Survival... ZERO!

wet, stinking from cellar garbage and alone with a beautiful broad.

He finally said, 'Okay, Mike, you're off the hook, but you can still get a stinger up your tail if the D.A.'s office decides to probe.'

'So cover for me,' I told him. 'Now, any of that stuff reported missing?'

Pat flipped through the report sheets on his desk and nodded. 'Practically all of it. The credit cards have been canceled, two license renewals have been applied for and you'll be three hundred dollars richer. Reward money.'

'Forget it. That way the D.A.'ll really nail it down. How about that compact?'

'Miss Heidi Anders thought she had mislaid it. She never reported it as missing or possibly stolen. Incidentally, it was well insured.'

'Great to be rich. Did any of them know where the stuff was lifted?'

'Not specifically, but they all felt it was on the street somewhere. Three of them were positive it was in the theater area, William Dorn pinpointed his on Broadway outside of Radio City Music Hall. He had used his wallet money to pay off a cabbie and remembered being jostled in the crowd outside the theater. A block later he felt for the wallet and it was gone.'

'How did Ballinger take it?'

Pat shrugged and put the reports back in the folder. 'Surly as usual. He said he had a couple hundred bucks in his wallet that we could forget about. Getting his driver's license back is good enough. We can mail it to him.'

'Nice guys are hard to find.'

'Yeah,' Pat said sourly. 'Look, about those rewards. My advice is to take them before they insist and put through an inquiry that might attract attention.' He tore a sheet off his memo pad and passed it to me. 'Irving Grove, William Dorn, Reginald Thomas and Heidi Anders. There are the addresses. You don't exactly have to lie, but you don't have to mention you're not with the department.'

'Hell, cops don't collect rewards.'

'People are funny. They like to do favors too.'

'I'll donate it to the Police Athletic League.'

'Go ahead.'

'What about Lippy, Pat?'

'Hard to figure people out, isn't it? You think you know them, then something like this happens. It isn't the first time. It won't be the last. Someday we'll nail the guy who did it. The file isn't closed on him. Meanwhile, just leave it alone. Don't bug yourself with it.'

'Sure.' I got up and tossed my raincoat over my shoulder. 'Incidentally, any news on Tom-Tom Schneider?'

'He thumped his last thump. A contract kill. One of the slugs matched another used in a Philly job last month.'

'Those boys usually dump their pieces after a hit.'

'Maybe he was fond of it. It was nine millimeter Luger ammo. Those pieces are getting hard to come by.'

'How'd you do with that body in the subway?' I asked him.

Pat's face stiffened and he stopped swinging in his chair. His eyes went cold and narrow and his voice had a bite to it. 'What are you getting at, Mike?'

I stuck a cigarette in my mouth and held a match to it. 'Just curious. You know how I pick up bits and pieces of information. New York isn't all that tight.'

He didn't move, but I saw his knuckles whiten around the arms of his chair. 'Buddy, how you get around is unbelievable. Why the curiosity?'

I took a guess and said, 'Because you have every available man checking the guy out. Even some Feds have moved in, but when it comes to Lippy it's a one-day deal.'

For a moment it looked like Pat was going to explode, then he looked at me, his mind trying to penetrate through mine to see if I was guessing or not. It was my mention of the Feds that put the frown back on his face again and he said, 'Damn,' very softly and let go the arms of the chair. 'What do you know, Mike?'

'Want an educated opinion?'

'Never mind. It's better that you knew so you wouldn't be guessing in front of the wrong people.'

I took a pull on the butt and blew a shaft of smoke in his direction. 'So?'

'A sharp medic in the hospital didn't like the symptoms. They autopsied him immediately and confirmed their suspicions. He was infected by one of the newer and deadlier bacteria strains.'

'Unusual?'

'This was. The culture was developed in government laboratories for C.G. Warfare only. They're not sure of the contagion factor and don't want to start a panic.'

'Maybe he was a worker there.'

'We're checking that out now. Anyway, just keep it to yourself. If this thing gets around we'll know the source it came from.'

'You shouldn't be so trusting then.'

'Oh, hell, get out of here, Mike.'

I snubbed out the butt in his ashtray, grinned and went through the door. Eddie Dandy would give his left whoosis for this scoop, but I wasn't in the market for left whoosises.

I managed to reach Velda just before she went out to lunch and told her I wouldn't be in the rest of the day. She had already cleaned up most of the paperwork and before she could start in rearranging the furniture I said, 'Look, honey, one thing you can do. Go to Lippy's bank and find the clerk he deposited that money with.'

'Pat has a record of that.'

'Yeah, of the amounts. What I want to know is if he remembered what denominations of bills were deposited.'

'Important?'

'Who can tell? I'm just not satisfied with the answers, that's all. I?ll check back with you later.'

I hung up and went back into the afternoon rain. A couple were getting out of a cab on the corner and I grabbed it before anyone else could and told the driver where to go.

Woodring Ballinger had a showpiece office on the twenty-first floor of a Fifth Avenue building but he never worked there. His operating space was the large table in the northeast corner of Finero's Steak House just off Broadway, a two-minute walk to Times Square. There were three black phones and a white one in front of him and the two guys he was with were in their early thirties

with the total businessman look. Only they both had police records dating back to their teens. That businessman look was one that Ballinger never could hope to buy. He tried hard enough, with three-hundred-buck suits and eighty-dollar shoes, but he still looked like he just came off a dock after pushing a dolly of steel around. Scar tissue laced his eyebrows and knuckles, he always needed a shave and seemed to have a perpetual sneer plastered on his mouth.

I said, 'Hello, Woody.'

He only half looked at me. 'What the hell do you want?'

'Tell your boys to blow.'

Both of them looked up at me a little amused. When I reached for my deck of cigarettes they saw the .45 in the holster and stopped being amused. Woody Ballinger said, 'Go wait in the bar.'

Obediently, they got up, went past me without another glance and pulled up stools at the bar with their backs to us. I sat down opposite Woody and waved the waiter over to bring me a beer.

'You lost, Hammer?'

'Not in this town. I live here. Or have you forgotten?' I gave him a dirty grin and when he scowled I knew he remembered, all right.

'Cut the crap. What d'you want?'

'You had your wallet lifted not long ago.'

His fingers stopped toying with his glass. The waiter came, set the beer down and I sipped the head off it. 'What's new about that? The cops found it.'

'I found it,' I said. 'Yours wasn't the only one in the pile.'