The Tough Guys

"Certainly, Mr. Porter," I said. "Has Dan filled you in on the details?"

"He has. Now we'll see what you have to say, Mr. Rocca."

We met Dan Litvak in Rooney's. He was alone in a booth, the ashtray littered with souvenirs of his wait. His face was carefully expressionless, but I knew what he was thinking. When Cal Porter sat down opposite him, he said, "You didn't play it wisely, Cal."

"So I learned. Maybe I can still smarten up."

Dan glanced up, thought about it, and smiled slowly. He reached in his pocket and took out a folded sheaf of papers covered with his own type of shorthand. "Between Cal and me, we have that information on Elena Harris."

I tried to keep the quaver out of my voice when I told him to spill it.

"Elena Harris booked passage for Rio two weeks after Rhino died."

"Supposedly died," I cut in.

He nodded. "Supposedly. She has been in Rio since and has been the constant companion of an unidentified gentleman known only as Richard Castor. This man joined her about the time she arrived and until a few months ago . . . well, you know how it gets."

"Yeah . . . sure."

"So Castor dropped out of sight. Meantime the Harris woman has been cutting a wide swath through local Latin society. She's a blonde and they go for blondes there, especially the ones with class."

"And Castor . . ."

"At this point, is missing," Dan said.

"No history at all?"

Dan shrugged. "All this came over the phone, but he had a beard, was distinguished, and had plenty of loot. The only trouble he got into was when he had a brawl with a couple of women. He beat both of them up pretty badly."

"Rhino," I said quietly. "It's him."

Cal Porter tapped the table with his fingers. "We caught the business with the women too." His fingers stopped the tapping and he looked at me. "Are you ready to talk?"

"In a minute. What's with Mannie Waller?"

"We can't locate him . . . yet. Several of his men are under surveillance and all his known hangouts are covered." He paused, coughed into his hand, and said, "He's pretty big now."

"How big?"

"Outsized. We didn't realize to what extent until we went to town on him. Mannie Waller, for all his crassness, is probably the Syndicate's Mr. Big. Since Appalachian they've played it plenty cute."

"And he disappeared right after I opened Rhino's grave."

"Apparently."

"The call got through then."

"That's right. Now supposing, since we're all in this nice informal atmosphere, you say what's on your mind. If I didn't feel like you had a possibility of being right, and on top of that, that it could have been me who sent you away for seven years on a bum rap, you wouldn't be getting this opportunity to make me look like a fool. And if Dan didn't go along with you, I don't think I would have either. But now you're getting your chance. Just lay it out so we can see what it is."

I sat back, put the pieces together the way it looked best and gave them the picture.

"Before I was sent up I made a project out of Rhino Massley, intending to get hold of the documented evidence that determined his position inside the organization he ran and the outside loot to go with it. You know what happened. I took too big a bite. Rhino managed a neatly set-up frame and I took a dive behind bars. And with me gone Rhino was riding high . . . nobody big enough to push or cut him out. He had it made, but then came a time when he wanted out of the organization and things like this just don't happen unless you kick off."

"Buddy Rhino met Elena Harris and fell like a ton of bricks. She had showgirl looks, was educated, had everything Rhino ever wanted, and he went off the deep end. She had one other thing, too. She was a nurse, and this could have given him the idea. He cooked up a way to get out of the mob, without a sword hanging over his neck, and open up a new life for himself."

"So he fakes this polio thing. He went through the whole iron lung act because who the hell would think anybody would fake that? Suicide or murder maybe, but never anything like that. He even waited until a storm cut the power on the lung to make it look real. His nurse couldn't get the auxiliary power started in time."

"The doctor was fixed, of course. So was the mortician. They both thought they were made for life for their part in it and in a way they were. Rhino bumped them himself and made it look like an accident. He even managed to hold still in a casket for some photos and made it look good."

"He was the Syndicate paymaster and he had a bundle. He was supposed to keep it well hidden, so when he died suddenly and the bank was never uncovered, the mob simply felt that he had done his job a little too well, discounted the loss, and started fresh. At that point Rhino and Elena took off for Rio, he under an assumed name and properly disguised."

I paused there and waited. Dan was doodling idly on the edge of paper. Cal Porter said, "It's making sense. Go on."

"Now I speculate. Rio was a little too rich. Elena got out of hand. Those millionaires down there have an income at least. All of Rhino's loot was going out. It wouldn't take too many bad turns of the card to have that happen. Finally Rhino was wiped out and Elena wasn't holding still for it. She dumped Rhino for somebody else and the big act was all for nothing."

I could feel the scowl on Porter's face as he reached for the events and tried to sift them.

I said, "But to get back . . . Rhino's original hold on the mob itself and its outside agencies was his 'black bundle,' the stuff that could crucify plenty of big ones in and out of government. If it were a buried secret like the mob presumed the money to be, everything was all right."

"After all, during the time Rhino was gone it never turned up and it could be counted as being out of existence. In a way, it was almost like that. He had that hidden well . . . it had gone with his ex-wife so completely nobody could run it down. Then one day the ex-wife died and it came out quite inadvertently who she was and the mob was onto a new lead. There was the possibility that Rhino had separated the money and his 'package,' leaving the latter where it was accessible yet hidden."

"The mob couldn't afford not to follow up this idea. They suspected that Rhino's black bundle could have been among her effects. The survivor was Rhino's daughter, Terry, and as such inherited. The mob watched and waited and when Terry suddenly came to New York, they thought they had it pinned down. . . . Terry Massley had Rhino's stuff and was coming in to make a sale. Like father, like daughter, they figured. They laid for her, most likely figuring to make her talk, or if she wouldn't, knock her off and conduct a search themselves. By coincidence, I got involved."

The D.A.'s face seemed frozen. "By sheer coincidence," he repeated.

"Drop dead," I said.

"This coincidence is pretty farfetched," Porter remarked sourly. "This black bundle of Massley's was the invisible factor in Rocca's trial. Now suddenly by coincidence the girl runs into him."

Dan laughed. "You know what you should call this coincidence, Cal?"

Reluctantly, Porter asked, "What?"

"Luck. It's going to make you governor."

Then it was my turn. "That is," I said, "if I don't squawk about that bum rap I took back there."

The knuckles of Porter's fingers showed white. "I'm not making any deals. All I want to do is play it right."

"Me too, Mr. Porter, me too. I want it right. It's just that I have something coming to me for those seven years and I intend to get it."

"We'll talk about it. What do you want?"

"Legwork. You have everything going for you, so you might be able to get L.A. to process Rhino's ex-wife's effects. She left something behind that hasn't been uncovered and we have to find it first."