“I’ll handle it,” Kleyburg said wearily. “We’re working on a case. I’ll call him about that and let him pump me. He thinks I’m an old fool anyway.”
“That should work,” Retnick said. “Don’t worry about the kid. It’s Nick Amato who’s going on the hook.”
Kleyburg nodded but his eyes slipped away from Retnick’s. “I... I’m glad to be able to help, Steve. I know you carried me. Even if it was just because of the kids I appreciate it.”
“We’ll have a drink the day they hang Amato,” Retnick said. “Make that call now.”
15
It was an hour before dawn when Nick Amato walked into the brightly lighted hallway of the Thirty-First precinct. With him was an attorney named Coyne and a stockily built man who wore a tweed overcoat and a checked cap pulled down over his left ear. This man had several names which were familiar to the police, but he was called Kerry along the waterfront, in recognition of his tweeds and brogue and his incessant, lively chatter about stake racing in Ireland. He had been born on Pell Street in lower Manhattan and had seldom been more than fifty miles away from the place of his birth.
Amato stopped at the information counter and smiled apologetically at the gray-haired lieutenant on duty. A casual observer might have guessed that his awkward little smile was a kind of peasant’s armor against the awe-inspiring figure of the officer on duty. But the lieutenant was no casual observer; he knew all about Amato’s smile. Leaning forward he said earnestly, “To speak plain, Nick, I thought it was a damn shame to arrest your boy.”
“Sure,” Amato said, rubbing a finger along his nose. “It scared the old woman half to death. Great police work. Let’s have him now. The lawyer he’s got the papers.”
“A damn shame,” the lieutenant said again as he accepted the writ from the attorney. Raising his voice he yelled: “Turnkey! Bring Mario Amato out here.”
When Mario appeared he was smiling with a new strength and confidence. The eight hours in jail hadn’t marked him physically; he didn’t even look in need of sleep. What sustained him was the realization that he had handled himself damn well. He knew that. Joe Lye, Kerry, they couldn’t have done better. For a while he had been so scared that he was damn near sick right in the lieutenant’s office. Neville, that was his name, had all the facts, and seemed to regard Mario’s confirmation of them as an irrelevant detail. A shrewd tough man! Mario would remember the contempt in his eyes for a long time. But it was over now, and he hadn’t given them a thing.
“How come the delay?” he said to his uncle, very pleased to be able to joke about it. “These places ain’t rest homes exactly.”
“Things take time,” Amato said. “The lieutenant’s got your watch and wallet. Sign out and let’s go.”
Mario took his wallet from the lieutenant and put it in his pocket without counting the money. This struck him as a nice touch, a patronizing way of letting the cops know he thought they were too dumb to be thieves.
Amato smiled at him but the lights in his eyes were like the points of daggers. I was good to him, he thought. Cars, clothes, money, dames. Anna’s little man, pink-cheeked, wavy-haired, with hands that had never known a day’s work. My nephew, he was thinking, who would be watching goats on a rocky farm in Calabria if it wasn’t for me. I made him a big shot. Just because he hangs his hat in my house and can tell people I’m his uncle he’s a big shot. And he’d squealed. At the first hint of pressure he’d crumbled like a piece of stale cake.
Amato kept his little smile in place with a conscious physical effort. He had received Connors’ call an hour ago, and since then his anger had been growing dangerously. Connors wasn’t sure what the kid had spilled, but he said Neville was happy about it. So this wasn’t over yet. They’d pick him up again and again, knowing he was soft and frightened, and eventually they’d get the whole story. If they didn’t have it already...
Amato rubbed his damp forehead. Take it nice and quiet, he thought. But that was like telling a man with a ticking bomb under his bed to close his eyes and go to sleep. Amato’s anger was streaked with a lugubrious self-pity; he felt surrounded by fools and ingrates. Hammy, who’d got himself killed in a stupid move against Retnick; and Joe Lye! Where in hell was Joe Lye? Amato had tried to find him after he’d got Connors’ call, but with no luck. So he had been forced to use Kerry, who had a bad habit of boozing and talking too much.
“Let’s go,” he said to his nephew, and walked outside, making no attempt to conceal his disgust. Kerry joined him on the sidewalk. “Should I be on my way?” he asked briskly.
“Yeah, get going,” Amato said, without looking at him. “Don’t mess this up. Evans says she’s the one who fingered him. All he wants is to pay her off.” Amato shook his head and frowned into the darkness. “You guys got to have dames. And you got to tell ’em everything. Brag about every job you pull. Then the cops get hold of them and you act surprised because they squeal. It’s the way all you dopes get in trouble.”
Kerry smiled faintly. “Sure and that will never change, Nick. I’ll see you later.” As Mario came out of the station Kerry turned and walked up the block, his leather heels ringing in the silence. He was whistling an Irish air and the melody was clear and sad in the cold, windy night.
Amato glanced at his nephew. “Was it rough?” he said.
“Hell, I could do it standing on my head,” Mario said, grinning.
“You go home now. I want you to wait for me in your bedroom. You understand?”
“Look, Nick, I’m all right. I ain’t even tired.”
“Listen to me,” Amato said. “As a favor, okay?”
Amato’s attitude confused Mario. “Sure,” he said.
“Go home. Wait for me in your bedroom. I’ll see you in an hour. We’ll have a talk about tonight.”
“All right, Nick.”
The attorney stood beside Amato and the two men watched Mario walk away toward the avenue. In spite of his uncle’s disconcerting manner there was a new confidence in the lift of his head.
Coyne, the attorney, said, “What was this all about, Nick?”
Amato shrugged. “Cops killing time, I guess.”
“I suppose. Can I drop you somewhere?”
“No, I got my car.”
“Well, good night then.”
Without answering him Amato turned and walked down the block to his car. He needed Lye now, and he thought he knew where to find him...
Kay Johnson lived in a tall and imposingly respectable apartment house on the East Side. The street was quiet and empty and Amato found a parking place without difficulty. He knocked on the door of the building and peered through the wide glass frames for a sign of life in the lobby. This was great, he thought, savoring the sensuous rush of anger that ran through him. Nick Amato standing in the cold, waiting on Joe Lye’s pleasure.
At the far end of the lobby elevator doors opened and a uniformed attendant hurried toward him fumbling with a ring of keys. The man peered through the glass at Amato, frowned indecisively, and then opened the door an inch.
“Kay Johnson,” Amato said. “What’s her apartment?”
“Six A, sir. But you’ll have to phone from the lobby. Most of the tenants insist...”
“Okay, okay, we’ll phone her,” Amato said. “We disturb something, we disturb something. Is that character with the funny Up up there?”
“I wouldn’t know, sir.” The man led him to a carpeted alcove off the lobby, and nodded to a phone on a desk. His manner was cold and reproving.
I’ll show them what crude is, Amato thought bitterly. East Side snobs and Joe Lye playing the gent with Martinis and steaks. No place for Nick Amato. He was just good enough to pick up the checks...