Michael Collins - Act of Fear

‘The man told you?’

‘I gave him ten dollars.’

I believed that. My life was worth about ten dollars to the night clerk. I liked to think that if it had been men who asked, the price might have been twenty-five. (If it had been men, the price would probably have been zero. The clerk would have been too scared.) And she was right. I was not easy to hide. Not with my arm and my present scarred face. If a girl could find me, I was long overdue on the telephone to Gazzo. Then, I had been watching for men tailing me. I might have overlooked a girl while seeing men. I hoped that was true.

‘What’s your name?’ I asked.

‘Anna,’ she said.

‘Okay, Anna, what did you want to find me for?’

The girl shivered. ‘She was on the phone. Magda. My mother, I mean. I was in the bedroom and I heard and when you left she went on the phone, you know? I mean, she called him right off.’

‘Jake Roth?’

She nodded. ‘You was just gone out. My father, he didn’t look so good. But Magda, my mother, she says… she says…’ The girl, Anna, looked at me. ‘… she says Jo-Jo he got himself into it. She says we got to go through… we got to trust Mr Roth. We…’

Like I said, it was not exactly a surprise. I was now anxious to get rid of the girl and get on the telephone to Gazzo. I was more than anxious. It was past time to think about my own skin. I wouldn’t help Jo-Jo dead. I had no intention of being dead even if it would help Jo-Jo.

‘Did you hear what she told him? Roth, I mean?’

‘She didn’t talk to him,’ Anna said. ‘He wasn’t there.’

I think I had the feeling a con gets in death row when the governor decides maybe the state doesn’t need his life.

‘She didn’t talk to Roth?’

The girl shook her head. ‘No. Not yet.’

‘She didn’t talk to anyone?’

‘No. She said to have Mr. Roth call her.’

It was at least a reprieve. But not much. Roth and his hired boys had been after me already. Only they had not been after me as hard as they would be if they had talked to Magda Olsen. It gave me a good chance that I could call the captain and have him get to me in plenty of time. I wanted my story on the record where it would do Jake Roth no good to silence me.

‘Thanks, Anna,’ I said.

The girl did not move to leave. ‘You… you said Mr Roth would kill Jo-Jo. You said Roth would never trust Jo-Jo?’

‘No, Anna, he won’t,’ I said. ‘You’ve got to make your father go to the police. Or at least to Mr Pappas.’

The girl shook her head. ‘They won’t. All they said. And they’re scared.’ She looked up at me again. ‘I know where he is.’

Well, I sat down. I had spent the whole week looking for Jo-Jo Olsen. I had not found him. I had decided that I could not find him. I was not sure I wanted to find him now. I had my course of action all mapped out, and a good chance that I would make it home safe. All I had to do was call Gazzo, get picked up, stay in the lockup a few days until everyone knew my theory, and then just stay away from dark alleys so Roth could not get at me easily just to punish me for talking. I had it all planned.

‘You know?’

She nodded. ‘He wrote me. Just a note. He used a typewriter and sent it to where I work. He says he’s okay. He says he… here.’

She handed it to me. An envelope and a single sheet of paper. I took them. The envelope was typed, and so was the note. There was nothing in it that said it was from Jo-Jo. Just a few words that said he was okay, the weather was good, he was working at some small job to eat, the work was lousy, but at least he was around the cars, and don’t worry. There was no signature and no address. Only that bit about the cars said it was from Jo-Jo, and maybe some things only his sister would know. The envelope had no address on it. But it did have a postmark. It was from Spanish Beach, Florida. Spanish Beach had a speedway.

‘Who else has seen this?’ I said. I guess I was looking for an out.

‘No one. I… I was scared.’

‘You’re sure? No one else saw this? Not your family?’

‘No one, Mr Fortune,’ Anna Olsen said.

‘Okay,’ I said. ‘Now you get out of here. We don’t want anyone to see us together. That clerk might even call someone. You go home, and you stay there. Don’t let anyone see you leave the hotel.’

She blinked at me. ‘Will you…?’

‘I don’t know. I’ve got to think.’

I watched at the door until she was gone down the stairs. Then I went back into the room. I locked the door behind me. I went and stood at the window of the dark room and looked out at my city. It was not my city now, not as long as I had to hide in it. Their city, and I did not like that. The telephone stood on the table beside the bed. All I had to do was call, and I would be safe. Spanish Beach was not a one-street village, especially in race season. For all I knew to go to the police was still the only real way I could help Jo-Jo. Maybe the police could get to him first. Who was I to think that I could do better than the police?

But maybe I could do better. I knew a lot about Jo-Jo by now. The Spanish Beach police knew nothing. I knew in what kind of place to look, what kind of man to look for, and who I was up against. Jo-Jo would be hiding, using a phony name, probably a disguise; and maybe I could move just a little faster.

There was sweat under my arms and down my back. One phone call and I would be safe. The moment I stepped out of the room without the police I became a target, and there could be a gun waiting around every corner. Out of this room, on the streets, I was a rabbit in the open. Maybe, with luck, I could do just a little more than the police. Maybe I could find him just a hair faster.

And risk a bullet in the back of the head all the way.

A telephone call and I was out of it.

And Jo-Jo maybe had one hair less chance of living another day.

I took down the whiskey in that untouched shot glass in one good gulp.

Who was I kidding? I was going to try to find Jo-Jo. In the long run my only real safety lay in putting an end to Jake Roth. When you came down to it, every little bit would help. I was going to call Gazzo, yes, and I was going to Spanish Beach. I had started, I had to finish. No, that was not it. Not that I had to finish a job, or that I personally wanted to end Jake Roth. Simply that if I did not go and Jo-Jo was found dead, I would never know if maybe I could have saved him.

I put on my suit coat and went to the door. My hand was sweating. But I opened the door. I went down the back stairs, out the back way, and across back yards and through alleys for two blocks before I risked hailing a cruising cab. I told the cabbie to take me to Newark Airport. At Newark I got a seat on the first jet out — a non-scheduled carrier I knew that had a flight going out at 6 a.m. for Miami that would get me a good connection to Spanish Beach. It was really a cargo line, but I knew the boys. At least it would be a safe flight.

I had a long wait, and the airport was as safe as anywhere. I used the telephone in the non-scheduled office to call Captain Gazzo. For once the captain was out of his office. I left an anonymous tip that Jo-Jo Olsen might be in Spanish Beach, Florida. That was all. The captain would figure it out, and until I was under police protection I was not about to spill my guts in the open and tip Jake Roth. Jake had ways of finding out what the police knew. (I don’t think there has ever been a police force without someone who could be bought at a price, and I don’t expect that there ever will be.)

I waited for the dawn in a dark corner of the non — scheduled hangar. I smoked and watched the men at work loading the freight. I felt pretty set up with myself. I was being brave as hell. An honest detective and a good citizen.