Michael Collins - Silent Scream

“Does he know Charley Albano? Had business with Albano?”

“No!”

A flat denial. And a contradiction. Kezar didn’t talk business to her, but she knew he had no business with Charley Albano. She wasn’t dumb, she heard it herself. A mistake.

“I don’t know nothing,” she said. “Leave me alone.”

“Kezar does have business with Charley Albano, doesn’t he?”

She shook her head, not denying but resisting. Her bruised face seemed to wilt, collapse.

“I can’t talk about Irving,” she said, almost pleading now. “Do me a favor, Fortune. Go away, let me alone.”

“A deal with Charley Albano, Jenny, that Pappas didn’t know about? Sid Meyer mixed in it? Behind Pappas’s back?”

“No.” She shook her head violently. “No!”

She was afraid. But was it for herself, or for Kezar? Afraid of him, or for him?

“You’re afraid of him? Kezar? Or is it Charley Albano?”

“I won’t talk to you! I don’t have to!” she said. “You get away from me! Go on!”

I went. She would tell me nothing now. Maybe later, when I knew more. But there was something, I was sure. Was it something Hal Wood knew, too? Not aware he knew?

There was no answer when I rang the vestibule bell of Hal’s St. Marks Place apartment. A small gnawing began in my stomach. Had he been gone all night? Emily Green, too? The vestibule door was unlocked. I went up.

A note was taped to the door of 4-B: See Super, 1-B.

I went down. It was the rear apartment off the vestibule. A big man with a red face and a can of beer opened the door.

“I’m looking for Hal Wood,” I said.

“A terrible thing,” the super said, sad. “You’re Mr.-?”

“Dan Fortune.”

He smiled, looked me up and down as if I’d been described to him. I’m not hard to describe.

“He called me, Wood, gave me a message for you, said it was important. He said you’d have identification.”

I showed him my license.

“Private eye, eh? Must be interesting work. Now me, I-”

“The message,” I said. “It’s important?”

It was a dismal day, no baseball on TV in February, and he wanted someone to talk to. He nodded. “He said meet him down on Sixth Street between First and Second. A candy store.”

I thanked him, walked south in the rain. A steady downpour now, washing away the last of the grimy snow. On the block of Sixth Street there was only one candy store.

“Dan!”

A loud whisper, urgent through the rain. Hal stood back in a doorway next to the candy store. Only partly sheltered from the driving rain, his duffel coat was soaked. Small things tie people together. We had our old duffel coats in common. I joined him in the doorway. He was watching a building across the street.

“It’s Emily,” Hal said. “She got a phone call at my place about three hours ago. A girl friend, she said, but she looked scared to me, so when she went out right after, I followed her. She went into that tenement over there, the one with the Polish butcher shop. She’s been there ever since. I called you at your office, but got no answer, so left the message with my super.”

The building was a flophouse, with blank shades at the windows instead of curtains, and raw meat hanging in the butcher shop.

“It was a woman who called?”

“I don’t know, Dan. Emily was taking all calls. Protect me in case someone wanted to find out if I was home.”

“You weren’t home last night.”

“We went to Emily’s folks in Queens. Got back late.”

“She’s been in there three hours? What apartment?”

“I don’t know. No mailboxes. Cut up in rooms, I guess.”

“You saw no one else you know go in or out?”

His intense eyes were uneasy. “I’m not sure. I thought maybe I did, but it’s crazy. What would Emily-?”

“Who?”

“That little guy who shot at me, but I didn’t get a good-”

“Max Bagnio? He went in there?”

“Came out. He walked off toward Second Avenue.”

I was out of the doorway while he still talked. He caught up. Me, Mia Morgan, now Emily Green. And Emily had gone on her own. There were no mailboxes in the decrepit entrance, but the door was open, and a bell was marked: Manager. I rang. A door opened far back, and a woman leaned in the opening.

I held up a five. “A small man, flat nose, scarred eyes. Probably took the room about four days ago. He owes money.”

“Second floor, room fourteen.” She took the five, closed her door.

We went up. Two skinny cats scurried away down the feebly lit corridor, all the room doors had so many layers of paint they looked diseased, and the toilets were in the hall. Room 14 was at the rear. This time I wished I had my old gun. Bagnio could have returned unseen in the rain, or by another way.

“If he’s in there, has a gun,” I said, “I’ll try to grab the gun, you grab him. Got it? Don’t wait.”

Hal nodded. At the door, he stood to the left out of sight. I knocked. Nothing happened. I listened. There was no sound. The lock was an ordinary room-key lock, not even a Yale. I backed, lowered my shoulder, nodded to Hal, and hit the door. It burst open with a crash against a bureau. I caught it on the rebound, and Hal was in the room with me.

A single room with a narrow bed, a table and some wooden chairs, and a hot plate. Max Bagnio wasn’t there. Emily Green was. I let the door go. Hal sat down on a bare chair.

“Oh, Jesus,” Hal said. “Oh, Christ!”

Emily Green lay on the cot, her hands folded, blood all over the hands and her plain gray dress, and her head smashed in. I bent down. She had been hit on the head with something heavy, more than once. Hard blows, angry or determined. One or two would have knocked her out, probably killed her. The others had been insurance-make sure she was dead.

“Me!” Hal said, held his face. “Touch Hal Wood and die!”

“Shut up!” I snapped. I was edgy, too. What’s wrong with us? A mistake of nature? Two young girls. Diana Wood had wanted the wrong man. What mistake had Emily Green made? The same one?

“It’s me, isn’t it?” Hal said. “You want to commit suicide, just get close to Hal Wood. What’s so important about me?”

I touched her. The arms were limp, and the body. A faint stiffness to her jaw. Two hours, maybe a little more. Not much more, she’d only been here three hours.

“What the hell does he want?” Hal said. “Bagnio?”

There was no telephone. “Go down and call Captain Gazzo.”

I gave him the number. He was glad to go. He hadn’t looked at Emily Green after the first moment. Who could blame him? Me, I’m experienced with death, sure I am. Play detective, Dan boy, find a perfect clue like a Scotland Yard hotshot. Was it even Max Bagnio’s room? Hal hadn’t been sure.

Hal could have been sure. There wasn’t much in the room, but what there was belonged to Bagnio. A small suitcase under the cot with two extra guns, ammo, two pairs of black cotton gloves, one clean shirt, a silver-mounted hairbrush set-initialed: M.B.-and one of those cheap arcade snapshots of Bagnio with a girl who looked fifteen. Some bread, canned meat, and two quarts of Seagram’s V.O., one half empty.

I guess they were clues. Anyway, they were all there was. No weapon. Not a surprise, Bagnio had probably used his big. 45. Hal returned.

“Captain Gazzo said to wait.”

I said, “It’s Bagnio’s room all right.”

Hal sat down again as if his legs couldn’t be trusted to keep him up. “We… haven’t even buried Diana yet. The cops only let her folks take her yesterday. Bury her tomorrow, in Queens. She hated Queens. Both of them from Queens. I guess I better stay away from girls from Queens.”

I sat. “Hal, have you remembered anything? Something you picked up near Diana’s new apartment? Someone who acted funny?”