"So you're buying time."
"Exactly."
Before he could answer another of the gray flannel boys came in, walked up and spoke to him. Crane nodded and said, "Bring him in."
Eddie Dandy looked like he had been wrung out in an old Maytag. Sweat had plastered his hair to his forehead, his sports jacket was rumpled and he couldn't keep his hands still at all. But his face still bore that hard stamp of the veteran newscaster with the "show me or else" look. Apparently they hadn't mentioned me to him at all and his eyes registered momentary surprise when he saw me sitting there. I waved nonchalantly and winked and I knew damn well things were beginning to add up to him.
They gave him the same rundown they gave me, but he had saved up his little shocker for them. When Crane insisted just a little too hard on Eddie divulging his source of information, he simply said, "Why it was you and Mr. Rollings who tipped me off." I applauded with a laugh nobody appreciated. Pat gave me a tap with his foot.
"Please don't think everybody is stupid," Eddie told them. "I have to research news items and the death of that guy in the subway had certain earmarks that were familiar to me. Or did you forget the death of all those sheep out west when that nerve gas went in the wrong direction? Or the two lab workers whose families raised such hell about the cover-up when they kicked off? Seeing you two in the hospital was all it took to pin the probability down . . . that and a few inquiries made to knowledgeable scientists who don't approve of the more sophisticated methods of modern warfare."
Somehow they all seemed to stop communicating then. Their exchanges of looks didn't bring any responses. Red-faced, Crane mustered all his eloquence and put the proposition right on the line. Eddie could be the turning point of panic. Until the location of the destruct cannisters could be determined and destroyed, Eddie was to retract his broadcast and maintain that position.
He looked at me and I shrugged. I said, "There's a possibility a mass search for the stuff might help."
"You'll get mass exodus from the cities and panic, Mr. Hammer," Crane told me. "No, we have competent people experienced in these matters and with help from the Soviets I'm confident it can be accomplished."
"Sure, you trust the Soviets and you know what you'll get. You get screwed every time and you slobs are all afraid of screwing back. What happens if you don't find the stuff?"
"We're not even considering that possibility," he shot back. "No . .."
But Eddie cut him off right there. "You're forgetting something. Now my neck is out with the network and the audience. I'll be coming off looking like a bumbling amateur. I'll be lucky if I can hang on to my job. So we make a deal."
"Yes?"
"No other reporter, broadcaster or what-have-you gets any part of this story if you pull it off. All I need is a hint that this has been leaked and I'll blow the whole thing all
over your faces. If you manage to lock this thing up, I get first crack at releasing it along with verbal progress reports in the meantime. You haven't got much choice, so you can take it or leave it."
"We'll take it, Mr. Dandy," Crane said. This time the communication was complete. Everybody else agreed too.
Pat took Eddie Dandy and me to a late supper at Dewey Wong's wild restaurant on East Fifty-eighth Street as a way of apology. I gave him a little private hell, but it didn't take long to get back on our old footing. He was red-faced about it, but too much cop to let it bother him. What really had him going was the maximum effort order that was out in the department, recalling all officers from vacation, assigning extra working hours, canceling days off and hoping to keep the reason for the project secret long enough to get the job done. With the same thing going on all over the country, it wasn't going to be easy. Until it was finished, every other investigation was going to be at a standstill. When we finished, Eddie took off to start working on his end and I rode back downtown with Pat. In the car I said, "Velda told me about Lippy working the theater areas."
"I hope it satisfies you."
"Ahh ..."
"Come on, Mike, stay loose. It's pretty damn obvious, isn't it?"
"There's still a killer around."
"More than one, buddy, and we're not concentrating any on your old pal. From now on we'll be going after the biggest and the best for one reason only ... to give the papers all the hot news they can handle so maybe they'll skip over this latest incident. We're in trouble, Mike."
"Never changes. There's always trouble."
"And I don't need any with you."
I handed him the insurance papers and note Heidi had given me. He glanced at them and handed them back, his face masked with total astonishment. "By damn, you land right in the middle of the biggest mess we've ever had and all you want is a passkey to some broad's tail. Man, you never change! You damn horny ..."
"Lay off, Pat. I could have had that for free yesterday."
"Then why ..."
"It'll keep you off my back if for no other reason."
"For that I'll do anything. Look, take every one of those wallets and give them back personally. It won't be
hard to arrange at all. Then go get drunk or shack up for a week or get lost in the mountains ... just anything at all!"
"My pleasure," I said.
He slammed his hand down on his knee with a disgusted gesture and shut up again. But he meant what he said. He packaged the whole lot for me, had me sign for each item and let me leave so he could handle all the traffic that was beginning to jam the room.
Outside, I set my watch with the clock in a jeweler's window. It was a quarter to eleven. The night was clear and an offshore breeze had blown the smog inland. You could see some of the stars that were able to shine through the reflected glow of the city lights. Traffic was thin downtown, but up farther, New York would be coming to life. Or death, whichever way you looked at it. For me, I couldn't care less because it had always been that way anyway. At least the little episode with all the forces of national and international governments had bought me the same thing it had bought them .. time. Everybody would be too busy to be clawing at my back now. I grinned silently and flagged down a cruising cab.
Finero's Steak House was jammed with the after-theater crowd, a noisy bunch three deep around the bar and a couple dozen others waiting patiently in the lobby for a table. I waved the maitre d" over, told him all I wanted was to see Ballinger and he let the velvet rope down so I could go in.
He was like something out of a late-late movie, sitting there flanked by two full-blown blondes in dresses cut so low they seemed more like stage costumes than evening wear. His tux was the latest style, but on him it was all eyewash because he was still the dock-type hood and no tailor was ever going to change him. One of the blondes kept feeling his five o'clock shadow and murmuring about his virility. The other was doing something else and Ballinger was enjoying the mutual attention. The others respectfully ignored the play, paying due attention to their own dates. The original pair were there, but a new one had been added, a punk named Larry Beers who had been a pistolero with the Gomez Swan mob when he was nineteen and graduated into the upper echelon brackets when he had beaten a rap for gunning down two of the Benson Hill bunch. I didn't know- Ballinger had him on his side until now. Old Woodring was paying high for his services, whatever they were, that was for sure.