The Big Bang

Chapter Nine

THE RAIN HAD SCOOTED, and morning sun was slanting in the side window of my inner office through blinds that were half shut.

Pat tossed a manila envelope onto my desk and it landed with a clunk. Hat pushed back, he hadn't sat down yet, and was looking at me with a narrow-eyed skepticism I knew all too well.

"There's your latest favor," he said.

I didn't have to open the envelope to feel the spool of tape within. "Thanks, buddy."

"Never mind the soft soap. Now I want some information."

I gestured to the client's chair. I realized he preferred to tower over me and do his cop intimidation number—like that would work with me. He made a sour face and tossed his hat on the desk and plopped down.

"What do you want to know, Pat?"

He sat forward, eyes hard and sparking. "What the hell were you doing going around to Little Italy yesterday and confronting Junior Evello?"

So the feds and the NYPD were cooperating today.

I said, "Who says I confronted him? Salvatore's is a public place. A restaurant open for business."

"Can it, Mike. What went down?"

I shrugged. "We had a polite chat. No guns were drawn, no saps or brass knuckles came into play. Just a quiet little powwow between two factions."

"What do you mean, two factions?"

"Good and evil, buddy. Aren't you paying attention?"

He smirked. "Yeah, which are you?"

I ignored that crack and filled him in, telling him about Evello denying any part in the attacks on me or Billy Blue, and how the mobster all but confirmed that a big shipment of H really was due any day now.

Pat was frowning. "Tell me something I don't know."

"Okay. The Snowbird is back in town. Has been for some time."

He shifted in the chair, vaguely embarrassed. "Well, I knew that ... but I admit I just found it out. The feds down Miami way say he slipped out by private plane maybe a week ago. I don't see how that's pertinent."

I shrugged. "Maybe it isn't. And a guy like Jay Wren can pull strings from Miami easy enough. But somehow, with all that's been happening, it makes sense that he's been right here in the thick of it."

Pat's forehead tensed. "You think Wren's behind all of this? Not Evello?"

"I'm not sure. Evello has a smooth line, so it's hard to say. But I tend to believe the son of a bitch. And Wren is tied to Billy's attackers—Brix, Felton, and Haver."

Pat half climbed out of the chair, shaking a finger at me. "Speaking of Brix—goddamnit, I almost forgot, over this Evello thing.... What's the idea going over to Bellevue and scaring the shit out of my prisoner?"

"Why, are they short bedpans?"

"You go in half-cocked and hand that rookie on the door a load of crap about 'Captain Chambers,' when all you had to do was ask, and I'd have arranged it."

"Would you?"

"Well. Maybe." He gave me the RCA-Victor-dog head tilt. "So ... you get anything out of the creep?"

"He swears up and down that jumping Billy was strictly over the hospital supply-room pilferage dispute. Nothing bigger or more far-reaching than just trying to stave off this shortage on the street."

Pat shook his head. "Then why the hell these attempted hits on you, Mike? If all you did was break up a couple junkies ripping off a decent kid, why send Russell Frazer after you? Or those St. Louis boys?"

"That's what keeps me up nights." I sat up. "Look, Pat—about Wren."

"Yeah?"

"See what kind of surveillance photos the feds and Miami PD have on the Snowbird's recent recuperation visit."

"Why should I?"

"Because it gives me another thread."

"Are you making a sweater, or unraveling one?"

I grinned. "Do me the favor and find out."

"Fuck you, Mike. Really. I mean it. Fuck you, anyway."

"I love you, too, buddy. Now ... tell me the big news."

He frowned. "What?"

"How long have I known you?" I tapped the manila envelope. "You could have had this messengered over. Captains of Homicide don't play delivery boy. And you got the expression of a constipated billy goat. What's happened?"

His face turned blank. He dropped the phony theatrics, cut the comedy completely, and said, "Edwin Brooke."

"Guy who robbed and supposedly offed Russell Frazer. Right. What about him?"

Pat sighed. "He got a taste of his own medicine last night, and I don't mean cocaine—somebody shivved him in the shower at the Tombs."

I leaned forward. "What kind of condition is he in?"

"Cold," Pat said. "The kind of cold you get when they file you away in a drawer at the morgue."

"Shit," I said.

"You're trying to gather threads, but somebody else is going around picking them up and getting rid of 'em."

"Shit."

"You said that."

I frowned at him. "The shiv artist? In custody?"

Pat shook his head. "It's stir, Mike. Guys get shivved. And nobody rats."

"Shit."

"Some vocabulary you got."

Then I gave him a look that made him uncomfortable—the slit-eyed, half-smiling look that told him things would get worse before they got better.

"Mike..."

"What if there's somebody new on the scene, Pat? What if somebody is moving in on not just the Snowbird but Evello?"

Confusion lined his forehead. "Isn't the Snowbird moving in on Evello enough?"

"Should be. But what if there's another player in this game? Like two people are playing chess, then they get distracted and a third party slips in and makes a move that neither of them catches."

His eyes were tight. "Who?"

"Not sure, old buddy. Don't know."

"Don't hold out on me, Mike...."

"I'm not." I leaned back and pretended to change the subject. "Say, I haven't remembered to compliment you and your pals in Treasury."

"About what?"

"That solid police work you've been doing. These brilliant efforts you've made, working as a team, interdepartmental cooperation and all. Really cracking down on the illegal drugs, rolling up your sleeves and getting those streets dried up."

"Well, uh, thanks, I guess."

"In a pig's ass." I gave him the horse laugh. "Your entire effort is based on anonymous phone tips! You just go running after the leads some voice on the phone hands you...." And I tapped the envelope that bore the tape.

"I didn't deny we'd had phone tips, Mike."

"No. But you didn't tell me those tips were the whole megillah. Ever consider that somebody inside the organization—somebody trying to take over from Evello—might be playing you john laws like a kazoo?"

He didn't deny it, just asked, "Wren, maybe?"

"Maybe, but it sounds to me like the Snowbird and his people are suffering the street shortage right alongside Evello."

Pat chewed on that, then he plucked his hat off my desk and got to his feet. "It's a theory. I'll share it with Treasury."

"Do that."

The sound of Pat shutting the outer office door preceded Velda shutting the inner one. She was wearing a copper-colored silk blouse and a darker brown tight skirt that ended just above her knees.

She came over and sat on the edge of my desk. When she did that, crossing her bare legs, I wanted to get up, use an arm to sweep everything but her off the desk, and hike that skirt up and take her right there.

But I was just too damn professional for that.

"Sounds like things got a little heated," Velda said.

"You know Pat. Whenever I'm doing most of his work for him, he starts making noise like a ruptured walrus, thinking nobody will notice he's a washout."

She picked up the envelope with the plastic spool in it. "This is the tipster tape? I'll get it over to Vincent Rector. Messenger okay, or hand-delivered?"

"Hand-deliver it, doll. Take your .32."

She nodded. "Pat had a funny look, going in. And a funny look, going out, now that I think of it. What's up?"

"Edwin Brooke got stuck in the showers at the Tombs."

"Like that's news."

"I'm talking about with a knife, kitten."

"Oh." Her eyes went big. "Somebody's cleaning up."

"That's what you do in the shower. Anything on the Vought dame?"

She nodded. "Shirley Vought did have rich parents. Her father was Mr. Vought Chemical, and she was an only child. So she should have inherited big-time."

"Should have?"

"May have." Velda shrugged. "It's not public knowledge, how much she wound up with."

"Or didn't wind up with?"

"Or didn't."

I grunted. "Why wouldn't she have?"

Velda shrugged and nice things happened with her hair and breasts. "She had a rather public falling-out with her father about five years ago, couple years before his death. Seems she dropped out of college in the first year, and she was a regular wild child—attracted to dangerous men, I gather."

"You don't mean mob guys?"

"No! Celebrity types—actors, rock musicians, some of the jet-set party boys, too. Making the Manhattan club scene, up all night drinking and dancing. Could just be a girl feeling her oats. You know about feeling your oats, Mike, right?"

I didn't take the bait. "So can we confirm whether she's independently wealthy, as she says?"

She raised both eyebrows. "Well, I have a line in to a P.I. agency we've worked with a couple times—one that deals with financial stuff ... the kind of bank-records research that verges on industrial espionage, which isn't usually our bag. It's expensive, Mike. Could cost a couple grand, and we don't have a client."

"Sure we do, sugar."

"Yeah, who?"

"Me. I hired us to find out why so many people want me dead."

She chuckled, and slid off the desk, and her tight skirt hiked halfway up her thighs. "Hard to imagine, a sweet-tempered soul like you, Mike ... making enemies."

And she hip-swayed out, taking her time pulling the dress down.

"With friends like you, baby," I told her, "who needs 'em?"

At Dorchester Medical College, I went looking for Billy Blue and was directed to Dr. Harrin's modest office, where I found the boy straightening and cleaning up in anticipation of the doctor's imminent return.

The kid, in a light blue T-shirt and jeans and white tennies, was in the process of pounding a nail into the wall, and didn't hear me come in.

"Mr. Hammer!" he said with a jump. "Good to see you."

"You seem pretty well recovered," I said. "So when's the doc get back?"

"Couple days," Billy said. He displayed a minor limp when he went over to rest the hammer on top of a file cabinet, then leaned down to pick up a framed plaque, propped against the wall—the Caveat emptor one—and hung it on the new nail.

"Dr. Harrin sure gets a kick out of these crazy plaques," Billy said as he went around making them hang straight. "What do a bunch of stupid slogans do for a smart guy like Dr. Harrin, you suppose?"

I helped myself to the chair behind the doctor's desk. "They just distill his philosophy, I guess, into little pills you can swallow. He said some of them remind him of past incidents in his life."

"Oh, sure. He told me about that 'Let 'em eat cake' deal, when he was in the war. Were you in that war, Mr. Hammer?"

"Yeah. Harrin was in Europe, though. I was in the Pacific theater."

"Really? Where?"

"The jungle. A crappy little island nobody's interested in anymore. We left enough blood behind on both sides to irrigate that godforsaken chunk of real estate, and yet it's still worthless."

Billy took a break and pulled up the chair opposite me. "I just got my draft card. A lot of guys I know are getting called up. Vietnam."

I studied his face and smiled. "You don't want to go, do you, son?"

"No. I won't burn my card or anything, or go to Canada, either. I'll go if I have to. But the doctor is helping me."

"Yeah?"

He beamed. "Dr. Harrin, he's a great guy. I mean, he's a great man, great doctor, but also a great guy. He's set up a college fund for me."

"So you'll get a deferment."

"I should. And then when I do go, I'll have a skill."

"You want to be a doctor, son?"

"No. I'm not that smart, Mr. Hammer. But I am interested in medicine. I want to go to nursing school."

I nodded. "Always a need for male nurses. And when you get called up, you'll be Medical Corps."

"That's what I'm hoping. I really don't think I'm up for the killing ... but if I could help guys in trouble, that would be different." The kid looked young for his age, but his voice had a weary quality that surprised me. "I hope I'm not taking advantage."

"Advantage?"

"Of Dr. Harrin." He shrugged, his expression glum. "Look, I know the score. I'm filling in for Davy. I'm a surrogate son, that's the term, right? So taking the doc's money for college, does that make me a leech?"

"No. You knew Davy? In school?"

"Yeah. He was ahead of me, though."

And that seemed to be all Billy had to say on the subject.

"Mr. Hammer, what brings you around? Were you looking for me?"

"Yeah, Billy. Couple of loose threads. Listen, I spoke to Junior Evello about you yesterday."

He frowned. "Really? About me?"

"Do you remember telling me you mailed a letter for him? You said you ran errands for Evello, when he was in the celebrity suite, and one of them was mailing a letter...?"

"Sure."

"What was that letter?"

He shrugged. "I dunno."

"You really don't?"

"No. Why? Is it important?"

"Billy, I need you to be straight with me. If you saw an address on that letter, it might be the reason you got jumped by—"

"Mr. Hammer, I mind my own business. I just mailed that letter for Mr. Evello that time. And as far as why I got jumped, you know why—because I wouldn't be a supplier for Brix and those creeps."

I nodded. "I believe you. And I believe you're right."

That was the thing about threads. Sometimes you pull them and you get a little piece of string and you toss it. Sometimes you pull them and half a sweater comes off.

Billy stood. "It's nice to see you, Mr. Hammer. But I've got the doctor's office pretty well spruced up. And I have some storeroom stuff to do, so—"

"One last thing, Bill."

"Sure."

I gestured to the desk. "Where are the family pictures?"

"Huh?"

"Dr. Harrin lost his son. He loved his son. The loss was devastating. And yet ... nowhere in this office is there any trace of the boy. Not a single picture. Not a framed sports letter or trophy the boy won, zip. Nothing on the wall, just those slogans. And on the desk ... nothing."

Billy was obviously uncomfortable. "Well ... I don't know why.... Maybe the doc's so upset, he doesn't want to be reminded."

"Of the son he adored? Bill, you said you knew Davy. What kind of kid was he?"

"He was ... a great athlete."

"Yeah, right. So I heard. What else?"

"He was ... real popular."

I leaned forward and put an edge in my voice. "Bill, goddamnit, level with me. What kind of boy was Davy Harrin?"

He swallowed. "Not perfect, okay? Look, there were things about Davy the doc wasn't happy with, all right? It's not my place to say, Mr. Hammer."

"Bill ... Billy..."

But he was at the door. "I have to get back to work, Mr. Hammer. Nice seeing you."

And Billy Blue, who wouldn't fink out another kid even if that kid was dead and buried, was gone.

***

Bud Tiller almost never wore ties.

If he had a court appearance, sure. If he was meeting the president of a major corporation, maybe. The broad-shouldered, blond bulldog had been in the FBI for so many years, where a tie was standard issue just like .38 revolvers, that when he quit to go into business for himself, he swore off neckties except in extreme circumstances.

What he almost always did wear was a selection from his extensive collection of Hawaiian aloha shirts, gaudy paint-factory explosions that could brighten a sunny day into something blinding. He could even brighten up a back booth at Marco's Bar and Grill.

"Tell me you don't go undercover in those things," I said, after a sip of Pabst.

He sipped his own glass of beer, then grinned at me with foam on his face. "I don't go undercover anymore. That's for the youngsters. And when I go out talking to people, I like to get their attention."

"No kidding. So what do you have for me?"

A jukebox was playing Sinatra singing "Luck Be a Lady," reminding me of my debt to the old girl.

He wiped the foam off with the back of a hand. "Mike, this is going to be vague."

"I ask for intel, and I get vague?"

His expression was grave. "It has to be. I'm lucky I got anybody to talk to me about this at all. Think about it. Killing somebody like Junior Evello or Jay Wren is one thing—hitting them with a vehicle and not killing them is a whole other deal."

"Somebody takes on that job," I said, "and if it ever catches up with them, more than a car would hit them."

"Exactly. These are insurance scammers, who are well outside mob circles. But they know the possible consequences, plying their talent on big-time criminals like the Snowbird and Junior."

"Which is why one driver was a gal in a car, and the other a guy in a truck."

"Right," Bud said, nodding vigorously. "Guys like Wren and Evello, they're going to look hard at any accident, to see if it really is an accident."

"And in these cases, it wasn't."

"They were not accidents, no. But the cops accepted them as such, and more important, so did the victims, Evello and Wren."

"Who was the client?"

His eyes went wide and he shook his head. "No. That info's not available."

"You lead me to your contact, and I'll make it available."

"I know you would, Mike. But I have to protect my sources. I do a lot of insurance work. More than you. All I can do is confirm that somebody had the kind of money that could make these scammers take on the very risky job of playing hit-and-run with a goddamn Mafia boss."

I swirled my beer, looking into it like I expected tea leaves to read. "Wealthy client, then."

"Fair to say."

"Not another mob guy?"

Bud shook his head again. "I would say not. This I just gathered, Mike. More gut than intel, okay? But I would say a straight john hired this done. Somebody way out of the loop."

"And yet somebody who was somehow able to get to these scammers. Who would have that kind of inside info?"

"I don't know. An insurance investigator like me, maybe? Possibly a medic?" He gave up an eloquent shrug. "Afraid I'm going to have to charge you for this one, Mike."

"I know."

"Don't choke when you see my bill. It's gonna be over a grand."

"I'm hip. But why don't you buy the fuckin' beers, at least?"

Bud's bulldog puss split in a grin, and he said, "My treat, amigo," and stopped at the bar and paid up, on his way out.

I just sat there with my Pabst, wishing my mind weren't taking me where it was, when I looked up and two guys who were definitely not in Hawaiian shirts were standing there, looming over me, like ads in Esquire come to life.

One was tall and thin and in a dark gray tailored suit with a black necktie. The other was short and thin and in a dark gray tailored suit with a gray-and-black necktie. They had hair cut short but left long enough to run a comb through, and the kind of pale complexions you get in casinos or in a coma or maybe on surveillance.

"FBI?" I asked. "Or T-men?"

They slid in the booth opposite me, the shorter one first. The tall one, who had blue eyes as faded as the ass of an old pair of jeans, seemed to be in charge.

"Treasury," he said. His voice was baritone with no inflection to speak of. "Would you like to see ID?"

"Why not?"

They both showed me their plastic cards with photo identification. The shorter guy had brown eyes, but otherwise these two were peas in the same federal pod.

"Agent Radley," I said to the tall one. "Agent Dawson."

"Make it 'mister,' Mr. Hammer," Radley said. "We don't advertise our status as agents."

Like hell they didn't.

"I appreciate the trouble you've gone to," I said. "Normally my tax refund just comes in the mail."

Radley smiled but it was small and a real effort. "I know your reputation, Mr. Hammer. And you might be interested to know that there are those of us, in government circles, who appreciate your methods. Even ... envy them."

"Thanks. Maybe you can be a character witness the next time I'm up on charges."

He smiled again and with less effort. "Your friend Captain Chambers speaks highly of you."

Not to me, he didn't.

The smaller T-man piped in: "And he suggested that we make contact with you directly."

"Swell. What can I do you for?"

"Mr. Hammer," Radley said, "you and Captain Chambers recently discussed the rumored shipment of heroin that is, right now, about the only thing heroin-related on these streets. The notion that this so-called super shipment might be a myth or a ruse, either on our side or the ... other side? We want to disabuse you of that notion."

Dawson said, "It's very real, Mr. Hammer. Hundreds of pounds of pure heroin, about to hit these shores."

"When?" I asked.

"That," Radley said, "we do not know. We believe it to be ... imminent."

"Define 'imminent.'"

"As soon as a day or two. No longer than five or six."

"Okay. Narrowing it down like that means we're right on top of nothing at all."

Radley exchanged blank glances with Dawson. Then he said, "We're aware, of course, that you are deeply embroiled in this affair, starting with the attempted robbery of William Blue. That there have been attempts on your life, and that you have been in touch with many of the major players."

"Yeah, I know all this. I was there."

Dawson said, "Captain Chambers told us about your theory."

"What theory is that?"

"That a third party, someone new in the equation, may be attempting to take possession of this shipment ... possibly as part of an effort to overthrow Evello and Wren. That this third party may be using you to play Evello off Wren, and vice versa."

I shrugged. "Just piecing things together, boys."

"Well, it's an interesting theory, Mr. Hammer. And one we had not contemplated."

Radley asked me, "Whom do you suspect?"

"Someone inside."

"Inside the Syndicate drug operation, you mean?"

"Not Radio City Music Hall."

"Who, Mr. Hammer?"

"No idea." Actually, I was starting to have an idea, but I wasn't ready to share it.

I gave them a grin that was only a little threatening. "Fellas, I don't mean to cut in on your action. But this is personal. When people try to knife me or shoot me, I take an interest."

Radley held up a hand, a stop motion, but a gentle one. "We are not asking you to stop investigating, Mr. Hammer. Quite the opposite. You have ways and means not available to the Treasury Department. You have access to people and places that we do not, and cannot, without raising suspicion and undue questions."

"And?"

"And," Radley said, "we ask only that you keep us abreast of your efforts."

Dawson handed me a card. It had four phone numbers on it and no names and no agency designation.

"You hear anything about the shipment," Radley said, "whether solid information about the time and date and delivery, or just a rumor ... you let us know."

They gave me curt smiles and matching nods, and slid out of the booth and vanished like your money in government hands.

I finished the beer and put their card in my wallet. So—Uncle Sam was on my side.

But was that a good thing?