The Last Cop Out

7

She was about to open the door of the cubicle in the ladies room when she heard the two cleaning women come in and the fat one who worked on her floor say, “... and that Manny of mine should keep his big mouth shut I told him. Because he’s in that fancy Newhope Restaurant and sees her there with somebody he knows is no reason to call her boss.”

When she heard the word “Newhope” Helen Scanlon’s hand froze on the latch. That was where Gill Burke had taken her the night before last.

“So four calls he makes and he still can’t fine the man,” the voice went on. “I keep saying, ‘Manny, mind your own business,’ and he tells me to shut up. His own mother yet he tells to shut up.”

No, Helen thought, he didn’t reach Frank Verdun because he hadn’t been in the office and never gave a number where he could be reached. But he’d be in now because he always got in before everybody else. She waited until they were through changing the paper towels in the racks, gave them a few minutes to be out of sight, then walked down to her office.

None of the others were there yet, but she heard Frank Verdun’s voice on the phone in the other room and he seemed all upset about something. She made the decision quickly and when the Frenchman was off the line, she knocked and walked in. “Mr. Verdun?”

He looked at her without feeling. “Yes?”

“Something strange happened that you should know about.”

“Oh? What’s that?”

“Before I left the other day I had a call from Mr. Burke... the one who caused all that... damage outside. He wanted to take me to supper.”

The Frenchman kept on looking at her, his eyes flat.

“You had already gone, so I couldn’t tell you about it, so I went ahead and made the date to find out what he was up to.”

“Gill Burke,” Verdun mused. His eyes weren’t so flat any more.

“Yes. He was quite friendly. We had supper together.”

“And did you find out what it was all about?”

“He wanted to know about you.”

“Mr. Burke knows about me.”

“I gathered as much. He wanted to know more, particularly as pertains to Boyer-Reston — who comes to the office, the nature of your conversations.”

“And you told him...”

“What I told him was flushable, if you know what I mean.”

For the first time Frank Verdun allowed himself a smile.

“What did you think of Mr. Burke?”

“One thing,” Helen told him, “he’s a cop.”

“True.”

“He’s on a definite assignment and that assignment concerns you.”

“That’s a pretty positive statement.”

“Please don’t forget that I lived with a policeman father for a long time. I know them... their ways, their habits, all the little wrinkles they try to pull. I even asked Mr. Burke some questions myself, but he evaded them very nicely. I wish I could tell you more.”

“No, that’s sufficient,” the Frenchman said. “I appreciate your loyalty, Helen. I take it you don’t approve of policemen.”

She turned on a look he couldn’t miss because Frank Verdun was a perfect reader of faces. Nobody could fool him or fake him out with an act no matter how expert they were and now he was absolutely satisfied with what he saw... the distaste, the disgust and all the hatred that was inside himself. Her expression was real.

And it was. The only thing the Frenchman didn’t know was that she wasn’t thinking of Gill when he asked the question. She was thinking of Frank Verdun sitting on the other side of the desk.

The Frenchman didn’t need an answer at all. He said, “Tell me, my dear, did Mr. Burke ask to see you again?”

“Yes, he did. I said I’d think about it. I didn’t want to make it obvious either way.”

“Supposing you take him up on it the next time he calls.”

Helen hesitated, drowning. “Do you think that’s very practical? Don’t you think he’d suspect I was trying to draw him out?”

“Mr. Burke is a supreme egotist,” Verdun told her. “He isn’t capable of believing that he could be used by anyone, far less by a woman.”

She stayed calm and bit into her lip. “Well... I don’t know...”

“There will be a bonus in your paycheck from now on,” he said.

She made herself smile and nodded. “All right, but if he comes on too strong I’m going to cut out. There are a few things I don’t want to get involved with.”

“I understand,” he said. “And thank you, Helen.”

When she left he picked up the phone and relayed orders for that shithead Manny Roth to get a working over as a reminder to keep his lip shut. Any creep like that who would get the hots by blowing the whistle on one of his people would do it to him too. When Manny got out of the hospital he could start unloading trucks over at the Philly warehouse.

He looked at the closed door and barely smiled again. That Helen Scanlon was some doll. He felt annoyed at himself for even listening to that Manny Roth crumb.

The city editor of the morning paper had taken the gamble after a pair of expensive, discreet and immediate inquiries were made into the probable owners of the blasted building and the early edition hit the streets with a banner GANG WAR headline that even scooped the early TV broadcasts. The police hadn’t given out any identification of the bodies they found, but a knowledgeable resident of the area knew the score and passed it on in exchange for fifty bucks. With Jan and Lucien spotted, a quick check on the rest of Leon Bray’s personal entourage opened up other possibilities and what was hinted as being speculative was actual fact.

Robert Lederer threw the paper halfway across the room and strode toward the leather chair banging his fist into the palm of his hand. “Damn it, Commissioner, how can we help it if somebody pulls the cork like that?”

The burly guy in the black topcoat glared at him. “You should have had that place under surveillance.”

“We didn’t know it was there. It had only been in operation a couple of weeks.”

“Somebody knew it was there.”

“Look, this can be an internal uprising and...”

“Shit, man, don’t try to con me. It’s a damn gang war like the paper says it is. Something’s happening to the goddamn syndicate and we don’t know what it is. They got so many frigging bodies laying around they haven’t got room to bury them and we got the public bugging everybody from Albany to Washington to go after us for inefficiency.” He looked at Captain Long and the two inspectors beside him. “How many arrests have you made?”

One inspector said, “Plenty, but they don’t connect up with this mess.”

“Nobody knows anything, I suppose?”

“That’s right, Commissioner.”

“Don’t you use informers any more?”

“They don’t know any more than we do.”

“And nobody even has a single idea. Great, just great.”

“We have a lead,” Bill Long said abruptly. “Not much, but it’s an angle.”

“Well?” The commissioner’s voice was terse. He was tired of getting excuses for answers.

“That body we got in Prospect Park... part of the mutilation was similar to that on a couple other bodies a long time back. We sent Peterson out to Chicago and he called back with some information he dredged up about a guy they called Bingo who had a thing about people’s navels. He couldn’t stand them. He hasn’t been seen around about six years.”

“Beautiful,” the commissioner said, “an absolute revelation. You’re looking for a guy nobody’s seen for six years who hated navels. Wouldn’t the papers love to get hold of that.”

Bill Long had to grin. It did sound pretty foolish, but there was something spooky enough about it to be true, too. “At least we’ll know when we get the right guy.”

“How’s that, Captain?”

“Because he sliced his own navel off when he was a kid,” he told him.

It was enough for the commissioner. He dropped the stub of his cigar in the half-empty coffee cup and walked out of the room. Before either one of the inspectors could speak, Lederer turned on Bill Long sharply. “Where did you pick up that tidbit?”

“From your own boy, Robert.” When Lederer didn’t answer he explained, “Gill Burke.”

“All right. What do you think?”

“It’s the only thing that makes sense so far. We’ve had weirder things pay off before.”

“Mr. Lederer.”

“Yes, Inspector?”

“What kind of cooperation is your department getting from the other cities?”

“Total.”

“But nothing’s come in?”

“Everybody’s drawing a blank,” Lederer said. “Some of the heavies in the mob have hit the mattress, the big names are surrounding themselves with soldiers and a few have dropped out of sight entirely. We do know the Big Board has called a meeting, but we don’t know where or when just yet.”

“So the only thing we got is a navel freak,” the inspector said.

“Let’s hope it works out. Meeting’s adjourned, gentlemen.”

The three cops said so-long and filed out to the corridor. Down by the elevator the commissioner was laughing at something Richard Case had said and they waved so-long to him too when they got in the down car. Case’s words hadn’t been audible, but there was something in the tone the cop couldn’t stand at all. The guy was a powerhouse, all right, both politically and economically and he was always buddied up to people who had the right connections, but there was still something there, a subtle greasiness whose rancidity only an old pro could begin to detect. After the door closed Long said, “That Case is a pain in the ass.”

“Don’t knock him,” the tall inspector told him. “He helped push through the pay raises.”

“I still don’t have to like him for it,” Long grumbled.

Mark Shelby had gotten where he was by combining his knowledge with shrewd business acumen, guided by some primitive instinct and hunches that really were almost instantaneous computations of all the other factors. When he left for Helga’s it was always by a circuitous route that gave him ample opportunity to see if he was being followed and he was smart enough to alternate his course so as not to set any definite pattern.

The organization had its own network of internal surveillance and he remembered what had happened to Victor Petrocinni and he wasn’t about to take any chances. Being so close to the top of Papa Menes family group, he wasn’t expected to expose either himself or the power structure to flaws in his character, especially by establishing a more or less permanent liaison with Helga. The rules were simple enough. Get laid if you have to, but do it quick and get out. There were plenty of approved whores the family made available in safe quarters where you could douse the flame and get back to business.

But Helga was a flame he couldn’t douse, a burning fire that scorched him a year ago and kept getting hotter everyday. In the wife he kept at home, comfortably ensconced in the big house with all its expensive clutter, there was no fire at all, just a constantly harping voice that droned on and on from pursed lips set in a flabby face over a flabbier body. She still got undressed in the closet and the last time he had seen her naked, an accidental viewing by way of a partially opened bedroom door and a full-length mirror, he almost threw up.

Helga was his dream. His wet dream, his real living dream, and regardless of the rules, she was an absolute necessity in his life and right then he was on the way to see her.

No one was aware he was leaving the office nor saw where he went. In the basement he put on the padded topcoat, the old hat and picked up the umbrella. It was always easier in the rain with the umbrella shielding his face. Nobody would have taken him for the immaculately dressed executive whose offices took up the entire top floor of the building.

Four blocks away he took the crosstown bus and sat in the back where he had a clear view of the street behind him, got off at the corner where Guido, his cousin, had the grocery store, went in and changed again and took the cellar exit leading to the alley that ran into the adjoining block and walked east until he waved a cab down.

He felt satisfied and secure.

He had paid no attention to the old man with the paper bag under his arm who had been scrounging through the garbage pail in the end of the alley. He never knew it had taken the old man almost six months of patient waiting, step-by-step following and careful anticipation to get this far. But time was the only thing the old man had, that and the monthly check that supplemented his meager pension. Right now he had a little luck going for him too, because he had managed to catch the last three digits of the cab’s license number as it went by to stop for Mark Shelby.

When she heard the key in the lock, Helga smiled and lounged back in the couch, arms spread out across the back, the front of the yellow shortie nightgown clasped only in one spot below her half-exposed breasts, her legs twisted so Nils would be able to see all of her in such a delicious pose he would tear his clothes off right there at the door and screw her in a magnificent animal fashion before he even said hello. She was wet and ready and her belly was starting to quiver.

Then she saw Mark close the door and the quiver turned into a monstrous spasm of fear that squeezed out a gentle fart nobody heard but her. But Helga was a good actress. If Mark hadn’t been an even better audience he might not have overlooked the flaw in her performance, but that one sight of her, and the way she came across the room to meet him, all tanned thighs and bouncing breasts, to greet him with a tongue-thick kiss, wiped out all his thoughts except one. She was there ready for him at any time and his system was screaming for release.

“You didn’t call first,” she teased him. “I didn’t even make the bed ready.”

He nipped at her neck and ear lobe, his hands feeling and kneading her breasts before running down to her buttocks.

“Who the fuck needs a bed?”

Helga laughed playfully and grabbed his hand to lead him inside. “Then you need a drink.”

“The hell I do.”

She pushed him down on the couch. “Not to get you aroused, you beast.” She looked down at the swelling under his trousers. “To cool you off just a little. You are always too fast and never enjoy me when you come in like that. The next time I will wear my old ski suit and you won’t get so worked up.”

Mark grinned at her and said, “Okay, make a drink.” She grabbed him with one hand, fondled him gently until his eyes shut then picked up the phone and dialed.

Helga had figured out a system too. Nils didn’t like it, but it wasn’t his choice. Right now she was hoping she would catch him in time. After the fourth ring she began to worry, then Nil’s breathless voice came on and she said, “Lowery’s Liquor Store? Good. Please to send up one bottle of scotch whiskey and one of vodka.”

Nils said, “That bastard. I was just leaving to go over there.”

“Yes, she told him. Quarts.” She gave her name and address and hung up.

“How come you ran out of booze?”

She sank down beside him. “How come you drank it all the last time?”

His hand ran up her leg and nestled in the soft, furry place between her thighs. She pushed him away with a teasing gesture. “You wait until we both have our drinks or I won’t show you something I thought of.”

“Do it now.”

“No. The boy will be here in a minute.”

It was closer to five minutes and when Nils handed the liquor in as all had been planned out, she gave him a twenty dollar bill and said, “Thank you, and keep the change.”

Nils whispered something foreign and nasty and she closed the door on him. It had been close, much too close. Now she would have to do something distasteful to Mark Shelby she had been saving as a surprise for Nils. She rationalized, figuring that a practice session would help her perfect the trick. Of course, with Nils it would be easier because he was much bigger than Mark Shelby, but it would hurt more, though. Not much, just a little, and it would be a pleasant kind of pain.

“You sure?” the Frenchman said.

Erik Schmidt ran his fingers over his thick graying mustache and nodded. “No two ways about it, the Germans stopped making that gun in nineteen-forty because it required too much hand work on the components. The slugs were all a special alloy and they weren’t diverting any priority metals into the sporting industry. Right now the gun itself is a collector’s item.”

“How many do you think are around?”

“The factory lists only three hundred produced. I doubt if more than six are in this country. An advertiser in a gun magazine has been offering three grand for a model the past year and hasn’t had any offers yet.”

“And the bullets?”

“Crocker was the only one who had them. If that ballistics cop hadn’t checked by my shop with the spent slug I never would have known about it, but I spotted that special alloy as soon as I saw it. I even ran a spectro test to be sure. I told the cop I couldn’t help him and I’ll be damned if I know of anybody who can. They were hitting all the gunsmiths and I wised up Crocker to fake them out and started running down that lead right away.”

“Tell me again,” the Frenchman said.

“Sure.” He lit a cigarette and sat back with the butt dangling from his lips, making it bob as he spoke. “Crocker had one box of those shells in his shop since the end of the war. This guy came in and bought six of them at a buck apiece. Crocker tried to talk to him about the gun, but all he said was that he had had it for a long time and the way crime was going up, he thought he ought to put some bullets in it. He remembered him, all right, a tall guy who needed a haircut, had on an old raincoat and wore eyeglasses. The thing that got Crocker though, was that he didn’t look old enough to be having a gun after the last war.”

“I see.”

Schmidt grinned, puffing on the cigarette. The Frenchman wished those damned foreigners would use their hand when they smoke. “There’s something even better,” Schmidt said.

“He had a bandage on his left forearm that came off while he was looking at the slugs. Under it was a scab that covered a fresh tattoo.”

Verdun’s eyes went bright. “He get a look at it?”

“No, but it was about the size of a quarter and could have been a star. He wasn’t sure.”

“That’s good enough,” the Frenchman told him. “You’ll be getting a check in the mail.”

Schmidt left and Verdun sat down at the phone. It was better than good enough. There weren’t that many tattoo parlors around and they’d be able to cover every one of them from coast to coast within twenty-four hours. He picked up the receiver, got his party and issued the instructions. The wheels of the great machine ground into action.

It was hot, humid, the damned air conditioner in the sedan wasn’t working right, and Papa Menes was aggravated at having to go to Homestead to get tied in on a conference call with the big board where he had to listen and talk instead of being able to see people face to face and challenge expressions that could reveal motives and desires. He reached the coin booth five minutes before the prescribed time and went in and made believe he was making a call, his finger on the receiver cradle so nobody could tie up the line.

The call lasted twenty-five minutes, during which time he learned where the shaky areas were with the new generation of punks, who, sensing the disruption of the organization, had disregarded the respect they should have shown, put away the fear they should have known, and had begun edging in where they didn’t belong. No one group had shown its hand yet, but it was beginning to take off its glove to operate more sensitively. The board wasn’t at all pleased with the New York affair. The loss of Leon Bray and the infinite amount of information he had had at his command was immeasurable and they hoped Mark Shelby would be able to duplicate everything with the help of Papa Menes and their hope was tantamount to an imperial order of a tyrant ruler with only one penalty for failure.

Papa Menes assured them Shelby would have no difficulty. He was, after all, their own protégé, with a remarkable memory, and although he never kept any incriminating records, he would have sufficient coded notes to work from. He, Papa Menes, would see to it. Meanwhile, the whole thing might break wide open faster than they realized since the Frenchman was personally conducting a search for the person who could point the way.

When he hung up he spat out something dirty at the phone wishing the bastards at the conference table could hear it. Fucking pigs, he thought. The New York operation accounted for as much as all the rest put together and he had run it efficiently for more years than most of them had lived and here they were laying the threat on him. Those cocksuckers wanted to try him out and they were going to get a mouthful bigger than they could handle. Ten years ago he had seen it coming when they gave him that birthday party in Chicago and he had prepared for it. He had his own people right inside their most protected places and they still didn’t know about it. Let it come to a showdown and they’d know what a gang war was really like.

It’s just too bad, he thought, that he didn’t let Joey Grif fire a bazooka rocket right into that damn room while he was on the phone with them. Joey was right across the street on the top floor of a building just two stories lower than the one where the conferences were held in supposed safety, but the angle of elevation had already been carefully calibrated and Joey sure wanted to shoot that bazooka.

Papa Menes smiled at the thought and felt better. He was still in control and could prove it with one call to Joey at the right time. They were pretty close to Miami and he wondered if they ought to go into the city and look up a couple of girls. That last one had been pretty damn good. On second thought, he wasn’t all that young any more and had to ration his hard-ons. He’d hate to get all mentally aroused and only have a limp dick frustrate him. Yeah, he’d wait another day or two then really stuff it to that broad. She really liked it up the ass and when they liked it, he liked it better too.

He told Artie Meeker to take him home.

“You thought fast, Helen,” Gill told her.

“I had to. I was pretty sure somebody had already reached him and I didn’t want him putting it to me. Right now he thinks he has a loyal company girl working for him.”

“Has he?”

“As long as they pay my salary I keep the legitimate workings of Boyer-Reston confidential. Nobody has subpoenaed me or has me on a witness stand.”

“That’s the way it should be.”

“But I don’t have to live with them.”

“You don’t have to stay there either,” Gill said.

“Don’t be funny. What could I offer anybody else in the way of references?”

“Guess you have a point there. Any action in the office right now?”

“Not the kind you would expect. Mr. Verdun came in long enough to get something out of the safe and left. He didn’t say when he’d be back. He had no calls and no visitors since. All we’ve been doing is sending out invoices and taking orders.” She paused, her eyes worried. “Gill... what’s happening?”

“You read the papers.”

“Is it... really like that?”

“People keep saying there is no Mafia. No such thing as organized crime either.” Burke let a wry grin play around his mouth and took a long pull on his cigarette. “I wonder why all the biggies have their armies out while they stay in the bunkers. They’ve been chewing up the phone lines trying to find out which one of them is doing the pushing and all the alliances are being strengthened. They have couriers and spies strung out from one coast to another and you can damn well bet there is one hell of a price for the brains behind the revolt.”

“What’s going to happen?”

“You can never tell. They’ll probably close their ranks on an individual basis until they know for sure what’s going on. Otherwise they’ll just hole up somewhere while their pros tackle the job. Nothing different from any other revolutionary tactic.”

“But the police... they’re protecting them. The papers said...”

“Protective surveillance to forestall any trouble. Too damn many citizens can get in the way of stray bullets if they start shooting, and believe me, it’ll start before long.”

“Gill...”

“What?”

“Take me home. Please?”

“Okay,” he told her. “Mind if I make a stop first?”

“No, I don’t mind.”

When he pulled up at the curb outside the pawnshop, she glanced at him curiously at first, hiding a smile. “Are things really that bad?”

He patted her thigh with a laugh. “Cop business, honey. I’ll only be a minute.”

“I was only kidding.”

“You’d better hope so.”

The broker was selling a battered guitar to a long-haired kid and Gill waited until the transaction was completed before he walked over to the counter. “Evening Mr. Turley.”

A natural suspicion clouded the owner’s eyes and his tongue ran over his lips. “Officer... do we have to go through that whole thing again? I was just about to close up and...”

“A little early tonight, aren’t you?”

“My wife wants to go out.”

“Well, I’ll only take a minute of your time.”

“So take.”

“It isn’t easy to forget details of a holdup, I guess.”

“No? You ever get held up? You get somebody waving a gun and you’re supposed to remember?”

“How was he waving it?”

“Like he was going to use it, that’s how!”

“Okay, take it easy. Just what did he say?”

“Oh, mister, come on.”

“He didn’t just stand there.”

“For me to give him money is what he says. He’s all drunk and I can hardly understand him only that gun says plenty.”

“Don’t you usually hand it over?”

“What else you expect with somebody pointing a gun?”

“You’ve had a pistol license for ten years. Where do you keep it?”

The guy shrugged and pointed with his thumb. “On the bottom shelf.”

“Not very handy, is it?” Gill asked.

“My neighbor, Mr. Koch, he says I should have it. So I get it and there it stays. It’s better I just give over the money. Guns I know nothing about.”

“But Proctor was drunk, you said. You couldn’t fake him out or anything?”

“You think I wanted to shoot somebody?”

“You thought he was going to shoot you. It’s a good enough excuse to make a try to save your own skin.”

“Mister... that cop came in. I didn’t have to. Maybe if he didn’t...”

He made a “who knows” gesture and Gill said, “Yeah, I guess you’re right. He turned toward the door, seeing Helen in the car reflected in the angular glass window and wondered why the hell he was bothering with it all anyway.

When he started the engine she asked, “Do any good?”

“I think I drew a blank.”

“Think?” she queried.

“It looks like that,” he told her.

She laid her hand over his on the steering wheel. “Then it’s because it is, or it’s supposed to,” she said.

For a few seconds he just sat there, then his mouth worked itself into a grim smile and he looked at her. “That’s the kind of talk that can get you kissed,” he said.

“Can we wait until we get home?”

“Just barely,” Gill told her.

A rising sense of annoyance had Helga on edge. She had given Mark Shelby everything he had demanded of her, plus a little extra, and instead of leaving as he usually did, he had slept for six hours making it impossible for her to keep her date with Nils. Not only that, but after he had called his answering service and gotten a message, he was aggravated enough to give her two solid smacks across the face to get her out of the bedroom while he phoned in private. The inside of her mouth was cut and she was hoping that she wouldn’t get another black eye.

For once she felt like picking up the extension to see what it was all about, but she knew very well that if Shelby even suspected her of doing that he’s whip her hide raw with his belt. Or worse. There was something about Mark Shelby that really terrified her but why a wholesale grocer from Trenton, New Jersey, could do that, she couldn’t understand.

Instead, she went to her bar and made herself a light drink. She sure would like to go do something nasty to him, though. Maybe someday she’d light that damn candle under the religious statue on the back bar that he made her keep there. She’d burn it all the way out and... then a smile cracked across her swollen lips and she looked at the mirror behind the bar. She had a better idea. She’d take his holy candle that had such an interesting size and shape, maybe round the end off a little and lubricate it well and when Shelby wasn’t there she’d use it on herself while she conjured up her sexual fantasies and make herself come a dozen times, at least. Then, when she was good and mad, she’d tell him what she’d done with his religious paraphernalia and walk out with Nils.

She reached out to touch the waxen form and didn’t hear him come into the room until he said, “Get the hell away from that.”

Her smile and pert glance completely eclipsed her thoughts. “It reminds me of you, my love.”

It appeased his male ego enough so he let the matter drop when she brought him a drink. A fleck of blood still stained the comer of her mouth. “I hurt you?”

She reached up and patted his face. “You know I like it when you beat me. Only aren’t there better places to hit than my face? It makes it difficult for me to do best what you like most.”

He yanked a couple of hundred dollar bills out of his pocket and shoved them in her hand. It was the only answer he knew how to give. He knew how stupid he was to treat her like that, but he was sure one fucking lucky bastard to have a broad like her around who could take it. Without her he’d flip, and right now, of all times, he had to stay cool as ice and just as slippery. Even the trouble was working for him and if things kept on, and went even a little bit further, he’d be at the exact positioning of time and place to attain the goal he had set for himself that evening ten years ago.

When Shelby finished dressing he kissed Helga on the side of her neck and took the elevator down to the street. He walked to the corner, waited until a cab came by and gave the driver the Frenchman’s address. Let Frank Verdun issue the orders and if anything got screwed up, Frank could take the responsibility. Frank would want to use his own men and that would keep him out of it altogether. Hitting a cop was a delicate job.