The Men From the Boys - Ed Lacy

Hatchet-face came over and said, “Lou, run over to Rosey's and pick up a hundred pounds of pull-its, and watch out for his scale.”

1 stood up, walked him out to his panel truck. “Thanks, Lou, and keep this under your hair. Willie is nervous and nothing may come of all this, no sense getting him excited.”

“Mister, I ain't the talkative type. Anything else you want to know? Don't pay no attention to him,” he jerked his thumb back toward the store, “I ain't breaking my ass for them.”

“That's about all, wanted to get a general idea of the business. You know how it is, we have to look into all the corners.”

“I know, I been to the movies,” he said, winking. “Mister, I'm not one to tell you your job, but Lande wouldn't do nothing real crooked. Plenty of times I had a chance to buy us some hot meat, but he was too scared.”

“That's why I want you to keep things quiet—all this may be a waste of time. Lou, one more thing, can you get me a list of the restaurants, bars, night clubs, Willie sold to? All the customers he'd had this last six months or so?”

“Easy, only about twenty-five of 'em. I delivered to them every day. Hold still, I'll write them out.” He reached into the truck and took out a piece of wrapping paper, started writing.

When he gave me the list. I thanked him, told him again to keep his trap shut, and maybe I'd drop in to see him again sometime.

“Glad to work with you—only don't get me in no trouble.”

“Can you get into trouble, Lou—got a record?”

He shook his head too quickly. “No, sir. That is, nothing but a lot of traffic tickets... expect that when you're delivering and... yeah, I once did thirty days on the island for disorderly conduct. Kid gang stuff.”

“All right, don't worry and just keep working with me. See you.”

I started for the precinct, and the day was already so hot the heat waves were making me dizzy. I stopped at a couple of bars, not for beers, but to relieve my gut—my lousy tumor was really acting up.

It was just before nine when I reached the police station and Ash wasn't in yet. The desk sergeant was an old-timer whose face I remembered. He told me, “The lieutenant is a busy beaver these days, Bond. We're trying to check where the hell Cocky Anderson was before he died and it seems he dropped completely out of sight for at least a week before he ate lead. Want to see the lieutenant about anything special?”

“I'll drop back. When do you expect him?”

“Now, this afternoon, any time. Downtown is putting the screws on. You know these big cases, somebody will be the patsy if they don't come up with the killer pronto, so Bill—the lieutenant—is rushing around like he swallowed a firecracker.”

“I'll be back sometime this morning. Tell him to wait for me,” I said and walked out.

I didn't know how to kill an hour or so. I could go back to the Grover and catch some shut-eye, but I'd certainly have a run-in with King and that nance Lawson, and I didn't want to be bothered with petty arguments this morning.

I had some orange juice and a plate of French fries, and went down to the Lande Meat Company, Inc. The door was slightly ajar and I walked in. There was nobody around, but after a couple of minutes a little guy wearing a sweater under a white butcher coat, and an old homburg atop his thick face, stepped out of the icebox room and almost jumped through the ceiling when he saw me. He said, “Got the wrong store. I'm not open.” He spoke with a slight accent.

“I got the right store, Lande.”

“What is this—what you guys want?”

“What guys?”

“You don't fool me, you're a cop. You want a salami sandwich?”

“Too hot for salami—I want to talk to you.”

“I'm a sick man, an honest businessman taking inventory. I ain't parked by a hydrant or nothing, I give to the PAL— let me alone.” He had a fast way o£ talking, skipping from phrase to phrase.

“Where did you get the fifty grand from?”

He smacked himself on the chest. “Me? Do I look like a man with fifty thousand dollars?”

“Bebe bought a mink recently, a Caddy—she didn't get them with soap coupons.”

“You got no right to ask me questions—I didn't do nothing,” he said, going to the other end of the store and taking a handful of sawdust out of a barrel. “We had some dollars in a safe-deposit vault. When I got a stroke a few weeks ago, I tell the wife, What we keeping this for? We can't take it with us, let's spend it.”

He spread the sawdust on a wooden chopping block, then took a steel brush from the wall, started scraping the block top.

“Willie, those two kids who were bumped off over in New Jersey—one of them talked in the hospital before he died, said he'd stuck you up for fifty grand.” It was a clumsy lie and he didn't tumble, kept cleaning the block, both hands on the brush.

“We're passing this on to the income-tax boys—they're interested.”

“Interested in what? Let anybody find an income of fifty thousand for me and I'll be glad to pay—give them half.”

“Lande, maybe you don't know how the tax boys work once they bite into a case. All right, maybe they can't find no record of the cash, but they watch you. Maybe five years from now you think it's safe to take the dough out of your mattress. The second you buy a house, a car, take a cruise, they crack down on you like white on rice, asking where you got the dough from.”

I could have been talking to myself. Lande put the brush away, waved the tails of his coat over the block to brush off any remaining sawdust.

“Willie, the young cop you first reported the robbery to, he was almost killed yesterday.”

He jumped at that, paled, fought to get control of himself. He went into the icebox and came out with a liverwurst. He sliced off a piece, began eating it—nearly choking on it.

I walked over and he put the knife down, motioned for me to cut myself a hunk. I slapped him on one fat cheek, knocking him halfway across the store. A loud stinging slap will scare a joker more than a solid punch that might put him away. Get slapped right and you think they've pulled the world down around your ears.

“Willie, this ain't a picnic, a time for sandwiches and...”

Lande let out a shrill scream of fear. I'd made a mistake; I'd knocked him near the door and he turned over, got to his feet, ran outside. It seemed only a second later when he returned with two cops, yelling, “Get that—him—out of here!”

Through the open door I saw a radio car at the curb as one of the cops gripped his night stick, asked, “What you doing in here, Mac?”

“Slicing liverwurst with Lande.”

“He's a cop and he threatened me, punched me!” Willie shrilled; he was on full steam, ready to explode.

“Got a shield?” one of the cops asked me.

I didn't answer.

The other cop said, “Impersonating a policeman, that's a...”

They were both young cops, probably on the force less than half a dozen years. I said, “Get the hay out of your ears, boys. I'm an ex-cop, retired. I never told Willie I was a cop. Ask him if I ever said I was a cop. Come on, Willie, tell them you don't want no trouble because you and I know it might be big trouble, awful big.”

Lande swayed on his feet, face flushed, trying to think— think hard. He sort of gasped, “Yah, we were kidding around over a hunk of liverwurst, then he hit me.”

“Just slapped him,” I added.

“I think he's drunk,” Willie said.

“Did he claim he was a cop?”

“I ain't making no charges,” Willie said quickly. “Please, all I want is for him to get out of here, leave me alone!”

“Did he say he was a cop?”

“Tell him I never said nothing,” I said.

One of the cops turned to me. “Close your kisser, let him talk.”

“No, he never... said... no,” Lande said.

The first cop turned to me. “What's your name?”

“Marty Bond.” I didn't make the mistake of reaching for my wallet-to prove it. I could see the cop trying to recall where he'd heard the name before. Then he asked, “That tin-badge cop they sapped up yesterday—that your boy?”

I nodded.

He motioned to his partner and they had a whispered conference for a moment as Willie wailed, “Cops, cops, all I get in my store is —”

“Now take it slow,” the cop said. “Where's your phone?”

Lande nodded at his office. One cop called in while the other leaned against the door, wiped his sweaty face with his free hand. Willie whispered to me. “Please, mister, leave me alone! I'm a sick man! I don't know what you want... but leave me alone!”

“That's right, Willie, all this might give you another stroke —or a bullet in your back.”

The flush in his face got deeper, then sheet-white as he grabbed at the meat block and crumpled to the floor. The cop at the door said, “Heat's got him!” and started for the sink. He stopped, told me, “You! Go over and get him a glass of water.”

He was a smart cop.

I got a glass of water and let Lande have it on the puss. The other cop came out of the office as Willie opened his eyes, shook his head like a groggy fighter. The cop asked, “Want to go to the hospital?”

Lande sat up, struggled to his feet. “No. No. I'll see my own doctor. I have these attacks and ...”

I asked, “Who's your doctor?”

“Shut up!” the smart cop told me. He turned to Willie, “you feel okay?”

“Yah, yah. I'm fine. I'll go home now and rest.” Willie looked around. “You boys want some liverwurst?”

“No wonder you passed out—that stuff will kayo you in this heat,” the cop who phoned said. He jerked his thumb at me. “Come on, Lieutenant Ash wants to see you at the station house.”

“You mean you're taking me in?”

“Cut the clowning, Bond. You're not under arrest—I only have orders to bring you in.”

“I suppose it beats walking.”

The three of us went out to the radio car and I looked back and Wilhelm wasn't in the doorway—I wondered who he was phoning.

One of the cops got behind the wheel, then I got in, and the other cop turned his gun belt around so it wasn't next to me, and squeezed in. He was pretty good, only forgot one thing—he should have frisked me.

It was a short ride to the station house and nobody talked. The desk officer motioned toward the stairs and when one of the radio cops started walking back with me, the desk said, “That's all, get back to your car.”

Bill looked like he'd missed a lot of sleep and for the first time since I'd known him he was wearing a dirty shirt. I sat down as he shut the door, and walking back to his desk he asked, “For the love of tears, Marty, you gone nuts?”

“Forget me—for a moment. I been trying to see you. What are you doing about Lawrence besides sticking a guard outside the hospital room?”

“We're getting these volunteer cops out, stupid ever having them here. I told them...”

“Forget the volunteer cops, what about Lawrence?”

“I have a detective out checking on his friends. Usual routine.”

“That all?”

“That all? What do you expect me to do, Marty? Put out a dragnet because some drunk or an old buddy of the kid's finally catches up with him? I got troubles with my own kid —Margie says she had a hundred and four fever all night. Lousy doctors, when they don't know what it is it becomes a 'virus.' And on this goddam Anderson mess, I'm running into enough blank walls to build a damn house.”

“Things sure have changed—when I was on the force if a cop in uniform was slugged we'd turn the town upside down. No matter whether he was wearing a phony uniform or not, whoever slugged the kid thought he was a cop. I bet you haven't even questioned the boy yet.”

“The docs said he couldn't be talked to till this afternoon. Marty, I been up all night, out with five men, checking on Cocky Anderson's pals. Marty, Marty, I know he's your son —stepson—but for the love of tears don't make a big thing out of this. What do you expect me to do?”

“I want you to forget Cocky Anderson for a few minutes and listen to me. I talked to Lawrence early this morning. Somebody called him into a hallway and ...”

“Hell, I know the details. It's one of those ritzy small apartment houses—most of the people were out. Nobody heard anything, saw anything, till an ad man who lives on the third floor came home and found the kid. We've checked the tenants; none of them knew the kid. They're all big shots, not the criminal type.”

“While you're checking, look right around here. Somebody in this station house must have tipped off whoever did it that Lawrence was coming in for some extra patrol work.”

“Maybe the kid was followed, maybe it was one of those things where the guy happened to see him and let him have it. Marty, these CD cops have their own setup. The guy in charge here is some retired West Pointer, a big society buddy —he wouldn't have any part in a beating. Don't start turning my precinct on its head with a lot of wild ideas.”

“I got some wilder ones. Listen to me: all Lawrence remembers is dimly seeing a guy that looked like Dick Tracy and...”

“Dick Tracy? For the love of...!”

“Bill, listen. I think that Dick Tracy stuff is a good make. He also heard the guy cursing him before he blacked out. The guy kept saying, 'Bastid! Bastid'—like a growl. I think it was Bob 'Hilly' Smith!”

Ash stood up, kicked the table. “Between the brass, the reporters and you, I'll be ready for a strait jacket! Why would a top operator like Smith go around slugging a tin cop?”

“I don't know the why, for now, only that there's a lot of loose ends to this thing. The kid was worked over by a professional, and Bob is the best in the business. Remember what Bob was known as before he became so big? 'Pretty Boy' Smith they called him. He has those over-clean-cut features, the strong face of a Dick Tracy. Finally, he came up from the tobacco road, a mountain boy, and don't talk so good. I remember his favorite word was bastid. Never bastard but bastid.”

“Damn it, Marty, all the booze you've lapped up has softened what few brains you ever had,” Bill said, his voice snotty, like he was talking to a lunkhead. “There's a million so-called clean-cut-looking punks. There's also about four million people in Brooklyn alone who use the word bastid. As for it being a professional going-over, that's bunk. A maniac can do a better job than any paid hood.”