watch her, then walked into the shower without bothering to close the door. And this time I saw something new. There was a fine, livid scar that ran diagonally across one hip and several parallel lines that traced themselves across the small of her back. I had seen those kind of marks before. Knives made them. Whips made them. My hands knotted up for a second and I yanked at my tie.
When she came out she had a towel wrapped sarong-fashion around her, smelling of soap and hot water, and this time I didn't watch her. Instead I pulled the clips out, made a pretense of reading them until she was dressed, gave them to her to keep in her handbag, and led her out the door.
At the elevator I punched the down button and put my hand through her arm. 'Don't do that to me again, kitten.'
Her teeth flashed through the smile. 'Oh no, Mike. You've kept me waiting too long. I'll do anything to get you. You see... I'm not done with you yet. You can marry me right now or put up with some persecution.'
'We haven't got time right now.'
'Then get ready to suffer, gentleman.' She gave my arm a squeeze and got on the elevator.
After breakfast I bypassed Pat's office to get a line on the parole officers handling Buff, Goodwin, and Beckhaus. Both Buff and Beckhaus were reporting to the same officer and he was glad to give me a rundown on their histories.
Sherman Buff was married, lived in Brooklyn, and operated a successful electronics shop that subcontracted jobs from larger companies. His address was good, his income sizable, and he had a woman he was crazy about and no desire to go back to the old life. The parole officer considered him a totally rehabilitated man.
Nicholas Beckhaus reported regularly, but he had to come in on the arm of his brother, a dentist, who supported him. At some time in prison he had been assaulted and his back permanently damaged so that he was a partial cripple. But more than that, there was brain damage too, so that his mental status was reduced to that of a ten-year-old.
The officer who handled Arnold Goodwin was more than anxious to talk about his charge. Goodwin had been trouble all the way and had stopped reporting in three months ago. Any information we could dig up on his whereabouts he'd appreciate. He was afraid of only one thing... that before Goodwin was found he'd kill somebody.
Arnold Goodwin looked like a good bet.
Velda said, 'Did you want to see the other probable?'
'Sonny Motley?'
'It will only take a few minutes.'
'He's in his seventies. Why?'
She moved her shoulders in thought. 'He was a good story. The three-million-dollar killer.'
'He wasn't in for murder. He was a three-time loser when they caught him in that robbery and he drew an automatic life sentence.'
'That could make a man pretty mad,' she reminded me.
'Sure, but guys in their seventies aren't going to hustle on a kill after thirty years in the pen. Be reasonable.'
'Okay, but it wouldn't take long.'
'Oh, hell,' I said.
Sonny Motley's shoe repair shop had been open at seven as usual, the newsboy said, and pointed the place out to us. He was sitting in the window, a tired-looking old man bent over a metal foot a woman's shoe was fitted to, tapping on a heel. He nodded, peering up over his glasses at us like a shaven and partially bald Santa Claus.
Velda and I got up in the chairs and he put down his work to shuffle over to us, automatically beginning the routine of a shine. It wasn't a new place and the rack to one side of the machines was filled with completed and new jobs.
When he finished I gave him a buck and said, 'Been here long?'
He rang the money up and smiled when I refused the change. 'Year and a half.' Then he pulled his glasses down a little more and looked at me closely. 'Reporter?'
'Nope.'
'Well, you look like a cop, but cops aren't interested in me any more. Not city cops. So that makes you independent, doesn't it?'
When I didn't answer him he chuckled. 'I've had lots of experience with cops, son. Don't let it discourage you. What do you want to know?'
'You own this place?'
'Yup. Thirty years of saving a few cents a day the state paid me and making belts and wallets for the civilian trade outside bought me this. Really didn't cost much and it was the only trade I learned in the pen. But that's not what you want to know.'
I laughed and nodded. 'Okay, Sonny, it's about a promise you made a long time ago to kill Sim Torrence. '
'Yeah, I get asked that lots of times. Mostly by reporters though.' He pulled his stool over and squatted on it. 'Guess I was pretty mad back then.' He smiled patiently and pushed his glasses up. 'Let's say that if he up and died I wouldn't shed any tears, but I'll tell you Mr...'
'Hammer. Mike Hammer.'
'Yes, Mr. Hammer... well, I'm just not about to go back inside walls again. Not that this is any different. Same work, same hours. But I'm on the outside. You understand?'
'Sure.'
'Something else too. I'm old. I think different. I don't have those old feelings.' He looked at Velda, then me. 'Like with the women. Was a time when even thinking of one drove me nuts, knowing I couldn't have one. Oh, how I wanted to kill old Torrence then. But like I told you, once you get old the fire goes out and you don't care any more. Same way I feel about Torrence. I just don't care. Haven't even thought about him until somebody like you or a reporter shows up. Then I think of him and it gets funny. Sound silly to you?'
'Not so silly, Sonny.'
He giggled and coughed, then looked up. 'Silly like my name. Sonny. I was a heller with the women in them days. Looked young as hell and they loved to mother me. Made a lot of scores like that. For a moment his eyes grew dreamy, then he came back to the present. 'Sonny. Ah, yeah, they were the days, but the fire is out now.'
'Well...' I took Velda's arm and he caught the motion.
Eagerly, a man looking for company, he said, 'If you want I could show you the papers on what happened. I had somebody save 'em. You wait here a minute.' He got up, shuffled off through a curtained door, and we could hear him rummaging through his things. When he came back he laid out a pitiful few front pages of the old
According to the testimony, in 1932 the Sonny Motley mob, with Black Conley second in command, were approached secretly by an unknown expert on heisting through an unrevealed medium. The offer was a beautifully engineered armored-car stickup. Sonny accepted and was given the intimate details of the robbery including facets known only to insiders which would make the thing come off.
Unfortunately, a young Assistant District Attorney named Sim Torrence got wind of the deal, checked it out, and with a squad of cops, broke up the robbery... but only after it had been accomplished. The transfer of three million dollars in cash had been made to a commandeered cab and in what looked like a spectacular double cross, or possibly an attempt to save his own skin, Black Conley had jumped in the cab when the shooting started and taken off, still firing back into the action with the rifle he had liked so well. One shot caught Sonny Motley and it was this that stopped his escape more than anything else. In an outburst of violence in the courtroom Sonny shouted that he had shot back at the bastard who double-crossed him and if he didn't hit him, then he'd get him and Torrence someday for sure. They never found the cab, the driver, the money, or Black Conley.
Sonny let me finish and when I handed the papers back said, 'It would've gone if Blackie didn't pull out.'
'Still sore?'
'Hell no.'
'What do you think happened?'
