The laugh came out his nose like he didn't believe me. "One guy," he said, "just one big guy and everybody gets hopped up. For anybody else, even the mayor, they wouldn't even blink, but for you they get hopped up. You say you're going to scramble and they make like a hillbilly feud. The word goes out and money starts passing hands. Two of the hottest rods in town combing the joints looking for you and you don't even get bothered enough to stop eating. They know you, Mr. Hammer. Guess maybe everybody knows something about you. That's why Charlie Max and Sugar Smallhouse got the job. They don't know nothing about you. They're Miami boys. You say you're going to do something, you do it and always there's somebody dead and it ain't you. Now the word has it you're going to scramble the top potatoes. Maybe you will and maybe you won't. With anybody else I'd take bets on your side, only this time it's different."
He stopped and waited to see what I'd say. "It's not so different."
"You'll find out."
He saw my teeth through the smile and shuddered. It does funny things to some people. "The word still goes," I said. "From now on to the end they'll have to stay away from windows and doors. They'll never be able to go out alone. Every one of the pack will have to keep a rod in his fist and wait. They'll have to double check everything to make sure I won't find out who they are and no matter how hard they try I'll reach them. Their office boys'll try to check me off but they're like flies on the wall. I'm going to the top. Straight up. I'm finding out who they are and when I do they're dead. I know how they operate... they're bad, but they know me and I'm worse. No matter where I find them, or when... any time, any place... that's it. The top dogs, those, are the ones I want. The slime who pull the strings in the Mafia. The kings, you understand? I want them."
My grin got bigger all the time. "They've killed hundreds of people, see, but they finally killed the wrong dame. They tried to kill me and they wrecked my car. That last part I especially didn't like. That car was hand built and could do over a hundred. And for all of that a lot of those top dogs are paying through the kiester starting now. That's the word."
Mousie didn't say anything. He stood up slowly, his teeth holding his bottom lip to keep it up. He jerked his head in what was supposed to be a so-long and slid out from behind the table. I watched him walk to the door, forgetting the sandwich that lay on top of the counter. He opened the door slowly, walked out to the sidewalk and turned east, not looking to either side of himself. When he had gone I got up myself, paid my bill and took the change to a phone booth.
Pat was home and still up. I said, "It's me, pal. Velda told me you heard the news."
He sounded a little far away. "You don't have much sense, do you?"
"They're looking for me. Two boys by the name of Charlie Max and Sugar Smallhouse."
"They have reps."
"So I hear. What kind?"
"Teamwork. Max is the one to watch. They're killers, but Smallhouse likes to do it slow."
"I'll watch Max then. What else?"
"Charlie Max is an ex-cop. He'll probably have a preference for a hip holster."
"Thanks."
"Don't mention it."
I slapped the receiver back on the hook. The dime plinked into the box and the gaping mouth of the thing laughed at me silently. Well, in a way it was a pretty big joke. The army of silent men couldn't stay silent. I didn't know them but they knew me. They were just like the rest; crumbs who knew how to play a one-sided game, but when they were playing somebody who could be twice as silent, twice as dirty and twice as quick they broke in the middle and started begging. Someplace in the city were people with names and some without names. They were organized. They had big money in back of them. They had political connections. They had everything it took to stay where they were except one thing and that was me with my own slab in a morgue. They know what to expect from the cops and what to expect from the vast machine that squatted on the Potomac but they didn't know what to expect from me. Already one guy had told them, a punk with crooked yellow teeth who had had a gun on me and lost it. Then they'd ask around if they didn't already know and the stories they'd hear wouldn't be pretty. The fear they handed out so freely to others they'd taste themselves, knowing that before long, if I was still alive, they'd have to chew the whole lump and swallow it.
At the cigarette counter I picked up a fresh deck of Luckies, went out into the air and headed for the Stem. Out there were the hunters spending advance money. Cold boys with reps who didn't know the whole score. They knew the word was out and wanted to cut it off.
But they didn't hear the whole word. Before the night was over they'd hear a lot of things that might make them want to change their minds. One of the things was the rest of the word. They'd find out the hunters were being hunted.
Just for the fun of it.
Chapter Eight
The Globe gave me the information on Nicholas Raymond. It was an old clipping that Ray Diker dragged out for me and which wouldn't have been printed at all if there hadn't been an editorial tie-up. The press was hot on hit-and-run drivers and used his case to point up their arguments about certain light conditions along the bridge approaches.
Nichols Raymond got it as he stepped into the street as the light changed and his body was flung through a store window. Nobody saw the accident except a drunk halfway down the block and the car was never tracked down. The only details about him were that he was forty-two years old, a small-time importer and lived in an apartment hotel in the lower Fifties.
I told Ray Diker thanks and used his phone to call Raymond's old address. The manager told me in a thick accent that yes, he remembered Mr. Nick-o-las Raymondo, he was the fine man who always pO his bills and tipped like a gentleman extreme. It was too bad he should die. I agreed with him, poked around for some personal information and found that he was the kind nothing can be said about. Apparently he was clean.
Finding something on McGrath was easy. The papers carried the same stuff Velda had passed to me without adding anything to it. Ray made a couple of calls downstairs and supplied the rest. Walter McGrath was a pretty frequent visitor to some of the gaudier night clubs around town and generally had a pretty chick in tow. A little persuasion and Ray managed to get his address. A big hotel on Madison Avenue. The guy was really living.
We sat there a few minutes and Ray asked, "Anything else?"
"Lee Kawolsky. Remember him?"
Ray didn't have to go to his files for that. "Good boy, Mike. It was a shame he couldn't follow through. Broke his hand in training and it never healed properly. He could have been a champ."
"What did he do for a living after that?"
"Let's see." Ray's face wrinkled in thought. "Seems like he bartended for Ed Rooney a bit, then he was doing a little training work with some of the other fighters. Wait a sec." He picked up the phone again, called Sports and listened for a minute to the droning voice on the other end. When he hung up he had a question in his eyes.
"What's the pitch, Mike?"
"Like what?"
His eyes sharpened a bit as they watched me. "Lee went to work for a private detective agency that specialized in supplying bodyguards for society brawls and stuff. One of his first assignments was sticking with a kid who was killed across the river a few days ago."
"Interesting," I said.
"Very. How about the story angle?"
"If I knew that I wouldn't be here now. How did he die?" "It wasn't murder."
"Who says?"
He picked up a pipe, cradled it in his hand and began to scrape the bowl with a penknife. "Killers don't drive the same beer truck for ten years. They aren't married with five kids and don't break down and cry on the street when they've had their first accident."