kills the other. And Al Wales, dressing like he was warming the buffalo on a nickel and eleven grand in his kick. I went to sleep full of questions—and not a single answer.
Mary was up at eight and had the same record on: namely I was the all-American jerk and she hoped last night would teach me a lesson and be sure and see Uncle Frank today and where in hell were the aspirins.
I didn't get up to have breakfast with her, stayed in bed and thought about a cop killing his partner. What would Danny Hayes have to do for me to kill him? When Mary took off I got up and made the bed back into a couch, had some orange juice. I felt lousy, restless and blue. For no reason I put on old slacks, army shoes, a sweatshirt and a long sport shirt to cover my gun in a belt holster, and decided to do some roadwork. I walked over to Central Park and trotted around the reservoir, throwing punches like a pug. I enjoy exercise and the clean air in my lungs seemed to drive away the blues. But when I reached the west side of the reservoir I suddenly stopped—what the hell was I training for? I wasn't a would-be pug anymore but a detective and I'd already wasted too much time. I was on my own these two days, and could devote all my time to the case. I walked over to Central Park West and took a subway to Brooklyn. I had two addresses I wanted to check.
The first was out in the Fort Hamilton section and I walked past rows of old two-story private houses that reminded me of the Owens dump, till I stopped before a shingle house with a tiny garden and a busted picket fence in front. The house looked pretty seedy—it was clean and recently painted, but soap and paint won't hold a house together. There were two doorbells, two battered old- style mailboxes. Neither had the name Kahn, Sal Kahn's mother. I rang the downstairs bell. A frightful biddy answered the door. A fat sausage wrapped in a dirty pink housecoat, her face powdered a dead white with zigzag lightening eyebrows and lipstick an inch wide around her mouth, like a circus clown. Her thin, frizzled hair was too red and the powder on her puss seemed to accent the wrinkles. She had two flashy rings on her fingers and a thin marriage band. Didn't seem possible a guy had ever married this bag. She said, “Yes, sonny?” and smiled.
The smile was the clincher. She didn't have any teeth and when that red smear opened it was a shock—a deep gash across her face. “Are you the owner of the house?”
“All that the mortgage company doesn't own,” she said, her small eyes growing cautious. “What's it to you, sonny?” She spoke pretty clearly without teeth.
I didn't mind the “sonny.” With a sport shirt and slacks on I did look like a big fifteen. “Can you tell me where I can find a Mrs. Kahn?”
The gash opened wide as she shrieked, “Martha Kahn? The Lord rest her soul, she's been at peace six years now. You related?”
“Yeah, a distant cousin. I'm in New York for a few days with... uh... our school basketball team. Thought I'd look the family up.”
“And you didn't know Martha was dead? Why...” The over-red mouth clamped down. “You from the California branch of the family?”
“No, ma'am, from the Michigan branch.”
“That's good. When I bought this house from Martha just before she died, while she was so sick, I kept writing them in California to send someone here to look after the old woman. Not a peep out of them. But don't you know, soon as she died they had a lawyer here johnny-on-the-spot claiming the estate. And them acting so snooty to Martha just because of that old trouble.”
“You mean about Uncle Sal?” I asked carefully.
“Indeed I do. Like I kept telling poor Martha, what that had to do with her I couldn't see. But those smug sisters of hers out in Los Angeles—well!”
“Of course Uncle Sal was before my time and I'm a distant relation, but I remember hearing about him. Went to jail, didn't he?”
“Died in the electric chair, he did!” the biddy said, her voice full of enjoyment at finding a new listener for old gossip. “Got himself in trouble during Prohibition, but then everybody was making bootleg booze. You can bet I used my tub for something besides taking a bath. Sal was just unlucky, got hisself mixed up with gangsters, had to kill one.”
“Did you know Uncle Sal?”
There was a slight drawing up of a lot of flabby bosom. “Me? I did not. Martha didn't buy this house till many years after her son died. But she told me lots about him. Always good to his mother, a fine son.”
Tin not up much on this line of the family. Are there any other members around here?”
“They're all in California, well-off I hear, but wouldn't ever send Martha a Christmas card or nothing, on account of Sal's trouble. She never told me of any family in... where did you say?”
“Michigan. Mother was some kind of cousin to Mr. Kahn's brother-in- law. Pretty complicated. Was Uncle Sal her only child?”
“Sure was, not counting two miscarriages before Sal. Poor Martha, husband dead, son dead, and her sick and alone and those snooty relatives out there in the sunshine never sending her a card. You can bet she always remembered them with cards. Wasn't for the money she got, she'd have starved.”
“If she owned this fine house she must have been comfortable.”
The gash opened wide. “Hummp! First of every month, regular as the calendar, there was a registered letter with two hundred dollars—always ten twenty-dollar bills. I know. The last few months when the poor woman was confined to her bed and only had me to look after her, she opened the letters and I saw the money. But she never would say who it was from.”
“Maybe from California?”
“In a pig's... eye! I did notice the return addresses on the last two letters being I had to sign for them. Different names and addresses and both of them phony. Yes, sir. I was such a decent friend to poor Martha I went over to each address, figuring might be a relation who could look after Martha. First time wasn't no such street number, next time wasn't no such party. I asked Martha and she says she had no idea who did send her the money, it just came regular for years.”
“Sounds strange, you'd think she'd know who was sending her money,” I said.
Baggy nodded. “Ask me, she once told me Sal had a partner in his business but Sal didn't see no sense involving him in this trouble. Ask me, I'd bet this here partner maybe agreed to look after Martha if Sal didn't talk. Yes, sir.”
“Didn't Aunt Martha know who this partner was?”
“Said she never knew.”
“The letters stop when Aunt Martha died?”
“Sure, soon as the postman returned the next one as deceased, they stopped.”
“Can you recall the two false names and addresses you mentioned? Or the name of Aunt Martha's doctor?”
“Now that was over six years ago and... Say, you ask a lot of questions for a kid.” The clown mouth became a rough, heavy line as she stepped back and slammed the door, shouting, “I bet a fat dollar you're the son of one of them California bitches! Scoot before I take a broom to you!”
I walked back toward the subway, stopped for a cup of coffee and toast, picked up a paper and read about Wales. He made the fifth page. There were pictures of him and Owens, taken years ago, and nothing I didn't know in the news story. I had a second cup of Java and a hunk of pie which was pretty good.
Two hundred dollars a month, $2,400 a year for Mrs. Kahn, over how many years? Somebody had to be in an awful tight spot or grateful as hell to shell out that kind of dough. And it would have to be a big operator to pay that sort of green. Wales? What would he be grateful for? What could old lady Kahn possibly have on him? Maybe the biddy was only repeating gossip, had the story screwy? I wondered if it was worth while going back and flashing my shield at her. But I had a hunch she'd told me all she knew.
I made some notes in my book, decided against more pie, and left. The other address was the garage where Sal ran his still, where he killed Boots Brenner in 1930. This was in another part of Brooklyn and traveling in Brooklyn is like going over a giant obstacle course. After I'd paid three carfares I was getting low on money—I'd been so sore at Mary I hadn't asked her for a couple of bills—so I flashed my badge in the last bus. The baldy driver asked, “Young to be a cop, aren't you?”
“See the badge, don't you?” I said, walking by him and sitting down.
So a couple of blocks later this billiard ball-head stops the bus to call over a beefy beat patrolman. I was embarrassed as hell and stepped off the bus with him rather than cause more of a scene. I showed him my badge and Police Benevolent Association card, pulled back my shirt so he could see my gun. He said, “I don't want to make no mistakes, one way or the other. First off you hand me your gun, butt first, all nice and easy. Then I'll put through a call at my box and we'll see. You do look young and short but no hard feelings if I'm wrong. Understand?”
I handed this big bum my gun, telling him, “Be careful it doesn't go off and you shoot yourself.” I gave him a dime and told him to save time by using a regular phone to call my precinct. When he finally got Reed on the phone and described me they must have made some crack because the big dumb ox laughed and said, “Looked more like he'd be packing a zip gun than a badge. Thank you, Lieutenant.” I knew the ribbing I was in for when I reported back to duty.
The cop gave me my gun, said he was sorry but I must have stood on my toes when I took the physical.
“That's right. And I borrowed my old man's beard too. Look, maybe you can do me some good for a change. Know how to get to this address?”
“You aren't three blocks from it. Dye plant. On my beat when I'm working radio car. Good people at Christmas.”
“Dye plant? Was it ever a garage?”
“I been in this precinct for five years and it's been a dye plant all that time. New building. I think before that it was an empty lot and a ruin. Tell you, Detective”—he stumbled over the word—“seems to me I heard a kid was hurt playing in the old building years ago and they had to put a watchman in. An old duffer in the neighborhood. Still
