Silent Scream

CHAPTER 10

Gazzo was waiting for me in his car. He leaned out.

“You get anything?”

“No,” I said. “You going to talk to Mia Morgan?”

“You mean because Sid Meyer wanted to talk to her? She’d only deny meeting him, and for Pappas’s kid I’d need a court paper I can’t get on what I have. You want a ride?”

I got in, and Gazzo told his driver to go to my address. As we drove, I watched the cold city in the night, the snow all but gone now. Gazzo watched me.

“You think Mia Morgan is more than a crazy daughter, Dan?”

“I don’t know. Why don’t you look into that?”

“I think I will,” Gazzo said.

He dropped me at my tenement, drove off. I heard the car door open, and saw the short man. Yellow-gloves Charley this time. I saw now that his face was swarthy, with small, neat features like a cat-cruel and arrogant. A strutter, without Pappas’s finesse. Or maybe he was just unsure of his status.

“Come on,” he said.

The black car drove to the East Side and stopped in front of Morgan Crafts. We went up to Mia Morgan’s apartment. The girl stood in the center of all her sleek, bright plastic, her pale-olive face looking younger than usual. The big, dark eyes and full mouth were a study in mixed emotions-uneasiness, an impotent rage, and defiance.

The cause of it was Andy Pappas seated in a red plastic chair. He waved me in.

“Take a seat, Dan.”

Little Max Bagnio was against his usual wall, and Levi Stern sat near Bagnio, watching them all as if in some zoo. My escort, Charley, crossed to the only other person in the room. She was a delicate-boned woman in her late forties, dressed in expensive ladies-luncheon clothes that didn’t suit her. Plump and awkward, she looked like she’d be happier in a kitchen cooking pasta.

“Maybe you never met my wife, too, Dan?” Andy said.

It was an introduction, statement, and slap. He knew Mia had hired me, I should have told him, and his wife was here.

“Mrs. Pappas,” I said.

My voice seemed to startle her. In all the years I’d never met her, and if she had a name, it wasn’t important. Andy’s wife, period. Her colorless face must have been pretty once, like a doll, but it was permanently subdued by some force around her-Andy. He smiled at her, and at me.

“Mia paid you, Dan?”

“She paid me.”

“Smart girl, my Mia. Only twenty-two, runs her own business. The job she hired is over, Dan?”

“Yes,” I said. “She fired me.”

“She got her money’s worth? You did the job she wanted?”

“She fired me before I finished.”

Andy shook his head. “That’s bad business, right? What do you figure she was going to do with what you dug up?”

“I wouldn’t know, Andy.”

“Sure you do. She was going to fix my wagon, right? I think she ought to get her money’s worth. Only save time, Dan, tell what you’ve got to report to my wife straight out.”

The older woman looked confused and stricken at the same time. As if she wanted to be somewhere else, anywhere out of the light. I said nothing.

“Okay,” Andy said, “I’ll tell her. Mia paid for it.” He turned to his wife. She looked afraid, but didn’t know of what, and didn’t want to know. Andy said, “Mia hired him to take pics of me, Stella. With a girl. She was going to show you the pics, tell you all about the girl and me, open your eyes, make me stop. How about that, Stel?”

Stella Pappas went pale, then red. She stared at Mia. She walked to the girl and slapped her across the face. Mia fell back a step from her mother. Levi Stern moved. Little Max put a hand on him, held him down. Stella Pappas slapped Mia again.

“You spy on your father?” the mother said. Her voice was a surprise. Clear and American, no accent. “Who said you had the right? You thought I’d like that? I’d thank you?”

“Ma!” Mia cried. “He-!”

“Don’t you judge your father! You’re a child!”

Andy watched the two women. He made a sound, motioned his wife away, pointed at Mia as if pinning her to the wall.

“What I do is between your mother and me, no one else. You don’t even think about what I do. Whatever, you hear? Your Ma and me. You got that now, kid?”

Mia nodded, but her big eyes were almost black with anger. Her father’s daughter. Andy seemed to consider her. In a way, I knew, he would admire her defiance, but he had to deal with it, too. He stood up, walked to her, and slapped her. Hard.

“That’s for hiring a snooper to do anything,” Andy said, cold and sharp. “You never do that again. Never!”

I was watching them, Andy and Mia, and didn’t see anything until I heard the noise behind me. I turned. So did Andy. Charley yellow-gloves had his gun out. The women shrank back.

Levi Stern was up on his feet. Little Max Bagnio was up, too, but not on his feet. Stern had Bagnio around the throat with his left arm. Little Max was off the floor, gagging and kicking air like a hung chicken, helpless in Stern’s grip. Stern had Little Max’s. 45 automatic in his right hand.

“You!” Andy snapped. “Drop him!”

I guessed what had happened. When Andy slapped Mia, Stern had jumped up again, and Little Max had put a hand on him to hold him down again. This time Stern had used his judo, his training, and Little Max never knew what hit him. Snared like a rabbit, his gun taken like candy. Pappas’s number-one gun, but no match for Stern.

“I do not like to be interfered with,” Stern said, his gaunt face neither smiling nor snarling, expressionless. “Instruct your hoodlums, Mr. Pappas, and do not slap Mia again.”

Andy isn’t used to being put down, even opposed, but he’s not so blinded by power that he’ll attack when he can’t win. He saw that Little Max, with all his deadly experience, was no match for Stern. He didn’t believe it, but he saw it. He saw that Charley and his gun couldn’t stop Stern without Max getting hurt, or maybe everyone. A stand-off, or worse.

“Charley,” Andy said, “put it away. Let Max go, Stern.”

The underboss lowered his gun. Stern waited, tall and skinny, but holding Max Bagnio like a toy.

“Levi, let him go,” Mia Morgan said. She sounded annoyed, but almost pleased, too. Even as surprised as Andy.

“Put the gun away, damn it!” Andy said to Charley.

Charley holstered the gun. Levi Stern released Little Max, but still held Max’s automatic. Little Max walked to stand behind Pappas, rubbing his throat. He said nothing, looked at Stern as if to remember him, but with respect.

“You’ve had your family discussion, Mr. Pappas,” Stern said. “You can leave now.”

“Yeh,” Andy said, and to Mia, “Don’t forget it, kid.”

Levi Stern held Max’s gun out to him. Stern didn’t think anyone was going to shoot now, and he wasn’t worried about anything else they could do. We left him alone with Mia.

On the dark street, Stella Pappas and Charley got into the black car. Little Max stood apart, still rubbing his throat, while Andy smiled at me on the sidewalk, looked up toward the lighted windows of his daughter’s apartment.

“That’s some Jew she’s got,” Andy said.

“Commando type,” I said. “Maybe you could use him.”

“Maybe, except Mia wouldn’t like that,” he said. “All closed up now, Dan? You got nothing more to work on for Mia or Wood? All in the open, right? No secrets, no clients.”

“What did you find out about Sid Meyer?”

“Not a thing. They weren’t my boys, no trace of imported talent we can find.”

“They came from somewhere.”

His eyes glinted in the dark. “Let the cops handle it, Dan. It’s not a job for you. No client, no reason, no stake in it. I’ll drive you home, then it’s over. I don’t see you again.”

“I’ll walk,” I said.

When the black car had driven away, I started to walk south in the cold night. I walked a long way. Captain Gazzo would say the same as Pappas-it wasn’t a job for me, Sid Meyer’s murder. They were right. A private detective has no business messing in gang killings, or crimes by pros, or any kind of “public” crime. No business investigating without a client. I didn’t want to anyway. Sid Meyer was nothing to me, he was public property. If there was anything still hidden around Mia Morgan or Hal Wood, I didn’t want to know about it. I had no concern in it.

As Pappas said, it was over. We were both wrong.