'I'll buy that,' Pat said. 'It's exactly the way I've had it figured.'
'You buy it and you'll be stuck,' I told him. I finished my beer and let the bartender fill it up again. Pat was making wry faces now. He was waiting for the rest of it.
I gave it to him. 'William Decker hadn't been pulling any jobs before that one. He was going straight all along the line. He must have known what might happen and got his affairs in order right down to making provisions for his kid. If Decker paid off Cooper then he borrowed the dough from somebody else and the somebody put on the squeeze play. For my money they even knew where the dough could be had and laid it out so all Decker had to do was go up the fire escape and open up the safe.
'That's where he made his mistake. He got into the wrong place and after all the briefing he had who the hell would believe his story. No, Decker knew he jimmied the wrong can and didn't dare take a chance on correcting the error because Marsha Lee could have come to at any time and called the cops. In the league where he was playing they only allow you one mistake. Decker knew they would believe that he had stashed the money thinking to come back later and get it, so he took off by himself.
'What happened was this... he had to go home for his kid. When they knew he had taken a powder they put it together and beat it back to his place. By that time he was gone, but they picked him up fast enough. When he knew he was trapped he kissed his kid good-by and walked out into a bullet. That boy of Grindle's searched him for the dough and when he didn't find it, the logical thought was that he hid it in his apartment. He didn't have much chance to do anything else. So the driver of the car scooted back there and got into the place and messed it up.'
Pat's teeth were making harsh grating noises and his fingers rasped against the woodwork of the bar. 'So you're all for nailing the driver of the murder car, right?'
The way I grinned wasn't human. It tied my face up into a bunch of hard knots. 'Nope,' I said, 'that's your job. You can have him. I want the son of a bitch who put the pressure on him. I want the guy who made somebody decent revert back to a filthy crime and I want him right between my hands so I can squeeze the juice out of him.'
'Where is he, Mike?'
'If I knew I wouldn't tell you, friend. I want him for myself. Someday I want to be able to tell that kid what his face looked like when he was dying.'
'Damn it anyway, Mike, you can stretch friendship too far sometimes.'
'No, I'll never stretch it, Pat. Just remember that I live in this town too. Besides having what few police powers the state chooses to hand me, I'm still a citizen and responsible in some small way for what happens in the city. And by God, if I'm partly responsible then I have a right to take care of an obligation like removing a lousy orphan- maker.'
'Who is he, Mike?'
'I said I didn't know.'
'But you know where to find out.'
'That's right. It isn't too hard if you want to take a chance on getting your head smashed in.'
'Like you did last night?'
'Yeah. That's something else I have to even up. I don't know why or how it happened, but I got a beaut of an idea, I have.'
'Something like looking for a guy named Lou Grindle whom you called all sorts of names and threatened to shoot on sight if you found out he was responsible for Decker's death?'
My mouth fell open. 'How the hell did you get that?'
'Now you're taking me for the chump, Mike. I checked the tie-up Arnold Basil had with Grindle thoroughly, and from the way Lou acted I knew somebody had been there before me. It didn't take long to guess who it was. Lou was steamed up to beat hell and told me what happened. Let me tell you something. Don't try anything with that boy. The D.A. has men covering him every minute he's awake trying to get something on him.'
'Where was he last night then?'
A thundercloud rolled over Pat's face. 'The bastard skipped out. He pulled a fastie and skipped his apartment and never got back until eleven. In case you're thinking he had anything to do with Hooker's death, forget it. He couldn't have gotten back at that time.'
'I'm not thinking anything. I was just going to tell you he was in a place called the Glass Bar on Eighth Avenue with Ed Teen somewhere around ten. The D.A. ought to get new eyes. The old ones are going bad.'
Pat swore under his breath.
I said, 'What made you say that, Pat?'
'Say what?'
'Oh, connect Lou and Hooker.'
'Hell, I didn't connect anything. I just said...'
'You said something that ought to make you think a lot more, boy. Grindle and Decker and Hooker don't go together at all. They're miles apart. In fact, they're so far apart they're backing into each other from the ends.'
He set his glass down with a thump. 'Wait a minute. Don't go getting this thing screwed up with a lot of wacky ideas. Lou Grindle isn't playing with anything worth a few grand and if he is, he doesn't send out blockheads to do the job. You're way the hell out of line.'
'Okay, don't get excited.'
'Good Lord, who's getting excited? Damn it, Mike...'
My face was as flat as I could make it. I just sat there with the beer in my hand and stared at myself in the
