Mickey Spillane - Kiss Her Goodbye

"Does this Tretriano killing factor in?"

I nodded. "At least in a peripheral way—Doolan was closing in on Little Tony. I believe the old boy was able to get close to 'Anthony,' and even scored an all-access pass to Club 52, thanks to their shared membership here."

Alex's expression grew thoughtful. "Well now, Mike—they weren't exactly close friends. Of course, all of the members here are sociable, and I suppose that did provide a certain common ground...."

"It must have. Doolan was fairly regular at Club 52 for a while, and he amassed evidence that connects Tony and his club to drug trafficking. These new clubs Little Tony's opening—or anyway was opening—would have expanded that operation nationwide."

The politician's expression combined alarm and disgust. "My God. Why didn't Doolan share this with me? I would have helped!"

"He was a sneaky old coot. He compartmentalized. You were close to him and shared his concern about illegal drugs in the city. And yet Doolan kept you unaware that Velda here had been working for him for nearly six months, the last two in South America, gathering intel on the cocaine cartel itself."

"Remarkable," he said, looking at Velda through new eyes.

I said, "This is far-reaching, Alex. Where all of the tendrils will finally reach remains to be seen ... but you can bet they'll be gathered up by federal investigators better equipped for the job than an old-time private dick like me."

Alex sat forward, his gaze going from me to Velda and back. "Was it the Bonetti bunch? The news is full of that shoot-out at that Mafia social club. If Doolan really was murdered, they make a good candidate for instigator. The Bonettis, remember, are the family behind the drug operation that Doolan and I ran out of his neighborhood."

"Hard to say," I said with a shrug. "If Little Tony got wind of what Doolan was up to, he might have been behind that fake suicide. And old Alberto Bonetti had his own reasons to get rid of Doolan, too. We'll probably never know."

Alex squinted at me, like he was trying to get me in focus. "You're not just going to walk away, are you, Mike?"

"Why not? It's over. That sniper who took Tony Tret out was almost certainly a survivor from the Y and S Club melee."

"A reprisal?"

"What else? When the rival mob families trying to control the narcotics racket are both in shot-to-shit disarray, what's left for me to do?"

Now he shrugged. "I guess ... nothing."

"Well," I said absently, "there is one thing. There's a very valuable item I came across, early on in this mess. I haven't even told Pat about it."

"What is it?"

"Can't say, or anyway shouldn't. You'll read about it eventually. Let's just say it's priceless and is nothing I should be holding on to. Frankly, it probably belongs in the estate of a poor dead kid named Ginnie Mathes."

With an alarmed glance, Velda said, "Mike, this 'item'—is it somewhere safe?"

"Oh yeah. I hid it where nobody will find it." I grinned at Alex. "You'll love this. It's stashed in Doolan's apartment. Little hiding place that only he and I knew about. Fitting, huh?"

I exchanged casual smiles with Velda, and we got up, shook hands with the politician, and excused ourselves.

"Mike," Alex said, "if you think of anything ... if there's anything I can do..."

"You'll have plenty to do," I said. "When the feds come in and mop up after me, you'll be in a position to keep the drug racket at bay in this town for a goddamn change."

I put the hat on, grabbed my coat, nodded at him, and followed the nice view Velda provided up the stairs.

Out on the street, she said, "Think he took the bait?"

"Oh yeah." My grin felt like it might burst my face. "Oh yeah...."

This was where it had started.

And started long before I'd returned from Florida, this quiet neighborhood that had gone from fashionable to rundown only to be rebuilt and reinvigorated before finally fading into a low-key, livable area where its many older residents felt comfortable and secure—like a certain Bill Doolan, who had been through fifty-two years of changes. Then a peaceful, even dull way of life had been threatened by the intrusion of a criminal element that the old retired cop had risen up on his haunches to help drive out like the plague-carrying rats they were.

So once again I went up the sandstone steps into the small vestibule with its old-time ornamented brass mailboxes. This time the inner door was locked, and when I hit a random buzzer—not Doolan's—no one asked before buzzing me through.

The door behind me closed of its own will, shutting out street sounds and replacing them with the stillness of the lonely life the old building's residents endured. I went up the two flights of stairs and down the hallway to the door of Doolan's apartment. I still had Pat's key for the padlock that had been affixed to the damaged door of the crime scene, but I didn't need it.

Someone had forced it off, hasp and all.

The lock lay on the floor, sleeping on a small bed of sawdust and splinters. Wouldn't have been much of a job, even with just a screwdriver, any noise minimal. Even as watchful as older tenants could be, the hearing-aid crowd would not likely be alerted by this break-in at Doolan's lonely, dimly lit end of the corridor.

The trench coat was unbuttoned and my hand slipped easily under it and the sport jacket to bring out the .45 from its snug home under my left arm.

Could the trap I'd set have been turned around on me? Had I been so obvious that the drama I'd staged would wind up starring me as its tragic hero? Was a cold-blooded killer waiting on the other side of that door with his own gun?

But when I walked into the old, slightly musty space—no lights on but enough of the gray day seeping from windows deeper in the place to help me navigate—no one greeted me with a gun or otherwise. I moved through the well-decorated, tidy quarters that still bore the signs of the cops who'd been here—print powder, cigarette butts—past the master bedroom and bath and on into Doolan's office/den.

The antique desk that faced a window, adjacent to the wall that held the old man's beloved stereo system and books and mementoes, had its swivel chair pushed away to give the intruder better access to the hidden button that opened a side panel.

Alex Jaynor had emptied the hideaway of the four guns stowed there, and they lay on the blotter of the desk like a courtroom exhibit. He had a hand stuffed in the compartment, feeling around, searching, obviously frustrated.

From my trench coat pocket, my left hand withdrew the rough pebble with the shiny little window. I had it poised between thumb and middle finger, held up to window light, before I said, "Is this what you're looking for, Alex?"

He whirled. That hard-edged, handsome face had a new wildness, the eyes wide and bright with something feral, the sandy hair not so perfect, three or four lacquered strands sticking out this way and that, like springs liberated from a threadbare couch. Only his pinstriped suit retained its dignity.

"It was never in there," I said.

I slipped the stone back in my pocket. What the hell—I put the .45 back in its sling, too.

He swallowed, straightened himself, smoothed his suitcoat, though it didn't need smoothing. His head went back, and only the stray manic strands of hair betrayed him. Those and a seldom-blinking intensity of the sky-blue eyes.

"That little stone is worth a lot of money," he said.

"Yeah. The last of Basil's crop. Maybe you felt honored, being the final 'honest' man bought off with one of them. A lot of corruption flowed from a simple pouch of pebbles over the years. Enough money generated to make Nazis into good South American citizens, and to keep Colombian officials at arm's length while a cartel developed cocaine into the country's leading cash crop."