Ed Lacy - Strip For Violence

5

However, Saltz greeted me with his usual sarcasm. “Hello, how's the junior G-man?”

“Not too bad. How's old super-badge?” I said, sitting down at his desk. Saltz was a character I couldn't like. No special reason, I simply didn't like him. It wasn't so much his socking me, he had the kind of efficient, pushing personality I couldn't take. Also, a Franklin couldn't operate for a day without cooperation from the police. Maybe not Saltz himself, although it wasn't impossible he was on the “Cat's” slush list.

He monkeyed with that brushlike hair of his, said, “We got a tip. Not much. A bum hanging around the docks says he heard a girl cry out, saw a man drive away in a large car.”

“See the man?”

Saltz looked at his hand, as though he expected it had picked up something in his hair, said in his ragged voice, “Naw, but we're digging. Now we know it was only one guy. You dig and dig and wait till the break comes. It always does. You find anything?”

“I've about given up. Like you said, I can't compete with a high-powered police organization.”

Saltz leaned back in his chair, studied me through half-closed eyes—something he probably practiced—took a cigar out of his pocket. As he lit it, I said, “That's a famous brand you're smoking—the Last-One-I-Got brand.”

“Darling, you're a cocky little bastard, but don't get no ideas you're off the hook yet. We're keeping an eye on you. What you here for?”

“Chit-chat, find out what's doing on the case. Told you I'll do anything to bag Anita's murderer, I mean that.”

Stinking up the room with his cigar, Saltz went into his favorite sales talk about the cops being understaffed and overworked, which was probably true... and what government department isn't? I listened and got him wound up all over again by asking why our police didn't have the respect and confidence of the people the way Scotland Yard had. Saltz was beating his gums about the difference in American and English temperament, when his phone rang. He said, “Yah, Lieut. Saltz speaking.... What? Jesus! Be right over.”

He slammed the phone down and made for the door. “What's up?” I asked.

“Fade, runt,” he called out. “One of the hundred-buck bills from that Frisco armed-car robbery just showed... and in a bank four goddamn blocks from here!”

“Well, whatya know,” I said, to myself, for Saltz was lumbering toward the street.

I took a cab to East 60th Street. The jigsaw was complete, all the pieces in—in tight. “Cat” Franklin had either engineered the Frisco job or, more likely, bought the two million bucks of hot money, stashed it away in several safe deposit boxes, waiting till he could unload it—maybe overseas. Offhand I couldn't recall whether the dough was hot because the armed car company had the numbers of this shipment of hundred-dollar bills, or whether some of it was “bait money.”

Bait money means a bank has certain bills, the numbers known, lying around but never used. In the event of a robbery, if the bait money is picked up with the other dough, they have a lead on the robbers by immediately circulating the serial numbers of the bait dough.

Anyway, the “Cat” had run into a tough break—Shelton and Brody with their duplicate keys had opened his box, took the modest sum of fifteen grand—probably were going to play the market. And I'd guess it was their first time at “borrowing” a vault-box owner's cash. The “Cat" found out his box had been tapped, figured the two vault men for the touch, and had to act fast—before they spent a single bill.

For the moment they tried spending it, they'd be picked up for the Frisco deal. Of course, they would finally tell where they got the dough and the roof would fall on Franklin—a two-million-dollar roof... plus a lot of time in the can. Maybe even bullet trouble from the hoods who pulled the job. Not paying much attention to such things, I couldn't recall if there had been any killing at the time of the hold-up. But Franklin sure wanted those 150 bills back, wanted them enough to kill.

And a dizzy, reward-circular happy kid like Anita, with her phony correspondence course diploma, had been smarter than all of us. She must have got the diamond-bullet angle at once, remembered it was in Will's neighborhood the vault men were killed, that the “Cat” was involved. Then she either tried to shake the “Cat,” or braced him for a shakedown... and he'd beaten my name out of her, thought I was in on it. That night on the boat, Anita hadn't been gassing about the reward—she expected to have the two hundred grand reward by morning. And I thought it was all kid talk. The only bird brain that night had been mine!

I sat back in the cab, full of guilt for letting Anita go to her death. The fact she expected a reward meant she wasn't shaking Franklin down, but going to take him in. And if she hadn't seen too many movies, she wouldn't have tried to take him alone, told me and I would have...

Hell, with what should have happened, the only thing that counted now was that the “Cat” die. My diamond bullet was still only a theory, I had no proof to hang it on. Actually, there wasn't a single shred of hard proof I could bring into court that would hook the “Cat” to the killings of Brody, Shelton, Anita, Louise... hook him fast, without any reasonable doubt. I was absolutely sure, but that wasn't evidence. Franklin could afford the smartest lawyers, was dripping with influence—the worst he'd get would be ten years for acting as a fence, which meant he'd be out in a few years.

That was no good. There was another way of playing it —cat and mouse. Only in this case the “Cat” was going to be the mouse.

7

Paying the cabbie, I walked down a block to the ginmill I'd traced Anita to. The barkeep remembered me, said “Back again, Shorty?”

“My middle name is bad penny. I got a message for your boss—write it down and write it straight.” I laid one of the hundred-buck bills on the counter.

He said, “Big bill for a little guy to be carting around.”

“Tell 'Cat' Franklin I think he's a magician, can change this into a hundred grand. He'll understand after he sees the late papers. Get this straight: there's a dock at 135th Street and the Hudson River. I'll be there at eight-thirty sharp tonight, waiting for the magic act to pay off.”

“You got a sense of humor, or you must be drinking better stuff than we serve here,” the barkeep said, trying to grin. “Only time I ever seen Mr. Franklin was in the papers. I don't...”

“Can that crap for the winter. Don't forget, 135th Street and the Hudson, eight-thirty sharp.” I walked toward the door.

“Joke be on you if I kept this yard and...”

“Some joke—it would simply slay you!” I said, walking out.

I changed cabs at 124th Street, to be on the safe side, and when I got to be boatyard it was nearly five and all the people in the world seemed to be pouring out of the Polo Grounds. I finally pushed my way through the crowd, reached the boat. Bobo was sitting on the deck and one look at his sad face and I knew everything was screwed up. “Hal, the girl... Laurie... she gave me the slip!”

“When?”

“Couple hours ago. Said she was hungry and wanted a hot dog. Didn't see no harm in letting her go—hot-dog stand is right by the parking place and... didn't think she was trying to get away.”

“Oh, Christ!”

“Been trying to get you at the office. Didn't know what to do, thought it best I waited here. Sorry I messed up but...”

There wasn't any point in bawling out Bobo—I had to find Laurie and fast. Now that I'd tipped my hand to Franklin, it was death for either of us if he could find us. Although why Laurie wanted to take a powder...?

I jammed some money into Bobo's mitt, told him, “Take a cab up to her house. Try Mrs. Brody's, the tennis courts, and bring Laurie back, even if you have to slug her to do it The 'Cat's' out of the bag—and I mean 'Cat' Franklin.”