'Broads?'
'I told you he was a loser. Besides, he never was a big one for women. They seemed to be mutually unattractive to one another.'
This time Pat waited a long time before he spoke. 'I don't like it, Mike.'
'I can't blame you.'
'No ... I don't mean that.'
'So?'
'You're involved, old buddy. I know what happens when you get involved. Right now you sit there and play it cool, but you know you're damn well involved . . .'
'Nuts,' I said. 'He was a guy I knew, that's all.'
'He didn't call the cops, Mike. He called you. When was the last time he did that?'
'When I got him that job. He thanked me.'
'That was two years ago, you said. You changed your number since then.'
I grinned at him and reached for a cigarette. 'You're still pretty sharp, kid,' I told him. 'No phone directory here, no memos in the papers on him so he must have memorized my new number.'
'Something like that.'
'Maybe he wanted to thank me again.'
'Can it.'
'So I'm his only famous friend.' I fired up the butt and blew a stream of gray smoke toward the ceiling.
'Let's take the other reason why I don't like it.'
'Go ahead.'
'For a nothing guy like him it's too nasty a kill. Now suppose we see how smart you still are, friend.'
I glanced over at the discolored sawdust and felt my mouth turn sour. 'One of three things. A psycho kill, a revenge kill or a torture kill. He could have stayed alive a long time with his belly slit open before somebody pounded the knife into his chest.'
'Which one, Mike?' Pat's voice had a curious edge to it.
My own voice sounded strange. 'I don't know yet.'
'Yet?'
'Why don't you handle it your own way?' I said.
'Td love to, but I got that funny feeling again, Mike. Sometimes I can smell the way you think.'
'Not this time.'
'Okay, I'll buy it for now. See you in the morning?'
'Roger, kiddo.'
The Blue Ribbon Restaurant on West Forty-fourth had closed an hour ago, but George and his wife were keeping Velda company in a corner booth over endless pots of coffee, and when I came in she gave me one of those 'You did it again' looks and propped her chin on her hands, patiently waiting for an explanation. I sat down next to her, brushed my lips across that beautiful auburn pageboy roll of hair that curled around her shoulders and patted her thigh gently. 'Sorry, honey,' I said.
George shook his head in mock wonder and poured my coffee. 'How you can stand up somebody like your girl here gets me, Mike. Now you take a Greek like me ...'
His wife threw the hooks right into him. 'To see
'Business is business,' I reminded her.
Velda let her hand fall on top of mine and the warmth of her skin was like a gentle massage. 'What happened, Mike?'
'Lippy Sullivan got himself sliced to death.'
'Lippy?'
'Don't ask me why. That cat never did anything to get himself a smack in the eye. Somebody just got to him and took him apart. It could have been for any reason. Hell, in that neighborhood, you can get knocked off for a dime. Look at that wino last week ... murder for a half bottle of muscatel. Two days before and a block away some old dame gets mugged and killed for a three-dollar take. Great. Fun City at its best. If the pollution doesn't get you, the traffic will. If you live through those two you're fair game for the street hunters. So stay under the lights, kids, and carry a roll of quarters in your fist. The damn liberals haven't outlawed money as a deadly weapon yet.'
Velda's fingers squeezed around mine. 'Did they find anything?'
'What the hell would Lippy have? A few bucks in his pocket, an almost punched-out lunch ticket, and some old clothes. But the lab'll come up with something. Any nut who killed like that wouldn't be careful about keeping it clean. It's just a stupid murder that happened to a nice guy.'
'Nobody heard anything?' Velda asked me.
'The way he got sliced he wasn't about to yell or anything else. Anybody could have walked in there, knocked on his door, got in and laid a blade on him. The front door was open, the super had his TV going and a belly full of beer and if anybody on the block saw anything they haven't said so this far.'
'Mike ... you said he had a few dollars ...'
'Stuffed into his watch pocket,' I interrupted. 'They don't even make pants with them any more.'
'There has to be a reason for murder, Mike.'
'Not always,' I told her. 'Not any more. It's getting to be a way of life.'
We finished our coffee, said so long to George and his wife and grabbed a cab on the corner of Sixth Avenue. It was a corner I couldn't remember any longer. All the old places were gone and architectural hangovers towered into the night air, the windows like dimly lit dead eyes watching the city gasping harder for breath every day.
New York was going to hell with itself. A monumental tombstone to commercialism.
When we reached Velda's apartment she looked at me expectantly. 'Nightcap?'
'Can I pass this time?'
'You're rough on a woman's ego. I had something special to show you.'
'I'd be lacking appreciation tonight, kitten.'
Her gentle smile told me all I needed to know. She had been around me too long not to recognize the signs. 'You have to do it, Mike.'
'Just to make sure. The damn thing bugs me.'
'I understand. I?ll see you at the office tomorrow.' She leaned over, tasted my mouth with hers and brushed her fingers down my cheek. I said good night, watched her go into the building and told the driver to take me home.
The killing of Lippy Sullivan was only a one-column squib in the morning papers, the body being reported as having been discovered by a friend. Political news, a suspected gangland rubout of a prominent hood and the latest antics of a jet set divorce trial made Lippy the nonentity in death that he was in life.
My official statement had been taken down by a bored steno, signed, and Pat and I sat back to enjoy the cardboard-container tasting coffee. Ever since I had come in he had been giving me a funny, wary-eyed look and I was waiting for him to spit out what was on his mind. He took his own sweet time about it, swinging around in his swivel chair and making small talk.
Finally Pat said, 'We were lucky on this one, buddy.'
'How?'
'Your name didn't bring the grand explosion I thought it would.'
I shrugged and took a sip of the coffee. It was bitter. 'Maybe the old days are gone.'
'Not with this bunch in office. When Schneider got knocked off last night it gave them something bigger to play with.'
I put the empty container on his desk and sat back. 'Quit playing games, Pat,' I said.
He stopped swinging in the chair and gave me another of those looks again. 'I got the lab report. A practically untraceable knife, no prints on the weapon at all ... nothing. The only prints on the doorknob were yours, so the killer apparently used gloves. Six other sets of prints were picked up in the room ... Lippy's, the super's, two guys from the furniture store on Eighth Avenue who moved in a couch for him and two unidentified. The super had
