A Handy Death

Chapter 11

Frank Bukvic was nondescript in the extreme. His suit was of neutral gray and cut to fit his body neatly but without any detracting stylish innovations; his hair was thin and colorless, neither too long nor too short; his eyes were pale in color and his small features extraordinarily regular. His general appearance was so subdued that one could easily forget that he was around. This anonymity was far from accidental; it was cultivated to bolster Bukvic’s principal profession. While he did many things from time to time to earn a living, in general Frank Bukvic was a salesman. He sold information.

Now, seated in the back booth of a small, dimly lit, and poorly attended bar on Second Avenue, sipping his highball, he spoke in a quiet voice that seemed to issue from motionless lips. The sound reached the two men across from him but miraculously went no further.

“Ray Neeley? Sure. A runner.”

“The numbers racket?” Mike was doing the talking, Ross merely listening.

“That’s what I just said.”

“A loner?”

“Nobody lones for near ten years, which is what Neeley did. He worked for the Organization. He had the section from Seventh to Eighth, Fifty-fifth to Sixtieth, if I remember right. Not the hottest property in town, but when he worked it properly he managed all right.”

“What about his love life? Ever hear of him and a Grace Melisi?”

“Never.”

“Or any other dame?”

“No idea,” Bukvic said. “Nothing real loud, that’s sure, or the Organization would have cracked down. Like they did when he tried to shake down that kid — that baseball kid. I forget his name.”

Ross leaned over, his eyes bright.

“You know about that? That it was a shakedown?”

“Me and half the town.”

“You can prove it was a shakedown?”

“Prove it? Who has to prove it?”

“I mean, would you be willing to testify in court—?”

“Court?” It was such a stupid question that Bukvic, usually exceptionally polite, pressed his lips together in disapproval. “I’m not in the business of proving; I’m in the business of reporting.”

“Well, then, do you know of anyone else — for a generous fee — who would consider testifying? One of those ‘half the town’?”

“No.”

“Look, Mr. Bukvic—”

“The answer is no.” The tone was as nondescript as the face, but final.

“Damn it!” Ross said to Mike, savagely, “how in the hell come nobody dug these facts out eight years ago? When they were hot?”

“If you don’t look, you don’t find,” Mike said in a soothing tone, and turned back to Bukvic. “Frank, how did they crack down on Neeley?”

“Just told him one more try to do something on his own and that would be that. They didn’t spell it out, but those boys don’t have to.” For the first time the faintest hint of a smile crossed the thin lips, but it disappeared so quickly that Ross wondered if he had imagined it. “Lucky for Neeley the heads of the numbers end were a bit more lenient when he tried to hire Jennings.”

Mike frowned. “Jennings? Russ Jennings?”

Ross cut in. “Who’s Jennings?”

“Local investigator,” Mike said, and went back to Bukvic. “What happened?”

“All I know is the Organization didn’t like it, but they weren’t too tough on him that time. Had him on the carpet, but he must have promised to keep his nose clean, because nothing came of it.”

“Who reported it to the Organization?”

“Jennings himself, I imagine. He must have figured it would be smart to check it out. Jennings is lots of things, but stupid isn’t one of them.”

“What did Neeley want Jennings to do for him?”

Bukvic shrugged. “No idea. Strictly between Jennings and the top boys. Never leaked, as far as I know.”

There were several moments of silence. Bukvic took advantage of the pause in conversation to sip his drink. Ross frowned down at his hands on the table in frustration, then looked Bukvic straight in the eye.

“Look, Mr. Bukvic, I have a client who can get life because nobody believes his story about that woman being in Neeley’s apartment.”

“I know,” Bukvic said. “Tough.”

For a moment Ross thought he saw a gleam of pity in the small man’s pale eyes, but he knew that even if it was there, nothing would be done about it. He sighed. Mike looked at him.

“Anything more, Hank?”

“No.” Ross shook his head in disgust. “Damn it, Mike, we have our case! We made a wild guess and we were right! Only how the hell do you prove it? If we could get anyone to testify...”

He looked at Bukvic imploringly. The slender man’s face was impassive.

“No way,” he said, and went back to his highball.

Mike stood up and sidled from the booth. Ross followed, Mike leaned down.

“Thanks, Frank. The usual post office box?”

“The same,” Bukvic said. He looked past Mike. “Sorry, Mister.”

“Me, too,” Ross said, and walked out of the bar with Mike Gunnerson right behind him. At the curb Mike stepped into the street and waved down a cab. The two men climbed in; Gunnerson leaned forward, giving the driver an address unfamiliar to his companion. Ross looked at him.

“Russ Jennings’ pad,” Mike explained.

“Will he talk?”

“To me, he will,” Mike said confidently.

“Shouldn’t we have called?”

“Better this way,” Mike said cryptically. “This way we find him home.”

The drive was finished in silence; the cab pulled up before an apartment house on Central Park West in the high eighties. The men climbed down, Mike paying, and walked into the lobby. The building had obviously seen better days; the marble table set beneath the large but flaking mirror was stained and cracked; the lobby was otherwise bare and hadn’t been painted in many years. Mike led the way past the tiny self-service elevator and took the steps two at a time.

The second-floor hallway was lit by a small bulb hanging unshaded from a cord; graffiti decorated the wall, illegible in the gloom. The dirty broken-tile floor was littered with cigarette butts. Ross wrinkled his nose.

“It looks as if your friend Russ isn’t doing so well.”

Mike looked over his shoulder, his face blank.

“Don’t worry about Russ Jennings. He could buy and sell both of us a few times over. Two things: One, this is still a good mailing address. Out-of-town agencies go for the Central Park West bit—”

“And two?”

“Two, Russ Jennings probably has the first dime he ever stole. He’s a miser.”

He paused before a door and rapped sharply. There was silence. Mike rapped again, louder this time. There was the sound of movement behind the solid panel; a cautious voice spoke.

“Who’s there?”

“It’s Mike Gunnerson, Russ.”

“Just a second.” There was a hesitant pause. “How do I know it’s Mike Gunnerson?”

“How the hell do I know?” Mike asked cheerfully and turned to Hank Ross. “A character,” he said. “Funny thing, he’s not a bad investigator. Barring being a bastard filled with more than his share of the milk of human larceny.”

There was the rasping sound of a bolt being withdrawn, followed by the scrape of a second; the men in the hallway could next hear a heavy bar being removed and apparently tilted against a wall. The door finally swung away from the sill the length of a safety chain. A suspicious eye surveyed the two men, after which the door closed again to permit the chain to be removed. At long last the panel swung back to admit them. Mike walked in, surveying the protection with honest wonder.

“What’s the matter, Russ? Somebody after you?”

Jennings was busy replacing the hardware.

“Nobody’s after me,” he said sourly. “What’s the matter? You just move to this town? This neighborhood’s changed. And I don’t bulk as big as you.”

It was an understatement. Jennings’ five feet six barely came to Mike’s shoulder, and his scrawny body looked as if it hadn’t had a good meal in years.

“So why don’t you move?”

“You got any idea the rents those thieves are asking over on the East Side?” Jennings led the way into the living room. He pointed to a sagging sofa and sat down in a straight kitchen-type chair. The windows were without curtains or drapes; old-fashioned shutters were closed and barred. Jennings looked uncertainly at the two men.

He said, “Sit down.”

Ross tried the sofa and almost fell through; he was saved by a broken spring. He struggled to the edge and sat there. Mike Gunnerson preferred the arm of the sofa; it wiggled under his weight, but held.

“All right,” Jennings said. “I know Mr. Ross, at least by sight. Well, what brings you two out slumming? I’m pretty sure it wasn’t to tout me on a pad in the high-rent district.”

“No,” Mike said. “It wasn’t.” He leaned forward. “Russ, some time ago a man named Raymond Neeley came to you and wanted to hire you to do a job for him. Right?”

Jennings’ face could have been carved from stone. He sat motionless, his small hands on his thin knees. He said, “You’re telling it.”

“What did he want?”

There were several moments of silence. Through the closed shutters came the normal sounds of the neighborhood; a child screaming, the screech of skidding tires, a derisive hoot from some boys in the street, and the distant wail of a siren. Then Jennings shook his head.

“You know better than that, Mike. That’s a confidence between me and my client.”

“I know,” Mike said sympathetically. “And you don’t want to go down to the morgue and ask his permission to divulge.” His voice lost its false humility, becoming harder. “Stop the crap, Russ. This is old Mike asking, remember? The guy you owe a few favors to, like not breaking your back for trying to steal the Webley account from me? What did you think, I didn’t know? All right, now, let’s take it from the beginning without the violins in the background. What did he want?”

“There are people who would rather—”

“Russ,” Mike said, his voice deadly serious, “I’m going to ask you one last time and then I’m going to lose my temper. As for the people you’re talking about, I know them, too, and they won’t save you from getting set on your ass if you don’t open up. Like you say, I bulk larger than you. Now, what did he want?”

Russ Jennings tried to look unhappy, but he was only weakly attempting to calculate how he could possibly make a profit without getting hurt. At last he decided it would be risky at best with Mike Gunnerson, and the unhappiness became real. Mike nudged him verbally.

“Well?”

“He wanted me to trace some dame,” Jennings said sullenly.

“Whose name was Grace Melisi?”

“If you know, what are you asking for?”

“Practice,” Mike said coldly as Hank watched entranced. “What did he give you for starters?”

“She had a sister in Albany. That’s where she came from originally.”

“Albany, New York?”

“Is there another one?” Jennings asked, disgusted.

“Several. And?”

“And what?”

“Russ,” Mike said, “if I’ve got to drag this out of you like pulling teeth, I’d just as soon pull teeth. Don’t sit there and act like you’re getting paid by the word—”

“I ain’t getting paid at all!”

“You’re so right,” Gunnerson said. “Did you find her?”

“I didn’t even start looking,” Jennings said. “Neeley was a policy peddler at the time; I knew that. And he’d been in a jam before with the top boys about some clip he tried to swing outside of school without nobody knowing—”

“Except you knew.”

Jennings looked scandalized. “Me? I never! Well, sure, later, when it was in the papers about him getting shot, I could put two and two together. I ain’t exactly stupid, you know.”

“That’s what everybody keeps trying to tell me,” Mike said, “but I’m not sold yet. So?”

“So I went upstairs and asked if the deal was kosher, and the answer was ‘No.’ So I dropped it.”

Mike frowned across the room at the little man sitting rigidly on the kitchen chair.

“Why did he want to find her?”

“Why don’t you ask him?”

“Why don’t you call your doctor, because you’ll be needing him shortly?” Mike said. “It’s answer period, Russ.”

“Well,” Jennings said grumpily, “it was a dumb question. You know about the deal. He wasn’t going to measure her for diamonds.”

“So when you dropped it, who did he go to?”

“He didn’t,” Jennings said. “The boys upstairs told him to keep out of grief or go find another job. He listened.”

“So nobody ever did dig her up?”

“If they did, I don’t know it.”

There was a moment’s pause. Then Mike sighed deeply.

“Russ,” he said with deadly emphasis, “I guess you didn’t hear what I said before. I came here for information about Grace Melisi and I want it. If you can’t back up that cock-and-bull yarn of yours, I’m going to have to remember that Webley account deal.”

Jennings eyed him coldly for a moment and then walked over to a scarred and battered filing cabinet leaning drunkenly against one wall, opened a drawer, and came up with a handful of folders. He leafed through them and finally selected one.

“You don’t believe me, see if you believe this.”

Mike took the folder and opened it. A single sheet of paper was inside, headed in surprisingly neat hand printing: Grace Melisi. Beneath it was the date: March 23, 1965. Beneath this was her description; Mike took out a pencil and pad and copied it down in detail. The fact that there was no photograph had been noted in the file. A single line completed the sparse information: Sister, Anne Melisi, 1410 Lincoln Blvd., Albany, New York. The balance of the sheet was blank except for a scribbled note: Discontinued. Mike added the address of Anne Melisi to his other notes and handed the folder back.

“You always keep seven-year-old files in your current filing cabinet, Russ?”

Jennings hesitated a moment and then shrugged.

“What the hell! I read where Ross had the kid’s case and I dug it out. I figured maybe I could be of some use to him on the case...”

“Just take it from us and stay away from the case,” Gunner-son suggested pleasantly. “Don’t remind me I don’t like you.” He rose and moved toward the door. Ross joined him. Jennings, his jaw tense, walked over and started to dismantle his fortress at the front door again. He finished and dragged the door open.

“Out,” he said coldly.

“A pleasure,” Mike said, and walked down the hallway without looking back.

The two men trotted down the steps and walked, side by side, out into the street. A cruising cab responded to Hank’s raised arm and they climbed in. Mike gave the address of their office building and leaned back.

“Just a quick check before turning in,” he said.

Ross said, “You were pretty tough with Jennings, weren’t you? After all, suppose we did have to pay him something for his information? The client can afford it.”

“I’m not worried about the client,” Mike said, and grinned. “You’ll find that out when I send in my bill. But I’ve known Russ Jennings a long time. All he’ll ever get from me is sweat. Or the back of my hand.”

“You know,” Ross said thoughtfully, “I believe that’s the first time I’ve ever seen you pull muscle on a person.”

“It’s easy when you outweigh them by a hundred pounds,” Gunnerson said cheerfully. “You probably never saw me handle midgets before.”

The cab drew up before their building. Again Gunnerson paid and led the way to the locked doors. A dim bulb within illuminated the unoccupied night porter’s desk, but Gunnerson, who worked nights as often as days, had his own key. He unlocked the door, locked it after them, and led the way to an empty elevator cab whose light angled down to the shadowy lobby.

They rode to the proper floor jerkily; Mike brought the car to an inexpert stop almost a foot below level, jockeyed the control handle a moment to end up a foot above level, said “The hell with it!” and tugged the door open. They stepped down to a silent hallway; the light from Mike’s office was the only sign of life in the quiet building. Mike opened the door; his night telephone operator, a college student, laid down the book he had been studying.

“Hello, Mr. Gunnerson. Hello, Mr. Ross.”

“Hello, Tod. Anything new?”

“A bunch of reports on your desk. Nothing else.”

“Right,” Gunnerson said. “Hank, come in and sit down while I run through these reports.”

“In a minute,” Ross said. “Tod, do me a favor? Do you have the number of my answering service there?”

“Same as ours, Mr. Ross.”

“Give them a ring, please. See if I had any messages.”

“Sure,” Tod said, and plugged in a cord. He dialed, spoke a few words, waited, and hung up. “Nothing, Mr. Ross.”

“Then get me the Marlborough Hotel on Lexington, would you? Room 803.”

“Right.” A rotary file was consulted, a dial twirled. Ross waited impatiently. Tod shook his head. “No answer. Want the desk?”

“Please.”

Ross picked up the nearest phone as Tod inserted a plug. “Hello? Desk?”

“Yes, sir.”

“My name is Ross — Hank Ross—”

“Oh, yes, Mr. Ross!”

“I was with a young man who checked into the hotel this afternoon a little after three. His name is William Dupaul, in Room 803. He doesn’t answer his telephone. It’s quite important that I reach him. I wonder if you might have him paged?”

“I remember, Mr. Ross; I’d just come on duty when you came in. One moment.” This time the delay was, indeed, only a moment. The desk clerk sounded genuinely sorry. “I’m afraid there wouldn’t be much point in paging him, Mr. Ross. Your note about meeting him for dinner is still in his box, together with his key.”

“I see,” Ross said slowly. “Thank you.”

He hung up, frowned at the telephone a moment, and then walked into the inner office. Mike Gunnerson was tilted back in his chair, the lamp behind him throwing a shaft of light over his shoulder onto the sheet he was reading. He looked up.

“What’s the matter, Hank?”

“Billy Dupaul’s not in his room. He hasn’t been back to the hotel since he left this afternoon.”

Gunnerson grinned.

“What do you think? In jail for seven of the last eight years, he’s going to be cooped up all alone when he doesn’t have to? He’s over on Eighth Avenue somewhere in the forties, making up for lost time.”

“Maybe,” Ross conceded, but he didn’t sound sure of himself. He shrugged. “What’s new in the reports?”

“Well,” Mike said, indicating the paper he was holding, “I had a man check with that prison chaplain at Attica — Father Swiaki. It seems the good Father simply mislaid the key to the equipment room. He looked all over, remembered his laundry, went to the prison laundry, found his bag, and the key was in the pocket of a sweater. So he opened the door and the game got started. A half hour late.”

“Well,” Ross said thoughtfully, “that’s a little something, anyway. Not a great deal, but something.”

“Which brings up the question I raised before. Do we go after the umpire?”

“Just get his name and address,” Ross said. “I may want to put him on the stand, if Gorman brings the riot into it. To confuse things, if nothing more.”

“Right,” Mike said. He made a note, yawned cavernously, and came to his feet, looking at his watch. “Almost twelve! And I want to be on that six o’clock plane to Glens Falls!”

The telephone rang. Mike leaned over and picked it up.

“Yes, Tod?”

“Don Evans from Glens Falls, Mr. Gunnerson.”

Gunnerson cupped the receiver. He said, “Don Evans. Maybe he got something on the old man’s finances...” He removed his hand and listened. The unintelligible crackle of sound from the receiver could be heard in the quiet room. Ross waited patiently. Gunnerson’s mouth dropped open from shock.

“What?”

He looked up at Ross.

“Somebody just put a thirty-caliber bullet through Jim Marshall as he was parking his car. He’s dead...”