flesh met flesh, insinuating themselves together in a way that only flesh can.
'Kiss me,' Renee said. After the briefest pause.
I climbed out of bed and stood in front of the window watching the thin patter of rain dribble down the dust- caked glass. The morning crowds were at their desks inside their offices and the shoppers hadn't started out yet. Two blocks away a fire siren howled and a hook and ladder flashed through the intersection, an emergency truck right behind it.
Okay, so a guy needs an ego boost occasionally.
I switched on the television, dialed in to a news station and went to the bathroom to shave and clean up. I was putting a new blade in the razor when I heard the announcer talk about a shooting during an attempted robbery on West Forty-sixth Street, one that was broken up by a civic-minded passerby.
Thanks, Pat, I said mentally.
While I shaved there was news about the troop movements going into critical areas of the state, sections where power stations and reservoirs were located, their training missions all highly secretive. Results of the operations would be analyzed and announced within two weeks.
Two weeks. That's how much time they knew they had. Success meant announcement. Failure meant destruction.
There would be no need for an announcement then. Somehow I still couldn't get excited about it. I wondered what the city would look like if the project failed. New York without smog because the factories and incinerators had no one to operate them. No noise except the wind and the rain until trees grew back through the pavement, then there would be leaves to rustle. Abandoned vehicles would rot and blow away as dust, finally blending with the soil again. Even bones would eventually decompose until the remnants of the race were gone completely, their grave markers concrete and steel tombstones hundreds of feet high, the caretakers of the cemetery only the microscopic organisms that wiped them out. Hell, it didn't sound so bad at all if you could manage to stick around somehow and enjoy it.
A commercial interrupted the broadcast, then the announcer came back with news of a sudden major-power meeting of the United Nations. A possible summit meeting at the White House was hinted at. The dove factions were screaming because our unexpected military maneuvers might trigger the same thing in hostile quarters. The hawks were applauding our gestures at preparedness. Everything was going just right. Eddie Dandy's bomb was demolished in the light of the blinding publicity that seared the unsuspecting eyes of the public.
And all I wanted to do was find me a pickpocket. Plus a couple of guys who had tried to knock me off.
I finished my shower, got dressed, made a phone call, then went down to the cabstand on the corner. Eddie Dandy met me for coffee in a basement counter joint on Fifty-third, glad to get away from the usual haunts where he was bugged about his supposed TV goof. He was sitting there staring at himself in the polished stainless steel side of the bread box, his face drawn, hair mussed, in a suit that looked like it had been slept in. Somehow, he seemed older and thinner and when I sat down he just nodded and waved to the counterman for another coffee.
'You look like hell,' I said.
'So should you.' His eyes made a ferret-like movement at mine, then went back to staring again.
I spilled some milk and sugar into my coffee and stirred it. 'I got other things to think about.'
'You're not married and got kids, that's why,' he said.
'That bad?'
'Worse. Nothing's turned up. You know how they're faking it?' He didn't let me answer. 'They've planted decoy containers in all shapes and sizes that are supposed
to be explosive charges. Everybody's out on a search, Army, Navy, C.D. units, even the Scouts. They're hoping somebody will turn up something that isn't a decoy and they'll have a starting place. Or a stopping place.'
I grabbed a doughnut and broke it in two, dunking the big end in my coffee. 'That bad?'
'Oh, cool, Mike, cool. How the hell do you do it?'
'I don't. I just don't worry about it. They got thousands of people doing the legwork on that one. Me, I have my own problems.'
'Like getting shot at in Lippy's apartment.'
'You get around, friend.'
'There was a news leak out of Kansas City and Pat had me in again. I heard him talking about it to the guy with the squeaky voice from the D.A.'s office. All I did was put two and two together. What happened?'
'Nothing.' I gave him the details of the episode and watched him shrug it off. Nothing was as big as what he was sitting on right then.
'Maybe you got the right attitude after all,' Eddie finally said. He sipped his coffee and turned around. I knew his curiosity would get the better of him. 'When you going to ask me something you don't know?'
I stuffed the rest of the doughnut in my mouth, wiped the jelly off my fingers and grinned at him. 'Woody Ballinger,' I said.
'Come on, Mike.' His voice sounded disgusted with me.
'Two months ago you did that crime special on TV,' I reminded him. 'Part of the expose touched his operation.'
'So what? I made him a typical example of hoods the law doesn't seem to tap out, always with enough loot to hire good lawyers to find the loopholes. He hides everything behind legitimate businesses and goes on bilking the public. You saw the show.'
'I'm interested in what you didn't say, friend. You researched the subject. You got some pretty weird contacts too. You were fighting a time element in the presentation and the network didn't want to fight any libel suits, even from Woody.'
'Mike ... what's to know? He's in the rackets. The cops know damn well he's number two in the policy racket uptown but can't prove it. It used to be bootlegging and whores, then narcotics until he rubbed Lou Chello wrong and the mob gave him that one-ended split. He has what he has and can keep it as long as his nose stays clean
with the lasagne lads. They'll protect their own, but only so far.'
'A year ago there was a rumble about buddy Woody innovating a new policy wrinkle in the Wall Street crowd. Instead of nickels and dunes it was a grand and up. Winning numbers came from random selections on the big board. There was a possibility of it being manipulated.'
'Balls. Those guys wouldn't fall for it,' Eddie reminded me.
'They're speculators, kid,' I said. 'Legit gamblers. Why not?'
Eddie waited while the counterman poured him another coffee and left to serve somebody else. 'I checked that out too. Nobody knew anything. I got lots of laughs, that's all.'
'Wilbur Craft supposedly made a million out of one payoff,' I said.
'Nobody saw it if he did. Or maybe he paid it to his lawyers to get him off that stock fraud hook. I spoke to him up in Sing Sing and he said it was all talk.'
'Maybe he didn't want to get hit with an income tax rap on top of everything else. He only drew three years on the fraud rap.'
'Keep trying, Mike.'
'Craft still has his estate in Westchester.'
'Sure, and the place in Florida and the summer place in Hawaii. It was all free and clear before they rapped him.'
'Upkeep, pal. It takes a lot of dough,' I said.
'I know. I got a five-room apartment on the East Side.'
