“That’s right. He’s dead though, you know.”
“Yes, I know. May I come in a minute?”
The woman looked undecided. “Come ahead,” she said, at last, and walked back through an unlit hall to a living room in which a pot-bellied coal stove was burning. A man lay on a sofa in the shadows, an old man with white hair and blank, sightless eyes. He had a blanket over his legs and lay on his back staring at the ceiling. Occasionally he made a small coughing noise in his throat.
The woman sat on a straight chair near the stove and looked up at Bannion. “You a policeman?”
“No, a private citizen. Why did Slim Lowry come here?”
“He was a high-flyer, I guess. Liked the atmosphere of the place.”
“You can help me if you will,” Bannion said.
“I said he liked high living. Why go to a hotel when there’s places like this around. Makes sense, doesn’t it?”
“You’ve got no monopoly on trouble,” Bannion said. “My wife was murdered last week. Blown to hell by a bomb someone put in our car. I’m trying to find out who did it. You could help if you will.”
The woman was silent a moment, her eyes grudgingly going to the hat Bannion still held in his hand. “Well, that’s too bad, Mister,” she said in a changed voice. “Slim came here to find the place he used to live. This was a white neighborhood once, and he came back to his old house. He was sick, and in some kind of trouble, so I let him stay. He went off his rocker pretty regularly. Tried to chase us all out once. Said Papa there stole the place from his old man. Stuff like that. He was in real trouble, Mister.”
“Did he have any visitors?”
The woman shook her head. “He talked about somebody who was coming. He kept saying he’d explain it wasn’t his fault.”
“Did he ever use the phone?”
“No.”
“Get any calls?”
“Yeah, he got one. But that was the night he died. I’d already called the police, when this party called to speak to Slim. I told him Slim was sick, that he was going to the hospital.”
“Do you know who it was who called?”
“Yeah, he gave a name. First I told him Slim couldn’t come to the phone, see. He started cussing me then. Said, ‘You tell him it’s Larry Smith.’ Then I told him Slim was damn near dead and was going to the hospital. So he hung up. Say, what’s the matter with you? All you white people are nuts, I think.”
“Larry Smith...”
Bannion stared at the woman, not seeing her, rubbing his big hands together slowly.
There was always a loose end in even the neatest jobs.
Here it was...
Chapter 9
Larry Smith stood on Market Street at the corner of Twelfth, smoking a cigarette and smiling at the noise and color and excitement of the Saturday night crowd. He was a solidly built, well-dressed young man of twenty-six, with curly black hair, and a tough, knowing, handsome face.
A stocky seaman in a pea jacket came up alongside him, and said, “Hello, Mr. Smith. Didn’t keep you waiting, I hope.”
“No, I’ve been here just a few minutes,” Larry said, smiling and flipping his cigarette out into the street.
The seaman needed a shave, and looked shaky and hung-over. “I wish you could of seen me last night. Saved me a lousy head, I think.”
“I was busy. Did you have any trouble?”
“Naw, it was simple. I got the stuff from a guy in Livorno who brought it down from Milan. I sailed from Genoa, landed here in Philly night before last. I brought it ashore in a cigar box, with my sewing kit and some letters on top of it. Three pounds of it, Mr. Smith. And now I need dough.”
“I can’t say for sure until I talk to the boss,” Larry said.
“Hell, you told me to get it. Is this a stall? I can sell it to someone else, you know.”
“No, you can’t,” Larry said, still smiling. “You got one customer in town. That’s us. Remember that.”
The seaman shrugged, his face sullen. “Okay, okay,” he said. “You’ll get in touch with me tomorrow?”
“Yeah, I’ll know by then for sure. Where you staying?”
The seaman gave him the name of a hotel on Market Street near the river. He said goodbye and walked off with a rolling gate, hands stuck disconsolately in his pockets.
Larry went briskly down the block to his car, a blue Buick convertible, which was parked under a No Parking sign. He climbed in, grinning at the cop on the corner. The cop grinned back and tossed him a cheerful salute. Lam’ was late, so he stepped on it; the date with Stone was for eight and it was damn near that now. He was picking up Stone at his automobile agency, and then they were going to Stone’s apartment to meet Lagana. Lagana was boiling about something, Stone had said. The Bannion deal, probably. Well, there were always slip-ups. There wouldn’t be another though, by God.
He headed for West Philadelphia, forgetting Bannion, thinking about his new deal. Lagana was against dope, he knew. The old man was worried about the loud-mouth reformers. Larry wasn’t; you always have them around, do-gooders, busy-bodies, their pants in an uproar about slums, garbage collections, colored people being kept out of polling stations, gambling, all the rest of it. They were griped because they were on the outside. Give them a cigar with a bill under the tinfoil and they’d tip their hat and forget the reform stuff pretty fast. Now, he had the dope deal all set. Lagana would have to let him go ahead; the stuff was here, the buyers were lined up, and a steady supply was assured for the future. There was money in it, beautiful permanent money. Guys quit playing the horses if their wives griped enough, but they never quit the dope. The Horse, the boys called it. Larry smiled through the windshield, seeing and liking the reflection of his twelve dollar shirt, his strong teeth, his tough, handsome face. That was one horse they never quit playing, he thought, still smiling.
Max Stone was waiting for him on the sidewalk before his neon-shining, block-long automobile agency, a huge, red-faced man with small, irritable eyes. He was wrapped up in two hundred dollars’ worth of camel’s hair coat, and there was a soft gray fedora on his large, round, balding head. Larry opened the front door and Stone got in beside him, puffing with the effort, and twisted himself into a comfortable position in the leather-covered seat.
“You’re late,” he said. “What the hell kept you?”
“I had to see a guy,” Larry said, releasing the clutch and starting down Walnut Street under a rush of power.
“All right, all right, this ain’t the Indianapolis Speedway,” Stone said. He took out a cigar and fumbled at the wrapper.
“We’re in a hurry, I thought,” Larry said, grinning.
Stone grunted. He lit his cigar with a gold lighter and blew smoke at the windshield. It didn’t taste right, he thought. Stone was a direct, blunt man who liked things he could taste, smell, feel. He liked eating, drinking, wenching, good cars, the track, poker games. He liked Jewish food, especially. Lox and cream cheese, big Kosher pickles, mozza ball soup, sour red cabbage, pastrami, cheese cake. He gave that to the Jews; they knew how to feed themselves. But his stomach was going back on him: food like that burned him up, and a night of drinking left him feeling like holy hell for a couple of days. He’d be on toast and milk pretty soon, he thought, watching the store fronts flash past, and a pedestrian leap back to the curb, his face disappearing behind them in an angry frightened blur.
“Damn it, slow up,” he said. His temper, always near the breaking point lately, suddenly snapped. “Do what I tell you,” he shouted.
“Okay, okay,” Larry said.
“Well, that’s better,” Stone said.
“What’s Lagana want?” Larry asked, as he slowed down in the traffic approaching the Schuylkill river.