I raised my hands in a peace-keeping fashion. “No, just an observation. Buy you a drink?”
He was still frowning.
I made myself smile at him. Not nasty at all. “Come on. Bury the hatchet. Two old ex-New York PD coppers having a nightcap. Couple other points we should discuss… about your friend Sharron.”
“What?”
“You don’t call her Mrs. Wesley or the Wesley woman or the Wesley dame, I notice. You call her Sharron. You said you knew her. Let’s talk about that.”
He sneered at me. His fists were bunched. He was getting tired of this. So was I, but I needed to keep this thing friendly. “Why the hell should I, Hammer?”
“Because,” I said, and pitched the butt sparking into the night, “I think you might like to know what I know.”
That he thought about, too, but not for long. He just nodded, and gestured for me to go inside first. I shook my head and gestured for him to do that. I might be playing nice with him but I wasn’t going to turn my back, not on this bastard.
“Give me a second,” I said, in the lobby.
He stood impatiently while I tried Velda on the house phone. Still no answer. I hung up and nodded toward the bar, and we walked over there.
Soon, in a back booth, with beers in front of both us, and fresh cigs going, we started our friendly chat.
“I was in New York this evening,” I said, “and ran into Johnny C. You know, Johnny Casanova?”
Dekkert couldn’t have cut it at that table in the Waldorf suite-his was anything but a poker face, eyes tightening and even twitching at the mention of the gambling chieftain.
“Seems he was Sharron Wesley’s silent partner,” I went on. “Actually more than silent partner-he owns the place. She was a front. Apparently he has something on her, and bled her out of her fortune and even her mansion. He was just letting her live there in a few meager rooms in return for playing hostess. Also, bag woman. But still just another employee.”
“I don’t know anything about that.”
I figured he was lying, but I wouldn’t press it-not just yet.
“Dekkert, what was your role out there at the casino? I’ve heard it said you were a bouncer, but I can’t imagine a guy of your gifts would be satisfied with a crummy menial job like that.”
His eyes were hard and dark and barely blinking. “Well, Hammer, you’re wrong. That’s all I did out there-just some security. When I was off-duty. Like cops do.”
Then he drank about half his beer in one gulp.
“Okay,” I said, “but I’ve known you for a long time, Deputy Dekkert. You are nothing if not shrewd. Johnny C’s role out there, you’d pick up on that. Sharron Wesley’s unhappiness, her resentment against Casanova, you’d pick up on that, too.”
“So what?”
“So I think there’s a cache of money somewhere in that mansion or anyway on that property. It might be as little as the last weekend’s take, which would still be plenty. But it might be more.”
“More, huh?”
“A lot more. If Sharron was skimming, for example. Planning to take a powder to a better life, maybe down where the mambo is a local dance. But the thing is, sooner or later, Johnny C is gonna come out Sidon way, looking for that dough.”
A tiny sneer. “How does he even know there is any dough?”
“Oh, he knows. I don’t know how, but he told me tonight, so he knows. And when the heat dies down, and there’s no chance of running into coppers crawling around the Wesley grounds, Johnny C will come after what he considers rightly his.”
Dekkert slugged down the rest of the beer and pushed away the mug, then set his balled fists down like mallets. “Did he do it? Did Casanova kill her?”
There was rage in that once-handsome, bandage-spotted face. He cared about Sharron Wesley. Was that why he’d gone ape on Poochie when she was missing? Not the money, or anyway not just the money… but love? Had our boy Dekkert been just another love-sick calf?
“No, Johnny didn’t murder her,” I said. “And he didn’t have her bumped, either. Anyway, I don’t think so. That would be killing the golden goose before the egg got laid. He would have questioned her… you know what kind of questioning, Dekkert, old pal. The kind you subjected that little beachcomber to.”
“But she wasn’t beaten,” he said hollowly.
“No. She was strangled. And you don’t strangle somebody you’re trying to make talk.”
He nodded slowly. “So what are you after, Hammer?”
“I figure you know that property better than anybody. You worked out there. You knew Sharron. Maybe we could turn up that dough together.”
He grunted a laugh. “What, a midnight snipe hunt? Forget it. I did work out there, sure, and I knew her a little. She was a nice broad. We had some fun, time to time. But I never saw any sign she was tied up with Johnny C. And I don’t believe she was stealing money. It was her own place, not his, as far as I know. She took the cash into the city and banked it, is the way I understand it. That’s the beginning and end of it, Hammer. Okay?”
I shrugged. “Okay. It was worth a try.”
He slid out of the booth. “Word of advice, Hammer?”
“Always appreciated,” I said pleasantly.
“Get the hell out of Sidon.” His upper lip curled all the way back over big front teeth and feral incisors “There’s nothing here for you. Not answers. Not money. Not even a good time. Nothing. ”
He stalked out of there. Didn’t bother to offer to pay for the beers, but then cops didn’t seem to pay for anything around Sidon.
I sat there grinning. Well, he had taken the bait. I’d known damn well he wouldn’t go partners with me on the stashed cash, but he would want to beat Johnny C to the punch. So all I had to do was go out to Sharron Wesley’s and stake the place out and wait for Dekkert to lead me to the treasure.
Who had grabbed Poochie, I couldn’t say. But it really didn’t feel like the cops were responsible, and I talked myself into the chief meaning it when he said he’d round up his troops and put on a search for the little guy.
Right now the thread I was following was Dekkert, and it would lead to that cash. I wasn’t sure if finding Sharron Wesley’s getaway fund would lead me to her murderer, too, but I had a hunch it would.
Anyway, I didn’t mind the idea of taking a twenty-five percent finder’s fee from Johnny C. No, not at all. I had no other client in this case, and Velda would smile, seeing that kind of fee heading into our bank account.
Speaking of Velda, I tried her again on the house phone, got nothing, and decided to go up to my room to see if she’d left a note under my door or anything.
Nothing.
I was almost back out the door, to stake out the Wesley mansion, when the phone rang.
“Mike?”
It was Velda.
“Finally!” I said. “I’ve been back since midnight, and do I have plenty to report.”
“Tell me about it!” She sounded breathless; I could hear the rustle of wind in trees, so she must be calling from outside somewhere. “Mike, Mayor Rudy Holden has just been killed.”
“ What? ”
“You heard me. One shot behind the ear while he sat in his study. He-”
Her voice broke off with a muffled sound as though someone had slapped a hand over her mouth.
“Velda!.. Velda, what’s wrong? Where are you, honey? Answer me!”
The only response I got was the click of the receiver being slung back in its cradle.
I dialed the operator and barked an order at her. “I just had a call. I need to know where it came from. Hurry!”
“I’m sorry, sir,” she said with whiny high-pitched indifference. “We can’t give out that in-for- may — shun.” I was boiling. Velda in trouble, and some little snip wouldn’t get me the lead I needed.
“Damn it,” I yelled, “you’ll give that me right now, or I’ll come down where you work and slap the goddamn hell out of you. Get me that number and its location! This is detective Mike Hammer speaking, and I don’t want any crap out of you.”
It was a booth three blocks away.
CHAPTER TWELVE