“How did the cops get wise?”
“Why don’t you read the transcript of the trial? It was mentioned.”
“This is easier. Besides, I wanted to be sure.”
Grebb pulled a cigar from his pocket, snapped off the end, and fired it up. “Like a lot of big ones that went bust,” he said, “somebody pulled the cork. The department got a call. It went through the D.A.’s office.”
“Torrence?”
“No, one of the others got it and passed it to him. Torrence handled it personally though.”
“Where were you?”
“Staked out where the truck was hidden in case they got through somehow. They never made it. We got the truck and the driver. Second day on the beat too, I’ll never forget it. Fresh out of school, still hardly shaving, and I get a hot one right off. Made me decide to stay in the department.”
“How long did you have to get ready?”
“About an hour, if I remember right. It was plenty of time. We could have done it in fifteen minutes.”
“They ever find out who made the call?”
“Nope.”
“They look very hard?”
Grebb just shrugged noncommittally. Then he said, “Let’s face it, we’d sooner have stoolies on the outside where they can call these things in than a live guy testifying in court who winds up a dead squealer a day later. We didn’t break our backs running down anybody. Whoever it was played it the way we liked it. The job was a bust and we nailed the crew.”
“It wasn’t a bust, Inspector.”
He stared at me until his face hurt.
“Nobody ever located the money.”
“That’s happened before. One of those things.”
“Blackie Conley simply disappeared.”
The cigar bobbed in his mouth. “And if he lived very long afterward he’s a better man than I am. By now he’d be dead anyway.” He took the cigar away from his mouth and flipped the ash off with his pinky. “But let’s get back to the money . . . that’s the interesting part.”
“I have an idea it might show up.”
“Maybe we better listen to your idea.”
“Uh-uh. Facts I’ll give you, ideas stay in my pocket until I can prove them out.”
“Facts then.”
“None you don’t already have if you want to check the transcript like you suggested. I just make something different out of them, that’s all.”
Grebb put the cigar back between his teeth and pushed himself out of his chair. When he was on his feet he glanced at Pat meaningfully, said, “Don’t let me wait too long, Captain,” then went out.
“I wish you’d quit pushing him,” Pat told me. “Now what’s with this bit?”
I sat in the chair Grebb had vacated and propped my feet on Pat’s desk. “I think Blackie Conley’s alive.”
“How’d he do it?”
“He was the planner behind the operation. He set it up, then phoned in a double cross. Trouble was, he should have cut it shorter. He almost lost it himself. He laid out one escape plan, but took an alternate. He got away in that cab with the three million bucks and sat on it someplace.”
Pat tapped a pencil on the desk as I gave him the information Annette Lee gave me. Every once in a while he’d make a note on a pad, study it, then make another.
“We’ll have to locate whatever records are left of Howie Green’s business. If he was dealing in real estate it will be a matter of public record.”
“You don’t think Blackie would use his own name, do you?”
“We can narrow it down. Look, check your file on Green.” Pat put in another call and for the twenty minutes it took to get the papers up we went over the angles of the case. I still wouldn’t lay it out the way I saw it, but he had enough to reach the same conclusion if he thought the same way.
The uniformed officer handed Pat a yellowed folder and Pat opened it on his desk. Howie Green, deceased. Known bootlegger, six arrests, two minor convictions. Suspected of duplicity in a murder of one Francis Gorman, another bootlegger who moved into his territory. Charge dropped. Known to have large holdings that were legally acquired as far as the law could prove. His annual income made him a rich man for the times. He was killed by a hit-and-run driver not far from his own house and the date given was three days before the robbery of the three million bucks.
“Pretty angle, Pat.”
“Spell it out.”
“If Conley did get hideout property from Green, paid for it, made the transaction, and accepted the papers in a phony name and took possession, then killed him before Green knew what he wanted it for, who could say where he was? Chances were that nobody but Conley and Green ever saw each other and Green wasn’t around to talk anymore.”
Pat closed the folder and shoved it in his desk. “We could check all the transactions Green made in the few weeks prior to his death.”
“Time, buddy. We haven’t got the time.”
“But I have one thing you don’t have.”
I knew what he was going to say.
“Men. We can put enough troops on it to shorten the time.”
“It’ll still be a long job.”
“You know a better way?”
The phone rang before I could answer and although I could hear the hurried chatter at the other end I couldn’t make it out. When he cradled the phone Pat said, “One of my squad in Brooklyn on that Levitt rundown.”
“Oh?”
“He was eating with one of the men from the precinct over there when a call came in about a body. He went along with his friend and apparently the dead guy is one of the ones he showed Basil Levitt’s picture to.”
“A starter,” I said.
“Could be. Want to take a run over?”
“Why not?”
Pat got his car from the lot and we hopped in, cutting over the bridge into the Brooklyn section. The address was in the heart of Flatbush, one block off the Avenue, a neighborhood bar and grill that was squeezed in between a grocery and a dry-cleaning place.
A squad car was at the curb and a uniformed patrolman stood by the door. Two more, obviously detectives from the local precinct, were in the doorway talking. Pat knew the Lieutenant in charge, shook hands with him, introduced him to me as Joe Cavello, then went inside.
Squatting nervously on a stool, the bartender watched us, trying to be casual about the whole thing. Lieutenant Cavello nodded toward him and said, “He found the body.”
“When?”
“About an hour ago. He had to go down to hook into some fresh beer kegs and found the guy on the floor. He’d been shot once in the head with a small-caliber gun . . . I’d say about a .32.”
“The M.E. set the time of death?” I asked him.
“About twelve to fifteen hours. He’ll be more specific after an autopsy.”
“Who was he?” Pat said.
“The owner of the place.”
“You know him?”
“Somewhat,” Cavello said. “We’ve had him down to the precinct a few times. Twice on wife beating and another when he was picked up in a raid on a card game. This is kind of a chintzy joint. Local bums hang out here because the drinks are cheap. But that’s all they sell anyway, cheap booze. We’ve had a few complaints about some fights in here but nothing ever happened. You know, the usual garbage that goes with these slop chutes.”
