Catch the Brass Ring

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

I WOKE UP IN the morning feeling still and tired, with a fuzzy tongue and eyes which wanted to stay shut. They gave me an individual serving of cold cereal, stewed prunes, toast and sour coffee for breakfast and then ignored me while in the tank next door the drunks queued up for dismissal.

But a while later a cop I hadn’t seen the night before opened the door of my cell. He didn’t say a word but led me through the corridor and out front where a tall, thin man in plainclothes said:

“All right, Frey. You’re free.” He tossed my manila envelope at me and stood by while I laced my shoes and put the junk back into my pockets. He muttered to himself when I counted my money.

“Find the murderer so soon?” I demanded.

“Don’t get so damn cute. After the M.E. established the time of death we verified your Port Washington alibi. We don’t like it, Frey. For the present we can’t do much about it, but Jet me tell you something, brother. Our men will be watching you. You so much as jaywalk and they’ll run you in.”

I shrugged and headed for the door. The way I wasn’t winning friends and influencing people I could have used a lesson or two from Dale Carnegie.

Karen was opening her place at Tolliver’s when I walked up behind her and said good morning. She pouted, “Oh, Gid — Gid, why did it have to happen?” In between deep drags on a cigarette she let me know she knew all about last night. Billy Drake told Soolpovar before Funland closed in the wee hours of the morning. Soolpovar called an informal meeting of the informal board of directors and I had been voted the man most likely to fail if I didn’t take my big nose elsewhere.

“But surely they don’t think I killed him.”

“They’re not sure. Billy Drake told them about a note Ben wrote to you before he died, and it’s got them all scared. They can’t figure you out. I can’t figure you out, either. And, Gid, I think you ought to know they found me listening in on their meeting.”

“Weren’t you part of it?”

“Me? Don’t be silly. I’m just Bert Archer’s girl friend. They never let me know anything. But I… listen, Gideon. Even when I was a kid I never liked people to help me. But now I’m afraid I need help. If you take advantage of me, I’ll… I’ll…”

“I sure will,” I told her. “I’ll take advantage of you. I’ll make you cook good food for me and get my pipe and slippers and if you look at another man I’ll kick the stuffings out of you.”

“I was so worried when you went away yesterday. You said it was about all this, but you didn’t say what.”

“Don’t have to worry about me, Karen. I can take care of myself.” I looked at her. “I’m crazy. I promised myself none of this stuff, not for a long time. Come here, Amazon.”

She came, all right. She almost bowled me over. She was tall and blonde and beautiful. She wore a sunbacked dress and wrapped bare bronzed arms around me and forced me against the wall, making small happy sounds in her throat which said she’d been waiting and hoping, but she wasn’t sure, and pressing against me in a curving bow of desire from high breasts to outthrust hips to long flanks and opening her lip: and covering mine with them and biting a little until I decided with Karen and me we’d never be sure who was doing the loving and who was being loved, so I pivoted and got her between me and the wall and all at once she went weak all over while I brushed my lips against her brow, her cheek and chin and neck and throat. I’d never felt desire like that for anyone, not even for Allison or Karen herself that time in Queens. It was like closing a door on the Whole world, so nothing but this woman and her body and her demand for your love mattered or existed. Then someone opened the door.

“Hey, Mac. Is this where they want the merry-go-round fixed? Ooops, sorry.”

“I wouldn’t know,” I said. “That’s all right, though.”

“It is not all right,” Karen whispered savagely. “I’ll get you later.”

“The rest of your life. If you’ll marry me.”

Hey Mac waited while we went through the whole thing again. Then Karen told him, “They said something about the merry-go-round yesterday.”

“I knew this was the right place, Miss. Tolliver’s. I only said that so you’d know I was here and break up the clinch.”

“It’s all right,” Karen said happily. “He’ll marry me.” So there it was. Except that we still had a couple of murders on our hands and an unknown killer.

Presently the carousel purred and rumbled and soon began to spin on its futile, endless journey. Karen and I climbed aboard and she told me it was jamming above fifteen miles per hour yesterday. Out of sight in the engine room, Hey Mac sent us spinning along our way with the fierce, tossing, snorting, prancing medieval horses four abreast and the sign which didn’t follow us around but which said CATCH RINGS AT YOUR OWN RISK.

So I leaned from my saddle in the outermost row and caught Karen a brass ring. Hey Mac must have found the trouble without any delay, for we top-speeded around in our circular path and bobbed up and down like a run-about on gentle, unhurried swells.

“These rings!” I shouted to Karen as the organ gargled La Paloma. Hey Mac had decided upon a full-scale dress rehearsal. “They’re the trouble with us and everyone else in this crazy city.”

“What are you talking about? I thought it was very gallant of you to risk life and limb and lean recklessly from your saddle while charging full-tilt down the jousting field and…”

“Quiet, woman. I mean it’s a dirty city and an unhappy city. New York. The thing that amazes me about it most of all is how it manages to keep eight million people in its clutches. In the winter it’s raw and cold and in the summer it boils you. The streets are crowded and the people probably live ten years less than their neighbors on the farm and when they die their lungs are black with smoke and soot and all their lives they’ve been bothered by colds and contagious diseases swept around the city by subway, bus and trolley lines, like the plague. You know why they stay here?”

“Whoa! You’re way ahead of me.”

“The damned brass ring,” I said. “You can be happy out on the farm or selling household goods in Twenty Below, Nebraska. But you’ll never make a million bucks. That’s New York and its lure. The chance to pluck that brass ring for a free ride in life off every tall building but you reach for it at your own risk.”

And then Hey Mac had finished his work and slowed the merry-go-round to a stop. He came out from inside the organ and waved goodbye. It was like a signal. Vito Lucca opened his pizza joint and the Messrs. Soolpovar and Kellum walked up and stood there talking to him. Kellum still wore the marks of our fight, and I wondered if Karen had called the right pitch on him.

“Hey, Frey. Come here.” It was Soolpovar, jerking his head forward like a rooster when he spoke. “We’re all kind of worried about you, Frey. We can’t quite figure you out, see? Makes everyone uneasy. Why don’t you either lay all your cards on the table or… well, leave us alone.”

“I didn’t mean to worry anyone,” I said easily. “An operation this big has got to be surveyed and checked and kept in line occasionally, that’s all.” There I went again. It was the path I’d mapped out for myself and Newton’s second law of motion carried me along it. I spoke loud enough for Vito to hear me down by his pizzeria, and Sheila too, who had just come in and was talking to him.

“I see.” Soolpovar ran a small hand through short-cropped bristly gray hair. “What’s the verdict?”

I smiled blandly. “Still checking. I’ll let you know.”

“Were you checking on Ben Lutz?”

“Maybe.”

“Ben’s dead, Frey. Were you checking on Bert Archer, too?”

“He had nothing to do with this.”

“Yeah, but on his last day Ben Lutz went around telling everybody you were his friend. He said you were going to do great things for him.”

I perked my ears up at that. If Ben had gone around shooting off his mouth about any great plans he thought I had for him, that verified the motive for murder. Or did it? The kingpin in the illegal booze business knew his own position. He also knew I most certainly was not his lieutenant or even a not-so-reasonable facsimile thereof, so he knew I had about as much chance to elevate Ben Lutz in the organization as I’d have to restore the Third Avenue El after the city decides to tear it down. Then the boss didn’t kill him. The boss was probably laughing at me so hard in private he got a fit of the giggles every time he even thought of me. But if the boss did have a lieutenant, a sort of go-between who knew his identity and kept the others in line, maybe the guy got scared. Maybe Ben told a good story. Or maybe Vito Lucca, afraid to lose his glorified delivery boy’s job, held the answer.

“Listen, Frey,” Soolpovar informed me, “as a friend, let me tell you what we decided. Either you stop bothering us or else open up and let us know where you stand. You got to do one thing or the other.”

“Then listen to me. How do you expect me to play ball if you people clam up every time I’m around?”

“How do we know you’re not just a snooper? Even a cop, maybe.”

“You don’t. I have no suggestions. All I know is this: I was sent here to do a job, and from the looks of things I’ve found a dog-eat-dog mess without even scratching the surface.” This particular brand of lying was coming to me easy by now.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means the boss is going to maybe start the whole thing over with a new bunch of boys if he thinks you’re all leaping at each other’s throats.”

Soolpovar mouthed a four-letter word without expression, then said, “Who do you think you’re kidding? Starting this setup all over again would cost thousands. Try to find another place like Tolliver’s for it, too….”

Then he shut up. He thought he was talking too much because he still wasn’t sure if he could trust me as far as he could throw the merry-go-round, so I decided to put his mind at ease or put my neck in a noose or both. I said, “There are other places we can run a still.”

Soolpovar swallowed the bait but left his mouth unhinged

so he could regurgitate it at any time. The open mouth stood for awe. But the small, calculating eyes stood for suspicion. I was either going to receive an invitation to look at the still or a ride sans return fare, to the outskirts of town.

“Say, didn’t I tell you?” King Kellum asked with his out-of-kilter voice. “Frey isn’t fooling, Soopy.”

“No? Who cares what you think? All a guy has to do is knock the crap out of you and you’ll kiss his behind forever.”

“Say, listen. If you think I’m going to stand here and…”

“Cut it out,” I said. Kellum shut up. Soolpovar stared at me. “See what I mean?” I went on. “At one another’s throats, all the time. I hope I’ll be able to give the boss a better report on the still itself.”

“Near as I can figure, we’re maintaining maximum output,” Soolpovar insisted with a note of belligerence in his voice.

“You’ll have to show me.”

“Prove who you are.”

“Suit yourself,” I said.

“Listen, Soopy,” Kellum said. “Don’t get us all in hot water because you’re so suspicious.”

“You can’t blame Soolpovar,” I told Kellum. How do you know all this isn’t some kind of test to see whether you employ adequate safeguards or not? You can’t let anyone walk in and snoop around.”

“See what I mean?” Soolpovar demanded.

“But on the other hand, you can carry things too far. I’ve said all I’m going to say. Now you do the talking.”

I waited. Soolpovar stood there, tense, shifting his weight from foot to foot. Kellum looked like he’d run after it if I tossed a stick into the gutter.

It was Sheila O’Keefe, who’d been listening in with Vito, who offered to show me around the still.