conspicuous. I was to carry it on my curb side."
"I suppose it was empty."
"Of anything important . . . yes. To give it a little bulk there were a bunch of week-old newspapers in it."
"The letter," I asked, "that was straight mail?"
"Yes."
"Then how did the suitcase get there?"
"All the clerk knew was that it came by messenger. There hadn't been anything irregular about it, so he didn't remember anything special about the delivery. After I looked into the suitcase I carried out instructions. I waited until it was time, took the suitcase with me, and walked over to Eighth and started down here."
I had to turn my head so she couldn't see the look of hungry expectation in my face. The cab pick-up was another ragged edge bit that spelled hood, and I knew that someplace Rhino would be waiting alive—so I could kill him. Man, it was a great feeling!
"What happened?" I asked.
"I was almost at Ninth when two men turned the corner. They walked toward me and I knew they both saw me and I saw what they wanted. I crossed the street and they did too. Then I started back and began to run. So did they. I ran in here."
"Any cabs pass at all?"
"Yes." She looked out the window, thinking back. "None stopped. He could have come by after I ran and thought I never showed up."
"He'll contact you again. Don't worry."
There was a pathetic eagerness in her voice. "You really think so?"
"I'm sure of it."
She glanced at me again, worried. "I . . . dropped the suitcase. How will . . . he know?"
"He'll find a way," I said.
I let her sit there while I showered and shaved. I found a shirt that hadn't been worn too often and put it on. There was still an unwrinkled tie and the sports jacket Vinnie insisted I hold for the fin I lent him fit as long as I didn't try to button it.
"What are you going to do?"
"I'm going to walk across town a mile or so. See some people I know. You're going to stay here, kitten. It isn't the finest, but it's the best for the moment. Leave the snaplock on, no chain, and if anybody tries to get in, duck in the closet. I don't think anybody will be back again, but just to be sure, when I get here I'll knock four times twice and you won't have to break a leg getting lost."
"All right." The nervousness faded away in a small smile. "I don't know why you're doing all this . . . but thanks, Phil."
"Forget it. It's doing me more good than it is you."
I walked to the door and she stopped me. She came over, took my hand and pressed something into it.
"Take a cab," she said.
In my palm was a twenty. It was warm and silky-feeling in my fingers and I could smell the perfume smell it had picked up from her pocketbook. I held it out to her.
"With that in my pocket I wouldn't get past the first bar. I'd drink half of it and get rolled for the rest and never get back here for three four days maybe. Here, put it back."
She made no move to take it. "That won't happen," she said softly. "Give it a try."
I didn't take a cab and I got by the first bar. But I walked across town anyway and passed a lot of bars on the way and wondered what the hell had happened to me in just a couple of hours.
When I reached Rooney's the lunch crowd had cleared out. But, as I expected, the west corner of the back room was still noisy with half the eighth-floor staff of the great paper up the street marking time between editions.
I slid into a booth along the wall, ordered a sandwich and coffee, and borrowed the waiter's pad and pencil. When he brought the lunch I handed him the note. "You know Dan Litvak?"
His eyes indicated the back room. I handed him the note and he walked away with it.
Dan was a tall, thin guy who seemed eternally bored unless you could read the awareness in his eyes. He had always moved slowly, not seeming to care what he did or what happened to anybody. He was never a man you could surprise with anything and when he walked up to my booth he studied me a moment, his face expressionless, then said, "Hello, Phil," and sat down.
His eyes didn't miss a thing. With that one look he could have read down my last 10 years in detail. I gave him a break, though. I let him look at the twenty under my bill so he wouldn't have to suffer the embarrassment of thinking he was sitting through a touch.
I said, "Hello, Dan. Have some coffee?"
He waved a sign to the waiter, then sat back. "Looking for a job?"
"Hell, no. Who would hire me?"
"You don't have to go back to the same business."
"You know better than that, Dan. Anything else I'd go nuts in."
"I know. Now let's get to the point of why you're here."
I nodded. "Three years after I got sent up, word reached me about Rhino Massley dying. I never bothered finding out why or how. I want to know."
Dan toyed with the handle of his cup, turning it around in the saucer. "The date, if you're interested, was August 10, '68. It's the kind of date you don't forget very easily. Rhino was hit with polio in that epidemic we had that summer. He was one of 20-some adults who had it. He was in an iron lung up at Mayberry for a couple of months, then the one he ordered came through and he was shipped in it to that ranch he owns near Phoenix. He was still handling all his business from the lung and, although he wasn't going to get any better physically, he was still the rackets boss hands down."
"He died of polio?"
"No. A violent storm knocked out the power and the lung failed. The nurse on hand couldn't get the motor kicking over that ran the standby generator and she tried to get into town to get help. When they got back it was too late. Rhino was dead. He was buried out there."
"What happened to his estate?"
"This'll kill you. What he had, which wasn't much, only about a half million, went to polio research. Two hospitals."
"He had more than that," I said.
"Sure, but you know the mob. They're set up for that contingency. If Rhino had cash, it was ground-buried who knows where. Oh, he had plenty more, all right, and it's still wherever he put it. He couldn't take it with him after all."
Dan looked at me again, a flicker of interest in his eyes. "What's your angle?"
"You know why I got sent to the can?"
"I covered the case," Dan said flatly.
"And saw me convicted for attempting to extort money from an elected official."
"The D.A. had a good case."
"I know. The evidence was absolutely conclusive. It was black and white and open and shut. It was perhaps the most solid of any case the D.A. ever was presented with."
Dan grinned for a change. "That's right. So solid he gave it over to his newest assistant to handle who won it with ease. Your former inquisitor, by the way, is now our current D.A."
"Good for him."
His eyebrows went up. "No recriminations?"
"He wasn't in on it."
"Oh?"
"Nearly every con says he was framed."
"So I hear."
"So I was framed."
The grin came back again. "Yeah, I know."
