The Big Heat

Chapter 13

Max Stone had left orders with Alex not to be disturbed; he was in bed and he wanted to stay there, alone in the darkened room, until he felt able to get up and talk to people.

It was six in the evening and he’d been in bed all day, ever since Judge McGraw had left him at dawn. He hadn’t been able to sleep; every time he’d doze off a splintered thought of Debby would pierce his mind, and he’d thrash about for a more comfortable position, hoping that the activity would banish the memory of her screams.

The door opened a crack. “Max, it’s Lagana on the phone,” Alex said. “I told him you weren’t feeling well, but he said he has to talk to you.”

“Okay, okay,” Stone said.

Wearing nothing but shorts he padded into the small office he’d put in beside his bedroom. He picked up the phone. “Yeah, Mike, what is it?” He sat down feeling his heart pounding beneath his fat-armored ribs. “I’ve been in bed all day. What’s up?”

“Wake up and stay awake,” Lagana said in a tight, angry voice. “I’ve got enough to worry about in the Northeast without trouble from your area.”

“What the hell’s wrong?”

“The cops have that hot-shot you imported from Chicago, for one thing,” Lagana said. “Joe Hoffman. He was tailing Bannion and got himself arrested. What is he, a cub scout?”

Stone rubbed his aching forehead. “Ryan said he was all right,” he muttered.

“That’s a great help,” Lagana said. “This is the second time you’ve messed up on Bannion. Now get this: leave him alone. Understand? Hoffman has admitted to the police he was here ‘watching’ Bannion. The Express already has a story on it. They want to know why Chicago hoods are imported to watch our former cops. There’s been too much excitement in the city, and by God I want it stopped. Got it?”

“You think it’s safe to let Bannion run around loose?”

Lagana said, in a cold, precise voice, “I want no more excitement. We’ll take care of him after the elections. Maybe you can figure out some way to keep him harmlessly occupied until then, but no rough stuff. These papers are riding us and our friends, and it’s got to stop.”

“Sure, sure,” Stone said.

“Okay. Now, another thing. You heard from Larry today?”

“No. I’m seeing him tonight.”

“Maybe you won’t. The word is around that he spilled to Bannion about who ordered that bomb put in his car. You heard nothing about this, eh?”

“No, I been in bed,” Stone said.

“Well, get out of bed and stay out!” Lagana shouted.

Stone put the phone down and called for Alex. “What messages did I get today?”

“Magistrate Bension phoned. He said he took Debby to a doctor, but she walked out of the office this morning. He don’t know where she is now.”

Stone stood up glaring at Alex. “What the hell does he mean he doesn’t know where she is?”

“That’s all he said,” Alex said. “He thought she might have come back here.”

Stone pounded a fist into his palm. “I’ll fix that bastard for this,” he said. “All right, all right. Did Larry call?”

“No.”

“Any other calls?”

“Not a thing, Max.”

“Okay, fix me something to eat. Some soft-boiled eggs, I guess.”

Still frowning, he picked up the phone and got in touch with Art Keene, his number two man. He listened to routine reports for a few minutes, occasionally saying, “Yeah, yeah,” and then he told Art to get a couple of the boys, and come up to his apartment within the next hour. He hung up the phone and went in to shave and shower, trying to shake off this curious, leaden weight of anxiety and confusion. Debby was on his mind, and then this business about Joe Hoffman, and Larry. God damn Bannion, he thought.

Art Keene and two other men arrived within an hour. Keene was a middle-aged man with thick, gray hair, and a lean, blank face. He never quite smiled, although he seemed often on the verge of it. The two men accompanying him were handbook collectors; one was a nervous, affable man named Danielbaum, and the other was a big man with a wet-slack mouth and a head shaped like an artillery projectile. He was called Creamy.

Stone gave his orders fast. “I want you to get hold of Larry Smith,” he told Keene. “Have him over here as soon as you can. You heard the talk, maybe?”

Keene nodded. “We’ll pick him up, Max.”

“Another thing.” Stone glanced from one man to the other, rubbing his aching forehead irritably. “Debby’s cleared out, and I want her back.” He glared at them still massaging his forehead. “She can go to Siberia, understand, she’s just another dame, but she’s not walking off with the jewelry I bought her. That’s all I want from her, understand.”

Keene nodded, his face perfectly blank. “We’ll find her, Max.”

Stone began pacing the floor. “There’s something else,” he said, “Bannion. He’s been bothering us. I don’t want any rough stuff, but I want him kept busy. Too busy to worry about us.” He glanced at Keene, then at the other two men. “Well, you got any ideas?”

“Bannion’s child is staying with some of his relatives, I believe,” Keene said.

“With his wife’s sister,” Stone said. “So what?”

“Supposing we try the routine they used to work on voters in the river wards. The ones who weren’t voting smart, I mean. You know, a couple of magistrate’s constables would bust in on them, carrying legal John Doe warrants, of course, and scare hell out of everyone in the house.” Keene shrugged. “It works, Max. Most people are scared of warrants. The constables do a lot of loud talking, and maybe someone gets shoved on his fanny, accidentally, of course, and then they blow. It can be perfectly legal,” Keene said, glancing at the backs of his hands. “Supposing we have a warrant issued charging Bannion’s in-laws with disturbing the peace, loud parties, something like that.”

“Who signs the complaint?” Stone said.

“That’s immaterial. Somebody comes in and swears out the warrant, that’s all. Later, if it seems that the complainant is non-existent, that’s not the Magistrate’s fault. Practical jokes happen, in the best-run wards.”

“It would have to be done when Bannion wasn’t there.” Stone said.

“Naturally. I’ll set it up, Max. Creamy and Danielbaum here can serve the warrants. They’re both constables. You know the routine, don’t you, boys?”

Creamy made a circle with his thumb and forefinger, and grinned.

“Say, they got a police guard at the home,” Stone said, glancing at Keene. “Better take care of that.”

“I’ll give the captain a ring. No sense wasting taxpayers’ money like that,” Keene said, and this time he used one of his rare smiles.

“Okay, I want no slip-ups on any of this,” Stone said. “That gag should keep Bannion close to home. He’ll stick there watching his brat if he’s human. And don’t forget I want to see Larry Smith and Debby. That’s important, too.”

When the three men had gone Stone paced the floor chewing on an unlighted cigar. He needed something to break this restless, anxious mood. But nothing appealed to him; he was sick of gambling, of eating and drinking. Only Debby could help him, it seemed. He’d fix her when she came crawling back, he thought, pacing restlessly. He was suddenly glad, viciously glad, that he had hurt her, that he made her scream. She had it coming, and she needed more of it. He had a breathless, dizzying vision of beating her and laughing at her screams. She’d run out on him, hadn’t she? After a moment or so, he glanced casually, guiltily over his shoulder. He felt oddly disturbed and vulnerable. Stone was sick and weak with a new knowledge of himself; and he knew then that he would never lay a finger on Debby again as long as he lived.

Bannion spent that day checking into Tom Deery. He began at the Hall, and looked up the title on his place in Atlantic City. It had been a six-room bungalow on the water, and Deery had bought it in 1939 for eleven thousand dollars. A heavy lump of money for a police clerk. Bannion drove out to Deery’s block and learned from a talkative neighbor that Mrs. Deery had once been a great traveller, that she took frequent vacation jaunts to Miami, Palm Springs, places like that. Not anymore though, his informant, a gray-haired Irishwoman, told him with considerable relish. For the past eight or ten years Mrs. Deery had come down a peg or two in the world, and spent her time at home like she should have done in the first place.

Bannion digested this, thanked the woman, and drove back downtown. The Deerys had travelled high, and then low. Thomas Francis Deery had once known where to pick up extra change — that was obvious.

He left the car before the hotel and went up to his room. The phone began ringing, as he opened the door.

It was Parnell, the county detective he had met on Lucy Carroway’s murder.

“I called Central Homicide to get in touch with you,” Parnell said. “Man name of Burke gave me your hotel number.”

“What’s on your mind?”

“I’d like to talk to you if you’ve got the time,” Parnell said.

“I’ll be out in about an hour.”

“Thanks, Bannion.”

Bannion found Parnell in his office, a sunny, comfortable room, with a rug on the floor and photographs of the surrounding countryside on the wall. He shook hands with Bannion, smiling. “Good of you to come out,” he said. “Here, sit down.”

“Thanks.”

Parnell sat down behind his desk, looking a bit like a country lawyer who hunted and fished, when work was slack. Bannion knew he was sharp, and that’s why he’d dropped everything to come out and see him; Parnell had a deceptive general-store manner about him, and, under that, Bannion guessed, a clear, alert mind.

“I’ve been on Lucy Carroway’s murder pretty steady,” Parnell said. “I’ve turned up a lead, I think. One of our people out here, a doctor in Philadelphia, was coming late after delivering a baby. He tells me he saw a blue convertible on the Pike about two in the morning, parked right about where we found Lucy Carroway’s body. There was a man standing beside the car, the doctor says, a big man in a camel’s hair coat. The doc wouldn’t be able to pick that man out of a line, even though he did get a quick look at his face. He says the man was dark-skinned and with a prominent nose. It’s really not such a hot lead, you can see.”

“Well, what did you want to talk to me about then?”

“I knew you were working on the case in Central, and I remembered that you said this girl had been connected with Tom Deery’s suicide. So I called Central City Homicide to find out if you’d come across anything that would tie in with my big-nosed stranger.” Parnell paused a few seconds, regarding Bannion with an odd little smile. “I talked to a Lieutenant Wilks,” he said.

“And what did he have to say?”

“He said you hadn’t turned up anything on the girl’s murder, and that your attempt to connect her with the Deery suicide was just a pipe dream. I don’t think you’re a pipe dreamer, or any other kind of dreamer, Bannion. That’s why I wanted to talk to you.”

“You’re on a good lead,” Bannion said. “Lucy Carroway left her hotel with a man who wore a camel’s hair coat, was dark-skinned and had a big nose. That character’s name is Big Burrows, a Detroit hoodlum, who had been working for Max Stone. He’s left town since Lucy’s murder — and she was murdered, remember, shortly after telling me there might be something queer about Tom Deery’s suicide.”

“Funny he didn’t tell me about this,” Parnell said.

“I think my report has been mislaid by now.”

“What’s wrong with him?”

“They call it human nature,” Bannion said.

“Well, it’s human nature to feel as I do then,” Parnell said, rather grimly. “I’m going to keep plugging away at this one. I don’t like Central City hoodlums using the Thruway as an execution block, and I don’t like the idea of women being tortured and murdered.”

That was the end of their talk. Parnell put on his coat and walked Bannion to his car. The air was cold and the darkness was pushing up from the ground toward the gloomy, purple sky.

“How about having a bite with me?” Parnell said. “Not at my home, because I know you don’t want to meet a lot of strangers. But there’s a lodge down the Thruway where they’ve got charcoal-broiled steaks, and honest drinks. What do you say?”

“I’m afraid not,” Bannion said. “I—”

Parnell put a hand on his arm. “You’ve got to eat, boy. You’ve been driving yourself, haven’t you?”

Bannion hesitated, then glanced at his watch. “Okay, let’s have a steak,” he said.

After dinner Parnell ordered extra coffee and brandy. There was a fire in the main room of the beam-ceilinged lodge, and the warmth of it, and the food and drink, worked some of the tension from Bannion’s body.

“I haven’t said anything about your wife,” Parnell said.

“I appreciate that.”

“Well, let me say this much; I hope you get the sons.”

“I think I will,” Bannion said.

“Is there any way I could help?”

Bannion shook his head slowly. He glanced at his watch. “Can I make a phone call from here?”

“Sure, there’s a phone in the next room.”

Bannion walked into the adjoining room and put in a toll call to Central City. He hadn’t called Marg today, hadn’t said hello to Brigid. It wasn’t fair to saddle them with a worried, anxious child... The operator sang out, “Thirty-five cents, please,” and he dropped in the coins, listening to them clatter ringingly into the box.

Marg’s husband, Al, answered the phone. His voice was high and sharp. “Yes? Who’s this?”

“It’s Dave,” Bannion said. “How’s everything?”

“I’m glad you called. They’ve taken the police detail off the house. Marg — well, she’s kind of worried.”

“When did this happen?”

“There was no replacement after the cop left at six tonight. Marg called the station house, and they told her it was orders. They don’t have the men to spare.”

Bannion swore. He was an hour-and-a-half from their place, perhaps two in the night-time traffic. “There’s nothing to worry about,” he said. “This isn’t Russia.” Bannion knew they were just empty words. He knew trouble could come, to Al, Marg and Brigid. This was a way to hit at him through a four-year-old child.

“Everything’s okay on this end,” Al said. “I’ve—”

Bannion hung up on him and went back to his table. Parnell had already taken the check. “I’ve got to get back to town,” Bannion said. “Can you give me an escort as far as City Line?”

“You’re damn right I can,” Parnell said, rising quickly. “Something wrong, eh?”

“Maybe.”

“You follow’ me. I’ve got a fast car and a loud siren.”

“I’ll follow you,” Bannion said.