"And Decker?"
"Clean. I had four men cover every minute of his time as far back as they could go. As far as we could find out he didn't even associate with any shady characters. The kind of people who vouched for him were the kind who knew what they were talking about too. Incidentally, I talked to his parish priest personally. He's made all the arrangements for the boy and cleared them with the authorities, so he'll pick him up at the end of the week."
He stopped and watched my face a moment. The silence was so thick you could slice it with a knife. "All right, now what are you thinking, Mike?"
I let a lazy cloud of smoke sift up toward the ceiling. "It might scare you," I said.
The tired lines got deeper when his mouth clamped shut. "Yeah? Scare me then."
"Maybe you've been closer to nailing Teen than you thought, chum."
His fingers stopped their incessant tapping.
"After Decker was killed a lot of awfully funny things started to happen. Before they didn't seem to make much sense, but just because you can't actually see what's holding them together doesn't mean that they're not there. Wouldn't it be a scream if the guy who killed Decker could lead you to Teen?"
"Yeah, I'd laugh myself sick." Now Pat's eyes were just thin shiny slits in his head.
I said, "Those bank deposits of Hooker's weren't wins. Hooker was being paid off to do something. You got any idea what it was?"
"No," sullenly.
"I'd say he was being paid to see that a certain guy was put in a certain spot where he was up the creek."
"Damn it, Mike, quit talking in riddles!"
"Pat, I can't. It's still a puzzle to me, too, but I can tell you this. You've been routine on this case all, along. It's been too small-time to open up on but I think you'd damn well better open up on it right now because you're sitting on top of the thing that can blow Teen and his racket all to hell. I don't know how or why... yet. But I know it's there and before very long I'm going to find the string that's holding it together. As far as Ed Teen's concerned I don't care what happens to him, only someplace in there is the guy who made an orphan out of a nice little kid and he's the one I want. You can take it for what it's worth or I can go it alone. Just don't shove the Decker kill down at the bottom of the page and hope something turns up on it because you think grabbing Teen is more important."
He started to come up out of his chair and his face was strictly cop without tired lines anymore. He got all set to give me the business, then, like turning on the light, the scowl and the tired lines went away and he sat back smiling a little with that excited, happy look I hadn't seen him wear for so long.
"What's it about, Mike?"
"I think the Decker murder got away from somebody. It was supposed to be nice and clean and didn't happen that way."
"What else?"
"A lot of scrambled facts that are going to get put right fast if you help out. Then I'll give it to you so there's sense to it."
"You know, you're damn lucky I know what makes you tick, Mike. If you were anybody else I'd hammer out every last bit of information you have. I'm only sorry you didn't get on the force while you were still young enough."
"I don't like the hours. The pay either."
"No," he grinned, "you'd sooner work for free and get me all hopped up whenever you feel like it. You and the D.A. Okay, spill it. What do you need?"
"A pair of private detectives named Arthur Cole and Glenn Fisher."
He jotted the names down and stared at them blankly a second. "Nocky... ?"
"That's Cole."
"You should have given me their names before."
"I didn't know them before."
He reached out and flipped the switch on the intercom. "Tell Sergeant McMillan to come in a moment, please.
A voice rasped that it would and while we waited Pat went to the filing cabinet and pawed through the drawers until he had what he wanted. He tossed the stuff in my lap as a thick-set plain-clothesman came in chewing on a dead cigar.
Pat said, "Sergeant, this is Mike Hammer."
The cop shifted his cigar and held out his hand. I said, "Glad to know you."
"Same here. Heard lots about you, Mike."
"Sergeant McMillan has the inside information on the up-town boys," Pat said. He turned to the plain-clothesman with, "What do you know about two supposedly private detectives named Cole and Fisher?"
"Plenty. Fisher lost his license about a month ago. What do you want to know?"
Pat raised his eyebrows at me. "Background stuff," I said.
"The guys are hoods, plain and simple. Especially Fisher. You ever see them?"
I nodded. Pat pointed to the folder in my lap and I pulled out a couple of candid shots taken during a strike-breaking melee on the docks. My boys were right there in the foreground swinging billies.
The cop said, "They're troublemakers. About a year ago somebody with a little pull had them tagged with badges so what they did would be a little bit legal. Neither one of 'em have records, but they've been pulled in a few times for minor offenses. Brawling mostly. They'll work for anybody who pays off. You want me to put out a call for 'em, Captain?"
"What about it, Mike?" Pat asked.
"It wouldn't be a bad idea, but you won't find them in New York. Stick them on the teletype and see if they aren't holing up in another city. You might try alerting the railroads dicks to keep an eye out for them. They skipped out last night and might still be traveling. Cole has a broken hand and Fisher's face is a mess. They ought to be easy to identify."
"You want to do that, sergeant?"
He nodded at Pat. "I have everything I need. They shouldn't be too hard to trace." He said so-long to me and went back the way he came.
Pat picked the photo up and studied it. "What's with these two?"
"They worked for Toady Link." Pat's head came up quickly. "They were on to Hooker for some reason until I started buzzing the guy, then they went into me. I didn't get the pitch in time or Hooker might still be alive. Last night I paid a visit to our friend Link and he was happy to tell me who the boys were."
"Mike, damn it."
"If you're wondering how I found out who they were when the cops didn't know... I have a friend who gets around. With blondes."
"I'm not wondering that at all! I'm wondering how the hell I could have been so negligent or stupid, whatever you want to call it." He grinned wryly. "I used to be a bright boy. A year ago I would have seen the connection or let you talk me into something a lot sooner. Everything you do is tying right in with this Teen affair. Did you know that we had Link slated to go through the mill this week?"
"No."
"Well, we had. He and four others. While the D.A.'s been getting pushed around he's been doing one, hell of a job on the organization's working men. Toady's about a month away from a man-sized stretch up the river. Every move you make you step on my toes."
"Why didn't you pick it up sooner?"
"Because it's no novelty to be tied up with Teen or Grindle, especially when there's money or murder concerned. Some of the help those two employ have turned up on more than one offense. It wasn't too difficult to suppose that Basil was just out for extra cash when he went in on that robbery and shot Decker afterward."
"Are you positive that he's the one who did the shooting?"
"As positive as the paraffin test. Of course, he may have discharged the bullet prior to the killing, but if he did I don't know where. If this Decker thing has even the slightest tie-up with the boys we want then we'll get to it."
"Hang on, Pat. I'm not saying that it has."
"I'll damn soon find out."
I tried to be unconcerned as I pulled on my smoke. "How about letting me find out for you. So far Decker has been my party."
"Nix, Mike. I know what you want. All you have in your head is the idea that you want to tangle with that killer. Not this time. Taking that one guy out of play could screw up this whole thing so nicely we'll be left with nothing at all."
"Okay, Pal," I grinned, "go right to it. Just try to get an identification out of me. Just try it."