Over my shoulder I saw her. Woman—big and beautiful. Her name was Terry Massley.
And Rhino Massley was the guy who had me socked away for seven years.
Rhino had been a smart mobster with millions in loot. He was supposed to be dead, but things like that could be arranged, especially when you have millions.
And now Terry Massley was going to meet her father and, from the kill bits that had been pulled, there was mob action going on and that pointed to a big, wonderful possibility.
Rhino was alive and I could kill him myself!
I stared at my eyes, watching them change. Coincidence, I thought, ah, sweet, lovely coincidence. How I've cursed you and scorned you and declaimed you in the name of objective news reporting. And here you are now knocking at my door. Thanks. Thanks a bunch.
She was puzzled. "Do you feel all right?"
"I feel great," I said. "Would you like me to help you find your father? Coming from the coast you don't know anyone else, do you?"
She shook her head.
"Okay, I know the neighborhood. I'm part of this sewer life and I can move around. I even know tricks that could make me king of this garbage heap, if I wanted it. If your old man is here, I'll find him for you. I'll be glad to. You'll never know how glad I'll be to do it."
She didn't move quickly at all. It was with a deliberate slowness as if she were afraid of herself. She stood up, took a step toward me and slowly sank to her knees. Then she reached up and took my head between her hands and her mouth was a sudden wild, wet fire I had never tasted before and was burning a madness into me I had never wanted to feel again.
I pushed her away and looked at her closely. There was no lie in what she was saying to me. She was saying thanks because I was going to help her find her father.
But I had to be sure. After all this time I couldn't afford to lose a chance at what I wanted by taking one.
I said, "What brought you to this neighborhood to start with?"
The letter she handed me had been typewritten, addressed to her Los Angeles home.
It read:
Dear Terry,
I have just learned of your mother's death. Although we have never met, it is imperative we do so now. Take your mother's personal effects with you and stay at the Sherman the week of the 9th. I will contact you there.
Your Father
"He didn't even sign his name," I said.
"I know. Businessmen do that when their secretary isn't around."
"This isn't the neighborhood to meet businessmen with secretaries," I reminded her. "So he contacted you. How?"
"A note was waiting for me when I got there."
"How'd you sign the register?"
"Ann Lowry." She paused. "It . . . was the name I had had all my life."
"Sure. Then how'd you get the note?"
"A man at the desk asked if anything had been left for him. When the clerk leafed through the casual mail I saw the one with Terry Massley on it."
"What did it say?"
"That today at 11 o'clock in the morning I was to walk from Eighth Avenue westward on this block and he would pick me up on the way in a cab."
"How would he recognize you?"
"He left a cheap white suitcase with a red and black college pennant pasted on either side. It was extremely conspicuous. I was to carry it on my curb side."
"I suppose it was empty."
"Of anything important . . . yes. To give it a little bulk there were a bunch of week-old newspapers in it."
"The letter," I asked, "that was straight mail?"
"Yes."
"Then how did the suitcase get there?"
"All the clerk knew was that it came by messenger. There hadn't been anything irregular about it, so he didn't remember anything special about the delivery. After I looked into the suitcase I carried out instructions. I waited until it was time, took the suitcase with me, and walked over to Eighth and started down here."
I had to turn my head so she couldn't see the look of hungry expectation in my face. The cab pick-up was another ragged edge bit that spelled hood, and I knew that someplace Rhino would be waiting alive—so I could kill him. Man, it was a great feeling!
"What happened?" I asked.
"I was almost at Ninth when two men turned the corner. They walked toward me and I knew they both saw me and I saw what they wanted. I crossed the street and they did too. Then I started back and began to run. So did they. I ran in here."
"Any cabs pass at all?"
"Yes." She looked out the window, thinking back. "None stopped. He could have come by after I ran and thought I never showed up."
"He'll contact you again. Don't worry."
There was a pathetic eagerness in her voice. "You really think so?"
"I'm sure of it."
She glanced at me again, worried. "I . . . dropped the suitcase. How will . . . he know?"
"He'll find a way," I said.
I let her sit there while I showered and shaved. I found a shirt that hadn't been worn too often and put it on. There was still an unwrinkled tie and the sports jacket Vinnie insisted I hold for the fin I lent him fit as long as I didn't try to button it.
"What are you going to do?"
"I'm going to walk across town a mile or so. See some people I know. You're going to stay here, kitten. It isn't the finest, but it's the best for the moment. Leave the snaplock on, no chain, and if anybody tries to get in, duck in the closet. I don't think anybody will be back again, but just to be sure, when I get here I'll knock four times twice and you won't have to break a leg getting lost."
"All right." The nervousness faded away in a small smile. "I don't know why you're doing all this . . . but thanks, Phil."
"Forget it. It's doing me more good than it is you."
I walked to the door and she stopped me. She came over, took my hand and pressed something into it.
"Take a cab," she said.
In my palm was a twenty. It was warm and silky-feeling in my fingers and I could smell the perfume smell it had picked up from her pocketbook. I held it out to her.
"With that in my pocket I wouldn't get past the first bar. I'd drink half of it and get rolled for the rest and never get back here for three four days maybe. Here, put it back."
She made no move to take it. "That won't happen," she said softly. "Give it a try."
I didn't take a cab and I got by the first bar. But I walked across town anyway and passed a lot of bars on the way and wondered what the hell had happened to me in just a couple of hours.
When I reached Rooney's the lunch crowd had cleared out. But, as I expected, the west corner of the back room was still noisy with half the eighth-floor staff of the great paper up the street marking time between editions.
I slid into a booth along the wall, ordered a sandwich and coffee, and borrowed the waiter's pad and pencil. When he brought the lunch I handed him the note. "You know Dan Litvak?"
His eyes indicated the back room. I handed him the note and he walked away with it.
Dan was a tall, thin guy who seemed eternally bored unless you could read the awareness in his eyes. He had always moved slowly, not seeming to care what he did or what happened to anybody. He was never a man you could surprise with anything and when he walked up to my booth he studied me a moment, his face expressionless, then said, "Hello, Phil," and sat down.
His eyes didn't miss a thing. With that one look he could have read down my last 10 years in detail. I gave him a break, though. I let him look at the twenty under my bill so he wouldn't have to suffer the embarrassment of thinking he was sitting through a touch.
I said, "Hello, Dan. Have some coffee?"
He waved a sign to the waiter, then sat back. "Looking for a job?"
"Hell, no. Who would hire me?"
"You don't have to go back to the same business."
"You know better than that, Dan. Anything else I'd go nuts in."