Ed Lacy - Strip For Violence

“That make you feel like a big man with a big wild hair?” I asked, waiting for him to come at me.

He came in swinging. Ducking under the heavy arm, I jumped high on his heavy body, wrapped my legs around his hips, digging my ankles under the back of his knees. He chopped by my kidneys as I locked my hands, pressing the edges against his Adam's apple.

We stood like that, his fists punching at me wildly, in an embrace of death. His blows stopped as his face turned blue and he fought for air. I increased the pressure on the back of his knees and he slowly fell backwards. We landed on the floor with a loud thud. His eyes began to pop so I eased up on his throat, told him, “Don't ever push me around, you big ape! Get this through your damn thick head—I can kill you now, and if you ever try any strong-arm crap on me again... I will kill you! That's the truth.” I eased up a little more, let him take in a couple of deep breaths.

“I don't know if you think I'm the killer or not, but I imagine you checked with Pete at the yacht basin, know I didn't have a dinghy, couldn't have gotten ashore unless I swam. That's not the strongest alibi in the world, but it will do for now. And no matter what you think, I'm more anxious to find the killer than you are... I got a personal reason; I wasn't in love with Anita but I was fond of her. Now let's get up and stop this rough-and-tumble crap, get to work.”

I jerked my legs out from under him, stood up. He sat up, rubbed his throat, then got to his feet. I kept my eyes on his hands. Somebody opened the door behind me but I didn't turn to look. A man asked, “Everything okay, lieutenant? Heard a crash in here.”

“Beat it,” Saltz said hoarsely. The door shut and Saltz opened his collar, felt of his neck as he went back to his desk. He sat down and looked me up and down, as though he still didn't believe I'd thrown him. “I'll be damned... so you're a judo man.”

“Black Belt, First Degree,” I said, sitting down opposite him.

“I had a little of it in Police College, that Jap stuff really any good?”

“Jiujitsu... the 'soft or gentle art,'“ I said. “Really isn't Japanese, the Chinese had it about two thousand years ago, and maybe it started in India before that. It was hot stuff then, but now...”

“It still works!” Saltz said, stroking his throat.

“It depends upon surprise, knowledge of the vulnerable spots of the body. Today, with boxing and wrestling on TV, kids learning how to handle themselves in school, judo isn't so much. And it's frustrating as hell.”

“Why?”

I grinned. “You can never finish a good hold—without killing the other guy. But it works—for a shrimp like myself. Forget the lecture and let's get back to Anita. Could this have been a sex job? She was a hot kid, might have got mixed up with...”

Saltz shook his head. “No marks of attack, underwear wasn't touched. Doc says she was a virgin.”

“Then why the awful beating? Think it's the work of a loon?”

“We're considering that. Most cases of torture—they're trying to make the victim talk. You on any big cases, anything important?”

“Hell, I never had an important case in my life.”

He asked me about the other people I had in the agency and I told him about the pugs and he said, “I remember this Martinez, a good boy with no heart. Ran out on the champ. How come you got all these punchies working for you?”

“They're not punchy. Did some boxing myself... I was a good little man. You know the old adage—a good little man can't beat a good big man. Outside the ring, whenever I had to handle myself, always seemed to run into good big men. Why I turned to judo. The point is I got to know a lot of pugs around the gym and...”

“And they work cheap.”

“I give them a fair shake. I give them guard work because there isn't much else an ex-pug is suited for.”

We talked some more about Anita and it astonished me how little I actually knew about her. By the time it was starting to get light outside, Saltz told me I could leave. “But don't try anything fancy, like leaving town. Until I get a better one, you're number one on my suspect parade.”

2

It was a little after 6 a.m. and I had three cups of coffee and felt better. But the more I thought, the less things added up. The rock didn't make any more sense than when Will gave me the case. The fact that it was missing didn't mean a thing—wouldn't be hard to lose a sliver like that. But if it wasn't the rock...? I ran into an absolute blank wall. Yet Anita must have known she was in danger or she wouldn't have taken the gun. Every time I thought of the gun, a wave of bitter shame and rage shook me.

I had another coffee and the counterman said cheerfully, “No feeling worse than when you're really hung over.” He favored me with a yellow-toothed grin. “Bet you tied a good one on. Nice lip you got there, too.”

I finished the coffee. A bar across the street was opening and I went in, downed two quick ryes. As I came out, my buddy, the counterman, was standing in the doorway of his shop, sadly shaking his head at me.

When I got to the office, the door was open and the place looked like a hurricane had struck it. There's only a plain lock on the door so they didn't have any trouble with that. The safe was scratched and marked but they hadn't opened it. But every drawer had been turned inside out and the floor was ankle deep in papers and files. About twenty bucks of new stationery was shot to hell. I got Bobo on the phone and out of bed, told him to come right down. Then I called Artie Jenks who was going fine till he got a concussion banging his head on an unpadded canvas, told him to take over Bobo's construction job.

I found my rubber pad among the paper, sat down and hit the sides of my hands against it and tried to think. Ransacking my office meant Anita hadn't been killed by any jerk she'd picked up, but what were they looking for? It couldn't be the rock, they already had that. Or did they? I thought till my head ached but nothing came. I still felt the rock was behind everything, but I was damned if I knew why. I went over every job we'd had in the last month, everybody I'd met or spoken to, and it all ended in a dead end.

Bobo came breezing in a half hour later, asking, “Why the early morning rush call? Got a big job that...?”

I told him about Anita and he fell into a chair, his rough face going pale as he mumbled, “That poor kid... murdered? But... why?”

“'Why' will be the jackpot at the end of our rainbow. When we know 'why'—we know all the answers. She called yesterday at six and told me she had a supper date at some joint on 60th Street and First Avenue. In her language a joint meant a ginmill, so we can assume she lucked up on something during the afternoon and...”

Bobo stared at me. “Lucked up? Some luck!”

“... and made that date for supper. She had to take the rod before I returned to the office yesterday at about five, so that meant she expected things to happen at supper. But she came aboard my boat shortly after midnight and I took the gun from her so...”

“Hal, for Christsakes! You... you let her go to... wherever she was going... without a rod? Why that's the same as...”

“Shut up, Bobo! How did I know she was in danger or that... Oh hell, Anita was always playing cops and robbers. The thing is, she didn't seem frightened on the boat. She was gay, excited, maybe she expected something big to break. The last thing on her mind was death. No, she either met the killer at the ginmill and made another date with him—or her—or she was fingered there for the after-midnight date where she... got it.”

Bobo cupped his square jaw in his wide hands, said softly, in Spanish, “May God have mercy on her soul.” Then he added in a louder voice, “She was a funny kid—played detective once too often. And who parked it on your lip? What's the matter, Hal, why you staring at me?”

“You just said most of the answer—she played detective once too often. If we could find out who she was playing with, or rather who wasn't playing with her, we'd get places.”

“The big IF. Who busted your lip?”

“A cop with big ideas. Come on, let's clean up this office.”

3

At nine-thirty I called the New York State Employment Service, told them I needed a secretary. Then I got Thelma Johnson on the phone. She said, “Will's working. Did you find anything...?”

“Where's he work?”

“W-what did you find out?” Her voice was so eager she nearly stuttered.

“Nothing, yet. What post office does Will work out of?”

“164th Street near Amsterdam. Tell me, did...?”

“Later,” I said, hanging up. I dialed the post office, but all some snotty-voiced character would tell me was, “Mr. Johnson will be off duty at two... You can see him then.”

It was a messy job picking up the papers, sorting them. About an hour later the door opened and a slight, brown-skinned young woman stood there. She wore a print dress and owlish-looking glasses, and on second look she was rather pretty. “What do you want?” I barked.

She held out a card.

“I'm not buying any...”

Bobo asked if she spoke Spanish and she said, “You asked for a stenographer.” She had a clear, fierce voice that was like a chip on her shoulder.

“Yeah. What...? Oh,” I took the card. Her name was Shirley Lee. “I'm Hal Darling, this is Bobo Martinez. I run a detective agency. We've had a little rough stuff, but that doesn't usually happen. Can you type, take dictation, Shirley?”

“Miss Lee, to you. The office wouldn't have sent me if I couldn't do office work,” she said coldly.

For a moment I didn't get it, then I knew—my barking at her, the brush-off she must have received as “colored” on other jobs. “The job pays $40 a week, five days, nine to five. We have a simple routine—not hard work—but for the next day you'll be busy getting these files back in order. Want the job?”

“Yes, Mr. Darling.”

“Take off your hat and start working. By the way, everybody calls each other by first names around here. Right, Bobo?

“Sure. Here, I'll show you how we file these cards, Miss... Shirley,” Bobo said.

Telling Bobo to hang around and wait for me, I drove up to 164th Street and Amsterdam Avenue, which wasn't far from Louise's place. The first postman I saw told me Will's route was “Some place on 170th Street.”

I had to drive around the neighborhood a few times till I saw Will go into an apartment house. He seemed to have a little guy tailing him. I went in. Will had his bag on the floor, was busy putting letters into the nest boxes. When he saw me he said, “Hey, get out of here. Have an inspector timing the route. Can't talk to you, see? Find anything?”

“I want to ask you a few...”

“Later. You want me to lose my job?”

“Well... Okay, where?”

“I'll be in your office about three. You find where the rock came from?”

“Just be damn sure you're at my office by three. All I've found is one of us sure has rocks—in the head!”

I got into my car, headed downtown. In a million years I couldn't see a slob like Will mixed up in a murder. For that matter, I still couldn't believe Anita was dead. And I felt like a dope, the lack of clues, of motives, lack of something to start on. Hell, maybe I was playing this all wrong, should give everything to Saltz. I was only a small-time operator, this might be over my head. That would be my out....

But there wasn't going to be any out—I, and I alone, had to find the killer because Anita was working for me, because I'd robbed her of a chance to save her life when I took the gun away.