Zombie Pulp

6

Thirty minutes later I was in Little Italy. Parked just up the street from a warehouse called Frenzetti amp; Sons. For all intents and purposes, it looked like a warehouse and was: inventory in the form of furniture came in and went out. But if you happened to know the right people, you could get invited down below into the basement where the Italians operated an illegal casino. Blackjack, roulette, craps, slot machines, high and low stakes card games-you name it. The mob ran it and took a lucrative cut of everything that went down. The mob, in this case, being Slick Jimmy Conterro. A guy I grew up with and who happened to be an underworld soldier. I never held that against him and he never held being a cop against me.

I knew that right now, Bernie Stokes, night watchman of Harvest Hill boneyard was down in the casino. And would be for fifteen or twenty minutes more.

I knew I could go down there and get him anytime, but I didn’t. I’ve gambled at Jimmy’s place plenty. Lots of cops do. He gives good odds. Better than you’ll get in Vegas. He runs clean games. But I also knew Jimmy wouldn’t like me barging down there and manhandling a customer. You didn’t make waves in this neighborhood; even the cops were on the payroll here.

So I sat there in the heap chewing a salami on Jewish rye and dipping my bill in a quart of beer. The minutes ticked by. I finished the sandwich, the beer, was halfway through my second butt when Stokes came out.

You should’ve seen him.

Looking over his shoulder, keeping his head low trying to blend into the crowd. But he blended in like a nun in full habit at a stroke parlor. Maybe it was how he acted-so jittery and afraid-but the guy was marked. You could see that.

I called him over and he almost left his skin lying on the walk.

“ Jesus, Bernie,” I said. “What gives? You don’t look so good.”

“ Don’t feel so good,” he said, sliding through the passenger side door.

He was a tight little guy with a beak on him like a doorstop. Good guy as far as that went, but you could trust him like you could trust a rattlesnake in your shorts. He stank of hair oil and cheap rum. His eyes were red as the setting sun and his face hadn’t seen a razor in a week or more.

“ I got my problems, Vince. You know? I got my problems.” He kept his eye on the rearview. In fact, he kept an eye out everywhere. “You can’t be too careful these days.”

“ Give you a ride somewhere?”

“ Sure. Uptown. You know the place.”

I did. Bernie had a place over an Irish saloon. “Somebody after you, Bernie?”

He was trying desperately to light a cigarette, but his fingers were trembling too much. I lit it for him. His face was pale as a whitewashed fence. “Yeah, somebody’s following me. I know it.”

I wasn’t sure what that was about. Jimmy’s goons weren’t known for their subtlety; they wanted you, they kicked right through the front door like the First Marine Division hitting a beach. “Probably cops, Bernie.”

“ You think so?” He was even paler now.

“ I know it.” I explained to him how I was unofficially working with the precinct. “It’s this bit about Tanner. The papers didn’t have the particulars, Bernie, but he was partially eaten. Chewed up like a drumstick.”

“ Jesus.”

He looked like he was going to be sick, so I turned the screw a bit.

“ They want to talk to you about what happened out at Harvest Hill. Some ghouls hit it last night, snatched a couple stiffs. Caretaker found the graves all messed-up this morning.”

Bernie stared off into space. “You think they’d put the graves back in order when they were done.”

Some cabbie laid on his horn and I gave him the finger. “Who are they, Bernie? Listen, you might as well be square with me on this bit. Better me than the bulls, you understand? They put the pinch on you, you’ll be wearing a state suit.”

“ I don’t know nothing about nothing,” he said.

But he knew. He knew, all right. “You know a cop name of Albert?” I asked him. “Big ugly flatfoot? Know the guy?”

“ Never heard of him.”

I smiled…then frowned, shook my head before he saw me. “Well, this Albert, this big ugly shit-eating ape, he’s really something. He’s handling all this. You sure you never heard of him? No? Damn, guy gives me the creeps. They should’ve thrown him off the force years ago. Things he does to guys… boy. Anyway, he’s in charge. He’ll be coming to see you real soon. You can count on it.”

Bernie looked at me. “What…what kind of things this Albert-guy do? I mean, what? Knocks guys around? Rubber hose or what?”

I laughed and shook my head. “Only if they’re lucky. See this Albert…boy, he’s something. Some kind of pervert, I guess. Likes to get a guy alone. Strip search him and stuff. But that’s just the beginning with this freak…man, makes me sick, Bernie. I just hate the idea of him pawing you up and all. Forcing himself on you-”

“ Christ!” Bernie said, desperate now. “I’ll just talk to you, okay, Vince? You can keep him off me, right?” He dragged off his cigarette and he could barely hold it still. “All I know is these people come to me. They say they’ll pay me a hundred just to look the other way. But when I found out what they want…I’m, no sir, no goddamn way…”

“ Not unless they up the sugar?”

He shrugged. “Well, you know how things are these days. So five-hundred they give me. I tell ‘em, okay, just put everything back the way you found it. First couple times they did too.”

I swallowed. “How many times this happen?”

“ Three, four times. I don’t know what their thing is. Don’t wanna know. Last night, though, Vince, that was my night off. They must’ve just come in and did what they wanted.”

“ Who watches it when you’re off?”

“ No one. They were all by their lonesome last night.”

“ Who are they, Bernie?”

He shook his head. “I don’t know. Didn’t get no names and didn’t give ‘em mine. There’s two of ‘em-a man and a woman. Creepy, I tell you. Both of ‘em. But they just handle the business end. This truck pulls up and men get out, do the digging. It’s dark, I never see what they look like.”

“ Why these hoods, Bernie? Why are they after these dead criminals?”

He just shook his head. “They know who they want and where to find ‘em. I didn’t have nothing to do with that.”

He told me a few more things, but nothing of any value. I brought him back to his place even though I knew the cops would be waiting for him. But it had to be done. They had to put Bernie in custody…if somebody really was following him, he might not be around in a day or two.

Two uniforms jumped out from behind a parked car and put the elbow on him. He was like jelly in their hands, trembling, shaking, loose as a bag of poured rubber. Completely boneless. Tommy came walking up and nodded to me, then he turned to Bernie.

“ You Bernie Stokes?” he said, flashing his tin. “Yeah? Well, I’m Detective-Inspector Albert. I need to have a word with you. Alone.”

You should’ve seen Bernie then. Christ, he came alive like a sack of cobras, twisting and writhing and fighting. The uniforms could barely hold him. Me? I had all I could do to keep a straight face.

“ Put him in the car,” Tommy said. Then he turned to me. “What the hell’s wrong with that sonofabitch?”

“ Search me.” I quickly filled him in on everything I’d gotten out of Bernie. “You better put him under protective custody, just in case.”

Tommy nodded. “He’ll be safe.”

“ He’s not a bad guy, Tommy. Just a little sleazy is all. He’d make a good little rat. Let him skate on this and he’ll be more than happy to finger these people for you if we can bring ‘em in.”

“ Yeah, okay. Sure was acting funny…not a hophead, is he? No?” A look passed over Tommy’s face. Then: “You didn’t happen to tell him I was some kind of pervert, did you?”

“ Me?”

“ You bastard. You goddamn bastard, Steel.” But he thought it was funny as always. “Listen. Do the names Yablonski and Sumner mean anything to you?”

They did, but I couldn’t place them

“ They were two of the jurors that put Quigg away,” he said. “They found their bodies this morning. Same as Bobby Tanner.”

I just stood there, the color running out of my face slow and steady. “It’s connected to him. It all is. But how?”

“ That’s what we’re gonna find out tonight, sunshine.” Tommy put an arm around me and grinned at me salaciously with a face uglier than a boar’s backside. “You think I’m a pervert? Good. Because me and you got a date.”

“ What should I wear?”

“ Come as you are. We’re pulling the night shift out at Harvest Hill.”