bringing it back empty the next morning. They got their money through the mail.
All this was true. The one fact Simpson suppressed was that he himself was the link between the guys and their buyer. Downey didn’t need to know that. Downey’s eyebrows moved a fraction of an inch further apart, which meant he was satisfied, even though for once Simpson hadn’t given him a Mafia connection.
He left. He had been gone only a few minutes when Turkey began coughing again. Simpson swept Downey’s envelopes under the mattress, although for all he knew they contained nothing but milk sugar, and was ready for his next guests, who turned out to be Tim Rourke and Mike Shayne, the detective.
Simpson was sort of a friend of these guys, though nobody with his lifestyle could really afford to be friends with anybody. He knew where he was with them. If he didn’t want to do business, he said no, and they accepted it.
“Tim, how’s the crusade?” he said with his big smile. “Larry Canada’s still walking around loose, I’m sorry to see.”
“We’re working on it,” Rourke said.
“You’ll never get that guy. Coffee? Turkey just made a fresh pot. A drink maybe?”
“We have some hot construction equipment we want to unload,” Shayne said. “It has to be moved fast, and you get the whole take. Do you want it?”
“Sure,” Simpson said agreeably, “after you tell me what you’re getting me into. Sit down, fellows. You may be in a big rush, but this is the time of night when I begin to go slow.”
Shayne took the chair. Rourke, too nervous to sit still, continued to circle. If Simpson had been a fox, his ears would be standing straight up, his mustache would be vibrating. He smelled money, and of course he also smelled trouble. If they said this hot load came from Homestead-
“You’re an odds man, Soupy,” Shayne said. “What do you think the odds are we can stop that Everglades link-up?”
“The big four-lane? Too much going for it, man. I admit you’ve surprised me a few times, but even so-well, twenty to one?”
Shayne snorted. “Always nice to talk to you, Soupy. Yeah, I’d say about twenty to one. But we’re trying various things, and maybe we’ll come up with something. This one’s a little far-out. Canada’s Homestead job was hit tonight. I happened to walk in on it.”
“I don’t suppose you want to tell me what you were doing out there?”
“Soupy, some of this it would be healthier not to know. You might be tempted to sell it, and that could get complicated.”
“And unhealthy,” Simpson agreed. “What kind of values are we talking about?”
“To you, a couple of thousand at the most. We want you to put it in the pipeline so we can see where it goes.”
“Like an X-ray,” Rourke explained, “where you inject something and take a series of pictures. Soupy, time’s going by.”
“It can’t wait till morning?”
“It was stolen tonight,” Shayne said. “We want to peddle it tonight.”
“They’re going to wonder why I don’t get rid of it direct.”
“Because you want to keep the connection, keep them satisfied. Cut down the risk. You don’t want to be driving the truck and get stopped for a faulty tail-light.”
Simpson considered. “They might go for that. How would this be? I’ve got the key to an empty storefront. You can unload it there. I’ll call the guys to come pick it up. That’s a round trip of about an hour. Would that fit your schedule?”
“Fine.”
And where did Jack Downey fit into this? Simpson had a fleeting impulse to tell Shayne that somebody else was interested in those two guys, Benjamin and Vaughan. He suppressed it. He had to think of himself, and this was turbulent water.
“You were talking about odds,” he said. “If I do it, what are the odds I’ll get hurt?”
“Four to one.”
That jolted a laugh out of Simpson. “Anybody else would say a hundred, and I wouldn’t believe it. O.K., I’ll do it. Let’s see what you have.”
Chapter 11
To Lou DeLuca, Canada’s ambition to make it big in legitimate business was like a whore’s dream of a little house in the suburbs, with a pastel door and a swimming pool. It wasn’t a practical thing. To be practical, the only security was to work with the cops, providing the services the public wanted and needed, and to stay the hell out of the headlines. Dope, bets, women-this was nickel-and-dime stuff to Canada. Sure, but how those nickels and dimes added up!
Canada was always in evidence. When he went anywhere, he was noticed. He gave too many big flashy parties. It tickled him when officers of the medical and bar associations and Chamber of Commerce came on his boat. But at the first sign of bad weather, DeLuca had told him again and again, those would be just the people who wouldn’t be returning his phone calls. They had their own ass to look after.
So Canada had to go. But it had to be done right. An old-fashioned bang-bang would hurt everybody. What most people wanted was peace and tranquillity, no heat, no hassle, an atmosphere in which they could continue to make a modest living without letting the IRS know the details. There were always a few soreheads around, and DeLuca had been working on them. But as for people who would go all the way, he had only a handful. Canada, too, had been neglecting this side of it. Times had changed, he kept saying. Horse-shit. Sometimes there was only one thing to do, when you came down to it-stop talking and shoot.
And Eddie Maye had been shot. That had been faked to look like a kidnapping, but Canada must have learned that Eddie was conspiring to get rid of him, and he had moved first. DeLuca had to assume that Eddie had talked freely before taking that shot in the head. So DeLuca was staying close, and he had imported two professional shooters from New York.
That committed him to the action. Canada had connections in New York, and sooner or later he would hear about it. The trouble was, nothing was ready. Eddie Maye had promised to set it up, delivering Canada to some certain spot at a certain time. Now that Eddie was no longer around, DeLuca had to think of some other way.
He liked to get off to an early start in the morning, and he liked his eight hours. Nobody called him at night unless it was really important. So when the phone rang after midnight, he came awake in a hurry and grabbed it.
It was Canada’s wife, Molly. She wasn’t as massive as her husband, but she ate much of the same cooking, and she showed it, especially between the knees and waist. Now and then, she had given DeLuca a certain look, to the effect that she might be willing to go upstairs with somebody who made regular trips to the gym and kept himself in good shape. He hadn’t followed it up, though it remained in the back of his mind.
“Lou, something scary has happened. You’ve got to help me.”
“Sure, Molly.” He felt for the. 38-caliber bullet he always carried as a good luck piece, a nice reassuring shape. A fatal accident to Canada right now would solve most of his problems, as well as save the hitmen’s fees. “Tell me.”
“I took a pill, my head’s just going around. What was he doing out there, anyway, this late at night?”
“Molly, can you sort of grab hold of yourself? What was this, a phone call?”
“From Homestead. They had a robbery at the site, lots of things taken. And the first thing the police saw when they got there was Larry’s car all smashed up.”
DeLuca took a half second to drain the eagerness out of his voice. “Was Larry in it?”
“No, that’s the thing. It was all bashed in, a total wreck, and no sign of Larry at all! Vanished! Lou, what do you think? Whoever it was talking, some lieutenant, thought maybe Larry got wind of the robbery-but does that sound like him? To go out there all by himself? You know it doesn’t.”
“When did you see him, for supper?”
