The Big Kill

'I can only stay a minute. I want to see how the kid is.'

'Oh, he's a regular boy. Right now he's trying to see what's inside the radio.'

I walked in behind her to the living room where the kid was doing just that. He had the extension cord in his fists and the set teetered on the edge of the table a hair away from complete ruin. I got there first and grabbed the both of them.

The kid knew me, all right. His face was sunny with a big smile and he shoved his hand inside my coat and then chattered indignantly when I pulled it out. 'How's the breakage charge coming?'

'We won't count that,' the nurse said. 'As a matter of fact, he's been much better than I expected.'

I held the kid out where I could look at him better. 'There's something different about him.'

'There ought to be. I gave him a haircut.' I put him back on the floor where he hung on my leg and jabbered at me. 'He certainly likes you,' she said.

'I guess I'm all he's got. Need anything?'

'No, we're getting along fine.'

'Okay, anything you want just get.' I bent down and ruffled the kid's hair and he tried to climb up my leg. He yelled to come with me so I had, to hand him back and wave good-by from the door. He was so damn small and pathetic-looking I felt like a heel for stranding him, but I promised myself I'd see that he got a lot of attention before he was dropped into some home for orphans.

The first lunch shift was just hitting the streets when I got to Pat's office. The desk man called ahead to see if he was still in and told me to go right up. A couple of reporters were coming out of the room still jotting down notes and Pat was perched on the edge of a desk fingering a thick Manila folder.

I closed the door behind me and he said, 'Hi Mike.'

'Making news?'

'Today we're heroes. Tomorrow we'll be something else again.'

'So the D.A.'s making out. Did you find the hole?'

He turned around slowly, his face expressionless. 'No, if that cop is passing out the word then he wised up. Nothing went out on this deal at all.'

'How could he catch on?'

'He's been a cop a long time. He's been staked out often enough to spot it when he's being watched himself.'

'Did he mention it?'

'No, but his attitude has changed. He resents the implication apparently.'

'That's going to make pretty reading. Now the papers'll call for the D.A. to make a full-scale investigation of the whole department, I suppose.'

'The D.A. doesn't know a damn thing about it. You keep it to yourself too. I'm handling the matter myself. If it is the guy there's no sense smearing the whole department. We still aren't sure of it, you know.'

He tossed the folder on top of the filing cabinet and sat down behind the desk with a sigh. There were tired lines around his eyes and mouth, little lines that had been showing up a lot lately.

I said, 'What came of the roundup?'

'Oh, hell, Mike.' He glanced at me with open disgust, then realized that I wasn't handing him a dig. 'Nothing came of it. So we closed down a couple of rooms. We got a hatful of small-timers who will probably walk right out of it or draw minimum sentences. Teen's a smart operator. His lawyers are even smarter. Those boys know all the angles there are to know and if there are any new ones they think them up.

'Teen's a real cutie. You know what I think? He's letting us take some of his boys just to keep the D.A. happy and get a chance to put in a bigger fix.'

'I don't get it,' I said.

'Look, Teen pays for protection. That is, if it takes money to keep his racket covered. If it takes muscle he uses Lou Grindle. But supposing it does take dough... then all the chiselers, petty politicians and maybe even the big shots who are taking his dough are going to want more to keep his personal fix in because things are getting tougher. Okay, he pays off, and the more those guys rake in the deeper in they are too. Suddenly they realize that they can't afford to let Teen get taken or they'll go along with him, so they work overtime to keep the louse clean.'

'Nice.'

'Isn't it though?' He sat there tapping his fingers on the desk, then: 'Mike, for all you've heard, read and seen of Ed Teen, do you know what we actually have on him?'

'Tell me.'

'Nothing. Not one damn thing. Plenty of suspicions, but you don't take suspicions to court. We know everything he's hooked up with and we can't prove a single part of it. I've been upside down for a month backtracking over his life trying to tie him into something that happened a long time ago and for all I've found you could stuff in your ear.' Pat buried his face in his hands and rubbed his eyes.

'Have you had time to do anything about Decker and Hooker?'

At least it made him smile a little. 'I haven't been upside down that long, Pal,' he said. 'I was going to call you on that. Routine investigation turned up something on Hooker. For the last four months he made bank deposits of close to a thousand bucks each time. They apparently came in on the same date and were all for the same amount, though he spent a little of each wad before he deposited it. That sort of ties in with your story about him hitting the winning ponies.'