Brett Halliday - Win Some, Lose Some

He couldn’t understand Canada’s behavior. The part called for him to put down his gun and come out laughing. Why all the shooting? True, they had shot Eddie Maye, but they wouldn’t shoot Canada because he had to be delivered alive. And all those voices suddenly. Downey had been in some hairy situations in his time, especially during those years in the black precinct, but being attacked by a payloader was one of the worst. Usually a Cadillac gives you a feeling of security and power. Not this time. He could still see that big bucket lift, lift, lift fifteen feet in the air and come smashing down.

The whiskey burned some of the fuzziness away, and he took another bite. If Werner hadn’t run off the minute he was nicked, Downey could have turned on the lights and found out what they were up against. It couldn’t have been cops. They hadn’t behaved like cops, and from what he was hearing on the police band, the cops were just beginning to get there now. Canada’s people? No, there would have been more gunfire, Downey would now be lying there dead probably, and the cops would never have been notified at all.

So by God, maybe two things had been running concurrently there, their own thing and the robbery the cops were talking about. It would have to be somebody who knew the site and knew how to run a payloader. Two people at the most, amateurs, doing a little harmless picking on their own time. All that radio commotion might have come from a single source. Could it be? It could be, Downey decided. A couple of guys sitting there in the darkness, getting more and more itchy, and when they saw that what was happening was a snatch of Big Larry Canada, easily a million-dollar parcel, they decided to make a little racket with the radios and see what happened.

He drove to the site, identified himself to the patrolmen, said he had picked up their conversation, and could he do anything to help? They couldn’t think of anything. He wandered away and looked for the Cadillac. That long, arrogant car, perched halfway up a little volcano of gravel, was surely a mess. Canada, as he had supposed, was no longer inside.

“Now how the hell did that happen?” he asked.

The highway patrolmen, who saw plenty of wrecked cars in the course of their working day, hadn’t been able to explain this one. Somebody happened to know that the job super lived in a trailer in the big encampment outside of Leisure City. They did some phoning. When the super arrived, the first thing he was able to do was identify the smashed car as belonging to the top boss. Everybody suddenly became much more careful. One of the sheriff’s deputies, who had found a bottle of whiskey in the trailer and was about to see how it tasted, replaced the cap and put it back in the drawer.

The super exclaimed when he saw the looted trailer. Downey went inside with him. The super couldn’t believe the extent of the loss. Usually it was one or two small pieces, more on the order of petty pilfering. This had been done by professionals. On the other hand, the insurance company had been getting fed up with the incessant nibbling losses, so maybe the pricks had decided to go for a big score before more stringent security measures made it harder or impossible. A payloader tire had been taken. Mounted, one of those babies would set you back something like a thousand and a half. You couldn’t walk out with one in your back pocket.

When Downey attempted to get a little more-had they ever caught anyone taking, for example? — the man closed up. That would have to come from the office.

Never mind. Downey had already thought of somebody who was sure to know.

Soupy Simpson, a well-known street figure in Northwest Miami, was built like an ex-jockey who has stopped starving himself to make weight. His bones were as light as a chicken’s. In periods when the money was good and he didn’t have to choose between food and heroin (heroin won), he put on weight around the middle. He usually seemed cool and easy, even cheerful, as though nothing bad could possibly happen to him. Much already had. He led a hazardous life. He was a fence, a gifted middleman who was willing to peddle any kind of stolen property if the margin was right. Because of his high expenses, he also had to moonlight by selling news and gossip. For this merchandise, his customers were the police, an occasional newspaperman like Tim Rourke of the News. This didn’t pay much, but it often made the difference between a bad night and going to bed happy.

He slept in a bowling-alley shoe room. Turkey, who ran the place, was still at the front desk. Suddenly Turkey began coughing hard. He had a cigarette smoker’s cough anyway, but this was more and it meant they had visitors. Simpson swept his materials into a chamois bag. The top sash of his single window was down a few inches. Standing on the cot, he dislodged a taut elastic, hooked it into the bag, and let go. The bag left the room fast, coming to rest outside, high up under the eaves.

He was back on the cot taking off his socks when a city detective named Jack Downey walked in. At this time of night, Downey was bad news. Nevertheless Simpson’s face split open in a wide, friendly grin, and he put out his hand.

“Hey, Jack, I’m honored.”

Downey was one of those cops it is impossible to like. He was a Godfather expert, with charts all over the walls of his office. Simpson and the others in his stable of snitches kept him contented by screening him from anything that would contradict his ideas. When a loan shark named Eddie Maye turned up dead, for example, Simpson told Downey it was an episode in a power struggle between organized crime families, although everybody knew it was actually a kidnapping attempt that had gone bad.

Downey was in a rotten mood. Instead of taking Simpson’s hand, he put three glassine envelopes in it. Simpson looked down in surprise.

“I do hope this isn’t a bust,” he said gently.

“That remains to be seen.” His tone and manner were equally grating. Whatever his standing elsewhere, in this room he unquestionably had the power. “I want a few answers, and I don’t have time for the usual bullshit.”

He swung over a straight chair, the only one in the room, and sat down. Simpson managed to stay relaxed, but he didn’t like the visit. The time of night by itself made it important.

“Homestead,” Downey said. “Pilfering. The construction site on the Interstate. What do you know about that?”

Simpson was liking this less and less. Homestead was sheriff’s country, and the sheriff was touchy about Miami cops who didn’t stay in their own jurisdiction.

“Why are you interested, Jack? Homestead is out of your territory.”

“Larry Canada is my territory, I go where he takes me. Let’s hear a yes or a no. Can you help me?”

“Jack-maybe,” Simpson said, twisting. “I know it goes on.”

Downey lit a cigarette, forgetting to offer one to the man on the cot. “Who are they? How do they fence it?”

“I don’t know names and addresses, Jack. These are small guys by definition. They work for a living. It’s something they scoop on the side.”

“I told you I don’t have time for the bullshit. Don’t try to Jew me up.”

Simpson stopped smiling. He had had some unhappy experiences with Irishmen whose eyebrows came close to meeting over their nose. This could be a very mean man. He exaggerated his agitation slightly to give Downey a sense that the menace had been understood.

“You say Canada. He has a piece of everything out there, never mind that it’s small, because of the principle of the thing. And if it gets back to Larry that we were talking about him, I could be in serious trouble. You know I live from day to day.”

“I’m not asking about selling the stuff back later. That’s between Canada and his insurance. All I want to know is stage one and stage two. Small guys, I agree. Those kind of names are in the public domain.”