Микки Спиллейн - The Last Cop Out

None of the others were there yet, but she heard Frank Verdun’s voice on the phone in the other room and he seemed all upset about something. She made the decision quickly and when the Frenchman was off the line, she knocked and walked in. “Mr. Verdun?”

He looked at her without feeling. “Yes?”

“Something strange happened that you should know about.”

“Oh? What’s that?”

“Before I left the other day I had a call from Mr. Burke... the one who caused all that... damage outside. He wanted to take me to supper.”

The Frenchman kept on looking at her, his eyes flat.

“You had already gone, so I couldn’t tell you about it, so I went ahead and made the date to find out what he was up to.”

“Gill Burke,” Verdun mused. His eyes weren’t so flat any more.

“Yes. He was quite friendly. We had supper together.”

“And did you find out what it was all about?”

“He wanted to know about you.”

“Mr. Burke knows about me.”

“I gathered as much. He wanted to know more, particularly as pertains to Boyer-Reston — who comes to the office, the nature of your conversations.”

“And you told him...”

“What I told him was flushable, if you know what I mean.”

For the first time Frank Verdun allowed himself a smile.

“What did you think of Mr. Burke?”

“One thing,” Helen told him, “he’s a cop.”

“True.”

“He’s on a definite assignment and that assignment concerns you.”

“That’s a pretty positive statement.”

“Please don’t forget that I lived with a policeman father for a long time. I know them... their ways, their habits, all the little wrinkles they try to pull. I even asked Mr. Burke some questions myself, but he evaded them very nicely. I wish I could tell you more.”

“No, that’s sufficient,” the Frenchman said. “I appreciate your loyalty, Helen. I take it you don’t approve of policemen.”

She turned on a look he couldn’t miss because Frank Verdun was a perfect reader of faces. Nobody could fool him or fake him out with an act no matter how expert they were and now he was absolutely satisfied with what he saw... the distaste, the disgust and all the hatred that was inside himself. Her expression was real.

And it was. The only thing the Frenchman didn’t know was that she wasn’t thinking of Gill when he asked the question. She was thinking of Frank Verdun sitting on the other side of the desk.

The Frenchman didn’t need an answer at all. He said, “Tell me, my dear, did Mr. Burke ask to see you again?”

“Yes, he did. I said I’d think about it. I didn’t want to make it obvious either way.”

“Supposing you take him up on it the next time he calls.”

Helen hesitated, drowning. “Do you think that’s very practical? Don’t you think he’d suspect I was trying to draw him out?”

“Mr. Burke is a supreme egotist,” Verdun told her. “He isn’t capable of believing that he could be used by anyone, far less by a woman.”

She stayed calm and bit into her lip. “Well... I don’t know...”

“There will be a bonus in your paycheck from now on,” he said.

She made herself smile and nodded. “All right, but if he comes on too strong I’m going to cut out. There are a few things I don’t want to get involved with.”

“I understand,” he said. “And thank you, Helen.”

When she left he picked up the phone and relayed orders for that shithead Manny Roth to get a working over as a reminder to keep his lip shut. Any creep like that who would get the hots by blowing the whistle on one of his people would do it to him too. When Manny got out of the hospital he could start unloading trucks over at the Philly warehouse.

He looked at the closed door and barely smiled again. That Helen Scanlon was some doll. He felt annoyed at himself for even listening to that Manny Roth crumb.

The city editor of the morning paper had taken the gamble after a pair of expensive, discreet and immediate inquiries were made into the probable owners of the blasted building and the early edition hit the streets with a banner GANG WAR headline that even scooped the early TV broadcasts. The police hadn’t given out any identification of the bodies they found, but a knowledgeable resident of the area knew the score and passed it on in exchange for fifty bucks. With Jan and Lucien spotted, a quick check on the rest of Leon Bray’s personal entourage opened up other possibilities and what was hinted as being speculative was actual fact.

Robert Lederer threw the paper halfway across the room and strode toward the leather chair banging his fist into the palm of his hand. “Damn it, Commissioner, how can we help it if somebody pulls the cork like that?”

The burly guy in the black topcoat glared at him. “You should have had that place under surveillance.”

“We didn’t know it was there. It had only been in operation a couple of weeks.”

“Somebody knew it was there.”

“Look, this can be an internal uprising and...”

“Shit, man, don’t try to con me. It’s a damn gang war like the paper says it is. Something’s happening to the goddamn syndicate and we don’t know what it is. They got so many frigging bodies laying around they haven’t got room to bury them and we got the public bugging everybody from Albany to Washington to go after us for inefficiency.” He looked at Captain Long and the two inspectors beside him. “How many arrests have you made?”

One inspector said, “Plenty, but they don’t connect up with this mess.”

“Nobody knows anything, I suppose?”

“That’s right, Commissioner.”

“Don’t you use informers any more?”

“They don’t know any more than we do.”

“And nobody even has a single idea. Great, just great.”

“We have a lead,” Bill Long said abruptly. “Not much, but it’s an angle.”

“Well?” The commissioner’s voice was terse. He was tired of getting excuses for answers.

“That body we got in Prospect Park... part of the mutilation was similar to that on a couple other bodies a long time back. We sent Peterson out to Chicago and he called back with some information he dredged up about a guy they called Bingo who had a thing about people’s navels. He couldn’t stand them. He hasn’t been seen around about six years.”

“Beautiful,” the commissioner said, “an absolute revelation. You’re looking for a guy nobody’s seen for six years who hated navels. Wouldn’t the papers love to get hold of that.”

Bill Long had to grin. It did sound pretty foolish, but there was something spooky enough about it to be true, too. “At least we’ll know when we get the right guy.”

“How’s that, Captain?”

“Because he sliced his own navel off when he was a kid,” he told him.

It was enough for the commissioner. He dropped the stub of his cigar in the half-empty coffee cup and walked out of the room. Before either one of the inspectors could speak, Lederer turned on Bill Long sharply. “Where did you pick up that tidbit?”

“From your own boy, Robert.” When Lederer didn’t answer he explained, “Gill Burke.”

“All right. What do you think?”

“It’s the only thing that makes sense so far. We’ve had weirder things pay off before.”

“Mr. Lederer.”

“Yes, Inspector?”

“What kind of cooperation is your department getting from the other cities?”

“Total.”

“But nothing’s come in?”

“Everybody’s drawing a blank,” Lederer said. “Some of the heavies in the mob have hit the mattress, the big names are surrounding themselves with soldiers and a few have dropped out of sight entirely. We do know the Big Board has called a meeting, but we don’t know where or when just yet.”