Mickey Spillane - The Killing Man

Pat lifted his beer and made a silent toast. "We really took his place apart, you know."

"No, I didn't know. What did you find?"

"Zilch. There were no hiding places at all. We even tried the cellar area. If he had anything at all, it's someplace else."

"Now what?"

"We wait the way we usually do," he told me.

I grinned at him. "Balls. When are you going to ask me?"

He grinned back and said, "Okay, wise guy, when are you going to see General Skubal?"

"Soon. Since you're off this case I go alone, but there's no reason why we can't have a few talks together later, is there?"

"None at all."

"And I'm not investigating the Penta affair at all. Just seeing an old friend. Right?"

"Right."

"And the next time old Bradley boy demands I do something, I think I'll rap him in the kisser with a civilian citizen hook."

"Good thinking. You know where Skubal is?"

"I have his address in my office. I'll get it tonight."

We finished our beers and when Pat left I made two calls looking for Petey before I found him in his office at the paper. He told me to come on over. He sounded excited.

Until I saw his office, I hadn't realized Petey Benson's status at the newspaper. Most of the working reporters had a desk with a console in the quiet bedlam of the main section, but Petey had his own room, not a compartment, with a door that closed and his own bank of filing cabinets.

"Man," I said. "I thought you did all your work out of barrooms."

"That's all eyewash for the peasantry."

"You've ruined your image, pal."

"Nope. Been around too damn long to do that. What you see here is seniority at work. Plus sheer expertise, of course. Technology and computer chips rule the system these days and he who has the most gadgets wins. Wait till you see what I've come up with."

I tossed my hat on an old Smith-Corona typewriter and pulled a chair up next to Petey. "You have a work-up already?"

He nodded. "We're lucky we're dealing in areas that have good terminal systems. You know anything about computers?"

"Very little."

"Okay, let me brief you a little. In backtracking DiCica, I was able to get into records of public information, had some friends on the other end do a little legwork and between the FOI Act and the power of the press, we've got some history on Mr. Anthony DiCica. Ready?"

"Hit it."

Petey's fingers moved over the keyboard and the console came alive. "Where do you want to start?"

"All right, we'll go for basics." Then he brought Anthony Ugo DiCica up in green electronic reality. Born January 2, 1940, of Maria Louisa and Victorio DiCica in Brooklyn, New York. Victorio was a cabinet maker by trade, a World War II veteran honorably discharged in 1945. Maria DiCica had two stillbirths There were no other children. Anthony graduated Erasmus Hall High School, June 1958, worked one year in Victorio's cabinet shop, then left and was arrested for the first time a year and one week later."

"How do you like it, so far?" Petey asked me.

"He made the streets pretty early. Pat's got his rap sheet, so skip that part and stay with the personal stuff."

Petey hit the keys again. "His father was killed in a holdup shortly afterward, as you see. Now, here's an excerpt from the News about the murder of a man suspected of having killed Victorio. He was even wearing Victorio's watch. Anthony was picked up and questioned, but released for lack of evidence. However, the word was that Anthony found the guy and hit him."

"He discovered his profession, didn't he?"

"More than that," Pete said, "he found a patron. Juan Torres."

I knew the name, and it hit me with force. "Now we're into the heavy cocaine scene."

"You'd better believe it," he agreed. "You know where Torres stood with the organization?"

"He was a damned lightweight for a long time, I remember that. Something happened that pushed him right up the ladder."

Pete nodded, chewing on his lower lip. "He'd just disappear for months at a time and when he showed up he was a little bit bigger. We finally figured out. Juan Torres was a finder. You know what that is?"

I shook my head.

"He's got family scattered all through Mexico and South America. A million cousins, you know? He's got that touch, and where there's a coke source he taps into it. He was a nobody, a nothing, but maybe that's how he made it work. The way prices are on the street, no operation was too small to tap into. Torres got the leads, made the deals and the organization moved him up. Oh, he was a damned good finder, all right. He was right inside the Medellin cartel when it first started."

Reaching across me, Petey picked four printed photos off his desk and handed them to me. In each one Juan Torres and Anthony DiCica were in close conversation against different backgrounds, obviously very familiar with each other. Here DiCica was dressed in expensive outfits, jewelry showing on both hands.

Again Petey keyed the board and brought up bills of sale and records of deeds to two houses. "DiCica was the sole support of his mother. She still lives in the Flatbush house enjoying an income from two dry-cleaning establishments he bought for her years ago."

"What about the other one?"

"A two-family place. Both rentals of long standing. The house was in his name, the rentals went to his mother. In the terms of his will she inherits the houses."

"Does Maria know what happened to her son?"

"Here's a copy of a report on her. When Anthony was in that trauma following the beating, she assumed he would die. She collected his belongings and only saw him once after that when he was released. He didn't even know her. All he remembered was something his papa had made, she said." He erased the screen and brought up another report, a letter from the medical supervisor in the hospital that attended to Anthony. He concluded that DiCica had absolutely no memory of his previous life, his mental faculties were severely impaired in certain areas, but he was capable of leading a satisfactory, if minimal, existence.

"What are you saving for me?" I asked him.

"Somebody else was keeping a watch on both those houses," he told me. "Look at this." Two minor items from the Brooklyn Eagle appeared. The home of Mrs. Maria DiCica had been burglarized, but nothing seemed to have been taken. The elderly lady and her live-in housekeeper had been locked in the pantry while the ransacking went on. The dateline was two days after Anthony had been admitted to the hospital.

One day later a minor squib reported an attempted robbery of another house, where the residents downstairs were trussed up and gagged while the robbers prowled through the premises before doing the same thing to the upstairs apartment where the residents were away.

"Both those houses belonged to DiCica," Petey said. "However, since nothing was reported stolen, they were after something else entirely. Now," he said with emphasis, "check this one out."

The headline was bigger this time, under a partially blurred photograph of a pair of frightened old ladies. For the second time in a month their home had been entered and this time the women had been bound, their mouths taped shut, and kept unceremoniously on the kitchen floor while the intruders went about systematically tearing their house apart. Apparently they found nothing. Neighbors reported that street speculation assumed the DiCica woman to have a hoard of cash in the house since the ladies lived so frugally.

Before I could say anything, Petey keyed the console and grinned. "Don't ask me how I got this." It was a copy of a bank statement. The amount was over three hundred thousand dollars, all in the name of Maria DiCica. Deposits were regular and automatic from several sources. "Our boy Anthony had set his old mother up in fine fashion. So, what were the houses being burglarized for and who did it?" He sat back and looked at me. "Or should I ask?"