Ed McBain - Ax

“Well, maybe my partner’s doing a little better,” Hawes said. “In any case, I would be delighted to have some tea with you and your husband.”

Danny Gimp, it seemed, was developing a taste for the great outdoors.

Carella didn’t mind spending time in the fresh air, but he wished that Danny had exercised a bit more judgment in his choice of a location.

“Fiftieth and Warren,” Danny had said, undoubtedly picking this particular corner because it was several miles distant from the precinct. He could not have known, or perhaps he did know and was simply being ornery, that the right angle described by those cross streets neatly embraced an empty lot over which all the winds of January howled and screeched and ranted. Carella, his coat collar pulled high up on the back of his neck, his head tucked in like a turtle’s, his ears numb, his coat flapping around his legs, his hands in his pockets, cursed Danny Gimp and wondered why his father had ever left Italy. In Italy, when the carabinieri met a stool pigeon, it was probably at a sidewalk table in the sunshine. “Buon giorno, tenente,” the stoolie would say. “Vuole un piccolo bicchiere di vino?”

“Hello, Steve,” the voice behind him whispered.

He recognized the voice as Danny’s and turned immediately. Danny was wearing a heavy overcoat, a thick Irish tweed with an enormous collar that covered the back of his head. In addition, he was wearing a woolen muffler and a checked cap, and bright yellow earmuffs. He looked cheerful and well rested and warm as toast.

“Let’s get the hell out of this cold,” Carella said. “What is it with you, Danny? I remember times we used to meet like civilized people, in restaurants, in bars. What is it with this frozen-tundra routine?”

“You cold?” Danny asked, surprised.

“I’ve been standing on this corner for the past fifteen minutes. Listen to that wind. It’s from Nanook of the North.”

“Gee, I’m nice and warm,” Danny said.

“There’s a cafeteria up the street. Let’s try it,” Carella said. As they began walking, he asked, “What’d you get for me?”

“Well, I found out about the game. I don’t know what good it’ll do you, but I found out about it.”

“Shoot.”

“First of all, it ain’t regular, like you said it was. It’s a sometime thing, whenever the urge strikes. Sometimes two, three times a week, and other times maybe only once a month, you dig?”

“I got caught in one when I was a kid. I dig,” Carella said. “In here.”

He pushed his way through the cafeteria’s revolving door, and Danny followed him.

“I’ve always been afraid of revolving doors,” Danny said.

“How come?”

“You want some coffee?”

“Yeah, sure.”

They went to the counter, got two cups of coffee, and then found an empty table at the back of the place. Before they sat, Danny looked the place over very carefully. “Lots of these allnight cafeterias are meeting places for junkies,” he said. “I wanted to make sure nobody made us.”

“Okay,” Carella said. “About the game.”

“I told you already that you were wrong about it being a regular thing, right?”

“Right. Go on.”

“Second, you were right about it being stationary. But Steve, it’s a very small game.”

“Are you talking about the number of players or the bets?”

“Both. If they have ten guys playing each time, they’re lucky.”

“That’s a fairly big game,” Carella said.

“Nah, not really. I’ve seen blankets with two dozen guys around them.”

“Okay, what about the bets?”

“Small-time stuff. There’s no limit, but the bets hardly ever go higher than a buck or two, maybe on occasion a finnif. But that’s it.”

“What about Lasser? Was he taking a house vigorish?”

“Nope.”

“What do you mean? He wasn’t taking a cut?”

“Nope.”

“Then why’d he risk having the game in his basement?”

“I don’t know, Steve.”

“This doesn’t make much sense.”

“Neither do the players.”

“Who played, Danny?”

“Different guys each time, mostly very cheap hoods. Only two regulars, far as I can make out.”

“And who are they?”

“One is a guy named Allie the Shark Spedino. You know him?”

“Fill me in.”

“Very nothing,” Danny said. “I think he served a few terms up at Castleview, I don’t know for what.”

“Okay. Who was the other regular?”

“Guy named Siggie Reuhr. Ever hear of him?”

“No.”

“Me neither. In any case, this game was strictly kindergarten stuff. There was no money in it, and the guys in it are practically anonymous—who the hell ever heard of them?”

“Did you find out whether there’d been any big winners?”

“How you gonna have big winners when you ain’t got big money? Besides, if Lasser wasn’t cutting the game, then why would anybody hold a grudge against him, big winner, big loser, or whatever?”

“Yeah, you’re right. I don’t get this, Danny.”

“Well, one thing’s for sure,” Danny said. “Whatever reason Lasser had for letting them use that basement, it wasn’t ‘cause he was taking any money out of the game.”

“Was he putting any into it?”

“What do you mean?”

“Did he play?” Carella asked.

“Nope. Sometimes he watched. Most of the time he was off in another part of the basement, reading a paper or playing solitaire, like that.”

“Who gave you this, Danny?”

“A guy who played in a few of the games before he realized they were gonna stay small potatoes.”

Carella shook his head. “I don’t get this. I really don’t.”

“What don’t you get?”

“Lasser was supposed to be making money out of these games. Anyway, that’s what his friends told me.”

Danny shrugged. “Friends don’t always know,” he said, “I’m telling you for sure, Steve. This was a nothing game. Lasser wasn’t taking a penny out of it.”

“Maybe he was getting a flat rate from somebody. Couple of hundred every time they played, how about that?”

“Steve, this is a nothing game, you dig? A buck, two bucks at a time, that’s all. So who’s gonna give Lasser a couple of bills for running the game, would you mind telling me? There ain’t that much money in the game itself!”

“Okay, maybe he got twenty-five bucks or so.”

“That’s more sensible, but even that’s high.”

“I don’t think he’d risk it for less,” Carella said.

“What risk? Look, Steve, from what I got this game is common knowledge to every cop on the beat. Which means they’re getting theirs, right? So what’s the risk to Lasser? No risk at all. He lets them use the basement and he comes out of it smelling of roses, right?”

“He’s just doing it as a favor, huh?” Carella asked.

“Why not? He’s giving some guys a place to have a game. What’s so hard to believe about that?”

“Nothing,” Carella said. “I believe it.”

“So then what’s the problem?”

“I’d like to know how Georgie Lasser, who lives on a nice respectable street in New Essex, comes to know a bunch of hoods who want to shoot dice in his basement.”

Danny shrugged. “Why don’t you ask the hoods?” he suggested.

“That’s just what I plan to do,” Carella said.

Allie the Shark Spedino came into the squadroom of his own volition at 10:00 A.M. on the morning of Monday, January 13. He had been out of the city all weekend, he explained, and had just returned to discover from some of the neighborhood guys that two bu…two detectives from the 8-7 were looking for him. So, having nothing to hide, he figured he might as well come up to see them before they put out an all-points bulletin, ha ha ha.