinking. “Popeye, Edna, then Miles Henry came in with them two pictures of Popeye’s that the boss bought and then a lot of people came over to look at the paintings.”
“I remember the art work,” I said. “Seems to me that’s about the last I remember.”
The old man didn’t believe me at all. His eyes tightened at the corners and his face reflected the cynicism the years had built up.
I said, “Do you remember me being drunk or sober then?”
“Mister,” he said, “I wasn’t paying attention to anybody being either way. In this business nobody ever gets more sober with each drink, they only get more drunk. I watched it happen but I didn’t pay attention to it, otherwise when I see pictures of drunks smashing up people with their cars or shooting their kids in bed I’d maybe start drinking myself because it’s partly my fault. So for you, I don’t remember anything. Later on I noticed you all shook up because you were a quiet drunk and at that stage them’s the kind to watch out for because the fuse was lit and with another few you’d be roaring. I’ve had some of ’em go for me when they were like that and now I watch for it. Sure I remember you then, and later too because you were crocked like hell and couldn’t hardly walk and everybody was laughing at you.”
It was quite a speech. I ran over it in my mind before I asked him, “Who was everybody?”
Again I got that noncommittal shrug. “There was a crowd at the table then.”
“You know them?”
“Nope. Stan The Pencil had gone to make book in the other joints and Popeye and Edna stayed with the boss the rest of the night. You had a bunch of strangers with you. That’s the way it goes here. Parties. Always parties.”
“Who footed the bill?”
“You paid by rounds. Everybody had money on the table in front of them. You too.”
“Remember a redhead at the party? She carried a handbag that was shaped like a binocular case.”
“Sure,” he said.
I didn’t interrupt him. I let him reach for it himself. “A big beautiful job and she was all over you. She got you outa here when we closed up.”
Inside my chest I felt all tight and my mouth had a dry feel. Quietly, I said, “Who was she?”
Then the tightness turned into an inaudible curse. Because he gave me that shrug again and said, “I don’t know. Just some broad.”
I fished four bucks out of my pocket and split it between the two of them. “Thanks. If you see her around, give me a call. I’m in the book.”
Ralph just nodded. Spud looked thoughtful a moment, fingered the two bucks in. his hand, then looked at me purposefully. “Mr. Regan...”
“What?”
“I don’t think you could’ve bumped that guy.”
“Why not?”
“All my life I worked drunks. I know what they can do. You couldn’t see to bump anybody that night.”
“That’s what I tried to tell them, Spud.”
He had something else to say but didn’t quite know how to get it out. Finally he said, “I’ve known plenty of crooked cops, Mr. Regan. I hated their guts.”
“Go on.”
“Did you take a payoff from Marcus?”
“No. That was a framed job.”
The grin on Spud’s face was a friendly one.
“What did you expect me to say, anyway?”
“I could’ve told if you were lying, Mr. Regan, I’ll let you know if I see her again.”
You find friends in funny places, I thought. I watched him leave, then walked outside and down the subway where I caught a train for my apartment.
Chapter Two
George Lucas grew up on the same street I did and was all set to break into the mob when he took time out to count the cost and figured it too high. Instead, he worked his way through school and became a criminal-law lawyer. But he still looked like a crook and half the time he acted like one. His record in court was imposing. He could out-shyster the shysters anytime and if he could stick a needle up the DA.’s tail he’d take the case free.
When I walked into his office he grinned crookedly and said, “I had an idea you’d be around.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know, Regan. It was just a feeling. You did okay in court. How could you afford Selkirk and Selkirk? That’s big time.”
I sat down and tossed my hat on his desk. “They came free, Georgie. Monty Selkirk figured he owed me a favor. I let him pay it back.”
“You got his kid off the hook one time, didn’t you?”
I shrugged. “He wasn’t involved. It was a phoney blackmail attempt.”
“Good to have buddies like that. Always have something working for you that way.” He flipped open a box of cigars, offered me one and when I said no, lit up himself. “So what’s with you today, Patrick?”
“Something up your alley.”
“Let’s have it.”
“You familiar with my case?”
“Everything, boy. It’s home town news, you know.”
“Yeah.” I leaned back and stuck out my feet. “Well, just to review you, I was assigned to the Leo Marcus thing. We’d picked up a rumble that he was back in the extortion racket among other things.”
George nodded and sucked on the cigar. “I heard about it He was getting up there.”
“He was there, friend. He ran the organizational operation along the Atlantic coast from New York to the toe of Florida. He set up a string of motels with organization money for one thing, used each unit as a local headquarters and clearing house and did it so nice and legally he couldn’t be touched.”
“Smart,” George said. “The new method. Keep it legal.”
“He didn’t quite make it. I had a tipoff that would have wrapped up the entire deal. It took eight weeks, but I had a dossier on Leo Marcus complete with incriminating evidence that would have blown the operation sky high. Just before the end of the investigation I met with two of the commissioners at a midtown hotel so they could pave the way for us to hit the operation without tipping off the papers. That night they saw what I had and knew what it meant.”
“That was your mistake, hey, kiddo?”
I nodded. “That was it. They knew I had it and when I couldn’t produce it again I was cooked. That made the money plant look real.”
George pointed with the cigar. “About the loot...”
I laughed at him. He still sounded Brooklyn. “The loot, friend, was five lousy G’s. An anonymous call to HQ said I sold out and Argenio hit my flat where he found a package of fifty one-hundred-dollar bills supposedly hidden in my closet. I was held, I couldn’t come up with my file and couldn’t account for the cash. Open and shut”
“Just like that?”
“That’s the size of it.”
“They didn’t take your departmental record into consideration?”
“Give them a break. They tried. I have a lot of friends around, George.”
“You’re not lacking in enemies, either. So go.”
I went. “I probably could have stood off the charges. The second mistake was in getting mad.”