"I wish you'd quit pushing him," Pat told me. "Now what's with this bit?"
I sat in the chair Grebb had vacated and propped my feet on Pat's desk. "I think Blackie Conley's alive."
"How'd he do it?"
"He was the planner behind the operation. He set it up, then phoned in a double-cross. Trouble was, he should have cut it shorter. He almost lost it himself. He laid out one escape plan, but took an alternate. He got away in that cab with the three million bucks and sat on it someplace."
Pat tapped a pencil on the desk as I gave him the information Annette Lee gave me. Every once in a while he'd make a note on a pad, study it, then make another.
"We'll have to locate whatever records are left of Howie Green's business. If he was dealing in real estate it will be a matter of public record."
"You don't think Blackie would use his own name, do you?"
"We can narrow it down. Look, check your file on Green."
Pat put in another call and for the twenty minutes it took to get the papers up we went over the angles of the case. I still wouldn't lay it out the way I saw it, but he had enough to reach the same conclusion if he thought the same way.
The uniformed officer handed Pat a yellowed folder and Pat opened it on his desk. Howie Green, deceased. Known bootlegger, six arrests, two minor convictions. Suspected of duplicity in a murder of one Francis Gorman, another bootlegger who moved into his territory. Charge dropped. Known to have large holdings that were legally acquired as far as the law could prove. His annual income made him a rich man for the times. He was killed by a hit-and-run driver not far from his own house and the date given was three days before the robbery of the three million bucks.
"Pretty angle, Pat."
"Spell it out."
"If Conley did get hideout property from Green, paid for it, made the transaction, and accepted the papers in a phony name and took possession, then killed him before Green knew what he wanted it for, who could say where he was? Chances were that nobody but Conley and Green ever saw each other and Green wasn't around to talk any more."
Pat closed the folder and shoved it in his desk. "We could check all the transactions Green made in the few weeks prior to his death."
"Time, buddy. We haven't got the time."
"But I have one thing you don't have."
I knew what he was going to say.
"Men. We can put enough troops on it to shorten the time."
"It'll still be a long job."
"You know a better way?"
The phone rang before I could answer and although I could hear the hurried chatter at the other end I couldn't make it out. When he cradled the phone Pat said, "One of my squad in Brooklyn on that Levitt rundown."
"Oh?"
"He was eating with one of the men from the precinct over there when a call came in about a body. He went along with his friend and apparently the dead guy is one of the ones he showed Basil Levitt's picture to."
"A starter," I said.
"Could be. Want to take a run over?"
"Why not?"
Pat got his car from the lot and we hopped in, cutting over the bridge into the Brooklyn section. The address was in the heart of Flatbush, one block off the Avenue, a neighborhood bar and grill that was squeezed in between a grocery and a dry-cleaning place.
A squad car was at the curb and a uniformed patrolman stood by the door. Two more, obviously detectives from the local precinct, were in the doorway talking. Pat knew the Lieutenant in charge, shook hands with him, introduced him to me as Joe Cavello, then went inside.
Squatting nervously on a stool, the bartender watched us, trying to be casual, about the whole thing. Lieutenant Cavello nodded toward him and said, "He found the body."
"When?"
"About an hour ago. He had to go down to hook into some fresh beer kegs and found the guy on the floor. He'd been shot once in the head with a small-caliber gun... I'd say about a .32."
"The M.E. set the time of death?" I asked him.
"About twelve to fifteen hours. He'll be more specific after an autopsy."
"Who was he?" Pat said.
"The owner of the place."
"You know him?"
"Somewhat," Cavello said. "We've had him down to the precinct a few times. Twice on wife beating and another when he was picked up in a raid on a card game. This is kind of a chintzy joint. Local bums hang out here because the drinks are cheap. But that's all they sell anyway, cheap booze. We've had a few complaints about some fights in here but nothing ever happened. You know, the usual garbage that goes with these slop chutes."
Pat said, "I had Nelson and Kiley over here doing a rundown on Basil Levitt. You hear about it?"
"Yeah, Lew Nelson checked in with me right after it happened. He saw the body. It was the guy he spoke to all right. I asked around but nobody here seemed to know Levitt."
"How about the bartender?" I said.
Cavello shook his head. "Nothing there. He does the day work and nothing more. When the boss came on, he went off. He doesn't know the night crowd at all."
"He live around here?"
"Red Hook. Not his neighborhood here and he couldn't care less."
While Pat went over the details of what the police picked up I wandered back to the end of the bar. There was a back room used as a storeroom and a place for the food locker with a doorway to one side that opened into the cellar. The lights were on downstairs and I went down to the spot behind the stairs where the chalk marks outlined the position of the body. They were half on the floor and half on the wall, so the guy was found in a sitting position.
Back upstairs Cavello had taken Pat to the end of the bar and I got back in on the conversation. Cavello said, "Near as we could figure it out, this guy Thomas Kline closed the bar earlier than usual, making the few customers he had leave. It was something he had never done before apparently. He'd stick it out if there was a dime in the joint left to be spent. This time he bitched about a headache, closed up, and shut off the lights. That was it. We spoke to the ones who were here then, but they all went off to another place and closed it down much later, then went home. Clean alibis. All working men for a change. No records.
"We think he met somebody here for some purpose. Come here." He led the way to a table in one corner and pointed to the floor. A small stain showed against the oiled wood. "Blood. It matched the victim's. Here's where he was shot. The killer took the body downstairs, dumped it behind the staircase where it couldn't be seen very easily, then left. The door locks by simply closing it so it was simple enough to do. One block down he's in traffic, and anyplace along the Avenue he could have picked up a cab if he didn't have his own car. We're checking all the cabbies' sheets now."
But I had stopped listening to him about then. I was looking at the back corner of the wall. I tapped Pat on the arm and pointed. "You remember the call you got from someone inquiring about Levitt?"
"Yeah," he said.
There was an open pay phone on the wall about four feet away from a jukebox.
Pat walked over to it, looked at the records on the juke, but who could tell rock-and-roll from the titles? He said to Cavello, "Many places got these open phones?"
"Sure," Cavello told him, "most of the spots that haven't got room for a booth. Mean anything?"
"I don't know. It could."
"Anything I could help with?"
Pat explained the situation and Cavello said he'd try to find anyone who, saw Kline making a phone call about that time. He didn't expect much luck though. People in that neighborhood didn't talk too freely to the police. It was more likely that they wouldn't remember anything rather than get themselves involved.
Another plainclothes officer came in then, said hello to Pat, and he introduced me to Lew Nelson. He didn't have anything to add to the story and so far that day hadn't found anybody who knew much about Levitt at all.