“Cop?”
“Private. Okay. The nickel’s in the slot. Let’s have the music.”
“I work for Joe April.”
“How long?”
“A couple of months.”
“You from the Coast?”
“No.” His voice lowered.
“Where?”
“Detroit.”
“What’s April’s racket?”
“I don’t know.”
I didn’t think he was telling the truth, but I wasn’t pressing. I said, “Where’s headquarters?”
“Flamingo Garage. Thirty-first and Ninth.”
“All right. Now where’s your heater?”
He pointed at the open door. “In the bedroom. In the rig.”
“Move.”
I walked with him into the filthy bedroom. His holster was caught around the brass bed-post of an old bed. I took his revolver out and marched him back to the kitchen. I said, “Sit down.”
He sat.
Rose kept snoring on the floor.
I said, “What’s your real name?”
With dignity he said, “Roderick H. Dallas.”
I went to the refrigerator and for the second time that night I called cops, this time Detective-Lieutenant Louis Parker in particular. Rose Jonas was still snoring when the sirens sounded in the street.
8.
I worked it out with Parker. It took a lot of coaxing, but I worked it out. It was a way of pushing through, right to the bottom, quick and with one shove. And it might work. It was better than a raid, and the onslaught of shysters with writs of habeus corpus. And I didn't know these guys, and they didn’t figure to know me. It took a lot of coaxing, but Parker was all cop, and he was keen enough to know it might work, it might push through, all the way, with one shove.
A cab took me up to the Flamingo Garage in fifteen minutes. It was quiet and dark with shuttered windows and a sheet-metal door pulled down. I pressed a bell at the side and listened to the clang inside. A little trap-door opened and a man said, “What do you want?”
“April.”
“Who sent you?”
“Whisper.”
The trap door snapped shut. There was silence. Then a whirring started and the sheet-metal door moved up high enough for me to enter. I went in. The door moved down and closed. The man said, “Come on to the office.”
It was a big barn of a garage with no more than five cars, all fairly new and polished. The guy opened the office door and we went in. It was much lighter in the office. The guy leading me was swarthy, skinny and pock-marked. He wore a sharp, wide-shouldered suit, and a light gray snap brim hat. The man at the desk was different. He was slick, sandy-haired, impeccable in a white shirt with French cuffs, and the initials J.A. embroidered over the heart.
I said, “You Joe April?”
He said, “What’s it to you?”
I said, “I’m in from Detroit. One day. I hustled up to sec my pal, Roderick H. Dallas, commonly known as Whisper. He gave me the okay to you.”
“For what?”
“Work.”
“Now wait a minute. How do you know where Whisper holes up?”
“I’ve known Whisper since he was running around in bicycle stockings. We have frequent phone conversations.”
“All the way from Detroit?”
“I can afford it. And Whisper, he tells me he’s doing pretty good too.”
“Okay. Let’s have the rest of it.”
“Ain’t too much. I’m a little hot in Detroit, so I come east for a rest. I amble up to see my friend Whisper, and he tells me he’s holed up for a while, blasted a guy tonight. He tells me maybe you can use me, so I come here. That’s it.”
He looked me over closely. He said, “You ever heist a car?”
“You kidding? I was heisting cars when Whisper was heisting his diapers.”
“What’s your name?”
“Scotty. Scotty Sanders.”
“All right, Scotty.” He reached for the phone, dialed, waited, said, “Hello? Hello, Whisper?”
You could hear Whisper’s rasp across the room. “Yeah, boss.”
“Got a friend of yours here.”
“Who?”
“Scotty Sanders.”
“Yeah, boss. A good kid.”
The strain went out of April's face. He looked pleased. He wouldn’t have looked as pleased, if he'd known that the muzzle of Parker’s gun was tight to Whisper’s temple.
April tried once more. “Where’s he from, this fancy gorilla of yours?”
“Who?”
“This Scotty Sanders.”
“From my home town. Detroit, boss. Very handy kid.”
“Okay. Stay holed up. You’ll hear from me.” April hung up, nodded at the pock-marked man, nodded at me. “Jack Ziggy, Scotty Sanders.”
We shook hands.
April said, “In a way, I’m glad you came. We’re short a man with Whisper out. You and Ziggy are going to work together. Tonight. Okay with you, Scotty?”
“Okay if the pay’s okay.”
April nodded at Ziggy and Ziggy went out. I heard the sheet-metal door whir open, and then whir shut.
April said, “Sit down, kid.”
“Thanks.” I sat.
“Let me give you the picture, kid. We got a new twist on an old racket. We heist cars to order. We get orders from all over... out of the country, I mean. Mexico, Cuba, South America. They tell us what they want, just what they want. A green Buick convertible? That’s it. A black Caddy sedan? That’s it. Then we send out spotters, get the car we want lined up — and heist it, boom, like that. We touch them up maybe a little bit, and that’s it. How’s it sound?”
“Sounds good enough to me. How’s the payoff? For the little guys, like me?”
He opened a drawer. It held a big blue automatic and a sheaf of bills. He drew out a few of the bills, said, “Here’s five C’s. That gets you on the pay-roll. You play ball... I’ll make you fat. You louse it up... you’re dead.”
Softly I said, “Like Frank Palance?”
“That Whisper’s got a big mouth.”
“It ain’t a big mouth when he’s talking to me.”
“Frank Palance. When a guy gets too big for his britches, he’s through. And with me, there’s no argument, no discussion, no nothing. When you’re through, that’s it. I put him in business — and I put him out of it. Only I wanted to do it myself.”
“I don’t get it.”
He had blue eyes. He screwed them up at me. He said, “You ever figure Whisper for being gun-happy?”
“Not Whisper.”
“Well, he pulled a wing-ding on me tonight. He had orders to pick up Palance and a box of dough and bring them both here to me. He brought the box, but he knocked off Palance, crazy-like. Maybe the guy would have had an out, which I doubt. Never had a chance to find out. Whisper got gun-happy. You think maybe Whisper’s getting a little too nervous for his own good?”
“I don’t know.”
He laid the five bills on the desk. He said, “You see, that’s dough. There’s plenty more. But don’t go flipping your wig, like Palance. He was making a nice hunk of change. But all of a sudden, he wanted in. Instead, he got his head handed to him. Okay, kid. Take your dough.”
I took it, stood up, put it into my pants’ pocket.
The sheet metal door whirred, then whirred closed.
Jack Ziggy came in with the gun in his hand.
April said, “What goes?”
“I went over to check with Whisper, personally.”
“Yeah?”
“No Whisper. No nothing. Lily filled me in on the rest.”
“Who’s Lily?”
“Owns the candy store across the street. They marched Whisper out. Cops marched him out. Marched out Rose Jonas too.” He gestured with the gun. “This guy’s a plant. Strictly.”
April said, “Me and my big mouth. I’m doing this one myself.” He reached into the drawer for the blue automatic.