"Good. Now listen. There's a place called the Texan Bar on
Fifty-sixth Street. Get down there as fast as you can. I'll be waiting. You got that?"
"Yes, but... "
I hung up on her. It was the best thing you could do with a woman when you wanted her to move fast. She'd be a good hour getting there which was just what I needed.
They were changing shifts outside the building and the flow of cops was getting thicker. I stepped outside, flagged down a cab and gave him the address of Al Affia's place. The rain had thinned traffic down to a minimum and he didn't take long getting there.
Nothing had changed. The blood was still there on the floor, dried into a crusty maroon. Close to the door the air was a little foul and inside it was worse. I shoved the door open, snapped on the light and there was Al grinning at me from the corner of the room, but it was a horrible kind of grin because somebody had broken him into pieces with the whiskey bottle. He wasn't killed plain. He was killed fancy as a person could be killed. He was killed so that he couldn't make any sound as he died and whoever did it must have had a great time laughing because Al died slow.
What I came for was gone. There were still two of the blueprints on the table but they showed the layout of the docks. The rest were missing. I picked the phone up, dialed the operator and said very quietly, "Operator... get me the local office of the F.B.I."
Somebody said briskly, "Federal Bureau of Investigation, Moffat speaking."
"You better get down here, Moffat," I said. I laid the phone down gently alongside the base and walked out.
They'd know. They were lads you never noticed in the crowd, but they were all eyes and ears and brains. They worked quietly and you never read about them in the papers, but they got things done and they'd know. Maybe they knew a lot more than I thought they'd know.
She was waiting for me at the bar. She was a lusty, beautiful woman with a mouth that made you hungry when she smiled at you as you came in. There was humor in her eyes, but the wonder and curiosity showed below in the little lines that radiated from the corners of her lips.
There was nothing in mine. I could feel them flat and dull in their sockets. I nudged my chin to the booths in the back and she followed me. We sat down and she waited for me to say something and all I could think of was the last time I had sat here it was with Velda and now time was getting short.
I took the cigarette she held out from the case, lit it and leaned on the table. "How much do you love your brother, kid?" "Mike... "
"I'm asking the questions."
"He's my brother."
"Partially."
"That's doesn't matter."
"He's mixed up in one of the dirtiest rackets you'll ever find. He has a part in it someplace and is paid off in the blood and terror you'll find wherever you find the Mafia operating. He's part of a chain of killers and thieves, yet you like what his money can buy. Your love doesn't stop anyplace, does it?"
She sat away from me as if I held a snake out at her.
"Stop, Mike, please stop!"
"You can stay on his side or mine, kid. The choice is up to you."
The hysteria was caught in her chest. Her mouth wasn't pretty any more. One little sob got loose and that was all. "Al Affia is dead. So far he's the latest. He isn't the last. Where do you stand?
It came out slowly. She fought it all the way and won it. "With you, Mike."
"I need some information. About Berga Tom." She dropped her head and toyed with the ashtray. "Your brother played around with her some time ago. Why?"
"He... hated that woman. She was a tramp. He hated tramps." "Did she know it?"
Michael shook her head. "In public he seemed fond of her. When we were alone... he said awful things about her." "How far did he go?"
She looked up helplessly. "He kept her. I don't know why he did it... he didn't like her at all. The woman he did care for at the time left him because he spent all his time... nights... with Berga. Carl... was upset about it. One night he had an argument with someone about her in his study. He was so mad afterward he went out and got drunk, but he never saw Berga after that. He had an argument with her, too."
"You know about Carl's testifying before a congressional committee?"
"Yes. It... didn't seem to bother him. Not until... he heard that... she was going to speak against him." "That was never made public."
"Carl has friends in Washington," she said simply. "Yet he never worried about it?"
"No."
"Let's go back further, sugar. Let's go back before the war. Was there any time you can remember when something bothered Carl so much it damn near drove him nuts?"
The shadows around her eyes deepened, her hands pressed together tightly and she said, "How did you know? Yes, there was... a time."
"Now go over it slowly. Think about it. What did he do?"
Something panicky crossed her face. "I... nothing. He was hardly ever home. He wouldn't let me talk to him at all. When he was at home all he did was make long-distance calls. I remember because the phone bill was almost a thousand dollars for the month."
My breath was coming in hot. It hissed in between my teeth with a whisper and burned into my lungs. I said, "Can you get that bill? Can you get the itemized list that went with it?"
"I... might. Carl keeps everything... in the safe at home. Once I saw the combination on the back of the desk blotter."
I wrote down an address. Pat's. But all I gave her was the address and the apartment number. "Find it. When you do, bring it here." I folded the paper into her hand and she dropped it into her bag after looking at it long enough to etch it into her memory.
He'd get it. He'd pass it on and the boys in the blue suits would tie into it. They had the men and the time and the means. They'd do in a day what it would take me a year to do.
I snubbed out my butt, pulled the belt tight on the trench coat and stood up. "You'll spend the rest of your life hating yourself for doing this. Hating me too. If it gets too much I'll take you around and show you a lot of dirty little kids who are orphans and some widows your own age. I can show you pictures of bodies so cut up you'll get sick. I'll show you reports of kids who have killed and are condemned to death because they were skyhigh on dope when they decided to see what it was like to burn a man down. You won't be stopping it all. You'll slow it down a little, maybe, but a few people who would have died will go on living because of you."
For a few seconds she seemed completely empty. If there was any emotion in her it had drained out and all she was left with were her thoughts. They showed on her face, every one of them. They showed when she looked back into the past and brought to life what she had known all along but had refused to acknowledge. They showed when the life came back to her eyes and her mouth. She tilted one eyebrow at me, did something to her head that shook her hair loose down her back.
"I won't hate you, Mike? Myself, perhaps, but not you."
I think she knew it then. The thought of it hung in the air like a charged cloud. Michael said, "They'll finally kill me, won't they, Mike." It wasn't a question.
"What's left of them... if they ever find out... would like to think they will. They'd like to kill me too. You can always remember one thing because they'll be remembering it too. They're not as big as they think they are."
She smiled, a wan, drawn smile. "Mike..." I took the hand she held out to me.
"Kiss me again. Just in case."
The wetness glistened on her lips. They were firm lips, large, ripe, parted slightly over the even lines of her teeth. There was fire there that grew hotter as I came closer. I could see her mouth open even more, the tip of her tongue impatiently waiting, then the impatience broke and it met me before lips did.
I held her face in my hands, heard the soft moan she made, felt her nails biting into my arms through the coat, then I let her go. She trembled so violently she had to press her hands against the booth and the fiery liquid of her mouth passed on into her eyes.