Captain Tower crushed out his cigar stub and frowned across the desk.
“It’s a good question. You’d think the mob could furnish protection as good as ours, if not better. On the other hand, if this is a housecleaning, then any protection he got from the Syndicate might be somewhat less than satisfactory. From his standpoint, that is. But to answer your question as to whether crime prevention is part of our job where hoods are concerned, the answer is crime prevention is part of our jobs, period.” He smiled coldly. “Still, I’d talk to the man before I furnished him any protection. Maybe he doesn’t agree with our theory; maybe he feels safe. Or maybe he would prefer not to be seen tagging around with a cop on his heels. He might feel it would damage his image.”
“Well, let’s hope so,” Reardon said, and came to his feet. A thought came to him. “Captain, what about Bennett?”
“I’ve taken him off his car for a while, at least until we can see if his drinking is really a problem.” He shook his head. “Tom Bennett never was a drinker, not even a social one. It’s a pity... At any rate, you’ll be needing all the hands you can get, and Tom is one of the better ones. Don’t underrate him.”
“No, sir. I won’t.”
“Good. All right, get to it and let me know what’s happening.”
“Yes, sir.”
Reardon left the office and returned to his own. He sat down and swiveled his chair, facing the city across Harrison Street, subconsciously wondering as always how San Francisco always seemed to be so clean, even in its slum areas, all neatly painted in bright pastels. It was a happy city, he thought, and wondered why there was so much unhappiness there. He put the concept away, at least for the moment, and tried to concentrate on the three deaths he was assigned to solve.
Every one was a freak in one way or another — the knifing of Capp probably the least freakish of them all, but still... That getup with the beard and mustache and shades... Then the Falcone deal, with the girl wiping the glasses for no reason at all, and cleaning any fingerprints from the windowsill, almost as if to point up that the death of Falcone was a murder and not a suicide and let nobody make any mistake! Weird... And the removal of all the identifying labels and papers from Martin’s clothing, when there wasn’t the faintest possibility of concealing his identity for five seconds. Although, to be honest, if the body had fallen into the bay and not been washed up for a week or two, possibly the identification wouldn’t have been so simple. Still, the captain had said it had been dropped a few hundred yards from the tunnel mouth, and that was a long way from water, so the body would have struck on land if it hadn’t been for the net, and identification would have been routine. Also weird. No attempt to make it look like a suicide, even granting that hitting the net was just bad luck on the part of the killer. No car, and who — even a suicide — would walk that far across the bridge to jump? Miles and more miles. And who would walk on the lower level, which was limited to vehicular traffic? No; somebody brought the body there and tossed it over, just like that, and they either didn’t care — or wanted everyone to know — that the question of possible suicide didn’t enter into it. As in Falcone’s case...
All very screwy, Reardon thought, and all pointing more and more away from the mob. It was all very well to kid about Women’s Lib and all that, but the fact was that the mob didn’t use women for muscle. To do so would have required imagination, and that was the one commodity the Syndicate lacked in profusion. Still, all three of the victims had only one thing in common that was apparent, and that was their connection with the mob, so it was a little early to toss that one aside. He frowned. Someone hankering to take over? All at the same time? And one of them a woman? Stop trying to figure it out without facts, Reardon, he told himself sternly, and reached for the telephone.
He dialed, spoke, hung up and waited. In a few minutes Dondero appeared, followed by Bennett. Reardon motioned both the sergeants to chairs.
“Don, what about that alley search last night?”
Dondero sat down and dragged out a cigarette, lighting it and tossing the match toward the wastebasket. It missed. He shook his head.
“James, mon lieutenant, we went through every ashcan in the neighborhood, and the result was nothing. Zero. Zilch. I did find out that we’re living in a wasteful age, but I knew that before. People throw out things in better condition than some of the stuff I had to wear or eat when I was a kid — and I wouldn’t call the Embarcadero at Berry the swankest neighborhood in the world. You know, Jim, you can get a pretty good idea of people from studying their garbage. I’m surprised sociologists haven’t thought of that before. Now, you take that area—” He suddenly seemed to realize that the sociological aspect of his report wasn’t exactly what the lieutenant wanted. He brushed ash from his cigarette into an ashtray and went on. “Anyway, you know the place, a couple of bars, mostly warehouses, a couple of old flophouses, a couple of diners open days, closed nights, mostly. Anyway, we went through everything, basements, stairwells, the works. I’m surprised none of those old tenements fell down on us.”
“How about across the Embarcadero?”
“Ferguson checked all the containers for at least three blocks each way — nothing. There were a couple of truck drivers sleeping on the pullman in their cabs, and all we got out of them in the way of information was to be told go away and let them sleep.”
“Ships?”
“The Pacific Rancher is at Pier Forty-Two and the Hawaiian Banker at Forty-Four. The Rancher had a watchman on deck at the time, but he says he was aft punching clocks. The Banker, nobody.”
Reardon frowned. “So if he didn’t cross the Embarcadero — and it seems to me he’d be taking a big chance of being seen crossing, and also he’d be trapping himself if he was chased that side of the street — where did he disappear to?”
Dondero held up a hand. “Don’t get excited. Who said he disappeared? He walked out and nobody saw him afterwards, that’s all. He didn’t exactly go up in a puff of smoke.” He puffed furiously on his cigarette a moment, thinking. “Let’s say you’re right, and he’d stick to the south side of the Embarcadero. Then we have to assume he went down one of those alleys. And if he did, he could have come out almost anyplace. They got a maze there. The city fathers forgot about that end of the Embarcadero, I fear me, James, when they were handing out slum clearance funds.”
“Or he could have gone down Berry itself—”
“Or he could have gone up in a puff of smoke,” Dondero said. “I know I ruled it out before, but I could be wrong.” He sighed mightily and took a drag on his cigarette. “Anyway, what I’m trying to say is that we didn’t find anything to help.”
“Great.” Reardon tapped his fingers restlessly on the blotter of his desk. He looked at Bennett and then swung his chair to face Dondero. “Incidentally, you might be interested to know that man they found dead in that painter’s net on the Bay Bridge was Ray Martin—”
There was an intake of breath from Bennett. Dondero’s eyebrows shot up.
“The same Raymond Martin I’m thinking of?”
“That’s the one,” Reardon said without expression. “And while we’re on the subject, I’m sure you must have heard that Pete Falcone either dove, or was helped to dive, out of his apartment window last night. While you were sifting garbage,” he added.
“There really wasn’t so much garbage as there was trash,” Dondero said, bringing the thing into perspective, and went on, returning to the subject. “I heard about Falcone when I checked out last night, but Ray Martin, too?” Dondero suddenly smiled. It was a puckish grin. “Now, if only Johnny Sekara decides to go swimming too soon after lunch wearing a concrete tank suit, let’s say — we could probably knock down overtime in the police department by a good half, at least.” His smile turned to a wicked grimace. “Hey, incidentally, where was Captain Tower last night? Maybe we can wind this case up quick, like.”