Бретт Холлидей - Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine, Vol. 33, No. 2, July 1973

Beyond the neat rows of shiny red apples through the market window, Lt. Dave Quinn gazed at the hell of Purple Avenue. He could smell the dope and brothels and numbers. Nick Rizzo’s little corner market had been a clean oasis.

Rizzo had defended his haven for the Purple district’s housewives and for the bums with a nickle who wanted an apple without worms in it and wasn’t spiked with acid.

Pious Nick Rizzo, defender of the good, a brash and bull-strong man. But not even a bull, the lieutenant thought, could sustain a massive skull fracture and survive.

Dave Quinn counted himself among Rizzo’s friends. It started when, as a cop on the Purple district beat, Quinn hit the bottle. Heavy. His wife had kicked him over for a thin-blooded man in a safe job.

“Whatdya wanna give up the living, huh, Davey?” Rizzo said, his dark eyes flaring. “You gotta talent in you for being a good cop. Don’t can it. We need you.”

And finally, with Rizzo’s constant prodding, Quinn managed to claw his way back. If he hadn’t beaten the bottle entirely, at least he was still a cop.

“We got everything wrapped up, Lieutenant,” the sergeant said now.

“Where’s Leroy?”

“In the back. Been bawling for an hour.”

Quinn watched Nick Rizzo’s sheeted body roll out the door on a stretcher and then went through the market to the back room, where Leroy, which is all anyone ever called him, sat like a child banished to the principal’s office. He’d worked as Rizzo’s handyman for the past six months.

If anything, Leroy was bigger than Nick Rizzo. And he was retarded.

“Who would do this, Mr. Quinn?” the big boy-man asked, his eyes still red from crying.

“I don’t know, Leroy.”

“When I come in this morning, I knew soon as I saw the alley door open it was going to be bad.”

Lighting a cigarette, Quinn glanced around the small storage room. Like Nick Rizzo, it was neat. A curtain drawn across a quarter section separated Rizzo’s sleeping quarters. He’d moved in here shortly after his wife died three years ago. Quinn had shared many a cup of tea with Nick Rizzo in this room.

“You here last night, Leroy?”

“No, sir. I did some sweeping and Nick said I should go home and he’d see me in the morning.”

“And you didn’t touch anything when you came in this morning?”

Leroy shook his head emphatically. “I know better, Mr. Quinn.”

“I know you do, Leroy.”

Quinn felt sorry for the big man. Like the collector of stray dogs he was, Rizzo had hired him off the street after Leroy tried to lift an apple. And like the stray dog he was, Leroy had been devoted to Nick Rizzo. Now, his benefactor dead, Leroy’d be on the bum again.

That, the lieutenant thought, was another mark against the killer.

“You go home, Leroy. There’s nothing you can do now.”

“Wish I could help,” Leroy said hopelessly. “I swear I do.” Then his face brightened. “I... I better feed Nick’s guppies!”

“Yeah. You feed the fish.”

The big man fed the fish and shuffled out the door and Quinn watched him finally disappear down the street, swallowed by the district’s daily mob. Shoving his hands deep in his pockets, Quinn was sick of the Purple district. No more Nick Rizzo to offer some redemption. The place was all evil now. He wanted a drink, a good stiff one — or two.

Leaving the Persimmon Bar an hour later, his anger was numbed but not dead. He blinked against the noon sun burning through layers of smog. The Scotch had done something else; it had steeled him for telling Anna.

Brunner’s was a shortorder diner on 3rd. It was noted for good cheeseburgers and hard language and it had a solid reputation among the produce truckers. The lieutenant waited for the last of the lunch crowd to leave before he went in and found a corner table. When Anna Falcone saw him, she looked surprised.

“Sit down, Anna,” he said.

“The boss don’t like me to sit.”

“Never mind that.”

She sat, and he could see she was running thin after the lunch rush; he thought about waiting until later, but he didn’t want her to hear about Nick Rizzo on the streets.

“Anna, sometimes you hate your job?”

She nodded, picking at the sleeve of her blouse.

“Well, times like this I hate mine most of all. Nick’s dead, Anna.”

Her face lost all its color. He got her some water but she pushed it away and buried her face in her arms. Quinn didn’t know what to do then; all he could think was that was the third mark against the killer. Nick and Anna’s love, like all things Rizzo got deeply into, built slowly. Nick believed in protocol. Being basically shy with women, he’d had to develop even the courage to ask Anna for a date.

“She’s kinda skinny, Davey, but Anna, she’s a sweet girl,” Nick Rizzo had said.

“Wedding bells?” Quinn had half joked.

Rizzo hadn’t said no. But now Anna, hardly a winner with looks, would have to wait many more years, if ever, for her next suitor.

Quinn wanted to touch her now, but all he could do was curl his hands into fists and say simply: “I’ll find the bastard who did it, Anna.”

Outside the diner he felt stupid. He’d blown any finesse with Anna. He’d have to make it up to her; Rizzo would like that. And, Quinn thought, maybe Anna would, too. He rolled his tongue around the dry roof of his mouth. It wanted a drink. Instead he went looking for Kippy.

Kippy was short and skinny and he wore a black toupee which looked like a toupee, but you never told Kippy that. He peddled Pete Vorski’s numbers and pimped for change, but he stayed out of dope, a good mark, and he knew the noise in the Purple district, which was better.

“You want noise on Rizzo,” Kippy said from the cool shadows of a pool room. Hustlers rattled the plastics on felt behind them and a juke box blew hillbilly music.

“I want all your ears working, Kippy,” Quinn said.

“The vine noise says it looks like a punk job. Maybe some hype looking for fix change.”

Quinn shook his head. “The vine’s feeding on rumors. I want good C-note information, Kippy. No rumors, no hunches. Names and addresses.”

“You and Rizzo were tight?”

“Yeah.”

“O.K. I’ll work.”

“You do that. And think about Jess Newman.”

The little man snorted. “Jess won’t like that. Juice peddlers don’t like sniffing. They get itchy, get mean.”

“That’s one reason I want to know where he’s curled up. Nick busted his mouth when Jess tried to push some stuff on grade school kids in his market.”

Kippy’s eyes narrowed. “So you think he—?”

“Right now I’m not thinking much. I’m collecting.”

But later in his apartment, a half empty Scotch bottle on the side table, Quinn lay in bed thinking. His brain was screwed up with images, mostly of himself in his peculiar role as avenging angel. It was, he mused as he stared at the ceiling, an odd role for a half dipsy cop.

He was edging up to sleep when the phone rang. He let it ring five times before he decided to answer.

“Kippy here.”

Quinn eyed his watch. “It’s three in the morning. It better be special.”

“You said dig. I dug. Better than a C-note, I figure. But you know my policy—”

“Yeah, yeah. Pay before say.”

“My place. Thirty minutes. Back stairs.”

It was a four-story, red brick hotel with a busted elevator and the smell of backed-up toilets. Quinn took periodic breathers at each landing on his way up the narrow rear stairway. But he was still panting pretty good when he rapped on Kippy’s door on the fourth floor.

After no answer he removed his .38 from his shoulder holster, stepped beside the door frame, reached out and slowly turned the knob. The door swung open to black, except for the square of dim light on the rug from the neon across the street. Center stage, Kippy lay eagled out staring forever at the ceiling.