If somebody breathed before I left I didn't hear it. I got out of there feeling like myself again and went back to the car. I only had one thing to do before I saw Pat. I checked the slip the timekeeper gave me and saw that Mel Hooker lived not too far from where Decker had lived. I got snarled up in traffic halfway there and it was dark by the time I found his address.
The place was a rooming house with the usual sign outside advertising a lone vacancy and a landlady on the bottom floor using her window for a crow's nest. She was at the door before I got up the steps waiting to smile if I was a renter or glare if I was a visitor.
She glared when I asked her if Mel Hooker had come in yet. Her finger waved up the stairs. 'Ten minutes ago and drunk. Don't you two raise no ruckus or out you both go.'
If she had been nicer I would have soothed her feelings with a bill.. All she got was a sharp thanks and I went upstairs. I heard him shuffling around the room and when I knocked all sound stopped. I knocked again and he dragged across the floor and snapped the lock back. I don't know who he expected to see. It sure wasn't me.
I didn't ask to come in; I gave the door a shove and he reeled back. His face had lost its tenseness and was dull, his mouth sagging. There was a table in the middle of the room and I perched on it, watching him close the door, then turn around until he faced me.
'Christ!' he said.
'What'd you expect, Mel?' I lit a Lucky and peered at him through the smoke. 'You're a hell of a guy,' I told him. 'I guess you knew those boys would tag after me and you didn't want to stick around to see the blood.'
'Wh... what happened?'
I grinned at him. 'I've been messing around with bastards like that for a long time. They should have remembered my face. Now they're going to have trouble remembering what they used to look like before. Did you pull the same stunt on your friend Decker, Mel? Did you beat it when they went looking for him?'
He staggered over to a chair and collapsed in it. 'I don't... know... what'cha talking about.'
I leaned forward on the edge of the table and spit the words out. 'I'm talking about the loan shark racket. I'm talking about a guy named William Decker who used to be your friend and needed dough bad. He couldn't get it from a legitimate source so he hit up a loan shark and got what he needed. When he couldn't pay off they put the pressure on him probably through his kid so he tries to cop a bank roll from a rich guy's safe. He miffed the job and they gave him the works. Now do you know what I'm talking about?'
Hooker said, 'Christ!' again and grabbed the arms of the chair. 'Friend, you gotta get outa here, see? You gotta leave me alone!'
'What's the matter, Mel? You were a tough guy when I met you tonight. What's getting you so soft?'
For a minute a crazy madness passed over his face, then he let out a gasp and buried his head in his hands. 'Damn it, get outa here!'
'Yeah, I'll get out. When you tell me who's banking the soaks along the dock I'll get out.'
'I... I can't. Oh, Lord, lemme alone, will ya!'
'They're tough, huh?' He read something in my words and his eyes came up in a series of little jerks until they were back on mine. 'Are they tougher than the guys you pushed on me?' Mel swallowed hard. 'I didn't...'
'Don't crap me, friend. Those guys weren't there by accident. They weren't there just for me, either. Somebody's got a finger on you, haven't they?
He didn't answer.
'They were there for you, I said, 'only you saw a nice way to shake them loose on me. What gives?'
His finger moved by, itself and traced the scar that lay along the side of his jaw. 'Look, I got cut up once, I did. I don't want to fool around with them guys no more. Honest, I didn't do nothing! I don't know why they was there but they was!'
'So you're in a trap too,' I said.
'No I ain't!' He shouted it. His face was a sickly white and he drooled a little bit. 'I'm clean and I don't know why they're sticking around me. Why the hell did you come butting in for?'
'Because I want to know why your pal Decker needed dough.'
'Christ, his wife was dying. He had to have it. How'd I know he couldn't pay it back!'
'Pay what back to who?'
His tongue flashed over his lips and his mouth clammed shut.
'You have a union and a welfare fund for that, don't you?' This time he spit on the floor.
'Who'd you steer him to, Mel?'
He didn't answer me. I got up off the edge of the table and jerked him to his feet. 'Who was it, Mel... or do you want to find out what happened to the tough boys back in the bar?'
The guy went limp in my hands. He didn't try to get away. He just hung there in my fist, his eyes dead. His words came out slow and flat. 'He needed the dough. We... thought we had a good tip on the ponies and pooled our dough.'
'So?'
'We won. It wasn't enough so we threw it back on another tip, only Bill hit up a loan shark for a few hundred to lay a bigger bet. We won that one too and I pulled out with my share. Bill thought he could get a big kill quick and right after he paid the shark back, knocked him down for another grand to add to his stake and this time he went under.'
'Okay, so he owed a grand.'
