"Like getting shot at in Lippy's apartment."
"You get around, friend."
"There was a news leak out of Kansas City and Pat had me in again. I heard him talking about it to the guy with the squeaky voice from the D.A.'s office. All I did was put two and two together. What happened?"
"Nothing." I gave him the details of the episode and watched him shrug it off. Nothing was as big as what he was sitting on right then.
"Maybe you got the right attitude after all," Eddie finally said. He sipped his coffee and turned around. I knew his curiosity would get the better of him. "When you going to ask me something you don't know?"
I stuffed the rest of the doughnut in my mouth, wiped the jelly off my fingers and grinned at him. "Woody Ballinger," I said.
"Come on, Mike." His voice sounded disgusted with me.
"Two months ago you did that crime special on TV," I reminded him. "Part of the expose touched his operation."
"So what? I made him a typical example of hoods the law doesn't seem to tap out, always with enough loot to hire good lawyers to find the loopholes. He hides everything behind legitimate businesses and goes on bilking the public. You saw the show."
"I'm interested in what you didn't say, friend. You researched the subject. You got some pretty weird contacts too. You were fighting a time element in the presentation and the network didn't want to fight any libel suits, even from Woody."
"Mike ... what's to know? He's in the rackets. The cops know damn well he's number two in the policy racket uptown but can't prove it. It used to be bootlegging and whores, then narcotics until he rubbed Lou Chello wrong and the mob gave him that one-ended split. He has what he has and can keep it as long as his nose stays clean
with the lasagne lads. They'll protect their own, but only so far."
"A year ago there was a rumble about buddy Woody innovating a new policy wrinkle in the Wall Street crowd. Instead of nickels and dunes it was a grand and up. Winning numbers came from random selections on the big board. There was a possibility of it being manipulated."
"Balls. Those guys wouldn't fall for it," Eddie reminded me.
"They're speculators, kid," I said. "Legit gamblers. Why not?"
Eddie waited while the counterman poured him another coffee and left to serve somebody else. "I checked that out too. Nobody knew anything. I got lots of laughs, that's all."
"Wilbur Craft supposedly made a million out of one payoff," I said.
"Nobody saw it if he did. Or maybe he paid it to his lawyers to get him off that stock fraud hook. I spoke to him up in Sing Sing and he said it was all talk."
"Maybe he didn't want to get hit with an income tax rap on top of everything else. He only drew three years on the fraud rap."
"Keep trying, Mike."
"Craft still has his estate in Westchester."
"Sure, and the place in Florida and the summer place in Hawaii. It was all free and clear before they rapped him."
"Upkeep, pal. It takes a lot of dough," I said.
"I know. I got a five-room apartment on the East Side."
"Suppose Woody did run a big operation independently?"
"Then he'd be sticking his neck way out there just asking it to get chopped off. The dons would have their pizza punks out there with their shooters in his ears for even trying it. No dice, Mike."
"Guys get big," I said. "They don't want somebody else's hand in their affairs. They think they're big enough to stand them off. They have their own shooters ready to protect the territory."
"Unknown powers can do it. Not slobs who like to parade it in public."
"Egos like to be recognized," I said.
"That's how they get dead."
"Just suppose," I asked him.
Eddie blew on his coffee and tasted it. He had forgotten the sugar, made a face and stirred some in. "He'd have to
do it in his head. No books, no evidence. All cash, personal contacts, and hard money payoffs."
"Woody's a thinker, but no damn computer."
"Then a minimum of notations, easy to hide, simple to destroy."
"But it could be done?"
"Certainly, but ..." Eddie put his cup down and turned around to look at me, his eyes squinted half shut. "Either you're trying to make me feel good by getting my mind off things or you got something. Which?"
"You'll never feel good, kid. I was just confirming something I thought of."
"Damn, you're a bastard," Eddie said with a quick grin.
"Why does everybody call me that?" I asked.
CHAPTER 7
Velda had left a recorded message at ten fifteen stating that she had located Little Joe, the no-legged beggar who pushed himself along on a skate-wheeled platform. Little Joe had seen Lippy and a tall, skinny guy together on several occasions. They were obviously friends, but Little Joe didn't buy the other guy at all. He figured him for a hustler, but didn't ask any questions. His own business was enough for him. He could probably recognize the guy again if he saw him, but the skimpy description was the best Little Joe could do. Velda had left him my numbers to call if he saw him again and if it turned up right Little Joe earned himself a quick hundred. Meanwhile, Velda was going to stay in the area and see what else she could pick up.
Tall and skinny. Probably a million guys like that in the city, but at least it was a start. Eliminate the squares, look for a hustler in a ten-block area during a critical time period when the theater crowds were going in and out and you could narrow it down to a handful. The trouble was, that handful would be the cagy ones. They wouldn't be that easy to spot. They had their moves plotted and a charted course of action if somebody made them. They could disappear into a hundred holes and nobody was going to smell them out for you. I put the phone back, turned my raincoat collar up and went outside and waited for a cab.
Pat's office wasn't the madhouse I thought it would be. All officers available for duty were out in the field and only a lone bored-looking reporter was on a telephone turning in a routine report. A dozen empty cardboard coffee cups stuffed with drowned cigarette butts littered the desk, holding down sheafs of paper.
I said, "Hi, buddy," and he turned around, his face seamed with fatigue lines, his eyes red-veined from lack of sleep. "You look beat."
"Yeah."
I pulled a chair up, sat down and stretched my legs. "Since when does an operation this size involve homicide?"
"Ever since that guy died in the subway."
"Anything new?"
"Not a damn thing."
"Then why don't you try sleeping in a bed for a change?"
"We're not all private citizens," Pat growled.
"How's the general reaction so far?"
"We're managing."
"Somebody's going to wonder about the Russians looking for a summit meeting and the bit going on in the U.N."
"There's enough tension in the world to make it look plausible. You have four shooting fracases going on right now and three of those involved have nuclear capabilities if they decide to use them. There's reason enough for international concern. Washington can handle it if certain parties who know just a little too damn much can keep quiet."
"Don't look at me, buddy. It's your problem."
Pat gave me a lopsided grin. "Oh no. Some of it's yours. Unless you're immune to certain deadly diseases."
"They isolate it yet?"
"No."
"Locate the agents that were planted here?"
"No."
"You talk too much," I said.
Pat leaned back and rubbed his eyes. "There's nothing to talk about. For the first time the Reds are as bugged about it as we are. They know we have a retaliation policy and damn well know its potential. Nobody can afford to risk a C.B. war. They haven't been able to run down a single piece of written evidence on this business at all. If there ever was any, it's been deliberately destroyed by that previous regime. That bunch tried to keep a dead hand in office and they did a pretty good job. We have to work on rumor and speculation."