laundry to risk exposing every lousy racket Dekkert was tied into. Read his jacket and you’ll see medals of valor, between those dirty smudges. This is one very hard case. Be careful of him, chum.”
“Don’t worry about me,” I laughed. “After the two beatings I gave him, he knows what to expect now.”
“Yeah, but do you?”
“Pat, I’m just in Sidon to take the rest cure, remember? Anyway, thanks for the info. If something develops, I’ll ring you.”
“Always glad to help you out. It’s the least I can do, all the times you come through for me. But the truth is, Mike… I ought to forget I even know you, after the Williams case ^*.”
“Pat, I took this trip to forget about all that, remember?”
“I remember. Do you?”
“Pat…”
“You run into a crooked cop you tangled with before, and stumble into a missing persons case, which incidentally hasn’t come over the teletype as such yet. And you tell a very amusing story about shooting up the Sidon police station.”
“I didn’t shoot it up. I just-”
“Shot a gun out of the deputy chief’s hand. What’s your horse in this race, Mike? You got no murdered friend to avenge this time.”
“Back off, Pat.”
“Okay, I will. And I will help you like I always do. Whatever background info you need, buddy, you got it. You just have to convince me of one thing.”
“What’s that?”
“That you aren’t down at Sidon trying to get yourself killed.”
“Pat,” I said. “I don’t have that big a conscience.”
After I hung up, the operator came on wanting another quarter to cover the call, and I fed it to her.
I returned to Velda’s booth and she looked up and asked, “Now what?”
“That was Pat. He couldn’t give me any help except to provide a little something on Sharron Wesley.”
“A little something good?”
I shook my head. “She was nabbed on a few minor violations. Dekkert must have picked this podunk as a last resort or else he’s working for something or somebody bigger than the so-called police department.”
“Why last resort?”
“He’s been in a few nasty jams since he was run out of Manhattan. Want another drink?”
“No thanks, Mike.”
“Maybe some lunch?”
“I’m still stuffed from breakfast. There’s a theater down the street with a Saturday matinee double feature.” She scooted out of the booth. “What do you say?”
For the next two and a half hours we sat through a western we’d already seen and a Bowery Boys comedy I wished we never had. I wasn’t really paying any attention to the screen, just sitting there going over everything I’d learned so far, again and again. Finally I fell asleep and Velda punched me in the ribs when it was time to leave.
As we exited, Velda said, “You looked surprised when I woke you.”
“Yeah. I was wondering what Huntz Hall was doing in a Randolph Scott picture.”
We headed across the street to a dingy diner, boxcar-style; but the kitchen behind the counter looked clean and the cutlery didn’t have food caked in the tines of the forks like a lot of such joints. The proprietor was a big jovial Polack who sported a handlebar mustache and a pair of black eyebrows that met in the middle without thinning out in the slightest.
He wiped the counter clean enough for eating, then said, “What’ll it be, folks?”
“I’ll have the veal cutlet,” Velda said. “Home fries and corn.”
I asked, “Got a steak?”
He shook his head and black snakes danced on his scalp. “Naw. Rationing is over, my friend, but there are still shortages.”
“I know. Just asking.”
“Oh, I could have plenty of meat if I wanted to buy black market, but I won’t do it. I lost a son on Iwo and I’ll be damned if I will do business with them sons of…” He hesitated. “…excuse me, miss… dirty bums who made all that filthy dough while our kids were dying over there.”
“Gimme the cutlet then.”
“Okay. You don’t like my speech?”
“Your speech was swell. But it’s not what I came in for. Veal cutlet.”
He looked at me carefully, trying to decide whether we were friends or not. “You in the war, mister?”
“He sure was,” Velda piped up.
I growled, “Velda…”
“With the infantry in the Pacific,” she went on. “He killed more Japs than the Enola Gay.”
A grin bloomed and took the handlebar along for the ride. “No kidding? I was down in Port Moresby, cooking… till they kicked me out.”
I asked, “How come?”
Our plates of food were already in the window behind him.
He went to get them, and said to us over his shoulder, “They found out I was over-age. Ain’t that something? Gee, I worked harder than any two kids in the outfit. Over-age, huh, what a joke. What a bad joke on me.”
“How did they get wise?”
He set the plates in front of us; their steam smelled good. “The pencil pushers did it, but it took a while. See, I was in the first war, only I wasn’t a cook, I was in the tanks. Took ’em a year and a half to catch up, but they did. When I left, the colonel, he shook my hand. Don’tcha think that was nice of him?”
I laughed. The Polack was a good egg. I had met up with his kind before-strictly square shooters. As I dug into the meal, I could see why he did a fairly good business during the day. The cutlets were done to a turn, and there was no skimping on the vegetables. Finally a good guy to know in Sidon.
Between mouthfuls, I asked, “Say, who’s this Wesley woman out on the shore?”
“That whoor…” He looked at Velda again, though she was too busy eating to pay any attention, and not nearly as easily offended as he imagined. “…that trollop,” he continued. “Lots of wild parties, brings her drunken friends to town and they wreck the place. Always a crowd from the city, they are.”
“Can’t the police take care of that?”
“Are you kidding, mister? The cops here, they got the hand out for all they can get and, brother, does Mrs. Wesley play ball with them. One of the guys that was out to her house killed a kid when he was driving his car drunk and he never did a day behind bars. She gave the kid’s folks ten thousand smackers and they had to shut up.”
Velda and I exchanged a troubled glance.
I asked him, “Why don’t the taxpayers object? They appoint the cops around here, don’t they?”
“Sure they do. Like they appoint the mayor. Everyone does just what Rudy Holden wants them to do, or else they find some other town to live in.”
“Rudy who?”
“Holden. Rudolph Holden, Rudy. Hell, mister, he waves the flag around Sidon. The winter people only live here so they can operate during the summer. They own beach houses or have concessions along the street for the visitors. If they don’t play ball with Rudy, they don’t get no license. That’s all there is to it.”
“How about you?”
He grinned again, white teeth flashing through the dark mustache. “Oh, Rudy and his boys, they don’t fool around with me.”
“You’re an exception, huh? How did you pull that off?”
He pounded his chest with a fist. “I come from a big family, mister. I got twelve brothers and four sons left. When the boys in the blue uniforms come around for the summer shakedown, I tell them that maybe I might have a family reunion soon. They know what I mean.” The guy laughed from the bottom of his barrel chest. “And I’m the smallest one in the family. My brothers are pretty big. They raise plenty hell around this place when they get
