The Erection Set (19 page)

“After a fashion.”

I tasted my drink, liked it and took another pull. “What can I do for you?”

It threw them a little off base. That and something else they hadn't put their finger on yet. The one who identified himself as Sergeant Tobano said, “Can you account for your whereabouts today?”

“Every minute.”

“Witnesses?”

“All the way. Why?”

He held out his hand and the other one handed him a manila envelope. He tapped the package against his thigh and watched me. “How about, let's say, eleven thirty this morning.”

“We had just gotten back into the city.”

“We?”

“Two friends of mine and the driver of the car.”

“Go on.”

I took another pull of the drink and put the glass down so I could get a cigarette out. “We dropped my lawyer friend off ... his name is Leyland Hunter, by the way, then my other friend, female Caucasian named Sharon Cass, and I got out at the garage and I walked her home.”

“What garage?”

“Beats me. It's in the East Fifties.”

“Denier Garage?”

“Now that you mention it, yes.”

He opened the envelope and drew out two eight by ten photos and handed them to me. I held them out in front of me and looked at them. Beside me Lee's breath gagged in his throat. Bridey-the-Greek and Markham were enough to make anybody gag. They both looked dead as hell with all the blood around Markham's face and the ice pick still stuck through the Greek's balls.

“Messy,” I said.

“Recognize them?” the cop asked me.

“Am I supposed to?”

“That's not the question, Mr. Kelly. Look at them again.”

“So it's two guys laid out in a public john.”

“How do you know it's a public john?”

“Who has urinals in their house anymore?” I said without taking my eyes off the photos. I was beginning to enjoy myself. “Where do I fit in?”

“That's the toilet in the Denier Garage. You were in that toilet when you were there.”

“That's right. I asked the attendant for directions, had my friend wait for me and went to take a leak. I finished, buttoned up my fly and left.”

“Did you see these two?”

“Not when I went in.” I handed the photos back and he stuck them in the envelope. “How did I come into this?”

“The attendant remembered the limousine you came in. We checked the license out, contacted your friend Leyland Hunter and he gave us you.”

“I can give you my other friend's address too if you want.”

“Never mind. We have that.”

“So?”

The two cops glanced at each other, not quite decided whether to be puzzled or aggravated. The younger one said, “We thought you might have seen something. They came in right after you. One wanted to know if that alcove went out to the street. The attendant said it went to the john and they headed in that direction.”

“There wasn't anybody around when I came out,” I told him. “There were plenty of parked cars, though. Somebody could have been behind them.”

Sergeant Tobano's mouth was in a taut smile. “You didn't seem very shook up over those pictures. Not like your friend here.”

“I've seen dead men before, Sergeant.”

“These aren't dead, Mr. Kelly.”

Lee breathed a quiet
Damn!

They both moved toward the door. “Okay, thanks. We may check back.”

Tobano was reaching for the doorknob when I asked him, “Who took those pictures, Sergeant?”

“A free-lance photographer who happened on the scene right after you left. He ought to make himself a buck from them.”

“He a suspect?”

“Nope. One of the boys who parked cars happened to go in with him at the same time. The other guy fainted.”

“Queasy stomach,” I said, and picked up my drink.

“Some people are like that,” the sergeant told me.

When they left, Lee half ran to the bar and poured himself another drink. He finished that one and made another before he turned around. A shudder ran across his shoulders and he swirled the ice around in his glass. Finally he raised his head and stared at me. “You lied to them, Dog, didn't you?” ,

I finished my drink too and joined him at the bar for another.

“Yes.”

“You actually saw them there ... that guy with his face all mashed in and the other one ...”

I raised my glass in a silent toast. “Hell, buddy, I
did
it to them.”

I knew the call would come so I sat up and waited for it. At ten minutes past three the phone rang and I told Chet Linden to meet me at the Automat on Sixth Avenue. There was a deadly evenness to the tone of his voice and I could feel the mad seeping up my arms into my shoulders.

They were waiting at a table in the back for me, Chet and Blackie Saunders, the wipe-out boy from Trenton, sipping coffee like a couple of night owls on the way home. I faked sneezing into a handkerchief and had my face hidden when I went past their backup man who made like he was looking in a storefront window next to the Automat. I turned the corner, cut back and had the nose of the .45 in his ribs without him spotting me and said, “Lets join the others, buddy.”

His reaction was real pro. Just a simple shrug of the shoulders and he headed toward the door. There might have been others, but with three under my gun, nobody was going to make any trouble at all.

When they saw us coming the picture was all there. Blackie started to rise, but Chet waved him down and nodded to me like nothing had happened at all. I took a seat with my back against the pillar, told the outside man to join me and looked at all three unpleasant faces.

“Coffee?” Chet asked.

I ignored him. “Why the kid games?” I nodded at the guy beside me.

“Blackie a habit too?”

The rangy killer from Jersey stared at me, aching for a chance to cut loose. I was hoping he would. Chet said,

“He's on something else.”

“He'd better be, Chet. Or didn't you tell him about me?”

“Blackie knows.”

“Then he isn't very impressed.”

Saunders let a snarl slip into low gear. “I'm never impressed, hotshot.”

“There's always a first time, Blackie. It's generally the last time, too.”

“He's got a gun in his hand,” the guy beside me said.

Chet gave him a disgusted grimace and looked back at me. “Cool it, Dog. I just want to talk.”

“Your party, kid.”

“We saw Markham and Bridey.”

“How about that?”

“You like to add all the fancy frills, don't you?”

I grinned at him. “Why not? I don't have a murder one going against me. As soon as the cops check those hoods' records they aren't going to be too interested in running me down. They like intramural rivalry. It keeps the economy active in floral shops and funeral parlors and makes their job that much easier.”

“A nice clean kill might, but this looks like an invitation to war.”

“You nailed it, Chet. That's what it is. Unless The Turk takes it gracefully and figures it's a warning to lay off.”

“The Turk never takes anything gracefully.”

“So I'll put some machinery in motion.”

“In a pig's ass you will! This kind of crap is what we were afraid of.”

“Don't bug me, buddy,” I said. “I didn't instigate it. Anybody who rides my tail is going to hurt and that goes for The Turk too.” I paused and looked at him. “That's what surprises me. That little fat turd isn't big enough to go for this kind of heavy work.”

“Ever figure somebody's behind him pushing hard?”

“I thought of it.”

“Why, Dog?”

I didn't answer him.

“Nobody retires from this business,” he stated flatly.

“Me,” I said. “I did.”

“You only thought you did. When you retire, you're dead.”

“So I hear. I've decided to be the exception.”

Chet tasted his coffee again, then handed it to Blackie and told him to get a fresh hot one. He told the other guy to join him and when they both left he said, “I made a lot of phone calls, Dog. Right now I'm beginning to get some strange notions.”

“Like what?”

“Like why are three different international syndicates sweating like hell because you left the scene.”

“Because I know too much.”

“Everybody knows too much,” he told me. “They don't give a damn about
knowing.”

“Knock off the games, Chet.”

“Being able to
prove
too -much is something else again.”

“Ah, hell,” I grunted. “You mean the old dodge about tangible facts that would come out if I got knocked off?”

“Something like that.”

“Then why send Bridey and Markham after me?” Blackie and the other one came back with coffee and set the cups down on the table. When they sat down Chet stirred in his sugar and milk, then pushed the cup away from him. “Maybe it wasn't supposed to be a hit. Maybe they were going to just take you and put the squeeze on. That pair knows all the tricks and when they want somebody to talk that somebody talks.”

“Those jokers got the wrong somebody this time.”

“And next time?”

“Get to the point, Chet. This shit is beginning to bore me.”

“We're involved in this too, Dog. If you talk you throw all of us out into the open and let me tell you something, kid, we mean more to us than you do.”

“That why you brought your bit hit man along?”

“We have plenty of hit men, Dog. You don't know all of them.”

“But they all smell alike.”

“I'm real sorry now that I kept the others off your back,” he said viciously. His voice was barely a whisper, but he meant every word of it.

My teeth were showing when I said, “You can always change your mind, pal. Like starting right now. I'll take all three of you out and be gone before the noise dies down.”

Chet's eyes narrowed and the skin pulled tight around his mouth. He knew I wasn't fooling either and it showed in his face. “You wouldn't get away with it.”

“Want to try?” I sat back and they could see the nozzle of the .45 staring at them from the crook of my crossed arms.

All three of them sat absolutely still. “Never mind,” Chet said.

I nodded slowly, watching them. “Then you call the plays, Chet. Just remember... I don't play a defensive game. It's only the guys on the offense who win. Any more tries come my way and I won't worry about where they come from. Everybody is going to be a target, so if you're on the ball you cool it, and get the word out to the others to cool it, otherwise it's just all one big package as far as I'm concerned.”

I got up and stuck on my hat. The gun was back in the holster, but my hand was right where I could get to it faster than they could theirs. Chet picked up his coffee, his eyes still slitted above his cheekbones.

“Were they right, Dog? You protecting yourself with something that could blow the whole schmear?”

“You'll never know, kid,” I said. I waited until a couple started to pass me and stepped in front of them, heading for the door, letting them cover me in case anybody decided to start blasting. When I was outside I looked back and they were still sitting there, Blackie and the other one listening to Chet. Blackie's hands were clenched into tight fists and he slammed one against the table. I could almost hear what he was saying.

I looked at my watch. It was a quarter past four.

 

Sharon finished putting her makeup on, snapped the compact shut and let it drop back into her pocketbook. “You sure get a girl up at ungodly hours. You know we're almost in Linton and it's only ten o'clock?”

“Kids are supposed to get up early,” I said.

Her eyebrows raised and she gave me another of those oddball expressions I couldn't quite decipher. “Kid?” You wouldn't know one if it hit you.”

“How old are you, sugar?”

“Old enough to know better than play gal Friday for you.”

“You didn't
have
to come.”

“Mr. Kelly, I wouldn't miss being with you for the world. You know what the rumormongers are putting out in our sewing circle?”

I turned my head and looked at her. “Tell me.”

“There's something deep and dark about you. Dick Lagen has hinted at the worst sort of things and Mona Merriman seems to think you were the consort of a certain young lady who's father was the deputy dictator of one of those new countries ... who was shot to death shortly thereafter.”

“Ah, fame,” I said.

“Are those things true?” She was staring straight ahead through the windshield, her hands clasped in her lap.

“If they are, you'll read about it in their papers soon enough.”

“You don't seem very concerned.”

“I quit worrying a long time ago, doll”

For a mile or so she didn't speak, then she squirmed in her seat and I could feel her eyes on me. “What's the matter with Lee then?”

I shrugged my shoulders and took the turnoff going east. “Nothing.”