“I hope you don’t mind my not wanting to come to the precinct,” Danny said. “I don’t like to be seen there too often. It hurts my business.”
“I understand,” Carella said. “What have you got for me?”
“The background on Sy Kramer.”
“Go ahead.”
“He’s been living big for a few years, Steve, but not as big as just before he got it. You know, he had a nice pad and a good car—a Dodge—but nothing like the new joint, and nothing like the Caddy, you dig?”
“I dig.”
A boy ran by, kicking sand in Carella’s face.
“I used to be a ninety-seven-pound weakling,” Carella said, and Danny grinned.
“Okay,” Danny said. “In September, he goes berserk. Spends like a drunken sailor. Two new cars, clothes, the new pad. This is when he picks up the O’Hara bitch. She’s impressed by loot, what dame isn’t? She moves in with him.”
“How’d he meet her?”
“How’d she say?”
“She said she’s a dancer, met him in a drugstore.”
“For the birds,” Danny said. “She did a crumby strip in a joint on The Stem. Half her salary came from conning guys into buying her colored water.”
“Prostitution?”
“Not from what I could gather, but I wouldn’t put it past her. She’s quite a looker, Steve. They billed her as Red Garters.”
“That’s a name for a stripper, all right.”
“Well, she’s got this flaming-red hair. Anyway, her act stunk. All she had was a body. The less dancing she did, the quicker she got her clothes off, the better it was for everybody concerned.”
“So she met Kramer and latched onto him,” Carella said.
“Right. I think she read the writing on the wall. She was getting pawed by a hundred strangers a night for peanuts. She figured she might as well get pawed by only one guy, and live in luxury.”
“You’re a cynic, Danny,” Carella said.
“I read the cards,” Danny said, shrugging. “Anyway, Kramer hit it big in September.”
“How?”
“That’s the one thing I don’t know.”
“Mmm,” Carella said.
“I take it you know all this already? I ain’t giving you nothing new.”
“Most of it,” Carella said. “I didn’t know about the girl. What else have you got?”
“A hunting trip.”
“Kramer?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Beginning of September. It was after he come back that he started throwing the green around. Think there’s a tie-in?”
“I don’t know. Has he got a rep as a hunter?”
“Rabbits, birds, stuff like that. He’s never shot a tiger, if that’s what you mean.”
“Where’d he go on this trip?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did he go alone?”
“Yes.”
“Are you sure it was a hunting trip?”
“Nope. It could have been anything. For all I know, he could have gone to Chicago and rubbed somebody. Maybe that’s where he got the lump of dough.”
“Did he come back with the money?”
“No. Unless he was real cool with it and didn’t start flashing it around. The trip was in the beginning of the month. He didn’t start spending until the end of the month.”
“Was the money hot, do you suppose?”
“Not the way he spent it, Steve. If it was hot, he’d have used a money changer and taken a loss.”
“How do you know he didn’t?”
“I checked the guys buying hot bills. Kramer didn’t go to see any of them. Besides, we’re forgetting something.”
“What?”
“His racket. He’s an extortionist. True, he may have decided to do a quick rub job for somebody, but you don’t hire a shakedown artist for a torpedo job. Besides, like I told you, this torpedo crap went out in the—”
“Mmm, maybe you’re right,” Carella said. “But he could have carried hot ice or furs—”
“He ain’t a fence, Steve. He’s a shakedown artist.”
“Still.”
“I don’t buy it. Maybe this hunting trip was a cover. Maybe he went to see a mark.” Danny shrugged. “Wherever he went, it netted him a big pile of bills.”
“Maybe he really did go on a hunting trip,” Carella said. “Maybe the trip and the dough have no connection.”
“Maybe,” Danny said.
“But you don’t know where he went, is that right?”
“Not a glimmer.”
“And he went alone?”
“Right.”
“Was this before he met the O’Hara girl?”
“Yes.”
“Think she might know something about it?”
“Maybe.” Danny smiled. “Guys have been known to talk in their sleep.”
“We’ll check her again. You’ve helped, Danny. How much?”
“I don’t like to hit you too hard, Steve. Especially when I didn’t give you so much. But I’m slightly from Brokesville. Can you spare a quarter of a century?”
Carella reached for his wallet and gave Danny two tens and a five.
“Thanks,” Danny said. “I’ll make it up to you. The next one’s on the house.”
They lay on the sand for a little while longer. Carella went into the water for a quick dip, and then they went back to the locker rooms. They shook hands, and left each other at three in the afternoon.
LOVE, FLEETING CHIMERA that it is, was hardly present at all the second time Cotton Hawes called upon Nancy O’Hara. In fact, aside from their use of first names in addressing each other, one hardly could have guessed they’d shared the most intimate of intimacies. Ah, love. Easy come, easy go.
“Hello, Nancy,” he said when she opened the door. “I hope I didn’t catch you at a bad time.”
“No,” she said. “Come in, Cotton.”
He followed her into the living room.
“Drink?”
“No. Thanks.”
“What is it, Cotton? Have you found the murderer?”
“Not yet A few more questions, if you don’t mind.”
“Not at all.”
“Were you a stripper?”
Nancy hesitated. “Yes.”
“Anything else?”
“No.”
“Okay.”
“Thanks. I’m glad I have your seal of approval.”
“Why’d you lie?”
“A dancer sounds better than a stripper. I’m a lousy dancer, and a worse stripper. Sy wanted me to live with him. So I lived with him. Is there something so terrible about that?”
“I guess not.”