Mickey Spillane: Survival... ZERO!

"Sure looks that way."

"You go through any of that yet, Mike?"

"I didn't have time. Why?"

"Because Lippy didn't hit just anybody. That's the money crowd you see there. Wait until you check it out. If Lippy was a working dip he wouldn't be allowed inside their circles. He even got to a woman."

"I saw that compact."

"Gold with real diamonds. Expensive, but not pawn-able."

"Why not?"

"Look at the hallmark and the inscription. It's a Tiffany piece given to Heidi Anders."

"The actress?"

"The same. The donor signed himself Bunny, so we'll assume it's Bunny Henderson with whom she's been seen these last few months. Playboy, jet setter, ne'er do well, but carries a load of power in his back pocket."

"What's it worth?" I asked her.

"My guess about five thousand. But that would be nothing to her. She's loaded with gems. To her that compact was more utilitarian than ornamental. I'm surprised a pickpocket specializing in wallets would tap a woman's handbag."

"Women aren't generally wallet carriers, kitten. He could have gotten a handful of money and that at the same time."

"Your buddy got plenty." She nodded toward the table. "Check it."

I walked over and took a look at some of the wallets she had spread open. All of them were expensive leather items, the plastic windows filled with top-rated credit cards. I picked up a pen and turned a few of them over, then stopped and tapped the inside of the large pigskin job. The top half of two pink pieces of cardboard were sticking up out of the slot. "There's your answer, kid. Theater tickets. He was working the new Broadway openings. Those ducats are being scalped at fifty bucks a pair which is a little more than the ordinary workingman can afford."

"Mike ... those bank deposits. They weren't all that big."

"Because the people he was hitting didn't work with cash. They're all on the credit card system. But at least he knew he was always sure of something."

"You missed something, Mike."

"Where?"

Velda pointed to the worn black morocco case at the end. "He didn't have any credit cards, but there's a driver's license, some club memberships and a very interesting name on all of them."

I finished half my drink, put my glass down and studied' the wallet. Ballinger. Woodring Ballinger. Woody Ballinger to his friends and the cops alike. Big-time spender, old-time hood who ran a tight operation nobody could get inside of.

"Great," I said.

"He could have run Lippy down and put some heat on him."

"Not Woody. He wouldn't take the chance. Not any more. He'd lose his dough and let it go at that."

"So it had to be someone who knew what Lippy was doing."

"Pat still has two sets of prints he's checking on."

"What will you do with this stuff?"

"Take it down to Pat tomorrow and let them process it. The suckers will be glad to get their credit cards back."

"Mike ..."

"What?"

"You could have brought this right to Pat, you know."

"Yeah, I know. And they could have gone to the trouble of poking around in Lippy's garbage too."

"That puts you right in the middle. You're going to stick your neck out again."

"Something's too off balance for me. If Lippy were big enough they'd be giving this a rush job like they are with Tom-Tom Schneider. Everything gets priority when you're a big name. So now Lippy goes down in the books as a pickpocket knocked off for his loot. Maybe one day they'll get his killer on another charge. End of story."

"But not for you."

"Not for me."

Velda shook her head and gave a mock sigh. "All right, I took down the names and addresses of everybody heisted. The list is over there." She pointed to a half-used steno pad on the TV set.

"You always try to outthink me, don't you?"

"Generally," she said. A smile started in the corner of her eyes.

"Know what I'm thinking right now?"

With a quick motion of her hand she reached out and flipped the towel from around my waist and let it fall to the floor. Those beautiful full lips parted in the rest of the smile and she said, "Yes, I know what you're thinking."

CHAPTER 3

Pat made a bit production out of the glare he was giving me, but the edge was all mine because his group should have found the stuff in the first place, not me. It's great to be public-spirited, but not when you're soaking wet, stinking from cellar garbage and alone with a beautiful broad.

He finally said, "Okay, Mike, you're off the hook, but you can still get a stinger up your tail if the D.A.'s office decides to probe."

"So cover for me," I told him. "Now, any of that stuff reported missing?"

Pat flipped through the report sheets on his desk and nodded. "Practically all of it. The credit cards have been canceled, two license renewals have been applied for and you'll be three hundred dollars richer. Reward money."

"Forget it. That way the D.A.'ll really nail it down. How about that compact?"

"Miss Heidi Anders thought she had mislaid it. She never reported it as missing or possibly stolen. Incidentally, it was well insured."

"Great to be rich. Did any of them know where the stuff was lifted?"

"Not specifically, but they all felt it was on the street somewhere. Three of them were positive it was in the theater area, William Dorn pinpointed his on Broadway outside of Radio City Music Hall. He had used his wallet money to pay off a cabbie and remembered being jostled in the crowd outside the theater. A block later he felt for the wallet and it was gone."

"How did Ballinger take it?"

Pat shrugged and put the reports back in the folder. "Surly as usual. He said he had a couple hundred bucks in his wallet that we could forget about. Getting his driver's license back is good enough. We can mail it to him."

"Nice guys are hard to find."

"Yeah," Pat said sourly. "Look, about those rewards. My advice is to take them before they insist and put through an inquiry that might attract attention." He tore a sheet off his memo pad and passed it to me. "Irving Grove, William Dorn, Reginald Thomas and Heidi Anders. There are the addresses. You don't exactly have to lie, but you don't have to mention you're not with the department."

"Hell, cops don't collect rewards."

"People are funny. They like to do favors too."

"I'll donate it to the Police Athletic League."

"Go ahead."

"What about Lippy, Pat?"

"Hard to figure people out, isn't it? You think you know them, then something like this happens. It isn't the first time. It won't be the last. Someday we'll nail the guy who did it. The file isn't closed on him. Meanwhile, just leave it alone. Don't bug yourself with it."

"Sure." I got up and tossed my raincoat over my shoulder. "Incidentally, any news on Tom-Tom Schneider?"

"He thumped his last thump. A contract kill. One of the slugs matched another used in a Philly job last month."

"Those boys usually dump their pieces after a hit."

"Maybe he was fond of it. It was nine millimeter Luger ammo. Those pieces are getting hard to come by."

"How'd you do with that body in the subway?" I asked him.

Pat's face stiffened and he stopped swinging in his chair. His eyes went cold and narrow and his voice had a bite to it. "What are you getting at, Mike?"

I stuck a cigarette in my mouth and held a match to it. "Just curious. You know how I pick up bits and pieces of information. New York isn't all that tight."

He didn't move, but I saw his knuckles whiten around the arms of his chair. "Buddy, how you get around is unbelievable. Why the curiosity?"

I took a guess and said, "Because you have every available man checking the guy out. Even some Feds have moved in, but when it comes to Lippy it's a one-day deal."

For a moment it looked like Pat was going to explode, then he looked at me, his mind trying to penetrate through mine to see if I was guessing or not. It was my mention of the Feds that put the frown back on his face again and he said, "Damn," very softly and let go the arms of the chair. "What do you know, Mike?"