gate at the bottom. I pushed the bell four or five times before a light came on inside.
A voice said, “Yeah, whatta ya want?”
“Sonny?”
“Who’re you?”
“Mike Hammer.”
“Oh, fer . . .” He came to the door, opened it, and reached for the grilled gate that held us out. He had a faded old robe wrapped around his body and a scowl on his face as black as night. Then he saw Velda and the sky lightened. “Hey . . . how about that.”
“This is Velda, my secretary. Sonny Motley.”
“Hello, Sonny.”
“Well, don’t just stand there. Come on in. Hot damn, I ain’t had a broad in my joint since before I went to stir. Hot damn, this is great!” He slammed the gate, locked the door, and led the way down the hall. He pushed his door open and said, “Don’t mind the place, huh? So it’s a crummy place and who comes here? I’m a crummy old man anyway. Sure feels good to have a broad in the joint. Want a drink?”
“I’ll pass,” I said.
“Not me.” He grinned. “A sexy broad comes in like her and I’m gonna have me a drink.”
“I thought you were all over the sex angle, Sonny.”
“Maybe inside I am, but my eyes don’t know it. No, sir. You sit down and let me get dressed. Be right back.”
Sit down? We had a choice of box seats. Egg boxes or apple boxes. There was one old sofa that didn’t look safe and a chair to match that had no cushion in it. The best bet was the arms of the chair so Velda took one side and I took the other.
A choice between living here or a nice comfortable prison would be easy to make. But like the man said, at least he was free. Sonny was back in a minute, hitching suspenders over bony shoulders, a bottle of cheap booze in his hand.
“You sure you don’t want nothing?”
“No, thanks.”
“No need to break out glasses then.” He took a long pull from the bottle, ambled over to the couch, and sat down facing us. “Hot damn,” he said, “those are the prettiest legs I ever saw.”
Velda shifted uncomfortably, but I said, “That’s what I keep telling her.”
“You keep telling her, boy. They love to hear that kind of talk. Right, lady?”
She laughed at the impish look on his face. “I guess we can stand it.”
“Damn right you can. Used to be a real killer with the ladies myself. All gone now though.” He pulled at the bottle again. “’Cept for looking. Guess a man never tires of looking.” He set the bottle down on the floor between his feet and leaned back, his eyes glowing. “Now, what can I do for you?”
“I’m still asking questions, Sonny.”
He waved his hands expansively. “Go ahead. If I can answer ’em it’s all free.”
“I can’t get rid of the idea your old partner’s still alive.”
His shoulders jerked with a silent laugh. “Can’t, eh? Well, you better, because that no-good is gone. Dead. I don’t know where or how, but he’s dead.”
“Let’s make like he isn’t.”
“I got lots of time.”
“And I got news for you.”
“How’s that?”
“Sim Torrence is dead.”
Briefly, his eyes widened. “True?”
“True.”
Then he started to cackle again. “Good. Had it coming, the bugger. He put the screws on enough guys. I hope it wasn’t easy.”
“He was shot.”
“Good. Bring the guy in and I’ll fix his shoes free every time. I mean that. Free shine too.”
“I thought you didn’t care anymore.”
“Hell, I said I didn’t hate him, not that I didn’t care. So he’s dead. I’m glad. Tomorrow I’ll forget he was even alive. So what else is new?”
“Sim Torrence was the big brain who engineered your last job.”
He was reaching for the bottle and stopped bent over. He looked up, not believing me. “Who says?”
“You’ll read about it in the papers.”
He straightened, the bottle entirely forgotten. “You mean . . .”
“Not only that, he engineered it right into a deliberate frame-up. That case made him the D.A. After that coup he was a landslide candidate.”
“This is square, what you’re telling me?”
“On the level, Sonny.”
“The dirty son of a bitch. Sorry, lady.”
“Here’s an added note I want you to think about. If Blackie Conley got wise in time he could have worked the double cross to his own advantage, taking the loot and dumping you guys.”
Sonny sounded almost out of breath. “I’ll be damned,” he said. Some of the old fire was in his voice. “A real switcheroo. How do you like that? Sure, now I get what the score is. Blackie laid out the getaway route. Hell, he never followed through with the plan. He had something else schemed up and got away.” Abruptly he dropped his head and laughed at the floor. “Boy, he was smarter than I figured. How do you like that?” he repeated.
“Sonny . . .”
He looked up, a silly grin on his face. Egg. He couldn’t get over it. I said, “Blackie rented the property you were supposed to hole up in from Howie Green.”
“That’s right.”
“He must have bought another place at the same time for his own purpose using another name.”
“Just like that bastard Green to fall in with him. He’d do anything for a buck. I’m glad Blackie knocked him off!”
“He did?”
“Sure he did. Before the heist. You think we wanted somebody knowing where we was headed?”
I looked at him, puzzled.
He caught the look and said, “Yeah, I know. There ain’t no statute of limitations on murder. So they could still take me for being in it. Hell, you think I really care? Look around here. What do I have? Nothing. That’s what. I already served life. What could they do that’s worse? Maybe at the best I can live ten years, but what can I do with ten years? Live in a crummy rat hole? Beat on shoes all day? No friends? Man, it was better doin’ time. You just don’t know.”
I waved him down. “Look, I don’t care about Green. He asked for it, so he got it. I want Blackie Conley.”
“How you gonna find him?”
“Did you know Green?”
“You kiddin’? Him and me grew up together on the same block. I took more raps for that punk when I was a kid . . . aw, forget it.”
“Okay, now Green was a stickler for detail. He kept records somewhere. He passed on his business to his partner, Quincy Malek.”
“I knew him too.”
“Now Quincy kept the records. Wherever they are, they’ll have a notation of the transactions carried out by the business. It will show the property locations and we can run them down one by one until we get the place Blackie bought from him.”
“You think Blackie’ll still be there?”
“He hasn’t showed up any place else, has he?”
“That just ain’t like Blackie.” He rubbed his hands together and stared at them. “Maybe I didn’t know Blackie so good after all. Now what?”
