There were hundred-buck bills—150 of them. I tore open the raincoat, the shoes, busted the rods... and no more dough.
It didn't make sense—Brody and Shelton clipped Big Ed for fifteen grand... and he'd spent five times that for the diamond bullet, the punks he imported. Franklin had been known to drop fifty grand on a roll of the dice, so he'd hardly kill for fifteen thousand.
4
But Margrita said he'd been scared—and suddenly that added up: the money must be hot! I wanted to bang my head against the wall—it sure hadn't been working much these past few days I'd been on the merry-go-round. The “Cat” had killed not because he gave a damn about the fifteen grand, but to stop Brody and Shelton from spending it. It fitted in with searching their homes before the murders, with those goons making a wastebasket out of my office, the attempted burglary in Anita's house, the constant shadow on Laurie. All Franklin wanted was to get the dough back... because it must lead to something a hell of a lot bigger than fifteen thousand of the green. And there was an oh-so-easy way of locating the pot waiting at the end of this green rainbow.
Pocketing the money, I straightened up the place as best I could and left. As I climbed over the fence I saw a kid of about fifteen, standing in the road, watching me. He was one of those overgrown kids, with a lard-ass, rosy cheeks, and wire-rimmed glasses that were too small for his serious puss.
“What's the matter, mister, lose your key?” he asked, staring down at me.
I waved my car keys in his face. “Nope, always go in and out of the club this way.”
His fat face was full of suspicion, and a kid's hesitation. If that brat ran for the cops, I'd be in a hell of a spot, with the hot dough on me. He said, “I'd better tell Mr. Matthews about this.”
“Reminds me,” I said, casually, glad there weren't any houses near. Matthews couldn't be within yelling distance. “Tell old Matt that Jack won't get the new glass rod for him till tomorrow. That's me, Jack.”
“Well... I won't be able to see him till after school, after supper.”
“No rush. I was supposed to leave the rod for him, but you tell him, save me the trouble of making the trip. Tell him the factory said they'd have it tomorrow or the next day. Got that straight?”
He repeated the nonsense and I waved and walked up the road, praying the kid was satisfied. I thumbed a ride to the bridge, got a bus across to New York, and a cab down to Saltz's office. I called to find out if he was in. He was. It was a few minutes before two. I found a jewelry store a block from the police station. I went in and asked to see a watch in the window that sold for $79. There was a woman behind the counter, her husband was probably out to lunch, and she gave me a fast sales talk. I told her, “I like the watch fine, but all I have is this hundred-dollar bill, and... eh...” I hesitated, gave her one of the bills I'd found in the locker.
She looked it over carefully. “Looks good.”
“Frankly, I'm not sure, lady. Won it in a crap game from a suspicious character. Don't want you to get stuck, so let me give you the bill and you give me a receipt for it. You've time to make the bank, see if it's good. I'll call tonight and pick up the watch and my change. That fair?”
“That's most decent of you,” she said. “The bill looks good, but then... I'm no expert and if you have any doubts...” She wrote out a receipt and I gave her a phony name and we parted in a fine atmosphere of brotherly love and trust in mankind. I had a sandwich and a glass of iced tea, then went in to see Saltz. I wasn't feeling so gay as I entered police headquarters—it could be that Saltz was looking for me, even though no word of Louise's murder was in the papers.
5
However, Saltz greeted me with his usual sarcasm. “Hello, how's the junior G-man?”
“Not too bad. How's old super-badge?” I said, sitting down at his desk. Saltz was a character I couldn't like. No special reason, I simply didn't like him. It wasn't so much his socking me, he had the kind of efficient, pushing personality I couldn't take. Also, a Franklin couldn't operate for a day without cooperation from the police. Maybe not Saltz himself, although it wasn't impossible he was on the “Cat's” slush list.
He monkeyed with that brushlike hair of his, said, “We got a tip. Not much. A bum hanging around the docks says he heard a girl cry out, saw a man drive away in a large car.”
“See the man?”
Saltz looked at his hand, as though he expected it had picked up something in his hair, said in his ragged voice, “Naw, but we're digging. Now we know it was only one guy. You dig and dig and wait till the break comes. It always does. You find anything?”
“I've about given up. Like you said, I can't compete with a high-powered police organization.”
Saltz leaned back in his chair, studied me through half-closed eyes—something he probably practiced—took a cigar out of his pocket. As he lit it, I said, “That's a famous brand you're smoking—the Last-One-I-Got brand.”
“Darling, you're a cocky little bastard, but don't get no ideas you're off the hook yet. We're keeping an eye on you. What you here for?”
“Chit-chat, find out what's doing on the case. Told you I'll do anything to bag Anita's murderer, I mean that.”
Stinking up the room with his cigar, Saltz went into his favorite sales talk about the cops being understaffed and overworked, which was probably true... and what government department isn't? I listened and got him wound up all over again by asking why our police didn't have the respect and confidence of the people the way Scotland Yard had. Saltz was beating his gums about the difference in American and English temperament, when his phone rang. He said, “Yah, Lieut. Saltz speaking.... What? Jesus! Be right over.”
He slammed the phone down and made for the door. “What's up?” I asked.
“Fade, runt,” he called out. “One of the hundred-buck bills from that Frisco armed-car robbery just showed... and in a bank four goddamn blocks from here!”
“Well, whatya know,” I said, to myself, for Saltz was lumbering toward the street.
I took a cab to East 60th Street. The jigsaw was complete, all the pieces in—in tight. “Cat” Franklin had either engineered the Frisco job or, more likely, bought the two million bucks of hot money, stashed it away in several safe deposit boxes, waiting till he could unload it—maybe overseas. Offhand I couldn't recall whether the dough was hot because the armed car company had the numbers of this shipment of hundred-dollar bills, or whether some of it was “bait money.”
Bait money means a bank has certain bills, the numbers known, lying around but never used. In the event of a robbery, if the bait money is picked up with the other dough, they have a lead on the robbers by immediately circulating the serial numbers of the bait dough.
Anyway, the “Cat” had run into a tough break—Shelton and Brody with their duplicate keys had opened his box, took the modest sum of fifteen grand—probably were going to play the market. And I'd guess it was their first time at “borrowing” a vault-box owner's cash. The “Cat" found out his box had been tapped, figured the two vault men for the touch, and had to act fast—before they spent a single bill.
For the moment they tried spending it, they'd be picked up for the Frisco deal. Of course, they would finally tell where they got the dough and the roof would fall on Franklin—a two-million-dollar roof... plus a lot of time in the can. Maybe even bullet trouble from the hoods who pulled the job. Not paying much attention to such things, I couldn't recall if there had been any killing at the time of the hold-up. But Franklin sure wanted those 150 bills back, wanted them enough to kill.
And a dizzy, reward-circular happy kid like Anita, with her phony correspondence course diploma, had been smarter than all of us. She must have got the diamond-bullet angle at once, remembered it was in Will's neighborhood the vault men were killed, that the “Cat” was involved. Then she either tried to shake the “Cat,” or braced him for a shakedown... and he'd beaten my name out of her, thought I was in on it. That night on the boat, Anita hadn't been gassing about the reward—she expected to have the two hundred grand reward by morning. And I thought it was all kid talk. The only bird brain that night had been mine!