“Shut up!”
I wiped blood from my mouth, but made no sound. Drawn tight from hiding, balanced on nerves, a sound could push him into violence before he thought of consequences.
“Andy was tops!” he said. “Tops, you hear?”
Sorrow in his voice, and furious defense of his dead boss. But maybe guilt, too? What kind of guilt? Because he had failed in his job of protecting his boss, or was it much more than that? Was he trying to learn something from me, or was he trying to find out how much the police and I knew?
“Tops,” I said. “Why did they turn against him? Mia hiring me to chase down his girl friend. Unless she had another reason.”
“Mia don’t get past the guard upstairs,” Bagnio said. “Andy he tossed her out of the pad before, told her keep the hell out of his business.”
“Mia went to that apartment? Where Diana Wood was?”
Little Max wiped his pistol on his pants, wiped my blood off it. “That Stern guy, he’s some kind of special soldier?”
“Commando-trained, I figure,” I said. “Israeli. Tough.”
“Yeh,” Bagnio said.
His battered face thought-and all at once I saw it! Max knew something. He wasn’t running aimless, he was following some fact he had. Or thought he had. Was it something dangerous to him he wanted to suppress, or something he wanted to prove that would change the murders? How the hell could I find out? Like a shark, he had a slow mind but knew his own waters. I sweated.
“Max? Maybe you saw Stern-?”
Heavy steps stumbled up to the outside door, and it flew open with a crash. A glassy-eyed drunk staggered straight to a urinal. Little Max whirled, gun up. I jumped.
Bagnio had failed to lock the door! One of those small mistakes life can depend on in my trade. My chance. I took it.
I knocked over the bench and its glass, hit Bagnio with my shoulder. He sprawled down, the gun clattering across the dank stone floor. I ran over him and out.
I ran across the dark square with its bare, scrawny trees, and into St. Marks Place. I cursed Hal Wood for refusing police protection. There would have been a cop to run to. Without a cop there, I couldn’t risk finding Hal’s vestibule locked. Bagnio might have more than talk for me now. All I could do was run.
Through crowds of faces. Curious, angry-what jerk ran on their streets? — or laughing. A funny game, two grown men running in the city. Go get him! Tally-ho! Very funny.
Across the avenues to the dark, open space of Cooper Square. Fewer people in the windy space, and, running, I looked back for the first time. Bagnio wasn’t there. I’d been running alone.
It didn’t make me feel foolish. I ran some more. Through alleys and back yards, just to be sure. Then I found a tavern on Eighth Avenue near my apartment. A bar I never went to. I had an Irish, called Captain Gazzo. He was out, so I had another Irish and called John Albano. No answer. I called Hal Wood. No answer. That made me swear-and worry. Where were they, Hal and Emily Green?
Max Bagnio knew where I lived and worked. I drank alone for two hours. Then I went home-I had to sooner or later.
I went the back way through the alley and over a fence. Max didn’t know who I might contact, he wouldn’t be there. I might bring the police. Max wouldn’t want to be cornered in my upstairs corridor. I went up slowly. I hoped I was right. I was. The corridor was empty, silent. I went inside.
Inside, I listened. Nothing. I went to the front windows. I didn’t turn on the lights. I saw nothing on the street below. It would be risky for Little Max to chase me here, and he was after more than me. But I didn’t turn on my lights.
I got a beer and sat in the dark. I called Albano and Hal again. No answers. I hoped they were at a movie, visiting friends. Anywhere except stumbling around the city after a killer. Or maybe trying to hide a killer? I was too tired to think about that.
The day had begun in snow and trees and clear air. Now I lay in bed in the dark afraid to put on my lights. My world. Welcome home, Danny boy!
CHAPTER 15
The grotesque midget rang a gong, carried a silver ax, and I knew I was dreaming. Half awake, I let the dream go on. I had two arms! My missing arm was home-welcome home. Then it ran off my shoulder, turned into Marty and Diana Wood-both. They were sad, so sorry they couldn’t put my arm back, but they had more important things to do, and…
My apartment was gray. No Little Max, and no arm. The telephone was ringing. I shook my head to clear it, and picked up the receiver. It was Captain Gazzo.
“You got something for me, Dan?”
I told him all about Max Bagnio. That Bagnio knew something, but I didn’t know what. I didn’t know if Max wanted to expose what he thought he knew, or hide it.
“A witness against Bagnio who doesn’t know he’s a witness?” Gazzo said. “Max trying to get to him before the witness realizes what he knows?”
“Or Bagnio is the witness, and is trying to nail the killer before you do,” I said. “It could be that what Max knows isn’t enough to convict, and he wants more. Or maybe Max isn’t sure.”
“We’ll get to Bagnio,” Gazzo said.
“He knows what he’s doing, Captain. His game.”
“Our game, too,” Gazzo said.
He hung up, and I lay in bed and looked at my gray room. It was raining outside, a steady drizzle. I lit a cigarette. I had to go to work, but where did I start? Mia Morgan, Stern, Kezar? Ask a lot of random questions, and hope someone gave an answer that suddenly meant something? Detective work. Charley Albano or Stella Pappas? Ask them questions? That one made me shiver under my warm covers, and want to burrow deeper and wish I was a fat bear and could hibernate the rest of the winter without feeling guilty. We pay for being human, the proud kings.
The telephone rang. I came out of hiding. John Albano.
“Dan? Mia’s apartment’s been searched! This morning.”
They come to you. Detective work.
“Max Bagnio?” I said.
“She doesn’t know,” Albano said. “I’m there now. The same kind of wreck as Wood’s place. Mia was with Stern all night.”
“I’m on my way,” I said.
I dressed and had my coffee at a diner on Eighth Avenue. No one seemed to be watching my apartment. In the diner I sat where I could see the street. No one appeared interested in me. I caught a taxi, the midmorning lull in the cab business, and rode up to Morgan Crafts through the gray drizzle.
In the apartment upstairs, Mia Morgan, Albano and Levi Stern were straightening up the mess. The same kind of search-rugs all rolled up, closets turned out, furniture overturned. Stern stopped working to watch me, Mia Morgan didn’t. She went on picking up the pieces as if I wasn’t there. John Albano sat down.
“He jimmied the door this time,” Albano said. “Mia can’t find anything missing. She and Stern were at his hotel.”
“On the town?” I said. “But no one saw you, right? Like the night Mia’s father and Diana Wood were killed?”
Stern stepped over a fallen chair. “You’re accusing us, Mr. Fortune? Say what you mean.”
“I’ll let the police accuse, Captain,” I said. I waved at the wrecked apartment. “I want to know about this. Were you near that apartment when Pappas and the girl were killed? Found something, or saw something?”
Mia Morgan looked up. “I never went near that apartment!”
