Triple Slay Page 10

  “It may still be a crazy idea,” Dave Cushing said. “Don’t beat yourself, Steve. These things happen.”

  “Not when I can prevent them. Not when Max Ornstein becomes the patsy.” The awful feeling of emptiness and regret ate at me again. You don’t send a man like Max out on fist assignments. It should have occurred to me that the atmosphere in Gretchen’s was loaded with trouble. The fact that Grippo walked in and hung around should have been a warning of some sort to me. Grippo had a background of mayhem and thuggery. Grippo had a hit and run reputation. He was crafty and intelligent only in the areas of assault. I had kept Grippo out of my story. It was all wrapped up with my friendship with Luigi and the fact that he had managed to make the switch to legitimate business in the recent past. A police investigation would dredge up his odoriferous past and remind the public of his days as a bookmaker. A dose of bad publicity could really damage him.

  “Masterson is nothing in this deal,” said Harry Gahan. “You can forget about him, Steve.”

  “He could be a pretty strong lead to Mari Barstow.” I argued. “They were hot about each other for some time.”

  “A lily,” Dave Cushing said. “I questioned him about Flato.”

  “Where did you find him?”

  “At Gretchen MacGruder’s. Linda Karig steered us to that dump. Masterson was back in the MacGruder living quarters, behind the big rooms where she holds her Nowist teas. He seemed right at home with Gretchen.”

  “A charming couple,” I said.

  “Nothing unusual about it,” Harry Gahan said. “In the Village anything can happen. We had a case a couple of months ago, a woman of sixty—a grandmother, for God’s sake—horsing around with a kid painter from one of the art schools. She crowned him with a gin bottle when she discovered that he was going out with another woman. Can you imagine that? They wouldn’t buy that for Hollywood, yet it happens all the time in the Village; mad romances, crazy boys, and dizzy girls.”

  “Max mentioned a girl to the cop,” I said.

  “So we heard,” said Cushing.

  “My theory,” I added, “is that it could be the MacGruder broad. I suppose you know all about the Nowick rental?”

  “We do,” said Gahan.

  He was interrupted by the telephone again. Cushing picked it up and shouted a foul word into it.

  “Lay off, stupid!” he yelled. “I told you I’m tied up—”

  But the man out there on the switchboard would not lay off. He evidently had an important message for Cushing. Cushing’s scowl vanished as he listened. Another emotion was clouding his face. He went white and he swallowed hard and put down the phone and buried his head in his hands.

  “It’s Max,” he said. “Bad news, Steve. He just passed away.”

  CHAPTER 10

  The shock of Max’s death leveled me. I went into a tailspin. I wandered downtown and uptown. I sat on a bench in Central Park and cried for a while, not giving a damn whether anybody saw me that way. My emotional make-up usually fortifies me for the hard moments, but there was nothing I could do to fight down the awful sorrow, and the anger that followed. I saw myself on a broad and barren plain, alone and hating the loneliness. And then the anger came and I struggled for some direction, some clue, some small crumb to set my feet on the right road to Max’s murderer. I kept thinking of Esther and his kids and the horror of the news they would soon hear. She would probably be at the hospital now.

  She was there with her oldest daughter and she looked twenty years older than the last time I saw her, a month ago out at the restaurant in Lynbrook. There wasn’t much I could say to her.

  The floor supervisor checked the attendant nurse and found nothing for me, no other message from Max, not a word since he had been brought in. I bothered her until she led me to the doctor who had taken care of him. He could tell me nothing helpful. For some reason I couldn’t understand, my mind kept building pictures of the attack in the hall. For more obvious reasons, my mind told me that Max had been slugged by a professional. Somebody who hit and ran.

  And that was why I went to see Luigi Calabrese.

  He had a big fancy office on the eleventh floor of the Tyler Building, one of the new copper, chrome, and plastic skyscrapers just below Fifty-Seventh Street on Park Avenue. He did business under the name of Calabrese Construction Company and the reception room was lined with various of his building projects; rows of split level ranch houses in a nearby section of Nassau County, on Long Island; a modern factory on the edge of the Jersey marshes; even a public school in Connecticut. The place stank of respectability but the money to decorate it came from Luigi’s not too distant endeavors in the numbers racket. He had graduated to legitimate business about three years ago and today there were many who accepted him as a building tycoon and forgot his mottled past. How could you hate a man who was hard at work on a low-cost housing project? How could you question a man who was beginning to resemble a junior Levitt on the flat plains of Long Island?

  The honey blonde at the reception desk eyed me with a commercial smile and told me to have a seat while she informed Mr. Calabrese that I had arrived. I told her to kindly buzz Mr. Calabrese now, while I stood at her desk. She regarded me with a cold eye and told me to do as she had instructed.

  “Mr. Calabrese,” she told me, “is in conference.”

  “Not any more, he isn’t, miss. Buzz him.”

  “I’m afraid I can’t.”

  “Then I’m afraid I’ll have to barge in and upset his conference.”

  She immediately buzzed him when I started for the end door marked: L. CALABRESE. Halfway down the hall, a man slid out of one of the side offices and bumped me and held me.

  “Grippo,” I said. “Good old Grippo.”

  “Wait in the hall, Conacher.”

  He was unprepared for my elbow. The quick jab caught him squarely in the stomach and doubled him up just long enough for me to make my play. When his head went down I swung him slightly to the right and slapped him against the wall. He was an easy target because he was much concerned with the spot where my elbow had hit his gut. Off balance now, he fell easily. I didn’t press my advantage. Instead I marched quickly to Luigi’s door and walked in.

  The tableau was a surprise. Luigi looked up from behind his modern desk, completely baffled by the sight of me. Alongside him and just as surprised was Oliver Silverton.

  “Conacher,” he smiled. “This is unexpected.”

  “Hello, Steve,” said Luigi. Grippo had come in behind me and was breathing hard down my neck. Luigi waved Grippo out of the room. I heard him grunt and slide out.

  “Grippo means no harm,” said Luigi. “A big watchdog is all.”

  “A mad dog without a muzzle,” I said.

  There was an awkward silence as my mood became noticeable to both of them. But these were not men for awkwardness. They were both professionals in the department of poise and byplay. Luigi surveyed me smilingly, his heavy-lidded eyes as innocent as a teenage lover’s. Silverton relaxed, lit one of his foreign cigarillos, and turned in his chair to face me.

  “I’m glad I ran into you, Conacher,” he said. “I’ve got news for you. The search is over.”

  “That’s interesting news, all right,” I said. “When did it happen?”

  “This morning at about ten o’clock. Mari phoned me.”

  “From where?”

  “Chicago.”

  “Why Chicago?”

  “We’ll ask her when she comes back,” Silverton sighed. “The important thing is that she’ll be back. She’s flying in sometime today. It’s a lesson, Conacher. It’s a perfect example of prejudging show people. We had Mari all wrong.”

  “Did we?” I was talking to myself, whispering to my conscience, upset by the obvious thoughts. If the stupid broad had phoned a day earlier, Max would be alive and enjoying his suburban life out in Lynbrook. I was
thinking of his little restaurant and where he would have been right now, at this moment. I was looking into Silverton’s eyes and holding back the awful urge to yell at him, to blame him, to hit him.

  “Thanks for coming over, Oliver,” Luigi was saying and shaking his hand. “I appreciate it.”

  “Everything will be all right, Luigi.”

  “You’ll let me know as soon as you can?”

  “Probably by next week,” said Silverton. “And will I see you soon at the office, Conacher?”

  “I’ll be around,” I said.

  “Drink, Steve?” Luigi asked, after Silverton had left.

  “I could use one.”

  “You look beat.”

  “I’m beat. Make it a double.”

  “Here’s the bottle. Help yourself.”

  I helped myself as he watched me, eased back in his big leather chair. His smile was generous, his manner honest, his attitude aimed to convince me of friendship deep and lasting—and I was nearly convinced. But he’d always been tough to figure. I wasn’t any closer now to interpreting the sly look in his eyes than I had been those years ago when we were GIs.

  “I’m not going to ass around with you, Luigi. I’m not up here to swap army yarns.”

  “Of course not, Steve. I can see you’re upset.”

  “And you can’t guess why?”

  “Guess?” He leaned over his blotter and clasped his hands and gave me the full strength of his Latin eyes. “Helen? You came to talk about Helen?”

  “Why Helen?”

  “Last night,” he shrugged. “You figure maybe she’s going to hell in a basket?” He got up and poured himself a shot of liquor and drank it and stared at the glass for a long time before putting it down. “I’m worried about her, too, Steve. That’s why I had Silverton come up here.”

  “You amaze me,” I said. “Oliver Silverton’s a big executive. What makes him jump when you call?”

  “Silverton and I are old friends,” he smiled.

  “Sure you are.”

  “I used to be a bookmaker, remember? But that’s not important, Steve. What matters is that I’m worried about my sister.”

  “She seems to be able to take care of herself.”

  “That’s what you think. You should meet some of her friends.”

  “You’re knocking yourself out,” I said. “Helen’s a big girl, an adult. Why don’t you leave her alone, Luigi?”

  “Because she drives me nuts.” For the first time he looked angry. A phone call interrupted our conversation and his voice went tight with emotion. It was out of key for his personality. As far back as I could remember, he had always radiated an impenetrable calm, complete with the sly, controlled smile. But the smile was gone now as he slammed the phone back on the cradle and faced me again. “You know what drives me nuts? One character especially. A jerk named Masterson.”

  “Forget it,” I said. “She can’t be serious about Masterson.”

  “That’s what you think, Steve. I happen to know that she sees him often.” He got up, no longer able to hold back his annoyance. He helped himself to another drink but did not return to his desk. “I’ve got a big investment in my kid sister, don’t you see? I gave her a hell of a good college education, Vassar, the best environment, friends from good families and all that junk. When my folks died it was my responsibility to bring her up right. She went all the way through school without any trouble. And now? Now she hits the Village and things begin to happen. I know where she goes. I know all about the crazy bunch of Nowists down there. In the beginning I paid no attention to it. What the hell, all kids with imagination live through the Bohemian routine. But when I found out she was going for this Masterson character I did a little investigating. You know what he is? You know his reputation?”

  “That’s about all I know, Luigi.”

  “Then I’ll tell you. He’s a phony. He’s a new kind of cultural pimp who goes through the motions of thinking great philosophical thoughts while working at being a bum. He feeds on kids like Helen, working gals and occasional older ones who flip over him, feed him, and promote him. You know Mrs. Prentice Devoe?”

  “The Park Avenue Devoe?”

  “That’s the one. She’s big time society, old enough to be his mother. She supported him for a full year before he cooked up the Nowist junk. Since then he’s been forced to settle for the small fry dames. And I flipped my lid when I found out that Helen was on his list. Naturally, she resented my sitting in judgment. Hell, I’m no child psychologist. Maybe I approached her the wrong way; maybe I was too tough. What happened is what you saw in her apartment—she’s fighting me now. And that’s why I called in Silverton.”

  “Silverton can help?”

  “There’s a network job open in Paris. Silverton can place her there.”

  “You think she’ll take the bait?”

  “She wants to live abroad,” Luigi said wearily. “Silverton can do me a big service.”

  “Dandy,” I said. “I wish you luck with Helen. But I didn’t come up here because of Helen.”

  “No?” He looked genuinely surprised. “What then?”

  “Grippo.”

  “What about Grippo? Spell it out, Steve.”

  “He works for you?”

  “In a manner of speaking.”

  “In the old manner?”

  “For laughs,” said Luigi. “Just for laughs, Steve. Grippo is an old and faithful dog. Nothing more.”

  “You sent your dog down to Gretchen’s last night,” I said. “Why?”

  “Can’t you guess?”

  “To watch Helen?” I asked.

  “Obviously.”

  “And is that all Grippo did last night?”

  “What else, Steve?”

  “Call your dog in here, Luigi.”

  “If it will make you happy.” He said a few words into the intercom and almost immediately the door opened and Grippo walked in. He must have been sitting just outside the door. He walked straight to the desk in his shuffling, sliding way, more like a dog than it was possible to imagine. His beetle eyes stared at his master. His fat-lipped mouth hung open and he waited, unmoved by my presence, awaiting the command to speak.

  “You know Conacher, Grippo?”

  “We met.”

  “Tell him what you did last night.”

  “After you left Helen,” I said.

  “Home,” said Grippo. “I went home.”

  “What time was that?”

  “Who the hell knows?”

  “Where do you live?”

  “My sister’s. In Brooklyn.”

  “Give me the address.”

  “Five hundred and nine Stover Avenue.”

  “What’s your sister’s name?” I had my pencil out and was putting on a big show of efficiency, an old dodge of mine that gave me a good chance to observe my opponent in the quiz game. Grippo did not lift his pig eyes my way. He alternated his gaze between his dirty fingernails and the edge of his master’s jaw. There was nothing in Luigi’s attitude to indicate that his mongrel was not leveling with me. But my little fencing match with Luigi’s man would gain me nothing. If Grippo gave me an address, he had already set it up for an alibi. He would have any number of people to swear he was at a certain place at a certain time.

  “Your hands,” I said. “Let me see them.”

  “Show the man your hands,” Luigi said.

  “What the hell is this?” Grippo asked.

  “Your hands.” Luigi leaned across the blotter and slapped his face, hard. “And no questions, stupid.”

  So he showed me his hands and I studied them carefully and thought I saw a small abrasion on the left fist, but it might have been nothing at all. Grippo would have hit Max only with the knife. There was a possibility that he could have used his left after that. A v
ery remote possibility from the color and size of the little rough spot on his left fist. Yet, the sight of his iron fist made me sweat.

  “What did you hit with this hand?” I asked.

  “Who remembers?”

  “You’ll remember,” I yelled and grabbed him and would have taken another poke at him if Luigi hadn’t stepped between us.

  “Easy, Steve.”

  “I’ll kill the bastard,” I said. “I’ll kill him if I find out he knifed Max Ornstein last night.”

  And then I went out of there.

  CHAPTER 11

  Mrs. Timmerman was reluctant to see me. She had the chain lock on her front door and she showed me only enough of herself to allow conversation. She was wearing a headache band and her eyes looked tired and considerably older, than the last time we met.

  “Of course I remember you,” she was saying. “I told the police about you and I’m going to tell them again.”

  “Now,” I said. “Tell them right now, Mrs. Timmerman, as a personal favor?”

  “You want me to tell them?”

  “Call Dave Cushing, the Captain of Detectives at Homicide. Tell him Steve Conacher is here to question you. It will save me a lot of time.”

  “I’ll do just that.”

  She made the call and after a few minutes returned to the door and opened it a crack and stared out, still doubtful about me. She had me pass in my identification for her scrutiny. She examined my credentials, taking her time about it. Then she opened the door and let me in.

  “It’s been pretty upsetting, this whole thing,” she said. “You haven’t any idea how people can be pests. The police I can’t blame, but the others, the reporters and the news people and the television people and the plain snoops. I’m just about ready to go out of town to get away from it all.”

  “I’m glad I caught you, Mrs. Timmerman. It won’t take long to finish with me. I understand you identified a girl for the police? A young actress who came to visit Flato?”

  “That one, yes. I identified her.”

  “And were there others?”

  “There were others, of course. Jan was a very popular boy.”