“I’m sorry,” Reardon said, and found that at least at the moment he honestly meant it. He pushed his empty glass to the center of the table, where it joined Porky’s, and leaned forward, dropping his voice more for emphasis than because there was any danger of their privacy being invaded — certainly not by a waiter. “Porky, Ray Martin was found in one of those painter’s safety nets hanging under the Bay Bridge. Out past Yerba Buena Island a few hundred yards. He—”
“You mean he tried to jump? And missed?” Porky shook his head. “Ray never was too smart.”
“He jumped the way Falcone did,” Reardon said flatly. “Who gets killed jumping ten or fifteen feet into a net? Up there you could freeze to death, and maybe he did, because I don’t have the autopsy report yet, but one will get you ten he was dead when he went over. He was murdered, to be blunt. Like Falcone. And like Capp.”
“One will never get me ten on anything,” Porky said positively, “because I don’t take any odds longer than I give. But you know what I mean. As an old acquaintance of Ray Martin, I can’t picture him cutting himself down. Someone else, yes; but himself? No.”
“That’s right,” Reardon said slowly. “You and Ray Martin were sort of competitors, weren’t you?” He tried to keep his voice conversational. Porky sighed.
“There go those nasty suspicions again, Mr. R., together with your attempted nonchalance in voicing them. Take my advice and keep out of amateur theatricals unless you paint scenery. No, I wasn’t any competition to Ray Martin, and I wouldn’t have lasted very long if I had been. I make book, it’s true, but my clientele is small and select and that’s the way we both like it. Most of them are old friends from New York who moved out here like I did, and they wouldn’t deal with the Ray Martins of this world if they had to miss laying a bet, God forbid.” He looked ceilingward in supplication. Reardon remained silent; Porky continued.
“Martin had the big horse parlors and he was welcome to them. With the telephone service the way it is today, it’s a wonder he didn’t die of ulcers before somebody knocked him off. And he handled the slots and the long flats in the private clubs, plus the floaters, of course.” He smiled, a rather tight, humorless smile. “No, Mr. R., I did not knock him off, nor do I stand to gain in the slightest from his demise. The Syndicate will have a replacement in here before the undertaker can fill him with embalming fluid; if he didn’t already use it for blood, that is.”
Reardon smiled a bit shamefacedly. “Apology number two. I’m just a bit on edge this morning, I guess.”
“Having to get along on one beer will always do it,” Porky said forgivingly. “I’d suggest a second, but we both know the percentages in trying to get a waiter.” He frowned slightly. “So I gather you want me to use my contacts, such as they are, and try to find out what particular individuals might have wanted to litter the cemeteries with our three friends, is that it?”
“Plus—”
“Plus, of course,” Porky added shrewdly, “whether it might have been the big bad wolf — the mob itself — that blew down our three little pigs, is that also it?”
Reardon grinned at the phraseology. “I couldn’t have put it better myself.”
“I’m sure you couldn’t,” Porky said condescendingly, and came to his feet. “I’ll leave you with your deep thoughts, Mr. R. Plus the tab, of course.”
“When will you be in touch?”
“How rush is it?”
“Rush, rush.”
Porky nodded, completely serious once again. “Sometime tomorrow. I’ll call and set up a meet. All right?”
“Fine,” Reardon said, and watched the well-built handsome young man walk away in his usual spritely manner. He fished in his pocket for money to put on the table, feeling much better. Porky Frank’s help was always welcome, and the man had ways and means of getting information that the police departments just could not duplicate. And his information could be trusted to be accurate.
Unless, of course, Reardon thought sadly, such information might be a threat to Porky himself. Which would be a pity...
Chapter 9
Thursday — 12:20 p.m.
“No mickey in Falcone,” Dondero announced cheerfully, and tossed the autopsy report over toward Reardon. The lieutenant let it lie, merely straightening its edges to accord with a pile of similar reports cluttering his desk. “Stomach contents indicate a small quantity of alcohol consumed just prior to death; blood analysis indicates a larger consumption some time earlier, but certainly nothing that could be considered enough to make him not know what he was doing. Just normal for a steady drinker. As for the body, no gunshot wounds, no knife wounds, no Indian arrow poison; in fact, no poison at all. No arsenic, no cyanide; no fish, no rice, no coconut oil. And the condition of the body after hitting the pavement from fifteen stories up?” He shrugged. “Well, somebody could have clubbed him first, or he could have had a double hernia and died of it on the way down, but nobody will ever know of it now.”
Reardon sighed. “So how did he go out the window?”
“Maybe he was hypnotized,” Dondero suggested. “Or the dame drops her handkerchief out the window and like a gentleman he reached to pick it up.” He became serious. “My guess, Jim, is that the girl got him to show her the view, he stands at the window, pointing maybe, and one good push and he’s on his way.”
“Which is probably just what happened,” Reardon said, and turned to stare out the window. The huge buildings growing in downtown San Francisco rose to mar the view. “But I suppose we wouldn’t be human if we didn’t try to complicate things for ourselves. What about the lab report on those two glasses?”
“Alcohol, is about all they came out with. One had scotch — they probably arrived at that scientific conclusion by smelling it. The other all they could say was a mixture of various alcoholic beverages, but none containing sedative, poison or other injurious liquids. From what you tell me of that Gremlin’s Grampa,” he added, “I wonder what they call injurious?”
“A good question,” Reardon said. “What about Martin?”
Sergeant Bennett answered from the other side of the desk. His tone of voice indicated that he no longer resented his temporary transfer to Homicide; that, in fact, he even found it interesting. He held the report in his hand but didn’t refer to it.
“We’re better off there, Lieutenant. First, of course, it seems the body had paint all over it, the clothes, that is, from the railing, but that’s beside the point. The direct cause of death was suffocation. Somebody apparently held a pillow over his face until he strangled—”
“A pillow?” Reardon swiveled his chair around, frowning at the sergeant. “How do they know it was a pillow?”
“Well,” the sergeant said almost apologetically, “actually, they assume it. They don’t say anything definite or positive in the whole report, but they found feather shards and particles in his lungs. Goose feathers. So they assume it was a pillow, although I suppose a quilt could have done it equally—”
“Maybe someone hit him in the face with a live goose,” Dondero said, and then fell silent under the looks from the two men. Sergeant Bennett went on with his report.
“Anyway, there were no bruises on his arms or legs to indicate a struggle, but there was a bruise on his neck which was caused before death, and the autopsy pathologist says—” He referred to the report for accuracy. “—which was inflicted — before death and was possibly caused by pressure applied to the carotid sinus, probably eliciting the Hering reflex, rendering the victim unconscious prior to smothering.” He looked up. “You’d think they would have just kept on pressing there, because the pathologist also says that prolonged pressure on the carotid sinus can result in cardiac stoppage and death.” He handed over the report. “That’s what it says, basically, Lieutenant.”