Invitation to Violence

CHAPTER FOUR

The police were nice about it. They brought Sue home in a squad car on Sunday morning and it was just as well that they did. She was dead on her feet.

It wasn’t that they were rough with her, or pushed her around or anything like that. They didn’t even raise their voices when they questioned her. They were very reasonable about the whole thing. Merely the questions. Only the trouble was the questions went on all Saturday afternoon and Saturday night. It was all quite legal; she was formally held on a short affidavit and they saw to it that there was a matron present at all times while they talked to her.

It wasn’t merely that she was Vince Dunne’s sister and that Vince was missing. Somehow or other they’d turned up a witness who had seen Vince and Dommie and Jake in the tavern at the same time. It was enough for them.

A representative of the insurance company which covered the loss was present part of the time and he was even worse than the police. He did everything but accuse Sue of being in on the thing. The police themselves didn’t harp that angle; they concentrated on trying to find out where the boy could have gone, who he knew, who had he been hanging around with. They were sure that Vince had the jewels and that there was a fourth man in on the robbery. They wanted to learn the name of this fourth man.

By the time the police were ready to call it quits and let her go, they were convinced that she knew nothing; that she was completely guiltless.

The trouble was, that by then Sue knew a great deal. She knew that Vince had been in on the robbery; she knew that he was guilty.

This was no juvenile prank, no simple matter of a stolen car used for a joy ride. It wasn’t even a matter of a mere robbery. This was murder. They made it quite clear to her; it didn’t matter whether Vince himself had pulled the trigger of the gun which had killed a policeman. He would be equally guilty in any case.

Vince Dunne, nineteen years old, was a murderer. Police throughout the country had been alerted and it would be just a case of time. Sooner or later they would get him and when they did, he would go to the electric chair. They didn’t have to draw a diagram for Sue. She knew what happened to cop killers.

And so they sent her home at last in a squad car and she climbed out in front of her apartment house and slowly entered the building. Her feet felt like lead as she walked through the lobby to the self-service elevator. She wanted to cry, but she had no more tears. She’d already used them up during those long hours at the police station between the questioning sessions.

There was a broad-shouldered, dour-faced man standing near the elevator and he carefully avoided looking at her as she waited for it to answer her ring. She knew that he was a detective, waiting there in case Vince should show up. By this time she’d seen enough detectives to spot one a block away. She’d seen enough detectives to last her a lifetime.

She wasn’t hungry, but she knew that she must eat something. They’d offered her food at the station house, but she’d been unable to swallow.

Once in the apartment, she listlessly prepared a pot of coffee and soft-boiled a couple of eggs. She knew that she would have to eat; knew that life would have to go on. There was nothing else, nothing now but her job and her career. She tried to blame herself, but even this she was unable to do. She’d done everything for Vince that she could do. It was no longer in her hands.

The police had been bitter about it, bitter and hard and angry. Could she blame them? No, in all fairness she couldn’t. She felt bitter and hard and angry herself. Not about Vince. Vince was nothing but a child. A rather weak child who had been too easily led astray. No, the ones Sue felt angry about were the men who had influenced him, the ones who had brought him in on the thing.

She was glad that Dommie had been killed. He was better off dead. And the other one, the man she knew as Jake. He was supposed to be dying and Sue found herself wishing that he’d live. Live so that he could go to the electric chair. She wondered what kind of man he could be. They’d told her he had a boy of his own, a boy only a few years younger than Vince.

She couldn’t understand how a family man and father could have taken boys like Dommie and Vince in on a thing like this. And there were others. The fourth man. The police seemed to feel that in back of the whole thing was an organized mob, a tough, vicious, underworld gang. These were the ones they wanted. Wanted as much as they wanted Vince.

Well, she would never be able to do anything to help them find Vince, but she’d give anything and everything to help them find those others. The men who had brought her brother in on the job and had made a thief and a killer out of him.

There was just one way to find out who they were. Sooner or later Vince would get in touch with her. Of this she was morally certain. No matter where he was or with whom he was hiding out, he was bound to try and reach her sometime or other. And once he did, she knew exactly what she would do. She would find out the names of the people in back of the thing. She wanted to see them brought to justice; wanted it more than anything else in the world. More than her career and even more than she wanted Vince to escape the justice she realized he fully deserved.

There was only one thing to do. Vince would be too smart to try and reach her at the apartment. He would know by now that the police were seeking him. No, if he tried at all, it would be while she was working at the cafeteria. That was the place, the key to the whole thing. It had been through the hangers-on at the place that Vince had met his new companions, met the men who had involved him. And it was there that he’d try and reach her.

Tired and sick as she was, she was determined to go to the place as usual that night to work. That night and every night. And sooner or later some man would come up to the counter and whisper a word or two and she would know where he was and be able to reach him. Be able to learn what she had to find out.

She had no more than climbed into the uniform she wore when the manager of the place came over and spoke to her.

“Mr. Slaughter is in his office,” the man said. “He’d like to have a few words with you. I’ll take the cash box while you’re gone.”

He watched her coldly for a moment as she turned to leave the counter.

“You could have at least called and told us you weren’t coming in last night,” he said, his voice resentful.

Sue felt a sudden sense of relief as she walked to the back of the long building where Slaughter maintained a small private office. Her first thought, when the manager had spoken to her, was that Slaughter must somehow or other have learned about Vince. That he, like the police, would start the series of incessant questions.

But no, it wasn’t that. She’d been absent Saturday night and had failed to notify the restaurant. That was what he wanted her for. He’d be sore about it and she’d have to give him some sort of story. She didn’t want to tell him the reason she hadn’t called was because she was in the police station being questioned about her brother-who was wanted for murder.

If he had paid slightly less for his clothes, and purchased them in either good department stores or from tailors on the east side of Fifth Avenue, Fred Slaughter might very easily have passed for a gentleman. As it was, the handmade shirts were just a trifle too sheer, the gray-worsted suit was cut a trifle too wide in the shoulders and the shoes, although imported and expensive, were not the type to be worn with a business suit.

His clothes were like his jewelry. The watch should have been gold rather than platinum and like the cuff links and rings which he wore on each hand, there was just too much of it. The clothes were like the man; a little too good and a little too ostentatious.

In his late forties, Slaughter had the figure of a college athlete. He took exceptionally good care of himself, visiting his barber daily for a shave and a trim as well as a manicure. His dark hair was always perfectly groomed and no matter what time of the day or night, there was always the faint trace of after-shaving powder on his lean, olive jaw.

His manners, at least in public, were polished. But the giveaway was the voice. He had a voice like gravel and even his over-precision in the choice of words and phrases merely served to emphasize the effort he made to sound like a gentleman.

Any smart cop would have spotted his background in a second. Slaughter was strictly East Side scum; a one-time mobster who’d made money fast and ostensibly turned legitimate. He didn’t actually fool anybody and certainly he didn’t fool the riffraff with whom he hung out and whom he patronized.

His sharp eyes looked up as Sue entered the office and he smiled thinly.

“Close the door, Sue,” he said. “Close the door and come on in and sit down. I want to talk with you.”

Sue took the chair next to the desk.

“If it’s about last night…” she began.

He nodded and half raised a hand to interrupt her.

“Yes,” he said, “about last night. You were off. What was it, kid? Vince? Was it about Vince?”

She felt herself go pale. How did he know? Why did he go at once to Vince. Of course he would have read about the robbery, would have learned about Jake, whom he knew. But why did he bring Vince into it?

He was quick to see the way her mind was working.

“I know all about it, kid,” he said. “You know I have connections. So the law is looking for your brother. Well, you have to expect that. I guess you know what happened. Know about Dommie and Jake Riddle. The police figure Vince was a pal of theirs and that he might have been mixed up in the thing. I guess you can’t blame them for thinking that, can you?”

She stared at him and nodded dumbly.

“Where is Vince?” he said.

She dropped her eyes and slowly shook her head.

“I only wish I knew, Mr. Slaughter,” she said. “He left the house on Friday night, around ten o’clock. Said he was going to a movie. And he hasn’t been back since.”

Slaughter looked at her closely.

“And you haven’t seen him? Haven’t heard from him?”

“No.”

“Have the police been around?”

Sue nodded.

“Yes,” she said. “They’ve been around. That’s where I was last night. All night. They questioned me until…”

“What did you tell them?”

She looked up at him, startled by the suddenness of the question and the hard, cold note in his voice.

“Tell them?”

“Yeah. That’s what I said. What did you tell them. Come on…”

“Why I didn’t tell them anything,” Sue said. “What could I tell them? He didn’t come home; I don’t know where he is and…”

“I know, I know,” Slaughter interrupted her hurriedly. “Of course you don’t know. Who the hell does? But I mean, what did you tell them? You know. They must have asked you other things. Like who he hangs around with, who he knows. Things like that.”

“Yes, of course,” Sue said. “They asked. And I told them everything I knew. I told them that he knew Dominick Petri and Jake Riddle. What else could I tell them?”

Slaughter looked angry and Sue vaguely sensed his mood and was puzzled. Why should he be angry?

“About the cafeteria,” he said. “And me. Did they ask about me?”

Sue looked at him, perplexed.

“Why should they?” Sue said. “Why should they ask about you? It wasn’t me that they were investigating…”

“Listen,” he said, “they know the kid worked here for a time. They know I took an interest in him.”

“Did you?” Sue asked.

“Of course I did,” Slaughter said, suddenly dropping his voice back to normal. “Remember? I said I’d square things with the parole board when he got fired so that they wouldn’t know about it. Remember. Certainly I took an interest.”

Sue slowly nodded in agreement. She couldn’t help but wonder why he was taking such an interest now. It was impossible that he could think any trouble Vince was in could hurt him in any way.

“Listen Sue,” Slaughter said, standing up and walking around the desk and looking down at her. “Listen, Vince is a good kid. Don’t you worry yourself about Vince. But we got to find him. See? We gotta find out where he is.”

Sue looked up at him and slowly shook her head.

“He isn’t a good kid, Mr. Slaughter,” she said. “No, Vincent isn’t a good kid at all.”

“Don’t talk like that,” Slaughter said. “He’s just a boy. Maybe a little wild, but just a kid. Don’t forget, he’s your own brother. Twin brother, isn’t it?”

Sue nodded and dropped her eyes.

“Yes,” she said, “twin brother.”

“Well, listen, we just got to find him. You gotta help me. We gotta get hold of Vince.”

Sue pushed back the chair and reached her feet.

“And then what?” she asked, slowly.

“Then, why then we get hold of the…”

Suddenly he stopped talking and stared at her. He moved and crossed the room and stood with his back to her, staring out of the window.

“We get hold of a mouthpiece and if the kid’s in any kinda jam, we go to work for him,” he said, lamely.

Sue stood watching him with wide eyes. She stood dead still, almost as though she were hypnotized. As though she might be looking at a poisonous reptile.

She knew what he had been about to say when he’d so suddenly interrupted himself. She knew it as well as though he had spoken the words themselves. He’d been going to say, “Why then we get hold of the jewels.”

He swung back from the window, reaching into his side pocket for a pack of cigarettes.

“Yeah,” he said, “yeah. We have to help the kid. So the second you hear from him, you get hold of me. Right off. Call me at my place-here, I’ll give you the number.”

He took a pad and pencil from the table and scribbled down two or three lines.

“My apartment number, the phone over in the bar, and the phone here. I’ll be one spot or the other. Just don’t forget. Call me at once. No one else. Definitely not the police. The cops would grab him and then he wouldn’t have a chance. No, you hear from Vince, you get me pronto. We’ll take care of him, see that he’s protected.”

Returning to the cashier’s cage a few minutes later, Sue thought: Yes, you’ll take care of him all right. There’s no doubt about that.

Her face was a sickly dead white and she felt as if she could hardly stand.

She was sure. Very sure. She knew now who had been in back of Vince and Dommie and Jake. Knew for a certainty.

Could Slaughter himself have been the fourth man on the job? No, it didn’t seem likely. The fourth man would know what happened to Vince and where he was. Slaughter must have been the mastermind; the brains behind the thing.

As the thought hit her, she experienced a blinding, insane hatred for the man. She turned toward the telephone booth at the side of the cafeteria. She had almost reached the instrument before she slowly stopped and then once more turned toward the front.

The phone? The police? What good would that do? She’d tell them about Slaughter and maybe they’d listen to her and maybe they wouldn’t. But what possible good could come of it? She had no proof, no proof at all. Nothing but her own intuition. Her own sure knowledge.

No, what she must do was find Vince. Find Vince and get the truth from him.

As Sue Dunne once more returned to the front of the restaurant and took her place behind the cash register, the small portable radio underneath the counter was just beginning to give the early Sunday evening news broadcast which interrupted the usual all-music programs each hour on the hour.

Little Shirley Conzoni walked over and stood in front of the deck chair on which her father sprawled, the Sunday paper fallen across his large lap and his eyes closed as the sun beat down on his dark, leathery face.

“He’s still there, Daddy,” Shirley said.

Anthony Conzoni grunted.

“Go ’way and play, honey,” he said.

“Shirley’s talking to you, Tony.” Mrs. Conzoni spoke up, taking her eyes from her sewing. “Answer her.”

Mr. Conzoni grunted again and opened one eye.

Shirley, quick to follow up this brief victory, spoke quickly.

“I said he’s still there, Daddy.”

“Who’s still there, honey?” her father asked.

“Why the dead man,” Shirley said.

Anthony Conzoni opened both eyes.

“Now honey,” he said, “you shouldn’t speak like that. There’s no…”

“There is so!”

Shirley looked at her father furiously. “There is too a dead man. The one I told you about before. He’s still there. Nobody’s come for him and he’s still there in the bushes.”

“An imagination!” Mrs. Conzoni said proudly. “What an imagination the baby’s got, Tony. A real…”

“There’s no dead man!” Anthony Conzoni didn’t approve of his daughter having so vivid an imagination.

Shirley stepped back a pace and lifted her doubled fists and quickly swung at her father’s large stomach.

“There is so a dead man,” she screamed, striking him several quick blows. “There is so. See! See this?”

Shirley held out the small square of white handkerchief she had folded in her hand. It was stained a reddish brown.

“Blood,” she said. “He had it in his hand. Sally dared me and so I took it. If there’s no dead man, then where do you think I sot this? And that’s blood…”

Conzoni, with amazing speed for a fat man, reached out and grabbed his eight-year-old, pulling her to him. He took the handkerchief from her.

“Where did you get this?” he asked.

“Like I said, from the dead man.”

Mrs. Conzoni had gotten out of her chair and come over and was leaning down. She started to put out an inquiring finger and then suddenly drew it back and paled.

“My God, Tony,” she said, “my God…”

Little Shirley started to scream as her father began pulling her across the lawn.

“Come on,” he said, “come on now. I want to see this here dead man. You take me to…”

Five minutes later Detective Lieutenant Hopper was sitting in the front seat of the black police car as it screamed away from headquarters in Mineola. A uniformed policeman was driving and Finn was in the back seat, cleaning his nails with the unburnt end of a match.

They arrived at the deserted stretch of road simultaneously with a car from State Trooper headquarters. A county patrol cruiser, empty, was pulled alongside of the road and the uniformed driver was attempting to keep the rapidly collecting crowd away from the bushes at one side, where his partner was leaning down over what appeared to be a crumpled mass of old clothes.

Hopper made a quick search as they waited for the lab man and the photographers. He was careful not to disturb the body, but he didn’t have to worry about footprints or tire markings. The crowd of curious had already very competently eliminated any possibility of identifying either.

It took Hopper less than a minute to find the wallet in the rear trouser pocket of the dead man. The only identification was a Social Security card, but it was enough for the lieutenant, at least for the moment. That and a quick look at the corpse. There was no doubt at all in his mind. Vince Dunne had turned up.

It took another three minutes for Hopper to reach his second conclusion.

Vince had turned up, but the jewels had not. The jewels were still missing.

The lieutenant waited only until after the man from the medical examiner’s office showed up to make a preliminary examination. Then, wishing to duck the reporters who were beginning to appear, he took Finn by the arm and left.

“One bullet,” he said, when they were back in the car, “through the back of the neck. Doc said he might have lived for half an hour, no more. I felt a little better about Dillon and Hardy.”

“Maybe it wasn’t Dillon or Hardy who got him,” Finn said. “Maybe it was his own mob.”

Hopper half shook his head.

“The bullet’s still in his skull somewhere,” he said. “It will tell the story. But I think it was our boys. The guy who was driving the getaway car wouldn’t have shot him in the back of the neck. Anyway, that’s three down and one to go.”

“One-and the jewels,” Finn said.

“I’ll settle for the fourth one,” Hopper said. “The jewels can be replaced but you can’t replace a couple of dead policemen. The services are tomorrow,” he added. “It will be a joint service and I want every available man on the force to show up. It’s the least we can do.”

“By the way,” Finn said, “how did that guy Hanna check out?”

Hopper hesitated several moments before answering. “Well,” he said at last, “he seems in the clear. The trouble is, he’s almost too good to be true. I’ve been trying to get hold of that girl of his, his fiancee up in Connecticut. Probably won’t mean anything, but it is a little odd that he suddenly postponed his visit up there. I understand from his friends he’s been making that trip once each week religiously for the past several years. And then suddenly, he cancels out at the last minute. Seems a little strange.”

“No one’s talked with her?”

“The local men talked with her father. The girl herself has been out. But I have a call in for her and she’s supposed to be back this evening.”

Hopper looked over at the clock on the dashboard.

“Should be able to reach her by the time we get back to the station,” he said.

Sunday was probably the most miserable day Gerald Hanna had spent in his entire life.

By now the reaction had set in. Had there been something for him to do, could he have kept busy, it might have been better. But instead, there was nothing, nothing but the idle hours in which to worry.

For the first time he began to wonder what insane caprice of mentality had motivated him, began to wonder if he hadn’t temporarily lost his mind. As the full implication of his actions came to him, he was suddenly convinced that he couldn’t possibly win. The police were bound* to find him out, bound to discover his part in the thing.

He didn’t leave the house except to run down to the corner and pick up the newspapers. And then he found that he was unable to concentrate long enough to read them. He just sat there in the apartment waiting, waiting for the police to come once more, thoroughly convinced that it was merely a matter of time until they did.

He had orange juice and coffee for breakfast and skipped lunch altogether. By six o’clock, still not hungry, he decided that he must get something into his stomach. He would have gone out, but for some reason he was afraid to leave the apartment.

He had to be there, in case the police did come. It was a strange thing, but he was deathly afraid that they would return, and at the same time, the thought of their arriving and his not being there filled him with an even greater fear.

At seven-thirty he decided to telephone Maryjane. By this time he was suffering a hundred regrets and nameless fears. Among them was a feeling of guilt for the way he had acted to his fiancee over the telephone. It was inexcusable. He had to admit it. He had been a boor and had behaved like a stupid idiot. No wonder she had been speechless with indignation.

He put the call in and then, when at last she answered, he was overcome with a sudden dumbness.

“Gerald,” he said. “This is Gerald.” And then, for some reason, he seemed utterly incapable of uttering another word.

“Where are you?”

Her voice was cold and distant.

“Home,” he said, at last. “I’m home and I just thought I would call and see if everything is all right.”

For a long moment there was no answer.

“Gerald?” Maryjane said, at last. “Gerald? What’s the matter? What’s wrong? You don’t sound right. Please tell me what is going on? I want to know.”

She was no longer angry, no longer bitter. She was perplexed, unable to understand what wTas happening.

“I’m all right,” Gerald said. “Yes, I’m all right I just wanted to call and apologize…”

“There’s something wrong. I just know that there’s something wrong,” Maryjane said. “Please tell me…”

“It’s nothing dear,” he said. “Just that I wasn’t feeling well, and… well, I just…” his voice trailed off.

“Gerald Hanna,” she said, “Gerald Hanna, you tell me this minute exactly…”

And then, once again just as it had on Saturday morning, it came over him again. He felt that peculiar feeling of cold aloofness. A sensation of almost utter distaste.

“I’m all right, I tell you.” His voice was frozen and tight. “Sorry I bothered-just wanted to tell you that everything is fine. I’ll see you next week end as usual. Good-by.”

He hung up without waiting for an answer.

Leaving the phone, he quickly crossed the room and snapped on the radio. And then he went to the kitchen and got the bottle of whiskey and poured himself a drink.

It was almost like magic. Suddenly he felt fine. Felt just as he had been feeling Saturday night. What in the hell had gotten into him anyway? What had he been stewing around about and worrying for? Everything was going just as he had planned it. Everything was fine.

All it had taken was that phone call to Maryjane to straighten him out. He’d been a fool to sit around and worry.

He downed the drink and replaced the bottle and then returned to the living room and sunk down in the big upholstered chair, He took a cigarette from a box on the table at his side and then reached over and played around with the dials on the radio set until he found a band playing calypso.

At nine o’clock the program was interrupted for five minutes of spot news. It was then that Gerald learned that police had found and identified Vince Dunne’s body.

Maryjane Swiftwater was not among the several hundred thousand persons who heard that newscast. In the first place, Maryjane never listened to either the radio or television, considering both mediums vulgar and boring. And in the second place, at the moment the announcer was telling the world about the discovery of Dunne’s body, Maryjane herself was having a completely baffling conversation over the telephone with a man who had described himself as Detective Lieutenant Hopper of the Nassau County Police Department.

The lieutenant, from what she could gather, was for some absolutely bizarre reason, interested in her engagement to Gerald Hanna, He refused to say why he was interested and his questions completely confused her.

It never occurred to Maryjane to ask if Gerald were in some sort of trouble. Gerald wasn’t the sort of person ever to be in trouble. And it couldn’t be that he had had an accident. Why she’d been talking to him herself less than half an hour or so ago. And so she was utterly bewildered.

The man wanted to know how long they’d known each other, how long they’d been engaged. He even wanted to know why Gerald had failed to keep his week-end appointment with her, although to save her life she couldn’t understand how he even knew about the appointment.

Five minutes after she had talked with the man, Maryjane made her decision.

There was just no doubt about it any longer. There was something very, very wrong. Something that she didn’t know about and couldn’t possibly understand. And so there was only one thing to do. There would be no point in calling Gerald back on the telephone. No point at all. The last two calls had been sufficiently unsatisfactory to establish that.

She would go down to New York the next day. on Monday, and see Gerald and have it out with him. If she left her job an hour early, she would have plenty of time to make the two-ten into town and it would get her to New York in time to take a cab to Penn Station from Grand Central and get out to Roslyn by the time Gerald himself returned from his office.

It would be best to see Gerald at the apartment; she didn’t want to risk having a scene in his office or in some public restaurant.

Steinberg was watching a television show at the time and so missed the news broadcast. The oversight, however, was not important; he received the word from one of his ambulance chasers within five minutes of the time the announcer signed off. Within another two minutes he had Slaughter on the phone. He knew at once that Slaughter himself was unaware of the news and he had to be very careful how he broke it to him. Steinberg worried about tapped telephone lines.

It took several minutes and a little double talk, but Slaughter was fast on the pickup and got it almost at once. He told Steinberg to hold the wire a moment and then rushed out into the restaurant.

Sue Dunne had already left. The only thing the manager knew was that she had suddenly gotten sick and said she had to go home.

Slaughter went back into his office and told Steinberg to meet him at the New York apartment as soon as possible. They both arrived within forty-five minutes and took the same elevator up to the floor on which Slaughter maintained his apartment.

“All right, Leo,” Slaughter said, the moment they were in the apartment, “let’s have it.”

“There isn’t much,” the attorney said. “Maxie said the cops are playing it cagey. But this he does know. Dunne turned up out on the Island, north of Roslyn. Some kid found the body lying in the bushes. Shot. Maxie got there only a minute or two after the cops showed up. Vince didn’t have the stuff on him.”

Slaughter cursed.

“How does he know?” he asked. “Maybe the law…”

Steinberg raised a protesting hand.

“Maxie knows,” he said. “Hell, they didn’t even know it was Vince at first. Maxie was there when the identification was made and he got a verification from a pal at headquarters. No-there were no jewels. Nothing. Looked like the kid got shot and tossed out of a car. At least that rounds that up. We know what happened to him.”

“We don’t know,” Slaughter said. “We don’t know nothing. All we know is about Vince and Jake and Dommie. There has to be someone else; someone we don’t know nothing about. And there has to be the stuff. We know they got the stuff outta the jewelry store all right.”

Steinberg stood up and stretched.

“Listen Fred,” he said, “maybe you better forget about that part of it. The boys are taken care of-they’re dead. The jewels are missing. Right now, they are about the hottest things this side of hell. Don’t forget, two cops died during that rhubarb. Maybe it would be better to just write the whole caper off and stay in the clear while you’re still clean.”

Slaughter looked hard at the little lawyer and then slowly shook his head.

“No,” he said. “No. Not by a damned sight. Some lousy rat hijacked those gems and I mean to do something about it. For two reasons. I don’t like anyone chiseling in on my jobs. But even more important, I’ve already made the deal to unload the stuff. And I can’t miss out on it. I have to have the dough. Have to have it.”

“But just where do you start…”

“Well, to begin with,” Slaughter said. “There’s the girl. We gotta start somewhere and so we might just as well start with her.”

“You mean young Dunne’s sister?” Steinberg asked. “But why…”

“I pay you to do my thinking for me,” Slaughter said. “Don’t make me do all of it. Vince Dunne lived with his sister, didn’t he. And she was off work on Friday night. Maybe she got suspicious when he left the house and followed him. I don’t say that she did, but just maybe. She could have been worried about him, known something was up. She just possibly could have followed him.

“Someone picked him up, that we know. It seems to me it had to be someone he knew, not someone who just happened to drive by. It could have been arranged in advance, or, in the case of the sister, she could have been there, waiting to see what he was up to. It’s a cinch he was picked up and it’s a cinch that whoever picked him up, dumped the body when they found he was either dying or dead, and hung on to the loot.”

“But the girl, his own sister…”

“Listen,” Slaughter said. “It could have happened. Who the hell else did he know. Who else was close to him? Nobody. If he’d been playing around with someone from another mob, I would have known about it. Sure, it may be farfetched, but we gotta start someplace. Someone has that stuff and I mean to get it. Another thing, I talked with the girl tonight. She acted damned funny, very damned funny, when I asked her about the cops and what they’d asked when they took her in.”

“All right,” Steinberg said. “So, let’s see the girl.”

“Tomorrow will be time enough,” Slaughter said. “Plenty of time. Right now she’s probably waiting down at the morgue to identify her brother. The cops will keep her busy for the rest of the night. But tomorrow-well, we’ll see. I’ll take care of that end of it. You check with your guy again and make absolutely sure about the stuff. Sure that no one got their hands on it when they picked up Vince.”