But some of it might lead to the person or persons who were threatening Lucy Mencken anew.
8.
WHEN MARIO TORR stopped by at the squadroom, Bert Kling was on the phone talking to his fiancée. Torr waited outside the railing until Kling was finished talking. He looked at Kling expectantly, and Kling motioned him to enter. As before, Torr was dressed in immaculate mediocrity. He went to the chair beside Kling’s desk and sat in it, carefully preserving the crease in his trousers.
“I just thought I’d stop by to see how things were going along,” he said.
“Things are going along fine,” Kling said.
“Any leads?”
“A few.”
“Good,” Torr said. “Sy was my friend. I’d like to see justice done. Do you still think this was a gang rumble?”
“We’re working on a few possibilities,” Kling said.
“Good,” Torr answered.
“Why didn’t you tell me you’d taken a fall, Torr?”
“Huh?”
“One-to-two at Castleview for extortion. You did a year’s time and were paroled. How about it, Torr?”
“Oh, yeah,” Torr said. “It must’ve slipped my mind.”
“Sure.”
“I’m straight now,” Torr said. “I got a good job, been at it since I got out.”
“Sand’s Spit, right?”
“Right. I’m a laborer. I make about ninety bucks a week. That’s pretty good money.”
“I’m glad,” Kling said.
“Sure. There’s no percentage in crime.”
“Or in bad associates,” Kling said.
“Huh?”
“A man going straight shouldn’t have had a friend like Sy Kramer.”
“That was strictly social. Look, I believe a guy’s business is his own business. I don’t like to mess. He never talked about his business, and I never talked about mine.”
“But you figured he was working something, right?”
“Well, he always dressed nice and drove a fancy car. Sure, I figured he was working something.”
“Did you ever meet his floozy?”
“Nancy O’Hara? Mr. Kling, that ain’t a floozy. If you ever met her, you wouldn’t call her no floozy. Far from it.”
“Then you did meet her?”
“Once. Sy was drivin’ by with her in the Caddy. I waved to him, and he stopped to say hello. He introduced her.”
“She claims she knew nothing about his business. Do you buy that, Torr?”
“I buy it. Who says a woman needs brains? All the brains she needs is right between—”
“That makes two of you who didn’t know anything about Sy’s business.”
“I figured he had something big going for him,” Torr said. “He had to. A guy don’t come into a couple of cars and a new pad and clothes to knock your eyes out unless he’s got something big going for him. I don’t mean penny-ante stuff, either. I mean big.”
“What do you consider penny-ante?”
“Pin money. You know.”
“No, I don’t. What’s pin money?”
“A couple of bills a month, you know. Hell, you can tell me better than I can tell you. How much was he getting from his marks?”
“Enough,” Kling said.
“I don’t mean the big marks, I mean the small ones,” Torr said.
“How do you know there are big ones and small ones?”
“I’m just guessing,” Torr said. “I figure the big ones set him up with the cars and the pad. The small ones buy his bread. Ain’t I right?”
“You could be.”
“Sure. So what can you expect from a small mark? Two, three bills? Five grand in a lump? It’s the big ones that count.”
“I guess so,” Kling said.
“Do you know who the ones are yet?”
“No.”
“The small ones?”
“Maybe.”
“How many small ones are there?”
“You should have been a cop, Torr.”
“I’m only interested in seeing justice done. Sy was my friend.”
“Justice will triumph,” Kling said. “I’m busy. If you’re finished, I’d like to get back to work.”
“Sure,” Torr said. “I didn’t mean to disturb you.”
And he left.
THE CALL FROM Danny Gimp had told Carella that the informer had something for him, could they meet someplace away from the precinct? It had been Carella’s policy—up to the day of his idiocy—to give his home-phone number to no one but relatives, close friends, and of course the desk sergeant. He did not encourage business calls at home. It was annoying enough to be called there by the squad; he did not want crime detection or law enforcement to intrude on his off-duty hours. He had broken this rule with Danny Gimp.
The working arrangement between a cop and a stool pigeon is—even with men who bear no particular fondness for each other—a highly personal one. Crime detection is a great big horse race, and you choose your jockeys carefully. And a jockey working for your stable does not report your horse’s morning running-time to the owner of a rival stable. The bulls of the 87th worked with various stoolies, and these stoolies reported to them faithfully. The transaction was a business one, pure and simple—information for money. But a certain amount of trust and faith was involved. The policeman trusted the stoolie’s information and was willing to pay for it. The stoolie trusted the policeman to pay him once the information had been divulged. Cops were averse to working with pigeons they did not know and trust. And likewise, pigeons—whose sole source of income was the information they garnered here and there—were not overly fond of displaying their wares before a strange cop.
A call from the stoolie to the squad was generally a call directed at one cop and one cop alone. If that cop was off-duty or otherwise out of the office, the stoolie would not speak to anyone else, thanks. He would wait. Waiting could sometimes result in a lost collar. Waiting, in a homicide case, could sometimes result in another homicide. And so Danny Gimp had Carella’s home-phone number, and it was there that he called him when the desk sergeant informed him Carella was off that day.
The men arranged to meet at Plum Beach in River-head. Carella told Danny to bring along his swimming trunks.
They lay side by side on the sand like two old cronies who were discussing the bathing beauties. The sun was very strong that day.