“I imagine.” Reardon was marking it down. He looked up. “Of course it’s pretty hard to conceive of Lillian pushing her ex-boss out of a window without his recognizing her.”
Porky smiled faintly. “Who said anything about her pushing anybody out of anything? You wanted suspects with reasons to knock off all three of your baddies, and I gave you one. What more do you want?”
“Well,” Reardon said reasonably, “I think I’d have preferred one who also had the opportunity as well as the motive—”
“Mr. R.,” Porky said condescendingly, “we are living in a service economy as we both should know, since, to be accurate, neither of us exactly weaves nor do we spin. In a service economy one’s desires are often catered to by second parties, frequently for a price. We no longer make our own shoes nor do we render our own lard and neither do we bake our own bread. And so very often we no longer do our own killing. A pity, but there it is.” He shrugged. “I should judge in her former employment, Lily had ample contacts for clout, either male or female; nor do I want that statement taken as an accusation. Merely a fact.”
“Taken as such.” Reardon nodded. “Incidentally, did this Lillian have anything against Johnny Sekara?”
Porky looked thoughtful, he moved his stein closer to him in case he needed it for sudden sustenance.
“I follow your reasoning, Mr. R., but if she did I haven’t heard of it. Not that that necessarily means she didn’t — although, unless I missed the news, Mr. Sekara is still among the living. An oversight, possibly, on someone’s part—” he added, looking up, his eyes bright, “or, possibly not.”
Reardon smiled. “Anything else?”
“Yes,” Porky said. “One more person you might check out. A man who works as a female inpersonator—” He stopped short, looking at Reardon quizzically. “Did I say something I shouldn’t have?”
“Go on.” Reardon was impassive after his first start.
“All right,” Porky said equably. “It’s nice to have an appreciative audience. Offhand, though, I’d say I touched a nerve. At any rate, this particular lad works in one of Jerry Capp’s places, a bar over on Broadway, which claims to feature — if you’ll pardon the expression — entertainment. As I hear it, he had good reason to dislike Johnny Sekara. He had a fairly heavy habit and John cut him off at the pockets when he didn’t pay up for past deliveries. Well, the lad went to Capp for an advance, but Capp said no dice, which didn’t please the lad with either one of them.”
“What could he have had against Martin? Or Falcone?”
“I hear he was also into Martin on the tables; he’d gotten credit because he worked for Capp.”
“So how did he get by?”
“Who, the lad? You mean, without fixes? God knows. Probably started his own personal chapter of Odyssey House. He really didn’t have much choice. Credit in the needle trades is hard to come by.” Porky looked across the table. “I don’t like being nosy as a rule, but how much dough did Pete Falcone have in his kick when he was picked up?”
“And you do mean picked up, I know,” Reardon said. “Falcone had quite a roll, plus all his credit cards, papers and what have you. He went out the window fully dressed. Martin, however, had his pocket picked, if that means anything. Billfold gone and all the rest. But I don’t know how much he usually carried.”
“More than bus fare, from what I hear,” Porky said. “Ray Martin would match you hundred dollar bills while waiting for an elevator. His roll would keep someone in horse for more than a reasonable period, I’d guess.” He thought a moment. “Or pay a lot of convent bills, if it came to that.”
“What could this impersonator have had against Falcone, though?”
Porky shrugged. “I have no idea. Of course, I think our boy is gay; he may have made a pass at Pete and gotten his face slapped, although I must admit that’s really reaching for a motive.”
“Let me have his name.”
“Georgie Jackson; that’s the way he’s billed. Why don’t you take in his act? He works nights.”
“I might at that, one of these evenings,” Reardon said, and poised his pencil. “Anyone else?”
“That’s the lot,” Porky said, and turned up his palms.
“Well, at least it may give us someplace to start.” Reardon tucked his notebook away. He finished his ale and set the stein back on the table, frowning across the table. “Porky — tell me something: all three of those hoods got caught looking the other way. I’m surprised they didn’t have at least a little personal protection. Why?”
“Today?” Porky shook his head. When he spoke his tone was chiding. “They aren’t hoods anymore, Mr. R., they’re businessmen and very, very legitimate. And why should respectable businessmen need protection? Does Gimbel protect Macy?” He shook his head. “Besides, Jerry Capp got it in one of his own bars with a crowd standing around, and Pete Falcone would have parked any protection outside his boudoir, even if he’d had any along. And I gather that to date they — I mean you — don’t have bobbly-squinch on Martin.”
“Not yet. But we will,” Reardon said with a confidence he was far from feeling, and came to his feet. “I’ll see to it that a donation to your favorite charity is in the mail first thing in the morning.”
“Thank you,” Porky said graciously, “and preferably in cash. As Jeff Peters said so succinctly, I hate to put my name on the back of a check almost as much as I do on the front.” He smiled. “And on your way out, Mr. R., would you mind terribly trying to put an arm on a waiter?”
“We knock down ten per cent on our donations for service like that,” Reardon said, “especially at Marty’s,” and walked toward the door, smiling, but also pondering deeply...
Chapter 11
Friday — 2:15 p.m.
The overall report on the case, intended to clarify his thoughts, bring the facts into focus, and combine all the other multiple reports, lay at the lieutenant’s elbow with its title scrawled on top of the page and very little beneath it. Reardon chewed on the pencil, his gray eyes staring at the paper almost without seeing it, wondering how the devil to start, and then was saved by the ringing of the telephone. He picked it up, grateful for the interruption; a familiar female voice was on the line. However, he somehow could not connect the voice with a particular face.
“Lieutenant Reardon?”
“Speaking.”
“Captain Tower would like to see you in his office, if you’re free.”
“I’m free,” he said, and hung up, coming to his feet. At least I’m free from that blasted report for the moment, he thought; and I wonder what face is behind that well-known voice? Have I ever seen the captain’s secretary at her desk? He walked down the corridor making bets with himself and won the first one handily when he entered the anteroom to the captain’s office to find the secretarial desk, as usual, unoccupied. Well, she’s fast on her feet anyway, he thought, giving credit where credit was due; I wonder what the captain does when he needs to dictate a letter? Call it through the ladies room door? He smiled at the mental picture and tapped on the door to the inner office.
“Come in!”
Captain Tower was seated back of his desk, leaning back in his swivel chair comfortably; sitting on a hard office chair beside the desk was a man whose face was familiar, although at the moment the lieutenant could not recall the name. He studied the man casually a moment and then looked at the captain.
“You wanted me, sir?”
“Lieutenant—” Formality was the rule when the captain spoke to subordinates in front of outsiders. “—we have a request here for police protection...” His voice was conversational, as if such requests were everyday routine, but there was a hidden gleam of humor in his deep blue eyes. “This is Mr. John Sekara.” He glanced at the man beside him. “Any protection would be under Lieutenant Reardon’s direction. He’s in direct charge of the case.”