Lead With Your Left

“Nope, he didn't have his car that day. Remember because it was raining hard and I watched him walking all the way over to Eastland Avenue to catch a trolley. Tell you the truth, youngster, I kind of poked around myself at times, thought maybe it was money these bootleggers might have hidden. But I gave it up after a couple looks. Like I said, wasn't nothing but four rotten walls. Didn't see the paper today, what's this Wales done now?”

“He was shot to death. Pops, did you ever see the other man, this Owens, poking around here? He was a detective too.”

“No, just Wales. Don't recall the other face. 'Course at the time of the shooting, whole block was full of detectives. Trampling all over my tomato plants. Why did Wales shoot hisself?”

“He didn't, he was murdered,” I said, jotting down the dates in my notebook.

“Murdered? All you read about these days. I say these teenagers should be given a taste of the strap and then—”

“I want you to do me a favor, don't talk about this. Don't even tell anybody you remember Wales. You see what you've just told me can be nothing, then again it might help us solve Wales' murder.”

“I won't say a mumbling word. Don't want to get mixed up in nothing. Not me. Say I sure got to read the morning paper now.”

I wanted to tell him to keep his trap shut even if that beat cop happened to ask what I wanted, but that might make the old boy suspicious of me. I wrote my name and the squad phone on a notebook page, gave it to him. “If you think of anything else, even if it doesn't seem important, but anything you haven't told me—anything— give me a ring. If I'm not there, leave a number where I can reach you. Got a phone?”

“I only room here, with my grandson, but they got a phone. And you can call me at the dye plant all during the night. I'll think about it, maybe I can recall something. But it was a long time ago.”

“Anybody eke around here who might remember the killing?”

He shook his head, almost proudly. “Nope, I'm about the last of the old-timers here. That's because I drink two full glasses of buttermilk every morning before I—”

“Well, thanks for your time. And not a word, not even to your grandson or son.”

“My boy was killed in the war. I live with my daughter's boy. Now don't you give it no worry, not a word out of me. And I'll phone you quick if I think of anything. Ain't had nobody to phone in years.”

On the subway ride back to the apartment I felt swell I had a lot of pieces that would fit into one picture damn soon. And then Landon and Reed and the rest of the squad would know who was a snotnosed kid.

I thought about getting off and taking a look at Wales' room. But downtown would certainly have covered that, and then the way I was dressed—a sweatshirt.

I got home before noon and had some eggs and went over my notes, still thinking of seeing Wales' room.

The gun had never been found in the Brenner killing. Was that what Wales was looking for? But why keep looking for it sixteen years after the shooting? And when he did find it, what? There had been nothing in the arrest record about finding the gun. Did he think the rod might convict Kahn's missing partner, this Bird? Or was Al Wales hunting because he felt Kahn was innocent? But then why keep looking years after Kahn burnt?

It didn't have to be the gun—buried money wasn't a bad angle. Brenner wouldn't have muscled in unless there was plenty of loot, and that would account for the dough Wales had on him. But Wales was a good cop and would have reported the money if... A good cop who shot down his partner!

The thing to do was let what I had jell, maybe dig deeper into Sal Kahn's past. I had the feeling my hunch was hot and in time... The phone rang.

I picked it up, expecting Mary to say she was sorry for being a bitch. “Mr. David Wintino?” It was a woman's voice and vaguely familiar.

“Talking.”

“This is Rose Henderson. Hope you don't mind my calling you at home. I looked you up in the book.”

“I don't mind. What's up?”

“I waited and then phoned your police station twice for an escort. They tell me they can't spare a man today.”

“They're very busy.”

“But this will mean the second day I've lost. That's exactly what they want. If I miss my deadline the article might be postponed for months. You promised I'd have an escort today and now you—”

“Have any trouble since yesterday?” I asked, in my mind seeing her curled up in the red camp chair, the full curve of her stomach I wanted so much to poke with my little finger. And if I hadn't been bothering with her, I might have seen Wales and saved... No, he was already shot by then.

“Yes, there was a phone call at 2:20 a.m. No answer when I picked up the receiver. This is driving me to a breakdown. I feel like a prisoner. All I need is a few more days of research and I could wind things up. You told me I'd have—”

“Listen to me carefully. It's seven after twelve. I'll be in front of your house at one. Where did you plan to go this afternoon?”

“To the Forty-second Street Library.”

“Okay. Exactly at one leave your house. Walk over to Broadway and down to the IRT subway. Get off at Times Square and walk toward the library. Keep on the downtown side of the street. I'll be following you but don't ever look for me—that would tip them off. Even if you're pushed around, unless it's real trouble, I won't step in. Idea is I want to make whoever is shadowing you. Remember, don't act self-conscious and don't look around for me. If you should see me, act as if you don't know me. Got that?”

“I think so. One sharp... IRT... downtown side of the street.”

“Now, after you finish at the library, go back to your place the same way—downtown side of Forty-second Street to the IRT. How long do you need in the library?”

“At least four hours.”

“That's too long. You stay an hour, at exactly two you leave, side entrance, and wait at home till I either call or drop in. That may not be for a brace of hours. We all set? One o'clock on the nose.”

“Yes. And thank you.”

I took a fast cold shower and started to dress—tropical suit, open dusty-gray sport shirt, and new socks. I put some oil on my hair and gave it a good brushing, then combed it carefully. I should be looking over Wales' room but I'd only be eaten out by the downtown brass. And unless I took a breather from what I'd found out this morning, I'd get stale on the case. And this would take only a few hours.

I checked my pockets, made sure my hair didn't look oily, and took off. I was planted on her street corner by seven minutes before one. I stopped kidding myself, I should damn well be spending this time working on Wales' background. But I didn't feel too bad about it—I felt swell.

I wanted to see Rose again.

Thursday Afternoon

Exactly at one she came out of her house wearing a neat red suit which wasn't for her—it didn't do much to her chunky figure. She held a large paper folder and a pocketbook under her left arm. I watched the doorways, the parked cars, but couldn't make anybody shadowing her as she slowly walked toward Broadway. I stayed a half a block behind and on the other side of the street. We reached the subway okay-and I still didn't see any tail. Rose looked herself over in a gum machine mirror without glancing at me. There were only three other people besides us on the platform and seven people in the subway car. I didn't bother with the people in the car—a good tail wouldn't be riding in the same car. I kept my eyes on Rose, as if I was a stud on the make looking her over... and she looked fine: the dark hair, the sullen hot mouth, the strong figure. Even if nothing happened, it was a good way of killing a few hours. I wondered if Rose's friends would ask if I was a corrupt goon?

We walked along Forty-second Street on opposite sides of the street. Alongside Bryant Park they got her. There was a tall wiry guy who fell in behind her—did it fast then slowed down. He was about thirty-five, wearing a new coconut palm hat and one of these corny gray flannel suits, as if sure it made him look the executive type.

Coming toward her was a lumpy joker built like a fat football player, dressed in an old plain brown suit and no hat on his noggin, baldness giving his thin hair a horseshoe shape.

He seemed to be reading a letter. They were damn good. The guy back of Rose closed in and lumpy in front of her walked into Rose. He knocked her backward against wiry who neatly hit the folder and pocketbook out from under her arm as he caught her. The papers and the pocketbook landed in the gutter which a sanitation truck had sprinkled a few minutes before.

Beefy boy was all apologies while wiry pointed to his ankle, rubbed it, and said something to Rose—probably told her to watch where she was walking. Bully boy even picked up her wet papers, “accidentally" stepping on her purse. He handed the stuff to her, fat puss still full of apology.

I'd read about rough-shadowing but this was the first time I'd ever seen it. A two-hundred-and-fifty pound lump walking into you is a rugged wallop. Rose seemed shaken but not hurt. She continued on to the library while horseshoe head went over toward Broadway. I followed him wishing I'd had Danny with me to tail the wiry joker. But if I'd called Danny on his day off he would have given me a stiff ha-ha.

Bully boy took his time walking up Broadway, window-shopping in a couple of shlock stores, stopping for an orange drink. He turned into an office building and we both went into the same elevator. The light panel said there were sixteen floors. When he called out, “Ten,” I said, “Eleven.”

I walked downstairs to the tenth floor and looked around. There were fourteen offices on the floor but fortunately a big rug outfit took up six doors. I narrowed it down to three offices, two of them without names on the doors, and one with DATA, INC. in small black letters.

I walked into DATA, INC. ready to give them a bull yarn if I was wrong. It was quite an office. I wasn't wrong.

It was narrow with a desk, phone, typewriter and two file cabinets as you entered. Then it opened into two cubbyhole offices—one was a regular office and the other had a work bench, tools and a stack of electrical gadgets.

Bully was hanging up the receiver and he stood up as he asked, “What you want, boy?”

I spread my feet as he stepped toward me, met him with a perfect left hook above his belt buckle. He let out a gasping, hissing scream as he slid to the floor, gave up the orange drink. The wiry character came out of his office on the run, coat off. He led a sucker right:. it was a feint and his left banged the side of my face. I missed a left to his gut because his blow knocked me backward, but I blocked another right and kicked him on the knee. He cursed, limped back till he hit a chair, sat down, rubbing his leg.

The side of my face was numb and when I took my hand, away it had blood—the smart bastard was wearing a heavy ring. Fatso was still moaning on the floor. I stepped away from his big feet as wiry gave me a hard look, said, “You're in trouble, kid, I'm a detective.”

“What trouble? I came in and before I can open my yap this lump starts pushing and swinging on me.”

Wiry reached for his back pocket. It looked too flat for a gun or knife but I told him, “Take it slow or you'll be on the floor too.”

He got a wallet out, flashed one of these gold private dick badges the state gives you with your license. He stood up, painfully, still rubbing his knee with his long left hand. “I said trouble and I mean it. You'd better come up with a good story and fast. What you doing here?”

“Maybe working my way through reform school. Put that hunk of gold plate away before you scratch yourself. I have a real one.” I pushed my coat back so he could see my badge on my belt, and part of my shoulder holster.

Fatty stopped moaning and stared up at me and then over at his chum, whose expression could best be called thoughtful. He said, “My name is Frank Flatts and I'm a licensed and bonded private investigator. I'm asking you to identify yourself.”

“Detective David Wintino, 201st Squad. That okay, investigator? Tell lardass to get up slowly and behave himself.” “I'd like to see your badge again.”

“Sure.” I held my coat open and he copied down my number on a phone pad, along with my name, asked, “What precinct was that again?”

“Two hundred and first. And this act makes me simply shake in my pants.”

“I'm within my legal rights in asking for identification,” Flatts said. “Is this an arrest?”

“You certainly are within your legal rights. And deliberately jostling a person might be within your rights too— except it's breaking the Penal Law.”

Flatts grinned, maybe he was relieved. He said, “So that's it. Come into my office and let's talk about this.”

“Your office is too small for the three of us to be comfortable. Talk here.”

Fatty got to his feet and sat down at his desk. Flatts limped over to the workshop, brought out a stool, asked, “Have a seat?”

“Why not? Let's keep things on a polite level,” I told him, laughing at myself for sounding like one of last night's bridge players. I sat on the stool and Flatts found a chair. I wiped my cheek with a handkerchief. It wasn't much of a cut but still bleeding.

Flatts said, “Sorry I bruised you, Wintino, but you came busting into my office and—”

“My story is I was pushed before I had a chance to say a word. Baldy is good at pushing.”

“This is my associate, Mr. Tasman. I think we should get down to cases, I have a busy afternoon ahead of me.”

“More women to jostle?” I asked.

“If you are referring to the young woman, that was an accident. I don't go in for rough stuff.”

“You don't? What was that, a feel?”

“Perhaps you don't realize it, few people do, but the modern private investigator is a long way removed from the popular version of the private eye, or even from the old-time investigator, I don't go in for rough stuff, or guard work, and rarely take a criminal case. We are essentially a business service. Our work is in the nature of research, we supply businessmen with information about their competitors. And we use the most advanced scientific methods. Electronics has replaced the gun, the—”

“Too warm for a lecture. What are you trying to sell me, Flatts?”

“Simply that striking you was the first time I've hit anybody since I was a college student. And the first time I've been hit—or rather kicked. I want you to clearly understand you're dealing with respectable businessmen not goons.”

“I knew that. That was some very respectable rough-shadowing you did put there.”

“Let me also enlighten you about the law. Section 7228 of the Penal Law was passed against pickpockets and specifically defines jostling as a crime only if it is done for the purpose of picking a pocket or purse. As for the young lady, we never saw her before she walked into me. I assumed it was an accident on her—”

“Stop it, you're getting my shoes dirty. You've been annoying her on the phone, making inquiries at her apartment house, and pushing her around on the street. I know all about the article she's writing and the four companies that hired you.”

Flatts gave me a cool smile. “I haven't the smallest idea of what you're talking about. Let me remind you again that making inquiries is not breaking any law. And I doubt if you can prove any of your other allegations. There's one more point I didn't reach in my lecture, as you so quaintly termed it. I couldn't operate in my business without a lot of connections. I'm not threatening you, understand, but you do look very young to be a detective. But in a uniform, pounding a beat, I'd say you would look far more natural. Now I'm asking you for the second time, are you here to arrest me?”

“I didn't even say I was here as a police officer. You pulled a badge first. Matter of fact I'm off duty. Let's say I'm here, at the moment, as a citizen who is a friend of Miss Henderson.”

Tasman suddenly spoke up, grunted, “Don't you know she's a Spick, her real name is Hondura?”

“Lardy, I don't like my friends called Spicks. And for a girl you claim you never saw before you certainly know a lot about her.” I stood up. “Let's stop the chatter. This isn't an official visit, although Miss Henderson has made a complaint with the precinct. If you annoy her once more I'll return and run you both in for disorderly conduct and/or jostling—let a judge determine the law.”

“The law states—” Flatts began. “You've already hit a cop.”

“In self-defense,” Flatts chimed in fast. “And I have a witness.”

“Even in self-defense it might not be healthy for you and your witness around the precinct house. I'm giving it to you straight: Stick to your phone taps and the rest of your 'legitimate' crap. Lay off Miss Henderson or I'll scramble your features.” I started for the door.

“Are you threatening me, Wintino?” Flatts called out. “Yeah. I'm telling you both to stop it or I'll work you over.”

Flatts cupped one ear. “What did you say?” “That I'll beat the slop out of you if you keep annoying Miss Henderson. Did you hear that or do you want a free sample?”

I turned toward him and he flicked his hand at the desk, must have turned on a switch, that cold smile engraved on his wise-guy face. The office was suddenly filled with a playback of our conversation. I was astonished at how shrill my voice sounded. I said loudly, above the recording, “It still goes. You'll be listening to that in a hospital!”

I headed for the door again as Flatts cut the playback, said, “I trust you have strong arches, Wintino.”

Tasman got to his feet as I passed him. I put my open hand against his big face and pushed, sending him back into his chair. I told him, “Don't bother to get up,” and walked out.

I was so angry I couldn't think straight—falling for a clumsy feint like that right hand. It wasn't two yet so I took the subway down to the moldy-domed monstrosity they call Headquarters Building, went up to Criminal Identification and got a yellow sheet on Sal Kahn. He didn't have much of a record. Collared in a raid on a dice joint in '26 and spent two months on Rikers Island. He'd been pinched once for simple assault, charge dismissed for lack of evidence. In '29 he'd been picked up as the owner of a speedboat riddled during a rumrunning chase up the Hudson, but never came up for trial. Of course the last rap was the shooting in 1930.

I walked along Centre Market Place, the narrow block behind Headquarters, window-shopped the gunsmith and police tailor stores in the ground floor of the tenements. Then just to say I'd been there, I went across the street to have coffee and a sandwich in Flanagan's, where the brass eats. There was a beefy-acting lieutenant who'd given us lectures on narcotics at Detective Training School sitting by himself. He motioned for me to come over. I was surprised he remembered my name—I couldn't think of his.

We chewed the fat for a while. I asked what was new on Wales and he said far as he knew nothing, they hadn't been able to pick up a single decent lead or even a thin motive. I asked if he'd ever heard of Data, Inc. and he hadn't. I told him a little about the run-in I had with them, but didn't mention hitting them.

He took a toothpick from his vest pocket and as he jabbed at his teeth he said, “Got to be careful with these birds, Dave. In their line they need pull, and not only around City Hall, but up in Albany and in Washington. You see, there isn't much work in the private snoop racket, so the ones that are able to get something going have to be able to supply all kinds of inside information or close shop. That means they must have connections. But you don't have to worry, the last thing these guys want is publicity. Be different if you belted the guy, but from what you tell me he's bluffing you. What you got there, a boil on your cheek?”

When I left Flanagan's I thought about visiting Uncle Frank, asking him to talk to his “rabbi,” as the boys called the club leaders—and I've never been able to figure if the slang name has an anti-Semitic whack or not. But I wasn't in any mood to argue with Frank about his job offer. In fact I didn't know what to do with myself: this Flatts guy made me restless—I had a feeling he might be able to put me back in uniform. My big mouth and that tape recording. Wales said I talked too much.

Wales—I had started out in the morning like a ball of fire and that had petered out. His watching the garage all those years had to mean something but I was stopped. Now if I could really shakedown his room, talk to everybody in the rooming house, I might come up with a lead. Fat chance of downtown letting me stick my nose in. Hell, maybe they hadn't even gone through Owens' house yet. Nuts, who was I to tell Central Bureau how to work? I'd really be acting like a kid.

I took the subway uptown and rang Rose's bell. After giving me the eye through the door peeper she let me in She was wearing a kind of purple cotton slack outfit that could have passed for pajamas. As always she gave me the feeling of a firecracker waiting for a match. We both sat on the couch and she asked if I'd seen what had happened and I told her about following the guy to Data, Inc., and that I thought she wouldn't be bothered any more. The couch was comfortable and I thought it was nice of Rose to dress for me, wear this faint perfume. And suddenly I felt very tired, all that silly roadwork, then rushing around Brooklyn, then running downtown. My head was tired from worrying so much, about Wales and about Mary and now about my job. I wanted to stop thinking for a while.

Rose fingered the cut on my cheek, her hands light and soothing as she washed it with some stuff. I told her not to bother and I was so comfortable I damn near dozed off. She told me, “Don't ever take chances like that again. You look so small, although I imagine you're tough enough to take care of yourself.”

“Don't worry, I can take care of myself.”

“I can't tell you how much I appreciate this. I don't know why I called you at home. But I was so angry and when they said you weren't at the police station, why I—”

“This is my day off,” I said, closing my eyes. Her perfume made Rose seem very close.

“Oh, I'm sorry. Why didn't you tell me? I never would have asked you to work.”

“Doesn't matter, I was stewing around the house anyway, wanted to get out,” I said, half-aloud. “Getting so I can't stand our place. My wife is always hitting on me. She doesn't like my being a cop.”

“She must be afraid you'll get hurt.”

“Guess that's part of it. But she doesn't like the hours, the pay, the kind of work. She wants me to have some hot-air office job. What she doesn't understand is my job has a kind of purpose and value no other job has. Even the cop just standing on the corner is doing something, a symbol, a warning. But maybe she's right, it hasn't a big future. She still thinks if you work hard you get ahead, make the big buck.”

Rose laughed. “And as the old joke goes, marry the boss's daughter.”

I tried to nod, but it was too much effort. “In my case I've already married the boss's niece. Her uncle has some crummy job for me in his joint. The thing is, Mary and me, we can't even talk about it without clawing. I don't know...” I kept mumbling on and on, sitting there with my head against the wall in a daydream, telling Rose about how I met Mary, her family, and all the rest of it. Must have been something I'd wanted to get off my chest, I talked and talked.

The next thing I knew she was shaking me gently. I sat up and opened my eyes. She was giving me the big eyes, an almost sad smile on her cute face. “Would you like something to drink?”

I shook my head and yawned, reached up to straighten my hair. “Heat must have me. Have I been dozing long?” My coat was wrinkled.

“About ten minutes. I have some beer, or would you rather have orange juice?”

“Orange juice will do the trick. I feel like a slob, spilling my troubles all over you.”

She went to her tiny refrigerator and poured two glasses of juice, squeezed a lime in them. “I don't mind. As a writer I'm curious about such problems.... The truth is we all actually enjoy hearing the other person's troubles. That enjoyment is the root of all gossip. I wish I could help you, could give you advice, but I'm hardly the one.”

Handing me a glass she sat down again. I said, “I didn't mean to-talk about it. Slipped out.”

“I'm not married, never have been, yet I can't understand what you told me. I suppose I have naive and romantic ideas about marriage, but for me a husband and a wife should be a separate little world of their own. Nothing on the outside should be able to touch that world. I'm not that simple I don't know poverty can shatter anything, but aside from real poverty, I can't picture anything penetrating this inner world of understanding. But to start with it has to be two-sided, a complete sense of give and take.”

I drank most of the juice. It was cold and the lime hit me like a shot, woke me up. “I think I get what you mean. And at times I tell myself I am inconsiderate, but then so is she. All boils down to my job. Maybe she's right about it not being the best job in the world for me, maybe I would be a whiz-bang at something else. But still, it's my job, it's the only thing I know and I like it. That's what she can't understand: it's more than a job to me, it's something I like. Would you care if your husband was a cop?”

She shook her head and leaned against the wall, resting the juice glass on that fine curve of her belly. “I wouldn't like him to.”

“Why?”

She was looking at me through half-shut eyes as she said, “Let's not go into my reasons now. But that wouldn't matter. This private world of understanding I think of, it would have to be a world of small compromises too. In short, he has to be the only man I want and I must be the only woman he wants, and I truly mean want. For such prizes one must make concessions. No, I wouldn't want my husband to be a hunter of men, a walking club, but if that is what he honestly wants and feels, well... there's that wonderful saying about we all can't be in step and each of us must march to the music he hears.”

“What makes you think cops are walking clubs?” I asked, finishing the juice and getting up.

“Let's not talk about that, we'll just get into an argument. I didn't mean it as anything personal—and I hate that stupid phrase. But to a colonial the police usually are...” She stood up and gave me the smile. “I don't want to argue with you. It would be rude; you've been so very nice to me—and nice is another bland word. But I honestly do appreciate all you've done for me.”

“I told those Data jerks I was acting as a friend not as a cop. That's for true—and don't think I'm making a pass—we are friends,” I said, thinking how much I'd like to make a pass at her.

“Thank you. All peoples should be friends and—” “All peoples is a crowd, I want to be your friend.” “I hope we will always be friends, truly. Only... I should warn you... life has been simple for you, but for me, raised in a colony, even though I was fortunate enough to be island-rich, my father was the editor of an island newspaper, I am full of many frustrations and deep hatreds you cannot understand or... God, don't let me get started on that. And not with you. You have been wonderful. Yes, we can be friends.”

“Okay. And my first friendly act will be to shove off. I'll keep in touch, and if you have any more trouble, phone me at once.”

“All right. And thank you again—my friend.” We shook hands at the door. Downstairs I started walking toward the precinct house. I wanted to get the latest dope on Wales, tell Reed the stuff I'd dug up in Brooklyn. I'd slipped Rose this big speech about what a swell deal it was being a cop—and if these Data clowns had pull I could be on my way out as of now. Bet Mary would love it if I had to come to Uncle Frank. Forget all that.... Rose, a sweet bundle of fire, living by herself, maybe waiting for a— “Hey, Junior.”

I turned to see a squad car at the curb, Landon and Wilson grinning at me. I didn't realize it was after four already. Walking over I asked, “What's the action?”

“Nothing too much. Crazy storekeeper phoned in he'd been stuck with a couple of queer ones. Stupid bastard never saw one of the old-fashioned, large-size dollar bills before. Somebody must have found an old sock treasure. What happened to your face?”

“Nicked myself while shaving. Anything on Wales new?”

Landon shook his head. “What you shave with, a broken bottle?”

“You mean there's another way to shave? What's on Wales?”

“Nothing new that I've heard of. Seems to be one of those tough ones, no witnesses, just a lot of nothing. Reed's been calling your house.”

Wilson said, “I did hear something—the Brooklyn cops don't think you're old enough to shave.”

“Must be tough on this heap having to ride your dead weight around.” I turned to Landon. “Know what Reed wants?”

“Something to do with Mrs. Owens. We'll drive you to the precinct.”

I wasn't going to face, any more ribbing on my own time. “I'll phone him, if he's still there.”

“He's there,” Landon said, giving Wilson the nod to drive on and the big jerk had to call out as a parting shot, “Next time you want to go to Brooklyn, let me know and I'll go along to vouch for your age.”

I phoned Reed from a drugstore, told him, “This is Dave Wintino, Lieutenant. Landon says you've been calling my house. Sorry I wasn't there. I've been out—”

“What's to be sorry about? You're off duty, you can be any place you want. Mrs. Owens called, said she wants you to call her.”

“Me?”

“That's what she said. Must be something personal. Dave, if you speak to her, don't say anything about Wales' gun having killed her husband. Central Office Bureau hasn't let that out yet. Landon said he told you.”

“I understand. Lieutenant, on the Owens-Wales murders, I was out in Brooklyn and—”

“I know you were out in Brooklyn,'“ Reed said, and I could feel the grin on his face.

“The point is, I think if we dig into the Sal Kahn murder rap, we'll find that—”

“Dave,” Reed cut in, his voice tired, “Central has the best men on the force, they say so themselves. This is their wagon and they'll know how to pull it, without any free advice.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Just be careful what you tell Mrs. Owens.”

“Yes, sir.” I damn near slammed the receiver through the phone. I dialed Mrs. Owens and a crisp female voice asked, “A-ha?”

“Mrs. Owens, please.”

“This is Miss Owens, her daughter. Who's this?”

“Detective Wintino. Mrs. Owens called me.”

“Oh, yes, Ma wants to see you. It's... uh... rather personal and important. Could you come up to our place, Mr. Wintino, now?”

I glanced at my watch: four-fifty. “Well, I'm due home for supper. Let me check with my wife and call you back,” I told her, thinking I must sound like the henpecked husband.

“We'd appreciate it if you could drop over soon as possible. Any time this afternoon or tonight you can make it.”

“I'D call you back.”

We hung up and I dialed Mary's office, knowing I'd get hell. Still-, if I got to the Owens house right away, I might be able to be home by six-thirty or seven. Soon as Mary got on the phone she asked, “Where have you been all afternoon? I've called the house at least half a dozen times.”

“Out checking a few things.”

“That's ginger-dandy! On your day off you have to—”

“It's my day off so what diff does it make to you if I'm checking, sleeping, taking in a movie, or watching pugs in a gym?” I asked.

“It would be just too bad if you spent a few minutes of the afternoon seeing Uncle Frank. I suppose you were too busy for that.”

You suppose right. I'll see him tomorrow. You alone in the office, talking so loud?”

“Now you see him tomorrow and no more stalling. I'm glad you called. Dave, I have to type up the minutes of a big sales conference. I won't be home till nine. There's enough in the box for your supper.”

“I'll manage. Mean you get stuck on your job too?”

“Indeed I do,” Mary said in an oversweet voice. “But I get time and a half for it and two dollars for supper money. Drop that in the suggestion box—if your wonderful Police Department has such a thing.”

“I'll pass it on to the Commissioner at once—maybe he's on the gate.”

“Davie, there really isn't much in the box, just hamburger. Better bring in something for yourself.”

“I'll eat,” I said, not wanting to tell her I was broke.

“Want me to bring anything in?” Mary's voice was just plain sweet now.

“Some ice cream and ginger ale, Babes. We'll watch TV and have sodas.”

“Will do. See you at nine.”

She hung up and I counted my change. All the fares and phoning left me with seventy cents. I could go up to the station and maybe borrow a buck, along with a lot of ribbing.

Instead of calling Mrs. Owens back I walked six blocks to the crosstown bus and rode over to the Bronx, then up Third Avenue and walked to their house. It was almost six when I rang their bell after drying my sweaty face and combing my hair and straightening my shirt, using the window of a parked car for a mirror. A tall young woman wearing corny black and gold toreador pants that proved she had thin legs, and an interesting suede beach jacket, opened the door. Her face was tanned and kind of horsy, with brown hair combed straight back and down to her shoulders. Susan Owens didn't look much like the photo I'd seen: her face was still plain but she was paying a lot of attention to it, and there wasn't a trace of plumpness about her. I got the feeling she'd done about the best she could with what she had. There was another change from the picture: everything about her, the eyes, the thin figure, even the clothes and the odd sandals on her big feet gave me a feeling of cunning—a sharpshooter all the way.

I said, “I'm Dave Wintino, Miss Owens.”

“Oh—I thought you were going to call. Well, they must be making detectives from a different mold this season. Come on in. Ma, your detective is here.”

I grinned at that “your detective” as I followed her into the living room and those long legs sure took big steps. There was a pigskin overnighter covered with plane stickers against one wall. Mrs. Owens' moon face looked a little tense as she came in from the kitchen, drying her hands on her apron. “Mr. Wintino, I hope we didn't put you to no trouble by... What happened to your face?”

“Bruised it horsing around.”

“Put a hot piece of raw potato on it soon as you get home. This is my daughter Susan. Came in from South. America by plane this morning.”

“I recognized her from the picture on the piano,” I said politely.

“I hope not,” Susan said. “I looked like a freshly stuffed yokel when that damn thing was taken.” She had a fast way of talking, like a pitchman.

“Do sit down,” Mrs. Owens said. “This has been such a hectic day for me. Susan coming in before daybreak, and then hearing about poor Al. I don't understand it, killed in his own bed. And the papers said he had a large amount of money on him. Do you think it was the same robber?”

“Hard to say. Downtown is handling both cases now.” I sat in one of the old leather chairs. Mrs. Owens sat on the couch and the daughter leaned against-the wall, studying me. When I looked at her she sort of arched her chest as if to prove she wasn't skinny all over. She said, “That robbery angle sounds like a lot of pure slop to me.”

“Susan! I don't know where you've picked up such language. Third time I've had to call you on your speech.”

“Ma, stop stalling. You want me to tell him?”

Mrs. Owens rubbed her hands on her apron again. “I thought... that is, you see, Mr. Wintino, a most surprising... well... we...”

“You look like a dancehall John to me, Wintino,” Susan cut in, her voice flat and hard, “but you're a detective and so was Pop. And Ma has confidence in you. There's something damn fishy about a pinch-penny like Al Wales having a bankroll on him... and then what we found today. I'm going to be frank with you, because Ma liked your face, she thinks you'll understand.”

“What do you want me to understand?”

“It's like this, we don't want to do anything shady, or that might hinder you in finding the killers. At the same time four grand isn't anything to toss away and if it turns out we can keep the dough, I don't want it tied up as evidence for the next hundred years.”

“What four—” I began.

“Hold still for a hot second,” Susan told me, darting out of the room, and I mean darting: those long stems could move.

Mrs. Owens gave me a sickly smile. “We want to do the right thing, what poor Ed would have wanted us to do. I wanted to take it to the local station house at once, but Susan thought it would be just as well to ask your advice. Goodness, that girl has changed so I hardly knew her, but then, I suppose being away, on her own in a strange country, well, there have to be some changes. She has a smart head about these things and four thousand dollars is quite a sum. We found it this afternoon.”

“You found four thousand bucks?” I asked as Susan came bounding into the room carrying a large dresser drawer. It was an old plain one, cracked in several places. She placed it upside-down on the living room table as Mrs. Owens reached over to yank a lace covering out of the way. Susan put a small pile of fifty-dollar bills on the drawer and a savings bankbook with the word “canceled” cut across it. Hunks of dirty white tape were clinging to the bottom of the drawer. I had a feeling they were setting up a show for me.

“I was going through Pop's things, you know, getting them ready to throw out or sell. I had this drawer out too far and it nearly fell. When I grabbed it, I felt the money and bankbook taped to the bottom. I didn't know it was money—it was in a plain white envelope—till I tore the envelope open and saw the green. This is what we want to see you about—four grand and this bankbook. It's a Brooklyn savings bank and in the name of Francis Parker. As you'll see the account was opened this March with five bucks. A week later there was a deposit of ten dollars. On April first there's a withdrawal of four dollars, and on April fifth a deposit of four thousand dollars and seventy-five cents. The entire account was closed out on April twenty-second, about two weeks ago. Take a look at the bankbook.”

She handed me the book as she nervously lit a cigarette. I said, “You shouldn't have touched things. Where's the envelope?”

“I got so excited when I saw the money, I tore the envelope open. It was all in pieces, so I threw it away.”

“Where did you throw it?”

“In the garbage can. It's gone.”

“Great!”

“What's so important about an old envelope? At first I thought it was a letter, but when I saw the bills, well, naturally I ripped it open. Told you the envelope tore. Nothing on it, a plain white envelope.”

“I was thinking of prints,” I said, opening the book. There was a “ck” next to the $4,000.75 deposit, meaning it had been made by check. It was a downtown Brooklyn bank. “Ever hear of Francis Parker before?”

“Never. Neither has Ma and she's sure Pop never mentioned such a name,” Susan said, blowing twin clouds of smoke out of her sharp nose. “Now look, we don't have one idea where this came from and we're not trying to hide anything—that's why you're here. At the same time we don't want this folding money lost in the shuffle. It was found here and possession is nine-tenths' ownership.”

She was staring at me with cool eyes. I could see Mrs. Owens mentioning Ed had said something about getting that place in California soon and Susan Owens going to work like a ferret. This fitted in with Wales hunting around the abandoned garage for dough... except that was ten years ago and this account was less than ten weeks old. I asked, “Where's the other bankbooks?”

“This is the only one,” Mrs. Owens said. “Except a joint account Ed and I have over on Third Avenue. We have $567 there.”

“Mr. Owens have a safe deposit vault, did you see any odd keys about?” I asked.

“Look, look, Pa rarely had one buck to rub against another. That I know. And I looked carefully, under everything. This is all I found,” Susan said.

“I know you did. Mrs. Owens, you told me your husband said he might be able to get a farm in California soon. Are you positive he didn't have any money hidden away, never spoke of any money?”

“He didn't. Why poor Ed could just about make ends meet since he retired and—”

“This might be the string to your husband's killing. I have to know the truth about this money,” I said, making my voice hard.

“Do we look like rich people?” the old lady asked, her eyes beginning to water.

“Looks don't mean a thing. Did Ed at any time in the last dozen years talk about striking big money?”

“No. Never!” The tears came.

“What you doing to Ma?” Susan barked. “I told—”

“Shut up!” I bent toward Mrs. Owens, said softly, “I'm not trying to be rough, but in light of other things I know about Wales, this can be a real lead. Tell me again that Ed Owens never had or ever mentioned any big money.”

“He never did. We were always counting each dollar. Ed never gambled unless he had an extra dollar.”

“Sorry I blew up. I believe you,” I said. And I did. While she was drying her face with her apron I stared at Susan, who gave it right back to me, eye-to-eye stuff. I asked, “What do you want me to do? Don't expect me to go on the hook, this is evidence and I won't—”

“How do we know if it's evidence or not?” Susan asked evenly. “It may have nothing to do with the case. The only fact we know for sure is we found four grand and a canceled bankbook in Pa's dresser.”

“What do you want me to do about it?” I asked.

“I thought you'd—” Mrs. Owens started.

“We're playing it straight with you, Mr. Wintino,” Susan cut in. “You were one of the detectives on the case—we're telling you about it. But Ma felt that since you're new and not boiled in oil like some of the old-timers, you'd understand what four grand means to a cop's widow scrimping along on a lousy pension.”

“Sure I understand. But I'm not going to hang myself. I have to turn this in.”

“Nobody is asking you not to; if you have to turn the money in, you have to. Suppose we hold on to it till tomorrow? I have a list of the bill numbers. You take the bankbook, see what you can find out. For all we know maybe one of Pa's nags finally came in. We're not leaving town—if we didn't want to play straight we could have kept mum about all this. If by tomorrow afternoon you feel this has something to do with the case, we'll hand it over. If you ask for it now, we'll get tough too, force you to get a court order. There, that gives you an out.”

I grinned at her with admiration—she was real smart, used her dome for more than growing hair. This could put me in the saddle, if it was the break in the case. It might be what I needed. Not only was I holding out the dope I learned this morning, but those Data clowns might be melting my badge by now. Of course if this turned out to be a wrongo, or if the Owenses were playing me for a sucker... Hell, they could only hang me once.

“What's it going to be?” Susan asked.

“I'll play along till tomorrow afternoon. But I want a list of the bills, the bankbook, and a sample of your father's writing, his signature if you have it handy. I'll have to call the precinct, tell them something. If my lieutenant is there, you're out of luck. If not, I called and covered myself—sort of. You'll have to take that gamble.”

“If you want it that way. I'll tell anybody about a court order.”

“They won't need a court order,” I said, looking around for the phone.

“Out there, on the hall table,” Susan said, pointing a skinny finger. “You tell them they'll sure need something good to get this four grand out of my hands. And don't forget the part about I'm not trying to obstruct justice but neither am I going to play potsy with our dough or—”

I told her to shut up again, and dialed the squad room. Landon answered, said Reed was gone for the day. I told him, “I'm over at Mrs. Owens' house. She's found something that might be a lead, a canceled savings bankbook that—”

“Will you never stop playing detective?” Landon asked, I tried not to sound relieved over the phone as I said, “Well, Reed knows I'm here. Tell him I'll check on it in the morning and be in touch with him. It may be important.”

“Everything is important to you except your own time. When will you learn this isn't our case anymore?”

“You know Mrs. Owens phoned me What am I supposed to do, tell her to ask the switchboard to connect her downtown? Just leave a message for Reed that I called and will be in touch tomorrow.”

“I'll do that, Mr. Holmes,” Landon said, hanging up.

Susan smiled. “What's the matter, the lads afraid they'll overwork themselves?”

“Busy on routine stuff. But I'm not busy, that's why I'm doing this. I'll work it my way. You know I won't be able to move till morning, when the bank opens I'll phone you as soon as I can. If the money is evidence, I don't want any tears or arguments about it.”

“I'm a cop's daughter, I wouldn't be so stupid as to beat the law. And if this will help in any way to find who did Pa in, I wouldn't hesitate a second to—”

“I know, you're a doll.”

Her eyes seemed to laugh at me as she said, “That's not nice talk, Buster. I might give you a box of cigars if things come out right.”

“Now you're talking out of turn. I don't smoke,” I said, as we stepped back into the living room. I pocketed the bankbook. “Get me something with Mr. Owens' signature, and the list of bill numbers. Also an envelope. Make it two envelopes.”

“Have the list in my room—some job copying them all down,” Susan said, dashing out of the living room.

I was about to say it must have been a labor of love but kept my trap shut and asked Mrs. Owens, “Do you remember much about the time Mr. Owens and Mr. Wales arrested Sal Kahn, sent him to the chair?”

“I remember they were promoted for it, made detective second grade. Ed and Al had their pictures in the papers. My, that was a long time ago.”

“Yeah. Did Mr. Owens ever mention that collar, say anything at all about it, during the last couple of years?”

She shook her fat head. “No. He rarely talked about police work. Always said a good cop left his work at the station.”

Susan came back like a nervous wind, handed me the list of serial numbers and dropped two large envelopes on the table. I picked a couple of fifties from the pile for a spot check as Susan said, “You have a real trusting nature.”

“Just careful.” The bills checked with the list. “Put the money in one of the envelopes and don't play with it. Speaking of money, Mrs. Owens, did the late Mrs. Wales ever mention money? Did she seem well fixed?”

“Indeed not. They lived on the upper West Side in a cheap apartment house. On the top floor. Not having children they should have been able to live better but Dora Wales was always in poor health. A wonderfully kind woman. She and Al were very happy. He never once complained about her delicate condition or the doctor bills.”

“That's a fact,” Susan said, picking up the money and giving it a silent count. “She was no bargain, always in bed sick, but they seemed to blend together.”

I thought of Rose and her little man-and-wife private world.

“Never saw them have a fight,” the old lady went on. “And when poor Dora took real sick back in 1949, Al saw to it she had only the best, even though he knew it was hopeless. They must have saved during the years—like I said they never lived well, and all their savings went for these big doctors.”

“Recall the name of any of them?” I asked, keeping an eye on Susan's hands and the money.

Mrs. Owens turned her moon puss toward the ceiling in thought. “Yes, I do. Because I once had to take Dora over to Park Avenue for X-ray treatments when Al was stuck on a case. It was Seventy-ninth and Park and I remember because it was the first time I was ever in that rich section, and the doctor, he had the same name as the ballplayer, Di Maggio.”

“You and Mr. Owens and the Waleses were always on good terms, weren't you?”

“Thicker than mud,” Susan put in, having finished counting and satisfied I hadn't palmed a bill. She put the money in one of the envelopes. “Only thing ever separated them was distance, we in the Bronx and they downtown.”

I took the envelope, sealed it, and wrote across the flap, “Keep this shut and don't finger the money, might still raise prints on the bills.” I gave it back to Susan. “I'm not kidding, don't open this envelope and don't lose it.” I took the second envelope and using my nails, peeled the remains of the tape from the drawer, dropped them in the envelope and pocketed it. “Might get prints from this too, if you haven't smudged it too much.” I took the drawer, looked around, and put it behind the piano, “Leave this here, don't let anybody touch it. More possible prints.”

“And whose prints do you expect to find?” Susan asked.

“If I knew I wouldn't bother taking them. Remember, don't touch the money and—”

“You've told us all that,” Susan said. She pulled a card from her pocket. “You're so busy being a hot-shot cop, you forgot this. Pa used to be a joiner, this is one of his lodge cards, with his signature.”

I said thanks as I put the card in my wallet. There was a moment of awkward silence which the old lady broke with, “I was making supper. We'd love to have you join us, Mr. Wintino.”

“Thank you but my wife is waiting supper for me,” I said, anxious to get going. “It may be the police will be up tonight or tomorrow, routine questions about Wales. An official visit. If they come, tell them exactly what you told me, give them the money if they want it.”

“We certainly will,” Mrs. Owens said. “And I'm grateful for your interest in us. So much has happened today, I'll be glad to get supper over with and take to my bed. I'll be able to sleep now, with Susan home.”

“I'll see Wintino to the door,” Susan told the old lady. At the door she slouched against the wall and was still tall enough to look down at me as she said, “Ma was right about you, you're okay in my book.”

“Why, because I told you to shut up?”

“You're the way I like people—hard. If you weren't married I could spend the night telling you about Venezuela. There's a country—all one big angle.”

“Maybe some other time,” I said, patting her hand as I went out.

On the bus going downtown I kept feeling the bankbook in my pocket like it was uranium, and thinking about Susan Owens. I've never been much of a lover boy. I wasn't shy, but about the time I was old enough to get real interested I was training for the ring, then the army kept me on ice for a couple of years, and then marrying Mary when I was nineteen took me out of circulation. So it was a surprising shock knowing I could spend the night with Susan; even gave me a kind of reverse-English bang... because I didn't want to in the least.

Thursday Night

After a fast shower I put on an old silk ring robe and fried the hamburger, and then had a bowl of cereal because there wasn't anything else to eat in the house. I considered trying to get prints on the hunks of tape, but put the envelope away in my shirt drawer. I'd only mess the tape up and spoil it for the lab. Besides, I knew whose prints I'd find.

I stretched out on the couch and waited for Mary, trying to juggle the pieces of the Owens-Wales puzzle till they made even a hazy picture.

Guess I was damn tired—all I came up with was a headache. Trouble was, nothing made sense. Owens wouldn't tape four grand under a drawer unless there was something wrongo about the money. Or was he merely hiding it from his wife? Hell, it wasn't a few bucks, it, was four grand. Where did he get it from? And Wales with eleven grand on him. One thing was certain, the money had to be the key to the murders. Suppose the two of them had a racket? But what kind of a racket would pay off fifteen grand? Could it be hooked up with a man who was electrocuted a quarter of a century ago? With an old garage torn down years ago?

Above all, why would Wales shoot Owens? Or was I screwy on the garage angle: maybe this was some brand-new racket they were working with the bond house? That didn't add, if they were swiping bonds the loss would be known immediately. Could be that Owens was carrying the eleven grand and Wales wanted it. They could have argued over a payoff and Wales gunned Owens when he refused to split? But hell, a payoff for what? Or was there a third joker in the deck who used Wales' gun, maybe without Wales even knowing it? Still, you don't let a guy take your gun like that, even borrow it. But if there was a third party, could Wales have killed Owens and then was shot himself when he brushed off the third guy? Then why was the dough left on Wales—another “amateur” who panicked at the sight of a stiff? Nuts, no “amateur” would come with a silencer. Still, it had to be somebody who knew Wales' habits, knew he'd be sleeping off a toot—or was the killer plain lucky?

Odd the four grand showed up after Susan Owens came home from South America. Maybe it had nothing to do with Owens? Then why was she talking, or was this a front for another deal? A hard doll like Susan with a mind like a knife could be involved in almost anything. Ought to find what she's really doing down in S.A. And there must be more dough around the Owens house. Damn, I couldn't do this alone; somebody should be digging into Owens' past, another team working on anybody and everybody who ever knew Wales, and then there was a check needed on all safe deposit vaults.... If they'd only put the whole force on this we'd have it licked in a day. The big brass downtown in Central hadn't even searched Owens' house!

Wales and his sick wife... must be tough living all your life with a sickly woman. Crazy thing about these murders, seems to be so many loose ends, you'd think if we keep pulling something will give and unravel the whole mess. You'd pass Owens or Wales on-the street and you'd never make them for anything but a couple of half-dead codgers waiting for a pine box, and all the time they were hip-deep in something shady. And ex-cops too. Damn, how do I know it was shady? They were cops, why should I judge them? For all I know they might have got some market tips while delivering bonds, made a killing. Have to check that.... But why would Owens keep it from his wife, open a phony account? Round and round we go....

Mary came in. She put the ginger ale and ice cream on the table, turned on the TV as she started to undress. She acted as if I wasn't there, never even asked if I wanted to see TV or not. As she undressed and watched some crummy cowboy movie, she talked.

“Dave, it was kicks to be even typing up the reports of this sales conference. Fantastic the way some people make their minds pay off. This wasn't a routine sales talk, mostly it was concerned with a new promotion idea, and oh so clever—a nationally televised quiz program and in certain boxes of this soap powder there will be parts that form a jigsaw puzzle, which in turn gives a strong clue to the jackpot question on the TV quiz. You see the tie-up, the sensational audience participation level? After the jackpot question is reached, anybody at home can phone in the answer— if they've found the clue in the soap boxes—and win a fortune, a double jackpot. Otherwise the studio audience gets a crack at the jackpot. Make the sodas while I wash up, Dave. There's a show on at nine-thirty I want to catch. Don was talking about it. Very literary.”

I made a couple of sodas and she came out of the bathroom and sat beside me. “I was so absorbed in my work, didn't realize how tired I am. What happened to your face, Dave?”

“I was running in the park and slipped.”

“Running in the park! Honestly, Dave, you act like a kid. Think I'll open the bed and we can watch TV laying down. It amazes me how those idea men and women can come up with such wonderful things. Out of thin air they dream up a show that...”

I finished the soda and got the couch into a bed and we stretched out. Mary was still on this cleverness kick. Then she got interested in some junk on TV about a movie star who realizes that despite his thousands of fan letters he's a lonely, lonely man....

About then I dozed off, thoughts flashing through my noggin like a newsreel. I saw Owens dead in the alley, Al Wales sitting shriveled up in the muster room, an empty wreck of a garage in Brooklyn, Susan Owens arching-her back as she leaned against the wall, the bankbook waiting like a surprise package, and Rose's faint perfume, the touch of her fingers on my cheek.

Friday Morning

I awoke before Mary, showered and shaved, shook her awake as I put the coffee on. In a one-room apartment the order of getting dressed is important if you have to make time. The cut on my face looked better and I covered it with a Band-Aid.

Toweling herself after her shower Mary called out, “Where are you off to so early?”

“Checking on a few things.”

“Checking, digging, checking! It's your day off. Why don't you go to a movie?”

“Maybe I will. Want any eggs?”

She pinched her belly. “One egg, no toast or bacon—I'm beginning to spread. I suppose during the course of your being a busybody you won't have time to see Uncle Frank? You promised you would.”

“I plan to see him. I've got news for you, I'm a big boy now, know how to handle my off days.”

Mary gave me what could have passed for a tiny sneer. “Are you a big boy, Dave?”

I was too interested in the bankbook to get excited. I poured the juice and coffee as she slipped into her underwear and stockings, came over to the bridge table I'd set up. I stopped her, ran my hand over her thin shoulders. “Don't you kiss your husband anymore?”

“I don't see you rushing to kiss your wife. I'm in a hurry.”

“Oh, come on, Mary.”

“Oh, for... Stop acting like a jerk,” she said, pushing me away. “Grow up.”

“Would I be real grown if I invented a transparent box top or a postal-card box top, something to delight your Madison Avenue scouts?”

“Don't start... That postal-card top makes sense, built-in consumer response. Merely tear off and mail in... have to tear off the top of the box anyway. Never heard of it being done before. I'll suggest this the next time we have a box-top campaign.”

I gave up: sat down and started eating. I borrowed a couple of bucks from Mary before she left, washed the dishes. Then I dressed, wearing a plain conservative tie. I found Dr. Di Maggio on Park Avenue in the phone book and walked up there.

It was a ground-floor apartment in a swank building. A neat-looking brunette nurse opened the door and said, “Dr. Di Maggio's hours are from eleven to—”

“Is he in?” I asked, flashing my badge.

“Why... uh... please have a seat. He doesn't like to be disturbed now, studying his patients' charts and... One moment.” She went into another room, closing the door.

Nothing like a badge to make people jump. The waiting room was like most such rooms: the chairs looking as if too many people had sat on them, the magazines worn from impatient fingering. A few seconds later she motioned me into an inner office.

The doctor was a little man, sort of hunched over, and his thick uncombed gray hair made him look top-heavy. He had heavy features that crowded his big face and there were thick folds of skin running around his bull-neck. His voice was strong and clear, gave me an impression of youth, as he asked, “What does the Police Department want of me?”

“I'm Detective Dave Wintino, 201st Precinct Squad. Perhaps you read in the papers about an Albert Wales being killed two days ago?”

“I don't recall. I haven't time for such news. What has that to do with me, Detective Wintino? Italiano?”

I said in Italian, “Yes, my father is from Bari.”

“I like to see young Italians in such jobs,” he said. Then he switched to English and asked again, “What has all this to do with me?”

“In 1949 Wales' wife Dora was a patient of yours. I understand she was operated on, received a lot of medical treatment before she died. I'd like to know how much Mr. Wales paid for all this.”

“A doctor's records are confidential.”

“I know that,” I said in Italian. “I assume you wish to cooperate with the police.”

Dr. Di Maggio shrugged. “Enough of the old tongue. Of course I wish to help but what would a doctor's bill, assuming she was a patient of mine in 1949, have to do with a murder of several days ago?”

“A large sum of money was found on Wales. I'm interested in knowing if he had a lot of money back in '49.”

“I can see no harm. Let me look at my files,” the doctor said, crossing the room to a closet door. He was wearing old slippers. The closet was almost as large as Rose's room with several file cabinets against one wall. For a second the doctor turned and stared at me, then opened a file drawer. Maybe he figured me for an income tax snoop.

He said, “Come here, young man. No sense in my taking the file out. Yes, I did have a patient named Mrs. Dora Wales. Started treating her in September, 1948. She had a malignant growth. I gave her a course of X-ray treatments. As to her medical history, she was operated on the following April, sent to a private hospital for—”

“What did all this cost, Doc?” I asked, leaning against the doorway, my notebook out.”

“A famous specialist was brought in, at the request of Mr. Wales....” He bent over a card, trying to read something in the dim light, “Ah, yes, I see that Mr. Wales was also a member of the police force. I do recall the case now. Although I told Mr. Wales it was hopeless he insisted upon every possible treatment. The constant hope of the layman. However you are only interested in the costs.... My fees over a period of three months amounted to eleven hundred dollars.”

“How about the other expenses, hospitals, specialists, all that?”

“I cannot give you an exact amount. However with the various specialists, the private rooms and nurses, I'd say Mr. Wales spent between five and six thousand dollars.”

“Would he have to pay that all at once?”

“Yes. I note here he had Mrs. Wales taken in a private ambulance down to Baltimore for examination. That would be most expensive.”

“Thanks, Doc. That's all I wanted to know,” I said wondering if downtown had checked the banks for any other accounts Wales may have had. Hell, that would be the first thing they did. I took out the newspaper snap of Wales, showed it to the doc. “This is Mr. Wales. Can you remember anything else about him?”

“Frankly I do not remember the face, but then hundreds of faces pass through my office every month. I'm sorry I can't be of much assistance.”

“You've given me exactly what I wanted. Thank you.”

As I walked out he said “Good-by” in Italian and waved.

I walked over to Lexington Avenue and took the subway to Brooklyn, excitement mounting in me. It was a small savings bank and the manager looked as if he'd just been plucked from a fireside, a little on the sleepy side. I'd give odds he was wearing one of those old-fashioned, detachable, hard collars. He gave me the usual song and dance about it being most “irregular” to give out the info I wanted. I told him it was also “irregular” to kill ex-cops, and when I showed him the news clippings on the murders, gave him the co-operation pitch, he warmed up. I was in a small sweat that he would call Headquarters to double-check me, but he didn't.

From his records and the code number of the $4,000.75 check on the deposit slip he told me it was drawn on the Capital Exchange Bank & Trust but he had no way of knowing which branch. Without telling them why, I showed both pictures to the tellers and a tall, slick-looking colored woman said she was “pretty sure” Owens was Francis Parker, claimed she remembered him because the amount was “such a large one" when he closed out his account. That didn't mean much, Owens' picture was an old snap.

While I checked the Brooklyn address Francis Parker had given when he opened the account—and found it to be as phony as I expected—the manager compared Parker's signature card with Ed Owens' lodge card. We didn't have to be handwriting experts to see they were the same—a cramped way of writing “a” and “e.”

After thanking the manager and asking him to keep it quiet, I went back to downtown Manhattan, to the head office of the Capital Bank & Trust, and ran into trouble. I was bucked from one stuffed shirt official to another, each insisting on a court order or a note from the D.A. But I kept repeating, “The solution of the murders of two police officers may depend upon this information,” and finally I landed in the office of the top banana. He was a plump little joker with a butterball face clear as a baby's rear, a pointed waxed mustache, and a good gray wig that took me a lot of minutes to make. I was astonished—he looked like the bankers you see in the movies.

He examined my badge as if it was a work of art, said, “I don't see any harm in helping you, Detective. However if we have such a check, perhaps we'll have to notify the signer that we have given you the information. I'll see what our legal department has to say. First we'll see if there is such a check. Four thousand dollars and seventy-five cents —that's a help, an odd amount, and drawn to a Francis Parker sometime around the first of last month.”

“It was deposited on April 5.”

“Then we paid out the money on the sixth or seventh. Take some time, at least twenty minutes,” he said, getting his secretary on the intercom phone, giving her the information. Then he leaned back in his big chair and gave me a happy look as he said, “As it happens I'm a rabid detective story fan. Read a book a night, best way I know to relax. Only thing I liked about F.D.R., he was a detective fan too. Now I've always wanted to ask a real detective...”

Damn if this character didn't tell me about a dozen screwy plots, asking me this and that as though it was a quiz program. I couldn't come up with a single correct answer and he looked disappointed. Finally I said, “Look, in a book or a movie the crime is rigged because the writer invents all the angles—usually in favor of the crook.”

“Nonsense, these books prove crime doesn't pay.”

“No, sir, the writer, like most other people, thinks he can outsmart the police. He's showing off, saying this is how I could do the crime if I wanted to—despite the righteous ending tagged on the last page. In a real crime, you have to run down a thousand dead leads, like I'm doing, to get to the one that will break the case.”

“But then you have the use of the finest labs, many men, to facilitate your work, whereas the private eye has only his wits,” he said as if letting me in on a secret.

I went along with the game, trying not to laugh at this big executive who sounded like a comic book reader. “Let me give you a tip, labs can help but there's still nothing been invented good as a stoolie. This honor among thieves is strictly for the birds—and the books. You'll always find guys anxious to sell out for a ten-buck bill. And to process a clue in the lab takes time, but one word from a stoolie is the fastest short cut to the solution,” I said, wondering how soon I'd luck up on a guy or two in the know and out on parole, get me a couple of stools.

“Stoolies?” the bank man said, disgust on his fat face. “That seems an ugly, unfair way to—”

His secretary came in and placed a slip of paper before him. She was one of these tall, classy-looking babes, especially in the legs. Big boy picked up his phone and went into a long conversation with somebody—probably in the legal department. This somebody kept advising him not to give out the information. My detective fan kept countering with, “I'm not questioning your knowledge of the law, Maxwell, but we are helping the police.... Sure, but it's part of the bank's duty to the public.... Of course I don't want a lawsuit. All right, I'll come down to your office.”

He stood up as he told me, “Our legal boys lean toward the conservative side, naturally. They say we could find ourselves in a lawsuit and at the wrong end of some publicity by giving you this information. You wait here. I'll be back in five or ten minutes.” He gave me a popeyed stare as he walked out.

He was okay, the slip of paper was still on his desk. The check had been dated April 2 and signed by an Edwin Wren of Wren & Company, a depositor in the bank's midtown branch. The name hit a tiny bell and I leafed through my notebook—Wren & Company was one of the electrical companies Rose Henderson was exposing. And my hunch began to grow cold, it was like adding pies and snakes—it couldn't be What possible connection could there be between Owens and Rose? Yet here it was, unless the bank had made a mistake, and I had to chance that they didn't. Anyway, I sure couldn't ask.

My banker who was having a romance with private eyes waddled back in while I was thinking this over. “Sad news,” he said happily, sitting behind his desk. “Our lawyers advise against giving out the information. I'm sorry. I think it's nonsense but I'm not a legal eagle.” He raised the slip of paper high, neatly tore it in quarters, and dropped it in his basket, winking at me like a kid as he did so.

“Tough, but rules are rules,” I said, rolling with the gag and winking back. “Thank you for your time.” I headed for the door.

He called out, “Be sure to tell the department they'll require a court order to secure the information.”

I nodded, considered asking if he was sure about the signer of the check, and walked out. Hell, I couldn't put him on a spot.

It was noon when I hit the bricks and the street was jammed. I dropped into a drugstore and found Wren & Company in the phone book—they were in the mid-fifties on the West Side. It was hot and I was thirsty and figured I'd have lunch first, but when I saw the mob scene at the soda counter I took a subway uptown. Could be Mr. Wren didn't go out for lunch till after one.

He had his own remodeled building, three floors high and not very wide. It was smaller than I'd expected, didn't look like money till I got inside. The office was brightly lit and had huge two-tone photos of the N.Y.C. skyline for wallpaper. A large mobile made up of switches, chimes and the other electrical gadgets they manufactured was hanging from the ceiling, turning slowly in the air-conditioned breeze. The receptionist wasn't any Miss America but her expensive suit matched the rest of the office—not loud and in good taste. When I asked if Wren was in she gave me a practiced small smile as she asked, “Have you an appointment?”

I shook my head, told her my name as I flashed my tin.

She didn't get ruffled. “Oh, dear, is this about a traffic ticket or something?”

“It's about something that isn't a traffic ticket. Wren in?”

“I'll see.” She had one of these streamlined switchboards on her ebony desk, shaped like a silver airfoil, and she phoned in, then told me, “Mr. Wren will see you in a moment. Have a seat, please.”

There were a couple of standard leather chairs and a free-form table made of some shiny metal, a bunch of trade magazines on the table. I sat down and glanced at one of the mags, put it down. The receptionist turned to a typewriter and went on with a letter she was doing. I watched her legs under the table. At first I thought they were fat, but she must have been a dancer—they were solid and strong, something like Rose's.

Legs are legs and what good would they ever do me? Yet I was so intent on them it took me a moment to realize somebody was watching me. There were two doors leading from the reception room and one of them was open and a heavy-set, short guy was staring at me. He was wearing wrinkled gray pants, open white shirt with a dark blue tie hanging loosely around his fat neck. He had a good tan on his face but strictly the kind-that comes from a sun lamp. His eyes were sunk in deep dark pockets, a ragged thick gray mustache seemed to support his thin nose, and his head was a polished bald dome rising above a few gray patches over his big ears. He was holding a pencil in one hand and a pair of heavy-framed glasses in the other. He looked more like a working foreman than a boss, yet I knew he was Wren.

We stared at each other for a second and he seemed annoyed. “All right, come in,” he said in a weary voice, and walked back into his office, moving with the clumsy grace of a guy who has taken on weight in his middle years.

His office was a sloppy mess—the same modernistic walls and furniture—but his desk was covered with papers and blueprints, and there was another desk at right angles piled high with books and magazines. I shut the door and found him already sitting behind his desk. There was a container of coffee and a half-eaten sandwich in front of him. The coffee had spilled, staining the papers under it. He motioned toward a black leather and chrome chair and as I sat down he started on the sandwich, mumbling, “I never have time for lunch.”

“Are you Mr. Edwin Wren?”

He nodded.

“I'm Detective David—”

“I know who you are.” He leaned back in his swivel chair, rocking slightly, and watched me as he chewed his sandwich thoroughly. He looked the perfect picture of an overworked small businessman.

I let him work me over with his eyes, then he washed the food down with the cold coffee, tossed the container in the wastebasket, spilling some on the gray rug. He hid his mouth with a pudgy hand as he belched. “Goddamn coffee, worse than the cigarette habit, kills a man's stomach.” He brushed crumbs from his mustache, said, “You're just a kid with a badge.” His voice wasn't nasty, just weary.

“Which would you rather see, my birth certificate or my badge?”

“Aren't you overdoing things, Mr. Wintino?” he asked, putting on his glasses. They were powerful lenses and made his eyes look large and soft, what they say a cow's eyes look like.

“I don't know, what am I overdoing?”

“I commend your thoroughness in tracing me, but as the Data men told you yesterday, we haven't broken any laws and the whole business of this silly girl writing a—”

“I'm not here about that,” I cut in, surprised the Data lads yelled to a client. “I'm here to ask about a $4000.75 check you made out to a Francis Parker on April 2.”

The eyes got even bigger behind the glasses. The only sound in the office was the slight squeak of his chair as he rocked. I like catching a guy off balance, watching him rolling a mental log. But when he asked, “And why is the Police Department interested in that?” his voice was almost asleep. He fumbled in a desk drawer, took out a large pipe and a pouch, packed the pipe.

“You tell me, Mr. Wren,” I told him, trying to sound just as casual. “I traced the check to you through a bank account under the phony name of Francis Parker. His picture has been in the papers—you certainly know that Parker is a retired cop who was murdered a few days ago.”

Wren puffed on his pipe and nodded. The tobacco had a nutty smell that wasn't bad at all. He said, “I barely glance at the papers but I did see a minor headline about a shooting. Still, exactly why are you here, why is a business check of mine official police business?”

“I'm doing this on my own time, Mr. Wren, so I would appreciate if you'd stop fencing. An ex-cop is murdered, we find four thousand in cash in his house and a bankbook. You gave the dead man the four grand. You read about the killing. Why haven't you come forward to tell us about the money, the phony name?”

“Because I had hired this ex-cop to do some work for me. He did it and I paid him. That was some six or seven weeks ago. I still fail to see how that is any concern of the police.”

“What sort of work did he do for you?”

Wren lit his pipe again before he said, “Detective work. We'd heard rumors of Miss Henderson's article and we wanted to learn who the author was, where she lived, various details. Frankly at that stage we didn't even want a known private agency on the case. One night I met this retired policeman in a bar, we got to talking over some beers. It occurred to me he was the man for our job. I hired him on the spot.”

“He didn't have a license for private work.”

Wren smiled. “That didn't seem to upset either of us.”

“And he found Miss Henderson for you?”

“Yes.”

“You paid him four grand for that? What the hell was the seventy-five cents for?”

Wren puffed hard on his pipe, said over the smoke, “I'm afraid the entire transaction ended on a sour note. Mr. Parker—he insisted he be called and paid under that name, to avoid taxes I suppose, although I never asked him—anyway, Mr. Parker located the writer within a few days. We had agreed upon payment of one thousand dollars plus modest expenses, if any. I then suggested to Mr. Parker he start—let's use the word harass—that he start harassing Miss Henderson. He refused. The truth is he turned about and bluntly threatened me with outright blackmail: he wanted four thousand dollars or he would sell his story to Miss Henderson and this lousy Weekly Spectator. I had no choice, I paid.” Wren slipped me a quick smile. “Mr. Parker was not without a sense of humor, he insisted seventy-five cents be added for 'expenses'—three subway fares and three phone calls. I am aware what I am telling you leaves me open to more blackmail, but I have confidence in your honest young face.”

“Cut the sarcasm. The word 'honest' has a hollow ring coming from you,” I said. I didn't know enough about Owens to figure him for blackmail or not. Maybe he saw this as the last chance to dig into the cracker barrel.

Wren stared at me, those large soft eyes behind the glasses twin pictures of pity. “Pretty strong language, young man.”

“Your clowns have been giving Miss Henderson a strong pushing around, a real bad time.”

“My handling of Miss Henderson may not have been entirely ethical but it wasn't dishonest. You should pay more attention to your choice of words. The young lady is fired with ideals and a chance to make a name for herself. An act is dishonest or 'wrong' only when it is something not being done by the majority. To put it clearer, wrong is perversion and a pervert is somebody out of step. However once he is in step, or the others are in step with him, it ceases to be perversion or wrong. Do you follow me?”

“Should I? What's all this talk add up to?”

“Simply that I take objection to your slur about my honesty. We're businessmen who—”

“Who Miss Henderson says are breaking the law.”

He shook his head. “That's her opinion. It's true that by... uh... monopolizing this particular item we will keep the price up, but at the same time we would be able to control the quality, keep that up too.”

“Okay, you're public benefactors. What has this to do with the check?”

“Don't be so brash, young man. I want you to see the whole picture, including the check. What we are doing is being done all the time and by the most respected people. To give you a broad example: there's a strict control on diamonds, the supply is kept down to keep prices pegged high. The whole world knows that. If you should discover new diamond mines, be in a position to undersell, and refuse to join the syndicate, they would ruin you. At the risk of sounding cynical let me remind you that most of the people in this syndicate have titles and are considered the height of respectability in their various countries.”

“Let's get back to the check.”

“This bears upon it indirectly,” he said slowly, as if he'd been waiting all day for a good listener. “I'm merely proving Miss Henderson is wrong, that what we are doing is neither criminal nor even wrong. Let me ask you this: suppose tomorrow you hit upon a new soft drink that sweeps the country. You can make this sugar water for a penny, market it for two cents and thus make a neat profit. However since you control it, if you find you can sell it for ten cents, make a 900 per cent profit, which would you do?”

“Sell it for a dime. Mr. Wren, all this talk is getting us away from Parker and why you didn't come to the police.”

“On the contrary, if I can make you understand that Miss Henderson is a crackpot, out to make her own type of fast dollar, then you can understand why I had to pay off Mr. Parker. Why I haven't gone to the police and don't want any publicity about the matter, if it can be helped. I had a business deal with a man, weeks later he is shot. That obviously had nothing to do with me. Once I paid off, I was done with the matter, I never saw him again.”

“There are three other concerns in this, do they all...?”

“I handled this myself.”

“Why?”

Wren lit his pipe again. “A good question. I met up with this former cop, I made the deal. When it turned sour I took full and sole responsibility. There's also the matter of pride. I didn't—and don't—want the others to know I'd been taken in.”

“So you shelled out four grand, just like that?”

“Not just like that,” he said, pointing his pipe at me. “This goes down as a business expense, taxes will absorb most of the loss. I got the information I wanted but I paid more than I expected. That's it in a nutshell.”

“If you report this as a tax loss, what about the phony name of Parker, which he was using to escape taxes?”

Wren shrugged. “I don't fool with taxes. If he wanted to, that was his business.”

“Where is this bar and when did you meet him?”

“See here, Detective Wintino, I resent this questioning, as though I was a suspect or something. You're making a mountain out of a mole hill.”

“I never said you were a suspect, and a dead man isn't a mole hill. I'm asking you these questions because it may lead to somebody, and so on, until we hit the right one.”

“Then I can be of little help. We first met at some bar on Sixth Avenue, I don't remember exactly. I'd dropped in for a quick beer and we started talking about some show we were watching on the TV. I can probably recognize the place if I pass it again. That was around the middle of March. After our first meeting, due to the nature of our business, we thought it best to meet on the street, usually at the corner of Fifty-fourth Street and... As you can see all this has nothing to do with any shooting and it would be darn embarrassing, to say the least, if it came to light. I certainly want to co-operate with the police but I don't wish to make an ass of myself, or to hurt my business. I expect intelligent co-operation from you. If I'm not involved don't drag me in.”

“That isn't up to me to decide.”

“I believe you said you're doing this on your own time. Same situation when you invaded the Data office. I don't know what you fancy yourself, but common sense has to be a factor in things too. I once had a minor business deal with a man later found dead. That's all there is to it. Period.”

“This isn't exactly my own time, a cop is on duty twenty-four hours. A retired cop has been killed; we're not leaving anything to chance.”

“Fine, I'm for you. You're a Very young man, Detective Wintino, and you must be very capable to have risen so high at your age. But as you grow older, get to be an old coot like me, you'll find there's one basic rule to life—live and let live. I've given you all I know. If this has any bearing on the case I'm glad I could be of help. But if it hasn't I don't want to be dragged through any unnecessary publicity, a headline orgy. Do I make myself clear?”

“I only have a few more questions. What address did Parker give you?”

“Don't recall he ever gave me one.”

“A phone number?”

“No. I see what you want—how did we get in touch with each other? He phoned me whenever he had anything. As I told you, the whole thing took a few days, and due to the type of work, it wasn't anything I shouted about or let my office staff in on.”

“Did he ever mention any other person, even while making small talk?” .

“No. Don't you think you've taken up enough of my time? I'm a busy man.” Wren knocked the ashes out of his pipe. “I've given you all the help I can. I'm not sure whether I'd repeat our conversation again, even to your superiors. As I believe the Data people told you, if you become a pest you'll be broken. Now wait, I'm not threatening you, but appealing to your common sense. I thought you were here on this silly Henderson matter and you start questioning me about a murder. I've told you all I know. Please don't put a knife in my business back as a reward.”

I stood up. “No need to worry if the department should call you in for further questioning, that doesn't mean the papers will get wind of it. As for Miss Henderson, just keep your dealings with her on a business level—hot on a goon level.”

Wren got to his feet. “I know when I'm licked. She can publish her damn yarn and the devil with it. We can get around that. Sorry if I sounded as if I was throwing my weight around a second ago, but you must understand my position. The publicity of an article can be handled, but a scandal, being even publicly questioned about a killing—my business would be ruined.” He took off his glasses, rubbed his eyes. “I'm under a strain, this new wiring method Miss Henderson must have told you about. I've been going fifteen and sixteen hours a day. That's why I lost my temper before. Well, hope I've been of some help,” He held out his hand.

I shook it. “At least we know where Ed Owens got the four grand from.”

Wren's tan face went ashen, his eyes seemed to pop, get as large as if he had his glasses on. Then he began coughing as he bent over, kneading his belly with his stubby hands.

“What's the matter?” I asked, stepping back in case he was about to be sick. “Need a pill? Water?”

He shook his head and slowly straightened up, ran a crumpled handkerchief over his sweaty face. He whispered, “Excuse me. These quickie lunches—had a gas pain that seemed to stab at my heart. Thought I was going to faint.”

“Ought to have a check-up.”

“Yes, I'm past due. Now, what were you saying about Owens?”

“That we now know how and where Owens got the money, the reason for the false name in the bank. Another piece that may fit into a bigger picture, one of two murders. That's police work.'“ I pulled out the newspaper pictures. “This your Mr. Parker?”

Wren pointed to Owens' snap. “Yes, although it must have been taken many years ago. Yes, I did see something about the other killing—I only skim through the papers. Well, I've helped you. See what you can do to shield me from any possible notoriety,” Wren said, walking me to the door.

“You don't have to worry about that.”

“Well, have to be on the safe side when...” His face screwed up with flushed pain again and he mumbled, “I... uh... have to... sounds silly but... good day, Detective Wintino, I have to go!”

I'd thought his coughing and the rest of it was part of an act to get rid of me, most people get nervous when around a cop for any length of time, but Wren actually did run by me, across the reception room and through another door.

The girl at the desk just shook her head, said, “He never listens, his wife keeps telling him to slow down, see a doctor. He'll get himself an ulcer yet.”

“An executive-type one, I suppose,” I said, walking out.

Friday Afternoon

It was 1:43 p.m. and I was hungry. For a while I didn't want to think of Wren, the frightened businessman, but let my thoughts cook for a few minutes. I had a bright idea: long as I was downtown I might as well see Uncle Frank and stick him for lunch, save some dough. I phoned and he asked, “Davie, you coming to see me?”

“Yes. I'm downtown, thought we might have a bite together.” Although if Uncle Frank didn't reach for the tab first, I'd be in a fine spot.

“Who has time for lunch? I just ate a stale sandwich and a bottle of soda. My ulcer will kill me tonight. When will you be over?”

“About a half-hour, I have a few calls to make. Take it easy, Uncle, I just left another man whose blood has turned to coffee. See you soon.”

I hung up and dialed the Owens house. Susan's sharp voice asked, “Yes?”

“It isn't yes, it's no.”

“What? Who is this?”

“Dave Wintino.”

“I've been waiting for your call. What about the money, can we—”

“So far no. Actually I still don't know, so leave the dough alone. I've found the guy who handed out the money but things are still foggy.”

“Who's Francis Parker?”

“Your father, on a tax dodge. Remember, don't touch the cash and let me talk to your mother.”

“If Parker was Pa then the money should be ours.”

“Well see. I don't know yet that it isn't yours. Put your mother on,” I said, hoping I could finish the call without paying an extra nickel.

I heard Susan yell, “Ma, come to the phone,” her voice a hard bark. Then she told me, “One thing, if there's any doubt it's going to be in our favor. Not handing out four grand like—”

“Take it slow, we're giving it a try. That's what you wanted. Where's your mother?”

There was a moment of silence and then the old lady said, “This is Mrs. Owens.”

“Dave Wintino, Mrs. Owens. During March did Mr. Owens ever mention doing any outside work? I don't mean at the brokerage house, but detective work?”

“Why, I—” Jane Owens began as the operator cut in with, “Five cents for the next three minutes, please.”

“What did you say?” Mrs. Owens asked as I told her to hang on,. dug out a nickel and put it to work. “Did Ed ever mention doing any private detective work in March?”

“No.”

“When he talked about getting the little farm in California soon—about when was that?”

“About two months ago.”

“And he didn't say how he expected to get the money for the farm?”

“No. He was just talking big.”

“At any time since he retired did he ever talk about doing private detective work?”

“No. He couldn't have done any work like that, he was home till he left for the brokerage office and then he always came right home to work in his garden before it got dark.”

“Okay. Thanks. I'll keep in touch.” I hung up as she started to ask about the money. I got the manager of the brokerage house on the phone, another fifteen-cent call since I had to wait till he finished talking on another line. He said Owens had never missed a day since he'd worked there. Wales had been sick sometimes. “You know the kind of sickness, he drank too much of his favorite pain-killer,” the manager added.

“If you knew he was a lush, why did you hire him?”

“I never said he was a drunk. I wouldn't talk harshly about the departed or—”

“Which way do you think you were talking now about him?” I asked and hung up.

I stopped at a stand for an orange drink and a couple of doughnuts and food reminded me I was supposed to call my folks. I chewed the junk slowly, I usually can do my best thinking when I'm stuffing my mouth. But now I thought about Wren and came up with nothing.

Wren's yarn was crazy enough to be true. The only important angle was it gave a possible motive for killing Owens: Wren was taken for four grand and he paid off with a bullet. Not that he would do the actual killing, but he might hire a goon. But that didn't make sense, a big businessman doesn't go in for punk stuff. And that wouldn't explain Wales' murder. I had an uneasy feeling about things—I was playing it wrong by holding out on Reed and the boys downtown. Trouble was I was in over my head, playing a lone hand when I'd never even been on a murder before, much less a double one. If Reed ever found out I'd look like a kid playing amateur dick. Keep up the way I'm going and I'd end up minus my badge—unless I could come in with the whole answer.

I decided to give myself a deadline—by tonight I'd tell Reed about the four grand, Wales watching the garage for years, and Owens working for Wren. In the meantime I still had a couple of hours in which to dig. No sense wasting time with Uncle Frank. I got some change and phoned Rose. No answer. I was counting on her for more dope on Wren. I called Ma and she said, “Davie, I've been trying to reach you. I'm cooking, are you and Mary coming up for supper?”

“Well I... uh...”

“Davie, we haven't seen you in two weeks. Papa is so hurt, you mustn't ignore us.” Her voice was full of shrill pleading.

“Aw, Ma, I'm not ignoring you. I've been busy. Okay, we'll be up for dinner. Around six-thirty. And Ma, it's hot, don't make nothing heavy.”

“Don't you worry about my food, it will stick to your ribs. Don't bring me any candy or other dreck. You're not a guest, you're my son.”

“Okay, Ma, see you tonight.

The phone company was getting rich off me. I dialed Mary and she blew her top when I told her. “Dave, this is Friday night, I want to go out, see a movie, have a drink.”

“We'll see a movie tomorrow. You know how Ma and Pop are, and we haven't been up there for weeks.”

“Tomorrow? Sure, you have to be at your lousy job by midnight! Why didn't you go up and see your mother this afternoon?”

“I was busy and she wants us up in the evening when Pop's there. I'm on my way to see Uncle Frank now. Come on, Mary, you know this family stuff, I can't get out of it.”

“Dave, it's been a long week for me, I'm tired. I'm definitely not in the mood to eat one of those heavy meals, listen to your folks gab in two different languages or—”

“You mean language-wise you're bored because they don't talk that cocktail drip like the queers in your office?”

There was a heavy silence at the other end till Mary said calmly, “Dave, I'm not going to make a scene. I'll phone and beg off, tell them the truth: I'm tired. You go up and—”

“You bet I'm going!” I said and hung up.

Sore as a boil I tried Rose again and she was still out. I might as well see Uncle Frank and get some peace at home. I took a bus down to his sweatshop. All the time Wales and Owens and the money kept turning over in my mind, like those little steel balls you try to wiggle into holes in hand puzzles—only nothing fitted.

I'd heard a lot about Uncle Frank's joint but I'd never visited the place before. It actually was a beehive of activity, or something. And it really wasn't his place, he was a one-third partner. They had the basement and first floor of a large building in the heart of the garment district, and the whole place was a lacework of conveyer belts and endless tracks of rollers with packages moving in a steady stream on top of the rollers.

Uncle Frank looked as though he was made up for laughs— an old pair of dungarees straining to cover his medicine ball gut, a dirty loud plaid shirt, a dead cigar in his mouth like a whistle, and a pair of pince-nez glasses on his fat nose. He looked a little like Mary's father, something about him that still shouted hayseed.

Frank never stood still for a second; walking and running all over the place, taking packages from one conveyer belt to another, or throwing them down a chute, bawling out people, screaming orders. There seemed to be thousands of packages, from thin tie boxes to big crates. At the end of each roller, where the chutes started, there were scales and girls, mostly colored, perched beside the scales and writing down the weights and addresses as men and boys lifted the packages onto the scales, then tossed them down the chutes where they were stacked, or put on skids and pulled out to trucks.

Uncle Frank always was a jerky talker and as he showed me around he would break off a sentence with a nervous yell to somebody about, “Why are you shipping dresses today? It's Friday. All dress goods go express. Express, goddamn it!”

He asked me, “Well, how do you like it, Davie? Plenty of action, and this is the start of the slow season. Around November we're busy as crows at seeding time—packages stacked right to the ceilings. The way it should be, we pay rent for space up to and including the ceilings and then...” He stopped to grab a large carton marked “fragile—glass" off a roller and throw it on a pile across the room as he shouted at a kid who didn't look over sixteen, “Where's your eyes, Paddy? That was plainly marked 'air freight.' See that it gets to the last chute and be careful.”

He ran a hand over his big lantern jaw and whispered loudly to me, “The breakage these darn kids cause. I don't know, when I was coming up kids were... How do you like it, Davie lad? We go like this from eight in the morning up to ten or eleven at night.”

“Sure a lot of movement. What's it all about?” I asked, thinking it was odd about Wren coming across a retired cop in a bar just when he needed one.

“This is a very big operation,” Uncle Frank said, blowing up his chest as if making an after-dinner speech. “New York is the style center, the clothing center. Let us suppose you own a shop out in Dayton, Ohio. Well, you have to buy here, either directly or by mail, and you have to pay the shipping costs. Now say you buy a dress for two dollars and plan to retail it at three-fifty. The shipping—hey, you in the blue sweatshirt on the south roller, don't pile those boxes so high, they'll fall and jam the roller. What was I saying, Davie?”

“A dress for three-fifty,” I said, watching an old man neatly toss a flat dress box on top of a pile of boxes about ten feet high, tossing it like a basketball player sinking a foul shot. Did the four grand have anything to do with the Owens killing, or was it another blind alley? As a motive it wasn't so hot-why wait, six, seven weeks?

“Oh, yes, you buy the dress for two dollars. If you have it sent parcel post, insured, the postage will amount to, say... about seventy cents. This means you can't retail the dress for under four dollars. A dress weighs about three to four pounds, packed. Suppose you're buying fifty dresses, that's over forty dollars in postage alone. Are you following me?”

“Right behind you.” Had Wales and Owens been doing private work all along? That would account for the wad Wales had on him. But the private eye business wasn't that good... unless they were doing blackmail. Then why the crummy messenger jobs? A cover? And why wouldn't Mrs. Owens know? Or had she been lying all the time? No, then she would have kept quiet about the four grand.

“... And so you have all your orders delivered to us—the manufacturers deliver free within the city. We wait till you have a hundred pounds of freight and ship by hundred-pound lots, thus cutting your shipping costs in half, including the few cents per item for our service. Handling thousands of packages per day, we make a nice profit, although we carry a terrific overhead and have to... Tom, did you call West-side Motors for another truck? Well what are you waiting for? It's late. Come on, Davie, we'll go up to my office. We'll be able to hear ourselves think there.”

We climbed around and over wooden crates, walked through zigzag aisles of packages. I was watching my clothes while Uncle Frank was barking instructions at people as he walked, most of the people not even listening to him. We went up some stairs where a bevy of elderly women were working adding machines fast as typewriters, and into a battered office. Uncle Frank sat down behind his old desk and relit his cigar, mouthed a couple of pills as he said, “Always around now, when business is slow, my stomach acts up.”

“Is any business worth a nervous gut?” I asked, studying Uncle Frank. I was screwy. He'd never have anything to do with a murder. And neither would Wren, they were businessmen not goons.

“Ulcers, nervous stomach, piles, I've had them all. But I have an appointment in a few minutes, so let me tell you our proposition. I've talked this over with my partners and they agree you're the ideal lad for us.”

“I am? What makes me so ideal?”

“Davie, as you saw, we have a very democratic sort of hiring system here, and we're proud of it. We give colored women office jobs, use youngsters just out of school or going to night school as part-time workers. Or we help men out who put in a few hours in the evening to supplement their take-home pay. We even give handicapped people a break, hire deaf and dumb people. You would start in shipping, at the bottom. That would make things look good and also give you a chance to learn the business. With your Italian name nobody will ever suspect you are related to me. Starting pay will only be about thirty-five dollars a week, but within two months I guarantee you will be taking home fifty-five dollars every Friday night.”

“That still isn't any hell.”

Uncle Frank chewed on his cigar as he tried to smile. “Now, Davie lad, I know all about you policemen; you pay for your gun, for your bullets, money is taken out of every check for your pension, then there's the station house tax, and this and that bite. Mary told me over the phone that you were paid a few days ago and it's gone already. You can't expect to start at the top, or to get rich overnight.”

“I don't,” I said, wondering if Owens had, in his old age.

“You must look at this as a long-range deal. You saw how I work and I mean physical work—I'm working harder than when I was a youngster at haying time. I'm too old for this, and so are my partners. In time you'll be in charge of the day shift and that means a hundred dollars a week, perhaps a share in the concern. And there's extras to be had—trucking outfits hand out cash Christmas presents. Lad, you have to see this as an opportunity, not merely as a job.”

“I certainly appreciate your thinking of me,” I said, wondering why I was wasting precious time here, “but I don't know if I'm suited for this....”

“But you are!” Uncle Frank said, bending over the desk and whispering; his breath smelled like last week's food. “You speak Jewish and Italian. You see, we employ a good many Eyeries and Jews here and you would know what was going on all the time. Let's say, if there was any union talk. And although you don't look it, you're tough, an ex-fighter and a cop. Sometimes we have a little trouble—suppose the kids we hire are a little wild, or the old-timers turn out to be drinkers. You could keep them in line. And occasionally there is some theft. Not so much with our employees, although for minimum pay we can't expect the cream, but in this area you find winos, especially at night. They swipe packages if the doors are open, or while the kids are loading a truck.”

“I'd be a combination straw boss and cop?”

“Now don't get a wrong slant. We don't have trouble every day or every week, but it does happen, and it jacks up our insurance premiums. Lad, the secret of this business is to knock off every penny of overhead possible, to save every second of—” Uncle Frank pointed to my wrist watch and shot out of his chair as if he was goosed. “Lord, where does time go to! It's three-thirty. I'm late for my appointment. Think it over, my boy, a long-range opportunity. You may be boss of the place by the time you're thirty-five. Phone me here tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow is Saturday,” I said as Uncle Frank opened a locker, took off his dungarees and shirt, standing in faded pink silk shorts for a second, his legs veined and skinny. Then he changed to a dark brown suit that was sloppy around the shoulders.

“Phone me, I'll be here. Saturdays, Sundays, I'm always here.”

I stood up. “I'll think about it but I'm pretty sure this isn't for me. If I'm going to be a cop I want to be a real one, not a store badge.”

“My tie straight? Don't make any snap judgment you'll regret. You won't be a 'cop' here, you'll be a junior executive. Talk it over with Mary. When are you two coming over for supper? We have to get together more. Tie straight now?”

I fixed his tie and he grabbed his hat and almost flew out of the office. I stood there for a moment, wondering why I didn't have the guts to tell him to stick his job. Mary and her great ulcer deals.

I used his mirror to comb my hair, take a few specks off my suit, then picked up his phone and told the switchboard operator I wanted an outside line, dialed Rose. She was home and I said I was on my way up.

“I'll be in the rest of the day, working. I haven't had any more trouble, not even a phone call. I'm grateful. What do you want to see me about?”

“A few questions about something else.... I'll be up in a half-hour.”

After the bedlam of the freight company the street was practically quiet and the sunlight clean. I wanted to buy Ma a box of candy or some flowers but I had less than a buck on me. On the subway ride uptown I kept thinking of the blackmail angle: Owens and Wales might have been working with a third character, perhaps a licensed private jerk—although what made having a license so important? They got shady jobs—nobody turns to a private dick unless there's a reason why he can't go to the police—and worked small-time blackmail on businessmen like Wren. If they got four or five grand at a clip, made a couple of scores a year, that could account for Wales' money belt—he could have saved eleven grand over a span of half a dozen years easily, the frugal way he lived.

But where was Owens' dough? Or was this their first job and Owens refused to split, that's why Wales gunned him? Couldn't be their first job. Where did Wales' bundle come from?

But I couldn't buy that at all, or any part of it. You don't kill because somebody holds out a grand. Maybe a punk did but not an old time conservative cop like Wales. Cop—damnit they were good cops, why should they be doing something crooked in the last years of their lives? Why was everybody so sure Wales had killed his partner? Wasn't for the gun, there wouldn't be any connection between the crimes. But there was the gun. Perhaps the gun had been planted in his room when the killer finished Wales? Or was Wales so dumb as to keep a murder weapon around?

I made a note of that, wondered why I'd overlooked the angle before. A planted gun added, kept Wales in character. Only what kind of character if they were shakedown artists? And to use Wales' gun, then plant it, a guy would have to be a close friend of Wales. That could be the third party, the private dick, perhaps using Wales and Owens without their suspecting? Nuts, they were old hands, they'd know. And they had to know or how did Wales get all the dough, Owens the four grand?

I made another note, as I got off the subway, to have a talk with Data, Inc. Saturday morning. Not impossible Owens had been working for them, or if Wren had wanted to get Owens, he would have arranged it through Data. They could give me the dope on what was cooking in the private eye racket. Be a joy talking to them: when I mentioned murder they'd squirm, forget their toy gadgets!

Rose was barefooted in thin black cotton Chinese pants and a loose red pullover that showed curves whenever and wherever the shirt touched her. A warm smile followed her “Do come in.”

The place looked even smaller, maybe because of the piles of papers and open books next to her typewriter. As I sat down on the couch I told her, “Turn around, please.”

She spun around, looked puzzled.

“I like the outfit. You look good enough to have for dessert.”

She hesitated, smiled and said “Thank you” and added, “Do you want to take off your coat? It's been so muggy.”

“I'm okay, won't keep you long. How's the article coming?”

“Fine. I'll be finished in a few days. Want a cool drink? I have an interesting concoction—coconut milk and ginger beer.”

“I'll try some. How did you dream that up?”

“Always drank it down in the islands,” Rose said, walking to the tiny refrigerator, moving like a dancer. She poured two glasses of what looked like thin milk.

She sat beside me as she handed me a glass, watched my face as I took a cautious sip, then gulped it down. It was cool and spicy. “This is the best. Can you buy coconuts around here?”

“Science marches on. Coconut milk is now canned in Puerto Rico.”

“Ought to take a can up to my mother. She's always experimenting on the stove.”

“I'll give you a can,” Rose said sipping her drink. “I get them on the cuff—I write advertising copy for one of the Spanish-speaking newspapers. Want some more?”

“A little.” She poured part of her drink into my glass and I got so excited I was certain I was blushing. It was crazy but the intimacy of it gave me ideas—and the cold drink ended them. I said, “Your buddy, Edwin Wren, must have had this in mind when he told me about a new drink.”

“Edwin Wren? What were you talking to him about?”

“He suddenly cropped up in another case. Why I'm here. What do you know about him?”

“Almost everything. He's fifty-seven, an engineer, married, has two daughters—one goes to Smith and the other is married to a doctor out west someplace. His wife is active in the usual middle-class civic organizations. They live in an old duplex apartment on Riverside Drive and Eighty-second Street and he goes in—”

“He lives on Riverside and Eighty-second?” I asked. That was only three blocks from where Owens was killed.

“That's right, lived there for many years. He goes in for modest cars—in fact the Wrens live modestly, although over a five-year period he has averaged $25,000 a year, above taxes. Wren & Company was almost a one-man affair till the war. He landed a couple of big subcontracts, and was able to expand and—”

“Was he ever in any trouble—criminal stuff?”

“Never. This case—what's it all about?”

“I'm working on a double murder and his name popped up in connection with a... check,” I said, knowing I was talking too much. Wales had warned me about that. Had he talked too much himself? “Where is Wren from?”

“Born here, graduated into the depression, tried to get a job in South America but—”

“Hold it. What part of South America and when?” I cut in. Susan Owens worked in S.A.

“He never got the job, he lacked experience and in those days a company could get its pick of engineers. He worked on WPA for a few years and along about 1934 opened a small factory in the Bronx, made doorbells and cheap electric chimes. He moved to his present plant in 1949 and has been growing ever since. If they can swing this wire-paint monopoly he'll be in the millionaire bracket. All this of any help to you?”

“He sounds like a solid, aggressive business joker. You sure he's never been in any beef with the law?”

“Not the criminal law.”

I must have looked blank for she gave me a full smile and said, “Mr. Detective, let me remind you there are such things as civil laws too and they also can be broken. As my article will prove, Wren and the others are acting in restraint of trade and—”

“Easy there. I'm too tired for a lecture. What I want to know is, was he ever in any lawsuits, jams, anything like that?”

“Plenty,” she said going over to a file cabinet and returning with a folder of notes, newspaper clippings and booklets. She sat on the couch, feet under her, stubby painted toes near my hand. Dumping the folder out all over her lap, she said, “He's had the usual manufacturer's lawsuits—suits claiming he had received damaged raw material. Here, in 1939 he was sued on a buzzer patent and won. One of his trucks ran down a man in 1946 and Wren settled out of court for $2,700. In 1949 he sued a bank for $20,000 claiming somebody named Butler had forged his name to a check for that amount and it was the bank's responsibility to check his signature. Handwriting experts agreed it was a forged signature and the bank had to make good to Wren.”

“In 1949. What month? You know Butler's full name, if he was ever collared?”

“Collared?” “Arrested?”

“No. I only have a brief note on it. You said 'he.' I don't recall if Butler was a man or woman. But you can check the '49 papers or a newspaper morgue. Can't you tell me what you're looking for? I might be of more help.”

“I'm hunting for that corny needle in the haystack. Fishing blindly, hoping I'll come up with something.”

“But how does Wren fit into this 'something'?”

“I'm not sure he does except I don't believe in coincidences and he's beginning to figure in too damn many. But it doesn't add: I'm looking for a killer and he's just a business sharpshooter.”

Rose gathered up her notes. “Do I detect a chamber-of-commerce sanctimonious sound when you said 'business'? The bigger the business, the more ruthless the—” “Hey, get off the soapbox.”

“It's true. In the name of business whole islands and countries have been—and are—kept in poverty, strikers have been killed.... Hitler went to war to increase German markets and in my own Puerto Rico the—”

“Honey, I'm looking for a cold-blooded thug who has shot one man, maybe two. Much as you dislike Wren I doubt if you'd call him a murderer, a killer.”

She shrugged and the red shirt did a rumba. “No, I doubt if he would use a gun. But remember, a gun and a knife are the more obvious weapons, poverty has killed more people than all the bullets ever made....”

I grabbed one of the catalogues of Wren & Company, made believe I was going to shut her lips with it. “Now don't give me speeches. This killer is the kind who didn't hesitate to use a gun in daytime on the street, in a furnished room with—” I stopped talking, stared at the cover of the catalogue. There was a little brown bird on the corner of the cover. “What's this?”

“An advertising tag Wren used at one time... wren—a small brown bird.”

A warm glow started up my spine and then faded away. “You see, another damn coincidence. There was a man involved, after a fashion, in the... Anybody ever call Wren, or was he ever known as, The Bird?” And I thought, I have to take it easy, make a bad collar with Wren as The Bird and I'll sure have to take Uncle Frank's job.

“I never heard him called that. I still don't know what this is all about.”

I stood up. “Forget it, I talk too much. I'm keeping you from your writing and I'm due at my mother's for supper and she'll be sore enough without my being late. If you'll let me have that can of coconut milk, I'll scram. And don't worry about Wren ever bothering you again, he told me he's given you up. Tell me, when these calls and the shadowing first started, did you ever notice a plump, middle-aged man asking around about you? Shabby dresser. Have you ever heard the name Francis Parker?”

“No. I never saw anybody except those men who pushed me on the street. First time I didn't see who pushed me. Then the time before you saw them, they had reversed things—the tall one did the jostling. My curiosity is eating me up. What... ?”

“When did the calls first start, when did you first think you were being shadowed?”

“About a week ago.”

“Only a week ago?” That could still figure. Once Owens gave him the dope it might have taken Wren time, to find the right private eye. Only the woods were full of starving private badges, why should it take him a month to find one? And even if Wren was The Bird, why should he kill Owens and Wales twenty-five years after Sal Kahn burned? Still it was a hell of a lead to look into. I glanced at my watch. “I'm late. Where's my coconut?”

She took a can down from the shelf, even put it in a bag for me. “But you can't leave me hanging like this. What's it all about?”

“Honey, that old saying about what you don't know won't hurt you may be terribly true in this case. We're dealing with a killer. And if I told you the wild idea batting around In my noggin, the least might happen to you would be a rough libel suit. Forget I ran my big mouth. I'll let you know what Ma thinks of this coconut milk. Good-by now.” I winked at her and opened the door.

Rose looked astonished, then laughed, deep real laughter. “I never had anybody wink at me before.”

“Then you're long due. I'll drop in again.” I waved and ran down the steps.

I walked slowly up to the corner, not sure what to do. Crime cases follow set patterns. If it had been a killing done in a moment of anger it could be anybody. But both these were obviously carefully planned killings. And a successful businessman isn't a gun for hire, doesn't go to a man's room and kill him, or gun a guy in an alley. If anything, he hires a goon and a guy like Wren would have to be out of his mind to hire a killer, be paying off the rest of his life. Actually, the only real link Wren had to the case was the job he gave Owens to do on Rose and that wasn't much of a link. As for his being The Bird, the phone book was full of Eagles and Robbinses. And if Wren was involved it sure wasn't a one-man job nailing him down. A dozen men should be digging into his past, his home Me, his neighbors, his plant should be staked out. And the same thing went for the Owens family. And the Data jerks.

I'd given myself a deadline and it was past that. Although they might hand my head to me on my badge for not reporting all this sooner, I headed for the precinct.

Lieutenant Reed was out but Captain Lampkin was sitting behind his desk, his blue and gold coat open like a drape, his white shirt bunched up over his belt. He was reading a teletype and after a moment he turned his big puss up at me and asked slowly, “You on duty, Wintino?”

“No, sir. But I have something that may help on the Owens-Wales murders,” I said, placing the bankbook on his desk. “This was found taped under Owens' dresser drawer by his daughter Susan, along with four thousand dollars in fifty-buck bills. I have a list of the bills, Susan Owens has the money in a sealed envelope. I also have the tape home-might raise some prints. I've checked with the bank and from the signatures, Francis Parker was Ed Owens. The check for $4000.75 was paid to Owens by a manufacturer named Edwin Wren. He claims he agreed to pay Owens a grand for doing some private work in connection with a case our squad is handling: a writer named Rose Henderson is—was—being annoyed by strange phone calls, pushed around and rough-shadowed on the street. She's doing an article that exposes Wren's and several other companies as a monopoly. I took care of that, Wren has agreed to stop it. But he says he hired Owens about six weeks ago and that Owens then blackmailed him for the four grand.”

“When did you learn about the money and bankbook?” Lampkin asked, his slow voice reminding me of a funeral-mine.

“Late last night. Mrs. Owens phoned here yesterday that she wanted to see me. She wasn't exactly holding out, but she wanted me to check this morning and see if it was evidence or not.... Four grand isn't carfare.”

“And too much to pay for private work.”

“Yes, sir. Seems Owens was using a phony name, according to Wren, to avoid paying tax. I figure it might be a motive for Owens' death, although it seems pretty farfetched. As for Wales, he doesn't fit in, but I have a hunch, a theory, about an old collar Wales and Owens made, that should be looked into. Has some odd angles.”

“Seems like both Owens and Wales had something going for themselves.”

“That's what I think, Captain. I wasn't trying to solo on this, just wanted to check before I turned it over to you.”

“Nice of you to do this on your own time, Wintino. I'll send the dope down to Central Bureau. This Wren in the phone book?”

“Yes sir, Edwin Wren & Company, they make electrical gadgets. I'd like to work with Central on this, or at least talk over my theory with them,” I said, almost high with relief. And I wasn't going to let the glory hounds downtown get the credit on this if anything broke. “When are you due in?” “Tomorrow midnight.”

“This theory of yours, does it require immediate action?” “I don't think so. You understand, Captain, I'm not sure of anything, just a strong hunch that may blow up.”

“They haven't even got a weak hunch working on the Wales killing, so might be worth looking into yours,” Lamp-kin said, picking up his phone. He asked for an inspector at Central Bureau and after they called each other by their first names and asked about the family, Lampkin told him about the bankbook and the inspector must have put on the detective who was handling the case and Lampkin repeated what I'd told him about the bankbook and Wren and that I had a theory about Wales. Then he said, “Dave Wintino, Detective Third Grade... Yeah, yeah, he made that maniac arrest. The Owens family called him last night and told him about the money.... Why? Maybe because he has a trusting face.... What? Come off it, Wally. On his own time he found out who gave Owens the check and why, saved you fellows a lot of legwork.... Yeah, he's a real beaver. 'You know these young studs—all pistols. Says he has something on Wales, an idea, he wants to talk over.... Midnight tour tomorrow.... Sure, that's okay, he won't mind.... What? You out of your mind? The Giants have it in the bag. You should live that long.”

Lampkin hung up and stared at the phone for a moment as if in deep thought, then he looked up at me. “Call Detective Shavers at Central Bureau in the morning, around ten. He'll arrange to meet you. What's the matter with your face? Haven't you outgrown boils yet, or don't you know how to shave right?”

“Why, I... uh... well, sir, I was in a fight.”

“I hear you're handy with your dukes. Remember we have several posts here in need of a tough beat cop,” Lampkin said, drawing out each word the way he always talked, like it was an effort. He picked up the teletype report.

I started for the door, then asked, “Anything new on Wales?”

He shook his big head. “Nothing, haven't even found anybody to question. Yeah, they found he sometimes got himself one of these expensive young call girls, holed up in a hotel room with her and a couple of bottles, knocked himself out. About every three months. Told the girls he was a buyer from Chicago. A guy his age doing that, don't know where he got the juice. Certainly can't tell about people nowadays.”

I said “Yes, sir” and walked out. Downstairs, I remembered I'd left my bag on his desk. I went back to his office, told him, “Excuse me. I left my coconut milk on your desk.”

As I picked up the bag he asked slowly, “Your what?”

“Coconut milk,” I said, half-taking the can out of the bag so he could see.

Lampkin looked sad and when I walked out I heard him mutter, “I'll be a sonofabitch if I know what the world is coming to.”

Friday Evening

I was feeling tops when I reached the old apartment. I'd been so damn sure Lampkin was going to bust me for working alone. I don't know why but soon as I kissed Ma and hugged Pa the high feeling left. Then I was sore at myself for being restless in my parents' home.

First it was the fuss Ma made over the cut on my face, crying I was back in the ring again. Then there were the unsaid comments about Mary. She had phoned her excuses, said she had to work late, but both Ma's and Pop's eyes asked me, “What kind of a wife have you got that she is ashamed of us?”

Ma brushed off the can of coconut milk and despite it being a warm night, she gave me the full treatment—minestrone, gefullte fish, lasagna and boiled chicken. Whenever I said I had enough she would give me another helping as she asked, “You sick, Dave, or don't you like my cooking anymore?”

He kept right up with me, even had room to pack away the dessert—noodle pudding in fruit sauce. The old boy looked good. As Ma gave me the latest family gossip Pa, full of his usual sly humor, smoked one of his strong black Italian cigars and made snide remarks about both sides of the family.

I sat and half-listened, my heavy gut making me sleepy, thinking they certainly had the happy little world of their own Rose had talked of. Because of the difference in their religions they hadn't married till they were in their late thirties. When I came along a year later—almost killing Ma— both families made up and had been on fair terms ever since. But it must have been rugged to have been “engaged" for nearly ten years. Did Wales have any family troubles—angry in-laws? That needed checking.

Pop turned on the TV while Ma did the dishes and we sat like a couple of slugs, dozing off at an old movie. Once Pop asked, “Dave, is everything all right with you and Mary?”

“The best. But you know how it is, little fights and... Naw, Pa, guess we aren't making it. She doesn't want me to be a cop. Wants me to take some dull job with her uncle.”

“You think Mama and I don't tremble when we see a headline about a policeman hurt or shot? You should understand her view too.”

“That isn't it. She has these phony standards—a desk job is good, any other job stinks. She'd rather have me a half-ass 'executive' than a police lieutenant. Know what kind of funky job her Uncle Frank has for me? I should start in at thirty-five a week as a land of strong-arm fink.”

Pop sighed. “That is definitely no good. Still you should be patient, see her side.”

“Why? Why shouldn't she see my side? Pa, I think we should have a kid now, while we're young, but I don't make an issue of the fact she wants to hold on to her gassy job. I—”

Pa held up a skinny finger, pointed toward the kitchen. Ma came in, drying her hands. She put out a bowl of fruit and sat down. “It's after nine, turn to Channel 5, see what has happened to Big White Sing, the Indian Scout.”

As Pop changed stations he made a mock bow and told me, “Behold what television does to culture. At her age she must see a cowboy movie every night.”

“Shhh!” Mom said.

I sat in the semidarkness, sleepy and full, suddenly thinking of Owens and his wife watching their old TV, another happy home... and him out hustling a four-grand cushion. And a penny-snatcher like Wales spending all his dough on a hopelessly sick wife... how damn lonely he must have been to loosen up and spend a couple of hundred bucks with a call girl. What must it feel like, dressing like a slob, working for twenty-five bucks a week: with eleven grand wrapped around your gut? The—

The phone rang and Pa got it, said, “Yes. He's here. We were sorry you couldn't make it tonight.... Yes, get some rest. The heat takes its toll.... Mama had a wonderful supper. Maybe next Friday... I'll call him.”

He put the phone down and came over to me. “Your wife is on the phone, David.”

“What does she want?” Ma shrilled.

“Mama!” Poppa scolded softly as I picked up the receiver, asked, “Yeah, Mary?”

“Dave, I feel nervous, scary. I... can you come home right away?”

“Sure. What's the matter?”

“Nothing really, except I have this feeling. Three times in the last hour the phone has rung and each time there wasn't any answer, not a sound.”

“Nothing to get excited about. Could be a couple of wrong numbers, or something wrong with the phone.”

“Davie, please come home. It may be silly but each time I said hello, the more certain I was that somebody was listening at the other end. The phone was too quiet. Please, Davie, I'm jittery.”

“Okay, Babes. I'll leave now and be there within an hour. Make you feel better, go visit a neighbor and I'll pick you up there.”

“No. Somehow I don't want to leave the apartment. I'm not the kind that goes up in the air but I have this terrible feeling, have it so strong, that something... evil... is waiting outside. Just hurry home.”

“Okay, sit tight and don't open the door for anybody but me. Turn up the TV and try to relax. I'm leaving now,” I said, hanging up.

When I tried to explain it to Ma she said, “What's the matter, she can't let us have you for a few hours? She's nervous and... David, is she pregnant?”

“Not that I heard. Guess I'd better go.” I wondered if the three phone calls were an accident. But it didn't make sense for the Data clowns to start giving me the works. And Wren had said he was calling them off. Maybe she had seen a horror show on TV... and three calls were spooky to a girl home alone. Still, she wasn't the emotional kind... but she might really be tired and upset. I could phone the local precinct to have the beat cop look in, but how would that sound?

Ma hinted that Mary was doing all this on purpose and Pop said, “Such nonsense, Mama. And if his wife is nervous, no matter what the reason, what else should the boy do but rush home? Dave, call us the moment you reach your house.”

I said I would and was about to borrow cab fare but didn't want them to know I was broke. I was sounding almost as hysterical as Mary.

I had luck at the subway, an express was just pulling in. Thinking it over on the ride downtown I knew what had happened: Uncle Frank had phoned, said I hadn't gone overboard about the job, and this was Mary's way of needling-me. She'd been mad because I went up to Ma's anyway... and the last couple of days had just been one long argument. Only if Mary was sore about something she usually said so.

I made good time, it was a few minutes under ten-fifteen when I ran up the subway steps and headed toward our place. I didn't even stop to buy the morning paper. If it was the Data boys, if I found Flatts hanging around my place, I'd give him a beating he'd sure never forget. But when I reached our corner, turned into the block, everything looked so quiet and peaceful I decided to have it out with Mary. If this was her sneaky way of getting back at me for having supper with the folks it was time we found out where we stood. In fact that time was long due.

When I'm mad I walk fast and I was rushing into the entrance of our house when I heard the sudden step behind me, felt a hell of a big gun shoved in my right side. Then a heavy arm went around my neck, hugging my shoulders in a hard embrace and Mr. Wren was saying loudly, “No more talking, not that late. Come on, let's have a last drink.”

It was a good act even though nobody was around to see it; looked like a friendly greeting. His left arm casually around my shoulder while his right held the gun inside his coat pocket against my side. We were about the same height and I was looking smack into his eyes, eyes distorted by his thick glasses. At first I was so completely surprised at seeing Wren—if anybody, I'd expected the Data clowns—my mind was a blank. But one look at those eyes and I got scared, but fast.

According to the Police Manual I should have gone for my gun. There wasn't any crowd or bystander to stop a wild shot. Even common sense should have told me to make a stand, call his bluff. But his eyes told me the gun in my side wasn't any bluff, it would mean a sure slug in the gut.

He said gently, jovially, “Oh, now, just one last nightcap.” Then the whisper: “Keep your hands in sight. If you're not foolish you may live. Now walk!”

If he had pushed me, if his gun had left my side for a second, I might have made my play. But he was smart, waited for me to walk, then moved with me, like we were a couple of chums. There wasn't a person in sight on the dimly lit street as we headed toward Second Avenue. Then his left hand neatly slid inside my coat while his gun, feeling as big and round as a shotgun barrel, pressed into my kidney as he took my gun from the shoulder holster. He didn't try to pocket the gun, merely pushed it up his sleeve and kept walking with his arm around my shoulder.

I was still frightened but mostly I was burning with shame. For a cop to have his gun lifted is like wearing a coward's badge. I'd never live this down. I never thought I'd be a complete coward... but I was.

We kept walking slowly toward the lights of Second Avenue. I said, “You're crazy, Wren, if you think you can get away with this!” And my voice was as shrill as Ma's.

“If I don't you'll never hear about it in the cemetery. Use your head, Wintino. All I want is to have a quiet chat with you.”

I told myself that when we reached Second Avenue, or if anybody came along, I'd drop flat and go for his legs. He wouldn't dare pull anything in the light, with people around. But with my gun lost I might as well let him plug me.

We were three stores and a tenement from the avenue. The first store had a for bent sign in the window—it had been a ritzy gift shop till a few months ago. He suddenly steered me into the doorway, looked around quickly, then opened the door and his gun pushed me in.

Closing the door softly he told me, “Clasp the back of your neck with both hands, please,” and his gun slid up my side to my neck, like a snake. “Blink your eyes to get used to the darkness, then walk toward the back of the store. A false move, even if you should trip, and I'll be forced to kill you. Walk—slowly.”

I walked. I felt lost, beaten. He knew his business, no chance for me to kick backward. The pressure of the gun barrel lessened and then from the sound of his steps and the heat of his body, I knew he was walking an arm's length back of me.

Blinking my eyes I saw the store was empty except for an open arched doorway we were nearing. Wren said, “Walk straight through the center of the opening, turn slowly— when I tell you.”

We walked into what must have been a small stockroom. A little door to my right was ajar and outlined by dim light-not a light within the room but coming from outside.

He told me to turn and open the door. The room, the size of a phone booth, was the John with a tiny barred Window high up that caught some faint light from Second Avenue. There wasn't room for the two of us. Wren said, “Turn around and sit on the toilet—with your hands in sight. I didn't mean any comical touch but this is the best place I could find for an undisturbed talk. Man's confidence in locks is touching, even in a simple spring lock on a store door.”

I sat down as Wren leaned against the doorway, the light giving his glasses a weird smoky look. He was wearing pigskin gloves and the pistol in his hand had a bulky silencer—which was why it had felt big as a shotgun in my back. He said, “I'm sorry to pull a gun on you, and all this hocus-pocus. We may part as friends. I hope so, sincerely I hope that. Killing is a terrible thing, an idiotic gesture that—”

The tightness within me suddenly shot up to my mouth; I had to talk. “You're not going to kill me!” I said, my voice still high. “You're not that much of a fool. I reported my visit to your office, if I'm found dead you'll be number one on the suspect parade!” I sounded hysterical; was surprised I could still wisecrack.

“Don't raise your voice,” he said, holding my gun in his left hand as he pocketed his own, then switched my gun to his right hand. The sight of my own rod made me snap out of it.

No matter what happened I had to get my gun back. Wren said, “As for any report, I must doubt that. You are young and cocksure, out to make a name. Very commendable too. After you left, the one thing that remained in my mind was your saying you were working on your own time. I figure you for a glory hunter, a lone hand. Otherwise you would have visited me with your partner. As you see, unfortunately I have some small knowledge of police work.”

His voice was still weary and in the deadness of the empty store very clear. “Although I hold a gun on you, Wintino, this is not necessarily an unfriendly conversation. We shall—”

“Sure, you're doing me a big favor. I get knocked off in a store instead of in an alley like Owens got his!” My voice was back to normal.

He smiled, a very tired smile. “Your bravado has returned —fine. Only don't let it go to your head, you'll have need for some clear thinking. As for Owens—I didn't kill him. I wouldn't be here now except I suspected you realized the blunder I made in my office.”

“Yeah?” I said, trying to stall for time, to think.

He belched slightly,- there was a light odor of whisky. “Whether you are pretending innocence or not doesn't matter now. When you asked about the check, I'd thought all along that Wales had forged it, that's why I had to shoot him. A sad error, perhaps my undoing. I completely misjudged Wales. He was an honest and intelligent man.”

I felt as if I'd got a shot in the arm, even the heavy meal in my belly seemed to have digested. One word kept banging in my brain, clearing the cobwebs—forged. Wren had sued a bank for a forged check at the time when Wales' wife had run up a big hospital bill. I said, “You mean you thought it was Wales forging a second check?”

He blinked, or something happened behind those foggy glasses. “You are far smarter than I thought. So you know about that. Although Wales didn't forge the check—exactly. I'm going to tell you certain things not because I want to but because I sincerely don't wish to kill you.”

“You touch me—Bird!”

Another belch, the hairs of his mustache flying in the breeze. “Don't be stupid-brave, Wintino. That's all I ask of you. Listen to me and think, think like a man not like a kid. In the office I said something about live and let live. Perhaps you didn't pay any attention to it. Concentrate on it now, Wintino: live and let live. Keep running it over in your mind. It's a remarkable philosophy, the basic rule of our world. Self-preservation is said to be the first law of life, but we really protect ourselves by following the live-and-let-live rule. I'm not preaching to you, or talking about something abstract. I've found from bitter experience that all that stops our world from being more of a jungle than it is...”

I wasn't listening. Wales had been so right: keep digging. I had never bothered to check Wren's signature on the Parker check. Well, to hell with that now. The bathroom was small and he was in the doorway, less than three feet away. He'd be watching my right hand: by leaning forward I might be able to hook his fat belly with my left. The light was dim, if I fell forward to my right I might belt him fast enough to fall out of the line of fire.

“... So, if I can explain, you'll be able to understand what this is all about. I'm sorry you're so young, an older man would see the logic. Wales did. And Solly Kahn. I'm not a thug or—”

“Some logic! Wales is dead!”

“A rash mistake on my part, as I said. Perhaps that's why I'm talking to you—I don't want to make another mistake. You see, I don't know where one draws the line between criminal and noncriminal, or if there is such a line; when pressed everyone will turn to 'crime.' I'm going far afield, Wintino. The point is I graduated from college at the start of the depression. You work and sweat for an education and it all turns out to be a large zero, a—”

“Get down to facts. Why did you kill Wales?”

He shook his head gently. “Since I have the gun I will do the talking. I'm not trying to bully you, but cut the tough little brat line.”

“The big executive mans with a gun calls me a brat,” I said leaning toward him.

“Sit back, make yourself comfortable Wintino. And I know how to use a gun. Now, you never went through a depression. My engineering degree wasn't worth a damn. I was forced to work as a waiter, pearl diver, anything for a meal. While I was living in a cheap boarding house I met Solly Kahn. To you Solly is probably only a man with a record, to me he is a saint. He was a bootlegger and the trouble with bootlegging was the expense and risk of running the stuff in. A still in the city was hard to hide and—”

“And you made an electric one,” I cut in, watching the lights on his glasses.

“I did, and an excellent piece of engineering it was, a silent still. Solly and I started making money, big money for those hard times—nearly six thousand dollars.” Wren waved my gun in a small arc, as if making a big point. “I was a bootlegger, breaking the law, if you wish, but I'd found laws are a fraud. I lived by a law that said if you work hard you get ahead and if it wasn't for Solly I'd have been selling apples on a corner. I suppose you think you know the rest?”

“Sure I do. Kahn gunned Boots Brenner when he tried to muscle in,” I said. I had a sudden uneasy feeling, neither fear nor anger, but kind of as if I was watching something, as if I was seeing myself on a stage.

“The obvious details. Solly shot this thug in self-defense. We were sure he wouldn't get the chair. But the gun was mine, I had a permit for it. When he was caught Solly carefully hid the weapon behind a loose brick in the wall. I was—”

“That's what Wales was searching for all those years,” I cut in.

Again that tired smile. “You are more thorough than I imagined. Yes, the gun was hidden and Solly never talked, not even when facing the chair. You see I wasn't around the plant much, I was still seeking that token of respectability and security, a job at my profession. And Solly, who never had been inside a college, demonstrated the highest intelligence, he didn't see any sense in incriminating me. What good would it do? Can you understand that?” He paused, his stomach rumbling. “Tell me, Detective, what good would it have done? Would justice have been served any better? Would anything be gained by ruining me? Tell me, Wintino, what would you have done if you had found the gun?”

“Arrested you as an accessory to the crime. You would have had your day in court.”

“My day in court? When there weren't any jobs for engineers what chance would I have had, what future, smeared and with a criminal record? That's the real fact of the matter and Solly realized that. Live and let live. He let me live. It was his money, his and mine, that enabled me to start my factory. Sal Kahn, a true human being. I've never forgotten him.”

“I know, that monthly registered letter to his mother.”

Wren stared at me, his glasses like two dull headlights. “You're too smart, I certainly didn't make any mistake seeing you, Wintino.”

“You still made a mistake,” I said, closing my eyes for a second. The light en those thick lenses seemed to hypnotize me. “Pointing a gun at a cop is a big mistake.”

“I'm not talking to a cop but to a human being. I trust the gun will never enter our conversation. But let me remind you this is a vacant store and the gun will be your gun. Naturally I have set up an alibi, not to mention the fact that I am a successful manufacturer—we are rarely accused of such things as murder. Now, I don't know how long we may have... uh... privacy here, so let me finish. We both will have an important decision to reach then.”

“You have the gun, talk.” I relaxed against the tank of the toilet. I still felt I had a chance of belting him but I wanted to hear him talk. I kept toy eyes on my gun—away from his glasses.

“Kahn did the human thing, let me live when there was no point in hurting me. The missing gun was a big item at the trial, although it wouldn't have made any difference in the verdict. Al Wales was one of those lucky people who never work—they enjoy their job and hence it ceases to be work. He never gave up searching for the gun in the old building. Naturally I avoided the place although I wondered about the gun too. I had nightmares over it for many years— the serial number would point at me. Well, Wales did find the gun and he was an intelligent man too. He realized I had nothing to do with the actual killing, that I had used the money to build my factory; I had gone straight—to use a trite phrase that has no meaning. So even though he at last had the evidence he had hunted for over many years, he did nothing about it. Live and let live.”

“Wales isn't living.”

“I've told you I made a stupid error,” Wren said, his voice coming alive with anger. “Wales didn't use his evidence because he was a sensible man like Solly who—”

“And they're both dead.”

“Wintino, stop talking like a phonograph record. Yes, they are dead and you and I are alive and want to stay that way. In 1949, years after he found the gun, Wales did another intelligent thing. He needed money for an operation on his wife and came to me. Understand, it wasn't blackmail, but live and let live. He needed help in his living. We talked things over, much as we are—”

“You hold a gun on him too?”

“Wales was a mature man, guns weren't necessary. As it happened, I didn't have any cash handy. I'd been expanding rapidly. However, I felt my obligation to Wales so we both hit upon the idea of letting a bank give Wales the money. It was rather a neat idea, one that my business situation made ideal.”

There was another tired grin. I looked at his eyes. Then at the street light on the gun barrel. I counted the buttons on his coat, a left beside the last button would kayo him. Even if he shot me, I'd have a chance to grab my gun.

The silence in the coffin-like room was heavy and I glanced at his eyes. The glasses seemed to bore into my eyes. I had this feeling again that I was watching a movie.

Wren said, “I was waiting to see if you had caught on to our scheme—you'd be a genius if you had. I will tell you about it to illustrate how two men under stress can work together in perfect harmony. Wren & Company was doing a large turnover and checks for five, ten, twenty, even thirty thousand dollars cleared through my account fairly often. Wales opened an account in a Bronx bank using an alias and a fake address. Over a two-month period he made a few deposits and withdrawals and in the meantime practiced forging my name—with my help. At the beginning of the third month he forged my name to a check, made out to his alias, for twenty thousand dollars. It was on a regular printed Wren & Company check. He deposited this in his new account. It was truly a foolproof scheme. Banks rarely check signatures but if my bank should question mine, if they called me to verify it, I was to tell them it was my signature but I wanted the check stopped, for business reasons. That would have been the end of it. In that case I would have mortgaged my plant to raise Wales' money. Look at me, Wintino, or doesn't this interest you?”

“Yeah, I'm all ears. The bank let the check go through and in a few weeks Wales closed out his account and the phony name became a dead end.”

Wren nodded and the light seemed to make his glasses spin. “Yes, the check went through without a hitch and Wales gave me my old gun, which I destroyed. On the second of the following month, when I received my bank statement, I naturally made a fuss about the forged check. I had three experts testify my signature was a forgery. Legally I had to go through the red tape of suing the bank. Within a few months the suit came up and I won, of course. Wales had his money without any strain on my part. You see what two intelligent men can do when they put their minds to work?”

“I see, you robbed a bank.”

“Technically, yes. But who suffered? The bank was insured and as for the insurance companies, perhaps this caused them to raise their rates one-hundredth of one per cent. Being a smart man Wales didn't do anything to arouse suspicion. By that I mean he never put the money in his regular account, nor did he start living big. He played strictly by our rules.”

“Is that why he's dead?”

“A mistake. I keep telling you that! A man doesn't reach the top by being soft. I have a family, an industry, a position, to protect. I frankly told Wales he was in a position to keep forging my name. After the lawsuit with the bank I could hardly protest another forgery without giving Wales away, involving myself. I impressed upon him that I had carried out my end of the deal, and if he ever tried blackmailing me in the future, killing would be the only answer. For over seven years I never heard from Wales. Then, several days ago when I received my monthly bank statement and canceled checks I found—”

“A forged check for $4000.75 made out to a Francis Parker,” I said getting the complete picture fast. “Wales must have kept things a secret from Owens—till a couple months ago. Wales probably blabbered while juiced and Owens decided to try his luck.”

“Precisely, except I was certain it was Wales tapping me again. I can hardly be blamed for assuming that. And the only real answer to blackmail is a bullet. Actually I didn't even read about Owens' death until after I shot Wales and the papers played up both killings. I didn't know a thing about Owens' death but I felt it would benefit me by throwing off any possible suspicion on me.”

“You had a wrongo hunch on that.”

“Perhaps. It wasn't until you came into my office and said Owens had the money that I realized Owens had got into the game. Undoubtedly Wales killed Owens in the alley to make it look like a robbery. Must have told him to stop and Owens wanted another crack at my jackpot. You can see Wales had to kill him, to protect himself. Just as I thought I had to kill Wales. I blundered. I shot him while he was in a drunken sleep. He died without pain but I never gave him a chance to explain. I admit it was a terrible blunder, but that's over, nothing we do now can ever bring Wales back to Me.”

“What's there to do?” I asked, keeping my eyes on his thick mustache.

“That's the point of our talk. I want to live, Wintino. I want to avoid a scandal that will haunt my wife and children forever. Your young, life is ahead of you. I'm in a position to offer you $35,000 in cash. If you spend it wisely and slowly and keep your job it means a comfortable nest egg for the rest of your years and some immediate small pleasures—a new car, a house. Naturally you'll have to keep the money in a safe deposit vault, spend it carefully. Even your wife must never know. If you have children, their education is—”

I sat up straight, pressed the crease in my pants. “No dice.”

“Think of something except your pants, damn you. Think! Don't say no before you mull it over. You can quit the department and live like a king in Europe. Or you can hold on to your job, secretly secure, without a money worry. How many young fellows have a chance at life without money worries? Think hard!”

“I'm not buying, Bird. A couple of ex-cops are killed and nobody gives a damn—but I do. You've confessed a murder, I'm going to take you in. If you kill me they'll collar you because I did make a report about my visit to you.”

“Boy, don't make me kill you!” Wren said. “Even if you really did make such a report, I can cover the Owens check with the yarn I gave you this afternoon. I've been thinking it over. Even though I did make it up on the spur of the moment, it's good, it will hold. And I have an alibi for every second of the day Wales was killed. If I have to make a run for it, killing you will give me time and as the old saying goes, they can only hang me once. Please think about—”

“There's nothing to think about. You killed Wales. I'm a cop. I have to arrest you.” I leaned forward slightly, slowly, wondering if Wren would be amateur enough to try for the head instead of the body.

“God, if only you were older, more mature...! Wintino, listen to me, laws were made not as a punishment but to prevent crimes. I killed Wales but I'm not a killer, a criminal. I had to kill, so would you to protect yourself, your family. I'll never kill again, nor commit a crime, so what's the point in arresting me? Can't you understand? It would be your duty to arrest me if you thought that by letting me go you were endangering society. There never will be any reason, any need for me to kill again. If we act intelligently we can both live in peace.”

“And when will I get it like Wales did?” I raised my right hand slowly to my head, pretended to scratch my hair.

Wren's gun hand followed my right as he said, “Never, unless you try to blackmail me. Or if I tried to blackmail you, I would expect you to kill me. Wintino, this isn't something to haggle about. I'll go the limit—$45,000 and you get it all by Tuesday.”

“Bribing an officer of the law is an additional—”

“Bribing? You stupid ass of a kid! You must realize what big money means in this world, what—“

I set my feet and raised my right hand toward my head again. As his eyes and my gun followed, I threw myself forward, on my right shoulder, bringing up as hard a left hook as I could.

The tiny room came alive with thunder and the stink of gunpowder. I felt the punch up to my elbow, my fist ramming into his fat belly. A gut punch is a paralyzer. I saw him sinking to the floor, nothing moving except his mouth, which seemed open in a wide scream of fear.

I reached out and grabbed his right hand, digging my nails into his wrist till he dropped my gun. I picked it up and got to my feet. He hadn't hit me!

I wanted to shout a prayer of thanks, and as I stood up a hot wire ripped across my stomach like a burning knife. Everything was pain, searing pain that made me sink to my knees beside him and scream and scream and scream.

I pressed my stomach to hold down the burning and felt blood. The bastard had shot me. The first time my gun was used on a man it had to be me.

I was on my knees, trying not to keel over, almost on top of Wren who lay there, crumpled, not moving, mouth open as far as he could get it. His glasses had half-fallen off his nose and one eye was enlarged by a lens and bright with pain; the other was a small glitter in the dim light. He wasn't out, just stunned by the gut belt.

I tried to move and pain went through my body like a million knives and I screamed again and again... and heard only silence. The store was full of the same old dusty stillness. My mouth was open but I wasn't making a sound. The silence of the empty store had absorbed the brief bark of the gun. It was crazy, nothing had changed—except I'd be dead in another ten minutes, an hour at the longest. And in a few minutes Wren would be able to walk away.

His eyes were mocking me now, at least the one eye covered by his glasses. I looked away, at my gun in my hand, was damn glad I was going out like a real cop. When I raised my gun Wren's eye grew so big with fear I thought it would pop through the thick glass.

I said, “I'm not going to kill you,” but the words slid all around my mouth and I chewed on them as the pain throbbed deep in me like a long piston needle going up and down in my guts.

I sent a bullet through his knee cap to anchor him. There wasn't any thunder this time, merely a sharp clear bark and a flash of orange, both swallowed by the darkness of the store, never heard outside.

Wren was on his back, out cold, fainted. I took a deep breath that seemed to smother the pointed burning within me; I pulled his gun out of his pocket, crawled over him. The crawling put my blood on fire and when I reached the archway that opened on the store, I had to let go, sink into the pain.

When I came to, the pain was still throbbing steadily in my stomach, stabbing at my heart and brain now and then. Everything about me seemed wet with blood. There was a dull sound behind me. I had to listen for many seconds before I realized it was Wren moaning, calling for help. I got up on my knees, it was easier to move on my knees than to crawl. I made the left wall of the store, the fire within me soaring higher each time I moved. Resting my shoulder against the wall I tried to see the store-front window. I couldn't focus, things were blurred. I figured I was ten feet away. It didn't matter, I couldn't move another inch. I'd had it.

Holding my gun in my left hand, I took out Wren's. I tried a deep breath: it didn't work, the air came rushing down my throat hot and dry. I had to rest for a few seconds, then pivoting on my left shoulder I heaved Wren's gun in the direction of the window. I heard myself scream this time all right, heard it over the crash of glass. I don't know, but it was me and I was screaming, “Dad! Dad!”

I slumped against the wall and waited, each breath tearing my lungs apart with strain and fire. The broken window was a foggy square and for a long long time nothing happened. I had to let go again, fall into the fire inside me.

Opening my eyes was a big job. The window was still foggy... with the pale blur of a face looking in.

Aiming at the ceiling I fired my gun fast as I could. On the third shot it jumped out of my hand. I'd lost my gun again but I had to let go. I had to let go of everything. No flames this time, nothing... I was falling over and over into nothing.

Saturday Afternoon

There was a vase with red roses on the metal table in one corner of the hospital room. The roses were very-red. Not many and the cheapest kind—a few dumpy roses with petals open in a big grin. I knew who'd sent them.

The hospital room was small and efficient and crummy, like all hospitals. I shut my eyes again. I'd never felt so pooped. Of course I knew where I was. I'd been semiconscious when the beat cop had knelt beside me, took his gun off me when he found my badge. I'd passed out in the ambulance but came to when a nurse was cutting my clothes off, ruining my suit, just before they gave me a shot that put me to sleep. I awoke for a few seconds when I was getting a transfusion, then dropped off for a long sleep. I vaguely recalled talking to Lieutenant Reed and some hatchet-faced inspector from downtown, the two of them hovering over my bed like a couple of ugly birds. I gave them the dope on Wren and Wales.

I opened my eyes and moved my head. The shade was down but it was bright outside. Looking made me tired and I kept staring straight ahead at the roses—roses from Rose and as red as her mouth. I was probably all over the papers and Rose had come soon as she read about it.

A nurse came in, a long gawky babe who had to look better when out of the white dress, the horrible stockings and white shoes. Over a standard smile she asked, “How do you feel, Mr. Wintino?”

“Okay.” Her fingers were firm and cool as she took my pulse. “When did the flowers come?”

“Must have come this morning, before I came on. Shall I find out who they're from?”

“Do that and see if there was any message.” The nurse slipped me what was supposed to be a wise smile. “Your wife is waiting. Feel up to seeing her, for a little while?”

“Sure. Got a mirror and comb?”

“Not yet. You mustn't attempt to sit up or move about.”

“Am I going to be stuck in bed long?”

“You ask the doctor about that. I'll send Mrs. Wintino in.

The moment you feel tired, stop talking, tell your wife to leave. Sleep is the best medicine you can get at the moment.”

The nurse left and my eyelids weighed a ton. I don't know, I thought I opened them a second later but it must have been longer. Mary was sitting beside my bed, looked as if she'd been sitting there a long time. She looked pretty bad, blond hair uncombed, eyes red, face strained, a tired stoop to her shoulders. And the roses on the table behind her seemed to frame her head.

I'd never seen her look so bad. I stared at her face, and the red of the roses, and thought how silly it was for us to keep knocking each other out. This was the right time to settle things. I said, “Hello, Babes.”

She must have been daydreaming, she jumped a little. “Dave, Dave, how are you feeling?” She began to cry gently.

“A bit tired. Why the tears? I'm okay. Understand they had to stitch up my guts and I know there's a drain sticking in me someplace.... But in a few days I'll be up and around, out of here.”

“Of course you will. I'll try to get a week off at the office, and well go someplace in the country and rest.”

“You need a rest. Sure, we'll have a whole week to rest and talk about it.”

“Talk about what?”

“Come on, honey, I know you too well, it's all over your face: you can't wait to talk.”

“Dave, all I want is for you to get well.”

“And then we'll talk?”

“Dave, you're in a hospital, just take it easy and—''

“No, honey, let's talk this out now. I feel like it.”

“Dave, you're getting excited, tired. You need sleep and—”

“Babes, I'll be more excited if we don't talk, get things straight. Go ahead, spill it.”

“Really, Dave, I don't know what you mean. You go back to sleep and I'll—”

“Mary, let's get this settled. Go ahead, I'll let you know when I'm tired.”

“What do you want me to say?” Her voice was a whine.

“All the words you've been saving up for me. Let them go, be the best thing for both of us.”

“Well...” She hesitated, her red eyes staring at me. “All right, we'll talk, if you wish.”

“That's what I wish.”

“Dave, you sound so... I don't know.” Her voice became high and thin. “Dave, Dave, listen to me: I can't take this any longer. I can't stand waiting around for my husband to come home, worry myself crazy till the middle of the morning when I'm informed you're in a hospital, nearly dead. That's no way for us to live.... Oh, Dave! this isn't the time or place, I can't talk about it now.”

“Yes, you can, say it.” The roses seemed to be laughing at her.

“Dave...” The tears really rolled. “Well, Dave, you either have to give up being a cop or we're done. Dave, I can't take it. I can't!”

“Don't cry, Mary. You want me to be a glorified goon for Uncle Frank at forty a week?”

“Please, Dave, we don't have to talk about this now? We—”

“Yes, we do have to talk about it! Is working for Uncle Frank what you want?”

“All I want is to have you work normal hours, where there's no chance of you ever being shot or beaten up. Is that unreasonable? I don't care what you do, as long as you're not a cop.”

“I'm going to remain a cop.”

“Why?” she asked loudly, hysterically.

“Because I'm not only the youngest detective on the force, at this moment I'm the best! That's important—I could never be the best stock clerk in the city or the best anything else. And because it's my job. I...” Talking sure took it out of me: I let the words fade on my lips.

Mary sat up very straight and stiff as she said, “Dave, we're... we're... finished.”

“I think so, Babes. Now it's in the open.”

She seemed to fall apart as she put her face in her hands, cried into them. “Is that all you can say? Dave, why must you be so tough, so hard?”

“Honey, honey, I'm not being tough. Don't you see, we've been finished for a long time, but we were both afraid to face it. You want a guy you can steer, somebody you can push together with up the same road. All this striving is important to you but not to me.” My voice got low and I stopped for a moment, felt strength flowing back into me like a tiny tide.

Mary said through her tears, “Don't talk, Dave, it isn't good for you to—”

“It's great for me. Babes, you want this cocktail dueling, the clever hustle. You wouldn't be satisfied if I was working for Uncle Frank. There'd always be another job and then another—up some imaginary ladder. There's no sense in our hurting each other. Mary honey, you're a nice girl and when you get the right man you'll both hit it off. I'm not that man. I'm a cop.”

“Cop! You're happy because you're a big hero again, another citation, maybe a medal this time, and you'll be the youngest second-grade detective now. That's what you enjoy, being a cocky wise guy because you think you're something special, something on a stick! It's all your goddamn vanity!”

“And if I do enjoy my job, if I am cocky, where do you come off always trying to change me? Babes, don't you see, it's no good if we have to change each other?”

She ran a handkerchief over her face. “It's a waste of time talking to you, Dave, you're so stubborn.”

“It's a waste of time because we see things differently.”

She stood up. “Breaking up a marriage isn't pleasant. Dave, I want to give us every chance. Why can't you get a leave from the force and try it my way? I've tried yours and it's made me a nervous wreck.”

“Mary, playing catch-up never works. You're young and pretty, you'll get the right guy.”

“Made up your mind for a long time now, haven't you?”

“No, but I can say it easily now. I want to put in my hours as a cop and not come home to a night of arguing. That's all.”

“Your noble cops! The reporters talked to me, the papers are full of the story. The good cops you spent your free time working on, stopped a bullet for, what were they but a couple of cheap chiselers, shakedown artists!”

My eyes were too heavy to keep open. “I was shot bringing in a murderer, what I'm paid to do. Maybe I was a little screwy, put a halo around a badge. From now on it will just be a job to me, but a job I like.”

The room was very quiet, reminded me of the stillness of the store. I opened my eyes: Mary was gone. I felt nervous, lousy and relieved. I turned my head to the cool side of the pillow. I ought to sleep, be strong enough to chatter and bull when Danny came... and when Rose came. Not that she liked cops much either. But with her it wouldn't matter too...

The lanky nurse returned. I asked, “What's the message?”

Again the S.O.P. smile. “No message with the flowers. A woman brought them—your mother.”

I closed my eyes. “Listen, when my partner, Danny Hayes, comes in, wake me. And if a Miss Henderson should call... well, be sure to wake me. If she visits or phones.”

But I knew she wouldn't.