than the police. Maybe I could find him just a hair faster.
And risk a bullet in the back of the head all the way.
A telephone call and I was out of it.
And Jo-Jo maybe had one hair less chance of living another day.
I took down the whiskey in that untouched shot glass in one good gulp.
Who was I kidding? I was going to try to find Jo-Jo. In the long run my only real safety lay in putting an end to Jake Roth. When you came down to it, every little bit would help. I was going to call Gazzo, yes, and I was going to Spanish Beach. I had started, I had to finish. No, that was not it. Not that I had to finish a job, or that I personally wanted to end Jake Roth. Simply that if I did not go and Jo-Jo was found dead, I would never know if maybe I could have saved him.
I put on my suit coat and went to the door. My hand was sweating. But I opened the door. I went down the back stairs, out the back way, and across back yards and through alleys for two blocks before I risked hailing a cruising cab. I told the cabbie to take me to Newark Airport. At Newark I got a seat on the first jet out — a non- scheduled carrier I knew that had a flight going out at 6 a.m. for Miami that would get me a good connection to Spanish Beach. It was really a cargo line, but I knew the boys. At least it would be a safe flight.
I had a long wait, and the airport was as safe as anywhere. I used the telephone in the non-scheduled office to call Captain Gazzo. For once the captain was out of his office. I left an anonymous tip that Jo-Jo Olsen might be in Spanish Beach, Florida. That was all. The captain would figure it out, and until I was under police protection I was not about to spill my guts in the open and tip Jake Roth. Jake had ways of finding out what the police knew. (I don’t think there has ever been a police force without someone who could be bought at a price, and I don’t expect that there ever will be.)
I waited for the dawn in a dark corner of the non — scheduled hangar. I smoked and watched the men at work loading the freight. I felt pretty set up with myself. I was being brave as hell. An honest detective and a good citizen.
Chapter 16
Spanish Beach was hot. A loud town, crowded now because the cars were racing. My connection had been good at Miami, and we came into Spanish Beach on time. I took a taxi straight to the speedway.
I remember when Spanish Beach was a sleepy town where they spoke more Portuguese than English and everyone fished for sponges from boats with eyes painted on their bows. Now it was too big and loud and fast. It was all speedway and fast cars, like Riverside, California, and Daytona Beach.
At the speedway the cars were practising out on the brick track, and the administration offices were open. From the letter Anna had received I was sure Jo-Jo was around the track in some small job. He was smart enough to stay away from the cars themselves. At least I hoped he was.
I found the personnel office and went inside. A man bent over papers behind a counter. There were tables. The busy man did not look up when he heard me.
‘Nothing but selling programmes,’ the man said. ‘If that suits you, take a form and fill it out all the way.’
He was a small man with greying hair and a bald spot he carefully covered by brushing the hair sideways on — top of his skull. Ink stained his hands. He wore no coat, and his shirt was plastered to his back already.
‘I’m looking for a man,’ I said.
He looked up at that. He did not move, he just looked.
‘A young guy,’ I said. ‘Blond, tall, about nineteen.’
He put down his pen. ‘Who the hell are you?’
I showed him my credentials. He stood up then and came to look at them. He was only mildly impressed. He sniffed. He looked at my missing arm and at my face.
‘I lost it on Iwo Jima,’ I told him. ‘Knocked out three Jap machine-gun nests. I’m a real detective.’
‘Private,’ he said. ‘I don’t have to tell you anything. Private cop and New York at that. Three Jap nests? All alone?’
‘I had help,’ I said. ‘How about my friend? You probably took him on for some job last Saturday or Monday.’
‘All I took on all week was programme kids.’
‘Nothing else?’
‘That’s it.’
‘You want to save the life of a programme boy?’
He laughed. ‘Them? Between you and me, mister, they ain’t worth saving. Punks, all of them. They take the job so they can watch the races. Race bums. Half the time they look at the races ‘n don’t sell a programme. The customers got to beg.’
The man was small and red and he had a pet peeve. So many people have a pet peeve. Something or someone or some group they have to hate. It gives them something to do in the world. It gives a shape to their lives.
‘Talk to me and I’ll take one off your hands,’ I said. ‘The name is Olsen, but he’s probably not using his right name. Tall, blond, not bad-looking. No marks. He likes motors. You would probably have hired him around last Monday, like I said.’
The man shrugged. ‘You just described maybe half of them. They come, they go. If they work a week they’re veterans. You got a picture?’
I produced the picture Pete had given me. It hadn’t improved any as a likeness of Jo-Jo. Besides, he would have done something to change his appearance a little. The man confirmed my opinion.
‘Some picture,’ the man said. ‘It looks like most of them.’ And the man looked hard at me. ‘What’s so important about this Olsen anyway?’
My stomach went down on an elevator about a hundred feet.
‘Someone else was here?’ I said.
‘It’s my day,’ he said.
‘When? How many of them? What did they look like? What did you tell them?’
‘You got a lot of questions, mister.’
I laid a twenty on the counter. It hurt. The small man scooped it up. My war record and the twenty made him my friend.
‘There were two of them. They left maybe an hour ago, no more than that,’ and he went on to give me a pretty fair description of my two shadows. The same two who had certainly beaten Petey and probably killed Schmidt.
‘What did you tell them?’
‘What I’m telling you. I got no Olsen. The description fits about ten of the punks. Your picture don’t change much. I can give you a list. The rest is up to you.’
‘Did you give them a list?’
‘Sure, they paid too,’ he said, and then he seemed to stop and think. ‘For the war record I’ll do you a favour. I figure you ain’t so far back of them.’
‘How so?’ I said.
‘Well, I heard one of them telling the other that they should have come to the speedway first instead of wasting time asking people all over town and out in Flamingo.’
‘Flamingo?’
‘It’s a small town just outside city limits. They got a dirt motorcycle track gives us some competition.’
‘How do you figure that gives me some time?’ I asked.
‘Hold your horses,’ the small man said. ‘When the first one said that about wasting time, the second one said they was just following the “Big Man’s” orders. Then the other one said they better get to a phone and get the Big Man in from Flamingo quick. And the second one said they oughta start down the list right off, but the first one said no they better wait.’
I did not have to guess who the Big Man was. But it gave me a hope.
