“It was a frame,” Saxon said.
Marie returned with a glass and an opened can of beer in time to hear the last remark. Handing them to her husband, she said, “I told you there was some mistake, Tony. I knew Ted wouldn’t do a thing like that.”
Spijak poured beer into the glass and set the can on the floor. “Marie used to have a crush on you in high school,” he said amiably. “I don’t think she ever quite got over it.”
“Don’t be silly,” Marie said, blushing.
“Remember the time your old man caught us skipping school?”
“I can still feel in it the seat of my pants,” Saxon said with a rueful smile.
“He was a great old guy. If he was alive now, he’d probably give it to you across the seat of the pants again for this deal. How do you mean, it was a frame?”
“You know Larry Cutter?”
Spijak paused with his beer glass suspended halfway to his lips. “I know who he is,” he said cautiously.
“He’s looking for a place to land, and I think he’s picked Iroquois. He couldn’t swing it with Dad in as chief, so I think he had him killed. He couldn’t swing it with me in as chief, either. Now they have a good, honest, dumb cop in office who wouldn’t know what was happening if Cutter opened a casino at Fourth and Main.”
Tony Spijak took a sip of his beer. “Yeah, I saw by the paper they appointed Art Marks. He was walking a beat when we were kids.”
Ted said, “You’re still in the bookie business, aren’t you, Tony?”
“Oh, I’ve got a couple of spots around. I’m not gonna tell you where, because the Buffalo cops are getting almost as tough as your old man used to be.”
“I don’t care where they are, so long as they aren’t in Iroquois. All I’m interested in is that you’re still on the inside of things. You must know the scoop on Larry Cutter.”
“I keep my ear pretty close to the grapevine,” Spijak admitted. “You have to in this business. What you want to know?”
“First, have you heard any rumors of Cutter planning to move in on Iroquois?”
“Not with any illegal operations. Everybody on the inside knows he’s behind this harness-racing business, but that’s on the up-and-up. It would make sense, though. He’s a got a pretty big organization sitting idle, and he can’t open up here. The Buffalo cops are just waiting for him to make a move, and he knows it.”
“Ever hear of a man named Edward Coombs?”
After taking another thoughtful sip of his beer, the bookmaker shook his head. “Doesn’t ring a bell.”
“He’s an accountant for the Upstate Harness Racing Association.” Taking his small notebook from his pocket, Saxon read off the man’s home address.
Spijak shook his head again. “Still never heard of him.”
“I doubted that you would have. He was in jail in Iroquois the same night Grace Emmet was. He was one of the witnesses to the supposed rape, and Cutter wouldn’t have picked a witness with any underworld connections.” He glanced at the notebook again. “How about a John Simmons?”
Spijak gave him a peculiar look. “Hardnose Simmons?”
“I wouldn’t know of any nickname he had.” From the notebook Saxon read aloud the man’s home address.
“That’s Hardnose,” Spijak said. “What about him?”
“He was the man who posted Edward Coombs’s bail.”
The bookie grunted. “I guess you were framed by Larry Cutter, then. Simmons is one of Cutter’s guns.”
Saxon felt a surge of elation. Here was the first actual evidence to support Ben Foley’s theory. Larry Cutter had made one stupid mistake in his carefully worked out plan to get Saxon out of office. He had wisely chosen a witness whose connection to him couldn’t be traced, then had allowed one of his gunmen to post the man’s bail.
He said, “One more question. Do you know a Sergeant Harry Morrison of Homicide and Arson?”
“That creep?”
“You do know him, huh? Is he tied in with Cutter?”
Tony Spijak looked surprised. “Cutter doesn’t have any cops on his payroll that I know of. Buffalo’s got a pretty clean force. Except for a few two-bit chiselers like Morrison who shoot angles on their own. Every police force has a few bad apples.”
“What’s Morrison’s angle?”
“One that’ll get him kicked off the force if they ever catch up with him. He’s running protection for a call girl.”
“Oh?” Saxon said.
“The rumor is that he steers customers to her, then takes away most of what she knocks down. He’s a real nice guy.”
“You know this girl’s name?” Saxon asked.
“Ann something-or-other. I don’t know her personally. I could steer you to somebody who does, if it’s important.”
“I’d appreciate it.”
Draining his beer glass and setting it on the floor next to the can, Spijak rose and crossed the room to a small writing desk. He wrote on a scratch pad, tore off the sheet and carried it over to Saxon. The paper read: Alton Zek, Fenimore Hotel, Room 203.
“The guy’s a junkie,” Spijak said. “Also a stoolie who plays both sides. But he knows everything that goes on in the vice and narcotics rackets. I don’t want you to tell him I sent you, because he’ll probably run tell Morrison you were nosing around the minute you leave, and I don’t want a guy like Harry Morrison down on me.”
“How will I get him to talk, then?” Saxon asked.
“Show him a twenty-dollar bill. He won’t give a hoot in hell who you are. He’d sell out his mother for a twenty.”
“Thanks, Tony.”
Chapter 13
The Fenimore Hotel was on lower Main Street in the area where Main abruptly turns from a district of sleek modern stores, theaters, and cocktail lounges to one of dives and flophouses. It was a ramshackle frame building of three stories that advertised rooms at a dollar and up.
There was an elderly man with a dirty shirt behind a desk in the lobby. He eyed Saxon warily. It was the sort of place where a seedily dressed stranger would automatically be stopped for questioning about his business to make sure one of the tenants wasn’t allowing a friend to bunk in without paying rent. But Saxon’s dress passed him, because it was also the sort of place periodically visited by the police. Saxon’s clothing was hardly expensive, but it was of a good, solid quality worn by only one type of visitor to the Fenimore. The desk man probably assumed he was a local cop.
There was no elevator. Saxon climbed rickety stairs to the second floor and found room 203.
When he knocked on the door, a hoarse voice from inside said, “Yeah?”
Saxon tried the knob, found the door unlocked and pushed it open. There was an unmade iron bed with dirty sheets, a battered dresser with a washbasin and pitcher on it, a single straight-back chair before a small table, and a soiled and sagging overstuffed chair near the window facing the door. A thin, shriveled man of indeterminate age sat in the overstuffed chair. He wore stained denim pants and a wrinkled O.D. army shirt. He looked up at Saxon’s height dully, one cheek twitching.
Closing the door behind him, Saxon said, “Are you Alton Zek?”
“Yeah. But if you’re a cop, I ain’t done nothing.” He dropped his eyes, which were beginning to water with the strain of gazing upward.
“You look as if you need a pop,” Saxon said. Taking out his wallet, he removed a twenty-dollar bill, replaced the wallet, and let the bill dangle from his thumb and forefinger.
Alton Zek licked his lips, his eyes on the bill. His cheek gave another twitch.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, mister.”
“Sure you do,” Saxon said. “You’ve got a monkey riding you so hard you’re shaking apart.”
Zek said cautiously, “If you’re from Narcotics, you’re wasting your time. I don’t even know what horse means.”